Veronica Belmont is on the show to discuss how large companies often eat smaller startup’s lunch. Is that what Facebook’s trying to do to Snapchat?

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Show Notes

Today’s guests: Veronica Belmont

Headlines:

TechCrunch reports Facebook has consolidated some photo upload features and added a couple to its app. When you upload a photo to Facebook you’ll immediately see a prompt to swipe to autocorrect or use a filter. You can also choose to overlay colored text and paste stickers. If you’ve used Snapchat or Line you get the pictures. The new features are rolling out to iOS app users and being tested on Android apps.

Yelp paid Legal scholar Tim Wu and Economist Michael Luca to work with its Data Science Team on a research paper that shows evidence that Google manipulates search results in its favor. According to Re/Code, Yelp used a browser plug-in that re-created Google’s search page stripped of the OneBox listings that Google began inserting in 2009 for searches that trigger local results. That page was tested against Google’s normal version with 2690 participants. Users clicked through on the stripped down version at a 45 percent higher rate. Google has repeatedly argued that its revamped search puts the most relevant results in front of searchers and has declined to comment on the paper.

Reuters reports that Google now has until mid-August to answer charges from the European Commission that it abused its market share in a dozen EU countries. The EC accused Google of distorting search results to favor its shopping services. Google could face a billion euro fine, based on Google Adwords revenue generated from European users as well as revenue from its comparison shopping service and search queries.

TechCrunch reports that Paypal will update its User Agreement to clarify how the company is allowed to contact customers, after an earlier updated policy on robocalls ran afoul of the US FCC. The revised User Agreement clarifies that Paypal “primarily” uses pre-recorded or auto-dialed calls to protect customers from fraud, provide account notices to customers, or collect a debt. It also states that PayPal will not market to customers using automated calls and texts without explicit written consent. Customers can revoke that consent at any time.

ReCode reports Facebook has chosen Johannesburg, South Africa for its first business office on the continent. It will serve as a sales office for regional small businesses. Nunu Ntshingila, chairman of Ogilvy South Africa, will run the office as Facebook’s new Head of Africa.

TechCrunch would like to remind you that Apple Music launches at 8am Pacific time tomorrow. And so does iOS 8.4, which is required for Apple Music. In case you forgot, Apple Music will have a three-month free trial and a streaming radio service called Beats 1, which features artist-hosted programming sections as well as a team of full-time DJs headed by ex-BBC host Zane Lowe.

News From You: 

Hurmoth and flyingspatula both submitted versions of the story that the US Supreme Court has declined to hear Google’s appeal of the Google-Oracle API copyright dispute. Ars Technica explains Google used names, declarations and header lines of the Java API in Android. A San Francisco federal Judge ruled that calls to an API could not be copyrighted. A Federal Appeals Court ruled that “declaring code and the structure, sequence, and organization of the API packages are entitled to copyright protection.” Google will now return to the lower court to determine if the company’s use of the API headers could be defended as fair use.

KAPT_Kipper submitted the BBC article that it has published a list of links removed from Google’s European searches as part the “right to be forgotten” ruling. BBC head of editorial policy said the company would continue to publish the list in order to further a meaningful debate about the policy.

StarFury Zeta shared the story that French authorities took two Uber executives — Thibaut Simphal, the CEO for France, and Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, the CEO for Western Europe — into custody for questioning. An Uber France spokesman told ARS TECHNICA: “Our general managers for France and Western Europe today attended a hearing with the French police. The primary regulatory issue in France is that UberPop’s drivers operate under a VTC license designed for pre-booked travel.

From Patrick Beja: Basically the government voted a law clearly targeting UberPop (which is “pretending” it is a ride sharing service when it CLEARLY isn’t), and Uber is fighting it in the courts, which they clearly have the right to do. But since the taxis are pissed and are burning cars (and maybe since the gvt wants to scare the big evil US corps that “don’t pay taxes in FR” – even though changing EU tax law is what’s really needed to fix that), they’re deciding to crack down on Uber, justifying the taxis’ appalling attitude and violence (how can they ever say “burning cars is bad” ever again after that?!), and stepping on the separation of power (AGAIN) since the legal procedure IS in progress and will likely result in UberPop being illegal, but they essentially don’t want to wait and are pulling stunts on them.

Discussion Section: 

techcrunch.com/2015/06/28/facetext/

insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/the_second_mover_advantage

www-bcf.usc.edu/~tellis/pioneering.pdf

Pick of the day:

Victor writes:

You have had several picks over the last few weeks regarding online books and I wanted to chime in. For those who want to get access to Safari Books Online or Books24x7, another great book site, but are on a budget I would like to recommend joining a professional organization. I strongly recommend the Association for Computing Machinery or the IEEE Computer Society. (My personal preference is ACM for the record). Both of these have many benefits including limited access to resources from both Safari Books Online and Books24x7. Membership is $99/year for ACM and, if I read the membership page correctly, is either $56 or $249.

I suspect that other professional organizations provide similar benefits for a comparable cost. I also recommend checking your company’s training website and resource library (for those who work for large organizations) as many provide access to these resources through there. I know many people I work with are unaware that we have access to these and other resources, including the entire ACM digital library, IEEE digital library, etc.

Thanks for a great show!

Messages:

Bobby Hendrix, Mobile Support Specialist writes:

In episode 2521 I think I heard you mention that you gave away your Apple Watch. Could you please comment on why you gave it away? I’m very curious to get your thoughts on the Apple Watch? Did you ware a watch before the Apple Watch? I do have an Apple Watch and am still trying to decide if it’s going to be a flop or hit for Apple. I’m a watch wearing and have been all my life. I’m still not convinced it will be a hit even with feature editions???

Paul Franz writes:

I can’t wait for more of these devices to be available. I think this is that next move in PC development. To me this is the ultimate in portable computers. All you need is an HDMI display and the wireless keyboard/mouse and you are good to go. Most of the things that you need are on a cloud service so you don’t need much storage space. I can see this as a perfect thing for the road warrior. You can work on documents then store them locally or on the cloud or using as a thin client PC (i.e. a PC that can be used to control a remote VM). Using VMs in the enterprise is very hot at the moment. This keeps the information safely stored within the enterprise instead out on a laptop that could be stolen. For me, this would be perfect since I am an administrator and mostly login to remote machines to do my work.

