BlackBerry is back with a new phone that’s intended to catapult it back into the frontlines of the smartphone competition. But it’s come after long delays and the ouster of the company’s co-CEOs, who were oblivious to the iPhone/Android bulldozer that nearly crushed it to death. BlackBerry’s new Z10 is the company’s answer, perhaps its last hope (hence the “Z” designation?).

For the past two weeks I’ve been trying the AT&T version, which costs $200 with a new contract. (It’s also available from Verizon and T-Mobile.) The Z10 is based on a new operating system, which provides faster response and multitasking.

It looks more like an iPhone than a BlackBerry, particularly with its on-screen touch keyboard; BlackBerry’s famous thumb keyboard is gone, although it will be back on another model. The Z10 has a touch-screen display just slightly larger than that of the iPhone 5. The phone resembles the iPhone 5 with a similar shape and profile, but made of mostly plastic rather than aluminum.

I found the Z10 to have one of the longest learning curves of any smartphone I’ve used, and after two weeks it’s still a bit confusing. There’s no home button as found on other phones, just an on/off button at the top (plus a volume rocker on the side).

BlackBerry’s new Z10. Photo courtesy of BlackBerry

To use the phone, you swipe the screen: Swipe up to unlock if the phone is locked; otherwise to go to the Active Frame screen that has recently opened apps. Swipe down to access a settings menu, and left and right to move between screens. The leftmost screen contains a short list of frequently used apps.

The screen to the right is Active Frames, and the next three are screens filled with an array of app icons. But apps open between the first two screens

There are no clues when and in which direction to swipe. I’ve frequently stared at a screen, trying to figure out what to do next. With some apps, nothing happens when you swipe. And in a few cases, when I swiped, I accidentally activated a button push.

Back to first screen that contains a short list of some of the more frequently used apps, such as Gmail or Facebook; touch an item on the list, such as Gmail, and the Gmail inbox screen slides in from the right.

Another item that’s in the list is “BlackBerry Hub”; it slides in a screen much like Gmail, but is a unified inbox that includes messages, calls, appointments, alerts and email, all in chronological order.

There are few options for choosing what’s on this list, but there’s no way to add items. In particular, there’s no phone or calendar in the list, an odd omission, since they are most frequently used. The list does include a call log, something of lesser importance.

To make a call, you need to swipe twice to the left and do two on-screen button pushes to get to the dial pad. It’s quite inconvenient to have the phone functions spread out among multiple screens. It’s a phone after all!

The app you are using can be sent off to the Active Frame screen by swiping your finger upward from the bottom of the display to the top. A reduced ¼ page icon appears on the screen, where you can relaunch it or close it. There’s no way to close the app directly.

While on the Active Frame screen, slide your finger to the left to go to the next screens, and you’ll see three successive pages with all of your apps arranged in a grid of 16 icons per page, looking much like it does on Apple and Android phones. You can hold down any app to rearrange the collection or create folders, just as on the iPhone.

What’s confusing is that there are very different interfaces to master from page to page and the swiping action is not always predictable and sometimes frustrating. The user interface and operating system just don’t feel finished; it seems like additions were made at the last minute, and the whole thing was pieced together and rushed out.

The phone has the usual complement of features, including an app store, 4G LTE cellular capabilities, a front and rear camera, and built-in navigation. It does not have an easy way to silence the ringer and, instead, requires a swipe and touching two buttons on the display, unlike the iPhone that has a physical on/off switch.

BlackBerry’s store, called BlackBerry World, is where you get apps and content. Being just released, it has a small number of the most important apps, and lots of mediocre apps that seem to be there just to increase their number. What that does is make it more difficult to find the good apps.

One of the Z10′s best features is its on-screen keyboard. It has the most powerful autocorrect system of any phone I’ve tried, and it’s the one redeeming feature. While you type, suggested words appear above some of the letters in between the rows, often above the next letter you are about to type. When you see the correct world, swipe up on that key instead of pressing on it to complete the word and add a space.

