TheBolt

The presents are opened, all the sweets have been eaten and everyone is ready to add to their new gifts, or return the ones they got.  At Abt, we are here for all your accessory needs.  If you found yourself opening a new fancy gadget, chances are you will want to keep is safe and efficient.  Find hundreds of add-ons to your new tablets, MP3 players, TVs or more!  Get chargers, cases, screen protectors, headphones, docks and more!  Visit our accessories page and start shopping.

Engineers at Northwestern University are creating batteries that last longer and charge faster, a potential solution to battery drain on mobile devices.  Using the innovation, a typical smartphone is expected to charge fully in 15 minutes and last for at least a week on a single charge.

As consumers use smartphones and tablets for more data-intensive purposes like watching movies, playing games and surfing the web, battery life has become a big concern. Apple just completed software updates on its iPhone 4S to fix battery drain problems, and researchers are always on the lookout for ways to make batteries last longer or charge more efficiently.  Hopefully, battery life will become stronger and quicker to charge as technology grows making it all the more convenient to operate portable electronics.

Well, today’s the day.  Apple users feel like it’s Christmas morning  as they look outside to see the arrival of the postman or many wait outside cell phone retail stores hoping to get their hands on one: the iPhone 4s!  Did you get yours today?  What are your thoughts?  If you haven’t yet, do you plan on getting one?  Let us know!

One of the most talked about tech stories this year is, “what will the iPhone 5 look like?”  With that, comes a vast array of rumors, false reports on tech specs and stories of hopeful ideas.  Some are true, some are close, others are completely wrong.  One of the more interesting stories that seems to be true is that the iPhone 5 is coming to Sprint.

From the beginning, the iPhone was available through AT&T only.  Then, just last year, Verizon announced the good news and had a nice bump in their subscribers who were eager to enjoy Verizon services with an iPhone.  With the release of the iPhone 5, Sprint looks to be next in line. According to The Wall Street Journal, ” Citing the ever-popular “people familiar with the matter,” they say the carrier will be getting the iPhone 5 in mid-October.”  Will it come to Sprint? Only time will tell.

You can find them all over the place now.  What you ask? Well it is a portable hard drive that will work with my IOS devices more specifically my iPhone, iPad, or iPad Touch.  Since these drives have come out in the last few months many people have asked, “Why do I need an additional drive, if my device already has storage?”  Let me take a moment and answer that question.

I have been using the Kingston Wi-Drive for the last week or so and I also wondered why I need additional storage for my phone myself, until recently.  The other day, I went out of town with three IOS devices and I found the answer: I can have the same movies and music playing across the 3 different devices at the same time.

No more having to worry about syncing both the iPad and the iPod touch to a computer.  This Kingston Application available from the Apple App Store allows me to see everything that is on the Wi-Drive and play it across multiple devices without the files being directly on the device.  So no more worrying about taking time to ensure that every movie is synced to multiple devices. All you need to do is hook up your Wi-Drive to a computer and it acts just like an external hard drive where you can literally just drag and drop files.

How does it work?  The Wi-Drive creates its own wireless network that each of the IOS devices can attach to.  The default is “Wi-Drive” but that can be both changed and encrypted so you can control who you are sharing with.  Once I am connected to the Wi-Drive network and I launch the application from my devices I can navigate through the drive and either listen to music, watch a movie, or look at pictures.

Wi-Drive iPhone Screen Shot

Finally the Wi-Drive can create a bridged connection to the Internet using my wireless connection at home.  So that means not only can I share content to multiple devices, but I do not lose my internet connection.

The Kingston Wi-Drive is available in 2 sizes 16GB and 32GB and are both available at abt.com.

-Chad Taylor



As you may or may not have already ascertained from my previous blog entries, I am a huge movie fan.  Huge.  So I’m pretty excited to follow this weekends events.  January 20-24th in Park City, Utah is the CES of movies; The 11th Annual Sundance Film festival 2011.  Four days of new, independent films presented by filmmakers, to other filmmakers, movie stars and cinema freaks alike.

This year is a bit different as Sundance brings news, reviews, and juicy tid bits to those who can’t make it out to Utah through a wide range of social media outlets.  Instant access through iPhone or Smartphone applications can provide news and reviews at the touch of a button.  If you are a lucky iPad owner, you can download the Sundance application and watch streaming movie trailers and even live interviews from on location.

Canon Camera, a sponsor of the festival will be showing their collaborative film called “The Story Behind the Still.”  It is a movie created with collaborative still images as well as HD video taken with their SLR camera by contestant winners.  “Shooting video on d-SLR cameras has become increasingly popular among filmmakers and enthusiasts. Nearly 20 percent of the overall 2011 Sundance Film Festival films were shot on HD d-SLR cameras.” (TWICE.com)

For full information, check out Sundance’s website.  Who knows what movies will be a success and hit mainstream theaters later this year.

