Your car may have a built-in GPS unit, but you probably don't need it if you have a smart phone. The GPS unit in my car is significantly out of date because I haven't bought an update disc for several years. There are few reasons I'd want to.
Although the built-in unit does one thing a smart-phone unit doesn't, that one feature isn't worth $100 to $200 per year for a new disc. What is that feature? If the radio is on, the built-in unit lowers the radio volume when it has something to say. The smart-phone GPS doesn't.
Google Maps and Waze (owned by Google) are probably the best known GPS apps, but there are others. I'll stick with Android apps because they're ones I can use.
Waze was the leader in terms of providing information about current conditions, but Google Maps has borrowed features from Waze. The directional instructions from Google Maps seems better to me, but Waze offers some novelty voices. Would you like to have Mr T (remember television's "The A Team"?) guide you? Waze will let you do that and also offers several other narrators.
Google announces distances in feet while Waze likes to use miles. The built-in GPS in my car may be the winner here, though. Instead of specifying an exact distance, it announces "next right turn" as I approach the intersection.
Waze's awareness of traffic conditions is helpful. Where I live, a construction project has been underway for a couple of years to improve the congestion that results from an Interstate highway, a very busy multi-lane Interstate-like state route, and a busy surface street. This knot of an intersection is only a couple of miles from an interchange that has two Interstates. For those who live in central Ohio, I can just say "Worthington, I-270, Ohio 315, and US 23".
The construction is approaching an end and I thought I'd see how Waze handled the area that's still under construction. I'd planned to stay on 315 to 270 and then maneuver to High Street and exit, but Waze started showing significant congestion ahead and abruptly told me to exit about a mile and a half before the outerbelt. The re-routing took me beside and then over 315, where traffic was stopped because of a wreck. Thanks to Waze, I got to my destination a minute or two late instead of having to sit in traffic for 20 to 30 minutes.
That's technology that Google is trying to add to Maps, but its something that my built-in GPS unit wouldn't have warned me about.
The screens on most built-in GPS units are far larger than what you'll find on a phone, but animation on the phone-based GPS apps zoom in and out as needed to provide a good picture. If you really need a huge screen, buy a tablet that can use your cellular provider's data plan or rig the smart-phone to be a Wi-Fi hotspot.
You'll also need some way to mount the phone. I tried a unit that has a sticky suction cup, but it kept detaching from the dash, I thought because the surface has a slight texture. So then I tried attaching it to the windshield, but it fell off even when it wasn't holding the phone. Then I bought a holder that clips onto the HVAC louvers. Much better.
On a long trip, the phone's battery won't last long. To solve that problem, buy a USB power adapter and a cable. Most cars have what once would have been called a cigarette lighter connector. Now it's called a power port.
I'm still trying to decide whether I prefer Google Maps or Waze. Both of them are highly competent applications, but they're not the only choices. You may also want to look at Here Maps (Here We Go), Map Factor Navigator, and MapQuest. All of the apps are free, but some offer in-app purchasing and some people are annoyed by Waze's propensity to tell you when you're near a store or a restaurant and then offer to take you there.
Any app that's free wants something from you in return.
Back in May, my older daughter was in the Ohio State University Medical Center. She spent several days in intensive care, then a day and a half in the surgical intensive care unit, another day or so on a floor for transplant patients, and then another couple of days on a newly remodeled floor for transplant patients when it opened.
University hospital is a huge place that consists of many buildings that are connected to each other. It's easy to get lost.
The GPS unit in your car would be useless inside the hospital, but Google Maps knows about the interiors of some buildings. Large shopping centers, airport terminals, hospitals, and such.
In some cases, the interior maps are specific to a given floor. In my case, I had a map of the 4th floor of Doan Hall. Although there are always people who are willing to help someone who's lost find the location they're looking for, having a map in your pocket is handy, too.
And unlike your car-bound built-in unit, GPS applications in smart phones include navigation information for those who aren't driving. Walking, cycling, and using public transit are all included in some apps. These features can be handy if you need to get from one place to another when you're walking or visiting another city.
