Tech Excitement: Spritz and Flexible Displays

Some women get excited about flowers.  Some women get excited about jewelry.  Some women may even dream about nice furniture.  Me?  I yearn for new technology.  And smaller is better, of course.  I'm not sure if it started with my first portable tape recorder at age 6, or the dreams I used to have of carrying around a tiny, portable television where I could watch my favorite cartoons from anywhere.  Big technology has never carried much of a thrill for me.  It is my hubby who has to argue for bigger TVs and new cars.  I wasn't even impressed by the rich kid's huge cell phone in college.  But small technology?  Yeah, that makes my heart skip a beat.

So, since you've missed my tech-related blog posts, I have two incredible new technologies to tell you about today:  Spritzing (I'm not sure if Spritz has made up that word yet, but they should!) and a little flexible e-reader called the Wexler Flex One.

I've heard a lot of talk recently about flexible displays, but I was honestly having trouble envisioning their value.  Why does my smartphone need a flexible display?  Why does anything else need one for that matter?  And then a friend showed me his little flexible e-reader.  The Wexler Flex One is made by a German company, and wasn't even released in the states, but the flexible display is by LG.  It cost $300 when released, but folks on eBay are selling them as low as $50 already.  My friend said he'd already broken several e-reader screens, but this one with it's flexible display wouldn't break when dropped (at least not as easily - the company warns against folding and such, which could probably destroy the electronic parts inside).  It is also extremely thin and lightweight.

Well, I wanted my own, and this little cutie has become my purse/travel everywhere e-reader.  It doesn't have the awesome backlight of my Kindle Paperwhite, but it is so much lighter that I can't even tell it's in my purse by comparison.  Nor does it have a touch screen or wireless (yep, you have to plug it in to your computer to transfer books over to it).  But now, I see a future for flexible displays.

Have you imagined a time when we all carry around sheets of electronic displays rather than ever printing anything?  I have, actually for years, which is one big reason I knew Darrell and I couldn't keep working in the printing industry long-term.  You might view the iPad and tablets in general as the first glimpse of that, and I guess that may be true.  But to me, the first evidence of that truly easy, portable, and sturdy future electronic paper is this little flexible e-reader.  I would also tell you about the real benefits of e-ink over LCD displays as well, but that would take another blog post.

Here's my cute little Wexler Flex One (if you see me in person, you need to also view it's flexibility and how lightweight it is):

Next up is Spritz.  I just heard about this a few weeks ago, but this one little piece of technology is something that I truly believe will change the world.  We have so much more information at our fingertips than we did a few decades ago.  But, with the exception of some speed reading methods that some have learned, we cannot read and absorb it any faster than we could then.

Wikipedia says:  "While the average adult reading rate is 250 words per minute with 70% comprehension, speed reading programs typically claim that improvements to 500 words per minute or more while maintaining or improving comprehension are possible."

But what if you could read at three or even four times the average rate, WITHOUT LEARNING ANY NEW READING METHOD?!?!? What if you could read a novel in an evening (and I mean without staying up all night)?  What if you could breeze through 50 emails first thing each morning at work?  What if you could read several interesting articles online while you rush to eat your lunch sitting at your desk so you can get out of work in time to pick up your kids?  What if you could make it through that extremely boring chapter in your textbook so quickly that you could actually go back and study the important parts rather than falling to sleep halfway through the first read?  Are you interested now?  I think you should be.

Seriously folks, check out Spritz.  I am interested enough in them that I am thinking about getting a Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphone soon after it comes out next month, simply because it has some Spritz capability built in.  I can't wait until this functionality is included in e-books and online.  Technology has long promised to improve our lives and give us more time.  This, my friends, is a technology that I think can finally, really deliver on that promise.

My friends like iPhones

Technology Survey, Part 2

My friends (and friends of friends) like iPhones.  There you have it - Apple wins in my technology survey compared to Comscore's October 2013 market share report, and certainly compared to the Rulon household.

We could use this as a good example of how my survey sampling method is in fact biased.  If you love Apple products, you may use this as an opportunity to say how smart my friends really are.

