Valentine's Day is the day on which too many men shoot themselves in the foot, often with the guns that they've cluelessly bought their wives as gifts for Valentine's Day.
For many men, buying a Valentine's Day present is an exercise in futility, one that often ends in disappointment, apologies, and promises to do better next time (Sounds like my wedding night! But seriously, folks...). Luckily, the Internet exists, and it is full of enterprising men and women who want to help you find just the right gift for your girlfriend, fiancee, wife, mistress, paramour or dirty little secret.
Now, it could be that you're planning on selecting a Valentine's Day gift on your own, based on what you personally think the lady in your life would like: After all, you do live with, talk with, and perhaps even listen to this special, special woman. If you do not, however -- or if you're just looking for a little shove in the right direction -- here are 9 websites with Valentine's Day gift recommendations and ideas that just might please the belle in your life in a way that you wouldn't have been able to with your own limited brainpower:
If you're like me, when you go out drinking, you like to be able to place a precise numerical value on how drunk you are at all times.
Well put down your calculators because here's a new app that can do just that.
Introducing BreathalEyes, an app for the iPhone and iPod Touch that will tell you, using science, precisely how stinkin' hammered you have become at any given moment. BreathalEyes accomplishes this magic in a rather ingenious way, by tracking the movements of your eyes in order to determine the extent of your intoxication; you simply have a friend or bartender point the iPhone's camera at one of your eyeballs, so that BreathalEyes can "scan...the eye to detect and analyze [your] Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus (HGN)," thereafter delivering a numerical BAC that the app's makers claim to be accurate within .02 percentage points.
As a bonus, the calculation is done within the app itself, with no need for Internet connection over WiFi or 3G; per the description in the App Store, BreathalEyes can "approximate an intoxicated individual's blood alcohol content (BAC), anytime and anywhere," which is perfect for astronauts, submarine crew members, and people who like to get drunk in elevators.
Unconvinced? Check out this primer video made by the folks at Xplor Apps, which explains how one might use BreathalEyes to determine his or her drunkenness:
Note: While the video and app info page both feature a warning that BreathalEyes is "for entertainment purposes only," a PR rep for the company assured me in an email that it was "only for legal reasons we have to add a disclaimer, even with the real science behind this."
We tried the BreathalEyes app at a recent HuffPost Happy Hour, and we found that, while the app reliably gave higher scores to those who were boozing than those who were abstaining, it still gave a 0.05 BAC to several ladies and gents who were stone-cold sober. It's not quite a science yet, in other words, but it is a fun party trick.
You can download BreathalEyes for $0.99 in the iTunes Store. Use it responsibly, and don't use it to determine whether or not you're good to drive. If you're depending on an iPhone app to tell you if you're too blitzed to operate your car, then the answer is probably no, anyway.
Ever since we published our first batch of Gmail tips, the Captain Gadget inbox has been flooded by curious and frustrated Gmail users with questions of their own. Captain Gadget's gonna do his thing and answer seven more Gmail how-to's right here, from the basics of BCC'ing to the nitty-gritty of finding and deleting big emails in Gmail.
Below, check out 7 more basic tips and tricks for Gmail beginners. And if you have any everyday tech questions, email me at captaingadget@huffingtonpost.com, and your name just might be featured in boldface in a HuffPost slideshow.
Samsung's half-phone/half-tablet is now officially all-American.
In a joint press release, AT&T and Samsung announced that Samsung's 5.3-inch phone-tablet crossover, the Galaxy Note, will be available in stores on Feb. 19 for $299 with a two-year contract.
Though the Note has been dubbed a "phablet" in the popular press, a Samsung rep said that the company is not officially endorsing the term, and that Samsung is pushing the Galaxy Note as a smartphone, rather than a smartphone-tablet Frankenstein.
As a smartphone, the Galaxy Note is just huge. It has a 5.3-inch HD Super AMOLED display screen, along with 4G LTE capability on AT&T's just-launched 4G network. Aside from the very large, very bright screen, the Galaxy Note also comes with what Samsung calls an S-Pen, a stylus that recalls those bundled with Palm Pilots. The press release notes that among the uses for the S-Pen, users can "sketch drawings, jot down notes, or write emails and texts quickly and easily in free-form handwriting."
Upon release, the Galaxy Note will be running Samsung's version of Android 2.3 "Gingerbread." Samsung has previously said that the Galaxy Note will receive the new Ice Cream Sandwich flavor of Android sometime in the first quarter of 2012.
Samsung prominently displayed its Galaxy Note at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2012, and the don't-call-it-a-phablet is certainly audaciously large. While quite thin, its length and height make the 4.7-inch HTC Titan or 4.65-inch Samsung Galaxy Nexus seem miniature in comparison -- a prominent modern smartphone has simply never been as gigantic as the Galaxy Note. The Note's touchscreen is indeed as responsive as you'd want from a notepad, and doodling with the S-Pen is a fun diversion. The Galaxy Note will live or die, however, by whether consumers cotton to its mammoth, boundary-blurring size. While it seeks the middle ground between a smartphone and tablet, it could be that shoppers want a smartphone or a tablet, not both at once.
