Into Tomorrow Quickies

Eddie in Tulsa, OK asked: “Why aren’t there any solid state external drives?”   Eddie, external SSDs are not that common, that’s because up until now HDDs had been considerably cheaper than SSDs. That’s starting to change and SSDs are becoming more and more affordable. Most people also use external drives to store files. There is another issue though. SSDs are fast and a lot of the connections that people use to connect external hard drives are not. SSDs are much, much faster than USB 2.0 ports, but you could argue that’s old technology anyway, the thing is: they’re also faster than USB 3.0. Thunderbolt makes better use of them but Thunderbolt drives are expensive. Most people also use external drives to store files. Once a file is open they forget about it. Few people are running games or operating systems from external drives where SSD would shine, if the bus speeds were fast enough to match the drive’s speed. Eddie, there are external SSDs, they’re just not very common because they cost more and don’t perform that much better for what most people use them for.

Jamie asked: “I have an old VCR, actually a couple of them. There’s a friend of mine who gets cable, but not a particular channel. They have railroad shows. I want to record these to bring over to his house to let him watch these railroad shows. He’s quite elderly, but has his wits about him. He’s retired from that business and it’ll be nostalgic for him. How can I accomplish that?”   The short answer is, record these shows and then deliver them to your friend in whatever format he can use to watch them. You say that you have a couple of old VCRs. If they are both in working order, you could give one to your friend and record these shows using the other. Then just give him the tapes to watch. We are sort of assuming here that you get the cable channel in question, the one with the railroad shows. Because if you don’t, then your first order of business is getting that channel. Most cable channels these days offer some kind of online streaming subscription for a fairly reasonable cost, so you can start there. If your friend has a DVD player, then things get a bit more complicated If your friend has a DVD player, then things get a bit more complicated. To do a good job burning a TV show to DVD, you really need to use a computer. And that, in turn, means recording the content using a computer. Even if they support a streaming app, that doesn’t mean they’ll make it easy to record the content. To answer more specifically we’d have to know which cable channel we’re talking about here. But your driving force in this situation is going to be understanding what formats your elderly friend has and knows how to use, then adapting yourself to that. We hope that helps get you started.

Matt in Franklin, TN listens on WTN 99.7 and asked: “My wife is requesting some new speakers she can hook her phone up to, using an AUX or direct plug-in. Looking for recommendations if you have any for the best, at the most affordable price out there.”   There are lots of excellent plug in speakers you can buy for a very reasonable cost. The XBOOM Ceramic Mini Portable Capsule Speaker is less than $20 most places and has very good sound output for the size of the speaker. It’s rechargeable so you don’t need to buy batteries for it, but you also need to keep it charged. It connects via a standard 3.5mm stereo cable. You can daisy chain additional XBOOM speakers to create more volume if you like. The iHome iM71SC is also under $20, has a rechargeable battery, connects via a standard 3.5mm audio cable, and comes with a color changing LED. So you get your tunes and a light show! Finally, you could look into the Roker S-Cannon Wireless Stereo Portable Bluetooth Speaker with Handsfree Speakerphone and 3.5mm Jack. We know you didn’t ask about Bluetooth, but it’s essentially thrown in free here as the Roker S-Cannon can also connect with a standard audio cable. Selling for right at $20, it even works as a speakerphone when connected via Bluetooth. All three of these speakers have good quality sound and adequate volume. They are light years better than the tiny speakers built in to your phone, and none of them will break the bank.

Victor asked: All these Internet connected things for the house (Echo, doorbells, thermostats, etc.) How much bandwidth do they use? Do they slow your Internet down do it’s difficult to watch a streaming video?   That’s a good question, Victor. It depends on the device. Things that send video across your network, like the Ring video doorbell, will use a good bit of bandwidth, but only when they’re active. How often does someone ring your doorbell when you’re in the middle of streaming something on Netflix? Other network connected devices, like Amazon’s Echo or the Nest thermostat, don’t use very much bandwidth at all. Even if you were to ask Echo to stream some music, that doesn’t demand a lot of bandwidth. Video is the bandwidth killer Video is the bandwidth killer, HD video is worse, and 4K video is the biggest problem of all. If you hope to stream 4K video in the future without buffering or degraded picture quality, you’d better plan on having something quite a few notches up from the basic Internet plan. How far up? 15 megabits per second is the minimum for streaming 4K, but the truth is that you need a lot more. Closer to 50 megabits per second, if you hope to have people do anything else with the Internet at the same time you want to stream a movie. So, as long as your Internet connected devices are not moving video around, you’re probably okay. But it’s also true that there is no such thing as “too much Internet speed.”

