Computers & Technology

Crunch Report - Week of November 6, 2017

All About Those Chips

Look, Ma! No Hands

Yahoo Still Clueless About Hack

Uber Eyes 2019 IPO

Musical.ly Gets Snapped Up

Crunch Report - Week of November 13, 2017

Apple Might Make a Bigger iPhone X

Facebook Admits Russian Meddling in Brexit

This Black Friday could be the biggest ever for mobile shopping

Facebook, Google join a coalition to get rid of fake news

Twitter tests a new tweetstorm feature

A rental pass didnā€™t save Blockbuster, though it was awesome. I canā€™t see it saving GameStop. They need to continue diversifying and expanding their other stores and lines.

Yes, I know this is two weeks after the post. I have SO MUCH studying to do. :sleepy:

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After almost FOUR hours, Iā€™ve finally done the Windows Fall Creators update. Now to see what got screwed up.

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Crunch Report - Week of November 20, 2017

Apple served with a search warrant

The FCC sets vote to kill net neutrality

Uberā€™s data breach and Appleā€™s self-driving cars

Happy Thanksgiving! - No Thursday or Friday videos

Heā€™s dead, Jimā€¦so why do we need to go through this iPhone ā€œcan they or canā€™t they crack iCloudā€ stuff again?

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Anime News Networkā€™s Holiday 2017 Gift Guide - Tech & Gadgets

by Zac Bertschy, Nov 25th 2017

Iā€™m not sure how everyone feels about the Net Neutrality issue and I donā€™t want to open a can of worms.

The FCC is pushing forward with its vote to kill Net Neutrality on December 14, 2017.

If you want to get involved and let your congressperson know how you feel, hereā€™s a link to do just that.

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Wanting the ISPā€™s to provide the same service to all content on the internet is an admirable & sensible goal. However, using the mechanism of the FCC & the US Government to enforce that outcome isnā€™t such a good idea.

In all likely hood you wonā€™t see much of the ā€œMy Content gets Priority over Yours.ā€ between the various providers & the conglomerates they are a part of. Itā€™s too likely to kick-off a ā€œspeed warā€ and that would get real attention from the Government.

Mark Gosdin

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On this, I just went to ANN and they had one of those ā€œpop overā€ ads that was prophesying the end times of the internet if the FCC gets its way, and that I need to call my Congress folks to sort this out.

I donā€™t see why Iā€™m supposed to call my Congress Critters over this, because I am under the impression that this FCC regulation can be implemented w/o involving Congress?

ā€¦itā€™s a little odd to me that ANN is so concerned over a potential ISP boogeyman when that site has been hacked/stolen and DDoSā€™d numerous times by proven bad actors.

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I got one of those earlier today, likely @Slowhand got one as well and did her post. To be honest it would not do any good to talk with any of my Congress Critters, they will either be way opposed to the FCCā€™s old ruling or they will be way supportive of it. This is Florida and it isnā€™t purple, it is red & blue in clashing color causing migraines. :confounded:

Mark Gosdin

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Crunch Report - Week of November 27, 2017

Founder David Karp Is Leaving Tumblr

Cyber Monday Results

Bitcoin Passes $10,000

Blue Apron loses its CEO

Tinder is using AI to get you hooked up

There isnā€™t much point in talking to my Congressmen. One is always in line with the GOP regardless of the issue, and his office will actually hang up on constituents who call to complain. Heā€™s even made comments about ignoring anyone he feels isnā€™t actually from PA due to the cell phone numbers. I guess he doesnā€™t realize that people often move and donā€™t update their cell phone numbers these days.

He only very narrowly won reelection, against a completely unknown woman. You would think he would have learned from observing Rick Santorum going down in flames, but I guess not. Though he hasnā€™t stole tens of thousands from a local school district (that we know of.). But either way, actually ignoring your constituents is not a wise move.

My biggest worry about net neutrality is the fact that most of the country has no competition for high speed internet service. My entire county has Comcast and thatā€™s it. If they do speed up or slow down certain sites, Iā€™m pretty much powerless to do anything about it.

