Tech News and Commentary

Dave and the team discuss Quibi's demise, cybercriminals and SMS, Epic's real time visual effects and the election, the FDA's approval of Remdesivir, and more.

Our guest this hour:

Eric Griffith, Features Editor - PCMag.com

Cassandra in Greenville, Tennessee listens online and is calling via the App and asked: "I want to start home-schooling my kindergartener next year. I was wondering what laptop - basic, nothing expensive - is the best laptop to start out with a home-schooler."

https://www.intotomorrow.com/media/podcasts/2020/10-30-2020/10-30-2020-H1S1.mp3

Cassandra, normally we would say it depends on the curriculum, but given that youre talking about kindergarten, just about anything should do in that sense. Nothing a child that young will need can really tax any modern computer.

We would look into a relatively inexpensive Chromebook. There are rugged model made specifically for young children, and there are reasonably priced ones that turn into tablets that can stand on their own as well.

A tablet is another potentially good choice, there are also ruggedized tablets that can take some abuse from a young child without suffering any significant damage.

At that age they probably wont need the computer too much, so wed go cheap. There are plenty of Chromebooks for around $200 from just about every major brand you can think of from ASUS, to Acer, to Dell, and any of them will probably do the trick for a child that young.

Joseph asked: "We run an announcement scroll (Keynote presentation) before and after our worship assembly. Trouble is most people hang out in the lobby until church starts so they dont get to watch it. We dont have a t.v. Outlet in the foyer. I thought about a WiFi enabled digital picture frame. If I can find them big enough like 15 to 20 inches. Do they make them that big? How about a wireless monitor? Surely there is something that people use for digital signage. Working on a limited budget."

https://www.intotomorrow.com/media/podcasts/2020/10-30-2020/10-30-2020-H1S2.mp3

Joseph, if the problem is the lack of an outlet for a TV, the solution may be simpler.

You can just buy a battery pack with a 110v output and plug your TV into it.

To give you an idea, for $100 dollars you can buy an 89Wh charger, for $140 you can move up to a Westinghouse 155Wh charger. watt-hour

If we believe Google, a modern 32-inch TV pulls 18 watts per hour, that means that a 155Wh charger would get you 8 hours of 32-inch TV scroll.

If you dont like that option, you can buy a USB powered portable monitor for around $100 to $150. It will run for a while if you connect it to a laptop showing the scrolling message, or you could power it from a battery pack and plug in a Chromecast to show the scroll.

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