Shelly Palmer Digital Living - Daily Radio Report

For a sport that’s been around over 100 years, Major League Baseball is on top of its digital game. After a pilot program last September, the league announced that 13 stadiums will accept mobile tickets through Apple’s Passbook App this season. The Mets, Giants and Royals, three of last year’s test teams, will be joined this season by the Twins, Orioles, Brewers, A’s, Pirates, Tigers and Cubs in the program. But that’s not all Major League Baseball has up its sleeve. The league also announced a new program called Mobile Seat Upgrades. Featured in the official MLB apps on Android and iOS, fans can use their smartphones mid-game to upgrade their seats, earn rewards and access different parts of the stadium. The Braves tried this out last season, offering seat upgrades between $5 and $55. They’ll be joined by the Diamondbacks, Twins and A’s on Opening Day, with 12 more teams joining in at the end of April. America’s National Pastime is ready for the 21st Century.

If you listen to tech sites and popular opinion, the smartphone market seems to be a two horse race between the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy S4. But if you take a minute to look at some other phones on the market, it’s clear that there are others, like the HTC One, with similar – if not better – hardware and features. But the HTC One’s launch has been delayed because the company is having a hard time getting parts it needs for its phones. Why is that? An HTC executive said that parts manufacturers no longer view HTC as a “tier-one customer” in the smartphone market and only want to deal with Apple and Samsung. Having more great phones on the market, like the HTC One, not only gives us a wider selection for our next upgrade, but forces everyone, including Apple and Samsung, to innovate and make their phones even better. Competition yields greatness, and cutting HTC out of the picture will only wind up hurting us in the end.

When Google Glass hits store shelves later this year, we’ll fully realize that we’re living in the future. We don’t know an exact release date or price yet, only that it’ll be less than $1,500. But Google has shared some information about its coolest new product. Google Glass is a pair of eyeglasses that feature an augmented reality wearable computer. Basically, it’s a heads-up display you can see in real life. What makes them cool? They can identify people based on the clothes they wear. They’ll integrate with news sources like the New York Times and will show breaking headlines as pop-up notifications, and will even let you read the full article, check out pictures or have the news read aloud to you. Mainstays like Gmail and Google Maps will also be integrated, letting you dictate and send e-mails or plan a bike route. I’m really excited that Google also confirmed they’re working on prescription Google Glass. The future is almost here.

About six months ago, a new e-reader was announced that would shake up the scene. The Txtr Beagle would be a no-frills reading experience. It didn’t have a touchscreen, a backlight, 3G or even Wi-Fi, and would need two AAA batteries to work. Why would anyone want it? Because it was only going to cost 15 bucks. Well, the Beagle finally went up for pre-order and it turns out it’s going to cost 70 dollars, not 15. Who knows what changed, but Amazon sells its basic Kindle, with Wi-Fi built in, for the same price. But the bigger question is: Does it really matter at all? With Barnes & Noble rumored to possibly eliminate its entire Nook line, e-readers are in limbo right now. Tablets are getting cheaper and phone screens are getting bigger, and all of these devices can access e-reader apps from every e-book seller, including Amazon and Barnes & Noble. In a world that doesn’t really need e-readers anymore, the Txtr Beagle has absolutely no place.

Netflix just became a whole lot more social. The company just added Facebook connectivity and lets users in the United States show what they’re watching to their friends, just like Spotify does for music. Now, you can show off just how cool you are because you’re watching the new season of Arrested Development on the day Netflix releases it, or use it to keep tabs on your friends and family’s viewing habits. But Netflix is doing more than simply displaying what you’re watching. If you connect your Facebook and Netflix accounts, you can browse dedicated categories like “Friends’ Favorites” and “Watched by Your Friends” on the Netflix site and on connected devices like the PS3 or Apple TV. Want to secretly binge on some rom-coms? Netflix will let you click a button called “Don’t Share This” when a video begins to keep it private. Now’s probably the time to stop sharing your Netflix password, so your friends don’t think you can’t stop watching “Toddlers & Tiaras.”

SimCity’s problems just keep on coming. After an opening week marred by server problems that prevented most people who bought the game from actually playing it, EA smoothed out the connection problems and gave people a chance to play the game they spent sixty bucks on. All good, right? Not quite. It turns out that once people actually played the game, they realized the game itself was broken. Weird glitches in the game made it virtually unplayable. The Sims who populated your city would move to the nearest job or house with an open space, whether or not that was where they belonged. That meant all the game features that would ensure your city ran smoothly got all out of whack. Couple that with rumors that the game can be played offline, which goes against everything EA has been saying, and the game’s release has become a nightmare. SimCity lets users wipe out a failed city and start over. If only it was that easy for EA.

Google Reader is soon to be no more. Google recently announced that it will retire its RSS reader beginning on July 1. RSS readers take feeds from other sites and put them all in one easy-to-browse place. For example, you could take the RSS feed from ShellyPalmer.com and add it to your Google Reader page. This way, you’d have one place to go to keep up to date on the digital world and keep up with feeds from just about any other site, like sports scores from ESPN.com or recipes from Food Network. Google said interest and usage declined in recent years, but that doesn’t mean much to loyal Google Reader users. Where do Reader fans go from here? With just about every tech site mourning Reader’s impending doom, it’s clear there’s still a demand for a good RSS reader. Feedly? NewsBlur? It’s your time to step up as the next few months should be filled with tons of RSS sites angling to be the best and vying for our attention.

