John Mayson

Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical and Ubuntu's founder, will take over the top spot at the Linux powerhouse.

These DSPTCH cases are made of ballistic mesh and lined with nylon packcloth.  They have a large pouch to hold your device, and the exterior has various elastic loops for cord organization and an elastic pocket to hold other small items.  You can carry the bags alone or as an insert inside a larger bag.  DSPTCH cases are designed to fit Apple devices – the iPad mini or iPad and the MacBooks and MacBook Airs (11″ to 15″).  Prices range from $42 for either iPad case to $60 for any size laptop case.

Filed in categories: Cases, Covers, iPhone, iPad, iPod

Tagged: iPad sleeve case, Laptop Sleeve

DSPTCH cases carry your device and organize your accessories in a minimal package originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on July 15, 2013 at 1:00 pm.

Apple is rumored to be in the early stages of negotiations to acquire PrimeSense, the company behind the technology in the first generation Microsoft Kinect sensor. The Israeli-based company first shopped the original concepts behind the Kinect to Apple in 2010, but negotiations fell over quickly after Apple insisted on legal deals and nondisclosure agreements that PrimeSense felt were onerous. "Apple is a pain in the ass,î PrimeSense CEO Inon Beracha said at the time claiming that it didnít feel the need to get tied down in Appleís red tape at the time, especially when it had significant inte...

Wandering Earl

You arrive in Rome. You call your friend to have him pick you up from the airport. You talk for ten minutes. You still can’t find him, so you call again. Ten more minutes later, you finally understand where he’s telling you to meet. = $20 USD

You have a few drinks while partying on the beach in Thailand. You decide to start texting that guy/girl you met in Bangkok last week. You exchange twenty texts. The next night, you do the same. You also send a bunch of texts to friends back home. = $14 USD

You suddenly need to get to Granada, Nicaragua but you can’t figure out the bus schedule from San Jose, Costa Rica. You call the bus station several times to no avail before calling a friend of a friend living in Costa Rica for advice. Since it’s last minute, you call several guesthouses in Granada until you find one with an available room at a price you like. You’ve spent forty minutes on the phone. = $60 USD
(*Based on current international rates from AT&T)

That’s a bit pricey.

Unfortunately, many people pay these incredible amounts of money to use their mobile phones while traveling simply because at first, it often seems that using an international roaming plan from your home country is the only option. And while it might be the easiest option (often, all you need to do is go online and activate the additional plan), it’s an option that really has very few, if any, other benefits.

And that’s why I’ve never used that option myself.

Here’s a rundown of how I use my mobile phone as I travel around the world:

• T-Mobile Sim Card: T-Mobile is a large mobile network company in the US and I have signed up for their “T-Mobile Pay As You Go Plan”. With this plan, I pay $50 per month for unlimited phone calls, text messages and data. What makes this plan quite ideal for a traveler such as myself is that I only pay whenever I’m in the country. So, if I was traveling to the US tomorrow, I would login into my T-Mobile online account before getting on the plane, pay $50 and that’s it. As soon as my flight lands in the US and I place my T-Mobile SIM card into my phone, my service is activated and I have one month of unlimited usage. Then, once I leave the US, I simply stop paying and my account remains on hold until the next time I activate it. And while I can’t use my T-Mobile SIM card overseas as a result, this is a great deal for me as I wouldn’t want to use their expensive international roaming rates anyway.

• Local Prepaid SIM Cards: When overseas, I always use local prepaid SIM cards instead. This involves buying a SIM card from a local mobile network provider in whatever country I happen to be in and then paying for credit whenever I need it. This credit allows me to make phone calls, send text messages and connect to the internet. When the credit runs out, I simply stop by any mobile phone shop and add more. As a result, I don’t pay a regular monthly rate and I’m not signed up to any kind of long-term contract. I now have a collection of five local SIM cards from around the world, one each from Australia, Thailand, India, Romania and Mexico. And this generally covers all of my travels. So, whenever I land in Romania (or anywhere in Europe for that matter), I use my Romania SIM card. When in Thailand (or anywhere in Southeast Asia), I use my Thailand SIM card and on and on.

Why Is This The Best Solution For Me?

First, it’s the cheapest. Here in Romania, for example, I have a SIM card with Vodafone and I spend about 30 RON ($8 USD) per month and that’s enough for text messages, phone calls and the occasional checking of email. I’m not exactly a socialite, chatting away on the phone and texting all day, every day, but for minimal to normal use, that’s all it costs me.

