First Tech Problems

Calif. Teen Invents 20-Second Cell Phone Charger | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

Tue, 21 May 2013 09:27:51 -0500

Calif. Teen Invents 20-Second Cell Phone Charger | News & Opinion | PCMag.com:

IT takes a teenager to solve one of the most vexing tech problems - of course, they have a very vested interest in this ;-)

Star Trek: Into Darkness IMAX 3D vs. RealD 3D

Sun, 19 May 2013 15:27:00 -0500

So I went and saw Star Trek: Into Darkness again today (verdict confirmed: best Star Trek movie ever), this time in digital RealD 3D with Dolby ATMOS sound. During the IMAX presentation I did notice “ghosting” during several sequence in the movie, and in scenes like the opening with Kirk running through the forest I had trouble with fast movement with small details like leaves and branches.

The RealD 3D presentation however was crystal clear, I didn’t notice any ghosting at all and it was much easier to follow even the most frantic action scenes. I saw Iron Man 3 in digital Real3D as well and it was the same - as easy on the eyes as a 2D screening, which is pretty impressive.

ATMOS sound in incredible and if I’m going to a non-IMAX theater in the future I’m only going to ones that have ATMOS available (assuming the film takes advantage of it).

That said, if someone were to ask me right now should they see the film in IMAX or at the “regular” theater, I’d still tell them to go see it in IMAX, even with the ghosting issues. First, the 3D quality of IMAX is still very good and the ghosting is only a minor distraction a couple of times. But the scale of the IMAX picture makes it worth putting up with, its so huge you really feel immersed in what’s happening on screen. Plus there’s that 30 minutes of footage shot in IMAX - it looks incredible.

IMAX is a great format, but they need to step up their 3D technology, it’s starting to look a little dated against what digital projectors can do with RealD 3D.

Do not read this until you see Star Trek: Into Darkness

Fri, 17 May 2013 23:54:00 -0500

I’m not kidding. If you haven’t seen it, stop. If you think you’ll never see it, stop, because someday you will.

So I’ll just say it: Best Star Trek Movie Ever. But, only because of what came before.

You’re still reading, so you’ve seen the movie. Right? I’m serious.

OK. So this is the best Star Trek movie ever. J.J. and his team of writers developed a brilliant script. But like I said, it owes everything to what came before. (God bless J.J. and team for not having egos that would insist on “re-inventing” everything from scratch. If only other film adapters could pay homage as this team has done).

First, there was the original Star Trek episode Space Seed, with guest star Ricardo Montalbán breathing life into the character of Khan Noonien Singh. A great episode to be sure, but made even greater by the incredible surprise that was the motion picture Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Note: I should point out here that I’m writing this after seeing the IMAX matinée of Into Darkness with work colleagues then spending a couple of hours at the bar at Harry Carey’s discussing said movie over beers, then meeting up with DJ at another bar and then finally ending up at the bar at Rosebud’s. And I haven’t stopped talking about this movie since I walked out of the theater.

I didn’t read a single article, review or spoiler-laced Internet article before seeing the movie. I went into this cold, praying J.J. would deliver after four years. To say I wasn’t disappointed is a gross understatement.

J.J.’s first Star Trek movie was excellent, and created an alternative time line that lets the filmmakers reinterpret anything and everything that has come before in the Star Trek universe while leaving the original canon intact. And that brilliant stroke of genius yields Into Darkness - a re-imagining of the greatest Star Trek villain, Khan. (BTW, if you don’t know, my Xbox Live handle is Khan - I figured if people were going to scream my name out loud in the agony of defeat, what better name?)

The trailers did an excellent job of setting us up for a new Star Trek villain without revealing he was a classic. The pure joy of this movie is you don’t know it until a few beats before the movie itself reveals it - you feel smart for knowing, but it’s just for a split second; an acknowledgment to true fans and expertly staged.

But even with that knowledge you assume you’re at the “beginning” of the Khan storyline; you believe you’re discovering Botany Bay. There’s no way this is Wrath of Khan - it never even enters your mind. Again, a testament to the writers. (Unless, I suppose, you’re some punk who’s never really watched the original episodes and only seen the movies - in that case, you’re not nearly as clever as you think you are and now you’ve had it explained to your hipster ass).

