DTNS 2202 – Mo Money Mo-torola

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comWil Harris joins us to chat about the patent wars heating up, CBS’s Les Moonves threatening to take his channel and go off air, and more!

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Show Notes

Today’s guest:  Wil Harris, Wil Harris, co-founder ChannelFlip

Headlines

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is starting to put his own stamp on the company’s executive team. TechCrunch reports Nadella announces Monday morning that Scott Guthrie is now the executive vice president of Cloud and Enterprise, filling Nadella’s old role. Phil Spencer will now run a team that combines Xbox and Xbox Live with Microsoft Studios and reports to Terry Myerson who runs operating systems. And when the Nokia acquisition is finally complete, Stephen Elop will become executive vice president of the Devices group.

Reuters reports that researchers found another vulnerability insecurity company RSA’s random number generator. Reports in December indicated the NSA paid RSA $10 million and that the NSA had implemented a back door into RSA’s Dual Elliptic Curve random number generator. Now professors from Johns Hopkins, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Illinois and elsewhere have discovered that an extension called “Extended Random” could be exploited as a vulnerability. Extended Random was touted as a way to boost randomness but makes predicting secure numbers easier according to the researchers. RSA continues to maintain it has not intentionally weakened any of its products.

The Washington Post reported jury selection began Monday in the latest court battle between Apple and Samsung. Apple accuses Samsung of infringing five patents on newer devices, including tap-from-search that makes things like phone numbers into links as well as slide to unlock. In a counterclaim, Samsung says Apple infringes its wireless technology system that speeds up sending and receiving data on iPhones and iPads.

Reuters reports the European Parliament will vote on the Net Neutrality recommendations at noon on Thursday. The current proposal, put forward by Socialist and Green party MEPs, says: “(Specialised) services shall only be offered if the network capacity is sufficient to provide them in addition to Internet access services and they are not to the detriment of the availability or quality of Internet access services.” The proposals need approval by the EU’s 28 governments before they can become law. Only the Netherlands and Slovenia have net neutrality legislation already in place.

The Next Web reports on data from the Kantar Worldpanel ComTech Report showing good news for the budget phone folks. Motorola went from virtually nothing to 6% of the UK market in six months, on the strength of the MotoG which launched in November. Similar surges came for Wiko in France which has 8.3 percent share, and Xiaomi in China with 18.5 percent. Android remains the top OS in Europe at 68.9 percent with Apple at 19 percent and Windows Phone with 9.7 percent. In the US, Android is the most popular platform at 55% and LG is the US fastest growing manufacturer at 8% marketshare on the strength of the G2.

News From You:

spsheridan pointed out the Ars Technica article about the US Supreme Court hearing oral arguments today in the case of Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank. Four patents at issue describe software that performs trusted financial exchanges. Nobody, except maybe Alice Corp. expects the Supreme Court to rule the patents are valid. The importance of the case revolves around the reasoning the court gives. The Court could rule that software itself doesn’t qualify for patent protection. Companies that favor software patents, like Microsoft, Adobe and IBM, have filed briefs recommending the court invalidate the Alice patents very narrowly without impacting software patents in general. Other companies like LinkedIn, Twitter, Yelp, Newegg, Netflix and Rackspace have filed a brief asking the court to make it much harder to get software patents. Unsurprisingly the justices’ line of questioning today indicated they are likely to invalidate the Alice patents but eliminate the legal basis of software patents altogether.

KAPT_Kipper submitted the TechCrunch article explaining that Dropbox complies with copyright takedown notices by turning files submitted to them into hashes and then comparing the hashes to dropbox folder contents. If the hashes match then sharing is disabled for that file, though otherwise it’s treated normally.

metalfreak posted an OpenSource.com story that the US Department of Labor is requiring the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license on all content created with the grant funds in their Ready to Work Partnership grant program. The program is meant to help long-term unemployed workers get employment in industries, like tech, where H-1B visas are used. In other words anything made by the 20-30 recipients of a share of the $150 million of government money will have to be openly licensed.

nickgiulioni pointed out this Gizmodo article about Samung’s $700 4K monitor now up for pre-order. The 28-inch UD590 has a resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels.two HDMI 1.4 ports, displayport, and audio out. Looks like Amazon already sold out of their stock of them.

Galcyon sent in the Verge article about Google getting a jump on April Fool’s day. Maybe the schedule for this one was left up to Australians. Google has a video up advertising an augmented reality Pokemon game tied in to Google Maps. If you zoom into certain areas around the world on Google Maps today, you’ll see where the creatures are meant to appear. Yay April Fools day where news goes to die!

Discussion Section Links:  

http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/03/yahoo-may-poach-popular-youtubers-and-start-its-own-video-site/

http://recode.net/2014/03/28/ready-for-marissas-closeup-yahoo-is-considering-creating-its-own-youtube-and-poaching-youtube-stars/

Pick of the Day:  Amazon Glacier

Tuesday’s Guest:  Natali Morris, CNBC contributor

DTNS 2201 – Dr. Zuckhattan

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comAndrew Mayne joins the show and we discuss Facebook’s plan to cover the world with Internet-bearing solar-powered drones and lasers. What could go wrong? Also, Len Peralta will attempt to illustrate this mess. You will not want to miss this.

MP3

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

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

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

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

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

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

Show Notes

Today’s guest:  Andrew Mayne and Len Peralta

Headlines

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a blog post announcing a new effort in conjunction with Internet.org to have Facebook’s Connectivity Lab work on a project to provide Internet connectivity worldwide from the air. Sparsely populated areas could be covered by satellites, both geosynchronous and low earth orbit varieties. Suburban areas could gain coverage from solar-powered automatic drones that can fly for months at a time. Facebook has acquired the 5-member company Ascenta who have worked on the Breitling Orbiter and Zephyr drone. They also employ former engineers from NASA as part of the effort. Oh and lasers. They connect all the satellites to each other with lasers. No sharks were reported to be involved.

Facebook also picked up a future employee once the acquisition of Oculus VR is done. TechCrunch reports Michael Abrash will leave his gig heading up VR at Valve to become Oculus’s Chief Scientist. Abrash said in his blog post that Facebok brings the resources and long-term commitment VR needs to solve the hard problems. You likely that today you used something Abrash coded since he has written for everything from Quake to Windows.

BlackBerry announced earnings Friday and Reuters reports that losses were smaller than feared. It was still a 64 percent drop in revenue. In an investor call, CEO John Chen gave a few hints on upcoming hardware. The Foxconn-made Z3 will come to Indonesia first in April, then the rest of the world. The Q20 with physical keyboard will be ready for Q1 2015. And the BlakcBerry 7 OS-powered Blackberry Bold will get another production run.

Remember I mentioned the Wall Street Journal said its sources claimed Amazon was going to roll out a free ad-supported video streaming service. Well the Verge passed that along too as well as a flat denial from Amazon. In an email to Variety an Amazon spokeswoman Sally Fouts said “we have no plans to offer a free streaming-media service.” So you’re saying there’s…no chance. Got it.

