STACK #212 June 2022

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JUNE LIFE TECH Technology has become an integral part of Australian lifestyles and continues to advance in leaps and bounds. From smartphones to smart homes, STACK keeps you up to date on the latest consumer tech in user-friendly terms, along with key points to consider before you buy. If you love tech, you’re in the right place.

STACK ’ s TECH tips

Picture the scene: you’re in a dimly lit restaurant without your glasses, and you can’t read the menu. Aside from lighting up the entire menu with

a smartphone torch, there’s an easier way to peruse the starters. The Magnifier is a priceless tool found

on both Apple and Android devices.To add it in iOS 15, go to Settings, select Accessibility, tap Magnification, and add it to Control Centre. For Android 12 users, tap Settings, Accessibility, and then Magnification. It's simple to use; pull your phone up to the text, tap the magnify icon and never order the wrong main again!

1984

What was the hottest tech in…

Do you have a tech horror story? Has tech come back to ‘byte’ you hard? Have you sent a text to the wrong person or deleted your employer’s hard drive by accident?Well, we want to hear about it. Send your Terror Byte to editor@stack.com.au To kick it off, a colleague recalls his tech nightmare. I had just scored a job as a copywriter for a real estate agent. The boss was an absolute tyrant and widely disliked. Said boss and I were driving to a job on a sweltering day, and I pulled into a servo to get a drink. He’d ripped into me about something minor that morning, and I was still fuming. Leaving the engine purring for the air con, I jumped out, leaving the dictator in the passenger’s seat. A friend called as I entered the servo, and I proceeded to tell her all about my boss calling him just about every expletive I could summon. I switched the conversation subject when I headed back to the car, but as I got closer,

Having already conquered the world with the Sony Walkman for cassettes in 1979, it seemed fitting that the Japanese giant led the pack five years later with a new generation of portable audio technology. Introduced in 1982, Compact Discs were still trailing far behind records and cassettes in sales. The new medium needed a boost, and it found one in the Sony Discman D-50, the first portable CD player. Except it wasn’t portable. No, the D-50 could only be powered out of the box via a power supply. Sony did sell an accessory powered by six C-size batteries that

would house the player to make it portable, but the batteries increased the unit's overall size and weight. Controls were simple: manual eject, power on switch, a play, search, and a skip tracks button. The D-50 was a loud piece of kit; number three on the volume dial delivered ear-bursting audio. When it was released at the end of 1984, one of the biggest adoption motivators for consumers was the price. At just US$300 on launch, the uptake was immediate, and within a year, Sony was producing 100,000 a month. Mirroring what the original Walkman did for cassette sales, the Discman pushed CDs into the mainstream and helped them to become the audio format of choice.

On The Radar

If you’re a fan of audio and want to be across all the latest developments in technology, then the July issue has your name written all over it. We’ll be road testing and pulling together a list of the best headphones, earbuds and wireless speakers you can get for your money.

strangely, I could hear my voice loud and clear from another source. In a moment of heart-gripping terror, I realised that with the car running, my phone had connected via Bluetooth to the car speaker, and my boss had heard the entire conversation. I didn’t see out the week.

26 JUNE 2022

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