Winter Movie Draft, Triage, Jessica Jones (Season 1), Fargo (207)
01:08 – Winter Movie Draft
03:28 – Triage (Winter Movie Draft)
05:16 – Jessica Jones (Season 1)
27:55 – Fargo (207)
Today in Tech History – December 2, 2015
In 1942 – Enrico Fermi, Leo Szilard and their colleagues achieved a successful nuclear fission chain reaction in a squash court underneath the football grandstand of the University of Chicago’s Stagg Field. The atomic age had begun.
In 1982 – A Seattle dentist named Barney Clark, deemed too sick for a heart transplant, became the first human recipient of a permanent artificial heart, the Jarvik 7. He survived for 112 days.
In 1993 – NASA launched the Space Shuttle Endeavour on a mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, turning the Hubble from a late night talk show joke to the source of some of the most beautiful and valuable astronomy yet done.
Like Tech History? Get the illustrated Year in Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.
DTNS 2636 – “Honey? What’s this letter from the City?”
Delivery services like Amazon Prime Now make purchase and delivery convenient. Too convenient? Is this much convenience good for us? Allison Sheridan tells Tom Merritt how Amazon saved her Thanksgiving and whether that’s a good thing.
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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!
#237 – Charles E. Gannon And Big Idea Books
Author Chuck Gannon joins us on the show this week to talk about his most recent work in the Caine Riordan series (Raising Caine), as well as helping the government figure out the future as part of SIGMA. This is one busy guy, let me tell you.
Today in Tech History – December 1, 2015
In 1847 – The London and North Western Railway along with the Caledonian Railway adopted London Time on instructions from the General Post Office. Other railways followed suit and this was seen as the establishment of the first time zone.
In 1913 – Henry Ford added the moving-chassis assembly line to produce Model T’s in his Highland Park, Michigan factory. It was the crowning glory in his attempts to increase efficiency and production.
In 1977 – Time Warner launched QUBE in Columbus, Ohio, the first two-way interactive cable system. One of its channels called “The Pinwheel” would later be relaunched as Nickelodeon.
Like Tech History? Get the illustrated Year in Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.
Cordkillers 98 – Ask-It Basket
The top shipping streaming boxes may surprise you as will how well TiVo is doing. And Amazon wants all your streaming money in one place.
CordKillers: 98 – Ask-It Basket
Recorded: November 30 2015
Guest: None
Intro Video
Primary Target
- Chromecast Crushes Apple TV, Roku And Amazon Fire In New Sales Figures
– Stratgey Analytics report
– 1/4 smart TVs in use worldwide is Samsung
– Chromecast top streaming device sales 9.2 million 35%
– Apple TV 20%, Fire TV 16%, Roku 16% (Q3 shipments BEFORE new Rokus Fire and Apple TVs)
– All connected devices (Smart TVs, Blu-Ray game consoles, streamers) reached 53 million in Q3, on pace for 17% rise 221 million units full year.
Signal Intelligence
- Amazon to bundle other services into Prime Video
– “People with knowledge of the plans” say Amazon will let Prime members bundle on-demand networks
– Add “major, well-known movie and TV channels”
– “Amazon will also sell prepackaged bundles of its own creation”
– May go live as soon as next month
– “Amazon will manage customer relationships for major media companies“
– Landing pages for each service would exist within prime
– Also working on technology that would permit users to directly log into other streaming services using Amazon credentials.
– Prime estimated to have 44 million members (Consumer Intelligence Research Partners)
– Netflix reports 43. 2 million US
Gear Up
- TiVo revenue rises on increased subscribers
- TiVo Quick Mode comes to Roamios
– TiVo reported 12% increase Q3 revenue of 12$ (profits down)
– Added 429,000 subscribers to 6.5 million up 26%. (4 million outside US)
– Churn rate fell from 1.6% to 1.4%
– Increased distribution agreements – services and software rose 22%
– Costs rising
-Projecting loss of 5-8 million in Q4 because of 11-12 million payout to departing CEO Tom Rogers
– QuickMode, the TiVo feature that lets you speed up video playback with pitch-corrected audio, has arrived for all TiVo Roamio models. The feature came to the new TiVo Bolt last week. Romeo users will also see a new look on the Guide and faster OTA channel scanning.
