DTNS 2297 – Antitrust Prime

Daily Tech News Show / August 11th, 2014

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comNate Lanxon is on the show today to chat about the Hachette-Amazon spat, as well as a little on Broadwell chips and the $300 million 60 Tb/s cable Google wants to lay.

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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
The New York Times spoke with three Apple employees about a training program known as Apple University. Steve Jobs started the program in 2008 and hired the dean of Yale’s School of Management to head it. Classes are described using things like Picasso’s “The Bull” to illustrate simplification. The classes are taught year-round tailored to particular positions within the company.

CNET reports Intel’s long-delayed 14 nm Broadwell chips are finally in significant production. Intel said the first systems using Core M, the lowest power Broadwell variant, will hit store shelves during the holiday season. Most Broadwell powered devices will come in 2015. The Core M “enables less than 9 millimeter fanless two-in-ones for the first time from Intel. Core M is 50% smaller, 30% thinner and has a 60% lower power idle than Haswell.

The Next Web reports Google has joined an effort to create a Trans-Pacific cable system called Faster by Q2 2016. Google joins China Mobile International, China Telecom Global, Global Transit, KDDI, and SingTel, with NEC as the system supplier of the $300 million project. FASTER will feature 6-fiber-pair cable and optical transmission with expected capacity of 60Tb/s connecting the West coast of the US with Chikura and Shima Japan.

GigaOm reports Microsoft announced the Nokia 130 Monday, on sale for €19. The candybar styled handset runs Nokia OS and can play music and display videos on its 1.8-inch screen. http://gigaom.com/2014/08/11/microsoft-debuts-e19-phone-and-no-it-doesnt-run-windows-phone/
Huawei told Shanghai’s China Business News that the company plans to phase out more than 80% of its low-end mobile phones in the second-half of this year. Huawei says the majority of low-end phones it makes are for carriers, not because of customer demand. Huawei intends to focus on branding its own models.

Reuters reports Xiaomi rolled out a software upgrade Sunday to fix a loophole in its cloud messaging system that triggered unauthorized collection of data from user’s contacts. Xiaomi Vice President Hugo Barra apologized for the unauthorized data collection and said the company only collects phone numbers in users’ address books to see if the users are online. The messaging system will be opt-in from now on and numbers sent to Xiaomi will be encrypted and not stored.

NEWS FROM YOU
MikePKennedy sent the Engadget story that Acer announced a new 13-inch ChromeBook with a 1080p HD display and a claimed 13 hours of battery life running a quad-core Tegra K1 chip from Nvidia. That makes the $299 laptop the first with an NVIDIA processor inside.

dbrodbeck posted the Wired article by Mat Honan reporting his experience after liking everything he saw on Facebook for two days. After the first hour of the experiment the humans were gon from his feed. Content mills rose to the top and it became about brands. His entire feed was filled with Huffing ton Post and Upworthy. It also littered his friends feeds with all the things he liked.

Plug of the day: Alpha Geek Radio – mobile and regular

Discussion Story

Hachette CEO: “More than 80% of the ebooks we publish are priced at $9.99 or lower” — Tech News and Analysis

Amazon Drags Authors, Readers and George Orwell Into Its Fight With Hachette | Re/code

Amazon puts Disney DVD and Blu-ray pre-orders on hold in latest contract dispute | The Verge

An Important Kindle request

If you love books then you should be rooting for Amazon, not Hachette or the Big Five — Tech News and Analysis

Authors United

Amazon and Hachette: The dispute in 13 easy steps – LA Times

Much at Stake in Amazon-HBG Fight

German Publishers Seek Amazon Inquiry – NYTimes.com

Amazon’s E-Books Antitrust Clash in Germany on EU Radar – Bloomberg

Calendar
EA’s new subscription service is now available to all Xbox One owners, not just beta participants. The service gives you unlimited access to select EA games for $4.99 a month or $29.99 per year

In 1950 – Steve Wozniak was born in San Jose, California. He would grow up to invent the first successful personal computer, and revolutionize desktop computing.

In 1965 – Shinji Mikami was born in Japan. He grew up to become a video game designer for Capcom, revolutionizing survival-horror games with his popular series, Resident Evil.

Lockheed Martin has set the launch of DigitalGlobe’s high-resolution WorldView-3 satellite for August 13th. Its creators can start selling extra-sharp pictures (with detail down to the 10-inch level) six months after the craft is up and running.

