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Tech News & Commentary
Matthew in Minnesota asked us: “My wife is planning on buying me a Samsung Galaxy Gear watch. I am a police officer. What’s the durability like? Can I wear it at work? Will it go out on me in a month or will it hold up to the rigorous activities I have to do for my job?”
Matthew, There’s a durability rating called Ingress Protection, or IP, the Galaxy Gear is certified as an IP55 device, which is not bad at all. IP55 means that it’s fairly well insulated against dust, though “ingress permitted” so it can take-in some dust and still hold that rating, and it’s reasonably waterproof too, though again “ingress permitted,” which means that the watch should survive some rain, it can get wet — and I have been caught in the rain with mine — but you don’t want to swim with it on.
The glass on the watch is supposed to be about what we’re used to having on our smartphones, Samsung highlighted that they’re using sapphire glass back when they introduced the watch, that means it should be durable, just don’t think of it as indestructible. We have heard of many users managing to scratch the watch, scratch resistant glass or not. The fact that it’s a watch means that it sits on your wrist, ready to be flung against the hard objects around you much more regularly than a smartphone would.
Samsung did just announce the Gear 2, which is sturdier than the original, that one has an IP67 rating, which means it’s dustproof and it should survive being dunked into 3 feet of water for at least 30 minutes, and since it no longer has the camera and microphone on the strap, if anything happens to it, the watch isn’t automatically dead or in for an expensive repair.
Overall, whatever version of the Gear you choose, they should be reasonably sturdy and should be able to take day to day life. Ultimately, remember that you’re spending $300 to reach into your pocket a few times less a day, this is a luxury item, treat it as such and you should be ok.
We also need to mention this: absolutely do not buy any of these watches unless you own one of the compatible Galaxy phones (and that’s not every Galaxy phone), otherwise you’re basically buying an expensive regular watch with a battery that needs to be recharged all the time.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
“Into Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager
Facebook Participation
We asked: “Would you buy a self-driving car once they hit the market? How do you feel about sharing the road with them?”
Here are some of the answers we shared:
Sal here in Miami, Florida said I recall one futuristic work that predicted this and not too long ago – “Minority Report” but the cars had the option to switch from “automatic” to “manual”. Humans drive cars, humans program/code. They haven’t worked the bugs out of cars or humans yet thereby compounding the situation. So, no.
Juarez from Brownsville, Texas shared: Once I get drunk.
Della in Menomonie, Wisconsin wondered: What if their ‘computer system’ breaks down like they do on other controls in cars?
John from Santiago, Chile stated: Drunk drivers will love it!
Terence who resides in Birmingham, Alabama shared: a necessary step if we are ever to have a flying car…also a benefit to the elderly 70-80+ who do not want to rely on public transportation
Dorothea in Fredericksburg, Virginia said: it looks like one of those little Lego cars.
Brian right here in Miami, Florida said: Yes I like the idea. This would preserve about 40 to 50 thousand lives a year in the U.S. alone.
Dale shared: Has this been crash tested? I know smaller vehicles are economical. I just think. There is a fine line between safety and economy.
The bumper of a Dodge Ram (for example) is almost at the beginning of the windshield. If said Dodge Ram is going fast enough. It will go over top of it.
Tom from Alaska said: That little bubble with no wheel? Out here I’d be grill floss in a Ford Expedition or Yukon.
Michael in Kemblesville, Pennsylvania said: 30K-40K fewer highway deaths per year will make these common in our lifetimes. Reduced insurance rates will be another factor that drives the acceptance of this technology. Once market penetration hits a certain threshold it’s not unreasonable to expect non-autonomous vehicles to be banned from certain roadways and downtown areas.
Jeff from Pembroke Pines, Florida shared: There are times when I prefer to be in control; driving is one of them. Plus, where the heck do you put the grandkid in that thing? It looks like a gumball on wheels. I like the old!
John in Coral Springs, Florida said: The face of it kind of looks like a koala bear…and it hardly looks big enough for me, so I doubt I would use it. Plus, I prefer to control the vehicle because I love that feeling of power when I put the pedal down and feel the torque and speed coming from the acceleration of the vehicle.
Matthew in Fort Lauderdale said: What happens when one of these is hacked?
