The World Premiere of SmugMug Films

New feature in announced from SmugMug called SmugMug Films. This is going to be available on YouTube and will have its own channel that you can subscribe to and is a film series that “will take you behind the lens with the world’s most exciting photographers.”

It is not meant to be an educational how to but I can’t imagine that you won’t walk away with some knowledge of how they did it and how you might learn how to do it.

SmugMug is hoping that we will be inspired to pick up our own camera and get out there and create some masterpieces of our own.

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PR: Nuance Dragon Assistant for Intel® RealSense™ Technology

Press Release

I always love the thought of having a conversation with my computer and having it respond with meaningful information just like it was portrayed on Star Trek. I already use Nuance’s Naturally Speaking for a lot of my long winded typing so taking it to the next step and having either complete control over computer functions or asking a series of questions and have the computer understand the direction of the questions that have been posed to the computer just like you would expect from a normal interaction between individuals. 

The current release of the “next-generation Dragon Assistant designed for Intel® RealSense™ technology”, was announce by Nuance Communications, Inc. and is available on Acer, Dell, HP and Lenovo 2 in 1, tablet, Ultrabook, notebook and AIO devices and will also be available on ASUS and Toshiba in early 2014.

Dragon Assistant, which comes with two selectable personalities (American Female and British Butler), lets you have an ongoing dialogue with your Intel-powered 2 in 1, tablet, Ultrabook, notebook, and all-in-one devices. Simply tell it to play music, get answers, connect with friends and find content – all by using your voice. Dragon Assistant even lets you check your calendar, get maps and directions, find flights or book a dinner reservation. Also available offline, people can play music from their hard drive, control their device, dictate notes and more without an internet connection.

“Our vision with Intel RealSense technology is to make computing more immersive and enable human-like natural interaction,” said Mooly Eden, senior vice president, general manager Perceptual Computing, Intel. “Intel has worked closely with Nuance at the system level for Intel-based devices; to create a leading voice solution that understands how humans speak, and searches like humans search, rather than forcing us to learn new commands to communicate with our devices.”

To learn more and see what Dragon Assistant can do, visit www.nuance.com/dragon/dragon-assistant/.

To read the entire press release click here!

Is 2014 the year for Windows Tablets to have their first strong boost in sales?

So the simple question is whether the corporate world is going to make its first will push into replacing notebook purchases with tablet purchases. This is the real area that has a use for a Windows based tablet if there is one. Gartner seems to thing that this will one of the 2014 trends but I am still in a wait to see stance about this. Window’s main advantage is the ability to run natively programs such as Microsoft Office and of course Outlook. While there are ways to work around this on the other devices, having this one capability for most of us pounding with Office through out the day would much rather have it running device that we are used to. Add in other job related applications that require Windows as the base operating system and all of sudden you have a real reason to buy this type of device. I am surprised that it hasn’t happened as of yet and that is the main reason that I still hold the wait and see attitude.

The choices are going to get better as the year progresses so keep your eyes open for some of the new products that you will have to choose from.

AT&T Unite Pro-Black

If you are willing to get saddled with a 2 year commitment here is an interesting product from AT&T. The Unit Pro allows you to connect up to 15 devices at one time so this is perfect for those situations where you need a portable hot spot at show or conference and you need to provide a group with internet access. It even allows an option for a special guest Wi-Fi option for added security with on-time visitors.

The unit has a bigger battery in it so you can use it for up to 16 hours before recharging. It also has the ability to provide a battery boost for your phone. With the included cable, simply attach your smartphone to your AT&T Unite Pro and share the charge from the hotspot’s battery.

With Dual-Band Wi-FI and global connectivity you will be able to use here in the US as well as abroad. With AT&T Unite Pro, you can travel internationally and stay connected globally in more than 200 countries around the world. Dual-Band Wi-Fi broadcasts both 5 and 2.4GHz, advanced settings like Guest network, block device and WPS, access internet and email on the go, on screen data usage and customization capabilities, use BatteryBoost in airplane mode where Wi-Fi is restricted.

Save $150 if you commit to a two year contract and you will need to sign up for either Mobile Share or a minimum DataPro 5GB plan. If you have the need this may be the unit you want for your travel kit.

Addendum: I had a comment mentioning that this unit can be purchased at Walmart without a commitment for $99.95. You can purchase either a one week access for $15 or one month for $50.

Looks like another Office365 phishing scam!

It looks official but if anyone asks you for login information for anything then don’t trust them. Don’t give them this information. It is an easy rule of thumb that will keep your information safe.

If you have any questions don’t hesitate giving us a call.

We appreciate anyone that let’s us know when they receive anything like this so we can alert you to this kind of issue. We can’t be reminded too often!

ASUS' Transformer Book Duet–Dual Identity

If you are not sure whether you want a tablet or notebook, whether you want to use it with Android or Microsoft Windows then maybe this will help you with that decision. The Asus Transformer Book Duet TD300 is a 13.3 inch PC with dual OS. It is a tablet that comes bundled with a keyboard dock that has its own hard drive and ports. The real interesting thing about this unit is that it will run both Android 4.2 and Windows 8.1 on the fly whether you are in tablet mode or laptop mode.

This is a pretty nice little machine running an Intel Core I7 processor, 4GB RAM, 13.3 inch screen that supports 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, 128GB SSD in the tablet and 1TB hard drive in the keyboard. The unit weighs in at 4.1 pounds which is a little heavy for an UltraBook, and is about half an inch thick. This is very comparable to a Surface Pro 2 in weight but a little thicker. There’s also the usual array of extras, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 + EDR, a headphone jack, 1 x USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0, 10/100Mbit/s LAN, an HDMI 1.4 output, and support for MicroSD cards.

