Gear Bits

5 Questions with Michael Hess of Skooba Design

Skooba Design was Gear Diary’s first advertiser back when Judie first launched the site. They were also the first company to become a Newsletter Underwriter. We tell you that in the interest of full disclosure, but what’s more important is that we really love AND use their stuff. Most recently, we were both taken by the new Skooba Design Laptop Weekender V.3, and are already getting a lot of use out of them. (Read the review here.) Skooba makes great products, and now comes outside confirmation of something that we’ve known for some time: they provide great customer service. Skooba…

Gear Bits, News

The Waiting (for Android Updates) is the Hardest Part

I have a Motorola Droid 4 – and I really love it. That said, it is lousy being not just one but TWO VERSIONS of Android behind … I mean, this is the sort of thing Google said they were eliminating. Anyway … that is about to end! Yesterday I read that the ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’ update was finally approved and a ‘soak test’ commenced, meaning that the full update would be released soon (unless something bad happened). Then later last night I heard that it was starting to ‘roll out in phases’. Motorola Mobility tweeted about it: 4G LTE…

Game Diary, Gear Bits

You Should REALLY Be Watching Wil Wheaton’s ‘TableTop’ Series!

Yesterday afternoon I had some time before taking Chris to his piano lesson, and I fired up the latest edition of Wil Wheaton’s TableTop, this week featuring the game ‘Say Anything’ (Amazon link). Soon I had both boys pulling up chairs and thoroughly enjoying watch someone else play a board game. Here is the basis of the show: My ulterior motive with Tabletop is to show by example how much fun it is to play boardgames. I want to show that Gamers aren’t all a bunch of weirdoes who can’t make eye contact when they talk to you, and that…

Gear Bits, Yum Log

Spray Your Way to Umami Today

If you’re any sort of foodie, you’re probably familiar with the concept of “umami.” Along with sweet, sour, bitter and Salty, umami is the fifth taste which humans can discern in their food. Great food has an interplay between several of these tastes. Think peanut butter pretzels or salted caramel ice cream. Just typing those words kicks off my Pavlovian response. Umami translates roughly from Japanese into English as “pleasant savory taste.” It is described as kind of a cross between brothy and meaty, and probably the best way to evoke it is to think of the slightly funky flavor…

Gear Bits, News

RIP Willy Wonka Director Mel Stuart

One of my favorite movies of all time is the classic 1971 feature Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Today we learned that the director Mel Stuart has died at age 83. Mel Stuart, the director of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, has died aged 83. His family said he died at his Beverly Hills home after suffering from cancer. Beginning his career mainly directing documentaries, the 1971 adaptation of Roald Dahl’s book was Stuart’s second feature film. He was nominated for an Oscar in 1965 for his documentary, Four Days in November, about the assassination of John F…

Gear Bits, News

xkcd Puts Names to What Our Cultural Memory Will Forget Each Year

Today’s comic from xkcd really struck me – even more than their normally awesome work – because it looks at something I deal with on a seemingly daily basis: cultural memory. My wife and I were born in the mid-60s, so I remember watching Watergate, seeing Jaws and Star Wars in theaters, gas lines, and on and on. Some things like watching Bullitt this week and seeing rotary phones and the utter un-connectedness really stood out with my kids, whereas stuff like music and other pop culture items have filtered somewhat through time. Myy wife works with many young adults…

Gear Bits, News

Court Documents Bring to Light Dismal Samsung Tablet Sales Numbers

For nearly two years I have been like a broken record: I simply never believed the numbers Samsung was supposedly selling in terms of tablets. Worse still, having put out a single unofficial number before switching to ‘percent improvement in shipments’, groups like the IDC and Gartner grabbed the initial number and then just applied the percent increase. This played out again last week in the numbers reported by the IDC showing that Samsung held the #2 tablet slot with 9.6% market share with ~2.4 million units sold. I like the Samsung tablets pretty well and they have created a…

Gear Bits

Apple and Samsung Profits Go to 11!

Imagine if you put $100 in $1 bills up for grabs in a classroom science experiment competition, with money divided up based on overall score decided by the rest of the school. You come into the room and ask for reports from the top 5 scorers. The first one hands you $71; the next one hands you $37 … wait, WHAT?!? That is right – Apple and Samsung combined for 108% of the total smartphone profits for the quarter. How does that work? Well, it means that the rest of the industry LOST money. Also, look at the market share…

Gear Bits, News

Apple’s New ‘All on the iPad’ Commercial Reminds Us Again It Is an iPad World

Depending on what market you are looking at, Apple controls ~68 – 72% of the tablet market. That is a level of singular dominance well beyond the monopoly of Google Search, as a comparison. And the funny thing is, I STILL don’t trust the Samsung numbers, so the iPad share might be higher! Of course, with the successful launch of the Google Nexus 7 (and countless tales of difficulties trying to return or exchange same), we can expect to see the numbers shift somewhat – though it is pretty clear that sales of the Nexus 7 will obliterate the Kindle…

Gear Bits, Travel

This Video of First Class on an Emerates Airlines A380 Will Have You Hating Coach More than Ever

I hate flying. Hate it. And I hate flying Coach even more. At 6′ 1 1/2″ the fact that he seats are getting closer and closer is not only annoying, it is downright uncomfortable. And when I’ve flown coach to Israel… ouch!!!! I have, thankfully, taken that long flight in Business First a few times and it made a huge difference. Regardless, even then I hated flying. What could make me like it more? Something like what Emerates Airlines offers in 1st Class on their A380. You know, it is the little things, like a fully stocked bar, gourmet food…

Gear Bits

iPad Mini Oh My Aching Wrists, Let It Be REAL!

