Darren Kitchen, Patrick Beja, Justin Young, Veronica Belmont and Scott Johnson assemble to chat about their favorite tech topics and celebrate the latest milestone about to be made possible by the DTNS Patrons.

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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

Patrick Beja is on today and we’ll talk about Valve’s decision to close the mod workshop for Skyrim. Did the community overreact or was Valve insensitive?

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

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

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here at the low, low cost of a nickel a day on Patreon. Thank you!

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

Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!

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

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Patrick Beja

Headlines: 

The Verge has reports on LG’s official announcement of the G4 phone. It’s most distinguishing feature is the option for a new leather phone back that comes in a variety of colors. LG says it takes 3 months to make each leather back and uses materials and processes similar to those used for making luxury handbags Phone will launch on all major US carriers the end of May or early June. No pricing yet.

Venture Beat reports that Dropbox is rolling out a new feature that allows users to add comments directly to files stored on Dropbox. The feature is free for every level of Dropbox user, and works for anyone who has a link to the file. The new feature is accessible through the Web and is coming to mobile “soon.”

Krebsonsecurity.com reports that Sendgrid said attackers compromised an employee’s account, which was then used to steal the usernames, email addresses and (hashed) passwords of customer and employee accounts. Sendgrid manages email service like shipping notifications and friend requests and the like for companies like Pinterest, Spotify, Uber and Coinbase. Sendgrid suggests customers change their passwords use multi-factor authentication. Sendgrid says it’s working to add more authentication methods for its two-factor security, and to expedite the release of special “API keys” that will allow customers to use keys instead of passwords for sending email through its systems.

The official Google Search Blog announced new Google Now cards on Android today.  Google added 70 new partners, including Zipcar, Spotify, TuneIn, ABC News, Eat 24, Runkeeper Jawbone, Open Table and more. Users should update to the latest version fo the Google app in order to see the new cards.

The BBC reports Google has reached an agreement with several European news publishers to cooperate on a Digital News Initiative. As part of the plan, Google will contribute €150m to an innovation fund. Google will also work on ways to boost publishers’ revenues, train journalists in digital skills and fund research in news consumption and crowd sourcing. Google set up a similar fund with French Publishers in 2013.

More data trickled out from Apple after announcing earnings yesterday. Reuters reports that last quarter, Apple sold more iPhones in China than in the United States for the first time. iPhone sales rose 71% to $16.8 billion in China thanks in part to the new year shopping season.

The BBC reports on Yahoo Labs development of a system called Bodyprint that uses the phone’s touchscreen to recognize a body part, like an ear, and unlock the phone. The idea is to provide biometric authentication cheaper than a fingerprint sensor. Initial trial have been conducted with 12 participants. The system had 99.5% accuracy identifying users and 99.8% accuracy when scanning ears.

Financial intelligence firm Selerity published Twitter’s earnings before the market closed today causing Twitter stocks to cease trading. Selerity says the numbers came from Twitter’s investors site. Twitter earned 7 cents a share agains expectations of 4 cents a share but with revenue of $436 million missing expectations of 456.8 million. Monthly Active Users were up 18% year-over-year.

And TechCrunch reports Cablevision has reached an agreement to sell Hulu to it’s Optimum Online Internet subscribers. No word on what the price would be or what benefit consumers would get from buying Hulu through Cablevision rather than directly from Hulu.

News From You:

AtomicSpaceGun sent us the news that Amazon will now rent you a goat to mow your lawn. If you live in a city where a goat provider is available just look in the lawn care section of Amazon’s Home Services. Goats are an eco-friendly way to keep your lawn trimmed, and much quieter than a lawnmower at 7am on a Sunday morning.
The goats will also throw in free fertilizer, which they will deposit on your lawn in pellet form.

KAPT_Kipper sent in the PC Gamer version of the story of the rise and fall of Valve’s paid mod marketplace for Skyrim. Last Thursday Valve announced that modders could choose to sell mods int he Steam Workshop for Skyrim and keep 25% of whatever price they chose. The modding community reacted negatively and even downvoted Valve’s Gabe Newell’s attempts to explain the new system on Reddit. Yesterday Valve removed the paymetn feature from the Skyrim workshop. Alden wrote in the official Steam Workshop blog post: “it’s clear we didn’t understand exactly what we were doing.”

Discussion Section Links:  

http://gizmodo.com/the-internet-just-killed-an-app-store-for-video-game-wo-1700562308?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_twitter&utm_source=gizmodo_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

http://kotaku.com/even-gabe-newell-gets-downvoted-on-reddit-1700491663

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/04/24/valves-paid-skyrim-mods-are-a-legal-ethical-and-creative-disaster/

http://steamed.kotaku.com/skyrim-modder-considers-quitting-after-steam-controvers-1700077114

http://thenextweb.com/apps/2015/04/28/steam-kills-paid-mods-for-skyrim-after-user-backlash/

http://steamcommunity.com/games/SteamWorkshop/announcements/detail/208632365253244218

https://www.change.org/p/valve-remove-the-paid-content-of-the-steam-workshop

http://steamed.kotaku.com/steams-most-popular-skyrim-mod-is-a-protest-against-pai-1700486550

Pick of the day:

Jack from often-sunny Colorado (with occasional bouts of crazy, extreme weather), my Pick of the Day:

Crash Course Intellectual Property — a new mini-series in the Crash Course family of YouTube videos created by the Green brothers (John and Hank).

Episode 1 covered the basics of IP, while future episodes will focus on copyright, patents, and trademarks. This looks to be another satisfying offering in the Crash Course genre.

Thanks for listening, and keep up the great tech news work!

Messages: 

Jim writes: 

Tom, Jenny, et. al.

For the last five years I’ve been on the team that is writing the software to control the primary and secondary power systems for a new business jet, including sending the power system CAS messages to the cockpit controller. After listening to Friday’s episode I thought ‘knowing everything there is to know about the power system, is there anything I can do from the cabin of the jet to turn on a CAS message in the cockpit?’ The answer is no, everything I would need, would require me having access to the cockpit or the electrical bay.
Though the communication back bone of this jet is AFDX (Ethernet for Airplanes) all of the wires are hard wired between the boxes and the ports are all known to the software so that the communication controllers reject anything that is not sent from the proper place.

P.S. Here is my short description of what the CAS part of EICAS is:

CAS is just a listing of short descriptions of what is happening to the plane. There are four type of them:
Flashing Red – things you really need to react to now, example: ‘BATTERY PWR ONLY’ would tell you, you have lost all three generators and only have 60 minutes of power to land.
Flashing Yellow – things you need to worry about that you may be able to fix, example: ‘L BATT FAIL’ either the left battery is stuck connected to the bus when you don’t want it to be, or not connected to the bus and you want it to be.

Solid Yellow or Blue (depending on system) – things that happened that you need to let your maintenance people know about. Example: ‘ELEC SYS FAULT’ (which means something is wrong with the electrical system), when you land, hand the keys to the maintenance staff.

White – Things that you need to know about. Example: ‘L BATT OFF’, you have not pushed the button to connect the Left battery to the power bus.

EICAS the list of text in the middle bottom of the picture:
Dave (AKA BuckeyeFitzy, the Legal Geek segment producer for Current Geek):

Hi Tom,

On the upcoming Google offer to buy up patents to try and keep them out of the hands of patent trolls. Having worked in the patent law business for nearly a decade, I appreciate any efforts made to enact smart reforms where Congress fails to take action.

However, as a realist … what Google does with these purchased patents likely comes down to a game of “follow the money.” There may be some altruistic powers that be at Google about this issue, but others will want to make sure the bottom line is protected, meaning the high amount of investment and dollars made in procuring these patents must result in at least the same amount of income later.

