Tuesday Tech Talk #56

Hello folks and welcome to another edition of Tuesday Tech Talk. I have quite a few things to talk about this week and not all of them are Apple related so hope you enjoy!

Google Wave shutdown

Google announced last week it will be ceasing updates to Google Wave and will shut it down at the end of the year. For those that don’t know, Google Wave is a online collaboration web application that had a lot of buzz initially but faded fast. I haven’t used it in months.

Android update

There appears to be an update on the way to the Android OS in early September. While I’m on the subject of Android, I’m not getting into the whole iPhone vs Android “battle” anymore. You have 2 great mobile OS’s that are NOT using Windows and that is a win for almost everyone.

Microsoft Office for Mac release date

Microsoft has finally set a release time for Office 2011 for Mac. It will become available in late October and will be available in 3 flavors. A Student & Home edition for $119 which will include Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Messenger, a Home & Business edition for $199 ($279 for a 2 computer install) that will include all the above plus Outlook, and an Academic version for $99 that includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Messenger but will only be available in authorized academic channels and from Microsoft directly.

Verizon to get iPhone in January?

Stop me if you heard this one before. According to a source Apple has apparently ordered millions of Qualcomm CDMA chips from a January launch. What I don’t understand though and correct me if I’m wrong but the CDMA doesn’t allow you to both talk and use data at the same time so to me a CDMA based iPhone would lack the feature found in the GSM based iPhone available from AT&T. Personally I would love to see it happen, this is America and the iPhone should not be tied down to a single carrier.

Google now allowing switching between multiple accounts

If you happen to have more than 1 Google account, you can now switch between them without having to log out and log in. Yes I do admit, I have 2 Google accounts. Why? Because their free and why not.

Bill Gates on the future of education

Bill Gates has some interesting ideas on how in the future the dynamic of learning will be turned on its head. No longer would there be an X amount of students in a classroom, instead students for free will be able to watch lectures online. He envisions higher learning as not place based and how no matter how you learn you should get credit for it i.e., watching an online lecture.

This Week’s iPhone/iPod touch/iPad apps

Instapaper ($4.99) - This app which works for both the iPad and the iPhone and iPod touch allows you to read stories you choose to read later off websites. The cool thing about it is you can read them while offline. Here are a couple of screenshots.

Vonage Mobile for Facebook (FREE) - This awesome app allows you to talk for free with other Facebook friends who have the app on their iPhone, iPod touch, and Android devices (iPad coming soon). I tried it out with my friend Dave in California and the quality was excellent! Dave lives in an area where his 3G is not the best so a lot of times his calls will drop or fade but with the WiFi connection on the Vonage Mobile app it was excellent. Which leads to my next point with Vonage and Skype having apps for the iPhone, how soon until Apple allows the Google Voice app into the store?

CellTower ($2.99) - This handy little app will show on a map the nearest cell towers to you and who owns them. So if you are ever in an area with low bars, now you can find out why that is.

Friendly ($3.99) - This is a nice iPad based Facebook browser. Although for the price I would like to see a few more features like chat and attaching links with a status post. That being said there is a 2.0 version coming soon so hopefully it will offer such features.

TuneIn Radio ($1.99) - My friend Jeremy was telling me about this app. It allows you to listen to radio stations all over the country on your iPhone or iPod touch. It also allows you to record them within the app as well.

Well, that is going to do it for this edition of Triple T. Tune in Friday for another Googling Friday post about all things Google. Take care!