Getting dangerously close to your data cap? This site tells you which apps to avoid

Data caps. The mere mention of the phrase is enough to send shivers up the spine of any smartphone user. While there is a glimmer of hope that carriers might someday be forced to raise caps or even eliminate them entirely, data caps likely aren't going anywhere anytime soon for Verizon Wireless and AT&T subscribers. Luckily, however, there are tools to help subscribers better manage their data usage. Carriers themselves offer tools that help users analyze data usage and they also notify customers as they approach their data caps, but a new free tool made available by the CTIA takes things a step further by helping smartphone and tablet users learn which iPhone, iPad and Android apps consume a large amount of data and which apps are more cap-friendly. The "Know My App" site allows users to browse through a list of popular apps or search by name, and it also shows how concerned people should be based on how high their data caps are. A link to the site follows below in our source section.

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Posted in 2013 at 04:00PM, December 27

2013: The year Twitter became too big to actually follow

Do me a solid, will you? Imagine the sweet, succulent release in finally letting go of something that’s been dragging you down, and then take a moment to ponder the agony of having no choice but to admit defeat and move on from something good sans finality. I get the feeling that a lot of Twitter users are now finding themselves in one of those two camps. For me, 2013 has become the year that the white flag was waived over Twitter. A service that once acted as a curation engine for all of the noise that eventually hits the web has now found itself in dire need of curation, and as the stream crests, I’ve found myself disillusioned with the prospect altogether. Twitter has long since attempted to mimic Facebook’s crème de la crème News Feed approach with its Discover tab, but most would agree that said attempt has failed. When your only hope of ever keeping up with Twitter is to simply unfollow people, brands, and services that you truly do care about… one has to question the usefulness of the infrastructure itself.



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Posted in 2013 at 04:00PM, December 24

Google already released a new version of the Nexus 5 with redesigned hardware

Slowly but surely, Google is fixing each and every minor problem with the otherwise stellar Nexus 5. According to a user on the XDA Developers forum, the Nexus 5 units that Google is currently shipping are notably revised from the initial rollout. Some of the issues that plagued the original units included noisy buttons, a protruding SIM tray and poor sound quality. Google and LG appear to have resolved a majority of these issues as customers have started to receive phones with larger microphone and speaker holes as well as sturdier buttons. Don't take our word for it though -- one Nexus 5 owner has stacked the two units on top of one another in order to exhibit the fixes. The photos can be seen below.



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Posted in 2013 at 04:00PM, December 13

MIT professor tears into Samsung’s ‘painful’ smartphone software

MIT professor and Internet startup pioneer Philip Greenspun seems to always have a Christmas gift in his bag for big tech companies. Last year, he ripped Windows 8 apart and called it a "Christmas gift for someone you hate." If the decline in PC sales over the past 12 months is any indication, it looks like he was onto something. This year, Greenspun is back and this time he has set his sights on Samsung. The well-known Web entrepreneur knows a thing or two about software, and he always does a reasonably good job of assessing products from the typical consumer's point of view. If his opinion represents that of the typical consumer in this case, Samsung might have something of a problem on its hands.



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Posted in 2013 at 04:00PM, December 11

Video: Galaxy S4 catches fire and Samsung tells customer they'll swap it out... but only if he shuts up about it

Sometimes, consumer electronics combust. We have seen it happen to various phone and tablet models from Samsung, Apple and other vendors. Hundreds of millions of these devices are churned out each year so there are bound to be a few hiccups here and there. When the inevitable does happen, the right thing to do is investigate the matter and rectify the situation professionally. The wrong thing to do, as Samsung is in the process of learning, is to tell the owner of the defective device that you'll only replace it if he shuts up about it.



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Posted in 2013 at 04:00PM, December 09

New BlackBerry CEO writes brief open letter to fans

The BlackBerry saga took an unexpected turn recently when the company announced it is no longer interested in a full or partial sale. Instead, it fired Thorsten Heins, it took $1 billion from Fairfax and other investors, it will seek another $1 billion from the Canadian government as it negotiates a huge tax refund, and it will continue making smartphones as it tries to right the ship. New BlackBerry CEO John Chen has quite a difficult task ahead, and he penned a quick letter to BlackBerry fans asking them to get excited for a big BlackBerry rebound in the future.



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Posted in 2013 at 04:00PM, November 13

Benchmarks show the iPad Air blows away all previous iPads

If you liked older versions of the iPad then you could really get a kick out of the iPad Air. Primate Labs has posted results from its most recent performance tests of the iPad Air using Geekbench 3 benchmarks and has found that Apple's newest tablet nearly doubles the performance of the fourth-generation iPad and bests the performances of all earlier iPad models by a factor of more than five. Primate Labs speculates that the iPad Air's performance crushes those of earlier iPads "thanks to a larger battery (providing more power), a larger chassis (providing better cooling), or some combination of the two." A chart showing all iPads' performance on the Geekbench 3 benchmarks follows below.



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Posted in 2013 at 04:00PM, October 30