While Apple users scurry online to order the new Apple Watch, you would think Android phone users will be left behind with the current crop of Android-based smart watches.
Not so. As reported in The Korea Herald this week, Samsung is planning to release a Gear 2 stand-alone variant with the ability to receive and make calls and receive notifications without the need of a smart phone. Names like Samsung Gear Solo are surfacing in the rumour mill but Samsung patent filings for “Gear Solo” to the Korean IP Office kinda spills the beans.
Although slated for initial release in Korea, I have heard enough from other sources to indicate it will also reach North American shores, perhaps by summer.
SAN FRANCISCO-ARRIL 8, 2015
Today Dell launched the Venue 10 7000, a premium tablet with detachable full function backlit keyboard with multifunction mouse-like touch pad. Available in Canada, the US and China in early May for $599 CDN and with keyboard currently $600 (US PRICE ONLY) with keyboard, the Venue 10 will incorporate its own Dell security work features on top of Google’s Android for Work which comes with Android 5 (Lollipop) OS. The Venue 10 (and other Lollipop Dell upgadable Android Tablets) can run both work and personal apps on the same device. But each will be separate from each other. For example, an employer would be able to wipe out an employee’s work apps from the their Venue 10, leaving personal files intact. Dell demonstrated other security features like not being able to screen capture mixed work and personal content on the same 10-inch multi-angle view 2560×1600 Venue screen.
Dell’s Vikram Chadaga with the new Dell Venue 10 7000 Android Tablet with magnetically detachable baklit keyboard.
Check out my Global TV Sunday Morning News Tech Talk segment today.
Microsoft’s new Surface 3, is available now for pre-order. It’s touted as the portable work and school successor to its very well received Surface Pro 3 which has impressive sales. Although Microsoft touts similar DNA to the Surface Pro 3, the Surface 3 has very little in common with its older sibling.
Microsoft’s new Surface 3 hopes to match its older sibling’s success but not at budget prices
Here’s what I like about it:
Perfect size for portability and long battery life. The docking station is a good idea as is an always connected 4G LTE model. The 3:2 aspect screen ratio on a 10.8 – inch screen is smart for documents and magazines. Keeping three positions for the kick stand is welcome as is the free one year trial of Microsoft Office 365 Personal. The free upgrade to the yet unreleased very excellent Windows 10, we all get in the first year.
The full-size USB 3.0 port, Mini DisplayPort, microSD card reader and Micro USB charging port are smart too.
Now the bad news:
The Surface 3 at $639 is too pricey to start with. Third party makers can easily beat that with better features and processors, not the Intel Atom the Surface 3 comes with and more than 2 GB RAM. That doesn’t include the optional Surface 3 Type Cover, $159.99 and full feature Surface Pen for $49.99.
Microsoft is riding on the success of its Surface Pro 3 which commands a hefty price but worth it.
I still can’t see where the tablet version of Windows comes in. It’s still an orphaned touch OS and the more it gets out of the way in the new Windows 10 OS, as it does, the better. That’s not from me. I rarely run into raving Windows tablet users, still griping about the original Windows 8 and patched up Windows 8.1 with “that other screen view with big icons that comes out of nowhere.”
Microsoft’s idea of a universal OS in Windows 10 is a smart idea, insofar as having apps that run on your desktop laptop or Windows Phone. But the tablet part cannot stand up to iPads or Android Tablets. I think one of the wisest things the late Steve Jobs said was that tablets (iPads) and laptops have totally different uses.
Microsoft’s challenge to be in every day consumer lives is making the software giant give a little “free” here and there.
Canadian students can get a free Office 365 Education for Students providing their district school board or individual school (from K-post-secondary institutions) has purchased Microsoft Office for use by its staff. Parents and students can check www.microsoft.ca/freeoffice for details. The software will work on multiple devices for each student and includes classroom collaboration. But not shared with four other users.
But if the students move to another school that uses the popular Google for Education with free forever Office-like tools, they will lose their special Office 365.
Microsoft hopes planting early free seeds to potential future customers of the future is a good idea. As an Office 365 user myself, it’s difficult to break away for competitive free office software.
I must say, with all this free software, especially on phones, one gets spoiled and annoyed at having to pay companies like Microsoft for software. But there is a price for free software. You give up your privacy and your phone literally gets dragged from the additional goings on. Check out this eye opening recent research on what FREE phone software does to your phone.
Interestingly, unlike competitors, Microsoft’s free Office Mobile App has minimal involvement with your smart phone. It only accesses information directly needed by you when using the app.
Would you pay a couple of bucks for phone software that just leaves you alone? For years Microsoft insiders have been telling me, the time will come when the option of paying a descent price for software with no ads or secret sharing of your phone user stats might get traction again.
Despite today’s sophisticated smart phone cameras, I still like to take more serious camera hardware along when I travel.
Why? Because a 16 megapixel cellphone picture is not the same as a 16 megapixel quality mirrorless or DSLR with interchangeable lenses.
