The messaging mess is worse than ever these days. Everyone is falling for the proprietary messaging app scams that always follow the cycle of enshittification. These messaging apps are designed to collect a large user base by being good to them at first, then collect a large base of business customers by being good to them, then taking advantage of everybody for profit. It’s the usual business model these days. But wait, what if we …
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While consumer grade tablets like the iPad are great for larger screen couch pen computing, sometimes you really need the power and robust software capabilities of a real computer, but still with that precise pressure sensitive pen interface for excellent creative control. Well, that’s what pen displays are for! My first computer pen interface was the Koala Pad on an Apple II in the 1980’s and as a computer arts student growing up I always …
Continue readingFor a long time now, smartphones have had glued-in non-removable batteries that you have to recharge, and it kind of sucks. I’m sure a lot of young people have never even had a smartphone with removable batteries. You might not even know how great it once was to be able to use a phone until it dies, pop-off the back, take a fresh battery out of your wallet, pop-in the new one and be back …
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Sure, Apple’s AirDrop is great for making adhoc Wi-Fi connections between nearby devices and quickly transferring large files, but Airdrop has one major problem; it only works with Apple devices. That’s a huge disadvantage for people who care about tech diversity and autonomy. If you don’t want to be a slave to the Apple ecosystem you really need to invest in tech diversity. Wouldn’t it be great if there was an open standard protocol for …
Continue readingAt TECNO’s “Future Lens” event we got to hear about some very interesting technology that TECNO hopes to someday integrate with their mobile phone cameras. There aren’t any prototypes to review or evaluate yet, and we kind of have more questions than answers at this point, but still, it will be very exciting to see what comes out of these innovative ventures TECNO is working on. Personally, I’m very much looking forward to seeing how …
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High-end Windows PCs have always been the best devices for the best graphics in the latest video games, but what if you want to play some of those PC games while you’re bored sitting on a plane or train on your way to somewhere else? Well, there are plenty of gaming handhelds available in the market right now, but now (finally) there’s an “ultra-mobile PC” with acceptable graphics capabilities for real gaming on the go. …
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