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Tech News & Commentary
James in Cleveland, Ohio asked: “We have a wireless home network and I just bought a new laptop. We both access, my wife and I. But she’s having problems on her Gateway with Windows XP since I connected. Her question is, is my laptop causing her problems or not?”
No, you’re in the clear here … WiFi networks are designed to be able to handle far more than 2 devices at the same time, even if they’re right next to each other, and don’t require the user to do much to make the devices play nice with each other either.
The only way you could really be causing a problem for your wife is if you had both manually set your computers to use the same IP address, but typically, if you know enough to manually set IP addresses, then you’ll know enough not to set two machines on the same network to the same address, if you don’t know enough, then you’ll let the network assign you an address automatically.
Assuming you didn’t touch the IP settings for both computers, her problems should be unrelated to your computer being on the network, in fact, her computer may just be getting old, XP Professional came out over a decade ago!
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
“Into Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager
Nathan in Longview, Texas listening on 710 KEEL asked: “I have a question about what type of cell phone to buy. Whether it be a Apple or Android?”
That’s all a matter of personal preference. All we can really do is give you our opinions of what we like better. It’s a lot like choosing a girlfriend. What works for one person, might not work for another.
Chris, for instance, prefers the iPhone. And to be fair, it’s probably just because he has used it for years and is comfortable with it. When he first started using it, he found it easier to learn iOS than when he tried learning Android. Others may feel differently.. The main reason I went with the iPhone when I did was the Apps and music. I already owned an iPod Touch. I was able to use the music and apps that I had already purchased from Apple, on the iPhone.
iPhones give you an overall easier end user experience, all apps follow the same standards, everything you need is always visible to you, there’s no menu key you need to press to display any hidden features, and the phone is generally very stable and high quality.
Androids give you more flexibility, if you don’t like your stock text messaging app, then you can install another one and make it the default one that will always open when you ask to send a text, you don’t like the way your pictures are displayed? install a new photo gallery and it will open from any app that would normally open the one that came with the phone (like the camera app).
Less thought seems to go into the design of some Android phones, though, so if you buy a high end one, you’ll probably have a good experience, if you buy a low end one it will probably have either awkwardly placed buttons, or a camera with a 12 megapixel sensor but a lens so bad all the pictures come out looking funny, or some other seemingly great feature that ends up being a disappointment.
With Android research matters more, if you buy an iPhone it will be an iPhone, it may or may not be the newest one, but it will work well, with Android your choice of phone matters a lot and affects everything from build quality to the design of the user interface.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Guest in this hour:
Wiebo Vaartjes, General Manager, Philips Lifestyle Entertainment – Philips
Philips is obsessed with sound and is making products for you to hear “music as it’s meant to be heard.” Learn about their high-fidelity line of products.
“IFA History Feature” brought to you by Messe-Berlin
At the beginning of the last century, something absolutely stunning was invented: people could talk in a room somewhere, and somewhere else, other people could hear it. Music could be listened to which was played in a concert hall in another city. Radio transmission was born. But how to receive it somewhere else, through the air? Complicated equipment had to be developed, and it had to be shown to the people. So the idea of an exhibition was born. It should become the mother of all electronic shows. On December 4th, 1924 the Big German Radio Show premiered, that show is known today as the Internationale Funkaustellung, or IFA and shows off a whole lot more than just radios these days.
That’s this week’s IFA Update brought to you by Messe-Berlin. Be sure to visit IFA-Berlin.com.
Lynette in San Jose, California listening on KLIV 1590 asked: “I’m looking for either a Blu-ray device that has the streaming capability but also has the accessibility portion that will read the menus, since I am visually impaired. I heard the Apple box does that, but unless you have a TV that’s accessible, that doesn’t work. Do you know when Apple is going to have their TV out, or do you know any other products that will work so I can get Netflix streaming and be able to access the menus on the Blu-ray player so I can play descriptive videos.”
We know nothing about Apple’s TV, it may come out or may not, so far it’s been nothing but rumors. But, the AppleTV that is actually out, the box you plug into your TV, does come with accessibility options for blind and low vision users and, as far as we can tell, you don’t need a special TV to access those features, just the player is enough.
AppleTV, like most other Apple products comes with VoiceOver, so it will read through the menus and let you adjust some comfort settings, such as how fast words are read. Generally speaking, it seems to be very well liked by the blind community, so it may be an option for you as a streaming machine, but it will not play Blu-ray movies.
If you were just looking for a Blu-ray player to use exclusively as a streaming machine, then AppleTV will work for you, but if you’re actually interested in playing Blu-ray discs on it, then it’s not the device for you.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Bryan in San Antonio, Texas listens to the podcast asked: “I’m looking for a set of hearing protection earmuffs that I would use while operating lawn equipment. However, I want them Bluetooth stereo A2DP-enabled, so I can listen to music from an Android phone or iPhone. I would appreciate your help, as the ones I found seemed to be only for phone calls and not A2DP-enabled.”
There are several protective headsets that you can use that have Bluetooth built-in, none of them are really cheap, and the only one we found that is totally geared towards music is the Sennheiser PXC 360 BT, those will cost you around $300 online, but we’d expect Sennheiser headphones to sound good.
Like you found out, there are several other headphones that are bluetooth enabled, like the 3M Peltor Bluetooth Headset line, but they seem to be geared towards communication first and foremost, so they may not provide the most flawless music quality, if they allow it at all.
If you just want the sound to be muffled and you don’t need to worry about construction site level noise, you can try regular Bluetooth noise canceling headphones, you can find those from companies from Philips to Sennheiser and they’re usually a couple of hundred dollars and up.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Bobby in San Diego, California asked: “When is the iPhone 5 coming out? What is the date? I believe it’s in June.”
There have been no official announcements from Apple yet. All the rumors we’ve been hearing are just that… rumors. We know it’s coming. We just don’t know when. And of course, after they came out with the new iPad… chances are, this won’t be called the iPhone 5. It’ll probably just be the new iPhone. Of course, nobody knows what Apple is thinking or doing so you never know.
After doing some research, we found that Apple had released a new iPhone every year around June or July. The only exception was when Apple released the iPhone 4S, which hit the shelves in October. Whether that was planned or Apple just ran late with the release is unclear. Given their history with all the previous iPhones, it’s a safe bet you can expect the same result for the next iPhone.
Tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast for more details.
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This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Creative: Live! Cam Connect HD — Webcam that records 720p video
Planon System Solutions: A couple of SlimScan SS100 Credit Card Sized Scanners
Scott Steinberg: Copies of his new book “The Modern Parent’s Guide to Kids and Video Games”