Patrick Beja is with us today to look at the search engines top trending searches for 2014. What do they tell us about humanity? Or France?

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Show Notes

Today’s guest:  Patrick Beja

Headlines

The Verge reports Apple has won against a class-action lawsuit seeking damages of more than $350 million for preventing non-iTunes protected music from playing on iPods. A jury decided Apple’s updates to iTunes 7.0 were a “genuine product improvement” and did not violate antitrust laws. An appeal is planned.

Bloomberg reports Apple halted online sales of its products in Russia today due to fluctuations in the value of the ruble. An Apple spokesman said the company is currently reviewing pricing in the country. Apple raised the price of the iPhone 6 by 25% last month. The company operates no Apple retail locations in Russia.

The patent wars are winding down. PC Mag reports Google and Verizon are teaming up to fight patent trolls. The two companies signed a cross-license agreement on a broad range of products and technologies. Verizon general counsel Randal Milch wrote in a blog post that he hopes to strike similar deals with more companies. Google’s head of patent transactions, Kirk Dailey said his company welcomes discussions with companies who might be interested in a similar arrangement.

Reuters reports a class-action lawsuit has been filed against Sony Pictures Entertainment for failing to protect employee data. Two former employees seek compensation for damages as well as credit monitoring services, identity theft insurance and other assistance for themselves and any former or current U.S. employees whose data was similarly compromised. Sony Pictures Entertainment has offered identity-theft protection and credit monitoring to its approximately 6,500 employees.

Meanwhile The Next Web reports an email was sent to journalists with links to more data claiming to be taken from Sony Pictures Entertainment along with a threatening letter. The data purports to target Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton. The threat targets showings of the movie “The Interview.”

OK. Let’s lighten the mood. Perhaps the Crema filter on Instagram will do just that. The Verge reports Instagram added its first new photo filters since December 2012. The new filters are called Slumber, Crema, Ludwig, Perpetua, and Aden. Instagram also added a new perspective tool, real-time comments and the ability to upload slow-motion video. The updates will come to iOS and Android today.

Patrick, it’s time for a digital pay, triple play. TechCrunch reports Apple told the New York Times that Apple Pay now supports cards from providers of 90% of credit card purchases in the US. ReCode says sources say Samsung is talking to LoopPay to partner on a payment system of its own for devices in 2015. LoopPay mimics a card swipe. And TechCrunch says messaging app Line has begun rolling out its payment feature called Line Pay to all users except those in South Korea or China.

Reuters reports an Indian Court has allowed Xiaomi to resume sales of its devices until a hearing on Jan.8. Ericsson is suing Xiaomi in India for patent infringement. Xiaomi had to agree to deposit 100 rupees for every device sold in advance of the hearing.

Author Neal Stephenson, who wrote the book Snow Crash which includes a world filled with virtual reality and augmented reality has joined secretive startup Magic Leap which is rumored to be working on really amazing virtual reality and augmented reality. Stephenson wrote in a blog post that Magic Leap aims to, “produce a synthesized light field that falls upon the retina in the same way as light reflected from real objects in your environment.” Stephenson’s title witll be Chief Futurist. He did not mention his previous effort, Clang from Subutai Corporation, which aimed to make a realistic sword-fighting game mechanism.

 

 

 

 

News From You

F1Ben submitted the Wall Street Journal article that NBC is launching a live stream of its broadcast network available today online and on mobile early next year. Viewers will need to verify they pay for a cable subscription in order to access the content.

And tehSMOOF submitted the Verge article that T-Mobile USA will let customers save unused data for later. The program is called Data Stash. You must be a Simple Choice customer who has purchased additional 4G LTE data AND uou must buy at least 3GB of data a month on a phone or 1 GB a month on tablets. Starting in January qualifying customers will get 10 GB of data free. After that is used up any unused data each month will be stored in a customer’s Data Stash for a year before it expires.

Discussion Links: Year in Review

https://www.google.com/trends/2014/

http://www.google.com/trends/topcharts?hl=en#date=2014&geo=
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2014/12/a-year-in-search-moments-that-defined.html

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/top-10-searches-of-2014-c1417565661893.html

http://www.bing.com/trends/us

Pick of the Day:  Fuel My Route via Benjamin Chamness

Hello Tom and the rest of the DTNS crew,

I have been on a few road trips recently, and I wanted to pass along a site that I have found to be fairly helpful in my travels. The site is fuelmyroute.com (with an app available on Google Play). If you give FuelMyRoute your starting location and destination, the site will identify the cheapest gas prices along your route. You can edit the fuel grade, how far off your route it should search for gas stations, and how often it should report gas prices (every 50, 100, 150, etc. miles). It reports the prices on a Google map, with stations color coded to based on if their prices are below or above the average price. You can zoom in on the map to show prices at other stations along your route.

The service does not allow for routes with multiple destinations, and it will only report prices along the default driving route from Google Maps. Even with these limitations, I have found the site to be very helpful in planning out my road trips. I thought I would pass this along to the rest of the DTNS community.

Love the show, and I hope to be a Patreon supporter soon.
Benjamin Chamness

Amber Mac is on. We’ll talk about why checking email less could make you happier and how humanity shows its good side on social networks in Sydney.

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

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

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

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

Show Notes

Today’s guest: Amber Mac,  author, entrepreneur, host of 15 Sec Tech

Headlines

GigaOm reports Microsoft began rolling out Skype Translator to selected users today. The feature allows instant translation of voice conversations between English and Spanish speakers as well as translation of text conversations between speakers of around 12 languages. The first version runs on Windows 8.1 and Windows phone. Interested users can sign up to be invited in at skype.com/translator-preview.

Politico rounds up the news around the Sony Hacks from the weekend. Attackers offered to exempt Sony staffers from future leaks by emailing their name and business title. Sony Pictures Entertainment hired attorney David Boies to send a request to news organizations not report on damaging information obtained from the stolen files. The letter said Sony would seek action for damages incurred as a result of any such reporting.

GigaOm reports Spanish newspapers are upset at Google’s decision to close Google news in Spain and remove Spanish publishers from Google News products worldwide. The Spanish Association of Daily Newspaper Publisher noted the closure would have a negative impact on citizens and businesses and called for “the intervention of the Spanish and EU authorities, and of competition authorities to effectively protect the rights of citizens and businesses.” Google News in Spain will close Tuesday Dec. 16.

