As the cold sets in, technology is just heating up

Despite the cold tempartures today, this year’s technology market is just heating up.  January is a busy time in the world of technology.  The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is starting this week, where all of the major hardware and software companies will be showcasing their latest products.  Meanwhile, other companies are planning their own unveiling events for this month.

Google is officially unveiling its long rumored phone today, and Apple is expected to unveil its first tablet computer later this month.  Google’s phone is expected to step up the competition against the iPhone.  Meanwhile, Apple’s new tablet is expected to be about 10-inches, so it will fall into a new category of tech products.  It is larger than a smartphone but smaller than laptops and netbooks.  With Apple entering the tablet market, it looks as if numerous spin-off tablets will debut this year, possible making 2010 the year of the tablet.

Tech companies are expecting to see an increase in sales this year as the economy begins to pick back up.  That means many companies will have a fresh slate of products on display this year, and the prices should be enticing to encourage buying.

Lenovo has come out with a new line of their ThinkPad laptops that is aimed more at the consumer market instead of the line’s traditional business market.  Now consumers will have a choice between the “boring” and “plain” black ThinkPads and new models that are more aesthetically appealing.

HD seems to be one of the most popular acronyms in tech circles right now, and it will be well represented this year at CES.  Many camera companies will be touting their new HD products, and Skype is bringing HD video conferring and calls to your computer and home TV.

As CES begins later this week, you will want to stay tuned to see what this year will look like in terms of technology.

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Create Your Own Personalized Radio Station using Pandora or Last.fm

Everyone has their favorite musical artists or genres, so wouldn’t it be great if you could have your own radio station playing only the music you like?  Well, that dream is a reality with Pandora and other similar online services.

Pandora is a free online service that will stream music within a genre or a particular artist’s style.  The service is available at pandora.com, and plays very few commercials.

After creating your own Pandora account, you will be able to create your own “radio stations.”  If you don’t like a song, you can skip up to five songs per hour.  Don’t like a particular artist?  He or she can be banned from a station.  Users have a lot of control over what music they hear.

Pandora even has an app for iPhones and iPods.  If you have an iPhone, Pandora can be streamed live over AT&T’s EDGE and 3G networks.  It even works well in areas with weak or patching cell phone signals, and Pandora works great with an FM transmitter in your car (see previous blog posting).

I have not tried Last.fm, but it is a similar service to Pandora.  Last.fm boasts the largest music catalogue online.  There is also a Last.fm iPhone/iPod app.

Happy listening!

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Listen to your MP3 Player through your Car or Home Stereo

As our music collections gradually move away from CDs and other forms of traditional media, we are faced with a new impediment to listening to our music—how to listen to your iPod in your car or on your home stereo.

In many cases an FM transmitter is the easiest option for getting your music from your iPod or MP3 player to your car or home stereo. Almost all such transmitters are available at a low price and can broadcast on any frequency in the FM spectrum.

Based upon online reviews and personal usage, Satechi’s FM transmitter for iPods and iPhones rises above other FM transmitters.

Available for $31.99 from Amazon.com, Satechi’s FM transmitter is competitively priced and provides strong signal strength. In many cases, the transmitter is capable of overpowering other stations broadcasting on the same or on a nearby frequency. This cuts down on the amount of interference from other radio stations while listening to your music or podcasts.

Accompanied with the WunderRadio app (see previous posting), Satechi’s FM transmitter allows you to listen to radio stations from almost anywhere in the world wherever you are.

The Satechi FM transmitter connects to your iPod’s/iPhone’s built-in dock, and it can run on power from the iPod’s/iPhone’s battery. The transmitter also comes with a car adapter that can be used to charge your iPod or iPhone and power both devices.

Although many FM transmitters for MP3 players will be geared towards iPods and iPhones, transmitters are also made that can connect to other MP3 players through their headphone jack.

Such FM transmitters for iPods and other MP3 players typically have a broadcast range of at most 30 feet.

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WunderRadio Brings Internet Radio to your Cell Phone

Technology continues to change how we live our lives, and cell phones are no exception.  The people at Weather Underground have created an online radio application for smartphones called WunderRadio.  This application allows you to stream thousands of Internet radio stations on your phone anywhere, anytime.

The app utilizes Radiotime’s directory of over 36,000 radio stations including many from our area.  The app allows you to sort stations by genre or geographic location.  You can also utilize the iPhone’s location software to find local radio stations in your current area.

