News & Features | Gear Diary

News & Features August 27, 2012

Before There Was Google Latitude, Foursquare or Facebook, There Was APRS

Hello! W3RAZ again here on Gear Diary, for some more amateur radio goodness. Today I am writing about APRS. APRS? What’s that? We’ll it’s in many ways the precursor to Google Latitude and all of these apps on phones that have you checking into places, but it was invented 20 years ago by WB4APR, Bob Bruninga. It uses one of the most commonly used digital modes in Amateur Radio, Packet. APRS or Automatic Position Reporting System is a system for using a GPS, where a Terminal Node Controller (similar to a modem) and a radio are used to report your…

Gear Bits, News & Features August 27, 2012

George Lucas and Seth Green Debut New “Star Wars” Cartoon

Through the Star Wars movies and Clone Wars cartoons, we got to know the main and side characters through their major exploits across the galaxy. But what about “what the daily life is like in a galaxy far, far away”? Well, now producers George Lucas and Seth Green are going to let us see that, in the form of a new cartoon series called ‘Star Wars Detours’. Here is what their YouTube description for the trailer had to say: Star Wars Detours™ is an animated comedy that explores what daily life is like in a galaxy far, far away. There…

News & Features August 26, 2012

Apple’s Big Patent Win, and What It Means for Smartphones

The Apple/Samsung patent trial’s jury shocked everyone by returning a verdict extremely quickly on Friday afternoon. Once we had the full details, I asked the team here at Gear Diary what they thought. Was this a game changer for Android and smartphones in general, or just another chapter in “lawyers gone wild”? Bryan: Yeah but remember, some of us don’t want to hear it: 😉 (Sorry, couldn’t help myself! :)) Dan: Agreed. Not surprised but I do think people will debate the issue for a long time. After all, as we learn in the Jobs bio, much of what Apple did initially…

News & Features August 26, 2012

Evernote Page Camera Turns Your Smartphone into a Scanner

Evernote has long let you snap a picture of a page of handwritten text and save it to your Evernote account. That has always been my fallback position when I was taking notes but had left my Livescribe smartpen at home. In addition, when I was in Washington last week I didn’t bring my Livescribe pen. Instead, I typed out notes during the sessions using my iPad and Apple keyboard while the voice note recorder in Evernote was also active. It worked great and I didn’t really miss the Livescribe pen. Last week Evernote went one better and, in the process,…

Gear Bits, News & Features August 25, 2012

‘Hands Off Crazy’ Is a Tribute to This Week’s Political Wingnuts

Image courtesy CoochWatch There are plenty of crazies on both sides of the political aisle, but as a scientist what REALLY bugs me is total misinformation and the perpetuation of blatantly incorrect information. Again, there are plenty of examples on both sides, but the amazing thing recently is the extent to which anti-abortion legislators will resort to misinformation and lies to push their agenda rather than simply standing on their values and principles. By now most folks have heard about Todd Akin, who said: First of all, from what I understand from doctors, [pregnancy from rape] is really rare… If…

News & Features August 24, 2012

Tell Time with the Help of a Nuclear Watch and Watch Tritium Decay in Action

Imagine a college party with around 100 quadrillion (a one hundred with fifteen zeroes behind it) students binge drinking, with all exceedingly inebriated. Ignoring the noise and mayhem for a moment, imagine a quarter billion of them getting sick every second for the next 25 years or so. However, instead of the usual stomach material, the students, all members of the Tritium fraternity, are emitting beta particles that hit the windows of their apartment and cause the windows to glow green. The formerly stick students settle down and feel much more stable afterwards, with no apparent hangover (but are no…

News & Features August 23, 2012

Roamz 2.5 Makes Smart Social Search Smarter

Last month we shared our interview with Roamz CEO Jonathan Baruch. (Read it.) We also noted that an update to the ‘Social Goggles for the Real World’ app would be coming soon. Well Roamz 2.5 has launched and it brings some neat new features. As Baruch notes, “The new version of Roamz takes local discovery to the next level helping people find, discover and share great places and events around them.” The release goes on to explain that… Roamz’ new features make learning about exciting local events even easier. The update has a revamped interface with new search tiles, which…

Health and Fitness, News & Features August 23, 2012

Wait … That Drink Has HOW Much Caffeine?

