Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Stef’s Favorite Gadgets

Archive | Featured RSS feed for this section

Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Stef’s Favorite Gadgets

by Stefan Etienne on 01. Dec, 2010 11:13PM in Featured, Guides

While I’m still composing the lists of gadgets that will be posted here on LaptopMemo for Christmas (all the way till Christmas Eve), I’ve decided to make a list of my all-time favorite gadgets of this year, that I’ve followed day-by-day, used and tested, and would want for Christmas myself. Despite this list coming from a 14-year-old with a knack for tech writing and some contacts in the tech industry, this is as serious as any gadget personal list can get, and it’ll be updated as I’m testing new gadgets that I’m receiving every week here to test. Onwards to the list!

(more…)

Read full story • Comments { 0 }

Will You Even Bother With Fmail?

by Stefan Etienne on 15. Nov, 2010 9:37AM in Editorials, Featured, Internet

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 [email protected]) 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.

Read full story • Comments { 0 }

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

by Stefan Etienne on 11. Nov, 2010 8:15PM in Editorials, Featured, Gadgets

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.

Read full story • Comments { 0 }

Nvidia Still Working On Punkbuster/Optimus Fix, And They’ll Let Me Know

by Stefan Etienne on 25. Oct, 2010 1:24PM in Did You Know?, Featured, Gaming, Windows

See, if you’re a gamer or uber-nerd, you’ll know about the following three different things: Nvidia Optimus, a technology that seamlessly goes between a discrete and integrated graphics card so you can play games on-the-go without munching up your battery. Second is Punkbuster, an anti-cheat program for popular first person shooter games, and three, how I’ve gotten both Nvidia and Punkbuster to wake up and start fixing the incompatibility of the aforementioned technologies to work together, so people with say, an Alienware M11x R2 (that I’m typing this on now) can actually play these games with multiplayer.

The whole problem is too long and confusing to explain here, so let’s just say Nvidia released a new driver today (that doesn’t fix it), but above they promise me it’ll come in a future release.

You’re welcome nerdy PC gamers. Via: Nvidia Twitter Account (1), (2)

Read full story • Comments { 12 }

Well, It’s My Birthday, But That Doesn’t Stop Me From Typing This. Duh.

by Stefan Etienne on 02. Oct, 2010 9:38AM in Featured, Posts

My birthday, yes. How old am I now? 14-years-old. Am I born on the same day as my Dad? Yes. Is my Dad much older than I am? Very much so (mid-forties). And am I happy? Heck, yes. Did Darth Vader from Engadget give me Force Lighting cookies? By the means of the Force, yes!

During the course of today I will be checking in on Foursquare, going to have lunch with Mom, and just goofing off on my Twitter handle, @stefanetienne. I’m also currently writing another review, this time on a laptop. Which brings in something I’d like to share: NVIDIA has been having Optimus graphics card issues with Punkbuster, a program designed to rule out hackers in online games, like Modern Warfare 2, Bad Company 2, and possibly the upcoming Medal Of Honor (I’ll be playing the beta starting October 4th as gamertag Stef_LAPTOPMEMO).

Essentially, if you have an Optimus graphics card, Punkbuster thinks you’re hacking, and kicks you out of the game. I’ve re-created the issue, complained to Nvidia’s higher-up reps, and got to make sure their engineers work with Punkbuster. A fix will be outed in about a month of two. I also have a certain Alienware headed to my desk; that should be fun to use too.

I’ll also be starting a video series where my face appears (not frequently) and I’ll see how it goes. Oh, and I’m attending CES Preview 2011 in New York City in the business casual attire as much as CrunchGear’s John Biggs thinks I’ll get fried into a thousand bits, and possibly even CES 2011 Las Vegas itself. Anyways, just subscribe, follow me on Twitter (or the site), and leave a comment, as it really helps me out.

Read full story • Comments { 0 }

Facebook Is Developing A Phone

by Stefan Etienne on 19. Sep, 2010 12:10PM in Did You Know?, Featured, Internet, Rumors

According to my not-so-acquainted-fellow-blogger Michael Arrington, TechCrunch has a pretty solid idea that the duo of Joe Hewitt and Matthew Papakipos (get it, HP?) are “secretly working on the project,” who previously worked on things like the Facebook iPhone app and previously involved in a big way with Google’s Chrome OS until June of this year. Facebook is keeping all of this tightly wrapped, even to its own employees, and the price point might be featurephone competition (something like $50 or lower).

What makes this very intriguing is the fact that Android’s lead project manager, Erick Tseng, who was even a spokesperson for the entire Android brand, defected from Google in May to be Facebook’s lead developer of mobile products, thus making this under-wraps project even more interesting, albeit very shady.

On a personal, or more professionally, an editor’s note, this might be the same situation as the Nexus One, where it was “dogfed” to Google employees as their official phone, then released to the public, ands subsequently turned into a dev-only phone. As with everything in technology journalism and blogging, take every you se, hear, and even almost taste, “with a grain of salt”.

Meaning that the whole thing could be real, or a load of —- air.

Source: TechCrunch

Read full story • Comments { 3 }

Dell Streak unboxing!

by Stefan Etienne on 16. Aug, 2010 2:55PM in Android, AT&T, Dell, Featured, Mobile, Tablets

So the Dell Streak arrived in the LaptopMemo office today, a week late.

At least it’s finally here, and so far I have this to say about it: it’ll struggle to find its place, much like Apple’s iPad, but it’s still a winner. So far the 1GHz Snapdragon never has given me a single pout, freeze, or whatever you’d want to call “lag”. The front-facing camera is VGA quality, but it’s still a front-facing camera (hey iPad!), the 5 megapixel on the back could’ve been better, and Android 1.6 doesn’t allow all the features of 2.2 (duh!), but there’s still great multitouch in the browser (it’s freaky fast), Google Maps Navigation, and the Android 1.6 version of Android Market.

The custom Dell UI is actually one of the few pleasant custom skins I’ve seen on Android, besides HTC’s Sense. Expect the review to come up later this week, complete with video and the full review.

For now, check out the unboxing pics, after the cut!

(more…)

Read full story • Comments { 0 }

Motorola DROID 2 First Impressions

by Stefan Etienne on 13. Aug, 2010 11:39PM in Android, Featured, Mobile, Motorola, Verizon

So the Motorola DROID was the slab of rock that turned into a beautiful scuplture, forever stamping Android into the realm of successful smartphones, forever .This time, Motorola has challenged itself, and released the DROID 2. And honestly, it’s set on the right path:

The overall rounded body gives better contour and feel.
The speed offered by the new 1 GHz processor is easily recognizable.
The MOTOBLUR UI seen on the DROID X with Android 2.2 is very cool.
The slide-out QWERTY has the same feel as on the Droid 1 — except a trillion times more practical and better.
It still remains uber-geek, and uber-cool, even for those new to technology.

According to the Verizon rep (who is now an official ninja for LaptopMemo now) besides some VZW secrets I’ll share with all of you later this week, the DROID 2 has been selling. As he said “people are buying it a lot”. Of course that’s not including my favorite thing – numbers, but he’s a Verizon ninja, so let’s take his word for it. Check out the gallery below for shots of the DROID 2!

Motorola DROID 2 Gallery