Thus, Rich’s desire for a true Creative Commons setup for patents may be impossible, but in a best-case scenario, Google could balance their ledgers on this project by offering relatively cheap licenses to many parties to help advance innovation efforts overall. In a worst-case scenario, Google becomes the biggest of the patent trolls, or just sells the rights to other assertion entities down the road. But in either outcome, Google will inevitably make the money back, and that’s what you need to watch to see how this project plays out long term, and whether it benefits society and the patent system at large.

=====

Wednesday’s guest:  Ron Richards

 

Richard Stroffolino joins the show to talk about Google’s new patent marketplace. Should you sell all your patents to Google? do you want Google to own all the patents?

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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: Rich Stroffolino 

Headlines: 

Google announced a Patent Purchase Promotion today in an effort to supposedly remove friction from the patent market and apparently try to keep patents out of the hands of trolls. Anyone who has a US patent can list their patent for sale between May 8th and May 22. After the close of the market Google will let sellers know if they’re interested by June 26th, finish up the details by July 22 and pay out by late August. Patent sellers set the sale price and get a license back tot heir patent.

TechCrunch reports Facebook added a free video calling feature that works over cellular or wifi– inside Messenger for iOS and Android today. Messenger will adjust quality based on your connection. However you can’t make calls to desktop users and you can only call one person at a time. Video calling in Messenger is availablein 18 countries today with other regions to be added in the coming months.

According to data gathered by Slice Intelligences‘ consumer panel app, 376,000 of the 1.7 million Apple Watches ordered were delivered to U.S. consumers this weekend. A remaining 547,000 watches are expected to ship between April 27 and June 11; leaving 639,000 people waiting for word ofon when their watches will ship. The data was gathered based on a survey of more than 2 million online shoppers.

TechCrunch reports that Instagram has added three new image filters called Lark, Reyes, and Juno. Instagram plans to release new filters at a faster rate. But, smiley face kitty cat rainbow, that’s not the most exciting part! Instagram also added support for emoji in hashtags, which means you can now click on hashtag little poop guy and see what other fine images have been tagged with that emoji.

Apple Pay is now supported by Discover Financial Services the last of the four major credit and debit card issuers in the United States according to the LA Times. Of course not every bank supports Apple Pay yet but the number of cards supported is certainly growing.

Following up on the forum post from last week where the makers the SeaNav claimed their app had been kicked out of the iOS app store for mentioning Pebble, Apple confirmed to Wired that it was a mistake. The SeaNav update will be accepted, as will any other apps rejected in similar circumstances. The company does not plan to reject apps that support the Pebble watch.

PC World clarified a statement Nokia made over the weekend. Responding to reports that Nokia would manufacture smartphones in China, Nokia said “These reports are false, and include comments incorrectly attributed to a Nokia Networks executive. Nokia reiterates it currently has no plans to manufacture or sell consumer handsets.” However the ReCode report we mentioned claimed Nokia would design and license handsets not manufacture and sell them. In any case Nokia still can’t do any of this until 2016 thanks to its agreements with Microsoft.

Reuters reports Judge Theodore Essex of the International Trade Commission in the US ruled Microsoft’s phones infringe two wireless cellular patents owned by patent licensor InterDigital Incorporated. The decision must be reviewed by a full commission before an import ban can be enacted.

Apple didn’t top its record profit of last quarter, but they did just fine. Today they posted earnings of $13.6 billion on $58 billion in revenue, above both what it forecast and what investors were expecting. For the three months ending in March, Apple sold 61.2 million iPhones, 12.6 million iPads, and 4.5 million Macs. All told, its gross margin for everything was 40.8 percent, which came in well above the 38.5 and 39.5 percent Apple expected. Apple’s next quarter will be the first to include sales of the Apple Watch, but don’t expect the company to reveal any numbers. The watch, along with sales of the iPod, Apple TV, and Beats accessories are all lumped into a catch-all category called “other products.”

News From You:

KAPT_Kipper sent us the Ars Technica report that there was a brief moment in time back in 2011 when an 87-year old Pauline McKee from Illinois thought she won 41,797,550.16 dollars on a slot machine called Miss Kitty. The Isle Hotel Casino in Waterloo, Iowa declined to pay the money claiming it was a computer glitch. Ms. McKee sued, but the Iowa Supreme Court sided with the casino. The user-agreement on the touch screen slot machine, said the maximum payout was $10,000 and “bonus” awards were not allowed. The court ruled Pauline McKee was owed one dollar and 85 cents.

Bad news for people in search of rare flair on Reddit’s The Button game. Bishma posted that “The Button” ran into technical difficulties Sat morning with the Cassandra server that tracked button clicks. During that time many people including The Button’s creator got extremely rare flairs. Although the issue was resolved there was a point in time when the button reached zero allegedly revealing a spoiler. As of Sunday, red flair is more common and often looked down upon. Some Button enthusiats have decided to try to choose their favorite color rather than go for the lowest time count. Others have targeted getting a time of 42 as their new goal.The Button however is still active and posts are centering around quotes from The Hitchhiker’s Guide.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/27/google-launches-a-marketplace-to-buy-patents-from-interested-sellers/?ncid=rss#.7yzb2u:Ysp0

http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2015/04/announcing-patent-purchase-promotion.html

http://www.google.com/patents/licensing/

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/27/google-to-disarm-trolls-by-buying-patents-before-they-become-weapons/

Pick of the day:

Andy from increasingly spring like CT:

Hi Tom,

Pick of the day for you – Mountek smartphone mounts.

If you’re like me and are always disappointed with in car Nav systems, and still have a car radio with a CD slot, the sit in woe no more! Mountek makes a great smart device mount that clips in to the CD slot and uses a very thin magnet on your device to attach to a magnetic pad on the mount. For me, this was a fantastic solution to my broken GPS unit in my car and allows me to use Waze or Google or whatever on device GPS app I like without chasing the phone as it slips and falls all around my dash console. Problem solved! Instead of $600 to repair the cars’s GPS, I spent $30 for the Mountek Snap+ and I couldn’t be happier. It holds my iPhone 6 or my iPad Air easily, and keeps them in line of sight so that I can see maps and directions without looks down and taking my eyes off the road. Safe and convenient! www.mountek.com – really great stuff.

Great show Tom, you and the crew are my conduit to the Tech Zeitgeist. Without DTNS I’d be lost, uninformed and Beja-less, a truly unhappy state.

Thanks!

Messages: 

Co-executive producer of the show Mike’s father and brother have owned an automotive repair shop for 30 years. He worries that If the auto industry is successful in their DMCA petition, it could put them and others like them out of business. He sent a quote from autoblog.com.

“Hypothetically, the EFF says, the likes of General Motors, Honda and Ford could supply ECU codes only to repair companies they contract with – or steer that business entirely to authorized dealerships. Car owners’ power to choose where they want their car repaired could be diminished.”

BUT Chris (mrforgetful on Patreon) works in IT for a motor manufacturer and gets involved in building the software systems that enable technicians to update the software in vehicles. He says: 

“Right to Repair legislation is coming into force in the US in 2017 that requires automotive manufacturers to make available the tools necessary to update vehicle software. Similar legislation has been in Europe for about 6 years (I am from the UK).
..
Although he adds: Carrying out home-made modifications to the software is out-of-scope (you must apply the software from the manufacturer).

Which leads us to Alan who pointed out:

“diesel nerds” are aware that most modern diesel engines are sold with a number of different levels of output. Naturally, the more powerful versions are more expensive than the lower output versions. There is normally no physical difference between these engines, it’s all software governed.

By now I’m sure you can see where this is going – there’s a whole industry dedicated to re-flashing vehicle ECUs to “liberate” those extra horsepower for significantly less cost than buying “The fancier model”. This will be what John Deere and GM are really trying to crack down on as they move towards greater physical commonality in their model ranges.

Randall pointed out:

“I’m not sure that your aware, but Linux is use by many major car manufacturers. There is even an automotive grade Linux project that many of them contribute to. https://www.automotivelinux.org/about/members”

Daryl Sensenig writes:

I’m an amateur vehicle hobbyist, and I enjoyed your discussion of John DeeRM. You mentioned Linux for cars. There is just such a thing. You can find a popular supplier here: http://bankspower.com. The way some vendors make it legal us by replacing the entire computer hardware.

