What makes this generation of Echo different is that it has a 10 inch screen that attempts to follow you around the room, making it ideal for use where and while you are doing projects.  It reminds me a lot of the 2^nd Generation Apple iMac, which I maintain was the best desktop PC design of all time.

Let’s talk about whether the Third Generation Amazon Show could become the perfect future desktop PC.

Second Generation iMac

What made the Second-Generation iMac uniquely beneficial is that it placed all the system weight in the base and had a swivel mount for the attached flat panel display.

This unique design made it incredibly stable, far more stable than the iMacs that came after it (and most other all-in-one configurations), and the swiveling display made it far easier to put the display where you needed it even if that was on the other side of the desk. This design made this Second Generation offering far safer and far more helpful if you tended to move around the desk or the working space rather than just sitting in the same place all day, every day.

Third Generation Echo Show 10

As noted, the Third Generation, Echo Show 10, has similar structural advantages to the Second Generation iMac. Its weight is in the base with a screen that is supported above the base.

However, unlike the old iMac, the Echo Show 10’s screen will automatically follow you around the room, freeing you up to be mobile while listening to music, watching videos, or searching on the web. You interact with it hands-free, and while its AI isn’t yet that smart, it is generally adequate for things like entertainment or looking at directions while building or cooking something.  Its functionality is limited by its relatively small (compared to PCs) screen and evident entertainment focus. Still, nothing says it has to stay focused on entertainment, and two weeks ago, I wrote about how Amazon is already exploring the laptop PC space with a Fire Tablet.

Coming Advancements

Speech and voice have had several significant problems. It takes a lot of time to train a system for your voice, and the results tended to lack punctuation, so you had to spend a ton of time in training and then in editing after dictation.

But as we advance Artificial Intelligence, our ability to quickly adapt to an individual speaker, automate editing, and add punctuation will reach a point where many of us may prefer speech input to keyboard input in a few years.  In short, we can begin to dictate to our PCs things we’ve used a keyboard and mouse for in the past.

Dictation

Now I grew up when secretaries and dictation weren’t unusual. For most, it was beneficial to be able to pace around the office while doing dictation. But you’d still want to look at the screen from time to time to see if the computer was accurately capturing what you were saying and successfully executing the commands you were giving it.

So having a screen that followed you around the room would be helpful, though adding automatic vertical tilt and locomotion would also help keep the computer close to you while you are moving. Initially, just allowing the screen to follow you would provide most of the flexibility you’d likely need to pace while doing dictation.

Connecting it back to AWS for its intelligence and capabilities would further provide for system longevity and open additional possibilities for subsidies in what is already, at just under $250, an aggressively priced digital assistant offering.

Eventually, we’ll move to head-mounted displays and wearable technology for this function. Still, the computational power to blend your environment with what you are working on is very resource-intensive. We don’t yet even have a single example of the headset that would be needed, let alone the Cloud service suite of applications allowing for complete hands-free work. But this implementation could address most of the requirements and became an ideal platform to create the hands-free software we’ll need when head-mounted displays become viable.

Wrapping Up

The Third Generation Echo Show 10 is arguably the first proper personal robotic solution that has hit the market. Yes, it is limited to swiveling its screen, but there is no doubt it will be followed by products that are more mobile, more capable, and tied to an AWS back end that can provide a level of Artificial Intelligence we’ve never seen before.

You add the ability to translate speech into text with punctuation coupled with the natural language capabilities that NVIDIA was talking about at their GPU Technology Conference earlier this year, and you have the opportunity for something revolutionary.  A personal desktop PC with a voice interface as a default and a screen will allow you to walk and work simultaneously.

At the very least, I expect this would get us off our collective butts and allow us to work healthier over time. Amazon seems to be dancing all around the next-generation PC without crossing the line, much like Apple danced around Smartphones with the iPod Touch and then caught the Smartphone market sleeping when they announced the iPhone.

We have another iPhone-like revolution coming, and it looks like Amazon is setting up to take a page out of Apple’s book to get there first with a cloud-connected hands-free solution. Oh, and if you think this is impossible, remember we thought Apple taking the Smartphone market away from Nokia, Microsoft, Research in Motion (BlackBerry), and Palm was impossible too at one time. We don’t think it is impossible anymore.

Unlike Apple, Amazon subsidizes their hardware, suggesting they’ll enter with the As-A-Service model that the traditional PC OEMs are just wrapping their arms around.

The post How The Third Generation Amazon Echo Show 10 Will Become The Future Desktop PC appeared first on eWEEK.

