Editorials | Gear Diary

Editorials May 9, 2011

2000 Posts and Counting: A 2001 a Gear Odyssey

(Huge thanks to Mike for the idea and the title) Last night I posted my 2000th post on Gear Diary. Yes, since I joined the writing staff of the site in July of 2008 I have written 2000 posts. (With this one 2001.) My very first post was a review of the mStation 2.1 Stereo Tower. My second post was a brief revisit to the Beyza Thinvelope for MacBook Air, a case Judie had previously reviewed. My next posts were of iPod and iPhone cases as well as a review of an external battery for the iPhone. I mention these…

eBooks, Editorials May 6, 2011

B&N and Amazon Planning Big eReader Hardware Refreshes?

Looks like B&N and Amazon aren’t resting on their past successes. Rumors are pegging both companies as having some refreshed hardware coming soon, possibly a tablet for Amazon and an original NOOK refresh for B&N! Let’s start with Amazon’s tablet. The rumor, admittedly unconfirmed, is that some sort of LCD-based device is coming from Amazon later this year to combat the incredible success of the NOOKcolor. Amazon has all the pieces in place for a fantastic device, with an app store, a tablet-optimized version of the Kindle app, plus the added bonus of Amazon MP3 and the new Amazon Prime…

Editorials May 5, 2011

GD QuickRant: Healthy Kids vs. Junk Food: This is America, so Obviously Junk Food Wins

Apparently the Revolution WON’T Be Televised … Last week I wrote about Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, and while I took some issue with his cost models and plans for implementation, I agreed with his core point: our country is rapidly becoming ‘the land of the morbidly obese’, and rather than worrying about ‘long form birth certificates’ or who won celebrity whatever, we should get up off our butts and DO something about it! So what should we do about it? Apparently the answer is that school districts will learn to shut Oliver out, and his response to the lock-out will…

Editorials May 4, 2011

Choosing Not to Share in a World of Over-Sharing, the President Takes the Lead

This photograph of the President and his staff watching the assault that eventually led to the death of bin Laden in real-time, is on track to be the most viewed image in Flickr’s history. The emotion on their faces, Secretary of State Clinton’s hand over her mouth and the laser focus of the President Obama’s eyes on the screen say pretty much everything that needs to be said about the importance of the moment. Since Sunday night there has been great speculation about whether or not an image of the terrorist’s body would be released. The debate has raged and…

Editorials, Events May 3, 2011

BlackBerry World 2011: Is RIM Knocking It Out of the Park or Lobbing Soft Balls?

[image via Yahoo News] This week’s BlackBerry World Conference is meant to show off the latest and greatest BlackBerry products and software offerings — as well as give a sneak peek into what RIM, the makers of the popular BlackBerry smartphones and PlayBook tablet — have planned. Unlike many prior years (where the conference was branded as the Wireless Enterprise Symposium, or WES for short), there is a sense that RIM is struggling with the challenge of reinventing its brand and platform. Recent announcements such as the new crop of BlackBerry smartphones and PlayBook updates are…to be blunt, falling…

eBooks, Editorials April 29, 2011

The New York Times Ethical Dilemma

I love the New York Times “Ethicist” column, but this past weekend they ran a question that brings up many ethical dilemmas, including a conflict of interest for the Grey Lady herself. First, the question: I’m a 24-year-old freelance journalist who’s still somewhat dependent on my parents. And I’m on nytimes.com dozens of times a day. My parents are print subscribers and thus have access beyond the pay wall. Need I buy my own subscription? Also, if I buy online access, can I share the password with my live-in girlfriend, even if I move to New York for the summer?…

Editorials, News & Features April 27, 2011

GD QuickRant: TSA Redefines Terrorism …

Image courtesy of IVCaffeine … To Include Being Unhappy With Their Unconstitutional Screening Practices. Over at CNN there is an article that highlights a recent move by the TSA to categorize profiling of those who are unhappy with the potential added security screening as ‘potential threats’. There is also a video report. Here are a couple of quotes: the TSA‘s crack behavior detection officers are now on the lookout for “anyone who displays arrogance or expresses contempt for the screening process.” Why? Because scientific anti-terror detection techniques have now apparently revealed that complaining about poor treatment from airport security indicates…

Editorials, Gear Bits April 27, 2011

A Marriage Statistic

Note that the above chart is missing one key slice. In 2004, Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage. No World Wars or other disasters befell the state, but the Red Sox won the World Series! So remember, in the event of same-sex marriage, two people get married AND long-standing bad sports curses break. Win-win! (And that really is the most exciting thing that happens. As Dan loves pointing out, Sarah and I are just as boring as every other couple!) Via Good.is

Editorials April 26, 2011

Seriously, the White iPhone 4??? Who Cares!?

I know I’ll likely get flamed in the comments below but I don’t really care; not when it comes to the reason for this post at least. Why? Because seriously I’m in a total quandry about this and I would LOVE your help in understanding it. My question: WHO CARES ABOUT THE WHITE IPHONE???? Seriously. Who cares about an almost year-old design in a color that will show smudges and dirt better than just about anything other than smudges and dirt?? Who wants to pay full price or get locked into a 2-year contract when the device is now moving…

Editorials April 26, 2011

The Revolution is Televised … But Will it be Subsidized?

Last year chef Jamie Oliver made a big splash by heading into a small school district in West Virginia and looking at what the kids were being fed … and then tracking back to homes and seeing the source of the issues. While our own kids are not overweight, several of their friends are (and there are some kids – girls in particular – with fed issues of different types) so it was a great discussion. It turns out that the food choices our kids have might be somewhat better than those in the West Virginia school system shown, but…

Editorials April 23, 2011

Spring Cleaning: If an App Doesn’t Work with Evernote or Dropbox? Buh-Bye!

