Hulu Out Now for the iPhone, iPod, and iPad; PS3 and Xbox 360 Support Coming Soon June 29, 2010
Posted by Eli Blumenthal in : Misc. , add a comment
The day has finally come– Hulu is finally here for the iOS devices, meaning all of us with an iPod touch, iPhone and/or iPad can finally watch Hulu on our iDevice! This is HUGE no question about it.
rapportive – Review March 17, 2010
Posted by Chaim Gartenberg in : First Look/Reviews, Misc., Web , add a comment
Some math: Gmail – ads + contact social info = ?
Ok – so browser plugins aren’t really something I usually write about here – but this one here’s an exception. To jump right in, I love rapportive. Love it. It’s just cool.
Backing up just a bit. Gmail users – you guys all know the ads on the right side of emails you read, right? Well, rapportive is a Firefox and Chrome plugin, that simply replaces them. Now that’s nice, but not only does it get rid of the ads, it replaces them with something pretty useful: a contact profile of the person who sent the email you’re reading, based on public profiles. And for the most part, it installs and runs very smoothly – just go to the site, install, and a few painless seconds later, you’re ready to roll – just go to Gmail, read an email, and rapportive’ll do the rest – showing info pulled from their Google Profile, links to Facebook, Twitter, flickr etc, if they have that info publicly available, so it’s pretty neat for connecting with the people you talk to. Also, a nice feature exists of being able to jot down a private note about the person for yourself for the next time you talk with the person.
It’s not perfect – not everyone I talk to has a profile – but overall, its pretty nice. rapportive is available for my favorite price of “free” – as a plugin for Firefox and Google Chrome, with IE support on the way. Check it out here.
3D Coming to a Television Near You? January 13, 2010
Posted by Zev Rosenbaum in : CES and Macworld, Misc. , add a comment
Have you seen James Cameron’s Avatar? If you were impressed by the usage of 3D by Cameron to immerse you in the world of Pandora, then you will be amazed by sports and TV in 3D. One of the big themes last week at CES was 3DTV’s in the home and coming this June DirecTV will begin broadcasting a few channels in 3D and one of the big headlines here, is that sports will also be in 3D. Fox Sports and ESPN are already on board to begin showing some games in 3D this summer, though if sports ain’t your thing, don’t worry a number of other broadcasting companies will join them including:
- TBS
- NBC
- MTV
- and CBS
To go along with 3DTV there will be also be Blu-ray players that can play Blu-ray in 3D! The first Blu-ray player that can play 3D was announced from Sony last and is called the BDP-S770 (this is in addition to Sony updating the PS3 to 3D)
And finally, to go along with 3DTV a bunch of new TVs have been announced that can handle 3D. One in particular is the Sony Barvia LX900 which will come in sizes ranging from 40 – 60 inches, and will be able to broadcast 3D in full 1080P HD.
Now, you’re probably thinking, out of all the 3D movies I have seen, I’ve always had to wear glasses, do I have to wear them in my own house? The answer is for now, yes. There are glasses that will come along with the TVs that will allow you to see the television broadcast in 3D, though there are a lot of companies working on 3D without the annoying glass.
Happy New Year! January 1, 2010
Posted by Chaim Gartenberg in : Misc. , add a comment
All of us here at TeenTechBlog want to say thanks for the last 2+ years of support, and wish you all a Happy New Year (and Decade). Here’s to you – the readers, and another year (and Decade) full of happiness, health, and awesome cool stuff. Welcome 2010!
– Your Friends at TeenTechBlog
(Oh, and it’s TWENTY Ten. Not Two Thousand and Ten. Just FYI.)
TeenTechBlog Holiday Wishlist 2009 Edition December 17, 2009
Posted by Eli Blumenthal in : Misc. , 1 comment so far
Well, it’s that time of year again, time for snow, presents, college bowl games, peace on earth and of course, the TeenTechBlog Holiday wishlist. We thought that, seeing that it is the holiday season, we’d share with you some of the gadgets on our holiday wish list. So what gadgets would we like to get this holiday season? Read on!
When Gadgets and Social Networks Collide– Meet gdgt July 2, 2009
Posted by Eli Blumenthal in : Misc. , add a comment
We got something here today we think a lot of you will love. It’s a brand new site by Ryan Block and Peter Rojas (the guys who made the big tech blogs Engadget and Gizmodo– they also are our mentors here and have helped get us off the ground, just a little side note) called gdgt (pronounced either g-d-g-t, like saying each letter, or just “gadget”). As we said in the title, it’s a site that mixes both gadget news and social networking. It’s really cool, kinda like a Facebook/Twitter for gadgets.
It also really let’s you focus on the gadgets you own, and in your profile, you actually can make a list of the gadgets you want, have, or had– and clicking on one of the gadgets in your list takes you to that gadgets page, where theres a whole bunch of information like a basic overview, tips, tricks and hacks for said gadget (do at your own risk!), and even reviews. Speaking of reviews, you also can post your own reviews on the gadgets (though you can’t just write “this iPod is awesome!”, the reviews need to be at least 200 words), and you can also edit information on gadgets on the site if you find them inaccurate, and you can even add another gadget to the site if you find the one your looking for missing (kinda adding a Wikipedia like element to the site).
