Gadgetory

this episode of technobuffalo is brought to you by audible on this episode of TechnoBuffalo we're going to talk about what nokia has up their sleeve we're going to define iCloud we're going to talk about my cell phone showers raining from the sky and we're going to answer all of your questions from the world of technology let's get started welcome everyone to another edition of ask the Buffalo this is a chance where you get asked me jon rettinger any question you have from the wide wide wide world of technology with a little dose of awesome sauce to spice things up you can ask your questions in one of two ways first you can go ahead and send it to me on twitter at john for lakers or at TechnoBuffalo just you have to use a hashtag ask the bee you can ask anything you want otherwise you can check out TechnoBuffalo calm once a week we will post an article up on the site asking for your questions you can leave those write down in the comments so let's go ahead and jump into question number one so the first question comes from twitter user infinity park 003 asked John do you think that the Nokia partnership with Microsoft is going to be a success we got the first super secret sauce sneak preview of the device codenamed see ray Stephen Elop asked everyone to turn off their camera phones as he showed them to the world so now I am going to just ask everybody to put away your cameras and of course that's code for everybody please turn on your camera phone and record if you'll notice that I'm actually using a Windows Phone 7 device to hold this up I whether or not you love nokia or hate nokia it's been very hard to ignore their super awesome build quality and they're fantastic industrial design so nokia bringing those two awesome things coupling it up with a really solid windows phone 7 OS like we're going to have a really nice recipe for success on our hands not to mention Nokia's really credible distribution channels and there wait for it market penetration in the rest of the world especially outside of the US is tremendous they are one of the biggest smartphone manufacturers in the world even if their market share has been dropping steadily their name and brand recognition is tremendous put microsoft resources behind it and i think you're definitely going to have a winner so i think we're going to see the number one smartphone OS being windows phone 7 to the next couple of years certainly not but i do think we're going to see a really solid third place and a great option right behind iOS and Android so if I think it's going to be a big thumbs-up pneus the answer is yes I most definitely do especially when you're put in a little slice of mango in there it's going to be an absolutely delicious combination and I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the first Windows Phone 7 nokia device hopefully that helped answer your question our next question comes to us from technobuffalo user Austin Childers who asked John you think the droid bionic is completely canceled or you're going to be called a different name we first saw the droid bionic if you remember back at CES 2011 at verizon's awesome don't ask us about the iphone keynote when they announced some really cool 4G LTE devices which have already come to market including the LG revolution sorry new phone so little chumps they're all from verizon guys slow down I got the trophy will do that one later it's the LG revolution in the droid charge and a few of their mifi devices but what we haven't seen is the Bionic which is supposed to be the first dual core that's two for the number of cores smartphone of forgy capable on verizon right now the 4g devices are only single core and the only dual core device does not have that fourth G in the motorola droid x2 so the resource have already seen the release of the droid bionic quick kept hearing it got cancelled and cancelled and cancelled and delay in the way in fact we won the first sites it actually reported officially on the delay however Motorola is now taken to Twitter to say the droid bionic is indeed coming probably going to be a little bit retweet from what we initially saw at CES but it's going to be here so if you want some dual core action on the nation's largest LTE network you're going to be able to get it hopefully all the bugs that they had have been worked out so you can get through a full day of battery life and if you want to get your benchmarking on and your fast downloads on stay tuned for more information on the droid bionic all right our next question comes from TechnoBuffalo website as well from user Tanner e who asked John do you think that the cell phone industry will become completely smartphone or do you think that the dumb phone will have a chance in the business I'm dumb phone did necessarily mean a dumb phone for dumb people it was just the term smartphones is becoming so widespread is something that was completely juxtaposed a smartphone let's call the dumb phone doesn't mean that it's any less special doesn't ride the smartphone short bus to school it rides in a regular car just like everyone else but the era of phones that just make phone calls is very quickly coming to an end we can hold the eulogy in the razor's honor alright it's been eulogized smartphones are doing more and more phones and cells are doing more and more it's almost next to impossible to find a phone that doesn't have a calendar built didn't you can't check email on every flip phone you can buy from every carrier now has that functionality built in so the era of just making phone calls and perhaps just using the jitterbug like your grandma might use to make a phone call is coming to an end everything is becoming smarter things are evolving phones are getting more complex so we're done unfortunately you just want to make a phone call you're gonna have a hard time finding a phone to go out and pick up a razor on ebay or craigslist while you still can not to say every phone out there is going to be android webos you know iOS Windows Phone 7 they're also going to be simple phones both the operating system met the simple phones are running are becoming more and more