Garmin shows off HUD concept at CES

Part of the I can hardly wait category of products that are floating around CES this week is this concept only item from Garmin. As reported by engadget yesterday this item looks like something that you may want in your next vehicle purchase…

Garmin's been on a real heads-up display kick as of late. Back in September, the company showed off a bit of dash-mounted hardware for $150 a pop. Now the navigation giant's looking, ahem, ahead a bit, with a concept targeted specifically toward automakers -- meaning that you likely won't be installing this on your own car after purchase. Instead, the system works with with a proximity sensor and buttons built into a steering wheel, letting you activate routes, check traffic info, change stations or start a call, all without having to take your eyes off the road in front of you.

PR: Belkin WeMo Products

WeMo LED Lighting, WeMo Maker to launch this spring alongside the Crock-Pot® Smart Slow Cooker with WeMo

Playa Vista, Calif. – January 06, 2014 – Continuing to evolve the WeMo platform of simple, ingenious connected home products, Belkin today announced a slate of new WeMo devices including the WeMo LED Lighting Starter Set and WeMo Smart LED Bulbs, the WeMo Maker Kit, and Crock-Pot SmartSlow Cooker. Also on tap for the WeMo line at CES is a revised Android and iOS app offering improved functionality and enhanced lighting features. Belkin’s new WeMo line-up will be on display at PepCom's Digital Experience!, on January 6, 2014 at the Mirage Hotel and Casino and will be on display at the Belkin’s booth, South Hall 3 #30451, from January 7-10, 2014.

“Since first launching at the 2012 International CES, WeMo has become a major player in the connected home thanks to its simple, scalable, and affordable nature – words not typically associated with the connected home,” said Ohad Zeira, director of product management for WeMo. “As the most approachable entry point into the Smart Home, we are excited to introduce new products and app upgrades in 2014 that will continue that trend, as well as grow our business with Jarden Consumer Solutions and future partners to expand WeMo’s presence throughout the house.”

Belkin's new LED Lighting Starter Set and WeMo Smart LED Bulbs allow you to control, schedule and dim your smart LED bulbs from anywhere. As easy as replacing a standard light bulb, the WeMo Smart LED Bulbs work through the WeMo Link and are controlled via Wi-Fi and the WeMo app. The long-lasting bulbs are 60-watt equivalent with 800 Lumens and 3000 Kelvin for a bright, pleasing warm white light. Fully dimmable, WeMo Smart LED Bulbs can be controlled individually or in groups. The WeMo LED Starter Set includes two LED Smart Bulbs and a WeMo Link, which can support up to 50 individual Smart bulbs. Individual WeMo Smart LED bulbs also will be sold separately.

WeMo LED Lighting Starter Set (F5Z0489) - $129.99
WeMo Smart LED Bulbs (F7C033) - $39.99

• Turn lights on/off or schedule from anywhere
• Fully dimmable
• 60W equivalent bulbs last up to 23 years
• Vacation mode automatically turns lights on/off to simulate occupancy
• Dim to sleep – gradually dim lights to fall asleep more naturally
• Warm white light similar to incandescent bulbs
• Works with the WeMo app, available for Android or iOS

The WeMo Maker empowers DIYers to build their own WeMo solutions by adding Internet connectivity to any device controlled with a DC switch, such as research robotics, motors, sprinkler systems, antennas, and more. A small module that wires into low voltage devices, WeMo Maker also lets you monitor and manage a wide range of 5V DC sensors from anywhere using a smartphone or tablet. WeMo Maker is controlled via the same free WeMo app as existing WeMo products and integrates seamlessly within the WeMo ecosystem, allowing you to create schedules or automatically control the WeMo Maker with sensor inputs. Deactivate your sprinkler system if moisture is detected or open the blinds at sunrise from Monday to Friday. WeMo Maker also works with IFTTT, which lets you create specialized recipes bringing the Internet of Things to your fingertips.

