If you’re listening to Deemable Tech on the website, make sure to subscribe to the show on iTunes or on Stitcher. And, while you’re there, leave a review. The more subscribers we have and reviews we get, the more people will find our show.

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THE RUN DOWN

A is for Alphabet, G is for Google

In our top story this week, tech giant Google announced a major corporate restructuring which included, to everyone’s surprise, a name change. A new holding company has been created called Alphabet. Alphabet is made up of a collection of companies including Google. Google itself is being slimmed down so that just the products and services traditionally associated with it, such as Google Search, Gmail, and Chrome, are part of it. Unrelated projects such as Google’s famous “moonshot” projects, Google Fiber, and its research into self-driving cars will be spun off into their own companies, all under the Alphabet umbrella.

As part of the restructuring, Google’s Senior Vice President Sundar Pichai has been made CEO of the new, slimmer Google, while Larry Page and Sergei Brin are taking control of Alphabet.

For the moment, no branding is changing, so if you want to search something you don’t suddenly have to “Alphabet” it and you won’t be checking “Alphabet Mail” anytime soon on your “Alphabet Phone.” At least, we sure hope not.

You can check out the new company’s website and a letter from its founders at abc.xyz.

Why not Alphabet.com?

You might be asking yourself, why didn’t Google just go with Alphabet.com? Well, it turns out, even the mighty Google can’t just have any domain name they want. The New York Times is reporting that car manufacturer BMW already owns Alphabet.com and they are not interested in selling it.

Alphabet is a subsidiary of BMW that provides vehicle fleet services. Micaela Sandstede, a BMW spokeswoman in Munich. She described the website as a “very active” part of Alphabet?s business. Which is ironic, because the website has been inaccessible ever since the Google Alphabet (or is it Alphabet Google?) announcement, presumably because of the increase in traffic. It makes us feel better knowing that even mega-companies like BMW have issues keeping their website running when they get hit with a ton of traffic.

The article points out that it would only be trademark infringement if it creates confusion with customers… which wouldn’t be an issue if Google and BMW were in entirely different industries, which they were, right up until Google entered the automobile industry with self-driving cars and Android for automobiles.

Android flaw that got patched actually not patched

You may recall that a couple of weeks ago we talked about a major security flaw in Android that allowed a remote attacker to execute code using a vulnerability in Hangouts. Google rushed out a patch for the vulnerability, which has now been codenamed “Stagefright,” and it was just a matter of getting it out to the phones for all the different carriers. Except, according to the BBC, it turns out that the patch doesn’t work – or at least, that it is easy to bypass. Better keep Hangouts disabled for the time being.

How to lose an internship at Facebook

If you figure out a huge flaw in the company you are going to start an internship at, perhaps it’s a good idea to keep it to yourself. According to Boston.com, Aran Khanna created a web-app demonstrating a huge privacy flaw in Facebook Messenger shortly before he was to begin his highly coveted internship at Facebook. Facebook Messenger stored your location automatically and shared it with anyone you chatted with on the app. Khanna’s web-app took that information and placed it onto a map showing where everyone you had chatted with was when they sent the message.

He tweeted about his app and posted it on Reddit and Medium, and a few days later, Facebook asked him to disable it, and then let him know that his internship was also disabled.

According to Khanna, he wasn’t fired from his internship because of the app, but because of the way he described Facebook?s user data collection. Khanna says the Medium post wasn’t in line with the high ethical standards expected of interns.

Drones make bears nervous

Drones seem like an ideal method for wildlife biologists to study the habits of wild animals such as bears, but it appears that there is a catch. NPR reports that a new study shows that the presence of drones make bears nervous, elevating their heart rates by as much as 400%. Mark Ditmer, a biologist at the University of Minnesota, St. Paul, flew a drone near bears that had been previously implanted with heart rate monitors to study their hibernation states. Although the bears appeared outwardly unphased, all of them showed elevated heart rates when buzzed by the drone.

Meet the world?s biggest hard drive

Samsung has unveiled a new device with the catchy name of PM1633a. According to The Verge, it’s a 2.5 inch solid state drive, and it packs a whopping 16 terabytes of storage space, making it essentially the biggest hard drive ever. Samsung has not announced a price tag, but they plan to sell servers with up to 48 of these drives installed, which they are calling JBOF. One JBOF should hold about 768 TB. JBOF stands for Just a Bunch Of Flash. Before you ask, the next step up after terabyte is petabyte.

Still No Apple TV

Apple TV, the long delayed, rumored, mystical device and service is further delayed. Bloomberg is reporting that negotiations between Apple and the big TV networks are holding up the works. According to Bloomberg, Apple was to announce a new live  streaming TV service at its Sept. 9 press event, but instead Buzzfeed News says Apple is only announcing a beefed up Apple TV set-top box.

eSports Drug Testing

Top-ranked Counter Strike: Global Offensive player Cory “Semphis” Friesen admitted in an interview last month that he and his competitive eSports team “were all on Adderall” during a recent tournament. According to NPR news, at least one eSports league has decided that it is not okay with that. The Electronic Sports League, which sponsored the $250,000 tournament Friesen and his team took part in, has announced a ban on drugs and alcohol during its tournaments and will be instituting random drug testing during its tournaments going forward. The League says the substances banned include those prohibited by the World Anti-Doping Agency. The first random drug testing at a League event will occur at ESL One in Cologne later this month.

LOL is OOS (Out of Style)

You may have seen an article from the New Yorker back in April about how we express laughter online – appropriately known as e-laughter – and the increase in the use of “hehe.”

This piqued the interest of the he research team at Facebook, who decided to look into how users showed amusement. They did so by analyzing posts and comments from last week of May. Don’t worry – they only looked at ones that had “at least one string of characters that matched laughter” and they left out private messages.

So what did their study find? Well, among other things, the form of e-laughter that is used more than any other is “haha” – which they found is used over 50% of the time. In second place are emoji, followed by “hehe” in third. And it last place… our dear friend “LOL.”

The first text speak that many of us learned is now used only about 2 percent of the time.

Mic.com has a great breakdown of all of Facebook’s findings, including which phrases are most popular among different age groups and states.

If you have a suggestion, or just have a comment for the show. Give us a call and leave us a voicemail, 1-888-972-9868 or you can send us an email to feedback at deemable dot com.

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Here’s Ray’s iPhone rebooting thanks to the “effective. Power” bug. Seriously, don’t be that guy.

This week Tom and Ray were left by themselves to hold down the fort. In Sean’s absence they talked about Google’s unsurprising announcement that the next version of Android will be “M” and the surprise announcement that Android is getting HBO Now… sometime later. Ray and Tom also talked about a text message that will make iPhones crash, presidential 404 pages, Jony Ive’s new promotion and, on a more serious note, Ross Ulbrich’s sentence to life in prison for his involvement in Silk Road.

If you’re listening to Deemable Tech on our website, would you subscribe to the show on iTunes or on Stitcher? And, while you’re there, would you leave a review and say a few nice things about us? The more subscribers we have and reviews we get, the more people will find our show.

The Deemable Tech Podcast is brought to you by A Small Orange, Homegrown Hosting. A refreshingly different approach to web hosting. On the web at asmallorange.com.

Make sure to share Deemable Tech on the forums, Facebook, Twitter and all over the interwebs.

Thank you to our Redditors who have been helping us decide what stories we talk about on the show. Go to our subreddit page and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down. Deemable.com/reddit will take you there. We’re also looking for a new admin to help manage and moderate our subreddit page. Submit a text post to our subreddit explaining why you would make a great admin.

THIS WEEK’S RUN DOWN

Android to get HBO Now… later

At the Google I/O conference this week, Google VP Sundar Pichai announced that HBO Now is coming to Android devices. While a specific date has not been announced, Pichai mentioned that it would be available in time for season 2 of True Detective, which debuts on June 21st. HBO Now will be available as an app and will be compatible with the Chromecast.

Apple was believed to have a window of exclusivity with regards to the HBO Now service; it is clear that that window is now coming to a close.

Reddit User PeanutButterShutter commented, “There is a God and his name is Google.”

Apple is trying to look at things a little closer

Apple has filed a patent for a built-in telephoto camera for a possible future iPhone. Instead of adding lenses to the existing camera, the patent proposes a solution that would add an additional camera to the device. So you would have a regular camera and a telephoto camera. The telephoto camera would have a much narrower field of view, but also a much higher magnification factor.

Of course, just because Apple has filed for a patent doesn’t mean that we will ever see it come to fruition in an Apple product. Apple has an incredible amount of patents that have never seen the light of day as a real product. Apple currently has a patent for bayonet-style camera lens attachments for the iPhone and iPad, a patent for an iPhone with interchangeable lenses and even an iPhone with multiple camera sensors and beam splitters to separate the blue, red and green light spectrum.

Google announces Android M

Surprising absolutely no one, Google also announced at Google I/O that the next iteration of its Android operating system will be coming out this year and that it will be code-named ‘M’, in keeping with the alphabetical theme of previous releases. What is not known is what delicious, sugary treat ‘M’ will stand for. Android ‘K’ turned out to stand for Kit Kat and the current version of the system, ‘L’, is Lollipop. The word on the street is that ‘M’ will stand for Macadamia Nut Cookie, but we hasten to add that this is pure speculation.

Oh, you want ‘substance’ to your news reports? Fine. While previous releases have focused on upgrades to the system’s design, performance and battery life, ‘M’ promises a focus on the basics: stability and usability. Google also says that M will give users the ability to grant permissions to apps on a case-by-case basis. Interestingly, this ability was present in earlier versions of the Android OS but was intended for developer use only and was eventually disabled. iOS users have enjoyed so-called ‘granular permissions’ for years.

This is one case where we are glad to see Google taking a page from Apple’s playbook.

Jony Ive becomes Apple Chief Design Officer.

Jony Ive is stepping down? or is it stepping up? Let’s call it stepping away from ? the day to day routine at Apple. Jony Ive as you may know has been the Senior Vice President of Design at Apple for quite some time. Jony is the man behind most of the iconic designs that have come out of Cupertino. Jony is now the Chief Design Officer at Apple. Which is safe to assume means that he will have less to do with the day to day management. Richard Howarth is taking over as vice president of Industrial Design, and Alan Dye is the new vice president of User Interface Design, two departments that Ive was overseeing at the same time. Now Ive can focus on overseeing design, and potentially spend more time at home with the family.

Silk Road Founder Gets Life

Ross Ulbrich, founder and operator of the notorious dark net drug market The Silk Road, was sentenced this week to life in prison. Ulbricht, alias The Dread Pirate Roberts, was tried and found guilty narcotics conspiracy and other charges earlier in the year. The minimum possible sentence that he faced was twenty years, a term that he and his lawyers had pleaded for.

During the sentencing hearing the court heard several accounts of people who had become hooked on drugs or even overdosed on drugs obtained through the Silk Road. Ulbricht’s failed attempts to order hits on other members of the Silk Road community probably did not help his case either.

