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Tech News & Commentary
Mike in Wyoming listens on Stitcher and is calling in via the App asked: “Samsung Galaxy S3 – I’m hard of hearing and unless I have my hearing aids in, I can’t hear it. Is there any way we can turn up the vibration so it vibrates more and I can feel it?”
You aren’t the only one who feels the vibration level is a bit weak it’s apparently a common complaint about the Samsung Galaxy S3. Fortunately though the problem might be pretty simple to fix. If you go to settings you can change the vibration pattern setting your phone is currently on.
The general consensus among Galaxy S3 users is that the vibration tone that is the strongest is the Jingle Bells pattern. So simply pull up your menu bar, select settings, under device select sound then device vibration and voila! You’ll see the jingle bells vibration setting available. I’m willing to bet yours is currently set on basic call.
So give that a shot and let us know how it goes. If that doesn’t work, you might have to take it in to your local carrier store for a little tweaking.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
“Into
Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager
Nick in Decatur, Illinois listens on 100.9 WZUS asked: “I have an ASUS EEE Netbook. Several months ago it began to freeze then it crashed. I was able to revive it but now it runs real slow. Is there anything I can do to make it faster like replace the RAM or is it time to buy a new laptop?”
Yes. It is always time to buy a new laptop.
But seriously, the first thing I would do is indeed confirm that it isn’t just that your RAM module is fried and replace it. I would also consider the possibility that you have malicious programs running so you might want to run a diagnostics on it. It’s also important to remember that the Netbook is not built to be used like a normal laptop so if the operator is using it with that expectation you could be indeliberately running too many programs or maxing out it’s Intel Atom processor capacity in some way which will cause sluggish performance.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Nick in Decatur, Illinois listens on 100.9 WZUS asked: “I have an ASUS EEE Netbook. Several months ago it began to freeze then it crashed. I was able to revive it but now it runs real slow. Is there anything I can do to make it faster like replace the RAM or is it time to buy a new laptop?”
Yes. It is always time to buy a new laptop.
But seriously, the first thing I would do is indeed confirm that it isn’t just that your RAM module is fried and replace it. I would also consider the possibility that you have malicious programs running so you might want to run a diagnostics on it. It’s also important to remember that the Netbook is not built to be used like a normal laptop so if the operator is using it with that expectation you could be indeliberately running too many programs or maxing out it’s Intel Atom processor capacity in some way which will cause sluggish performance.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Jason from Nashville, Tennessee listening on “Super Talk” 99.7 WTN asked: “Do you think 3d TV will phase out.”
Actually… apparently it will become the standard, but not in the way you may think.
It turns out there is such little interest in 3DTVs that selling 3D as a premium feature is not working at all, so rumors are that the strategy has shifted to making 3D a standard feature on all new TVs and not bothering advertising it much. Instead if will now “just be there” and hopefully people will use it more over time.
Manufacturer’s new focus seems be Internet integration now, which is more reasonable, considering consumers actually have an interest in internet enabled TVs..
What I do think we will see in the coming years is the progressive evolution into and standardization of 3D augmented reality for television viewing only because the possibilities of such a thing are going to be extremely cool. I mean imagine watching your favorite action movie, or whatever kind of movie, as if it were taking place in your very own living room. I’m not talking about perceiving an extra dimension of depth on the screen, I mean life-sized digital hologram projections of Sam Jackson and John Travolta blowing away Frank Whaley in the beginning of Pulp Fiction. That’s where I see 3d Tv going.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Victor in Aurora, Colorado listens to the podcast asked: “My TV is about ready to go out in my truck. I drive over the road. I have this idea instead of buying a TV, replacing it with about a 15-inch laptop. What would be a good tuner for it? I’d also like to play games. Not high tech games, just “regular games. And whatever else I could find to do with it. What will be a good laptop and a good tuner? And does it matter if I go Windows 7 or Windows 8?”
With Hulu and Netflix, you’re gonna have a hard time finding TV tuning cards for laptops anymore. Hauppauge still makes their WinTV Aero-m, but at $80 it’s not very cheap.
You can always just use those streaming services, Hulu will cover a lot of the content you would get over the air and it’s not too delayed, but you will need an internet connection for that.
As for playing basic games, if you’re not talking about high end shooters most laptops will be able to handle the basic ones.
For $730, Acer offers Aspire models with Core i7 processors and 6GB of RAM, they have integrated graphics cards, but it should still be enough to play quite a lot of games.
You can find ASUS models for about $700 that also have Core i7 processors, but come with a little less RAM, around 4GBs, those should serve you well enough too, if you’re not going to be playing super high tech games.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Mobile World Congress Reports…
| HOUR 3 GUESTS | ||
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| Siebrand Dijkstra – AppMachine | Patrick O’Neil – Olloclip | |
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“IFA History Feature” brought to you by Messe-Berlin
The first navigation system was a girl: “Carin”, was the name of the system developed by Philips which was demonstrated at IFA, the International Funkausstellung in 1993 and tested the same year. The name Carin was short for “Car Information and Navigation System”. Data was stored on a CD and a built-in computer used sensors and optional GPS to select the best route. The result was displayed on a screen and verbalized with a speech synthesizer.
Ray in Bentonville, Arkansas listening to the Podcasts asked: “I’m tired of spending hours updating GPS like Garmin and Tom Tom. Can I just buy a CD-ROM from the company and update my GPS? If there’s no company out there that does that, I’m just gonna sell them all and use my cell phone.”
You can, it’s usually not a CD-ROM but an SD card, but it’s possible.
The problem is that you’d be paying for new maps, the same as if you had an Italian GPS and wanted to purchase maps of the US for an upcoming trip here.
Why are updates taking you hours? if it’s a broadband issue, you might be better served asking a friend to download them for you and THEN put them on CD-ROM or a flash drive and install them from there.
As for using your phone, it may be a decent solution, you can even buy GPS software for your phone from those same companies, so you’d have access to their same maps.
Having said that, if you already have standalone GPS units, try downloading the maps from a place with faster broadband and see if that helps, it may be the easiest solution for you.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
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This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
Covington Creations: Earbud yo-yo — A simple solution to tangled earbuds.
Iolo: System Mechanic – Fix and speed up your PC… Automatically.
Magellan: eXplorist 610 – Premium, rugged, handheld GPS with camera, microphone and speaker to record all your actions in the outdoors.
Yamaha: PDX-11 Portable Speaker — Free your iPod and iPhone music for your active Lifestyle.