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Tech News & Commentary
Wendy in Norwalk, Ohio listening on CKLW 800 asked us: “We had a storm come through and without power, I wanted to work on my laptop. However my laptop was not charged enough. Was wondering what charging device that is portable I can use for laptop so that if I’m out in the wilderness or stranded without power, I can power up my laptop.”
Wendy, You have plenty of options, but you’re going to have to make sure that one of their charger tips is compatible with your computer’s power port.
Amazon sells the Power-U Ultra High Capacity Battery Pack, it can store 33,600 mAh of charge, which will likely be enough to charge a laptop battery a few times over, it comes with around 15 different charger tips, and it costs around $100.
If you’re willing to spend the money, another portable charger that you might be interested in is the Energizer xp18000. We found it on Amazon.com, this lightweight, portable charger priced at $169.95. Not only you can charge your laptop up to 6 hours extra, but you can also juice up your phone, digital camcorder, or netbook.
You can also find the Intocircuit Power Castle for about $90, and while it can’t store as much power, it is rated as a 26000 mAh battery, so it should be more than enough to keep your laptop happy for a while.
If those don’t sound too appealing to you, for about the same price you can buy a UPS unit and just plug in whatever you want, computer charger or anything else to it. The UPS has the advantage of being permanently plugged to power, so when they power does go out it will be charged. Having said that, you did say you’re looking for portable and UPS units are very heavy and not designed to be easily portable.
If you feel as though you’re likely to be without power for some time, you can check into some portable SOLAR chargers for your laptop. The unfortunate part is that good ones are expensive. A Goal Zero Sherpa 27W charger is around $250, but the Sherpa 120 battery pack to store the power costs an additional $500 or so, meaning that you’re going to pay right around $750 for the set.
You have to leave it in direct sunlight all day long, 10 to 12 hours. That will give you enough juice, Goal Zero claims, to charge your laptop to full. So charge the solar battery all day, recharge your laptop at night. It won’t keep you running 24 hours a day, but it will keep you running somewhat even during extended power outages.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
“Into Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager
Sunhat in Saudi Arabia and listening and calling in via iPhone App asked: “Would you recommend upgrading to iphone 5S? I have iPhone 4.”
Sunhat, There’s a fair difference between the 4 and the 5S, and you’ll likely benefit from switching the 5S, if you’re interested.
Pretty much everything about the phone was improved at some point between those two models, from the processor, to the RAM, to the screen, to the battery, to the camera, even the home button!
The 5S is considerably thinner and much lighter than the 4, it can connect to LTE, to faster WiFi, to faster 3G networks, it can do panoramic photos and slow motion videos, the phone itself is bigger, but not more uncomfortable to hold, and can still be used with one hand comfortably.
Overall, the 5S is a pretty major improvement over the 4, incremental and evolutionary as the improvements have been, the 4 and 5S have 3 models between them, and the small changes have certainly added up.
The iPhone 5S is not only a huge improvement over an iPhone 4, it is, for today at least, the fastest smartphone in the world. The tech website Anandtech compared the iPhone 5S with its dual-core 64-bit A7 processor against Android phones from HTC, LG, Motorola, and Samsung. LG came the closest to beating the iPhone. It has a quad-core Snapdragon processor running at 2.3 GHz. But the the iPhone 5S, which runs its processor at just 1.3 GHz, bested even that phone. In every single benchmark.
Now we don’t mean to suggest that the iPhone 5S will be the fastest smartphone forever, frankly we’re surprised that Samsung hasn’t launched their own 64-bit smartphone already. The competition will be fierce. And the iPhone 5S still only sports a 4-inch screen. But we do want to illustrate just how good the hardware is on the new 5S. Aside from screen size, it takes a backseat to no one.Today, anyway.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Guest Segment:
Amit Manna, Co-Founder & COO – Fashioholic
Different type of winter hat for women these days.
“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. RDS radios are still around in many cars today.
Delroy asked: “How do I connect my Dell 968w AIO to a Macbook air. OS X 10.8.5?”
