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The death of a smartphone, goodbye Motorola Droid

My beloved Motorola Droid (OG) bit the dust about a week ago, thanks in full to a swift drop to the pavement that resulted in the top layer of the display getting cracked into a messy web of shattered glass (see image below).

A mixed bag of thoughts surged through my brain at the realization that this device had met its end. I got a glimpse of sadness, disappointment, fear, nostalgia, shock, disbelief and others. The emotional medley that I experienced was certainly surprising, but hey, we did have a history together. This little puppy had been my number 1 personal assistant for a span of over 2 years. To see it meet its demise unexpectedly was a bit unsettling.

This whole situation got me ruminating on the relationship that people have with their “smartphones” these days. These pocket-computing-systems are inanimate objects of course. They are mere possessions of the physical world, but like anything else that we extract some form of pleasure from, we develop emotional and subconscious attachments. There is a certain fondness or connection there that you might not take notice of until it’s severed.

But enough lamenting over a little circuit board and screen, because after all, in any situation like this, there’s always an upside. Due to this unfortunate event, I now have the pleasure am forced to upgrade my phone to a shiny, brand new device. Huzzah!

So as I head into the remainder of 2012 with a new state-of-the-art smartphone, figuratively attached at the hip, I pay homage and say goodbye to my Motorola Droid. It’s been a fun ride OG!

Pocket XShot: even better than the original

We previously reviewed the XShot 2.0 and the verdict was clear, we dug it. The little contraption proved itself to be very useful and turned out to be one of our favorite camera accessories of all time.

The only issue that we had was that it was a bit too bulky and long, making it tough to carry around in a pants pocket. Not quite as portable as we’d like.

It seems that XShot took that feedback from their customers and improved their product once again. They now offer the Pocket XShot, and as you might expect, it’s small enough to fit comfortably in a pocket.

Whereas the XShot 2.0 collapsed down to 9 inches, the Pocket XShot compacts down to a mere 6.5 inches, just the right size in our opinion. Let’s take a look at the 2 products side by side.

XShot 2.0 vs Pocket XShot, fully compacted

In the fully collapsed, compacted configuration, the pocket XShot is a great size and highly portable. But does it also help you take great photos? Yes. I use the Pocket XShot a lot. It is a constant companion to my digital cameras and camcorders.

Let’s take a look at a sample photo taken using the Pocket Xshot.

Pocket XShot Sample Photo

Note: the photo above was cropped down from the full image. Camera: Canon PowerShot SD960 IS Digital ELPH.

As you can see from the image above, the Pocket XShot can help you take some great looking photos on your own, without messing with a tripod or having to bother anyone else for help.

The only negative that we ran into while using the Pocket XShot has to do with its tripod mounting screw threads. One of the bonus features of the accessory is that the bottom screws off and you can then attach it to a tripod. Unfortunately, the Pocket XShot would not fit or screw on to our Gorillapod mini tripod. This is a minor complaint and definitely not the product’s core purpose, but it’s still worth mentioning.

After extensive use, we can easily recommend the Pocket XShot for your self-photographing needs. You can pick one up for $19.95 on Amazon.

Disclosure: XShot sent me a Pocket Xshot to review.

Sony revamps defective TV program

Last year, I wrote about the program Sony set up to replace defective LCD rear-projection HDTVs. As it turns out, every rear-projection TV Sony has ever made is defective, so they offered a program to replace the rear-projection TVs with direct-view LCD flat-panel HDTVs.

But Sony has a lot of problems. They’re losing money like crazy. After offering a trade-in program for almost two years, Sony abruptly ended the program on October 27, 2011, along with the restructuring of their TV business.

On November 1, 2011 Sony instated a new program. The new program offers significantly less than the old program.



If you have a Sony rear-projection HDTV, you may have missed the better deal, but it’s not too late to trade in the defective set for a discount on a flat-panel. Click on this link to find out more.

Sony truly has tough luck with their TV technologies. They recently recalled 1.6 million Bravia LCDs do to an overheating issue which could cause fires.

Amazon announced their long rumored tablet offering today, a 7″ Wi-Fi device named the Kindle Fire.