When Scotty says to Kirk that he can’t open the door to the warp core, that it will flood the ship with radiation, they’ll be dead before they make the climb, and before Kirk responds with “you won’t be making the climb” - that’s the bombshell moment. That’s when you say, “holy shit, they’re doing WOK” but its a mirror image. No way. Can’t be. And then they do it.

And it’s fucking brilliant.

As that scene unfolded my mind raced through all the film’s previous events and in an instant I knew how it all would work out. That’s what the sick girl was for at the start (nothing in a J.J. show/film is as straight forward as a simple leveraging move to get someone to do something; we knew that would play out to be bigger - but this big?!). Bones playing with a dead tribble - frankly at the time I expected the furball to spring to life the second he injected it with Khan’s blood, but that’s why J.J. makes movies and I just watch them.

The brilliance of Into Darkness is how they took what is one of the most iconic moments in Star Trek lore (“I have been, and always shall be, your friend”), flipped it in the mirror, and made it the new iconic moment in Star Trek lore.

Zachary Quinto’s “Khaaaaaaannnnnn!!!” rivals Shatner’s in intensity while remaining true to Spock’s own character. If I’d have seen that in a script a year ago I would have said, “are you fucking crazy?” And yet it works in the most fantastic sense.

While part of me is stunned how much I love these new movies, I know exactly why I do: it’s all the little (and sometimes not so little) nods to what’s come before. It seems like nothing from the original canon is left behind. When we see Kronos, the Klingon home world, we also see it’s moon Praxis, and half of it is blown to hell. That’s why half the planet is uninhabitable. Thank you Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Stuff like that is littered all over the film; Trek fans will have a field day watching the Blu-ray release over and over again finding every little hidden treasure.

For me, the star of the show is Karl Urban’s McCoy. Urban just nails DeForest Kelley. Everything. This guy is a stud. Every inflection, every homespun antic-dote, every “Dammit I’m a doctor, not a …” is note perfect. He’ll never get it, but Urban’s performance is supporting Oscar worthy for everything it gets so very, very right. Of all the roles in Star Trek, McCoy was the one that had to be exactly perfect otherwise the “trinity” chemistry just wouldn’t work. It’s an amazing achievement.

The only thing I would have done differently is Pike: I was sure he wouldn’t die, but rather be paralyzed and left trapped in that wheelchair of his with the yes/no lights. But you can’t keep everything the same, and Kirk needed his motivation, so I’m OK even with that.

Conclusion: Best Star Trek Movie. Ever.

Incredible, but true. And it’s been 6 hours so I’m sure I’m forgetting all sorts of cool stuff I noticed during the screening. Into Darkness has to make Star Wars fans giddy. Star Trek fans are just thrilled that someone took interest in our mania and brought it back from the dead. Star Wars fans expect greatness with every outing. After seeing Into Darkness one can’t help think that J.J.’s Star Wars movie won’t be anything but dazzling.

So as my group discussed the movie over Stellas and Blue Moons afterwards, the big question was, “what’s next?” There were some interesting theories, but my bet is some sort of retelling of ST:VI. We know the Klingons end up as members of the Federation, so if I were writing the script the next movie would start five or so years from the end of Into Darkness, with the Federation embroiled in the war that Admiral Marcus predicted was imminent. It will be a story that defines the future of Star Fleet, unifies the Klingons and the Federation, and lays the path for the future we think we already know.

Or they could just go back in time to find some whales. That shit sells.

Samsung Galaxy S4 ‘Google Edition’ to be announced at Google I/O | Android | Geek.com

Wed, 15 May 2013 09:32:21 -0500

Samsung Galaxy S4 ‘Google Edition’ to be announced at Google I/O | Android | Geek.com:

Wishful thinking, but if its real it might be worth looking into. I played with a friend’s S4 yesterday and really liked the hardware more than I thought I would).

Windows 8: is ANYONE making apps for the Modern UI?

