A Factual Data Creation Facility Production. Welcome to the OFNT podcast, episode 252, which I'm calling Winter is Here. And obviously, so am I. Yeah, I postponed my trip up to New York because of the winter storm that hammered the southern states late last week. We were going to leave Wednesday before the storm, but I didn't want to get trapped up north. Our old place is stripped bare with only an air mattress for my lovely wife and I to sleep on. There's no Wi-Fi. Oh, no. So...
Being that there's no Wi-Fi, there's no entertainment options for us. Instead, we're planning on leaving this coming Wednesday and returning Sunday. I still won't have any time to record, which means no OFNT podcast next week. Well, I think it's about time we get started. Don't you? Yes. Well, let's go. Three, two, one.
Tech news. The Consumer Electronics Show was held in Las Vegas, Nevada last week. Actually, the annual show has been renamed to just CES, as there's really no consumers attending any longer. Attendees are either exhibitors or industry types. I didn't pay much attention to this year's CES because the show isn't as exciting as it was in my misguided youth. What I saw was... Mostly OLED televisions, electric cars, robots, and smart rings made from precious metals.
And don't get me wrong, cutting-edge tech is routinely announced during CES, but few of it actually makes it to consumers in an affordable or timely manner, if it makes it at all. Well, let's get the Apple news out of the way first. Oh, some of this news is kind of a week old because I didn't have enough time to include it in the last episode. First up, Android Authority.
You see what I mean about Android sites reporting Apple news? Yeah, boy. Has an article claiming the upcoming iPhone 17 could take design inspiration from the original iPhone. which Steve Jobs introduced to the world some 18 years ago this month. Wow. The article claims that a new manufacturing process may finally reintroduce the rounded edges. Hmm.
I'm looking at my iPhone 15 Pro Max right now. This seems to already include rounded edges. I guess what the author is referring to is the long edges of the phone. I don't know if that sort of design would go down with iPhone buyers. Though I never owned the original iPhone, I knew a few people that did, and I wasn't a fan of the so-called rounded design of it.
Especially compared to the designs of Nokia and HTC phones of the era. Well, time will tell. Boy, India really wants to supplant China as the main manufacturing site of Apple products. at least according to an article from appleinsider.com the article states that india is offering some 2.7 billion dollars in subsidies to incentivize smartphone manufacturers to continue expanding into the region
More importantly, in my opinion anyway, the country has suggested that it will lower tariffs on components needed to manufacture smartphones. The article also points out that India has been working directly with Apple since 2015. as part of the Make in India program. I feel this is a good thing for Apple and other manufacturers based on the increasingly hostile business environment within China.
It also makes more business sense to not keep one's eggs in just one basket. Alternative options are a necessity in these strange economic times. Apple may soon overcharge for iPhones that are worse than the cheaper alternative, reads the headline from 9to5mac.com. Of course, that cheaper alternative bit refers to the upcoming iPhone SE, fourth generation. The new SE, which is expected to debut this April, is rumored to be based on the iPhone 14 chassis.
Features an edge-to-edge OLED display equipped with a Face ID notch. An A18 chip. And that's the same chip which powers the current iPhone 16. 8 gigs of RAM. a 48 megapixel rear camera, a USB-C port, Apple's in-house 5G modem, and be capable of running Apple intelligence. The SE4 is expected to cost $500 upon release. The iPhone 14 will set you back $600 but can't run Apple Intelligence.
It too has an inferior chip and still has the old lightning connector instead of USB-C. The iPhone 15 has USB-C but features an inferior chip and can't run Apple Intelligence either. The 15 does have the dynamic island in lieu of the notch for Face ID. The iPhone 15 costs $700. You could go for an iPhone 16, but you'd be getting the same internals while gaining the dynamic island.
but set you back a lot more money. You do compromise with the SE4, but really aren't giving up much. With the SE4, you're also giving up a wide-angle rear camera lens, but let's face it. How many iPhone users really take advantage of these advanced camera features? Not many would be my guess. The SE4 will disrupt the Apple ecosystem as well as the whole smartphone market in my opinion. Once the Dynamic Island makes its way into the SE models, I'll probably never buy a standard iPhone again.
