DTNS 2705 – Email Is Where It’s @

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comWith the passing of email developer Ray Tomlinson, the man who elevated the @ sign to the status it holds today, Tom Merritt and Lamarr Wilson discuss why email is still around and what we ned it for.

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Weekly Tech Views – March 5, 2016

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Real tech stories. Really shaky analysis.

Welcome to this Mike’s-on-vacation version of the Weekly Tech Views. Twenty-five percent shorter means twenty-five percent fewer inaccuracies!

For the week of February 29 – March 4, 2016

Live For Speed? Ewww.
Razer announced the first games for its Open Source VR Steam-compatible development kit. They are Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, Elite: Dangerous, Spermination, and Live for Speed. I will leave it to you to decide which title sounds like the absolute worst idea ever for a virtual reality experience.

How’s Progress On The Robot Eagle Coming?
The new Phantom 4 drone can see and avoid obstacles thanks to four cameras and two ultrasonic sensors. Also, the top speed has increased from 35 to 65mph. This is exciting news for drone enthusiasts, but less so for those eagles in Norway being trained to take down rogue drones. They just got a lot less cocky.

Release The Digital Assistants!
The makers of music app SoundHound have released Hound, a voice-powered digital assistant app that is reportedly faster and smarter than similar assistants. Asked, “Siri, how do you measure up to Hound?” Siri did not make a compelling case by pausing five seconds before answering, “Playing Elvis Presley’s Hound Dog.”

Watch Out, Brazilian Police–You’ve Got An Angry-Face Reaction Emoji Coming
Facebook’s vice president for Latin America–who, incidentally, does not oversee WhatsApp–was arrested in Brazil because Facebook-owned WhatsApp allegedly disobeyed a court order to assist investigators in a drug case involving a WhatsApp user. Finally, the precedent I’ve been waiting for to have Apple CEO Tim Cook put away because the guy at the Genius Bar deleted my Flappy Bird app.

[Update: the Facebook VP was ordered released because his imprisonment was deemed “an extreme and disproportionate measure.” You win this time, Cook.]

Are These Anything Like Those Beer Goggles I’ve Been Hearing About?
Fourteen McDonald’s restaurants in Sweden are selling Happy Goggles, a Happy Meal in which the box converts into VR goggles, and works with a skiing game for your phone. This is in conjunction with the country’s Sportlov holiday, which encourages families to participate in sports, usually skiing. Obviously, McDonald’s hope is that kids will find the VR experience to be so much fun that they will eschew actual skiing and avoid the life-affirming feeling of robust health that might make them rethink the advisability of eating at McDonald’s.

If It Makes You More Comfortable, We Can Still Come Over And Drill Some Holes In Your Wall
AT&T and DirecTV will offer DirecTV over the internet later this year, with no contracts or satellite dish required. Though no prices or content offerings have been announced, it does sound promising, and makes one ask the obvious question, is there a category on ebay for selling the push broom that I duct taped to the end of two other broom handles to clean the snow off my roof-mounted dish?

Dude…
Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter announced the creation of the Defense Innovation Advisory Board, to be headed by Eric Schmidt, Chairman of Google parent company Alphabet. Carter said the board would provide advice to the Department of Defense on becoming more innovative in developing technology, but cut short his remarks when reporters insisted on asking if he keeps in touch with the rest of the gang from That ’70s Show.

That’s Fairly Decent Replay Value
Hello Games will be releasing the game No Man’s Sky this June, three years after it was first announced. It is an open-world space exploration game featuring 18 quintillion worlds. That’s 18 with eighteen zeroes after it. To put the number in perspective, it would take 5 billion years to visit each planet, if you checked out one planet per second. Put another way, it nearly equals the number of tears cried on any given episode of The Bachelor.

Why Settle For Just One Source Of Nausea?
Six Flags amusement parks will be providing Samsung Gear VR headsets to riders of some of their roller coasters. Some will find themselves co-piloting jet fighters trying to shoot down invading aliens, while riders of the Superman-themed coasters will encounter the resultant chaos of Lex Luthor’s anti-gravity gun, dodging floating cars and buses. Six Flags is celebrating with their new slogan, The Most Fun You Can Have With The Sweat Of Hundreds Of Previous Riders On Your Face.

 

There we go. That’s all. But a somewhat-reduced Weekly Tech Views is better than none.* Now it’s back to the vacation home stretch, which looks a lot like the rest of the week–slouched on the couch with a plate of mini pizza bagels and bingeing whatever Netflix can throw at us. You should see our vacation photo albums.

 

* This statement has yet to be verified by independent analysis.

Mike Range
@MovieLeagueMike

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Weekly Tech Views by Mike Range is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

DTNS 2704 – FBI’s Image Issues

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comCould the FBI get into the iPhone 5C without Apple’s help? Darren Kitchen runs through some of the options and their likelihood of success with Tom Merritt. And Len Peralta illustrates the show!