At $299 on contract, the Note is certainly priced to compete with premium smartphones, not premium tablets. For comparison, an entry-level, WiFi-only iPad costs $500; to add 3G, an iPad starts at $629. Budget tablets like the Kindle Fire ($199) and the NOOK Tablet ($249) do not come with options for mobile data. Samsung's Galaxy Nexus smartphone is also $299, as is the starting price of the Motorola Droid RAZR; and although those screens are large, they are not Note-large.
The Galaxy Note will arrive with a rear-facing 8 megapixel camera and a front-facing 2-megapixel camera, 32GB of storage and 1GB of RAM. Pre-orders at AT&T begin on Feb. 5 and will arrive on Feb. 17; the Galaxy Note will be available in AT&T stores on Feb. 19.
Check out the slideshow below to see other gorgeous smartphones that stole the show at CES 2012, including the Galaxy Note.
On Wednesday night, Facebook introduced a new batch of frictionless apps, which the social network hopes will help you and your friends share more about what you do on a daily basis. These frictionless apps are different from regular Facebook apps in that they can automatically post on your Facebook profile whatever it is you are doing within that app, without you having to manually push a 'Share' button. Think about the way an app like Spotify shares every song you listen to, or how the Washington Post and Yahoo! News apps share every article you read on their sites.
Now, a whole gaggle of new apps will be able to do the same thing when you use them, posting to your wall as soon as you look up a recipe on Foodily, buy tickets on Ticketmaster, or go for a run using Nike+ ("Well," some of you are probably thinking, "at least I'll be safe from that one!"). After you've given consent to a frictionless app to share stories on your wall, the app will be able to do so whenever you use it afterward, without having to notify you.
The intent is not malicious, of course. These apps are designed to both help you share more information than ever before about what you're doing outside Facebook, and also to help you see more of what your friends are doing outside Facebook. But what if you don't want either? What if you don't want to share every time you're listening to New Kids on the Block or want to see whenever your friends read about "Jersey Shore" on WaPo?
There's a way to avoid both and maintain a little bit of privacy, too! Here are three tips that you can use to decrease the amount of app information in your News Feed and Ticker if all of those notifications become too much:
1. Your Old Facebook Apps Cannot Post To Your Timeline Until You Give Them Explicit Permission
Several of the most popular Facebook apps, like Words With Friends, Castleville and LivingSocial, just turned frictionless on Wednesday night, which means they now have the ability to post to your friends' Ticker and your own Timeline as you interact with those apps. If you already had these apps installed, don't worry: They're not going to start posting until you give them the okay. The next time you use an approved app, you will be asked if this frictionless sharing is okay before the app starts posting on Facebook. For example, the next time you use Foodspotting on your iPhone, you might see this notification:
Or if you're using a website like Turntable.fm, you might see a notification like this [Note the topmost yellow bar]:
(Click to enlarge).
Until you expressly allow the sharing, nothing from your old apps that have switched to frictionless will appear on your Facebook.
2. No New Facebook App Can Post To Your Timeline Until You Give It Explicit Permission
Old or new, small or large, before an app is allowed to post to your timeline, you're going to have to allow it to. So if you don't want an app posting your activity on your own Facebook, you're going to need to know what giving permission to a frictionless app looks like.
If you've used Facebook apps before, you might remember that a permission box pops up before you are allowed into the app for the first time. Perhaps you're used to clicking straight through this box like the 500 pages of the iTunes Terms of Service; but if you really don't want your apps posting to Facebook, you're going to have to learn the proper settings to silence them.
If you DON'T want to allow frictionless sharing on any particular app, either:
A) Don't install the app
or
B) Change the sharing settings to "Only Me" as soon as you install.
To accomplish Part B, look for the "Who can see activity from this app on Facebook" question when you install any app. If you don't want anyone to see what you're up to, or don't want to burden your friends with the result of every Words With Friends move you make (no matter how brilliant!), set the sharing settings to "Only Me" (as seen below). That way, it's just you keeping track of your app usage and no one else:
3. You Can Prevent Facebook From Tracking Your App Usage
Facebook allows you to "opt out" of these frictionless apps whenever you want, whether you're sharing with all of your friends or just yourself. If you don't like the idea of Facebook keeping a record of your app usage, you can stop the site from storing your results completely.
Buried within the bowels of the Facebook Account Settings is a section that allows you to view and manage all of your apps. When you are logged in to Facebook, click here to access your Application Settings. These are all of the applications you have ever used with Facebook, and all of the applications that can access your Facebook information.
Clicking on the "Edit" link next to any of these apps shows the permissions that each app has; certain apps, like Spotify, Washington Post, and any of the new frictionless apps, will have the ability to "Add app activity to your timeline." If you don't want to be advertising your musical tastes, culinary habits, or exercise routines, you can either change sharing to "Only Me" (see above) or click on the "X" next to "Add app activity to your timeline":
4. You Can Choose Which Of Your Friends' Apps You See In Your Newsfeed And Ticker
If there is a particular app your friends are using that is clogging up your Ticker and Newsfeed, you can easily hide that app from ever publishing onto your Facebook again. Simply find a story on your News Feed from the offending app -- I use Spotify as an example below -- click on the arrow in the upper righthand corner, and then click "Hide All By [App Name]". Voila! No more updates from whatever app is irking you:
And there you have it! Frictionless Facebook app frenzy defeated. For more Facebook tips, tricks, and pictures of me wearing funny hats, subscribe to my updates on Facebook, won't you?
