Justin Young is on the show to talk about the many ways to save online journalism and how robots are stealing our hearts.

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Show Notes
Today’s guests: Justin Robert Young

Headlines: 

Mark Gurman over at 9 to 5 Mac has some sources who say Apple’s plans for Apple Watch 2 include adding a video camera with FaceTime functionality, a new wireless system for greater iPhone independence and new ways to be more expensive (also known as premium options). Battery life on the other hand is expected to be the same as the current Apple Watch. Apple will likely release a full next gen Apple Watch next year, but the camera could be pushed to a future edition.

BuzzFeed’s Matt Honan got a sneak peek at a Twitter project called Lightning that is targeted to launch later this year. Project Lightning brings photos, videos and tweets together in an event-based curated view that’s embeddable across the Web. So anything from breaking news to sporting events to award shows can be viewed whether you’re logged in or not. If you are logged in, you can view them in a separate section or follow an event and see it blended into your regular timeline. Twitter expects to have 7-10 events running on any given day.

The Next Web reports BuzzFeed itself has a new news app of its own available for iOS today. BuzFeed News shows you the most important real news of the day (not listicles) plus breakdowns by topic. You can opt-in to push notifications to from major breaking news to more specific categories like politics. You can also opt-in to specific story alerts like the FIFA corruption investigation.

Fortune reports on Google News Lab’s three new crowd-sourced journalism projects. YouTube Newswire is getting the most headlines . It’s a video platform collaboration with Storyful that features verified YouTube videos that news outlets can use or embed. Another project called First Draft Coalition will train folks in verification and ethics. And The WITNESS Media Lab is a Google Partnership with non-profit WITNESS that trains non-journalists in reporting injustice and human rights violations worldwide.

Google, Microsoft, Mozilla and WebKit project engineers announced that they have teamed up to launch WebAssembly, a bytecode for the web according to Tech Crunch. The new format lets programmers compile code for the browser (currently focused on C/C++), where it is THEN executed inside the JavaScript engine withour having to parse the full code, speeding up execution. The hope is that WebAssembly will provide developers with a single compilation target for the web that will become a web standard that’s implemented in all browsers. The team also plans a script that will convert WebAssembly to asm.js so that it can run in any browser — and add support for more languages and new tools over time.

TechCrunch reports on the EFF’s fifth annual privacy report that rates online service provider’s commitment to transparency and privacy. The report rewards up to five stars in categories like best practices, data retention, government data demands, government data removal demands and pro-user public policy, specifically opposing backdoors in digital services. 21 of the 24 companies evaluated met this last criteria. Nine companies got five stars including Adobe, Apple, CREDO, Dropbox, Sonic, Wickr, Wikimedia, WordPress.com and Yahoo. AT&T and WhatsApp received 1 star.

News From You:

KAPT_Kipper sent us this Verge story that as of June 29th, Reddit will be serving all of its pages over SSL encryption. The site already supports connections over SSL but the new system will automatically direct all connections to the SSL-protected version of the site.

starfuryzeta alerted us to this Ars Technica story that Sprint has stopped throttling its heaviest data users, even when its network is congested, to avoid potential violations of the Federal Communications Commission’s new net neutrality rules. “For less than a year, Sprint used a network management practice that applied only at the level of individual congested cell sites, and only for as long as congestion existed… Upon review, and to ensure that our practices are consistent with the FCC’s net neutrality rules, we determined that the network management technique was not needed”

Discussion Section Links:  

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33183360

http://gizmodo.com/you-can-now-buy-pepper-the-robot-that-reads-your-emoti-1712216532

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/18/technology/robotica-sony-aibo-robotic-dog-mortality.html?_r=0

http://gizmodo.com/sonys-robotic-dogs-are-dying-a-slow-and-heartbreaking-d-1712160637

https://www.aldebaran.com/en/a-robots/who-is-pepper

https://www.aldebaran.com/en/press/faq-about-pepper

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2649411/Meet-Pepper-worlds-robot-reads-emotions-Cute-droid-knows-youre-upset-cracks-jokes-offers-support.html

 

Pick of the Day:

In response to a question Tom got at the Seattle meetup, where a gentleman who wanted to know how his would wife access DVDs and Blu-rays he ripped on her iPhone 6? I don’t know if the have any Macs in the house, but here’s one answer from listener Sara in Sunny Seattle:

WALTR by Softorino

According to their website:
WALTR
Take the ‘SUCK’ Out of Copying Music & Video onto your iPhone/iPad.
Drag & Drop MKV, FLAC, MP3 to iOS for Native Playback without iTunes.

http://softorino.com/waltr

It’s an app for Macintosh. They say you can play any media in any format. Connect your iOS device to your Mac. Drag and drop the files, then open Videos or Music on iOS and play. Please watch the 1 minute video! It is much–how you say?–over the top?

Unfortunately, I don’t know the guy’s name or even which of your shows he listens to, but I suppose DTNS is as good a guess as any. (Or Cordkillers. Although maybe you should mention it on East Meets West just to be sure.)

Messages:

Alan writes:

“I think Scott’s idea of using VR for exploration makes sense, especially when you consider Google working with Viewmaster, as well as Expeditions for schools. Most of his examples were exploration as a person, but VR could also change the scale, so you explore inside a human body, or even a cell, which would be fascinating. Or conversely, you could navigate the universe between galaxies. And if you could smoothly scale between the two extremes, that would be even better.”

t2t2 clarifies on a recent legal ruling in Estonia regarding a news website’s culpability to contents posted on the comment section :

As the residential Estonian dropping in to provide some background on the case

Most importantly, the judgement of the European court of human rights is ONLY WHETHER OR NOT THE RULINGS BY THE ESTONIAN COURT FOLLOWED THE EUROPEAN LAWS ON HUMAN RIGHTS or to more pinpoint it, ONLY APPLIES TO ESTONIA, NOT THE REST OF EUROPE. [/bold][/caps]

We now have to consider Estonian laws:

The comments were deemed (by the courts in Estonia) unlawful & against freedom of speech under §45 of the constitution [1]:

§ 45. Everyone has the right to freely disseminate ideas, opinions, beliefs and other information by word, print, picture or other means. This right may be circumscribed by law to protect […] the rights and freedoms, health, honour and good name of others.

According to the courts the local equivalent of safe harbour laws (specifically in this case, Restricted liability upon provision of information storage service [2]) does not apply because [3 & 4]:
Portal owner in this case isn’t a “hosting provider”, as defined by law [2]:
§ 10. (1) 1) the provider does not have actual knowledge of the contents of the information and, as regards claims for the compensation of damage, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which the illegal activity or information is apparent
Portal owner has ability to remove comments according to the rules they’ve decided on.
The actual authors of the comments could not modify or delete their comments once
they were posted, only Delfi had the technical means to do this.
Delfi was also found to have financial interest in leaving up controversial (and possibly illegal) comments. Estonian new websites are littered with ads, and more comments -> more clicks -> more profit! Hence the monetary compensation.

Lastly, there’s also the local element. Estonian internet comments (especially on Delfi) are 100 times worse than what you can consider the worst of youtube comments (NO EXAGGERATION). It was so bad, that (as noted by the human rights court’s press release [4]):

in September 2005, the Estonian Minister of Justice had had to respond to public criticism and concern about incessant taunting on public websites in Estonia, Delfi having been named as a source of brutal and arrogant mockery. In his response the Minister of Justice noted that victims of insults could bring a suit against Delfi and claim damages.