VentureBeat reports that it is now possible to control your Nest thermostat with the self-title Google App on iOS and Android phones. Not some special other app but the regular old Google App. You can also use voice commands to ask Google to change or set the temperature and the app will bring up Google Now to suggest temperatures.

The BBC reports that torrent tracker search site IsoHunt has cloned The Pirate Bay database and launched a site called The Pirate Bay Search by IsoHunt. Meanwhile Mr. 10100100000 (1312) spoke with TorrentFreak saying the TPB crew was not surprised by the raid and is taking this time offline to discuss the future and purpose of The Pirate Bay. But if they reboot they promise to do it “with a bang.” Also they don’t mind clones as long as they aren’t scams.

Reuters reports BT has entered exclusive talks with Orange and Deutsche Telekom to acquire the EE mobile service. The potential deal would be worth 12.5 billion pounds. Deutsche Telekom would keep a 12% stake in EE and Orange would get more cash but only a 4% stake. The talks are expected to take a couple weeks. I personally am hoping that the resulting service that merges EE with BT will be called BEET.

ReCode reports Xiaomi reported 347.5 million yuan ($56 million) in net profit last year, according to a regulatory filing for an operating margin of just 1.8 percent. As a comparison Samsung reported an operating margin of 18.7 percent last year and Apple 28.7%. But Xiaomi is still ahead of LG which reported 0.5%.

TechCrunch reports on Gartner’s latest Worldwide smartphone sales numbers. Samsung’s tops but declining with 24.4%. Apple nudged up a bit to 12.7%. Huawei, Xiaomi and Lenovo rounded out the top 5 with Xiaomi leaping from 1.5% a year ago to 5.2% now. So let’s see. Two incumbents still big and even growing a little while upstarts chomp at their heels. That describes 2009 when Nokia RIM dominated and Apple, HTC and Samsung were the rising stars.

The Atlantic reports that Astrobotics Technology is offering a chance for earthlings to send their precious keepsakes to the moon. The program is called MoonMail and it is part of a plan to put a privately-owned lunar rover on the moon and win Google’s $20 million LunarX prize. If your keepsake is smaller than a dime it will cost you $460. A quarter? $1,600. More than 2 pounds? More than million bucks. No weapons, liquids or perishable items. Interested? Check out moonmail.co

News From You

starfuryzeta sent us the TechCrunch report that Runtastic has developed software for Oculus Rift VR headsets that lets you do a real 7 minute workout in a virtual environment. You can exercise in a villa by the beach, or on a scenic hillside, all tracked by Runtastic. The software will be on display at CES, so get ready for lots of videos of reporters exercising. AND This means we are now one 7 minute workout closer to the world of Ready Player One.

Dear Uber. You’ve had a tough month. One of your execs maybe threatened a reporter, then you got sued by several cities for maybe misleading the public. So you’re looking for ways to prove that you’re not the company we’re all maybe starting to wonder if you are. So MAYBE, when there’s a hostage crisis in downtown Sydney and people are looking to get out of downtown, don’t tweet “We are all concerned with events in CBD. Fares have increased to encourage more drivers to come online & pick up passengers in the area.” After Mashable and others published a story of price hikes at 4x the normal rate, resulting in rides cost $100 or more, the company reversed course and announced that all rides in the area would be free and offered refunds to those charged the higher amount. Thanks to lagerdalek for flagging this one.

iSting pointed this one out and I believe it caught Amber’s eye as well. Indiegogo is setting up a new site called Indiegogo Life designed to help individuals raise money for things like medical bills, school and other personal causes. This special program does not charge any platform feees. An Indiegogo spokesperson told Engadget that the company has a “stringent verification procedure” for Life campaigns that includes a “dedicated team of experts, automated algorithms and other procedures.”

Discussion Links: Checking Email Less = More Better

http://mashable.com/2014/12/12/email-checking-study/

https://www.academia.edu/9182785/Checking_Email_Less_Frequently_Reduces_Stress

http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/15/these-australian-social-media-reactions-to-the-sydneysiege-are-perfect/?ncid=rss

https://www.facebook.com/FBNewswire/posts/818714328166690

https://twitter.com/search?q=illridewithyou

Pick of the Day:  Elfster via Norm in Austin, TX

Hey Tom & Jennie,

I feel like I’m overloading your inboxes but I’m sure I’ll go dormant for a few months and leave you guys alone after this

Anyway, I am doing a gift exchange with my California inlaws and we are using the Elfster.com web site to coordinate that. People sign up, set up a wish list and the random drawing assigns folks to each other. The admin can make it so certain people don’t get each other (like married members of the family don’t get each other for example) so it’s pretty convenient. We’ve been using it for a few years and it’s working fine though the web site leaves a bit to be desired but it gets the job done.

Take care, Norm (from ATX/BCS)

In 1962 – NASA “Relay 1” launched, the first active repeater communications satellite in orbit.

In 1977 – Young Bill Gates was arrested for a traffic violation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, leading to one of the most famous mugshots ever.

In 1977 – Robert Metcalfe et. al were awarded a patent for “Multipoint data communication system with collision detection” also known as ethernet.

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

Darren Kitchen is on the show and we’ll talk about Russia pulling out their engineers from Russia. It’s probably not what you think. Plus Len Peralta is here to illustrate the show.

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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:  Darren Kitchen of hak5.org and Len Peralta, artist and author

Headlines

The BBC reports Facebook is considering adding something similar to the oft-requested dislike button. In a Q&A session at Facebook headquarters, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company wants to find “the right way to make it so that people can easily express a broader range of emotions.” Zuck talked about people sharing sad moments or wanting to say ‘That thing isn’t good for the world.’ For example a post that links to a report on child slavery might inspire support for raising awareness, but clicking ‘Like’ might not seem quite right.

Chinese Internet company Baidu will hold a press conference next week to announce an investment in “a prominent US based start-up,” and TechCrunch says its Uber. Bloomberg reports the investment could be as much as $600 million. The partnership helps Baidu compete in China’s taxi space, and gives Uber access to Baidu’s wealth of mobile data as well as their experience dealing with Chinese government regulations. Both TenCent and Alibab have significant investments in popular taxi apps Didi Dache and rival Kuaidi Dache.

