Gadgetory

this week on the CNET tech reviews someone's in the kitchen with Sharon and her favorite cooking apps HTC gets a status update with its new Facebook phone how to transfer photos from Facebook to Google+ and get ready to rack up some high scores with this iPad arcade cabinet it's all coming up right now hi everyone I'm Molly wood and welcome to the CNET tech review where we collect our hottest videos of the week and tell you what's good and what's bad in the world of tech plus offer some unique tech wisdom in the form of the bottom line let's start with the good first up today we've got something for all the foodies out there there is no shortage of great recipes and cooking tips available on the Internet and there are plenty of great apps for the iPad that helped bring that knowledge into the kitchen here's Sharon Vaknin with a few of her favorites hey everyone welcome to tap that up I'm Sharon Vaknin and today I'm hanging out in the chow Test Kitchen to talk about three apps that all you home chefs seasoned or aspiring will love they're all available on the iPad which is a perfect kitchen companion with its large screen and gorgeous apps like the photo cookbook launch it and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about this five-dollar app gives you step-by-step photo instructions of about 80 gourmet but basic recipes it's a great way to get comfortable in the kitchen since not only are the instructions easy to follow but you also learn about ingredients in the process tapping on an ingredient in a recipe will give you its description ways to prepare it and other related items if you decide that you want to email yourself the ingredients photo cookbook lets you do that with just a few taps when you're ready to expand your culinary knowledge you can by up to 180 more Asian Italian and baking recipes in the app now if that's too fancy for you check out the all recipes app all recipes is actually an online community where people like you and me submit their own recipes and let me tell you from experience there are some amazing ideas on there so with this app you can access the entire collection on your iPad in a pretty interface do a search for a dish you want to make browse by filters like course or ingredient or check out the handpick featured recipes each recipe is accompanied by reviews nutritional information and the option to change the serving size to make more or less of the dish Allrecipes is probably my favorite place to find original recipes besides chow of course but even with all these recipes at hand you'll need to build your culinary knowledge it will replace culinary school but smart chef suite will help you out with conversions substitutions and definitions while you're cooking for instance if a recipe calls for breadcrumbs but I have none of that in my kitchen the nice little owl will tell me that I can use cracker crumbs matzo meal or ground oats instead you can also convert things like pints to cups and get vocabulary lessons from the definition section like what the heck is ajinomoto all right well good thing we checked because it's Japanese for msg so pick your recipes master your kitchen skills and satisfy your hunger with these three apps for more episodes of top that off check out Sina TV and tell us what your favorite apps are on our Facebook page I'm Sharon Vaknin happy cooking I suppose if you do plan to use the iPad while you're cooking it might be worth investing in a case hopefully one that can go in the dishwasher and when dinner time is over and the dishes are all done might I suggest you retire to the arcade for some casual retro gaming you can do just that with this new iPad accessory from ion audio I'm Dan Ackerman and we are here taking a look at the ion audio eye cave the iCade actually started life as an April Fool's gag from ThinkGeek the big online gadget another weird stuff store they just did a mock up and said hey wouldn't be cool if you can get a little arcade cabinet for your iPad people liked the idea so much think he actually went out and found a company ion to make it for him so now you can actually buy the iCade for 99 bucks what you get for your 99 bucks is basically a particle board mini arcade cabinet you have to screw it together yourself connected to a Bluetooth joystick and button set so you put a couple of double-a batteries in here seek and find a bluetooth to your iPad then you take your iPad and you just flip open the top and you drop the iPad right in here it doesn't actually connect to the cradle or anything it just sits in it so you don't want to move this around otherwise you'll jostle everything and then you launch the Atari Greatest Hits iOS game that is the only game that currently works with the eye cave however it does give you a hundred different classic Atari arcade and console games for about 15 bucks that's a pretty good deal especially if you're interested in that kind of classic gaming one should do that you pick the game you want to play a lot of these classic games were actually meant to work with track balls or other kinds of controls not joysticks some of its a little bit awkward but a lot of them work really well you can have to go through the hundred games and find the ones that work best for you for a hundred bucks the iCade is basically an expensive novelty it's a desktop toy but it's a very