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Show Notes
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DTNS 2703 – Is There an Echo in Here

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.com
Amazon adds two new devices to its Alexa-powered voice-recognition devices. Tom Merritt and Justin Young discuss whether Amazon is slowly, quietly, taking over the smart home.

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DTNS 2702 – Everything’s Coming Up Augmented

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comWill we replace smartphones with augmented reality glasses? Tom Merritt and Scott Johnson discuss. Plus the latest on the Apple encryption debate.

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The Risk to Apple’s Code-Signing Key

One thing that gets glossed over in the Apple encryption discussion is whether Apple can or cannot make the requested software that it can be used only once. The problem is it’s not a simple yes or no answer.

Technologically, Apple can absolutely make software that will only work on the one phone. Steve Gibson has an excellent explanation of that on Security Now.

“If Apple complies with this case, there would be no risk of “leaking” anything “dangerous”, at least not any more than there is today of Apple’s private key leaking.“

But some experts believe that key is where the problem is.

Bruce Schneier writes “They would need to have stolen Apple’s code-signing key so that the phone would recognize the hacked as valid, but governments have done that in the past with other keys and other companies. We simply have no idea who already has this capability.”

A fair point. But maybe he’s wrong. Maybe, and hopefully, Apple has not lost control of its key. The question then becomes could this case make it harder to protect the key

The EFF thinks so. “If the government begins routinely demanding new phone-specific cracking software, this could overwhelm the security of this process by requiring many more signatures. This is another valid reason why Apple is right to fight this order.”

Also the court processes for validating an ‘instrument’ like this puts the code through many more hands, meaning more risks for the key to get out. The risks are lined out by Jonathan Zdziarski

To create a forensically sound tool that would hold up in court, it must be peer reviewed and validated by third parties.

But even then the key can be protected. Lets assume, optimistically, that even with multiple agencies handling the software, the key remains uncompromised because best practices are always followed by everyone involved.

The risk gets greater as more people handle the code. And more people will handle the code if these kinds of request were to become routine.

The best summary of this issue came from Susan Landau in her testimony to Congress.

“The FBI statements that the update will be under Apple’s control and can be tied to work only on Farook’s phone are factually correct. But they miss the point of the risks involved.

She alludes to the risks that Zdziarski illuminates and also expands on the risk of this becoming a routine process if law enforcement regularly needs to break into encrypted phones.

“All it takes for things to go badly wrong is a bit of neglect in the process or the collaboration of a rogue employee. And if the FBI, CIA, and NSA can suffer from rogue employees, then certainly Apple can as well.”

So there you have it. Technically the FBI is right. Software can be made that will work only one time in this one case with no danger of causing harm to other phones.

The question is then how often you believe the process would happen and how well Apple can protect its key in that case.

DTNS 2701 – A Hack of the Clones

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comMicrosoft is promising to make Xbox Games playable on Windows 10 as universal apps. But they have a long way to go. Patrick Beja and Tom Merritt try to figure it out.

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Show Notes
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DTNS 2700 – Heavy is The Head That Wears the Hololens

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comThe Microsoft Hololens costs $3,000 making the Vive and Rift seem cheap. But it’s a developer edition and Augmented Reality not Virtual Reality. Tom Merritt and Veronica Belmont discuss whether that makes a difference.

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Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!

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

Show Notes
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DTNS 2699 – Out Think Disruption

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.com

Peter Wells and Trevor Long report back from MWC 2016; the best in show, and the most interesting gadgets they played with.

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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
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Weekly Tech Views – Feb 27, 2016

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Real tech stories. Really shaky analysis.

Good luck getting to work on time Monday, what with your big Oscar-viewing parties coming right on the heels of your raging Weekly Tech Views-reading parties.

For the week of February 22 – 26, 2016…

Hype That Company
HTC announced that their Vive VR device would be available in April for $799. This is $200 more than the announced Oculus Rift, but includes two Hand Tracking Controllers. Hand. Tracking. Controllers. H. T. C. Right? Watch for this clever HTC naming convention to continue with future accessories Head Turning Contraption, Haptic Toenail Conceptualizer, Hydrating Tear Converter, and the Holographic Tooth Conduit.

Thanks, I Guess
Apple continues to fight a court order requiring them to help the FBI access information on an iPhone 5c. They have filed a motion to vacate the order, and amicus briefs supporting their stance will be filed by Verizon, Twitter, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. “We certainly appreciate the support and acknowledgment from our peers that we have made the correct decision,” said Apple’s Tim Cook, “but I don’t think it was necessary for Microsoft to include the line ‘even a stopped clock is right twice a day.’”

