Hello folks and welcome to another edition of Tuesday Tech Talk. I am fresh back from Nashville where I attended PodCamp so I had to absurd a lot of tech news in a short period of time. Let’s see what is going on this week!
Firefox 4
Last week Mozilla released the official version of Firefox 4. It brings several new notable features, my personal favorite is Pin Apps which basically allows you to take your most frequently opened tabs and reduce them to favicons in the upper left hand corner of the browser for quick access.
In addition it also has a feature called Grouped Tabs which sets up multiple tabs of pages for quick access. To give you an idea of what is new, check out the video. I would post it here but Mozilla does not give me the option to embed their videos. I am a fan of Google Chrome but I decided to give Firefox 4 a week of exclusive use and I will let you know next week of what I think about it. MacWorld has chimed in with their initial review of it which you can read here.
Yahoo debuts “Future of Search”
Remember this company? We used to check them out for search results before Google came along. Well, anyhow, they are rolling out a new search technology. I have to say it is really impressive but is it enough to compete against Google at this point? Only time will tell.
Audible offers WiFi download to Kindle
Huge news for Kindle users, Audible now offers the ability to download their 50,000 titles via WiFi to your Kindle. I don’t have a Kindle myself...yet. But this is a lot more convenient than having to side-load via USB.
Warner Brothers adds more Films to Facebook
After offering the Dark Knight on Facebook for users to rent and watch, Warner Brothers is now offering 5 additional movies to the service. The new movies are Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Inception, Life as We Know It and Yogi Bear. I think the jury is still out on this one as no other studios have come on board to offer their content on Facebook. I still stand by the fact that people in general do not want to watch a movie on a computer screen which is why AppleTV and Roku boxes are doing so well right now.
Well, that is going to do it for this week’s Tuesday Tech Talk. If you want to know about my experience at PodCamp Nashville, you can read my post about it here. See you next week!
Showing posts with label Roku. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Roku. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Tuesday Tech Talk #70
Hey everybody and welcome to another installment of Tuesday Tech Talk.
Big Brother looking at disabling your cellphone in a vehicle
This is somewhat tech and a lot political, but it was enough to fire up the libertarian in me (note the small “L”). Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was quoted as stating the following:
“There’s a lot of technology out there now that can disable phones and we’re looking at that,” said LaHood on MSNBC. LaHood said the cellphone scramblers were one way, and also stressed the importance of “personal responsibility.”
Now here is the problem I have with this statement, scramblers would scramble any cellphone in the vehicle so even if you are a passenger in the vehicle, your cellphone would be scrambled too. Of course if you are driving you should not text and drive that is just personal responsibility which he states at the end. Never the less, with the whole controversy of TSA naked X-Ray machines and pat downs, the last thing the American people want to hear is how someone else in the government wants to take away more of our freedoms. Go shove it Mr. LaHood!
Hulu Plus leaves Preview and drops its price
Hulu Plus is now for everybody and at a $7.99 price and, is available on Roku boxes. No word yet on an AppleTV deal, but with it being available on the iPad and iPhone, it can only be a matter of time before it is available for AppleTV.
Zuckerberg talks Messaging, Data Portability, and Mistakes
Last week at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed the future of messaging and how email will be used in more formal communications, but more casual messaging is growing more and more through IM, SMS Texting, and Facebook messaging. He also touches on data portability and mistakes made.
Twitter CEO takes issue with China over labor sentencing over a retweet
Dick Costolo sent out a tweet last week critical of the Chinese government sentencing a woman for one year to a labor camp for “reeducation”. Here is a snap shot of the Tweet:
News Corp and Apple building iPad only Newspaper
According to Women’s Wear Daily, Apple and News Corp are collaborating on an iPad specific digital newspaper called The Daily, that would sell for 99 cents per week. There is even speculation that Rupert Murdoch and Steve Jobs will make a co-announcement sharing the stage together. I have thought the iPad is perfect for reading a digital newspaper, in-fact I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal newspaper on my iPad and if The Daily is anything like the WSJ, then we are in store for something special at a cheaper price than the WSJ.
Apple working on CDMA-GSM iPad?
According to All Things Digital, Apple may be working on a “World iPad” in that it would contain both a CDMA and GSM chipset to work with multiple carriers. If so this would be huge and is going to sell units in just about every wireless providers store. Take that Samsung Galaxy and Blackberry PlayBook!
