Into Tomorrow With Dave Graveline Into Tomorrow

Tech News and Commentary



Dave and Chris discuss TikTok paying users, password-sharing crackdown and cancellations at streaming services, the American Privacy Right Act, Honda's newest feature for visually-impaired passengers , and more.









Our guest this show: Ginny Fahs, Product R&D, Innovation Lab - Consumer Reports







Ray in Niagara Falls, New York asked: "I'm trying to figure out a way I can hook an external speaker up to my TV for late night listening so I don't crank up the volume and disturb anyone else. Looking to find an external speaker, preferably wireless, that I can put closer to where I'm sitting so I can hear the TV without cranking up the volume. Just can't come up with anything. hopefully you guys can figure it out for me."Ray, your options will depend on your TV, so its hard to give you a definite solution.For example, if your TV has built-in Bluetooth, then your best bet is probably just a regular Bluetooth speaker, or better yet, maybe Bluetooth earbuds or headphones to keep the sound truly isolated to just your own ears.If your TV doesnt have built-in Bluetooth, you can look at wireless audio systems that plug into an aux port and beam the signal to a receiver using other radio waves. A company called Sereonic sells a set that they market specifically to people that want to watch TV without disturbing others, but there are many and theyre all more or less the same.A good thing to keep in mind is that your TV may not be the only device involve here, if you use a streaming box like a Roku, or an Apple TV, they may be able to beat their own sound to your speakers via Bluetooth.The same is true of other devices as well, so if your television is not the only device involved in your TV watching, theyre may be other options for you.The other option youll likely have is wired audio, in that case youd just be looking at running a cord to your speaker. Thats way enough, but ya obviously not as convenient as the wireless options, if those are available to you.



When you participate on the show – anytime 24/7 – and we HEAR you with any consumer tech question, comment, help for another listener, tech rage or just share your favorite App these days … you could win prizes.Matias: USB-C Keyboards for your Mac in Silver and Space GrayScosche: StrikeLine HH 2-in-1 USB-C/Lightning Cables to charge all your devicesTargus: ErgoFlip mouse - ergonomic mouse designed for use with both left and right handsHeat It: Smartphone-Powered Insect Bite HealersAll CALLERS -- using the AUDIO option on our Free App or 1-800-899-INTO(4686)  - automatically qualify to win prizes.Audio archived for at least 6 months

Tech News and Commentary







Dave and Chris discuss collaborating on Instagram videos, social media use, Target’s subscription service, Tesla’s taxi, layoffs at BestBuy, and more.

















Our guest this show: Ryan McMahon, Senior Vice President of Strategy & Corporate Development at Cambridge Mobile Telematics and Robert Passmore, Department VP, Personal Lines at American Property Casualty Insurance Association

















Don in LaBelle, Florida asked: When I make a Live YouTube Short or live broadcast using my iPhone 7, it has a hissing sound along with my voice, but when I plug in a microphone into my iPhone it works perfectly. I can make regular videos and it works perfectly but when I make a live YouTube Short or live broadcast, the hissing sound is in the video. How can I get rid of that?







Don, In iOS 14, Apple added a feature to their voice recorder that allowed the user to automatically enhance the audio quality in part by removing hisses and other background noises.







Its possible that after several more iOS releases a version of that cleanup now just works in the background. By default Apples voice memos are stored compressed, with an option to store them in a lossless format, so we know theres some post processing being done.







That is to say, that what youre hearing in your voice memos may be a cleaned up version that Apple improved and there may still be a hardware issue at play here.







Unfortunately, if that is the case the solution is to either replace the port, the cables, or the microphone.







It may help you to test with another live streaming app or even just a phone call with the microphone plugged in to confirm, but your livestream may be showing you the imperfections that Apples recorder is smart enough to edit away.







The other option that you may have is to use the other audio input your iPhone 7 offers. You say that this happens when you plug in a microphone, a bluetooth microphone may get you around the issue if it is hardware related.





















When you participate on the show – anytime 24/7 – and we HEAR you with any consumer tech question, comment, help for another listener, tech rage or just share your favorite App these days … you could win prizes.

Matias: USB-C Keyboards for your Mac in Silver and Space Gray

Scosche: StrikeLine HH 2-in-1 USB-C/Lightning Cables to charge all your devices

Targus: ErgoFlip mouse - ergonomic mouse designed for use with both left and right hands

Heat It: Smartphone-Powered Insect Bite Healers

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Audio archived for at least 6 months

Tech News and Commentary



Dave and Chris discuss podcasts’ popularity and statistics, the risks of Ai, watching baseball in secret with T-Mobile, and more, and more.









Our guest this show: Terry Redican, AP Vice President at The College Board.







