iOS and Android app helps you get more from your battery

Summary: Carat has been developed by a team of scientists from the UC Berkeley electrical engineering and computer science department’s Algorithms, Machines, and People Laboratory (AMP Lab).

Don’t you wish there was an app that you could download to your iOS or Android device that could actually help you get more from your built-in battery? Now there is.

Called Carat, this is the first app that can give you personalized battery life-saving recommendations. The app works by collecting metrics from your device and periodically sending them to the cloud in anonymized form.

There they are combined with data collected from other users and what’s described as “cutting-edge algorithms” are used to number-crunch the data and come up with personalized steps to help you use less power.

Carat will tell you which apps are battery hogs, and which are bugs — which also use up a lot of battery. Being a hog or a bug does not make an app ‘bad’, but a user trying to improve their battery life can use these designations to adjust their behavior.

And before you start thinking that Carat is itself be a battery hog, it’s worth bearing in mind that it doesn’t need to run continuously in the background. You just have to run it periodically so it can send the data back to the servers and generate personalized recommendations for your particular device.

Nothing that is collected identifies you personally.

Carat has been developed by a team of scientists from the UC Berkeley electrical engineering and computer science department’s Algorithms, Machines, and People Laboratory (AMP Lab).

The app is free and available both for iOS and Android devices.

If this app doesn’t allow you to get satisfactory battery life out of your iOS device then I’ve compiled a list of battery saving tips that are guaranteed to help you squeeze precious minutes out of your device.

These tips work for both the iPhone and the iPad.

iPhone/iOS 5 battery saver tips (Gallery)

	Image Gallery:iPhone/iOS 5 battery saver tips

Image source: Apple App Store.

Windows tablet speculation overblown

Summary: To those who think that Microsoft is going to produce a tablet computer, you don’t know Microsoft very well.

Some of my ZDNet colleagues are having a “Hey Day” with the possibility of a new “Windows” tablet. Speculation runs wild with, “Will it be an Xbox-based tablet?”, “Will it be a Windows 8 tablet?” or “Will it be something different–like Windows mobile?”. From a BYOD perspective, it matters very little. Why? Because in a couple of years, you’re likely to only have three competing tablet operating systems: Windows 8, Android and Apple’s iOS. I expect the playing field to narrow into a small (fewer than ten) tablet vendors. For vendors other than Apple, the choice is either Windows 8 tablet or Android.

There are no crazy implications or bizarre manifestations from having a Windows-based tablet. It won’t be that much different from Windows-based phones. You’ve already seen the truth to that in Apple’s products and in Android-based devices. The phone/mobile version looks exactly like the tablet version.

So, what’s all the excitement about?

I’m not sure.

Microsoft, while innovative, is conservative in its product releases. I don’t know that they’re interested in peddling hardware devices like tablets. The Xbox is different. It’s a game console. Microsoft has always been big into computer gaming so it stands to reason that they’d create a proprietary device on which to run their games.

Not true with tablets.

I don’t think Microsoft will sell a tablet. They more likely will partner with a hardware vendor like Acer, Asus, Samsung, Dell or someone else and provide a customized version of their upcoming Windows 8 operating system specifically designed for the tablet platform.

Windows 8 would be perfect for tablet computers.

The Metro interface has the right look and feel for tablets: large colorful icons, a slidey desktop and a lighter weight shell. Microsoft knows that phones, tablets and ultrabooks are the future of personal computing. Contrary to popular belief, Microsoft isn’t stupid. They know what the future is and they know how to capitalize on the changes taking place in the data center, the desktop and on mobile devices. That’s why Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 look and act like they do.

You’ll soon see that Microsoft will retain its place in the personal computing market with its upcoming announcement.

Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if the new tablet could act as a remote gaming console for the Xbox? I’d put money on that capability and I haven’t spoken with anyone from Microsoft or their PR firm. It’s pure speculation–just like what everyone else is doing.

But, I can tell you one thing for certain. When Microsoft does put Windows 8 on a tablet, you’re going to love it. In the end, it’s still just a tablet. It’s Windows running on a tablet. Windows-based tablets aren’t really new. They’ve been around for years.