Also debuting at the 2014 International CES, the WeMo-enabled Crock-Pot Smart Slow Cooker is the first WeMo equipped product stemming from Belkin’s collaboration with Jarden Consumer Solutions, a family of household appliance brands. The Crock-Pot Smart Slow Cooker is the first smartphone controllable slow cooker, which allows you to adjust the cooker’s settings from anywhere giving you greater flexibility and control over life’s unexpected moments. Receive reminders, change the cooking time, adjust the temperature or check the status of your dish while you are away through the WeMo app and come home to a perfectly cooked meal whenever you want it, even if you have to work late or practice runs over schedule. Additional Jarden Consumer Solutions co-branded products on display at the Belkin booth include the Mr. Coffee® Smart Coffee Maker enabled with WeMo, the HOLMES® Holmes Smart Console Space Heater enabled with WeMo, the HOLMES® Smart Console Humidifier enabled with WeMo, and the HOLMES® Holmes Smart Air Purifier enabled with WeMo.

Crock-Pot Smart Slow Cooker enabled with WeMo - $99.99

• Turn on/off, change temperature or time settings from anywhere
• Receive reminders
• Timer calculates cook times and process
• Works with the WeMo app for iOS or Android
• Manual control option

Aside from growing the WeMo product family in 2014, Belkin also will upgrade the award winning WeMo app to include a customizable long press gesture for the WeMo Light Switch, enhanced sunrise/sunset rules to select a time before or after sunset/sunrise, a simulated occupancy or vacation mode setting and a countdown timer.

Availability
The WeMo LED Lighting Starter Set, WeMo Smart LED Bulbs Crock-Pot Smart Slow Cooker enabled with WeMo and WeMo Maker Kit will be available in spring 2014. The latest version of the WeMo app with the upgraded features will launch in February for both Android and iOS.

Belkin at CES
Visit Belkin at the 2014 International CES in booth #30451 in the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center or on the Web. To schedule a booth tour or an appointment with a Belkin representative, please call Leah Polk at 202-213-4464.

About Belkin International, Inc.
To learn more about Belkin, visit http://www.belkin.com/aboutus/. Like us on Facebook atfacebook.com/belkin, and follow us on Twitter at Twitter.com/belkin.

PCmover Announcement

Press Release:

Lately, Windows users have been discovering issues with using Windows Easy Transfer to upgrade from their old Windows PCs to a new Windows 8.1 PC. Microsoft has since come out in official forums stating that they are reducing support for Windows Easy Transfer in favor of promoting the cloud. This diminished support is seen through the incompatibility with Windows XP and Windows Vista users, as well as the ability to only transfer over data files by using only an external hard drive or USB. Unfortunately, this leaves many Windows users unable to transfer over their old documents, music, settings without a great deal of hassle and extra work. Programs will have to be re-downloaded and installed, serial numbers will need to be dug up, and the transfer process will be a long, grueling one. With support for Windows XP ending this April, many XP users will be looking to make the upgrade to Windows 8.1, but won’t find any help in getting there.

Laplink is aware of customers’ concerns over upgrading or migrating to a new PC and is now offering PCmover Home for free to any user moving from a Windows XP to Windows 8.1. We’re also offering several discounts to help alleviate Windows users’ worries over upgrading. Attached you’ll find our press release, where you can find more information on how PCmover is providing the solution to the Windows Easy Transfer Problem.

Use Windows Easy Transfer over a network to migrate from XP to Windows 8

This hand article from TechRepublic discusses the use of Windows 8’s Windows Easy Transfer tool. If you are planning the big move before Windows XP’s support vanishes next April then this may be helpful to you. While not 100% this will help with the process. One of the drawbacks of using this tool is that it does not transfer applications.This means that you will have to manually reinstall those applications that you are using to access the data.

Another product available out there for you to use is a program from LapLink called LapLink PCmover that we have had pretty good luck with migrating not only your settings and data but also most of your applications. This is very handy and if you wish to purchase a copy for yourself it only costs $59.95. So if you are ready to make the big move to either Windows 7 or 8 from your XP machine this may be a product you’ll want to add to your toolbox.

