Welcome to the Geek Choice Blog

Gmail announced yesterday a brand new feature to its phone call feature. The problem with using the Gmail calling system is that you could only have one phone call at a time. Well Gmail is happy to let you know that you can now take and receive multiple calls using the Gmail service. So now if you are talking to someone and get another call you can put that call on hold to answer the other caller. The only restriction is that is up to 2 callers. Also another great feature that was added was the great hold feature even if you don’t have another call coming in so if someone is in another room you can basically mute them to talk to someone who is physically there. All and all these is a good added feature but with the Google plus hang out features and such I would recommend just using that because it seems like a ton of fun but if you just like the plan old calling to a friend over the internet via Gmail, this is the way to go.

Apple has finally announced that Lions OS X is available today for the MAC App Store for $29.99. So we know it is available at the very least for a download which is upgradable from Snow Leopard 10.6.6 OS X. Lion will be available for retail purchase at the low price of $69.99.

Lion requires an Intel-based Mac with a Core 2 Duo, i3, i5, i7 or Xeon processor and 2GB of RAM. Lion is an upgrade and can be installed on all your authorized personal Macs. Details regarding Business and Education licensing can be found at apple.com/macosx. Below are some features for you to feast on before you go out to purchase this new lovely product.

Additional new features in Lion include:
• Resume, which conveniently brings your apps back exactly how you left them when you restart your Mac or quit and relaunch an app;
• Auto Save, which automatically and continuously saves your documents as you work;
• Versions, which automatically records the history of your document as you create it, and gives you an easy way to browse, revert and even copy and paste from previous versions; and
• AirDrop, which finds nearby Macs and automatically sets up a peer-to-peer wireless connection to make transferring files quick and easy.

Thanks to 9to5 Mac I have learned there could be a Loin in the den this week. Basically we the new Mac OS X Lion could launch as soon as Wednesday July 20, 2011. There have been reports that many retail sources that Apple’s retail store are having employee overnights this Tuesday night with Lion being the main driving topic. There is no confirmed time for this launch and the date is mere speculation at this point and once again with there being employee overnights I would think they are getting ready to launch this bad boy. Supposedly the new MacBook Airs are supposed to launch with the Lion software but there is no ETA on these machines. People have been waiting on Lion for some time now and hopefully this week will end the wait.

It has been announced today that Adobe has acquired the digital signature company Echosign. This is a huge step for digital signatures. With this acquisition Adobe will be able to incorporate the EchoSign’s cloud-based digital signature service into products such as CreatePDF, SendNow for file transfers and FormsCentral for form creation. This means the end of the eSigniture service that was released last May for Adobe. This will be a big step in the digital world in getting digital signatures done without having to kill millions of trees. This is a good day for technology and nature to live in harmony.

Microsoft kept up a year-long string of leads with new NPD data giving it the lead in June. About 507,000 Xbox 360s shipped last month, making it not only the top selling game console but giving it a wide lead. The NPD’s decision against providing open data made comparisons difficult, but Microsoft in a comment said it sold “nearly twice as many” systems as rivals, with Nintendo’s DS or Wii the most likely runner up.

The Xbox 360 has been on a hot streak ever since the slim model arrived last summer. It has been fueled by runaway Kinect sales. Microsoft has never broken down audience numbers but is known to be getting many casual and first-time gamers through Xbox 360 Kinect bundles.

It appears that Microsoft is planning a new project called Tulalip and could be positioning it as a hybrid search/social networking service.

First reported by Fusible, Tulalip currently sits on the SOCL.com domain, which is owned by Microsoft. You can see the socl.com WHOIS record on DomainTools to confirm.

Tulalip currently only offers a “welcome” message that explains itself this way:

With Tulalip you can Find what you need and Share what you know easier than ever.

There’s a non-functioning search box at the top of the page, preceded (mysteriously) by the word “OPEN.”

There are non-working links on the page that say “See how it works,” along with “terms of service” and “Privacy Statement” links. There are also Facebook and Twitter sign-in buttons. In fact, the Twitter sign-in/authorization page confirms further that Tulalip is an “experimental app” from Microsoft Research.

The Verizon Wireless LTE Phones run on the new 4G network and if you wanted to unlock the phone to put it on an ATT network will not work. They say the phones are going to be on a different frequency and would not be compatible with other networks.
Verizon may be designing its phones to only run on Verizon’s very specific wireless frequency, locking out all other possible carriers. Verizon and AT&T both run their LTE networks in the 700-MHz band. But Verizon’s network is mostly in 746-787MHz, while AT&T’s will be primarily in 704-746MHz. Some Verizon and AT&T spectrum overlaps in an area called the “lower B block,” but not much. Verizon could build its phones to exclude AT&T’s frequencies, and vice versa.
Personally I am not a big fan of unlocking phones and bringing it to other networks and with the iPhone on both major networks and Android making all types of phones for both networks I would think the 4G phones are going to be very similar which means unlocking phones really won’t even be truly needed in my opinion.

iPhone 5 is scheduled to release in September most sources have said. Here is the funny thing, while I was reading some articles today I stumbled across an article I really wanted to highlight because I love speculation. There is a job posting for an iPhone Sales Specialist that is starting on August 16th and will go through October 29th. They are looking to sure up their sales staff for the new iPhone launch but from some articles I have read some think it will be a surprise launch on the 16th! Well I am not so sure about that. I believe that when hired they will go through some sales training first on the new iPhone before it actually launches in September. That would be my thoughts are that Apple is preparing for a September launch with a strong sales staff. I think it is foolish to think you would launch a product with tons of new sales staffers on the first day. But hey what do I know?

Yesterday afternoon I received an email from Netflix. The email stated that they are changing their subscriptions. Currently you can pay $9.99 a month for unlimited streaming movies online through Netflix and 1 DVD at a time. That is a great deal for most people but for me I am not a DVD guy. I don’t like to keep track of a sleeve with a DVD in it, I am afraid I will lose the sleeve or the packaging you have to send it back in. So I very rarely take the DVD. So what are you changes you ask? Netflix is now dividing the subscriptions, now you can choose to have just the unlimited streaming or the 1 DVD at a time for $7.99. Now I am going to opt just for streaming and save $2 a month but most people enjoyed having both options for just $9.99. So if you want both you are going have to pay about $16 per month before taxes on your subscription. There have been over 4,200 comments on the Netflix blog about this change and they seem to be very negative and most people have threatened to cancel their subscriptions. With this change however Netflix will have to amp up their streaming collection to make it worth most people $7.99. I guess we will see if Netflix has something up its sleeve.

There is talk of a few new Macs coming out in the near future, as soon this week most likely. From what I have read the new MacBook Air models will four in all, two 11 inch models and two 13 inch models. It is said that both of these screen sizes will also come with upgraded configurations, along with build to order models (BTO). The look will not change must at all but there will be upgrades obviously to RAM and processors, as thought the Sandy Bridge processor and the Thunderbolt I/O are of course the main upgrades to the hardware. The Mac Pros will have some upgrades as well and of course you will be looking at the new software as the Lion OS will be installed on all of these new models that are scheduled to be released this week from reports I read. Once again my main thing with Mac is the price. Even with some of the upgrades and technology they are placing in these models I still feel you are paying a bit more for a brand than anything else but the new stuff looks nice.