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Nokia Here Maps finally available for IOS

technologyEdward Kiledjian

It has been a good week for IOS device owners. First we were gifted an official Google Calendar app and now Nokia has released its Nokia Here Maps for IOS. 

This is one of the Nokia units that was not acquired by Microsoft and it seems they take mapping very seriously. In addition to offering turn by turn navigation, voice guidance, real time traffic alerts and public transit routing, it offers users the ability to download maps locally for over 100 countries.  This means you can route even when travelling out of country or going through bad reception areas.

I have been using the android version since its beta release and overall I am very pleased with its performance. It provides much more accurate routing than the built in Apple Maps.

Why not download this little gem and keep it in your toolkit for a rainy day?

App Store link (link)

Google Calendar app finally available on iPhone

technologyEdward Kiledjian
Image by Dafne Cholet used under Creative Commons License

Image by Dafne Cholet used under Creative Commons License

Google finally released a calendar app for iPhone today. Even Google's own blog post title says "[...] It's about time". I couldn't agree more.

My early tests show it is based on the (released in November) updated Android app which simplified calendar management (transforming GMAIL events into calendar entries automatically). Like Fantastical, it also has an Assist feature which helps you fill our the various pieces of a calendar entry. 

Here is the direct link to the app on iTunes (link) , I couldn't find it with the itunes Search feature.

 

When unlimited Microsoft OneDrive storage isn't really unlimited

technologyEdward Kiledjian
Image by Thomas8047 under creative commons license

Image by Thomas8047 under creative commons license

The sky cleared and trumpets sounded when Microsoft bamboozled the entire cloud storage market by offering unlimited OneDrive storage with certain Office 365 subscriptions. 

In addition to bumping up your storage quote to unlimited, they switched the maximum single-file size limit to 10GB (from 2GB). Just when you think you hit the jackpot, you hit an undocumented artificial limit that prevents you from using the all you can eat buffet in the sky. 

What is this artificial limit ?

UserVoice snapshot from here (link)

UserVoice snapshot from here (link)

They limit you to 20,000 files total. This means that most users won't get anywhere near the kinds of storage usage scenarios most of us thought Microsoft would be dealing with.  Unfortunately most users aren't aware of this. They will start uploading their photo collection and then all of a sudden their agent will stop uploading files. The agent won't generate any errors. Everything will look perfectly fine but they have reached their limit and the game is over.

What about the competition? Dropbox has a statement on this (link) page that says:

“The number of files you can store in your Dropbox is only limited by the amount of online storage space in your Dropbox account[...]
Dropbox’s performance may start to decline when you store above 300,000 files”
— dropbox help

Although Microsoft's Office 365 + unlimited storage seems enticing, I would still stick with Dropbox for online cloud storage because it just works better in every way ( faster upload, faster download, no artificial file limits, clients on every platform that work well, etc).

Credit Card breach at Mandarin Oriental

technologyEdward Kiledjian
Image by Sean MacEntee used under Creative Commons License

Image by Sean MacEntee used under Creative Commons License

We have seen claims that the luxury hotel chain has suffered a credit card breach (some outlets are now confirming it). 

 

The last confirmation I received was that the chain is working with its banking partners to investigate the claims. We don't know yet if the breach impact some or all of its global properties. Unnamed sources say the breach goes back to just before christmas 2014. 

It is too soon to speculate how they were stolen. Some outlets jumped the gun and claimed the chains main reservation system was breached but it is important to remember that the breach could be on a Point of Sale terminal in the hotel (store, restaurant, etc).

Since the chain is made up of luxury properties, its patrons typically have high value credit cards that could fetch a premium in the credit card sale black market. 

If I am made aware of any developments, I will update this post accordingly.

For the record, I have stayed on many of their asian properties and I love the Mandarin Oriental chain.

 

Google release preview of upgraded Contacts web app

technologyEdward Kiledjian

About 70% of my readers are also Google users so most of you will be ecstatic that Google is trying to fix the broken Contacts web app. 

“[...] that makes it easier to keep track of the people you know and get the info you need, fast”
— Google Blog Post

Who can argue with a more usable experience? The new UI gives you a faster way of merging duplicates, automatically updating contacts and seeing recent emails right in the Contacts app.

You can read the Google blog posts here (link)

Unfortunately when I try accessing the preview link this morning (link) I get the dreaded 404 page not found: