HOUR 3:
Tech News & Commentary
Lawrence in Crown Point, Indiana listens to the Podcast, calling via the App and asked: “I have a questions about these hotspot devices, I wanna know if any of them have unlimited data or what the data limitations are, can you get any without a contract? I’m gonna start traveling a lot for work, and I’d like to have this data connection wherever I am. Any help you can give me I would appreciate it, once again you have a great show.”
You won’t find many unlimited data plans, the closest you’ll get is probably Virgin’s $40 plan, and that one is unlimited… up to 5GB… after that the amount of data you can use is still unlimited, but Virgin will slow you down so you can’t use much more, so it’s “unlimited” but they sure do find ways to limit you anyway…
As far as the rest of the players go, plans will vary from 100MB to about 12GB and from about $15 a month to a little under $100, but they usually range between $30 and $80. The difference in prices tend to be mostly all about the data cap, but you will also experience significant differences in speed, so keep an eye on that too.
Your options are going to range from 2G and 3G connections to all the faster, but very different “4G” connections.. HDSPA+ is not the same as WiMax, and WiMax is not the same as LTE… typically LTE will give you much higher speeds than anything else, but check and make sure that whatever you pick will actually be available in whatever areas you want to use your hotspot in.
As far as contracts go, you do have options that don’t require them, you will usually pay more for the hotspot itself and your plan will typically be a little be worse in some way, you will either have a smaller data cap, or slower speeds or a more expensive price, but the options are common, in fact the first option we told you about with Virgin is contract-free.
Verizon, for example, will let you pay $80 a month for 10GB with a contract or for 5GB if you choose not to have one… that’s pretty common with all carriers that offer both options.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
“Into Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager
Ray in Niagara Falls, NY listens online and asked: “I have an iPhone 4 and I was wondering if there was a way to screen my e-mail by listening to them while the person is leaving the e-mail.”
If what you mean is “Is there a way to screen your voicemail”, then… No. We don’t really know of a phone that will allow you to do that.
If you’re open to using Google Voice, it does allow screening calls on your cell phone, basically your phone rings, you press 2 and send them to voicemail and listen in, if you want to pick up press *. That’s all there is to it.
It’s not really a feature built into iPhone 4, but it’s a service you can access with it or any other phone.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Guest in this hour:
Paul Kim, Chief Marketing Officer & Nick Chandler, Communications Manager – Nitro
Have you ever gotten a PDF form to fill out and could only read it on your computer? Find out how Nitro’s software can help you.
“IFA History Feature” brought to you by Messe-Berlin
The size of picture tubes was limited because of costs and weight, but flat panels were just a dream for many years. At IFA in1977 the first miniature LCD screen was shown, 3 by 4 inch, with about 9,000 pixels. No wonder that Eduard Rhein, inventor, author and millionaire offered the incredible award of one million Deutschmark for the first real TV display for the wall. It took nearly two more decades until the first prototypes were shown at IFA in 1995, a 22 inch LCD and a 42 inch plasma. The first real product premiered at IFA in 1997. It was a 42 inch Plasma, only standard definition, costing about $15,000.
Alex, calling via our Free App asked: “I’m interested in a wireless technology like bluetooth so that I can play my music from my Android to my stereo.”
If you want to play music from your phone to your existing stereo, you can try something like the Belkin Bluetooth Music Receiver, you can find it online for under $30, and it will remember up to 6 different Bluetooth devices.
If you’re open to new speakers and not just your existing stereo, you can have a look at the Phillips Fidelio Dock for Android, it will charge your phone and play your music through it’s built in speakers via Bluetooth, so when you don’t want to charge your phone you can keep it in your pocket and still play your music through the dock.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Janice from San Juan, Puerto Rico listening on WOSO 1030 AM asked: “If I purchase the Kindle Fire, would I be able to listen to the music I purchased on iTunes or a CD? Would I be able to listen to an Audiobook that I have previously purchased from Audible. Can I download podcasts to the Kindle Fire? Any other information you can give me would be greatly appreciated. What do you think is the best tablet option for me & in general?”
Our Kindle Fire hands-on didn’t really discuss the Apple vs. Amazon issue, we focused more on the Amazon vs. Barnes & Noble question, because of the similarity of the devices and the strong desire of people to know which was best between those two. But we’ll be happy to take up the subject for you, now.
The Kindle Fire has limited storage on the device itself. Of the 8GB internal memory, 6GB is available for on device storage. This is used up by apps as you install them, and any media (music, videos/TV, pictures, etc.) that is outside of the Amazon cloud. And that’s a key thing, the Amazon cloud. The Kindle Fire presumes that you’re going to buy books in Kindle format, music from Amazon, etc., in which case these items are stored in Amazon’s cloud and accessed over the Internet when needed. No on device storage involved, unless you flag a playlist or movie for offline storage so you can watch it when you’re disconnected from the Internet.
For content purchased through iTunes, you would need to first make certain you had the DRM-free version of the content. Anything that’s protected can be played only on an authorized copy of iTunes, and iTunes itself won’t run on the Fire. Next, you would have to convert the format of that content into one supported by the Fire. The AAC music files would need to be converted to MP3 format. After that, you can either upload them to the Amazon Cloud Drive (5GB for free, you can either pay for more or get more storage free by purchasing an MP3 album from Amazon) or load them on to the Fire’s internal storage.
For music CDs, you would have to “rip” the songs using a computer (ripping refers to reading the audio CD in a computer and storing the songs as digital files, in this case in MP3 format). You would then have the same choice. Upload them to the Amazon Cloud Drive, or copy them to the Fire’s internal storage.
But do you recall what we said about the Amazon content ecosystem? Unless you’re willing to make a shift from the iTunes world to the Amazon world, a Kindle Fire simply isn’t the product for you. You could probably move the content you’d already purchased from iTunes, and you could certainly bring in the music from CDs you physically possess, but you don’t want to deal with all these hoops each time, going forward.
By the way, one bit of good news is that Audible content is no problem at all. The Kindle Fire has the Audible app on it right out of the box. Podcasts are also not an issue, except for podcasts that are ONLY available through iTunes, because as we noted before, iTunes does not run on the Kindle Fire.
The Kindle Fire is a great device. We like it. But unless you’re willing to buy your future content from Amazon, you’ll find it frustrating to use.
Tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast for more details.
If you have any questions about any of this week’s show info,
please email us here.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Boingo: Two months of FREE Boingo WiFi Service available at hundreds of thousands of hotspots worldwide
Dane-Elec: Marvel Classic Heroes 4GB USB Drives – Spiderman, Iron Man & Wolverine
Solar Components: Several JOOS Orange Portable Solar Chargers – Designed to charge all personal electronic devices (cell phones, smart phones, MP3 players, GPS devices, portable game devices and more)