Sateki is an electronics accessory manufacturer which has gotten more favorable clout recently. I've purchased a few products from the company over the years, namely a couple of laptop stands and a USB docking station. I considered buying a Mac mini hub stand with a built-in SSD enclosure from Satechi, but I've put that on hold for now. I've found that the construction and design of the Satechi products I have to be top notch.
What I didn't know is that the company also makes highly regarded mechanical Bluetooth keyboards. Recently, the company has released the SM3, which is a full-size, backlit, slim mechanical keyboard designed specifically for Apple Mac computers. This model full-size keyboard includes a numeric keypad, and that was something that was absolutely necessary for my last job before I retired. That was a number cruncher using spreadsheets back then.
The keyboard is made from aluminum and costs just $120, which is a bargain for a full mechanical keyboard these days. Am I going to give up my Logitech Bluetooth mechanical keyboard for this one? No. Of course not. But if that keyboard ever broke down on me, I'd be all over the SM3. I enjoy typing on Apple's Magic Keyboards on my MacBook Air and iPad Pro.
But Apple's standalone Magic Keyboard doesn't feature backlit keys. What? And that's a feature I require as most of my typing takes place at home away from the glare of fluorescent lighting, which I've grown to hate over my many years of government employment. Who knows? Perhaps a new Magic Keyboard slated to be coming out this year will feature backlit keys. One can always hope. If you use a streaming box with your smart television like I do...
Then you've probably run into an audio sync problem now and again. When I run into it, I'm forced to reboot my Apple TV box to make it all better. When I used cheap Amazon HDMI cables for the task, the audio would get out of sync every day sometimes multiple times per day i have mitigated this somewhat by switching to monster branded hdmi cables but still run into this audio sync problem sometimes
Monster was once the premium cable company. I used Monster speaker and interconnection cables for my semi-high-end stereo gear for many years. Lately, Monster has fallen on hard times, so you can get a 6-foot gold-plated connector HDMI cable for less than $10 these days. They really do make a difference. But I digress. 9to5mac.com reports that the HDMI form, which manages the specifications for the HDMI connection, has announced version 2.2 of the protocol.
This upgrade comes eight years after the announcement of the HDMI 2.1 protocols. Things seemingly move slow, very slow over at the HDMI foundation. I wonder if they're... They're hiring. The new HDMI 2.2 spec increases bandwidth to up to 96 gigabits per second, which should end those annoying audio sync issues. The problem is that being that HDMI 2.2 is a new protocol, it'll be a while before the market will see any devices capable of using HDMI 2.2. Give it a year.
By the time I get any HDMI 2.2 compliant devices, I'll be able to pick up a discounted set of Monster HDMI cables for them, meaning it will be a long time. In the meantime, I'm sticking with what I've got. Speaking of streaming boxes, according to 9to5google.com, the Big G's Gemini AI is coming to the Google TV box sometime in 2025. Yay! Oh, the joy that will bring.
Well, what's actually happening is the Google Assistant on the box is getting an AI supercharging that will supposedly make searching for media easier than ever. And make interacting with your TV more intuitive and helpful. While not watching anything on your television, you'll be able to do things like creating customized artwork and controlling your smart home. Companies TCL and Hisense were named as partners. I've got to ask, is AI really necessary on streaming boxes? Yes. No.
So far, Apple hasn't announced any plans to bring Apple intelligence over to its own Apple TV box. As of now, I feel AI is nothing but a memory hog and will most likely be the cause of things like audio syncing issues. which I just talked about in the last story. I guess my opinion of AI is the ludite in me speaking. Are you a Windows user that's been jealous of Apple's magic trackpad? Yes. No.
Well, accessory maker Hyper, which sells products that cost Hyper prices, has a product for you. It's called Hyperspace Trackpad Pro and was demonstrated at this year's CES. While this product will also work with Macs, it's Windows users that this product is really aimed at. Like Apple's Magic Trackpad, Hyperspace Trackpad Pro will support multi-touch gestures.
good palm rejection, and precise gestures. Also like Apple's trackpad, the Hyperspace Trackpad Pro will carry the same high price of $130 of your hard-earned dollars. You know, of all the Apple products out there, the Magic Trackpad is the least appealing to me. Now wait, check that. The least appealing would be the Vision Pro. Let me start over again.
