a blog about tech stuff and RustyG
Archive for February, 2011
Future smartphones to help find cancer?
01 year ago
by RustyG
in Technology
So with all the rumors of the iPhone 4S or iPhone 5 floating around, and possible talks of an NFC chip, so it can be our wallet as well, I found this little nugget. I keep hearing how the iPhone and iPad devices are staring to be used more and more in the medical field. For instance, you can buy iStethoscope for your iOS device and listen to your heartbeat on your selected device, all for 99¢. A friend of mine and I were talking today about how the iOS devices are making there way into the medical field, and he said, “Yeah right, next thing your going to be doing is diagnosing yourself at home and calling your doctor and telling him you have cancer.” It was all a big laugh, until I came across this little article. I was kinda surprised, as this article reads that the smartphone of choice, can have a microchip installed that can detect cancerous tumors within an hour! WHAT?!
You read right, a smartphone can have a chip installed to detect cancer! Now if you get into the detail of the article, it explains how the chip works and how it properly diagnosed 44 out of 50 sample patients! Wow. It was then followed up by typical pathology, which takes about 3 days, and still only is 84% accurate. How awesome is that? A small microchip that analyzes for cancer and can be put on a phone! What will they come up with next?
Full Article [news.health.com]
Last.FM drops free support for iOS devices
01 year ago
by RustyG
in Technology
Well Pandora will definitely gain a new user after this new announcement from yesterday. It seems that Last.FM, which is a competing streaming radio service, will halt all of their free streaming service to all iOS devices on February 15th. This will not include Xbox Live, Windows Phone 7, the Last.FM desktop client and the website as well. WOW. That makes it sound like that they are trying to die on purpose. It seems to me they got a large amount of users on the iOS devices, and it may be bogging down their service, and they want to kill it off. ARE YOU RETARDED????!!!! Let me show you the email I received from them as well:
The only good part, is that I will get a free 3-month subscription from them? Really? I don’t even want that one since Pandora still runs it free. The company’s claim is that the ad-supported model is not working for them, and don’t want to continue down that road. Well it seems that either Pandora is killing them, and no one knows about Last.FM, or they just want to find a better way to monetize their efforts. Whatever the reasoning is, Goodbye Last.fm. Well, partially, I still love your scrobbling client that allows me to see how many times I listen to certain artists and introduce me to new music. If Pandora has some sort of this style of client, I may switch completely.
Check me out on Last.fm
At&t adds 2GB wifi hotspot option for $20
01 year ago
Well with no attendance of Apple at MacWorld for the last 2 years, it seems there isn’t any Apple news coming out at all, except for this little nugget. It seems the Wifi hotspot feature that is going to be standard on the Verizon iPhone, will soon be standard as well on the AT&T iPhone as well. The developers have seen the beta version of iOS 4.3, and it seems to be good. With this update, the software does allow for the iPhone to become a hotspot, but that doesn’t mean anything on the carrier side. So one half of the idea is soon to be. It sounds like Apple will be releasing the 4.3 update on Valentines Day. The good thing is, it seems that AT&T agreed to add this option to the iPhone and well, all other smartphones that support it. In a press release from last week, it seems that date will be February 13th that this goes live. The package will be an extra 2GB for $20/month. So it seems that the 14th release date of the 4.3 seems to be right in line with the new option. So this seems to be getting more expensive to have an iPhone and have it run its full capacity.
$39.99/month minimum Voice Plan
$25/month for 2GB of Data
or
$15/month for 200MB of Data
or
$30/month for ‘unlimited’ (for original customers who are grandfathered in, or those who lost it and get it back)
Then there is texting:
$20 for unlimited
Then however you want to connect to your iPhone and share the data:
$20/month for tethering
or
$20/month for wifi hotspot
CRAP!
via [Engadget]
Verizon iPhone Review for Everyone!
01 year ago
Ok, so I am not switching to Verizon, and I am still loving the AT&T iPhone 4 that I have, but there are a lot of you who would love to get one or jump ship over to the Dark Side, so this is for you.
Today is the day that all Verizon wanna be’s and Verizon current subscribers have waited for. Well at least the latter half can in a few hours. All pre-orders for the iPhone 4 on Verizon for already existing customers starts somewhere around 2 or 3am CST, I think… double check me on that, it may be midnight, I don’t know. BUT, before you make that jump, I wanted to make sure you had some more information. There were a lot of reviews out there today, and there were some one sided reviews, so I went through a couple to give you a run-down of what everyone had to say. So here goes:
CNET:
CNET was a little one sided, but they are in San Francisco, and I will say, it seems AT&T is a slower more horrible connection on the west coast. They seemed to lean to the Verizon of things, but it is great if you live in San Francisco! So you can see the full review over at http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7-20030471-233.html or even the Kent German run down over at http://reviews.cnet.com/verizon-iphone.
The funny thing was they said the new iPhone doesn’t have 4G, and that was a complaint. Well news for ya, according to the governing body that sets the standards for 4G, NO ONE has 4G yet!
I do like the audio quality test they did, but again, that is in San Fransisco.
Engadget:
Engadget was little better as far as being a little less biased, but it did seem AT&T seemd to win out with them. Now I don’t know where they are based out of; I think it’s New York, I don’t know. You can see their full review over at http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/02/verizon-iphone-review/. I will say, wherever they tested at, AT&T KILLED the data speeds. Awesome. They didn’t seem to get into the testing as much as CNET did, but still a good overall review.
TechCrunch:
TechCrunch seems to hate AT&T as well and he already canceled his AT&T account by using Google Voice as his replacement. I don’t particularly think that is a good way of going about things, but if you don’t like the service, you don’t like the service. You can read their full review over at http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/02/verizon-iphone-review/.
One of the biggest complaints I would have for the Verizon iPhone is not having the ability to do data and voice at the same time. The wifi hotspot has no means to me, since I have a jailbroken iPhone and I have MiWi or whatever it is. And I don’t have to pay the extra $20/month.
I am sure there are other reviews out there, so make sure you get a well rounded idea before you make the leap. Google it, or check over at ArsTechnica or CrunchGear….
oh by the way.. guess who didn’t get a review unit? GIZMODO!!! ha ha ha ha!!!!