The tremors have already shaken us – Judie quit diet coke cold turkey (and yesterday — three days in — the massive headaches started). Last week the guy at my office who picks up the recycling noted that my intake of Diet Mountain Dew was way down (to at MOST one per day), and I haven’t had any coffee at work in more than four months (and I stick to one cup in the morning at home). In other words, we here at Gear Diary are much less caffeinated than we were earlier this year. But that same trend is certainly…

Music Diary, News & Features August 23, 2012

RIP Brilliant Young Jazz Pianist Shimrit Shoshan at 29

While I always talk about how I love getting to hear so much great music that people share with me, but what is even better is getting to known and chat with so many great artists. People like Jason Parker, Dave Chisholm, and many more are just wonderful people as well as great artists with tremendous creative vision. And so it is with great sadness that I report the passing of one of the kindest and warmest artists I have gotten to know through reviewing music for Gear Diary – Shimrit Shoshan. In terms of music, Shimmy had released a…

eBooks, Music Diary, News & Features, Reviews August 22, 2012

Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust, Book Review of Ken Scott’s Memoir

What is it that you want from reading a music industry legend’s memoir? If what you are looking for is basically an expanded Wikipedia entry with a more detailed listing of events and characters … then stop reading now and just stay away from Ken Scott’s Abbey Road to Ziggy Stardust. If on the other hand you are looking for something that has you diving for your vinyl record collection, trolling through your MP3 library, and hitting up places like Slacker and Spotify to provide the musical soundtrack to the stuff you are reading … then check this out. The…

News & Features August 21, 2012

The Nokia Lumia 900 Gets Updated in US

This has been a busy and bumpy year for the Nokia Lumia 900. Just released this spring, it was already declared a dead-end device by Microsoft shortly after its arrival as Microsoft announced that Windows Phone 7.5 phones wouldn’t be updated to Windows Phone 8. Although this wasn’t a complete surprise (due to the hardware limitations of the current devices), many of us hoped some of the features of Windows Phone 8 would eventually make it to Windows Phone 7.5 devices. As of this writing thought, it looks like a rather limited set of features will eventually appears in the…

Music Diary, News & Features August 20, 2012

Frank Zappa Now on iTunes, and Coming Soon to Streaming Services!

I have had an affinity for the music of Frank Zappa for as long as I can remember. The combination of humor, advanced compositional techniques, extreme musicianship, apathy towards genre boundaries and more has always caught my ear. I own about 30 CDs of Zappa’s music from the Mothers of Invention right up through some of his final releases. This past week we got word that more than 50 Zappa albums had been added to iTunes, with several of them remastered versions. This goes along with an earlier report of a great remastering effort including a list of the first…

News & Features, Travel August 20, 2012

SteriPEN, a Handy Tool in a Variety of Models for Water Purification on the Go

Quite a few years back when I was in high school, I enrolled in a “primitive” two-week hiking trip to the Smoky Mountains/Shining Rock Wilderness area with a group called Wilderness Southeast. It was quite an education for a young greenhorn like myself far from civilization…hiking boots, heavy backpacks and open to the elements (no tents), and no food except what we carried and rehydrated with water from mountain streams. Water…that was key, you see, because back in those days we used chlorine tablets to sterilize the water…and most of you who ever spent time in a swimming pool know…

Gear Bits, Health and Fitness, News & Features August 19, 2012

With Weight and Exercise Like Everything Else, If It Sounds Too Good To Be True …

Pretty much everyone would like to alter their body in some way: lose weight, gain weight, more muscular build, change ratios or sizes of things, and so on. And another thing you can be certain about: for every desired change there is someone waiting to try to sell you something to deal with it. There are plenty of legitimate supplements if you have a deficiency or absorption issues or whatever, but those are all things you should be getting from your doctor. Chances are that your general practitioner is NOT going to be giving you something to ‘lose 20 pounds…