It's the start of a new year, and we're all full of hopes, dreams, and visions of ourselves with greased-up, rock-hard abs. What better time, then, for a course on Gmail's most basic how-to's?
Actually, there are better reasons for a roundup of Gmail beginner tips than the flipping over the Gregorian calendar. First, it's not yet the largest email service (take a bow, Yahoo), though Gmail's growth in total users and market share has been rapid. Second, Gmail.com went through a major redesign in November, with several familiar buttons and links moved, obscured or renamed. And third, a quick glance at popular search queries about Gmail shows that a lot of you have questions you might be too embarrassed to ask in public.
Shelter thyself no more, my friends! We're dishing out some Gmail basics that every user, new or seasoned, toddler or centenarian, should know. There should never be any shame in asking for technology help. As both a former student and teacher, I know that's no way to learn. If you have any tech-related questions about anything -- anything! -- drop me a line at captaingadget@huffingtonpost.com.
And now, without further ado, here are nine very basic answers about common Gmail questions, mined from things you and yours are searching on the Googlewebs.
Even though every company arrives at CES with their press pitches memorized and a strong winds at their backs, promising terrific sales and widespread adoption and revolutionary progress, the fact is that some of the products here are just duds. Some are bad ideas; some are poorly executed; some are ostentatious pieces of cyber-dung.
Whatever the sin, we've collected the worst gadgets we saw here at CES 2012 into one handy document, for you to relive This Year In Crap-Nology. Our condolences to this year's...uh...champions.
LAS VEGAS -- We hear a lot of outrageous claims from marketing and PR people here at the Consumer Electronics Show, a conference built on bluster and extreme confidence. Hope springs eternal in Vegas every January, as tech companies from near and far arrive at the Las Vegas Conference Center with products that will "take on the world" and "will not fail," "surefire hits" that are "better than ever," "ingeniously designed," and (a personal favorite) "something our whole team is really proud of."
But one boast this year really caught my ear. It came from the Robotics wing of CES, which housed the TOSY Robotics booth where Justin Bieber performed. But that wing was also home to a booth belonging to a small company called Innvo Labs, and the Hong Kong and Nevada-based company had something on display even cuter than Bieber (heresy, I know!).
Innovo makes an oddly lifelike robot dinosaur named Pleo, which debuted at last year's CES and was back again this year to strut its one-year-old stuff.
"The Pleo RB is a companion pet, kind of a substitute for a dog or a cat," Derek Dotson of Innovo told the crowd during a demonstration.
"Without the mess," someone in the audience interjected.
"It's the pet that doesn't poop," Dotson dead-panned.
Perhaps this author's fond memories of puppies, kittens and birdies past and present are clouding his judgment, but calling this dinosaur a replacement for a pet seems a bit overambitious, no?
Nevertheless, the Pleo RB ("RB" stands for reborn) does achieve an impressive level of verisimilitude (and cuteness!), especially in its physical movements. The life cycle that Innovo Labs has programmed into its robotic dinosaur is a nice touch, too. Pleo RB goes from Hatchling, to Infant, to Juvenile, "evolving" in its movements, attitudes and playfulness as it ages.
Here, for example, is how the Pleo RB reacts when you first turn him on -- er, birth him?
A new Life Form opens his eyes for the first time. Awareness glimmers as Pleo adjusts to the light. His limbs try a tentative stretch. The world is a flood of sensations. He'll notice you as soon as he's ready. Watch… Wait… Nurture… Your soft words and soothing touch are just what he needs.
(Funny, I used to say that last thing to my ex-girlfriend all the time).
Anywho, is the Pleo RB really a substitute for Rover or Mittens? We snapped a short video of the robot ($470 plus shipping, via the Pleoworld website) at CES so that you could judge for yourself. Check it out below.
Visit our CES Big News page to see the strange sights and gotta-have-it gadgets from the convention.
Take a look through the slideshow to see 7 Ultrabooks from CES that could give Apple's MacBook Air a run for its money.
Old and busted: Your computer mouse.
New hotness: Your eyes.
The Swedish technology company Tobii is set to unveil its eye control system for Windows 8, which allows users to control and move the cursor on the screen simply by looking where they wanted to click.
The Windows 8 Gaze Interface will be on display at CES 2012, and to excite the masses, Tobii has released a video showing how its eye-control technology will work on the upcoming edition of Microsoft Windows.
WATCH:
Microsoft Windows 8 -- the operating system you see above -- was formally introduced and detailed at Microsoft's BUILD Conference for Windows developers in September 2011. The forthcoming OS is optimized for the touches and swipes of touchscreens and tablets, but Tobii has taken the yet-to-be-released Windows 8 and made it controllable with your eyes. The reason, per a press release from Tobii:
With its large tiles, Windows 8 Metro has been praised as a great interface for handheld touch devices. However, using your hands on a touch screen-enabled laptop or desktop computer is not an ideal ergonomic solution, and your hands would also interfere with the objects you would like to click on, drag, rotate or zoom.
The Tobii Gaze interface uses a combination of eye gaze and touch pad to enable all seven primary touch commands of Windows 8 (e.g., activate, select, zoom, scroll, etc.) in a way that is more natural, efficient and precise than any other control when used on laptops and desktops.