Pick of the day:
Elder Scrolls Online from Nate Lanxon
Send your picks to feedbackatdailytechnewsshow.com and you can find MY picks at dailytechnewsshow.com/picks.

Messages of the day (feedback@dailytechnewsshow.com)
Call from Dave in Orlando on Twitch

“Hi Tom & Jennie,

The head-up display discussed on Friday was provided by my car manufacturer. It really is very useful – showing my speed, turn-by-turn directions, etc. while keeping my eyes on the road. I also have my phone connected through bluetooth which allows me to see and interact with a limited amount of information such as audio tracks and incoming calls. And that’s it! I can’t read texts or email nor would I ever want to.

I look forward to seeing third party apps built into our cars (after all Waze is more accurate than my in-car sat nav), but there needs to be continued thoughtful consideration about what kinds of information drivers should be allowed to access.

Love the show!
Dave”

Thanks to Nate Lanxon

Tomorrow’s guest: Allison Sheridan of Nosillacast

Today in Tech History – Aug. 11, 2014

Today in Tech History / August 11th, 2014

20140404-073853.jpgIn 1942 – Hedy Markey and composer George Antheil received a U.S. patent for a frequency-hopping device. The technique has led to many advancements in wireless technology including Wi-Fi. Markey was better known under her stage name of Hedy Lamarr.

In 1950 – Steve Wozniak was born in San Jose, California. He would grow up to invent the first successful personal computer, and revolutionize desktop computing.

In 1965 – Shinji Mikami was born in Japan. He grew up to become a video game designer for Capcom, revolutionizing survival-horror games with his popular series, Resident Evil.

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Subscribe to the podcast. Like Tech History? Get Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.

Cordkillers Ep. 32 – Cord Apathetics

Cordkillers / August 10th, 2014

Subscriber numbers are declining less quickly for cable TV, which has some people declaring cord-cutting is dead. Is it?

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Download audio

CordKillers: Ep. 32 – Cord Apathetics
Recorded: August 10, 2014
Guests: Scott Johnson, Lamarr Wilson

Intro Video

Primary Target

  • What Happened to the Cord Cutters? 
  • MoffettNathanson compiled cpmany reports of online/cable
    – Pay TV lost 300,000 subs in Q2, about flat yoy
    – Slowing housing market may be primary cause of decline
    – “It appears that cord cutting slowed to an annualized rate of 400k homes, a meaningful deceleration and well below the peak (but still modest) rates of cord cutting seen in 2012.”
    – Revenue growing due to rate increases.

Signal Intelligence

  • Twitch cracks down on unlicensed music ahead of rumored $1 billion YouTube buyout
  • Important: Changes To Audio In VODS
  • – Scanning archived video for copyrighted music
    – Entire 30 minute chunks muted if such music is found. (Audible Magic)
    – Elizabeth Baker’s post: “This includes in-game and ambient music.” italicized
    – But on Subreddit Shear says: “We have absolutely no intention of flagging songs due to original in-game music. If that’s happening (and it appears it is), it’s a problem and we will investigate and try to fix it.“
    – Again Shear on SubReddit: “We have absolutely no intention of running any audio recognition against live video, period.” and “Even if we could run this on live this second, we absolutely would not.”
    – Twitch CEO Emmett Shear said on Reddit Twitch has no intention of flagging songs due to original in-game music and will try to fix the problem
    – Deploying an “appeal” button for VODs that have been flagged for copyrighted music
    – Archived videos go from 3 days or forever to 14 days (or 60 days for partners/Turbo subs)
    – Highlights can now be any length (not limited to 2 hours), saved indefinitely as well as exported to YouTube.

Gear Up

  • Microsoft to Launch Xbox One Digital TV Tuner in Europe
  • – Digital tuner in Europe only
    – Attaches to HDMI in on XBox One for passthrough
    – DVB-T, DVB-T2 and DVB-C television channels
    – UK for for ₤24.99, and France, Italy, Germany and Spain for €29.99, starting in late October.

