Ring announces new features, raises its basic subscription price for the first time since 2017 – TechCrunch
iPadOS 16 preview: Rumored features could bring Mac-like capabilities to the tablet – Macworld
New bookstore owners discover secret subterranean room with tunnel down the street – Boing Boing
Mariah Carey Sued For “All I Want For Christmas Is You” By Louisiana Country Songwriter – Deadline
This new 11″ Windows tablet from HP is a bit costly when factoring in all of its accessories but it does have one creature comfort that most tablets don’t : the ability to use its keyboard in portrait or landscape mode. You can see my review here.
It also has a single camera that can rotate from the rear of the device to the front as needed with a button push. Its angle can also be further adjusted via its software interface or manually.
Beyond that it’s a run-of-the-mill Windows tablet running with a lower end Intel N6000 processor. This is a “Jasper Lake” chip which is Intel’s family of low end processors that typically appear on devices like this along with Mini PCs and NAS devices.
For the sorts of things that most consumers use a tablet for the performance is adequate. The bonus here is that it is running Windows 11 so most Windows apps can be installed provided you take the machine out of Windows “S” mode.
At its current sale price of $399 (affiliate link) a fully decked out tablet with keyboard and pen will run about $587. This is competitive against a 9th generation iPad with a keyboard cover and Apple pencil. But the iPad will get better battery life, better performance for comparable apps, and has a much better camera system.
The optional keyboard attachment worked nicely. The trackpad is accurate and not too springy and the keys, while small, are well spaced with nice travel.
Pen support is here too but I found the pen to have more latency than I would like and the screen is a bit slippery when writing. The Apple pencil on the iPad is a much better experience.
But for those looking for a Windows device in tablet form this is one worth checking out. See my other tablet reviews here.
Ford Is Going to 100% Online, Fixed-Price Sales For EVs – Road and Track
Cruise can now charge for fully driverless rides in San Francisco – Engadget
I have always been a gadget nerd and when I first heard of the Apple Newton I wanted one.
At the time it was a totally new and different product category – “the personal digital assistant.” The device fit in the hand, was operated with only a pen, and had the ability to work with PCMCIA modems just like a laptop for sending faxes and email to online services available at the time.
In many ways it was ahead of its time and struggled almost from the get-go. The biggest problem beyond its $700 price tag (the equivalent of $1,400 today) was that the handwriting recognition wasn’t good enough for the average consumer. When it worked it was great but when it didn’t this digital device was far less efficient vs. a pad and paper. It was famously lampooned in the Doonesbury comic strip but also had mixed reviews in the press.
Apple actually released two Newtons – one was an Apple device, the other came from Sharp. But both were effectively the same device inside. Neither was very successful out of the gate.
Apple retooled and released an updated “Newton 110” the following year. That was the device I bought back in the spring of 1994. It had an updated operating system vs. the original device and worked a little better, but still wasn’t up to where consumers wanted the device to be.
It went through a number of iterations over the next four years culminating with the Newton MP2100 in 1997. But by then cheaper and smaller Palm Pilots took over the marketplace while Newtons got larger and more expensive.
Apple of course got the last laugh with their insanely profitable iPhone and iPad lines. They certainly learned from their mistakes.
I own a few Newtons in my retro collection. Here’s a video I did last year looking at how Apple’s iPad borrows a lot from the Newton’s approach to pen interfaces.
Code execution 0-day in Windows has been under active exploit for 7 weeks – Ars Technica
John Deere Still Sucks On ‘Right To Repair,’ Despite Years Of Promises – Techdirt
Coffee Drinking Linked to Lower Risk of Dying, New Study Finds – The New York Times
OpenSea executive used NFTs for insider trading, prosecutors allege – The Washington Post
Physicists just rewrote a foundational rule for nuclear fusion reactors that could unleash twice the power | Space.com
The Steam Deck’s Docking Station has been delayed indefinitely – PC Gamer
We have look at a lot of docks here on the channel but the HP Thunderbolt Dock G2 (affiliate link) is probably the most attractive looking of the bunch. It works with any computer with a Thunderbolt 3 or 4 port (and presumably a compatible USB 4 port) and provides a number of ports, 100 watts of power, lots of display output options, and a Thunderbolt passthrough port. You can watch the review here.
