This Week in Tech News | The Tech Guy

'Google Now' and 'Google Glass' Bring the Future Closer

Episode 980

Leo discusses the privacy issues at hand with Google's new wearable Glass device. Essentially, everyone wearing Glass has a camera on their head and can take pictures at any time without anyone else knowing.

Leo also shows off Google Now, which was recently included on iOS within their Google search app. Google Now has been on Android for awhile as well, and it aims to predict what the user wants before they even go look for it. It's impressive, but again, is it too creepy?

Google I/O Kicks Off With 3.5 Hour Keynote

Episode 979

Google launched their annual developers' conference, Google I/O, with a marathon 3 1/2 hour keynote address. Leo says there was no new hardware announced, not even from Motorola. There was an announcement that there will be a Nexus version of the Samsung Galaxy SIV soon running pure vanilla Android. They barely even talked about Google glass, which they just launched. They did, however, have plenty to say about Google+, which Leo says shows that Google is all in on their social network. Leo also says he thinks that Google+ will be adding SMS to challenge Facebook Messenger.

Online Retailers to Charge Internet Sales Tax

Episode 979

Leo discusses the Marketplace Fairness Act which recently passed in the Senate, and for the most part he is in favor of it. He thinks since brick and mortar businesses have had to charge sales tax, that online retailers should as well. Many local businesses have suffered because of online retailers that have been able to sell the same products without the sales tax.

Yahoo Announcement Coming Monday

Episode 979

Yahoo has an announcement on Monday, and rumors are going around on what it will be. Leo says it's possible there will be an update to their popular photo sharing service, Flickr. Another possibility is a buyout of Tumblr. Yahoo has reportedly bid $1.1 billion for the site, but Tumblr may have turned it down. Site founder David Karp may have started a bidding war over the site.

Paper Karma App Will Eliminate Junk Mail

Episode 978

Leo has found a nifty app called "Paper Karma", which uses your smartphone's camera to unsubscribe you from junk mail. Simply take a picture of the junk mail, and the app will then contact the company and unsubscribe you from getting any more content from them. Leo tried it and it actually works! And the best part is, it's free.

'Adaptive Sound' in Galaxy SIV Tests Your Hearing to Create Custom Profile

Episode 978

Leo found a cool feature of the Samsung Galaxy SIV which will adjust the sound of the phone to match the hearing of the user. It's called Adaptive Sound, and it will test your hearing (much like when the school did it when you were a kid) and use your responses to creative a custom sound profile for you.

Microsoft Announces 100 Million Copies of Windows 8

Episode 977

Microsoft announced that this week they sold their 100 millionth license of Windows 8. Leo says that while that sounds impressive, it doesn't mean there's a 100 million copies of Windows out there, just that 100 million licenses have been sold to retailers and manufacturers.

Despite 100 million licenses sold, Windows 8 install base estimated at 59 million…
http://bgr.com/2013/05/10/windows-8-installation-base-estimate-59-million/

Google Glass Launches

Episode 977

Google Glass has launched and Leo says it's a useful item for parents with newborn children who they want to capture pictures of them smiling. There are privacy concerns though. Leo thinks that it'll be great for networking down the road as you access data about people you see.

Saturday Night Live did a bit on it here - http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/weekend-update-randall-meeks/n36353/.

Leo's New Companion: The Samsung Galaxy SIV

Episode 976

Leo now has the Samsung Galaxy SIV, and one of the things that it has is a feature called "S Health," which aims to make the Galaxy SIV your "life companion." It'll automatically count steps, calories burned, and even your "comfort level." It really shows that smartphones are really the computers of the future as we get more mobile and wired. With their new ad, Samsung is really milking the generation gap, showing young kids using the Galaxy SIV's new feature, while the older, out of touch parents are using iPhones.

Browse Facebook Privately and Anonymously

Episode 975

Leo's Mom wants to do something that many users probably want to do -- see other Facebook accounts without being public themselves. Facebook hides the ability to do this, and the default when creating an account is to be public. Here's how to make an account that's as private as possible:

Create a Facebook page that has no information in it, not even a photo. It may even be a good idea to lie about your age and say you're 100 years old.

Next, go into the Facebook account settings > Privacy. There are a couple of categories with a few options under each.