Hello to all you tech-heads out there.
I hope you had a good week. We are seeing alot more movement around our little town. Businesses are all operating at a higher capacity, and tourists are coming in to fill the town and its beaches with activities. Us locals try to keep social distancing among the chaos.
For the foreseeable future, the kids will continue online school, like our meetings will continue in a virtual format. Our family has a number of celebrations coming up, as well as, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. We continue to figure out how to do it, but it’s different. I hope you and yours are safe and healthy and continue to figure out how to do it.
Our weekly meetings continue to give us a chance to check in on each other and make sure we’re all healthy, and happy, and to connect with someone that cares. We may be talking about tech, but the important thing is the talk. However, if you want to know about the tech, then look at the following links.
Today’s meeting covered the following topic:
- Amazon Prime day is coming up.
- The Roku Channel is Now Available on Fire TV.
- Netflix Subscription Prices are Going Up in Canada.
- Apple is starting to ship devices directly from its stores.
- Apple added a new green ‘warning dot’ to its iPhone so you’ll know if you’re being spied on.
TV Recommendations: Justified (Amazon Prime), Home before Dark (AppleTV+)
The YouTube video is available at: https://youtu.be/xk3YurG_9P8.
We are currently using the Google Meet code: [rgb-rrgc-gqp] for our weekly meeting. This code will probably be the same for next meeting. Check our blog sccClub.org and look for notifications when in doubt.
Reoccurring Themes:
NOTE #1: The Google Meet is scheduled on Google Calendar. If you want to be on that invitation, then provide me your Google account id. Also, provide your email address, or follow the appropriate accounts to see a reminder on the day of our meeting sent out by email, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and WordPress.
NOTE #2: A CHALLENGE: Can you design a phrase or dialog to trigger and execute a smart speaker commands, while masquerading as conversation? #speakerhacker – Any command execution counts, for example: play a song, get the weather, turn on/off a light. The goal is to covertly execute the command with conversation. We’ll play with our speakers and check back in next week. (see article: Uncovered: 1,000 phrases that incorrectly trigger Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant.)
[UPDATE for NOTE #2: currently no success, Bill and Cheryl have been experiencing random activations, but haven’t been able to reproduce their conversation. I too have had a few random triggers, but also cannot determine the dialog to set it off.]
Special thanks to all of you that have been helping in my endeavors. The things I am doing would not be possible without your support.
Still in the Kitchen Cooking intro was personalized and beautified with special attention by Viviana and myself, but it is only available on the podcast.
Remember, you can always show your support by taking a moment to go on YouTube and iTunes to review, like, and subscribe. When you do this, it gives our efforts greater exposure and this is as valuable, and as appreciated as any contribution. (don’t get me wrong. I could always use some money. hahaha.) Thank you.
Can’t wait till next week!
Everyone take care and #techOn!
Scott, headNerd at International Computer Solutions (internationalcs.net)
Please leave a comment.
= Communicate with Us =
website: sccClub.org
twitter: @sccClub
iTunes: The San Carlos Computer Club
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Youtube: http://youtube.sccclub.org
this podcast is related to a blog post found at: https://www.sccclub.org/podcast/october-10-2020-02-spyin-dots-iphone-of-the-future-quarantine-meeting-31.