In terms of smartphone manufacturer, the Rulon household is way behind on Apple market share compared to both Comscore and my recent Technology Survey.  Obviously, we make up the difference in this household in Samsung devices (3 Samsung Galaxy smartphones and one iPhone 4S).  Samsung is a bigger player in Comscore's numbers than my Technology Survey of friends and friends of friends.  Interestingly, it looks like Motorola has a bigger representation in my Technology Survey than in Comscore's market share estimates though.

In terms of smartphone operating system, Android is clearly on top in Comscore's market share estimates and in the Rulon household.  However, iOS comes out on top among my friends and friends of friends who responded to the Technology Survey.  Blackberry and Windows Phone have similarly tiny representation in both Comscore's numbers and the Technology Survey.

More exciting data to come, just as soon as I have more than a few spare minutes at a time to look at and compare the remaining results!  Stay tuned.

My friends are ahead of the tech curve

How cool is it that twice as many of us have a laptop, smartphone, AND tablet compared to the nation as a whole?  Yep, that's right - over one-half of those 86 friends and friends-of-friends who took the time to answer my technology survey have all three, compared to only about one-quarter of the general US population (as measured in a 2012 Deloite State of the Media Democracy Survey).

You probably won't be surprised that more of us are rockin' a laptop (87%) than a desktop (63%) computer, but we aren't far from the rest of the nation there (75% have a laptop).  I took the leap to think you may also be interested in how many of each technology type we have here in the Rulon household (remember there are just four of us).  We have SIX laptops.  Before you judge, one is downright vintage that I stopped using for a prior job in about 2003 (and it was several years old then), and another runs so slowly that you can go make a cup of coffee between what should be short tasks, so it is also out of use.  Have I mentioned that my husband keeps everything that may be of some use, say 10 years in the future?  Yes, that still means one fully-functioning laptop in the house for each person, including the 9-year-old who has a hand-me-down from me.

It starts to get more interesting for smartphones.  I knew it would be a majority, but I was surprised that 8 out of 10 of us have smartphones.  But then I tried to think of those I know with feature phones, and about all I came up with is my mom and my dad.  Even my grandmother tried a smartphone for a while, although I think she did go back to a feature phone.  I know you are anxiously awaiting the specific brands we're all carrying around, but you will have to wait for a future blog post for that.

Oh, what about the Rulon household?  Yes, we are holding our own on smartphones as well.  We have 7 in the house, and that's without the 9-year-old having one.  But, only 4 are active, and one of those is just to test the service Ting (which I also plan to review in an upcoming blog post - I'll bet the two of my five blog readers actually interested in technology are really excited now ; )

Finally, almost as many of us have a tablet (71%).  I'll bet most of those are iPads, but I haven't peeked at that data yet.  Here in casa Rulon, we have four tablets, and we are just about as brand diverse as you can get - I personally have a Surface Pro (great personal laptop replacement) and a 7" Kindle Fire; my daughter has a 3rd generation iPad; and my son has an Asus Transformer.

Here's the statistic that most amazes me with this survey - I completely forgot to include eReaders.  How did I do that when I've been such a personal fan of the category since the Kindle 2?  The good news is that I forgot something like that on my fun, personal survey, rather than a survey I painstakingly developed for work.

Now, you can all marvel at my cute chart:

In search of the perfect tablet...

Despite being a die-hard techie, I still cannot see the real need for a tablet.  But that doesn't stop me from wanting one.  My daughter has had an iPad for a few years now, and at the same time, my son purchased his own Asus eee Pad Transformer tablet (the original one, updated to Ice Cream Sandwich).  The first time I really saw a good use for a tablet was when following online recipes on my phone, but then trying it on my son's tablet and enjoying the larger screen.  I imagine this will be even more useful in a few years when I need reading glasses.

Last spring, I fell in love with the retina display on the iPad 3, and it happened to come out just before my birthday.  Having the awesome hubby that I do, he purchased one for me for my birthday.  For a few months, I was in love with simply looking at pictures on the awesome screen, trying out the best Apple apps (this was actually my first personal Apple product, despite being in-home tech support for my kids' iPod Touches and our shared iTunes account), and just lounging on the couch browsing on it while my husband or the kids watched TV some evenings.

But, after a few months, the love affair died.  I just stopped using my iPad, and it seemed silly to hold on to it for the rare occasions I did pull it out.  I grew frustrated with the onscreen keyboard (I'm addicted to Swype-like keyboards on Android), found that there really aren't very many more useful apps on Apple now compared to Android, and just still didn't like the more closed-off Apple OS.  This isn't the first time that I tried to be an Apple convert and failed.  I'm really not an Apple hater, their products just don't seem to be for me.

