Microsoft Store Kinect Demo

We stopped in the new Microsoft Store last weekend to look at some laptops for Jenna’s to take to college this fall. While we were there one of the employees asked if we wanted to try Dance Central with the new Microsoft Kinect controller. If you are not familiar with Kinect, it is an add on for the XBOX 360 that allow you to ‘Become The Controller’. Unlike a traditional gaming controller, there is nothing to hold in your hand, but instead, a set of cameras housed in a thin appliance, track your movements and interprets them to control various aspects of the game.

Jenna and Lorie try Dance Central and the XBOX 360 Kinect.

Being an uncoordinated white man, I let Jenna and Lorie try it out while I filmed from a safe distance. It looks easy, but as they both told me afterwards, it is definitely harder than it looks. Despite that comment Lorie had the high score for the day. Yea team.

I really like the store, the layout the products and the employees. It was a much more friendly atmosphere that the Apple store and I did not have to deal with the 100 mall rats killing time checking their Facebook pages on the store devices. Stop by if you have a chance and check out their family game nights. The store is located between Sears and Macy’s, right were Oak Brook Tobacco used to be.

Technology As Food

Clever writing in this short about technology if it was food. These guys are know as the Two Ronnies on the BBC.

Enjoy and Happy Holidays

Technology As Food

60 million tabs towards good causes

The Google Chrome tabs community project has ended and has raised 60,599,541 tabs for charity in 2010. I participated this year and was happy to have contributed to the books that will be donated to schools and libraries across Asia and Africa.

If you did not get a chance to participate this year, keep a look out for next years project and make sure to get involved.

infographicv8

Original graphic from http://chrome.blogspot.com/

Hans Rosling 200 Years of Growth in 4 Minutes

No more boring statistics. I saw the TED talk that Hans gave on this same subject where he used slides in the presentation and a semi-interactive statistics graph to represent the state of mortality, health and wealth for every country in the world since the year 1810. The numbers were interesting and eye opening, but when he presents the data in this immersive fashion, it really makes you sit up and say WOW. Get engaged by seeing the numbers.

 

No more boring statistics. Get engaged by seeing the numbers.

I also found the data more familiar when he presents it from left to right, low to high in this new version. The original TED presentation was from lower right to upper left and just did not seem correct to me.

If all data was presented in this easily understandable way, I think we would find it more engaging and relevant. National Debt anyone?

New US Copyright Laws Just Updated

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stignygaard/44390337/

via flickr

The new US Copyright rules were just released today and include some major tech related changes, including the ability to Jailbreak your iPhone, copy DVD’s and defeat dongle protection. There are rules (within rules) around when you can do this and most are for ‘educational’ purposes only, but this is a step in the right direction.

iPhone 4 Antenna Problems

Steve Jobs iPhone 4 This is awesome. This post from IntoMobile shows the balls of Steve Jobs. You just need to stand on one foot and hold the phone in the air when making a call. All along we have been told to not touch the antenna on a cell phone because of radiation, and it messes up the signal. Now Apple says they have ‘figured out’ a way to make it better. Not likely.

Click here for the full story.

I Love Verizon

I reviewed my experience with the phone yesterday and want to talk about the service in today’s post. I came up to the lake last night after a quick run, some customer work, a visit to the post office to ship out two of our old phones to lucky eBay winners and a walk through the farmers market to get some roasted red pepper hummus for the weekend.

On the way to the lake I made a call to my friend Dave who is a dive instructor in Pompano Beach Florida. He runs a business called Aqua Safari Adventures where he teaches diving, does dive guiding and certification training. I took both my kids down to have them get certified with Dave as there was no one I would trust more in the open water. 

I was on the call for about 45 minutes, from Downers Grove all the way to about Fox Lake and the call was clear all the way. At one point I had the handset on the dashboard on speaker (I have one of those little tacky non slip pads that you can lay things on so they stay in place) and was able to have a nice two way conversation with no issues.

