Jacob's Tech Stuff

Jtechno's Jacob Alpern Interviews CNET's Brian Cooley

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Cnet Interview Promo.mov (22.8 MB)

Check out my video interview with Brian Cooley. I was invited to come and visit with Mr. Cooley in his office at CNET at the CBS Interactive headquarters in downtown San Francisco in April 2012.

CNET is my favorite website and getting the chance to meet him for a second time and sit down for a good amount of time and talk about many of my favorite topics in car technology was awesome.

Above is a promo teaser for the interview. The nearly 5 minute video of our conversation can be found on my YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/Jtechnoblog

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Hey, Just wanted to tell you that I have a new blog logo

Amazon Kindle Review – Good When It Works

I have the 3G plus Wi-Fi version. There is another Kindle that is $50 cheaper that has Wi-Fi, but does not have 3G. My experience though was not completely smooth. The Kindle I initially got completely froze up on me after a few days, so I had to get a replacement. I had to contact Amazon’s customer service, and they were, fortunately, very helpful. Now I have a replacement Kindle (seen here in the picture) that works absolutely perfect. I have not had a single bug yet.

By the way, if you need to get the books from one Kindle to another, or onto a Kindle app, you will see a folder that says Archived Items, and once you click it, a download will automatically begin to get the books onto your device. This was very important for me because I would absolutely refuse to pay again for books that I already had purchased before.

There are many useful features on the Kindle, including a music player that can be found when you go to menu, and then click on experimental.  To get the music onto the Kindle device, you connect it to your computer and then drag and drop your songs into the music folder.

The Kindle has a web browser, but like the iPod it does not have Flash. Despite that, it has been very useful and I have even gotten onto Facebook using my Kindle.

Other cool features include different ways to rearrange your books, like by newest, by title, or by author, and when you put your Kindle into sleep mode it will display pictures like of authors, animals, or other Amazon images, such as one that shows the definition of “kindle”.

The book reading experience is amazing. It has almost all of the books I want, and I have also discovered books I did not know previously due to the Kindle’s ability to help me find more books that I now like. When you are looking at a book you can get a free preview of the first dozen pages or so to see if you would like it. This has saved me a couple bucks because a few books I have previewed I realized I would not have liked as much as I thought I would.

The Kindle is not perfect though. Like I said above, I had to replace my first unit within the first few days of getting it, and also not all the books I have wanted are available for download. Another issue is that when you turn a page or go to a different part of the Kindle it does a weird flashing thing where the page has lines and then it is light followed by dark and then finally serves up the next page. All e-ink displays do this though, and it only takes about two seconds to get to the next page. Even though I know that this is common on e-ink displays, I do find it annoying and look forward to technology that will stop this weird flashing, that does, I have to admit, interfere a bit with my reading.

All in all, the Kindle is a very good e-reader, although there are a few things that Amazon could improve upon. I could even see them making a Kindle that uses color e-ink, instead of an LCD display, which isn’t as good on your eyes.

My Science Project - How Fast Can Your Phone Surf?

“CELLULAR RECEPTION SPEEDS”

NOTE - My science project was selected for inclusion at the Long Beach, California city-wide science fair on May 22, 2010.

Purpose -  To find out which type of smartphone has the fastest Internet surfing speed.

Acknowledgements - I would like to thank my dad for helping me with the research and typing, my friend Emma for timing each cell phone’s Internet page download speed, and the staff of the Los Altos at&t store for directing me to several different types of smartphones to compare.

Problem - Will different types of cell phones on the same carrier and same 3G network, (in this case at&t) have different web-browsing speeds? 

Research - 3G means third generation of internet and communication.

The Science Inside the Cell Phone

An important part of the phone speed is random access memory (RAM). This is the phone’s computer memory. There is quite a difference in the megabytes (MBs) of RAM and processor speed inside each of the phones I tested:

·        BlackBerry 8310 has 32 MBs RAM, 312-MHz processor

·        BlackBerry 9000 has 128 MBs of RAM, 624-MHz processor

·        Apple iPhone 3G has 128 MBs of RAM, 412-MHz processor

·        Apple iPhone 3GS has 256 MBs of RAM, 600-MHz processor

·        Samsung Jack has 64 MBs of RAM, 528-MHz processor

·         Motorola Karma has 100 MBs of RAM, does not have a CPU

Hypothesis - I think that all the cell phones will have the same internet speeds because they are all on at&t’s 3G internet network.

Experimentation - Phones

* Samsung Jack 

* Motorola Karma

C.   Procedure
Measure how long it takes for each phone to fully load the two web pages used for the study: CNET.com and the Los Angeles Times’ mobile site (http://m.latimes.com). We tried to also use LongBeach.gov but that site was down part of the time, so we had to switch to the more reliable and popular site from the LA Times.

