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Fantastic to be back on BBC Radio Suffolk this week, even more special that I was invited to James Hazell’s home for a very special outside broadcast, where we talked about effectively working from home and I got to play Star Trek Pinball!!
Thanks to James and Isaac for the invitation, fabulous fun!
Listen, Like, Subscribe and Share!!!
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I’m a real fan of tablet computers. I love being able to comfortably read eBooks, magazines and news websites. I love watching streaming movies and catching up on TV either on the move on in the comfort of my home.
https://audioboom.com/posts/5966596-asus-zenpad-3s-10-a-great-alternative-to-the-obvious
Make no mistake, modern smartphones are great for most of these things too, but the tablet gives you the extra space to comfortably read digital versions of magazine in (almost) their intended footprint. This is possibly what has driven the gradual increase in screen sizes on both phones and tablets, becoming a replacement for our televisions and with it changing the way we watch video.
Having dominated the tablet market for so long, the iPad in all it’s various sizes is a hard act to match let alone beat! I’ve tried contenders in the past from Nokia and Samsung, both promised great things, but stumbled where it mattered most, performance.
The Asus ZenPad 3s 10 definitely ticks every box with it’s performance packing a Hexa-core CPU (basically 6 CPUS packed on one chip), 4Gb of RAM, 32 or 64Gb of data storage, SUPER bright 9.7 inch IPS LCD Screen with a resolution of 1536 x 2048 pixels. Around the screen is in incredibly thin bezel, so although it shares the same size screen with the iPad, it is in fact slightly smaller to hold. Inbuilt stereos speakers with DTS Surround Sound gives a really nice (and loud) audio experience too. The case is made from aluminum with front (5 MP) and rear cameras (8 MP), the rear camera features Geo-tagging, touch focus, face detection, HDR, and panorama with both cameras able to record 1080p video. Charging the ZenPad is possible with the supplied USB-C Cable and Fast Charger, able to restore the battery from zero to 83% in 30 minutes. Security is provided by the integrated fingerprint reader which is seamlessly embedded in the front central button.
Also supplied is a small stand which allows you to prop the tablet whilst watching it, I tried this twice and felt the cardboard material used to make it wasn’t really strong enough for extended us.
Asus have bundled masses of software along with the Google suite of apps such as GMail, Google Documents, Maps etc. They have modified the stock Android experience and allowed lots of customisation to suite everyone’s taste.
Using the Zenpad was really impressive, they have gone with a 4×3 screen ratio which has been popular with the iPad since launch. In my experience 16×9 is better for viewing movies in widescreen, so you do get the extra bars at the top and bottom of the screen which watching video, but it’s when you use the tablet for surfing, Facebook, Twitter and especially reading that you see the benefit of the extra screen width.
ASUS have gone to a lot of trouble to make a luxury product that weighs 430g and is 5.8mm thick with diamond cut bevels and nicely etched logo on the back. It really feels and looks expensive, colours are really bright, but not over saturated and the hexacore processor makes just about any task completed in a instant. It’s a great device, possibly one of the best I’ve used so far across the board.
At roughly £299, the Zenpad comes in at roughly £100 cheaper that the iPad Air and in fairness to both it performs admirably and in some cases improves on the Apple device. It is a fabulous device at a great price.
It really is a great alternative to the obvious and I would encourage people to check out these devices if they are looking for iPad alternative at a slightly more affordable price.
I sit here after reading debate after debate on the need for BST or British Summer Time and it has brought back some fond memories with my own personal battle with time keeping aged 17 – 22 years.
In 2016 there is no reason to EVER be late for anything. We have electronic gadgets to remind us by phone, text, email, popup reminders and our wrists now buzz with the wide variety of wearables. Simplicity is supposed to be the key, we can now set alarms then pause (or snooze) or even postpone them completely. Of course everything is now synchronised on all manner of electronic equipment connected by WiFi, 4g, 3g and bluetooth, it now seems we don’t have any excuse to be late anymore, we can even ask our gadgets to do things without actually physically interacting with them. With the advent of a new generation of ‘smart speakers’ such as Amazon Echo and Google home we won’t even need to remember when it’s time to go to work because these devices will already know. It truly is the dawn of artificial intelligence and machine learning. We are now standing on the precipice of self aware technology.