Front Lines
- Facebook has a fix for frustrating password entry on the Apple TV
– Facebook has an SDK for Apple’s tvOS that lets app developers use Facebook to log in to their services. Users would see a code on screen and enter it at facebook.com/devices. - Amazon Video Might Be Coming To The Apple TV After All
– Dan Bostonweeks says on Twitter that he sent feedback to Amazon asking for an Amazon Video app for the new Apple TV. Amazon wrote back and said “hopefully in a few weeks span, you will be able to see the Amazon Instant video app feature on your Apple TV.” - BBC Three will be switched off in February, but will the yoof follow it online?
– For real this time. The BBC Trust has confirmed that a gradual switch off of BBC Three broadcasts will begin in January to be completed by end of February. Instead of broadcasting 7PM to 4AM, BBC Three’s shows will be made available on BBC’s iPlayer. - YouTube Enters The App Store’s Top Grossing Charts, Thanks To YouTube Red Subscriptions
– YouTube is now ranked one of iOS’s top grossing apps, implying that people are paying to go commercial free with YouTube Red, which you can buy from within the YouTube app. YouTube is not one of the highest grossing apps on Google’s own Play store. - Amazon’s first original UK drama will be set in post-war Paris
– Amazon’s first original UK drama will come to Prime in 2016. It’s called The Collection and tells the story of two brother working in a prominent Paris fashion house after World War II. - Alien Covenant will be the first film in a new prequel trilogy
– Ridley Scott has said that instead of a sequel to Prometheus, Alien: Covenant will be the beginning of its own trilogy, albeit still set between Prometheus and Alien. Noomi Rapace will make a brief appearance and Michael Fassbender will have a lead role. shooting begins in Australia in May.
Under Surveillance
- Amazon will stream the first episode of Transparent’s second season tonight
– The first episode of season 2 of Transparent is out on Amazon as of 8 PM Eastern Monday. It apparently involves a wedding for Sarah and Tammy.
-The whole season arrives December 11 in the US, UK, Germany and Austria. - Sesame Street’s first HBO season will premiere on January 16th
– The first HBO season of Sesame Street, season 46, will premiere January 16th at 9 AM with two 30 minute episodes. Sesame Street used to be an hour. It will also apparently have a new theme song. These episodes come to PBS at the end of 2016. HBO Now and HBO Go will have five years of library episodes - Brian: Jessica Jones 7-13, Fargo
- Tom: Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Adele at the BBC, Fargo (207), Master of None (Season 1), Star Wars Rebels, Clone Wars, The Walking Dead (608), The Leftovers (209), Once Upon a Time, The Last Man on Earth
- Bryce: Empire
Dispatches from the Front
Amazon video vs Netflix interface. Yes, there’s a lot wrong w/Amazon’s interface, BUT, its X-ray feature, which I dismissed at first, makes it feel like Netflix is missing out on a huge feature. X-ray, you click a button and it tells you the name of the characters on screen and the actors. Very useful for keeping track of who’s who in shows with huge casts. Click up and you can drill down into each actor and it lists the movies and shows they’re most famous for. Click down and you’re back in the content. It’s like those popup bubbles on I forget what cable channel it was, but when you want it and what you want. You may already have talked about it and know about it but I’ve ignored the feature for so long, I didn’t know what I missed. Maybe others have as well.”
– Steve
Android TV as a platform has a lot of the big native apps. It adds even more with Cast support built-in. But the only standout Android TV hardware, the NVidia Shield, is focused on gaming first. TiVo is stuck trying to convince developers to support yet another platform. TiVo misses enough of the big apps that it can’t be a cord cutters Only box. TiVo would easily stand out IF they could make a combined OTA DVR & Android TV box. The combined feature would be unmatched by the other big players. Google should have incentive to help in order to drive further adoption of their platform. Partnership is cheaper and easier than building or buying a platform. It is a big IF on how they could develop such a box, or even IF the new CEO would want one. But looking at the lessons of Blackberry & Nokia in phones, if this is the move, better to make it sooner than later.”
– Roy
Hi Tom & Brian,
Just a brief review of my experience on the PlayStation Vue service that I tried over the holiday weekend.