Tobii specializes in all things eye control. It recently outed the first eye-controlled arcade game, a classic asteroids shooter, at the Dave & Buster's restaurant in New York City's Times Square; in March 2011, the company debuted the first eye-controlled laptop in a partnership with Lenovo. All three systems -- the arcade game, the Lenovo laptop and the Windows 8 Interface -- will be on display at CES, the massive, yearly consumer tech show at which technology companies large and small showcase their products for the coming year. (HuffPost's coverage of the event begins January 9th and will run all week. Check out our roundup of predictions about what to expect.)
For more about the eyeball-tracking Gaze -- which Tobii calls "the future of computers" -- visit Tobii's official Gaze page here. Then, check out Windows 8's coolest official features in the slideshow (below).
Before we reveal the list, let's talk methodology: Mobilewalla didn't simply look at the scores users gave to the apps in the Android Market, or the App Store, etc.; rather, it devised its own Mobilewalla score. Sarah Perez of Techcrunch defines it nicely and succinctly:
Instead of looking at raw user ratings, this scoring system is an algorithm that analyzes a variety of factors in addition to ratings, including an app’s position within its own category, volume, social media sentiment and more.
From there, each app is given a Mobilewalla rating from 0 to 100. Unlike in golf, it's better to have a higher score.
And now, here are the top-rated apps on each mobile OS for 2011. We've split them up by OS, and by paid vs. free, for ease of reading. We've also included some brief descriptions for the apps whose titles don't immediately make their purposes clear:
ANDROID (Free)
1. Pixlr-o-matic: 97.5 out of 100.
"Add retro effects to your photos in a snap!"
2. Super Stickman Golf: 97.5 out of 100
"Swing your way through over 280 unique holes. Use all your special abilities to help you par the courses including sticky balls, ice balls, air brakes, and nitro balls!"
3. Smurfs' Village: 97 out of 100
"It's up to you to build a new village for the Smurfs to call home."
4. Crime Story: 96.4 out of 100
"Crime Story is a game where you can narrate your own gangsta story. Your stairway up to the mafia boss position starts with searching of your kidnapped brother."
5. Marvel Comics: 96.3 out of 100
"Download hundreds of comic books featuring your favorite characters -— including Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Spider-Man, Wolverine and more -- on your mobile device or tablet with the touch of a button."
ANDROID (Paid)
1. MADDEN NFL 12, 93.6 out of 100
"BOOM! Feel the excitement of NFL Football, anytime, anywhere with Madden NFL 12 for Android. With hard hitting action and beefed up rosters, get the ultimate football experience – now fully optimized for Android Tablets!"
2. Dragon, Fly! Full, 92.9 out of 100
"Slide and fly over the beautiful hills in this fast paced one touch arcade game."
3. Earth And Legend, 92.3 out of 100
"The most advanced full-scaled multiplayer 3D RPG for Android has arrived in HD! The time has come to call for a hero. Join the battle in this epic RPG adventure delivered in stunning 3D."
4. Great Little War Game, 92.18 out of 100
"Take command of your army and battle the foe on land, sea and air but be sure to make wise decisions as you go. You want to deploy your soldiers to take full advantage of the higher terrain, natural choke points, ambush spots and defensive walls."
5. SHADOWGUN, 91.8 out of 100
"Using state-of-the-art weaponry, ships, and the assistance of S.A.R.A.—Slade’s personal android assistant—SHADOWGUN combines intense tactical combat with 3rd person action."
iOS (Free)
1. MLB.com At Bat Lite, 96 out of 100
News, scores and coverage of Major League Baseball.
2. My Horse: 95.3 out of 100
"Live the dream of owning and looking after a realistic horse, and share the experience with your friends!"
5. MetalStorm: Wingman: 92.3 out of 100
"Dominate the skies and master the world’s most advanced combat aircraft as you experience the best looking, most action packed jet fighting game for iOS."
2. Tiny Wings: 92.9 out of 100
"You have always dreamed of flying - but your wings are tiny. Luckily the world is full of beautiful hills. Use the hills as jumps - slide down, flap your wings and fly!"
6. Bike Baron: 87.3 out of 100
Motorcycle racing game with user-made levels.
BlackBerry (Free)
1. Memory Booster Pro: 95.1 out of 100
"Memory Booster Pro will recover the lost/used up memory from the device making your applications
run faster and smoother."
2. BlackBerry Protect: 95.1 out of 100
"BlackBerry® Protect is a free application designed to keep your information secure if your BlackBerry® smartphone goes missing."
3. Memory Booster: 95 out of 100
"Memory Booster will recover the lost/used up memory from the device making your applications run faster and smoother."
3. Playboy’s Animated Luck O’ The Irish: 90.4 out of 100
"Enjoy 4 different St. Patty's inspired Irish Playboy wallpapers along with custom color icons and an ANIMATED LOCK SCREEN!"
4. iFun: 89 out of 100
Transforms the Windows Phone look into the look of the iPhone, from homescreen to utilities to dialer.
5. SuperTube: 88.4 out of 100
"Enables you to play and download YouTube videos in HQ and HD by 3G or WiFi."
-----
Boy, BlackBerry owners really like their animated wallpapers and themes, huh? A few other observations:
- Gamers on three of the operating systems rated games that could be placed in the "send an animal flying using slopes and hills" category -- Penguin on Windows Phone, Tiny Wings on iOS and Dragon Fly on Android all have the same basic game play.
