At the first big technology conference I attended, the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas a decade ago, I squeezed past hundreds of attendees on the show floor and was surprised to find myself alone in the ladies’ bathroom. Down the hall, the line for the men’s bathroom snaked out the door.

Throughout my career at The Wall Street Journal, I’ve used my casual ladies’ bathroom observations as my own barometer to measure the number of women at events and, more broadly, in the tech community. The more women I see in the field, the less likely it is that just a team of guys are making and marketing tech products.

Eleven years later, I’m happy to report I now regularly wait in line for the ladies’ rooms at conferences and product announcement events.

A lot has happened since that first conference and I’ve had a front-row seat on this ever-changing industry. I’ve never written exclusively for or about women; rather, I hope my columns are read by anyone interested in learning more about a product. But privately I’ve noted the industry’s shift away from masculine marketing and product designs.

In my final column this week, I’m taking a moment to look back at a few examples of how products geared toward women shaped this industry, counting failures and successes.

First, the misses.

Ads for Verizon’s Droid seemed to target the phone at robot-crazed males.

A great example of a now-defunct company that tried entirely too hard to appeal to women with its product was the 2009 Palm Pre. The pebble-shaped smartphone had a slide-out keyboard and the company was proud to note that women would like the mirror that was revealed on the back of the pulled-down keyboard.

On top of that, its commercial felt like a cross between a coordinated dance routine and a soap opera, complete with a woman standing on a rock in a windblown dress while she organized her digital life on a Palm Pre. A woman’s breathy voice-over said she was working on sorting “my family’s lives, friends’ lives, work life, play life, my life today and my life next week.” At the end of the commercial, the woman sat on the rock in the middle of a field with her dress tucked under her. All women do this, right?

One of the most well-known failed attempts to design for women came in the shade of pink. After years of designing dull black and silver products, tech companies seemed to think they found the solution for appealing to all women by slapping a rosy hue on a device and calling it a female favorite. As laptops, cameras, cellphones, headphones, Bluetooth headsets, portable speaker docks, mice, keyboards and other products flooded the market, women continued to look for the best products with the best user interfaces — not just the pink ones.

Another more recent failure: Verizon’s Droid. The company’s commercials seemed to gear this smartphone exclusively to robot-crazed males. The phone even had a default alert set up for notifications: A deep, mechanical voice would sound out, “Droid!” whenever new emails arrived. Not only did it alienate women, but I know a few men who found this annoying and odd.

Now some hits.

Pinterest credits a core group of female bloggers as having a big impact on the site.

It’s still true women use social networking more than men, according to Pew Research’s Internet studies. Pinterest is particularly appealing to women, with considerably more females than males using it on computers, mobile Web browsers and especially in the Pinterest app. Some of the site’s early outreach was done with a group of female bloggers and the company’s CEO, Ben Silbermann, credits that core group with having had the biggest impact on the site.

Motorola’s Moto Maker offers customizable colors for phones like this one.

Today, color has smarts. Tech products available in multiple shades are commonplace, encompassing a variety to appeal to all sorts of people. Companies understand that as long as the product is well made, variety and choice in designs and colors can be a good thing. Recent examples include Motorola’s Moto Maker website for designing your own smartphone and Jawbone’s website where people can design their own Jambox portable speakers. Apple’s version of a budget iPhone, the $99 iPhone 5c, comes in green, blue, yellow, pink and white. Lenovo laptops come in orange and red.

As this momentous year draws to a close, so does my time at The Wall Street Journal. I’ll continue writing reviews of consumer technology products at a new website. And I know I’ll continue to see smart women influencing smart tech products. There have been great strides in the past 11 years, but there’s still room to grow — even at the restroom line.

Write to Katherine Boehret at katie.boehret@wsj.com.

People who back up their digital photos, videos and documents usually do so in one of two places—a giant hard drive in their home, or a giant remote storage facility in the cloud. If one of these storage solutions goes kaput, so can the data.

Isn’t there a better way?

For the past week, I have been testing Space Monkey, a storage solution that promises to save your data both locally and remotely. The best of both worlds doesn’t come cheap, at least not at first glance: For $199 you get a one-terabyte drive that looks like a large capsule, plugs into your wireless router and stores any files you copy to it. But what sets Space Monkey apart is its peer-to-peer backup system, ensuring that your files are also stored remotely on multiple devices. This service is free for the first year and $49 a year after that.

I like the way Space Monkey works, doubling up on backups and giving me fast access to my data. Saved files were easy to access remotely using login credentials. But its interface is a little sparse, and on the computer it’s missing a one-click feature that would automatically move all files over to Space Monkey.

The $199 Space Monkey storage solution offers two ways to store files: Remote storage, which uses a peer-to-peer system, and local storage, which uses this one-terabyte hard drive, above, that plugs into a wireless router.

Peer-to-peer backup technology can be tough to understand. In short, every Space Monkey drive comes with one terabyte of storage that you can use for storing your own files plus a second, hidden terabyte of storage that the company uses for storing bits of other people’s files. Any time anyone saves a file in Space Monkey, it’s encrypted, chopped into tiny pieces and stored in up to 40 different drives belonging to other users. This means that anyone trying to get to your files would need to access each of these devices and decrypt the files.

The idea of peer-to-peer networks has been tried before, including on CrashPlan, which I reviewed last year. But Space Monkey aims to use the technology in a way that doesn’t require geeky tinkering on your end, nor does it require a big chunk of your computer’s hard drive for shared storage.

It costs a lot less for a company to use this method compared with running a data-storage center, as competitors’ prices show. Dropbox, for example, charges $795 a year for its one-terabyte storage option. Space Monkey’s subscription is $49 a year.

Once your file is saved on Space Monkey, you can access it anywhere, including remotely from mobile devices or from other computers using the Space Monkey Web app. If you know you’ll be offline while trying to use one of your saved files, you can pin and save the file in a way that makes it locally accessible.

After you install the Space Monkey app on your phone, you log into your account and use the app as an automatic backup for all of your photos and videos. This is a big relief for me as a new mom, so I know my dozens of baby photos and videos are backed up in two ways.

But Space Monkey needs a better interface. While it prides itself on being simple, it also left me wondering if and when it was working. I had to ask the company’s founders how certain features functioned because I didn’t see obvious instructions in the device’s app or desktop interface.

Unlike the app, Space Monkey used on a computer doesn’t yet offer a way to automatically save all of someone’s files, or all of one type of file, such as photos. Currently, people have to drag and drop to move files or folders over to Space Monkey, or right-click each folder or file and select “Copy to Space Monkey.”

The thought of storing your data with an unfamiliar company may make you nervous, though Space Monkey’s founders have years of experience with data backup technology. And if worse comes to worse, you’ll still have your one-terabyte drive that will function as a destination for backed-up files.

After setting up Space Monkey in my house, I created an account using an email and password, then installed Space Monkey software on two computers. My husband wanted to store his files on our Space Monkey account, too, and though we currently have to share an account to do this, Space Monkey’s founders said that by the start of next year, multi-account features will work for families and small businesses.

If you use Time Machine, Apple’s built-in backup software, you can point it to your Space Monkey drive for storage, though this feature is still in its initial phase.

When I downloaded and installed the Space Monkey app on an iPhone and an Android phone, an option during setup asked if I wanted to back up photos over cellular. This is turned off by default so that people back up photos only when in Wi-Fi to avoid higher monthly data fees.

Space Monkey’s Android app includes all images from your phone’s Gallery, and this could mean that you’re backing up random images that other apps may have put in your Android Gallery. In my case, this included random images from Facebook that at some point I had come across in my Facebook News Feed and didn’t realize had been saved onto my phone. Space Monkey’s co-founder, Alen Peacock, said this is due to the way Android stores these images on your phone.

Though Space Monkey’s peer-to-peer storage solution can be intimidating and tough to understand, its double-safe backup provides peace of mind without monkeying around.

Write to Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com

Before traveling to a new city, it never hurts to reach out to locals you know who can offer suggestions of favorite restaurants and attractions that are off the beaten path.

For the past three months, I’ve been using an app that does this for you: Field Trip. It’s made by a division of Google and is designed to send you, by way of pop-up cards, short blurbs about unique, sometimes-hidden locations as you pass them. You can set Field Trip to show frequent or occasional notifications, and you can turn on an audio option that will speak the title and description of a spot. Restaurant reviews and coupons for discounts show up as you pass by, but the most interesting are the historical cards.

This week, Field Trip got a revamp to include a better interface, content from more publishers (170 sources up from 70) and a smarter system that limits notifications to the ones it thinks you’ll like. I tested Field Trip primarily on an Android phone as well as on an iPhone, and even tried it on Google Glass, the futuristic device you wear to get visual and audio data without holding up a smartphone.

Field Trip had a field day with my city of Washington, D.C., which is bursting with historic spots. I learned the romantic back story of an unusual style of architecture in my neighborhood, discovered an exclusive speakeasy no one can visit without a text-message invitation and learned of a church’s interesting history. These cards came from sources including Arcadia Publishing, the DC Style Is Real website and the Historical Marker Database.

Field Trip displays cards about nearby locales.