The Ethernet Alliance issued a press release announcing the formation of the IEEEp802.3bs Task Force. Yep. dot three bs. I know. Hopefully they won’t live up to that name and WILL successfully develop the standard for 400 Gigabit Ethernet, because that’s their job. They won’t go alone however, as they have the support of the Ethernet Alliance 400Gb/s Subcommittee. Maybe IEEE can take a little naming convention lesson after all this is over. The inaugural meeting of the IEEE P802.3bs Task Force will take place the week of May 12, 2014 in Norfolk, Va. as part of the IEEE Joint Interim Meeting.

GigaOm reports Tesla Motors has started adding a triple-layer metal shield, made of titanium and aluminum, to the underbodies of its cars. The shield is meant to protect the battery from impacts from below. All cars made after March 6th will have the shield, cars made before March 6th can be retrofitted free of charge. Elon Musk posted to Medium to make the announcement and put up some rather nifty animated GIFs of underbody impacts.

The Next Web reports a group of Dutch users have made a parody of Google Maps, called Google Naps which lets users mark and describe a particularly restful places to catch a few Zs. The group posted a detailed explanation of how the site was a joke and please don’t sue us Google. You know. For lawyers.

TechCrunch reports Microsoft General Counsel and EVP – Legal & Corporate Affairs Brad Smith posted some more information about Microsoft’s conundrum when it needs to investigate email accounts that it also hosts as part of outlook.com’s service. Previously Microsoft explained it couldn’t get a warrant for these since it already had the right to look but that it would be super extra careful and almost never do it. Well they’ve changed their mind. Microsoft says they’ll now never do that. And will refer any potential similar situations directly to law enforcement. They’re even working with the Center for Democracy and Technology and The Electronic Frontier Foundation on future privacy issues. OK.

News From You

Draconos sent us the Ars Technica article about DARPA’s new program called Collaborative Operations in Denied Environments , yes CODE for short, which wants to make autonomous cooperative swarms of drones that share sensor data but still respond to the commands of a single human. Cooperative groups could be more flexible in heavily defended airspace while still giving a commander the ability to control all the units from a single console.

KAPT_Kipper posted the GeekWire article that Microsoft has confirmed they will bring Office to Android devices too. John Case, a Microsoft Office corporate vice president for marketing told GeekWire “Let me tell you conclusively: Yes, we are also building Android native applications for tablets for Word, Excel and PowerPoint.” They haven’t picked a date for release but they are committed to it.

And Berke80 who I believe is in Turkey pointed out the EFF post that says in addition to blocks on Twitter and now YouTube, Turkish ISPs appear to be blocking the Tor Project’s website. Tor is a way of obfuscating connection information and can get around IP address blocks among other things. The EFF is providing links to mirros of the Tor Project site where users can still get the Tor Browser bundle.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/03/facebook-to-provide-internet-connectivity-from-solar-powered-planes/

http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/27/facebook-joins-google-in-the-hunt-for-the-future/

http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/1287644/facebook-buys-uk-based-drone-company-ascenta-beam-internet-sky

http://internet.org/press/announcing-the-connectivity-lab-at-facebook

https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10101322049893211?stream_ref=10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxX6r-xDgG4&feature=youtu.be

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2014/02/facebook-plans-conquer-world-slew-low-end-handsets/

Pick of the Day:  G.I. Joe Coffee Company

Tonx is great, but the G.I Joe Coffee Company is awesome for an entirely different reason. They are all fair trade, good quality coffee, but 20% of all proceeds go to support disabled veterans. I know you get tons of picks, but I figured I had to throw one in the mix since it is a cause near and dear to my heart (retired Army and 90% disabled myself). With Respect,  Scott Napier

Monday’s Guest:  Wil Harris

DTNS 2200 – Excel-ing on the iPad

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comPeter Wells joins us to chat about Microsoft office for iPad and the experience of back-to-back phone launch events from Samsung and HTC in Sydney.

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

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

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

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

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

Show Notes

Today’s guest:  Peter Wells from Reckoner, Australia

Headlines

Microsoft’s Satya Nadella led a live presentation in San Francisco of Office for iPad. Versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint and upgraded version of OneNote hit the iOS app store after the presentation. Written natively for iOS, the apps mimic their desktop conuterparts in many ways, and are a significant improvement over the office for iPhone apps. Documents can only be accessed locally from OneDrive or SharePoint though. The apps are free for viewing docs, but you’ll need a paid Office 365 account if you want to edit. Office 365 Home Premium subscriptions cost $99 a year, but a $70 Personal program is coming this spring.

Hot on the heels of Twitter’s court victory in Turkey, The Next Web noticed WebRazzi’s report that YouTube is now blocked in Turkey through all ISPs. The Turkish telecoms authority TIB confirmed to Reuters that it has taken “administrative measure” against YouTube. Google declined requests from the Turkish government to remove a YouTube video that accuses the government of corruption.

ReCode reports Amazon has sent out invites to reporters from Peter Larsen, that say “Please Join Us for an update on our Video business.” The event is scheduled for next Wednesday, April 2, at 11 AM Eastern time in New York City. The invite features a couch and some popcorn, so it’s either the long-rumored Amazon set-top box, or a lecture about snacking.

The Next Web passes along Twitter’s announcement of photo tagging and multiple photos for its Android and iOS twitter apps. Users can tag up to 10 people in a photo, and tags won’t count against your character limit. This comes along with new privacy options about who can tag you. The other feature lets you share up to four photos in a collage s part of one post. Twitter also announced it’s partnering with Billboard magazine for a real-time chart of the most popular music on Twitter.

The Wall Street Journal reports Intel will indeed sink an investment into Cloudera. Intel and Cloudera have competed in selling versions of the big-data analysis software Hadoop. Intel will discontinue its Hadoop product and put its muscle behind Cloudera’s. Cloudera in return will work to make its Hadoop product work particularly well on Intel chips.

Peter pointed us to this Verge article about Google Play Music allowing songs to be uploaded through the browser. The feature is now available in the labs section of Play Music. You can also select a number of folders to monitor and upload whenever new songs are added. You can download through the browser, so it all means you should never have to touch Music Manager again.

Pocket-lint reports Samsung is getting into the burgeoning smart lightbulb race. The Samsung Smart Bulb uses Bluetooth, not WiFi like others, to connect to your smartphone or tablet. You can access up to 64 bulbs to turn them on or off and dim them. The bulbs are supposed to last 10 years.

News From You

spsheridan posted the Verge story that US President Barack Obama did indeed announce his proposal to reform the NSA’s collection of telephone metadata as expected. The NSA would no longer collect data, but submit requests to phone companies for individual phone numbers after getting approval for the request from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. While the President works with Congress to pass new legislation, the current system will continue for 90 days. Alternative proposals already exist in Congress and Verizon has responded requesting that phone companies not be required to keep records longer than normally needed for business purposes.

DorkOfNerk submitted the Ars Technica story about two Google Play apps that mine Litecoin and DogeCoin while running without alerting users of the apps to that fact. A researcher from Trend Micro’s Veo Zhang posted about the behavior in the apps Songs and Prized. Prized has disappeared from the app store. Google told Ars Technica they would not comment on the post.

And mattblackcube sent in the Verge article that surgeons at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh are ready to test a technique that puts patients in a state of “suspended animation,” giving surgeons enough time to operate on injuries that would otherwise be fatal.  All you need to do is drain the patient’s blood really fast and replace it with a saline solution inducing a state similar to hyopthermia that reduces a cells need for oxygen. The process will be tested on ten patients in cardiac arrest who do not respond to attempts to restart the heart. Surgeons will have about two-four hours to repair injuries before blood must be returned and the heart restarted.

