Jeff Weston returns this week and we'll
give you a chance to vote for whose
pandemic driven tech ideas are best from
Chromebook to 3d printers raspberry pi
game servers to a Raspberry Pi camera
embedded in a DMX light fixture we'll
catch up and see what we're up to plus
Becca's got your top news stories
including AI and orbit chrome extending
your laptop battery life and Sega's new
retro gaming system our crypto
correspondent Robert Koenig went to the
Cardinal summit but in today's world the
whole thing was virtual he'll also share
some standout highlights in the crypto
news on this week's crypto corner this
is all coming up so strap in it's time
for the tech
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times was a category 5 TV welcome to the
show everybody my name is Robby Ferguson
and joining me today is Jeff Weston and
so long it's been a long time man where
you been I have been at home avoiding
the kovat because it was it was here a
vast it no it wasn't actually here but
no yeah it's been quite a time with all
the social distancing and you've got a
you know you got to be careful and gonna
follow the rules so but now we're we're
good I mean we can be we can be six feet
apart yeah you and your family are well
yeah everybody's good the kids survived
unexpected home school and how about the
life she survived yeah skin of her teeth
but no it was good and now we're in
summer road and we're realizing because
of how long we had this at home school
thing and not going anywhere not seeing
anybody you start to lose sense of time
a little bit and our son today because
now we're in full-blown summer mode he's
like is it Saturday yet nobody sorry
kiddo okay so whatever I mean it's all
good but this this scorcher of a
heatwave we got going on right now hi
yeah that's yeah here in Ontario it's
like I don't know what 35 degrees out
there any one point my my vehicle logged
39 today 39 yeah 39 that's Celsius folks
that's like a hundred and seventy five
Fahrenheit that's that's like you're
gonna have people eight or something hey
I want to give shout out to those who
have been supporting our show and in
particularly recently as you know Jeff
had a Kickstarter campaign mm-hmm and I
think we're gonna have to very soon
spell it cam pain Oh it'll be paying
yeah I'm actually looking for these back
now that he's back we can finally go
through with some of those perks you
know it's a labor of love
aa labor see how we're we're working the
puns into this a that's right it's a I
don't know how to build a paintball into
that one though ya know just have to
take I know well to take a shot at it
some people have no idea what we're
talking about that sir Jeff is on the
chopping block as far as okay he's gonna
go through labor he's gonna get shot out
with paintballs 505 508 balls can you do
that and survive yes
it's been done before yeah so you're not
that good no I'm I'm ready to collect on
paintballs oh okay yeah yeah just like a
big target it's pretty much shoot at me
I took one right on the Adam's apple no
war my wedding oh and my wife well time
fiance not happy cuz I this nice wealth
and she's like if that is there for the
wedding so help me
Wow day before it finally disappeared
that's unreal dude yeah so thinking of
our Kickstarter of course this broadcast
couldn't happen without the support of
our community so I just want to give
shouts out to be P 9 Scott Barclay Ron
Morissette Jerry Kowalski Jonathan
Garvey Jen's Nissen Ameritrade nomen 5
bill Marshall and NiCad Plus everyone
else who's been supporting the show
through our patreon or those who
contributed directly to the Kickstarter
campaign then there's some folks that
have that have trickled in after the
fact as well to send in a check or a
donation by some other means like PayPal
and things like that so we appreciate
you we couldn't do this show without you
as this is Jeff's first time back I mean
that's a testament to like it's been
such a process getting through this and
we moved right in the middle of the cove
at 19 like right on the beginning I
think because like we were you were
looking for a place when
we went into the shutdown like yeah 20th
of March whatever and it's like you were
a week away from move day it's like
right at the beginning I mean it tough
made a real tough yeah but here we are
and it is a little bit makeshift tonight
and we're just kind of we're here to
enjoy ourselves and enjoy having you
here with us as well in our community do
get into our discord you can go to our
website category five dot TV and on that
website click on interact and you'll see
the ability to to join us in our discord
we do have a giveaway coming up
excellent yeah and of course I love
Maker tech I love tinkering and working
with Raspberry Pi and and various other
single board computers and so what
better partner then Ameritrade for a
giveaway so we are giving away a $25
gift card that is US dollars which is
like 3000 Canadian that's again your
Google it I don't know it's yeah so $25
gift card for a mere droid all you have
to do is send us an email contest at
category five dot TV let us know that
you're watching and that you love a
married and what you want to do with
with that 25 bucks it's gonna go toward
like a single board computer or maybe
you want to grab a some kind of I don't
know you can do all kinds of stuff with
these things oh man yeah lots let us
know contest at category 5 TV will be
announcing the date of that draw coming
up as well Before we jump into it make
sure you subscribe to us on YouTube
Linux tech show com will take you
directly over to our Linux tech show
YouTube channel and make sure you
subscribe click that bell as well and
that's gonna make sure that you get the
notifications every time we are every
time we post new videos well Jeff it has
been so long I thought this is an
opportunity for us to just kind of sit
relax catch up mm-hmm but that's not
good enough for TV so we're gonna have
to gamify this to some degree of course
so this is the first ever the category 5
crew conversations that's what we're
gonna call this
so Jeff and I each have an opportunity
to speak about two pieces of technology
that we're interested in or that we've
been working on through the pandemic
things that are you know exciting to us
and you get the chance to vote so head
on over to Linux tech show comm find
these videos and all you got to do is
give us a thumbs up on the one or ones
that you liked the most
there's no limit to how many thumbs up
you could like them all if you want but
we are not counting thumbs down so just
keep that in mind and you can vote as
many times as you want so get everybody
together and cast your vote for which
conversation is of them you you make the
criteria which ones do you love so the
winner with the most up votes gets a
delicious bakery fresh cupcake oh I wish
I hadn't known the rules ahead of time
you had an advantage I would have liked
add mine in like dr. Seuss Thai Prime
people people would vote just because of
that yeah so you're up first tell me a
bit of tech that you're interested in or
something that's been exciting for you
