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Month March 2011

Entries 20 Total

Samsung intros Transparent LCD panels

Mar 31, ’11 9:29 AM

I have been awaiting a real advance in display technologies for over a decade. Now lofty Samsung heralds a new transparent display technology. They are showing around a prototype is called TDK’s flexible OLED display, lately Samsung has started to mass produce a 22-inch transparent LCD panel relying on ambient light instead of back lighting, the transparent panels consume 90 percent less electricity than regular LCD panels. it will be quite a while before these transparent panels see the light of day on our desktops but Samsung is producing 2 transparent LCD panels – one black and white and the other a color version. Both have a contrast ratio of 500:1 and resolution of 1680 x 1050 (WSXGA). Both also incorporate HDMI and USB interfaces.

These display panels are expected to come in at high prices – and possibly while the bigwigs at Samsung search for real markets and uses in home and office applications – Samsung is aiming at corporations and schools that could  use them as an interactive communication devices. What will Apple do with them?

MANY THANKS AND CREDIT TO GIZMAG FOR THE STORY LINKS AND LEAD.

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Apple iPod Touch

Mar 31, ’11 8:20 AM
Apple iPod Touch

Apple iPod Touch

If the Apple iPad’s sizable form factor and cost won’t fit in your pocket or pocketbook and you’re bound to a multi-year contract with another carrier that keeps you from getting an iPhone 4 you just might be the very candidate for the latest Apple iPod Touch. Minus cellphone capability the iPod Touch does almost everything else, in fact many choosey users actually prefer it to either the iPad or the iPhone. The latest Touch is a giant leap ahead of the older more conventional iPods now being retired or the newer styled iPod Nanos finding new usage as rather cool wristwatches. Plus the Touch is packing more storage capacity, runs the latest iOS apps and is seriously thinner and absolutely drop-dead georgeous. With the Zune now out of the game the Touch has the reign and domination of the media player market all to itself.

iPod touch — has a built-in HD video camera — for high definition recording and editing in a few taps.

The Retina display is a huge step ahead offering incredibly high pixel density for much better viewing all around. Even though it’s only an “iPod” Apple’s FaceTime supports video calling  on the iPod touch.

http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/

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LG G-Slate

Mar 31, ’11 8:15 AM
LG G-Slate

LG G-Slate

Joining well over 200+ tablets out there in the wild or running around the rumor mill, LG is offering up a new tablet called the G-Slate on T-Mobile. This is the first 3D tablet officially running the very slick Android Honeycomb and sporting a Dual-core Tegra 2 chipset, 3D camera for video, a 8.9-inch display, and a forward-facing camera for video chats in addition there are a few interesting features. If rumor holds true, it comes in at or around $1,350 making it a bit too costly for much of the consumer market and much more expensive than the market dominant Apple iPad 2.

http://mobile-broadband.t-mobile.com/android-tablet/g-slate?cm_mmc_o=Vzbp+mwzygt*VAygtzlw*VyBpAgf+mA55Byf*VyBpAgf+mA55Byf

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Increase Twitter Followers Fast

Mar 30, ’11 7:12 PM

There are a couple of services out here that use point systems for generating Twitter Followers.One of these is Twiers. Some others that are in this business are a little less than efficient. At least that was my experience.

How it works:

  1. You can buy points straight out or you can earn them by clicking to Follow others and accure points that others can earn by following you.
  2. You post a short profile about youself and sit back and see what you catch.
  3. You link the service to your Twitter account
  4. Check your email to see who is now following you
  5. Begin Tweeting

Each time someone else clicks to follow you they gain the number of points you have determined to provide from 1-10. I set mine at the highest point value to speed up the process for this review.

Pro: I am hoping this drives traffic to my new blog by having followers view my tweets.

If you want to give it a try: Use the link below so I can get referral points

http://twiers.com?r=technicalbeat

Advisory: Some of the members are shear knuckleheads selling rudeness, and ludeness. Some members pictures make them look like thugs, muggers, buggerers, mad bombers or worse, so be cautious and careful!

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100 Coolest Gadget Sites

Mar 30, ’11 2:14 PM
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BIZARRO WORLD: Online Nonsense

Mar 30, ’11 8:58 AM
Bizarro World

Bizarro World

Have we entered some strange corner of the Internet twilight zone where the content of online articles or posts don’t matter quite as much as the keywords used, regardless of the context they are in or the sense they make?

It doesn’t take a genius to see that many online authors aren’t writing for flesh and blood readers instead they are working to get crawled and ranked higher by search engines. This may be the real reason that much of the information out here is pure crap intentionally meant to push buttons that shouldn’t matter. The implications of this are that good original creative information stands to get swamped and buried in mountains of online B.S.

