Ooo-yah? What's that? How and why the kickstarter hot-shot needs to reach out to non-geeks.

Ooo-yah? What’s that?

Just threw this post up onto Medium after seeing that Target now carries the Ouya console. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Spotify Vs. Pandora: Is that even a fair question?

Source: http://rack.0.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDEzLzA0LzEwL2E5L3Nwb3Rp
ZnlwYW5kLjZiODAwLmpwZwpwCXRodW1iCTEyMDB4NjI3IwplCWpwZw/
eaa2252e/66c/spotify-pandora-thumb.jpg

Chris Pirillo asks on Tumblr:

"Spotify Vs. Pandora"

My thoughts:

It depends on what you're looking for in a streaming service. Comparing Pandora to Spotify is comparing apples and oranges. One is a personalized radio service, and the other is Spotify. A more proper comparison would be Rdio vs. Spotify or Google Play Music All Access vs. Spotify, or Beats Music vs. Spotify. 

With that in mind, important points to consider are: Spotify streams in higher quality and treats artists better than Pandora.

If you're looking to just tell Pandora what music you like, and hit thumbs up or down as it curates a radio stream for you, without ever having to actually pick a song, then Pandora is perfect for you. At least, if you don't mind sacrificing audio quality, and you don't have an ethical issue with Pandora.

If you want curated radio streams at higher audio quality, then Spotify is your better bet. Or if you like being able to make your own playlists, controlling exactly what songs appear, then Spotify is a better bet. If you don't mind paying a little bit per month to stream nearly any song you want from anywhere at your choosing, then Spotify is a better option than Pandora.

Keep in mind, though, Google, Rdio, and Beats also offer great streaming services similar to Spotify. Find one that works for you. 

Thoughts on "It's Time to Kill the Surface"

So first, this is the initial post that I'm we're talking about here: http://stratechery.com/2014/time-kill-surface/
Give the full article a read. It will help you understand what is being said above.

Source: http://thewindowsclub.thewindowsclubco.netdna-cdn.com/
wp-content/uploads/2013/10/surface-RT3-400x263.png?0479ea

So, MG Siegler makes the comments on Tumblr:

"Ben Thompson makes the case as to why new Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella should kill off the Surface product line:"

'This here is the greatest danger of forgetting your original goal; you start making up new ones, that are basically “because we need it to exist.” The hardware capability that Nadella claims Surface leverages only exists because of the decision to make Surface. Nadella is basically saying Microsoft needs to make Surface because Microsoft makes Surface. With that sort of reasoning, you can continue on a wrong path forever, just like the Xbox.'

"I was thinking this very thing last night after hearing Nadella speak at the Code Conference. He often seems to be making the case for many of Microsoft’s products because they already exist, not because they shouldexist. As he did with the Surface Mini, I expect him to trim."

This is a really interesting point, and one that goes for Samsung and their 12” tablets: the companies are making projects to answer problems that the large mass of consumers don’t have. Consumers are okay with carrying a laptop and a small tablet around because each serves a different purpose. And nobody that was working on large professional projects on the go thought, gee, I’d like to use a less precise input method while doing this. And consumers certainly didn’t ask for the headaches of Windows RT.

At the end of the day, the solution to consumers not buying your product isn’t to reiterate it. If they weren’t buying the idea before, they’re not sold on the idea regardless of the implementation. It wasn’t a question of poor marketing, it was a question of poor intention. After the first Surface generation, Microsoft should have rethought the whole division entirely. Perhaps the case of having a device to showcase the software for developers and OEM’s (similar to Nexus devices and/or the Chromebook Pixel) makes sense. That’s fine, and then you can charge any price for it because it’s not for consumers.

As it stands, though, even the Surface Pro 3, arguably the best Surface to date. isn’t compelling enough for me to buy, and I imagine most of the rest of the market will feel the same. 

iPhone (MetroGnome Remix)

I know that this video is blowing up on the internet right now, but here's my continuation of that.



This is a super awesome electronic remix of the default iOS ringtones. Do check it out. If you like it, you can even download the piece for free at this link.

Rechargeable Battery Care as Fast As Possible

A solid video dispelling common rechargeable battery myths. Give it a watch and learn something today.

Thoughts on the iOS keyboard?

Source:
http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/darkkeyboard.jpg

Chris Pirillo on tumblr asks:

Do you like the way the Apple keyboard “feels,” or would you prefer something a tad different?

Here are my thoughts:

The Apple keyboard works just fine for me. On iPad Air, it might be the best tablet keyboard I’ve used for traditional two-handed touch typing.

