Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

Here’s another interesting Infographic depicting security on the internet. Hopefully you are not part of most of these statistics, otherwise you may have already been scammed. Click image for full size.

[Online MBA]

Finally something to explain all this nonsense! Ya, I was a bit late on figuring out what all the Rick Rolling was about. (Click the image for full size)

[Online Schools]

It’s Approved! Apple has approved Opera’s browser: Opera Mini for the app store. I don’t see it available yet looking at the app store on my iPhone but according to Opera, it should show up within the next 24 hours It is available at the app store right now, see below for my first impressions. The browser is supposedly much faster, and as the video below shows can load 5 pages before Safari loads one.

Opera Mini, with more than 50 million users worldwide, enables fast mobile Web browsing by compressing data by up to 90 percent before sending content to the device, resulting in significantly improved page loading. Users of the app will notice an uptake in speed, especially on slower networks such as the 2G Edge network. Surfing the Web with the Opera Mini App on iPhone and iPod touch will also help users save money because of its data compression capabilities. This will hold especially true while the user is incurring roaming charges.

I will edit this post once I am able to get my hands on it and test it out.

EDIT: First Impressions: MUCH faster than Safari, this was immediately obvious. The zoom is a bit strange for the iPhone but still works nicely. Opera automatically sizes paragraphs to fit the screen which makes the page almost broken when you are zoomed out, not a huge deal though. Saving passwords are easy enough. Tabbed browsing is incorporated nicely on this browser.

[Opera] [Thanks to Luke C. for the tip!]

Microsoft has launched it’s much talked about “Pink” phone, now renamed to “KIN”. From what I have seen so far, it is all about social media. It is more social than anything else out there. What do I mean by social? I mean taking all your friends activities from across the web and sticking it in one spot, and also allowing you to share what you are doing easily.

What is interesting is this is built on top of the upcoming Windows Phone 7 operating system, syncs with the Zune PC software, and works with Zune Pass (Yay!). Take a look at the Windows Phone Secrets blog for some notes that were taken during the launch event. Once you are done there, head over to the KIN website for further details.

If this gets well known I can see this being the phone that all teens will have versus the iPhone, it just seems to fit better. Oh and another little feature that is going to make this very popular is 5 and 8 megapixel cameras! The latter being the same MP as the camera I used to take most of my photos featured in my portfolio (Oh how technology changes!).

Now don’t get me wrong, This sounds like a great phone, but it is still one that I would not want, mostly for these couple reasons:

Apps? This crowd wants social networking. So we integrated that. Not siloed apps. And no third party apps. No app market. No games. But we will OTA updating. As the market evolves, will continue to add things to the device.

Carrier services? This was developed with Verizon. These are the services we are shipping with.

No IM for 1.0. Suggests they’re looking at that.

That last one is very curious considering it is a “social” phone. But alas, nothing can be perfect…

[Windows Phone Secrets] [Microsoft's Kin]

What a relief! Windows Phone 7 Series’ name has been stripped of the “Series”. Now you can say (without tongue twisting) Windows Phone 7! Thank goodness. Also gives a much nicer abbreviation as well; WP7.

[WindowsPhoneSecrets]

Facebook is at it again, more changes in the works. They will be changing the wording for “Become a fan” and instead make it the same as “like”. So no more will you have to declare to everyone that you are a “FAN”, now you can simply say you just like it. Of course this brings some side effects.

…in fact, people click “Like” almost two times more than they click “Become a Fan” everyday.” … it means that the change could make it easier for brand advertisers to accumulate fans quickly. But it also means that users might not totally understand what they’re opting in to. After all, becoming a fan means that you’ll start receiving updates from the brand in your News Feed.

I was unable to find an ETA for this, so you can expect it sometime soon.

What do you think of the change? Is it welcomed or just another thing to add to your reasons why Facebook sucks? In my opinion, it’s a step forward and backward. Twitter’s “follow” wording makes much more sense than either fan or like. If only Facebook would just copy their competitors like everyone else.

[Mashable]

Spotify, replacement for Pandora, iTunes, Zune, Napster, BitTorrent, and anything else. Already launched in the UK, Spotify looks to be my hopes for a perfect music service. It is a music streaming service which offers a wide range of music to choose from which you can listen to free of charge. The only drawback is that you must listen to a commercial every so often that relates to the music you are listening to, which in turn helps you identify even more music you might want.

