Posts Tagged
‘featured’

Home / featured

Tablets still popular, but sales are down 0

Tablet devices continue to gain in popularity, but their sales may be slowing a bit.

More than 217 million tablets were sold worldwide in 2013, a 50 percent increase from the year before, Mobile Entertainment reports today.

And what did people want for Christmas? Tablets.

The holidays were particularly strong for tablet sales, say analysts at Framingham, Mass.-based IDC. Sales in the fourth fiscal quarter reached 77 million,  up 62.4 percent compared to the previous quarter, and 28.2 percent from the year before.

However, says IDC …

“While the market’s growth rates remain impressive, they’re down dramatically compared to the year-over-year rates of the same quarter one year ago (87.1 percent) and indicate a significant slowing of the overall market.”

Apple’s iPad is the market share leader, sending out 26 million of the devices in the fourth quarter, with Samsung stitting in second place. Apple owns a third of the worldwide tablet market. Good numbers but, IDC says, lower than the industry average.

 

 

Facebook joins the news biz with Paper 0

Facebook today introduced a new mobile app called Paper that presents users a personalized stream of news and information.

The app will launch for the iPhone in the U.S. on Feb. 3.

The news content in Paper comes from curated news sources and outlets posted publicly and on friends’ news feeds. Users can customize Paper with a choice of sections about various themes and topics.

It’s the latest move by Facebook to expand beyond its social media beginnings by becoming more of an essential part of the lives of its users.

Read more about Paper here on Techcrunch.

Check out this demo video of Facebook’s Paper app here.

 

 

When winter wreaks havoc 0

It took but 2 inches of snow to turn metro Atlanta into the largest commuter parking lot in the South.

A critical convergence of snow, freezing weather and an exodus of hundreds of thousands of homeward commuters wreaked havoc on the region Tuesday afternoon, leading to colossal traffic jams on the interstates and access roads and stranding motorists in their cars overnight in many locations.

The past 24 hours have been rough on those living in Atlanta and throughout parts of the Southeast, in places where this winter storm cut an icy swath. With that in mind, we came across this CNN Tech piece from last year on several smartphone apps that it says can be helpful in the event of a winter storm.

One in particular, the Winter Survival Kit app developed by the North Dakota State University extension service and downloadable for Android and Apple devices, would have been especially useful to the thousands who were stuck on the ice-slick highways.

Maybe these apps will come in handy when the next big one hits.

Your hotel room key: There’s an app for that coming 0

The coded plastic key, which replaced metal keys in hotels years ago, could soon be a thing of the past as well.

The Starwood lodging chain is trying out a new lock system in a couple of its hotels that connects via Bluetooth to an iPhone or Android app, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Guests at these properties would receive a message on a Starwood app containing the virtual key, which would unlock the door with a tap or twist of their phone.

Stamford, Conn.-based Starwood is hoping to introduce the virtual key at all its luxury W Hotels and Aloft hotels, which today represents 123 properties.

The benefits are substantial but not without risks, especially when it comes to hackers.

One way to ensure security for guests is to make the app downloadable only while on the premises, mobile security expert Chetan Sharma tells NBC News Digital.

So be prepared, business or vacation traveler, for the latest innovation to your mobile life. You can check it out here.

Just don’t say “Open, sesame.”

 

 

Charge it up: Power Tower, McDonald’s team up in NYC 0

Those living the mobile life at the Super Bowl, you’re in luck.

Chicago-based tech company Power Tower is partnering with McDonald’s to provide free mobile device charging stations at five Manhattan locations in the days leading up to the big game. The Super Bowl is at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., this year, and the New York metropolitan area is awash in football festivities.

The charging locations will be only blocks away from the NFL-sponsored Super Bowl Boulevard Engineered by GMC. Ten blocks of Times Square and parts of Broadway will be closed off to offer fans the ultimate football experience.

Now, you’ll have the means to power up the smartphone to document all the fun.

Power Tower markets and manufactures state of the art power charging stations and kiosks compatible with nearly all mobile devices, including iPhones and Blackberry and Android devices. Each station has the ability to charge up to 18 devices at once.

Here’s the company talking about it.

The charging stations will be at the following McDonald’s restaurants from Jan. 29 to Feb. 1:

  • 341 5th Ave.
  • 490 8th Ave.
  • 556 7th Ave.
  • 220 West 42nd St.
  • 1560 Broadway

How to secure your earbuds 0

The earbud headphones you wear are as essential and practical to your mobile lifestyle as the device you use them for. But sooner or later, you’ll have to take them out of your ears and leave them dangling around your neck, or tangled in your pocket.

This is where Zipi comes in.