Also the 20 comments are documented and translated at http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/sites/eng/pages/search.aspx?i=001-155105#_Toc422230309

And lastly to repeat, “this does not say anything about the laws of other countries, does not create an obligation for other countries to enact similar laws, and does in particular not create any obligations for website owners”

– t2t2 from the virtual e-estonia

Proto732:

Existing delivery trucks could be outfitted to support two drones. As a driver enters a dense delivery area/neighborhood he would send off his two drones to deliver smaller packages, and meet back up with him after 2 or 3 of his own deliveries have been completed. The truck could serve as a short range communications beacon/status monitor for the drones, as well as a recharging station.

Ron writes:

Fly the package to the (locked ) backyard…

Better yet, purchase a Bluetooth powered box that clips on your garage door opener button and the drone can open the garage, place the package inside & close the door, then return to meet up with the self driving UPS truck for a recharge before its next delivery.

Or put a “storage shed/box” in the back yard with a drone landing pad on the roof that opens for deliveries.

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Friday’s Guests: Darren Kitchen and Len Peralta

Scott Johnson and Raj Deut are on to talk about the Microsoft shakeup and oddly how it sheds light on the market for Virtual Reality headsets.

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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 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, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Scott Johnson and Raj Deut

Headlines: 

Ars Technica reports Microsoft made it’s seemingly yearly executive reshuffle today, though ReCode’s Ina Fried thinks it has more to do with people than strategy. Former Nokia CEO and head of MS devices Stephen Elop leaves and devices gets rolled into the Windows group under Terry Myerson as the Windows and Devices Group. Kirikk Tatarinov leaves Business Services and Dynamics which gets folded into Cloud and Enterprise under Scott Guthrie. Eric Rudder is leaving and his education responsibilities will move under Qi Lu in Application and Services. All those folks leave today. Separately Chief Insights Officer MArk Penn will leave in September and take his insights to a Steve Ballmer backed digital marketing services company called Stagwell Group.

Reuters reports the California Labor Commission has determined Uber drivers should be treated as employees not contractors. The ruling was filed Tuesday stating Uber is “involved in every aspect of the operation” and awarding $4,000 to Barbara Ann Berwick, a driver who complained. Uber is appealing the award.

Nest made some new announcements according to The Next Web. The Cam, is a 1080p successor to dropcam with night vision, a tripod, and a speaker you can talk through for $199. Dropcam’s cloud recording is now called Nest Aware and you get 30 days of storage for your $10 a month. It’s available in US, UK, Canada, Germany, France and the Netherlands today and ships next week. The Nest Protect gets an update that’s better at detecting fires, the thing that it is supposed to do. You can also silence it remotely with an app. It’s coming next month for $99. Nest also announced Hone Safety Rewards which gives you a 5% brake on insurance premiums and a free Protectif you share your data with insurance companies Liberty Mutual and American Family.

Reuters reports the FCC has proposed a $100 million fine for AT&T over the way it informed unlimited users about speed throttling.  AT&T has 30 days to respond after which the commission will review the proposal and make a decision. The FCC says AT&T did not properly inform customers when reductions would happen and mow much speeds would drop. That violates transparency requirements passed in 2010.

The Verge reports Amazon is updating the Kindle Paperwhite today with a new 300 pixels per inch display. That’s twice as sharp as the last iteration and the equal to the $199 Kindle Voyage. The new Paperwhite will sell for $119. You can preorder today for shipping by the end of June.

Engadget reports Dropbox has announced a new way to request files from multiple people, called File Requests. One link sent to multiple people lets them all upload files to the same folder with a maximum capacity of 2GB. None of the senders need to have a dropbox account. Pro and Basic accounts get the feature today and Business users get it in a few weeks.

Intel acquired Canadian smart-eyewear maker Recon reports CNET. Recon’s Jet $700 glasses have a built-in display to show directions, activity statistics, smartphone connectivity for texts and notifications and camera for photos and videos. The Recon team will partner with Intel’s New Devices Group to develop new wearables technologies. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

AMD unveiled several three new GPUs under the Fury name, according the Ars Technica; The flagship $649 R9 Fury X, $549 R9 Fury, and R9 Nano. All three are based on the Fiji chip an update to the GCN architecture and will feature 4GB of on-package high bandwidth memory. The R9 Fury X is comparable to Nvidia’s GTX 980 Ti with 4096 stream processors, up to 1050 MHz core clock speed, 256 texture units, 64 Render Output Unit, 512 GB/s of memory bandwidth, a 67.2 GigaPixel per second fill rate and six-phase Voltage Regulator Module for overclockers. It also has a water cooled 120mm radiator. The R9 Fury will be an air-cooled version of the Fury X and the R9 Nano a low-power GPU based on the same Fiji processor. The Fury X launches June 24th, Fury on July 14th and Nano sometime this summer.

The Next Web reports researchers from Indiana, Georgia and Peking universities demonstrated a vulnerability they call “Xara” in the OS X keychain that would allow attackers to gather passwords. The group created a malicious app and got it accepted into the OS X app store. Because there is no way to verify which app owns a credential in keychain the app can get access to every password stored after it’s installed. Another attack spoofs URLs to steal private token, since OS x does not check which apps are allowed to use which URL schemes. The group notified Apple of the issue on OCtober 15th and Apple asked for 6 months to fix. The problem still exists in 10.10.3 and 10.10.4.

Good news drone fans. The Next Web reports that at a congressional hearing on Wednesday, senior FAA official Michael Whitaker said commercial drone regulations “will be in place within a year.” On top of that Amazon’s vice president of global public policy said “We’d like to begin delivering to our customers as soon as it’s approved. We will have it (the technology) in place by the time any regulations are ready.”

News From You:

andrewdaley sent us this story from Ars Technica about a new exploit in the customized version of the SwiftKey keyboard bundled with the Samsung Galaxy S6, S5, and other Galaxy models. When downloading updates, the Samsung devices don’t encrypt the executable file, making it possible for attackers to modify upstream traffic. The exploit was demonstrated Tuesday at the Blackhat security conference in London by Ryan Welton, a researcher with security firm NowSecure. SwiftKey said in a statement that its Google Play and iOS versions are not vulnerable. Samsung has apparently shipped a patch to wireless carriers but it’s unknown if it has been applied.

dvdmon sent in the TechDirt article that the European Court of Human Rights has decided in Delfi AS v. Estonia, that websites can be liable for user comments.  The Court found the original article published by Delfi was balanced, it ruled that since the site wanted comments and made money off those pageviews, it incurs liability for what the commenters wrote. The ruling also find that since Delfi could remove comments, its filter wasn’t good enough to catch all offending comments and some comments were anonymous, Delfi is liable. Europe has no equivalent to the US rules on safe harbor.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://www.wired.com/2015/06/sony-morpheus/

http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/17/8794907/oculus-rift-touch-virtual-reality-hands-on-e3-2015

http://www.dailytech.com/Microsoft+Plays+the+Field+Backs+Valves+VR+Push+Too/article37402.htm

http://readwrite.com/2015/06/15/microsoft-wants-to-own-virtual-reality-hololens-oculus

http://www.cnet.com/news/why-oculus-partnered-with-microsoft-for-its-rift-virtual-reality-headset/

https://www.google.com/search?q=microsoft+valve+vr&oq=microsoft+valve+vr&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i60l2.3674j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=119&ie=UTF-8

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/06/microsoft-partners-with-valve-vr-and-oculus-shows-minecraft-for-hololens/

 

Pick of the Day:

Brian write:

I’d like to recommend Security Now! on TWiT’s network as a fantastic educational podcast with a large still-relevant backlog. It has all kinds of good info from how networking works to how operating systems work, along with current news and updates.