Steen asked: I’m calling about cell reception. Is there a device or a phone case that helps with the phone reception, or do I need to make a little foil hat for my phone? Trying to cut the landline.   There are cellular signal repeaters that can help you boost your signal indoors assuming you can get anything at all. The much larger antennas than cellphones do, and some can be mounted outside, then a module that lives inside your home repeats the signal the way a router would broadcast your WiFi. You can look into a company called WeBoost and see which model would work for you, they have different ones that can be mounted outside, or just be sat somewhere inside where there’s a good signal that they can just boost. If you’re not getting a signal at all, your phone company may be able to offer you a pico cell that can act as your very own cell tower. Basically you just plug it to power, let it find it’s location via GPS and it does the rest of the work through an internet connection. Those units are not perfect, they sometimes drop the signal when switching to them from regular towers, but they’ll give you good coverage at home. Many modern phones can just bypass those microtowers and make phone calls via WiFi Depending on your phone company, you may be able to buy one for its full price, buy one at a discount, not buy one at all, or maybe not even need one. Many modern phones can just bypass those microtowers and make phone calls via WiFi using your number. As long as the phone is connected to your WiFi and you’ve authorized it to route calls that way the whole process would be transparent to you. The phone would just ring and, unbeknownst to you, your phone would be traveling through the internet rather than regular towers. Ask whoever is providing you service, but that solution would be free and very simple if it’s available to you.

Consumer Reports joined Into Tomorrow this week to share their thoughts on the new LG OLED TVs: Right now LG is the only company selling OLED 4K TV sets here in the states.  But are they any good, or at least good enough to justify their premium price? Consumer Reports electronics spokesman James McQueen is here with a review. LG’s 4K OLED sets now top our TV Ratings in several of the larger TV size categories. We just finished evaluating the 55-inch LG OLED55E6P, which goes for $4,000, an E6-series 4K TV that is the highest-scoring model in our TV Ratings. The TV is pricey, but we think it will be one of the best TVs you can buy this year. It has outstanding HD and UHD picture quality and very good sound. Available in 55- and 65-inch screen sizes, the E6-series sets are step-up models that are ultra-thin and sport a “picture-on-glass” design with barely any bezel around the edge of the screen. The TV comes with a Harman Kardon-designed sound-bar-style speaker system along the bottom of the screen, which in this series is flat, not curved. The G6 models represent LG’s flagship 4K OLED TVs for 2016. There’s a 65-inch model that sells for $8,000, and later this year it will be joined by a 77-incher. It has a flat screen and the picture-on-glass design, but its Harman Kardon-designed sound bar speaker is a bit more powerful. For more info on this story, visit ConsumerReports.org. For Into Tomorrow, James McQueen – Consumer Reports Rory recommended an app he’s been playing with:   After being on a ship for so long I forgot what TV was like. My app of the week helps me find my next favorite TV show. Mighty TV is like the Tinder of television. Just swipe right! It honestly is that simple using Mighty TV you just swipe right or left to like or dislike a show title. Mighty TV will give you short synopses and trailers of your shows before you add them to your list. Say your best friend Tammy has uses the app as well. Mighty TV will let you know that Tammy likes Into Tomorrow just like you do and then you and Tammy now have something to kabits about over wine! Again I picked an app only available on iOS but it’s free in the App Store. Rory

Dave talks to Robert Passikoff, Founder and President of Brand Keys about trends for Father’s Day

This week, we’re on the road in New York City, to check out the first Digital “Living” hotel. We show you some of the technology included in the new Renaissance New York Midtown Hotel.