But, I still want a tablet, and I'm honestly not all that crazy about Android offerings either.  I have considered one of the Nexus tablets, and I like my son's tablet fine, but I find myself wanting to do most of what my laptop can on a tablet, and neither Apple nor Android really fits that bill for me.  I have a small Kindle Fire right now (only because I got it on a great Cyber Monday deal), and I like the way it works so nicely with my Amazon Prime account.  It also has the best speaker system of any tablet I've tried thus far.  But, still, I can't quite seem to find that tablet that really feels like it's meant to be mine.

The funny thing is, I've behaved similarly with other electronics products, always wanting to upgrade to the latest and greatest until I finally find the ONE device that just totally seems to fit my wants. 

I went through an almost-DSLR and an entry-level Nikon DSLR before I fell in love with the Nikon D90 (the first DSLR to have video recording as well, which I found was the feature I was missing with my other DSLR, while being disappointed in the picture quality from my "almost DSLR" before that).  I still have my Nikon D90 four years later, the longest I have kept and consistently used ANY digital camera.  And, amazingly, I don't have plans to replace it anytime soon.

Similarly, I was on a once a year upgrade streak with smartphones until my Galaxy S3.  I bought a version of the original Galaxy S phone simply because I needed to upgrade from Windows Mobile and thought I would need a slide-out keyboard to live with a capacitive touch smartphone.  Once I fell in love with Swype, I found I didn't need that and longed for a slimmer phone and a little larger screen.  Enter the Galaxy S2.  But, I had GPS signal issues with that phone and it just didn't have any features that "wowed" me.  So, I upgraded as soon as I could to the Galaxy S3 and passed the S2 down to my husband.  There are newer phones out now, but I still like my screen size better than the iPhone 5 (still too small, and despite what Apple claims, I CAN operate my Galaxy S3 with one hand, oh, yeah, and still no good keyboard customization options on Apple nor could I swap out a battery easily when needed if I had an iPhone), and better than the Note 2 (too big to fit my hand - I am a girl, after all).  So, I am finally happy, which is good, because this time I really need to wait out my 2-year contract!

Back to my tablet dilemma. Which really isn't a huge dilemma of course, because I have yet to identify a real NEED in my life for a tablet.  But, I want one, and another birthday is right around the corner.  Plus, I've justified the expense by selling lots of stuff on eBay and recouping nearly all I've spent on said electronics products that I didn't keep.  So, now I'm considering a Windows 8 tablet. I've only played with Windows 8 minimally.  I decided not to upgrade my Windows 7 laptop.  From my research, it really looks like Windows 8 is a great Tablet OS that has the added bonus of being able to run real desktop programs (so note that I am NOT considering Windows RT).  I think that may be the puzzle piece that has been missing from my tablet experiences.

So, I've narrowed it down to two choices:  the Microsoft Surface Pro and the Asus Vivatab Smart.  I think the Microsoft Surface Pro could be an actual laptop replacement, but it is so expensive!  The Asus Vivatab Smart seems like the perfect compromise on price versus performance, but I'm afraid I'm missing something and may be displeased.

So, any techies out there want to give me some advice?  If so, thanks in advance!

Baby eReader (aka, adventures in purchasing a kobo mini)

Have I mentioned that I like small things?  Well, a few weeks ago, a friend showed me his new teenie tiny 5-inch e-reader, and I immediately fell in love.  Ok, not quite, but you get the picture.  I had received $250 worth of Christmas money, and didn't plan on spending much of it on myself, but this I had to have!  (I know, that sounds really familiar with me and technology toys, but really, I don't plan to spend the rest.)

So, I started doing my research.  It was indeed the smallest e-ink e-reader currently available.  It would fit in my pocket, for goodness sakes!  And for those of you out there happily reading on your high definition tablets, I'm sorry, but e-ink is still indeed the only electronic form of reading that feels like reading a book to me.  I look forward to the day that screens can switch back and forth between e-ink and LCD, or when e-ink is in color, or whatever the next great step is.