The free market only works well to regulate these sorts of things when there is actual competition. For most of their markets, the ISPā€™s have little or no competition. I think there needs to be some safeguards in place until that changes.

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Iā€™m not surprised about the congressman ignoring calls from non-PA numbers, theyā€™ve been inundated by calls due to efforts by various organizations in the past which asked people to call specific members regardless of where the caller lived.

We do have competition here in Osceola County for High Speed Internet, Comcast, Spectrum, AT&T & Centurylink. There are others in different parts of the metro area as well.

The problem is the same that has always been. The fixed cost of the infrastructure, burying lines in the ground. We had one of the small providers here up until about 5 years ago, they were replaced by what became Spectrum. The entire subdivision was re-cabled. That had to have cost a pretty penny.

Mark Gosdin

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Heā€™s gone beyond just ignoring out of state numbers. His office has also been ignoring numbers from certain geographic areas of the state. For instance, if you have certain numbers in the 412 exchange (Pittsburgh and Allegheny County) you are getting ignored, yelled at, or hung up on. Heā€™s even cancelled town halls at the last minute, and refused calls from other local politicians.

He has failed to show for two meetings with county officials here. He not only didnā€™t cancel ahead of time, but he didnā€™t return their calls for nearly two weeks trying to reschedule. He didnā€™t even apologizing for not showing up. He was even a no-show at a local groundbreaking ceremony, as well as a ceremony honoring surviving WWII veterans.

And Iā€™m well aware that infrastructure costs money, which is just one of the many reasons that do much of the country has no competition for ISPā€™s. Smaller communities simply donā€™t have the financial incientive for companies to invest. Not to mention, cable companies often got municipalities to sign exclusivity agreements that blocked approvals for other competitors.

My previous residence had two service providers, a local extremely overpriced cable company (Armstrong) with a 300GB cap, or a less expensive but much slower service with a considerably higher 750GB cap. So you were kind of screwed either way. When you donā€™t have a cable box and stream everything, you hit 300 GB very quickly and they would shut down your service when you hit 90%. You would need to call in and agree to overage charges before they would reactivate it. Of course, if you hit that 90% at 1am, you would have to wait till 9am when their billing office opened.

Good times. Good times.

Sounds like the congressman is missing a few too many screws. Iā€™ve seen it before. Sigh.

One of the possible alternatives for High Speed internet is one of the wireless services. We had one out in the country in Oklahoma, it worked fairly well but didnā€™t survive after the local phone company put in DSL. We lived 1/4 mile off a dirt road, some 10 miles from the nearest town and had high speed fiber optic based internet. It was faster than what could be gotten in Tulsa at the time.

Mark Gosdin

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There are a lot of limitations with the wireless services though. For one, their ā€œunlimited plansā€ are usually more expensive than the traditional ISPā€™s, and often have caps on the amount you can download before they slow you down.

The construction and materials of a building can also affect reception. At my work, cell phones are basically paper weights in large chunks of the building.

Not to mention, the current top speeds are notably slower than the top speeds offered by Comcast, Verizon, and others in many areas. Though there are areas, particularly remote rural ones, where the opposite is true.

And on the topics of computers and technology, is anyone else fed up with the current trend of websites stripping features out of their sites, particularly the mobile ones, to force you to download their apps?

Iā€™m getting fed up with this. It seems over a third of websites have a full page pop up asking you to download their app. Some make it almost impossible to close the add without going to an App Store.

I shouldnā€™t have to download Googleā€™s app to do a reverse image search today, when I was easily able to do it from their website six months ago. NOT EVERYTHING NEEDS A DAMN APP ON MY PHONE OR LAPTOP!!!

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Crunch Report - Week of December 4, 2017

Ethereum and Cartoon Cats

Facebook Messenger Kids

No Wednesday, Thursday, Friday videos

Saekanoā€™s Megumi Assists Smartphone Users via Bluetooth Headset

posted on 2017-12-05 17:15 EST by Jennifer Sherman