Andrea Smith talks about things you should know about mobile data and SIM cards when traveling, plus the real reason why Microsoft bought Minecraft.

MP3

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 and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes
Today’s guest:  Andrea Smith, technology journalist

Headlines

Cult of Mac says it has talked to folks inside Apple who say the NFC chip on iPhone 6 and 6 Plus will only be used by Apple Pay. That’s similar to TouchID which was not accessible to developers at launch. TouchID has opened up a bit in iOS8, and many hope that the iPhone’s NFC will open up to developers down the road as well.

You know how Microsoft says they’re a productivity and platform company. Well PC Mag reports on a few new peripherals that fall in the productivity side of the equation. The most intriguing is the Universal Mobile Keyboard that connects by Bluetooth to Windows, Android and iOS devices. It’s coming to US and Canada in October fort $80. A new standalon Arc Touch Bluetooth Mouse will come Sept. 18 for $70. The Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 3500 is back with fancy artwork this moth for $30. And a version of the Xbox One controller meant for Windows packs in a 9-foot USB to microUSB cable for $60 starting in November.

$350 for a watch made by somebody from Apple that won’t come until next year? We can do better. The Unofficial Apple Weblog reports the Misfit Flash tells time, tracks activity and sleep, and syncs with the Misfit App on an iPhone. While it doesn’t have apps, it does runs on an actual watch battery, so no recharging. It also comes in seven colors, is waterproof down to 30 meters and only costs $49.99. It will be available in stores in October and you can pre-order starting today. Oh and the company is led in part by former Apple CEO John Sculley. You know the guy who fired Steve Jobs.

Reuters reports the US Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington threw out a jury order that would have required Apple to pay VirnetX Holding Corp. $368.2 million for VPN patents. The decision does not find Apple innocnent of infringing but determined the trial judge incorrectly instructed jurors on how to calculate damages. The appeals court returned the case to the U.S. District Court in Tyler, Texas, for further proceedings.

Eweek has it that Docker, maker of open-source container virtualization tech, closed a $40 million Series C round of funding. The funding is a big vote of confidence for Docker 1.0 which will create a commercial ecosystem around the tech. Docker lets developers build their app in any language, then put them in a Docker container that allows them to run anywhere.

TechCrunch reports IBM has announced a new cloud application called Watson Analytics, to help business users crunch big data. And yes, IBM execs say the underlying technology includes the the same ability to process natural language queries that helped Watson the Giant Supercomputer beat Ken Jennings at Jeopardy. The product goes into beta this month and is slated for general release by the end of the year. The program will run on a variety of platforms including tablets, smartphones and PC/laptop. Oh also, there’s a FREE version.

 

 

News From You

KAPT_Kipper pointed out the Ars Technica article that a jury in Marshall, Texas (Go Mavericks) found CBS guilty of infringing a patent from Personal Audio LLC and ordered to pay $1.3 million. Personal Audio holds a patent on a System for disseminating media content representing episodes in a serialized sequence. The patent was filed in 2009 and published Feb. 17, 2012. What CBS did was put a compilation file together, in this case a “web page” made from “HTML” and then transmitted episodic content through that file over the Internet. The decision allows Personal Audio to move forward with suits against NBC and Fox. The EFF is challenging the validity of the patent with the patent office later this year.

tm204 submitted the Engadget report that security researcher Benjamin Daniel Musser discovered a security hole in the Manage Your Kindle page. An coorrupted ebook, for example one with a script in the title, could be created to access your cookies and subsequently your Amazon account credentials. Musser discovered the hole in October and Amazon patched it but it resurfaced recently. Musser says if your carefuk about what ebooks you load into your Kindle it should be easy to avoid the problem.

gewbert passes along The Verge report that Roku has sold more than 10 million streaming players since 2008. Apple annoucned earlier this year it had sold 20 million Apple TVs since 2007. Roku has now amassed 1,800 channels and users have streamed more than five billion hours of content since the service launched. Roku currently sells a $49 streaming stick and three set-top boxes, including the $99 Roku 3.

