Technology & Gadgets

0

The Motorola XT301 Comes In Colors

If you can believe it, Motorola is creating a smartphone in more than just boring black. It is the Motorola XT301. Getting your hands on this smartphone will be a surprise. Those who are familiar with most handsets from Motorola know that they are characteristically devoid of color choices.

The Motorola XT301 can be had in blue! Good on Motorola. The size is smallish, and will favor a pocket or purse. The height is 104 millimeters, and the thickness is 15 millimeters. For readers from the United States, that is 4.1 inches tall by .59 inches thick. There is no manual keyboard, so the virtual keyboard on the display will need to be used for typing messages or email.

Motorola XT301

The screen for the Motorola XT301 is three inches in size. It is one of the few with this size of a display. Nevertheless, it has a full set of features. Some of them include an accelerometer, proximity sensor, touch sensitive controls and multi touch input method.

The user interface for the smartphone is the Motoblur with Live Widgets. This is to jazz up the generic menus in the operating system. Resolution is rated for a below-average 240 by 320 pixels. That means some small letters will be hard to read.

The wireless lineup for the Motorola XT301 is lacking. There is Wi-Fi, but not in the fast “N” mode. This handset handles Wi-Fi up to the “G” mode. There is no EDGE or GPRS, but thankfully 3G data can get up to 153.2 kilobytes per second. This is not a GSM smartphone, so voice data is handled by CDMA networks, similar to Verizon. This may or may not be headed to the United States. The first stop will be China.

An older version of android is running the menus and programs for the Motorola XT301. Version 2.2 is available, but this handset is running 2.1. Android is a free ( as in money ) software that is distributed by Google, the search engine. It has gained popularity in the United States, but not so much in other countries. It currently has around 180,000 downloadable apps ( programs ) in the andriod marketplace. For comparison, iTunes has over 250,000 apps available for their users.

How about the hardware? The Motorola XT301 has a Qualcomm MSM 7625 528 megahertz processor running the show. The upper level models are running at one gigahertz ( 1000 megahertz ), so this handset may have problems with multi tasking. Otherwise, the internal memory is set for 150 megabytes. The RAM and ROM are 256 and 512 megabytes respectively. The camera is a little on the weak side. It is 3.15 megapixels of picture taking power. It does not have flash or auto focus. It does have geo tagging. The geo tagging can be turned off in the menus of the XT301 for security and privacy.

The battery is 1170 mAh, which should give a projected time of seven hours and forty minutes. That is above average. The Motorola XT301 comes with a FM radio and games for entertainment. It is going to be available in China before the end of the year. There is no word on other countries.

0

Texting – The New Craze for Kids

I’m constantly surprised about the number of text messages youngsters can send out within a day. Back in our time in which 30 text messages each day was obviously an indication of an over-active social interaction.

However, right now this kind of number may elevate concerns relating to withdrawal and seclusion. Hundreds of texts or higher has become ordinary, and you have to be up close to the 300-a-day mark to be deemed as an “uber-texter” by your friends.

Even though most of these figures might sound unbelievably substantial to grownups, give some thought for a moment on just what your children aren’t doing while they’re text messaging. They’re not e-mailing and they’re not making phone calls. In accordance with recent reports, merely around 11 % of teenagers actually make use of an e-mail. Plus, just like any parent of a teenager is aware, call minutes would be the very least of your concerns with regards to creating a household mobile phone plan.

But wait, how might teenagers are likely to manage a hundred or maybe more text messages each day? And doesn’t the rest endure from school homework to valuable sleeping time?

The good news is, very important factor youngsters are truly great at is filtering. Although young children could receive as much as three hundred texts daily, they don’t reply to every one of them. They don’t really consider it wise to text back. They choose which text messages are considered their top concern, and so they are narrowing anything else away.

Furthermore, the very nature of sending text messages helps to keep communications brief and nice. Contrary to grownups that are usually more prone to spell out precisely what they would like to express, young children keep on the conversation to a very least.

Regrettably, numerous moms and dads can’t go beyond the numbers. Only this week, I just read one particular post in which one mom had confiscated her two teens’ cell phones immediately after she found out their monthly text counts had reached to 3,000 or higher. In today’s digital society that’s similar to grounding your children to be popular.

That’s not to imply that generally there shouldn’t be limitations and restrictions. No mobile phones inside the school room or even after going to bed must be the two rules, which can be constantly in place.

However, possibly we shouldn’t end up being way too concerned about numbers. Sending text messages has successfully changed the extended telephone calls many of us used to have with our close friends while we were young. That lengthy chitchat has currently been converted into a hundred or so text messages. It might not become our method of performing things. In contrast, that doesn’t make it a dangerous thing either.

0

Fix your Gadgets by Checking Ifixit Manuals

Are you aware that the e-waste / electronic waste such as discarded or disposed of useless computers, monitors, electronic devices, television sets, cell phones and so forth are turning up in our trash dumps and polluting our air, water and dirt at an extremely fast growing speed?

In accordance with the Environment Canada, over 150,000 loads of E waste is discarded in Canada alone annually – that’s comparable to the weight of 25,000 full grown elephants. E waste materials contain cadmium, mercury and lead, which happen to be all poisonous to human beings, crops as well as the entire world.

Hence what direction we should go? Key in the nifty ” ifixit ” word to make a Google search. Ifixit is actually an online service that provides instructional guides for free about how an average fellow can easily resolve things on their own.

The website offers guides or manuals meant for all the products that start with “i” – such as the pad, the pod, the phone but not only that, it also provides manuals for digital cameras, vehicles, personal computers, nintendos, toaster ovens – and even your Christmas LED lights!

Which means that the very next time you encounter some snag with your gizmos, you don’t need to discard them out but plainly use some little hard work and get a handful of genuine fulfillment in fixing it all by yourself. Additionally, you’ll conserve a bit of green at the same time preserving the earth a lot more cleaner as well.