• Easy-to-Use Wizard
• Now Includes Free Transfer Assistance!
• Set it and Forget it
• Undo Feature
• Complete Selectivity
• Multiple Transfer Scenarios
• User Profile Selectivity

Photos of the Day: LA students get iPads, crack firewall, play games

This is an interesting article from John Rogers of Associated Press. I picked it up from ECN  but it discusses the issues with the iPad roll out in the Los Angeles public school district. They are planning on putting iPads into the hands of their 650,000 students but apparently have not put much thought into security and locking down the devices for what they were intended for. See the full article here.

This is not the only issue that these implementations bring to a head as more and more schools are allowing for wireless connections within their facilities from BYOD (bring your own device) policies. Congestion and control of what is being accessed is also an issue and needs to be addressed as well. Several of the companies that we have partnered with provides us with Best of Class products to implement this kind of control.

Talk to your PAConnect Representative about how we can help you design a system for you.

Lexmark Printer Promotion

Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom CC Deal

Everyone seems to be migrating towards monthly revenue models and Adobe is one of the leaders with this model. Adobe’s Creative Cloud (CC) has been available for a while now and if you are CS3 or higher owner you are eligible are eligible for a special Creative Cloud membership offer that includes all of the following for just $9.99/month: Photoshop CC, Lightroom 5, 20 GB of online storage, Behance ProSite, access to Creative Cloud training resources, and ongoing upgrades and updates. To be clear, $9.99 is not an introductory price. It is the price for those who sign up by December 31, 2013. This offer will be available the week of September 16th at the same time we introduce the new version of Lightroom 5.2. 

I haven’t seen it populate their site yet but keep you eyes open for this to become available. For those of you who only need Photoshop and Lightroom this is a very good deal. Normally Photoshop alone is $19.99/month but to have all of this bundled together for half the price it is hard to beat the price.

Nexus 7 - 2013

My Nexus 7 died again for the third time so Google agreed to refund my money, took about two weeks for the credit to show up, and I used the credit towards buying a newer model of the Nexus 7. The two biggest differences that I have seen so far is the much better screen display and something I really wish the first generation had, a rear-facing camera. The stereo speakers seem a little louder to me and I was very impressed with how easily it moved all of my programs over to it from my Google account. Of course login’s and passwords didn’t come over but the most of the programs that I use did.

There were three models to choose from. The first two are Wi-Fi only and are differentiated by memory (16gb or 32gb) and the third is 32gb, LTE (T-Mobile) and Wi-Fi. I chose the 32gb Wi-Fi only for my updated unit, first I wanted to make sure I had as much room on it as possible and these days I am not getting anything but Wi-Fi since I have both a Verizon hotspot that I carry around with me and my phone (AT&T) will tether as a hotspot as well. While a little more expensive than the generation 1 version the addition of the camera makes a big difference to me and the way that I plan to use it. It is important to me as a work device to help me document site surveys but the absence of the ability to add external memory cards or USB sticks to it is the one thing that would really have liked to see included that was not.

I am impressed with the graphics, everything is much crisper and the sound coming from the stereo speakers seem adequate for personal use. While I haven’t directly timed battery life as of yet, it seems fairly decent. We streamed one of our audio shows for about 4 hours yesterday and at the end it showed about 43% battery life still available. When you consider that was coming over Wi-Fi the whole time and connecting to a Bluetooth speaker for it’s output that seems to be pretty good with that much over the air wireless activity. It feels a little heavier to me and also feels more substantial as compared to the earlier version. I’m sure the battery has something to do with the weight (.64 lbs.) but  it feels like a better quality machine then the first generation.

First impression: You see nothing but smiles from me. I’ll report back with more info as I use it more.

I’m back!

Sorry that I have so quiet for the past month. I had been using my early morning  hours to do my research and writing but lately I have taken to the small screens and either catching up on some old TV shows and/or working on our service board and email to get an early start on the day’s work. Also, a couple of games have become part of my morning and evening rituals and I have had to delete them because they had become so addicting. So, hopefully I am back and will be writing about some of my new additions of hardware that I have acquired and am exploring.

Windows XP SP3 and Office 2003 support ends April 8, 2014. So, what does this mean to you?