Discussion Section Links:  Office for iPad

http://gigaom.com/2014/03/27/office-for-ipad-available-today/

http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/27/5553364/microsoft-office-for-ipad-features

http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/27/office-for-ipad-review/?ncid=rss_truncated

Pick of the Day:  http://everytimezone.com/

Friday’s Guests:  Andrew Mayne and Len Peralta

DTNS 2199 – Ready Facebook One

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comAndy Ihnatko joins to settle once and for all whether we will someday live in Facebook’s evil Ready Player One-like universe or Facebook’s evil Snow Crash-like universe. Because they bought Oculus.

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

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

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

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

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

Show Notes

Today’s guest:  Andy Ihnatko, technology columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times

Headlines

All of the Internet, but I saw it first on TechCrunch, reported yesterday that Facebook announced plans to buy Oculus Vr, the makers of the Rift virtual reality headset for $400 million in cash, 23.1 million Facebook stock shares and a $300 million earnout, for a grand total current valuation of around $2 billion also expressed as two Instagrams or 1/10 of a WhatsApp. The Internet is pleased, outraged, confused but mostly outraged. That is also known as being the Internet. As if speaking on behalf of the Internet, Markus Persson, aka Notch of Minecraft posted on Twitter that he had canceled his deal with Oculus because “Facebook creeps me out.” Also Facebook denies the New York Times report that it plans to redesign the Rift and brand it with a Facebook logo.

Hurriyet Daily News out of Turkey reports the Turkish government will abide by an Ankara court ruling staying the decision to block Twitter in the country. Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç told reporters the government may not like the decision but they will carry it out, although they may take up to 30 days to do so. The court stated in its ruling that the ban of the entire website was contrary to the Turkish Constitution and the European Convention of Human Rights, as it restricted the freedom of expression and communication.

ZDNet reports Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies voted in favor of the Marco Civil da Internet which has provisions for net neutrality, privacy rights and protection for ISPs against liability for offensive content published by their customers. A controversial provision to require data on Brazilians to be stored in Brazil was dropped before passage. The bill will need to clear the Senate before it is sanctioned by president Dilma Rousseff.

Engadget reports ZTE just launched the Nubia X6 handset/tablet with 6.44-inch 1080p screen. It also carries a snapdrgon 7801 chip, 3GB of RAM, up to 128GB of storage and a 4,250 mAh battery. Both front and back cameras are 13-megapixels. It’s up for pre-order in China at $HK 5,010. (US$640).

News From You

LifeDownloaded submitted the TechCrunch story on CandyCrush maker King’s initial public offering of stock. King sold the shares at $22.50 each raising $326 million on a valuation of $7 billion. The stock began trading at $20.50 a share Wednesday morning dropped to $19.58 midafternoon and ended the day at [$19.25]

habichuelcondulce pointed us to the SB Nation Lookit story about the folks at the dogecoin subreddit raising $55,000 to sponsor Josh Wise’s N0.98 car in NASCAR races. Hopefuly the car will get wrapped in Shiba Inu meme-ness in time for the Aaron’s 499 at Talledega May 4. A design competition has begun to determine the look of the logo on the car.

MikePKennedy posted the story from Engadget that NASA has stitched together more than 2 million infrared pictures taken in the past decade by the Spitzer Space telescope to create the clearest infrared panorama of our galaxy ever made. The photos from the Galactic Legacy Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire (GLIMPSE360) show 3 percent of the sky but more than half of all stars in the Milky Way. You can pan through the photo online, or if you have loads of free hard drive space, download the full resolution raw images.

LifeDownloaded submitted the TechCrunch story on CandyCrush maker King’s initial public offering of stock. King sold the shares at $22.50 each raising $326 million on a valuation of $7 billion. The stock began trading at $20.50 a share Wednesday morning dropped to $19.58 midafternoon and ended the day at [$19.31]

Discussion Section Links:  Pick of the Day:  Fock-u-lus Rift?

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/03/welcome-to-the-vr-social-what-to-expect-from-oculus-in-the-facebook-era/

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/03/minecraft-dev-halts-talks-with-oculus-following-facebook-acquisition/

http://www.cnet.com/news/zuckerberg-facebook-only-spends-big-on-rare-companies/#ftag=CAD590a51e

http://recode.net/2014/03/25/under-facebook-oculus-will-still-focus-on-games-for-now/

http://www.cnet.com/news/what-does-the-facebook-oculus-deal-mean-for-kickstarter/#ftag=CAD590a51e

http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/25/5547946/welcome-to-planet-facebook

http://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-oculus-deal-a-downpayment-on-gaming-and-everything-beyond/#ftag=CAD590a51e

Thursday’s Guest:  Peter Wells

DTNS 2198 – Nice to M8 you

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comStephen Shankland joins the show to talk about the HTC One M8 and the new CEO of Mozilla. Can Firefox rule mobile?

MP3

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Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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

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

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

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

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

Show Notes

Today’s guest: Stephen Shankland, senior writer, CNET News

Headlines

HTC announced the new HTC One today AKA the M8, in Gunmetal Greay, Glacial Silver or ugly, I mean Amber Gold. Many gadget reviewers have admitted to crushes on the all-metal design. Among the features are two rear-facing cameras to allow changing focus on photos after they’re taken. You can also answer a call just by picking up the device and holding it to your head. The Android 4.4 KitKat phone runs HTC’s Sense 6 on a Snapdragon 801 processor, with 2 GB of RAM with either 16 or 32 GB of onboard storage. The 2600 mAh battery should be good for up to 20 hours of 3G talk time, though the phone is LTE. A $50 Dot View case from HTC allows you to see notifications like 8Bit graphics through the cases cover. AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, Rogers, Bell and Telus in North America have it for pre-order now, it’s coming to more North American outlets in early April and Australia, UK, Taiwan and France by the end of the month. Price runs $649 unlocked, $699 for the Google Play edition without Sense and from $199 to $249 with a contract.

The New York Times reports US President Barack Obama will propose bills to the US Congress to eliminate the NSA’s in-house phone call data storage and create a new surveillance court to handle phone data requests. The new court would review requests for phone data directly from the phone companies, that go no more than two hops from a phone number of interests. The bill would not address overseas surveillance programs.

Google made waves in enterprise cloud service announcing a 32 percent across the board price cut.  SVP Urs Hölzle told attendees at Google Cloud Platform Live that the company will also offer sustained-use discounts without pre-payment. Amazon is holding its own cloud event tomorrow so expect Amazon Reserved Instances to possibly get a price adjustment themselves.

MacStories reports developer Olga Osadcha noted Apple is testing a related search suggestion feature for its App Store which started rolling out today for iPhone users on iOS7. The suggestions show up as a scrollable menu bar with similar or related searches.

ExtremeTech reports Nvidia’s Jen-Hsun Huang made a handful of announcements at the GPU Technology Conference. Nvidia and IBM have partnered up on NVLink which connects GPUs and CPUs at a claimed 12-15x over the current implemntation of PCI-Express. Nvidia also talked up the successor to Maxwell, code-named Pascal coming with new features in 2016. And Nvidia announced a dual-GPU Titan card called Titan Z with up to 8TFLOPS of theoretical FLOPS performance. The dual GK110 card will run companies $3,000.

