Netizen

Thursday, July 08, 2010

Droid X Vs. iPhone 4

Engadget: Droid X vs. iPhone 4... hang out!

we'd really rather live in a world where Droid X and iPhone 4 hang out after work for drinks than one where they stab each other in their silicon hearts.

PC World: Droid X vs. iPhone 4: Spec Smackdown

the Android platform, which is quickly catching up by adding powerful devices and galloping software updates. ..... Processing Power Tie .... Display & Resolution Winner: iPhone 4 ....... Storage Winner: Droid X ..... Camera & Multimedia Draw ...... Apple's device has a front-facing video camera for video calls (a feature missing on the Droid X), and you can purchase, for $4.99, iMovie for iPhone, simply the best mobile video editor seen so far (and exclusive to the iPhone 4). ....... Connectivity Winner: Droid X ...... iOS vs. Android Draw (So Far) ....... the problem with the Droid X is that it won't ship with the latest version of Android (2.2) on July 15 ...... A cool trick the Droid X will have, one not yet available on iOS, is Swype, a system that allows you to enter data on the software keyboard without lifting your finger off the screen. Swype is the default data-entry mode ...... A notable feature now present on the Droid X is noise cancellation technology, which is supposed to improve call quality by blocking other sounds around you except your voice. The iPhone 4 has two microphones, one of which is used for noise cancellation, while the Droid X boasts three.

InformationWeek: Droid X Puts iPhone 4 On Notice

Motorola's new Droid X should give iPhone 4 shoppers pause. It has a bigger screen, better camera, and the Verizon Wireless network backing it up. ...... The Droid X's 854 x 480 display is fully capable of playing HD content. Do those extra pixels matter? ..... The iPhone's battery is, of course, not accessible. ..... The real advantage the Droid X has over the iPhone 4 is its network. I have been both an AT&T and a Verizon Wireless customer for years. I can say that in my experience, Verizon's network is simply better. That means fewer dropped calls and more consistent data sessions for the Droid X. ...... The difference between AT&T's $25/mo for 2GB and Verizon's $30/mo for 5GB is enormous. ....It costs just $200 with a new contract, and offers nearly everything the iPhone 4 does -- all on a better network.

BusinessWeek: Why The Droid X Won't Trump The iPhone

The 4.3-inch screen, the largest I've ever used, is nearly 25 percent bigger than the iPhone's. .... It can also do something cool that the iPhone can't: provide a Wi-Fi signal for nearby devices. ..... The Droid X's biggest advantage is that it runs on Verizon Wireless

Video: Droid X Vs. iPhone 4

VentureBeat: Droid X versus iPhone 4

Nokia’s N8 due this fall will challenge everyone with its 12 megapixel, oversize-sensor camera hardware. ..... both phones have much better graphics performance than previous models. You’ll no longer tap and wait. Or swipe and wait. ......

PC Mag: iPhone 4 vs. Droid X vs. EVO 4G: Carriers Go to War

the iPhone's lack of expandability - neither a removable battery or an additional memory card; and its lack of support for Flash, which means that some Web sites (such as Hulu) don't work. .... The Evo 4G has a large 4.3-inch display, with an 800-by-480 resolution, and as a result, the phone is a lot larger than the iPhone 4. It has a variety of very nice features, including a front-facing camera for video conferencing and the ability to be used as a mobile hot-spot, sharing its Sprint connection with multiple computers over Wi-Fi. It also has an 8-megapixel camera, HDMI out, and a kickstand. But the standout feature is its support for the Wimax network, which is now available in a number of markets and coming to a lot more this fall.

I am supposed to be working on a few blog posts (To Iran, With Love (1)) for two of my favorite people in the tech community - Fred Wilson and Brad Feld - but I find my ways to procrastinate. I found myself on my Tumblr dashboard instead. Mostly I reblog, that is what I do on Tumblr. The editor in me comes out. So - hint, hint - I am a very good person to follow on Tumblr. Following me is like following 90 people minus the pain. And these 90 people are mostly active members of the tech community. So. Follow me, like Al Pacino says right before the best scene in my favorite movie Heat.