His life sentence comes without the possibility of parole. Barring a successful appeal, Ulbricht will die behind bars.

The text message that will reboot your iPhone

This next story sounds like it must be an urban legend, but it is not: there is a text message that, if you send it to a friend with an iPhone, may cause their phone to reboot.

OK, you are probably waiting breathlessly for us to tell you what the message is, but here is the thing, we can’t tell you, because it is gibberish: it involves a lot of special characters from other language character sets. The first two words are in English, however, and they are ‘effective. Power’. So we can call this the ‘effective. Power’ bug.

From what we are hearing, the ‘effective. Power’ bug happens when an iPhone attempts to display a shortened version of this message in the notifications. The iPhone will then reset if your phone is locked. Otherwise your phone’s screen will go black. That is the only effect, it is basically harmless. You can clear it out by asking Siri to read unread messages, and then using Siri to reply to the person that sent the offending text.

Early reports indicated that turning off text message notifications would disable the bug but some users are reporting that it still works even with notifications disabled.

While Apple is working on an iOS fix, as of this recording one has not yet been released. However, something else really interesting has happened. Tonight as we were attempting to test and verify this bug, we found that we could not send each other the message! It simply will not go through. It would appear that some carriers have wised up to this trick and may be blocking messages carrying the dangerous string of characters.

Regardless, be a cool friend and don’t spam your friends with the “effective. Power” text.

404 Candidate Not Found

As candidates throw their hats in the ring for the 2016 presidential election, The Atlantic has identified one key issue that no one has looked at: whose campaign website has the best 404 page. The 404 page is the page you see when you try to reach a page on a website that is broken or that no longer exists. The majority of the internet’s websites produce uninspired 404 pages with stock text, but a few, like Twitter’s famous ‘fail whale’, are memorable classics. If you think about it, this is exactly what America wants in its chief executive: the ability to remain cool in a crisis, maybe crack a joke or two. And being unable to find the web page you need? That is definitely a crisis. So, Ray, with your permission I thought we would visit a handful of the announced candidates’ campaign sites and 404 it up.

• Bernie Sander’s 404 page.
• Carly Fiorona’s 404 page.
• Hillary Clinton’s 404 page.
• Lindsey Graham’s 404 page.
• Marco Rubio’s 404 page.
• Mike Huckabee’s 404 page.

?

If you have a suggestion, or just have a comment for the show. Give us a call and leave us a voicemail, 1-888-972-9868 or you can send us an email to feedback at deemable dot com.

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This week Tom brings the joyous news that Nintendoland is coming! Ray wants fast passes to the Mario Kart ride. But none of the guys want to ride on a Boeing 787 after Ray tells the guys that some of the planes are turning off… in mid air. Not good. Oculus finally announces a consumer model of the Oculus Rift. People are breaking/not breaking their Microsoft Surface 3 tablets. Twitter broke MS-DOS games, and Tesla just brought the future one step closer to today. All that on this week’s episode.

But first, could we ask a favor of you? If you’re listening to Deemable Tech on our website, would you subscribe to the show on iTunes or on Stitcher? And, while you’re there, would you leave a review and say a few nice things about us? The more subscribers we have and reviews we get, the more people will find our show.

The Deemable Tech Podcast is brought to you by A Small Orange, Homegrown Hosting. A refreshingly different approach to web hosting. On the web at asmallorange.com.

Make sure to share Deemable Tech on the forums, Facebook, Twitter and all over the interwebs.

Thank you to our Redditors who have been helping us decide what stories we talk about on the show. Go to our subreddit page and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down. Deemable.com/reddit will take you there.

THIS WEEK’S RUN DOWN

Nintendo Theme Park

Who is up for Mario Kart in real life? Nintendo announced during an earnings call this week that it is partnering with Universal Parks and Resorts which runs the Universal Studios theme parks to create Nintendo-themed rides and attractions. Nintendo has not announced specific details on which of its properties it would adapt, but it seems like a safe bet that it will leverage long lasting and popular characters and games like Mario, Zelda and Donkey Kong. In fact, Universal executive Tom Schroder said pretty much exactly that in a press release: “The immersive experiences will include major attractions at Universal?s theme parks and will feature Nintendo?s most famous characters and games.”

Have you tried turning your plane off and on again?

The FAA sent out a warning on May 1st that Boeing 787s may have some computer problems that could cause your terrible, terrible death. Mashable reports that the administration discovered the computers in 787s have a “software counter” that periodically shuts down all electrical systems, which results in “loss of control of the airplane.” Now, I’m not an aviation expert, but I think that is a bad thing. Am I right in assuming that guys?

Boeing is working out a software update that will eliminate the problem, but until then, they have issued a work around. If you work in the IT industry or have ever worked technical support you are probably familiar with it:

“Have you tried turning it off and on again?”

Yes folks, it’s the I.T. Crowd fix.

Call Roy and Moss or your plane will crash to the ground.

Oculus announces “Q1 2016” release for Rift

In other news that is sure to have gamers everywhere jumping for joy, Oculus announced this week that the first commercial release of their hotly anticipated virtual reality headset the Oculus Rift will be in early 2016.

The company also released promotional images of the sleek final consumer product after several years of prototypes.

Oculus first made a splash at the E3 gaming expo in 2012, followed by a very successful Kickstarter campaign. They also kicked off a virtual reality race, with other big companies like Sony and Valve and HTC working on releasing their own VR products.

How low can you go?

One of the most interesting tablets to come out, other than the iPad, has definitely been the Microsoft Surface. Sure, it’s had its share of troubles. It came out with Windows RT, which was this weird, stripped down version of Windows. It had two interfaces, the desktop and the “tablet” UI which really confused people. But, it was an incredible design that really changed the market, making it a serious contender for a laptop replacement. One of its signature features was the coveted kickstand that can hold the tablet in one of three positions. Well, now the Verge is reporting that Redditors have discovered a secret fourth position for the Surface 3 kickstand. Apparently, if you keep pressing the kickstand back after the third position it will break away and fold all the way back.

Microsoft said in a statement that the kickstand “contains a safety mechanism unique to Surface 3 to help protect the device, but the mechanism is not designed for use as a fourth kickstand position.”

So it might work once, twice or maybe even a few times, but it’s probably going to ruin your Surface 3.

The lesson here is, don’t play too rough with your toys. Just like a Slinky, once you bend it out of shape, you can’t bend it back, no matter what happened in Toy Story.

MS-DOS games on Twitter update

Last week we told you how you can embed and play classic MS-DOS games in tweets. Sadly, it looks like Twitter has put a stop to that.

It was discovered last week that Twitter users could embed these games from the Internet Archive?s site into tweets using Twitter?s Cards widget (that?s the system that allows videos, images and other media to be displayed in-line in the Twitter stream). But it turns out that embedding interactive media, specifically games, is against the terms of service for Twitter Cards.

You can, however, still play the MS-DOS games at the Internet Archive?s site, archive.org.

Powerwall

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, the maker of powerful electric sports cars recently announced that his company will begin manufacturing batteries for homes. This week Elon Musk announced that demand for their ?Powerwall? batteries was ?crazy off the hook?. He said they have received over 38,000 reservations, a level of demand which could take them up to a year to fulfill. Orders included over 2,500 from companies for their commercial-ready Powerpack.

The Powerwall batteries are designed for a 24-hour charge-and-discharge cycle, which would be ideal in combination with a solar power system that could charge them during the day letting them run the house at night. The batteries are designed to be mounted on the wall and a 7kWh unit starts at $3,000.

Note from Ray: The Powerwall is apparently not nearly as bad as the Power Glove.

If you have a suggestion, or just have a comment for the show. Give us a call and leave us a voicemail, 1-888-972-9868 or you can send us an email to feedback at deemable dot com.

And, don’t forget to help us to decide what stories we talk about on the show, go to our subreddit page and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down. deemable.com/reddit will take you there

Anyone who’s ever owned an iPod knows that stainless steel scratches.

This week, Google launched a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO). The new phone service uses Sprint, T0Mobile and Wi-Fi, but it only has one phone, the Nexus 6. There’s a few Apple Watch ‘scandals’ ramping up: tattoo-gate, scratch-gate and tap-gate. Microsoft has a new “edge”ier web browser, a man shoots up his Dell and the robots are coming to steal your car.

If you haven?t subscribed to Deemable Tech yet, get on it! Subscribe to Deemable Tech in iTunes, on Stitcheror subscribe to the show in another podcast reader. Make sure to leave a review on iTunes and Stitcher. The more reviews posted, the higher Deemable Tech will be listed, and the more listeners will see the show.

And make sure to share Deemable Tech on the forums, Facebook, Twitter and all over the interwebs.

Thank you to our Redditors who have been helping us decide what stories we talk about on the show. Go to our subreddit page and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down. Deemable.com/reddit will take you there.

The Deemable Tech Podcast is brought to you by A Small Orange, Homegrown Hosting. A refreshingly different approach to web hosting. On the web at asmallorange.com.

THIS WEEK’S RUN DOWN

You can now embed playable MS-DOS games inside tweets

Earlier this year, the Internet Archive added roughly 2,400 MS-DOS games to their digital archive that are playable through your web browser on their site, Archive.org. But if you?re too scared to leave Twitter to check this out, never fear. The folks at Wired discovered this week that you can embed the games inside of tweets and play them right from those tweets.

So, you can now get your Oregon Trail, Sim City or Wolfenstein 3D fix from Twitter. Or, you can try out other classic games like the adaptation of the 1991 Hulk Hogan cinematic masterpiece Suburban Commando (just kidding, you should never do that).

Google announces cellular data network, which is actually two networks.

Google has officially announced its long-rumored cellular data network: its name is ProjectFi. As anticipated it is an MVNO network, which means that Google is ?renting? time on someone else?s network like many other small cellular companies. The differences is that Google is renting not from one other network, but two: Sprint & T-mobile, as well as WiFi. When you are on a ProjectFi connection your phone will seamlessly switch to whichever one of those networks is strongest. ProjectFi?s offers a very straightforward billing structure which will be appealing to some. It also will let you ?bank? unused minutes each month. And it offers promises of more innovations to come. The catch? Right now it is only offered for a single phone: the Nexus 6, and there is no LTE high speed service.

Robot car movers

The robots are coming to steal your car, or just move it out of the way. Gizmodo shared a story that researchers in Europe have created AVERT, the Autonomous Vehicle Emergency Recovery Tool. It is a system of robots that look like something out of Battle Bots. They are flat pieces of steel with rotors on the ends of them. Eight of them work together to pick up your cars tires and wheel it away. They only lift the car about an inch off the ground, but that’s all they need to move it out of the way. The idea is that the robots can easily move a car parked in a tight spot if there is a bomb in a nearby car. They could also be used to move an illegally parked car or a car that is blocking emergency services. Or, when the robots become sentient, they will likely start a car robbing career.

