ON COMPUTERS

Anti-Spy protects privacy of Windows 10 users

A reader asked us whether it's true that the new Windows 10 collects information on your computer usage. Yes, it does, but no, we're not worried about it (anyone watching us needs serious help). If you're concerned, there's a free program to shield you.

Anti-Spy for Windows 10 is free from Ashampoo.com and prevents Windows 10 from sending information about your computer use. You decide how much or how little you want to share by checking or un-checking menu choices.

Windows 10 collects huge amounts of data to make it possible for the virtual assistant (that's tech talk for imitation person) to answer your questions. The imitation person in Windows 10 is called Cortana; in Apple machines it's called Siri. You can speak your commands or type them using the search bar at the bottom of your screen. If you don't see Cortana, right-click the taskbar at the bottom of your screen and un-check the word "hidden" next to the word "Cortana." Sometimes a virtual assistant goes out for a virtual drink.

Anti-Spy begins with many items turned on, others turned off. "Driver updates" were turned off. We turned them on because we feel it's safer to keep your computer software updated.

Free Facebook App

Facebook Moments is a free app for Android and iPhone, and a good way to get photos from friends without having to ask. It's an official Facebook app, but you can get it from MomentsApp.com

Here's how it works: Choose which Facebook friends you want in your circle; your photos and theirs are automatically synced in a private storage area. If they aren't already Moments users, they'll get an email prompting them to download the app. You choose which photos to sync; you don't have to share all of them.

A new "Storyline" feature automatically creates movies based on your Moments. It chooses the best photos in your Moment and synchronizes them to your choice of 11 music selections. Moments with at least six photos will have a movie waiting for you that you can edit and then share.

Uses for Apple Watch

A friend of ours got an Apple Watch as a retirement present and it came in really handy on a trip abroad when he couldn't find his iPhone. His watch told him a phone call was coming in and he answered it on his wrist. He then realized that his iPhone must be nearby because the Watch won't work unless it is. And so he carried that thought through and found the phone in another jacket.

Here are some fun apps for the Watch, all of which also work on phones:

• BBC News gives you the latest headlines right there on your wrist.

Yahoo Weather tells you the temperature, the wind and what the weather really feels like, despite the temperature. Tap the watch face to get graphs with more information.

CityMapper gives you train, bus and subway schedules, as well as bicycling info. The watch knows where you are.

XE Currency is a currency converter. In a flash you can see the answer to the traveler's eternal question: "How much is that in dollars?"

MAN AND MACHINE

Ray Kurzweil, a futurist and inventor of the music synthesizer, says human beings have an expiration date. We're getting closer and closer to our machines, and someday we will be machines.

In other words, it won't be enough to have computers on our wrists, we'll want them in our heads, or to be our heads. Once we let them to do all our thinking, we won't be human anymore and we will no longer have any trouble selecting the right tie to go with our suit.

We'd like to register our protest right now and invite others to join us just as soon as we're through with our role-playing video game.

Internuts

• Gaming.YouTube.com is for people who like to watch other people play video games. It's a competitor to a service called Twitch. Google is trying to make it easier to "livestream" your games, so people in galaxies far, far away can watch you zap aliens in real time. As we wrote, 621 people were watching someone play Super Mario Maker. Spectators can and do make comments on screen.

SmithsonianMag.com has an interactive map that lets you compare the New York City of 1836 with New York today. As you move an on-screen magnifying glass over the map, you can see the difference 179 years make. For instance, there's no Central Park, everything past 14th Street is wild countryside, Manhattan has lots of hills, and there used to be docks where there are now buildings.

Back-to-School Apps

Some of these are for students, some for teachers. It will be obvious what goes with whom.

Notability, $4 for iPhone/iPad, lets you create notes, bring in pictures, music and video, and highlight your text.

Nearpod allows teachers to send surveys, ask questions and present slides. This has more than 100,000 users.

Schoology allows teachers to share assignments and lets students receive test scores. It already has 500,000 users. Are there that many digitally hip teachers?

Google Drive is great for storing documents. Save stuff online at drive.Google.com. No matter what machine or phone you're using, you can still access your stuff.

Reminders is Apple's to-do list. It has a lot of tools for tracking homework, projects and tests.

And for those who don't want to do anything in particular, there are: Trivia Crack, (maybe too trivial), Messages, (so addicting, you'll constantly be messaging others), Homework, (can't compete with pen and paper), Candy Crush, (too mind-numbing), and 8 Ball Pool.

Bob and Joy Schwabach can be reached by email at bobschwa@gmail.com and joydee@oncomp.com.

SundayMonday Business on 09/28/2015

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