Nerd News

Nerd News

• Most people clueless about their Internet speeds, but happy anyway. Test your speed with this handy speed test.
• AT&T drops unlimited data plan, suggests 98% of subscribers will save money with new capped plans. The changes go into effect same day as Apple’s WWDC Conference. What is the significance?
• DirecTV DVRs locked up everywhere.
• New HP printers let you email to them. Get ready for printer spam.
• Bad Adobe! Zero-day exploits

Feature Story: iPhone 4

• iPhone 4 will be available June 24 (pre-order begin June 15th)
  • HD video (720p at 30fps)
  • 960×480 display (800:1 contrast ratio) & 326 pixels per inch
  • front-facing camera
  • FaceTime video calling (iPhone 4-only; only over WiFi only in 2010)
  • Gyroscope for finer control (6 axis motion sensing) when gaming
  • 24% thinner than iPhone 3GS, improved battery life
  • 5 megapixel camera with LED flash
• Cost:
  • $199 for 16GB, $299 for 32GB
  • AT&T offering upgrade for existing up to 6 mos early
• iPhone OS renamed to iOS4.
  • Available June 21. Free to all iPhone & iPod Touch users (iPad in Fall)
  • multi-tasking (application pausing)
  • Global Inbox for Mail, Enterprise features
  • not much new discussed here than from January announcement
• Other announcements at WWDC
  • iMovie for iPhone ($4.99 in App Store) to let you edit your videos on the phone, then email or publish to YouTube
  • Safari 5
  • nothing on AppleTV, MacBook Air or Mac Mini yet
• What does this mean in the smartphone war? Here’s a comparison.

Nerd History:

• June 1, 1980 – Cable News Network (CNN) begins broadcasting.
• June 10, 1977 – Apple ships its first Apple II personal computer.
• June 1, 2009 – General Motors files for chapter 11 bankruptcy. It is the fourth largest United States bankruptcy in history.
• June 4, 1777 – VHS is introduced
• June 3, 1971 – I’m a PC! John Hodgman born

Wireless Mouse App for your Mac or PC

• Tom tells us about the Mobile Air Mouse, a very cool app that lets you wirelessly control your mouse for your PC or Mac with your iPhone/iPod Touch.

FaceBook 3.0 App in the Pipeline

• The new FaceBook iPhone app has finally been sent to the App Store for approval. Loaded with 15 new features that give you better control over your FaceBook experience, this update catches up to the overhaul that FB made to their website months earlier. We’re hoping this fixes some of the issues we’ve seen with entries that appear to be duplicated when viewing on the iPhone.

G1 Android Phone Problems Already?

• Google usually gets credit for delivering lean, efficient applications that run quickly (their web search engine, just to name one very good example).  It seems that they are running into some problems with their Android phone, though. A Google developer working on the Android team reports that it may be difficult to deliver future updates to the phone Operating System because the chip’s flash memory is nearly full. Oh, dear. That can’t be good.

2009 Buick Excelle: Made in China?

• Chinese influence shaping the development of American cars? That’s exactly what’s happening at Buick.

Gmail Overtakes AOL Mail

• A new report lists the top web services for email. Chances are you are using at least one of these. We’re not surprised by who is at the top of the list. But the size of their lead is quite a shock.

MLB Comes to the Roku

• Owners of the Roku streaming device may have noticed the addition of some new subscription content of late. Major League Baseball has delivered a beta of their game videos. With a premium subscription, you can watch out of market games on your device. None of us pay for that content, but Mike has used the MLB At Bat iPhone app where one game each day is offered for free.

TomTom GPS App Comes to the iPhone

• If you are still having a hard time swallowing the $9.99 price for some iPhone apps, then just wait until you check out the new release of a turn-by-turn navigation app from TomTom that has just hit the App Store. Weighing in at $99, this one may make you think before you hit that Buy button. When is Apple going to provide a way to test drive applications without having to shell out money for them? Okay, this conflicts with their statement that ‘all free apps will remain free’. But there has to be a better way. Otherwise the App Store will continue to be filled with junky apps and the user reviews will continue to carry little weight.

