Tech News and Commentary

Dave and the team discuss Google's $5B fine, manufacturer's Android problem according to the EU, Prime Day problems, Amazon's Smart TV, and more.

Dan in Windsor, Ontario Canada listens on AM800 CKLW “The Information Station” and asked: "I wear hearing aids. On my phone I have Bluetooth and I hear everything from my phone through my hearing aid. I want to know if there is something I could put on my PC that would allow me to do the same thing? I also want to know - can I have the Bluetooth on the phone and the computer at the same time, or do I need to switch one off to have the other one on?"

 

Dan, Bluetooth is a standard so if your earbuds can connect to your phone they should be able to connect to a computer as well.

Depending on your computer it may already have Bluetooth built in, in which case you just need to pair them together and you’re done, or you may need a Bluetooth adapter.

Bluetooth adapters are cheap nowadays, you can literally find some online for a couple of dollars. Even if you want to pay for something of a little better quality, you’re still looking at very little money.

Whether or not you can stay connected to both depends on your hearing aid. Some can connect to a few devices at once, some can only do one at a time, some will connect to several but make you switch between them manually. Unfortunately, we can’t tell you what to expect from yours without having a little more info about them.

 

Johnny in California listens on 1450 K-TIP and asked: "I am an on-the-go legal investigator and I am looking for a scanner that is compatible with iOS and scans at a decent speed. I found some scanners that are a stick that scan really slow, so I don't need something like that. I'm just looking for a little portable scanner that I can take with me that is fast enough to make my job more efficient."

 

Johnny,  if you want to scan them really fast, you could just use an app. They’ve gotten surprisingly good at figuring out the edges of documents and can compensate for taking your shot at an angle.

If you want an actual device, you’ll have a few problems to deal with: 1) it has to be mobile, so your options become few, very quickly, and 2) you want it to be fast.

Fast means that you’ll probably want a WiFi scanner, not a Bluetooth one. Bluetooth is reasonably fast, but it can’t compete with WiFi on speed. The problem is that portable scanners are not very popular, and Bluetooth scanners used to be more popular for portable models, so you’ll find fewer WiFi scanners.

Look for something like the WiFi Epson WorkForce DS-40 or the Fujitsu ScanSnap iX100, but even with a WiFi model like that one, keep your expectations low, portable scanners are rarely fast.

Geri in Baton Rouge, Louisiana listens on SuperTalk 107.3 and asked: "Is there any way to stop robocalls forever?"

 

No. There are apps that seek to identify them, and some phone companies are attempting to block them or warn you, but no, there’s no real way to put a definite end to them as a consumer.

Malicious actors can clone numbers, and the calls they make are almost free. A single success probably makes up for a month’s worth of failures. The economic incentive is with them, and there’s no sure way to block them all right now.

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