MR. KOJO NNAMDIFrom WAMU 88.5 at American University in Washington, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," connecting your neighborhood with the world. The Computer Guys & Gal are here. That jolly old jingle can only mean one thing. It's the first Tuesday of the month, so the Computer Guys & Gal are on hand here to help find the best tech toys, gadgets and gizmos for the holiday season.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIWant to take better pictures with your Smartphone? There's a gadget for that, a telephoto lens that can be mounted onto your Smartphone camera. Want to build your own custom gift with a 3-D printer? There's a website for that, too, myrobotnation.com. Want to find the best place to buy a Christmas tree or menorah? Try buying a new iPhone 4s and ask Siri, the iPhone's new personal assistant program. Just don't ask it where you can buy birth control.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIThat question has landed Apple in the middle of the culture war. At this time of year, the tech world accentuates the positive, talking up its latest and greatest products. The Computer Guys & Gal are here to explore what devices actually live up to the hype. Joining us in studio, John Gilroy, he is director of business development at Armature Corporation. Good afternoon, John.

MR. JOHN GILROYGreetings, young man.

NNAMDIBill Harlow is hardware and software technician for Macs and PCs at Mid-Atlantic Consulting Incorporated. Hi, Bill.

MR. BILL HARLOWHi. How are you?

NNAMDII am well. And you notice the formality today?

GILROYReally.

NNAMDIAnd...

PROF. ALLISON DRUINI know. What's...

GILROY(unintelligible) half hour title.

DRUINWhat's with this?

HARLOWGood today, sir.

NNAMDIPracticing for the New Year, where we'll all be dressing formally. Allison Druin...

NNAMDI...is associate dean for research at the University of Maryland's iSchool and co-director of Future of Information Alliance, which I had the pleasure of being associated with just a few weeks ago. Hi, Allison.

DRUINIt was so much fun, Kojo. You were awesome as always, always.

NNAMDIThe best part was descending suddenly on Bill Harlow with a question when he wasn't expecting it. Remember that?

DRUINOh, that was so awesome. I thought, oh, my gosh, Bill without an answer.

HARLOWToday, I'm going to be asking some questions, I think.

HARLOWLet's try that out for size.

NNAMDIIf you have questions or comments, you can ask us at 800-433-8850. You can simply go to our website, kojoshow.org. Join the conversation there, or send us a tweet, #TechTuesday, or email to kojo@wamu.org. Does Apple deserve to be on the naughty or nice list when Apple unveiled its newest version of the iPhone? The company's new Siri personal assistant immediately impressed users and tech reviewers. Siri can perform an impressive variety of oral commands and questions.

NNAMDIBut, apparently, it's having trouble with questions involving birth control and abortion services. Some bloggers have accused the company of having a pro-life agenda. What's going on here, Allison?

DRUINWell, this is interesting because Siri is only as good as the people that programmed it and the content it can get access to. And what's happening is -- let's face it -- there's not as much content and know-how on how to get certain specialized topics.

NNAMDII see.

DRUINAnd so, for instance, there was a question that was going around, can you help -- wait -- can you help me find -- hide a body? And Siri would answer what kind of place are you looking for? So, I mean, it's -- and, of course, you know, people are thinking, oh, they're trying -- Siri is trying to help kill people.

DRUINThat's great.

NNAMDINo, no, they're not trying to help kill people. They're just trying to help dispose of the body after (unintelligible)...

DRUINTrying to hide (unintelligible).

GILROY(unintelligible)...

HARLOW(unintelligible).

NNAMDI...thank you.

DRUINAnd, you know...

GILROY…pre-dead body, exactly.

HARLOWYeah. Exactly. Now, that's important to note.

DRUINBut the idea here is -- look, the -- is that, basically, Siri has access to as much content is out there. The more common the content, the easier it's going to be to find those answers on the fly. And then, of course, let's face it. As much as you can test this thing, you're still going to need more testing to really get it -- how I would say -- smarter. And so it -- they're calling it beta, OK? They're not calling it a final release, folks.

GILROYInteresting, too, because Apple never sells something with the word beta attached to it. This is the first time. And, personally, I hate that, by the way. It's like you're selling it, you're advertising it, don't call it a beta. Call it version one or something. But it's also a case of seeing the men behind the curtain because...

DRUINThat's right.

GILROY...there are times where it does feel like magic. And then when it breaks down like this, you just expose the gaps. It's like, oh, yeah, it's still just technology. It's still flawed.

HARLOWMy favorite one is you go to the Siri, and you say call me an ambulance. And the computer says, from now on, I'll call you an ambulance.

HARLOWHas to make some leaps here.

NNAMDIIt should also be pointed out that if you can get an abortion, these -- the clinic that provides that does not usually use abortion in its name.

DRUINThat's exactly it.

NNAMDIIf you put in the name abortion, you'll probably come up with an anti-abortion site some place...

DRUINAnd, yeah, the information is much more complex for some of these questions. And so, you know, it's got to learn this through artificial intelligence and various different ways that the programmers are using. So....

NNAMDIBut it understands hide a body.

GILROYYeah.

DRUINIt's good, John. You'll be -- be good.

GILROYSo who are those developers, you know? Get them under.

GILROY(unintelligible) or something.

NNAMDICome holiday season, every technology company promises to revolutionize your life with the latest and greatest gadgets, but not all new tech is created equal. Most of the toys you buy this year probably will be doorstops in a few years, but most people seem to agree that the new iPhone was a leap forward in terms of, well, user interface. But can you talk about some of the other tech toys on the market that could be game changers, John Gilroy?

GILROYI don't believe in games. I don't play with any of these toys.

DRUINSomehow, I knew that was coming.

GILROYI just want to talk about...

NNAMDIBill Harlow?

GILROY...stuff, you know? Games -- they're not going to be all -- they're going to be -- if we took the list from three years ago, it's probably going to be no one is using that stuff anymore. So what stuff we're going to have it's going to be good till March 1st, Allison?

DRUINDo you remember him telling me that Kindle was a fad...

GILROYIt is a fad.

DRUIN...Twitter was totally going to be a fad. Folks, we're going to re-run some of this...

GILROY(unintelligible).

NNAMDIA collection of the Gilroy golden oldies.

DRUINYeah...

