http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTOAnlM5muM

Zev Mo and Ray talk about the HP TouchSmart 310 PC, an all-in-one Windows machine that has some really nice features. We gave this computer a 4 out of 5 remotes… find out why!

Stats:
- Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
- AMD Athlon II X2 240e Dual-Core Processor (2.80GHz)
- ATI Radeon HD 4270 integrated graphics
- 640GB 7200RPM Serial ATA hard drive
- 2GB DDR3 memory
- Slim-tray DVD burner with LightScribe
- Wireless-N LAN card
- HP Wireless Keyboard and Wireless Optical Mouse
- Touch-enabled 20″ diagonal widescreen HD LCD Display

Pros:
- Touch screen is very nice feature (pinch, rotate, arc, flick, press, drag)
- Built-in speakers are actually good
- It?s an all-in-one computer
- Pretty much cord-free

Cons:
- On screen keyboard is terrible
- Bloat-ware installed

Ratings
- 4 remotes

Ramon B. Nuez Jr and Zev Mo Green give our 5 Kinect family game night picks for the holiday season.

1. Kinect: Disneyland Adventures
2. Kinectimals Now With Bears
3. Fruit Ninja Kinect
4. Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster
5. Xbox 360 Kinect: Sports Season Two

Stats:

All these games require Kinect

Pros:

Kinect: Disneyland Adventures

• Love walking around Disney and hugging the characters
• Taking pics was cool
• Characters will sign your book
• Jump-in co-op mode nice

Kinectimals Now With Bears

• Love playing with the bears -Great graphics

Fruit Ninja Kinect

• Just pure fun with the family or party

Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster

• Very interactive

XBOX 360 Kinect: Sports Season Two

• Incredibly fun and golf is addictive

Cons:

Kinect: Disneyland Adventures Kinect is necessary

• Some movements are complicated with Kinect (i.e. paddling a boat)

Kinectimals Now With Bears

• None really but may be boring for older kids

Fruit Ninja Kinect

• None really

Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster

• A little bit difficult to navigate through the stories

XBOX 360 Kinect: Sports Season Two

• Kinect did not always react to voice commands

Yesterday Microsoft invited us to a private preview of Kinect for XBOX 360 — at the beautiful MPE Penthouse. Now we have been invited to a handful of private previews this past year. What made last night such a pleasure was being able to see a very polished Kinect sensor. We were met by a handful of Microsoft Entertainment and Devices representatives — they were very eager to show off all the refined features. Throughout the salon Microsoft had a number of Kinect stations setup for demonstration. We started off the night with Video Kinect.

Microsoft explained that XBOX movies can be accessed either through NetFlix or Zune – which supports 1080p streaming and 5.1 surround sound. The Kinect philosophy is – “a controller free experience.” So after a number of hand gestures Harry Potter begins to play. As the movie starts you immediately see a scroll bar pop up. This scroll bar is controlled by simple hand gestures – which allow you to stop, fast forward, play and rewind a movie. It was impressive to watch how easy and accurate the sensor was.

Please ready the rest at the Huffington Post.

The mobile market has been rockin’ and rollin’ over the past year and a half.  From the rise and demise of Palm’s WebOS, to the almost weekly release of Android devices, the mobile OS drama was in full swing.  It’s funny to look back and see the comments written about Android’s failure due to a lack of hardware devices.  Now it seems to be the complete opposite.

Meanwhile, back at the bat-cave, Microsoft has remained relatively quiet about their next jump in that space.  That is, of course, until a few months ago when Windows Phone 7 was announced.  Some basic screen-shots were released, and a few select people were able to see the project first-hand, but there has still been a close to the vest approach to their release.

Dads On Tech was given amazing access to the newest version of the Windows Phone 7, last week.  And in addition to a walk-through of some of the newest features, we were given a device to test out over the upcoming weeks.

Our embargo was released on Monday morning, so I can now give a few comments about the mobile environment we have used for the past few days.

