In this Round Table Jeffrey from Geekazine.com shares his recommendations for wordpress plugins. Todd Cochrane of GeekNewsCentral.com talks about PowerPress 3.0 and the new Meta Marks feature along with an assortment of other new features..
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Although not present in the USA and Europe, viewing broadcast TV on mobile phones is very popular in Asian countries and parts of South America. Andy and Don talk to Guy from Siano Mobile Silicon about the technology behind this cultural phenomena.
Watching broadcast TV on mobile phones has been very popular in China, Japan and Korea, particularly with people who commute on buses and trains. Much as those of us in the US or UK listen to an MP3 player as we trundle to work, they watch TV. Siano produces the chipset which decodes the broadcast signal and they have a TV accessory that plugs into the Apple connector on an iPhone or iPod to show broadcast TV on the screen.
Phones that can show broadcast TV are expected in the US market during 2012, with coverage available in most major cities. Pricing to be announced.
Interview by Andy McCaskey of SDR News and RV News Net and Don Baine, the Gadget Professor.
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If you’ve never come across a MakerBot before, think of it is an inkjet printer, which instead of printing on paper with ink, prints a three dimensional object with plastic. Andy and Don investigate further with Bre from MakerBot.
Announced at CES, the MakerBot Replicator is bigger and better, with an increased volume capacity and the dual extrusion, i.e. able to create objects from two materials, most usually two colours. Model files can be downloaded from Thingiverse in the STL file format and there’s no shortage of different objects to try out.
Bre shows off some different objects, from hard cubes to stretchy bands, all of which were printed out on the Replicator previously. The Stanford bunny puts in a special appearance for modelling geeks.
The new Replicator costs $1750 for a single extruder and $1999 for a dual extruder. There’s a bit of a lead time at the moment because of its popularity with deliveries expected in a couple of months.
Interview by Andy McCaskey of SDR News and RV News Net and Don Baine, the Gadget Professor.
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Smith Micro is best known for its Mac software and StuffIt! in particular but the company’s portfolio is much wider than that. Andy and Don chat to Carla of Smith Micro Software to find out what else the company does.
Smith Micro has a portfolio of products in the mobile wireless space, delivering solutions for telcos and cable operators. As Carla points out, if you’ve ever connected your laptop to a 3G network, you’ve probably used some of their software.
Sprint chose Smith Micro’s Mobile Network Director to intelligently manage traffic between 3G, 4G and Wi-Fi connections. A software client on the smartphone works with the carrier’s systems to select the connection technology that will give the best performance in the particular situation. For example, in a very congested 4G area, the software will transfer the data connection to a quieter and consequently faster 3G network.
From the interview, it sounds like Sprint has learnt from the CarrierIQ debacle and while the software on the smartphone works transparently, the owner can override the connection selection manually. Good.
Interview by Andy McCaskey of SDR News and RV News Net and Don Baine, the Gadget Professor.
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As on-line marketers transfer their cold-calling attention away from land-lines to cell and mobile phones, their calls are becoming increasingly an annoyance when you are out-and-about. PrivacyStar offers a multilayered solution for Android and Blackberry to cut unwanted calls. Andy finds out more.
PrivacyStar is a smartphone app to block unwanted calls and SMS texts. At its simplest, user-specified phone numbers can be blocked to prevent calls or texts coming through and bothering you. The app also features SmartBlocking which blocks the top 25 numbers blocked by other users in the past week, so if there’s a major calling campaign on, those numbers pretty quickly get blocked.
Other features include CallerID lookup, where if the phone doesn’t know who is calling, the app consults with an on-line directory and displays the caller. For really persistent callers, complaints can be filed directly with the FTC.
The app is currently only available for Android and Blackberry, an iPhone version will be released before the summer. The app is free for a week and then $2.99 per month after that.
Interview by Andy McCaskey of SDR News and RV News Net.
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Snowboarders, skiers, mountainbikers, sky divers, hunters – if you want to show off your latest adventures to your friends and enemies, then Contour’s new bullet cam is the way to do it. Andy gets the deets from Marie at Contour.
The Contour+ was launched back in spring 2011 and quickly gained a following among the extreme sports crowd for the great video quality but at $499, it’s a little pricey, even if it does come with GPS, Bluetooth and an excellent lens.
The new ContourRoam arrived in the autumn and is a more affordable $199. It doesn’t have all the features of its more expensive sibling but it does have the 170 degree wide angle lens and it’s very easy to use with a simple on-off slider switch suitable for gloves or cold hands. Battery life is around 3 hours.
In the video, Marie claims that the camera doesn’t support microSD cards, but all the literature on Contour’s website suggests otherwise. There’s some great video footage on the site, too.
Interview by Andy McCaskey of SDR News and RV News Net.
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Some of you may be familiar with Schlage Link, but they are now rebranded as Nexia Home Intelligence to give users more of an idea what they are all about. They are working to bring total control of a user’s home right to the fingertips. From security, to heating and air conditioning to home automation, you can control it all from the web or from an app on your phone. Currently there are apps for iOS and Android, but Windows Phone is on the way.
Nexia Home Intelligence is using Z-Wave technology and their products are compatible with many others on the market. In the video below you will get a look at the control interface in action. You will find a lot of features in this demo, like the ability to lock and unlock doors remotely, text messages when someone enters your home, control lights, record video, and open and close shades. You can check out the video below and also visit Nexia Home.
Interview by Scott Ertz of F5 Live: Refreshing Technology.
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