and let's let's chat about that yeah so
which one do I start with I you know
what I guess I guess the first one I'll
start with is our son's graduation
present so okay despite my youthful
appearance I do have a son that is going
into high school now which makes me feel
very that's unreal I yeah but for his
grad present we decided we to get him a
Chromebook cool yeah so we have never
owned a Chromebook before lots of
different computers and whatnot but we
needed to have something that allowed
him the flexibility of applications but
also the integration with the programs
and the different infrastructure that
the school board uses yeah so and these
days if I may like everything's going
online right so exactly yeah so we
looked at you know we started with the
you know really small budget of Amazon
fire tablets remember like yeah this
isn't really gonna work and then we
started looking at
you know we looked at the gannets like
oh there's you know $6,000 for a MacBook
Pros like I'm not doing that for a grade
9 so we settled on this Chromebook from
Zeus and it's one of the only ones on
the market right now that converts to a
tablet that's so you flip it over and
you have full 13 inch tablet mode
so is it touchscreen like with your
finger it is a touchscreen OpCo with
Gorilla Glass and he absolutely loves it
and so because it is it is the
Chromebook you have access to the Google
Play Store and so all of his apps that
he's used through Google Play and his
phones he has access to but also because
of that it integrates with what the
school board does through the Google
Docs and yeah that's what I'm thinking
yeah so it's it's really was quite a
cost-effective option for a young child
I don't know if I can call him a child
anymore he's no teenager yeah but but
for you know somebody who's learning
technology the responsibility of being
you know on their own device but in a
way that is safe and so that was one of
the key components as we needed
something that was safe that wasn't
going to be you know I didn't want to
have to worry about a ton of viruses and
stuff like that and obviously have to be
start smart with apps in the App Store
and what you download but it was a
really good way for getting him into the
market yeah then we can understand it he
was a little bit bummed that Chromebooks
do not run minecraft but that's alright
I want him to be doing school not
minecraft yeah it's an interesting shift
in the paradigm though isn't it yeah as
now it's not like the old days to call
it the old days I don't buy like a CD
right hop it in the optical drive and
install the program you you basically
it's like a phone you go to the App
Store and pick the apps that you want
I'm sure he'll find other apps and you
can't install like a I mean this is off
off the cuff but can you install like an
Android version of of Minecraft like it
does such a thing so he can it's it has
to do with the architecture within how
it process or the SOC no no it like the
like the the programming architecture so
it's not because minecraft is java-based
the chromebox don't have Java oh okay
yeah interesting yeah total shift in the
way things work and it's interesting
that like with the education system
going to this like work online and we're
communicating now with like Google meat
I guess it all is it yep Google me zoom
all the kind of stuff yeah right so all
of those work which is great I mean yeah
really the only limitation we found so
far was minecraft I'm like if that's the
crazy that's the biggest word you've got
then yeah we did alright and so it's
funny we a couple days ago we were at we
went to Staples and so they've got all
their different devices out on display
and he went looking for his cuz he's
like he wanted to know how much it was
oh yes you know didn't want to tell him
but he started looking at other devices
he's like this one's really expensive
and it doesn't look as nice as mine and
this is expensive this looks nice but
he's like wow you guys did all right way
to go mind dad I'm like nice now he's so
he's presumably 13 yes he'll go 14 in
November alright so like with my kids
two of them are under 13 so their Google
account is provided by the education
system so I have this fear with if they
started using a Chromebook that when
they graduate the education system might
shut down their account and they lose
like their files and everything else
like do we so I would presume because
he's 13 and you got to be 13 plus that
he's created his own Google again yes
yep and we so we we created the account
for him we I still retain the ownership
of it so to speak like you know like the
parent mode that's right he doesn't have
the password and stuff and and that is
for the purpose of a safe monitoring
yeah I can it tells me when he signs up
for something we have reports on how he
uses his device that goes to his email
so he can start to learn now what his
usage statistics are and some might
somebody think that sounds a little big
brother-ish but i think as a father like
it's really important
that we that we help keep our kids
accountable and keep them safe because
there's so much nasty stuff out there
right now oh and not like and there's
malware I mean we're hearing about
malware in the in the Play Store and
stuff that's spying on things and and
clipboards that get uploaded to various
servers and things like that so so it
can be scary yeah but what the nice
thing is because it's a a relatively
safe device yeah and because of that
parental input if having the email or
not I can teach him how to safely use
his computer oh I can you know and I've
taught him how to access you know like
all of his cross Google you know his
extensions his history all that kind of
stuff because it syncs it up so he's
like oh right because as soon as so he's
done something on his Chromebook and
then he can log into Chrome on the
family computer and suddenly he's got
access to all of his things that's right
so I'm starting to teach him in a safe
environment that you know sync nature
and the back-and-forth compatibility and
it's it's really fun as a dad being able
to watch my son go to the next level and
it's not just like you know when I was a
kid and it's like you get a computer and
you just do things for the sake of
learning it's like I'm actually working
him through it so that he understands it
has a better more mature outlook on what
he can do and what he should do and
shouldn't do and it's it's good
excellent yeah sounds like a great gift
so that's that's my story it's not shiny
it's not impressive but it's parenting
101 there you go very good what were you
well my first bit of tech that I'm
curious about right now and it's not
something that I have or can really get
started with is 3d printing ah you see
3d printers to me have for the longest
time being this kind of untouchable tech
mm-hmm and I've looked at them and I've
kind of kept an eye on them and wondered
about them but it seems so sci-fi to an
old-school tech guy like me to be able
to 3d print tools and 3d print things it
just sounds like something out of sci-fi
from
but it's a real tech now and the price
has come way down way down to the point
