HOUR 1:
Tech News & Commentary
John in Monroeville, PA listening on WMNY 1360 AM asked us: “Is it possible to get local radio stations on the iPad from — like say Pittsburgh, PA; Richmond, VA; and your station?”
Our show can be heard anytime – 24/7 – by downloading our FREE Into Tomorrow app that works great on your iPad. There is a button that will allow you to listen to our 24-hour stream. We repeat the last 5 shows, so there’s never a shortage of Into Tomorrow. Our new show streams every Sunday from 2-5pm Eastern time.
As far as local radio stations, that all depends on a couple things. First, who owns them. A lot of broadcast companies have apps that will allow you to listen to any of their radio stations. For instance, Clear Channel has an app called “iHeartRadio” that will let you listen to any Clear Channel Station. Beasley Broadcasting has one called “iRadioNOW”.
Browse through the App store and search for “radio station apps”. You’ll probably find what you’re looking for.
For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
Andrew in Merryville, Missouri listening on KMA
99.1 FM asked: “I was wondering how the wireless chargers worked for
the new phones. Like for the iPhone and the Androids. How they can
charge the battery without any wires. And is this going to be able to
be transferred to any other technology, like car batteries or something
like that?”
The wireless transmission of energy is common in much of the world,
radio waves are energy and people use them to send and receive cell
phone calls, TV, radio and WiFi signals everyday. For example,
something as simple as an electric toothbrush recharges through 3
simple steps.
First, a current from the wall outlet is directed into the charger and
into the base coil with an electric wire. When the current flows
through the base coil, the coil generates a magnetic field which in
turn induces a current to flow to the coil in the toothbrush handle.
This charges the toothbrush battery.
This is the same power transmission principle that is also used for
other products like Powermat, a recharging mat, which we’ve talked
about on the show. These products have built-in coils capable of
inducing current flow in the coils of nearby devices that have
compatible coils and the circuitry needed for power transfer.
In terms of how they are operated, it’s really quite simple. The device
to be charged must have a back plate that is compatible with the
charging mat. Some new devices are coming right from the factory with a
back plate like that, while others require that you replace the
existing one with a new version made for the particular charging mat
you’ve chosen. Or, in many cases, just put a new cover over the device.
For that reason, it’s very important that before you purchase a
charging mat you first check whether the device or devices you want to
charge are supported. You should also see whether the replacement back
plates — or new covers — are included with the mat or need to be
ordered separately.
So it’s not magic. Just conductive backplates and a clever mat! As for
your question of whether we’ll see that on car batteries, I don’t think
that will happen anytime soon. Imagine the amount of power floating
thru the air, that would be needed. *I* wouldn’t want to risk walking
thru that power field, thanks anyway.
Just some useless trivia that our Director of Research Horacio
uncovered: Nikola Tesla was lighting bulbs wirelessly in the early
1900s using electrodynamic induction.
For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
Facebook friend Trevor in Alaska asked: When you guys are traveling around the world, how do you charge your phones and computers? Is all of Europe on the same electrical system? Or is each country different?”
Great question. Almost every country or continent uses different power and plugs. In Europe, for example, power output is 240 volts. Computer and phone chargers generally can take up to 240 volts. (Just take a peek at the writing on the plug itself). But, you’ll need to use a plug adapter to plug-in to the wall outlet. They have different plugs.
There are some things you can’t charge or plug-in without a power converter or voltage converter. You have to downgrade 240 volts to 110, which of course, is the standard in America. We usually carry a converter called “Terminator” that we picked up in Dubai, but you can find some in electronics stores like Radio Shack. Prices may vary from $20-$80 or more.
Tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast for more details.
Jim in Idaho listening on KBLI 1260 AM asked: “Looking to buy a new HDTV. I have one now, but want a newer one. One time I saw the speed at 60Hz and then 120Hz. I’m pretty sure I saw a 240Hz. Now, I’m looking at televisions and wondering what happened to it and why it’s not there anymore.”
