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Tech News & Commentary
Ron in Dover, Delaware listens WXDE asked: “I want to save data for a number of years. Which media has the longest lifespan? I’m tired of my drives going bad after a short amount of time, and Is there a program like an OCR that will read cursive handwriting and convert it to a digital file?”
To successfully store data for a long time your best bet is not going to be to find the one medium that will statistically outlast others, it’s going to be to use a lot of different media.
Hard drives theoretically last a very, very long time, but sometimes they don’t… however if your data is stored on 2 hard drives, a DVD and an online storage site, odds are one of those things is going to last.
Not to mention when one of your storage options dies you have the other ones available to make a new copy to replace that broken one.
Just don’t look for the one best solution, use as many solutions as you can instead.
Now we’ve heard experts on media saying that optical storage, like DVDs, will last 100 years. This seems like a wild guess to us, since they haven’t been around for 100 years yet. I know that they’re making predictions based on the materials used, but there is a big difference between the permanence of a commercially manufactured movie disc and a writable DVD in a computer that uses a dye or pigment darkened by the laser instead of actual pits in the media.
So if you’re looking to win a bar bet about the longest-lived media, go with optical storage. If you’re looking to keep your data safe, then do as we said, and store it in multiple backup systems.
As for handwriting recognition, you probably won’t find anything that’s worth using. There are a lot of research papers on it, a lot of graduate projects, a lot of pretty bad commercial projects, but between the fact that you won’t necessarily scan your notes perfectly straight, that everyone’s handwriting is different, and that your own handwritting can vary at different times, you probably won’t find anything that is worth the effort of using.
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
“This Week in Tech History” Weekly Feature with Chris Graveline
Larry in Koshigaya, Japan listens to the FREE “Into Tomorrow” Podcast and called in to let us know that not everyone hates Windows 8!: “On your program you asked for someone who fell in love with windows 8. Well I did. When Windows 8 first came out they offered a big discount for those who were upgrading from windows 7. So I gave it a try, after 5 seconds of playing with it, I was in love with it. It does everything I want it to do. Its just great, You guys just keep tearing it apart and if you really played with it without any preconceptions, you would see it is an awesome system. Finding the shutdown key, 5 seconds. Finding other helpful keys, 5 seconds. Its an easy system to work with, its not difficult. Oh, if you press the icon in the lower left hand corner of the start up, it gives you a windows 7 atmosphere except for the start up button. So I am very happy with Windows 8. So happy with it that both my Desktop and Laptop have windows 8.”
We found the ONE!
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Sherraine asked: “We have 4 iPhones. I just purchased the 4g lte. My question is how much data will be used streamlining videos from my daughters laptop. We barely used 2 gb sharing all 4 phones. I heard streaming videos can chew through data quick.”
We can’t really tell you exactly how much data it will use, because it will depend on what you’re watching and how much of it, but do expect to use more data than your 3G iPhones were using.
On average smartphone users go through 500MB of data a month, which is in line with your 2GB for 4 phones usage, LTE users, on average, go through 1.2 GB of data, more than twice the amount 3G users consume.
Depending on your sharing plan, you may want to keep a close eye on your new phones data usage for the first month or two to avoid overages.
Technically, if you access the same content you will use the same amount of data, but you will probably be opening more content without even noticing it, so do expect to use more on that phone, and be careful if you upgrade any of the 3 other phones.
You said the magic word, though. Video. You can stream hundreds of hours of audio for the same amount of data you’ll spend streaming just one movie. Not all video is created equal, though. YouTube, for example, compresses their video a LOT, and that results in less of a data hit. But Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, and other sources give you high quality video…and eat up your data.
With a 4G LTE phone on the plan and a desire to stream videos, you should consider a 5GB or 8GB monthly plan. You’re quite likely to exceed that 2GB mark.
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
Terry in Montgomery, Alabama listening on “News Radio” 1440 WLWI asked: “What are some good streaming devices that you can hook to your television in regards to maybe streaming movies to your TV?”