GoogleTV gets double negative reviews from New York Times and Wall Street Journal
Basically calling it complex and not as straight forward as the AppleTV. The New York Times and WSJ said that GoogleTV is a step in the wrong direction and missing the mark, respectively. Quite frankly, I would agree, I played around with both the Logitech Revue and Sony-based systems and found it to be a cross between watching WebTV while viewing TV content. Look, if people want to browse the web while watching TV, their going to do it from their laptop, smartphone, or tablet device and not their TV. It may be ahead of its time possibly, but for right now it is a pure geek device and not something you would get your parents or grandparents. By contrast, the AppleTV is straight forward, you have a basic remote for browsing a basic onscreen menu to jump between the different services that all do one thing, provide video and audio content for your TV. Once again, Apple gets it, try again Google!
Well, that is going to do it for this edition of Tuesday Tech Talk, I still love you guys at Google, but with Thanksgiving this week, there will be no Googling Friday this coming Friday. You don’t need to spend your time reading my blog that day, instead spent it with your family. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Big Brother looking at disabling your cellphone in a vehicle
This is somewhat tech and a lot political, but it was enough to fire up the libertarian in me (note the small “L”). Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was quoted as stating the following:
“There’s a lot of technology out there now that can disable phones and we’re looking at that,” said LaHood on MSNBC. LaHood said the cellphone scramblers were one way, and also stressed the importance of “personal responsibility.”
Now here is the problem I have with this statement, scramblers would scramble any cellphone in the vehicle so even if you are a passenger in the vehicle, your cellphone would be scrambled too. Of course if you are driving you should not text and drive that is just personal responsibility which he states at the end. Never the less, with the whole controversy of TSA naked X-Ray machines and pat downs, the last thing the American people want to hear is how someone else in the government wants to take away more of our freedoms. Go shove it Mr. LaHood!
Hulu Plus leaves Preview and drops its price
Hulu Plus is now for everybody and at a $7.99 price and, is available on Roku boxes. No word yet on an AppleTV deal, but with it being available on the iPad and iPhone, it can only be a matter of time before it is available for AppleTV.
Zuckerberg talks Messaging, Data Portability, and Mistakes
Last week at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed the future of messaging and how email will be used in more formal communications, but more casual messaging is growing more and more through IM, SMS Texting, and Facebook messaging. He also touches on data portability and mistakes made.
Twitter CEO takes issue with China over labor sentencing over a retweet
Dick Costolo sent out a tweet last week critical of the Chinese government sentencing a woman for one year to a labor camp for “reeducation”. Here is a snap shot of the Tweet:
News Corp and Apple building iPad only Newspaper
According to Women’s Wear Daily, Apple and News Corp are collaborating on an iPad specific digital newspaper called The Daily, that would sell for 99 cents per week. There is even speculation that Rupert Murdoch and Steve Jobs will make a co-announcement sharing the stage together. I have thought the iPad is perfect for reading a digital newspaper, in-fact I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal newspaper on my iPad and if The Daily is anything like the WSJ, then we are in store for something special at a cheaper price than the WSJ.
Apple working on CDMA-GSM iPad?
According to All Things Digital, Apple may be working on a “World iPad” in that it would contain both a CDMA and GSM chipset to work with multiple carriers. If so this would be huge and is going to sell units in just about every wireless providers store. Take that Samsung Galaxy and Blackberry PlayBook!
GoogleTV gets double negative reviews from New York Times and Wall Street Journal
Basically calling it complex and not as straight forward as the AppleTV. The New York Times and WSJ said that GoogleTV is a step in the wrong direction and missing the mark, respectively. Quite frankly, I would agree, I played around with both the Logitech Revue and Sony-based systems and found it to be a cross between watching WebTV while viewing TV content. Look, if people want to browse the web while watching TV, their going to do it from their laptop, smartphone, or tablet device and not their TV. It may be ahead of its time possibly, but for right now it is a pure geek device and not something you would get your parents or grandparents. By contrast, the AppleTV is straight forward, you have a basic remote for browsing a basic onscreen menu to jump between the different services that all do one thing, provide video and audio content for your TV. Once again, Apple gets it, try again Google!
