Tech News and Commentary

Dave and the team discuss Google's outages, Google trends for the year, FTC looking into the data privacy policies of social media giants, Honda software recalls, smart holiday decorations, a flamethowing drone, Twitter shutting down Periscope, and more.

Our guest this hour:

Haol Yao, Product Manager, Consumer Inkjet at Epson America

Steve in Lake Villa, Illinois listens to the podcast and is calling via the App and asked: "I have a friend whose mother does not have cable or Wi-Fi, but she does have a smart TV. He wants to be able to stream his YouTube videos from his phone to the TV. Can he do this without Wi-Fi in the house, and the smart TV obviously not connected to Wi-Fi?"

https://www.intotomorrow.com/media/podcasts/2020/12-18-2020/12-18-2020-H1S1.mp3

Steve, we cant tell you for sure without more information but its almost certainly a no.

Depending on the phone your friend is using, it may be possible to connect it using a cable between the phone and the TVs HDMI port, but the smart functions of smart TVs typically assume and require WiFi.

Most smart TVs dont even feature any out of the box mirroring for phones, so thats already a potential hurdle, but even the ones that do normally require WiFi.

It may be possible to get around that using the phones own hotspot (this also depends on the specific phone), but he will still have to deal with mirroring not necessarily being a feature of the smart TV itself.

Since most smart TVs have access to a YouTube app the most viable solution may be to connect the TV to the phones hotspot and rather than mirroring the video just allow the TV to play it natively through its own app.

Rich in Canada and asked: "Which is a better laptop, a 17 inch LENOVO or a17 inch dell?"

https://www.intotomorrow.com/media/podcasts/2020/12-18-2020/12-18-2020-H1S5.mp3

Rich, we cant tell from just the screen size, but in terms of reliability ratings Dell is mostly beating Lenovo this year.

If you had asked us last year, Lenovo wouldve mostly been beating Dell in the rankings so take that with a grain of salt.

Also, keep in mind that 17-inch laptop just refers to the size of the screen, but any modern 17-inch laptop will be a better laptop than a 2006 17-inch laptop, and any $2000 17-inch laptop will outperform a $700 17-inch laptop.

If youre looking at specific models either may come out on top, reliability ratings usually only look at the brands issues across the board.

When you participate on the show – anytime 24/7 – and we HEAR you with any consumer tech question, comment, help for another listener, tech rage or just share your favorite App these days … you could win prizes.

Infinacore: Walleygrip Detachable Wallet, Grip and Stand for your smartphone

Turtle Beach: Stealth 700 Wireless Gaming Headset

Chipolo: Item Finder - find your keys, phone or backpack in seconds