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The Gadget Man – Episode 165 – How to get going with video calls with Rob Dunger from Felixstowe Radio

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Today, I spoke to Rob Dunger on Radio Felixstowe about getting going with video calls using Zoom, Houseparty, Skype, Messenger or Google Meet!

You can listen to the segment via the attached file or read the

Is was great to catch up with Rob after so long!

Matt Porter: [00:00:00] Well, we, we start with, I think familiar, tools that we might already be using. So we’re a Facebook user. We can use messenger and that will allow us to have video chats on a one to one basis. We can also do that in, FaceTime if you have an iPhone or an iPad. But if he wants to talk to more people, then there are other options such as zoom and Houseparty.

[00:00:32] And both of those allow you to have, a number of people in a chat. At the same time, Google also unlocked their, group video chat functionality, which I believe can give up to a hundred people at a time. Into into, into a group chat or a mix. I’m not sure how well that would work.

[00:00:51] Rob Dunger: [00:00:51] I can imagine the

[00:00:53] Matt Porter: [00:00:53] same time.

[00:00:55] Rob Dunger: [00:00:55] Do they have individually advantages and the different zooms and the Skypes and these sort of things?

[00:01:00] Matt Porter: [00:01:00] Yeah, I think, Oh yeah. Skype. For instance, he’s very well known, so it’s a trusted brand in a sense. It’s the same as zoom. Lots of people are talking about zoom at the moment. it’s getting lots of positive press, some negative, but it’s a familiar brand, so people are more likely to trust that it’s a safe place to go.

[00:01:22]so. Yeah. There’s, there’s, there’s good and bad on all of these things. Houseparty I’ve used a little bit. you do have to lock the door on that. Effectively. There’s an option to lock the door to stop people just wandering into a conversation, which I believe you can do on that. I

[00:01:37] Rob Dunger: [00:01:37] didn’t know that.

[00:01:38] Zoom. Zoom is private, isn’t it? Is it just your own, your own group or can anyone join in your

[00:01:43] Matt Porter: [00:01:43] conversation? There was discussions about potentially people can, jumping to conversations. I’m still not entirely clear how they go about doing that sort of malicious way, and I believe that it’s been locked down, but generally you would.

[00:01:59] With zoom, you’d be sent, you know, set your own meeting up and then send out an invite to your, your friends, trusted friends, and then they can use that invitation code to join the meeting. Or even just add them in. if you have them set up those contacts within zoom so you can aggregate group of people that you trust, that you add to a, add to a meeting or to a conversation.

[00:02:21] Rob Dunger: [00:02:21] A lot of people trying this for the first time and they’re, they’re learning by like, I do like making mistakes. For, for novice, what do we need to do? What’s the equipment we need? If they’re just someone, say, a retired person now and they’ve got a computer, what do they need to have?

[00:02:37] Matt Porter: [00:02:37] Ideally, they need to have a relatively modern computer.

[00:02:41] Say the last five or six years old needs to have a web cam. Many laptops or notebook size computers have built in webcams. that can be beneficial because the software will generally. recognize them, from the start so you don’t have to mess around trying to configure things. and you need to have something that could, it’s got the pair of speakers on it.

[00:03:02] Normally, again, laptops, notebook type computers will have speakers on them. Or you can use an iPad or a tablet, because it’s going to have a reason to be decent size screen and decent sound and microphone and everything.

[00:03:14] Rob Dunger: [00:03:14] There’s no special connection you, you need for this, just so it’s just on your ordinary internet connection.

[00:03:19] Matt Porter: [00:03:19] Yeah. When we say ordinary internet connection, I mean, yeah, it’s broad band. you know, reasonably high speed. I think most, most households appear to have this. I know there are some that don’t. but yeah, broadband, 30 megabits per second or something like that would be sufficient to have a video conversation because your video is actually going out to another server and then being served back to you using complicated things so you’re not having like 20 people connecting into your computer or anything.

[00:03:46] It’s all done from a centralized set of servers based on whichever provider is is you’re using.

[00:03:55] Rob Dunger: [00:03:55] But as an ordinary user, we don’t have to be bothered with those things. Do we? With the governance that goes on behind and let you let you boffins do it like that.

[00:04:03] Matt Porter: [00:04:03] Oh, that’s right. I think simplicity is the key.

[00:04:06] And if these things are too complicated, then that’s the stumbling block. People become frustrated and they out of what they’re doing. And I have to be honest, I find that sometimes I use a piece of software. Someone says to me, try and try this out, and I just think, what is going on here? Why is nothing.

[00:04:22] Where it should be. This is really difficult to use and you know, people’s concentration or their patients, especially at a time like we’re going through at the moment, it’s low. So it needs to be simple to set up. Funnily enough, the, the phone and the tablet apps tend to be much easier to use, in my opinion, than the, PC based.

[00:04:43] I think it’s because they’re simplified. From the start anyway, so they can’t get too complicated. So there’s a lot of swiping to the left and right to get options or stuff like that, but it’s fairly easy to use.

[00:04:55] Rob Dunger: [00:04:55] Okay. Take me through like a typical couple. Today in Dover court or in , they’ve got their PC and they want to set up a zoom meeting.

[00:05:02] What do they need to prepare.

[00:05:05] Matt Porter: [00:05:05] I think they need to find somewhere where they’re going to be comfortable, where there’s not going to be glare glare on their screen. And consequently, if there’s glare on the screen, it’s probably going to glare on there. A camera as well, and obscure the other person’s, view of them.

[00:05:25]and also what’s kind of useful is if you’re going to have something like this running, is to try and position. Is the device that you’re going to be looking at sort of as close to head height as possible. otherwise, because you really, you get better results, you get nasal hair picking up somebody’s nose.

[00:05:49]And, and it, and it’s a lot more, and it’s a lot kinder as well. You know, you don’t, even if you don’t have a double chin, if you have, the, the camera too far down, it will extend you those kinds of things as well. So you, you know, this is why you see lots of selfie photographs where they’re holding them up high and looking down.

[00:06:08] It’s because it has that slimming effect on them.

[00:06:11] Rob Dunger: [00:06:11] So if you put your laptop on your table and probably put it on some books and have it higher up, so almost.

[00:06:18] Matt Porter: [00:06:18] Yeah, I mean, if I’m, where I’m sitting at the moment, I’ve got, a like a scanner printer and I could effectively lift my laptop up on top of that and that would lift it up by six inches and give a nice, a nice, pleasant framing of me if I was on a video chat.

[00:06:34] So yeah, just a couple of books, a couple of big books, so it’s nice and stable and that would just lift it up if it’s a, and again, if it’s, if you’re using a device, you don’t have to hold that device in your hand. You can lean it up. Against something, you know, or secure it somewhere so it’s nice and steady and then you can, you’ve got your hands free to, to be comfortable.

[00:06:55] Rob Dunger: [00:06:55] And how far away should it be? I mean, we, we can see a tiny little picture of herself, but often we forget that picture and we forget that. What’s what they’re looking at other people looking at. That’s important, isn’t it? That we look good.

[00:07:07] Matt Porter: [00:07:07] Yeah. If you’re too close, then the camera on these devices going again is going to make you, cause they’re quite wide angle.

[00:07:13] You see going to get a bit of a fishbowl effect if you’re not careful. If you’re too far away, then you’ll get your, your sound is going to be affected as well. So you kind of need to be in a comfortable sort of position. I know maybe a foot two foot away from whatever you’re looking at. Just a. You know, you don’t want to be completely filling the, the frame, but you also don’t want to be so far away that you’re just a little tiny spot on someone’s screen because these chats, systems will have multiple people on the screen at the same time sometimes, and therefore they’ve got to recognize who you are.

[00:07:48] So, yeah, you just got an experiment really, and get comfortable and feel comfortable with what you look like, or it sounds like we’re being super, Obsessed by how we look, but you’ve got to be comfortable if you’re going to do these things because it can be scary to people, you know, when they first start using them.

[00:08:05] Rob Dunger: [00:08:05] When I’m watching interviews on tele, I love looking in the background. That’s important as well, isn’t it? Make sure you tidy up and puts, put certain things away. Don’t leave Matt on show for everybody to see what you’ve got.