Under surveillance

  • Babylon 5 reboot likely to become big-budget film
  • – J. Michael Straczynski will shortly begin work on Babylon 5 movie
    – New script will be targeted at a 2016 theatrical release
    – Will be a reboot of the series rather than a continuation.
    – Will try to work surviving cast in
    – Prepared to fund the movie through his own production company if necessary

Front Lines

2014 Summer Movie Draft 
draft.diamondclub.tv

  1. Amtrekker: $720,700,355
  2. TMS: $644,787,673
  3. DTNS: $611,379,215
  4. Night Attack: $518,924,868
  5. /Film: $511,335,483
  6. GodsMoneybags: $450,860,429

On Screen

Dispatches from the Front

 As a newer listener, can you explain the Summer Movie Draft? I’m coming in during the middle of this, so it just feels confusing and irrelevant to me. I’m not sure I get what box office numbers for movies in the theatre have to do with Cordkillers. Isn’t seeing movies in the theatre the antithesis of watching “whatever you want, whenever you want”, since you have only a couple locations per town (at best) and a very limited set of times when you can watch? I feel like I’ve missed something with this whole segment.

Tim

 

I just wanted to point out that while Apple TV does not allow folders for the apps/channels, you can hide and reposition the icons. To hide channels that you do not use or want to see, head into settings and click on Main Menu. There you can choose Show/Hide for each of the app/channels installed. To reorder the apps/channels, hold down the remote’s select button on a particular app until the icons jiggle (like on iPhone/iPad). Then you can mover the icon to a position that you prefer.

Love the show!
Ken

 

 

I am moving soon to Raleigh, NC to start a my first full time job. Since I will be living on my own for the first time at the age of 22, I opted to go for the all internet no cable tv approach to my expenses. So I was wondering what kind of antenna should I get for my apartment to watch stuff over the air? I did a little research and found the Mohu Leaf, it looks cool but I would like your guy’s opinions first.

Thanks,
Ed 

 

Long time listener and Patron, I was wondering if you could do a show or segment for those us with cable, yet still want to watch what we want, when we want , where we want on whatever device we want . . . at least in the limits that cable companies will allow us to.

I cut the cord last summer, but realized in the fall that being a sports fan that truly limited my options, especially for in market teams. So I’m back on the cord but still trying to live with the Cordkiller spirit. So could you have a show or have a guest on to talk about what options are available for people on the cord. Options like, Tivo, WMC, Plex, the hardware that is needed, the limitations of DRM, or even the various cable or satellite company solutions. I think that would be extremely helpful to those of us trying to this the right way.

Love the show!!

Cyril

 

Links 
patreon.com/cordkillers 
Dog House Systems Cordkiller box

Today in Tech History – Aug. 10, 2014

Today in Tech History / August 10th, 2014

20140404-073853.jpgIn 1519 – Ferdinand Magellan set sail to find that pesky trade route that Columbus was looking for, and instead circumnavigated the globe. Well, at least his ship did.

In 1990 – The Magellan space probe, named after Ferdinand Magellan, reached Venus, beginning its mission to map the planet’s surface.

In 2004 – The iTunes Music Store library passed the mark of 1,000,000 songs available.

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Subscribe to the podcast. Like Tech History? Get Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.

Open response to Amazon: Important request

Writing / August 9th, 2014

As someone who publishes books through Amazon Kindle Direct, I received a long email today asking me to take Amazon’s side in their dispute with publisher Hachette.

I’ve added the full text of their email below. You can read more about the dispute here. In summary, Amazon wants to sell Hachette’s eBooks for cheaper, Hachette doesn’t want to. That’s fair enough. Amazon has taken the tactic of removing pre-orders for some of Hachette’s titles and removed faster shipping options as well as removing promotions. That’s hardball but that’s business. If you’re mad at Amazon because you thought it was nicer than this, it’s probably a good reminder that Amazon is a for-profit business like any other.

But then today Amazon finally irked me. It appealed to me as someone locked into its frustratingly restrictive publishing system to help its business negotiations.

Why Amazon’s KDP Select Bothers me

You see, Amazon has a promotional system called KDP Select. You get better royalty rates and promotion of your ebooks if you agree not to sell them anywhere else. I’ve usually declined to do that because I believe in making most everything I create available as widely as possible. I also don’t like encouraging monopoly behavior. In fact most of my eBooks I make available freely as un-DRM’d PDFs with a Creative Commons license, including one called “Chronology of Tech History.”

However, when Scott Johnson and I decided to try monthly Kindle singles about tech history, using the facts from “Chronology,” I decided to sign up for KDP Select. We weren’t going to publish these smaller and illustrated eBooks anywhere else, so why not? Turns out “why not” is because Amazon wants to control all text not just editions. My first submission was flagged as in violation because someone had published a pastebin of my Chronology of Tech History, which has much of the same text in it as the Kindle Singles.