- Photo editing and maintenance also won big across OS's -- Pixlr-o-matic for Android, PhotoFunia for Windows Phone, and Lock My Photos on iOS
- BlackBerry users hate fun. This was the only OS without a game in the top apps, either paid or free.
- iPhone envy? BlackBerry's "Slide to Unlock" app mimics the unlocking mechanism that Apple owns the patent for, while Windows Phone's iFun straight up replicates the iPhone's interface. Android's Pixlr-o-Matic is a take on iOS's popular Instagram photo-filtering app.
- Companies don't always slum it when translating popular apps to mobile devices: Family Feud, Madden NFL '12, MLB.com At Bat, and Smurfs' Village all scored highly.
So when can you expect Ice Cream Sandwich to be available on your Android phone? Below, we've rounded up the latest, manufacturer by manufacturer:
SONY
If you've got a Sony Xperia, Ice Cream Sandwich should be arriving at the end of March or beginning of April 2012. In a post on the official Sony blog, Martina Johansson of Sony Ericsson provides a timeline for the roll-out, writing that Sony's developers are busy "merging...current Xperia software with the new features in Android 4.0." The big update is due in a few months and will come first to the Xperia arc S, the Xperia neo V and the Xperia ray; these will be followed by the Xperia arc, the Xperia PLAY, the Xperia neo, the Xperia mini/mini pro, the Xperia pro and the Xperia active.
Basically, all your Xperia devices are going to get Ice Cream Sandwich eventually, as will the Sony Tablet S; there is no firm release date for the Tablet S as of yet, however.
By way of explanation for the wait, Johansson also lays out the process for integrating Android 4.0 with Sony's own software. Since many mobile manufacturers place their own skins or flavors on top of Android (think Motorola's MotoBlur or HTC's Sense), it takes some time to satisfactorily combine the two. These bullet points from the Sony blog serve as a nice primer on the ICS delay for all manufacturers:
It starts with public push when we as a manufacturer get access to the new Android release from Google
Our developers take the existing Xperia software and combine it with the new Android release
Once the coding is done we want to make sure the quality of the new software meets our, our partners and your expectations
Now we feel the new software is ready but we also need to make sure it’s approved by our external partners
All good. We’re all set to roll-out the new software. The story continues in your Xperia smartphone
SAMSUNG
Samsung's Galaxy Nexus already has Ice Cream Sandwich, of course, and most Nexus S phones should have already received an over-the-air update. The status of Android 4.0 for other Samsung smartphones is less clear. Here's what we know, for now:
- Samsung Nexus S phones started getting Ice Cream Sandwich on December 16. If you own a Nexus S, you should be using an Ice Cream Sandwich device at this point.
- The Samsung Galaxy S II will get Android 4.0 in the first quarter of 2012, as will the Galaxy Note.
- The Samsung Galaxy S and Samsung Galaxy Tabs were both on track for Ice Cream Sandwich, until they weren't, until they were again, maybe. Basically, Samsung claimed that they would update the Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab to Android 4.0 and then announced that they would not, due to the limitations of the device's RAM and ROM to run both ICS and a bit of touch-interface software called TouchWiz simultaneously. Now, apparently bowing to consumer pressure, Samsung is re-examining ICS for the Galaxy S and Galaxy Tabs, as reported by MSN Korea.
UPDATE: As of January 3, Samsung said it will not introduce a full ICS upgrade for the Galaxy S smartphone.
LG
Ice Cream Sandwich updates to LG devices will start in Q2 2012 (that's some time between April and June) and will come in two phases.
1. In the first phase, the Optimus LTE, Prada Phone by LG 3.0, Optimus 2X, Optimus Sol, myTouch Q and Eclipse will all get ICS. This will begin in Q2 2012.
2. In the second phase, the Optimus 3D, Optimus Black, Optimus Big, Optimus Q2 and Optimus EX will be updated. That will start in Q3 2012, or some time between July and September 2012.
Missing from the list, as noted by the Los Angeles Times: the LG Nitro HD, the G2X, the Thrill 4G, the DoublePlay, the G-Slate and the MyTouch.
MOTOROLA
There's not a boatload of Motorola ICS info -- especially on specific phones -- though the company, which Google recently agreed to acquire, is gearing up to push forward Google's newest mobile OS to its handsets.
- The Motorola Droid RAZR will get Ice Cream Sandwich in early 2012, according to Motorola's senior vice president portfolio and product management Alain Mutricy.
- The Droid Bionic and all Xoom tablets will be upgraded to ICS eventually, according to a December 7 post on the Motorola website.
- No updates on the Droid X or Droid 3, the Atrix 4G or the Photon 4G; Motorola says it is "planning on upgrading as many of [its] phones as possible."
- On specific devices, a post on the official Motorola website from December 7 had this to say about specific devices and ICS: "[O]ver the next month we will be determining which devices will get the upgrade and when -- and we will communicate this as information becomes available." It's been about twenty days since that pronouncement; look for additional details and decisions about individual Motorola phones and Ice Cream Sandwich, then, within the next two weeks.
Ice Cream Sandwich is coming in early 2012 to a variety of devices including the HTC Sensation, HTC Sensation XL and HTC Sensation XE, as well as the HTC Rezound*, HTC EVO 3D, HTC EVO Design 4G* and HTC Amaze 4G* through close integration with our carrier partners.
We also got a glimpse of what is supposedly one of HTC's first Ice Cream Sandwich phones, the HTC Ville, via tech website Boy Genius Report. BGR says the Ville is set to launch in April.