Yes, at the launch, their offering was the most expensive, but it was also the only one good enough, in my opinion, to use. They’ve just released a refreshed version of the product creatively named the Samsung HMD Odyssey+ for $499 (dropping the price of the Odyssey to $350, making it an instant deal).  

Here’s why Samsung seems to get this righter than most of the others. 

Samsung HMD Odyssey

Let’s start with the older Samsung HMD Odyssey product. The new one basically has one big improvement, but I think it is worth the extra $150 to get it. What made the Odyssey stand out is that it had a pair of 2,800 x 1,600 AMOLED displays and built-in headphones. Most every other vendor participating in this launch used a far lower 1,440×1,440 LCD display setup and left off the headphones.  

The result was a distinct screen-door effect and the awkward experience of first having to put on the headset, then–now that you are blind–finding and putting on the headphones. This also had the side benefit of making you look extra dorky when you were done. 

The resolution was simply too low to give an adequate experience. While there still was a bit of a screen-door effect (this is when the image has a grid that looks like a screen) in the Odyssey, it was far less pronounced and the AMOLED colors far brighter, so it wasn’t near as annoying as it was in the cheaper alternatives. 

In the end, Samsung got that this was something someone was going to wear for an extended period, which meant the display and the sound system had to be good enough so folks would both buy and use it. 

This is incredibly important to a product ramp, because if your first user/reviewers hate the product, they’ll go on social media or the retail sites and negatively comment on it, which will very effectively cause buyers to avoid the product. 

Samsung HMD Odyssey+

With only one basic advantage, you’d think I’d suggest that you buy the old product and save $150.  But that one trick is called “Anti-Screen Door effect”: It uses a grid to diffuse the light from each individual pixel and then duplicates individual pixels to fill the spaces around them. By doing this, they basically eliminate the remaining gaps that cause the screen-door effect (SDE) and make it look like the resolution is doubled. 

So, for $150 you get double the resolution. They’ve also made improvements to make the headset more comfortable; the eye box is wider; the weight is down a tenth of a pound; and you can adjust the distance between the eyes (something that is critical to higher end products like Microsoft’s Augmented Reality solution Hololens). 

One additional improvement that should have been a no-brainer is a “flashlight” function with the controller.  These headsets have cameras built into them. When you use the flashlight function, you access the cameras and can look around you to make sure you don’t hit anything, which is way too common with other products. 

So, while they had me at the elimination of SDE, the improvements to comfort (jury is still out on “flashlight”) make the $150 delta between the old and new HMD Odyssey products a no-brainer.

In Summary: Content Still a Problem

While the Samsung Odyssey+ is currently the only low-cost VR headset I’d recommend (at the high end I prefer the HTC Pro), the problem with the industry still is tied to content.  I have yet to see a game that I want to play for hours, justifying the cost of this hardware.  Games pull hardware, not the other way around, and we still need some really compelling games that take this technology mainstream.  

However, if you want VR headset that is affordable, at a quality level and you could play for hours, the Samsung HMD Odyssey+ stands out as the only one I can, right now, recommend. It is definitely good enough. 

Rob Enderle is a principal at Enderle Group. He is an award-winning analyst and a longtime contributor to QuinStreet publications and Pund-IT.

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But the larger dimensions improves what BlackBerry already does best, which is to handle text-intensive tasks such as email. The Classic brings back the carefully sculpted physical keyboard that worked so well for creating text as well as the physical navigation keys that complete the keyboard experience.

While there’s a lot more to the BlackBerry Classic beyond the keyboard, it’s the traditional BlackBerry keyboard that’s its raison d’être. Likely this is why BlackBerry made only a few minor changes to the keyboard design.

The biggest is the addition of a microphone key next to the space bar, which is shared with the zero. The other big change is that the optical touch-pad in the center of the navigation keys is smaller than on the Bold. Like the Bold and other recent BlackBerry devices, the Classic also has a touch-screen.

The keyboard itself is larger, which makes thumb-typing easier and slightly more accurate, but it avoids the change in shape that BlackBerry’s Passport presented which (at least for me) slowed down typing. Overall, the Classic is very similar in size to the BlackBerry Z30, and it runs the same BlackBerry 10 operating system.

I didn’t find the 3.5-inch square screen to be at all limiting when it came to using it for things like email, which is still the BlackBerry’s strong suit. The company points out that the screen is about the same size as the one on the iPhone 6 when it has the keyboard open on the screen. When I look at the two phones together, that seems like an accurate statement.