Tue, 14 May 2013 11:16:05 -0500

So I’ve had my Lenovo ThinkPad Helix for almost a week now and it is truly fantastic hardware. The first day I really struggled with it though, because in my mind what I thought I’d bought was a really fancy version of my old ASUS Transformer Prime. Once I wrapped my head around the idea that the Helix is an ultrabook laptop PC, not a “tablet” in the sense of Android and iOS, then I really started to love the Helix.

My initial frustration was based around trying to find “apps” as if I was using my old Transformer or my 3rd generation iPad. I searched the Windows 8 Store for all my usual apps and found almost none of them. The few I found, such as Dropbox, were so useless I just ended up deleting them (what’s the point of a file manager that doesn’t let you do anything with the files but view them?).

Everything about Windows 8 drives you to the Start screen, as if everything you’ll need to get anything done will live there. Nothing does, unless its a shortcut to a Windows 8 Desktop program. But because of my familiarity with iOS and Android on tablets it took me almost a day to realize my salvation was the Windows+D key combination, which drops you to the “normal” Windows PC desktop. And then you just do everything like you normally do, be it a program or, as is more the case in our cloud world these days, via a browser.

Once I got desktop Chrome as a shortcut on my Start screen my experience flipped 180 degrees from frustration to “wow, I can do everything I need to do the normal way, I don’t need a special app to do it”. I know that sounds crazy, but it shows how Microsoft Marketing at least had done there job in having me believe the Start screen was really Windows 8.

Its just amazing how few apps there are in the Windows 8 Store that are useful and take advantage of the new Modern UI. The beauty of the Helix is I can use it as a powerful ultrabook PC and then rip the screen off, kick back on my couch and use it as a (large) tablet.

Except I can’t - I have to use it as a touch PC, because there aren’t any worthwhile apps that work in the “metro” mode (at least compared to the 100+ iOS tablet apps I have loaded on my iPad). The few Win 8 apps that are there are severely crippled. Take the Comixology app as an example. Comics actually look great on the Helix’s 1080p panel, but the app itself is frustrating to browse my catalog with thanks to the Modern UI’s endless horizontal scrolling and the lack of anyway to organize my comics by series (that I can find, anyway). I have over 300 books “in the cloud” and the only way I can browse them is in the order I purchased them in.

There are a few apps that are OK; I like the metro email client, and Yahoo has a nice email client for the Start menu as well. The Twitter app is similar to the iOS one and works well enough, Zinio is OK but has terrible library management, the Amazon app is OK, but all of them leave you feeling like you should have just gone to Desktop mode and run “the real thing”.

Given that, what incentive is there for developers to either improve their Windows 8 Start screen apps or make them at all? Why should Comixology spend any time on improving their Metro app when I can just go to their website (which, by the way, defaults to showing my comics organized by series)? I’d love to have a Directv app on the Helix with all the functionality of the iPad app, but why should they divert resources from their website development since that will work for all PC users? (Although it’s horrible, Directv, you really need to work on that). The same goes for Slingbox. Or even something as simple as Open Table. If Microsoft can’t drive any adoption in the developer community for the Start screen they might as well junk it.

Lucky for me my Helix is an ultrabook powerhouse. I can run anything on it in desktop mode and will be loading my Adobe tools (Lightroom and Premiere), have already installed the full Office 2013 Pro suite, and will be putting fun stuff like my Traqmate GPS data acquisition analysis software that I use for racing on it. Now that my brain is back in full PC mode I’m really enjoying the Helix as my daily driver at home and in the office, and it’s cool to be able to pop the screen off the keyboard and use it as a PC tablet.

How do people get anything done on a Windows RT tablet?

Arrested Development Season 4 Trailer - Netflix - [HD] (by...

Sun, 12 May 2013 22:51:44 -0500

Arrested Development Season 4 Trailer - Netflix - [HD] (by NewOnNetflix)

VSCDA Spring Brake Formula Vee Sprint Race at Gingerman Raceway,...

