CTIA!

The CTIA conference is a huge conference where all the major and minor companies that have to do with wireless communication show off their newest products. For those of you who didn’t pay much attention to the conference in Orlando this year I am going to briefly recap on some of the most important announcements.

One of the biggest announcements was that AT&T was going to buy T-mobile from its parent company Deutsche Telekom. You may be wondering, how much is a cell phone provider worth, well apparently its $39 billion dollars! $25 billion in cash and $14 billion in stocks to be exact. This is actually good news for AT&T customers because of the fact that T-mobile as its own cell provider and had its own towers, once the merger is complete AT&T customers will get to use the T-mobile towers too. This will result in much much better coverage than now.  Not only just any coverage though, LTE coverage! Once the merger is complete, AT&T claims that their LTE network will cover 95% of Americans or 294 million people! This is significant because President Obama, in his State of the Union address, said, "Within the next five years, we'll make it possible for businesses to deploy the next generation of high-speed wireless coverage to 98 percent of all Americans," said Mr. Obama. "This isn't about faster Internet or fewer dropped calls. It's about connecting every part of America to the digital age."

Next, the HTC EVO 3D was announced for the Sprint network. The EVO 3D as you can probably guess is the successor to the widely popular HTC EVO 4G. As you can guess from the name, the EVO 3D has a glasses-less 3D screen and it has a 3D camera. It also comes with a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor which is up from the 1 GHz single core processor in the EVO 4G. The EVO 3D also comes with Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) with the newest version of HTC Sense stuck on top. One of my co-authors on Gizmo-teched described it as “soo sexy.” Personally, if I had to pick, I would pick the EVO 4G over the EVO 3D because the EVO 3D has lost some features that the 4G had and I liked. First off I think the whole 3D thing is gimmicky; it’s cool the first couple times you use it and it’s cool to show off to friends but otherwise completely useless unless. 3D TVs are way too expensive for the average consumer to buy and even if someone had a 3D TV there is not enough 3D content for it to be worth it your money. Another gripe I have against the EVO 3D is it has no kickstand!! Are you kidding me HTC?? When the EVO 4G was first released, it stood out because it had a huge screen, it was the first 4G phone, it had an amazing camera and it had a KICKSTAND! Now that the EVO 4G has been on the market for about a year, there are many phones with the same features but the one feature that still makes the EVO 4G stand out is its kickstand (I can vouch for this because I have one). So when making the next generation EVO, HTC deiced to get rid one of the signature features of the previous phone?

Speaking of the HTC EVO, HTC has made the HTC EVO View 4G tablet official. Being one of the newest tablets on the market, it of course has every feature imaginable plus some:

·         1.4 Ghz dual core processer

·         1 Gb of RAM

·         4G capable (if you didn’t figure that out from the name)

·         5 Megapixel rear facing camera and a 1.3 megapixel front facing camera

·         7 inch multi touch screen

·         4000 mAh battery

·         Digital compass

·         HTC Scribe compatibility

The View will be shipped with Honeycomb with the latest version of HTC’s Sense UI. The View 4G is also compatible with the HTC Scribe pen which allows you to write, draw, hightlight and much more on the tablet. The View is set to be released “this summer” on Sprint. I have to say, I really am not sure why HTC is pretty much redoing the exterior of the HTC Flyer, adding a 3G/4G radio into it and calling it the View 4G. Since the specifications are identical, they should have just called it the Flyer 4G or something but I guess the PR guys at HTC know better than I do!

Well those are the most important things that i think were announced at CTIA, maybe some of you will go next year!.....and maybe buy me plane tickets while you are at it to:)

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iPad 2!!

When the original iPad hit the market many people thought it would be a flop because it was just a giant iPod touch that was overpriced. Of course everybody forgot that this was a product of Apple and before long every person in the country wanted one. The iPad had a big beautiful screen that was sleek and elegant and its iOS operating system was so simple to use. And now, Apple has released the iPad 2 that is thinner and faster than ever before. Read on to find out more!

The first thing you will notice about the new iPad 2 is that it is much lighter and thinner than its predecessor. At its thickest, the iPad 2 is .34 inches whereas the original iPad was half an inch thick. The amazing thing is that the iPad 2 is actually thinner than the iPhone 4 albeit only by half a millimeter, it is amazing nonetheless. The iPad 2 is also .2 pounds lighter than the iPad at 1.3 pounds. All of these numbers don’t sound like very much but when you actually pick an iPad 2 up it makes a world of difference.

