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Tech News & Commentary
Thomas in Anchorage, Alaska listening and calling in via the App asked: “Just watched your coverage from CES. Just wondering what that odd looking scope on top of that rifle was. Looked like it might be thermal. I don’t know and would like to hear more.”
That rifle was from a startup company out of texas called “Tracking Point.” In a nutshell, it’s a self-aiming gun that the company says “turns anyone into a sharp-shooter”.
Basically the way it works is that you look through the scope and “tag” the spot on the target. There is a red button on the top of the trigger guard (near where the middle of your finger would be in the near straight “safe position”). You push that button to tag the target. From that point on, the gun will not fire until you again properly sight the target where you want to be. So you can literally hold down the trigger and focus on aiming. When you are back on target, the gun will fire.
The idea is that it takes away the issues that many shooters face with respect to messing up the shot because they jerk the trigger, anticipate the bang on the trigger, and so forth. In this scenario the gun “decides” when to shoot and only when its on target (and the trigger is pulled of course).
While there has been some “controversy” about whether “self-aiming rifles” are really all that they’re cracked up to be, it seems pretty certain that it will improve the aim of a terrible shooter and allow someone with little or no skills to shoot pretty well.
As far as getting your hands on one, right now the company’s website says that due to overwhelming demand, the rifles are available by application only. So if you want one, I’d get to their site
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
“Into Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager
Jesse in Summerall, Mississippi asked: “Hello, I am having a lot of difficulty, I’m trying to set up a email address for my phone, I have a 3g Apple iPhone. I want to know how to get access to itunes, and the internet and different web addresses.”
If you want to set up the email address you used to contact us, it’s a gmail.com address, so you should just need to open your settings, go down to “mail, contacts and calendars” and select add account. You should have an option to add an email account right there, and it should only require your email address and your password.
As for iTunes and websites, they should both be very easy, iTunes is an app that should look like musical notes in a circle, and that should open the store for you. As for web pages, you’re looking for a symbol that looks like a compass with the word Safari under it, to open different addresses you would only need to use the address bar on top.
Now, we should mention that if you’re having trouble with those specific apps and no others, those are all internet-dependent apps, do you have internet access on your phone? If you don’t have some kind of internet access, even if it’s just WiFi, those apps will not work.
The iPhone 3G is not officially supported by Apple any longer and won’t get the latest iOS 7 upgrade. That will be a problem because it means you’re entirely on your own in getting apps and upgrades for your phone. There are some third parties who have hacked iOS 7 to work with the iPhone 3G and you can search on YouTube for the videos that show you how this is done, but you are very much on your own here and any mistakes can yield a completely non-working phone.
You may want to consider replacing the phone. Most wireless carriers will offer you the iPhone 4S, which is still a huge upgrade from your phone, at no cost when you sign up for service or extend your current contract. iOS 7 will come with iTunes bundled right in, and adding a Gmail address, as we already said, is extremely simple.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Frank in North Pole, Alaska listening on KFBX 970 AM asked: “I’m wanting a new cell phone and I am looking at the Samsung s4 and the Note 3. Which is better? Which carrier is better AT&T or Verizon?”
The S4 and the Note 3 are fairly similar and excellent, both being current generation Samsung Smartphones, the main difference is going to be the obvious size difference.
Dave’s Note 3 has a pretty huge screen at 5.7-inch full HD, which may appeal to you if you have trouble reading or just want a larger screen, or you may see it as a burden if you want something more comfortable to carry around. The S4 has a 5-inch screen.
Both phones are fast, reliable, and some of the best Android phones you can buy. The will both come with bloatware unfortunately, and it will stay there, but for the most part they should both be good phones.
The real question is: how big would you like your screen to be? If you want something really big go with the Note, otherwise the S4 is a great phone and it’s reported to have a better camera.
As for which company is best, that really depends on where you live and as far as we’ve been able to find online AT&T has a slight edge over Verizon in North Pole, Alaska, but the edge is so small that it may not really make a difference since AT&T is reported as 3.5 star carrier with Verizon being a 3 star, that’s really not much of a difference.