Man puts 8 bullets in his Dell desktop, tells police it was worth the ticket.

Police say that at 7 PM on a Monday, Lucas Hinch, the owner of a homeopathic herb store in Colorado Springs, Colorado, took his Dell XPS 410 out into an alley behind the store and unloaded eight bullets into it with a 9mm pistol. Hinch was ticketed for discharging a gun within city limits.

Lynch told the Los Angeles Times, which interviewed him, that the machine kept giving him the blue screen of death and that he had ?had enough.? He said that the shooting was ?definitely premeditated? and that he had no regrets. He reportedly told officers he did not know he was breaking the law in discharging his weapon.

Microsoft unveils Edge browser

During the opening keynote of their Microsoft Build developers conference this week, Microsoft unveiled the successor to their Internet Explorer browser (which they recently announced was ending).

The new browser, now called Edge (formerly Project Spartan), is said to be faster and more modern and will be a universal app across all Windows devices. Features will include, among others, extensions like you find for Chrome and Firefox, integration of Microsoft?s Cortana virtual assistant to help you search for things, reading mode (which removes everything from a page except for the text), and an annotation tool (which lets you draw on a webpage, take a picture of it and share that picture).

The new browser will not be in the initial release of Windows 10 this year, but will be included in a later update. Windows 10 will be shipped with Internet Explorer 11 for legacy compatibility, so you will have one last chance to use everyone?s favorite browser before it goes softly into that good night.

Tired of remember your passwords? Try swallowing them instead?

In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Paypal?s global head of developer advocacy, Jonathan Leblanc, said that passwords might soon be available as ?embeddable, injectable and ingestible devices.? Mr. Leblanc said that in the near future thin silicon chips might be embedded under our skin or capsules might detect glucose levels to verify that someone is who they say they are.

The Wall Street Journal notes, “Mr. Leblanc admits that there’s still a ways to go before cultural norms catch up with ingestible and injectable ID devices.”

Google files patent for laptop with no spacebar.

Google already kicked the CAPS-LOCK key to the curb with its Chromebooks and now it appears it may be preparing to do the same thing to the spacebar. In a patent filed this week the company outlines a design where the spacebar is replaced by an extended trackpad. Sensors would determine whether the user wants the top of the trackpad to be treated as a spacebar or a mouse. Google told Quartz, who broke the story, that some patents get turned into products and some don?t, so only time will tell whether we will see a spacebar-free Chromebook.

Apple Watch – Tattoo-gate

Reports are coming in on Twitter and Reddit that people with tattoos on their wrists may have difficulty using their new Apple watches. iMore.com looked into it and confirmed the reports. The heart sensor detects pulse by flashing an LED light on your skin and senses the reflection. The problem is when you have a tattoo the reflection is distorted by the ink. Your mileage may vary, but for some folks it is really annoying. The Apple Watch uses the heart sensor to detect if you are wearing the watch, so when it doesn’t sense your heart rate, it forces you to re-enter your pin number.

Apple Watch – Scratch-gate

If you don’t like scratches, you probably shouldn’t get the stainless steel Apple watch. A lot of folks are reporting on social media that their steel Apple watches are already scratched up. 9to5Mac.com has an easy fix. Just buff it, like every other stainless steel watch in existence. Or, get the aluminum model, which is actually harder than the steel version.

Apple Watch – Tap-gate

Now for the first, actual, real problem with the Apple watch. According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple has found a major defect in the taptic engine in the watches. The taptic engine is the feature that causes the watch to vibrate or tap the wearer. It was a pretty groundbreaking feature because it models sounds so a tweet “feels” like a tweet, and a tap feels like a tap. Two companies built the taptic engines, but one of the suppliers has produced faulty engines. The Verge says that Daring Fireball’s John Gruber received an Apple Watch that had a taptic engine that didn’t work.

OUTRO

If you have a suggestion, or just have a comment for the show. Give us a call and leave us a voicemail, 1-888-972-9868 or you can send us an email to feedback@deemable.com.

And, don’t forget to help us to decide what stories we talk about on the show, go to our subreddit page and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down. deemable.com/reddit will take you there

I’m Ray Hollister, I’m Tom Braun, I’m Sean Birch and this is Deemable Tech. Thanks for listening.

This week, Comcast can’t keep itself out of the news. First, Comcast announces that it is bringing the fastest Interwebs in the country to Jacksonville (WOOT!) and other cities in Florida. Then, the FCC and the Justice Department rain on Comcast’s parade and lets it know they are not going to let it merge with Time Warner Cable. In other news, a paranoid dad flew a drone to school with his daughter, and two guys took the iPhone/Android fight way too far.

The Deemable Tech Podcast is brought to you by A Small Orange, Homegrown Hosting. A refreshingly different approach to web hosting. On the web at asmallorange.com.

If you haven?t subscribed to Deemable Tech yet, get on it! Subscribe to Deemable Tech in iTunes, on Stitcheror subscribe to the show in another podcast reader. Make sure to leave a review on iTunes and Stitcher. The more reviews posted, the higher Deemable Tech will be listed, and the more listeners will see the show.

And make sure to share Deemable Tech on the forums, Facebook, Twitter and all over the interwebs.

Thank you to our Redditors who have been helping us decide what stories we talk about on the show. Go to our subreddit page and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down. Deemable.com/reddit will take you there.

THIS WEEK’S RUN DOWN

Comcast Gigabit Pro

People in Jacksonville and some other towns in Florida are going to be pretty excited next month. In a story Jessica Palombo contributed to Deemable.com, Comcast is bringing the fastest fiber optic Internet service in the country to a few cities in Florida, including our own fair town. The service, which is called Gigabit Pro, will actually have 2 Gbps download and upload speeds ? more than twice the speed of Google Fiber.

However, Comcast would not give a price for the new service. The next fastest service from Comcast is Extreme 505, which runs up to 505 Mbps up and down, and costs over $400 a month with taxes and fees.

Comcast Drops Its Bid to Merge With Time Warner Cable

Speaking of Comcast, earlier this week it was looking pretty  looked bad for its merger with Time Warner Cable. According to Bloomberg, the Justice Department’s antitrust department was going to recommend blocking the merger. And, the FCC was not negotiating the terms of the deal with Comcast, which made it look even less likely that it was going to go through.

But now, ?people with knowledge of the matter? have told Bloomberg that Comcast is backing out of the merger. There was supposed to be a board meeting Thursday. And an official  announcement will probably come Friday.

As the Verge pointed out in an editorial, throughout this whole process, Comcast has never answered this simple question: Why not compete?

Verizon to offer custom pay TV packages, let customers choose monthly programming bundles

And while we?re on the subject of Internet and TV providers, in move that is one small step closer to a la carte cable TV, Verizon recently announced that they are rolling out a new pay TV service that will let customers choose from channel bundles that they change monthly.

These Verizon FiOS ?Custom TV? packages will start at 65 dollars a month for broadband service, 36 fixed basic cable channels, and two genre-based channel packs that customers can swap or unsubscribe from after a month. You can also add packs for an extra 10 dollars. Verizon has seven of these packs to choose from, including sports and children?s programming.

Verizon says they are going after customers who want something in between giant, fully loaded cable packages and cheaper basic packages offered by their competitors.

After “Drone Dad” follows his daughter to school, DJI Phantom 2 grounded

Tennessee father Chris Early?s daughter decided she wanted to walk to the school bus by herself so he did what any tech-inclined father would do: he followed her with a drone.

The drone was a model known as a DJI Phantom 2 which has a high def video camera mounted on it. Early followed his daughter with the drone. A local news station caught wind of this and the story went nationwide. Chris Early has been called ?overprotective?, ?the world?s most embarrassing father? and ‘drone dad’. As a result of all the attention he says he has grounded the drone for now.

One World Trade Center Elevator Shows 515 Years Of New York City

One World Trade Center has added an elevator that displays 515 years of New York City history in 50 seconds.

The New York Times covered this story, but I wrote an article about it for Deemable.com.

While they haven?t developed time travel, the engineers and designers behind the elevators that takes guests to the observatory at the very top of One World Trade Center in New York City have come pretty close. When you board the elevators, you will see a panoramic view of New York City rising out of the underground in the 1500s all the way up through time to the 102nd floor today.

The elevator uses nine 75-inch screens to create the illusion that it is a glass-walled elevator traveling through time.

Along the way, you’ll see the arrival of the Europeans, the Revolution and the rise of the skyscrapers. Inevitably, as time travels through the late-1900s, one of the Twin Towers enters your sight and just as quickly fades away as the 2000s begin. It is a touching, beautiful memorial to the history of the site. You can see The New York Times video of the elevator on our website at Deemable.com

YouTube celebrates 10 year anniversary

This week marks the 10 year anniversary of the first video being uploaded to YouTube.

On April 23 2005, YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim posted a 19 second clip of elephants at the zoo titled “Me at the zoo.”  In it, Karim discusses the elephants’ “really, really, really long trunks” and, well, that’s all. Pretty tame compared to what you can find on YouTube today.

About a year after this video was posted, Google acquired YouTube for $1.6 billion.

According to reports, YouTube will mark the anniversary with a month-long celebration starting next week.

Skycure Hack Can Use Wifi To Disable iOS Devices

A research firm called Skycure reported that it has developed a hack based around a bug in iOS that could allow it to disable all nearby iOS devices using a wifi router. The wifi router has to be configured in a specific way. It will then cause any device connected to it to keep crashing and rebooting in an endless loop. It can be combined with another hack that forces iOS devices to connect to that network. Essentially the only way to escape the endless cycle of rebooting would be to get out of range of the router.

Skycure has not publicly released technical specifications for the bug it used to create the hack to give Apple time to patch it.

Argument Over Which Smartphone Is Better Turns Deadly

Police in Tulsa, OK apprehended a man staggering around a parking lot late at night cut up and covered in blood. The man reported to them that he had been in a fight with his roommate over which smartphone was better – the iPhone or the new Samsung Galaxy. iPhone versus Android fights can get heated, but most stop short of physical conflict. The man reported that he and his roommate had been drinking and wound up stabbing each other with broken beer bottles. Both were admitted to the hospital and are expected to make a full recovery. No word on whether either man was arrested or whether either had his mind changed about his preferred choice of phone.

How many tabs does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?

Redditor Peanut Butter Shudder suggested an answer to Ray’s question. Last week during Shower Thoughts, Ray said he didn’t know how many tabs he had ever opened in his life. Peanut Butter Shudder mentioned Tab for a Cause on our reddit page (reddit.com/r/deemable) Tab for a Cause apparently tracks how many tabs you open and it has a bit of slacktivism built into it. If you install the browser extension, you’ll raise money for charities simply by browsing the internet. Heck, why not?

Who had the best segue?

Vote! Send us an email to feedback at deemable dot com or leave us a voicemail at 1-888-972-9868.

And, don’t forget to help us to decide what stories we talk about on the show, go to our subreddit page and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down. deemable.com/reddit will take you there.

