The Tech Guy Episode 1860 Transcript
Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.
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Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is TWiT.
Leo Laporte (00:00:10):
Hi, this is Leo Laporte and this is my Tech Guy podcast. This show originally aired on the premier networks on Sunday, January 16th, 2022. This is 1860. Enjoy The Tech Guy podcast brought to you by Cachefly. Give your users the seamless online experience. They want power, your site or app with cash flies CDN and be 30% faster than the competition. Learn more at twit.Cachefly.com. Well, Hey, Hey. Hey, how are you today? Leo Laporte here. The tech guy, time to talk computers, the internet, home theater, digital photography, smart phones, smart watches, and all that stuff. I used to call it high tech. It's just tech, low tech, any tech, any kind of tech at all? Eighty eight eight S the phone number (888) 827-5536 lines are now open, right? Kim <laugh>. They're about to be okay. Is there is like a button that you push?
Leo Laporte (00:01:14):
It goes, oh yeah. Open the lines. No, they're open now. No, no. What do you really do to open the line? I I hit the block all button to unblock the minds. <Laugh> oh, there's a, oh, I see that. What happens if I press the block all? Well, you're about to block the other. I won't do it. <Laugh> I didn't know. I had that. That's good to know. <Laugh> if like I'm on a, a, a Ja and I wanna, you know, like, I want to really talk for three hours or something 80, which I don't 88, 88, ask Leo that's toll free from the us and Canada outside that end, the lines are now open outside that area. You could still, I think you can use Skype out, you know, the ability to call a phone line with Skype or any, any app that lets you do that. I haven't really investigated, but I presume any app that makes phone calls can call a landline. If they can then should be free. 88, 88 ASLE. The new website is there. Tech guy labs.com.
Leo Laporte (00:02:13):
Some people say it's a downgrade. It is any changes, a downgrade let's face it. But we moved it over to the podcast website. It still will be links there. There'll now be transcripts. I think that's an improvement, a full transcript of the show with time code. So you can jump to that part of the show. And of course you put audio and video from the show there after the fact. And here's the good news still free. <Laugh> free to all tech guy labs.com. So if you hear something on the show, you don't have to write it down. Well, we're writing it down for you. Let's see, coming up, Sam bull Sam, he he's gonna talk about auto tech. We'll talk photography with Chris mark wart space guy, rod piles, all excited. There's nonstop space news these days, and then all of your calls.
Leo Laporte (00:03:03):
It's a it's was it just a matter of time, but before somebody created and of course it was the French that did it. A cheese detector, not smell, not sight. You, you drag the image of a French cheese. <Laugh> okay. It's it's you can try it. C H E E Z a M dot FFR FFR for France cheese am. It's called it like it's like Shaza for cheese. That's you know, that's the elevator pitch. So we got this idea. We just need some funding. We wanna make a Shaza for cheese. <Laugh> here's what it says. Cheese a, this is technology, man. This is, I mean, how did we ever survive without it? Have your iOS or Android phone ready? Go to cheese. Am.Fr take a photo, a sure of the cheese test the results. And it'll even recommend wine in pairings <laugh> oh, you have a Bri it's too young.
Leo Laporte (00:04:10):
Do not eat it, but if you will, too, a nice Bole would be good. It's machine learning. So you see AI is taking your job. If you're a cheese detector AI built by training on a data set of French cheese, don't try Swiss, no cheddar, no limber. It can and only predict this is what they say. The type of cheese future iterations will be built. If there is demand, why wouldn't there be demand? Holy cow. It's about time <laugh> what else is going on? PC sales were up last year. What a shocker sword. According to canals in 2021, sword 341 million personal computers. That's 15% up over 2020, which we thought was gonna be big 27% up over 2019. PC sales has been going up year after year 2021 was the best year for PC sales since 2012. So maybe windows 11 did his job.
Leo Laporte (00:05:34):
Number one, vendor Lenovo 24% of the market share in 2021, HP number two with 21.7% Dell 17.4 apples in there, apples number four, 8.5% of all share sales, apple 20, could this be 28,958,000 computers. So I've gotta check and see what do they mean by PC? Does an I I iPhone clearly not iPad. Probably not. No. I think they're talking about laptops and desktops. Apple had the largest growth number over year, over year 28% growth Acer number five had 21 per almost 22% growth. So wow. Big 341 million PCs sold last year. The numbers are in. Why are I'm just curious? Why are people, why are you buying PCs? I wonder if Chromebooks are in this, I guess they would be, that's a PC, not a tablet, not a phone, but a, you know, a laptop or a desktop. That's a PC personal computer is not so somebody in the chat mad thinks what about me?
Leo Laporte (00:07:00):
I, I built my own piece. You don't count. Nobody's counting you. <Laugh> nobody, nobody counts you new bill in front of Congress, the TLDR act, good name. Do you know what TLDR you've seen that abbreviation and social media and on Twitter and in your too long, didn't read TLDR. It's too long. Didn't read, which is kind of the motto. I think of this, of this era. I was just thinking, you know people in the old days would retire and write a book. And I think people still do that, but it's old people because I don't think any young person will ever retire and write a book because they know who's gonna read it.
Leo Laporte (00:07:43):
So now <laugh> the the <laugh> lawmakers are, I think we should have TLDR for books. I guess we do come to think of it. They're, you know, like the cliff notes, a bipartisan group of lawmakers, according to the Washington post, is to make it easier for consumers to understand what they're signing away. Thursday introduced a legislation, the TLDR act that were, I think this is a good thing, require sites to make easy to digest summaries of their terms, like a nutrition label, a summary statement. The problem is the reason these terms are so long is lawyers who are trying to, you know, cross every T dot every I, they wanna make sure that there is nothing in the contract that, and this is what you do with a contract that is left out and that it covers all possible contingencies. And, and that the language is unambiguous and clear. Any summary is gonna miss a lot of that.
Leo Laporte (00:08:37):
But I think the problem is the long form, the legal contract, nobody reads that. So maybe a lawyer, nobody even understands it, except maybe your lawyer, all those, you know, they use those terms of art that no one understands we used to. When I worked in TV <laugh> we had a a television release that we would make everybody sign, even when they just came into the studio, cuz they, they might, you know, we had studio audience, they might they might, you know, get on camera by accident that said, essentially, we give you full permission to use our image, our likeness, our voice, our face in, and then they would list 20 kinds of medium, you know, pictures, newspapers, TV, radio. And then just in case, this is a lawyer in a nutshell, just in case or any other form of media that comes along later.
Leo Laporte (00:09:31):
That's not exactly how they wrote it, but it was <laugh> it, something like that. <Laugh> in all media forever and ever thereafter. Ah, man, that's that? And that's the kind of, unfortunately that's the kinda language you see in these, in these terms of services, on websites, privacy statements, shrink wrap software and courts have hold held those that shrink up license and many cases are legally binding. Even if you didn't read it, the TLDR act, I think is a good thing. It's just, I don't know if you can summarize 400 pages of legalese in, you know, in a paragraph they will though disclose whether they've been hit by recent data breaches. I like that. What personal data they collect. I like that. Whether they're pulling in, for instance, health, data, precise location, or demographic information.
Leo Laporte (00:10:24):
I like this Lori Treyhan of Massachusetts. One of the bill lead sponsors said companies are exploiting the fact that most users skip over the terms to lure them into compromise. You did read the terms of service before you started listening to the show, right? Oh Kim, I think you, I think you're gonna have to read that to everybody who goes on the air now <laugh> users should not have to comb through pages of legal jargon in a website's terms of services to know how their data will be used. I agree. Do you think this will pass? If you look at <laugh> and you can see it, I think it's on Wikipedia. A list of bills passed by the Congress. <Laugh> in 2021. It's a lot of, you know, we're gonna name the dam after the mayor act. That kind of thing. I, this may be, I don't know.
Leo Laporte (00:11:17):
You know, lobbyists are gonna come in from Google and Microsoft and apple and everyone else I'm in, I'm in, I'm in favor of it. The TLDR act, oh, I should have given you a TLDR. Congress wants to pass a law that makes it easy to know what websites are doing with your data. Good thing. Right? 88, 88 at that's the TLDR eighty eight eighty ask Leo's the phone number, website tech I labs.com bull coming up. I think that's everything I need to tell you. That's the TLDR, your calls next <laugh> ladies and gentlemen. You, you know where we are. We're right here at eighty eight, eighty eight ASLE. When you call that number, if you don't get a busy signal, which you probably will, but if you don't, you will get this young woman right here. Kim Shaffer our phone angel who is suitably atti. I am decked out for today's sport ball, sport ball. <Laugh> you are a take it a fan of the red and gold.
Kim Shaffer (00:12:14):
I, I am I bleed red and gold. Yes,
Leo Laporte (00:12:17):
<Laugh> I, you know, I have lots of red and gold paraphernalia cause my wife's a nine years fan as well. And I, I neglected to wear my gold puffy jacket that just throwback jacket. I needed that jacket. I wanted, I asked her for some years ago and she gave it to me. It was a very nice gift cuz they are,
Kim Shaffer (00:12:34):
I was looking for one a couple years back.
Leo Laporte (00:12:36):
<Laugh> shoot. Well as John, our studio manager says, well we're at next week. Yeah. Yeah. He's
Kim Shaffer (00:12:41):
Very optimistic. I like that in him.
Leo Laporte (00:12:43):
He is. Who should I talk to first?
Kim Shaffer (00:12:46):
Let's go to Rob and back Vacaville,
Leo Laporte (00:12:49):
Rob and Vacaville. Probably a 49ers fan. I would hope so. Hi, Rob Lee, the tech guy.
Caller #1 (00:12:55):
Hi. Hey welcome. Thank you. Good luck today. Thank you. No don't don't break any legs.
Leo Laporte (00:13:03):
<Laugh> no that's you don't say that in football. I think <laugh> no, the theater. Huh? So what's up. Got a TV
Caller #1 (00:13:10):
I got a TV question for you. Yeah, I've got <affirmative> Panasonic plasma TV, which still gives a beautiful people. Beautiful. Yeah. Right. And I'm thinking about springing for a D Blueray player. Will that give me some no better
Leo Laporte (00:13:27):
Results? No. Cause your TV is HD. Not 4k. And so it'll, it'll just be HD and what'll happen is the Blueray player will query the TV and say, well, what do you want? And the TV will say, I want 10 80 P please. And that's all the player will pump out. It won't, it won't in any way, try to improve this signal. So you're stuck with HD.
Caller #1 (00:13:54):
I won't get in dynamic range.
Leo Laporte (00:13:57):
HDR, not if your TV doesn't do it. No.
Leo Laporte (00:14:01):
The TV is the kind of the gating factor. So you have a, you know, a per a very good TV. And I think the game, it will the game, the movie <laugh> I think I have my mind on something else. The movie will look very nice, but it won't look any better than if you had a regular Blueray player. So wow. Now the good news is UHD players. Aren't expensive. Your next TV will almost certainly be for K HDR. So you know, you're buying for the future, but but no, you shouldn't get any benefit at all from that, unfortunately.
Caller #1 (00:14:31):
Sorry. Unfortunately I appreciate the answers. It's it's
Leo Laporte (00:14:34):
All about the hand between the TV and the device and the device is gonna only play what the TV can take. Not vice versa. You can't, you can't make your TV better by getting a better input. Unfortunately <laugh> you still have a great TV and PLA they don't make plasmas anymore. They're very valuable. It's funny. We had, I had a Coro, which is the top of the line plasma TV. And when we went to olded, which I really like, and you should probably, if you really wanted to look good, look at olded and the prices are dropped quite a bit, but we brought, I bought the plasma gonna work is anybody want a plasma? And nobody said nobody wanted it. And the co was, I mean, it was, it was even Scott Wilkin said, these are, these are precious TVs. Keep 'em. So keep your Panasonic. Don't throw it out. But maybe it's gonna be relegated to TV number two. That's my guess. Ron and char of North Carolina. Leo Laport, the tech. Hi Ron.
Caller #2 (00:15:34):
Hey Leo. How
Leo Laporte (00:15:34):
Are you? I'm great. Welcome.
Caller #2 (00:15:36):
Thank you. Hey got a question. I am a Android to apple iPhone con convert. Yes. I'm also a photographer. So I was, maybe this will be a question for Chris later. Okay. But using the, I got the iPhone 13 max. Very nice.
Leo Laporte (00:15:55):
Very nice. Anyway.
Caller #2 (00:15:57):
When I, and I'm using Lightroom classic. Yeah. When I import my photos you know, connect the phone and import yeah. You normally, normally, you know, Lightroom will put 'em in to their own dated folder. Yeah. For the iPhone. It won't, I mean, it, like, I took photographs yesterday and it put 'em in a folder today, you know, dated today, but you know, ah,
Leo Laporte (00:16:24):
So it's, so yeah, where it gets that information from it should is the EXIF, the extended information field, which is attached to every photo. And that will have the capture date as well as you know, capture information and so forth. And Lightroom will look at that and make those folders based on the capture date. It's making the folder based on the copy date, which is not obviously what you want. It's the, the file creation date. It's possible. I I'm gonna guess here. I haven't tried this. I use Lightroom classic. Love it. I also have an iPhone, but the iPhone is taking images in the he format. H E I F high efficiency image format. I'm wondering if maybe your version of Lightroom cannot understand the EXIF, the, that information in the heat format. In fact, it probably can't it
Caller #2 (00:17:17):
Probably just getting, I mean, I mean, I'm, I'm current, I'm turning on, on the software
Leo Laporte (00:17:21):
Levels. Yeah. I haven't tried this. My suggestion would be oh look, thank you, scooter X. Well, this is an old, this is an old thread about Lightroom not do it right. Light room. You should look in the settings of course, because you wanna make sure it's getting the information from the right place. I will tell you in a second, a program you can use to fix this. There are programs that will read the photo and not use the copier modified date, but the capture date. I wonder if it's a bug. I wonder if it's a problem with the format, my guess. Yeah, this is, this is actually so long ago this thread that is probably, yeah. And
Caller #2 (00:18:03):
I've got, I mean, I've, I'm using I'm a Canon guy, so I mean, I've got,
Leo Laporte (00:18:08):
It works fine with of the can raw. Yeah. So try a different capture program. I use Haylight on the iPhone, just as an experiment and see if Haylight, which is gonna shoot in raw and put it in a DNG format. I bet that will work. Leo Laport the TECA, but should it not? There are I actually went, I had a calamity in my photo library and I had to go through all of the photos and and fix them. And you, there are programs you can use that will take the modified date and take the EXIF information and make it the modified date. So that light room, even if it's using the, a modified date will go in the right folder. It can actually, this program can reorganize all the folders. It's really powerful. It's a com, but it's a command line utility. So
Caller #2 (00:19:04):
Program was Haylight
Leo Laporte (00:19:05):
Ha one Haylight is the camera app, which you, you, if you're a series about photography, it sounds like you are, or you should probably use at least some of the time instead of the apple camera app, but just see if Haylight solves this Halo's a third party app, but the guys who created it are super good, very high end. We closely with apple and they, unlike some third party apps, they use all the features of the 13. So, and, and then some, so they're, they're using the the LIDAR and all that stuff to really make that image special. So I would look at Haylight and let me see if I can't remember off the top of my head, this it's a Pearl program. Believe it or not. I used it some, some time ago, Pearl photo updater let me see if I can find it.
Leo Laporte (00:19:55):
It's a classic. Here's see if you don't wanna use file system date rather than minute. Okay. This is this more recent scooter X. Yeah. The tool I'm talking about is X. If E X I F T O l.org. And, and that what's cool about that is it's it's cross platform, it's command line and it's extremely powerful. And they have a Mac version of it, and I suspect it will do better than let me see if it can see the H E I F this is the problem as Apple's using their own format. That's not a standard format. If you shot in raw on the camera, it might be able to do that. You there's, I think, a raw setting, or you could shoot JPEG plus raw, I think on the camera. So check, check that. Now, let me look at scooter X's thread, cause he's found a more up to date thread from stack exchange, Lightroom imports, the wrong days by so inserting date, blah, blah, blah.
