geek stuff

Web resource turns a four day weekend into five

26 November 2013 by Steve Blum
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Hitting the road Wednesday morning turns this long Thanksgivukkah weekend into a short, 5-day week’s vacation. To help you and your co-workers make the great escape, TDA_Boulder, a small Colorado ad agency, has built a perfect online resource: the Happy Hour Virus.


You’re free. As in speech. And maybe soon as in beer!

You can select from three different screens that will make your computer look like it’s so dead that you have no choice but to duck out the door.… More

Google's free white space database could preempt paid competition and boost market

21 November 2013 by Steve Blum
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Room for broadband in the television space.

White space spectrum is finally moving out of the lab and toward commercial deployments. Google has opened up its database of usable U.S. white space frequencies to all comers, at no charge. The technology is far from standardised yet, but with free access to the data necessary to make it work, that process can get started.

The idea behind white space spectrum is that frequencies allocated for broadcast television service are not fully used.… More

It's enough for now that Tizen is smart enough for dishwashers

16 November 2013 by Steve Blum
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Just load it in when you’re ready.

Smart phones might not be the primary intended target for Tizen, the alternative mobile operating system that’s under development and backed primarily by Samsung and Intel. The expectation – based on Samsung’s words and actions – was that we’d see Tizen smart phones entering the market right about now. But operators, in particular the European carrier Orange, are saying they don’t expect to be offering Tizen handsets until some time later next year.… More

Free updates power Apple's hunt for market share

12 November 2013 by Steve Blum
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Making waves with Mavericks.

Free is worth a two-thirds bump up in Internet traffic. At least if you’re Apple and you’ve decided to give away a new operating system and major apps to go with it. That’s one of the findings in Sandvine’s Global Internet Phenomena Report for the second half of 2013. The Ontario-based company tracks internet traffic around the world, and reports trends twice a year.

According to the report, when Apple released the Mavericks 10.9 version of OS X, an iOS 7 update and new iLife and iWork packages last month – all for free – traffic to its servers jumped to ten-times the normal level.… More

Specialised social media startups orbiting big platforms

25 October 2013 by Steve Blum
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TripIt serves up travel.

Three social networking platforms were on display at Pepcom’s Holiday Spectacular in San Francisco last week. One is already a winner, one isn’t ready for prime time and the third, well, maybe it’s me.

TripIt has been around since 2006, and has found a niche with a double-headed business model. On one side, it’s a travel organiser. You email airline tickets, hotel reservations, meeting schedules and pretty much anything else you do on the road.… More

App-centric approach to home automation previewed at Pepcom


No need to worry when a ‘bot has your back.

Home automation is taking a step back from integration and interoperability. Judging by the the companies previewing products at the Pepcom Holiday Spectacular in San Francisco last week, the latest, shopper-friendly strategy is to turn smart phones into home control centers simply by crowding single-purpose apps together on a screen.

Three companies – DoorBot, Dropcam and Honeywell – were showing smart phone-networked home automation devices and a fourth – Kevo – takes the direct route to iPhones via Bluetooth.… More

Apple hopes sufficiently advanced technology looks like magic

22 October 2013 by Steve Blum
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Solid upgrades and clean roadmap without disruption.

Tim Cook uses videos to communicate Apple’s brand message, and quotes from pop stars and bloggers to validate it.
All Steve Jobs needed to do was walk on stage.
The magic might be gone, but Apple’s clarity of purpose and starkness of design remains. Mobile devices and desktop computers remain on separate development tracks, with integration focused on creating similar user experiences for particular apps and content, rather than trying to converge into a unified operating system.… More

Old guard chipmakers emphasise the old at Pepcom

19 October 2013 by Steve Blum
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Plenty of leg, but no ARM at Pepcom.

If you were wondering why Intel and AMD released downbeat quarterly reports this week, you only had to look at their products. The difference, though, is that AMD has control of its own destiny, while Intel will have to rely on the kindness of strangers to survive.

The two chipmakers showcased the hottest products rocking their silicon at Pepcom’s Holiday Spectacular in San Francisco on Wednesday. That’s not the same, though, as saying they were showing the hottest products on the market.… More

Gigabuzz without the bits in Austin and Vegas

13 October 2013 by Steve Blum
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Not the first time the marketing department has promised the moon.

AT&T and CenturyLink are pumping up the gigabit marketing machine, without much in the way of network infrastructure to back it up.

CenturyLink says it’ll deliver a gigabit to select locations in Las Vegas this fall, without specifics on price or location. The press release does say that its previously announced fiber-to-the-premise service in Omaha will be offering service by the end of the month, but only to “targeted homes and business” customers.… More

Linux kernels find fertile ground in Inyo County

5 October 2013 by Steve Blum
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Opening eyes to open source.

Inyo County, in remote eastern California, might be the first in the country where every student, from kindergartener to high school senior, is given a personal computing device in the public schools.

Terry McAteer, Inyo County superintendent of schools, made that claim last month at a forum organised by the Eastern Sierra Connect Regional Broadband Consortium. Every student in the county’s school system has an Acer Travelmate, a $320 netbook-class machine.… More