August means back to school, and if you’ve got kids or grandkids going off to college, technology will be a very important part of their personal and school lives.
Laptops or tablets will be the important, of course, but here are some ideas for things that can make their lives a bit easier, depending on their needs and fields of study. As usual, I’m posting list prices. You may well find them a bit cheaper if they are on sale.
Wacom One 13 Touch tablet
Wacom has been in the digital tablet business for decades, and their newest tablet is the second-generation Wacom One 13 Touch.
If you are not familiar with Wacom, they make digitizing tablets for computers. You use a digital pen to draw on a surface, and that drawing is shown on the computer screen.
The Wacom One takes things up a notch by combining their digitizing tablet with a touchscreen monitor. This setup lends itself to easily creating freehand artwork on your computer.
The 13-inch display supports multi-touch, so you can use your fingers to zoom in or out and rotate the work as needed. The pen is pressure sensitive and doesn’t need batteries. It has two buttons and interacts with all the big drawing and graphics apps.
These tablets are not just for graphics and artists; they’re perfect for people who are more comfortable taking written notes.
The fact that the One 13 Touch is also a second monitor means it can make the user more productive.
The One 13 Touch is $599.99 at Wacom.com.
Baseus GaN Smart USB Desktop Fast Charger 240W
The Baseus GaN Smart USB Desktop Fast Charger 240W. (Baseus/TNS)
Every dorm room needs a charging spot. The Beseus Digital GaN Intelligent Desktop Fast Charger is a multi-port USB charger that can pump up to 240 watts through its four ports to keep all your devices charged as quickly as possible.
There are three USB-C ports and one USB-A port, as well as a 12v DC output.
The charger has a digital display to show the exact amount of power being provided by each port, as well as the total output being used.
This charger has the capability to fast charge your MacBook Pro, iPad and iPhone as fast as possible. It also ships with a 240W USB-C fast charging cable.
The 240W Desktop Fast Charger costs $199.99 from Amazon.com.
Cuktech 20 Power Bank
The Cuktech 20 Power Bank. (Cuktech/TNS)
USB power banks are either small and lightweight or they’re a bit beefier and have greater charging capacity. Either way, it’s great to have the ability to charge your devices when you’re away from a convenient power outlet.
The Cuktech 20 Power Bank falls into the beefy category with 25,000 milliamp-hours of power and up to 140W of output and three USB ports (two USB-C and one USB-A). 25,000 mAh is the largest battery you can legally carry onto a commercial airplane.
What sets the Cuktech 20 apart from every other power bank is its color display that gives real time readouts of what’s going on in and out of each port. The batteries inside are rated for more than 1,000 charge cycles.
The Cuktech 20 includes a USB-C charging cable that’s also used to recharge the battery.
The size of the power bank reminds me of a large soda can, and it comes with a nice bag to carry the battery and any cables you’d want to carry.
The Cuktech 20 lists for $99.99 at Amazon.com.
Poly Voyager Free 20 earbuds
The Poly Voyager Free 20 earbuds. (Poly/TNS)
I work at a university, and since the pandemic, we’ve had to get used to hybrid classes, which means they happen in a classroom and online live via video conference at the same time.
Having a good set of earbuds with great sound and microphones means you can take part in those online classes without disturbing your roommates.
Poly is a great brand in the headset market, and the Voyager Free 20 have active noise canceling with three mics in each earbud. They have really nice sounding speakers, with four different tip sizes so you can perfect the fit for the best sound quality.
They can pair to two devices at once, so you can move between your phone and your computer seamlessly.
The Poly Voyager Free 20 earbuds are available at Amazon for $149.99.
I love to drive, which is good, because I get a lot of opportunities to review gadgets for drivers.
This week I’m looking at a handful of useful things to make your drive safer or more comfortable.
You’ll notice I have included two air inflators. I like them both and they each have their advantages. Pricing included is retail price, but you may find them cheaper.