Also, it is easy to think that the reason you want to have phone service while traveling is to stay in touch with friends and family back home. However, I just use Skype or Google Voice for that. What you really need your phone for is to get in touch with locals you meet, to make accommodation reservations, to call the bus station to find out when the bus really leaves and to have a local number so that others can contact you within that country.

Having a local phone number (with a local SIM card comes a local telephone number!) makes life a bit easier as you can now reach and be reached by anyone in that country. 

And like I mentioned, whenever I want to call home, I just find a place with Wi-Fi, turn on the Skype app on my phone or fire up my laptop, and call home. Or I send a text message home, something that doesn’t cost much at all with my Romanian SIM Card (about 50 cents).

In addition, I can use my Romanian SIM card all over Europe and the international surcharges are not too bad at all. In fact, I end paying much less than what mobile phone companies in the USA, or say, Australia, charge their customers to use their phones overseas. And to make it even better, as of July 1st, 2014, it will be illegal for mobile phone networks in the European Union to even charge any roaming fees at all. So once that happens, whether I’m in Romania, Germany, France or anywhere else in the EU, my rate for voice calls, text messages and data will remain the same as what I pay in Romania. Sweet!

Even though I’ve been using Romania and Europe as an example above, the same idea applies to many other regions of the world too.


When in Mexico, I use a local Movistar prepaid SIM card and not only does this give me very low rates around Mexico, but calls and text messages to the US and Canada are charged at the same low rates as well. There are no international surcharges at all for calling/texting those two countries. And when I lived/traveled in Mexico, I was putting about $30 USD of credit on my phone per month and I used my phone all the time, making it a great deal.

When in India, I use Aircel. When in Thailand, I use TrueMove. When in Australia, I use Optus. Together, these local prepaid SIM cards have allowed me to use my phone while traveling without spending a ton of money.

Using local SIM cards is also much easier to set up than many people think. It’s not a hassle in most parts of the world at all and the entire process typically takes less than five minutes. (Some regions, such as certain states in India, do make it more difficult for foreigners to get a local SIM card but such places are the exception I’d say.)

Once you settle on a mobile network provider (see below), you just ask for a prepaid SIM card and hand over some money, as it generally costs around $3 – $15 USD for the SIM card itself. You then place the SIM card into your phone and the staff behind the desk will type away on their computer for a moment. And within a couple of minutes you’ll usually receive a text message stating that your SIM card has been activated. Done deal.

How To Choose A Local SIM Card

It’s all about research. Ask locals and ask other travelers who have been to the country you plan to visit yourself. Look around online and find out which mobile network companies appear to be the most reliable while offering attractive rates. Keep your eye out for promotions as well because such special deals seem to be offered all the time in many countries. Sometimes all it takes is asking the staff working in the mobile phone shop what deals they currently have available.

You may find that if you add $10 of credit, you get another $10 of credit for free. Or maybe there is a monthly special going on where you get an additional 100 MB of data at no extra cost. Who knows? It could be anything and I’ve seen excellent deals of all sorts all over the world. All you have to do is ask!

Keep in mind though that while it might seem tempting at times to get a SIM card from a smaller, lesser-known mobile network company that is offering rates lower than the bigger competitors, that’s not always a good idea. You want a network that is widespread and reliable and usually, the bigger the company, the more widespread their network of course. This will help ensure that you have a signal as much as possible and that the connection will be strong. Cheaper isn’t always better, especially when the differences in amount for things such as prepaid calling and texting rates are usually not too much.

$25 Per Month!

By using local SIM cards, and Skype, everywhere I go, I estimate that my monthly mobile phone expense is about $25 USD. And this includes all the phone calls, text messages and data that I need. Admittedly, I don’t connect to the internet too much through my phone, simply because I spend so much time on my laptop that when I’m away from my computer, the last thing I want to do is constantly be checking my emails. That’s just what I prefer, and as a result, I can travel the world while always having a local phone number and always having a way to get in touch with people in the countries I visit, all for a tiny, tiny fraction of what it would cost if I used an international roaming service from a mobile network provider back in the US.

*Note: In order to use different SIM cards from around the world, you do need to have an ‘unlocked’ phone that operates on the GSM network. You can either purchase a fully unlocked phone through a website such as Amazon.com or, if you bought your phone through a mobile network provider in your home country, you can have them unlock your phone for you. The two companies in the US that operate on the GSM network, T-Mobile and AT&T, offer this service. Without an unlocked GSM phone, you won’t be able to connect to another network and therefore, buying local SIM cards wouldn’t be an option.