Why? Picture sensors on phones, with the exception of the Sony Xperia Z3, are half the size of your pinky fingernail. Compare that to the postage size sensors of interchangeable lens cameras like the Sony NEX, Samsung NX, Fujifilm X, Olympus Pen and bulkier DSLR cameras.
Physically larger sensors record richer colours, more detail in shadows and less noise at higher ISO settings.
Phone cameras have no real zoom lens. They basically shoot wide angle photos with the ability to zoom in closer, but at the expense of megapixel size and quality. This means phone cameras can’t shoot from far away like zoom lenses on real cameras. Nor can they shoot extra wide angle photos.
The lens on a smart phone has one aperture, typically f2, leaving the shutter speed to control the picture’s exposure. Due to the physically small size of the picture sensor, the depth of field on smartphone pictures is quite large (making near and far subjects look just as sharp) and cannot be changed. Again, zeroing in on closer objects, or portraits with an out of focus background is impossible to do with phone cameras.
Phone cameras are best at quickly recording personal moments near you. They are small and handy, but there are images further out that are worth capturing beyond your personal sphere.
Here are examples of “tourist” photos I recently took in Barcelona after the Mobile World Congress I reported on my Global TV Sunday Morning News today.
They were shot with a 16 MP Samsung Galaxy Note Edge and the Fujifilm weather resistant 16 MP X-T1 with top tier fast aspherical extra wide angle XF 10-24 mm f4 zoom which captures 3 times as wide a view as normal lenses, the new 16-55 mm f2.8 aspherical weatherproof and the 18-135 mm f3.5-5.6 aspherical zoom, also weatherproof, for my ultra-zoom close-ups.
See the first group of still impressive quality Note Edge pictures, unbeatable selfies, great panoramas and medium wide angle views. Compare the variety of wider and tight telephoto views shot with the X-T1.
Click on photos to enlarge
Samsung Galaxy Note Edge with medium wide views, wider selfies and amazing panoramasFujifilm X-T1 with extreme wide and telephoto zoom lenses
Today Samsung announced its newest Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge smartphones at the annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
The S6, features a smooth rounded metal bezel, while the S6 Edge has curved glass screens on both sides with a uniquely crafted bezel hugging both exposed corners.
More 64 bit processing power and faster response to finger touch are in order here. Both models are sealed, thus no interchangeable battery with build-in wireless re-charging. You get 4 hours of normal use after a 10 minute charge.
National coffee stores and Ikea will soon feature under the surface cordless chargers on counters and night tables from Ikea. Samsung supports an open standard in wireless charging.
No more memory upgrades either. There will be 32, 64 and 128 GB models. Samsung decided its new battery was good enough to be sealed permanently shaving the S6 down to 6.8 mm. It also said the S6 “won’t bend.”
A 16 megapixel main camera features less than a second instant on from the get go by pressing the menu bar twice, even on locked phones. It has easy to use settings for beginners and a Pro mode to grow into.
The 5 megapixel selfie uses a fast f1.9 lens and shoots gorgeous FullHD video.
Samsung showed tough picture and movie taking comparisons in bad light against an iPhone 6 with noticeable quality gains.
Both phones will be available in Canada on April 10 with all cellcos. The 32 GB S6 is expected to sell in the $250 range while the Edge will cost about $100 more.
For that you get a well crafted constant companion with Gorilla Glass 4 and a curved screen that was subjected to 8,000 Celcius during assembly.
Thinness, dazzling looks and smart functionality with speed is Samsung’s latest effort to compete with Apple’s recently successful iPhone 6 and 6 Plus phones sold worldwide.
Samsung Canada’s Paul Brannen “We listened to everyone’s pain points on phones and delivered on design and functionality.”
The curved S6 Edge has room for separate narrow side panel information viewed from the top or the side. This gives fast access to app icons, auto-scrolling sports and news and a nifty non-intrusive bed light mode, with time weather and alarm showing on the curve edge.
When face down, the S6 Edge glows colours assigned to specific contacts so you know who might be buzzing you in a meeting.
Despite its “wow” tecnology showcase at the premiere mobility show of the year, the South Korean giant finds itself with decreasing annual profits and playing catchup to Apple’s hugely successful 75 million global iPhone 6 sales.
Analysts place Apple and Samsung at par with 20 per cent each on global phone shipments in the past quarter. Samsung recently reported a 37 per cent drop of its company-wide operating profit from last year.
Will Samsung’s glass screen-bending magic save it from its current woes?
Faced with Apple’s lightening fast market growth outside North America, low price busting Chinese smartphones from Xiaomi and its growing dissatisfaction with the Android operating system, Samsung is in the unenviable position of having the coolest technology in need of the right market.
“A lot of stuff I am not terribly happy with, with what’s going on…especially the body issues it creates for a lot of women.”Photoshop creator Thomas Knoll on digital picture manipulation
Happy 25th Photoshop! In a live Adobe hosted online media briefing this morning, the creator of Photoshop Thomas Knoll, took questions from us. He was totally candid, thankfully with minimum media training. Although supportive of Adobe’s ever expanding cloud based Creative Cloud, Knoll expressed concerns about its abuse as a tool. He also gave us a glimpse of what the graphics industry was like back in 1987 when Knoll and his photographer brother John dabbled with a little imaging program they called Display.