For those who don’t know the 60, 120 and 240hz refers to the refresh rate of the High Def television sets. In physics, a hertz is just a unit that is used to measure cycles per second, and that’s all it really is, what 60 hertz actually means is that the TV screen is refreshed … 60 times every second, 120hz means it’s refreshed 120 times every second, 240hz means 240 refreshes a second, and so on.
Most TV viewers don’t really notice a huge difference between the 60hz sets and the 120 and 240s, but the higher the refresh rate the crisper the picture should be. Some people will swear by their 120hz sets, specially sports fans and action movie lovers, and people generally notice more of a difference between 60hz and 120 than they do between 120 and 240.
Now, as for not finding the hertz on new TVs, it’s probably up to the store, but in our experience that information is still posted by most vendors, online.
For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
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 1 of our podcast for more details.
Rickey in Columbus, Ohio listening via the podcast asked two questions: “I have a netbook from work and I need to reload WinXP on the Netbook. Obviously, the netbooks don’t have an optical drive. I’m using an external CD drive, but it fails during the installation process. What can I do to fix that?
Second Question: I have 2 iMac G5s that I’m trying to restore the OS on. Where can I get my hands on a copy of Mac OSX that would be supported by them?”
You didn’t really say how it wasn’t working for you. Is it failing to read the disc? That might be a bad drive. More likely, I think, it’s not able to boot from the external drive (many computers can’t boot from a USB CD drive and Windows XP requires a reboot as part of the installation process). You might be able to use a USB flash drive, though.
Before you can install Windows XP from a flash drive, you have to prep the flash drive from a computer that has a working installation of Windows XP on it. If you don’t have such a computer, then you can’t use the flash drive, and you’re back to an external optical drive (but many of those won’t work because the computer will refuse to boot from them).
You can find instructions on prepping the flash drive at this two links: OCIA and TechRepublic, but in the meantime we also want to ask whether you’ve checked for a reinstallation partition on the hard drive? On a Dell netbook, for instance, you can press F8 while it’s booting, select the Repair option, then the Reload Factory Software, and you’re all set. Other manufacturers are different, of course.
About the second question: iMac G5s will run any Mac OS X that supports PowerPC processors. That means that you should be fine running anything up to Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard), but you won’t be able to run the latest Mac OS 10.7 (Lion) on them. You can still find Leopard online. We found it on Amazon for you, click here to go to it.
For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
The “Into Tomorrow” team discussed the latest apps that they
have been playing with recently.
- For Android:• Dave recommends: The Delta Airlines App• Mark recommends: PowerAmp
- For iPhone/iPad:Rob is in love with PhotoBooth on his iPad 2 and recommends the following apps as an alternative, if you don’t have an iPad 2: PocketBooth … IncrediBooth … or Photo 1-2-Chris recommends: Vevo
Tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast for more details.
What are your favorite apps?Let us know!
Guest in this hour:
Jeff Fox, Technology Editor – Consumer Reports
Facebook says you must be over 13 to join their site, while millions of kids under the age of 10 are joining. Is that a problem? Jeff joins us to discuss their latest findings about this popular social networking site.
George in Lexington, Kentucky listening on WLRT 1250 AM asked: “There’s a link that keeps popping up on my Facebook News Feed that says ‘I can see who’s been viewing my profile.’ I’ve been afraid to click it because I’ve heard of a lot of viruses on Facebook. Can you really see who is viewing your profile on Facebook?”
It’s probably a good thing that you didn’t click on it. It probably IS a virus. Facebook doesn’t allow people to track who views their profiles or content. Third party applications are also unable to track anybody. Basically, it cannot be done because Facebook doesn’t allow it. Applications that claim to be able to do this don’t work because Facebook makes it technically impossible for them to do it. Of course, with tech, nothing is impossible, so one day . . .