complex so that was a crazy convoluted answer that was my hand signs for convoluted to say that yes this dumb phone as we know it is changing everything is becoming much much much smarter the next question comes to us from the TechnoBuffalo for users saifi who asks John he explained to you what I cut it I really don't get it that's a question I've been getting quite a bit what is iCloud why am i hearing about iCloud everywhere I go what is a cloud am I going to lose my data if it rains if there's a wind it is not what's in the sky if you're nothing to do with the actual cumulus thingies that might be above you right now what a cloud essentially means it's just shared server shared hard drive space on a server somewhere else not stored locally not on your home not on your computer so what Apple's iCloud is and that's sort of the baked in cloud computing that's in Apple's new iOS we're going to say to integrate into the next generation operating system called lion essentially it takes all your information under contacts musics fdf stored on iTunes backup of your phone and it puts it up into a cloud puts it up into a shared server another T pulling information down regardless of where you are so you don't have to be plugged into your computer to get that information you don't have to be tethered to any particular device anywhere you are you have access to that cloud the reason it's sort of called the cloud if you can access it anywhere no matter where you are outside you can look up see a cloud and get your information sort of a simple way to explain it but it's just a shared server in the sky lets you access your information completely wirelessly and iCloud essentially does all of that and you'll sink all of your information with stuff that's been stored on a remote server that Apple has so over simplistic explanation but I hope that you found it useful so I'd like to take a minute to thank our friends and sponsors at audible.com the best way to get audio books on your mp3 player choice including iPhone or iPod touch I actually just finished freakonomics took me about four days in the car this book I've been dying to read but have had a chance to actually sit down and read the actual book audible com lets you catch up on all your reading while you are driving walking anywhere that you have access to an mp3 player if you want to check out free economics or any of audible seventy five thousand titles sure to check out audible podcast.com slash techno you can download a free audiobook of your choice awesome way to catch up it's super convenient it's fun and you get a chance to use your cell phone or your mp3 player another cool thing you can do is electronics so thank you again to our friends at next question is probably one of the most popular questions I get it comes from user Dan who asked John what do you do with the phones after your review them contrary to popular belief I don't take a smartphone bath I don't roll around and smartphone once telephoned so many unfortunately 99% of the phones that we get have to go back to the PR firms that sent them so when I work with verizon sprint 18 TM t mobile their public relations firm send us a device when it comes out or just before it comes out and i come to the loan agreement so we sign a loan agreement we get the phone we can review the phone for generates about three weeks to a month let me get to send the phone back if it's a film that i want to keep for a little while longer if I need it for comparison purposes for other devices I have to request an extension for that phone which usually does get granted and I can get another one or two month furlough with it then those devices all have to go back to the PR firms or one exception being Apple all the Apple products that you seen us review by TechnoBuffalo have had to be bought so that's how it works we get them just for a quick period then we got to send them back the same is true with all the tablets that we get our hands on hopefully that helped and demystify a bit what goes on behind the curtains at TechnoBuffalo and tech reviewers in general and speaking of the entire tech reviewing industry that ties into our last question who comes to us through Twitter this is user Tom of action who asks is it possible to be professional as a reviewer while being non biased if so then how man this is a question that I really have been getting quite a bit how do you not be bias or why are you biased unfortunately people have become very very strongly adamant and pushing whatever smartphone operating system they like so if I'm reviewing something by Apple and I like a feature that Apple has immediately you're called a fanboy if you're doing something that Android has you like something to Android has immediately your game called an android fanboy and what if you happen to put two phones head-to-head in the afterlife one more immediately you are considered bias unfortunately that's just the way it goes if you want to be a tech journalist you want get into the field you have to have an opinion that's what you're being paid for that people are watching you for you have to have an opinion the best advice I can give is try and put all prejudged opinions out of your head so if you're an iphone using reviewing an IFO and look at it with a fresh set of eyes you're an Android user look at your Android device the fresh set of eyes how might someone else interpret what you're looking at and no matter what people are going to disagree with what you say if everybody agreed with your opinion wouldn't be much fun to read or watch so don't be afraid of the comments don't worry about the feedback be honest to yourself give a fair opinion for what you think is the best result for your comparison or your review and that's all anybody can ask and that's why people are looking at your channel 4 or reading your website for so a bit of video making or tech reviewing advice just be honest yourself and the audience will respect it hope you guys enjoyed this episode of ask the Buffalo I'm gonna play mario theme song with my eyebrows ready dude duty duty duty duty duty duty to do to do to do to do to tick you