Photo credit: iPhone vs Android by nrkbeta.no is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0.

Hey folks! We are not doing a normal podcast this week because of One Spark. Fortunately, there wasn’t much news in the tech world this week anyway. Basically everyone is sitting on their hands waiting for the Apple Watch to come out. But, if you have a Mac or an iOS device, Ray does have some news for you that you’ll want to hear, especially if you have an iPhone on Sprint. Enjoy this incredibly short, “all Ray” episode of Deemable Tech.

This week the guys are elated about the death of Internet Explorer, the low, low price of free to upgrade to Windows 10, (even if you never paid for Windows 7 or 8) and Mario, Zelda and the gang are finally coming to mobile phones, but not the way you want them to.

If you haven’t subscribed to Deemable Tech yet, get on it! Subscribe to Deemable Tech in iTunes, on Stitcher or subscribe to the show in another podcast reader. Make sure to leave us a review in iTunes and Stitcher. The more reviews we have the higher we’ll be listed, and the more listeners will see our show.

And make sure to share us on the forums, Facebook, Twitter and all over the interwebs.

Thank you to our Redditors who have been helping us decide what stories we talk about on the show. Go to our subreddit page and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down. Deemable.com/reddit will take you there.

This Week’s Run Down

Windows 10 is free for everybody!

So, you may have heard of the latest version of Windows that Microsoft is working on releasing later this summer. If you haven’t, it’s called Windows 10. If you’re wondering why it’s called Windows 10 instead of… you know… Windows 9, it’s because of a little coding shortcut where programmers referred to Windows 95 and Windows 98 as – you guessed it – “Windows 9.”

Well, it turns out that Windows 10 is going to be FREE for everyone, well almost everyone.

Terry Myerson, Microsoft’s Windows chief to Reuters “We are upgrading all qualified PCs, genuine and non-genuine, to Windows 10”

So that means, as long as you have a computer running Windows 7 or Window 8 or 8.1 you can install 10 on your computer, at no charge, even if you stole the version that’s on your computer right now.

The Death of Internet Explorer

Microsoft confirmed this week that Internet Explorer will not be the primary web browser in Windows 10. Yes, the venerable Internet Explorer, which has been a part of Windows since Windows 95, is being put out to pasture. It will still ship with the next version of Microsoft’s operating system for backwards compatibility reasons, but a new browser with the codename Project Spartan will be Microsoft’s flagship browser. Project Spartan’s real name has not been released yet but Microsoft says that it will not use the Internet Explorer branding.

Nintendo to develop mobile games

After years of speculation, Nintendo is moving into the mobile game market. They announced this week that they have partnered with Japanese mobile game giant DeNA to “develop and operate new game apps based on Nintendo’s intellectual property, including its iconic game characters, for smart devices.”

They were quick to point out that their primary focus will still be their game consoles like the Wii U and 3DS, and that these new mobile apps are intended to complement, not replace, those systems. In the same announcement, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said that a new console codenamed NX is development.

Unfortunately for those of us hoping this means we’ll be able to play classic Mario or Zelda games on our devices, Iwata also said that Nintendo’s plans do not include direct ports of console games. He cited differences between dedicated controllers and touchscreens as the reason.

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If you have a comment, contact us at feedback at deemable.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-888-972-9868.

Help us decide what stories we talk about on the show, go to our subreddit page and submit a story. Or vote other stories up or down. reddit.com/r/Deemable

Photo Credit: Internet Explorer, a web developers menace by Jorgen Kesseler is used under CC BY-SA 2.0.

What happens when you realize you skipped an episode number? Just keep on rollin. This week on Deemable Tech we are talking about… the Apple big announcement. Apple finally announced all the details on the Apple Watch. Apple also announced a new MacBook, ResearchKit and HBO Now.

An incoming call notification on the Apple Watch Edition. Image credit: Apple

This Week’s Run Down

Macbook

Apple announced a new laptop, called…the MacBook.

It’s thinner than the MacBook Air, but it is also less powerful than the MacBook Air and has less battery life than the MacBook Air, and it’s more expensive than the MacBook Air. So, it’s basically, just like the MacBook Air was to the original MacBook when the MacBook Air came out.

It has a 480p FaceTime Camera, but it does have a retina display though, which gives it an advantage over the MacBook Air.

The craziest part is that, except for the headphone jack, the new MacBook only has one port, USB-C. Everything goes through the USB-C port – power, display, thumb drives, accessories, everything. To do almost anything you will have to buy an adapter, which costs $79 a piece.

As a result a lot of people will not be buying this laptop, especially DJs.

The new MacBook is available in silver, Space Grey and… gold, for some reason.

The new MacBook has a new trackpad called a “Force Touch” trackpad. It does not have a physical button, but it is pressure sensitive, and gives haptic feedback when you click it. The Force Touch trackpad opens up new ways to interact with the computer such as “Gradually add pressure to the trackpad to vary the speed with which you fast-forward through a QuickTime movie or zoom in on a location in Maps.”

Apple TV – HBO Now

Apple also announced a partnership with HBO to bring unbundled HBO to cable-cutters. For $14.99 a month you can watch Game of Thrones without a cable subscription, but only on an iOS device. HBO Now is available on iPhone, iPad and the Apple TV.

ResearchKit

In one of the most surprising announcements, Apple revealed ResearchKit. ResearchKit is an open source software development kit that medical researchers can use to easily create apps for studies. The idea is that these apps will utilize the sensors in iPhones to “track movement, take measurements and record information – functions that are perfect for medical studies.” iPhone owners would be able to download these apps to participate in research and provide information regardless of where they are. Since iPhones are the most widely used smartphones, it is hoped that this will lead to larger sample sizes and more frequent data, thus creating a truer representation of the population.

Apple Watch

Preorders started on the 10th.

The watch will go on sale for reals on April 24th.

Three Versions

There are a whole bunch of combinations of watch bands and cases. Way too many to describe them all. If I did, I am pretty sure Tom would kill me.

Apple Watch Sport

• Aluminum Silver or Aluminum Space Gray Case
• Fluoroelastomer watch band
• $349 and $399

Apple Watch

• Stainless Steel Case or Stainless Steel Space Gray Case
• Fluoroelastomer ($549/$599), Classic Leather Buckle ($649/$699), Modern Leather Buckle (38mm $749), Leather Loop (Smartcase-esque – 42mm $699), Milanese Loop ($649/$699), Steel Link Bracelet ($949/$999), Space Black Steel Link ($1,049/$1,099)
• $549 up to $1099

Apple Watch Edition

• 18K Gold
• Priced from “Geez Louise” to “Hoo boy!”
  • Otherwise known as $10,000 to $17,000

Mashable – My Apple Watch Nightmare

Ray Hollister reviews the BACtrack Mobile Breathalyzer on Deemable Tech

This week Ray, Tom and Sean talk about how Hilary Clinton used her personal email address the entire time she worked at the State Department. They discussed the announcement of the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, (which included the announcement of SamsungPay which is the implementation of LoopPay into the Samsung phones which Ray insisted two weeks ago would not happen!) They also talked about the death of Google+ and Google starting its own wireless carrier. Then, Ray shared his review of the BACtrack Mobile Breathalyzer. If you’re just here for the video, make sure to scroll all the way to the bottom.

#74 Ray Likes His Crow Breaded With A Light, Crispy Panko Crust

RUN DOWN

Samsung Galaxy S6 & S6 Edge

This week was the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Spain and Samsung used the opportunity to take the wraps off the next iteration of its flagship phone, the Samsung Galaxy S6? and the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge. That?s right, the S6 will come in two formats – a standard rectangular shape and a more curvy version with a display that wraps around the edge and which can display alerts by lighting up.

Regardless of what you think about Samsung?s latest gimmick, both phones are aimed squarely at the premium smartphone market. Samsung has ditched the removable plastic cases of previous Galaxy S?s for a phone that is completely encased in aluminum and Gorilla Glass, similar to the iPhone. The phone boasts an almost ridiculous Quad HD (2560 x 1440) Super AMOLED. Why would anyone need that kind of resolution on a 5.1 inch screen? Virtual Reality! You can strap your S6 into the latest version of Samsung?s Gear VR for a super-high-res virtual reality experience. Since the screen will be literally centimeters from your face, it has to look good.

Not all of Samsung?s longtime users are excited about the S6. The premium case materials means that the newest Galaxy phones no longer allow for a removable battery or an expandable SD memory card, two longstanding features of the Galaxy line.

Samsung Pay, formerly known as Loop Pay, with its magnetic card swiping technology, is built right into the phone.

Google announced that Google+, its one-time ambitious attempt to take on Facebook and Twitter, is going under the knife.

Google+ Divests

The Verge is reporting that the Google+ social network is getting split up into Streams, Photos and Hangouts. It is also getting a new lead: Bradley Horowitz, a long time VP, is taking over from David Besbris. Besbris had held his position less than a year after Vic Gundotra was let go with little fanfare.

Google+ was originally pitched to be Google?s answer to rivals like Facebook and Twitter. In 2012 it took the controversial step of forcibly assigning every Google user across all of its services a Google+ account. Despite this, Google+ never reached the critical mass of user activity needed to take on the big guys. Google has since backed away from their one-size-fits-all approach.

Google execs are now calling the social network side of the product ?Streams? and considering them to be separate from Photos, home of the ridiculous Auto-Awesome feature, and Hangouts, Google?s free and easy-to-use chat and videoconferencing system.

How to Auto-Awesome your photos manually – AndroidCentral.

While Google has not officially announced the death of ?Streams? as a product, some experts are predicting it could be on the chopping block soon.

Google Wireless

According to Mashable, Google?s latest crazy plan is to become a wireless carrier.

Google revealed this week at Mobile World Congress that it plans to get into the wireless carrier business, offering mobile voice and data service to customers. Google says that it will do this on a small scale, buying wholesale access from Sprint and T-Mobile?s networks and selling them to customers. Google says it wants to ?push the needle? when it comes to features offered to mobile customers, for instance allowing users to seamlessly transition between wifi and cellular connections.

Google was careful to emphasize that it does not intend to compete with AT&T and Verizon and that they have been informed of its plans.

BIG STORY

Hillary Clinton used a personal email account the entire time she was US Secretary of State

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/us/politics/hillary-clintons-use-of-private-email-at-state-department-raises-flags.html

Clinton apparently set up an email account one week prior to President Obama’s inauguration, and she did not use an official @state.gov email address.

For comparison, according to NBC News, Former secretary of State Condelezza Rice did not use personal email while she was in office, but she rarely used email at all. Clinton aides have also said that, Colin Powell did regularly use a personal e-mail account while Secretary of State.

A Powell aide confirmed that information, saying, “General Powell used a personal email account during his tenure as Secretary of State. He was not aware of any restrictions nor does he recall being made aware of any over the four years he served at State.”

