Twitter has been popping up all over the mainstream media lately, but how do you explain it to someone who isn’t even remotely tech savvy?

On Friday morning I went to the doctor for a check up, and I ended up with the new partner to my family doctor whom I had never seen before.  She asked me what I do for a living, and I told her I was a tech blogger.  The first words out of her mouth was “What’s Twitter?!?”  She looked like someone who had just been thrown a ring after falling off the Titanic, she finally had someone she could ask about this thing she kept hearing about on the news.

While we have explained the service before in What Is Twitter, it is still not always an easy concept to get across.  This cartoon from Current TV is oddly one of the best explanations I’ve seen.

For those of you unfamiliar with “The Fail Whale”, that is an image that Twitter users see any time the site is acting up.

While I love Twitter, and use it daily (my account is @seanpaune), I do wonder sometimes why some people share so much about their lives.  My Tweets are typically not of a personal nature about myself, although I will share common things, but other things I see go by as I watch the streams make me ask why someone felt compelled to share whatever they just said.

The cartoon is meant in good nature, and we do still recommend using the service, but you do have to wonder why at times.

The never ending parade of new features in Gmail keeps rolling, and there are two new ones worthy of note.

First up is “undo“.  Ever sent an email and immediately realized you forgot to copy someone on it, or you forgot an attachment?  Well, with this new Labs feature, you have about a five second window after you click “Send” to click on “Undo” and correct the problems with the email before it goes out.  While it’s a great concept, it failed on my first test of it. Yes, I got to edit the email, but the test recipient also got the wrong version of the email.  If they work this out it will be fantastic, but not quite sure about it yet.

The second new feature is previews of YouTube videos in your email.  Although we aren’t quite sure why they are calling them “previews” as our test allowed us to watch the entire video from inside the email we sent.  This is highly useful for when you forward emails to friends, they will no longer need to go over to YouTube to watch as it will be automatically included in the email while they are viewing it.  As you can see from the example below, it can also handle multiple videos, so next time you are sending around a viral video, your friends will be able to save themselves a step.

As with all Labs features, you will need to click on “Settings” in the top portion of your Gmail screen, click on the “Labs” tab, and then locate them to enable them in the ever growing list of new features that Google is adding to the service.

Microsoft has released the final version of Internet Explorer 8 today.

Finally coming out of its Beta status, Internet Explorer 8, the purportedly most secure version of the browser yet, has made its official debut today.  While it has been available for some time in its Beta form, this is the “Gold” release of the Microsoft browser.

Some of the new features include:

• Accelerators – Highlight text in a page, click on the Accelerator icon and choose from popular services such as maps, blogging, translating and more without ever leaving the page.
• Web Slices – Choose frequently updated pages, such as an eBay auction, and get notifications when there has been an update to the page.
• Suggested Sites – Get suggestions of other Web pages you might like that are similar to the one you are currently on.

There are many more new features, but that is a taste of what you can expect.

As with every release, Microsoft is claiming there is more security on this iteration of the browser, but only time will tell how it truly fares.  Internet Explorer has always been a popular target for hackers due to the proliferation of the browser, and there is no reason to believe this one will be any different.

If you’re feeling the urge, go download the new version and let us know what you think of it in the comments!

Pandora, the popular music streaming service, has released a client for some BlackBerry model mobile phones.

BlackBerry phones have always had the reputation of being all about business, but as online companies look to expand into new markets, this seems to be changing somewhat.  Pandora, arguably one of the most popular free online music streaming services, has released an application that will keep BlackBerry users rocking out for as long as their batteries will last.  AT&T, Sprint and Verizon customers who use the BlackBerry models Curve, Bold and Pearl are now able to download the application after receiving a text message from the Pandora site on this page.

For those who have never used Pandora before (for shame!), you simply enter the name of a musical artist or song you like, and using their “music genome” system, they will analyze that data to choose more music for you.  Once the data has been returned to you, Pandora will then build a “channel” of continuous music for you in the same style as what you entered.  If you happen on a song you hate, don’t worry, you can give it a “thumbs down” so it will never play for you again, but if you love it, you can give it a “thumbs up” also.

The app;ication and service are both free, and since BlackBerry’s require unlimited data plans, you could be listening to streaming music until the cows come home!

The Apple iPhone OS 3.0 event has gone off, and while the event was a long one (darn close to 2 hours), the new features are fairly easy to sum up.

Accessories

Finally the iPhone will be able to work with input from other devices!  While they demoed it working with a speaker system, causing an equalizer to appear on screen, the most interesting concept was medical devices.  They showed a blood pressure cuff attached to the iPhone to record the reading, and this could open a whole interesting world of seeing the iPhone enhancing other devices.