Jason from Pottsville, AR writes:

Jason re-emphasized that selfdriving cars don’t get distracted by Twitter and radio statiosn and such. and summed up his thoughts with “I love to drive, and have driven competitively to some success, but I’d much rather share the road with a bunch of machines following the rules and making good decisions than the lot of morons I see on the road every day.

Tuesday’s guest: Molly Wood and Justin Robert Young! 

Jonathan Strickland is on the show to help explain how two self-driving cars did NOT almost crash and why it is that we have to explain that. Also a new fiber tech could unleash crazy Internet speeds. And Len Peralta captures it all in art.

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

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

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

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

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

Show Notes
Today’s guests: Jonathan Strickland of howstuffworks.com and Len Peralta, artist

Check out Len’s amazing art from this week’s show celebrating “The Strickman”

Headlines:

Geekwire obtained a company memo sent by Satya Nadella to Microsoft employees revealing the company’s new mission statement is To “empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.” He added that the company could achieve the mission with 3 interconnected “bold ambitions.” One: Reinvent productivity and business processes. Two: Build the intelligent cloud platform and Three: Create more personal computing. In a related story someone created styamania shirts at teespring.com/satyamania

The Next Web notes Lenovo is looking for feedback on whether it should build a new ThinkPad with a classic ThinkPad look. The laptop would have modern components in the classic design featuring the old rubberized paint, the classic multicolor ThinkPad logo. And the whole thing would be 18-millimeters thick. So thinner than the original.

Physics World explains the work of Nikola Alic and colleagues at the University of California San Diego that could double the capacity of fiber-optic cables. One limit on Fiber optic cables is noise. Some noise comes from amplifiers used to boost the signal every 100 km or so. The other is caused by the power of the signal. The higher the power the more noise. This second is a non-linear, but deterministic function that can be calculated and adapted to. The problem is that laser frequencies drift a bit, so nobody could factor out the noise, until now. The researchers used a “frequency comb” basically a signal that acts as a ruler showing what the actual frequency of the laser is. That way you can boost the signal, then factor out the noise based on the frequency comb. That means the signal can be at a higher power, travel longer, use fewer amplifiers and carry more data. The research is published in the journal Science.

Engadget reports the second-generation FLIR One thermal camera is available for iOS devices with an Android version shipping in July. It’s a standalone device with it’s own battery that attaches by the lightning port or microUSB. You can preorder now for $250 and the first-generation which came in a phone case sells for $150.

9 to 5 Mac noticed that the Apple Watch is coming to the Netherlands Sweden and Thailand on July 17th. The Apple Watch goes on sale today in Italy, Mexico, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland and Taiwan.

The Next Web reports that OnePlus will launch its next phone, the OnePlus2 (does this mean we can call it the Three for short?) on July 27th. The device will have a USB-C port, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 version 2.1 chipset under the hood and it will run OnePlus’ Android-based OxygenOS. The OnePlus 2 will launch with a VR experience usable with a specific cardboard viewer. You’ll need an invite to buy one, I mean the two the one plus .. to buy it.

Tech Crunch reports that Tumblr has launched “Tumblr TV”, showing trending animated GIFs, one after the other, in a full screen viewing mode with play, pause, forward and backward at tumblr.com/tv. Trending GIFs are determined by a variety of factors, including the freshness of the GIF and recent engagements. They are only pulled from Tumblr itself but Bill Eager, Tumblr Product Engineer, said “GIFs are a core feature of Tumblr.”

The Next Web reports that OneWeb has closed a $500 million funding round to build a satellite system to provide affordable broadband services across the globe. Airbus will build more than 900 satellites for the project, 648 of which will be launched and the rest kept as spares. OneWeb plans more than 65 launches starting in 2017, including 39 from Virgin Galactic and 21 from Europe’s Arianespace using Russian-made Soyuz rockets. The project is slated to launch in 2019.

And a followup. Apple told TechCrunch “We are not removing apps that display the Confederate flag for educational or historical uses” and is working with developers to quickly get their games reinstated to the App Store.

News From You: 

merelyjim shared that a senior U.S. official has confirmed to the Daily Beast that attackers accessed the intimate personal details of government workers found in the “adjudication information”, a file compiled on employees and contractors applying for security clearances. That information includes details about workers’ sexual partners, drug and alcohol abuse, debts, gambling compulsions, marital troubles, and any criminal activity. Three former U.S. intelligence officials told The Daily Beast that the adjudication information are effectively dossiers on current and former government employees. White House officials previously acknowledged the breach of information found in Standard Form 86.

starfuryzeta sent us this Engadget report on Audi’s partnership with a German team called “Part-Time Scientists” competing in Google’s Lunar XPRIZE. Audi says it’s providing four-wheel drive tech, as well as expertise in lightweight construction and piloted driving. In return the rover will now be called the Audi Lunar Quattro Moon Rover. Google’s Lunar XPRIZE offers a $30 million prize for the first team to get a rover to the moon, cover 500 meters of it, and broadcast high-definition video back to Earth as it goes.

And finally gowlkick submitted the Ars Technica story clarifying that despite headlines you will see in every major news outlet around the world, two self-driving cars did not almost crash. What did happen was a Delphi self-driving car was about to change lanes and noticed that another car ahead of it was moving into that lane and so it waited until it was safe to change lanes. The car ahead of it just happened to be a Google self-driving car.