According to the Washington Post, “Former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton appears to have operated in violation of what the White House said Tuesday was ?very specific guidance? that members of the Obama administration use government e-mail accounts to carry out official business.”

Hillary Clinton said on Twitter :

I want the public to see my email. I asked State to release them. They said they will review them for release as soon as possible.

? Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 5, 2015

REVIEWS

BACtrack MobileBreathalyzer Review

Last year Ray received the BACtrack Mobile Breathalyzer, which, unsurprisingly, tracks your BAC or your blood alcohol content. In other words, it’s a mobile Breathalyzer.

It is a really great product. (Disclaimer, BACtrack did provide a sample unit for review.) The BACtrack Mobile Breathalyzer connects with your Smartphone via Bluetooth.

It’s pretty comfortable to hold in your hand, and it is very easy to use. You just turn it on, open the BACtrack app and pair it with your phone via bluetooth and follow the on screen instructions.

It keeps track of your blood alcohol level over time while you are drinking, and it calculates how long it will take for you to be sober. In addition to a number calculation of your BAC, it give you an idea of where you should be feeling. It will say things like “You are experiencing slight alcohol intoxication.”

The strangest feature of the device is that it let’s you post your blood alcohol level on social media. I personally never use that feature, but I can definitely see it going horribly, horribly wrong. I can only imagine the legal implications but it could possibly have too. But, it would help to explain all of those wacky drunk pictures.

If you are a frequent drinker, this breathalyzer has a great feature that will let you track when and where you drank. You can choose what you share otherwise it always stays private.

The BACtrack Mobile Breathalyzer cost $99 now. It was $149 when I reviewed it. I feel like it was worth $149, but I think that $99 is the perfect price point for the features it has.

Now, there are other breathalyzers that BACtrack makes that are cheaper. They have a model that uses a different sensor that only costs $49, and they have keychain models that do not connect to your smartphone that are $29.

Personally, I like the model that uses the same technology that the police use to check blood alcohol level, because if I am trusting something to check if I am below the legal limit or not, I want to be absolutely certain it is right!

That being said, this is in no way an endorsement to drive while intoxicated. It’s never safe to drink under the influence of alcohol, and you can be arrested for DUI even if you’re under the legal limit.

The thing that surprised me most about using the backtrack mobile breathalyzer was that I am apparently a cheap date. I was drunk long before the device said I was a legally drunk. Or, at least I felt like I was drunk.

It was crazy to me that at .02, I felt that I could not drive a car, but I was still legal to drive.

Check out the video of the review below:

UNCUT!

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler pushed FCC to vote 3-2 in favor of Net Neutrality.

This week Ray, Tom and Sean talk about how the FCC has finally decided to step up to the plate and defend Net Neutrality, and the rest of the big stories in the tech world. Reddit is finally banning stolen pornography. Apple is holding a super secret press event in March. (SPOILER: It’s the Apple Watch announcement.) Pebble is Kickstarting another smartwatch. Three patients voluntarily had their arms amputated to receive bionic prosthetics. Google bought mobile payment company Softcard. And, we are one step closer to Skynet becoming self-aware, an artificial intelligence played 49 Atari games without instructions, beating the records of human players in 29 of the games.

Thank you to our Redditors who have been helping us decide what stories we talk about on the show. Go to our subreddit page and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down. Deemable.com/reddit will take you there.

Deemable Tech Episode #73 Freedom Is Just A Four-Letter Word

Subscribe to Deemable Tech in iTunes, on Stitcher or subscribe to the show in another podcast reader. Make sure to leave us a review in iTunes and Stitcher. The more reviews we have the higher we?ll be listed, and the more listeners will see our show.

This Week’s Run Down

Reddit bans revenge porn.

Gizmodo reports that Reddit ? has outlawed porn. Wait, no. Reddit has prohibited unwanted porn. No, that’s not right either. Reddit has banned involuntary pornography. Reddit announced that that it is no longer allowing pictures or videos to be posted to the site without the permission of the subjects.

In a statement on its website reddit said:

No matter who you are, if a photograph, video, or digital image of you in a state of nudity, sexual excitement, or engaged in any act of sexual conduct, is posted or linked to on reddit without your permission, it is prohibited on reddit.

To take the photos or videos down however, you will have to report the offense to reddit. This change in policy is considered to be a direct response to the incident known as “The Fappening,” where a cache of leaked celebrity nudes was leaked online and posted to reddit.

Apple’s Not Super-Secret Press Event

The Verge is reporting that Apple sent out press invitations to a super secret event on March 9th. No one has any idea what it is about. Nah, just kidding, it’s the Apple Watch announcement. The tagline is even “Spring Forward,” an obvious time reference.

At the event, we are almost certain to find out what features actually ended up in the watch ? that will likely only run for 4 hours before the battery dies. The Verge is saying that there have been rumors of a new Macbook air and there may be an update on Beats Music.

Pebble Get Another Kickstart

Speaking of watches, Pebble has decided to rock the crowdfunding universe again. Pebble announced Tuesday it was launching another smartwatch. This one, dubbed the Pebble Time, has a color e-ink display, a microphone for dictation and voice activation, and it’s thinner than the original Pebble and more contoured to fit the wrist.

The microphone only works with Android actions right now, but Pebble is working on getting it to work with iOS soon.

Three Men Undergo Voluntary Amputations To Receive Bionic Arms

Gizmodo is reporting that three men with irreparable nerve damage have had their arms amputated and replaced with prosthetics controlled directly through their nervous systems. The procedure was performed by Oskar Aszmann at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria.

The prosthetic is powered and controlled by a small piece of healthy leg muscle that has been grafted into the patients? arm.

What is perhaps most notable is that the three patients all volunteered to have their arms amputated to undergo this procedure. While their whole arms were previously useless due to the nerve damage, they were intact.

Google Buys Mobile Payment Competitor Softcard

PachydermMcGurts submitted this next story on our sub-reddit page.

Google looks like it is doubling-down on mobile payments. According to a report from DigitalTrends.com, Google has purchased competitor Softcard. On February 23rd Google made the announcement that it had bought the wallet app company Softcard which was formerly named Isis, just like the terrorist group.

Isis started in 2009 as a joint effort by Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile to get a foothold in the mobile payments industry. Unfortunately, in 2011, the terrorist group then known as the Islamic State in Iraq began fighting in Syria, and started being referred to as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS for short. The group apparently now just want to be called the Islamic State, but it was called ISIS long enough in the media to completely destroy the value, if it had any, of the company’s name.

Isis, the digital wallet app company, announced in September 2014 that it was changing its name to Softcard.

Google bought Softcard and work out a deal with AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, that all new Android phones will have Google Wallet pre-installed on them.

In a very ?Google? way, instead of consolidating the two services into one service. it’s going to keep the two services separate, and wait for this, add a new service.

Rumor has it that Google is going to announce Android Pay at the Google I/O next conference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKdvnhBFvXY

Artificial Intelligence Masters Atari Games

DeepMind Technologies, a tech startup that Google purchased last year, is working on artificial intelligence that will develop human-like problem solving skills. To do so, they needed to put it through exercises that have simple rules and clear standards for failure, yet still present a challenge for most people. They decided that old Atari 2600 games were perfect for this.

DeepMind made the AI play through 49 different Atari 2600 games without giving it instructions for how the various games were played. When it completed the games correctly and got a high score, the AI was rewarded. It eventually beat previous AI records for 43 of the games, and even exceeded the skills of master human players for 29 of them.

A DeepMind Vice President told Bloomberg that this represents “the first time anyone has built a single learning system that learns directly from experience and manage a wide range of challenging tasks,” and that their ultimate goal will be to use this for smart, general purpose tools.

THE BIG STORY

FCC Defends Net Neutrality

The Verge put together a great aggregation of reactions to Net Neutrality from around the net. It’s no surprise, the ISPs are NOT happy.

The FCC voted today, 3-2, to classify broadband internet as a public utility under Title II. This means that, for now at least, the FCC has the ability to regulate broadband internet and enforce net neutrality.

Verizon and Comcast released statements stating that they were disappointed with the ruling, while AT&T issued a more ominous statement hinting that the FCC might be overruled by congress or the courts.

Some Republican lawmakers have threatened legislative action to overrule the FCC. The FCC vote did fall along party lines, with the three Democrat board members voting for net neutrality and the two Republicans voting against.

Tech companies were almost uniformly ecstatic, with Netflix, Kickstarter, Microsoft and Tumblr all chiming in.

At the heart of the new classification are rules banning the blocking or throttling of traffic, as well as paid prioritization, and a requirement that ISPs disclose network management practices.

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Next week we are going to be tossing in some app and gadget reviews like we’ve been promising. If you have a suggestion, or just have a comment for the show. Give us a call and leave us a voicemail, 1-888-972-9868 or you can send us an email to feedback at deemable.com.

And, don’t forget to help us to decide what stories we talk about on the show, go to our subreddit page and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down. deemable.com/reddit will take you there.

Photo credit: “Tom Wheeler – Caricature” by DonkeyHotey is used under CC BY 2.0.

It’s always good to make sure you have the latest version of iOS that your Apple device can run. iOS updates include bug fixes and security fixes that keep your smartphone and tablet running fresh and safe. Here’s how to update your iPhone to the latest version, iOS 8.1.3.

Q: How do I switch my iTunes account from an old computer, which is broken, to my new computer? I’ve downloaded iTunes onto the new computer, but, of course, it doesn’t recognize my account. The real problem is my iPod. I have all my music on it, but now I am not able to add to it to iTunes.

A: Well, first of all, Phil, your new computer should recognize your iTunes account. If it doesn’t, you have a problem that you need to contact Apple about. You may have to reset your iTunes password. Hopefully you still have access to the e-mail address you gave Apple for your account. Once iTunes does recognize your account, you need to authorize your computer. Sign into iTunes, then click the Store tab at the top and click “authorize this computer.” You should now be able to re-download any songs you purchased through iTunes. However, any songs that you ripped from CDs, or acquired through other questionable methods, are still trapped on your iPod. Apple made it this way so people couldn?t use their iPods to transfer illegally shared music between computers. But in this situation, their safeguard is a real hassle for you.

Regardless of how you acquired your music, and we are not here to judge, your music isn’t trapped on your iPod forever. You can transfer it to your computer, but it takes a little work, unless you are willing to pay for an app. We’ll show you how to do it the hard way first, then if you decide that’s not for you, we’ll include a link to the app at the bottom. Here’s how to do it if you have a Windows PC.

Transferring your iTunes library from an iPod to a new Windows PC

When you plug your iPod into your PC, you need to stop it from auto-syncing. To do this, hold down Shift and Ctrl while you plug in your iPod. Then, you can open your iPod like an external hard drive, by going to My Computer and double-clicking the iPod.

However, if you double-click on the iPod and you get an error message asking you to format your iPod, stop! Your iPod was formatted for a Mac. If this is the case, you’ll need a program called MacDrive to see your Mac formatted iPod on your Windows computer. But hopefully this won’t happen to you.