[00:08:15] Matt Porter: [00:08:15] This happens to me all the time. I do quite a lot of video stuff where I’m recording myself and I’ll sit there, set myself up and record and get everything set up, and then I’ll suddenly realize that there’s a clothes dryer in the background with a pair of underpants hanging out or something, and you’re suddenly rushing around trying to move everything out of the way.

[00:08:36] So have a think about where you’re going to sit. You can actually, with a lot of these systems, you can actually pick her back. Ground, which it uses a bit of trickery the last it lasts you to get to effectively get out of shot. So we can just see the background and then it takes a kind of picture of the background, and then there’s like a blue screen effect on it so you can put some other background behind you, but that’s, sometimes it doesn’t work at great.

[00:09:02] If you’ve got long hair and things like that, you’re, you can find your hair disappears. And reappears again. but if then you can do that if you want to, if you really want to completely disguise where you are, you can put your own backgrounds in.

[00:09:14] Rob Dunger: [00:09:14] I’ve tried that. I was on the beach last week, and that looked really good, but it’s sounds should be careful as well, because we’re on at the moment.

[00:09:21] I noticed when I was on the air today, I’ve got a really creaky chair and you can hear that. So again. Watch what sounds you’ve got and watch what counts, what a surface you’re working on, because you can hear, you can hear every knock. Got you.

[00:09:32] Matt Porter: [00:09:32] I’ve got exactly the same problem. The chair that I’m sitting on at the moment.

[00:09:35] Every time I move, there’s a nice little Creek.

[00:09:39] Rob Dunger: [00:09:39] so that was back

[00:09:42] Matt Porter: [00:09:42] when it was really, so you know, again about those, some of the things, it’s really about what I tell one of them. Big issues is that when you get into these conversations, I saw it yesterday. I was somehow started watching, a competition where these people had to eat a particular biscuit.

[00:10:02] How  did you say? And, yeah. There was a one guy on there, they did say, can everyone mute their microphones, please? And this one guy hadn’t. And you could hear him, him clattering around in the background. And of course what happens with especially zoom is that it’s triggered by sound and motion. So if you make a noise or if you speak, it gives you the floor, if you like.

[00:10:26] So you become center stage. And because this guy was clattering around quite a bit, he kept. Jumping to him. so yeah, be aware that all the noise you make around your computer is going to be picked up by the microphone.

[00:10:38] Rob Dunger: [00:10:38] It can be quite inappropriate sometimes when you’re watching the church service.

[00:10:42] Matt Porter: [00:10:42] So can you imagine,

[00:10:44] Rob Dunger: [00:10:44] and of course, make sure that.

[00:10:46] Other people in the household know what you’re doing, so they don’t shout out to you, your dinner’s ready or walk, walk in or that. That’s fun as well.

[00:10:52] Matt Porter: [00:10:52] Yes. I was on zoom the other day, which was a blue shot at six other people were in and normally we’d meet up. But this was the first time that they tried to do it remotely and there were grandchildren walking in, in the background asking for a drink.

[00:11:08] There was someone knocking on the door and getting up and all of these kinds of things were going on. And I think we started out with about seven people, and by the end of the meeting, there were about three of us left because everyone else had acted off and do all these other things. So yeah, make sure that you sort of apply yourself or you’re going to go and do it, especially if you’re hosting it, you know?

[00:11:26] Don’t try not to get too distracted.

[00:11:29] Rob Dunger: [00:11:29] It’s fun though, isn’t it? I mean, unless it’s a business beat in which it’s different, but it’s fun and it’s a different way of communicating and it is crucial this time that we have something like this. It

[00:11:39] Matt Porter: [00:11:39] is, it’s incredible where we’re, it’s such a drastic, time in all of our lives.

[00:11:46] We’re so lucky that technology has. In some way saved us from, a much worse fight in as much as we have all this technology, all these ways of doing things that we didn’t have 20 years ago. So we, you know, we can order our food, we can do all of these, I think, and we can communicate with our loved ones, which is really, really important.

[00:12:09] And especially when we’re being honest. Try and distance ourselves from people. Keep socially distance. You know that by being able to have that interaction with our family and friends via video is great. Friend of mine has had quiz nights with his family where they actually set up quiz boards and they all sit in there and asking questions and answering questions.

[00:12:32] It’s incredible how inventive and creative people have become with something that probably wasn’t initially designed for this, for this, this kind of thing. You know, it was intended for business meetings and stuff like that, but actually the family gets together is great,

[00:12:49] Rob Dunger: [00:12:49] and it’s not scary to try the first time, try it with some friends or family or, or maybe some coffee mates to bring them up and say, Oh, to Skype him or zoom and say, should we ever go?

[00:12:57] It’s worth trying, isn’t it? Yeah.

[00:12:59] Matt Porter: [00:12:59] Of course it is. And you know, I was trying out with my dad the other day and he was talking to me and I ended up bringing him on the landline and saying that, you’ve got your microphone muted. Can you just unmute it? Well, we’re doing that then. So I’m trying to talk him through unmute and his microphone so I could hang up on him and him.

[00:13:18]I think it was face-time actually at the time, but yeah, it was fine. You know, if you’re doing it with people that your family and friends and you should be comfortable enough to, to. You know, take, take direction from them and everything like that without feeling daft. And it’s great fun. I know that there’s lots and lots of people involved.

[00:13:36] I, I’ve noticed a lot of church services actually. I’ve started doing zoom, church church services, which I think is great. I did ask my mom the other day, I said, are you standing in the living room singing the hymn? but she didn’t, she just, she thought I was joking.

[00:13:52] Rob Dunger: [00:13:52] Allegations are bigger on the, on the, on the, FaceTime and zoom than ever they had in the church. So it’s just good. It’s a new way.

[00:13:59] Matt Porter: [00:13:59] It is a new way of doing things. And, and we seem to be able to find a way around these difficulties. And that seems, this seems to be one of the amazing things. And it’s also interesting to see how, TV, programs have now started using the same technology and how you can see the.

[00:14:17] They’re used to doing things a particular way and they’re suddenly having to use a new technology. And somehow, sometimes it doesn’t work that well because you don’t get that audience feedback that you would, they would only be used to. Whereas you have the people that are used to using YouTube and most those kinds of platforms all the time, they’re much more comfortable with that whole thing, and then they come across bear.

[00:14:42] So it’s a very interesting time.

[00:14:44] Rob Dunger: [00:14:44] This is only part of what you do. You’re your gadget mad, aren’t you? Absolutely addicted to gadgets.

[00:14:49] Matt Porter: [00:14:49] All kinds of things. Technology and gadgets, everything. Yeah.

[00:14:53] Rob Dunger: [00:14:53] What are you working on at the moment then? What sort of things?

[00:14:56] Matt Porter: [00:14:56] well I’ve, I’ve still got a business to run and I’ve still been doing things relating to that.

[00:15:02] I’ve been lucky that. my customer base hasn’t been terribly affected so far by what’s been going on. So that’s been going on as normal. But I’ve also been doing lots of different pet projects at the moment. I started, a few weeks ago building a website to give people the ability to print signage for social distancing and, and, and information, and it’s all free and things like that.

[00:15:27] And it’s turned out, but, it’s become really, really busy. I’ve got. At any one time I’ve got 10 or 11 people all tying to make their own signs on the website. So, that’s been really, really challenging. And also from just having some, basic posters that I designed myself, now people can go on there and design their own and put their own texts on there and then download it as a PDF, print it and put it on their walls or wherever else they need to.

[00:15:53] So that’s kind of trying to give it back, give something back to. Community and society, you know, rather than, find a way of making money off the back of it, but actually do something that’s creative and good for

[00:16:10] Rob Dunger: [00:16:10] skills that we can learn at this time. It would take for us when we, when we do eventually get better times.

[00:16:15] Matt Porter: [00:16:15] There is, yes, I’ve been bit, I’ve also made some, some gadgets, some, some electronic gadgets and, and built, cameras, which can, do film, film stars and things like that and all kinds of different things I’ve done since. Just because I’ve had the time to do it. I’ve always wanted to have these things, for other reasons.