News & Features August 18, 2012

LIFEPROOF nüüd Case for iPad, First Look

We’re fans of the amazing protection offered by the LIFEPROOF iPhone case. Now LIFEPROOF is releasing their new LIFEPROOF nüüd for iPad. The case works with the iPad 2 and the new iPad and it is water, dirt, snow, and shock proof. Here’s our video look… This is one tough case. Still, I am surprised by how light it actually is. And it is thoughtfully designed with an eye toward ensuring you don’t lose functionality while protecting your iPad. The main reason for this case… It lets you use your iPad almost anywhere! You can learn more here on the…

News & Features August 17, 2012

iTypewriter Concept Brings Inefficient Typing Nostalgia to the iPad!

It seems that all tablet users are looking for a great keyboard to use when they are sitting at a desk. I love my Apple keyboard dock at my desk, Apple Bluetooth or Logitech Android keyboard around the house. But long before we could take a tablet on to the back deck while relaxing on a summer night, I would bring my old typewriter out with me to work on a story or report. While I have no desire to meld tablet and typewriter, for some it might be a cool trip down memory lane. Designer Austin Yang has come…

Gear Bits, News & Features August 17, 2012

The Pizza Worth a 2800 Mile Trip!

Imagine that you grew up with what you considered ‘the Perfect Pizza’, and you and your entire family were totally in love with them? Then all of you move hundreds and even thousands of miles away … but you still want that pizza. What do you do? If you are David Schuler, you take a trip and return home with a carload of the frozen pizzas in uncooked form! The name of the restaurant is Town Spa in Stoughton, Massachusetts – and happens to be my hometown pizza place. I grew up with an almost weekly ritual of grabbing some…

Health and Fitness, News & Features August 16, 2012

Good News, Bad News … Obesity Rates Over 30% in 12 States, But Junk Food Laws Might Be Working

Two years ago I wrote about the ‘2009 State of Obesity’, which showed a rate rising so quickly that the map-makers needed to change the color scales AGAIN to deal with things! At that point there were 6 states with OVER 30% obesity and a single state with LESS than 20%. Now it is time again for the updated numbers and … they aren’t good. Here are the basics: 12 states now have obesity rates above 30%, though none are above 35%. 11 are between 20-25% the remaining 27 states are between 25-30% The extreme low was 20.7% in Colorado…

How to Do It Yourself!, News & Features August 16, 2012

How to Root the Nexus 7; And Some Good Reasons Why You Should do it

The Nexus 7 is no doubt one of the hottest tablets to hit the Android Community. Running a bloat free Google OS on top of a Tegra 3 platform has proven to be a crowd favorite. So why take the possibly “warranty voiding” steps to gain Root access to the device? Even if you are not an enthusiast there are many benefits to rooting the tablet past the obvious flashing of custom roms and themes. Some of the best Android apps require root access to work, so without root you can pretty much use the tablet to its full…

Gear Bits, News & Features August 15, 2012

The Waiting (for Android Updates) is the Hardest Part

I have a Motorola Droid 4 – and I really love it. That said, it is lousy being not just one but TWO VERSIONS of Android behind … I mean, this is the sort of thing Google said they were eliminating. Anyway … that is about to end! Yesterday I read that the ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’ update was finally approved and a ‘soak test’ commenced, meaning that the full update would be released soon (unless something bad happened). Then later last night I heard that it was starting to ‘roll out in phases’. Motorola Mobility tweeted about it: 4G LTE…

Health and Fitness, News & Features August 15, 2012

Don’t Give Up On Us, Baby!

News flash: this summer has been HOT! As noted here, an historic amount of the world has seen record temperatures and ‘extreme heat’ this summer. Naturally, this type of heat means that it is more important than ever to keep hydrated to avoid heat-related sickness. I am currently training for a marathon (my first ever) at the end of next month, and getting ready for a half-marathon (also my first) next weekend. This has meant running more miles, harder miles, more sprints and hills, and so on. In other words – more sweat and exhaustion with less down-time. Coupled with…