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Users can pair the wireless Outlet Speaker from bēm with any of their iDevices and then plug the speaker directly into any electrical outlet to have a handy speaker with no cords connected to the actual device. The speaker has up to 25 feet of working range and includes a USB port as well as AUX in…

One of the things that fascinated me about Tim Cook's AllThingsD interview with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher was one of the questions after the interview. The question was posed by Dan Benton of Indoor Capital. The Q&A went roughly like this: Mr. Benton. Why won't you let us dream? The guys at Google are…

I believe that, at some point, each home will truly benefit from having a Network Attached Storage device (NAS, for short). Most of us just love to accumulate stuff, and that holds true for our digital lives, too. Having one dump zone for these things attached to the home network can make life much easier, allowing…

Wearable computing could be as big a branch of the technology tree as iPhones and iPads, according to Apple CEO Tim Cook. Speaking Tuesday night at this year's D conference, Mr. Cook said that he was “extremely interested” in wearables, but he dismissed “glasses”—i.e. Google Glass—as a niche product and said that other forms of…

The Pixuru app, recently released by Canvas 123 Inc. allows you to send photos straight from your iDevice to their service where they can be turned into works of art and returned to you framed, on canvas, printed on metal, printed on wood, or turned into cases for iPhones, iPads and iPad minis. Pictures can…

I'm quite happy to welcome Smile back as this week's TMO sponsor. And I'm quite happy that they again asked me to talk about PDFpen because this is something I use on every Mac I have, and I use it almost every day for one purpose or another. Whereas last month we focused on the extended…

Apple has yet another new iPhone commercial out touting the smartphone's features by showing it as a personal device and a part of people's daily lives. In contrast, Microsoft's latest ads take a more negative spin by trying to show Apple's products are inferior. Apple's ads target emotion, not tech specs Apple's latest commercial shows…

Judge Denise Cote said on Thursday that she expects the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) will be able to prove that Apple conspired with publishers in the run-up to the release of the iPad. The judge issued a “tentative view” to attorneys representing the DOJ and Apple to that effect, adding that the opinion is…

Penguin is a step closer to ending its headaches over ebook price fixing allegations now that the publisher has agreed to a US$75 million settlement with states and consumers. The proposed settlement is part of a deal in a lawsuit that claims the company colluded with other publishers and Apple to artificially raise the price…

Introduction If there's one thing that I have learned from the evaluation of different Android devices, like the Kindle Fire HD and the Google Nexus, it's that the Android 4.x OS is a technical, pleasantly geeky, often beautiful OS that will appeal to many different people. On the 5.5-inch display of the Samsung Galaxy Note…

I've been wrestling with the right way to put this for weeks. There was something about Samsung that's been bugging me since the Bizarro World media event to introduce the Galaxy S4 back in March, but I couldn't put my finger on it. At first I was thinking the company had delusions of grandeur, but…

While Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Carl Levin (D-MI) are accusing Apple of using shelters in other countries to avoid paying U.S. taxes, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) is accusing the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of bullying Apple. Senator Paul's comments came on Tuesday during a subcommittee hearing into corporate tax practices in Washington DC. Senator…

Samsung is hoping to draw more developers to the Android OS platform and to spark interest in the Group Play feature on the Galaxy S4 smartphone with a contest that includes US$800,000 in prize money. Group Play lets Galaxy S4 users share content like photos, music and games, and for the feature to take off,…

Google announced on Wednesday that it would be offering customers a version of Samsung's new Galaxy S4 (GS4) that has been stripped of Samsung's layered-on-top interface and other added software. At Google I/O 2013, the company's annual developer conference, Google said that it was “Google's take on Android”*, and that it would sell the device…

How much is an hour with Apple CEO Tim Cook worth? Roughly a 2013 Lamborghini Aventador judging by the final results from a CharityBuzz charity auction. That auction closed Tuesday at US$610,000, tying CharityBuzz's previous record for the above-mentioned super car. Mr. Cook offered up a coffee date to auction to benefit the RFK Center…

Shocked, we say. Shocked. We are utterly shocked*. Sales of the HTC First—the so-called “Facebook Phone—have reportedly been so bad that AT&T is ready to kill it. The device was announced on April 4th, but according to BGR, AT&T has sold just 15,000 units and is ready to pull the plug. TMO's Dramatic Reenactment of…

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was recently interviewed by Charlie Rose for 60 Minutes, and one of the topics of discussion was the late Steve Jobs. Mr. Gates became quite emotional when thinking back to his last meeting with Mr. Jobs, and he said he wished he had Mr. Jobs's sense of design. Bill Gates Thinking…

Amazon unveiled its Cloud Drive Photos for the iPhone and iPod touch over the weekend along with a companion Mac app in what looks like a move to compete with Apple's iCloud Photo Stream feature. Cloud Drive Photos includes 5 GB of storage and lets users upload images to their Amazon Cloud and then download…

If God Had Intended Humans to Fly… Now that Google Glass is being widely tested and written about, reactions are all over the map — as they should be. That's a good sign for a new technology: our inability to come to consensus on the technical and social aspects at first. But in the long…

The developers of Hike, an instant message app, have launched a brilliant promotion, offering US$100,000 in additional prizes to the winner of Apple's 50 billionth app download contest if the winning app is Hike. Hike Screenshot From the company's announcement, “The lucky winner will be gifted $100,000* worth of Apple products and accessories from hike!…

New Zealand's parliament is considering a bill that rethinks software patents. The bill, while not explicitly banning software patents per se, instead declares software alone as not eligible for patent protection because there is no “inventive step” involved. In other words, since all software builds on prior software, and thus are not true inventions. This…

MXL specializes in microphone and sound equipment, and the AC-406  is one part of their line of products. Sound is their business, and it is reflected in this product.   MXL AC-406 The black AC-406 has a small footprint 4.5 x 1.75-in (11.4 x 4.4 cm). It is made from plastic and the bottom is lined…

“Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.” — C.S. Lewis Many Apple customers throughout the years profitably utilized the rack mounted Xserve product in their businesses. It was a quality product that cost less than the competition's by a significant amount. Yet, it was doomed to failure. Here's how it happend. _________________________ Buried…

The CharityBuzz auction for a coffee date with Tim Cook has risen to US$605,000. This is the first increase in the price of the auction in several days, and comes with eight days left in the bidding. The auction is for an hour (that amount of time is not promised) with Tim Cook on the…