Would you believe that it has been a year since Steve Jobs passed away, I honestly never thought about it. He was the heart and soul of Apple, and even if I didn’t like everything he did I respected him and I admire his passion towards his products. Apple only became what it is because of him and I hope that it continues down this path.

On that note it made me think of my next Apple Purchases, and that is already in my head:

• iPod Touch 64 GB
• iPod Nano 16 GB
• iPad Mini (When It Comes Out)

I haven’t gotten any of them yet, but I really do want the iPod Touch, for once they really upgraded it to what it’s supposed to be.

The last iteration of the Universal Remote from Logitech was the Harmony One and it was an excellent device but it had a few kinks. Logitech has finally returned to the universal remote game — with a new flagship in tow. The Logitech Harmony Touch melds a traditional remote form factor with a smartphone-like interface that fills its centrally-located 2.4-inch touchscreen. Instead of typing in numbers or grazing through pages of guide listings, the Harmony Touch lets you place tappable channel icons right on the screen, so your favorite channels are never more than a swipe and tap away.

The best thing about Logitech’s Harmony line is that you program it online very simply and 99% of the time they recognize most of your hardware, and it my case it helps reduce the number of remotes on the table from 8 to 3. With this new device it seems to be a bit smaller with a lot of buttons integrated into the touch screen. As usual you have your activities which are preprogrammed command to get devices in the right settings or control devices themselves. I’m probably going to purchase one to try it out and see how it works out with my devices overall.

For $250 its a bit on the higher side but I am a fan of Logitech products so I’m willing to try it out. Initial reviews have a few key points, but I really want to try it out to see what its capable of.

Link: Logitech

This is a prototype unit and usually the Google Nexus gets released around the end of the year so the specifications might change. According to the site that got it’s hands on the prototype it’s rocking a 1.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU, 1280 x 768 4.7-inch screen, 2GB of RAM, and just 8GB of storage, all of which matches earlier rumors. It’s also running Android 4.12, but there have been rumors flying around that it will be released with Android 4.2, but we would never really know.

When it came to the choice of manufacturer I honestly I’m not too happy, I was hoping they would go back and try HTC since I love their designs or they could try the Motorolla Razr Android since they were very cool designs, Samsung was always a good choice, but LG? really?

I think the back looks cool, it reminds me of the nexus wallpaper. And yes the screen looks crappy, but I they have the brightness turned completely down. I am very interested in seeing how this turns out. I’ve never had an LG phone but I keep hearing their phones have questionable quality. Im not sure exactly how they pick the manufacturer but I have heard that they put in a bid with a mock up design and it google picks the one they like. Well I just hope Google knows what they were doing, and I know I’m going to buy it because its the next Google phone. In Google We Trust.

Link: Gizmodo

With the arrival of the Google Nexus 7 Amazon knew they had to step it up, the Google Nexus 7 sold so well even with a few glitches that it did have, for a while there was a ridiculous wait but even using it now I am very happy with it and it is an excellent device. So Amazon stepped it up with the new Kindle fire and higher specs, lets hope that it doesn’t choke like the Kindle Fire did after a while. The best thing about the Kindle is the Amazon platform access to a lot of content, and hopefully this time the hardware will be able to handle it.

But as usual I couldn’t resist to get my hands on the new Kindle Fire HD, so I went with the 8.9″ since I already have the Google Nexus 7″ and I’m happy with it. Also the specifications on the Wifi 8.9″ is really good, also the 4G LTE Kindle Fire HD is useless outside of the US.

Simple Specifications:

• 1280×800 display
• Dolby audio with stereo speakers
• Dual-antenna Wi-Fi
• Dual-core processor
• Min 16GB of storage
• An upgraded software experience

The price range is between $200 for the 16GB 7″ Wifi Kindle Fire HD and $369 for the 32 GB 8.9″ Wifi Kindle Fire HD.

