Keeping backup copies of your data has never been so important and only this week it has been revealed that a fire at Universal Music has resulted in the loss of the original master tapes of some of the worlds most famous artists.
To compound the issue, the backups were kept in the same vaults and seemingly perished resulting in the total loss of the original recordings of the likes of Buddy Holly, Eminem, Sheryl Crow, Tupac and Tom Petty (to same but a few!).
With digital photography now the primary method of capturing images, it is now more important than ever that these sometimes precious images are also kept safe. Hardware failure or loss of devices is more common than ever before, so multiple backups are extremely important!
Hardware failure is a real and present issue
Today I spoke to James Hazell on BBC Radio Suffolk about backups and my experience of how to keep your data safe.
To find out more, listen into the stream above. Don’t forget to Like, Subscribe and Comment with your experiences of backup successes and failures.
We reach the fifth part of our series on Retro Gadgets and in this one, we focus on the 1st Format Wars where VHS fought Betamax for dominance in the VCR format battle for supremacy.
During the ’80s, video entertainment came home with the introduction of the Video Cassette Recorder and with it came competing standards.
The Format Wars – Betamax vs VHS
The main standards were Sony’s Betamax and JVC’s VHS. Both were looking for market dominance, but who was to win?
Find out what happened and how we still witness mega-corporation format rules today.
Click on the play button above and don’t forget to subscribe using the widget above and I will see you very soon.
Now we have reached the third part of our Retro Gadget series, we go left-field by selecting something that has been a part of peoples dining rooms for many many years.
Hostess Trolley
Yes, I’m talking about the Hostess Trolley, a dining gadget that has been keeping our dinner party food warm for many years.
Listen in to the podcast by clicking on the play button above and subscribe using your favourite podcast app using the widget.
Don’t forget to Like and Share and I will see you very soon
In the second of my 10 Retro Gadgets of the Week, I talk about arguably one of the most important inventions of the 20th century!
Don’t forget to listen in to the podcast link above where I talk about the gadget and its functions.
Sony Walkman
The Sony Walkman was a portable cassette player launched in 1979, it started a revolution in personal audio cassette players and altered the listening habits of people and brought music to the masses wherever they might be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH2T94XWqck
Soundabout, Freestyle and Stowaway
Originally invented as the Sony Pressman to allow journalists to record interviews using a compact device, it became a personal entertainment device shortly after, settling on the name Walkman after being names the Soundabout, Freestyle and Stowaway. It very quickly became very popular and Sony began marketing it under a single brand-name, the Sony Walkman was born.
Originally the Walkman came with two headphone sockets with individual volume controls and a Hotline button which lowered the volume levels and opened the microphone to allow for station announcements to be heard or the user to have conversations with other people.
Sony Walkman Hotline and twin Headphone sockets
Other manufacturers such as Aiwa, Toshiba and Panasonic soon followed suit launched competing products, but the devices all became known as a “Walkman” as the brand-name crossed over into popular culture and entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 1986.
Walkman Effect
The Walkman was used when walking, exercising and running. Sony launched the ‘Sports Walkman’ which offered a degree of waterproofing and allegedly drove the fitness craze of the late ’80s. It was during this time that cassettes began outselling vinyl as millions of people chose the Walkman for their entertainment.
As music delivery advanced forwards, Sony was quick to adapt the brand to suit new formats, thus they launched the Sony Discman for the CD marketplace, the Sony DAT Walkman, MiniDisc Walkman and Sony Watchman TV.
Without the Sony Walkman, we wouldn’t have modern personal music players and most certainly would never have seen the Apple iPod. Sony continued the brand of Walkman into the modern smartphone marketplace.
Don’t forget to listen to the podcast above! Like, Share and Subscribe and I will see you next week for the Retro Gadget No.3
Thanks to Matt Marvell at BBC Radio Suffolk for having me on his show as a guest again this week.
Many of us will remember the halcyon days when upgrading our mobile phone handsets was a six-month event.
No so now it would seem, instead, we are waiting much longer and are clearly looking for greater incentives to part with our beloved devices and even more importantly, our money.
You can listen into my interview with James Hazell on BBC Radio Suffolk where I talk about why the smartphone market is slowing down. Click on the link above to hear what I had to say.
A Short(ish) History
My first mobile phone was bought in 1993 (some 26 years ago) from Dixons in Derby. It was an NEC P100 and I think it cost me £50 and then £7.50 per month for the contract with Vodafone, no calls were included, so I paid 50p per minute if I did need to call anyone.
