Podcast: Play in new window | Embed
Tech News & Commentary
“This Week in Tech History” Weekly Feature with Chris Graveline
John in Bridgewater, New Jersey Calling in via the App sent us the following comment: “I was listening to last week’s show. Was very happy to hear you recommend the VLC Player. Also wanted to talk about the Kindle Fire TV. I think it’s going to be the “go to” device to let you stream to your TV. Thought of another great use for it. Use it in the car so your kids can stream their Amazon Prime content onto the screen. We have a Honda and I can plug stuff into that. Hopefully when we get something newer, it’ll have a better connection than the RCA that we have now.”
Thank you, John.
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Guest Segment:
Sean Ebersold, CEO – Energy Bionics
inspired by nature and leverage the latest in technology to develop high tech wearable micro power solutions.
CEA Update with Samantha Nevels
You might know Tuesday is Earth Day, but did you realize that all of April is Earth month? Samantha Nevels with the Consumer Electronics Association has some advice on how to live green, buy green, and recycle responsibly in this week’s CEA Update.
Bob in Chicago, Illinois listens Online asked us: “I was wondering what the Raspberry Pi can do and if it’s capable of running a Minecraft server or a web server.”
Bob, The Pi can do a lot… it’s not super powerful, but for the price you get a pretty capable machine. It’s been used to build ultra portable computers, to control home automation using Siri, to control small robots and quadcopters… it’s a very versatile little device.
As for running a Minecraft server or a web server, yes to both. The Pi can handle a web server without much trouble at all, it should work pretty well, you will obviously need a more powerful computer for a serious, high traffic website, but if it’s only getting a handful of visitors and you don’t mind the downtime when you restart it, or if the power or internet go out, then it should be able to handle the work easily.
The Minecraft server will stress it more, you will have to set it up in a way that will allow you to squeeze more power out of it, so be ready to overclock it and install the latest version of Java on it.
Once you’ve done that, though, it should be able to run a Minecraft server pretty well, again, it won’t be able to handle thousands of users, but it should work pretty well for you and your friends.
We should warn you that you will probably have to do a lot of shell configuration, it will be command line setup rather than windows based, so be prepared for that.
The issue with the Raspberry Pi is that, by itself, it does nothing. It’s a little single board computer that is capable of connecting with input and display devices, but it’s just the starting point. By the time you add in everything it takes to make a working computer out of the Raspberry Pi, you will have spent around $250 and that would be for a 700 MHz computer with 512MB of memory and 32GB of SD card storage. Frankly, there are better deals.
Which is not to say that a Raspberry Pi is useless. It’s an excellent device to use as a controller with your engineering projects, but you have to be an engineer to know how to use it that way. It’s just NOT a piece of consumer electronics.
And as for that Minecraft server? Yes, technically it could run one. But the amount of memory, disk storage, and processor power required to run Minecraft smoothly isn’t there with the Raspberry Pi. Our guess is you’d spend a lot of time hacking at it only to wind up with a server that lagged you to death in a pool of lava or under a pile of creepers.
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Gary in Santa Maria, California asked us: “Where can I find what the new iPhone 6 looks like?”
Gary, Unfortunately the official design and specs of the iPhone 6 have yet to be released. There are endless amounts of rumors claiming to know the design, but they’re just rumors. One rumor states that the screen will be a lot larger but I guess we’ll have to just wait until the official design from Apple is released. [JP]
Trying to decipher which of the speculative sources are the most reliable ones is the game we all play, though, and as time goes on a pretty clear picture will emerge. We knew just about all there was to know regarding the iPhone 5S before it was released and we are equally likely to know everything about the iPhone 6 — eventually.
We are still a little early in the rumor cycle to know more than there is likely to be a model with a larger screen. Keep listening to Into Tomorrow, though, and we’ll share whatever we find out!
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Noizy: Kameleon Series Bluetooth earbuds
Other World Computing (OWC): Nuguard KX phone cases for Samsung Galaxy S4, iPhone 4/4S and 5
Ventev: Assortment of their new products — like the PowerCell 6000+ Rapid Charger, cases for the new Galaxy S5 Smartphone, ChargeSynce tangle-free USB cables for Android & Apple devices & more.
“Into Tomorrow”: Microfiber Screen Cleaning Cloths with Dave’s cartoon on them, for all your smartphones, tablets, TVs, camera lenses and computer screens!