News From You

beatmaster80 submitted the Business Insider story on the IRS decision to classify Bitcoins as property not currency. That means every time you spend BitCoins you have to report it the way you would selling something like stock or a house. Put another way, buy something with bitcoins, pay capital gains tax. The good news is the US Treasury Department should now begin developing formal regulations, so this guidance may not be the final word.

ancientbearwizard submitted the Ars Technica story on Microsoft donating the source code for MS_DOS 1.1 and 2.0 and Word for Windows 1.1a to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. The museum also holds source code for Adobe Photoshop 1.0 and Apple II DOS. The source is now freely downloadable by anyone.

KAPT_Kipper gave us the TechCrunch story on Google signing up Italian company Luxottica to design and build Google Glass. Luxottica makes the Ray-Ban, Oakley, Miu Miu, Armani, and other brands of eyewear. Google cited Luxottica’s experience selling eyewear to the public as a key factor in the deal. This can easily be read as a sign Google’s getting closer to making a Google Glass product available to the general public.

cincyhuffster sent in the Engadget story about new lighter weight airbags for mortorcycles. The Ducati Multistrada D-Air has sensors attached to the bike’s electronic system that monitor the vehicle’s acceleration, breaking and orientation. In the event of a crash, it can send a signal over WiFi to your jacket, so that the internal airbags will deploy before you hit the ground. The produce is scheduled to launch in Europe in May.

Discussion Section Links:  HTC One M8

http://www.cnet.com/news/htc-one-m8-to-arrive-in-google-play-edition/

http://www.cnet.com/news/htc-announces-htc-one-m8/

http://www.cnet.com/products/htc-one-m8/

http://www.cnet.com/news/the-inside-story-of-the-htc-one-m8/

http://androidcommunity.com/htc-one-m8-dot-view-case-hands-on-20140325/ 

http://www.cnet.com/news/brendan-eich-mo zillas-alpha-nerd-takes-over-as-ceo-q-a/

Pick of the Day: Boxcryptor

I came across this great piece of software for encrypting your documents in cloud storage accounts called Boxcryptor
They have a free and paid for accounts that allow you to…….wait for it…..encrypt your files…..
You can use it with OneDrive, Box, Dropbox, Google Drive etc…. It uses AES-256 bit encryption, you can use it on Mac or PC. It’s just a great way to keep you stuff secure. I found this program looking for something to put on added security with my tax returns in the cloud.

As always a huge fan of all your podcasts and keep it up!

Chris Denny

Wednesday’s Guest: Andy Ihnatko, technology columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times

DTNS 2197 – Pay the Troll Toll

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comJustin Robert Young is on the show and we’ll talk about Comcast and Apple’s plans for an Internet TV service. Do they violate net neutrality? We ask Ars Technica’s Jon Brodkin what he thinks.

MP3

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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

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

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

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

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

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Justin Robert Young of  Nightattack.tv and Jon Brodkin, senior IT reporter for Ars Technica

Headlines

Comcapple? Ars Technica reports on the Wall Street Journal story that Apple and Comcast are negotiating video service. Sources say the video would be delivered to Comcast customers separately from Internet traffic, to avoid net neutrality violations. Comcast must abide by the FCC’s guidelines until 2018 as part of the NBC acquisition. The service would be viewed on Apple-made hardware. The negotiations involve who controls customer data, how much is charged for the service, and how the profits are split. WSJ’s sources say the two sides are not close to a deal.

And after all, you’re my Photowall: TechCrunch reports Google launched an app called Photowall for Android and iOS, that sends photos from a mobile device to a TV using Chromecast. Stop yawning because I haven’t told you it includes photo editing that allows you to make snarky notes and draw mustaches on people. Multiple participants can take part and even add photos from a Web-based interface if they don’t have the app. You can also make a YouTube video montage of the creation. Ok, you can yawn now if you want.

Nokia does not expect to close handset business sale this month:  Reuters reports Nokia does not expect to close on the sale of its handset business to Microsoft this month, and no hopes to close in April. Google and Microsoft have asked Chinese regulators to ensure the deal doesn’t lead to higher patent licensing. Right now Nokia has to pay to license patents for the handset division, as well as charge for its patents. Once the handset business is Microsoft’s problem, Nokia might choose to jack up patent license fees since it no longer risks retaliation. Future revenue from patents is expected to make up as much as half of Nokia’s market capitalization.

Some ATM companies considering Linux to replace Windows XP: As we near the end of support for Windows XP on April 8, ComputerWorld reports some companies are considering migrating their ATMs to use Linux. Windows XP currently powers nearly 95% of the world’s ATMs. Microsoft has offered extended support to some, but not all, companies. Many are upgrading to Windows 7, though often that requires hardware upgrades as well. If you’re laughing about Windows XP, remember the previous dominant operating system of ATMs was IBM’s OS/2.

It was like a SmartBulb going off over my head! TechWeek Europe reports LG announced a smart light bulb controlled from a mobile app. The LG SmartBulb app runs on Android 4.3 and iO6 and later versions of both OSs. The app lets you turn on and off, put the bulb on a timer and more. The Android app can have the bulb flash to the beat of music. LG claims at 5 hours of usae a day the bulb should last 10 years. It costs 35,000 won ($30) and is only available in Korea.

News From You:

Draconos and Lythander both submitted reports from the New York Times and Der Spiegel that the US NSA infiltrated servers at the headquarters of Huawei. Reuters reports Hong Lei, spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry said, “We demand that the United States makes a clear explanation and stop such acts.” Huawei has been accused by US lawmakers of connections with the Chinese military and of spying on US interests.

HobbitfromPA sent in the Engadget story that Google Now’s preemptive search and assistance has arrived for all users of the Chrome browser. Cards will show up in the system tray or notification area of your operating system. Users get access to voice search, reminders for events and flights, and location-based info like commute times. Although the location may often come from your phone not your PC. If you’re signed into Chrome and don’t see it, hang in there, Google says it will roll out slowly to all over the next several weeks.

tekkyn00b pointed out the TechCrunch story that security company Palo Alto Networks bough Cyvera, a security company from Israel. The $200 million deal is expected to close in the second half of 2014. Cyvers touts an approach to combatting zero-day vulnerabilities, providing real-time prevention that slows down malware long enough to identify and eliminate it. Palo Alto Networks makes firewall-like hardware and software that protects against all kinds of Web malware, including botnets. Together they’re murder— on malware.

Speaking of zero-day vulnerabilities,

Today’s guests: Justin Robert Young of  Nightattack.tv and Jon Brodkin, senior IT reporter for Ars Technica

Headlines

Apple and Comcast talking? Ars Technica reports on the Wall Street Journal story that Apple and Comcast are negotiating video service. Sources say the video would be delivered to Comcast customers separately from Internet traffic, to avoid net neutrality violations. Comcast must abide by the FCC’s guidelines until 2018 as part of the NBC acquisition. The service would be viewed on Apple-made hardware. The negotiations involve who controls customer data, how much is charged for the service, and how the profits are split. WSJ’s sources say the two sides are not close to a deal.

