Amazon Strangely taking pre-orders for the 2020 Chromecast in the U.S. – AFTVNews
Hackers are actively exploiting BIG-IP vulnerability with a 9.8 severity rating – Ars Technica
White House says 20 internet companies will provide effectively free internet to millions of Americans – Yahoo News
U.S. Podcast Ad Revenue to Top $2 Billion in 2022, IAB/PwC Study Predicts – Variety
Xbox is recovering after the second of two outages this weekend – Engadget
Gear from Netgear, Linksys, and 200 others has unpatched DNS poisoning flaw – Ars Technica
Doom 32X ‘Resurrection’ v2.0 Update – RetroRGB
NesUEFI – A bootable NES Emulator running on UEFI – Github
Why Saudi Prince Alwaleed Reversed Course on Elon Musk’s Twitter Bid – Bloomberg
Dear Apple,
Please hurry up. My travel laptop is definitely feeling a bit long in the tooth. The M1 would be awesome in this form factor!
Wii Sports was always popular in my house. It was a perfect pack-in title for a system that had a very unique control mechanism and it was the only motion control game that really worked for me. Motion controls felt very gimmicky in the other Wii titles.
Nintendo updated the game for the Switch and changed its name to “Switch Sports” (Affiliate link). The new game (at the moment) includes soccer, tennis, badminton, volleyball, Chambara (stick fighting) and bowling. My kids enjoyed most of the sports in the game and it kept us occupied during a rainy afternoon. They will be adding golf and possibly another sport with some free updates in the near future.
Will Sports bowling was one of my favorites on that original console and the new version is just as good. What makes it better than the original is an online mode that pits you against 15 other players. I won my first match as evident in the post image!
Unfortunately to get a four player experience you’ll need to buy another two joy cons (which means more accessory sales for Nintendo). Soccer requires two game cons for each player plus a leg strap for kicking.
I love RSS. It is an important underpinning of the web that a lot of folks don’t even know is there. I’ve recently updated my RSS workflow and it has made content consumption both for work and entertainment immensely more efficient.
I use the Bazqux reader to do that consolidation. It requires an annual fee but it most certainly pays for itself in the efficiency it brings me every day. There are a number of open source options that provide similar functionality. One of the cool things Bazqux does is that it will bring in Twitter, Facebook, and Telegram content the same way it brings in RSS – and then it’ll allow you to create RSS feeds from those sources!
I just added a static page to the blog where you can subscribe to my RSS feeds individually or a master one that incorporates all sources. You learn more about how I’m using RSS here.
Buy one on Amazon: (compensated affiliate link) – Anker’s new Cosmos Laser projectors look great but are very pricey. There is, however, a narrow use case that this projector will work well for which is why I bought it.
I ended up getting a great deal on it. I preordered the 1080p version on their Kickstarter page a few months ago following its announcement at CES. When it showed up about two weeks ago they accidentally sent me the 4k version! Whoops!
Why I bought it: I always find myself in need of a projector for presentations & video playback for some of the things I volunteer with locally. I’m also the guy people call when they need a projector for whatever it is they are doing.
I have been using an old Acer that runs with a halogen lamp. It’s as bright as this laser projector but it runs at a low resolution and its halogen lamp is probably not long for this world.
So for my purposes this is an excellent replacement. It works great in a fully lit room, has an awesome set of speakers, and is relatively portable and easy to set up. The Android TV experience is the best I’ve seen on a projector to date. It better be for its price!
See the review here and find all of my projector reviews here.
Crazy video of a car chase scene from a helicopter being filmed for an upcoming Michael Bay Film – Facebook Reels
How millions of Russians are tearing holes in the Digital Iron Curtain – Washington Post
Every ISP in the US has been ordered to block three pirate streaming services – Ars Technica
The Future of Space Tourism Is Now. Well, Not Quite. – NYtimes
This is such a fun analysis of a great song courtesy of the The Charismatic Voice on YouTube. When a familiar song is analyzed by an expert you get a whole new perspective on the music. It’s almost like hearing it for the first time.
SpaceX engineer and mission commentator Kate Tice reports that a dolphin was swimming around the recovery crews following the splashdown of NASA’s Crew 3 mission.
The team told me later this was just a dolphin… but I still won’t be taking a night swim anytime soon 😅🐬 https://t.co/c3opHILXMw
— kate_tice (@kate_tice) May 7, 2022
Hope you all had a good week and are looking forward to the weekend. My little ones (6 & 9) have birthdays this weekend. They are 3 years and a day apart so we’ll be celebrating those today and then mother’s day on Sunday. I’m also going to sneak in a little work to get ahead on next week as I’ll be traveling to a few press events in NYC.
