GearCrave » Internet

Buffalo CloudStor: Your Media-Sharing Salvation?

danseitz — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 20:00:07 +0000

So, you’ve got a lot of photos, music, movies, and other digital media you’ve acquired via absolutely legitimate means with no torrents whatsoever. Now you’re faced with a problem: you would like to share this material with your friends, but remote PC login is a pain in the butt.

Buffalo feels your pain: that’s why they made the CloudStor.

The Cloudstor uses PogoPlug software, a popular media-sharing and streaming setup, and is configured and used via a browser. All you have to do is plug it in, connect it to the Internet, and upload your media to it. Then, you just log in from any computer, and it streams media to you.

If this sounds like a fairly simple solution using network attached storage…well…that’s pretty much exactly what it is. Where the CloudStor stands out is really in how that solution is implemented. It has a terabyte drive already installed on shipping, and there’s a second drive bay if you have that much media. The PogoPlug software is simple. It even installs and configures in a browser, no driver disk required. In short, it’s pretty much perfect for most people’s needs.

It’s an ideal gift for somebody who has dozens of DVDs they haven’t backed up yet, and need to be able to watch anywhere. Or, you know, for the person who has way too many dirty movies. There’s that market too.

iPad 2 HDMI? Have Some USB 2.0 With That.

danseitz — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:00:13 +0000

I’ve been using Apple products for two decades and buying them for myself for the last decade, and one thing I have learned, whether it’s the iMac dumping the floppy disk or Jobs deciding “No Flash for you!”, is that Apple just has to do something to make its products a pain in the butt to use in some respect. Any respect.

With the iPad, that apparently is USB connectors, because God forbid the $500 tablet computer has the same functionality as a netbook you can get from Best Buy. And HDMI can eat it too. Fortunately, the Japanese have our backs.

OK, so the solution, a two-in-one HDMI and USB hub that plugs into the dock connector, is unwieldy, expensive, and needs a mini-USB for you to plug it in so it doesn’t wipe out the battery. It’s also only available in Japan.

But still, it’s something. Apple doesn’t seem very excited to actually do something its customers would like, since every iPad owners has been screaming about the total lack of USB for, let’s see here, the iPad’s entire existence.

Come on, Jobs. If we’re reduced to buying bootleg adapters from Asia, it’s past time to solder a USB port in there. Just saying.

Wall Street Journal: $2 an Issue On Your iPad

danseitz — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 17:00:53 +0000

One of the biggest problems with getting magazines and other content on your iPad is the fact that everybody wants a subscription. Really, guys? On a machine that can access billions of blogs, video news sites, and podcasts, you expect users to clutter up their desktop with your back issues, which come out monthly in some cases? Apparently that answer was “yes”, because publishing executives still aren’t sure about this whole “Internet” thing catching on.

At least until now.

In light of the New York Times trying, yet again, to keep the Internet from reading its articles with a paywall, the Wall Street Journal has actually paid attention to the writing on the wall and is offering iPad versions of its papers at $2.

It’s interesting to see the different approaches. The Times’ paywall is doomed to fail, just like it failed the first and second times they tried it. People will just give away their usernames and passwords like they always do, and the Times will see no significant increase in income. The Journal, however, seems to be starting to admit that subscriptions, while profitable, aren’t the way of the future. I’m a lot more likely to drop two bucks in an airport for a newspaper than I am to subscribe to them, and I think the Journal is hoping my attitude is common.

More on this as it develops, especially when the Times gives up again.

Google Squared Now Live in Beta

Carl Weiss — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 21:00:39 +0000

Google Squared has officially entered the picture and is now available to test out. The premise of the search is that it offers a neat and tidy table of results for your search term. The results include a variety of facts and attributes pulled from the web. Essentially, it’s an attempt to weed through the gigantic aggregate of information on the web and provide you with all the information that you need on the search term–kind of like when you find the perfect website that contains exhaustive information about your topic, only without having to visit 20 individual websites on your own.