of unreasonable and I'll talk about that
a little bit but what really has pushed
me over the top
is seeing how some of my friends who are
into 3d printing technology are able to
do just that come up with an idea and
realize it and manufacture it yep and a
perfect example is right here at the
studio now Jeff you can see those at
home can't see but I've got all the
wires just going into a piece of PVC or
yes a piece of pipe yep and it goes
through a hole in the wall and it's
incredibly makeshift and it's terrible
right so I started talking with with
Bullock now ski from Ameritrade because
I knew that Bo does 3d printing and he's
into that kind of thing and he's like my
go-to guy and and he takes the time to
chat with me about it and I appreciate
that I said like what could I do
with this situation where I've got a
wall that's like this thick and it's
just drywall and I've drilled a hole in
it but now I've got a piece of pipe
going through and it looks terrible and
it's not it totally looks makeshift
right and I can't get a contractor in to
build something and if I did it's gonna
cost $200 if not more
just to have a proper conduit per in
which is crazy when you think about that
it's it's a lot of money and so Bo and I
got talking about it and and and working
on some ideas and kind of back and forth
and he came up with a design for
something that he's calling ez portal
and this is basically if you can picture
two pieces of pipe that are each about
this long and they screw into one
another okay but they have a flange on
both sides so with and he designed this
and he's actually printed one and I'm
and I'm hoping to receive one soon I
think it's in the mail but you put one
piece on one side one piece on the other
side and you know I guess I'll get
somebody on the other side to twist on
that side right and you twist it
together and it screws in together and
it's
flush and it's tight and it's a perfect
conduit with a nice little flange Wow
beautiful so he calls it easy portal you
can actually see it on Miriam and just
do a quick search for easy portal and
and that to me Jeff made me think okay
so if I just if I could do that instead
of paying $200 to a contractor to build
a proper portal something through the
wall that starts to make a little bit of
sense but it's still beyond me it's
still well beyond me know he would have
more of a a robust 3d printer wouldn't
be like a little tabletop you know right
well I don't know I mean I asked him
what kind of printers he's using and
he's got an ender 3 okay he's got you
know the the standard kind of you know
what we would call a consumer 3d printer
and he's got he's got some that are a
little higher end as well hmm
a little higher end I was like no it's
way higher end yeah yeah I'm still
learning the industry prints human
beings so and if that's common well we
could 3d print body parts now yeah so
here here's where my thought processes
go Jeff is I start to look at this wall
and so we need to get the signage done
right and so I've got a sign person
who's telling me 300 dollars to do the
sign so you can think you can 3d print
the cat5 logo I start to think that I
start to think okay could I and then you
start to look at 3d printers and you
realize that you know for $500 you can
get a high end like a decent consumer 3d
printer and that's on the high end you
can get them for 300 that's true
I keep looking at them on yeah different
online portals like Amazon and whatnot
and it's on my frivolous spending list
because is that's me too uh to me a like
a 3d printer I don't think I have a
legitimate need for it whole Nakhla but
at the same time I've thought about
getting a 3d printer for the sake of
printing LEGO pieces I don't know if
that's even a copyright thing probably
but a lot of times my seen them on
Thingiverse
I mean my butt like everyone so on my
kids will break a brick okay and it's
like and they cost a lot of money it's
insane you know but if I could just
print that that you know that's a pretty
basic use case but for me I'm thinking
like can I offset expense mmm by
printing something myself can I justify
the expense of a 3d printer and learn
and the time that it takes to learn how
to do it in such a way that I'm actually
saving money that's the signage yeah
it's to make it look that way I bet you
probably could and now what okay for the
life of me I'm blanking on the name of
the unit but there's a tabletop 3d
printer that I was looking at there are
so many Jeff well these days they're
easy but not only is it a 3d printer
it's also a laser engraver yeah yeah
I've seen though and there was something
else it did and now you're getting
serious and I was loving aren't those
thousands it was it was 29 yeah so and I
was like oh I could come up with
something for that
so maybe what I what I would look at
then in that case is I would say okay
would would I start with something
that's 300 and and see how I do and see
if I can offset cost which is virtually
making money and then and then upgrade
if I need to or if I can justify that or
I think you should just say hey if
somebody buys you that unit you'll go
through labor with me no that's all on
you Jeff I looked at a 1u mounting
system because I want to rackmount some
single board computers right and you're
looking a couple hundred bucks yeah a
little server case to be able to put my
single board computers on the server
rack and then I got unto the Thingiverse
and I started looking and I could print
one mm-hm
my approach has been so I haven't bought
a 3d printer I don't have one but I
decided okay I'm gonna see if because
this is this is what I fall into I'll
buy things thinking that oh yeah I'm
gonna use that I'm gonna it's gonna
offset my cost and blah blah blah
but then I find that the learning curve
is too high so what I've been doing is
I've been going on to Tinkercad comm and
I've been doing my first designs uh-huh
and so I actually have four designs
already up including the category-five
logo Oh dice all right on my I've got a
Thingiverse account bald nerd mm-hmm so
you can see the designs including a
little case for a Raspberry Pi to be
able to mount it on my won-won you serve
a rec 19-inch server rack so so I'm
doing the designs first to see how how
onerous it is right finger out can I can
I actually do this and then I can start
to look at okay if the sign is gonna be
300 how much would it cost to print does
it have that kind of estimator online
when you come up yeah yeah okay in in
the software you can you can actually
see how long it's going to take and how
much how much filament it's going to use
so there are all those things so I'm
starting to look at that and I'm really
really curious and I'd love to know what
you think and you know is there a really
that that point where the price has come
down far enough on 3d printers that it
now makes sense to have one right in you
know in the home in the in the office
because you can do stuff now that is
like when I have ideas you can just 3d
print them right I have ideas I have
ideas reprinted though comment below
what ideas do you have and what do you