cool-looking one especially into vintage gaming the company that makes this has released an SDK or a software development kit that will allow people who make other ios games to make an eye cade compatible version of that game we have not seen that yet but if people started doing that the iCade is going to be a lot more useful I'm gonna quit and that is the ion audio iCade the best part you don't even need any quarters unless you want to put one up to claim the next game given how ubiquitous Facebook has become it was only a matter of time before we saw a dedicated Facebook phone and that time has come courtesy of HTC let's see how much Bonnie cha likes it hey everyone I'm Bonnie toss senior editor at cnet.com and we are here in New York at a special event with ATT showing off the HCG status this is the Facebook optimized phone when it has here is a dedicated Facebook button so you can press it to post a status update share news story as well as any music you're listening to you can also share photos by pressing this button here short press will take you to the screen where you can post status update if you do a long press it will allow you to check in to location so you can share with everyone else on your Facebook wall otherwise it's running Android 2.3 Gingerbread has a two point six inch screen it's HP d8 quality a little small but you know for the intended audience I think it's OK on back you've got a five megapixel camera and on front there's also a VGA camera so you can do video call another Facebook feature it has a chat client so you can instant message with your friends also got a full QWERTY keyboard buttons are good size and they're raised above the surface so they're easy to press it'll be available starting July 17 for a very affordable 49.99 with a two year contract so I think it's gonna do really well with the younger crowd who loves to social network especially Facebook so looking forward to trying it out and I'm Ronnie Tom this has been your first look at the HTC that is for a TV of course if you're already over Facebook and you've made the commitment to Google+ that's not gonna be the phone for you but before you forget about Facebook completely sharon's here again to help you gather up your things and leave unless you've been using a service like Picasa or Flickr to store your photos I bet that most of your pictures are on Facebook it makes sense since you want to put photos where your friends can see them but if you're switching to Google+ or using both networks you should share your pictures on there too I'm Sharon Vaknin for cnet.com here to show you how to move your photos from Facebook to Google+ basically what we need to do is download your Facebook album so that you can easily re-upload them to Google Plus lots of free online tools let you do this but I have a couple favorites as always your best bet is to use Facebook's built-in data downloader because it's a guaranteed safe and proprietary tool the only annoying part about getting your photos this way is that it takes a few hours to a day for Facebook to email you the download link go to your account settings then hit download your information once the download is ready you'll get a zip folder of your facebook info like messages and wall posts and all your photos organized into folders by album but if you're more of a one at now kind of person checkout pick and zip it's a free web app that lets you download albums plus any photos that you've been tagged in just go to pick and zip com log in with Facebook head to download and select download all photos if you have a ton of pictures this might take a while I had about 3500 and it took five minutes the download will come as a zipped folder which you should decompress usually by double clicking it on a Mac or selecting extract all files and windows you'll see in albums folder with all your albums and a tagged folder with all the photos you've been tagged in once you have your Facebook photos on your computer it's time to head to Google+ go to view profile then photos and upload new photos here you can create one album at a time you can't upload all your album at once click select photos from computer find an album you want to upload select the photos in that folder and hit open once the photos are uploaded give the album a name and hit create album here you can add a comment about the album which will show up in your stream and decide which circles you want to share it with if you want it to be private just enter your own name or email address share it and the album will show up in the streams of the people you shared it with and in the photos tab on your profile you can always change the album privacy options by going to photos then view all your albums click the album you want to edit and change the visible to option and here's an extra tip unlike Facebook Google+ has a built-in photo editor click on a photo and select actions you can rotate the photo or click Edit photo for coloring effects like cross processing or black and white in this view you can also tag people in your photos by selecting add tag and entering the person's name or email address if they're not on Google+ yet so go ahead and move your photo memories to Google+ especially if you think you'll be spending more time there than Facebook and feel free to leave behind any baggage you're ready to retire for more how-to