Memorial Day weekend is also the beginning of the summer travel season.  A zBoost zForce cell phone signal booster for the car helps keep travelers connected while on the road.  Not only does the zBoost zForce help prevent dropped and missed calls, it also increases data speeds and battery life.

Whatever your doing this holiday weekend…. Be Safe and Enjoy!

Click here to view: BnetTV Soho 4G-V interview

NEW ORLEANS — Not too long ago, “wireless” meant having a cell phone that could be used to make calls and send text messages. That has changed significantly over the past couple of years, with the rapid adoption of smartphones and tablets, and the billions of dollars wireless carriers like AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile have spent to upgrade their network infrastructures. That competition is only expected to intensify as these carriers build out Long-Term Evolution (LTE) 4G networks in the coming year. Wireless now has become a way of life for consumers and is quickly becoming the way organizations do business. That was evident at the CTIA Wireless 2012 show here May 8, where—along with the latest mobile computing devices from the likes of Samsung Mobile, HTC, LG Electronics and Toshiba—was everything from wireless pet-tracking systems to cloud-based personal traffic devices.

zBoost SOHO   The zBoost appliance can improve the cell phone reception in a house by boosting the signal received from the outside antenna. The appliance can support multiple—and disparate—cell phones from any wireless carrier at the same time.

To see all of the eWeek featured items go to http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Samsung-HTC-Toshiba-LG-Show-Off-Smartphones-Tablets-More-at-CTIA-267082/

If your Mom is one of those or you just don’t know what to give her, you need to determine her love language.

There is a wonderful book by Gary Chapman called The 5 Love Languages.  The 5 love languages are usually connected to a romantic relationship, however I think they work equally as well for Moms.

The five love languages are: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service and Physical Touch.

Think about your Mom and consider how she has reacted to gifts and situations in the past.

Words of Affirmation: Does she have a letter you wrote in grade school framed and near her bed?  Her love language is words of affirmation.  Write her a poem, compose a song or make a home-made card that talks about your love for her and what it’s meant to you.

Quality Time: Take her to the local botanical gardens, museum, out for dinner, suggest a bike ride or a nature walk.

Acts of Service: Give gift certificates for household chores, cooking dinners, running errands or whatever task your mother dislikes the most.

Physical touch: Give unexpected hugs, put your arm around her shoulder, sit by her on the sofa during her favorite tv program, just like she did for you when you were little.  Let her know how much she means to you without saying a word.

Receiving Gifts:  this can be really easy or very hard.  Money may be tight and then a hand-made gift might be more appreciated than something that’s not affordable. But since this is a technology blog, let’s pretend money is no issue.

Five great technology gifts:

1. Smartphone – I love my iPhone but other’s may prefer a Droid
2. The New iPad
3. Kindle Fire
4.  Clarisonic Skin Cleansing System – My friend is getting this for my birthday next week.
5. zBoost SOHO or zForce cell phone signal booster to keep gifts 1, 2 and 3 connected at home, in the office or on the road.

On a personal note, my love language is service and quality time.  Last year my husband and kids put together and stained two wooden Adirondack chairs for the side yard. They easily could have bought them pre-assembled but the act of putting them together was a wonderful gift.  I even helped and it made the gift even better with quality time as an added bonus.

Most important is to make sure you remember your Mom on Mother’s Day and don’t procrastinate, as of today you have nine days to prepare.

Please share your Mother’s Day gift ideas.

President Bill Clinton                    and                Jim Cramer    

According to Joseph Palenchar’s recent article in Twice Magazine the show should be bigger and better this year than in years past. Here are a few details from the article.

CTIA Show Makes Changes, Expects Growth

By Joseph Palenchar — TWICE, 4/23/2012

- Overall show attendance is also poised for gains over 2011’s 40,000 and 2010’s 39,000, Mesirow said. The total number of exhibitors will be around 1,000, as in recent years.

- About 21 percent of attendees will be retailers and dealers as in years’ past, he noted.

- Attendance levels are poised to grow this year in large part because the show dates were pushed back to May from their traditional March dates, Mesirow said. “We’ll see if it pays off, but early indications are that it has,” he said.

- The show’s new timing “works out better for product announcements, particularly in the U.S.,” he explained.

- Eighty percent of attendees are from the U.S.

Keynote Speaker Schedule:

Day 1 Morning:  Keynotes will be given by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, MasterCard president Gary Flood, Pandora president/CEO Joe Kennedy and CTIA chairman Patrick Riordan.

