Patrick Beja is on today. We’ll chat about the EU’s pursuit of remedies against Google’s dominant search position. Witch hunt or monoply-killing? Maybe neither.

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,

Today’s title ” ” was chosen by  at showbot.replex.org

Headlines

Geekwire reports on former Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie’s new service called Talko. That’s with an L. It lets users do things to voice calls, like tag them, bookmark moments, and record and share them. Users can also share text messages and photos through the app during a call. It can even do clever things like let you exchange recorded voice memos and then seamlessly turn those into a live call if you want. Ozzie co-founded Talko with Matt Pope and Eric Patey. The app is free to use and out first for iOS.

During his annual competition report to the European Union’s “committee on economic and monetary affairs,” Joaquin Almunia officially acknowledged that his department has asked Google for more changes to their proposed search settlement. At issue, is that Google favors its own services in search results. In February Google proposed several changes, most significantly, displaying three competing services next to its own. Opponents complained that the proposal did not do enough to mitigate Google’s dominant position in the EU marketplace.

Ars Technica reports the US Federal Trade Commission has filed a civil lawsuit against Butterfly Labs akl BFL alleging fraudulent and deceptive practices. The feds believe BFL’s founders spent millions on saunas and guns while failing to deliver promised bitcoin mining equipment. It’s pretty much just like the scams pulled off in San Francisco in 1849.

CNET reports Microsoft has set September 29th as the new date for the launch of the Xbox One in China. In compensation for the delay, pre-order customers will receive two free games. Microsoft will be the first game console maker to launch in China since a ban on game consoles was lifted. The Xbox One will cost 3,699 RMB ($600) without Kinect and 4,299 RMB ($700) with Kinect.

Remember that TechCrunch report yesterday that said Apple was going to shut down the Beats music service? The New York Times reports Apple spokesman Tom Neumayer said “This is not true.” An uncharacteristic flat denial from Apple. Well it’s uncharacteristic for Apple comment on such things at all.

Android Police reports Microsoft announced a Wireless Display Adapter that fits into the back of your TV (or monitor) and mirrors content from any Miracast-enabled device. For $60 you get a little black cable with HDMI at one end and USB (for power) at the other. That will let you mirror any Miracast-enabled device’s screen.

The Verge reports Paypal has partnered with Coinbase, BitPay and GoCoin to process bitcoin payments for some merchants in North America. If you sell intangible items like music, ringtones and the like through the PayPal Payments Hub, you can accept bitcoins now.

The Next Web reports that Jolla’s Sailfish-OS phone is on sale in India now, through Snapdeal.com. Jolla has been selling the phone in Europe through its own site since December. Customers in India will pay 16,499 Rupees ($270 USD) if they want to pick one up.

News From You

alanchar passes along the Wired report that AT&T is offering a new bundle for $39 a month, that includes 45Mbps Internet, HBO and basic cable. That sounds similar to the Comcast and TWC HBO and basic packages maybe. But WAIT there’s more! AT&T also includes one year of Amazon Prime which gets you instant streaming video the Kindle lending libray AND free two-day shipping. Take that Comcast!

tm204 passes along an Engadget report that Google Now has a new card in the deck. If you search for a plane ticket in Google Flights, Google Now will slip you a Flight price monitor card to keep you updated as prices change based on your recent destination or itinerary searches. Android Police notes that searching for flights on major travel sites like Orbitz or Kayak does not trigger a Google Now card.

AllanAV passes along the Wired article about four MIT students going to court to defend against a subpoena demanding the source code of a project called Tidbit. The tool was created for the Node Knockout hackathon and designed to let website visitors voluntarily use their computers to mine bitcoins in exchange for an ad-free experience at a website. The New Jersey attorney general claims the programmers violated New Jersey computer crime laws and demanded the source code and details of its users bitcoin wallets. The code was never fully functional. MIT has asked the subpoena to be withdrawn and the EFF is aiding with the defense.

