Patrick Beja is with us today to look at the search engines top trending searches for 2014. What do they tell us about humanity? Or France?

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Show Notes

Today’s guest:  Patrick Beja

Headlines

The Verge reports Apple has won against a class-action lawsuit seeking damages of more than $350 million for preventing non-iTunes protected music from playing on iPods. A jury decided Apple’s updates to iTunes 7.0 were a “genuine product improvement” and did not violate antitrust laws. An appeal is planned.

Bloomberg reports Apple halted online sales of its products in Russia today due to fluctuations in the value of the ruble. An Apple spokesman said the company is currently reviewing pricing in the country. Apple raised the price of the iPhone 6 by 25% last month. The company operates no Apple retail locations in Russia.

The patent wars are winding down. PC Mag reports Google and Verizon are teaming up to fight patent trolls. The two companies signed a cross-license agreement on a broad range of products and technologies. Verizon general counsel Randal Milch wrote in a blog post that he hopes to strike similar deals with more companies. Google’s head of patent transactions, Kirk Dailey said his company welcomes discussions with companies who might be interested in a similar arrangement.

Reuters reports a class-action lawsuit has been filed against Sony Pictures Entertainment for failing to protect employee data. Two former employees seek compensation for damages as well as credit monitoring services, identity theft insurance and other assistance for themselves and any former or current U.S. employees whose data was similarly compromised. Sony Pictures Entertainment has offered identity-theft protection and credit monitoring to its approximately 6,500 employees.

Meanwhile The Next Web reports an email was sent to journalists with links to more data claiming to be taken from Sony Pictures Entertainment along with a threatening letter. The data purports to target Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton. The threat targets showings of the movie “The Interview.”

OK. Let’s lighten the mood. Perhaps the Crema filter on Instagram will do just that. The Verge reports Instagram added its first new photo filters since December 2012. The new filters are called Slumber, Crema, Ludwig, Perpetua, and Aden. Instagram also added a new perspective tool, real-time comments and the ability to upload slow-motion video. The updates will come to iOS and Android today.

Patrick, it’s time for a digital pay, triple play. TechCrunch reports Apple told the New York Times that Apple Pay now supports cards from providers of 90% of credit card purchases in the US. ReCode says sources say Samsung is talking to LoopPay to partner on a payment system of its own for devices in 2015. LoopPay mimics a card swipe. And TechCrunch says messaging app Line has begun rolling out its payment feature called Line Pay to all users except those in South Korea or China.

Reuters reports an Indian Court has allowed Xiaomi to resume sales of its devices until a hearing on Jan.8. Ericsson is suing Xiaomi in India for patent infringement. Xiaomi had to agree to deposit 100 rupees for every device sold in advance of the hearing.

Author Neal Stephenson, who wrote the book Snow Crash which includes a world filled with virtual reality and augmented reality has joined secretive startup Magic Leap which is rumored to be working on really amazing virtual reality and augmented reality. Stephenson wrote in a blog post that Magic Leap aims to, “produce a synthesized light field that falls upon the retina in the same way as light reflected from real objects in your environment.” Stephenson’s title witll be Chief Futurist. He did not mention his previous effort, Clang from Subutai Corporation, which aimed to make a realistic sword-fighting game mechanism.

 

 

 

 

News From You

F1Ben submitted the Wall Street Journal article that NBC is launching a live stream of its broadcast network available today online and on mobile early next year. Viewers will need to verify they pay for a cable subscription in order to access the content.

And tehSMOOF submitted the Verge article that T-Mobile USA will let customers save unused data for later. The program is called Data Stash. You must be a Simple Choice customer who has purchased additional 4G LTE data AND uou must buy at least 3GB of data a month on a phone or 1 GB a month on tablets. Starting in January qualifying customers will get 10 GB of data free. After that is used up any unused data each month will be stored in a customer’s Data Stash for a year before it expires.

Discussion Links: Year in Review

https://www.google.com/trends/2014/

http://www.google.com/trends/topcharts?hl=en#date=2014&geo=
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2014/12/a-year-in-search-moments-that-defined.html

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/top-10-searches-of-2014-c1417565661893.html

http://www.bing.com/trends/us

Pick of the Day:  Fuel My Route via Benjamin Chamness

Hello Tom and the rest of the DTNS crew,

I have been on a few road trips recently, and I wanted to pass along a site that I have found to be fairly helpful in my travels. The site is fuelmyroute.com (with an app available on Google Play). If you give FuelMyRoute your starting location and destination, the site will identify the cheapest gas prices along your route. You can edit the fuel grade, how far off your route it should search for gas stations, and how often it should report gas prices (every 50, 100, 150, etc. miles). It reports the prices on a Google map, with stations color coded to based on if their prices are below or above the average price. You can zoom in on the map to show prices at other stations along your route.

The service does not allow for routes with multiple destinations, and it will only report prices along the default driving route from Google Maps. Even with these limitations, I have found the site to be very helpful in planning out my road trips. I thought I would pass this along to the rest of the DTNS community.

Love the show, and I hope to be a Patreon supporter soon.
Benjamin Chamness

Amber Mac is on. We’ll talk about why checking email less could make you happier and how humanity shows its good side on social networks in Sydney.

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 guest: Amber Mac,  author, entrepreneur, host of 15 Sec Tech

Headlines

GigaOm reports Microsoft began rolling out Skype Translator to selected users today. The feature allows instant translation of voice conversations between English and Spanish speakers as well as translation of text conversations between speakers of around 12 languages. The first version runs on Windows 8.1 and Windows phone. Interested users can sign up to be invited in at skype.com/translator-preview.