The Fire will burn onto the scene on November 15th (preorders available now) at an amazingly low price of $199, making it an instant contender in the tablet arena, at least in price.

CEO Jeff Bezos was short on specs, instead highlighting the many capabilities of the upcoming tablet.

Not Android as you know it

Amazon has built a custom UI on top of an unspecified version of Android for the Kindle Fire. These aren’t the droids you’re looking for. In fact, I hesitate to call this an Android tablet at all.

The Kindle Fire won’t support the Android Market, it won’t look like Android and you won’t have the flexibility and freedom that a standard Android device offers.

Instead, the Kindle Fire’s custom UI will feature tight knit integration into Amazon’s many digital services: Amazon Video On Demand, Amazon MP3′s and Music, Kindle eBooks, Cloud storage, the Amazon Android Market and more.

I don’t think any other company could pull off a locked down Android-based tablet like this except for Amazon. With Amazon’s rich service offerings, the device & integration sounds promising.

Will it hack?

At this point, there has got to be thousands (millions?) of Android enthusiasts out there all pondering the same question: Is this thing hackable?

A $199 tablet that could be modded to run a stock Android OS, giving full control and flexibility to the user, would be an enticing product. Of course, that is certainly something that Amazon wouldn’t like to see happening, so we’ll have to wait and see what control mechanisms, if any, they’ve built into the device to try to block flashing custom firmware.

The other question is the tight Amazon service integration. If you flash to a standard Android OS, will you be able to use all the awesome Amazon cloud services offered by the stock Kindle Fire? If not, that in itself is a good reason not to flash your Fire.

I’ll be keeping a close eye on the scene to see what develops. Odds are that someone will figure out how to flash a standard Android OS onto this puppy soon after it launches.

Are you interested in the Kindle Fire?

For Christmas last year, Google got me a CR-48 Chromebook as part of their Chrome OS pilot program. Since then, it has been my go-to home computer for most tasks. Retail Chromebooks are now rolling out, and it’s time we take a look to see if they’re worth your hard earned dollars.

My experience with the CR-48

If you’re familiar with using a web browser, and I assume you are, than you’re ready to use Chrome OS. In 2011, the majority of tasks performed on a home computer are all within a web browser. Google knows this, and that’s where Chrome OS came from. Why bother with background processes? Why worry about virus protection? Just open up immediately into a web browser.

When I’m not at work, over 80% of my computer usage is in a web browser. The other applications I use regularly are iPhoto, Flipshare, Hulu desktop, and Pandora One. The last two could be ran in a web browser, but I like using the apps on my MacBook.

Because of my usage habits, the CR-48 Chromebook fits into my life respectfully. The included Verizon Wireless 3G connectivity has also come in quite handy as I have been travelling.

My only complaints with the CR-48 are with its power. It is a technological lightweight. Full screen video is choppy. Audio is shrill (even with headphones). This causes me to use my MacBook for watching Hulu and playing Pandora radio.

The inability to connect a printer, digital camera or Flip camera is also a negative. I guess Google figures most pictures and video are taken with smartphones and uploaded wirelessly, so this isn’t an important feature, but it does prevent me from giving it a rousing endorsement.

The new Chromebook

There are two new Chromebooks available on the market now. One is from Samsung, and the other from Acer.

The Samsung Chromebook has a 12.1″ (1280×800) display, an Intel Atom dual-core processor, and an HD webcam. It sells for $429, or $499 with 3G.

The Acer Chromebook has an 11.6″ LED display, an Intel Atom dual-core processor, an HD webcam, and an HDMI port. It sells for $379, or $449 with 3G.

Both of these new Chromebooks have much more power than the CR-48, so the video and audio complaints above should be attenuated, or more probably eliminated. The issue with peripherals is a wait-and-see proposition.

Where is the value?

So could I recommend a Chromebook to you? Not at present. The prices for these laptops are just too high for ONLY web. I don’t buy into the tablet craze, but an iPad 2 starts at $499, and includes a hard drive, and can run loads of non-web-based applications. It’s kind of like comparing apples and oranges, but when you’re talking about a $500 purchase, you have to take into consideration what that money could provide.

