Geek News: Latest Technology, Product Reviews, Gadgets and Tech Podcast News for Geeks


New Trent iCarrier IMP120D External Battery Review

Posted by Andrew at 3:58 PM on May 16, 2013

The fast processors and large screens of modern day smartphones draw power like it’s going out of fashion. A battery that would have lasted several weeks in the Nokia 6210 now struggles to get through a day of calls, email and web surfing. And that’s before starting to play Ingress.

Desktop chargers have their place but sometimes it’s not possible to get back to a power outlet to plug in. External battery packs and chargers fill this space and on review here is the New Trent iCarrier IMP120D external battery and charger. With a 12,000 mAh battery, it’s roughly 6 times the capacity of a smartphone battery and 3 times the size of a 7″ tablet’s. Physically, it’s around 9 x 9.5 x 2.5 cm and there’s bit of weight to it at 280g / 10 oz but it fits comfortably in the hand, especially with the soft curved edges of the iCarrier.

New Trent IMP120D

As the pictures show, it’s not unattractive for a battery pack and gets away from the standard rectangular brick. The black plastic enclosure has a blue central band with just four features – an on-off button, a power input socket and two USB ports. The on-off button lights up when charging  and a short press of the button briefly shows the iCarrier’s charge level using three blue LEDs for low, medium and high.

New Trent IMP120D - front

Two USB sockets obviously allow two devices to be charged at once. One socket is rated at 1 A and the other at 2.1 A, which practically means that you can charge a phone and a tablet at the same time. In the box along with the iCarrier, there’s an AC wall charger, a USB to microUSB charging cable, a charging cable for Samsung devices and a soft carry pouch. Contrary to the “i” moniker, the iCarrier will charge anything that will charge from USB, not just Apple devices.

Unlike some other devices, it’s possible to charge both the iCarrier at the same time as it charges other devices, which means that when travelling, only the iCarrier’s charger needed to get everything charged up overnight – the battery pack plus two other devices. The iCarrier does take a good few hours to get itself charged up, which given the larger than average battery isn’t to be unexpected. There are some other handy features too. For example, the iCarrier automatically shuts off once attached devices are fully charged.

In use, the iCarrier can be simply used as a backup battery pack to recharge phones or other devices when their internal batteries get low. More usefully, the iCarrier can be used to extend the life of portable equipment such as personal wireless routers. My MiFi can run for a couple of hours on its own battery, but connect it up to the iCarrier and I can get a whole day of use out of the hotspot without any trouble at all.

Overall, the iCarrier is a very handy gadget, essential for any heavy smartphone user or frequent traveller. It’s competitively priced at around $70 in the USA or £40 in the UK. Recommended.

Limited Time: Get a $50 discount on a Nexus 7

Posted by Alan Buckingham at 7:33 AM on April 28, 2013

google home page nexus 7 ad

Google’s Nexus line of phones and tablets have been popular since debuting last year — well, the tablets and also the latest phone debuted in 2012. Price and the promise of a pure Android experience has lured customers and provides good competition for Amazon and its Kindle Fire lineup.

If you have been procrastinating on the purchase, then today is the day that you may wish to reconsider. Computer retail giant NewEgg, a staple of my shopping locations, has the Nexus 7 on sale for $149. This is the 16 GB model, which also comes with an NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor (1.20GHz), Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean), full Touchscreen and NVIDIA ULP GeForce.

The tablet is a refurbished model, but NewEgg is also a trusted source and I have purchased refurb hardware from them in the past. Yes, this is not new, but it comes with a 90-day warranty and the price can not be beat.

Retail for a 16 GB Nexus 7 is $199. NewEgg is offering this for $189 with a $40 rebate. The deal is good through May 6th of this year, so if you want the tablet, but were debating spending the money, then this may be the time to act.