I like to consider myself a plugged-in member of my neighborhood, so I was skeptical of what Field Trip could teach me about it. I was pleasantly surprised. I learned that a block where I’ve walked every day for the past 11 years is called Philadelphia Row.

According to a Field Trip card, the block got its name because the developer had Philadelphia-style houses built on it for his Philadelphia-native wife, who was homesick. He took her to Europe during construction, brought her back at night, and when she woke the next day she saw architecture that felt like home.

I tapped a flag icon to save this tidbit in my Favorite list, then hit another icon to share it with neighborhood friends.

I found out about Harold Black, a bar in an unlabeled location that I had previously wondered about when I saw people entering and exiting. Field Trip popped up a card about it as I drove home in a cab one night.

When I visited Frederick, Md., a card popped up with historic details about Robert E. Lee’s Antietam Campaign as I drove along the road where soldiers marched 150 years ago. Another card from Zagat appeared in my notifications as I passed by Volt restaurant, calling it an “evening in foodie heaven” and showing me the average cost and rankings for food, décor and service.

In downtown D.C., I donned Google Glass while I was near Asbury United Methodist Church and saw cards in front of my eyes that explained the church’s history: Its members include descendants of D.C. slaves who tried to escape to freedom in 1848 on the ship called Pearl.

A map in the app shows locations with cards.

Though the new version of the app added more cards for less popular areas, chances are you won’t see as many notifications there. If it doesn’t find spots near you, its definition of “nearby” broadens to include more cards.

Still, Field Trip isn’t perfect. One card displayed a photo of something that used to be near me called the Visitation School, saying it was torn down around 1910. Today, this is the location of the Mayflower Hotel, yet this two-sentence card didn’t give me any clue as to what the Visitation School was or why it was significant.

Another card from Thrillist was an obvious mistake: It described an athletic spray that mentioned “D.C.” in its description. Upon studying this card further, the address it mentioned was for a men’s salon called the Grooming Lounge, but that didn’t explain why this card highlighted a product from the salon.

If a card is inaccurate or unhelpful, users can tap an icon to report it to Google, marking it with labels that say the card isn’t interesting, has unrelated images, is at the wrong location or has other issues. You can opt to show less or more from a certain source. In the case of the athletic-spray card, I adjusted my settings to show fewer cards from Thrillist.

Users can adjust which sources they see more or less of.

Field Trip depends on location data from Google Maps and a map icon in the bottom bar of the app displays a map of your location and cards around you. A mini map in the top right corner of a card shows you where an identified spot is located.

Though the Field Trip app works in the background on Android and Apple’s iOS operating systems, it will affect your battery. But I found with the Occasional notification setting turned on, there were fewer notifications so this wasn’t an issue. It helped that when my phone’s battery level dropped to 30 percent, Field Trip went into snooze mode. You can turn notifications off altogether and only open the app when you want.

But what is Google doing with all of the data it collects on you as you use Field Trip? John Hanke, vice president of Niantic Labs, the division of Google that created Field Trip, said the app doesn’t record a user’s location; rather, it only stores the past stories it has surfaced for the user so it knows not to display the same stories over and over again. As with any GPS-enabled app, users must turn on location permissions.

Stories from the past are all around us, if we take the time to learn. By dispensing that information in bite-size chunks, Field Trip makes that learning a little easier. Just don’t be disappointed when you don’t find in-depth details about these locales.

Write to Katherine Boehret at katie.boehret@wsj.com.

As Microsoft’s new Xbox One game console shows up in homes across the country this holiday season, gamers are high-fiving. But their siblings, spouses and roommates who aren’t into videogames are asking, “What’s in it for me?”

For the past week, I’ve been testing the Xbox One from their perspective, and there’s a lot for non-gamers. The name comes from Microsoft’s intention that it become the one central box for all of your digital living-room activities without the hassle of changing inputs. You can use it for watching TV, conducting Skype video calls, browsing the Web, watching streamed videos, opening files and photos, fitness and, of course, games. Xbox One comes with Kinect, the seemingly magic sensor that responds to your gestures and voice commands, letting you navigate without a controller.

But competition for space in the living room is fierce. In addition to Sony’s new $400 PlayStation 4, Xbox must now compete against tablets people hold on their laps, as well as features in popular devices like the $99 Apple TV and $50 Roku LT, which take up a tiny square of counter space.

The $500 Xbox One is massive in comparison, measuring about 13 inches by 11 inches and weighing nearly eight pounds. Then there’s the nearly 10-inch-wide Kinect sensor. What’s worse: Xbox One comes with a gamer-centric controller that design-conscious homeowners will want to hide in a drawer.

The $500 Xbox One, center, measures about 13 inches by 11 inches and weighs nearly eight pounds. It comes with a nearly 10-inch-wide Kinect sensor, top, and a game-centric controller, at bottom.

After using the Xbox One regularly in my home, I can say that several of its features will appeal to non-gamers. Its Kinect camera made my Skype video calls look and sound remarkably good. Apps downloaded from the Xbox Store in seconds, and I quickly shifted from apps to videos to TV. A Snap feature lets you slide one app, video or game to the side of the screen while watching something else in the fuller part of the screen. And when it works, voice control with the Kinect can be very cool.

Yet a lot of things went wrong. On the fourth day of use, my Kinect stopped working altogether. After troubleshooting with Microsoft, I had to get a new Xbox One. Microsoft’s chief marketing and strategy officer, Yusuf Mehdi, said he hadn’t yet heard of this problem happening.

When my Kinect was working, its voice commands left a lot to be desired — especially when I tried giving commands over noise in the room. When I set up the second Xbox One, I even tried an extra step in calibrating Kinect’s microphone, but this didn’t make a significant difference. Despite on-screen suggestions for specific voice commands, users must remember far too many commands.

While watching TV with the Xbox One, you can change the channel using some simple commands like, “Watch the Food Network,” though you might be like me and forget what channel hosts each show. Saying “What’s on?” prompts a list of channels so you can know what to say. To skim up and down in the One Guide, I said, “Page up” to go slowly or “Jump up” to move farther up the guide. Volume can be turned up or down, but each vocal prompt only adjusts volume by a few notches, which gets frustrating when you have to keep saying, “Volume down” over and over.

Another problem was that though my TV channels were pulled into the Xbox One (by plugging in a cable box) and handsomely displayed in the One Guide, I still had to pick up a TiVo remote to access and play back my recorded TV content. If you’re like me, and watch recorded shows more often than live TV, shifting remotes can be a significant source of frustration.

As is true with all voice-command products, talking to get something done can feel rude if you have to interrupt a conversation. This happened several times in my living room.

But for all of its flaws, as soon as my Kinect stopped working, I missed using voice commands. I realized how much I was using (or trying to use) them before anything else. Microsoft says voice recognition will improve over time, so there’s hope for more accuracy in the future.

My initial setup of the Xbox One console and Kinect was straightforward and user-friendly. It asked me to sign in with my Microsoft ID and password and let me select a color to represent my account. The Kinect setup involved a quick process of confirming that its camera worked and calibrating the microphone.

After this, the Kinect recognized me any time I walked into my living room, and said hi with a small pop-up icon at the bottom of the screen when the TV was on. The same was true for my husband, who had his own account. This is helpful if each family member has different settings, like favorite channels or apps pinned to your Xbox Home screen.

I downloaded and used the NFL app, Skype, SkyDrive, Xbox Music, Amazon Instant Video and others. I opened the NFL app during the Giants versus Cowboys game and snapped it to the right so I could watch the game while keeping that app to one side.

I browsed the Web using Internet Explorer, reading a few articles on WSJ.com and watching their accompanying videos. A precise on-screen cursor in the shape of a circle with a point made Web browsing easier than I expected.

A Skype video call to my mom prompted a “Wow!” from her as she admired the quality of the picture, which she described as amazing. As for audio, she said she could hear me just as clearly when the loud, humming central heat clicked on in my house. As I moved around the living room and talked to my mom from six different places, the Kinect camera panned to follow me, and even zoomed in on my face for the best possible picture. I had a similarly good experience during a call to someone else who was using the Xbox One’s new Kinect.

Though the Xbox One is still geared toward gamers, it will appeal to a broader audience with its variety of apps and ways of watching TV. Just be ready for a potentially frustrating experience when you try talking to the Xbox One.

Write to Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com

It’s largely accepted that miniature versions must compromise on something. Fancy sports cars lack back seats, snack-size candy bars are missing a whole lot of chocolate and the iPad mini wants for high quality screen resolution and speedy performance.

Until now.

Apple’s new iPad mini, which starts at $399 and became available last week, has virtually the same specs as its big brother, the full-size iPad Air. Both offer the same head-turning Retina display with a super sharp screen resolution. Both have the same new chip for faster processing and improved graphics performance. Both have better technology for connecting to Wi-Fi or cellular networks. And both have improved front-facing cameras that work better in low light.

Apple’s iPad mini with Retina display has a processor that’s four times as fast as the original mini, which helps with apps like iMovie, second screen from the right.

This means you basically just choose what size screen you prefer, the 9.7-inch iPad Air or the 7.9-inch iPad mini with Retina display, without compromising.

