Category Archives: techtonicc
Google Says Merry Christmas
Google’s holiday Doodle has finally arrived after being spotted around the world over the last two days. The early timing of the festive logo in Australia, was unusual and unexplained, but there seems to have been be two versions it – one static and, today, one animated, which also plays jingle bells. Some people were having trouble playing the animation in their web browsers so here is a video of the animation in action.
Besides Google’s animation, they have also provided us with multiple other holiday surprises this year. There is the “let it snow” Easter Egg, as well as YouTube now has a snowflake button to make it snow along with your video. If you have trouble finding the button on YouTube, just search “let it snow” on YouTube and see the snow appear!
As mentioned in another one of my posts, Google has also set up a Google Voicemail where you can send an actual voicemail to Santa! If you haven’t tried it yet, give it a shot, it’s pretty fun.
Use all of these holiday features Google has set up for you and have a happy holiday!
Twitter Receives a Interface Update
Social-networking hub Twitter will roll out a significant redesign of its Web and mobile platforms in coming weeks that promises to be “faster and simpler.”
The layout looks a lot cleaner by featuring Home, Connect, and Discover tabs across the top of the page. Home hosts the main feed of Tweets from other users; Connect is where they can directly contact others; and Discover is where they can find popular topics or hashtags and view the activity of followed users.
The new design will become available in the next few weeks but mobile users can access it now by downloading and logging into Twitter on either your iPhone or Android device.
Here is a review of the new design by YouTube partner, MarquesBrownLee.
2011 Christmas Wishlist
Having trouble thinking of what to buy for Christmas? Look no further as this is the top 10 most desired Christmas gifts for 2011!
Follow me on Twitter in order to receive updates on some more popular Christmas electronics!
The iPod touch is a great device for storing music, video, podcasts with multi-touch screen technology. It is the number one handheld gaming device and is a great Christmas gift for 2011 for both kids, teens and adults.
The new generation of the device allows you to take pictures, record HD quality video, and even offers video calling.
The Apple iPad Tablet is probably one of the coolest gifts you can buy this Christmas season. It is an exciting to use new piece of technology. There are so many apps available for the Apple iPad such as fun games and interesting ways to access information on the internet.
This long awaited addition to the Xbox 360 system is one of the most asked for gift this holiday season. The Kinect console for Xbox 360 enables voice activation for your Xbox 360 system. You can tell the Xbox to play or pause and the Kinect allows it to recognize voice commands. The Kinect also offers remote free operation of Xbox 360 video games.
The Playstation Move is the newest component for the Playstation 3. It enables game players to really get into their game play by bringing motion gaming to PS3 console owners.
The Kindle is an electronic reading device for downloading, storing, and reading electronic books, which are also known as e-books. The Kindle Fire is the newest model for 2011. It offers WiFi, web browsing and thousands of Apps and games. Any avid reader would love one of these for a Christmas gift.
6. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is a long awaited new video game. The Call of Duty series of video games have been wildly popular and this one is no exception. Just about any teen would love to get this as one of their gifts.
7. Samsung LN40C630 40-Inch LCD HDTV
What better gift to give than a tv? This is a top seller in the tv “section”. The screen is 40 inches and has full 1080p HD resolution. It also includes the ability to connect a thumb drive or digital camera with ease. If you are considering a TV as a Christmas gift this year this one is the one to buy.
8. Canon Powershot 12.1 MP Digital Camera
A digital camera is always a great gift to give during the holiday season. This digital camera by Canon is the world’s thinnest digital camera with a 24mm ultra wide-angle lens and 5x optical zoom along with optical image stabilizer. The Canon Powershot offers high speed shooting for a point and shoot camera. It has improved lighting in low light conditions and has 32 predefined shooting situations.
This Garmin portable GPS is sunlight-readable and offers a 5-inch backlit TFT color touchscreen display. It is preloaded with City Navigator NT data for the lower 48 states, Hawaii and Puerto Rico, with nearly six million points of interest. It has free lifetime map and traffic updates for the most up-to-date maps, POIs, and navigation info, along with constantly updated traffic information.
10. ASUS UL30A-X5 Thin and Light Black Laptop
Many people are asking for laptops this year whether it be for school or just for the portability. The Asus thin laptop is one of Amazon’s best selling laptops. It offers a high-gloss 13.3 inch HD display with 1366 x 768 resolution. The 8 cell battery has 12 hours of battery life. The laptop comes loaded with Windows 7 and has a 1.3 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 processor.
Ice Cream Sandwich Rumors
Only 48 more hours to go and new rumors about the new Android upgrade are still coming up. The newest of these rumors shows that Ice Cream Sandwich will feature some photo-editing tools.
If a number of uncovered camera icons are to be believed, the next build of Android could make it much easier to touch up photos. AndroidPolice, indicates that users will have the ability to perform standard editing techniques and apply effects to pictures without the need to download additional software.
Currently, Android users must rely on applications such as Picplz, Photoshop, or Color Touch Effects if they wish to enhance photos. Many of Android’s apps then allow the user to share the images across social networking sites, e-mail, and other avenues once finished editing.
No one is sure how effective or useful these new features will be, but it is to be expected that Android users will continue to stick to their favorite photo-editing apps.
