AT&T is reportedly slated to increase their device upgrade costs from $18 to $36 this coming Sunday, February 12.

Because the overall costs associated with upgrading to a new device have increased, effective Sunday, February 12, 2012, AT&T will change its upgrade fee from $18 to $36

Just my luck. I’m due for an upgrade, and I’ve been chomping at the bit to try a Windows phone, as evidenced by Dan and Judie’s saga of their HTC Titan usage. Speaking for myself, it’s just unfortunate that by the time I want to try out the Titan II or the Nokia 900 I’ll be paying a lot more than I anticipated.

In a message to… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

They say that if you want to learn something about a person take a look at how they treat people they DON’T have to be nice to – you know, anyone from kids to animals to waiters and store clerks. If a person treats them poorly without reason they are, quite simply, a lousy person. And you can only expect to receive the same down the line. On the other hand, if they treat you AND others well, you have a partner you can count on.

I can hear you saying ‘what is it NOW, Anderson? What are you griping about this time?’ Well, I’m talking about Sony. Anyone who has a PSP Go remembers how, right up until the release of the Go, Sony was teasing the possibility of some form of ‘UMD transfer program’ that would allow users to get some value out of existing UMD games by trading them in or somehow ‘swapping’ them for a digital version. And, in fact, EU and Japanese gamers who had existing PSN accounts with registered PSPs got a set of three digital games. US gamers got … nuthin’.… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

It has been nearly two years since I reviewed ‘The Settlers 7: Path to a Kingdom’, in which I trashed the always-on DRM for the single-player, offline strategy title, saying:

As for the DRM … it is intolerable and unacceptable. The DRM is this: you need to go through all of the normal serial number and online activation hoops, but beyond that you also need to have a constant internet connection to Ubisoft’s servers. If that connection drops – ON EITHER END – you are booted out of your game. Originally the boot-out would lose all progress from the prior checkpoint, but an update made it so the game state was saved at the moment of connection loss…which was at least a step in the right direction.

It was reported that the new DRM system was cracked on the day of release for both Assassin’s Creed II and this game, which was made worse the following week when Ubisoft’s servers experienced issues and many folks were unable to connect and therefore unable to play. I was amongst those who tried to play the game and while my internet connection was fine, I couldn’t even get started.

The first rule of a health-centric charity – don’t get political.

UPDATE: The Komen group annouced they were reversing their decision, stating “it will “amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political.”

“Our only goal for our granting process is to support women and families in the fight against breast cancer. Amending our criteria will ensure that politics has no place in our grant process,” the group said.”

My wife did the Susan G. Komen Walk for the Cure a few years ago when we lived in the Boston area. Her father had died of cancer, and she used that as her focus as she rallied support and gathered the thousands of dollars in required donations to the fund. When the news broke this week about the Komen foundation pulling breast cancer screening, she was dismayed and upset to find that one of the key areas that Komen fought for – grant funding to support breast pre-screening for women without insurance support – was being eliminated through Planned Parenthood.… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

There was a recent article in the New York Times that pretty much singles out Apple as being to blame for the work conditions in China. Sure, they off-handedly refer to ‘other companies’ and repeatedly say ‘other devices’ as a footnote, but again and again it is Apple, iPhone and iPad that are mentioned.

Apple, the company that was one of the very last consumer electronics companies making stuff in the US while taking heat from everyone about how much their stuff cost and how slow they were to move from platform to platform? All of those other companies – Dell, Compaq, HP, IBM – were faster moving … because they were already running… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

The title is a Portal reference … if you haven’t played, you should. I’ll provide a video at the end for context. The basic theme is that Aperture Science (Google) does what it ‘must’ (cruel human experimentation in the name of science) because it ‘can’ (no one can stop them). But also realize that it is presented humorously in-game, and I don’t intent it seriously here.

Today we learn that Google is going to be combining all of the login and account data across every service we access with the same credentials.

Yawn, right? Well, not exactly Orwellian, but not innocent either.

