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Tech News & Commentary
Ken in St. Joseph, Michigan listens Online asked: “Daughter’s being deployed next year. She’s looking for an external hard drive that she can load up with movies and music. Is there a better hard drive than the other? There’s a lot out there.”
Hard drives don’t differ much. “Better or worse” really mostly comes down to better or worse suited for your purposes. If you plan on using one while moving, then a heavy one that requires being plugged-in is probably “bad”. If you plan to just leave it on a desk, it isn’t and would likely be cheaper.
You can look at hard drives like the Touro Pro Mobile, that will provide good storage and good speed, in particular if your daughter’s computer has USB 3.0 she’ll be able to copy those movie files much, much faster.
In your daughter’s case, she may benefit from having a rugged hard drive. They’ll hold up a little better to rough treatment and she won’t have to worry too much about being gentle with it.
Rugged hard drives will cost a little more than comparable non-rugged versions, but they’re not too expensive. You can find them for under $100. For example, the LaCie Rugged Mini starts at $95 for 500GB of storage.
Since she plans to put space hogging media on the drive, larger capacity drives will probably serve her better. Since you are concerned about reliability, you might want to investigate very large flash memory drives. Prices vary widely on these, depending on capacity and speed, with 256GB USB 3.0 models selling for hundreds of dollars. But 128GB USB 2.0 models are under $100, and two or three of those might be more useful, and more reliable, than an external hard drive.
For more information tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
Consumer Reports with Donna Tapellini
The latest laptop models equipped with Windows 8 have started to hit stores. The HP Envy Touchsmart Ultrabook 4 is one such model. Consumer Reports Senior Editor Donna Tapellini shares her first-look review.
The “Into Tomorrow” team discussed the latest apps that they
have been playing with recently.
• Mark recommends: Untappd, FREE
“Beer drinkers of the world, rejoice. There is a social network app for us! It’s called Untappd. Untappd lets you find out what your friends are drinking, and where, and if you don’t have any friends yet it will show you what local beer enthusiasts are drinking near your current location. Now please show a little class and don’t record that you’re drinking a Budweiser or a Coors Light — no one cares. But if you’re drinking an interesting craft beer, snap a picture, post a review, and let your fellow thirsty beer enthusiasts come find it also! Untappd is free for iOS.”
• Chris recommends: Oreo Twist Lick Dunk, FREE
“If you’ve ever played Fruit Ninja, this game will look somewhat familiar. Oreo cookies fly through the air. You need to swipe as many as you can, that twists them. Then you swipe them again, that licks them, then you dunk them into a glass of milk. It’s easy in the beginning, but then they start flying faster and more cookies show up at one time making it quite fun and mildly addictive. You have 60 seconds to twist, lick and dunk as many cookies as you can. It’s free in the Apple App Store.” — Chris
• Rob recommends: City News, $0.99
“A Geo-Targeted Personalized News App. It’s described as “the easiest way to know a city—whether you’re local or just visiting. It’s a constantly updated urban guide, insider tip sheet, and local news jacked on steroids.” Basically, I see it as the modern-day local magazine. Divided into sections: Top Stories (Local News), Arts & Entertainment, Food & Drink, and Lifestyle. The app interface has a cool 3D effect when you swipe the screen to switch to a different topic section. Looks like a cube you’re spinning. Hence, the name “SPUN”. There’s all sorts of interesting articles, including places to eat, places to visit, shopping, and more. It integrates with Facebook and Twitter so you can easily share stories. Free Download on App Store. Works with all iDevices.”
— Rob
City News Screenshot
Guests in this hour:
Robyn Spoto, President – MamaBear App
Protecting your kids has gotten easier with the help of technology and helpful mobile applications, like the MamaBear app. It’s an all-in-one parenting app to monitor location, safe-speed driving and social media activity.
Facebook Participation:
We asked: Did you shop for new tech items on Black Friday or Cyber Monday? Let us know what kind of gadgets/electronics you’re shopping for and why.
Here are some of the responses that we shared:
Trevor in Alaska:Black friday? Forget that. It’s safer to stay home than risk getting trampled by the Christmas crazies. If I had money, I would shop for a GoPro.
Scott: Solar clothes dryer
Bill: I have never had the herd mentality. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or Pink Tuesday do not influence my buying. I buy when I see something I or a friend or relative may like and I leave the trendy buying to someone else.
Rickey in Texas: Not on Black Friday, but I did buy my sister a new laptop for an early Christmas gift.
George: NADA at all. No need to shop. I buy during the year if I need to.
Dan in Michigan asked: “I have always been an iPhone user but decided to switch to the Nokia Lumia 920 and have to say it crushes all my Apple dreams. This Nokia is amazing. The screen is perfect, it’s fast and I love being able to make the screen mine with pinning videos, music and pictures slideshow, all which I couldn’t with my iPhone 4. The Nokia apps look so beautiful they make the iPhones look like a calculator screen. Nokia has a great selection and fills all my needs. Nokia music programmed by real people is like going back to the days when DJs were allowed to do that in the U.S. It’s really a breath of fresh air. Next, I buy the Surface. When does the next generation Xbox come out?”
There’s no definite date for the next Xbox’s release yet, rumors claim that it will be released “late 2013” or “fall 2013” or “by christmas 2013” but those really just sound like guesses.
The Xbox 360 was released late November 2005, the Xbox was released in mid-November 2001, and we know that both Microsoft and Sony are working on next generation consoles, so people are probably assuming that their aging consoles will be replaced around the usual time (in time for christmas) next year.
That’s reasonable, and may very well be the right answer, but it’s not official. We EXPECT to see the new Xbox around that time, but Microsoft hasn’t set a date yet.
The Nokia Lumia is indeed a very nice phone, and Windows Mobile 8 gets high marks from most of its users. I think that if the massive library of apps for Apple or Google’s mobile doesn’t lure you in, you can be very happy with Windows Mobile 8 and the Lumia phones. As for the Surface, well, we’d like it better if Microsoft made it very clear to the buying public that the “RT” model does NOT run regular Windows apps, but rather only the mobile apps found in the Windows Store. It’s a little deceitful.
We will see the next generation Xbox console in 2013. We would say it’ll be launched at next year’s E3 conference.
For more information tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners:
Audiofly: Several AF33M in-ear headphones with microphone
Magix: Copies of Music Maker 2013 – Create your own tunes! Even beginners can easily create music.
Microsoft: Copies of Microsoft Streets & Trips 2013 Software
PNY Technologies: ThinkSafe Portable MacBook Locking System & Security Clamp Combo — The ThinkSafe Portable MacBook Locking System by PNY secures your MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, or iMac via your device’s hinge or built-in slot. The Portable Security Clamp provides a secure anchor point for your Laptop, Ultrabook, or MacBook – keeping your device secured.