Netflix From Outside Your Country Going Away; 300 Hyatts Hit By C-Card Skimmers

Posted: January 15, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

If you’ve been catching up on Netflix shows while traveling abroad, you’re about to get a rude surprise. 9to5mac.com reports that Netflix is going to start blocking proxies in the coming weeks. That means users tunneling in with proxy apps like VPN Unlimited will be out of luck. Netflix indicates the content owners are pressing them to do so. Many of the agreements are based on the old fashioned system where content providers sold to local TV networks, and so don’t cover other countries.

Hyatt said last year that malware had been found in its systems that could grab credit card names, numbers, verification codes, and expiration dates. This went on between August 13th and December 8th, according to engadget.com. Most of the skimming took place at restaurants in Hyatt hotels, but now we find it affected over 300 Hyatt locations! Hyatt claims it has upped security, and has the infected locations listed on its website, but check your credit card bills if you stayed at a Hyatt between August and December!

Samsung Looks Like Apple’s Primary OLED Screen Supplier; Microsoft Planning 2 New Flagship Phones

Posted: January 14, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

There’s been a lot of buzz that Apple will move to OLED screens, like a number of Android phones have and as Apple uses in the Apple Watch. Now, 9to5mac.com reports that a deal is all but signed for Samsung to supply the bulk of OLED iPhone screens. Don’t look for a screen with the more vivid color and deeper blacks in the iPhone 7, though…they’re unlikely to get the new screens into a phone before 2018.

Every now and again, Microsoft does something to remind the world that they still make smartphones. According to businessinsider.com, Redmond may be planning a pair of flagship phones, which they’ll show next month at Mobile World Congress. The Lumia 850 would replace the 830, and there’s a 750 to take over for the 735. Microsoft appears to be keeping the 950, which came out in October. No details on the 750, but the 850 will have a 5.5 inch screen, Qualcomm processor, and 2 gigs of RAM.

Apple Owns Smartwatch Market; Skype Adds Mobile Group Video Calling

Posted: January 13, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Most of 2015, we heard about Apple’s big fail with the Apple Watch, and it’s lackluster sales…all the while Apple claimed it was doing fine. A Juniper Research report picked up by mashable.com shows that Apple was right…fine doesn’t even describe it…Apple grabbed 51.5% of the world smartwatch market in 2015. The numbers aren’t large compared to the 10s of millions of iPhones…only 8.8 million shipped, but over half the market is nothing to sneeze at. Android Wear watches were just 10%. Note that the smartwatch category does NOT count Fitbits.

It’s hard to believe that we’ve had 10 years of free video calling over Skype. Now, the verge.com says Skype has added mobile group video calling to the mix over iOS, Android, and Windows 10 Mobile. Look for it in the coming weeks, but you can preregister now on the company’s dedicated 10th anniversary website to check out an early version. Google Hangouts has had the feature for a while that handles up to 10 friends, but Skype says their group calling can handle up to 25.

Periscope Live Video Tweets in Twitter Stream; Lenovo’s Moto Plans’ Musk on Apple Car

Posted: January 12, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Twitter bought Periscope a year ago, and now the live video is available in your feed…in fact, you can broadcast live video directly into your feed without leaving the Twitter app. Businessinsider.com reports that Periscope…which only launched in March 2015…is consistently one of the top 20 social networking apps on iPhone. Twitter hopes this will help engagement, like Facebook has done with Facebook Live Video.

Lenovo is killing the Motorola name for Moto, and now, we hear that all Moto phones in 2016 will have at least 5 inch screens and fingerprint sensors. That’s according to Chen Xudong of Lenovo, in a story from 9to5google.com. For now, at least, Lenovo will use its Vibe brand for smaller and low end phones, and keep Moto as the flagship oriented line. The only down side is they plan to stop using the pure version of Android for a custom version…like almost everyone else.

Elon Musk is on a roll…in an interview yesterday covered by appleinsider.com, he says the Apple electric car is an open secret in Silicon Valley. Musk points out that they’ve hired a thousand engineers, including a number they have poached from Tesla. Musk claims that whatever Apple does automotive-wise won’t hurt Tesla. Apple now holds the domains apple.car, apple.auto, and apple.cars.

Musk: Coast to Coast Driverless in 2 Years; State of Union Streams on Amazon

Posted: January 11, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

On the heels of showing the ability to summon your car from its parking spot and dispatch it to park, the other shoe dropped yesterday. Engadget.com reports that Elon Musk predicts that the Summon feature on Teslas will work anywhere by 2018. Musk says you could summon your car from New York City to pick you up in Los Angeles…provided you have a couple days to wait around. Tesla’s snake-like automatic chargers would keep the car juiced up for the trip. It remains to be seen if states coast to coast will allow self-driving cars…right now, only a handful do. Musk did concede the cars will need a lot of redundancy to be able to do this.

From the tech right now department, Tuesday’s State of the Union speech will be streamed by Amazon. With more and more cord-cutters, the White House wants to reach people where they are, according to gizmodo.com. The stream should work with any Amazon product like the Fire TV stick. It probably won’t pick up millions of views, but it’s nice to see the White House embracing the tech.

More iPhone 7 Rumors; Nest Thermostats Have Battery Problems

Posted: January 8, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

We just reported yesterday about the possible dual rear cameras iPhones may be getting, and have also covered the likely loss of the 3.5mm headphone jack and waterproofing…as the commercial goes…’but wait…there’s more!’ Apparently, there’s a method to their madness in ditching the headphone jack and making people use the lightening port…and therefore buying new headphones…Apple is working on baking in noise reduction tech for both music and phone calls. Bgr.com says another possible killer feature may be coming…wireless charging! If you are like the 200,000 people mad enough to sign a petition demanding Apple not drop the headphone jack, go ahead and join them…but Apple will surely ignore it and do as it pleases. THAT’s one thing left over from Steve Jobs that will never change!

