Tech Hijack Show Notes

iTunes in the Cloud

Corey Harris — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 19:21:51 +0000

Amazon has changed the way they are handling royalties with the kindle store. They are now going the 70% to publishers/writers and only keeping 30% for themselves. This is happening just a week before the rumored apple tablet announcement.

It is rumored that apple is going to replace google search in the mobile safari app with Bing. It only makes sense at this point. Apple and google seem to have been at each other over the past 6 months, and it makes sense that apple is wanting to put less interest into google and show more support to microsoft.

iTunes may soon be headed to the cloud. With the recent acquisition of lala.com, apple is leaning more and more to actually making all our music cloud based for easier access. They already have it set up for web based music previews when you share a song link on twitter and facebook. Only time will tell though.

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AT&T is still overpriced!

Corey Harris — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 03:18:22 +0000

Waze, the social navigation application for mobile devices has introduced a new feature. Users now have the abilty to ping other users to check on road conditions, slow downs or just to say hi. Waze is a great service and free for mobile phones. Check them out at Waze.com

Korea will be getting their first android 2.0 handset in the Motorola Motoroi. The phone has a very sleep look, and looks like it will be running Blur, the motorola android build. It is rumored that the US will be getting this phone in March, Carrier is currently unknown.

AT&T has lowered their Unlimited calling plans by $30. Unlimited data + voice is now $100, Unfortunately for iPhone users, there is still no included text messages, so you are still out $20 a month for unlimited texts.

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Flippin over Anrdoid

Corey Harris — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 16:58:16 +0000

A exploit has been found in Leopard and Snow Leopard. The media is trying to scare us again, if this was a windows exploit, people wouldn't care as much. The key is smart computer usage.

Facebook has finally introduced the ability to reply to comments via email. This is so great. This is a feature they should have had for a while. Some of us would rather reply to our emails than have to use an app or visit the site to reply to someone.

Google introduces "Near me Now". This feature allows you to do a google search and top searches are things that are actually near you. Using GPS location, this is making google even better than before. Some may argue that they know to much at this point, but this is an exciting new feature.

Flip is working on releasing an Android application. They already have an iPhone app. However, how useful will this app be, when android users have access to upload video to youtube directly from their phones.

If you have questions or want to comment about this episodes or others, call 202-596-8324

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AT&T Hates New York

Corey Harris — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 20:34:24 +0000

Ok, I recorded this while being absolutely gone on pain pills. So I don't remember every thing I talked about.

FCC commission says they are not satisfied with the answer Verizon provided them with when it came to their new $350 early termination fee for their customers. This fee was started because of consumers jumping from cell provider to cell provider for the hippest newest phones. This new higher fee is supposed to detour this. It is a crappy move from Verizon, and this is going to end up being a huge story in 2010 I believe.

A un-announced LG android device has been found in the Sprint inventory system recently. This could be a phone that is going to be announced at this years CES event, and may even be going on sale as soon as the announcement. I myself have always been an LG fan, I have had a couple LG phones in the past and they are easily the best phones I have owned other than my iPhone and HTC Hero.

Some reports are showing that the first Google Chrome OS notebook may actually be a tablet. This could actually be what Chrome was designed for. I will definitely be keeping an eye on this OS this year.

And finally....AT&T doesn't know how it feels about new york. It had stopped selling iPhones in new york. It was originally reported that this was due to not being able to provide coverage in the area. Now AT&T says that it was an issue with some fraud and they are now selling the iPhone again. I think AT&T better watch out, because they are getting some serious bad press recently.

This episode is brought to you by the folks at SquareSpace. Use promo code "hijack" at checkout to save 12% off your order.

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The Google way to search

Corey Harris — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:35:54 +0000

By the time you hear this episode the AT&T chokehold will have already taken place. The basic concept is that all US iPhone users at noon are to use the AT&T network to run heavy data usage app to try and cripple the AT&T service. How many iPhone users are actually participating is unknown, but if this is successful we may see some changes from AT&T, or see them throw a fit and cry like normal.

Google has released Google Goggles for the Android and it is a killer app. The concept is to be able to search the web by just taking a picture of what you want to search for. Currently goggles is only available for android and I actually hope it stays that way.

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Want to leave a question or comment. Call the Tech Hijack line at 202-596-Tech(8324)

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Apple goes Lala

Corey Harris — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:20:12 +0000

AT&T is trying to compete with Google Voice by offering Voicemail to text for a $9.99 a month fee. Umm, No. I am sorry AT&T but this is a bad move since people can get this service for free from google. I can see in the not so distant future AT&T may try to block google voice completely from their users.