Beyond using the phone for text creation, the relatively small square screen can be limiting. While the BlackBerry Web browser is quite fast, you don’t have the option of holding the phone horizontally to get a bigger image as you do with the iPhone or the Z30. While you can make Web pages bigger by spreading them out with your fingers, that only helps so much.

BlackBerry is in the process of updating the apps in its BlackBerry World app store to work properly with the square screen, something that was already being done with the Q10, which also had a physical keyboard. But there are a lot of apps that haven’t been updated, especially the Android apps that you can download via access to the Amazon Android App Store.

BlackBerry Classic Keyboard Works Well for Users Who Live in Email

While the Classic will run some Android apps, it does not support Google Play Services, which a number of Android apps require. This means that you can download an app only to find that it doesn’t work at all or that some functions don’t work.

One thing that has changed is that you can no longer remove the back of the phone to change the battery. The 2,515mAh battery is inside the Classic’s sealed case. The SIM card that used to be held in the back with the battery is now behind a hatch on the side of the phone. You can poke a paper clip to reveal a nano-SIM carrier. There’s also a slot for a hot-swappable MicroSD card next to the SIM holder. The Classic will accept memory cards up to 128GB.

BlackBerry said that the Classic will operate for up to two weeks in standby and delivers more than 18 hours of talk time. My experience using the phone in a mixed cellular-WiFi environment showed that the device had about the same battery life as its BBOS 10 brethren, which was about two days of average use. This is better than a lot of smartphones that generally bite the dust in about a day of similar use.

The Classic runs on GSM networks, including those of AT&T and T-Mobile. BlackBerry provided an AT&T SIM, so naturally I purchased a T-Mobile SIM instead. There were two reasons for this: one because the two companies are in a tiff and because AT&T doesn’t provide useable service in the area near eWEEK’s office in the Washington, D.C., suburbs.

The Classic worked fine with T-Mobile, including that company’s high-speed 4G LTE signals. This phone also supports WiFi, but it doesn’t support 802.11ac and nor does it support WiFi calling.

Using the BlackBerry Classic brings back memories. It’s easy to get back to the familiar feel of thumb-typing on the sculpted keyboard. I found the physical keys to be much more accurate than any on-screen keyboard, even BlackBerry’s. The predictive typing worked well, although it was a little less convenient than on the Z10 and Z30, where the anticipated words appear just above the keys.

The new keyboard is actually slightly easier to use than that on the Bold because the keys are slightly larger, and the phone retains the stainless steel frets between rows of keys. Now, the question becomes whether you spend more time typing messages on your smartphone than you do looking at Web pages on the screen. If you live in your email app, the easier typing makes a compelling case for the BlackBerry Classic.

The post BlackBerry Classic Keyboard Works Well for Users Who Live in Email appeared first on eWEEK.

The idea of group interaction is what’s behind the Lenovo Horizon 2. This is an all-in-one computer designed so that it can lay flat on a tabletop so users can orient the screen as needed. Lenovo originally designed the Horizon as a gaming or social center, but the company says it’s getting strong interest in the enterprise for use as a collaborative device.

Think of the Horizon as a 27-inch Windows 8.1 tablet, and you’ll have a good idea of what to expect from this device. Despite its size it’s less than an inch thick and it only weighs about 17 pounds, so it’s easy to move it from one location to another. Even better, Lenovo delivered the Horizon in a cloth satchel that makes transport easier than it might be otherwise.

While it’s unlikely that you’d ever want to use the Horizon 2 in your lap, it’s certainly possible, assuming you have a big lap. The Horizon comes with built-in batteries that will last a couple of hours, and it supports 802.11ac WiFi. There are three USB 3.0 ports on the left side of the computer, but if you use the included wireless keyboard and mouse, then one of those ports is taken up by the required dongle.

There’s a spring-loaded kickstand on the back of the Horizon that will allow you to adjust the angle of the screen. If you press it down until it’s flat on the desk, the Horizon launches an interface named Aura that’s supposed to facilitate use as a tabletop computer.

The only real difficulty we had with the Horizon was with the latch that holds the kickstand in place, which tried its best to defy any attempt to use it. Fortunately, a couple of well-chosen hand tools solved that problem, but they had to be employed every time we tried to use the computer in anything but a flat position.

When placed into its tabletop orientation, the Horizon launches the Aura interface, which is intended to make it easy to use the computer when people are seated and includes a wheel-like touch area that does everything from launch apps to play music. While Aura launches automatically when the computer is placed so it’s flat on a tabletop, you don’t have to use it. You can return to the Windows Desktop or Start screen easily.