After some typing, it learns and even brings up proper names. It really works well. I went to type “My vacation is next week” and it required only seven keystrokes or swipes.

I found call quality on the AT&T network to be fine. Battery life seemed about average, requiring a daily charge. (The battery is sealed in the phone like the iPhone). Navigating to websites was quick, but some of the text appeared a little soft as the pages were rendered.

I really wanted to like this phone. I was a BlackBerry user for many years, having used five or six generations of its phones. But once I migrated to the iPhone, it was hard to go back. The Z10 does not have enough to tempt me now, nor will it likely attract other Android, Apple or Microsoft phone users, whose phones are all easier to use and much more polished.

BlackBerry may have survived for a while, but the Z10 is not enough to take it off life-support without a major software upgrade very soon.

I’ve written before about how much I like TripIt, an app that keeps track of all your travel plans. Simply forward it all of your emailed reservations and confirmations for hotels, air, rental and restaurants, and it returns an organized itinerary with all of the details neatly organized and adds it to your calendar.

TripIt is free, but its Pro version is well worth the $50 annual subscription. It sends you messages with gate information, delays and alternative flights.

TripIt Pro now also checks the cost of your flights and can save you lots of money. Over the last several months it’s sent me emails alerting me to a drop in the airfare of flights I’m schedule to take. The alerts tell you how much you’ll save, factoring in change fees. I’ve then gone back to the reservations site, usually Southwest, Alaska and United, and have rebooked the same flights.

I’ve saved about $800 since January, much more than the cost of the service. (tripit.com)

Hang your iPhone from your dash

While on the road driving rental cars, I use my iPhone as a personal navigator. But I’m always fiddling with propping the phone up on the center console or in the ashtray.

I’ve tried carrying phone mounts, those cumbersome plastic holders with a folding arm and a large suction cup, but they take up lots of room in a briefcase and don’t work well.

I recently tested two new products, the Norm from Insanely Great Products and MT5000 from Mountek. The Norm is a flat metal tray, with a binder clip at one end. A bare iPhone fits on the tray and stays firmly in place, gripped gently between two foam-wrapped arms. The clip at the top secures phone and holder to one of the air conditioning vents on your car’s dashboard, “hanging” the phone in plain view and within easy reach. It takes up little space in your briefcase or purse.

The Norm has models available for the iPhone 4 and iPhone 5. ($35, igproducts.us)

The Mountek product also hangs lets you hang your phone from your dash and is adjustable so that it works with a wide variety of phones, including normal-size models from Samsung, Apple and Motorola.

The product attaches to the CD-player slot found on the dashboard of many cars. It’s designed to fit in far enough for support, but not too far so as to activate the player.

The product is constructed of heavy-duty, matte-finished plastic and is very well engineered. ($20, mountek.com)

Of the two, I found the Mountek worked best in my BMW X3 and the Norm worked on my wife’s Toyota Highlander because its CD slot was hidden behind the display.
LinkedIn

I’ve used LinkedIn’s free version for years, but haven’t paid much attention to all of its features.

It’s been a handy way to search and network with business friends and their friends, specifically for business needs. LinkedIn is also widely used by companies and search firms for finding job candidates. It’s easy to find employees of any given company by searching by company name.

Recently, I wanted to identify and contact an executive at a specific company. I upgraded my account to the BusinessPro level for one month for $40 and was able to search for employees at that company and contact them by LinkedIn’s internal email called InMail.

LinkedIn allows 10 InMails a month at this subscription level. While they guarantee you’ll get a response, what that means is if you don’t get an answer they won’t count that as one of the 10. Another feature this level provides is to see the name of those that check your profile.

LinkedIn is a good way for professionals to present their profile to the outside business community (and recruiters) and to expand your network with others with similar business interests. (linkedin.com)

I’ve just begun testing the new BlackBerry 10, the company’s best hope for a comeback.

My first day was spent trying to figure out its unusual interface. Devoid of buttons, almost everything is accessed by swipes on the touch screen from different directions. So far it’s not intuitive and reminded me of the Chinese box puzzle with the numerous sliding panels that you need to open to get inside.