The next thing you will notice about the iPad is that it is unbelievably fast. This is thanks to its new 1 GHz dual-core A5 chip that according to Jobs, is up to 2 times faster than the original iPad. So no matter how graphics demanding a game is, you'll still have amazing performance. With this much power many of you may worry about the battery life but there is no need to fear because the iPad 2 squeezes out an impressive 10.5 hours of battery life! The iPad 2’s biggest rival the Motorola Xoom tops out at about 8.5 hours, which is 2 hours less than the iPad 2!

On the original iPad, one of the biggest complaints was the lack of camera(s).  Apple decided to address this complaint in this version of the iPad and stuck not one, but two cameras; one on the front and one on the back. The one on the front is a VGA quality camera that is meant mainly to be used for video chatting via Facetime and for self-portraits via Photobooth. The camera on the back is and HD camera that shoots in 720p. Unfortunately when tested in the real world both cameras were subpar especially when compared to its competitors like the Xoom.

Along with the numerous hardware improvements, Apple has also updated its software for the iPad.  The iPad runs iOS 4.3 which among many things, included a very important update to the browser called the Nitro JavaScript engine. On a JavaScript benchmark test, the original iPad running iOS 4.2 got a score of 8207 ms while the same original iPad on iOS 4.3 scored only 3484.7 ms (the lower the better). That means the new browser is over 230% faster than the original! The iPad 2 running iOS 4.3 got 2173.1 ms which is fast but when compared to its rivals like the Xoom (2141.8 ms), it really is not that fast. The iPad 2 obviously has Facetime now since it has cameras but Apple has also made a version of their popular Photo Booth app for the iPad. I personally really like this app because it is able to give you a live video previews of 9 different effects that are available to take pictures with and because of the dual core processer, the iPad 2 doesn’t even struggle. If you are into movie editing then Apple has released iMovie which as you can probably guess, is an iPad version of iMovie from Macs. Surprisingly, it is very intuitive and easy to use and it includes many transitions and effects.

One new accessory that Apple has made a really big deal about is the Smart Cover. I must say, these are ingenious. You can pick either a polyurethane or leather cover at $39 and 69$ respectively. The both clip on magnetically to the iPad and keep the screen from getting scratched. They covers can also fold so that you can prop up your iPad 2 two different ways for watching a movie or typing an email. Another new accessory that you can purchase is an HDMI out cable. For 40 bucks you can mirror your iPad’s screen in full 1080p.

After the iPad came out, the tablet market erupted in new design from every big name gadget company that you can think of. Personally, I think that the iPad is definitely in the top 2 best tablets if not the being the best! The plethora of Android tablets are simply not refined and elegant enough to beat out the iPad. The Motorola Xoom is probably the only other tablet that can compete with it right now but it is much more expensive, which is a major turn off for consumers. Either way I am happy because I know that impressive devices like the iPad 2 will lead to more competition which results in better products for us! Please leave any comments below!

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Possible features of the iPad2?!

I'm sure many of you have heard about Apple’s big event next week on the 2^nd,and the most talked about device that is expected to be released at this conference is the iPad 2. Here are a couple features that are likely to appear on it: 

• Two cameras would be the most obvious choice to add on to the iPad 2 as it is one of the biggest disadvantages the iPad has against its competitors.
• Apple's newest A5 processor which hopefully will be a multi core processor to help speed it up
• A dedicated graphics chip which will make it the best gaming tablet out there. That will be appropriate as the iPhone is the most popular mobile gaming platform at the moment.
• It may or may not have a Hi resolution retina display because they are expensive to manufacture
• A dedicated SD card slot. Like the camera...or the lack thereof, is one of the biggest drawbacks to the iPad when compared to other 

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the the iPad 2 will be sleeker and thinner which is probably an accurate guess becasue most new gadgets are sleeker than the ones they are replacing. It is also being speculated that since the iPhone is now available on both AT&T and Verizon that the new iPad 2 will have a dual GSM/CDMA chipset that will enable it to work on Verizon's as well as AT&T's 3G network. Hopefully the iPad turns out to be exactly what we are all looking for by having all these features!

