Joshua Gulick
Recent posts
If you record your outdoor adventures with a helmet-mounted camera, you’re going to love this. A trio of Microsoft researchers have solved the problem of shaky time-lapse videos with a method they call “hyperlapse.” Where speeding up a long video used to create a surreal, stuttering movie, hyperlapse...
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Google is aggressively working to improve the speed with which we access the Internet. Google Fiber is one of its better-known efforts because it directly benefits regular users: Google Fiber provides the citizens of many major U.S. cities with affordable Gigabit Internet access. Now, the company is joining forces...
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Like them or not, selfies seem to be a trend with staying power, and phone makers like Sony are beefing up smartphone front cameras in response. Microsoft is reportedly jumping on the bandwagon, too, with the Lumia 730 expected to have a 5MP front cam that will render your skin imperfections in way higher detail than...
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Chillax: you can now use “selfie” to score points in Scrabble. A new version of The Official SCRABBLE Player’s Dictionary adds about 5,000 new words, including many tech-related terms. Expect to see “hashtag,” “texter,” and even “geocache,” in your Scrabble games...
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For those of us who find most mobile games to be unengaging, the rise of so-called “premium” games on mobile platforms is a welcome development. Big names have been trotting out the likes of Modern Combat 5: Blackout (Gameloft) and Mass Effect: Infiltrator (EA), which tend to carry high price tags, but pack better graphics and...
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Microsoft’s Surface Pro 3 series is expanding, giving customers a broader range of features and prices. Until now, the Windows 8.1 tablet sported an Intel Core i5 processor – new models are available in Core i3 and Core i7 flavors. Surface Pro 3 tablets with these processors are already available on the...
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Score one for the customer. President Barack Obama signed the “Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act,” which Congress recently passed with unusual ease. The bill makes it legal for mobile phone service customers to unlock their phones and move from one service to another. Carriers...
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Now that the NSA has everyone second-guessing themselves before hitting the Send button, BitTorrent is jumping into the chat game. The service credited with enabling record-breaking piracy of HBO’s Game of Thrones announced Bleep alpha, a chat service for Windows. The chat’s draw is that it’s meant to keep your chat safe...
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Here is some odd-ball news for your Friday: Microsoft just released a mouse that sports an image of Master Chief. It’s not surprising to see Microsoft promoting its beloved Halo protagonist, but it is weird to see the Chief on an ordinary mouse, given how rarely it has made PC appearances. Whatever...
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Have you ever had to grudgingly put down a good book so you could run an errand? Amazon just solved this (admittedly minor) problem with its new Kindle Unlimited subscription, which includes ebooks, audiobooks, and support for easily switching between the two. Now, you can read a book on your mobile device at home and...
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It may not beat being there in person, but viewing 3D cities in Google Maps is a worthwhile experience. Google Maps and Google Earth update with 3D cities on a regular basis and the list is now in the hundreds, but what caught people’s attention today is that London has finally made the list. Thanks to aerial mapping, you can “fly”...
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A battle is brewing on the notebook front, and customers are going to be the big winners – that is, customers who want low-end systems. Microsoft is lowering its license fees to help manufacturers like HP produce low-cost Windows notebooks that can take on Google’s Chromebooks. With systems expected to...
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It’s been a rough summer for Nintendo. First, Sony’s console sales exceeded Nintendo’s, breaking a decade-long winning streak, and then Philips won an important patent infringement case against Nintendo related to its Wii U controllers. Now, Nintendo is facing a new competitor in a segment of the...
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Samsung’s zero tolerance policy towards the use of child labor had a public test this week when Child Labor Watch accused a supplier of hiring children. Samsung investigated the Dongguan Shinyang Electronics Company over the next few days and announced that it is temporarily suspending business with the...
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The enterprise has been feeling a lot of love from online storage services lately, with Box, Dropbox, and now Amazon introducing updates and new products. Amazon just announced Zocalo, a file storage service with an emphasis on document sharing and collaboration. Zocalo has something for everybody. Amazon is wooing...
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ASUS recently refreshed its 7-inch MeMO Pad 7 tablet with Intel’s new Atom Z3745 Bay Trail-based processor. Having overcome its rocky start, the latest generation of Atom processors is building a reputation for power efficiency and computational chops. Despite its early days in ill-fated netbooks, today's Atom looks to be a good...
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Tablets might not kill off the PC after all. Growth in the PC market is expected to remain sluggish (IDC even lowered its forecast by 0.1% for 2014 to 6% worldwide), but if the channel is any indication, builders and component manufacturers are feeling confident. A report by DigiTimes today suggests that suppliers in...
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Kim Dotcom, founder of the now-defunct Megaupload website, scored a victory in his battle with U.S. regulators today. A New Zealand judge has barred authorities there from giving the FBI any codes that would could unlock Dotcom’s encrypted hard drives. That’s not likely to please the U.S. officials...
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Given the ire Facebook draws when it makes changes to its interface, it’s not surprising that users and governments are hitting the roof over Facebook’s acknowledgement that it ran psychological tests on people. British regulators have already announced plans to speak with Facebook about the experiment...
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The long-running saga of Google’s Street View legal woes ended a chapter yesterday when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected its appeal of Google v. Joffe. The case is the latest in which Google takes heat for collecting data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks while its Street View cars photographed cities for Google Maps. The rejection by the...
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If a recent trip by Google’s Eric Schmidt is any indication, Cuba may be considering easing its heavy restrictions on Internet access. Unconfirmed reports are suggesting that Google may have sent a team to the island nation to meet with Cuban officials. The discussions would likely involve promoting the benefits...
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Samsung is introducing the Samsung Z smartphone at the Tizen Developer conference tomorrow. The Linux-based Tizen OS is an Android/IOS alternative developed by Intel, Samsung, and other mobile players. It’ll be interesting to see if Tizen phones can put a dent in Android and IOS market share, but for now...
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