And after all, you’re my Photowall: TechCrunch reports Google launched an app called Photowall for Android and iOS, that sends photos from a mobile device to a TV using Chromecast. Stop yawning because I haven’t told you it includes photo editing that allows you to make snarky notes and draw mustaches on people. Multiple participants can take part and even add photos from a Web-based interface if they don’t have the app. You can also make a YouTube video montage of the creation. Ok, you can yawn now if you want.

Nokia does not expect to close handset business sale this month:  Reuters reports Nokia does not expect to close on the sale of its handset business to Microsoft this month, and no hopes to close in April. Google and Microsoft have asked Chinese regulators to ensure the deal doesn’t lead to higher patent licensing. Right now Nokia has to pay to license patents for the handset division, as well as charge for its patents. Once the handset business is Microsoft’s problem, Nokia might choose to jack up patent license fees since it no longer risks retaliation. Future revenue from patents is expected to make up as much as half of Nokia’s market capitalization.

Some ATM companies considering Linux to replace Windows XP: As we near the end of support for Windows XP on April 8, ComputerWorld reports some companies are considering migrating their ATMs to use Linux. Windows XP currently powers nearly 95% of the world’s ATMs. Microsoft has offered extended support to some, but not all, companies. Many are upgrading to Windows 7, though often that requires hardware upgrades as well. If you’re laughing about Windows XP, remember the previous dominant operating system of ATMs was IBM’s OS/2.

It was like a SmartBulb going off over my head! TechWeek Europe reports LG announced a smart light bulb controlled from a mobile app. The LG SmartBulb app runs on Android 4.3 and iO6 and later versions of both OSs. The app lets you turn on and off, put the bulb on a timer and more. The Android app can have the bulb flash to the beat of music. LG claims at 5 hours of usae a day the bulb should last 10 years. It costs 35,000 won ($30) and is only available in Korea.

News From You:

Draconos and Lythander both submitted reports from the New York Times and Der Spiegel that the US NSA infiltrated servers at the headquarters of Huawei. Reuters reports Hong Lei, spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry said, “We demand that the United States makes a clear explanation and stop such acts.” Huawei has been accused by US lawmakers of connections with the Chinese military and of spying on US interests.

HobbitfromPA sent in the Engadget story that Google Now’s preemptive search and assistance has arrived for all users of the Chrome browser. Cards will show up in the system tray or notification area of your operating system. Users get access to voice search, reminders for events and flights, and location-based info like commute times. Although the location may often come from your phone not your PC. If you’re signed into Chrome and don’t see it, hang in there, Google says it will roll out slowly to all over the next several weeks.

tekkyn00b pointed out the TechCrunch story that security company Palo Alto Networks bough Cyvera, a security company from Israel. The $200 million deal is expected to close in the second half of 2014. Cyvers touts an approach to combatting zero-day vulnerabilities, providing real-time prevention that slows down malware long enough to identify and eliminate it. Palo Alto Networks makes firewall-like hardware and software that protects against all kinds of Web malware, including botnets. Together they’re murder— on malware.

Speaking of zero-day vulnerabilities, Darren Kitchen alerted us to the fact that a new zero-day vulnerability in Outlook allows remote code execution just by viewing rich text email in Outlook while using Word 2010 as the viewer. Microsoft suggests delpoying a fix that disables the ability to open RTF content in Microsoft Word from Outlook as well as reading all email in plain text format.

And motang posted the Mozilla announcement that co-founder and current Chief Technology Officer Brendan Eich was appointed to the role of Chief Executive Officer of Mozilla. He was the guy who invented javascript back in 1995 when he was at Netscape. So he’s got chops. He brings along Li Gong, who’s been built up Firefox OS, as Mozilla’s new COO. Co-founder Mitchell Baker remains Mozilla Executive Chairwoman. Interim CEO Jay Miller will stay on through the transition then leave for a solo career as a saxophonist. Or possibly something more technology related. It’s impossible to tell for sure from the press release.

Discussion Section Links:  Comcapple?

http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/03/apple-wants-its-own-path-on-comcast-network-for-video-service-wsj-says/

http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/23/apple-comcast-streaming-tv/

http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/03/att-promises-to-lower-your-internet-bill-if-fcc-kills-net-neutrality/
http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comment/view?id=6017609040

Pick of the Day: Rescue Time  

Your conversation about distraction motivated me to write in about one of the most useful anti-distraction tools I use: Rescue Time.

I’ve been working from home as a web developer for the majority of the past 10 years. When you don’t have a boss breathing down your neck, managing distractions becomes pretty important to getting any work done.

Rescue Time is a desktop app (with a web component) that does two main things.

1. Tracks all of your website and desktop app usage, then gives you daily productivity reports with fancy graphs and charts. The app comes with good presets for common productive and distracting websites/apps. But you’re also able to redefine these. On top of this, you can configure reporting goals (like “limit distractions to 1.25hrs per day”) to give yourself some positive feedback when you’re doing well.

2. It allows you to set a “Get Focused” time. During this time it the app will block all distracting websites (unfortunately, it’s not technically possible to block desktop apps). They haven’t made the block impossible to bypass, but I find that the Rescue Time wall is often enough motivation get my ass back in gear. This feature works well with something like The Pomodoro Technique.

BTW. Thanks for letting the listeners fund the show to keep it ad free and gratz on the $10k.

Ryan Neudorf

Tuesday’s Guest:  Stephen Shanklandcnet.com

alerted us to the fact that a new zero-day vulnerability in Outlook allows remote code execution just by viewing rich text email in Outlook while using Word 2010 as the viewer. Microsoft suggests delpoying a fix that disables the ability to open RTF content in Microsoft Word from Outlook as well as reading all email in plain text format.

And motang posted the Mozilla announcement that co-founder and current Chief Technology Officer Brendan Eich was appointed to the role of Chief Executive Officer of Mozilla. He was the guy who invented javascript back in 1995 when he was at Netscape. So he’s got chops. He brings along Li Gong, who’s been built up Firefox OS, as Mozilla’s new COO. Co-founder Mitchell Baker remains Mozilla Executive Chairwoman. Interim CEO Jay Miller will stay on through the transition then leave for a solo career as a saxophonist. Or possibly something more technology related. It’s impossible to tell for sure from the press release.

Discussion Section Links: 

http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/03/apple-wants-its-own-path-on-comcast-network-for-video-service-wsj-says/

http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/23/apple-comcast-streaming-tv/

http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/03/att-promises-to-lower-your-internet-bill-if-fcc-kills-net-neutrality/
http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comment/view?id=6017609040

Pick of the Day: Rescue Time  

Your conversation about distraction motivated me to write in about one of the most useful anti-distraction tools I use: Rescue Time.

I’ve been working from home as a web developer for the majority of the past 10 years. When you don’t have a boss breathing down your neck, managing distractions becomes pretty important to getting any work done.

Rescue Time is a desktop app (with a web component) that does two main things.

1. Tracks all of your website and desktop app usage, then gives you daily productivity reports with fancy graphs and charts. The app comes with good presets for common productive and distracting websites/apps. But you’re also able to redefine these. On top of this, you can configure reporting goals (like “limit distractions to 1.25hrs per day”) to give yourself some positive feedback when you’re doing well.