The real kicker here is that ability for the unit to instantly switch between Android and Windows 8.1. That’s nice for those of us that need to be able to switch back and forth at a whim but it doesn’t sound like they will include some of the nice features of the Samsung Ativ Q which allows you to pin Android apps to the Windows Start Screen. Starting at $599 this looks like it might be very interesting indeed. There has not been a launch date as of yet but this looks like a nice alternative to having two different devices.

Google jumps into the Home Automation Pool

Google with all that cash in their pocket is letting some of it go to acquire Nest for $3.2 billion. Nest makes smart thermostats and smoke alarms for the home and with all the focus at CES 2014 on Home Automation devices it isn’t surprising the Google grabbing someone like Nest.

Look at the ZDNet article by Larry Dignan for more detail on the acquisition and what it means for Google and the industry at large. He shows some interesting insight on how Google may use this acquisition and what it means for us consumers.

https://nest.com/

Nest Announcemant:   https://nest.com/blog/2014/01/13/welcome-home/

Nexus 2013 7 inch tablet

I was so happy with the fact that Google allowed me to send back my original Nexus 7 inch tablet for credit when for the third time it became a brick. I had to applaud them for standing by their customer, me, and making the purchase of this product right. I must say that the new tablet is much faster, has a camera on the back which I use a lot for things around the office and doing site surveys at customer sites and I have not run into any memory limitations as of yet but I am very picky about what I put onto it. I would have like the option of an SD card slot where I could add additional memory if I wanted but it is not a deal breaker for me obviously. If you make judicious use of the available cloud storage you should be fine. I have thrown all my music up to the Amazon cloud and I am able to access that from any device that use including my phone (Samsung Note II), ASUS TF300T, iPad 1 & 2, and any computer I lay my hands on.

Another surprise I had with the new design is how loud the stereo speakers are on this unit. It makes it nice to set it beside me to listen to audio books while I am working on different things in the house. I also purchased a nice simple case that has a magnet built into the front flap that acts just like the iPad magnetic cover does to turn on and off the unit. This is a quick way for me to turn of the screen display while a sound application is running that helps to cut down battery drain on the unit. When I open the cover it immediately turns on at the sign in screen to prevent unauthorized access.

This has become my go to tablet now for most everything I do. It is small enough to fit in my pocket, fit on the shelf in my car and have a large enough screen to allow me to see a movie, read a book or do some simple notes on a project. With the mail and calendar programs I use it makes it very easy to continue to communicate with the outside world and whenever I need an instant hotspot I can fire up my Verizon hotspot real quick to acquire that capability for any of the devices that I carry. I have no longer included 4G as an option to any of my device except my phone because you normally don’t need it except for short exceptions. It is much simpler to have just one plan for this purpose that I have to manage and take care of all of the machines I own.

This would probably be a good time to go over the list of apps that I use on my tablets. I choose most of them by whether they will do the job for me but I refine that to include those apps that are available on both Android as well as iOS and if possible have a browser or desktop application as well.

For the Office I use: Evernote, OneNote, OnLive Desktop, Dropbox, SkyDrive, Pocket, RingCentral, Keep, Fill and Sign PDF Forms, Lync 2013, Feedly, Adobe Reader, LogMeIn, Instapaper, Outlook Web App, Messaging,  and Skype.

For Personal and Entertainment: Amazon Kindle, Amazon MP3, Audible, BeyondPod, Cozi, Hulu Plus, Pepperplate, Roku, Scrabble, SmugMugMobile, SquareSpace, Xfinity TV, NetFlix, WatchESPN, Plex.

I’ll go into more detail on how I use some of these programs in another posting. I hope this gives you some insight on using a tablet and maybe some detail on the Nexus 7 if this is one of those tablets that you are thinking or purchasing.Let me know how you are using your tablets for work and play, I would really like to know.

What are the Highlights of CES2014 this year?

If you take a census of opinions by looking at everyone’s articles it appears that there were a lot of pretty Bluetooth Speakers being shown, there was quite a bit of Wearable Tech for all of you Dick Tracy’s out there, T-Mobile made some major headlines with their offerings and their antics, many more options are becoming available for having your own personal HUD using smart glasses and small projectors.

Audi and other auto manufacturer’s were showing off their future options from infotainment to self parking cars. Really neat stuff and things I want in my car but not much about pricing or availability yet. The future looks very interesting with all that is coming.

Samsung still seems to be the leader out there with their TV offerings. Curved TV’s are all the wave and Samsung’s 85 inch screen that has a mechanism built in to bend the screen to your liking is strange in concept to me but is an interesting method of giving you this capability.

Sony was showing off a short throw projector unit with built in speakers that made me drool a little until I heard the price tag of 10’s of thousands of dollars. Great concept but ouch to my wallet. It can scale up to 120 inch 4k display. because it is a short throw you can walk right up to it with blocking the image. Probably should be considered as an event type unit because of both the cost and function.

Streaming media was a big subject as well and one of my favorites is the Roku technology and they are now partnering with TV manufacturers to build their technology right into your TV. As you may know, most Smart TV's are never updated so whatever you have when you buy your system is what you are stuck with. Roku is trying to change this.

A modular gaming server was shown that is a cool idea but it is a really boutique type setup. Hmmmm. Maybe I am just getting too old. There were lots of new controllers to choose from to fit the needs of just about anyone. Other items in the game arena is the offering of different options to access the Steam Gaming Network.

Home automation is coming around again. Intel had made a big initiative in this area many years ago and we went so far as to put together an example of a digital home demo  in the building we now use for other purposes. Maybe this is the year that we are going to finally see it coming to the masses.