David in Atlanta, Georgia Listens to the Podcast and on 920AM asked: Looking for a way to improve the Wi-Fi in my house. Often my TV set, which is Wi-Fi, loses its signal. And my kids tell me that videos they're watching on their phones are slow. But I do speedtest.net and get 100-150mbps downloads, so I am confused. I have reset my router, I've added an extender to my system, it still doesn't seem to improve.David, there could be multiple causes for what youre seeing.Rather than bad WiFi you could be paying an ISP who just cant keep up with demand during especially busy times. If you are running your speed tests when you have time, rather than when the issue is happening, then it could be a problem at ISP level during peak times.Another thing that could be at play is very cheap hardware. Cheap routers are nowhere near as good, as reliable, or as able to handle a heavy load as more expensive routers. Routers are computers so their processors and RAM can be overwhelmed by heavy usage and very cheap routers often suffer from that problem.Assuming those are not the cause, then you probably want to set up a mesh system rather than an extender. You can get popular, consumer mesh systems from Google, Netgear, and Eero. The price will vary quite a bit, Google will be the cheapest at about $100 per access point, while Eeros system quickly crosses well into 4 figure territory.Regardless of which you pick, theyre all reasonably solid and much,much better than a traditional extender. Your devices will only need to remember one network and the mesh system will take care of giving each device the best signal they can get from the base station best suited to provide it.



When you participate on the show – anytime 24/7 – and we HEAR you with any consumer tech question, comment, help for another listener, tech rage or just share your favorite App these days … you could win prizes.Matias: USB-C Keyboards for your Mac in Silver and Space GrayScosche: StrikeLine HH 2-in-1 USB-C/Lightning Cables to charge all your devicesTargus: ErgoFlip mouse - ergonomic mouse designed for use with both left and right handsHeat It: Smartphone-Powered Insect Bite HealersAll CALLERS -- using the AUDIO option on our Free App or 1-800-899-INTO(4686)  - automatically qualify to win prizes.Audio archived for at least 6 months

Tech News and Commentary



Dave and Chris discuss Ai-powered shopping assistants, laws to protect data and children, smart homes and aging in place, EV startup Fisker's fate, Neuralink's implants, new chips from Intel and AMD, and more.









Our guest this show: Justina Nixon, VP & Chief Impact Officer at IBM.







Jim in Newark, Delaware asked: "I'm in the process of buying a new 4K TV. I've got one of those lousy Roku cheap models. I'd like to know if an OLED or ULED would be better. And which one would be better for your eyes. I've heard different things about both of them."Jim, there wont be any difference for your eyes, but theyre different technologies with different pros and cons in terms of image quality.Overall ULED sets will be cheaper, sometimes by a lot. They also have better brightness but that doesnt always work in their favor, since theyre susceptible to a problem called light blooming where light can leak into dimmer areas of the screen, and they consume more power than OLED sets, though the difference may not be big enough to care in the end.OLED sets are expensive but tried and true. They have far better contrast, since each pixel is individually backlit. OLEDs also win in two other categories: they have wider viewing angles, and they can display higher resolutions up to at least 8k in some sets.OLEDs have a shorter expected lifespan of 40,000 hours vs 100,000 hours for ULED. Which one is best for you will depend on how much you really expect out of a TV, but if youre moving from a cheaper model, even a small improvement may be a big gain over what you currently have.Joe in Hazleton, Pennsylvania asked: "I have a problem with Outlook 2016. I have Windows 10 and I use Jaws 2020 - that's a screen reader - I'm blind. Darn Microsoft 2016 keeps asking for the password for my e-mail every time I open the e-mail program. And the box to remember the password isn't checked, so I check it. But a few minutes later, it still asks for the password. What the heck is wrong with that? I could use the new Outlook for Windows but I don't like that because it doesn't have a spell checker. Newer isn't always better. I'm really frustrated with it."Joe, the last Windows 10 version will reach end of life in 2025 but Outlook 2016 reached it in 2020. That means that Microsoft hasnt done any work on Outlook 2016 for years now and its likely that some Windows update changed the way something works in a way that wouldve required Outlook to be updated as well to continue to work as it used to.Theres no real fix to that on closed source software like Outlook other than to upgrade.The good news here is that the current version of Outlook should allow you to turn on spell check. Youll find it under File, then Options, and under Mail youll find Spelling and Autocorrect settings.Webmail typically also includes spellcheckers, so it may be another option to consider.



