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TUTORIAL/FAQ

TUTORIAL/FAQ

Short Tutorial/FAQ – What Can I Do With My Old Tablet?

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Question: What can I do with my old tablet?

Answer: If you don’t want to sell your old tablet, you can always find a new purpose for it around your home. Take a look at these ideas:

  • Cookbook. Place your old tablet on a stand in your kitchen. Then load it up with all your favorite recipes. Scan paper recipes and place in convenient file locations or create bookmarks for those that are online. This way, there won’t be messy cooking hands on your new tablet!

  • Jukebox. In conjunction with a dock and speakers, you can use your old tablet to play all your favorite tunes, either stored on your device or through online streaming services such as Spotify (spotify.com). It’s even better if you have a smart speaker system such as Sonos (sonos.com), which allows you to play different tracks in different rooms.

  • Baby monitor. With your old tablet in your baby’s room acting as a microphone and an app like Dormi (dormi.sleekbit.com), you can monitor activity and noise.

  • Digital photo frame. Display your old tablet with a stand and set it up with LiveFrame (iOS) or Dayframe (Android) to create a slideshow of your favorite photos.

  • A child’s tablet. An old tablet can be a great idea for a child, since they don’t need all the latest bells and whistles. Just load your old tablet with age-appropriate movies and game apps and you’re good to go.

  • E-reader. Create a book library on your old tablet using Kindle, your local public library, or the many resources for free e-books online.
Should your old tablet be “on its last legs,” research the options for electronics recycling in your community.

CUSTOMER ALERT

CUSTOMER ALERT

Stay Alert – How Criminals Try to Steal Life Savings

Watch Out For Charity Scams According to the FTC, people are losing big money to criminals running complicated scams. Here’s how it works: A scammer pretending to be from a company you know contacts you, saying they supposedly spotted fraud on one of your accounts and your money isn’t safe. They connect you with someone else to supposedly help you move your money to “protect” it. The “helper,” who often claims to work for the government, is really a scammer trying to steal your money.

If someone tells you to do any of these things, IT’S A SCAM:
  • Put your money in a secure account to protect it.
  • Transfer your money to a cryptocurrency account to protect it.
  • Get cash and I’ll send a driver to pick it up.
  • Deposit cash at a Bitcoin ATM to protect your money.
  • Buy gold and a driver will come get it.
No one from the government will tell you to do these things — only a scammer will. Never transfer or send money, cryptocurrency, cash, or gold to someone you don’t know in response to an unexpected call or message.

To learn more, visit this link.

TUTORIAL/FAQ

TUTORIAL/FAQ

Short Tutorial/FAQ – How Can I Find a Lost Smartphone?

Download Graphics to View Question: When I’ve called my lost smartphone but can’t hear it ring, what should I do next to find it?

Answer: Since we depend so much on our smartphones — and they contain lots of personal information — it’s easy to see why panic can set in when we lose them. This is especially true if we fear our smartphone could be miles away.

Fortunately, the tech industry offers easy and reliable ways to track down your lost smartphone. Both Apple and Google feature built-in phone retrieval technology as part of the native software package that works via your device account — iCloud for your iPhone and Google for your Android account. Both allow you to remotely lock and wipe your phone, make it ring, and set up special messages to alert whoever finds it.

Here’s where to learn more:

Apple Support

Google Support

Exercise caution when communicating with the person who has found your smartphone. Don’t reveal personal information, such as your home address. Stick with sending phone numbers or email addresses to communicate how a finder can safely return your phone.

CUSTOMER ALERT

CUSTOMER ALERT

Stay Alert – Watch Out for Fake Online Stores

Watch Out For Charity Scams Scammers create websites that look like popular online stores and may offer great deals on popular items in short supply. Once you pay, they’ll either never send you the item, or send you an inferior fake.

One red flag is if an online store does not provide adequate information about privacy, terms and conditions of use, dispute resolution, or contact details. Another red flag is if the seller does not allow payment through a secure payment service such as PayPal or a credit card transaction.

The FTC recommends you take these steps to protect yourself:
  • Check out the company before you buy. Search online for the company’s name along with words like “scam” or “fraud” to see what issues others might have had.

  • Pay by credit card. If you’re charged twice, billed for something you never got, or get a wrong or damaged item, you can dispute the charge with your credit card company.

  • Keep records. Keep track of the company’s name and website, any receipts or bank statements showing what you paid, and when they said they’d ship your item. (Sellers have to ship your order by the time they or their ads say they will — or give you the chance to get your money back.)
If an online seller hasn’t lived up to its promises, report it to ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

TUTORIAL/FAQ

TUTORIAL/FAQ

Short Tutorial/FAQ – How Will the Internet of Senses Work?

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Question: I’m fascinated by the prospect of the Internet of Senses. What will this technology do?

Answer: Today’s digital technology mainly uses the two senses of sight and sound. But with the technological advances in extended reality (XR) applications and 5G/6G, it’s plausible that in the not-too-distant future, we’ll be able to feel, taste, and smell digital objects in a way that’s nearly identical to physical experiences.

The Swedish telecom giant Ericsson championed the term of the Internet of Senses (IoS). With the expanding ability of digital technologies to mimic the five human senses, the IoS envisions a world where the digital and physical merge into one another. Enthusiasts predict this technology will become available in the next couple of decades.

IoS will augment our senses beyond the boundaries of our bodies, enabling us to blend multisensory digital experiences with our local surroundings and interact with remote people, devices, and robots as if they were right beside us. Lightweight and advanced AR glasses and contact lenses will allow users to project digital objects into physical spaces with incredible realism. Touch will also become more amplified with advanced forms of wearables that replicate the sense of weight and motion in digital objects. Similarly, early-stage prototypes exist that replicate the senses of taste and smell. For example, the Norimaki Synthesizer, designed by researchers from Meiji University in Japan, artificially recreates any flavor on a user’s tongue.