Does this mean we could finally be seeing a physical keyboard attachment?  This would be a huge leap in moving the iPhone from just being a mobile phone to beind an actual mobile computing solution.

Cut, Copy and Paste

HUZZAH!  Finally you will be able to copy and paste things between applications… something you really should have been able to do since day one.  Simply double tap some text, drag your finger to cover as much as you want, and then choose cut, copy or paste from the pop-up selection bar.

In App Purchases

This is a new feature that could get potentially super annoying very quickly.  The best example they showed off was for a game app called “Touch Pets” where you have virtual pets.  Want to buy a new shirt for your dog?  Well, they’ll sell you one for $.99 and they will ask you via a pop-up window if you want to!

Landscape Mode

Finally you can do mail and SMS text messages in landscape mode.  This is another one of those features that you have to wonder why it took so darn long to come about.

Maps

Apparently developers of iPhone applications have been wanting the ability to wrap their tools around a map to bring you more tools, and 3.0 will allow them to do that with Google Maps from here on out.

Push Technology

People have been asking for applications to run in the background, meaning that when you close say an instant messaging application, it could still be receiving new IMs, but Apple says that after testing, they found it was just too much of a drain on the battery.  The battery was draining almost 80% faster with background apps running, but with push, which is where a server does the work and then “pushes” the information out to you, they saw the increased drain drop to 20%.

Now for an IM, you would receive a pop-up notification on your screen similar to the one you see for calendar events that you could then choose to reply to, or simply close.  This will not be limited to instant messaging, but could also include things like sports scores.

Spotlight

While Contacts has had search capability since last year, there was no way to search other applications such as Notes.  With the new Spotlight, you can now search every app all from one convenient screen.

Streaming Video & Audio

This boils down to you will now be able to play streaming games over the web along with the ability to talk to your opponents.

Conclusion

Some other things shown off included MMS messaging, recording voice memos, subscriptions to applications that will have new content, for an all told whopping new 100 features in the new OS.  Developers can start working with it today, and consumers will get it in June… you know, just in time for the suspected release of a new model of iPhone.

Current iPhone users will get the update for free while iPod Touch users will have to pay $9.95 for the update.

If ZillionTV has their way, paying a monthly bill to cable and satellite providers may become a thing of the past.

No one liks paying their cable company or satellite company those high monthly subscription fees, but what can you do if you want to watch current television shows?  What if there was a company that allowed you to pay them a one time fee for a device that could then stream free content to your TV via the Internet for life?

While this may sound like a radical idea, it is exactly what the folks at ZillionTV are going to try to do.

After you purchase the “ZBar”, which will be priced somewhere under $100, you will have 24/7 access to on-demand programming that will be subscription free.  The programming will include a mixture of content from 20th Century Fox Television to new releases and a selection of library titles from The Walt Disney Studios, NBC Universal, Sony Pictures and Warner Bros. Digital Distribution.  The content will be free to watch in an ad-supported format, but there will also be a mixture of programming you can rent to watch without ads as well as some that you can purchase to own.

To make the advertising less obtrusive, you will have some say in what ads are streamed to you by choosing which categories of products and services interest you.  To further encourage you to interact with the ads, they will also be launching a loyalty program that will reward you for the content and ads that you choose to explore.

The only drawback to the service is that it will require some pretty substantial speeds from your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to deliver the content to you.  Standard definition viewing will require speeds of 3 Mbps, while high definition content will require 7 Mbps.  So while you may escape paying for cable programming, you will have to continue to have high speed access, and you will also have to see how this may effect any bandwidth caps you have with your ISP.

Currently ZillionTV will only be available only by an invite-only Beta program, which you can apply to here.  The devices are expected to be available widely to the mass market by the end of the year.

Something is afoot at Apple, and I’m not quite sure what it is… yet.

For the past several years, any time Apple had a new product to announce it was accompanied by a press event that would have everyone speculating for days beforehand of what was about to happen.  However, with no warning, over the past couple of weeks there have been two product updates, all of the Mac desktops and the iPod Shuffle, with no fanfare whatsoever.  The online Apple store has closed down as it always does before no products launch, and reopened with the new items in place.

The Mac desktops is somewhat understandable in that they just received hardware upgrades and new price points, but that hasn’t stopped Apple before from holding a press event.  True, Steve Jobs, their usual pitch man and CEO, is on medical leave currently, but it still seems odd that they didn’t accompany this with more horn blowing.

