Posts

The Rise of AI-Powered Personal Assistants: A Look at the Future of Our Devices

 If you’ve been paying attention to tech news lately, you’ve probably noticed the growing buzz around AI-powered personal assistants. From Siri and Alexa to Google Assistant and ChatGPT, these virtual helpers have quickly evolved from basic voice-activated tools to powerful, intelligent systems that can manage tasks, make recommendations, and even hold conversations. But how much have they really changed the way we interact with our devices—and what does this mean for the future of tech? Getting Smarter Every Day When I first started using a voice assistant, it was a fun gimmick—something to ask for the weather or play a song while I cooked. But these days, personal assistants are becoming far more than that. They’re increasingly integrated into our everyday lives, from controlling smart home devices to assisting with work tasks like scheduling meetings or drafting emails. For example, I’ve noticed that Google Assistant seems to understand context much better now. If I ask it about...
Post a Comment
Read more

Surviving Starlink Beta

 I was approved for the Starlink beta at the beginning of March 2021, and have been using it not quite daily since.  It was very simple to set up, just as advertised.  I am not yet using it as my main service, as I ordered a mount to put it up on my antenna pole.  The speed is quite good, although there is a little noticeable drag as it switches between satellites.  One thing I found amusing was as I was testing the speed, I was testing on dslreports, and it allows you to set the type of service.  However, when I set it to satellite, the server said my response time was too fast for me to be on satellite, and I had to set a different service type.  I hope the speed lives up to the promises, and I am happy that this service has come out for my location, as I doubt fibre will ever happen here.
1 comment
Read more

Leaving LastPass for Bitwarden

 Now that LastPass is beginning to charge for logging in on more than one device many are leaving the service.  I must admit I have been a stalwart LastPass user for several years, and was dreading the change to a different service.  However, I have moved over to Bitwarden, and even though they don't include as many things as the old LastPass did, they are still quite good, and I plan on staying there.  Since they are more open-source some things aren't quite as well integrated as LastPass was, and I still have not been able to get their Chrome extension to work.  Nevertheless, I am happy with the offering, and, ironically, I may start paying for some of their premium services! Have you switched away from LastPass, or are you wondering what I'm talking about?  Let me know in the comments! 
1 comment
Location: Windsor, ON, Canada
Read more

ATSC 3.0 or NextgenTV

Image
In case you've missed it, changes are coming to our beloved broadcast TV!  After several years of great HD content, with the best signals available, it was apparent that the local stations were getting left behind in the push to UHD, or 4K.  To remedy this situation, several markets in the US have already started to rollout the new channels, and over the next couple of years, this service will be in most major markets.   In order to receive these new signals, you will either require a UHD TV with an ATSC 3.0 tuner built in, or purchase an external tuner.  If you don't have a UHD TV yet, and your HD TV is working fine, you may want to wait until all of the manufacturers have added them.  So far, only a couple have added them to their higher end sets.  I will be following up with more on this over the next few weeks.  So stay tuned!
Post a Comment
Location: Windsor, ON, Canada
Read more

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 - Dead Battery Part Deux

So, after pulling the plug between the battery and the mainboard for about 5 minutes, and then doing a hard reset a couple of times as per my very old post, I then trickle charged the tablet all night, then put it back on the cube it came with for another whole night, and then finally tried a new boot, and ... success!  It now runs, and seems to be working as well as ever.  Of course, this is a $160 device from 4 years ago, so I am not too upset about it.  Eventually these devices will be made to e-readers, and will function quite well as such, even if I need to spend $30 each for a new battery.
Post a Comment
Read more

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 - Dead Battery

My oldest child's Tab 2 finally went completely unresponsive today.  He had charged it up, and was using it in some family Minecraft time, when it went off.  At first I thought it may have been a system crash, but after reading some forums, and trying my previous boot loop repair, there have been no results.  I took the back off using a guitar pick as a pry tool, (which worked really well, by the way) and unplugged the battery from the mainboard for a couple of minutes.  After plugging the battery back into the board, I then plugged the Tab in to power and tried to boot it, but nothing seemed to be helping, and even after several tries at the boot loop fix I still was having no response.  I then replaced the back, and plugged it into a usb charger that is not it's own.  This has been reported to be a trickle charge solution, so I will let this charge overnight, and then plug it back into its own charger to see if then it will be able to charge the battery. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hyperloop Dreams for Europe

http://www.engadget.com/2016/03/10/hyperloop-transportation-technologies-slovakia-contract/
Post a Comment
Read more