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Show Notes
Today’s guests: Natali Morris and Patrick Beja
Headlines:
EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager announced the issuance of a Statement of Objections to Google regarding the search engine’s placement of it’s own comparison shopping results. Google has 10 weeks to respond. If the objections are not resolved Google could face a fine of up to 10% of annual sales and possible requirements to change business practices. The EU also announced the beginning of an investigation into Android and Google’s practice of requiring bundles of software be included as well as accusations that Google tries to prevents forks of the open source operating system.
TechCrunch reports a new Tumblr mobile app has added several desktop features of the site to the app like creating secondary blogs or posting to submission blogs. There’s also a Tumblr Widget that you can add to your today screen to show what’s trending. And a iOS users can now cut and paste video links to make video posts just like their android cousins. Better post filtering options are among the other new features.
CNET reports Samsung told Reuters that demand for the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge is much higher than expected. The Korea Times reports a source says Samsung expects to ship 10 million S6s and S6 Edges in the first 26 days after launch.
Reuters reports that Chinese transportation robotics firm Ninebot has acquired Segway makers of a competing self-balancing scooter. The terms were not disclosed, but Sequoia Capital China and Xiaomi invested 80 million dollars in Ninebot to help fund the acquisition. Segway named Ninebot in a patent infringement complaint in September 2014. So remember kids, can’t beat ‘em? Buy ‘em.
PCWorld has just posted a review of Alcatel’s Onetouch Watch. Highlights include the, price: $150 – making it the cheapest smartwatch on the market, standard USB charging interface, 3 days of battery life at medium brightness, and works with iPhone and Android Smartphones. Misses include design and feel, small feature set, semi-useful notifications, and limited activity-tracking tools that do calories burned, miles walked, minutes active and hours slept.
The Verge reports that Twitter has unveiled a new homepage for people who aren’t signed in. Targeted at new users, it displays a curated collection of timelines showing off popular parts of Twitter, including pop artists, cute animals, space news, business news, actors and actresses, and tech news sites. Click on one and you’ll see a real-time conversation from those accounts. The new homepage also includes a prominent search bar that suggests queries for popular trends and hashtags, like #2016Election.
Tech Crunch reports that Tinder released an update today that integrates with Instagram. Users can scroll through the most recent 34 Instagram pictures from their potential matches to see what food they’ve been eating and how they rock a selfie. Users with private Instagram accounts, will have the option to grant Tinder access, which would make your Instagram public on Tinder only. Tinder now also supports common connections, letting users see degrees of separation and Facebook interests.
The Huffinton Post India is reporting India’s Cleartrip, NDTV, Newshunt and the Times Group announced that they are pulling out of Facebook’s internet.org initiative today, citing support for net neutrality as the reason. Internet.org provides access to services without counting against data usage costs. Many net neutrality supporters criticize such ‘zero-rating’ as creating an unbalanced playing field for startups.
News From You:
Ninja3000 gave us a heads up on Huawei’s new P8 smartphone announced at a London launch event. According to Android Central the P8 features a steel body, 64-bit 8-core Kirin 920 processor, 3GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, microSD slot for up to 128GB of additional storage, a 13-megapixel optical image stabilized camera,, 5.2” 1080p display and a 2600 mAh fixed internal battery. The P8 will ship with Huawei’s EMUI 3.1 software on Android Lollipop and come in black, gold, grey and champagne. It will launch in 30 countries costing 499 euros for the standard version or 599 euros for the P8 Max with 64 GB of storage in black or gold. An affordable version may come to the US this summer.
JohnEllsworth3 shared this ArsTechnica story about Chrome version 42 disabling old Java and Silverlight plug-ins. Those plug-ins use the 90s era Netscape Plugin API to extend browser functionality. Chrome 42 will be turn that API off by default. Users who need that functionality can re-enable the API setting. However, by September Google plans to permanently kill the plug-ins because they cause “hangs, crashes, security incidents and code complexity”. The company suggests developers who are reliant on the plug-ins should move to more open web standards. Chrome for Linux since version 35 and mobile browsers do not support the plug-ins either.
Discussion Section Links:
Pick of the day:
Tom from terrific Toronto writes in:
Hello Tom and Jennie:
With regards to DTNS 2462 and your conversation about Windows unveiling an accessibility dev centre. I would like to pick the weekly Assistive Technology Update podcast.
The latest episode #200, is a special look-back episode, but generally speaking each week they cover the key news in assistive technology, have app reviews, and have an in-depth interview. There are very detailed show notes that include links and a transcript of the interview.
I find it very useful to keep up to date on what’s going on with assistive technology!
http://www.eastersealstech.com/category/assistive-tech-update/
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/assistive-technology-update/id442159129?mt=2
Cheers,
Tom
Messages
Stacey Byerly from rainy Georgia :
Hi Tom
Love the show THANK YOU for a great show
I think Patrick has something there with people being scared to use their phones because of data caps being so low. I suggest apps to many of my friends and family members some of these people don’t know what a gigabyte is. Some don’t want to do anything on their phones because data caps scare them. That might be how the big networks keep traffic down.
I myself used a lot of data this month I’m one of the lucky ones that have an unlimited data plan with unlimited tethering for 60USD (picture attached) haven’t been throttled yet
Thanks
Stacey Byerly
Gaspare from once again rainy in Tampa Florida has a comment on the Reddit button.
“As you described it, it reminded me instantly of a social experiment called “the game.” Thought you might find it interesting, and btw… We all just lost the game…
Christian Cantrell said:
It reminded him of stock trading by employees with limited shares and he theorized: “the button experiment was created by a bored employee of a publicly traded company with no more stock to trade, and who wanted to share his or her pain with millions of fellow Redditors.”
Christian (still waiting to click)
Jason, from springtime Seattle which cannot decide between six more weeks of rain or apocalyptic levels of sunshine and clear skies.
Dear Tom, Jenny, and NotPatrick –
How is it that Monday’s news of the security fix in Mac OS X 10.10.3 wasn’t the lead story? Effectively, there’s a major privilege escalation bug in every version of OS X ever. Apple released a patch for 10.10 (Yosemite) and told every user of previous versions “look, the upgrade to Yosemite is fee, so we wont be patching earlier versions. You’re on your own.”
Users of applications that just don’t work with Yosemite are, of course, left swinging in the wind.
Can you imagine the crapstorm that would ensue if Microsoft fixed a major security release in Windows 10 and told users of Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 “hey, the upgrade is free, we won’t be patching your old version”.
Why the free pass for Apple?
Chris in Irvine wanted to comment on the teen being charged a felony for using the teacher’s password.
Turns out when Chris was in school he I created a visual basic application that was a clone of the software used to lock down the PCs. He writes: “The teacher would use a key combination to enter the application and unlock the PC after entering the password. My program intercepted this and displayed it’s own password entry box which would then log the password in a hidden file…. the password securing all of the school’s computers was “book”.. ” He got a three day suspension he continues ” I feel what I did was considerably worse and my punishment of a three day suspension should be more than sufficient in my eyes.
Sheala writes pointing out lots of schools have old tech, insufficient password policies and:
“Added to all that is the fact that the teachers computer is often the only one in he room. So it often gets used for a quick but of research by students. Or teachers will get students to help out. There are any number of activities that make it normal for a kid to be at a teachers computer. And so bad behavior is easily missed.
There are a lot of computer classes in my district taught by teachers that know the bare minimum. And they aren’t teaching information security.”
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Wednesday’s guest: Nate Lanxon