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“I love Spongebob too, I gotta tell you.”
Hello and welcome to another great episode of YATS! Mat Lee here, and we have a great panel as usual for episode three. Joining me are Larry Press, Ant Pruitt, and Mike Rothman. Did I mention we are now in iTunes? That means you can subscribe and get fresh YATS delivered to iTunes as soon as they are posted! Thanks for listening, and be sure to tell your friends. Keep reading for some great show notes written by Ant Pruitt.
Mike had mentioned in the first YATS episode he has an interesting home theater system. Mike has a home theater PC (HTPC) that is running as a set top box for his home television viewing. Mike uses a TV Tuner attached to his network that grabs the basic cable plan to get local programming. He also has a server computer running on his local network with a gigabit connection that serves up the stored media including photos to the HTPC. The HTPC is running Windows 7, which as we know, has a great media center software package. Not only that, Mike is serving up the media to other pc’s in his home.
Larry, on the other hand, proclaims his set up was a “way simpler” than Mike’s super-duper set up. He’s running Google TV via Logitech Revue set top box and Roku Box. According to Larry, getting his signals over the air is fairly easy for one of his televisions, but not his other. It seems as if the antenna sensitivity isn’t up to par on that particular television. Mike suggests logging onto antennaweb.org to see stats on broadcast signals in your area. Very interesting site.
Ant mentioned other similar options as well as his home theater set up. Ant runs Ubuntu Linux OS with the Plex Media Server package that serves up media to his Google TV via Logitech Revue. The Plex Media client plays the media seamlessly and in full HD if the file is encoded in HD. Tversity is a nice media server package that works cross platform as well.
Mat tries to “bring us to the dark side” and gives us the low down on the world of torrents. There are plenty of ways to get TV shows from the web, torrents are just the most efficient. Of course, we here at YATS do not in anyway advocate it.
It’s time for Mike to ditch his iPhone 3GS. Being tired of the Apple ecosystem and closed policies, Mike is curious about what Android device he should get. We discuss that there are many options that can sometimes be overwhelming, but what’s most important is how the phone feels to you. Ant mentions that he tells everyone to take 30-45 minutes in the cell phone store and “fondle” the phones. If the phone feels good in your hands, it’s probably the one for you.
Larry mentions a phone carrier offering better cellular rates called Ting. Apparently, they’re partnering and offering up Sprint’s coverage at much better rates.
Gather ’round kiddies, Uncle Larry is going to tell you a story! We’re looking to do weekly segment on historical screw ups. This is where we look back at historical items in tech that we truly believed was going nowhere fast. Larry was at the Homebrew Computer Club back in the days and met a “some kid” named Steve Jobs. Larry had some opinions on Jobs that may not have been flattering, but he’s able to look back at it and laugh.
Google has posted information about Google Glasses Project. These glasses will give you augmented reality in your day to day life. Using the Google databases, many different data sets could be available for use such as finding restaurants or making reminders for research. We looked at it as another option stepping on Apple’s Siri product. What are the effects of this product? If you stop wearing the glasses, what happens with your day to day brain functions? Are you going to forget how to find new restaurants? For example, ask yourself, what is your best friend’s phone number? Most of us don’t know. Our brains have been trained based on how the cell phones we carry present the numbers. Mat mentions that author Ray Kurzweil predicted items like this coming to pass in the near future.
Thanks for listening to YATS. Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter. Send us an email to thecrew@YetAnotherTechShow.com. Also subscribe to our podcast in iTunes.
