Archive for the ‘Hardware’ Category

Finally there appears to be an explanation for all the bitterly cold weather we’ve been having lately: Hell has frozen over.

The cause: AT&T appears to have followed through on promises to upgrade its cellular network making it, according to tests published by PC World, by far the fastest 3G wireless network in America.

If the numbers are to be believed (and they include over 50,000 speed tests in 13 cities in the U.S. using both phones and 3G-connected laptops), AT&T’s reversal of fortune is nothing short of astonishing. The data are actually hard to fathom. The average AT&T download speed is now 1410kbps. Verizon is next at 877kbps, followed by T-Mobile at 868kbps and Sprint at 795kbps. That puts AT&T at nearly twice the throughput of its competition, across the board.

I’ve never had any issues with my AT&T service, I must be an exception to the rule if I am to believe everyone else on the Internet.

The iPhone is coming to South Korea. Finally.

South Korean carrier KT will start selling the iPhone this month, the company said Monday, bringing the hit device to another Asian country.

KT will start offering the 32GB and 16GB versions of iPhone 3GS on Nov. 28, the company said in a statement on its Web site. It will also offer the 8GB iPhone 3G.

My wife would collect a nice amount of life insurance if I ever had to go without my iPhone. I thought I was the last one to get one.

Speaking of the new Droid phone.

Internet giant Google unveiled a free navigation system for mobile phones Wednesday in a move seen as a potential challenge to the makers of standalone GPS navigation devices.

US telecom carrier Verizon Wireless and US handset maker Motorola announced simultaneously that a smartphone going on sale in the United States next week, the Droid, would be the first to feature Google Maps Navigation.

Wow. I love the idea of free turn by turn navigation, but I really need a phone that will help me find walk in tubs and comparable items for our basement.

The iPhone can’t do that, can the Droid do that?

I’ve heard the new Droid phone is pretty cool. iPhone cool? Who knows.

Verizon and Motorola have been pumping scores of hype into the release of the Motorola Droid, yet another smartphone hailed as an iPhone killer. After spec and picture leaks and premature Web site launches, the Droid has finally received the hands-on treatment, and so far the acclaim is near unanimous.

When they show me that I can do my online banking, buy movie tickets, make dinner reservations, check term life insurance prices, and start my morning coffee, then I might look at it.

When I read stories like this one, I cannot help but wonder why they do not offer desktop computers instead?

The state that was first to provide laptops to every seventh and eighth grader in its public schools is taking its campaign to the high schools, and Maine’s top education official vowed Thursday that every high school student will have a laptop computer within two years.

The 67,000 computers currently being distributed at more than half of the high schools will give students the skills they’ll need to compete in the workplace, said Don Siviski, superintendent of Regional School Unit 2.

Is it because they want students to have the portability to do their schoolwork at home as well as at school? I just think the desktop hardware would hold up a bit better than laptops, especially where kids are concerned.

I am so glad this did not happen to me. I made sure that I backed up all my important data, heck I even did an online backup to make sure I had everything stored securely.

Apple has angered thousands of Mac users with the release of Snow Leopard Mac OS X 10.6 because the new operating system has caused some computers to fail. After a startup failure, users are greeted with a continuous icon described as the “spinning ball of death.”

In most cases, a spinning color wheel or beach ball indicates that a system is engaged in a processor-intensive activity. The ball usually disappears after a few seconds. However, when the ball spins for a much longer period, as users of Snow Leopard have reported, it is referred to as the “spinning beach ball of death.”

If my MacBook had died, I don’t know what I might have done.

I am in my second month using the iPhone 3G. So far, I am loving it. I’ve downloaded a ton of applications and I can do just about anything from the iPhone when I am away from my desk.

There are a couple things I wish I could do through an application, without having to visit a webpage, and that is ordering pizza (not Pizza Hut), ordering Chinese Food, monitor the server load of my webserver, and maybe grab some pet supplies while I am at it.

In fact, I can do so much from my phone I usually forget half the stuff I could do while I was out until after I return to the office.

There’s a great post with wight reasons why your next computer should be a PC.

Let’s just say it: For the vast majority of computer shoppers, buying a Windows PC doesn’t quite qualify as a decision. Around nine out of ten computers run one version of Windows or another, making it the world’s default option in operating systems. It’s opting for something else, like a Mac, that always represents a conscious choice.

Read it. Even with a memory upgrade most PC’s don’t perform as intuitively as a Mac. These are eight reasons I completely disagree with.

I have a hard time believing this one…

Did Apple ask Google not to put multi-touch capabilities on the Android-based G1? Rumor has it that Apple may have approached Google while the company was developing the G1 with HTC, and asked the search giant not to put gesture capabilities like pinching on the device. The news comes from an anonymous “Android insider” who spoke with Venture Beat.

Maybe they did ask them to wait, but the mere fact they asked would not be enough to compel Google to leave out such an important feature. I think perhaps Apple warned Google not to use anything that infringed on their patent. THAT would stop them.

We all knew this was coming, right?

The younger, slimmer, and smarter sister of Amazon’s (AMZN) sold-out Kindle electronic reader arrived on Feb. 9, at the same $359 price of its older sib. Gone are the angular lines and clunky silhouette that consumers and critics complained about when the first Kindle was introduced in November 2007. In their place is an ultra-sleek, tablet-like object with smooth, rounded edges and keys. But while the new object is gorgeous, tech experts say, its real beauty lies in its innovative service.

So, is it enough of a change to warrant upgrading if you have one of the first ones?