Leo Laporte (00:20:56):
This is a bug and Lightroom. Okay. Okay. But no, but see, this is really old too. This is nine years old. So like you can't trust the, this. Yeah. See if you can find something more modern scooter, X <laugh>. I would say you're gonna be better off if you use the either shooting raw or use Haylight Haylight is a really awesome if you shoot in a pro raw with a camera and you know, that's a setting in your iPhone camera, it'll be a DNG for, and I would, I'd be shocked if light room didn't import that properly. I think it's the, you don't want H E I F photos in light room anyway. It's just a fancy JPEG. You want the raws right. So, okay. Well thank you. And then look Atif tool by Phil Harvey. Wow. I, I, I have, I keep that around just because if I ever need a power tool to modify creation, dates, modified dates, EXIF information, I P TC information, XP information, GPS, it modifies everything, everything. Yeah. Light room should handle. Prorogue the question is the, the high efficiency image format they're using. No, and I know it's an op and format. It's not a but, but Lightroom may say, well, we don't want to, we wanna do with hike, hike, it's time for the car guy, Sam bull Sam. He is a principal researcher at guide house insights. He also has a great automotive podcast@wheelbearings.media joins us every week to talk about automotive of tech. Hello, Sam.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:22:30):
Hello, Leo. How are you this morning?
Leo Laporte (00:22:32):
I am wonderful. How are you?
Sam Abuelsamid (00:22:34):
I'm doing all right.
Leo Laporte (00:22:36):
So you are Sam calls in via zoom. So we can see his picture you're sitting in front of a very nice looking family, but for some reason they're all outlined in blue. What's going on. <Laugh>.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:22:49):
So earlier this week on twig on this week in Google I noticed that you and Mike Yagan and Jeff and, and aunt were talking about radar on the inside of cars. I mean, I think by now,
Leo Laporte (00:23:02):
Yeah. So normally you think of radar looking at the traffic around you, but, but now they're looking at who's inside the car.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:23:09):
Yeah. So this is something that's gonna be coming to the interior of vehicles. And, you know, sensing in general, on the inside of cars is something we're gonna be seeing a lot more of. Certainly, you know, we're gonna see it for autonomous vehicles for robo taxis and those types of vehicles when, when they become more common because the companies operating these things, you know, need to see, you know, who's in the vehicle, they need to know if somebody gets sick, if they was something behind, right. If they were smoking in the vehicle so that they can,
Leo Laporte (00:23:37):
Well, you can do that with cameras. What, what is, is you can do that with cameras. Yeah.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:23:42):
But the, the other thing you wanna do besides just,
Leo Laporte (00:23:45):
And most, by the way, most taxis and, and, and Ubers and stuff now have cameras pointing at the rear seat, just, you know, right. And
Sam Abuelsamid (00:23:54):
The case of, in the case of, you know, automated vehicles in, in some cases, you know, vehicles like the cruise origin, zoo's robo taxi, they don't all have the seats facing in the same direction. Ah you know, sometimes they have, they're like living rooms gonna have to have different airbag systems, ah, to handle depending on, on where the, where the direction of an impact is if there's a crash and where people are sitting. But it's not just AVS where we're gonna see sensors put into vehicles, we're seeing more and more of them put into regular vehicles that we drive, because that's gonna be the vast majority of what we drive for at least the next decade. And so we've already got things like infrared sensors, like you've got in your ma and, and you know, there's other vehicles with handsfree driving systems that use those. But we're also gonna see additional sensors, like radar,
Leo Laporte (00:24:43):
Forgive me for my cynic Sam, but I feel like they're doing that so that they can market, you know, so they can sell data to people. Like, I don't know why, but I feel like anything that's observing me, I could see. Okay, it'd be good to know if there's somebody in the passenger seat, we could turn on the airbags. They do that with, with, you know, little scales in the seat right now. But what, what would they use this radar for if it's not marketing?
Sam Abuelsamid (00:25:11):
So one, one of the applications I mean for radar you know, is probably not gonna be that helpful for, from, from a marketing perspective, cuz you can't really classify. Who's sitting in there. You only know if there's somebody there, if they're conscious that they're breath you, you're not gonna, it's not gonna be really useful for targeted marketing, but what you can use it for, for example, if you have a radar an imaging radar sensor, which is when I say imaging, it's just, it's a high resolution radar that's mounted in the, the roof of the car. It can look down and see where people are sitting, see if there's in the backseat. So, you know, one of the problems we've had in recent years is children being left in the backseat of a car on a hot day. And when, you know, when you close the windows, it gets really, really hot in the back inside the car.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:26:01):
If the air conditioning's not running. So this could be used to provide an alert if there's somebody left backseat. Also for example, I think we recently talked about Tesla allowing game playing on the center screen in their vehicles while the vehicle's in motion. You know, and that's a, a real problem. You know, Tesla said while it's only supposed to be for the passengers, the driver's not supposed is to be playing games, but they don't actually have anything to enforce that. They supposedly have changed the software so that it won't work while it's in motion, but it it's debatable, you know, how effective that actually is. But if you had radar sensors in the, in the dashboard, you could see who's actually touching the screen. And for example, even, even without games, you know things like inputting a destination into the navigation system, if it's the passenger doing it, you would be able to tell if it's the passenger reaching your hand over to, you
Leo Laporte (00:27:00):
Would have to pop that thing up that says you're driving dope.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:27:03):
Exactly. Yeah. So there's a lot of, of safety advantages to adding these kinds of sensors inside the vehicle. There is a
Leo Laporte (00:27:12):
Marketing advantage too. <Laugh> one of the reasons we were talking about it on this weekend, Google is because a lot of these autonomous car companies they're already thinking about, well, look at the trillions of hours of time people spending cars, what are we gonna do with all that time? We're gonna show ads.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:27:29):
Yeah. but you know, I, I don't know that it's trillions of hours that we spent in cars, but yeah. I mean, it's certainly in the, in the many billions of hours. Yeah. so at any rate you know, like I said, radar is not gonna be that useful for, for advertising cameras would be. Yeah. you know, here's the,
Leo Laporte (00:27:49):
Here's the number cameras. This is, this is from a a Morgan Stanley. No, we forecast the total human hours, including passengers spent inside cars rise from more than 600 billion hours today to 1.2 trillion hours by 2040, of course, by then autonomous vehicles. So 1.2 trillion hours, times anything they say is a very large number. Yeah. So that, it's hard to imagine this, but that's what people are thinking about today. Once we get self-driving vehicles, what are we gonna do is at 1.2 trillion, more hours staring at your phone, what are we gonna do with those people in the car? And I have to think being a cynic again. And I admit it that's part of the reason they wanna put radar in these things.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:28:32):
Yeah. Like I said, I think, I don't think radar's gonna be very effective there. Cameras are gonna be more cameras. Yeah. RA radar is really more of a safety thing. And you know, the type of radar that you're talking about, this imaging radar, the radars that we have on camera are very low resolution. They might have six or 12 channels of resolution. So, you know, it'll tell you if there's a vehicle directly in front of you and how far away it is and what speed it's going, or if it's near blind zone. And that's what, that's what they're primarily used for today. These imaging radars have anywhere from a couple of hundred to a of thousand channels of resolution. So it's much more like a LIDAR cheaper than most lidars. And so, you know, this is something that, as I said, could be used to detect, you know, individual motions inside a vehicle and on the outside, it, it's also very useful. And you know, when Tesla decided to drop LIDAR as part of their or radar as part of their their autopilot system last year, what they should have done is instead of dropping it entirely, they should have adopted imaging radar instead that would've been much more useful to supplement the cameras because you can get a lot more detailed information from this type of radar. But it's still anonymous cuz it's, it's not gonna be able to tell who you are only that there's somebody there and what you're doing. Can you tell
Leo Laporte (00:29:51):
Us somebody's heart rate with the radar? You could,
Sam Abuelsamid (00:29:54):
You did do that. Could you breathing rate and respiration? Yeah. Yeah. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>
Leo Laporte (00:29:58):
And know who you are. They know exactly who you are and they know exactly who you are, Sam. They know
Sam Abuelsamid (00:30:05):
They do that, that, you know, that can be used to tell if you're, you know, if you're still, you know alive, conscious, are they alive? If you're, if you're having a medical issue,
Leo Laporte (00:30:15):
They know who you are, Sam <laugh>,
Sam Abuelsamid (00:30:17):
They know who you are anyway, just because you have your phone with him. I think that's much more, that's what I'm saying of arrest than,
Leo Laporte (00:30:24):
Than your, a lot of companies talking about anonymized data or we, we strip off the the information. But once you combine data sets from all these different sources, we know who you are at all times. And so it's, it's reasonable to presume any information gathered about you is, is tied to your regard. You don't eat cookies, it's tied to your identity, but who cares? Let market to me, I <laugh>, I, I want more gonna market to you anyways. Yeah. I want better targeted ads. I can see there's a target on those little kids in the backseat with the via radio there's they got a little targeting display right on them. Yeah. Cuz you, I figured they'll be screw in these autonomous vehicles like crazy, right? Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And what are they gonna put on those screens? They're gonna put commercials.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:31:11):
It's gonna be gas station, TV,
Leo Laporte (00:31:13):
Gas station. Oh, that's the best
Sam Abuelsamid (00:31:14):
Forced to watch while you're isn't that isn't
Leo Laporte (00:31:18):
Samal salmon, he's a principal researcher at guide house insights. Listen to his wheel brings podcast wheel brings.media. Leo LePort the tech guy. Oh, Phoenix war says I'm too cynical. Just, it's just, they're putting radar in, out of the goodness of their hearts. Okay. Well,
Sam Abuelsamid (00:31:42):
I mean, you know, part of the infrastructure bill was they were required NITSA is gonna be required to put in something, some sort of sensing system to prevent drunk driving by 2026, which
Leo Laporte (00:31:55):
Good. I like that.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:31:56):
And, and you know, one of the potential types of sensors that could be used is imaging radar. You know, in addition, oh, you know, as a co as either as a compliment to, or in addition or, or as a, as a possible replacement for the infrared sensors that we have in vehicles. Right. I don't know that it's necessarily going to be you know, good enough by itself for that application, but it certainly is a compliment to, you know, for looking at the backseat at think is a really important application for use of these sensors. Yeah. And you know, they're, they're gonna be relatively low cost. You know, these are, you know for the types of sensors that you would put on the inside of the car maybe 15 or $20 for those sensors, they're gonna
Leo Laporte (00:32:41):
Be sensors everywhere because they're cost.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:32:43):
Oh yeah, absolutely. That's that's, that's no doubt. And you know, one thing, one thing that people are definitely gonna have to get used to with automated vehicles is any thoughts of privacy you had when you're driving around, you can be on the internet. Yeah. It's like you have privacy whatsoever when you're riding in an, in an AV because you will be monitored a hundred percent of the time that that much is a given yeah. Swamp rat says high resolution radar, the remastered version of mash <laugh> I like that. Yeah. and let's see, Dr. Mom, grandma says yeah. How about forgetting the baby in the backseat? Yeah, that was one of the things I said. This is, that is definitely one of the important applications that's been highlighted by several companies, including via, is looking at the backseat, you know, to see if there are kids or animals left behind. And you know, you can, you can tell if you can tell if they're, if they're breathing, you know, so you can tell if it's a, a doll, you can tell the difference of between a doll and, and a human child. Yeah. Right now the cars
Leo Laporte (00:33:50):
Have sensors that say you left something in the backseat, but yeah. That's
Sam Abuelsamid (00:33:54):
Just my weight. In some cases, in some cases they do not, not always in some cases what, what they're doing like what Nissan and some other manufacturers do is they actually keep track of the sequence of opening and closing the doors. Right. Right. So if you open the back door first and then close it and then open the driver's side door and get in, and then you get out of the car and you haven't opened the back door again, it it'll give you an alert saying, Hey, double check your backseat. And some, in some cases they do it on the, the dashboard. They give you an alert on the dashboard before you even get out, you know, make sure you check the backseat if it's, if it's detected that sequence. So they're, they're trying, they're trying all kinds of different things to to, to try to detect what's going on inside the vehicle and, and try to improve safety. Let's see Eric duckin says TVs and gas pumps is one of the most annoying inventions of mask mankind. I absolutely agree. I cannot stand those things. I felt that way
Leo Laporte (00:34:57):
Until I saw Patrick Norton on one of them.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:34:59):
<Laugh> that's true. I seen Cheryl as our, on, on those a couple of times. So it's funny. <Laugh> yeah. See, seeing people that, you know, on those is, is kind of amusing. Let's see what else we got here? You know, as I was saying, you know, about imaging radar actually the, one of the things, one of the interesting things that a CES was the com combination of imaging radar, and machine learning. And I'll talk a little bit about more, this, more in the, in the next segment. You Instagram, very interesting things there. Excellent.
Leo Laporte (00:35:32):
Good. Thank you, Sam. We get a little mini Sam bit every SA Sunday. Now I like it. Little extra Sam. Thank you, sir. We will talk in a few. Hey, I wanna thank Mike B <laugh> for telling me to do my radio ads. So I will just for you, Mike B and I do wanna do this ad because it is our very good friends at cash for lie. When you listen to the tech guy show or any of the podcasts on the TWI network, you're actually listening through cash, fly cash are CDN. All the downloads, go through cash, fly, audio and video. We've been using em for more than a decade. Now, in fact, cash, Matt Levine, the founder came to me in the earliest days of TWI. When we were struggling to support the hundreds of thousands of listeners and said we can help.
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Leo Laporte (00:39:15):
I apologize. Somebody. I chat Phoenix SWP in our chat room said every time people come on, you always rain on their parade. I'm a little cynical. I hear car manufacturers wanna put radar in our cars, looking at us. My thought immediately goes to, yeah. Why, what are they gonna do? Safety. Okay, safety, what else? Maybe I am cynical. Maybe I am. I, I I'll try not to be it didn't used to be that way in the early days of technology. It's interesting. It's not just me. It's the whole tech journalism industry going through this reexamination wired magazine's editor in chief just wrote an editorial saying, you know, when wired magazine was starting in the early thousands, it was very positive about the technology revolution and how it was gonna change the world and make life better. And isn't this exciting. And over the 20 years intervening, we've become more and more depressed. <Laugh> cynical. And, and I think it's happened to a lot of us. And so wire said, we're gonna try to balance that, you know, talk about the good as well as the negative. I feel like I'm going in the other direction. I'm, I'm trying to balance my techno optimism cause I love technology with some real world cynicism, but I apologize if I I don't wanna ring on anybody's anybody's parade back to the phones go eighty eight eighty eight, ask Leo Dean on the line from Hollywood. Hello, Dean.
Caller #3 (00:40:46):
Hello, Leo. I have a Shiba laptop computer that I bought new back in 2014. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. And about, about a week ago, I'm having problems getting it to go online. Oh, I, I can I can get up to a login page and then whenever I click click on, I accept the terms and then click log. It, it, for this last week, it just sits there to a says connection failed and then it has a oh, a few sentences say and error occurred.
Leo Laporte (00:41:25):
So a couple of questions for you. You're running windows, obviously windows 7, 8, 11, 10.
Caller #3 (00:41:33):
Oh, well, I, I, I think it's 10 it's it's from the year 2014.
Leo Laporte (00:41:39):
The laptop itself. Yeah.
Caller #3 (00:41:40):
Yeah. The laptop itself. Yes.
Leo Laporte (00:41:42):
Seven years old. Yeah. I guess it would be at least. Yeah, it might be is, is that windows 10 era? You wanna make sure that your operating system and your browser are up to because as they get older, they will, at some point stop supporting security updates and sites will block them. The other possibility is actually maybe the most likely possibility. Have you looked at the date and time on your laptop lately?
Caller #3 (00:42:05):
Oh yes. Well right now I'm looking at it at right now. It says 5:25 PM. January 14th, what year? 22.
Leo Laporte (00:42:17):
Oh, it has the right year. Okay. Because the way secure sites work, they have certificates that are dated and sometimes not unusual, an older computer to lose track of the date. And at that point it starts to think it's 1970 <laugh> and and the website will say, well, you'd think the website would say, well, 1970. Okay. You're fine. But, but it just goes and looks at it and says, well, it's not in the date range of my certificate. So you, you can't come in. You're not secure. So it's neither of those. You've got an up to, I'm gonna presume you have an up to date. Everything's up to date. You run your windows up updates regularly. I'm sure. Yeah.