Ask the people around you and find out how happy they are with their service, that will probably give you a much clearer picture about what you can expect in the real world from each company, but if they can’t tell you, the slightly better one in your area seems to be AT&T.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 also uses their unique “S Pen” stylus, while the Galaxy S4 phone does not. If you’re going to be using the phone a lot for business, or you just have need for frequent note-taking, most people will tell you that the S Pen is worth upgrading from the S4 to the Note 3.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Guest Segment:
Lynda Weinman,Executive Chair of the Board/Co-Founder – lynda.com
“IFA History Feature” brought to you by Messe-Berlin
Camcorders with built-in VHS or Beta cassettes were bulky. The industry tried to size down with smaller cassettes. VHS-C was a reduced VHS format, in 1982 8mm-Video was announced. In 1989 at the International Funkausstellung, IFA for insiders, Sony introduced Video-8 High band. Years later, With the introduction of the solid state technology at IFA 2001, (the SD card by most manufacturers and the Memory Stick by Sony one year later) camcorder could finally be drastically reduced in size as the cards were tiny and there was no drive needed. Cassette based camcorders started to disappear from the market.
Steve in Detroit, Michigan listens via the Podcast asked: “I was wondering if I could use my old belkin wireless G Router as a network range extender for my 2wire gateway?”
We can’t really tell you without knowing the models of the devices involved, some Belkin routers do support acting as a wireless network extender, some don’t, some are friendlier to devices from other manufacturers than others, some can even be flashed with 3rd party software to allow added functionality.
If you can tell us what specific router you have, we might be able to tell you if it can be used as a network extender, otherwise you can check the router’s own settings for hints, if at any point you see a mention of bridging a connection, you might be able to use it!
There are usually two ways any router that supports range extending can be used. One is in this WDS Bridging mode and the other is what might be called a Universal Repeater. In WDS Bridging mode, you typically tell the router which MAC addresses to bridge (that’s the unique hardware ID every Ethernet-connecting device will have).
This will prevent the router from repeating the signals of any nearby wireless network that’s in range. That is what you’d call a Universal Repeater. If it’s on a Wi-Fi channel, this will rebroadcast it.
So while we can’t tell you for certain this works, the odds are at least 50-50 that it will. So log in to your old router and look for “bridging.”
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Roberta in San Jose, California listens on KLIV 1590 asked: “I am a user, not a techie or gadget person. My current PC is a Gateway running Windows 7. I bought it from TigerDirect last year and they sold me Total Defense software with it. It is up for renewal for $80.00 and I would like to switch, as it constantly blocks things without telling me what or why or giving me the option to allow it. I want a simple program that will always give me the option of what to view (don’t particularly like Norton or McAfee, however-I used to run ZoneAlarm on my old PC). What would be the best cheap and easy anti-virus software for me to run? Using this computer mostly for email, web searching, games (on POGO), and some business applications using Open Office and music-notation software.”
Microsoft’s own Security Essentials might be a good choice, it’s free so you can save those $80, rated highly on benchmarks and it doesn’t seem to have a bad effect on the computer’s overall performance.
Depending on your security settings, you can set it to pretty much block anything that it feels should be blocked, or to give you the power to decide what needs and does not need to run.
You mentioned ZoneAlarm, and that’s still an option. They provide free antivirus and firewalls software so, if you like them, by all means you can still go ahead and use them.
The same is true for others like AVG, which will also save you the $80 fee and should give you adequate protection.
Both AVG and ZoneAlarm do offer paid versions, so be ready to either be bugged to buy them at some point, or to be made to sift through their websites to try to find the hidden link to the free version.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Deshon in Meridian Mississippi listens online asked: “I got a tech rage, about AT&T and I was offline for a week. I am a radio host myself online and i wasn’t able to produce a show. Also, I was not able to get on another radio station because they dropped me due to the fact that this was not my fault. So due to the fact I was not on for an entire week, I’m giving AT&T the call of shame. I had to wait a week through New Years and I did not get back on until Friday. AT&T this is my TECH RAGE!”
Thank you, Deshon!
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
Covington Creations: Earbud yo-yos “A clever solution to tangled earbuds”.
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.
Dane-Elec: Mobile Junkie Media Streamer – Stream content from a flash drive or SD card to your Smartphone or tablet. (And, it also acts as a mobile charger!)
“Into Tomorrow”: Microfiber Screen Cleaning Cloths with Dave’s cartoon on them, for all your smartphones, tablets, TVs, camera lenses and computer screens!
Tylt: A plethora of USB charging cables for iPhone and Android phones and iPhone battery cases.