Journalism

Control your home with your smartphone

Posted on by Nicole DiGiose

An article I wrote for Electronic Products.

The INSTEON app gives you access to your home from anywhere

Miles from home and can’t remember if you dialed back the thermostat? With the INSTEON app, you can check its status and have control over other parts of your home no matter where you are.

If you’re out of the house often, the INSTEON app is a must-have. It gives you access to your home’s appliances, cameras, lighting and thermostats. If you’re working later than expected, flick on some lights at home for extra security, straight from your touchscreen. Want to avoid energy waste? Set the sprinklers and lights on an automatic timer without any additional cost.

INSTEON

Screenshot of the INSTEON app. Image via play.google.com.

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New App Monitors Stress By Balancing the Mind and Emotions

Posted on by Nicole DiGiose

A article I wrote for Electronic Products.

HeathMath’s Inner Balance app is designed to get the heart and mind in sync

Everyone’s familiar with those days when everything seems to go wrong and the hours drag on. High stress levels can be damaging to your health, but balancing them may soon be easier than you’ve ever imagined. In just a few weeks, the mobile app Inner Balance, by HeartMath, will be available to harmonize your response to stress.

Inner Balance

HearthMath’s Inner Balance app in action

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BlackBerry Unveils Two New Smartphones

Posted on by Nicole DiGiose

An article I wrote for Electronic Products.

Will the Z10 and Q10 get BlackBerry back in the game?

With the release of BlackBerry 10, it appears that BlackBerry (formerly Research In Motion Ltd.) is attempting a brave comeback. Competing with rivals like Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has been a struggle, and this may be BlackBerry’s last shot at becoming the third viable smartphone competitor in the market.

What BlackBerry is up against

To no one’s surprise, Apple and Samsung dominated the smartphone market together in 2012, making up close to half of global smartphone shipments. Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS held nearly 90% share of the smartphone operating system market. In the cellphone market last year, smartphones took up 49% of shipments, and as for the near future, smartphone shipments are going to skyrocket, expected to take up at least three quarters of the global cellphone market.

So, the clock is ticking for BlackBerry — what makes it stand out?

Firstly, there are two new BlackBerry devices, the Z10 and the Q10.

Blackberry’s new Z10 phone.

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Design houses, bridges, and geometrical figures with your finger

Posted on by Nicole DiGiose

An article I wrote for Electronic Products.

Looking for a quick and simple way to design a floor plan? All it takes are a few swipes of a finger with FingerCAD, the app that allows builders and designers to draw and save floor plans, elevations, mechanical components, and geometrical figures on their iOS devices.

How FingerCAD works

FingerCAD is the first CAD (computer-assisted-design) application made for technical drawing with fingers assisted by computer. With this inclusive app, you can draw houses, bridges, planimetry of apartments, mechanical components, and geometrical figures. Basically, you can draw with your finger everything that can be designed with a common PC CAD. FingerCAD presents engineers, architects, surveyors, and designers with unlimited possibilities. Read More

Surround Sound vs 3D Sound

Posted on by Nicole DiGiose

An article I wrote for Electronic Products.

What separates these two types of audio technology?

Though they have their differences, surround sound and 3D sound are used in very similar ways. Surround sound involves placing multiple speakers around a room to put you in the center of the action. It makes watching movies and television more realistic. With 3D sound, not only do sounds come from the left and right of you, they also come from above and below you. Basically, it turns things up a notch.

What is surround sound?

Throughout the years that television has been in existence, the two biggest changes to enjoying a program or movie is the clarity of the picture and sound. While the former is well documented, not many know how far sound has come.

In movie theaters years ago, the entire soundtrack was played on one speaker, or a collection of speakers that were placed behind the movie screen. Today, audiences in movie theaters are used to hearing sounds thundering on each side of them. What they expect is surround sound. Now that technology, once only enjoyed in movie theaters, is now common in home entertainment centers.

Typical surround sound system set-up at home.

