Posted on October 17th, 2011 by Joy Schwabach
Getting clear video with your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad2 is easier with a new Skype app.
The neatest feature of the new app is image stabilization. This comes close to duplicating the “steady cam” software used professionally with handheld cameras. We looked at two videos, one using the image stabilization and one without, and the app made a big difference.
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Filed under: iPad, video | Comments Off on SKYPE APP GETS RID OF THE SHAKES
Posted on October 15th, 2011 by Joy Schwabach
This is a really easy way to post video to Facebook and Twitter, or to send video email to friends: It’s called “Keek” and it’s free.
“Keeks” are 36-second videos you take with your computer’s webcam, iPhone or Android device. After “keeking,” you have options to send your movie by email or post it to a social networking site. Your videos can stay on your page at Keek.com so they form a history of what you’ve been up to. (That’s if you want anybody to know what you’ve been up to.)
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Filed under: photos, social networks | Comments Off on GEEKS AND KEEKS
Posted on October 14th, 2011 by Joy Schwabach
Looking over photos is often a solitary experience. So Flickr.com came up with “Photo Session,” which lets people look at photos together.
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Filed under: photos, social networks | Comments Off on SHARING A PHOTO
Posted on October 13th, 2011 by Joy Schwabach
ExRated.co is a new site billing itself as “The TripAdvisor of Dating.” If you’ve had a bad experience with a date, talk about it here and let the world know. (Law suits to follow.)
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Filed under: Internuts | Comments Off on EX-RATED
Posted on October 12th, 2011 by Joy Schwabach
Our friend Carol has an old printer-scanner combo with the worst scanning software we’ve ever seen. It was enough to tick off the Good Humor man. Carol’s solution was to go out and buy a new Canon scanner. A cheaper and better way is to spend $50 and get some good scanning software, like the new PaperPort 14. This is version 14 of the handiest program we ever saw for organizing scanned documents and digital files. It’s great for organizing tax returns, receipts, letters, etc. You can select documents that go together and combine them into appropriate PDF stacks for emailing. This beats creating a zip file, because the recipient doesn’t have to have all the programs that created those […]
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Filed under: backup, ocr, PDF, word processing | 1 Comment »
Posted on October 11th, 2011 by Joy Schwabach
If you’ve got $11,000 to spend on a TV, we found the one. It’s from Toshiba and it will recognize your face.
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Filed under: TV | Comments Off on YOUR TV KNOWS YOU
Posted on October 10th, 2011 by Joy Schwabach
This is one fancy mouse. The new “Touch Mouse” from Microsoft has a touch-sensitive surface that covers the whole mouse, so you can let your fingers do the walking. The Touch Mouse responds to one-finger, two-finger and three-finger commands. The first time you plug the mouse in, a video pops up to teach you the tricks. For example, moving three fingers away from you displays capsule images of all the windows you have open, side by side. Moving three fingers down the surface sends all open programs to a minimized state in the task bar. Move your thumb from side to side to go forward or back on the Web. Regular scrolling is done by moving a finger.
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Filed under: Microsoft, mouse | Comments Off on A TOUCHING TAIL
Posted on October 9th, 2011 by Joy Schwabach
In 2013, Intel will come out with a chip that will let laptops stay on and active for 24 hours, or for ten days on standby. Even more incredible, the so-called “Haswell” processor uses so little power it can run on a solar cell. Even if the display turns off, the computer can still download email and stay connected.
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Filed under: computers, electronics, science | Comments Off on THE 24-HOUR LAPTOP
Posted on October 7th, 2011 by Joy Schwabach
You have probably heard about IBM’s “Watson” computer winning a million bucks playing “Jeopardy” on TV. Now the Big Blue champion is turning to health care. Watson will listen when a patient describes their symptoms, and then help the doctor reach the correct diagnosis. (Bob recalls that something very similar was done around 30 years ago, using a computer to diagnose a patient’s illness. The study found that the computer’s diagnosis was far more accurate than doctors’. This does not necessarily mean that doctors are stupid,
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Filed under: health, robots | Comments Off on IT’S ALIMENTARY, MY DEAR WATSON
Posted on October 6th, 2011 by Joy Schwabach
“ParkBud” for iPhones uses GPS to provide a map that shows where you parked your car and how to get back there. It sends an alarm if your meter is about to run out. It’s 99 cents in the iTunes store.
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Filed under: apps | Comments Off on PARK BUD