Tue, 07 May 2013 00:50:29 -0500

VSCDA Spring Brake Formula Vee Sprint Race at Gingerman Raceway, South Haven, Michigan. Started 9th out of 35, fell back to 12 at the first corner and fought my way back to an 8th place finish :)

Mystery of the Sony Xperia ZL Camera Sensor Solved

Mon, 06 May 2013 13:00:40 -0500

So Andrew Martonik’s excellent review of the Sony Xperia ZL had the answer: turns out when you use the “superior auto” camera mode, the ZL shifts the sensor into a 12MP mode. Why? Good question, but the fact is if you put the camera in “normal” mode (where you get access to all the settings) the ZL’s sensor shifts into 13MP mode and you’ll see that on the settings panel.

When you select Superior Auto mode there’s even a little pop up message that tells you “still image size changed to 12MP upon mode change”, I just never noticed it because I’ve just been using Superior Auto mode, it works that well.

So, mystery solved, I was only half-crazy. Good to know it really does have a 13MP sensor.

Sony Xperia ZL Camera: 13 MP or 11.5 MP?

Thu, 02 May 2013 11:41:42 -0500

So all the spec sheets say the ZL has a 13 megapixel camera sensor. However, when you go into the settings screen the max resolution you can select is “12 MP” in the 4:3 setting, as seen here in this screen shot:

If you do the math, even 12 MP turns out to be a generous marketing number:

3920 x 2940 = 11,524,800.

That’s 11.5 MP people. I’m not really complaining per say, I’m getting really nice pictures from the ZL. I’m just curious about how Sony’s marketing can go around stating 13 MP when their own settings screens say 12 MP.

So I made my first highlight video on the HTC One. It’s...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 11:27:59 -0500

So I made my first highlight video on the HTC One. It’s interesting that is says “made with HTC Zoe” since the highlight reels aren’t Zoes, those are the “moving” pictures/3/5 second videos you take in the camera’s Zoe mode. You’ll see a few of these in the highlight video.

Anyway, it took a little trial and error to figure out even where the highlight video was. The One creates these automatically by grouping pictures & Zoes into “Events”. If you go into the Gallery application it starts you at a screen with My photos, Friends, camera shots, and then pictures from your online services like Facebook.

The default view is “Albums”, where you see Camera Shots, Highlights, and maybe event folders. I had taken some pictures at the Antique Market so I went into my camera shots but didn’t see any way to create the highlight movie. However a couple of pictures were marked “highlight” with a yellow star. So I added the pictures I wanted in the video as “highlights” but still no video.

Turns out highlight videos are created for “Events”. So when I changed the gallery view to Events I saw that all the pictures I’d taken were in an event called “Chicago”, based on the geotag. When I went into the Event, there already was already a highlight video created, automatically. I long-pressed on the event folder and it let me change the name, thus changing the name of the highlight movie “credit” screen. When you click on the video, it’s there you can change the “style” (music and effects, I used Islandia here) and also select what pictures and Zoes are included in the highlight video. Once you understand what “Events” are it’s really easy to control what’s going on in your gallery.

Once you have a highlight video, you can share it via the usual Android share commands. When sharing a highlight video you select the service and then the One will save the video in an MP4 format and upload it. If you “share” to Dropbox you can post the video anywhere you like (i.e. Tumblr :) ).

My Red Sony Xperia ZL (C6506) is finally here!

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:18:26 -0500

So I finally finished getting my HTC One setup and look what shows up today? Haven’t even booted it up yet but wanted to get some pictures up because this phone is absolutely gorgeous. My quick pictures here are close but really don’t emphasis how good the red back looks; it’s a metallic red and makes the plastic back look more like anodized aluminum. It’s a little thicker than the HTC one but it’s shape feels fantastic in the hand.

I love the look of the aluminum power button. I’m a big fan of dedicated camera buttons but the last couple of phones I had didn’t implement them well, so we’ll see how Sony’s done here.

The front is very reflective (that’s my office ceiling you’re seeing there), but almost no bezel, all glass up front. Sorry I forgot to dust it off before the pics (amazing how much crap you can get on a phone in 30 seconds for less).

In the hand. This pic is the closes to representing the color, its still actually a little darker than this.

The ZL next to the One. Now if HTC would make the One in red …

Thickness comparison It doesn’t feel as bad in the hand as it looks (but I think the One is almost too thin).