Discussion Links: Roam if you want to…

http://www.zdnet.com/the-american-business-travelers-guide-to-europe-on-5-a-day-in-smartphone-charges-7000033703/

Plug of the Day:  ‘Events of a Different Nature‘ by Tom Merritt

I want to let you know I have a new self-published book out called ‘Events of A Different Nature.’ It’s about two dogs who solve crimes. NOW WAIT. It’s not nearly as cute as it may sound. It’s more Raymond Chandler than Wind in the Willows and they never once admit that they’re dogs or in any way inferior to humans. So if you want to check it out you can find a free version as well as print and versions for various ebook platforms at tommerrittbooks.com

Pick of the Day: Darik’s Boot and Nuke via Brian Burgess

One of the free tools I use a lot, especially when I want to completely nuke a computer and do a “real” clean install of Windows is Darik’s Boot and Nuke (DBAN): http://www.dban.org/
Or, if you want to blow away a drive that’s heavily infected with viruses and other malicious code it’s perfect. You burn it to a disc and then boot from it and use the command line interface. For most consumers the “Quick or Auto Nuke” option is good enough, but for the truly paranoid you can your drive to near Department of Defense standards. You can set it to overwrite the drive up to 7 times.

Tomorrow’s guest: Michael Wolf of the NextMarket podcast

Patrick Beja is with us today and we’ll discuss whether or not Microsoft buying Mojang is good for anyone– or everyone.

MP3

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 and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guest:  Patrick Beja, host of Le Rendez-vous Tech, and DTNS contributor

Headlines

Microsoft announced this morning that it is in fact acquiring the makers of Minecraft, Mojang for $2.5 billion. On Xbox.com, Microsoft’s Phil Spencer wrote that the company plans to continue to make Minecraft available across competing platforms. Mojang cofounders Notch aka Markus Persson Carl Manneh and Jakob Porser will not stay with the company. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year.

It’s the Monday after a new iPhone went on sale, which means it’s time for Apple to announce how the sales broke records and outran their supplies– causing delays in shipments. CNET reports Apple announced Monday that first day preorders of the new iPhones topped 4 million in the first 24 hours setting a record and outpacing initial supplies causing shipping delays until October.

GigaOm reports Google announced new manufacturers of entry-level Android One devices as the first round handsets go on sale in India. Android One devices are affordably priced and must minimum standards like a 4.5-inch screen and a 5-megapixel camera. Google helps source parts to keep costs down as well as striking deals with carriers for some free data for Android updates and app downloads. Monday saw the Micromax Canvas A1, the Spice Dream Uno and the Karbonn Sparkle V all around 6400 Rupees or $105. Acer, Alcatel, Asus, HTC, Intex, Lava, Lenovo, Panasonic and Xolo are all on board for future Android One devices. The next wave of rollouts will expand to Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka by the end of the year.

Remember the good old days of last week, when Apple gave everyone with an iTunes account a free album from one of the world’s biggest rock bands to promote the iPhone 6? Remember how much people complained because a free album was automatically downloaded to their devices without their permission? According to the BBC, Apple has now given users a special tool to remove U2’s ‘Songs of Innocence’ available at itunes.com/soi-remove. Also, this is why we can’t have nice things.

The Verge reminds us today, September 15th is the last day to file responses to comments regarding the US FCC’s proposed Open Internet Guidelines. The FCC press secretary announced that over 3 million comments have come in. The Sunlight Foundation analyzed 800,000 earlier comments and found that around two-thirds of them asked the FCC to reclassify broadband, while about 5 percent opposed tighter regulations. After comments close tonight, the FCC will use them to decide on a final proposal, which Wheeler hopes to pass by the end of 2014.

News From You

Cosmicvibes posted an Inquisitr story about Comcast threatening to disconnect Tor users, but an Ars Technica story quotes Comcast spokesperson Charlie Douglas saying “This story is wildly inaccurate. Customers are free to use their Xfinity Internet service to visit any website or use it however they wish otherwise.” Douglas added “”We have found no evidence that these conversations took place.” VP of Internet communications and engineering at Comcast Jason Livingood wrote in a blog post today “Our customers can use Tor at any time, as I have myself.” Not the usual Comcast apology and backtracking we’ve seen lately.

habichuelacondulce submitted a Time Magazine report about the Chinese city of Chongqing, which has come up with a way to remind its 28 million residents about the dangers of looking down at their phones while walking. The city used white paint to divide the sidewalks of its entertainment district into two lanes–one for people walking while using cell phones, and one for all the other people. A Chinese official said the markings were designed to protect elderly people and children from unnecessary collisions, but clarified that the initiative was designed to be satirical.