Discussion Section

http://arstechnica.com/cars/2015/06/no-2-self-driving-cars-didnt-have-a-close-call-on-silicon-valley-streets/

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/26/us-autos-selfdriving-nearmiss-idUSKBN0P601T20150626

Pick of the day

My pick of the day is Jonathan Strickland because its his birthday. Happy birthday Mr Strickland from Trinidad and Tobago.From Marlon ” the guy from Trinidad”	ColbertLateShow.com
Jennie’s pick today is Stephen Colbert’s new Colbr app and accompanying podcast. The App is iOS only, but all the content will also land on ColbertLateShow.com. But it’s the podcast that Jennie really loves, b/c it’s a look inside the ramp up for the Late Show launch on September 8. After all the years of hearing Stephen Colbert the character, it’s fascinating to hear Stephen Colbert the writer and comedian speak with his long-time creative collaborators. The podcast is also available solo, everywhere podcasts are.	& Colbr app on iOS
Send your picks to feedbackatdailytechnewsshow.com and you can find MY picks at	http://www.dailytechnewsshow.com/picks/

 

Messages 

Hi Tom, Jennie and the Friday crew,

Great to hear you cover John Brodkin’s piece on Vivint. I live in one of the first neighborhoods where they rolled out wireless broadband service a couple of years back. When their salesman stopped by, I signed up right away, eager to have an alternative to Comcast. I experienced the early stability problems Brodkin mentions in the article. I couldn’t keep my home connected to the hub home even though it was right across the street and I ended up having to go back to Comcast. (Can’t have Netflix cutting out on the kids on a Saturday morning.) Because their technicians couldn’t solve my connectivity issues, they had no problem letting me out of the 2 year contract I had signed. My neighbors who serve as hub homes report that the 28GHz connections they have are pretty stable. So if they’ve improved the 5 GHz home to home connections, they’ve got a viable service on their hands.

And even though I didn’t stick with Vivint myself, when I called Comcast to sign back up, I told the rep I was in a neighborhood that had Vivint wireless broadband and I was able to negotiate a comparable price on my new service. Yay for competition.

Proud Patreon supporter,

Nate
From the windy west bench of the Salt Lake Valley

==

Apurva commented on the blog about an LA Times story describing droine flyers disrupting firefighting efforts in Big Bear lake: This is an example of a consequence that is ignored or quickly dismissed by drones enthusiasts pushing the FAA to rush rules for allowing more drones. While the early enthusiasts might be involved and know all the rules, most new users will not be as responsible. The vast majority that will take this up as prices drop will be ‘knuckleheads’ (and this is a legal term now, see the recent 9th circuit ruling regarding a man who pointed a laser at a plane) who will not know the rules or care. Their first thought will be, “Won’t it be cool if I could get a aerial video of the forest fire.”

Monday’s guest: Veronica Belmont

Justin Young and Iyaz Akhtar are on the show today to talk about Amazon’s true intentions with the hyped up Treasure Truck. Plus theories on Apple Music continue to haunt us.

MP3

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

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

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

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

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

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Justin Robert Young and Iyaz Akhtar

Engadget reports that Yahoo has partnered with Oracle to get users to try out Yahoo’s third-place search engine as part of their next Java update. The update comes with a pre-checked installation box to make Yahoo the default search engine. Yahoo says the on boarding process is “highly transparent and gives users choice.” Java and Yahoo Toolbar installation have a astoried history.

ZDNet reports that iPhones on the T-Mobile network have been hit by a “blue screen of death”. According to the reports, iPhone 5S, iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus devices running iOS 8.1 or 8.3 on the T-Mobile network are being affected by freezes, restarts and crashes. The issue is being blamed on an update pushed to the devices to enable Wi-Fi Calling. Several possible fixes have been suggested including disabling Wi-Fi Calling, disabling Voice over LTE or LTE altogether, hard reseting the iPhone, deleting old text messages from the past few days and factory restore the iPhone using iTunes. However users report mixed success. No word yet from Apple or T-mobile on fixes.

Microsoft has revealed new desktop wallpaper for Windows 10 according to the Verge. The default Windows 10 wallpaper uses a Windows logo with a twist! The logo is made entirely out of light. Microsoft used camera mapping techniques, lasers, and projectors in two custom installations in a San Francisco studio. Light beams out and around the edges of a sunbeam-like version of the Windows logo. This new wallpaper will start appearing on desktops once Windows 10 ships on July 29th.

Bloomberg reports on major protests in the French cities of Paris, Marseille, and Lyon by taxi drivers opposing Uber’s operations in the country. Burning tires blocked part of the ring road around Paris and overturned vehicles, and fights were reported. Police in riot gear at one point intervened using tear gas. Roass into Roissy airport were blocked and air travelers were forced to use the train to get to that airport. France’s interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve has called for a nationwide clampdown on UberPOP arguing the service represented unfair competition. Meanwhile Ars Technica reports Uber has launched a ferry service called UberBoat in Istanbul today to take passengers across the Bosphorous strait.

Ever wonder why the Amazon Echo’s virtual assistant is called Alexa? That’s because they’re not the same thing. TechCrunch reports Amazon has freed Alexa to live on any device or app that will have her and they even gave her spending money. The Alexa API lets developers build support for Alexa into their apps, Alexa Voice Service can be integrated into hardware and the Alexa Fund is $100 million to support devs and gadget builders looking to build voice-powered stuff.

The New York Times reports Apple will pay two one-hundreths of a cent for each stream of a recording during the free trial of Apple Music — This is supposedly a similar rate to free tiers at other services. Although unlike other services, Taylor Swift has agreed to allow her new album 1989 to stream on Apple Music. All of this hooplah leads up to the launch of Apple Music on June 30th. The Beats One radio station launches that morning, too with Zane One’s interview of Eminem.