think we've got to take a really quick
break when we come back we've got more
of our conversations right after this
welcome back this is category five
technology TV and this week it is the
category five crew conversations it's me
and Jeff and we are chatting it up about
various texts that have us excited so
Jeff you're next all right so I know
we've already covered two topics I
already think you're one up on me that
was a pretty cool 3d printing by the way
okay so my other tech thing is in
relation a little bit to what my first
topic was with the Chromebook but the
lack of access to Minecraft uh yeah so
one of the tech that I'm looking at
right now actually in the middle of at
home is we've done away with our paid
minecraft server that we logged into
that the kids had access to and you know
like when I was traveling for work yeah
I'd be in a hotel room we log into the
server together and I'd be on the phone
with my kid and you know for like an
hour while I'm at home or while they're
at home and I'm in the hotel we could
play Minecraft together just that I'll
go Afghan thing remotely but I'm using a
Raspberry Pi to set up my own at-home
duel minecraft server one for access
through our pcs yeah and one for Pocket
Edition so the server is running the
software for both and once it's set up
no matter where we are we'll be able to
log into our home minecraft server nice
and have our own world and all that kind
of stuff but that way the kids have full
access to it they can have you know give
the login to their friends it'll be
behind those security features of our
network so it's safe and secure that way
so you get to select who joins the
server yeah but also because it has the
ability to do the Pocket Edition server
it means that on their phones they can
also stay connected oh nice so now so
that's what I'm working on at home the
the software is installed I'm just
configuring it yeah I wasn't sure how it
would run on the Raspberry Pi because
that's what that's immediately what's
coming to mind cuz I'm like okay Raz
great pie unless you've got a four
you're dealing with one gig no Ram it's
a it's a 3 B plus and I fought for sure
it would be lagging yeah but it's not
what about world Jen so if you fly
across the world is it is it I haven't
got I haven't gotten that far yet okay
so like I'm just I'm working through the
process of setting it up but as far as
running it on the on the pie it runs
okay there doesn't seem to be any server
like with one of us joining yeah it'll
be you know the true test will be when
we add four five six people oh yes
lovely logging oh yeah see how it goes
but I was gonna do it with my Audrey
yeah that was an X for ya yeah yeah but
I decided to give it a try with the
Raspberry Pi just because of the the
power usage yeah it's a little bit lower
and I had an extra PI kick it around
okay so yeah that's that's the project
that I'm working on right now and and
and if it works and it runs well then
maybe we'll do it as a feature for the
show that would be awesome
so PI 3 B+ is limited to one gig of ram
versus an xu 4 which has two gigs of ram
right the 3b plus also is limited to an
SD card which is shared on the USB bus
so it's a little bit slow yeah whereas
the xu 4 has the MMC yes so I think if
you have like a latent like not latency
but issues with world gen I think maybe
the Xu form might resolve that but also
if you wanted to upgrade to a PI for you
can get up to 8 gigs of ram I thought
about that yeah see I just had my
birthday last week and the great thing
about being not a kid anymore when it
comes to birthdays it's people like I
don't have to give you I just gave you
cash so it's like I've got all this
cupcake I like use it for something you
want I'm like yes computer you want to
know what's interesting though and along
those lines like there's so much work to
set it up and get it working well the
people that created I always have
trouble with it B'Elanna etcher mmm
milena yep so the tool that we use to
image our SD cards yes MMC
great program by the way yeah
they also have Val enna minecraft what
yeah so they've created an image which
is available through their github and
I'll post the links below but with
Valena minecraft they've optimized it to
to run as well as can be this is
minecraft minecraft or or 30 pi it's a
server for Raspberry Pi now but they do
warn that one gig of ram you're gonna
have trouble yeah and I think that's
what you'll encounter because the the
fear that I have with a 3 B plus is the
minimum system requirements for
minecraft as a server is one gig right
well if you only have one gig where's
the overhead for your operating system
when everything else is running right so
that's where the the PI 4 comes in with
eight gigs around yes yeah oh yeah I
wanted to try it on the Raspberry Pi
even worked but if it doesn't work out
then I'll go to the xu 4 and maybe I'll
spend that birthday money it's just
maybe I four and then get an argon one
yeah I'm telling you it's awesome it's
like possibilities it's good what do you
guys think give him a thumbs up well
yeah my turn it's your turn let's see if
you can bring us home for a clear solid
win do you guys notice these lights
behind us yes they don't see the lights
but they see probably a little right so
you see the glow behind me and the glow
behind you hair
those are DMX lights not the rapper
what's neat about so I've got we've got
LED lights all around us here at the
studio to illuminate us hmm
and Jeff you can see them yep and they
just plug in you turn them on and
they're significantly smaller in size
than the goblins yeah yeah now we've got
all these soft boxes that I gotta sell
cuz like what do you do with them when
you've got all these nice little LEDs
right but the LED panels that we use are
just plug and play you plug in the power
and turn it on
DMX on the other hand gives us a whole
new realm for lighting in that you can
control all of the lights from a
controller okay and when I say a
controller so these lights behind us are
actually running through oh my goodness
what appears like a mixer yeah right so
like I can boost Roby yeah do do all
kinds of changes we can I can change the
color so these are the this is the RG oh
that's the brightness and then I've got
red green blue yep so I can actually
change that got a bit of a purple going
on so this is pretty neat but again this
is one of those technologies that always
thought it would be ultra expensive but
it was a pretty cheap so yeah they are
very cheap so but that blew my mind
because I needed to buy two lights for
the studio
well this with eight lights was cheaper
than those two lights right that didn't
make any sense to me so then I but then
I started doing research and again I
start looking at how what can I do
that's kind of like tinker and and have
fun and I started looking at the other
lights that I have and well they are not
DMX compatible Oh however you can buy a
little controller that takes the power
and then takes DMX input and then
connects to any of the standard LEDs or
if you want to do like light tracks with
the you know the spool of light cable le
pieu so for me that's all possible but
