Events

SolarKindle Cover Lets You Charge Your Kindle without an Outlet!

Ordinarily, I am skeptical of “solar-powered chargers”, as they seem more gimmick than useful gear, but a solar-powered Kindle charger is a stroke of genius! Kindles don’t require charging more often than once a month or so, meaning finding sunlight to charge isn’t an inconvenience. Plus a Kindle is one of the few devices that might get used regularly on the beach, or camping, or other places where outlets aren’t available, but sunlight is free and plentiful! The specifications on the SolarKindle cover sound very impressive! From the press release: Makes Unplugged E-Reading Come True The first practical solar gadget…

Events

What’s Coming to CES 2012 with Judie and Dan?

Well, it is that time of year again. That means CES and our annual “What’s Coming to CES” post. Last year was a bit tricky for me as I was doing CES as part of a SCOTTEVEST No Baggage Challenge for Charity. That meant any and everything I brought needed to be on my person. It was a challenge, but it was also rather fun. It didn’t hurt that, due to a mess up by the hotel, I ended up with a suite with a washer and dryer, but it doesn’t change the fact that everything I brought fit into…

Events, News & Features

Magellan Gets in the GPS Fitness Watch Business!

The GPS watch market has been dominated heavily by Garmin. Ask a runner, “Do you have a Garmin” and they aren’t going to wax poetic about their Nuvi…they’ll know you mean a Forerunner watch. But Magellan is looking for a piece of that pie, and they’ll be debuting two new watches, the “Switch” series, designed to appeal to runners as well as “crossover sports” (triathletes, bikers, and swimmers, presumably). Based on the press release, it sounds like the Switch will have very similar features to the competition, including the ability to race against a specific pace, mark laps and miles,…

Events, News & Features, Vehicles & Gear

Dodge to Debut ‘Beats by Dr. Dre’ Audio System at CES and NAIAS

Dodge has chosen the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to introduce its new expansion of Beats by Dr. Dre Audio System that will be coming soon to 2012 Charger models. “Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine have built their careers on revolutionary and forward thinking decisions that formulate trends in music, popular culture and technology,” Reid Bigland, President and CEO – Dodge Brand. “Our goal in partnering with Beats by Dr. Dre is to integrate their recording-studio quality audio experience for our Charger enthusiasts to feel and hear their favorite music as it was intended – all while heightening the…

Events, Gear Bits, Reviews, Travel

Quick Look: Belkin Travel Router

This year Gear Diary’s CES base will be a suite at the MGM Grand. All of us will be bunking together which means we will be able to get even more writing done early in the morning or late at night. Of course that presumes we have the wireless connectivity to go online and post. 🙂 The suite comes with free internet connectivity. That SHOULD mean both wired and wireless connections will work, but we won’t really know until we get there. Add in the fact that during CES there is such a huge demand on wireless systems and… we…

Events, News & Features

What’s ioSafe Planning for CES 2012? We Don’t Know but it is Gonna be Awesome!

ioSafe is at it again and this time they are looking to outdo themselves. (At least, we sure hope they are!) To recap our experiences with data-storage dynamos ioSafe… At CES 2010 ioSafe fried, soaked, dropped and crushed one of their rugged hard drives. As you can see, it was awesome. At CES 2011 ioSafe sought to outdo themselves when they took their new portable drive for a drag behind a car and then let us all take turns shooting it with a shotgun. Check it out here! Now we’ve been invited to the next demo, the “ioSafe Cage…

Events

Sony Tries to Get in Shape for Selling Tablets, but Will You Buy its New Bod?

When Sony provided a sneak peek last week of the two new tablets it plans to launch later this year, it also offered a glimpse into the unspoken imperative it faces: Because it’s late to the game, trailing Apple by, um, years, and others, like Samsung, by months, its biggest hope to gain a toehold in the ever crowded field of similar devices is to do something different — really different. And different it’s done, as least so far as the second of its tablets is concerned — the one code-named Sony Tablet S2, a dual-screen clamshell device that bears…

Events

Intel’s “Upgrade Your Life” Event

Along with 12 other site owners, I was invited to attend the Intel “Upgrade Your Life” experience in Santa Clara, California on July 13th. I went into this event with no itinerary and no idea of what we were going to see, but I figured it had to be more than “just” processor chips. Sure enough, I was in for an eye-opening day … After a greeting by Intel’s Social Media guru Alison Wesley and an ice-breaking game of ‘guess the tweet’ game, we were on to the first speaker … Suzanne Fallender – Director, Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy and…

Events, How to Do It Yourself!

Red Bull “Creation” Event — the Official Gear Diary Report

If the apocalypse comes, I want to spend it with the teams who competed in the Red Bull Creation event. They were given 72 hours and a pile of junk, along with the mission to illustrate “Energy in Motion”. Any scraps were fair game, from metal to electronics to slabs of wood, and the creations were just astounding. What they created was absolute brilliance, from hamster wheels to see-saws, and did I mention they did it in 3 days? If you left me in a room with a pile of junk and Red Bull, you’d come back to find a…

Events, Vehicles & Gear

Forward with Ford: Safety, Innovation, & Being Green!

