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My Top Tech Toys Of 2011

// January 30th, 2012 // 3 Comments » // technology, toys

I firmly believe that technology should enrich and enable our lives, so it’s no surprise that I use a lot of technology in my life. Some of these gadgets are for personal use. Some are for work, and others are just for fun, but here’s a list of the top tech toys that I discovered or started using in 2011.

1. T-Mobile G2 – I got this phone in November of 2010, and it’s been an awesome device. After I rooted it, overclocked it, and put HTC’s Sense user interface on it, it’s been a killer phone. The slide-out keyboard is really what makes it for me, plus having a real camera button.

2. Apple iPad 2 – I tried desperately to use a few different Android-powered tablets, but I just couldn’t. Honeycomb might’ve been built for tablets, but it sucks to use full time. The iPad can’t do half the things I did with my Android tablets, but what it does do is miles better.

3. Apple iPod Classic – I tried for literally years to duplicate two simple functions with various software solutions on various smartphones, and I just couldn’t. Given the size of my music library, I needed a portable solution that can sync playcounts/times and star ratings from desktop to mobile and back again. I finally broke down and bought an iPod Classic and couldn’t love it more. It doesn’t have apps or all that nonsense, but it does precisely what I need it to, and it does that well.

4. Xbox 360 w/ Kinect – after a few years of not even having a TV in the house (no kidding), I finally got one, along with an Xbox 360 w/ Kinect. The media experience with this thing is awesome, especially with the dashboard update that came late in 2011 and brought speech recognition throughout most of the software. I can literally tell my TV that I want to watch Modern Family without ever touching a remote control. Awesome.

5. Nokia BH-905i – these headphones are just plain awesome. Most of the time I use them wired to my iPod or iPad, but they also have stereo Bluetooth, which connects easily to my laptop. They also have active noise-cancellation technology, so I can watch a movie while Reese screams her brains out (or plays noisily with her toys….) and not miss a thing. Even when the house is empty, I’ll put these bad boys on and just disappear into the music.

6. Bose In-Ear Headphones – I got my first pair of these at the Nokia: Go Play event and bought a replacement pair two years later. These are my everyday earbuds, and I love them because I can have my music as loud as I want and no one around me can hear it. They’re brilliant for listening to music in public, as well as at my desk at work. They’re pricey, but I haven’t found any other headphones that fit as good.

7. Angelcare monitor – I lost a cousin to SIDS when I was a kid, so having a good nighttime monitor with the heartbeat pad is priceless. This unit also has video, which is cool. I have a full review coming soon.

8. Enercell Portable Power – this is similar to the Proporta units that I’ve loved for years, but it’s available at any RadioShack, and it’s a bit smaller. Other than that, it’s the same – huge battery cased in plastic with USB-out. I don’t travel with less than two in my bag.

9. Chumby One – I don’t remember how long I’ve had this, but I know I got it off Woot. I didn’t really use it until I talked with the Chumby guy at the NY Maker Faire, who told me I could get it to automatically change ‘channels’ if I used alarms. So brilliant, it now automatically loads Pandora in the morning and Groove Salad when I get home from work. Excellent.

That’s it – I originally started this with the idea to do ten, but I could only come up with nine, so it’s your turn. Let me know your top tech toy in the comments below.

CES 2012 Is A Wrap

// January 13th, 2012 // No Comments » // technology

It’s Friday, and I’m finally home after a week in Las Vegas wandering around the monstrous show floors of the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, looking at all the gadgets that were announced only days before. From smartphones to ultrabooks to massive TVs to the craziest accessories you could never dream up, it was a trip, that’s for absolute sure.

Together with RadioShack and Gizmodo, we put together over 15 videos from the show floor, highlighting some of the coolest demos and products. You can watch them on The Shack Blog. I do have some thoughts on various things that I saw at CES this year.

For starters, Nokia rocked it. Their booth, even though it was in the South Hall, upstairs, was pretty much always packed. They were demoing the Lumia 710, Lumia 800, and Lumia 900 (the latter of which was only just announced on Monday), as well as their suite of accessories and services/apps. The Lumia 900 won something like 5 or 6 different awards at CES – impressive for a company who was pretty much entirely written off by most of the tech blogs less than 18 months ago.

The TVs were also something you have to see to believe. I have a modest 46-inch Samsung TV at CasaGuru – it’s not ‘smart’ or anything, just a big enough screen to enjoy movies from, and it’s hooked up to my Xbox and an old eMachines PC running XBMC. We don’t have regular TV, just Netflix and Hulu. For 2 years before this, the only TV we had in the house was a 21-inch CRT I’ve had since high school.

Being in front of these hot new TVs, though…..just wow. LG’s 55-inch OLED TV was mind-numbingly awesome, as was its GINORMOUS 84-inch 3D TV. Samsung’s smart TVs are simply impressive, as well – the AllShare feature really does a great job tying in tablets, smartphones, and TVs for a totally connected livingroom. Brilliant.

Honestly, the TVs and phones were all that really knocked your socks off. There were tablets here and there, but all somewhat ‘meh’. I’m not a big camera guy, so the new stuff from Nikon, Canon, Fujifilm, and others were of little interest.

I also had an absolute blast seeing all the online-type-folk. It’s always good to shake the hand of someone you talk to online, and there was no shortage of opportunities.

I know most of the tech bloggers who’ve been every year always complain about CES and say how much they hate it, but whatever. A week in Las Vegas with so many gadgets? You’d have to be crazy to not want to be there.

