On Computers

The new “Alexa Plus” can      make reservations, summarize documents, and hold a conversation without your having to keep saying “Hey Alexa.” It’s available in an “early access” program to owners of the Echo Show smart speaker. Once you have it on an Echo Show, it becomes instantly available in the free Alexa app on your phone, the Amazon Fire tablet, the Echo Dot and even in email. I started it by testing it on a document, the “Simple Sabotage Field Manual,” from Gutenberg.org, a free book site. Because Alexa Plus only accepts text in certain formats, I click the “simple text” version, copied it and emailed it to  alexa@alexa.amazon.com. I was careful to skip the intro about Gutenberg.org, […]

Read more

Filed under: AI, Amazon, Internet, Internuts, music | Comments Off on THE NEW ALEXA PLUS

“What’s the best way to consolidate family photos?” a reader asked.  “Three of us use iCloud for backup. The others have Android devices.” Here’s an idea: Share a link from your iCloud account with your relatives. First, go to icloud.com/photos on your device. Next, choose a specific album, and tap the share icon at the bottom of the screen. Copy the link to use in a text, email, Facebook or wherever. Your relatives can download the photos from there. Alternatively, iPhone users can get on the same page with their Android-using cousins by downloading the free Google Photos app. Or, start at Photos.Google.com, click the checkbox above a group of photos, and click the share icon. You’ll get a link […]

Read more

Filed under: AI, Amazon, DVD, gadgets, Internuts, photos | Comments Off on THE BEST WAY TO SHARE FAMILY PHOTOS

Have you ever received a printed card a day before Christmas or Hanukkah, too late to respond? I have. Electronic greetings to the rescue. I’ve just been trying out Ashampoo’s new PhotoCard 3, $22 for Windows. To start, choose a design, then click an empty space to upload your photos, or snap a picture from a webcam connected to your computer. Next click “create” to share it on Facebook, by email or by printing it out. For more elaborate, multi-page cards, I like Punchbowl e-greetings for $45 a year. They allow you to add a short video recorded live as well as a gift card from many stores. Jacquie Lawson cards are also gorgeous and less expensive than Punchbowl. Their […]

Read more

Filed under: Amazon, apps, crytpocurrency, games, science | Comments Off on LAST MINUTE GREETINGS

I accidentally got into a car with a stranger in Chicago at night. I thought the guy was a Lyft driver. Lyft and Uber have a problem. The drivers ignore your pick-up address. Instead, they use GPS. When you’re standing next to skyscrapers, GPS makes mistakes. When I was on S. Michigan Ave., for example, the Lyft driver’s map showed me on E. Adams St. “Where are you?” I texted the driver. “I’m right around the corner on Adams,” he said. On Adams, I saw one car, right where he said he’d be. I got in. The driver asked me where I wanted to go. “Don’t you see my destination in your app?” I asked. He looked confused. “Do you […]

Read more

Filed under: AI, Amazon, apps, art, Internuts, numbers, trends, wireless | Comments Off on GETTING INTO THE WRONG CAR

I often write emails to myself, leaving them in the draft folder where I can easily find them. So now I have a build-up of 22 notes. “Why not use Google Keep?” a friend asked. I’d forgotten all about Keep. It’s like a bulletin board, with notes pinned to it. When I first went to the Keep site on my computer, I immediately saw a picture of me, my mom and my sister, pinned years ago. By adding a photo to each note, a Keep page begins looking like a scrapbook. But I’m mainly using it for my to-dos and grocery lists. Everything you do on Keep’s desktop version shows up in the free Keep app on your phone. This […]

Read more

Filed under: AI, Amazon, apps, Google, Internuts, robots, video, word processing | Comments Off on KEEP YOUR NOTES

I love listening to books in Amazon’s Audible app. Many of the voice actors dramatize the scenes so well, it’s like listening to a play. But times are changing, thanks to artificial intelligence. Now you don’t have to ask Meryl Streep to come into the studio since you already have a sample of her voice. Audible can clone it with AI. But will the clones be able to perform the full range of characters? For example, when Jonathan Cecil read P.G. Wodehouse, he could convincingly switch from a young man’s role to that of an old woman. Currently, Audible is only inviting a small group of US-based narrators to train AI to replicate their voices. But if this thing takes […]

Read more

Filed under: AI, Amazon, apps, art, crytpocurrency, Internet, security | Comments Off on AUDIBLY AI

Using the new Microsoft Designer, which is free, I made a personalized postcard showing an old-timey train heading toward a gorgeous mountain range. My friend said it reminded him of painting on velvet, but I think it’s great. To start, I downloaded the app from the Microsoft Store for my Windows computer. Next, I chose a template, and tweaked it by typing over its description with my own words. Besides postcards, Microsoft Designer also creates images, photo collages, icons, stickers, wallpapers, birthday cards, Facebook posts, avatars and more. For an avatar, I typed over the words “athletic, happy teenager shooting a basketball in an urban court at evening,” changing it to: “an athletic, happy woman with auburn hair in a […]

Read more

Filed under: AI, Amazon, apps, electronics, environment, health, Internuts | Comments Off on MAKE ART IN A COUPLE OF CLICKS WITH FREE MICROSOFT APP

Character.AI provides a long list of celebrities to chat with or you can create your own. But many of these AI clones were created by ordinary folks instead of experts. So they may not sound like the famous person you asked for. That’s where AI developers come in. If you Google the words “hire ChatGPT developer,” you can get a freelancer to build a chatbot for you. That’s apparently what Harvard professor and prize-winning author Martin Puchner did to create an AI version of Socrates, Jesus, Shakespeare, Thoreau, Frankenstein’s monster, Buddha and other philosophical and literary giants. I was awed by how realistic they are. For example, I asked the AI version of George Eliot how her love life influenced […]

Read more

Filed under: AI, Amazon, Internuts | Comments Off on CHATTING WITH FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER

A new app allows you to choose Judy Garland and other icons to read books, news and articles aloud. It’s called the “Reader App” and it’s free from Eleven Labs for iPhone and iPad only. Android users can join a waitlist. It took a little fiddling to figure it out, and it was sometimes buggy. But hey, it’s free. When I got the hang of it, I enjoyed hearing Judy Garland read “A Little Princess” and “The Wizard of Oz.” After that, I listened to James Dean, Sir Lawrence Olivier and Burt Reynolds. There are also a dozen or so non-celebrities with various accents, including a middle-aged Australian dude. The Reader App includes a list of books you can try […]

Read more

Filed under: AI, Amazon, Internuts, iPhone, numbers, troubleshooting | Comments Off on BURT REYNOLDS AND JAMES DEAN WILL READ TO YOU

I’ll never sell anything on eBay again. Or if I do, I won’t use the Post Office to ship the package. The Post Office lost the Pixel 6a phone I sold on eBay to a man in Miami. He got a refund, but I had to pay eBay $38 in fees, ten bucks of which went to promoting the phone on their site. I wish I had the phone back. My sister had suggested keeping it as a backup after I’d temporarily lost it, then replaced it with the Pixel 8. But when I found it again, I figured eBay was the best solution. I was sucked into using the post office by eBay’s offer of a discounted shipping label. […]

Read more

Filed under: Amazon, business, environment, games, Internuts, robots | Comments Off on EBAY AND POST OFFICE DISAPPOINT