I’ve been testing the iPad mini with Retina display for the past week and a half, and this miniature version doesn’t make me feel like I’m compromising on anything. My everyday iPad is the iPad 3 with Retina display, but I found myself reaching more often for the new mini, tossing it into a bag to use on the go. I also carried it around the house more than I do my full-size iPad. And in my taxing battery test, it lasted 11 hours and 17 minutes, which is longer than Apple’s estimate of 10 hours.

This iPad mini with Retina display is the second iteration of the iPad mini. The first version, which came out about a year ago, has now dropped in price and is only available in a 16-gigabyte model; the Wi-Fi version costs $299 and the Wi-Fi and cellular model costs $429.

When I picked up the new iPad mini with Retina display, it looked and felt like the original mini. Technically, it’s slightly thicker and heavier, but these differences are barely noticeable.

The real changes can be seen when this thing is turned on. While the original iPad mini’s screen wasn’t sending people back to the store with complaints, I noticed pixilation in it after being spoiled by the larger iPad with Retina display. This new iPad mini fixes that problem with a resolution of 2048 x 1536, compared with 1024 x 768 in the original mini. And since it has the same resolution as the larger iPad Air but has a smaller screen, it actually packs in more pixels per inch, 326 versus 264.

Apple included its A7 chip in this device, an addition that gives the mini a processor that’s four times as fast as its predecessor and graphics that are eight times as fast. It zipped from one screen to the next, downloading apps and movies much faster than previous iterations of the iPad. And I edited video clips in iMovie without any hiccups or delays.

Apple’s App Store now has over 475,000 apps for the iPad and all run on the iPad mini without any distortion or magnification required. As of Sept. 1, all new Apple mobile devices come with free versions of Apple apps, including iPhoto, iMovie and iWork (Apple’s version of Microsoft Office-like programs called Pages, Numbers and Keynote).

I tested the new iPad mini’s battery life by playing a nonstop loop of video with the screen set to 75 percent brightness and Wi-Fi turned on to collect email in the background. The 11 hours and 17 minutes I got was impressive on its own, but also notable considering that the iPad Air got over 12 hours in the same test. Needless to say, you won’t often worry about charging either of these tablets.

The front- and rear-facing cameras on the new iPad mini are improvements to their previous versions, as I noticed while capturing photos and videos or while making FaceTime calls. The front-facing camera now uses what Apple calls its next-generation FaceTime HD camera and it has improved sensors for low-light situations. I especially appreciated this new feature because, with a new baby, I make a lot of FaceTime calls to relatives from dimly lit rooms where the baby is sleeping. Thanks to the new chip and the new iOS 7 software, the rear-facing camera now captures still images and video with enhancements like faster autofocus and up to three times zoom in videos.

This new iPad mini uses two antennas for its Wi-Fi connection, instead of just one as in the original mini, and a flavor of Wi-Fi that doubles its data rate compared with older iPads and the iPad Air. If you want a new iPad mini with a cellular connection, these start at $529 and support more ways of connecting to cellular networks in various countries — great news for heavy travelers.

I’m still not a fan of Apple’s cases. I tried the $69 Smart Case, which is new for the iPad mini family and protects the entire device, including its back. But I still found myself frustrated when the device frequently fell over from its propped-up position.

Overall, the iPad mini with Retina display is a winner. Plenty of people will now consider this a viable alternative to the full-size iPad without any of the miniature downsides.

Write to Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com.

If you’re still driving your own car, you might need to get up to speed.

Car sharing and ride sharing have cruised into many cities around the world, especially as more people are going car-free to save money or live more environmentally friendly lifestyles. And smartphone apps are making it even easier to find available rental cars and rides.

But before you can join in a chorus of car-sharing Kumbaya, you might want some basic information.

In this week’s column, I’ll explain how car sharing and ride sharing work, how to find and access cars and how to address safety concerns. This could be helpful if you need wheels for just an hour or the day, want a ride from someone or want to offer a ride to someone. Just be prepared to pay for the convenience of quickly picking up a car and be aware of the possible awkwardness of riding with a stranger.

Wheeling in Convenience

A spin with some zip: Zipcar lets you pick from a variety of vehicles and choose a membership plan that fits your driving frequency.

Renting a car no longer means going to an airport or rental office to get one. You might be able to find a car a few steps from your front door. This is especially common in cities where services like Zipcar, Car2Go and Enterprise (with its Enterprise CarShare program) let users pick up or drop off cars on streets or in parking garages.

To start, you’ll need a membership with the company, which usually requires a fee, as well as some information like your driver’s license, age, moving violation history (if any) and payment information. The company will send you a membership card, which you wave over a small panel on the windshield to unlock the car and start tracking the time you began using it. Keys are inside and you’ll leave them there when you’re done. To lock the car, just swipe your card on the windshield reader again.

In the case of Zipcar and Enterprise CarShare, cars must be picked up and returned to the same spot and reservations must be made via phone, website or mobile app.

Car2Go uses a looser approach: It lets members pick up cars without a reservation (though you can make one) and it’s designed for one-way rides to anywhere within a designated Home Area. There are no time limits, though a company spokeswoman said the average person uses Car2Go for 30 minutes.

Driving smarts: Borrow one of Car2Go’s fleet of Smart cars and enjoy its free-floating policy by leaving it at your destination for the next driver.

Car2Go charges according to how long you use the car — 38 cents a minute, $14 an hour or $73 a day. Zipcar offers a few plans, some that include monthly fees or annual fees, like $60 a year, as well as hourly or daily charges like $8.25 an hour and $75 a day. Each Zipcar reservation includes 180 miles a day.

Enterprise CarShare reservations include 200 miles a day and hourly or daily fees vary. Washington, D.C., starts at $5 an hour and $76 a day, depending on the model, day of the week and time of day. Enterprise is currently waiving its $25 application fee and $40 annual membership fee for the first year.

These services cover insurance and even gas, offering limited gas cards in the car for people to use and other incentives to encourage drivers to fill up the tank. On the other hand, users can be charged penalty fees for a variety of infringements like returning cars late, smoking in cars or losing car keys.

Car2Go models are easy to spot: All of the company’s cars are Smart cars painted blue and white with the Car2Go logo. The downside of this is you can’t fit much in this tiny car. Zipcar and Enterprise CarShare offer various models, including pickup trucks, so you can choose the right size car for your trip.

The Modern Chauffeur

Along for the ride: UberX, a new member of the Uber family, lets you hitch a ride with professional drivers or regular people who connect to you via its app.

If driving isn’t your thing, you can take advantage of several smartphone apps that bring cars and their drivers to you. Three such companies include Sidecar, Lyft and UberX, which work on the premise that average people can be drivers. (UberX differs from the more well-known Uber, which functions as an order-by-app car service using professional drivers and luxury-car options, while UberX uses a mix of regular people and pro drivers.)

These services work via smartphone apps that let passengers and drivers search for one another, follow routes on maps and even rate each other after the ride. In some cases, drivers can make money according to fees suggested by the services.

Take Sidecar, which operates in six U.S. cities. The app matches you with a driver and sends you a photo of the driver and car as they approach. The ride is tracked using GPS, which you and the driver can monitor on the app. When you arrive at your location, you can pay the driver what you think is a fair price. A suggested fee pops up on your phone’s screen, and passengers are asked to pay what they think is fair. Though you could technically opt to pay nothing at all since the services are for sharing rides, after all.

UberX riders, though, pay a base fare and a per-minute or per-mile fee, depending on rate of travel, before getting out of the car.

Finally, you can rate your driver and your driver can rate you when the ride is finished, encouraging both parties to be on their best behavior.

Street cred: All Lyft drivers get a pink mustache to identify their cars. Do or don’t like your driver? Rate the driver in Lyft’s app.

Of course, safety is a major concern with ride sharing. Sidecar, Lyft and UberX have $1 million liability insurance policies in place for rides. And each conducts strict background checks on its drivers to confirm proper licensing and insurance, and to guard against people with criminal offenses or driving violations. They also interview potential drivers.

If you’re tired of the expensive routine costs associated with taking care of a car, or if you want a more eco-friendly option for getting around town, car sharing and ride sharing offer a fresh twist on traditional modes of transportation.

Write to Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com.

Plenty of people are digital pack rats and proud of it. And why not? With seemingly unlimited remote storage options available free of charge or for a small monthly fee, they can store their digital photos, videos, music and other files in the cloud without worrying about running out of room.

Personal devices are a different story. Smartphones and tablets with limited amounts of storage can quickly fill up with apps, photos and videos, forcing users to delete content on a regular basis.

This week, I tested a gadget that may relieve some of that local storage burden and could serve as a media-sharing godsend on a long car trip: SanDisk’s $100 Connect Wireless Media Device.

This 2.5-ounce gadget measures about the size of a pad of Post-it Notes and holds 64 gigabytes of photos, videos, music or other files. And here’s where it could come in handy in the car: The SanDisk can be accessed by up to eight devices simultaneously, with five of them streaming high-definition video from it at the same time.

The size of a pad of Post-it Notes, the SanDisk lets up to eight devices access the media files it holds.

It’s on back order until next week from SanDisk.com and Amazon. A 32-gigabyte version is available for $80 for people who can’t wait. Both versions have SD memory card slots for expanding their storage.