2. It allows you to set a “Get Focused” time. During this time it the app will block all distracting websites (unfortunately, it’s not technically possible to block desktop apps). They haven’t made the block impossible to bypass, but I find that the Rescue Time wall is often enough motivation get my ass back in gear. This feature works well with something like The Pomodoro Technique.

BTW. Thanks for letting the listeners fund the show to keep it ad free and gratz on the $10k.

Ryan Neudorf

Tuesday’s Guest:  Stephen Shanklandcnet.com

DTNS 2196 – Le Tippity Tap

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comDarren Kitchen on and we talk about how Microsoft did defending their right to spy on their own customer’s email accounts. He was a French blogger. Also Len Peralta is here to illustrate the show!

MP3

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

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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

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

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

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

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

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Darren Kitchen of hak5.org and Len Peralta of the arts.

Headlines

PC World reports Microsoft Deputy General Counsel John Frank posted an explanation of the steps Microsoft took before investigating the Hotmail account of a French blogger in order to build a case against Alex Kibkalo who was arrested Wednesday and accused of stealing trade secrets and leaking Windows code. Frank stated Microsoft has the legal right to look into its own services, but only did so in a very limited way and only after determining the search would have qualified for a court order. Microsoft claims it could not get a court order to search itself since the court would see no need to issue it.

Berke80 has been keeping us informed on the ground as the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has ordered a DNS block on Twitter in order to stop the spread of recordings meant to implicate the Prime Minister on corruption charges. Twitter seems like it may have removed verification from the Prime Ministers account. The Verge reports Turkish citizens are accessing Twitter by posting through SMS, or using alternate DNS like Google’s Public DNS. A picture of the Google DNS Inumber, 8.8.8.8 spraypainted on a wall is making the rounds.

VentureBeat reports Vicarious, an AI company just closed a round of funding that included investments from Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, as well as actor Ashton Kutcher. The company is attempting to replicate the human neocortex in order to develop an AI that thinks like humans do. Right now the company is working on getting its AI to recognize objects shapes and textures.

Reed Hastings posted to the Netflix blog arguing that net neutrality rules should be expanded to govern peering, the practice of large networks exchanging traffic, to essentially make the Internet work. Hastings did not say how he would like interconnection agreements regulated. Netflix recently agreed to a paid peering arrangement with Comcast. The call for regulation is seen as grandstanding by some in the industry, as Netflix could have chosen to continue to deliver data through CDNs and transit providers. But they don’t want to do that, because Netflix saves money when ISPs use its Open Connect program, as Cablevision does. On the other hand, ISPs like Verizon and Comcast, with competing products, don’t want to invite Netflix servers into their last mile. Thus the arguing. The upshot of all this, is large companies are posturing about net neutrality in order to help their business save money, and you, the consumer are probably not the priority on either side of this debate.

Speaking of net neutrality and whether it should be extended to interconnection and peering. Stacey Higginbotham at GigaOm reports Harold Feld, SVP at Public Knowledge suggests actual transit providers like Level 3 and Cogent and ISPs who want to merge, like say TWC and Comcast, should provide data to the FCC that could actually be analyzed to understand what the problem actually is, rather than just reacting to vague assertions with vague regulation.

Politico reports Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and other big tech executives will meet Friday with US President Barack Obama to discuss issues of privacy, technology and intelligence. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer was reportedly invited but could not make it. Zuckerberg recently posted he felt it would take a very long time for true reform and called on the US government to be much more transparent. President Obama is expected to announce the future of the phone metadata program soon.

Ars Technica reports that Version 0.9.0 of the Bitcoin Core software (previously known as Bitcoin-QT) includes 5 changes meant to make transaction malleability much more difficult to exploit. Transaction malleability uses confusion between transaction ids and actual verification of transactions to cover up theft. Mt. Gox blamed trannsaction malleability for its losses.

News From You:

Speaking of Mt. Gox, HobbitfromPA pointed us to the CNET article that Mt. Gox annoucned Thursday it found 199,999.99 of its missing bitcoins on March 7th in an unused wallet it had lying around. So the number of missing bitcoins has dropped from 850,000 to 650,000.

habichuelacondulce posted a Motherboard article saying US NSA General Counsel Rajesh De, testifying in front of the Civil Liberties Oversight Board, affirmed that collection of data under Section 702 was done with the full knowledge and assistance of the companies from which information was obtained. In an interview with The Guardian’s Spencer Ackerman, De reiterated “all communications content and associated metadata harvested by the NSA under a 2008 surveillance law occurred with the knowledge of the companies.” referring to PRISM and upstream collection.

the_corley passed along the Wall Street Journal article reporting a source says the White House is testing phones from Samsung and LG for internal use. Previously only BlackBerry phones were allowed due to security concerns. White House Communications Agency, a military unit in charge of President Barack Obama’s communications acknowlegde it is piloting and using a variety of mobile devices.

Discussion Section Links: 

http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_on_the_issues/archive/2014/03/20/strengthening-our-policies-for-investigations.aspx

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/03/20/court-docs-microsoft-searched-through-bloggers-e-mail-to-track-down-alleged-leaker/

Pick of the Day:  Ninite.com

Hola DTNS crew! Tom, I’ve followed you since BoL and am ecstatic about the success of DTNS. For a pick, I would like to recommend

Ninite is a service that allows you to grab an auto-installer for many commonly used Windows applications such as Chrome, .NET, MSE, Dropbox, the list goes on and on. Not only will it download the most recent version of the programs selected from the companies, but automates the process to decline any crap-ware offers (sorry Ask Toolbar).

As an IT Professional that has to deal with an environment where images can’t be used for reworks due to a plethora of hardware, Ninite has been a huge time saver.

Joel from The U.P.

Monday’s Guest: Justin Robert Young! 

DTNS 2195 – A Tale of Two Monitors

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comFarhad Manjoo to explain why ONE monitor is actually better than TWO. Don’t agree? You better listen. Plus we reveal our very first Twitter posts.

MP3

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

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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

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

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

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

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

Show Notes

Farhad ManjooState of the Art columnist for The New York Times

Headlines

Hack This! GigaOm reports Facebook introduced its own programming language called ‘Hack’ meant to make it easier for developers to write code quickly. Hack is open source, so anyone can use it and combines elements of static languages like C with more dynamic approaches like PHP. Static languages catch errors faster, but dynamic languages allow rapid development. Hack supposedly is the best of both worlds.

Galaxy S5 pre-orders begin tomorrow: The Next Web reports AT&T will start taking orders for Samsung’s new Galaxy S5 phone and Gear watches tomorrow online and in stores. The S5 sells for $200 on a 2-year contract, $650 contract-free, shipping in early April. The Gear 2 watch sell for $299 and the Gear 2 Neo and Gear Fit for $199. All of them are set to ship in early April.

Thank you FirstTech: The St. Paul Pioneer-Press’s Julio Ojeda-Zapata reports the sad news that FirstTech in Uptown Minneapolis will close its doors March 29th. FirstTech was the first retail outlet for Apple computers in the late 1970s when the store was known as Team Electronics. The store celebrated its 35th anniversary in 2012 but could not compete with national vendors and the Apple Store itself.