The Laxon DR-6000 Vehicle Air Massage Seat. (Laxon/TNS)
Dr Well Laxon DR-6000 Vehicle Air Massage Seat
As I get older, a comfortable place to sit is becoming more important. I love driving long distances, but my hips and back start to get sore after about 90 minutes in my driver’s seat.
The Laxon DR-6000 Vehicle Air Massage Seat ($399.99, Laxon.us or Amazon.com) is designed to sit on top of your seat. It straps to the headrest and around the back of the seat.
The DR-6000 uses a small air compressor to quickly fill air chambers strategically placed on the back and bottom of the seat. There are different massage modes that provide differing levels of massage. I’m a big guy, so I liked the more aggressive settings.
The compressor is housed in a small pouch that hangs down under your knees. It is quiet and fills the air chambers quickly.
The DR-6000 also has a seat heater that I didn’t need in Texas this summer, but I’m sure it’ll be handy this winter.
The massage and heat levels are controlled from a small wired remote that tucks into a pocket by the compressor.
The TopdonV2200Plus. (Topdon/TNS)
Topdon V2200Plus Jump Starter
A small, battery-powered jump starter has replaced jumper cables in my vehicles for the last few years.
The Topdon V2200Plus ($149.99, topdon.us) can jumpstart your vehicle up to 35 times on a full charge.
It can jump up to 8-liter gas or 6-liter diesel engines, delivering up to 2,200 amps of peak current.
The clamps are smart enough to prevent you from doing damage to your vehicle or the jump starter if you’ve got them on the wrong posts.
The V2200Plus also has Bluetooth that can talk to an app on your phone that will give you a report on the health of your vehicle’s battery.
It also has an LED flashlight (handy) and it can charge your phone or other USB-powered devices.
I can’t tell you how many people I’ve helped with a portable jump starter. This is a good one.
HOTO Air Pump Master
Having a leaky tire is no fun. We’ve all been there. You see a little yellow low tire warning light on your dash and now you have to figure out which tire is low.
I also dislike hunting for a working air pump at a gas station, much less one that doesn’t require a credit card.
The HOTO Air Pump Master ($169.99, hototools.com) is a cigar-box sized compressor with a slick LED screen in its control wheel.
It’s easy to set your desired air pressure and let the pump do its job. It’ll stop when the target pressure is reached.
The Air Pump Master has two hoses that attach for filling everything you’d want to inflate, from car and bike tires to air mattresses, inflatable tents, kayaks and paddleboards and sports balls.
The interface is really easy to use and the inflation is quick. It takes about a minute to inflate a car tire or kayak.
The rechargeable 7,500 milliamp-hour battery can get the job done, or you can plug into your car’s 12v port for working all day. HOTO says you can inflate up to 16 car tires on a charge.
It has a built-in LED light to make using it easy at night and the internal battery recharges through its USB-C port.
It includes a nice sturdy storage bag to keep the inflator and all the hoses and filler tips organized and ready to go.
The Pitaka MagEZ Car Mount Pro 2 Qi2. (Pitaka/TNS)
Pitaka MagEZ Car Mount Pro 2 Qi2
Everyone seems to have a phone mount in their car these days, and if you’re smart you have a charger built into that mount to keep your phone’s battery full.
The Pitaka MagEZ Car Mount Pro 2 Qi2 ($59.99, ipitaka.com) is a 15-watt wireless fast charger for your compatible iPhone or Android phone. Your phone can charge from zero to 100 percent in 2 hours and 40 minutes.
Connect the included USB-C cable to the MagEZ and your phone’s battery will stay full as you navigate down the road.
This mount comes in two models, one for cars with horizontal or vertical air vents and one for Tesla Model3/Y.
It uses the Qi2 charging standard, adopted by Apple and various Android phone manufacturers. Its magnet is strong enough to keep your phone steady on the bumpiest roads.
If your phone doesn’t have a magnet in the back like my iPhone, you’ll need a compatible case to help your phone stick to the charger. Pitaka sells cases, but you can get them from other places as well.
The MagEZ has one interesting feature that is unusual. It has a three-position switch that activate NFC shortcuts.
