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HOUR 3:
Tech News & Commentary
Tess in San Francisco, California listening online asked: “All these wonderful little SD memory chips – Is it smarter to format them on your home computer, or format them directly on whichever gadget – cell phone, camera, etc. that you are using it on?”
It doesn’t matter, both a computer or a different device will read and write to the card in the same way.
Computers are bigger and they have more power, but the way they interact with the card is the same. SD Cards require a specific amount of power to to write to, and all devices that use them adhere to the same standard. So, whether it’s a computer or a smaller mobile device formatting the card, the end result will be the same.
There is one difference, a computer will let you format the card in ways other devices won’t, some of those formats will let the card handle bigger files, but they won’t be compatible with devices other than computers.
So what device you use doesn’t matter, just either use a computer set to FAT32 or format from the device you plan to use the card with.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.
Michael in Pembroke Pines, Florida listens to the Podcast and asked: “I heard that Google is coming out with a Siri-like program that is going to be attached to its Google web search for the iOS. I wanted to find out when it’s going to be available since many people don’t have the 4s.”
Google’s voice search is available now for iOS. It’s basically a lightweight version of Jelly Bean’s Google Now, it features a natural language voice search but no cards and in it’s current version of spoken feedback either, though that is coming soon, according to Google.
Google presented it’s “cards” as a central a cool part of Google Now, there has been no announcement of porting cards to iOS, but the search feature has been greatly improved from the old version that used to just yield text results on the browser.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.
Vince in Chicago, Illinois listens to the podcast and asked: “I have a BlackBerry Bold 9650. I download podcasts to the podtrapper on that phone. Is there a way to copy the podcasts from the phone onto my Windows 7 PC?”
Podtrapper, by default, will save the files it downloads to your memory card, to the folder “Blackberry/podtrapper”.
To access that folder, plug in your Blackberry to your computer and when it asks, select USB Drive, that should give you access to your phone’s memory card.
Find the memory card in Windows Explorer, it should show up as a drive called Blackberry, and inside of it navigate to the “Blackberry” folder and then the “podtrapper” folder and you should find your file there. Just drag the files from there to any Windows folder an you should be set. Your files will be on your computer.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.
Guests in this hour:
Tina Wells, Youth Shopping Expert and CEO – Buzz Marketing Group
Can “hand-me-ups” save you money on tech products? Tina is share the results of a new survey about household spending on technology.
“IFA History Feature” brought to you by Messe-Berlin
The Compact Cassette, invented by Philips, started its very successful career as the most popular and very practical recording medium in 1963 at the Big German Radio Exhibition in Berlin, today known as IFA. This tiny cassette made prerecorded music portable for the first time, and later allowed people to record their own music and listen to it outside their home. 16 years later in 1979, the Sony Walkman was introduced at IFA in Berlin and created a new world of portable music, based on the Compact Cassette.
Joe in New Martinsville, West Virginia listens to the Podcast asked: “I’m a big Blackberry guy. I love Blackberry and have for the last 10 years. What are the options for Blackberry going forward with their new 10?”
It’s a little unclear what Blackberry will do with it’s Blackberry 10 platform and I don’t think it’s just unclear to us … it’s unclear to them too.
They’re showcasing an iPhone-looking skeleton of a phone, with a touchscreen and no physical keyboard while say that they may choose to include a physical keyboard on some of the models they’ll manufacture, but then again they may not manufacture any phones…
It turns out they’re also talking about the possibility of licensing Blackberry 10 to other manufacturers, so that you may buy a Samsung phone that runs Blackberry OS, that’s the same idea that Palm pursued for 10 minutes before giving up on it.
What they’ve shown of the platform, showcases a new touch keyboard with a new kind of auto-complete, an email client that’s far closer to what you’d see today on an iPhone or Android that the old Blackberry email client, some kind of ability to stream video to a TV, but what if any of that will make it onto the final version, and when that version will be out is still a mystery.
The latest estimate we’ve heard is that it should be out January 2013, but they didn’t know which or how many countries would get the release… some people expected the company to fold before the end of 2012, so… “we’re release it in 2013 in some countries that we haven’t yet picked, unless we just license the platform to headset manufacturers” doesn’t sound like their future is too certain at the moment.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.
Carl in Lillington, North Carolina listens on 680 WPTF asked: “I was wondering is there anything I can do to speed up the Internet speed when watching videos, especially in HD, other than upgrading the Internet speed? I have a wireless G router.”
Not really. You can stop using your connection for other things, but unless you’re downloading something, odds are that the bulk of your connection is not being taken up by anything else.
You probably just need a bigger and better pipe to get your information across, video demands speed, if it’s the only thing that is not quite working, then you probably just need a faster connection so that you can get enough data quickly enough for videos to play smoothly.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast. Just click the red arrow in the upper right column on this page.
If you have any questions about any of this week’s show info, please email us here.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
C.Crane: Senta Forty Premium Wooden Headphones
Microsoft: Copies of Microsoft Streets & Trips 2013 Software
NQ Mobile: Activation codes for NQ Mobile Vault (Premium Version) – An Android app that keeps your text messages, pictures, and videos safely hidden from prying eyes.