then so again I'm looking at okay well
you know how can i what else can I do
with this is it worth getting mm-hmm
there are DMX lights that you've
probably seen them that have a pan and
tilt feature yes so you've probably seen
them at dances and everything else and
with these lights you can move the light
around using that controller okay then I
got looking at a particular very very
cheap one and realize that there are
screws to remove the faceplate Y for
service presumably okay
remember when I said look look thinking
about ways that I could use a 3d printer
to do cool things that would save money
are you gonna make a basketball no telly
think about a pan tilt zoom camera for
$2,000 yeah okay then think about a pan
and tilt light that's controlled by this
controller for only $90 okay take the
faceplate off put a Raspberry Pi inside
of it with the Raspberry Pi HQ camera 3d
print a new faceplate to hold that in
place now you've got a DMX controlled
Raspberry Pi HQ camera which we we would
be able to hang on the ceiling we'd be
able to control for doing product
reviews and overhead shots which we
can't currently do right because we
don't have that capability and a PTZ
cameras 2,000 bucks I like that still
think you should print a bad symbol for
there's nothing stopping us from doing
that Jeff go yeah so with with that
controller you can control as many like
it'll do it has 196 channels so you can
control as many lights and and pan-tilt
systems as you want from that controller
basically virtually no limit for a small
studio like ours
I wonder if and I'm just thinking from a
pure like security standpoint and if you
could use that housing to also hold like
a wise cam so that you've got your
cameras inside yeah the lights have
multiple cameras yeah so there's no
reason why not that way you can have
your PTZ security as well going on yeah
sure move it around
well or you could just buy a PTZ wise
cam but in particular you could use with
really sure in particular the HQ cam for
the Raspberry Pi is like a full quality
camera yeah so I can install software on
there to turn it into an HD camera for
our show very cool that's something that
has me kind of excited hmm hmm it's just
a thought it's just an idea I again I
don't own a 3d printer so I can't but I
can start designing
the idea crafting the idea and maybe
have somebody else print that design for
me if it works just an idea what do you
guys think is that something that sounds
fun
I hey yep and then all of our lights in
here in the studio here going to be
controlled by the the DMX did I say DMZ
I might have said DMZ no I did I say DMX
okay there's so many acronyms very cool
well this has been fun this is really
you know just kind of have him fun
catching up and it's been 11 actually
seen you since April yes and well since
the move yeah I think there was last
time so that would have been at end of
March yeah Wow yeah yes right there was
moved a time Wow
well nice having you back mmm we do have
to head over to the newsroom though so
we've got to relinquish the floor it's
to Becca here's what's coming up in the
category 5 TV newsroom arm plans to spin
off its IOT businesses under the
Softbank banner as it focuses on core
chip design business autonomous driving
startup turns it's AI expertise to space
for automated satellite operation a new
chrome experiment may boost your laptop
or device battery life by up to 28% user
profiles along with parental controls
are finally available for Amazon Prime
video and Sega's next retro hardware
retro hardware is a one-sixth scale
multi game arcade cabinet stick around
the full details and this week's crypto
corner are coming up this is the
category
TV news covering the week stop texting
with a slight linux bias
from the newsroom I'm Becca Ferguson arm
has announced plans to spin-off it's to
IOT businesses a move that would
effectively transfer the divisions under
the broader umbrella of the Softbank
group which purchased the chip designer
back in 2016 the move comes as arm seeks
to to focus its efforts exclusively on
the semiconductor business that has made
the company a ubiquitous presence in the
mobile world the transfer is pending
additional review from the company's
board along with standard regulatory
reviews though arm says it expects the
move to be completed before the end of
September of this year while it would
effectively remove the IOT platform and
treasure data businesses from its brand
the company says it plans to continue to
collaborate with the businesses the
company will retain the chip aspect of
iot while leaving the data software and
services aspects as their own spin-off
businesses arms IOT business has seen
quite a bit of success with its
technologies shipping on billions of
devices and the planned goal of 1
trillion expected next decade Hungarian
autonomous driving startup out AI motive
is leveraging its technology to address
a different industry and growing need
autonomous satellite operation AI motive
is teaming up with C 3 s a supplier of
satellite and space-based technologies
to develop a hardware platform for
performing AI operations onboard
satellites their AI where neural network
accelerator will be optimized by C 3s
for use on satellites which have a set
of operating conditions that in many
ways resembles those onboard cars on the
road but with more stringent
requirements in terms of power
management and environmental operating
hazards the goal of the team up is to
have AI motives technology working on
satellites that are actually operational
in orbit by the second half of next year
the projected applications of onboard
neural onboard neural network
acceleration extend to a number of
different functions according to the
companies including telecommunications
earth
and observation autonomously docking
satellites with other spacecraft deep
space mining and more well it's true
that most satellites operate essentially
in an automated fashion already meaning
they're not generally manually flown at
every given moment true neural network
based on board AI would provide them
with much more autonomy when it comes to
performing tasks like imaging a specific
area or looking for specific markers in
ground or space-based targets also AI
motive in c3s believe that local
processing of data has the potential to
be a significant game changer when it
comes to the satellite business
currently most of the processing of data
collected by satellites is done after
the raw information is transmitted to
ground stations that can actually result
in a lot of lag time between data
collection and delivery of processed
data to customers particularly when the
satellite operator or another goal
between is acting as the processor on
behalf of the client rather than just
delivering raw info there is also more
value from a business perspective in
selling processed data ready to be
consumed ai motives Tech could mean that
processing happens locally on the
satellite where the information is
captured single board computers and
other disruptive tech have shifted
toward this kind of computing at the
edge in ground-based IOT setups and it