Delroy, The Dell 968w doesn’t really play nice with anyone, it may be time to consider a replacement. Mac OS X was never a supported OS from the start, but the printer also does not support Windows 8, and had issues with Windows 7 64-bit for a while.
Some people seem to have tricked it into working by making it use Lexmark drivers, and you can always try and see how it reacts to generics as well, but the truth is, the printer wasn’t designed to play nice with Mac OS X, so you won’t ever find standard drivers for it.
That’s the bad news. The good news is, there’s never been a better time to purchase an all-in-one printer, scanner, and copier. Most models cost under $100, and even a high end one with separate ink tanks will cost less than $200. They have stellar print quality, they’re excellent scanners and copiers, they’re quite fast, and most of them are supported on a Mac.
We’ve had personal experience with the Canon Pixma series of all-in-ones and can affirm that any recent model in those lines support not only Mac computers but also offer AirPrint support for your iPhone and iPad to be able to print directly to them.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Shawn in Redmond, Oregon listens to the Podcast and is calling via the App asked: “I have a Wilson Electronics Sleek cell phone booster in my truck. It used to work perfectly with my iPhone 4. I recently upgraded to an iPhone 5S, which is 4G LTE and it is no longer compatible. My question… and yes, I can find this on the Internet but what would be the fun in that? I want to hear this on the radio. I need to know if Wilson Electronics makes a 4G LTE compatible Sleek cell phone booster. If so, what do you know about them?”
Shawn, Yes they do! Wilson offers an LTE version of the Sleek, as you probably know it’s not a very cheap product, the LTE version has a list price of $160, and you should be able to find it online for about $100.
Other than that, we can tell you what you already know, it seems to work as well for subscribers with low LTE signal as the old version did for people with low 3G signal so, assuming there’s some LTE to boost in your area, you’ll probably be satisfied.
There is one more thing you should be aware of, LTE is spread out using different frequencies, make sure the booster you buy works for your cell phone company, they’re not all equal, so make sure you get one that boosts the right frequency.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Joanne in Harrington, Delaware asked: “What other equipment is out there for the visually impaired? Equipment like computers & radios that can be accessible for the visually impaired.”
Joanne, It’s hard to say really, most of what’s out there for sighted people has some version for blind people.
There seems to be a big trend in walking GPS devices to help the blind navigate the world on their own, but most of the devices are still concepts.
There are machines to help translate the written word into either braille or spoken word, so that blind users can read or listen to, for example, a newspaper or website, rather than being limited to literature with a braille version.
There are some kitchen appliances that come with built in alarms, for example, if you’re pouring water into a jar, you can always use your finger to make sure you don’t pour too much and spill it, however, if you’re pouring boiling water, an audible alarm might be a welcome feature, and those exist.
There are obviously lots of visually impaired friendly watches, from the old style ones with a liftable watch face to touch the hands, to newer cool designs that features surfaces that make the the time obvious by touching them.
There are plenty of useful technologies for the blind, the real question is, what needs do you need met? If you can tell us that we can look for specific solutions to that, but we can’t really name every technology out there… as technology becomes more useful, it becomes more useful for everyone and much of it is being applied at helping people become less limited and more independent.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
If you have any questions about any of this week’s show info, please email us here.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Bits Limited: Mini Squids — Travel-Sized surge protected power strips
Datawind: UBISLATE 7Ci, 7″ Android tablet with Wi-Fi, internal microphone and camera, and expandable MicroSD memory.
PURE: Jongo Wireless Adapters — Allows you to stream all your music wirelessly to your home audio system.
“Into Tomorrow”: Microfiber Screen Cleaning Cloths with Dave’s cartoon on them, for all your smartphones, tablets, TVs, camera lenses and computer screens!
Magellan’s: RFID-blocking Ridged Aluminum Wallets – in RED for Valentine’s Day – prevents identity theft with expandable pockets that can hold up to 12 credits cards as well as cash and receipts