Don’t get me wrong, the Zune Pass is a pretty amazing service but it lacks the portability of being on the iPhone which is what I, and from what I have seen, most people have. Yes Pandora works on the iPhone but I cannot tell it to play specific songs that I want to listen to. iTunes is an absolute joke on the PC so that’s out of the question already, plus you still have to purchase the songs. Same issues can apply to other services as well including the illegal use of BitTorrent for songs.

Spotify instead fixes all these issues by providing the ability to stream all the music you want while also allowing the discovery of new music. And if you decide to pay for the service (for about $14) you gain the ability to stream on mobile devices and can ditch the commercials.

So what does it do, and why have I not touched iTunes once (ok, once in a blue moon) since downloading it?

Simply put, the music streaming service lets you choose from the millions of tracks in the database (all legal, since the Swedish company has gone to great lengths to get permission from all the major record labels), so you can create playlists galore. When you get the urge to listen to a particular song, it’s there—and you don’t need to jump through any hoops to get it. You can listen to complete albums (usually Spotify has them the day of release), individual songs—whatever you want.

It is scheduled to to be released in the US in the third quarter of 2010.

[Gizmodo]

Over at the Old School New School Podcast site is an interesting article about the HBO Go service. It specifically covers the new HBO service but can relate to any Cable or Satellite service that wishes to offer an online TV option to it’s current subscribers only.

There is just one small problem that I’ve run into with your HBO Go service. I’d have to be a cable HBO subscriber to access it.

But this HBO Go service has me scratching my head as to who this service is really for, because if you’re trying to gain back any previous subscribers that have dropped your service and moved to the internet for their video consumption, I don’t think they are going to take the bait.

Read the full article over at the OSNS site: An Open Letter to HBO

[OSNS]

I can hardly keep my excitement in! Microsoft has announced their new and vastly improved mobile operating system called Windows Phone 7 Series (okay, the name is the only thing I am not excited for). This thing is so freaking sweet that I have completely forgotten my dreams of ditching the antiquated iPhone for an Android. Enough of my drooling now, here are some excerpts from a Lifehacker article that goes over this new mobile OS. Did I mention it’s freaking sweet?

The Interface

It’s different. The face of Windows Phone 7 is not a rectangular grid of thumbnail-sized glossy-looking icons, arranged in a pattern of 4×4 or so, like basically every other phone. No, instead, an oversized set of bright, superflat squares fill the screen. The pop of the primary colors and exaggerated flatness produces a kind of cutting-edge crispness that feels both incredibly modern and playful. Text is big, and beautiful. The result is a feat no phone has performed before: Making the iPhone’s interface feel staid.

Holy Crap! The Zune Phone!

Microsoft’s vision of Zune is finally clear with Windows Phone 7. It’s an app, just like iPod is on the iPhone, though the Zune Marketplace is integrated with it into the music + video hub, not separated into its own little application. It’s just like the Zune HD, so you can check out our review of that to see what it’s like. But you get third-party stuff like Pandora too built-in here. Oh, and worth mentioning, there will be an FM radio in every phone (more on that in a bit).

Xbox, on a phone

I’ll admit, I very nearly needed to change my pants when I saw the Xbox tile on the phone for the first time. Obviously, you’re not going to be playing Halo 3 on your smartphone (at least not this year), but yes, Xbox Live on a phone! It’s tied to your Live profile, and there are achievements and gamer points for the games you can play on your phone, which will be tied to games back on your Xbox 360.

There is so much more to this, I highly suggest you head to the article and read the full extent of it.

Lifehacker: Windows Phone 7 Series: Everything Is Different Now

Also check out their hands on video of Windows Phone 7 Series (WP7? WP7S? This name sucks..)

Gizmodo: Windows Phone 7 Series Hands-on Pics and Video

I have just discovered the new “Facebook Lite” feature. Basically, it is a stripped down version of the Facebook page. You can get to this version by going to http://lite.facebook.com. I will be reviewing this new version for you and if you are confused as to where everything went, I will point you in the right direction.

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