Day 1: Afternoon keynote session 4:40 p.m. to 6 p.m, the CEOs of the four national carriers will appear at a roundtable moderated by “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer.

Day 2 Morning Keynotes by Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs, Visa president John Partridge and Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello.

Day 3 Afternoon from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. Keynote speaker is former President Bill Clinton.

CE and handset suppliers and distributors scheduled to exhibit include Belkin, Brightpoint, Brightstar, Cobra, Coby, Dell, Dolby, DTS, HTC, Huawei, Jabra, Kyocera, LG, Nokia, Novatel, Otterbox, Parrot, PCD, Polaroid, Haier Telecom, San Disk, Sharp, Sierra Wireless, Skullcandy, Wi-Ex, Wilson Electronics and ZTE. Carriers Tmobile, AT&T, Verizon and Sprint will also exhibit.

To read the full article go to: http://www.twice.com/article/483434-CTIA_Show_Makes_Changes_Expects_Growth.php

Smartphones will become even more important as they take over the role of credit cards as a method of payment.  As a result, small businesses will need a strong cell signal in their buildings for customer’s payments to be processed on their smartphone.  This will increase the need for small businesses to add a zBoost cell phone signal booster. 

The following article by Cameron Scott, IDG Services outlines the results of a survey regarding smartphone payments.

A Pew Research survey found that most tech insiders believe NFC payments will go mainstream.

By Cameron Scott, IDG News Service
April 17, 2012

More than two-thirds of technology insiders believe that paying with smartphones will overtake cash and credit card payments by 2020, according to a survey released Tuesday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project and Elon University’s School of Communications.

The survey asked just over 1,000 technology experts and stakeholders to agree or disagree with a statement asserting that “swiping smart phones” would replace most cash and credit purchases. The answer choices alluded to NFC (near field communications) technology, in which a communication between a sensor in the payment terminal and another in the consumer’s smart phone triggers a financial transaction.

TECH ARGUMENT: E-wallet vs. traditional wallet: Electronics trump the leather

Sixty-five percent of the respondents agreed that NFC would be widespread by 2020. More than 10 percent of mobile phone owners have already made payments using their phones, according to ComScore data

To read the full article go to: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/041712-paying-with-smartphones-to-outpace-258350.html

Our friends at eMarketer are projecting the majority of mobile users will have a smartphone by 2013.

The number of US mobile phone users will increase at a compound annual rate of just 1.8% between 2010 and 2016, eMarketer estimates, moving from nearly 75% penetration to 79% by the end of the forecast period.

Our family went to Hilton Head for five days and just got back last night, after enjoying warmer than normal temperatures.  If I wasn’t looking at a calendar, I would have thought it was the 4th of July instead of the first week in April.  The beaches were packed and many people were in the ocean swimming.

Two years ago I was in Hilton Head complaining about the cell signal and it hasn’t improved a bit.  Not only was I dropping and missing calls this week, but my iPhone battery was draining in just a few hours while searching for a stronger signal.  This area has a continued need for zBoost cell phone signal boosters.

We are looking forward to our college kids coming home for Easter weekend.  We will be celebrating with family, friends and neighbors.

Hope you have a lovely holiday weekend.

Did you buy tickets on Fandango for Hunger Games this weekend?  If so you are part of the largest mobile payment record.  I personally bought four tickets for Friday night and was surprised to see that most tickets collected were Fandango computer printed pages.  In the following article Slashgear’s  Mark Raby reports  Fandango set a mobile ticketing record for the Hunger Games weekend.

Fandango says Hunger Games set records

Mark Raby, Mar 26th 2012

The Hunger Games is beaming with pride after it set multiple records in its first few days in theaters. Among the most impressive was that, raking in $155 million, it had the highest opening weekend at the box office for a non-sequel. It performed at levels usually reserved for established movie franchises like Harry Potter or Star Wars. In addition, Fandango is saying that its ticket purchasing platform was more popular than ever.

In line with the continuously growing trend of mobile payments, last Friday set a record for the most tickets sold on a mobile platform through Fandango in a single day. The entire opening weekend also set a mobile ticketing record. “Fandango’s record- breaking percentage of the film’s opening weekend is a testament to the growing popularity of online and mobile ticketing as the way to go to the movies,” Fandango said in a statement.

To read the complete article go to http://www.slashgear.com/fandango-says-hunger-games-set-records-26220120/