Discussion Links: What does the E.U. want?

http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/23/6832389/eu-antitrust-chief-reverses-decision-says-google-must-improve-offer

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-14-615_en.htm
http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/14/5412690/google-publishes-full-text-of-eu-antitrust-agreement-to-quiet-critics

http://googlepolicyeurope.blogspot.nl/2014/02/settlement-with-european-commission.html

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-14-87_en.htm

http://services.google.com/fh/files/blogs/google_commitments_full_2014.pdf

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-08/eu-seeks-google-concessions-to-rescue-antitrust-pact.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/05/technology/opposition-grows-in-europe-to-google-antitrust-proposal.html

Pick of the Day:  

If iPhone and iPad users want to get taste of Android’s upcoming Material Design aesthetic, and get a great news app, they can try out Google Play Newstand which was released in the App Store today. This replaces its older Currents, and is a huge improvement. You can select which categories of news you want, and can customize the sources feeding into it. For me, it has replaced Feedly altogether and I am also using Flipboard a lot less as well. This is one Google App that works well as a stand-alone even if you are not into the Google ecosystem. Fast and nicely designed.

Plug of the Day: Plug of the day: Tuesday plug: The Sword and Laser Anthology collects 20 amazing stories from new writers in the Sword and Laser book club audience. 10 SciFi and 10 fantasy stories with an introduction by Patrick Rothfuss. Get a copy at swordandlaser.com/store

Wednesday’s guest: Brian Brushwood

Rob Krekel joins the show and we’ll talk about the new “Crescent Bay’ prototype from Oculus as well s the advent of 3D sound for VR.

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: Rob Krekel, sound designer for video game that include The Last of Us and Uncharted 3

Today’s title ” ” was chosen by  at showbot.replex.org

Headlines

Breaking news, people, Apple sold a lot of phones. According to Gigaom, the company reported the sale of ten million iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus phones between this past Friday and Sunday, beating last year’s 9 million sales of the 5c and 5s models. That may not seem like a big leap but remember iPhone 6 hasn’t gone on sale in China yet due to a delay in approval for sale.

TechCrunch reports it has five sources some of whom work at Apple and Beats, who say Apple will discontinue the Beats Music streaming service. Sources did not agree on whether this would mean it would be rolled into iTunes or not.

GigaOm passes along a Wall Street Journal tip that HTC will make Google’s upcoming 64-bit tablet, likely to be called the Nexus 9. That would make it the first Google device to run a 64-bit version of Android. The next version of Android, Android L, will be 64-bit capable. HTC has not manufactured a tablet since the HTC Flyer in 2011.

TechinAsia reports search engine Duck Duck Go has been blocked in China. The GreatFire Index suggests it may have been blocked starting Sep. 4. The New York Times published an in-depth piece yesterday about the trend of stricter controls on Internet companies in China, including Google, Line and Kakao Talk among others.

The Toronto Star reports that BlackBerry will sell its newest Passport smartphone for $599 off contract in the US , a few hundred dollars cheaper than phones like the iPhone 6 and Samsung Galaxy S5. The 4.5 inch square smartphone is the first totally new BlackBerry device to come on the market since CEO John Chen joined the company. Pricing for Canada has not yet been announced.

Hey connector cable and communication port protocol fans, listen up! The Video Electronics Standards Association announced Monday it’s teaming up with the USB 3.0 Promoter Group to have a baby. That baby will be called the DisplayPort Alternate Mode for the USB Type-C Standard. Aww it has it’s mothers reversability! That means devices can connect to existing DisplayPort monitors using a USB Type C to DisplayPort converter as long as the devices support the DisplayPort Alt Mode. A dock could support 10Gbps USB data transfer and support a 4K DisplayPort monitor.

 

 

 

 

News From You

swiftpawz passes along the word that Google no longer requires new users to create a Google+ account when signing up for other Google products. According to a PC Mag retelling of a Marketing Land report, the Google + account is now presented as optional during the signup process. Though you’ll still need a G+ account to do things like leave comments on YouTube or leave app reviews.

