Tag Archives: streaming video

PTJ 354: Infrastructure, Weak

This month’s Colonial Pipeline hack, the massive bot farm lurking on Facebook last fall and Amazon’s constant battle with counterfeit products illustrate the huge vulnerabilities that exist in many U.S. companies as the world grows ever more digital. But in cheerier news, El Kaiser and J.D. also discuss the country’s broadband connectivity fund to help narrow the digital divide and kweliTV, a streaming service that highlights authentic Black stories. El Kaiser also shares his views on Marvel’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and a new Android tablet from Samsung. Come join us here on PTJ 354!

PTJ 304: Singing Backup

On this week’s episode, El Kaiser and J.D. work through the recent headlines — the good, the bad and the completely horrible — and offer a few tips for backing up personal content you’ve posted on social media. Because it’s not like any of those free services can be trusted to DO IT FOR YOU. Spin up PTJ 304 right here!

Public Service Announcement: Protect Your Social Media Content

PTJ 292: Know When to Hold ‘Em, Know When to Fold ‘Em

Smartphones that open up into mini-tablets are on the way, thanks to several companies gearing up to expand the traditional rectangular slab into new form factors. Samsung had a big event to introduce its bendy Galaxy X, even though a smaller company called Royole jumped out in front of the pack with its own FlexiPai device a few weeks ago. El Kaiser and J.D. discuss this new look for phones, as well as East Coast expansion efforts by Google and Amazon, and other news of the week. J.D. also explains what those “waterproof” and “water-resistant” ratings for mobile devices really mean. Press the Play button to unfold Episode 292 of Pop Tech Jam!

Links to Stories Discussed on This Week’s Show

Just How “Waterproof” Is Your Phone?

PTJ 289: October Surprises

Apple possibly giving away stuff for free! A Windows 10 update that ate people’s files! Crackdowns on cyberbullying and political spam on social media! Some surprises are better than others, but then there were things that were NO surprise, like Facebook trying to hoover out even more personal data from users. El Kaiser and J.D. discuss it all, as well as a recent guide to deleting some of your social media accounts for good. Come on in from the cold and have a listen to PTJ 289!

Links to Stories Discussed on This Week’s Episode

How to Delete Facebook

PTJ 280: Purge Surge

Several companies have now stepped up the fight against fake news — most noticeably, Twitter, as the service finally began to delete fake accounts and return follower totals back to the realm of real people. El Kaiser and J.D. discuss the efforts, as well as the state of streaming television, Apple’s latest updates and the things one can find for sale on the Dark Net. In a (Hopefully) Helpful Hint, J.D. has some tips for how to stay charged up when traveling. All aboard Episode 280!

Links to Stories Discussed on This Week’s Show

(Hopefully) Helpful Hint: Power to Go

PTJ 268: Rock ‘Em, Shock ‘Em

El Kaiser and J.D. return from Spring Break and head right into the news of the week, which includes Spotify’s initial public offering, an iPad update from Apple, background information on the latest credit-card hack and this year’s collection of April Fools jokes by corporate America. J.D. also takes a look at the revamped version of Mozilla Firefox — and new changes on the way to make it a “mixed reality” browser. Come join us for Episode 268!

Links to Stories Discussed in This Week’s Episode

Firefox Rising

PTJ 262: Waiting In the Sky

The Space Race is back on — and Elon Musk’s own cherry-red Tesla Roadster is the pace car of the 21st century, having been shot into orbit around the sun by its owner. This week, El Kaiser and J.D. discuss the SpaceX test flight of the Falcon Heavy rocket on February 6th, 2018; check out the video below if you missed the Roadster-flinging launch. Elsewhere in the show, El Kaiser shares his opinion about the idea of R-rated a Star Wars movie and J.D. offers tips on how to find online streaming videos with overdubbed audio descriptions for the blind and those with limited vision. For all this — plus a roundup of the week’s tech news — just blast off Episode 262!

