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Weekend of December 9th, 2011

Dave and the team are in the studio answering your tech questions. We also have more tech holiday gift ideas to share with you! Meantime, wanna win some great prizes? Call us toll-free 1-800-899-INTO (4686) with any consumer electronics question, opinion, help another listener or tell us what your favorite app is and why. You can also participate via our FREE "Into Tomorrow" App (iOS/Android/Intel AppUp). Thank you for your participation!

 

Our Latest ITTV Video Update (Watch in HD)

Per your request, our very own Mark Lautenschlager reviews the Amazon Kindle Fire. He goes over some of the best features and explains why he bought one. Also, Chris Graveline brings you back into yesterday with This Week in Tech History.

Listeners & Guests on the show this week:

For ALL the details ... be sure to listen to the show by downloading the MP3 or clicking the RED & WHITE "Play" button on the media player, both on the right-hand side of this page.

HOUR 1:

Tech News & Commentary

 

Loraine in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands, listening on WSTX 970 AM asked: "I am wondering about the comparison between the Kindle Fire and the iPad. I would like to purchase an iPad 2. I'm wondering what are the great benefits with the iPad?"

 

The competition in the tablet market is getting hotter. While many still prefer the iPad 2, there is a new player in the market and it's the Kindle Fire. We're going to be talking further about the Fire in Hour 2 -- in our Product Spotlight segment. You don't want to miss that. If your local radio station doesn't carry all 3 hours of the show, remember you can download our free podcast at IntoTomorrow.com and listen to the stream every Sunday at 2pm Eastern.

The Kindle Fire is smaller, has a 7-inch touch screen vs. the iPad 2 9.7-inch screen. Amazon claim that the Kindle display is state of the art and is "chemically strengthened to be 20 times stiffer and 20 times harder than plastic".

Another feature in the Kindle is the IPS (in-plane switching) display while the iPad is LED backlit and IPS. The IPS allows you to angle the Kindle down and still be able to look at it from the edge and see everything since the IPS screen has 178 degree viewing angle.

The Kindle runs a customized version of the Android OS, but it's unknown just how customized it is. Apple stuff runs off of the iOS. That put the iPad 2 over the Kindle since there are no surprises when it comes to the iOS.

Apple is known to have various options when it comes to storage for the iPad 2 (16, 32 or 64 GB). The Kindle has only 8 GB of internal storage with no microSD slot. However, Amazon offers unlimited storage on its cloud service, but you will need wifi access.

The Kindle Fire is WiFi only with no 3G option. Apple offers both options on all its iPad 2 models. The Kindle doesn't have a camera that means no video, the iPad 2 has a front and rear camera allowing you to take pictures and video recording VGA quality. The back camera has HD video recording (720dp) as well as still camera with 5x digital zoom. While the camera may be missing on the Kindle Fire, I don't think that will keep people from buying it. The price is very appealing and you forget you don't have a camera. Personally, I barely use it on my iPad 2.

Amazon says its Kindle Fire battery will last up to 8 hours, but the iPad 2 claims up to 10 hours. The iPad comes in black and white, the Kindle comes only in black.

Amazon has priced the Fire low at $199. The iPad 2 didn't get a price drop and goes from $499 up to $829, depending on the version you want.

 

For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.

 

 

 

The "Into Tomorrow" team discussed the latest apps that they have been playing with recently.

For Android:

 

• Mark recommends: ES File Explorer, FREE

 

"EStrongs Inc. makes several utilities for Android devices and I recently downloaded their ES File Explorer to my Kindle Fire. ES File Explorer lets me browse the file system on my Fire (not the icons and such installed by the apps, I mean the file system itself) and that's a requirement if I want to sideload any Android apps on my Fire that aren't presently offered in Amazon's Appstore. ES File Explorer shows you folders and files like you'd expect to see, giving you a variety of different views. It has simple on screen commands for copying and moving files, and it will launch downloaded .apk files for installation just by tapping on them. If you've ever wondered just where the apps on your Android device stores its files, ES File Explorer will let you dig around and find them. It's available for free in both the Android Market and the Amazon Appstore, and it works fine with the Fire." -- Mark



For iOS:

 

• Rob recommends: No More Socks: The Christmas List Genius, $1.99
"A very good gift list and gift buying app. You can add contacts from your phonebook list on your phone, make a note of what you are planning on buying for them, and then shop for it within the app. You can Google the product or add choose a retailer from the list. After you buy the gift, you mark it as purchased. You can also set a budget for your gifts. And if you need some ideas, there's an Idea Pad to browse through the No More Socks Community. I find it to be very helpful. Although, this year my budget is very tight. Gotta shop for a car!"

Tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast for more details.

What are your favorite apps? Let us know!