[00:16:35] But because there’s been so much spare time to be able to sit, and it’s an excuse, you can kind of excuse yourself. So don’t you worry about what there’s lots of people,

[00:16:44] Rob Dunger: [00:16:44] don’t you worry about Australia and on inside your head.

[00:16:48] Matt Porter: [00:16:48] I tell you lots of things. You know, I, the other day I, I, I made a, built a very, very simple website that could, generate.

[00:16:57] 1980s t-shirt slogans like Frankie, say, relax or choose life, but have all the text align correctly and resize in a site there for our evening doing that and and able to do it, you know? And then you can look at the logs to see what other people might be doing and you find out that they are all making their own t-shirt slogans.

[00:17:17] Yeah, it does worry me really why I thought that was an important thing to do, but I’m sure I tried to find an excuse for. Doing that project to solve another problem on something else.

[00:17:27] Rob Dunger: [00:17:27] You better tell people where to find you, then

[00:17:30] Matt Porter: [00:17:30] yes, you can go to the gadget man.org.uk, which is my gadget review site.

[00:17:39] And from there you’ll be able to link to the other websites as well, which is. tshirtslogans.uk and socialdistancingsigns.uk

5G, BBC Radio Suffolk, Blog Post, Coronavirus, Covid-19, Gadget Man, Matt Porter, News, Podcast, Radio, Radio Interview, Security, Technology, Telephones, The Gadget Man, Three, Vodafone

Gadget Man – Episode 164 – Debunking the COVID-19 / 5G Conspiracy Theory

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Yesterday myself and industry expert, Dario Talmesio, Principal Analyst & Practice Leader at Omdia spoke to James Hazell on BBC Radio Suffolk about the COVID-19 / 5G Conspiracy Theory.

You can listen to the stream above or read on to find out more.

5G has been under attack by conspiracy theorists for as long as it has existed. Every conceivable disease, illness or cancer has been blamed on the technology. It has been open-season for several years.

During this time, every single theory has been repeatedly debunked by teams of scientists and experts throughout the world, but still, it prevails.

Enter Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), the highly infectious disease caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) first discovered in December 2019 Wuhan, China.

At the time of publication, COVID-19 has infected more than 1.36 million people in 184 countries. Sadly, resulting in the death of an excess of 76000 people. This virus has become a global killer on a scale not seen since the Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918.

Dario Talmesio
Dario Talmesio Principal Analyst & Practice Leader
Country UK – Image Credit OMDIA

At a time when our highly advanced telecommunications networks are one of the saving graces of the crisis, the last thing we need to hear is that people are beginning to try and link COVID-19 to the building of the 5G network. Worse, there are now acts of vandalism being enacted upon the newly installed equipment, damaging expensive equipment and putting peoples lives at risk.

This damage and continued encouragement from high profile celebrities have resulted in the UK providers issuing a joint letter to customers asking for the damage to stop.

Frankly, I continue to be exasperated by the need for every single thing that happens on our planet to be blamed on technology, government or secret societies! The sooner we knuckle down and work together to defeat this appalling virus in every way we can, the better!

Stay at Home, Protect the NHS and Save Lives

Open Letter to Customers from EE, O2, 3 and Vodafone
Open Letter to Customers from EE, O2, 3 and Vodafone

Don’t forget to LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, SHARE and COMMENT.

See you next time, Stay Safe

Matt

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The Gadget Man – Episode 163 – Improving Broadband Speeds and Setting up Video Calling

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The Coronavirus / Covid-19 crisis continues to affect the entire world. With the newly introduced restrictions of movement of people in the UK, today I spoke to James Hazell at BBC Radio Suffolk about how such a large increase in people at home can affect our Broadband Speeds and what we can do to get the best out of our connections.

In the second half, I talked about how to keep in contact with your family and friends using the likes of FaceTime, Facebook Messenger, Skype and Zoom.

Listen in to the audio stream and let me know what you think?

Don’t forget to like, share, subscribe and most importantly stay safe and healthy

To raise the awareness of social distancing, download our free ready to print A4 or A3 posters by clicking here and remember Social Distancing Saves Lives

Social Distancing Saves Lives
Social Distancing Saves Lives
Anti-Virus, Apps, BBC Radio Suffolk, Blog Post, Coronavirus, Covid-19, Cyber Security, Education, Gadget Man, Internet Security, Interview, James Hazell, Matt Porter, Radio, Radio Interview, Security, Streaming, Technology, The Gadget Man

The Gadget Man – Episode 162 – Working From Home During the Coronavirus / Covid-19 Crisis

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Such are the strange times we live in, many of us now face working from home for the first time along with caring for our children.

I have worked from home extensively over the past 20 years and I thought I would try and share some tips on how I have been able to work effectively in a home environment.

This morning I spoke to James Hazell at BBC Radio Suffolk about the trials and tribulations about working from home. Listen in to the stream to hear what I had to say and especially the advice at the end.

Stay Safe and Healthy

If you have been given a laptop to use at home, then there is a danger that you may find yourself sitting in an armchair trying to work and you will soon find this isn’t going to work well.

  1. Set up a work environment in a spare room or even your bedroom where you can away from disturbances and distractions as best as possible.
  2. Find a comfortable chair and if possible sit near a window so you can get fresh air while you are working.
  3. Set up your computer, so that is a semi-permanent environment and will allow you to separate work from home and give you a place to ‘go to work’
  4. Get dressed, you don’t go to your place of work in your pyjamas, so again, getting dressed gets your prepared for work.
  5. Take plenty of breaks. If you have children at home, you will need to be able to give them attention. If you can set specific times during the day to stop work, get up and walk around and make yourself a drink.
  6. Try to begin and end your work-day as you would if you were going to your place of work. Let your employer know that these are your work times. Setting these boundaries will mean that you aren’t on-call 24/7.
  7. Most home-working requires an internet connection. Over the coming months, our communications links are going to be under a great deal of strain. The video streaming services are going to be used extensively and this will put a great deal of pressure on internet connection speeds. Home internet is very different to work internet due to what’s called ‘contention ratios’, so you should be prepared for slower than normal connection speeds.
  8. Ask your employer to provide you with a mobile device that can be used as a ‘tether’. This means that should traditional broadband experience issues, you can fall back onto connecting to the internet by connecting via a ‘personal mobile hotspot’.
  9. Make sure all of your internet-connected devices are up to date. This means ensuring anti-virus is updated where applicable and any operating systems updates on your computers, set-top boxes, TV’s, IpCams etc are updated
  10. Keep all of your battery-powered devices charged up, but don’t leave mobile phones plugged in all of the time as the batteries don’t work as effectively if they all continuously charged.
  11. Use a trusted VPN connection to secure your broadband connection further. I recommend Ivacy VPN. Using a VPN or Virtual Private Network secures your connection.

Finally, regardless of whether you are working at home or not, you WILL find the number of scam calls you receive will increase, mainly because you will find yourself at home so much more. NEVER give out any personal bank details over the phone including PIN numbers or passwords. Ignore all automated calls and just hang up. These people care little for the health or financial wellbeing of their victims. If in doubt, speak to a trusted friend or member of your family before taking any action that will cost you money.

Stay Well and see you soon!

Matt
www.thegadgetman.org.uk

BBC Radio Suffolk, Blog Post, Internet Security, Matt Porter, Technology, Telephones, The Gadget Man

Gadget Man – Episode 161 – Phantom Calls – Zombie Bots – Hair Straighteners – VAT Free eBooks

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In this week’s Gadget Man, I talk to James Hazell about phantom phone calls when phones are set to silent, Zombie Bot Networks, Dyson Hair Straighteners and VAT is finally removed from eBooks!

You can listen to the stream (above) or play the video (below)

James Hazell: [00:00:00] It’s time. We looked at technology, several things to discuss, not least of which can scammers really make your phone ring when it’s set to silent cause mine just did that is find out more from the gadget guru Matt Porter of Matt thought a web designer. Hi Matt.

Matt Porter: [00:00:23] Hi,

James Hazell: [00:00:24] good to speak to you. As always, my friend.

Now I’ve just read this and I don’t know if it’s true or not, but my phone, Jeff definitely just rang in the middle of an interview and it is set to silent and this particular website says, Oh yes, banners can do that. They can make your phone ring even if it’s on silent. Is that true, Matt?