The Next Web reports that YouTube is testing a new feature that allows users to create GIFs from YouTube Videos. Right now users can test the feature on the PBS Idea Channel page. Click the share button, drag a trim selector to the part of the video and boom 5 second GIF. You can even add text. No word on when this feature will go site wide but I’m sure glad there’s an ENTIRE year of Daily Tech News Show video out there.

Tech Crunch reports that Google has released its list of the year’s most popular entertainment as seen in the Google Play store. The most downloaded apps included language-learning app Duolingo and health app MyFitnessPal. The most downloaded game of 2014 was Candy Crush Saga. Movie of the year? Frozen TV show: The Walking Dead. Album of the year? Frozen. Fastest growing genre: Soundtracks (thank you Frozen and Guardians of the Galaxy).

Ars Technica reports Microsoft says NPD’s data for November shows the Xbox One outsold the PS4 in the US and UK. Leaked numbers indicate Microsoft may have sold as many as 1.2 million Xbox Ones with Sony selling 2/3 as many PS4s. That’s not awful news for either company as Microsoft slashed prices in November with games bundled in. Sony just added bundles this week. And good news for Nintendo too, which announced Wii U sales were up 10% and at the end of November, the console had its best hardware sales week since launch.

Ars Technica reports Google has confirmed it is shutting down its engineering operations in Russia and offer the more than 50 engineers a chance to transfer elsewhere in the company. Sales and marketing will continue on in Russia. Google’s Aaron Stein told Ars: “We are deeply committed to our Russian users and customers, and we have a dedicated team in Russia working to support them.” A Bloomberg source says Google intends to increase investment in Russia next year.

The Verge reports Sony has launched another crowdfunded experimental project. The Qrio Smart Lock claims to be the smallest of its kind and can be securely installed without tools. It allows users to open doors with a smartphone and share encrypted keys using messaging apps like Line and Facebook. Qrio is expected to retail in Japan for around ¥15,000 ($126).

News From You

djsekani sent us the Engadget report that New York Judge Denise Cote ruled that it is NOT illegal to tell people about software that can strip DRM off e-books, as long as there is no intent to distribute the DRM-free versions. Back in 2013, Abbey House Media, a company that sold e-books for Penguin and Simon and Schuster shut down its digital store. Without the store, customers couldn’t transfer their purchases to new devices. So Abbey House told customers that Calibre could be used to strip DRM from ebooks. Guess who didn’t like that? The book publishers sued saying Abbey House was contributing to copyright infringement and inducing people to break the law, but the judge disagreed. Guess who is almost certain to appeal?

TheLazyOne pointed out TechCrunch’s report on Seagate’s Shingled Magnetic Recording drives that can store 8 TB of data for about 3 cents a gigabyte by cramming more tracks on a platter. Yeah platter. They’re not solid state and they’re not even fast at 5,900 RPM and an average read/write speed of 150MB/sec. However they are cheap. Seagate will ship the drives in January for $260 for an 8 terabyte version.

And Johnsie776 tipped us off to the TorrentFreak article claiming the MPAA and its major studios members have been brainstorming ways to legally block copyright-infringing websites without getting new laws passed. The most promising would be using Rule 19 of Federal Rules of Cicil procedure. If a judge found a foreign site guilty of infringement, Rule 19 would then be used to join an ISP in the lawsuit thus allowing the blocking without finding the ISP guilty of any wrongdoing. Another of the many approaches would note that ISPs have publicly claimed they are not telecommunications services” or mere conduits of information and therefore they should not be protected by the DMCA’s safe harbor provisions.

 

Discussion Links: Google ex Russia

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/12/in-wake-of-restrictive-data-law-in-russia-google-pulls-its-engineers/

http://fortune.com/2014/12/11/google-russia-engineering/

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-12/google-said-to-transfer-engineering-operations-out-of-russia.html

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/04/russian-facebook-founder-flees-country-after-being-forced-out-as-ceo/

http://rusemb.org.uk/policycontact/52

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/09/russia-china-tajikistan-propose-un-code-of-conduct-for-the-net/

http://www.mid.ru/bdomp/nsosndoc.nsf/1e5f0de28fe77fdcc32575d900298676/2deaa9ee15ddd24bc32575d9002c442b%21OpenDocument

https://www.google.com/search?q=gogole+moves+engineers+from+norway&oq=gogole+moves+engineers+from+norway&aqs=chrome..69i57.4379j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=119&ie=UTF-8#q=google+moves+engineers+from+norway&start=10
http://www.itpro.co.uk/609539/google-cuts-jobs-and-consolidates-engineering

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/changes-to-engineering.html

Pick of the Day:   Sprint Reader via Franz

Franz has this one: Hi Tom,

a few weeks back you mentioned an ever increasing read list in your Pocket app. Well, maybe my pick can help here:
It is a Chrome extention called “Sprint Reader”, and it is an implementation of a fast-reading technique called RSVP – rapid serial visual presentation. In a nutshell, it flashes words in your view in rapid succession without you having to move your eyes. This allows for reading speeds of 600 words per minute and beyond. (Typical reading speeds is about 150-200, 300 for really fast readers). The way this works is by eliminating the limiting factor, which is movement of the eyes and re-focussing on the text.
Developer Anthony Nosek just updated Sprint Reader to 2.1 today*, so I thought I’d mention it. The code is also openly available on GitHub.
I got hooked on the idea of RSVP after I discovered Spritz ( spritzinc.com ) back in march, which sadly is a proprietary API, and was no product yet. Since then, I had a look on every single RSVP app I could find and found Sprint Reader to not only be free, but the best of the bunch.

I hope this helps you and your listeners to better cope with an ever increasing amount of interesting reads on the web.
Greetings to Jennie and guest, Thanks for the show, and keep it going strong.
Franz Reischl from Austria
(Patron of the show)

Link:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sprint-reader-speed-readi/kejhpkmainjkpiablnfdppneidnkhdif?hl=en

GitHub:

https://github.com/anthonynosek/sprint-reader-chrome

* Disclaimer: The update includes a fix from myself. To be exact, my first ever contribution to an open-source project. So I might be a bit biased when I say it’s the best, but I use it for way longer than that now.

