Here we all are in the middle of 2010.
As the natural world continues to fall apart at the seams with historically record breaking oil spills, melting unforgiving heat waves, mind numbing glacial meltdowns and the continued onslaught of our rain forests, and in a general way how mankind just sh*ts where he eats, it is clear we are losing ground. We are walking on thin ice and I can hear the cracks spread out in all directions.
In all this however we do have a bright spot on our highway to hell with the continued neck breaking high speed advancements in technology.
Smart phones. I never thought I would indulge in one due to the high cost (relatively speaking), but I finally broke down. I admit it, I am weak.
I just acquired a Motorola Droid X into my sweaty hands and absolutely love it. I had a heck of a time finding one, all the suppliers said I would have to wait until the end of the month at least.
I happened to be in Ft.Lauderdale and started scouring all the Costco's and finally tracked one down in Boca Raton. I drove up to Boca and found that indeed they had 2 in stock. Not surprising looking at the local population shopping there. They were all over 65 and had gray hair.
I then thought to myself that's why they had a few left after the initial feeding frenzy that always goes on when the latest hot gadgets come out. These folks are beyond the age to be interested in this stuff although I'm sure there was a hip granny or two who did spring for a Droid X and no doubt were the first ones in line whacking people back with their canes.
In the check out line there was a guy who had 2 dozen bottles of wine and I got a great tip on wine, Columbia Crest (not from California, sorry folks. Washington state). It goes for around $12 a bottle and easily worth $25. I did not know this, but the guy said that one critical factor is the alcohol content. Anything near 15% or above is going to be a high end wine, that's why this wine was such a steal.
There are two camps at this point for this rapidly growing group of Smart phone fanatics:
Android vs iPhone
I can share some things about the Android, C4Chaos would have to weight in on the iPhone (I am sure they will fix the disastrous iPhone 4 with the future iPhone 5, and by then Verizon will have the Apple contract also for those who are fed up with the chronically dropped calls from AT&T). I don't like corporatism, but I guess we must live with the fact that it's beyond our capacity to build a CPU chip or an internal combustion engine (preferably electric motors such as found in the Tesla) from scratch (well, most of us anyway), and so must rely on "big brother" corporations to provide those goodies.
Before appearing biased due to my preferences, here is a good comparative review of the Droid X vs the HTC Evo 4G (Droid will be going 4G as well, so Verizon claims)
(also a chart below showing even more Androids)
http://blog.laptopmag.com/motorola-droid-x-vs-htc-evo-4gAs this thread suggests, Smart phones are truly integral technologies.
For Android newbies: 10 questions, answered
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ytech_gadg/20100813/tc_ytech_gadg/ytech_gadg_tc3422The Droid X comes with the OS Android 2.1, but will be upgraded to 2.2 within 1 month.
It's Google's OS and integrates great with all the Google goodies.
The browser is fast a lightening with the 1 GHZ processor helping out and will be even faster when Verizon goes 4G (at no extra cost, so they claim. All these carriers lie like hell by the way and you never know until the time comes what they are going to do.)
The apps aren't as plentiful as Apples (70,000+ vs 250,000+), but its enough to get started. many of the nice ones on Android are free. The only app I did pay for was a brilliant Zen Timer that was 1.99. There's a free meditation entrainment app, basic though (IPhone has a very nice one called "Mindwave". Admittedly, Apple does have some sweet apps as well).
Of course, Google Earth, Google Sky, GMail, Google Latitude, Google Maps, etc. Google Latitude is useful. I can track exactly where my daughter is as long as her phone is on. They triangulate the phone signal and pinpoint it on a map, it can also be GPS based (Oh yes, you also can have a GPS for the phone to guide you through the streets of San Francisco).
The call quality is great.
You Tube, Facebook, Twitter, e-book readers such as Kindle and Nook. There's a free one that gives you free public domain books such as Siddhartha and Plato.
It can be a Wi Fi hot spot to feed up to 5 laptops. 8 Megapixel Camera and HD camcorder for those who like filming. You can stream HD TV onto your HD TV both on a wire and wireless.
Movies too of course.
The screen is huge.
Voice activation and promting. For example, I just speak into the phone "Ken Wilber" and in 2 seconds there's Ken Wilber links up for you on Google in the browser. Voice emails too, you can dictate "Notes To Self", say your piece and the thing will automatically email you what you said.
Financials are good, I can log into my bank account on a browser, the "My Verizon" app can instantly tell you where you are in your monthly usage.
I did the basic - 450 min. / unlimited data / 250 texts per month. I get a 22% discount on the bill (it's $58 a month). Upgrades to new technology allowed yearly (in case I get an iPhone craving).
For those who live across the pond or over the border, this phone has SKYPE integrated into it and so free international calls for SKYPE to SKYPE on cellphone to cellphone and/or to computer, love it.
There's more to this toy
, but I prefer calling it a tool.
(Feel like 007)
P.S. Don't want to sound like a marketing story here, just trying to report facts, maybe slightly slanted with personal preference, I don't know.
Michael, can you write a free HeartMind app for us and submit it to Google?
Or animated wallpapers from your video art would be very cool! (I'm using Zen Pond, very nice, animated ripples and leaves)
Good source of income perhaps, a buck or two to download those wonderful animated images worldwide could make you rich.
Note to self -
iPhone users have much more sex than Android users (and a perfect reason to switch!)
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20013268-71.html
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