This week I had the pleasure of guesting on Myriam Joire’s Mobile Tech Podcast. While the emphasis of her podcast is mobile tech, trust me to go off on a tangent or five. We covered some of the latest mobile phones and touched on design … while lamenting the “evolutionary but not revolutionary” designs we’ve been seeing.
CNBC is reporting that ANOTHER data firm has been suspended for profiting off data they collected from your Facebook accounts. This is likely only the tip of the iceberg. Is it time to consider unfriending Facebook?
I don’t normally cover video games for Gear Diary; they just aren’t on my radar. But this week we received a pitch for a video game that made me so angry, I’m pretty sure my women’s studies degree became sentient, broke out of the frame in my office, and is currently trying to escape the building to protest. I’m glad it can’t, though, because then the creator of the Super Seducer video game might hit on it.
Russian Bots are working hard to shape American dissent and opinion; the indictments last week spell out their role in the 2016 election quite clearly. Just after the shooting in Parkland Florida, they went into high gear again. But how can we know who we are engaging or arguing with on Twitter? Make Adverbs Great Again is one way!
Apple’s absence from the smart speaker market is being corrected in early February with the release of the HomePod, but it won’t improve their fortunes in that market. It isn’t because HomePod is too expensive, or too late to the market, it’s because HomePod is handicapped by Siri. Sweet, but painfully useless Siri.
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 very, very, very wrong. Avoid LG Repair Service at all…
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 launching a smart speaker that will house Siri, the company’s…
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.
