Services

In the space of two weeks, I've gone from not tracking my steps, calories, or activities to using four different devices that do so. I'm all in! Over the coming weeks, I'm going to be sharing more about how each device works in real life.

It's been a fascinating journey so far, and I'm anxious to get into the write-ups. I'll detail what it's like with each unit, then do an overall comparison at the end. But before I start on that, I feel that an introductory piece is in order.

The devices … Read more

You got me to take a second look at you, today, T-Mobile.

Your new "Simple Choice" calling plan sounded far more attractive to me than the idea that I could buy an iPhone 5 on installments, without a contract. Unfortunately, that second look left me with a bad impression. It's all about the word "unlimited."

When I went to your "Uncarrier" page, where you talked about how you weren't going to act like a wireless carrier anymore, I was optimistic, especially about the Simple Choice calling plan:

Unlimited talk, text, and Web, … Read more

"Do you have that phone," one of my boys asked me earlier this year, after a Windows Phone ad came on TV. "Yeah, and could we try it?" said the other.

Thus was born the experiment we've run over the past month. Could Windows Phone entice one or both of my kids away from the iPhone?

My boys, 14-year-old Declan and 12-year-old Rhys, were fascinated by the ad showing the distinctive "tile" home screen of Windows Phone, with application tiles being moved around and resized. It looked different, cool, and unique from the … Read more

Are you a Mac user who wants to pull a photo off your iPhone, iPad, or Android device quickly, without having to go through iPhoto? There's an easy way to do that, built into your Mac: the Preview app.

For ages, I was frustrated that the Mac wouldn't let me browse my iPhone or Android phone to drag-and-drop pictures I wanted, in the way that I could when plugging them into my Windows PC.

If only I could browse like on the PC

On the PC, my phones appear like a drive within Windows Explorer, which is wonderful:… Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--NFC (near field communication) technology has been around for some time now, but as of yet it's failed to hit a level of ubiquity in our devices that would galvanize more businesses to adopt it. That, however, is changing fast.

While most think of NFC as solely a new payment solution, companies are constantly finding new ways to implement it.

NFC is essentially a new way to exchange information from one device to another, wirelessly. It's different from other wireless technology in that it requires the two devices to be within a centimeter of each other. Hence … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--People save 1 billion files every day to Dropbox's online storage service, Chief Executive Drew Houston said today at the Mobile World Congress show here.

In addition, the company's 100 million users tap into the service with 500 million devices, he said. The statistics shows major growth for a company founded in 2007 when today's high-end smartphones only just were emerging.

When the company started, Dropbox could synchronize people's data among PCs, but now of course it helps bridge the gaps to smartphones, tablets, and presumably other Internet-connected devices of the future. The company has … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Video Discovery is Samsung's new TV guide app that stretches beyond the capabilities of the Smart Remote app Samsung's been including in each of its tablets since it started building them with IR blasters.

Samsung demoed Video Discovery on its new Galaxy Note 8.0 tablet this week at Mobile World Congress. The app includes the type of functionality you'd expect, like universal remote support, social sharing options, and local TV listings, but goes beyond most apps of this type with its powerful and useful search.

Searching for a particular piece of video content returns results … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--I use my phone for games, personal e-mail, social networks, texting, playing music, watching video, and the occasional phone call. It's also my main conduit for accessing work e-mail while traveling and I've even used it to post content to CNET.

Depending on whom you work for, however, you may not have this luxury. One solution for employers is to provide your employees with work-only phones. Another would be to embrace the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) trend and allow your employees to use their own devices for work, while at the same time ensuring the integrity … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Announced on Saturday at Mobile World Congress, the Samsung HomeSync is a home theater media hub that aims to inject a little Android OS into your TV via your Galaxy handset. Slated for April, the device can stream videos, games, and other media from your Galaxy phone to your big-screen TV through Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Think of it as an Apple TV for the Samsung faithful.

Design The Samsung HomeSync is packaged in a minimalistic glossy black box, and it's about the size of three DVD cases stacked on top of one another. When placed on a flat … Read more