Sometimes I get a lot of grief from my friends for wearing fingerless gloves during the wintertime.  “You look like a hobo.  How do your fingers keep warm?” says my one friend, wagging their mitten covered hand at me.  I know fingerless gloves don’t exactly keep you as warm as you would like, but for me, it’s their functionality that warms me over.  Simply put, I like wearing them because I can operate my phone easier.  I have a touch phone and there’s nothing more obnoxious than needing to write a text in a pinch when you have to shuffle off gloves, tuck them under your armpit or pocket and start typing away.  It’s just easier for me.

If you still aren’t convinced and would rather keep your gloves, texting with your iPhone or touchscreen phone got a lot easier during the wintertime.  The company, Quirky, created some removable mini conductive pins that attach to the fingertips of your gloves and operate just like your bare fingertips.  So keep your fingers warm and type away.

Abt is pleased to announce the opening of the new Bose® room in our audio/video department. Like many of the trusted brands featured in our store, Abt has worked closely together with Bose for many years to create a tremendous shopping experience. This new Bose® area in our store does just that!

The new room features 20 Bose home theater and personal audio products on display, including the newest Lifestyle® home entertainment systems, the simpler 2.1 CineMate® home theater speaker systems, the SoundDock® family of products for iPods® and iPhones®, the Companion® line of computer speakers, and the brand new Bose IE2 and AE2 audio headphones.

Automated displays throughout the space allow Abt customers to explore independently, listen to music and movie demonstrations, and discover more about the product benefits – all with the simple push of a button. The room also allows for more personalized demonstrations with an Abt sales consultant in warm, home-like settings that combine the latest HDTVs, Bose systems, a variety of HD sources, and comfy leather seating.

A great product on display that I had the pleasure of trying out is Bose®’s new Lifestyle® V35 home entertainment system.  Continuing the tradition of Bose®’s popular Lifestyle® systems, the V35 connects up to 6 HD components and upscales any non-HD video to 1080p! I was very impressed with its Unify™ technology system that easily guides any user while installing the unit to existing components.  Even a novice would be able to set this up!

For more information, stop by Abt and take a tour of our newest remodel.  Don’t forget to also check our full line of Bose® products .

-Nick E.

It’s 7 am. The month of December.  22 degrees outside. You have to be at work in an hour, but you just woke up.  You need to shower, change, eat breakfast, make a lunch and give yourself about 10-15 minutes to warm up your car properly.  Sure, you could throw on the coat, gloves, scarf and run out to your car, turn it on and run back inside. But as technology progresses, it’s supposed to make life easier; which is why Viper has made protecting your car easy and even went the extra mile.

Viper, manufacturer of automatic car starters, has developed a new car starter that is able to link to your iPhone, Android phone or BlackBerry.  The starter requires you to install the Viper SmartStart and pay a yearly service fee of $29.99.  Downloading the free application for your smartphone allows you to unlock doors, open the trunk, turn the heat or air conditioner on and even notify you when your alarm goes off, all via your cellular phone.

Viper SmartStart works over the 3G cellular network or Wi-Fi, allowing you to  have an unlimited range in the U.S.  As long as your car is in within the appropriate distance of a GSM/GPRS cellular signal and your smartphone has a 3G or Wi-Fi signal, SmartStart will work. Anywhere. Anytime.

Check out Viper’s site for additional products and services.  And remember, if you live in the Chicagoland area, Abt’s Mobile Installation techs can professionally install this for you .  Call us at 847-967-8830 for details.

-Nick E

An application I recently discovered, called Type N Walk, which is available for the iPhone 4, has raised both interest as well as ethical questions.  The program, which can be downloaded for $.99 on the iPhone market, allows users to text while walking.  It uses the iPhone’s built in camera to stream video of what is in front of the walker, all the while allowing you to see both your keyboard and the words you are typing.

The application’s website states, “This [transparent viewport] combined with your peripheral vision is just enough visual information to help you avoid obstacles — like walking face-first into a tree!”  Personally, I can’t think of anything that is so important to text, that you can’t stop what you are doing for a moment, and safely send the message.

Abt’s customer service representative Theresa O, downloaded the program on her iPhone to experiment.  “I don’t like it.  The concept is good, but the way the camera is, it’s basically looking at the floor”, she stated.  “I still had to look up while walking to be completely safe.  It wasn’t very helpful.”

The application’s main website has a video simulating what it is like to use, when walking.

This definitely raises some questions on whether or not a program like this only makes it, what may seem like, easier for people to walk or drive and text.  Naturally Abt Electronics doesn’t condone texting while driving or walking, but if any of you have the application, we would like to hear your stories.  Even if you do not, we would like to hear your opinions on whether this is a helpful, or harmful application.

-Nick E