News From You: 

metalfreak flagged an Ars Technica writeup of an interesting broadband service provided home security firm Vivint. It’s 100 Mbps wireless service provided by identifying hub homes that get the service for free. In exchange for the service, Vivint mounts three antennas on top of hub homes. The hub receives signals from fiber-connected tower in the 27GHz spectrum then broadcasts service to around 128 homes in a 1,000 foot radius over the 5GHz system. The software and hardware were designed by Vivint to avoid interference. ReadJon Brodkin’s excellent article for more detail.

techstress sent us the Kurzweil AI report that Stanford University scientists have invented a low-cost 1.5-volt water splitter that uses a single nicel-iron oxide catalyst to produce both hydrogen and oxygen gas for more than 200 hours continuously. The researchers believe that the device, described in in Nature Communications, could provide a renewable source of clean-burning hydrogen fuel for transportation and industry.

the_corley sent us this story from R&D Magazine about a team led by Professor Debashis [Da-bash-ee’s] Chanda at University of Central Florida’s NanoScience Technology Center and College of Optics and Photonics that has created the first full-color flexible thin-film reflective display. Applied voltage changes an interaction between liquid crystal molecules and plasmon waves on the nanostructured metallic surface. In simple terms it makes it reflect a different color of light thus changing the apparent color of the material. The display is only about few microns thick, compared to a 100-micron-thick human hair. Professor Chanda said it could change not only electronic displays but camouflage, clothing, and more.

aggblade submitted the Toucharcade version of this story but everyone is reporting that Apple has joined Google in removing apps featuring the the flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, commonly known as the Confederate Battle Flag. The flag has caused controversy because of its use by racist individuals and groups. The apps being pulled have included some civil war-based games that used the flag to identify southern soldiers, which has caused another, much smaller, controversy.

Discussion Section

https://www.amazon.com/treasuretruck

http://recode.net/2015/06/25/amazon-puts-a-store-on-wheels-continues-to-flirt-with-physical-retail/

http://recode.net/2015/03/30/we-may-have-just-uncovered-amazons-vision-for-a-new-kind-of-retail-store/

http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.html&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&S1=(Steven.IN.+AND+Kessel.IN.)&OS=IN/Steven+and+IN/Kessel&RS=(IN/Steven+AND+IN/Kessel)

Pick of the Day

Andy from CT here:

I thought I’d point out a great two factor authentication tool that works with LastPass called Duo. Duo, www.duosecurity.com, is a two factor authentication app that works with your mobile device to give you quick access to a second factor approval. It works with many apps, is easy to set up with LastPass, supports the fingerprint reader on your phone and best of all is free for personal use. They recently announced Apple Watch compatibility so you can authenticate a second factor on your watch if you are so inclined. I set up Duo at work as an alternative to RSA hard tokens and it’s been big hit with everyone who’s tried it. You can set up pin codes as an alternate to the device should you not have your phone, or it can call a phone number you designate and read you your pin as a backup. There are lots of other security features and options for the Enterprise that are really neat – check it out!

Thanks Tom, great show!!

Messages 

Brandon Writes:

Hi Tom!

Co-Exec producer here! Just wanted to ring in on the Windows 10 retail USB rumor brought up on Wednesday’s show. I work on the software buying team for a large US retailer and we have not heard anything about these alleged USBs yet. The USB format makes sense for ultra books and 2-1/Hybrid devices, but the rumored Win 10 price points are the same as current Win 8.1 price points of $119.99 and $199.99; which IMO doesn’t support a more costly format to switch from CD’s to USB’s. Just my .02!

Thanks again!

From Mike:

I think Lexus creating a hover board is more of a research endeavour into new forms of automotive suspensions. Cars already use magnets today to create better suspensions for racing or maybe comfort so this could be research towards that. This could be something they are researching for a racecar or their Lexus LF-a rich boy toy.

Here is an article that might be cool to show how magnets are used today.

http://jalopnik.com/5932764/how-magnets-make-the-camaro-zl1-dance-around-a-race-track

==

Friday’s Guests:  Darren Kitchen & Len Peralta

Scott Johnson is on the show and we’ll talk about Samsung turning off Windows Update, ICANN turning off privacy and Lexus turning on a Hoverboard.

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

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

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

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

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

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Scott Johnson

Tech Crunch reports that the Facebook’s Messenger app is all grown up and has left home. Messenger will now let users to sign up without having a Facebook account. You just need a first and last name and phone number. The feature rolls out today in the US, Canada, Peru and Venezuela with more countries to follow.

VentureBeat reports Microsoft has officially launched its Microsoft Office apps, Word, Excel and PowerPoint for phones running Android 4.4 and up. The apps were previously available as previews. The apps can be used for free to read, preview and make edits of documents stored in OneDrive, Google Drive, Box, Dropbox and SharePoint. Certain power user features like “track changes” or “custom color shading” require an Office 365 subscription.

Ars Technica reports on Microsoft MVP Patrick Barker’s discovery that some Samsung PC run a program called Disable_Windowsupdate.exe that, well disables Windows Update in favor of Samsung’s SW Update suite. A Samsung customer support rep told Barker that Windows default drivers didn’t always work well with Samsung devices like USB 3.0 ports, so Samsung runs its own software update mechanism. Even if a user turns Windows Update back on a reboot will cause it to be turned off again.

Apple has signed deals that will put thousands of independent artists on Apple Music. Billboard reports that label collective Beggars Group and rights group Merlin are on board after Apple agreed to pay artists for streams during the three month free-trial period. A source told Billboard “The optics don’t look good if Apple backs down to indie labels. But if they back down to an artist like Taylor Swift, it shows they are sensitive to artist concerns, unlike Spotify, who blew Taylor Swift off when she complained about the free tier.” Apple Music launches June 30.

The Next Web reports that Chinese smartphone maker Meizu will release the Ubuntu Edition MX4 phone in Europe tomorrow. The price is €299 and includes 5.36-inch, 1,152 x 1,920 pixels, Gorilla Glass 3-equipped display, 16GB of internal storage, a 20.7-megapixel main camera a 2-megapixel camera in front, and comes with silver or gold detailing. The MX4 will be offered using an invite system via an origami wall on Meizu’s website. No word on releases outside Europe.

PCMag.com reports that Lenovo unveiled its first PC on a stick, the Ideacentre Stick 300. The device works with most HDMI-compatible monitors and TVs. The $129 mini PC sports a 1.3GHz Intel Atom processor, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity, 1 Micro-USB 2.0 slot, SD Card reader and ship with Windows 8.1, upgradeable to Windows 10 on July 29th. You will need to bring your own 2.4GHz wireless keyboard and mouse.