There are specific iPad applications that are key to my productivity day in and day out, and the “qualities” they need to have if I am to use them has evolved over time. Looking back over the ways in which they have changed in the last year or so, I realized that there is a specific pattern to those applications that have become more central to my work and daily life and those that were once useful but have fallen off the island. Strikingly, these changes have less to do with the applications themselves and more to do with secondary…

Editorials April 15, 2011

Apple’s 4GB Problem

Last night I was greeted with yet another iOS update when I hooked up my iPod Touch, so as usual I let iTunes go ahead and update. It was also updating some of my apps, so I checked the progress. As usual, the update was > 600MB. Later I hooked up my iPad 2 … same thing – another 600+ MB download. Then this morning I went to sync up my original iPad. That’s right – another 600+ MB download! So now I have downloaded nearly 2GB of data for my three iOS devices – must be some pretty important…

Editorials April 14, 2011

BlackBerry PlayBook First Impressions

First impressions mean a lot when you are talking about technology. No, it does not sell a device or keep you using it, but it does make the difference when you’re considering a purchase in the first place. Given that many of the initial reviews are less than stellar, I wasn’t sure what my first impression of the BlackBerry PlayBook would be. That noted, I just had the chance to have my hands on one for a few minutes, and my first impressions are actually quite good. I have always liked the size of the Samsung Galaxy Tab, and this…

Editorials, Game Diary April 13, 2011

Gear Games Viewpoint: The Two Sides of DRM

If you have Dragon Age: Origins with loads of DLC like I do and have tried to play in the past week, one of four thing has happened: * You have been unable to use your DLC, and therefore unable to play your saved games. * You were offline and had no issues. * You bought a retail copy but have a ‘cracked’ executable and have had no issues. * You pirated the game and DLC and have had no issues. We’ll return to that list in a second, but yes – for nearly a week PC (and Mac) gamers…

Editorials April 10, 2011

How to Win the Tablet War Against the iPad? It’s Not Even a Battle, I’m Afraid

Brandon over on Just Another iPhone Blog has a provocative post up today entitled “How to Win the Tablet War Against the iPad”. The simple answer to the title is: sell a Wi-Fi Samsung Galaxy Tab for just $349.99. That’s a full $150 less than you can get an iPad 2 for. Both have 16 GB of storage. Both are only Wi-Fi enabled. One costs $150 less. Brandon makes some good arguments about why this is the right strategy. His core point, So, this is how you win the war. You build a solid device and you sell it at…

Editorials April 10, 2011

Do Publishers Still Matter?

It all started when Doug mentioned this article on Idealog from Mike Shatzkin: Putting Books in Stores is a Subsidiary Right. This sparked a debate between us on the nature of publishing, and whether traditional publishers make sense if you’re a new author in today’s market. Doug: All I could think was, “Good work, publishers! You’ll alienate your writers even more than you already have, and *they’re the ones providing you with a product to sell*!” The ongoing stupidity of old media–music, magazines, newspapers, tv, books, you-name-it–continues to simply amaze. Carly: Very interesting. Honestly, this isn’t that surprising, and I…

Editorials, Music Diary April 8, 2011

Grammy Awards Reconfigured Result of Major Label Pressure?

Yesterday the Recording Academy announced major changes to the annual Grammy Awards, reducing the number of categories from 109 at the last awards show to 78. For those who think the awards show is already over-long and unfocused, the changes may seem too long in coming. But nothing done will impact the actual show, since most of what is changed isn’t the stuff that makes the Grammy Awards a long and dreadful affair … The image at top shows part of a list that the Recording Academy has for comparing the current list of categories to what will be around…

Editorials, Game Diary April 7, 2011

Yet Another Reason I Hate Sony

While I mentioned that Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars came out two weeks ago for just about every platform, I’m still not playing it yet. Why not? Because due to my play habits and the game style of the LEGO games, I love playing on the PSP. Also, my favorite PSP is the PSP Go, which then means that I have to wait for the PSN release – sometimes same day, sometimes later, sometimes never. In this case it was known there would be a delayed launch, which meant that I would just have to keep an eye…

Editorials, Events April 6, 2011

How Tru Saved My Bacon in Barcelona

Once I had decided that I was going to Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Spain, I knew that one of my biggest “hidden” expenses was going to be what appeared on my mobile phone bill well after I had returned home. I fully expected to spend as much as $500 – 600 on top of my usual monthly bill during a week abroad between phone calls, text messages and whatever data I didn’t put on the Spanish SIM I had just purchased on eBay. Even though I had added AT&T’s $5.99/month “World Traveler” International Voice Roaming package (which meant that…

Editorials, Game Diary April 5, 2011

Angry Birds ‘Success’ – Popularity at No Price?

We just learned that the latest entry in the bird launching franchise – Angry Birds Rio – has been downloaded 10 million times in the first 10 days. We also recently heard that the franchise as a whole has passed 100 million downloads, and a month ago that the Android version has netted 30 million downloads. These massive download figures have caused some to make various statements about it being the most popular video game ever, etc. In contrast, between 2005 and 2010 Tetris *sold* more than 100 million cell phone copies. While the difference in time scales is notable,…

Editorials April 5, 2011

Tablets the Answer to Smartphone Distraction in Classrooms and Meetings? Could Be!

There is an interesting article that appeared in yesterday’s Financial Times. The article makes the point that smartphones are a tremendous distraction when used in meetings and classrooms. The cure? Tablets like the iPad and Motorola Xoom. Before you dismiss it hear the author out. The article picks up off of an MP delivering a speech in the House of Commons using his iPod. (As someone who uses the iPad for services, weddings and funerals this isn’t all that newsworthy for me but, then again, I’m far from the norm.) Shortly thereafter the Speaker of the House said that he…