There are also a lot of discussions on the site, so if your having trouble with something, there may be a good bet you’ll find an answer to it there– and if you know the answer to someones problem, you can add in a comment to help them out. Those are just a few of the new things at gdgt, you can see a whole video walk through of the site here.
It really is cool and you can check it out for yourselves here. Oh, and friend me and Chaim!
Are YOU Ready for the Digital TV Transition? June 11, 2009
Posted by Eli Blumenthal in : Misc. , add a comment
Today is June 12th, which means if you don’t have cable or satellite TV, or a digital converter box, then you probably aren’t getting TV anymore.
Why? Well if you haven’t seen the news recently (or any of the many ads about it both on TV and online), the TV signals will be switching to digital tomorrow from analog, as per a law passed by the government. The reason for the law? Its benefits will very soon be amazing. See, the analog TV previously used till now for the air stations like CBS, NBC, FOX, etc. (stations you can get with an antenna for instance, which are free “over the air”), use something called the 700 MHz spectrum. Basically, the government wanted to clear up this spectrum for a number of reasons, but the most relevant one to you is: Verizon and AT&T will use this for their 4G networks. Not only does this rake in a whole lot of cash –over $1 BILLION! — for the government, but it will allow for plenty of air for Verizon and AT&T to begin their intended rollouts of their 4G networks later this year and early next year, respectively. Both of their upcoming 4G networks should be INSANELY FAST but we’ll cover 4G networks later in another post.
So what can you do now to adapt to this new transition to digital? For one, you can always use this as an excuse to jump to cable or satellite, and get yourself a boatload of extra channels as I’m sure your well aware of (yeah, we thought you’d want that as your first choice). You can also order a $40 coupon the government is giving out to purchase a converter box to attach to your antenna and TV, which will essentially give you all your current, standard, “over the air” channels in a much better digital, near HD picture. You can read about the transition and order the coupon here, which will arrive in a couple days (I ordered mine about a week ago and got it Wednesday). You can then buy the converter box at a bunch of places, including Best Buy, CVS and Radio Shack among many.
So there you got it. Now go out there and get your converter box, and let us what you think of this new “digital TV revolution”: you getting better picture and sound, exicted for the future 4G networks coming because of this transition?
Kindle DX Announced May 8, 2009
Posted by Chaim Gartenberg in : Misc. , 2comments
The Kindle DX. AKA, a REALLY Big Kindle 2.
Amazon, (ya know, that big online store thing?), announced today the latest version of the popular Kindle eReader. The Kindle DX. In English: A really big Kindle 2.
Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The Kindle 2 is a really nice eReader, definitely beating out say, an iPod Touch, in terms of readability. And the DX has an even bigger screen than its predecessor, almost standard paper size– which is awesome. While I haven’t seen one in person, this definitely looks like an incredible way to read books. Also intriguing about the DX is some of the new partnerships Amazon’s made to get content to the DX.
First up, and most important to me as a teenager and student, is their new partnerships with schools and textbook makers. Yes, textbooks – those enormous, heavy bricks that are the bane of every student, forcibly lugged to school every day, back and forth- have now been digitized on the Kindle DX. So theoretically, you can just carry one of these around, loaded with all your textbooks and other books (I’m a huge reader), which makes it a very enticing deal for those like me whose bag on average, between books and laptop, and other random stuff, weighs more then a small child. However, while it seems like a promising option for students, much has yet to be found out about this arrangement: the project cost for digital textbooks as well as the list companies/textbooks to be available for purchase has yet to be announced.
Another new feature allows Kindle owners to subscribe to a variety of newspapers, including the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, and others, directly to their device. This is pretty cool, something that’s been seen a thousand times in sci-fi movies, and combined with the DXs large screen looks like it could be interesting. Cost is about $10-$15 a month per paper- about $50 more a year than print subscriptions.
Which brings up the next thing. Price. And I gotta say, this one’s gonna hurt. $489 worth of hurt. Seriously. Not including content– although Kindle books are cheaper then paper ones. Compare to the Kindle 2, which is already expensive at $359, and the restrictively high price (surely according to a student’s wallet) makes the choice between Amazon’s 2 models even harder; especially considering that while the Kindle 2 is smaller screen-wise, it’s $100 cheaper, has most of these features, and is semi-portable (the screen is 6 inches compared to 9.7 on the DX). But for both devices, in my opinion, if Amazon wants to get teens and students to be interested in ‘em, they’re going to need to reconsider prices.
This isn’t to say that the Kindles aren’t excellent products; they are. But quality comes at price, which here is fairly high. The Kindle DX launches in the summer, and you can preorder it online from Amazon now, as well as view Amazon’s comparison between the Kindle 2 and the DX on that page. More info to come as we get it, particularly regarding textbooks.