Those of us in business environments are going to be the most affected, especially if you are in industries that require your company to maintain certain compliancy's. CPA firms, Law Firms, Banking and other Financial Institutions, Investment Advisors, Medical Offices and other facilities. If you fall under HIPPA requirements this is going to be an issue for you.

But are these the only issues? No! Software companies are constantly updating their software and they are going to stop support of their software on XP based systems. They will not want to expose themselves to the exploits that will become rampant after the end of support by Microsoft. But it isn’t going to be just software but also hardware manufacturers will also stop creating drivers for the products to be supported on this older technology. We have seen it with every discontinued Microsoft Operating System. So begin thinking about want you are going to do to get yourself up to date before it is too late.

The DOJ is poised to really slap Apple for its eBook price fixing case

The terms of the proposed settlement in the Apple e-book price fixing case were published on Friday by the Justice Department. An article by Neil Hughes posted at www.appleinsider.com stated that:

The DOJ said the change would allow consumers on the iPad and iPhone to "easily compare Apple's prices with those of its competitors." Currently, Apple takes a 30 percent cut of all in-app purchases made through App Store software, and does not allow developers to circumvent this rule by linking to a website for purchases.

According to the DOJ statement:

"Under the department’s proposed order, Apple's illegal conduct will cease and Apple and its senior executives will be prevented from conspiring to thwart competition in the future." - Bill Baer, assistant attorney general in charge of the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division”

The result of this would be that Apple would be required to terminate its existing e-book agreements with the (5) major publishers that were originally cited for conspiring to fix prices. Those publishers were Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group,  Macmillan, Penguin Group, and HarperCollins Publishers. This settlement may also include other digital media products that Apple sells as well including music, movies, television, etc…

It will interesting if the proposal made public on Friday will be approved by the court but if it is, there could be some serious ramifications to Apple in the near future hitting them directly on the bottom line.

How Windows knows it has an internet connection

Matt sent this link out to us and I thought that it was so good I just had to make it available. It is an interesting article describing the behind the scenes working of what the Wi-Fi connection services is doing when connecting you to a Wi-Fi access point. For us, this works so wondrously that we don’t ever give it a second thought but it is always nice to have a little more information at your fingertips because you never know when you might need it.

Read Article Here

Getting a Grip on Mobile Malware

View this on-demand webcast to understand how and why the popularity of Android devices makes them an increasingly attractive target for malware writers. You’ll also learn what you can do to keep mobile malware at bay.

View this video

5 Tips for Securing Your Wireless Network

Balancing security, manageability and accessibility for employees and guests

Setting up security for the wireless router in your basement is easy. But securing wireless networks in a business environment is much more demanding.

This whitepaper offers best practices that help administrators go beyond the basics of wireless security to provide advanced security, manageability and accessibility. We also show how Sophos UTM Wireless Protection helps address these issues.

Download the whitepaper

Camtasia Studio Tutorial: Stitching Essentials

Stitching, new in Camtasia Studio 8.1, fixes a problem we'd been hearing about from quite a few customers. Previously, when you made cuts from a video to get rid of unwanted footage, you'd end up with two distinct video clips. Two clips that act independently from one another could be useful in some cases, but if you wanted to add in animations or visual properties that carried over, you'd have to duplicate quite a bit of work.

Now, when you make cuts from your videos, the two clips that result will be automatically stitched together. Stitched clips are treated as one piece of media. That means your transitions will flow seamlessly across the timeline making your videos even more stellar.

Watch the full tutorial to see what else you can do with stitching.

Watch the Video »

TechSmith: Ask3

User Story: Boyne City iPad Initiative Spurs Digital Learning at Every Age

Boyne City, a small town located in northern Michigan, has made a commitment to digital learning. With the city's 1:1 iPad Initiative, every student in the district has access to an iPad. But once students get the tablets into their hands, what should they do with them? Having the technology is one thing, but harnessing it to enhance learning experience is quite another.

Three teachers from Boyne City have been implementing some big ideas to do exactly that.

