With the upcoming HP WebOS tablet and Pre 3 smartphone featuring great-looking features such as touch-sync, it is interesting to take another back at WebOS as it exists today. Recently I came upon a nearly free deal for a no-contract 8GB Palm Pixi Plus which I was easily able to activate on Verizon to test. I used the Pixi as my sole phone for two weeks, enough to develop some things I loved about the phone and WebOS … and some things I didn’t like so much! The Hype: The thinnest Palm mobile phone yet, the Palm Pixi Plus for Verizon Wireless is a smartphone that’s designed to be easy to use and light… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

George Takei rose to fame as Sulu on the original Star Trek. His facial and vocal expressions are classics, and his work on behalf of a number of organizations and causes has kept him in the public goodwill ever since. Now he is helping to raise money for the Old Globe Theater As he says on his Twitter feed: My “OhMyyy” ringtone is out like a senator in a bathroom stall. http://ow.ly/4vczg Benefits @TheOldGlobe #TheLoadinDownload As mentioned, head here to check it out! It is hilarious, cheap, and goes to a good cause! Source: George Takei Twitter Continue reading on Gear Diary …

When I was a kid in the 70′s, custom t-shirts were just becoming popular, with bands and other brands making a killing selling shirts with silk-screened logos, and kids making shirts of their own with sayings such as ‘I’m With Stupid’ made by ironing letters onto basic t-shirts. Things have come a long way from there, as you can now quickly browse a web site such as Fibers.com which has loads of custom designs, or make your own. Better still – they are affordable, costing not much more than I remember paying for a Jeff Beck shirt nearly 35 years ago! Summer is the best time to show off your cool t-shirts… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Humor is something we see way too little of in games – it seems every new release is dark and gritty and full of epic seriousness. Not so with Magicka, a game that looks like a classic RPG but plays more like an action-adventure – and takes nothing seriously from start to end! But does it end up like the great TellTale adventure games, or the unfortunate Bard’s Tale remake? Let’s take a look and find out! The Hype: Magicka is a satirical action-adventure game set in a rich fantasy world based on Norse mythology. The player assumes the role of a wizard from a sacred order tasked with stopping an evil sorcerer who… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I am slowly warming up to having my two boys, ages 3 and 6 use my iPad. It is not that they cannot understand how it works, but that I see all of the things they tear up and choose for my gear not to be one of those items. The iPad has proven to be a wonderful tool for children with the number of learning apps and games. I recently had the opportunity to review Swapsies using my sons as my trusty sidekick reviewers. Let’s see what they thought. Swapsies is a matching game app for kids… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

We start the week with Lenovo’s new 14″ ThinkPad T420 Ultra-thin Laptop. This thin, light notebook has a speedy (Sandy Bridge) Core i5-2520M running at 2.5GHz. The 14″ 1600 x 900 LED-backlit display is anti-glare for easier viewing no matter where you are. The computer also features Intel HD 3000 graphics, 2GB RAM, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OS, a DVD burner and much more. The base computer starts at a hefty $1,855 but our Gear sponsor has found a deal that cuts $656 AND an additional 10% via a stackable coupon. That drops the price down to just $1,079.10 and it will even ship for free. Lenovo ThinkPad T420s 14″ ultrathin Laptop Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Back in late 2009 and early 2010, during the pre-iPad days there was a lot of buzz about dual-screen ebook readers. The Entourage Edge and the Spring Design Alex were both being promoted as the best of both worlds, mashups of eInk and color to bring another angle to the reading experience. The Alex Reader is dead, and the original Entourage Edge has dropped off the radar, but it does have a cheaper cousin: the Pocket Edge! It offers a 7 inch LCD screen and a 6 inch eInk screen, running an unknown version of Android (their website is unclear). While it’s not going to be the same as an iPad, or even a NOOKcolor, Entourage is… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Welcome back to the GearGames weekly video game release feature here at Gear Diary! We continue the slow season, with a few more leftovers such as Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga and Michael Jackson The Experience, and the multiplatform movie tie-in Rio. I loved Divinity II on the PC … but my expectations for the console port are much lower. The PSP gets another solid sequel with Patapon 3, but as I said with the second one … once was plenty! My pick of the week is the PC-only Magicka: Vietnam, the add-on to the fun fantasy action-adventure game. It is incredible that Arrowhead Studios has placed follow-up in war-era Vietnam… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

