Tag Archives: The New York Times

(Hopefully) Helpful Hint, Episode Links, Podcast

PTJ 285: Hashing It Out

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While the tussles between politicians and Big Tech heat up as August sizzles to a close, El Kaiser and J.D. sip fizzy water in the shade and explore the accusations and rebuttals coming from both sides of America’s political divide. Apple’s latest acquisition, Twitter’s recent experiment and a blockchain that few people realized was hiding in plain sight are also in the news mix this week, and J.D. has a (Hopefully) Helpful Hint about hopefully helping friends and family with their computer problems, even when you’re miles away. Crank up the air conditioner and PTJ 285!

Links to Stories Discussed on This  Week’s Show

(Hopefully) Helpful Hint

(Hopefully) Helpful Hint, Episode Links

(Hopefully) Helpful Hint: Brief Cases

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Don’t have time during the day to go deep with all the news flying around the Internet? Thanks to a number of news orgs, you can get a quick crib sheet of current events so you’re at least in the loop with what everyone else is talking about.

APFor example, the Associated Press’s AP Mobile app for Android and iOS routinely offers a daily list called “10 Things to Know for Today.” You get the quick headlines — and you can go back to the app and follow up the full stories later when you have more time.

Ten items too much of a commitment? Try the “5 Things You Need to Know” list from the website for a magazine called The Week. The print version of the publication, by the way, serves as sort of a weekly reader for adults to collect capsule summaries of the top national and international stories of the past seven days.

NYTThe New York Times has a witty New York Today daily briefing you can get by email or read on the web, and it includes stories of local interest, traffic and transit updates — even the weather forecast. In its wide selection of email newsletters for which you can sign up, The Times has morning and evening briefings with top stories around the country and world. There’s also an afternoon update, and early headlines from Europe and Asia. The NYT Now app for iOS grabs the top stories out there for a quick look.

Want spoken words instead of written ones so you can multitask? National Public Radio’s NPR Hourly News Summary gives you a quick five-minute recap of the current state of the world and it’s updated about every 60 minutes. You can listen to it on the NPR website or stream it through NPR News apps for Android or iOS.NPR

If you don’t have five minutes, the BBC World News website has a One Minute World News video update, though the short commercial at the beginning is an extra 15 seconds.

And if you need a little more on the video, check out Reuters TV, which you can watch in a web browser, as shown below. Go to the site and it gives you an instant newscast with whatever if going on in the world at the moment. If you have an Apple TV or iOS device, you can also use the Reuters TV app, which asks how much news you want to watch — 10, 15 or 30 minutes — and then instantly whips together a newscast of the day’s top stories based on that amount of time.

Now, if only we could get the news to be actually good…

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Episode Links

The Current Reality of Virtual Reality

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The media world was buzzing this weekend as The New York Times jumped into a new dimension. The company gave out Google Cardboard virtual reality viewers to its home subscribers and pointed them to the new NYT VR smartphone app for Android or iOS to see special videos that accompanied certain stories in the Times Magazine.

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As with other virtual-reality systems, once an Android phone or iPhone was placed in the back of the cardboard contraption and the required content downloaded, the user got a much more immersive experience than watching a 2D clip because  the whole thing had a panoramic feel to it. (Shooting a film in virtual reality can be technically challenging as well, but viewing one puts you in the middle of the action; the How Stuff Works site has a good explanation of the virtual-reality experience.) The NYT website helpfully included a frequently asked questions page for users new to the VR scene, as well as a video showing how to fold together the Cardboard viewer.

The Times got a lot of buzz for busting the move, but virtual reality has popping up all over the past year. On the high end of the spectrum, the new Facebook-owned Oculus Rift virtual reality system has been kicking around for years and is scheduled to finally make a commercial debut early next year. The $99 Samsung Gear VR system, (shown below) also powered by Oculus technology, is now available for pre-orders and works with Samsung’s newer Galaxy devices; older Samsung VR headsets are also around. Microsoft’s HoloLens system, which is advertised more as an augmented reality system as opposed to virtual reality, may also jump into the mix when it officially rolls into town next year.

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So, what do you need to see the new virtual reality? You need a virtual-reality app that can display the videos on the appropriate format. To get the most of the experience, you also need a Cardboard-style viewer and a pair of headphones to immerse yourself in the audio. These range in price online from about $4 up to $30 for the sturdier, fancier models that look less like pieces of a packing box and more like sophisticated binoculars.