I like the idea of changeable keyboards, but the problem is that most keyboards aren’t that good. The few keyboards that are decent take getting used to, and that’s not something that one should have to do.

Check out my review of Fleksy Keyboard for iOS for more: https://medium.com/@InternetOfErik/34048fa22f10

How do you feel about the keyboard?

The case for a "Google Experience" store

Samsung’s Experience, Apple’s Lifestyle, Nexus… Devices?
Just finished this post on Medium about my thoughts after visiting a local Best Buy. Let me know what you think in the comments, and also tell me whether you like embedded Medium articles, or prefer native Blogger posts.

In Defense of Math

In Defense of Math

Just whipped this post up on Medium.com. Check it out and let me know what you think in the comments below.

Fleksy Keyboard for iOS Review

Fleksy Keyboard for iOS Review

I just posted this on Medium, which is another blogging platform that I use. You should still check it out, though. Comment with your opinion on whether you like the embedded Medium posts or you think I should go back to re-formatting them for native Blogger posts.

Stealing from the indie and giving to the top 40?

Why not “discovering” new music on Spotify might not be as big of a problem as some people fear:

http://spotifypresscom.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/

spotify-logo-primary-horizontal-dark-background-rgb.jpg

I use Spotify as my main music streaming service, which means that it’s all but taken over as my main music source entirely. It just looks better than iTunes, UI-wise, and it has more music available to stream than I have downloaded in my library. That’s a pretty perfect recipe. I also really like the fact that each time I play a song, I’m earning a small amount of money for that band. This differs from the traditional purchase model, where initially the band gets a decent amount of money for their work, but whether you play their album once or one million times, the band only gets your initial ~$10 purchace price.

That being said, I was reading an article recently that made the claim that the average user of Spotify doesn't “discover” new music, but rather plays the music that they've already heard and are a fan of. This music generally being from big artists supported by even bigger record labels. There’s a reason that top 40 hits are called top 40, and that reason is that average people enjoy listening to these pop pieces endlessly. The average user, this article argued, doesn't care to spend the time finding new music from new artists.

The main question I was left with after reading this article (which for the life of me I can’t find to link to, sorry) was whether this listening habit is actually any different than the current state of digital downloaded music. For clarification, I do not wish to compare streaming to CD, vinyl, or other ways in which music can be consumed.

With the advent of iTunes and digital downloads of music, we saw a major shift in music purchasing format, changing from consumers buying albums to buying only their favorite single songs instead [annotation needed]. This meant that the average consumer was exposed to less variety than before, where if they wanted one song they were forced to purchase a collection of songs. So, with digital downloads, consumers are able to listen to only songs that they know.

Another thing with music downloads is that because of the initial buy-in cost, users are less likely to give a song a full listen before casting judgement. On Spotify (or YouTube, or any other streaming service) I am totally willing to listen to an entire song that I’ve never heard before to see if it is any good. On stores like iTunes, only a partial recording of each song is available for free, meaning that to cast full judgement, I have to pay $0.99-$1.29 just to see if I’ll really like the piece. This limits my ability to explore/discover.

If I were to make a profile, then, of the average user of .mp3's or other downloaded music, I would say that they have a set collection of music that they heard on average top 40 fm radio, and they lack much other variety. This seems to match the profile of the average Spotify user that the article painted. It is currently accepted (mostly) that downloaded music is not harmful to musicians regardless of their size, so why, then should Spotify be considered any different?

There are certainly edge users out there on both sides: Steve Guttenberg, the audiophile at cnet, being a notable one. He asks the question “Do you discover great new music on Spotify?” in a blog post, coming to the conclusion that it’s great for discovery, but that he prefers other methods. I’d like to think that I use discovery on Spotify better than the average user as well; I’m certainly no edge user, but I am conscious of listening to new music. I’m sure that there are consumers like this in the download camp as well, so I don’t think one can make the argument that this is a reason for or against either music proliferation method.

My final comment in defense of Spotify is that free (ad-supported) streaming cuts down on piracy. I have a friend (who shall remain nameless for his/her protection) that sourced most of his/her music collection from pirated content. He/she only bought a few albums that they really enjoyed. However, since getting a smartphone and discovering the utility of Spotify, he/she has converted to using Spotify for all of their music needs. So now he/she credits artist for each play, rather than his/her former system where all but a few artists received no compensation for their work at all. This is the true beauty of Spotify in my opinion. That being said, it is my opinion that one should still purchase albums that they truly enjoy.