Here are some details from the Washington Post:

The

This weekend, one of the biggest file-sharing sites on the internet – MegaUpload was shut down, its’ top officers arrested and its assets seized. Numerous articles that go into detail everywhere. Here is a snippet from Ars Technica:

The indictment charges that the “Mega conspiracy” has for more than five years operated websites that willfully distributed pirated movies, often before their theatrical release, and other illegal copies of copyrighted works, earning the company over $175 million in illegal profits through advertising revenue. Megaupload is also charged with money laundering by paying uploaders through an “uploader reward program,” and paying other companies to host the pirated content.

I would tend to call myself an ‘anti-piracy zealot’, having been in heated… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Just before Christmas I wrote about Direct2Drive moving to GameFly … and that they sent out a warning that some games might be lost in the transition.

Since then I have scoured my account – I downloaded games like Jade Empire for the Mac that aren’t available through any site I trust, recorded all of my serial numbers, and so on. Hopefully you have done the same, but if not …

TODAY, head to Direct2Drive, download all of your game files and record your serial numbers … you never know!

Well, now I guess I will have to wait until Mass Effect 3 eventually lands on Steam or is a bargain title, because I am SURELY not buying it based on what I am reading on the Bioware ‘social’ forums.

Here is a snip:

1) Will Origin be a requirement to play all versions of Mass Effect 3? (Digital and/or from a retail brick and mortar store)
Yes, Origin is required for all PC editions of Mass Effect 3, physical or digital.

2) Is constant Origin connection required or is it a single one off authentication when the game is first installed. Is there also a limit to

You would think that with close to 50% of the smartphone world now using an Android phone, looking back at 2011 would be a uniformly positive experience. Yet it is not – in fact, it is easier for me to draw up a list of very negative things than an equally list of positives. Of course, some will say ‘that is because you hate Google and Samsung and Android and never say anything nice about them’. Am I critical? Certainly … but I believe I am just pointing out things too many folks gloss over – ironically the same folks who get enraged about folks glossing over Apple’s many flaws (which I… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Imagine having dreamed of a life as a civil servant such as a police officer all your life, pursuing that goal, meeting all requirements, taking the pre-entrance exam, doing really well and … getting denied an interview on the grounds that your IQ was too high.

That is what has happened to Robert Jordan who was trying to become a police officer in New London, CT.

Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, took the exam in 1996 and scored 33 points, the equivalent of an IQ of 125. But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after

“Sherlock” is an excellent, excellent BBC series set in the present day, based on the Arthur Conan Doyle “Sherlock Holmes” stories.  I could rave on and on about how wonderful it is, how it stays true to both the characters and the “feel” of the original stories, but I’m not really a TV reviewer.  I will say this, though:  a ton of geeks I know love the show.

Why am I telling you this?  Well, look at the dates for the show above; that’s when it was broadcast in the United States.  In the U.K., it came out 4 months earlier.  And these days, where the world is so much smaller (electronically); where I can get… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

Sorry about the Better Off Dead image, but when I saw this at Droid-Life yesterday that was all I could think of … Verizon Wireless as Johnny chasing Lane across the field and down the mountain in search of the $2 paper money.

Here is the image more related to the new policy:

According to the report from the AP:

Verizon Wireless, the country’s largest cellphone company, said Thursday that it will start charging $2 for every payment subscribers make over the phone or online with their credit cards.

The company said this “convenience fee” will

Our five year old washing machine died two weeks ago and had to be replaced. We were told, at the time, that five years is about the lifespan for this type of appliance these days. That’s not so surprising considering the fact that the 25-year-old dishwasher at our lake cabin is still going strong. Yes, companies want to keep you coming back as a repeat customer and the lifespan of many things is growing shorter and shorter in order to help ensure it.

It seems Planet Fitness has found a way to keep their customers coming back time and again as well. It’s a bit creative and fits with the New Years resolutions that people… Continue reading on Gear Diary ...

I Have written about the various Humble Bundles that not only do something good by bringing attention to deserving Indie developers, they also donate a portion of their proceeds to charity, making it an all-around great deal. But as was brought to my attention after the first one was announced, copies of those games were quickly found on file sharing sites! Imagine that – something you could get for $1 … but you STILL have to steal it!

Quiescence Music offered up all of their existing lessons and tutorials and other resources as a $1 one-week trial. More recently Quiescence Music founder Edward Weiss announced he was raising his monthly rate from