as it is replaced by research and compare. 5 months ago

Now being maintained here.

Warning: Complimentary may be based on my status with the hotel frequent stay program.

Room sizes for European hotels are compared relative to other European hotels. Same for Japanese hotels, not yet included.

Ratings on a 4-star scale, so 2 stars is “Average”.

	Exists but almost useless
	Video stutters
	Video calling stutters
	Acceptable

Criteria	Crowne Plaza
Room design
Room size
Quietness
Breakfast	19 euros
TV – External video	Yes (Ch 51)
Lounge	Not available
Exercise room	?
Whirlpool	?
Hand shower	Yes
Complimentary Internet	98 euros/week
Internet speed	1.38 Mbps / 3.10 Mbps
Tea service	Yes
Refrigerator	Yes
Safe	Yes

Criteria	Hilton Danube	Marriot Courtyard – Messe
Room design
Room size
Quietness
Breakfast
TV – External video	Yes (SCART)	Yes (Ch 55 through SCART Ext 1 or 58 through VGA)
Lounge	Spa available	Not available
Exercise room	24 hrs	Midnight
Whirlpool	Yes	?
Hand shower	Yes	Yes
Complimentary Internet	Yes	Yes
Internet speed
Tea service	Yes	Yes
Refrigerator	Yes	Yes
Safe	Yes	Yes

Criteria	Courtyard – Waterbury	Crowne Plaza	Hampton Inn – Danbury	Hampton Inn – Waterbury	Courtyard – Danbury	Hilton Garden Inn
Room design
Room size
Quietness	(odd number faces highway)	(even number faces highway)	(fan is always on when using heat, bathroom fan is always on when lights are on)	(odd number away from highway)	(Best to be on top floor, odd number away from highway)
Breakfast
TV – External video	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Lounge	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available	Not available
Exercise room	Yes	9 pm ?	Midnight	24hrs	24hrs	10 pm
Whirlpool	?	?	Yes	?	?	?
Hand shower	No	No	No	No	No	No
Complimentary Internet	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Internet speed	0.82 Mbps / 0.72 Mbps (2009-09-02)	?	0.52 Mbps / 0.22 Mbps (2009-11-30)	1.44 Mbps / 1.29 Mbps (2010-07019)	0.71 Mbps / 1.27 Mbps (2010-01-05) 0.68 Mbps / 1.36 Mbps (2010-04-14)	1.91 Mbps / 0.92 Mbps (2012-06-15)
Tea service	Yes	?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Refrigerator	No	No	Yes	Yes	Depends	Yes
Safe	No	No	No	No	No	No

Criteria	Marriot Courtyard – Fishkill
Room design
Room size
Quietness
Breakfast	No
TV – External video	No
Lounge	Not available
Exercise room	?
Whirlpool	?
Hand shower	No
Complimentary Internet	Yes
Internet speed
Tea service	?
Refrigerator	No
Safe	No

Criteria	Hilton Garden Inn
Room design
Room size
Quietness
Breakfast	Yes (waffle maker!)
TV – External video	?
Lounge	Not available
Exercise room	Yes
Whirlpool	?
Hand shower	No
Complimentary Internet	Yes
Internet speed	0.54 Mbps / 0.25 Mbps
Tea service	Yes
Refrigerator	Yes (but noisy!)
Microwave	Yes
Safe	No
Heating/Cooling	Thermostat

Criteria	Fairfield Inn
Room design
Room size
Quietness
Breakfast	Continental
TV – External video	Yes ?
Lounge	Not available
Exercise room	Yes ?
Whirlpool	?
Hand shower	No
Complimentary Internet	Yes
Internet speed	1.45 Mbps / 1.40 Mbps
Tea service	Yes
Refrigerator	Yes (but noisy!)
Microwave	No
Safe	No
Heating/Cooling	Thermostat

Criteria	Marriot Courtyard – RTP	Residence Inn – RTP
Room design
Room size
Quietness
Breakfast	No	Yes
TV – External video	Yes – ch 43	Yes – Input
Lounge	No	No
Exercise room	Yes	24 hrs
Whirlpool	Yes	?
Hand shower	No	No
Complimentary Internet	Yes	Yes
Internet speed
Tea service	Yes	Yes
Refrigerator	No	Yes
Safe	No	No