only makes sense to replicate that in
space for many of the same reasons
including reducing the time it takes to
deliver the processed data which in turn
means more responsive service for paying
customers
the latest experimental addition to the
Chrome browser promises to save a ton of
power usage a new flag in the canary
version of chrome called throttle
javascript timers in background will cut
down on the processing that normally
happens in background tabs and it could
add two hours to a laptops runtime
JavaScript's timers often track user
interaction with a web page checking
things like the scroll position and add
interaction while the tab is open this
also happens on background tabs which
really isn't useful since by definition
a back row
taub isn't being interacted with when
you have a bunch of tabs open these
timers can chew through a good amount of
battery for no reason
normally background tabs can trigger a
wake-up once per second now in canary if
you turn on the new throttle JavaScript
timer setting any tab that is being in
the background for more than five
minutes we'll have these timers disabled
with wake-ups limited to once per minute
Google ransom - sorry Google ran some
tests to see what kind of impact us
would have on battery life for the first
test they used a 20-18 15-inch MacBook
Pro and loaded up 36 background tabs
with a blank foreground tab then let the
laptop run until it died with the
feature turned on the laptop lasted two
hours longer or 28% longer than the
default settings that's a huge
improvement and it still can't get croup
but it still can't get chrome up to the
level of Apple Safari which busted
Chrome by three hours with the default
settings and by one hour with the new
throttling flag the first test showed
just how much power can be sucked up by
background tabs but the next test was
more of a real-world use case it swapped
out of the blank foreground tab for a
YouTube video with an actual foreground
task going on the difference was less
dramatic but still significant without
throttling tabs chrome lasted four point
seven hours and with throttling it got
an extra thirty nine minutes lasting 5.3
hours
Safari was not included in the second
test while these are promising results
Google says they are still investigating
how limiting background timers will
affect webpages while Google says that
the work done from these JavaScript
timers was often not valuable to the
user when the page was in the background
they also don't want to break webpages
which provide valuable background
services like incoming chat and video
messages media playback and
notifications
after a 50-percent rollout on the Canary
version Google plans to gather feedback
from web developers before the change
hits the wider chrome user base you know
that's an interesting story because for
my wife and I were
Chrome users we often have a ton of tabs
open I mean if I'm doing you know
research for work or she's doing you
know different things at home or we're
helping the kids with school between
their schoolwork and and the research
that they're doing and the work that
they're working on on their Google Docs
we could at any point have a couple
dozen tabs open and I mean the with my
with our family computer we've got the
dual monitors and it's not uncommon for
me to have a browser off to the one
screen with two dozen tabs and then my
main screen where I've got a couple of
main tabs and so to have an immigrant
that it's not a laptop but to have that
power saving is huge because not only is
it less power on the computer that's
being used but over time you could see
some savings and you're sure you know
you mentioned it's not a laptop and and
one of the things that Beckett didn't
touch on Jeff was performance yeah and I
do think about how even on our desktop
computer at home my youngest will have
that same scenario 20 tabs open and then
he'll switch user
oh right so which is great because Linux
Mint allows us to have multiple people
logged in at once but now we've got
somebody else logging in and double tops
yeah so his Java JavaScript timers are
still going off in his browser on his
profile yes so I wonder how it would
affect performance as well yeah I I'm
very interested to see I mean I I know
it's a small change yeah going from one
second to the one minute but I'm really
looking forward to see the impact
because it I do think it's gonna be it
will have that you know performance
power but and especially for older
devices like if you've got an older
laptop that's already struggling I mean
not just battery saving but if it does
improve some of that background
performance you know that could breathe
you know a little bit of extra life into
those devices it's so it's I think it's
a great great idea great feature yeah
totally agree user profiles along with
paren
controls are finally available for
Amazon Prime video and Sega's next retro
hardware is a one-sixth scale multi game
arcade cabinet Becca has these stories
coming up plus Robert is here with the
crypto corner so don't go anywhere
welcome to the world of crypto sand
welcome to the cryptic corner this week
we had again a stable market not not
huge change in the overall market cap so
from 266 billion we went up to two
hundred seventy two billion but again if
we sought after those seven days you
will see some significant changes like
here v chain went up by 75 percent in
just seven days
Oh Alice 57% in total we have got over
30 coins that went higher than 15% and
on the downside we've got only four
coins that lost more than 15% so some
interesting dynamic happening in this
market as usual of course now this week
I attended the Cardinal summit and when
you attend the summit then this is how
it will look like because it has to be
virtual you have got the tracks where
you can go and listen to the
presentations you have got the exhibit
exhibition halls like oh and even talk
to exhibitors they have got some people
on the other side of the computer and
you can interact with them and then the
agenda and this is something interesting
in regards to Cardno
because it highlights the difference
between something like like a theorem
and card oh no the card honest you can
see here is full of academic people that
did the presentations and and in you see
doctor doctor doctor professor and so on
Andy theorem is is more the environment
of geek so fantastic programmers world
best programmers that are coding on the
theorem blockchain and coming up with
new ideas of what to do like the d5
market just isolate development and in
card and oh they're coming from another
angle they're coming from the
intellectual angle from the theoretical
angle and that's why I also took them
much longer to go live rather than like
a theorem they went live very quickly in
that sense
it's interesting to see which one of
those two blockchains will have the
upper hand
long term now I'm going into detail of
what has happened now I want to show you
some presentations that I really liked
this one here is called beef chain which
is a supplier management or supply chain
management protocol together with a
legislator from Wyoming and it