Caller #3 (00:42:54):
No, I, I I stopped doing that years ago because I always felt like it was taking my computer hostage. And so yeah, I don't blame you I'd be in the middle of something and then it would, it would take it away for an hour. Yeah, I
Leo Laporte (00:43:06):
Know. But the choice is between having Microsoft take your computer hostage or the bad guys take a computer hostage. It may well be that because you're not running updates. Those sites don't like you now, do you have home wifi or this is, it sounds like this is at a outside at a coffee shop. A public place. Yeah. Public places. There's a coffee shop. Does a home wifi work or do you not have home wifi?
Caller #3 (00:43:27):
I don't have home wifi. But I have I have a Mac pro that works fine with the internet.
Leo Laporte (00:43:37):
Yeah, I have. I'm gonna guess it's
Caller #3 (00:43:38):
A secure device. I have a phone that works fine with the internet, but this one won't work.
Leo Laporte (00:43:42):
So the technically the technical term for what you're doing there, when you go to a coffee shop or a library and you log in, that's called a captive portal. That's the technical term for it. And it's kind of, honestly, it's a funky system. We just never came up with anything better. And as a result it's a little bit of a hack, but it, so it may be, there is an issue with windows in the captive portals you're using. Does it happen everywhere?
Caller #3 (00:44:16):
Well, I've noticed that the public library. Yeah. And I've noticed it at the Starbucks. Okay. And it's only been for this last week. I've been using it online for ever since I've owned it. Yeah. And this last week it started,
Leo Laporte (00:44:29):
I think, I think it has to do with updating. Okay. Now if you are on windows seven and I think you might be, oh that this is something that has been happening with windows seven. And it has to do with the version of encryption it's using the T it's called TLS. And some wifi spots may reject you because it's an older version. So my strong suggestion is you, you, you do it overnight. And sometime when you, when you, when you don't care, I guess that's as part of the problem is you're not on your own wifi, so it's not gonna be while you sleep. It's gonna be while you're at the library, which is a real pain. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So if you could find somewhere where you can get online and you could camp for a while, you'll probably wanna update.
Leo Laporte (00:45:16):
I'm gonna guess that's the, that's the issue. Okay. Yeah. I'll see if that works. Okay. Thank you very much. Hey, I appreciate the call. I'm sorry. I can't be more specific, but it is certainly, you know, there are problems with captive portals and that's one of them. And in fact, I'm looking thanks to the chat room for coming up with the page. This is from 2015, so it's quite a while ago, but you have a laptop from 2014, so maybe it's appropriate. But it has to do than older version of encryption TLS 1.0 I, you know, I don't know. I think, I think you probably should just update it. That'd be my almost certainly the right answer. This is a problem though. If you don't have internet at home, you're using public internet, public wifi updating windows is taking over your laptop for hours.
Leo Laporte (00:46:18):
It's gonna take a long time to download it. Then you have to sit there while it churn and churn and updates and you can't really leave because it needs to be online when Microsoft never really considered the, the circumstance where somebody's, doesn't not online, not fulltime online. This is more and more of a problem. For instance, the newest version of windows. When you set it up, you need to log into your Microsoft account, but I don't have internet. Sorry, you gotta log in to your Microsoft, but <laugh> the increasingly manufacturers just assuming, oh, you have internet and you have full-time internet and you have it at home and it's fast and you can just, you can run it any time.
Leo Laporte (00:47:06):
So I am, I am I am on your, on your side, Dean. I mean, it's a, it's a port is a nine, but you want to get online. I think you're gonna need to update. I really do. 88, 88 ASEO if you think you have a solution for Dean or any of our callers, you, I always encourage you to call in part of the value of doing this show. Somebody mentioned it the other day, that it's really a, a user group. That means it's not just me answering your questions. It's everybody answering your questions. We're all in this together. We've got the chat room@ircdottwi.tv or our discord chat. If you're a member of club TWI, we've got we've got the phone. Of course you can call tech guy labs, do com and hundreds of thousands of people listening. It seems like we should be able to solve any problem.
Leo Laporte (00:47:54):
Any problem out there? I think I'm, I was, I have only a little time left. So Leo you're on the line. I like your name. It's a good name. Hang on the line. <Laugh> I'm gonna have to take a break for the top of the hour. We'll talk to you in just a little bit. Yeah. The TWI army is in our chat room@irc.tv. I like to, I prefer to think of it as team tech guy, and that's the free and open all Leo. Leport the tech guy, more of your call coming up right after this, All your Sam.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:48:41):
All right. So as I was saying about radar and machine learning this is something I saw from a couple of different companies during CES from mobile I and from app they are taking radar data and processing it through machine learning to yet what they hope is enhanced data from it an enhanced picture of the world around them. So in the case is a mobile. What they're actually doing is using their new imaging radar that they're developing, which is a high resolution radar. So 2300 virtual channels, and they pass it through machine learning algorithms that transform the data from the kind of blips and cloud of blips that you see on radar to something that looks more like a LIDAR point cloud. And then they fuse that with their actual LIDAR data and run that through their classification algorithms.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:49:45):
So it makes it easier to compare the radar and LIDAR data when they do that transformation in, in the case of, and, and those imaging radar sensors are a bit more expensive than the type of typical radar sensors that we have on vehicles today for driver assist systems like adaptive cruise control and blind spot monitoring. But they also you know, as I said, have have much more resolution. Most of the current radars that we use are basically only in one plane. So they're, they're looking at stuff at the ground plane. So if there's anything up above or, you know, down, down low it can't really determine height. So these new generation radars give you both horizontal position and vertical position and distance and speed to each return each target return. The the there's another supplier called AIV that has been doing some interesting stuff as well, using those current generation radar sensors, those low are resolution sensors, and they're doing it and processing it with machine learning algorithms to basically try to extract more detailed data from it.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:51:00):
And I, I got a, a live virtual demo during CES. I didn't actually go to Las Vegas, but they did a demo where they were driving around in a car or driving around Las Vegas in a car. And we were, we had a Microsoft teams call going and they were talking, we were talking to each other on that. And then they also were doing a live video stream over YouTube live of the camera and a radar data from the same car as we were driving around. So I could see what the, what the car, you know, what they were seeing as they drove around Vegas and also what the radar was coming up with. And it, it was able to correctly classify and distinguish moving and stationary vehicles, pedestrians cyclists and also where the edges of the road were.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:51:51):
So that is something that, you know, just adding what they had to do was add an extra AI accelerator chip to it. So about a four tops 4 trillion operations per second AI accelerator trip chip to process us those machine learning algorithms but that's relatively lower cost and continue to use their existing low cost sensors with that. So we may see that coming in the next few years to augment the, the sensors that we have on there today, just processing the data in new ways to help, to distinguish what's going on on the road and help the system help the driver assist systems make better decisions about what's going about what to do when to do automatic emergency breaking you know, lane keeping, assist, that sort of thing. Let's see. <Laugh> yeah. Tech D the, the kid in the, the kid in the car, a getting the photo is asking, are we there yet?
Sam Abuelsamid (00:52:53):
Nope, not, not there yet. It's still, still gonna be a few more years before we get there. Scooter X, can I use the radar emitter to heat my burrito on my break? Probably not. They, they don't actually put out that much energy. It's see kilo tech asks, imagine if radar could assist cars to move at the same speed on the highway in order to avoid gridlock. Well, actually they sort of can now you know, using adaptive cruise control, that's the way almost all adaptive cruise control systems work. They use the, the radar to detect the distance to the vehicle ahead of you and also detect closing speed and automatically adjust your cruise control speed to maintain a steady gap to that vehicle ahead of you. So, you know, if everybody was doing that, you could, you could certainly do that.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:53:43):
It would certainly help to avoid gridlock and you'd have fewer, you know, hopefully fewer you know, false breaking events, you know, or people just slamming on the brake. You know, it, these systems tend to work a lot more smoothly than most human drivers do. So Mike B says yeah, problem is getting everyone who has ACC to use it. That is a challenge because a lot of people don't actually understand what capabilities their car has. And with these driver assist systems part, because the sales people often don't really understand what what's on there, what, what the systems are capable of. So we need better education for that. The national D council actually has a website called my car, does what and it, it does go through some of this, and this is part of what, you know, why I'm doing this stuff here is to explain what the technology is, how it works, you know, to help people understand.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:54:41):
Let's see Chevy guy says this talk on imaging is fascinating. Can you possibly post a link to some of the websites, sensor info? Yeah, I will. I will find that. And and do that. Let's see out sync says tops is tensor operations. It's trillions of tensor ops. But it's not comparable things like flops or MIPS. That's partially correct. It, it's not necessarily tensor ops it's it's integer operations which in most cases, tensor ops are integer operations. So the, it, it is tops is just trillions of operations per second. And it, it is different from the MIPS or flow floating point operations because, you know, it's, it's not floating point math. So the time it takes to do it is, is different. Let's see Mike B says one pro one problem, ACC has at least where I live is falsely identifying parked cars is moving vehicles in front of me.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:55:43):
Yeah. And this is one of the reasons why we have the move towards imaging radar because the resolution of radar current radars is so low that it is difficult to distinguish a vehicle parked on the side of the road from one that's in the lane in front of you. And this is, this is why Tesla has had a problem with their vehicles on autopilot repeatedly slamming into parked emergency vehicles because it, it has trouble. It doesn't have enough resolution to distinguish that, and they weren't, they didn't seem to be really using their cameras very effectively. So imaging radar gives you much more resolution and would be able to distinguish a vehicle parked on the, either in the next Shelton, the next lane, or in the side of the road versus a vehicle in front of you a vehicle beside you or a bridge overpas.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:56:34):
So you need, you need more resolution than what we have today. And there are comp, there is a, an interesting company called oculi that is also so doing some fascinating stuff with doing what using existing radar sensors but doing frequency modulation of the, of the pulses from the radar to create a, an imaging radar, like dataset. So you have that at higher resolution and their, the first vehicles with that should be going into production next year. So we'll we'll be seeing a lot more imaging radar in the next few years. Mix says when I was younger, I wrapped a potato and aluminum foil and placed it near the manifold to bake it. When I was driving cross country. It worked good. Yeah. Actually, I mean, at an internal combustion vehicle, you can certainly do that.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:57:27):
Back in 2007, 2008, when I was writing for auto blog one of my friends who was also writing there actually did a whole series of videos that I don't think are online anymore. But cooking was sh where he made a variety of different meals that he cooked under of the hood of the car. He was driving around. One last thing I wanna address somebody mentioned in the chat earlier about Honda having a bug in their software, some of their infotainment systems I think those systems were running windows, CE those older systems and all the newer stuff, everything from about 2015 onwards is actually running. So I don't think those, those don't seem to have that bug with the clock.
Leo Laporte (00:58:10):
Oh, that's good news. Thank you,
Sam Abuelsamid (00:58:12):
Sam. You're welcome a great week. My
Leo Laporte (00:58:14):
Friend take care. All right,
Sam Abuelsamid (00:58:17):
Bye bye.
Leo Laporte (00:58:22):
Hey, Hey. Hey, how are you today? Leo LePort you're the tech guy. Time to talk computers, the internet, home theater, digital photography, smart phones, smart watches. All of that jazz. Eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo the phone number (888) 827-5536. Toll free from anywhere in the us or Canada lines are open. If you want to call Kim Shaffer's ready and waiting, wearing her four 49ers garb. <Laugh> you look so good in that red and gold. I gotta say that's. I don't have enough 49ers gear though. So you're gonna see me in the same thing every week. <Laugh> I'll bring some in, goes on. I have a lot of 49. I have jerseys. My wife has jerseys going back to Ronnie. Lot days. I have a cap Jersey. I have a Kaepernick Jersey. I finally gave away. I had a Jersey. I liked it cuz it was black and red instead of red and gold for a guy who was briefly a player for the Niners.
Leo Laporte (00:59:17):
He came all the way from the all blacks in New Zealand. He was a rugby player and I thought, oh, Hayes, remember him? Yes I do. This was very exciting. Oh, if he plays, well, this could be a bit, he was jar Hayne. Yeah, he got, he was terrible. So <laugh> I gave, I gave away that that's a Goodwill. So if you see some guy walking around with it, <laugh> Jared Haynes. T-Shirt Hey, that's a good idea. Maybe I'll go down to the Goodwill. <Laugh> oh yeah. Cuz those are expensive. Those those NFL jerseys. They're crazy. Crazy expensive. I think it was a cheap one. I got at the Ballard. <Laugh> thank you, Kim. Nothing's cheap at the ball yard. Nothing's cheap at the Ballard. Beers are 25 bucks. I know. Eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo the phone number Leo on the line. Another Leo. Thanks for hanging on from Lameda California. Hi Leo. Hi Leo. Hey Leo. <Laugh> what's up
Caller #1 (01:00:05):
Go 49ers. Hmm.
Leo Laporte (01:00:07):
<Laugh> really? You're not a Rams fan, huh?
Caller #1 (01:00:10):
No, no, no, no. All right. Okay. Let's let's cut to the chase. Yes. I bought my wife and I a, a Christmas present a 75 inch, a Sony Bravia TV. It's aren't
Leo Laporte (01:00:21):
You a, a nice husband. Well,
Caller #1 (01:00:24):
I think so.
Leo Laporte (01:00:25):
Is she gonna let you watch it?
Caller #1 (01:00:28):
So far she has <laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:00:29):
Then you, then you did yourself a favor as well. That's a good gift. That's the right kinda gift
Caller #1 (01:00:36):
When, when it's working. Okay. Oh,
Leo Laporte (01:00:39):
Oh
Caller #1 (01:00:40):
Couple of days. So the, the T the remote control would no longer control anything. TV. It still controlled the direct TV. Oh, that's
Leo Laporte (01:00:52):
Hysterical. So you mean the TV's remote control? The one that came with the TV controls everything, but the TV.
Caller #1 (01:00:58):
Yes <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (01:01:01):
So now I'm gonna blame the cause the remote controls working these are all learning remotes nowadays. So they, cuz they want you to do that. When you first set up the Bravia, did it ask you to set up the remote for other devices as well?
Caller #1 (01:01:15):
It, it went through the full setup and it worked great. Yep. It worked great for the entire month of December. No problem. <Laugh> we, we walked HBO, max, apple TV, you name it, paramount plug. And the remote worked, Netflix, everything, everything worked great. About three days ago, the, like I said, the remote control just quit working. So I started just doing weird things, like unplug the TV, plug it back in, unplug the direct TV cable, plug it back. And I, I did all of the things that, you know, I tried to do like hard resets. I turned the TV back on, you know, same thing turned the direct TV box off and off and all of a sudden started working again. Oh, now this morning. Yeah. We're we're watching our service online. Yeah. Service online. Yeah. And, and Randy, my wife's at honey <laugh> well, you turned the volume up. So I hit the volume button and the TV went <laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:02:12):
Wait a minute. What? Wait a minute. What did it do?
Caller #1 (01:02:16):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:02:17):
It made the sound.
Caller #1 (01:02:19):
Yeah. And, and the, the picture was frozen and it was a little ju oh wow. And then it just went off.
Leo Laporte (01:02:26):
Oh, you broke it. <Laugh>
Caller #1 (01:02:28):
Again, I'm sitting here playing with all the buttons and all on the, the remote control. I finally get the TV. I couldn't even get a screen. We could hear the sound. So I hit the, if you're familiar with the control. So I hit the input button and found H DM I one, which is the TV input. I have a picture. Great. Good. In fact, I could do everything except now the home button on the remote control. Doesn't it? It just doesn't it actually, the picture goes away. I still hear, I still hear what's under TV. Cause it's got the H I one, you know, selected.
Leo Laporte (01:03:04):
Let me ask you, let me ask you a question. Yeah. Does your wife collect hum figurines
Caller #1 (01:03:10):
<Laugh> no, she collects teapots. Ah,
Leo Laporte (01:03:13):
So, okay. This is off the wall, but somewhere on that, TV is an infrared sensor. That's what you're aiming the remote control at.
Caller #1 (01:03:23):
Okay.
Leo Laporte (01:03:23):
I, I just wanna make sure that your wife hasn't in a, in a decorative frenzy, put anything in front of that sensor. It's often at the bottom of the TV, but you're gonna wanna, and it's hard to spot, but it'll be a kind of a dark plastic.
