I’m reminding you, it’s time to start Between the Bytes.
Welcome to Between the Bytes episode number two. I’m Gary Arnold and I’m Arash Bakhshandehpour and this week on Between the Bytes we’ll be talking about some updates from YouTube, be looking into iOS 11 and talking about some robots and how Google is getting involved or uninvolved with them. And finally we’ll be talking about some classic gaming systems coming to a store near you.
So to start things off, Google’s parent company Alphabet sold Boston Dynamics to a company in Japan called SoftBank. Boston Dynamics is most well known for its robots Bigdog Wildcat, and Atlas, bipedal and quadrupedal. They’re being sold to SoftBank which has a tendency to put faces on their robot so if you’re scared of these things it’s only going to get worse. I guess Google’s didn’t know what to do with them so they sold them.
The next bit of news we have is building into the iOS 11 update which is now going into beta mode. It will be released to all Apple users in the fall. Some of the updates coming for iOS 11 are things like AI integration with other apps so developers can use smart algorithms in with their apps to learn what you need what you wants for your applications are. Another feature is they’re updating the control center so there’s some more features that are easier to access. There’s also a lot of updates to photos specifically for the iPad and iOS 11. Albums will be a lot easier to view and will be a lot more dynamic and just easier to use. Fun things coming for iOS users.
Big news Gary, Nintendo NES is getting shipped September 29th. Sorry, I’m getting my gaming fingers ready for September 29th. The new SNES is going to have all the fun games that you loved especially my favorite that I grew up with, Super Mario.
The last thing we wanted to hit on is YouTube hit a big milestone this past month they had 1.5 billion monthly users. That’s a lot of people that are there all the time. So some new features coming to the YouTube app are messaging and social interaction features so you’ll be able to talk with friends as you watch videos. You’ll be able to message them across and share videos a little more easily in the YouTube app itself.
We’ll take you over to our next section here we’re going to be doing our product insider.
This week with product insider we’ll be reviewing an app. We’ll be talking about Mint budgeting and finance app. This is an app that I’ve been using for years now it’s a great app to manage all of your finances all in one place. You can connect your bank account, your credit cards and your other loans all in here and it’s all trackable. You can set up totally customized budgets and know how much you’re spending in each category. It also will bring in investment tracking if you have other investments you can tie those accounts to it. You can also tie in your bills and pay it right in the app. It keeps craft track of your credit score there’s also a great desktop version that lets you do all this from a tablet or from your computer. My wife has been using this to keep track of our finances combining it with some other shopping apps and we seriously save time and money using it. This app is a great application available on iOS and Android. I recommend it to any of you. Check it out mint budgeting for your phone.
This week’s featured guest on Between the Bytes is Kristina Cusick our procurement specialist here at Executech.
Between the Bytes
Christina if you wouldn’t mind telling us your background and then what you do for Executech.
Cusick
I am in charge of our quoting for our techs and sales force to provide quotes and estimate for our clients and potential clients. I also take care of our inventory and ordering any hardware software or anything that they might need to help out our clients in the right area.
Between the Bytes
Tell us a little about your background where you came from.
Cusick
I have a very varied better background. I went to school for computer programming and did web development for about five years and then I switched gears and started my family. And after having my daughter found my way back into the IT realm.
Between the Bytes
What kind of skills and what kind of things are you finding helpful to you most since coming to this company in your role as procurement specialists?
Cusick
I tend to be a little bit OCD, so the organizational skills definitely help. Resourcefulness, good communication skills.
Between the Bytes
And lastly, I kind of want to get a little insight into what you’re interested in. Are there any are there any books, podcasts, TV shows or movies that have kind of caught your eye recently?
Cusick
Well I am a full-time working mom I don’t have a lot of time for that stuff. But, Stars has an original series called Outlander which actually is based on my favorite book series of all time. So right now I’m patiently waiting because it doesn’t come out with its next season until the fall so I might reread the series again this summer.
Between the Bytes
So Outlander is great series to keep our eye on.
Wow we’ve never actually done this before we have some breaking news! It looks like there is a ransomware attack that is affecting airlines, banks and utilities throughout all of Europe it’s similar to the Wannacry attack. Similar precautions actually could have been taken to prevent it. It is so severe that the Ukraine power grid was affected and it’s been hit. There’s actually an update that we can look that now from the country’s official Twitter account. Thank you, again Christina but let’s go ahead and look at things over here.
Hey, we’re back here at the Between the Bytes – not a studio. We’re going to give you another tech tip. This one comes from our very own Eric Montague here at Executech. He was recently interviewed by KSL and you can see this article online. We will post the link in the description. In this article Eric talks about these security threats that small business face today and offers several tips that businesses can do to prevent ransomware, malware and viruses and other problems from occurring in your business. The tip we want to leave you with is to get a spam filter! If you do not have some form of spam filtering at your company you are running the risk of getting viruses and who knows what else. It’s an easy thing to do just look into it if you need help, the experts at Exectech are experts on cybersecurity and they can ensure your small business is secured. Make sure you look into that and check out the article for the rest of the tips on keeping your business safe.
See you next week on Between the Bytes!