I have only used WunderRadio on a first generation iPhone, but streaming (usually) works surprisingly well on AT&T’s network—even while using an EDGE connection in areas with weak signals.

While it is both technologically and culturally interesting to be able to listen to radio stations from around the world on your computer, it is even more interesting and amazing to be able to take them with you wherever you go.  You can listen to your favorite radio station if you are taking a walk before work, if you are driving home, or if you are just doing work around the house.

Although it is great to be able to listen to radio stations from far-flung locations of the world, you can also listen to local stations.  You probably don’t have an FM radio with you all the time, but you probably have your cell phone.

WunderRadio is available for $6.99 from the iTunes Store.  Versions for Blackberrys and Windows Mobile phones are also available.  The WunderRadio website has more information.

Check back in the coming days for a report on the Satechi FM transmitter for iPhones and iPods.  This great, cheap FM transmitter allows you to listen to your iPod (or WunderRadio) in your car or on your home stereo.  Also stay tuned for a posting about Pandora, a website that lets you create your own customized radio station (for free!).

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Attacks shut down Twitter, other sites

Users of various social networking sites may have experienced problems accessing such sites on Thursday.

A large-scale denial-of-service (DOS) attack was directed towards sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Live Journal, Blogger, and YouTube.  The attack on Twitter was probably the most noticeable yesterday with an outage of several hours and other hiccups throughout the day.

The DOS attack, which occurs when a site’s servers are overwhelmed with an extremely high number of access requests, was directed towards one user, a pro-Georgian blogger.

Although the culprit of the attacks has not been named, it is most likely a pro-Russian hacker group.

These attacks highlight a new battlefront in the world.  There have been electronic attacks between these two sides in the past, and they demonstrate how vulnerable this unseen world can be.  This is another example that attacks between pro-Soviet and pro-European groups in the former Soviet Union can have global ramifications. 

However, such attacks are not restricted to these two opposing sides.  More subtle attacks and invasions take place all of the time.  Reports have surfaced of Chinese hackers breaking into computer systems of sensitive US installations such as Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Unbeknown to most people, the world’s communications infrastructure is very vulnerable to attack.  In a world where computers and networks touch every aspect of our lives, the country, if not the world, could come to a grinding halt in a carefully orchestrated attack.  Attacks on air traffic control systems and financial institutions such as stock exchanges and credit card systems could cause major chaos.

UPDATE: A BBC News report states that the attackers also targeted Gmail.  Google was able to fend off the attack, but Facebook users may have experienced degraded performance yesterday.

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Bing: A New Chapter in Microsoft vs. Google

Anyone who has watched TV over the past couple of months has undoubtedly seen a Bing commercial.  Microsoft is putting a lot of effort into marketing its new search engine, and these advertisements are touting a great product.

At its heart, Bing is a search engine like Google, and in this aspect it does a pretty good job.  However, it doesn’t completely knock Google off its pedestal with its search results.  Depending upon what you are searching for, Bing might not give you the most relevant results.  For example, when performing complex searches, Google usually beats Bing.  However, Bing does a good job with less complex and arcane searches.

While Google’s search results might be a little better, what Bing does with its search results is it what really makes it shine.  Instead of only providing a link and a short description, Bing aggregates a wealth of information and presents it directly on the search results page.  Instead of having to click on each website to view its content, you can mouse over the search result in Bing, and it will give you a snippet preview of the page’s contents.

If you are searching for medical information, it will aggregate information about symptoms, prevention, treatment, and more on the search results page.  That way you don’t have to visit several websites.

In a similar manner, Bing provides relevant information for sports teams and local businesses.

While Bing does a good job with medical information and sports teams, its travel section is phenomenal.

If you are looking for a flight, it will search a wide number of websites to find the best fares.  The same is true with hotels and rental cars.  Bing aggregates information from numerous travel websites.

Not only will it help you find the lowest fares, but the site also monitors trends in airline fares and will tell you if it is a good time to purchase a ticket.  This fare tracking feature isn’t available for all flights, but it is available for a good number of them.

Bing still has some work to do with its maps and news features; Google still has a solid advantage in these areas, but this may change one day soon.

Microsoft’s Bing will be great for web users.  Not only does it offer a viable alternative to Google, it will create real competition in the search market and drive innovation and improvement.

David Pogue of the New York Times has a good video showing Bing’s features.  The video is below.

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Google Announces Long Awaited Operating System

Rumors have abounded for years on blogs and online forums about a Google operating system.  Those rumors became a reality last night with the announcement of Google Chrome OS.

