The agreement further states that when this time comes, the customer can choose to retain their existing 3G service minus access to WiMax, end their contracts without incurring an early termination fee, or transition to LTE phones and service. Existing WiMax customers who switch to LTE will be given a free LTE compatible device under certain circumstances.

Sprint has not given a specific date when the WiMax service will be turned off. However, sources say that Clearwire has a contract with Sprint for WiMax until 2015.

However, notice that there is a disclaimer at the top: **Requires 2Amp charger to function, sold separately. When you click on that link, you get this page below. Yes, you have to buy the charger cable separately for another $39.99 on top of the $49.99.

So let me get this straight. You are selling the charging pad without the required cable needed to charge my S4. That would be like selling a TV without the power cable. Who does that?

Oh, and they’re not finished yet because don’t forget that you need a new special replacement back cover for your S4. No, they are not joking. The back cover is another $39.99 on top of everything.

So with $19.95 next day shipping, the total comes to a whopping $161.62. Now, I see how Samsung plans to make money on the S4. One word: Accessories.

Here (on the left), we see Apple’s “Control Center” which looks a lot like Androids control center. The only difference is that it pops up from the bottom instead of the top. And yes, if that’s not enough “borrowing,” iOS 7 now has a “Notification Center” that scrolls down from the top, exactly the same as Android. Frankly, I don’t blame Apple for borrowing these features. They are some of the best features of Android that iOS didn’t have… until now.

On the right below is “AirDrop,” which is a direct phone-phone sharing feature that is basically the same as Samsung’s “S Beam.” Hopefully, it works better than Samsung’s version. This all would actually be useful if you could use it between platforms with any smartphone instead of having to look for somebody that has the feature.

The next iOS7 touted feature for mult-tasking (below left) is close to my heart because that was one of the few great features of the WebOS on Palm devices. Scroll left to right to see the different apps, then swipe up to delete unneeded apps in memory. Not so coincidentally, when Palm went basically belly-up after HP’s acquisition, some key designers and programmers escaped to Apple and it looks like it’s finally starting to pay off.

And finally, some innovative news. On the right, Apple has added to their Safari browser “AutoFill” setup with not just saved passwords but even credit card numbers. Finally, a great new feature that all browsers should have. Don’t worry, unlike Firefox, everything is well encrypted and not going to be hacked or stolen easily.

There are a bunch of other new apps and features that basically look like existing iOS apps, and not very interesting. But one thing that got my attention was “iOS in the Car,” which according to Apple will be available starting in 2014. When a car is equipped with this, your car’s in-dash system will let you use your iPhone 5 seamlessly with your car. Make calls, use Siri, navigate, listen to music and even text using this new feature.

In case you didn’t read it, I hate Toyota’s antiquated in-dash Entune system and would pay good money to switch to anything that operates like the iPhone. Swipe and pinch to zoom on your dash? Hell yeah. Gimme.

All in all, I’m looking forward to the “new” features that will make iOS more like Android and WebOS. Don’t get me wrong. Frankly, anything that makes iOS or any platform better is good news for everyone.

But mostly, I will be waiting for “iOS in the Car,” to replace my horrible Toyota Entune system. 2014 can’t come soon enough.

But I digress.

The restaurant’s name is “Tora,” which means “tiger” in Japanese, and “noko” means “child of,” or in this case, “baby tiger.” The massive doors are left open to reveal a wide restaurant with art-graffiti on the wall and an inviting looking sushi bar on the far side. In the middle, there is an unendingly long skinny table that can seat a group of 2 to infinity.

To get started, I decided to get my usual Zaru Soba ($7) to get a baseline evaluation of the food here. As you can see below, the soba did come with the traditional soba “condiments,” and was cooked properly and the dipping sauce was good as well. The presentation could have been a little better but I was satisfied with it.

For my main course, I went straight to the Sushi Combo ($25) which had a choice for the roll. I decided to play safe and got the spicy tuna roll, just in case the rest of the sushi wasn’t good. As it turned out, everything was fresh and as you can see below, the presentation was good as well.

Although Toranoko has a very nice sushi bar, I did not sit there on this trip. Perhaps, I will try that next time.

