Every Monday morning at 7:10 am, I am a guest contributor on CHOM 97.7 FM radio out of Montreal (home base). It’s not a long segment – about 10 minutes every week – about everything that is happening in the world of technology and digital media. The good folks at CHOM 97.7 FM are posting these segments weekly on i Heart Radio, if you’re interested in hearing more of me blathering away about what’s going on in the digital world. I’m really excited about this opportunity, because this is the radio station that I grew up listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry DiMonte morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.

This week we discussed: 

• Apple held their big event last week in New York City. It’s not the “big big” one (where we get new iPhones, etc…), but it’s the second biggest one (mostly hardware related). The big news was a new MacBook Air and iPad Pro. With that, there was a new Apple Pencil, Mac Mini, iOS 12.1 (Group FaceTime, 70 new emojis and multiple SIM support). So, not much new, but lots of upgrades. Watch Amazon… they’re getting more and more important with their product launches, in comparison.
• Has Facebook hit a plateau? To many, last week’s Facebook earnings report was not so great. They reported less revenue than the Wall Street analysts thought, but the bigger news was fewer new users (in the regions that matter). Facebook is actually shrinking in the US, Canada and Europe. The raw numbers: they have 2.2 billion users… and the user base is still growing (they added 22 million new daily users last quarter), but it’s happening in parts of the world where they are not making any money from the users. What’s going on at Facebook? 
• Remember Google Glass? That didn’t work out too great, but people did use their smartphones for Augmented Reality technology (think Pokemon Go). Maybe Google had bad timing? What about Snapchat and their Spectacles? That didn’t work too well either. Maybe Snapchat had bad timing? Well, let’s see if third time is the charm. Facebook confirmed that they are building augmented reality glasses. Will they get it right? 
• App of the Week: Amazon Alexa.