But I want to give this phone a chance before I draw any conclusions. Often, once you get past the interface, things can improve. Expect a complete review in the next week or two.
Tamrac’s Zuma 2 case for iPad and camera

This slim, vertical bag is designed to carry an iPad along with a medium-size digital camera. It’s also full of other pockets for carrying business cards, pens, batteries and memory cards.

It has a shoulder pad that stays in place and a slash pocket on the back for a magazine or boarding pass. What makes it so effective is its thin profile that automatically expands as you add a large item such as the camera. So it’s the best of both, a slim carrying bag and a camera/iPad bag in one.

This well-constructed fully padded nylon bag is a bargain at $50. (tamrac.com)

Compelling new evidence appears to substantiate charges, made in this column and elsewhere, that Toyota has suppressed evidence that electronics could be a possible cause of unintended acceleration (UA), responsible for many deaths, including San Diegans Mark Saylor, his wife, daughter and brother-in-law.

Much of this is discussed in an article by David Hechler at Corporate Counsel at the law.com website, “Is Toyota Telling the Truth About Sudden Acceleration?”

The article cites a panel of independent experts that now doubt Toyota’s explanation that floor mats or sticky accelerator pedals explain the surge in complaints. “Instead, they believe precisely what Toyota has for many years steadfastly denied: that the problem is rooted in electronics,” the article states.

The panel’s opinion has been reinforced by the disclosure of internal Toyota documents that directly contradict testimony given to Congress by several key Toyota executives. Hechler quotes excerpts from these documents to make his case. Some are included below, along with additional quotes taken from the same set of documents.

For example, Jim Lentz, the CEO of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc., testified that “We are confident that no problems exist in our electronic throttle systems in our vehicles,” and that “We have done extensive testing on this system, and we have never found a malfunction that caused unintended acceleration.”

Takeshi Uchiyamada, then executive vice president and chief engineer and now named as Toyota’s next chairman, said in his prepared statement submitted to the Senate Energy, Commerce, and Transportation Committee in March 2010: “I want to be absolutely clear: As a result of our extensive testing, we do not believe sudden unintended acceleration because of a defect in our ETCS has ever happened” (emphasis added), and “We have testing data that confirms its reliability for all the markets in which we trade worldwide.”

Meanwhile, a few days later, senior Toyota electronics engineer Takashi Ogawa, in stark contrast to the above testimony, admitted under questioning by House investigators that there is no test in existence that can conclusively prove UA cannot occur: “It may be hard to understand, but there is no particular or special testing that would directly prove that there is no unintended acceleration.” Instead, he said, the engineers demonstrate UA prevention by cobbling together proof through testing under “all conceivable conditions” and to confirm it is “correctly realized as a design.”

But Toyota’s R&D chief Masatami Takimoto contradicted his own engineers, admitting in a March 2010 memo that every conceivable condition had not been anticipated: “When this Electronic Throttle Control System (ETCS) system was inspected, didn’t we fail to anticipate malfunctions such as an accelerator pedal itself remaining open?”

The company’s problems with its quality control activities were pointed out by vice president Katsuhiko Sakakibara in a memo dated February 2010: “practices that prevent quality verification are now proliferating everywhere worldwide” (emphasis in original).

And again in testimony, in response to a question by then-Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota), Uchiyamada stated flatly, “There was not a single case where we could identify that the ETC defect was the cause of the unwanted or unintended acceleration.”

The claim was completely disproved in the same hearing by a description of a Camry owner named Shepard whose car had a UA incident. As described in the hearing transcript, Shepard’s own mechanic later found an accelerator pedal sensor failure. This documented failure of the ETCS was reported to Toyota at the time of the incident, in 2004.

These newly revealed documents also tell a story of what was happening behind the scenes among Toyota’s engineers, further contradicting the executive testimony. The engineers admit to electronics causes of UA events in the field.