Caller #1 (01:03:36):
It, it, it blinks every time I hit a bottle. Oh, you see it. Okay. I can, I, I can hide this control underneath a blanket and everything still works.
Leo Laporte (01:03:45):
Okay, good. So it's not, it's not a teapot blocking the sensor. Cause the only reason I ask that is every once in a while, my cat will decide to sit in front of the TV, cuz I guess it's warm and I can't use a remote anymore cuz the cat blocks the remote. So just wanna make sure it sounds first thing I would do is make sure you have the latest firmware on the Bravia. Now
Caller #1 (01:04:08):
That did, did did that after it did its thing a couple of days ago. Okay.
Leo Laporte (01:04:13):
A couple of days ago is that when the problem began
Caller #1 (01:04:15):
That's that's when the whole thing just Uhhuh remote, remote wouldn't work at all mm-hmm <affirmative> but once I started working again, I went into settings. I went to, you know, system and I said, check for updates and said you're
Leo Laporte (01:04:27):
Up to date. Cause <laugh> cause TVs. And this is kind of the problem is that TVs are not computers and you know how wonderfully reliable computers are.
Caller #1 (01:04:37):
They should be a computer. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:04:39):
Your computers probably more reliable they these days. So it sounds, especially this it's new. That was the first guess is maybe the firmware got out date or there was a bad firmware update or, or it got corrupted. The remote works fine except with the Bravia right. I mean, it, it, it
Caller #1 (01:04:57):
Does every, it does everything it used to do except the home button on the, on the remote. Oh. And now
Leo Laporte (01:05:01):
The that's the only thing not working is the home button. Right. You didn't get the bur again that stopped. No.
Caller #1 (01:05:08):
Nope, Nope. Everything is working great. And the home, button's the one that then puts up the menu of selecting HBO, max, apple, you know, it puts that little. Yeah. You need the home button.
Leo Laporte (01:05:17):
Yeah. Yeah.
Caller #1 (01:05:18):
Well actually I can use the input button to get to the same. Oh, okay. Good home button was the nice one. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:05:24):
Cause it goes right there.
Caller #1 (01:05:25):
Yeah. Well it gave you all the commercials too. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:05:30):
Isn't that nice. I, I think there's probably is something wrong with the TV. I'll be, be honest with, I know you don't want that to be the case. It'd be worth the call to Sony and say and explain what you just explained to me. It sounds like there's a software issue with the TV, to be honest. Yeah.
Caller #1 (01:05:49):
Or, or, or a module blew up
Leo Laporte (01:05:51):
And, or a, and that this happens and like I said, it's a computer and you could have a, you know, there's card, all sorts of stuff in there. And yeah, absolutely could be a bad chip. Could be a, and it does sound like that. To be honest with you, it doesn't sound like it's a remote. It, it doesn't, it's obviously not the other things. The one thing, somebody in the chaps saying, and then this I could be at, you know, there is this really interesting, but often problematic consum technology. And TV's called C E C, which is the Stan for consumer electronics control, which is a terrible name. But it's the thing that turns the TV on. For instance, when you turn on the cable box, it's a signaling system between the devices. The problem is, is very poorly designed. And so it's implemented in a variety of ways and sometimes CEC can cause issues.
Leo Laporte (01:06:40):
And it it's possible that the C you you're using C because that one remote control, when you turn on one thing, turns on the other things that's CEC. So what you could, a couple things you might try is going to the Bravia turn off CEC. Now they probably don't call it C E they have, every company has their own name. I'm trying to remember what Sony calls the CEC. I think it's sync or Robbie sync or Bravia link. I'll look for it. Yeah. Look for it. And disable it just temporarily. You want it, but make sure that that's not the problem. Okay. Cuz that can actually cause similar symptoms. You may also did you get new cables when you got the TV HTM? I cables.
Caller #1 (01:07:27):
I didn't, but they're they're they're they're almost brand new. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:07:32):
You're fine. You're fine. Everything.
Caller #1 (01:07:34):
Like I said, everything worked for a month. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:07:37):
That's why I suspect the TV. It's sounds like a firmware issue or a
Caller #1 (01:07:41):
Failure. Yeah. And it's Mount and it's mounted on the wall. Of course. And I put all the
Leo Laporte (01:07:45):
Cables in by the, and there're such a good husband
Caller #1 (01:07:50):
Weighs, I don't know, 60 pounds. So
Leo Laporte (01:07:52):
One more thing you can try and they would, if you call Sony, they're gonna make you do this anyway. You can reset that to factory settings did that too. You've done it.
Caller #1 (01:08:01):
Okay. Yeah. So I, yeah, there was a couple of different things. You, you know, reset the, you
Leo Laporte (01:08:07):
Know, did you erase all the data? You, you, you started from scratch. Cause it is, that's just like a computer, right? It's just like, like your phone. Yeah. Factory data reset. Yeah. Okay. If you, if you I, I would try turning off CEC just temporarily. See if that's related to the problem. If it goes away, then maybe it is otherwise I'll call to Sony. Cause I think they, I think you're right. I think there's a problem.
Caller #1 (01:08:32):
I gotta take it back to oh, nuts.
Leo Laporte (01:08:34):
Yeah. On nuts.
Caller #1 (01:08:36):
So do you know any, you know, anything about O ODB units and cars? I do.
Leo Laporte (01:08:41):
We were talking about that yesterday. The onboard diagnostic bus.
Caller #1 (01:08:45):
I won't take up any more of your time, but now I'm trying to figure out how to adjust my TPMS sensors in my vehicle that I
Leo Laporte (01:08:51):
Don't know. That's okay. That's hacking. And I, if, even if I know how to do that, I wouldn't, I couldn't tell you on the air, the what kinda vehicle? What? What's the brand
Caller #1 (01:09:02):
It's it's a Winnebago RV. Okay.
Leo Laporte (01:09:04):
So we, our our our storied already figured it out. Oh, you did? I already figured it out. Yeah. Our story to engineer Russell, I talk about all the time has an Audi and is constantly reprogramming his Audi. You're not supposed to do that. You know, you change the fuel, you know, ratio and all that stuff. And you're not supposed to do that, but yeah, you can get into it. So you figured out how to get in. Yeah. Good
Caller #1 (01:09:28):
Man. My last honey, my last honey do is to fix the propane regulator in the RV. <Laugh> so
Leo Laporte (01:09:34):
I'm busy. I'm busy. Brandy's is it Randy or Randy? Randy with an R. Randy is a very lucky woman
Caller #1 (01:09:41):
And, and a Y
Leo Laporte (01:09:43):
And a Y.
Caller #1 (01:09:44):
Yeah, no, no eye on the end.
Leo Laporte (01:09:45):
No eye. No, sir.
Caller #1 (01:09:47):
That's right. She'll get upset if you call her Randy with an eye.
Leo Laporte (01:09:51):
No, Randy, with a Y
Caller #1 (01:09:53):
And she's listening too. So be careful. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:09:55):
In fact, we're gonna play a song for her when we come back after this commercial break. Okay.
Caller #1 (01:10:00):
Leo, I love yourself. <Laugh> for taking
Leo Laporte (01:10:02):
My call. Thanks Leo. Take care. Leo and Randy, I think you know what I'm I'm asking for professor Laura. Let's play a song for Randy. She's a fine girl. Eighty eight, eighty eight. Ask Leo. That's the phone number, more calls coming up right after this. I know. I know. I know. I know. It's Brandy. <Laugh> wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Say that again. Brandy. Play the song Brandy. And I'll just say Randy, every time they say Brandy, Brandy, you are a fine girl. What a good wife you would make, but my love it's by looking glass. I'm sure you could find it. Thanks
Speaker 7 (01:10:44):
For listening to TWiT podcasts. If you'd like to take it up a notch, you can get all of our shows without ads by joining Club TWIT, whether you're a loyal fan or once you give your employee something special with our corporate plan, you'll get the bonus TWIT plus feed with extra behind the scenes, outtakes and access to a member's only discord all for just seven bucks a month. It's a great way to get just the content support TWIT TV, and be a part of the tech community. Learn more and join Club TWIT at twit.tv/clubtwit.
Leo Laporte (01:11:14):
<Laugh> LeoLaporte, The Tech Guy, Randy Randy I'm brand eighty eight, eighty eight. Ask Leo is the phone number. If you have a question, a comment, a suggestion. If you'd like to talk tech, I'm here for you, baby. Your tech guy, Mike's on the line. I Mike, all the way from your Belinda.
Caller #4 (01:11:36):
I have a I've just upgraded from my iPhone from the iPhone six to an iPhone 13. And I
Leo Laporte (01:11:42):
Big jump. You joined the 21st century.
Caller #4 (01:11:46):
Oh yeah. I was trying to squeeze blood out of the old one, but
Leo Laporte (01:11:49):
You know what? The six was a great phone, but you just, you know, you're on the cliff to wear the Apple's not gonna update it anymore. So this was the time to do that. I think,
Caller #4 (01:11:58):
Well, I've run into a similar problem on my I I've relined that to the new phone, to all of my wifi devices Bluetooth devices, let's say, and my 2014 automobile it will auto link, but it will not stay connect. I've gone through the motions of completely disconnecting from both ends and reconnecting. And I come up with the same symptom. It will auto link when I first start the car up. But after it goes through a, a complete handshake, I guess it is it disconnects. And I can reconnect it if I go into the car annually. But on occasion, if a call comes in, it will disconnect.
Leo Laporte (01:12:39):
Oh, that's useless, right? <Laugh>
Caller #4 (01:12:41):
Yeah, that just tells me that there's no fix for that. And they, they indicated that there's an incompatibility of the software between the two systems. I was wondering if you had any ideas there, how to fix that.
Leo Laporte (01:12:54):
I am looking@anapplesupportdiscussiononapple.com. Can't pair iPhone 13 pro to Bluetooth in Lexus. And it, it doesn't look like there are a whole lot of answers except that it, that it may be. In fact out of date, I would put a link@techeyelabs.com to this discussion. This is apples support response, restart your device, turn off Bluetooth for five seconds, turn it on again, follow the instructions in the car manual, update your device. It's help. It's not helpful. It's stuff you've already done. It is, it is PR you know, I B first of all, Bluetooth is terrible. I mean, it's great when it works. Did you're old? Do your iPhone six work with it? Fine work
Caller #4 (01:13:41):
Perfectly. Yeah. Yeah. It, it does work. If I manually connect, I can place a call and I leave calls, but occasionally when a call comes in through the car on the first ring, it'll disconnect
Leo Laporte (01:13:55):
That isn't nuts. Yeah. <laugh>, that is just nuts. That of course makes it completely useless because you can listen to music and stuff, but you just, but you can't make a phone call. You can't use it as a phone. And you're up to date on your iPhone 13. You update, in fact, they just put out 15.2 0.1 today. Which as I remember, actually, I think they said has some fixes for Bluetooth. So that's one, one hope would be that maybe, you know, there's a bug and Apple's gonna fix it. So make sure you're up to 15.2 0.1 as today. Okay. and then the other thing which I've had to do in other cars as well is remove all devices, like start from scratch, completely remove all devices, not only from the car, but from the phone. You don't have to remove all the Bluetooth devices, but remove the car from the phone and then remove all your phones from the car and start over and see if that times that fixes it.
Leo Laporte (01:14:52):
I have found it's not unusual that I have to pair a phone a few times before it sticks. And I honestly, I honestly think that Bluetooth is just flaky. It's just not a good standard. Somebody Dr. Mom in our chat room says, if you have, have any Bluetooth, low energy BLE devices in the car that can interfere with the Bluetooth connection, that would be perhaps another phone or a GPS or some other device that pairs via Bluetooth. That seems unlikely. I, you know, and it may just be that a 2014 Lexus is firmware was compatible with you know, roughly the same era, 2014 iPhone, but not so much with a twenty, twenty two iPhone or 2021 iPhone. Anybody has an answer for Mike, let us know. I that's all I can suggest. Okay. Well, thank you very much.
Leo Laporte (01:15:48):
Not, not a known, well, I don't know if it's a known problem. I'll put this thread <affirmative> in the show notes, cuz maybe, I don't know, maybe it is a known problem. I don't know. Doesn't look like apple had any solution for this guy except for the generic, you know, restart Bluetooth is just awful. <Laugh> honestly the Bluetooth is awful. And, and one guy in the chat room, red con five says just buy a new Lexus. That might, that would probably work. Also. You could do that. Upgrade your phone, upgrade your Lexus. I think that's a good philosophy in life. 88, 88, ask Leo. If you have a suggestion for Mike or any of our callers, or if you just have a question of your own or a comment, always love to hear from you 88, 88, ask Leo, Chris, Markt our photo guys coming up and he's gonna take some time to talk about good photography apps. We were talking in the first hour about Haylight, which is my favorite camera app for the iPhone. Let's see if that's on Chris's list, some apps you might want to use on your phone. If you are a smartphone photographer, that's coming up next on the tech high show. Stay right here. It's time for the camera guy. Chris mark wart. He's our photo sensei@senseisensei.photo joins us every week to help us take better pictures. Hello, Chris?
Chris Marquardt (01:17:12):
Hello. How's it going? It's
Leo Laporte (01:17:14):
Going great. And I'm glad we do this every once in a while we talk about apps for your oh yeah, your camera phone. There's some really good stuff out there.
Chris Marquardt (01:17:25):
You know, I, I was out today or we were out today Monica brought her camera like the proper camera, and then we realized that the iPhone is so much more versatile in so many respect. So yeah, we looked at, I looked at some smartphone apps. You didn't put away
Leo Laporte (01:17:45):
The fancy camera and use your, your phone. Did you?
Chris Marquardt (01:17:48):
Well, she, I, I only brought my phone. She brought her camera and she put it away in the minute. Oh, you
Leo Laporte (01:17:53):
Beat me. That's really true. These
Chris Marquardt (01:17:55):
Days. She didn't, she didn't have a wide angle, but she needed one. So it's, it's in the iPhone. Right. So it's, it's simple. So did she borrow the,
Leo Laporte (01:18:04):
Did she borrow your phone?
Chris Marquardt (01:18:07):
No, she has her own phone. So we ended up, I ended up looking at some apps for some, for iOS, some for multiple platforms. So that I, that I've used every now and then. And one that I used all day to day was Argen, which is an iOS app. Yeah. And I think I've re recommended that before you have,
Leo Laporte (01:18:29):
And I love, I love it.
Chris Marquardt (01:18:31):
It's a, it's a black and white camera and the there's like one, one of those filters that you can enable is free. And I love the AA filter, which is the Ansel Adams filter. It gives you this gritty, black and white with amazing contrasts. So for landscapes art is,
Leo Laporte (01:18:49):
It's also nice when you're running this app, cuz you can only see black and white. And so I, which I love and but sometimes when you're shooting color, it's hard to visualize what the black and white would look like. So just fire up our gentle. And now you're seeing you seeing everything in black and white and it does, it does it, it has filters. So you can have Ansel Adams style, black and white, but there's other styles too. Yeah. <affirmative>
Chris Marquardt (01:19:12):
There are other styles, but that's the one that's my go to <laugh> it's just, Hey, you can't do better than that's this lovely thing with contrasts. RRG that's
Leo Laporte (01:19:20):
The first one. N T U M I think it's iPhone only, but
Chris Marquardt (01:19:23):
Yeah, that's iPhone only. The next one is a multi platform, actually lots of platforms. It's a, it's a strange animal. It's called polar P O L a a double R. And it's, it's a subscription. So watch out, you have to continuously pay for that. It even
Leo Laporte (01:19:39):
Doesn't even have a web app. I feel like it has a web app as well. It,
Chris Marquardt (01:19:42):
It runs on the web. It runs on Android runs on iOS. It runs on, I think at least a couple more platforms. It has a lot of like AI supportive features like selective mass. You can select the sky or a person on the background or vegetation or buildings and things has a, a lot of good retouching features. So this usually for people with
Leo Laporte (01:20:04):
As well with Chromebooks that can't run an app, they can use a Chrome for example, to do this. Yeah, yeah. Is it like, I mean, is it comparable to something like Photoshop? Probably not as powerful.