DRUIN...exactly. But -- OK, but there are -- you know, you got to decide, OK? Are you willing to spend a fair amount of money? Are you willing to say, hey, there is some good cheap stuff out there, and let's go after it? There are simple things, OK, for your tech nerd that you'd like to give something to. For instance, the iDigiTip, OK, for those people with fat fingers, John, OK? Have you ever had a problem? OK, Kojo is waving his hands around, saying yep, fat fingers.

DRUINAll right. Well, you got a problem, and you don't want to use a stylus 'cause then, you know, you can't do the, you know, the tap and swipe and all that other stuff.

NNAMDICorrect.

DRUINSo this thing is actually very simple. It's just got a foam kind of connector to the edge of your fingertips. It's only 20 bucks, folks. And you know what? If it doesn't work, you can hang it on your tree, John, OK? It's awesome.

NNAMDIWhat's it called, the iDigiTip?

DRUINYeah. He's writing it down now, folks.

NNAMDINo question.

DRUINIDigiTip. And it's a sweet one. It's actually up on the website for our WAMU Computer Guys & Gal. So that's one of them that's cool. Now, you want to spend a lot of money on your iPhone? Get some lenses...

GILROYThis is cool.

DRUIN...some photo lenses. OK, 250 bucks. OK, oh this is a fair amount.

GILROYFor the cost of a camera, you can turn your iPhone into a camera.

HARLOWIt is crazy.

DRUINAll right. All right. So that's the detail, folks, OK? But...

GILROYBut, to be fair, lenses are expensive.

GILROYSo what are you going to do?

DRUINRight. But -- so this has got a wide-angle lens, a fisheye lens, a telephoto lens, and, you know, you can switch them around. They're physical. It's cool. It's got a tripod, mount holes. Am I going to buy one? No. Because I'm such a picture novice that it would be useless. But for some people...

GILROYIt looks like optometry equipment, though. It's just like...

DRUINIt does.

GILROY...now, better, worse, better, worse.

DRUINAnd it's very cool. You can even get to switch it. So, anyway, those are -- so, you know, you go from 250 to 220 bucks, but there's a fair amount.

NNAMDIThe iPhone lens dial.

DRUINYeah, iPhone lens dial. So you can take a look at that. Do you have any, John?

NNAMDIWell, let's talk -- Bill, let's talk Microsoft. It's begun unveiling the new functionality for the Kinect and the Xbox, and they seem to be vying to make your cable box obsolete.

HARLOWYeah. They even said -- everybody says we're going to, you know, change, you know, the way people watch TV, and we're saying it, too. And it's pretty cool. They have partnered with a lot of people, so you've had Netflix. But they're adding a new version of a Netflix app for the Xbox 360. They're partnering with YouTube, with HBO, with UFC, with Major League Baseball, so all this content is going to be coming later this month and throughout early next year.

HARLOWAnd they're finding -- I think they said that they estimate about two hours a day on average their Xbox Live customers are doing non-gaming tasks on their Xbox, you know, watching movies, renting movies, doing all kinds of stuff. And they want to be the entertainment hub. And I think part of that, too, is like with the Kinect, it's not just for gaming. They're finding that it's very useful for voice control.

DRUINThat's right.

HARLOWYou can use gestures to control the device, and, hopefully, it makes something that is -- I mean, my wife is not going to pick up an Xbox controller and watch a movie, but if she can say Xbox, you know, find the new Alec, you know, Baldwin movie on Netflix, she might actually watch that.

DRUINBut, you know, they're creating with the Kinect, OK, with the Microsoft Kinect, they really are creating a whole new vocabulary of interaction, OK? So it's not just about, you know, what can I tap and what can I push? It is so about the gestures that matter. It's about how you control your whole universe. The new hot Kinect game, folks, is Disney Adventures, OK, 45 bucks.

DRUINYou can wonder around Disneyworld. They're saying it's Disneyland in your house, OK? I know you're so excited, John, you can barely stand it. But -- and you're looking for secret stuff, and it is good. It's good. It's classic Disney. It's wandering around. It's, you know, kids not sitting there like vegetables. And it really is -- I think the developers of these new Kinect games are getting it now. They're not trying to make your body be a mouse. They are actually saying, ah, that motion does make sense to move to the next part of the park.

NNAMDIDo have to interrupt with a newsflash. Former Prince George's County Executive Jack Johnson was sentenced moments ago in that pay-to-play scheme. You remember the FBI recorded the former Prince George's County executive and his wife, former Councilmember Leslie Johnson, and they were charged with conspiring to destroy evidence and that he extorted as much as a million dollars from those seeking to do business with the county.

NNAMDIWell, he has been sentenced to 87 months, make that about seven years and three months behind bars, three years on probation, and he will pay a $100,000 fine. That's the latest we're hearing, former Prince George's County Executive Jack Johnson sentenced to seven years and three months behind bars and a $100,000 fine. You're listening to The Computer Guys & Gal where we're taking your calls at 800-433-8850. Speaking of Xbox 360, here's John in Nokesville, Va. Hi, John. You're on the air. Go ahead, please.

JOHNYeah, I had a question. You know, it seems like Apple kind of missed the boat on the -- on gaming, essentially. And the more you look at it, you see gaming becoming the kind of the hub of what the family is doing around entertainment. I personally am annoyed with a lot of the Xbox features. I don't like that parental controls have passwords that I have to go back to Microsoft to get reset so I can access a movie on Netflix if I lose my password, et cetera.

JOHNBut I'm wondering, do you know of any scuttlebutt of Apple coming out with a gaming platform that, you know, uses Siri, the Siri technology as an example?

GILROYWell, I haven't heard anything really concrete, but you can kind of make a lot of educated guesses. Apple has definitely missed the boat as far as, you know, gaming in the living room, like a classic console. But it's sort of making an end-run with the iPhone and the iPads. And what's happening is you're seeing as hardware -- like in my iPhone 4S gets more and more powerful, I can play console-quality games on this thing.

GILROYYou're able to stream these through an Apple TV. So the Apple TV runs on, I think, an A4 chip right now. It runs a version of iOS embedded just for that task. It seems reasonable to me that they could expand the role of the Apple TV and offer compatibility with these really rich experiences you're getting now on iPad and iPhone, put those in the living room, maybe not with a dedicated controller, maybe you're still controlling them with your mobile device. But it opens a lot of possibilities.

