Tech News and Commentary

Dave and the team discuss Samsung steering its resources towards foldables, new streaming services, AWS issues, a Vatican Instagram scandal, Black Friday spending, Uber Elevate being sold off, retail's losses in 2020, and more.

Our guest this hour:

Michael Jensen, Founder and CEO of Labster

Debbie in Raleigh, North Carolina listens on NewsRadio 680 WPTF and asked: "A question about the "ultra Wi-Fi device" or similar products. I wonder if they will be of any help since sometimes the computer drops connections and other things happen with some of the other devices. There are too many devices and only one wi-fi. The other thing is, when you ask Google a question and you are totally blind, she will not give you the answer. She will say "here it is" and show it on the stupid screen. The other device I have from Amazon is far better."

https://www.intotomorrow.com/media/podcasts/2020/12-04-2020/12-04-2020-H1S1.mp3

Debbie, we hadnt heard about the Ultra WiFi device but looking at their site there are some reasons to go a different way.

It seems to be targeted at users that dont know what a WiFi booster is, so they advertise features like no monthly fee which will be true of any similar device, they also advertise that its just plug and play: you plug it into the wall and devices connect to it and youre done. Thats probably not true for any connection that uses a password. These devices need to connect to the original network that theyre trying to extend.

There are lots of clearly very biased reviews on very suspicious sites as well, so this looks more like a blackhat SEO campaign to boost a mediocre product.

There are equivalent products priced similarly from better known brands. For example, the TP-Link AC1750 or the D-Link DAP-1650. Theyll do the same thing and theyre more likely to work as advertised.

If you can afford $200, you may be better off looking into an out of the box mesh system like an Eero, Netgear Orbi, or Google Home. Those are built to do what you would be doing with these extenders, and to do it in a more seamless way. They will also most likely get you much faster speeds if youre on a gigabit connection.

James in Grenada, Mississippi listens on SuperTalk and asked: "I'm interested in repeaters or signal boosters for commercial trucks. If you know anything about those, I'd love to hear about them and what you'd recommend."

https://www.intotomorrow.com/media/podcasts/2020/12-04-2020/12-04-2020-H1S5.mp3

James, weBoost has a line of devices designed just for what you need.

Theres a fairly big range in price from a couple of hundred to around $500, but it all depends on both the kind of truck you want to wire up and where you drive it.

For example a Drive Sleek is pretty small and it retails for $200, but a Drive Reach which is more powerful and meant for multiple users will cost you around $500.

Both of those work for cars, but they also sell boosters that are designed specifically for RVs or box trucks. They wont necessarily cost you more money, a Drive Sleek OTR for box trucks retails for $280.

If youre looking for something that would allow you to track the vehicles,