AllanAV called our attention to the Anandtech report that Samsung is aware of a problem with two of their solid state drives, the 840 and 840 EVO, that have caused low read performance on older data. Samsung engineers are working on updated firmware. As soon as the fix has been validated they’ll get the new firmware out to end users, though no ETA has been announced.

And finally KAPT_Kipper submitted the best long read of the day from Ars Technica – a terrific account by Cyrus Farivar about an Italian restaurant in Richmond, California which is trying to become the worst-reviewed restaurant on Yelp to highlight their frustration with what the restaurant owners believe are Yelp’s aggressive sales tactics. The restaurant is offering a 25 percent discount to anyone who writes a terrible review. Yelp, predictably is not pleased, saying the restaurant owners are violating Yelp’s terms of service by offering incentives in exchange for reviews. And in case you were wondering, according to the author of the article, it turns out the food there is pretty tasty.

Discussion Links: Oculus

http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/20/6660901/oculus-announces-new-vr-headset-prototype-crescent-bay

http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/20/6661525/oculus-crescent-bay-prototype-headset-hands-on

http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/22/6826877/i-tricked-my-brain-into-thinking-real-life-was-vr

http://recode.net/2014/09/20/oculus-announces-latest-prototype-crescent-bay/

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/09/eyes-on-oculus-crescent-bay-prototype-is-a-new-high-water-mark/

http://recode.net/2014/09/20/whats-the-killer-app-for-vr-maybe-not-games-oculus-developers-say/

http://realspace3daudio.com/

http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/print-edition/2011/05/20/university-of-maryland-spinout-takes.html?page=all

http://twobigears.com/

Pick of the Day:  XBMC (Kodi) add-on called PseudoTV Live via Dave

As someone who will soon be moving into an area that has Comcast as the ONLY option for cable I figured I would attempt to cut the cord (more or less). I have a pc hooked to my living room tv and am one of those digital hoarders with a 4tb external drive nearly filled with movies and tv shows (mostly ripped from my own personal collection because honestly who has space for almost 600 dvds in their living room anymore?). My wife and I would stare at a list of movies on the tv and usually end up switching back to cable watching a censored and cut up version of something we already own on DVD or on the pc. I did a little looking around and found an add on for XBMC called PseudoTV Live where you can set up your own “channels” and flip through your own local content as well as online content (The add on comes with a few dozen RSS feeds set as channels including a TWIT channel as well as a Scam School one). The add on has a built in channel guide and is almost indistinguishable from a real cable system and although it can be somewhat frustrating to set up once you get it working properly (I consider myself a semi above average computer user and still rage uninstalled the thing more than a couple of times) it becomes a very viable alternative to cable, I have had it set up and working properly for a couple of weeks now and my wife and I have not turned back to cable since (except to watch Da Bears stomp on the 49ers last Sunday).

Plug of the Day: Daily Tech News Show Shirt  with Mustafa from thepolarcat.com’s logo now available in white, black and Ash. Look in the podcasts section.

Tuesday’s guests: Patrick Beja

Netflix comes to Linux and TwitPic lives but as you know it’s iPhone 6 release day, so Ek will join us with his brand new phone and stories from the line plus Patrick Beja will pop in with his French version and of course Len Peralta will be here to illustrate it all.

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, Patrick Beja and Len Peralta and maybe a new iPhone.

Today’s title “Goldilocks and the Three iPhones” was created by tvsegon at showbot.replex.org

Headlines

With Apple getting some good response to their privacy subsite yesterday it shouldn’t be a big surprise that Google would want some attention too. Google spokeswoman Niki Christoff told the Washington Post that not only has Google offered on-device encryption for more than three years but starting with the next Android release, encryption will be enabled by default. Meanwhile BlackBerry stands int he corner arms crossed pointing at it’s always encrypted self.

Threatpost mentions Google, Dropbox and others are supporting a new project called Simply Secure to improve the usability of open source privacy tools. The organizations advisors will include Cory Doctorow, Ian Goldberg and Google’s Ben Laurie. The idea is bring open source developers together with usability experts to solve problems and make apps easier to use.