Harry The Airline Pilot commented on the story about Chris Roberts’ tweet on a United Boeing 737-800. Harry writes:

” I have been an Airline Pilot for 36 years for many airlines, and most recently I flew a Boeing 737-800 for 10,000 hours at United Airlines. There are many inaccuracies in all the commentaries about this story. First off, he concedes that his research only pertains to the most modern airplanes – the Boeing 787, Airbus A350, and Airbus A380. This is a very small part of the current airline fleet. None of his research applies to the B-737-800 because it has no internal network. This plane is old school – it was developed in 1967. The latest versions being built today are essentially the same as back in 1967. Only new avionics and some structural and engine changes. For example he talks about taking over the fuel balancing systems. There is NO such system on the 737. It is done by looking at the fuel quantities in the tanks and manually turning pumps off and on – old school. The passenger entertainment systems on these aircraft are just after market bolt on. The only connection to the aircraft systems is the power source – literally an on-off switch in the cockpit. Also, there is no way to turn on the passenger oxygen system on the aircraft electrically. The only control, is to drop the oxygen masks. No oxygen will flow until the mask is physically pulled down. Then a chemical oxygen canister will start a reaction to produce oxygen for that row of seats for about 12 minutes.

So basically, when he says “Find myself on a 737/800, lets see Box-IFE-ICE-SATCOM, ? Shall we start playing with EICAS messages? “PASS OXYGEN ON” Anyone ? :)”, it is total bull. As far as the freedom of speech argument for defending this tweet, see how far that will get you if you joke about having a bomb next to a TSA person at security.”

=====

Tuesday’s guest:  Patrick Beja

 

Darren Kitchen and David Spark join the show to talk about what’s on people’s mind after the RSA Security Conference. Which things should you legitimately be afraid of?

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

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

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here at the low, low cost of a nickel a day on Patreon. Thank you!

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

Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!

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

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Darren Kitchen and David Spark

Headlines: 

Italian eyewear company Luxottica is working on a second version of Google Glass, according to The Wall Street Journal via Venturebeat. CEO Massimo VIan told his shareholders: “In Google, there are some second thoughts on how to interpret version 3 [of the eyewear]. What you saw was version 1. We’re now working on version 2, which is in preparation.” Luxottica owns 80% of the world’s major eyewear brands, including Ray-Ban and Oakley.

TechCrunch reports that iFixit is tearing apart the 38mm Apple Watch Sport and 42mm Apple Watch steel for your edification. Processor upgrades for the Apple Watch look unlikely. It took 20 steps to get to the Watch’s processor some of which involved ripping out soldering and the S1 chip itself was encased in a block of resin. The battery took 11 steps to remove. Apple has confirmed the Watch’s battery, which has a 3 year lifespan, will be replaceable.

Steam Workshop will now let modders sell mods according to PC Mag.com. Users can now buy game mods for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Creators set their own price and get 25% of sales. Mods include things like new textures, maps, character skins, soundscapes, and quests.
Engadget reports the Swiss Post will conduct a pilot program for drone package delivery this summer. The program will use quadcopters developed by Matternet which can carry anything up to 2.2 pounds for over 12 miles on a single charge. The test will deliver small things like medicine or documents. Matternet has used its quadcopters to deliver medicine in Haiti.

Honda has an idea for an alternative to Elon Musk’s hyper loop in a report from ZDNet. Friend of the show Jason Hiner wrote up an interview with Frank Paluch, who runs research and development for Honda Americas. Paluch spoke at 2015 SAE World Congress and suggested a dedicated lane on California’s 5 Freeway for highly automated, connected vehicles that would use swarm technology to travel at speeds up to 180mph. While the Hyperloop could travel LA to San farncisco in an hour the HOnda system would take 2. However you wouldn’t have to drive to the Hyperloop station, just take your car the whole way. Go check out Jason’s article for much more about the idea.

News From You:

HobbitfromPA noted the early rumors that Comcast was planning to drop its proposed merger with Time Warner Cable. This morning Ars Technica was among the outlets reporting a statement that in fact Comcast has moved on and will no longer pursue the merger. Fortune reported that the Wall Street Journal barely let the merger grow cold before it reported its sources say Charter is already “laying the groundwork” for a bid to acquire Time Warner Cable. It’s nice to be wanted eh TWC?

jmbburg26 noticed one of the reports of additions to Google Maps for Rawalpindi, Pakistan. One alteration showed the Android robot logo appearing to throw water on an Apple logo. Another alteration wrote a criticism of Google’s review policy in the greenery representing a park. Google’s Mara Harris told the Washington Post, “We’re sorry for this inappropriate user-created content.” Both alterations have been removed.

lagerdalek pointed out that Microsoft will bring solitaire back as a default game in Windows 10. No word on Minesweeper or Reversi.

IrishTechGuy posted the SiliconRepublic article that ISP Eircom has signed a contract with Huawei to construct Gigabyte fiber for 66 communities in Ireland by 2016 serving 1.6 million homes. Eircom hopes to start taking orders by the end of August.

KAPT_kipper posted the CBC story that researchers from Sweden, the US and Canada reported in the journal Current Biology that they have sequenced almost the complete library of DNA from a well-preserved wooly mammoth. Yes such information can inform scientists about mammoth evolution, how they differ from modern elephants and why they went extinct. But what about cloning Mammoths for eccentric millionaire’s Mammoth parks? Canadian researcher Hendrik Poinar said it is a “much more real possibility.”

Discussion Section Links:  

http://www.channelnomics.com/channelnomics-us/news/2404869/controversial-security-tweet-sees-airline-turn-away-rsa-speaker

http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/u-s-secretary-of-homeland-security-encryption-danegrous/

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/536986/google-and-facebook-execs-question-government-desire-for-encryption-backdoors/?utm_campaign=socialsync&utm_medium=social-post&utm_source=twitter

http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/01/more-researchers-join-rsa-conference-boycott-to-protest-10-million-nsa-deal/

http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/12/report-nsa-paid-rsa-to-make-flawed-crypto-algorithm-the-default/

http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/24/8484179/defense-department-ashton-carter-silicon-valley-pentagon

Pick of the day:

WScottis1 in ChatrealmMessages:

Hey Tom, Jennie, Roger, Patrick, Justin, Darren, Scott, Veronica, and guest(s),
(I think I got everybody)

I wanted to let people know about two web tools that I came across the other day trying to make my website mobile with the Google Search Mobilegeddon. The first one I wanted to recommend is mobiletest.me. This is a website that allows you to test how your website looks like on multiple smartphones even if you don’t own them, it does it virtually on the website. It even allows you to “rotate” the phone.

The second one is detectmobilebrowsers.com which provides an easy way to check to see if a user is trying to load your website on a phone. It’s very easy to implement, you just have to upload the script to your website file manager, edit the file to change the default website to the URL of your mobile site, and then put one script line into your code of the original page. Love the show! Keep up the amazing work you’re doing!

Thanks!

Messages: 

Rob wrote on the DTNS blog:

On the show, you talked about the poor cellular coverage in Montana. It’s really mind boggling how many areas in the good ol’ USA still have poor coverage, including where I live in Hanover, NH (only Verizon works and with mostly 1-2 bars.) We are just back from hiking for a week in the Czech Republic where we used a 3rd party foreign roaming SIM Card and had 5 bars of T-mobile coverage even on empty hiking trails between extremely small towns and if you play around with their coverage map, you’ll see that they have 21-150Mbps data speeds pretty much blanketing the whole country. How did America get left so far behind in the mobile revolution?

