Podcast: Play in new window | Embed
Tech News and Commentary
Dave and Chris discuss Meta discontinuing desktop apps, Nintendo’s increase Switch 2 sales forecast, Facebook being ruled not a monopoly, and more.
“News Pick of the Week” with Ralph Bond
What if the batteries in future electric vehicles or smartphones could be made with natural ingredients, including elements found in our own bodies, instead of metals and petrochemicals? Our science and technology news reporter, Bond, Ralph Bond, tells us this may someday be a reality.
Read more here.
Jim in Newark, Delaware asked: “I’ve been watching Tubi a lot lately. Why is it that the only ads are for things coming up on Tubi? And the same ones keep coming up over and over again. It’s very rare that they show a different ad. How can they make money when the only ads they show are for their programming?”
Jim, you can call yourself lucky, the complaints about Tubi online seem to be that theyre ruining a good catalog with an unreasonable number of ads. And those are usually real ads!
Tubi has a lot of different types of commercial ads ranging from your regular TV-style commercials, animated pause ads, to skimming the entire UI to promote an event, release, or movie, to even contextual ads that take what is on the screen and display an ad in some way related to that scene.
What youre seeing may be due to what youre watching, where you are, how they have classified you as a viewer, or just dumb luck, but if youre not seeing a lot of annoying product commercials, you seem to be one of the lucky few Tubi viewers in your position.
Enjoy it while you can, it doesnt seem to be common at all.
Ernesto in Miami asked: “What is a good vacuum, self-cleaning that mops, for a house?”
Ernesto, this market has grown significantly in recent years and there are more options than there used to be.
Back in the day you wouldve been looking at a regular Roomba and a Braava. You can still go with iRobot and have a Roomba/Braava pair do the job for you, these days theyre smart enough to work in tandem if the models are both relatively new.
Having said that, you can also look at other brands like the Roborock Qrevo which will automatically dock itself and empty its vacuum container, refill its water and dry its mop pads, and at $600 will likely cost you less than even one modern iRobot cleaning robot, let alone both.
The eufy X10 Pro Omni will also vacuum (and eufy brags about its 8,000pa suction power, so we assume its a lot, probably), it will also clean itself, refill itself, dry its pads with hot air, but it will cost you more at about $900.
If its a concern to you, keep in mind that these devices also record data about your house and their manufacturers sell that data.
Famously, not too long ago an engineer noticed that his iLife A11 vacuum was constantly sending logs to its manufacturer. He blocked it from sending that data on his network but continued to allow it to call home for firmware updates.
After a while it stopped working and when he took it apart and examined it he discovered it was running Android Debug Bridge and it could be accessed without any password, it was also running Google Cartographer to build a detailed map of his house that it was attempting to upload to the manufacturer, and he discovered that after he blocked the vacuum from being able to upload data on his network the manufacturer had turned on a kill switch and that was what had disabled it.
After flipping it himself it started working again.
You have to wonder what the manufacturer is doing with that map that makes not getting that data worth killing the vacuum cleaner remotely.
When you participate on the show – anytime 24/7 – and we HEAR you with any consumer tech question, comment, help for another listener, tech rage or just share your favorite App these days … you could win prizes.
Brondell: Pro Sanitizing Air Purifier – Removes dust, dander, pollen, smoke, and airborne viruses ($800 Value)
gekogear: AIRFLUX 300 Car Jump Starter with Air Compressor
Soundcore: Space One Pro Wireless Noise Canceling Headphones
Birdfy: Wi-Fi Bird Feeder Camera with Ai recognition of over 6,000 species
All CALLERS — using the AUDIO option on our Free App or 1-800-899-INTO(4686) – automatically qualify to win prizes.
Audio archived for at least 6 months