2011

CESLive- Skype Press Conference: Acquires qik Plus More

The press conference with Skype brought some important news. There were 90 billion minutes of calls on Skype last year. Video is the next big thing in communication. They launched Skype for iPhone on New Years Eve. First day saw four million downloads and one million video calls! Then came the big news. Just announced that they have purchased qik. Also announced group video calls that let up to ten people talk at a time. Also adding more companies such as Visio and Sony into the live innovation. Panasonic is also adding Skype technology blueray players. All exciting news for…

Editorials, Game Diary

Nintendo Touts Record 2010 DS Sales … Can’t Spin Away Bad Wii Sales Trends

Yesterday I got an email from Nintendo titled “Nintendo DS and Wii Set New U.S. Sales Records in 2010”. The email touted a few figures, and here is a snippet: According to Nintendo’s internal sales figures, the Nintendo DS™ family of portable video game systems has sold more than 47 million in the United States since the original model launched in November 2004. That tally makes Nintendo DS the nation’s best-selling video game system of all time. For the second major milestone of 2010, Nintendo’s internal figures show that the Wii™ home console marked its third consecutive calendar year with…

News

Cool Tech Stuff: Next Mars Rover to Use Laser Spectrometer for ‘Real Time’ Decision-Making

Image courtesy of Wired One of the big problems with remote exploration using automated systems is figuring out what is important and using that information to make decisions that will allow you to alter your collection plans to gain more information during the study. When sending an automated exploration vehicle to Mars, those problems are amplified enormously – space and power become a huge issue. Look at this example from a new article at PhotonicsOnline: After NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit examined an outcrop called “Comanche” in 2005, it took years of analyzing indirect evidence before the team could confidently…

News

Mac App Store Now Live With >1,000 Apps, Requires OS X 10.6.6 Update

This morning I got a couple of emails from Apple, but the one that immediately grabbed my attention was “The Mac App Store. Grand opening today.” There isn’t much to tell as of yet – there are over 1,000 apps loaded up and ready to go, and the process of checking everything out is as simple as using the iTunes App Store! I haven’t bought anything yet, as I took care of iLife, MS Office and MobileMe before the holidays. One thing to note: as stated in the press release below, to get the App Store you need to grab…

Music Diary

Random Cool Video: Josh Groban Sings the Tweets of Kanye West

Aside from liking his short stint on Ally McBeal back in the 90’s I have never been a fan of Josh Groban. As for Kanye West, I have been poring over his latest recording and trying to come up with a review that says more than ‘interesting music ruined whenever Mr. West opens his damn mouth’! But put them together? Pure gold! This cool video reminds me of some of the great fake commercials from Saturday Night Live and In Living Color in years past … and is simply worth watching. The overly dramatic tone of Groban’s great voice with…

Events, News

Video Exclusive: ioSafe Rugged Portable Hard Drive Given a Hard Time!

We just posted the release of ioSafe’s newest hard drive product right here. Just like last year, Dan, Judie and Larry were able to see the ioSafe perform in person. Last year, the demo showed how well their products stand up to fire which was right up Larry’s alley. This year they dragged one behind a van then shot it! To make it even better, the Gear Diary editors get to take the shots!!! Of course, I am saying Judie and Kevin took the best shots since they are fellow Texans and all. Watch the video and I promise you…

Reviews

iPad App Review: SPQR

Way back in high school I took four years of Latin. I know, I know – the common wisdom now is ‘why learn a dead language’ unless you are going into medicine? Yet Latin taught me more than a single language – it is the basis of many of the modern languages, and has helped me learn other languages more quickly through the years. So when I saw a full-featured Latin app, I simply HAD to check it out! The Hype: SPQR is the ultimate app for Latin lovers, Latin teachers and Latin students who want to immerse themselves in…

News

Astraware and Digital Eel launch Weird Worlds: Return To Infinite Space on the iPad

Along with all of the gadgets at CES, some new games are also being released this week. Astraware has just released a new iPad game, Weird Worlds: Return To Infinite Space. This is the iPad take on the Mac/PC game of the same name. The iPad seems like a great platform to engage in space combat. Here is the complete release from Astraware. Watch soon for a full review. Astraware and Digital Eel launch Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space on the iPad Staffordshire, UK – January 5th 2011 – Astraware® is excited to announce it’s going to be a…

News

On the 25th Anniversary of Rocky IV, Take a Quiz to Remind You of a Time Long Ago …

Just before Christmas Rocky IV was on cable yet again, and I watched the last hour of it with my wife and kids. While it was never what anyone would call a ‘good’ movie, certainly not like the original Rocky, it has often been a guilty pleasure because it executes perfectly on the whole built-up feel-good emotional roller-coaster motif. But watching it with kids who were born after the memory of the Soviet era had exited the cultural mainstream brought just how out-of-date all of the Cold War jingoism has become. I would have to put Rocky IV into the…

Events, News

CES: Day 2 Begins…

CES is off and running. We’ve added an image collection to the right-hand side of the site so you can follow our experience.