Once you set it up the NFC, you can have your favorite music or navigation app launch automatically when the phone is placed in the charger. Slick feature.
The MagEZ uses a 17mm universal swivel ball mount, so if you don’t want to use the included vent mount, you can get a different mount to attach it to your dash or a window or whatever type you like.
The Syncwire Portable Inflator Air Pump. (Syncwire/TNS)
Syncwire Portable Inflator Air Pump
This is a tiny inflator that anyone can carry. I’d even recommend this one for e-bike riders or motorcyclists.
The Syncwire Portable Inflator ($79.99, syncwire.com) is about the size of a soft drink can and it can inflate car, motorcycle and bike tires or items like sports balls, air mattresses and inflatables. It has a maximum fill capacity of 150 psi.
The interface is quite simple. Press the power button, select the fill mode, set your desired pressure with the + and – buttons and attach the hose to whatever you want to fill. When connected, the display will show you the current pressure.
Pressing the power button starts the inflation and the compressor will stop when it reaches the desired pressure.
It has a 5,200mAh rechargeable battery that charges from a USB-C cable.
There is also a USB-A port that can charge your phone.
I tested this on my SUV. I deflated my tires down to 25 psi and it took about two and a half minutes to inflate them to 33 psi. I did note the inflator gets pretty warm during use, but it was manageable.
This inflator is inexpensive, easy to use and super convenient to stow in its included carry bag. It’ll fit in any trunk, saddle bag or toolbox.
“Hi, we chose you for our Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Candidate Assessment but you didn’t respond. It’s only 11 questions,” the text message said, followed by a link.
The scolding came out of the blue, given that I hadn’t received the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Candidate Assessment, nor had I asked for one. In fact, the sender — the Progressive Turnout Project — was entirely new to me when the message arrived April 15.
I dutifully marked it as spam and blocked the sender’s number. But that wasn’t the end of a stream of unwanted texts from the Progressive Turnout Project and other political groups aligned with the Democratic Party — it was just the beginning.
In the three months after that, an increasing volume of unwanted texts landed in my phone, reaching 10 a week by early July, almost all of them asking for me to support a party to which I’ve never belonged or contributed. And every one came from a different phone number, a tactic that evades spam blocks.
The deluge led me to change tactics, and eventually the texts slowed to a trickle, more like the occasional mosquito bite than a nagging headache. But it took persistent action on my part to get to that point.
Here’s a quick explanation of why you, too, might find yourself besieged by political texts and what you can do about them.
How people get on the list for texts
Experts say that political committees and the companies that serve them start with voter registration records, which are available to anyone doing political communications. Those records include the name, address and contact information of every registered voter.
Alternatively, political groups may develop their own models to come up with the names of likely voters, then pay data brokers — a more than $250-million industry — for the matching phone numbers.
Candidates and campaigns aren’t looking to text every voter or likely voter — they’re just going after the ones who are inclined to support them. So they do what other marketers do: They pull together profiles of voters using information available from data brokers, adding information about their race and ethnicity, their hobbies and interests, their likes and dislikes, their magazine subscriptions, and any clues they can find about their politics.
“The same way that a private sector marketer tracks your purchasing habits, a political digital specialist tracks your issue preferences and partisan leanings,” said Dan Schnur, a politics professor at USC, UC Berkeley and Pepperdine. “Every time you post or retweet or like some type of political content, it helps the marketers build a profile to which they can target you based on your strongest interests and leanings.”
Added Chad Peace of IVC Media, a digital communications company based in San Diego, “There are thousands and thousands of layers of data that can be appended to the voter file.”
Once compiled, information about voters moves rapidly among political committees and communications firms — including how voters respond to texts and fundraising appeals. “All this data is shared,” Peace said, noting that when a voter opts out of texts from one organization, another organization can pick up where the first one left off.
What rules govern political texts
Sadly, the federal Do Not Call Registry offers no protection from campaign-related calls or texts. Nor will you find much help from the two federal laws that govern your phone lines, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and the CAN-SPAM Act. Lawmakers have been reluctant to impose barriers on political communications because of 1st Amendment concerns, not to mention their own need to contact voters.
