In January of 2008, I was invited to attend the big auto show in Detroit courtesy of General Motors. Thing is, I was invited along with a group of new online media professionals, AKA bloggers. This was a new thing, on new digital platforms, and even the terminology got much debate during that trip just 10 years ago.
For those of you who don’t remember “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse”, one of the running gags involved a “secret word”. Basically, if anyone said the “secret word” everyone was supposed to scream. I would suggest playing that with CES 2018 and “digital assistant“, but we’d all lose our voices and our hearing within an hour.
The Google online store appears to still be struggling with assessing and honoring trade-in values for their flagship Pixel device. I ordered a Pixel 2 XL phone in mid-December 2017. At the same time I “locked in” a trade value of $405 for my old Pixel XL 128 GB provided it was returned within 30 days. At least I thought I had a fixed price for the trade.
If you’ve been hidden under a rock for the past week or so, you might not know that a large portion of America has been fighting against Ajit Pai, who’s the culprit in the FCC’s Net Neutrality meeting early Thursday morning, with went in his favor of repealing what are essentially our internet privileges and freedoms.
I have not had cable for almost three years. Instead, everyone in my house relies on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime for their entertainment needs, all on a Roku 3. It works quite well, and we probably pay around $25/month for the three services. Platinum Box is claiming to do the same thing but for free …
Do you know what Bitcoin is? You’ve probably heard of it, and maybe you’ve seen the zigzagging of potential value and wondered if you should own some for yourself. It’s important to be educated before you buy, and that’s where Gear Diary is hoping to help.
We have an LG washer/dryer set in my house. Overall, they’ve been fantastic, but a week ago the washer started having issues. It’s out of warranty, but according to LG, I could purchase a flat fee repair to get it fixed. Our other option was to call a local appliance repairman. I assumed that going through the manufacturer would be the more prudent solution. As it turned out, I was…
My son is obsessed with magnetic tile toys. He builds all sorts of elaborate items with them, from trucks to car garages to towering buildings. Last night he dug up the “Imagination” booklet from one set of Playmags tiles that showed the various tile combinations that could create all sorts of structures … including the Twin Towers.
Do you live out in the country or off-the-grid? Have you ever had to contemplate buying, installing, and using one of the many composting toilets on the market? If so, then this post is for you!
Sometimes, it’s not obvious how much stuff you’ve accumulated over the years until you move to another place and frantically try to fit all your possessions in boxes or plan a long-delayed spring cleaning day. It’s tough to realize that, no matter what you do, the space won’t ever look tidy because it’s too cluttered.
Marketing is a funny thing. Companies try really hard to show they support various causes, or craft targeted emails to celebrate specific holidays or themes. Sometimes this works. Sometimes it doesn’t. Toast sent out a very generic email yesterday to celebrate Pride month that missed the mark by a wide margin, though I don’t think that was their intention.
I made it through my first few days with an iPhone, but there have definitely been some ups and downs. It hasn’t been too bad, but there’s been a few times where I made a mistake that was solved by sheer dumb luck rather than ease of use.
I mentioned last week that my company is now only supporting iOS for our bring your own device program. Since I use BYOD regularly to stay connected outside the office, I caved and bought my wife a new iPhone 7, then inherited her iPhone 6S.
I am in the middle of trying to work with Verizon to change my phone from a Z Force Droid to an iPhone. It’s not by choice, but certain things I need to access for my day job recently went iPhone-only, so I need to switch to iOS. This process did lead to one big realization, which is that Android phones are significantly overpriced for the value.
It’s no secret that Amazon’s Echo devices are popular. The AI that powers the system, named Alexa, allows owners to do a lot of unique things, like ordering new products with voice commands or even controlling smart home technology. The space is really starting to get competitive with Google Home, and now what is rumored to be an Apple-branded smart voice assistant. That’s right — rumors claim Apple will be…
Digital assistants have come a long way in a relatively short amount of time. Starting with Apple’s clunky early iteration of Siri in 2011, it’s only taken a few years to get here, with multiple competitors in common use (including Cortana and Google Now) and dozens of new versions to come.
Lots of people lament the effect smartphones have had on social interaction. When people today hang out, it’s not uncommon for there to be moments or even minutes of silence as everyone in the group looks at their phones.
Someday YouTube TV may be great. That day, however, is not today. In less than 24-hours, I went from a trial subscriber to “no way.” Here’s why.
Super Mario Run is on Android! Hooray! I downloaded it the second I got the Google Play notification, but by the time I finished the free levels, I went from “whoo hoo” to “meh” pretty quickly.
I have always had dreadful handwriting. Most of my elementary school memories are of teachers trying all kinds of techniques to improve it, from handwriting drills to those funny triangle holders on my pencils. Nothing worked, and I sought out digital writing and typing as soon as technology and school allowed.
My son dug an old camera out of one of our drawers, and he’s been snapping non-stop photos since then. Most are blurry, but a few are decent, and one or two are surprisingly good!