Chris Marquardt (01:20:15):
No, no, no, it doesn't. It doesn't even target the same kind of audience you it makes, it tries to make things very simple by helping you with making selections and these kind of things. So there's a lot of a I in the background. The third one I wanna talk about is just out for the iPhone. It used to be on the iPad, but now it's on the iPhone pixel Mader photo.
Leo Laporte (01:20:37):
This is such a good app. Oh
Chris Marquardt (01:20:40):
Yeah. I think, I think they have a discount right now. I think I paid three euros 99. So it's in the, in the lower range. And they have a whole, whole bunch of interesting things in there, including like of course they have pushing learning in there. So you can choose to have certain aspects of your photo, the colors or, or other things kind of automatically handled. But you can also save all the settings that you put in there as your own filters. Mm. So you can recall individual filters and it let's, let's just save workflows. So you could have a, like a workflow that you wanna apply to multiple pages, like applying a preset and then automatically cropping it and rotating and scaling and exporting to JPEG. And that is all built in there. And it's available on the iPhone now
Leo Laporte (01:21:29):
Just, yeah, we had a caller who was having trouble with his light room classic and his iPhone images, you know, come to think of it these days. You might just use apps on your iPhone. Instead of trying to move it over to a computer, I mean, pixel made a photos pretty much everything you'd want. I think
Chris Marquardt (01:21:48):
80, even it even has professional features like, like native raw editing. So if you have an app that shoots raw, then you can edit them in there. Straight away it supports the apple pro raw format and that kind of stuff. And it integrates nicely with the, with your photos app. So you, you, if you save something, you can always revert back to the original photo and so on. Pretty cool.
Leo Laporte (01:22:12):
It also can delete stuff, hide stuff that you don't wanna see like people in your pictures and stuff. That's
Chris Marquardt (01:22:18):
Really helpful. Oh yeah. This was just scratching the surface. That thing goes deep. Yeah. Yeah. Another one that goes very deep is this a, this is an old friend that I've been using for it's a classic it's snap seed, snap seed is a well, how, how would you describe Snape? It's it's a, it's a, it's a, it does everything pretty much. I mean, from tuning images to, I've just, I, I just have it here in front of me to, to more advanced things as curve curve adjustments, or you can change the perspective on things or have a healing per rush. There's retro filters, vintage stuff. You can like grunge up photos. There's also nice black and white treatments in there. If you have a portrait, you can even change the head pose so you can move what head around. Yeah. You can, you can move someone who's looking to the right and, and, and have 'em look straight at you if you want. Oh, that's
Leo Laporte (01:23:10):
So cool. Oh, I didn't know that. So it's come a long way. I mean, for, for a long time, I, I just thought of hip systematic as a filter system. So you make your photos look old, but it's more than that now. Well,
Chris Marquardt (01:23:21):
The, the, that one was Snape. The next one is hip systematic, but not the, the, and that's the last one on the list? Not the, oh, I got outta order.
Leo Laporte (01:23:28):
You were talking about snap seed. I'm sorry. I was
Chris Marquardt (01:23:31):
Talking about snap seed. Listen,
Leo Laporte (01:23:32):
When you said old, but goody, I immediately went tomatic yeah, no,
Chris Marquardt (01:23:36):
No, no. Snape has been around for years as well. You're right. Yeah. But hipster has this one side branch it's called hipster tin type. You ever have portrait? Have you ever had a tin type portraits taken off yourself? I, no.
Leo Laporte (01:23:51):
Now, cause that's like from 1890, <laugh>
Chris Marquardt (01:23:55):
Older. This is, this is 1850s technology
Leo Laporte (01:23:58):
Fifties. Wow.
Chris Marquardt (01:23:59):
<Laugh> and these, and these tin types have a really specific look and they have a specific depth field and the way they treat the contrast, it's really amazing looking. And hematic tin type simulates that in a fairly, fairly convincing way. And it it's, you can change like how it get goes out of focus to the side and yeah. I've it's to get, get somatic tin type, take a selfie, and then you'll see what it can do. So it's
Leo Laporte (01:24:31):
A separate app from hip systematic. It's it's one call it's a separate type tin type.
Chris Marquardt (01:24:35):
Okay. It's hip tin type. Yep. And it's a separate app. It's an I unfortunately, Iris only, but it, yeah, just, just play with it. You'll you'll thank me for it. Yeah. Wow.
Leo Laporte (01:24:46):
Wow. Make everybody look like they're they're in the cowboy days. Wow.
Chris Marquardt (01:24:52):
How fun is to wear the proper, the proper period clothing that might be really convincing. Yeah. So that's five apps for
Leo Laporte (01:24:59):
You. Five great apps, which, you know, it's funny cuz one of the premises of you coming on is it's to make people want to take, take more pictures and those apps make me wanna take pictures. I want to go out and take, you know, 10 types of everybody and, and you know, how fun is that? So that's only 99 cents, the 10 type apps. So just got my book. They just got my dollar. If you want, we'll put a link to all of these up on our show notes at a tech guy, labs.com. So you don't have to write scribble and write everything down. I should have probably told you that ahead of time. <Laugh> and of course, if you wanna follow Chris ARD in his photography best to go to his site, sensei.photo S E N S E i.photo or to his podcast tips from the top floor, which is an excellent photo podcast, longest running photography podcast out there, TF ttf.com. Our subject of the, of the month for our photo assignment is lazy. Is it no bright, bright, oh, lazy was last. See how lazy I am. I'm doing last month. Bright, take a picture. Upload it to the tech guy group on flicker in a couple of weeks, Chris won't be lazy. He will review some of your images. Leo. Leport the tech guy. Thank you, Chris.
Chris Marquardt (01:26:14):
Thank you.
Leo Laporte (01:26:21):
I'm still stuck in lazy. Yeah. I I'm down. I'm paying for the tin type right now. How fun is that? That is so cool.
Chris Marquardt (01:26:31):
Yeah. Just go through the settings. The, the UI is a bit clumsy, but go through the settings. The different kinds of,
Leo Laporte (01:26:37):
Yeah, like a lot of us, I kind of went through my hip systematic phase and got tired of taking Polaroids and stuff,
Chris Marquardt (01:26:44):
But you can take amazing stuff in there. This is just a simple selfie. I like
Leo Laporte (01:26:48):
It. Oh, look at, look at how it looks. It's hysterical. Look <laugh>, that's like a, like DGAs on the camera. You.
Chris Marquardt (01:26:57):
Yes, it is. That's a bit of a getting used to, but where's the once, once you've taken a photo, so then takes a while and then, and then go to the editing in type and then play with the different filters and things.
Leo Laporte (01:27:09):
Access to all photos. Yes. Now what?
Chris Marquardt (01:27:14):
Okay. And then change the style on it to like one of the different, okay.
Leo Laporte (01:27:20):
Oh, I had all the allowance, the process things. So that where's the, let's see the styles here. No here. No that's pictures.
Chris Marquardt (01:27:27):
So under, under the photo, under the photo, there's an editing tin type. The yellow button. Oh, you
Leo Laporte (01:27:31):
Have to take the picture first. Okay. You take the picture first. So let me, let me get a picture of me. All
Chris Marquardt (01:27:37):
Right. Open your eyes wide. It's okay. It's well, we'll we'll see what I got.
Leo Laporte (01:27:40):
Okay. Now. Oh no. That's yellow. Let me go back. <Laugh> open my, my eyes wide. I don't know if this is gonna turn out so good. <Laugh>
Chris Marquardt (01:27:53):
We'll play with it. Play with it. Go, go, go to the yellow button and now
Leo Laporte (01:27:59):
Tap to change. Focus.
Chris Marquardt (01:28:01):
Tap on the leftmost. I can tap on the leftmost I icons. Oh, these are all the, and now go to this second to the second from the left. This one. Yeah. Don't never mind it being
Leo Laporte (01:28:09):
Rotated. Stick with that one. Okay. And then stick
Chris Marquardt (01:28:12):
With that one. And now go to the next one. And you can add a frame if it doesn't already. I one, see, I see, see all this stuff in type scale frame.
Leo Laporte (01:28:20):
Yeah. Plate grain. Oh, I could turn up the grain. Make a really old, old timey at an old timey frame. And that was the
Chris Marquardt (01:28:28):
Third one. Yeah. For the eye. Yeah. And change
Leo Laporte (01:28:31):
Intensify. My eyes <laugh> oh God, that's creepy. <Laugh> I looked like a vampire. Holy cow. That's not a good look. Let's intensified now. That's too. That's too intensified. Have fun.
Chris Marquardt (01:28:47):
And in the last one, the little drop I can, they can change the depth of fields, perceive depth of field and so on. And then when you save that, it goes straight to
Leo Laporte (01:28:56):
Your camera roll. Okay. Save that sucker worth playing
Chris Marquardt (01:29:00):
With it. Maybe try a different photo though.
Leo Laporte (01:29:03):
<Laugh> that's terrifying. That's
Chris Marquardt (01:29:07):
Hysterical. A bit terrifying. Yeah. Yeah. But you look like, you look like doc brown from, from 1850, you know, a
Leo Laporte (01:29:14):
Little bit. Yeah. That's a little creepy, a little creepy. Maybe do something a little farther away.
Chris Marquardt (01:29:20):
And it helps if you have light in your eyes. Ah,
Leo Laporte (01:29:23):
Yes. The eyes are weird. Okay. So I need to put more light in my eyes here. I'll do one up. I'll do one up in the
Chris Marquardt (01:29:30):
Air. And if you've ever seen a, a proper tin type portrait, this is very close. Oh
Leo Laporte (01:29:35):
Yeah. It's really close. Oh, that's gonna be better. I got a better one. This, this work better. Yeah. Now edit tin type. Yeah. See that's better. That does really look like a tin type. Wow. Yes. Cause there's more of the background. You can just, you could see
Chris Marquardt (01:29:53):
More of that. That's a really good simulation. Yeah. Really good simulation. Yeah. Yeah. That second one again, the nevermind the rotation. That's
Leo Laporte (01:30:01):
Something really wrong. <Laugh> I dunno what the hell's going on there.
Chris Marquardt (01:30:06):
I might be your studio lights. I have
Leo Laporte (01:30:07):
No idea. <Laugh> yeah. I got too much light. And look how look, how tan I look.
Chris Marquardt (01:30:13):
Well that's that's tip type. Does that? It does that honestly tip type does that? Yep. That's how it works with, if you have someone with freckles on a tin type they'll
Leo Laporte (01:30:21):
Oh yeah. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. All right.
Chris Marquardt (01:30:26):
That's it's because the, the tintype only sees like blueish lights, so everything that's Redish will. Anyway. Thank
Leo Laporte (01:30:34):
You, Chris. You gotta go. Bye Leo. Leport the tech guy, 88, 88 que Leon during the break playing with 10 types of myself for <laugh>. I don't know. I don't know if I like this this app or not. It's it's different. <Laugh> it? It's different. <Laugh> worth, worth playing with hip systematic 10 type of buck. Yeah. Cool. And again, we'll put all the links to his a, in our show notes. Heath is next on the line from lake Isabella. Hello Heath.
Caller #5 (01:31:10):
Hi Leo. Hey, I'm not smart enough to be called a dinosaur <laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:31:16):
I'm the dinosaurs had brains. The size of Walnut you're surely smart enough.
Caller #5 (01:31:20):
I tell I'm I'm I'm nowhere near the 21st. Okay. I I'm talking, talking to you on a 13 year old flip phone. Oh my goodness. It's on a, you know, 3g network and my carrier pigeon notified me that I'm gonna be losing 3g. Yes. See, I never do anything other than talking text. I don't do that. I'm not in the internet. The question I have is when 3g disappears, am I gonna lose everything? Talk, text everything, or, or what? Well,
Leo Laporte (01:31:52):
3G is data as you correctly assume. So losing 3g shouldn't affect your phone calls, except that who's your carrier.
Caller #5 (01:32:04):
Verizon,
Leo Laporte (01:32:05):
It might well be that when they decommission the data, they're going to also decommission the voice. So it's really gonna have something to do with you know, what Verizon's choices are. It shouldn't in theory, right? Your voice, the voice is a different system and the 3g is for data only, but a lot of these carriers now they use data for voice as well. And I wouldn't be surprised if Verizon, what you should do is check with Verizon to see. Yeah. I, and, and they're gonna do that till the, by the way, they've now said it's not gonna be till December 31st of this year. So you've got another year. Oh, good.
Caller #5 (01:32:47):
That's yeah. They delayed it. Yeah. Well, you gave me a bit of good news that I can relax a little while because what, I didn't wanna go to Verizon. I mean, Verizon sales naturally, and, and they often wanna sell me something that they want to sell me, not necessarily what I
Leo Laporte (01:33:05):
Need. So here's what I'm looking at the Verizon page. And I'll put a link in our tech eye labs show notes to this Verizon page, because it's more specific about what you're gonna lose. They're decommissioning as I suspected, not just the data, but the whole C DMA network which means if you are a Verizon customer on December 31st of this year, still using a device that does not support HD voice yours, I guarantee you does not. This device will no longer make, receive calls, send, and receive text messages or use data services. So that's why it's a little deceiving when they say we're gonna DEC, they really shouldn't say we're turning off 3g. They are turning off those CDMA towers. That means your phone does not work.
Caller #5 (01:33:51):
I sure appreciate you. You did answer my question. You know, you make a loud, you politician <laugh> you didn't tell me what I wanted to hear to make an
Leo Laporte (01:34:01):
Excellent dinosaur <laugh>
Caller #5 (01:34:04):
To be a politician. You need to tell
Leo Laporte (01:34:06):
People what they wanna hear. Oh, don't worry, Heath. You're gonna be fine. Your phone will work forever. <Laugh> forever
Caller #5 (01:34:17):
You. Thank you very much. I love your show. Thank you. You did a really did answer my question course. The answer I was hoping
Leo Laporte (01:34:24):
For. No, I know. I'm sorry. Yeah.
Caller #5 (01:34:26):
Yeah. But new phone time, the Verizon and see that I can work out there. They'll
Leo Laporte (01:34:31):
Give you a free phone because they wanna keep you you've been a customer obviously for a very long time. <Laugh> and and they wanna keep getting that, you know, that 75 bucks a month from you, so they will have free replace that you can, and, you know, in, in return, you'll have to agree to sign up for another two years. That kinda
Caller #5 (01:34:47):
Thing. Yeah. Okay. And, and also too, the phone I'm using I like it's, it's a, a strong antenna. It's oh yeah. I live in a very remote area and I need a strong antenna. I know I'm kind of throwing a curve ball at you here, but you have to know off the top of your head, any particular types of phones that would have a better antenna for picking up a weak signal.
Leo Laporte (01:35:12):
So does your phone, is it so old that it has an extensible antenna? Like you pull it up to make the phone call?
Caller #5 (01:35:18):
It's not quite
Leo Laporte (01:35:19):
So you remember those phones, right?
Caller #5 (01:35:22):
What is the, the system, the CD
Leo Laporte (01:35:26):
CDMA. That's what Verizon used to use now they use
Caller #5 (01:35:29):
LTE, but now here here's the thing is I'm using an amplifier to pick up that link signal, you know?
Leo Laporte (01:35:36):
Oh yeah. You're up in the Hills.
Caller #5 (01:35:38):
And so I wonder, am I gonna have to now change my
Leo Laporte (01:35:42):
Amplify? You might not, not maybe your amplifier, but you really are gonna wanna, you're asking exactly the right question. And unfortunately, I don't have a good answer for you because nobody tests the antennas in these phones. I can tell you that your phone has a better antenna than modern, smart phones. And the phones that are predated yours with the extensible antenna were even better, but people kept breaking off those antennas. People wanted thinner phones, they wanted lighter phones. So they started putting the antennas inside the body modern smartphone. The antennas are far weaker than your phone or the pre predecesor phones with, with AC antennas. So you're gonna, it's gonna be an issue. The reason it's not tested widely, I'm sure there's somebody in must, but most of the tech periods don't I certainly don't is it's hard to test. I could, I could tell you what my signal is right here today, Uhhuh, but that doesn't tell me how good my antenna is to do that.
