Windows XP is Officially Unsupported!

After twelve years of maintenance and patching, Windows XP is unsupported. This means there will be no security patches and no help topics updated. Standard stuff. The bad news is that this is a quality and popular OS. About 80% of ATMs use XP. That could be a scary thought. 

Feedly

Feedly is a great way to stay up to date with all of your favorite blogs! Just setup an account and add your favorite blogs! It shows a great layout of featured articles. You can even share articles to many different services such as Evernote, Readability, OneNote, Instapaper, Pocket, Google+, and more!

To get Tech Talk 4 Geeks on Feedly, search with this link:

feed://techtalk4geeks.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

WWDC Lottery Ends and Winners are Selected

Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) will be held this year from June 2-6. At this event, developers learn great uses of their programming skills. Apple has selected winners from their lottery system that they've announced. Winners will be able to purchase tickets for $1599. Also, anyone can watch the videos and keynote online for free.

World's Largest Game of Tetris!

This weekend, the world's largest game of Tetris was played on a Philadelphia skyscraper. Just yesterday, the world's largest arcade display hooked up a controller and got itself a good cartridge of Tetris (or at least some epic code just for the event).

"People will think of this as a game, but I think of this as a public ornament.. Technology has sort of made us isolated from each other. I want us to be with each other, and play with each other." 

 - Frank Lee

Android TV: Coming Soon to a TV Near You!

Apparently, Google has plans to sell an "Android TV." While not much is known about it, Android TV would be expected to be a simple competitor to the Apple TV and Roku. Also, this plan wouldn't affect Chromecast. The Verge has obtained a paper about said Android TV.

"Android TV is an entertainment interface, not a computing platform." 

Nest Stops Selling Protect!

Nest has stopped selling their smoke and carbon monoxide alarm due to tests showing that emergency alerts could unintentionally be silenced because of it's flagship feature, "Nest Wave." Nest CEO, Tony Fadell, wrote a letter on the issue.

To the Nest community: 

Since introducing the Nest Protect: Smoke + Carbon Monoxide alarm, we've heard touching stories from many of you about how we've helped keep you and your families safe. I consider your safety a huge part of my job and it’s something I think about and take pride in every day. At Nest, we conduct regular, rigorous tests to ensure that our products are the highest quality. During recent laboratory testing of the Nest Protect smoke alarm, we observed a unique combination of circumstances that caused us to question whether the Nest Wave (a feature that enables you to turn off your alarm with a wave of the hand) could be unintentionally activated. This could delay an alarm going off if there was a real fire. We identified this problem ourselves and are not aware of any customers who have experienced this, but the fact that it could even potentially happen is extremely important to me and I want to address it immediately.We feel that the best and safest thing to do is to immediately disable the Nest Wave feature to resolve the issue and remove any safety concerns. While we fix Nest Wave, we have also halted sales of all new Nest Protect alarms to ensure no one buys an alarm that needs an immediate update.

- Tony Fadell

Nest CEO

Nests should be back on store selves in 2-3 months.

WWDC 2014 Ticket Lottery

Apple announced yesterday that their WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference) will be held June 2-6 and that it will be at the Moscone West convention center in San Francisco. Every year at this event, Apple announces a new version of iOS and Mavericks, along with some previews of what they have in store. Based on the official image below, I would want to start a rumor that there may be resizable icons in iOS 8 or may announce a larger iPhone this year. What do you think? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Amazon Fire TV

Today, Amazon announced their competitor to the Apple TV, Roku, and Chromecast. Fire TV! Other than the whole HD movies and TV shows idea, games seem to be the big deal for the Fire TV. Although it needs a separate controller, Fire TV is a gaming console with games like Minecraft (Pocket Edition), Asphalt 8, and The Walking Dead. It even has a competitor feature to Apple TV's AirPlay (even the mirroring). To learn more about Fire TV, check out the official site. Fire TV is available now for $99 from Amazon.

Google April Fools' Day 2014!

Today, Google continued their tradition of creating jokes for April Fools' Day with some products that the public wouldn't mind seeing.

Google Maps Pokémon Challenge:

Probably one of the most popular (and my personal favorite) April Fools' jokes by Google this year is the Google Maps Pokémon Challenge. Check out this video to learn more.

(P.S. I've personally caught 27 Pokémon. How many have you caught?)

Google Shelfie:

Google announced that Gmail is 10 years old today (which is true). In honor of this, they've made sharable selfies. It's sort of a joke. The idea is that you can view your face while writing emails and stuff. 

Emoji Translation:

Need I say more?

While I'd love to mention every single joke Google made this year, I can't. But if you'd like to see more, be sure to Google it! Happy April Fools' Day!

Save Data with iOS 7

Have you been going over on your data lately? Perhaps an app is using some data without you knowing. To see a handy overview of cellular usage (iOS 7 only), go to Settings > Cellular > and scroll down to "Use Cellular Data For:" to see what apps are using data and to disable their ability to use data. You might just be surprised.

