TECH

These apps offer tech pick-me-up

ts a downer of a time in the tech world in so many ways. The NSA is snooping everywhere. Ad trackers attach themselves to us like dust bunnies. Hackers and scammers are hiding around every digital corner. Remember when we loved technology? I like it not just for all the great things it can help us do, but also for that ineffable feeling of wonder that a bright Kim technoKomando logical idea can sometimes give us. Kim RememKomando ber when you rst started to play with the Internet? The rst time you Skyped with a loved one far away? The rst text from someone who claimed all this digital stuff was too hard? What we need is a tech pick-me-up. Ive collected a few little apps to remind us that tech can still have the capacity to amaze. Are they moon shots? No, but they all brought a smile to my face. Vyclone is one of the rst indications of what can be done with the mass of lmed material out there. A few years back, Microsoft Labs debuted an amazing program, Photosynth, which stitched together photos on the Internet to give us amazing 3D visualizations of massively photographed sites like the Notre Dame cathedral. Vyclone is on the trail of something similar, except with video. The program takes different snatches of lm from the same event a wedding, say, or a music concert and creates a crude but passable edited chronicle of it. Are the results perfect? No. But think about it. The potential here instant, 360-degree lmed coverage of certain events is mindboggling. Next, did you know your smartphone could be a metal detector? There are several metal detector apps available. I tried Metal Detector from the App Store. Fire it up and turn the knob on your screen to the right to bring it to maximum intensity. Move around your house and youll see that the app does indeed work as advertised. Like most metal detectors, its looking for magnetic elds, so it wont register nonferrous metal i.e. not iron or steel. Still, its a fun app. Heres another: Im sure youve heard about the new driverless cars Google is pioneering. Just imagine the technology the company has stuffed into each of those. Tellingly, your phone can already begin to perform some of those tricks. One of the new driving apps is called iOnRoad. Fire up the app and attach your phone to your car windshield via the accessories the developer sells. The phone is then turned into a combination GPS, black box and driving adviser. Most notably, it will ash red when youre too close to the car ahead, if you drift out of your lane or start speeding. It will even take a picture of your parking spot so you wont get lost trying to nd your car after the big concert. Note that even here, the wow factor has a down side the app is going to be collecting a lot of information about your driving habits, which could end up being part of an accident or insurance investigation.
Kim Komando hosts the nations largest talk radio show about consumer electronics, computers and the Internet. Listen to her show from 1-4 p.m. each Sunday on KRMG am740 or fm102.3. To read more of her columns or sign up for her newsletters, go to komando.com.

Sunday, February 16, 2014

E5

tulsaworld.com/tech

BITS & BYTES: A LOOK AT THE WEEK IN TECHNOLOGY

Carrier price war is good news for customers

Robert Evatt
robert.evatt @tulsaworld.com 918-581-8447

n all the years Ive had a phone in my pocket, I never thought wed see a price war among the carriers. They seemed too powerful and too self-interested to compete on price, and then new fees or restrictions popped up regularly. The safe bet was on the annoying status quo sticking around until cell phones got replaced by the next device. It turns out I was wrong, but its great news for customers. AT&T and T-Mobile have been at each others throats for months, and theyre waging war in prices and contracts. The ghting has gotten so erce that its forced other carriers to react and the industry itself to make big changes. It all began when TMobile rolled out its Jump plan, which does away with traditional contracts and allows customers to upgrade devices more often than once every two years. Every other carrier then came up with similar plans. Prices varied, as did the level of savings or extra expense to customers, but they arrived. The curmudgeonly response to these plans is Who would want to upgrade their phones that often? Many people, it turns out. AT&T announced last month its latest early upgrade program netted the

The Toyota Prius (above) is among 1.9 million vehicles that Toyota has recalled.
YURI KAGEYAMA/AP

Toyota recalls cars over software glitch

Toyota announced a recall of 1.9 million vehicles worldwide, including Priuses, RAV 4s and Tacomas. Why? The Prius problem is due to a software glitch. According to Toyota, the bug could cause cars to put higher heat stress in certain transistors, which could render cars unable to start or even cause them to stall while driving. The situation sounds unusual now, but it could become familiar soon. Complex devices with computer chips can be vulnerable to the same types of glitches that bring down PCs. In other words, more transistors, more problems.