Microsoft Dis-Kinects: thoughts on Microsoft’s recent console changes

http://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/kinect_josh.jpg

MG Siegler writes on tumblr in reaction to this article from wired.com:

“Chris Kohler on the news that Microsoft will soon begin selling a $399 version of the Xbox One without the Kinect:”

‘Price is the problem, as others have learned recently. Getting Xbox One’s price in line with PlayStation 4′s was paramount, and matching Sony in terms of online video streaming features was as well since that is also an extra cost associated with Xbox ownership. Microsoft having to suck it up again and roll back a feature to get the price down illustrates that this was really its only feasible move. (Getting rid of an unpopular peripheral has got to hurt a lot less than Sony having to ditch backward compatibility to get PlayStation 3′s price to a palatable level.)’

“I’m not sold that price is the only problem here. As I’ve said from the outset, this latest generation of consoles sound like mediocre upgrades at best. They’re not Wii U-level disasters, but they’re just too “meh” to compete in a world that is increasingly mobile.”

“Further, I think Microsoft just created a quagmire for developers who were told time and time again that all Xbox One’s would ship with the Kinect. With the change, who in their right mind would create a game that takes full advantage of the device? And that, in turn, will ensure the device itself is not a success.”

I think there’s definitely something to say for making this “Xbox S” (see what I did there?) upgrade more palatable to previous console owners by making the buy-in price less steep, but I’m not sure how much of this price drop has to do with mobile gaming.

Honestly, the people that will buy a console or are thinking about it want to do so because of “hardcore” games like Titanfall, which mobile just isn’t capable of yet. Will decreasing the cost attract some mobile gamers? Probably. But I don’t see that as the goal. I see the reason being that Microsoft has realized that non-gamers are probably skipping this generation of consoles, and thus they are trying to compete with Sony’s more gaming focused machine.

As for dropping the Xbox live requirement for use of Netflix and other video apps, I see this as Microsoft actually trying to live up to its ideal of being your entertainment center, not just your gaming console. Especially in 2014, I’m not going to buy a really expensive box that I then have to pay $60 a month to use a movie streaming service I already pay for. That’s absurd. But, I may buy this box if it’s a free way to access the services I pay for and also allows me to play games.

Let's play Titanfall on (3) 46" Monitors : COD & BF4 Alternative

Maybe it would be different if I was actually sitting in the chair, but I don't feel like the surround screen gaming would be my thing. I feel like I would personally prefer having just one monitor to deal with. That being said, I think being in the Titan looks pretty cool on this three monitor set-up.

Titanfall might be the game that makes me get a console this generation. I wasn't too keen on the idea, but from the gameplay I've seen, I am very interested. There are other reasons why the Xbox One is cool, yes, but the thing really putting it above the PS4 in my mind right now is Titanfall.

In any case, check out this video of 3 monitor gameplay of Titanfall beta on PC.

"Put some shoes on, you dirty hippy:" My answer to a question about barefoot running

RunningEngineering asked on tumblr a bit ago, “Does anyone know about barefoot running? Because I heard that it was good for knees who were hurt by impact but I don’t know if it’s good for tendons?”

I personally have been a barefoot style runner for nearly three years now. While I can’t speak for quantifiable data on it being healthier than shod running, I can say that it has helped me not experience knee pain while I run. I used to get the worst knee pain anytime I ran on concrete.

That being said, barefoot style running comes with its own pain. Your calves will kill until you’ve built up enough strength in them. Your distance and time will suffer as you build up muscles that you’ve likely never used before. I’ve heard that shin splints are also common. And if you run truly barefoot, you’re likely to blister and cut your feet like crazy.

I recommend that you try it out completely barefoot on a soccer field or some other open grassy area that is reasonably clear of debris. Try a short distance of a mile or less and just work on the forefoot strike. Once you’ve done this enough to get the feel of it, invest in some Vibram 5 Finger running “shoes” for running on roads/trails (if you enjoy it).

The key is getting the proper mid to forefoot strike down so that you don’t cause massive injury to yourself when you do run on concrete in minimalist shoes. There are video tutorials and what-not on the internet if you’re confused about the midfoot strike.

(Image Credit: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsdWREt7HLBtwaMq38lsxfalno2PFVKHZvshriDsYK-cuvfJIO3qi93KcQnttS7iGJ0BjTS-hlBiU6iqkLid7Cz5NejenNWYRiYmPycKO9tr4-R0Y_wIoDe_tBtwYT1jPhC0Td94kUDF4N/s1600/VibramFiveFingersFan.jpg)

“Please, Sir, may I have some more bytes?” A look at free cloud storage services

I've been using cloud storage since the days of emailing documents to myself. It honestly never made sense to me to store a document on a memory stick and then have to carry that physical object with me everywhere I went. Perhaps it’s just because I inevitably forget everything important every time I go anywhere. Maybe it’s because I liked not waiting for driver software to instal every time I plugged a flash drive into a new computer.

