Category Archives: Editorials

Twitter, You’re Awesome, But Fix The Spam Problem. Here’s A Suggestion.

February 20, 2011 11:00 AM ⋅

Most of you that read LaptopMemo on a daily basis (lowest being 3,500 people everyday), would possibly know that I’m quite the avid Twitter user, as @stefanetienne. You may have seen me in funny conversations between other tech bloggers, either mocking them, making fun of them, making fun of myself, getting schooled by them, showing off Twitpics of new review devices, or tweeting new Black Ops K/D ratios. It also turns out that I have quite the following; some of the most influential persons on the internet, to some of the most influential technology (and then some) companies in the world.

But this post isn’t about me. Oh, no, no, no. It’s about Twitter. Fix the spam. Fix it. Fix it, now.

You see, as avid as a user I am, I’m very familiar with Twitter spam. If you tweet something out with the name of a device or other popular item, you are sent a barrage of 3-4 spammy tweets. That was fine with me, at a certain point. I’d report all the fools as spammers and their tweets would be removed from my stream. But now, the war has changed, big time. With every day that goes by, the amount of spam messages go up, and now spam followers, making my rather crisp and clean following look like bots and free Apple product sites.

This type of spam is unbearable. With an email client like Gmail, you could easily ignore spam by creating tougher filters, reporting multiple messages as spam, and so forth. But with Twitter, where the world is real-time, you also find real-time spam. And a darn large amount of it, all the time.

So how could Twitter fix this problem, you ask? Well, for example, create a Twitter bot that is capable of seeking out spammy tweets, and immediately banning them. A bot like this may replicate in some way what the Google Bot does — that is, ranking real tweets, and drowning the spammers. By using this bot account, Twitter could also better analyze the amount of spam it receives, and combat it in more effective forms then what I just described.

We don’t want a Yahoo! Mail of social networking, do we? We all know where bad and spammy web applications go: the way of the floppy disk.

Posted in: Did You Know?, Editorials, Internet ⋅ Tagged: ,

Sprint’s Kyocera Echo Is A Dual-Screen And Out-Of-Place Android Device

February 7, 2011 7:06 PM ⋅

It has two screens, both of which “combine” for 4.7-inches of screen at 960 x 800 pixels! It runs Android 2.2! Has a 5 megapixel camera for 720p HD video recording! And it’s from Kyocera — is that anything special?

It’s made out of cheap looking plastics, only uses 3G, is as thick as a brick, but at least has a second-gen 1GHz Snapdragon powering it. The hinge allows it to be propped up like a laptop, used as a regular single-screen phone, or have both screens laid flat. Look, if you’re going to use a smartphone, how will you perform the fancy “simultasking” that Sprint and Kyocera are spewing out as a “true” way to multitask on a phone? And while the the mail and map apps can use the extra real estate for better viewing, you’re looking at something bigger than an EVO 4G and almost as big as a Dell Streak. And how long will this thing last on a charge, anyway? Turns out it comes with a spare battery pack charger and battery. Heh.

There’s little point in have a dual-screen phone, when the consumer market is already adjusting to bigger phones, which have proved a success. It’s as if Kyocera execs and engineers said in the style of Dilbert, “We can’t beat HTC, Apple, and Samsung, so let’s put two screens together and sell it!”. Like that would work. Via: Sprint

Posted in: Android, Editorials, Lame, Mobile, Sprint ⋅ Tagged: , , ,

Quit Talking About Steve Jobs’ Health, We’re Only Making The Situation Worse

January 20, 2011 11:56 AM ⋅

Recently, Apple’s brain/mastermind/CEO left on medical leave. That means he’s sick, or something of that sort. That doesn’t mean those of us in the industry can spark rumors, much to the delight of our editor’s and spikes in our pageviews, or maybe just to leak out promises, which because of such actions, are broken. Some are genuinely worried, others are shocked, and some try to claim they know what’s wrong with him, while others just don’t give an iCrap about it. Point is, Steve Jobs is on medical leave, and there are no supporting facts to know why he is. Just give it a rest people, because sooner or later, we’ll all know.

That is all I have to say on the matter.

Posted in: Apple, Editorials ⋅ Tagged: , ,

A Reason Why It Would Suck To Get An iPhone On Verizon.

