Tech Trends

Tonji, the Music Ambassador, New iPad App for Kids

Burke mom Karina Garcia Neff introduces her musical app for kids.

Burke mother and entrepreneur Karina Garcia Neff, a native of Peru, has created an iPad application for kids. “I wanted to teach my children to embrace who they are and become connected to their heritage,” Neff wrote on her website, Mommy Americana. The result is Tonji, the Music Ambassador, an app for Apple's iPad, developed in conjunction with Neff's multilingual music album of the same name. Both aim to present culture and language through nursery rhymes. The app is available at the iTunes Store for $2.99.  It currently features three songs, but will eventually include "the vast majority" of the album's 25 songs in nine languages, according to the website. Users will be notified by updates in the app store when additional songs are …

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Google Gains Patents and More with Motorola Mobility Purchase

Flip Phone to RAZR to Google

Growing up, I knew Motorola for its television sets. From those dark ages, Motorola pursued mobile phones as well as cable modems and video boxes. It developed two iconic mobile phones. First the flip phone in the mid-1990s; then the RAZR. It also treated the public to several memorable commercials on both products. Who could resist the sleek, thin RAZR? Google cleared the final hurdle in its pursuit of a merger with Motorola Mobility. Trading commissions nationally and internationally were required to approve the merger, which began almost a year ago. The last country, the People’s Republic of China, approved it on May 19. By May 22, the $12.5 billion merger’s worldwide regulatory review was complete. The stated plan is for Motorola to …

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Tech Trends

Publish Your Own eBook

Going digital with your magnum opus.

The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit on April 4 against Apple, Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Shuster, Macmillan, and Penguin Group. The suit concerns pricing, specifically the over pricing, of eBooks. The root of the pricing issue began with Amazon’s $9.99 standard. Some of the defendants have settled; some remain. All this led me to consider the technical side of eBook publishing.  Could someone publish their own writing as an eBook? And the answer is yes. We’ll introduce these three tools to convert your text and images into an eBook: Adobe® Digital Publishing Suite, Apple’s iBooks Author, and Literature & Latte’s Scrivener. Adobe® Digital Publishing Suite is part of Adobe’s InDesign CS5.5. I’d put this one at the high end in …

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Knowing Your Gadget Buying Style

What type of gadget fan are you?

Every January Las Vegas is the center of the consumer electronics universe. It's the Consumer Electronics Show, and all the big and little players, with the exception of Apple who hosts their own events, gather to show off their products and concepts for the coming year. The hot technology of the just-passed holiday season become last-year’s models; what was cutting-edge is now old news. So, how do you handle the pace of change? It depends on your own personal style. The Early Adopter These are the folks who need to have the slickest, fastest, smallest and newest technology otherwise they feel out of date. They pay top dollar and are willing to put up with products that may still need a bit of kink straightening. CES and Apple press …

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Jean Westcott

2:30 pm on Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Ah, but then they wouldn't be a 'gadget fan'? There are a lot of us who hope to some day be a comfy consumer but are more of a 'waiting on the sidelines due to financial reality' group--but that isn't very fun to write about!   more ›

Target Announces In-Store Boutiques

Retailer announced it's launching "The Shops at Target."

"Using the shop-in-shop design (like the designer shops you see in department stores like Bloomingdales) Target will fill mini store fronts with handpicked specialty boutiques from around the country," reported the Huffington Post. "The Shops" will launch both in-store and online on May 6, featuring five first-round boutiques: The boutiques will be open for six weeks, then replaced with another set of shops in the fall. In addition, Target announced plans to test mini-Apple shops in 25 stores. No details were provided.

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Tech Trends

Is Google+ for You?

New Year, New Social Network

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and now Google+. Let’s be honest. Initially it is fun to find people you’ve lost contact with during the crush of daily life. One of you sends a request. The other accepts. You share “since we last spoke” and they reciprocate. Good memories. Good times. Then what? There is something powerful about social networks and the connectedness they provide. Google+ launched June 28, 2011 and six months later had an estimated user base of 62 million, according to Google+ Users Estimated at 62 Million. Google has assembled the pieces needed to be the major force in content marketing in 2012. It is poised to be a significant competitor to Facebook. Real life happens wherever you are. Google+ is available as a website and …

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Susan Larson

8:25 pm on Wednesday, January 11, 2012

I believe I know this Bob, and you've made me laugh again! Thanks for commenting.   more ›

Tech Trends

Thanksgiving Weekend Technology Tools

Tech tools for Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday and beyond.

Holidays are famous for time spent with family and friends around a dinner table. This makes for memorable images (think Norman Rockwell), but what do you do on Day Two? Family and friends may still be sharing the same space and the jubilant feeling of the previous day’s holiday may be losing its warm fuzziness. Keep the spirit alive by getting those priceless family photos and videos online while they are still fresh. Check out Facebook, Flickr, or Picasa. Re-live (and embellish) this year’s Thanksgiving highlights with those who couldn’t be with you in person. Try Skype, FaceTime, or Tango app. Get off the couch and do something. Touch football, raking leaves and getting out the decorations for the next holiday are good beginnings. …

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Tech Trends

Apple's iPhone 4S

We expected iPhone 5 but got iPhone 4S. What's that about?

Quite a week for Apple. New Apple CEO Tim Cook in his maiden product launch announced on October 4 that the release date for the next iPhone would be October 14. That the new iPhone is an iPhone 4S instead of an iPhone 5 was not exactly what people expected to hear. Yet pre-orders, which started last week, quickly broke records, according to CNET News. Henry Blodget wrote in Business Insider that the iPhone 4S may be aimed at three categories of potential buyers: Considering this week's BlackBerry outages, the timing for release of the iPhone 4S may prove serendipitous for Apple. Turbulent times indeed. Let’s look at what Apple is rolling out on October 12 before the iPhone 4S: iOS 5 for existing devices such as the iPhone 4 and 3GS, iPad …

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Steve Jobs, Genius of Our Lifetime

Tributes abound; Jobs 'gave people wings.'

“Steve, your products gave me a new life. I am dyslexic, and Apple understands creativity (and) how to unleash potential. Thank you for giving me wings."  This tribute, posted at the Apple store in Clarendon, is one of many left in the wake of Steve Job's death October 5. He was 56. "Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being," Apple posted on its website. Lorton's Bill Stepp held a power discussion with friends at Caribou Coffee. The subject: The death of Steve Jobs and the future of Apple, Inc. Stepp, retired from AT&T, owns no Apple stock. "Jobs was a creative engineer, not a manager. The question I have is: What other products are in the mill aside from the iPhone 5? What's in the …

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