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Welcome to Trender Research
Welcome to Trender Research! Trender Research is a market research and consulting firm that covers the use of technology-based devices and services by everyday people. Trender Research is dedicated to capturing the voice of not just the technically adept, but demographic groups that are often overlooked by established market research firms and the developers of new gadgets and services--- read more...
Personal Technology News
Best LED Light Bulbs for Vivid, Rich Colors
What to look for in an energy-efficient LED light bulb. Plus shining examples like the Cree TW, GE Reveal, and Sylvania Ultra HD.Uber X Riders Will Now Pay a $1 'Safe Rides Fee'
By Nathan Olivarez-Giles If you use Uber X to get around, you'll soon notice a new $1 surcharge every time you catch a ride. On Friday, Uber introduced a "safe rides fee," a new levy that riders will pay to help the car service cover increasing insurance costs, background checks and regular checks from motor-vehicle departments.The company also said in a blog post that the fee will help pay for "future development of safety features in the app."Uber is referring to a known increase in insurance costs. Just last month, Uber (along with rival ridesharing service Lyft) expanded its insurance policies to cover drivers between rides, not just when they have a passenger.The $1 fee will show up as its own line item on Uber X receipts. As of now, the fee won't be charged to anyone other than Uber X riders—taxis, black cars and SUVs are all free of the levy. Uber X, known controversially for high "surge pricing" when demand for a ride outstrips supply, is one of the most popular ride-sharing services.#AskWSJD: Why Would I Want to Unlock My Phone?
By Joanna Stern In this week's #AskWSJD, reader Johnathon Mohr asks what it means to unlock a mobile phone—and why it might benefit someone.In the U.S., many phones are "locked" to a specific carrier, meaning you can't just pop in another SIM card and get service. Unlocking the phone is a software process that allows it to work on other compatible carriers. Say you bought your phone through AT&T and wanted to get it working on T-Mobile—"unlocking" it would let you do that.It can be extremely helpful when traveling overseas. If your phone is unlocked and it has the right requirements, you can take it to another country, pop in a new prepaid SIM card and get local service there. That can be much cheaper than paying carrier's high international rates.But there has been a lot of controversy over unlocking in the past year. After the Library of Congress, a government department that oversees digital copyright matters, deemed phone unlocking illegal last year, consumers with the help of the White House fought back. In February, the House repealed the mandate. The matter now sits with the Senate.Consumers can typically bring their phone to a carrier to have them unlocked once their contract is up. In fact, the major U.S. carriers, thanks to the FCC's help, will soon surface information about unlocking. However, attempting to unlock a phone yourself is still not legal at this point, and can be technically tricky, too.If you'd like to ask us a question, you can send questions directly in email to the Personal Tech team at personaltech@wsj.com, or send a tweet with the question and the hashtag #AskWSJD. You can also film yourself asking the question in 15 seconds or less, and upload it via YouTube, Instagram, Vine, Facebook or some other online video platform. We look forward to hearing from you, and helping you out!The Best Tools for Cleaning Your Gross Gadgets
Making your devices sparkle means more than just grabbing whatever is in the cleaning closet. Joanna Stern looks at the best products to use on electronics.More Pixels, More Picture: Is It Time for an Ultra HD TV?
The arrival of the new Ultra HD sets is part of a home-theater renaissance that's making the tube cool again. Geoffrey Fowler tests the Samsung HU9000 65-inch TV.Tech News
Bits Blog: Facebook’s New Twist on Location Sharing Puts Users in Control
Nearby Friends, a feature announced Thursday, lets users broadcast their location to friends, but simple privacy controls give them the power to decide how much more to share.
App for Spotting and Disputing Dubious Charges
BillGuard helps users track activity across all their credit and debit card accounts and makes approving or contesting a charge as simple as a swipe.
Gadgetwise: Cut the Clutter in Your Social Media Accounts
There are simple ways to make platforms like Twitter and Facebook more useful, like making lists and trimming back groups.
Machine Learning: The Best Photo Organizing App? I’m Still Looking
A new entrant from Dropbox, Carousel, looked promising, but fell short. A raft of others all have strengths, but nothing offers everything you want.
Bits Blog: Tech Companies Commit to Offering a ‘Kill Switch’ for Preventing Phone Theft
CTIA, the industry trade group that represents wireless carriers, said over a dozen companies were dedicated to offering free antitheft software on cellphones.
Trender Posts
OTT Video Executive Summit Announces Sessions and Speakers
Boston, MA. March 4, 2014 — Sessions and speakers for the Over the Top Video Executive Summit (www.OTTVideoSummit.com), to be held at Boston’s Lenox Hotel on April 16, were announced today. The OTT Video Executive Summit brings together thought leaders in the…
Posted by Brian Mahony on March 4, 2014 at 11:47am
Announcing the OTT Video Executive Summit
More details here: www.OTTVideoSummit.com
*** Please read below and respond/comment ***
Dear industry colleagues:
I am pleased to announce a new executive conference that will be like no other you have attended. Of course the focus of the event is OTT video, but the format is guaranteed to make it highly strategic, educational, and lots of fun. In short, the conference will mingle industry executives, a panel of…
Posted by Brian Mahony on January 22, 2014 at 9:00pm
Getting closer to cutting the cord completely
My daughter's friend was over the other day talking about her favorite shows and my daughter had no idea what she was talking about. It was then that I realized that my kids have already cut the cord from channel surfing the major channels. For about 3 years now, the majority of our content comes from Netflix, with a bit more from Amazon, Hulu, and YouTube, or directly from ABC.com, etc.