Justin Young is on the show and we’ll talk about Google’s decision to shut down Google News in Spain, rather than pay Spanish publishers to list news content.

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Using a Screen Reader? click here

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

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here or giving 5 cents a day on Patreon. Thank you!

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

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

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

Show Notes

Today’s guest:  Justin Robert Young, DTNS contributor and co-host of Night Attack and Weird Things 

Headlines

Engadget reports Microsoft has made the MSN suite of apps available for iOS and Android in addition to Windows Phone. The News, Sports, Health and Fitness, food and Drink and Money apps are available now. MSN Weather is out on Android and coming to iOS in a few weeks. That news comes along with Microsoft’s acquisition of multiplatform mobile test environment maker HockeyApp, similar to Apple-owned TestFlight on iOS.

TechCrunch reports Ford’s new Sync 3 is faster, sleeker, more intuitive and NOT powered by Microsoft anymore. Sync 3 switches to Blackberry-owned QNX OS running on TI hardware. And yes that means your old Ford will not get Sync 3. Ford worked with select app developers for the Sync 3 launch including Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, NPR One, SiriusXM Radio and iHeartRadio. The system rolls out to new vehicles next year.

So Microsoft wins some and loses some and then takes your BitCoins. TechCrunch reports the folks at Coindesk noticed that you can now use bitcoins to buy content on Windows, Windows Phone and Xbox. Microsoft confirmed that it is working with Bitpay. However you can only use Bitcoins for MS Wallet or gift cards in the US. Direct payments are not supported.

CNET reports Head of Google News Richard Gingras announced today in a blog post that Google News will shut down in Spain December 16th and Spanish publishers will be removed from Google News worldwide. An amendment to Spain’s copyright law goes into effect January 1st that requires any news aggregator to pay an unspecified license fee to any publisher for listing their content. Google does not run ads on Google News and claims they cannot afford to keep the site going under the new law.

TechCrunch reports Xiaomi confirmed it has stopped selling its phones in India after an injunction from a New Delhi High Court. Ericsson brought a patent suit against Xiaomi for “unfair” usage of a range of wireless technology patents. Xiaomi began selling the Mi3, Redmi and Redmi Note devices in India in July. Ericsson claims it spent three years trying to communicate about the issue. Xiaomi says it is open to resolving the issue amicably.

The Next Web reports that YouTube’s Android app now allows users in India, Indonesia and the Philippines to save videos to their devices to watch offline. The feature is available for select content like trailers, movies and music videos so users can watch buffer-free video in areas without data connections. Users can also choose the quality of the videos they’re downloading and videos can be played back from the app’s Offline section for up to 48 hours.

Peter Wells let us know about a new piracy development in Australia. The Sydney Morning Herald reports the government will enable rights holders to apply for a court order requiring ISPs to block access to overseas websites alleged to provide access to pirated content. Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull is part of the Coalition government, who’s policy is not to support filters. So why the change of heart? Because it’s not a filter! Turnbull said “This is not, repeat, not an internet filter” and called the idea that blocking websites amounts to a filter, “nonesense” and “complete BS.” He did NOT say “You call that a filter? Now THIS is a filter.”

ReCode reports its sources say Sony Pictures Entertainment is flooding file sharing sites with fake or corrupted versions of torrents containing stolen information from the company. One of the sources says SPE is using Amazon Web Services to power the attack. Amazon told Recode such activity is not happening on AWS.

 

 

News From You

Hurmoth sent in the report that Verizon Chief Financial Officer Francis Shammo told a UBS investor conference yesterday that Title II regulation of broadband would not influence how Verizon invests in its networks. Just to be clear, Verizon is still against Title II regulation of broadband, but Shammo said “we were born out of a highly regulated company, so we know how this operates.” Verizon sued and won to overturn the FCC’s previous open Internet guidelines which led to the current debate. Would that happen again? Sounds like it’s AT&T’s turn at the plate. Shammo quoted AT&T Chairman & CEO Randall Stephenson saying, “I think it’s going to be a very litigious environment.”

starfuryzeta submitted the Wired article that hackers have figured out a way around the Keurig coffee machine’s DRM on coffee pods. The hack involves snipping a section of the lid from a valid Keurig “K-Cup” and then taping that strip to the top of a non-Keurig pod. Alternatively you can tape the strip to the Keurig machine itself, permanently fooling it.

MrAnthropology sent us a Des Moines register report that beginning next year, citizens of Iowa will be able to use a mobile app as their official driver’s license. The ID will be protfected by a PIN and be accepted by law enforcement and airports in Iowa. Iowa is already one of more than 30 states that allow motorists to show electronic proof of insurance during a traffic stop.

Discussion Links: Adios Google News en Espańa

http://searchengineland.com/responding-strict-new-copyright-law-google-shutter-news-site-spain-210648

http://googlepolicyeurope.blogspot.com/2014/12/an-update-on-google-news-in-spain.html

http://searchengineland.com/spain-follows-germany-passing-google-tax-guide-copyright-protection-207103

http://searchengineland.com/german-publishers-google-want-snippets-back-206520

http://searchengineland.com/sweden-latest-consider-google-link-tax-207706

http://searchengineland.com/avoid-liability-google-reduces-news-content-germany-headlines-204811

http://www.stefan-niggemeier.de/blog/19058/leistungsschutzrecht-wirkt-mehrere-suchmaschinen-zeigen-verlagsseiten-nicht-mehr-an/

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30426496

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/12/the-predictable-result-of-spains-google-tax-no-more-google-news/

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/12/google-news-shuts-shop-spain-thanks-ancillary-copyright-law

Pick of the Day:   Pushbullet via Geoff in Maryland

Here’s my pick of the day, Pushbullet. It is a very simple yet powerful app that basically lets you send information from one device to another very easily. You can use it to send notes, links, or even files. I use it all the time to send links from my computer to my phone (map directions, recipes, etc.)

It also has the ability on Android (not sure about iOS) to mirror notifications which I use on my desktop to see what the notifications are on my phone. Handy because for instance I can see who’s calling on my laptop and know if I need to run to pick up my phone in the bedroom.

Finally, I don’t use this feature but it integrates with IFTT or Tasker for even more uses.

All in all, it’s an app I use all the time and don’t know how I managed without it. It’s available for Android and iOS, as well as Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Opera. There’s a beta app for Windows and an app for OSX is coming soon. The developer is great and is constantly putting out new features and updates as needed.

