In its never-ending struggle to conquer the world, Amazon is seeing its Alexa voice-activated virtual assistant move into your car. Well, maybe not your car, but a lot of cars. We have a couple things to say about that. OK, maybe three things.
Alexa is this know-it-all on the Echo device you can ask about anything and it will often come up with the right answer, and also play music and control smarthome devices. (But it chops up classical pieces. It's best to imagine that somewhere in the middle of the Emperor Concerto, Beethoven dies, and that's all he wrote.)
The car versions will plug into your cigarette lighter, and all will be well with the world. They require a smartphone with Internet access and do most everything the home versions do.
The last time we mentioned a car's cigarette lighter, we heard from a reader who believed we were daft. He said it was a power outlet, not a cigarette lighter, because nobody smokes anymore. Another informed us it was not a cigarette lighter, it was a cigar lighter.
The first version, already out, is called Muse Auto and is meant to stick on your car's dash. It costs about $50.
Anew Alexa-enabled device is called Roav Viva and it will cost $50. We asked Alexa what Roav Viva means but she didn't know. Well, anyway ... it talks through Bluetooth to a speaker, in your cupholder or elsewhere. Or it plugs into your car radio.
Look for a tiny socket labeled "Aux" on the right side of the car radio or elsewhere in newer cars. Aux means auxiliary. Our car is 18 years old and has no tiny socket.
FREE LOGO DESIGNS
DesignEvo.com lets you create a free logo in three clicks. The only catch is, it asks you to give it credit if you use it on your website, Facebook page or elsewhere.
To make a logo, start by clicking to choose a template. Frankly, their free templates looked just as good as the professional ones. Type in the name of your company or organization and make up a slogan. Click "download." It will ask you to share their name on Facebook or some other social media site, but you can ignore that, and then it's all yours, ready to use in three versions. One comes with a transparent background so you can use it on color pages.
DesignEvo has over 1 million icons to choose from in various categories. It also has hundreds of fonts and shapes. Download as many as you want. If you need more fonts, you can download them from other sites, but beware: Downloading fonts is an easy way to pick up malware.
We made a sample logo you can see on our website: oncomp.com. Never fear: We don't sell anything.
APP HAPPY
Dr. Greger's Daily Dozen tells you which foods have the most nutrition and lets you check off categories to make sure your day has been health-promoting. Each category has a list of examples, with quick video explanations of that food's powers from Dr. Greger's site, NutritionFacts.org.
For instance, kale and collard greens lower the risk of glaucoma and prevent wrinkles, and have powerful anti-cancer and anti-heart-disease properties. To earn a gold star from the app, Joy makes a smoothie with greens, banana, soy milk, cherry pomegranate juice, and frozen cherries.
Toca Life: Vacation. (For kids.) See what it's like going to the airport, jumping on a hotel bed and digging for treasure. The Toca Life Hospital, welcomes newborn babies and treats the sick. There are more Toca Life apps from which to choose.
Syntronik, a free app for iPhone and iPad, offers 25 instrument sounds from 17 synthesizers. It works with Apple's GarageBand and other programs. They say it captures the "DNA" of the original hardware and accurately reproduces the sound of classic synthesizers.
NAZI PROGRAMS
Programs you just can't get off the computer are called "Nazi Programs" in the techie trade. The latest version of UnInstaller, from Ashampoo, takes care of those. It also gives you a snapshot of what you have installed. We found out we had 85 programs installed, along with 50 Windows apps we never use.
Uninstaller includes "Startup Tuner," which prevents certain programs from starting up automatically. Using the "Internet Cleanup tab," we got rid of 14,268 web browsing traces put there by companies that were sure we would never want to be without them.
Bob and Joy Schwabach can be reached by email at bobschwa@gmail.com and joydee@oncomp.com.
Business on 01/27/2018