Lamarr Wilson is back to help us understand how SnapChat is worth $10 billion.

MP3

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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:  Lamarr Wilson of all the funny.  And also Mashable.

Headlines

ReCode reports Google changed Hangouts for businesses and Chromebox for Meetings today. Users of Google Apps for Business will now get access to Hangouts without needing a G+ ID. Hangouts will allow up to 15 participants, and will interoperate with video conferencing from Blue Jeans and IntercCall. Starting in September, Dell will sell a version of Chromebox for Meetings with the ability to connect it to more than one display at a time and new management capabilities for administrators.

According to the BBC, Nintendo reported a larger first quarter loss than expected, with a 9.9 billion yen loss (97 million USD), compared with an 8.6 billion loss (about 86 million USD) deficit a year earlier. Nintendo did sell 2.82 million copies of Mario Kart 8 during the quarter, but overall sales fell 8%. Nintendo said it expected new releases in the coming months to boost demand before the holiday shopping season. Hyrule Warriors to the rescue? 

Bloomberg reports China’s Alibaba is part of talks to provide another round of investment in SnapChat. The financing would value SnapChat at $10 billion. Alibaba rival TenCent is already a small and quiet investor in SnapChat.

The Next Web reports Microsoft announced its first update to Windows Phone 8.1 will release Cortana to roam across the world. The voice-activated assistant will be launched as a beta in the UK and in China under the name Xiao Na. Alpha versions of Cortant will arrive in Canada, India, and Australia. All the versions will be localized with spellings and pronunciation. The US version will get new features like snooze times for reminders, impersonations, and a hands-free mode. Folders are also coming to the home screen and VPN supports WiFi hotspots. Preview for Developers will get the update next week and the rest of us mere mortals will see it in the coming months.

Apple Insider reports Russia’s Ministry of Communications and Mass Media asked Apple and SAP to provide source code for inspection. The government wants to make sure the code doesn’t hide any nefarious spy programs. Microsoft agreed to a similar proposal in 2010.

Security Week reports The Tor Project disclosed details of an attack that attempted to deanonymize users. The attack was detected on July 4 while Tor was trying to identify attacks leveraging a method discovered by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s CERT. Tor project leader Roger Dingledine believes the attack may have been conducted by the researchers as a test, but is frustrated beciuse Tor can’t get access to the research. A talk on the topic was planned for Black Hat but then was canceled at the request of the University. Dingledie advised that users who operated or accessed hidden services between February and July 4 should assume they have been affected.

GigaOm reports the UK will permit driverless cars on British roads for testing starting in January 2015. The trials will last between 18 months and 3 years. Tests are already taken place on public roads in Japan and parts of the US. Trials on Swedish roads begin in 2017. 

Wondering why EA Access only came to the Xbox One? Ars Technica reports that a Sony representative told Game Informer that it essenitally just wasn’t worth it. The unnamed Sony rep touted the 200% growth of PlayStation Plus memberships since the launch of PlayStation 4 saying, “We don’t think asking our fans to pay an additional $5 a month for this EA-specific program represents good value.” So, basically, take your early access to Madden 15 and shove it.  

GigaOm reports FreedomPop will begin selling first-gen iPad Minis and Samsung Tab 3s which will come with the service’s standard free 500 Megabytes a month as well as 500 SMS and 200 voice minutes. Yees you heard that right. You can make calls through FreedomPop’s voice app on your Tablet. You can bring your own tablet on too, as long as it’s compatible with the Sprint LTE network that FreedomPop uses. The iPad mini will sell for $319 and the Tab 3 for $199.

News From You

melchizedek74 posted the Ars Technica article that a survey by the US Government Accounting Office came to the shocking conclusion that people don’t like data caps on home Internet service. They also found that home Internet service providers admit that data caps aren’t really needed to prevent congestion. Instead data caps are needed in order to charge people more for Internet. 

spsheridan submitted the Wired article the peers of the realm in the House of Lords have, after weighty consideration, determined that the so-styled “right to be forgotten” as described by the European Commission is simply “wrong.” The EU sub-committeee of the Lords consulted with the Information Commissioner’s Office, Minister for Justice and Civil Liberties Simon Hughes and Google, before arriving at their inescapable conclusion. Chairman of the Sub-Committee Baroness Prashar said the reality was “crystal clear” — “neither the 1995 Directive, nor the Court of Justice of the European Unions’s (CJEU) interpretation of it, reflects the incredible advancement in technology that we see today, over 20 years since the Directive was drafted”.

