Via Neatorama.
Power Tourism
One of the classic quandaries for any modern traveler is finding power. If you’re going from America to Europe, or vice-versa, you know full well that you can’t just roll into the UK and start plugging gadgets into walls without destroying your electronics and possibly causing a fire. That’s not an ideal way to spend your vacation.
Everything you’ll need as a traveler, from your phone to your laptop to your camera, needs power. If you’re traveling with vintage equipment, just buy some batteries. If you’re traveling with any camera made after the 90’s, or an older camera with rechargeable battery packs rather than actual batteries, you’ll need to plug it in. The same goes for your phone. If you can buy a converter for fairly cheap, one charger should be enough to keep everything you’ll need on a daily basis powered up, so long as you’re pretty competent about keeping things charging overnight while you sleep.
However, if you’re in a tough way for charging, there’s a solution. If your hotel room has a flat screen television (and most of them do these days if you’re staying at a decent hotel), you can charge your devices via their USB cables. Just hook your camera or phone to the television while it’s plugged in and on and let the device trickle charge while you catch up on events back in the US or find out the weather or kill time until you sleep. It’s bonus power, and no converters are needed!
Ubuntu Raises $10.5 Million For Smartphone Project
Ubuntu, the open-source operating system that is responsible for a bunch of different off-shoot operating systems, is kind of a big deal in its world. That’s a limited world, to be sure, but it’s not without its supporters. Specifically, 22,500 supporters who were willing to pony up money to support an interesting idea. Ubuntu raised a record $10.5 million dollars on indiegogo to fund the Ubuntu Edge smartphone.
“Since we’re working with industry already, and since millions of you have are passionate about the latest and greatest phone technology — software and hardware — we’re in a perfect position to change the way innovation comes to the mobile industry,” said Ubuntu and Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth.
Of course, you can’t make smartphones for $10.5 million; the company plans to raise a total of $32 million for its phone. The phone is expected to debut in mid-2014 and will be running a Ubuntu derivative. The phone will be a mid- to high-end device made from a single piece of carved metal with a 4.5 inch color display.
The Moto X Launches August 1
There’s nothing more exciting than the launch of a new smartphone these days. Every company has their new offering, and every new offering gets better and better each time. For Motorola, the company’s fortunes had been flagging for ages until a new ownership group stepped in. That company was google, and now Motorola is getting all sorts of attention. Motorola’s new Moto X smartphone will be launched on August 1.
There’s more than just the presence of Google to make the Moto X exciting. For example, there’s the fact that the Moto X will be made in America (specifically a 500,000 square foot factory in Texas). Then there are the features. Aside from the wide range of color choices, the Moto X will also allow users to engrave their name on the back of the phone before it ships, and you can also upload a personalized picture to include into the phone before it leaves the factory. That’s right, the phone leaves the factory customized to you.
It’s also full of state-of-the-art features. For example, a flick of the phone will launch the camera option. When you’re driving, the phone will know it and will go into speaker mode somehow. There’s also improved voice capabilities thanks to Google’s voice codecs and Android operating system.
Smartphones: Small Is The New Big
Not so long ago, the future of the smartphone was size. Everything was getting thinner, lighter, and somehow larger than previous generations. The current iPhone is a pocket-filler, and other smartphones were roughly the same size. Strangely enough, that trend seems to be waning. With smartphone sales reaching capacity in the western world, the urge to be bigger and brighter than the competition seems to be slowing down in favor of being more cost-efficient. To be more cost efficient means to have a smaller display. The current hottest trend is to have mini smartphones.
With all the capability of the big phones, but a size more like traditional cell phones, these devices are becoming very popular in developing countries like India and China. Now, they’re working their way into the United States. Blackberry has put out a mini smartphone, and Samsung has just released a mini version of the Galaxy S4. Apple and HTC are rumored to be working on smaller versions of their signature phones as well.
Perhaps that’s the future of the marketplace. Smaller, cheaper phones running on slightly older equipment, but still smartphone capable. All the frills, none of the hip dysplasia!
Wordless Wednesday: Stones Phone
Image: Cheezburger
Wordless Wednesday: Mac Mail
Image: MAKEzine
Verizon Unveils $35 Prepaid Phone Package
There are two segments of any marketplace with room for growth: the high end and the low end. The high end is risky–if you go too heavily into this end and your product fails, you’re losing your shirt. The low end isn’t as risky, but also isn’t as lucrative. With Verizon doing well in the top end of things thanks to their iPhone success, and maintaining a popular middle ground, Verizon has decided to go after the low-risk, low-reward lower end of things. In the cellphone world, that means prepaid plans with no contract. Verizon is now offering a $35-per-month prepaid plan.
The plan seems like a good deal. You get 500 minutes (no in-network free calls or free nights and weekends or anything like that) with unlimited text and Internet. There are only four phones to choose from, all made by Samsung or LG, but if you’re in the market for a cheap phone, this seems like it might be the thing. Given how little I want to talk and how much more comfortable I am with texts and Internet phone usage, this sounds like a pretty good deal for someone like me who doesn’t talk much on the phone.
T-Mobile Wants To Give You A Free iPhone Upgrade
T-Mobile is a company actively trying to create some noise in the cell phone game. The first thing the company did was end monthly contracts. Now they’re doing something even crazier: free iPhone upgrades. If you have an iPhone 4 or an iPhone 4S, T-Mobile will upgrade your phone to an iPhone 5 for free when it comes out April 12. Essentially, they’re giving you $120 per iPhone trade in, then they knock off their usual $100 fee. Not too shabby!
The issue with the deal is value. Namely, the iPhone 4S (and even the iPhone 4) can cost more than the $220 total T-Mobile is giving you, with some Ebay auctions of the low-end iPhone 4 model can be anywhere from $150 to $285 depending on who it is and the condition, and even an iPhone 4 with a cracked screen is fetching $100. I haven’t looked, but I’m sure the iPhone 4S is fetching prices higher than that. You may be better off financially by selling your old iPhone at various online retailers, then taking that money and going to T-Mobile to get the phone with that cash. However, that sounds like a hassle, doesn’t it? The T-Mobile thing might be a little less of a pain.
The Cellphone Turns 40
On April 3, 1973, Dr. Martin Cooper made a telephone call to AT&T’s Bell Labs from his office at Motorola. The noteworthy bit about this telephone call? It wasn’t simply teasing the competition, it was a noteworthy achievement. Forty years ago, the first cellular telephone call was made.
That phone is the Motorola DynaTAC, which was officially introduced to the mass marker in 1983, a full decade after the initial phone call was made using a prototype. The first DynaTAC, dubbed the 8000x, weighed a staggering 1.75 pounds. It offered 30 minutes of talk time and 8 hours of standby, giving it battery life the first generation of iPhone would be envious of. It was the first cell phone that could connect with the phone network without the aid of an operator for phonecalls, was portable, and lasted until 1994 with continual changes and improvements.
Among the accessories were a leather zippered case with a metal belt clip, a one-hour desktop charger (that sometimes broke the phone batteries and shorted the phone out), and a swiveling brass antenna, which might be the coolest accessory ever invented.