Matt Porter: [00:00:44] I’ve certainly heard of strange things occurring with phones and things like that.

there are. I think particular codes, which can override these kinds of silent system so that you are contacted if necessary, in an event of an emergency. What happens

James Hazell: [00:01:03] despite it said, yeah, emergency call. but it was just an ordinary number, some, you know, a one, three, three or something. So, you know,

Matt Porter: [00:01:12] interesting.

It’s,

James Hazell: [00:01:13] yeah.

Matt Porter: [00:01:14] It’s similar to the traffic. the traffic alert system on cars that even if you have them switched off, there are certain, instances where they will switch on even if you don’t want them to. So then you can, the idea of being, you can be alerted to something that’s very urgent.

James Hazell: [00:01:30] Well, I guess what we can learn from this is that if your phone rings.

And it’s set to silent and you don’t recognize the number. Then as every Bob possibility could be spat, but then if I go say that people won’t answer the emergency calls, so ignore that advice.

Matt Porter: [00:01:44] Well, this is the problem yet.

James Hazell: [00:01:46] Yeah. Okay. anyway, look, yesterday the budget and that map included a VAT scrap.

On eBooks and newspapers. It’s quite specific that,

Matt Porter: [00:02:00] yeah, this has been something that’s been going on for quite a while where, the, the, I mean there’s, it’s very contentious, the sale of eBooks and things like that, or eat publications. But the fact that we. don’t have to pay VAT. If we buy newspapers, books, journals, magazines, et cetera.

It’s VAT exempt, I believe, but eBooks and eat papers and all of those other things aren’t. This has been, now overturned or, or abolished so that from the 1st of December, we won’t have to pay VAT on our eBooks, magazines, et cetera, which is. A great thing. What it doesn’t cover, unfortunately, is audiobooks.

So you still pay VAT on audiobooks, the nib set. That was disappointing.

James Hazell: [00:02:40] Yeah. They, have, issued a statement to say that they find that very disappointing. Is this, do you think an oversight? Because I, I can’t imagine any politician is going to want to deliberately upset a group of people such as the IB.

Matt Porter: [00:02:55] It, it surely must be an oversight, I guess. and I, I, I listened to audio books all the time. I’m not disabled. However, I’m still having to pay a 20% premium on my audio book that I wouldn’t be if I bought the book from a store. So I think that maybe it needs to be looked at. we’ve got a bit of time before this comes into effect of the 1st of December, so hopefully it will be.

but yeah, I don’t see there’s any difference between, reading something online or reading in a book form. In fact, it’s probably. Less, environmentally damaging to read it online, hopefully.

James Hazell: [00:03:27] Yeah, absolutely. And that’s the basis behind this a VAT Carson environment thing, right? Yeah.

Matt Porter: [00:03:34] Hopefully. Yeah.

Gotcha. Alright.

James Hazell: [00:03:35] from

Matt Porter: [00:03:36] the bedroom

James Hazell: [00:03:37] to the bathroom and specifically hair straighteners and something new from Dyson.

Matt Porter: [00:03:43] Yes. Dyson, wanting to be the forefront of all things, domestic with their vacuum cleaners and all kinds of other things. Hand dryers, they’ve now, announced a cordless hair straightener, which apparently, requires less heat, so it’s less damaging on, on the person’s hair.

And it also. apparently the straighteners are 65 microns thick, which is the width of a human hair. And thus, can effectively, from what I understand, it almost straighten each individual follicule or each individual hair individually so you don’t have to keep going over and over and over and over the hair repeatedly and thus damaging it.

so it’s made from. Ah, goodness me. I did write it. And McEleney manganese, copper alloy. It’s slightly flexible as well, guys. Yeah,

James Hazell: [00:04:32] they, I had no idea how important has straighteners were until quite recently. Actually. I failed to

Matt Porter: [00:04:40] pack them

James Hazell: [00:04:41] and then I said, why or what do you need those for? Put them in the bag now won’t go anywhere without the hair.

Straighteners

Matt Porter: [00:04:48] wow. We live in a, we live in a world where looks and appearance are very important to people. And you know, some people, it helps them with their self confidence. So you can’t really argue against these things. If it makes people feel better, I’m sure they feel delighted to know that this is around 400 pounds less hair straightener but 400 pounds.

Yeah. But conveniently just to lessen that blow. It’s available apparently in dark nickel and fuchsia, or purple and black. So that should make people fill out all the holes. It better make one purchase

James Hazell: [00:05:20] a difference. Vic, would you spend 400 pounds on air? Straighteners.

Matt Porter: [00:05:24] Well, Joe.

James Hazell: [00:05:25] Oh my goodness. She’s thinking about an

Matt Porter: [00:05:28] eight.

James Hazell: [00:05:28] I do have a

Matt Porter: [00:05:30] inexpensive pair of straighteners

James Hazell: [00:05:31] and they’ve lasted me

Matt Porter: [00:05:32] years and they are brilliant.

James Hazell: [00:05:33] So I would consider that what? Consider yes hundred pounds on her splints.

Matt Porter: [00:05:39] Yes, but then I would on my own a flight if that much,

James Hazell: [00:05:42] here’s what’s going to be the problem though, Matt. People are going to be straightening their hair like on the bus and on the tube and things like that.

Only now if they are going to be cordless.

Matt Porter: [00:05:50] Maybe, who knows?

James Hazell: [00:05:52] if they do, I’ll start saving. I’ll start shaving. That’s what I’ll do.

Matt Porter: [00:05:55] Yeah. I may be going to have people having, instead of having the expensive headphones stolen on the tube, they’ll be having their hair straighteners stolen

James Hazell: [00:06:02] out. That’ll be the next crime wave.

Yeah,

Matt Porter: [00:06:04] that’s right. You will not, in no way, even in fact, because the  crime straight

James Hazell: [00:06:13] on a crime, which I’m finally in Microsoft have said they are part all they are responsible. for dismantling a large international network of zombie bots that were causing 9 million computers, problems accessing or facilitating crime.

And goodness knows what is this story man.

Matt Porter: [00:06:37] Yeah. This is a, this is something that’s been apparently eight years in the planning with 35 countries, partners in 35 countries around the world. Basically, there were these, automated systems. A botnet is an automated system that does generally unpleasant things.

In this case, it was finding and registering domain names automatically building websites and then uploading. Infected software onto those websites. The emails would then be sent out to people unsuspected saying, please connect to your X, Y, Zed, and reset your password. They would unwittingly click on those, which would send them to these.

Malicious websites, which would then do things such as steel, identity, gain, access to your bank accounts, and all of those kinds of unpleasant things as stinging passwords, sell you pharmaceuticals and all of that kind of unpleasant stuff. what Microsoft managed to do here was they used an algorithm, which I assume was some kind of artificial intelligence, which could.

In advance, predict the domain names that were going to be registered next and block them before in advance so that people actually couldn’t access them at all, which is really, really good use of technology where you’re blocking stuff before even becomes a problem. And apparently this has resulted in the dismantling of this, this zombie botnet.

So they’ve

James Hazell: [00:08:06] obviously had some success. I do worry though, and Microsoft, I’m by no means alone in this, but their product outlook will frequently put emails from my producer Vick into the spam folder. And you know, there’s, there is a, a balance to be drawn. If we’re too strict with all of this stuff, we end up missing stuff.

Matt Porter: [00:08:27] Yeah. Listen, I, I manage, email delivery for, for dozens and dozens and dozens of customers and many, many times I’m having to contact different providers and not pleading with them, but trying to sort of explain to them that this email shouldn’t be put into spam. That’s billions of emails are sent.

Spam emails are sent on a daily basis, and the fact that these systems are in place that can, you know, we would have, our mailbox is absolutely full with rubbish. Yeah. Well more rubbish to the normal. if the systems weren’t in place and he’s just, you know, you’re chasing your tail because you get these folks positives all the time.

And I get them, I get people, I’m fat. I had a company ring up and berating me saying, why did you delete our email when you asked? You told us we were interested, and I go look in my spam and it’s sitting in there.  absolutely. Yeah.