Leo Laporte (01:36:37):
I'd have to get a device, be machine. The FCC has them that takes the phone, puts it in a system situation. That's kind of like being in a human hand. They actually have, I've seen it went to the FCC in DC. They have they look like human bodies filled with a gel that simulates the flesh. And then they have antenna measurement devices that they on a robot arm that they're moving all around. They're measuring antenna strength. They're measuring RF going through the body, but they're also measuring the effectiveness of the antennas. It's a very expensive device. And so I don't think anybody has this device and it, and even then it only, you, you not only have to have that robot machine, you have to have your own cell tower that you can change the strength of with a dial, right? Because it's gonna depend where you are. So where you are, the signals weak are going to you. That's why you're using that booster where I am the signals stronger. It there's so many variables. It's very difficult to figure out how well your folks perform, but I can almost guarantee you any modern phone will not perform as well as your CDMA phone performs right now. Unfortunately.
Caller #5 (01:37:48):
Oh, that's, that's yeah. Hard to hear that. I know.
Leo Laporte (01:37:52):
What are you using for a booster? What kind of booster do you remember the brand name?
Caller #5 (01:37:59):
Shoot. I I'm trying to remember off the top of my head. I, I know I it'll
Leo Laporte (01:38:03):
Probably work cuz RF is RF, right? The frequencies are gonna be different though. So some en you know, some antennas are opt, all antennas are optimized for certain frequencies. It may be that the frequencies are so different that it doesn't work as well. My guess is that's not gonna be a problem cause it's just an antenna. It's a booster
Caller #5 (01:38:20):
Antenna. I know I bought it. It's off a catalog. It's what's the company name that sells electronic device from St. George Utah.
Leo Laporte (01:38:29):
Oh, I don't know. Off the top of my head. Is it Crutchfield? I can't remember.
Caller #5 (01:38:32):
Anyway the retailer or I bought it from, is down in, in the San Fernando valley area. Yeah. And I think maybe what I'll do is I'll call them and ask them. So they provide, they would know
Leo Laporte (01:38:43):
My equipment, they would know, and it's gonna really depend on what's what frequencies Verizon uses on that tower. They're gonna move you to, and it's gonna be very different. Oh, how far from the tower do you know by any chance?
Caller #5 (01:38:55):
Yeah. actually there's three cell towers and all three of them are many miles away. Yeah. But they happened to by random, good luck. They happened to all three, be lined up in a perfect row. So I point my unit directional antenna in that general. Oh, that's so cool toward those three. And I never know which one I'm picking up. It doesn't matter which one
Leo Laporte (01:39:19):
My guess is you're gonna be that booster will help for sure. Yeah. And it sounds like you had to have it even for that flip phone.
Caller #5 (01:39:27):
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I had very little signal strengths at all and that unit direction of antenna and the amplifier has worked really well. But I'll call back the company that I bought the amplification system from and ask
Leo Laporte (01:39:42):
Them. Yeah. And I'm gonna give you one more thing. I hope I don't get in trouble for this. There is a code you can enter into your phone. Most phones. I don't know if it'll work on a flip phone, but star, and I'll put this in the show notes also star 3001 number sign 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, number sign will launch a field test mode on your phone. If you dial that quote number and in the field testimony, it will tell you signal strengths, which is actually for you gonna be kind of valuable because you would then be able to see you know, as you move around, what kind of signal strength you're getting? Nope. It didn't work on my iPhone. So it might be, it might be that it doesn't work on all phones, but worth a try. Anyway, Hey, it's a pleasure talking to you. It's worth living in lake Isabella, right?
Caller #5 (01:40:34):
It absolutely. Right. And I love your show. Thank you.
Leo Laporte (01:40:37):
Thanks for listening. I appreciate it. Sometimes the best places to live have the worst cell signals. I wonder why. Hmm. Oh, you know, I didn't work on my iPhone for some reason. I don't know why. Let me try it again. Try it again. Star 3, 0 0 1 pound sign 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Oh, I didn't have the final star star. There we go. Look at that. Look at that. That is quite, quite cool. That did work. Radio info, radio access deployment type. I don't even know any of this means. <Laugh>. That's very cool. So I'm on an LTE signal on band 66. That's really cool. How do I get out of that mode? Who knows? Who cares? I'm gonna just stay in this mode forever.
Leo Laporte (01:42:06):
I think you just, I think you just go whoop and it's gone. <Laugh> well, Hey, Hey. Hey. How are you today? Leo? Leport here. The TK time to talk about T eighty eight, eighty eight, ES Leo, the phone number I gave out a incorrect number right before the break. I wanna fix actually, you know what we're gonna do put at the show notes, the number to and it doesn't seem to work on all phones. It worked on my iPhone, but it didn't work for so reason on my pixel six phone, the number to check it's field, test mode, the number to check the strength of the signal in your phone. And by the way, if you do this, you just hang up or you close the phone app and you should be back to your normal operation. I left out the final asterisk at the end.
Leo Laporte (01:42:53):
So it's star 3001 pound 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 pound star. And that did work actually on the iPhone. And it showed me all the signal strengths and so forth. So that's kind of, I guess, you know, it's pretty nerdy. It's useful, you know, if you're like our last caller and you have a weak signal, maybe, maybe, you know, you can, I don't know. It's just for, for, you know, just passing interest. I guess it's different on the Android phone, scooter X in our chat room says you just do that in your settings. Go to settings about phone, your numeric signals, strength indicator will be available under either network or S status depending on the phone. And you can see it that way on that flip phone. I don't know. I don't know. And I think it's worth a call to your carrier in his case, Verizon, just to see what are you gonna do December 31st when my phone doesn't work anymore, what are you gonna do? What you gonna do for me? Dave's next from Woodby island, California. Hi Dave, not California Woodby islands in Washington, right?
Caller #6 (01:44:02):
Yes, sir. Sir. Is
Leo Laporte (01:44:04):
How you doing Dave? Welcome.
Caller #6 (01:44:07):
I'm doing well. Thank you. I go way back with you to the screen save.
Leo Laporte (01:44:11):
Oh my, my 20 years ago, four score and seven years ago. <Laugh> those were the good old days.
Caller #6 (01:44:20):
Yeah, that was, that was a great show. Thank you. I'm kind of like I guess it was Mike earlier went from an, or I'm going from an iPhone six to Promax 13. Yeah. And I remember
Leo Laporte (01:44:31):
You always, that's a big jump whenever you're,
Caller #6 (01:44:34):
Well, I'd still like the iPhone six, but I can't do anything on it anymore too thinking I can't shop Amazon.
Leo Laporte (01:44:41):
It's really, one of the crimes of modern technology is it's just you, they're not they're you know, planned obsolescence, the hardware's fine <affirmative> but you can't put the latest operating system on it, which means you can't put the latest apps on it. And suddenly everybody says, well, you can't use this. It's very frustrating.
Caller #6 (01:45:02):
Well, it is. And the straw that broke the back is I got a remote controlled barbecue for Christmas, and I thought I better check that app out and sure enough, it won't look, oh
Leo Laporte (01:45:12):
Man. <Laugh> so I use, I have a Trager smoker and I use my iPhone to control it. I love it. It's great. I know what the temperature is. I know what the probe temperature is. It's awesome.
Caller #6 (01:45:24):
Yeah. Yeah. That's a nice feature, you know, and I obviously I wanna be able to use that. But the, I remember you always saying that it's all always better to reinstall than to
Leo Laporte (01:45:36):
This has changed. This has changed with the modern iPhones in the last couple of years. It's is, you know, I, in general with a computing device, when you get a new one, it's best to start scratch from scratch. And there's reasons for that, just kind of theoretical reasons for that. You, every app you install on anything, any computing device, phone, desktop, laptop, whatever has the potential of causing compatibility issues, failure issues, security issues, you know, it's, it's another blob of software you're putting on there. So there is something to be said for when you get a new device, only installing stuff on demand as you need it don't install the 300 apps you had on the old phone of which you only used 10, just install 'em as you need. 'em That's always a good idea. In the case of the iPhone you don't have to worry the operating system.
Leo Laporte (01:46:25):
Doesn't drag stuff from the old six. It's not, that's not gonna be a problem. And in fact you know, I think that apple figured out a way to do iPhone updates, very smoothly. I used to recommend hook up to the computer, doing a image, copy a backup of your phone, and then restoring under the new phone. You don't need to do that anymore. I apple now, and it's funny because apple offers, when you get the new phone, there'll be two ways of setting up the new iPhone one. You could put it next to the old iPhone, it'll copy stuff over but the new way to do it, and I'm gonna put a link in the show notes to John Gruber's advice, because it has really changed with the latest iPhones is to use the iCloud backup. Oh,
Caller #6 (01:47:14):
Okay. So what I'm, what, what all the info that's on this phone, that's stored up in the cloud. So instead of coming from the phone to the new phone, it'll come down from the cloud.
Leo Laporte (01:47:22):
So the, so the way, the way this works is you're gonna have on your iPhone, six is setting that says backup to iCloud, make sure that's turned on on and in fact, you may have to pay for more storage if you have a lot of stuff on your old iPhone, but it would be worth it. Just do it for one month. It's 2 99 a month. So yeah, you got plenty. Yeah. So, so make sure iCloud backup is turned on. Gruber even says this. He says in the past, my advice was restore a new iPhone with a quick start device to device transfer. You put 'em side by side, it sees the one in a back. He says, now, now it's better to do restoring from an iCloud backup. Let me think if that's right. Wait a minute, wait a minute. My advice on how to set up a iPhone or iPad, I'm gonna put this in the shadows. I'm looking at his article right now. No, he is saying do the quick start device to device transfer. Here's the difference? You want passwords, you want wifi access. You want all the settings that are on the iPhone, six to come over when you do the, the device to device for, I, I just said, when you, do you want to do the device to device transfer? Because it will copy all that stuff over when you do an iCloud restore, it logs you out of a lot of the stuff, so.
Caller #6 (01:48:44):
Okay. Well, that's good to know. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:48:46):
So I <laugh> I apologize. I, I was, I had exactly wrong <affirmative> I you want to, so when you first turn on that new iPhone, I'll say, do you have a previous iPhone? You wanna set it up from say, yes, you'll put them side by side. You probably want to plug 'em both in just so they don't run outta battery and it will do that. It takes a while, probably take a couple hours, maybe do it overnight. But that works quite well. And, and John is saying, and this comes from just a couple of months ago with the new iPhone thirteens that this is the new preferred way of doing it. And I agree I've done it both ways, so. Okay, great.
Caller #6 (01:49:22):
Yeah. And am I okay with all my old chargers? I don't need any, any
Leo Laporte (01:49:27):
Yeah, there's still lightning. <Laugh> weirdly off. You'll be better off you. Yes. Noticed that the iPhone 13 does not come with a charger, a brick that's to apple says that's to save the environment. I say it's to save apple, a buck 50, but in an either event you'll need one. You, what you will notice is the newer iPhones will charge faster with a more modern, higher watage charger, those little cubes, sugar cubes that you plugged in the wall better
Caller #6 (01:49:55):
On the battery or
Leo Laporte (01:49:56):
Harder on the battery. No, no, it's fine. Faster. The battery protects itself. Doesn't make a difference. Yeah. It doesn't make a difference. I get I, I would go online. I mean, if you can use the old one, it just be slow. What I go do is I go online and I get anchor makes a, a little device called the power port atom, which uses a more modern technology, gallium nitrate technology. So that they're smaller. They're only a little bigger than the old chargers, but they're much higher. I think it's 30 Watts or 60 Watts and that'll charge as fast as the iPhone will let it, which is what you want.
Caller #6 (01:50:32):
Okay. They're self limiting then they're not gonna, yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:50:34):
Yeah. It's not bad for the phone. The phone act. Iphone's really good at protecting its battery. It's very fast in the first it's very fast in the first 80%. And then it really slows down for the last 20%.
Caller #6 (01:50:46):
Yeah. Well, this one I had the battery changed when they were guilted
Leo Laporte (01:50:51):
Into, they gave it to, gave it away for free. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was smart. That gave you another few years out of your six. I did the same thing with my mom. It was a really good, yeah. Yeah. I mean the phone,
Caller #6 (01:51:02):
You know, otherwise it's fine. But anyway, they, they forced me to do it with this new barbecue issue. <Laugh> I have the phone, I just I've been afraid to use it until I get my $50 super duper glass to protect it. It's unbelievable. What for that
Leo Laporte (01:51:19):
Stuff I never put those on there. I have friends who swear by the tempered glass screen protectors. I haven't broken a phone a long time, but maybe I'm just getting older. Don't know. I keep, I, well,
Caller #6 (01:51:32):
Things are so darn
Leo Laporte (01:51:33):
Expensive. I don't blame you. I can do. Yeah. As, as Steve Martin once said they, they made them supremely slippery and out of glass. What could possibly go wrong? <Laugh>
Caller #6 (01:51:45):
That's no bad recipe.
Leo Laporte (01:51:47):
<Laugh> that's not a recipe for that.
Caller #6 (01:51:50):
Hey, and if you have time real quick, can I, I've got an old windows, seven machine. Can I upgrade it in safe mode? Cuz it doesn't stay on very long in regular modes.
Leo Laporte (01:52:00):
Can you upgrade it? You mean you wanna put it in a safe mode and then upgrade it right? You mean update, update? Or do you wanna, you honestly, you want to go to windows 10 by the way?
Caller #6 (01:52:10):
Well, I'm the only guy in the world who used windows media center, but
Leo Laporte (01:52:14):
It's oh, you don't wanna lose your windows media center? Yeah, they killed it.
Caller #6 (01:52:18):
Well, I'm I'm I'm okay to give that up because again, it's working, it's not working properly. It'll stay on in safe mode, but it turns it, the, it seems like the video driver or something goes bad after few minutes. So anyway, but can I upgrade? Yes, you can from load.
Leo Laporte (01:52:37):
Yes. You can. In fact, for some, in some cases that's recommended. Oh, okay. Yeah, because you won't have loaded a bunch of drivers that might cause problems with the upgrade. You know though, it's I, you know, the best way to upgrade is when nothing's running, it's kind of amazing that we are able to upgrade our operating systems in the middle while they're it's like changing the airplane, the engine on an airplane in flight it's generally better to, to land the airplane and then change it. Same thing with an operating. I always better to install it when it's not running, but, but nobody wants to do that. So yeah. In fact safe mode would probably be better. At least you at least you've turned off all the auxiliary systems.
Caller #6 (01:53:14):
Yeah. Well I'm hoping this fixes fixes my issue, but man windows media center used to be nice. You could,
Leo Laporte (01:53:20):
Oh yeah. You know what Microsoft said? Nobody uses it. I said nobody uses it. One,
Caller #6 (01:53:27):
One guy on a tiny little island, one guy on WEBY
Leo Laporte (01:53:29):
Island. That's it. <Laugh> can you see Seattle from where you are? Can you shout across, Hey Redmond. Thank God.
Caller #6 (01:53:36):
You cannot. <Laugh> I a little town called Coville.
Leo Laporte (01:53:40):
I know WEBY island. I have family that lives there. It's great. I love it. Yeah. Beautiful. I
Caller #6 (01:53:46):
It's that. And it's kind of like a moat, you know it that's right. It's
Leo Laporte (01:53:50):
This little that's right from island living these days sounds more and more appealing. Dave, a pleasure talking to you. Thanks for calling. Not
Caller #6 (01:53:59):
Downside. The power runs out all the time. Oh, that's
Leo Laporte (01:54:02):
Bad. Do you, is there a ferry or do you, can you drive in
Caller #6 (01:54:07):
Well I'm about midway. So you could drive off through aortas up to the north or you could take the ferry to the south. So if you're going, you know, to Costco, which is north of us, you, you don't have to deal with a ferry, which is nice. Cause you know, it's right now nobody's working the ferrys or not as many people as should be. Yeah. And so there's some long lines, sometimes
Leo Laporte (01:54:28):
Chat room is telling me, and I'm sure you've tried this. If you loved media center, of course Microsoft taken that away. But you should try Plex, which is an excellent choice for a media center and it has a lean back mode. That's very similar to a windows media center. I think I agree with them. Plex is very good.
