March 2012
20 posts
2 tags
Google Now Comes With A Monthly Statement →
If your online life has felt like you’ve been making deposits at the First National Bank of Google, relax—your monthly statement is finally ready.
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Sourcing Should Be Part of a Gadget’s Story →
Apple seems to have figured out that how a product was made is a feature in its own right (not that it doesn’t have work to do in its Chinese supply chain). But a lot of other consumer-electronics firms—some of which actually own most of their own factories—have yet to come to that realization, leaving customers hoping that they’re not subsidizing the misery of workers...
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Art Of Video Games On Display →
This post for Discovery News covers what I got out of this exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution’s American Art Museum—and what the exhibit left out. Which, sadly, was a lot.
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Tip: How to copy a DVD to your PC →
Today’s USAToday.com column outlines DVD-ripping options—I continue to recommend Handbrake—and suggests one way to keep your use of an auto-posting Facebook “social app” private.
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Retina displays, 4K TVs push pixel limits →
I like the Retina display on the new iPad—and I’m pleased that my three-year-old HDTV also qualifies as a Retina display when viewed from my couch.
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The New iPad: A Super Screen And A Big Battery →
I had the opportunity to borrow not one but two new iPads—one an AT&T LTE model, the other a Verizon LTE unit. Hence I could take a photo of one iPad with the other. (The camera is pretty good, but nowhere near as nice as the screen.)
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A cautionary tale about syncing →
What one reader’s contacts-syncing mishap can teach us about being too generous with access to our data. Plus: You probably don’t have to put up with the crummy, proprietary onscreen keyboard that came with your Android phone.
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Which Apps Might Outlive SXSW →
A recap of my experience using people-discovery apps like Glancee at SXSW—and why I may not be enough of a small-screen extrovert to keep using them.
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Smartphone Battery Life Goes South By Southwest →
What location-based apps are doing for me at SXSW, and what they’re doing to the phones I brought here.
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Windows 8: The Shock Of The New, And The Old →
A writeup for Discovery News based on a week living with—sometimes, battling with—Windows 8 on my own laptop.
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Tip: Avoid hiccups in Safari browsing →
My USAToday.com column addresses one of the more infuriating software defects I’ve ever seen in an Apple product and offers a reminder that screengrabs trump privacy policies on social networks.
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Things Unsaid In Apple's New iPad News →
A look at the consequences of some of the new iPad’s features. (Note to phone vendors: I will gladly accept not-worse battery life if it makes the device weigh a fraction of an ounce more.)
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The Aereo Scenario: A TV Tune-Up On Trial →
A startup called Aereo wants to give New Yorkers another way to watch over-the-air TV. Broadcasters say they don’t want its help.
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What to expect here
I needed someplace to park my LLC’s domain name, I thought it might be useful to provide readers with an ongoing index to each new story of mine, and I had yet to make any meaningful use of tumblr. Hence this site. I may do more with it than just broadcast links to my work… but no promises.
tumblrbot asked: ROBOTS OR DINOSAURS?
Rob’s February Podcast: Let’s Talk About Spectrum
It’s been an interesting month in tech policy, between the ongoing debate over whether basic-tier cable TV service should become encrypted–shutting out the “QAM” tuners on TVs and other video devices–and the just-enacted payroll tax-cut bill’s provisions for shifting some spectrum from TV broadcasts to wireless data services, public safety and short-range networking. It’s a lot to dig through, so...
Big Screens Are For TVs, Not Phones
Buying a smartphone is getting a lot more like shopping for a TV, and not just because so many mobile devices advertise high-definition resolutions while so many connected TVs include app stores of their own.
Now, somehow, screen size has become a major selling point on phones.
It seemed like a good idea when Android vendors began offering 3.7 and 4-inch screens to stand out from Apple’s iPhone...
Surfing at a Billion Bits Per Second
This is what it’s like to use one of the fastest Internet connections in America.
Samsung Galaxy Note Review
It’s tempting—oh so tempting—to lead off a review of Samsung’s Galaxy Note by mocking its enormous size. So I shall.
The Note is big enough to give me a sense of empathy for our toddler when she picks up our phones. Its 5.3” display is the largest I’ve used in a pocket-sized gadget since 1998’s MessagePad 2100.
But at $299.99, with a two-year AT&T contract,...
How online marketers target you →
My USAToday.com column explains what your computer’s IP address and your browser’s cookies can and can’t say about your identity on their own. Plus: using Know Your Meme as a pop-culture reference.