 

For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.

 

 

 

Jody in Bell Buckle, Tennessee asked: "I have two kids, 9 and 11. They're wanting an iPad and I didn't know which would be the best for them to share. They want it for music and games. I'm getting a little bonus and I wanted to get them something for Christmas."

 

For two young kids, the cheapest 16GB WiFi-only iPad should be more than enough, it will give them plenty of room for music and games and it will give you the lowest possible price -- at least for the Apple product -- at $499.

Every iPad model is the same except for the storage capacity and connectivity (3G or WiFi). So even if you go for the cheapest model, you will still get the same processor, the same cameras, the same form factor, the same battery life, the only thing that will change is the room you have for apps, music, videos, and everything else. Most gaming apps don't require a WiFi or 3G connection, so if you get the WiFi only version, the kids will still be entertained. Worst case you can find a coffee shop near you that offers free WiFi so the kids can watch YouTube videos if they wanted to.

Two young kids should be able to share 16GB of memory without much trouble. My sister Beth has shared her 16GB iPhone, for instance, with her 2 year-old daughter and hasn't run out of space. She's got a lot of fun apps to keep my niece Madison entertained.

You can also look into getting a refurbished iPad 1. You can typically get it for a little less money, but you will have a single core processor, no camera and a heavier case.

 

For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.

 

James in Nashville, Tennessee listens on WTN 99.7 asked: "Me and the Wife are having a new baby. We're wondering what's the best monitor to get to check on the baby while the baby is sleeping."

 

You can try the Philips Avent SCD510. If you have a house full of electronics you will likely have trouble finding a baby monitor that doesn't get interference from wireless networks, cordless phones, microwaves, remote controls toys. Since Chris is also have a new baby -- and will be looking for similar items soon -- he can share some other ideas for you.

The Philips Avent operates on a 1.9 Ghz frequency which should eliminate most interference from other electronics, Its features include automatic channel switching (between 120 channels), a walkie talkie feature, out of range, low battery and sensitivity control(so you can adjust for ambient noise like an air conditioner). The Philips Avent is available on line for $100.

You can also try the Summer Infant Day & Night Handheld Color Video Monitor with a 2.5 inch screen color display and 900 Mhz audio monitoring, both functions at range of 350 feet. The monitor has a clip that you can walk around with and an additional camera is available (for $75) if you want to monitor more than one room.

The Summer Infant Day & Night Video Monitor is available online for $140.

 

For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.

 

Karen in Fresno, California listening online asked: "I would like to cancel my cable TV service and watch programs via the Internet. Wondering how I would do this and what equipment I need. Also, would I be able to get live news programs live CNN or Fox News?"

 

Good for you Karen. Cable sucks, so get rid of 'em! The equipment you need depends on how much you want to invest, for example, an existing computer might be all you need. You can just go online to sites like Hulu, Netflix or most of the networks' websites and watch on your computer straight from there.

If you'd prefer to watch on your TV you can look for the right cable to connect your computer to your TV, that might be an HDMI cable or S-Video, VGA, etc. it depends on your TV and computer.

If you want a more standard TV watching experience, you could get an inexpensive box like a Boxee Box or Roku Box, they will connect to your TV, allow you to control them from your couch using a simple remote and they will let you connect to services such as Hulu Plus.

Keep in mind that you won't be able to immediately access every show as soon as it goes live on TV and you won't be able to access all the content your cable subscription gives you access to.

CNN and Fox News both have free video streams, but you won't always see exactly the same show that is being aired on their TV channels. CNN has an option to watch their TV channel online, but it requires you sign in with your cable's username and password, so dropping your cable subscription would also mean dropping that benefit. Fox News works regardless.

 

For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.

 

 

HOUR 2:

 

Tech News & Commentary

 

Jill in San Diego, California asked: "Wondering about this Galaxy phone I have. I may still be able to return it. I'm not sure if I should. I keep hearing some negative stuff. Maybe you could give me your thoughts about it."

 

We've mostly heard very positive things about the Samsung Galaxy line of phones, they're some of the most popular Android phones out there and most of their owners seem very happy with them.

We've heard Galaxy phones have the same "death grip" issue reported of the iPhone 4, but that's actually not that uncommon a problem, usually when you cover an antenna the signal goes down, most Galaxy users don't seem to be reporting too many problems stemming from this.

Have you had an problems with your phone? If not we think that Samsung Galaxy line is a good group of Android phones and you're unlikely to face too many problems. In fact, Samsung's smartphones are big enough contenders and good enough phones that they seem to have gotten the most attention from Apple's lawyers... that's probably a sign of how well liked they are by the general public.

 

For more information, tune in to Hour 1 of our podcast.