Brian writes:

“As an MVNO ting also provides service from both Sprint and T-Mobile (although they can’t explicitly state that T-Mobile is their GSM partner). The unique thing about Fi is the ability to seamlessly handoff between not only wifi and CDMA a la Republic Wireless but to also do it between CDMA and GSM networks. Kind of makes me wonder how it works with sim cards and phone numbers (probably something to do with Google Voice since they make a point in saying that you can use your number on your computer).”

Jeff writes:

Talking about Spotify and other services, one that I don’t hear a lot about, but I use almost exclusively is grooveshark.com. I believe it works in the sense that someone uploads their music and that becomes available to anyone to listen to it. So, I don’t think that grooveshark.com themselves are providing the music, but that doesn’t mean that the popular songs or others aren’t on there. The selection is pretty vast and there’s some neat features they are doing as well. One feature is that Individuals can create radio stations, basically becoming dj’s. There is a downside and that is the consistency of the music. It’s uploaded by individuals and there can be a lot of duplicates and some of those duplicates are of a lower quality.

Tad writes:

The issue with the major auto manufactures trying to apply the DMCA to their vehicles is getting seriously over-hyped. I saw an article with the headline, “GM, Ford, and Others want to make working on your car illegal”. The article went on to say that in effect you don’t own your car, you are just a user. This pure fear mongering. The DMCA applies to the code in the various control computers in the vehicle- nothing more. The physical parts of the car, including the control modules the code is in, are yours to do with as you please. Again, the DMCA applies to bits, not car parts.

=====

Monday’s guest:  Rich Stroffolino

 

Lamarr Wilson and Justin Young are on the show to talk about Facebook’s skyrocketing video usage. Are you turning to Facebook instead of YouTube?

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

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

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here at the low, low cost of a nickel a day on Patreon. Thank you!

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

Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!

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

Show Notes

Today’s guests:  Lamarr Wilson & Justin Robert Young

Headlines: 

TechCrunch reports that Xiaomi introduced its new Mi 4i smartphone at an event in New Delhi today. It has a 1080p display, Snapdragon 615 64-bit processor, two 4G SIM slots, 13-mpxl rear camera and a 3120 mAh battery. It runs Android Lollipop with the MiUI and will be available for 12,999 INR ($205) starting April 30 in India via flash sales.

Yes Apple Watches shipping notices are going out and Apple is highlighting apps for watches but according to The Verge if you want to walk into a Store and buy an Apple Watch you’re out of luck. Unless you live in Tokyo, London, Los Angeles, Berlin, Milan or Paris and don’t feel out of place in a high-end fashion shop. The shops themselves have limited quantities and apologies but the $10,000 Apple Watch Edition is on backorder.

Engadget tells us you can pre-order Samsung’s Gear VR headset for the Galaxy S6 this Friday April 24th from Best Buy in the US. No pricing was announced. Engadget guesses the headset might cost $200 similar to the original headset. It will be available for sale on Samsung’s and Best Buy’s online stores May 8 and retail outlets May 15.y.

Twitter just announced a feature called Highlights according to The Verge. After a user opts in they’ll get a push notification twice a day opening a view containing a selected tweets. The digest will have posts from popular accounts and conversations from people you follow, trending topics and events, tweets from people you’re closely tied to, and accounts your friends follow. You’ll have to opt in and use the official Twitter app. It’s coming to Android first..

Open Office, the free open source office suite, has just 16 people involved in development and 381 change sets over the last year compared to open source rival LibreOffice which has 268 developers and 22,134 change sets over the same period according to PC World. An Apache Foundation blog post from last week admitted that the project needs more developers, and invited “all the most relevant OpenOffice derivative products and their communities or vendors to join us in discussing further ideas for collaboration and improvements.” OpenOffice and LibreOffice are based on the same code. LibreOffice forkied after Oracle took over OpenOffice 5 years ago.

The Wall Street Journal reports the European Commission will unveil proposals on May 6th for a single digital market. The idea would be to harmonize rules about digital goods, capital, content and services across the 28 member states. Differences between contract law, VAT, parcel delivery, consumer protection and copyright laws are expected to be addressed. In particular geofencing within Europe was mentioned as something that should be abolished.

News From You:

Habichuelacondulce cited TechDirt’s repost that Bloomberg and Wall Street Journal sources indicate the Justice Department may block the proposed merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable in the US. The WSJ also says the FCC may recommend the merger be sent to an administrative judge for a hearing. Generally such a move causes companies to abandon mergers rather than deal with the long process. Meanwhile Bloomberg reports this afternoon that “people with knowledge of the matter” say Comcast plans to drop its proposed takeover of Time Warner Cable. A formal announcement may come as soon as Friday.

Geewhipped pointed us to a Pebble developer’s forum post claiming Applerejected an app called SeaNav on the basis that it mentioned support for the Pebble Watch. Apple’s rules forbid mentioning other mobile platforms in metadata. A few other developers claim their apps have been rejected for similar reasons. However, many other approved apps mention Pebble, including Pebble’s own app.

the_corley posted the a Variety report on a Deloitte survey that shows Internet-streamed video has passed live TV in the US. 53% of those surveyed stream TV shows on a monthly basis while 45% watch TV programs live. Among 14-25 year olds 72% said streaming video was one of the most valuable services, 58% said the same of pay TV. And nobody’s paying attention to what they watch since 90% of all surveyed multitask while watching TV. ce.

KAPT_kipper brought this Polygon post to our attention. Fantasy Grounds – creators of a virtual tabletop RPG application – is now offering licensed Dungeons & Dragons content from Wizards of the Coast through Steam. Players can recreate the 5th edition D&D tabletop experience including dice, 2D maps and more. The first set of products, including the D&D Complete Core Class Pack, D&D Complete Core Monster Pack, and The Lost Mine of Phandelver went on sale last week. Greg Tito, Wizard’s communications manager, confirmed that other campaigns, including Rise of Tiamat and the recently released Princes of the Apocalypse, are on the way for Fantasy Grounds.

Google 14 percent gain in net revenue to $13.91 billion missing expectations of 14.12 billion. EPS: $6.57 versus $6.63 expected
Cost per click, how much Google can charge for its ads, was down 7% year-over-year and the number of paid clicks was up 13%. Analysts had expected paid clicks to be up 15%.

Microsoft reported revenue of $21.7 billion and earnings per share of 61 cents. Both beat analyst expectations. Surface revenue was up 44% year over year. Windows OEM revenue fell 19% probably because last year XP support ended.

Amazon reported 22.&2 billion in revenue beating expected 22.39 billion and earnings per share of 12 cents about the same as the 13 cents expected. Most profits rose except in the International market which was down slightly.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://thenextweb.com/opinion/2015/04/23/facebook-video-is-on-course-to-steal-youtubes-video-sharing-crown/

http://fortune.com/2015/04/22/facebook-video-big-on-growth-little-on-details/

https://facebookmarketingpartners.com/anthology/

http://variety.com/2015/digital/news/facebook-lines-up-7-branded-content-video-partners-including-vice-disney-1201478229/

http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/23/facebook-anthology/?ncid=rss

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/04/22/facebook-earnings-preview/26152073/

http://www.quora.com/How-does-YouTube-calculate-its-views

Pick of the day:

Haulik from Denmark:

I just heard you discussing MOBAs on the show and I thought I would just give a heads ups about Vain Glory, it’s a free to play MOBA for iOS (best on iPad IMO). I had never played MOBAs before, but running iOS on my iPad with is my daily driver it has won me over quickly. Even if you don’t like MOBAs it’s worth a look just to appreciate how far mobile gaming has come since the old Snake/Space invaders days.

Keep up the good work

Messages:

Peter writes:

Good morning Tom and crew,

I woke this morning to all the chatter surrounding Project FI from Google.

I was wondering if when your on the WiFi if that data used goes against your total used or if it was just what used on either T mobile or Sprint?

Currently I work for a company that does not provide free WiFi so i’m dependent on mobile for the majority of my day and that keeps me in the 10-16 GB a month range and according to what i have read that much data is not cost effective..

