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HOUR 3:
Tech News & Commentary
Art in Elizabeth, Pennsylvania listening on 1360 WMNY asked: “I like to watch our local football team on TV, but I like to listen to our local announcers on the radio. But I can’t sync up the sound. Wondering if there’s a way I can listen to the radio broadcasters and watch it on TV and have the sound synced. Somebody mentioned a DVR, but that’s a little too expensive for me.”
As you already know radio broadcasts get to you faster than TV broadcasts, the DVR option that you were offered might help you if you’re going to record both the TV and the radio and watch them later synced up, if you want to watch the games live though, a DVR won’t be able to speed up the TV and make it sync up with the faster radio broadcast. If anything you’d benefit from recording the radio, pausing for a few seconds and then letting it play along with the TV image.
For $60 you can buy a radio called SportSync that will help you achieve just what you want. It looks like a regular portable radio, it works like a regular radio too, but it comes with a delay slider that makes it possible to make the audio play a few seconds later, and in that way, make it sync up with the image on your TV. It might take some trial and error, but you should be able to make the image and the sound sync up pretty well using the SportSync’s slider.
SportSync can also be plugged in to speakers, so if you have a home theater set up, you might be able to make the sound come out through the speakers around your TV.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
“Into Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was released this week to a great fanfare of publicity. We’ll review this new action RPG and tell you whether or not it’s worth all the hype–and worth your money!
Michael in Miami, Florida listens via the app and asked: “I would like to know more about rooting the Android Tablets.”
Unfortunately we can’t give you too much generic information about how to root a tablet. Rooting is done without manufacturers’ consent, and it’s done by exploiting vulnerabilities in the different Android operating systems, that means that the way to root an Android 2.2 tablet won’t necessarily be the same way you root an Android 2.3 tablet, in fact it may not be the same way you root an Android 2.2.1 tablet.
If you want to know how to root a specific tablet, you can call us again and we’ll give you specific information, if you just want to have a general idea, you can come to the website and we’ll link you to a page that details different procedures for different tablets.
The benefits of rooting tablets are similar to the benefits of rooting phones, custom ROMs with less bloatware, control over internal function such as overclocking or underclocking the processor, and generally extra customization that the manufacturer wouldn’t allow.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Karl in South Dakota listening on KOTA 1380 AM asked: “I would like to gather reading articles from websites while my iPad is connected to the Internet and then read them when I am offline. The app should chase my reading down seamlessly as I am doing other stuff with my iPad. What can you suggest?”
You can try a couple different of apps to read articles offline on an iPad. A very popular one is Instapaper, it will cost you $4.99, but it saves both texts and images and it has a very eye-pleasing user interface.
You can also try ReadItLater, it won’t necessarily cost you anything but for extra features you can ungrade to the pro version. ReadItLater will let you save webpages and then bring them up either as text only or as a full webpage with images and the original formatting.
Another app you can have a look at is Offline Pages, this one might be the one for you, it stores complete webpages like the other two, but it also includes a feature that let’s you auto update your favorite pages, so you don’t have to manually download them each time, you mentioned wanting an app that could “chase your reading down seamlessly”, if this is what you meant, then Offline Pages may be the app for you.
The bad news about that is that Offline Pages is also the most expensive of the three apps…it will cost you $9.99 for the version of the app that allows auto-updating.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Guest in this hour:
Russ Mann, Chief Executive Officer and Founder – Covario
Russ is with a search marketing services firm and software provider, whose clients make up some of the leading consumer electronics and technology companies, and he’s here to tell us about some of their latest search and social media strategies.
“IFA History Feature” brought to you by Messe-Berlin
In 1988 radio stations were no longer anonymous: Radio Data System, or RDS was developed in Germany which identified every station and showed the name on the display. RDS car radios automatically searched for the best available transmitter or frequency of each station. In 1991 at the IFA or International Funkausstellung, an extension of the RDS service was introduced which enabled the reception of traffic information even if the chosen station didn’t offer one.
That’s this week’s IFA Update brought to you by Messe-Berlin. Be sure to visit IFA-Berlin.com.
Lisa in Nashville, Tennessee listens to WTN, calling in via our free app asked: “I have an iPhone 3G, is it possible that it can get a virus. If so, is there a way to protect it? I appreciate it.”
If your phone has not been “jailbroken” then you shouldn’t have anything to worry about. There is no virus protection for iPhones because there are no known viruses — at the moment. Viruses, most often, are attached to e-mails. The iPhone OS doesn’t allow software to be installed from an e-mail message or an MMS. It has to be downloaded from the App Store or installed from a computer while the phone is connected to it.
Even with “jailbreaking”, it doesn’t necessarily allow a virus to be installed. What it does sometimes, depending on what sotware was installed, is open up some security vulnerabilities. Apple warns against this on their site, saying that it can allow hackers access to your personal information. Now remember, jailbreaking isn’t illegal, but if you do it, you will ensure that Apple will not offer you any support, should anything go wrong.
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.
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