Criteria	Hilton Garden Inn
Room design
Room size
Quietness
Breakfast	Yes 6-10 am
TV – External video	Yes
Lounge	Not available
Exercise room	?
Whirlpool	?
Hand shower	No
Complimentary Internet	Yes
Internet speed	1.02 Mbps / 0.41 Mbps
Tea service	Yes
Refrigerator	Yes
Microwave	Yes
Safe	No
Heating/Cooling	Thermostat

Nagoya, JP:
| Criteria | Hilton |
| Room design | |
| Room size | |
| Quietness | |
| Breakfast | Yes 6.30-11.30 am |
| TV – External video | ? |
| Lounge | Yes |
| Exercise room | ? |
| Whirlpool | ? |
| Hand shower | Yes |
| Complimentary Internet | Yes |
| Internet speed | 19 Mbps / 29 Mbps |
| Tea service | Yes |
| Refrigerator | Yes |
| Microwave | No |
| Safe | Yes |
| Heating/Cooling | Thermostat | 3 years ago

p = premium
f = can be faked

1. $4.99/mo
2. $29.95/mo
3. YouTube video

• Buzzumi
• AIM
• Meeting Burner
• meeting.io
• FriendCaller
• Fring 17 months ago

A PC can do pretty much anything a tablet can do… and theoretically anything a set top box can do… However, with the Logitech Revue with Google TV at $99, that’s a good price point. An alternative to the Logitech Revue is something like MK802 which is an Android device which plugs directly into a TV’s HDMI port. 1GB model is available here.

{background:#ddd}. |Evaluation |PC |Google TV (Logitech Revue) |Comments |
{background:#ddd}. |Apps | – | x | |
{background:#ddd}. |Local media | x | x | |
{background:#ddd}. |UPnP | x | x | |
{background:#ddd}. |DLNA | x | x | |
{background:#ddd}. |Paid streaming services | x | x | |
{background:#ddd}. |Free streaming service | x | x |Alternative is to download, then play as local media |
{background:#ddd}. |YouTube | x | x | |
{background:#ddd}. |Pandora | x | x | |
{background:#ddd}. |All Internet streaming services | x | – |Not until Google can get other content providers to sign up|
{background:#ddd}. |Place shifting | x | x | |
{background:#ddd}. |Surfing | x | x | |
{background:#ddd}. |Connection to projector | x | – |Revue supports HDMI output only, will need a new AV system… Not that this is a bad thing :) This requires an AV system that can convert HDMI signal into other formats.| 17 months ago

but the one I’m using for quite a bit of miscellaneous functions is making funny noises. I was also thinking of replacing the one hooked up to the printer. I’m considering getting an Android tablet, but obviously an Android tablet would not be able to fulfill all the needs.

*Can be handled by Mi Casa Verde Vera 2
*Can be handled by NAS device
*Can be handled by product like Axis 240Q/241Q

OK, obviously, I still need to have the PC… But except for the golf simulator, looks like I can have one PC to handle what currently two PCs do.

• Digital photo picture frame
  
  • With motion sensor to only display photos when someone is present to save on electricity
  • Be able to pull from pictures from Internet sites like Flickr, Picasa
• Alarm clock
  
  • Use of Sleep Bot to track sleep debt
  • Use of Smart Alarm or similar to only wake at proper point in sleep cycle
• Remote for home entertainment
  
  • Both audio and video
  • Full home system
• Remote for home automation
• Remote for home security system and security cameras
• Access to Skype or other video calling service
• eBook reader including home scanned documents
• Browser
• Lightweight
• Nice if tablet could be used as 2nd monitor to computer
• Good size for bedside alarm clock is probably around 7”
• Good size for browser, eBook reader is probably at least 10”

Now that I’ve confirmed the need for a PC, I have to decide what type of PC to get.

• Backup for current media PC
• Multi-person video conference
• Capabilities to replace current functionality
• Multi-touch
• Operational cost
• Ability to stream HD video
• Cost

• eLocity A7 has some HW glitches to resolve including multi touch and wifi reconnection after sleep
• Archos70 has only 256MB which is a killer in limiting the number of apps to be installed
• NookColor bluetooth can be enabled through hack

• Velocity Micro
• Advent Vega ($350, 10.1”, 2.5 lbs)
• Huawei Ideos S7 ($300, 7”, 800×480, GPS)
• Acer Iconia Tab A100 (7”, Android 3.0)
• ZTE Light 2 (7”, Pixel Qi display)
• HTC Flyer (7”, 1.5 GHz)
• Samsung Galaxy Tab II, 8.9
• AnyDATA
• WoPad
• Gadmei E8 – 3D

Something to look forward to for tablets able to run Android 3.0:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPUGNCIozp0 2 years ago

Open letter to Google:

While I’m a big Google fan, unfortunately, Google apps fall short in many areas. Without better integration of the Google apps, Google will end up falling behind the likes of Facebook, iPhone, and potentially even Microsoft.