James Hazell: [00:09:21] That’s right. So

Matt Porter: [00:09:22] that is great news that they’re working against these things.

James Hazell: [00:09:24] The advice, never click on a link unless you are absolutely certain it is a genuinely, right.

Matt Porter: [00:09:30] Yeah. These malicious, you know, there’s popups that come up on websites, anything like that, saying, your computer’s infected, all of those things, please, please, please don’t ever click on any of those links. Don’t ring any of those numbers.

They are not there to help you. They’re there to steal your money and they don’t care a jot about what situation you might be in financially or in health. They just want your money. So don’t click on anything like that. Don’t ring any numbers. Just go to go to the, you know, go to your nearest supplier or something and speak to somebody you trust.

James Hazell: [00:10:02] Matt bought it of Matt bought at web design with the tech update for this week. Might have a great week. Thank you my friend.

Matt Porter: [00:10:08] You too. Thanks.

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Gadget Man – Episode 160 – Apple Settles for $500m – SSL Issues – Boston Dynamics

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This week’s Podcast / Vlog-cast comes from the second floor of Gadget Towers! In this episode, I talk to James Hazell at BBC Radio Suffolk about Apple’s class action settlement regarding the perceived slowing down of older iPhone models.

Running a website with an SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt? Check that you don’t need to request a new one as there has been issues with a large number over the past couple of days.

Boston Dynamics are at it again, this time they have their ever advance automation working in warehouses. Watch the videos after the Vlog to find out more.

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Gadget Man – Episode 159 – James Hazell Mix Tape Part 4 – Two Tribes – Frankie Goes To Hollywood

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This morning was the final of my Mix Tape tracks played by James Hazell on BBC Radio Suffolk. I’ve attached the YouTube playlist yet again below which will play the interview followed by the track.

Two Tribes, by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, is a truly incredible track which absolutely blew the music scene away back in 1984 and launched the band into super-stardom.

“From the railway station in the distance came the sound of shunting trains, ringing and rumbling, softened almost into melody by the distance.” – H. G. Wells – War of the Worlds

 

Transcript of the interview is below.

James Hazell: The mixtape all this week has featured Matt Porter, our very own gadget guy from Matt Porter web design. We’ve been chewing the cud of technology all this week and the fascination with gadgetry and life in the future. Is there one thing, Matt, we talked yesterday about, uh, where the technology may have gone down the wrong route.

Is there one area where you think it might be behind and needs to pick up? The pace of it? Is there. A strand of life that technology

Matt Porter: has yet to improve. I’ve got very poor eye sight to where we’ll go out very thick glasses for years and I now wear contact lenses and therefore when I use things like a virtual reality headset, so when I play with them, unless I’ve got my contact lenses in, I can’t because I’ve got a pair of glasses that get away in all of this sort of stuff.

And it seems like a first world problem. I think that they’ve, there have just been developments made in. Putting displays on building displays into a contact lens, and when that finally becomes mainstream, that would just be amazing. I mean, I’ll wear contact lenses and have anyways on use to put in them in my yard.

James Hazell: It’s odd, isn’t it? Wearing glasses does seem very. Victorian almost way beyond that. We’re still doing it. That can be, I’m not, all right. You can have a call, Tina Mark three air filter over your face like they haven’t stopped. Yeah. Yeah. Apart from that,

Matt Porter: Yeah. I think that it’s, that would be super, but I think that you know, I absolutely love the fact that I could, um, uh, shut my eyes and watch your film.

James Hazell: Um, it feels like it’s a natural extension to the smartphone.

Matt Porter: I mean, I, I was, I had a, a virtual reality headset on. I can a head-up display. I had a hit. I actually had a headset on, um, a couple of years ago, and I was looking for stuff that supported it so you could turn your head around and it would. Turn your head around and it would, um, uh, move accordingly.

And, um, and I was watching these things and YouTube supports it. If you say you’ve got a headset on, it’ll show you stuff. So you can see it will move things around. And I remember sitting there and, um, suddenly. It was a, it was someone doing yoga and I didn’t know what could do with myself and where to put myself because suddenly I’m looking like real.

Yeah. I’m looking at this woman in some strange yoga position and I couldn’t cover my eyes because they were covered by this. Certainly. If it’s done well, you know, it’s fantastic. And yes, so contact lenses with built-in displays would be, that’s the future

James Hazell: Right there. Alright. We’ll wrap up with a set of questions, which we may have borrowed from a certain TV show.

We don’t need to go into that. So, Matt Porter, uh, your all-time favourite word.

Difficult. Yeah. We never tell guests about these questions.

Matt Porter: Um, sarcasm. Sarcasm.

James Hazell: Okay. Your least

Matt Porter: a favorite word or least favourite phrase is “This One”. Really? Yeah. Everybody seems to be putting pictures on social media and saying had a lovely afternoon. People

James Hazell: refer to

Matt Porter: people as this, this one. Yeah.

James Hazell: What would you say was your best

Matt Porter: quality?

I’m very caring. Very caring.

James Hazell: Good for you, and your worst quality.

Matt Porter: Um, I don’t pick up some social cues when it’s time to stop and go. Yeah. So from around someone’s house. Yeah. Don’t get that social cue that it’s now they’re standing there in their pyjamas, within the lights out,

James Hazell: and I’m still

Matt Porter: talking like that.

James Hazell: Uh, ‘Trek or ‘Wars. Careful how you answer.

Matt Porter: Well, isn’t it? Isn’t it? It’s so divisive because they are so entirely different.

James Hazell: They are entirely

Matt Porter: Different because in fairness, Trek is, is utopian.

James Hazell: Trek is a nice place.

Matt Porter: Yes, utopian, clean air, pleasant, a bit more space, that’s why Star Wars is all kind of dirty and used.

So it’s difficult to say, Oh, I’ll say Trek at the moment, because there’s a particular because a Picard’s just come on and it’s nice to see it back.

James Hazell:  You’re right. Yes.  A sound that you love?

Matt Porter: Trains Passing in the Night in the Distance! That’s a great noise! Oh my God!

James Hazell: Always loved the reference in Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds.

Uh, trains, uh, in the distance, softened almost into melody by the disc. that’s a lovely phrase.

Matt Porter: I used to hear the trains at night when I was young and I think I did actually look it up. And apparently it is a ‘thing’, most people find than the sound of trains passing in the night calm.

James Hazell: It is a thing. Yeah. Most surprising.

A sound or noise that you hate. That ‘dong’ that windows used to make when something went wrong.

Matt Porter: The Blue Screen of Death. Yeah.

James Hazell: Uh, and if heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates. Do we need a website?

Matt Porter: No, God. Oh no! That’d be the worst thing! I’m glad you are here. My computer’s got a problem. Yeah., I think, um, uh, you’ve done a great job.

James Hazell: You are a caring guy.

Matt Porter: Welcome and great. Yeah. Yeah. Brilliant. Yeah.

James Hazell: Matt Porter. Great to catch up. And you will know that, again, beyond the show with us talking technology as the weeks go by of Matt Porter Web Design, final song. is an app salute stonker, it’s Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Two Tribes, for what reason, Matt?

Matt Porter: Um, when Frankie Goes to Hollywood, appeared, it was in 1984, 83-84. That time was quite frightening for people. Eh, you know, we have scary now because we’ve, it’s all to do with the doomsday clock, and we’re closer than ever now.

But back then there was a real, uh, it seemed like it could happen. There were broken down relationships between the Soviet Union and the United States. Reagan had just come in and he was quite boisterous at the time. Um, and. It was a scary time. It really felt I think there were a few movies came out, threads the day after they all kind of nuclear war movies, which are quite frightening.

Threads were very, very scary because it was so much more real. Um, so there was this feeling of impending doom that we really didn’t have much time.  summed it up, some great lyrics in it. Um, and. I, it was a tough time around that time for me. You know, I’d have, we had a bereavement. My sister died a year or so before.

And, uh, it was pretty tough going and, and you kind of become involved listening to particular music and really, really enjoying it. So it was kind of a bit of escapism listening to this band. So. It was, and this track, you know, it was one of the first ones to be sort of heavily remixed and different versions.

James Hazell: 4 different mixes?