Geoff in MD

Justin Young is on the show and we’ll talk about Google’s decision to shut down Google News in Spain, rather than pay Spanish publishers to list news content.

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

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

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 guest:  Justin Robert Young, DTNS contributor and co-host of Night Attack and Weird Things 

Headlines

Engadget reports Microsoft has made the MSN suite of apps available for iOS and Android in addition to Windows Phone. The News, Sports, Health and Fitness, food and Drink and Money apps are available now. MSN Weather is out on Android and coming to iOS in a few weeks. That news comes along with Microsoft’s acquisition of multiplatform mobile test environment maker HockeyApp, similar to Apple-owned TestFlight on iOS.

TechCrunch reports Ford’s new Sync 3 is faster, sleeker, more intuitive and NOT powered by Microsoft anymore. Sync 3 switches to Blackberry-owned QNX OS running on TI hardware. And yes that means your old Ford will not get Sync 3. Ford worked with select app developers for the Sync 3 launch including Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, NPR One, SiriusXM Radio and iHeartRadio. The system rolls out to new vehicles next year.

So Microsoft wins some and loses some and then takes your BitCoins. TechCrunch reports the folks at Coindesk noticed that you can now use bitcoins to buy content on Windows, Windows Phone and Xbox. Microsoft confirmed that it is working with Bitpay. However you can only use Bitcoins for MS Wallet or gift cards in the US. Direct payments are not supported.

CNET reports Head of Google News Richard Gingras announced today in a blog post that Google News will shut down in Spain December 16th and Spanish publishers will be removed from Google News worldwide. An amendment to Spain’s copyright law goes into effect January 1st that requires any news aggregator to pay an unspecified license fee to any publisher for listing their content. Google does not run ads on Google News and claims they cannot afford to keep the site going under the new law.

TechCrunch reports Xiaomi confirmed it has stopped selling its phones in India after an injunction from a New Delhi High Court. Ericsson brought a patent suit against Xiaomi for “unfair” usage of a range of wireless technology patents. Xiaomi began selling the Mi3, Redmi and Redmi Note devices in India in July. Ericsson claims it spent three years trying to communicate about the issue. Xiaomi says it is open to resolving the issue amicably.

The Next Web reports that YouTube’s Android app now allows users in India, Indonesia and the Philippines to save videos to their devices to watch offline. The feature is available for select content like trailers, movies and music videos so users can watch buffer-free video in areas without data connections. Users can also choose the quality of the videos they’re downloading and videos can be played back from the app’s Offline section for up to 48 hours.

Peter Wells let us know about a new piracy development in Australia. The Sydney Morning Herald reports the government will enable rights holders to apply for a court order requiring ISPs to block access to overseas websites alleged to provide access to pirated content. Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull is part of the Coalition government, who’s policy is not to support filters. So why the change of heart? Because it’s not a filter! Turnbull said “This is not, repeat, not an internet filter” and called the idea that blocking websites amounts to a filter, “nonesense” and “complete BS.” He did NOT say “You call that a filter? Now THIS is a filter.”

ReCode reports its sources say Sony Pictures Entertainment is flooding file sharing sites with fake or corrupted versions of torrents containing stolen information from the company. One of the sources says SPE is using Amazon Web Services to power the attack. Amazon told Recode such activity is not happening on AWS.

 

 

News From You

Hurmoth sent in the report that Verizon Chief Financial Officer Francis Shammo told a UBS investor conference yesterday that Title II regulation of broadband would not influence how Verizon invests in its networks. Just to be clear, Verizon is still against Title II regulation of broadband, but Shammo said “we were born out of a highly regulated company, so we know how this operates.” Verizon sued and won to overturn the FCC’s previous open Internet guidelines which led to the current debate. Would that happen again? Sounds like it’s AT&T’s turn at the plate. Shammo quoted AT&T Chairman & CEO Randall Stephenson saying, “I think it’s going to be a very litigious environment.”

starfuryzeta submitted the Wired article that hackers have figured out a way around the Keurig coffee machine’s DRM on coffee pods. The hack involves snipping a section of the lid from a valid Keurig “K-Cup” and then taping that strip to the top of a non-Keurig pod. Alternatively you can tape the strip to the Keurig machine itself, permanently fooling it.

MrAnthropology sent us a Des Moines register report that beginning next year, citizens of Iowa will be able to use a mobile app as their official driver’s license. The ID will be protfected by a PIN and be accepted by law enforcement and airports in Iowa. Iowa is already one of more than 30 states that allow motorists to show electronic proof of insurance during a traffic stop.

Discussion Links: Adios Google News en Espańa

http://searchengineland.com/responding-strict-new-copyright-law-google-shutter-news-site-spain-210648

http://googlepolicyeurope.blogspot.com/2014/12/an-update-on-google-news-in-spain.html

http://searchengineland.com/spain-follows-germany-passing-google-tax-guide-copyright-protection-207103

http://searchengineland.com/german-publishers-google-want-snippets-back-206520

http://searchengineland.com/sweden-latest-consider-google-link-tax-207706

http://searchengineland.com/avoid-liability-google-reduces-news-content-germany-headlines-204811

http://www.stefan-niggemeier.de/blog/19058/leistungsschutzrecht-wirkt-mehrere-suchmaschinen-zeigen-verlagsseiten-nicht-mehr-an/

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30426496

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/12/the-predictable-result-of-spains-google-tax-no-more-google-news/

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/12/google-news-shuts-shop-spain-thanks-ancillary-copyright-law

Pick of the Day:   Pushbullet via Geoff in Maryland

Here’s my pick of the day, Pushbullet. It is a very simple yet powerful app that basically lets you send information from one device to another very easily. You can use it to send notes, links, or even files. I use it all the time to send links from my computer to my phone (map directions, recipes, etc.)

It also has the ability on Android (not sure about iOS) to mirror notifications which I use on my desktop to see what the notifications are on my phone. Handy because for instance I can see who’s calling on my laptop and know if I need to run to pick up my phone in the bedroom.

Finally, I don’t use this feature but it integrates with IFTT or Tasker for even more uses.