I explained to Amazon that my Kindle single certainly shared text with that larger work, but was a different edition with illustrations. The representative very politely and nicely explained that the text could not be available anywhere else but Amazon in order to qualify for the program. So I removed the singles from that program.

What Amazon asked us to do today
Now back to today. Amazon asked me (in a form letter) to email Hachette’s CEO and gave the following points to work from.

– We have noted your illegal collusion. Please stop working so hard to overcharge for ebooks. They can and should be less expensive.
– Lowering e-book prices will help – not hurt – the reading culture, just like paperbacks did.
– Stop using your authors as leverage and accept one of Amazon’s offers to take them out of the middle.
– Especially if you’re an author yourself: Remind them that authors are not united on this issue.

What I ask Amazon
Instead, I have emailed the following to Jeff Bezos

– I have noted your illegal monopoly. Please stop working so hard to restrict distribution by others. Ebook distribution can and should be more widespread.
– Loosening restrictions on distribution will help – not hurt – the reading culture, just like Kindle did.
– Stop using your authors as leverage and take them out of the middle of your fight against other distributors.
– Just because authors take part in KDP Select does not mean all authors believe it is best for us all.

I admire Mr. Bezos and his company. I rely on Amazon for a lot. I think it provides valuable services. I don’t feel like helping it fight with Hachette. I certainly won’t unless it stops treating me and other solo authors this way.

Here’s the full text of the email that was sent to Kindle Direct Authors.

Dear KDP Author,

Just ahead of World War II, there was a radical invention that shook the foundations of book publishing. It was the paperback book. This was a time when movie tickets cost 10 or 20 cents, and books cost $2.50. The new paperback cost 25 cents – it was ten times cheaper. Readers loved the paperback and millions of copies were sold in just the first year.

With it being so inexpensive and with so many more people able to afford to buy and read books, you would think the literary establishment of the day would have celebrated the invention of the paperback, yes? Nope. Instead, they dug in and circled the wagons. They believed low cost paperbacks would destroy literary culture and harm the industry (not to mention their own bank accounts). Many bookstores refused to stock them, and the early paperback publishers had to use unconventional methods of distribution – places like newsstands and drugstores. The famous author George Orwell came out publicly and said about the new paperback format, if “publishers had any sense, they would combine against them and suppress them.” Yes, George Orwell was suggesting collusion.

Well… history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

Fast forward to today, and it’s the e-book’s turn to be opposed by the literary establishment. Amazon and Hachette – a big US publisher and part of a $10 billion media conglomerate – are in the middle of a business dispute about e-books. We want lower e-book prices. Hachette does not. Many e-books are being released at $14.99 and even $19.99. That is unjustifiably high for an e-book. With an e-book, there’s no printing, no over-printing, no need to forecast, no returns, no lost sales due to out of stock, no warehousing costs, no transportation costs, and there is no secondary market – e-books cannot be resold as used books. E-books can and should be less expensive.

Perhaps channeling Orwell’s decades old suggestion, Hachette has already been caught illegally colluding with its competitors to raise e-book prices. So far those parties have paid $166 million in penalties and restitution. Colluding with its competitors to raise prices wasn’t only illegal, it was also highly disrespectful to Hachette’s readers.

The fact is many established incumbents in the industry have taken the position that lower e-book prices will “devalue books” and hurt “Arts and Letters.” They’re wrong. Just as paperbacks did not destroy book culture despite being ten times cheaper, neither will e-books. On the contrary, paperbacks ended up rejuvenating the book industry and making it stronger. The same will happen with e-books.

Many inside the echo-chamber of the industry often draw the box too small. They think books only compete against books. But in reality, books compete against mobile games, television, movies, Facebook, blogs, free news sites and more. If we want a healthy reading culture, we have to work hard to be sure books actually are competitive against these other media types, and a big part of that is working hard to make books less expensive.

Moreover, e-books are highly price elastic. This means that when the price goes down, customers buy much more. We’ve quantified the price elasticity of e-books from repeated measurements across many titles. For every copy an e-book would sell at $14.99, it would sell 1.74 copies if priced at $9.99. So, for example, if customers would buy 100,000 copies of a particular e-book at $14.99, then customers would buy 174,000 copies of that same e-book at $9.99. Total revenue at $14.99 would be $1,499,000. Total revenue at $9.99 is $1,738,000. The important thing to note here is that the lower price is good for all parties involved: the customer is paying 33% less and the author is getting a royalty check 16% larger and being read by an audience that’s 74% larger. The pie is simply bigger.