Nate writes in:

There is an interesting video by C.G.P. Grey with the above title about robots taking over jobs, it might add an interesting bit too the discussion

Humans Need Not Apply: https://youtu.be/7Pq-S557XQU

Thanks for the shows

Tom –

Allison writes: 

In reference to your conversation about automating jobs with Jason and Lindsay, I wanted to tell you about what we observed in India.

We visited a jute factory where they take raw jute and through a series of machines turn it into gunny sacks. Our guide explained that the process could easily be automated and be done far cheaper, but it would put so many people out of work that instead the government subsidizes the factory.

I think it’s a good example of what happens when you don’t let progress happen.

John in quite pleasant Billings, MT

Hi Tom & Jennie

You mentioned an issue with Google Fi that hits close to home. Rather than rant about it maybe one of your listeners has an answer – how is it, in 2015, that there are only 2 national cellular providers in Montana? Is it really that bad of an investment? I’m certain that Verizon would still be my only option if it weren’t for AT&T buying their divested Altell assets a few years ago.

=====

Friday’s guest:  Darren Kitchen, Len Peralta, & David Spark

 

Jason Hiner and Lyndsey Gilpin are on the show and we’ll talk about Tesla batteries, Google new Phone Service and how you’ll need to get creative if you don’t want a robot to take your job.

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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 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:  Jason Hiner and Lyndsey Gilpin from TechRepublic

Headlines: 

Google announced it’s wireless telephone service today for invitees with a Nexus 6, called Project Fi. TechCrunch reports the network promises to seamlessly switch customers between T-Mobile, Sprint and WiFi baed on whichever network is faster. The rate plan is similar to Ting. Subscribers pay $20 for unlimited talk and text and then $10 per gig of data. Customers pay only for what they use. You can request an invite at fi.google.com.

TechCrunch reports BlackBerry is buying WatchDox a startup in Israel that develops secure file sharing software. The plan is to add WatchDox software to BlackBerry’s Enterprise Mobility Management portfolio.  In addition to the software, BlackBerry may use the WatchDox team to build an R&D operation in Israel.

Facebook released Hello, an Android app dialer that lets you make free calls over Wi-Fi according to The Verge. Hello uses Facebook to ID callers and search for phone numbers, and you can send numbers straight to voicemail by choosing the numbers or using a list of commonly blocked numbers crowdsourced from other users. If you miss a call Hello will let you respond using Facebook Messenger. Facebook says it has no plans to make money from the app directly.

The Verge reports that Microsoft is updating its Band wearable to integrate bike-tracking apps Strava and MapMyRide. The new insights are visible on the Microsoft Health Web Dashboard and can now provide comparisons with an average of other users based on height and weight. It will also show users how well their body is restoring overnight during sleep. And it tracks fitness improvements over time and volume of oxygen used during an exercise so you know what time of day you tend to have your most effective workout. Microsoft Health app for Android, iOS, and Windows Phone will also be updated to support step-counting sensors present in many smartphones.

CNET has a preview of HP’s new back to school Laptops and Hybrids. The $499 Pavilion x360 fold-back hybrid’s 11-inch model has a fanless design with comes with Intel’s Core M, a 1,366×768 touchscreen panel. The $529 13-inch Pavilion x360 comes with Core i3 and i5 and an optional 1920 x 1080p display. The $679 15.6-inch Envy x360 comes in silver and red and uses Core i5 or Core i7 and discrete graphics from Nvidia. HP’s other Pavilion laptops come online May 13 and in stores June 21 in 14”, 15”, and 17” all with optical drives starting at $479. The Pavilion x360 is out in the US May 13. The Envy x360 on June 13 online and June 21 in stores.

An application form to receive a free developer edition of Valve’s HTC Vive virtual reality set has been posted. Go to steamcommunity.com/steamvr/signup and enter your company name, URL, team size, and a detailed description of your VR project and you might just get a headset shipped to you this spring or summer.

News From You:

Jaymz668 and starfuryzeta both pointed out the Engadget article that Tesla emailed investors to let them know that the April 30th announcement from the company will be a battery for the home and a very large utility-oriented battery. No details on how the battery would improve on existing home batteries most often used to store excess power from solar installations. That’s what April 30th is for I expect.

Starfuryzeta marked the BBC story for inclusion that reports Adblock won a judgement in a Hamburg Germany court against German news publishers Die Zeit and Handelsblatt. The publishers claimed Adblock was anticompetitive and threatened company revenues. The court ruled users have a right to use the plug-in.
The Publishers may appeal after the written decision is delivered.

Waffleophagus pointed out the BGR report noting Jay-Z and softbank backed music service Tidal is no longer in the top 700 apps on iPhone in the US. Pandora and Spotify are numbers 3 and 4 in the US. Spotify was not in the top 40 prior to March 31. Tidal has announced an upcoming service called Disovery which will allow independent artists to upload their music directly to the service.

KAPT_KIpper posted a Gizmodo story from the RSA conference about an iOS 8 vulnerability demonstrated by researchers from Skycure Monday. If a device connects to a compromised WiFi access point attackers can generate an SSL certificate that can cause apps and sometimes the whole phone to crash and endlessly reboot. Targets of the attack would have to move out of range to stop the cycle. iOS 8.3 mitigates the effects somewhat. Skycure previously reported the vulnerability to Apple.

 

Discussion Section Links:  

http://fortune.com/2015/04/22/robots-white-collar-ai/

http://www.futuretech.ox.ac.uk/future-employment-how-susceptible-are-jobs-computerisation-oms-working-paper-dr-carl-benedikt-frey-m

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/ai-is-destroying-more-jobs-than-it-creates-what-it-means-and-how-we-can-stop-it/

http://fortune.com/2015/02/25/5-jobs-that-robots-already-are-taking/

http://www.nesta.org.uk/publications/creativity-vs-robots

http://www.nesta.org.uk/quiz/will-robot-take-my-job

http://www.cnet.com/news/robobarista-autonomously-makes-latte-taught-by-the-internet/?utm_content=buffer08cfe&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

 

Pick of the day:

jbhannah writes:

For my personal website and a few others that I run, I use a service called Cloudflare for DNS, as well as caching and HTTPS. It works like any other DNS provider, and has a very easy-to-use interface for managing your DNS records. It also provides various levels of caching of pages, scripts, and images on its CDN servers in different parts of the world, which improves your site’s load times and reduces server load, and can even run various optimizations on them to further reduce file sizes and load times. And, it lets you enable HTTPS for your sites, even if you don’t have your own SSL certificate, and without any server configuration—all you need to do is press a button; same with enabling IPv6 access to your site, even if your server doesn’t have IPv6. Best of all, while they do have additional, paid features available, all of what I mentioned and use is available with a free account (as long as you don’t mind sharing an SSL certificate with other sites; you can pay for your domain to have its own certificate). I highly recommend it: https://www.cloudflare.com/

Messages:

Ron Ladd wrote:

There are a number of sources for good high quality music and hdtracks.com is one of them.

Just be sure you know what you are buying and if it is worth what you pay. To quote from a site that has fantastic information on audio, “misinformation and superstition only serve charlatans. Xiph.org has a good article “24/192 music downloads …and why they make no sense” you can find it at
http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
Just under the headline is a link to a video clip, “Digital Show and Tell” that is the best 24 minute digital audio vs analog audio explainer that is MUST WATCH for anyone interested in audio, you can find this clip at
http://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml

Ross writes in:

The problem with the twitter vs phone analogy from the conversation with Jenny and Patrick is this: Over the years, laws have been passed to prevent harassment and provide recourse to the victims of telephone harassment. Twitter does not have these protections. Add in the ease of the harasser recruiting aid with a simple hash tag and it gets ugly fast.