Messages:

Travis writes in:

On Monday’s show (Episode 2515) Veronica mentioned her frustrations about having to use multiple different Facebook apps for things like messenger, photos, etc. I feel very much the same way as Veronica and found that Facebook has an app called Paper, which has virtually all the main Facebook features such as News Feed, groups, and yes, even messenger in a flipboard-esque layout. Another nice perk, no ads (at least as of now).

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Thursday’s Guests: Justin Robert Young

Patrick Beja is on to talk about announcements from Sony and Nintendo. Was there nothing good at E3 this year?

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A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here or giving 5 cents 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, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Patrick Beja

Headlines: 

CNET called Sony’s E3 press event a mix of nostalgia and exclusives. Halo creator Bungie announced a new expansion for Destiny coming in September. Sony has exclusive deals for early access to Square Enix’s next Hitman, called Hitman, Street Fighter V and Call of Duty: Black Ops. Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Syndicate will offer PlayStation only missions and the next Disney Infinity game will come with an exclusive Star Wars figure in a PlayStation-only bundle. Square Enix remake Final Fantasy VII as a timed exclusive for the ps4. Sega launched a kickstarter for Shenmue 3 which funded its first 2 million dollar goal in 9 hours. Sony introduced a first-person shooter called Rigs that’s exclusive for Sony’s Morpheus virtual reality headset. And Sony PlayStation Vue the TV service arrived in San Francisco and LA while Sony promised future al la carte channel purchasing options. OH and Last Guardian is coming in 2016. Yeah they opened with that bombshell.

Nintendo’s E3 digital announcement conference had a lot of new titles for 3DS and a lot fewer new titles for the Wii U.  Nintendo will release Amiibo for Bowser and Donkey Kong that will work in the Wii U version of Activision’s Skylanders Superchargers in September. The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes comes to the 3DS. A three-player cooperative take on the classic adventure franchise that has online play and arrives this fall. For 2016 the 3DS will also get Metroid Prime: Federation Force a multiplayer-focused online shooter set as a spin-off and Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam.
For Wii U owners this year there’s Super Mario Maker coming September 11th. Yoshi’s Woolly World October 16th. And later this year Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival, Mario Tennis:Ultra Smash, and Star Fox Zero. Nintendo also teased Fire Emblem: Fates and Xenoblade Chronicles the next installment in the popular JRPG.

Twitter is going the way of autoplay. The Next Web reports that video and GIF’s will now play automatically, but that the sound will be muted until you click on the video or turn the phone to landscape view. Users can opt out, and Twitter automatically disables the feature if it thinks you have low bandwidth. The change rolls out today to Twitter.com and Twitter for iOS. Android coming soon.

Computer World reports that a UK company called Intelligent Environment is promising to bring emoji-only passcodes to banks.
They claim emojis as a PIN will prevent hackers from identifying common and easily obtainable numerical passcodes, like a date of birth or a wedding anniversary. There are forty four available emojis which equals 3,498,308 unique combinations of non repeating emoji. No banks have signed on to the system yet.

TechCrunch reports Adobe’s Creative Cloud new milestone update was announced. The big addition is Adobe Stock a new stock photo and video service created after the acquisition of Fotolia. Photoshop and Lightroom get a dehaze filter. And Photoshop now has support for artboards as well a an HTML5-based design space that shows only the tools optimized for app design.

TechCrunch reports Box is now integrated in Microsoft Office Online. Box has already been available in Office 365. Box competitor dropbox integrated into office online in April.

The Verge reports Razer’s Open Source Virtual Reality platform will now support Android and position tracking. Position tracking, was a noted absence from OSVR’s initial release back in January. Hardware support within OSVR will eventually be added to allow Android phones to take the place of a dedicated VR display. In total, OSVR is now up to 144 supporters including the Unity and Unreal engines.

News From You:

KAPT_kipper submitted the Last Pass blog posted that attackers had penetrated the password manager’s network and accessed account email addresses, password reminders, server per user salts and authentication hashes. The passwords may still be difficult to crak as Last Pass uses 100,000 rounds of server-side PBKDF2-SHA256 in addition to client side rounds. And to be clear the database of stored passwords for OTHER accounts, the whole reason one would use Last Pass, was NOT accessed. LastPass has put in place email verification, suggest turning on multifactor authnetication if you haven’t already, and encourages all accounts to change their master password.

Starfuryzeta posted the article from Mashable that Google Maps can now warn you if a destination will be closed by the time you get there. Of course, the hours of operation have tobe correct and Google’s traffic estimator has to be accurate. But still, nice touch Maps.

TheRealFrankL sent us the New York Times report that the FBI is investigating whether employees of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team hacked into the internal networks of the Houston Astros to steal data on players. Investigators have uncovered evidence that Cardinals officials may have obtained internal discussions about trades, proprietary statistics and scouting reports. Astros GM Jeff Luhnow left the Cardinals in December 2011. The FBI believes the attackers used a list of passwords Mr. Luhnow had used while working for the Cardinals, to access the Astros network.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/16/super-mario-maker-will-let-you-build-your-own-mario-levels-this-september/?ncid=rss

http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/15/8773903/sony-e3-2015-playstation-games-list-summary

http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/16/sony-e3-reaction-video/?ncid=rss_truncated

http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/16/8789519/legend-of-zelda-triforce-heroes-e3-2015

http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/16/nintendo-shows-off-starfox-zero-for-wii-u-with-gamepad-aiming/?ncid=rss#.7yzb2u:LZCI

http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/16/8789563/nintendo-amiibo-skylanders-wii-u-e3-2015

http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/16/hyrule-warriors-new-metroid-nintendo-3ds/?ncid=rss_truncated

http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/15/ubisoft-e3-2015-roundup/?ncid=rss_truncated

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+PatrickBeja/posts/M5SnqhmA8B9

Pick of the Day:

Franz from -insert weather conditions here- Austria:

To play your existing PC games in full stereoscopic 3D, I recommend TriDef 3D.

The software acts as a middleware driver for games that use Direct3D 9,10 or 11. It offers extensive tweaking, works with all brand GPUs and many types of 3D technologies including color separation, and even VR headsets. There is a list of supported games on their website, but after testing all my other games, I found that a surprisingly large amount of them (>75%) did work – some even as old as 2003!

There are two downsides however:
One: At 40 USD, it’s expensive, but there is a free 2 week trial.
Two: the hardware requirements are steep, obviously, and also it takes a certain mindset to tolerate the necessary tinkering and potential frustration that come with the initial setup process
But once it runs, it’s great. So if 3D is your sort of thing, check it out.

Messages:

Alan writes:

I find it interesting that Microsoft is adding backwards compatibility to XBox One. If I remember correctly, they omitted it completely from Xbox 360. Sony got a little backlash for no backwards compatiblity in PS4, but they did start out with some backwards compatibility in PS3 before phasing it out. To me, this makes it seem like backwards compatibility is only a move to make when you’re behind in the market. That may not be the case, but it kind of looks that way. I still haven’t bought a current gen console, but I tend to favor Playstation. It seems to have more variety, since I’m not big on the most popular genres of shooters, sports, and racing. Nor fighting or zombies, so as you can see I’m really not a gamer.