And it’s likely you will need to return to the standard Windows environment during a work session. While you can connect Aura to a smartphone, it only works with Android devices.

Lenovo Crafts Horizon 2 PC for Tabletop Collaboration

But a more important issue is that the applications you’re probably going to want to use in a collaborative work environment aren’t the ones that are available from within Aura, which leans toward gaming and home use, although you can use it as a virtual slide sorter with photos on the device’s 1TB hard drive.

Fortunately, Lenovo apparently realized that its use as a tabletop computer would also expose the screen to both reflections and fingerprints. To combat these problems, the Horizon has a matte finish on the screen to combat glare, and it comes with a microfiber cleaning cloth to deal with the fingerprints.

Even if you’re not using the Aura interface, the Horizon 2 is still easy to use as a collaborative device. It includes the <CTRL><ALT><arrow key> sequence to control the image orientation on the screen that Lenovo uses on some of its laptops. This means that you can rotate the screen image to look upright to anyone seated around the table.

Unfortunately, there are a couple of annoying usability issues with the Horizon 2. The matte screen finish may cut down on reflections, but it also makes the colors on the screen look washed out. This may not matter if you’re looking at a Word document, but it’s a problem if you are viewing photos or video.

The review unit came with an Intel Core i5 1.7 GHz processor and 8GB of memory. However, a faster Core i7 2.0 GHz is also available. The Horizon 2 also comes with Bluetooth 4.0 and near-field communications (NFC), although it’s unclear how exactly you’d use NFC with a tablet of this size.

What’s disappointing about the Horizon 2 is that there’s so little real business collaboration software available for the tabletop computer. In fact, despite the Aura interface and its available apps, there’s really not much that would be of a lot of use to business users. This lack of application support for the tabletop mode means that users will always be in a position of having to make things work, rather than of finding that it meets their needs out of the box.

Of course, there are things that the Horizon 2 is well-suited for, especially in the photo department of a magazine or newspaper. There the photo display apps would work well and can lend a big help to story production, but in other types of enterprises, finding a fit may be more difficult.

The Lenovo Horizon 2 as tested is available from retailers for about $1,500. Considering the relatively low cost, it could make sense to add a Horizon 2 to your company’s inventory. It just might be worth picking one up to see how workgroups could use it, even if business applications for tabletop PCs are in limited supply.

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The idea is to allow users at all levels, but especially enterprise IT users and managers, a chance to try out the new OS well in advance. This way they can be ready when it’s released.

The good news is that the software, which is available in two forms, Pro and Enterprise, is free to download to anyone who wants to use it. But Microsoft wants to make one thing very clear: The Windows 10 Preview is just that–a preview. The code is in a very early form, it’s not feature-complete and there are things that don’t work.

Getting the Professional version of Windows 10 is pretty simple. Just go to the Windows Website and there it is. Getting Windows 10 Enterprise is just as easy and there’s a link on the Windows 10 opening page. In both cases you’ll need to join the Windows Insider program, which basically asks for your Microsoft ID and a few other contact-related questions.

Once you’ve joined, you’ll go to a download page where you select your processor type and language and then download the .iso file. You’ll need to copy that to a DVD or a USB memory stick. You can upgrade Windows 8.1 by inserting the disk or USB drive with the code into the computer and when it’s recognized, click on “Setup.”

You’ll need to answer a few questions, and then the system will crank away for an hour or so while Windows installs. You’ll need to have Windows 8.1 Enterprise to do an in-place upgrade with the Enterprise version of Windows 10.

Microsoft provides a blanket install code for all versions of Windows 10, but I wasn’t asked to provide it when installing it over an existing copy of Windows 8.1 Pro. Apparently it’s treated as an upgrade rather than a new install.

The advantage is that the installation will retain your existing applications and most of your settings will move to the new OS. If you want to perform a clean install, you’ll need to create a bootable DVD or USB drive to install the install code.

At this point in Microsoft’s release cycle it may not matter much which version of Windows 10 you decide to test first. If your primary goal is to test application compatibility, then either version will work for you. However, there are differences.

A Microsoft spokesperson explained those differences to eWEEK in an email. “Windows 10 Technical Preview and the Windows 10 Technical Preview for Enterprise have the same functionality. However, the Windows 10 Technical Preview for Enterprise also includes current enterprise capabilities like Windows To Go, DirectAccess, BranchCache and AppLocker. Those added benefits will help businesses evaluate the Windows 10 Technical Preview in their environments while continuing to benefit from the capabilities they currently have with Windows 8.1 Enterprise today.”

