Black Friday is upon us shortly and with the knowledge and experience of staying up all night in lines and malls, I have a few tips for the newbies among us. Even if you’re used to staying on lines or staying up all night, some folks get irked when they are being towed around by a slow shopper. Don’t worry, TheBlueDot is here for you in your time of need. No, we don’t have some time machine or magical device that will just deliver all the items you need for the holidays. But we do have a few tips and tricks for those not used to the stress of late night shopping and slow tow shoppers.
Nov 23
Nov 08
Amazon is going for Apples throat with it’s soon to be released Kindle Fire, and it seems B&N wants a piece of the action. In almost immediate reaction to Amazon’s Kindle Fire, Barnes and Noble have announced a new tablet like E-reader called, quite creatively, the Nook Tablet (I know, it must have taken them hours to think of that name). jokes aside, it’s an impressive package with a 7 inch 1080p display, 11.5 hours of battery life, 16GB of built-in memory, which can expand with an SD card. It also will offer, out of the box, Netflix and Hulu Plus support, giving it a step ahead of Amazon’s Kindle. It has a better display, more RAM, more on-board memory, slightly lighter and it has free support with any Nook station in any Barnes and Noble. At just $250, $50 more than the Amazon Kindle Fire, it’s an enticing package which will also have Android OS support.
Oct 25
When the first iPad came out I was already an anti-tablet fan. I found them over priced, under powered and just an over sized smart phone that doesn’t make calls. I suppose that is more true for the iPad as it’s design is almost identical to their phones… But it isn’t true anymore. I have been eyeing up the Kindle Fire, patiently awaiting its release so I can jailbreak it and have a very cheap, light android tablet. Engadget released an article today that actually surprised me. Not because it is so obvious, but because I completely forgot about netbooks. It seems more tablets have been shipped than netbooks, which means probably one thing, netbooks are on their way out.
Feb 11
Photo via BusinessInsider.com
Back in November, I did a post about how GQ’s app for new and used cell phones marked the beginning of a shift to the paradigm of the magazine world. It seems the explosion of the “App” world has had the same effect on the newspaper industry as The New York Times app has recently reached 3 million downloads. In December alone, they had 75 million page views from mobile sites and apps.
It seems that apps have squelched fears of the Internet killing printed media (in revenue at least). According to Business Insider, The Time’s fourth quarter Internet revenues “increased 10.3% to $102.0 million from $92.5 million, and Internet advertising revenues increased 10.6 percent to $90.6 million from $81.9 million, thanks to a considerable boost from About.com.”
Although the days of actually getting your fingers dirty from flipping newspaper pages may soon be history, continued advancement in the fields of cell phone and tablet technology will no doubt offer the printed media industry an arena in which to thrive. A piece of me will miss the feel of the pages on my fingers but, hey, it’s good news for trees, right?
Jan 27
Well, I’m not quite sure what this means for the new and refurbished cell phone industry, but Apple released their newest product, the iPad, today. The iPad is basically a cross between and iPhone and a Macbook, allowing the user to access the web; email; manage pictures, music, and videos; and play video games.
The iPad is 0.5 inches thin, weighs 1.5 pounds, has a 9.7 inch display, has a 1.4 GHz Apple A4 Chip, has WIFI, has Bluetooth 2.1, has an accelerometer & compass, and is available in 16GB – 64GB Flash storage. The battery has a reported 10 hours of usage time and over a month of stand by time.
You can sign up for data plans for the iPad through AT&T. The rates are: 250MB of data a month for $14.99 or unlimited access for $29.99 a month. It can be used via WIFI for free at any AT&T Hotspot, and the iPad requires no contracts. The prices are shown below.
What seems to have most non-“Apple” people excited is that the iPad is going after the Kindle market. Apple has partnered with Penguin, Macmillion, Simon & Shuster, and others to deliver iBook, which allows you to download and read books on the iPad, navigate pages, and alter fonts. The iBook store functions just like iTunes, so it should have no problem digging into the Kindle market.
The only thing the iPad doesn’t do, as of now, is make phone calls. With companies like Skype eager to take Voice over IP to the next level, however, it probably won’t matter for long.