How do you handle your mobile phone while traveling? Have you found any particularly good deals out there? Any questions about traveling with your phone?

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ICC Note: At least one Christian Bishop in Malaysia sees signs that the country is headed towards greater radical theology as a bill was introduced to allow the forced conversion of children to Islam should a parent choose to convert. The bill was dropped after it encountered serious uproar but many believe it isn't dead yet. Approximately 9 percent of Malay's are Christian and although there have been few outright attacks on Christians in recent years, some fear the environment is growing worse. 

7/15/2013 Malaysia (UCA News) - In Malaysia, the tone of the anti-Christian campaign has become shriller. One of the new government’s first moves was to amend the Administration of Islamic Law so that consent from only one parent or guardian was required for a child to be converted to Islam. It drew flak from an array of rights groups, lawyers and politicians, and surprised by the fierce reaction, the bill was withdrawn earlier this month.

Yet it is not over yet. Some see it as an attempt by the government to shore up its conservative Muslim voter base, while others say it is a sign of the continuing Islamization of Malaysia. Other examples abound: the barely veiled threats against the papal nuncio Archbishop Joseph Marino, who has defended the rights of Malaysian Christians to use Allah as the word for God in the Malay language, are cause for concern.

"If he does not retract his statement in seven days, we will have….to ask the prime minister…to close the Vatican office and ask that the ambassador be sent back to the Vatican," said the radical Malay-Muslim supremacy organizations, Peraksa and Jati. Their accusations of an attempted ‘Christianisation’ of Malaysia signals rising tensions between the country’s disparate religious groups.

...

The prominent Bishop Tan had called the bill “morally and ethically wrong,” unconstitutional, and proof of the “galloping Islamization” underway in Malaysia. Many protested the ruling, from Chinese and Indian component parties of the ruling coalition Barisan Nasional, to the Malaysian Bar, to cabinet members and various rights groups.

“It is not fair to say that one parent can determine a child’s religion if the parent decides to convert to Islam.... As a lawyer and a Muslim, I am not comfortable with the situation,” Tourism and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz had told the Malaysian daily, The Star.

...

[Full Story]

What's better than a shark with frickin' lasers? How about an iPhone case with a built-in stun gun! The Indiegogo-funded Yellow Jacket case (US$139.99 for the iPhone 4/4S case, iPhone 5 version is on the way) packs a 650,000-volt stun gun, perfect for those trips to the city where seemingly everyone wants to get their hands on your iPhone.

The chunky, 1-inch-thick case comes in black, white, pink and yellow colors, although only the black model is currently available. You don't need to worry about zapping yourself; the Yellow Jacket team designed a protective cover that needs to be moved out of the way to expose the electrodes. After that, there's a safety switch that must be activated before pressing the activation button.

The same battery pack that's used to deliver that powerful electric shock to your attacker can also be used in a much more benign way -- recharging your depleted iPhone battery pack.

Unfortunately for iPhone owners who'd like a way to protect themselves with a Yellow Jacket case, stun guns are illegal in a number of countries, seven US states and in some specific counties and cities (like Washington D.C.). If you've got a hankering for a Yellow Jacket, be sure to check their list of "forbidden places" prior to making your order.

[via Macworld UK]

iPhone case with built-in stun gun protects both you and your phone originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 12 Jul 2013 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The two year old Windows Phone partnership between Nokia and Microsoft, once lampooned by Google Vic Gundotra in a tweet that "two turkeys do not make an eagle," is facing new problems on both the hardware and software fronts.

Venture Beat reports that Google will quietly retire Alfred on July 19th. Alfred was billed as a personal assistant, similar to Siri, according to Forbes.

In 2011 Google acquired Clever Sense, Alfred's developer, but it seems they let him languish. Alfred isn't the first company purchase on which Google has stopped development, but instead of announcing Alred's demise on the Google blog, a notice was inserted into the Alfred app. You can still download Alfred on the iTunes store, but he hasn't been updated since May, 2012 and after yesterday, July 12th, he will be guiding you no longer.

[via VentureBeat and TechCrunch]

Google's Alfred to shut down on July 19 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 13 Jul 2013 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As someone who lives in an area with a poor cell signal, I’ve often relied on my strong internet connection and making phone calls through Gmail as my pseudo “home” or landline telephone. When Google began transitioning to Hangouts, this phone calling feature was a little more difficult to get to, but today Google has [...]