Matt Porter: Different 12” version, Annihilation, Carnage, Hibakusha and Cassette and things like that.

It was a fantastic, fantastic track. Nine weeks at number one, and I actually speak to, a couple of the members of the band as well now. Yeah. Um. Holly Johnson, not so much now. I used to have a bit of communication with him on Facebook. Brian Nash, the guitarist, he’s a real, real, real nice guy and had a few conversations with him as well.

James Hazell: Interesting. Mark O’Toole. He was another one was

Matt Porter: Mark O’Toole was the bass player. He lives in America. He’s kind of quite out of the public eye now. It doesn’t really have much to do with anything social media.

Paul Rutherford was the backing singer. He lives in New Zealand. Yes, Ped was the drummer who lives in London. I think I’m friends with him on Facebook, but he doesn’t say very much. His son’s quite an avid, surfer.

James Hazell: But back in the day, they all got together with the help of Trevor Horn of course.

Matt Porter: Trevor horn, who

James Hazell: did a remarkable job.

Matt Porter: I went to his house, actually. Yes. So to his house for a Christmas party, 27 years ago. Yeah. So, one of my friends, her uncle. Worked for Stiff Records, right. And stiff was bought by ZTT Records, which was owned by Trevor Horn and Jill Sinclair, they were invited to his Christmas party, which was a place called Hook End Manor in Oxfordshire, right, which was owned by Dave Gilmore, he had just bought it from Dave Gilmore.

James Hazell: You hang about with all the big guys don’t ya!

Matt Porter: They said, we know you’re a great fan. Will you drive us? My friends and her family said, you drive us and you can come along. So, I did. I drove. I drove out, and it was, um, Wendy and Lisa were there from Prince and the Revolution.

Yeah., and Wendy, I think Wendy or no, Lisa Coleman has got a twin, so she was there as well. So there were sort of two Lisa’s and then there was Lol Crème.

James Hazell: They are big mates.

Matt Porter: Stephen Howe from, Yes. Was there, there was a few other people’s, Seal was meant to be there, but he didn’t come. Um, same record label. Of course. Yeah. He was, yeah, he was time. Uh, yeah, it was, it was, it was

James Hazell: It was a great night that was?

Matt Porter: Day. Yeah, a whole day thing. Yeah. Well, playing table tennis in the recording studio and played pool and snooker.

There you go.

James Hazell: Final song from Frankie goes to Hollywood with the genius of Trevor Horn behind it and Matt Porter on the mix tape. Great to speak to you, Matt. We’ll speak soon. Thank you.

 

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Gadget Man – Episode 158 – James Hazell Mix Tape Part 3 – Coldplay – What If?

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“I think that there are great ideas which sometimes are rolled out by the wrong people.”

This morning was the third of my Mix Tape tracks played by James Hazell on BBC Radio Suffolk. I’ve attached the YouTube playlist again below which will play the interview followed by the track.

This is a track which I find I go to when I need to wind down and relax. It’s great reflection music, good to chill out to.

Transcript of the interview follows.

James Hazell: The mixtape. All this week featuring Matt Porter of Matt Porter Web Design our gadget guy, who regularly is on the show talking about technology and the like. We spoke yesterday about, cars and autonomous vehicles and, and changes in our attitude to technology. Matt. It’s everything. Is every advance in technology, in your perspective being a welcome and violence?

Are there routes that we’ve gone down that have not sat come to me with you?

Matt Porter: It’s a very interesting question. Rarely. Yeah, sure. I think that,

James Hazell: right. Obviously medical technology is always to be applauded and you know, any technology, I guess that makes our lives easier. I just don’t know if it’s all been..,

..in the right direction.

Matt Porter: I think that there are great ideas which sometimes are rolled out by the wrong people.

James Hazell: That’s a good response.

Matt Porter: They don’t necessarily understand what the implications of fact technology is or the decisions about which equipment to use may not have been made for the. Right reasons, rather than our thought maybe a financial reason.

So you might not be getting the best results that you could be because of their strengths of budgets and other things. So

James Hazell: You think of the gaming, which is massive in this country, in many countries in the world, the gaming profession, which it is. but many people are now citing that. As the reason behind obesity in children not getting exercise and daylight and friendships.

Would that be an example of where technology has let us down a bit?

Matt Porter: I think so. I think one of the things that. Many of us would agree with that, although they’re all seem to be a double edge sword to everything and smartphone technology, mobile smart technology is an amazing invention. However, the, negativity, negative sides of, there are so many people becoming so antisocial through something that’s meant to make you.

So it’s almost as if you’ve channelled your…

James Hazell: Towards bringing out personal something in us rather than the technology itself

Matt Porter:  into something and like, yeah, so you’re sitting there with a phone stuck against your face, ignoring people whilst talking to somebody else who’s a hundred miles away or a thousand miles away, and it’s actually caused this seems to have caused people to become less social.

People are less happy to pick a phone up and speak to you. They’d rather message you, or they’d rather send a, a text message. And I did actually watch it. It was a  documentary or a piece of a news piece about, the traditional telephone effect that people aren’t using plugged in landline, no, no phones anymore.

And they interviewed people and, and people were, people were saying, well, actually making phone calls makes me anxious, so I’d draw this and now what happened there? You know where I think it

James Hazell: Probably always has. Some people just don’t like going on the telephone and do the button. So if there’s, and I don’t suppose there ever was a real alternative, so they had to do it.

Matt Porter: I think that now there is that telephones are fantastic. Voice communication is fantastic, that you don’t have to have this tech tennis match of emails and texts me example conversation. You can hear somebody how they actually mean something. You don’t have to look at it and try and read into what they’re saying.

And then through

James Hazell: Arguments in the workplace are caused by, so, you know, text, not conveying a smile.

Matt Porter: Communication beats. Exactly.

James Hazell: Yeah. Okay. When you see documentaries about the future and obviously into Sci-Fi stuff, there’s always a dystopian kind of future that we seem to be headed for. Because we become slaves to technology.

Do you think that’ll ever be the case where we become so entwined with it that

Matt Porter: Actually without it, we stop

James Hazell: Functioning as a, as a species?

Matt Porter: I mean, you

James Hazell: Could argue that

Matt Porter: That day is already around you. I was going to say, I think that we, I think we might’ve even passed that tipping point now where we become so reliant on, on this technology that we would struggle

James Hazell: to without,

Matt Porter: without it, that a dangerous place to be.

I think it probably, yes, I think he is. I think

James Hazell: That one CME from the sun, all the power goes off and we’re back to the stone age. Well, that’s very

Matt Porter: True! And we’ve seen that to a smaller extent where you have power cuts and we had a power cut last year and trains stopped running. Everything just stopped running.

Whereas, you know, there was a time when there were power stations running specifically to back up the electricity on the railway and the underground systems in London and things like that. Purely for that reason, that reason. and we had a situation where people just suddenly didn’t know what to do.

And the first. The alternative they had was to be angry and upset and stamp their feet and say, why am I late home now? This is not on. Well, it’s what would happen if there was a, an outage which wasn’t quite as easily read. It didn’t have such an easy remedy as, yeah, it’s a failure in some, protects, it was a test that went wrong and shunned down.

So, yeah. How would people cope without these things? I think we would struggle. I guess

James Hazell: We are the last generation who can remember life before the internet.

Matt Porter: Yeah. So we could

James Hazell: Probably just about, you know, go back to our child. I think, well when we were child children, this is what we did.

Matt Porter: Yeah.

James Hazell: But children now have no idea of life without the internet.

And it just worries me that they’re not such suggesting for one moment that it will ever all go off. But you don’t know. You know, that could be a major, massive fault one day, and all of a sudden. It’s off for a week and you wonder how people are going to cope.

Matt Porter: I always, always think of the Truman show.

Yeah. The film, the Truman show where if anyone hasn’t seen it, where it’s like a giant, almost like a world, a town-sized, version of big brother really isn’t aware whereas someone’s born and grown up in a, in a reality show and doesn’t know they’re in that reality show. But has, I, I think.

Feeling they might be. but the thing that always made me chuckle is at the end of that,  then effectively, it finishes and that’s the end of the show. They switch it off and everybody just carried back to something else. Went back to their normal lot. Alex

James Hazell: Is on the telly. Yeah, exactly. Oh, right. A song choice for this Wednesday.