Tom asked: "I have a Dell Vostro laptop that is giving the message to consider replacing the battery. In searching for one to by, I notice there are generic batteries that claim to be compatible and cost considerably less than a genuine Dell battery. Can you advise whether these off-brand batteries are worth considering, or should I just stick with the real thing?" This is a tough question because there is not one set answer. The truth is, generic batteries are far cheaper that most genuine batteries, and more often than not they are safe and work just as expected. It seems like looking at a generic version might make sense, the thing is when batteries fail, they fail in pretty scary ways. You may get lucky and it will just stop working, but it may also swell up, release toxic fumes, catch on fire, and sometimes explode. Odds are you will get lucky and you won’t experience anything like that, just make sure that if you do get one to save money, that you have a close look at it for a little while, especially while it’s charging and stop using it if at any point it begins to swell up. If the price difference is not huge, you may be better off just paying for the original with it’s quality control. And you will find, if you shop around enough on Amazon.com and other online retailers, that you see the same brand names turning up in third party laptop batteries. When the brand isn’t advertised at all, that’s a warning sign that you’re buying a very generic battery. But when the brand name is prominent, it’s clear that making batteries is what this company does, and the reviews are all generally positive (the more reviews, the better), you may find that quality at a bargain price is indeed possible.

On this edition of our IFA History Feature, Chris tells us about a VHS competitor, and it is not Betamax: In 1977, during the Internationale Funkausstellung, today known as IFA (http://www.ifa-berlin.com), the age of home video recording really started – with competing formats. In addition to VHS and Betamax, a European technology was introduced, heavily promoted by the two giants who had developed it, Philips and Grundig. It was named Video 2000 and again had two loops of 1/4-inch tape, one on top of the other, but in the same cassette. The cassette had to be turned over to record on the other loop. Carolyn in the US Virgin Islands asked us about keeping her electronics charged during power outages: During power outages what is the best compact solar system I could buy that could charge my technology which includes cell phones, tablets, mosquito bats and assorted battery sizes? You’re going to have a hard time charging everything you want to charge on solar only. There are devices that can technically handle fairly high capacity batteries, but they take a very, very long time to charge under the sun. For example, the PowerAdd Apollo Pro has a built in 23,000 mAh battery with a DC output capable for charging a laptop, however, a Droid Razr Maxx has a 3,300 mAh battery, an iPad Air has a 8,800 mAh battery, that already puts you at over 12,000 mAh, which means most of your charge is gone, and you haven’t plugged in a second phone, or second tablet, that mosquito bat or any of the other batteries. Now to reach the full 23,000 mAh charge, they claim that “it will never take less than 38 hours to get a full charge.” Which means that you will have to keep this thing charging 24/7 to ensure that when you do need the power, it will be available. Since that’s the case, you may benefit from looking at a regular battery that doesn’t use the sun to charge, but that may be able to charge more of your devices, for example, you could buy a 42,500 mAh battery from BixPower that takes 4 to 6 hours to charge. That would give you considerably more power if you want to charge all of those electronics. Is a battery really the best option? How long are these blackouts? because if they’re long enough for you to have to worry about charging so many different devices, maybe you’d benefit from looking at a generator instead. A basic one may actually cost you less than a high capacity battery (obviously, that’s not true for the more powerful ones), and you’d get power when you need it without having to worry about the current charge of the battery.

Listener Joan in Santamaria, California got a refurbished tablet and it's giving her some unusual trouble: I'm trying to figure out how to use my ACER model ZEIV4 Iconia w3-810 using just the battery. I was part of a settlement and received a refurbished model but I have no instruction guide in how to use the unit without having it plugged into an AC adapter. You probably have a bad unit. You really shouldn’t need to do anything at all to get the tablet to run on battery, just unplug it and go. If it’s turning off when you unplug it, there’s probably something wrong with it and you should probably be able to get a replacement. Now, if the battery icon flashes when the tablet is plugged in, that’s their code to let you know that something’s wrong with the battery. If it is, check for firmware upgrades, that may be the cause of the trouble, and if there are none, or if that doesn’t help, you definitely want to take it in and see if they’ll exchange it for a working one. There are no instructions because there’s not much to say, all you should really need to do is pull the plug and keep using it.

Into Tomorrow listener John in Bridgeport, New Jersey upgraded one of his computers to Windows 10 and called in to share his experience John shares the good and the bad, including browser problems, and the death of a popular program. Chris weighs in with his own experience of updating his main laptop.