Politico rounds up the news around the Sony Hacks from the weekend. Attackers offered to exempt Sony staffers from future leaks by emailing their name and business title. Sony Pictures Entertainment hired attorney David Boies to send a request to news organizations not report on damaging information obtained from the stolen files. The letter said Sony would seek action for damages incurred as a result of any such reporting.

GigaOm reports Spanish newspapers are upset at Google’s decision to close Google news in Spain and remove Spanish publishers from Google News products worldwide. The Spanish Association of Daily Newspaper Publisher noted the closure would have a negative impact on citizens and businesses and called for “the intervention of the Spanish and EU authorities, and of competition authorities to effectively protect the rights of citizens and businesses.” Google News in Spain will close Tuesday Dec. 16.

VentureBeat reports that it is now possible to control your Nest thermostat with the self-title Google App on iOS and Android phones. Not some special other app but the regular old Google App. You can also use voice commands to ask Google to change or set the temperature and the app will bring up Google Now to suggest temperatures.

The BBC reports that torrent tracker search site IsoHunt has cloned The Pirate Bay database and launched a site called The Pirate Bay Search by IsoHunt. Meanwhile Mr. 10100100000 (1312) spoke with TorrentFreak saying the TPB crew was not surprised by the raid and is taking this time offline to discuss the future and purpose of The Pirate Bay. But if they reboot they promise to do it “with a bang.” Also they don’t mind clones as long as they aren’t scams.

Reuters reports BT has entered exclusive talks with Orange and Deutsche Telekom to acquire the EE mobile service. The potential deal would be worth 12.5 billion pounds. Deutsche Telekom would keep a 12% stake in EE and Orange would get more cash but only a 4% stake. The talks are expected to take a couple weeks. I personally am hoping that the resulting service that merges EE with BT will be called BEET.

ReCode reports Xiaomi reported 347.5 million yuan ($56 million) in net profit last year, according to a regulatory filing for an operating margin of just 1.8 percent. As a comparison Samsung reported an operating margin of 18.7 percent last year and Apple 28.7%. But Xiaomi is still ahead of LG which reported 0.5%.

TechCrunch reports on Gartner’s latest Worldwide smartphone sales numbers. Samsung’s tops but declining with 24.4%. Apple nudged up a bit to 12.7%. Huawei, Xiaomi and Lenovo rounded out the top 5 with Xiaomi leaping from 1.5% a year ago to 5.2% now. So let’s see. Two incumbents still big and even growing a little while upstarts chomp at their heels. That describes 2009 when Nokia RIM dominated and Apple, HTC and Samsung were the rising stars.

The Atlantic reports that Astrobotics Technology is offering a chance for earthlings to send their precious keepsakes to the moon. The program is called MoonMail and it is part of a plan to put a privately-owned lunar rover on the moon and win Google’s $20 million LunarX prize. If your keepsake is smaller than a dime it will cost you $460. A quarter? $1,600. More than 2 pounds? More than million bucks. No weapons, liquids or perishable items. Interested? Check out moonmail.co

News From You

starfuryzeta sent us the TechCrunch report that Runtastic has developed software for Oculus Rift VR headsets that lets you do a real 7 minute workout in a virtual environment. You can exercise in a villa by the beach, or on a scenic hillside, all tracked by Runtastic. The software will be on display at CES, so get ready for lots of videos of reporters exercising. AND This means we are now one 7 minute workout closer to the world of Ready Player One.

Dear Uber. You’ve had a tough month. One of your execs maybe threatened a reporter, then you got sued by several cities for maybe misleading the public. So you’re looking for ways to prove that you’re not the company we’re all maybe starting to wonder if you are. So MAYBE, when there’s a hostage crisis in downtown Sydney and people are looking to get out of downtown, don’t tweet “We are all concerned with events in CBD. Fares have increased to encourage more drivers to come online & pick up passengers in the area.” After Mashable and others published a story of price hikes at 4x the normal rate, resulting in rides cost $100 or more, the company reversed course and announced that all rides in the area would be free and offered refunds to those charged the higher amount. Thanks to lagerdalek for flagging this one.

iSting pointed this one out and I believe it caught Amber’s eye as well. Indiegogo is setting up a new site called Indiegogo Life designed to help individuals raise money for things like medical bills, school and other personal causes. This special program does not charge any platform feees. An Indiegogo spokesperson told Engadget that the company has a “stringent verification procedure” for Life campaigns that includes a “dedicated team of experts, automated algorithms and other procedures.”

Discussion Links: Checking Email Less = More Better

http://mashable.com/2014/12/12/email-checking-study/

https://www.academia.edu/9182785/Checking_Email_Less_Frequently_Reduces_Stress

http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/15/these-australian-social-media-reactions-to-the-sydneysiege-are-perfect/?ncid=rss

https://www.facebook.com/FBNewswire/posts/818714328166690

https://twitter.com/search?q=illridewithyou

Pick of the Day:  Elfster via Norm in Austin, TX

Hey Tom & Jennie,

I feel like I’m overloading your inboxes but I’m sure I’ll go dormant for a few months and leave you guys alone after this

Anyway, I am doing a gift exchange with my California inlaws and we are using the Elfster.com web site to coordinate that. People sign up, set up a wish list and the random drawing assigns folks to each other. The admin can make it so certain people don’t get each other (like married members of the family don’t get each other for example) so it’s pretty convenient. We’ve been using it for a few years and it’s working fine though the web site leaves a bit to be desired but it gets the job done.

Take care, Norm (from ATX/BCS)

In 1962 – NASA “Relay 1” launched, the first active repeater communications satellite in orbit.

In 1977 – Young Bill Gates was arrested for a traffic violation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, leading to one of the most famous mugshots ever.

In 1977 – Robert Metcalfe et. al were awarded a patent for “Multipoint data communication system with collision detection” also known as ethernet.

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