Guides

5G refers to the fifth generation of cellular network technology that will eventually replace 4G, which is what most smartphones use today. Data transfer rates are many times faster on 5G, with the potential to be many, many times faster, so much so that it could possibly replace your home cable internet at some point. While 4G LTE supports peak download speeds of around 300 megabits per second (Mbps), average download speeds vary by carrier and are generally under 100 Mbps.

Contact tracing is an important tool for slowing the spread of COVID-19 infection and has been employed by a number of countries that have had success in curtailing the pandemic. Due to the sheer logistics involved in contact tracing as well as privacy concerns, the concept of app-based contact tracing has recently been gaining favor with research groups. Singapore's health ministry developed and deployed the first such app, TraceTogether, in March.

Your medical information is invaluable to emergency responders and can mean the difference between life and death. EMTs, doctors and nurses need to know things like what medications you might be allergic to, what medical conditions you have, what medications you are taking, what blood type you are and so on, so that they can provide the best treatment as quickly as possible. To this end, Apple has included the ability to automatically share your health information when you make an emergency call in iOS 13.5.

Zoom has been a popular meeting tool for businesses for a while now, and with social distancing becoming modus operandi for most of us, it has become commonplace in popular culture as well. If you have been using it to meet up with friends and family, perhaps you've become tired of having the same old background - your bedroom, living room or wherever. Maybe you have noticed some of your friends have exotic backgrounds and you've been wondering how to change yours.

Despite today's wide use of computers, tablets and smartphones, handwritten notes, memos and letters are still commonplace. While taking photos of them or scanning them is a great way to document and keep track of such items, actually converting them to digital text files makes them much easier to edit and search through. There are several apps like Pen to Print and Evernote that can accomplish this using OCR (optical character recognition) technology, but they aren't free.