Over the years, I’ve tested a variety of over-the-counter hearing assistive devices, some actual FDA-approved hearing aids, others so-called personal sound amplification products (PSAP). Until recently, I believed the best relatively low-cost non-prescription over-the-counter hearing aid available was Eargo’s Neo HiFi, which I reviewed 18 months ago. That is until I tested the Neo HiFi’s replacement, the Eargo 5, the fifth-generation hearing aid from the company.
My October 13, 2021, appearance on the SmartTechCheck podcast with host Mark Vena and fellow tech reporters John Quain and Rob Pegoraro. This week we discussed the release of Windows 11, smartphone vendors moving to their own proprietary chips/SoC designs, and tech supply chain shortages.
My October 7, 2021, appearance on the SmartTechCheck podcast with host Mark Vena and fellow tech reporters John Quain and Rob Pegoraro. This week we discuss the Facebook whistleblower hearings, the Theranos trial, Amazon’s Astro home robot, and the “what if” Apple/Dell deal that never happened.
Under normal circumstances, I’d advise waiting before downloading Apple’s latest operating system until after its first update – there’s always something that goes a little bit haywire in the first release that needs patching. But there haven’t been any reports of problems with the first release of iOS 15, so feel free to dive right in.
Read the rest of this report at Techlicious.com here.
Once more, iPhone owners face their annual dilemma: to upgrade or not to upgrade to one of this year’s four new iPhone 13 models – the Pro Max (starting at $1,099), the Pro ($999), the plain iPhone 13 ($799), or the Mini ($699). While there’s no one must-have feature that will drive you to upgrade, there are ten good reasons to consider upgrading to an iPhone 13 from your current iPhone, even an iPhone 12. There are also five reasons NOT to trade up to an iPhone 13 and just wait a year until the iPhone 14 is announced.
Rear the rest of this report at Techlicious.com here.
With apologies to Zager and Evans (look ’em up), in 2025, I will surely be supremely embarrassed. Someone—maybe even me—will dig up this column, read my fearless predictions of what smartphones will look like and how they will function in that year, and find them to be (hysterically) wrong. Or—maybe I’ll be hailed a genius, a modern Nostradamus sans quatrains. Who knows? Regardless, here goes nothing.
Read the rest of this prognostication here at Digital Tech Consulting.
Trolling. Phishing. Online scams. Dark web. Identity theft. Click bait. Ransomware. Spyware. Adware. Malware. Cyber attacks. Zero day attacks. Trojan horses. User data tracking, collection and selling. Algorithm amplification and manipulation. Election hacking. Deep fakes. Anonymity.
The growing misuse and outright lawlessness of the internet makes the wild west look like an unruly kindergarten class.
But what to do?
Read the rest of this rumination here at Digital Technology Consulting’s Weekly Riff.
What the world needs now is active noise-canceling (ANC) true wireless earbuds. ANC buds meet the needs of the moment by providing a way to boost audio quality during Zoom calls while simultaneously isolating us against intrusive environmental factors (remote-schooled kids, other work-from-home adults, etc.). And fortunately for us all, they are getting better-sounding, more feature-packed, and less expensive.
Read the rest of this review roundup here at Sound & Vision.
Enhanced security and privacy, increased interoperability between Apple devices, and more intelligent apps are coming to all Apple devices this fall. Many of these new features and capabilities will work across iOS 15, iPadOS 15, watchOS 8, and macOS Monterey (macOS 12) when the new operating systems roll out this fall. Here are our 11 favorite new features.
Read the complete list here at Techlicious.com.
Starting June 8, 2021, Amazon Echo and Ring video doorbell owners will automatically begin sharing their WiFi home network with other Amazon device owners as part of a new “feature” called Amazon Sidewalk. Sidewalk, which was first announced in September 2019, apportions a small piece of all Amazon Echo or Ring device’s wireless connections and pools them together “to create a network that benefits all Sidewalk-enabled devices in a community.”
Read the rest of this report here at Techlicious.