The phone itself ran on the old 1G analogue network at 900MHz which was very quickly superceded by the digital 2G networks split between 900MHz for Vodafone and Cellnet and the alternative 1800Mhz for Orange and Mercury One2One.
Note: if you don’t recognise many of these names, it’s because due to buyouts, rebrands and mergers, Vodafone remained, Orange became EE, Cellnet became BT Cellnet, then O2. Mercury One2One became just One2One and then changed to T-Mobile which in turn is merged with Orange to become EE. Then of course 3 launched a 3g service later on and of course, two dozen or so ‘piggy-back’ operators such as Giffgaff, Sky Mobile, Virgin etc, who don’t, in fact, run their own networks but instead using the Big Four’s network.
So my first phone was relatively cheap in today’s terms and in fact in ‘yesterdays’ terms too. the NEC P100 was meant to be a durable portable phone which it was and I kept it for some years until the analogue network was phased out and I had to get a more modern phone. The 2G network roll-out in the UK caused a market explosion and along with it came the Nokia 5110 and then 3310 phones which completely dominated the marketplace.
This explosion in popularity came with reasonably cheap phones with cheap and short contracts, this meant that phones could be renewed quite regularly and soon cupboards would start filling up with unwanted and out of date devices, fuelling development and in reality, a war between manufacturers and networks to provide more and more functionality. Heading this surge was Orange and O2 who had struck up a deal with little known manufacturer HTC to produce the very first Microsoft Windows CE based ‘Smartphones’, long before the birth of the iPhone.
HTC was at the time manufacturing the Compaq and HP iPaq Pocket PC and by adding cellular functionality, the Orange SPV (Sounds, Pictures and Video) and O2 XDA (extended PDA) began to be sold and the Smartphone was born.
Suddenly our dumb phones became ‘Smartphones’ and with it rapidly increasing prices. These costs had to be passed onto consumers via increased contracts with longer minimum terms (mainly to allow for the handset and network infrastructure costs to be absorbed ). Minimum six-month contracts became twelve, then eighteen, then twenty-four months. All of this was necessary to pay for the device and network overheads!
The phone networks began bundling minutes (and later, data), in part to placate phone users who were starting to become caught up in the ever increasing contract times. Subsequently, devices became more expensive, resulting in more expensive contracts.
With the launch of Apple’s iPhone, O2 and T-Mobile began offering ‘all you can eat’ data plans in order for these data-hungry devices to take advantage of the vast amount of content appearing. Once the iPhone 3G was launched, with its ability to consume vast amounts of bandwidth and data, the all-you-can-eat model was scrapped or altered with ‘acceptable usage’ policies to limit data consumption, unless you were prepared to pay more.
Now that the smartphone had become established as a Super-Gadget, the manufacturers began an ‘Arms-Race’ to establish themselves as the Go-To brand in the multi-billion dollar marketplace, the likes of Apple, Samsung, Nokia, Motorola, LG, Sony and HTC began pumping billions into product development, patent registrations, cross-licensing and all-out war!
In turn, the Smartphone industry has driven bigger, better, faster and more costly devices into the consumers’ hands! Meanwhile, in China, Xiaomi, Huawei and Honor are producing comparable and in some cases, better products, the market is now awash with products that were once competing with each other but are now blurring their differences making it difficult to see the differences
Summing Up
We now have a smart-device marketplace with astoundingly high-quality handsets costing £1000 plus! How can we justify paying over £100 a month for a mobile phone contract, when we are struggling to differentiate between ‘last-years’ model?
What is needed now is for the manufacturers to take a breath! They need to find out what their customers really want. Maybe we are becoming tired and bewildered of being told what functions we need by these companies and it’s time for them to start listening to their consumers.
Granted, router settings aren’t the sexiest of topics. But when you consider the merriment that a router in good working order can bring to your life, you soon discover that spending a few minutes reading something turgid on the subject is probably worthwhile.
Channels are signal bands that different devices use to connect to your router to tell it that they are there. Your laptop might link to your router on one channel, while dear old Amazon Alexa might on another.
Most routers have three independent, non-overlapping channels that don’t interfere with each other, 1, 6, and 11. Devices transmitting on these channels will, therefore, carry on communicating to your router, oblivious to the fact that other devices are also sending information too. That’s what you want.
Channel Setting Problems
The problem comes when the automatic settings on your router lead several devices to connect to it using the same bandwidth. Two or three is usually okay, but the more devices you add to a particular channel, the less stable your connection. In the worst case scenario, some devices won’t connect at all while others are in use on the same channel.
