life

A few months ago, Tessa Hulls ventured on a cross-country bike trip from San Diego to the East Coast after breaking up with her boyfriend. Hulls is still peddling away on her solo ride, but her family has, in a sense, joined her. She's attached a GPS locator to her pink and white bike and downloaded an iPhone app called Life360 so her family can see her location in real time, whenever they want to.

A couple of days ago, her brother Chris Hulls was curious about his sister's whereabouts, so he clicked on the Life360 app on his iPhone. She was in Connecticut.

Until now, subscribers needed an Android device or iPhone to use the mobile security service. Last week, however, Life360 opened up its service to non-smartphone users and customers subscribing to all carriers except MetroPCS, as a way to tap into a bigger market of consumers.

"For smartphones, we get your location through a mix of GPS, cell triangulation, and Wi-Fi data. We save that on our server and share it with your family members," said Chris Hulls, who also happens to be Life360's co-founder. "For non-smartphones, we do the same thing, but instead of getting the location from our app, we get it from the carriers directly." … Read more

This morning, CNET posted a story about how Amazon--after Barnes & Noble had claimed that its new Nook e-reader offered two months of battery life--had changed the battery life figures on its Web site for the Kindle WiFi and Kindle 3G to match the new Nook's.

Apparently, Amazon felt that Barnes & Noble had come up with its numbers using an equation based on having the wireless completely turned off and reading for just 30 minutes a day. Amazon's original one-month battery life for the Kindle was based a user reading for one hour a day with the wireless turned off. So it went ahead and updated the Kindle's battery life numbers to reflect Barnes & Noble's equation and clarified the new numbers with the following promotional copy on the Kindle's product page:

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As the iPhone 4 approaches its first birthday (and previous models approach their second, third, etc.), it's time to start looking at ways to improve battery life. After all, it's around the one-year mark that most batteries start to lose some capacity, meaning your phone simply won't run as long as it used to between charges.

New York Times tech columnist David Pogue recently got four iPhone battery tips from an Apple store Genius--some of them obvious, some not-so-obvious. Here's an overview of the advice, along with my thoughts and two additional tips from yours truly.… Read more

When Amazon first launched its latest-generation Kindle e-reader last year, it touted the fact that it could get up to a month's worth of battery life. That same figure is mentioned in a variety of print and television ads.

But after Barnes & Noble launched the new Nook yesterday and played up the Simple Touch Reader's 2 months of battery life (B&N called it the "longest battery life of any eReader"), Amazon countered by magically upping the battery life of the Kindle to two months as the company released a $164 Special Offers version … Read more

Do you own an Android-powered smartphone or tablet? If so, how's your battery life?

I ask because based on what I've heard from others and experienced myself, it's atrocious. And I'm wondering if it's symptomatic of the Android platform as a whole, or just the nature of modern-day mobile gear. Cast your vote in our poll, then meet me below for more discussion.

As I noted in a recent BNET post, "The dirty Android secret no one's talking about," I first encountered battery issues with the Virgin Mobile Samsung Intercept. Out of the box, it couldn't last 24 hours--even with e-mail sync and other battery-consuming tasks disabled.

Rather, I'd start the day with it fully charged, and by late afternoon it would be dead. Thankfully, freeware app JuiceDefender made a huge difference, allowing me to go a full two days without AC assistance.

Then I updated the OS from 2.1 to 2.2 (Froyo), which I'd heard was much better at power management--and battery life actually got worse. Now, once again, I'm lucky to get 24 hours.

Last week I had the opportunity to review Samsung's Galaxy Tab Wi-Fi, which I found to be excellent overall--until the next morning, when I woke up to--wait for it--a dead tablet. The aforementioned JuiceDefender helps a little, but ultimately the Tab is seriously hobbled by its battery. And I am seriously disappointed.… Read more

Testing tablets can sometimes be a time-consuming endeavor, especially when a tablet like the iPad 2 can last for well over 10 hours on one charge while running video. To make matters worse, the iPad 2 has no loop option for video. This means that when running a movie like "Toy Story 3" to drain the battery, every 1 hour and 40 minutes, I am required to be standing in front of this thing to restart the movie.

I have to basically plan my entire day around testing: when I take lunch, bathroom visits, meetings, Starcraft II matches, etc. It also means I have to be at work for more than 12 hours on the days the iPad is battery-tested.

Being able to loop the video until the battery dies would be the obvious, desired solution, but unfortunately, there is no way (that I know of) to loop iTunes-downloaded video on the iPad. There are a few apps out there that claim to loop video, but I had little luck with them. Sure, one was able to loop video recorded by the iPad 2, but again, not with video downloaded from iTunes.

Below you'll find new results for video battery life of the iPad 2 and gaming battery life on all three tablets featured here. Also, if you're privy to a workaround that allows iTunes downloaded video to loop on the iPad 2, do not hesitate to pass it along. You'll save me from some very long workdays.… Read more

For conspiracy theorists, it sounded like a giant step closer to their "Eureka" moment.

Earlier, the British publication The Sun set the ticker hopping with a report that "real-life FBI X-Files have emerged sensationally claiming flying saucers piloted by aliens did crash on Earth." The Telegraph published a similar piece and the Internet did the rest. It wasn't long before their lead was followed by dozens of other publications around the world.

A call to the FBI may have helped, where the only news at the agency's Washington headquarters was that traffic to its … Read more

Google has purchased Toronto-based PushLife, which helps people easily sync their music collection stored on their PC with their mobile phones, including BlackBerry and Android devices. The software works with either iTunes or Windows Media Player. TechVibes.com is reporting that Google paid about $25 million for the three-year-old company. A Google representative did not comment on the terms but said: "We believe the team has a wealth of experience building cool mobile applications, and we think they'll make a great addition to our mobile team."

So, I got a Nintendo 3DS roughly three weeks ago, ahead of the officially released one that's now in stores everywhere. Nintendo's handheld is in the wild, and while I've used mine a fair amount, I'm curious how those not in tech journalism feel about the product.

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the 3D effect on the 3DS, but I wondered whether 3D would be a gimmick whose appeal faded quickly. Much like any shiny new gadget, there's a quick fascination period that tapers off pretty fast, especially if you're the type (as I happen to be) who plays with a lot of gadgets over the course of any given month.

Several weeks in, here are my observations.

I (almost) never use the stylus. The DS' chief appeal, along with dual screens, was its touch element. The 3DS still has a stylus and a lower touch screen, but the stylus is tucked away in the back behind the display, instead of easily accessible on the side. Maybe this was a wink of acknowledgement on Nintendo's part, because so far I've barely used touch. Why? Because I'm too busy staring at that big 3D screen, that's why.

The addition of a great analog pad also means I'm far more likely to use physical buttons. The 3DS is an immersive portable experience, and I'm far less interested in pulling back and tapping away with a stylus. I think most 3DS games will make little to no use of that touch capability, except in cases like Super Street Fighter IV, where virtual lower-screen buttons are simply pressed with a finger.

… Read more