App of the Week

• For all you fantasy football geeks out there, check out the new ESPN Mock Draft Kit App for iPhone. Note: this link will take you to the iTunes app store.

Movie Quote of the Week

• Jimmy Dugan: “Are you crying? Are you crying? ARE YOU CRYING? There’s no crying! THERE’S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL!” - A League of Their Own (1992)

Traveling OverSeas with iPhone

• Tom’s back from a trip to Germany. He had some challenges getting the iPhone to work seamlessly while there. He’ll fill us in on what some of those hiccups were.

Present, but Absent

• A good article from USA Today talks about how obsessed we’ve become with our smart phones and social networking tools. Truth be told, I can’t remember the last time I was ‘unplugged’ for a long time.

Sweet Plane Tech

• On the way home, Tom gets a nice upgrade to first class from United. Wow, there was some cool tech there that we’ll never see in Coach.

Transparent Aluminum discovery. Beam me up, Scotty!

• The timeline from Star Trek IV must have happened. Because it seems that transparent aluminum has, in fact, been invented by scientists at Oxford. Woo hoo! No truth to the rumor that the scientist that discovered it had the same name as the scientist in the ST film.

Tron: Legacy

• Disney is making a sequel to the 1982 groundbreaking effects movie. You’ll have to wait until 2010 to see it. But the first trailer is now online. You can see that here.

Alie ?

• Speaking of movies, another Aliens movie is coming out in 2011. Ridley Scott comes back to direct but this time, it’s a prequel. So if the first movie was called Alien, and the sequel was called Aliens then does that mean the prequel will be called Alie ? Inquiring minds want to know!

I ain’t ‘fraid of no ghost

• The hit movie from 1984 is now a wildly successful video game. They got all of the original actors back to voice the game. It must be time to watch that movie again. Don’t cross the streams.

Important computer patches

• Microsoft released a patch for Windows (Internet Explorer) and Apple pushes out a fix for an iPhone/iPod Touch SMS problem. Go get these updates for your devices. It’s always a good idea to stay current on patches.

Gmail Labs

• Google has added all kinds of add-ins for Gmail. One of them (Mail Goggles) makes you solve some math problems before it lets you send out late night emails. Just in case you wrote something after a few too many drinks that you might regret in the morning. Wow, a breathalyzer equivalent for email. Don’t drink and email!
• You can access this feature and many others by clicking Settings, Labs from within your Gmail account.

Chris Shuler is our guest this week. He enlightens us on some killer performance of his Kindle DX and very handy cellular access.

MacBook Air USB – choose wisely

• Due to limitations in Tom’s hotel room, he joined us via telephone. That MacBook Air needs more USB ports!

Google Wants to see Chrome on your desktop

• The search giant has announced that it’s getting into the desktop operating system market. They are working with netbook manufacturers to bring this to you as early as Fall 2010. They got their feet wet with the Chrome browser and developing for the Android phone.

Microsoft Fights Back with a free version of Office

• Not to be outdone, Microsoft seems to be going after Google Docs and other free Office alternatives with their announcement of a free web-based version of Office coming in the next version of the popular suite.

Kindle DX 1st Hand Experience

• Killer battery life, surprisingly handy cellular coverage (without a data plan), crisp display of text. Hear a first hand account of the new Amazon device for reading books from our special guest.

iTunes 8.2.1 Patch

• Apple released an update to iTunes today. It suggests that a fix for the AirTunes speaker problem may be included. But we know that Apple is notorious for simping on details of software updates.
• UPDATE: since recording the show, we’ve had more time to test this out. It looks like the problem still exists unfortunately. So you’re still stuck with having to restart iTunes to get your remote speakers back.

Charge your iPhone while it’s in your belt clip case

• Tom talks about the Fuel case for iPhone. He finds it very handy for recharging his iPhone without connecting it to a wall outlet or USB port.

