The Saga of AT&T

So I found this really good picture about the deconstruction and slow reconstruction of what we know as AT&T wireless from this informative Boy Genius Report article, and I thought I would share it. As far as we can tell it looks like the merger will go through, and as I had already predicted speculation has begun on who will most likely acquire Sprint Wireless. The front runner on the rumor mill seems to be Century Link. Century Link is the largest company in telecommunications without a wireless unit.

Google I/O Event

So the time has come folks. It is time for Google's annual tech extravaganza and this year's is shaping up to be a good one. Google has had a few things in the pipeline for a while and I can not wait for more juicy details. One of the main features of the show will probably be Google Music, which is Google's cloud based music player. As I already predicted Amazon cloud music player was just the first in a long line of cloud based services. Another hot topic for this years I/O could be the Chrome Operating System, which is Google's own home brewed computer operating system. Maybe they will announce the Nexus Two, or we might even hear about Android 4.0! the possibilities are exciting. Even though we cannot be at the event we can be as close as possible thanks to Engadget.com's Live Blog.

AT&T&T

If you have not heard by now then you might be surprised to know that AT&T plans to buy T-Mobile US for $39 billion dollars. I don't know how to feel about this one. When it comes to current T-Mobile customers they have two potential scenarios. On one hand T-Mobile customers will benefit from having a stronger network backbone, which should lead to less dropped calls, and missed messages. However this will also result in an increased cost of current customers mobile plans, and increased traffic on AT&T's already suspect network. But aside from the effect that this will have on T-Mobile customers the US consumer market as a whole will be affected by this deal. Currently there are four major cellphone companies in the United States; I will list them in order of revenue: Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile. If AT&T were to succeed in buying T-Mobile then that would reduce the number of wireless companies to three. However the size of AT&T would become so large after the acquisition that only Verizon would be capable of competing with them. This means that eventually Sprint will cease to exist, or be bought up. Effectively creating a wireless duopoly in the United States.

I Found The Weirdest Thing In My Dresser

The Palm Pilot. Some would argue that this was the beginning of wireless computing. Now that consumers have a myriad of digital technologies to choose from it is easy to forget the devices that led to this digital age that we now find ourselves in. Upon finding my Palm I am flushed with images of my glory days. In my high school the first person to get a Palm Pilot was Chris. Man was I jealous of that guy. Everybody else in the school had either a Samsung flip phone or a Samsung candy bar, The lucky ones had Motorola Razr's and this guy Chris had a Palm Pilot. Thinking back I am not sure why I wanted one so badly. I had no email to check, no business partners to keep in contact with, and no important presentations to prepare. Somewhere between 10th and 11th grade I lost interest in the device and moved on to the next fad.

When I was in middle school I was obsessed with having the latest gadgets and clothes and of course I had no money to support my expensive tastes. But I just knew that I had to have this device. I had never seen anything like this before. I had to wait until high school before I finally got one of theses devices. Its surprising to think of how rare smartphones and personal computers were just about 10 years ago, where now it would be surprising if someone did not own a smartphone.

The Truth About "4G"

4G is a term that I have been hearing more and more of these days. It began with wireless companies boasting that they have "the next best thing" that will leave 3G in the dust. But now I am even hearing it from people who are not technologically inclined, and who have began to believe that the use of "4G" by these wireless companies is the actual definition of the term. Honesty the use of "4G" by these wireless companies really grinds my gears. In short there are NO wireless companies that have actual 4G networks. So allow me to shed some light on the word 4G and its real meaning.

Editorial: My Phone Sucks

So this is my phone

The HTC EVO 4G, and I hate it. The phone I had before the EVO was the Samsung Instinct. Yea I know major upgrade right? Don't get me wrong when I first got the EVO I loved it, this is much more then a phone we are talking about here. Most of the things you can do on a computer can also be accomplished on this phone. This phone was rated as one of the Best Android Phones of 2010, and is praised by all of my friends who own it. So then why would I hate such a seemingly great phone? My major problem with this phone is the battery life. At first it was a minor annoyance, easily made up for by the power and beauty of the phone, but after three days of having no phone for 12+ hours because it died in the middle of the day because of the terrible battery life it became a number one priority.  Oh how I hate this phone let me recount the ways.