That’s why it would surprise me greatly if Microsoft did actually go into the tablet business. They’re not in the phone business, which is a huge market compared to tablets, so I’m thinking that yes, there will be a Windows tablet, but Microsoft will only supply the operating system and leave the hardware to someone else.

What do you think? Do you think Microsoft would ignore the multi-billion dollar phone market to venture into the fickle tablet market with its own branded tablet computer? Talk back and let me know.

Dell XPS 14, XPS 15 specs leaked (photos)

Summary: Chinese tech site IT168.com has leaked what it claims to be photos and detailed specs for two new ultrabook systems.

While Dell has officially unveiled the XPS 13 ultrabook, details of the XPS 14 and XPS 15 ultrabooks have been kept under wraps. But Chinese tech site IT168.com has leaked what it claims to be photos and detailed specs for these upcoming ultrabook systems.

The leaked spec sheet for the XPS 14 claims that it is powered by a 2nd-generation Core i7 “Ivy Bridge” processor backed by 8GB RAM. There’s also an NVIDIA GT 630M 1GB GPU pumping the pixels to the 1600 x 900 LCD display.

Storage is provided by a hybrid 500GB hard drive and 32GB SSD unit. Battery life is listed at 11+ hours.

The XPS 15 has a beefier alleged spec sheet. It too is powered by a 2nd-generation Intel Core i7 “Ivy Bridge” processor and 8GB RAM. However, this time the larger 1920 x 1080 full-HD screen is fed by the more powerful NVIDIA GT 640M 2GB.

Storage is also provided by a hybrid 1TB hard drive and 256GB SSD unit. The XPS 15 is also kitted out with a slot-loading optical drive and the battery life is rated at 8+ hours.

Both the XPS 14 and XPS 15 have backlit keyboards and a full compliment of ports, including HDMI, DisplayPort and USB 3.0. The design of these systems is similar to that of the XPS 13 in that they make use of Corning Gorilla Glass, machined aluminum and carbon fiber to create a shell that is lightweight, yet strong and hard-wearing.

If the specification of the final devices lives up to the leaked specification, then these ultrabooks will be ideally suited to enterprise users looking for thin-and-light systems that are powerful enough to get the job done. At the same time, they will also sport a battery that is capable of lasting through a full day of work.

The XPS 13 starts at $999, so I would expect the XPS 14 and XPS 15 to come in at around $1,299 and $1,499 respectively.

Image source: IT167.com.

Hello! I’m drunkdadwithshotgun

Summary: I recently found a cockeyed profile online that thinks my Internet alias is drunkdadwithshotgun. It’s another reminder that we need a way to control our personal data online and protect our reputations.

I recently came across my “profile” on a people search site called PeekYou.com, where I am tagged with a Web alias of drunkdadwithshotgun.

That should make for an interesting discussion at my next job interview - if I ever get another job interview. And apparently I’m a connoisseur of GirlsGoneWild commericials, which likely won’t be met with loud cheers from the women in my office.

And God help me if I ever get an itch to work with children.

This is one of the most personal arguments for me yet on why the digital economy needs to take a good hard look at implementing reputation systems, personal data stores, and why I should be able to control my information online, and why PeekYou’s algorithm needs a serious overhaul.

Follow the drunkdadwithshotgun link and it ‘s dead (no pun intended), which means there is no way to verify if it’s me or not (it’s not), but guilt by association.

Then again, you might be swayed.

The profile correctly lists my two employers over the past 15 years, the college I attended, the link to my Twitter account, and my real Web alias. There are links to stories I have written.

The rest of the profile is a train wreck. I am listed with a middle initial - I don’t have a middle name. I’m listed as a resident of a city I haven’t lived in for nearly 20 years. My profile picture shows a dog - the last dog I had died in 1972. My age is off by 15 years. There are more than a dozen “relatives” listed, none of which I know.

Most of this mis-information has been posted since 2009. I discovered it last week.

