Hasta La Gadget!

My name is Chris and I hoard Nokias.

(Credit: Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

If we can’t unearth a new illness, syndrome, or phobia at least once a month, we are not America.

I am delighted, therefore, that by merely keeping my eyes open I can bring news of the latest.

Americans are suffering in hordes from compulsive gadget-hoarding.

I hope that, by merely writing that sentence, I can confront you with something that you know is true.

I hope that you can look your friends in the eye at your next social event and declare: “Hullo, I’m Claudia. And I’m a compulsive gadget-hoarder.”

I feel sure that there will be a communal welling of support, as other friends admit to the same problem.

How do I know? Because I have seen the results of a survey that says 68 percent of Americans have kept an old device for two or more years, without actually using it.

Is one of yours a Palm? Is it an old iPhone? Or are you emotionally attached to a Samsung flip phone or the insistently beautiful and my own weakness, the Nokia 9300?

The survey also reveals just how much of a problem this is. For only 25 percent of Americans admit to being gadget-hoarders.

This is even though 70 percent currently have multiple gadgets at home that they haven’t used for at least three months.

“I have an old Sony portable DVD player. It’s just too cute… [Read more]

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Dropbox has a press event scheduled for April 9th, its expected to make a number of announcements, word about one of them seems to have slipped through. Apparently the cloud storage company has already started notifying its Dropbox for Business users that it is going to let them switch between business and personal accounts on all devices from next month. Currently users have to log in and out of each account, which is a bit of a hassle.

(more…)

Dropbox May Allow Users To Switch Between Work And Personal Accounts original content from Ubergizmo.

Let’s face it: There’s no one in the world who knows you quite as well as Google does. It’s the only place we’ll get truly, uncomfortably intimate, revealing every bodily function, personal secret, bizarre question, and government-watch-list-worthy keyword. Now imagine if, instead of an inanimate website, we were dishing all that out to some dude in a cubicle.

Read more…

If you’re anything like us, then you know how valuable it is to have great battery life on mobile devices. Which is why a number of apps, like Skype, need to be monitored a little closer than others — in particular, ones that are constantly running…

Perfect.

(Credit: Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

Trust is like love.

You want to believe in it, but then your rational side kicks in and dents your faith.

Here at the Ministry of Failed Relationships, we understand this. There is nothing worse than committing yourself to someone who poses as your soulmate, only to discover that their soul has drunkenly mated with a passing half-sized halfwit.

One company has — perhaps inadvertently — stumbled upon a notion that might ease your worried brow. Or confirm your dearest fear. For it is now offering phones that have built-in spyware.

mSpy created its software with a mind to, say, help parents track their unruly teens. Now, however, with the release of preloaded phones such as the HTC One, Nexus 5, Samsung Galaxy S4 and iPhone 5S, you can merely buy your lover a gift and watch it keep on giving.

Mind you, mSpy’s founder, Andrei Shimanovich, told Forbes it’s not actually his business how people will end up using this nifty software.

Or think of it this way: spy software doesn’t spy on people, but rather people spy on other people.

Indeed, … [Read more]

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