GILROYAnd the other thing, too, is if -- almost everybody has one of these iPhones or iPod Touches. You can do a lot of cool things with both the big screen and the small screen simultaneously. You're seeing that with consoles, too, like with the PlayStation and the PS Vita, which is coming out, what Nintendo has done with their DS and Game Boys in the past. So I wouldn't say they're out of the gaming environment yet, but they're doing it their own way, like always.

NNAMDIOver the past month, Bill, you've seen blockbuster video game releases, including a new Batman game, Arkham City, and a new game called Skyrim. You say we're in the midst of a renaissance of sorts for immersive video games. What games or game accessories are you hoping to find under your tree?

HARLOWWell, you mentioned Skyrim. That's on my list. And I kind of don't want to get it because it's one of those really epic, you know, fantasy titles with an open world, you know? They advertise, spend 100 hours in this world. That's what I don't need in my life these days.

HARLOWSo I like the idea of it. Maybe I wouldn't actually ever boot it up. But the thing I like is that, well, we just talked about, you know, iOS games. I mean, there's still a lot of great stuff for the PC and for the Mac. You know, computer gaming still has a lot of life in it. And what I like are some of the great deals you're finding on digital distribution now. Steam is a very popular service to get games for Windows and for Mac OS.

NNAMDIYou say we should consider joining Steam?

HARLOWConsider it. They -- there was a recent hacking attempt with both -- with them very recently and with PlayStation not too long ago. Another one I like too is good old games...

GILROYMaybe you should define for our listeners.

HARLOWYeah. So, basically, before the App Store, you had a game store. And you install this app called Steam you'd sign up for, and practically any game you'd want to get these days is available there in digital form. You never have to ship it or buy a box. You just check out the videos and screenshots, play a demo in some cases, buy it, and, you know, in about an hour or so, it's installed. You're ready to play. They've expanded to Mac.

HARLOWThey have expanded so that there are some games that are both Mac and Windows compatible. And you buy it once, play it on either platform. So maybe you have a gaming PC at home and you've got your Mac laptop on the go. You can just pick up where you left off.

NNAMDIJohn, is this the season of Microsoft? However, for the last few years, it's been lonely on your part defending the stick, John.

GILROYWell, you know, on the one hand, you know, Internet Explorer is down below 50 percent. I mean, who could've seen that? Now, when I started doing the show years ago, it was way below 50 percent at the start of the show in 1991. In fact, it didn't exist, and it became low the minute it's taken over. On the other hand, Microsoft had made some interesting inroads, you know? Back 15 years ago when Microsoft was below 50 percent, people are calling them Nazis.

GILROYPeople are calling them, you know, monopolists. And Penfield Jackson was beating up on them. There are really some serious charges to Microsoft. And now, a recent study show that one of the most ethical companies to work for in the United States is Microsoft -- not Apple, not Google, not Facebook, but Microsoft, which is a little twist. So I think what they're doing is they have some very select wins. One win is the Kinect. Another win is, I think, just their corporate culture is improving.

GILROYSo if you are a very large organization, if you're a Fortune 50 company and about to make a major decision when it comes to software, all of a sudden, you're not going to feel as awkward dealing with Microsoft as you might have thought 10 years ago with Microsoft as -- OK, what's license really say? And all of a sudden, you know, they change their license terms, and there are thousands of people from Microsoft who just try to figure out how to play with that license to increase fees.

GILROYAnd I think that's interesting. So it's a mixed bag, I think, with Microsoft where you really can apply some of those old labels to them, and then you have this shadow of Bill Gates out there giving away $25 billion and doing nothing but trying to help people all throughout the world. In fact, I have a friend of mine who was out in Seattle yesterday, asking Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for money for his nonprofit.

GILROYSo it's a way different story from 10 or 15 years ago. And I think Microsoft is moving comfortably in this. And what we see Microsoft over the years is they make plenty of mistakes, but they're not down for long. They're good, solid players.

NNAMDIYou mentioned Penfield Jackson. That was the U.S. district judge who presided over the Microsoft case some 10 or 15 years ago. Microsoft has even opened its own dedicated store in Northern Virginia, just like the Apple Store.

GILROYWhat an original idea, Bill.

HARLOWYeah.

NNAMDIYeah, well, I asked them why they located in Northern Virginia. They said, that's because Bill Harlow lives there. He wanted to see us every single day when he wakes up.

HARLOWNow, isn't -- wasn't the first Apple Store opened in Northern Virginia, too?

GILROYI don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it.

DRUINYeah.

HARLOWBut it's a brand-new idea. You know, boys and girls, 20 years ago, Xerox opened up a retail store as well in town here, and that failed miserably. And now we have Apple Stores.

DRUINYeah, well, those Apple Stores are definitely failing.

HARLOWAnd there's a world total, I think, of 14 Microsoft stores. And I don't know what -- you go in there and what do you do, complain about Windows? I guess there's something, maybe get your Kinect fixed or...

GILROYI will say, I mean, I'd like to see a high-end, you know, experience like that, where you go in there and you can talk to really knowledgeable people about your Windows and Microsoft-based products, get to try all this stuff first hand. So I think they -- you know, I hope that they put a lot of effort into it. I definitely want to check it out, see how it is 'cause it sounds like a cool idea.

NNAMDIThey opened there to make John Gilroy redundant. He is the computer guy, and this is the Computer Guys & Gal. If you've called, stay on the line. We will get to your call. We have quite a few calls. If you're trying to get through and can't get through on the phone, send us a tweet at #TechTuesday or send us an email to kojo@wamu.org. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWelcome back. It's the Computer Guys and Gal. In case you haven't met them before, Allison Druin is associate dean for research at the University of Maryland's iSchool and co-director of the Future of Information Alliance, Bill Harlow is a hardware and software technician for Macs and PCs at Mid Atlantic Consulting, Inc., and John Gilroy is director of business development at Armature Corporation.

NNAMDIWe're taking your calls at 800-433-8850. We talked earlier about the iPhone Lens Dial, Bill Harlow. What we did not talk about is that accessory makers are creating new mounts and weights to help stabilize our photos.