-----
And that's almost everything we know on the mobile Ice Cream Sandwich front! Developing and testing a new Android operating system can clearly be a difficult and lengthy process for the manufacturers, so all of this is subject to change and could become irrelevant overnight. In the meantime, we'll keep you updated on all the latest major developments in the Android 4.0 world as the news breaks.
Hey! You just received a Kindle Fire from someone that loves you! That's great. Now it's time to set it up so that you can get the most out of your new Amazon tablet. After you connect to a Wi-Fi network and select your time zone, you're ready to rock and/or roll on your Kindle Fire. Here are a few steps you might want to take.
SET UP YOUR EMAIL
From the homescreen, touch "Apps." This will take you onto your apps screen. Touch the "Email" icon to begin setup. For most of the major email providers -- Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL, etc. -- the process is automated, so that you have to do little more than enter your email address and password and you're set. On the final screen, you're asked to enter a "Display Name" and an "Account Name." (If you have corporate email you want to set up, check out this handy guide). Otherwise, just follow the instructions on screen, and when you're finishing up, remember:
Display Name: The name you want to appear when someone receives an email from you. Mine is "Jason Gilbert," for example. Account Name: No one sees this but you -- it's simply the name you would use to describe that particular inbox. For example, you might have a "Personal Email," "Work Email," "Secret Email For Alternate, Counterculture Lifestyle Personality," etc. It's just an easy way for you to identify that particular email account.
After you set up your email account, you might want to change some of the settings -- including how often the Kindle Fire gets your mail and whether each message you send from your tablet includes the phrase "Sent from my Kindle Fire."
From the inbox, click on the icon at the bottom of the screen that looks like the top of box with three horizontal lines: That brings up your options menu. From here, you can add another email account (Touch "Accounts," hit the Menu icon on the next screen and then touch "Add account" or head into Settings to change up several inbox options. To automatically have your emails sent to your Kindle Fire, change "Fetch new messages" to "Push" (but be forewarned, this eats up your battery); to change your email signature ("Sent from my Kindle Fire"), go into "Composition defaults."
DOWNLOAD SOME APPS
Before you're able to download ANYTHING on your Kindle Fire (apps, movies, music -- anything), you need to turn on one-click ordering on your Amazon account.
1.Go to Amazon and sign in to your account.
2. From here, click on "Your Account" in the upper righthand corner of the webpage.
3. Under "Settings," click on "1-Click Settings."
4. Turn on 1-click ordering, choosing the appropriate credit card.
NOW you're ready to download some apps!
Back on your homescreen, touch Apps, and then touch the "Store" button in the upper righthand corner to go into the Amazon App Store. Helpful hint: Hold your Kindle Fire horizontally on this screen to see more app categories and the 'Top Rated' apps as well. Another helpful hint: You can download all of these apps from Amazon's website and they will automatically appear on your Kindle Fire. (Lag was about 5 minutes in our tests).
Some favorites:
Games
Quell: Terrific, peaceful puzzle game that asks you to slide a bubble to collect orbs in as few moves as possible. Angry Birds: Gameplay of this classic is great on the Kindle Fire. Solitaire and FreeCell: The meditative single-player card games for Kindle Fire. Fruit Ninja: Jeff Bezos demoed this when introducing the Kindle Fire in October; plays well on the 7-inch screen. Paper Toss: Fling a crumpled ball of paper into a trash can, compensating for the wind of a blowing fan. Stupidly addicting.
Not games
Netflix and Hulu Plus: If you've got a Netflix or Hulu Plus account, you can stream movies and TV shows on your Kindle Fire. Drawing Pad: Well-received, robust $1 sketchbook. Read It Later Pro: Allows you to save webpages from anywhere and then read them later on your Kindle Fire without the ads, even without an Internet connection. AccuWeather for Android or The Weather Channel: Forecast here! Get your forecast here! Huffington Post: DISCLOSURE: You're currently reading Huffington Post. TweetCaster: Clean, intuitive Twitter client for Kindle Fire. Rdio: The Spotify competitor has a free Kindle Fire app for subscribers. Unlimited music streaming on your device for $9.99 a month.
SET A PASSWORD
One of the major complaints from parents who own the Kindle Fire is that, because one-click ordering is enabled, it's too easy for kids to start up the Fire and buy whatever they want (and also look at copious amounts of pornography). One solution: Set a password that locks them out.
From the homescreen:
1. Tap the Settings icon in the upper righthand corner (it's a very small gear next to the battery).
2. From that drop-down menu, touch "More."
3. Touch "Security."
4. Turn on Lock Screen password.
5. Enter whatever password you wish!
This means that whenever the screen goes black (5 minutes is the default), you will have to enter the password to use your Kindle Fire again.
CUSTOMIZE YOUR HOMESCREEN
The homescreen essentially consists of two features: the carousel and your favorites. Your carousel (with the huge icons) is, for now, unchangeable -- it simply displays the apps, books, movies and webpages you last visited, in order of recency. Below that are your favorites, which you can change to whatever you want. For any icon in the carousel, or any icon for anything under Books, Music, Video, Docs or Apps, if you press down on the icon and hold it, there will be an option to "Add to Favorites." If you do, that icon will show up on your homescreen (probably only viewable by scrolling down on the screen).