Some of the free apps also have paid versions that make ads disappear.
Waze is probably the most unusual GPS application. It depends on community input, which makes it ideal for those who have a passenger who can operate the phone and report problems. The driver should never try to report a wreck or traffic slowdown while driving. As obvious as that is, you know that some people will create their own traffic hazard or wreck by trying to use an app like this to report one.
Trying some of these apps makes a lot of sense because they really can help you get from point A to point B and some of them provide highly useful navigational data that you won't find in a built-in GPS.
Net Neutrality is a topic I've touched on before. It's perceived by some as being a political issue, but -- as a technology guy -- I can't see any justification for making it political. It's a high-stakes money issue and it appears to me that the heads of some big internet service providers see a way to get to a big financial payoff by dividing internet users.
Consumer Reports this month asked a simple question: "Do you think it's okay for your internet service provider -- the company, such as Comcast or Verizon, that connects you to the internet -- to decide what websites you can visit or to determine which streaming services will look best on your smart TV?" The magazine followed up with this: "If the answer is no, you're probably in favor of net neutrality."
It really is just this simple:
At least it works that way so long as the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules, which define the internet as a utility, remain in place. The new head of the FCC, Ajit Pai, wants to change that. In 2001, Pai became an Associate General Counsel at Verizon Communications, where he handled competition matters, regulatory issues, and counseling of business units on broadband initiatives. Barack Obama appointed Pai to the FCC in 2011.
According to Wikipedia, "Pai voted against the FCC's 2015 Open Internet Order, which served as the basis for net neutrality regulations. He said in December 2016 that he believed net neutrality's days were 'numbered'." In May, the FCC took the first formal step toward dismantling the net neutrality rules.
Wired magazine, this week carried an article by Susan Crawford that describes the work by Pai's predecessor, Tom Wheeler, as "commendable", but then goes on to discuss "an insidious policy in the works that will result in far greater woes for consumers". I recommend reading the article. Crawford is a columnist for Backchannel and a professor at Harvard Law School. She is also the author of The Responsive City and Captive Audience.
The final day for initial comment on the current proposal is July 17. Then the FCC's website will be open for replies until August 16. One of the easiest ways to register a comment is via the Consumers Union website. Here is part of what I wrote regarding the current rule making:
At a time when much of the rest of the world is working hard to make internet access more available to their people, the FCC seems to be heading in a direction that will allow a small group of ISPs to control what we have access to and to give those ISPs windfall profits.
This is absurd.
Now is the time to protect the FCC's Open Internet Rules (net neutrality rules), not abolish them.
I don't want ISPs to have the power to block websites, slow them down, give some sites an advantage over others, or split the Internet into "fast lanes" for companies that pay and "slow lanes" for the rest.
Now is not the time to let giant ISPs censor what we see and do on-line.
Censorship by ISPs is a serious problem. Comcast has throttled Netflix, AT&T blocked FaceTime, Time Warner Cable throttled the popular game League of Legends, and Verizon says it will introduce fast lanes for sites that pay-and slow lanes for everyone else-if the FCC lifts the rules. This hurts consumers and businesses large and small.
Courts have made clear that if the FCC ends Title II classification, the FCC must let ISPs offer "fast lanes" to websites for a fee.
Chairman Pai has made clear that he intends to do exactly this.
But if some companies can pay our ISPs to have their content load faster, startups and small businesses that can't pay those fees won't be able to compete. You will kill the open marketplace that has enabled millions of small businesses and created the 5 most valuable companies in America-just to further enrich a few much less valuable cable giants famous for sky-high prices and abysmal customer service.
Internet providers will be able to impose a private tax on every sector of the American economy.
This is not a political issue. If you're a Democrat, you should oppose what the FCC is trying to do. If you're a Republican, you should oppose what the FCC is trying to do. If you're a libertarian, you should oppose what the FCC is trying to do. If you believe that you should get what you pay for, you should oppose what the FCC is trying to do.