HARLOWYes. So there -- you know, going from cheapest to most expensive, we've got simple things like the Glif. I have one of these. It's like 15 bucks. It's a hunk of plastic. It looks like it does nothing. You slide your iPhone into it, and you can -- it works like a little kick stand, so you can just prop it up while you're, you know, watching something on it or casually reading or prop it up so you can, you know, keep it steady for taking a picture.

HARLOWIt's got a threaded inserts, so you just pop this in, and you can put it on almost any tripod. Next stop, we -- there's the gorilla -- the JOBY GorillaMobile, and they are the guys who make the GorillaPod with these flexible legs. This is a lot simpler. It's just a mini tripod that you put in your pocket camera. Thread it in, and when you're not using it, it folds up flat, so you don't even know it's there.

GILROYI think we had one in the studio a couple of years back.

HARLOWWell, yeah. We had the GorillaPod. That was a big monster. This is really tiny and always on the camera. And the last one is called the OWLE Bubo. And this thing...

GILROYThe word.

DRUINYou just like the name.

HARLOWB-U-B-O.

GILROYActually, let's go to...

NNAMDIYou're not making this up?

GILROY…Kojo's next guest.

HARLOWKojo, so look -- they call it that 'cause it looks like a horned owl, and it's got threaded inserts on all four horns. It's made out of cast aluminum. It's really heavy duty. So you pop your iPhone 4 or 4S into this, and it keeps it really steady. It's got a little wide angle lens on there. It's higher quality. It comes with a boom mic. And, you know, it sounds stupid because...

GILROYIt really sounds stupid.

HARLOW...it shoots video on the iPhone…

NNAMDINo, it doesn't.

HARLOW...but if you see the shots this thing takes, they're really, really nice.

GILROYWhat about the camera in your shelf at home? Well, throw that away. We're going to do everything you possibly...

HARLOWWell, you already got -- you've already got your iPhone. It already takes a lot of -- some excellent video, and it has a lot of storage, too. I mean, that's all in one spot. And you can even edit it on the iPhone. I mean, it's got iMovie for iPhone, so one stop movie making.

NNAMDIHere's for you, John Gilroy. A few shows back, one of the panelists mentioned that using different browsers to do different things on the Internet would be one way to keep the data mining about your searching and Internet usage smaller. I would like somehow to expand on this. If I have Safari, Internet Explorer and Firefox available to me, what would be the best way to separate my Internet activity? Read one email account and do general Internet searches on Safari.

NNAMDIUse Firefox for my other personal email account and do Internet shopping with IE. I have a new MacBook Air, and I want to start out with the best anti-privacy, hygienic practices as possible.

GILROYWow. Then don't go to the Internet at all.

NNAMDIWhich leads me to the next question. "I have the new MacBook Air, and I've tried to find someone to help me do the needed migration from my previous six-year-old Mac G4. I'm willing to pay, but it seems as if those in the business aren't interested in getting new business because they don't respond to emails or phone calls trying to initiate new business." Any help for Bonnie from Germantown?

HARLOWWell, if she's got an old G4, I'm hoping that she's at least got a Mac OS 10.5 Leopard on there. Apple does include a lot of migration tools to make this easy as possible. Just keep, you know, the old machine as up-to-date as you can. And the tricky thing is you really need a fast wireless network handy if you're talking about a MacBook Air 'cause that's really the only way you're going to connect this to your old G4 effectively. But once you run the migration assistant on the old computer in the new one, it guides you through.

HARLOWIt says how are you going to do this, over the network? Are you going to do this -- connected into another hard drive? Answer those questions, put them a code, and then go to bed. Check on it next day. See if it's done yet, probably not. Give it another day, and hopefully all the data has finally come across to the new machine.

GILROYI want to go back to this person asking about being tracked online. You know, I mean, this is really, really hot topic right now. It's everywhere in the news about tracking people. I mean, there's a mall in Virginia where they just start, OK, we don't know enough about you on the Internet. We're going to track you from store to store. And I think it's a real ethical question that I think many marketing people are going to have to ask is, is it going to be opt in or opt out? And these are some important questions.

GILROYAnd I think that this person who wrote in with the question has a real fair concern. And I don't like the whole idea of society tracking every single move that you make now. The marketing people are going to demand it because every single page and every website you go to, they're going to track and find out what you like, what you don't like. The idea is, as Kojo Show is up at Tysons Mall, he's walking down to the window store. And then L.L. Bean says, oh, guy with deep pockets, jackets on sale, and they flash into his Smartphone a coupon or something.

GILROYSo it's -- as my daughter would say, it's creeping me out. I don't like it.

NNAMDIBy the way our emailer, Bonnie, and thank you for your email, also wrote, "I wanted to say hi to Kojo at the WAMU 50th anniversary party, but he left before I could do so." May not be quite true, Bonnie. I was trying to be a featured vocalist with the band.

NNAMDISo -- and they wouldn't let me and insisted that I be kicked out. John, could you continue talking a little about why Internet Explorer is under 50 percent? What are the relative merits compared to, oh, Firefox and others -- other browsers?

GILROYYeah. I think one of the problems with Windows technology, in general, is they try to be all things to all people. If you look at the evolution of Microsoft Word, it adds more features, more features, more features, more features, and you have 99 features and use three of them, so the same thing with Windows. It adds more features, more features and handicapped abilities, and, all of a sudden, it is unwieldy, and I think that's what's happening to IE.

GILROYIt's got to the point where it's unwieldy. And also because it's gotten so popular, the hackers have used that as the target, and that's the target operating system. Now that it's maybe going back maybe under 50 percent, maybe if the hackers look at Chrome or Firefox and guys like Bill sort of home at night and go, I'm not going to attack IE. I'm going after Firefox now. And maybe they'll have the same problems.

GILROYSo I think it's (unintelligible) of Microsoft trying to -- now, that they allow people like gamers to use Microsoft operating system and come up with all kinds of neat games and try different kind of hardware and all kinds different CPUs and video in order to make it fast enough for a game. So that was the -- that's the tradeoff. You know, they kind of cover everything and then have weaknesses, and so see what's going to happen if they start going after Firefox.

NNAMDIAny relative merits of Safari, Chrome? Anyone care to comment?

DRUINWell, Chrome -- it's definitely faster than the other folks. And I think that's why it's bumped up in the stats. I mean, it jumped up over Firefox, man. I mean, then you should...