Iran is creating the building blocks of a state-controlled internet, and its next major effort appears to be email. Reuters reports that Iran is planning to dole out a government-run email address to each of its citizens and to use the addresses as a way to communicate with them. While that would give the Iranian government a fairly progressive means of communicating with its people, the continued worry is that the state will only use it as another way of monitoring their private lives. Iran is promising to maintain privacy within the service, though full details haven't been revealed.

Reuters reports that data centers are now being set up throughout Iran to handle traffic for the new service, which will be located at mail.post.ir....

Continue reading…

It almost seems like a mystical correlation. Babies conceived at certain times of the year appear healthier than those conceived during other times. Now, scientists have shown that the bizarre phenomenon is actually true?and they think they may know why it happens.

So you need an RSS reader, or maybe you don’t because a zillion sites have been mourning Google Reader’s demise for months (it’s alive for a few more hours, then sayonara) and you’ve already found your lemonade-out-of-lemons substitute. Or maybe you’ve never used RSS, content to flick through a social feed like Twitter for your daily digest. Let’s talk about why you might want to rethink that strategy, then run through the top RSS services in a post-Google Reader world. What’s RSS again? RSS, aka Rich Site Summary, aka Really Simple Syndication (but never Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Hindu nationalist paramilitary group), is a way to keep tabs on news sites, blogs or anyone else publishing in the abbreviated notification-oriented format, eliminating the need to revisit websites throughout the day and manually scan for new content. When an RSS-enabled website updates, it generates an RSS-specific view that an RSS reader can scrape, proactively notifying you with a stack of headlines and (usually) short summaries and links to the content. You configure the client to scrutinize and pull story info from each site (or a subcategorized feed within a site), then sit back and watch the content roll in. Yes, you can sort of do this with alternate tools like Twitter Lists, but it gets tricky. If you care about timeliness, you need to be certain your sources are updating their Twitter feeds simultaneous with the site update (many don’t, including TIME). Others don’t use Twitter at all, or do so inconsistently, piping only some of their content over. If you don’t care about immediacy, or you’re sure the sites you follow are Twitter-synchronous, Twitter Lists may be for you. Otherwise you’ll want to think about an RSS reader, which remains one of the only dependable mechanisms for grabbing published content from sites in near-real time (depending on your settings). How do you subscribe to a site’s RSS feed? Everyone handles this differently, but in most cases, you’re looking for a button (usually orange) on each site that reads “RSS” or an icon

A new report is showing that Google's Android mobile OS could be dominating Europe with as much as 70.4% of the mobile market share. iOS comes in second with a paltry 17.8%.

As I’m sure most of you know by now, Google Reader is being shut down. With the service gone and our feeds exported — you did export them, right? — it’s time to find other ways to get our RSS Feeds and news fix. Or maybe you’re new to the RSS game and wondering about the best way to get started now that Google Reader is gone.

Well, fear not, we’re here to help you out. Our colleagues at Web.AppStorm published a fantastic article detailing five great online RSS services you ought to try but we’ve also compiled an exhaustive list of great RSS Readers and news solutions specifically available for your Android device. Whether you’re new to RSS or a seasoned veteran, this list should get some ideas generating and help you move on from Google Reader.

Like the article? You should subscribe and follow us on twitter.

News Curators

There are several apps that aren’t necessarily traditional RSS readers, but can still help you find great reading material. Maybe you don’t need RSS or maybe you just want a great way to discover fantastic content without having to look for it. These apps should do the trick.

Other news curators worth considering include newscover, NewsWhip, Flud News, MATERIAL, Zite and Vu. You can also look at umano, which uses human voices to read important news items to you.

Feedly

Feedly [read the full Web.Appstorm review] has quickly become the most popular Google Reader alternative around. It offered an easy one-click import of Google Reader and kept most of what made that service so popular — including similar keyboard shortcuts! The web service uses a clean, easy-to-use layout that offers lots of simple customization. What makes Feedly so interesting, however, is that it not only has its own great apps, but a very open API. And in a lot of ways, Feedly is already way nicer than Google Reader ever was.

The only real warning I could give about Feedly is that there is no way to export your feeds right now, so you’re locked in to the service even if you want to try something else. The developers say exporting data is on their roadmap, but if it never happens, don’t say we didn’t warn you. If you’re switching to Feedly, give some of these Android apps a whirl.