Link: Amazon

The Verdict is out and Samsung took a major hit, for $1Billion and that could triple in Damages. The verdict didn’t take too long at all, the lawyers have been bickering for months on every little detail but Apple pulled the final punches and sealed the deal for Samsung. Lets not kid ourselves Samsung did copy a bit, but not so much that they would damage iPhone’s profit, and I think they should have paid some licensing fees, but $1Billion is a bit over the top in this case. But in reality Samsung has been the only major competitor against Apple and they have improved because of that, they may have copied a few designs initially but Samsung has developed its own line which has taken off and they are still a major contender in the market.

Apple is even looking to ban the sale of several of Samsung’s products in the US, The Verge.

This will have a bit of a slow down for some companies since a lot of companies (HTC, Google, Motorola, LG, …) are in court battles with Apple over different and similar patent issues. Some cases they will win and some they will lose, but I still think that Apple does see Android as a threat but they are more then confident of their product and I can’t blame them. Still I think that Android has reached a point where it is on par with Apple even with its defects, and Apple does have its own issues, but lets see where this verdict will take us next.

But you can’t get to the long run without paying attention to the short run. Samsung’s decision to ape Apple wasn’t the most graceful strategy in tech history. But faced with an emergency—a “crisis of design”—copying was the best Samsung could do. And it paid off handsomely.

This article in Pandodaily puts things in perspective, at how things developed in the telecom industry and how the major providers have changed drastically since 2007 and what might take place in the near future. Everyone remembers the battle between Nokia & Sony-Ericsson for supremacy, and those days have gone by so quickly, with different players at the table and Apple at the head.

I am huge fan of Logitech products, they always make the most useful computer accessories, and it seems this is no different. I’m surprised nobody thought of a washable keyboard before, and this one isn’t ugly. For desktops I prefer a full keyboard like this, and I usually prefer the highend line of Logitech keyboards, their mid to low end have a crappy feel on the board and this new one looks worth a try. I like the white keys on black background, and for $30 its reasonably priced.

If you are looking for a decent media player to plug into your network wired or wirelessly then I would recommend the Boxee D-Link. In my opinion there are two kinds of Media Players out there, the dumb and the smart kind. The dumb is usually the type that just plays what ever you point it too or what ever USB you plug into it. A smart player is the on that gets information for you, tracks your history, gets all the information of TV Shows & Movies with the backgrounds and images to make for a very nice user interface. You can build your own smart player like XBMC or Plex Media Server but in both cases it would require some work and finese to put together a system like that but a lot of people don’t have the patience or know how to make something like this and this case I would recommend the Boxee Media Player because it does about 80% of the smart actions without the difficulty of configuring every little detail of the device.

Pros:

• Lots of Updates for it, and its been around long enough to have fixed most of its kinks
• Very simple and clean interface
• Recognized about 90% of the TV Shows that I have, and 9%5 of the Movies
• Plug & Play no difficulty setting it up
• Scans materials and updates your shows when you add new episodes every few hours
• Keeps track of shows that you have watched and those that you haven’t, and if you are half way through a show you can play where you stopped
• The remote is simple on one side and has a qwerty keyboard on the other, very useful for when you browse online
• Works very well over a wireless network, and in my case the accesspoint is a far from it so I’m impressed with its wireless capabilites
• You can use an iPhone or iPad to control it

Cons:

• Its a bit too dumb on certain parts, I keep having to enter my storage server password everyday which gets annoying, they should give the option to remember
• If you leave it on all day you have to restart it when you use it because it hangs a bit but overall it doesn’t have a negative effect

Overall:

Honestly, Boxee got off on the wrong foot when they first started in 2010 but the hardware is great. The box is small and silent, the RF remote is fantastic, and the hardware overall is a good value over buying an ATOM/ION nettop and IR remote, and installing Boxee or XBMC. I still think this is a geeky product that is trying to be usable for non-geeks which is a step in the right direction.

Price: $179
Link: Amazon
Rating:

It looks like the end was sooner then I expected, my BB doesn’t even ding anymore, no more group messages no more random questions people. Even the people who have BB left answer me 6 to 24 hours later, never instantly like they used to. My Blackberry 9900 is still functional without any major issues, a few slow downs here and there but overall the thing is working.