Well, that is going to do it for this edition of Tuesday Tech Talk, I still love you guys at Google, but with Thanksgiving this week, there will be no Googling Friday this coming Friday. You don’t need to spend your time reading my blog that day, instead spent it with your family. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Tuesday Tech Talk #67
Hello all and welcome to another edition of Tuesday Tech Talk. This week I am going to depart from the regular format and share with you a review of AppleTV which I unexpectedly got on Saturday.
How we went to the Apple Store for iLife ’11 and walked with an AppleTV
So on Saturday we decided to head up to Memphis, specifically Germantown to visit the Apple Store at Saddle Creek and grab lunch at Qdoba there. We were just going there to pick up a copy of iLife ’11 in order to take advantage of the new features of iPhoto.
Once we arrived at the store, I showed Kristen on one of the iMac’s what iPhoto ’11 can do and she was quite impressed so I grabbed a copy off the shelf. After doing so, I showed Kristen the AppleTV box they have connected to an HDTV next to the software shelf. I showed her how easy it is to browse Netflix and YouTube content.
After only a few minutes she asks how much it is and once informing her of the $99 price tag she replies with, “Ok, lets get it!”. I stood there stunned and reminded her how it is a $99 item and she said, “thats Ok, lets get it.”.
Once I picked my jaw off the hardwood floor, I grabbed an AppleTV box and looked over the cables needed to connect it to our TV. My setup is an HDTV and an audio receiver, the 2 HDMI ports on our receiver are already taken by a DirecTV HD-DVR and a Sony Blu-ray player. So I find that not only does Apple sell their own HDMI cable, but it is $20! I looked for the optical audio cable next and can’t locate one, luckily Jacob our friendly Apple Sales rep looks in the back and minutes later, appears with a 6’ one which is perfect and also $20.
So the AppleTV plus the cables rings up at around $150 with tax. Course we also get the iLife ’11 as well. Jacob rings us up and we are set to go, before departing though, we look at the MacBook Air, the iPod touch, the iPhone 4, and the iPod nano and shuffle, models but depart without buying anymore Apple goodies. We eat at Qdoba and then head home.
The Setup
Once home (I had unsealed all the wrapping on the items on the drive down.), I open up the box to the AppleTV and I find one thing very striking, Apple knows how to package product efficiently. Enjoy the un-boxing photos.
All sealed up
Apple TV itself, right in the palm
Next, the remote
A little divider which doubles as a remote holder, separates the remote and AppleTV from the power cable and instructions and Apple stickers.
The power cable (note the excitement on Angel’s face)
Setup Guide (didn’t need it)
Apple stickers (I got a lot of these!)
The box nearly empty of its contents.
So the hookup to the TV and audio receiver took less than 5 minutes. Within 10 mins, I am entering in my user and password for Netflix, iTunes Store info, and wireless network password. About 5 mins after that, we are watching YouTube videos first, you know kid, your finger wouldn’t hurt if you didn’t put it in Charlie’s mouth to bite in the first place.
Initial Thoughts on AppleTV
So what are my thoughts after a couple of days of using AppleTV? Well, I can safely say if you have a broadband connection, an HDTV, and a Netflix account, then you should get one of these! The content available from Netflix alone is worth the $99, but when you consider you can watch video content stored on your Mac computers, on the AppleTV it is even more compelling. At this point I have not rented TV shows on it yet and I don’t see myself doing so either.
VideoCasts
I want to share something else I realized while watching video podcasts on the AppleTV. I think devices like AppleTV, Roku, and GoogleTV can do for good quality VideoCasts what the iPod did for audio podcasts. I watched 2 episodes of MacBreak Weekly, a show that is between 90 mins to 2 hours and watching a show of similar length is much more preferable on the TV over a computer, iPhone, or iPad.
How this changes TV
After a day of using the AppleTV, we went ahead and cut our DirecTV package down to Choice programming which is their minimal programming package. We intend to keep it there until our contract ends at which point we will look at providers of the same day content we enjoy. I don’t see myself ever getting rid of Satellite or Cable TV outright simply because I love to watch live sports and that is just not available right now with AppleTV, Roku, or GoogleTV. However, the days of Sat. and cable companies charging an outrageous fee for programming, is nearing its end. These boxes offer a competitive alternative to sat. and cable and they will have to get better on pricing or lose customers.
So, that is my AppleTV review. I would love to see Hulu added to the mix at some point for even more TV content. Next week I will return to the normal format of Tuesday Tech Talk, but if you have any questions about the AppleTV, feel free to leave some in the comments.
