iOS 8 vs. Android Lollipop: Same features, yet more distinct than ever

Mashable - In the mobile war between Android and iOS, something interesting has happened over the last six months.

In the past, the two operating systems were largely distinguished by features and polish. Android traditionally had more features and customization than iOS, but iOS retained a higher level of finish.

See also: How Google's 'Material' will reshape Android as we know it

That all changed with iOS 8 and Android 5.0 "Lollipop." With these releases, iOS 8 now has almost as many features as Android. Just as notable, Lollipop's new Material Design ethos has an almost iOS-level of fit polish and finish.

It would be easy to extrapolate that iOS and Android are now more alike than ever before — and on the surface, this is true. But in practice, what is most interesting about the current state of the two operating systems is how different the overall experience has become.    Read More

Amazon Fire TV vs. Chromecast vs. Roku vs. Apple TV

Amazon just launched its new Fire TV. Here's how it compares to the other three biggest streaming device platforms in terms of features, apps, form factor, remotes, and pricing.

Amazon launched the Fire TV streaming media box.

Its standout features include an extensive library of games, an optional game controller ($40), voice search via a mic on the remote, an "ASAP" function that's said to launch certain videos immediately, and a "Free Time" function that allows parents to limit their kids' media consumption, much like on Amazon's Kindle Fire tablets.

It also offers a lot of content options.

So without further ado, here's a comparison of the four major streaming devices as they stand today.

View the Comparative Chart

Sony Vaio Pro 13 vs. Apple MacBook Air 13-inch

Prizefight: iOS 6 vs. Android Jelly Bean

Full-size megazoom cameras compared

Want a long lens, lots of features, and a dSLR-like design? You've come to the right roundup.

CNET - Call them bridge cameras, longzooms, superzooms, or megazooms (as we do), they're all pretty much the same thing: a large lens slapped on the front of a point-and-shoot camera.

While that's a bit of an oversimplification, the fact remains that though these are full-featured models with digital SLR-style bodies, they still have the shooting performance and photo quality of a compact camera. That said, if you're after a long lens, point-and-shoot simplicity, and an affordable price (at least compared with a dSLR that has comparable lenses), you've come to right roundup.

Editors' note: This post was originally published October 26, 2011, but is updated frequently. It was updated February 4, 2013, to include the Canon PowerShot SX500 IS.

 

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET) 

 

 

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200

If you're looking for a fast camera with a ton of features including raw capture and a hot shoe, and the best -- if not the longest -- zoom lens in this category, you'll want the Panasonic FZ200. Read the full review.

 
Canon PowerShot SX500 IS

The SX500 IS provides a lot of zoom for its small size and price. As long as you don't need great low-light photos or fast shooting performance, it's worth checking out. Read the full review.

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Little iMac doesn't stand up to Windows PCs

 

CNET Editors' Rating

3.5 stars -Very good

$1,279.00 to $1,499.00

 

The good: Apple's attention to detail extends to the 21.5-inch version of its thin-looking Apple iMac.

The bad: Windows-based all-in-one PCs offer tough hardware competition in the sub-$1,400 price range.

The bottom line: The 21.5-inch iMac will be a compelling lower-cost all-in-one for Mac loyalists, but you can get more capabilities from similarly priced Windows all-in-ones.

 

Read the Full Review

 

Apple iOS 6 vs. Android vs. Windows Phone (Comparison Chart)

PCWorld - Apple's World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) kicked off today with the unveiling of iOS 6 for the iPhone and iPad. Apple is promising over 200 new features in the latest version of its mobile operating system, but only a few of them were highlighted in the keynote.

June is an exciting month for smartphone fanatics as Microsoft is expected to unveil the next generation of Windows Phone at an event next Wednesday, June 20 while Google is expected to reveal its plans for the next version of Android, codenamed "Jellybean."

While some of the features Apple announced today already exist on competing platforms, Apple is putting its own twist on these updates. For example, Siri, Apple's voice-activated virtual assistant, is even smarter now with support for sports, movies, and restaurants. Siri can also directly launch apps, but you still can't control these third-party apps with your voice.

Apple is also breaking up with Google Maps and launching its own Maps application with iOS 6. It includes local business information, Yelp integration, real-time traffic updates, and turn-by-turn navigation. Naturally, Apple has also added Siri integration to maps so you can ask questions along your journey such as, "Are we there yet?" or "Where's the next gas station?" Apple has also added a 3D/fly-over mode to its Maps application, which shows you detailed 3D models of buildings and landmarks.

Read More & See the Comparison Chart

Windows 8 Vs. Mac OS X Lion: Feature by Feature

PCMag.Com - With the Windows 8 Consumer Preview coming the end of this month at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the world will get a more complete look at Microsoft’s next big operating system. But thanks to the company being very open about what’s in store with Windows 8, we already know a lot about it. The team building the operating system has posted extensively on the Building Windows 8 blog, providing a level of detail that is rarely seen in this world of surprise major tech releases.

On the other side we have Apple, which unveiled its latest desktop operating system, Mac OS X Lion, fully gestated, without a chance for the public to run it beforehand. Both operating systems exhibit a similar trend: emulating the company’s mobile operating system in their desktop OS. For Lion, Apple drew heavily on iOS in several ways—its App Store, Launchpad screen of icons, and touch interface among the most notable. Windows 8 will be no exception to this mobile-to-desktop trend, as evidenced by the Windows 8 Developer Preview, released last September in Anaheim.

