On Computers

SMART STROLLER DRIVES ITSELF

Posted on January 23rd, 2023 by Joy Schwabach

Move over e-bikes. A new kind of stroller drives itself. If your toddler wants to walk with you for a while, “Ella” can follow alongside. Made by Gluxkind, Ella was the hit of the recent Consumer Electronics Show. It automatically brakes if it starts to go too fast and uses the same technology as driverless cars. But for safety’s sake, it won’t drive itself with a baby inside. Self-driving mode is limited to situations where there’s nothing in the stroller, but you need it to move along with you as you carry your baby or walk with your toddler. On YouTube I watched Ella go downhill on its own while the mom carried her child. It stopped when she stopped. […]

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THE RETURN OF THE LP

Posted on November 24th, 2015 by Joy Schwabach

We’re thinking of buying one of Audio Technica’s latest turntables as a gift for our young relatives. LPs are so popular again that a rare version of Bob Dylan’s “Freewheelin'” has a starting bid of $100,000 on eBay.

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APP HAPPY

Posted on February 16th, 2013 by Joy Schwabach

Music, exercise and driving safety apps.

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AUDIO BOOKS

Posted on February 8th, 2013 by Joy Schwabach

Most people who get audio books from Audible.com only listen to one or two, yet pay $25 a month for unlimited access to over 100,000 titles. AudioBooks.com has a much smaller library: just 25,000. But they’ve come out with $15 a month plan for one audio book at a time. If you only want a three month trial membership, Audible, at $7.49 a month, is still the better deal. After that, AudioBooks is cheaper.

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MUSIC IN THE CLOUD

Posted on February 5th, 2013 by Joy Schwabach

Several years ago, Bob was browsing Amazon’s online music store and ended up putting two dozen classical CDs in the shopping cart. He planned to look the list over again before going to check-out. But Joy surprised him and just bought the whole batch. Yesterday, all of those CDs popped up online, ready to play from any computer, tablet or phone. Amazon’s new “AutoRip,” is a free service that automatically uploads any CD you bought from them, going all the way back to 1998. It puts the contents into your personal “Cloud Player” ready to stream online. We are more than slightly awed by this; just consider the amount of storage they must have. A playlist online is much easier […]

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“WATCHING” YOUR FIGURE

Posted on February 1st, 2012 by Joy Schwabach

— Motorola has a new smart watch with enough features to keep a fitness buff humming. The “MotoACTV” is a GPS plus music player wrist watch that figures out which songs make you exercise harder and plays those more often. It does its figuring by monitoring your heart rate. It tells you how many calories you burned and your average workout pace. It uses Bluetooth to talk to you through a headset. It can also broadcast FM radio. It’s $250 for the 8 gigabyte version. — You can turn an Apple “Nano” music player into a wristwatch just by adding a strap. We saw some at Amazon for $23. They even had leather ones. If you use a leather strap […]

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SPOTIFY RADIO ARRIVES

Posted on July 23rd, 2011 by Joy Schwabach

Spotify.com has free Internet radio that that listeners claim puts Pandora to shame. You can go to the website and get an invitation to sign on, though it’s still hasn’t officially launched. Spotify has been described as a magical version of iTunes where you’ve already bought the whole library.

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MAKING MUSIC ONLINE

Posted on May 18th, 2011 by Joy Schwabach

“Wolfram Tones” is a free music-making app from Wolfram, maker of the high-end sophisticated calculating program “Mathematica.” You can use it from any computer or gadget that’s connected to the Internet.

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