visit how to cnet.com and feel free to ask me any questions on my Facebook page for CNET I'm Sharon Vaknin and I'll see you on the interwebs consider this your opportunity to do some spring cleaning as well I know everyone has some snapshots that have been posted to Facebook that have no business being there myself included thanks for putting up the old high school pic buddies haha in fact let's take a break so I can go delete those photos right now but don't go too far we've still got a lot more tech review right after this welcome back to the CNET tech review our weekly video digest of all things good and bad we've seen here at CNET TV continuing on in the good many of us have come to depend on GPS navigation to get us where we're going which is great as long as it doesn't steer you directly into a traffic jam that's where live traffic monitoring comes in and where the latest version of the TomTom GO really shines even if you're headed to a familiar place in a very familiar city a GPS device with traffic data can still be useful for dodging traffic jams TomTom has a new trick up its sleeve that aims to deliver more accurate traffic straight to your dashboard I'm Antoine Goodwood cnet.com let's take a first look at the TomTom GO 25-35 M live the go 25 35 M live text many of the same features that we saw earlier this year and tom-toms go 24:05 including a glass capacitive touchscreen this time it's a five inch unit as opposed to a 4.3 inch one and an asymmetric lead design metallic chassis that snaps into its cradle with the power of magnetism interestingly the Go 2535 power cable features a detachable 12-volt to USB adapter so you won't get a separate USB sync cable in the Box this time on the bright side to go 2535 live gains the ability to use its traffic and live services without the power cable being connected because tom toms moved the data receiver into the unit's main body as opposed to housing it in the cord like on previous models you'll be able to get the latest weather conditions and forecasts find the lowest fuel prices nearby search for points of interest with Google local search avoid speed and safety cameras if you're a little paranoid and get live traffic updates now that last bits worth dwelling on because this isn't just regular RDS traffic but it's TomTom the latest generation of HD traffic TomTom claims this HD traffic service updates more frequently more accurately and on more roads than standard municipal traffic services Tom's Tom's live connected services are free for the first year of ownership the Go 2535 live also features tom toms new interface which was updated or in 2011 which takes advantage of the capacitive touchscreen for things like pinch and zoom on the map and swipe the scroll of the menu there also fewer menu levels than previous TomTom generations with the main functions of navigate to view map and plan route sitting at top level on the main screen oh and by the way the M Ingo 2535 M live means this baby will get free map updates for as long as you own it I'm gonna go chase down some traffic jams to see how accurate the Go 2535 live HD traffic service actually is and how much time it can save me I've been Antoine Goodwin to find out what I think look for the full review of the TomTom GO 25:35 M live on cnet.com I can definitely use one of those to help get around town whatever there's a Giants game going on down the street also I wonder how TomTom would handle Carmageddon in LA this weekend be strong people let's see what's up this week in the bag now if you're going to take the time to wire your living room or your home theater for surround sound I'd hope you would also take the time to choose a speaker system that not only sounds good but at least looks halfway decent too in which case I would hope you skip this new set from Cluj hey I'm Matthew Muscovy a cat cnet.com and this is the Klipsch HD theater 500 this is a 5.1 speaker system and it can be found online for less than $500 the system is made up of four small satellite speakers a center channel and a 100 watt subwoofer the speaker cabinets are plastic and the grilles on the front are removable revealing a point seven five inch tweeter and a 2.5 inch woofer wall mounts are included for the satellites and they offer the ability to angle the speakers at up to a 20 degree angle either left or right the subwoofer is average size for a system like this and there's an 8 inch driver on the bottom while the clip system looks pretty stylish we were disappointed by the cheap speaker connectors on the back they have a spring clip design that only accepts bear speaker wire and they don't make as much of a secure connection as we like and while this is a budget speaker system many competitors have better connectors on the back the most important aspect of any speaker system is its sound quality and while the clip sounds a whole lot better than many of the sound bars and home theater in a box systems we test it didn't sound quite as good stacked up against other budget speaker systems when we played action movies like Black Hawk Down at high volumes the small satellite started to sound strain and not quite as powerful as the competing energy take classic 5.1 system music wasn't much better either and again it didn't fare well when we tried to get loud however if you tend to listen at relatively low volumes or you