Author Archives: Phil Baker

While there are 48% more electric vehicles being sold this year than last, the lack of a broad nationwide charging network continues to be an impediment to EV ownership, especially non-Tesla brands. Industry analysts expected other brands to significantly cut into Tesla sales by now, but that has not happened for a couple of reasons: […]

Self driving car technology may be able to solve many challenging problems, but dealing with basic issues is still cause for concern. A day after San Francisco authorized self driving cars to operate for profit 24 hours/day, ten Cruise driverless taxis blocked the narrow Grant Avenue in North Beach, stopping traffic and closing roads. The […]

Amazon has scored a remarkable feat by getting scores of websites to run free ads for their products. They’re not just ordinary ads, but ads disguised as news, such a “news of the week’s best buys.” As an example, if you go to CNN’s home page, then scroll down a couple of pages, you’ll see […]

When I planned my two and a half week trip to Europe in June, I decided to put some careful thought into what kind of bags I would use, how I would pack them, and what I’d take with me. Unlike previous trips, I decided to be more organized to make it easier to unpack […]

Thanks to recent hardware and software developments, you can now stream high-res music in your living room with little effort. A high res file of a recording contains about twenty times the data of an MP3 file, the format used by the iPod, Spotify, Sirius/XM, etc. When I co-wrote my book “To Feel the Music,” […]

This is the time each year when the world’s two largest phone manufacturers introduce their new models and entice us to buy. This year I don’t think I’ll be buying. Samsung just introduced a pair of folding phones and Apple will be announcing their iPhone 15 series in September. I’m usually first in line for […]

Did you know that Google has formed an alliance with scammers to steal our money? While they won’t admit to it, it’s essentially what happens because of the design of its Google search engine and its policy of taking payments to deceive. Google has been called out for it many times over the years, but […]

There’s a huge change coming to the way our tech products will be developed, compared to what’s been done over the past three decades. Check the label on many of these products and you’ll usually see Made in China or Made in China and Designed in the U.S. or designed in California, etc. These labels […]

If you want an idea of how unpopular Elon Musk and his takeover of Twitter is, you need only look at how popular Mark Zuckerberg and his new Twitter clone, Threads, has become. In less than a day more than 30 million people signed up, and that number is now approaching 100 million. And this […]

For the past three weeks my wife and I traveled to Europe, visitng Greece and then met up with the rest of our family in Southern Spain. In spite of our careful planning, we hadn’t anticipated how much more grueling traveling would be due to the unpredictably of flying.  Flying from Heraklion, Crete to Athens, […]

Most cellphones made in the past few years allow you to add second or third SIM card, assuming the phone is unlocked. These are not physical cards, but rather software code downloaded into your phone that adds an electronic SIM card from another carrier. As I prepared for a European trip, I could pay a […]

The recently announced Apple Vision Pro headset is as much a new platform as a new product. If it succeeds it will be the first in a line of devices for years to come, much like the iPhone. If it fails it will be beacuse it didn’t provide enough value for its cost. Either way […]

These days the news is filled with stories about artificial intelligence (AI). Much like reporting of past technology breakthroughs, what’s being reported is confusing, contradictary and often alarming. The truth is most of the writers (myself included) have little sense of what it all means, even those designated as experts. That doesn’t stop the major […]

ChatGPT providess answers to all sorts of questions based on being able to string the most likely words together found on the Internet. While it may be useful for writing poems, job descriptions and novels, it has been terrible when it comes to researching facts. In my experience it’s been so wrong, it may be […]

The process of getting prescriptions filled is antiquated and inconvenient and outdated in this modern age of online shopping. The doctor first needs to write the prescription and electronically transmit or fax it to a pharmacy that we designate. We then need to check in with the pharmacy to see when it will be ready […]

Guest column by Andy Abramson (Bio follows article) Here’s a satirical look at how Southwest has changed. It’s written to call out how much the experience has changed for a passenger of many years who has loved the airline since the 90s.  It is not meant to be a political statement but instead to serve as […]

I noticed a generation gap when I began planning an upcoming vacation trip to Greece, a destination that my son and his family visited last year. When I asked if he had any guidebooks, he said he doesn’t use them and relies entirely on the Internet. So, are travel guides going the way of typewriters […]

This is not about a labor strike of autoworkers. It’s about the baffling decision-making at General Motors that flies in the face of market trends and common sense. In recent weeks GM has announced that they’re killing CarPlay and Android Auto on many of their future models and that they’re discontinuing the Chevy Bolt, the […]

With several trips coming up, I’ve been looking for a new carry-on. I’ve been using a 22-inch 4-wheel softsided expandable rollaboard from Briggs & Riley for ten years. It’s served me well, but it nows needs its shredding wheels replaced. (While wheels for my model are not currently available, they do offer replacements for other […]

Travel tech once meant chargers, backup batteries and luggage scales, but now it’s more about apps on your phone, tablet, and watch. Having just returned from a week in Japan, I relied on a whole new set of apps that made my travels more helpful and enjoyable. I’ve been traveling to Japan on business for […]