Normally, I don’t get off on tangents away from the food in my reviews but I have to mention something here. While I was eating my sushi, I smelled a strong foul odor, and throught my sushi was not fresh. I put my face right into my food to see which item was bad but did not smell anything bad at all. I decided that it must be coming from the room, which would not be the first time at a restaurant for me.

However, I was soon able to determine that the smell was coming directly from the table behind me. I assumed it was the food that the people were eating but as far as I could tell without staring, they had already finished their food. Then the ladies left the restaurant and the odor went away.

I cannot say with certainty that the horrible odor was coming from the lady behind me, but using circumstantial evidence criteria from my jury duty experiences would lead me to conclude that it was coming from the lady and not the food, or restaurant.

What does this have to do with my review of this restaurant? Nothing really, except that I’m glad that they did not stay making me conclude that the odor was coming from the restaurant and giving a bad review. My take away lesson: Be very careful about determining the source of bad odors at restaurants.

By the way, readers of this blog know that I equate traditional Japanese restaurants with free hot green tea. Well, this place charges $3 for Roasted “Genmai,” but it does come in a very nice pot.

The service here is good but the over-the-top niceness is a little, well, over-the-top. It’s like watching a movie with bad acting. At first, it’s amusing, then it starts to get annoying. Then finally, it becomes creepy. But creepy or not, the bottom line is I got good service.

All in all, I’m glad I tried Toranoko and will be returning to try out some of their other items.

Aburiya Toranoko
243 South San Pedro
Los Angeles, CA 90012
213-621-9500
Lunch: Mon-Fri – 11:30am-2:30pm
Dinner: Mon-Thurs 5pm-10pm, Fri 5pm-11pm, Saturday 5pm-11am, Sunday Closed
toranokola.com

After seeing a bunch of TV ads for Vistaprint.com, I decided to try their “free” business card service. Basically, they give you about 46 designs and you simply fill out a form which will change the preview of your business card in real time.

When you are done with filling out the information and selecting the design, you will see your shopping card with the total price of… zero dollars. You can use your credit card or paypal to checkout. Right now, you are asking yourself, why do I need a credit card if it’s free?

Well, that’s because of the cost of shipping. If you want your cards in 3 days, it will cost you $21.85. Standard 14 day shipping is only $6.93.

That’s still pretty cheap for 250 business cards. The free cards do say “Build your Business at www.vistaprint.com” on the back, but it’s in microscopic font size.

But if you want more flexibility and upload your own logo or picture, or change the design and play around with the fonts, you will have to pay for the “Premium” business cards. That sounds expensive, but actually, they only charge $10 and shipping is free.

As you can see below, with 95 cents tax, the total for 250 cards is only $10.95. So basically for just $4 more, you can pick from hundreds of designs in many categories, or upload your own design, or logo, or picture. I think it’s a no brainer. If you can’t afford $10.95 for your business cards, you’re too broke to have a business. And the back of the card is blank with no ads.

By the way, they have tons of other stuff you can buy and they’ll try to push everything but the kitchen sink at you when you are trying to check out. Just click “Next” and don’t get tricked into buying a website or business card holders. Then, after your order is done, they will email you a tracking number so that you can track your order.

Everything was done as advertised, and the quality of the cards are excellent and the price is right. With these cheap prices, how do these local brick-and-mortar card places stay in business? I guess they don’t.

If you have a business, it’s a no-brainer to have great looking business cards like these. But even if you just want a professional looking card to hand out for personal use, the price is still right.

Goji will retail for $278 but you can sign up on Indiegogo for only $195 to be shipped in December 2013.

Goji has a few features that are not provided by the other 2 competitors.

As you can see below, if you want your kids to be able to use the lock but they don’t have smart phones, they can carry a FOB. And of course, there is a backup key in case everything else fails.

Aside from the price getting higher each time a new entry comes in, it appears that the user is required to do more and more for installation. The Goji requires the entire lock assembly to be replaced, which includes the lock itself and therefore comes with it’s own keys. Frankly, I’m not sure if I want to do through this much installation, especially if I decide to move and wouldn’t want to leave my Goji behind.

To access the actual key hole, you flop down the outside display as shown below to reveal the old school tumbler key lock.

Watch the full blow-sion commercial for this Goji smart lock below.

The price may deter some people, while the extra features may attract some people. The video has an obviously fake mockup of the app showing the picture that was taken. It would be interesting to see what the real picture will look like because most likely, the person will be backlit and would be in shadow.