Once you get it open, you need to reveal your hidden files. Each version of Windows has a slightly different way to do it, so if you’ve never revealed your hidden files before, just search Google or Bing for “Show Hidden Files Windows” and whatever version of Windows you have “XP, 7 or 8” Click on the first search results that are from Microsoft. Follow those directions, and you’ll be able to see your hidden files on your iPod.

Now, once you have your iPod open, look for a folder called “iPod-Control.” In there, you’ll find another folder labeled “Music.” Copy that folder to your computer. Now, open iTunes, and click File and Add to Library. Navigate to the Music folder you copied to your desktop, and iTunes will import everything. Your files will have random four letter names, but as soon as they are imported to iTunes, the song titles and artists will be restored.

Transferring your iTunes library from an iPod to a new Mac

If you have a Mac, it’s a little more complicated, but you’ll do basically the same thing. However,  unless you buy an app, you will have to go into the Terminal. Hold down Command and Option while you plug in the iPod. Then you will launch Terminal, and enter “defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE” and then enter “killall Finder” Now you’ll click on the iPod in iTunes, click the Summary tab and check box next to Enable Disc Use.

Now, open Finder, open the iPod, open the folder iPod-Control and copy the Music folder to your Desktop. Then, open iTunes, and click File and Add to Library. Navigate to the Music folder you copied to your desktop, and iTunes will import everything.

Transferring your iTunes library from an iPod with an app

If you’ve read the instructions above, and you are completely overwhelmed, there are two other options. First, you could buy an app that will do most of the heavy lifting for you. If you have an iPod touch, iPhone, or iPad, DiskAid will do the trick. With DiskAid you can copy music, video, text messages and your contacts from your iOS device. If you have a iPod classic or Nano, PodTrans Pro will do the job for you. PodTrans Pro will also convert incompatible file formats for you so you can watch Windows Media files on your iPod. Both DiskAid and PodTrans Pro work on Windows and Mac. If the only thing concerning you is diving into the Terminal on your Mac is concerning you, you can download Houdini for Mac which will make your hidden files and folders visible.

The other option is to have someone do it for you. Most IT service companies can transfer the music files for you, and they usually won’t charge too much for the job. Check out our business directory for some good companies that should be able to help you out.

Looking for apps to download for your shiny new iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. Here’s where to start. Here’s a not-so-scientific list of some of the absolute best apps that came out this year.

The Top 20 Best Apps of 2013 (via Apple Gazette)

It?s been quite a year for iOS apps. With the release of iOS 7 many apps have started to take on the flat look and feel of the new operating system. A lot of new apps were released while most were updated with new features and layouts. We?ve compiled…

This week Ray and Tom talked about the latest tech news from Cupertino California including the newly named iPad Air, the iPad Mini with Retina Display and the new Macbook Air, Macbook Pro and Mac Pro computers.  They also answered questions about backing up your music collection, how to use your iPhone as a scanner and how to scrub a computer of your personal data before you donate it.

#53 Apple News, Saving Tunes and Scanning Documents

TRANSCRIPT

RAY: From WJCT studios in Jacksonville, Florida, I’m Ray Hollister,

TOM: I’m Tom Braun,

RAY: and this is Deemable Tech. This week’s episode of the Deemable Tech Podcast is brought to you by A Small Orange, Homegrown Hosting. A refreshingly different approach to web hosting. On the web at a small orange dot com.

TOM: Got a question about your computer, smart phone, tablet or the Internet? You can give us a call us at One Eight Eight Eight, Nine Seven Two, Nine Eight Six Eight, or send us an email at questions@deemable.com.

RAY: Hey, we are working on recording an hour long Deemable Tech radio special so give us a call to “audition” for the show.

TOM: Today on the show we?re going to answer your questions about using your smart phone to scan things, backing up your music files and donating your old computer. But first let?s talk tech news.

Ray, I see you chomping at the bit there, so go ahead and tell us about your tech story of the week!

RAY: Well Tom, we get to talk about your favorite thing: Apple had a press event!

Last Tuesday Apple had a big press announcement

iPad Air

? Dropped from 1.4 lbs to 1 lb

iPad Mini with Retina display $399

? Same price as the iPad 2 which is still on sale.

iPad Mini price dropped from $329 to $299

? Still more expensive than a Nexus 7 at $269 and the Nexus 7 has a better screen.

New Macbook Pros with Retina Display

? Faster Intel Haswell CPUs

? 13″ models saw a $200 price drop.

13″ Macbook stayed the same price

The 15″ Macbook disappeared.

Mac Pro (iTrash can) available date and pricing was announced

? December 2013

? Starting at $2,999

last major update was 2010

Mavericks OSX 10 FREE

iWork: Pages, Numbers, and Keynote Formerly $9.99 each on iOS and $19.99 on OSX

iLife: GarageBand, iPhoto, iMovie – Formerly $4.99 each on iOS and $15.00 each on OSX

TOM: In the interest of equal time, here are some other non-Apple stories from this week. Best Buy reports that returns of the Samsung Galaxy Gear are over 30%.

Acer has a new Chromebook, the Acer 720. It?s got a Haswell CPU under the hood. 11.6-inch 1366×768 TN screen. It retails for $249. Includes USB 3.0, HDMI.

RAY: Kenneth writes, I want to back up my music/photos files on my Dell Home Edition computer that’s using Windows XP as an (OS)Operating System. Which backup system or program do you recommend?

The reason why I need to do this is because while playing music files the music is skipping so I googled the problem and that’s what it recommended me to do is backup my music files. I did try downloading a backup program but I was getting an error message at the finish part of the download.

TOM: Hey Kenneth. We talked a little about backup programs last week, so you?ll want to check that out. There are a lot of good cloud backup programs out there right now, and they?re easy to use.

If you want to backup music specifically, it actually gets even easier. Google Play Music will scoop up your music library and upload it to their cloud automatically. From there you can access it from anywhere, or download it again if you lose it.

RAY: Yeah, it?s great. But I?m a little confused about something.

TOM: What?s that?

RAY: Why would backing up Kenneth?s music files stop his music player from skipping?

TOM: Uhhhhhhh? yeah, I don?t know. That seems strange. Backing up your music just makes a copy of it. It doesn?t do anything to the original files.

The only thing I can think of is that maybe Kenneth is just running out of space on his hard drive.

RAY: He did say that he was unable to download a backup program. If he was out of space that would make sense.

TOM: Yeah. Once you get very low on space on your hard drive you won?t be able to download anything that?s not very small. And it causes a lot of other problems too. Your Operating System uses spare hard drive space to do stuff. Like if a program is running in memory but you?re not using it, your OS might dump a snapshot of that memory onto your hard drive temporarily to free up space. But if you?re out of hard drive space, that?s not going to happen. You?ll see your entire computer getting slower and slower. It might even cause your music to skip.

RAY: The only way to fix this is to either delete some files, move files off your hard drive, or uninstall programs.

TOM: Yeah. If you have an older, smaller hard drive you may find yourself having to do this kind of housekeeping quite a lot. Music files are a great way to start. Try downloading Google Music, because it?s super small. Once it has scanned and uploaded your music library to the cloud, which might take a couple days, start deleting music.

RAY: You also need to open up Program Files in the Windows control panel and go through and look for programs you aren?t using. If you see any, click and uninstall them. Remember with most programs you can always reinstall them later if you need them.

TOM: Nowadays people have a lot of video files on their hard drives. Nothing will eat up space faster. Time to burn some DVDs! And do you really need a copy of every season of Friends?

We have a voicemail from Geri:

Hi guys this is jerry calling over wife I from Cameroon in Africa … I was calling to harass you asked me to let you know if my old computer game would work gravel … and it’s working great it totally will run on my computer so thanks for the tip okay so my new question I’ve just been informed by a friend on face book and that I can use my I phone … camera as a scanner and that they’re apps for the I need to know more and so I’m calling to best guys I know to help me find out so that you can do the research and tell me the best thing … I have an I phone for okay thanks

Depends on what you want to use it for, OCR or image capture.

OCR

ABBYY TextGrabber + Translator $5.99

Image capture

ABBYY FineScanner $1.99

JotNot Scanner Pro $.99

TOM: Julie wrote in: I have 2 laptop computers that I would like to donate to a school or organization. How can I erase/remove any personal information in the hard drive, before I donate them? i have been told i can reinstall the original set up discs that came with each one but I can’t find those. Is there an inexpensive way to do this, i.e. where I don’t have to buy expensive software or take it somewhere like Best Buy where it will cost a lot of $$? Thanks.

We talked about this once before, on episode #42, but it never hurts to repeat. You have the right idea. You definitely want to wipe your computer before you give it away or sell it.

In that episode, we mentioned If it?s a Windows PC you?re getting rid of, use a program like Eraser or the Drive Wiper in CCleaner to completely eradicate your data. If you?re tossing out a Mac, there?s a program called Permanent Eraser. All of these programs are free.

However, one of our listeners, Eva, pointed out that this will not wipe the entire hard drive clean, because it won’t wipe the operating system. That is true. To wipe the entire hard drive clean, you need to do one of two things, boot it from the USB or CD/DVD drive or remove the hard drive and use a USB adapter to attach it as an external hard drive to another computer.

Restore partition.

Thanks for all your questions, and keep them coming. Call us at our toll-free number, 1-888-972-9868 or you can send us an email at questions@deemable.com. Also, subscribe to the show! Search for Deemable Tech on iTunes, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter and follow us or subscribe.

Our producer is Sean Birch. I’m Ray Hollister, I’m Tom Braun, and this is Deemable Tech. Thanks for listening. Have a great week!

This week on Deemable Tech, we’re really back in the studio, and we answer tech questions! We have questions about how to wipe an iPad, whether you should buy an AMD or an Intel laptop, the best way to host unique email addresses, and more. And Ray and Tom talk about their new toys! Ray has an iPhone 5S, and Tom finally got his hands on the semi-mythical Chromecast.

#49 Ray Admits He’s an Idiot

DRAFT TRANSCRIPT

RAY: From WJCT studios in Jacksonville, Florida, I’m Ray Hollister,

TOM: I’m Tom Braun,

RAY: and this is Deemable Tech, tech help worth listening to.

TOM: This week’s episode of the Deemable Tech podcast is brought to you by A Small Orange, Homegrown Hosting. A refreshingly different approach to web hosting. On the web at a small orange dot com.

RAY: And if you haven’t done so already, make sure to subscribe to the Deemable Tech podcast. Just go to iTunes and search for Deemable Tech, or go to deemable.com/itunes to take you directly to our iTunes page. You can also subscribe to our YouTube page at youtube.com/DeemableTech. And we’re on the Facebook and the Twitter, just search for Deemable Tech.

TOM: Got a question about your computer, smart phone, tablet or the Internet? Give us a call us at One Eight Eight Eight, Nine Seven Two, Nine Eight Six Eight, or send us an email at questions@deemable.com.