My kids have been mostly raised on documentaries and movies. My sons love "Famous Tank Battles"…
ContinuePosted by Brian Mahony on January 22, 2014 at 5:29pm
Cutting the Cord Part 6: Roku Review— Simple and Easy OTT Video Device
Posted by Brian Mahony on September 8, 2013 at 2:30am
Wireless speakers
Why can’t I use these speakers to play music from my computer?
I’m sitting in my room at my parent’s house, watching the NBA playoffs on TV. Above my TV, I have 2 fairly large speakers that are hooked up to a relatively old stereo. The idea: convert these 2 unused speakers into wireless speakers that I can use from my computer.
After doing a little research on wireless speakers I was not impressed. Most of the conversation is focused on surround sound or home…
Posted by Brian on May 15, 2013 at 11:00pm
Remaining Upside Opportunities for Pay-TV Services
The legacy pay-TV services market can now be divided into two distinct groups. First, those regions where the market is fully saturated and customer churn is the primary activity. Second, the developing nations where local pay-TV providers can still find new customers willing and able to pay for their offerings.
According to the latest market study by ABI Research, the global pay-TV market added nearly 47 million new customers in 2012 -- reaching a total of 864 million…
Posted by David H. Deans on April 25, 2013 at 1:30pm
What is the future of location based services?
Everything today is in context. You can't read a news story, talk to a neighbor, watch a sporting event, or plan a vacation without understanding context. Who you are. Where you want to go. Your habits. Your friends and family. Finances. You name it.
So it is no surprise that advertisers for a long time have figured out that understanding the context of their target audience is worth more to them that just a static list of names and addresses. And in today's mobile world,…
ContinuePosted by Brian Mahony on January 16, 2012 at 10:14pm
Netflix Takes Aim at the Cable Guys, With a Promise to Start Firing Tomorrow. What's Next for You?
Netflix, which is fighting with the cable guys and telcos over streaming video costs, says it will publish a ranking of the best broadband performers. Or in other words: Netflix says it will tell some broadband customers that the...http://tiny.cc/ky5kn Read the full story
Posted by JL Henry on June 26, 2011 at 7:00pm
Service Provider News
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Top Tech News
Samsung data center fire causes outage, errors on smart TVs and phones (update: fixed)
Seeing an error message on your Samsung phone, tablet or Smart TV today? You're not alone, as the Samsung.com website appears to be down and owners worldwide have reported anything from error messages to being unable to access apps on their smart TVs. Reports have spread on Twitter -- mostly from a community news site called Wikitree -- that a fire at a Samsung SDS building in Gwacheon, South Korea is the culprit.
Find the most beautiful abstract art for your phone
Relying on stock artwork for your smartphone is never the right way to go. The trouble is, finding the right work of art or photography that suits you and your device isn't always the easiest task. Here's where you can start and where you can add your own. The only rules are that the art you seek should be clean and uncluttered and be sourced appropriately. Have a look.
NASA: Engineer vital to moon landing success dies
SCARBOROUGH, Maine (AP) — John C. Houbolt, an engineer whose contributions to the U.S. space program were vital to NASA's successful moon landing in 1969, has died. He was 95.
Obamacare enrollees urged to change passwords over Heartbleed bug
By Chris Francescani NEW YORK (Reuters) - Americans with accounts on President Barack Obama's health insurance enrollment website, HealthCare.gov, were advised that their passwords had been reset to guard against the "Heartbleed" bug, in a message posted on the site on Saturday. The warning marks the latest fallout from the widespread security bug, which surfaced this month and allows hackers to steal data online without a trace. Companies from Amazon.com Inc to Google Inc. have been forced to take steps to protect against Heartbleed. HealthCare.gov, a health insurance exchange for the 36 states that opted out of creating their own state insurance exchanges, was created under Obama's signature health care law, the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Vinyl's great, but it's not better than CDs
Happy Record Store Day! There are plenty of business-related grievances to be filed against the annual vinyl celebration, but it's hard to argue with the spirit of a day encouraging people to explore and buy new music. Moreover, vinyl's just more fun as a format than MP3s or CDs;
Audi's latest hybrid concept car takes the TT family offroad, with 408HP under the hood
Audi's latest prototype packing an E-Tron hybrid drivetrain is this TT Offroad Concept that takes the TT family beyond the coupes and convertibles we're familiar with. Going on display at the Beijing Motor Show, it combines two electric motors (one on each axle) with a 292HP turbocharged combustion engine to produce up to 408 horsepower total. The concept is even quipped with wireless charging tech, making the "plug-in" hybrid possible to charge simply by parking in the right spot.
NASA spacecraft slams into dark side of the moon as planned
At roughly 12:30AM ET early on Friday morning, a soda machine-sized NASA spacecraft slammed into the far side of the moon at 3,600 miles per hour. The impact was entirely planned by NASA engineers in order to conclude the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) program, which launched late last year. After studying the composition of the lunar atmosphere for months, the spacecraft didn't have the fuel to continue flight and engineers decided it was best to place it down on the far side of the moon, out of sight and far from previous historic landing sites. NASA hoped to explain reports from Apollo astronauts of an aurora borealis-like glow on the horizon just before sunrise.
Weekends with Engadget: Windows Phone 8.1 and Gear 2 reviews, the anonymous internet and more!
Welcome to Weekends with Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines from the past seven days -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. For even more action, subscribe to our Flipboard magazine!
Saudi Arabia Prepares to Build the World's Tallest Building
Sci-fi short film imagines a world without paper
According to the renegade scientist in "Scattered," a sci-fi short film adapted from a story by author Ken MacLeod, it'd be a place freed from the restrictions of human history. In this world, "we look to the future, not the past," and some sort of modern human existence could be created based on all of the advancements that have brought us to where we are today. The original Ken MacLeod story, "The Surface of Last Scattering," was published in the sci-fi anthology TFSF, which comes from the MIT Technology Review.
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