Category: product endorsements

in praise of internet sharing

On By Rick McIn blogs, books, internet, product endorsementsLeave a comment

Despite fear mongering and pragmatic cautioning, people are sharing online like there’s no tomorrow.

I’m a big fan of journalism professor / internet pundit Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do?

His newest publication is Public Parts, the book. It touts the societal benefits of sharing:

… A visionary and optimistic thinker examines the tension between privacy and publicness that is transforming how we form communities, create identities, do business, and live our lives.

Thanks to the internet, we now live—more and more—in public. More than 750 million people (and half of all Americans) use Facebook, where we share a billion times a day. The collective voice of Twitter echoes instantly 100 million times daily, from Tahrir Square to the Mall of America, on subjects that range from democratic reform to unfolding natural disasters to celebrity gossip. New tools let us share our photos, videos, purchases, knowledge, friendships, locations, and lives. …

Click PLAY or watch an introduction on YouTube.

via my Gymnastics Coaching site …

Google Wallat is … coming

On By Rick McIn Google, product endorsementsLeave a comment

Hate standing in line at a store?

Google Wallet is a mobile payment system developed by Google that allows its users to store credit cards, loyalty cards, and gift cards among other things, as well as redeeming sales promotions on their mobile phone.

Google Wallet uses near field communication to “make secure payments fast and convenient by simply tapping the phone on any PayPass-enabled terminal at checkout.” …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

google.com/wallet

Sound too good to be true? … Don’t Trade Your Wallet in for a Google Wallet Just Yet

… recalling Iceland

On By Rick McIn photos, product endorsements, travelLeave a comment

I’m still thinking about my 2wk tour of Iceland last June.

I recommend that destination for EVERYONE. It really is magical and wonderful.

morning vista out my inexpensive hostel window

… more Iceland photos

don’t steal my laptop

On By Rick McIn Apple, product endorsementsLeave a comment

I’ve got Prey installed.

Prey lets you keep track of your phone or laptop at all times, and will help you find it if it ever gets lost or stolen. It’s lightweight, open source software, and free for anyone to use. And it just works.

Click PLAY or watch it on Vimeo.

WordPress rules the internet

On By Rick McIn Apple, Google, internet, product endorsementsLeave a comment

I’m often recommending WordPress as the best platform for hosting websites. It’s far and away the most popular platform in 2011.

WordPress Powering Practically Half Of The Top 10,000 Websites

It’s free. Get started here.

Google’s competitor — Blogger — has always sucked, in comparison. But now Blogger sucks less than before.

_____

related …

Android and Apple together now account for nearly 70 percent of smartphone subscribers in the U.S. … (they) keep taking share from RIM’s Blackberry, Microsoft, and Symbian.

worst radio music decade ever?

On By Rick McIn music, product endorsements, things getting worseLeave a comment

In Idaho I’ve been listening to Hot 96.9FM.

Their playlist is about 9 songs long. I hear those few songs played less than an hour apart.

There are no DJs. And even the songs selected don’t have many musicians. It’s vocal supplemented with computer.

Marvin’s Room by Drake is a very interesting pop song. But the music video is so awful, I don’t link it.

Lighters by Eminem, Bruno Mars & Royce da 5’9″ has a lousy video, too. But I believe the song is a prototype for the rest of the decade.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube (profane version)

“Lighters” is an alternative hip hop song with influences of pop music.

The formula is simple. Get a catchy pop song started. Add rap for edge.

I do love the urban doggerel:

… Now his career’s
Lebron’s jersey in 20 years …

I’ll predict now that this decade will be considered even duller than the 1980s.

Windows Phone 7 looks GREAT

On By Rick McIn Apple, product endorsementsLeave a comment

My buddy Andy from Microsoft showed me how it works. Very cool. Much prettier than iPhone. And astonishingly different than iPhone.

Kudos.

Normally infamously slow to market, with this software, Microsoft is early.

Microsoft has locked up Nokia. The two mega-corporations will partner starting with a handset codenamed ‘Sea Ray‘.

Click PLAY or watch a Mango promo on YouTube.

… On the other hand, the Molly Rant Mango review was lukewarm, at best:

… it’s the end of my second week of life with Windows Phone 7 Mango, and it’s time to render a verdict. I should say at the outset that two weeks doesn’t sound a lot of time to live with an entirely new platform, and I might have lasted longer but for serious problems with the HTC Trophy I’ve been using (one-day record for spontaneous reboots: 15, including three in 15 minutes). …

So, what’s the verdict? It’s like, but it’s not love. This is not going to be my next smartphone. …

Read more: Cnet

I still think the phone market will shake down to 3 strong options in this order:

1) Android
2) Apple
3) Windows

Google bought Motorola mobile for $12.5 billion. This way they’ll have more control over the hardware, as Apple does.

Blackberry may hold on to some niche business market.

HP has killed their webOS Phones and TouchPad. Too bad. … That platform could a bin a contendah.

photographs focus AFTER you click

On By Rick McIn photos, product endorsements, things getting betterLeave a comment

I’m quite happy with my new GPS geotagging camera, despite the short battery life.

Friends report being happier than ever with their new cameras, too.

But the biggest innovation in decades may be just around the corner. This video shows how it works.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

PC MAG:

Ren Ng, the founder of Lytro, explains how a camera can capture images that are never out of focus. …

Lytro has big plans. … the Mountain View, CA-based startup said it would soon bring to market a new kind of camera that’s based on light-field photography. The result: photographs that you can focus after you take them. Simply click your mouse on the spot on the picture you want in focus, and it changes before your eyes …

the Lytro camera, assuming it debuts later this year as planned, will mark the first time the tech makes an appearance in a consumer camera …

“If you can shoot first, focus later, it’s going to be the fastest camera you’ve ever used,” Ng said in an interview with PCMag.

“Because when you press the shutter button, it takes the shot instantly. It doesn’t have to wait for the lens to move.”

How the Lytro Light-Field Camera Works

shift bike gears with your brain

On By Rick McIn cycling, product endorsementsLeave a comment

The most comical thing we do day-to-day as a species is thumb typing on a tiny phone keyboard.

Obviously voice control would be faster and easier. But what I really want is brain control. I would text somebody simply by thinking of the message, and thinking SEND.

But that’s impossible … Right ??

… Right. But not for long … For $100 you can already control iPhone graphics with your brain.

And at some fuzzy time in the near future you’ll be able to shift gears on a bike merely by thinking UP or DOWN in your bike helmet.

Click PLAY or watch the (painfully) Toyota sponsored video on YouTube.

(via Mashable – Bicycle Of The Future Shifts Gears Via Brain Waves)