FIELDS

Google curates points of interest with Field Trip for iPhone

Field Trip (Android|iPhone) helps you find out more about your current location by sending you notifications when you're near landmarks, restaurants, historical sites, and other noteworthy spots. The app draws information from several sources, including Arcadia, Historvius, Food Network, Zagat, Atlas Obscura, Daily Secret, and others to enrich your experience of locations you wouldn't know were uniquely interesting otherwise. You can use it as a personal tour guide or share interesting locales over Facebook and Twitter.

The app also lets you set the frequency of notifications from none to an Explore mode that gives you all the … Read more

6 things I want to do with NFC (Smartphones Unlocked)

Tapping your phone on a console to pay for fries and a Coke is cool. Yet until the stars align, it's not how you'll be using NFC, the Near Field Communications standard that gets devices talking to one another quickly and in a very short range.

Instead of using NFC to replace your credit card, it will increasingly become your passcode, your key. Best of all, it can be used to program one tag with a certain set of instructions that can launch specific actions when read by another NFC-enabled device.

In other words, just one tap of … Read more

Apple files patent for Passbook coupons with a touch of NFC

A new patent from Apple provides loads of information on Passbook and hints at the possibility of using near-field communications with the app.

Published today by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the patent, dubbed "Integrated Coupon Storage, Discovery, And Redemption System," goes into great detail about a system that lets you manage and redeem electronic coupons on a mobile device.

As described in the patent, such a system could trigger an alert on your phone when you're near a store where a saved coupon can be used. It could also alert you when you're … Read more

Lytro adds more ways to interact with its living pictures

Photos taken with Lytro's light field camera (aka living pictures) were already more interactive than a regular snapshot, letting you endlessly refocus the images by clicking on different parts of them. An upcoming software update takes the interactivity up a notch, letting you change the perspective of your shots, too.

The free Lytro Desktop software update, which rolls out December 4, adds this Perspective Shift feature, enabling Lytro users to slightly change the point of view of a living picture by clicking and dragging it in any direction.

For example, click and hold on the picture at the top … Read more

iPad Mini won't be the only Apple news

Monday's CNET Update dusts off the crystal ball:

Everyone is eager to learn about the rumored iPad Mini, but today's tech news roundup looks at what else Apple will be announcing. We're expecting to see at least one new computer, such as an iMac or Mac Mini. Apple CEO Tim Cook has said that the Mac Pro will get an update in 2013, so it may be too soon to announce that. As for laptops, there have been reports that Apple will give the 13-inch MacBook Pro a retina display.

When Apple does unveil the iPad Mini, … Read more

Hybrids vs. convertibles: CNET's field guide to Windows 8 hardware

Coming soon, a veritable evolutionary explosion of Windows 8 devices will be bearing down on you. Big small, tablety, not tablety, full of touch, and ready to fold into strange shapes for your general amusement.

Welcome to the Windows 8 Field Guide, an Audubon's Birds-style attempt to help you identify the classifications and subphyla of this odd new computing world. It's not as hard as you think, once you break down the various common types. Be forewarned: these classifications are works in progress, and there could very well be more evolutionary variants coming soon. But, hopefully, this should help classify some of the multipurpose strangeness you're already starting to see on preorder pages.

Of course, you still have laptops, desktops, and tablets. Some of these tablets will have one of two operating systems: Windows 8 or Windows RT.

After that, the classifications get a little more diffused.… Read more

Four forgotten Google-made Android apps

Ever heard of Google's GPS-tracking app called My Tracks? What about its bucket-list-like service called Schemer? In fact, you may be surprised to know that Google has actually developed several dozen Android apps, many of which you've never heard of. Here, we take a look at four such titles that are all incredibly interesting and can be surprisingly useful.

My Tracks A great tool for outdoors enthusiasts, My Tracks records your path, speed, distance, and even elevation while you walk, run, bike, or do anything else that a GPS signal can follow. Visually, the app is a snoozer, … Read more

iPad Mini rumors ramp up

Tuesday's CNET Update turns up the heat:

More rumors about the iPad Mini are cropping up. We've previously heard that the iPad Mini may be unveiled in October, but a source tells Fortune that Apple will send press invites next week for an October announcement. In addition, a Japanese Apple blog says a Brazilian factory has begun production of the iPad Mini, and other blogs have been showing purported images of parts, including rear casings and screen covers.

The "sexy" thermostat is back. Nest 2.0, the second generation of the learning thermostat, is 20 percent … Read more

HP adds Windows 8-ready Envy, Pavilion, and Spectre all-in-ones

You might know HP's Spectre product best as a home for the company's high-end, high-concept laptops. With the SpectreOne, announced today, HP brings an all-in-one PC into that fold. The question is whether its features match its high-price.

HP says the SpectreOne will begin at $1,299 when it launches in the U.S. in November. In addition to the stylized design, the SpectreOne includes a non-touch, 23.6-inch, 1,920x1,080-pixel display, a touch pad, and near-field communication (NFC) technology, dubbed HP TouchZone. It also has no built-in optical drive.

The touch pad makes HP the second … Read more

iPhone 5 aside, what is NFC? (FAQ)

Though it's increasingly less certain that near field communication (NFC) will appear in the iPhone 5, it's a technology that's built into a lot of high-profile products already. So, what is it exactly? And how relevant is it today?

What is NFC? NFC is a short-range wireless connectivity technology that uses magnetic-field induction to enable communication between electronic devices in close proximity. (Faraday's law: any change in the magnetic environment of a coil of wire will cause a voltage to be induced in the coil.)

NFC can operate in three modes, according to an NFC whitepaper: … Read more