 

 

Finally Mobile Streaming Becomes Truly Practical

Posted by tomwiles at 8:05 PM on April 23, 2013

I remember driving around back in the early 1980’s dreaming of what it might be like if I could listen to what I wanted when I wanted to. Back in those days, in many areas of the country, there was nothing to listen to but farm reports and hog prices. AM and FM stations would quickly fade in and out. Driving cross-country it was necessary to constantly change stations as they faded in and out, often vainly searching for something worthwhile to listen to.

When podcasting came along in 2004, in many ways it was the answer to that dream. Suddenly there was new content to listen to, on demand, on a wide variety of topics. It had to be downloaded and put onto a player in advance.

The past few years I’ve been experimenting with mobile streaming. For a long time, it just wasn’t practical in rural areas. Pandora would generally work better than all the other streaming services, but attempting to stream regular radio stations or even podcasts was generally not going to work.

However, now things have changed once again. With the widespread deployment of LTE mobile networks, successful casual streaming all kinds of different audio is not only possible, but practical in most of the areas I’m driving in. This opens up yet another new world of possibility.

Podcasting itself is a good case in point for something that came together because enough bandwidth was available. MP3 files had been around for a long time. Computers had already had the capability of recording digital audio for quite a number of years. RSS had been around for a while. All of these things converged and became something new.

Today I’m spending a lot of time with the Stitcher app on my Google Nexus 7 here in my truck, suction-cupped to the truck’s windshield and connected to stereo speakers via Bluetooth. Stitcher makes a great streaming mobile radio service. Now that the mobile data network is good enough in most areas to make streaming practical in the real world, new possibilities have opened up.

All of these things have been around a while. Stitcher is not new. The streaming concept has been around for quite a number of years. Podcasting as well has been around for probably at least nine years. What is different is now I don’t have to fuss with downloading them ahead of time. I really like the way stitcher lets you search for a keyword or two and then sequentially plays the different podcasts that showed up in the search. I find myself on a voyage of discovery, bumping in to podcasts I’ve never heard of. Because everything is on demand, like watching Netflix or Amazon streaming video, if I find an audio podcast I don’t like I simply skip ahead to the next one.

I can’t predict exactly how this will eventually develop. However, I can say, now that the mobile data bandwidth is a reality, there’s something here, and it’s pretty interesting. It beats the heck out of listening to farm reports or hog prices. It also beats having to fumble around with an iPod and auxiliary audio cables.

Running Multiple GPS on the Road

Posted by tomwiles at 9:58 AM on April 8, 2013

As an over-the-road truck driver, I’ve been playing around with GPS various devices and mapping software for several years. Maps and GPS’s have radically improved over the years. Does the perfect GPS exist? Not yet. So what is the solution? The solution I’m currently using is multiple GPS’s running at once. “Isn’t that a bit extreme?” you ask. Not really. Let me explain my current setup. I have a special Garmin GPS that is aimed at commercial truck drivers as well as those driving around in large motorhomes and other recreational vehicles. It differs from a standard Garmin or other stand-alone GPS unit in at least a couple of important ways. First, the user inputs the overall dimensions of his or her vehicle. The Garmin attempts to calculate routes based on known truck routes. It attempts to calculate routes based on keeping to known truck routes, and avoiding roads and routes that trucks and large vehicles are prohibited from. Secondly the Garmin has a database of truck stops, truck washes, scales, rest areas, etc. These two elements are theoretically updated with each new periodic map update. The Garmin does a decent job, but it has its quirks. I also have a Google Nexus 7 which has the excellent built-in Google Maps and Google Navigation, which are actually two separate apps that are tied closely together. I have found the Google satellite view and Google Street View to be invaluable aids on a daily basis as I am constantly having to find and go to places such as warehouses I’ve never been before. I can usually get a great idea of the size of the place, how it is laid out, if there is truck parking either on the property or nearby, etc. I also have the TomTom for Android GPS app along with a subscription to TomTom’s excellent HD Traffic service. Since I have a full-time data connection via a WiFi hotspot, I often run the TomTom software in parallel with the Garmin since TomTom’s HD Traffic service is generally pretty accurate when it comes to major traffic tie-ups and slow-downs. But wait, there’s more. Let’s say I’ve got the same destination programmed in to both the Garmin and the TomTom software, but I want to know how far it is to a particular point of interest along the route, for example a particular truck stop. The TomTom software continues to run in the background as I go to the Nexus 7′s menu and start Google Maps and/or Google Navigation. Yes, it is easily possible to have TWO completely separate navigation programs running on the Nexus 7 at the same time, even in the background. Of course if one runs any GPS program it’s a good idea to have the Nexus 7 plugged in since it will drain the battery in just a few hours’ time especially if one keeps the screen turned on. Also, with both the TomTom app as well as the included Google Navigation app running simultaneously in the background, it is still possible to open the regular Google Maps app and search and browse the satellite views as normal. As an extra aside, I frequently also have an app such as Audible or DoubleTwist running in the background attached via Bluetooth to a Bluetooth stereo speaker setup. The Nexus 7 is easily able to handle all of these tasks in stride with no slowdowns or stutters. So I find that having multiple GPS apps available in front of me (stuck to my windshield on the Nexus 7 via an inexpensive windshield mount I found on Amazon) to be an invaluable extra navigational aid. I personally believe one of the Nexus 7′s biggest strengths to be the built-in GPS chip, a feature that the Amazon Kindle HD’s lack, as well as all iPads that lack a built-in data connection. A built-in GPS chip really adds tremendous amount of value to any tablet, regardless of what the intended use might be.

