Showing 1 - 9 of 9
Fact-checking AI content... Is it possible?
Life, James Hein, Published on 26/04/2023
» Everywhere I turn these days, there is another comment or opinion on artificial intelligence or AI. Digging a little deeper, it would appear the concerns are for what comes after GPT-4.
New chatbot can do a lot, but can you trust it?
Life, James Hein, Published on 18/01/2023
» Over the New Year break, I was digging a bit more into artificial intelligence and especially how the ChatGPT can be used and how it could affect society.
Tesla Pi gets my motor running
Life, James Hein, Published on 19/01/2022
» I admit it, I'm getting excited about the Tesla Pi phone due out this year. The rumours have been flying fast and furious but there are some seemingly solid predictions. The phone will have a specially designed CPU. It will have a nice screen just under the 7-inch mark, four cameras and be deliberately priced a few hundred dollars under the top-of-the-line Apple phone. There is apparently some bad blood between Elon and Apple so that last one is a deliberate choice. Like the next Samsung range, it may have an under the screen front facing camera. There'll be lots of memory and a bunch of Tesla-like features with apparently a solar charger built into the back so you can always recharge during the day. I'm due for a new phone this year so I'll be holding off on the new Samsung and waiting to see what comes out.
Finally, an iPod replacement
Life, James Hein, Published on 20/11/2019
» Those who have known me for a while know I'm a lover of new technology. Aside from computer- and guitar-related items, I also like to listen to good quality sound playback. To further that goal I recently picked up a few FiiO devices. The M5 is a small, square, HD music player. It supports all Bluetooth protocols and when they are available up to a 2TB microSD card. While the unit will play back MP3s the focus is on the high-end codecs including FLAC. I paired this with the new FH7 in-ear headphones, which provided the broadest soundscape I have ever listened to and allowed me to follow a single instrument through the entire song. The last item was their BD3, a small unit that plugs into a cable allowing the headphones to act as a Bluetooth unit that can be paired to the M5 if I decide to wear it like a watch. As I found out when researching, you can pay some very large sums for headphones and related equipment but this set seems to be a nice sweet spot of quality and flexibility without going crazy.
Latest Chinese tablets a viable alternative
Life, James Hein, Published on 25/05/2016
» It has been a week and I really like my inexpensive 12-inch Chinese tablet made by Chuwi. I just added a 64GB MicroSD card that immediately popped up as D: drive when I booted into Windows 10. This will be the first Windows 10 based machine that is all mine and so far I have been impressed. The unit has no problems running a program like Visio and I have already used it for a presentation at a client's site. The screen is excellent and I like the way the unit notes when I have disconnected it from the keyboard and asks if I want to change to tablet mode under Windows. I used the Wi-Fi to connect to my mobile phone acting as a hot spot and there were no issues at all. Battery life has been good but that is one aspect I have not had the chance to really test out and reading some blog entries it takes a few charges to reach the full capacity.
Windows into the future
Life, James Hein, Published on 27/05/2015
» According to the latest from Microsoft, if you are running on a genuine copy of Windows 7 or 8.x then you will be able to upgrade to Windows 10 for free. You will also be able to upgrade to Windows 10 for a price if you are running, shall we say, those versions of Windows that originate from dubious OEM sources. These upgrades will, however, be very attractively priced. I suspect they are referring to OEMs in places like China and India that may have been a little lax with their licensing agreements. If you have downloaded your copy from a Bit Torrent site and activated it with a keygen, then I doubt the upgrade offers will be as generous.
Don't forget, computers are made by humans
Database, James Hein, Published on 26/05/2010
» As you might imagine, I often get asked questions about all manner of IT subjects. Sometimes these questions are very simple ones and this reminds me that not all people are computer experts, or even what I would call computer-aware. So, this week, I'm going to go right back to the basics.
The extermination of all things impure from Apple
Database, James Hein, Published on 24/02/2010
» Is Oracle a trusted form of Open source software? With the recent resignation of Ken Jacobs, the man tipped to look after MySQL, people are starting to wonder. Jacobs was known as the friendly face of Open source in Oracle. When Oracle did not assign MySQL to Jacobs, he quit. Jacobs did say that he believed Oracle would look after MySQL and "make it better".
Already looking to the next Apple news
Database, James Hein, Published on 17/02/2010
» Seems the feedback for the iPad has been a bit lukewarm. Some have described it as ''an iPhone having a mid-life crisis''. It is like the iPhone but without multitasking, no Flash and no wide screen video playback capability. The iPhone itself is still dong well but the new unit didn't live up to expectations. Some of the problem is the responsibilities Apple has. They need to keep their developers happy to minimise app rewriting. Then there are the shareholders who expect customers to be locked into the iTunes store for everything, hence there is no Flash and you will not be able to play Evony or Farmville on your iPad.