Australian broadband users take note. The Sydney Morning Herald reports ISP Extel has terminated the accounts of about 400 customers it says used data “in excess of the old plan requirements.” About a quarter of those were understood to be on “unlimited” plans. Exetel spokesperson Ben Colman confirmed that it was in response to the growing use of online video streaming services like Netflix, Stan and Presto. The remaining Exetel customers have been forced onto new plans some of which cost more with added restrictions on data usage.

TechDirt reports ICANN is considering a proposal to limit who can use a proxy to protect their private information when registering a domain name. MarkMonitor, a company which specializes in takedown notices leads a group proposing that ICANN not allow domain holders associated with “commercial activity” to hide their registration information like address, phone number and email. Registrar Namecheap has a site called RespectOurPrivacy.com arguing against the proposal.

Akamai’s Q1 2015 State of the Internet report is out and worldwide average speed rose 10% over Q4 2014 and 30% year over year. South Korea remains tops in highest average connection speed with a 6.3% increase to 23.6 Mbps while Singapore overtook Hong Kong for the highest peak connection speed of 98.5 Mbps. Bulgaris remains the country with the highest level of adoption at 97%. On the mobile side, speeds ranged from a high of 20.4 Mbps on average in the Uk to a low of 1.3 Mbps in Vietnam. Australia had the top peak mobile speed at 149.3 Mbps. The volume of mobile data traffic grew by 12% over Q4 2014.

(Delaware 18.6 Mbps average. US 19 w/ 11.9 Mbps. Right behind Belgium)

News From You: 

jmbburg26 notes the Windows Central post that Microsoft may ship hard copies of Windows 10 after all. ON USB. WinFuture.de has sources that say the Home and Pro versions of Windows 10 will be sold in retail stores on USB instead of DVD. Windows 10 Home is listed at $120 and Windows 10 Pro at $200. Although existing Windows 7 and 8 users can get a free upgrade at launch on July 29.

KAPT_Kipper sent us this Ars Technica article reporting that the EFF and others are requesting an exemption to the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act to allow users to revive abandoned online games. However, Entertainment Software Association president Mike Gallagher criticized copyright arguments that rely on games or servers being considered abandoned or obsolete, arguing that games are often re-utilized and re-purposed on different devices and platforms. The Copyright Office is also considering a DMCA exemption that would allow users to legally jailbreak video game consoles in the same manner as cell phones to allow for new functionality and play of homebrew software. A similar petition was denied in 2012.

Discussion Section

http://gizmodo.com/wait-a-minute-did-lexus-actually-make-a-working-hoverb-1713469352

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=70&v=zPqEEZa2Gis

http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2015/06/24/lexus-is-working-on-creating-a-hoverboard-thats-really-rideable/

http://www.lexus-int.com/amazinginmotion/slide/

http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/24/lexus-teases-a-real-liquid-nitrogen-cooled-hoverboard/#.7yzb2u:JVRn

http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/07/an-elevated-experience/

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/142464853/hendo-hoverboards-worlds-first-real-hoverboard

 

Pick of the Day

Al writes:

Last Monday night, I decided to watch the Bethesda announcement on Youtube. Like a lot of people I got really excited about the Fallout 4 announcement. Then extremely excited about the Pip-Boy edition. So I went to Amazon to try and pre-order it. As you may have guessed it was not available…sold out… I was very annoyed … Then I found this website called NowInStock.net. You sign up for a free account and they will notify you by text, e-mail or both when the item you are looking for becomes available. They have a large selection of items you can get notifications for, like game systems, video cards, Frozen merchandise, cameras, etc. So I signed up and I got a text alert around 8:30 last Friday night while I was grocery shopping and was able to pr-order my copy from Amazon. So now I am very happy and my wife thinks I’m crazy.

Just wanted to share because I have noticed this becoming a big issue, people buying up stuff early and selling it on eBay, and those of us who are not quick enough get screwed. I know it’s capitalism but it still sucks.

Messages 

Rich from Lovely Cleveland:

Thinking about Gmail’s Undo Send reminded me of something I think I first read about on Lifehacker. One of the benefits of using a desktop email client is that you can control when you send and receive your email. At work, I have Outlook set to only send and receive at the top of the hour, which basically gives me a nice big window for “undoing” any misconceived missives (DTNS has benefitted from this numerous times). As a side benefit, it helps my productivity in that my inbox isn’t constantly drawing my attention away from the task at hand. I’m sure there’s some mobile client that could do the same for your phone (luckily I don’t have to deal with that for work). Obviously its not as convenient as a webmail client, and using Gmail Undo Send has saved me from a couple typos, but I actually like the control of a good old desktop client (unfortunately most of them are butt ugly).

Jason Quiz writes:

Personally I am excited about the new Undo Send feature from Google. I often send an email by mistake using the email shortcut CMD+ENTER. It is super frustrating when this happens and having the ability to quickly stop the email from actually being sent is amazing.

I am disappointed to see that the feature has not been included in the “Inbox by Google”. I love using the new Inbox and this is where I experience the keyboard shortcut problem the most.

Thanks for putting on an amazing show.

Scott (Co-executive Producer) from blazing hot Maryland:

I just wanted to provide follow up to the story Veronica got a big chuckle out of. On Tuesday’s episode you mentioned the Navy paying a boatload of money (bad pun intended) to keep XP updated. I work with a lot of Government agencies that have a very legitimate reason to stay on XP. One example is a very large scale security system with the primary application being a 16 bit piece of software that depends on IPX (which was deprecated in Windows 7). We tried moving it to Windows 7 and nothing worked, so we went back. Another example is a highly specialized system for secure HF radio messaging that goes even farther back and runs on MS-DOS! Yes I am responsible to keep a few dozen machines running Windows 3.1 up and running, and it makes me giggle every time they call with an issue. In both cases the software makers have gone out of business and since neither system shows any signs of breaking, there is no motivation to spend taxpayer dollars on a more modern alternative.

==

Thursday’s Guests: Justin Robert Young and Iyaz Akhtar

Hey, it’s that Joe Pilot guy again. It just so happens I’m on reserve again and have a lot of time to write. It also seems like we have more aviation related stories these days, maybe?

I wanted to calm down the worries on this LOT airlines DDoS. Firstly, this is no reflection on your reporting, just wanted to give you a heads up.