Old news, but wanted to mention it any ways. Amazon and put out an update for the Kindle 2 and Kindle DX. The update offers improved battery life, Improved PDF functionality and allows for older model Kindle 2's to have screen rotation. I love my Kindle and I love this update.

Apple has acquired streaming music service Lala.com. No one is entirely sure what the plan is for this buy out, but you can believe that apple is wanting to broaden their reach in some way. I think this can be a very good thing, but we will have to wait an see.

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The last bit of this episode is a rant on brightkite, you can read my article at examiner.com

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Google Phone Rumors

Corey Harris — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 01:49:10 +0000

It wasn't long ago that we heard rumblings of a phone from Google. It turned out that we got a phone with the android OS by google. Well the rumors have resurfaced, and the internet is a buzz about a so called GooglePhone announcement. As much as I would like to see this, I think it could also be a mistake. I think only way this would be a good product is if google would launch their own mobile carrier or launch the phone as a pre-paid phone. I am sure neither of these things will happen though. I also think if this does come to light they should team up with an underdog phone carrier like Sprint to help push the service.

We also have to ask the question though, is the phone going to go ahead and have Android on it, or is it going to be more a Chrome OS on a phone? I think the phone could be successful, but you also have to watch out for the people that think google is an evil empire selling our information to companies. Either way, I can't wait to see how this story develops and I plan on following it closely.

This episode of Tech Hijack is brought to you by SquareSpace.com. Use promo code "hijack" at checkout and save 12% off your total order.

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Flip doesn't lie down for apple

Corey Harris — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:36:43 +0000

If you are an iPhone user for a while now, then you have probably used Fring in the past. Fring allows you to make skype calls through 3g, edge and wifi. It was the only way to make skype calls for a while on the iPhone. Well now they have released their android app. More functionality is coming in future releases, but so far it is working pretty well.

When apple introduced the New nano with video, they kind of took a shot at flip. Even I couldn't resist. But flip is not going to take this laying down. There are talks that their next version of video cam will have built in wifi so you can upload on the go. I don't know if I will buy one. I really want them to sell me on features of it and why I want this more than using my HTC Hero to do the occasional video.

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Apple made me quit

Corey Harris — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 18:49:41 +0000

I love google voice, and I have always wanted to be able to use it like skype. Well in the very near future, we may be able to. Google has recently acquired Gizmo5, which is a VoIP service. It is pointing very strongly to this being the new wave of Google Voice. I am really excited to see where this goes and hopefully we will get something amazing out of it.

Recently Joe Hewitt the man behind the iPhone Facebook app has handed the app development off to another developer. The reasoning seems to be apples app store. Because of the approval process the app store is not a very desirable place. It is sad that even if you are facebook and you have your app in the app store already that you still have to go through the full approval process every single time. This is something that I think will drive many developers away from the iPhone and I strongly believe that this is going to start being an issue were people and companies may just forget about the iPhone all together until apple changes their ways.

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The Google feel

Corey Harris — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:56:39 +0000

So you are thinking about switching to verizon for your mobile coverage. You may want to think twice if you are an early adopter. Verizon has raised their early termination fee to $350. This really adds up too. If you think about it, when you cancel you get the ETF, you have to pay your last bill which could be close or more than $100 and any other taxes and fees they may have for you. You are looking at close to $500 by the time you cancel service.

Last show I talked about OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.2 dev build not working with netbooks. Shortly after the show went live, there were reports that in fact it was working. Now that 10.6.2 is live to all snow leopard users there are mixed reports. Some say it works fine, most say it doesn't work at all. Some also claim that there is a hack available. If you are running 10.6.2 on your netbook and it is working, let me know at techhijack@coreyharris.me

Google is possibly going to bring the look and feel of google wave over to their other apps including mail, docs, and calendar. I am using google wave, and though I enjoy the interface and would like it in gmail, I don't think it would work out as well in the other google apps. But we shall see when or if this even happens.

There has been talk for over a year now that verizon wireless is going to get the iPhone. I have always hated this idea myself, just because verizon coverage here in Kansas City is worse than Sprint coverage. That being said, with the recent droid commercials coming out on verizon I think they have pretty much shot themselves in the foot. If I was apple all discussions would end at this point because of the bashing of the iPhone. It is understandable that verizon wants to go after at&t. But bringing the iPhone into your bashing is a little ridiculous. If apple wants to make a CDMA phone, I think they should go with sprint and try to save sprint. If the iPhone went to sprint, iPhone bills would be lower using Sprints "Simply Everything" plan. But I don't see apple making a CDMA phone though. That will raise production costs since they would then have to make two different phones. That being said, we will find out for sure next june.

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