Unless you have tons of people visiting, I doubt the picture feature would be worth the extra cost of this unit over the competitors. We shall see, when it comes out in December.

Am I the only one that thinks it’s strange that you can’t just delete the email that you are reading without having to bring up a menu?

However, after taking away that one feature, now they have added the ability to delete multiple email items from the inbox list by touching the icon on the left to highlight the email, then touch the upper right “3 dot icon” to bring down a menu which includes “Delete.” See right image below.

Nice addition, but please bring back the delete icon.

Supposedly, there are a lot of smart people working at Google but they sure don’t seem to know much about email user interface.

As you can see below (left), you can now see a preview of images, and even text files (not shown) as well as the folders making it much easier to work with your files.

The image on the right shows the version on the iPad, which merely shows the filename which may or may not help you.

With all the screen space on the iPad, you would think it would be very easy to make a better version. It’s very likely that they want to purposely have a better version running on Android before they port it to iOS. It’s just smart business. Right Google?

This place has a huge “L” shaped bar, even though they don’t serve sushi, along with regular table seating. For my appetizer, I tried their Tako Wasabi. I think I had the same thing elsewhere but my memory is fading and I can’t remember where. I prefer the traditional Tako-su dish and didn’t care for this dish. The picture is a little misleading in that the container is about the size of a large spoon.

When the waiter came over to collect the unused napkins and chopsticks from the empty seats at my table, he took all of them and left me with nothing. When he brought the Tako appetizer, he never checked to see if I needed chopsticks and left. This is a clear indication that the waiter is brand new to serving.

Octopus Wasabi $3

Next, I tried 2 items from the Kushiage menu list: Asparagus and chicken. Kushi-age are skewered items panko covered and deep-fried. In Japanese, kushi means skewer, and age (pronounced ah-ge) means deep-fried.

Generally speaking, I try to stay away from deep-fried food, even tempura, but because I’ve never had it before, I decided to try it. I asked the waiter what part of the chicken they used, he had to ask the kitchen. I guess nobody ever asked before or it was his first day. He was told that it was chicken thigh, which I love.

But I digress.

And sure enough, the chicken was delicious and hot, but I think I like my asparagus sautéed instead. They give you a choice of dipping sauce, so I picked the Worcestershire wasabi sauce. They must use real wasabi because it was really strong. Maybe a little too strong.

Kushiage Asparagus $1, Chicken $1.50

As you can see from the picture above, I got the Zaru Tororo Soba ($8) as my main dish. The actual soba was nothing spectacular and in my opinion, was cooked about 30 seconds too long. The dipping sauce was too sweet and it only came with real wasabi, and no grated radishes or green onions as is customary. The tororo (grind yam) was fresh and tasty but the dipping sauce basically ruined the entire dish.

It’s not all bad news. The hot tea was free. But the water used to make the tea tasted stale, like they need to use a filter for their water. But I’m pretty picky so most people probably won’t notice it.

All in all, I was disappointed with my visit because I was looking for some fantastic soba. However, from the looks of this place, I think it’s probably a nice place to come with a bunch of friends to drink and have some eats too.

Sojibo
2006 Sawtelle Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025
(310) 479-1200

What you get will be 200 free voice minutes and 500MB of mobile data, but unlimited text. So if you normally use WiFi and don’t talk a lot on the phone, but text a lot, like me, this is perfect.

Of course, the catch is, if you go over your 200 minutes, you will be charged $9.99 for unlimited voice. Since it’s capped at $10, that’s not bad. What can get you is the $10-$20 per Gig for data if you go over your 500MB limit.

If this deal is like the free Internet deal they have, you will have to buy the Andriod phone from FreedomPop so choices will probably be limited, and not likely anything new. In fact, it’s very likely the phones will be refurbished and normally free from other carriers but FreedomPop will probably charge the customer to get started.

For now, no 4G LTE and you cannot transfer your phone number to this service. The later could be a deal breaker for some people.

But if you are on a tight budget, or don’t have a phone because it’s too expensive, this is your chance to get a mobile phone. Or if you already have mobile phone service, but would like a second phone line for business without having to pay, this might be the solution for you.

Click on the image below to see their commercial.