You can also call 1-844-284-9319 to be connected to your representatives. Please tell them your name, where you live, and ask them to oppose any changes to net neutrality.
I occasionally create a video and upload it to Vimeo so that I can illustrate something that can be more accurately described in that way. If the FCC's destruction of net neutrality succeeds, these videos may be unavailable or the playback may be unacceptable because I won't be able to pay Verizon, Comcast, and the others to include my content in the "fast lane".
Here's a video from Vimeo that explains what's at stake. Vimeo is an active participant in this story because it serves videos that have been created by other users.
The Wall Street Journal is a conservative publication. Here is a video that it created a few years ago to explain net neutrality in 2 minutes and 46 second of clear, non-political terms.
One more point of view from Fight for the Future, a liberal-leaning technology group. The video is only 34 second, but it illustrates more than explains what's at stake:
Solid state disk drives have been around for a while and, despite their significant advantages, some people are still wary of them. Too wary. Early on there were some downsides but those have been reduced to the point that SSDs are a good choice for a lot of people.
Initially, SSDs were extremely expensive. That's normal with new technologies, but the cost difference is now far less than it was then and for the usual reasons -- maturing technology and economies of scale. A 1TB SSD will cost $250 to $300 today, compared to $50 or so for a 1TB standard hard drive.
You may still want a standard drive for storing large amounts of data, but the computer will boot quite a bit faster and programs will load a lot faster if the boot disk is a solid state unit.
Some large installations are switching to all solid-state drives despite their higher apparent cost because they cost less to operate. Because they're faster, SSDs deliver data faster and without the need for expensive additional hardware. They also consume less power because there's no motor inside to spin a platter. And they run cooler, so a large data center's need for cooling can drop. They're physically smaller, too, so more drives fit in the same amount of space. Those aren't concerns for the home or office user who has just a few computers.
If you've been avoiding an SSD upgrade because you're concerned about the longevity of solid state drives, you're depending on data that's a decade out of date. The life of disk drives with rotating platers is measure in the amount of time the drive is in service. The life of an SSD is measured in the number of times data is written to the disk.
SSD manufacturers know that some bits will fail over time, so the amount of memory a drive starts with is typically more than is advertised. Standard drives also lose space over time as areas of the platter become unreliable and are locked out by firmware on the disk.
Because SSD life is measured in writes, it's easy to assume that this is a small number. It's not. Let's say a given disk drive is rated at 10 writes per day. Wow! That seems like a tiny number, doesn't it? But it applies to the entire drive. If you have a 1TB drive, you would need to write 10TB of data every day to consume all 10 writes.
The drive will be expected to accommodate 10 writes per day to every byte for 5 years. That's the usual metric used for these drives. So that's 10TB per day for more than 1800 days. That's 18,000 TB of data written. Reads are free. It's only writes that have longevity implications.
In other words, concern about SSD longevity is misplaced.
If you have a desktop computer or a notebook that holds more than a single drive, converting the boot disk to an SSD unit can create some real improvements.
Let's start with this: The systems that operate nuclear power stations are "air gapped", meaning that they're not connected to any network that's connected to the public internet. That makes them considerably safer than they would be otherwise. But it doesn't mean that they're secure. In fact a British report says that they're vulnerable because they are "insecure by design".
A friend used to say a collision at sea can ruin your whole day. Malware in a nuclear plant could do a lot worse than that. The report by Chatham House found that even though control systems were supposed to be air gapped, not all were because operators frequently used USB thumb drives to move information from systems that had internet access to supposedly secure systems.
That's bad. And now Ars Technica reports that the Department of Homeland Security and FBI have issued a joint report providing details of malware attacks targeting employees of companies that operate nuclear power plants in the US. The attacks have been taking place since May. They have focused on employees' personal computers and so far have not managed intrude on control systems.
But still, if you're looking for something to stay up late worrying about, this is it.
Earlier this year the DHS warned about cyber-attacks on the energy sector, healthcare, information technology, telecommunications, and infrastructure industries.
Now is probably a good time to develop a bit of well reasoned paranoia.