All in all, it’s an app I use all the time and don’t know how I managed without it. It’s available for Android and iOS, as well as Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Opera. There’s a beta app for Windows and an app for OSX is coming soon. The developer is great and is constantly putting out new features and updates as needed.

Geoff in MD

Eric Franklin joins us to talk about why you need to put your phone out of sight and whether video game makers should stop publishing broken games.

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

Show Notes

Patrick Beja is on to look at the top YouTube videos of the year and discuss why rivals like Vessel are trying to hire the YouTube Creators away. Shouldn’t they be going after the dog spiders?

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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 guest: Patrick Beja, DTNS contributor and independent podcaster 

Headlines

ReCode reports YouTube has updated its Apple TV app after a long period without any change. The app now looks more like the versions available on other platforms like Xbox. While that means ads will now play that also means videos like music videos will be allowed on Apple TV. Apple also added apps from Conde Nast, Fusion, Daily Motion and a $10 a month UFC.TV Fight Pass.

The Verge reports password manager Dashlane has added a function to change all your passwords at once. It will only work with 75 major websites at launch, but it will work with two factor authentication. Dashlane is available for Mac and Windows. It is free on one device or $40 a year to sync between multiple devices.

The Verge reports Amazon announced 4K Ultra HD streaming is now available in the US, for customers with the Amazon instant video app on compatible TVs. Videos are encoded with h.265 meaning the TV has to have an HEVC decoding chip inside. Offerings are limited but include some of Amazon’s own shows like Transparent as well as non-Amazon shows like BBC America’s Orphan Black (4K clone club!), as well as a selection of movies from Sony Pictures. The purchase price for an Ultra HD movie it will start at $19.99

9 to 5 mac obtained  internal hiring documents that suggest Apple is recruiting retail employees with a fashion or luxury background. The article also describes possible changes to the Apple Store footprint to accommodate all the different Apple Watch options. It also describes security enhancements for that 18 Karat Rose Gold option– rumored to cost thousands of dollars.

If you tried to visit the Pirate Bay today you may have noticed it’s offline. The Next Web reports Swedish Police have raided a server room in greater Stockholm containing The Pirate Bay’s servers. Torrent Freak says Sweden’s police national coordinator for IP enforcement said the raid is being done, “in connection with violations of copyright law.” The site reappeared a few hours after the raid at a new domain name.

GigaOm reports the latest locations fighting Uber. Both Thailand and Spain banned Uber Tuesday. The city of Rio de Janeiro’s transport department filed a police complaint against Uber AND the City of Portland is suing the company for operating without permission there.

Reuters reports Joe Demarest, assistant director with the US FBI’s cyber division spoke on the Sony Pictures Entertainment attacks and said, “There is no attribution to North Korea at this point.” Demarest also said that there has been no confirmation of government involvement to date. Demarest was speaking on a panel at a cybersecurity conference sponsored by Bloomberg Government. FBI representatives plan to meet with Sony employees Wednesday to train them in cybersecurity practices.

The Next Web passes along Intel’s announcement that it is launching its own Internet of things platform. The Intel IoT platform and reference design is meant to help companies deploy products faster. It also promises to improve security. Intel is partnering with Accenture, SAP, Dell, Wipro and others on the platform.

The Guardian reports Blackphone is launching an app store in January for apps that help protect privacy and security. While Blackphones run Android, they do not have access to the Google Play store. Blackphone is also launching new software called “Spaces” which splits work and private life into two containers on the phone. The large bulk of sales of Blackphone are expected to be enterprise users.

Fortune reports a leaked memo says HBO will use technology from MLB Advanced to run its standalone streaming service in the US. HBO had been building its streaming service in house. The memo also indicates HBO plans to launch the service in April along with the season premiere of Game of Thrones.

Engadget reports the FIDO alliance has published its 1.0 draft standards for password-free authentication, both Universal Authentication Framework (UAF) and Universal 2nd Factor (U2F). The alliance, made up of of Google, Microsoft, Paypal and others relies on alternatives to passwords like fingerprint readers and USB dongles. The identity standards do not yet support Bluetooth- or NFC-based authentication thought they hope to add those as extensions to the standard. Apple’s TouchID also doesn’t work with FIDO except for one implementation by Nok Nok Labs.

News From You

metalfreak and starfuryzeta submitted the Ars Technica article about a trojan for Linux that is the missing piece of an Advance persistent threat disclosed in August called Turla. Researchers detected the malware. It cannot be detected using the common netstat command. It is able to run arbitrary commands even without elevated system privileges. Administrators can check for it by watching outgoing traffic to command and control connections and detecting strings.

habichuelacondulce sent us the Ars Technica report that CBS and Dish reached an agreement this weekend to end all pending litigation between the two companies. The deal follows a 12-hour blackout of CBS on Dish including (gasp) NFL games. The deal will also limit some of the Dish Hopper DVR’s ad-skipping ability. During a seven-day window following the airing of a CBS show, AutoHop will be disabled.

starfuryzeta passed along the San Jose Mercury News article that the Apple iPod trial will continue despite having no plaintiff. On Monday Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers rejected the lone plaintiff representing the class of customers who had their rights harmed by what lawyers allege was an illegal monopoly to limit iPod downloads to the iTunes store. Lawyers for the Class have until today to present another person who can represent the 8 million iPod owners. “We don’t anticipate any problems,” said plaintiff’s lawyer Bonny Sweeney.

Discussion Links: YouTube 2014

http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2014/12/youtube-rewind-2014.html

http://adage.com/article/media/jason-kilar-s-vessel-plans-youtube/295857/

http://www.wsj.com/articles/youtube-offering-its-stars-bonuses-1417994309

http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/08/youtube-star-bonuses-vessel/

http://variety.com/2014/digital/news/youtube-reopens-checkbook-for-original-content-1201308922/

http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/3/7326375/zoella-girl-online-best-selling-debut-novel-of-all-time

Pick of the Day:   Untappd via Norm Fazekas

Hey Tom & Jennie,
hope all is well and I wish you both a wonderful holiday season. I’m glad things are working well for you guys and look forward to another year of DTNS.

I know most of your apps are technologically based but I have a penchant for drinking beer and had a great app to share. I have used the Untappd app the past couple of years to find, track, rate brews and see what my friends are drinking. Plus it has a gamification element to earn badges for types of beers and/or places to drink. The Untappd folks keep making updates and adding new badges to keep things interesting and find it an integral tool to finding my next cold one. Obviously this isn’t for everyone but I love seeing what my friends recommend and trying to stay ahead of said friends in tallying badges.