GILROYThat's what some studies show. It's amazing.

DRUINYeah. And so I'm thinking, you know, it's not just for nerds anymore, folks. You know, maybe there's something going there and -- yeah.

HARLOWWhat I found funny, though, is that, like on Windows, I really like Firefox or Chrome. On my Mac, I hate them. There's something about the way they feel. Like in the Mac, I have to use Safari 'cause this feels like, you know, it's part of the same cohesive experience.

DRUINIt's interesting.

HARLOWOn Windows, it's -- you know, it's the opposite. You know, Firefox feels right. Safari and Windows just feels really wrong to me.

NNAMDIOn to Chris in Herndon, Va. Chris, your turn. Go ahead, please.

CHRISYes. I have a -- about media streaming. I've got a home network and a theater -- set up, and I'm just trying to get it all work together. I've got the Xbox, but I didn't find it too good about getting data off computer and putting it on to the TV or into the speaker system. I have a PlayStation, but I haven't tried that yet. I didn't know what your thoughts were on any other streams out there like Airplay, Apple TV, Roku, BeBox, Slingbox and whatever.

HARLOWSo you're primarily just trying to get data off of your existing computers and get them to stream to one or both consoles, is that right?

CHRISCorrect. You know, whether, you know, streaming Internet music, any videos. I have pictures...

NNAMDINetflix, Hulu, that kind of thing?

HARLOWYeah. Well...

CHRISYes, mm hmm, exactly.

HARLOW...I think in case of Netflix and Hulu, you can get those on the PS3, if you have a PlayStation Plus account. But as far as getting them off your computer, I think it's actually free. There's something called, I believe, PS3 media player. You install it on your PC. And what it does is it takes the content, and it can transcode into formats that your consoles can understand. They'll just show up in the video sections on those respective devices.

HARLOWYeah, PS3 media player, it's called that, but I believe it works for both the Xbox 360 and for the PS3. So take a look at that because that's probably your best -- in the way of free options before investing in new hardware or new software.

NNAMDIChris, thank you very much for your call. Allison, you're always on the look out for kid-friendly, affordable entertainment, apps you can buy to distract a kid, I mean, make that entertain or educate a kid during...

GILROYI don't know about affordable based on your history, but still...

NNAMDI...during a long family drive. You flagged two inexpensive apps, Doodlecast for Kids and MusicalMe. Why do you like those?

DRUINWell, both of them are for preschoolers, and usually you see the most inane things created for preschoolers, let me just tell you. But this is -- these are very simple apps that do things very well. Doodlecast for Kids, what a wonderful storytelling app. Basically, they just simply draw, and as they're drawing, it's recording their voice. And so what it's doing is -- I don't know if you've ever watched a kid draw, but they constantly talk about -- it's a storytelling medium. They talk about as they're drawing the tree and, oh, that doesn't really look like my tree, but it is sort of like my tree.

GILROYSo like Bob Ross, but making even less sense.

DRUINOh, it's so beautiful. And so -- and, actually, if you go on YouTube, you can see a ton of these Doodlecast videos and essentially with voice annotations. And it's so brilliant and very simple. It's for sharing. It's great. It's two bucks. It's on iPad and iPhone. MusicalMe by Duck Duck Moose. I love the name of it.

HARLOWThat's great.

DRUINOh, my goodness. And...

GILROYVery sophisticated.

DRUIN...again, these are -- this one is simple ways to play with music, and it's not -- it's got the typical, oh, yeah, you can learn your notes. But it's got, like, you know, control the animals to dance with the music or play percussion while the music is happening or play on the birds and make music. You know, it's just very simple kinds of things that are perfect, open-ended, exploratory kinds of games. And, in both cases, Doodlecast and MusicalMe, really, really sweet, and it doesn't say, hey, preschool kid, learn, learn, you know?

DRUINIt's all about that exploratory learning that's what young kids are about, and MusicalMe, one buck, OK. That's really great.

NNAMDIHere is Elizabeth in Bethesda, Md. Elizabeth, your turn.

ELIZABETHOh, goodness. I'm sorry. What -- so I have a college-aged son who doesn't need much, but I'm Christmas shopping and saw something called an Optoma Pocket Projector. And I wondered what your guests thought about that, if perhaps they can think of something similarly priced that works with a laptop.

NNAMDIExactly what does it do? Because John Gilroy still wears a pocket protector.

GILROYYes, I certainly do, and it's full.

NNAMDI(unintelligible) know about the pocket projector.

ELIZABETHYou can attach it to a device like an iPhone or -- I'm trying to figure out --some other kind of smartphone. And it will project, you know, a YouTube video or something up on the wall, you know, several feet across.

NNAMDIAllison Druin also recommends video goggles, so I'll have her address this.

DRUINWell, I got to tell you, Elizabeth, I'm like a catalog queen, and this weekend was my catalog weekend.

DRUINAnd I saw that in a catalog, and I was pretty close to looking at that and go, maybe I need that. It really -- I thought that was really slick because there's so many times I've got my iPhone, and I want four noses to look at something. And it's such a pain. But, you know, what was the pricing on that? I think I remember it being a little bit steep for my pocketbook.

ELIZABETHWell, the price is -- the pocket size is like $129. The big ones that you would use for PowerPoint presentation at work were $300 or so.

HARLOWRight.

DRUINYeah, I...

ELIZABETHThe pocket one was affordable.

DRUINYeah, it was, you know, about $130 or so, so it's really not bad. But it is -- you got to know you're going to use it.

HARLOWAll I'll say as a bit of a projector aficionado is that for that price and that size, set your expectations low. I don't mean that it's not worth the money, but it's not going to be like having an HDTV on the wall. It's basically just a way so that you can get this tiny footage from your small screen into a format that is watchable and bigger, but it's not going to be bright. It's not going to be very accurate.

GILROYYeah, and the business -- yeah, exactly in the business world 'cause there's big screens and (unintelligible).

HARLOWProbably not as nice as video goggles, Allison.

DRUINNo. I got to tell you the video glass is now 170 bucks. This is a little bit pricier, though I'm not buying this either because I don't have the pocketbook for that. Buy Vuzix, OK, and they will make it so that these really cool-looking glasses, OK, will make it so that you...

HARLOWOh, cool-looking. Let's go with that.

