Last year Microsoft created the ‘GMail Man’ spoof commercial (I’ve included it at the bottom), that cast things that are completely true — that Google has programs that ‘read’ your email and target you with advertisements based on keywords found in your messages — in a completely creepy way by personalizing the scanner. The intent was obvious – show personal and especially business users that their sensitive personal data and intellectual property was anything but safe in GMail.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Image courtesy of iJailbreak Tech-head Dave Winer is a smart guy, and has been writing interesting things about technology for pushing 20 years now, and he is one of the few in that category that I really respect.  But in his recent post about Apple TV, what he thinks it will offer, and why he thinks it will succeed, I think he’s, well, just wrong:… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I took the picture above on New Year’s Eve, and I was originally planning to use it as part of a post illustrating how an iPad-centric music system costing under $1000 is capable of producing better music than multi-million dollar studios from just 25-30 years ago. So let’s take a quick look: My son Christopher is working a DJ mixer which is interfaced to a netbook that is streaming music from MOG; an iPod Touch with some other pre-recorded music; and an iPad. The iPad is the workhorse of the music system, located just to the left of the iPod Touch and below the netbook. What you will see below the iPad are three USB devices from Korg – a pad controller, mini piano-style keyboard, and slider-based controller. The three controllers chain together through a $20 USB hub also from Korg. All four combined cost less than $200 and are well-built and simple to use. You just plug in and play. That night Chris was rocking tunes of his own creation using iMS-20, FL Studio, GarageBand, NanoStudio and others. He had only gotten the Korg modules a couple of days earlier, yet they were already integrated into his music studio, [...]

The quote I have been seeing – and using a lot lately is critical in describing Google’s behavior working around browser security settings and the very desires of users in insinuating their advertising into Safari as they were caught doing last week: Despite being thought of as a tech company, Google is actually an ad agency. Last week Google was caught bypassing user settings and Safari security as noted here: – Google secretly developed a way to circumvent default privacy settings established by a hated competitor, Apple – Google enabled this workaround to further its own advertising (revenue) and social-networking goals. – Google then used the workaround to drop ad-tracking cookies on Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Image courtesy of The Punch In 1990, science fiction writer David Brin released “Earth”, a book that was set 50 years in the (then) future, or about 2038.  It extrapolated a number of things–increased UV and higher coastlines due to global warming, for example (Houston is inundated with water like Venice!).  One of the key back plot elements, though, is a “Helvetian War”, a war fought against the Swiss to end the secrecy of the Swiss banks, and attempt to get the people back some of the ill-gotten gains of the rich.  (Switzerland is turned into a radioactive abattoir as a result, so it’s kind of a mixed deal.)  But the bottom line is, secrecy has become socially unacceptable; neither individuals nor governments keep secrets. I was thinking about this recently while creating a budget for tax purposes (don’t ask); bear with me on this:… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

With all the upheaval in bookselling, there seems to be a growing distrust and backlash towards Amazon. Borders imploded, B&N is struggling with their physical stores, independent bookstores are disappearing, and Amazon is waiting with open arms for any lost consumers. The anti-Amazon discussions boil down to two main arguments; the idea that as convenient as Amazon is, buying “local” is worth the higher costs, and the idea that Amazon is just plain evil. I understand the “buy local” argument, but the “Amazon as an evil entity sent to suck the life from the competition” argument is, to put it bluntly, completely insane. Sadly, it’s not one that comes from the outskirts, but straight from the Author’s Guild themselves!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Much has been written about AT&T now warning the “top 5% of iPhone data users” on unlimited plans that they would begin seeing their data speeds slowed because of their adverse affect on the network as a whole. At first pass most would think that meant individuals streaming video constantly and using up tens of gigabytes of data. That isn’t the case. In a month where I have been switching on and off between the iPhone 4S and the Titan (in other words using my iPhone far LESS than normal), I got the above warning. “Uh Oh!” I thought to myself, I must have used HUGE amounts of data, despite not using the iPhone all that much. Well, as it turns out, that just isn’t the case.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