MuseScore

Some people are very passionate about music. For those people, I have a great app to tell you about! It's called MuseScore. You can digitize your sheet music, play the music, add your own little touch, and print new, crisp, clean sheets of music. In addition, you can write your own music. This has a very nice music editor that's user friendly for those who know how to write. In addition, you can import various file types, including MIDIs. MuseScore is available at it's official website for free on Mac, Windows, and Linux!

About 50% of Macs are Running Mavericks

OS X Mavericks, Apple's flagship operating system, has about half of all Macs running it in less than six months. The runner-up operating system is the previous version of OS X, Mountain Lion. Because computers have a longer lifetime than iOS devices, the fact that many computers are ineligible for the upgrade may be to blame for the slower adoption rate. iOS 7 has about 90% of iOS devices running it. Hopefully, Mavericks sees better results because it's the first major operating system to be free from Apple.

Microsoft Office for iPad Apps Top App Store in a Day!

The Microsoft Office Apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote) have topped the Apple App Store's free app listings in a single day! That's pretty impressive for an app that's not a Flappy Bird clone. To learn more about these Office apps, check out my post about what they're all about!

Credit to: MacRumors

Microsoft Finally Gets Office On iPad and Apple Gets a Slice of the Profits

Today, Microsoft released their Office for iPad suite. This suite consists of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote (It should be noted that OneNote was already on the Apple App Store). These apps require an Office 365 subscription ($99.99) to be able to edit documents. What's interesting to note is how Office 365 is purchased. You can purchase a subscription from Microsoft directly or through an in-app purchase through the Apple App Store. The guidelines for the Apple App Store state that Apple receives 30% of all App Store purchases. That means if you buy an Office 365 subscription through the in-app purchase, Apple will receive about $30 from your purchase. However, if you buy it through Microsoft, Microsoft gets 100% of the purchase. It is thought that this is the reason Office hasn't been on the iPad before. Microsoft Word [Direct Link], Microsoft Excel [Direct Link], Microsoft PowerPoint [Direct Link], and Microsoft OneNote [Direct Link] are available from the Apple App Store on iPad for free. The Office 365 subscription is available for $99.99 from multiple retailers and the Office apps mentioned above (excluding OneNote).

Happy 500 Millionth!

Apple has sold their 500 millionth iPhone! That's a lot of iPhones! Apple has done giveaways for milestones for their app store and have given away gift cards. It is not known if they are doing a giveaway for this, but it seems unlikely as this wasn't even an announcement. On to 1 billion!

Spritz

Have you ever wanted to read a book in less than two hours? Well, now you (technically) can! Introducing Spritz! Did you know that when you read a book, you spend about 80% of the time getting your positioning correct and only 20% is actually reading and analyzing? Spritz is a new service that allows you to read without making you move your eyes. This lets you read at a faster pace! Eventually, you could have the potential of reaching 1000 words per minute! This project is still in beta, but you can learn more and try out a demo by going to Spritz's official website.

Google Docs Add-Ons

Google Drive has recently announced and released a new idea for Google Docs. It's called "add-ons". They're pretty much what the name tells you. Little widgets and tools to help you make a document. Some of the most popular include a consistency checker, a bibliography generator, and a translator. Go get started, go to Google Drive, open a doc, and click the "Add-ons" menu item.

Windows XP Support is Ending

It's about time that I touch on this subject. Windows XP support is ending April 8, 2014. Why is this a big deal? A lot of people are still running this operating system (P.S. It's 12 years old). What does this mean to you? If you're still running XP, no more security updates or support articles will be available from Microsoft. Either way, it doesn't mean your PC is at anymore risk than it was before. If you choose to upgrade to Windows 8, don't. Unless you're buying a touch screen for Windows 8, it's a pain to use. If you can possibly get a hold of a Windows 7 upgrade, do that. Windows 7 is a lot like XP and it doesn't assume that you have a touch screen. You can learn more about XP support ending here.

WeMo Switches

Have you ever wanted to control a fan or light from your phone? You can! With just a $50 investment (okay, maybe it's not cheap), you can buy a WeMo switch! These switches allow you to turn lights and anything that plugs into an outlet on and off. Check them out! I intend to make a review on this soon!

iBeacons: Now in Your Home

A recent tech craze has been going on recently. iBeacons! Basically, iBeacons are little beacons that can be stuck to make a "digital field" that iPhones can detect to notify the user of something. For example, stick an iBeacon in the cereal section of a grocery store and when an iPhone goes near it, it could get a notification on a deal on cereal. Well, now (credit to TechCrunch) you can stick them around your house for different areas with the help of a new app, Placed. If you walk into your kitchen, you can have a timer app open for when you cook. Check out this video for more info.

Image Credit to MacRumors