Author: Shy Mukerjee

Want to be the first to score a custom designed Moto X? Sign up now!

by Shy Mukerjee

custom moto x from attFor your new Moto X smartphone, you can choose from only two colors for the front device (white or black), but when it comes to customizing the rest of your phone, you have hundreds of combinations at your disposal. Exclusively from AT&T, you’ll be able to select from 16 backplate colors, 7 accent colors for the buttons on your phone as well as the ring around the camera. And the phone comes in two different capacities, 16GB and 32GB. You can even get it custom engraved on top of that!

How do I get a Custom Moto X?

Orders start soon, and while the phone will be available on multiple carriers, only on AT&T will you be able to totally trick out your phone. Want to be first in like to snag a custom Moto X? Head on over to AT&T’s Moto X microsite and sign up today. That’s the only way to ensure that you’ll be one of the first customers to purchase and design a Moto X any way you please before it officially launches. Read More

HLN: Know your neighbors and use Nextdoor.com

by Shy Mukerjee

According to a June 2010 survey by the Pew Research Center, only 29% of Americans know some of their neighbors and 28% know none of their neighbors by name! So this week through this weekend, Mario Armstrong is appearing on HLN to talk about what YOU can do to meet and get to know your neighbors and use that knowledge to better connect with people, reduce crime in your neighborhood, and just keep tabs on what’s going on!

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$35 Google Chromecast device beams music and movies to your TV from your smartphone, tablet or laptop

by Shy Mukerjee

Chromecast is a little device you plug into your TV that allows you to seamlessly connect video and audio from your smartphone, tablet or even laptop to your television and home stereo system. And you can buy one for just $35, a price affordable enough to connect up every TV in your home. You can order it today at Amazon, Best Buy, and play.google.com. It will also come with 3 months free of Netflix.

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Google Introduces the New Nexus 7: New design, display, and price

by Shy Mukerjee

At their press event today, Google introduced an updated version of their Nexus 7 tablet. Building on the success of their original tablet, the new version offers several key upgrades that should continue to expand the Android tablet market.

While this updated version is still made by Asus and features the same 7″ display size, the design has been changed to more closely mimic the thin bezels first seen on the iPad mini. This new Nexus 7 is a narrower tablet that weighs less than the original.

The price is new too, slightly more expensive than the $199 the original Nexus 7 is selling for. The 16GB version goes for $229, the 32GB version costs $269, and a 32GB model with4G LTE will sell for $349.

On sale next tuesday, July 39th on play.google.com, as well as at Best Buy, Walmart, Staples, Radio Shack, Amazon and more retailers.

But what’s inside is the biggest update here. The display, still 7″, has been updated from a 720p screen to a hull HD 1080p screen, so the Nexus 7 can now boast that it has the world’s highest resolution for a 7″ tablet at 323 points per inch.

Needless to say, text and images will look much sharper on the device now. Read More

More than $50 worth of apps go free for the App Store’s 5th Anniversary

by Shy Mukerjee

Celebrating the 5th anniversary of their venerable App Store for iPhone and iPad this week, Apple has worked with a bunch of different developers to bring their games to the masses, for free, this week. Here’s the complete list:

– Traktor DJ (available for iPhone and iPad) – Normally a $20 for the iPad version alone, and a separate $5 for your iPhone, this powerful app won’t turn you into a DJ overnight, but it will give you the tools you need to start mixing on your devices.

– Day One is an app that makes keeping a journal or even just taking notes on your iPhone or iPad dead simple with a minimal user interface. Whether you’re looking to keep a journal of your trips abroad, meeting notes, or a full-fledged daily journal, it’s a cool app that would normally run you $4.99.

– Over – looking to add some jazz to your social media photo posts? Over adds attractive text to any image, a perfect intermediary between your camera roll and Instagram, Facebook or Twitter.

– Barefoot World Atlas – I haven’t tried this myself, but it looks like a fun one to help teach the kids about the world.

– How to Cook Everything is the bestselling Mark Bittman book for your iPhone or iPad. This was the first cookbook I ever owned that was easy enough for me to actually use, and it’s more than 2,000 recipes and 400 illustrations make cooking easy enough for anyone to approach. It’s the perfect go-to reference on how to cook practically everything, with variations on each. For instance, Bittman has a handful of recipes with dozens of recipes in this book for pancakes alone.