Microsoft Seeks to Make Amends With Early Windows 10 Preview

Once you complete the Windows 10 installation, you’ll find that it looks a lot like the desktop interface for Windows 8.1, assuming that you’re using the desktop version. The tiled or “Modern” interface still exists, and if you want to bring it to the screen, you can. If you’re installing Windows 10 on a touch-screen device, then you’ll get that tiled interface installed by default, unless you’re upgrading a computer that already boots into the desktop view.

Perhaps of greatest interest, however, is the return of the Start Menu. In addition to the familiar menu items there’s a smaller and simplified set of tiles which users can add, remove or modify to suit their needs.

On the left side of your screen you should find that the existing icons from your previous Windows 8.1 installation are preserved. If you performed an in-place upgrade from Windows 7, you may find that you need to reinstall some of your applications before they show up. However, your data is preserved.

In addition to the icons that you already had on your screen, you see a new one titled “Welcome to Tech Preview,” which will give you some tips about the new features in Windows 10, along with details about how to use them. The task bar along the bottom of the screen displays several new features, including a search icon and a task view icon.

Clicking the search icon lets you search on both the computer and on the Internet at the same time. The task view shows you the virtual desktops that you’ve created so you can switch easily between them and you can see reduced images of all of your open applications, which makes it easy to switch from one app to the next.

You can open different applications on different virtual desktops. This way you might create a desktop for one aspect of your job, such as network management or budgeting, while on another you have unrelated functions such as email. You might even want to create a desktop for games or personal applications.

Also on the task bar is an icon for the Microsoft Store. Previously that was only available on the Modern interface. Now those apps in the Microsoft Store can run in either interface on Windows 10. In the desktop mode they simply run inside windows just like any other application.

Right now Windows 10 works pretty well considering its preview nature. Some things don’t work, some things have weird glitches and some apps don’t run. This is to be expected. But overall, the Windows 10 Tech Preview version works surprisingly well. It will change over time as Microsoft adds features and makes changes. But it will give you a good platform to determine how to fit the new Windows into your business and enterprise requirements.

The post Microsoft Seeks to Make Amends With Early Windows 10 Preview appeared first on eWEEK.

Smartphone, Tablet Choices Are Vast This Autumn: A Buyer’s Guide

by Todd R. Weiss

HTC Desire Debuting

AT&T has announced that it will be the “exclusive” carrier for the upcoming HTC Desire EYE smartphone when is debuts for the holiday season later this year. No pricing has yet been announced for the Desire EYE, which has a 5.2-inch, 1080p HD display and a 2.3GHz quad-core processor.

Buy a Smartphone, Get a Deal on a Tablet

New or existing AT&T customers who buy any new smartphone and activate a new mobile line can get special pricing on a new tablet. Under the deal, you can buy an LG G Pad 7.0 LTE for 99 cents or a Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 8.0 for $99.99.

Lumia 530 Windows Phones at T-Mobile

The new Nokia Lumia 530 Windows smartphone is available now to T-Mobile customers through Best Buy and Microsoft stores. The Lumia 530, which runs on Windows Phone 8.1 and has a 4-inch LCD touch screen and a quad-core CPU, is available with prepaid, no-contract monthly service plans. The phone will be sold through T-Mobile for $79.20 starting Oct. 15.

BlackBerry’s New Passport Enterprise Smartphone

Selling for $599, BlackBerry’s new square-faced, enterprise-targeted Passport smartphone hit 200,000 preorders within two days of its debut online in late September. The Passport includes a full HD display that is 4.5 inches square, rather than rectangular as on most smartphones.

iPhone 6 Fever Continues

Apple’s new iPhone 6 models sold more than 10 million units during the first few days after their Sept. 19 U.S. debut. The new iPhones include the iPhone 6 with its 4.7-inch Retina HD display and an even larger iPhone 6 Plus with its 5.5-inch Retina HD screen, priced from $199.99 to $499.99 depending on model and storage capacity.

New Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Smartphone Due Oct. 17

Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Note 4 phablet, with its large, 5.7-inch HD Super AMOLED display, 2.7GHz quad-core processor and 32GB of internal memory, will be released Oct. 17 and be available in Charcoal Black and Frost White.

