News- Or something like it!

Trying to Live a Jettson's Lifestyle On a Flintstone's Budget...

 Hello, and welcome to Mobile and Broke! You may be wondering what his blog is about or why you should bother reading it. Well, like many of you, I am a fan of technology. I've wondered the stores staring at the latest and greatest modern technology has to offer... Which usually ends with the thought, "Thats really cool, but I can't afford that". I've put out money for magazines and read articles and reviews, and done my homework before I throw down more of my cash on a new gadget. And I have amassed a small collection of gizmos and gadgets, tablets and smartphones, to make my life easier. So i thought I'd share what I'd learned (and am still learning) because there really are alot of products and apps out there and it really can be confusing...

So, thats the point of this blog. Not just to show you whats new ('Cause the major magazines and TV shows will always beat me to that), but to help you make up your own mind about what's worth spending your hard earned cash on...


CES, Of Coarse...

So, of coarse, the big tech story this week has to be the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. If you are a geek like me, you know that each year the electronics industry's best and brightest show up for CES to show off their up coming products. The newest Smartphones, Tablets, and Desktops plus accessories, peripherals, and prototypes on display here will keep nerds and consumer correspondants busy for months. So far, from what I gather, there are a handful of stand out products, and a whole lot of the same old same old.

Cornings New 'Willow Glass' May Be The Future Of Displays, But don't Hold Your Breath...

Dow-Corning, makers of the Gorilla Glass (the highly durable scratch and shatter resistant chemically altered glass that covers many higher end smartphones and tablets) anounced their new Gorilla Glass 3 a week before CES, but the big story at Corning's booth this year was unboubtedly a new product called Willow Glass.

Willow Glass is an ultra thin (100 microns, or about 1 human hair thick) piece of glass that has been chemically fiddeled with so that it's actually flexable (see above photo). Amazing, but it does have it's flaws. It's not as flexable as, oh lets say, plastic wrap or cellophane. It does have a breaking point. So all of the demo pieces seen at CES have had a plastic cover on them, just in case the attendees get too rowdy with it. Corning admits that, while justifiably proud of this accomplishment, it's not quite ready for your new smartphone as they are still trying to make 'Willow' a bit more of a 'Gorilla'.

Not to be out done, Samsung turned up with prototype devices, sporting their own flexible glass display technology called Youm (see below). This technology allows displays to be curved or bent around the edges of a device to allow information like Text messages or RSS feeds to be shown on the edges of the display. Pretty cool, actually. Samsung says samples are being sent to manufacturers and there may be devices in the hands of customer by 2014.