To remove an icon from your favorites, touch and hold for a few seconds and then touch "Remove from Favorites." This doesn't delete the app from your device, just removes it from the homescreen. To delete an app, you need to go to the "Apps" screen, touch and hold the icon of the app you want to delete for a few seconds, and then touch "Remove from Device."
----
All of this should give you a pretty good start with your Kindle Fire. From here, things should be easy-peasy, with the "Newsstand," "Books," "Music," "Video," "Apps" and "Web" sections labeling their purposes pretty clearly with their titles.
If you do need more help, remember that much of the device is controlled from the Settings, which can be accessed from the homescreen by tapping that little gear icon in the upper righthand corner next to the battery; that your Kindle Fire comes with a "Kindle Fire User's Guide" booklet in the "Docs" section; and that, for more specific questions, Amazon has a comprehensive help section for the Kindle Fire on its website.
Did you just get a new iPad for the holidays? Survey says that if you're an average American, you probably really wanted one! (Unless, that is, you're waiting for the mythical iPad 3). Anyway, once you've taken your new iPad out of that box, you're going to want to load it up with apps from the App Store; here are the first ten iPad apps that we would get, if we'd been gifted a new iPad this December.
For most shoppers, there are really only two 7-inch tablets on the market right now: Amazon's Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet from Barnes & Noble. Announced within a month of each other in Fall 2011, the Kindle Fire ($200) and the Nook Tablet ($250) are both logical extensions of each company's popular e-Readers -- the Nook and the Kindle -- with similar portability, convenience and hold-ability but with the added multimedia functionality of more robust tablet computers like the iPad.
Given that the Kindle and Nook are rivals in the e-Reader space, it makes sense that their tablet cousins are also rivals. At just $50 apart, and launching almost simultaneously, the battle lines have once again been drawn between Amazon and Barnes & Noble, leaving many asking which they should buy: the Kindle Fire or the Nook Tablet?
I've been using both the Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet for several weeks now. Each has its definite strengths and weaknesses, defining themselves as two distinct options for two distinct shoppers. To oversimplify, the Kindle Fire wins on price, its app store and the ease with which you can download movies and music straight to your tablet; the Nook, while more expensive, is easier to use and has a better display, faster processor and much more space for your content.
Let's dig into this thing with a shovel. Here are some questions and answers that should help you figure out which of these differences actually matter to you, and whether you'll prefer the Kindle Fire or the Nook Tablet.
How much movie-watching and music-listening are you planning to do?
One of the great advantages of the Kindle Fire over the Nook Tablet is that Amazon is a bookseller and a newsstand and has both music and full-length movies and television shows, while Barnes & Noble is just a bookseller and newsstand, without the library of movies or music.
The Kindle Fire has direct access to that online Amazon store of TV shows, movies and music that can be bought straight from and downloaded straight to the tablet; with the Nook Tablet, you have to connect your device to your computer via USB cord, download movies and music elsewhere, and then drag those files from your Downloads folder to your Nook folder to put them on your device.
This is not to say that it's impossible to watch and listen on the Nook Tablet. Both the Fire and the Nook have excellent third-party apps for movie and music streaming, with apps like Netflix, Hulu Plus, Pandora and MOG Radio providing huge libraries of content for whenever you have a Wi-Fi connection. Neither the Fire nor the Nook offers 3G capability, so when you don't have a Wi-Fi connection, you'll need that content on your device if you want to watch a movie or listen to music, and there is no question that it is much easier to get movies, TV shows and music onto the Kindle Fire than it is on the Nook.
Which tablet has the better display?
Nook Tablet. A study by Display-Mate analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the screens on the Kindle Fire, Nook Tablet and iPad 2 found that the Nook Tablet was much, much stronger in terms of anti-reflection and glare, and in displaying a wider range of colors than the Kindle Fire. (Both feature LCD displays, not the e-ink on the original Kindle and Nook that do so well in the sun). The Kindle Fire still has a bright, crisp display, but the Nook Tablet's is noticeably crisper; I also found that the Kindle Fire was more prone to the smudges of my dirty fingers than was the Nook Tablet.
In short: The Nook Tablet does better in the sun, looks slightly better and doesn't require wipe-downs as frequently as the Kindle. The Nook Tablet's screen certainly outshines (sorry) the Kindle Fire's.
Do you have a huge library of movies you want to keep handy?
The Kindle Fire has 8 GB of storage, with 6 GB available for your content; the Nook Tablet has 16 GB of storage, with 13 GB available for your content. Be forewarned, though: Of the 13 GB on the Nook Tablet, only 1 GB can be used on non-Barnes & Noble content. You'll have to buy an SD card if you want to add more than a single GB of movies or music, since B&N currently doesn't have a store for that stuff; budget in about $20 for a 16GB SD card if you're going with the Nook Tablet.
So, how much does 6GB of space really get you? Barnes & Noble puts its Nook Tablet's capacity at 10,000 books, but unless you are some kind of strange e-book hoarder, you probably aren't going to hit that cap with novellas and Sue Grafton. No, the real storage stuffers are songs, TV shows and movies.
Amazon says that its 6GB is "enough for 80 apps, plus 10 movies OR 800 songs OR 6,000 books" [emphasis mine]. If you have a large music library that you plan to store on your tablet, the Nook Tablet with SD card is a wiser choice. Amazon might argue that it has free cloud storage for all of your music, to which I would argue that this is only helpful when you have a Wi-Fi connection, and not when you are in an airplane or outside. A better argument for a 6 gig tablet might be that you can put your music on your smartphone, or on an MP3 player, and save the space on your tablet for movies and books.
