Home Phone

Internet phones and smart phones are more or less for the individual, and they are pushing people apart, not including conference calls but those are for businesses. At the opening of the CES, there was a new version of a phone that was debuted. The sleek device could easily be mistaken for a modern vase, but the base hides a familiar touchpad for dialing calls and a 360-degree speaker. It can be used with any landline. The Home Phone works like a cordless phone, but instead of requiring users to push a button to activate a speaker, the Home Phone automatically switches to full-circle speaker mode when placed on a hard surface. The sound is unusually clear and natural — and loud enough to be heard over the din of the crowds at the CES event.

EReaders

With the further advancements of the tablets and smartphones, the questions arises if the ereader is seeing its last days and will go in the bin with the outdated technology. The reasoning: Full-featured tablets can read e-books and do a whole lot more, and the price gap between e-readers and cheap tablets has narrowed, so it’s harder to justify buying a single-purpose reader like the Kindle Paperwhite or Nook Simple Touch. While it is easy to just chalk it up and say it is done, the fact remains that they are still cheap, easy to read in sunlight, and the battery lasts forever. Since they are still going to be around, web and app developers are still working with the ereaders. For e-readers, the future probably looks a lot like it does for the dedicated MP3 player, and that’s far from catastrophic.

History of Mobile Apps

Most people do not realize it, but they treat their cell phones as more or less an extensions of themselves. In the earlier days of the cell phone, all it did was call and text. Now it is a powerful computer the size of a wallet thanks to mobile application development. Manufacturers tried to make their products more attractive for customers by introducing more and more applications. But quality matters as well. Cell phone development needs to be easy and intuitive. Every company tries to facilitate the process of development so that users are able to customize their devices. The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X was the first commercially available cell phone. First marketed in 1983, it was 13 x 1.75 x 3.5 inches in dimension, weighed about 2.5 pounds, and allowed you to talk for a little more than half an hour. It retailed for $3,995, plus hefty monthly service fees and per-minute charges. Now, The mobile developer community has become as fragmented as the market. Mobile software developers work with different programming environments, different tools, and different programming languages.

Best Apps for Your Resolutions of the New Year

So here we are on day two of the new year. How is that resolution holding up? How many of you are hanging by your teeth to make it to day three? Well, with a little help from the mobile application development people and some will power from you, we can safely make it to day four or even five. RunKeeper is an Android and iOS app is one of the strongest in the category of those that look to turn your smartphone into a personal trainer. RunKeeper is part motivator, part tracker and (long-term) part health graph. The app allows you to track your walks, runs, bike rides, hikes, etc. by using the GPS in your phone, keeping stats on each activity, comparing those stats, setting short-term and long-term goals, offers customizable training plans, and voice coaching. The startup also aims to be a health and fitness data aggregator (or graph) and appeal to Quantified Self enthusiasts by connecting to Bluetooth and leveraging its API to integrates with Fitbit, WeightTraining, Fitocracy, Lose It!, Gympact and GAIN Fitness, among others.