Amazon’s New Fire HD Tablets

Amazon launched four new Fire HD tablets in September, including the Fire HD in 6-inch or 7-inch screen sizes, the new higher-performance Fire HDX 8.9 and the innovative Fire HD Kids Edition, which is ruggedized for children. Prices start at $99 for the 6-inch Fire HD up to $479 for the Fire HDX 8.9 64GB model.

Samsung Galaxy S Tablets From AT&T

Samsung’s latest Galaxy Tab S 10.5 and Galaxy Tab S 8.4 tablets are available from AT&T at $529 with a two-year agreement for the 10.5-inch model or for $429 for the 8.4-inch model with a two-year agreement. Both tablets feature AMOLED HD screens with 4 million pixels, a slim 0.26-inch-thick profile, an Exynos Octa Core processor and 3GB of RAM.

Second-Gen Moto X From AT&T

The latest Motorola Moto X smartphones are priced at $99.99 with a two-year contract from AT&T, or $526.99 without a contract. The Android phones are available in Resin Black, Bamboo and Black Leather colors and include a 5.2-inch, 1080p HD display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM.

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Apple Pay vs. Google Wallet: A Brief Competitive Comparison

by Don Reisinger

Consumers Haven’t Tried Out Apple Pay Yet

The public hasn’t gotten a chance to try out Apple Pay to see if it can deliver the security and convenience Apple says it will. That doesn’t mean that it won’t or that it can’t live up to Apple’s promises, but as we’ve seen in the past, first-run products can have their fair share of issues and Apple Pay may reach the market with some kinks to work out.

Google Wallet: An Old Veteran in Mobile Payments

Google has had more than enough time to work out the kinks in its Google Wallet platform. Google first unveiled the service May 2011 and launched it in the United States in September of that year. While most argue that the Google Wallet platform works reliably, it’ll get a lot more use if and when mobile payments become the norm in the retail world.

Apple Pay: Security Is at the Center of the Solution

Apple has delivered several important security features in Apple Pay. For one, the company’s service requires the use of Touch ID to make a payment, effectively ensuring that someone who steals the device can’t easily make a payment. In addition, the service doesn’t share any personally identifiable information— including credit card numbers—with merchants. Instead, Apple provides a unique payment identifier to hide transaction details and buyer’s identity. It’s a critical security feature that can’t be overlooked when evaluating the two options.

Google Wallet: Google Offers Full Fraud Protection

Google Wallet comes with fraud protection. Google says that it’s constantly monitoring its systems to determine whether any fraud may be occurring. In addition, Google Wallet users hit by fraudulent changes will receive a 100 percent reimbursement. A four-digit PIN is also used to unlock the Wallet app and send money.

Apple Pay Only Works on iPhone 6, Apple Watch and iOS

Those looking for the opportunity to use Apple Pay on a wide range of devices will be disappointed. Because the technology requires both Touch ID and a Near-Field Communication (NFC) chip, it will work only with Apple’s latest iPhone 6 devices. Apple also says that Apple Pay will work with Apple Watch when the company launches that device next year.

Google Wallet Is a Cross-Platform Service for iOS, Android

Google Wallet is a cross-platform, cross-device solution. The payment service can work on both iPhones and Android-based devices. In the latter case, the devices need to have NFC chips. The Apple version allows for online purchases and gift card transactions, among other features. Overall, Google Wallet casts a wider net than Apple Pay, which might appeal to some customers.

Many Banks, Card Companies Support Apple Play

Apple has done a good job of signing up banks and card companies to support its service. Most major cards are accepted, including Visa, MasterCard and American Express. The debit cards issued by some of the largest banks in the world, including Bank of America and Citibank, will work with Apple Play.

Google Wallet: MasterCard Is the Major Partner

At launch, MasterCard was Google Wallet’s top partner. The service is accepted in millions of MasterCard-friendly locations around the world. Google has also signed a deal with Visa to license the company’s payWave system so it can support Google Wallet.

Apple Pay Will Work at More than 220,000 Retail Outlets

When Apple Pay launches, the service will come with wide support from the retail community. Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, McDonald’s, Nike and other major retailers will support the service. Apple says that more merchants will come online over the next several months, which should give Apple Pay a strong start in the payment business.

Google Wallet: A Solution to Transfer Money

Google Wallet is not only available to make payments or redeem gift cards. It’s also a way to transfer money. Google’s service lets users send money electronically to other parties who are notified as soon as they’ve received the cash. From there, the recipient can spend the money on just about anything they desire. It’s a feature missing from many other payment services but could be an important one.