Several companies have created gadgets that do similar things, including Seagate and Kingston. I found SanDisk’s Wireless Media Device to be a simple solution for quickly transferring data off of a phone or tablet. It also was lightweight and portable and worked well for sharing content to many devices in the same room at once.

The SanDisk device works with a free app that can be downloaded from Apple’s App Store, the Android operating system’s Google Play store or Amazon’s Appstore for Kindle Fire. I successfully tested it on the iPhone, iPad and a Moto X smartphone running Android, streaming high-definition video to the three devices at once without a problem. And I tapped one button to open options for offloading photos from my smartphone to the SanDisk.

The device works with a free app that displays videos, photos, music and other files for sharing and streaming.

In addition to the transfer apps, the SanDisk device has a USB cord that enables transfers to or from a Mac or Windows PC.

As for video playback, you still have to worry about file formats that won’t play on some devices. The iOS app won’t play .AVI or .WMV files, since these are formats created by Windows machines, and Android won’t play .MOV files, which are in Apple’s QuickTime format.

While file transfers from the SanDisk are easy, the process for moving files to it is a little clunky, involving the drag-and-drop method.

One of the most attractive features of this device is that it doesn’t require an Internet connection to stream its content to other devices.

It shows up in a device’s Wi-Fi settings as its own network, and you select it from your device to connect to the SanDisk. This means you can toss it in your bag for a long road trip and let many people access its content at the same time. SanDisk promises it will work from up to 150 feet away, and it did in my house.

You can opt to connect the SanDisk to your Wi-Fi network, which might come in handy in certain circumstances. For example, after I transferred over a dozen Word documents to the SanDisk device from my Mac via USB cord, I opened and read these documents on my iPad with several cloud-based apps, including Microsoft’s Office Mobile and SkyDrive apps, Evernote and Google Drive, without having to connect to the Internet.

The SanDisk takes three hours to fully charge, which it can do via USB from a computer or by using its power adapter. One charge lasts for up to eight hours of continuous streaming. In my mixed-use tests, the battery lasted for well over eight hours. It also has a smart battery feature that turns off the device if it hasn’t been used in 10 minutes.

A single black button on the front edge of the SanDisk turns it on, and three tiny icons glow to represent the battery indicator, the drive broadcasting its Wi-Fi signal and whether or not the drive is also connected to the Internet via your local Wi-Fi network.

As is often the case, this gadget’s corresponding iOS and Android apps looked slightly different and didn’t operate exactly the same way. But both apps use an icon with up and down arrows to represent the way content can be transferred wirelessly to or from a mobile device. Tap this and select content to upload to the SanDisk from your device or to your device from the SanDisk.

The apps’ transfer button moves content to and from your SanDisk and pulls up a Share option, which makes it simple to share digital files with friends via email, Facebook or Picasa — or to copy the files. To use this feature, the SanDisk must be connected to the Internet via Wi-Fi. Photos can be edited and re-saved within the SanDisk app, and several can be played at once using a slide-show option.

My husband and I each have different accounts for storing photos and videos. He downloaded the SanDisk app to his iPhone and easily uploaded a bunch of his photos onto my SanDisk device. Once images were there, I could download the photos onto my Android phone or iPad using the app, or simply look at them. But two attempts to transfer an eight-minute video from my husband’s iPhone failed after a few minutes of waiting.

A SanDisk representative said this may have been caused by the phone going to “sleep,” which stopped the video transfer. The company plans an app update to fix this in coming weeks.

If your mobile device is getting crowded, or if you want a better way to stream content to nearby friends without the hassle of emailing or texting huge files, the SanDisk Connect Wireless Media Device is a smart solution.

Write to Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com.

Sure, people know they shouldn’t use the same password for their online accounts. But the fear of forgetting a password when it’s needed leads many people right back to this bad habit.

This week, I tested PasswordBox, a tool that stores account passwords—using the same level of encryption employed by the U.S. government—and automatically retrieves them whenever you open a website requiring a password. It happens seamlessly, so you don’t have to do anything other than open the website you want, as usual. PasswordBox is free for up to 25 passwords, or $1 a month for unlimited passwords. And it works across devices, so you’ll have an easy time using it on your computers, smartphones and tablets.

PasswordBox even offers a Legacy feature that lets you designate a digital heir, making password-protected accounts accessible to that person when you die. The heir must send the company a death certificate, which PasswordBox’s CEO Dan Robichaud says has happened several times without any problems since the company started offering the feature in 2012. I chose my husband as my heir and he was notified via an email invitation to the service, which he had to accept to complete this authorization process.

PasswordBox installs as an extension in your Web browser, giving you quick access to all of your password-saved websites.

In the next two weeks, the company is expected to launch PasswordBox Wallet, an upgrade for its app on Apple’s mobile devices that will let users store information for government identification cards and credit cards in their PasswordBox accounts. In the two weeks after this update, PasswordBox will offer a free-for-life option for new users, giving them unlimited password storage for life. An Android version of PasswordBox Wallet will be available later this year.

I store passwords in Google’s Chrome Web browser as I go, logging into websites and selecting an option to let Chrome save my passwords. But that method doesn’t work as consistently across all websites as PasswordBox, forcing me to turn to my not-so-secure, old-school solution: a paper Rolodex of handwritten passwords, which I don’t always have with me.

PasswordBox synced all of my saved passwords as I logged into my iPad, Macs, Windows PCs and an Android smartphone. Though it took an extra second to open some websites, it worked well. I set up my account by creating one Master Password, which I used to log in for the first time on my devices. After that, the PasswordBox tool worked like a charm.

One thing I didn’t like about PasswordBox is the way it took over my Google Chrome browser settings. I have my “new tab” browser home-page view set to show Chrome apps, including TweetDeck, NPR, Google Drive, Hipmunk and about 30 others. Once installed, PasswordBox takes over your home page and shows icons of websites that are most popular among its users. This can be turned off by clicking on a small gear icon in the bottom right of the PasswordBox new-tab page and turning off the Enable StartPage option.

If you opt to keep PasswordBox’s StartPage, you can still see your Google Chrome Web apps by selecting a small Apps option at the bottom left of the screen, though these line up in one long, horizontal string and can’t be reordered according to your preference.

Another downside to PasswordBox is that while it works on major banking websites, it didn’t work when I opened my nationally known banking website. A message said, “Unfortunately, this site is not supported yet. Our team is working hard to support it, and it will be coming soon.” A company representative said banking and financial sites are always changing their form fields and PasswordBox uses technology to identify these changes and correct them as soon as possible.

After installing the PasswordBox extension for my Chrome Web browser, I saw a tiny green box appear in the user name and password lines of each website where I logged in. These green boxes serve as reminders that PasswordBox is capturing your passwords and saving them for future use the next time you log into that website. A message at the top of the screen tells you this is being done after you’ve successfully logged into the website account.

If you and a close friend or family member share passwords, you can use PasswordBox to do this with secure encryption rather than sending the password in an email or writing it down. For example, my husband sometimes uses my Amazon account because I can get free shipping with my Amazon Prime account, but whenever he uses it, he calls me to make sure he has the right password.

I selected Share New in PasswordBox, chose my Amazon account from a list and entered my husband’s email address to share its password with him. To accept this, he had to open a PasswordBox account, too, though. At any time, I can see who I’m sharing with and who is sharing with me, and I can select an option to unshare my passwords, too. If I want the actual password letters and numbers to be seen by the other person, I can make it visible, or keep it hidden.

Entering passwords can be nerve-racking, even when you’re browsing the Web on a secure home network. PasswordBox relieves a lot of these security concerns and works with minimal effort.

Write to Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com

“Sit up straight. Put your shoulders back. Don’t slouch.” Chances are good that you’ve heard nags like these from your mother more than a few times in your life.

This week, I tested a gadget that might give mothers a rest. It’s a $150 sensor called LumoBack, from a company called Lumo BodyTech, that straps around your lower waist to track your posture and vibrates whenever you slouch. It also tracks steps while walking and running, standing time, sitting time, sleep positions and sleep time.

I’m nearly eight months pregnant and I’ve been wearing this gadget on and off for several days and nights. If it fits me, one of the band’s two sizes will likely fit you. LumoBack uses Bluetooth to correspond with a free app that runs on Apple’s iOS devices. (An Android version of the app is planned before the end of this year.) The company released a new version of its app on Tuesday, as well as a smaller version of its sensor band, both of which I’ve been testing. The band is sold at LumoBack.com.

LumoBack was comfortable enough that I frequently forgot I was wearing it — at least until it vibrated because I wasn’t sitting up straight. This happened while I typed on my computer keyboard, ate a meal, drove a car, sat in a meeting or while standing and talking to someone. After a week, I viewed LumoBack like eating broccoli: I know it’s good for me, but I don’t necessarily enjoy it. One upside is LumoBack is worn under clothing so you aren’t announcing to the world you’re tracking your movements by wearing something visible, like a sporty wristband.

The LumoBack app tracks and scores your posture with a stick figure (left and center). It compares straight versus slouching time (middle screen above) and measures sitting time (right screen). The sensor and band (above right).