Anne from North Miami, Florida asked: Where does one it wind up?
Alan over in Irvine, California stated: Just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you should.
Trevor from Alaska said: Nah. I’m good driving myself. Not sure how they would handle the snow and ice up here.
Guest Segment:
Mark Weinstein, CEO – Sgrouples
is a privacy-centric social platform that lets users connect and share with the people and communities they know in real life.
“IFA History Feature” brought to you by Messe-Berlin
In August of 1930 Albert Einstein was the keynote speaker at the opening of the 7th “Big German Radio Exhibition”, today known as IFA. The show was held at the Berlin fairgrounds which were now centered around the newly erected “Berlin Radio Tower” or “Funkturm”, the German name of this national landmark which is still one of the main attractions of Berlin, like the Eiffel Tower in Paris after which the “Funkturm” had been modeled. At the show, TV receivers with the mechanical Nipkow disc where shown, but the company Loewe demonstrated the first television set with a Braun tube.
John in Durham, North Carolina listens on 680 WPTF asked us: “I like your show and it must be great getting to review and see all new stuff every year. I get “This Old House” through the App Store but recently cancelled because I do not know when they will bill me for an issue. Now I cannot get my back issues when signing into the this old house. The app does not respond to my email address. What can I do. I also bought 128 gb iPad air and the websites I used to use won’t let me in. I do not give up easily and hope Apple fixes this issue soon.”
As far as we’ve been able to find out, Apple handles active subscriptions and purchases only, and everything outside of that is up to the publisher.
What that means is that Apple takes care of you getting your issues while you’re subscribed, but whether or not you’re entitled to re-download old issues depends on the rules each publisher sets, and they’re the ones that are tasked with making them available to you, if they choose to do that.
The way that normally works is that a publisher will make you open an account with them, and then using that account let you download old issues if they so choose, but they’re each allowed to run their subscriptions differently.
Most publications seem to be using some kind of third party platform (Magzter for example) to manage their subscriptions, and you normally need to make an account with them to be able to download past issues or sync them all through devices.
This Old House does have a section of Frequently Asked Questions on their site where they state that “Any purchased digital issues or issues available as part of your subscription are yours to keep (Unless you delete the downloaded version from your device).” so there is a good chance that they just won’t let you re-download any issues that you deleted from your library after downloading them while your subscription was active.
As for not being able to open websites, why not? Are you accessing Flash-enabled websites? Otherwise an iPad should not have much trouble opening and using any particular site.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Rich in Purcellville, Virginia listens to the Podcast and is calling via the App asked us: “I just replaced my Compaq iPaq PDA with an iPod Touch. The one thing I’d like to do is sync it with Outlook. I found that iTunes has the ability to do that, but every time I sync, no data gets transferred. I’m wondering what I’m missing. Also noticed that iTunes will not sync my “to-do” lists. Do you know of a way I can do that?”
Rich, You should be able to sync your contacts and calendars from Outlook to your iPod Touch using the latest version of iTunes. You’ll also need a version of Outlook later than 2003, but we’re not certain whether it works with Outlook 2013 yet.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that Apple doesn’t sync your task lists at all. In fact, contacts and calendars are the only things they will sync from Outlook.
We’ve got a link for you to a page at the Apple Support site that explains the steps in syncing what you can, and it gives some helpful pictures showing which options to set. If you check that out and you have everything set correctly, it should be syncing. Apple has a number of pages devoted to troubleshooting sync problems, but frankly the suggestions seem a little sketchy to us.
What we would recommend, if you do have everything set correctly and it’s still not transferring data, is that you explore the possibility of syncing Outlook on your PC with some cloud service (such as Google) and then using an app on the iPod Touch to sync with the same cloud service.
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
Other World Computing (OWC): Power2U – AC/USB Wall Outlet
Phone Halo: StickR TrackR — Find any object you attach it to with your smartphone
Bits Limited: Mini Squids — Travel-Sized surge protected power strips
Tylt: A plethora of USB charging cables for iPhone and Android phones and iPhone battery cases.
“Into Tomorrow”: Microfiber Screen Cleaning Cloths with Dave’s cartoon on them, for all your smartphones, tablets, TVs, camera lenses and computer screens!