Can't Stop Geeking

Uh, what? I guess the RIAA still thinks it’s 1985 and just like LL Cool J, we can’t live without our radio. That or it’s the latest in many misguided attempts to keep profits up. As the Consumer Electronics Association said “Rather than adapt to the digital marketplace, NAB and RIAA act like buggy-whip industries that refuse to innovate and seek to impose penalties on those that do.” However, the RIAA maintains that this move is one to give consumers more choice. Pfft, the only reason they want this is to prevent piracy. But that won’t work because nobody listens to the radio anymore because they all play the same music, save for some public and college radio stations that are awesome.

Source and obvious joke:

File this one under awesome, that is if it’s true. According to trusted sources at Engadget, the Motorola Droid 2 is coming to Verizon on August 12. It won’t be a hyped up launch day, but marketing will take effect in the weeks following. However, what’s awesome about the Droid 2 is that the sources claim that there will be a special Star Wars edition of the phone with R2-D2 on the back! How cool is that?! Motorola is recognizing the roots of the phone’s name (they had to license it from LucasFilm) by putting R2-D2 on the back of it! No word on if it comes with any neat Star Wars related bonuses other than having R2 on the back, but it would be cool if they replicated the projector feature of the LG Expo and the Samsung Galaxy Beam to make it fit in even more with the Star Wars Canon, but I might be dreaming a little big. I’d probably expect a Star Wars related theme/apps on the phone.

Source: Engadget

Congratulations to Google for reaching a huge milestone on the Android Market! The billionth app was downloaded today, a little more than a year and a half after launch. Not bad considering how Droid was slow to start off compared to the iPhone, which took only 9 months to reach a billion app downloads. This number continues to grow at a very fast rate, since Android OS is catching on pretty well now. Now I just wonder when they’ll reach the 2 billion mark.

Source: http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/handheld/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=225800262

As I’m sure many of you know, Apple’s iPhone 4 came out last week. It’s been reviewed to death, discussed so much, and has a pretty significant buzz around it.  So, the awesome guys at Blendtec decided to capitalize on all the buzz by putting it in their famous blender as part of their wildly popular Will It Blend series on YouTube. The results are found below:

With all the rumors concerning Verizon and the iPhone leading nowhere, you would think that these rumors wouldn’t have legs to stand on. Well, someone is resurrecting the iPhone rumor with T-Mobile this time. This might make some sense. T-Mobile is already touting a 4G network, and if you live in highly populated areas, T-Mobile is a viable wireless option. I live in the country, so getting T-Mobile out here doesn’t make sense since the signal is no good.

Do you want an idea of what 4G is like at this point? Read this article from Mark Sullivan. I have a feeling what we are dealing with is not real 4G yet. I should know, I live in an area where AT&T claims to have 3G coverage. We haven’t seen any kind of indication on improved performance.

AT&T is rolling out some new plans regarding data consumption on their smart phones. Before, you paid $30 and could dowload as much data as you wanted. Now, you will have to choose. You can pay $25 for 2GB of data, or you can pay $15 for 200 megabytes. AT&T claims the 200 MB is enough for most customers, so the price of owning and using an iPhone should decrease for most people.

Be careful if you’re looking to get the latest iPhone when it comes out later this year, especially if you just renewed. AT&T is looking to almost double the termination fee for smart phones from $175 to $325. The reason they’re doing this is to try and recover the losses incurred when someone terminates a contract early and only pays the current fee. If you have what people are callng a “dumb” phone (one that basically just calls and texts), your early termination fee is set to drop by $25. But back to the smart phones, it costs at least $100 if not more to purchase initially, and the termination fee can be 3x what the phone costs you. So, tell me again what’s smart about these phones?

Yes they are, but we have to keep it in perspective. There’s a new study that says only 1 in 4 households has a traditional landline due to various members of that household owning a cell phone or more. The trend seems to be going more toward this all mobility all the time. But for me, while I like technology and the evolution of cell phones is amazing to watch, I think there are still some advantages to having a home phone. For instance, if you need to call emergency services for a fire in someone’s home and you don’t have their cell phone, how will the firemen know where to go? With the dawn of digital technology, I believe that instead of landlines, get a VOIP service. That number can be registered with 911 and will keep you safer than a cell phone alone. Plus, then you can save money by investing in a lower priced cell phone package because most VOIP companies offer unlimited local and long distance calling.

Well, you can cancel any dreams of having a Verizon iPhone anytime soon. It has been verified that the original contract for exclusive rights to the iPhone Apple had with AT&T was until 2012. Which absolutely stinks since AT&T’s has the lowest customer satisfaction rating of all the major carriers. Some are speculating that the recent iPad launch may have given Apple an opportunity to revisit this exclusive contract, but no details as to whether it will be shorter or longer has been divulged. If you know me and my attitude toward AT&T, I am definitely pulling for shorter.