DRUINIt's very cool-looking. It'll make John even look cool. But, you know, it will make you feel like you're seeing a 55-inch screen or a 67-inch screen or 75-inch screen. I mean, it's incredible, the quality. But, of course, you're talking anywhere from 175 bucks to 500 bucks depending on what you're dealing with.

HARLOWAnd probably don't want to walk down the street while using this.

DRUINOh, my goodness, no. But no one will be able to know that you're even watching video because you'll be like, you know, bopping away and...

HARLOWAnd walking into walls.

GILROYRight.

DRUINAnd walking into walls.

GILROYRight, right. Objects in the mirror are a closer thing.

DRUINI think the pocket projector is probably better.

NNAMDII'm glad you talked about using stuff on the street because, Allison, today's kids are digital natives. Smartphones, tablet computers can play a great role in distracting, I mean, educating and entertaining them, but they also present all kinds of questions, don't they, about etiquette and manners?

DRUINWell, you know, it's interesting because they are learning very interesting questions when it comes to the content that's on these things but also how they share their own media, how they share -- how they're actually saying to their respected elders what they care about and what they don't care about. And so I perceive these things as, how they say, megaphones. They are -- they're making kids just more so.

NNAMDIOK. We're going to take a short break. When we come back, we will continue our conversation with the Computer Guys & Gal, recommending all kinds of interesting gifts for your holiday shopping. Or if you have questions or comments about anything else, feel free to call us at 800-433-8850 or send a tweet to #TechTuesday. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWe're talking with the Computer Guys & Gal about what you might want to get for the holidays. Bill Harlow is a hardware and software technician for Macs and PCs at Mid Atlantic Consulting, Inc. John Gilroy is director of business development at Armature Corporation. And Allison Druin is associate dean for research at the University of Maryland's iSchool and co-director of the Future of Information Alliance.

NNAMDIYou can send us email to kojo@wamu.org. Bill Harlow has not seen Santa's list. He's pretty sure a company called Carrier IQ is getting a lump of coal. It's been accused of secretly installing a software program that follows everything you write on your Smartphone?

HARLOWYeah. So, you know, reports will vary depending on the device. The most alarming one was shown on a specific HTC Android handset. And, basically, every single interaction on that device is being logged. Now, it wasn't all getting sent back to Carrier IQ. Like, they weren't getting his key log data, but a lot of stuff was. Things like encrypted Web searches, just, you know, browsing history in general, you know, apps he is running, all kinds of stuff.

HARLOWAnd before this news broke, I don't think anybody even knew there's a company called Carrier IQ out there. And now suddenly we're finding out that it's this diagnostic software that's embedded in pretty much every Smartphone under the sun, you know, pretty much all Androids. It's on most iPhones in the past. And now, Apple has said, well, it's not -- since iOS 5, it's not on all of them. It's only on the iPhone.

GILROYSome.

HARLOWYeah. Actually, I found that the iPhone 4 is specifically running iOS 5. But in a future update, they're taking that off, too. On the iPhones, it's not tracking as much. It really does seem like it's just sending a diagnostic data. But to their credit, they actually do notify you, and they say, do you want to send diagnostic data? You have to opt in. But still, no idea that Carrier IQ even existed. Since this has happened, there have been -- Carrier is saying, well, you know, we only wanted some diagnostic data.

HARLOWWe didn't want all of these. Blame them. You know, finger pointing in every single direction. So it wouldn't surprise me if, you know, after some time, you know, you stop hearing about Carrier IQ because they panicked and changed their name or something.

GILROYYeah. And I think what they justified is saying we're trying to improve customer satisfaction. And this is...

HARLOWI agree with that. I mean, I believe that aspect of it, but it's just -- there was no disclosure. There was a lot of data being logged. And in the case of the Android, there's no easy way of turning it off. Or it wasn't until one of the researchers who found this put out an app in the Android store that actually allowed you to detect it and remove it if found.

GILROYGoes back to some ethical questions at the beginning of the show. What is fair? What's not fair? What's fair with opt in? And I think we're just learning our way around now. And I think you said the Windows 8 doesn't have that problem, and Apple doesn't have that problem.

HARLOWYeah. Windows Phone 7 does not have this issue. So if you have a Windows Phone, yeah, you're in good shape.

GILROYIf you walk into a -- if Kojo walks in a store and says, I do not want that phone with Carrier IQ on it, the market's going to respond, and they're going to change their tune.

HARLOWExactly.

NNAMDIAllison Druin, we got an email from Dave in Leesburg, Va., who says, "My wife wants a Kindle Fire for Christmas. I've heard it has problems connecting with Wi-Fi. I have Verizon FiOS. Is this a problem? Will we be able to read it in the daylight sitting on the beach? Do you give -- do you all give it thumbs up or down?" Desperate husband, Dave describes himself, asks.

DRUINOh, poor Dave. Oh, my goodness. Actually, Bill and I were just discussing -- there was a great blog post about comparing the different versions of Kindle and NOOK. And, actually, the Kindle Touch is a bit sluggish.

HARLOWYeah. Now, they didn't talk about the Fire (word?). Like, as far as with Wi-Fi, don't expect too much of an issue. As far as reading that kind of screen in bright sunlight, probably pretty tough, so...

DRUINWell, it's interesting because they have done some tests, and there are certain, you know, sort of directions of sunlight that it will work kind of thing. But -- and those screens are some of the best, but I don't know about the completely all the time, everywhere it's okay.

HARLOWYeah. So maybe the bargain basement Kindle 4, the one that you can get as cheap as 80 bucks is the way to go.

DRUINYeah. Now, the Kindle 4, it seems to be pretty good. But if you want to put in a text input, not so good. It's a little clunky on that. But otherwise, you know, it's probably OK for about, you know, 80 percent of the time in terms of direct sunlight.

NNAMDIHere is Derrick (sp?) in Ashburn, VA. Derrick, your turn.

DERRICKYes. Good afternoon. What is the deal with Apple suing Samsung tablet all over the world?

HARLOWWell, where do we begin?

NNAMDIBill Harlow is not an attorney, but he plays one from time to time on this broadcast.