Jonathan writes:

Catching up on my DTNS feed, I listened to episode 2513 where Allison and Todd talked about the FTC taking consumer protection action against Erik Chevalier for his 2013 Kickstarter campaign; a game entitled “The Doom That Came to Atlantic City”.

As an active member of the Columbus Area Boardgaming Society (CABS), I try to keep up with the boardgaming news. I wanted to note that in 2013, board game publisher Cryptozoic Entertainment, rescued the project and delivered the game in 2014 to the Kickstarter backers as was promised by Mr. Chevalier. Cryptozoic did this without receiving any money from the original campaign.

I felt they deserved a shout-out for that amazing gesture of good will toward the boardgaming community.

Relevant links:
Cryptozoic Entertainment 2013 press release – https://www.cryptozoic.com/articles/cryptozoic-saves-doom-came-atlantic-city-board-game

Dice Tower News coverage – http://www.dicetowernews.com/the-doom-that-came-to-atlantic-city/1220

Cryptozoic Entertainment 2014 game fulfillment page – http://www.cryptozoic.com/articles/doom-filled-dream-becomes-reality-42

Boardgame Geek listing – https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/124548/doom-came-atlantic-city

Columbus Area Boardgaming Society – http://www.cabsgamers.org/ 

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Wednesday’s Guests: Raj Deut & Scott Johnson!

Veronica Belmont and Roger Chang join to discuss Microsoft’s announcements of backwards compatibility and Minecraft for Hololens at E3. And is it truly the best lineup of Xbox games in history?

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

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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 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, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Veronica Belmont and Roger Chang

Headlines: 

Microsoft had their E3 press conference this morning. The crowd-pleaser was the announcement of backwards-compatibility fro Xbox 360 games on the Xbox One. Select titles will show up automatically if bought through Xbox Live or can be added by inserting a disc. A new Xbox Wireless Elite Controller was also announced coming in Autumn, no price. It is fully reprogrammable and even has swappable buttons and sticks. Windows 10 was announced as a platform for Valve VR and a version of Minecraft has been crated for HoloLens. Among the game announcements were Halo 5 Guardians coming 10/27, Rainbow Six: Siege October 13th, Rare Replay with 30 classic games for $30 August 4 and Rise of the Tomb Raider November 10. Also Cuphead, Dark Souls 3…. We’re going to talk more about this hang on.

Bethesda kicked off the pre-E3 press extravaganza last night. A new Doom, just called Doom is the first game on the new idTech 6 engine, has an accessible modding tool called Snapmap and will come to PS4, Xbox One, and PC in Spring 2016. Elder Scrolls: Legends is a strategy card game with a trailer very similar to Hearthstone’s, free to play on iPad and PC by the end of the year. Dishonored 2 is coming though we don’t know when. And Fallout 4 arrived November 10, with mods you can create on PC and transfer to Xbox One and a pip-boy app that can be best used inside a full-sized real-life Pip-Boy sleeve available in a collector’s edition. And a free to play Fallout mobile game called FalloutShelter has launched.

Facebook launched a new app called Moments that groups photos based on when they were taken and identifies who is in them. You can then choose to sync them with specific friends and vice versa. It can also group photos based on who is in them and let you search for photos of particular people. Moments launches today in the US on iOS and Android with more countries to follow over time.

Re/code has a breakdown of the revenue split for Apple’s Music. Apple executive Robert Kondrk, who negotiates music deals, says Apple will pay out 71.5 percent of the $10 a month subscription revenue from the US. Outside the US the percentage will be around 73%. That will be split up somehow among music owners (labels and publishers) one assumes based on plays. Apple however will not pay labels for rights to their music during the three month free trial which begins June 30th.

Venture Beat reports that Razer has acquired android game console-maker Ouya. Investment bank Mesa Global has confirmed the deal but Razer has not confirmed. VB says Ouya debt holders triggered the sale and would cost $10 million to buy out the debt holders. Razer has its own Android console called the Forge. Ouya has a library of 1124 android games including some exclusives and more than 40k plus developers.

The Next Web reports that Skype for web is now available worldwide. Skype’s web app works with IE, Chrome, Safari and Firefox on Windows and OS X as well as on Chrome OS and Linux. For now, you’ll need plugin to make calls, but in the future the web app will use Web RTC.

The New York Times reports IBM will commit hundreds of millions of dollars to developing Apache Spark, the open source project for real-time data analysis. Spark was developed at the Algorithms, Machines and People Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. IBM said it will put more than 3,500 of its developers and researchers to work on Spark-related projects, embed Spark in its data analysis software and offer Spark as a service.

Engadget reports Spotify has launched a site called spotify-tasterewind.com which analyzes your music library to recommend decade-specific playlists from the 1960s through whatever we call the last decade before this one. So for instance if I like Major Lazer, Wiz Khalifa and Pitbull, my 1970s playlist might have Bob Marley, The Isley Brothers and Julio Iglesias. Which is what happened for Tom.

News From You:

t2t2 informed us that the makers of Notepad ++ have left SourceForge. A blog post on notepad-plus-plus.org cites SourceForge’s several incidents where sourceforge bundled ad-ware into hosted open source projects, without notifying the owners and creators of the software. The post reads, “Such a shameless policy should be condemned, and the Notepad++ project will move entirely out of SourceForge.” The post encourages other project owners to also move off SourceForge.

tglass1976 sent us a Gizmodo article about the first prosthetic leg that can simulate sensation. A team at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria relocated a patient’s nerve endings closer to where the prosthesis connects, and connected the nerve endings to stimulators located in the prosthetic legs, which are then connected to six sensors on the sole of the prosthetic foot. When the sensors push against the ground, the nerve endings get a sense of feeling. The sense of touch makes the user safer and can help stop phantom limb pain.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-xbox-e3-2015-press-conference/

http://www.vg247.com/2015/06/15/xbox-one-now-backwards-compatible-with-xbox-360-games/

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/06/microsoft-unveils-new-xbox-one-elite-controller-and-weve-held-it/

http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/15/xbox-game-preview/?ncid=rss_truncated

http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/15/microsoft-reveals-dedicated-version-of-minecraft-for-hololens/?ncid=rss

Pick of the Day:

Devulu wanted to share this:

I found a beautiful website called http://species-in-pieces.com/.

The website was created by Amsterdam-based Designer Bryan James, who decided to push the limits of CSS’s animation capabilities while also building a platform for raising awareness of endangered species around the world. The result is “In Pieces”, an interactive catalog of 30 animals created entirely with CSS.

The animations are fascinating and it also raises awareness, how cool!

Works best in Google Chrome.

Messages:

Russell writes in:

On Friday’s show you were talking about Google being forced to block a website as part of a judgement by the Canadian court against a company called Datalink. The strange thing about this was the use of a private company, Google, to enforce a judgement. I am not a lawyer but it would seem the enforcement of a judgement would lay in the hands of law enforcement, the judicial system or the correctional system. This seemed like a very strange thing to do and felt a bit off. Wondering if there is a lawyer in the DTNS community who could shed some light on it.

Great to have seen the next Patreon goal met!!

Scott writes:

With Friday’s news/rumour that Blackberry may be working on an Android based phone I’m wondering if Nokia and Blackberry aren’t perfectly suited for a technical partnership of some sort.

Blackberry brings device management & security, with Samsung Knox nipping at it’s heals. As well as BBM, one of the largest messaging clients, fourth or fifth?

While Nokia brings solid mapping, which it really wants to become a viable smart phone alternative to Google Maps and/or Apple Maps.

