I recently joined a group of online and traditional media for the “Forward With Ford” event at Ford’s Dearborn facility for a multi-day event covering trends and technologies that Ford is addressing. Before attending, I was offered the choice of exploring three of the following sessions; I chose the ones with stars next to them. ★Living Green As gasoline prices continue to rise, fuel efficiency has become an even more important purchase factor for consumers looking at buying a new vehicle. In the first four months of 2011, small cars sales jumped from 19% to 25% in the United States. Gas prices aren’t just changing the kind of vehicles Americans are driving, they are also changing ethical, political Continue reading on Gear Diary …

This is my last Chevy Camaro review this year I promise. Maybe. Arriving just in time for the official launch of summer was this blazing redhot Victory Red Camaro Convertible. And as luck would have it we are celebrating the second hottest June ever right here in North Central Texas. Wonderful. What that means is that either I have to be an early riser or a night owl to enjoy some top-down driving in this gorgeous creature. That or I can just sit on my porch with a cold beverage and stare at her for a while. This vehicle arrived with the V-6 powerplant under the hood, an engine that I give a… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

No sooner had my Music Diary Retrospective: A Magical Mystery Tour of the Beatles Catalog been posted last year, I got an email from someone saying that they were surprised given my love and heavy coverage of jazz (including the recent Rubber Soulive by Soulive), that I didn’t list any jazz covers of Beatles songs. I thought about doing something but got busy with other things, and then this week I was enjoying the excellent George Benson record ‘The Other Side of Abbey Road’ and thought it was definitely still worth doing! I won’t even begin to try an exhaustive listing of all of the great Beatles covers by jazz artists – there are… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Have you ever wanted to have an expert to build a gadget specifically for you, or if you have a gadget that is almost exactly what you need but it is lacking a certain feature, then you’ll want to pay attention to this: SKY 1 HD, the UK based TV channel has just announced an intriguing new show — Gadget Geeks. Seven as yet unnamed “clued-up technology experts in the UK” will be taking part in the show which will “embark on a mission to pimp old, retro, worn out goods and bring them crashing into the 21st Century. Whether it’s an mobile phone, an old Atari computer, or even old dj decks, they aim… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Image courtesy BuzzSugar I previously looked at how unsurprisingly music from the same songwriting factories … gasp … sounds alike. But the music industry isn’t the only group pushing out me-too efforts with just enough star power and a low enough budget that even a modest box office take will generate decent profits. Perhaps the worst thing is how these ’bouts of unoriginality’ tend to come in waves – there were buddy-cop movies in the early 90′s, remakes of 60′s TV in the late 90′s, generic RomComs in the early 2000s, and now we have a new twist: buddy romcoms which return to themes explored in much better movies like When Harry… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

  Wakemate looks like an interesting device that promises to help you get a better night’s rest.  Wakemate 2, works with software that runs on iOS, Blackberry and Android devices. To use it, you just set the 20 minute window that you want to wake up in and slip the band on.  The band will then keep track of your movements and trigger the alarm to wake you at just the right time; it promises to help you feel more refreshed. They have also included a way for you to report your activities, like going to the gym and how many cups of coffee you have, so you can see how it… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Fieldrunners is a great game in the ‘tower defense’ genre. Basically you are set up on a grid and need to defend your base – represented by exits on the field – from attacking forces that enter through specific locations. You use an array of weapons that are each more powerful – and expensive – than the next, and earn money by destroying enemies. You can also upgrade the range and destructive power of each weapon to three levels. It is a great game and has been a resounding success on the iPhone and iPad, earning Subatomic Studios numerous awards for mobile gaming. I have also thoroughly enjoyed the PSP Minis version, though I… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Today’s Gear Deal brings us the updated 17″ Alienware M17x R3 Anodized Aluminum Gaming Laptop. This powerful laptop features a Core i7-2630QM processor, a 320GB Hard Drive, 4GB RAM, a 1GB GDDR5 Radeon HD 5870M, a 900p display, a DVDRW and more. It starts at $1799 but our Gear Sponsor has found some huge savings on it. How huge? Visit the deal page and you can save $500! That will bring the price down to $1,299 and it will ship for free. Act quickly though because the deal expires soon and the coupon has only limited uses available. And for something more powerful check out this bundle! It has the Alienware M17x 3D with 1080p display… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Whether watching a movie, playing games or listening to music, many of us spend a lot of time with some sort of headphones in our ears. A while back I believed that the ubiquitous original iPod offerings were good enough. Later, I realized they were awful and bought some in ears buds. At the time, however, I still bought budget products. I didn’t think I needed more. I mean, I just needed them for music while I run or mow or ride on a bus, how can spending more on headphones make it that much better. I gradually worked up to medium priced headphones and was impressed. Until I was able to review a… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