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Asus Eee Slate EP121

The new Asus tablet was introduced at the CES Convention in Las Vegas. The new tablet is a direct competitor to Apple's iPad Tablet. Want a slate that's really designed for the way you use a computer while you're on the go? Check out the ASUS Eee Slate. No matter where you are, it'll keep you connected, entertained, and productive. The 12.1-inch backlit HD display is larger than most netbook screens, and with its wide, 175-degree viewing angle, you'll easily be able to share photos and video with your friends. 

One of its best features is that it's got full Flash 10.1 support—so you can watch YouTube videos, videos embedded in Facebook, and all the other rich content across the web that requires Flash. 

Part of why it looks so great is the display's ultra-tough yet ultra-thin Gorilla Glass, which protects it from the rough treatment that mobile devices can get—drops and spills. But the glass is also pressure-sensitive, making its digitizer with Windows 7 pen support more accurate for drawing and note-taking. 

Its solid-state drive keeps the size and weight down—and also means there's no disc spinning inside, giving you lightning-fast access to your files when you want them. And it's not just for entertainment. It comes with a Bluetooth wireless keyboard, and a stand that lets you set it up like a monitor, so you can really use it like a PC when you need to. No matter whether you're working or playing, you're going to love using this versatile slate. 

12.1-inch capacitive pressure-sensing multi-touch LED-backlit HD display delivers brilliant HD entertainment and intuitive navigation Less than one inch thick and made with ultra-tough Gorilla Glass to ensure easy portability and robust durability. 

For what this computer offers I think the price is spot on despite being at least $1,000. 

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Motorola Xoom

After the iPad arrived, a massive amount of tablets seemed to come out of nowhere all running the Android OS. The major gripe that everyone has had about both the iOS on the iPad and Android is that they are merely giant versions of their smart phone siblings. Motorola has decided to work with Google to address this problem and released their solution during this year’s CES. For those of you who don’t know, CES stands for Consumer Electronics Show and is the largest show of its kind with over 2,000 different companies participating and over 100,000 people coming to visit. CES is famous for the debuts of new technology such as the CD, HDTVs, Xbox, Blu-ray and much more.

After many long hours of work Motorola has released its new tablet, the Xoom. What makes this so special you ask? Well it’s the fact that it is running a version of Android codenamed Honeycomb which was specifically built for tablets. Between this new operating system and Motorola’s impressive hardware the Xoom has managed to win the prized “Best of Show” award. Since the Xoom is obviously aimed to shoot down the iPad from its spot as best tablet, I will for the most be comparing it to the iPad’s hardware.

The first thing that you will notice is that compared to all other Android tablets the iPad is bigger by a few inches but the Xoom on the other hand is actually bigger! The iPad has a 9.7 inch screen with a resolution of 1024 by 768 but the Xoom has a screen size of 10.1 inches and a resolution of 1280 by 800! Even more important than that though, is the fact that unlike the iPad which has an awkward 1:1.33 aspect ratio the Xoom has a 16:9 ratio just like you HDTV at home. What this means is that you will be able to watch movies in the way they were meant to be watched and not stretched in some weird way just because your device’s screen is weird. While the Xoom’s screen is bigger than the iPad’s, it manages to be thinner and weigh the same (730 grams).

Now many people will say that comparing the iPad’s to the Xoom in terms of processor speed and RAM is not fair since the iPad came out almost a year ago and that the Xoom would obviously be better since it is more recent. I DISAGREE. My friends always compare their new phones (like the Droid Incredible) to my year and half old Palm Pre and say theirs is better. So if we are still at the point of comparing the newest phones to one and a half year old Pres which frankly wasn’t the best phone of its time them I’m pretty sure it’s okay to compare the Xoom to the less than ones year old flagship tablet called the iPad. In any case, the Xoom does indeed destroy the iPad in this department. The iPad contains a Cortex A8 1.0GHz CPU with 256MB of RAM whereas the Xoom has a NVIDIA Tegra 2, 1GHz dual-core CPU with a whopping 1GB of RAM. The iPad only has a quarter of the Ram that the Xoom does. The Xoom also has 2 cores which means it can truly multitask unlike the iPad’s cute little popup bar thing at the bottom of the screen that doest really work.