Newly released Amazon Cloud Player

For all of you music lovers out there(TheeArteest) I have something amazing. Amazon has just released their Cloud Music Player. If you have never heard of Cloud Computing then please proceed to click that link. I plan to do a more in-depth post on cloud computing at a later date. The one thing I want to say about this Cloud Player is that Amazon continues to deliver on quality products. The setup for this Cloud Player is quite simple. Log into or create an Amazon.com account and you will be greeted with a message informing you of the new Cloud Player. Users will be given 5gb of free storage with any song being downloaded from the Amazon music store not counting against that 5gb maximum. Once uploaded to the cloud you will be able to listen to your music from any computer in the world, and also from your Android mobile device. Amazon as taken the first step toward the future of computing as we know it. Imagine having access to all of your files, photos, music, etc across multiple devices. Now that Amazon has done this you can be sure that other major competitors (Google, Apple) will quickly reveal their plans for cloud computing.

The Future: now in 3D

This past week the largest exhibition of mobile technology for the coming year took place: CTIA 2011, and I have to say it was a large step forward for the mobile industry. The link above leads to a recap of the total events of the CTIA convention but I will be focusing on the 3D aspects of the convention in this post. Before we begin our discussion I must issue a disclaimer: I personally am having a hard time understanding why a person would need a 3D phone or television, but I am aware of the growing tread and I can see that 3D will be HUGE. 3D technology has been adopted much faster then LCD, Blue-ray, or Plasma ever were. Two 3D phones were introduced at this convention HTC EVO 3D for sprint, and LG's Thrill 4G for AT&T.

Kinect Helps The Blind See

Let me preface this post by dispelling a common misconception about "hackers". Most people think of hackers as people who break into computer networks, and have malicious intentions. Hacker has become synonymous with criminal. However the term hacker has quite a few meanings associated with it. A hacker can be a person "who makes innovative customizations or combinations of retail electronic and computer equipment" (Wikipedia). 


While browsing around for new gadgets and other technological news I happened to stumble across this intriguing story of how an intrepid group of hackers have used a Microsoft Kinect to help the blind see. Yea you read that correctly. This really shows the ingenuity of these hackers, everyday I spend looking at the latest technologies I am amazed at the things people are doing with electronics. Video after the break.

It's Just Business

China is known as the biggest market for knock-offs and fakes in the world. It's usually easy to spot these technological fakes because they have names such as BlockBerry instead of BlackBerry, or Nokla instead of Nokia. But every once in a while the fine engineers of knock-off goods produce such an outstanding replica that I wouldn't be able to blame you for having to look twice. Take this phony HTC Evo 4G, these guys have no qualms with even copying the same Sprint logo and promise of 4G.

Apple iPad2: The Breakdown

Here it is folks the highly anticipated iPad2 :

As you can see it maintains the unique design that Apple has become synonymous with. But what we really want to know is why is this thing worth buying? The iPad2 will be released on Friday, March 11th, with pricing beginning at $499 for 16gb wifi only version and $629 for the wifi+3G version. But if that is not enough to convince you to buy this device then you and I are of one mind. But worry not there is more information on this "magical" device after the break.

New HP/Palm Products

So I know it took me two weeks to come across this but HP/Palm are releasing new phones and tablets that showcase their WebOS 3.0 operating system, and their sleek new hardware, and I must admit I am in love. Videos after the break.

Palm Overview

In my opinion WebOS is the best mobile operating system around. It features true multi-tasking, tight hardware and software integration, business class email client, excellent battery life, contains a fully integrated gaming suite and is open source. For those of you who do not know about Palm, allow me to introduce them. Palm created the first hand held PDA: The Palm Pilot.

Android Overview

So I thought that I would begin this blog with an analysis of a few key technologies that are currently out.  Without all of the technical detail. I will start with smartphone operating systems. I would like to begin this discussion of smartphones OS with one that is very close to my heart, Android. Android is an open source mobile operating system that was created by Google. When Android was first released all talk was of how well it would do against iOS. It was not seen as a real competitor in the smartphone game. However as of Q4 2010 Android is now the top selling smartphone OS in the world. Of course such information has to be taken with a grain of salt. The Android OS is available on many different phones while iOS is only available on the iPhone.

Industrial Revolution

As the world becomes increasingly technological it has become obvious that many consumers do not know the full capabilities of their electronics, or why they purchased them in the first place. Everywhere you look there are advertisements attempting to persuade you to buy this or to buy that. Such advertisements can easily bewilder consumers. I myself have been a casualty of what I like to call "blind purchase". My first laptop was a Sony Vaio FW378 series laptop. It was my first year in college and I knew that I needed a laptop. I bought this laptop because I saw an advertisement on television that claimed this was the most advanced, powerful laptop at the time, and so without doing any further research I purchased the laptop for $1,199. What I needed in a laptop was portability and battery life, and while this was a great laptop it did not fulfill that purpose at all. The battery lasted at most 3 hours, and the screen was 17" and quite heavy. The Viao laptop that I purchased was a multimedia machine. So in essence I wasted over $700 on features that I did not need.