Seeing that today is the first day of the NBA Finals, I started with some basketball terms. The results were perplexing. When searching for “basketball” some random things like “beach basketball” and “deaf basketball” were at the top of my chart. The columns contained things like “Flat Stomach” ?? and “Wikipedia”. Not surprisingly, many of the individual boxes came up as “No Value Found”. “NBA” fared better in that it provided a list of teams. The columns included “Location”, which makes sense and “Date”, which doesn’t, since each date was in a different format, and most were 2009 values. You can also add in your own columns to access additional information not initially covered and click on the individual boxes to get the source.

If Google Squared ever works accurately as envisioned, it’ll be huge for students and those looking for trivial information on a subject, basically allowing them to research the entire subject by clicking a button. Check it out for yourself and see how it fares with terms that you’re interested in. [PC World and Google Blog]

New Numbers Confirm Our Fears: Social Networking is Getting Even Bigger

Carl Weiss — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:00:51 +0000

Despite seeing the left-field surge of social networking years ago, usage is rising more rapidly than ever. The time people spent on social network sites in the US has risen by 83% from last April to this April. No surprise, Facebook has decisively sped past MySpace as the most popular networking site–users spent 1.7 billion minutes on the site last April and 13.9 billion this April, while MySpace use declined by 31 percent during the same period. Twitter, which has recently gained popularity at a frantic place is still #5 overall, but usage has risen over 3000% in the one-year span. Even the crap copy-cat sites that you may never have heard of, like MyYearbook and Tagged.com, have shown growth.

What’s all this tell you? That you (and us!) need to get the hell off the computer once in a while and have some interaction with friends, family members and coworkers you can actually reach out and touch. [via Channel Web]

YouTubeXL: Streaming Video for Your TV or Console

Carl Weiss — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 17:40:16 +0000

After dropping two bills on that sleek, shiny plasma television, your first instinct probably isn’t to see what kind of mindless drivel you’ve missed out on all afternoon on YouTube. However, once you tire of summer repeats, “celebrity” reality shows and four and half hour baseball games tied at one run, you may be looking for a reprieve. And thanks to an upgrade from Google, you’ll be able to watch a version of YouTube that was specifically designed for your television. YouTubeXL is a reconfigured version of the explosive video site that will seamlessly transport YouTube into your living room on your TV or gaming console. The new format has taken away some familiar features, such as user comments, to offer a more appealing, organized interface and has made all the controls larger so that they’re easier to operate with a flick of the remote. [via Channel Web]

Bing Jumps Into Action Several Days Early

Carl Weiss — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:00:51 +0000

Bing Search Engine by Microsoft – Ahead of schedule appears to be the theme of this beautiful, bright 1st of June. Microsoft’s anticipated new search engine Bing was originally scheduled to launch on Wednesday, but is already available today. Though it will take more than a couple of hours to decipher just how much of a “Google killer” it is, it does offer some new features that set it apart. When searching travel destinations, for instance, you’ll be provided with real time pricing and availability to make booking fast and seamless. Similarly, online shoppers and those looking for health-related and local information are provided with more customized tools.

Not wasting any time, searchers have been busy shutting off the “safe search” and searching terms like “porn”. Because what good is a new search engine if it can’t help you weed through the limitless spanker stash that is the Internet? You won’t have to go to far, either; click on Bing’s image search and you’ll be treated to some pictures of phallic-shaped rock formations that are part of Bing’s inexplicable desert and hot air balloon theme (a little too loud if you ask me, I’d opt for Google’s no-frills home page any day).

So far, reviews have been mixed with some really taking to the new search engine and others stating that there’s nothing so compelling as to make them leave their default search engine. In my limited use, I found the results were largely similar to those I get with Google. For the time, I’m in category 2. Take some time to try it out for yourself and decide: will Bing be the revolution needed to lift Microsoft out of its downward spiral or will it be just another substandard MS product that sits in the shadow of something better? [via PC Magazine ]