 

 

 

Stephen in Fairbanks, Alaska listening on KFBX 970 AM asked: "I just changed phones, carriers & new laptop as well. I love them all, but I need more signal boost. I have been researching homemade and store bought brands of boosters/antennas for this Samsung Galaxy S2. But, I have found an overwhelming amount of information in a very wide range of price and quality. I need something I can afford, or build and is proficient. I could get an antenna another 30 feet up off top of building if that would help.I know you and your crew are sharp on this stuff!! Make my day brother!! Love the show, Happy 17th Anniversary! You guys rock! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and will have a very Merry Christmas! I think this New Year of 2012, is going to be the best one yet! I feel it coming on!! Love you guys, but not that much! LOL God Bless You!!"

 

If you want to go the do-it-yourself, McGyver way, come by our website and we'll link you to a couple of websites with instructions for making homemade cellphone signal boosters out of coffee cans and outside antennas.
We should warn you though, that homemade signal boosters tend not to work as well as professionally made ones.

If you're interested in pre-made ones, you can look at WiEx and Wilson Electronics, they have several models depending on your needs, and on your carrier, but you will need to mount an antenna somewhere with a signal to have something to repeat, which may mean climbing on your roof, for example.

WiEx and Wilson Electronics signal boosters are not cheap, they range from about $150 to as much as $400, but if you find your homemade solution isn't doing the trick you may have to go that route.

For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.

 

 

 

Robert in Puerto Rico, listens Online called with a tip for another listener: "I just heard a fella named Ed who had trouble retrieving data from a DVD disc from his video machine. Here's what I suggest: There's a program called Free Undelete at TuCows.com. It has found things on erased floppy discs and USB sticks."

 

Thank you very much Robert! We love when our listeners help other listeners.

For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.

 

PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT with Rob: "Kindle Fire" Many listeners have asked us to talk more about the recently released Kindle Fire on the show. Is it better than an iPad? How does it compare to other popular tablets? We already compared it to the iPad earlier in the program. So now, we'll let our Amazon Fan, Mark, talk about his experience with the Fire...

Features: - 7-inch color touchscreen with IPS (in-plane switching) technology used for an extra-wide viewing angle to share your screen with others. - Dual-core processor - Free Cloud Storage for your Amazon Storage - 8GB internal (approximately 6GB available for user content) - WiFi only

 

 

Andrew in Anchorage, Alaska calling from our new Affiliate, Alaska Talks Here – 700 KBYR asked: "I'm looking for a good external Wi-Fi Hard drive, at least 1 Terabyte. Should I go with a stand alone unit, or go with a Wi-Fi Router with an external USB Hard Drive capability. Which brands do you recommend?"

 

You might as well go all the way and go with a stand alone unit. The technology's there, why not use it? Seagate has a solution available called the GoFlex Home Network Storage System.

This Wi-Fi hard drive is available in 1, 2, or 3 terabyte sizes and can not only give you network access to your files, but it can stream your media wirelessly to networked computers, media players and game consoles.

The 1 Terabyte sells for about $190, the 2 terabyte sells for about $210, and the 3 Terabyte for about $300.

For more information, tune in to Hour 2 of our podcast.

 

HOUR 3:

Tech News & Commentary

 

Gary in Jefferson City, Missouri listens via Podcast and asked: "I am responsible for digitizing the family photos that have been taken over the last 70 years. Recognizing that CDs and DVDs have a shelf life and are only gonna last for so long. How do I ensure that the photos will be available to future generations. It seems like even hard drives have a life expectancy. How can I be assured that these photographs can me maintained for the generations to come?"

 

What you're looking for is redundancy, a hard drive may die unexpectedly, but if you copy the files to three of them, one will probably survive long enough for you to make a new copy.

CDs and DVDs do have a shelf life, but good quality disks supposedly have a shelf life in the decades (not that you're likely to find an optical drive in a few decades), you could try to buy expensive media meant to last.

The other obvious option is the cloud, storing your images on third party servers that are constantly and automatically backed up may be a good choice.

Your best bet is to rely on no one thing, the good thing about digital media is that making copies is quick and inexpensive, so make them... a lot of them... odds are if you lose one set you'll have another working set and you can use it to replace the lost copies, that way your odds of losing your precious memories will be minimized.

If you are going to store your digital pictures on hard drives, you may want to consider setting up a RAID storage system. You can set up RAID in a computer or you can buy an external network drive enclosure that will give you a RAID array. You'll want RAID 1 or 5, not RAID 0, as RAID 0 is strictly performance and provides no redundancy to protect against drive failure.

Reliable hard drives combined with multiple backups using multiple technologies, and you should be safe from everything...except perhaps human error. Good luck! Good time for our regular weekly reminder ... ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR DATA!!!

For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.

