Nicole Lee joins the show to talk about the Best of CES– and some of the worst.

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If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here or giving 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

Today’s guest:  Nicole Lee, senior editor Engadget

Check out Engadget’s Best of CES finalists written by Nicole Lee!

Headlines

Intel had its keynote address at CES last night and Brian Krzanich showed off Curie, a tiny computer with an Intel Quark low-power chip and Bluetooth that can be used in rings, bracelets and even buttons. Reuters reports Curie is due later in 2015. Krzanich also announced the company is investing $300 million in math-related education and other programs to help employ more women and minorities in the technology and the video game industries. Krzanich also announced a goal to reach full representation of women and minorities in Intel’s workforce by 2020.

AT&T announced that beginning January 25th, customers with the Mobile Share Value plan can roll over unused data to the next month. Rollover minutes only last a month and are only used after all normal plan data is used.

Nicole Lee got a look at the Avegant Glyph, a stylish pair of Beats-looking headphones that can also project a video screen on your eyes when you tilt them down to cover your face. A smartphone or other device with an HDMI cable provides the video. Small DLP arrays bounce light directly on your retina, giving the appearance you’d get from an 80-inch screen with a 40% field of view. You can preorder the Glyph for $499 until mid-January when the price jumps to $599. Avegant will ship production versions to its Kickstarter backers in late 2015 and others by the end of the year.

Wired Reports US FBI Director James Coney told an audience at the International Conference on Cyber Security today that the Sony Pictures Entertainment attackers sometimes failed to use proxies and in Coneys words, “we could see that the IPs they were using…were exclusively used by the North Koreans.” He also said a behavorial analysis unit trained to analyze writing and action also was used as evidence.

Remember yesterday when Patrick asked when the Pono will be available? Now, Patrick. The Verge has a look at Neil Young’s triangular high-fi music player available to the general public for $399. It comes with 64 GB of built in storage, plus a 64 GB microSD card and can hold microSD cards up to 128 GB in size. The software is Android based and according to the Verge, “pretty basic”. The Pono is available in black or orange. Ok fine, but what about the music? The Pono plays almost any kind of audio file, FLAC, WAV, Apple Lossless. OK fine, but how does it SOUND? According to the Verge reporter Chris Welch — “pretty fantastic.”

Engadget wrote up Intel’s HDMI Compute Stick, which is a 4-inch long Windows 8.1 machine. The HDMI dongle has a quad-core ATOM CPU, 32 GB of storage, 2 GB of RAM a USB port WiFi and Bluetooth 4 plus a mini-USB for power. The Intel product page even mentions a micro SD card slot It arrives in March for $149. You can also get a version with only 1 GB of RAM and 8 GBof storage with Linux for $89.

The MHL Consortium announced SuperMHL a new connector format that can play 8K video at 120 fps and color ranges up to 48-bit. You can also link multiple SuperMHL devices and charge with up to 40W of power. It also supports Dolby Atmos and DTS-UHD AND its reversible. o what awesome devices use the spec? None. The spec will be done at the end of January. So maybe next CES for the devices.

Spoiler alert: This story may spoil your appetite. Forever. But bear with us. Bill Gates funded something called The OmniProcessor, and yesterday he went and checked it out. And by checked out, we mean that Bill Gates drank clean water that was reclaimed from human waste. HOLD ON. The Omniprocessor is a building-sized machine that boils sewer sludge boils sewer sludge, burns the dried sludge to create steam which powers a steam engine to make electricty and then the steam is cleaned to become pure drinking water. Janicki Bioenergy created the machine, which is scheduled for a pilot run in Senegal later this year. But Bill, how did it TASTE? “It’s water,” Gates said after taking the worlds smallest ever sip.

Reuters reports Xiaomi has started allowing its phones to be sold in stores in India, changing its online-only approach. The Redmi Note 4G will be sold in Bharti Airtel shops in six cities at 133 locations. Xiaomi also plans to launch its pricier Mi4 by the end of this month or early next.

 

 

Engadget reports on the first phone from Saygus in five years and we mention it mostly for you spec lovers. 256 GB of storage a 21MP rear camera, 13 MP front camera, stereo Harmon Kardon speakers, 60GHz WiFi. The rest is fairly standard, a 5-inch 1080p screen 2.5 GHz Qualcomm quad core processor and 3 GB of RAM. Price and release date? Ha ha. No.

The Verge reports that FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler says the FCC will vote on net neutrality on February 26th, 2015. Wheeler spoke just now in a public interview at CES, saying “We’re going to circulate it to the commissioners on February 5th and vote on it February 26th.”

