Shannon Morse is on the show to discuss whether the Internet of Things can be saved from chaos by open source platforms, hardware and standards. We need to have some standards people!

MP3

Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.

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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 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: Shannon Morse of hak5.org

Headlines

Samsung reported earnings a little down. Q2 sales were approximately 52 trillion Korean won ($51.4 billion) and operating profit was about 7.2 trillion won ($7.1 billion). Both numbers are down from last quarter and a year ago. Samsung blamed sluggish demand for tablets, a slowdown in smartphone sales and strong Korean currency for the declines. The company predicted stronger smartphone sales with the coming release of its new smartphone lineup. 

PC Mag passes along a video from Marques Brownlee who got ahold of an alleged iPhone 6 screen made of sapphire crystal. Brownlee attempts to scratch the screen with keys and a knife and tries to bend it and break it to no avail. The part is a 4.7-inch screen and certainly looks like an iPhone. It’s possible that gorilla glass might hold up to some of the same abuse, but Brownlee claims his sources are reliable.

GigaOm reports Samsung, Broadcom, Atmel and Wind River (an Intel company itself) are teaming up on yet another Internet of Things standards alliance, much like All Seen Alliance, Industrial Internet Consortium MQTT and XMP. This new one has the name Open Interconnect Consortium and will see all the companies collaborate on code set to come out in Q3. The goal is create a peer-to-peer protocol that handles discoverability and authentication better. Qualcomm has worked on a similar standard called AllJoyn which it open sourced through the AllSeen Alliance.

Reuters reports Chinese businessman Zhan Baosheng is taking Tesla Motors to court over the use of the name Tesla for sales and marketing of Tesla cars in China. Tesla said in January that the trademark dispute was resolved, and began delivering Model S sedans to Chinese customers in April. The Beijing Third Intermediate Court will hear the case on Aug. 5.

GigaOm reports Uber has agreed with the State of New York not to raise prices during “emergencies and natural disasters.” Uber will adopt a similar policy nationwide. Uber did not specify what counts as a disaster, but you can bet New Year’s Eve is not considered one and surge pricing will still rear its costly head from time to time. 

News From You

devham submitted the DroidLife article about Google letting users enable the “OK Google” hotword to be said from any screen on the phone, not just the home screen, to prompt a voice search. To turn it on in Google Now, scroll to the bottom and tap Menu>Settings>Voice>”Ok Google” Detection and turn on the options you want. This also adds Audio History which learns the sound of your voice and how you pronounce words.

Draconos pointed us to the Slashdot post that Microsoft has ended updates for MapPoint and Streets & Trips. Both services will be retired in favor of Bing Maps. The fate of the two services has been noted on both their websites.

tm204 posted the Engadget story about New Zealand ISP Slingshot offering a Global Mode VPN feature that allows customers to access normally georestricted Internet content.  Marketing for the feature originally mentioned making visitors from other countries feel more at a home but then Slingshot General Manager Taryn Hamilton confirmed to the New Zealand Herald that “No beating around the bush. This is to watch Netflix.” Refreshingly candid.

And magoojc submitted the TechCrunch article that points out Blackberry stock is 50% on the year and is one of the best performing stocks in its sector. Yes. BlackBerry. By comparison Apple is up 20% and Google just 5. So far revenue has not improved but the company has cut costs which investors like. Blackberry has also not made any bold moves this year other than the square Passport phone meaning you can’t accuse the company of doing much wrong. 

Discussion Section: Spark Labs

http://gigaom.com/2014/07/08/spark-labs-raises-4-9m-to-make-an-os-for-the-internet-of-things/

http://gigaom.com/2013/05/02/spark-core-brings-open-hardware-plus-a-cloud-service-to-the-internet-of-things/

http://gigaom.com/2013/03/14/electric-imp-aims-to-make-the-internet-of-things-devilishly-simple/

http://gigaom.com/2014/07/07/intel-samsung-and-others-create-new-qualcomm-free-internet-of-things-consortium/

http://gigaom.com/2014/07/07/intel-samsung-and-others-create-new-qualcomm-free-internet-of-things-consortium/

 Pick of the Day via Simple TV Steve Boland

Amazon is still selling a basic Simple TV with LIFETIME service for $120. Yes, I had to buy a hard drive, but once it was set up, I get live or recorded TV streamed (slung?) to my Roku, my computer, my tablet or whatever anywhere I am. Avoiding monthly or annual fees was important to me in getting this set up, so good to know there is a cheap option for this. Thanks for everything you do! Steve
(One of your bosses. We are LEGION.)”      

Wednesday’s guest: Michael Wolf of The Next Market podcast

Julio Ojeda-Zapata is on the show today. We’ll talk about ways you can replace Aereo with your own DIY solutions, plus Oculus Dev conference, TSA’s war on dead electronics and more!