Overall
Google has some exceptional apps, like Gmail, YouTube, Maps, Picasa and others. On their own, most Google apps including Calendar, Reader, and others can stand on their own. However, from an integration point of view, Google generally falls flat. While there have been across the board changes to the apps, simply making the user interface more consistent is way short of the needed integration.

Below, I’ll get into details how specific Google apps can improve:

Google+
Google’s answer to Facebook. It started out with a great start, but statistics showed that the number of public postings decreased during beta. While taking Google+ out of private beta has brought on a huge number of people signing up, Google shouldn’t pause to congratulate itself because otherwise it will find similar to private beta, the general public will find Google+ less appealing to continue to use.

Some of the changes which Google needs to make to Google+ are:

• The most important change is to allow pseudonyms. If you really want people to grow their social network on the Internet, you have to give them to safety of a pseudonym. It’s a safety risk to expose so much traceable personal information on the Internet. At a minimum, it may be ok for the Google account to be tied to a real name, but it should not be required to expose one’s real name as part of Google+.
• The second most important change is to remove the requirement that a Google account is tied to an individual. Sometimes it makes sense to have family accounts to make it easy to also post information at a family level separate from an individual level.
• Google never has seemed to be good at developing an attractive user interface. While there’s something to be said about a simple interface, there’s also something to be said about aesthetically pleasing eye candy. If someone can have a beautifully architected plain house or a aesthetically pleasing, beautifully designed house, I think most people would pick the latter. This also applies to Android apps. Who wants to see 6 simple icons on a screen for a menu?

Update: My original post was from Sept 27, soon after the Google+ public launch. Google+ experienced peaked traffic, but it soon went down to pre-public launch levels as shown by [Chitika] in their post from October 7.

Can I call it or what? (OK, didn’t take a rocket scientist.)

Google has pointed out 3.4B pictures uploaded to Google+ in their first 100 days. That’s A LOT of photos. Hopefully they aren’t drinking their own kool-aid though. One of the functions of the Google+ Android app is to automatically upload photos taken from your Android device. I’ve had hundreds uploaded, but none shared on Google+.

Since then, Google has announced they will start allowing anonymous accounts. It’s a beginning, but they still have a ways to go to make Google+ the place to go for social networking.

Gmail
Gmail is generally known as the best mail service on the Internet. Lots of good capabilities exist, but if Google sits on its hands, Gmail will be passed.

• Gmail should be one’s inbox for everything, not just mail. As an example, in addition to mail, it could post all updates from Facebook, Twitter, even 43T. Everything would be chronologically ordered like mail, but could filtered out whether user is only interested in mail or any one of the other sources. To me, it makes no sense to subscribe to updates, so that they can in turn send a mail to your Inbox which results in cluttering up one’s real Inbox. Why not just show the notifications as part of the Inbox without having to have actual mails be sent to you.
• If my inbox can now be filled with many more notifications from a wider range of sources, I need a better interface to be able to get through all of it. I can whiz through 100s of new articles using Google Reader. I would love a similar type of interface which would allow me to go through the entire inbox just as quickly.
• For people who have multiple Google accounts, there needs to be a way to share contact information. It makes no sense to maintain multiple duplicate copies of contact information. I know there is an export/import capability, but it should be automatic. In fact, while sharing contacts, it should also be possible to specify which contacts to share. As an example, for example, one would not necessarily want to share all of one’s individual contacts with contacts associated to a family account.

Android
I can’t believe I’m putting Android here. Andy Rubin, “father” of Android, is a brilliant guy… but sometimes, it looks like he doesn’t get it.

He criticized iPhone 4S personal assistant function Siri saying that people should use their phone to communicate to other people, not to their phone. He seems to be ignoring the fact that our phone is not just a phone anymore. It’s the reason personal digital assistants (PDA) are basically obsolete. People are now using their phones also as their PDAs… So of course, then an assistant is a perfectly logical use of their phone.

And hopefully Google realizes that their strategy for continued dominance of the phone market is to make Android ubiquitous as I mentioned in January. The new GoogleTV will have Android support. Archos is making landline phone systems and alarm clock type devices running on Android. It’s a start.