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And, along with the hardware, you need content to look at. The Google Cardboard site has a list of VR apps that work with the viewer. But much more content is coming or is already here. The Wall Street Journal announced last week that it, too, was adding virtual reality content to its video app. Facebook is said to be developing its own virtual reality videos app and YouTube’s blog just announced last week that the site had added support for VR, including a The Hunger Games Virtual Reality Experience, (shown above), a trailer from the Apollo 11 mission and many others.

If you don’t have the viewer, you can also watch some videos in standard mode on muse smartphones or in a desktop browser. While you can just turn your head to get a panoramic view with a viewer, you can usually drag your finger or mouse around the frame to see more of the surroundings on the home screen or video window.

Is VR the future or just a fad? Time will tell, but people are testing out the format in all sorts of places. Last month’s Democratic debate on CNN even had a virtual reality version, although viewer response to the experiment was mixed. Some things, after all, may be better off in their own reality.

Tech Term

Tech Term: Social Engineering

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Well, this is kind of awkward. I guess it was inevitable since I am less than organized when it comes to this sort of stuff.  Quite honestly I’m surprised it hasn’t happened sooner when you consider how many of these vocabulary lessons I’ve actually done. Strange. You’d think I’d be more upset about it. Guess that’s the upside of not having any shame.

Oh geez, now I’m compounding the problem by burying the lede! Oh darn it, now I’m using cool newsroom jargon about beginning a story with secondary details instead of getting to the actual point.  AAUGGGH!

Great, now I’m channeling Charlie Brown…

Do people use “ish” instead of issue anymore? Was that ever a thing ? Anyway, my “ish” is that there is a real possibility I may have already dissected this week’s Tech Term, Social Engineering, on a previous podcast episode.  It may have been for our old show at that huge and well-respected media empire both J.D. and I continue to happily toil for or I may have dropped some science about it here on Pop Tech Jam many, many moons ago. While I may not be all that torn up about it I do sincerely apologize if this is the case.  My bad Jammers…and Tech Talkers.

Oh right, the Tech Term! Well according to the Microsoft Safety and Security Center—I hear you snickering, be nice—Social Engineering is a technique used by criminals to gain access to your computer. The purpose of Social Engineering is usually to secretly install spyware or other malicious software or to trick you into handing over your passwords or other sensitive financial and personal information. Social engineering scams can be both online (such as an email message that asks you to open the attachment, which contains malware) and offline (such as a phone call from someone posing as a representative from your credit card company).

To this day I don’t know why they don’t just call it getting conned.  Or hustled. Swindled. Played. Scammed, fleeced, bamboozled, taken for a ride, slickered, skinned…

You get the point.

To listen to Episode 82 click here.

Episode Links

Sorry Johnny T and the NFL, New York City Is PTJ Territory

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Let me just set the record straight: Super Bowl 48 (I don’t do Roman Numerals) is NOT in New York City. The Giants and Jets abandoned us decades ago for Northern New Jersey and THAT is where the game will be played.  No dome.  No warm weather climate.  Just a New Jersey swamp.  I, of course, have christened this event the “Swamp Bowl”.  Let Bill Lumbergh break it down for us:

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[BTW: I really dislike that whole blue shirt, white collar look. It’s so indecisive.  Pick a color and stick with it, dangit. ]

Now don’t go thinking I’m hating on the Garden State because I’m not.  Personally, I think New Jerseyans should be offended. The NFL’s massive marketing machine has gone out of its way and are pulling out all the stops to brand this as a New York event. Why all the heat for Jersey?  It has to sting a little if you live on the paying side of the George Washington Bridge.  Of course the game’s proximity to my beloved Big Apple ensures this side of bridge will be overrun with people looking for the sights, sounds, and experiences only the greatest city on the planet can offer.

This week on the show I discuss some of my favorite apps designed to help tourists get around and enjoy their time in New York City.

New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority offers an app gallery at their  website with a variety of free and paid apps that will help you get around using mass transit.

If you need more practical tips for your trip to New York City, take a peep at this video from a puppet with almost as much attitude as El Kaiser:

 

Article

Pop Tech Jammers, We Need Your Help!

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Please subscribe, rate and review Pop Tech Jam at iTunes, Stitcher Radio or any of the many podcast directories featuring the show. To those of you who already have, we extend our deepest and sincerest thanks. This is a labor of love for me and J.D. and getting that feedback from you helps us attract attention from new listeners and potential advertisers which in turn helps us keep doing what we do.