The biggest gripe that people have over the iPad is its lack of camera and any sort of output besides Apple’s proprietary thing. The Xoom on the other hand has a 2MP front facing camera for self shots and video conferencing and a 5MP camera with dual LED flash and 720p video capture. The Xoom has a microUSB, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and just about any other way to get content on and off and to whatever kind of device you’re after. One of my favorite things about the Xoom though, is the fact that Motorola understands that consumers hate when their expensive devices become obsolete a month after they buy them. So what Motorola has done is when they sell the Xoom at first it will have Wi-Fi and 3G just like the iPad but it is 4G capable so once Motorola figures everything out, which should be sometime in Q2, your Xoom will be 4G capable. Yes this is a tablet and super high speeds aren’t need to browse the internet on it but if you decide to use it as a mobile hotspot for your laptop or computer at home instead of paying for DSL it will be blazingly fast.

Now where the Xoom doesn’t destroy the iPad is in the battery life and storage departments. Both the iPad and the Xoom get 10 hours of video playback time on a single chare which is more than enough for me. In terms of storage the iPad comes in choices of 16, 32 or 64 GB of internal storage. The Xoom comes only with 32GB of storage built in but it has a SD card slot expandable up to 32 GB. I'm sure Apple haters will say that having a SD card slot is better because you can carry around extra SD cards so technically the Xoom has unlimited storage space, but honestly? No one is going to do that.

Final decision?

Xoom > iPad

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Playbook vs. iPad

The newest contestant in the battle to become the best tablet is the BlackBerry Playbook. At the moment this market is dominated by the iPad which is made by Apple but will this by iPad killer?? Read and find out!

The Playbook will have a 7 inch (1024 x 600) LCD multi-touchscreen. While it is smaller compared to the iPad's 9.7 inch (1024 x 768) screen the Playbook has a higher pixel density meaning pictures and videos will actually look better on the Playbook than the iPad. The larger screen size on the iPad obviously makes it the heavier than the Playbook which is only 0.9 pounds compared to the iPad which is about 1.5 pounds. The operating system on the Playbook is called the BlackBerry Tablet OS (very creative right?). It looks very nice and smooth, unlike the BlackBerry OS for their smartphones, and I like it a lot except they copied one of its most important features from a deferent OS. Multitasking. The Playbooks version of multitasking is virtually identical the WebOS "card" system. Myself being a WebOS user, I'm a little bit mad as the "card" system is known as the absolute best way to multitask and is one of the major selling points for the Palm Pre and Pixi which run WebOS.

Palm Pre

BlackBerry Playbook

 The Playbook and the iPad both have 1 GHz processers but the Playbook has a monstrous 1 GB of RAM compared to the iPads puny 256 MB. For all you non-techies out there, what does his mean? Well the more RAM you have the more things you can having running at once. I guess that since the iPad can't multitask right now, it isn’t that big of a deal but supposedly in November it will be able to multitask. The Playbook of course can already multitask and having 1 GB of RAM will enhance the experience greatly.

The Playbook will have the usual stuff like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 but it won't have GPS. Come-on Blackberry….you call this the first "professional tablet" but no GPS? How are the "professional" business men supposed to find their way around the cities they go to for their "professional" meetings?? I guess they could just use their BlackBerry smart phones…While I am talking about BB phones I'll mention one really cool feature that BlackBerry has added to its devices. If you edit something on the Playbook, for example a contact's detail, it will automatically be synchronized to your BlackBerry smartphone.

The biggest feature that the Playbook has that the iPad doesn’t is its cameras. Yes I meant to make that plural. The Playbook not only has a rear facing 5 megapixel camera that is capable of taking 1080p HD video (!!) but it also has a 3 megapixel front facing camera! This camera can be used for a variety of things such as taking pictures of yourself and others easier since you can check the screen to make sure everyone is in it but more importantly it can be used for video conferencing. This is one feature that really pushes the "professional" feature of this tablet. With most flights now offering in-flight Wi-Fi, business people can now for instance, chat with a potential client while in the air saving precious time in their busy lifestyle.

