Podcast: Play in new window | Embed
Tech News & Commentary
Steve in Edwards, Mississippi listening on Supertalk FM asked: “I’m totally blind and I was trying to find the best smartphone for the visually impaired.”
There are a lot of phones out there that are usable by a person with limited or no vision. Pretty much every phone has to have some accessibility features. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 requires cell phones and phone services to be designed for people with disabilities. However, according to the American Foundation for the Blind, far too many cell phone carriers aren’t taking that obligation too seriously.
We can tell you about some of the features of phones that seem to make it easier for the visually impaired community to use them. As you can imagine, touch screen phones can be difficult to use if you can’t see what’s on the screen. Several phones, like the iPhone have a feature that will read the contents of the screen to you as you touch it so you know what you are selecting.
You will most likely need the assistance of someone who is able to see, to activate these features first, but it seems like you should be able to use the iPhone without too much trouble.
We have a large part of our audience who is visually impaired, so maybe someone listening has had luck with one phone or another. What have you used? What can you recommend to Steve? Call us at 1-800-899-4686 and help him out.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
“Into
Gaming Update” Weekly Feature with Mark Lautenschlager
Jolene in Jefferson City, Missouri listening on News Talk KLIK 1240 asked: “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.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Jim from Ann Arbor Michigan listens online and asked: “Hi Dave! I listen to your THREE HOUR (!!!) show on the Internet. I’m needing a new laptop computer. I’m currently running a 64-bit Vista machine that’s been abused from years of great photography, but non-existent cataloging of photos. It’s time to start fresh with a new computer. Windows 8 is coming out soon, but I saw an article that says Windows 8 offers few improvements over Windows 7, most being seamless syncing with Windows phones, which for the moment does not interest me. Windows 7 machines are selling at some great prices right now. I am in position to wait for Windows 8 and its first Service Pack, but if I can get a good deal on Windows 7 without giving up much in not getting Windows 8. I’m inclined to buy now. Any pearls of wisdom, insightful insights, life saving cautions, witty Windows wit, or sage advice from the grizzled digital veterans of Into Tomorrow?”
Windows 8 doesn’t seem to offer too many ground breaking features, but it is bringing with it a few things that are nice to have. The main one is probably File History, which is supposed to work like Mac OS X’s Time Machine and let you access older versions of the files that are currently on your hard drive. That’s a very useful feature when for some reason you find yourself needing to go back to a previous version of a file.
Native USB 3.0 support is also nice, though it most likely won’t make any difference to you right now. It’s more of a future-proofing feature, as USB 3.0 should eventually overtake USB 2.0.
There are some cosmetic changes too, both good and bad. You get a much prettier login page, but you also lose the regular menu and have to use the Ribbon User Interface whether you like it or not.
You will also lose some features. The most obvious one is the Start Men. But you will also lose the desktop gadgets, your recently opened documents menu, and the ability to play DVDs for free out of the box, as Windows Media Player will come without the DVD codec. To clarify, you can still get software that will play DVDs, free and paid, you just won’t have free software that comes pre-installed that can play DVDs.
If you’re not interested in the new features, or don’t want to lose the old ones, you might as well take advantage of any special offers you find on Windows 7 computers, by now odds are that they’ll include a free upgrade to Windows 8 when it comes out anyway.
Most of the time, however, the cost of Windows is built right in to the cost of your computer, and you’ll simply get whatever version they ship with it. Some name brands like HP are offering to pay for your Windows 8 upgrade if you buy a Windows 7 computer now, but those deals almost always have an expiration date. The major shift in user interface means that, at first, many things will be broken when they try and run on Windows 8. It doesn’t sound like you enjoy being an early adopter or an unpaid beta tester, so perhaps staying with Windows 7 for a while is smart.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Guests in this hour:
J.D. Hill, Vice President of Marketing – Corrosion Technologies
Do you know what cleaning solution you can use to clean electronics appropriately and keep them in good shape? J.D. talks about a cleaning solution consumers can use.
“IFA History Feature” brought to you by Messe-Berlin
In 1977 during the International Funkausstellung, today known as IFA, the age of home video recording really started – with competing formats. In addition to VHS and Betamax, a European technology was introduced, heavily promoted by the two giants who had developed it, Philips and Grundig. It was named Video 2000 and again had two loops of 1/4-inch tape, one on top of the other, but in the same cassette. The cassette had to be turned over to record on the other loop.
Bill in Toronto calling in via the free App asked: “I have an Asus Eee Slate EP 121 and was wondering what the best version of Windows 8 would be for my tablet. Would it be the Surface, or Pro, or the basic?”
Your tablet came with Windows 7, so we would assume that if you don’t want to lose features, your best bet will be to transition to Windows 8 Pro. We’ve seen videos of the slate running it and it seems to work.
If you installed the more basic versions of the OS, you’d most likely end up with a tablet with more iPad or Android like functions, but not full blown Windows. If you’re interested in retaining your desktop and regular Windows programs, you probably want full Windows 8.
Windows 8 will come with some touch or tablet friendly features, so it should also make it easier to use your slate. But it won’t remove the standard Windows features you enjoy now.
Another thing to consider is that Microsoft may take the choice away from you. Windows RT for Surface tablets is supposed to run on an ARM processor, while the full version of Windows is expected to run on full powered Intel Core i5 processors. Your tablet runs on a Core i5. You may find out soon that Microsoft will only let you install the more powerful version of the OS on it.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Bob in Palo Alto, California listens Online asked: “Hi Dave et al, I live in 5-story building. All of the public WiFi signals are weak (one bar out of 5). There is a large hospital across the alley from me that is much taller than 5 stories. It has a public WiFi and its signal is weak. Is there some USB plug-in that will allow me to increase the WiFi signal strength?”
There are products you can use to boost your WiFi reception. The one we’ve used the most is the C.Crane Super USB WiFi Antenna 3. Like you said, it plugs into your USB port and acts as a network card and boosts your reception.
There are other antennas, ranging in price from below $20 to over $100. We haven’t tried any of those, so we can’t tell you first hand whether they’re good or not. But if you want a cheaper option, you can give one of the cheaper ones a shot. Obviously, the other option would be to pay for Internet access.
For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.
Tim in Bellville, Michigan listening online asked: “I am a long-time Sprint customer and have been looking at the Samsung Galaxy S3. But now that I’ve seen the new Note 2. I was wondering if you could find out if Sprint was going to get that phone. Because no one else seems to know.”
The Note 2 is coming to Sprint. The company actually showed it off at a press event that Samsung recently held in New York and they announced that it will be available sometime “this holiday” season.
It will be the same LTE phone the other carriers are getting, so you should be able to get high speeds if you’re in an LTE area.
Other than Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint, you should also be able to get it on US Cellular soon, so you shouldn’t have much of a problem finding the phone whether you decide to stay on Sprint or want to try someone else’s 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
Corrosion Technologies: Several bottles of CorrosionX — A few squirts of CorrosionX clean contacts & connections & keep them protected for months (in salt spray environments) to years.
Dane-Elec: Several 8GB USB Flash Drives from Marvel’s The Avengers Collection
Ergotron: A Universal Tablet Cradle — This accessory converts a monitor mount to hold a tablet or eReader. Works with most popular tablets and eReaders, including Apple iPad, Barnes & Noble Nook and Amazon Kindle.
iolo Technologies: Copies of System Mechanic 11 – PC Tune-up Software
SMS Audio: “Street By 50” Wired headphones in black or white. We brought ’em back from 50 Cent and our interview in Berlin.