Wednesday’s guest: Eric Franklin of cnet.com 

Breki Tomasson joins us to talk about the rise of hacker groups both good and bad. The 1900s had Wobblies and the 1960s had Situationists. Is the 21st century’s version?

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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: Breki Tomasson, founder of the CSICON podcasting network

Headlines

Ars Technica reports Oculus and Samsung began taking orders in the US for the “Innovator Edition” of the head-mounted virtual reality display that pairs with the Samsung Galaxy Note 4. Samsung.com is taking the orders for the $200 device as well as $250 bundle that includes a Bluetooth controller. Samsung says it will expand orders to other countries in January with worldwide availability expected later in 2015.

The Verge reports Facebook users can now use keywords to search for specific individual posts, not just for other users and pages. Autocomplete will add keywords when you start typing a person’s name. The search only looks at posts shared with you by people in your network. The features roll out today on desktop and in an updated iOS app soon. After that launch is complete in the US, it will come to Android and other countries. Graph Search is also coming to mobile on iOS first then Android.

The BBC reports Sony’s Playstation Store was offline for a few hours this morning as result of a distributed denial of service attack. The system appears to be back online. The attack was not related to the attack two weeks ago on Sony Pictures Entertainment’s internal network.

Engadget reports New Delhi has banned Uber from operating in the city after a woman alleged one of the company’s drivers raped her. Special Commissioner of Delhi Transport Department, Satish Mathur told Economic Times that the company misled customers by using vehicles with the wrong permits and has never applied for permission to operate in the city. The driver in question was out on bail for sexually assaulting a woman in a cab he was driving in 2011. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said the company will do everything to support the victim.

Apple Insider looks over Apple’s Best of 2014 awards. Photo editor Pixelmator got the top nod on the iPad and Elevate – Brain Training took the iPhone honors. Monument Valley took top iPad game and Threes was named best game on iPhone. Beyonce won top artist and Sam Smith won best new artist. Taylor Swift’s “1989” got top album and Iggy Azalea got best song for “Fancy”. Guardians of the Galaxy received best movie and Fargo won TV show of the year. And yes there were best podcast awards. Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History deservedly took the best classic podcast and Serial won best new podcast.

 

The term 4G got muddled when carriers applied it to fast 3G services like HSPA+. Now according to GigaOm, the GSM Association released a report Monday in advance of setting the official definition of 5G. The report describes two main schools of thought. One would narrowly define 5G as technology that improved wireless speed and latency. A broader competing definition called the “Hyper-connected vision” prioritizes compatibility, coverage area, green technology, and internet of things support alongside speed and latency. The report is just an analysis and even when a definition is agreed upon, history teaches us carriers will ignore it when they feel like it.

PC World reviews the Samsung 850 EVO Solid State Drive with 3D NAND. This is the consumer version of the 850 Pro is less expensive and comes with only a five year warranty. The drive is self-encrypting and ranges from 75 to 150 TeraBytes Written. In other words it’ll last you awhile. The drive sells for $100 for the 120GB, $up to $500 for the 1TB.

Reuters reports mobile transactions on Alipay online payment platform jumped to 54% of all transactions in the first 10 months of the year. Mobile had been 22% of transactions in all of 2013. The increase was driven in part by consumers in rural areas and smaller cities adopting mobile devices as their primary tool for online shopping. Alipay is China’s largest payment service provider owned by Ant Financial and controlled by Alibaba’s executive chairman and founder Jack Ma.

News From You

KAPT_Kipper posted the Kotaku story sharing the sad news that Ralph Baer, designer of the machine that became the Magnavox Odyssey home video game console, died this weekend. He also developed the light gun and the electronic memory game Simon. Baer was 92.

mranthrpology pointed us towards the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory post that NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft came out of hibernation Saturday for its 2015 encounter with Pluto. The activation signal took 4 hours and 26 minutes to reach Earth. New Horizons will begin observing the Pluto system on Jan. 15. New Horizons’ closest approach to Pluto will occur on July 14.

Metalfreak submitted the PC World article that the International Telecommunications Union announced the approval of a standard for G.fast on Friday. G.fast promises speeds up to 1Gbps over 100 meters using copper wire. IN practice it’s slower but BT demonstrated download speeds of 700 Mbps over 66 meters earlier this year. ITU expects the first rollouts to come before the end of next year.

Discussion Links:  Sony Playstation hack

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30373686

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/30306319

https://twitter.com/lizardpatrol

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/07/us-sony-cybersecurity-northkorea-idUSKBN0JL05120141207?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews

http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/8/7353539/the-sony-hacking-evidence-points-to-north-korea-but-it-may-not-be

Pick of the Day:   Name Changer via Paul in New York

Paul from New York was running Plex as his media server and loved it but ran into a tricky problem that led to today’s pick from him: He says, “The PLEX Server wanted my video files to follow a very specific naming convention, and faced with hours of work manually renaming hundreds of files, I began to look for a better solution. Thus my pick-of-the-day suggestion is a wonderful app for the Mac that I found called “Name Changer” from MRR Software:

http://mrrsoftware.com/namechanger/

This very simple piece of software has multiple options for renaming groups of files, from sequential numbering to pattern matching to full “Regular Expression” support in a clean intuitive interface. Although available for free, given the hours of effort it saved me, I was happy to make the $10 suggested donation at the author’s website.

If anyone is faced with a similar task of renaming multiple files, I would highly recommend it.”

Messages: 

Monday’s guest: Breki Tomasson

Darren Kitchen joins me to review the Sony Pictures Entertainment hack and look at listener suggestions for TrueCrypt replacements. Plus Len Peralta is here to do his artprov thing.

MP3

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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 of hak5.org and Len Peralta, artist and author

Headlines

CNET reports that Apple has asked a California court to dismiss an anti-trust case. Apple alleges Marianna Rosen, the last remaining plaintiff in the case, did not purchase any iPods within the required timeframe for the class action suit. Apple claims the iPods were purchased by the law firm of her husband. If the court agrees, Rosen would not be able to collect damages, or show injury, thereby preventing a class action suit. Rosen’s lawyers have the weekend to come up with response. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said, “I am concerned that I don’t have a plaintiff. That’s a problem.” The plaintiff’s lawyers are expected to respond this weekend claiming Ms. Rosen did purchase the iPods.

