Last fall Amazon announced the Echo Auto, promising all of the power and convenience of Alexa in your car, and started taking sign-ups for orders. This week they started allowing people to actually buy the device, so I immediately jumped when my invite arrived!
For the last month, we’ve been hearing rumors about the Nintendo Switch Lite, and now Nintendo has made it official! Releasing September 20th and costing $199 – a full hundred dollars less than the current price of the original Switch – the Switch Lite is the handheld-only gaming system fans have been clamoring for since the release of the Switch!
In many ways, you can compare the Roland R-07 to a smartphone microphone the same way you’d compare a DSLR to a smartphone camera. Except that while cameras have consistently and considerably improved on phones, the audio input has merely crept forward.
I’ve long been an advocate for making music on the Apple iPad – to me it has been a key reason to always have one by my side. But while it is a great device to allow for chaining up synthesizers and recording occasional audio one track at a time, that has been pretty much the end – until now.
Roland has been making great strides in connecting with aspiring musicians in recent years with their GO series of devices – they allow an affordable entry point with capabilities that never feel like a compromise.
When I needed to learn keyboard basics, I did what many people I knew were doing — I bought a cheap, plastic mini-key limited device with a small set of second-rate sounds. It accomplished the task of letting me learn notes and communicate ideas — but little else.
With the solid audio and video quality of modern smartphones, there isn’t much else anyone needs to stream live … unless you want multiple cameras and true professional quality. Enter the Roland VR-1HD, a mixer for dynamic multi-camera broadcasting to bring your live streaming videos to life.
Back in September when we posted the announcement of Sony’s PlayStation Classic, there was a load of enthusiasm – which is easy to understand when you look back through the press release and list of included games.
Neverwinter Nights (NWN) is a 2002 PC role-playing game (RPG) developed by Bioware as the follow-up to their classic Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn, which is regarded as one of the greatest games ever made.
In our house, more music is played through our Amazon Echo devices than anywhere else. We use Amazon Music, but also Pandora, Slacker and Spotify … and pretty soon Apple Music! Today Amazon announced on its blog that starting December 17th you will be able to add a new skill to Alexa: the ability to play songs and playlists from Apple Music!
Music box sets are both a mixed bag and a touchy subject – on the one hand, they are pretty obvious cash grabs made by repackaging material mostly already available with unreleased music of often questionable value; on the other hand, often the collection is an absolute gem for the listener.
I love the iPad – no really, I LOVE it! Since 2010 I have bought a new iPad with each release, and have often written about my experiences and called the iPad my ‘90% Computer’.
In case you haven’t heard, the Apple Watch Series 4 has been released – and it is getting rave reviews, which it deserves because it is really an excellent smartwatch. I will detail some of the features I love about this watch later, but first I have to express some annoyances.
The first few things you notice about the new Samsung Galaxy Note 9 are how huge it is, the awesome screen, cool S-pen, and all that glass on the front and back. And while that looks pretty cool, like most people I quickly found myself in a panic as the phone nearly slipped from my hands and thought “this thing really needs a case!” The folks at UAG (Urban Armor Gear) have released a few solutions and provided us with a sample of the Monarch series case.
It is natural to compare the new iPhone XS Max with the recently released Samsung Galaxy Note 9, as they are the two flagship phones from the two most important smartphone companies in the world.
While I have always played games on a PC, as a gamer there is no denying the impact and appeal of the original Sony PlayStation. Launched in Japan in late 1994 and worldwide in 1995, the Playstation signaled a new age in console gaming: 3D graphics, data stored on CD, and a huge wave of third-party support from software developers who had already started working with those technologies for the PC.
Samsung first introduced the Galaxy Note series in 2011 with a huge stylus-driven 5.3″ screen and a direct appeal to power users who wanted more than current small-screen devices could offer. Today a variety of smartphones with screens larger than 5.3″ are available bearing a ‘Plus’, XL or other monikers to differentiate them.
One thing I have missed using Android, rather than iOS as my main phone, is the ability to send and receive messages on my phone, tablet or laptop. And while Android still has a long way to go to get close to the functionality or usability of iMessage, they have taken a step in the right direction with Android Messages for Web.
Chances are that by now you have heard the term ‘net neutrality‘ thrown around, probably alongside some apocalyptic predictions of ‘life after the free internet’. But after the FCC set aside the rules protecting ‘net neutrality’ last November, changes which have just gone into effect – you might see people online saying ‘I don’t see a difference’ and assuming there was no big deal to begin with.
At the end of March, Beamdog Studios – the group responsible for bringing the Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale and other 90s classic games to the modern age – released an ‘enhanced edition’ of the venerable 2002 RPG ‘Neverwinter Nights’.
Monument Valley is a great portable game – it was Apple’s ‘ Game of the Year’ for 2014 and won countless ‘best game’ awards for iOS and Android that year. And while the sequel is also available, the original game remains beloved, and it tends to be the one I jump to more often than not.