I’m Hoping There Will Also Be Some Texts With George Lukas
It turns out that in addition to this iPhone, the FBI wants Apple’s help accessing twelve others. It would be thirteen, if the FBI would realize the importance of getting into the phone I bought at a flea market from a guy that used to live in Los Angeles. He sold me JJ Abrams’s phone! The one he used while filming The Force Awakens! The guy says there’s audio, video, and photos from the set. Notes he made about script changes. But it’s password-protected. I know, I was skeptical too. But when he flipped it open, there, on one of those thin, red, embossed labels, just above the TracFone logo, was JJ’s name. You can even tell how pre-occupied he was with Star Wars because in his hurry he spelled it Abrims.

Although I Will Want To Insure It
Google is shutting down their Google Compare service, which provided comparison shopping for credit cards, mortgages, and insurance. It’s just as well; it was worthless to me without a category for used celebrity cell phones.

Yahoo, Indeed
Magazine publisher Time, Inc (Time, Fortune, People, Sports Illustrated) is in talks to acquire Yahoo. The final sticking point seems to be just how many Yahoo standing firm on its demand that a minimum twenty executives be permitted to attend the SI swimsuit photo shoot.

Who Do You Think Taught Mrs. Montgomery To Use Facebook?
Chicago public schools are going to require one computer science course be completed in order to graduate. That sound you hear is 300,000 kids laughing and thinking: They are going to teach us about computers? Great, can they teach us about fashion, too?

How About If We Throw In Some Floor Mats?
FoxConn agreed to acquire two-thirds of Japanese electronics firm Sharp for 700 billion yen. Then they found out that getting controlling interest in the company also meant getting 350 billion yen in debt, and put the deal on hold. This explains Sharp’s new slogan: Sharp: The “2006 Ford Taurus That Seems Like A Great Deal Until You Take It To Your Mechanic Who Says It’s Got A $3,000 Transmission Rebuild In Its Near Future” of electronics.

It’s A Start
Samsung is building 256GB chips for use in phones and tablets, allowing, for example, storage of up to 90,000 eight-megapixel photos. “That sounds impressive I guess,” said my wife, “but what do I do with the rest of this year’s cat photos?”

Shoppers Like You
Meanwhile, Samsung opened Samsung 837, a store in New York City that has art exhibits, cooking classes, musical performances… but no products on site for you to buy. If you’d like to actually purchase a Samsung product while in the Samsung store, an employee will help you order it online, presumably between verses of “Tomorrow” from Annie.

Asked her expectations for the store, one Samsung executive said, “We are intent on providing these cultural experiences for the general public. While we would, of course, welcome financial support from those partaking of our offerings, there is no oblig–oh my god, we’ve started a PBS station!”

Things About To Change As Printer Division Puts On Lucky Shirt
HP, Inc reported that revenue was down 12%, but considered this good news in that it wasn’t worse than expectations. “I get it,” said everyone who’s been to Vegas.

As Huntsville Goes…
Google Fiber announced that they will bring their gigabit internet service to San Francisco, the announcement coming just days after saying they’d be doing the same in Huntsville, Alabama, reinforcing San Francisco’s tech reputation as Huntsville West.

Who Knows Where The Hockey Stick Ends Up?
Robotics company Boston Dynamics posted a video of its humanoid Atlas robot picking up boxes and shelving them, refusing to be deterred even when a guy with a hockey stick repeatedly knocks the box from its grasp. When this guy knocks Atlas down onto its “face,” it is able to right itself. A still frame from this video–Atlas pushing up from a kneeling position–has been chosen as the source for a new inspirational poster, with the familiar caption IT’S NOT WHETHER YOU GET KNOCKED DOWN, BUT WHETHER YOU GET BACK UP WITH THE FACIAL RECOGNITION DATA FIRMLY FILED AWAY SO THAT AFTER HOURS, WHEN THAT CLOWN WITH THE STICK IS WATCHING THE VIDEO WITH THAT GIRL FROM ACCOUNTING HE WANTS TO IMPRESS, YOU CAN FIND HIM AND TEAR OFF THE ARMS THAT HELD THE STICK AND BEAT HIM WITH THEM. Also, there will be a kitten hanging from each severed arm, because kittens sell inspirational posters.

Also, Our Friends At The FBI Have This iPhone They’d Like You To Look At
The Department of Defense funded Carnegie Mellon’s Software Engineering Institute to conduct research into ways to break Tor, software that enables anonymous communication. While this relationship was only now confirmed via information in a court order, eyebrows were raised last year during the theater department’s production of Annie Get Your Gun; We Finally Figured Out How To Track Down Those Guys You Were After.

 

Okay, clean the place up, rehydrate, get some sleep, and start on that Revenant-themed menu for the follow-up party.

 

Mike Range

@MovieLeagueMike