There are cars and then THERE ARE CARS! This 1970 Lancia Stratos HF is a CAR! This 1970 Lancia Stratos HF “Zero” was the predecessor to the Lamborghini Countach, a car that made an appearance just a year later. The wedge-body shape is as sleek as anything you have ever seen and the car was so low to the ground that you got into it by opening the windshield and climbing in. The car was fully restored in 2000 and is up for auction. It falls under the category of “if you have to ask what the bidding starts at don’t even bother to take a look”. Via Werd Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Brandon over on Just Another iPhone Blog has a provocative post up today entitled “How to Win the Tablet War Against the iPad”. The simple answer to the title is: sell a Wi-Fi Samsung Galaxy Tab for just $349.99. That’s a full $150 less than you can get an iPad 2 for. Both have 16 GB of storage. Both are only Wi-Fi enabled. One costs $150 less. Brandon makes some good arguments about why this is the right strategy. His core point, So, this is how you win the war. You build a solid device and you sell it at cutthroat prices compared to Apple. The margins may be small, but the market is Continue reading on Gear Diary …

(image courtesy Futurelooks) It all started when Doug mentioned this article on Idealog from Mike Shatzkin: Putting Books in Stores is a Subsidiary Right. This sparked a debate between us on the nature of publishing, and whether traditional publishers make sense if you’re a new author in today’s market. Doug: All I could think was, “Good work, publishers! You’ll alienate your writers even more than you already have, and *they’re the ones providing you with product to sell*!” The ongoing stupidity of old media–music, magazines, newspapers, tv, books, you-name-it–continues to simply amaze. Carly: Very interesting… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

When Apple announced AirPrint for iOS devices, I could almost see Steve Jobs’ point about the “post-PC era”. Being able to print from your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch (newer devices with iOS 4.2 or later) wirelessly sounded great. Indeed, Google’s Cloud Print functionality for their Chrome browsers works in a similar fashion. But then I found out how limited the supported list of printers was. Heck, even those of us with Apple Airport Extreme wireless routers that have attached printers could not use AirPrint: AirPrint only works with a network connection to an AirPrint-capable printer. A printer connected to the USB port of your Mac, PC Continue reading on Gear Diary …

You, sir or miss or madam, are an Apple fan[boy|girl]!  Yes, you are!  Don’t bother to deny it!  You post software workarounds to the forums on the Apple web site!  You subscribe to two or three Apple magazines, and consider the week wasted if you haven’t downloaded at least one app to one of your three or four Apple devices!  You don’t have a TV; you have a giant Apple monitor in the living room, to which you stream stuff from your AppleTV!  No stereo; just a big boom box with a slot for your iPod.  It’s true!  I’ve peeked in the window and looked! So look, be serious; denial is not an option.  So… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

“He puzzled and puzzed, ’til his puzzler was sore . . .” (Bonus points for recognizing the quotes, redeemable for the coveted Doug Trivia Gold Star.) Puzzle games are some of my favorites.  A lot of them don’t have any time-bound play issues, and given that my twitch reflexes have never been good, and are not exactly getting better as I approach 50, that’s a good thing.  (Michael, on the other hand . . .) So here’s a new one for you: Tangle trap.  I have played Tangle a few times and quite enjoy it, and this looks pretty similar; I’ll probably give it a try as it’s being offered at my favorite… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

One of the regular discussions your friendly Gear Diary staff has had in the last few months is the viability of iDevices as stand-alone platforms.  You’ve got your folks who think they can’t work that way because you have to sync them regularly with laptops or desktop systems, and you got your folks who say, “I haven’t synced mine since I bought it.”  One of the arguments against the stand-alone view is that, alas, to back up your iDevice, you have to attach it to a computer.  (Instead of, say, hooking it up directly to an external hard drive, or some such.) A few weeks ago, I posted about MiMedia, a cloud-based backup system… Continue reading on Gear Diary …