LumoBack’s app with its armless stick figure that reflects your moves on an iOS device’s screen is lovable. The figure turns yellow and frowns when your posture is poor, and turns green and smiles when your posture is good. This illustration helps you know how to adjust your sitting or standing position. But it’s unrealistic to constantly look at a screen to check your posture so most of the times I felt these vibrating nags, I had to guess how to improve my posture.

The first nagging buzz comes after you’ve been exhibiting bad posture for four seconds, then it buzzes again at 11 seconds. If you don’t correct your posture after that, LumoBack assumes you don’t want to be corrected again and stops buzzing. When you change positions, it restarts this count. You can turn the vibrations off, but you’ll probably forget you’re wearing it and your posture will suffer, defeating the purpose. In the next few months, Lumo BodyTech plans to release a coaching component for its app that aims to make the sensor more of a motivational gadget.

For example, notifications will appear on your iPhone that say things like, “You’ve been sitting in that chair for 30 minutes. Stand up for yourself!” Another notification could tell you your posture score is 48 out of 100, encouraging you to try harder to hit your goal of 50 for the day. Speaking of goals, the coming version of the app will set personalized goals for each user. For now, goals are more broad, set using general numbers that combine all users’ statistics.

The band is of stretchy nylon and the sensor, which rests at the small of your back, measures 3.9 inches by 1.6 inches and is 0.3 inch thick. I set up my LumoBack with an iPod Touch by entering my name and calibrated the app specifically for me, which took a few minutes of walking, sitting and standing. I entered my height and weight to help determine calories burned and miles walked in the app’s Steps section.

I was surprised to see how much time I sit during work so I started standing during phone calls to clock more “stands” to get to my daily goal. I was interested to see my sleep positions reflected in the app, which showed how long I slept each night and how much time I spent on my back, right side, left side and front. Data like this is helpful if you’re trying to avoid sleeping in a certain position, like how I’m avoiding sleeping on my back during pregnancy.

I was concerned about wearing a Bluetooth device close to my body for so long. Lumo BodyTech’s co-founder, Andrew Chang, said LumoBack transmits activity around 1 percent to 2 percent of the time during typical usage, and its radiation levels are about 25 times less than a Bluetooth headset.

The LumoBack can store up to a month’s worth of data, so even if you aren’t near your iOS device for transmitting stats, the data recorded by this sensor will be saved for a while, then transmitted when you’re back in range. The sensor’s battery lasts five to seven days, depending on usage, and recharges via an included USB cord that plugs into a computer.

LumoBack or no LumoBack, your mother will probably still bug you about your posture. So save her the trouble: Keep your shoulders back.

Email Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com.

No matter how many features come loaded on a phone, people always ask: Does it come in different colors?

It’s no wonder people are trying to differentiate. They carry these gadgets with them all day, every day, and their smartphones look almost exactly like the ones held by everyone else around them.

Moto X, the $200 phone coming soon from Google-owned Motorola Mobility, aims to change that by using personalization as one of its key components. When buying a Moto X, you are encouraged to walk through steps on MotoMaker.com, an online studio where each phone can be uniquely designed to look exactly how you’d like it to look. And the phone personalization is free. (Read Walt’s review for more on the Moto X.)

This includes choosing from one of 18 back colors, seven accent colors and two front colors. The phone can be inscribed with a custom message on the back. You can choose a black or white charger. And you can preset the phone with your Google ID, one of 16 wallpapers (suggested to match your phone’s colors) and a custom message that appears when you turn the phone on. It can be sent to you loaded with 16 gigabytes or 32GB of storage (a 32GB device costs $50 more).

Motorola Mobility is exploring adding four wooden-back options (teak, rosewood, bamboo and ebony) to Moto Maker by the end of this year and these will cost extra. You can also select accessories, like a matching set of headphones or a case in one of nine colors, also at extra cost.

Moto X will launch on AT&T with all the customization options of Moto Maker. Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile and US Cellular will only have black or white phones, at least to start. AT&T will retain the exclusive rights to Moto Maker for an unspecified period, though Verizon announced that it will offer use of Moto Maker to its customers by the end of the year.

I used Moto Maker to make a phone with a spearmint-green back, metallic-yellow accents and a black front. I chose a white wall charger to match the floorboards in my bedroom where I plug in my phone each night, and chose spearmint in-ear headphones that would match the phone when I used them. I set it up with my name inscribed on the back and my Google account information, so it would arrive feeling like mine, out of the box.

The online studio where phones are built is a delight to use. It breaks down the personalization steps into four categories labeled “Make It Yours,” and lets you skip forward or back throughout the creation process to quickly change your mind as you go. Every screen clearly displays how much the phone will cost and how long it will take to ship to you.

Motorola Mobility vows to ship your phone to you in four days or less, from the minute you submit your order to when you see the package arrive at your door. The company is able to do this because it is assembling phones in Fort Worth, Texas, rather than Asia, though plenty of the phone’s parts come from Asian countries.

People who want to try Moto Maker will have to wait until the Moto X phone is available in late August or early September, and they must be AT&T customers, at least until other carriers get access to this design studio.

Turquoise, with neon-yellow accent around the camera lens, is one of the color options buyers can find at the Moto Maker online studio.

If you’re curious about how the Moto X colors look in person, AT&T stores stock samples. There, you can buy a Moto X redemption card, which you’ll pay for in the store after selecting the phone’s 16GB or 32GB storage size and setting up a monthly plan. The card has a scratch-off PIN, which you’ll enter at Motorola.com/designit. If you receive the phone and don’t like its looks, you can return it free within 14 days.

If you get to the store and find that you like a plainer black or white design, those will be available for purchase on the spot, without any inscription on the back or personalized colors.

To avoid the store altogether, MotoMaker.com will walk you through steps to select a cellular plan or ask you to enter details about your existing plan, and then prompt you to enter billing information.

Certain aspects of the phone’s software, which is Android Jelly Bean 4.2 — not the newest 4.3 flavor — can be personalized to your specifications, too. For example, its Touchless Control uses voice activation to perform tasks, but only responds to your voice after an initial training session. This means that if someone else picks up your phone and tries to use voice-controlled commands, it won’t respond. Another feature on the Moto X that adds a personal touch is Motorola Assist, which lets you tell the phone when you want notifications to come through or not, like keeping the phone silent when you’re in a meeting except for calls from your spouse.

Moto Maker is a draw for people who want a stylish phone that will stand out in the sea of smartphone sameness. It’s a breath of fresh air, and it makes buying a smartphone fun for the first time in a long time.

Write to Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com.

Does size still matter? Just a year ago, Google introduced its Nexus 7, a mini tablet for $199 that posed a real challenge to Apple’s bigger, pricier iPad. Three months later, Apple retaliated with its own small tablet, the iPad mini, though its $329 price wasn’t, well, mini enough for some.

Now, a year after the introduction of the first Nexus 7, Google has unveiled a revamped version of its mini tablet with better features and a slightly bigger $229 price tag.

Starting July 30, this new Nexus 7 is available in a dozen retail outlets including Best Buy, Walmart and Amazon.

I tested it for the past week and found myself drawn to this sturdy, elegant, responsive device from a company once known primarily for its search prowess.

The most notable difference between this new Nexus 7 and the iPad mini is screen quality: The Nexus has a resolution of 1920 x 1200 with 323 pixels per inch, and the iPad mini’s screen resolution is just 1024 x 768 and 163 pixels per inch. It is also slightly lighter than its Apple rival.

So what’s not to like about the new Nexus 7? For one thing, its seven-inch screen isn’t as big as the nearly eight-inch iPad mini’s. While an inch of difference isn’t remarkable, smartphone screens are growing to over five inches, making the Nexus 7 look more like one of those than a tablet.

Another drawback: In my test, the new Nexus 7’s battery life was underwhelming. Compared with the same battery test of the iPad mini and first Nexus 7, it fell short at just six hours; the others clocked in at 10 hours and 27 minutes and 10 hours and 44 minutes, respectively. Google claims the battery life can last over nine hours, but the company tests it in Airplane mode (Internet connection off), with screen brightness set to 44 percent while playing video. I keep Wi-Fi on in the background and screen brightness at 75 percent while playing video.

This new mini tablet comes in two sizes that are Wi-Fi-only: a $229 16 gigabyte model and a $269 32GB model. A version with a built-in LTE Internet connection on Verizon, AT&T or T-Mobile will be available in coming weeks for $349 with 32GB. Meanwhile, Apple’s iPad mini is available in three flavors each of Wi-Fi-only and LTE: 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models ranging in price from $329 to $659.

Sorry, kids, no shopping sprees: The new Nexus 7 allows for different restrictions and degrees of access on each user’s profile.

The new Nexus 7 runs Android 4.3, the latest iteration of Google’s Jelly Bean mobile operating system. While not a major upgrade from the last Jelly Bean release in October, it does add a few new features.

One notable extra is Restricted Profiles. Rather than simply giving you the ability to create multiple user accounts for one tablet, Restricted Profiles allow user accounts with preset restrictions on access to apps and content. I tested this by creating a Restricted Profile named “Pretend Kiddo” in Settings, Users, Add User or Profile. I then went down a list of my device’s apps and switched access on or off, according to what I wanted Pretend Kiddo to be able to access. Certain apps in this list clearly say “This app can access your accounts,” so you know what you’re turning on or off.

