PTJ 162 News: Surface to Air

Now it’s Microsoft’s turn on stage! The company held a big press event on Tuesday here in New York City and showed off a great big pile of new devices all designed to run its Windows 10 operating system. There was the Surface Book, a laptop/tablet combo that starts at $1500, the Surface Pro 4 tablet with an $900 entry-level model, three new Lumia phones, and the second version of its fitness tracker called Microsoft Band 2 for $250. The Xbox One console got a Windows 10 update and Microsoft announced the HoloLens Development Edition because HoloLens headsets will start shipping out the first quarter of 2016 for $3000 each. So, who on your gift list wants Windows 10 this holiday season?

Roku was also out with The New this week and introduced  the Roku 4 set-top box, which can handle 4K video along with the now-standard voice search and gaming. Roku also has apps for Android, iOS and Windows Phone to let you command the box from your mobile device. The Roku 4 is expected to ship October 21.

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Also fresh for the fall fashion season: Google has officially released Android 6.0 Marshmallow and is pushing out updates to recent Nexus devices. Google also updated the YouTube app for iOS with its Material Design look and tools for editing videos within the app itself, many users do not like the redesign. Not at all.

Meanwhile, over in Cupertino, Apple has purchased Perceptio, a company developing technology for artificial intelligence software for smartphones.  The Perceptio purchase goes with another recent purchase, the start-up VocalIQ, and company which makes software for processing natural language. Siri may be getting a brain transplant soon.

In Apple’s own software, the company says it has now resolved problems with the App Thinning feature promised in iOS 9 and has included it in the recent iOS 9.0.2 update. Apple has also made its keynote addresses searchable by keyword, if you search for a feature announcement by keyword.

Reddit has spun off a new site called Upvoted. The new site features some of the same content as its mother board, but none of the user comments, which are thought to. er, drive advertisers away from the main site.

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Facebook, which has discussed drones and other various ways to bring the Internet to places that don’t have access, announced this week that it would be launching a satellite with a French communications company to bring the Internet to mobile phones over large parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Facebook, your eye in the sky now, too.

The European Union Court of Justice has smacked down a deal that let companies transfer personal user data from Europe to the United States with the Safe Harbor system. The EU court ruled the system invalid because it subjects users in the European Union to spying by US government agencies.

And finally, we’ve recently talked about vinyl making a comeback, but now audio cassettes seem to be having a smaller, but similarly nostalgic return these past few years. Some people have stubbornly held on to the format for decades despite CDs and digital downloads. Cassettes peaked in the late 1980s from almost a billion units. But by 2001, they accounted for only 4 percent of all music sales and by 2005, sales had fallen to fewer than 1 million. National Audio Company of Springfield, Missouri, still makes pre-recorded and blank cassettes and sold 10 million of them last year, with sales up 20 percent this year. Do we think this might be a Guardians of the Galaxy effect? Are cassette lovers just . . . hooked on a feeling?

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(Hopefully) Helpful Hint: Lock It Down

Operating systems and websites have gotten increasingly nosy cover the past few years — dipping into your contacts, peeking at your email, tracking your location and that sort of thing. While the increased personalization can be helpful for virtual assistant software, some people just don’t want their address books rifled through, or targeted local ads following them around the Web. If you side with the latter, it’s time to dive into your privacy settings and tighten things up.

Microsoft has been taking a lot of heat over privacy concerns in its Windows 10 system the past few months, and the company even made a statement on its blog recently. Microsoft, however,  is far from the only one diving into your data, though: Google, Apple and Facebook have all had their own privacy flaps over the years.

By default, the Windows 10 system settings are all up in your business — especially if you used the Express option during setup — but you can go back in later and  change your settings. Keep in mind, icing your info may hinder Cortana or your Bing results, but it’s your decision. Like most major companies, Microsoft has its privacy policy posted on its site, along with a privacy FAQ page and details about privacy within certain functions of Windows 10, like text input or using Cortana.

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Google has several services you may already use, like Gmail and YouTube, so check out the Big G’s privacy policy, your Google account settings and the site’s security tools.

As for Apple, check out the company’s privacy policy and fine-tune your settings in OS X and iOS as you see fit.

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And Facebook, perhaps the King of User Privacy Freakouts, has its own Data Policy posted online. The site also has a Privacy Basics guide to make sure you can control what you share with other people, if not Facebook itself.

Oh, and Happy National Cyber Security Awareness Month!

PTJ 161: Apple Watchers

Technologist Don Donofrio stops by this week with a review of the new iPhone 6s Plus and some insights on life with an Apple Watch. (And check out the articles he mentions on both the iPhone’s evolving camera and Sherry Turkle’s recent essay about face-to-face conversation in a smartphone world.) Apple put out a press release this week saying it sold 13 million new iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus phones in the first three days of sales, so hopefully some people were having meaningful conversations while waiting in line at the Apple Store.

And here’s one tip, even if you still have an older phone — but upgraded to iOS 9. Many tech sites around the web suggest that you turn off the Wi-Fi Assist option in your iPhone’s settings unless you have the cherished old unlimited data plan. The setting, which is on by default and lets the phone automatically jump to a cellular network if your Wi-Fi signal is lousy, was driving up mobile data bills for many unsuspecting people with capped data plans. The Wi-Fi Assist toggle is down at the very bottom of the Cellular settings on your iPhone, and owners of cellular iPads with monthly data plans may want to flip off Wi-Fi Assist as well. If you do have the unlimited data plan — burn, baby, burn!