Haters of Facebook Changes Build Up
In a recent survey of over 1,000 people conducted by Sodahead, a social-voting-based site, it has been shown that Facebook users aren’t too happy with the recent changes the social network has made.
According to this survey of 1000 people, about 86% of the social network audience said that they strongly disliked the recent changes Facebook has made.
The most disapproval for the new features came from teens, with a whopping 91 percent of that group saying that Facebook should nix the changes. Seventy-nine percent of young adults said they disapproved of the new changes, although the site does not explicitly lay out who constitutes a young adult.
To narrow down the results even more, it appears that women are more upset about the changes than men. Eighty-nine percent of women called for scrapping the new Facebook, while only 78 percent of men have said they disapprove of the new features.
Through all of these upset Facebook users, there is a small portion of them that actually enjoy the new changes. These users, according to the study, tend to be information technology employees, or people who had an income of $100,000 or more per year.
This of course is not the first, nor the last time that Facebook users have been upset about changes to the site. And like always, over time, users will love the new changes.
PlayStation Prices Falling Rapidly
Due to a desperate attempt to regain sales, Sony has now lowered the prices on their PlayStation products.
Resulting from the massive hacking (75 million accounts hacked) on PlayStation’s network a while ago, Sony’s sales have fallen dramatically. Sony is now hoping to regain these sales by dropping their prices for their PlayStation product(s). Starting on Tuesday, the 160GB version will fall from $299 to $249 (Prices in different countries will also drop to 249 euros and 24,980 yen) and the 320GB version will fall from $349 to $299.
These changes in price will take immediate effect in Europe but Japan will have to wait until August 18th.
Spot Android Malware
As a follow up on a recent post, this post is to help all of you Android users to spot/notice if you have a trojan virus on your smartphone. Android malware is on the rise and it is now two times as likely to receive a virus in a app you download since six months ago. This is a quick list of ways to tell if your Android smartphone is infected.
- Look up the developer - If there is no real logo, Google the developer’s name to see if they are a legitimate company.
- Be wary of “knock off” games - Games are a typical “trap” that is used be malware creators. If the game is a free version of something that you normally would havle to pay for, be wary.
- Examine app permissions - Every app in the marketplace has a list of admissions that you need to grant in order for the app to work properly. Read over this list and if you notice anything suspicious, don’t download it. (Ex: why would a game need to see your contact list).
- Read reviews - This is an obvious way to see if the app is malware. If the particular app has more negative than positive reviews, be wary and read further to see what the negative reviews were about.
- Watch Info - If while reading the app description and you notice that the creator doesn’t use good grammer/english or some information is left blank, that is a good sign to not download the app.
Follow this short list of things to check before downloading an app and your chances of catching some mobile malware will decrease significantly.
Low on Cash?
Do you want a new 4G smartphone with all the newest specs but don’t have the money to buy a phone like the Droid or iPhone? The new 4G smartphone from Sprint just may be your solution.
The phone, the Conquer, is built by Samsung and on Sprint’s network. The Conquer has all of the “bells and whistles” that a normal smartphone user would look for including a 3.5 inch display, 320×480 resolution, 4G network, as well as running on Android’s Gingerbread software (Android 2.3). Did I mention that the phone is only $99? Yes, this is true making the Conquer the cheapest 4G Android 2.3 run phone on the market.
Besides all of this, the Conquer also has a 3.5 megapixel camera, 1GHz snapdragon processor, and a 2GB SD card. Couple other interesting features is including a front facing camera and also having mobile Wi-Fi hotspot functionality.
This new smartphone from Sprint seems to be a great deal. With all of these features and a $99 price tag, what’s not to like?
Get a Free Android Smartphone
Looking for a new for or to upgrade to a smartphone but don’t have the money? Your problems may be solved.
For today (August 3rd) only, BestBuy stores will be offering customers Google’s Nexus S smartphone for free. Only catch is that the customer has to sign up for a two-year contract with AT&T, T-Mobile, or Sprint in order for the phone to be activated on the spot at BestBuy.
The Nexus S is designed with a 4 inch touch screen display, and includes Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and a 5 megapixel camera. It also runs off of Android’s operating system which is Android 2.3, also known as Gingerbread. For a better review of Google’s Nexus S, check out my review on it here.
Portable Android Platform
Just when you thought that Android couldn’t get any better, a new company called WIMM came along. As of earlier today, WIMM has announced the making of a small, wearable, computing platform that is built based on Android.
The product is called the WIMM One and it will be released in the third quarter of this year. The platform has a 1.4 inch touch screen display and has Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi. Besides this, it also includes an accelerometer, and magnetometer is order to track your motion (i.e. on a bike or while you’re running). The WIMM One is designed to be fit into wristwatches, keychains, or even a clip for your bicycle.
The WIMM One will comes loaded with a variety of “micro apps” as the company calls them. Unfortunatly, even thought the WIMM One can connect to Wi-Fi, the only way to manage the device and add more “micro apps” is to connect it through your computer.
This seems to be the start of a new type of technology integrated into wristwatches and keychains and it is something that we should keep an eye out for in the near future.
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techtonicc