Many other Google Reader third-party Android clients have also switched to Feedly’s API, including Reader and D7 Google Reader.

Other RSS Services

Whether Feedly doesn’t hit the right notes with you, or whether you prefer to use a paid service that will likely stick around, there’s a wealth of RSS options that are currently supported on Android.

Here are some other RSS services with Android apps released, in beta, or potentially coming:
• Ridly is in beta and currently working with Reader on Android
• The Old Reader has an optimized website for mobile devices and an open API so third-party apps might be coming soon
• Bloglovin is more visually oriented and has an Android app
• FeedHQ has an open API so third-party apps could be coming soon
• Rolio has a first-party Android app in the pipeline
• Bazqux is currently integrated with the beta Android app News+ from the maker of gReader.

Local RSS Readers

Sometimes, you don’t need apps that sync with web services or other devices, and you just want to get your reading done on your Android phone or tablet. Here are some local RSS readers for Android.

Also worth considering are these other local RSS readers for Android: RSS News Reader, RSS Junkie, Holo Reader, FeedEx and PaperBoy.

The services and apps mentioned above should help you move on after Google Reader’s demise. There’s a lot of choice, many different approaches to RSS and news reading, and most of the companies have worked quickly and relentlessly to be ready before Reader shuts down, but have also promised a lot of innovation once the dust settles.

Did we miss any other important RSS and news service or Android app? Did you decide what option you’ll be using to replace Google Reader? Let us know in the comments!

If you're traveling between countries in the European Union, there's good news for your wallet: it won't be quite so thoroughly mugged by international roaming charges starting today. After a vote by the European Commission last month, wireless roaming charges for text, data, and voice usage are being forcibly reduced across its 28 member states. Today's policy change will lower maximum roaming charges to 45 European cents per megabyte, 24 cents per outgoing call minute, 7 cents per received call minute, and 8 cents for a text message, plus value-added tax in all cases.

• European Union To End Roaming Fees In Summer 2014 For EU Carriers
• PSA: T-Mobile's New Actually Unlimited Unlimited Data Plan Launches Today
• Verizon Promo Offers A New 450 Minute Plan With Unlimited Text And Data For $69.99, 1400 Minute Family Plan For $139.99
• Logitech Revue Set To Drop To $99, Poor Sales Are To Thank

Lower Data And Calling Roaming Rates Goes Into Effect Across The European Union Today was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

BlackBerry didn’t break out its individual BB10 device sales in its quarterly earnings report released earlier this morning, but during its conference call to discuss its performance CEO Thorsten Heins revealed that it shipped 2.7 million handsets during the quarter, which is not a great number. Nokia shipped 5.6 million Lumia devices in Q1 of 2013, for instance, and AT&T reported 4.8 million iPhone activations alone during its Q1 reporting.

BlackBerry shipped 6.8 million phones in total during the quarter, so the new BB10 devices represented just under 40 percent of total new device sales. The total number of devices shipped was already fairly unimpressive, but it’s perhaps more worrying that BB10 made up a big chunk of those sales, despite the Q10 only being available in most areas for a fraction of the quarterly period. This also marks the first full quarter of sales for the flagship Z10, so it’s really the first true barometer of the health of that device available to investors and observers.

Here, then, is the problem: The Z10 has been available for a full quarter in its primary target markets, and with a device like that, launch is generally your most successful period over the entire device life cycle, since you have the most buzz and consumer attention (perhaps barring a holiday bump). Analysts will not look kindly at 2.7 million in sales for a brand new operating system, which is probably further divided between the Z10 and the Q10.

Already, BlackBerry stock is suffering a huge hit, down 24 percent ahead of market open. That’s not likely to turn around now that we have a better idea of how RIM’s big bet on a brand new mobile operating system is faring in terms of consumer sales.

Google Reader is shutting down and you, hopefully, have backed up your Reader data for future import into your reader app of choice. As pointed out by Mihai Parparita of persistent.info, Google's Takeout service creates a backup of the RSS subscriptions, but fails to include all the data like starred items, tags, comments and more.

To grab all your data, Parparita has created a tool that uses Google's API to pull down everything but the kitchen sink from your Reader account. You can download the reader_archive tool from github and check out the article on persistent.info. The article details other tools like CloudPull and the readerisdead.com website that compiles tools, tips and tricks on extracting all your data from Google Reader. Happy Google Reader backup weekend, folks!

Github tool extracts all your Google Reader data, including starred items, tags and more originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sun, 30 Jun 2013 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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