What sets this dock apart for PCs is that it can support four displays if the right combination of resolutions and ports are used. You can see all of the different combinations that work on the product specifications PDF. In the review we were able to get three independent displays active off of a Samsung laptop.
For Mac users it’s more limited. Even though the dock has three active display outputs only one of them will work because the Mac doesn’t support DisplayPort Multi-stream Transport or MST. So on the Mac you’ll need to use the Thunderbolt passthrough port to use a second display.
But from a price standpoint it’s costs about the same as other Thunderbolt docks and delivers great flexibility and performance.
My latest Weekly Wrapup video was inspired by a blog post I did the other day on putting together livestreams. I’ve been asked to help with a bunch of these over the last year or two and they tend to have the following things in common:
I’ve found that Zoom paired up with an ATEM Mini tends to work best for these sorts of events primarily because it’s easy for both the presenters and the audience to set up and use. When you’re ready to go for the gusto an upgrade to Vmix is a great next step.
You can see my suggested workflow in the wrapup video. Also see all of my production videos here.
This estate auction site is going to be bad for me.
Just scored a few more set pieces including an NES Advantage and a Power Glove. Unfortunately the Power Glove doesn’t have the TV sensor bar but it’ll still look cool in the background.
It looks like I might just be break even on this one – probably should have looked the values up first :).
At some point I’m going to try and find a professional designer to spruce up my set. One of these days!
MiSTer FPGA News & Updates – Super GameBoy, CD32, Commodore 128 & More – RetroRGB
New ‘GoodWill’ Ransomware Forces Victims to Donate Money and Clothes to the Poor – Hacker News
Some top 100,000 websites collect everything you type—before you hit submit – ARS Technica
How Apple, Google, and Microsoft will kill passwords and phishing in one stroke – ARS Technica
Browser in the Browser (BITB) Phishing Technique – Infinite Logins (YouTube)
Microsoft Flight Simulator added an F/A-18 Super Hornet back in November and a new free Top Gun themed update released this week adds some scenarios and challenges for that virtual aircraft.
The update includes three training missions, five challenges, a carrier deck landing scenario, and a new “hypersonic aircraft that can attain speeds of Mach 10 and altitudes greater than 150,000 feet above sea level.” It all works in VR too.
I took the Super Hornet out for a spin this afternoon. It’s tons of fun especially when you fly over familiar terrain. It’s crazy how different of an experience it is flying that plane vs. a Cessna!
Flight Simulator is included with Game Pass and this update will work with the Game Pass edition on the PC and Xbox.
One of these days I’ll start taking flying lessons.
Plex is a long time sponsor of the channel. Each month I produce a sponsored post on a feature of aspect of the product. This month we take another look at hardware transcoding of video content. You can watch my latest Plex video here.
In the past I’ve always recommended that people run their Plex servers on Intel hardware that supports Quicksync technology. Intel builds this into even their lowest end chips and it allows for nearly realtime transcoding of video to reduce bit rate and resolution on demand. For a long time that was about all Plex supported.
But recently a mysterious note appeared on the Plex hardware transcoding support page that indicated some limited support for AMD GPUs:
So I wondered.. Would this work on a Ryzen based Mini PC? It turns out the answer is YES! I took out the Beelink SER4 I reviewed few weeks back, installed the Plex Windows server on it, enabled hardware transcoding, and it started successfully transcoding a BluRay MKV file to a 1080p 8 megabit stream in hardware with minimal CPU utilization. The (hw) in the screenshot below indicates it’s running in hardware mode:
The Beelink SER4 is running with an AMD Ryzen 4800U processor with the latest AMD drivers. As Plex says “your mileage will vary” so I can’t say definitively if this will work on other AMD devices as well as it did here. But it is good to see hardware transcoding compatibility expanding.
Last year we tested it on the Macbook Air M1 and found that it was able to hardware transcode running the Intel version of the Plex server! Plex just announced an official Apple silicon version last week so we’ll give that another test in an upcoming video. Stay tuned!