Now… let us take a step back 30 years to 1986 where things were oh so different.
Smartphones? What the hell are they?. Bluetooth was a long lost King of Denmark and email was something people at Berkeley University used to send to each other between classrooms. Calendars hung on walls, normally fixed on one particular month if you happened to own the 1986 Sam Fox Official Calendar.
The master of timekeeping was sitting next to your bed, a wonder of technology who’s sole purpose was to ease your from sleep to awake in an instant, an efficient mechanism which could wake your either brutally with a ear piercing beeping noise or with the assistance of DJ Mike ‘Smithy’ Smith (Rest in Peace) gently coaxing you from your golden slumber, easing you into realities of Monday mornings.
What ‘Gadget’ do you speak of? What mastery of 80’s technology could this be?
Of course this invention was the ‘Digital Clock Radio’.
Mine was your ‘bog standard’ affair, equipped with Radio or ‘Beep’ alarm with the addition of snooze. An amazing invention to be ignored, paused and sworn at for many years until 1993 when lack of sleep and long hours of work forced be to put my fist through it early one Sunday morning!
There was however a big problem with my digital clock radio, a VERY big problem.
The device only only allowed one alarm to be set at any one time of the day. This would work fine if every morning you had to rise at 6:50am. During the weekend you would switch the alarm button to OFF, allowing you a short lay-in on a Saturday or Sunday morning (what are they???) and making sure the switch was placed in AUTO on Sunday evening to avoid that ‘Where the HELL are you? call at 10.50am from your boss the next day!
However, my work hours weren’t regular back then. Sometimes a project needed completing early and the alarm would need to set a couple of hours earlier for the next day. The radio didn’t allow for setting the alarm back a hour, it required repeatedly clicking one button whilst holding the other in order to advance the alarm 22 hours to set it from 7am to 5am, the buttons were never that comfortable or ‘ergonomic’ thus 22 hours of clicking would mean a cricked thumb and sore fingertips. Setting the alarm forward two hours was obviously much less painful. Things got more frustrating when you ‘missed’ an hour whilst cycling past it in haste, causing yet more endless clicking until the desired hour was found (lets not even get on to minutes!).
it was while advancing the alarm through this 22 hour period that it suddenly hit me like a bolt of lightening!! A solution found my accident, by the slip of a thumb, an accidental advance of time rather than alarm! There was no need to go through this tedious task at all! Setting the alarm back 2 hours was easily achieved by simply advancing the main clock forward 2 hours and leaving the alarm where it was, 8pm became 10pm, then the alarm would be shifted forward an hour, the ‘real’ time remaining still, time adjustment was always achieved by setting alarm or time forward, there was not tediously clicking needed anymore.
Thus on that fateful day in 1986, MMT was born, but this wasn’t the internationally recognised Myanmar Mean Time, no this was my personal time zone named Matthew Mean Time, a constantly moving time zone designed to allow me to get into work on time without sore fingertips!
The nonsensical mess of time displayed on my Digital Clock Radio that mean’t so much to me, the protector of timekeeping, the barrier from verbal and written warnings for repeated lateness at work mean’t absolutely nothing to visitors who remained confused and befuddled by the meaningless number displayed on my bedside clock. Some would bring the ‘error’ to my attention even offering to correct it for me. On one occasion a friend adjusted the time to GMT for me whilst I was out of the room and thus cause the alarm to sound at 2.30am the next day! But still MMT continued until 1991 when it travelled with me to live in Harrow but was deemed unacceptable by my partner and it’s use immediately ceased.
Whilst I sit here writing this article, the day after the clocks have ‘gone back’, the end of British Summer Time 2016, with the inevitable drag of darker, colder evenings, I lament at the demise of MMT and it’s five year reign in my life, along with the repeated “What the HELL is wrong with your clock Matt?” and it’s proud reply…
“Oh that? Don’t worry, that’s just Matthew Mean Time”
Happily the need for such amateurish horology related hokum is unnecessary in todays world. Altering your alarm time is now as simple as uttering the words ‘OK Google’ and crossing your fingers.
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The human race’s relentless pursuit of technology has now surpassed the scale of the Industrial Revolution of the 19th Century, it has seemingly eclipsed the USA vs Russia arms race of the Cold War era, becoming itself a 21st Century Technology Arms Race, with commercial ideologies hand in hand with the our unquenchable thirst for better, brighter, faster and ‘always on’ technology and media.