How much do I think a Chromebook is worth? I think $300 is a fair price for it. Just consider the Nook Color. It’s approximately $250 for a full-color tablet which can be loaded with Android for an operable tablet computer. Is a laptop with only web access worth much more than that?

Who are Chromebooks for?

If there is one market segment I could give my full endorsement too, it would be the business and/or education sectors. These laptops are much lower cost to maintain than an equally capable Windows laptop, and there is much less chance that critical information is safe and secure. We’ve all heard the stories of the man who took his office laptop home only to have it stolen from his car, making the identities of his clients vulnerable to exploitation. With a Chromebook, this data is not stored on the laptop, so this information remains safe.

IT administrators may also maintain the whole fleet of laptops remotely without ever having to have the laptops in their possession. All settings can be configured and maintained in the cloud. Further, users can’t install useless applications or malware on the Chromebooks, meaning there is never any down time to clean up hard drives.

In education, the costs of deployment are very low, and the same administration applies. Plus, running through a local WLAN, all websites can be controlled easily to prevent students from misusing the computers.

Conclusion

There is potential for Google to carve out a segment of the market for their cloud-only Chromebook – if they play their cards right. I use my CR-48 often without complaint. I’m just not sure the early adopters are getting a fair deal.

Time Warner Cable Video-On-Demand coming to HDTVs

At CES 2011, Sony announced that their new Bravia HDTVs will have access to Time Warner Cable Video-On-Demand without a cable receiver. This is a most unusual development for a cable operator to provide their content over IP services, but it makes sense considering they make a lot of money renting movies, and they have secured rental windows for their service making new releases available 28 days before rental kiosks.

There isn’t a lot of detail about this partnership yet, but I am assuming this will only be provided to Time Warner Cable subscribers – at least initially. They don’t want to give away their strong VOD leverage to satellite subscribers. It also makes sense that they would want to gain VOD sales from subscribers without cable receivers. Certainly they understand a lot of people are giving up their DVRs in favor of IP services like Hulu and Netflix.

Following Sony’s announcement, Samsung also announced partnerships with both Time Warner Cable and Comcast to bring VOD to their HDTVs and Galaxy Tab. The Galaxy Tab features sound similar to the Xfinity Remote for iPad, and should include seamless sharing of video back and forth between the TV and tablet.

There is more information from Samsung than from Sony concerning their partnership. It is confirmed the cable VOD will be available to cable subscribers. They also announced a cool feature that allows content recorded on a DVR (presumably the Samsung DVR) to be played on a Samsung HDTV in the home connected to the local network.

These are very exciting announcements. The converged home is closer and more affordable than we know.

Samsung press releases below
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Cisco bringing internet content to TV

It’s time for CES 2011, and the first major announcement I find compelling is from Cisco. This headline may seem behind the times, after all we’ve just had two years of every company under the sun providing little black boxes ready to stream internet video to your TV. And isn’t Cisco an enterprise networking company anyway?

Well, yeah, but Cisco also owns Scientific Atlantic. If you’ve had a digital cable converter in your home, there’s a good chance it was a Scientific Atlantic box. This gives Cisco a huge advantage over other companies when it comes to living room convergence.

It’s called Cisco Videoscape, and it is an optional software package available to cable operators bringing internet content directly to the TV without additional boxes, remotes or cables.

The announcement was teased in December with this clever video, but the full details were released at CES in Las Vegas, Nevada this week.

More than just internet content on the TV, Videoscape is an alleged unified content service providing seamless integration between the TV, laptop, desktop, tablet and smartphone.

With such a large footprint in the American home, Cisco has the opportunity to really change the way content is consumed in a big way. The only problem is that every cable operator gets to chose if they will support the features, which features, and can customize the GUI. This ability has hamstrung many existing cable receivers available now with ugly, confusing graphic interfaces, and lacking support for external hard drives, and even HDMI output. It’s all up to the individual cable operator, in each region, to implement these features.

But with Dish Network and DirecTV already offering a lot of internet connected features, the pressure is on cable to step up their game and get with the 21st Century.