Metal Jesus’ Map of Seattle Area Retro Game Stores – Google Maps / Metal Jesus
AYA Neo Air Plus is a $289 gaming handheld with an AMD Mendocino processor – Liliputing
Steam Deck Parts and Repair Guides – iFixit
After 30 years, the world can now play the lost Marble Madness II – Ars Technica
1st look: NASA visitor complex to open ‘Gateway’ to future of space travel – Space.com
Tom Cruise’s Top Gun Maverick’ Opens to $124 Million at Box Office – Variety
The Mandalorian has baby Yoda and Obiwan Kenobi has “kid Leia.” The young Leia depicted in this series is a real spitfire. The series is off to a good start and its great to see Ewan McGregor reprise the role. The prequels are viewed quite differently vs. how they were upon release. I think the animated shows helped to smooth things out for fans.
Strange New Worlds had another solid episode this week. By far the best Star Trek show we’ve had since Voyager. Also a new Stranger Things season just dropped on Netflix, the Orville returns on June 2, and Apple TV+’s awesome “For All Mankind” starts its third season on June 10. There’s some other shows I’ve been meaning to check out too. It’s a great time for sci-fi fans!
Check this cool watch I saw in a Facebook Group post today. It’s a watch but it’s also a TV! This was back in the days of the Sony Watchman.
Unfortunately to get the TV component to work you needed to hook up this walkman size contraption that contained the tuner. But the watch itself was running with a liquid crystal display.
There was even this Casio watch that in the 1980s which not only had a touch screen but could recognize numbers drawn on its face for the calculator function.
This kind of tech was so magical to me as a kid and there never seemed to be an end to all of the cool new innovations coming out of Japan. My Dad traveled to Asia frequently and would always come back with stories of all of the cool tech he saw in the shops.
All Amazon Cloud Cams to stop working in December — Customers will get a free Blink Mini Camera – AFTV News
The Grave Insult of Being Sent the Proper Tools to Perform a Complicated Task (Another Verge miss) – Daring Fireball
7 Ways Uncanny AT&T ‘You Will’ Ad Predicted the Future – Gizmodo
Last week I told you about the impulse buy I made from a local estate auction website called AuctionNinja. I learned of the site from a funeral director friend of mine who often has to help families liquidate collections of the deceased.
I picked up a lot that consisted of a Gameboy with its original box, a half dozen games, a bunch of NES game manuals along with (oddly) a NES RF adapter and a four way multiplayer device. They didn’t pair the manuals up with the games which were all sold in separate lots.
As it turns out the condition of everything (except the Gameboy) is great – especially the original gameboy box. I couldn’t believe how pristine it was. Yes it’s just a box but it’s one of those things that takes you back to being a kid excited to get the latest game console. The condition of it is far better than anything I’ve seen for sale at game stores and conventions.
The Gameboy itself has seen better days. The adhesive for the screen window came off so I’ll need to reattach it. I am also going to need to take a soldering iron to the screen connection to get rid of the vertical lines that appear on screen (a very common problem with the original gameboy). It looks like a fairly easy fix.
Stay tuned for a Gameboy repair livestream! If I can’t fix the display I’ll replace it with a modern IPS one.
But unfortunately this video isn’t doing very well and that makes me sad :(.
It’s funny sometimes these throwback videos do really poorly at first and then at some point the algorithm tests it with a wider audience and it takes off. This one I did about a demo disc on the 3DO had a similar starting point but later took off an accumulated almost 65,000 views:
So check out the video if you’re so inclined to help add a few views 🙂. Thanks as always for your support!
I don’t do much consulting work these days but every once and awhile I help an organization (usually a non-profit) livestream an event or meeting. My approach is to train people in the use of the software and equipment so they can be empowered to go live whenever they need to without the need for additional staffing or expensive consultants.
I’ve found that most organizations don’t need to do something for mass consumption but rather for small to medium sized groups of members, congregants, etc. In those instances Zoom really can’t be beat for that purpose.
Zoom automates a lot of the stuff that can add to complexities on other platforms (especially when it comes to video encoding and audio levels), and it’s very forgiving when there’s a technical hiccup that happens locally or over the Internet. Zoom also has a webinar package that prevents unmuted participants from disrupting meetings. The biggest issues I’ve encountered with it usually involve scheduling meetings and getting the right Zoom links out to participants.