Creating a Restricted Profile requires that the primary tablet owner use a lockscreen, so that other users without full access can’t get to everything else. In addition to limiting what the Restricted Profile can access, specific app settings, such as in-app purchases and age restrictions, can also be tweaked.

Another new Android feature allows users to play games against friends while keeping track of their achievements using Google Play Games. This is a lot like Game Center on Apple’s iOS.

The Nexus 7 also caught up to the iPad mini in cameras: It now has a built-in rear-facing camera, unlike its predecessor, which only had a front-facing one. Both iPad mini and new Nexus 7 cameras have the same megapixel counts: Five megapixels on the rear-facing camera and 1.2 megapixels on the front-facing one. Neither device has a built-in flash.

I snapped photos both indoors and outside in natural light, and found the outdoor images looked better, though the inside ones were adequate.

I downloaded and watched movies and TV shows on the Nexus 7, admiring its impressively sharp, colorful — albeit smallish — screen, which I usually kept in landscape view. Built-in surround-sound speakers placed on both ends of the tablet emulated a six-speaker system, giving it a rich tone.

At only 0.64 of a pound, this tablet was lightweight enough to hold for long periods without causing my arm to ache. I also found it easy to prop up on kitchen counters and coffee tables because its back and sides aren’t slippery.

Google’s new Nexus 7 has a lot to offer, if you’re looking for a tiny tablet that packs a punch. If you’re used to a larger tablet screen, its seven-inch screen size might bug you. But for many people, it will make on-the-go gaming, video watching and reading a delightfully portable experience.

Write to Katherine Boehret at katie.boehret@wsj.com.

Without hand gestures we’d never be able to wave to friends, fist bump after our team scores or let the driver of the car in front of us know what we think of him. Gestures can be quite useful in many aspects of daily life, but how useful are they in front of a PC?

This week, I tested a new way to get your hands moving at a Windows PC or Mac by using the Leap Motion Controller. It plugs into a computer’s USB port and rests by a keyboard — wherever you can comfortably gesture. It works by detecting your fingers as they move above it, tracking up to 1/100th of a millimeter of movement. This 3-inch-long, $80 accessory shipped this week to people who pre-ordered it and will be available in Best Buy starting July 28.

The Leap Motion Controller connects to a PC via a USB port and lets users control a machine with gestures in the air.

The $1.99 Sugar Rush Speedway app is available at Leap Motion’s AirSpace online marketplace.

Microsoft’s Xbox Kinect has used similar technology for years, letting people wave their hands in front of TVs to play video games, navigate screens and a variety of other things. These gestures make sense in the living room, where people can lean back on sofas to control the action on their TVs. At a desktop computer, people have a keyboard and mouse or touchpad and are sitting close enough to easily use them. So what’s the point of using gestures with a PC?

According to Leap Motion of San Francisco (no relation to LeapFrog Enterprises, the educational toy company), the Controller isn’t meant to replace the keyboard, mouse or touchpad. Rather it’s meant to improve certain functions for certain computer programs. It might be a real boon to artists looking for a new way to draw by moving their hands and fingers for precise paint strokes, and it works with other objects like brushes and pencils. Some gamers will enjoy this gadget because it makes them feel more immersed in games, and musicians can create songs by gesturing and plucking fingers in the air.

The small, silver device is just hardware until you plug it into a computer and log on to LeapMotion.com/setup, where you can download accompanying software for Windows or Mac PCs. In April, Leap Motion announced a partnership with Hewlett-Packard to embed this device in computers, though it has yet to say when those will be available. In January, the company announced it will ship bundled with Asus, but that exact timing is yet to be announced.

The Controller is a 3-inch device that sits on any side of a keyboard and tracks movement up to the 1/100th of a millimeter. It costs $80.

Though I only used the Leap Motion Controller for a week, I found it challenging to integrate it into my regular computer routine. Its detection technology is extra sensitive, which is great for precise movements but tiring after even a short time because you must hold your hands at just the right position in the air to get them to do what you want.

I installed the Leap Motion Controller on two computers, one running Windows 8 and another running the latest version of Apple’s operating system, OS X. Upon downloading the device’s software, I was directed to find apps in Leap Motion’s marketplace, which is called Airspace. It runs in a Web browser and downloads apps to a separate software program installed on the computer. Like Amazon.com or Apple’s iTunes, Airspace saves credit-card information for one-click purchases. And it syncs downloaded apps in the cloud, so if you install your Leap Motion Controller on many machines (five per account is the limit), your apps will appear on them.

As of this week, over 75 apps for Windows and/or Mac are available for download, with 70 percent available for both Windows PCs and Macs. About 30 percent are free and most cost more than apps in Apple’s iOS App Store.

I got started with the free Corel Painter Freestyle app, which let me move my hand through the air to paint on a blank canvas. I changed brush size and type by lingering over a menu for each option and waiting for a circular shape to form, indicating my selection was made. Another free app called Lotus let me move both hands to create different sounds, a lot like playing a harp.

One game I really liked was the $2.99 Dropchord, which started by placing my two pointer fingers out in the air above the Leap Motion Controller to create a bar stretched across a circle. I moved two fingers to move this bar, selecting circles to gain points and trying to avoid red Xs as they appeared. Club music pulsed in the background as I progressed through various levels in this game.

But after just 10 minutes of Dropchord, my hands were tired.

I downloaded other free games and some that cost money, including a pricey $7.99 game called Paper Football FlickIT. Cut the Rope, which is a favorite game for mobile devices, is free for Windows or Mac, but it was hard getting this game to work well because I had to have my finger hovering in the air in precisely the right place. I’ve played this game for hours on the iPad, where I simply slide my finger across the screen to cut the rope, which was a much more satisfying experience.

Leap Motion offers an app called Touchless that enables gesture controls for interacting with the computer’s operating system to do nearly anything you can do with a touchscreen or touchpad.

Gestures make most activities more fun — in the digital world and in the real world — but until the Leap Motion Controller becomes more deeply integrated into an operating system so it can replace a mouse or touchpad, this gadget will only sate a niche audience.

Email Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com.

The revamped Google Maps app still gets you from point A to point B, but now it is aiming to give people much more along the way.

The company overhauled its app in a way that focuses more intuitively on categories of what you want to do, like Eat, Drink, Shop, Play and Sleep. It has a smart way of encouraging discoveries within these categories that made even me — someone who avoided the discovery features in Google Maps — want to use them. And, yes, it still plots your journey, but now it looks ahead for traffic so it can reroute you mid-trip.

As I tested an early version of the Google Maps app on Android and Apple’s iOS operating system, its striking visual images drew me in. I found there are some real brains behind this beauty, in particular, its Explore feature, which helps you discover spots near to your destination you may not have known about. In fact, it’s designed more for use when you have a few minutes to dig into reviews. I can see myself using this app even when I’m not just getting directions.

Google Maps app now focuses on Eat, Drink, Shop, Play and Sleep categories. The Android and Apple iOS versions will offer nearly the same features.

This Maps app could be real competition for Yelp and other sites like it, especially given its built-in discovery and reviews, which would save people the step of going out to use another website or app.

The new version of Google Maps already started slowly rolling out as an update on the company’s own Android operating system, and it will be available in Apple’s App Store starting Wednesday morning. Unlike previous iterations of Google Maps, which worked differently on Android and iOS, this new version will offer nearly all of the same features on both operating systems, and it will work on smartphones and in a version that is optimized for tablets.

One feature that won’t work on iOS is the rerouting of a trip as you go. Though iOS users will be able to see traffic incidents on their upcoming route, they won’t be able to tap a button for an alternate route to avoid traffic. A spokesman for Google said this will be coming to iOS soon.

The app’s new review system allows for more specific number ratings and shows rich photos of a location.

Google Maps for desktops — found at Maps.Google.com — is also being revamped to tie in with this new app. The two have a similar look and feel, though aren’t the same.

I’ve been using a preview (not final) version of this on my desktop computer for the past few weeks and it’s a little rough around the edges. It crashed several times during my first couple of weeks of use. And it doesn’t include a way to easily share directions with someone, nor does it enable adding more destinations to a route other than the start and end points. Sometime in the next week, Google plans to make this desktop version available to people who choose to opt in and use it.

The reroute feature, currently only for Android users, suggests alternate routes.

Not long ago, Google and its software were better known for their utilitarian designs that simply did a job. The maps in this app look sharper and better labeled. A swipe at the bottom of the map shifts through various search results as the map above shows these results in numbered locations that dynamically change with each swipe.

The app’s Explore cards, which appear when you tap on the magnifying glass icon to start searching for something on a map, are richly colored photos representing the category you’re searching. They even change according to city, rather than offering the same general image for all cities.

I skeptically selected the “Local favorites” category under “Eat” in Explore and was surprised to find several restaurants in Washington, D.C., where I live, that I would gladly recommend to friends — not the tourist traps. The app’s new rating system now uses a more specific number rating, like 3.1 out of five, as well as stars. Zagat reviews are built into many reviews of restaurants and other spots, and brief summaries help you figure out what a place is like in just a few sentences.

If you’ve ever starred or reviewed a place on Google, the app incorporates it into the information displayed in Explore when you start searching a map. If you use Google+, you can see a category called “From your circles” to narrow down search results on a map to show places your friends have visited or reviewed.