We can’t stop being amazed by the support you’ve shown us since the announcement was made that our old New York Times radio show would be back with a new name and a new attitude.  We promise to keep producing the show for as long as we can but the reality is that to compete with the media powerhouses and podcast factories churning out cookie-cutter marketing spiels masquerading as Internet radio we need all of you to keep spreading the word.

You know we’re more than just a tech podcast. It’s time to let the rest of the world in on the secret. The Pop Tech Jam revolution will not be televised…it will be podcasted.

Tech Term

The 2013 PTJ Tech Term of the Year

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This week we present our tech term of the year for 2013. I know most news sites and blogs like to do these, oh I don’t know, right around Halloween, but in all fairness we here at the greatest geek-culture and technology podcast the galaxy has ever SEEN…. um, I’m sorry, HEARD (Trademark Pending) made the decision to wait until the year was actually over before bestowing this most prestigious honor. What if there was a late surge in some previously obscure tech term that suddenly became as ubiquitous as Miley Cyrus or the Harlem Shake? We’d be left with a carton of egg on our face now wouldn’t we.

This wasn’t an easy decision to make as there were some great contenders out there but in the end we realized there was only one tech term that dwarfed all of the others. Hey, if it’s good enough for The Oxford Dictionaries Online to choose as their word of the year, then it’s good enough for us! Although, I must point out that there is a difference between the O.D.O. and the the Oxford English Dictionary. The O.D.O. focuses on current English and includes modern meanings and uses of words. The O.E.D. is a historical dictionary and it forms a record of all the core words and meanings in English over more than 1,000 years, from Old English to the present day. I’m not just throwing words at you, that comes straight from the word nerds at Oxford.

“Selfie” is the 2013 Pop Tech Jam Tech Term of the Year!

They define the newly minted informal noun as “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website”

According to The New Zealand Herald the first confirmed recorded use of the word selfie is from 2002, in a photo and report of a drunken party posted to an Online forum but self-portraits have been around since well — forever.

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Not surprisingly, Hollywood celebrities and pop-singers are some the most devoted selfie artists out there but one look at Instagram clearly shows that many of us in the hoi polloi can shamelessly self promote with the best of them.

In an opinion piece for The New York Times actor, poet, artist, director, screenwriter, producer, teacher, author and, apparently, selfie-expert, James Franco gets to the heart of what the selfie phenomenon is all about. Beyond the vanity, the narcissism and the self-involvement Mr. Franco states, “attention is power.  And if you are someone people are interested in, then the selfie provides something very powerful, from the most privileged perspective possible.”

Now if you’ll excuse me, El Kaiser is not getting enough attention, and is not nearly powerful enough, so he must get in a few minutes of duck-face practice before the Polar Vortex freezes his lips off.

Article

Whaddaya know, It’s Our 1st Birthday!

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Pretty soon we’ll be flinging food from our high chair and having ear-shattering tantrums at supermarkets…

A year ago this week J.D. and I officially “went rouge” and unleashed the pilot episode of our new project, Pop Tech Jam. In December of 2011 our radio show for The New York Times had been cancelled and yours truly moved on to produce video for the Gray Lady. J.D. shifted her focus to her book series for O’Reilly Media and continued writing and editing for the Book Review and Technology sections of the Times. It appeared our Internet radio days were over. But a strange thing happened.

Once word spread that our show had ended production, the emails poured in exhorting us to bring it back or produce a new one. To say we were moved by the outpouring of support from our listeners would be a gross understatement. J.D. and I were actually both a little gobsmacked.

Neither of us had any clue that there were so many passionate fans missing our shenanigans but grinding out a weekly radio show for so long had taken its toll and we both needed time off to recharge before discussing what to do next. It became clear during our first few meetings that without the considerable resources available to us at our day gig it would have been impossible for us to do both a new show and our full-time jobs. Just as we were about to move on, the team at BROS offered to help and the rest, as they say, is history.

The plan is to continue producing the show until it loses the fun factor for either of us. As things stand right now, it appears J.D. and I will be busy for quite some time.

Thank you all and please remember to JAM responsibly.

Podcast

Episode 34: Movie Talk with J.D. and El Kaiser

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The Academy Awards ceremony is a few weeks away and if you haven’t watched all of the nominated films no need to fret because Pop Tech Jam has you covered! J.D. tells us where to catch the winners and losers…legally. In the news, this year’s Super Bowl is the most interactive in history; Twitter gets hacked; Facebook continues pushing the  envelope; and Microsoft helps Dell go private.