Of all the Apple products out there, the Magic Trackpad is the second at least appealing to me. All the Magic Trackpad is, is a detached trackpad from MacBooks. So if you own a MacBook or Windows laptop, You already have one of these things. If you're talking about desktop computers, why the heck would you want an external trackpad when you have a more capable and lower cost mouse? Someone explain this to me.
Tech I'm using. I've been rummaging through boxes. Yeah, we're still doing that. And it was my room's turn. Going through my old, and I mean old, stuff, I realized I was really into shortwave radio back in what I... somewhat fondly recall us being the day. This fact was evidenced by my collection of five desktop sets. Six portable receivers and even a citizen band radio that I got for Christmas when I was a wee lad of 14.
And that's not counting the one desktop and two portable radials that were lost during the many moves I made over my military career. The desktop that was lost was an old realistic Radio Shack DX20 something that was my first shortwave radio, which I believe I gave away, but I'm not sure about that. My second oldest set is another Radio Shack model, the DX302. Its claim to fame is that an identical model was used as a prop in the rival Sean Connery James Bond movie, Never Say Never Again.
In that movie, the radio was used to hijack already launched nuclear missiles to the bad guy's boat. As if that was one of the capabilities of a shortwave receiver. I eventually replaced the DX302 with a Yaesu FRG7700, which I dragged around the world with me. My best memory of that radio is upon arriving at Kunsan Air Base, located in the Republic of Korea, and that was circa April of 1985.
I set the radio up using some copper wiring as an antenna in my old Vietnam prefab style barracks room. The first station I happened to come upon was the Cold War era Radio Moscow. We're actually talking about Kunsan Air Base. incorrectly stating that the base was equipped with b-16 nuclear bombers well there's no such thing as a b-16 bomber what we actually had and kunsan probably still has them are f-16 fighter jets
Well, this scared the bejesus out of my roommate who pestered me until I turned the radio off. Talk about coincidences. Yes. Whoa! About a year later, I bought a portable Kenwood radio from the small PXBX military store at Daegut Air Base, Korea. That became my go-to radio.
When I returned to the United States some five years later, I started acquiring more portable shortwave radios. The second one was a Phillips-branded set that I purchased from a young Arab gentleman I had met during the first Gulf War. I did this because the Kenwood portable was lost along with my bags during the flight over to the Middle East. It wasn't nearly as nice as the Kenwood model, but it got the job done.
Well, that Philips radio lounged in my basement until the batteries that I failed to remove from it corroded the internals and I wound up having to throw it out. The next portable I bought, again from the military PXBX system, was a small Grundig portable radio. And though it didn't have any advanced features, it did receive all the shortwave bands and performed well.
My best memory of that radio came after 9-11 and the invasion of Afghanistan. Now a U.S. customs inspector and on a special narcotics team, I had the radio with me at all times, tuned into the once great British Broadcasting Corporation. who are always ahead of the U.S. media on reporting from the front lines. One Saturday afternoon, I was assigned to a static guard post and while listening to the BBC, Their reporter actually made it to Kabul ahead of all the other news agencies.
Upon seeing a U.S. flag flying over the old U.S. Embassy, that was courtesy of the Special Forces, and marry a Taliban around, he announced that Kabul had fallen. Excited, I told my fellow customs inspectors the news, but they were skeptical. And that was because none of the domestic news outlets were reporting this yet. It would be hours later for them to confirm this historic event.
I don't remember whatever happened to that little Grundig radio. I then purchased the first of two Sony ICF SW7600GR portables. That model being the king of portable shortwave radios back then. The first radio was destroyed when it was run over by a truck on the JFK airport runway, having fallen from the vehicle I was riding in. It's a long story. I quickly replaced that radio with a new one, which I still have.