When I arrived at the lake 2 hours and 15 minutes later (Memorial Day weekend traffic was brutal) I was anxious to test my Verizon service. I walked out the back of the house down by the lake and Holy Cow, Full bars!! In the house, full bars. On the pier, full bars. In the 27 years we have been here I have never been able to make an extended call anywhere but up the hill by the road. I tested the call quality by calling my son and then my daughter to tell them I had arrived safely. Both calls went through first time and were very clear. I can now call from anywhere on the property with crystal clear reception. I understand that ATT (Cingular and whatever else they were called back then) cannot have towers everywhere, but with the concentration of Illinois residents that come up here every weekend you would think they could do a little better.

We went into town tonight to grab some dinner before the hawks game. That gave me a chance to test the reception of the phone and especially the email and browsing capabilities.  Charlie O’s where we had dinner, has a policy of not allowing phone conversations in their restaurant, so I was unable to make a test call even though we were sitting outside. I must say, I like the no phone policy since one of the reasons I come up here is to get away from reality for a little while and being tethered to a phone does not promote the illusion. As soon as I performed three data tests, one SMS, one Google maps search and one web browsing session, I put it away for the evening. All three tests were fast, connected instantly and lefty me feeling very positive about the data capabilities at least in Southern Wisconsin.

So far I am feeling very good about my choice to switch to Verizon and yes I know you CAN hear me now.

This Is Almost Droid You Are Looking For

I have had the Motorola Droid for over two weeks now (still waiting for my HTC Incredible to come in) and I really like the phone but don’t quite love it. It is a slick, powerful, compact handheld computer that happens to make phone calls. Overall it is a good choice and a very capable Smartphone if you want one with a full keyboard. Unfortunately, I do not.

A few things that I like about it:

Speedy 600mhz processor
Lot’s of Great Applications
Beautiful 3.7 Inch Screen
5 MP Camera with LED Flash
Takes smooth 720×480 video
Speaker is loud and clear
Battery Life – I can get a full days use without recharging

What I don’t like:

Not a fan of a slide out keyboard
Too heavy
Camera – too slow to focus and take photos

This isn’t a full review as there are many reviews that you can find on the net rather just a few thoughts on how I feel about the device. I will do a full review on the Incredible when it finally arrives at my local Verizon store.

I’m Giving Up on AT&T and the iPhone

After many months of deliberation and research, I decided to get rid of my iPhone and go with an Android phone. The biggest reason for this decision was the fact that I cannot make a successful call from within my house on ATT. At one point I was dropping at least 5 calls a day, sometimes more, and that can make you look pretty clueless when trying to speak with customers. I got to the point where I had to use Skype when I was anywhere in my house. That is not so bad, but it make it difficult to roam around and talk which is what I like to do to get the brain moving.

Samsung Smooth

I went to my local Sears and picked up a prepaid Verizon phone just to test the signal in my house. The phone was only $19 which included $10 worth of minutes so I figured that was a small price to pay to test out coverage. The signal was not amazing but at least I had a few bars and could make a call without it being dropped. That confirmed the voice portion and now I needed to test the data coverage.

Verizon offers a 30 day money back guarantee, less a $35 restocking fee and whatever minutes/data you use in the 30 day period. Since I needed to do a true test of data coverage before making the switch, this was an inexpensive way to make sure I was making the right decision.

I did my research and decided on the HTC Incredible running the Android 2.1 operating system. The phone had all the features I wanted and the specs seemed to be fairly future proof even thought there seems to be a new phone coming out every two or three weeks. I only plan on keeping the phone for 12 – 18 months and I don’t see the technology making huge leaps in that amount of time. There also comes a point where you just have to pull the trigger and not obsess if you made the right decision.

htc-incredible

I went to one of the Verizon stores across the street from where my son works to purchase the Incredible. The employees were very nice and informative answering all the questions quickly and accurately on what the process would be to port my numbers and what the total costs would be to make the move. After about 10 minutes of discussion, we ordered the Incredible with a temporary number so I could test without having to port my existing number over to their service. Everything was done in about 15 minutes and I was out the door to return on Wednesday when the phone was scheduled to arrive. Now the fun starts.