The Phone

The hardware was not the focus of the preview, mostly it was just the canvas for the OS platform to run on with some basic specs.  So don’t get too hung up on the appearance or capabilities of the phone, but rather the Windows Phone 7 interface.  Microsoft did mention, however, that there will be certain minimum requirements for their OEM companies to have on their equipment to be able to run WP7.  Specifically, a minimum of a 1Ghz processor, and at least 512MB RAM.  Also, each phone will have the same 3 button layout on the bottom, under the screen (Back, Windows Home, and Search).

Setup

The initial setup is easy.  It is similar to how Android phones set up their mail accounts, contacts, and calendar.  There are a few main services that you can sync with (Google, Windows Live, Facebook, Yahoo, Exchange, etc.) right away, and that allows the WP7OS to begin the back-end collection of data.

Walk-through and interface

You can see that Microsoft decided to depart almost entirely from their previous mobile environment, and for anyone who has used the WinMo platform will attest to, that was needed.  WP7OS takes a minimalist approach to the mobile market, by using very subtle color elements, but keeping the transitions and fonts modern.  If you are familiar with the Zune, this is very much a relative of that interface, and the music side of this OS is practically the same.

The entirety of what you would consider the ‘desktop’ or ‘Home’ are two main screens, an ‘Applications list’  and settings, and another ‘Tiles’ screen where you can place (Pin) animated informational icons (kind of like advanced shortcuts) of your calendar, phone, individual contacts, or links to applications.  There is a feeling of supreme efficiency in that design.  I would only assume that future applications would allow for their ‘Pinned’ widget to provide graphical weather maps, or dynamic content on the ‘Tiles screen’.  But the main reason for this is to have an action wall of information most important to you.  Animated contact icons display the person’s picture, name, and their latest social media status update.

As of this release, there are only two background color choices, white and black, plus 10 accent colors available on these screens.  Background images are only on the lock screen, mind you, and I do expect that to change once consumers get their hands on it.  The keyboard is really good, and has suggestive text as well and auto-correct.  IMHO, all manufacturers should just adopt Swype and get it over with.

Once you go into some of the native applications, you will see the Zune-like fonts at the top, tapering off to the sides to indicate there are more screens if you swipe to that side.  It takes a little getting used to this approach, because we are all so familiar with formal screens and menus.  While it does become more normal as you use it, perhaps the amount of space these font cues take up would better be utilized by the actual content of that application.

Mail

The mail application was the first thing to test on my list.  If you are like me, you get a lot of email every day, and you are about as attached to your email client as you are your nose.  A bullet-proof client is essential on any successful mobile platform, especially if you are going after the corporate Blackberry market, which is precisely what Microsoft is trying to do.

Sorting through all those messages needs to be efficient and simple.  The average consumer may get a few dozen messages a day, but business professionals need a client that best suits the suit, so to speak.  That said, the mail client left me a little disappointed, which surprised me.  As we all know, mobile platforms have to balance form and function due to a very small footprint on that screen.  The real estate is so small that you need to make use of every corner, nook, cranny, and even behind that as well.

Unfortunately, the design elements somewhat overpower the efficient layout of the information.  Titles are too big, folder names at the top eat up 20% of the screen, fonts are too thin, and there are no controls for how many preview lines of the email body you can see.  UI design in the email space is very difficult because it really is a personal preference, and sometimes the more artistic the worse your reading experience is.  You have to think of it like an e-reader.  Power users read a lot of email everyday, and eye strain is a big issue.  That is why some people have HUGE size Ariel fonts on their Blackberry, even though their eyesight is perfectly fine.  Of all applications on the OS, this should be the most configurable for UI elements.

Also, if you have multiple email accounts (exchange for work, gmail for personal, etc.) , you will have a separate mailbox for each account.  There is no universal inbox to organize all of your messages in one place, which is a bummer.  And multi-threading , like you see on some other mobile platforms, as well as Microsoft Outlook, is absent.