Flight planning doesn’t have anything to do with aircraft flying at the time, it is simply the written/printed PLAN for the flight. It’s not uncommon (at least domestically) for these flight plans to change in the cockpit. That’s not to say it is unimportant; they are important because they are a piece of the safety net we employ at every airline to keep something awful from happening. That also doesn’t mean if the flight plan is wrong— or the pilots don’t notice it’s wrong immediately— anything bad will happen, it just means one level of safety is compromised, the threat is trapped and we move on. Airplanes don’t crash because Dispatch misrouted a plane. Pilots don’t blindly follow plans and Air Traffic Control (ATC) doesn’t blindly clear airplanes through bogus routes. Not happening. A hacker wants to try and affect safety that way? Lots of luck buddy. There’s two people up front ready to laugh it off (until the delay comes and then we grind our collective teeth while apologizing to the passengers). Delays will occur. Nothing more. I promise. We’re safe up there with or without dispatch, and even safer if we’re already on the ground.

What does a flight plan mean?
An aircraft dispatcher (not an air traffic controller) creates a flight plan with a specific route the company has identified as appropriate, looking at best planning techniques, standard or preferred routes, weather, etc. This route is created to estimate winds as accurately as possible to give the pilots on the ground the best idea possible of the amount of fuel required. The printouts help the pilot check against what he’s programmed into the onboard computers (FMS-flight management system), and once in air, check against fuel loads en route to ensure they are close to on plan. When ATC changes everything, this plan sometimes goes out the window but there are other procedures for that.

Why would this DDOS attack matter?
The flight plans are created at an Operational Control Center for the airline (OCC or SOC or OC or AOCC) and have to be transmitted out. The system can have a few glitches at this point.

One: the flight plan has to be transmitted to a network so the gate agents or local airport operations can print the flight plan.

Two: The system simultaneously sends the flight plan to Tracon and their Flight Data department. Flight Data (FD) is trying to fix flight plans as they come in. They usually only have a five-minute window but they’ll need about 25 seconds because they kick ass. Then they kick the plans out to the sectors needing the CID strips.

(I forget what CID stands for, but if you’ve ever seen a Netflix documentary on airspace since the you’ve seen them. We’ve had those same stupid little paper strips stacked on ATC desks across America since the 1980s.)

Every time a flight plan is sent, FD does their best to move the strip on or kick it out if it’s junk (which sometimes happens apparently). A good FD department probably kicked out a few of the LOT Polish flight plans the hackers generated but it’s unlikely they figured out exactly what was happening until it was too late, and there’s a possibility the FAA/JAA (Federal Aviation Administration in US Joint Aviation Authorities in Europe) computers were overwhelmed at the same time.

So summary: Airline OCCs, the FAA/JAA computers or the staff might get overwhelmed, but none of these flight plans have made it to the pilots yet. The gate agent or operations staff at the airport for the airline are just confused why there are tens or hundreds of flight plans in their software for LOT Polish flight 001 to JFK or whereever.

And then there’s the delay. Even if LOT Polish sends the flight plan by fax after printing it out, the FAA/JAA has to be called by phone and each flight plan submitted by voice. If there are 100 flights going out that day and OCC responds immediately, you’re going to start losing time because the dispatchers will start getting behind on their planes ETA with each flight plan that must be submitted. It would be MAYHEM.

I had something similar happen when I was an aircraft dispatcher at JFK a decade ago. Except for us, the national power grid went down and JFK was the last sector to receive power some 45-55 hours after the event. It was a brutal couple days of running to the Port Authority General Aviation building across from JAL cargo who still had power (generators) and a working fax machine.

There isn’t a good way to get around this problem, flight planning systems like SABRE (my quick research shows at least some of LOT’s system is based off them) or especially LIDO (a Lufthansa system) are completely integrated airline operational systems which do everything from crew scheduling to flight planning to ticket sales (amazing). If you attack those you’ll probably shut down a whole airline for a day.

BUT BUT BUT, what about the planes in the air?
Nothing. We don’t use those systems in the air. The messaging system (SELCAL / ACARS) is sometimes sent by the company. Other groups, like ARINC or SITA, can get ahold of us too as a backup.

So besides passenger delay what WILL happen?
You’ll get a disgruntled pilot. Here’s why.

The dispatcher can call on a dedicated phone line the airline already pays for and tell them, “Tell LOT flight 26 that the First Officer needs to phone scheduling on the ground for a change to his schedule, the company ACARS is down for a while.”

Then the pilot in the front groans after reading the ACARS message and tells the Captain. If he gets junior manned again into a day off he’ll quit. OK, he won’t quit but he’ll be talking about it 10 years later because he didn’t have that 72 hour layover in NYC like he was bidding for to buy some fake Prada bags for his girlfriend, instead he’ll only get 36 hours and get business class back home or to Denver.

And that’s the worse case. A slightly entitled and disgruntled pilot says something mean about the company to another pilot once every two months for the next ten years.

In other news, malicious hackers suck.

Joe Pilot understands his experience with ATC and dispatch is limited compared to someone who is a working professional in either field. Comments clarifying (or correcting) are welcome but take it easy, I’m not trying to present myself as an authority on all of aviation.

Veronica Belmont joins the show to talk about Google’s Unsend feature. Do humans have no impulse control? On the other hand is five seconds of delay even helpful?

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

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

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Veronica Belmont

The Next Web reports Instagram has updated its app to let you find images by location. There’s also a tab called Explore in the US version that shows trending tags and features a curated selection of accounts, places and topics organized into collections. The update rolls out to Android and iOS today.

New Scientist reports on an experimental algorithm from Facebook that recognize people in photographs whose face is hidden. The algorithm looks at other features like hair, clothing, body shape and pose. The neural network had 83% accuracy in a test using 40,000 photos pulled from Flickr.

CNET reports Google Play Music has launched a free ad-supported version of the service. A blog post introducing the product was written by Songza CEO Elias Roman. Google bought Songza last July. Curated radio stations for mood, genre, decade or activity will be offered alongside the ability to pick a song and listen to a station of similar music. The free service launches in the US first, on the Web today and later this week to Android and iOS.

