Tech News and Commentary

Dave and the team discuss Sony’s wearable air conditioner, a techy coffee table, Facebook working on brain-computer interfaces, Netflix, HBO and the Emmys, mobile gamers and their devices, and more.

Michelle in Jackson, Mississippi listens on SuperTalk Mississippi and asked: “We are in the process of remodeling a house to live in and we want to “age in place” I’ve looked at a lot of the technology available and I’m trying to decide whether at 60, if we should go ahead and prepare, like wire it ahead, ir is that too early? Either way, I’d like to know what you recommend as a basic system for people who want technology that works for them as they age.”

Michelle, if you’re asking us how to futureproof your house, back in the day we would’ve told you to fill it with coax going in every direction, after that we would’ve told you to fill the walls with ethernet cables going to every room.

These days, we’d just tell you to keep that money in your pocket and don’t really bother.

Everything is wireless these days, and there’s a good chance that going forward, more and more devices may come with their own dedicated connections.

These days even security cameras are fully wireless. Not just their connection to show the video, but a growing number of them run on batteries that last for months.

The same goes for most of the devices that used to need to be wired, want to put content on your TV? WiFi can do that for you, want internet for your computers? WiFi can do that. Want security cameras? WiFi can do that.

You really don’t have to sink a lot of money into futreproofing a house that will likely need less and less in terms of infrastructure going forward. To give you a fairly extreme example, you don’t really even need light switches in your house these days. Smart light bulbs can be turned on via WiFi.

So, don’t waste a lot of money on setting up a system around your house to have your devices work. Your devices will probably work as long as they have a wireless signal of some kind. Whether that is WiFi or 5G in the future may change, but it’ll probably be wireless and not need any home infrastructure.

Bruce in Ridgeland, Mississippi listens on SuperTalk 97.3 and asked: “I have an Amazon Fire Tablet, and I was thinking of going to an iPad. Would that be better and give me more capabilities or not?”

Bruce, yes an iPad is a better device and it will give you more capabilities, the question is whether they’re capabilities that you “need” or “want.”

For example, there are iPads that can do fairly heavy graphics work, but you may just want to watch videos and read some websites.

As long as your Fire Tablet is serving those needs, you can replace it with another Fire Tablet for considerably less than the price of most iPads.

If you’re looking for a specific features an iPad may be the way to go, but if you’re only looking for a newer tablet, that performs a little better, a new Fire Tablet may be enough and for far less.

It’s worth noting that if you’re after extra capabilities, a small laptop, maybe one with a touchscreen, may be a replacement that is still portable, has a long battery life, but is capable of much more and it may not cost you much more.

When you participate on the show – anytime 24/7 – and we HEAR you with any consumer tech question,