Color choices for background, fonts, or type size doesn’t seem to have made it in this release.  Speaking of which, the entire platform has no Accessibility options, from what I can tell.  If you have an issue with your eyesight, there doesn’t seem to be any way of increasing fonts throughout the environment.  Just like in Android and iOS, you can pinch-zoom inside of the actual email itself (which is not efficient either), but that doesn’t address the needs of a significant segment of the market.  This is a pre-release version, so I hope that is addressed.

Transitions

Transitions between objects or after pushing buttons are really beautiful and informative.  Many times the transition indicates you should do something, bouncing, or in many cases delaying the withdrawal of an icon to signify that it was the last thing you touched.  Windows Phone 7 is certainly a very animated Operating System, and designed for aesthetic beauty on every task.  Microsoft took a lot of pride in the crafting of each of these elements.  My fear is that there may be an over-use of menu transitions, in some cases.  For example, when flipping from one email message to the next, the buttons on the bottom will be exactly the same, but will animate each time.  This is totally unnecessary, and probably confusing for some.

Camera

The camera and video functions are fantastic.  The WP7 team got this right.  When you take a video, the recording time is shown on the screen very clearly.  You can send photos (not videos) to Facebook, Mail, SMS, or Microsoft SkyDrive very easily.

Social Media:

The real strength of this platform is how it weaves in content from social media outlets like Facebook and Google using the ‘Hub’.  The Pictures application, for example, shows photos added by any of your Facebook friends.  If you look up a contact inside of the People application, you can see an aggregation of all of their social media updates.  I would use this a lot.  I was surprised to see that Twitter and Linkedin were missing from the Services link.  No doubt they are in the works.  Plaxo and Digg would be a great addition too.

What was most impressive was the focus of Social Media as a core component of the WP7OS.  Apple’s iOS4 doesn’t address this at all, and Android only does it with the addition of a widget or custom App by the hardware manufacturer.  It is really good to see that Microsoft was taking this very seriously and decided to integrate it so intensively.

Applications:

Right now there are few applications available for Windows Phone 7, other than the built-in ones provided for this pre-release.  A WP7 Marketplace is available, and I do hope that they take some cues from Apple on this.  You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, just improve what exists already.  Microsoft is also very interested in spurring development on their new platform.  There is a big game of catch-up, but I am sure they can use the strong development base to get going.  The 2 most important things that Microsoft needs to do are, a) make it simple to develop using the current Windows developer environments- like Visual Studio, and b) make it lucrative.  We’ll get more updates as we get closer to launch.

A bigger concern of mine is that the ‘Application List’ screen will have to be redesigned.  The window will become unruly when you install 30, 40, or 50 apps.  We may end up going to a multi-screen icon-like desktop in the end, with the Tiles as just one of those screens.

XBox live:

Microsoft is keeping this element close to their vest, but integration is afoot.  The XBox Live application will allow you to have a consistent experience between different platforms.  It’s going to be interesting to see how this works.

Office:

The Microsoft Office 2010 applications are a huge draw to this platform.  Business customers will absolutely love the capabilities of OneNote or SharePoint, for example.  The ability to create or edit Excel or Word documents, or view PowerPoint presentations, makes this a big win.  There are limitations though- you can’t cut and paste, or change fonts and colors.

Maps:

Maps is another pretty application.  Even though you cannot get street view, or directions using public transportation, the maps are presented really well, and tapping on each numbered step changes the map accordingly.  I am not really sure if the directions take traffic into account when giving directions, although there is an option for showing traffic on the map.  I would love to see turn-by-turn voice navigation on this app, similar to how Google did on Android.

Music, Movies, and Podcasts:

As far as media goes, the interface is very similar to the Zune.  You can sync up with the Zune software on your machine over USB, or though wi-fi.  My main gripe is with the Zune marketplace, which I find confusing and arbitrarily obtuse.

