On Computers

Recently, a woman told me she was looking for her biological father. “I think your husband, Bob Schwabach, is related to him,” she said. She needed to know the name of Bob’s father. So did her nine siblings, all of whom shared the same sperm donor. But Bob never knew his father’s name either, having spent his childhood in a foster home and orphanage. Sadly, the week before he died in 2020, he sent a note to a possible cousin, but never heard back. Now, thanks to Google Gemini, a competitor to ChatGPT, I may have found him. Gemini focused on a genetic marker called a “centimorgan,” or cM. Looking at three names on Bob’s family tree, Gemini declared that […]

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Filed under: AI, email, Internet, Internuts, search, spam, virus | Comments Off on GOOGLE’S GEMINI AIDS FAMILY DISCOVERY

Sometimes switching from one phone and internet service provider to another is a colossal waste of time. I learned this the hard way. Unhappy with a big price increase from Xfinity when I switched to an iPhone, I turned to T-Mobile. Not only did they promise to save me $30 a month on phone and internet, they said their Starlink service could connect me even in remote areas. Goody. But the T-Mobile app instructed me to place my new router near a window, and it looked awful there. So when I ran into another setup problem, I decided to go back to Xfinity. At the T-Mobile store, a salesman went through three verification steps before telling me I had to […]

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Filed under: AI, gadgets, Internet, numbers, storage, troubleshooting | Comments Off on SWITCHING CARRIERS WASN’T WORTH IT

I loved canoeing to an Alaskan glacier, kayaking around islands and river rafting past eagles after a hike in a rainforest. But I hated the dropped calls and spotty internet on board the Discovery Princess. I blamed it on my Samsung Galaxy A16, which I bought after my Pixel 8 phone died in a pool of salad dressing. After Googling “problems with the Galaxy A16,” my suspicions were confirmed. For the entire week on the “Holistic Holiday at Sea,” my phone had problems making calls and connecting to the internet. Meanwhile, my iPhone-owning friends connected everywhere but the elevators.  For one wild minute, I considered getting the new iPhone 17 when I got back home. But I don’t need its […]

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Filed under: AI, Internet, iPhone, phones, storage | Comments Off on JUMPING SHIP

After a bad experience with a smart watch for kids, I was eager to try one for adults. It didn’t turn out well. I wanted a smart watch as a backup for my phone, in case I lost it again on a trip. But the Samsung Galaxy Watch FE for $136 on Amazon turned out to be too good to be true, I discovered after buying it. It’s for users in the Caribbean and South America. Beware of products marked “international.” I would have found that out earlier if only I’d asked Rufus, the AI assistant on Amazon’s product page. When I asked him later if the watch was for the US, he said that “while it supports Wi-Fi and […]

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Filed under: apps, Internet, Internuts, music, wearables | Comments Off on GETTING THE RIGHT SMART WATCH

A relative spent $6000 on Signia hearing aids, following the advice of her audiologist. A friend spent $389 for his Audien Ion aids, which were on sale on Amazon recently. They’re both happy. The Audien Ion hearing aid system comes with ear domes in two styles and three sizes. The system has four modes, depending on the environment you’re in. These include a normal environment, a noisy restaurant, heavy traffic, or the great outdoors. In each case, the aids reduce background noise and prevent feedback, which happens when the microphone picks up sounds from the speaker. The battery lasts 20 hours before needing a charge. But instead of fumbling with batteries, you just place the aids in their charging case. […]

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Filed under: AI, email, Internet, spam | Comments Off on TRY AMAZON FOR HEARING AIDS

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, […]

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

Most seniors stick to Google, but young people increasingly turn to artificial intelligence. It’s great for financial questions. For example, a relative was interested in a reverse mortgage, but wasn’t sure how it worked. So I clicked the Copilot icon in Windows (also available at copilot.microsoft.com and in a free mobile app.) Then I typed: “How much would a reverse mortgage on a fully-paid-off $400,000 house pay to a 75-year-old New Hampshire man over the next 20 years?” Assuming an average rate of five percent, the estimated annual payout would be $15,000 to $20,000 a year and even more if he waited until he was 78, Copilot said. Next I asked what would happen if he died before getting his […]

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Filed under: AI, Internet, text messaging, Wikipedia, Windows | Comments Off on GETTING FINANCIAL INFO FROM AI

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 […]

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

Just before I close my eyes for the night, I ask Alexa to remind me of something the next day. In the past, this was frustrating because the next day, I’d be in another room and couldn’t hear her. But here’s a trick. Since I have two devices with Alexa inside, all I have to do is tell my Echo Dot in the bedroom to let my Echo Show answer me in the living room. To test it, I closed the door to the bedroom so the Alexa in the living room couldn’t hear me. Then I said to Dot:  “Alexa, remind me on the Echo Show.” “What’s the reminder?” she said. “helicopter,” I said. “What time?” she said. “9 […]

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Filed under: AI, DVD, Internet, Internuts, robots, science, TV | Comments Off on ALEXA HAS TRICKS UP BOTH SLEEVES

Ever wonder how 79,032 music critics would rank your tastes? Do a Google search on “Pudding Cool: How Bad is Your Streaming Music?” After you sign into your Apple or Spotify account, an artificially intelligent robot will look over everything you’ve been listening to, ask you questions and combine the opinions of experts. “Do you really listen to The Girl from Ipanema by Stan Getz?” it asked me. When I said yes, it said, “Like, ironically?” When I said “no,” it said “cool.” It teased me about my other choices and asked whether I’d rather marry the Tijuana Brass, Glenn Miller or Fred Astaire. Yet my score was 79 out of 100, compared to 21 out of 100 for a […]

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Filed under: apps, Gmail, Internet, music, video, YouTube | Comments Off on AI ANALYZES YOUR TASTE IN MUSIC