The Eat Explore card shows restaurants near a destination.

People who frequent highways will probably get more use out of the new Google Maps app’s rerouting feature than someone like me, who lives and works in a city and doesn’t drive often. In several trips driving through Washington, I never got any suggestions for rerouting. But I was dealing with normal city traffic and I usually found an alternate street to avoid backups on my own.

The reroute feature works by anticipating traffic and displaying a message on a map that says “Faster route now available,” along with the estimated time you’ll save and the route you’ll take. Users can tap “Reroute” or “No thanks.”

I especially liked the tablet version of Google Maps, which makes good use of the wider screen in landscape view. I tested it on an iPad and an Android tablet, and both worked well. I swiped through Explore cards and found several new places I hadn’t thought of visiting, even though I’ve lived in Washington for 11 years.

Google Maps is richer and more engaging than its predecessor. Its content is enough to suck you in so much that it might make you arrive late at your destination, so be sure to add a few minutes to your estimated trip time.

Write to Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com.

I haven’t used a printer in my home for the past decade, thanks mostly to my reliance on digital smartphone and tablet screens, along with limited living space. Though paper printouts are far less valuable than they once were, there are still moments when I like to have something printed, like a backup copy of an airline reservation or a map with directions.

Most people assume they can’t print from a tablet or smartphone because their printers are older and/or aren’t equipped with Wi-Fi capability. This week, I took a closer look at two of the many free consumer-oriented solutions seeking to put that myth to rest: Presto (formerly FingerPrint) by Collobos Software and ThinPrint Cloud Printer by Cortado. They make printing from mobile devices as simple as hitting print on a computer.

Both can print documents from various mobile devices, though Presto is currently limited to working with printers connected to Windows PCs. ThinPrint printers can be connected to Windows PCs or Macs. A Mac version of Presto is expected in August. (Each comes in an enterprise version that costs money and is geared toward office environments.)

These solutions use a sneaky workaround: They work as if they’re simply sending a print job to a computer — and the computer can then print the job because it’s already set up to work with a printer. For example, I press Print on my iPad to get a paper copy of an important email, and the email prints out seconds later because the computer I’ve set to work with Presto or ThinPrint is associated with that printer.

If this concept sounds familiar, that’s because there are existing options from big-name companies that work with and without PCs acting as go-betweens for mobile devices and printers. But these options have their own caveats.

H-P’s ePrint solution enables wireless printing from devices, but only to H-P printers. Apple’s AirPrint solution works with more than 700 printer models from more than a dozen manufacturers, but is limited to Apple’s iOS devices like the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. Google’s Cloud Print is confined to items sent from the Google Chrome Web browser, Chrome OS or Google mobile apps like Gmail and Google Docs.

I found Presto worked more consistently and in more scenarios where people might want to print something. Examples included photos of my newborn nephew, important emails and Web pages from home-decorating websites that I wanted to save. It has built-in support for Google’s Cloud Print, which is handy when printing documents from Google apps (like Gmail or the Chrome mobile browser), Android or the Chrome operating system. This was easy to enable by entering my Cloud Print account credentials in the “Namespaces” tab during setup.

The catch with Presto Home, which is the name of the free version, is that mobile devices can successfully print only to PCs that are running on the same network. For example, my iPad had to be running on the same Wi-Fi network as my Windows 8 PC to print everything out. The Enterprise version of Presto, which costs $30 a month, offers a workaround for this. Another roadblock: If your PC is turned off, like a closed laptop, Presto can’t run.

I downloaded Presto from store.collobos.com to my Windows 8 PC and walked through a few quick steps to get it started. Once this was installed, my devices automatically found the printer (previously set up to work with the PC) as a destination option when printing materials. Presto is compatible with iOS, Android and Google’s Chrome OS.

Meanwhile, ThinPrint is focused more on being a solution for people who use a smartphone or tablet for work-related tasks. It won’t print emails or Web pages, nor does it integrate with Google Cloud Print. But it does print photos quite easily via an app that opens your device’s photos on iOS or Android.

This free app is available in the Apple App Store or Google Play store and must be installed on your mobile device. It offers instructions on downloading a program for a Windows PC or Mac from cloudcentral.cortado.com. Presto avoids needing an app because of its integration with AirPrint and Google Cloud Print.

Unlike the free version of Presto, the free version of ThinPrint lets people print from their iOS or Android devices from wherever they are, so they don’t have to be using the same network as the associated computer. This means if you’re wandering around town and snap a print-worthy photo, you can send it to your printer (through the cloud) using ThinPrint. When you get home, the memorable printouts will be there waiting. If your computer is turned off, the job is held in the cloud and printed the next time that machine is turned on.

Printing isn’t as necessary in our everyday lives as it once was, thanks to mobile devices. It’s often hard to even find the command that sends a document to the printer. But for those rare, vital moments when you just need something on paper, Presto and ThinPrint offer smart solutions.

Email Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com.

Corrections & Amplifications

An earlier version of the Digital Solution had a reference to ThinPrint Cloud Printer that incorrectly said it can print emails.

Until now.

Last Friday, Microsoft released Office Mobile, a free app in the Apple App Store. This mobile version of Office lets you work on something at your desk, like a Word document or PowerPoint presentation, leave your desk and pull up the exact same document on your iPhone later. Any changes you make get saved back to a copy of the document and are there when you open it at your desk again.

This is a significant step for Microsoft, which has watched many of its users, especially younger users, migrate to free cloud-based programs like Google Drive, or to mobile office suites like Quickoffice. I’ve relied heavily on creating and sharing documents with other Google users via Drive for projects like planning my wedding, organizing To Do lists with my husband and coordinating my sister’s baby shower.

Unfortunately, there are many catches to using Office Mobile on the iPhone. If you can get past these, it’s a solid app that does a good job of making you forget you’re working on a small screen. It uses a lot of white space without excess text that would create clutter and its minimal number of icons allows easy access to actions like viewing and editing.

Office Mobile for iPhone app lets Microsoft Office 365 users edit their PowerPoint presentations on the go.

The first thing people should know is that Office Mobile only works for people who have a Microsoft Office 365 account. This cloud-centric, subscription version of Office starts at $80 a year for students using Office 365 University or $100 a year for Office 365 Home Premium users. If you only use a more traditional, desktop-based version of this suite, like Office 2011 or even Office 2013, you can’t use Office Mobile.

Second, it isn’t an iPad app, though you can hit the “2x” magnification button on your iPad to see it in a tablet-sized view with some slight pixilation. The iPhone’s 4-inch screen isn’t too small to use for creating, reading or editing Word documents, but cells of numbers and text in Excel spreadsheets aren’t exactly ideal for the iPhone’s screen.

Third, Office Mobile isn’t available for Android, so anyone who owns, say, a Samsung Galaxy S III or HTC One can’t use this app.

And there are other caveats. Office Mobile for iPhone doesn’t include Outlook, so if you’re a big fan of this email program, you’re out of luck on the go. Also, you can’t create PowerPoint presentations from your iPhone—though you can access and edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Users can also work on Excel spreadsheets in Office Mobile for iPhone.

One purchase of Office 365 allows up to five installations on Windows PCs or Macs and up to five installations on phones, not including Windows Phones, which come preloaded with a more extensive version of Office Mobile. But even though I tested Office Mobile on an iPhone and an iPad, my account only reflected my computer installations of Office 365. A spokesman for Microsoft said this will be updated in the future to show a more comprehensive list of installations.

I signed into my Office 365 account and found all of the documents I saved to SkyDrive waiting for me in this app. (SkyDrive is the name for Microsoft’s cloud-storage system and it synchronizes documents so they reflect recent changes no matter where you open them.) Unlike some competing iPhone office suites, the app only saves documents to SkyDrive, not to the phone itself or other cloud services.

Four quick access buttons get you started with this app: Recent, Open, New and Settings. The Recent panel groups Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents together, yet sorts them into helpful time-related sections like Today, Yesterday, Two Weeks Ago and Older. The Open panel gives you access to SkyDrive or to a SharePoint account, which is Microsoft’s more corporate-focused option for cloud storage. In the New panel, I saw templates like Agenda and Outline for Word and Budget and Mileage Tracker for Excel. Templates like these are especially helpful if you’re creating a document on the go using a small screen like the iPhone.

Word documents are also accessible on the app.

Within projects in Word and Excel, I could tap an eye icon in the top right to change to Outline View or to search for a specific word in the document. Text formats can be adjusted, including highlighting, font size, strikethroughs, bolding and others, but you can’t change a font type. In Excel, AutoSums can be added, charts can be created and cells can be formatted. In a PowerPoint presentation, I edited slide text and browsed many slides at once in the Presentation View. Turning my iPhone into landscape view showed a slide taking up the full screen, while portrait view displayed my speaker notes below the slide—a handy cheat sheet for presentations.

As I accessed documents, any comments I made on them were noted in a small red tab. Tapping on this tab also gave me access to comments from others with whom I shared the document. New projects and edits to existing projects aren’t automatically saved as you go. Rather, when you navigate away from the document, you’re prompted to save changes to your SkyDrive, or simply discard changes.