Web:

The built-in web browser is based on the IE7 platform overall, and doesn’t support Flash.  Pinch-zoom was very responsive, and the controls are nice.  Page loads are fast from what I can see, and the Opera-like floating tabs layout is helpful.  Not much else to say other than the browser seems like a win.

Summary:

Initially, I really didn’t know what to expect from Windows Phone 7.  I live on my iPhone, use the Blackberry for work, and test the Android OS on a regular basis, so I didn’t really see where WP7 was going to fit in.  After spending a few days with the product, I can say that it is really growing on me.  There are some dark corners of the environment I hope they fix, and some features I would love to see expanded, but overall this is a very fast, beautiful, socially connected Operating System.  Microsoft’s biggest mistake was not doing this sooner.

Preliminary Rating:

[starreviewmulti id=3 tpl=46]

More images:

[flickrset id="72157624540327318" thumbnail="square" overlay="true" size="large"]

I was invited to a private Project Natal sneak peek. The event was held at the beautiful EZ Studios in New York City. I met with a member Project Natal product team. She gave us a brief explanation of the Natal vision and gave us only a few technical details:

• RBG camera
• depth camera
• Current games will not be compatible with Natal

Read more at The Huffington Post…

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international humanitarian organization that was created in 1971. MSF provides aid to nearly 60 countries. These are war-torn regions and developing countries — whose population is threatened by violence, natural disasters, endemics, devastation, “exclusion from health care” or worse — starvation. MSF functions independently. It does not side with any one political party or government – MSF believes in giving medical care to all people regardless of their affiliation.

Read the rest at the Huffington Post…..

Your living room TV is under assault!

I am not talking about your kids throwing Wii remotes at it, or spouses sabotaging your inputs just in time for Sunday football, or not having any juice left in your rechargeable Logitech Harmony Remote, or even those tiny little fingerprints on the screen that make you go coo coo for cocoa puffs.  I am talking about the endless barrage of hardware media devices.

Devices like the D-Link Boxee Box, the  Syabas Technology Popcorn Hour, the Roku Player, AppleTV, Blu-ray players, Microsoft XBox 360, Sony PS3, Nintendo Wii, audio systems, Sonos ZonePlayer, Tivo, and other Cable/Verizon Fios/Satellite appliances.  Whew!  I need an entire circuit breaker just for my TV, and I still have a problem getting all of my content the way I want.

Read the full post on zevmo.com

I am doing upgrades of machines to Windows 7, and these events always bring me a lot of joy… as a person who makes money fixing problems. Man, can Microsoft make this process any more convoluted? Here I will give you some tools to make the process go smoothly (or as smoothly as it can go).

NOW, everyone knows that you cannot “directly” upgrade from XP to Windows 7. However, there are a few step you need to complete before you make the jump.

1. Take a backup of your computer, using an external USB drive, and use a FREE tool like: Macrium Reflect
2. Download and install the Windows 7 Upgrade Adviser to see what apps you run that may not be compatible
3. Download and install Windows Easy Transfer to move your files, and whatever settings it can, over to Win7. Save this on your external hard drive.
4. Go to the Windows 7 Compatibility Center and make sure your devices (like your network card) will work
5. OPTIONAL: You can use a program like LapLink PCMover to migrate your programs and files over to your new machine. This has been successful for me, so it is definitely an easy option.
6. Install the Windows 7 disk and run the install. Or, if you are having issues with your drive inside of XP, just restart your computer with the Windows 7 disk in the drive and you will be able to run the install that way too.
7. Select “Custom (advanced)” install (because the “Upgrade” option will fail, since there is no “direct” upgrade path from XP) *MS advice below: #1
8. Select your partition (c:) that you want to install Windows 7 on. What this will do is copy your current “Windows” directory to a “Windows.old” directory to keep your “Documents and Settings” folders, etc. to migrate over, if the Easy transfer or PCMover method fails.
9. Go through the install normally. (i.e., grin and bear the slow, uninformative process) *MS advice below: #2
10. Once you are up and running, go to Start-> and in the box at the bottom, type “device manager”. This will launch a list of your devices, and you will probably see a few yellow indicators. This means you have some driver problems. Double-click these items and then select, “Update Driver.” Hopefully it will find a working driver. If not, you need to go and download the drivers from the manufacturers site, or use your system disk that came with your machine (Dell, HP, Gateway, etc.)
11. Now you can use either the Windows Easy Transfer file that you have on your external hard drive (by double clicking that file), or running the LapLink PCMover software.
12. Download and install any applications that didn’t survive the transfer process.