This for me may possibly be the death nell for online content, when what you write doesn’t matter as much as how you write it. It’s form over function.

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2011-1/4 Technology Review

Mar 30, ’11 7:30 AM
  1. So far numerous new Smartphones and tons of Android iPad competitors have been most of the story of this young year.
  2. Social media is still gaining much strength in the marketplace
  3. In the Mergers and acquisition game, AT&T & T-Mobile have stimulated significant consumer concerns and industry response plus will have to survive eventual government reviews.
  4. The tremendous Earthquake in Japan has negatively impacted supplies for new products such as the iPad but much more importantly Nuclear radiation leaks and concerns threaten to have long-term human health impact
  5. The stability of Middle Eastern and African nations are loosened by ongoing democratization movements supposedly stimulated by Internet access and social interaction.
  6. Solid State Drives are quickly sweeping the computer manufacturing industry and winding up in newer computers and as performance upgrades.
  7. Google’s “Farmer” update has SEO experts and web developers scrambling to keep up with the changes.
  8. A new pack of technology industry lawsuits are showing up in the courts slowing down innovation.
  9. Pending Net Neutrality regulations are under attack by carriers and broadband providers.
  10. The FCC has struck down free broadband plans.
  11. Cloud Computing is gaining momentum
  12. Microsoft’s Zune is a doomed!
  13. Wikileaks is still going through the ringer.
  14. MySpace might find a second life if Vevo picks it up as has been rumored.
  15. CMS is rapidly gaining strength in web development circles as new 3rd party developer themes, templates, extensions and plug-ins bring new features, increased capacity and overall functionality.
  16. The FCC was wrong! The National Institute on Drug Abuse reported that holding an active cellphone for 50 minutes does cause changes to brain chemistry.
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MySpace: The Final Chapter? Whoa…Not so fast!

Mar 29, ’11 4:28 PM

I was just about to finally write off MySpace when I learned that Vevo may be about to Acquire the once high-flying social media property from News Corp.

Opinionated pundits are saying that if this happens it could go either way. It could be a good thing. More skeptical observers harbor serious doubt that anybody can do anything to regain the lost spotlight after such a catastrophic Humpty Dumpy-style fall, and we know how that turned out.

Keep in mind that we haven’t heard the ominous death rattle from MySpace but the company has been lingering and clinging on life support for some time now. Back  In January, it was confirmed that News Corp. was indeed looking for some way to unload MySpace after they make draconian staff cuts.

This is not the first effort to rescue MySpace. A major redesign including the addition of many new slick features were not nearly enough to right the faltering ship. However, the main asset that makes this challenge so worthwhile and compelling is the near 80 million monthly MySpace visitors. Time will tell if someone can pull a Merlin and find magic in a bottle.

The final chapter of the MySpace story is not yet written. There could some brilliant young minds out there that are eager to apply their genius to the challenge of catapulting MySpace back to the top of the stack but actually can pull it off. Whoever does will rank right up there with Steve Jobs in the anals of crippled companies rebounding from near obscurity and rising to the top.

The Vevo/MySpace deal is not complete nor confirmed. They may just be floating trial balloons out here to see what kind of traction and reactions they get. We’ll definitely keep our eye on this!

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USTREAM

Mar 29, ’11 2:25 PM
UStream

UStream

Too often I find absolutely nothing on cable worth watching. I have and enjoy Netflix and Roku. Both have expanded my avability of quality content. Even those options can get a little thin after time. I was recently forced to search for new sources of video beyond what I can easily find on YouTube. Enter UStream. This service is a sort of a broadcast entity. I have able to find some unique sources of live video broadcasts that keep me coming back for more.

http://www.ustream.tv/

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Acer dual-screen Iconia 6120 Touchbook ($1,200)

Mar 29, ’11 10:54 AM
Acer Iconia

Acer Iconia

Thanks to Engadget I just got wind of Acer’s new dual-screen Iconia Touchbook. The Iconia-6120 is a huge step ahead of therest of the Ivonia pack priced around $1,199.99 this touchbook sports two 14-inch Gorilla Glass touchpanels, a Core i5 CPU, 4GB of memory, integrated Intel HD graphics and a 64-bit copy of Windows 7 Home Premium. There’s also USB 3.0 support, a 640GB hard drive, a 1.3 megapixel camera, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, an HDMI output, gigabit Ethernet, a 5.95 pound chassis. Whoa, that’s serious muscle!

This one has upside and potential. I for one want to get one in my eager little mitts to experience for myself the pleasure of dual screen laptop computing.