Bloomberg reports that Chinese e-commerce site Alibaba had a successful debut on the New York Stock Exchange today, raising $21.8 billion dollars in its initial public offering. The IPO was priced at $68 dollars and closed for the day at $XX (above $90?) per share. The company is now valued at $231 billion, which makes it worth more than Amazon.com and EBay Inc. and more valuable than all but 9 companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.

Ars Technica reports that Apple released iCloud Drive yesterday as part of the iOS update, but OS X Mavericks does not support the new Apple cloud platform, which means Mac users have to wait until OS X Yosemite is released later this fall. However, Apple did release an updated version of iCloud for Windows which has full support for iCloud drive WHICH MEANS Windows users with iPhones have the advantage over Apple users who didn’t opt in to the Yosemite beta. Of course, iCloud for Windows still can’t use iCloud keychain to sync passwords or use the Find My Device app. So don’t go getting too excited there.

Linux users stop your WINE-ing. Or any of the other workarounds you’ve been using to make Netflix work on your Linux machine. The Mukt passes along that Netflix software engineer Paul Adolph remarked on the Ubuntu developer mailing list that Netflix would be able to play video in Chrome on Ubuntu if NSS version 3.16.2 or greater is installed. To which Ubuntu security engineer Marc Deslauriers responded he plans to update Ubuntu with those very libraries. He might look at it as early as next week!

Ars Technica reports that a developer called Vladikoff has taken Google’s App Runtime for Chrome, which originally allowed certain Android apps to run in Chrome OS, and not only made it run all Android apps, but made it work in the Chrome browser as well. Vladikoff’s custom version called ARChon can be sideloaded into Chrome 37. Then you can use chromeos-apk to convert Android APKs into Chrome extensions and voila. You have android apps running on Windows, OSX or Linux.

News From You

KAPT_Kipper posted the Ars Technica story that MPHJ Technologies has lost its lawsuit against the US FTC. MPHJ was sending small businesses letters requesting $1000 per worker for using “scan to email” functions. That caused attorneys general in Vermont and Nebrasksa to sue MPHJ. So MPHJ decided to sue the FTC which it said was threatening to violate it’s right to free speech. That speech being threatening small businesses. On Tuesday, US District Court Judge Walter Smith dismissed the case since the FTC hadn’t actually done anything yet. MPHJ is still fightin the attorneys general. It’s doing well in Nebraska, but not so hot in Vermont.

tm204 passes along the news that the US Senate is considering limits on US law enforcement access to email stored abroad. Network World reports that the bill would allow the use of search warrants outside the US only in relation to US citizens or companies. The bill would also allow courts the power to modify or deny the warrant request if it forces a company to violate the laws of a foreign country. Whether or not this would help Microsoft in its ongoing quarrel with the federal government about access to emails stored in Dublin is unclear.

metalfreak pointed out an esucurityplanet.com post indicating a Swiss website called CipherShed.org claims to be the home of a project taking the TrueCrypt code forward and turning it into a new application. Jos Doekbrijder, the initiator of the project said CipherShed will be released under an open source license but which one has not been decided yet. The intent is to make a faster more secure product that can work under newer OSs like Windows 8 but still open older TrueCrypt containers.

And KAPT_Kipper has news from the Verge that should help some very concerned people on Twitter to worry less about my photos. You see I was using Tweetbot on my recent trip to post a few pics and the version of Tweetbot I use happens to use TwitPic to upload pics. Several people warned me that I was flirting with disaster and should stop immediately since TwitPic had announced it was shutting down. GOOD NEWS EVERYONE. TwitPic posted on Twitter today that it has been acquired and will live on. Crisis averted.

 

Discussion Links:

http://thenextweb.com/apple/2014/09/19/ifixit-opens-up-apples-iphone-6-plus-to-peek-at-its-huge-battery-and-the-rest-of-its-innards/

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-29275039

http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/19/apples-iphone-6-and-6-plus-go-on-sale-to-long-lines-of-fans/

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: Tom’s pick is Spider Oak

Monday’s guests: Rob Krekel