• Google Calendar
• Google Tasks
• Picasa
• Blogger
• Google Sites
• Google Docs
• Google Health
• Maps
• Google Bookmarks
• Google TV20 months ago

Now being maintained here.

|Provider|Download|Upload|Date|
|Old phone (ATT) @ DFW|0.64 Mb/s|0.03 Mb/s|2010-01-31|
|New phone (ATT) @ home|2.10 Mb/s|1.14 Mb/s|2010-07-03|
|New phone (ATT) @ home|2.79 Mb/s|1.31 Mb/s|2010-12-07|
|New phone (ATT 2G) @ home|0.20 Mb/s|0.30 Mb/s|2012-03-10|
|New phone (Wireless) @ home|4.04 Mb/s|2.53 Mb/s|2010-07-16|
|Comcast @ Mom’s|18.91 Mb/s|3.80 Mb/s|2010-02-13|
|Comcast @ Mom’s Wireless|8.58 Mb/s|4.14 Mb/s|2010-02-13|
|CLT airport free @ Terminal C|18.64 Mb/s|12.28 Mb/s|2010-02-14|
|McD’s free @ Danbury|0.35 Mb/s|0.12 Mb/s|2010-02-14|
|Marriott Courtyard @ Danbury|1.39 Mb/s|0.47 Mb/s|2010-02-15|
|Verizon FIOS @ Home|17.10 Mb/s|4.46 Mb/s|2010-02-20|
|Verizon FIOS @ Home|25.71 Mb/s|4.53 Mb/s|2011-01-17|
|T-Mobile @ Terminal D AA lounge DFW|17.19 Mb/s|6.89 Mb/s|2010-04-24|
|New phone > Hilton @ Vienna Danube|4.331 Mb/s|2.757 Mb/s|2010-11-14|
|Hilton @ Vienna Danube|0.65 Mb/s|0.27 Mb/s|2011-11-21|
|Hilton @ Vienna Danube|1.03 Mb/s|1.30 Mb/s|2012-01-15|
|Hilton @ Vienna Danube|1.04 Mb/s|0.25 Mb/s|2012-06-23|
|Ise Terminal Hotel (Freespot)|16.82 Mb/s|13.5 Mb/s|2011-07-10|
|Ise Pearl Pier Hotel|3.22 Mb/s|7.84 Mb/s|2011-07-10|
|Ise City Annex (Green)|12.69 Mb/s|7.98 Mb/s|2011-07-13|
|Nagoya Marriott|0.2 Mb/s|4.18 Mb/s|2011-07-16|
|Marriott @ Wien Messe|0.19 Mb/s|9.3 Mb/s|2011-07-20|
|Marriott @ Wien Messe|2.13 Mb/s|1.87 Mb/s|2012-01-14|
|FON @ Minami Ise Hospital|0.63 Mb/s|0.10 Mb/s|2011-09-27|
|Futaba Ryokan (nearby service), Minami Ise|4.51 Mb/s|1.76 Mb/s|2011-09-28|
|Futaba Ryokan (nearby service), Minami Ise|0.89 Mb/s|0.21 Mb/s|2011-10-10|
|Marriott Courtyard @ RTP|0.53 Mb/s|0.22 Mb/s|2012-02-29|
|Residence Inn @ RTP (wireless)|0.80 Mb/s|0.53 Mb/s|2012-03-05|
|Residence Inn @ RTP (wired)|1.64 Mb/s|2.28 Mb/s|2012-03-05|
|Hilton @ Nagoya (wired)|17.96 Mb/s|29.89 Mb/s|2012-04-09|
|Hilton wireless through FON @ Nagoya (phone)|2.75 Mb/s|1.26 Mb/s|2012-04-09|
|Station Hotel Ugata|4.88 Mb/s|0.73 Mb/s|2012-04-10|
|Hilton Garden Inn Danbury (wired)|1.91 Mb/s|0.92 Mb/s|2012-06-15| 3 years ago

The camera quality keeps improving in cell phones, but I think there’s still a benefit for a small point and shoot. The camera in the x10 mini is 5 megapixel, video quality is VGA 640×480 and no optical zoom. Improving the specs would be nice and unfortunately, the camera takes poor pictures under poor lighting situations (backlighting too strong, indoors, etc).

The characteristics of the point and shoot camera I’d like to get:

• GPS & compass
• Wifi
• 5+ megapixel
• 5x+ optical zoom
• 3D
• HD video recording, 30 fps
• Super slow-motion
• 3D video
• 3D screen
• Image stabilization
• Face detection
• Lightweight and thin
• Affordable price

• = simulated 23 months ago

(At the moment, she’s calling it the “Dashboard” because the home screen says “Dashboard”.)