The post Apple Pay vs. Google Wallet: A Brief Competitive Comparison appeared first on eWEEK.

Specifically, I couldn’t type on the crowded buttons without a substantial error rate that was frequently exacerbated by Apple’s idiosyncratic auto-correct feature. Worse, the tiny screen made reading Websites and other online information nearly impossible for me.

But when Apple announced the new 4.7-inch screen on the iPhone 6, I was heartened. While seven-tenths of an inch might not sound like much, it brought it much closer to the size of the screen on the BlackBerry Z30 that I’d tried out a few weeks earlier and liked.

Unfortunately, even with its ability to run some Android apps, the Z30 was just too limited to handle the functions I needed, so I took a chance and ordered the iPhone 6 from T-Mobile. I avoided the iPhone 6 Plus because it’s too big to fit into my pockets.

The T-Mobile version of the iPhone 6 has a few capabilities that are important. The most important are WiFi Calling, HD Voice and Voice over LTE (VoLTE). While some other carriers are promising these features sometime in 2015, T-Mobile has them available now. But perhaps more important, I’m located in an area near Washington, D.C., where T-Mobile is the only reliable carrier. Being able to actually make phone calls is an important feature for a phone.

Once I received and unpacked the iPhone 6, the improvement in size was obvious. I didn’t need to squint to read the screen, and the screen was big enough to reduce the error rate when I typed.

Even better, Apple has gone to great lengths to improve one-handed use, a feature that was once the province of BlackBerry. Apple makes one-handed operation even easier by sliding the screen down so that it’s within easy reach of your thumb when you do a quick double-tap on the home button.

One-handed operation is also made easier by the rounded shape of the edges of the iPhone 6 and by its thin 6.9mm profile. Apple’s now-familiar fingerprint sensor also accommodates one-handed use by allowing your thumb to activate the sensor even if it’s at a different angle from what you used when you first set it up.

The fingerprint reader will actually work with any of your fingers. You get to choose when you set up the phone for the first time. During the setup process, iOS asks you to place your chosen finger on the sensor in several different angles so that it can get the whole thing.

I used my thumb, figuring that this would be the most useful, which it turned out to be. But when I performed the setup, I used a different orientation than what I use when unlocking the phone in daily use. It still works fine.

Apple iPhone 6 Shows Why Even Small Gains in Screen Size Matter

Just to make sure that the sensor didn’t work with any fingerprint, I had family members and friends try to unlock the phone with the fingerprint sensor. They couldn’t.

However, there is one potential problem when setting up a new iPhone 6 if you’ve already turned on two-step verification in iCloud and the iTunes Store. You will need to be able to receive a text message with a verification code during the process. But if you’re setting up the phone, you won’t also be able to receive text messages. When I had this problem, I visited the local Apple Store, but the staff there was unsure of how to solve the problem.

So here are the solutions. You can make sure you have your recovery code handy because you’ll need it. Or you can hold off activating your cell service on the iPhone 6 until after you’ve set it up so you can get the verification code by text message on your old phone. The other choice is to turn off two-step verification while you set up your phone, then turn it back on once you’ve moved past that point.

In daily use, I found that the iPhone 6 is a substantial improvement over the iPhone 5S. The larger screen makes a huge difference. Plus, the iPhone 6 is faster, and it communicates faster because it will work with 802.11ac on 2.4GHz and 5GHz, and it’ll work with faster forms of LTE.

The new screen features 1,334 by 750 pixels, but the pixel density remains the same as the iPhone 5. There are just more of them. The IPS (in-plane switching) screen worked well in sunlight. The light sensor reduces brightness nicely, but sometimes the screen got too dim, a condition that’s easy to correct.

Likely the auto-dim is set that way to increase battery life. While Apple lists the battery life of the iPhone 6 to be only slightly longer than the iPhone 5, I found it to be much better in daily use. The iPhone 5S that I had most recently would frequently need a little charging time in the afternoon. The iPhone 6 lasts all day and still has about 30 percent charge when I plug it in for the night.

Despite the warnings and the hype, my iPhone 6 did not bend. Most of those reports were about the iPhone 6 Plus anyway, and the iPhone 6 feels substantial in any case. Of course, I also learned long ago not to sit on my phone, so perhaps that reduced the chance of bending.

Overall, I’m pleased enough with this iteration of the iPhone that I spent the extra money and bought the 64-gigabyte version of the Space Gray device. For once, this is an iPhone that’s good enough to keep.

