iOS 9 Finally Delivers a Lowercase Keyboard

So... when you are typing on your iPhone and pretending that you are way cooler than every Android user ever... how mad do you secretly get when you accidentally type with uppercase letters when you shouldn't? Or when you don't realize you did something like that until it's too late and look like an idiot? Yeah, I know. All the time.

Well, now it seems that Apple has fixed this little "design flaw" after approximately 5 thousand years of everyone wondering why they haven't done it yet. One of the most welcomed changed that will come along with iOS 9 is that the keyboard will show lowercase letters when typing in lower case. And, as it should, it will show uppercase letters when typing in upper case.

Until this change, we have all had to deal with only seeing uppercase letters when we type anything at all. You only see the difference when the words appear as you type them. Maybe it was to mimic the design of the MacBook keyboard where all of the letters are uppercase. Either way, no matter what they were doing, it was wrong. Android keyboards have displayed uppercase and lowercase letters since the beginning of time. I'm pretty sure there was a T-Rex somewhere who had an easier time texting his buddies while having a great time knowing which set of letters he was using without remembering if the shift button needed to be white or grey.

Interested in a Quote on a Laptop Rental for your next meeting or event? Rentacomputer.com has the latest laptop technology available to rent anywhere in the United States!

Before iOS 7 came out, the shift key was highlighted in blue when you had it engaged. This let you see pretty easily, as long as you weren't texting at all and your thumbs weren't blocking it... which was always. And then they changed it to a monochromatic highlight, which personally confuses me to this day a little bit more. Either way, now it's not an issue anymore!

I'd also like to point out that I am in fact an iPhone user. I've had almost all the iPhone's. So, I'm not hating on them in any way... But come on, even as an avid iPhone user, there are certain things you just have to scratch your head over! At least we can all have a good sense of humor about it while we shell out money for every new model.

Content originally published here

Huawei Wants the Attention of US Smartphone Users

Huawei, the Chinese company that is the top-ranked telecommunications equipment vendor in the world by revenue and the fourth largest smartphone vendor by market share, created an online store about a year ago, to sell their own versions of a smartphone directly to US customers,

Huawei introduced the P8 Lite, which is an exceptionally priced mid-tier smartphone, along with being a fitness tracker made in similarity with Jawbone called the TalkBand B2. Zhiqiang Xu, the
President of Huawei Device USA, said that this device is just the start in an interview Tuesday. Xu also plans on releasing a premium smartphone in the future, similar to Apple's iPhone 6 and Samsung's Galaxy S6.

Huawei is focusing on online sales in order to reach US customers. This is just part of a push from several Chinese vendors to get around US carriers and make smartphones that directly appeal to US consumers with relatively cheap prices, yet still making high-quality components. Carriers removed subsidies that showed the actual costs that range from $100 to $1000. Xu believes that the market will change and that E-commerce is the perfect solution with consumers buying their smartphones.

Consumers are looking for affordable smartphones in the market that aren't stuck with a single carrier. Huawei claims that its P8 Lite, for $250 with no contract, will be compatible with any US carrier's LTE network. Xu believes this smartphone is good enough to sell millions of units around the world.

It's far from the traditional strategy of working with US carriers, who haven't paid any attention to the Chinese vendors smartphones, and dropping Huawei and ZTE to being prepaid or the budget side. Huawei's Xu is hoping to make that one or more blockbuster phones that change everything.

It's very unlikely for a blockbuster to come from the online market. In the US, most of us prefer to just buy our smartphones directly from our carriers or a partner to our carriers. So far this year, 26% of smartphones were sold online versus actually walking into a store and physically buying a phone right there, according to Kantar WorldPanel. Online sales of unlocked devices have an even smaller percentage. Those who do shop online are typically looking for a better deal in prices.

Google is the only real exception to this. Google introduced its Nexus 4 smartphone a few years ago and it was sold online for $350 without a contract. Last year Google released the Nexus 6, which worked with carriers, to ensure more retail support. This hasn't stopped those like Alcatel who, earlier this year, made an Amazon powered store, or ZTE's US store.

Xu believes going with online sales is heading in the right direction, but he doesn't know when US consumers would take unlocked smartphones seriously. Carriers help educate consumers. AT&T said Monday that they're trying to have their retail partners sell phones without contracts or phone subsidies and focus more on non-contract options such as the carrier's monthly payment program.

Looking for a Quote on a Smartphone Rental for your next event? Rentacomputer offers the latest Smartphone Rentals, including the iPhone, with local delivery anywhere in the United States!