D.   Data | Results

CNET.com     LATimes.com

Blackberry 8310             24                    22

Blackberry 9000             23                    12

iPhone 3G                       17                    10

iPhone 3GS                     12                      6

Samsung Jack                 25                      9

Motorola Karma             17                      9

All measurements are in seconds

E.  Variables

These phones were tested inside the at&t store because they were store display phones. This means that they could have been fiddled with, and the phones could have already been used by other people to visit the websites that we chose. This means that the websites may have already been in the phone’s cache, and if so the phone remembers it and the site will load faster than it otherwise would have.

The store staff assured us that there were no 3G boosters inside the store, which would have changed the speed results we measured.

We chose two sites:

·    CNET.com - probably not a site in our test phones’ cache as it is a specialty site about technology (and one of my favorite sites!)

·    LATimes.com – a very popular site here in Long Beach and one that we thought would probably have a good chance of already being in the phone’s cache.

 

F.  RAM

The Samsung Jack has less RAM than all the other 3G phones, and its measured times were the worst of all the CNET measured times.

The BlackBerry Curve 8310 has the least RAM of all the phones, and it is also the only phone that is not on 3G, so it had the slowest loading times, as expected.

 

G.  CACHE

The load times of LATimes.com were a bit faster than those of CNET.com because LATimes was probably in each phone’s cache. The cache is a list of all the web pages that a device with Internet (computer, phone, etc.) has already been to. LATimes.com is a popular site, so it had more of a chance of being in the cache of each phone than CNET. Even though CNET is popular, it is not on the same level as LATimes. This means that LATimes load times were faster because the phone already had seen the site and knows some things about it, which makes it easier for the phone to load the website faster.

Conclusion

My hypothesis was incorrect: Even though the cell phones were all on at&t’s 3G network, they all had different web browsing speeds because each of the phones was different in its technology on the inside.
 

Reflections & Applications

Smartphones are not all alike. The faster phones have more RAM so they have faster web surfing speeds then phones that are cheaper and have less RAM, making them slower.

The winner of the Smartphones (the smartest) is…

The iPhone 3GS

As a big fan of Apple, this is great, and it makes sense too because of all the technology they put into their great products (and believe me, I know about Apple’s products).

Discussion - Interview with a Mobile Expert

To help me understand why all smartphones are not alike, I spoke with someone here in Long Beach, Jeb Brilliant, who reports and blogs about smartphones, and learned from my interview with him that some phones have processors that are made mostly for web browsing.

A processor is the brain of a phone, MP3 player, computer, etc. It tells the phone what to do based on the button you press. If a phone’s processor is made for web browsing, then it will have a faster web browsing speed than a phone with a normal processor.

The speeds can also vary, he explained, on how much you use the web, how long the device has been on the web, and also how many people are using the web in your same area and on the same network.

I also learned that the browsing speeds can change based on how many substations there are in your area. Substations boost the 3G speed in the area. (which I was told was not in the at&t store. This is good news.)

Another thing I learned is that phones have different places on the 3G tower. If you are in first place on the tower, your web browsing speeds will be the fastest. As more phones come on the tower, your phone’s place will go lower and lower, until it is pushed off the tower completely, and the phone has to reconnect.

Lastly, we discussed how the mobile web browser on the phone can affect the speed. Some web browsers are lightening fast like Safari on the iPhone, and others are sluggish like Palm's Blazer browser, which has trouble showing some of today's newer sites.

Car Tech for Kids

Calling All Kids

Following my recent post comparing two companies that sell phones for kids, Kajeet and Firefly [What Kids Want in Phones], I had an interview Monday, April 5 with Daniel Neal, the CEO of Kajeet together with my friend Emma, and I would like to share with you a little about what I learned from his 14 years in the telecom business.

The first thing I wanted to know was how do families find out about Kajeet? He explained that he places a lot of links on Google, does some radio advertising, and also puts advertisements on websites. In fact, the day after my interview, I was watching videos on YouTube and a Kajeet ad came up!

As a kid who loves technology, I then wanted to know how often does Kajeet update their phones? Mr. Neal told me that they try to update their phones 3 to 4 times a year.

With many of the big phone companies today adding the Android OS to their phones, I was happy to hear that Kajeet is also planning on adding Android phones to their line-up, and one might even come out this year.

I really wanted to learn from him about how do kids manage to convince their families to buy them a Kajeet phone? His answer was that kids usually keep asking and asking for a phone. He said that what makes Kajeet special is that when parents finally go online to find phones for kids, they find out that Kajeet has especially designed many things to give the adults lots of control of the phones and their phone plans. For example, he explained how he has set his own kids’ phones to not be able to call anyone except for their parents during school hours, but can text as much as they want after school.