 

News From You

The world-beating t2t2 who among many super powers hosts our chat room at irc.dtns.tv submitted this PC Gamer article that Riot, makers of League of Legends, is QUOTE “in the process of creating our own direct network for League traffic and working with ISPs across the US and Canada to connect players to this network.” They hope to ave it up and running as early as March. The idea is to reduce ping time, packet loss and stabilize connections. So rather than try to push governments to give them help with business deals Riot just decided to build their own Autonomous Network backbone. Go Riot.

habichuelacondulce sent us the 9 to 5 mac report that Monster announced it will sue Beats Electronics for allegedly stealing its headphone technology. The suit accuses Iovine and and Dre of “deliberate acts of corporate betrayal” claiming the two “engaged in a conspiracy and course of conduct to improperly cpntrol Monster’s incredibly successful engineering, manufacturing, marketing, distributin and sales channels. ..” The original Beats headphones were developed in partnership with Monster but when HTC acquired Beats, a change of control provision was cited as a reason to terminate the partnership.

 

 

Discussion Section: CES Best of finalists

http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/07/introducing-the-best-of-ces-2015-finalists/

http://www.engadget.com/about/editors/nicole-lee/

http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/06/anova-touch-wifi-sous-vide/

http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/06/avegant-glyph-headphones/

http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/06/mophie-iphone-6-plus/

http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/05/secret-event-ces2015/

http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/02/sony-smartwatch-3-review/

http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/05/nvidia-x1-benchmarks-performance/

http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/05/gogoro-smart-scooter/

http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/04/zensorium-being/

http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/05/samsung-ces-keynote-liveblog/

Pick of the Day:

Awhile back Kevin was listening to Darren Kitchen and I talk about the possibility of Facebook getting a dislike button and we mentioned it would be nice if you could select different emotions. Kevin writes: “The discussion reminded me of a site that aggregates and summarizes the hottest news, called Newser (www.newser.com). I have used this site for years, and really like how it presents news. If you look at a story, you have the option to click a reaction to the story. They offer Hilarious, Depressing, Scary, Intriguing, Brilliant, and Ridiculous as options (see the attached image). They then allow users to search news based on what type of story they want based on the reactions.

Announcements!

Our next DTNS contributors have been announced: Scott Johnson and Veronica Belmont!  If you’d like to hear more of Scott and Veronica, go here: patreon.com/acedtect

DTNS has an Instagram account! Jennie will be posting from CES until she falls down.  http://instagram.com/dtnspix/ 

Tomorrow’s guest: Justin Robert Young

Patrick Beja and Patrick Norton are here to talk about the top stories out of CES as well as the fight for one standard in the Internet of Things and wireless charging.

MP3

 

Using a Screen Reader? click here

Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

A special thanks to all our Patreon supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here at the low, low cost of a nickel 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

Today’s guests: Patrick Norton of TekThing.com and Patrick Beja, DTNS Contributor and host of Le Rendez-vous Tech, Pixels and The Phileas Club

Headlines

Sony announced the Walkman ZX2 a high-end music player. Yep. Music player. Or as Sony puts it “the fruit of continuous refinement in high audio quality technologies.” It has a matte black case and runs Android 4.2. Yep. Jelly Bean. It can do apps but it’s meant to do DSD, WAV, AIFF, FLAC, Apple Lossless and even MP3 up to 192 KHz/24 bits, plus it has Bluetooth and NFC and 128 GB of storage. The ZX2 launches this spring for more than $1,119.99 according to the Verge. The very first walkman in 1979 sold for $150 which would be $536 in 2015.

Gaming company Razer and professional VR company Sensics announced an effort to standardize Virtual Reality development.  The Platform is called Open Source Virtual Reality or OSVR. Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan called it the “Android of virtual Reality”
meaning it’s not meant to compete with things like Oculus— but instead become a standard for cross-platform compatibility.  Apps built with it can run on Windows Android and Linux. A devkit will be released in June 2015 for $200 with a 1920 x 1080 screen and 100-degree field of view. A limited test run will be made available at GDC in March.

Razer also debuted the Forge TV a 4×4 inch microconsole running Android meant to sell for $99 in Q1. It has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 quadcore processor, an Adreno 420 GPU 16GB of storage and 2GB of RAM. It runs Razer’s Cortex:Stream which delivers low-latency and HD resolution improvements to cut down on lag as PC games are streamed to the Forge TV. Users can also stream music, video, and use other apps and control the console using iOS, Android, ChromeBook, and Windows devices.