Xu is aiming for more digital and social marketing to help raise awareness for GetHuawei.com. He's still considering more common ways of marketing, such as big sponsorships or eye catching TV commercials, which can be a bit more pricey. Huawei is trying to make their unlocked smartphones more appealing by offering a two year warranty on the P8 Lite, along with a monthly installment program split between 3 to 12 months. Xu claims that you can't find a better deal on Earth with the P8 Lite.

Huawei is focused on its online presence to help its own brand, but they still will work with the carriers to sell smartphones through regular channels. Xu said that he'd prefer to partner up with a carrier along with offering their device on their own website. Smartphones with a carrier are more appealing with well established brands with bigger marketing budgets versus high end smartphones without a carrier to support them.

Content originally published here

Moleskine's New Calendar App is Both Elegant and Beautiful

Moleskine is famous for their beautiful notebooks and notepads, and now they have their own calendar app that is along the same lines as their physical products. The new app is called Timepage. It has a minimalist design and it doesn't have the traditional calendar view of the whole month. Instead, you get a nice little day-to-day view which makes things a lot more simple and less overwhelming.

The app also has weather built into it, and the ability to work with Uber and take care of all of your upcoming appointments. The app is supposed to help with all of your daily needs by giving you weather, appointments, and even take care of directions and transportation.

When you open up the app you get a list of days, and even if you don't have anything scheduled for a day, it still takes up as much space in the list as the others so things don't get confusing, and it is hard to look at it wrong. If you don't have anything scheduled, it will throw in a historical fact of something that happened that day in history just to keeps things interesting and lively. You can also customize the look of the app and have days that already passed appear darker than upcoming days.

If you want to add a new event to the calendar, all you have to do is pull down on a day and type whatever it is that you want. You can also send out calendar invites and locations are automatically pulled from Google Places.

If you have Google Maps or Apple Maps, you can also get directions from them to your Timepage app. Then it will show you how long it will take to get to your appointments from wherever you are currently. It will give you options for driving, walking, and even public transportation.

Get a Quote on a Smartphone Rental today from Rentacomputer! Rentacomputer has the latest in Smartphone Rental technology, including the latest Android Smartphones and Apple iPhone!

Moleskine has made the weather portion of the app a really big part of the app. It always keeps you updated with the daily forecast which includes beautiful graphics that look a lot like the Fresh Air weather graphs. You can even check out the forecast for the same time and place as any of the events you create in your calendar. This way you can be prepared for anything.

They have also made the Timepage app compatible with the Apple Watch and made it super easy to use with the tiny device. You'll be able to use all of the same features with the tiny little screen. This makes having the app or the Apple Watch that much more convenient. You can get everything you need to know with just a glance.

The Timepage app will also pull information from the calendar apps that you already have including Google Calendar, Microsoft Exchange 2007, and iCloud.

Unfortunately, the app is not free. But it is cheap, and completely worth it. If you are interested, you can get it at the Apple App Store for just $4.99.

Content originally published here

The Best Keyboards for Apple Smartphones

I'm sure everyone is enjoying their new iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus. The size of their screens are great for quickly checking your Facebook or Instagram, watching YouTube or Netflix, or even crushing all that candy. The only noticeable issue with having such a large phone is trying to type on it with one hand. iOS 8, which was released last fall, does give you the option of choosing from multiple different keyboards by downloading them from the Apple App Store and enabling them in the iPhone's Settings app.

The best keyboard for your iPhone would most likely be the SwiftKey. It has the best word prediction you could possibly get, it's fast when responding to the traditional tap-typing, and has a tracing feature you can use with just one thumb. In addition to that, the word prediction generally knows what you are trying to type or are about to type next. It also taps into you social media accounts, as well as your contacts list to help better personalize it's predictions based off of how you type everything else out.

SwiftKey also has some themes you can pick from such as light, dark, or the occasional holiday theme. It also has the standard auto-correct, double taping the space bar for a period, and auto-capitalizing that you're used to. The downside to using SwiftKey is the way iOS handles third-party keyboards. These keyboards tend to crash in the Messages app or when using Spotlight. You can't talk to your iPhone and have it input passwords or reply to your texts when you are on the lock screen either. It's nothing that you can't look past, but it can get irritating sometimes.

Getting ready to go on a business trip? Don't risk losing or damaging your laptop on the road! Get a Rental Quote on an Ultraportable Laptop from Rentacomputer today!

If you are more of a simple person and don't want to bother installing a new keyboard, your iPhone has it's own built-in iOS keyboard. It's the most reliable keyboard for your iPhone and it's already on your phone. It works great with voice dictation anywhere you can type on your iPhone, even in the lock screen or for inputting texts. It's great with word prediction based on context and tap-typing and the keyboard will suggest different words depending on if you're just texting a friend or writing an email to your boss. The few downsides to this standard keyboard is that it doesn't have tracing or themes to customize.