Which is it? $99 Amazon Kindle Fire or no?

Posted by Alan Buckingham at 12:58 PM on March 20, 2013

amazon rumored tabletTwo major tech blogs seem to be warring today over Amazon rumors — to save problems I will not even bother naming or linking to either because it is honestly not even important to the whole story here. The subject in question is if Amazon has a $99 Kindle Fire HD in the works or not.

While there are sources claiming this product is in the pipeline, an Amazon spokesman claimed it “does not exist”. Honestly, while its hard to believe “unnamed” sources, it is also hard to believe Amazon would tip its hand on something like this, so we really are left to guess for ourselves and go with instinct.

Regardless of who is right and wrong in this little internet spat, there is one thing that I feel I can be certain of — Amazon can afford to do exactly this. The company has no need to profit from the hardware — it displays ads on the device, sells apps and sells music, movies and TV shows. The profit comes on the backend.

Honestly I have expected such a move for sometime, though I assumed it would come as a Kindle Fire discount offered to Amazon Prime customers. Prime already offers tremendous value to its users, and it does so because of the aforementioned backend.

So what does Amazon really have in store? Will there be a $99 Kindle Fire HD? It certainly would jump over the competition and could actually serve as a “game over” move against tablet rivals, including the Nexus 7. And it would do so all while using Google’s own mobile operating system as a weapon against them. Check mate.

Lane Splitter

Posted by tomwiles at 2:57 PM on March 13, 2013
image

Lane Splitter

Generally speaking, I’m not much of a game player. I do play the occasional game of Solitaire, or Words With Friends, not so much to win but more as a challenging exercise to see what words will go where and what letters can be made into words that function within the WWF framework.

I recently came across a simple yet addictive Android-based graphics riding game called Lane Splitter. The game displays a three lane freeway full of cars and trucks that periodically change lanes. These vehicles always use their turn signals signalling their intent. You the motorcyclist are racing down the freeway with the object of avoiding either crashing into the walls or other vehicles. As the game progresses, your motorcycle speeds up, progressively going faster and faster in ever more dense traffic. You steer the motorcycle by tilting your phone or tablet a bit left right from the level position.

Best of all, Lane Splitter is free and the Google Play Store. There are occasional ads in between games, but the ads are non-intrusive and never interrupt the game play itself.