But when a thing has been done a certain way for a long time, resisting change can be a reflexive instinct, and the powerful interests of the status quo are hard to move. It was never in George Orwell’s interest to suppress paperback books – he was wrong about that.

And despite what some would have you believe, authors are not united on this issue. When the Authors Guild recently wrote on this, they titled their post: “Amazon-Hachette Debate Yields Diverse Opinions Among Authors” (the comments to this post are worth a read). A petition started by another group of authors and aimed at Hachette, titled “Stop Fighting Low Prices and Fair Wages,” garnered over 7,600 signatures. And there are myriad articles and posts, by authors and readers alike, supporting us in our effort to keep prices low and build a healthy reading culture. Author David Gaughran’s recent interview is another piece worth reading.

We recognize that writers reasonably want to be left out of a dispute between large companies. Some have suggested that we “just talk.” We tried that. Hachette spent three months stonewalling and only grudgingly began to even acknowledge our concerns when we took action to reduce sales of their titles in our store. Since then Amazon has made three separate offers to Hachette to take authors out of the middle. We first suggested that we (Amazon and Hachette) jointly make author royalties whole during the term of the dispute. Then we suggested that authors receive 100% of all sales of their titles until this dispute is resolved. Then we suggested that we would return to normal business operations if Amazon and Hachette’s normal share of revenue went to a literacy charity. But Hachette, and their parent company Lagardere, have quickly and repeatedly dismissed these offers even though e-books represent 1% of their revenues and they could easily agree to do so. They believe they get leverage from keeping their authors in the middle.

We will never give up our fight for reasonable e-book prices. We know making books more affordable is good for book culture. We’d like your help. Please email Hachette and copy us.

Hachette CEO, Michael Pietsch:

Copy us at: readers-united@amazon.com

Please consider including these points:

– We have noted your illegal collusion. Please stop working so hard to overcharge for ebooks. They can and should be less expensive.
– Lowering e-book prices will help – not hurt – the reading culture, just like paperbacks did.
– Stop using your authors as leverage and accept one of Amazon’s offers to take them out of the middle.
– Especially if you’re an author yourself: Remind them that authors are not united on this issue.

Thanks for your support.

The Amazon Books Team

P.S. You can also find this letter at www.readersunited.com

Today in Tech History – Aug. 9, 2014

Today in Tech History / August 9th, 2014

20140404-073853.jpgIn 1859 – US Patent no. 25,076 was issued to Nathan Ames of Saugus, Mass. for the first escalator-type moving staircase.

In 1927 – Computer pioneer Marvin Minsky was born in New York City. Minsky grew up to become a pioneer in Artificial Intelligence research and wrote the book “The Society of Mind.”

In 1995 – Netscape Communications staged an IPO. Shares opened at $28 and shot up to $75 per share in one day, becoming one of the indicators of the beginning of the dot-com boom.

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DTNS 2296 – Silence of the Twitches

Daily Tech News Show / August 8th, 2014

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comVeronica Belmont is here to talk Twitch crackdowns and WarKittehs. Yes Kittens who hack WiFI. No kidding.

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 in Tech History – Aug. 8, 2014

Today in Tech History / August 8th, 2014

20140404-073853.jpgIn 1876 – Thomas Edison received a US patent for a mimeograph, which combined with an invention by A. B. Dick led to the first widely successful mimeograph machine.

In 1908 – For the first time in public, Wilbur Wright showed off the Wright Brothers’ flying machine at the racecourse in Le Mans, France. French doubts about the Wright Brothers’ claims to flight were put to rest for the time being.

In 2007 – Barbara Morgan became the first educator to safely reach space on the U.S. Space Shuttle Endeavour.

MP3

Subscribe to the podcast. Like Tech History? Get Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.

DTNS 2295 – Baby Tested, Pet Approved

Daily Tech News Show / August 7th, 2014

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comFraser Cain is on the show and we’ll chat about uBeam’s ubiquitous wireless power claims and how we so very much want them to come true.

