tech – Maduko World Headquarters

Why Smart TVs Aren’t

At least, not in a good way.

You might be surprised just how dumb your smart TV really is.

Antenna TV: All Through the House

Cutting the cord isn’t just for the living room.

I was in high school before my parents grudgingly bought a color TV. Back then a television was a piece of furniture, and any family who owned more than one… well that was pretty high class. Today it’s hard to imagine a modern home with less than three TV sets!

All those screens in the modern home can be a challenge for cordcutters. Free digital TV broadcasts and the plethora of streaming services make it easier than ever to ditch expensive cable bills. But to get a stable signal of free over-the-air TV often requires mounting an antenna on your roof or in the attic.

Next problem: How to share that signal amongst a number of televisions throughout the house? That typically requires a splitter and/or amplifier to maintain a usable signal. Unfortunately that’s a finicky solution depending on the number of TVs and length of coax cable you’re dealing with. Seems like there ought to be a wireless solution?

There is.

Turn Off 2G Now!

Here’s why you need to change this setting on your phone immediately.

Flying Umbrella

Hard to imagine how humanity has survived this long without one.

Make a Live Slideshow

Have you ever wanted to display a slideshow of photographs– but add new images on-the-fly?

There are at least a dozen ways to display a slideshow of photographs on a TV. Smart TVs or media players like a Roku can display images from a media card, connect to a cloud account or social media.

Google Chromecast with Remote — *The latest version of the Chromecast includes a remote. But any version will work!*

But what if you wanted that slideshow to include new photos added to the album after the slideshow has started? This would be useful during a wedding reception, product launch or retirement party. Partygoers are greeted by photos of your guest of honor as they arrive, then as the evening progresses they see new images of the actual event.

That gets a bit trickier.