In one email, a Japanese engineer based in Toyota’s U.S. offices requests help from colleagues in Japan to fix a “software bug” in the Tundra that causes the truck to behave in ways that “drivers consider UA.” His colleague in Japan responded that this problem would have to wait because they were too busy.

Another document is a Technical Field Report from Toyota’s Cyprus dealer written in January 2009. The dealer pleads: “… Engine revs stick at 6000 rpm without any reason. This issue occurs without any warning and at random cases. … (there were) two big car accidents in which the drivers miraculously escaped injuries. … the vehicle accelerated in an uncontrolled manner … more than 5 times … the Accelerator Sensor Assembly was replaced. … This issue could cost lives!!”

In another communication, a driver reported a Tundra zooming to 80 miles per hour, uncommanded, with ineffective brakes. When the truck was fixed, the technician noted, “short (circuit), insulation defective,” and replaced the gas pedal sensor assembly. The same document lists 547 pedal position electronic sensor assemblies that were replaced to fix speed control malfunctions that had been attributed to a mechanical “sticky pedal.”

Japan engineers also noted or investigated many varied electronics-related causes of UA and speed control issues. They include short circuits in the pedal position sensor, cruise control, poor wiring connectors, electromagnetic interference (EMI), and voltage irregularities. Numerous times throughout the documents, the electronic Engine Computer Unit (ECU) is mentioned as a possible cause for vehicle behavior that they could not understand.

Another document shows that Toyota investigated speed control issues in the car of Crown Prince Naruhito in 2008, and admitted the cause was the endless problems with the ETCS’s many components.

In spite of all of the internal discussions about electronics, Toyota stuck with its public story through its PR campaigns, advertising, sworn testimony and in its recalls, that UA is caused by floor mats and sticky pedals.

When evidence surfaced that there were other, electrical-related causes, and independent experts advanced plausible theories, Toyota never changed its public story. In several cases Toyota representatives disparaged these experts and even sued.

So where did these documents come from? They were provided to Congress by Betsy Benjaminson, an Israel-based translator who was hired to translate Toyota documents used by law firms working for Toyota in their litigation. Most are marked “secret” and “confidential” and, as a set, they disprove many of Toyota’s public pronouncements.

Benjaminson says she has gone public because she considers this to be a situation that involves life and death. She says she saw with her own eyes many hundreds of documents that revealed important details of just how much the company knew, and when the company knew it.

The documents were provided last year to the staff of Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, who has been investigating this issue. Sen. Grassley’s office said the documents were reviewed by experts who found them to be inconclusive.

When asked about the new documents, Toyota issued a statement, saying, “At Toyota, our core values have always been to pursue the highest levels of safety and quality and to continuously improve. To conclude otherwise based on a few handpicked documents, including internal deliberations about quality improvements or descriptions of prototype system testing, is misleading and simply wrong.

“At no time has anyone ever put forth any reliable scientific evidence of an alleged electronic defect in our vehicles that could cause unintended acceleration (UA). In fact, despite more than two years of unprecedented discovery and full access to our proprietary source code, plaintiffs’ counsel in federal multidistrict litigation acknowledged that they were ‘unable to reproduce a UA in a subject vehicle under driving conditions,’” Toyota said in the statement.

Yet the documents indicate that the engineers consider the electronics to be a possible cause.

But it’s not only Toyota that has tried to dismiss electronics as one of the causes of UA. When the root causes of UA remained a mystery, despite all the Congressional hearings, Ray LaHood, Secretary of Transportation, enlisted the help of NASA engineers to perform an analysis of Toyota’s electronic throttle control system. But before their investigation could be completed, LaHood exonerated Toyota, based on NASA not having yet found conclusive evidence of a specific flaw in Toyota’s system design.

But subsequently, the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration, which administered the NASA study, admitted that no system safety analysis was performed. According to engineering experts, such as those quoted in the Corporate Counsel article, LaHood’s sound bite summarizing NASA’s findings as exonerating Toyota, was inaccurate and misleading.