That’s it! Whew, that seems like a lot of steps. Probably because it was.

*Advice for Microsoft:

Here is some advice for Microsoft on how they could have made this process much easier.

#1) You could have made the Upgrade Adviser, Easy Transfer, and Backup software part of the process when you first run the Windows 7 disk. Duh! It is a no-brainer. That way, if there are hardware/driver incompatibilities, you can go on the net and download them BEFORE you blow away your working (or crippled) XP instance.

#2) When you start the install process, you should give customers the ability to run a web browser and connect online. This is sooooo simple. Run a thin version of IE, add networking capabilities, and allow people to go on Facebook for an hour, for crying out loud! At least on Windows 3.1 and Windows 95, you gave us cheesy functionality slides, extolling the good news of features we will be able to use, once the upgrade was complete. Now, nada.
I hope that helped!! Good luck.
NOTE: Make sure to save your License keys for any applications you installed in XP, so if you have to reinstall the app, you can put the codes back in.

Back in November I wrote a post on Ford SYNC. In the article I explained how absolutely fantastic the technology is and that I was able to demo Ford SYNC. I was speechless and could not really think of anything that SYNC needed to make it better. Well, to be honest, I thought how cool would it be if SYNC had WiFi. That would be an absolute industry game changer? Just think – why would you ever use your cell phone minutes if you can make WiFi calls through an application like Skype. I am sure Skype and Ford are having talks, right now,  if they are not they really should be. Integrating Skype into Ford SYNC would be a great marriage of services.

From what I gather the WiFi feature will be available in the next SYNC update; which is sometime next year. SYNC will utilize your USB mobile broadband modem; i.e. Sprint Mobile Broadband USB Modem. SYNC will also secure your mobile Hot Spot by using a secured wireless protocol (WPA2). That is it folks – Ford charges you no subscription fee’s.

The Ford press release: PRNewswire

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ6cSqROlZE[/youtube]

It is truly amazing that once we start raising a family how busy out lives become. We are all over committed. Between doctor appointments and football games and everything else in between, we need help in keeping our lives in some type of order. A few weeks ago, I was given the opportunity to take a quick look at Ford SYNC powered by Microsoft. As per Ford, “SYNC is an easy-to-use in-car connectivity system that allows you to operate most popular MP3 players, Bluetooth-enabled phones and USB drives with simple voice commands.”

I was very impressed with the technology. The voice recognition was staggeringly accurate. I just kept on saying “this makes things so easy.” These are the listed features:

1. Hands-free Calling
2. Turn-by-Turn Navigation
3. 911 Assist
4. Music Search
5. Vehicle Health Report
6. My Favorites
7. Business Search
8. Real-time Traffic
9. Audible Text

The Ford representative was kind enough to walk me through some of the features. The most impressive feature was the “Hands-free Calling.” Let’s face it, cell phones have become an integral part of our lives. We simply can not live without them and the laws have become very strict on cell phone use while driving. SYNC’s Hands-free Calling, makes calling dad or looking for that ringing phone very easy. With a simple commands SYNC will pickup an incoming call, make a call and what I find most useful – it will transfer a call (featured in the video).

Listen, I am not a Microsoft fanboy but Ford Sync has has really done an extraordinary job. If I were on the market to buy a new car – that car would have to be Ford SYNC equipped. Currently, SYNC is only offered in Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles.