Hasta La Gadget!

Both Apple and Roku sell black boxes that offer Netflix and other streaming services. Which one’s the best value for your $99?

Mobile devices aren’t just catering to the under-35 set now. Image: Nielsen

If you thought tablets were being used only by Angry Birds-flinging youngsters or guys between 25 and 34, think again. Turns out tablets are all the rage with women and seniors.

There hasn’t been much change in who’s using smartphones — they’re still most popular among the 20- and 30-something set — tablet and ereader ownership shows tablet ownership among those older than 55 climbed from 10 to 19 percent between last fall and this summer. As for e-readers, the number of women buying them climbed from 47 percent to 61 in the second quarter of this year.

“Early adopters tend to be younger and male. As consumer technology products gain wider acceptance, more women and more older consumers join the mix,” says Don Kellogg, director of telecom research & insights at Nielsen.

Although e-readers have been around for a while, tablets are a relatively new phenomenon marked by the arrival of the Apple iPad in 2010.

The tablet has followed a similar trajectory as the microwave oven, creating a new niche in the market based on its convenient, portable form factor — despite the fact it has less computing power than its PC counterparts. Depending upon which study you’re looking at, some reports show tablet ownership is eating into the e-reader market, while others disagree. Regardless, both devices appear to be permeating all age groups.

So what’s making tablets and e-readers so successful with the older crowd?

“Tablets and e-readers are relatively easy to use. Couple that with light weight and the ability to increase the text size (not to be underestimated with older owners), and you have a very appealing product for older demographics,” Kellogg said.

Not to mention, Apple products, like the iPad, are beginning to permeate the enterprise business environment, so many users who may not have seen value in the tablet before can use it for meetings and presentations.

As you might expect, e-readers continue to be popular with those who read a lot. Although tablet apps like Kindle and Instapaper make tablet reading easy as pie, e-readers’ black and white E-Ink or electronic paper displays make the activity easier on the eyes. And when you’re traveling, bringing a 1 to 2-pound e-reader is a whole lot easier than lugging around a couple of novels.

Nielsen is still studying if these trends apply outside the United States, and how mobile device usage differs among the different age groups they surveyed.

Have your parents or grandparents adopted mobile devices? Did they do it willingly, or was it originally a gift that you lovingly thrust upon them? Share your experiences in the comments.

Spy Mouse from Firemint is a fun and challenging stealth game that challenges you (Agent Squeak) to steal as much cheese as possible while remaining undetected by evil cats.

Originally posted at The Download Blog

This article was written on March 18, 2009 by CyberNet.

Over the last few months, Ryan and I found ourselves consumed with the process of buying our first home. Home-buying can be a daunting experience, there’s no doubt about that, but it becomes a little less daunting with the help of the Internet. As you might expect, we dug up as many resources as possible and found that some were better than others. If you are in the process of buying a house, take a look at our list of the best home buying websites and resources on the web:

Zillow (click here):

Zillow can be overwhelming because their goal is to be your number one online real estate service. They offer all kinds of tools and information, but one of their best features that we found is their “Zestimate.” A Zetimate is their best educated guess as to what a house is worth based upon several factors. This is extremely helpful when you’re buying a house because it helps your determine if the price a seller is asking is reasonable, or at least in the ball-park. Of course it’s important to remember that it is just an estimate.

Another helpful aspect to this site is that they offer “last sale” and tax information for many houses. The “last sale” information, if available, tells you how much the house last sold for. Property tax information is also helpful. Depending on the area, property taxes can make or break your decision to buy a home. It’s nice to have it in one location so that you don’t have to go and track it down.

Redfin (click here):

Redfin is a fairly new service and the disappointing part about all of this is that their service isn’t offered everywhere quite yet. In fact, it’s pretty limiting with service currently offered in the following areas: Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington DC.  

If you’re one of the lucky ones and live in a serviced area, you’ll really find their site helpful. One of the first things we noticed with Redfin is that they tend to post listings before other sites do. Shortly after a house was listed on the MLS (multiple listing service – a US based service that consolidates listings of homes), it appeared on Redfin.

Another feature we took advantage of was signing up for a Redfin account. Doing this allowed us to get daily listing updates, and save and store the listings we found that we were interested in.

There’s a whole other aspect to this site that we never got involved in which is using a “Redfin Agent.” They offer you money if you choose to purchase a home with one of their agents, but we never took this route.

Trulia (click here):

Trulia is helpful, partially because they have a full-service website, but also an iPhone App. The most helpful features we found with Trulia is that they make it easy for you to view homes where the prices have recently dropped, and those that have scheduled upcoming open houses. For any particular city you are looking to buy in, they let you know what the average listing price was from week to week.

Others:

• Realtor.com
• Hotpads.com
• Yahoo Real Estate

Have a website you found helpful when purchasing a price? Perhaps a site that caters to countries other than the United States? Let us know…

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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