1891 – David Sarnoff was born near Minsk. He would go on to befriend Marconi and rise to the Presidency of RCA and be integral in founding NBC.
1932 – English physicist James Chadwick published a letter on the existence of the neutron, some say giving birth to modern nuclear physics.
1986 – The United States Senate voted to allow its debates to be televised on a trial basis. The trial was successful.
Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.
Real tech stories. Really shaky analysis.
We here at the Monthly Tech Views obviously hope you enjoy this issue, but we realize it can’t really compete for attention with all of Hollywood coming together to bestow the industry’s most coveted accolade–Best Anti-Donald Trump Speech.
This Standard Is Doubleplusbigly
The FCC will be voting this month to approve voluntary adoption of the broadcast standard ATSC 3.0, which would allow significant benefits like 4K over-the-air broadcasts and interactivity, including giving the viewer the ability to pan, zoom, and choose angles.
Another helpful feature is the possibility for broadcasters to “wake up” a receiver to provide households emergency information, which is simply astounding technology. Why, getting early warning of impending severe weather is in itself almost enough to make you ignore the inevitable moment when someone–let’s say, for argument’s sake, a random elected official–decides a qualifying emergency includes being portrayed unfavorably on Saturday Night Live and all of our televisions turn on so we can hear his rebuttal and they never turn off again and the new interactivity includes the broadcasters (which, let’s be honest, is now only one broadcaster) can see us and hear us and yes, welcome to page one of the updated edition of 1984 which ends with the imprisonment of anyone whose Netflix history contains an Alec Baldwin project, even that one episode of Johnny Bravo.
Oh, and we’ll get panoramic views of sporting events, which is cool.
Wednesdays, 9PM Eastern: Everybody Loves Zuckerberg
Facebook is reportedly developing an app to stream video from set-top boxes like Roku and Apple TV. Facebook is said to be asking media companies to provide TV-quality shows that can be licensed for the app, which might make you think they are pretty darned focused on making this a truly awesome venture, until it dawns on you that there are few terms in the history of terms more vague than “TV-quality.” That covers everything from Game of Thrones to Joanie Loves Chachi. There is probably a Joanie Loves Thrones pilot knocking around out there.
They Can Have The Cherries, And That’s All
Namco founder Masaya Nakamura, known as “The Father of Pac-Man,” passed away at the age of 91. Naturally, Pac-Man is expected to inherit the estate, though the beloved yellow, seven-eighths of a circle fears the will may be contested by “those a-holes” Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde.
Fun Fact: Bus Schedules Are Eligible For All Major Fiction Awards
A Google Maps update includes a Transit tab allowing users to see when the next bus or train is arriving. Haha, not really! Nobody has that information! But enjoy your ritual of checking out the cute little shrug emoji!
Wait, Pizza And Mini-Golf Cost How Much?
Dating app Hinge is testing a virtual assistant named Audrey to message and schedule dates. The service costs $99 per month, which is, of course, ridiculous, because that is the cost of at least five actual dates. Hang on, I have to see why my wife is weeping in misery and softly banging her head on the table again.
How About You Mind Your Own Business Netflix?
During their Hack Day, Netflix engineers designed a picture-in-picture feature allowing you to see what other profiles linked to your account are watching.
“Gulp,” said users who’d told their spouse “I’ll be in the other room doing taxes” as they quickly turned off The Nymphomaniac.
That’ll Show ‘Em
Vizio agreed to pay $2.2 million to settle charges that it collected data from 11 million of their smart TVs without consumers’ consent. “Twenty cents per for each consumer’s viewing habits, gender, age, income, marital status, education level, and more? Okay, you got us,” said Vizio. “We will certainly keep this appropriately punitive measure in mind when we do this again as soon as possible.”
Privacy? Good One
The House of Representatives approved the Email Privacy Act, which requires the government to obtain a warrant for email records. Previously, the requirement was only a subpoena or, presumably, access to a Vizio TV.
