Scandisk Produces Another Winner -- A Portable 64 GB Unit, Feature Filled

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323407104579038942334577058.html

Story worth a read in this weeks WSJ.  The device is called Scandisk and costs $100 for the 64 GB version.  It will accept photos and files from your PC or Mac, and it is no bigger than a stack of post-it notes.   Nice.   It will wirelessly make all those files available to your iPad or iPhone (or Android phone) – up to 100 feet away.  No matter where you go, it can stream video and give file and photo access to 8 devices simultaneously.

The good news is

1.      the battery life is quite long, 6 hours or more streaming, and longer with other files

2.      doesn’t need an internet connection or wi-fi to work, it has the files stored internal

3.      it appears just like a wi-fi connection in your settings, you select it, and it connects like any other wi-fi source.  A special app then lets you access everything on your screen.

4.      you hook it to your PC or Mac with a USB cable and drag and drop what you want in it – pretty straight forward

5.      you can load photos and other things off your iPad or iPhone into it to clean up space

6.      essentially, it could act like you just increased your storage on your iPhone or android by 64 GB.  Until they are able to put more GB’s of storage into phones this might be a stop gap.  Or useful for accessing files for business on the road or in the car, particular where there is no internet signal, like in a submarine, or walking in a forest or in an office building with poor internet and or wi-fi access

7.      couple this with the great Anker battery boost devices (see other post in my blog) and you really have a great total solution for an overseas flight or a few days in the wilderness

I noticed that in just a few months I am bumping the storage limits of my iPad and iPhone and I really don’t want to lose immediate access to all my photos and videos by downloading it to a PC that is in only one “fixed” location.  This could allow the photos to travel and be accessed only when needed.  Nice.

PS--- I still recommend my Anker battery supply (see prior Blog Post) it continues to please. 

Colorizing Old Photos

There is a new technique for this, and one person is doing a great job of taking old portraits and other scenes and coloring them into striking presentations.  So good the people and events seems to come to life.  I don't know the technique but it is marvelous in my opinion.  And I understand takes hours and hours per photograph.  I have some saved to my computer, but here are some of the Titanic, well worth a look.

http://petapixel.com/2013/08/23/colorized-1912-photographs-of-the-titanic/

More later if you are interested in this topic, just comment. 

Discovering Your Mobile Phone Use Statistics

http://ipod.about.com/od/iphoneplans/a/How-To-Check-Your-Iphone-Data-Use.htm

I started getting notices (text messages) from Verizon about my phone usage “nearing my contract limit for this month” a few months ago, and they have continued, but so far I have never gone over the limit.  But, last night I was checking out some incredibly cheap no-contract phone plans at Target and noticed one from Virgin Mobile for only $30 a month that had 1,500 minutes of talk, 1,500 text messages and 30 MB of data (web access) a month.  I don’t know how much web data I use, but I surely don’t use 1,500 minutes of talk and 1,500 text messages a month.  And I pay $70 or more (but got my phone for $200 – a discount form the true value).

In the process of figuring out what I really do use, I found the website above. Thanks to that website I found the incredibly useful Verizon App – that will tell me all my usage right there on the phone, any time of day or night, and for free.  Why didn’t I know that before?  Necessity is the mother of invention (or App research).  Right?

I heard that AARP offers a plan similar to Virgin’s plan for only $29 and some items are unlimited. And I read that T-Mobile and Sprint are rolling out massive upgrades to their systems (to get 4-G in more places and get better coverage).  Soon it will be a free-for-all in pricing of cell service.  Which is probably long overdue, since the market appears to be saturated.  However, I have also read that there is remarkably little “company switching” in the mobile phone business; just a few % of customers a year defect.  Customers seem to want (and need) free new phones when their contracts come up for renewal, and end up falling back in love with their current provider. So they stay on.  I know I do.

Telsa The New Electric Automobile A Great Assembly Line Video

The Telsa video (link below)  is a must see for those interested in where the future of car building lies.  160 robots build the car, although they have 3,000 employees as well.  It takes about 5 days from raw material to finished car, but they are moving through the factory very fast.  Must watch:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/8_lfxPI5ObM?feature=player_embedded

This car is all electric and has won praise from reviewers such as Consumer Reports and other “hard to please reviewers” like Motor Trend.  The Model S won the 2013 "Motor Trend Car of the Year", the 2013 "World Green Car", Automobile Magazine's 2013 "Car of the Year", and Time Magazine Best 25 Inventions of the Year 2012 award. About 2,650 Model S cars were sold in the U.S. during 2012, and 4,900 units during the first quarter of 2013, allowing the Model S to become the top selling plug-in electric car in North America during the first quarter of 2013, ahead of the Chevrolet Volt with 4,421 units, and the Nissan Leaf with 3,695. Tesla increased its 2013 sales target to 21,000 units in April 2013, and expects global sales of 30,000 units in 2014, with 15,000 units in the United States, 10,000 units in Europe and 5,000 in Asia.^[99]

The company is 10 years old and publicly owned.  Just turned profitable.  Operates out of the old join venture auto factor GM and Toyota (made a few models years ago  as GM tried to improve quality and get more economic vehicles to sell).  NUMI factory.