Nerd of the Week

• Happy Birthday, Nikola Tesla!
• Born on July 10th, 1856
• The inventor of radio (though wrongly credited to Marconi at the time) would be 153 years old now.

]]> http://www.wordsfromnerds.com/2009/07/wfn-23-3-months-on-a-single-charge/feed/ 0 http://www.wordsfromnerds.com/2009/06/wfn-20-the-s-stands-for-speed/ http://www.wordsfromnerds.com/2009/06/wfn-20-the-s-stands-for-speed/#comments Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:49:21 +0000 Mike http://www.wordsfromnerds.com/?p=213 Now that the iPhone 3G S and OS 3.0 are out, we’ll give you the scoop on how all of the new features work. Also get a recap on the recently completed Podcamp Ohio.

PodcampOhio

• Mike went to Podcamp Ohio last weekend. He provides a recap of the event.
• Find a podcamp in your area.
• Trying to get into podcasting but intimidated by all of the hardware choices? Turn to the Podcast Answer Man, Cliff Ravenscraft. You can get a lot of great info from his podcasts. Plus, he offers consulting (for a fee) if you need some one-on-one help. You can listen to his shows right from the website or subscribe via iTunes with a single click.

iPhone 3.0/iPhone 3G S

• Stephanie joins us for this segment as we review the iPhone/Touch 3.0 update.
• John and Tom are now part of the iPhone/Touch revolution. Moo hoo ha ha ha!
• We’ll cover the new features included in the OS 3.0 update.
• We’ll also talk about some of the features that are exclusive to the new 3G S phone, like video recording and voice dialing.
• Tom and Steph share some of their favorite iPhone apps. Tom has already found a couple of handy ones after only three days of having his phone!
  • Tom loves Star Walk, Camera Zoom and SleepMaker Rain Free.
  • Stephanie uses White Noise and Easy Relax (free and paid versions available)
• The Find My iPhone app works pretty well.
• Tom had an unusual problem charging the iPhone but it seems to have corrected itself. We’ll have to keep an eye on this one.
• Besides the landscape keyboard, Steph’s favorite new feature just might be the ability to sync notes back to her computer. She also likes the ability to get movies and videos on her touch without having to do so through iTunes. Redeeming iTunes gift cards from the Touch is also new.

Nerd Site of the Week

• Stanford University has a very popular class (CS193P: iPhone Application Programming) on iTunes University.

Movie Quote

• “What does the Omega 13 device do?” – Commander Peter Taggart, Galaxy Quest

Other Links:

• John and Stephanie were talking on a Snowball from Blue Microphones.

• Apple announced the 3rd generation of their popular smartphone. Did we succumb and get one? Hmmmm.
• We’ll talk about the new phone, the new OS and cell phone contracts.

Medical Tech

• When you need medical care, do you feel like you’re at the mercy of the doctors and nurses? Do you trust everything they tell you? How are you supposed to understand all of those complicated-sounding medical terms?
• That’s the problem we ran into recently. We’ll tell you what we learned and how we decided to put the technology that we use and love so much to use to help us figure out what was going on.
• There are plenty of web sites (WebMD, Wikipedia) that can clue you in on things like prescriptions (side effects, conflicts with other meds), medical conditions (describing the symptoms, procedures, risks) and even for researching doctors.
• Cell phones & Wi-Fi let you be accessible to the patient, the medical staff and each other anytime, no matter where you are.
• Social media as a communication tool for family and friends.
• Shared calendars (like Google Calendar) can even be a handy way to allow family members to keep track of doctor follow-ups, prescription schedules, etc.

Nerd word of the week

• Fluoroscope
• Tom even managed to get a picture of one with his BlackBerry.

Movie Quote

• “It’s a UNIX system! I know this!” – Lex, Jurassic Park

In other news

• Kindle DX sold out in three days. Yeah, but how many units was this exactly?

Web Poll

• Do you use voice dialing features on your cell phone?