Adobe claims tablet traffic has passed smartphones and UK leads the way

Posted by Alan Buckingham at 3:54 PM on March 7, 2013

Perhaps we knew this day would come, but certainly not this soon. However, Adobe today released some statistics that claim that the day has come — “Our latest Adobe Dig­i­tal Index has revealed that global web­sites are now receiving more traf­fic from tablets than smart­phones, with 8% and 7% of monthly page views respectably”.

adobe tablet study

In conducting the study, Adobe analyzed more than 100 bil­lion vis­its to 1000+ web­sites world-wide to generate the data that was used to compile this report. Not only did the company find that tablets have surpassed smartphones, but that the country leading the way was the U.K. Adobe claims it “found that the UK is leading this trend, with internet users most likely to surf via tablet”.

For the record, the U.K. came is with 12.2 percent and was followed by Japan at 9.2 percent. The land of the rising sun was just ahead of the U.S. with 9.1 percent of the tablet traffic.

Adobe’s study also found that tablet traffic across nations doubled in 2012 — “tablet traffic growth has been con­sis­tent through 2012. All countries saw their share of traffic from tablets double over the course of last year and that trend is expected to continue through 2013″.

It is becoming increasingly harder to distinguish between tablets and smartphones, as the market seems to be headed towards the “phablet”. Perhaps devices like the Galazy Note 2, with its 5.5-inch screen are more the future than anything else.

Hold Onto Your Tablet With Mobio

Posted by Andrew at 6:43 PM on February 24, 2013

Mobio GripToday’s smartphones and tablets are all expensive devices, whether they come from Apple or Samsung, and no-one wants to drop theirs on the floor with butterfingers. Mobio have a neat approach that should keep tablets and phones in the hand. Andy and Scott find out more from Darek Spring at Mobio.

The Mobio Grip is two part set, with a magnetic ring that sticks to the tablet or smartphone, and a handle which then connects into the ring. Holding the handle keeps the tablet easily in hand without blocking any part of the screen and the magnetic handle can be taken off to put the tablet into a case or bag.

Other variants such as the Mobio Pivot and Mobio Go use the same magnetic connector in a stand configuration or for in-car use. The Mobio Grip is $34.95 and is available through Mobio’s store.

Interview by Andy McCaskey of SDR News and Scott Ertz of F5 Live for the TechPodcast Network.

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Luxury Cases by Evutec

Posted by Andrew at 6:49 PM on February 23, 2013

0001028_freed_iphone_5_cherry_wood_260Although the name might be new, Evutec have been around for over fifteen years, producing luxury cases for smartphones and tablets from leather and wood. Andy and Scott find out more about the cases and the creative process from David, one of Evutec’s designers.

Evutec have a wide range of cases for smartphones and tablets, including Apple, Samsung, Blackberry and Motorola devices. Offered in a luxury range of materials, particularly fine wood veneers and DuPont’s Aramid (aka Kevlar), these are high-end cases beautifully made. Prices seem to be in the $20-$50 range depending on material and size. Definitely a little bit more expensive, but this isn’t plastic pretending to be something it’s not.

Interview by Andy McCaskey of SDR News and Scott Ertz of F5 Live for the TechPodcast Network.

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Breffo Spiderpodium

Posted by Andrew at 5:45 PM on February 23, 2013

Breffo Spiderpodium Smartphone CradleThe Breffo Spiderpodium has been a big success in the past year. The iconic design means that it’s instantly recognisable and the flexible legs work with all smartphones, not just iPhones, giving it broad appeal. Andy and Scott chat with Patrick about the Spiderpodium and the brand new stand from Breffo.

The original Spiderpodium came in a a couple of basic colours, namely black and white, but has since been offered in a range of much brighter colours, including pink and green. It’s also been supersized in the shape of a larger Spiderpodium for tablets and bigger gadgets. New this year too is a smaller simpler stand made from the same rubber covered metal, which will prop up a smartphone at the ideal viewing angle.

The Spiderpodium is available online for around $20.

Interview Interview by Andy McCaskey of SDR News and Scott Ertz of F5 Live.

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