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt once famously said that anyone concerned about online privacy “had something to hide.”

Well, he must be right because I’d like to hide this PeekYou profile in a dumpster and I do care about online privacy. And I care about what sites like PeekYou say about me - or purport to say about me.

Maybe I wouldn’t be so sensitive if my alias was philanthropistwithatrustfund.

But either way, reputation is a golden asset. In fact, I would argue that loss of reputation in my line of work could be a career killer. So when someone steps on it there should be consequences. And that means there should be options for protection before it ever comes to that.

Some of those options would include personal data stores and other privacy tools, which are exploding on the scene. Thirty-one vendors have joined the StartUp Circle at the Personal Data Ecosystem Consortium (PDEC) in the past 18 months. Kaliya Hamlin, who was recently recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader, founded PDEC.

Personal Data Stores are designed to help users collect, store, manage and share their personal data. From there, they can control who gets it, when, why and what they can do with it.

Another technology, Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) gives users their say in relationships with vendors and other organizations. It was developed as a project at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and is led by Internet luminary Doc Searls.

And efforts such as Connect.Me, an emerging social system where users vouch for each other and that works across major social networks, has an interesting take on how reputation should be built online.

These types of tools that empower end-users with control over their online reputations and personas have an important role to play. The point is that individuals managing their own data benefits organizations (more accurate data), retailers (better defined audience) and individuals (privacy).

You wouldn’t ask your neighbor’s friend’s half-wit brother to collect data about you, pour it into a resume template and submit it to that company you always wanted to work for.

But something similar is happening online where data is collected, collated and disseminated often with a facade of credibility created using an algorithm devised by drunkcoderwithakeyboard.

Personal data has a value. Ask Facebook’s billionaire CEO. Eventually that realization will reach critical mass.

I believe we are storming toward a day when people will have to buy back their anonymity and reputations, a type of painful process akin to tattoo removal with a Brillo pad. It would be worthwhile if we never saw that day.

Have you checked your PeekYou.com profile? Do you care what it says about you? Do you care what other people think it says about you?

Lost in the shuffle: MobileMe galleries

Summary: Apple’s unceremoniously pulling the rug out from under its loyal MobileMe users that uploaded their photos to the its uber-expensive ($100/year) service.

Apple is dropping MobileMe Gallery on June 30, 2012 and it isn’t offering an alternative service to replace it.

Back in September 2011 I wrote that Apple needs to announce iCloud galleries or lose them to Flickr and Picasa and it doesn’t look like Gallery is going to receive a stay of execution at the 11th hour.

Apple’s unceremoniously pulling the rug out from under its loyal MobileMe users that uploaded their photos to the its uber-expensive ($100/year) service.

Instead of offering a seamless upgrade to a comparable photo gallery service on iCloud (even paid would be fine), Apple instead chose to evict its users by emailing a draconian warning notice (above) that just as easily could have been a foreclosure notice from Bank of America.

Download your photos now, before we delete them!

What a shame (and very un-Apple).

Apple made a half-hearted attempt to resurrect online photo galleries with Journals, but they’re restricted to users that publish photos from iPhoto on iOS and they use proprietary (and funky) Apple templates. Yuck.

It would be great if existing MobileMe photo galleries automatically turned into Journals. This would save users days of downloading photo galleries that they dutifully uploaded to MobileMe from Aperture and iPhoto over the years.

It would also save them from uploading them to Picasa (or another service) after getting burned by Apple.

Apple could easily have saved users the hassle of downloading all their photos (and having to find a new home for them) by integrating Journals into iPhoto and Aperture for OS X but it didn’t. Instead Apple elected to send a nastygram and leave its users twisting in the wind.

I anticipated this happening and moved my galleries to Picasa Web back in September 2011 and luckily got grandfathered into Google’s 20GB for $5 per year plan. Google’s storage plansincreased dramatically when it announced Google Drive in April and the new 25GB storage plan costs $2.50 per month. I upload photos to Picasa Web with the (now mothballed) Aperture to Picasa Web Albums plug-in, which still works despite being unsupported. Who knows if it will continue to work with Aperture 4?

