The Big Picture: Gates says the Direction Microsoft took in Smartphones "Clearly a Mistake"

In an interview on CBS This Morning, Mircosoft Co-Founder and Chairman Bill Gates commented briefly on the state of his company since he stepped down as CEO nearly five years ago. Gates was not overly critical of current CEO, Steve Ballmer, but rather suggested that neither of them were happy with Microsoft's current 2.4 percent stake in the mobile market. Mr. Gates lauded Ballmer for getting "a lot of amazing things done" in his time at the software giant, including Bing, the Surface tablet, Xbox, and Windows 8, which Gates said "is the key to the future".

Gates went on to say that he and Ballmer are "two of the most self critical people (that) you can imagine" and that "We didn't miss cell phones, but the way we went about it didn't allow us to get the leadership. So it's clearly a mistake." Hopefully this indicates that Microsoft is working to reform it's somewhat lack-luster image in the mobile market and will strive to be more innovative in the year ahead.

Also in the news today, China is expected to overtake the U.S. as the world's leader consumer of Smart Devices by months end. New date suggest that the Chinese people will be using an estimated 246 million active Android and iOS devices by the end of February to the U.S.'s 230 million. With the vast differances in population (China has approx. 1.3 Billion citizens to the U.S.'s approx 310 million) it is unlikely that the U.S. will overtake China again in mobile use. India (approx. 1.2 Billion citizens) is the only country that may every overtake China in the mobile market.


Sources: CBS News, CNET

Smartphones for Better Health Care?

Dr. Eric Topol, a pioneer in the emerging field of "Wireless Medicine", has said that iPhones and other smartphones may be the key to better individual health care in the future. Wireless monitors on patients, and linked to apps in there smartphones can monitor vital signs and even detect heartattacks. Dr. Topol says, "The smartphone will be the hub of the future of medicine."

sources: Apple Hot News, NBC News

iPhone users pay more for Wireless

It appears that iPhone user's don't just pay a premium for their phones, they may be paying top dollar for there phone and data plans too. A new study shows that 59% of iPhone user pay over $100 a month for celular coverage and data. Conversely, it appears that 53% of Android user spend that much and Windows Phone and Blackberry users pay even less.

The best theory to explain the cost difference is that the iPhone cost more then all but the highest priced Android phones and that carriers raise the price of their data plans to recover the cost of subsidizing the expensive devices. To get more on the story, Click Here...

Library of Congress says you don't have the Right to Unlock your Phone

Bad news for consumers who want to unlock there mobile phones so they can be used on other networks. As of Saturday, January 26 2013, it's is now illegal to unlock an exclusive (carrier specific) phone and use it on another network. The decision came from the US Library of Congress's Copyright Office, which is responsible for reviewing and overseeing the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, back in October of last year. The Copyright Office gave people a 90 day grace period to unlock there phone before it officially became law. That grace period expired yesterday...

The new restrictions against unlocking phones do not extend to Jailbreaking phones, such as the iPhone, to allow them to run applications not supported in the App Store.

The LOC decision was based on evidence that consumer do have alternatives (such as purchasing an unlocked phone from Amazon), and what they considered a failure by opposition to prove that this will adversely affect consumers or the phone market.

Many feel that this new ruling will however limit consumer choice and hurt resale value for individuals looking to sell their old phones.  Entreprenuer Sina Khanifar has started a petition to the White House, asking the LOC to reverse it's decision and support a bill to legalize unlocking phones.

Read my Editorial Article on Digital Rights Here...Articles Section

While We're At It...

In hardware news this week, at long last, the Microsoft Surface Pro will hit stores on Febuary 9th. Some 7 months after it was announced. Still not sure what the difference is between the new Pro model and the RT model that has been out for months? The biggest difference for consumers is that the Surface Pro will run Windows 8 Pro, which allows you to run full regular and legacy Windows programs, were as Windows RT runs only programs made specifically for it. Prices will range from $899 for the 64Gb version and $999 for the 128Gb model. (Btw, these prices do not include the nifty Typecover that's been in all the commercials. Add another $130 for that or save some cash and use your own keyboard)


Seagate's Wireless Plus 1Tb wireless storage drive could the answer to your mobile media library prayers. With a terrabyte of storage, 10 hours or more of battery life, and the ability to connect to up 8 wireless clients (seperate wireless devices) you can take a huge library of images, documents and video with you almost anywhere. For a detailed review check out Cnet HERE

And while you're there. Check out this cool article on ways to hack your Netflix account. There are some interesting tricks to get the most out of your Netflix membership, but the easiest and maybe most useful is this website. Instantwatcher.com lists what's new and interesting on Netflix more quickly and simply then Netflix own site, and even tells you what videos are about to expire so you can't check them out before they're gone! Read the rest of the story at CNet  

More News and an Update...YAY

Okay, so I just posted my first article on the new site. It's about buying your first tablet. Hopefully, Tablet shoppers out there might find it helpful. If I didn't answer your questions, then at least I may have found a new name for the problem. LOL. So please check it out!

As soon as I finish posting the article, which has a section covering budget model Tablets,  I come across news that Archos will be releasing a new 8 inch model and they're aiming for a $169 price tag. The new tablet will be dubbed the Archos series 80 Titanium. while it's most likely an update of the Archos 80 Cobalt it does have a features list that should get some attention. Check it out, a Dual core 1.6 Ghz processor, Front and Rear cameras (lower resolution cameras mind you but hey, my last Archos didn't have a camera at all), Quad core graphics chip, and 1,024x768 screen that's on par with the iPad Mini for less then half the price! This should be one to watch folks. I have a 2 year old Archos 5 internet tablet and even though it may not be state of the art anymore, it still runs pretty good. LOL

And while I'm on the subject of Archos and since my last post (sorry it took so long) was about mobile gaming I just happened on this little beauty on Archo's site. They call it the GamePad and what it is is simple but brilliant! A 7 inch tablet with a heavy duty graphics processor and physical control buttons (plus two analog control sticks) made just for gaming, but it still has full tablet functionality! Plus Archos has built in software to map the controls to older existing games that were never intended to use physical controls, now that's awesome. No word on price yet but if it's around $200 to $250, they may have a sleeper hit! For more info on the GamePad and other Archos Tablets and products click here

And The Name Of The Game Is... Um, Gaming. Actually.

One of the biggest suprises at CES this year was the anouncement of new gaming hardware. NVidia, the famous graphic card manufacturer anounced it's up coming Project: Shield! This will be Nvidia's first game console offering and a radical departure from the usual game console. Shield (who's name may change before release) will run Android, making it not only capable of non-gaming tasks like web browsing, but fully compatable with Google Play and hundreds of Android based game titles already on the market. The self contained unit will feature an HDMI output and have the ability to stream some Windows PC based games from PCs equiped with NVidia's newest chipset! This one could be a game-changer (no pun intended) or a major flop, but I'll be keeping my eye on it because either way it should be interesting!

Another interesting entry will be the Razer Edge, a high-end Windows 8 tablet built specially with gamers in mind. This one is estimated to set you back $900 to $1400 depending on Processor options and packaged accesories.