Oh and one more thing, if you are reading this on November 2nd, don’t forget to vote today! If you don’t vote, you can’t well, you know.
How we went to the Apple Store for iLife ’11 and walked with an AppleTV
So on Saturday we decided to head up to Memphis, specifically Germantown to visit the Apple Store at Saddle Creek and grab lunch at Qdoba there. We were just going there to pick up a copy of iLife ’11 in order to take advantage of the new features of iPhoto.
Once we arrived at the store, I showed Kristen on one of the iMac’s what iPhoto ’11 can do and she was quite impressed so I grabbed a copy off the shelf. After doing so, I showed Kristen the AppleTV box they have connected to an HDTV next to the software shelf. I showed her how easy it is to browse Netflix and YouTube content.
After only a few minutes she asks how much it is and once informing her of the $99 price tag she replies with, “Ok, lets get it!”. I stood there stunned and reminded her how it is a $99 item and she said, “thats Ok, lets get it.”.
Once I picked my jaw off the hardwood floor, I grabbed an AppleTV box and looked over the cables needed to connect it to our TV. My setup is an HDTV and an audio receiver, the 2 HDMI ports on our receiver are already taken by a DirecTV HD-DVR and a Sony Blu-ray player. So I find that not only does Apple sell their own HDMI cable, but it is $20! I looked for the optical audio cable next and can’t locate one, luckily Jacob our friendly Apple Sales rep looks in the back and minutes later, appears with a 6’ one which is perfect and also $20.
So the AppleTV plus the cables rings up at around $150 with tax. Course we also get the iLife ’11 as well. Jacob rings us up and we are set to go, before departing though, we look at the MacBook Air, the iPod touch, the iPhone 4, and the iPod nano and shuffle, models but depart without buying anymore Apple goodies. We eat at Qdoba and then head home.
The Setup
Once home (I had unsealed all the wrapping on the items on the drive down.), I open up the box to the AppleTV and I find one thing very striking, Apple knows how to package product efficiently. Enjoy the un-boxing photos.
All sealed up
Apple TV itself, right in the palm
Next, the remote
A little divider which doubles as a remote holder, separates the remote and AppleTV from the power cable and instructions and Apple stickers.
The power cable (note the excitement on Angel’s face)
Setup Guide (didn’t need it)
Apple stickers (I got a lot of these!)
The box nearly empty of its contents.
So the hookup to the TV and audio receiver took less than 5 minutes. Within 10 mins, I am entering in my user and password for Netflix, iTunes Store info, and wireless network password. About 5 mins after that, we are watching YouTube videos first, you know kid, your finger wouldn’t hurt if you didn’t put it in Charlie’s mouth to bite in the first place.
Initial Thoughts on AppleTV
So what are my thoughts after a couple of days of using AppleTV? Well, I can safely say if you have a broadband connection, an HDTV, and a Netflix account, then you should get one of these! The content available from Netflix alone is worth the $99, but when you consider you can watch video content stored on your Mac computers, on the AppleTV it is even more compelling. At this point I have not rented TV shows on it yet and I don’t see myself doing so either.
VideoCasts
I want to share something else I realized while watching video podcasts on the AppleTV. I think devices like AppleTV, Roku, and GoogleTV can do for good quality VideoCasts what the iPod did for audio podcasts. I watched 2 episodes of MacBreak Weekly, a show that is between 90 mins to 2 hours and watching a show of similar length is much more preferable on the TV over a computer, iPhone, or iPad.
How this changes TV
After a day of using the AppleTV, we went ahead and cut our DirecTV package down to Choice programming which is their minimal programming package. We intend to keep it there until our contract ends at which point we will look at providers of the same day content we enjoy. I don’t see myself ever getting rid of Satellite or Cable TV outright simply because I love to watch live sports and that is just not available right now with AppleTV, Roku, or GoogleTV. However, the days of Sat. and cable companies charging an outrageous fee for programming, is nearing its end. These boxes offer a competitive alternative to sat. and cable and they will have to get better on pricing or lose customers.
So, that is my AppleTV review. I would love to see Hulu added to the mix at some point for even more TV content. Next week I will return to the normal format of Tuesday Tech Talk, but if you have any questions about the AppleTV, feel free to leave some in the comments.
Oh and one more thing, if you are reading this on November 2nd, don’t forget to vote today! If you don’t vote, you can’t well, you know.
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