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Tech News & Commentary
“Into Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager
Jeff in Columbia, Tennessee listens to the Podcast asked us: “I upgraded from the iPhone to the Samsung Galaxy Note a couple years ago, and I was finally in there upgrading to the Note 3. The girl in the AT&T store had a Samsung Wrist Watch on. I was wondering if it is worth getting? And is there any risk of cancer with the radio waves.”
Jeff, First off we are happy that you are part of the Android family. Now, as far as the risk of cancer because of radio waves, anyone can get cancer but the bluetooth link between your phone and your watch or even the link between your phone and your service provider shouldn’t raise your risk of getting it.
With that, if you are still interested in the watch, yes it’s a great wearable tech watch that syncs that would sync to your Galaxy Note 3. It has many cool options ranging from taking pictures and videos to making phones calls and actually talking to the person through the watch. You can even answer text messages via speak-to-text. You can even use S-voice through your watch, you ultimately shouldn’t have to constantly take out your phone.
But before you get all worked up over the cancer risk from using your cell phone, you need to know that there has never been a direct link shown between cell phone use and increased instances of cancer. So when we, or anyone else, say “you are at an increased risk,” you have to take the rest of that sentence to be “as opposed to sitting in a dark room, never exposing yourself to sunlight, chemicals, or other people.” Is that how you want to live?
We don’t mean to make light of something as serious as cancer, there isn’t a single one of us here who hasn’t lost someone they loved to it. We discourage unhealthy behaviors like pressing your smartphone to the side of your head and talking for hours. But, we are really very comfortable saying that the risks associated with radio waves are not immediately apparent to the small ARMY of researchers studying it, and that makes us comfortable enough to strap on a smartwatch.
Just for context, the International Agency For Research On Cancer classes cellphone signals as a Class 2B – Possible carcinogen. That means that they don’t believe it to be more or less likely to cause cancer than coffee or pickled vegetables, and they don’t feel they should rate it lower because, out of all the studies they conducted, two contained the following conclusions:
• “could not be dismissed as reflecting bias alone”
• “casual interpretation between mobile phone RF-EMF exposure and glioma was possible”
Which means that, since two studies out of all of the ones they did concluded that “it’s probably fine, but we couldn’t prove it 100%,” they decided it was not safe to conclude that it was less dangerous than coffee or pickled vegetables, but they concluded that it was at least no more dangerous. Also, those “only as safe as coffee” studies were conducted using old phones that put out about 100 times more RF waves than 3G phones.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Guest Segment:
John Cariola, AuD, Doctor of Audiology – Beltone
“IFA History Feature” brought to you by Messe-Berlin
When the DVD was introduced mid 90s it was first used for data storage, as its capacity was five times higher than that of a CD. In 1997 the first DVD burners for PCs came to the market, followed by the first consumer DVD players which had their world premiere at the International Funkausstellung in 1997, now known worldwide as IFA. Movie content was protected by regional codes and copy protection and the quality was perfect even in multiple copies.
Daniel in Rehoboth, Delaware asked: “I have a Parrot bluetooth and a Pantech cell phone. How do I turn off the hands free while my vehicle is still running?”
Daniel, It’s hard to say without knowing what specific model you have, Pantech still sells feature phones and smartphones. However, we should be able to give you a general idea. If it’s not a smartphone, while you’re on the phone you should see something on your screen that may say something like “speaker” or “hands free,” pushing the button below that should return the call to your phone.
If you’re using a smartphone, you will probably see a big button on the screen that will either have a speaker or a bluetooth symbol. Tapping that should bring up a menu to let you choose between the phone’s regular earpiece, the phone’s speaker, and bluetooth.Tapping on the one you want will switch to that one, and that should be all.
Sorry we couldn’t be more specific, but Pantech has made hundreds of phones over the years, and they don’t all work the same. If you call us back with your specific model, though, we’ll be happy to send you more customized instructions.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Leonard in Raleigh, North Carolina listening on WPTF 680 AM asked: “I have At&T as my cable company. Are there DVRs available for consumers. Its not like I have a lot of shows and once I cancel the service I have to erase the shows, so how can I copy the shows. Is there a DVR available for consumers in the market.”
Leonard, If you’re interested in being able to keep a DVR regardless of whether or not you’re signed into a contract with AT&T your options are limited.
Tivo still makes DVR that just require a cable card to work so, as long as you’re not ditching cable all together that may work for you.
If you are ditching cable and switching completely to over the air TV, ChannelMaster makes a DVR that you can buy, but it will cost you around $250 and it actually doesn’t come with all the parts you need. You may need to buy an external hard drive, if you need WiFi that’s extra too. However, if you can get past that, it does work and it’s users are generally happy.
You can also look into watching things online, of course, but that won’t help you keep your shows like you want to.
As for copying your shows, DVR don’t typically make it easy for you to copy your shows in a way that will let you keep them and watch them after you have to give up the device.
Tivo has allowed it for a while now, but for the most part with everyone else the files stay in the DVR, probably because it’s hard to sell cable companies on distributing their own piracy facilitator device.
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
SMS Audio: Street by 50 – Over-The-Ear Headphones and earbuds
Parellels:Parallels Desktop 10 Software allows you to run Windows on your Mac
Kanex: GoPower Battery Pack – Mobile battery pack with built-in stand for smartphones
Tylt: Several Charging cases and cables – for smartphones and tablets