Looking for a cheep wireless Bluetooth headset?

These look great to use for workouts or just working out in the yard. They have slight water resistance, “sweat resistance”, so that will help keep them from being damaged in during you grueling workouts. If you are on a marathon they have about an 8 hour battery life and has a built-in microphone so it can be used with your phone for phone calls as well. Listed at Amazon for around $22 this should be a no brainer.

• MPOW Brand Certified: Top-Brand Bluetooth Accessories for Smartphones
• Cheetah's Stylish Behind-Ear Streamline Outlook Design Guarantee 100% Stable and Comfortable User Wearing Experience for Running,Jogging,Biking,Driving,Fishing,Camping,Hiking and other Outdoor Sports.
• The Most Advanced Bluetooth 4.1 Chips Hardware Configuration Ensure Hi-Fi CD Quality Stereo Music Sound and Strong Signal. Leading apt-X Tech Can Provide No-lag Voice when Listening to Music or Calling with Mic.
  Simple To Use: Portable Function Control Buttons Are Designed for Easily Operation. Just Press it until Blue and Red LED Light Alternatively Flashing, find and connect with your phones,then you can enjoy music or calling wirelessly. If need reconnect automatically, please turn on Bluetooth of your phone first, then turn on the Cheetah, It can reconnect automatically.
• Universal Compatible for Apple iPhone 6 6 Plus 5 5S 4 4S iPad iPod Samsung Galaxy S6 S5 S4 S3 LG Motorola Sony and iOS/Android Mobile Phones. Almost all smartphones can work with this well.

Kobo Aura One

Where was this device a few years ago. I have had some issues over the years with electronic devices finding their way into our pool. This new Kobo Reader gets rid of that issue with its waterproof design. This eBook reader is a little larger than most of the ereaders in this category of devices sizing out to 7.8 inch display. The unit is no thicker than an iPhone 6s and not much heavier than the 6s Plus. The Aura One is rated to 6 feet of water resistance, I’ll have to keep it out of the deep end of the pool, which normally shouldn’t be an issue unless you are floating in the deep end.

The number on eBook company that Kobo is competing against is Amazon with their kindle products. With Amazon’s deep source of books to purchase and borrow you have almost any book that you could desire available to you. It’s ability  to also play back audiobooks for those of us that are deep into their Audible Library, is another boon.

Kobo however has deep ties into the the US Lending Library system with Overdrive. So this feature is part of their system. That gives you access to books for free if available from your local and regional libraries that you are a member of.

The cost of this device in the US is going to be around $229 and it should be available in early September.

Review at theverge

Automatic Pro now offers free 3G service

When I read the post describing this product it really began to intrigue me. First, let me say that I wish it were free 4G but any “G” is better than none. This device plugs into your car’s OBD-II port, unlocks the data in your car’s on-board computer and connects it to the internet. While that is a concern to me as far as security, I’m planning on looking into the repercussions of adding this to a vehicle.

This is the same concern I would have for any of the IoT devices that are constantly showing up around us. There are an interesting list of things that this device will bring to the table that might be of interest to you though.

The primary reason this device was created was allow you to connect into the on board computer system of your car to allow you to also access the diagnostic information about your vehicle. The Pro version takes it one step further to actually connect the device through an internet connection to applications to make use of that data. Many other things become available to take advantage of once this has been unlocked.

Have you ever forgotten where you have parked your car? Now this device provides the ability to find it again. Tracking driving statistics is also an interesting feature. I need to provide my driving information for sales/service trips to the IRS every year so this device along with one of several available Apps can automatically log the exact mileage for these trips without me having to write it down.

Interesting enough this also works with IFTTT and the Amazon Echo. I am also playing with a Pebble watch right now and there is a an App available to connect that as well.

I sure you guessed that I am excited about this device, so I placed an order for one for my Jeep. I’ll get back to you later after I have put it through its paces.

Is the USB-C connection really that great?

According to Intel the addition of USB-C connector in your mobile device gives you a single connection type for every use. With Apple’s disclosure that they are not going to include a headphone jack in the next iPhone release we are going to need some method of connecting a headphone to your device. While wireless Bluetooth headset/buds are an alternative, a lower power consumption method is much desired. We don’t want to do anything to diminish our battery life at all.

The most obvious advantage, at least to devices manufacturers, is slimmer phones. Without needing to route analog circuitry, a phone maker could switch to digital audio and shave off precious millimeters from the device's body. With digital audio, Saunders added, software and device makers could help cheaper earbuds take advantage of features reserved for more expensive headphones, like noise cancelling and bass boosting.

Another benefit is the ability of this connection to handle multiple functions simultaneowusly through the single connection. This means, you could be charging your phone, streaming music or video and transferring files all simultaneously. So, One connector to rule them all!

Uber may be planning to add driverless cars to its fleet in Pittsburgh as early as this month.

Apparently they have been testing driverless cars in Pittsburgh for eighteen months and are getting ready to take the next step and actually implement them. Obviously if this is implemented we are going to see a big change in cost of using this type of system versus the current one. Uber recently purchased Otto which has equipment that can be retrofitted into current vehicles to create a driverless car. Otto initially was launched to do bring this technology to the trucking industry.

According to TechCrunch:

The company will deploy around 100 modified Volvo XC90s outfitted with self-driving equipment. Each vehicle will be staffed by one engineer, who can take the wheel as/when needed, and a co-pilot to observe and take notes. There will also be a “liquid-cooled” computer sitting in the trunk recording trip and map data.

Facial recognition features can be a big security issue

I  saw an article posted in Engadget today discussing how 3D faces based on Facebook pictures can be used to fool facial recognition systems.

"Some vendors -- most notably Microsoft with its Windows Hello software -- already have commercial solutions that leverage alternative hardware. [In Hello's case, that hardware is Tobii's eye-tracking camera.] However, there is always a cost-benefit to adding hardware, and hardware vendors will need to decide whether there is enough demand from and benefit for consumers to add specialized components like IR cameras or structured light projectors."

I'm glad Microsoft is using this technology to create a more secure feature it makes me believe that someone come up with some sort all method be around this is well. Your post interesting in that they detailed how they were able to fool the camera phone software. It must have been fun to use all the toys to accomplish this.

Windows 10 Anniversary Update is reported to cause millions of webcams to stop working

Microsoft decided to exclude both H.264 and MJPEG codec support for millions of webcams. This includes cameras from manufacturers like Logitech.  According to Microsoft-focused blog Thurrott.com, this was supposedly a decision the company made to prevent performance issues now that certain Windows apps have more direct webcam access post-update.

Members of Microsoft’s Windows Camera team are performing damage control in support threads, and Thurrott.com reports an official fix may be in the works for a September release. Unfortunately, that may only remedy the MJPEG format. Those who rely on H.264 may be waiting even longer to make use of their webcams. If you recently installed the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, you can revert to the prior version of the software within 10 days.