Computerworld founder dies: PC World reports more sad news. IDG announced Thursday that its founder and chairman Patrick J. McGovern died March 19th at Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto, California. MCGovern founded International Data Corporation in 1964, now a subsidiary of IDG. Three years later McGovern launched Computerworld.

GigaOm reports OpenGarden, makers of mesh networking apps for Windows, OS X and Android, now has an iOS app called FireChat. The messaging app connects people who are nearby, by taking advantage of Apple’s multi-peer connectivity framework that allows devices to connect or Bluetooth or Wifi without using the Internet. Great for subways…if you want to chat with people.

ReCode reports Tribune company has a new app for iOS and Android called Newsbeat that reads you news items from a news feed. You can customize in advance or the app will learn your tastes as you fast forward or skip stories. The app also personalizes things liek weather and traffic based on location. The app is available now and ad-supported.

News From You

mayesa submitted the TechCrunch article noting Google has announced it will always us an encrypted HTTPS connection whenever a user checks email or sends mail through Gmail. Messages will also remain encrypted inside Google’s datacenter network as well. The NSA has reportedly been tapping cables between foreign datacenters of US companies.

habichuelacondulce pointed us to the CNET article about Twitters new FirstTweet feature. In celebration of its 8th birthday tomorrow, Twitter has a tool at first-tweets.com that lets you see yours or anyones very first tweet. April 17, 2008 Farhad, you let us know it was national high five day!. — Jan.7, 2007 I was “Sitting at the CNET booth at CES”

tekkyn00b sent us the Verge article about ex-Microsoft employee Alex Kibkalo being arrested and accused of stealing trade secrets and leaking confidential beta copies of Windows 8 to an unnamed French technology blogger. MS identified the leaker after the blogger contacted another MS employee by email. Kibkalo works in Mictosoft’s Lebanon office. Computerworld reports Wzor.net, a frequent source of leaked copies of Windows went offline Thursday after the arrest and the Twitter account has also disappeared.

tm204 pointed us to the PC World article about HP’s plans to start making 3D printers. CEO Meg Whitman, speaking to shareholders said the two big problems with 3D printers are speed and quality, particularly the surface of the substrate. Whitman said the company has solved these problems with 3D printers and will make a big announcement about them in June.

 Discussion Section Links:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/20/technology/personaltech/surviving-and-thriving-in-a-one-monitor-world.html?_r=0

https://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/monitors/en/dual_monitors_boost_productivity_whitepaper.pdf

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/technology/personaltech/15basics.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324339204578173252223022388?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424127887324339204578173252223022388.html

http://lifehacker.com/do-distractions-help-you-work-better-1178468917

Pick of the Day:  Backblaze

Hey Tom-

Since you are accepting PotD suggestions, I wanted to throw my hat in the ring. I highly recommend that everyone keep an off-site backup of some kind, and I have done a lot of homework and recommend Backblaze very highly.

There are lots of ways to keep an off-site backup (Mozy, Carbonite, Crashplan, Transporter…even Dropbox or the recently discounted Google Drive). But for me, Backblaze is the best balance of cost, security, and ease of use.

I pay $5/month for unlimited backups, and I definitely get my money’s worth. I have an external Drobo holding over 100,000 photos and videos, plus the usual cadre of music and documents and whatnot. It is currently 2.1TB of stuff, and Backblaze never bats an eye.

In a nutshell:
– $5/month unlimited
– Data is heavily encrypted on your machine before transmission and storage
– Incremental backups (roll back as far as a month if a file gets deleted or damaged)
– Lightweight, install-and-forget client for Mac and Windows
– Backs up the whole computer by default (you don’t have to pick folders or keep your stuff somewhere specific)
– Free Internet restores (from anywhere) as zip files, or get mailed a USB drive or hard disk for a fee

Thanks for keeping up the good work…Drew (audio listener since BoL)

Friday’s Guests: Darren Kitchen & Len Peralta!

DTNS 2194 – Mama, Dadda, iPad

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comNicole Spag is on the show to talk Sony and Oculus’s VR headset announcements AND whether that iPad is safe for your baby.

MP3

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

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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

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

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

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

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

Show Notes

Today’s guest:  Nicole Spagnuolo 

Headlines:

Project Morpheus: The Verge reports Sony’s Shuhei Yoshida announced the company’s Virtual Reality headset during a panel at the Game Developer’s Conference called “Driving the Future of Innovation.” Project Morpheus is a prototype headset, similar to the Oculus Rift, that currently works with a PS4 by HDMI and USB connection, though the company would like to make it wireless. It uses 1080p LCD screens and has a 90-degree field of view. The PlayStation and Camera and PlayStation Move integrate with the headset which tracks position 100 times per second. An SDK is on its way, but Yoshida told the Verge that the product would not be out for consumers this year.

Ars Technica reports the Oculus team had a little announcement of its own today. The Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 or DK2 bumps the pixel count to 960×1080 per eye, reduces image persistence to 2-3 ms, meaning smoother images,adds an on-device USB port for accessories, and an external CMOS sensor to assist in position tracking. DK2 will be $350 at launch and you can pre-order today at www.oculusvr.com/order, with the first batch expected to ship in July.

Engadget reports that Oppo unveiled the Find 7 phone in Beijing and yes it can take 50-megapixel photos, if you have a use for such capability. Although before you get too pixel crazy it’s just a 13-megapixel sensor using software tricks to boost the count. It can also record 4K video. The 5.5-inch Android-based Color OS phone will sell for The $499 for Find 7a or Lite in China, with 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, or for $599 Find 7 with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage,and a quad HD (2,560 x 1,440) display. The Find7a should arrive mid-April and the Find 7 follows in May or June.

Flappy Bird to fly again?

GigaOM reports GE and Quirky are teaming up on an Air Conditioning unit that learns your preferences over time and can cool your room perfectly without any input from you. The unit will work with the Wink app which you’re probably already using for your connected egg carton, right? The 8,000 BTU WiFi -enabled unit will be out in May for $300.

Remember how Huawei was bucking the trend and going to put out a dual-boot Android and Windows Phone? Well they got to ‘em. TechCrunch passes along the FierceWireless report that Huawei has changed its mind and will not release a dual-OS handset, though it still plans to release a Windows Phone in 2014. Asustek recently backed off from a dual-boot phone of their own after reportedly getting pressured by Google and Microsoft.

News From You

 AllanAV submitted the Ars Technica article indicating Cogent isn’t the only Internet transit provider upset with ISP’s demanding paid interconnections. Level 3’s general counsel for regulatory policy Michael Mooney, posted to their blog complaining that ISP’s are using their near-monopolies over the last mile in the US, to strongarm providers into paying. The ISP’s say the ratio is out of whack because much more traffic comes into their netowrk than out. Level 3 points out that’s becuase end users do more downloaading than ulpoading, and proposes bit miles, the distance traffic is carried, rather than the direction, should be the basis for interconenction agreements. Level 3 also argues that FCC network neutrality regulation should cover peering agreements as well.

Speaking of regulation, Draconos sent in the Engadget story reporting attorneys general in Florida, Indiana and a few other states are working with the US Department of Justice to determine if the proposed merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable would violate antitrust laws. This gives the DoJ a few more resources, though it isn’t unusual for states to join in antitrust investigations.

cincyhuffster submitted the Pandora blog post announcing price increases for new subscribers. Existing subscribers will continue to pay the 1009 rate of $3.99 a month. New subscribers will have to pony up an extra buck at $4.99 a month, starting in May. Annual subscribers, who were paying $46 a year will be moved to the monthly $3.99 plan when their next year is up.