The two super powers in todays ‘Tech Cold War’ are Apple and Samsung both locked in a unbreakable battle to outsmart each other in the multibillion dollar mobile device market.
On the left is Apple ($586 billion) , mega rich tech/lifestyle company with enormous pockets and a fanbase likened to a religious following, unable to do wrong in consumers eyes even beyond the infamous ‘Bend-gate’ and worse.
On the right in Samsung ($161 billion), super diversified tech company with mega deep reserves of cash and the ability to dodge any amount of bad press which would leave other smaller companies broke.
In between, the likes of LG, HTC, Huawei and others mop up the remaining market. Smaller R&D and marketing budgets and the lack of ability to manufacture it’s own components mean they can only look on in amazement and possible jealousy as the two tech Super Powers guide the market as they see fit.
Over time, Samsung and Apple have began aligning their products directly against each other. Initially Apple took the design lead , Samsung followed whilst taking design cues directly from it’s competitor. Apple struck gold with the iPhone and with a mega-hit on it’s hands, were happy to stick with tried and tested form size leaving Samsung to experiment with large screens, ultimately resulting in the almost silent success of the ‘phablet’ sized Galaxy Note range.
Under the command of Steve Jobs, Apple discounted this large screen device as a diversion, a mistake that took Apple a good few years to cotton on to, but finally resulted in the large screen iPhone 6 and 6 plus.
Make no mistake, these devices are absolutely crammed full of technology of every kind and even without riding on the back of Moore’s Law, the mind blowing miniaturisation that has taken place to enable such a vast amount of technology to be placed inside of these devices leaves the consumer standing back in awe and wonder,. So little room now remains inside the iPhone that Apple we forced to take the decision to remove the ageing headphone socket from its latest devices in order to make room for newer and better tech.
This race and the urgency that it is being run surely means that eventually something has to give, today the news of the 2nd recall of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 might give an indication that things are simply moving too fast and too precariously.
Smartphone technology is like a comic book filled with heroes and villains, the heroes are the big bright super hi-res screens, fingerprint readers, heart monitors, styluses and beautiful aluminium cases. The villain is the battery, manufactured using the inherently unstable Lithium Ion technology, prone to all manner of faults that can cause breakdowns in components and as reported recently, fire.
Li-ion is not a new technology, with pioneering work started in 1912, but it wasn’t until the mid 70’s that they became readily available for use in equipment that required high loads of power such as drills. Along with this miracle came instability, the cells were prone to ‘thermal runaway’ when charging with resulted in them bursting into flames.
Manufacturers began miniaturising the Li-ion battery and consequently they became higher density cells. The distance between anode and cathode ( + and – ) within the batteries separated by walls of 20-25µm (microns), less that half the width of a human hair!
In reality, Lithium-ion batteries have reached their theoretical energy density limit and this may give us some insight into the failures in the Note 7, that it was only a matter of time that the thirst for technology should exceed what could be delivered.
Back in the real world, Samsung have stopped production of the phone, informed shops to stop selling it and have advised owners to power off the device and return it until the fault can be located and fixed. It may be too late now for the Note 7, it’s reputation now damaged and we might not see the ‘line’ again.
So, should we as consumers expect Zero Failure on one hand and on the other demanding phone batteries that last for days when the only technology available to achieve this is unable to live up to the first demand?
It’s not an easy question to answer as we are used to failure as a race and the actual percentage of failure in Li-ion is very low. However with enormous quantities of devices being sold containing these batteries, the manufacturers now need manage the expectations of the consumer against their safety in the future.
I spoke briefly about this on BBC Radio Suffolk earlier today, to listen in to the stream click the play button at the top of the page.
What do you think of the Samsung battery issue, let me know by commenting below.
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Today we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Star Trek which first aired in 1964! Amazingly the series only ran for 3 series before being cancelled NBC. The show was an instant hit with a core group of fans now called ‘Trekkies’ or ‘Trekkers’. Star Trek went on to be shown on repeats or reruns many times over the years.