Some other keyboards you can choose from include Swype ($0.99), which is the original tracing keyboard. It also has word prediction, auto-correct, and themes. Another one is Adaptext (free), which has the majority of the features you want in a keyboard: auto-correct, tracing features, emojis, and themes. TouchPal (free) is a good keyboard if you're really into stickers. It has tracing, themes, emojis, and auto-correct as well. Fleksy ($0.99) is said to have the best auto-correct engine you can get. It has word deletion and themes but the only downside with this one is that it doesn't have tracing. Minuum ($3.99) relies mostly on word predictions and auto-correct for the most accurate words you're trying to type. The thing that is most unappealing about this is that all your letters are in one straight line and it pretty much just guesses on what letter you're attempting at typing. All of these keyboards are not as smart with word predictions as the SwiftKey and are not as reliable as Apple's keyboard.

The best bet for a smartphone keyboard all around would be Swiftkey, but the safest and easier keyboards would be to just stick with your already built-in iOS Apple keyboard. Not an iPhone user? Check out our post about The Best Keyboards for Android Smartphones!

Content originally published here

The Best Keyboard for Android Smartphones

Androids, in my opinion, are the best type of smartphones to get into. The devices come in all sizes, designs, and prices. The majority of them come with giant screens for you to browse the internet or Skype with friends or play games if you're bored and want to pretend like you have something to do while the rest of your friends are busy on their phones. Sometimes it may seem like a challenge to type on phones with tiny screens, but for years Androids have let you customize your keyboards. You can get keyboards that let your trace out your words, keyboards with non-standard layouts, you can even shrink your keyboards down to tinier sizes, or make them easier for you to put all those emojis that you go out of control with.

One of the better keyboards for your Android device is the Google Keyboard. It has a smart auto-correct and word prediction, a great tap-typing response, and a tracing feature that allows you to trace out your words for quick texts. In addition to that, it also has a voice dictation that gets smarter with word predictions the more you use it. Having it recognize and know your voice is great for when you don't have a lot of time to type out those long texts, so you can just tell your Android device exactly what you want your text to say and it will type it out for you. You can also customize your settings for sounds, vibrations, ringtones, and how accurate your auto-correct can be. A lot of Android phones already come with the Google Keyboard preinstalled, but if you have a HTC, Samsung, LG, or any smartphone with a custom keyboard, you can get Google's version of a keyboard from the Play Store, for free. And who can turn down something that's free with so many cool features?

A lot of people also go with SwiftKey on Android. It has tracing, auto-correct, and a bunch of different themes to customize the appearance. The word prediction with SwiftKey is better than with the Google Keyboard. It can get into your social media accounts; Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, as well as your texts and contacts list, to learn how you type and can better predict your words before you even type a letter. Just like with the Google Keyboard, the more you use SwiftKey, the smarter it can get. One of SwiftKey's weaker points is tap-typing. It doesn't seem as responsive as Google's version but that shouldn't really effect you if you mainly use tracing or word prediction.

Some of the other types of keyboards you can get are Swype ($0.99), TouchPal (free), Flesky ($1.99), Ai.type ($3.99), or Whirlscape Minuum ($3.20). Swype is the original tracing keyboard and is almost always preinstalled on the majority of your smartphones. Just like Swype, TouchPal, Ai.typ also has tracing, multiple themes and emojis to chose from, and auto-correct. But the downsides of all these is that their word prediction isn't comparably smarter than with SwiftKey and tap-typing isn't nearly as good as with Google Keyboard.  Flesky is said to have the best auto-correct engine, it manages to write perfectly legible sentences without you even looking at your phone. Whirlscape Minuum has got to be one of the lower quality keyboards in my opinion. It has all the letters on your keyboard laid out in a single row and guesses at what letter you are attempting at hitting, based on context.

Looking for a Quote on a Projector Rental for your next event? Contact your Tech Travel Agent today!

All these keyboards have their own style and most of them have the same features. It's on you to decide what you feel most comfortable with when searching the web, texting your friends, playing games, or being addicted to your social media accounts. Not an Android user? Check out our post on The Best Keyboards for Apple Smartphones!

Content originally published here

Google Debuts New Fi Wireless Service

Photo Credit: Kachwanya

Google finally announced their wireless phone service called Fi. The service will cost $20 per month for unlimited talk and texting plus $10 per gigabyte of data used. It's a little bit cheaper than your standard phone service plan.