When you participate on the show – anytime 24/7 – and we HEAR you with any consumer tech question, comment, help for another listener, tech rage or just share your favorite App these days … you could win prizes.Matias: USB-C Keyboards for your Mac in Silver and Space GrayScosche: StrikeLine HH 2-in-1 USB-C/Lightning Cables to charge all your devicesTargus: ErgoFlip mouse - ergonomic mouse designed for use with both left and right handsHeat It: Smartphone-Powered Insect Bite HealersAll CALLERS -- using the AUDIO option on our Free App or 1-800-899-INTO(4686)  - automatically q...

Tech News and Commentary



Dave and Chris discuss game developers and Ai, a fine for Avast, a different fine for Apple, Google making news stories even worse with Ai, smart assistants and care for older adults., and more.









Our guest this show: Kathy Pickering, Chief Tax Officer at H&R Block.







Shar in Atlanta, Georgia asked: I am starting a new podcast as a business, and I hope that you guys can help me with it by suggesting any technology I may need to get a fresh start.Shar, at a minimum you will need a computer and a good solid microphone.If youre going to be a solo podcaster, you may be able to get away with a USB microphone like a Blue Mic. If youre not going to be a solo podcaster but you will be recording with a remote co-host via something like Zoom, then the same applies.If youre going to be in person, you will probably at least need a couple of regular microphones and a mixer to be able connect them both to the computer or to a recorder.You can get away with just a computer with the proper software which can range from something paid like Adobe Audition or Logic Pro, to something free like Audacity or Garage Band, but if youre planning to record on the road, then a standalone recorder by a company like Zoom or Tascam may be helpful to keep you mobile and allow you to conduct interviews without much need to set anything up.You will also need a platform to distribute your podcast, we use Blubrry which has been working very well for us.Their basic plan starts at $12/month and it includes a website for your podcast. Unless you plan to have a very complex or high traffic site, what they offer will be more than enough and youll be able to kill two birds with one stone.Since youre looking to monetize this, keep in mind that the landscape is both overcrowded and dominated by large media companies with huge budgets these days, so youll need a combination of a nice logo and a niche that you can squeeze into so you dont have to compete for general attention with the big players that can dump unthinkable amounts of money into promoting their corporate, by the numbers, boring shows.



When you participate on the show – anytime 24/7 – and we HEAR you with any consumer tech question, comment, help for another listener, tech rage or just share your favorite App these days … you could win prizes.Matias: USB-C Keyboards for your Mac in Silver and Space GrayScosche: StrikeLine HH 2-in-1 USB-C/Lightning Cables to charge all your devicesTargus: ErgoFlip mouse - ergonomic mouse designed for use with both left and right handsHeat It: Smartphone-Powered Insect Bite HealersAll CALLERS -- using the AUDIO option on our Free App or 1-800-899-INTO(4686)  - automatically qualify to win prizes.Audio archived for at least 6 months

Tech News and Commentary



Dave and Chris discuss Dexcom's new over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor, the popularity of streaming media, and more.









Our guest this show: Michelle Alvarez, Strategic Threat Analysis Manager at IBM X-Force.







Jerry in Mineola, Texas listens on KTBB and asked: "I was born in 1942. I never learned to use the Internet or learned much about it. I composed the words and music to a number of songs. My question is... Are there any ways on the Internet, to market them without CDs? And if I were to market a CD on the Internet, what would be the best way to do that?"Jerry, you can self-publish to the main media platforms like Apple Music and Spotify by way of a distributor.There are plenty of those like Believe Digital, CD Baby, FUGA, IDOL, Ingrooves, and countless others.Once you submit to the distributor you will be able to have them push it to different platforms.You are likely going to make next to no money. Even bigger names in music make next to no money from music sales and streams these days and largely survive off of touring. A while back musician David Crosby shared that Apple Music was paying a little over seven tenths of a cent per stream, which is far better than Spotifys four tenths. Nils Lofgren, guitarist for Bruce Springsteens E Street Band, published a 2019 royalty check for the amount of $7.01. He wouldve been able to use it to buy a Big Mac burger (sandwich only, not the full value meal) in most US states, but not in Massachusetts.Spotify is still planning to lower royalty payments over time.Unless you expect to get millions of plays, publishing your music is likely not worth the effort, you might as well give it away and skip the leech of a middleman.



When you participate on the show – anytime 24/7 – and we HEAR you with any consumer tech question, comment, help for another listener, tech rage or just share your favorite App these days … you could win prizes.Matias: USB-C Keyboards for your Mac in Silver and Space GrayScosche: StrikeLine HH 2-in-1 USB-C/Lightning Cables to charge all your devicesTargus: ErgoFlip mouse - ergonomic mouse designed for use with both left and right handsHeat It: Smartphone-Powered Insect Bite HealersAll CALLERS -- using the AUDIO option on our Free App or 1-800-899-INTO(4686)  - automatically qualify to win prizes.Audio archived for at least 6 months