VidTrim: Simple, Free Video Editing on Android

Say you used your Android phone to shoot an 8 minute video of your cat playing with a toy, or a half hour video of your baby kind of lying on the floor doing nothing but looking cute. Now say you actually want to watch the video from time to time, but don’t have the free … Read more

Skifta Soft Launch: Stream Your Media to DLNA Devices

Now that we own digital content in a lot of different places, several companies are working on the problem of making it accessible everywhere. Skifta, owned by Qualcomm, is one such player with a new Android app, and an affinity for DLNA. The Skifta set-up is reasonably simple. Download the app on your phone and … Read more

Xmarks Plugin Now Available for Android Dolphin Browser

Xmarks is a cross-platform bookmark synchronization service that lets you make sure you ensure you have the same bookmarks on your home and work PC. It supports Safari, Firefox, Google Chrome, and Internet Explorer. The basic service is free, but for $12 per year you can upgrade to a Pro account which also lets you … Read more

Google’s New Android Music App Leaked

Google is expected to launch a major (and long overdue) update to the music player bundled with Android. Eventually the app will allow users to browse for music stored on a PC using their device, and transfer music purchases made on the web to their mobile device seamlessly. Those features aren’t available yet, but a member … Read more

SoundHound’s Free App Identifies Unlimited Songs

SoundHound‘s mobile apps let you identify music with your phone. Hear a song on the radio and want to know who sings it? Just fire up the SoundHound app, hold your phone up to the music, and within a few seconds, the app should have an ID for you. It’s pretty awesome, especially for a … Read more

The Gadget Christmas That Was and Wasn’t

Christmas gadgets 2010

For several years I’ve run a gadget postmortem after our annual Christmas extravaganza. 2010 is no different, except that the gadget volume is noticeably lower. Here’s the tally:

I’ve had little hands-on time with any of these gifts yet, particularly as my car radio has to be installed before I can use it. However, I can report some initial impressions. My father, a self-professed Microsoft fanboy, is wildly excited about his LG Quantum C900 Windows Phone 7. I’m planning to play around with it later today, but for the few moments I held on to it, I have to say I was impressed with its lightning-fast response times. That’s either a testament to the LG phone, or to the comparative lagginess of my aging Droid Eris. My brother, on the other hand, was not terribly enthusiastic about his Samsung Captivate. A variant of the Galaxy S line, the Captivate is possibly the best Android option currently available on AT&T. Unfortunately, it only has a soft keyboard, battery life is lacking, and my brother found integration with his primary Google apps to be maddening. He’s keeping the phone, with the hope it will grow on him.

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Use Windows Phone 7 as a Media Center Remote

You know what probably would have been a no-brainer for Microsoft? Building a Windows Media Center remote control app into Windows Phone 7, allowing you to use your phone to control audio and video playback on your PC. But Microsoft doesn’t really seem to be paying much attention to Windows Media Center these days, so … Read more

Skype iPhone App To Offer Video Chat

It hasn’t been a very good week for Skype, dealing with some serious downtime issues, but it looks like there’s good news on the horizon. Skype offers mobile apps for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, and other platforms which let you make free calls to other users and cheap calls to “real” phone numbers. Skype also offers desktop … Read more