We’re back with Episode 3 of Gear Chat 2012. This time out we’ll talk about OS X Mountain Lion, iPad 3 rumors, Evernote Hello, iPhone case fails and more. In addition, Carly will bring the latest in eBook news and Mike will let us know what is new in the world of gaming. You can download it here or simply click this link to listen right now. Your browser does not support the audio element. Podcast Powered By Podbean Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Mike posted word the other day that Apple outed their next operating system, OS X Mountain Lion and gave it a late summer arrival date. Yes, just as Apple Computer lost the “Computer” from its name as it began to shift its company positioning, they have now dropped the “Mac” from Mac OS X. Mountain Lion is, in my opinion a bit of good news and a bit more good news. The good news is that they are continuing to bring OS X into line with iOS. The additional good news is that they are doing it in a manner that makes it clear that, while they are bringing the two closer from the perspective of features, they do not appear to be MERGING the two. That’s a good thing since I don’t want a mobile operating system on my desktop, and I don’t want a desktop OS on my mobile devices. The key features of Mountain Lion, as far as Apple has thus far revealed, are, in my opinion, brilliant. You can get a sense of it via the demo video on Apple.com, but if you have a developer account you can actually download the first beta of the [...]

This week Apple’s stock broke through the 500 per share mark, and the Wall Street Journal did a spot on just how huge the company has become – to the point where analysts assessing financial health of the economy have to exclude Apple due to the enormous weight it carries (look at the grey box in the center showing Apple accounting for about 20% of the NASDAQ 100 market cap). Looking around in 2011 and 2012 it is hard to picture Apple as a company that was basically ‘a goner’ 15 years ago. In fact, it is hard to remember Apple being in any other position but market dominance: the Mac has been a design icon for years, but has recently accounted for a huge share of the laptop market and basically owns the high-end market; the iPod and iTunes came in at the right time with the right product and totally changed the digital music world; the iPhone remains the standard-bearer of the smartphone world; and the iPad has become the singular tablet device of note, ravaging laptop sales and leaving all other competition reeling.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Images: Cadillac Talk about taking technology for granted, how about the electric starter? Cadillac is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its debut of electric start technology that first appeared in its 1912 Cadillac Touring Edition. Before this ground breaking innovation, cars were a bit “cranky.” Literally. Back then it took a hand crank and some muscle power to turn over the motor to be able to drive your vehicle.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Recently Motorola talked about the difficulty and complexity of updating the operating system on phones, placing the blame for the ‘expectations game’ squarely on Google and how they choose to roll things out: When Google does a release of the software … they do a version of the software for whatever phone they just shipped. The rest of the ecosystem doesn’t see it until you see it. Hardware is by far the long pole in the tent, with multiple chipsets and multiple radio bands for multiple countries. It’s a big machine to churn. So when Google released Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich a few months ago alongside the launch of… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

™ No, I don’t travel with quite that much stuff; close, though (Image courtesy of The Tech Journal) So it used to be that I had to travel basically every week–my job was in California, but my home is in Austin, so I did an awful lot of flying around.  After a while, it got to the point where it was practically automatic, and I didn’t give much thought to the things I did to make traveling easier. Recently, however, after a 5 month hiatus, I had to make a business trip, and I’m finding that some of the gear that I got to ease my way makes things much easier.  If you yourself are a road warrior, a technogypsy, a traveling nerd, then maybe some of these hints can help you out, too.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

We’re back with the next edition of Gear Chat. This time out Mike is bringing us some gaming news and Thomas and I talk tablets, apps and iPad 3. Listen below or click here to download. Your browser does not support the audio element. Podcast Powered By Podbean Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Yes, it is that time of year. The annual iPad announcement and release is likely on the way and, with it, the flurry of rumors are in full force. Moreover, as we have seen in recent year, these rumors are often accompanied by slightly blurry spy shots of various components. We saw a supposed back plate for the iPad 3 and today the supposed hi-res display has emerged. We do our best to stay away from rumor and innuendo (although sometimes we just can’t resist) but that does not mean we aren’t thinking about what we want in the iPad 3. Here’s what the team had to say about it I asked: What do YOU want in the iPad 3 (that is also actually possible) and are you buying? Why or why not?… Continue reading on Gear Diary …