Profile of Todd Ogasawara
Contributing Editor
News & Commentary Posts: 44
Todd Ogasawara is a Contributing Editor for BYTE.
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Articles by Todd Ogasawara
2/22/2013
The ability to install third party Google Drive apps only requires a supported browser and access to the Internet. This has the potential to be a truly disruptive technology for desktop platform ecosystems like Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. However, problems with the basic function of actually saving data to Google Drive by third party apps need to be addressed before widespread adoption is possible.
12/2/2012
Office 2013, especially the preview version of Office Home & Student 2013 RT that comes with the Microsoft Surface tablet, changes the model for writing add-on programs. There are now Office apps and an Office app section in the Windows Store. Many of these apps are free, but it's easy to see enterprise-oriented apps being developed and charged for. Microsoft's implementation of the apps in Office 2013 is clumsy in some ways, but promising.
10/29/2012
Microsoft's Surface tablet with Windows RT is the first worthwhile post-PC device in our post-PC world. What it lacks in apps is compensated for by a near-desktop-class browser.
9/24/2012
The hot new phone on the market is living up to its billing. Normal use got my iPhone 5 up to 111 degrees F. At this temperature it's too hot to hold.
8/22/2012
iPad users, rejoice. Microsoft Office is finally available for the iPad. It's buggy in places and browsers aren't made to handle huge spreadsheets, but overall, Microsoft's Office Web Apps for iPad, including Web-based versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, rocks.
8/1/2012
Meet the Nexus 7, the first Android tablet sold directly by Google and the first to run Android 4.1, a.k.a. Jelly Bean. The 7-inch tablet is priced like an ebook reader but offers a lot more. Its low price, big screen, and impressive performance might give Apple's iPod Touch and low-end iPad a run for the money, too. Don't completely count out Samsung's Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 just yet, though.
7/31/2012
HTC's new HTC One X packages a big, beautiful screen in a thin and light phone. Although not perfect, it's a compelling smart phone we'd consider buying ourselves.
7/16/2012
Python for iOS supplies a much-needed scratch for those with an itch to write programs for the iPad or iPhone by letting you write software for the device on the device itself. The app provides a familiar interactive interpreter interface for Python programmers plus some extras that make it easy to use, especially on an iPad.
6/25/2012
Nuance's Swype app offers a new winning combination for fast typing on Android devices: gestures and Dragon speech recognition, with handwriting recognition thrown in for good measure.
6/21/2012
Microsoft dropped a lot of clues at its Wednesday Windows Phone 8 announcement that it's getting close to buying Nokia. Here's what has BYTE contributor Todd Ogasawara convinced that an acquisition is in the works.
6/12/2012
We test drive the Windows 8 Metro final preview version of SkyDrive, Microsoft's cloud storage service.
6/6/2012
Microsoft--yes, Microsoft--has a new Android programming platform called on{x} and it's great. Developed by the Microsoft R&D team in Israel, on{x} lets anyone turn an Android phone into an uber event-driven notification gadget.
5/29/2012
Diet Coda turns iPads into Web developer productivity machines. It provides a code editor that can work with files on remote servers, code highlighting, and a keyboard that displays important additional keys depending on which programming language is used (HTML, JavaScript, PHP, and Ruby). It also includes an SSH client that provides secure remote shell access.
5/29/2012
Diet Coda lets Web developers leave their notebooks at home. The $19.99 code editor for the iPad from Panic, Inc., is portable friendly, including an adaptive keyboard that tunes itself to programming languages for making it fast and easy to work with remote files.
5/24/2012
Need a better way to collaborate? We reviewed Google Cloud Connect to see how it worked in semi real-time.
5/14/2012
Documents To Go is a workhorse app on my Android tablet. I use it for note taking during meetings as well as reviewing text documents and spreadsheets. It can open and edit Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files without conversion and is faster and more flexible than the free Google Docs for Android app.
5/2/2012
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) doesn't cost much more than the ultra-popular Kindle Fire, yet this 7-inch tablet comes loaded with iPad-like hardware and the latest Android operating system, a.k.a. Ice Cream Sandwich. Here's hoping the Galaxy Tab 2 launches a new breed of affordable yet capable Android tablet.
4/23/2012
The Google Docs for Android app provides a potentially useful tool for mobile users. However, its lack of presentation creation tools, weak spreadsheet experience, and general instability reduces its potential. But wait, there's more: It's also slow.
