Yesterday, Google sent a note to all Glass Explorers giving them the opportunity to add three people to the Google Glass invite list.  If you’ve been wanting to spend $1,500 on your own pair of Google Glass but don’t have an invite from Google, today is your lucky day… I’m giving away one of my three Google Glass invites to one of you.  Here’s how it’ll work: Read 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… Read More…

Join me and others in the mobile industry including Walt Mossberg, All Things D; Bill Malloy, CMO, Sprint, Rich Riley, CEO; Shazam, Mitchell Baker, Chaiwoman, Mozilla; Abhi Ingle, VP of Innovation, AT&T; Dave Engberg, CTO, Evernote and 90+ others at The Open Mobile Summit and Appcelerate on November 12-14 November, 2013, San Francisco, CA.

This year, Socialize Mobilize is a media partner for Open Mobile Summit and Appcelerate. These intimate events connect the most influential and the most innovative people and companies in converging mobile, Internet, media, electronics and commerce. I attended this show last year and found the quality of participants and agenda one of the best of the year.  At Appcelerate, CEOs from the most successful app publishers on the planet will share the secrets to their success building, marketing and monetizing apps.

Click here to download the conference brochure including full agenda and 2013 keynote speaker update.

If you’d like to attend, please register here, and use the Socialize Mobilize discount code ‘2439SM’ to save an extra $100 from current prices. Today is the last day for ‘early bird’ tickets, which offer an an additional $100 discount. So, if you book today, you’ll get $200 off the price of tickets.

I’ve just started a new consulting project to help Concur / TripIt get the word out about The Perfect Trip Devcon in San Francisco Oct. 2, 2013. This is the first developer conference dedicated to the largely untapped, $249B business travel space, and it’s going to be amazing…

• Learn how to get your app into Concur’s App Center and reach 20M business travelers and 18,000 enterprises
• Pitch your new travel solution to win cash awards from the Perfect Trip Fund – $100,000 in cash prizes… The Perfect Trip Awards are designed to encourage entrepreneurs from early stage to established companies to present their ideas, compete for cash prizes, get audience exposure and capture industry attention.
• Hear from thought leaders like Tim O’Reilly, Founder of O’Reilly Media and TripIt investor
• Discover open APIs and services, technical resources and best practices from Concur’s Engineering Team

If you’d like to learn more about using Concur’s APIs in your applications and to get involved in The Perfect Trip Devcon, please get in touch with me!

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… Read More…

My experiment with Google Glass continues…I just got back from a trip to New York.  This trip was my first experience playing tourist with Glass, and I took lots of photos and videos. I wore Google Glass indoors and outdoors- on planes, boat rides, the train, subway and taxis and in rain as well as sun.  It was much more convenient for taking pictures than carrying my mobile phone or a camera. You can see some of the pics I took with Glass here on Google+.

While I was generally impressed with the image quality, there is still room for improvement.   Read 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. Read More…

I was interviewed by CNET this week wearing Google Glass. Check out the resulting blog post “How to Wear Google Glass Like a Pro” here and the video, below:

After reading this article yesterday, I wondered if Google Glass  was really that easy to hack.  So, earlier today, I stopped by the San Francisco office of one of my advisory clients, stealth-mode mobile security start-up, Bluebox Security to ask for an expert opinion on Glass security…

I posted a video here on Google+ (unfortunately still can’t share video from Google Glass outside of Google+) of my conversation with Android security pro and fellow Glass Explorer, Andrew Blaich.  He assured me that while any device can be hacked if someone has physical access to it, at least at this point, there is no way for someone to remotely hack Glass over the air.

Andrew also talked about some of the cool things he’s discovered while researching Glass around winking gestures and voice control, calling Glass a “very promising platform for developers”. He hopes to have a blog about it up on the Bluebox Blog in the next day or so.

Check out the video here.