highlights difficulties that exist in
this market like here if a Salmonella
breaks out in one of those factories the
recall can be really devastating yeah
like here peanut Corporation of America
that company doesn't exist anymore
because of the salmonella outbreak and
the executives were handed 28 years of
prison and so it's important to really
have an end-to-end tool that you can
rely on and that's what they developed
on the Cardinal block chain now and I
hope they one day they will also do that
on the medical side because I heard that
percent of all medication that you can
buy is fake or substandard and so such a
tool would be fantastic also in the
medical sector
next is onboarding so I mean in the
Western world we don't have huge
problems in getting access to banks or
loans in other countries like here this
is Africa for example it looks
completely different but how do you do
that you need to make it in a way that
it is secure and that's exactly what
they developed here with a project
called Attalla prism and it's a big deal
because it simply will open up
opportunities like lending payments
insurance banking so in total they
calculate over 400 billion globally in
defy payments and in Africa that could
benefit from such a tool it's just to
make sure that you're in a secure way
are able to access these finance tools
in this case yeah so it's a fantastic
product for the unbanked
next one is Cardno aims to be extremely
decentralized at the moment it's a
little bit decentralized but if you want
to have something very decentralized
then you need to offer also tools in
regards to the governance and they
develop this year with on the Cardno
platform and how the government's look
like it looks like it's fantastic and
it's well thought through so it's worth
taking a look at there so how is the
voting done what can you do with your
coins and so on then part of the
decentralization you will be also a fund
and this she'd remember probably I fund
which was created by Apple to get apps
onto into the App Store garden is doing
a similar thing now so they launched
fund with over 30 million u.s. dollars
in it already to fund developers coming
up with new ideas and will be then the
chain governance decides whether those
developers will get those grants or not
and they oh there will also be linked to
deliverables which I find fairly
attractive so that's a new way of
governance of a company or in this case
a project and the last one that I saw is
also that coinbase custody which is just
the department of coinbase will support
secure stating secure staking of the
Cardinal the ADA in future so in total
some really interesting developments on
the Cardinal platform which I found
interesting because it will shape the
industry as we are in so that's it from
me this week I hope you enjoyed it and I
hope you learned something and please
let us know if you've got any questions
so thank you very much for watching bye
bye thank you Robert just a reminder
that we're not providing financial
advice but only sharing what's happening
in the cryptocurrency market always
remember that the crypto currency
markets are ever-changing and always
volatile so you should only spend what
you can afford to lose now back to Becca
in the newsroom Thank You Robbie
at long last Amazon Prime video is
catching up to competitors like Netflix
Hulu and Disney Plus with with a key
feature user profiles the feature began
rolling out in the mobile and set-top
box versions of the prime video app
beginning Tuesday the feature allows
multiple people sharing on Amazon
Prime's Prime subscription to maintain
separate watch histories and watch lists
additionally Amazon has made a
distinction between user profiles for
kids and profiles for adults with
different rules users can configure up
to 6 profiles in any mix of children's
and adults adult profiles all this is
rolling out immediately but it will take
time to reach all users multiple user
profiles were supported in India and
Africa previously and they are only now
making their way to the rest of the
world including the United States the
rollout brings Amazon closer to feature
parity with Netflix and other big
streaming partners players the bulk of
major apps in this space offered this
feature but there are some outliers who
still don't like CBS all access some of
those other streaming services offer
robust parental controls so Amazon is
leaning into that with these changes as
well
individual profiles can be flagged as a
kid's profile that profile will only see
recommendations or search results of TV
shows and films that are age appropriate
12 and under and kids won't be able to
make purchases Amazon is including a
number of other options for filtering
content like this including the ability
to restrict content on a per device
basis Amazon is making these changes at
mist rising competition Disney Plus has
seen massive growth in the recent months
and Netflix seems to be faring well also
large new entrants to the market with
massive libraries of exclusive content
like HBO Maxx and peacock are also
hitting the scene which puts pressure on
prime video to offer competitive
features and content in terms of content
Amazon is working on a lord of rings TV
series and it just released a new season
of Hanna the industry giant is also
developing a TV series based on the
video game franchise fallout from some
of the writers of the
HBO's from some of the writers behind
HBO's Westworld
what I do like about Amazon Prime video
is as an Amazon Prime member I have it
right so while it kind of seems like
okay well these there's all these
services you've got to subscribe to ten
different services in order to get the
shows that you want well Amazon Prime is
part of my prime service right which I
get for free shipping yes and priorities
and stuff like that on Amazon so it
really is cool what I don't like about
the profile system on Netflix because
there was a time when even Netflix
didn't support profiles
yes relatively new was like the last six
months two years and it's been a couple
years I say Jeff yeah I remember
reporting on it when it was new but what
I don't like about it is that there are
no pins there are no there's no
protection on the profiles mm-hmm so
I'll give you an example when I first
set up profiles on our family Netflix
account I had one for each of my
children and then one called parents
right and I had it set up so that it was
like adult currently not adult content
that you know what I mean grown-up shows
yes for the parents and the kids were
limited to stuff that was
age-appropriate well it didn't take long
before I started hearing from our child
that oh so-and-so changed my name to
Butthead
you know unstaged my avatar to something
like whatever so and then it became like
fibrous moment that was you doing it at
night wasn't it no I just got me no so
now it's like our pro I've given up our
profiles are ridiculous yes but I really
wish that Netflix and Amazon Prime maybe
they'll maybe someone will clue in and
say okay well the parents should be the
only ones who can set those settings yes
the parents should be the ones who can