After that, I went through a buying binge, first getting a Radio Shack DX392 large portable with a built-in cassette recorder. Huh? You do remember cassette recorders, don't you? No! Ah, well, getting old. Last Friday I attempted to plug that radio in, but it blew up when I did so. Later, I added a Yaesu FRG100 and a Japanese radio corporation NRD345 to my desktop collection. Both bought, used on eBay.
The NRD345 was the best shortwave receiver I've ever owned. The final desktop receiver purchase was bought during a fire sale at the local Radio Shack. This was shortly before the electronics chains shut their doors for good. It was a realistic DX394, the last shortwave radio the shack would manufacture. I paid about $100 for it. I used this radio while puttering around my old basement. Along the way, I bought a Grundig Yachtboy 400PE, which I seldom used.
My very last shortwave radio purchase was a Sanjean 909 portable, which is probably the best portable you can buy these days. That said, it's still in the box somewhere waiting to be unpacked. Well, the internet came along and killed shortwave radio, so my collection, those that have survived, sit upon a closet shelf in my room, most likely never to be used again. If I ever find it, I'll fire up the old sand gene now and then.
But the hassle of setting up a desktop shortwave receiver basically assures that they'll remain on my shelf. Still, I miss the days of seeking out spy number stations and hearing news directly from the country it was occurring in. This afternoon, I watched my first sporting event on my new LG television. I didn't like the picture the television's AI selected, so I manually put in the vivid mode to get what I consider to be the best picture.
I enjoyed watching the American football playoff game, especially since the team I was rooting for, the Buffalo Bills, won the game. Buffalo, located in upstate New York, is the only New York team to have made the playoffs this year. Actually, the Bills are the only football team located in New York State. The Jets and Giants play in New Jersey, though they carry the New York name.
Entertainment news. Sometime last year, Disney, Fox, and Warner Brothers jointly announced the launch of a new sports-centric streaming bundle that was to be called Venue. The service was to cost $43 per month, and that's not unreasonable for streaming sports. I would have been a customer because though I get a free subscription to the MLB network,
which lets you stream all out-of-market games. And though I'm now out of the New York Yankees market, I can get the games, but Atlanta and Cincinnati games are considered in-market here in Tennessee. Meaning when the Yankees play those teams, I'd have to subscribe to those local networks in order to be able to watch them. What? Nothing seems to be easy these days. Venue would have been the ticket, pun intended.
to allow me to do so and at a reasonable price. Now, Fubo, an existing sports-centric streaming service, but double the price of Venue, sued the companies behind Venue and stopped the fledgling streaming service dead in its tracks. An article from 9to5mac.com states that the parties involved have come to an agreement. Fubo and Disney agreed to a merger of Hulu Plus Live TV and Fubo into a single business. However, Hulu Plus Live TV and Fubo will both continue being offered as separate services.
And finally, football will be creating its own sports service featuring Disney properties like ABC and ESPN, for example. Man. It must have taken a lot of lawyers a lot of time to hammer out this agreement. After this agreement, Venue will be allowed to launch and will do so real soon now.
If venue includes my local sports networks, I'll be dropping Sling TV like a bad habit and signing up for it. I'd be saving some money in any way besides various news channels. I don't really watch much on Sling TV. Most of the channels I do watch are available via free streaming apps like Pluto. It's nice to have channels in the same place, but if I can cut my cost by almost half, I'll put up with the inconvenience.
Now let's see if venue can keep their pricing in check. Podcast news. A couple, well maybe it was a few episodes ago. I told you I had to subscribe to the BBC Headline News podcast. While I enjoyed hearing news items not covered by local media... What I didn't enjoy was the snide remarks the field reporters were adding to the news items they were reporting on. Like U.S.-based news media, the BBC reporters just had to inject their personal opinions into the story.
This was most noticeable with stories concerning President-elect Trump. Now, I would understand if snide remarks were given equally within stories about outgoing President Biden. Come on, man. But no, all reports on Biden were glowing. I'm not the biggest Trump fan, but compared to what we have now, I wholeheartedly prefer Trump. The last straw for the BBC was a report on the latest.