Rather than spending hours fiddling around with internet settings and getting nowhere, it usually pays to go into your router settings and look at which devices are connecting on which channels. If you find that you have a bunch of devices all running through channel 6, then consider moving some of them to 1 and some to 11. Doing that will help to spread the load, reduce interference and, hopefully, restore reliable internet connectivity.
Neighbouring Networks
Okay, here’s where things get a little trickier. Even though the data being sent by neighbouring networks is encrypted, and even though you can’t use their router to send and receive data to the internet without a key, their signals can still interfere with yours.
People who live in flats, for instance, often find that their internet connections are unstable. Blaming the overall internet speed probably isn’t correct, but blaming your neighbours might be. Signals from your neighbour’s devices interfere with your own, causing your channels to become thick with interference, leading to dropped internet connections.
So what can you do about it?
You’ve generally got two options: you can either spend hours manually conducting experiments to see which channels work and which don’t, or you can use special programmes that automatically scan current channel usage in your vicinity and then tell you the optimal one to pick.
When boffins came up with the modern router, they didn’t envision just how many different signals would have to cram into such as small space on the electromagnetic spectrum (used for WiFi). But as the proliferation of devices continued, and more people used high-bandwidth broadband, people are going to have to learn much more about channels, including how to troubleshoot problems.
Knowing about channels can save you potentially hours wasted looking for a solution in the bowels of Windows 10 network settings and simple deal with the problem on the router itself.
It only seems like yesterday when I was talking about the World Wide Web turning 25 years old and now before we know it, it’s now 30 years since the first HTML web page was authored and published by Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
The Web is, without doubt, the greatest invention of all time. It has made our planet smaller, brought together people from all walks of life and from every corner of the globe. It has made the world a much more accessible place, we can reach out to our idols and they can communicate back to us. We can transverse the globe and watch sunrises on opposite sides of the planet as they happen.
It truly is a modern wonder of the world. Cheers, Sir Tim!!
Sir Tim arriving at the Guildhall to receive the Honorary Freedom of the City of London – Image Credit – Paul Clarke
With the wonders of the web brings ‘Smart Assistants’, they are on our phones, computers and now independently as ‘Smart Speakers’, another true wonder borne from the internet, serving our every need and answering the answerable. These ubiquitous electronic pucks offer a gateway to enormous artificial intelligence-driven knowledgebases that are themselves learning as well learn from us, Machine Learning is driven by millions of users.
Of course, every now and then our assistants flicker or make strange noises, we might wonder if these are simply glitches or the first sparks of self-awareness?
I spoke to Mark Murphy at BBC Radio Suffolk about both Smart Speakers and the 30th Anniversary of the Web. Listen in above and don’t forget to LIKE, SHARE and SUBSCRIBE. See you next time!!
Crimes that are associated with cybersecurity are from being problems created by the digital age as some would have you believe. Things like fraud and identity theft both existed long before the first computer was invented and criminals were finding ways of evolving their plans without the use of the internet. However, it is fair to say that now they have moved their operations on to the digital landscape it is time we are all prepared.
With that in mind, we are going to take a look at some of the tech options available to you so that you can stay safe and secure.
Understanding The Threat
The first thing you should do when it comes to cybersecurity is to build up your knowledge of what the threat actually is. That means learning what the different types of attacks are that might come your way and what form they are going to take. Before we look into these areas it is important to note that while the threat might seem extreme, there will always be people creating tools to help you combat these problems and sometimes common sense is your best line of defense.
Two of the common types of cyber attacks are listed below and the way they are used is also given as a brief description, this information will be critical to your success in staying safe online and in the digital world:
Malware
This term refers to malicious software such as:
Spyware
Ransomware
Viruses
Worms
Usually these types of software breach a computer’s security due to the user clicking on a link or downloading them without knowledge. This is where common sense will be a big factor in your security. To avoid having your information stolen through your PC or having malicious software break your home network, don’t click on links from unknown sources.
Phishing
This might be one of the terms you are most familiar with. Phishing refers to the practice of sending out communications that are fraudulent such as from a bank or government official that asks for private information. The aim is to steal sensitive data or payment details by posing as a trustworthy source. Once again you should use your own initiative to avoid these attacks where possible.
Software To Help
So, now you know some of the threats you are facing, what can you do? Well, there are some great basic tools that you can use to prevent falling victim to these attacks. The first is to ensure that you have a secure antivirus installed on your device. Companies like McAfee and Norton have been working tirelessly for years to provide you with software that will fight off malware that finds its way onto your computer.
However, sometimes you can get a data breach through alternative methods due to the fact that phishing scams can be highly evolved. Something you can do is sign up to protection services such as https://budgetboost.co/lifelock-cost-review/ that will look for breaches of your private information and secure it up.
