Articles in Personal Tech

Auto Industry Wants AM Radio Out of Car Radios. Congress Has Other Plans.

By

AM radio, which is celebrating its 102nd birthday as an option for new autos this year, sure has staying power. The amplitude modulation transmissions, known both as “AM band” as well as “MW” for medium band, is widely used for spoken-word broadcasts including news, weather, sports, traffic, and emergency broadcasts.

Many people, myself included, grew up listening to our parents’ choice of radio stations while we were bouncing around in the …

Theater Review: ‘Five,’ The Parody Musical… Or The Five Angry Women of Donald Trump

By

King Henry VIII may have had six wives (divorced, beheaded, died, … well you know what happened), but former President Donald Trump has five angry women.
That cohort is the basis of the musical “Five,“ a show that wants to Make America Funny Again, something we can abbreviate as MAFA. Sounds catchy, no? Perhaps on red baseball caps?
The comedy musical revue puts the spotlight on five of the women in the …

Why the Floppy Disk Won’t Die: San Francisco’s Muni Metro Streetcar Lines Need Them, That’s Why

By

If the term “sneakernet” means something to you, then you’re probably old enough to have used floppy disks at work and you probably assumed that they were relegated to the scrap heap of tech history ages ago and were certainly not being used to run mission-critical systems.
Of course, you’d be wrong.
[Editor’s note: A sneakernet, for the uninitiated, was an informal term for the transfer of information by bringing a floppy …

Everything You Need to Know About the Total Solar Eclipse Today

By

It’s Monday, April 8, 2024, and the day of America’s last total solar eclipse until 2044.
Here is everything you need to know to enjoy the day and stay safe.
The eclipse will begin in Mexico at about 11:07 a.m. PDT, Monday, April 8 before crossing into Texas at 1:27 p.m. CDT. It is expected in New York City as a partial solar eclipse starting at 2:11 p.m. EDT.
First and foremost, don’t …

The Greatest Solar Eclipse in Our Lifetime is on Monday: Here’s How to Buy Safe Solar Eclipse Glasses and Viewers

By

A total eclipse of the sun will take place Monday afternoon in the United States and some astronomers have described it as likely to be the greatest solar eclipse across the U.S. in our lifetime.
It’s important to have proper eyewear or to use a pinhole camera you can make yourself to view it. Regular sunglasses, even ones with very dark lenses, are not safe to use to view the eclipse.
According to …

How to Photograph the 2024 Solar Eclipse With Your Smartphone

By

On this coming Monday, April 8, millions of people across North America will point their smartphones towards the sky and try to capture the total eclipse of the sun.

It will be visible in Mexico, from Texas to Maine, and into parts of Canada and will last for just over four minutes in some places along the 115-mile (185-kilometer) wide swath.

Some fifteen U.S. states will be in its path, although two …

The AT&T Blackout, One of the Biggest Cellular Network Outages in Recent Memory, Wasn’t Due to Hackers or Solar Flares But to Human Error

By

AT&T’s network outage this past week was not due to Chinese hackers, it wasn’t due to solar flares, and wasn’t the result of a cyberattack or other malicious activity.
Everyone chimed in: The Space Weather Prediction Center (yes, this is a thing and it’s part of the National Weather Service that, in turn is part of NOAA, or the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration), said that, while there had been several …