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: Fraser Cain, publisher of Universe Today

Headlines

Ars Technica reports scientists from Cornell University and IBM Research have designed a chip that mimics how the brain works though an asynchronous collection of thousands of processing cores capable of spikes of activity and complicated connections just like neural networks. Computers have been able to model neural networks but the binary nature of transistors have limited the efficiency. This new processor, dubbed TrueNorth, uses the cores to receive and send to 256 other “neurons.” The power density of TrueNorth is 20mW per square centimeter and was fabricated by Samsung using a 28nm process. Next up, software!

According to ZDNet, Google has released a preview of its Android fitness platform to developers. Google Fit, announced in June at Google I/O, will collect fitness activity from Android smartphones and wearables. Google says developers will be able to launch their apps when the SDK goes into general availability later this year through Google Play services for handsets, Android Wear and the web.

ReCode reports Facebook announced Thursday it has acquired PrivateCore, a server security startup. PrivateCore will help defend Facebook’s data centers from malware and other security breaches. PrivateCore’s founders and other members of the team will work at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters on the Facebook security team run by Joe Sullivan.

GigaOm reports Google said late Wednesday it will start taking TLS connections, the secure URLS that begin with https:, into account in search engine rankings. It will affect fewer than 1% of queries and carry less weight than other content signals. The move may encourage sites to provide secure connections to their webpages in order to help SEO. 

The Verge notes Twitch has begun scanning archived video for copyrighted music and muting entire 30 minute chunks if such music is found. Many games incorporate music and already high profile streams like the dota2 streams from Valve, maker of dota 2, have reportedly been muted. Twitch partnered with a company called Audible Magic for the scanning. The heavy-handed and often capricious nature of the policy reminds many of YouTube’s similar contentID system further fueling rumors that Google is acquiring TwiTch. Twitch CEO Emmett Shear said on Reddit Twitch has no intention of flagging songs due to original in-game music and will try to fix the problem and stressed the no live streams will be scanned or blocked. Twitch also announced it will no longer allow videos to be archived forever, Making 14 days the maximum that video will be preserved. However you can push a button and have your archived videos saved— to YouTube.

News From You:

MikePkennedy submitted the Verge article noting several reports that Microsoft will get rid of the Charms bar from Windows 9. That’s the devilish bar that you have to hover over to the right just right in order to access things like settings and shutdown. It works much better on touch screens than with a mouse. Windows 9 will also add an amazing Linux feature from the early 2000s known as ‘virtual desktops’. 

sdc111 pointed out the Boing Boing post that USIS, a federal contractor that does background checks for the US DHS, disclosed Wednesday that federal employees’ personal data has likely been stolen. USIS said the attack had “all the markings of a state-sponsored attack,” because reasons. The US FBI is investigating.

diggsalot submitted the Android Police report that T-Mobile claims it is now the number one pre-paid wireless provider in the United States. The company reports it has 15.64 million pre-paid subscribers to Sprint’s 15.19 million. Pre-paid contracts are not generally considered as lucrative as customers can stop anytime. The real money is in ‘post-paid’ subscribers–people locked into nice, predictable two-year prison sentences–er contracts. T-Mobile CEO John Legere predicts his company will overtake Sprint in overall subscribers by the end of the year. 

And tm204 passes along good news for European gamers from The Verge: Microsoft will release an over-the-air TV tuner/adapter for the European X-Box One, allowing users to pass broadcast channels through the Xbox’s HDMI port. The device goes on sale in October in France Italy German Spain and the UK, and will cost 29,99 Euros. Microsoft has not yet committed to going full DVR, but users will be able to pause live television and get program listings. No word yet on when this technology will reach other regions of the world, so Australia, you just keep doin’ what you do. 

Pick of the Day: The Red Cross First Aid App via Grant in beautiful Northern Ontario.

As a passenger train conductor, I am extensively trained in first aid. But, when an emergency pops up, I like to double check everything I am doing to make sure passengers are getting the best treatment possible. The Red Cross First Aid app is amazing for this purpose. It makes finding emergencies quick and easy right on the home screen and keeps updating for any new techniques that may have been implemented since my last first aid class. It is available for different countries and is free.

Plug of the Day:  It’s Thursday, which means its time for another article+video combo from Molly Wood in The New York Times. This week Molly checks out three services competing to be the Netflix of Books. Check out nytimes.com/machinelearning to read up on e-books.

Friday’s guest: Lamarr Wilson and Len Peralta