Office Mobile for iPhone works well—if you meet all of the qualifications to use it. But Microsoft needs to demonstrate its presence on more platforms, including iPads and Android devices, to lure Office users from the many available free alternatives.

Email katie.boehret@wsj.com

After more than a decade of online shopping, it’s still difficult to comparison shop without doing a lot of detective work. People read consumer-product reviews, troll the Web for prices, ask friends for input and create spreadsheets compiling all of these factors.

Part of the Decide.com page for the BOB Revolution SE stroller. The graph shows its Decide Score and its place on the site’s color-coded system. If a product’s score is in the green, Decide suggests buying it. Yellow means a buyer can do better and red means don’t buy it.

This week, I put my feet up and let an algorithm do the work for me by using Decide.com.

This website has two main features that help it tell you whether or not you should buy something. First, it gives products a Decide Score out of 100 points based on user reviews, as well as expert reviews from sources like Consumer Reports. Second, it uses a price-predicting technology to tell you whether or not the price is likely to go up or down in the next two weeks, so you don’t have to go through the frustration of buying something only to see the price drop right after.

Tuesday, Decide.com launched a new category of products that are particularly challenging to buy: Baby & Kids. This category is a significant addition to the site that triples its number of products. Decide.com now covers 135 categories and 2.9 million products. By the end of this year, the company plans to cover 100 million products in every major category found on Amazon.com.

Decide.com launched two years ago with a focus on consumer electronics and gadgets and expanded last year to include appliances and home and garden items. It was co-founded by the same person who created Farecast, which predicts airline ticket prices and was bought by Microsoft for use in Bing Travel.

Its price-prediction technology, which the company claims is 80 percent accurate, works by looking at over 100 factors, including past price trends; seasonality; product life cycle; the number of retailers carrying the item, which reflects price competition; and other market signals.

The bottom line on a car seat.

I happen to be a prime candidate for the new Baby & Kids category as I’m expecting my first child in September. Unlike creating a wedding registry, where I selected items I knew I liked and had used before, I’m intimidated by figuring out which baby products to get. On my first trip to a baby store, I left overwhelmed and teary with hardly anything on my registry, convinced I would select the wrong things.

I got early access to Decide.com’s Baby & Kids category and I’ve been using it as well as the rest of the website for the past two weeks. Compared with other sites that are littered with text, confusing graphics and ads, Decide.com is a breath of fresh air.

People can use Decide.com free of charge to view Decide Scores and up to eight price predictions. For an annual membership fee of $30, you get unlimited price predictions and price guarantees, under which Decide.com pays you via PayPal or a check when the price of something you buy drops within two weeks. An iOS app is available now and an Android app is in the works.

On the downside, not all products have Decide Scores. Instead, they just say whether or not now is a good time to buy. And price guarantees don’t include factors like shipping and tax. You also can’t buy something directly from Decide.com. You must navigate out to another online retailer like Amazon, Lowe’s or Walmart.

Decide limits the amount of information you see on each initial page and circles the Decide Score with a color-coded system of dark green, light green, yellow and red to mean We Love It, We Like It, You Can Do Better or Don’t Buy It, respectively. The scores change daily as the site takes in new reviews, which carry more weight than older ones, and they often change in real time, the company said.

I sprinted through searches for highchairs, carriers, strollers, refrigerators, laptops and kitchen hoods. I especially appreciated seeing all of a product’s user reviews compiled in one neat list. With one click, I could read the highest or lowest ratings.

Users can start a search on Decide.com by typing in their exact product or manufacturer name, like “Ergobaby” or “Samsung.” They can also opt to search by category and subcategory like Baby & Kids—Strollers.

Search results immediately fill the page in a clean grid. And a handy cheat sheet on the left summarizes the page so you know what you’ll find without scrolling through all of the products.

One unexpected perk of using Decide.com: I discovered online websites I didn’t know about like Albee Baby, where I found a good price for an umbrella stroller with a 90 Decide Score; and Appliances Connection, where I found the best price for a new Samsung refrigerator that scored a 91 on Decide.com.

I found a BOB Revolution SE stroller that Decide.com said was at one of its lowest-ever prices. I was fascinated to see the stroller cost $312 at JustKidsStore.com, while the same stroller at Nordstrom cost $449. Decide.com’s price predictor said it was 90 percent sure prices would rise $54 within the next two weeks, so it suggested buying now. A handy chart showed me the price of this stroller over the past two years.

If you see a product you like, but you don’t feel like buying it right then, click an option to set up an email alert. You’ll get email notifications if the prices goes up or down, and you can tell Decide when to send these alerts (daily, only when the price fluctuates or when the price changes by a certain amount).

Decide.com’s frank explanations and clean interface will be a lifesaver to online shoppers, and its new Baby & Kids category will be especially appreciated by expectant mothers like me.

Email Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com.

In today’s tablet market, one device stands distinctly above all others: Apple’s iPad. With this tablet, Apple did what it always does and created an innovative, must-have device in a once-unexciting category.

That was three years ago.

Now, a company that made its name with high-end consumer electronics wants to give Apple a real challenge. Sony’s Xperia Tablet Z runs the latest version of Android, has a 10.1-inch screen and is the thinnest tablet yet, even thinner than Apple’s iPad Mini.

At 1.09 pounds, it’s lighter than the 1.44-pound full-size iPad. This tablet has infrared that turns it into a universal living-room remote control. And just for kicks, it works even when submerged in up to three feet of water for 30 minutes.

The Xperia is only available in models with Wi-Fi connections, as was the iPad when it launched. The models cost the same amount as their comparable iPad models: $499 for a 16-gigabyte Xperia (in black) and $599 for the 32-gigabyte model (in black or white). The Xperia is available in Sony stores, at Amazon.com and other online retailers; it will be in Best Buy stores in July.

With all of its ports closed, the Xperia can work submerged in up to three feet of water for 30 minutes.

Sony has been out of the mobile-technology conversation for a long time, and the Xperia Tablet Z’s design and price position the company to get back in the game if it plays its cards right.

Sony also has a smartphone with the same name in the U.S., the Xperia Z, which is available unlocked (without a carrier) for $630. Kazuo Hirai, Sony’s president and CEO, recently said the phone will soon be available with a carrier.

I’ve been using this new tablet for over a week and it’s a serious rival to the iPad. Its stylish overall design, screen, fast performance, good camera and noticeably high sound quality make it easy to love. The Android OS, called Jellybean, runs smoothly and more thoughtfully than previous iterations of Android. But the Xperia Tablet Z didn’t fare well in my battery-life test. And some people may find the Xperia’s plastic back feels flimsy compared with the sturdy, brushed aluminum back on the iPad.

I own an Android tablet and have tested several others, but I liked the Xperia Z’s physical design best. Its super-thin build and light weight let you tote it in a briefcase or bag without noticing it. The Z’s speaker openings are smartly situated on the bottom and side edges, giving a full, surround-sound effect that doesn’t get muffled when you put it down on a table.

After putting the Xperia through its paces for a week, I decided to test its water resistance. First, I made sure all of its ports were covered with their attached flip-out doors. This included a Micro SD memory-card expansion slot, USB 2.0 port and a headphone output. I submerged the device in a deep sink filled with water for 10 minutes with music playing from it. I could still hear it underwater.

The built-in infrared remote can control multiple components and lets users change channels with a swipe toward the television.

Most people won’t go for a swim with their tablets, but they will use them in places where splashes and spills are a regular occurrence, like the kitchen and bathroom. Even with wet fingertips, gestures and selections on the Xperia screen were still recognized, however inconsistently.

In everyday use, the Xperia’s battery life worked well enough that I didn’t notice a problem. But it came up short in my battery test. I set the screen brightness to 75%, kept Wi-Fi on to collect email in the background and played a loop of video until the tablet ran out of juice. The Xperia Z died after just under 5½ hours; the iPad lasted for nearly 11½ hours.

In my living room, I tested the Xperia Z’s built-in infrared remote by opening a preloaded Remote Control app. Here, I selected my device type and maker, and on-screen controls appeared that I tested to make sure they worked with my LG TV, TiVo and Sony sound system. This took just a few minutes and could come in handy if you use your tablet while watching TV, but most people probably will use it as a parlor trick.

I downloaded Sony’s TV SideView app, which let me enter my ZIP Code to pull up my cable provider’s channel guide to browse currently playing content from my tablet without disturbing the TV screen.

The Xperia Tablet Z, left, has a 10.1-inch screen and is the thinnest tablet yet.

A handsome “Watch Now” view floated images of currently playing programs on my screen, and I tapped on each for more details, including related Twitter feeds. Swiping a box representing the program toward the TV changes the TV’s channel to this show.

The Xperia Z’s 8-megapixel rear camera and 2-megapixel front camera have more megapixels than the iPad’s 5-megpixel rear camera and 1.2-megapixel front camera, though the cameras shouldn’t be judged solely on megapixels. Photos of the Pacific Ocean, friends and beaches looked rich and crisp. As I swiped through photos, each took a little extra time to come into focus, like what sometimes happens on a digital camera.

If you’re an Android fan and you’ve been waiting for a tablet with a great design, Sony’s Xperia Tablet Z fits the bill. Just don’t expect its battery to last as long as the iPad’s.

Write to Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com

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