Tile App -- Soon To Be The World's Largest Lost & Found

http://www.thetileapp.com/

Link to the website and video.

Tile is a new – not yet shipping – device. But you can pre-order it now.  It could be a big hit.  For about $19 it is like a key-tag (but can be put on anything) and, with an iPhone (or equal) you can find the item with the tag.  Perfect for locating misplaced car keys.  Or even your laptop if someone accidentally picks it up and thinks it is now theirs. 

Watch the movie on the website above to get the story.  I didn’t think much of this device when I read about it a few weeks ago, but my opinion is slowing changing.  It could be quite useful for purses, briefcases and other things that are worth finding if they get “misplaced”.  Could be hidden in linings of these devices as a kind of “find me” device that a dishonest person might not realize is bugged for location recovery.  Using other people’s use of the same app puts everyone in a sort of loop to locate items that are out of range of your smart phone. But in range of someone else's smart phone.

It might have helped if I had had this Tile on my iPod Touch a year ago.  I left on an airplane as I was exiting late at night, and was not able to recover because they would not let me back on the plane without a "new ticket". To top it off the flight attendants wouldn't go in and search for it for me.  Long story, but perhaps, just perhaps, this would have gotten my iPod back.  Tiny items like the iPod Touch are easy to slip in seat pockets and be just about invisible.  They are even smaller than smart phones.

GPS Revolution – Amazing Stuff, Moves To Higher Level

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/25/google-maps-for-iphone-tips-tricks_n_2316479.html  7 tips to better use Google Maps 

When Google's released it's new maps app for the iPhone it enjoyed a phenomenal initial reception. After over 10 million iPhone owners gobbled it up in its first 48 hours, it is likely one of the most quickly downloaded apps in the history of Apple's App Store.


Having just used my iPhone 5 and Google Maps to find 16 homes in a distant city (for a business project) I can’t tell you how impressed I am.  My Garmin was my favorite, but no more.  The combination of the iPhone and Google Maps brought me to a new realization that “things could get better” and did they ever.  By putting in just the address (by voice or text) the maps program would find the correct house or offer me several logical options. 

And then, choosing the correct one, it would calculate 3 or more routes to the house from my present location and give me the driving times using all options.  Touching one of them, and telling it to take me there, it did just that.  Turn by turn and always giving me the “minutes to arrival” in dynamic time. The voice descriptions were great, better than Garmin and I could choose the satellite mode and see the trees and homes and the road – something my Garmin can’t do. 

I am sure my readers are aware of all this, but for me it was a wake up call last week.  Why I had neglected this great phone feature, I don’t know.  Possibly because there is no easy way to see the phone in my car while driving.  I will be looking for a solution to that.

PS -- talking to folks that have new cars with built-in navigation, they usually tell me they don't use it (as I didn't use mine) because it is hard to program and doesn't work as well as Garmin (much less as well as iPhone-Google Maps).  I certainly think the auto makers are lagging in this area.  They have nice looking screens, but in functionality they are a bit too complicated and who wants to sit in the car going nowhere while trying to program an address?  Better to do that when you are inside your home and have access to the correct street locations via your PC screen or print medium.  Naturally Android phones also run Google maps well, I saw one in action last week, they have a parent-child relationship.

Home Is Where Wi-Fi Connects -- Automatically

As Wi Fi has grown from a child to an adult we have seen speeds grow, but I am not sure devices can (or do) use those newer speeds.  However, my own iPad 3 seems to do very well in some apps. It takes two wi-fi modems to get the signal into all rooms of my home, a brick fireplace and granite counter tops are not friendly to wi fi.

Today’s WSJ has a story about Starbucks cancelling their contract with AT&T who now provides wi fi (free to customers) in their stores. Google, the big new wi fi upstart, will take their place and promises wi fi signal that is 10 X as fast as the old AT&T.  Which was, they say, a T-1.  Wait, T-1 was the fastest wired line you could buy just a few years ago, how could Google wi fi be 10 X faster?  Over air is hardly as good as a wired connection (IMO).  This will be coming in a few weeks, in all stores in 18 months. I guess we can all test it soon.

Google will also be bring more to the table, youtube ? Starbucks Digital Network ? Google Play?  Google plans to use this to pitch more advertising and Google products at users (hopefully just in-store users). 

As you know, Google is wiring parts of some cities, Kansas City and maybe Austin, in an experiment (wired service) to replace Time Warner (and others).  The feature is super high internet speeds -- 10 X the best AT&T or Time Warner can provide.  This is to help small technology businesses operate in places like, well, Kansas City as opposed to Silicone Valley.  In a few years I will bet we will have have amazing internet speeds to our homes -- so be wary of offers to lock in 2 years of service at today's speeds and prices.