I don’t own a PlayStation, but used the service with my Fire TV Stick. I like the interface and the picture quality is more than good enough. While watching live TV you can almost forget you are watching streamed content.
However, the DVR functionality was lacking. After advancing or rewinding, the video would repeat itself multiple times. It would often freeze as well, causing me to close the app and restart it. Of course, this happened while I was trying to sell my wife using this to cut the cord.
I wondering if these problems are due to me using the Fire TV stick, a problem with the service or just bad luck.”
– John
“In episode 97, the talk of people now being more loyal to individual shows instead of broadcast networks really struck a chord (no pun intended) with me. I rarely even think about what network a show is on anymore. I don’t think, “”Oh yeah, FOX is the channel with Gotham.”” I just know I need to watch it on Hulu. The network is mostly irrelevant to me.
… I think a la carte becomes far more interesting when we’re talking about picking and choosing individual shows instead. …I would love a streaming service that charged perhaps a nominal base fee per month, and then allowed you to pick and choose shows to add to your monthly account at a reasonable monthly rate. Want to subscribe to Agents of SHIELD for an additional $2.99 per month? Just click the check box. Decided you really didn’t care for Heroes Reborn after a few episodes? Uncheck it for next month.
You can kind of do program a la carte now by buying seasons on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, etc., but at ~$20 a season, it’s a much bigger up-front investment, and locks you in to a show that you might not want to continue watching a few episodes in.
Love the show,
– Justin
As a long-time timeshifter (Three Beta machines at one time, then TiVo, now MythTV and RoKu), I’m still in search of something that fully replaces the TiVo season pass. Sure RoKu and other streaming devices allow searching across multiple services to find a program, but I want something to manage the shows that I already do watch.. So, when the new Daredevil episodes come
out, they should pop onto the list of available un-seen episodes automatically. I shouldn’t have to constantly check Man in the High Castle to see if the newest episodes are out yet. So, I want the device to keep track of what series I watch and keep tabs for new episodes, then once I have watched them.. The Netflix “”My List”” can sort of do that, but just for Netflix content, so long as I manually add/remove shows when new content is available and when I finish the current episodes.. With all of the steaming
services coming around, I want to manage all of them consistently and not have to constantly be manually polling each service and show to find if new episodes are available. That tedium is what computers are good at.”
– Marcus
Links
DTNS 2635 – Are Macs Losing Their Steam?
Is gaming dying on the Mac, choked by lack of video card power? Veronica Belmont and Tom Merritt discuss with Patrick Beja.
Using a Screen Reader? Click here
Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.
Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.
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!
Today in Tech History – November 30, 2015
In 1934 – The steam locomotive Flying Scotsman became the first to officially exceed 100 mph.
In 1955 – A Colorado Springs youngster misdialed a telephone number set up for inquiries about Santa and accidentally called the Combat Operations Center of the Continental Air Defense Command. COC Commander Col. Harry Shoup told the child “There may be a guy called Santa Claus at the North Pole, but he’s not the one I worry about coming from that direction.”
In 1999 – British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems merged to form BAE Systems, Europe’s largest defense contractor and the fourth largest aerospace firm in the world. Marconi had been founded by Guglielmo Marconi in 1897.
In 2006 – Microsoft released Windows Vista for business use. Vista improved on security over Windows XP, but took criticism for other features, and never rivaled Windows XP in adoption.
Like Tech History? Get the illustrated Year in Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.
Today in Tech History – November 29, 2015
In 1777 – The Spanish founded California’s first civilian settlement called Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe. It would become the future state’s first capital and eventually the heart of Silicon Valley.
In 1910 – The first US patent for a traffic signal system was issued to Ernest E. Sirrine. It switched an illuminated sign between the words “stop” and “proceed”
In 1972 – Nolan Bushnell installed a coin-operated arcade game at Andy Capp’s tavern in Sunnyvale, California. It only played Allan Alcorn’s Pong. Within four months there were 10,000 across the country.
In 1974 – The January issues of Popular Electronics was published featuring the Altair 8800 microcomputer from Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems in Albuquerque, New Mexico on the cover. For $439 you got everything you needed to build a computer in one kit boasting 256 bytes of memory!
Like Tech History? Get the illustrated Year in Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.
Weekly Tech Views 20 – Nov 28, 2015
Real tech stories. Really shaky analysis.