Both companies have been very open about this mobile-envy: in October of 2010 at an event on the Apple Cupertino campus called “Back to the Mac,” the world got its first peek at the stylish tech firm’s latest desktop operating system, “OS X Lion.” CEO Steve Jobs explained that the success of the company’s iPad tablet was a major driver in adding features to Lion.
The similarities don’t end at the two future desktop OS’s mobile influencers. Both Lion and Window 8 will make heavy use of touch interfaces, but with a big difference, as you’ll see in the slideshow below. Both will have an App Store, both have full-screen app views, and both offer new ways to switch among and navigate within apps.

There are, of course, important differences between Microsoft and Apple’s overall OS strategies It all hinges on tablet support. Apple is aligning its tablet and phone OSes, and keeping the desktop OS separate, though mobile-influenced. Microsoft, on the other hand, is creating one OS for tablets and desktops, while keeping the phone OS separate—for now, anyway. Both companies may even have ideas for a grand unified OS for all devices.            

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Thunderbolt vs. USB 3.0: Why it’s a lose-lose

 

The Promise Pegasus R6 Thunderbolt drive and the 
1.5TB USB portable drive from Seagate.
(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)

CNET - Ever since Intel announced Thunderbolt and made it exclusively available to Macs, Windows users have been wondering if they are missing out. The truth is: yes, they are, big time. I’ve been working with the first Thunderbolt storage device, the Pegasus R6 from Promise, and find it to be the fastest consumer-grade storage device out there, period. (Stay tuned for my full review coming up soon.)

On the other hand, since Macs generally don’t support USB 3.0, which has been out for a long time and is becoming more and more popular in the PC world, Mac users have also been missing out quite a bit. Many people are wondering which is better, Thunderbolt or USB 3.0. The answer, in terms of storage applications, is neither. Consumers should really have both. The current separation of the two standards is a lose-lose situation for Windows and Mac users alike.

Here’s why

Thunderbolt is slated to offer a speed of 10Gbps (which is about 1.2GBps). Real-world storage products generally offer much less than that, but still boast very fast data throughput. The Pegasus R6, for instance, is much faster than even a SATA 3 solid-state drive. And that’s not a surprise, because the top speed of the SATA 3 standard, which is currently the fastest standard for an internal storage controller in a consumer-grade computer, is just 6Gbps (768MBps).

The Pegasus R6 hosts six SATA 3 internal hard drives. The reason it can achieve much faster throughput speeds than the standard (up to 800MBps as claimed by Promise) is because these drives are set up in RAID configurations that aggregate their individual throughput speeds into one combined speed that’s much faster than that of each drive.

So for now, there’s no point in making a Thunderbolt storage device that’s made of just one internal drive. In this case its speed would be just the same as that of the internal drive, which is again 6Gbps or slower. Even in the case of the Pegasus R6, when connected to a Thunderbolt-enabled MacBook Pro, the transfer speed is basically that of the laptop’s internal drive–much slower than what the external drive can do.

As it stands, unless you have a bunch of Pegasuses daisy-chained to one another and move data between them, you’ll never get to see the drive’s top speed when it comes to real-world data transferring. And that would be OK if investing in a Thunderbolt storage device wasn’t a big deal, but it is. The cheapest version of the Pegasus R6 costs around $1,500. That raises the question: why should you invest in such an expensive storage device just to have its performance bogged down by your computer? Maybe because you don’t have a choice.         More

Prizefight: Kindle vs. Nook

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Google+ vs. Facebook: Which Can You Trust?

Analysis: Are people flocking to Google+ to escape Facebook's evil clutches? And if so, is that really such a good idea?

PCWorld.Com - A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog post about how MySpace's assets -- including some 50 million-odd personal profiles -- were purchased by Specific Media, an online ad firm, and the privacy implications of that.

Since then, some smart folks have pointed out to me that -- hey, looky -- Google is also an advertising company. And when you come right down to it, so is Facebook. That's certainly what has produced the vast majority of FB's revenues so far.

• 4 things Facebook doesn't tell you about privacy, security
• So, Why Do We Trust Google with Our Data?

So can any of them be trusted?
Former TV newsman Issac "Ike" Pigott asked a similar question this morning on his Posterous audio blog:

Am I wrong for continuing to think that there's humor in the fact that so many people are flocking to Google+ because they just don't trust Facebook with all their private information? These are the same people who've had gmail accounts for six or seven years, have racked up about five or six gigabytes of data that they leave on Google servers, [including] emails they would not want the rest of the world to know about. And [they] trust Google with all that but [they] won't trust Facebook with it."

 

Artwork: Chip TaylorAn interesting thought. First, though, let's examine the premise of this question. I'm not convinced people are abandoning Facebook for Google+. I think they're just adding Google+ to their ever growing list of social media sites.

[See also: Groupon wants your soul -- and also your location data. ]

In fact, based on my short experience with G+ and the friend/follower notifications that have come pouring into my inbox, the people who are flocking to G+ are the same ones who flocked to Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, Buzz, Foursquare, Groupon, blah blah blah -- I mean the same friggin people. It's the Social Media Mafia; Robert Scoble and the Scoblettes. They're all over G+ they way they were all over all of those other services.

Remember in high school, when you tried to start a club for all the cool kids but the dorks kept showing up instead? It's like that.      More