The idea was for her to have a more convenient way to surf the Internet. I would like for her to do more reading aloud.

Per the article of the referenced abstract:

Recent findings of neuroimaging studies indicate that reading aloud and arithmetic calculation activate bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of humans… Conclusion. Our results indicate that learning tasks of reading aloud and arithmetic calculation can be used for cognitive rehabilitation of dementia patients

Or as I would put it (and not that she’s exhibiting any signs of senile dementia), actively working your prefrontal cortex can reduce the impact of (senile) dementia.

Reference:
http://biomedgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/content/60/3/380.abstract

I was pleased with how well my mom has taken to the gTablet. At 78 years old, she does not adapt easily to new technology, but she’s catching on pretty well. She is having some problems with the onscreen keyboard because her hands sometimes accidentally touches the screen while she is touching. Because of this, I’m sure I should invest in an external keyboard for her.

	Poor viewing angles. Nice screen but you really have to be looking right at it.
	No built-in stand. The tablet often sits flat on the table, not faced directly to the user, but this results in a poor viewing angle. Thus, you have to prop it up to see the screen properly.
	At 1.8 pounds (not the 1.55 pounds published on some websites), it is actually heavy.
	Only Android 2.2 (Froyo), not even Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), let alone Android 3.0.
	Some of the software is lacking. Not all of it is Viewsonic’s fault. In some cases, Google should be providing better support. One example is the calendar. It really should be able to sync with Google Calendar. For some reason, I cannot even get the ical link for a Google calendar to work on it.
	Maps and navigation should allow alternate methods for determining location other than GPS (which this unit does not have). At least Maps allow manual entry of an address, but you have to do it every time.
	It really should accept normal widgets on its home dashboard, too.
	The unit should have access to Android Market without having to root it.
	I have not done extensive testing but the 1.3 megapixel front-facing cameria seems lacking.
	The weather app which comes with the tablet is lacking (in maps and details). We end up going to the Weather Channel homepage to see the information we want other than the 36 hour overview from the provided weather app.
	For some reason, the weather apps all abend when trying to show the radar map.
	The photo album app does not recognize your own Google account, so that means you have to make albums public in order to see it on the gTablet (using the provided app).
	Lack of CloudPrint support in browser and mail.
	While the default browser can be changed, the default web icon cannot. I could substitute the web icon with the other browser’s icon, but I should be able to use whatever icon I want.
	I wasn’t that pleased with the standard keyboard which came with the device. I had to root the device in order to load other keyboards. (That’s a negative about the stock ROM.) I wish someone would come up with a good thumb keyboard like the one originally for Microsoft’s Origami project.
	Video was stuttering badly, but fortunately, I found that a modification to build.prop addressed the problem.
	I actually like their home “dashboard”. For my mom, it’s quite easy for her to use and the “widget” equivalent provides a lot of good information. Per one of the above points, it should adapt to accept normal Android widgets, too.
	I thought the price point was good ($299) for a Tegra 2 processor, 16GB internal storage, 512MB memory, and 10” screen.

Since many of the negative points are software related, I’m hoping some of these issues can be resolved in future updates. I could load a new ROM but since it looks like ViewSonic is coming out with a refresh of their software, I want to see what kind of improvements they make to decide whether to stick with it or not.

Despite all the negative points, it is a worthwhile purchase for my mom. Some of the reasons are:

	The wealth of Android apps.
	A TV show app which is an extensive library of complete TV shows. Take that, Hulu!
	A UPnPlay app which allows her to see video recordings archived on her computer’s hard drive.
	Makes it much more accessible for her to access the Internet and mail.
	Since she is using Hotmail for her personal e-mail address, it was important to get IMAP access to her e-mail. This is so that any mails she reads on her tablet get marked as read in Hotmail and vice versa. Most results from Google search indicates no capability for IMAP support, only POP support, but I was able to find one reference which explained how to get IMAP support. It works great!
	Flash support! Take that, Apple!

I would definitely recommend rooting the device. Otherwise the experience will leave a lot to be desired.

• Adjustable stand. Supports both positions (1) when lying on the table but at an angle making it easy to type with the onscreen keyboard and improves the viewing angle and (2) and when used as a multi-media player and just want to view streaming video on the device
• External keyboard. 2 years ago