​Both have a devote fan base, and I believe that both have moved away from producing their own hardware.​

​Perhaps a partnership of two drowning rats?​

=====

Tuesday’s Guests: Patrick Beja

 

Jennie Josephson and Roger Chang fill in for the last day of Tom’s assignment! Lamarr Wilson appears just in time to talk You Tube’s new gaming site, and what a producer actually does anyway. Len Peralta is here to draw it all.

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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 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, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Lamarr Wilson, Jennie Josephson, and Roger Chang

Headlines: 

YouTube announced a standalone app and website focused on video game related content. Tech Crunch reports that the site will be called YouTubeGaming and will launch in the US and UK this summer. The site will have pages dedicated to more than 25,000 games and will focus on allowing gamers to live stream their games while they play, just like Twitch. Not at all ominously for this show, YouTube says it’ll be rolling out changes to its livestreaming tool to “simplify the broadcasting experience.”
We’ll be talking much more about this in the discussion section.

The BBC reports that a panel of three US judges will not postpone implementation of net neutrality rules despite opposition from the AT&T and Verizon. The FCC’s Tom Wheeler called it a “victory for internet consumers” and said that “starting Friday, there will be a referee on the field to keep the internet fast, fair and open.” But Berin Szoka, president of lobby group TechFreedom which is opposed to the new rules, said: “Today simply marks the beginning of a protracted legal fight over the legality of the FCC’s takeover of the internet.”

Reuters reports that BlackBerry is considering using Google’s Android operating system on an upcoming SmartPhone. Yeah, you heard that right. Blackberry had previously shunned Android in a bet that its BlackBerry 10 line of phones would be able to claw back market share from iPhone and Android phones. BlackBerry’s new device management and encryption system BES12 works across multiple platforms including Android and iOS. Two sources said that by launching an Android-based device of its own, BlackBerry would be sending a signal to skeptics that it is confident that the BES12 system can not only manage, but also secure smartphones and tablets powered by rival operating systems.

TechCrunch would like you to know that the French government has a data protection watchdog committee and they have put their foot DOWN and ordered Google to widen its implementation of Europe’s “right to be forgotten” ruling to include all Google domains all over the world. Google had been removing requested links only from European sub-domains. The CNIL Select Committee has *generously* given Google 15 days to comply. A Google spokesperson said, “we’ve been working hard to strike the right balance in implementing the European Courts ruling.”

The Globe and Mail reports that Google lost a legal appeal in British Columbia, Canada, and will be forced to block results for the website of a clandestine company accused of violating trademarks. Back in 2011, a company called Equustek Solutions that sells industrial networking devices accused a company called Datalink of relabeling its products and passing them off as their own. Only Datalink stopped responding to the lawsuit. So a B.C. judge granted an injunction ordering Google to stop mentioning Datalink in its search results. Google was like, excuse me, what do WE have to do with all this? (but in a legal filing). But a three judge appeals panel said that Google targets internet users in British Columbia through ads and therefore they have jurisdiction. A Google spokesperson did not say whether Google would appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, but I’ll bet you a box of Tim Horton’s donuts they will.

The Associated Press reports that a government workers union claimed hackers stole detailed personnel data and social security numbers of EVERY US federal employee, making the recently uncovered cyber theft much more damaging than first reported.
Wired further explained that the hackers, who are believed to be from China, accessed so-called SF-86 forms, documents used for conducting background checks for worker security clearances. The forms can contain a wealth of sensitive data not only about workers seeking security clearance, but also about their friends, spouses and other family members. And Ars Technica reports that the breach was not discovered by the US government, but was revealed during a sales demonstration of a network forensics software package by a company called CyTech Services. The malware may have been in place for more than a year.

Business Insider reports that starting in July, Twitter will remove the 140 character restriction for direct messages. Sachin Agarwal, Twitter Product Manager Sachin Agarwal said no changes are planned for removing the character limit elsewhere.

Variety is reporting that Lucasfilm and its subsidiaries have formed a new unit dubbed ILMxLab that is tasked with using virtual and augmented reality technologies for immersive storytelling. Lucasfilm’s president Kathleen Kennedy said ““We are currently exploring the fictional universes of ‘Star Wars,’and I think a lot of people would like to be immersed in them. The challenge of ILMxLab will be to find out what storytelling looks like in this new space.” The lab plans to announce the results of this work later this year, but said on Friday that it will be exploring virtual reality, augmented reality, real-time cinema and theme park experiences.

News From You:

tglass1976 sent us the Ars Technica report that Kathleen Cox of Jacksonville, Florida has been a loyal Comcast cable subscriber for 13 years.

She also used a Comcast email address, until Comcast took her email address and gave it to a woman in Michigan. Which mean 13 years of emails and contacts went POOF. Ms. Cox spoke to 18 Comcast agents who promised to fix the problem. None of whom did. Kathleen Cox then contacted her local news station which reported the story, and then POOF! Kathleen Cox got her email back. So let’s all take our hats off to First Coast News — they really are First For You.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/12/youtube-announces-youtube-gaming-a-standalone-app-to-compete-with-twitch/?ncid=rss

http://www.slant.co/topics/1639/compare/~hitbox-tv_vs_twitch-tv_vs_ustream

http://www.hitbox.tv/

http://youtube-global.blogspot.ca/2015/06/a-youtube-built-for-gamers.html

http://espnmediazone.com/us/press-releases/2015/06/espn-the-magazines-first-ever-esports-issue/

http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/13059210/esports-massive-industry-growing

Pick of the Day:

Mark W from Dependable-Detroit:

Since we’re on a run of the Do-It-Yourself learning sites in the Daily Pick section, might I suggest Learnable.com? It’s from the fine folks that bring you the Site Point library of web development books. Recently, they added the thoughtful titles from “A List Apart”, the people who brought us Responsive Web design for mobile computing and very clever Cascading Style Sheets. It’s a good place for those sites that are “Ready to be Born” from guys who were Born Ready.

Messages: 

James from Springville, Utah:

I’ve been a listener since the Buzz out Loud days, and I appreciate
the great value you and your fellow hosts offer.

I’m a bit ignorant of the difference between producer and show host,
and was wondering if you could expound a little bit on the topic. In
past shows Jason Howell always seemed like he was an active part of the show, with great insights to offer, just as much as any other
host. [compliments redacted ]

I’m not sure if the producers you choose are different from the norm, but I get just as attached to their personalities as I do with the rest of your co-hosts.

=====

 

Allison Sheridan and Todd Whitehead discuss Oculus Rift! Tom Merritt is on assignment.

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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, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Allison Sheridan and Todd Whitehead

Headlines: 

Oculus unveiled the finalized consumer version of the Rift VR headset, ahead of E3 2015, which begins next week. According to Tech Crunch, the Rift will ship with a Wireless Xbox One controller and a small table-top camera to track LED markers on the headset. The Rift features removable headphones as well as space to let users keep normal eyeglasses on when the headset is worn. The partnership with Microsoft also means Rift will work “natively” with Windows 10 plus the ability to play Xbox One games on the headset.

Oculus also showed off a prototype of its Oculus Touch controllers. Known as the “Half Moon”, they’ll let you pick up objects, fire a gun, or point at things and include integrated inertial and 360-degree movement tracking, plus give haptic feedback.

Ars Technica reports that the European Commission has opened an antitrust investigation into Amazon’s distribution of electronic books. The commission is particularly interested in the company’s contracts with publishers, especially clauses that say Amazon must be informed when a publisher gives favorable or different terms to a competitor, and the right to equal or better terms for themselves.

