Month: November 2012

AudiobooksNow Android App Review

Leave a reply Steve August

AudiobooksNow is an Android app that makes buying and listening to audiobooks simple. Using just shy of 9 MB, it was a quick download and you can pay per book, billed through credit card, or pay only $5 a month to obtain access to discounted prices – but please utilize the 30 days trial before making any decision on buying books.  You can also browse the vast selection of books and even listen to samples to judge the quality of the audiobooks for free.

While the app started out somewhat slow with long loading times, the more I used it, the faster it got, until it began playing my book as soon as I tapped it.  Another feature I found interesting is that the application has the ability to run in the background, so you are able to listen to the book while texting, viewing pictures or looking something up online. By pressing the icon in your status bar, you can return to the app.

My Library in AudiobooksNow

AudiobooksNow provides a very easy way to change your password if you feel someone else knows it or you just like your account more protected. These things will ensure that your credit card credentials are kept safe. If you have any issues with anything in the app, you can visit the “Help/FAQ” section, where there are common questions and answers that hope to address your issue.

At present, this app has a selection of almost 8,800 books, a rapid expansion in comparison to an estimated 3,200 books earlier this year.  Let us expect to see it grow even more along with more users. In addition, most books are offered as both abridged and unabridged. Books can be searched by nearly any piece of information you have including Keyword, Rating, and Narrator.

There are also a few downsides. The “browse” option was somewhat limited, which I felt crippled the app, having you choose very specific topics, narrowing your selection down to about ten or less before you are able to even see any books. This is app is also unavailable in many parts of the world. I don’t know whether this has something to do with the copyright policy or the developer has deliberately chosen to exclude many countries.

AudiobooksNow needs Android 2.2 and up and it seems like this app has crossed a few thousand downloads in Google Play.

Commercial Drones and Privacy

8 Replies Jonny Hankins

A couple of years ago I wrote an article on the Bassetti Foundation website about the use of drones and other robot devices in warfare. Times have moved on however, and now drones are much smaller and cheaper, so you do not need a multi-billion dollar budget to buy one.

a quadcopter drone

A commercial quadcopter drone

To give you an idea, $600 US will buy you this quadcopter. Perfect for the beginner, plate already mounted for the camera and can also carry a small payload.

If you want something that resembles an aeroplane why not take a look at  the CropCam (before it takes a look at you). $6999 I grant you but a fine machine. Hand launched it is guided by its GPS navigation system, automatically lands and takes pictures, flies at 60 Km an hour and can be fitted with a video. You set up the GPS and the autopilot does the rest.

As the name suggests, this vehicle is aimed at the commercial market, look at your crops, find your animals and catch your daughter in a haystack with the boy next door.

The haystack incident might sound like a joke but it is really a serious problem. There are no regulations about where you fly your new machine in the USA. The market for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) is in massive expansion as farmers, security companies, private detectives, news organizations, traffic and transport management companies and many others see the potential in such snooping power. The machines can be fitted with face recognition software, thermal imaging and license plate readers, and many see this as problematic.

A couple of months ago the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) launched a code of conduct for the industry, in the light of a new law in the USA that allows anyone to operate one of these systems (see the Federal Aviation Administration Modernization and Reform Act of 2012).

Privacy groups are up in arms however, claiming that the mass use of this type of technology will lead to massive infringements upon personal liberty, and they take no comfort from the code of conduct. Voluntary as it is, the code is extremely general, has no enforcement mandate, contains no discussion at all about the myriad potential privacy and safety issues raised by unrestricted drone use over U.S. airspace, and there is nothing about the intended audience or user.

One US Senator however is trying to take action. Sen. Rand Paul has introduced a bill that aims at protecting Americans against unwanted drone surveillance. Read about it here.

The present regulations state that 400 feet above your house you enter neutral territory, a bit like international waters off the coast, so anyone has the right to fly their drone 401 feet over your house. These machines are small so you probably wouldn’t notice it, but as we know cameras are good nowadays. At a few hundred dollars for a vehicle they are becoming available to almost anyone, and certainly any business or organization.

Do you think this could become a problem? Is it yet another invasion of privacy or a justified use of technology? I am all ears.

Sponsored: A look at the Aspire S7 Ultrabook

Leave a reply Christopher Roberts

This is a sponsored post on behalf of Acer. To find out more about sponsored content on Technology Bloggers, please visit our Privacy Policy.

Two weeks ago today I wrote a post which explored the rise of the Ultrabook – a new compact, portable and superfast variation of the laptop. Yesterday I wrote about Windows 8 and how it is changing the way we use our gadgets. Today I want to take a look at a laptop which I feel is a great example of how Windows 8 is changing the way we use out PCs.

The Acer Aspire S7 is a new, top of the range Ultrabook, which is even better than the Acer Aspire S5 that I talked about two weeks ago.

The Aspire S7 is designed to work seamlessly with Microsoft’s new Windows 8 operating system. How you may wonder? What makes the Aspire S7 so perfect for Windows 8?

The Technical Spec

The first feature which is primarily aimed at Windows 8 is the amazingly thin, extremely strong, easy clean scratch resistant Gorilla Glass. To find out more about Gorilla Glass, check out this Wikipedia page. The glass is a great way to take advantage of Windows 8’s touch screen capabilities.

The laptop is also the thinnest and lightest laptop that Acer have ever made, meaning that definitely it fits the criteria of an Ultrabook – super portable.

Being so thin, keeping cool is a problem. Acer use a very cool technology to get over this issue though. It uses two fans, (located at the back of the laptop) one to pull cold air in, and another to push hot air out.

Acer Aspire S7 air ventsA cool new feature the Aspire S7 is its electroluminescent backlit keyboard. Quite a mouthful that! What does it mean though? Well basically the laptop works out what the light level is, (where you are) and then it adapts the glow it places under the keyboard accordingly, so that you can see the keyboard and the laptop looks really cool, but it doesn’t create a nasty glare on the screen.

Take a look at Acer’s promo video which stars Megan Fox for more.

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Okay maybe it can’t help us speak to dolphins, but it is a pretty cool new Ultrabook, which is a prefect example of the sort of technology that Windows 8 was designed to run on.