I’m sitting outside reading and checking the site on my new iPad. (Okay, and I’m also playing through Kingdom Rush for the third time. They really NEED to come out with Kingdom Rush 2 already!!) And while I’m really loving my iPad, I am hoping the rumors about the iPad-mini are actually true. Sure, as we noted here, the smaller iPad makes sense from a market perspective. It would fill the gap that currently sits between the $199 iPod touch and the $399 iPad 2. And sure, it would let Apple compete with the likes of the Google Nexus 7…

Gear Bits, News

Good Movies Actually Do Better at the Box Office

Conventional wisdom would say that movie-going crowds reward some of the worst movies with some of the highest box office grosses, particularly during the summer months. In fact, there are web sites devotes to that very premise. It is an interesting and amusing thought … but is it TRUE? That is what one person looked to answer, using available data and statistical analysis. Here is the setup: It is common to argue that there is a divide between critics and audiences. Critics prefer arthouse dramas, preferably in black-and-white; audiences like things that go boom. Thanks to countless explosions and few…

Gear Bits, Outdoors

Fun Facts About the Olympic Marathons in History

It is track and field time at the Olympics, and that means it’s time for the men’s and women’s marathons! All of the running events are fun to watch if you are a runner, but the Olympic marathon is special. Since the women’s marathon is Sunday, Runners World has an awesome list of nine big moments in Olympic history. All of these will come in handy at your next quiz night, but my personal favorite is the story of Emil Zatopek: As the 1952 helsinki olympics drew to a close, Czech-oslovakia’s Emil Zatopek, 29, had already won the 5000 meters…

Editorials, Gear Bits

NBC’s Olympic Coverage Punishes Broadcast TV Watchers

There’s been plenty of ink spilled about how NBC is mishandling the Olympics. But Sarah and I are watching them tonight, and she just went on quite the rant that I hadn’t considered. See, NBC ran a whole special on the 1996 Women’s Gymnastics game, and Kerri Strug’s inspirational vault to seal the gold medal. It was followed up by an interview with Bela Karolyi. Both were nice to watch, but they highlighted a huge fail of NBC’s coverage: for so-called “prime time” Olympics, it was 8:30 before any current sports were shown! Yes, NBC has apps. And there are…

Gear Bits, News

Instant Business Card to Contacts Conversion with INTSIG’s CamCard App

If you’re a member of the professional world, you’re probably used to pocketing business cards like a pro. You slide them right into your pocket, only to fumble them out later for the information you need. It’s not a terrible system. If you’re a smart phone owner, however, you’ll know how time-consuming it is to manually enter business card information into your contacts. INTSIG’s CamCard app makes that process a lot faster and easier. Using your smartphone’s camera as a rudimentary scanner, the app targets the necessary information from the photo and converts it into your address book. The app,…

Gear Bits, Music Diary, News

Dave Chisholm Releases ‘Bonus Track’ for Calligraphy

As 2011 ended I reviewed Dave Chisholm’s ‘Calligraphy’ and had this to say: ‘Calligraphy’ surprised me by how much I liked the entire thing. With Radioactive I enjoyed the album, but only truly fell in love with one song that has stuck with me for more than 18 months and countless new releases crossing my iPod. ‘Calligraphy’ has a uniform excellence in composition, playing, and overall execution that will keep it on my iPod and recommended listening list for a long time to come. I can’t wait to see what Dave comes up with next. The album impressed me enough…

Gear Bits, News

Amazon Instant Video Comes to the iPad!

Yesterday when we talked about Hulu coming to Apple TV, my comment was that if Amazon Instant Video was also available, I would no longer have a need for the Roku. Guess what? Amazon Instant Video is now available! Here is the description: Watch thousands of titles available from Prime Instant Video at no additional cost with an Amazon Prime membership and over 120,000 videos available from the Amazon Instant Video store by installing the Amazon Instant Video app. Download purchased and rented videos from Your Video Library for offline viewing on airplanes, road trips, or any time a WiFi…

Gear Bits, Music Diary

Non-News of the Day – Pop Music Getting Louder and Harmonically Bland

There has been loads of talk in recent years about the loss in dynamic range of music – the so-called ‘loudness wars’. Basically, to make the quick impression required by the short-attention span internet age listener, a song needs to ‘pop’ and has about 10-15 seconds to do it. The quick cure for that is simply to bring everything to the front in the mix and make the difference between the loudest and softest sounds smaller (i.e. reduce the dynamic range). Now a study noted at Reuters looks at this in further detail, as well as categorizing the ‘musical diversity’,…

Gear Bits

Mountain Lion Roars 3 Million Times, and Now It Is Time to “Read” the Manual

OS X Mountain Lion, the Apple’s updated desktop operating system, is already a big hit. Downloaded over 3 million times in less than a week, the OS looks pretty much the same as OS X Lion, but it adds some great features. Mountain Lion is, according to Apple’s Phil Schiller, “the most successful [operating system] release ever”. What Mountain Lion does is key for any of us who use an iPhone and/or an iPad; it gives Mac desktops and laptops the same tools already been available to us on mobile devices.In other words, it integrates the Apple-experience. iMessage, Notifications, Notes…

Gear Bits, Outdoors

Stuffa Jacket Holds ALL Your Stuff

(image courtesy Stuffa) The folks at Gizmodo have stumbled upon a fascinating new clothing line, called the “Stuffa” jacket. It’s a jacket with pockets designed to hold several day’s worth of clothing. What an original concept. I wonder where they got the idea from… Actually, all sarcasm aside, the creator says he had the idea while watching people get creamed by baggage fees: I flew home late April with the remaining staff. It was at Geneva airport that the fun of checking in started and the idea for Stuffa first came to me. Everyone was having to pay the excess…

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