Ars Technica reports that AT&T’s policy change on throttling customers does not yet apply to LTE customers. AT&T previously throttled its legacy unlimited customers who used more than 3GB of data in a month. But awhile back changed policy to only apply the throttling when the network was congested. It turns out that AT&T cleverly left LTE users out of that new policy. Any LTE user who passes the 5GB mark in a month will be throttled for the remainder, although users can buy more data to add to their unlimited plan. AT&T told Ars the policy will be changed for LTE customers sometime in 2015.

The BBC wraps up the nightmare weeks that have been the last two for Sony Pictures Entertainment. While most of its internal systems are back online, the attackers have leaked stolen data. It’s not inconsequential data either, including movie budgets, payroll data, salary information for 6800 global employees, social security numbers for more than 47,000 employees, health care files, unreleased films, home addresses, and contracts for Sony Pictures employees and freelancers, and more. Sony says it will offer a year of free credit monitoring and fraud protection to current and former employees.

Reuters UK reports that Taiwan has identified 12 smartphone brands that do not conform to privacy standards. The phone makers could face fines or a ban unless they address the issue. No brands were named, but the government is expected to release their findings within weeks. The Taiwanese government got involved after media reports claimed Xiaomi smartphones could send user data to home servers in mainland China without user permission. Xiaomi said its devices “never actively send any private user information without the users’ approval.

The New York Times reports the UK’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruled Friday that data collection programs conducted by the UK’s GCHQ and the US NSA do not violate the country’s human rights laws and that safeguards in place protect people’s online privacy sufficiently. Privacy groups that brought the case, including Amnesty International, said they would appeal the British court’s decision at the European Court of Human Justice.

Hola Cortana! The Next Web reports that Microsoft’s Cortana virtual assistant is coming to Windows Phone Preview users in Spain, France, Germany and Italy. Additional languages will be part of an update that is rolling out to Windows Phone Devs. Alpha Cortana will be missing some features, like flight data, and transit data in smaller cities. Fortunately European football data will be included in the update.

Its handy that we’ll be able to ask Cortana in German things like “How much money do telecommunications companies give Chanellor Merkel. Because the Local reports the Chancellor, speaking at a Vodafone-hosted conference in Berlin called Digitising Europe, called for a splitting of services on the Internet, “one for free internet, and the other for special services.” She added, “An innovation-friendly internet means that there is a guaranteed reliability for special services. These can only develop when predictable quality standards are available”.

The New York Times reports NASA’s Orion spacecraft passed its first flight test Friday. The unmanned capsule carrying test equipment launched Friday morning at 7:05 AM Eastern time from Cape Canaveral Florid, made two orbits and successfully splashed down about four and half hours later at 8:29 AM Pacific Time in the Pacific Ocean, 600 miles southwest of San Diego. The test is the first step towards a manned Orion mission in 2021 and eventually missions to an asteroid and Mars.

News From You

Inge_Aning posted the PC World article about a conference on privacy and cybercrime held in Washington, DC Thursday. During one discussion, Judge Richard Posner, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit said he believes privacy is overvalued, and just used to hide disreputable conduct. Posner thinks it’s fine for the NSA to copy all data in worldwide networks. He said “If someone drained my cell phone, they would find a picture of my cat, some phone numbers, some email addresses, some email text. What’s the big deal? Other people must have really exciting stuff. Do they narrate their adulteries, or something like that?” — Judge Margaret McKeown of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Michael Dreeben, deputy solicitor general in the U.S. Department of Justice expressed their support for the notion of privacy.

MikePkennedy sent the Engadget summary of tests that show solid state drives could last a lot longer than you think. TechReport.com forced six drives — including Kingston’s HyperX 3K, Samsung’s 840 Pro and Intel’s 335 series — to continuously write and rewrite 10GB of small and large files. Four of them failed at the petabyte mark, well past specified limits while the Samsung and Kingston models passed two petabytes and were still going. Essentially, those drives could write data until the parts themselves disintegrated.

Hurmoth (and Starfuryzeta) both sent in the Ars Technica report that US Senator Ron Wyden introduced a bill would prohibit law enforcement from subverting encryption on electronic devices. The Secure Data Act would prevent US government agencies from equiring any “backdoors” be placed in US software or hardware.

 

Discussion Links:  Sony hack week

http://fusion.net/story/31469/sony-pictures-hack-was-a-long-time-coming-say-former-employees/

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30345227

http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/12/sony-pictures-malware-tied-to-seoul-shamoon-cyber-attacks/

http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/4/7337407/sony-pictures-hackers-stole-47000-social-security-numbers-including-stallone
http://laist.com/2014/12/04/all_the_crazy_things_leaked_in_sony.php

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2014/12/05/was-sony-pictures-hack-inside-job/

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/12/04/368449855/north-koreas-cyber-skills-get-attention-amid-sony-hacking-mystery

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-04/sony-hack-signals-emerging-threat-to-destroy-not-just-steal-data.html

Pick of the Day:  Slice.com via Frederik “The Belgian” from (currently rainy) San Jose & Garrett
Frederik says: On Tuesday’s podcast, Justin asked whether the day’s pick, Junecloud, could scan your inbox the way TripIt does and automatically add packages to track. I’ve never used Junecloud, but my go-to package-tracking app of choice, Slice, does just that. In my experience it does a fairly good job of it (though it occasionally creates duplicates, especially for eBay orders that generate emails from both eBay and PayPal). It also does a fairly good job of finding a photo for each item you’ve ordered, letting you easily scan all your orders in a more visual way. There’s both an Android and iOS app, in addition to the website. You can find it all at slice.com.

Garret says: I am currently using slice.com which is pretty good. My biggest complaint is that it doesn’t pick up amazon tracking numbers because amazon doesn’t send those in email, only a link to their tracking page. Slice is still able to key off of the estimated delivery date in the confirmation email so it does a pretty good job. I used to use https://www.packagetrackr.com/ I don’t remember why I left. Just another example if people want to try it.

Monday’s guest: Breki Tomasson