Check out the customer story to see how Erin Mastin, Rebecca Wildman, and Erin Luckhardt are using Ask3 to help students take charge of their learning.

Got classroom iPads? Ask3 enables students and teachers to collaborate on lessons in and outside of the classroom. By turning your iPad into a recordable whiteboard, lessons can be posted into an Ask3 classroom where others can add text and video comments, questions and answers. With Ask3, peer teaching is possible - anywhere and anytime.

Create a Classroom
With our latest release of Ask3, you can now create multiple classes.  Teachers can create classes for each of their courses and create extra ones for their professional development or professional learning networks.

Learn more about Ask3 and see it in action. Or, try it for yourself! Ask3 is free and can be downloaded from the iTunes store.

Already Tried Ask3?
What did you think? Let us know what you like, or what you would change. If you haven't yet rated Ask3 on the iPad app store, we would love for you to do so! You can also submit your feedback and questions directly to us here at TechSmith.

Ask3 in Schools
See how Boyne City Public Schools are using Ask3 to improve communication in classes of all grade levels. Read the full story on our website.

Learn More »

SC Magazine awards Sophos Mobile Control v3.5 a 5 Star Rating

Sophos Mobile Control v3.5

QUICK READ

• Strengths: Easy to deploy and manage with a vast set of features.
• Weaknesses: Administrator guides could have had a few more visual elements.
• Verdict: If the documentation was just a bit more complete, this would be a perfect-scoring product. Even so, Sophos Mobile Control receives our Recommended designation.

Read the full article here…

OWA available for iOS devices now

Take a quick look at the Exchange Team Blog entry announcing the availability of the new OWA App for both the iPhone and the iPad. It will show you setup and screenshots of the application but the one drawback is that you need to have an Office 365 account to get it.

See the article here.

Dropbox Platform Announcement plans to sync everything in the cloud

Dropbox held its first developer conference and used this meeting to announce an new initiative called “Dropbox Platform” that provides a set of APIs that are said to deliver an easy cross-platform syncing solution for just about any form of data.

At the heart of Dropbox Platform is a new API called Datastore, which allows apps to sync almost all types of data, including settings, to-do lists, and game saves, across a number of platforms. The new platform was detailed at Dropbox's event and on its official blog.

"When you use an app built with datastores your data will be up-to-date across all devices whether you’re online or offline," writes Drew Houston. "Imagine a task-tracking app that works on both your iPhone and the web. If it’s built with the Datastore API, you can check off items from your phone during a cross-country flight and add new tasks from your computer and Dropbox will make sure the changes don’t clobber each other."

While a few apps have already been using Dropbox in this manner, the new API will offer developers an easily accessible method to tap into the company's cloud.

Here is their Live from DBX blog post from today.

FAA easing ban on electronics during takeoff, landing

Interesting article from arstechnica:

The words "please stow all electronic devices" may soon disappear from the scripts of flight attendants. The Federal Aviation Administration is poised to lift its ban on the use of electronic devices aboard airline flights at elevations under 10,000 feet. It would also allow the use of e-readers, iPods, tablets, and phones in "airplane" mode even during take-offs and landings. The Wall Street Journal reports that the FAA is circulating a draft set of recommendations from an advisory panel that recommends relaxing the bans. Use of cell phones during flight would still be banned.

The report acknowledges that technology has changed dramatically since the FAA originally placed the ban on electronic devices during takeoff and landing back in the 1960s, when there were valid concerns about interference to aircraft communications from personal radios and other electronics. The panel also admitted that having airlines each evaluate the safety of individual electronic devices before allowing them to be left on at low altitude "has become untenable." Passengers are widely ignoring the ban already, and the FAA advisory panel's report cited research that showed a third of airline passengers had "accidentally" left a device turned on for entire flights at least once.

An FAA spokeswoman sent a statement to the Wall Street Journal that said that the FAA "recognizes consumers are intensely interested in the use of personal electronics aboard aircraft, that is why we tasked a government-industry group to examine the safety issues and the feasibility of changing the current restrictions. At the group's request, the FAA has granted the two-month extension to complete the additional work necessary for the safety assessment."