watch less sonically demanding movies the clips can't sound quite good as long as you don't push it too hard altogether while the Klipsch HD theater 500 is a competent budget surround sound system we prefer a lot of its competitors at this price range the energy take class system offers better sound quality at around the same size and if you can put up at larger speakers the Piner SP PK 21 BS delivers unbeatable sound for the money if you find the Klipsch HD theater at a heavy discount it's not a bad system but we generally prefer the alternatives I'm Matthew moscovia and this is the Klipsch HD theater 500 $500 is not a lot to pay for a 5.1 surround sound system but if it looks like it was made for $50 I'm not sure it's really such a good bargain I promise you'll get more bang for your buck in this week's bottom line from Android to webOS and of course iOS we're up to our necks with tablets around here these days which is all the more reason to revisit our top tablet picks in this week's top 5 countdown hello gang last time I brought you a list of top five tablets a lot of it was well GUI that's because many of the contenders for the iPads crown were still yet to go on the market and undergo the withering tests our lab and your opinion well that's all changed now and the henchmen are lined up I'm Bryan Cooley with the top five tablets iPad and otherwise let's go shopping number five is the t-mobile G slate we like that it has 4G support and Android Honeycomb all rammed into one device and pre-installed streaming TV apps that work quite nicely but then there's this built-in 3d camcorder thing which uses those cheapy red and blue glasses seriously now the 3d on this thing is just a gimmick don't get mislead beyond that this is also kind of a pricey device 800 bucks unless you do a two-year hitch with a carrier who's likely going to be gobbled up by another carrier halfway through that hitch it's just kind of messy number four is the BlackBerry PlayBook a lot of folks are out there in the audience right now playing the funeral dirge as I mentioned this one but the PlayBook is actually kind of hot it's fast powerful flash enabled HDMI equipped a multitasking wonder but the seven inch sized crams all that power on too small a stage and it's to time to the BlackBerry platform at a time when many folks are going a different direction number three is the improbably named a sous a Pad Transformer it actually does transform is it a honeycomb tablet or in that book yes you see you can dock it into a keyboard docking station that answer is one of the biggest frustrations we all have with tablets that there's no way they're really tight they're always hunting and pecking on that touchscreen now it's pretty hefty kind of wide kind of fit kind of heavy yeah and that's without the dock but the price is pretty good $400 list for a 16 gigabyte model and the keyboard dock is a reasonable 150 more number two is one of the very first serious iPad 2 challengers the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 this is the big boy in their line super thin runs the hot honeycomb OS front and rear cameras and alarmingly powerful speakers now while we love its meth addict thin lines we didn't like how Samsung got there the back feels cheap and plasticky and likely to break if you drop it even once not exactly Apple build quality but if you're looking for something that isn't Apple this is our go-to choice right now okay before I bring you to our number one tablet let me remind you of what may be the best value in a tablet it's the Barnes and Noble Nook Color that's right it's ostensibly an e-reader with a little bit of technical acumen you can do what's called routing of this device and fully expose the Android operating system that lies within that's not a lot of sweat to break to get yourself a real good Android tablet for 250 or less we've got a link to the step-by-step directions to route one of these devices in our show notes at top-5 dot cnet.com think about it okay if you're really bad at things like process of elimination games I will tell you the number one tablet it's the Apple iPad 2 it's thin it's got dual cameras now dual-core processor that FaceTime video chat and two carrier choices for your 3G models that slick cover still looks like a day a magic trick and it has a huge and well vetted store of apps that said it's screen resolution and ratio is still stuck back in iPad one territory the photo quality is inexplicably lousy and there's no support for flash but you'll have days of battery life to ponder those few shortcomings and to be part of the vast majority who think a tablet is an iPad okay before you go buy any tablet these five or some other makes you check out our reviews our latest reviews at cnet.com because the tablet category is hot and new models are coming out fast and furious right now for more top fives like this go to top 5 dot cnet.com i'm brian coulis thanks for watching the bottom line this week was there ever any doubt you could kind of see number one coming from a mile away but good on a Seuss for making it on the list alright folks that's our show come back next week for an all-new scene at tech review including our hands-on impressions of the Spotify music service until then there are tons of great videos available every day at cena tv.com see you next time and thank you for watching