configure them and maybe they have a pin
based system so that my like each child
could make changes to their own profile
like changing their avatar changing
their name but not allow trolling within
the family so that's the only bit that I
have with it
it's it's a nice feature that that
they're rolling it with because that's
been one of the challenges we've had
like we have we have an Android box at
home for the purpose of being able to
get Disney Plus and Amazon Prime TV on
our home TV because it's not a Smart TV
or anything like that
so we needed a way to put all those kind
of in there and and and one of the
things that I've struggled with is
whenever we've gone to Amazon to watch
their content there is no way to
separate between the kids and the and
the adults and so this is a nice feature
they're rolling out but up until this
point I've not allowed our kids to go on
to the Amazon content because I don't
want them just opening up something and
be like oh that's that's different
yeah or there's the other side of it
where okay well each of the three kids
is watching The Office but they're
watching it at different places right
right messes up this cue so yeah so one
of the nice things about online content
and streaming video is that you can keep
track of which episode you're on well
you lose that if you don't have profiles
yes so that's another thought all right
we've got a throwback to Becca after the
release of the genesis mini and the
recent announcement of the game gear
mini Sega doesn't show any signs of
slowing down his plans for miniature
retro hardware releases the company's
next entry in the space is the newly
announced Astro City Mini a tiny arcade
cabinet set to sports 36 Sega arcade
titles first released to Japanese
arcades in 1993 Sega's Astro city was a
successor to the smaller 1988 Aero city
cabinet the Astro City Mini will launch
by the end of 2020 in Japan for an
asking price of 12,000 800 yen which is
roughly a hundred and nineteen dollars
the chassis itself will be U at
one-sixth scale to an actual astro city
cabinet standing a little more than six
and a half inches tall based on this
scale this suggests that the original
cabinets 29 inch screen will be reduced
to roughly four point eight inches but
joystick and six button control however
will be half scale and that joystick
will sport an eight-way digital switch
which should be a huge improvement over
the squishier analog joystick found on
the Neo Geo mini from 2018 Sega has
announced 10 of the system's 36 games
with more announcements planned
throughout the summer so far the list
contains alien storm Virtua Fighter
alien syndrome golden axe altered beast
columns to dark edge golden axe revenge
of Death Adder
tant art and fantasy zone the unit will
take microUSB power and will even
support HDMI output to a big-screen TV
it'll have basic emulation functionality
such as savestates there will also be
attachable USB control pads sold
separately which allow up to three
people to play on the same mini cabinet
any plans for release outside of Japan
have yet to be announced
thanks for watching the category-five TV
newsroom don't forget to Like and
subscribe for all your tech news with a
slight Linux bias and if you appreciate
what we do become a patron at
patreon.com slash category 5 from the
category 5 TV newsroom I'm Becca
Ferguson
welcome back just a reminder that we are
given away a $25 gift card
yeah we're a married calm and so the way
the win it is they have to like my tech
store that's not how it works that's not
how it works
email contest that category five dot TV
and when you do just let us know that
you're participating in the Ameritrade
rah and what you'd like to do with that
25 bucks what would you do with it what
would I do with it
hmm that's a tough thing because I love
so much stuff that Ameritrade has like I
know I think I probably put it toward a
Raspberry Pi 4 okay and that would that
would be a nice chunk toward it I think
that that would because a Raspberry Pi
but then again an X you for oh I really
love X you for is Jeff X you for is a
nice yeah yeah I would have to just shop
around I'd have to go through the the
what they have
I know 25 wouldn't go very far with this
purchase but when Bo was here he had
that tower case for the multiple
singapore computers
yeah I want one of those because I have
so many Singapore computers at home now
that I'm actually I'm starting to
develop a massive board for in my it's
our laundry room but we're all like our
router and all the kind of stuff is so
that all my s pcs are mounted to it with
all the cables running in and I've got
it hooked up to like a router router box
with six outputs
yeah so I want something where stick
them all together all night yeah that'd
be cool
very cool what would you do email
contest a category-5 TV Jeff can you
believe we're out of time time flies man
and it's been really nice having you
here weird like still finding our
structure finding our flow here at
category-five TV since moving into the
new studio space having to be socially
distant so Jeff and I are not able to
physically interact we've got a table
here to like keep us from like
high-fiving each other
yeah it's true but I mean I love the
fact that is this our first episode in
studio II like you and I on you and I
you and me yeah Wow do you like that I
can't wait to see what the future has
for cat5 in this studio because it was
it was an unexpected move but it was an
exciting move and the potential of this
studio is phenomenal I mean like during
the news there you're like quickly run
into the production studio I did this
and hear the difference and it's true
it's silent in here yeah but you go into
the production studio and you hear that
server rack I'm like I completely forgot
yeah that was in studio D that used to
be in the studio and we like a few on
the camera yeah
yeah but not anymore and so I'm really
excited I'm a little bit sad that we
can't do it with Sasha but we miss Sasha
we do yeah but we're gonna find ways
like we're working on ways to do like
remote appearances and things like that
plus we've got the category 5 community
coffee break which is going really well
I'd encourage you to participate in that
we have have that happen on Sundays so
that's going to be this Sunday at noon
Eastern Time
if you'd like to join us just go to our
website category 5 dot TV and scroll
down you'll find the information there
yes so and Sasha occasionally pops in
yes you break that's always busy at noon
on Sundays what well it's that's it
we're moving it till 4:00 p.m. I can
pick that up
mm-hmm yeah all right man well that's
that's all the time that we have so
don't forget to follow us on twitter at
category 5 TV and of course I am
personally on Twitter at Robby Ferguson
and I follow back so please follow me
you can find our website at category 5
dot TV where everything pulls together
in one happy spot so head on over there
category five dot TV been great having
Jeff Weston here with me again this week
great to have you back man I'm glad to
be back it's great to have you back
and we'll see you again next week take
care