RAY:

We’ve started a new Amazon Gift Card contest. All you have to do is answer a few questions about the Deemable Tech podcast.

Don’t worry, it’s not a trivia contest. We just need your opinion on a few questions. If you could take a few minutes and answer our survey it will really help us out a lot. And, just for doing so, you’ll be entered to win a $20 Amazon Gift Card.

Just go to Deemable.com and click the link to take the survey. You can’t miss it, it will be the first or second article at the top of the page until the contest is over. Speaking of which, it ends September 30th, so don’t wait, go submit your survey answers right now,… unless you’re listening live, then wait until the show’s over and then answer the questions.

Speaking of questions, Tom, do we have any questions?

TOM: Do we have any questions? Do we have any questions?! Yeah, we have questions. We have questions about how to wipe an iPhone, whether you should buy an AMD or an Intel laptop, the best way to host unique email addresses, and more.

RAY: Ooh ooh an we talk about our new toys?

TOM: OH, that?s right, we both have fun new gadgets. Ray has an iPhone 5S, and I?ve finally got my hands on the semi-mythical Chromebook. But first we?re going to dive into a couple of questions, starting with this one from Martha.

TOM: Martha writes, I am a middle school art teacher. My classroom is long and narrow and set up for for projection on the center of one of the long walls. With large classes of 44 students plus, nearly half of them cannot see the examples and demonstrations that I am projecting. Having 16 -20 students move their seats every time I want to show them something eats up too much class time. I am looking for a way to project the same image on the side and end wall at the same time – and of course on a school teachers budget. I have a laptop and an LCD projector. I thought about trying to add a TV to the set up. How? Will it work? Is there a better (and/or cheaper) option?
Thanks guys!

RAY: It all depends on your setup Martha. I am assuming that you are connecting your laptop to your projector with a VGA cable. The end of a VGA cable looks like an upside-down trapezoid with 3 rows of 5 pins on it. That used to be the standard monitor/projector cable. If you’re using HDMI or DVI then these instructions would be a little different.
Many projectors have an extra VGA out port, so you can daisy chain them.

Let me explain what that means.

If it doesn’t, you’ll have to get a VGA splitter. You can find them for $10 to $20.

Now, if I was doing this, and I had an unlimited amount of money, I would hook up another projector on the other side of the room. But, since you mentioned that you’re on a school teacher’s budget, and, if I had to guess you’re probably paying for this out of your own pocket, I expect you don’t have a load of cash to throw it this problem.

You mentioned that you have a TV that you could add to the set up. That will most likely work, but you may have to buy adapters to connect the laptop to the television set. If you’re really lucky, it might have a VGA in port on it. If you’re not so lucky, you may have to buy an adapter, which can run anywhere from $50-$200 depending on which type of adapter you need.

Either way, you are going to need a cable to run from your laptop, or from the other projector, to the other side of the room where the TV or the other projector is going to be. 50 foot VGA cables run anywhere from $15-$60 online.

So, best case scenario this is going to cost you about $50. Worst case scenario it might cost you closer to $200.

I hope that helps. If that seems doable to you, but you need some more help, do us a favor and take a picture of the back of your laptop, and the back of the projector where you plug it in the laptop, and the back of the TV where the ports are. We will be able to tell you more specifically what exact cables and/or adapters you need. Email us those pictures at questions@Deemable.com and we’ll take another look at it okay? Thanks.

Maliery writes, Are AMD processors the generic processors in comparison to Intel Celeron processors?
I’m shopping for a laptop, and I’m finding that the price of the AMD is more alluring, but not more than the specs on a i5 intel processor. If I bought an AMD processor (laptop), will I be disappointed when I visit my grandma, and she’s playing Solitare on an i5?

Thanks for the question, Maliery.

The way you framed it makes me think you?re comparing, say, Tylenol to the generic store-brand stuff. Processors don?t work quite the same way. There can be a lot of little differences under the hood.

AMD had kind of a hay-day in the 90?s, and several desktops I owned then had AMD processors and could go toe-to-toe with more expensive Intel machines. But things have really changed. While AMD computers are often quite cheap these days, they just aren?t up to par with Intel machines.

I?m not just talking about performance, either. You?re generally going to see better battery life on Intel laptops versus AMD laptops. Intel chips do a much better job with power management. I also suspect that you?re just going to have a smoother overall experience with an Intel machine.

Even price doesn?t have to hold you back from buying Intel. I recently helped a friend shop for an Intel laptop that was under $500. Sure, there are some real bargain basement AMD laptops, but once you get down to the $250 range I?d start thinking about getting a Chromebook for that email-and-web-browsing laptop.

It is possible to get higher end AMD processors that have clock speeds on par with lower end Intel processors. But Intel simply makes a better chip, so unless you are planning on buying a laptop based on price alone I would not get an AMD.

Name: Bill

Question: One of the icons on my iPad screen is called “Notes”. It’s a yellow legal pad app that I have used often to make notes in meetings. How do I print those notes off my iPad using my MG6220 Canon Printer? Thanks.

Fortunately your Printer is AirPrint ready. So you can automatically print from your iPad.

Just tap the Action button, which on iOS 6 is square with an arrow point sorta to the right. On iOS 7 it’s a square with an arrow pointing up.

Walk through from there

http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/support/consumer/printers_multifunction/pixma_mg_series/pixma_mg6220

BREAK

RAY: So, if you follow us on Twitter @Deemable, or if you follow me on Twitter @RayHollister, then you know that I spent Friday morning waiting in line at the Apple store for the iPhone 5S.

TOM: Now Ray, I know you are an Apple fan, but I thought you always said people that lined up overnight for the iPhone launches were idiots?

RAY: Oh, don’t get me wrong, I still think they’re idiots, I’ve just accepted that I am one of them. All kidding aside, it was a lot of fun although it was exhausting. I got there at about 3:00 AM and got my iPhone 5S at just after 8:00, so it wasn’t too bad, but I really didn’t prepare for it. I was busy all day Thursday, so I was about to pass out from exhaustion by the time I got home. If you want to read the highlights, check out my Twitter feed @rayhollister.

TOM: So, what’s your verdict? Was it worth the wait and the money?

RAY:
TouchID works fantastic
I never had a passcode on my iPhone before, like most people, but now I have a 35+ character passcode

It works almost every single time. The only time I have had a problem was when my fingers were wet, and I tried to unlock it.

The A7 processor is so snappy.
Significantly faster than my iPhone 4S, and quite a bit faster than my friend’s iPhone 5.
The larger screen size took a little bit to get used to. Especially with my Megan Fox thubs.

Camera

Burst mode

SloMo

True Tone flash

New sounds, no more marimba

RAY: So Tom, I know that you also recently got a new toy, and I wondered if you wanted to talk about it a little bit.
TOM: Does a geek want to talk about his new toy??? Does Tim Cook own an iPhone?
RAY: OK, so tell us what it is.
TOM: It?s a Chromecast.
RAY: Now explain to our listeners what a Chromecast is.
TOM: Basically a Chromecast is a little dongle that plugs into the HDMI port of your television. When connected to your home wifi network, any device that can run Google Chrome can send video and audio wirelessly directly to your TV.
It works pretty well, and the kicker is that it?s $30.
The Chromecast actually came out this summer, but at that low price they sold out within about 24 hours. I wasn?t one of the people in the first wave, but I went ahead and put it an order for one on Amazon.com.
Right when Google announced the Chromecast I had actually been looking for ways to do exactly what it does: stream wireless video from my laptop to my TV. I probably stream video from my laptop 70% of the time I?m using my TV. I was getting tired of lugging my laptop into the living room and tripping over the eight foot HDMI cable I use to connect it.
Google is not the first company to come up with a way to broadcast video from a computer to a TV.
RAY: There?s Apple TV.
TOM: Right, but you have to have a Mac, and I don?t. Some newer Intel-based laptops have a technology called WiDi which can do it, but my laptop unfortunately doesn?t have that either. There are a number of third party solutions out there, but they all have two big drawbacks: they all require line of sight to the TV, and they all start at $150 and go up from there.
RAY: You can get AirParrot for Windows. It lets you broadcast video from your Mac or Windows PC to an Apple TV. It’s only $9.99 for the program, but you still have to buy a $99 Apple TV.
TOM: Right. So when Google announced that it had a $30 solution to this problem I definitely paid attention.
RAY: Okay, so how does the Chromecast actually work? How do you set it up?
TOM: *explains*
RAY: Cool. Can you send any video to the TV with the Chromecast?
TOM: No, you can?t send just anything. You have to have the Google Chrome browser installed, and that?s what?s going to talk to your television. But the nice thing is that Chrome is available for the PC, the Mac, Android and iDevices. So any of those can talk to the Chromecast.
So far the only apps that have native support for Chromecast are YouTube, Netflix and Google Play. If you have any of those apps on your phone or tablet you should see a square Chromecast icon. Touching the icon will send whatever you?re playing to the Chromecast. This works very well. The Chromecast actually streams the video or audio, and your phone or tablet basically acts as the controller.
RAY: But what about things that don?t have native Chromecast support?
TOM: There is a Chromecast extension which you install on Chrome, and that puts a button on your browser that allows you to share any browser tab with Chromecast. So if your want to share something that doesn?t have Chromecast support yet you can still do that. For instance, Hulu doesn?t have native Chromecast support but you simply cast the tab you?re watching it in and it appears on your TV – with a second or so delay, granted.
RAY: What about local files. Can you play movies that are on your hard drive?
TOM: You can, at least on a Windows PC. You can actually play video files in Chrome, as long as they aren?t in a proprietary format. Windows Media Player?s WMV files and Apple?s MOV files won?t work, but file types like AVI and MP4 will open in a Chrome tab. And then you can share them to your Chromecast.
Overall it works pretty well. Sometimes the interface is a little clunky and there can be a delay of a few seconds when starting a video. And of course it doesn?t support every video format. But for $30 I personally am willing to forgive a lot of those quirks.

BREAK

TOM:
Subject: For Those w/o a Domain Name
Ray, Tom-
Howdy. Your listeners might be interested in https://www.sneakemail.com,/
they provide a fair priced solution similar to what Amber and you do.
-Hoff
RAY: Last week Amber and I talked about how we use bestbuy@rayhollister.com, avenue@amberhollister.com etc.
For folks without their own domain address Sneakemail.com works the same way. $2.00 per month, which is about the same price as a domain name without all the hassle.

Geri writes in:

Okay, don’t laugh… I just found an old computer game CD-Rom designed for Windows 95/98. (I said don’t laugh!) It’s Scrabble, and it would be more convenient than online options sometimes, since I’m in Africa. Anyway, will this thing work on my Windows XP (also outdated now, I know)? Will it crash my computer?
Waiting anxiously for your response if I can get my Scrabble on!