 

 

Jack in Los Alamos, New Mexico listens on KTRC and asked: "I've been very intrigued by the Apple Siri application and wondered if there is anything similar that would work on my Windows PC or laptop"

 

You won't find anything quite like Siri for now. There are rumors about Siri being ported to Mac OS X soon, thought that's not for sure yet, and considering Siri needs an internet connection to work, Apple may not want to offer it on a device that isn't necessarily connected 24/7.

You asked about Windows. Windows does have built in speech recognition, but it doesn't not interpret natural speech patterns the way Siri does, it just knows a series of commands and listens for them, it may come in handy every once in a while, but it's much more similar to Android's speech recognition than it is like Siri.

There is plenty of software that will allow you to dictate text to you computer, some of the programs are more reliable than others, but those programs will typically let you do little more than dictate.

If Siri proves popular in the long run, it's likely that solutions like it will be integrated into computer operating systems, but for now you don't have anything that's really like it available to use.

For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.

 

 

 

 

Howard in Vicksburg, Mississippi asked: "My question regards Ooma's VoIP. I am confronted by a constellation of Ooma products with no clear guidelines of which ones are appropriate for my needs. I would like a phone system that allowed at least two lines with separate phone numbers, with one of these allowing for attachment of a fax for both outgoing and incoming messages. I would also like to 'port' my main number, and if possible operate the fax through the second number. If I do away with all of my land lines, are there any options for reliably coordinating the alarm system with VoIP (cellular may be one, but the system becomes less stable, I am told)? My current alarm system is the: Z1100 by Moose Products, Inc."

 

From Jim Gustke at Ooma: "As far as I can tell from the email, all he would need is the Telo, with Premier service for the second line. The Telo Handset is optional. Porting an existing number is $39.99, or free when purchasing annual Premier service. For the alarm, I would recommend keeping the traditional land line with no long distance or other calling features. Hope that helps."

For more information, tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast.

 

Ray in Varilla, Kentucky listening on WLRC asked: "I have an HTC Inspire 4G phone on AT&T. I noticed like the Fox News Application needs root access in order to work correctly. I wonder if I should bother unlocking my phone or look for a different app. I didn't know what the risk was."

 

The Fox News app available on the Android Market doesn't require root access to work, are you sure you're downloading the official one?

We've tried the app in our studios on non-rooted Android phones and it seems to work just fine. In fact, Horacio tried it on several Android phones and they all worked.

If you come by our website we'll link you to the official version on the market, if you download that one you should be able to use it without needing to root your phone.

 

Tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast for more details.

 

Moe in Saudi Arabia listening on the Armed Forces Network asked: "Is there an office application in Android that has the same usability experience as the iWorks and the slate office lite edition?"

 

You won't find the exact iWork experience on Android, but you will find very useful office apps. iWork's Pages, for example, isn't just a word processor, a lot of it revolves about the design of its templates, that's the kind of thing you won't easily find on Android apps.

If what you're looking for is an easy way to edit documents, you do have options and you also have options that, like iWork, will sync to the cloud.

The first one we should mention is the one we use, Google Docs, there's an Android app for it, and it let you access your documents on Google's servers.

If you want a more traditional office application you can try Documents To Go or Quickoffice, the will both handle all the usual file types if you work with Word, Excel and PowerPoint, but they will cost you some money ... Documents To Go is $14.99 and Quickoffice sells for $9.99, but there's a trial version if you want to see how you like it first.

 

Tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast for more details.

 

 

Jesse in Baton Rouge, Louisiana listening on 107.3 WBRP asked: "I have an old RCA 32-inch CRT television and I was wondering if there was a way to hookup my new Toshiba laptop to it. Maybe an adapter to go to the red, yellow and white plugs."

 

Yes, there is. (Assuming your laptop has a VGA output. Most of them do.) All you need is to pick up an adapter to go from the VGA connector on your laptop to the composite video signal on your TV. These are very inexpensive. You can find them for about ten bucks.

If your laptop is one of the fancy dancy ones, with HDMI output, it's still possible, but it gets a little more expensive, since rather than buying just a cable, you have to buy a box that will convert it to an analog signal.

 

Tune in to Hour 3 of our podcast for more details.

 

If you have any questions about any of this week's show info, please email us here.

 

 

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This Week’s Prizes for Our Listeners

Boingo: Two months of FREE Boingo WiFi Service available at hundreds of thousands of hotspots worldwide

Dane-Elec: Marvel Classic Heroes 4GB USB Drives – Spiderman, Iron Man & Wolverine

Solar Components: Several JOOS Orange Portable Solar Chargers – Designed to charge all personal electronic devices (cell phones, smart phones, MP3 players, GPS devices, portable game devices and more)

 

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