I sat down with Shoneel Kolhatkar, Senior Director of Product Planning at Samsung USA for a hands-on with Samsung’s latest products  – the Gear 2, Gear 2 Neo, Gear Fit, and Galaxy S5 (GS5) phone.

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This week at Mobile World Congress, MasterCard (NYSE:MA) and Syniverse announced that they are collaborating to provide several new mobile and payment services to that will benefit mobile users that travel abroad. (more…)

I recently bought the Sony NEX-6, and I brought it with me to the World Series this weekend. This great little compact SLR camera packs a punch…

Here’s the shot I took of the now game ending obstruction call that won the St. Louis Cardinals Game 3 over the Boston Red Sox on Saturday night. We were sitting on the right field line, 25 rows back just in front of the right fielder. I used a NEX E-Mount 55-210mm f/4.5-6.3 OSS Zoom Lens to capture this shot, and I was impressed by how close it looks…

The World Series was one of the few action packed events where I’ve had the opportunity to use the Sony NEX-6.  I’ve been pleased with the quality of the photos I’ve taken with this camera over the past few months. It’s a great follow-on from NEX-5, which I previously owned. And, the size is fantastic… I get great SLR quality shots with a compact camera body. In addition, there are better NEX-E lens choices available than several years ago. I have two lenses – the 55-210 mm lens I took the above shot with and a 16-50mm Lens (Black) [NEX6L/B], which is what I use in most situations.

While the NEX-6 is a great camera, and I can easily recommend it, I do have a few complaints… (more…)

My Google Chromecast arrived on Wednesday. From the moment that Chromecast was announced, I was excited to own this device. After reading Chromecast reviews by  some of my favorite tech pubs – WSJ/AllthingsD’s Walt Mossberg, Hufington Post, and TechCrunch, I was even more pumped. Sadly, now that I’ve tried it, I’m less than enthusiastic. I wish I could say it was super easy to set up, except that I experienced a few snafus. I also wish I could say Chromecast works great, but it’s got a way to go before it’s ready for the masses.  In this post, I detail the unboxing and set-up of Chromecast, review the good and bad parts of the device, and offer suggestions to make set-up easier for first time users… (more…)

I was recently interviewed by Maureen Naylor of Fox KTVU Channel 2 in the Bay Area about my experience with Google Glass. Watch the full video report here.  

While this interview was filmed the previous week, the segment aired last week coinciding with Google’s big developer conference, Google I/O in San Francisco. It also aired on the same day that it was revealed that some members of congress sent a letter to Google asking for answers and assurances with regard to the Google Glass privacy policy.

With companies like Google now trying to mainstream wearable computing, it’s unsurprising that some are concerned about privacy.   As an early mobile device and smartphone adopter, I’ve heard plenty of concerns raised about privacy over the last fifteen years, many of which are overblown.  In my opinion, Google Glass is no different than a mobile phone when it comes to privacy. (more…)

There’s a great article in the Silicon Valley Mercury News today by Brandon Bailey. In it, he talks to early adopters of Google Glass (including me). Check it out here.

I was interviewed today on Silicon Valley Business Journal about my experiences wearing Google Glass.  You can check out the interview here.

Before Google sold its first set of Google Glass Explorer Edition glasses, Reluctant Habits published a post called “Thirty-Five Arguments Against Google Glass.” Having walked around wearing Google Glass for more than a week now, I re-read the article with interest, wondering which, if any, of these thirty-five arguments I could say hold true in real life.  Some of the arguments are really ‘out there’. Others seemed more plausible prior to wearing Glass than after.  Many of the arguments aren’t new or Glass specific.  They’re arguments that could be applied to many existing technologies including mobile phones and social networks.  Before wearing Glass in public, I had a few concerns about the unknown, but on day eight of living this social experiment in mobility, I’m much more excited than concerned about the possibilities of a future full of Glass wearers.

In this post, I provide a Google Glass user’s rebuttal to Reluctant Habits’ “Thirty-Five Arguments Against Google Glass…” (more…)