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 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: Julio Ojeda-Zapata, Tech Writer, St. Paul Pioneer Press

Headlines

Facebook’s Oculus announced its first developer conference, called oculus Connect, will take place September 19-20th at Loews Hollywood Hotel in Los Angeles. In addition to keynotes from Brendan Iribe, Palmer Luckey, John Carmack and Michael Abrash, attendees can take part in sessions and labs with in-house Oculus engineers. Oculus also acquired RakNet, a provider of a cross-platform C++ game networking engine, and open sourced it under a modified BSD license. You can get it from the oculus GitHub Repo.

TechCrunch reports Gartner published forecasts for global PC, tablet ultramobile and mobile phone shipments for 2014. 2.4 billion units will ship from these categories, 88% of which will be mobile phones and tablets. About half of those will run Android. And tablets only make up 256 million of those. PCs are expected to ship 308 million units. Meaning that tablets won’t quite surpass PCs this year. However Gartner expects that to change in 2015 when they predict 317 million PCs will ship to 320 million tablets. Interestingly, Gartner sees growth in tablets slowing while PC declines are predicted to slow and then reverse. 

Daily Tech reports the LG G3 smartphone and the G watch will go on sale in the online and IRL AT&T stores July 11th in the US. The G3 is an Android 4.4 KitKat phone with a 5.5-inch QHD display. The G Watch, on the other hand, runs Google’s new Android Wear operating system.

The Next Web reports South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission has introduced new rules requiring Apple and Google to make it easier for users to get refunds for apps. Google has not allowed refunds and must now also prevent apps from automatically charging full price for an app at the end of a trial period. Apple does already allow refunds but will be required to make its policy more visible and doa abtter job notifying customers of changes in its contractual agreements. Google’s changes will only apply in Korea, while Apple is considering making its changes apply worldwide. 

Engadget reports the second-generation Kinect sensor for Windows will begin shipping on July 15th. The new kinect was already available for pre-order from Microsoft for $199/£159. Developers can publish Kinect apps to the Windows store.

Reuters reports the US Secret Service arrested 30-year-old Russian, Roman Valerevich Seleznev Saturday on charges of hacking US retail computer systems in order to steal credit cards. Seleznev was indicted in the state of Washington on March 2011 on charges of bank fraud, identity theft and accessing a protected computer. 

Engadget reports the mobile payment consortium of telcos and commerce partners called Isis has decided to change its name to avoid comparisons with Sunni militia in Syria and Iraq that has declared a caliphate spanning those states. The new name was not announced yet. One imagines Archer may face the same dilemma.

News From You

Tekkyn00b had our top vote getter today from iMore.com. The United States Transportation Security Administration has ordered new security measures regarding electronics carried on to direct flights to the US. Passengers may be asked to turn on devices like cell phones, and devices that will not turn on will not be allowed through security. The BBC reports the checks may be done at security checkpoints or at boarding gates. Passengers can put dead electronics in checked luggage, try to charge the phone nearby, or opt to use a service to have it shipped. The rules apply to newly-purchased devices as well as broken ones.

spsheridan submitted the verge article noting YouTube has begun durfacinglinks to its Video Quality Report in videos that are buffering or having other streaming issues. A new pop-up bar reads “Experiencing interruptions? Find out why” and links to a page comparing ISPs in your area and ranks them by their ability to stream YouTube. That way informed consumers can look at the report, realize that while their current ISP may not support good streaming they can— despair if you’re in the US or Canada? Well it will work great in countries with ISp comeptition I suppose.

tm204 submitted the ReCode article claiming its sources say Google has set aside as much as $500 million to expand the Google Shopping Express Service nationwide in the US. The service lets customers order items from local retail stores and have them delivered, sometimes the same day. Google wants to tie the service into search ads for products to try to reclaim the product searching crown from Amazon.

Discussion Section: Roamio, Roamio

https://www.tivo.com/shop/configure/tivo-roamio#/tivo-stream

http://www.slingbox.com/go/buy

http://tablotv.myshopify.com/

https://us.simple.tv/#getit

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mohu/mohu-channels-personal-channel-guide-makes-tv-smar

http://www.channelmaster.com/Products_s/329.htm#DVR+

http://www.gomohu.com/shop/the-leaf-indoor-hdtv-antenna.html?gclid=CjwKEAjwiumdBRDZyvKvqb_6mkUSJABDyYOzbwxemrGzPBFzocW_YNWdKdpCwuoSsq09lNcJqsuwOxoCCcPw_wcB

http://www.rcaaudiovideo.com/antennas/

http://www.winegard.com/get-free-tv/hdtv-antenna/flatwave/

Pick of the Day: Alesis Multimix 8 via Tom

Alesis Multimix 8

Tuesday’s show: Shannon Morse of hak5.org