Music Diary

Music Diary Notes: ‘Shocking’ Poll Alert – Most Music Fans Want Apple to Price-Match Amazon!

OK, every now and then I see a poll that has me not so much looking at the results as thinking ‘what did the OTHER bunch of people think’? Over at MusicMagazineUK there is a new article with poll results to questions posed last week. There were three questions, and all were Yes/No. Here are the results: 86% of people want a price match with Amazon’s services. 71% of people want Apple to reduce the restrictions on variable song and album pricing. 57% of people are unconcerned about easier integration with third party services. Note that the last result was…

Events, News

Lenovo Reveals the New IdeaPad U1 with LePad Slate

We’ve been hearing about the Lenovo IdeaPad U1 since CES 2010. Well Lenovo is finally ready to reveal and demo the IdeaPad U1 with LePad slate at CES 2011 at the Venetian. The U1 is a ultramobile laptop uses a slate running Android 2.2, called LePad as it’s screen. Specs for the tablet include a Snapdragon processor and the laptop portion will be a 1.3 GHz CULV Core i5 chip with 2 Gig of Ram running the 64 bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium. It will be available first in China in the first quarter of 2011 with no…

Events, News

Another Way to Help Haiti In Addition to Supporting Our No Baggage Challenge for Charity

As you, hopefully, know by now, Larry and I have embarked upon a week-long No Baggage Challenge for Charity. We left the East Coast yesterday morning with just the clothes on our backs and arrived in Las Vegas for CES a few hours later. We are already getting into a routine of determining what we’re going to wear one day while washing the clothes we wore the previous one. It’s a great way to demonstrate how little we actually need while traveling- especially when using SCOTTEVEST clothing, but there is an additional reason why we are doing this. It was…

Reviews

CarCheckup OBD II Scan Tool and Data Logger Review: A Worthy Addition to Any Toolbox

Everyone has that one friend or family member that seems to be the guy you go to when having car troubles. CarCheckup recently sent me their latest automotive scanner and data logger to review, so I happily obliged and ran it for a few days in a late model Mazda 3. The CarCheckup is kind of like swiss army tool for your automotive computer and does a great job exporting the data to a very usable and readable format. The device is a small plastic module that connects to your OBDII port under your dash which is a direct link to the…

Events, News, Vehicles & Gear

2 Shows, 7 Days, 8 Letters: CES, NAIAS

Clean out your inboxes and keep your smartphones charged – two of the biggest events of the year are about to bombard the (tech-savvy/info-hungry) world with headlines, sound bites and image overload. CES kicks off the new year with the annual “everything electronics” show this week in Las Vegas and right on the heels of that comes press days at the North American International Auto Show out of Detroit. Both shows will undoubtedly be celebrating a rebound-of-sorts of the economy while looking towards a brighter, GREENER future. While the crack GearDiary team will be providing up-to-the-minute coverage from the show…

Game Diary, Reviews

iPad Game Review: Puzzle Quest 2

Last August I reviewed the DS and PC versions of Puzzle Quest 2. The quick summary of my review is that “the game made good as a true sequel to the “Casual Meets Hardcore and Loves It!” surprise hit from 2007″. In early December Puzzle Quest 2 arrived on the iTunes App Store in the form of a Universal app with Game Center support. So how did it do in the translation? The Hype: Puzzle Quest 2 marks the return of the world’s leading puzzle adventure series and its trademark blend of match 3 gem-based gameplay and fantasy role-playing. Rewarding…

Events, News

AMD Makes Processors Sound Exciting!

I love corporate thrillers. One of my favorite books of all time is “Paranoia” by Joseph Finder, an awesome espionage/thriller with cool twists. However, despite being big geek words like “silicon” and “graphics chip” don’t really pique my interest. However, AMD has put together an AWESOME trailer for their newest chips, and if this doesn’t make you at least a little curious about their CES announcements, well, you’re clearly not an action fan!

eBooks, Editorials

Why Barnes and Noble Shouldn’t Buy Borders

Rich Adin has an editorial making the rounds of the ebook world today, where he argues that B&N should snap Borders up for several strategic reasons. His reasons aren’t bad, per se, but I think he underestimates much of the risks and pitfalls in his ideas, and they come from a more idealist view than a realistic business one. Let’s go through his ideas one by one and I’ll interject where I disagree: First, it can immediately close all the b&m stores that currently compete with its own brand. This would increase traffic to its own brand for those of…

Game Diary, Reviews

Destination Treasure Island PC Game Review

Destination Treasure Island has point-and-click adventures with a great storyline, automatic save points, and considerable inventory management system.

News

George Lucas and the Misunderstood Genius of the Prequel Trilogy?

Despite growing up only a few miles from the original Dunkin Donuts, I have uniformly disliked the advertisements for the shop since enjoying the original ‘Time to Make the Donuts’ commercial … not the least reason for which was that ‘Fred the Baker’ looked much like the guy I worked for through high school and for several breaks during college! The reason I mention that I find the most recent ads annoying, and my wife tells me to stop thinking so much. Over-analysis of movies is pretty much a given, and over the last year or so we have had…

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