Acer’s Iconia-6120 dual 14-inch touchscreen laptop

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Trend Watch: Mobility

Mar 29, ’11 9:10 AM
mobile man

Mobility man

If there is a dominant trend that has forged itsef forward with definitive purpose into dominance it has been the rapid move towards ultimate mobility.

It was only a few years back that we were all tethered to our desktops and chained to our office cubicles for the duration of our shakey careers. Then thanks to the RIM blackberry and a few other popular portable products suvh as the iPod and eventually the iPhone we got freed up to work productively from coffee shops or wherever we happened to find an available powerplug or open broadband connection.

Then came the next generation of smartphones allowing us to carry around sufficient computing power to do our work in our pockets or in the palms of our hands. Fast forward to 2010 and the rise of iPads, mobility has become the absolute direction of all things digital. In this emerging marketplace smaller, faster, greater capacity and cheaper are the primary keywords that move whole markets. Now I buy wearable computing products that make it much easier for me to carry around my essential gear, and if Science Fiction is any gauge of trends and things to come this won’t stop until technology is actually embedded into our very bodies setting up a William Gibson-like vision of an always-on and connected Cyber Society. There are those among us that would eagerly welcome this, and others that cautiously see these as moves towards the anti-Christ, 666 and the rapture.

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INTEL: SSD up to 600GB

Mar 29, ’11 7:53 AM
Intel SSD

Intel SSD

Intel has entered the high-capacity race with a new series of solid-state drives offering up to 600 gigabytes.

Intel is branching out with the introduction of their solid-state drive 320 Series. Intel’s third-generation SSD 320 has great capacity of 40, 80, 120, 160, 300, and 600GB, and they’re fast.

Intel solid-state drive 320 Series.

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Lenovo Thinkpad W520

Mar 29, ’11 7:37 AM
Lenovo W520

Lenovo Thinkpad W520

W520No other company has been handed a head start any more than Lenovo when they acquired IBM’s ThinkPad line of computers. The trick for Lenovo was to stay competitive and aggressive in a rapidly changing marketplace.

That has been a bit of a challenge of late but now Lenovo is steping forward to make a strong statement with the previously announced release of their new Thinkpad W520, a 15.6 inch quadcore notebook, with a 2.7GHz i7-2620 chip, 4GB RAM and NVIDIA 1000M Optimus graphics. Thinkpad W520 prices in at an affordable $1,649, well below Apple’s comparative MacBook Pro.

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COOL SITE: Slash Gear

Mar 28, ’11 6:29 PM
Slashgear

Slashgear

Slash Gear does a really good job of “feeding our Gadget and Tech Obsessions” with timely information, product reviews, RSS feeds, analysis, videos and articles on trending topics. One could easily mistake it for just another tech site, but after reading the full content of their stories you soon come to understand that they are serious about their mission to deliver quality content to their readers and visitors. I like the direct no B.S. presentation and comprehensive nature of their website. I was inspired to place it in my “choice bookmarks” folder and return to the site “when there is enough time”.

http://www.slashgear.com/

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WWDC 6/6/11 NOW SOLD OUT!

Mar 28, ’11 12:38 PM
WWDC 2011

WWDC 2011

3/29 UPDATE: WWDC SOLD OUT IN A MATTER OF HOURS

 

For at least five hopefully sun-filled San Francisco days Apple developers will clog the streets and stumble through the neighborhoods of San Francisco from June 6th to 10th. on their way downtown to gather at Moscone West for 2011′s SOLD OUT Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, most will come to see “the future of iOS and Mac OS”. There will be more than 100 technical sessions presented by Apple engineers. At WWDC10 Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone 4.. iPhone 5 may be on the agenda and it continues to be broadly speculated that the next iPhone and the future of iOS 5 may indeed be topics high up on the list. Hopefully you’ve got your ticket and flights squared away. We’ll see you here 6/6/11.

If you thought this was a hot ticket, you were right! WWDC 2011 TICKETS ARE BEING SCALPED AND SOLD FOR ROCK SHOW PRICES!

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Go Words

Mar 28, ’11 10:25 AM
2012 star hoax

2012 star hoax

There are words that give folks permission to speculate or hypothesise just about any fantastic theory, concept or idea they please no matter how bizarre or out there.

Some of these Go Words are: … may be; … could mean; … might indicate; its possible that …; … suggests; ….seems to indicate…

Whole new TV series like “Ghost Hunters” and “Fact or Fantasy” rely on these. Many Multi-million dollar movies are using go words as springboards to theories and plots sometimes long disproved or reviously discredited.