4/19/2012
Android, unlike iOS, can display on home screens widgets that update live data. The Evernote, Google Voice, Twitter, and Facebook widgets can tell you a lot without you ever having to touch the screen.
4/13/2012
Say goodbye to the hassle of printing out, signing, and faxing back documents. Adobe has integated its e-signature service, EchoSign, into Adobe Reader X for the desktop, Android, and iOS, so you can sign and return electronic documents from anywhere. The Android and iOS versions of Adobe Reader add the ability to annotate PDF documents by using highlights, strikethroughs
3/28/2012
Taposé (pronounced "tap-oh-ZAY"), a new note-taking app by Zanther, Inc., addresses a problem a lot of iPad users probably wish they didn't have to endure: switching back and forth between two full-screen apps in order to copy and paste items. Taposé lets you split the iPad screen into two side-by-side panes. It comes with five apps that work in the dual panes: Journals, a note-taking app; Web, an integrated browser; Maps, a subset of Go
3/27/2012
Light field photography can eliminate the biggest problem photographers have: out-of-focus pictures. Don't toss your digital camera just yet, though. Although a major breakthrough, the Lytro is far from perfect.
3/27/2012
Who hasn't been frustrated by an out-of-focus photo? The Lytro Light Field Camera might be the most revolutionary change in photography since digital came along: it lets you refocus your photos after you take them. Don't sell your old digital camera just yet, though. The Lytro has some serious drawbacks, including a fixed amount of storage. Take our quick tour of this unusual camera's features, from touchscreen to output. To experimen
3/23/2012
Tired of frantically taking notes during meetings, then searching through your audio recording afterward for information you missed? Relax: any one of these apps--Audiolio, AudioNote, and SoundNote--is capable of synchronizing the notes you type into your iPad with the audio it records for easy retrieval. We have the full review and this visual tour.
3/23/2012
It can be hard to take thorough notes, and a recording of an event is hard to scan. Here are three apps that try to provide a good compromise--they synchronize the notes you take with the audio being recorded at the time.
3/14/2012
OneNote Mobile offers a nice alternative to sync-to-cloud note-taking apps such as EverNote and Springpad. You can edit notes containing rich text, and sync with mobile devices via SkyDrive and the OneNote Web App.
3/12/2012
If you enjoy photography, iPhoto for iOS could be the best $4.99 you've ever spent on an iPhone or iPad app.
3/8/2012
We look at four iPad apps that let you use the iPad as a second display.
3/6/2012
Plan out your next project on your iPad with this handy iOS-based mind mapping tool.
2/23/2012
Working with documents on the iPad can be inconvenient, but GoodReader makes it easy.
2/23/2012
Skewed photos of business receipts and whiteboards on your iPhone? No problem. Straighten, brighten, and share captures with Genius Scan.
2/22/2012
Sketch out your ideas, quick and clean, with this versatile iPad app.
2/10/2012
Use your iPad to quickly assemble user interfaces for mobile apps with no programming skill required.
2/10/2012
Microsoft has committed to producing Windows 8 for ARM as well as Intel processors. But will this fragment both Windows and Office?
2/6/2012
Interact with your PC as you do your XBox. Check out Kinect for Windows PC in this informative introduction to this game changing technology.
2/3/2012
Unlike other note-taking apps for iOS, PaperPort Notes allows dictation and some commands by voice.
2/1/2012
Microsoft's Office cloud apps and storage are one of the Web's best-kept secrets. Why settle for Google Docs?
1/20/2012
Apple's free iBooks Author is an easy way to get started in electronic textbook publishing. Just know there's a middleman standing between you and your adoring public: Apple. Read more about Apple's tricky software license agreement, which as InformationWeek's Thomas Claburn points out, puts severe restrictions on authors' rights. BYTE's Chris Spera has his own opinion about Post a Comment
11/10/2011
This new T-Mobile-powered Windows Phone has a great price and some eye-popping features, such as dual screens.
10/24/2011
Amazon's response to the Electronic Frontier Foundation's inquiries should ease concerns that the Kindle Fire's Silk browser is invading users' privacy.
10/5/2011
The latest Windows Phone upgrade, code-named Mango, is flying out of the gate with better integration, speech recognition, and cloud capabilities.
9/1/2011
Here's how to add money-making Google AdSense ads to your blog or website.
8/21/2011
Here's how to get your Google Site data from from their servers to your computer so you have complete control.
8/3/2011
We used to call them Trash-80s. But the TRS-80 Model 100 has stood the test of time.