When contacted for a statement, Amazon expressed confidence in the legality of their agreements, and said they would cooperate fully.

GeekWire reports that T-Mobile’s “outspoken and rakish” CEO John Legere (their words, not ours) posted a YouTube video lashing out against rivals AT&T and Verizon for their tactics in trying to control the upcoming wireless spectrum auction. Legere said, “There’s some serious [BLEEP] about to go down in D.C., and if you are one of the 180 million Americans out there using a smartphone, and you are not pissed off right now, then you are not paying attention, but you need to.” GeekWire reports that he asked consumers to “make some noise,” and reach out directly to the FCC. The remarks come as T-Mobile considers a tie-up with Dish Network Corp., a deal that could alter the landscape in the wireless industry and give T-Mobile more spectrum.

Wired reports that the US State Department has issued new statements on how it plans to restrict published online data for 3-D printed guns. Earlier this week, the State Dept send a letter to Defense Distributed, the group responsible for developing a 3D printed gun, stating that it will require the group to get permission to publish its files online. Last week, the State Department wrote that it intends to require prior approval for the online publication of any “technical data” that would allow for the creation of weapons.
This continues a long legal battle between creators who say that the data is a freedom and speech issue and the State Dept which considers the information could be violation of the International Trade in Arms Regulations. The new State Department restrictions come as Congress starts to re-examine potential regulations on 3-D printed weapons.

Today the US Federal Trade Commission took its first consumer protection action on a crowdsourcing campaign. Re/code reports that the case involves an Oregon man named Erik Chevalier, who launched a Kickstarter campaign to produce a board game called “The Doom That Came to Atlantic City!” Chevalier asked for 35k, got 122k, then 14 months later announced he was canceling the game. Except, you know, he didn’t give the money back. Investigators found he used most of the money on personal expenses. The FTC fined Chevalier $111,793, which he cannot pay, and barred him from misleading people in future crowd funding campaign or publicizing any customer data or not honoring stated refund policies.

Digital camera fanatics there’s a new king in the digital camera landscape. Engadget is reporting that Sony has released A7R II. A camera using the “world’s first back-illuminated full frame sensor”. The Back-illuminated sensors increases the sensor’s light sensitivity in this case an ISO level of 102,400. Until now the technology has been limited to high end camera phones and smaller sensors. The camera’s 35mm sized sensor also sports 42.4 MegaPixels, 5-axis stabilization system and 399 point has detection AF. If that’s not enough the A7R II shoots 4K video using the full sensor without resorting to pixel-binning, a technique where groups of pixels on the sensor are read as one pixel degrading image quality. The camera ships in the US at a wallet busting $3200.

Google would now like to organize cities. According to the Telegraph, the search company has announced a new startup that will focus on improving city living. Sidewalk Labs will independently develop new technologies to deal with cost of living, transportation and energy usage. Google’s Larry Page said a “modest” amount of money had been invested in the new company.

Engadget reports that Skype has announced it will end the “modern” (aka Windows 8-only) version of its messaging app on PC’s as of July 7th. After that date, the next update will move users over to the desktop version. Skype says it’s simplifying its experience around a single program that you can use with both a touchscreen and a mouse and keyboard. The move won’t affect Windows RT or the Skype features in Windows 10.

Breaking News: According to Buzzfeed, Dick Costolo is stepping down as the CEO of Twitter, following months of questions about the company’s performance under his leadership. Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s cofounder, has been tapped as interim CEO. Costolo released a statement which said lots of nice things about Dorsey. Dorsey released a statement which said lots of nice things about Costolo. Twitter stock is up 7% on the news in after-hours trading. There is almost certainly more to come.

Dorsey will continue to lead Square, the mobile payments company he founded after he first left Twitter in 2008. This is Dorsey’s second time returning to Twitter in an increased capacity. He returned in 2010 to lead product after Costolo became CEO, and then gradually scaled back his commitment.

News From You:

KAPT_Kipper sent us the The Verge report that Reddit has banned five subreddits under its new anti-harassment policy. The subreddits were closed for “violating the Reddit rules to keep everyone safe.” One forum dedicated to posting pictures of overweight people had about 151,000 subscribers. A Reddit spokesperson said sites all had numerous complaints that they were harassing people on and off Reddit. The company also said it is taking a “step by step” approach to the recent harassment changes.

habichuelacondulce sent us this story from The Wall Street Journal reporting that Netflix is partnering with Marriott Hotels to bring its streaming video service to more than 300 hotels in the US. Marriott guests will be able to sign into their accounts through a Netflix app on hotel-room TVs or use the app to subscribe to the service if they’re not already subscribers. The service requires some recoding of the Netflix app to allow guests to stay signed in over multiple days and wipe their information clean after they check out. The companies plan to roll out the service over the next year and a half, targeting implementation at nearly all of its hotels by the end of 2016. Six Marriott hotels already offer the service, and six more will by the end of the summer.

spsheridan shared this surprising bit of news. Ars Technica reports Hyperloop Transport Technologies has secured permission to build a five-mile, $100 million Hyperloop test track in California. That’s right, Elon’ Musk’s vision of high speed mass transit will be built.
The first test track will only be five miles long, and it won’t operate at the supersonic speeds that Musk envisioned somewhere between 200 to 300 mph instead of the 760mph envisioned. The test track will be built near Quay Valley in California, in between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2016 and completed in 2017.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/11/oculus-rift-consumer/?ncid=rss#.ydkp2n:Ax83

http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/oculus-vr-consumer-rift-headset-microsoft-xbox-one/

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/world-of-tech/future-tech/the-vr-race-who-s-closest-to-making-vr-a-reality–1266538

Pick of the Day:

Brandon in Frosty Cobron Australia writes:

As someone who has been listening to the net neutrality debate come to a head over the past 12 months, I thought I understood the importance of the outcome but felt somewhat disconnected from the issue living in Australia. That was until I listened to the two most recent episodes of Upvoted by Reddit, e20 A Neutral Net Pt.1 and e21 A Neutral Net Pt.2. The in depth look into issue of net neutrality, with a special focus on developing internet markets like India and the impacts outside influences like Facebook and internet.org are having.

It’s a great listen for anyone still struggling to understand the net neutrality debate or its importance. Having listened myself, I am now questioning the value of zero rated services at home in Australia.

Messages: 

Stephen Hoos writes in:

I heard on DTNS that Apple will have terrestrial radio stations as part of their new streaming service.

Perhaps Apple has a terrestrial radio so they qualify for the lower mechanical royalty fees.

They want to sound like they are being innovative, but they are just squeezing every penny they can out of the music companies. Pandora came up with the same idea a while ago.

=====

Friday’s guest:  Darren Kitchen and Len Peralta

In 1959 – The first experimental hovercraft, Christopher Cockerell’s SRN-1 made its first trials at Cowes on the Isle of Wight.

In 1978 – Texas Instruments introduced the Speak & Spell, the first electronic duplication of the human vocal tract on a single chip of silicon. It used linear predictive coding to make a mathematical model of the human vocal tract and predict a speech sample.

In 1983 – IRM took its Japan Capsule Computer subsidiary and formed Capcom Company, Limited “for the purpose of selling software.”

In 1997 – Philippe Kahn took the first cameraphone photograph of his newborn daughter and then wirelessly transmitted the photo to more than 2,000 people around the world. He had hacked together a digital camera and a phone. Kahn went on to form the company LightSurf.

