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Is Google Expanding its Business too Far?

Kelcie — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 19:43:35 +0000

Google® has announced that it’s joining the (already saturated) music industry. According to the Wall Street Journal, Google Music will use Google’s online social network, Google+, to allow users to recommend songs to their friends. The friends can then listen to a song one time for free before being asked to purchase the song for further use.

Seeing that Google+ is not doing as well as expected, why would Google venture into another industry where it’s destined to flounder? Between iTunes and Spotify, the online music industry has satisfied the needs of most potential consumers. We know Google is aiming for the Android™ niche market, but success still might be out of their reach in this area since Spotify is already catering to the mobile arena.

Mashable estimates that Google Music will be released within the next two weeks.

Although it’s nifty that music will now be available in the cloud through Google, it will be interesting to see how long Google Music can last with such fierce, knowledgeable competitors. Maybe Google should stick to what they’re good at: search.

Face the Facts: Parallels Desktop 7 vs. VMware Fusion 4

Alex — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 20:11:03 +0000

When pondering which virtualization program we wanted to use to run Windows applications on our Macs, we stumbled across this post from ars technica. In the article, Parallels Desktop 7 is compared to VMware Fusion 4 using a multitude of benchmarks and tests.

The last sentence is what aided us the most in our decision: “But if you’re without a virtualization program and are asking me to make a pick, I say go with Parallels Desktop 7. The Parallels’ team has finally put their days of buggy releases behind them; now it’s VMware’s turn to do the same.”

Although we believe that ars technica is an honorable tech review site, we thought it biased to make our decision solely on their word. So, we also looked at a few other notable publications. eWeek.com says right at the beginning of their article that “A superior mobile client and mass deployment support make Parallels Desktop 7 a winner for Mac-based virtualization.”

While trolling YouTube, we found that Best New Products rated Parallels Desktop 7 the #1 Best New Release in Utilities Software.

After looking at a few more comparisons, we decided that’s enough comparing for us. We’re going with Parallels Desktop 7. How about you?

I Love You Siri!

Kelcie — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 20:54:23 +0000

In case you haven’t heard, the iPhone 4S has now been released. With the release of the latest version of the iPhone comes Siri, a voice-to-text command system.

Not sure what your opinions are on the matter, but we’re pretty sure that Siri is a revolutionary innovation. Sure, voice-to-text has been around on the Android system for ages. However, Siri is up-ing the voice-to-text game.

Take a look at some of the extraordinary things that Siri can do:

Don’t you want an iPhone 4S now?

RIP Steve Jobs!

Kelcie — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 20:08:19 +0000

It seems as though everyone everywhere is mourning the loss of Steve Jobs. He was one of the most skilled minds of our time. With his resignation a few months ago, we feared that it was only a matter of time before Jobs’ passed on. So, to honor this brilliant man, we have put together a small collection of our favorite tributes to Steve Jobs.

This tribute came from Jonathan Mak, a 19-year-old in Hong Kong. He reminds us that Steve Jobs was loved all around the world.

This next tribute comes from Mint Digital. This piece of art was made solely from pieces of a Macbook Pro.

What better way to end this tribute than with a tribute from the online Apple Store itself?

RIP Steve Jobs: 1955-2011

End World Hunger? Or Buy More Mobile Apps?

Kelcie — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 18:45:26 +0000

WebPageFX created a Star Wars® themed infographic that compares various Mobile App stores. This infographic was featured on PCMag.com.

The main operating systems that use Mobile Apps are Android®, Apple®, and Blackberry®. While Apple has the most apps available, Androids are the most popular phone and therefore use apps more frequently.

While most of the statistics listed in this infographic are pretty self-explanatory, there is one stat that baffled us. The estimated 2011 Mobile App Revenue is $15.1 billion. This wouldn’t be that scary if the World Bank hadn’t estimated that $11.8 billion annually would essentially end world hunger.

What are your thoughts?

Parallels Desktop 7

Kelcie — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 20:39:59 +0000

It’s no secret that Parallels Desktop 7 has just been introduced. It’s all over the news. We figured we might as well continue the trend by reporting about it as well.

From one glimpse at Twitter, it’s obvious that the claims of Parallels Desktop 7 being super fast are extremely true. It looks like Parallels might be the way to go when buying virtualization software.

We tracked down this YouTube video that talks about some of Parallels new features. Check it out…

Ads Without Jobs

admin — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 21:13:35 +0000

Could Apple’s advertising seriously suffer from Steve Jobs’ resignation?

According to Mashable, Apple’s advertising was the most successful during Jobs’ reign. During the 11 year stint (1985-1996) that Jobs took a break from working at Apple, Apple’s advertising took a turn for the worse. In their blog post, Mashable provides examples of Apple advertisements from the two separate eras that Jobs was a part of the company, as well as an ad that was created while Jobs was away from Apple. Here is an ad that was created between 1985-1996, when Jobs wasn’t working at Apple:

Luckily, although Steve Jobs has stepped down as the head of Apple, he will still have a lot of influence on day to day activities there. The jokers from Joy of Tech came up with this screenshot of Steve Jobs’ calendar as a newly retired man.

Sales are Halted on the Samsung Galaxy Tablet in Germany

admin — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 21:22:42 +0000

In the wake of Steve Jobs’ shocking retirement announcement, Apple employees were distracted with some other big news.

According to guardian.co.uk, sales of the Samsung Galaxy Tab have been halted in Germany because of an injunction filed against Samsung by Apple. Apple says that Samsung’s tablet is way too similar to Apple’s iPad.

This is just one of the many lawsuits that Apple has claimed against Samsung in recent months. SlashGear.com lists more of the lawsuits, including a charge against Samsung for their Galaxy smartphone. Apple claims that the Galaxy smartphone breaches Apple’s patent on the iPhone.

Shout Out to All Apple Gamers!

admin — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 19:03:17 +0000

Calling all Apple gamers who use id Software! According to 9to5Mac, id Software just reached 100,000 Facebook fans. As a reward for their consumers, they’re releasing the new iOS version of their Rage game. The game is free to download for a week (starting 8/18/11)!

You can download it for free here.

What are you waiting for? Go get your free copy!

4Food Takes Orders By iPad

Alex — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 01:54:09 +0000

As part of Mashable’s recent article on 6 Creative iPad Uses for Small Retailers, they profiled a small businesses in New York City, 4food.

“The restaurant has six iPads available for customers to order from and browse the web. During peak hours, 4food “hawkers” roam the restaurant with iPads to take orders from customers so they don’t have to wait in line.”

Clearly not the first company to embrace the portable efficiency of the iPad, this is yet another example of how tablets are slowly reinventing the way we go about our day!