Facebook has a statement about this issue on its Help Center page. It says: “Facebook does not provide a functionality that enables you to track who is viewing your profile, or parts of your profile, such as your photos. Third party applications also cannot provide this functionality. Applications that claim to give you this ability will be removed from Facebook for violating policy. You can report applications that provide untrustworthy experiences by clicking the “Report Application” at the bottom of the application’s About page, or by clicking “Report” at the bottom of any canvas page within the application.”
If you have been affected by a scam of this type, you should remove the app from your profile by going through “Privacy Settings” and clicking “Edit your settings” in the App and Website section. From there, you can scroll to the app in question and delete from your profile.
You should also delete any posts the rogue app has made on your Wall or your friends’ wall.
For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
Harry in Port Huron, Michigan listening on CKLW 800 AM: “I know that Windows Phone 7 devices, iPhones and Android phones are here. But, I need instead, a cell phone/computer that will work with regular Windows 7. I want to be able to run everything I use on my laptop, but I also want to use it as a cell phone. Does something like that exist? All I know is, when I call all the companies that make computers or cell phones, all the people tell me, ‘Harry, I want one of those too.’ Someone has got to make something like this!”
“We want one of those, too!”
Unfortunately, such a thing does not exist. When you see people walking around with modern day smartphones, what you’re seeing are our baby steps toward what you’re looking for. However, it’s a long way off.
Think of the battery that powers your laptop. Next to your phone, that battery is almost certainly larger than your phone, your laptop’s processor is probably about a quarter the size of your phone, its RAM modules are probably almost half the size of your phone … we could go on for a while. But, the power needed to run those types of programs is not yet available on a device the size and price of a phone. In fact, look at netbooks. You can find some for little more than the price of a smartphone. They still can’t run everything you run on a regular laptop, let alone desktop. And, their battery life under normal use is usually under 10 hours (that’s with a big battery).
And then, there’s the user interface. The Motorola Atrix likes to pretend it’s a laptop and will let you run Firefox and a few other apps on a laptop sized screen. And, even it, in all of it’s dual-core glory, won’t be able to run Windows 7 efficiently. Motorola had to compromise and give users an expensive laptop-like dock so that users could take advantage of the phone’s functionality via a user interface that made sense. Imagine having 3 Firefox windows and an email client open, all on a screen that’s not much bigger than a credit card.
What modern day smartphones try to do is not to put a full featured PC in your pocket, nor could they do that. They put some select, very useful PC applications (such as email, web browsing, maps, basic games, simple note taking) in your pocket and customize them to be easy and pleasant to use on a small screen. You can do amazing things with today’s smartphones: you can do your taxes, do very simple video editing, read and edit documents, but they are not full featured computers. Give smartphones a chance though, you’ll be amazed at how much they can do.
By the way, Harry, if size is not a concern you can use your laptop as a phone. Just sign up for a service like Skype (where you’ll get unlimited calls to all of the US for under $10 a month), sign up to a mobile broadband service and you’re set! You just made a Windows 7 cell phone, albeit it one with a pretty lousy battery life and a size that makes it less than convenient to carry around in your pocket…
For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
“Wireless Update” Weekly Feature with Chuck Hamby
Bob in Venice, FL listens online and asked: “Anyone heard of and/or had any experience with a program called “Pareto Logic Driver Cure”?? Stumbled into it while running some security clean-ups, when a screen from Microsoft popped up which induced me to continue with a free program to scan for driver problems, etc. I did continue, and the scan revealed a host of problems with the recommendation to continue with a partner of Microsoft, Pareto Logic..etc, etc….leading finally into the requirement to buy their program at about $49 ”
Mark has had personal experience with the program listed in this email. It was loaded on to one of the computers at work, and like most of its kind — did more harm than good. Web browsers have become secure enough that web sites can’t sneak software on to your computer any more. Now the emphasis has shifted to tricking you into inviting software on to your computer. It’s human engineering.
For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
C.Crane: Several Super USB WiFi Antenna
Endangerbles: Several music CDs to help children learn about endangered species
Lynda.com: 1-year premium gift subscription – You’ll have access to all of Lynda.com instructional videos, on hundred of topics.