These days there are plenty of those, assuming you don’t want to buy a new smart TV, you still have plenty of choices. For example, you can look at one of the Roku models, they start as low as $45 for a 720p box but go up to $100 for boxes with full high definition and extras, they will stream movies and TV shows onto your TV, and their most expensive version comes with Angry Birds, if you’re not sick of that game yet.
Boxee is still selling it’s Boxee box, which no longer a sideways cube and is not called Boxee TV, it will cost you $99 and let you access roughly the same content as the Roku boxes, including TV shows and movies from both Netflix and Vudu. Boxee is also featuring a cloud based DVR service, so if that appeals to you at all, it may be an option to consider.
AppleTVs are popular too, they also cost $99 and offer 1080p content from Netflix, Hulu, iTunes and a few other sources, and can easily access any media you have on iTunes, so if you’re an iPhone or iPod user, AppleTV may be a good choice for you.
And let’s not forget the game consoles. Microsoft’s Xbox 360, in particular, is being positioned as an entertainment console more than a game console. The Xbox dashboard was remodeled and it’s far more focused on letting you consume streaming content than it is getting you into your video games. Xbox Music is also making a real push to be the next iTunes.
So, you have a wide variety of services built into the Xbox, with more being added all the time, and it’s still a powerful game console and a DVD player (albeit not Blu-ray), all at the same time. If Blu-ray is important to you, then you should look at a PS3.
Sony’s PlayStation 3 is a very good game console, it has many of the same streaming services as Xbox, and it includes a Blu-ray DVD drive as part of its spec. We might still prefer the Xbox, because it’s a more complete and polished package, but if Blu-ray is your thing, the PS3 has it.
We should note that the new Xbox Infinity, which will be revealed in just a week or so from now, might well have Blu-Ray also.
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
John Miewald, Marketing Manager – Pathway Innovations & Technologies
Product Spotlight: Samsung Galaxy S4
Walter joined the guys in studio to discuss the Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone.
Jolene in Jefferson City, Missouri listening on News Talk KLIK 1240 sends the following email: “Wireless headphones: This may be a dumb question, but I can’t be the only one who wants to know. I bought a set to listen to the TV without bothering other people. What I really want is a wireless headphone that I can use to listen to my computer. Is there such a thing? Nobody can give me any information.”
You can probably use the exact same wireless headphones. Your computer should have a headphone jack, if it’s a laptop it will be on the side, but if it’s a desktop it may be on the back.
Once you find it just plug in your headphones’ wireless transmitter and that should take care of it. Computers are compatible with regular headphones, you can buy USB versions specifically for them (that usually come with microphones as well), or Bluetooth versions if your computer has Bluetooth connectivity.
Plantronics has a product called the Ribbon that will connect to your bluetooth enabled device, whether that is a computer, phone, tablet or anything else, and will act as a bluetooth receiver for conventional wired headphones. That may be a good product for you if you have a bluetooth enabled computer, but whatever you’re using with your TV now will most likely work just fine on your computer too.
And although this has nothing directly to do with answering Jolene’s question, it’s such a cool thing that we wanted to mention it. The new Roku 3 streaming player features a headphone jack in the remote. You can connect a regular pair of headphones or earbuds to your Roku remote for listening without disturbing others in the room, whether you’re watching TV with the TV sound off, or whether you just need to boost the volume for yourself in order to understand what the heck people are saying on that show. (You crazy kids! Get off my lawn!).
For more information tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.
This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners
HDRadio: FM/HD Insignia Table Top Radios with 10 presets
Covington Creations: Earbud yo-yo — Now with Dave’s face on them! — A clever solution to tangled earbuds.
iolo: Copies of: Drive Scrubber – Erase data so it can NEVER be recovered.
Touchfire: iPad Keyboards – The world’s thinnest, lightest iPad keyboard.