You can see what a morass this is.

Is photo hosting that difficult? I wonder why Apple got out of it? I’m totally baffled as to why Apple left its customers high and dry and handled the transition as poorly as it did.

If you’re looking for a home for your displaced photo galleries, I blogged about some of the top photo hosting services (like Picasa Web, Flickr Pro, Smugmug, 500px, ZenFolio and Facebook) inSeptember 2011. But you better act quickly because there’s only 15 days left before Apple’s iCloud executioner deletes your photos forever.

Windows Phone Summit: The other big day for Microsoft next week

Summary: June 20 is Microsoft’s Windows Phone Summit, expected to be all about the Apollo operating system. Here’s what we think we know so far.

Just a quick reminder that June 18 isn’t the only big day for Microsoft next week.

Wednesday June 20 is Microsoft’s Windows Phone Summit in San Franciso, where the company is expected to share officially for the first time what is coming in its next major phone operating system update, codenamed Apollo.

The one-day summit will beWebcast on Microsoft’s Channel 9, starting at 9 a.m. PT.

I’ve seen a few folks claim that no one knows anything yet about Windows Phone OS 8. Actually, there have been a number of leaks about the successor to “Mango” and “Tango” — and the last of Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating systems releases likely to end in the letter “O.”

Here’s a list of some of the expected Windows Phone 8 features rumored since early February 2012

* Support for multicore processors
* Support for four new screen resolutions
* Support for removable microSD card storage
* Support for NFC and an associated “Wallet Experience”
* Inclusion of core Windows elements, including kernel, networking stacks, security, and multimedia support
* New data-tracking capabilities, showing users a breakdown of their data consumption by various networks
* Use of a proxy server to deliver pages more efficiently and quickly to Internet Explorer 10 Mobile
* Addition of native BitLocker encryption and Secure Boot
* A separate but improved Skype application, but not integration of Skype into the operating system
* Replacement of the Zune PC client software with an update mechanism more akin to ActiveSync. (The new update mechanism is codenamed Daphne, according to one of my contacts.)

LiveSide had a round up this week of leaks regarding other possible Apollo/Windows Phone 8 features.

Microsoft execs have said a few things about the developer strategy and tools for the coming Apollo release. In short, Windows Phone 7 apps will be able to run on Windows Phone 8, the Softies have said. Microsoft will continue to support XNA in some way with Windows Phone 8. They’ve been vaguer about plans for Silverlight support for the Windows Phone 8 platform. I’ve seen folks speculating the WinRT interface and framework is coming to Windows Phone 8 in some way, but I have not heard that directly from my contacts.

Here’s what Microsoft and its phone partners have said so far about whether existing Windows Phones will get Apollo: Nothing. Like The Verge, I’ve heard existing Windows Phones (even the recently introduced Nokia Lumia 900s) won’t get Apollo. Here’s hoping at next week’s Summit Microsoft officials provide a much-needed yay or nay regarding the Apollo update policy.

The Summit comes at a critical time for Microsoft, its partners and its customers. Its BPF (Best Phone Friend) Nokia is cutting another 10,000 jobs next year, officials announced this week. Nokia is blaming a soft low-end market for much of its problems. But Windows Phone, evencheaper models meant to go head-to-head with Android, aren’t really going to take Nokia where its greatest weaknesses are being felt. And this week at TechEd, Nokia officials told me again that Windows Phone isn’t the OS solution for the Asha feature-phone line, even in the future… That’s still Symbian territory.

As Microsoft more tightly ties Windows Phone to Windows — starting in earnest with the Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8?Windows RT releases — the fortunes on one platform seem pinned to the fortunes of the other. A common look and feel and toolset is good for customers and developers when a halo effect convinces users happy with one platform to try its sibling. But if one of the two platforms stagnates, that halo becomes an anchor….

Should be an interesting week ahead. Anyone have any more guesses as to what we might see and hear on June 20 at the Windows Phone Phone Summit?