KAPT_Kipper submitted the TechCrunch article about Netflix finally launching in France. Patrick you can subscribe for €7.99 per month, €8.99 per month with HD streaming and 2 simultaneous streams, and €11.99 for 4K streaming and four simultaneous streams. The selection is thin at launch even missing House of Cards whose French rights are held by Canal+.

spsheridan posted the PC World story about research published in the journal Nature Materials on Sunday challenging the notion that slowly charging a battery and preventing fast discharges help prolong battery life. The researchers led by Stanford’s William Chueh, found the evenness of the charging, not the speed is the key factor and could increase the useful life of a battery from a couple years to a decade. They also could use their findings to allow faster discharging without damage. The researchers are engaging in further experiment to simulate typical use and are in talks with electronics companies.

KAPT_Kipper passes along an Ars Technica writeup of some fine original reporting by Vox Media’s Tim Lee analyzing the impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling on patents back in June. Since that decision, there have been eleven federal judicial rulings striking down patents as “abstract” which is a high number according to Ars Technica. The list only highlights patents that have lost under Section 101 of the US patent law, which governs when a patent is an “abstract idea” that can’t be patented.Many of the patents being knocked out are “do it on a computer” patents that take everyday activity and add computer jargon. Check out Tim Lee’s article for the full list of decisions.

Discussion Links: Microsoft and Mojang to marry

https://gigaom.com/2014/09/15/microsoft-pays-2-5b-for-minecraft-as-notch-makes-his-game-exit/

http://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-to-buy-minecraft-maker-mojang/#ftag=CAD590a51e

http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/15/6151941/minecraft-mojang-notch-goodbye-letter

http://news.xbox.com/2014/09/games-minecraft-to-join-microsoft

https://mojang.com/2014/09/yes-were-being-bought-by-microsoft/

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/minecraft-to-join-microsoft-275112831.html

http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-buys-mojang-minecraft-five-reasons-it-makes-strategic-sense-7000033640/

Plug of the Day:  ‘Events of a Different Nature‘ by Tom Merritt

I want to let you know I have a new self-published book out called ‘Events of A Different Nature.’ It’s about two dogs who solve crimes. NOW WAIT. It’s not nearly as cute as it may sound. It’s more Raymond Chandler than Wind in the Willows and they never once admit that they’re dogs or in any way inferior to humans. So if you want to check it out you can find a free version as well as print and versions for various ebook platforms at tommerrittbooks.com

Pick of the Day: Digital offerings from the public library via DonkeyHotey

Your public library has audio books and ebooks for free. Just go in to the library and sign up. They give you credentials and voila you have access to countless books. My local library is part of the OverDrive lending system. It works great for me.

Tomorrow’s guest: Andrea Smith

It’s the hak5 DTNS takeover with Darren Kitchen and Shannon Morse! Len Peralta illustrates the madness and Jennie makes a cameo. Much hacking is discussed.

MP3

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 and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

GUESS WHAT. Recode reports that iPhone 6 pre-orders went live last night, and a lot of people bought the new phone. So many people bought it that Apple’s website had trouble keeping up, and Apple and all the phone companies seem to have sold out all their pre-orders. An AT&T spokesperson said demand for the new iPhones is higher than they’ve seen in either of the past two years. Does any of this surprise you?

The entire DTNS subreddit wants you to know that in 2008, the United States government threatened Yahoo with a $250,000 dollar a day fine, forcing the company to hand over large amounts of user data. The Washington Post reports that 1,500 pages of unsealed court documents from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review revealed a secret and eventually unsuccesful lawsuit by Yahoo. The company was eventually forced to become one of the first to participate in the US NSA’s controversial PRISM program. Eventually, most major U.S. tech companies, including Google, Facebook, Apple and AOL also agreed to participate.