Mark joined us to discuss the latest World of Warcraft expansion on this week's Into Gaming feature (http://intotomorrow.com/new-world-of-warcraft-expansion-announced/)   Listener Terry in Carthage, Missouri asked us about the best streaming stick on the market, he asked: Chromecast and Fire stick: Which one do you think is better? Can I throw movies that I have on my computer or my tablet up onto the big screen without having to use my data? In terms of which is actually better-- there is no definitive answer and it’d be unfair for us to tell you one is better without you being aware of what each has to offer. That decision is completely up to you, but we can help guide you by telling you the specs of the Chromecast and Amazon Fire TV Stick. Price is not a big factor when considering which to buy, because the Chromecast and Fire stick are very close in range. The Chromecast will be a few dollars cheaper, usually found at about $35 while the Fire stick is about $39-- which would surely confuse any average consumer because usually a product that has more to offer would cost more, but at only a $4 difference, it isn’t really the case here. You did ask if you can just throw movies you have stored on your computer or tablet onto your screen, and yes you can, by using screen mirroring. On Chromecast, you can do so using a Chrome browser or an Android device. On the Amazon Fire TV stick, you can do so by using your Amazon Kindle or, “soon” by using your Android device. If you’d like to use other internet-based apps for whichever streaming stick you choose, you’d need to take the Wi-Fi capabilities of the device into consideration and in that area-- the Fire stick is much better. The Chromecast uses a single-band Wi-Fi antenna and the Fire TV stick uses a Dual-band, Dual-Antenna MIMO (my-moh or me-moh) which could significantly improve the performance of the Fire TV stick over the Chromecast. Both also have gaming capabilities, but the Fire TV Stick does have a leg up over it’s competition because for about $40, you can purchase a gaming controller separate from it’s normal controller. Also, when taking the two devices into consideration-- keep in mind that Chromecast performs without using a control whatsoever. You must actually stream anything straight from your device to the Chromecast in order to view it, which is either a big upside or downside, depending on your personal preference. Understandably so, there are some people who would like the nostalgic feeling of a handheld control while others would rather not have the liability of keeping track of where they left another remote. There are certain apps that work on the Chromecast that don’t work on the Amazon Fire TV stick and vice versa, so if you are concerned a favorite app of yours might not be available-- take a more in-depth look by verifying it for both, but most staple apps work for both. What you didn’t ask was about the Roku Stick, which at $49 is only a few dollars more, and offers more streaming services than either of the other two. Quite frankly, it might be the best of the “sticks,” so perhaps you should give that one a look also. And IF your tablet happens to start with an “i” don’t forget that Apple has lowered the price of Apple TV to $69, although that’s not a stick.

Consumer Reports joined Into Tomorrow this week with back-to-school laptop recommendations:   The team discussed the apps they've been playing with this week: TouchTunes (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/touchtunes/id378351144?mt=8), FREE

CEA joins Into Tomorrow to discuss how electronics are saving consumers money: American consumers have now saved more than $500 million on their energy bills, all thanks to a new industry initiative that’s improving the energy efficiency of set-top boxes. Lexie de los Santos with the Consumer Electronics Association explains – in this week’s “CEA Update.” For Into Tomorrow, Lexie de los Santos – CEA Listener Raquel in Odessa, Texas asked us whether or not she should consider switching streaming services: I've been hearing things about Apple Music and now Tidal. I've been using Spotify. Are they worth changing over to, and if so, why? Frankly it’s probably not worth the effort of rebuilding your playlists at this point. If you have any Apple device, Apple Music is handy in that it integrates with Siri, and if you want to try it, why not? it’s free for the first three months, so by all means, give it a try. They have a very, very large catalogue and they have support from a huge number of artists, many of whom even guest host their own shows on Apple’s Beats 1 radio station. Tidal is a different story… it was launched in 2014 by a company named Aspiro, last March it was purchased by Jay-Z in what frankly looks like a “me too!” move to own a streaming music service like the one that made Dr. Dre a billionaire. Tidal is not Beats Music though, ask your friends and see how many of them know it even exists. Tidal is not really catching on, it went from being on the top 20 list of the Apple Store charts to so low you’d have to work to find it on the list at all. It’s not cheap either, their website is titled “Tidal: High Fidelity Music Streaming,” but the “HiFi plan” will cost you $20/month… When your streaming plan make Apple’s look cheap, you have a problem. They do have lower fidelity plan they call “premium” which does stream at the same bitrate as Spotify and costs the same money (assuming you’re even paying for Spotify, since you don’t have to), but why leave Spotify to get at best the same deal? You’d have to start rebuilding your library to get nothing more than what you already had. Jay-Z is also having some issues to pay Sony for the licensing fees they agreed upon, so they may be losing one of the big three labels, but at least for now they’re all in, which means that you can expect a good library of songs. Tidal does offer a 30 day free trial, so you can give them and Apple Music a shot and see how they compare with Spotify for you, it won’t cost you anything.