Rich from Lovely Cleveland had a good thought:

“Twitter is interested in free speech in so much that it makes them a relevant conduit of information, against which they can serve ads, and when free speech enters into them realm of heinous abuse or bullying, they have the financial interest to curb it so as not to dissuade users. …“free speech” is a charged phrase, and Twitter’s obligation to it is purely commercial (which in this case is leading to an outcome that appears to be morally satisfying).”

Peter added:

I would love to see Twitter accounts require identity verification. …And with this improved level of accountability, if you are getting harassed, go to the police! I would like to see arrests. And one of the first things the police/FBI do when you report death threats or harassment is to tell you not to publicize or draw attention to the fact you have been threatened. It makes the situation 1) harder to investigate 2) invites more trolls. And yet this is never what these people do.

Cody wrote in with the positive side of Twitter DMS:

He wanted to use an artist’s music in a game he was developing and had to go through the long dance of publicly at replying the person getting them to follow him back and THEN being able to DM. “This was somewhat frustrating considering the timed nature of my project, and although you could make the case that the artist should have had other ways to contact him, not being able to do so on Twitter unless we followed each other has a bit annoying.”

=====

Thursday’s guests:  Lamarr Wilson & Justin Robert Young

 

Patrick Beja is on and we’ll talk about Twitter’s new anti-harassment measures. expect an appearance from producer Jennie Josephson on the subject as well!

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

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 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 and Jennie Josephson

Headlines: 

The Next Web notes Adobe launched a major upgrade to Photoshop Lightroom for desktop and mobile platforms with an emphasis on integrated workflow via Creative Cloud. New features include: Leveraging GPUs for faster render performance especially with 4K and 5K displays, an updated HDR Merge tool that can get an effect out of just 2 images, a new Panorama Merge, Facial Recognition that can find files without tags, and improved Filter Brush with greater precision. The iOS app can now group photos by date, gets a n improved crop and the ability to sign up for a subscription in the app. Android users get tablet support, DNG raw file support for Lollipop devices, and access to microSD storage. You can buy Lightroom for the desktop for $149 or as part of Adobe’s Creative Cloud Photography Plan for $9.99 a month. Companion apps are free for iOS and Android.

TechCrunch reports BlackBerry is buying WatchDox a startup in Israel that develops secure file sharing software. The plan is to add WatchDox software to BlackBerry’s Enterprise Mobility Management portfolio.  In addition to the software, BlackBerry may use the WatchDox team to build an R&D operation in Israel.

Twitter announced new anti-harassment measures on its blog today. Language around threats was widened to include a broader range of threats including promoting violence against others. Twitter staff may now lock abusive accounts until certain measures are taken by users. And a filter will be put in place that limits the reach of posts that an algorithm deems may be abusive.

Re/code is reporting Yahoo earned 15 cents a share on an adjusted basis, down from 38 cents the year before, analysts expected 18 cents a share. That was down from 38 cents the year before. Revenue was $1.043 billion missing expectations of $1.055 billion. But the good news is Microsoft can terminate its search deal with Yahoo as early as October 1st.

 

News From You:

Starfuryzeta passed along Sean Hollister’s Gizmodo report that it is now possible to download your entire Google search history to your computer. Search history includes subject lines of private emails, street address, your personal entertainment tastes, etc. Google suggests setting up two factor authentication to protect the downloaded data. Hollister suggests taken advantage of another feature provided by Google. Delete your search history. All of it.

Hurmoth submitted the story from iMore.com that Google is shutting down older YouTube apps. That means YouTube will no longer work on original white box Apple TVs, devices running iOS6 or older, Google TV versions 1 and 2 and some older TVs and Blu-ray players.

Spsheridan wanted us to notice the Wired article about John Deere asserting farmers don’t have the right to fix their own tractors. John Deere filed with the US Copyright Office arguing people should not be allowed to alter or repair software systems in John Deere tractors because it violates copyright. Among other things, John Deere argued allowing an exemption for tractor repair could somehow lead to music piracy using the tractor’s entertainment system.

Starfuryzeta passed along some very important news from Engadget. Remember BB-8, the new circular rolling droid in the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Awakens movie? Remember how J.J. Abrams shocked the world last week when he revealed that BB-8 was a practical effect? Well robotics company Sphero has confirmed that its technology is behind the droid ball, and that there is a CONSUMER VERSION IN THE WORKS. No word on whether it will be out in time for the holiday season, or whether it will be sphero-sized or full droid-sized.

Audio Illusion shared this TechCrunch story that Ubuntu 15.04 Vivid Vervet will be available for download Thursday. It comes with support for OpenStack Kilo the free open-source cloud computing platform, a new LXS Hypervisor virtualization tool for container deployments and a new stable version of Canonical’s Snappy Ubuntu Core, a stripped-down version of its OS for container hosts and small connected devices.

 

Discussion Section Links:  

http://gizmodo.com/twitters-inexplicable-new-setting-highlights-problems-w-1699048482

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/21/twitter-filter-notifications-for-all-accounts-abuse

https://blog.twitter.com/2015/policy-and-product-updates-aimed-at-combating-abuse

http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/21/twitter-makes-tweaks-to-limit-abuse-and-abusers/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/16/twitter-executive-heres-how-were-trying-to-stop-abuse-while-preserving-free-speech/

 

Pick of the day:

Burhan writes: “HD Tracks Pick”

After listening to Nate Lanxon’s discussion on audio quality (4/16/15), I thought I’d pass a long a pick for him, and anyone else into high fidelity listening. I too prefer lossless audio formats, but like you mentioned yesterday, who wants to bother with a CD drive these days? I was turned onto hdtracks.com via a Audiogon newsletter about a sampler album they put together. For those who don’t know, Audiogon is a marketplace for dealers, industry techs, and consumers to buy and sell used, often higher end, audio equipment (Inception-pick-of-the-day). HD Tracks offers (DRM FREE!) WAV, ALAC, AIFF, and FLAC formats for download with a majority of albums at sample rates of 96kHz/24 bit and up. It’s definitely not the best place to go if you’re looking for a single song, but if anyone was going to purchase the album to rip, this would save a step. For anyone not sure of why high fidelity music is a big deal, HD Tracks has an album sampler to download for the low cost of your email address, so that you may see for yourself.”

 

Messages:

Christopher from Sunny Spokane:

Hi guys, listening to Monday’s show and I you mentioned that your site had a mobile version that might appear with Google’s new search. It did get noticed, but I have to say as an iPhone 6+ user the site doesn’t work well: it appears hard coded to a smaller width, so there is a huge margin down one side. This is the problem with mobile friendly vs responsive designs: if you don’t do it just right mobile designs can be worse than full size pages that have to be scrolled.

Fabrice in sunny and kinda windy Marseille, southern France created a Patreon account early February 2014. He didn’t want to enter a credit card number but he just discovered Patreon takes paypal and has become a Co-executive Producer!

Fabrice says:

“Every once in a while, you might want to add the detail that Patreon supports both credit/debit cards and PayPal.

Tomorrow I’ll have a warm fuzzy feeling when I’ll start my 1h commute… having the pleasure of listening to DTNS not as a freeloader but as co-exec producer. Thank you guys for your work. Your daily podcasts make a long commute seem shorter.

FYI I share some characteristics with Patrick Beja, french, hairy and born in 1973.

If you can find some Pastis Henri Bardouin at the liquor store, you’ll get the flavors of my neck of the woods.

Je vous embrasse tous,

=====

Monday’s guests:  Jason Hiner and Lyndsey Gilpin

Eric Franklin is on the show to react to news Nokia might make new phones and talk about the upcoming Heroes of the Storm release. Will this make MOBA a household word?

MP3

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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 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:  Eric Franklin from CNET

Headlines: 

Two sources briefed on Nokia’s plans told ReCode that the company’s Technologies division plans to market Nokia cell phones next year. The division also has some virtual reality products in the works. Nokia Technologies is the research and patent holding division and will likely license designs to a company whoo will manufacture, distribute and sell phones under the Nokia brand. Under an agreement that transferred Nokia’s handset business to Microsoft, Nokia can’t sell phones under the Nokia brand until the end of 2015 and can’t license the brand until Q3 2016.

