Tech News and Commentary

Dave and the team discuss Google's gun emoji, Microsoft's original gun emoji, Amazon's Echo Dot Kids Edition, Alexa can now teach kids to say please and thank you, digital babysitters, the growth of the consumer electronics industry, a dashboard camera lands a driver in jail, grocers and toys, a police visit to a funeral home to unlock a phone, and more.

Nolan in Tyler, Texas listens on KTBB asked: "I've had some problems with a popup that comes up on my computer. I bought this computer new, a couple months ago. It has Windows 10. This thing pops up every once in a while that says "Adobe Flash Player." Then I also get a popup that says you need to call Microsoft because you have Spyware. Have you heard of this? I've looked on the Internet and seen that other people have had a problem with this, but have not seen any solutions."

 

Well, Nolan, it looks like you stumbled across some malware.

The first thing we should point out is that the popup warning you about spyware is itself malware. Microsoft doesn’t tell users to give them a call to fix their malware issues.There are estimated to be over 1 billion active Windows users with more than 400 million of them being Windows 10 users. Those would be an awful lot of phone calls to answer.

The Flash player popup may be about an update being available, that may be legitimate, Adobe has a way of nagging Flash users at inconvenient times, but generally speaking, it does sound like you have some malware to get rid of.

You should run a virus scan as soon as you can, and maybe follow it up with something like Spybot S&D or CCleaner after to try to find other potential threats.

To avoid issues like that in the future make sure you run virus scans often and try to avoid shady websites and downloads, those are the most likely sources of your malware infection.

Richard in North Pole, Alaska listens on Newsradio 970 KFBX asked: "I have a question about iPhones... I work out in the summertime where there's no cell phone connection. But I'd like to download some movies on a MicroSD reader so I can upload these movies to my phone while I'm out in the boonies. Is it possible? Do I need to use a computer to do it with, or can I do it through my iPhone?"

 

Richard, yes, it’s possible, but you’ll need to buy some extra hardware.

The good news for you is that a lightning port SD card reader can cost you less than $10.

As for your question about whether you can do it straight from your phone or not, we’re a little confused, if you want to put movies or any other files into your phone an SD card, then you’re going to need a computer or some other device to put them into the card.

If you’re asking if you can bypass the SD card entirely and just download movies onto your phone to play when you’re offline, then yes, you can.

You can download movies not just from iTunes but even from third-party apps like Netflix and Amazon Video to play when you don’t have a connection. They won’t be free, you’ll either buy or rent each movie, or pay for a subscription to be able to download them, but you can and they’ll play offline.

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