In 1998 – Compaq Computer paid $9.1 billion to acquire what remained of Digital Equipment Corporation, the company that had brought the world PDP and VAX.

Like Tech History? Get the illustrated Year in Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.

Scott Johnson and Brian Ibbott discuss Spotify’s war chest, Samsung’s shiny new mirror, and the eternal magic of Flying Toasters. Tom Merritt is on assignment.

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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 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, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Scott Johnson and Brian Ibbott

Headlines: 

One day after Apple announced a new music streaming service, Spotify closed a massive new round of funding. According to The Wall Street Journal, Spotify has raised $526 million from investors, and the company is now valued at $8.53 billion dollars.

Re/Code reports that Spotify also announced is has more than 20 million paying subscribers in addition to 55 million active users of the free version. That’s up from the 15 million paid subscribers and 60 million total active users the company reported back in January. We’ll be talking much more about this after the headlines.

Microsoft announced pricing today for the Surface Hub, its giant 4k multi-touch display designed to replace the whiteboard in your super sleek startup conference room. Engadget reports that the 84-inch version will cost $19,999 and go on sale in July. There will be a smaller, 55-inch version for $6,999. Both should ship in early September.

Samsung  unveiled a 55-inch mirrored OLED display, as well as a 55 inch transparent display. Ars Technica reports that Samsung anticipates the displays would be used as “digital signal” for retail. The mirror OLED panel has a more than 75 percent reflectance level, which Samsung says is “at least 50 percent higher” than mirror LCDs that are currently for sale. The transparent OLED display is more transparent, letting through 40 percent of the light versus the 10 percent transparency of today’s transparent LCDs. No price was announced. Both displays are paired with Intel’s RealSense 3-D camera technology, which means that someday soon, when you look into the mirror in the dressing room, the mirror will LOOK BACK. And it will not be pleased.

Kaspersky Lab’s has admitted to being hacked. Kaspersky Lab CEO and founder Eugene Kaspersky wrote, “We discovered an advanced attack on our own internal networks. It was complex, stealthy, it exploded several zero-day vulnerabilities, and we’re quite confident that there’s a nation state behind it.” The firm called this attack Duqu 2.0 — named after a specific series of malware called Duqu. Kaspersky explained this situation as a mix of both good and bad news but claims none of its services have been compromised.

According to The New York Times, the malware was used in a cyber-espionage campaign targeting hotels that hosted Iran nuclear negotiations.

The Washington Post reports that Elon Musk’s “other company” — Space X — has asked the US government for permission to test low orbit satellites that would beam internet service from space.  The plan calls for 4,000 small and cheap satellites that would beam high-speed internet signals all over the globe. If the tests go well, the full service could be up and running in about five years. Facebook recently scrapped similar plans, maybe because they don’t own their own rockets?

Facebook Messenger has topped 1 billion Android downloads, according to PCMag.com. Messenger’s David Marcus posted a photo displaying the Google Play Store’s 1 billion download badge with the image likes by colleagues Mark Zuckerberg and Tom Stocky. Facebook and Google are the only two companies with 1 billion-plus bragging rights: which according to TechCrunch includes,  Facebook and WhatsApp, as well as Gmail, YouTube, Google Search, and Google Maps.

PCWorld is reporting that Congress is worried that foreign government-owned SSL certificate authority could issue phony security certificates to harvest login details from social networks, corporate networks and email accounts. The US House of Representatives’ Committee on Energy and Commerce recently sent letters to Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla with questions about how the backbone of HTTPS security could be violated. In one example the Certificate authority Diginotar was hacked in 2011 and hundreds of fraudulent certificates were issues for Google, Skype and Yahoo. There are numerous government-owned CAs across the globe, including in China, France, Spain, and Turkey.

News From You:

Do you long for a simpler time? A time when toasters flew and you could revel in the simple joys of The Randomizer? Apparently you do, because this item submitted by natebob received a whopping 48 votes in the DTNS subreddit. Sensing your need for a return to innocence, Developer Brian Braun has thoughtfully recreated every original After Dark Screen Saver including the iconic flying Flying Toasters. The iconic screensaver images are on his Github page.
The After Dark screensaver software launched for the Apple Macintosh in 1989 and appeared on Windows computers in 1991.

djsekani shared this Ars Technica story covering Verizon’s apparent failure to make good on 22 years old promise to Pennsylvania to provide fiber Internet or “comparable technology” supporting at least 45 megabits to its service area in the state. So far more than 2 million homes have either slower DSL or wireless service out of 4.2 million in Verizon’s service area. The original agreement allowed Verizon to charge higher phone rates for higher speed broadband. Telecom analyst Bruce Kushnick wrote in the Huffington Post that officials relaxed the requirements over the years, giving up on the “45 megabits per second” minimum and allowing Verizon to meet the obligation with wireless instead of fiber or other wireline technology.

DTNS producer jollyroger would like you to know that RayNiro, one of the lawyers who pioneered the wave of contingent-fee patent litigation, says he’s ready to exit the business because quote “The stand-alone patent case is dead on arrival, and I don’t think we’re unique.” Ars Techina reports that patent litigation dropped by roughly 20 percent in 2014, and patent lawsuits by “non-practicing entities,” also known as patent trolls, dropped by nearly 25 percent.
Those trolls filed about 3,700 lawsuits in 2013, and 2,800 in 2014. With more judges awarding fees to defendants, patent trolling has taken on higher risk.

In one case Niro and his firm were ordered to pay fees in a patent suit he brought against HTC. The parties are still litigating over the amount, but HTC is seeking $4.1 million. The fee order was “a wake-up call,” Niro told Crain’s Chicago Business. “I can take it once, twice, but am I going to take it three or four times? No. Why should I?”

Discussion Section Links:  

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/06/10/spotify-raises-526-million-amid-battle-with-apple/

http://www.businessinsider.com/jimmy-iovine-apple-music-real-agenda-2015-6#ixzz3cgTPHXDY

http://recode.net/2015/06/10/spotify-has-20-million-paid-subscribers/

http://thenextweb.com/apple/2015/06/09/apple-music-will-stream-at-256kbps-below-the-industry-standard-320kbps/

http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/10/investing/pandora-apple-music-spotify/

http://9to5mac.com/2015/06/09/spotify-rdio-pandora-respond-apple-music/

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2485680,00.asp

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102743329

Pick of the Day:

Proud Co-Executive Producer gadgetchaser writes in to say:

” I’ve never sent in a pick before, but I’d like to suggest a Web service/app called Kifi (I pronounce it KeeFee, but it could also be Kai-Fye…I’m not sure what the creators call it).

It’s first and foremost a way to self curate the Web using a Chrome extension. You make Libraries for different interests and subjects and then save them in the browser. You can add tags and notes that are searchable though the web app or the extension.

There is a *gasp* social aspect to the service too, you can make your Libraries Public or Private. ..One of my favorite aspects of the Chrome extension is when I visit a new page, I get a little pop up in the corner showing me others who have added that site to a Library of their own.

I’ve tried a lot of “Pocket” type services over the years, but I’ve found that I’m actually using this one to “read it later”, likely due to the fact that I can organize things by more than just tags. I have a private library to go to and catch up and from there easily move it to a more permanent Public or Private Library if I want to keep it or just delete it and forget about it.

Messages: 

HotBranch in summery-ish Montreal writes:

“Catching up on my backed up episodes, the mention of Facebook Lite in episode 2508 caught my attention because I used it to replace the regular Facebook app (and Messenger) on one of my older phones and my pokey 2012 Nexus 7 tablet.