In fact, a source that I spoke to within the government with knowledge of this work at NASA, said NASA engineers were quite incensed at LaHood’s statement, particularly because they were not given the tools or evidence to conduct the investigation. I would not be surprised if NASA eventually comes forward with evidence that shows some electronic anomalies.

While the documents don’t show that the company fully understands the exact electronic failure mechanisms leading to UA, they offer compelling evidence of misrepresentations of the company’s knowledge about the many kinds of electronics-related causes of UA that occurred and could not be attributed to mats, sticky pedals or driver error.

Other memos and emails show a lack of understanding of the true causes of UA resulted from Toyota’s failure to do a thorough job in the design and quality testing of the cars in question.

One admission comes in a memo from Toyota’s then-R&D chief, Masatami Takimoto, written to Uchiyamada and Sasaki who were about to testify in the Senate.

“This is Takimoto. I read in the newspaper that you were both called to testify in the Senate. I think the cause of all this trouble is that we did not complete the vehicle development process sufficiently. There is no excuse and I am sorry.”

Meanwhile, Uchiyamada insists in an email to a subordinate prior to his testimony: “We are severely tortured to no end, aren’t we? We may have made technical errors and our response may have been slow, but all we can do is keep the faith that Toyota is not lying or being deceitful (Toyota is not that kind of company).”

Well, is it, or not?

On Feb. 15, 2010 in this column I wrote, “In the case of Toyota, its recent problems are not that they occurred, but that the company failed to take quick action to fix them once they were discovered. Instead Toyota risked its reputation, built up painstakingly over five decades, by minimizing the seriousness of these issues, by not being forthcoming, and by covering them up.” Based on this new evidence, that remains true.

My conclusion is that there were, and hopefully still are, dedicated, hard-working engineers within the company trying to find the electronic causes of UA. There is nothing that indicates that Toyota has found an answer and has covered it up. Its fault has been in providing false reassurances to the public that electronics can be ruled out and the causes of the problem have been identified.

Toyota executives let their engineers down, as well as owners and future buyers of Toyota automobiles who continue to face risk. And sadly, our own government was complicit, as well. Most importantly, Toyota owners, including myself and my family, should not accept the assurances from Toyota executives that electronics is not a cause.

Twenty years ago, when I was with Seiko, I worked on a gadget called the Kitchen Whiz. This was before the Internet, before Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but even back then, companies were trying to bring technology into the kitchen, an area thought to be ripe for opportunity.

The Kitchen Whiz was a glorified calculator that let you figure out the appropriate portions of ingredients for recipes. It had a collection of other features, including a built-in timer and clock and was able to convert units used in cooking. It sold for about $30 and it was a huge failure. Why? It was difficult to use, and it was designed mostly by men who thought they knew what women wanted. And it was made on the assumption that the kitchen was in need of technological gadgets.

But that wasn’t the only failure of products aimed for the kitchen that flopped. In fact, most attempts failed. One infamous product was an LG refrigerator with a built-in computer, screen and all, on the door. HP tried marketing a family computer with a touch screen that sat on the counter with a calendar and a message center, only to fail, as well. And 3Com developed a product called Audrey that reportedly sold just a few dozen.

There was the SmartShopper Grocery-List Organizer, a $150 electronic gadget that you would use to record food items to add to its shopping list. You would then print out the list to take with you to the grocery store. My wife Jane assessed it correctly when she said it’s harder to use than paper and a pencil.

But technology for the kitchen is changing. At last we’re seeing some products that make much more sense. Appliances such as those from Breville add electronics to measure moisture and make better toast. Most notably, the iPad has caught on as one of the first and most useful “kitchen computers.” It’s finding wide use to search for recipes on the Internet and to display eBook cookbooks, some with gorgeous images and how-to videos.

Williams-Sonoma has developed a Smart Tools series, which are kitchen accessories for use with the iPad. One is an attractive circular stand clad in brushed metal that blends with high-end appliances. Another is a Bluetooth speaker with a built-in microphone to take calls.

