Techstination, your destination for gadgets and gear.  I’m Fred Fishkin.  It’s gift giving season….and if you have a marine life lover on your list…or maybe that’s you…National Geographic photographer David Littschwager has a book you’ll want to get your tentacles on.  Octopus Seahorse Jellyfish is the title…..and he spent a dozen years traveling the world with 500 pounds of studio gear to make it happen.  The images and the accompanying articles..are eye opening…and that’s especially true of one octopus photographed in the Solomon Islands…

“It covers about eight pages in the book.  But you wouldn’t recognize it from page to page because it has such a diverse way of sort of showing itself to the world.  It starts out a little tiny ball and then at the end it’s this puff of black ink as it squirts away.”

Octopus Seahorse Jellyfish…from David Littschwager. And National Geographic.

You can find us at Techstination.com.  I’m Fred Fishkin.

Pinna is a rich entertainment and podcast platform for kids.  With PodcastersU it is teaching them to become creators too.  Sr. Director of Development and Children's Programming Amy Kraft gets behind the microphone with Techstination's Fred Fishkin.

Techstination, your destination for gadgets and gear.  I’m Fred Fishkin.   There’s lots of competition in the soundbar business….and while Roku may not be the most obvious choice over some well known speaker brands…it may be the best choice for many.  Roku’s Streambar Pro….with streaming capability built in…is very good as a stand alone…but you can easily build onto the system with two add on speakers …or four….and a sub-woofer too.  An app makes set up simple.  And Roku has hired a team in Denmark to create high quality, yet affordable, sound.  Brian Moller is VP of Engineering..a veteran of Bang and Olufsen…built the team..

“We have sort of a performance goal ..what type of audio quality or the power.  And it’s finding the right compromises if you want and the right optimizations to achieve that in our product.”

The enhanced remote with a headphone jack is a plus.  Pricing starts at under 180 dollars.

You can find us at Techstination.com.  I’m Fred Fishkin.

With more than 4.4 billion quizzes played, Sporcle's online trivia platform has won lots of fans over the years.   The story behind it?  Founder Matt Ramme and CEO Ali Aydar get into the trivial details with Techstination's Fred Fishkin.

Techstination, your destination for gadgets and gear.  I’m Fred Fishkin.  Google has unveiled the Pixel 6A…an impressive new phone using the company’s Tensor chip….that will arrive this summer for a relatively inexpensive 449 dollars.  The camera isn’t on par with what you’ll find in the Pixel 6 or Pixel 6 Pro…but for the price…it is looking pretty good.  At the Google i/o gathering… SVP Rick Osterloh said the Pixel 7 will arrive this fall…along with the highly anticipated Pixel Watch…

“It features an improved Wear OS UI.  It’s all designed to be tappable, voice enabled and glanceable.  And with Google Maps, you can get directions on the go, even without your phone.”

The Pixel Watch will also incorporate Fitbit…a Google acquisition.  Again…it won’t arrive until the fall.

You can find us at Techstination.com.  I’m Fred Fishkin.