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GNOME 3.14 Improves Linux Desktop Visual Detail, Other Features

by Sean Michael Kerner

GNOME Goes Multi-touch

The modern desktop is no longer just about the interaction of the user’s mouse and keyboard. With GNOME 3.14, there is expanded support for multi-touch gestures to support touch-screen and touch-pad interfaces.

Search for Calculations

In a bid to further improve the practical utility of GNOME’s integrated search capability, users can now do simple calculations directly in the search field.

Search for Time

In addition to being able to do calculations in the search field, search results will now also provide the current time for a searched location.

Get the Latest Weather Forecast

The Weather application has been improved to GNOME 3.14, with a new interface and forecast outlook.

Find Your Way With Maps Navigation

The integrated Maps application now includes navigation routing to help users find their way.

Photos App Gets Google Support

The Photos application in GNOME 3.14 now enables users to get their Google photos. The Photos app also includes support for Facebook and Flickr images.

Use Boxes to Take Snapshots of Virtual Images

The Boxes virtualization application included with GNOME 3.14 now has the ability to take snapshots of virtual machine images.

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HP Stays in Mobile Game With Stream Notebooks, Tablets

By Don Reisinger

It’s a Totally Mobile World

HP’s Stream line is made up of lightweight notebooks and tablets. The company said in a press release announcing the line that the move is designed to appeal to “today’s consumers [who] demand mobile products that fit their personal style and allow them to work and play wherever they are.” At first glance, it appears HP has hit the mark.

Free Cloud Storage for a Year

So, what do customers get with a Stream device? For starters, HP is offering one year of free Microsoft OneDrive access. Customers will get 1TB of storage for that period. The offer, which is available for a limited time only, is extended to both notebooks and tablets.

Free Office 365 for a Year

In addition to cloud storage, customers who buy an HP Stream notebook or tablet will get one year of Office 365 Personal for free. The offering includes fully installed Office applications for a single PC or Mac and a tablet, and access to Microsoft’s services on the Web. Customers will typically pay $6.99 per month for Office 365 Personal.

Bring On the Free 4G Data

Since the HP Stream devices come with 4G connectivity, HP is offering a data deal to customers for a limited time. On select versions of the HP Stream (tablet or notebook), users will receive 200MB of free data each month for the life of the device. The deal is available only to those customers who have a data contract in place, however, so the first 200MB are free. Beyond that, buyers should expect to pay for additional data storage.

Different Display Sizes for Different Uses

HP is not taking any chances of leaving customers out with its Stream line. The company’s tablets start at 7 inches and go up to 8 inches, while the notebooks kick off at 11.6 inches and go all the way up to 14 inches. HP says that its product sizes will appeal to different customers seeking different features.

Affordability Is the Name of the Game

With mobility comes an expectation of lower prices, and in that respect, HP delivers. The company’s Stream 7 tablet starts at $100, while the 8-inch model comes in at $150 to start. The 11.6-inch Stream notebook will set customers back $200. The 13.3-inch model goes for $230. That’s awfully affordable for Windows-based devices, and it puts the notebooks in direct competition with Chromebooks coming in at around the same price.

The Specs Won’t Blow Your Socks Off

Don’t expect to find specs in any of the Stream devices that will shock and awe you. In fact, HP has kept the specifications for the devices off its press release and its purchase pages, leading many to wonder why the company might be keeping everything so close to the vest. HP has, however, confirmed that the devices won’t be ultra-powerful, and judging by the pricing, they likely won’t compete very well against higher-end products, like the iPad or MacBook Air.

HP Is Trying the Integration Scheme

Like Apple, Samsung and many other companies in the space, HP is trying to get its hardware buyers to invest in its software platforms. So, with the purchase of every Stream, users will have access to the company’s Connected suite of apps, which includes its Connected Music and Connected Photo platform. It also includes the company’s cloud-based storage locker, Connected Drive.

Interesting Features Dot the Landscape

There are some interesting features that are available across the Stream lineup. The Stream 7, for example, comes with the full Windows 8.1 experience, despite being a 7-inch tablet. The HP Stream 11 has a fanless design that will make the device quite quiet. The HP Stream 13’s battery will last for nearly 8 hours, giving it all-day functionality.

Look for U.S. Availability at Select Retailers

So we know the price, but what about the availability? According to HP, the Stream 7, 8, 11 and 13 will all be available on its Website and at “select retailers” starting in November. The company’s previously announced HP Stream 14, which starts at $299, is listed as “coming soon” on the HP site.

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