The Kitchen-Stand for iPads holds any size tablet in a horizontal or vertical direction. It’s just less than five inchess in diameter, heavily weighted for stability, with a non-slip silicone base. It costs $50.

Williams-Sonoma’s Smart Tools Bluetooth Speaker is an accessory speaker for the iPad that matches the stand’s appearance, so that the stand can stack on top of the speaker, making it look like a single product and reducing counter clutter. Use it to play music, watch videos and as a speakerphone. It has a built-in battery and can be used to charge an iPhone and iPad simultaneously through its two USB ports. It sounds good, similar to other portable speakers such as the Jambox.

One gadget I like is the electronic scale such as the OXO food scale ($50). It weighs in 1/8-oz and 1-gram increments up to 11 pounds. You can cancel out the weight of the container with a button push. Numbers are large and backlit, and the display can be pulled away from the scale to read when there’s a large container on it. ($50, Williams-Sonoma.com)

There are also a variety of clever apps designed for kitchen use. Kitchen Dial for the iPad and iPhone displays two rotating wheels that let you easily convert measurements you use in the kitchen, including teaspoons, liters, quarts and pounds.

Wave Timer is a simple-to-use kitchen timer that lets you turn off the alarm with a simple wave of the hand, avoiding getting food on your iPad or iPhone. Both apps are free.

In spite of its past failures, the kitchen is still a tantalizing target for LG. It has taken its failed refrigerator computer to the next level. At last year’s CES, they showed their Smart ThinQ technology that connects various appliances together and to your iPhone. LG’s smart refrigerators, stoves and washing machines can be monitored while watching TV. Instead of being interrupted by a commercial, you’ll be interrupted with the message “laundry is done.”

Another gadget, the LG Smart Manager, transforms their refrigerator into a “food management system.” An information panel on the refrigerator check’s the status of the food items stored inside, including location and expiration date. It will suggest recipes that can be made from the the ingredients. You input the data by scanning your food receipts and using voice recognition. Simply absurd.

My advice is if you want to bring some tech into your kitchen, keep it simple. Use an iPad and some of the simpler and practical products such as those described above. Hold off on the other stuff, which is really just technology looking for a purpose.

For those in the high-tech world of product development, travel to China has become as routine as a trip to Chicago or New York.

New flights are constantly being added and more airlines are flying between the United States and Hong Kong, Taipei, Seoul, Shanghai and Tokyo. In fact, if it weren’t for the grounding of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, there would be flights now between San Diego and Tokyo.

With the increase in popularity of these routes have also come steeper prices. Business class fares that had been $2,500 to $4,000 a few years ago now range from $4,500 to $9,000. As a result, many corporations are tightening their travel policies and require their employees to fly economy, with its more affordable $900 to $1,200 rates.

As someone who’s made dozens of trips to Asia, I can tell you that nothing is more depressing than sitting in an economy seat for 15 hours. The seats on these international routes are similar to economy seats in domestic routes: narrow, little leg room and cramped, and seats that have minimal padding.

So it was with some trepidation that I recently planned a business trip to Hong Kong and China. I checked all of the airlines flying out of LAX and SFO, hoping to discover a bargain business class ticket.

The closest I found was a United Airlines flight out of SFO for $4,500, but non-cancellable and only available a month in advance. A week later the fare jumped to $5,500 and at flight time was $8,000. Yes, he who hesitates suffers.

One of my favorite airlines for travel to Asia is Cathay Pacific, but its business class was a whopping $8,000 from LAX to Hong Kong, double the price of two years ago. While it offers some of the best business accommodations with a lie-flat bed, its coach is not much different from the other airlines.

But since I traveled last, Cathay has introduced its premium economy class that’s positioned between its economy and business options. It costs about $1,600 round trip, $700 more than economy. The big question I had was whether it was good enough to actually allow me to sleep and to work comfortably for the 15-hour trip.

Premium economy is far superior to economy-plus seating found on United and other airlines that is often reserved for their frequent fliers. They offer extra legroom, but the seats are otherwise identical to economy.