January 13, 2011 6:53 PM ⋅

You have an iPhone (or you’re getting one). You love it. You hate AT&T, but you still love your iPhone (which is actually pretty hard to do). Since 2007, you’ve been buying, setting up, and using the iPhone 2G, 3G, 3GS, and the 4. While the iPhone 4 may be superior (and it is, with only a few Android phones as good as it is), it always is a problem of AT&T. No longer, because it’s on Verizon Wireless, without a hint of crapware seen on Android or branding to be found. It turns out, buying now would be a bad idea.

Doesn’t make much sense of what I just typed right there?

It does.

And you’d be a fool to do otherwise. Now with Verizon on board, and AT&T losing exclusivity in the United States, that means the iPhone 5 will be on both networks. Considering the date is February 10th, and a new iPhone is ALWAYS launched every June/July, then you’d be just as royally screwed as your weekly AT&T customer service call. It’s your choice: be the early adopter and pay for it, or wait it out just a bit longer. You’d enjoy it a lot more, that’s for sure.

Posted in: Apple, Editorials ⋅ Tagged: , , , , ,

Wait, We Still Use Foursquare Now?

December 21, 2010 9:00 PM ⋅

So let me get this straight: we still use Foursquare? It was a new and aspiring service that you could sign up for, download the app to your iPhone/Android/Windows Phone, and “check-in” to places, become the “mayor” of that said venue, and get bragging rights among your friends, as well as leave tips about what you think of said establishment. At first, this all seemed revolutionary, but the love-affair with Foursquare may be drawing to an close.

Just what is the point now with “checking-in” and telling my friends? Sure, yours truly has a Foursquare account, and I have great friends in it, like Kevin Rose, John Biggs, Joel Johnson, and Kate Gardiner to name a few. But after more than a year of being in the spotlight, where’s the innovation? Where’s the “ooh” and “ah” that we want to see in a shiny, new company with tons of potential? In a desperate attempt it seems to keep the service “cool” Foursquare management has struck deals with some big-name stores (and smaller businesses), allowing you to become mayor and get coupons — for perilously little amounts. This may encourage more visits and traffic for the venue, but what of the end user?

So I can see where my friend was 30 minutes ago? When I could just use Twitter, Facebook, an SMS, or dare I say, an email, phone call, or actually seeing my “friend”? Foursquare is not a dying service; they’re running out of innovative and fresh ideas it seems. And when you run out of ideas, you soon run out everything you had, in one fell swoop.

So we all still use Foursquare? For what, “keeping up with your friends”? Tell me Foursquare (even on my own FS account) what’s your purpose of “discovering new places” now anyway? Haven’t I become mayour of enough places already, with little to no benefit to me, the end user, whatsoever?

Posted in: Editorials, Social Media, Web 2.0 ⋅ Tagged: ,

Time With Google’s Chrome OS And Cr-48: Needs Plenty Of Work, But There’s Potential

December 18, 2010 5:17 PM ⋅

Google Chrome OS? Cr-48? They’re just computing in the cloud and not storing things locally, on your machine. I’ll be taking this one by the horns. Cutting up all the paragraphs short, Chrome OS is Google’s idea of a future notebook: in the cloud, all the time, web access anywhere you go due to Verizon Wireless’ free 100MB data every month for 2 years, never losing data, and a simple interface with a clean keyboard. Let’s just get on with the rest, okay?

It all sounds so, dare I say, “magical”, (for lack of a better word that has probably been trademarked by Apple internally) doesn’t it? Sure, there are some who hate the idea of a cloud operating system, both the experts cannot speak for all the consumers. Whoa, nelly! I’m defending Google’s alpha-stage, completely unfinished and new product, right? Right? No.

Read More →

Posted in: Editorials, Google, Hardware, Internet, Laptops ⋅ Tagged: , ,

A Look At The ExoPC With 48 Hours Of Using It As A Tablet

December 4, 2010 8:42 AM ⋅

I was pretty much stoked to hear when I was given a tracking number for the ExoPC review unit that was coming my way. Just think of it: a Windows 7 tablet that actually works — well. Turns out, I was slightly disappointed, but I still have high hopes for this thing. It runs full Windows 7, has an Atom processor that’s outdated, a front-facing camera, USB, SD slot, HDMI-out, and audio ports. It probably could be used as one of those really cool hack tablets or something. The ExoPC forums are already on it, I see.

