On Computers

Google Lens is changing the way I look at objects. Now when I point my phone at one and talk, Lens answers me. After pointing Lens at a blue bar stool, for example, I said to my phone: “Where can I buy a bar stool like this?” It immediately showed me the same stool at Amazon and elsewhere. I pointed the Lens app at a plant and asked: “How often should I water this?” It not only identified the plant as a weeping fig, it told me about its watering needs– by considering the size of the plant, the pot, and how fast it dries out. I pointed at a poster and said: “What inspired this painting by Renoir?” Google […]

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Filed under: apps, drones, health, Windows | Comments Off on USING GOOGLE LENS OPENS UP THE WORLD

My black and white pictures of a 1970s newsroom came vividly alive after I let palette.fm colorize them for free. All I had to do was upload my photo and watch it fill with color. I couldn’t believe how those old days became vibrant. A friend tried it with his childhood Christmas photos. At first, his shirt came out green instead of blue. Then he tried one of the palette.fm filters, and the true blue came out. But the web browser may also make a difference. In his tests, Firefox did a better job than Chrome or Vivaldi. I didn’t like any of the Palette.fm filters, preferring the unfiltered version. The browser didn’t matter much either. But I got slightly […]

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Filed under: books, drones, gadgets, Google, Internuts, phones, photos | Comments Off on COLORIZE YOUR BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOS

The Lyft app often gets my pickup point wrong. Sometimes, I have to walk to a popular restaurant in order to be found. I had an awful time at the airport recently. When I put in the name, O’Hare International, the app should have prompted me to choose a specific pickup zone. It didn’t do that, so I typed in O’Hare’s address. What a mistake. The driver never came near to where I was standing. In the cold frosty air, I twiddled my frozen thumbs. I texted him repeatedly to say I was in “Green Zone D.” I also left a voicemail. When he called me back, I shouted “Green Zone D” over and over. The connection was faulty but […]

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Filed under: apps, business, drones, social networks, word processing | Comments Off on GETTING A LYFT

DJI makes the best drones, according to just about everyone. But who wants to spend a thousand dollars? I don’t know about you, but I’m not planning to become a drone professional. Recently, I borrowed a $31 Holy Stone “HS 210” mini-drone from a friend. It’s astonishingly easy to fly, compared to the last miniature drone I flew. The old quadcopter shot past me like a rocket, banging against every obstacle in my apartment. Not this time. Push a button on the three-inch-by-three-inch flying machine and it launches. Push another and it flies in circles. Push another and it does aerial flips, or lands. Push two buttons —  if it’s about to hit Aunt Sally — and it shuts off […]

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Filed under: apps, art, drones, education, Internuts, tech support | Comments Off on I LEARN TO FLY A MINI DRONE

There have been lots of complaints about Google’s new “FLoC” tracking system. You may be wondering what the fuss is all about. Here it is, in a nutshell.  “FLoC,” which stands for “Federal Learning of Cohorts” replaces third party cookies that track you on the web.  Instead of being followed individually, your anonymous browsing activity gets lumped with thousands of similar users. Then the whole group is given an identifier. For example, if 3,000 users visit a bunch of furniture websites, a group identifier will allow advertisers to send furniture ads their way Despite the complaints, FLoC seems less intrusive than the current system. Significantly, Google says there won’t be any identifiers on sensitive activities. These include searches for personal […]

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Filed under: apps, books, browsers, drones, gadgets, Internuts, Windows | Comments Off on HAVE YOU BEEN ‘FLoCed?’

First there was the Drones Club, then Drone Racing and now: making some money with drones. Our friend Lee gets his family a tech present every year. Last year it was drones. Lee’s 20-something daughter, a civil engineer, started using hers to offer aerial photography and video to construction sites. Then she started her own drone business, offering these services as a certified remote pilot in Wisconsin. If you Google the phrase “how to be a drone entrepreneur,” several sites come up. The first, from Virgin.com, describes several possibilities. One is farming. Drones have been crop-dusting in Japan for 15 years, and U.S. farmers are getting started. American farms are much larger and farmers here are looking for drones that […]

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Filed under: art, drones, email, gadgets, health, Internuts, maps, small business | Comments Off on DRONE ENTREPRENEURS