One of the things I recommend for volunteer organizations is that they have one person in charge of the video switching and another in charge of the Zoom (I call them a Zoom operator). The reason is that if they’re not opting for the more expensive Zoom webinar package they need to police the participants and be ready with the mute button! It’s also helpful for that person to monitor the chat for AV issues but also questions coming from the audience.
As far as hardware is concerned I like the following:
The ATEM Mini
I love the ATEM Minis. They are super affordable and amazingly full featured. They come in three flavors with the lowest cost option starting at around $295. They allow for live switching of HDMI video sources along with titling, green screen, overlays, and all sorts of neat stuff. The best part is that once it’s configured it boots up and works the same way every time – all a volunteer needs to do is push buttons.
The ATEM interfaces with a PC via its USB port and the video output shows up as a webcam on the host computer. It plugs right into Zoom and works reliably every time. Can’t beat it.
I’ve done a full series on the ATEM Mini line here.
Cameras
As for cameras there are many options – pretty much anything with an HDMI output will work so often I recommend people start with what they already have. You can also run computers through the ATEM’s HDMI ports to get its output on screen.
For those with a little more money PTZ (pan, tilt zoom) cameras are a great choice. I like cameras from Birddog and PTZ Optics – both offer cameras that can be controlled remotely and support video output via HDMI along with NDI for more advanced video production switchers.
Audio & Microphones
Microphones can be a bit trickier. The ATEM has analog audio inputs so you can plug mics directly into it if your cameras don’t have external mic support.
If you have deep pockets I love the Sennheiser AVX system which is a wireless system that has both handheld and lavalier microphones available. See my full review here. It’s truly a bulletproof system. I’ve used this system for about six years now and have never, ever had a problem with it – even in busy places like CES and other large events.
More recently I looked at the DJI Mic system from the popular drone maker. It’s a wireless microphone system that integrates the mics along with a recorder and wireless transmitter. It’s super simple to use and a low cost alternative to the AVX system.
Going Beyond
I always recommend groups start with the “minimally viable product” and slowly build up their capacity based on need. All too often I see groups budgeting for huge equipment buys that go underutilized. Many groups don’t need a broadcast level production but rather need something that just works to get the word out to their staff, membership, congregants, etc.
When you are ready to take the next step I recommend going with Vmix. It’s a software video production tool that delivers performance on par with super expensive Tricasters at a fraction of the cost. It runs great on gaming laptops for portable productions.
In the photo at the top of this post we were running Vmix on a Lenovo Y740 laptop for a high school graduation stream. We used NDI to bring in three camera feeds into the laptop so we didn’t need to use any capture cards! I detail the whole production here:
No Right or Wrong Way..
The bottom line is there is no right or wrong way to stream something. If it works and your audience gets the information they need you’re good! Starting off in the simplest way possible will grow your confidence, give you some ideas as to how to improve the next stream, and help build your skillset as you progress.
NASA, Boeing Complete Starliner Uncrewed Flight Test to Space Station – NASA
Smashing Pumpkins’ 1988 Appearance on a Public Access TV Show – YouTube
Streaming Was The Star Of This Year’s Upfronts – AdExchanger
The inside story of Chernobyl during the Russian occupation – The Economist
We may be in a period of crazy inflation but we’re starting to see some tech gear that was in demand at the height of the pandemic now getting liquidated as demand tapers off.
Like the Lenovo ChromeOS tablet I reviewed back in January, Acer is unloading their 11 inch Chromebook 311 laptop at a super low price of $99 at Target stores in the USA (affiliate link). It normally sells for around $200.
This Chromebook 311 has an Intel N4000 processor, 4 GB of RAM and a 32GB EMMC for storage. It has a decent enough IPS display running at 1366×768 (essentially 720p) and seems to perform at the upper end of the performance curve vs. its competitors.
The best part of this machine is that it has two full service USB-C ports. It can drive two 4k displays independently at 60hz along with the internal display! Not bad for $100.
In the video we booted up System7.app – a super cool web based emulator of a 68k classic Macintosh running System 7.5. This is the same OS my $1700 Powerbook ran in 1993. It’s crazy to think that adjusting for inflation this significantly more powerful computer would have cost $50 in ’93 – about the price of a Sega Genesis game!
Check out my full review of the laptop here.