I believe I had seen news of the original release on AndroidPolice, who provided a link to download the APK for side-loading. The interface is not as polished, but it uses far fewer resources than the regular app, and the messenger app is integrated, producing further storage savings.

Ironically, I installed Facebook Lite on my Nexus 5 and found no improvement in the Zuckerburgian experience other than to have two notifications of comments or likes that arrived at different intervals. The Lite version usually delivered the notifications first.

All this to say that Facebook Lite is available to those willing to invest 30 seconds of searching and two minutes of downloading and side-loading.

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Thursday’s guest:  Allison Sheridan and Todd Whitehead

Patrick Beja and Iyaz Akhtar chew on some WWDC leftovers, some Xbox News and of course, IPV6 Day in Finland! Note: Tom Merritt is on assignment.  The audio on this MP3 is imperfect. Because Jennie is imperfect. Improved audio coming tonight.  

MP3

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Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Patrick Beja and Iyaz Akhtar

Headlines: 

Major Nelson has revealed that Microsoft has released a new Xbox One console. This new variant includes a 1TB hard drive, new matte finish, a newly designed Xbox One Wireless Controller and in select regions HALO The Master Chief Collection. The new controller will feature a 3.5 mm stereo jack so you can plug a headset directly into the controller with settings for volume, voice and game balance, and mic level in the console’s settings menu. The updated xbox one will ship June 16th in the US and select markets for $400. You can also buy the controller separately for $60 or in a Special Edition Covert Forces silver and black color scheme for $65. The price of the current 500GB Xbox One will now drop to $350.

Re/code clarified that Apple Music will support offline listening for albums, songs, and video. WHAT ABOUT PODCASTS, asked everyone in this audience?!?! Technology writer Jordan Merrick rounded up more details that weren’t in the WWDC presentation, including the fact that OS X El Capitan will support third-party photo editing tools in the Photos app, and Maps for OS X will gain support for transit directions. He has lots more interesting nuggets on his site, which will be in the shownotes And sunbun submitted this Verge article, about Apple’s FIRST Android app, called Move to iOS, that helps transfer essentials like contacts, messages, calendars, mail accounts, and media from an Android device to any iPhone or iPad running iOS 9 wirelessly.

Business Insider has a write up of a report from The Information which says Facebook had a previously unknown plan to build a satellite which would have provided cheap internet access in the developing world. As it turns out, it’s not so cheap to build and launch a satellite. The venture would have cost around $500 million, and so it was cancelled, all before we ever knew about it. Facebook may still continue with its plan to deliver cheap internet via leased satellites.

Twitter has tweaked how they’re shown on the Tweet page to make conversations easier to follow. Tweets that are part of a conversation are connected by a line. To see more of the replies to a specific Tweet within a conversation you can click “View other replies”. The feature will roll out to all users on twitter.com today and roll out to mobile apps in the future.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the US FBI wants Congress to expand their authority to tap into secure messaging apps. According to the FBI, Islamic militants and their followers are using instant messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Kik, as well as data-destroying apps such as Wickr and Surespot. The FBI estimates that 200,000 people around the world see “terrorist messaging” each day from Islamic State zealots and that the group’s recruiters then troll Twitter, Facebook and other sites to see who is re-posting their messages and invite them to text directly on encrypted or data-destroying apps.

The Verge reports that starting today, Sony’s PlayStation Now game streaming service is available on select Samsung Smart TV’s in the US and Canada. Although you won’t need a playstation console to play you will need a Dualshock 4 controller. The service will support standard features like trophies, online multiplayer, and cloud-based game saves. PlayStation Now started as an online streaming game rental service but Sony has since offered a monthly $20 subscription fee option.

A recent Ericsson Mobility Report shows mobile subscriptions in Q1 2015 was at 910 million for all of Africa including 21 million new subscribers according to BizTech Africa. The report also indicates smartphone subscriptions will be more than double reaching 6.1 billion and that in Sub-Saharan Africa GSM/EDGE only subscriptions will still be predominant until 2020.

Tech Crunch reports that messaging App Jott has become super popular in US middle schools. Jott allows users to send private messages on a closed network without a data plan or wifi connection. The app uses a mesh network that operates via low energy Bluetooth or a router within 100 feet of each user. Jott began testing in select middle schools in March and it like, blew UP.

News From You:

KAPT_Kipper sent us this story from GeekWire covering Amazon’s push to become an SSL Certificate provider by applying to be a root certificate authority. By becoming a root CA, Amazon can sell SSL certificates that are automatically trusted by common web browsers and operating systems. It is unclear how big the revenue opportunity for Amazon is for digital certificates and how aggressively they will market them, but GeekWire thinks providing encryption certificates seems to be a natural add-on service for Amazon Web Services.

spsheridan sent us this Reuters story reporting that top US tech companies sent a “strongly worded letter” to President Obama yesterday, saying “We are opposed to any policy actions or measures that would undermine encryption as an available and effective tool.” The letter was sent through two industry associations — The Information Technology Industry Council and the Software and Information Industry Association. They represent tech giants including Apple, Google, Facebook, IBM and Microsoft. The letter was also sent to other government officials, including FBI Director James COMEY, who was like, “C’mon, people. I JUST TOLD YOU we have a problem with WhatsApp!”

Discussion Section Links:  

https://www.viestintavirasto.fi/en/ipv6now/index.html

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2484216,00.asp

http://www.wsj.com/articles/coming-this-summer-u-s-will-run-out-of-internet-addresses-1431479401

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_IPv6_support_in_routers

http://6lab.cisco.com/stats/

 

Pick of the Day:

LWATCDR aka David the Programer in Florida sends in this suggestion:

If I might add a suggestion for pick of the day for very low spin or even spin free news. Yes Voice of America is still around. A lot of people will dismiss this as propaganda but VOA actually worked on the principle that if they told the truth then people would believe them and that the truth was almost always better for the US than the oppressive nations. Of course you do not need to take my word for it just try it out and see what you think.”

Messages: 

Rich from Lovely Cleveland writes:

Thinking about the Apple Music service as announced and I started considering that Apple may not need this to initially be massively popular to be successful.

This may be a move to deny, or simply slow, the scaling of other streaming services to profitability. Everyone considers Spotify to be the giant in the space, but to this point they are not a profitable service, they need to continue their impressive growth to scale to a point where they can be.

Apple could win, or at least create a foothold in the space, simply by disrupting Spotify’s growth. At this point, their biggest advantage is being convenient and already built into the device millions of people are using (and when subscribing on mobile that have a big price advantage).

Simply by being a frictionless service for people to access, they could disrupt Spotify’s business. Admittedly I’m sure Apple would love to be the biggest player in the room, but they’ve set this up to be a war of attrition, which I have a hard time seeing them losing.

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Wednesday’s guest:  Scott Johnson & Brian Ibbott

In 1902 – Joe Horn and Frank Hardart opened the first US Automat at 818 Chestnut St. in Philadelphia. The waiterless restaurant charged a nickel for most dishes.

In 1931 – Robert Goddard received a patent for rocket-fueled aircraft design (US. No. 1,809,271). Sadly we do not have a lot of rocket-planes in operation.

In 1986 – The Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center opened to support the National Science Foundation’s NSFNET, which linked five supercomputer centers. NSFNET would eventually allow commercial uses and transition to the open Internet.

Like Tech History? Get the illustrated Year in Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.