HOUR 2:
Tech News & Commentary
Sabe in Wheeling, West Virgina asked: “If you had done any research or gotten any information on the new HP tablet, an iPad-like thing with WebOS.”
The HP tablet is called the HP Touchpad, it’s a dual-core tablet, it actually comes out this weekend (July 1st). It uses the WebOS like you mentioned and it’s a really nice looking OS — or Operating System, very polished user interface, multitasking looks great, in fact it’s multitasking is probably the best of any tablet on the market, it does flash, Skype has already been announced for it and that users will be able to video conference using Skype via the tablets only built in camera. Yes, unlike most other tablets out today this one only has a front facing camera, that’s probably not the world’s greatest shortcoming, let’s face it taking a picture with something the size of a notebook isn’t comfortable, but it’s still worth mentioning.
The Touchpad is also compatible with the Touchstone induction charging system that HP/Palm have been using for a while, that means you can charge it by setting it down on a charger, instead of having to plug in any wires. All that stuff is good … so, here’s the bad: as great as the software looks, the built in OS isn’t everything, there are no guarantees that the Touchpad will have a good app store able to compete with the iPad’s or even the Android Market (and even the Android Market with all of the Android tablets out there has been lagging behind Apple’s app store for iPad…), Angry Birds will be available, Pandora will be available, Skype will be available, but what about the thousands of other smaller apps that help make life easier?
It also costs the same as an iPad, $499 for the base model, so it really needs to compete on quality, the OS itself looks great, but the uncertainty regarding app availability, the lack of a second camera, the fact that we’re not sure what the battery life will be like in the real world and, will you be able to get movies, songs and books for this tablet easily? … all that makes us think that it may be wise to wait and see … we’re not saying rule it out, just wait and see how well the platform develops, don’t buy it on the release date if you can wait.
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
“This Week in Tech History” Weekly Feature with Chris Graveline
| “Forward With Ford” Conference ReviewDay 3: Ford Test Track | 1) Vehicles that can talk to each other (Ford’s Vehicle Communications Technology) –> Allows cars to talk wirelessly with one another using advanced WiFi signals, or dedicated short-range communications on a secure channel assigned by the FCC.2) F-150 Power Challenge (Drag Racing) –> Dave and Rob drove an F-150 with ECOBOOST –> Rob beat Dave! We have video proof!) All-Season Driving –> Dave and Rob got in a Mustang that hydroplaned and spun on Ford’s track
4) Crash Test — Only 100 of attendees got to see this –> We did!! 5) Focus Target Challenge –> Dave and Rob drove a Ford Focus on a challenge track with targets and point structure. Ford will provide us with a video of our driving soon. 6) Ford Explorer on Off-Road Track –> Test drove an Explorer on dirt and tall hills 7) Park Assist on 2011 Ford Explorer –> Rob sucks at parallel parking, so park assist came in handy! No hands!
Rob says: “Look Mom, no hands!” |
Forward With Ford Reports…
| HOUR 2 GUESTS | ||
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| Dr. Srini Sundararajan, Safety Technical Leader, Research & Advance Engineering – Ford Motor Company | The science of the various carhorns was very interesting. | Andy Sarkisian, Safety Planning & Strategy Manager – Ford Motor Company |
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| Dave with actor and ecologyfanatic Ed Begley, Jr. | Dave, Sugar & Rob | Rob & Ed Begley, Jr. |
Product Spotlight with Rob: Are you like Rob and have trouble getting up every morning? How about an alarm that SHAKES you awake without waking others? It apparently worked on Rob because he showed up on time to tell us about it.
Amplicom TCL 200 Digital Alarm Clock with Wireless Vibrating Pad, Time/Alarm Announce and Telephone Ring Signaler.
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Features:- Announces the time and alarm time in 5 selectable languages (English, Spanish, French, German, or Italian)- Dual Alarms
– Connect phone line to use as a ring amplifier/signaler – Wake-up daily, weekdays only, weekends only – 3 different alarm settings (loud signal, vibration or both) – Wireless vibrating pad (rechargeable – 80 hours standby) – $99 online |
Joel from Harkers Island, North Carolina called in via the Android App, listens to the podcasts and asked: “I’ve been a smartphone user for the last three years but before that I used Palm OS for over a decade. I’ve been able to find a suitable replacement for most of my Palm apps, everything except the Desktop and my memos and notes. I can do without the desktop but I really miss my over 5000 notes that I had acquired over the years. So far I can’t find a way to transfer those notes to the iOS or to the Android, can you help?”
The newest version of Note Everything for Android can import both Palm and Windows Phone notes straight from Palm Desktop or Outlook. The process is pretty simple, you need to use Palm Desktop to save the notes to a .CSV (or comma separated values) file, put that file on your phone’s SD card and import the notes from inside Note Everything. We should mention Note Everything is free.
That’s an overview, but you can read step by step instructions by clicking here.
As for iOS, you can try Memos, it costs $7.99 (there is a free version, but it’s limited to 5 notes — not even 1/1000th of what you need), but it can import Palm memos, you’re also going to need Palm Desktop, but you should be able to transfer all your memos into your iOS devices as well.
Tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast for more details.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
iLuv: Several iSP110 Mini Portable Stereo Speakers (in a variety of colors)
Microsoft: Copies of Street & Trips Software with GPS receiver
VSO Software: Copies of Convert-X-to-DVD 4 – Lets you convert videos to DVD and watch on any DVD player.
wEASEL: Several wEASEL Easel Smartphone Stand with Hanging Loop in Black or White