And finally, sdc111 passed along the BoingBoing post of an NPR report that astronomers at two different radio telescopes on opposite ends of the earth have now picked up fast “burst” radio signals that seem to originate outside our galaxy. Now before you submit your bid to build the wormhole surfing machine based on the schematics that are surely embedded deep within the signal, responsible scientists would like to remind you that these radio bursts could caused by blitzars, pulses of energy from a supermassive star collapsing into a black hole. Or by powerful solar flares from closer stars. Or by something an equally wondrous and yet unknown natural phenomenon. OR ALIENS SCIENTISTS!

Discussion Section:

http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/30/snapchat-in-talks-with-alibaba-joins-the-10-billion-valuation-club/?ncid=rss

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-30/snapchat-said-in-funding-talks-with-alibaba-at-10-billion-value.html

http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/20/tencent-snapchat/

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+does+snapchat+make+money%27&oq=how+does+snapchat+make+money%27&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i64.4093j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=119&ie=UTF-8

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2013/11/snapchat-doesnt-make-any-money-why-is-it-worth-so-much/

http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/25/how-could-snapchat-make-money-college-kids/

http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/10/5887211/can-snapchat-make-money-without-losing-its-cool-filters-stories

http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/24/snapchats-first-monetization-move-will-be-in-app-purchases/

http://www.wired.com/2014/01/secret-snapchats-monetization-success-will-surprise/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenhuet/2014/07/23/snapchat-celebrity-advertising/

http://www.tubefilter.com/2014/07/25/jerome-jarre-snapchat-shonduras-chris-carmichael 

Pick of the Day: Francisco Rivera picks testmy.net

Forever, I’ve used speedtest.net by Ookla to check my connection. It’s pretty and all, but I’ve since found testmy.net and it’s great, free, and allows for automatic repeat testing at almost any interval, which is great if you’re trying to find out if your service drops out at odd intervals.

Thursday’s guest: Patrick Beja! 

Scott Johnson joins me to talk about EA’s new all-you-can-eat-of-what-they’ll-serve-you gaming service as well as Microsoft’s rumored selfie phone.

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:  Scott Johnson of the Frogpants Network

Headlines

TechCrunch reports Facebook is getting rid of messaging in the main Facebook app for iPhone and Android and will force users to download the separate “Messenger” app if they want to chat. This is nothing new to European users who were the guinea pigs for the requirement back in April. Mobile web, iPad, feature phone, Windows Phone, Paper, and desktop users can still message like before, for now. Facebook believes the move will make both the Facebook and Messenger apps better.

The Next Web reports EA announced a new subscription service for the Xbox One today. For $5 a month or $30 a year members of EA Access can play older titles from the EA vault and get free access to new titles up to 5 days before release. After the release you’ll still have to buy the game, but you get a 10% discount on all EA titles and DLC in the Xbox store. PLus if you played early and buy the game any progress you amde carries over. Selected users are participating in a beta, but EA promises to take everyone’s money soon. 

Is this good news or bad news for those hopeful of new MacBook pros this autumn? The Next Web reports Apple has done a minor refresh of the MacBook Pros with retina displays. The 13-inch starter model comes with a 2.6 GHz Core i5 processor and 8GB of memory. The entry-level 15-inch MacBook Pro now starts with a 2.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 chip and 16GB of memory.

ZDNet reports BlackBerry said Tuesday it will acquire German mobile security company Secusmart. The two companies have partnered since 2009. Secusmart makes popular anti-eavesdropping product. Or at least its become popular with Chanellor Merkel. The Secusmart Security Card contains the NXP SmartMX P5CT072 crypto-controller with a PKI coprocessor for authentication as well as a high-speed coprocessor that encrypts voice and data communication using 128 bit AES. All of that integrated into the micro-SD card.

Does the App boom smell like it’s ending? Bear with me. In 1999 what’s big Websites Along came DigiScents which made a device called iSmell, I KID YOU NOT, that would allow web pages to emit odor. Within two years, dot-coms were bust. In 2005 AJAX, XML Web 2.0 was all the reage. Everyone’s Rubies were starting to ride Rails. And researchers from the University of Huelva developed XML Smell, a protocol of XML that could transmit smells. Within two years smartphones had wiped Web 2.0 out of our minds. Today with the app universe going strong, Vapor Communications is promoting an Indiegogo campaign for the iPhone. A device to let people send and receive scented messages. Woe betide its funding and the decline of the appiverse.

