On Computers

What? As if 900 crypto-currencies were not enough, we now have “Dentacoin.” You guessed it, Dentacoin is for paying dentists. At the moment, you can only pay two dentists with this digital currency, one in Bulgaria and the other in London, but the wheel, and the planet, turns. (Update: Now 38 clinics in 14 countries accept the coin.) These digital currencies, also called “crypto” or “e-cash” are a way of getting out from under bank fees, inflation, security risks and of course government control. Eeek, as they say in the treasury. We are fast approaching a thousand varieties and there’s no reason to expect it to stop there. Shades of early America, when banks in all the states used to issue […]

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Filed under: art, business, computers, electronics, gadgets, Google, how-to | Comments Off on SMILE

All right, we know that someday the robots are going to take over. So you might as well get with the program. Make it a partnership. We don’t mean robots like you see in sci-fi movies, walking around with shiny metal limbs. Anything that’s controlled by a program is a robot. So most robots aren’t visible in the ordinary sense of the word, they’re just part of the system. A machine can respond to body movements, facial gestures, or just leaving the scene. The very fact that you’re not there can be an instruction. Bob recalls talking to an engineer who had just come from an automated factory in Kentucky. It made small electric motors, like the kind in vacuum […]

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Filed under: Android, apps, health, robots | Comments Off on MACHINE LEARNING

We bow to the mounting evidence and can no longer recommend the free anti-virus program: “Avast.” Too many complaints. And yet, cyber attacks as they’re called, are becoming increasingly common and sophisticated. Choosing an alternative is tricky. For years, PC World, PC Magazine and other reviewers gave their highest marks to the Russian-owned Kaspersky anti-virus. Then came the accusation that Russian hackers may be using it to conduct espionage against the U.S.; some readers dropped it like a hot potato. Last month, the Department of Homeland Security ordered federal agencies to remove it from their systems. Avast is based in the Czech Republic, and there’s been some strange behavior recently.  One of our readers said the people who answer the […]

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Filed under: anti-virus, gadgets, Google, Internuts, security, virus | Comments Off on ANTI-VIRUS REVISITED

Ever adventurous, Joy decided the only way to really get an idea of what Bitcoin was about, was to buy some. So she bought a bit. At $4,000-plus per coin, she only bought a little bit of a Bitcoin. She bought $75 worth, which was a little less than two percent. With that little bit she bought a sweater from Overstock.com. It was $19.74. That left $54 worth of Bitcoin. She can go wild later. So what is this all about? James Dimon, head of J.P. Morgan and Co., the largest bank in the U.S., says “It’s a fraud, a scam.” Well, Mr. Dimon is always worth listening to, but in this situation, he may be talking his book (his […]

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Filed under: business, crytpocurrency, electronics, Internuts | Comments Off on A BIT OF BITCOIN

We haven’t seen all the features of Apple’s new iPhone, but even without seeing them we’re  impressed by the price. Apparently, a thousand dollars isn’t what it used to be. But what is? Apple has always had high prices but this may be getting ridiculous. So we bought an elderly friend a smartphone for $17. That would be a cost ratio of about sixty to one. She impressed a fellow resident at her retirement home by whipping out her new phone to call an Uber cab. When she said it was a cheap phone, he figured she meant around  $200, a bargain these days. But the “Alcatel One Touch” cost us $17 from Walmart, and her monthly service cost is […]

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Filed under: free stuff, Google, phones | Comments Off on BUYING HIGH AND LOW