Lately, my Nest thermostat showed up with a low battery reading, and disconnected from the web. I now find that I’m not alone…there’s apparently a software bug that’s causing this. According to gizmodo.com, Nest has admitted that some people have the problem, and that they are working on it. Nest suggests a manual restart until a fix in in place. I did a modification of this…plugged it into my computer USB port for a hour to charge, then reset the date and time. Interestingly, it loses connection with my wi-fi network and wants to join an unprotected one, so you might check that out, too.

Apple Patent Reveals Possible Two Rear iPhone Cameras; Polaroid Shows 3D Printer

Posted: January 7, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

An interesting patent application points to Apple’s possible inclusion of two rear cameras on iPhones. 9to5mac.com reports that they would allow several cool photographic possibilities. One is effectively optical zoom…so you wouldn’t have to crop pictures and degrade the shot. Another is that one camera could shoot still shots at regular resolution while the other could roll on video at the same time. Right now, stills saved out of video have lower resolution. Shooting regular video and slo-mo at the same time is another angle, as is picture in picture. As usual, no idea on when or if Apple will include this feature.

Polaroid, the granddaddy of instant photography…think of the old Land Camera that took instant pictures that popped out and developed before your eyes on old school prints…showed a 3D printer at CES. Sure, 3D printers are popping up like mushrooms, but according to thenextweb.com, this one is particularly user friendly. It’s designed to need far less adjustment than others. Makerbot, for example, needs hundreds of settings rejiggered for every new item. This Polaroid ModelSmart 250s makes most of the adjustments itself. It’s designed to print wood as well as plastic resin…actually 60% real wood, and 40% glue to hold it together. It estimates time for completion, too. Polaroid is shopping for a US distributor, and if they get one, expect it to retail for $2200.

Twitter May Explode From 140 Characters to 10K, SanDisk Bows 200 Gig Wireless Flash Drive

Posted: January 6, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Twitter may soon drop its 140-character limit and allow users to write as much as 10,000 characters in a single tweet, according to recode.net. The plan is for the expanded tweets to appear the same way as they do now, showing just the first 140 characters, but users will be able to click on them to expand. This would be one of the biggest changes ever to Twitter’s design-in fact, it would change the entire character of the service. Some are already complaining it would basically turn Twitter into more of a blogging space. Last month, the company started testing a timeline that didn’t show tweets in the traditional reverse chronological order.

Wireless flash drives are pretty handy. I’ve been using a 32 gig one for over a year now, and it connects easily with my phone, and recharges just by plugging it into a usb drive. Now, SanDisk has rolled out a 200 gig model. If you are running out of memory on your smartphone…like the entry level iPhones with their puny 16 gigs, this may be a fix for you. Bgr.com reports that the new 200 gig model is $199.99 from Amazon, Best Buy, and SanDisk, and works with iOS, Android, Macs, and PCs.

Oculus Rift Pre-Orders Open Wednesday, Leak: Galaxy S7 Water Resistant & Micro SD, & Some Crazy Car News

Posted: January 5, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

FaradayFuture

The long wait is nearly over for those wanting to immerse themselves in virtual reality with this highly touted device. Oculus Rift VR headsets go on pre-order at 8am Pacific tomorrow, January 6th. But…and there are always a couple of hitches…no pricing has been released yet! TechCrunch.com notes that the dev kit Rift was priced at $350, so you can count on it being more than that. Pre-orderers will get two games along with the purchase…Lucky’s Tale and Eve: Valkyrie.

A new leak indicates the the Samsung Galaxy S7 will be water resistant down to a meter…that’s 39.37 inches, and have a MicroSD slot…two features that aren’t on the S6 and S6 Edge. According to mashable.com, the MicroSD slot will support up to 200 gigs. The upcoming Samsung flagships will also have bigger batteries, revamped cameras, and a new processor.

Monday night, Faraday Future gave a peek at their modular electric car. The coupe looks like a Batmobile, is claimed to have 1000 horsepower, and do zero to 60 in under 3 seconds. As theverge.com notes, however, these are all theoretical…they haven’t produced a real car. Faraday claims it’s not vaporware, but come on, Faraday…even Preston Tucker built almost 50 pre-production models and that was in the 40’s! If you are insanely rich, and want to really stand out, Bentley has added a feature to their ‘bespoke’ collection. You can now get stone dashboards and trim to match your granite counter in the kitchen of your mansion. The bespoke line is for the ‘if you have to ask how much, you’re too poor’ crowd!

Fords to Get Apple CarPlay & Android Auto; 18 Inch Roll Up LG Display!

Posted: January 4, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ford will integrate both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto into its in-dash infotainment system. Thenextweb.com reports that all existing and future models with the Sync 3 connectivity system will support both platforms. This means all 2017 Ford models will work with either for calling, music playback, and voice commands. Ford predicts that 43 million Sync 3 equipped cars will be on the road by 2020. If you have a present Ford with Sync 3, you’ll be able to upgrade and add CarPlay or Android Auto later this year.

lg-foldable-display

The folks at LG have been experimenting with roll up screens for a while now. They are now going to show a prototype 18 inch screen at CES this week! Sony, Samsung, & Sharp are all looking into rollup screens, but this is the largest one by far. Theverge.com says LG will also show off a 55 inch ‘paper thin’ TV that has all the electronics installed independently.

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