My main reason for keeping the BB going was because of “The Diwaniya” Group, the one group that is always beeping and funny things were said. But now it seems like a deserted desert and I’m the last one holding down the fort. People had to choose which phone they wanted and with the arrival of the amazing Samsung SIII it has accelerated the death of BB. Even with their new release of the OS and any great hardware they have in mind, I think its too little too late, people have moved on, they either chose to join the Android Camp or the Apple Camp. It was good while it lasted and I have my BB 9900 1 year to this date but now no one is there, not worth keeping it anymore, from the 200+ contacts and always active BBM down to 30 people and only 6 people who only use it, its not worth keeping it going. I’m probably going to drop it in a couple of weeks.

Everyone is on WhatApp, I’m not on it yet but I will join it later. From what I have seen its not that good, but everyone is on that platform.

Now this is the camera for me, at last Canon can hear my thoughts.

Canon’s EOS M is finally upon us. $800 will get you the company’s first mirrorless, interchangeable-lens camera, with a 22mm prime and a sales pitch centered firmly around its video capabilities. It certainly took them long enough when all the other manufacturers were doing it, Canon finally stepped up to the plate and they are pulling out all the stops. Blurring the lines between a DSLR and a point-and-shoot, it has a lot of the Capabilities of the DSLR packed into a compact size yet you can use your DSLR lenses on it. And the specifications on this camera are nothing to joke about, Canon have done a good job and I want to add this camera to my list.

Here’s Canon EOS M feature highlights:

• 18 Megapixel CMOS (APS-C) sensor
• DIGIC 5 Image Processor
• Full HD Movie with Focus Tracking
• 3.0-inch touch screen with LCD
• Touch AF and Multi-touch Operation
• Hybrid CMOS Auto-focus for photo & video
• ISO 100–12800, expandable to 25600
• Compatible with Canon EF and EF-S lenses (Optional EOS M mount adapter is required)
• Compatible with SD/SDHC/SDXC memory cards, including new Ultra High Speed (UHS-I) cards
• Includes Canon EF-M 22mm F2 STM

Full manual exposure control when shooting video, and an available mount adapter so you can use nearly any EF or EF-S lenses. The exact type of camera that I would like, I don’t want to lug around the DSLR around my neck all the time but sometimes I want a camera that I can uses all the lenses that I have, and with all the features this mirrorless beast is very rich in video controls and options. The release date is set for October.

Price: $800
Link: Amazon

I have mentioned in my earlier Google Nexus 7 Review that I am having a small issue with my Nexus 7, the screen looks as if its foggy when I start it up it lasts for about 15 to 20 mins then the colors and screen contrast comes back to normal, I thought it was a software glitch and I tried to fix it through a few steps but it didn’t help.

So I called Google Support, they answered the phone very quickly, I told him what was wrong and looked like there was a bit of a screen memory ghost during those first 15 mins of the issue. The support on the phone asked me to switch off Auto-Brightness but that didn’t work and he ask me to do a factory reset which I did but that didn’t help the issue. Then he said he has been authorized to make this device as DOA (Dead On Arrival) and send me new one right away. That took a total of 10 mins without any fuss or complaining from my side which I think is fantastic, Google is out to make a point with the Nexus 7 and it seems they want everyone to be satisfied with it, so the support is just that good.

• 48 Hours After The Support Ticket Was Created They Sent Me An Email With A Link To Get A New Nexus 7
• They Sent Me A Prepaid International Shipping Label, I told them I am outside of the United States and said it is not a problem
• They placed a hold on my credit card for the amount of Nexus 7 16GB until they receive the damaged unit
• It will take two to three weeks until the new one is shipped to me because of the back log of orders they currently have

The guy even apologized the delay of send out the new device because they are currently on back order and I’m honestly satisfied I get to keep it another 10 days before sending it out, they have to get it 30 days after sending out the email so I really am without the Nexus 7 for about 2 weeks really which isn’t too bad. The best part about the tablet is the Vanilla software meaning its pure Android and with that you get the latest updates from Google Right away.