John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile, speaks at T-Mobiles Un-carrier 4.0 press event in Las Vegas. TMobile is offering a Jump plan, which does away with traditional contracts and allows customers to upgrade devices more than once every two years.JEFF BOTTARI/Associated Press

company more than a million sales in the last quarter, representing 15 percent of all its smartphone sales. Thats rapid growth for a new program thats such a departure from the usual way of doing things. It turns out early upgrades were just the warmup. AT&T announced an incentive of a $200 credit for products or services and up to $250 for trade-ins if T-Mobile customers would switch. A day later, T-Mobile announced its incentive of $300 in credit and up to $350 to pay off contracts for new customers

from a variety of large and small carriers. AT&Ts next move was to lower the cost of their shared family plan to $130 per month for two lines and 10 GB of data and $15 for each additional line. As of now, T-Mobile hasnt reacted. Verizon also joined in with its new More Everything program. Customers can get a $10-$20 break if they also participate in the early upgrade program, along with unlimited texting to anywhere in the globe and 25GB of cloud storage. Im excited about the tex-

ting. Given the tiny amount of data it uses, charging people per text stopped making sense long ago. Meanwhile, Sprints new framily plan promises to lower your monthly payment for each new friend or family member added to your account. Thats just everything thats happened to date. I wouldnt be surprised if we get more deals in the coming months. For the rst time in memory, all the major carriers are offering potentially exciting new plans, and with luck the trend will continue.

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Follow @RobertEvatt to get the latest tech news and insight from World technology writer Robert Evatt.

APP OF THE WEEK: Facebook Paper (iOS)

Facebooks attempts to create new apps have been mixed at best. Messenger was ne, but Poke and Home were pointless. The social network has tried again with Paper, and the result is useful and attractive. Paper combines your social network feed with a variety of outside, customizable news feeds that range from news and sports to gender equality issues and lol. Each feed scrolls sideways on the bottom of the screen, while a large preview image appears at the top. You can change news feeds by swiping from there. Paper could be the rst new Facebook service to stick. Ill have more thoughts on this in on Tuesday. Facebook, free ROBERT EVATT, World Business Writer

Suggest an app for App of the Week

at robert.evatt@tulsaworld.com

Navigate Olympics with apps

These four free apps for phones and tablets hook you up to Sochi events.
NEW YORK (AP) Welcome to the Mobile Olympics. Some of the official apps for phones and tablets are slicker and easier to use than their website counterparts. Its as though the app developers spent more time on them, knowing thats where audiences are heading. Plus, apps can focus on doing fewer things well. So if you have an iPhone, iPad or an Android device, check out these four free apps to follow the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Some of the apps are available for Windows Phone and BlackBerry phones as well. Keep in mind that in the U.S., only the NBC Sports Live Extra app has any meaningful video of competition. But the others offer plenty for fans.

Careers
A spectator takes a video of the opening ceremony on her mobile phone at the 2014 Winter Olympics on Feb. 7 in Sochi, Russia.
CHARLIE RIEDEL/Associated Press

Fresh

you whats showing on TV. The iPhone and iPad version alerts you when top athletes or events you mark as favorites are about to come up. Live Extra wont let you project the video onto a big-screen TV with an Apple TV or Chromecast device, but a version of the app is included with the X1 video set-top boxes available to some Comcast customers.

Sochi 2014 Results

Olympic organizing committee

NBC Sports Live Extra

Comcast Corp.s NBCUniversal

This is the go-to place for live and full-event replays from the Olympics. NBC is showing every event live, a rst for a U.S. broadcaster during the Winter Games. However, even though the app is free to download, you need a password from your cable or satellite TV provider to watch much of the video. Its not available for those who lack a pay TV subscription and receive their channels over the air. I like the apps organization. Menus on the left organize video into three buckets: live and upcoming; highlights; and full-event replays. Click on any for all video arranged by date. You can limit video to a specic sport. The Live Extra app also tells

Begin by selecting your preferred language, country and time zone. Select some sports and athletes to follow. The app offers notications when new medals are earned by an athlete or in a country or sport you follow. You can also browse schedules and results, check the medal counts NBC Highlights and Results and buy Olympic paraphernalia. You can buy tickets to Comcast Corp.s NBCUniversal. Olympic events, too, if you The app offers video that happen to be in Sochi. doesnt require a pay TV subscription to view, but the se- Olympic Athletes Hub lection is limited. Its more International Olympic Committee useful for the nuts and bolts This app offers a one-stop on the games results, medal standings and capsules on in- destination to view Facebook, dividual athletes. Every coun- Instagram and Twitter feeds try is included, though theres from Olympic athletes. Cremore available for Americans. ate your own roster of OlymIf you dont have access to pians to follow, or search one live video, you can at least fol- athlete at a time. You can also low whats happening in Sochi check out everyone from a through a live blog embedded particular country, sport or in the app. You can also access event. Athletes from past Olympics are here, too. photos and news stories. You wont get much on the The Primetime Companion works best when youre games themselves, though. watching the broadcast live For that, you need a separate on the TV, though its possi- IOC app, simply called The ble to scroll down the app on Olympics. It offers a good a DVR. The content is cleared overview and includes past and future Olympics. by the next day.

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