Just Don’t Call Them Androids
Apple is rumored to be replacing Touch ID with a front-facing 3D laser scanner to be used for either facial recognition to unlock your phone or accurate human replication to replace us all with clones or cyborgs programmed to spend all disposable income on Apple products. Probably the phone thing.
Takes A Really Long Time To Punch The Card Though
The discovery of two Yahoo data breaches has led to a decrease in Verizon’s cost to acquire Yahoo. The 1.5 billion compromised accounts easily filled Verizon’s Frequent Data Breach card, earning them a $350 million discount and a free 12-inch Italian sub.
So ends the best Tech Views ever, an accomplishment we couldn’t be more proud–
Sorry, wrong envelope. Turns out that distinction goes to an issue from October of 2015. Guess we’ll go drown our sorrows at the Vanity Fair Tech Views party.
Time To Plug The Book!
Where is a book full of these stories, you ask?
This looks to be a likely spot RIGHT HERE!
Time To Plug The Podcast!
I was on a podcast. Well, not just any podcast–the Ritual Misery Podcast! Why? Who knows? But… HERE IT IS.
Monthly Tech Views by Mike Range is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
New phones from LG, Huawei, BlackBerry and Nokia at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
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1896 – Hoping to test the sun’s ability to create X-rays, Henri Becquerel placed a wrapped photographic plate in a closed desk drawer, with phosphorescent uranium rocks laid on top. He left it in the drawer for several days until the sun came out. It was cloudy.
1909 – The first successful color motion picture process, Kinemacolor, was shown to the general public at the Palace Theatre in London.
1935 – Scottish physicist Robert Watson-Watt demonstrated Radio Detection And Ranging to Air Ministry officials at Daventry, England. This RADAR proved quite helpful a few years later when war broke out.
2015 – The US FCC voted 3-2 to implement new Open Internet Rules and classify Internet Service Providers as telecommunications services under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934.
Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.
1837 – The US Patent Office approved Thomas Davenport’s application for a patent on an “Improvement in Propelling Machinery by Magnetism and Electro-Magnetism.” We’d call it an electric motor.
1928 – Charles Jenkins Laboratories of Washington, DC became the first holder of a television license from the Federal Radio Commission.
1930 – A US patent for a photographing apparatus was issued to George Lewis McCarthy, who called it a Checkograph. It was the first bank check photographing device.
Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.
Why the Cloudflare leak does affect you and why you shouldn’t panic, but might want to change your passwords. Plus 5G specs announced and Google sort of sues Uber.
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A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.
If you are willing to support the show or give as little as 5 cents a day on Patreon. Thank you!
Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!
Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!
Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit
Show Notes
To read the show notes in a separate page click here!
Cloudflare suffers massive leak, Waymo sues Uber, Apple fixes some iPhone shutdowns.
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A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.
If you are willing to support the show or give as little as 5 cents a day on Patreon. Thank you!
Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the theme music.
Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!
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1949 – A modified German V-2 ballistic missile launched from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, reaching an altitude of 244 miles, and putting it well above the Kármán line. It was the first US rocket to reach “outer space.”
1955 – A boy was born to University of Wisconsin graduate students Joanne Simpson and Abdulfattah Jandali. He was given up for adoption and taken in by a machinist and his wife in Mountain View, California. They named him Steve Jobs.
2011 – The Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off from Cape Canaveral on its final mission.
2014 – Samsung announced the Galaxy S5 with a heart rate sensor and water and dust proofing.
Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.
A new AI to moderate comments, SHA-1 is finally broken and why everyone is furious at Uber.
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Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.
Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.
Follow us on Soundcloud.
A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.
If you are willing to support the show or give as little as 5 cents a day on Patreon. Thank you!
Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!
Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!
Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit
Show Notes
To read the show notes in a separate page click here!
SHA-1 is broken, What Fitbit paid for Pebble and AI moderation of comments.
Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.
Follow us on Soundcloud.
A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.
If you are willing to support the show or give as little as 5 cents a day on Patreon. Thank you!
Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the theme music.
Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!
Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit
Show Notes
To read the show notes in a separate page click here!