I recently joined a group of online and traditional media for the “Forward With Ford” event at Ford’s Dearborn facility for a multi-day event covering trends and technologies that Ford is addressing. Before attending, I was offered the choice of exploring three of the following sessions; I chose the ones with stars next to them. ?Living Green As gasoline prices continue to rise, fuel efficiency has become an even more important purchase factor for consumers looking at buying a new vehicle. In the first four months of 2011, small cars sales jumped from 19% to 25% in the United States….

Events

First Look: Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

There is no question that it is thin and fast, but is the new Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 a contender? That’s the question Francis and I had at this evening’s Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 event in Manhattan. The event, sponsored by NetShelter in conjunction with Samsung, gave us the opportunity to check out the latest Honeycomb tablet. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 will be released in limited quantity next week. How limited? We learned tonight that it will be released in one Best Buy store in New York initially. That’s one way to try and ensure Apple-esque lines at a device…

Editorials, Events

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…

Editorials, Events

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…

Events

MWC: One Last Look at Mobile World Congress 2011

Beyond hamming it up with wandering oompah bands at Mobile World Congress, Helena and I managed to get hands-on time with some of the new devices and technologies that will be causing a stir in 2011 and beyond! HTC’s New Android Devices HTC won me over with their lovely new ChaCha. After using the BlackBerry Bold for a week, with its tiny little keys that I never got used to, the generously sized keys on the ChaCha, along with its softly curved body … I so wish that my Tru SIM had been installed in one of these babies. Helena…

Events

MWC: Hands-On with HTC’s Newest Devices

Helena and I were able to spend some time at the HTC VIP lounge this afternoon, time that was well spent fondling the six devices introduced by HTC earlier today. Of course the one that most captivated us was the 7″ Flyer, HTC’s new tablet device. It will be shipping with Gingerbread instead of the newer Honeycomb, which seemed odd given that all of the other tablets and the majority of new phones we’ve seen have featured the newer version of Android. If it means that we can get our hands on it sooner (and that there might be a…

Events, News & Features

MWC: AppUp, MeeGo, Open Source, and Tablets

The partnership between Nokia and Microsoft that was announced the other day has caused some speculation that the Intel powered AppUp store in general, and the MeeGo in particular might be the losers in this story. Helena and I spoke with Peter Biddle, General Manager to AppUp Products and Services, and he said that despite this partnership, AppUp and Meego will thrive. Proprietary systems have a place in the ecosystem, and so do open ones. Further scaling the development of flexible, open software platforms and applications for all mobile devices, Intel demonstrated a compelling new MeeGo tablet user experience to…

Events, Reviews

A Lifesaver in Barcelona, the Tru Enabled BlackBerry Bold 9700

I wanted to put in a quick mention for Tru, the service that offered to send me an international BlackBerry Bold 9700 to use for Mobile Congress Week along with their Tru SIM. The ultimate goal is that we’ll compare what I would have spent on the same amount of Tru usage versus AT&T’s best international rate (since they are my regular carrier) after Mobile World Congress is done. Here’s where it gets even better, though. DHL came through and got the BB Bold to me before I left. Because Tru was worried that it wouldn’t arrive in time, they…

Events

MWC: Hands-On Photos with Sony’s Three New Experias

CES saw the release of the new Sony Ericsson Experia Arc, but tonight we got to see three new Experias: the neo, the pro and the long-awaited PLAY — the Playstation phone. Oh my. I had a chance to attend the press conference where these were introduced, and a moment to fondle all three. The Experia neo: The phone I am most excited about personally is the neo; it has a beautiful screen and an amazing camera that works well in even the worst lighting situations. This phone is very media focused, and it comes equipped with HDMI support, an…

Events, Gear Bits

Mobile World Congress for a New Perspective

I’ve been to CES 9 times in the last 10 years, and for discovering or covering consumer electronics, there is no better show. But for really digging into the latest mobile phones and the technologies that power and differentiate them, there has been one show that has long been on my radar: Mobile World Congress. Last year, I was talking to Helena from Chip Chick, another long-time tech blogger who has never been. When the subject of MWC came up, we both got reflective, remarking upon how we had both always wanted to go. Without much thought for how we…

Events

En Route to Mobile World Congress: Swiss Air Gets It!

There’s nothing like boarding an international flight with the worry of whether or not your battery will die become you are done working, or if you’ll luck out and have a charging port under your seat. Swiss Air takes a proactive approach and sticks a USB charging port at eye level; its the perfect solution for people traveling with Mobile devices!

Events

CES: Oakley 3D Glasses

CES Day 1: Dan to Judie “3D TV is one of the big things this year… I just don’t get it.” Judie to Dan “I KNOW, me either…” Kevin (thinks, but does not say) “Phew, one less new gadget this year…” CES Day 2, Morning: Judie, Dan and Kevin spend time with Oakley to learn about, and experience 3D TV using their passive 3D glasses. CES Day 2, Afternoon: Dan to Judie “WOW, I take back what I said about 3D TV yesterday.” Judie to Dan “I was JUST saying the same thing to Kev… I WANT!” Kevin (thinks but…

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