The Incredible is an ‘incredibly’ popular phone. It sold out in stores in the first day or two it was available so I should have guesses that a 3 day turnaround for an order was way too aggressive. Sure enough when I called in Wednesday morning to check on the status of the phone I was told it would be 3 weeks before anymore would come in. That was going to throw off my timelines for testing and switching if all went well, so I called my rep and asked her if I could get a temporary phone. Now before I go on, if I had called AT&T and asked for a loaner, I would have been told they don’t do that. I say that with confidence because I have asked that before when one of my phone broke and was quickly turned down. Being an AT&T (Cingular) for more than 15 years you would think I would be treated as a valued customer. Not so much.

My Verizon rep called to check on the status of the phone and said it would not be 3 weeks but could be up to two weeks before I got the phone. She apologized many times for the misunderstanding and said that yes, I could come in today and pickup a temporary Motorola DROID to do my testing with. She would arrange it so I could just switch phones when the Incredible came in and she would  waive the restocking fee for my trouble. Now she did not have to do this but she saw the value in making sure I was satisfied when the company (not her) made a mistake. I stopped in, cancelled the original order and phone number, purchased the brand new DRIOD with a new number and was out the door within 45 minutes. I even got to say hi to Jim Thome who was in the store exchanging his phone.

I have had the phone for five days and I love it. I can make calls in the house without dropping, the data connection is good over 3G and Wi-Fi, and I love turn by turn directions and the Gmail/Calendar integration. I am not doing extensive testing as this will not be a permanent phone, but I feel comfortable with my choice of the Android operating system as my platform of the future. My AT&T billing cycle ends on the 20th of the month, so I decided to pull the trigger and port my number over to Verizon. It was a fairly painless process that was totally automated via phone voice prompts. I was done in about 35 minutes and the number was active on my new phone 10 minutes after that.

The title of this post said I am giving up on the iPhone as well. In dropping AT&T the iPhone is collateral damage, but even if Verizon was to offer the iPhone I would still be moving to an Android based phone as I am kind of sick of the whole locked down, oppressive Apple eco system. Being a tech geek, I want the freedom to put whatever I want on my phone even if I screw it up and have to restore it. I know the risks of doing something non standard and get great satisfaction in learning how to push the boundaries of a device and repair that device if necessary. The iPhone and iPad are great if you just want a simple device and you want to depend on someone else to create the content and the experience for you. I need more control over my device, what I put on it and how I use it. If I want to brick it I should be allowed to do that. If I want to put and ‘unauthorized’ app on it, I want to be able to do that. With the Android OS, I can do all that. It’s funny, Apple is turning into the big brother they claimed to fight in their 1984 commercial.

I am a very happy camper with Verizon. I know I am still in the honeymoon stage and things could change very quickly if hoards of other migrate away from the ‘iDon’tPhone’ and stress the Verizon data network. I will be watching this closely as I move forward but until such a time comes, I think I made the right choice.

More Facebook Privacy Concerns

Every week we seem to hear more about the crazy Facebook privacy (lack of) settings and how most people don’t bother to or know how to check them. I came across an interesting site today that shows just how open your posts can be on FaceBook, if you are not very careful with your settings. Your Open Book scrapes the Facebook site via the search API which was made available by Facebook on April 21, 2010. The kicker is you don’t have to be logged into Facebook to use the search although you do get to see the users full profile if you are logged in when you click on the user.

If you are concerned that your settings are wrong or too permissive, RecalimPrivacy.org has a nice tool that can show you how how public your profile really is.

I have thought about deleting my Facebook account and I am looking for another way to keep in contact with those I have reconnected with. I may end up doing something with my own site with some type of RSS feed and I am closely following the Diaspora Project which is a distributed open source alternative to Facebook. It is in it’s VERY early stages but looks interesting. Now there is no guarantee that these four guys won’t turn evil but I an an optimist and choose to believe that these four guys will choose to do the right thing and listen to the public.

In the meantime I have deleted most of my information off the Facebook site (even though I know it is not gone and Facebook has hundreds of backups of that info for their own use) in an attempt to limit my exposure, in addition to locking down the settings as much as possible.

If you are thinking about quitting and want to make at least a small statement, QuitFacebookDay has popped up on the web to count the users who are pledging the delete their accounts on May 31, 2010.

Are you leaving Facebook?