TechCrunch notes that the next big update for Android wear is officially on the way. Among the new features are wrist flicking gestures. Flick away to view the next card or notification and flick towards you to go back. Emoji drawing lets you draw an emoji you want to use. And new interface flow that simplifies menu access when you swipe. Finally wi-fi support. That means your watch can connect to your phone over the Internet to get notifications even when you’re phone is not with you. You just need to connect your watch to WiFi. The LG Watch Urbane will be the first device to get the update with others following over the coming weeks.

TechCrunch reports the $299 OnePlus One phone is now available to anyone who wants it. Previously buyers had to get an invite or get lucky in a flash sale of some kind. However the followup phone OnePlus 2 will arrive this autumn and will only be available by invite at launch.

CNET reports that Twitter users can now choose to allow direct messages from all other users whether you are following them or not. The system also allows users to reply to any DMs they receive, without having to follow back to reply. On smartphones with iOS or Android, users will also see a direct message button on profiles that they can message. [[The Twitter blog post on which the change was announced used the example of being able to privately message a neighborhood ice cream store about your love of their salted caramel ice cream.]]

Engadget pulled an important tidbit out of a Bloomberg article in which sources claim that Elon Musk almost sold Telsa to Google in early 2013, when Tesla had to close its factory due to low sales. The deal would have kept Musk in charge of Tesla for eight years. Musk and Google’s Larry page even shook hands on it, but the whole thing fell apart because Tesla started to make make money thanks to Model S orders. Neither Google nor Tesla would comment on the Bloomberg story.

TechCrunch reports Facebook’s Internet.org program launched in Indonesia Monday. The program allows users to access certain sites without incurring data charges. The practice, known as zero-rating has been criticized in India for violating net neutrality principles.

 

News From You:

JohnEllsworth3 alerted us to this news item from the Verge. During AMD’s earings call last week, CEO Lisa Su said ” “With the Windows 10 launch at the end of July, we are watching sort of the impact of that on the back-to-school season, and expect that it might have a bit of a delay to the normal back-to-school season inventory build-up.” SPOILER! Microsoft has said it will launch Windows 10 this summer in 190 countries and 111 languages but hasn’t provided a firm date.

Flyingspatula posted the Gizmodo article on Mobilegeddon. The dramatic name for a tweak to Google’s search algorithm regarding mobile sites tomorrow. The tweak only affects searches on mobile phones, not even tablets, and gives sites with a mobile-friendly design a boost in search rankings. You can tell which sites are deemed mobile-friendly by looking for the gray “mobile-friendly; moniker by their name in search results on a phone or by using Google’s test tool in its developers section.

KAPT_Kipper sent us this update from ZDNet that TWiT will reboot the classic TechTV Show “The Screen Savers” under the name “The New Screen Savers.” The show was announced during the 10 year celebration of TWiT and will feature many of the original members of the show as guest co-hosts on the show including; Kate Botello, Patrick Norton, John C. Dvorak, Morgan Webb, Martin Sargent and Kevin Rose.

Doorsrio sent us a Gizmodo report that Norway will be the first country to turn off FM radio in 2017, as the country completes its transition to DIgital Audio Broadcasting or DAB. Norway has 22 channels on DAB compared to just five in the FM spectrum, and according a a TNS Gallup poll 56% of Norweigan listeners use digital radio every day. US a 2012 Pew study showed that 90% of the US still listens to AM/FM radio weekly, even as more are switching over to Internet-only services.

 

Discussion Section Links:  

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/blizzard-s-moba-heroes-of-the-storm-gets-a-release/1100-6426757/

 

Pick of the day:

Jeff recommends ninite.com writing, “it gives a quick way to install popular OSS and freeware. They automatically remove annoying toolbars and bloatware usually included with the standard installs. I’ve been using it for years and whole heartedly recommend it for people who do a lot of PC building.”

 

Messages:

Anthony from Edinburgh writes:

In Friday’s (mostly illuminating) discussion of https, I thought there were a few misses.

The cpu/dollar impact of https is typically not significant. See e.g. https://developers.google.com/web/shows/cds/2013/got-ssl where Gmail found it cost 1% cpu, 2% network. However, using https for previously carefully optimized streaming of large video files is a special case with significant cost – according to e.g. http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/04/it-wasnt-easy-but-netflix-will-soon-use-https-to-secure-video-streams/ Netflix did a whole bunch of work and it still hurt them.

You didn’t mention the impact to latency. The initial ssl handshake does do extra roundtrips, so time to render the page can take a hit. See e.g. http://serverfault.com/a/570409
Using https does not hide which websites you are visiting. It only hides which particular resource within the website is accessed (and, of course, the content of that resource.)

“Interactivity” is a red herring. Sure there’s some correlation between interactivity and e.g. authenticated activity, but conflating the two is misleading.

Up to you whether any of the above are worthy of “426 Upgrade Required” status.

Rich from Lovely Cleveland:

The best argument I have for using HTTPS everywhere: most work network firewalls pretty much will let you right through if you’re using HTTPS. Not that I EVER use my work computer for personal reasons.

=====

Monday’s guests:  Patrick Beja

Darren Kitchen is here to help us understand why it’s important to encrypt all the things. Justin Young discusses that and some last observations from Star Wars Celebration plus Patrick Beja drops in to talk about trying on the Apple Watch. Len Peralta may even illustrate all this.

MP3

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

Show Notes

Today’s guests:  Darren Kitchen, Len Peralta, Patrick Beja and Justin Robert Young

Headlines: 

Engadget reports that Verizon will begin offering a new FIOS Custom TV package on Sunday. For $65, customers get broadband and a 35 channel base TV package plus two add-on channel packages. The packages are News & Info, Pop Culture, Entertainment, Kids, Lifestyle, Sports and SportsPlus. Additional packages beyond the first two cost $10 each, and subscribers can switch packages every 30 days, or even add phone service for a $75 total. So not quite al a carte. More like a la ca.

Microsoft plans to preview the updated Office suite for Windows 10 Phones at end of this month according to the Verge. The Office for Windows 10 phone preview will incorporate the same interface and features found on the iOS and Android versions including a thumb optimized UI. Office universal apps aren’t built into Windows 10, but will ship with phones later this year. MS will debut Office 2016 for Desktop — essenitally anything with a screen bigger than 10.1-inches– later this year with a UI designed to closely match the universal, iOS and Android versions.

The Next Web says Apple Pay will launch in Canada this Fall. According to a report in the WSJ Apple is in talks with Canada’s six largest banks in preparation for a possible November launch. While banks are open to Apple Pay, and currently in negotiations over fees, there are concerns over security issues that have popped up since its launch in the US.

The Verge reports that Mark Zuckerberg posted to Facebook defending the Inetrnet.org service. Several companies in India have pulled out of the service because they believe zero-rating mobile services is against net neutrality principles. Zuckerberg argued that Internet.org does not block or throttle services only exempt certain services from data charges. He also argues that having some Net access is better than none.

Reuters reports prosecutors in the Netherlands have launched a criminal investigation into Uber for providing taxi service in violation of a court order. A Dutch court banned UberPOP in December for not being properly licensed.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Information Technology report ranks Singapore number one in its Network Readiness Index, followed by Finland and Sweden. The index identifies a country’s capacity to leverage information and communication technology based on its usage, impact and political and business environment. Rwanda ranked number one in the world for government success in promoting ICT. Armenia is the number one most improved country since 2012.

 

News From You:

KAPT_Kipper and habicuelacondulce sent us The Verge report that Wikileaks has published the complete Sony Pictures Entertainment leaks in a searchable database. That’s 173,132 emails and 30,287 separate documents containing private legal opinions as well as sensitive conversations between executives. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said “This archive shows the inner workings of an influential multinational corporation. It is newsworthy and at the centre of a geo-political conflict. It belongs in the public domain.” Sony Pictures said, “We vehemently disagree with WikiLeaks’ assertion that this material belongs in the public domain and will continue to fight for the safety, security, and privacy of our company and its more than 6,000 employees.”

