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Today, the mobile virtual-network operator known as GreatCall announced its latest cell phone for the elderly: the Samsung GreatCall r220.

Also known as the Jitterbug Plus, this feature phone looks a lot more modern than older Jitterbug models.

In addition to a big keypad and a clear user interface, several emergency and wellness services tie in with the handset. One is 5Star Urgent Response. When you're in an emergency situation or feel unsafe (for example, while walking to your car at night in an empty parking lot), you can call a live agent, available 24-7. The agent can then … Read more

Gone is the dashboard of icons that once greeted you upon opening Google+ for Android. Now, you can zip around the app with a sliding navigation ribbon on the left of the screen. This gives you easier access to your Stream, Profile, Messenger, Hangout, Photos, and Circles. As a whole, the app is easy to use and just as intuitive as its desktop counterpart.

Home What used to be called Stream is now simply your Google+ Home screen. This is the lifeblood of Google+. With the little drop-down at the top, you can choose to show feeds from All Circles, … Read more

Thursday's big headlines still have us basking in the Google gadget glow:

Google co-founder Sergey Brin says he envisions consumers buying Google Glass by 2014, just a year after developers get to experiment with the version called Explorer Edition. Right now only bleeding-edge techies at the Google I/O conference get to preorder the augmented reality glasses for $1,500. But once those models ship next year, it wouldn't surprise me to see some being sold for high prices on eBay.

Already, someone from the conference is selling the attendee freebie Nexus 7 tablet on eBay, if you … Read more

When the smartphone craze first started, the thought of being able to stream a movie or TV show while commuting into work or waiting at the airport was simply a dream. Screens were small, coverage was spotty, and it was hard to find shows you actually wanted to see. Fast forward to today, and streaming content on the go is genuinely good.

We rounded up seven apps that provide a great streaming experience on your Android device, whether you're sitting on the couch with solid Wi-Fi or out and about with a 3G or 4G connection. Here they are. … Read more

When it comes to storage, you definitely don't want to risk getting stuck with a lemon. That's because, unlike other commodities like a car or a TV, when a storage device breaks down, chances are you lose a lot more than just the drive itself. It's a painful experience to see your invaluable data vanish. Take my word for it on this.

But you likely don't want to spend too much, either, and want your storage device to be easily accessible, especially on the go since there's not much use for your data if it always has to stay at home.

Bearing that in mind, compact and portable external hard drives are arguably the most popular form of storage. They have room to hold lots of data, often more than your laptop or ultrabook can, without being big or heavy. Following is the list of the top five portable USB 3.0-based drives that are the best among their peers, offering great performance, large storage space, compact design, and sometimes even the kind of toughness that will withstand drops and submersion in water. Most importantly, you can easily find them for less than $100. Have more to spend? You can get larger capacities that cost more.

Note that these drives also work with USB 2.0 (MacBook Air owners, you're included here) and they are all bus-powered, so you don't need a separate power adapter to use them.… Read more

I'm not sure I like the name, but Belkin has made a surprise entry into the place-shifting arena with @TV Plus, a $149.99 set-top box that allows your to stream video from your home TV to your tablet, smartphone, or laptop over Wi-Fi or a 3G/4G cellular connection.

Belkin makes no bones about it: this is a direct competitor to Slingbox, which was acquired by EchoStar a few years ago and has languished a bit while maintaining the dominant position in the niche place-shifting market.

Like the Slingbox, @TV Plus works with both standard and high-definition programming … Read more

There's no question that some notifications are very useful. However, on some occasions you will find that your inbox is being swamped with too much information about your social networks. For instance, if you have Google+ installed on your mobile device, not only will you receive a push notification there, but you'll also receive an e-mail telling you about the notification. And after a while, this process starts to sound too similar to the Xzibit meme that circled the Interwebs for quite some time. (Except this would read more like: "yo dawg we heard you like notifications, … Read more

We find to-do lists to be one of the easiest ways to increase our productivity and ensure that everything gets done. We typically go for a notepad and pen, but there are definite advantages to using software instead: it's easier to reorder and prioritize tasks and keep the list looking neat and clean. TodoPlus is a simple program that really only does one thing -- creates to-do lists -- and does it well. We think it's a great choice if you're looking for a straightforward way to organize your tasks.

TodoPlus has a plain and intuitive interface, … Read more

Seagate today launched a new family of external hard drives that's a continuation of its popular GoFlex line-up but now with a completely different name: the Seagate Backup Plus family.

While the GoFlex name is now in the past, the flexibility remains with the external hard drives. The new Seagate Backup drives come in both a portable version, called Seagate Backup Plus, and a desktop version, called Seagate Backup Plus Desk. The former are bus-powered drives that are compact and don't require an external power adapter. The latter are larger drives, both in terms of physical size and … Read more