RAY: It should work. Most likely you’ll only need to put the disc in. However, you might have to run it in “compatibility mode.” Try it and see.

Dave writes, Hi.
I have a Samsung Centura phone that accumulates frequently called
numbers. This is something different from the regular call log which I
can clear any time. The frequently called log is retaining _every_
number I dial and I cannot find a way to delete/clear this log. In fact
I would like to disable it altogether. Any help?
Thanks very much.
TOM: OK Dave, hopefully we can help you. We aren?t familiar with the Samsung Centura and we don?t have access to one, but we can tell you what the internet says about your problem. I searched for ?samsung centura frequently called numbers? and found someone complaining about the same issue. Another user said there is an app they can download that will do the trick.
Try searching for and downloading the ?HistoryEraser? app from DUMAPIC in the Google Play Market.
Once you have the app, select `Contacts`. Then, select target will say `All Frequently Called (in Favorites tab). Press `Ok` and they`re gone!
As far as I can tell, the HistoryEraser app looks legit. But we haven?t tried it ourselves, so this is a little bit of a use-at-your-own-risk case. That said, if this issue is really driving you crazy it might worth trying.

Michael wrote on our Facebook page:

All of a sudden an icon called “Homegroup” appeared on my desktop. I didn’t do anything I know of to get this, whatever it is. Have I been hacked or what? Is it safe and, if so, what for? And how did I get it? I’m running Windows 8, but not on a touch screen.

RAY: Most likely it is safe. I haven’t heard of any viruses or hacks involving Homegroup. You or someone on your network was most likely playing with file sharing settings. A homegroup is something that is setup on Windows 7 and 8 to allow you to share documents, photos, music, videos and printers with other people on your home network. You can set it up so that they make changes to your documents or set it up so all they can do is view them.

You don’t have to do anything about it, but if you want to get rid of it from your desktop, we’ll include a link in our show notes with directions on how to remove the Homegroup icon from Windows 8 and how to remove the Homegroup icon from Windows 7 if any other listeners that have Windows 7 want to remove it as well.

Thanks for all your questions, and keep them coming. Call us at our toll-free number, 1-888-972-9868 or you can send us an email at questions@deemable.com. Also, subscribe to the show! Search for Deemable Tech on iTunes or point your favorite podcast app to dmbl.co/pod.

Our producer is Sean Birch. Thanks to Robert Snyder for Video Production Assistance. I’m Ray Hollister, I’m Tom Braun, and this is Deemable Tech. Thanks for listening. Have a great week.

This week, we’re finally half-back in studio. “Half-back” because Tom was out sick, but Amber Hollister, Ray’s wife, came in to fill Tom’s shoes. Ray and Amber were joined in the studio by Brian DeAlexandris, the owner of PrepChefs.com, to talk about his incredible company that delivers delicious, ready-to-cook, homemade style meals. If you’ve ever wished that you could pick up your iPhone and make dinner for the entire week appear at your doorstep, you need to listen to this episode!

After the interview, Ray and Amber recapped the Apple iPhone 5C and 5S announcement and answered a listener’s question about security questions.

#48 PrepChefs.com, New iPhones and In-security Questions

DRAFT TRANSCRIPT

RAY: From WJCT studios in Jacksonville, Florida, I’m Ray Hollister,

AMBER: I’m Amber Hollister,

RAY: and this is Deemable Tech, tech help worth listening to.

RAY: This week’s episode of the Deemable Tech podcast is brought to you by A Small Orange, Homegrown Hosting. A refreshingly different approach to web hosting. On the web at a small orange dot com.

RAY: So, as you can tell Tom is out of the studio today, so we’re joined today by wife Amber Hollister.

Does it feel weird being in here instead of at home watching the show on the website?

Got a question about your computer, smart phone, tablet or the Internet? Give us a call us at One Eight Eight Eight, Nine Seven Two, Nine Eight Six Eight, or send us an email at questions@deemable.com.

RAY: Well, as you might remember, we were doing a contest to win a $50 Amazon Gift Card, and the time is now to announce the winner.

[Drumroll]

… No one!

That’s right. A lot of people liked us on Facebook and Twitter and subscribed to the show on iTunes and YouTube, but not a single person emailed us at giftcard@deemable.com to enter the contest, except for one guy that sent us some spam. So, that contest was an epic fail.

But we’ve learned from the experience, and we are starting a new Amazon Gift Card contest that is much easier to enter. All you have to do is answer a few questions about the Deemable Tech podcast.

Don’t worry, it’s not a trivia contest. We just need your opinion on a few questions. If you could take a few minutes and answer our survey it will really help us out a lot. And, just for doing so, you’ll be entered to win a $20 Amazon Gift Card.

Just go to Deemable.com and click the link to take the survey.  You can’t miss it, it will be the first or second article at the top until the contest is over. Speaking of which, it ends September 30th, so don’t wait, go submit your survey answers right now,… unless you’re listening live, then just load the page in the background and answer the questions after the show is over.

Now, on to the show. So, Amber you remember the 90s, right?

AMBER: Sure,

• it started with the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union,

• They were playing alternative, grunge and ska on the radio,

• Dolly the sheep was the first cloned animal,

• There was the Iraq war, the Lewinski scandal, the ramp up to the fear of Y2K bug,

• and of course, that was the decade when Al Gore invented the Internet.

RAY: Wow, that was a really in depth description.

AMBER: [pause] I just looked on Wikipedia.

RAY: Ah. Well, I ask because remember how back in the old days of the Information Superhighway, the Internet was going to change how we did everything? Back then, they predicted that by now, we would be doing all of our shopping on the Internet. Brick and mortar stores would be relics of the past. We would buy everything online, all of our electronics, all of our clothes, all of our groceries would be bought online.

I have never bought a single piece of clothing online, have you?

AMBER: *answer, and vamp*

RAY: Well, obviously the Internet has turned out a bit differently than they predicted. But, there’s one thing that you can do online that they did predict right. That is buying your food online. Now, I’m not talking about going to the grocery store and buying your groceries online, although there are services that will do that for you, and you can even buy groceries on Amazon. What I’m talking about is delicious, ready to cook meals delivered to your door.

So, a little over a month ago I found out about this website that is here in Jacksonville called PrepChefs.com. The website looked fantastic, so we decided to check it out. My wife Amber and I have been using the service for about a month now, and we have loved it, so I invited the owner Brian DeAlexandris to join us here in the studio to tell us more about it.

Thanks for joining us Brian.

Also, because, I’ll be honest, she knows more about cooking these days than I do, I also invited my wife Amber to join us in the studio to tell us about her experience using the service.

OUTRO

Thanks for all your questions, and keep them coming. Call us at our toll-free number, 1-888-972-9868 or you can send us an email at questions@deemable.com. Also, subscribe to the show! Search for Deemable Tech on iTunes or point your favorite podcast app to dmbl.co/pod.

Our producer is Sean Birch. Thanks to Robert Snyder for Video Production Assistance. I’m Ray Hollister, I’m Tom Braun, and this is Deemable Tech. Thanks for listening. Have a great week.

Q: I was letting my 3-year-old play with my iPhone when she spit up all over it. Eww. I need to get it clean. Like, really clean, not just ‘dab-it-with-a-lint-free-cloth clean’. It’s a phone, you put it up to your face! And I just know it’s crawling with germs now. How can I disinfect my iPhone?

Your smart phone is full of germs. How can you disinfect it?

A: Oh, that is gross! However, even if your kid hadn’t aimed for your iPhone, a couple of recent studies have shown that even cell phones that haven’t been victims of 3-year-olds are “veritable reservoirs of pathogens.” A sample of smart phones showed abnormally high numbers of coliforms, a bacteria indicating fecal contamination. So, with that in mind you’ll definitely want to clean your phone. A lint-free cloth and some alcohol should kill 99% of bacteria.

However, certain touch-screen smart phones, including the iPhone, have an oleophobic coating on them to protect them from smudges and fingerprints. Apple specifically warns not to use any product with alcohol in it to clean the iPhone or iPad screens, because using cleaners with alcohol will wear down that coating.

Now, anecdotal evidence indicates that an occasional light cleaning with alcohol doesn’t seem to have much ill effect on an iPhone, but you use it against the manufacturer’s recommendations and at your own risk. Be sure to test any cleaner you try before use. Dab a small amount of it on the corner of your phone’s screen. It’s better to damage a small piece of your screen than the entire thing.

However, most phones can be cleansed with just a small amount of mild soap and a little bit of water. Make sure that the rag is just a little wet (don’t use one that’s so wet that it’s dripping water). That will get rid of most germs. It won’t kill the germs, but it will get them off your phone, which is all that really matters, right? You’ll have a phone with hardly any germs on it. Of course, you’ll want to consult the manual for your device before trying this at home.

If you’re truly obsessed with keeping your touch-screen germ-free, and you don’t want to abrade or damage the finish in any way, you can always try UV light. The VIOLIGHT UV Cell Phone Sanitizer claims that it will not only charge your cell phone, but destroy 99% of all bacteria in the process. It’s $49.99.

Or, you could just save some money and head to the beach. Good old-fashioned sunshine also produces UV rays. Normally we would tell you to keep your smart phone out of the sun, but if you want to disinfect it, try leaving it in the sunshine for a few hours. Just make sure that it doesn’t overheat. The UV rays will kill just about anything that’s still left on it. Plus, you can work on your tan while you wait.

Unlike previous Apple press events, we believe that Apple will lift the veil to allow those of us who weren’t lucky enough to receive a golden ticket to peer into the magic of this year’s Apple iPhone event. This year, we have rumors of the mystical iPhone 5C, a more cost effective (that’s a nice way to say cheap) iPhone that will come in a multitude of colorful plastic backs. We also have rumors of a gold-plated, or golden-colored, iPhone and a fingerprint scanner. We’ll see what plays out.

If you want unadulterated, pure Apple goodness, you should be able to watch the event live at http://www.apple.com/apple-events/. If the live stream of the Apple iPhone event works the same way that WWDC 2013 worked, you will need to be running Safari on iOS 4.2 or later on any iPhone, iPad, iPad mini or iPod touch; Safari 4 or later on Mac OS X v10.6 or later or a second or third generation Apple TV with software 5.0.2 or later. We will update this article if that changes.

If Apple decides not to live stream the Apple iPhone Event, several reputable websites will be running live blogs or live streams of the event, including:

• The Verge – live blog,
• TWiT.tv – live video and commentary,
• TechCrunch – live blog,
• SlashGear – live blog,
• Mashable – live blog,
• iMore – Video commentary and live blog,
• Gizmodo – live blog,
• Engadget – live blog,
• CNET – live blog,
• Apple Insider – live blog

We will add links directly to the live event web stream and blog pages as they are announced.

Don’t forget, the event starts at 10AM Pacific or you’re time.

What site will you be watching the iPhone event on while you try not to get caught by the boss? Know of another reputable website where you can watch Apple’s iPhone event? Let us know in the comments down below.