The ZL looks really think from this angle, but it’s more of an illusion caused by the tapered edges of the One.

The notification LED in charging mode - it’s absolutely stunning. I have a weird thing for notification lights, I love the one on the Nexus 4, hate that HTC won’t put a true RGB LED in their phones. Can’t wait to get Light Flow up and running on the ZL!

More to come as I set this baby up.

Turning on Accessibility for apps that require it breaks the HTC One lock screen

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 00:43:49 -0500

So a few of us have discovered that apps like Light Flow, Tasker, or the Pebble watch manager that require you to turn on “Accessibility” in Android’s system settings will break the HTC One’s lock screen. By “break” I mean that when you power on the phone, instead of having to drag to unlock, you can simply tap the screen anywhere and the phone instantly unlocks.

This is a big problem because it also breaks the ability to dismiss a call. When the phone rings for an inbound call because the “drag to unlock” is not functioning when you touch “dismiss” it just unlocks the phone and that accepts (answers) the call.

So if I want the lock screen to function properly, and be able to dismiss incoming calls, I have to leave accessibility “off”. Which means I can’t use my Pebble watch. That is a deal-breaker for me. And I was just starting to really get into this phone.

Today it was reported there’s an update for the One being released in Europe that has a number of fixes and enhancements, I’ll be asking HTC if this is one of the fixes.

So I did a factory reset of my HTC One and that initially has fixed the problem with the “drag...

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 18:51:20 -0500

So I did a factory reset of my HTC One and that initially has fixed the problem with the “drag to unlock” not working (which also fixed the problem with “decline” not working - I think when the “tap” as unlocking the phone screen it was just bypassing the “decline” button action and accepting the call as it unlocked the phone).

So now I’m busy re installing my accounts, apps, etc., and trying to see if I can pinpoint where things went wrong. I plan to setup a minimal basepoint (email accounts, major apps installed) and do a nandroid backup, and then work on a full configuration, then backup again.

More weirdness with the HTC One Developer Edition

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:44:10 -0500

So I’m having a couple of strange random issues with my HTC One Developer Edition:

The “lock screen” drag to unlock function isn’t working; it was when I first got the phone but after a few hours it change to just requiring a tap anywhere on the screen to unlock the phone. Really strange. I’ve checked around on a few forums and a couple of other people are having the same issue (this is when you’re not using a PIN or pattern but still using the lock screen. There is an option to not have a lock screen at all, but that’s not what I’m doing).
This one is truly strange: If I press “Decline” on an incoming call, the One answers it anyway instead of sending it to voice mail. WTF. Doesn’t matter if you press Decline or Answer, either way the phone answers the call.
Anytime I boot into Recovery to do something like make a backup of the phone, when the phone reboots afterwards it gives an “Error Report” message saying the phone just recovered from an abnormal reset. It also does this if you use commands to reboot your phone or jump to recovery. Kinda stupid for a “developer edition” phone that comes with the boot loader unlocked.

Anyway I think I’m going to have to factory reset the phone. I can’t find any solutions to my problems and I’m not sure what’s causing them. I could live with the “tap to unlock” but the inability to decline a call is a major problem. We’ll see if this fixes the problem. If it does I’ll make a Nandroid backup at the earliest point it makes sense in case the issues pop up again, at least then I can have a fairly “setup” restore point (accounts, Google voice, etc.).

The HTC One is running Android 4.1.2 and for me that’s actually better than 4.2.2 on my Nexus...

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 12:37:00 -0500

The HTC One is running Android 4.1.2 and for me that’s actually better than 4.2.2 on my Nexus 4 for Bluetooth On my Nexus 4 if I have my Pebble connected and then I try to connect my Jawbone Bluetooth headset I get a lot of erratic behavior: music/podcast players won’t stream audio or just lock up completely, the phone becomes unstable and eventually requires a reboot, etc.

On the HTC One I’m not having any of those problems, I can connect multiple Bluetooth devices and there are no issues. Sometimes having the latest Android release isn’t having the “best”. That said, I really miss the enhanced expandable notifications in 4.2.2 more than I thought I would, particularly with work emails.

