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iOS 9.3 Update Makes Hyperlinks Crash Your Phone

by Ron Hogan Leave a Comment

If you updated to iOS 9.3, hopefully you’re not having any issues.  However, if you’re one of the unlucky ones that gets hit by every bug in Apple’s software, you have my sympathies.  A glitch in iOS 9.3 makes iPhones crash when people click on hyperlinks.  To make matters worse, iOS 9.2 also suffers from the same glitch, assuming users installed a recent security update.

“I’m trying to remember the number of times I’ve told folks not to immediately upgrade to the new release,” said a user on the Apple Support Forum with the handle ‘nameisunique.’  “Should have been a little more suspect of a new release that’s timed with a somewhat big announcement by Apple.”

There’s a good reason to never download updates on the first day, or even the first month.  Wait, patiently, until the bugs are ironed out, then do your upgrading. It’s a great way to avoid these kind of problems, and it’s also a good way to make sure all your favorite apps, games, and other phone fun things are able to work on the new OS upgrade.  Time is on your side.

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Atari Vault Hits Steam

by Ron Hogan Leave a Comment

atari-vault

One of my first video game memories was sitting with my parents on an old color tube television and hooking the weird prongs of the Atari 2600 into the back of the TV.  My parents had a dozen or more games for the Atari, everything from Missile Command to Asteroids, and while I never beat Pac-man, I definitely caught video game fever.  Not long after that my best friend got a Nintendo, and my journey into video gaming was just beginning.  Sometimes it’s nice to relive the past, maybe fire up some old retro games.  Steam is going to make that a lot easier.  The 100-game Atari Vault is now on Steam for purchase.

The math works out in the purchaser’s favor.  The 100 games only cost $16.99 currently; the price will eventually go up to $19.99, but that’s still a great deal for a hundred games.  Even if not every Atari game you want is on the Vault, enough of them are present to make it worth a purchase.  After all, I once bought Galaga/Galaxian on Game Boy for $30, so $16 for both arcade and Atari 2600 classics isn’t that bad of a deal.

Of course, you need a Windows computer to run the collection, but odds are you already have a Windows computer if you’re a serious gamer, or even just a casual gamer like myself.

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Wordless Wednesday: Get Walking

by Ron Hogan Leave a Comment

google-walking

The Google Maps guy gets a walking stick and a backpack if you select walking directions!  I’ve never noticed this before and I’m kind of blown away.  Have you?

Via Reddit

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PlayStation VR: Virtual Reality For Only $400

by Ron Hogan Leave a Comment

2908

Last summer, while I was at a concert festival, I got a chance to stand in line for a few hours and partake of a special event inside a trailer.  That event was a chance to try out a virtual reality headset.  It was the HTC Vive, and it was awesome.  It was just a proof of concept, staggering around in a dark room with a helmet on, but it was a whole lot of fun and I’ll never be able to afford one.  However, the burst of virtual reality head appliances has kicked off a growth from an unlikely player:  Sony.  Sony’s PlayStation VR is only going to run $400, and it just might change what video games can do.

Says Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Andrew House:  “The most fascinating thing is how VR has rewritten the rulebook of what game design should be.  It’s levelled the playing field in terms of production values.  What has encouraged me is that there’s an opportunity for smaller developers with simpler game mechanics that are very well crafted for the VR experience to have more of a significant presence than they would have on a blockbuster console.  It’s intriguing.”

That’s the issue with VR.  It’s very expensive, at least for now.  But a lot of people already have a PS4, so another $400 on top of that to have immersive game play?  That’s a really good price, and a low entry barrier.

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Wordless Wednesday: Space Paddy's Day

by Ron Hogan Leave a Comment

ireland-iss

Via Wikipedia

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Twitch Cooks With Julia Child

by Ron Hogan Leave a Comment

Everyone loves to cook.  Well, okay, not everyone loves to cook, but everyone loves to eat.  Even better, people love to watch other people cook.  I should know, because I do it all the time, and now there’s a new way to watch other people make delicious things.  Perhaps the first person to bring cooking education to the masses was none other than Julia Child.  Now you can watch people cook online thanks to Twitch.  Twitch is launching a cooking channel with 201 episodes of Julia Child’s The French Chef.

“Julia Child was the precursor to Twitch’s social cooking movement, making The French Chef show a great reminder about how visionary she was. To put it in terms our community can relate to, Bob Ross is the Julia Child of painting,” said a press release from Bill Morrier, the head of Twitch Creative.

Just last week, YouTube launched a similar service called Nom, and now Twitch, the masters of live streaming, are taking some steps into the life streaming world.  Would you watch other people cook?  I mean, I would, but I also watched Chopped on a daily basis.

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Amazon's Selfie Pay

by Ron Hogan Leave a Comment

selfie

Passwords can be hacked.  Number codes are even easier to hack.  Fingerprint scanners can be bypassed.  There’s no truly safe way to make online shopping completely free from risk, but Amazon is trying.  After all, they’re the largest retailer in the online world, so it makes sense that they’ll ant to be at the head of the class when it comes to payment processing safety, and that just might mean duckfacing in public.  Amazon has applied for a patent that allows users to pay with a selfie as identification.

Here’s why Amazon says their selfie payment system will be safe:  “While many conventional approaches rely on password entry for user authentication, these passwords can be stolen or discovered by other persons who can impersonate the user for any variety of tasks. Further, the entry of these passwords on portable devices is not user friendly in many cases, as the small touchscreen or keyboard elements can be difficult to accurately select using a relatively large human finger, and can require the user to turn away from friends or co-workers when entering a password, which can be awkward or embarrassing in many situations.”

As if that wasn’t safe enough, Amazon has an extra layer of protection: a randomly generated verification process that keeps users safe by making them do some action, like tilting their head or winking their left eye.  It also has a thermal imaging scanner, which makes it even harder to fake with a picture the kind of heat contour that comes off a real human face.

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Disinfect Everything

by Ron Hogan Leave a Comment

smartphone

I’ve been sick lately.  Scratch that, very sick.  My wife caught the flu, which means that a day later, I ended up having the flu, but that day of planning was crucial to our flu survival.  I was able to stock up on soup and liquids and get it all bought before I took sick, and we were able to weather the storm and survive somehow.  Now we’re facing off with the arduous task of cleaning up after the flu.  Disinfect all the things, starting with keyboards, remotes, and smartphones!

Fortunately, Lifehacker has some good tips on disinfecting things, and most of them are pretty simple.  For example, use alcohol diluted in a spray bottle on a soft cloth.  Pretty simple, right?  Well, you’d be surprised what some people pay for flu-killing wipes and the like.  I bought some myself, but I know better than to use them for my computers and delicate equipment like that.

Still, these things have to be cleaned, and it’s nice to know that it’s an easy, painless process.

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Wordless Wednesday: Reddit

by Ron Hogan Leave a Comment

iQN8AMu

Image:  Reddit

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Wordless Wednesday: Sinclair

by Ron Hogan Leave a Comment

sinclair-zx

Via Imgur

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