HARLOWExactly. Poorly, I might add, having gotten called back from any other roles. So the gist of it is that they really feel like they've defined what the modern tablet marketplace is with the iPad, as far as the look and feel of both the software and the hardware. And their argument is that Samsung stuff looks awfully similar. And I think that, you know, a lot of people listening to this show can probably tell the difference. But, you know, first glance it's like, wow, they're both, you know --they're very similar shaped. Both have a black glossy bezel.

HARLOWThey both have, you know, this row of icons at the bottom for your primary apps and then a grid of icons in your home screen for other apps. The packaging even is similar to Apple. So, I guess, what Apple is saying is, you know, there's room in the tablet marketplace, you know, for other competitors, but actually compete. They feel like they're being copied. You know, whether or not the courts agree is another matter, but that's Apple's stance.

DRUINWell...

NNAMDIBut, John -- oh, go ahead, Allison.

DRUINOh, you know, but the other thing, too, is that it's always been very difficult to decide in the courts what's the same in terms of user interface, and, you know, how protected can a user interface be and what is a, you know, user interface? Is it only in software? Is it physical and so on? So it's actually a pretty complex set of arguments, and it seems like everyone is suing everyone these days.

HARLOWWhat's funny about it, though, is before the iPhone came out and before the iPad came out, phones looked awfully different and tablets looked awfully different. And now they look alarmingly similar. So there is that, too.

NNAMDIIndeed. John Gilroy, on this show, perhaps, we occasionally have an iPad by us. But rather than feel guilty about that, we should probably note how small the non-iPad tablet market is.

GILROYWell, that's -- you know, I've been reading these marketing figures about tablet sales here in 2011, and people are talking about 15 million sales. And that's a great number. And I hear all kinds of people pounding the table. And HP talks about sales, and this company talks about sales. But all the figures I'm reading indicate that Apple really does dominate this market. I mean, HP had a fire sale and almost gave away some product, and they're still not earning...

HARLOWAnd RIM is doing that now with the PlayBook.

GILROYRight. And now RIM is doing that. And so you got to wonder -- it sure does seem like a total world domination or whatever James Bond said in that movie. It does sound like it, and then -- and it's, in fact, the case. So it looks like it's a very good year for tablet sales if you're Apple. And if you're not Apple, you are just fighting tooth and nail for that number two spot. And that number two spot may be way, way down the list, maybe at, like, 8 or 10 percent.

GILROYSo the figures are just fascinating. And, I guess, at the end of the year, maybe in January, February, we'll look at some statistics and find out, but all these companies are going to be optimistic about their sales reports and...

HARLOWYou know what? They got to keep trying, though, because the market is still really young. There's still room to get in there and make a dent, but you've got to have something really compelling.

NNAMDIJohn, we've entered the era of big data. You just mentioned James Bond, so I thought I'd bring up movies. On this show, we have explored the mind-bogglingly huge numbers, terabytes and petabytes. But those numbers are so huge, they're almost impossible to understand. You have given us an interesting, well, lowbrow yardstick: the animated movie "Puss in Boots," which I have seen, thank you. Explain.

GILROYWell, you know, I deal with companies that are fairly large organizations. And if you walk into a hospital, you may deal with some IT people. And they may have seven terabytes of information, and that is a lot.

HARLOWThat's quaint, huh?

GILROYI mean, that's a lot of -- from my perspective, I mean, it could be X-rays, it could be all kinds of electronic health records. I mean, seven terabytes is -- it's really -- and I would call that big data. Now, you talk to -- you go fly to L.A. and talk to the movie people, and they go, well, we got 70 terabytes of data for this movie, and we don't think that's big data. I mean, there are companies -- there's a company called Hadoop, which is really making some inroads in just the whole idea behind managing data that's this large.

GILROYIt's just that, you know, there are movie companies that have 30, 32 projects with 70 terabytes each, and it's just -- the...

HARLOWOh, yeah, you have -- you better back it up, too.

GILROYYeah. And you got to have it for eternity and back it up. And so it's just a -- it's a question of -- so, you know, in fact, years ago, two -- you know, 20-megabyte hard drive was big, got bigger and bigger and bigger. And now we're talking about terabytes of data, and you start to use the big fancy word P, the P word, which is a petabyte of storage. I mean, it's just -- the numbers are just incredible.

GILROYI think the -- I think in the gaming world, they're blazing the path for speed. And I think for storage, probably the movie folks are blazing the path for storage. And 70 terabytes, wow.

HARLOWEven on a small scale, the thing that always amazed me is having friends who are filmmakers. It's like if you make movies, you just collect hard drives 'cause their houses are just littered with the stuff.

NNAMDITook my 6-year-old granddaughter to see "Puss in Boots" and could not explain to her the line in the movie in which Puss in Boots says to a female partner, "I will never forget you, Rosa. I mean, Maria." Still can't explain that. We got an email from Ben P. (sp?) in Silver Spring, who said, "What should we be looking at in picking a first game console for our house? We have two kids, 5 and 7, and love the physically interactive games -- exercise, dancing, et cetera. Is a Wii still worthwhile? Is the Kinect the system with the most legs going forward?" Bill?

HARLOWI think yes and yes to both questions. The Kinect is probably the way to go with the most legs. It's a -- it's very powerful. It's updated with a PlayStation 3 in power. The Kinect is something new, too. What I like about it, you don't have to hold anything. It's just you and the console. And there are some really cool games, too, like "Dance Central," which actually has gotten a lot of good reviews up to -- I think the third one is about to come out.

DRUINYeah, but here's the problem, OK? We have...

HARLOWYou do need the space, though.

DRUINYeah. That's exactly it. We had both, OK? And we found we weren't using the Kinect as much as we were using the Wii.

HARLOWYeah.

DRUINAnd we still use the Wii a lot, and it's because, basically, we didn't have the right space to use the Kinect, and so we were having to go down to this frigid basement to use it. And so we realized that, in fact, actually, the Wii is a better deal because you don't need as much space.

HARLOWIt's cheap, too. It's actually really cheap. And...

DRUINYeah.

HARLOW...it's more mature. There's a lot of software out there, a lot of choices.

DRUINYeah.

NNAMDIJohn Gilroy is raising his hand. Me, me, me.

DRUINHe's raising his hand? Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.

GILROYWell, speaking of frigid basement, I have to tell the listeners that Allison is sitting here with a coat and gloves on.