I came across an interesting post by KirkLove, on parenting. No, I don't know him, although he is a New Yorker. You are not supposed to know people on Tumblr. I personally know very few of the 90 plus people I follow on Tumblr.

But then I have never been a parent myself, although I grew up in a large, extended family environment - at the peak, I think perhaps four couples under one roof in a big house - and saw a l-o-t of parenting happen. That makes me an authority of sorts, I think. And that is not even counting the regular larger extended family get togethers - festivals, three day weddings - when you would have much noise and kids running all over the place.

New York Magazine: Why Parents Hate Parenting?

Most people assume that having children will make them happier. Yet a wide variety of academic research shows that parents are not happier than their childless peers, and in many cases are less so. This finding is surprisingly consistent, showing up across a range of disciplines. ........ five ruthless words: “Economically worthless but emotionally priceless.” ...... . “I don’t mean to idealize the lives of the Namibian women,” she says. “But it was hard not to notice how calm they were. They were beading their children’s ankles and decorating them with sienna, clearly enjoying just sitting and playing with them, and we’re here often thinking of all of this stuff as labor.” ...... especially true in middle- and upper-income families, which are far more apt than their working-class counterparts to see their children as projects to be perfected. (Children of women with bachelor degrees spend almost five hours on “organized activities” per week, as opposed to children of high-school dropouts, who spend two. ...... “Middle-class parents spend much more time talking to children, answering questions with questions, and treating each child’s thought as a special contribution. And this is very tiring work.” ....... According to Changing Rhythms of American Family Life—a compendium of data porn about time use and family statistics .......all parents spend more time today with their children than they did in 1975, including mothers, in spite of the great rush of women into the American workforce. ...... the abundance of choices—whether to have kids, when, how many—may be one of the reasons parents are less happy. ...... parents’ dissatisfaction only grew the more money they had, even though they had the purchasing power to buy more child care ..... “They’re a huge source of joy, but they turn every other source of joy to shit.” ...... When people wait to have children, they’re also bringing different sensibilities to the enterprise. They’ve spent their adult lives as professionals, believing there’s a right way and a wrong way of doing things; now they’re applying the same logic to the family-expansion business, and they’re surrounded by a marketplace that only affirms and reinforces this idea. ....... There was this idea we had about how things were supposed to be: The family should be dot dot dot, the man should be dot dot dot the woman should be dot dot dot.” ....... This is another brutal reality about children: They expose the gulf between our fantasies about family and its spikier realities. ....... One of the reasons I love being with my wife is because I love the family we have.” ....... the war zone of adolescence ..... “Teenagers can be casually brutal.” ...... is the amount of time married parents spend alone together each week: Nine hours today versus twelve in 1975. ...... They were exhausted and staring at the television.” ..... Children may provide unrivaled moments of joy. But they also provide unrivaled moments of frustration, tedium, anxiety, heartbreak. ...... the study sought to understand not just the moment-to-moment moods of its participants, but more existential matters, like how connected they felt, and how motivated, and how much despair they were in (as opposed to how much stress they were under): Do you not feel like eating? Do you feel like you can’t shake the blues? Do you feel lonely? Like you can’t get going? Parents, who live in a clamorous, perpetual-forward-motion machine almost all of the time, seemed to have different answers than their childless cohorts. ......... The least depressed parents are those whose underage children are in the house, and the most are those whose aren’t. ..... Technically, if parenting makes you unhappy, you should feel better if you’re spared the task of doing it. But if happiness is measured by our own sense of agency and meaning, then noncustodial parents lose. They’re robbed of something that gives purpose and reward. ..... Not one told him of regretting having children, but ten told him they regretted not having a family.

Thoughts? Parenting is work. Relationship is work. Marriage is work. You might as well skip out on the relationship too and go straight to watching more TV.

I once read about an article in some kind of an anthropology journal that suggested some cultures in Africa deal with adolescence way better than the US society does. There is something called emotional infrastructure.