TechCrunch reports Twitter reported revenue of $312 Million and earnings per share of two copper pennies. The street expected Twitter to lose the one pennie it did have on revenue of only 283.07 million Twitter allegedly said “TAKE THAT STREET WHAT DO YOU KNOW!” although that is unconfirmed. Twitter reported that it has 271 million monthly active users, up from its 255 million tally in the first quarter of 2014. That’s up 24%, year-over-year. Twitter’s monthly mobile user count was also up, to 211 million, a gain of 29%.

News From You

KAPT_Kipper submitted the Ars Technica report that researchers at Bluebox Security have discovered a hack that allows any malicious app to masquerade as an app with special privileges. The vulnerability has existed since Android 2.1 in early 2010. Apps like Google Wallet and Adobe Flash are allowed to act with other apps in ways the Android sandbox usually prevents. While Android checks the apps ID it does not verify the validity of cryptographic certificates that accompany it. Cleverly made forgeries can therefore get the same special access to private information and device settings. Bluebox calls the vulnerability “Fake ID”. Google has been informed of the vulnerability and say they’ve issued a patch. Bluebox CTO Jeff Forristal will present more details on the vulnerability at Black Hat next week. 

metalfreak posted the PC World article noting the announcement over the weekend that Quantum Mechanix and Spark Plug Games will have the original cast of Firefly do the voicework for their upcoming Firefly game. Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk, Adam Baldwin, Sean Maher, and Ron Glass have already recorded their bits. Jewel Staite, Gina Torres, and Summer Glau will be in the studio soon. The game will come to iOS, Android, PC and Mac in Spring 2015.

spsheridan pointed us to a Wired UK article that researchers from the University of Michigan and New York University have been simulating wet information storage techniques which uses clusters of nanoparticles suspended in liquid. Working a bit like a rubik’s cube, clusters of particles can reconfigure to represent different storage states. A 12-particle cluster can have almost 8 million states. That means a teaspoon of the stuff could store a Terabyte! All you have to do is use your scanning tunnelling microscope to read the data!

Discussion Section:

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/07/29/ea-announces-5-gaming-subscription-xbox-one/

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/07/29/ea-announces-5-gaming-subscription-xbox-one/

http://www.ea.com/news/ea-announces-ea-access-on-xbox-one?utm_campaign=ea-social-global-tw-easports-ea-access-072914-tw-text-site-ramp&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&sourceid=ea-social-global-tw-easports-ea-access-072914-tw-text-site-ramp&cid=23663&ts=1406654315238

http://www.ea.com/eaaccess/

http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/29/5947583/new-microsoft-windows-phones

http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/28/5660722/nokia-superman-windows-phone-features

http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/3/5867113/nokia-lumia-830-rumor-photos

http://www.wpcentral.com/verizon-htc-one-w8-windows-phone-august-21

Pick of the Day:  ProClip via Kevin Klecker

Kevin Klecker has our pick of the day! My commute averages about an hour each way, and it would be much more torturous if I didn’t have The Daily Tech News Show to keep me informed and entertained. I always want my podcasts, music, and Waze at my fingertips, I never knew where to keep my phone until I stumbled onto ProClip.

ProClip offers vehicle mounting solutions for all of your tech and gadgetry. ProClip is a 2-piece solution. It consists of a custom base that is engineered to fit your specific vehicle (You can choose one of several mounting locations. This is paired with either a universal/adjustable mount or custom mount which is engineered for your device (phones, tablets, 2 way radios, GPS units, etc). They have mounts to fit a large variety of device (iPhones, iPads, Galaxy series, heck….even my Windows Phone 8 Device). Most have the option to include a hardwired charger, or a cigarette lighter adapters to automatically charge your device while docked. They are fairly easy to install (usually lock into vents or molding), and have always seemed sturdy. Since the system is 2 pieces, it is easy to replace the base if you get a new vehicle – or the mount if you get a new device. My wife and I will be customers for life!

Wednesday’s guest: Lamarr Wilson of all the funny.  And also Mashable.

Pelle Eklund is on the show to chat about Spain charging to link to things on the Internet and NHL Refs getting sent off for Twittering.

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:  Eklund of hockeybuzz.com

Headlines

GigaOm compiles reports from Reuters and the South China Morning Post that Microsoft offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu have been visited by authorities. The State Administration for Industry and Commerce is investigating the company. Chinese authorities banned government institutions from using Windows 8 in late May. Microsoft said Monday the company is “happy to answer the government’s questions.”