There’s a bunch of great games available as part of this promotion as well. Two of my all-time favorites, the artistically and sonically stunning Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP as well as the cute and addictive Tiny Wings (be sure you grab the separate iPhone and iPad versions if you’re own both devices) I’d definitely recommend you check out. And if you’re in the market for free, then you might as well grab the rest of the games while you’re at it: Infinity Blade II, Badland and Where’s My Water?.

Katie Couric Show: Accidentally Outed as Gay on Facebook

by Shy Mukerjee

Today on Katie, Mario Armstrong talked to two young people, Bobbi Duncan and Taylor McCormick from Austin, Texas, who were accidentally outed as gay to their families and friends on Facebook. Despite both of them having been very careful with their Facebook privacy settings, due to a flaw in how pages work on Facebook, when they were added to their university’s Queer Chorus group’s Facebook group. The president of the chorus had added them to the group, which then notified their friends and families they’d joined, revealing their sexuality to many people from whom they’d been keeping it secret, including their parents.

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How Your Biz Can Put AT&T Enhanced Push-to-Talk to Work

by Shy Mukerjee

The Sprint iDEN network shut down June 30, 2013, is your company ready? Whether you’re transitioning from Sprint to AT&T or looking to add Push-To-Talk to your company’s toolset, now is the time. Last week on Small Biz Go Mobile I discussed how AT&T had recently released their Enhanced Push-to-Talk service for iPhone, joining their offering which was already available for Android and BlackBerry. But having access to the app is only one piece of the puzzle. For a variety of business customers, finding out how your company could benefit from the app and actually trying it out is the other piece. If you’re a current Sprint iDEN customer, the need is even stronger, as the service will be shutting down later this week!

So how can your business benefit from Push-to-Talk? Read More

Twitter Usage Maps Show Where iPhone, Android and Blackberry Users Are

by Shy Mukerjee

A cool startup called MapBox which helps businesses and people create custom maps with open source tool, just scanned more than 280 million Tweets that were tagged with location data to create a compelling searchable map of the world showing off where people are using their smartphones, and which brand of smartphone they’re using. In the worldwide map above, you can see iPhone (red), Android (green) and Blackberry (purple) usage. But the cool thing is the ability to zoom in on any geographic region, which reveals some interesting stories. Read More

Introducing Enhanced Push to Talk from AT&T

by Shy Mukerjee

This just came across our desk: for all you iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 users out there, you can now Push-to-Talk (PTT) on AT&T with a new app and service. While Android and Blackberry users have been enjoying the service since this past November, you can now grab the app for you iPhone and get chatting!

More than just some walkie talkie app, the “Enhanced” part of AT&T’s offering means who can see which of your contacts are online, automatically join active talk groups, share calls within your organization, make and receive calls whether you’re on Wi-Fi or 3G/4G/LTE, and send data safely with enterprise-grade encryption.

Enhanced PTT costs $5 per phone line per month, and with it you get all of the features listed above.

Over the coming weeks we’ll be talking more about Enhanced PTT and how it benefit your business, but if you’re on your iPhone and want to try it out right now you can head on over here and download the app.

Facebook Adds Video To Instagram, Takes on Twitter’s Vine, Autodesk’s Socialcam

by Shy Mukerjee

When Socialcam first launched, people were calling it the Instagram of video. Then Twitter came along and bought up Vine, a way to make artsy 6 second videos, and then they integrated it seamlessly so videos can be watched inside your twitter feed.

But today? Facebook is introducing Instagram version 6.0, available in the app store right now, and Instagram itself has become the next big video platform.

Here’s what you need to know: it’s the same old Instagram you know and love, but you can now record videos up to 15 seconds long. And of course, there’s a whole bunch of filters to go along with it, though these new filters are exclusive to the new video mode, with names like “Stinson”, “Ginza” and “Helena.” Black and white aficionados will love the new “Moon” video filter, which produces a lovely effect.

My feed is already blowing up with videos, and yours will be soon, so what are you waiting for—update that app and let us know what you think in the comments below.