Last week I mentioned that Sarah’s iPhone 5C had briefly and tragically became a water table toy. While it did miraculously boot up, the speakers tended to drift in and out of functionality, and we feared there might be further issues down the road, so we initiated an insurance replacement, and discovered Asurion‘s excellent customer service!
“Kindle Unlimited” has a nice ring to it. That’s probably why Amazon uses that name and not, say, “Kindle 10-at-a-time”, which is the more accurate assessment of the service. If you plan to load up before a vacation, bear in mind, you’re capped at 10 books before you have to “return” one!
I love my HTC One M8; the Boomsound speakers, sharp screen, fast processor, and excellent Sense UI skin all make for a fabulous experience. If you’re looking for a similar phone on prepaid services at a reasonable price, then you should check out the new HTC Desire 610 and 816!
When our son was an infant, we toted him around in a baby carrier. It worked great when he was tiny, but as he grew, it became too uncomfortable. We wanted to be able to carry him on hikes and other outdoor adventures, so with that goal in mind, we recently put the Chicco Smart Support backpack to the test.
Our son has a water activity table that he LOVES. Every toy gets a dunk in the water table, and today that included Sarah’s iPhone 5C. We currently have it in a bag of rice, so we will see. The Gear Diary team is pretty pessimistic, with most putting the odds of survival at 20/80 or 30/70. What’s your bet? How discouraging were my “nay-saying friends”? Read onto see their comments on Sarah’s iPhone Disaster: Travis Ehrlich 20/80. Survival/finished. Carly Zektzer What about the likelood the phone works but the speakers are fried? Travis Ehrlich Plausible. In still going…
Fitness watches are enjoying a very sudden surge in popularity. People are buzzing about Fitbit, and Nike Fuel, and quantifying their movements and sleep for optimal health. Magellan is entering that market with the new Echo Fit, a “smart sports watch” that uses Bluetooth to sync to various fitness apps, from Runkeeper to Strava and plenty others.
It's been said for a very long time that the digital camera as a standalone gadget is a dying business. Smartphones are getting better as cameras, and as apps improve shooting and sharing photos, it has become less and less important to have a standalone camera. This past week I had two experiences that really sealed that message for me.
We are on vacation in Woodstock, NY, and the local bookstore had a very entertaining comic in the window. If the picture isn’t clear, it shows a 90lb weakling getting stronger from reading the complete works of Plato in hardcover, then smacking for using an ebook reader on the beach. Certainly one advantage to hardcover!
We were using a generic LL Bean backpack as a diaper bag, but when sent the Case Logic Berkeley Plus to review, we switched to it as our main backpack and never looked back. This is a backpack meant for a 15.6″ laptop, but we found it does an amazing job holding kiddo stuff PLUS delicate electronics; it’s only $59.99.
Amazon has officially announced Kindle Unlimited, a $9.99 all-you-can-read monthly ebook subscription. This was leaked earlier in the week, but now we have more details on this ebook and audiobook service!
My name is Carly and I have a very shameful confession: I’ve become hooked on Kim Kardashian: Hollywood. I want to stop, but every time I think it’s over, I duck back in…one more chance to make the A-list. Worse, I’ve dragged Judie into my shame spiral, and now we’re both addicted. At least we both have nice virtual houses.
My Toyota Prius and I hit a major milestone last night-100,000 miles! I have been counting down excitedly for months, and it hit me this morning why this means so much to me. It’s not about the mileage, but about the memories and amazing life changes that so many of those miles mean.
Last week Google rolled out a pretty big update to Google Now. Among those updates was a sneaky trick; if you have an Android 4.4 device, use Google Now to search “Ok Google Everywhere”. Now head to your Google Now settings and select “Ok Google detection”. You now have Google Now everywhere! Judie, Dan and I discovered this fun trick Sunday, and so far I haven’t noticed a major battery hit on my HTC One M8. It has prompted me to discover some very cool tricks that Google Now has up its sleeve. For example, this morning I was driving…
Judie and I were huge fans of eWallet from its earliest days, back when we used Palms; we synced the info on our Palms to the eWallet program on our desktop PCs. Later on we used eWallet on our Pocket PCs. Once the app became available for iOS, we loaded it onto our iPhones and eventually also on our Macs.
I have fond memories of zipping down the slight hill in our backyard on a slip n slide, but we never did anything beyond gentle landings. This video popped up recently on Facebook, and while I can’t say I would try this, I am impressed with the people who did! What about you? Are you ready to try this? 😉
There are stunts and then there are stunts. This video shows a real-world stunt that’s proves the power of Hyundai’s tech. Seriously… Watch the video, and then try to deny that some small part of you wants to go buy a Hyundai Genesis RIGHT NOW. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EPTIXldrq3Q Via Jalopnik
Hypothetical situation: You have the CEO of a major company on your morning news show for an interview. This CEO has been under the microscope for good news (positive sales numbers) and bad news (product issues). So what’s tops on your list of questions? How to fix the products? Why are sales strong? Are they a good parent? Wait, what?!
If you’re looking to cut cable, Simple.TV should be on your shopping list. Combined with an over the air antenna, you get a DVR that supports iOS, Android, and Roku without having to sell your soul to the cable company. Now Simple.TV is adding support for Windows 8.1 and Plex, this is great timing considering Aereo’s loss today!
I really love my HTC One M8, but hands down its best feature is the “Boomsound” speakers. Tonight I was playing Pandora on the deck for our son, and Sarah could hear the music across the backyard so clearly she thought I was using Bluetooth speakers! Not many phones can claim that kind of speaker power, especially outdoors!
For years I used a GPS in my car, but that’s been replaced by my smartphone. I miss having the GPS mounted to my dashboard, so I was very excited to check out the iBolt line of car mounts and their complementary “Dock ‘n Drive” apps. Does this turn the phone into the ultimate safe car accessory?
Over the weekend we finished season 2 of “Orange is the New Black“. Now my wife Sarah and I are going through withdrawal, which led to Sarah suggesting a brilliant opportunity for Netflix — a documentary with real life prisoners to tie into the popularity of the show.