TechCrunch reports the European Commission has given Apple permission to acquire Beats Electronics. The approval was predicated partly on the fact that beats has a very small marketshare in Europe for both headphones and digital music. Apple still needs approval in the SU which it is expected to get. Then it can take on Bose which is suing Beats for patent infringement. And come on, you know Apple lawyers love a good patent infringement case, amiright?

Mozilla chair Mitchell Baker announced Monday that interim CEO Chris Beard has been appointed permanently as CEO of Mozilla Corporation. Beard joined Mozilla in 2004, left for Greylock Partners in July 2013 and re-joined Mozilla in April of this year when CEO Brendan Eich was removed in controversy over his support of Proposition 8 in California. 

The Verge reports OKCupid co-founder Christian Rudder has admitted that his site experimented on users as well. In one of three described experiments, users were told they were good matches for people they were bad matches for in order to measure the change int he rate of correspondence. Being told you were a good or bad match did have an impact but did not fully offset the calculated compatibility. Users were informed after the fact that they were part of the experiment. 

The Verge reports that most Hilton-owned hotels worldwide plan to allow customers to use a smartphone to unlock their rooms by the end of 2016. Hilton also plans to allow guests to check themselves in and choose their own room locations.

News From You

ayserk56 posted the Engadget story that researchers at Stanford have developed a new lithium battery that uses a nanoscopic carbon shield to allow for denser more efficient lithium use in a batteries anode, the part that discharges electrons. The result is a battery that lasts considerably longer, won’t decay quickly and remains relatively safe. They estimate the battery could get 2-3 times the life of current cell phone batteries. 

spsheridan sent along the ReCode report that Apple is close to buying Swell, an app that plays podcasts and other talk shows in a Pandora style, that surfaced shows adapted to the listeners tastes. Swell will apparently be shut down this week.

metalfreak pointed out the OS News story that Trend Micro’s report that Android is populated with many fake apps, half of which are malware, turns out to be an exaggeration. Techrepublic and Android Police both uncovered that Trend Micro’s promotion of their report didn’t work very hard to make clear that the fake apps in question did not exist in the Google Play store but had to be side-loaded, meaning a user had to ignore and disable security warnings to make the apps work.

KAPT_Kipper posted the Verge article that Amazon appears to be going after Square. 9to5 Mac showed off internal documents from Staples indicating an “Amazon Card Reader” will arrive on store shelves August 12 for $9.95 right next to Square and Staples’ own payments dongle.

geewhipped submitted the Vice article detailing disclosures that reveal 3 US FISA Court Judges own Verizon stock, two purchasing it within the last year. That includes Judge James Zagel who signed off on a government request to renew ongoing metadata collection in June. 

And Ek sent us a report from Scouting the Refs.com detailing the rise and fall of NHL official Tim Peel’s Twitter account. Turned out Mr. Peel was excited to reach out to fans and put a human face on Referees, but he hadn’t read the rules closely. The NHL-NHLOA Collective Bargaining Agreement forbids officials from having have social media accounts. His time on Twitter was brief but burned brightly. We will miss you @TimTpeel

Discussion Section:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140728/06561628035/spain-likely-to-pass-google-tax-makes-paying-news-snippets-inalienable-right-new-bureaucracy-to-collect-it.shtml

https://medium.com/@JulioAlonso/the-story-of-spains-google-tax-5434d746df48

http://www.meneame.net/

http://coalicionprointernet.com/?page_id=7#APOYOS

http://qz.com/241005/nobody-seems-quite-sure-how-spains-new-google-tax-will-work/

http://www.xataka.com/otros/el-gobierno-aclara-que-las-redes-sociales-no-pagaran-canon-aede-aunque-el-texto-de-la-ley-no-lo-indica?_ga=1.68851857.1477832429.1402335428

http://variety.com/2014/digital/news/spains-launches-google-tax-attacks-piracy-linking-sites-1201105933/

Pick of the Day:  canistream.it

Our pick of the day comes from Julio M. Romero a fellow cordcutter: “I don’t know if you have already heard about this app/website/service is called canistream.it and is just that, a service that let’s you find out if that movie or show episode is available for streaming legally in different services iTunes, Amazon, play store, Netflix and some others. It even tells you prices so you can check which one is better for your wallet. The site is available as an app in the Apple & Android stores as well as the Windows Marketplace AND as a chrome extension. JMR

Tuesday’s guest: Scott Johnson