Cathay’s offering isn’t the first time an airline has provided a premium economy product. EVA Air, a decent but drab airline headquartered in Taiwan, has offered its elite class for many years. I’ve used it and it does provide more room, but you have to put up with EVA’s mediocre service and limited schedules. And you usually must stop in Taipei. Compared to EVA, the Cathay seat is more comfortable, and the service much better.

The flight began on a positive note, with a separate check-in line at the LAX airline counter. The agent actually stepped forward from behind the counter to greet me at the front of the line and took my luggage. But I liked him a little less when he told me that my 21-inch International rollerboard needed to be checked. The airline has a luggage weight limit of 17 pounds. Considering the suitcase weighed 11 pounds that meant just 6 pounds of clothes.

The security line at LAX unfortunately continues to be one of the worst of all the airports I fly. It’s disorganized, has long lines and many of the employees are surly. I was, however, able to use the premium line for first class and frequent fliers. Still, it took about 25 minutes to get through.

At the gate, premium-economy fliers board with business-class passengers and before economy. On the plane, I passed by the giant first-class suites, then the business-class recliners and finally the small premium-economy area, about five rows, each with a 2-4-2 seat arrangement. The worst seat is one seat from an aisle.

The seats looked just like what you’d find on first class on many domestic airlines: large seats with plenty of width and distance between adjacent seats. Foot room was plentiful and the well-cushioned and comfortable seats reclined to almost 45 degrees. There was a small folding footrest that was adequate.

The seats have trays in their armrests and strong well-aimed overhead lighting. There is an entertainment system that uses a handheld-wired remote control to select from a range of movies, audio, a map and forward camera, and games. The display is not very sharp, but adequate. Noise cancellation headphones are provided or you can use your own. The choice of movies was current and included “Life of Pi” and “Argo.”

One item noticeably lacking was an AC outlet for a computer or other device. Some of Cathay’s promotional material says there is an AC outlet, so this may vary by plane.

Food service was similar to business class, with a choice of three entrees, wine and liquor. Drinks were provided before takeoff. Service was attentive throughout the flight, comparable to business class. There is one lavatory for 40 people, although you can venture off your secluded area into coach to find more.

The seat was comfortable enough that I was able to sleep for 7 hours and had no backache at the end of the flight. One of the benefits of this ticket was that it could be cancelled or changed for a $50 fee right up to flight time.

So was it worth the extra money? For me, it’s a definite yes. I arrived in much better shape than if I had flown economy. I was well-rested and ready to go.

Premium economy class is available on many of Cathay’s long routes, including flights to Australia, Asia, Europe and Canada.

Baker is the author of “From Concept to Consumer” published by Financial Times Press and available at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and other booksellers. He has developed and marketed consumer and computer products for Polaroid, Apple, Seiko and others, holds 30 patents and is an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year. Phil can be heard on KOGO AM the first Sunday of each month. Send comments to phil.baker@sddt.com. Comments may be published as Letters to the Editor. Phil’s blog is http://blog.philipgbaker.com and his Web site is philipgbaker.com

Givit debuts at SXSW
Givit (givit.com), a San Diego company, just announced at Austin’s South by Southwest music festival what’s said to be the easiest and most intuitive free video app for the iPhone. It’s designed for anyone — including those who are inexperienced with video editing — to create, capture, edit and share video. The resulting video can be stored on the company’s site or shared on Facebook, YouTube or Twitter.

The app uses a novel paradigm to create your videos. Instead of starting with a long, unedited video filled with material you need to eliminate, you start with a blank slate and, by tapping on what you like, construct the video. You can tap once to add in seven seconds of video or tap twice to manually select the content you want to include.

Transitions between scenes are added automatically.

Givit offers 5 GB of free cloud storage for all users and all of its editing and social features are completely free. Premium subscription options are available for frequent users from $30/year.

Givit was founded by Greg Kostello, who was EVP of technology at MP3.com, and who provided the backend software for the Flip video camera. The company is backed by ATA Ventures and JK&B Ventures.