This is the latest, and possibly largest, blow in the battle between Google and Microsoft.  Microsoft Office and Windows are Redmond’s primary products, and Google has been steadily chipping away at their stronghold with services such as Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Gmail.  The release of an operating system is the final major step in Google’s combat with Microsoft.

Google’s announcement of their own operating system could land them in the courtroom, however.  Anti-trust regulators will be closely monitoring at Google as it takes an increasingly large role in the lives of computer users.

Google Chrome OS will be available in the second half of 2010 on a variety of netbooks; however, the OS will also be able to run on full-power desktops and laptops.  The new operating system will have a Linux kernel, and Google will make the OS open source.

Google is aiming to create an operating system that can boot and have you on the web in a few seconds with users not having to worry about headaches such as viruses and malware.

The company is also saying that Chrome OS will be the first post-web operating system.  Its rivals—Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, etc.—were all developed before the Internet became popular.  Therefore, Google argues, these older competitors do not have the necessary security precautions built in that Chrome OS will have.

All of the applications on Chrome OS will be web based, so they will also be accessible through web browsers on other computing platforms.

Stay tuned as more details trickle in about this new operating system and how it will affect the computer world.

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Internet Usage Spikes in Aftermath of Jackson’s Death

It has been over a week since Michael Jackson’s death, and reports show that the Internet was widely used as a source of information when the news broke last Thursday.  So much so, that some websites struggled to keep up with demand, and Google thought their servers were being attacked with a sudden surge in search requests.

In fact, some users were not able to directly perform Google searches due to the perceived attack.  Instead they were presented with an error page instructing them to enter the characters they saw.  This was to verify that they were performing a legitimate human request and not a mass computer attack.

Google did not realize that the sudden increase in traffic was a result of Jackson’s death for about 25 minutes according to some reports.

Some news sites became sluggish under the sudden glut of traffic.  Within one hour, CNN.com saw traffic levels increase five times, and they delivered 20 million page views during the period.

The announcement also caused some headaches at Wikipedia.  As early, unverified reports of Jackson’s death trickled in, users attempted to update his Wikipedia article before his death was officially announced.  This caused a tug-of-war between a swarm of users and the Wikipedia editors.  There were also reports of Wikipedia outages resulting from the chaos.

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In the iPhone’s shadow, Apple previews a new version of Mac OS X

In today’s press, the iPhone has all but become the face of Apple.  However, several notable announcements about Mac computers and Mac OS X were made at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco on Monday.

Although the line of desktop Macs was left intact, a new 13-inch MacBook Pro was released.  Previously, MacBook Pros only came in 15- and 17-inch models.

In addition to this announcement, updates to the line’s hardware were made while prices were cut.

A preview of the new version of Mac OS X, Snow Leopard, was also given.  Most of the updates to the OS are under-the-hood, but users who upgrade should notice faster performance.  This is due to work Apple’s programmers have been doing that allows software to better harness the power of dual-core processors.

Users who upgrade will also be able to reclaim 6 GB of their hard drive’s space.  Apple has introduced new compression technology that will allow the Snow Leopard installation to use half as much disk space as its predecessor, Leopard.

A major announcement for business users is the inclusion of Microsoft Exchange support.  The support is included for no additional cost, something that not even Microsoft provides in Windows.

Setting up Exchange is as simple as entering your email address and password, and Mail, iCal, and Address Book mesh together to provide access to all of your Exchange data.

Although a lot of behind-the-scenes improvements have been made to Mac OS X, Apple may have been worried that there were not enough visible improvements to entice users to pay for a $129 upgrade.  To solve this problem, Apple will be offering a $29 upgrade for Leopard users.

Snow Leopard is scheduled to ship in September.

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Google Suffers from World-wide Outages

Reports today indicate that most (if not all) Google services were suffering from world-wide outages today for about an hour shortly after noon.

The reports state that Google was performing IPv6 network upgrades when they ran into a glitch that prevented some ISPs from being able to connect to Google's servers.  The upgrade mainly caused problems for larger ISPs such as Verizon and AT&T because they connect to Google's servers in a more efficient and cost-effective manner.

This outage shows how dependent Internet users have become on Google's for a variety of web services.

With some of Google's servers not working, there were reports of other webpages not loading completely because the Google-based ad server could not be reached.

Businesses may have also run into problems if they had switched to Google for their email, calendaring, and other office productivity tools.

As of right now, Google has not made an official statement about the outage.

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