You’ve found it–a five-minute break from our most revered holiday tradition: listening to people try to sell you stuff.*
For the week of November 23 – 27, 2015
Can’t I Just Post To Her Timeline?
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that he will take two months paternity leave when his baby is born, proclaiming, “Studies show that outcomes are better when parents take time to be with their newborns.” Asked why he’s not using the entire four months that Facebook policy allows, Mr. Zuckerberg appeared to hyperventilate, then he pulled tight his hoodie drawstring, leaving only a dime-sized opening, and screamed, “Two months of constant crying, no sleep, and ungodly smells–good lord, that isn’t enough?!” He then pulled back the hood, spent ten seconds rapidly blinking and shaking his head before calmly asking, “I’m sorry, what was the question?”
How About I Enjoy The “Go Away”?
UK carrier EE is considering allowing customers to block some kinds of ads. I am ready to announce right now that this is the Weekly Tech Views story of the year–IF U.S. carriers pick up on this and I’m never again subjected to that family of bears and their disturbingly giddy use of toilet paper.
Let’s All Go To The Lobby–It’s Only A Half-Mile Round Trip
Thirty percent of retailers use facial recognition software to track consumers in their stores. They believe this will not only help to identify known shoplifters, but to improve the customer experience by, for example, allowing alterations to the store layout depending on how long people spend in different areas. Following this lead, cameras are hurriedly being installed over the next few weeks in movie theater lobbies to improve the movie-going experience for the more discriminating fans attending Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The cameras will identify the image of Jar Jar Binks on clothing, resulting in the wearer automatically receiving a ticket to Theater 24, the 50-seater waaaaay back in the far corner of the complex–the one that maybe doesn’t get cleaned if time is short and the employees aren’t exactly hustling–where movies like Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension usually play in their fifth week.
Chrome Shot First
Speaking of Star Wars, you can add The Force Awakens themes (you even get to choose dark or light side) to Google apps, which installs a light saber progress bar in YouTube and a TIE Fighter or X-Wing fighter as your Google Maps position marker. I personally hope that a search in Google Shopping for “fur coat” results in endless images of women with a very annoyed Chewbacca draped across their backs.
I Don’t Suppose There’s A Super Mario Fallout 4 Galaxy?
Sony announced that the PlayStation 4 has surpassed 30 million units sold, a 5 million unit increase since July. Over that same four months, Nintendo sold 0.7 million Wii Us, the majority of which were purchased by grandmothers for a grandkid who had actually asked for a PS4, but “this one sounds like Wheeee You! so it must be more fun, sweetie.”
Just A Programmer Being A Programmer
When an unidentified programmer left his place of employment, a coworker found a collection of scripts the programmer had used to automate his work life, including automatically emailing in sick if he hadn’t logged in by 8:45am, texting his wife an excuse for being late getting home, and hacking a company coffee machine to prepare his latte in the exact time it took him to get to the machine. Asked for comment, his former boss replied, “It makes me really curious about why he asked if the toilets could be networked.”
Black Pi-day
Raspberry Pi has released a new five dollar version of the tiny computer, the Pi Zero. It’s half the size of last year’s Model A+, but twice as powerful. If you’re looking for a great stocking-stuffer, you can get this incredible deal now at raspberrypi.org. Haha! No, of course you can’t! They were sold out by the time you read the words “five dollar.”
Because An Exploding Zombie Head Can Never Be Too Big
LG is building a new plant to make OLED panels for everything from watch faces to large screen TVs. Production is expected to begin in 2018, when large screen TVs will be known as “the living room wall.”
You Can Hear “Hello” When Pandora Is Damned Good And Ready For You To Hear “Hello”
While they won’t be available to on-demand music streaming services like Spotify, every track from Adele’s new 25 album will be there for Pandora users. So, Adele fans, fire up Pandora and hear the complete album, one song every forty-five minutes or so, each track separated by thirteen songs by Lana Del Rey, Ellie Goulding, Natasha Bedingfield, and eight commercials.
* I… uh… can’t necessarily promise the same next week.**
** Who said eBook?
Okay, everybody, time to hunt down the last of the pie and ignore some jewelry commercials. See you next week.
Weekly Tech Vies Blog by Mike Range is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.