Habichuelacondulce posted the Verge story about Instagram’s new community guidelines. Essentially they get more specific about what is allowed. For instance instead of “be polite and respectful” there’s a longer section that is more specific such as “serious threats of harm to public and personal safely aren’t allowed.” Nudity is also generally forbidden unless it involves post-mastectomy scarring and women actively breastfeeding or pictures of paintings and scultptures. Essentially, Instagram, like many before it has succumbed to the “this is why we can’t have nice things” effect.

This Sunday marks the 50th anniversary of Moore’s law. On April 19 In 1965 – “Cramming more components onto integrated circuits” by Gordon Moore was published in Electronics. Moore projected that over the next ten years the number of components per chip would double every 12 months. By 1975 he turned out to be right, and the doubling became immortalized as “Moore’s law.”

 

Discussion Section Links:  

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150415/16181530668/netflix-moving-to-encrypted-streams-as-mozilla-moves-to-deprecate-unencrypted-web-pages-as-insecure.shtml

https://letsencrypt.org/

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/certificate-authority-encrypt-entire-web

 

Pick of the day:

Petere wrote:

I stumbled upon this at 3am this morning and can’t wait to get time to dig deep and get a feel for the depth of this new product.

https://api.slack.com/web
(The Slack Web API allows you to build applications that interact with Slack in more complex ways than the integrations we provide out of the box.)
and

https://polymer.slack.com/

i have been coding polymer for a while on a hobbyist level and recognize the Lego’n of html tags… makes web tech fun again..

this communication platform is something worth checking out

 

Messages:

Vijay writes in:

Hi Tom,

I have a comment about the story about Microsoft investing in Cyanogen to make it’s app ecosystem more popular on the Android platform. As you pointed out, Microsoft has nothing to lose. But Cyanogen has a lot to lose if they start bundling bloatware from Microsoft (even if it’s Nadella’s).

This announcement also explains some of the rhetoric that the new Cyanogen CEO, Kirk McMaster is indulging in by taking shots at Google accusing them of controlling Android too much. The Cyanogenmod community has not taken very kindly to this CEO’s antics and clearly sees him as profiteering from what has long been a very popular community-driven ROM. Everybody sees how flawed Kirk’s argument is – Cyanogen would not exist if Android did not allow forked out ROMs.

The casualty of these statements and also of forcing Microsoft bloatware on Cyanogen users would be that of losing a large user base. There’s no dearth of competitive Android ROMs (like OxygenOS, Paranoid Android, MIUI, SlimKat, etc) that we geeks will gladly flash as a replacement to Cyanogen if this CEO continues on this path. I’m already planning to flash Oxygen OS to replace CyanogenMod on my OnePlus One.

Sean in rainy Cleveland this week writes:

Tom and Darren,

When I travel I bring a chromecast and a HOOTOO portable router. When I get to my hotel room I through up a wifi network and can get through the hotel login page on one device through the router. I then turn on my VPN to keep my browsing private. I have to turn it off to chromecast though. With the Amazon fire TV allowing you to log into Web based credentials wifi networks, is my. Amazon password or hulu or netflix information potentially vulnerable to interception? Or am I missing something about how amazon passes information to the fire TV?

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Monday’s guests:  Rich Stroffolino

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nate Lanxon is on the show to talk about Microsoft’s secret strategy to dominate and what things we DON’T want in the cloud.

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

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

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here at the low, low cost of a nickel a day on Patreon. Thank you!

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

Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!

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

Show Notes

Today’s guests:  Nate Lanxon 

Headlines: 

Business Insider reports Yahoo has renewed its search deal with Microsoft. Bing ads must show up against 51% of traffic now instead of the exclusive deal it had before meaning Yahoo can monetize 49% of its traffic in other ways if it likes. Microsoft is also taking over sales of all the BIng ads.

If you want to walk into an Apple store and buy an Apple Watch you will now have to wait until at least June. 9 to 5 mac shared an Apple memo from SVP of Retail and Online Sales Angela Ahrendts wjo wrote: “due to high global interest combined with our initial supply, we are only taking orders online right now. I’ll have more updates as we get closer to in-store availability, but we expect this to continue through the month of May.”

Tech Crunch reports that Jawbone has partnered with American Express to allow the new Jawbone UP4 fitness tracker to pay for things at NFC enabled card readers. The authorization token is stored on the band itself, and the credit card information can be deactivated if the band is stolen. The UP4 will cost $200 at launch — $20 more than the payments-less UP3 and launch “this summer”. Jawbone also introduced a new mid-range band called the UP 2 for $99 which replaces the UP24.

Good news Big Data fans. TechCrunch reports from the Hadoop summit in Brussels that Google launched the open beta of Cloud Dataflow and updated BigQuery. CloudDataflow can process data asboth streams and batches and automatically scales to the dev’s needs. BigQuery’s update lets users store data in Google’s European Data centers to keep it out of the US’s surveillance system and only in danger of the French one. It also adds row level permissions which will keep the marketing department from messing up your supply chain data when their pulling sales info.

The New York Times reports China’s Banking Regulatory Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology sent a letter to banks Monday that suspends rules that would have required tech companies to turn over source code. The rules will be reissued after a revision to take into account amendment suggestions.

Engadget reports the World Bank’s latest Global Financial Inclusion database states that 12% of adults in Sub-Saharan Africa have mobile wallets, making it the most advanced region for the etechnology. Kenya leads the way with 58%. BizTechAfrica notes M-PESA, one of the most popular payment systems, will launch the 2nd generation of its platform in Kenya next week bringing improved speed and efficiency. Meanwhile a Pew Research report notes cell phone ownership has reached about 90% in Nigeria and South Africa. Texting is still the most common activity on phones in the region followed by photos and video and mobile banking.

 

News From You:

Jaymz668 sent us this story from TechDirt. Netflix will be begin rolling out encryption via HTTPs over the coming year for all of its infrastructure including streams. Although previous trials impacted server capacity by 50% Netflix is now confident that it can implement HTTPs at a lower capacity cost. Tests start this quarter. And from the same story, Mozilla has proposed to deprecate unencrypted web pages – sites that use http: – in a move they hope will encourage web developers to move to HTTPs. As a carrot the browser will only implement new features on sites using HTTPs.

Starfuryzeta let us know about the Ars Technica story that Cynaogen is partnering with Microsoft to integrate Bing, Skype, OneDrive, OneNote, Outlook, and Microsoft Office into Cyanogen OS. MS has committed to creating native integrations of those apps as well.

 

Discussion Section Links:  

http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/16/8428259/yahoo-microsoft-search-partnership-renewal

http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/16/8427381/cyanogen-microsoft-partnership-apps-services-bundle

http://searchengineland.com/bing-reaches-20-percent-search-milestone-in-us-market-218574

 

Picks of the day:
Mistobox – Personalized Coffee Delivered
Blue Bottle at Home (formerly Tonx)

Messages

David from finally Spring has sprung St. Paul:
As dominant as Google is in Europe people can still choose to use another search engine. Why don’t these companies that are claiming they are affected by Google’s dominance use advertising to point people at other search sites or create partnerships with other search sites to help cover the cost of advertising in things like magazines and bill boards and their own web pages?

Ian in Sunny San Diego on government collection of metadata:
I think a possible solution would be: any government collecting data from its citizens should be required to open source that data. This has two positive effects to help ensure that only “appropriate” data is collected.

PARAPHRASING NOW
First, since the data will be public, we can see if any of it is dangerous to law-abiding citizens.

Second, faster detection of illegal activity since more eyes are on it.

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Friday’s guests:  Darren Kitchen & Len Peralta