The Zipi is the brainchild of project creator Frank Cho and the focus of a Kickstarter campaign that’s raised nearly double its goal of $6,000. Cho designed a plastic strip with magnets on the end that connect to each other. Plastic clips secure the earbuds to the Zipi, which wraps around behind your neck.

Yes, people actually think up stuff like this.

Techcrunch has a nice piece about the Zipi. Here’s a video courtesy of the Kickstarter site.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mighty Purse: One chic phone charger 0

So, ladies, what’s in your purse?

Makeup? Check. Sunglasses? Ditto. Smartphone?  Gotta have it.

How about a smartphone charger?

Definitely, if you have a Mighty Purse.

The Mighty Purse is made of quality leather, comes in a number of colors and — this the functional, mobile-tech part — has a hidden self-contained battery source attached to a USB cable. The rechargeable high-capacity battery can charge your smartphone up to two times. mightypurse_art

It is compatible with all smartphones with a micro-USB port. It is also compatible with the iPhone, though adapters must be purchased separately.

The Mighty Purse is a product of Handbag Butler, an Australian company founded in 2008 by husband-and-wife entrepreneurs Ana Slavka and Stephan Kljajic. Since launching in June 2013, the Mighty Purse is selling in more than 1,000 stores worldwide.

 

 

 

 

If you’re reading this, you’ve found your smartphone 0

polldinnerLiving the digital life can be a high-wire act.

That’s what can be learned from a poll that asks a sampling of 3,583 women how smartphones and social media affect their lives. The joint poll by Real Simple and the Huffington Post came up with some interesting findings. A sampling:

Where’s my phone? More than half of the respondents keep their smartphones close enough to the dinner table to hear, but conveniently out of sight. At bedtime, 47 percent keep the phones on the nightstand.

Now, where did I put it? The poll says 39 percent of respondents have checked for their smartphone in the bathroom. Another 15 percent have looked for it at a church, funeral or wedding.

This is illegal in many places: Some 39 percent of the respondents have texted behind the wheel, but only at a red light. Another 36 percent have, hmm, texted while driving.

Depends on the quality of content: Almost half of respondents say they would rather go without sex for a month than without their smartphones.

Read the rest of the results from the poll here on Real Simple.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keep a Lookout on Your Smartphone 0

Lookout Keys, wallets, Phone, Purse, laptop…there are a lot of things to keep track of. I have to do inventory every time I leave the house. I can’t decide which is most important because I will need them all during the course of the day but I would be a mess if my phone were to go missing. It has my whole life on it. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t misplaced or legitimately lost their phone at some point in their life. I have misplaced it plenty of times but if it wasn’t for Lookout I would have lost it.

Lookout is the safeguard every smartphone needs. Once it is installed, it will help you find your phone every time it isn’t where you need it to be. All you have to do is log into Lookout.com from another device and a map will show you where your phone is within 6 meters.

There have been three occasions where I had to use Lookout to find my phone. Once it was in my car, it had fallen between the seats. The second, it was home, I placed it on top of some clothes in the laundry basket and it fell in between the clothes. The last time it was actually stolen. I was at a restaurant and I was moving from one table to another so I was moving my stuff and in the midst of the move someone lifted my phone.

After I looked everywhere (you know how you check the same place ten times, expecting one time to find it there?) I looked all around the floor, on the chairs etc before I finally gave up and borrowed my friends’ phone. I logged onto Lookout MapLookout.com and my phone was 7 miles away! Fortunately I was in a small town where the police were able to assist in recovering it. I was so happy to get my phone back and so happy there is such an app that can target exactly where my phone was. Can you imagine the surprise when the police went knocking on the door of the house Lookout identified my phone to be?

I tell everyone I know to install it on their Androids, iPhones, tablets and iPads. Most people don’t think about installing it until it’s too late. It can be installed over the air if you have an Android which means you can go to the Google Play market and send it to your phone.

Besides locating a missed phone, it also backs up your info and scans for malware or questionable websites when you are surfing the web, all for free. Lookout is the ultimate security tool. It’s safety in the form of an app. It literally tells me everything is okay!

 

Use Your Phone in the Cold 0

20131114-094440.jpgThe mobile industry is booming, and it’s not just the sale of phones. Thousands of products have been created as accessories to smartphones like phone cases, mobile payment processors, camera lenses, even power bags that help keep your device charged so you can utilize all those great features.

One item we LOVE is the Photojojo Ten-Digit Touchscreen Gloves. These gloves let you use your smartphone in the cold!

Touchscreen gloves have been around for awhile now, but in addition to fingertips that let you type, these Photojojo gloves have grips on the palms that let you hang on to your precious phone. Plus, they’re thick and warm-great for the winter.

Buy the Photojojo Ten-digit Touchscreen gloves for $30 here.

For nine other options for touchscreen gloves, check out this Mashable article.