John Sciacca

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The Connected Life
6 Tips for Keeping Your Wi-Fi Network Secure
John Sciacca  |  Aug 19, 2015
ABC’s Nightline recently ran a segment called “Smart Homes, the Future of High-Tech Living” where they discussed different aspects of living in a smart home. Part of the segment demonstrated a smart home’s potential vulnerability to being hacked, giving outsiders access to your home and data. Nightline drove the point home by having a hacker sit outside a home with a high-powered directional antenna while he logged into the Wi-Fi network and started wreaking all manner of havoc, including unlocking her front door.
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The Connected LifeAudio Video News
Dolby Atmos Continues to Impress
John Sciacca  |  Jul 21, 2015
Custom Theater and Audio's Atmos-equipped demo room.

A lot has been written over the past few months about Dolby’s new home theater surround format, Atmos. Virtually every receiver manufacturer and many speaker companies have embraced Atmos-capable systems, both with in-ceiling and Atmos-enabled module speakers.

One of the perks of working at a custom installation firm with a showroom is having a playground to install and experience the latest technologies firsthand before installing them into someone’s home...

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The Connected Life
The Best Dolby Atmos Blu-ray Demos
John Sciacca  |  Jul 14, 2015
I’ve been fortunate enough to watch nearly every Dolby Atmos encoded Blu-ray disc that has been released so far. While some of the movies are terrific (Gravity) others are more just things you suffer through (Jupiter Ascending). To save you some time trying to find the best scenes to demo, I’m gonna pinpoint each film’s marquee Atmos audio moment! (Some spoilers ahead…)

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The Connected Life
Wi-Fi Pineapple: A Rotten Piece of Fruit
John Sciacca  |  Jun 03, 2015
While doing some research for an upcoming Connected Life column on Wi-Fi security practices, I stumbled across a practically rotten piece of “fruit” called the Wi-Fi Pineapple. And while the company that makes this, Hak5, says that it serves “penetration testers, law enforcement, military and government” the sub $100 device is available to anyone and is designed to “enable users to quickly and easily deploy advanced attacks.” With the Pineapple performing hotspot honeypot, man-in-the-middle attacks, a hacker could quickly and easily have access to all of the data and information from your browsing sessions. If you frequently connect to Wi-Fi hotspots when you’re out and about, here are some things you need to know about the Pineapple in order to better safeguard yourself.
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Custom Installation Equipment Reviews
Niles Auriel MRC-6430 Multiroom Audio Controller Review
John Sciacca  |  Jun 02, 2015

Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
PRICE $4,070 as reviewed

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Incredibly simple setup
Terrific home theater integration
Easily handles both analog and IP sources
Minus
No native sources
Typical Class D sound quality

THE VERDICT
Auriel is a breeze to set up, provides control over legacy and modern sources, and offers home theater integration along with a variety of easy-to-use interfaces.

Housewide audio distribution systems varied little in their design and feature set for many years. Whether they were from Niles, Elan, SpeakerCraft, NuVo, or Russound, you could essentially count on them offering six analog audio source inputs, onboard amplification for six stereo zones, and connections for a variety of controllers, usually including an in-wall keypad.

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The Connected Life
Apple Watch Aims to Reinvent Home Automation
John Sciacca  |  May 27, 2015
Telling time appears to an ancillary function of the Apple Watch but you'll be able to control your home.
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The Connected Life
The Internet of Things Is Upon Us
John Sciacca  |  Apr 22, 2015
While video manufacturers were busy demonstrating their takes on the technologies best suited for UHDTV, espousing the relative merits of High Dynamic Range and wider color gamuts, and discussing the all-important question of 4K content delivery methods at the International Consumer Electronics Show back in January, everyone else seemed concerned with making sure practically every device imaginable will be connected to the Internet in some form or fashion.
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The Connected Life
Time to Buy Star Wars…Again?
John Sciacca  |  Apr 08, 2015
You’ve likely heard that Star Wars will be re-released in a digital movie collection on Friday (April 10th), finally allowing people to legally own and enjoy all six of the films (or at least enjoy four of them, tolerate Episode II and just agree to disagree on most of the filmmaking decisions from Episode I ) on a host of devices wherever they are.

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The Connected Life
Gone in 60 Seconds: Protect Your Data!
John Sciacca  |  Mar 23, 2015
A few years ago, I attended a product demonstration at CES by a company famous for touting how durable its hard drives were. In fact, the company—ioSafe—calls its products “disaster proof hardware” and used CES to deliver extreme, over-the-top demonstrations to prove just what kind of damage their drives could withstand and still protect all of the data stored within.
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Surround Sound System ReviewsHome Theater Systems ReviewsSoundbar ReviewsWireless Multiroom Speaker Reviews
Definitive Technology Wireless Collection Multiroom Audio System Review
John Sciacca  |  Mar 13, 2015

W Studio Soundbar System
Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
W9 Wireless Speaker
Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
W7 Wireless Speaker
Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
W Amp Amplifier
Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
PRICE $3,295 as reviewed

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Stellar audio quality
Sleek-looking components

Minus
Android app is pretty basic
iOS app very limited
Doesn’t currently support true high-res listening

THE VERDICT
The speakers sound amazing and the W Studio soundbar is a home run even without its multiroom capabilities, but the limited Play-Fi app for streaming leaves Def Tech’s W system lagging behind the best multiroom systems.

For a while, audio manufacturers seemed resigned to give it the ol’ “lie back and think of England” routine when it came to accepting Sonos as the dominant force in the wireless audio world. Sure, they might not have liked it, but they weren’t offering any compelling alternatives of their own. And while there had been some challengers in the past, most fell well short of the Sonos benchmark and quickly faded.

This tide has changed lately, however, and the war for wireless audio is heating up. Multiple systems are now offering their spin on wireless music distribution and hoping to take a bite out of the Wi-Fi audio pie. And unlike past attempts, several of these new solutions are not only good, they’re great. Darryl Wilkinson recently reviewed two top rivals for Sonos’ throne, Bluesound (S&V, June 2014) and Denon’s HEOS (S&V, January 2015). Now, well-regarded speaker manufacturer Definitive Technology is throwing its hat into the ring by embracing Play-Fi in its new Wireless Collection.

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