The law does bar political groups from using an autodialer to spam you with texts unless you give explicit consent in advance. But a 2021 Supreme Court ruling defines an autodialer as a technology that targets numbers it generates on its own, not one that automatically dials a list of numbers programmed into it.
As a result, it is open season for political spammers to target the specific phone numbers gathered by the political parties, campaigns and affiliated interest groups. There are several ways you may have made yourself a text magnet. Did you like a funny Facebook post or online meme? Take an online survey about threats to democracy? Donate to a cause widely backed by liberals or conservatives?
Chief Executive Thomas Peters of RumbleUp, a texting platform used by candidates and causes, said mobile phone companies have consistently said that political texters should get explicit consent before sending messages, but that’s more of a “best practice” than a rule. For their part, campaigns and committees argue that getting consent is difficult or just not possible when you’re trying to reach as many voters as they are, Peters said.
Why do political groups use texts?
Because they work — people are more likely to read an unsolicited text than answer the phone or read an unsolicited email. Campaigns have found that sending text messages is effective for multiple pursuits, including polling, identifying likely voters, winning their support and getting them to the polls, Peters said.
“There is a lot of data online about how receptive different individuals may be to receiving texts,” he said. “Younger people, millennials tend to prefer texts, and baby boomers love texts.”
Fundraisers, meanwhile, are typically paid a percentage of what they generate for a campaign, Peace said. So they have a financial incentive to keep churning out messages.
Texts are also popular for ballot initiatives, which tend to be less partisan and require more voter education, Peters said. He predicted that there will be a lot of texting around the 10 ballot initiatives in California this fall “because of the microtargeting required.”
Ultimately, Schnur said, the goal of the texts is to persuade people to get involved. “First they want your contact information, then they want your interest, ultimately they may want something more tangible, like a contribution or a volunteer commitment or a vote,” he said. “But in this respect they’re no different than every other digital platform on the internet. The more you interact with them, the more time you spend on their platform, the happier they are.”
What can you do about unwanted texts
You’re not completely helpless in the face of the campaign onslaught — federal law requires even political spammers to give you a way to opt out of the messages. If you want campaigns or political groups to leave you alone, reply to their texts with a single word: Stop. You should get a reply right away telling you that you’ve been removed from their list.
The catch, though, is that the opt-out applies only to that phone number and that specific sender. When I replied “Stop” to a fundraising text from the Progressive Turnout Project, for example, I immediately received a text telling me I had been unsubscribed. The very next day, however, I got a text from Progressive Takeover, which is described on its website as “A Progressive Turnout Project Initiative.”
The Progressive Turnout Project declined an interview request, but said in an email, “We follow all required email and text message best practices and protocols, which include having unsubscribe mechanisms in place.”
Over the following weeks, I played whack-a-mole with political texters, replying “Stop” again and again and again. It felt Sisyphean. After a dozen opt-outs I thought I had turned off the spigot, but then the texts began again, this time from Democratic candidates from Arizona and Texas asking for my support (mainly in the form of currency).
I have no better guess about how I got on their texting list than how I got onto the Progressive Turnout Project’s. But Peace said that one of the things the Democratic and Republican parties do for candidates is plug them into the “infrastructure” of data they’ve compiled about voters.
“Once you’re in the system, you’re in the system,” Peace said. There’s really no way out of it entirely, he added; “If you just say, ‘Stop,’ yeah, that number has to stop texting you, but whether it’s that organization or another organization that’s leveraging that same data, [someone] is going to try to reach you.”
If there’s a glimmer of hope, it’s this comment by Peters: “Everyone agrees right now there’s just too much bad texting.” His company built its platform to prevent clients from contacting people who opt out, he said, adding, “It saves [the clients] money, it saves them complaints … but we are trying to be a good actor in this space.”
It is open season for political spammers to target the specific phone numbers gathered by the political parties, campaigns and affiliated interest groups. (Dreamstime/TNS)
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