I've been using Google Drive since its days as Google Docs and in that time it had upgraded from the 5GB starting amount to 15 GB, combining storage with Gmail. The real beauty is that this is free storage; I don't have to pay anything to keep my data in the cloud. Google even stopped counting any documents made using its services against the storage limit.

I picked up Evernote as a way to store digital versions of my class notebooks, because tablets and styluses have still not advanced to the point where they make sense in my note-taking workflow (I’d love to just type everything out, but I take a lot of math-based classes, and typing math is difficult under good circumstances). Evernote’s philosophy on storage is that they will store and allow access to as much as you want/need for free, only limiting your upload amount to 60MB per month. This is quite reasonable and very useful, especially for my use case.

I started using Mailbox for iOS, though, and because they were bought out by Dropbox, it became much easier to handle my attachments through that service than through Drive or any other cloud based storage solution. The advantage over Google Drive is that it is more robust as a backup/storage service than Drive out of the box, most likely due to Google focusing more on office productivity than just storage. Dropbox offers 2GB of storage for free, upgradable to 16GB through free methods.

The one thing that I dislike about Dropbox is that it lacks a modern idea of what free cloud storage should be. Dropbox offers 2GB free for an initial account, and then offers various ways to get trivial amounts of additional free storage (250MB for completing their tutorial, 125MB for linking with Facebook, 1GB for linking with Mailbox, etc). The real way to get additional free space is through other people signing up through your referral link, but even through this method, you only gain 500MB at a time. 500MB! This requires you convincing someone that you know to download dropbox onto their computer, and you only get 500MB!

At one time, this system of memory allocation made sense, and it worked. In a time when flash drives barely held 1GB and were expensive, and when other cloud storage services didn’t exist, setting the free tier at 2GB worked. But it’s now an outdated model. Why would I use Dropbox when Google Drive gives me 7.5x the amount of free storage that Dropbox does out of the box? That doesn't even account for the fact that Drive offers essentially infinite storage if you're willing to convert documents into Google’s formats. What advantage does Dropbox still offer?

It gets especially ridiculous with Dropbox’s newest effort, an app called Carousel, which aims to be the home for all of your automatically backed up photos. Yes, they offer 3GB additional storage for free, but another service, Flickr, offers a free terabyte of storage for photos, and the app handles automatic back-up as well. 1TB! 1TB just for photos, not eating up the other storage that you have in other services. That’s 204x the amount of storage that Dropbox gives you for free for using Carousel (in addition to the 2GB you get for just using Dropbox). Even if you have the maximum amount of possible free storage, Flickr still offers 64x the amount of storage. For free.

The other thing that Dropbox’s system of allocating free space does is it causes users searching for more space to spam their friends, family, and social media with their referral links (mine, by the way, is here) in a desperate attempt to gain miniscule amounts of extra space. It’s annoying, and it’s not something that we should have to do in 2014.

So what does it all mean? What’s the point of this post? No storage solution is perfect, and you should weigh the pros and cons of all of your options before you make a decision (but applies to everything in life, doesn't it?). But, I think that from a consumer’s perspective, established companies in the market are going to have to change their game if they intend to stay competetive.

All New HTC One (M8) Water Test - Water Resistant?

Turns out that the HTC One is pretty water resistant. Samsung might really be pushing their IP67 certification that they achieved with flaps and rubber, but HTC has achieved essentially the same thing with quality engineering. Yet another reason to be impressed with the HTC One. Now if they could just improve their camera...

♫ "Creeper" - A Minecraft Parody of Michael Jackson's Thriller (Music Vi...

A wonderfully artistic cover of the late Michael Jackson's "Thriller" set to a theme of Minecraft. If this doesn't make you geek out, I don't know what will.

My thoughts on “The Cheapest Generation”

Source: http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/newsroom/img/
2012/08/21/0912-COL-Millenials-wide/lead.jpg?n1923i

From the article: “What if Millennials’ aversion to car-buying isn’t a temporary side effect of the recession, but part of a permanent generational shift in tastes and spending habits? It’s a question that applies not only to cars, but to several other traditional categories of big spending—most notably, housing.” So, the question becomes “why?”

For me, I think that it’s not so much about costs or income or anything, it’s just about the changing values of society.

Disclaimer: I am a middle class white college student with minimal debt and looking forward to a relatively lucrative career money-wise in the STEM field.

I just don’t have the same goals or desires that my parents’ generation did. I don’t really care to have children. I don’t want to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars into a house that may or may not be worth more when I choose to move on. I don’t necessarily want to live in one place for 30 years to pay off a mortgage. I don’t care that I have a perfect lawn and tons of space to live in.