9 to 5 mac reports that Apple is selling fully unlocked, SIM-free iPhone 6 and 6 Plus phones in Apple’s US retail and online stores. Previously T-Mobile was the only US carrier selling unlocked iPhones. Pricing remains $649 to $949 depending on screen size and choice of storage space. You just don’t get a SIM card.

CNET reports that Fitbit unveiled two new wearables that track your heart rate as well activities– the Fitbit Charge HR and the Fitbit Surge. The Charge HR includes 24 hour heart rate monitoring. The Surge, Fitbit’s first official smartwatch, adds GPS, text message notification and music control. Both provide caller ID, sleep monitoring, heart monitoring and EVEN show you the time of day. The Charge HR costs $150 USD and the Surge smartwatch $250. Software updates will allow users to link five devices to one Fitbit account.

CNET reports on Lenovo’s LaVie Z series which promises a 13-inch clamshell laptop, the LaVie Z HZ550 that weighs 1.72 pounds, and a Yoga-style 13-inch hybrid the LaVie Z HZ750 at 2.04 pounds. The company claims both are the lightest models available in their class.
A magnesium-lithium chassis is 50% lighter than aluminum according to Lenovo.  Both models have screens available up to 2560 x 1440 and use Broadwell chips. The HZ550 laptop will start at $1,299 and the HZ750 hybrid will start at $1,499, with both available in the US in May.  Both models will be available in Japan sometime in the spring.

Lenovo also announced the Yoga Tablet 2 with AnyPen conductive display that requires you to use a pencil or ballpoint pen to write on the screen. The Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 will be available in January 2015 starting at $299.

Ars Technica reports Broadcom announced a chip for cable modems today that allow for gigabit per second Internet service. Comcast was quick to jump in and say they’ll implement the chips along with DOCSIS 3.1 this year. Comcast’s fastest residential service today is 505Mbps downstream and 100Mbps upstream.

As if screaming for attention, the Apple rumor mill spun into high gear today. 9to5 Mac says sources within Apple say the next 12-inch MacBook Air will be smaller than the current 13-inch version and narrower than the 11-inch model. Along with other design tweaks and moved power button the big bombshell in the rumor is that there would only be one USB Type-C port and a headphone jack with no other ports.  The rumored ship date is mid-2015. — ALSO 9to5 Mac says “sources familiar with the product’s development” say the Apple Watch will ship to the US by the end of March.

GigaOm notes that Microsoft has opened up its Office apps for Android to all. The Android versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint are still preview editions but can be obtained from the Google Play Store. Your tablet will need to be ARM-powered with a screen size between 7 and 10.1 inches and be running Android KitKat or Lollipop.

News From You

KAPT_Kipper pointed out The Verge article about The Internet Archive at archive.org has added 2,400 MS-DOS games to its library for you to play for free in a browser. The collection includes id Software’s Commander Keen, the apocalyptic RPG Wasteland, the original Prince of Persia, early FPS games like Wolfenstein 3D, and many more.

starfuryzeta passes along the TechCrunch report that Intel has shut down all of its Russian-language developer forums as a result of the Russian government’s new “Blogger law. The law, announced last year, puts tighter controls on sites with more than 3,000 daily readers including mandatory registration.  Those who violate the law are subject to fines.  Intel is redirecting Russian users to post on Intel pages on third-party sites, or English language Intel sites hosted outside of Russia.

ancrod2 posted the Gizmodo story that’s been kicking around all week that GoGo’s inflight WiFi service is using man-in-the-middle tactics. A Google engineer named Adrienne Porter Felt posted a screenshot on Twitter showing GoGo was issuing its own google.com security certificate when she was loading YouTube.com. That’s usually a sign of a man in the middle attack. GoGo said in a statement that “One of the recent off-the-shelf solutions that we use proxies secure video traffic to block it.” In other words its bandwidth shaping that’s at fault.

 

Discussion Section: Standards!

http://www.cnet.com/news/key-wireless-charging-groups-a4wp-pma-agree-to-merge/#ftag=CAD590a51e

http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/06/pma-a4wp-merger/?ncid=rss_truncated

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30692154

https://gigaom.com/2015/01/06/smartthings-next-generation-hub-will-support-thread-and-the-oic/

http://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2015/01/06/context-focused-wi-fi-alliance-competitor-ibeacons-due-arrive-devices-year/

Pick of the Day:

Announcements!

Our next DTNS contributors have been announced: Scott Johnson and Veronica Belmont!  If you’d like to hear more of Scott and Veronica, go here: patreon.com/acedtect

DTNS has an Instagram account! Jennie will be posting from CES until she falls down.  http://instagram.com/dtnspix/ 

Tomorrow’s guest: Nicole Lee of Engadget!

