May 20 2013
This post originally appeared at Living on the Cheap. Apparently, there is an unspeakable cruelty in the world of a teenager. “Dad, everyone at school has an XYZ3000 smart phone. I can’t even look at Google Maps on this stupid flip phone and I probably won’t even get to go to prom because of it.” Teenagers also …
Mar 07 2013
I spent a bit of time at the Travel Goods Association trade show and came away with some good contacts and saw some interesting new products and ideas. One of the most interesting was a company called FinderCodes. There are several companies out there that have products for tracking your luggage via GPS, various cellular …
Mar 04 2013
A very wise pundit once said. “The limitation of our productivity in modern times is measured in milliwatt hours.” Actually, I think I said that. Let’s downgrade that to…”A two-bit hack with an overwrought sense of self-importance and a website designed to fulfill his Machiavellian tech fantasies said that.” Of course, it is still true …
Jan 30 2013
I like it when a product shows up at NAMM and at CES. It is sort of like a mullet…business in the front and party in the back. OK, it is not anything like that. But if a company has the chutzpah to show a product at both shows…it had better be pretty cool. The …
Jan 15 2013
Well, I have to say that this was not what I expected FaceBook to announce today. “Graph Search” is their system to access the info that many of us use to make social decisions currently with FaceBook. Where do I want to eat FaceBook? Where do my friends like to hang out FaceBook? What is …
Jan 07 2013
Nothing says Vegas like a cab line of doom. Off the plane this morning and into the crush of humanity that is pre-trade show chaos. Monday is press event day where me and thousands of my cynical brethren pretend to be wowed by the latest thing, while surreptitiously looking for the best swag, a boxed …
Dec 27 2012
CES is the preeminent showplace for consumer technology and trends. It is now a little more than a week away and press releases and whispered rumors are flying fast and furious. I am in the last stages of setting my schedule, choosing what technology to carry and researching restaurants! The themes this year appear to …
Dec 21 2012
Perusing the FAVI website yields what you would expect from an innovative entertainment company. Projectors, screens, televisions and a clever little HDMI widget called the SmartStick which is aimed squarely at giving Apple TV and Roku heartburn. But in a very Sesame Street moment (“One of these things is not like the other…come on, sing …
Dec 20 2012
I have used CloudOn on my iPad for awhile and it has saved my bacon at least twice. Because the iOS versions of Office applications are occasionally limited in their limitation of features I have found CloudOn to be PARTICULARLY helpful when dealing with complex spreadsheet files. Actually, I have wanted to kill myself more …
Dec 13 2012
Consumer research data is always interesting but it is not always useful… I found a couple of nuggets of “hmm” in the infographic below from the research crew at Ericsson. For instance, point 4 that mobile network coverage is the fourth most important driver of satisfaction with urban life? I mean, I have been known …