Is Retail Hindering Product Innovation?

As I work with tech startup companies to create and manufacture their new hardware products, one of the frequent challenges is the difficulty in meeting their sales expectations. All of the excitement and anticipation during the development and manufacturing phases invariably collide with the harsh reality of the marketplace. “Build it and they will come” […]

Audeze Sine Headphones: Best $1000 headphone for $449

I’ve been trying out the new Audeze Sine headphone, the newest and most affordable headphone from Audeze. Audeze has been producing headphones that have been described by most reviewers as the best headphones you can buy at any price. They sell for $1000 to about $2000 and utilize the company’s planar magnetic speaker design, using a proprietary […]

Sometimes You Can Find Better Doctors and Clinics on the Internet Than in Your Own Community

Some diseases have a small occurrence, and the expertise to treat that disease may not be in your local community or nearby city. While your local doctors tend to recommend specialists that they know, they may not always offer the best solutions. That’s when you can use the Internet to reach beyond to help you […]

WaterField Celebrates 18th Year with Cargo Laptop Bag Upgrade

WaterField Designs is a small family owned manufacturer located in San Francisco. Today it celebrates its 18th year in business with enhancements to its signature bag—The Cargo. First designed in 1998 by former bicycle messenger and owner, Gary WaterField as a messenger-briefcase hybrid, the Cargo remains a best seller in WaterField’s lineup. The modernized new Cargo maintains the […]

The Package Guard

This Kickstarter project attempts to solve a real problem, the theft of packages delivered to our front door. Well worthwhile supporting!  

Out-of-Control Toyotas, Out-of-Luck Owners

I’ve covered Toyota’s unintended acceleration for several years and have always believed that it is a real problem that has been swept under the rug by Toyota and our government’s NHTSA. In fact, insider communications uncovered by a whistleblower, Betsy Benjaminson, verified much of this. It clearly showed a coverup, and that the cause was neither […]

The best gets better

Flexibits today announced a massive update for Fantastical 2 for Mac. Version 2.2 adds many new powerful features to the Apple Design Award-winning OS X calendar app and is a free update for existing users. See my previous review of 2.0 on this site. Version 2.2 gives Exchange users the full Fantastical experience. Account syncing […]

Apple and innovation

With Apple’s announcements this past week, it’s been fascinating to read analysts’ and reporters’ comments about whether Apple is still an innovator. Critics cite the modest improvements made in the recent revisions of the iPhone line as demonstrating Apple’s failure to innovate. When I did a search for “Apple innovation”, up came dozens of headlines like this from the past […]

How to Save Money on Your Next Cellphone

Last week I wrote about saving money on your cellphone plan. This week I look at saving money when buying a phone. The cellphone market is dominated by the iPhone and Android phones, primarily Samsung models. They range in price from $650 to $850, a huge amount of money. For the same amount you can […]

A wolf in sheep’s clothing: why the iPhone SE is everything except what it looks like

by Dom Fried-Booth Dom works at Plan, a product strategy consultancy in London. He’s gone from research in rural Pakistan to running PM teams in California, and a lot in-between. Apple’s most significant launch in years, and it’s nothing to do with the price Here’s a puzzler: what sort of company is Apple? Is it a […]

Save money on your cellphone service

If your cellphone bill hasn’t gone down over the past few years, it’s time to reassess your plan and carrier. The plans have changed, carriers are willing to deal, and you might just save lots of money. When I changed plans on Verizon last year, my bill for a family plan with five phones dropped […]

Uber for kids?

One of the hottest areas in technology is the use of apps for accessing and sharing resources.  There’s Airbnb for booking rooms and Uber for booking rides. And now there’s a service for booking rides for your kids. My first reaction after learning about this was, “What parent would put their child in a car […]

How safe are we from our apps?

Like many others in the tech community, I applaud Apple’s efforts to encrypt the iPhone to protect our privacy. But there’s been noticeably little attention given to the impact of apps on that same privacy. I’ve always been surprised at how many permissions some apps requests before they can be installed. They typically request access […]

What’s new in mobile?

The 2016 Mobile World Congress (MWC), the mobile industry’s yearly show in Barcelona, just concluded. That’s where manufacturers – all but Apple – rolled out their new phones. And based on what was shown, there are few reasons to upgrade. Smartphones have approached a level where, with few exceptions, improvements are modest and provide few […]

Fantastical is the best calendar app for the Mac

  For those of us that use Macs, it sometimes feels like Apple is abandoning us. iPhones and iPads are a much more lucrative business for them than their notebooks and desktops computers. Apple’s CEO Tim Cook even touted the iPad Pro as a notebook replacement. And it shows in other ways: some of the […]

A memorable vacation in Tulum, Mexico

I’ve been fortunate to travel with my family to many exciting vacation spots, but rarely have I enjoyed a vacation as much as the one we just experienced. My wife, son, daughter-in-law and two grandsons visited Tulum on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.  While we always expected to enjoy the beautiful beaches and tropical weather, […]

A fresh look at radar detectors

With all of the technology advances taking place, just how good are today’s radar detectors? The devices that attach to our car’s windshield were once were commonly used to detect police hiding along the side of the road trying to catch us speeding by. It became a back and forth game with police adding more […]

Can technology help you lose weight?

I’ve always had a moderate weight problem, being 20 to 30 pounds overweight, and have tried a myriad of diets over the years. There was the protein diet, Dr. Atkins, Weight Watchers, and many fad diets.  Over the past three months I’ve been trying something new that has worked better than anything else, using technology […]

Briggs & Riley Rolls Out National Retailer “A Case for Giving” Event

Briggs & Riley makes some of the best luggage available. I’ve used many of their products over the years traveling all over the world, and they provide some of the best designed, highest quality products in the business.  (I also love Tumi, but comparable models are often as much as twice the cost of Briggs & […]

Roasting your own coffee beans

If you are discerning about the coffee you drink and grind your own beans, you may want to consider roasting your own coffee beans at home.  When a friend first suggested it to me, I dismissed it, since I can buy freshly roasted beans from a number of local coffee shops.  But I took the […]