President Jimmy Carter's funeral. The BBC journalist ended her story by pointing out the contrast between Trump and Carter by saying, President Carter was a humanitarian while Trump was convicted of fraud. After hearing this, I immediately unsubscribed from BBC News headlines, figuring it would only get worse as Trump assumes office. You know, like the journalists in this country, it seems our British cousins just don't get it.
That's because they're still living in their journalistic leftist bubble they entered since attending J school. They've lost touch with the rest of the population and in order to counter that, have resorted to activism as opposed to journalism. I tend to think the British public is forced to pay for this. But hey, I lasted three weeks before unsubscribing to BBC News. That's a lot longer than I thought I would.
Hodnews.net reports that National Public Radio, a.k.a. NPR, funding is under threat. If you don't know, NPR is the U.S. version of BBC Radio, but much more woke, if that's even possible. but not as well produced. Though NPR only gets 1% of its funding from the government, its local affiliates get 14% of their funding from taxpayers.
In 2023, NPR's total revenue was $318 million, but only $32 million was provided by taxpayers. Old Elon Musk and Vivac Ramacharmi, I think I'm pronouncing that correctly. forgive me if I'm not, have stated that they intend to, quote, take aim at NPR's funding on behalf of the new administration. That other $286 million came from so-called grants provided by major corporations.
Well, the problem with that is we all know nothing in this world comes for free. So these grantees hold major sway over editorial content at NPR. While described as being woke by many, which of course I agree with, the announcers employed by NPR are unprofessional in my opinion. Staffed mainly by young millennials and Gen Zs or Zeds, as our British friends over the pond call them.
The content produced by them is akin to a morning zoo type radio program, with the only difference being that NPR on-air personalities take themselves much too seriously. NPR is also one of the top producers of podcasts in the United States, but last year were forced from self-hosting their podcasts. That was due to budget constraints and a major decrease in audience numbers, resulting in less advertising revenue.
This means that NPR is paying a hosting service for the podcasts they produce. If you're a regular listener to the OFNT podcast, then you know I have absolutely no sympathy for NPR. What was once a viable alternative to conventional news media, NPR has been run into the ground by monetary excesses and employee bloat.
For example, during the height of Podcasting Incorporated and using the excuse of giving under-representative segments of our society a voice, NPR launched a multitude of podcasts that no one listened to. Not even those very underrepresented segments supposedly given a voice by these shows. Not only that, but these hosts recorded in NPR studios using $5,000 Neumann microphones.
and had multiple writers, fact-checkers, audio engineers, editors, and producers for each episode. Now was there really a need for this? And were these underrepresented hosts actually using their own voices?
Or was it the voice of the most likely white female writer's voice the audience was hearing? Instead, NPR could have sent these hosts a $60 microphone along with a $100 interface. Or better yet, a USB mic alone, have them record their audio, email the resulting audio file to NPR for editing and production, and would have saved untold thousands of dollars.
Just last year, a senior member of NPR management since forced to resign came forward as a whistleblower, claiming that no staff employed by NPR that he could find held conservative views or even opposing views. This whistleblower found that they would just repeat what the then-current Democratic administration told them to report on. This is not journalism. What it is, is ideological-driven opinion drivel.
Now that the shoe is on the other foot, so to speak, and we're getting a Republican administration, NPR has self-appointed themselves as the resistance. Well, as long as this persists. NPR will find its audiences continuing to drop as time goes on. Unless NPR starts hiring real journalists, if any still exist. They will continue producing content that serves as fodder for YouTubers and...
to make fun of as they continue to fade from relevancy. For some reason, my mouth didn't want to work properly today. Anyway, the music is playing as the snow turns into ice on this chilly evening in Appalachia country. I've got to get my beauty rest in preparation for the trip up north. Hope you enjoyed this episode. I enjoyed making it for you. If you like what you heard, you can make a donation using the link in the show notes. Any and all donations will be greatly appreciated.
You can always reach me at OFNTpodcast at gmail.com. And that's only if you're so inclined. I'd really enjoy hearing from you. Remember, don't listen to what they say. Watch. what they do. Hey, you better go home before the roads ice up, so get off my lawn. Stay skeptical. I'm out. See ya.