Daily Tech and Gadget

iPad My wife and I are currently cruising the Baltic aboard the Disney Magic . Of course, two things we couldn’t leave at home were our iPhones and iPads. One thing we found immediately was that many of the crew members and passengers on the Magic had never seen an iPad, and they were fascinated with the device. As an example, Burak, the manager of one of the three restaurants on the ship, had me demo the iPad to his wife

At the WWDC keynote today Steve Jobs demonstrated not only the new iPhone 4 but also lots of new applications and features that are part of iOS 4. These apps, which included Netflix for the iPhone , FarmVille and Guitar Hero look really fantastic, but they also look pretty bandwidth intensive. While that might not be a problem provided users are connected via WiFi or on a network that can provide these theoretically awesome HSDPA/HSUPA speeds, what does this mean for iPhone users who might have data limits imposed on them by their carriers?

The Misconception: We prefer the things we own over the things we don’t because we made rational choices when we bought them. The Truth? More » Apple – Games – Business – Marketing and Advertising – Recreation

This series is supported by The Poynter Institute’s Mobile Media blog – your guide to the intersection of mobile and media. Sign up to receive the blog in newsletter format and be entered into a drawing to win an iPad at Poynter.org/ipadgiveaway . News media — including newspapers, news weeklies and TV news programs — was struggling long before the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession. It was a struggle, however, that many investors in 2006 and 2007 perceived as merely a temporary setback — a setback they attempted to capitalize on by snatching up seemingly undervalued media companies

For many of us, the most exciting part of Google I/O today was the announcement of Google TV . Google and its partners are trying to make the connected living room a success and bridge the gap between the computer and the television at long last. Jolie O’Dell has already given us a run-down of what Google TV is , but what does Google TV mean for existing players in this space and the future of connected devices? How does Google TV impact companies like Apple, Boxee, PopBox and others

When Google upgraded their Local Business Center to Google Places , it launched the opening salvo in what we expect to be a long war for local advertising dollars. With local advertising revenues expected to reach $144.9 billion in 2014 according to BIA/Kelsey — and more and more dollars are shifting away from traditional media toward digital media buys — the new war for local ad spend will be a battle between the Internet titans and social networks. Facebook , Twitter , Google , Microsoft , Foursquare , Yelp and even Apple are all attempting to carve out their own niche offering for local advertising dollars.

Recently, Lady Gaga has overtaken Barack Obama in the number of Twitter followers. I briefly considered writing about it, and I’m sure the story would generate some interest. Instead, however, I’ll cover a topic that was very hot three years ago, and I feel that only now we can draw some definite conclusions from it: Digg ’s top user list and its removal in February 2007 . Looking at all the little things that turned Twitter into a huge social media success story, the competition to become the most popular Twitter user (or at least more popular than your peers) is an important piece of the puzzle.

iPad David Frampton has an interesting idea for how to display non-universal iPhone apps on the iPad : put a black border around them , much like how iPhone apps will display if they are not scaled-up. I think it’s a brilliant idea. It makes them distinguishable, but at the same time seems not to obvious. If you look at iPhone apps on the iPad today, you may be able to tell the difference between the 57×57 pixel icons for iPhone apps versus 72×72 for native/universal iPad apps.

iPad Fellow TUAW blogger Michael Grothaus gave us his take on utilizing the iPad as an ebook reader over the weekend. It’s is a good look into some of the down sides of ebook readers like the iPad , Kindle , Sony Reader, et. al. I’m the type of bibliophile that reads a lot of different things at once

The Social Analyst is a weekly column by Mashable Co-Editor Ben Parr , where he digs into social media trends and how they are affecting companies in the space. Apple has entered the gaming business with a bang . Who would have thought that we’d be talking about Apple as a video game juggernaut even two years ago?

iPad It was the newest of technologies, it was the oldest of technologies. A while back I wrote an opinion piece on my lament over Penguin Books’ John Makinson trying to reinvent books on the iPad. In response to the article, I received emails that ranged from people calling me a Luddite to readers asking me to petition Penguin to keep books from becoming audio, video, and streaming monstrosities. What people on both sides the debate misunderstood was that I am not against ebooks.

Something happened in the mid-80’s that forever shaped the way I thought video games would be when I got older. And that something was this scene from the Japanese animated series Macross. More »

As we reported earlier today, Hewlett-Packard announced its plans to purchase Palm for $1.2 billion . The acquisition comes a few weeks after Palm put itself up for sale and less than a week after potential suitor HTC walked away from the table . The deal comes as a bit of a surprise, given that it was Lenovo, not HP, who seemed most likely to acquire the struggling mobile company.

When it comes to innovation and accessibility, the iPhone , iPad and iPod touch are collectively the most exciting gaming platform since the early 90s. Who would have thought a cell phone would become the most diverse and innovative video game console? For this, credit can only partially be given to Apple. Though Apple created the platform, the initiative and passion of thousands of individual game developers (and relatively small development studios) have made iPhone gaming what it is

iPad OK, I’ve had my iPad for exactly 19 days today. Over that time, just about everyone who knows that I have the device has asked the same question: “So, how do you like it?” The easy answer is that I love this device in a very unnatural way, but there’s more to the answer than that. I’ve learned a lot about myself and how I use my computers through the time I spend with the iPad every day.