PC Mag reports that the task management app ToDoist is getting a refreshed Android version in the Material Design style. The simplified ToDoist app includes a “quick-add” option, and allows users to include start and end dates to capture recurring due dates. Dropbox also updated its Android app using Material Design, including the ability to take a photograph right from the file where it will be stored and move, rename and favorite options on the info pane. Both apps are available for download in Google Play today.

The Next Web reports that its Amazon Echo device is now available to all US customers. The voice controlled device has added support for Pandora, Audible, WeMo, IFTTT and Google Calendar since launch. It costs 179.99 and begin shipping July 14th. Alexa, add chocolate chips to shopping list.

IBM is opening up its Chef Watson web app to the world. It’s been almost a year since IBM teamed up with Bon Appetit magazine to begin working on the app, and it has spent the last eleven months testing it out. The app lets you choose at least one ingredient and then suggests recipes using that ingredient. You can also choose a particular type of dish or style of cooking. When you find a recipe you like you can save it to a folder in your account. You can take a look at ibmchefwatson.com.

The Independent reports that a German law prohibiting the sale or display of erotic materials during daylight hours is now being applied to ebooks. The change relates to a legal complaint regarding a German erotica eBook called Schlauchgelüste (Pantyhose Cravings). Adult ebooks will only be allowed to be sold between 10 PM and 6 AM and violators can be fined up to €500,000.

TechCrunch reports that Alibaba will fold its first effort at a US ecommerce company, 11 Main into social shopping service OpenSky. Alibaba will also fold in tits logistical enterprises, along with Auctiva, Vendio and SingleFeed into OpenSky and become a 37% owner of the combined company. The new combined business will have inventory from 50,000 brands and “millions” of shoppers. It’s not clear if 11 Main will continue to exist as a separate site or brand. The deal is set to be finalized at the end of July.

News From You: 

metalfreak sent us this story. It seems the US Navy will pay Microsoft 9.1 million dollars to keep approximately 100,000 Windows XP machines afloat according to PC World. The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command signed a contract earlier this month for continued access to security patches for Windows XP, Office 2003, Exchange 2003 and Windows Server 2003. The Navy began a transition away from XP in 2013 but needs time to finish executing the plan. XP systems are still connected to both NIPRnet, the U.S. government’s IP network for non-classified information, and SIPRnet, the network for classified information.

starfuryzeta shared a “I want one of those” stories with us. Engadget is reporting that UK-based Malloy Aeronautics in co-operating with Maryland based defense firm Survice Engineering Co. is developing a hover bike for the US Army research laboratory. The current design features two pairs of horizontal adducted rotors placed in tandem– one in front of and one behind– the pilot seat. The project aims to create “a new class of Tactical Reconnaissance Vehicle (TRV) that can replace some of work currently done by helicopters.

Discussion Section:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2939321/google-finally-makes-undo-send-an-official-gmail-feature.html#tk.rss_news

http://gizmodo.com/gmail-officially-adds-undo-send-turn-it-on-right-now-1713353235

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/24/us/gmails-undo-send-option-can-help-end-email-embarrassment.html

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/new-in-labs-undo-send.html

http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/unsend-it-email-app/

 

Pick of the Day:

Justin C writes:

I have a pick, if you’re interested:
The Stephen Baxter Manifold trilogy. Probably my favorite current-ish scifi. For fans of those who love massive space-operas and well-founded yet thoroughly creative fiction.

Messages 

David Redding writes: 

I was just listening to your discussion about Taylor Swift’s open letter to Apple and how it’s only right to pay artists for their work. To bad she doesn’t practice what she preaches

http://petapixel.com/2015/06/22/an-open-response-to-taylor-swifts-rant-against-apple/#more-170376

Just another talking point

Niyas is a project manager with an airline and has some comments on the LOT airline grounding: 

“The design of an airline’s business IT network (business IT to distinguish from internal IT for office users) is pretty much the same as it would be for most other IT networks.

We are currently building a new data center …and these designs involve key components such as a web application filter and API manager (among others) to make sure that our systems are not vulnerable to cross site scripting, DDoS, even legitimate request overloading etc. Further, during the build, we do extensive stress testing to simulate these situations and make sure it doesn’t happen or to identify these vulnerabilities and patch them before the system goes live.

So… I take issue with the statement (from the CEO) that all airlines are vulnerable to this kind of attack. I’m sure there are many airlines that are vulnerable, just as there are many that are secure – as is the case with most industries. Just thought I’d throw in my two cents

==

Wednesday’s Guests: Scott Johnson

Breki Tomasson is on the show to talk about Taylor Swift’s ‘victory’ against Apple Music. Is Taylor Swift the Music Industry now? The Internet? Un unstoppable force that has already amassed too much power and become a queen terrible as the morning and the night?

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

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

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

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

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

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Breki Tomasson

Google officially announced its new site called News Lab today. Tech Crunch reports that the goal of the program is to connect journalists with programs, data and other resources. There will be tutorials and tips on best practices when using Google products in reporting. The site will also showcase Google’s new media partnerships such as the YouTube newswire and other partnerships with Storify announced last week.

The Verge reports Sony is releasing the PlayStation 4 1TB Ultimate Player Edition. The updated machine will be 10% lighter, use 8% less power, and have a matte finish for the hard drive bay. It will release in Japan before the end of June and on July 15th in Europe and North America. Sony also released changes to the PlayStation companion app for iOS and Android letting users redeem gift codes without powering up a playstation console and display comments from viewers while streaming gameplay.

Ars Technica reports on documents leaked by Edward Snowden that show the US NSA and UK’s GCHQ attempted to subvert antivirus software in order to to succeed in attacks on intelligence targets. GCHQ attempted to reverse engineer antivirus software from Kaspersky Labs and others. The NSA intercepted email to Kaspersky containing malware samples. They used those samples to bolster their own network defenses and proposed reusing them to to attack other intelligence targets.