How many of us own and drive a vehicle with a keyless entry system? Well, it appears that many thousands of us that do have woken up this morning to a very worrying report from the General German Automobile Club (ADAC),
In order to unlock your keyless entry vehicle, you simply need to carry your key-fob. As you approach the vehicle, it recognises the encrypted signal transmitted from the fob. This, in turn, instructs the vehicles central-locking system to unlock the doors when you either touch the door handle or press the button on the door-handle. There is no requirement to insert the key into the ignition as the car is fitted with a start/stop button. If you own a car with both keyless entry and start/stop system, you aren’t alone, they are now widely used in hundreds of models or cars and in some cases motorbikes.
Now for the bad news. A recent study by the General German Automobile Club (ADAC) has discovered that the technology is far from secure in all but THREE cases and in fact the method of stealing a keyless vehicle is extremely simple.
In order to steal a keyless vehicle, a thief simply employs a rudimentary transceiver which takes the relatively weak signal transmitted and received from the fob to the car and amplifies it, it is then possible for the signal to reach from the fob to the car and hey presto, the car is unlocked and can (in most cases) be started.
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Once the car is running, the need for a key is obsoleted and the car can now be driven until it is depleted of fuel. In most cases, the cars are taken abroad and the retrofitted with standard locking and start systems. As long as the car does not stall, it will run for as long as the fuel tank will take it.
NO AMOUNT of hacking or decryption is needed, it is reliant solely on the amplification of the already transmitted signal!
Arnulf Thiemel, car-technician at the ADAC. Image Credit: ADAC
Arnulf Thiemel, car-technician at the ADAC, said “The ADAC demands that vehicles be protected against any kind of manipulation and illegal access. For the affected vehicles, there must be solutions put in place to improve the security. All new vehicles should also be equipped with a methodologically that ensures secure safety solutions which also withstands neutral side checks”
Which cars and manufacturers were affected?
Unfortunately, it would appear that EVERY manufacturer tested has at least one model which could be stolen using the method above.
The following vehicles could NOT be opened or started using this method.
Jaguar i-Pace (2018) Land Rover Discovery (2018) Land Rover Range Rover (2018)
The vehicles above are currently immune from this method of attack. This is because they employ a variation of the keyless system by broadcasting using ultra-wideband frequencies. Basically, the equipment used to amplify the signal is ‘currently’ unable transmit or receive at the radio frequencies used in these models of cars.
Jaguar-Land Rover filed the patent for this method of keyless access in 2017. We can now only hope that they freely license these patents to other car makers or a comparable technology can be developed.
What Now?
All too often our deep-rooted human needs to be ‘waited upon’ result in solutions which in the first instance appear to solve a problem that really didn’t exist, but in real-world use turn out to have a sting in the tail. In the case of the study by ADAC, it would appear that there are very urgent questions to answer and drivers should be aware of the security issues surrounding their vehicles.
Faraday Cases?
Prior to speaking to BBC Radio Suffolk, many listeners talked about using Faraday Cases or Bags to house their keys. The theory behind this was to block the signal completely whilst the car isn’t in use (ie. whilst the keys were stored in the home or place of work).
Faraday Bag for Keyless Fobs from Amazon
I personally believe that keeping the keys away from the car or placing them in a container which COMPLETELY blocks radio signals is the only way to avoid the potential theft of vehicles using this method. However, radio signals can travel through types of metal, so be ABSOLUTELY confident that anything you purchase to secure your fobs, does indeed work as described.
Immediate Steps to Take
If you are concerned about the security of your keyless car fob, contact your car’s manufacturer as soon as possible and ask them what steps they have taken to secure your car? Ask them if there are software updates to improve security? Ask them if these systems can be deactivated until such time as they can be completely secure?
Listen in!
This morning I spoke to Mark Murphy on BBC Radio Suffolk about the use of Faraday Cage technology to try and reduce the chances of Keyless entry cars being stolen. Listen in to the stream above. If you like what you hear or read, don’t forget to LIKE, SHARE and SUBSCRIBE. See you next time!
Matt
The Gadget Man
I previously spoke about this topic a while back, you can read and listen at this link Gadget Man – Episode 113
Artificial Intelligence, Technology, News and Gadget Reviews on air, online, in print and in person
I personally believe that keeping the keys away from the car or placing them in a container which COMPLETELY blocks radio signals is the only way to avoid the potential theft of vehicles using this method. However, radio signals can travel through types of metal, so be ABSOLUTELY confident that anything you purchase to secure your fobs, does indeed work as described.