Star Trek went on to spawn 13 motions pictures starting in 1979 with ‘Star Trek – The Motion Picture’ and 5 subsequent televisions series including The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise. As well as the ‘Animated Series’ and a planned ‘Discovery’ planned for 2017. Along with all of this visual entertainment comes an enormous library of novels, audiobooks and reviews and in depth analysis of all of the above, it’s almost breathtaking!
Star Trek is now surely etched in science fiction folklore possibly (and arguably) only surpassed in popularity by the monolithic and multi billion pound Star Wars franchise
What makes Star Trek so attractive is it’s almost prophetic vision of gadgets of the future. Today in the 21st century we can make use of gadgets and technology first shown a half a century ago.
From sliding doors, universal translators, natural language conversations with computers, tablets computers, personal communicators, virtual reality to food replicators and more!
So, what do we have to look forward to in the next 50 years?
Well, personally I can’t wait next movie instalment and next years TV series, but moreover, I REALLY looking forward to Warp Drive, Matter Transporters and Interstellar Space Travel.
In the words of Mr Spock (and spoken in the language of Mr Worf:-
qaStaHvIS yIn ‘ej chep
(“Live Long and Prosper” in Klingon)
Earlier I spoke to Mark Murphy at BBC Radio Suffolk about how these devices now form an integral part of our lives, so listen in don’t forget to comment below.
qaStaHvIS yIn ‘ej chep
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On Friday, I spoke to Mark Murphy on the Morning Show on BBC Radio Suffolk about the breaking news story concerning the massive data breach at Yahoo, possibly converning over 500,000,000 user accounts and by far the largest leak in history.
Listen to the short interview where I explain what I think happened and what Yahoo users should do to ensure their accounts are kept safe and secure from now on.
Yahoo has released a statement concerning the breach, we can be read here
Featured image credit Can Pac Swire on Flickr
Edifier produce a wide range of high quality audio equipment, from the tiny Bluetooth MP211 portable speaker with built in microphone to the earth shaking S760D 5.1 surround sound system.
This last couple of weeks I have been testing and enjoying the Edifier C2V 2.1 Speaker System aimed primarily at gamers and utilising their Intelligent Distortion Control.
In the box you find a main control unit with remote, two satellite speakers with 3-inch midrange and ¾ inch tweeter and a lovely 6.5-inch subwoofer which produces amazing bass! The speakers and equipment are enclosed in wooden MFD boxes, so no chance of buzzing from nasty plastic parts here.
The speakers produce a total of 36 watts output, connecting to your PC/Mac or other sound source using either RCA or AUX connectors along with a headphones connector for keeping the neighbours happy.
You can adjust the Volume, Bass and Treble using either the amplifier or remote control giving a wide range of sound options to suit your gaming or music needs.
I really enjoyed playing some of my favourite music through the C2V, I was particularly fond of Orbital Live at Glastonbury, their is nothing like Dr Who rocking out late on a Friday afternoon
I also watched a number of movie trailers, I was particularly taken by Suicide Squad especially using my 4K iMac Retina display!
The C2V speaker system is aimed at gaming and therefore Bluetooth and other related technology is not included which is not great loss when you are sitting speakers either side of your gaming machine.
All in all, the C2V is a great set of speakers and at around £89, it’s very good value for money. After a quick look around online, they are available at most high street stores.
Thanks again to Edifier for the loan of the speakers for review and Katherine at KL Associates for bringing it all together.
The Apple iPhone is a very popular device indeed and has played an integral part in the explosion of the Smart Phone and Tablet market over the last 9 years since its launch.
Apple have however played it safe with regard to storage though, happy to keep the iPhone, iPad and iPod firmly enclosed in milled aluminium with internal access to only the SIM card. Hard wiring (or soldering) components into a device means the manufacturer doesn’t need to includ memory and battery adapters which take up space and more importantly depth in the phone. Consequently Apple devices are therefore nice and thin.
Disallowing additional memory means users have to closely monitor their phone storage. It doesn’t take long for those high bitrate 4K videos to start eating into an iPhone internal storage, meaning you need to start archiving videos and photos to another device such as a Mac or PC (or cloud storage if you have the time and data bandwidth) to stop the memory being used up. Worse still, If you are out and about and run out of phone storage, you are going to be looking at dumping what might be precious footage stored on your phone to make space for new photos and videos.