It hasn’t even been a full day yet and I already miss my lock screen widgets from my Nexus 4...

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 01:41:17 -0500

It hasn’t even been a full day yet and I already miss my lock screen widgets from my Nexus 4 with 4.2.2. And wireless charging.

It’s really annoying how HTC changed how you add apps to your home screens. On most Android...

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 01:38:19 -0500

It’s really annoying how HTC changed how you add apps to your home screens. On most Android phones you just hold down an app icon in the app tray, and that lets you “punch it through” to the home screen, where you can drag it around. On the One, you have to hold a blank spot on a home screen, then you get a the special “personalization” screen where you can add apps to the home screens. Unless, of course, you’re trying to add an icon to the dock, in which case you must do that from the app drawer. Inconsistent, and stupid.

So I got Light Flow working on the HTC One, but it’s pretty sad compared to the functionality...

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 01:32:00 -0500

So I got Light Flow working on the HTC One, but it’s pretty sad compared to the functionality you get on the Nexus 4 (or Galaxy Nexus for that matter). Basically all I can do is turn on the green or amber/orange LED - blinking doesn’t seem to work right at all, so it’s just a steady color. It’s better than nothing I guess. I’ll probably just use the green flashing option in the apps that support it. The main reason I installed it was to be able to send some notifications to my Pebble watch, which does seem to be working.

Here are a couple of speed tests for the HTC One on T-Mobile...

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 23:52:22 -0500

Here are a couple of speed tests for the HTC One on T-Mobile 1900 HSPA. The Dev Edition phone doesn’t have T-Mobile’s AWS HSPA+ bands enabled (or Dual Channel), but here in downtown Chicago we have the refarmed 1900 band that’s compatible with “AT&T band” phones like the Dev Ed phone. The 3:30 PM test was done at my office at Kinsey & LaSalle, the 10:55 PM test was done at my house near Division & LaSalle. I’m hoping the wizkids on XDA Developers put a ROM together that enables all the T-Mo bands on this phone (of course that will require someone figuring out how to turn S-Off) since all the hardware is there. May not matter too much soon, though, as I’m expecting T-Mo to light up LTE in Chicago sometime this year (and this phone should be compatible with their LTE bands).

So my HTC One Developer Edition (64 GB, unlocked...

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 23:45:44 -0500

So my HTC One Developer Edition (64 GB, unlocked bootloader) finally arrived today. I’ve been messing around with it most of the day getting it setup, so far so good for the most part. I’m not going to “review” the One per say (plenty of others have already done that), so I’ll just be commenting on things I notice from a usability standpoint on a daily basis.

One thing I’ve already run into is the lock screen is broken. The first couple of times I used the phone it worked as I expected; I had to drag an icon up from the dock or drag the lock icon up to unlock the phone and get to my home screen (I typically don’t use a pin or pattern lock if I don’t have to, mainly as a speed thing).

Now however after hitting the power button all I have to do is just touch the screen anywhere and the phone goes straight to the home screen. Likewise if I just tap any of the icons in the dock it will immediately open that app/folder without a drag motion. I anticipate this will result in a lot of unintended unlocks, and will force me to add a pin or pattern lock. Not sure what’s happened here but I’ll let you know if I figure it out.

As promised the phone arrived with the bootloader already unlocked. All I had to do was flash CWM Touch Recovery and then install SuperSU to get root. Hopefully root isn’t why the lock screen is acting wonky ;)

Other than installing and configuring apps I really haven’t “used” the phone too much yet. However I can say I’m really impressed with the Beats Audio enhancements for the front-facing speakers. After downloading Doggcatcher I listened to a podcast to see how the speakers were. The speech sounded excellent, and I noticed the Beats Audio icon was displayed in the notification panel. So I went in and turned Beats off, and the difference in quality was night and day. The voices were very “tinny” with Beats off, but on they sounded very full and rich. That’s an enhancement setting I’ll be leaving on. I also tried it with my Jawbone bluetooth headset and while it wasn’t as noticeable a difference it still sounded a little better with Beats on.

Anyway, more to come as it happens :)