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Get Ready For SIA

Posted on by Nicole DiGiose

An article I wrote for Chilled Magazine.

After having a love affair with Scotch for 10 years, Carin Luna-Ostaseski decided she wanted to grow her passion into a business. The idea came to her about a year ago, when she was organizing and running Scotch tasting events in San Francisco.

Luna-Ostaseski enjoyed introducing Scotch as a category, and for those who were familiar with it, she presented new brands to them. “One of my biggest joys is seeing how this lights up people’s eyes when they find something they really enjoy,” she said. She collected feedback by paying attention to people’s initial reactions, and from there, began running blind tastings, where she took her blends of existing brands to gather additional feedback. After realizing what the desired flavor profile was, Luna-Ostaseski approached her importer, Spirits Imports, Inc., to begin the search for a distiller, which led her to the independent bottler, Douglas McGibbon & Co. Ltd.

Carin Luna-Ostaseski with her SIA Scotch Whisky

Carin Luna-Ostaseski with her SIA Scotch Whisky. Photo credit: Sarah Peet Photography (www.sarahpeetphotography.com).

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Mobile App Allows You to Speak a Different Language in Seconds

Posted on by Nicole DiGiose

An article I wrote for Electronic Products.

Traveling to a different country without knowing the language can be a bit daunting. Mispronouncing words and not being able to understand them can be a hassle. Now there’s an app to take care of that.

Sonico Mobile’s iTranslate Voice

By downloading Sonico Mobile’s iTranslate Voice to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch, you don’t have to go through the trouble of memorizing certain foreign lingo. For less than a dollar, this nifty app will quickly translate words, phrases, and texts, and it can do so for more than 30 languages and dialects. Read More

Secure Mobile App Replaces Your House Key

Posted on by Nicole DiGiose

An article I wrote for Electronic Products.

Having a key ring stuffed in your pocket isn’t the most pleasant shape. They can be sharp, bulky, and you’re always checking to make sure it’s there. But like the watches, cameras, and CD players before them, key rings are on their way to being gobbled up by mobile phones.

Thanks to ShareKey, the Android mobile app, leaving the house and worrying about your keys is a thing of the past.

Android app ShareKey replaces your house key.

ShareKey communicates with smartlocks on the door via NFC (near field communication), which allows wireless data to be exchanged across a small range. Read More

Affordable Luggage Tracker Keeps Bags From Being Lost

Posted on by Nicole DiGiose

An article I wrote for Electronic Products.

Losing luggage during a trip and having nobody to tell you exactly where to find it is one of a traveler’s biggest fears. According to SITA, the world’s leading specialist in air transport communications and information technology, about 26 million bags go missing each year from airports around the world. But with the release of the Trakdot Luggage tracker, those worries can (finally) be put to rest.

Trakdot Luggage is designed for the traveler’s convenience. This handy gadget, slightly larger than a deck of cards, includes a palm-sized tracker and easily fits into a checked bag. It’s powered by two AA batteries, and can connect with any mobile Android, Apple, or SMS-capable device to alert its user of its whereabouts. Read More

Curiosity Rover Finds ‘Flower’ on Mars

Posted on by Nicole DiGiose

An article I wrote for ElectronicProducts.

The cameras on NASA’s Curiosity rover snapped new pictures of an odd formation on Mars that has stirred up lots of talk. Embedded in a Martian rock, many have dubbed the strange formation a “Martian flower.”

Image

Picture via digitaljournal.com.

Close-up images with a 360-degree panoramic view of the red planet’s barren surface were captured during Curiosity’s exploration. The panorama was assembled from pictures snapped by the rover’s navigation camera system, Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), on its 132nd Martian day on Mars, also known as Sol 132 or Dec. 19.

The pictures causing the hype focus on a crumpled, light object, seemingly sprouting from the surface of Yellowknife Bay on Mars. The oddity’s shape is similar to that of a flower’s pistils, which caused those who were buzzing about it over the Internet to call the discovery a “Martian flower.” Read More