HOUR 3:
Tech News & Commentary
Craig in Moreno Valley, California listening on the Android App asked:
“I’m a big Android fan, but was recently thinking about going to an iPhone. Big disadvantage for me with an iPhone would be the battery, not being able to change it. I work at a job for 8 hours and use my Android phone to stream podcasts and listen AM Sports radio all day through headphones. I go through 3 batteries with my Android. So, not being able to replace an iPhone battery would be a killer for me. Unless it works all day for 8 hours. Do you think Apple iPhone will ever go to a replaceable battery?”
with Apple you never know, they may change their minds tomorrow and come out with an iPhone with accessible, replaceable batteries, but we’re going to make an educated guess and say: No, you probably won’t see an iPhone with a replaceable battery.
Here’s why we think that: Out of their whole product line up: iPhones, iPods, iPads, laptops, everything that has a battery inside, how many of them have easily accessible and replaceable batteries? as far as we know: 1, the Apple remote control… Even the new MacBook Pros don’t have an easily accessible battery anymore!
The iPhone has a decent battery life and it would normally run fine for 8 hours, but 8 hours of constant internet access might be too much to ask…
There is a potential solution though, there are plenty of external batteries out there that can help you extend your phone’s battery life, have a look at the mophie juice pack, or the BluePack S2 and see what you think.
There are plenty of other options, if you don’t mind something a little bigger, the ZaggSparq can take your phone from empty to full 4 times before running out of juice, but it is a little larger and it might bother you to have to carry it around all day every day, the PowerMat Dual 1850 is compact and pretty powerful, and you don’t need to charge it with a PowerMat if you don’t have one, but you’ll probably pay a premium for the having option to comfortably charge it by just setting it down on a PowerMat.
Have a look at your options, but we would advice you against waiting for an iPhone with replaceable batteries because Apple seems to be moving in the complete opposite direction.
Tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast for more details.
“Into
Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark
Lautenschlager
We asked our Social Media friends: Do you give your tech devices a nickname? If so, what do you call them and why?
Here are some of the responses we shared on the show:
Rochelle wrote: “No, only when my Blackberry locks up I call it “piece of $hi+.”
Max wrote: [He calls his computer] “madmax”
Rose wrote: iPenguin Phone, iPenguin Pad, iMac Pro, why? Because I can!
Scott wrote: “Didn’t ‘name; it, but used to frequently call my old laptop a “dumb @$%&@$”.”
StarFortress wrote: “I do name all of my computers, after role playing game characters of mine. Desktop named Allyson after matriarch of Jordan clan, always best computer in the house. Husband Keith is the second best comp.”
Tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast for more details.
Guest in this hour:
Jordan Schwartz, CFO – LOREX Technology
LOREX Technology develops video monitors and security camera systems which are designed for do-it-yourself installation.
“IFA History Feature” brought to you by Messe-Berlin
Transmitting pictures is a very old dream of engineers. Already in 1883 Paul Nipkow, a German engineer, developed the basic idea of a disc with tiny holes which could break a picture into several pieces. The Nipkow disc, patented in 1884, became the basis of all future television technologies. In 1897 the German engineer Ferdinand Braun invented the cathode ray tube. He had no idea that he had created the basis of a future mass medium. Hundreds of millions of these tubes, CRT in short, became the core display of television sets for about a hundred years and were the star of IFA for decades.
That’s this week’s IFA Update brought to you by Messe-Berlin. Be sure to visit IFA-Berlin.com.
Group Discussion: Apple vs. Samsung! We asked our Facebook friends for their opinions on the lawsuit:
Here are some of their replies:
Josh wrote: “ugh, copycats…”
Victor wrote: “They may need a royalty every time someone eats an apple.”
Duane wrote: “I think your Facebook type looks exactly like mine … at burger king, how do I know if that’s … oh never mind :)”
Amy wrote: “I thought of “into tomorrow” when I was kid, so your show is my idea”
Mark, based on his experience in the software industry, believes that the lawsuit is just Apple attempting to push vendor Samsung into giving them a better deal, and when that happens the lawsuit will go away.
Tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast for more details.
Patrick from Flintville, Tennessee asked :
“I have DirecTV and I am looking for a DVR expander. What I was wanting to know is, can I buy a standard external hard drive (such as a 2 terabyte Western Digital MyBook Essentials) and hook it up, and it will work, or do I have to buy a “DVR Expander” version? What OS is an expander?”
Probably not, but you can get one that will! It turns out DirecTV DVRs will refuse to work with USB drives, now, give the same drive an eSATA port and things change. So, what you’d need to get then is an eSATA drive. No problem, you spend $100, and problem solved, right? Not so much…
Getting a random eSATA drive online would probably do the trick, BUT… this drive will be hooked up to your DVR, right next to your TV, and the average external hard drive sounds like a baritone dentist’s drill… That may be an exaggeration, but the spinning hard drive is loud enough to bother most TV watchers.
What you need is either a perfectly quiet SSD, which will cost you a lot and may not be compatible with the DVR, or a quiet enclosure with a very large fan that spins very slowly, thus cooling the drive without sounding like a root canal’s in progress.
Now, here’s where the problem comes in, if you pay for a drive already sold in this enclosure, you’ll have a “DVR expansion drive”, which roughly translates to “we paid an extra $5 for the box, so we’re charging you an extra $50” or, you’ll have to build it yourself…
Building it yourself is really not that hard, you pretty much just get the hard drive, get the case, connect a few wires and screw it shut, and it will save you some money, but it probably won’t be gigantic savings, so look at all your options in case you find that buying a prebuilt drive from someone who isn’t associated with DirecTV isn’t that much more expensive, or at least not expensive enough to make you want to attempt a DIY job.
One thing to keep in mind: there is a sequence to installing a DVR expander on DirecTV DVRs, whichever one you get make sure you:
1) First unplug your DVR, then plug in the eSATA cable
2) Then turn on the expansion drive (the one you’re connecting to the DVR)
) After that one is on and ready to work turn the DVR back on.
If you don’t do it in that order the expansion drive won’t be recognized, because the DirecTV DVR will only look for it when it’s booting up.
Here are some links that may help you: Pre-Built DVR Expanders, How to Build Your Own DVR Expander
Tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast for more details.
Norman in Jacksonville, Florida asked :
“I was looking online for a Blu-ray player for my Wife. I saw that it was Wi-Fi capable. Why does a Blu-ray player have to get online?”
it doesn’t really have to get online, but there are two reasons for allowing it to get online:
1) Some Blu-ray discs may come with extra features that require internet access,
… and most importantly …
2) Giving your player internet access allows it to look for firmware updates and download them.
The reason this is important is because the updates aren’t always minor fixes that you won’t notice, sometimes they actually fix major functionality problems. For example, recently, Samsung had to scramble to fix two of it’s Blu-ray players because, even though they played older movies, they would refuse to play some newer ones… unfortunately one of the “newer ones” it wouldn’t play was Avatar, pretty much the most anticipated Blu-ray release to that date.
Now, if you don’t have Wi-Fi or would prefer spending less money for a Blu-ray player with no WiFi capabilities the manufacturer will probably include other means of updating it’s firmware, so don’t rule out a player because it doesn’t do WiFi.
Tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast for more details.
If you have any questions about any of this week’s show info,
please email us here.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
iolo: Several copies of System Mechanic – Fix & speed-up your PC, Automatically
SmartShopper Electronics: Several SmartShoppers — Electronic Grocery List Organizer
ZAGG: A variety of goodies, including: ZAGGsparq battery packs, ZAGGMate iPad cases, dual USB 2.0 in-car chargers & XL gadget wipes.