Links to Stories on This Week’s Show

Technology + Accessibility

PTJ 254: Charge!

Net neutrality is on the ropes, Twitter is yanking back some of those Blue Badges of Verification, Project Loon is bringing Internet connectivity back to parts of Puerto Rico and Amazon’s cashier-replacement software is getting better. El Kaiser and J.D. ponder these stories and the rest of the week’s tech news. And don’t you just hate it when your laptop battery won’t old a charge anymore — or has conked out completely? This week’s (Hopefully) Helpful Hint discusses how to monitor your battery health and how to replace that power cell when the time comes. Episode 254 is just a click away!

(Hopefully) Helpful Hint

PTJ 233: Tweet TV

Twitter continues its experiments with live streaming video, Facebook is handing out coupons, there’s a new flavor of Windows 10 coming to town — and also maybe an Apple-branded talking Siri speaker on the way. El Kaiser and J.D. discuss it all on this week’s episode, while throwing a Tech Term and a (Hopefully) Helpful Hint into this week’s mix as well. Join us!

Links to Stories in This Week’s News Segment

PTJ 201 News: Video Killed the Telephone Call

Google released its previously announced Duo video-calling software this week. Like Microsoft’s Skype app and Facebook Messenger, Duo allows cross-platform video calls between Android and iOS phones. Some have called it No-Frills FaceTime — but with an Android version. However, as of now, Duo users cannot use the spiffy new app to connect to other Google communications software like Hangouts. And speaking of Hangouts, Google is dumping the live-streaming version of it, Google+ Hangouts On Air, on September 12. If you want to live-stream your video on a Google product, so on over to YouTube Live.

In other Google news, the company’s Politics blog has been updated with all kinds of links and information for those who want to participate in this November’s US Presidential election. As the post states, “Whether you’re a first-time voter, a resident in a new state, or your state laws have changed since the last time you voted, you can now come to Google for information on how to vote in the upcoming election.”

gogolevote

Spotify is changing the notion of what a children’s audio category might be with the relaunch of its Kids category. Instead of the usual children’s music jukebox, the service includes playlists that highlight language-development activities and vocabulary-building.

Twitter, like Facebook, is wading deeper into the live streams with its National Football League deal that will have the service showing its first game on September 15th, but as Mike Isaac writes in The New York Times, the bird-themed microblogging service is talking to Apple about making a Twitter app for the Apple TV set-top box. Twitter also announced this week that it was introducing custom stickers that companies can create on their own to promote their brands. Uh, Pepsimoji, anyone?

If you’ve been waiting for that Oculus Rift edition of Minecraft to arrive, your wait is coming to an end. Microsoft announced this week that it had released a free update to its Minecraft Windows 10 Edition Beta that flips on the VR switch for Oculus users. The Redmond giant is teaming up with Intel to create a virtual reality headset that will work with compatible Windows 10 PCs running the Windows Holographic software scheduled for release next year. Get ready to hear the phrase “mixed reality” a lot.

Hackers gonna hack and sometimes, they’re gonna hack each other, as the security firm Sophos has noted. A blog post on the company site details how some cybercriminals are selling malware to other online crooks  — and the merch is actually malware itself.

And TechCrunch has a big story this week about how a hacking group called The Shadow Brokers have raided a staging server and stolen malware possibly connected to the National Security Agency.  Because of course he has, fugitive former NSA employee Edward Snowden has chimed in on Twitter.

LinkedIn has had just about enough of people who use bots to scrape user profiles from their site. The Microsoft-owned site has now filed lawsuits against 100 individual bot wranglers for illegal data harvesting, citing the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

And finally, let us pause to consider a Pizza ATM. Yes, a machine that dispenses a fresh, fully cooked pizza whenever you want one. Xavier University in Cincinnati has indeed installed what it claims is America’s first hot pizza vending machine in the lobby of one of its dorms.  America, heck yeah!