Self Destructing Phone

From noses to ears to phones. Researchers in Saudi Arabia have developed a mechanism that, when triggered, can destroy a Smartphone or other electronic device. The self-destruct mechanism consists of a polymer layer that rapidly expands when subjected to temperatures above 80 degrees Celsius, effectively bursting the phone open from the inside. The mechanism can be adapted to be triggered in various ways, including remotely through a Smartphone app or when it is subjected to pressure.

Once triggered, power from the device's battery is directed to electrodes that rapidly heat, causing the polymer layer to expand to about seven times its original size within 10-15 seconds. This crushes the vital components inside the device, destroying any stored information.

One engineer believes the phone will see adoption in the intelligence and financial communities first, though it can also be retrofitted to existing phones for about $15.

Cold or Flu

This is the time of year there are many bugs going around to make us miserable. Worse yet, some come back during the same season. In general, flu symptoms tend to be more severe than cold symptoms, but do not last as long. Here are a few ways to tell whether you have a cold or the flu.

• Symptoms of a cold usually come on gradually, but symptoms of the flu can appear suddenly.
• Symptoms such as sneezing, stuffy nose, and sore throat are more common with colds than with the flu.
• People with the flu usually develop a fever, but people with colds rarely do.
• The flu often causes body aches and headaches, which can be severe. If you have a cold, aches are usually mild.
• The flu can cause serious complications, such as pneumonia or bacterial infections, but such compilations are rare with colds.
  
• You can get a seasonal flu vaccine to reduce the severity of flu each year, but there is no vaccine to protect from the common cold.
• Washing your hands frequently can help prevent either cold or flu.
  

There is no cure for the common cold, but relief includes: stay hydrated, get rest, soothe a sore throat, combat stuffiness, relieve pain. etc. All are common sense, and should help you feel better for the week or two it takes to shake that nasty cold. Antibiotics attack bacteria, but they are no help against cold viruses.

Antiviral medications do not cure, but can help alleviate some of flu symptoms, and many of the remedies for cold apply to the flu as well, including taking medicine for headaches. Flu symptoms usually are gone in a short time and do not linger as a cold does.

Regardless of whether you have a cold or the flu, the illness will usually go away on its own, but you should visit your doctor if your symptoms change or get worse. If you get either a cold or flu, please stay home and do not share.

Happy Friday

Laughter is like a push-up bra for your personality.

Now I understand why I like laughter so much, especially on a Happy Friday!

Apple TV

If you have a 4th generation Apple TV box and want to reduce the loud sounds to equalize volume during some parts of shows, press the microphone on your Apple remote and say to Siri, "Reduce loud sounds." It will change the internal settings until you change it again.

4k UHD, HDR-10 (Dolby Vision), OLED, Smart TV

Since the last time I wrote about TVs some new acronyms have popped up. If you are buying a TV for the future these are important, but if you are buying a TV for short term, (the next few years) almost all of these are not important. The reason they are not important is because almost no one is broadcasting to take advantage of 4K, HDR-10, (Dolby), except some Netflix and Bluray DVDs.

Smart TV - These sets are good to have now and the majority of new TVs are smart TVs. They allow access to the internet from your home WiFi and provide access to Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, and more without the need for a separate box. Many Smart TVs give you a full web browser, so you can use a search engine or visit websites. Some let you play interactive online games.

4K UHD - these ultra-high-definition televisions offer four times the resolution of a standard 1080p HDTV. Instead of a screen that has about 2 million pixels, these televisions show about 8 million pixels.

HDR-10, Dolby Vision - I lump these two, High Dynamic Range and Dolby10 together, because they are competing technologies, kind of like the old Betamax / VHS argument. Some manufactures are using one vs. the other and some have both. HDR is currently winning, because it is open source while manufacturers must pay royalties to Dolby for its technology. Many advertisements refer to them simply as Dolby and HDR.

The first of the two major differences between Dolby Vision and HDR-10 is that Dolby uses 12 bits per color (red, green, and blue), where HDR-10 uses 10 bits per color. The second, Dolby Vision uses dynamic, or continuous metadata so that color and brightness levels can be adjusted per scene, or even frame-by-frame basis. HDR-10 uses static metadata that is sent only once at the beginning of the video. Both reproduce a wider range of brightness levels, higher contrast ratio, and richer colors. Contrast ratio is the measurement of the difference in brightness between the whitest white and the darkest black. When seen side by side with non-HDR content, HDR-enhanced video is incredibly bright and with vibrant colors. Samples show a very positive marked difference.

Some TVs use OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) screens for a superior image and other benefits. Televisions packed with organic light-emitting diodes are incredibly thin, because each pixel is its own light source, so backlighting is not required. These televisions are more energy efficient than other TV panel types. Some LG TVs are as thin as four credit cards. Quantum dot  or QLED TVs can match the contrast ratio of OLED. Quantum dots are microscopic dots about a fraction of the width of a human hair.Samsung uses the term Quantum Dot.


Bottom line, you can get 4K UHD, HDR (Dolby), OLED on one TV. Every 4K is UHD by definition. Almost all TVs are LED, but very few are OLED or Quantum dot. Most TVs are now Smart TVs.

Incidentally, DolbyVision is for pictures and Dolby Atmos is for sound.

Lucille

In the winter of 1949, BB King played at a dance hall in Twist, Arkansas. The hall was heated by a barrel half-filled with burning kerosene, a fairly common practice at the time. During a performance, two men began to fight, knocking over the barrel and sending burning fuel across the floor. The hall burst into flames, and the building was evacuated.

Once outside, King realized that he had left his guitar inside so he went back into the burning building to retrieve his beloved $30 Gibson guitar. King learned the next day that the two men that started the fire had been fighting over a woman who worked at the hall named Lucille. King named that guitar, and every guitar he subsequently owned, Lucille, as a reminder never again to do something as stupid as run into a burning building or fight over a woman.

Quote

“Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you." ~ Langston Hughes

TV No Tuner

For those of you who may wish to get an antenna and ditch cable, check the TV you have and the next one you buy. Some manufacturers have begun to eliminate the tuner in order to save costs.
A TV tuner is a device that converts digital over-the-air channels for viewing on compatible displays and TVs. If you get a TV without a tuner, you will need some kind of converter box, such as an HDTV Digital TV Converter box with HDMI output.  You can also get a DVR that will turn an antenna into HDMI cable. This way not only do you get OTA but a DVR to record your shows.

External TV tuners cost from fifteen US dollars up to multiple hundreds of dollars and can be as small as a USB stick up to the size of a cigar box. You can also buy a TV tuner card for a PC and turn it into a television.

Wordology, Pareidolia

The natural tendency to see faces in objects or patterns.

It is the psychological phenomenon that causes some people to see or hear a vague or random image or sound as something significant. Pronounced par-i-DOH-lee-a.