So all in all which is better? Personally I like the iPad purely because of its enormous app store and its huge screen. If you are willing to have a smaller screen and don’t care too much about the apps then the Playbook is definitely the best option available. Leave any questions and comments below!

Courtesy of Engadget.com

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iPads Increase Sales of Wine

Some restaurants across the world are now using iPads to show their wine lists. I know dumb, waste of money, novelty. But then why are they selling more wine?

In Atlanta's most famed steakhouse. Bone's, which has over,350 labels in their catalog, sold 11 percent more wine than in the three weeks previous to the iPad introduction. Like Bone's, many restaurants around the world are having the same experience. Everyone using iPad wine lists seem to be having big sales jumps.

As Bone's owners and clients say, "It's not the novelty factor." The reason is easy: Reviews.

Most people don't know most items in a restaurant wine list. They may know that certain region and certain winery and certain grape and certain year are considered to be good or bad or just nice enough. But with so many choices, most people just don't know. 

Now, if you had instant access to a short review for each wine from a credible source, then you can make a decision on the spot. So when someone says that a 1995 Pingus is "one of the greatest and most exciting wines I have ever tasted", then you may decide that it's well worth the price tag.

But then again, why not just print the reviews on paper? Because it’s way easier to keep the iPad always updated, as entries get out of stock and new ones come in.

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Tablets + Cars = ?

Tablets are growing more and more popular nowadays, but they are still, FOR THE MOST PART (I don’t want any controversy here), a rich mans toy. They can cost as much as a laptop but are not versatile enough to replace one. This trend has apparently been noticed by a few of the higher end car makers, BMW and Peugeot.

BMW was the first car maker to include full integration in their cars with Apple's iPod and it seems as they want to continue this with the very first car maker that can fully integrate iPads into their cars. BMW seems to enjoy telling everyone that they are the first at this but is it really something that they should be telling people? What do I think? NO!

First of all the car that modeled the iPad integration was a convertible 3 series. This is about as sporty as you can get without stepping up to the "M" division of BMW which makes all their sport tuned vehicles. So with such a sporty car, safety should be a chief concern. Apparently the engineers over in Germany were not thinking about that when they designed the iPad holders. When the iPads are docked onto the car, they protrude a couple inches from the back of the headrest. In the 3 series being one of the smaller of BMW's lineup and being a convertible, the rear passenger do not get very much space. What do you think would happen to the people in the rear seats if you even lightly rear ended someone? SMACK! Their faces are going to be smacked straight into that $700 piece of glass and its going to hurt. Real bad.

Second, you are buying a $50,000 car that’s meant to be fun to drive and look amazing. When you stick two iPads behind the front seat headrests it absolutely ruins the former beauty of the car. The whole thing just looks UGLY but I really hate the white Apple cord that plugs into the bottom of the iPad (shown above). When you are paying $3000 (!!!) for a seat upgrade so that the leather is nicer I think the least BMW could have done is to match the cord to the leather color. BMW showed this off at the Paris Auto Show in a 3 series. For those of you who don’t know, the 3 series contains BMWs entry level (the 1 series doesn’t count) lineup of cars. These cars have been given best car in its class for more than 10 years by reputable sources such as "Car and Driver" and "Road and Track" because of how good they look, how well they drive and the quality of their build. Notice that I did not mention anything about technology, that’s because the 3 series generally is more about the drive rather than the tech. This is why I feel that if anything at all the iPad integration should not be allowed in the 3 series but rather, it should be an option in the 7 series, which is BMW's flagship luxury car with all the tech you can possibly think of available as an option, oh and theres also a little, just a little bit more space between the back of the headrest and the back seat in the 7 series.

Okay I'm done ranting about the horrendous iPad integration into BMWs so we'll talk about Peugeots advance into tablets in cars market. Peugeot recently showed off its new concept car, the HR1, at the Paris Auto Show. Unlike the BMW, this integration of a tablet into a car looks amazing and fits perfectly with the futuristic look of the car. Since this is a concept car, there are not many details but we know that the tablet (it seems to be an Archos branded) will, when docked, be able to connect seamlessly to the cars built in computer and electronics system. Also, rather than using the tablets touchscreen, you will be able to control it via some sort of gesture recognition system. More often than not, these kinds of radical new technologies don’t usually work as well as they sound. 

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