Caller #6 (01:54:45):
Well, one of the problems, the reason I have this media center I've ripped literally thousands of DVDs into the VB format, I guess it is. Yeah. So that you have all the special features yep. And Plex doesn't Plex
Leo Laporte (01:54:59):
Doesn't handle bobs, what
Caller #6 (01:55:02):
It might, but I haven't been
Leo Laporte (01:55:03):
Able to make, there must be a way to do that. I'll ask the chat room. I gotta, I have to run. We gotta take a break. Gosh, I that's surprised those V files are the standard files for DVDs. You should be able to just copy 'em on your hard drive and flex your plan. No, it doesn't. It doesn't must be a copy protection thing. Leo Laport Thea,
Speaker 13 (01:55:23):
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Leo Laporte (01:56:21):
Play all the port, the tech guy, eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo the phone number Jim on the line from New Jersey. Hello Jim.
Caller #4 (01:56:32):
Hi Leo. Good to talk to you. Great
Leo Laporte (01:56:34):
To talk to you. What's up.
Caller #4 (01:56:36):
I go back to the early 1990s in Los Angeles, listening to you on the radio. Unless I remember hearing you from the 1980s up in San Francisco when I was a B mugger.
Leo Laporte (01:56:47):
Oh wow. Well I, you got me there both in both counts. Nice to, nice to meet you long time. Great.
Caller #4 (01:56:53):
Yeah, I was using company computers back then. We started with Lisa. So I've been using max along.
Leo Laporte (01:57:00):
Oh, I'm jealous, man. I remember pressing my nose against the, at the apple store, looking at the Lisa and then looking at the price tag thinking I'll never own one of those.
Caller #4 (01:57:10):
Yeah. We finally got them on our desk after they got out with the Macintosh, but they actually had the Xerox star system around
Leo Laporte (01:57:18):
Our work. Wow. Yeah. The predecessor in some ways. I mean, that's what impressed Steve jobs so much when he visited zero park, he said we should do something like that. A bit maps.
Caller #4 (01:57:27):
The minimum price was a hundred thousand dollars. Yeah. <laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:57:31):
Where did you work? That they had all these great systems. Was that a desktop publishing company or something or the Chevron refinery? Oh, there you go. All right. Up in Richmond. Yeah. All right. Well what can I they had, they had a little bit of money, I guess they could afford a few nice computer systems.
Caller #4 (01:57:48):
I'm now a retired engineer in New Jersey and I'm kind of thinking that I'm gonna hold my 19 or 2016 MacBook that I got before the touch bar came out. Yeah. the Relic to run the old software. I haven't updated for three years and time for a new Mac and wanted your help on that. And I think it's about time for replacing my iPhone. I've got a six S plus that I bought, oh man,
Leo Laporte (01:58:14):
This is iPhone six day. You're the third person with this six or six S phone call today. Right. I guess it is time.
Caller #4 (01:58:24):
I bought it in time to get the ear Jack
Leo Laporte (01:58:27):
<Laugh>. Yeah. That's the, I'll tell you what, I am still mad at apple and, and it's catching because now Google does it. Samsung does it there they've all taken out the headphones Jack. Yeah. Makes me
Caller #4 (01:58:38):
Furious. That was I. So I had been waiting for the next iPhone that has a he phone Jack and I'd been waiting never
Leo Laporte (01:58:44):
Again. <Laugh>
Caller #4 (01:58:46):
And I'd been looking for more ports on the Macintosh's. Now
Leo Laporte (01:58:50):
That you're gonna get your wish that you got your wish. It's interesting. We, we were talking about this the other day on our Mac break weekly show. What is it that happened at apple? All of a sudden that they, they said, oh yeah, maybe we should have an H DM I port, and a couple of extra USB ports, and maybe we should bring back the MagSafe and drop the touch bar. And they did all of that. And it was as if the old guard suddenly won over the new guard and said yeah, back to the future. So that the newest MacBook of very similar to your 2016.
Caller #4 (01:59:23):
So right now I've got plugged in an HTMI for one external monitor and a Thunderbolt PO port for a second external monitor. I've got a ethernet plugged to the other Thunderbolt port. I've got my keyboard, <laugh> mouse and you're
Leo Laporte (01:59:41):
Living the dongle life, the us
Caller #4 (01:59:44):
One of the USB. And I used the other USB port when I was synchronizing iPhones or when I was doing backups. Yeah. The
Leo Laporte (01:59:51):
Hard drives. Yeah. They're never enough. Here's the, here's the thing I would suggest if you're in the market for a Mac, wait Apple's latest MacBook, I think are F I have an M one pro based 14 inch that I just think is the best laptop I've ever owned, but we're gonna see new laptops or sorry, new desktops in March probably. I mean, no one knows, but I would guess March, not June, June for sure. That's when WWDC is, but sometime between March and June, I think more likely March apple is, is almost certainly gonna release a new iMac high end iMac, high end Mac mini, which will have ports galore and possibly new laptops, certainly a new iPad pro apple has a lot of new products. Apple Watchers say that 20, 22 is gonna be a very big year for apple.
Leo Laporte (02:00:45):
So while it's usually bad idea to wait for a computer, because, you know, you could, it's like waiting for the next bus. There'll always be a next bus. I think in this case it might be worth waiting a couple of months, at least to see what apple is gonna put out. Leo Laport, the tech guy, we talked space with rod pile right after this. Sorry, I ran outta, did you want a laptop? Yes, I did. Yeah. So certainly there's nothing wrong with the new MacBooks. And, and I think it's probably, they will not announce another round of MacBooks till next year, late, late this year rather. Okay. Those won't be in the spring. I'm
Caller #4 (02:01:21):
Getting things where it says you can't run software on this anymore. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (02:01:24):
Yeah. It's time. You're gonna, you'll flip your lid. When you get an M one Mac, you're just gonna flip your lid. I mean, these things even from the very, I bought the M one, when it first came out, bought a, the 13 inch Mac book. And my wife now has that I have the new 14 inch MacBook pro she's tried, this is a lot faster. I said, yeah, they ma they keep ma we're at back in that stage where every release is faster much. So you'd be very happy. You don't probably need a max unless you're doing 3d design or editing big eight K video projects, things like that,
Caller #4 (02:02:00):
Podcasts and Quicken
Leo Laporte (02:02:02):
You'll be, you'll be fine with an M one pro that's. What I got availability is easier on those as well. And the big difference with pro in the max is the GPU. And I don't think you need that massive GPU.
Caller #4 (02:02:14):
Yeah. $2,000. One seems hard to find when I checked yesterday they were saying the closest I could get was two hours away.
Leo Laporte (02:02:23):
Yeah. I can't even get pickup in my area. I had to mail order it.
Caller #4 (02:02:27):
Yeah. And then I'm gonna be traveling to Florida sometimes. So yeah. The figuring out where to send it. Yeah. Then
Leo Laporte (02:02:35):
And they're, and they're at least a month out, but I would, I bought the bait, literally the base model, 14 inch M one pro five, 12 gigs. I thought, oh, that's not gonna be enough. 16 gigs of Ram. Oh my God, what am I doing? Couldn't be happier. That thing is blazingly fast.
Caller #4 (02:02:53):
Right? Anything wrong with the 13 mini iPhones?
Leo Laporte (02:02:56):
No, not that I know a battery life, but the that's to be expected when you get a package that's small, you can't have a big battery in it. Right.
Caller #4 (02:03:04):
I go out for like two hour walks and I you'd be fine think like other things. So that sounds pretty good. It's
Leo Laporte (02:03:10):
It's more like all day battery, like, oh gosh, I'm gonna have to charge it at 9:00 PM. Yeah. That's not, you know, it's not horrible battery life. It's just, it is definitely less the 13 pro and the max are really remarkable battery life. They've done a lot to improve it, but they're a lot heavier. They've got bigger batteries in them.
Caller #4 (02:03:28):
So my big thing is getting all the new adapters then <laugh> well,
Leo Laporte (02:03:32):
You still lightning on the iPhone. Weirdly enough. I thought, I thought they'd finally two, sorry.
Caller #4 (02:03:38):
It's lightning is thunder too plug you know, lightning's still good. And then on the Mac, it's Thunderbolt two plug compatible with anything nowadays, or I'd wanna replace those. Yeah. No
Leo Laporte (02:03:49):
Two is downward compatible with what they're doing now, which is USB four slash Thunderbolt three, or Thunderball four, but there, but the two will work fine. You'll need an adapter. It's a different plug it's type C everything's type C. Now what you're gonna wanna get, if you get a laptop is one of these nice new docs that you know, other world computing and others offer cow digit, because then you just put it, you put the laptop down, you plug in the dock and everything's live it's easily the best way to go.
Caller #4 (02:04:19):
Okay, great. I, I, I had fun cuz I at D mug I showed at ATO Fest the same one that Steve jobs did his second presentation for the next computer.
Leo Laporte (02:04:31):
Oh, how cool is that? I used to go to B mug. Every what? It was it, second Thursday. I loved B mug. That was so much fun. So much fun. We probably ran into each other back in the day. Jim may
Caller #4 (02:04:43):
Have yeah. Broad files coming on. Soon. I belonged to the planetary society and did a lot of volunteering for them. Oh nice. Got their name, confused with this national space society a couple times. But
Leo Laporte (02:04:55):
I don't think we're, you don't hate the planetary society, do you? Yeah. We're all friends. Good people. Yeah. I'm a member of both. We do the people. Yeah, absolutely.
Caller #4 (02:05:05):
Okay. Well great. Thanks for all your help.
Leo Laporte (02:05:07):
Have fun with your new hardware. You're gonna have fun. Yeah.
Caller #4 (02:05:11):
And if I order now I got that 5% discount. Took me a month to get my apple card because when my mom passed away a year ago, my credit report got doc was delays on closing her stuff out. Oh,
Leo Laporte (02:05:24):
I'm finally got that resolved. Oh, I'm glad you got that resolved. Yeah. Yeah. I always buy with the apple cart. My wife yells at me. She says, now I have to download the apple card receipts, but it is that five. Percent's pretty sweet. <Laugh> yeah. You're buying a $5,000 competi <laugh> Hey, have a great day. Good to talk to you, Jim. Thanks again. Take care. It's time for rod pile spaceman. He is of course the author of space, 2.0 and many other wonderful books, including interplanetary robots, amazing stories of the space, age blueprint for a battle star. And first man on the moon. He's the editor in chief of a Astra magazine@spacedots.org. And he is a man whose time has come. I, and I don't mean that it's, you know, it's it's 1 30, 3 of a Sunday afternoon. I mean, and we are in a noose base. A aren't we? Yes, sir.
Rod Pyle (02:06:21):
As exemplified by what we're gonna talk about this week, which came to be courtesy
Leo Laporte (02:06:25):
Of your lovely wife actually. Well, it's, what's that I
Rod Pyle (02:06:28):
Hadn't seen. It's all about Amazon's Alex
Leo Laporte (02:06:32):
A, I'll say that to avoid the trigger factor going into space. Wait a minute. Now you, you did send me a link. Yes. I guess I could play this. I it's imagine if you would that in the in the year, 2001. Yes. When when the how 9,000 computer was commissioned and of course you may remember the spacemen got locked out of the spacecraft. What if there had been, oops, I gotta, I gotta close this window first. What if there had been, I got too many windows open. What if Hal had been that other system? What if Hal had been an echo? And if I can close this, I, I will give you this rendering from some anonymous YouTuber. Yeah. I thought
Rod Pyle (02:07:25):
This was hilarious. Please help
... (02:07:29):
Searching for Cod recipes online. <Laugh>
Speaker 16 (02:07:33):
Open upon bay doors, please. Hal.
... (02:07:35):
Sorry. I can't find anyone named rod cake more in your context. <Laugh> open the pod bay doors, Hal. Sorry. I'm having trouble processing your request. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (02:07:48):
Are you saying what's the problem that Hal 9,000 problem
... (02:07:52):
Child is a 1990.
Leo Laporte (02:07:54):
<Laugh> have to be malicious about, huh? Just as dumb as Amazon echo playing, talking heads on Spotify. <Laugh>
Rod Pyle (02:08:03):
It is kinda like, like having my poor Labrador on the other side of the microphone going.
Leo Laporte (02:08:08):
So, but you know, Amazon's echo is 10 times better than Siri. So, you know, it's just, it's a race to the bottom. If you ask me well, and there's some irony, why would they put echo in space? Who's that for?
Rod Pyle (02:08:20):
Well, so I, I think this was, I think Lockheed Martin got this idea that it would be probably a good PR move, but also that there could be some functionality to this. And rather than developing something themselves for Ryan, which they built, they'd talked to Amazon and, and Cisco said, we want to incorporate your, your echo technology into the first flight of Artemis Artemis one, which has no crew.
Leo Laporte (02:08:48):
Well, then it's not gonna be much use, is it?
Rod Pyle (02:08:49):
Well, well, but Gary, hold on. If there's,
Leo Laporte (02:08:53):
There's nobody to say, I don't understand what you're saying. You're saying to, well, well,
Rod Pyle (02:08:56):
So they're putting it on the big glass panel. It's gonna be looked at by the dummy that's flying, which is called mannequin clever. Huh? But they're gonna have speakers near the dummy. And so the MIS control people can issue commands and see if they're picked up properly in the capsule. Now this is a really, I
Leo Laporte (02:09:13):
Never thought you would make me say, bless Elon Musk. At least he's doing it right.
Rod Pyle (02:09:20):
Well, so, you know, the idea is, will it, will it improve crew morale? Maybe if it's fully developed. Cause remember it's working and you know, as, as bad as what you're playing was this is gonna be working local mode only, right. They can't access the network back. Well
Leo Laporte (02:09:35):
Then you, at least you won't be playing old movies or something.
Rod Pyle (02:09:40):
Yeah. So the idea is to try and use voice commands in the capsules, see how that works. It's not being implemented necessarily for later flights. This is just something they're trying out cost. I don't know, four or 5 million to, to set it up, but NASA's on board. So, you know, one of the things the articles pointed out is you can control your lighting levels and colors, the capsule with those commands. I can push a button, but you know, if you say, can you give us the consumable levels? You know, how much water do we have left? What's the temperature on the outside of the spacecraft? What speed are we going? You can see things where you just wanna make sure you locked out words. I, I was thinking like eject, aort reenter fire or self destruct. You wouldn't want those in the system. <Laugh> unless it was just as a joke
Leo Laporte (02:10:24):
Ejected,
Rod Pyle (02:10:26):
But it's gonna use local voice connectivity. And I guess you know more about this, I do, but farfield sound the
Leo Laporte (02:10:33):
Are good. Yeah. Yeah. Is it noisy in a spacecraft? I mean, once you in space, there's not, obviously there's no air, so it can't conduct there's
Rod Pyle (02:10:42):
Outside, but there's but, but the spacecraft itself can be very noisy, really pumps and valves and there's cool and bad
Leo Laporte (02:10:48):
Radiator clanking in the background and no,
Rod Pyle (02:10:51):
It's, it's like a, a, I, I would say an analogous to a high end luxury car doing its thing. Oh, that's no wind noise, but mechanical noises. Yeah. But depending on what, you know, if a pump starts running, it could be quite noisy. So it just depends on where this yeah. Something,
Leo Laporte (02:11:03):
We don't talk about a lot, but yeah. You know, we know what it looks like up there cuz there's cameras. We don't know what, how it sounds or smells
Rod Pyle (02:11:11):
Well, and it's been a long time, but I remember were interviewing some of the Apollo mood walkers and they were saying, you know, they're trying to sleep overnight in the lunar module between moonwalks. Yeah. And you know, obviously this is over 50 years ago. Right. But they said it was really noisy and busy in there cuz there's pumps. Beep beep I was clicking and all kinds of stuff. Not so much indicator noises, just mechanical noise.
Leo Laporte (02:11:31):
I thought it was interesting. Cause it was water. Cool. There's fulltime employee at NASA who smells things <laugh> you saw that, right? Yeah. Just to make sure they don't stink up the spacecraft. Right.
Rod Pyle (02:11:44):
Well, and more dangerous than that, you know, some, they have to test everything for Outkast they're, especially in a small space that's spacecraft
Leo Laporte (02:11:52):
Carpeted or have,
Rod Pyle (02:11:55):
But you know, with Skylab, they did have that problem because if you recall, when it went up, it malfunctioned and it was overheating and a lot of the plastic paneling inside started to out Gass and they were very worried about that, but it turned out to be okay,
Leo Laporte (02:12:08):
So that's when the guy got hired probably. Yeah.
