Electronics

While sales of 4K television sets are spiking, broadcast capabilities are lagging. The irony here is rich. For traditional distributors (cable providers and satellite distributors) to offer higher-quality formats, often they must take on major capital expenditures, upgrading gear throughout the signal chain. For an Over The Top (OTT) provider to offer 4K, all they have to do is consume more bandwidth. Continue Reading →

Analysts estimate that by 2030, self-driving cars and trucks (autonomous vehicles) could account for as much as 60 percent of US auto sales. That’s great! But autonomous vehicles are basically computers on wheels, and computers crash all the time. Besides that, computers get hacked every day. So you gotta ask, “Can self-driving cars ever really be safe?” Continue Reading →

There was a recent tabloid piece featuring a video of a woman asking Alexa if it was connected to the CIA. At the time, the Echo Dot she was speaking to did not respond to the question. She asked a few times, and each time the Echo was silent. Conspiracy theorists weighed in. It was an amusing video, but the Daily Mail’s clickbait headline raises a legitimate question: Can Alexa lie? Continue Reading →

You can turn a microwave into a camera and I’ll teach you how in a minute, but before I do, let me share this news item. In a recent interview with a reporter from the Bergen Record, Kellyanne Conway was asked about surveillance. She responded: “There are many ways to surveil each other now, unfortunately. There was an article this week that talked about how you can surveil someone through their phones, certainly through their television sets, any number of different ways. And microwaves that turn into cameras, et cetera. So we know that that is just a fact of modern life.” Continue Reading →

Make no mistake: at some level, every job can (and will) be done by machine. It is not a question of if; it is just a question of when. Let’s have a look at the 5 jobs robots will take last. Continue Reading →

For more than a decade, if Apple manufactured it, we purchased it – in bulk. There are so many Apple devices in our offices, someone once said, “It looks like Steve Jobs threw up in here.” That was then. Continue Reading →

Shelly Palmer talks about Tostitos alcohol-sensing bag and its embedded near-field communications (NFC) chip that you can tap with your phone to call and Uber (if you're too drunk to drive) on Fox 5 with Teresa Priolo and Antwan Lewis. Original Airdate: January 31, 2017 Continue Reading →

Samsung, Apple and every other mobile manufacturer are locked in a powerful innovation vortex from which there is no escape. Innovate or die! It's that simple. But there are risks ... Continue Reading →

I just unboxed my new, all-singing, all-dancing, MacBook Pro 15" laptop. It is the most expensive laptop Apple has ever produced. It's also supposed to be the best ever. This may be true, but unboxing it revealed some interesting issues that may influence your decision to purchase one. PLUS: A special bonus video - just how bad is the battery life on the new laptop? Continue Reading →

If you let your imagination run wild in the world of automatic speech recognition (ASR) and natural language understanding (NLU), and you throw in a little fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD), you can come up with several illegal uses for systems such as Alexa Voice Service, Google Home, Siri, and Cortana that will give you pause. Just for fun, let’s play pretend in our world of infinite possibilities. Continue Reading →