Now that Samsung finally unveiled the Galaxy S IV, does it live up to the hype? The hardware is nice, but not revolutionary. It has a quad-core processor and a 5-inch screen with a better resolution than Retina. It ships with 2 gigs of RAM and up to 64 gigs of memory, which can be added to with a microSD card. Software is where the GS4 stands out. It ships with Jelly Bean and has features like AirView and AirBrowse, which use gesture controls to scroll through photo galleries or websites. Smart Pause will pause your video if you look away from the screen while watching something. Samsung also included some of its own software on the phone, like a health tracker and a translator that supports 10 languages at launch. The phone will be available by the end of April, but no price was announced yet. Samsung was right: The next big thing is here. It’s just not the Second Coming.

Don’t want to pony up for a full New York Times subscription? Just go grab a Venti Vanilla Latte at your nearest Starbucks and enjoy the written word of the Times’ journalists at no additional charge. The New York Times recently announced a partnership with the coffee chain that will offer customers on Starbucks’ Wi-Fi network 15 free articles a day. If you didn’t know, the Times has what’s called a ‘metered paywall’ on their site, which means readers can read 10 free stories a month before the Times makes them pay to access the rest. The free stories at Starbucks, which will include ones from its News, Business, Technology and Most Emailed sections, are in addition to the 10 free stories you’re given per month. But there’s a catch. The Times chooses the free Starbucks stories. While you can’t have free run of the entire Times site, at least you finally have another option besides a Bistro Box to pair with your morning coffee.

No phone is perfect. No matter which you choose for your next upgrade, there will always be features you wish you had. While Windows Phone and BlackBerry 10 are just showing signs of life, Android and iOS are kings of the mobile realm. So why should your next phone run iOS? One of the nicest features of iOS is its centralized notification center. Everything that needs your attention can be found in one place. Emails, retweets, game notifications, the whole enchilada. Even better? You can silence them all with iOS’s Do Not Disturb mode. iOS also has Siri, which started out kind of rocky but finds itself more integrated into Apple’s core apps and more useful with every software update. iOS’s Passbook is another excellent app distancing it from Android. Passbook gives you a place to store tickets, gift cards, loyalty cards and more, minimizing the amount of stuff you need to carry around with you. Android is great, but feature for feature iOS holds its own.

Google's Android operating system or Android OS is the most popular smartphone operating system in the world. But iOS, Apple's operating system is so awesome ... which should you choose? Let's have a quick look at some Android OS features that might help you decide. Android OS includes Google Now a feature that helps you have fun and always gives you something to do, no matter where you are. Based on your location, schedule and interests, Google Now finds new events and places that are catered just to you. Suddenly, your Saturday night just got a few hours longer, and a lot more fun. Android is also far more customizable than iOS. If you really want a personalized smartphone, Android's got you covered.  Hate Android’s browser? Set Chrome as your default. You can’t do that on iOS – you have to launch it manually. Maps navigate you home with one tap. iOS may be great, but these features help Android stand out.

With more than ten years between titles, last week’s release of the computer game SimCity was a big deal. Things didn’t pan out so well, though. The new SimCity requires you to always be connected to the Internet in order to play, but EA completely underestimated how many people would try to access the game’s servers. Things got so bad on the server side that on the day SimCity was released, thousands of people couldn’t play the game and thousands more unable to even download it to their computers. EA rushed to add more servers and removed what they called “non-critical gameplay features” to lighten the server load. Amazon even stopped selling the game with a note describing the problem and saying it didn’t know when EA would be able to fix the issue. I guess EA wasn't really thinking ... it should have just displayed an error message that due to an Internet disaster, your city had been destroyed.  It's not that from what actually happened.

Late last week, Facebook announced yet another change to the way its News Feed looks. Facebook seems to always be tinkering with something to the point where updates are so frequent and regular you can almost set your watch by them. The News Feed’s look has already begun to roll out and should be widely available by the end of the month. Facebook said the new look was inspired by its mobile app, and it’s easy to immediately see the differences. Photos are bigger than ever and links have less text to clutter up the re-design’s prettier visuals. You also have more of a choice in what your News Feed shows, with options for feeds that only display photos, or music stories, or games activity, or posts by pages or friends. Facebook is becoming a platform dominated by the visual, and this re-design reaffirms that shift. Who wants to read when you can look at gorgeous pictures and interactive photo albums?

While the Post Office is trying new ways to save money and deliver mail more efficiently, one Austin startup is taking a very different approach. Outbox wants to take your snail mail, open it, scan it and then digitally deliver it to your computer or iDevice. Three times a week, Outbox collects your mail, then opens, scans, stores and sends it like e-mail. Need a hard copy? Request it within 30 days and they’ll deliver it to you. After that window, the mail is shredded and recycled. Packages still get delivered to your door like normal. Sound convenient and cool for five bucks a month? Definitely, but also creepy. Outbox’s Privacy Policy states that it keeps scanned images of your mail on its servers. That’s sort of scary. But if you’re looking for the added convenience and have given up hope of any sort of privacy in this digital age, keep tabs on Outbox’s trial run in San Francisco. Maybe the USPS could learn a thing or two.

Higher education is in for a radical change. A new program will offer lower level online courses for students at San Jose State University for only $150. The program is run by a company called Udacity, which hires its own online mentors to run the courses, which will predominantly feature instructional videos and web-based quizzes.  The program is aimed at students who have trouble meeting basic college requirements and will offer algebra and statistics courses to 300 students at a time. Students from San Jose State and nearby high schools and community colleges will be eligible to sign up. We’ve seen technology in the classroom, as teachers use iPads and cell phones to help with their lessons. But this is one of the first times technology has replaced State teachers, rather than help them. What this means for the future of education is anyone’s guess, but we’ve officially entered a new era: one dominated by computers and robots. Our world is more connected than ever before.