Josh Corcoran of Spare Change joins us to play a few tunes and talk about his video series bringing awareness and actual donations to great causes in and around Pittsburgh, most recently “A Pittsburgh Story” featuring friends from the city including Mayor Bill Peduto and using Spotfund for their project!
Also, check out sorgatronmedia.com and awesomecast.com for more entertainment. Follow Michael Sorg (@sorgatron) and @AwesomeCast for updates and live streams of our interviews! Subscribe on Facebook,Stitcher, Spreaker, iTunes, and Youtube!
As we near the end of 2017 we take the opportunity to fill the couch – both IRL and online – with some familiar faces. It’s a full house indeed with Jim Lokay, Will Rutherford, Mike Pound, Cynthia Closkey, John Carman, Bobby Cherry, Brian Crawford, and Krause. But, we’ve still got our usual faces with Sorg and Chilla, and a very special visit from our Patreon supporter, Michael Fedor.
We’re starting the top of the show with everyone’s Awesome Thing of the Year items.
Chilla’s Awesome Thing of the Year is his Apple AirPods.
Brian’s Awesome Thing of the Year is NOT the tech items he recently purchased – but the sweet bag he got to carry it all!
Krause’s Awesome Thing of the Year is his Google Pixel 2XL.
Will’s Awesome Thing of the Year is a “really interesting idea.” He’s interested in TXT.FYI – a stripped down blog.
Lokay’s Awesome Thing of the Year is HQ – the quiz app.
Cynthia’s AirPods are her Awesome Thing for Life. As her Awesome Thing of the Year, she’s going with 17776.
Mike Pound’s Awesome Thing of the Year is Amazon Echo.
Patreoner Michael Fedor’s Awesome Thing of the Year is Patreon’s redo of their fee structure.
Bobby is sharing his Awesome Thing of the Year – his Google Home.
John Carman’s Awesome Thing of the Year is Google’s Pixel Buds.
Sorg’s Awesome Thing of the Year is the realization of handheld internet through his AT&T Wireless plan.
We’re running through our 2017 predictions from last year – and whether or not they actually came true.
And, then we turn to predictions for 2018!(With a shout out to Rob Johnston and the Vine 2 launch!)
Lokay: Vine2 is going to be a failure.
Will Rutherford: Net neutrality is going to get pushed through and it’s going to be a kerfluffle. ISPs are going to do what ISPs do, but customers are going to drop like flies. They’re going to lose so much business that they’re going to roll things back and it will all be for naught.
Mike Pound: Digital side of journalism is going to continue to build in 2018.
Cynthia Closkey: Continued escalation of Google/Apple/Amazon streaming war. Apple TV available for sale on Amazon again.
Michael Fedor: Disney will have one major purchase in the next year. (Jokingly introduced with: Living under the United States of Disney. Disney will pay down national debt and come in on some sort of crisis.)
John Carman: We’re going to see the first Amazon Key burglary.
Bobby Cherry: Elon Musk is going to have some breakthrough next year – through one of his companies.
Chilla: We’re going to see another huge dropoff on PC technology.
Brian Crawford: We’re going to start turning into cyborgs with our wearable tech and implant devices. We’re also going to see regulations regarding drones.
Krause: AR is going to be a much bigger deal than even VR is now.
Sorg: Podcasting is going to be de-emphasized in 2018.
YouTube will no longer be available on Amazon devices?!?!
How about a stripped down blogging tool without social media tools? There’s such a thing to get you back to the basics of blogging, without the bells and whistles.
Katie and Sorg are joined by Doug Derda this week. We were able to get Katie and Sorg away from Animal Crossing long enough to talk about this week’s news in tech, including:
Katie is torn between her iPhone X and being dubbed in German as her Awesome Thing of the Week.
Katie is talking about some of the cool stuff she’s done with her iPhone X for video.
Doug is talking the future of smartphones with Samsung’s new battery tech that could fully charge a phone in minutes.
Y’know what, if you don’t want to wait 7 hours for pizza, head over to Slice and get some perfect pepperoni pizza.
Although net neutrality issues aren’t cool, Pitchwerks put the perfect explanation together with some help from Spare Change.
Shout out to Brian Crawford for picking up an iPad Pro. Speaking of – we’re talking about his question about whether or not we need a traditional laptop anymore.
Watching TV while playing video games? Doug is talking about how things are changing.
Back to the Future reference thanks to Doug and his multiple device usage commentary.
If we’re doing all this stuff IRL, can you imagine VR adaptations?
We talked last week about Ello coming back. People have noticed. There is naked spam.
We chat with Zach Fehl about the new spinoff from The River’s Edge: The Metal Edge, Pittsburgh’s online metal station. We discuss his days with Cal U radio, the metal scene in Pittsburgh, and try the most Metal Pizza ever!
Also, check out sorgatronmedia.com and awesomecast.com for more entertainment. Follow Michael Sorg (@sorgatron) and @AwesomeCast for updates and live streams of our interviews! Subscribe on Facebook,Stitcher, Spreaker, iTunes, and Youtube!
John Carman joins us in studio as we head into the Thanksgiving holiday. Together with our usual tech hounds – Sorg, Chilla, and Katie, the gang shares some of this week’s tech news, including:
Chilla is kicking things off with his Awesome Thing of the Week with Tesla chargers.
Another creature has been released from The Last Jedi. Katie is telling us about Vulptex as her Awesome Thing of the Week.
John Carman is talking about his options for Black Friday sales as his Awesome Thing of the Week.
Sorg’s Awesome Thing of the Week is a video map of atmospheric changes and hurricanes.
We’re sharing what we’re thankful for as we head into Thanksgiving.
Sorg and friends are getting into a deep dive about iPhone and Android options now that phones are holding up better – negating the “need” to upgrade.
Looking to get an iPhone X? You can actually check Walmart’s offerings as an option.
A hologram player that lets you interact with 3D holograms? Yes, please.
Want a smart light switch with Echo capabilities? There’s a solution for that.
Katie is all about the dino nuggets and Animal Crossing! She’s sharing some news about that second one now.
Aliza Sherman is a web pioneer and tech passionista who is concerned about our dependence on Social Media and our phones. Recently, she spoke at the TechNow Conference in Monroeville, PA and has a chat with us about the things we need to watch out for to not be so dependent on technology, and the future of these devices.
Also, check out sorgatronmedia.com and awesomecast.com for more entertainment. Follow Michael Sorg (@sorgatron) and @AwesomeCast for updates and live streams of our interviews! Subscribe on Facebook,Stitcher, Spreaker, iTunes, and Youtube!
Bobby Cherry joins us on the big purple couch to talk this week’s tech news with Katie Dudas, Mike Sorg, and John Chichilla. This week’s topics include:
Katie is reconsidering her Awesome Thing of the Week from last week.
Chilla got a surprise package with 
