Hasta La Gadget!

Ever since Ford opened up its AppLink developer program, allowing anyone to submit apps for use in Ford SYNC-enabled vehicles, the company has seen an influx in compatible apps. One of the newest ones added is Amazon’s Cloud Player, which was announced during CES last month. The app will now let you control your music library using convenient voice controls while driving.

Users will be able to not only play songs and skip through them using voice controls, but they’ll also be able to navigate their entire library and even playlists. All of it is hands-free, meaning that once you pair your smartphone either through Bluetooth or USB, users won’t have to bother playing with their phones to get music to play, and Ford actually blocks you out of the app anyway so that you don’t get distracted while driving.

Currently, there’s only a handful of Ford vehicles that are SYNC Applink-equipped. These include the 2013 Ford Fiesta, Mustang, Focus, E-Series, C-MAX Hybrid, Expedition, Fusion, and the F-150 and Super Duty models. However, Ford will be making the feature more widely available in the future as an add-on option.

During CES 2013, Ford announced that over 1,000 app developers have signed up for the AppLink developer program, and even more have most likely signed up by now, so it looks like Ford is going all-in with its SYNC technology, and with more apps that come with SYNC enabled, the more that car buyers may be intrigued by Fords’ entertainment options.

Amazon Cloud Player now available for Ford SYNC is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Dropbox has been all about the everyday consumer, but if you’re needing a little more power out of your cloud storage, the company has what’s called Dropbox for Teams, in which small businesses can share a pool of cloud storage in order to collaborate on projects and such. However, Dropbox has introduced a new admin console that takes things to a whole new level.

The new admin console is ultimately centered around two ideas: visibility and control. The new features offer improvements in both of these categories. For visibility, you can view recent activity, web sessions, linked devices, and third party apps for each member on the team. You can also get an overall activity chart for everyone on the team, and even download and print out handy reports of usage.

As for control, Dropbox now lets admins set sharing controls at the account level, meaning that you can determine which files are to be kept within the company, or let users decided what gets shared. You can also require that everyone enable two-step verification, just in case you want added security to your work, and there are options to remove users from the group in case they leave the company, and even send out password reset emails to users.

Essentially, Dropbox is making it easier for IT admins to manage the team and the company’s files in an easy-to-use control panel. Plus, Dropbox never has any confusing settings, and always strives for user-friendliness, so while it’s always good to have a knowledgable IT admin on staff, pretty anyone could run the admin console if need be.

Dropbox focusing more on IT with new admin console is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Cloud storage service Box always seems to be giving away free cloud storage left and right, and today is no exception. New users can sign up for an account and receive 50GB of space for free. This seems to be a “Dell Exclusive Offer,” but we’re seeing no restrictions here, meaning that it doesn’t look like you have to own a Dell computer in order to take advantage of the free space.

It could be that Dell is simply sponsoring the promotion, but given that it’s an “Exclusive Offer,” we can’t see where the exclusivity lies. Either way, if you’re not already signed up for a Box account, this is your chance to get 50GB of cloud storage space for free. They’ve given away 50GB free before, but that’s the highest that the company has gone with its promotions.

Box is about the only cloud storage provider that gives you a ton of space for free right away. Dropbox gives you 2GB after signing up, and you can earn more with referrals, but that can take some work. Box is really the only simple cloud solution that can be considered a viable backup resource.

Here’s the catch, though. Box only allows, at the most, 250MB files, so you might as well forget about backing up home videos. However, Box offers paid accounts that get rid a lot of the limitations that you’ll come across. Plus, 50GB for free may not seem useful now, but who knows when you’ll need it. Either way, it’s handy to have just in case.

Box offering 50GB free for new members is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

While Box likes to hand out large amounts of cloud storage like so much candy, it’s only so useful when the capacity is often linked to new devices. At least for a short while, there’s no strings attached: to coincide with a recent big football event, the company is reviving a promo strategy that gives away 25GB of space to new customers on free plans. As always, there are catches. The account has to be for personal use, and you’ll still deal with the 250MB file size cap from the ordinary free tier. If those aren’t obstacles, we’d hurry — Box doesn’t say when the deal ends, and there’s no guarantee that it’s as fond of sports as some of us.

Filed under: Storage, Internet

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Via: Mobile Geeks (translated)

Source: Box

Each week Joshua Fruhlinger contributes This is the Modem World, a column dedicated to exploring the culture of consumer technology.

We can all agree that technology is pretty cool. It allows us to communicate with one another, entertain ourselves, meet new people, learn new things and even find love and health. We love to discover new technologies, see it do amazing things and get a glimpse of the future. We, the early adopters, are pioneers, beta testers and happy to be first in line. This is all good.

But despite our hammering, our pleas and our shouts from the tops of the greatest blogs we know, some bad things just don’t change. When I say “bad things,” I’m talking about two annoying little facts of technology that, in my opinion, don’t need to be so painful. These are things we can and should fix.

Perhaps we’re not heard loudly enough, or perhaps the technology isn’t there to fix what we want, or maybe the manufacturers have better things to do. Whatever it is, let’s list those things out here, perhaps so that some engineer or product designer will read this and think, “Why, yes… Yes. I should fix this.”

Filed under: Misc, Peripherals, Software

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