The latest and possibly greatest example of this is all of the manic frenzied speculation around predictions for coming total World collapse in December of 2012.

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The Future, Here, Now?

Mar 28, ’11 9:43 AM

My favorite question to ask those in this know is…”where is all this going?” Curiously, I usually get back a blank stare, then sometimes a nasty smirk as if to say “Oh, so you don’t know, huh? Well then, I’m not gonna tell you!”

I think back upon this frequently. Am I missing something? Is their a gestalt-like dawn of illumination or thunderbolt of awareness that I have yet to experience? If I were to judge from headline news I would surmise “its going to Hell in a handbasket”

I am not asking ground shaking questions like “what is the meaning of life” or anything, I just want to know is any of this leading to something significant, practical or are we on a digital treadmill going nowhere?

Change and innovation both  almost expressly display non-linear behavior. There is no direct path things take or any certain way to anticipate exactly what will come next. One can attempt to predict it, but almost certainly they will be wrong by a little or by alot. Something evolutionary, revolutionary and often disruptive is certain to come along and blow away all expectations.

As time passes things are getting more complex and complicated. There are too many paths and new directions to explore and simply not enough time to do the work. I probably need to track down a sage wizened elder Buddhist monk or a digital Jedi because I am coming up with nothing the way I am going. Is there an order or sense of direction to any of this or are we just wandering aimlessly down untraveled paths? Where should we turn for answers? To physics, gurus, pundits, magicians, programmers, scientists, visionaries, or futurists? Is there a channel we can turn on to see special reports and documentaries or a website we can surf to see tipping points or get clues?

http://www.wfs.org/

http://leadingfuturists.biz/

http://thefuturists.ca/

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C|Net TV

Mar 28, ’11 8:26 AM
cnet

cnet

c|net has been a favorite media site of mine for years. I even enjoyed daily their San Francisco AM broadcast radio station. My other favorite was ZDnet. Fast forward a few years. In some way I still don’t understand they are both joined or at least friendly and after a world of new trends good old c|net is hanging in there tough. Their roster of spirited hosts and bring levity and expertise to what could otherwise be dull and drab tech banter. c|net has above all been consistent in professionally covering the width and bredth of new technology in unique ways that no one else has.

If you are new to the web or plain tired of just about everything else out there, do yourself a turn, bop over to c|net and give it a try. Also, whenever you are interested or motivated to purchase a new product you should consider researching the product and compare it by looking through c|net reviews and analysis.

http://www.cnet.com

http://cnettv.cnet.com/

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Professor Curtis’ Cult of the Strange and Weird

Mar 27, ’11 5:46 PM

It started long ago on San Pablo Blvd. in Berkeley, CA as a very unique and seriously hip cult video store housing extensive collections of all sorts of very hard-to-find videos, magazines and other assorted miscellanea. Over time and through many changes it has morphed into an online presence with links to choice finds such as “This day in Black History”. On the site you can expect to find collectibles, books, info on conspiracy theories, consignment sales and much more. The site also hosts fan’s opinions and the professor’s blogs to fostering a sense of community and of course generating vital sales and commerce. Enjoy!

http://professorcurtis.com

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SEO Run Amok!

Mar 27, ’11 11:03 AM

seo

seo

As if we didn’t already have enough various and sundry stuff to learn and deep complicted things to master just to get ahead or simply keep with the constant changes and enhancements in online development. The emerging online “industry” Gods have succeeded in creating a constantly changing level of imposing steps, rules, guidelines and new hoops to jump through before any of the work we do even gets to be seen by searching web viewers and users. Lke back in Kindergarten days, if we “draw outside the lines”, step too far to the left, use too many tags, or the wrong keywords we can quickly get flagged and tagged as spam and arbitrarily assigned to the digital dust bin of  obscurity and eventual obsolescence.

KEEP IN MIND:

SEO is not an exacting science. There is no one-shot sure-fire solution. A lot that goes into it mostly reverse-engineering Google.

- No one can guarantee any rank in any search engine.

- Page ranks change frequently, sometimes hourly.

- Ranking varies depending on search terms, location and other factors sometimes entirely beyond your control.

- Certain SEO tactics (key-word stuffing, for example) will get your site banned form Google.

There are thousands of new companies on the scene that offer to shepperd web developers through to processes of Search Engine Optimation that are designed to push/guide properly optimized websites higher up in major search engine rankings  thereby driving visitors to their site.

“WE DON’T BUILD WEBSITES TO BE BEST KEPT SECRETS!”

In the <Resources> section of The Coolness Factor, by mid-April I will post a shortlist of some of the leaders in SEO. The list won’t be reviews so recommendations are accepted.

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