Arguments aside, if you are concerned about space -- if you are constantly running up against the space limit on your smartphone, a media omnivore, a Blockbuster store unto yourself -- you would probably be better off with a Nook Tablet and its expandable storage.
Which tablet is easier to operate?
The short answer: The Kindle Fire has better software, and the Nook Tablet has better hardware.
The Kindle Fire has a more intuitive interface, one that everyone can "get" right out of the box. Your most recently visited apps, websites and media are on the homescreen, and there are tabs that run across the top, labeled "Movies," "Music," "Books," etc., that send you exactly where you need to go. For me, and for the researchers at Display-Mate, the Nook Tablet's interface is less intuitive, with a very long, unsorted carousel of icons that runs along the bottom of the homescreen. It's not a disaster, but it does not offer the incredibly easy navigation of the Kindle Fire, either.
The Nook Tablet, meanwhile, has several physical buttons on the device that Amazon's tablet notably lacks. The Nook has a Menu button, for example, positioned where the Home button on the iPad sits, that brings up your main menu whenever you press it; the Kindle Fire does not. The Nook Tablet has external volume buttons for easy volume control; the Kindle Fire's volume is always controlled on the screen. The Nook Tablet also has a microphone, which, to be fair, can't do much yet -- you can record yourself reading a children's book for your kids, and little else -- but that might make Wi-Fi calling on the Nook Tablet a possibility in the future.
In general, I think the Nook Tablet is easier to use, more intuitive. The hardware buttons -- especially the physical Menu button -- add more value than Amazon's brilliant interface, and the design of the Nook Tablet's interface really isn't as difficult to operate as Display-Mate makes it out to be. The Nook Tablet's homescreen will also be more familiar to those who have used Android or iOS before; you have the option to customize your homescreen by dragging and dropping your favorite icons onto your grid, into columns and rows of apps.
Do you like the look of the Nook?
It's an eye-catcher, to be sure. Though the displays on the Nook Tablet and Kindle Fire are roughly the same size, they come in very different packages: The Kindle Fire is a thick black rectangle, almost identical to the BlackBerry Playbook, while the Nook Tablet is surrounded by a silver and gray plastic casing with a strange little hook on the bottom left corner. Like it? Hate it? Disgusted? Aroused?
In terms of portability and weight, neither the Kindle Fire nor the Nook Tablet distinguishes itself from the other. The Nook Tablet is 14.1 oz, while the Kindle Fire is 14.6 oz; the Nook Tablet is slightly taller, wider and deeper than the Kindle Fire (by millimeters) but the difference is negligible. Really, the big difference in looks comes down to design preference (see below for a thorough video comparison):
What else can I tell you?
- RAM. The Nook Tablet has a 1GB RAM, compared to 512MB RAM on the Kindle Fire. Our Aol sister site Engadget says that the difference in processing speed is noticeable, from the speed with which Angry Birds boots to the quality of video playback:
We took Shutter Island for a spin via Netflix streaming on both devices, and it was really like night and day. Motion is far less choppy on the Barnes & Noble device. The HD playback on the Nook also picked up subtle imagery like patterns on ties, which were largely lost on the Fire.
The difference wasn't as defined or evident in our test runs with each, for what it's worth.
- The App Store. Amazon's is much, much bigger than Barnes & Noble's, which is hand-selecting apps to run on its Nook Tablet. Casey Johnston at Ars Technica sums up the gap nicely:
Amazon has been building its Appstore more vigorously than Barnes and Noble, boasting over 10,000 apps. The Nook Tablet's product page says it can access "thousands" of apps, which, reading around the marketing speak, means decidedly less than 10,000. Both are to be commended for getting essentials like Netflix on board before launch, since that adds a lot of value, but we found several basic apps on the Nook Tablet to cost $3 when other app stores offer free versions.
On the app front, Amazon has Barnes & Noble beat on quantity and quality, across gaming apps, media apps, news apps, whatever -- the Kindle Fire just has a larger, better selection of apps than does the Nook Tablet.
- Price. The Kindle Fire costs $199, while the Nook Tablet costs $250. Because the Nook Tablet only gives you a single GB for your own media out of the 16GB it advertises, you'll also likely want to boost your memory with an SD card, which run about $20 for a 16GB card and about $35 for a 32GB card. Figure on spending between $70-$100 more on your Nook Tablet than your Kindle Fire -- do all of the Nook Tablet's hardware and functional advantages add up to that difference in price for you?
That's the question -- it all comes down to your price sensitivity. The Nook Tablet is a better machine, both on the inside and the outside, and despite its relative lack of apps and a troublesome lack of a video store, seems (to me) to offer more to the average user than does the Kindle Fire.
But then again: The Kindle Fire is $50 cheaper, and up to $100 cheaper if you factor in added storage on an SD card. And if you're buying a tablet for apps, for movie-watching and music-listening, then the Kindle Fire is your better, more hassle-free option.
Which one is right for you? Two fully-functional tablets at two very low prices likely means that no matter which you buy, you won't regret the purchase too much.
The Huffington Post | Jason Gilbert | February 7, 2012