Ken Schoenberg

Chuggington Die-Cast 10-in-1 Layout Track Pack review

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Koko and Dunbar not included. When I was offered the opportunity to review a toy train set, I thought it would be interesting to try it in conjunction with my expert team of train set testers – my sons, Franklyn (7) and Matthew (4). They willingly agreed to work with me on the project and […]

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It’s About Time! DoJ Sues Over E-book Price Fixing

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On Wednesday the U.S. Department of Justice filed an anti-trust lawsuit against Apple, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Group USA and Simon & Schuster.  (Note: Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster have tentatively agreed to a settlement and, if approved, should be removed from the list of defendants.) In the past couple years our

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Sony Drops Price on PRS-T1 Reader to $129 – Offers $50 Trade-In for Old E-Readers,

Those of you considering upgrading their E-Readers (or those that bought new and have relegated your old E-Reader to the closet) may want to check out Sony’s highly-regarded PRS-T1 “Reader WiFi”. Sony just reduced the price to $129 (from $149) and is also running a trade-in program that could get you a $50 Sony Gift

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Silverlit’s 3D Twister 2.4 GHz RC Racer Review

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Sivlerlit did well when they named this toy the 3D Twister because my play (err…I mean precise testing methodology) mostly involved watching the car skitter around our home and later our concrete driveway literally flipping, spinning, hopping and jumping around. At full throttle the car looks more like a frenetic animal than a toy car,

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Kensington AbsolutePower Laptop, Phone, Tablet Charger Review

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Kensington Computer Products Group is one of the old-timers in the computerperipheral business having launched their first product (Apple II System Saver) back in 1981. Kensington’s most ubiquitous product is the K-Lock security slot that is found on many laptops. As Kensington is an established company with a history of quality products I felt relatively

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Logitech Wireless Headset for iPad Review

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Logitech is one of the premier manufacturers of technology peripheral devices. They make some of the bestkeyboards, mice and their Harmony line of remote controls is fantastic. One of their newest products is the Logitech Wireless Headset. I’ve spent the last few days using the headset with a variety of devices and it has performed

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Love Kept Them Together – Netflix Won’t Split

 Netflix CEO, Reed Hastings announced that the plans to split their DVD distribution business into a separate company (Qwikster) has been cancelled because of customer feedback. While I’d love to believe that the many emails and articles like this one were the reason for the reconciliation I believe it may also have involved Amazon’s recent

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Teaching a New Dog Old Tricks – Graffiti for Android

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The other day I was perusing the Amazon App Store and noticed that Graffiti Pro for Android was available. I immediately downloaded (it’s free) and installed it on three Android devices. I’ve been mostly pleased with the results. To those of you that are not familiar with Graffiti, it’s a character recognition system that utilizes

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Lenovo Enhanced Multimedia Remote Review

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About three years ago I started moving our family towards a cable/satellite free lifestyle. One of my first projects was building a Home Theater Computer. AMD had recently introduced the 780g chipset that would allow me to build an inexpensive, quiet machine that would handle streaming HD video without the need for an internal video

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Kindle Fire – A Tablet for the Masses?

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So, the Amazon “Kindle Fire” tablet is now reality and I believe it will be a big seller. At $199 it is within shouting distance of that “no brainer” gadget purchase price. Best of all, for us consumers, Amazon is forcing the rest of the tablet market to prove their value and “reason for being”.

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The New iPhone is Coming; the New iPhone is Coming…Who Cares?

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After months of rumors, blurry pictures of prototype cases (or someone’s old loafer) it appears that Apple is going to introduce a new iPhone model and I see little reason for all this excitement. Okay, give me a few minutes before you grab your torches and pitchforks. The iPhone is a fine smartphone. It has

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Streaming Wars: Netflix Grabs DreamWorks, Amazon Signs Fox

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With Amazon set to announce its new tablet that reportedly will include a subscription to the company’s streaming video service, “Prime”, CEO Jeff Bezos announced that 20th Century Fox had agreed to license much of its TV shows and movies library for streaming.  The library will include approximately 2,000 titles including a slew of movies

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Technology Ecosystems – Good for Profits, Bad for Consumers

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In 1992 Nintendo won a lawsuit against Atari and was able to lock-out third-party software vendors from providing games for its gaming systems unless they purchased a key (license). Since then the Holy Grail of gaming, smartphone and now computer system companies was to bring to market systems where they had control of every third-party

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Magic-Pro ProMini BT-Joy Bluetooth Keyboard Review

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I like keyboards; I like big, full-sized keyboards like my Logitech G15 on down to my one-handed Lenovo N5902 Multimedia Remote. I could barely play “Chopsticks” on the piano and when it comes to 0n-screen keyboards. I’m all thumbs…in the wrong way. We have three tablets in our home (Apple iPad, Asus Transformer and HP

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Jawbone to Give Jambox Back Its Big Sound

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Recently I updated the firmware of my Jawbone Jambox speaker to take advantage of a new feature called Live Audio. While I didn’t notice it sounding all that much better the volume output was significantly lower. Turning the new feature off didn’t correct the deficiency and what was once a booming little speaker had been

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Fusion Garage Drops Price of Grid10 by $200

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Well, it appears that someone in the tablet industry watched what happened last month with the HP TouchPad and may have taken notes. Engadget is reporting, and Fusion Garage has confirmed, that the Grid10’s previously announced prices of $499 for their 16-gigabyte WiFi model, and $599 for the 16-gigabyte 3G/WiFi models were reduced to $299

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