The downside is that if you use 7GB or more regularly, then a normal phone plan with T-Mobile or Sprint would be cheaper than Fi. The upside is that Google will only charge you for the data you use each month, no matter which plan you end up going with. For example, if you were to pay $30 for 3GB and only use 1.4 GB, then at the end of the month you'd receive a refund for $16. No U.S. carriers offer these rebates, the closest you can get is going with rollover minutes with your standard phone carriers. Google is just trying to have a service that makes it easier on us to surf the web at a cheap price. Fi also works over Wi-Fi networks if there's no cellular coverage available.

Something I don't like about Fi is that you can't use your normal smartphones, like Apple or Samsung. These phones won't be compatible with Fi at first. The only phone you can get is a Google Nexus 6 phone that starts at about $649 or $27 a month for 24 months. Motorola did come out with a Nexus 6, with a 6-inch screen, which is bigger than your typical smartphone, but not as good of a phone as an iPhone or Galaxy S6. Still, Google's plans are cheaper than your standard services provided by AT&T and Verizon, two of the largest, broader network coverage carriers in the country.

The Fi service is also providing inexpensive international features, like unlimited international texting. Just like the U.S., data will cost $10 per GB in 120 major countries like Japan, Germany, and India. Also a plus side if you or anyone you know either travels a lot or is in the marines and also across seas.

Google is buying their wireless service from T-Mobile and Sprint, which isn't appealing to me at all. In my opinion, Sprint and T-Mobile are two of the worst phone carriers available. But I can see why they are doing it this way. It saves Google from having to buy an airwave license and start a national network from nothing. And for T-Mobile or Sprint, it gives them more traffic on their networks without having to worrying about any risks. T-Mobile shares were up 2.1% and Sprint 1.7% with Google shares up 1.3% after they announced the new Fi service.

The prices may not be as low as anticipated, but it still is a good plan to consider. Especially if you already have services with T-Mobile or Sprint and are willing to buy from the limited phones you have to choose from. For now, I'm going to stick with my AT&T service and basic smartphone. I'm sure this isn't the last we will hear of this. Next time around, they'll have more options, phones, and services to pick from.

Content originally published here

Prototype Haptic Interfaces Allow Touch Communication Between People

Touch-based interfaces are a modality the MIT Media Lab is working on. Haptics, the science of touch, derives from the Greek haptikos meaning “being able to come into contact with.” At MIT, the Tangible Media Group is researching and working on new materials for human-computer interfaces. Some change shape and rigidity based on digital inputs.

Some of the upsides of haptic interfaces is that they are very fast to read, they can be put into everyday objects or motions, and our sense of touch since it is the best way to express human emotion. MIT has made a Lumi Touch, which is a picture frame that sends a colored glow to the person who has the other picture frame, when you squeeze each side of the frame. Each color can have different meanings for whatever color-mapping you and your significant other create. Proverbial Wallets works with Bank of America, to make your ordinary leather wallet harder to open as you exceed your monthly budget. These are just 2 examples of their prototypes, but haptic interfaces will soon be for sale to everyone.

Smartstones are a more personal haptic interface, that looks like a smooth, palm-sized, river stone. It allows you and your significant other to communicate through gesture, touch, light, and sound. They're designed for any type of intimate relationship, say it be best friends, parent to child, elderly parents, or even caregivers. Our touch communication is designed for us to process information quickly, it allows us to talk without typing or speaking.

In a classic perceptual psychology experiment, pairs of strangers were tested on communicating emotions through touch alone. One person from a pair was given one of 12 emotions, therefore when the decoder would be touched on the forearm, they'd have to tell you what emotion they thought their partner was trying to communicate. Some examples of how emotions were expressed; fear was associated with trembling, sympathy was associated with stroking and patting, disgust was associated with a pushing motion, and anger was associated with hitting and squeezing. The outcome of the experiment showed that people could interpret fear, disgust, anger, love, sympathy, and gratitude at above-chance levels.

Just a simple touch of hands between my boyfriend and I, can send emotions or communication between us. Our skin processes subconsciously. Smartstones have the potential to give off the same messages at a distance, decreasing social isolation and lets not forget, being a slave to your smartphone.

Photo Credit: TechCrunch

MIT products are great examples of the mass improvement from smartphone apps to haptic interface objects. Human-computer interfaces have improved with anywhere from WiFi-connected thermostats and mirrors, to bluetooth jewelry and light bulbs. What's having every product company consider a cloud-connected product is the falling cost of microchips, WiFi being available just about anywhere, and the continuous income from converting objects into services.

Nowadays, most commonly used for logging or visualizing data is social media. Smartstones is the next step up in communicating at a more personal and close level of non-verbal communication. As touch interfaces develop, they will provide us with more sense of a safer, closer, nonverbal communication from a distance, with a speedy and effective outcome.

Content originally published here