This is where Transcend step in with their JetDrive Go 500G Lightning / USB 3.1 Flash Drive, a very nifty device (or dongle) that plugs directly into your iPhone or iPad’s ‘Lightning’ port and allows you to copy or move your photos and videos straight off your device onto a flash drive and thus free’s up your phone for more film making and photography. You can even take photos directly onto the flash drive if you wish using the Transcend Go App which is automatically downloaded when you first plug the device into your phone or tablet.
The jetDrive Go 500G is different from standard flash drives in as much as it both Lightning and USB on the same device which a connector mounted at end. The lightning ‘end’ plugs directly into your iPhone or iPad and allows you to copy data at speed of up to 20MB/s onto the drive. At the other end of the flash drive is a USB 3.1 connector (recognisable by its blue colour) which connects directly into a PC or Mac and copies data up to an amazing 130MB/s, so again no delays in copying your video and photos over to your desktop or laptop.
The drive comes in two sizes, 32Gb and 64Gb and in either Silver or Gold zinc alloy. These two storage options are going to be a dream come true for those of us with smaller internal storage options and may even delay that dreaded phone upgrade.
Package wise, the flash drive comes in a simple package along with clear instructions, a wrist strap and two plastic caps for either end of the device to protect the connectors. From opening the package, plugging in the device to downloading and running the small “Go” App, I was up and running in literally two minutes.
The device worked flawlessly for me and it wasn’t long before I was zooming around the house, backing up the kids iPads and my wife’s iPhone, it really was very easy to use.
I was certainly surprised how something that could be considered fairly insignificant to look at could actually be a bit of a godsend for the iPhone community. This is an excellent Apple MFi certified product and comes highly recommended from us.
Priced at £50 for the 32gb model and £67 for the 64gb, you can purchase directly from Amazon using the link alongside this text. Other options are available from other manufacturers and outlets, take care to ensure plugin peripherals are certified before using them.
Following successful events featuring Microsoft and Google, Coderus and Innovation Martlesham are hosting the Apple WWDC Watch Party at Adastral Park in Ipswich, sponsored by BT and the IP Network.
The event is being held at the John Bray Lecture Theatre on
Monday 13th June 2016 from 4.30pm – 9pm and features Apple demos and the chance to network, the live streamed Keynote starts at 6pm with a panel discussion at 7.45pm with the event wrapping up at 9pm.
We’re told that places are limited and registration closes on
12th June 2016, so if you are interested in attending you will need to REGISTER soon!
This is a FREE event, but because Adastral Park is a secure site attendance is by registration only. Upon registration attendees will be issued a security pass, which must be shown on arrival.
4.30 – Door Open
4.45 – Apple Demos & Networking
5.45 – Move to Auditoium
6.00 – Keynote Presentations (Live Stream)
7.30 – Keynote Finish (subject to change) – break
7.45 – Panel Discussion
9.00 – Close
To register for the event, click HERE or contact Coderus to discuss your requirements.
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I was back on air this morning with Mark Murphy and James Hazell to talk about drones and the immense rise in their popularity.
With popularity comes a degree of public worry and a much larger degree of press coverage. Should drones be licensed? Should people need to take a proficiency test to use them? All of this was covered on BBC Radio Suffolk this morning along with interviews with The Civil Aviation Authority and local pilots.
Drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles come in all shapes and sizes and can range in price from £10 to literally thousands. Many of the more expensive semi professional drones have ‘Geo Fencing’ which stops the drones from flying in banned areas or ‘No Fly Zones’.
Of course it is possible to build your own drone. Kits are widely available and many people have built their own drones from scratch using light weight computers such as the Raspberry Pi. In this case, no licensing is going to stop the production of these kinds of drones and increasingly advanced techniques such as GPS ‘way point’ route planning means that the pilot does not need to be in radio contact during the flight and therefore distances of 7km possible before battery charging is necessary.
Currently in the UK, I can’t see how any ‘proficiency’ testing can be brought in being, it would be far too costly and reliant of the purchaser of the drone. Tracking the drones is equally difficult without elaborate (and expensive) tracking transmitter/receivers being added to the drone.
Consequently, it lays with the manufacturers of these devices to ensure that their equipment is safe, easy to use, legal and abides by any global no fly zones.
I will be reviewing the Parrot Bebop 2 camera drone very soon, so stay ‘tuned’.