My friend, Emma asked some excellent questions about what are the popular phones with kids today. Mr. Neal talked about how the Sanyo 2700, LG Rumor and LG Rumor 2 are popular because they all have full QWERTY keyboards that make them good for texting. She also asked about the differences between the Katana phones, and he explained that besides the design changes, there is a new higher tech chip in the Katana II which includes 4 times more memory and helps the phone also weigh less. He told us that the first phone the company had at the beginning was the Nokia 2155, and how today he does not have any phones from Nokia on Kajeet because that company has decided for now to focus on the rest of the world and not the US, but he thinks that Nokia will be big again in the US within the next two years.

At the end of our interview we had a fun conversation about the unique logo they have for the company, and he laughed and asked us what we thought, and then told us that they call the logo “KJ” and it is a smiley face. We also found out the company’s name is taken from the first letter of each of the 6 kids of all the three people who started the company.

I really enjoyed speaking to Daniel Neal, and I liked how much he thinks about what us kids want, and even said that some people say that he is still a kid at heart himself.

iGot Hands-on with iPad

On April 3 2010, the launch date of Apple’s new iPad, I went into Best Buy with my dad to play with one.

I loved a lot of things about it. It has a great display and I really like how you can choose a photo for the background of the home screen without having to jailbreak your unit, like I had to do with my iPod touch. (Sorry Apple, but please give that feature to the iPod touch when a new version comes out). The photo for the background really shows off the display.

The iBooks store was amazing, and like any other Apple product, it looks great. Also I love the extras you can get for it, such as a keyboard, camera connector, and more. And it is nice that the iPad comes with a plug that you can insert into your regular electric outlet.

I do have a few gripes about it - but most of them can be fixed. The iPad has no camera built in, but you can get a camera connector. The fact that there are no USB ports is a bummer, but if you mostly use USB ports to plug in a camera, (like me), than as I said before, the camera connector solves that problem. I don’t really care about not being able to multitask, but I know other people would have liked that feature. Other than that, I think that the iPad is amazing. It can even do adult things such as PowerPoint-like presentations and spreadsheets. It also has a word processor called Pages.

In total, I think the iPad is a great product for everyone, and I will try to save up to get one, which is not easy for a kid to do because at $499 plus tax, it takes a long time to save up that much money.

What Kids Want in Phones

There are a handful of companies that have phones designed specifically for kids. The best known among them is called Firefly, but recently I have discovered a company called Kajeet that I think has better phones for kids.

REALLY!?

It’s a shame that Kajeet gives their phones TONS of parental controls. This could make many kids angry because Kajeet goes plain overboard and gives the parents way too much control. The parents can even choose when the phone will be on or off.

If you are a parent and your child wants a phone, do the right thing and get them a phone that doesn’t make your kid feel like they have no control over their phone. Find a phone that gives them the features they want, and actually looks like a phone.

Review of the Nokia N78

The Nokia N78 is a GSM candy bar phone that is sold internationally but not here in the United States. I think that they are trying to put an entire Smartphone into the N78’s smaller design, and they have done a pretty good job of it, considering that the phone has a smaller screen than a Smartphone, and no QWERTY keyboard. 

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Review_of_the_Nokia_N78.zip (106 KB)

 

The phone has a steep learning curve. It took me a long time to find out that the phone’s power button is on top, instead of on the end button, as on most phones. I also had to find out that the menu button was to the left of the 7 8 9 row. The phone has 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, Music Player, voice control, a 3.2 Megapixel camera, video player, and much more. For games, it gives a link to download N-gage, its free service for playing and downloading games or free trials of games.

 

 

The phone however, does not have Ovi, (Nokia’s new app store). The phone can also get frustrating because of its lack of a QWERTY keyboard. But one of the things that I like the most is the Navi Wheel. In menus, you can actually use the square toggle key to scroll around, just like on an iPod! You just put a finger on the toggle key, and run the finger around it, without pressing. Overall, I have to say that this is a great phone for somebody who wants a Smartphone’s many features and interface, and doesn’t require a full keyboard.

App Review – textPlus

In an earlier blog post I discussed how to turn an iPod Touch into a Wiphone. You can’t say you have a WiPhone without being able to also text. I think that textPlus is the best app for that. textPlus is a free texting app, while other texting apps usually cost money or have a free light version that has limitations. One example is Textfree, which has its paid ultimate version, as well as its free light version, but the free version limits you to just 15 texts a day. That is not a lot!

textPlus gives you unlimited texts every day and has features that other premium texting apps have such as push notification and being able to put in your phone number so that people can text you using that number.

Best of all, it is free, so a kid’s texting will not cost their parents any money. Of course, textPlus has the limitation that it can only work in a Wi-Fi zone if you are using it on an iPod Touch. iPhone users can use this app on 3G and they won't have to pay for any texting plans anymore.