Roger Chang and Paul Spain join us to chat about the top CES announcements from Dish’s Net-only TV service with ESPN to Nvidia’s Tegra X1 to a report from Allison Sheridan on using an Oculus Rift to remodel your bathroom.

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

A special thanks to all our Patreon supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here at the low, low cost of a nickel 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

Today’s guests: Paul Spain of the NZ Tech Podcast is at CES, Roger Chang, tech journalist with a special report from CES from Allison Sheridan

Headlines

Dish announced its Internet-only service called Sling TV that will stream 12 channels for $20 a month starting “soon.” The star of the show is ESPN but it also will carry Disney Channel, ABC Family, Food Network, HGTV, Travel Channel, TNT, CNN, TBS, Cartoon Network and Adult Swim. Subscribers will have the option of adding other channels in $5 a month packages like Kids, and News and Info. Streams can be paused, rwound and fast forwarded but there is no DVR functionality. Subscribers can only view on one device at a time though it supports Web, iOS, Android, Roku, FireTV, Xbox One and LG and Samsung Samart TVs. Best thing? No contracts.

Engadget reports that Intel unveiled 14 broadwell-series chips including including 13 15-watt processors with basic Intel HD graphics, and four 28-watt models with Intel Iris graphics. Most of those are Core i5 and i7s and they’re all dual core. While these chips boost productivity and battery life a little, the big gains come with 22 percent improvement in 3D graphics benchmarks, and up to 50 percent faster video-conversion time.

Ars Technica reports Google unveiled partnerships with new audio products that can take advantage of Google Cast. That means you can send audio from compatible apps and websites straight to things like speakers, just like you would do with a Chromecast devices. Sony, LG and Denon were named as partners but no product details were provided.

LG today announced the LG G Flex 2, a successor to the G Flex, which is a little smaller at 5.5-inches but a higher resolution screen at 1080p. It still has the curved body and the self-healing coating on the back. It also contains Qualcomm’s 64-bit Snapdragon 810 processor with 2GB of RAM and support for LTE Category 6. No word on price or availability.

The Next Web has Garmin’s announcement of three GPS smart watches. The Fenix 3 supports GPS and GLONASS for location, and measures heart rate, speed, distance, vertical drop and more. It arrives Q1 in five versions starting at $499.99 up to the Sapphire model at $599.99. The Epix is touted as a hands-free navigation device, with maps, compass, altimeter available Q1 for $550 or $600 with topo map preinstalled. And finally the Vivoactive is the budget model with apps, color display interchangable bands and wireless sensors. It also launches Q1 from $250 to $300.

TechCrunch reports that a company called Gogoro announced the Smartscooter, an electric scooter powered by swappable batteries lithium ion batteries. The scooter goes from 0-30 in 4.2 seconds, with a max speed of roughly 60mph, and has two battery slots. Max range is 100 miles. When the scooter runs low on battery power a smartphone app would direct you to a “Go Station” hub where you can swap out the shoe-box sized, 20 pound batteries. Batteries can be reserved, but the user doesn’t “own” any batteries–instead you subscribe to rent. No cost has been announced, and a battery swapping network large enough for a major city is more goal than reality at this point.

Nokia can make phones but not feature phones because Microsoft still owns the Nokia brand from when it bought part but not all of Nokia but it only owns the brand temporarily, so when I say Microsoft launched a phone called the Nokia 215 that’s why. It’s a $29 feature phonerunning Series 30+ with Opera Mini and Facebook Messenger and Twitter. It has a dual SIM model and it gets 29 days on a charge. It will roll out first in select markets in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe this quarter.

CNET reports Tencent has launched China’s first private bank. It’s entirely operated online. WeBank launched Monday and although it’s the first bank in China not controlled by the government, Premier Li Keqiang attended the launch ceremony.

The Verge reports Panasonic will release its Life+ 4K TVS this spring, running Firefox OS. No pricing or release dates were announced. Meanwhile don’t confuse THAT launch with the FirefoxOS powered Matchstick which struck up it’s own partnership to be built inside smart TVs, monitors and settop boxes from TCL and Philips/AOC. The integration features Matchstick’s answer to Google Cast called Flint, an open source casting protocol that anyone can build with.

Ars Technica reports that Sony has announced its replacing its per rental remote game subscription service for Playstation Now with a flat monthly fee. Starting January 13th, PS4 owners in North American can sign up for unlimited streaming access to more than 100 PS3 games like Batman: Arkham City and The Last of Us. A one month subscription will cost $19.99, three months $49.99, and a free seven day trial is available for new subscribers.