Matt Coldplay. What if for what reason?

Matt Porter: This is, Interesting one, because I used to take our children to nursery when they were younger, and one day, I particularly liked the album that this distracts on. but I remember dropping them off one day. My wife taking them in and I was standing outside the car and it was quite a sunny day and the doors were open on the car, and then this came on and it kind of grew.

Echoed around the street where we were parking, but it was kind of quite a nice, it was a lovely, lovely song. and this particular verse in that, in this song, which is really thought-provoking, you know, it, it’s one of those songs where you could read into your, something out. You could put something out of your, something that’s happened to you in your life, and maybe draw it out of this song.

“Every step that you take
Could be your biggest mistake
It could bend or it could break
That’s the risk that you take
What if you should decide
That you don’t want me there in your life
That you don’t want me there by your side”

I think it kind of encompasses everything. And my son James has a sleep disorder. bless him, terrible trouble getting him to sleep since he was born and he’s nearly 10. We used to have sleepless nights over and over again. And one of them, if I look at my playlists on, on my phone, I, it shows which track has been played the most.

We used to play music, all kinds of music, but this one, this one’s just this one has been played about 796 times or something to him. it’s a great track. Yeah. “What if?” by Coldplay? Brilliant. Yeah.

 

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Gadget Man Episode 157 – James Hazell Mix Tape Part 2 – Energy 52 – Cafe Del Mar

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This morning was the second of my Mix Tape tracks played by James Hazell on BBC Radio Suffolk. I’ve attached the YouTube playlist again below which will play the interview followed by the track.

This is probably one of my favourite pieces of music ever, I don’t know quite where I first heard it, but it is a very, very, very popular dance track.

I went on holiday with my parents and some friends in Portugal. We had a villa and I brought this CD that someone had lent me, which was free on the front of Ministry Magazine, Hooj Choons.

I took that with me and it was a beautiful Villa and I went in and dragged the stereo system out beside the pool and put this on and had it blasting out sitting by the pool, and it was, it was like being in Ibiza when I was 20. It was fantastic!

Great Tune!

This doesn’t include the abrupt ending broadcast today on air!!

Below is a playlist which includes the track after the interview.

 

 

Electric Car, Electric Vehicles, Gadget Man, Interview, Matt Porter, Technology, The Gadget Man

Gadget Man – Episode 156 – is Society Ready for the Electric Car with Quentin Willson

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Motor manufacturer, Kia, have today released a report detailing two pieces of customer research in November 2019 and January 2020, speaking to 3000 UK residents between 16 and 60 about their views on moving to Electric from Petrol or Diesel cars.

The research revealed that almost half of those interviewed admitted to over-exaggerating their green credentials to family and friends on subjects such as going ‘plastic-free’ and adopting zero-emission vehicles.

It transpired that 65% of parents make green decisions after pressure from their children, with 46% of parents saying they felt pressured by them to go green.

However, only 60% of Brits say they are ready to make the move to fully electric cars.

Image Credit : Quentin Willson
Image Credit: Quentin Willson

This morning, I spoke to motoring expert, Quentin Willson, who has been an electric car advocate for over a decade. He spends time lobbying the government to provide greater incentives to move to zero-emission vehicles and also has led way in getting fairer fuel charges for drivers.

You can listen to the interview in full, by clicking the play button above. You can also read the transcript of the interview below.

Matt Porter: Welcome to The Gadget Man Episode 156 – Is Society Ready to Adopt Electric Cars?

This morning I’m going to be speaking to Quinten Wilson, motoring journalist, TV, presenter and parent, and find out what his views on whether we are ready to adopt electric cars. the first question I have is from Maniel. He is concerned that if he buys an electric car, it will be less eco-friendly than his diesel because of the manner in which the electric motor is manufactured.

Quentin Willson: Well, that’s, that’s kind of nonsense really. and there’s a lot of myths surrounding this and, and the, the key research, pick this up that. People don’t know enough about electric cars, and there’s an informational issue here. But if you’re talking about mining in a democratic Republic of Congo, cobalt and things like that, it’s not brilliant, agreed.  But electric cars are made usually in green factories. With renewable energy, and your, your diesel car will have been made in a factory that it’s power probably, or was prior, probably by coal and, and, and, and very intensive. Then you’ve got to get the diesel out, the ground, the oil out of the ground.

You’ve got to refine it. You’ve got to then ship it. You’ve got to transport it to the station. So. The idea that that, an old diesel or petrol car can be greener than a, an electric car is just nonsense. I mean, the numbers, it worries me that I possess his information. But over 80,000 miles, a petulant diesel car will emit 32.2 tons of CO2.

And, an electric car over the same mileage age, we’ll do 23 tons of Sierra, and that’s before you cost in all the transportation and refining of petrol and diesel. So, sorry, Maniel, it just, doesn’t apply.

Matt Porter: Yeah. He, what he started is, is as, as is quite common, with, with these kinds of forums is he cited a report which is on a, a website, which is difficult to, confirm.

The validity of it. So he’s talking about German, battery manufacturer, which is being powered by coal. but far as I’m aware, Tesla’s plans, for instance, are to build a Giga-factory in Berlin, which I assume will, their aim is to make it, from using renewable energy.

Quentin Willson: Oh, completely. Yeah. And I mean, look, if Elon Musk knows one thing, he knows how important it is, but you can’t replace, pollution and put it in another place by powering electric cars, by coal-fired power stations, that’s impossible.

Then he’s on the absolute Vanguard of all this with the solar and everything. So, it’s interesting though that we’ve got these myths being almost propagated and there is this kind of. Strange. Now fake news thing about electric cars that, you know, you can’t use them in car washes. That’s just so duff and the fact that, you know, the batteries are going to be a toxic hazard for generations to come. Where does this sort of thing come from? And I’m not one for conspiracy theories, but there’s quite a body of, of, of pushback against the whole, the whole industry. And it, it, it does worry me that this stuff still has credence.

Matt Porter: Yeah. Is a concern. I have been driving and testing electric cars, alternative fuel cars for the last five or so years myself. And I find it difficult to understand where these, where this information comes from as well. So, I’m, I’m with you on that. Chris has asked, “Do you think that the technology such as the autopilot type technology is likely to roll out into, electric cars, as a standard in the next, in the next few years, or will it be restricted to high-end models?”

Quentin Willson: I think it’s all about cost and I think, the autopilots OK, but the idea that we’ll all be driving around in autonomous cars, that’s a long way down the road. And that’s what people really think autopilot is, is, is the precursor for even Musk says, it’s at least 10 years away.

I think everybody, I talk to it all the, all the car companies say it’s probably longer, 15 years, and then you’re going to get the idea, the infrastructure worker, you can’t have rubbish signs and, and poor lines on the ground because the LIDAR and the radars have got to kind of pick all this stuff up.

So, I don’t think we’ll see autonomous cars for a long time yet. And I think, you know, your, your autopilots will, they’ll percolate down. Sure. But I don’t think there’ll be as Musk.

Matt Porter: Thank you. Graham has as asked “He lives in a terraced house with no drive or off-road parking. How is he going to be able to reliably charge his car, on a nightly basis if there is nowhere for him to plug into in his own home?”

Quentin Willson: This is a great question, and it concerns 30% of people in the UK. It’s 70% in London. if you haven’t got off-street parking, or garaging, then, you can’t really have an electric car.

So what we need to do, and again, I’ve been pushing hard, with the government for this is EV hubs that you have, in communities, in schools and supermarkets. These rapid charging hubs that people who don’t have the on-street a charging facility can take their car, plug it in for half an hour, 40 minutes, and then it’s ready to go and they can have batteries, large batteries, the size of shipping containers as well. So, you can modify the demands of all this kind of infrastructure technology. It’s there and it, you can, you can string it all together, but we just need the political will. And here’s the thing, the understanding Matt, from government ministers that we need to do this and that for me and, and, and the care research picked us up as well.

The democratization of the electric car, which is so important. We cannot carry on having them as a middle-class plaything where you’ve got your electric car and then you’ve also got Range Rover for long journeys. Everybody must have the right and the ability to drive a zero-emission car. And I’m absolutely adamant on that, and at the moment it’s skewed.