I care about internet. I want a nice computer. I want cool gadgetry that will make my life easier. I love music, and I want to go to concerts and have nice speakers. I want to travel. I don’t care if I work until I’m 90, because I intend to love what I do. I don’t want to buy a car if I don’t need a car. If it doesn’t make sense to own one, I won’t. If it makes more sense to rent than to purchase a house, then I will.

It's not about the feature, it's about the implementation...

Source: http://www.technobuffalo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013
/04/twitter-music.jpg

I was just talking the other day about how the only time I ever found AirDrop to be useful was when I was sending files or locations on maps to myself. I made some comment about how it was a pretty decent system, it just happens to be that nobody else uses it.

My father, someone who has hated Apple since the early ‘90’s when her got into IT, chimed in with “Well, that’s what happens when you create a closed system.”

I then reminded him of “S bump,” Samsung’s NFC sharing system debuted in the Galaxy S3. He admitted he had never used it, but maintained that NFC is still the future, because it is an open system. He doesn’t however, believe that it will take off as a payment system, because there are more secure options that are cheaper (cards with ID tags).

But this brings me back to one of my big thoughts about the consumer tech world, and one that Chris Pirillo actually shares: it’s not the feature, it’s the implementation.

AirDrop is a great feature, but not many people use it, so the implementation is subpar. It isn’t a one person kind of feature, it necessitates two users in order for it to work. In that regards, the implementation is poor, because I rarely have the opportunity to use it. Even when I do, most people have other ways of sharing whatever they could be AirDropping.

The exact same thing happened to S bump (or for that matter, most of Samsung’s S features debuted in their Galaxy S3 and S4 phones). I've also heard that the stylus in the Galaxy Note series falls prey to this issue of being unused. S bump was a cool idea, I’m not going to knock that (hah, pun, get it?). The problem was that the feature was not well implemented (required specific hardware, software, and was a little awkward in real life).

Another big place that this has taken place is with Google Hangouts as a mobile messaging platform. Apple’s iMessage became a huge hit, because it had enough good features, yes, but the implementation was also wonderful; all you need to send an iMessage is an Apple device, and especially in the US, a lot of people have at least one Apple device. Google thought they could beat that with Hangouts, which feature-wise is better than iMessage for one reason: as long as you have internet, it’s device agnostic. I love Hangouts; it has a really nice UI, especially on iOS. However, the implementation isn't there yet. I can currently iMessage all but a few Android hold outs in my friend group. I currently have two contacts that use Hangouts. The implementation simply isn't there.

The same could be said for Google Wallet and NFC payments. I’m a fan of Wallet. I have it, I use it, and I like it. I became a user once the Wallet Card was released, though because NFC “tap to pay” is really not standard yet, especially not here in the Midwest. I've seen one NFC terminal in my life. So, while the feature of paying with a tap of my phone is really awesome, the implementation is terrible, because I can only use it so many places.

On a related note, Wallet’s “send money” feature is really cool, and it wish I could use it for giving my friends gas money for rides home from college, but they don’t use wallet, so the feature is not as useful (I think they can still redeem it [?], but they don’t want to deal with it). The implementation just isn't there.

I think you get the point. Or at least I hope by now you see what I’m trying to say. I’m sure we've all run into a similar situation (perhaps with a social media site that you find really cool, but none of your friends use, defeating the purpose of -social- media *cough* Google+ *cough*). Imagine if you were the only person on tumblr. Yeah, it’s cool, and it has great features, but without people using it, there’s no reason for you to use it either.

We see this especially true today with the announcement of the removal of Twitter’s

Source: https://gigaom2.files.wordpress.com/
2013/04/twitter-music.png?
w=300&h=200&crop=1

#music app from the App Store and Google Play. The app had an interesting feature: music discovery based on what others were talking about on Twitter. The problem was that the implementation was awful. There was no separate music service, but you were just forwarded to other places where you could listen to the song, if you paid for their streaming service. The UI and UX were pretty unattractive too. On top of that, not that many people were even using the app. My personal opinion is that that is the reason it never caught on, and why Twitter is pulling the app; the features were decent, but the implementation was awful.

I suppose that’s my warning to consumers. Just because a feature is cool, doesn't mean it’s going to be used, which means that it won’t necessarily offer a good experience. Don’t buy something for a feature, unless you know that it has a good implementation. If the feature requires other people using it, make sure that you know other people that are using said feature, and that you've had cases where you missed out on something because you lacked the feature.

I don’t know how to wrap this up. So this is my conclusion. Sue me.