Rod Pyle (02:12:10):
Huh. So yeah, they're gonna have virtual crew quote unquote flying and they will try the Al E X a and run it through its paces and see what happens. It's hysterical, but it's it's and their credit Amazon has also implemented a home program. So you can, I guess starting now say, Hey Al E X a, take me to the moon and it'll start giving you the latest updates on, on the flight, which is still three months off, three and a half months off. We hope cryptos crossed. Wow. And you know, so they're integrating it and they're putting in stem, you know, stem education and classroom functions, all that. So you can see it's kind of more public oriented than, than internal, I think to what NASA's doing. But if it works, wouldn't it make sense to, to buy that AI then to try and develop it on your own, if you wanted voice control. And also I mentioned Cisco, they're gonna implement a new version of WebEx. This is all under a custom, a customized version of these software called Calisto. So they're package in together. You use WebEx for teleconferencing
Leo Laporte (02:13:14):
Sounds like advertisement for Amazon on, in Cisco. I'm not happy about this. Kind of are they gonna start wearing sponsor badges on their space suits like formula one drivers,
Rod Pyle (02:13:27):
You know, the Russians painted some ads on the side of a couple of their spacecraft. I don't know. But you know, I think this is gonna be the trend whether we like it or not towards more commercialization because it is so much cheaper to buy this stuff off the shelf. Interestingly though, so you've got this, this, this crackling AI talking to the processors in the spacecraft, which are still power PC seven 50 FX chips. Yeah. Because we know those are reliable because all
Leo Laporte (02:13:50):
The cosmic rays and stuff, they have to be hardened. Right. But they're not very fast. They're probably not as fast as an Amazon echo at
Rod Pyle (02:13:56):
All, all 133 megahertz or something. Oh man. But something I didn't realize is part of the reason they like those older chips besides the fact that they're, they're well tested and they're vetted and they're radiation proof versions is apparently the, your transistor size on the wafer is less susceptible to cause the gray hits and flipping bits. Ah, which I thought was really interesting. So moving ahead now, do you have to like deliberately make chips with larger
Leo Laporte (02:14:23):
Transistor big make 'em big <laugh>
Rod Pyle (02:14:25):
Yeah. I don't know.
Leo Laporte (02:14:27):
Space is not, you know, as Elton John once said <laugh> not a kind place, not a good place to raise. Raise your kids's Mr. Rod pile, spaceman space, dots.org. If you have a, a young person in your family who loves space, I really recommend at Astra magazine for you too, but it's be a great gift for a teenager to get them interest in space. Someday. They too could be talking to echo at Mars. <Laugh> Leo Laport, the tech guy. Oh, it just feels like an advertisement. It doesn't, that's not useful.
Rod Pyle (02:15:05):
Oh, it's it's better. I tell you what it's way better than them incorporating the navigation system for my Jaguar in there, which takes about 30 you seconds to update. Oh, I know it
Leo Laporte (02:15:14):
Is the worst.
Rod Pyle (02:15:15):
I know onboard nav system I've ever seen. I literally you click and drag you, you touch and drag the screen and it sits there and goes
Leo Laporte (02:15:24):
My old Audi. Okay. Cause they designed these years, you know, ago and the, you know, technology, my old Audi, the voice assistant for some reason sounded like this. So
Rod Pyle (02:15:38):
Looking for your dress, like a lot of water, right.
Leo Laporte (02:15:42):
It was just like, I could surely you could do better. Come on. You're Audi. Come on. Hey,
Rod Pyle (02:15:48):
I've got a great facto for you. Yes, sir. They're they're align and collating the mirror on the web now. So as you know, they all walk to the place. Everything's happy. So exciting. There's six little actuators on each of those mirror cells. Yeah. And they, they can line and I guess do a certain amount of flexing of them to make focus. Perfect. And it's gonna take a while to do, because they're such small motors and they're calibrated to move nanometers once the thing is in its working mode. Yeah. But to unlock the mirrors from their launch configuration and get them ready for that alignment, they have to be moved about a half inch away from the locking pins. So there was a, a NASA guy that did talk for us for the NSS a couple days ago. And he said that those alignment mechanisms, those motors move at about the same speed that grass grows. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (02:16:34):
That's I thought,
Rod Pyle (02:16:35):
Well, that's pretty amazing. That's fine
Leo Laporte (02:16:38):
Because it's fine. Just you don't wanna make sure they do it. Yeah. No. And you wanna do it precisely. Have you seen John was just showing me the, the chopstick video on the star Starship. Have you seen this? This chopsticks? Oh,
Rod Pyle (02:16:54):
The catching mechanism. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Work on that quite a while. Hasn't tested it yet except with a crane, but yeah, it's pretty
Leo Laporte (02:17:03):
Impressive.
Rod Pyle (02:17:04):
It works, you know, it'll work really well. As long as the, a Starship is under power coming down. But if they get a little, little bobble in the retro fire
Leo Laporte (02:17:14):
Yeah. Then what
Rod Pyle (02:17:15):
Crash? Well, hopefully not. I don't know what the Tensal strength of those things is. Yeah. And that would be interesting to see yeah. You know, how much they can handle, but yeah,
Leo Laporte (02:17:25):
Just, I just feel like that's the kind of thing they should be working on. Not putting an echo in the Artemis. This is just to me, but that's NASA
Rod Pyle (02:17:36):
Space, SpaceX and SpaceX. I just, you know, the audacity of catching the rock and on landing. It's one thing when it lands over there in a barge or in an empty field, we're gonna catch it, say, okay, come right back to the launch pad. We got crabs are coming down way. Gotcha. Unbelievable. Big bear hug. Yeah. Unbelievable. It's you know, I can't wait to see that. And that's why you and I are going down to Boca Chica for one of the deals deal, deal. We'll put our nose up against the fence, like five year old boys. The
Leo Laporte (02:18:04):
I can't wait and there's nobody I'd rather go with you. You can tell me all about what's going on. Well, that's a great idea. Yeah. When is that gonna
Rod Pyle (02:18:12):
Be? Well we hope this year. Wow. Few months. I mean, it's supposed to happen in March, but there's some dancing going on with the FAA. So
Leo Laporte (02:18:21):
Let's talk cuz I would love to see that. Well you got a cruise to do still that's in July. We got plenty of time. Why? Okay. Oh my God. Look at that. Oh, sorry. I'm a little distracted right now. What are you?
Rod Pyle (02:18:32):
What are you looking at? Nothing. Oh, <laugh>
Leo Laporte (02:18:36):
Just a little distracted right now. Nothing. Nothing's going on. How do you keep secrets on here? There's nothing much happening.
Rod Pyle (02:18:43):
Nothing. Oh, is there a game?
Leo Laporte (02:18:45):
Oh no, no, no. There's no game. Yes. There's a big game. The Niners in the Cowboys.
Rod Pyle (02:18:52):
Oh your team. My team. There you go.
Leo Laporte (02:19:00):
All right. Thank you
Rod Pyle (02:19:01):
Rodney. You multi-tasked like a champ. Okay. I'll see you next
Leo Laporte (02:19:04):
Week. It was hard. I was trying to get this echo up and the football game was running and it was like, wait a minute. No that's audio from the game. I can't play that anyway.
Rod Pyle (02:19:11):
I'm sorry, Dave. Can't find that. All right. Be good.
Leo Laporte (02:19:15):
Open the pod bay doors, please. Hal. Thank you for letting me do my thing every week to be your tech guy is the greatest honor of my life. Thank you for letting me do it. Thanks to professor Laura, our musical director, doing a great job, playing the hits. Thanks to phone angel, Kim Shaffer for answering your calls. Thanks. Most of all, those of you who listen and call in it sure would be a boring show if I just had to talk to myself for three hours. Wouldn't yeah. Dan sorry. Don is on the line from Fontana. Our next call at eighty eight eighty eight as Leo. Hi Don.
Caller #7 (02:19:54):
Hi. Hey, what's going on?
Leo Laporte (02:19:59):
Oh, nothing much. What's up with you Don?
Caller #7 (02:20:03):
Oh, not much. I just had a question about, is this still a good phone
Leo Laporte (02:20:10):
Old phone day today on the, on the deck guy show a Galle? Well, it was a great phone in its day. But its day was a few years ago. About six years ago. You'd think, I mean six years for a computer even isn't that long, but for a phone it's it's a long time. I think the manufacturers, the people who do the operating systems, people who do the apps kind of are expecting you to get a new phone from every two to four years. So yours is your is a little older.
Caller #7 (02:20:43):
So I, I would need to update better or no,
Leo Laporte (02:20:46):
I think you're fine. I mean you it's working, right?
Caller #7 (02:20:50):
Yeah. It's working. It's a good phone. My buddy. Give it to me to
Leo Laporte (02:20:55):
Use nothing wrong with it. What's who's your phone? Who's your cell? Who's the cell company. Verizon. Okay. Here's the only thing I would recommend on this because it's about out, it's about six years old. You're gonna, at some point in the next year, your battery, life's gonna start to deteriorate and eventually you won't even be, oh
Caller #7 (02:21:17):
Yeah, the battery's been doing real. Good. Good. So it's gonna be cutting
Leo Laporte (02:21:21):
Out on me. That's the first thing that goes lithium ion batteries have a, have a limited number of charge cycles. Usually a few hundred around 500. So you know, right after a few years it just won't hold a charge. But the good news is that on that phone, can you, I can't remember. Can you pry the back off of that phone?
Caller #7 (02:21:40):
I don't
Leo Laporte (02:21:41):
Know. I think they stopped doing that one generation earlier than that. The old Samsung I used to, whenever I'd get a Samsung galaxy S phone, I would buy two or three extra batteries cuz you could pop the back off and put a new battery in there. I think the S seven they stopped doing that.
Caller #7 (02:21:56):
Yeah, I got a, I'm an apple S a six and my buddy gave me this phone to use. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (02:22:04):
The, the iPhone six did need a battery upgrade. Apple was offering a free up or a low cost upgrade for a long time. Yeah, I think you're probably all right. You're on an old ver the biggest risk the battery is gonna go and, but then you can get it repaired. You can go down to one of those, you know, eye break, you fixed stores and they'll put a new battery in for you. That's an easy thing to do, right? The other issue. And it's an issue in general with all Android phones is the operating system, the right. The, you can only go up to Android eight, we're at Android 12 now. And that means, oh, okay. There's gonna be security issues. Probably. I doubt you're getting security updates on that phone anymore. I don't think that's a problem. Do you use it? Mostly as a phone and text?
Caller #7 (02:22:49):
No, I haven't. I haven't used it yet. I, I play give it to me cause my other phone is a flip phone and well it's,
Leo Laporte (02:22:57):
This is definitely, you know, more, more modern than that. Right, right. I, I think it's fine. You, I be, I wouldn't use it to surf to websites too much. You probably won't. Anyway. I would be careful real, but this is true for all phones. Be very careful about clicking links in text messages. One of the most common ways now people hack phones or steal, try to steal your passwords. Things like that is sending you a text message with a link. If you Don recognize the sender, don't click on that link.
Caller #7 (02:23:29):
Oh, I don't do that. Anyway. I get, I get a lot of this spam stuff. Yeah. We all do a lot of the, the phone calls. I don't answer nothing unless good. I
Leo Laporte (02:23:38):
Know the number good. And those text messages you're getting, those are aimed at older phones like yours, like the, that S six they're aimed phones that haven't gotten security updates. And so just be just, don't open those don't even look at 'em just delete 'em right away or, or pass over 'em and I think you're fine. I think you're fine to keep using that. It, it actually was a very nice phone when it came out.
Caller #7 (02:24:01):
Oh, he gave phone to use, he doesn't my flip phone. He wants me to go to this other phone. I said, well, I wanna know how good a phone it is. That's why I was calling you.
Leo Laporte (02:24:12):
Let me, lemme put it this way. You could go to a Verizon store. It might be worth a little field trip. Say I've got this old phone. I really wanna stay a customer of Verizon. Those are the key words. I don't wanna leave. Verizon, can you, is there anything you can give me for free? They will have it. It it'll be just as good as that. S seven, probably something like a Samsung Aeries phone that they give away for free to keep you as a customer. And if they have something that has a more modern version of Android and is getting security updates, if it has Android 10, it, which is probably what it would have and check the in the settings to see under a system updates, to see if you've got, what, what the most recent, this is everybody who has an, a Android phone should do this, go to settings system update.
Leo Laporte (02:25:00):
You know about it's in about phone section. It varies on different phones, but you wanna see what the latest update is and your security updates. Google puts them monthly. So there is in fact a December update and there will soon be a January update. If your updates are more than six months old, if you've, if the last security patches from 2020, then that phone is no better than an S seven stick with the S seven. But if they can give you a phone that has security patches that are within the last couple of months, you know, maybe October, September, or October, 2021 then that phone will be more secure. It'll be a more reliable phone. So I, you use the S seven. It's a fine phone. I'm just saying usually you can get a, a, a free phone from Verizon, just cuz you give them a lot of money every month and they wanna keep you happy. Last call of the day Brian and west Hollywood. Hi Brian. Leo. Leport the tech guy.
... (02:25:58):
Yes, indeed. Hang on just a second. Sure.
Leo Laporte (02:26:04):
He's listening to the radio while he's talking on the radio. Yeah, yeah. I
... (02:26:07):
Had you on the radio. That's okay. That's fine. I typically, you know, I, I wanted just say, and I was listening to one of your callers. So recently I use DSL extreme just as a customer. I use the cat five core. It works very well for me. Good.
Leo Laporte (02:26:21):
It's really not DSL extreme pro or con it's your phone company cuz they have to ride on the wires coming into your house from whoever your phone carrier is, phone companies.
... (02:26:30):
Yeah. That's well, yeah that, well, I, I hooked up with them for a long, long time. They
Leo Laporte (02:26:35):
Were sponsor for years as I mentioned. Yeah, yes,
... (02:26:38):
Yes. That's how I first learned about 'em. I did, we we'll research and I used, I used phone power hour along with them and everything seems very well. Well
Leo Laporte (02:26:47):
The good news is they're buying the company back. They, they, they sold the company and then the original founders I hear is buying the company back, which means probably it'll get even better.
... (02:26:59):
Oh, didn't know that. Yeah. News to me. Yeah. Great. That's great. Yeah. Well, things are working out well. You have any any particular suggestions about the connections to DSL, extreme, how to do things better, anything in your opinion?
Leo Laporte (02:27:13):
I haven't used them in a while. But I can tell you this, about them. There, there, DSL is the key in there. There are a number of different ways to get internet service. There's wireless service from your cell phone carrier cable company service in your area. I don't know. Who's the cable company, probably spectrum. And then there's internet service through your phone company. And that's always using something called digital subscriber liner. DSL FCC requires the phone company allow third parties into their network operations center to provide internet service over their phone lines. So the phone company owns the phone lines. I don't know if it's frontier or whoever owns your phone lines. They own the phone lines and they are required by the FCC to allow DSL extreme, to sell internet service through them. The problem is it's a T it may be at T yeah, it's a very, unfortunately it's a, it's a fraught relationship that phone companies really just wanna sell you at and T DSL.
Leo Laporte (02:28:11):
Right? They make more money that way, but they're required to let DSL extreme do it. So they sometimes slow walk changes, things like that. I don't want you to give in to at T <laugh>. I don't, I don't right. Don't let those shenanigans for you. I think DSL extreme has an advantage over at and T because they want to have the latest technology. They have this new dual line system, the true stream. That's very good. I think just stick with DSL extreme. The good news is competition is great. If at a anytime they're not go somewhere else, Leo Laport, the tech guy have a great geek week go Niners. Well that it for the tech eye show for today. Thank you so much for being here and don't forget TWI T I T. It stands for this week at tech and you'll find it@twi.tv, including the podcasts for this show. We talk about windows and windows weekly. Mac can touch on Mac break, weekly iPads, iPhones, apple watches on iOS, today's security and security. Now, I mean, I can go on and on and on. And of course the big show every Sunday afternoon, this week in tech, you'll find it all@twi.tv and I'll be back next week with another great tech guys show. Thanks for joining me. We'll see you next time.