GILROYMaybe she thinks this is a frigid basement.

DRUINOh.

GILROYBut this, we have a picture...

NNAMDIEither that, or she got new stuff for the holidays and decided to wear it earlier.

DRUINAnd I'm showing it off.

GILROYOh, for a while there, she was speaking with one glove on. I thought it was a Michael Jackson impression, you know? But we'll put this up online here and show the picture of her where...

DRUINIt's so cool here.

GILROY...she's got a jacket on, and then...

HARLOWThere's a St. Bernard over there with some brandy, too, from...

GILROYAnd the glove. But frigid basement. Frigid studio, I guess.

NNAMDIWe will definitely be tweeting that photo.

NNAMDIHere is -- here's Catherine in Washington, D.C. Catherine, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

CATHERINEHi. Yes. I am considering making it into the new world and getting a Smartphone, and it's having a few ramifications. One, I'm trying to decide if I want to switch to T-Mobile or stay with AT&T. I'm not particularly liking AT&T, but the guy at Costco said that T-Mobile is much better.

GILROYWell, there's no -- and he's -- it's the occasional next.

GILROYThe guy in the parking lot at a Starbucks.

NNAMDICatherine, please go ahead.

DRUINJohn, be quiet.

NNAMDICatherine?

CATHERINETheoretically, he's supposed to be neutral, but he loved the T-Mobile so much. I was a little skeptical.

NNAMDIYes.

CATHERINEHe was also saying -- I have a Mac. So, originally, I just assumed I had to do iPhone thing. But he was saying, no, Android would be OK with a Mac computer. And he was also suggesting that I could get rid of my Internet completely and use the phone as a hotspot. So what are your thoughts?

NNAMDIBill Harlow.

HARLOWWell, first of all, T-Mobile is fine, although I'm not going to -- actually, I'm not going to say any of these are good. I'm going to say -- I'm going to tell you which ones I hate the least, as far as carriers go.

NNAMDII was about to say that's a good way of putting it.

DRUINYeah.

HARLOWBut I will say this: I have complained about AT&T horribly, especially with my 3GS. I've upgraded to an iPhone 4S, and my experience has gotten a lot better. So I think that there must be something to this intended design. I don't think that you can take any phone out there right now and really make it a dedicated hotspot. There are some phones on Verizon using LTE 4G. They're quite fast, but you're going to find that the places where you can use that are limited.

HARLOWThe other thing that you don't really hear -- you hear about bandwidth and speed. We don't hear about latency, which is when you go and browse to another website, it's going to send out a request to pull down that data, and that takes a second. It takes a lot longer on a cellular phone, too.

DRUINWe were in Florida just recently, OK, for the holiday, and we found that we didn't have a proper Internet connection. So Ben decides he's going to take -- my husband decides he's going to take the iPhone, make it a dedicated hotspot. Great, wonderful. Well, every, let's say, hour or two when he wandered off with his iPhone...

HARLOWRight.

GILROYYeah.

DRUIN...because he forgot he was the hotspot, then, you know, you lose your connection...

HARLOWYeah.

DRUIN...and it does have latency...

HARLOWAnd I think it's...

DRUIN…that you really don't want to use this as a dedicated thing all the time.

NNAMDILet the record show: Ben does not wander off.

HARLOWI will say that...

GILROYAlzheimer's patient.

HARLOW...the mobile hotspot is great in case of emergency.

DRUINYes, yes. It was good because Thanksgiving without it was going to kill us, but, yeah.

HARLOWRight. But to keep the answer short, I'm going to say that there are a lot of great Smartphones out there. If you're a Mac user, I think you are going to have the best experience with an iPhone.

DRUINYeah.

HARLOWAnd I think, you know, if you're looking at carriers, you should consider AT&T and Verizon. They both carry the iPhone 4 and 4S. You have some options there. I think it's worth the extra money for the 4S. It is a lot faster, and the download speeds around here...

NNAMDIPlus you get Siri. I don't have Siri on my phone.

HARLOWYeah, it's true. You can get Siri, too. You can ask it where to hide a body. It's actually pretty cool, but...

NNAMDIPreferably the guy at Costco, but that's another story.

HARLOWI guess the way I would generalize is if you -- if you're prioritizing call quality and reliability, you probably want the Verizon iPhone. If you're like me and you really wanted the fastest 3G speed, I went with the AT&T iPhone 4S. And I've been pretty happy with it, actually.

GILROYAnd a public service announcement here. Ben Bederson, if you're wandering around, call the office.

NNAMDICatherine, thank you very much for your call. Now, finally the ability to help out with a marriage. We got this much from this email from Melissa in Chantilly. "My fiancée and I will be getting married in May in the Bahamas and would like to record the wedding with either our iPad, our iPhone or Droid. We don't know -- we know it's not going to be of fantastic quality, but do you know which of these devices might be best or an app we could use to increase the recording quality?"

HARLOWI can't speak for Android phones 'cause there are just so many. I would say, you know, grab one of the newer, higher end ones if you want good recording quality. But I think, generally, the iPhone really has it down. The video quality is very good. For something like a wedding where people aren't running around, it's going to capture it really well. The iPhone 4 shoots at 720p and looks great. And the 4S upgraded that to 1080p, which looks good, but I think it might even be excessive. So as long as you got an iPhone 4 or better, I think you're in good shape to record some really good video.

NNAMDIMost importantly, Melissa, make sure that you and your fiancée agree on what you should use to record it. We don't want your marriage to start off on a bad footing.

HARLOWUse them all, multiple angles.

DRUINYeah. And good lighting. Make sure you do good lighting.

HARLOWYes. And smile at the camera.

NNAMDIAnd good luck to you when you get married. Happy holidays to Allison Druin, associate dean for research at the University of Maryland's iSchool and co-director of Future of Information Alliance. Happy holidays to Bill Harlow, hardware and software technician for Macs and PCs at Mid Atlantic Consulting Incorporated. Allison, happy holidays.

DRUINHappy holidays to you.

NNAMDIBill, happy holidays.

HARLOWThank you. Happy holidays to you.

NNAMDIJohn, see you later. Happy holidays. Happy holidays to you, John.

GILROYThere you go. No wonder I cry myself to sleep.

NNAMDIAnd happy holidays to all of you. Thank you for listening. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.