Monday’s wrapup will be about centralizing my written words around a blog vs. other platforms. I’ll also be reviewing the Sensibo Air (compensated affiliate link) which is a really simple smart thermostat & controller for remote control enabled air conditioning and split systems.
I’ll have my review of the Nebula Cosmos Laser Projector 4k up tonight!
Stay tuned!
I picked up an RTL-SDR (affiliate link) Software Defined Radio dongle recently and have been having a blast with it. You can see my adventures so far with it here.
My most recent project is to discover and decode all of the digital signals transmitting through the air around me. I looked at lot of different things like the FT8 weak signal protocol, POCSAG pager decoding, and packet radio to name a few.
A viewer tipped me off to another digital signal to look for which is the Shortwave Radiogram broadcast that transmits a few days a week on shortwave frequencies. It consists of a 30 minute broadcast that transmits text and small images. Part of the challenge is to keep the signal strong enough to decode it! You can see what it looks like thanks to “Shacking Off” on YouTube.
More information can be found at the SW Radiogram website. They also have links to recordings so you can practice ahead of the next broadcast.
There’s a whole community around this too. Check out their Facebook group.
I am almost done studying for my HAM radio technician license. Just need a few more days to run through the practice exams. Stay tuned!
I watched the new Star Trek show Strange New Worlds last night. Loved it. Sometimes you don’t have to reinvent or “reboot” a franchise. Just present it in a familiar way and update the special effects.
New High Resolution Scan of “Extraordinary” UAP Image – UAP Media UK
Everything You Need to Know About Apple’s Self Service Repair Program for iPhones – Macrumors
Mercury’s Comet-like Tail – Space Weather Archive
Teslas using Autopilot are eight times less likely to be in an accident – Teslarati
Goodwill Sold a Bust for $34.99. It’s an Ancient Roman Relic – NYTimes
Frontier Ordered to Pay Millions After Internet Speed Allegations – NBC Connecticut
I preordered the Anker Nebula Cosmos Laser Projector when they rolled it out on Kickstarter. I ordered the less expensive 1080p version but it looks like they mistakenly sent me the 4k version! Here’s a link to the video.
My current projector that I use for presentations is almost 11 years old and was only 720p so I wanted something with comparable brightness that offered higher resolutions.
I am putting together a full review but in the meantime you can watch an unboxing and first impressions on the Extra’s channel. The visual quality is remarkable but it’s very pricey.
Epic’s Fortnite Now Free To Play on Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming for Mobile, Desktop, Console – CNET
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is either good or it’s just so comforting that I don’t care – Ars
Tech’s new season of shrinking – Axios
Intec GBA HDMI – Another Laggy Mess – RetroRGB
Testing Out Apple’s Self Repair Program With an iPhone 12 Mini Battery Fix – Macrumors
YouTube continues to have bot/imposter problems. Got recommended this fake SpaceX feed this morning. I wonder how many of the 2,200 watching are real or rather bait for the algorithm.
Buy one on Amazon (compensated affiliate link) – Radon is a dangerous radioactive gas that is the second leading source of lung cancer in the United States. The Airthings Wave Plus can detect Radon levels in a home over long periods of time and measures other air quality metrics.
What was interesting when we did the livestream unboxing the other day was how many people were not aware of the dangers of radon gas in their home. I had to put in a mitigation system when I bought my home to bring the numbers down.
See more smart home videos – http://lon.tv/iot
Meta announces massive hiring freeze, blames Apple for revenue slowdown – iMore
TurboTax forced to stop misleading “free, free, free” ads and pay back $141M – Ars Technica
Cameo lays off close to 90, including senior executives – Protocol
Florida Flights Face Worst Delays in Years Thanks to Private Jets and Space Launches – Yahoo News
New Obi Wan Series Trailer! – YouTube
Elon Musk Invited to Discuss Twitter Buyout With U.K. Parliamentary Committee – Variety
Humans Behind Search: Meet Matt – Google Blog
RetroRGB Roundup #303 – RetroRGB
According to AFTVNews.com Amazon is experimenting with a new dynamic advertising method that allows for CGI product placement.
That means a bowl of Skittles for one viewer could appear as a bowl of M&M’s for another. It also allows product placement to be an ongoing source of revenue for Amazon vs. a one shot “baked in” advertising opportunity.
Yikes! I’ll be talking more about this in my video when I review the AirThings Wave radon detector.