PCMag reports that SanDisk has released an SD card that can store 512 gigabytes of storage. The card was made for people who will be filming in new higher resolution HD formats, and is temperature-proof, waterproof, shock-proof, and x-ray-proof. Oh, and it costs $800 dollars. So don’t lose it and always remember to LABEL YOUR CARDS.

Reuters reports that T-Mobile US added 552,000 postpaid customers in August, more customer additions than any other month in the history of the company. CEO John Legere told investors that the wave of new subscribers was partly due to a promotion that allows customers to add four lines for $100 a month. The company also added 208,000 pre-paid customers in August.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the Curiosity Rover has reached Mount Sharp after a 25-month journey on the surface of Mars. The rover will begin to climb the lower portion of the three mile high mountain, and will eventually start drilling deep into the planet’s geological record, looking for evidence that life might have once existed on the Red Planet.

If you dream of a world where it’s possible to buy a subscription to HBO GO without having to get cable or satellite service, OR mooching your parents password, hear this: Gizmodo reports that Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes told a room full of investment bankers that HBO is “seriously” considering allowing users to purchase a standalone subscription without paying a cable provider for all the other TV.

The Verge reports that efforts to bring drones to the ocean are now underway. At a nautical trade fair in Hamburg, a shipping research firm unveiled an electric concept vessel call the ReVolt, which would ferry cargo containers between ports without human crew. The ReVolt carries up to 100 shipping containers at 6 knots.

The best way to waste time in an office is under attack — by robots! Ars Technica reports that Japan’s Fuji Xerox company spent its summer testing a prototype of an autonomous roaming robot printer. The robot uses laser light remote sensing to deliver a color laser printer to your location. That’s right, no more leisurely walks to the printer by way of your friend’s cubicle by way of the kitchen–that printer is coming to YOU. Before you bemoan the loss of all good things, remember this ALSO means no one will accidentally grab the printout of your disastrous 2nd quarter performance review. Fuji has not announced plans to actually release the roaming printer into the wild, but that’s what they said about those dinosaurs in Jurassic Park and look how THAT turned out.

News From You:

KAPT_Kipper passes along an Engadget report that a European Union court says it’s OK for libraries to digitize books and distribute them to reading terminals without first asking permission from publishers. The law still prevents the digitized copies from being stored on USB keys or printed out by users.

KAPT_Kipper also submitted The Verge report that the US military is trying to develop a flexible robotic exoskeleton to make soldiers stronger and safer without weighing them down. DARPA recently issued a $2.9 million contract to Harvard researchers to build what they’re calling the ‘Soft Exosuit.’ The suit fits around a wearer’s waist and legs; it’s made of textiles, woven into straps, containing microprocessors, sensors, and a power supply. Additional motors are also located in a strap that goes around the wearer’s waist. Researchers already have several working prototypes, which could eventually also be used to help people with mobility issues and paralysis to move again.

And spsheridan sends us an IFLScience report that scientists at Princeton have been able to lock individual light photons together so that they behave like a solid object. The researchers constructed an “artificial atom.” They then brought this close to a superconducting wire carrying photons. Due to the bizarre rules of the quantum universe, the atom and the photons became entangled so the light photons started to behave like atoms. Researcher Darius Sadri said, “in one mode of operation, light sloshes back and forth like a liquid; in the other, it freezes.” The team hopes to use solid light to simulate subatomic behavior which is difficult to observe.

Discussion Section Links: Google Hacks and Apple Pay breakdown

http://www.scmagazine.com/google-says-gmail-credential-dump-not-result-of-company-breach/article/371092/

http://nullprogram.com/gmail-bloom-filter/
http://wap.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/email-services-like-gmail-may-be-banned-for-official-use-114091201100_1.html

http://mashable.com/2014/09/12/should-you-trust-gmail-password/
http://www.zdnet.com/apple-pay-and-security-could-tokenization-be-the-tool-that-curbs-data-breaches-7000033585/

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101992749

Pick of the Day: It’s a drone! Hubsan H107L X4 Mini RTF RC Quadcopter 

Plug of the Day: mobile.alphageekradio.com

Monday: Tom is back! Tom is back! Tom is back! Seriously, Tom is back!