When I was taking some music classes and working in one of the first digital music studios in the early 80′s, I was told that to use heavy compression to make everything seem louder and to ‘pop’ out of the speakers was a ‘rookie mistake’ that negated any dramatic impact that an artist is trying to impart through the use of dynamic range. Well, based on recent study reported on at Digital Music News there are a load of rookies out there! As noted in the article: “Most track decibel levels these days are normalized so that peaks and valleys in the track’s waveform are largely eradicated, producing that lovely tinny quality that Continue reading on Gear Diary …

We know that our DNA holds the fingerprint to our entire physical makeup, but what about our age and the things that have happened to us through the years? Apparently we can even learn some of THAT through our DNA according to new research! According to a study from UCLA: During normal development, DNA in your body gets what’s called methylated. Small chemicals called methyl groups bind to the DNA, helping to determine which genes become active. But the patterns of methylation change as we grow older. Which was a clue that measuring methylation might give away age. The researchers studied DNA in saliva contributed by 34 pairs of male Continue reading on Gear Diary …

(image courtesy a feather adrift) Seattle Mystery Bookshop created quite the tempest in a teapot this past week. They’re a small independent bookstore in, you guessed it, Seattle. Seattle is also the home of Amazon.com, and it’s clear from SMB’s attitude that they are not happy to have Bezos and Company in their backyard. In fact, Seattle Mystery Bookshop so thoroughly hates Amazon.com that they refuse to carry books or handle author signings by Amazon-published authors. Why? Because Amazon is a Big Evil Corporation. To best illustrate this debate, you need to start with the email exchange between the bookshop and the unnamed author. The author emailed the Seattle Mystery… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I recently did a retrospective review on Duke Nukem 3D, so that experience was fresh in my mind as I loaded up Duke Nukem Forever and played it. One of the reasons I wanted to do that was because it is very easy for faded memories to turn into inaccurate assessments and then into unrealistic expectations – so by playing Duke Nukem 3D in 2011 I was able to temper my 15-year old expectations for Duke Nukem Forever with the reality of the prior game. So what are my thoughts? Read on and find out! The Hype: Duke Nukem Forever is a First-Person Shooter (FPS) that finally resurrects the infamous Duke Nukem franchise… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The world of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) changed forever back in 2004 as Blizzard launched World of Warcraft. Almost instantly it became the leader in the genre, blowing away all competition. Even now, seven years later it dominates the MMORPG landscape, though subscriber rates have been flat or slightly shrinking at ~12 million over the last couple of years. As recently as a year ago we were told that “World of Warcraft could go free-to-play someday, but don’t expect that day to come anytime soon.”. But yesterday Blizzard announced that they were making the game Free-to-Play for the first 20 levels. That is a small chunk of… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

  (If you aren’t familiar with the ongoing issues Francis has had with his G2X, be sure to see his initial explanation here: Original G2X Screen Bleed Article) Last week I wrote up a quick post about sending in my G2X to T-Mobile due to excessive screen bleeding issues. After receiving a new phone, returning a phone, and two more chats with T-Mobile representatives I’m sitting here with the same phone I started out with. If you are unaware of the screen bleeding issues check out my post here, or pretty much any G2X forum anywhere on the web and you are bound to see what I’m talking about. After ordering… Continue reading on Gear Diary …