Tech spot on George Hook

squonk

I came across the Tech spot on George Hook's show yesterday evening, with a girl called Jess I think it was doing the feature. My god! Talk about car crash radio!

It sounded like some vacuous 15 year old ranting about cool new tech to her more pragmatic granddad. She really came across as not having a great deal of knowledge of technology. She was speaking about Tablet devices like the iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab. At one point she mentioned the Galaxy and went off on a rant about how it had a 3-D camera, an 8.5" display and "other bits that most people aren't interested in", yes, thanks dearie for deciding what I am interested in. Infact I was thinking this didn't sound anything like the Galaxy Tab I'm familiar with. Anyhoo, it turned out after George stopped her that she was actually talking about an LG tab. She then had to backtrack and say she was reviewing the Samsung at present and would report on that next week but "hey, do you wanna check out the 3-D camera". She then went off on another rant about the cool 3-D camera and I actually can't remember anything useful she said on the tab apart from that. She was just interested in fads and dumb stuff.

She then turned to what's coming down the line and mentioned that the Windows Tabs are on the way and how they'lll be like, so great because all your gear from your windows machine will work on them, like your mouse and keyboard. Funny, but I've got an iPad that accepts wirless gear too and so do the Android people. She made a bit deal about how the Windows tabs will have MS-Office built in which will be great and, again, funny but I can edit Word documents through pages on my iPad and no doubt but the Android users can do the same on their devices. Apparently though, Pages isn't as good as Office Mobile - according to her, even though she didn't mention she'd actually used Office mobile and it didn't sound like she'd reviewed any windows Tab to date. I can definitely say that I've never had any issues with Pages on my iPad and it's a very decent app.

I don't know how this woman got a spot in front of a microphone. By those standards, my mum could do the spot, she's not well up on technology either and makes a lot of assumptions. Frankly, she just came across as some young one thinking 'Hey, I've got a cool gig where I can play with all this tech for free and then I can rant about it on the radio'. It doesn't sound like she even set foot in the vicinity of a media college or even a technical college for that matter. I work in the tech industry so I have a good passing idea of a lot of the stuff she was talking about and she was way off the mark. It was some of the poorest quality radio I've ever heard!

drunkmonkey

She's clueless i've often thought of calling George what kind of a numpty has he on the radio with him, she knows nothing about technology and tries to mention the word vodafone as often as possible and judging by George's reaction once or twice he knows she's a spoofer.
I know it's radio but she must be very hot, it's the only reason I can think she's there. Truly car crash radio.

headmaster

A bit like George then so. A proper pair of spoofers, how the hell he gets away with it, I don't know.

squonk

Yes, I've no great liking for George but it's the first time ever I actually felt he appeared reasonable and knowledgeable compared to someone else! Out of curiosity I've had a quick look at some of the Windows 7 tablets that showed up at CES, as Jess was ranting about. It only serves to make her look even more stupid and uninformed. Those are tablet PC's. Comparing them to Android/IOS devices is a bit like comparing apples and oranges. I'll withhold judgement but the Windows 7 devices would be useful for those in a mobile business environment but with the size of some of them you'd hardly sit on the couch and use them and it remains to be seen what the battery life will be like. IOS/Android devices are for casual browsing and note taking tasks and other such small-scale everyday things. When I've got real work to do I head for my Mac and the Windows tabs might bridge this gap. She really is a very annoying tech commentator. When you compare her to Adrian Weckler (sp?) on Matt Cooper, the difference is breathtaking. I mightn't always agree with Adrian but he knows what he's talking about and I come away from his spots sometimes thinking it's nice to know what I don't know sometimes. He's knowledgable, level headed and can see what really matters and can get it across in a clear, concise manner that's easy to follow. Everything that Jess is not in fact. I wouldn't do a radio tech spot because I know for a fact that I don't have the depth of knowledge in all areas to do the job well. Jess just shows that if you've a bit of neck, anything like knowledge doesn't matter.

Poochie05

It's no different to any of these so-called experts on the radio (e.g. personal finance, consumer, cars, technology, TV). More often than not anything they have to say I'd have read already on Boards but they say it with such authority you'd swear they had some special insight. I get the impression they are usually just someone who was hanging out in the office...

bossdrum

Poochie05 wrote: »

It's no different to any of these so-called experts on the radio (e.g. personal finance, consumer, cars, technology, TV). More often than not anything they have to say I'd have read already on Boards but they say it with such authority you'd swear they had some special insight. I get the impression they are usually just someone who was hanging out in the office...

I think she works on the Sean Moncrieff show as a researcher because he usually calls out her name at the end of the show.

Rubik.

What happened to Joe Drumgoole?

The Black Oil

Haven't listened to Newstalk in 2-3 years and it was an American lady doing this slot back then. George was in love with his Nokia N95 (?) at the time.

Often, even assigned tech correspondents don't really get it.

seamus

It used to be Karlin Lillington, who was the Times (or maybe the Indo's) tech reporter. Karlin knows her stuff, she's shoulder-deep in all things technology. Then it was Joe, who seems little more like a gadget nerd rather than someone with an actual interest in technology.

Stopped listening to Hook earlier this year, but I did hear this new girl on the slot a short while back. Basically sounds like she knows how to use youtube and twitter, so they assigned her to the tech slot. Disaster.

elvis jones

seamus wrote: »

It used to be Karlin Lillington, who was the Times (or maybe the Indo's) tech reporter. Karlin knows her stuff, she's shoulder-deep in all things technology. Then it was Joe, who seems little more like a gadget nerd rather than someone with an actual interest in technology.

Stopped listening to Hook earlier this year, but I did hear this new girl on the slot a short while back. Basically sounds like she knows how to use youtube and twitter, so they assigned her to the tech slot. Disaster.

I met Karlin a few times and she was just to busy to do it in the same time slot every week. Joe wasn't too bad but with this new one its like having donkey and shrek in the studio:D

my friend

Rubik. wrote: »

What happened to Joe Drumgoole?

Joe was an even bigger spoofer, I used to text George about Joe's numerous errors, George probably got wise to Joe's spoofing and stopped inviting him in...

bamboozle

my friend wrote: »

Joe was an even bigger spoofer, I used to text George about Joe's numerous errors, George probably got wise to Joe's spoofing and stopped inviting him in...

he was on last night talking about steve Jobs, he was saying he's gone working fulltime with a new tech start up and doesnt have time for the tech slot anymore.

Running Balance

bamboozle wrote: »

he was on last night talking about steve Jobs, he was saying he's gone working fulltime with a new tech start up and doesnt have time for the tech slot anymore.

What steve jobs is working in a start up in ireland, seems like a conspiracy theory to me

Taltos

Yes I heard her and some lad spoofing about why the touchpad went end of life. Again whole segment was full of errors that a quick Google search could have highlighted. Think I will be skipping this show unfortunately, as I love hearing about tech.