It’s the iPod Shuffle that has left me scratching my head the most.  Typically the iPod lines are refreshed in September, but the Shuffle did miss out on the 2008 iPod updates.  So not only did the Shuffle launch outside of the normal release window, it sports a brand new feature in the form of audible navigation menus, something you would normally expect Apple to crow about.  Why didn’t they hold the Shuffle off until the September 2009 updates?  Was this a 2008 update that ran late?  Or is this a new indication that iPods will release whenever they are ready, no matter what time of the year?

The reason we feel any of this is even newsworthy is that it worries us some.  Every time Apple has one of their big announcements, they get more press coverage than you can shake a stick at.  Why are they skipping this benefit?  The theories in our office run from Steve Jobs being out of action to the economy is impacting the company harder than anyone knows.  Press events aren’t cheap to run, but we doubt that is the economical factor, we think it’s that they don’t want to be sitting on any inventory.  If they held the Shuffle until September, that would have been six months of money just sitting around, waiting.  Course, the Macs and Shuffle came out so close together, why not just do them both at one event?

What makes all of this seem even a bit more strange is the fact that Apple is having a press event in two days to show a preview of the OS 3.0 for the iPhone.  This isn’t even a product launch, but just a preview of software that will be free to iPhone users, and will cost a fee to iPod Touch users.  Why hold the big press event for something like this?  This alone somewhat shoots down the theory that Apple is skipping press events for money because this one will return no revenue at all.

Whatever the causes of these changes are at Apple, I think we are seeing a definite shift in their strategy regarding product launches.

Have you heard of bandwidth caps on your Internet access? If not, you probably will at some point.

We’ve explained what bandwidth is before, but the short version is that it is the amount of data that you can transfer between computers.  While Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have usually offered you “unlimited” bandwidth (within reason), companies like Comcast and Time Warner Cable are starting to to use bandwidth caps on your usage.

Essentially they are setting up rules that say you can use amounts of bandwidth such as 250 GBs a month.  That should be enough for most people, but with more and more of our computing and entertaining involving streaming information, will it continue to be?

Sure there are certain things you can mesaure how much bandwidth you are using, but do you know how much bandwidth youa re using when you work in a cloud computing environment?  How about when you’re playing your favorite game online?  Using Skype?  Streaming a movie?  You can see how your usage might start adding up quickly, and if you exceed your limits they can charge you more or they may suspend your account if you do it repeatedly.

Seeing as users in the United States already suffer from some of the highest prices in the world for Internet access, and enjoy some of the worst speeds, this just adds insult to injury.  With more and more services telling you how you can enjoy them thanks to the wonders of streaming Internet technology, just remember that each one you add will eat away that much more of your bandwidth cap.

On March 17th, we’re all going to get a “preview” of the next generation of the iPhone operating system.

Tech bloggers have started receiving invitations to an event (we aren’t invited… someday we’ll be cool enough!) to be held on March 17th where Apple will unveil the third generation operating system for the iPhone. Presumably this will also be for the iPod Touch, but no confirmation as of yet on that.

This is being labeled as a “preview” event which indicates the software won’t be available for download yet, but they are also showing off the new version of the software development kit (SDK), so this looks like Apple is trying to prepare all of the application developers for whatever changes there may be to the core of the system.

We will bring you updates as soon as we have them, but people are already expecting things like tethering your iPhone to your computer to use it as a modem, MMS and, the ultimate dream, copy-and-paste functionality.

On a side note, doesn’t seem odd to everyone that Apple always gives you only a few days warning to these events? What if you have to fly in for it? What if you have appointments? Even though we don’t attend in person, we always try to cover the events, and it causes us to have to move things around in our schedule to accommodate them. A little more warning on the part of Apple sure would be appreciated.

Google’s popular, but only to those few people lucky enough to use it thus far, GrandCentral is finally ready to come out of Beta under the name Google Voice.

According to the Offical Google Blog, Google Voice is rolling out in waves across the current users of GrandCentral with users receiving instructions in their inboxes on how to start using the new version.  The first new feature that the public is hearing about is the ability to have your voice mails transcribed to text automatically, and then you can also have them emailed to you or sent via SMS text.

SiliconAngle is reporting that some of the other features that may be included are six way conference calling, free domestic calls, forwarding of voice mails and more.

The service has been free while it has been in Beta, and the official information page is still saying it will be free, but it is difficult to imagine it will remain this way forever.  We here at StarterTech have been using the service for quite some time now, and we love it, but we still worry about what the eventual cost will be once they start some sort of subscription plan.  Will it be À la carte, or will it be all or nothing?  You have to say they are taking a lesson from drug dealers here in that the first taste is free, then once you’re hooked, they hit you up for the cost later.  We’re addicted, but we still fear the future.

The service will be accepting new users in the next few weeks, but no word on how you will go about applying to be one of the new accounts.