You know, really, to large income earning people. And we need to bring it right down to communities who want to be, you know, zero mission and help the environment.

Matt Porter: Do you think that that could be achieved by, government, grants or more, generous group government grants? I know there was the plugin grant, which was reduced, wasn’t it? Which was a real shame. but do you think, that needs to happen as well, or do you think it’s not affordable by the government to do that?

Quentin Willson: You can’t have it both ways, Matt, you, if you want, you know, this fantastic electric car revolution, then you’ve got to understand that it’s going to cost a lot, and we may be talking about in hundreds of billions.

Matt Porter: A bridge from Scotland to Ireland perhaps?

Quentin Willson: Yeah. Maybe two!

What we want to certainty the public wants certainty. Comment of fractures wants certainty. I want certainty. I want to know that they are going to build an infrastructure fit for the 21st century. That is future proof for the bigger, larger car batteries that are coming. A 100 kilowatt, 150 maybe even 200-kilowatt batteries and they aren’t marooned with this kind of poor thinking. The biggest problem I have with, with the government is that not enough people drive electric cars. I’ve been in a House of Commons, meeting in the House of Lords when I said, “Right, okay, how many people here actually drive an electric car?” And there’s nobody. It’s just, you know, me and a little Baroness, who, who’s always in the slow lane because she’s afraid of running out of juice!

So. I get that understanding is so important and Kia have really flagged this up in this research, which is 3000 people and it’s robust that, you know, we are anxious about this and we do want to have much more certainty and security from the government and they’re giving us these cliff edges. Choices, you know, no more new cars, petrol, new vans, or, or, or diesel cars by 2035 or maybe even 2032 will give us an option, you know, give us, give us a reason to change our behaviour and then we will.

But the two most significant things in this survey are. Your fear of not having an infrastructure and your fear of running out of batteries. So that proves that despite all the virtue signalling, the government has to do better than this

Matt Porter: There also seems to be, from what I can gather from again, from my questions, is a lack of understanding about what this switchover will be, that people.

I get the impression people tend to think that they’re going to have to suddenly stop driving their existing cars on a particular date. When the, if you like, the band comes in into, In into, into policy. And it, you know, even though when I’ve explained that no, you can carry on keeping your own car.

And then we also have people that are saying, but it’s surely going to drive the price of petrol up. It’s going to be expensive for us to keep our existing cars at that point, but too expensive to buy new ones. So we’re stuck in a rock and a hard place. So there is this kind of the whole mix of concerns.

Quentin Willson: And it’s not being properly explained to people.

Absolutely. Right! The ban, and here, let’s do this for the record, Matt. The ban concerns new Vans and cars powered by diesel and petrol after 2035 or earlier 2032 you will still be able to drive your petrol and diesel car. Nobody’s going to stop you. There may be an increase in fuel due to discourage use, but then that’s another thing I do with my “fair fuel” campaign and that that affects the cost of living and we need to keep the cost of living right down. The thing that worries me is that the government have said that they are not going to permit the sale of hybrids after that cutoff date. And I think that’s wrong-headed, but, what, what do I know?

So, people must feel that, you know, they don’t have to stop driving their cars, that you will be using these petrol and diesel cars for decades to come. Probably. and you may even see a spike in their values. Who knows? Electric car values have certainly gone up secondhand ones because of demand.

Matt Porter: The certainly seem to retain their value.

Quentin Willson: Absolutely. You look at some of the market-leading ones, and they’re up 17% in January, I think. 24% in February so far. So yeah and there’s another myth that they cost more. than petrol and petrol and diesel.

Cause actually if you factor in all the tax breaks, the benefit in kind the fact that you, if you’re a company, you can claim 100% of the cost back against the corporation tax and profits, and salary sacrifice, then the money you’ll save on fuel and, and servicing. I think we passed a watershed moment where an electric car could even be cheaper than a petrol or diesel car. Nobody’s really done the sums cause of that depreciation thing that the way you see these cars hanging on to their value and the replacement cycles are much, much longer. You keep your electric car for four, five, six, seven, eight, nine years. then I think it’s really interesting, some to have done if you look at currently.

Matt Porter: one thing is that my wife, Highlighted to me was that with hybrid cars, that there seems to be this whole mix of hybrids that are now being promoted. So, we have mild hybrids, Plugin hybrids, Self-charging hybrids. Do you not think that in some way that might confuse people that, okay, I want to buy a hybrid in there in the short term, or lease a hybrid, but, hang on a second, I’m being told that there are a whole number of different hybrids that I can have. do you think that that makes it slightly unclear to people when they look into buying a car that, are they buying the right kind of hybrid?

Quentin Willson: Absolutely you’re right, people don’t understand enough and you know, the point of sale of where you buy your electric car isn’t the right place.

Usually, the salesman wants to sell you a diesel. So, we, we really do need, as a society and as a government to start communicating these messages better and getting people to understand which is the best, the best car for you. And everybody’s needs are different and there is no charging infrastructure in certain areas.

So why would you buy a battery-powered car or buy a hybrid? And that makes perfect sense. But getting this stuff across, I think he’s really important. And yeah. Here’s the irony. Kids seem to know much more about this than parents. They really, in this research there, they are, they at the if you’ll pardon the pun, the drivers behind this, this, this moment of change.

And, and parents are reacting to the pressure from their kids. And I get it from mine. that, you know, you’ve got to do something and you’ve got to be as green as possible. And then in a way, that’s that. That’s great. Really, because it comes from innocence and our generation have kind of used up the resources of the world.

So profligately. And, and, and these kids want to change it all. And that’s, I think, a great social force that we mustn’t ignore.

Matt Porter: That’s right. there was one final question I mustn’t miss, which is important to most people, which is, Grant has asked me, “So if we all move to electric cars, how on earth will the infrastructure cope with the demand for electricity?”

Quentin Willson: Well, I, I’ve spoken to the National Grid at length about this because it’s an obvious question. and they say, when you get to say 50% penetration, we will still be okay because we will have grid management. And don’t forget that there are offshore, wind is now. Renewables is probably 55% of electricity generation.

You will need to, rebuild what is known as the ‘local circuits’, which are the wires that come into your house and into your lamppost on the streets. And that’s going cost quite a bit. That’s going to cost about 4 billion quid because they will need to take much more power. They will be able to generate enough because if we spend enough to, to, to have more renewables, more offshore, and a couple more, nuclear power stations, yes, but that’s kind of a long way off.

100% EV utilisation may never happen. Matt, it’s going to be a slow transition just because it is. and I see 30, 40, 50% by maybe 2040 and then as we get to 2050 zero-carbon, you might get 60 70% EV penetration. It just depends how we roll up the infrastructure, but everybody in the electricity generating industry and their district network operators say that we can cope if we kind of just regenerate some of the old wiring, the old substations.

Matt Porter: I think that is really important as well for people to understand, that the responsibility rests on our shoulders as much as it does, government shoulders and the, you know, if by simply looking at installing a solar panels on our homes and battery storage in our homes as well there where we can hold, we can re, we can charge three, we can hold our own power, to charge our vehicles ourselves. Or we can run our households. We’re not putting the strain on the grid at these high peak times ourselves because we’re storing energy ourselves. I think that’s a really big thing that people need to start thinking about is it’s battery storage really in their homes and solar energy.

Quentin Willson: Oh, I agree. My 21-year-old son, he never stops talking about it and showing me pictures of battery walls and, and the fact that we can, we can be completely independent of the utility companies that the big villains. And I think that’s absolutely right. And they’re all people who have these battery walls and the solar and are, are just, you know, completely pairing their house and their car on renewable energy and, Whoa, that’s just such a great goal.

Matt Porter: Quentin, thanks ever so much for your time this morning. It’s extremely interesting and I know my listeners will be happy to hear those answers and yeah, thanks ever so much for your time.

Quentin Willson: Pleasure Matt.

Matt Porter: So that was Quentin Wilson giving us his views on the impending adoption of the electric car in the next 15 years.

So, until next time, this is Matt Porter, The Gadget Man signing off.