CES 2012 With RadioShack And Gizmodo

// January 9th, 2012 // No Comments » // blogging, technology

I’ve followed the tech industry for years, and this is always a huge time of the year. That’s right, it’s CES time – the Consumer Electronics Show takes place every January in Las Vegas, Nevada, and is a HUGE gathering with all things tech. I’m incredibly excited to be attending the show this year with RadioShack as we partner with Gizmodo!

We’ll be hitting the show floor every day with a video crew to bring you videos of the coolest new phones, tablets, TV, laptops, and any other gadget we can find. We’ll have a daily recap up on Gizmodo every afternoon, so if you want to get a snapshot of what’s going down in Vegas, that’s the best place to watch. We’ll also have all of our videos posted to The Shack Blog throughout the day, so you can check there, as well.

If you just think I’m awesome and want to follow along all day long, you should follow @RadioShackLIVE on Twitter – that’s where most of my CES-related tweets will be, live from the show floor with photos and such. It’s going to be a CRAZY week, so you won’t want to miss it.

This is also poised to be a pretty significant CES this year as Nokia prepares to unleash what it’s calling ‘Operation Rolling Thunder‘ in the U.S. Now, if I had a dollar for every time I’d heard a Nokia executive say they were going to focus on the U.S. market, I would probably be relaxing on a beach somewhere.

Thus far, in 2011, Nokia finally gave up on the aging Symbian platform and switched to using Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform. You already know my thoughts on Windows Phone (spoiler: I like it), and I’m pretty impressed that Nokia is already launching a Windows Phone device on a U.S. carrier – the Lumia 710 on T-Mobile. However, T-Mobile is the smallest of the top 4 carriers in the U.S., so it’ll be a much bigger deal if Nokia can convince AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint to launch a device.

The rumor (pretty much confirmed by the NYTimes) is that Nokia and AT&T will announce a high-end Windows Phone device, the Lumia 900. The last smartphone that Nokia was able to convince AT&T to carry was the disastrous ‘Surge‘, so it’s entirely likely AT&T was a little bit gun-shy with Nokia. We’ll have to see what the Lumia 900 amounts to.

So, with that, I’m off – don’t forget to follow @RadioShackLIVE on Twitter so you can keep up with the latest CES news from the show floor, and keep up on The Shack Blog so you can see all my awesome videos, too.

Nokia Should N-Gage With Xbox Live

// November 29th, 2011 // 3 Comments » // Mobile

Now that Nokia has finally launched a Windows Phone device, they need to begin making inroads in that ecosystem. One of the first opportunities that comes to my mind is gaming. Nokia has a weird history with mobile gaming. They were one of the first companies to put games on phones (Snake) and one of the first to try building gaming-specific hardware (original N-Gage). Nokia also tried to kickstart the mobile multiplayer gaming with the second coming of their N-Gage platform, though eventually it failed, due to a number of reasons.

So, where’s the opportunity now? Xbox Live is one of the largest gaming communities on the planet today, and with its deep integration to Windows Phone, Microsoft has a huge potential to really grab a significant portion of the mobile gaming industry, as well. The Kinect is one of the fastest selling consumer electronics of all time, and Windows Phone is also poised to get some integration with Kinect on the Xbox 360 soon, as well.

Despite its many flaws, one of the things that Nokia really had going for it with N-Gage was the in-house produced titles. Games such as the launch title Hooked On: Creatures of the Deep, System Rush: Evolution, ONE, and Reset Generation were completely awesome and a perfect fit for the mobile device. Unfortunately, these games are no longer available, even on the Ovi Store (or whatever they’re calling it these days).

Windows Phone and its Xbox Live integration is a great opportunity for Nokia to generate some additional revenue from pre-existing projects, and might be motivation to finish some of the N-Gage titles that were previously in development. I know I would love to play Reset Generation with my Xbox Live buddies. Would you?

Nokia Claims It Plans To Unveil US Plans In 2012

// October 26th, 2011 // No Comments » // Mobile

There’s a bunch of other announcements coming out of Nokia World 2011 in London today, and I’ll touch on those later. However, this blurb from my friend Eric Zeman at PhoneScoop really got under my skin:

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop today said at the Nokia World event in London that the company will be making a significant announcement regarding its plans for the North American market at some point in early 2012. Elop said that Nokia is working with North American network operators to create Windows Phone devices that include LTE 4G and CDMA 3G. He wasn’t specific on further details about the carrier partners in particular.

So…..you’re saying that a Nokia executive has stated publicly that they have ‘big plans’ for the North American market, and they can’t share those plans now, but we should stay tuned? I’ve never, in over 10 years of being a Nokia fanboy in the U.S., heard that from a Nokia executive. Not ever.

*in case you couldn’t tell, I’m being unbelievably sarcastic here. I’ve been keeping up with Nokia since before they successfully lost the U.S. market, anxiously awaiting their big comeback in this market. I heard the above statement from OPK at least three times, and we can all see where that ended up. I’ve heard the backstory of Nokia’s relationship with the U.S. carriers from countless Nokians who were in the room for such discussions, and I’ve seen their attempts to get handsets such as the N80, N95, N75, and on and on. I also recall the completely failed CDMA attempts a few years back. I’ve seen Nokia move their North American HQ to White Plains, NY, and OPK promised to spend several months a year there. It’s going to take some serious execution to get Nokia’s Windows Phones on a U.S. carrier. 

Frustratingly, I can’t help but be excited about this, but hesitantly so. I’ve been disappointed so many times before.