The US FCC has a new complaints site at https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us designed to make your complaining a more enjoyable experience. The new site is streamlined with helpful information, complaint monitoring 24-7 and faster delivery of complaints to customers. The Consumers Union advised the FCC on the new portal.

Lenovo announced a partnership with Intel on the P90 smartphone a 64-bit Atom Z3560 powered device with Intel’s LTe-Advanced modem chip. The Intel XMM can handle 150 Mbps down and 50 up though the service has to also be capable of that. It’s Android 4.4 out of the box unfortunately. Otherwise its a 5.5-inch 1920 x 1080 display at 400 ppi. 32 GB stoarage and 2 GB RAM with a 13-mpxl rear cameras.

And Lenovo got into wearables with the E-ink Vibe Band. The band shows notifications from your phone for calls, SMS, Facebook, Twitter, WeChat and more, but with no more than 150 characters and can track steps and sleep. The VIBE band will cost just $89 although a release date was not announced.

Qualcomm announced an easy way for manufacturers to make smart light bulbs without worrying about all the crazy protocols out there! Just use theirs! IN partnership with smart lightbulb maker LIFX, Qualcomm has developed chip design that any company can license. It uses the AllJoyn protocol which means it can connect to any product in the house— that uses the AllJoyn protocol. A protocol led by Qualcomm.

Asus unveiled an updated line of Transformer hybrid Windows PC’s and photo-friendly smartphones at CES today. CNET reports that the Transformer Book Chi series is a clamshell laptop that detaches into a tablet. The $699 T300 Chi use Intel’s new Core M processor and has a 1920×1080 resolution screen or $799 for the 2560 x 1440. The $399 10.1 inch T100 has an Atom processor and the T90 costs $299. All three sizes come tot he US in February, no pricing.

As for phones the ZenFone 2 will run Android 5.0 Lollipop Intel’s 64-bit Atom Z3580 processor, a quad-core 64-bit CPU, and includes 4GB of RAM and Intel’s LTE-Advanced XMM modem chip for $199 available in March and the ZenFone Zoom, with a 13 megapixel camera which features a 3x optical zoom. The photo phone will be available for $399 in the US sometime in Q2.

News From You

tninja3000 pointed out the Engadget story that Google’s Nest has announced loads of new partners in its Works With Nest program. Pebble and Jawbone are already in on the action but today Nest announced LG, Philips and Withings are among the new partners. SCenarios could be Nest noticing you leave and making sure the LG smart oven is off, The Withings Aura sleep sensor noticing you go to bed and telling Nest’s thermostat to adjust the temp. Or the Nest Protect smoke alarm causing the Philips Hue bulbs to flash or glow red or something. Uni Key, Ooma and Lutron are among other new partners.

metalfreak called our attention to the OS News post regarding the Intel Management Engine and how operating systems leverage it to restrict things like screenshots of proteced media. The IME is a coprocessor that among many other things implements Protected Audio Video Path to stop nasty pirates from ripping content in ways like using screen recorders on realtime playback. This has the side effect of preventing some innocent things like taking screenshots, because the pixels aren’t stored where they are expected to be.

Discussion Section: CES!

https://gigaom.com/2015/01/05/dishs-new-sling-tv-service-liberates-espn-from-the-cable-bundle/

http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/05/sling-tv-announced/?ncid=rss_truncated

http://recode.net/2015/01/05/you-can-finally-get-espn-on-the-web-for-20-a-month/

http://recode.net/2015/01/05/chipmaker-nvidia-accelerates-move-into-smarter-cars/

http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/4/7492771/nvidia-drive-cx-ces-2015

http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/05/nvidia-x1-benchmarks-performance/?ncid=rss_truncated

Pick of the Day: The Computerphile channel via Brent

Hi Tom,

I just wanted to say I love your show and wanted to contribute.

This year I found this youtube channel called computerphile. I first saw it appear when the channel posted a video on how the heart bleed vulnerability works (they did not want people to use the bug, but showed how it worked and why)

Warning some videos are very technical!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9-y-6csu5WGm29I7JiwpnA

The youtube channel has loads of videos about all kinds of computer related questions including networking, computer history and many others. If you have some time browse through the list of videos.

Enjoy,

Brent

Announcements!

Our next DTNS contributors have been announced: Scott Johnson and Veronica Belmont!  If you’d like to hear more of Scott and Veronica, go here: patreon.com/acedtect

DTNS has an Instagram account! Jennie will be posting from CES until she falls down.  http://instagram.com/dtnspix/ 

Tomorrow’s guests: ALL THE PATRICKS! Patrick Beja from France and Patrick Norton from CES!