So far the worst part of using the ExoPC is the accelerometer and the keyboard. It takes several seconds to flip from one orientation to the other, and the Windows keyboard is fairly sucky, although I took it to myself to write 2 LM posts on it, which needed some getting used to.

Other than that, it’s great to use for browsing the web, considering you keep whatever you’re doing under 4 hours before the battery cuts out, and that you have an web browser that works with the touch drivers.

Chrome also has a cool extension called chromeTouch, and it allows for some actually finger-scrolling to work in Chrome. Firefox and Internet Explorer 9 on the other hand work fine. Keep in mind this isn’t the review; ExoPC still has a software update for the UI they placed on it to add a bunch of new features that should improve the device; they tell me “at the end of the month”.

In the meantime, since it works great with HD videos on Flash, let me go watch some DrDisrespect.

Posted in: Editorials, Tablets, Windows ⋅ Tagged: , , ,

Is Windows Phone 7 Even Selling?

November 29, 2010 12:06 PM ⋅

Microsoft produces the most popular operating system of all time for PCs. After getting slapped back and forth on the mobile space, a new market to create, sell, and rule, Redmond decided enough was enough and set its eyes on Windows Phone 7. Long story short, they have 5 devices in the United States, and not one report has originated with solid info on how many have been sold. Handsets like the Dell Venue Pro are hard to find, but not because they aren’t selling; only a few are in stock and users buy them on the spot.

It immediately begs the question why, since Microsoft has been so keen on releasing Windows Phone 7, making all of their devices “wonderfully mine” (a motto for the campaign) and designing what can only be described as a good start, many times better than when Palm launched the Pre, and which failed in the longterm.

And now onto your usual programming.

Posted in: Editorials, Microsoft, Windows Phone ⋅ Tagged: , ,

Will You Even Bother With Fmail?

November 15, 2010 9:37 AM ⋅

Today is the launch of Fmail today may signify two things: one, Gmail has an actual competitor, and two: most of you (or maybe just me) won’t care. The most Fmail could be is a service that allows you to get your own email address (i.e stefan@fmail.com) and use it with your friends and on Facebook.com. Facebook could take it up a notch and design a completely new site that’s only dedicated to mail — then allow me to forward all of the Fmail to Gmail (you can obviously see I’m not leaving the Google camp anytime soon).

Or Zuckerberg could unveil a totally radical, totally new concept which would kill Gmail — wait — words like Gmail “killer” are completely overrated. The word “killer” in fact is the essence of “hype” another word that’s completely useless.  In fact Fmail (or whatever it might be called) is something that should be watched. You know, maybe it’ll be interesting, or another intrusion of your privacy, or just email for Facebook users. That makes sense.

Note: Obviously this is slow news day on LaptopMemo. Get used it it sometimes.

Posted in: Editorials, Featured, Internet ⋅ Tagged: , ,

Why Smartphones Will Start To Change In 2011 (Like The Continuum)

November 11, 2010 8:15 PM ⋅

This post is essentially an opinion. A futuristic way of looking at things if you will. The Samsung Continuum was announced on the 8th, and debuted the 11th. It’s the first phone with a “ticker” display. And other handset manufacturers should start engineering similarly weird technologies as well.

Just think of it: the phone you have right now uses one screen. So does your TV, laptop, desktop (if you still have one), and just about anything else you may own. But starting now, your next smartphone might just have a second screen. The Samsung Continuum Galaxy S series phone is just one example. It has a ticker screen that is used for notifications and RSS feeds; you turn it on by gripping the bottom of your phone. This bit of engineering isn’t much (it’s just a second screen with messy Touchwiz, man), but when you think about it, if Samsung can be crazy enough to create something like the Continuum, then what else is everyone coming up with? What’s HTC doing in their Taiwanese labs? What about Apple in the dungeons of Cupertino? Heck, even Motorola (perhaps making a perfect R2-D2?)!

While we are still in the age of 1GHz phones with screens the size of a small piece of paper, technology moves very fast, and with that speed will come unfinished, crazy ideas that no one thinks might work. And just in that same matter, Android was born. So was the iPhone with its price and features. And let’s not forget the Palm Pre, either (although that wasn’t a success story, so let’s move on).

I may have not thought this post through correctly, but let me prove my point: I expect we’ll all be seeing some pretty crazy and cool phones on the market, starting the holiday season, and into 2011. I’m just saying.

Posted in: Editorials, Featured, Gadgets

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