My friend scored his little kobo mini at Best Buy on sale for only $50 (the white version), and I just can't bring myself to spend much more than a sale price I've heard about.  But, everywhere I looked, the price for the following two weeks was always right around the list price of $79.  What's a tech gadget loving girl to do?

I did find that Family Christian was selling their version with three free Bibles included, which seemed like a justification for spending some extra funds.  There were review complaints of not actually being able to download the Bible versions, but I was confident I'd figure it out.  So, off I went to my local Family Christian store after ok'ing the purchase with my other half.

First, I look around the store, but don't see kobo e-readers anywhere.  Then, I ask the friendly sales associate.  He ends up having to go in back, but emerges with a sealed white kobo mini in it's tiny little box:

Next, I asked him about the 3 free Bible offer, but he couldn't find anything about it when looking on his computer, so he asked the manager.  She said something like, "Oh, we're not supposed to sell those anymore because of people having problems with them.  That's why they were only in back."  I must have looked very dejected, because they said they'd go ahead and sell it to me.  Next, I asked if they had any coupons, mostly because I saw some sitting right by his register.  Sure enough, he dug around and scanned a coupon, and gave me 30% off!  That meant I only had to spend $55 plus tax rather than $79.  Woo hoo!  Now my baby e-reader could come home with me.

Here's a spec comparison of my daughter's Kindle 2 (originally mine), my Kindle Paperwhite, and the kobo mini:

	Kindle 2	Kindle Paperwhite	Kobo Mini
Color screen	Pearl E-ink, 16 grayscale levels	Pearl E-ink, 16 grayscale levels	Vizplex V110 E-ink, 16 grayscale levels
Pixels per inch	167 ppi	212 ppi	Unknown
Lighting	None	Built-in frontlight	None
Screen size	6-inch	6-inch	5-inch
Overall size	8 x 5.3 x 0.36 in	6.7 x 4.6 x 0.36 in	4 x 5.2 x 0.4 in
Weight	10.2 oz	7.5 oz	4.7 oz
Touchscreen	None	Yes, capacitive 2-point multi-touch	Yes, capacitive
Book/text supported formats	Adobe PDF (pdf), Plain text (txt), HTML pages (html), Microsoft Word (doc), Mobipocket (mobi, prc), Other	Kindle Format 8 (AZW3), Kindle (AZW), TXT, PDF, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively; HTML, DOC, DOCX	Books: EPUB, PDF and MOBI; Text: TXT, HTML, XHTML, and RTF
WiFi/3G	WiFi, Free 3G	WiFi, Free 3G	WiFi only
Internal storage	2gb	2gb	2gb
Charging/syncing	Micro USB	Micro USB	Micro USB
MSRP	$359	$179	$79

One thing that strikes me is how prices have come down on e-readers.  This of course has been pushed by Amazon's willingness to lose money on their devices in hopes that their content sales will make up all the profit they need.  That seems to be working fairly well for them.  One thing I don't like about Amazon's content is the DRM, or copy protection, that is baked so heavily in.  I really don't mind paying for e-books, and I certainly don't want to distribute them to others without paying.  But, I would like to be able to keep e-books that I purchase on various devices without always being tied to a Kindle app.  For instance, it should be easier (and legal) for me to move my Amazon-purchased e-books over to my kobo mini.  But, I stick with Kindles because in my opinion, they are the best e-readers available for your money.

Here's a quick photo comparison of the Kindle 2, Kindle Paperwhite, kobo mini, and my Galaxy S3 phone:

For now, this kobo mini holds the title of smallest, lightest e-reader on the market, but that won't last long, I'm sure.  Just take a look at this upcoming product:  http://us.txtr.com/beagle/

I love living in a time when technology is moving so quickly.  Don't you?  And if you don't like keeping up as much as I do, feel free to look for my used electronics on eBay ; )

Learning New Things... (Technology related, of course!)