Photoshop creator Thomas Knoll answers media questions online today on Photoshop’s 25th. My meeting him in 2000 running PS 6!
It’s interesting to note that Knoll had his own camera in his teen years and was shown the ins and outs of darkrooms by his dad. He was frustrated not being able to get darker blacks or whiter whites on his prints. Later he dabbled with basic picture editing programs during his thesis work to the point where he never got his PhD. We can all thank him for that!
Knoll said that Display was designed as a pixel editor for the graphics industry to prepare images for printing in 1987. He considered other names for his program like Image Pro and Photo Lap, even PhotoShop through an acquaintance. After Adobe purchased the fledging program, according to Knoll, it changed the upper case S to a lower case, launching Photoshop in 1990 to a world hungry for better imaging editing solutions.
I interviewed Knoll 15 years ago, also an Adobe Fellow, in 2000 who was running Adobe 6 on his Mac Book. His biggest beef then was why Adobe was putting more emphasis on his all-powerful Photoshop being to handle web-size images when it was originally conceived to handle huge picture files for professionals and photo enthusiasts.
Remember, this was the early days of the Internet and Adobe envisioned being a big part of the online digital revolution. Fast forward to the Adobe Creative Cloud today which dominates the graphics and publishing industry.
Keeping low budget photographers in mind, Knoll was instrumental in Adobe’s special Creative Cloud Photography offer for Photoshop and Lightroom plus mobile phone app for anyone for only $9.99 US a month with online benefits. That’s two large fancy coffees a month! https://creative.adobe.com/plans/photography
In this morning’s Q&A session Knoll shared how he still gets a kick out of “Photoshop” used as a globally known word. But he expressed reservations on how his beloved app becomes the centre of controversy whenever digital manipulation hits the web social scene.
“Photoshop is a tool and like any other tool, it can be abused,” he said. “A lot of stuff I am not terribly happy with, with what’s going on…especially the body issues it creates for a lot of women. I would appreciate it if people would back off on that,” he added.
From my first conversation with Knoll 15 years ago to today’s media Q&A, I can’t help but think Knoll has no mean digital strain in his DNA. He is a non-destructive kind of guy and continues to work on new versions of Photoshop’s pure RAW format which reads every bit of better cameras’ pure digital picture information when the photo is taken.
You will understand Knoll better if you visit his site, http://tknoll.com and see his view of the world in a collection of extensive world photography. Pure photos, most taken in RAW format.
Calgary based AppColony has come up with a cleverly simple free Android app, One Tap, which effectively stops distracted driving. Take that from me, I have been driving with it for a week. It’s a keeper.
One Tap summerizes each drive session, left, compares your distraction performance , centre and distance driven with friends
How do you say I love you for Valentine’s Day with technology?
For a range of affordable new personal tech gift suggestions check out my globalnews.ca/techuntangled and Edmonton Global News Sunday Morning News Tech Talk segment.
If your love has no limit, here are a few items, costing more, that have a lot of tech love to give back for the next few Valentine’s years.
E-READERS
The Kobo Auro H2O keeps your digital books dry
The Kobo WiFi Aura H20, $169.99, is an all-weather E Ink eReader with enough internal memory to carry 3,000 books. The 6.8 – inch antiglare 265 dpi screen features adjustable ComfortLight backlight technology for reading in brighter places.
The New Kindle eReader, $79, is winner in many ways. It’s small, light, with weeks of battery life, 20 per cent faster processing and twice the storage capability as the previous model. The new touch interface is simple and the new Word Wise feature makes it easier for readers learning English to understand new words.
The biggest surprise at today’s Redmond Windows 10 event was not Windows 10. Nor that one of Microsoft’s cash cows would be free for Windows 8.1, Windows 7 and Windows Phone 8.1 users for one year after release.
It was Microsoft’s best kept virtual reality secret, under wraps for the past few years, one floor from the Redmond Campus visitors centre. More on that later. Let’s talk about what those 1.5 billion Windows users on real Earth have been waiting for.
Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore shows universal Windows 10 for phones and PCs
WINDOWS 10
Windows 10, out in public test mode since last fall, showed in more mature form today with features designed and thought out, sure to please disgruntled Windows 7 users, missing their Start Menu features.
My selfie above, from CES 2006 in Las Vegas got me into thinking about what technology is all about. Especially after having attended similar shows for the past 25 years or so.
The word technology has Greek origins, combining “craft” and “discourse” a lot of which happens at every Las Vegas CES event. It plays itself out in many ways in four days and nights of events in Las Vegas , press conferences, walkabouts, personal meetings, and hands-on on what might show up in store shelves.
The CES 2006 “technology” playing field was much different than today. The BlackBerry smartphone had the North American market to itself with its “CrackBerry” line while Korean, Japanese and US tech giants still showed flip phones. The first Apple iPhone was a year away to be followed by the first Android phone in 2008.