ChaseLaursen posted the Globe and Mail story celebrating the arrival of the Google ChromeCast in Canada for $39. The Chromecast also launched Wednesday in ten European countries — Germany, Denmark, France, Spain, Finland, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden and Britain. App compatibility varies by country. Canada for instance gets YouTube and Netflix. Britain gets the BBC and in France, you can use it with FranceTV Pluzz and SFR TV.

Discussion Section Links:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/03/sony-reveals-virtual-reality-headset-plans-at-gdc-panel/

http://www.today.com/moms/surprise-doc-says-ipads-may-be-ok-babies-2D79361986

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/03/16/290110766/parenting-in-the-age-of-apps-is-that-ipad-help-or-harm?utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=npr&utm_campaign=nprnews&utm_content=03162014

http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1840251&resultClick=3

Pick of the Day:  Nite Ize Gear Ties

Whats Up!

Something that I use on a daily basis to keep my cables organized are Nite Ize Gear Ties. Granted, they are glorified twist ties, but they’re super durable and useful. I use one to keep the usb with my external, one for my macbook charge cable, and one for my headphones. When they’re not holding cables, they make great stands for phones/tablets.

Thanks for the great Show!

Tuesday’s  Guest:  Farhad Manjoo, of the New York Times

DTNS 2193 – Wear IT

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comDon Reisinger joins me to chat about Android Wear, the new line of clothing from– wait– nope just another smart watch platform. Does this one catch your eye or wrist?

MP3

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

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

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Show Notes

Today’s Guest: Don Reisinger

Headlines: 

Wear IT: GigaOM reports Google’s SVP for Android Sundar Pichai took to the Google Blog to announce Android Wear, an implementation of the mobile operating system for wearables. Of course the wearables demonstrated were watches. The system uses Google Now to surface information the wearer needs, responds to voice commands triggered by the “OK Google” phrase and also does fitness tracking. A preview SDK is up at developer.android.com/wear. Expect more on the SDK at Google I/O in June. Lots of partners were announced but LG went ahead and said it’s G Watch will arrive next quarter and Motorola’s Moto 360 should come this summer. Plus it’s actually round. Like a watch.

MYSTIC Leakza: The Verge posted about the Washington Post’s latest Snowden leak story about an NSA tool called MYSTIC. The tool can record 100% of a country’s phone calls and play back any individual call for up to 30 days. It’s like the DISH hopper but for private conversations! The system launched in 2009 and became fully operational in 2011 and is deployed in at least one country, with at least six others others up for consideration.

Peace in our time!  Ars Technica reports Google and Viacom have settled the Viacom vs. YouTube copyright case. In fact they seem to be buddies now since the joint statement said they look forward to working more closely together. Vicaom filed the suit against Google in 2007, alleging YouTube operated outside the parameters of safe harbor. Most judges along the way didn’t agree. The seven years of fighting the suit can be indirectly held responsible for the amazing google robot that helps takedown potentially infringing content like news reports, public domain photos, and garage band music loops.

The Next Web reports on Mozilla and Unity announcing plans to bring Unity games to the Web without needing to install plugins or extensions

ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley reports Microsoft has scheduled a March 27th press briefing in San Francisco at 10 AM Pacific with news, “focused on the intersection of cloud and mobile computing.” CEO Satya Nadella will kick off the briefing, which will be WebCast. Foley, and the rest of the Internet, speculate Microsoft Office for the iPad could be the centerpiece of the briefing. Sources tell her that the iPad version of Office will include Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, be downloadable from Apple’s app store, and require an Office 365 subscription.

Also TechCrunch reported this happened today. In Gregory Ferenstein’s words: “Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin hung out with whistleblower Edward Snowden, who was attending the TED conference via a telepresence robot.” TED will post an interview with Snowden soon.

The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is building modules that will allow the military to capture solar power in orbit and project it back down to Earth, potentially capturing more energy than ground-based solar collectors. The power would be beamed back to the ground using high-energy radio waves. In other news, Australian researchers want to beam lasers into space to clean up space junk. This is all good as long as the scientists, remember not to cross the streams.

News From You: 

MikePKennedy pointed us to our daily Amazon set-top box/dongle rumor, this time from the Verge passing along WSJ sources. Amazon will begin selling its mythical dongle in early April on its own site as well as in Best Buy and Staples.

tekkyn00b submitted the 9to5 Google post where they explain they’ve heard Google’s going to get rid of Google Voice and incorporate most of its functionality into Google + hangouts. The hangouts app already allows voice calls over the app, but if Voice was folded in, the hangouts app could be able to make and receive VoiP calls to and from traditional phone numbers. Google has already rolled in it’s messaging and Android SMS functions into the hangouts app.

KAPT_Kipper posted the CNNMoney story of the curious case of a Turkish developer named Ibrahim Balic, who was testing a vulnerability in the Google Play store and it worked. WAY too well. IN fact it crashed the Google Developer Console which is used to submit new apps and app updates. Balic told CNNMoney he did not have malicious aims, he just wanted to be sure about the vulnerability. He has contacted Google about the issue he discovered. Balic previously claimed to be behind the attempted hack of Apple’s Developer Center last summer.

BullioMarf, submitted the gog.com announcement that the game website will support Linux. Initital evidence of the support will be in GOG.com website support for Ubuntu and Mint. They hope to come with 100 Linux games ready for people to play this autumn. Games the website sells that already have Linux clients will be the easy ones to include but they also promise a variety of classics as well.

Discussion Links: Google Wearables

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2014/03/sharing-whats-up-our-sleeve-android.html

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57620495-94/lg-to-launch-g-watch-with-android-wear/

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/03/the-moto-360-is-the-first-android-wear-device-has-a-round-display/

http://recode.net/2014/03/18/google-announces-android-wear-its-plan-for-the-smart-watch-and-beyond/

http://developer.android.com/wear/design/index.html

Pick of the Day:  Pocketcasts

Hey Tom, I wasn’t planning on sending another one of these for a while but yesterday, what I consider the best podcasting app on Android, Pocket Casts. Pocketcasts got updated with Chromecast support (iOS update coming soon). But the real reason I am recommending it is that the Daily Tech News Show is one of the featured podcast on the Chromecast standby image that you see on the television between podcasts. For that alone it gets my tip of the hat. Love the show, Marlon

&

Hi Tom and Jennie!

I have a suggestion for a pick, one that seems very appropriate for DTNS. Pocketcasts is one of the best podcast apps on Android and iOS (I’m listening to a DTNS episode with it as I type this).

It’s been around for a while and offers sync between devices, great for if you have a phone and tablet that you both use for podcasts, supports audio, video, playlists, everything you would expect.

I mention it because it was just recently updated to add chromecast support, which is a pretty nice add for it, especially on video podcasts.

It is how I’ve been consuming content created by Tom for years, and I imagine that many of the listeners use some kind of podcast app, and this one is absolutely worth checking out.

Tomorrow’s guest: Nicole Spagnuolo!