I think my love affair with technology began the Christmas I was six years old.  I already had my doubts about Santa.  Believe me, parents, there's a lot of playground talk among the Kindergarten and first grade set that you know nothing about.  But, that Christmas, I opened a beautiful new device, probably my first real technology item -- a lovely new cassette tape recorder.  And, there was a real live message from Santa already recorded on it!!!  I was convinced again (ok, maybe just for another year or so) in the magic of Christmas.  My beloved device looked something like this, and I used it and loved it for years:

Fast forward three decades.  I was a mom of two working full-time with an over-the-top busy family life.  But, I was also re-discovering technology, or so it felt.  Up to about that point, gifts from my husband usually consisted of pretty jewelry.  And, don't get me wrong, that was great.  But I started wanting tech products more than jewelry, and I haven't looked back since.  I carry my smartphone everywhere, after all, but the only jewelry I wear everywhere is my engagement ring and wrap set.  I can store an unlimited number of books on my Kindle and in the "cloud", but I can only fit so much jewelry in my jewelry box.  You get the picture.

I can make just about anything I want to do on my phone, computer, and other tech devices work.  I have a lot left to learn, but I think most people who know me would describe me as fairly tech-savvy.  My son regrets that I'm not very interested in learning to set up a Mindcraft server for him, so he thinks the teenager down the street knows a lot more about technology than I do, but other than that, I'm the one my family comes to when their smartphone, iPod Touch, tablet, etc. isn't doing what they want it to do.

But one thing I had never done until last week was take apart a tech product to fix it or even just to see what it looked like inside.  I always wondered why my husband would do that.  And then I found out - it's fun!  We're considering starting a little side business fixing some broken tech products.  Who do you know who hasn't at one point broken a screen, needed a non-replaceable battery replaced, wished they had more memory in their device, etc.?  So, I bought this used iPhone 3G on eBay:

Note the cracked screen.  I purchased a new screen, watched a few YouTube videos, and wa la...  Ok, I wish I could say that, but actually, it took some work and I still managed to damage the LCD in the meantime.  Who knew how difficult it was to pry the LCD from the glass screen without damaging it, right?  And now I also know why my husband finds my old hair dryers so useful.  So, after about an hour, here's what I ended up with:

Oops!  But, never fear, about $20 will get you a brand new LCD and even some decent tools to help, and it was actually a lot easier replacing the LCD than the glass screen (no hair dryer/heat gun required to detach glue).  So, finally, several days later, wa la!

Good as new!  I did have a moment of panic when I put it back together and the touchscreen didn't work, but then took it apart, noticed I didn't have one of the three connectors firmly hooked back up, and all was well.  I can fix an iPhone 3G screen AND LCD now!  So, if you need one fixed and aren't as brave as I, I'm your woman!  I plan to tackle an iPhone 4 this weekend.

And if you don't love technology the way I do, what new thing are you planning to learn this week?

Kindle Paperwhite Unboxing

Well, you had to know it was only a matter of time before I purchased the new Kindle Paperwhite after my great first impressions at launch. The exciting day for my new Kindle to arrive came about one week ago.

 

Above is what I saw once I opened the box: my lovely new case and a nice, sturdy looking box with my new Kindle Paperwhite inside! This is what I saw once I opened the box, along with a picture of what you get (just the e-reader itself along with a USB cable):

 

After a few quick set-up options (like choosing English as my language), I got my first view of the new home screen. I really like the more visual layout of actually seeing the book covers on the home screen. And of course, one of my very first tests had to be trying this puppy out in a dark room:

At first, I found myself missing the physical home button now missing from this newest Kindle version. But, the touchscreen performs so much better than my Kindle Touch that I adjusted within a few days, and don't miss the home button at all now.

I love the way they've done the lighting. I can now sit or lie in bed, or sit in the dark while my hubby watches a movie, with no need for a flimsy book light that ends up being an annoyance to others in the room. Reviewers seem to agree that Amazon did a better job with this screen lighting technology than Barnes and Noble did with the Nook, but I haven't tried out the Nook with Glowlight to verify that.

There is really only one thing I will miss and that has at least briefly held me back from selling my Kindle Touch: there is no headphone jack, no speaker, and therefore no way to listen to audiobooks, have the text to speech option from Kindle e-books, or listen to music on my new Kindle Paperwhite. I didn't spend much time on these activities as I tend to use my e-ink device for longer reading sessions and either my Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphone or iPad 3 tablet for other uses. But, it usually does make me sad when a manufacturer feels the need to remove features from a product. I suspect this was necessary to keep the size nearly the same as the past few Kindles and to keep costs down, but I wish it still had audio capabilities.

Other than that, this is a great product, one I will have no trouble recommending to friends and acquaintances.