YouTube Gets Social with RealTime

Jared Newman — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:00:53 +0000

If you’ve ever discovered a meme-worthy video on YouTube, only to feel the soul-crushing agony of having no one around to immediately share it with, the new RealTime toolbar might be the answer. RealTime lets you discover other like-minded users and find out what your friends are watching through a set of buttons on the bottom of each page. Users can suggest videos, look at their friends’ status and find other people that are viewing the same thing as you. Likewise, friends can see what you’re watching while the toolbar is turned on, and other people can find you through your viewing habits. TechCrunch got some hands-on time and has a few gripes, such as the lack of a chat feature and the way the toolbar disappears and reappears with each new page, but overall they were pleased. It’s invite-only now, so be patient and maybe the meme will come to you. [via TechCrunch]

YouTube Invades the Boob Tube

Carl Weiss — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:00:47 +0000

We all know how YouTube has taken over video-based entertainment as we know it, but this is a bit ridiculous. If you want to ruin your television set with a kitschy little play on the pop culture icon, here’s a “clever” new YouTube ADDICT sticker that you can post on the lower right corner of your Panasonic. Granted some of the crap that passes for television these days is just a hair more thought provoking than a dog howling or baby giggling, but if you need to go so far as pretending it’s a YouTube video, perhaps it’s time to shut off the TV and get your pasty white body outside for an hour or two. [DVICE]

Get the Big Picture with Intel’s Multi-Client Display Linking

Carl Weiss — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 21:00:49 +0000

MIDs are undeniably convenient connectivity solutions that are irreplaceable for those who use them. However, the tiny screen can be a real annoyance, particularly if you want to view or read something of any size. Sit back and worry no longer; as part of its “Carry Small, Live Large” initiative, Intel is working on new technology that will allow several MIDs to link together to create one large screen. So if you and your buddies need to view a big map of where you’re going or some video footage of where you were, you’ll be able to do it without squinting. Why anybody thought that an ‘N Sync reunion was a good way of covering this exciting new technology is something we’ll be trying to figure out for a while. That’s one instance where you might prefer the small picture–or none at all. [Intel via Engadget]

New Netbook: OCZ Neutrino

Carl Weiss — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:00:04 +0000

OEM hardware manufacturer OCZ just launched the Neutrino, a new Intel Atom N270 1.6 GHz netbook. The netbook features a 10-inch backlit LCD display with 1024 x 600 resolution, 2 Gigs of memory and a 250 GB hard drive standard. A 250 GB SSD hard drive is available for an additional cost. Of course, this is a netbook so you get WiFi, ethernet, 1.3 MP web cam and 4-in-1 card reader. Operation will be handled by buyer’s choice of Windows XP or Linux. Pricing and availablity not yet announced. [Geeky Gadgets]

Track the Stimulus with Recovery.gov

Jared Newman — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 18:00:51 +0000

Tax dollars are at work to ensure that you can make sure your tax dollars are at work. At least that’s the point of the White House’s Recovery.gov, a push by the Obama administration to bring some transparency to the recently-signed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The Web site is in the early stages now, but you can already see a breakdown of how much money is going to what purpose and state-by-state estimates of how many jobs will be created or saved because of the plan. There’s even a feedback form for personal stories about the stimulus’ success or failure. But as Ars Technica points out, the best feature, as promised in the site’s FAQ, is the future ability to import data into XML files. This will allow other Web sites to create their own statistics, thus avoiding the political spin that’s bound to seep in to the official site. I also like the message you get when clicking on the externally-linked full bill text: “We hope your visit was informative and enjoyable.” Thanks, Mr. President! [Recovery.gov]

GearCrave » Internet

Buffalo CloudStor: Your Media-Sharing Salvation?

Most Commented Posts

iPad 2 HDMI? Have Some USB 2.0 With That.

Related Posts

Wall Street Journal: $2 an Issue On Your iPad

Related Posts

Google Squared Now Live in Beta

Related Posts

New Numbers Confirm Our Fears: Social Networking is Getting Even Bigger

Related Posts

YouTubeXL: Streaming Video for Your TV or Console

Related Posts

Bing Jumps Into Action Several Days Early

Related Posts

YouTube Gets Social with RealTime

Related Posts

YouTube Invades the Boob Tube

Related Posts

Get the Big Picture with Intel’s Multi-Client Display Linking

Related Posts

New Netbook: OCZ Neutrino

Related Posts

Track the Stimulus with Recovery.gov

Related Posts