TechCrunch reports Docker, Google, Microsoft and Amazon are working with the Linux Foundation on the Open Container Project, a standard for software containers. Docker will contribute its container format and runtime to get the project started. Containers allow software to run on almost any server. The project will create a standard container that can work with any runtime whether its from Docker, CoreOS or someone else.

Reuters reports 1400 airline passengers were stranded at Warsaw’s Chopin airport Sunday when the flight plan system went down for five hours. LOT airline Spokesman Adrian Kubicki said the outage was due to a “capacity attack” essentially a DDoS.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports the Australian Senate passed the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2015, introduced into parliament by Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull 37-13. Right’s holders can request a judge issue an order to block a website if its primary purpose is facilitating copyright infringement. Australian internet providers, such as Telstra and Optus, would then need to comply with a judge’s order by disabling access to the infringing location.

Newly unsealed court documents obtained by The Intercept reveal the US Justice Department won an order forcing Google to turn over more than one year’s worth of data from the Gmail account of Jacob Appelbaum, a Tor developer who worked as a volunteer for WikiLeaks. The order also prevented Google from notifying Appelbaum. The Justice Department argued that Appelbaum had “no reasonable expectation of privacy”. The Justice Department asserted that “journalists have no special privilege to resist compelled disclosure of their records, absent evidence that the government is acting in bad faith”. Google’s attempt to overturn the gag order was denied by magistrate judge Ivan D. Davis in February 2011 and denied on appeal in March 2011.

Remember the emotional robot Justin Robert Young and I talked about last week that was going on sale in Japan this past weekend. CNET reports that Softbank’s Pepper robot sold out– 1,000 robots– in one minute. Pepper costs 198,000 yen (USD $1,610). SoftBank plans to produce 1,000 units a month, with the next batch planned for launch in Japan in July.

Confused about whether you can get Windows 10 for free as a preview user without upgrading from a previous genuine install? The Verge has the answers. Tom Warren interprets Microsoft’s pythoness-like pronouncements to mean the following. Anybody who does a Clean install of Windows 10 preview edition and continues to receive pre-release updates can keep using the OS for free. Anybody else will have to prove they once had a genuine copy of Windows 7 or 8.

News From You: 

KAPT_Kipper sent us the news that Taylor Swift has changed the flow of time. I mean singer/songwriter Taylor Swift wrote a super polite open letter to Apple on Sunday morning, telling them that their plan to not pay artists during a user’s three month free trial of Apple Music was “shocking, disappointing, and completely unlike this historically progressive and generous company” and that she would be withholding her mega popular album 1989 from the service. By Sunday evening, Apple media chief Eddy Cue announced Apple would pay artists an undisclosed amount per stream for listens during the free trial. And all over the world, glitter fell from the sky and enlightened citizens of the tswiftverse rejoiced.

danielhprice1986 submitted the Globe and Mail article on how US intelligence officials followed Chinese hackers for more than five years then lost the trail last summer. It is alleged that these same groups gained admin privileges in the networks of the US Office of Personnel Management. The OPM suffered an attack that gained access to personnel records. Much of the data was stored on lightly protected systems because of the cheap available storage space.

Discussion Section

http://recode.net/2015/06/21/apple-says-it-will-pay-taylor-swift-for-free-streams-after-all/

https://twitter.com/taylorswift13/status/612841136311390209

http://taylorswift.tumblr.com/post/122071902085/to-apple-love-taylor

http://www.wired.com/2015/06/taylor-swift-apple-internet/

https://www.google.com/search?q=cheerleader+taylor+swift&oq=cheerleader+taylor+swift&aqs=chrome..69i57.3571j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=119&ie=UTF-8

https://junction10.wordpress.com/2015/06/21/those-in-glass-houses-shouldnt-throw-stones/

 

Pick of the Day

Vance wants to pick Android TV as set-top platform:

“It has been adopted as the smart TV interface for a number of TV manufacturers like Sony, Sharp, etc.” He likes the UI and says, “While it is lacking an Amazon Prime app, it makes up for that if you use Google Play Music or videos and has the best You Tube app going and a powerful voice search function (as you would expect).

The Nexus Player is $79 on Amazon, and while some find it a bit underpowered, at that price you not only the Android TV interface, but it serves as a Chromecast as well. I recently picked up the pricier nVidia Shield Android TV and am very impressed so far.

Messages 

Alan writes:

Modern garage door openers (like since 1995) use rolling codes, the same tech on a car’s keyfob. Basically, it uses a random number generator to determine what code(s) to allow entry, with a +/- range to compensate for accidental pushes and multiple vehicles. Once a code has been accepted, it can no longer be used.

So garage doors are harder to spoof than you might think these days.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/remote-entry2.htm

==

Tuesday’s Guests: Veronica Belmont

Darren Kitchen is on the show to talk about Global Solution Networks. Awful management buzzword for NGOs or the key to solving world problems? Len Peralta is in to illustrate the show too. Be nice to him folks. He’s from Cleveland.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Show Notes

Today’s guests:  Darren Kitchen, founder of hak5.org and Len Peralta, artist

The Next Web reports that Twitter is testing two new types of pages. First, dedicated pages for businesses where users can find information, images, related tweets and prices. And in great news for businesses, users can also buy products right from the app or web. The second page type is Collections, where you can aggregate products and places that might be of interest to your followers. So if you want to know what type of products Reese Witherspoon and William Shatner really love, this is your lucky day.

USA Today reports Google says it will honor requests to remove nude or sexually explicit images posted on the Internet without consent, the same way it honors requests to remove personal information like bank account and Social Security Numbers. An online form will launch in the coming weeks for submitting requests. Google normally only removes links subject to a valid legal request.

The US FCC has clarified its interpretation of a 1991 consumer protection law to assert that text messages are the same as phone calls, and that phone carriers may block robocalls to consumers if asked.The Wall Street Journal reports that despite the creation of a national Do Not Call List, the FCC still receives more complaints about robocalls than any other issue. The FCC will also make it easier to remove consent for robocalls.

9 to 5 mac reports that the original iPad mini has disappeared from Apple’s website and is no longer available to purchase new from the Apple Store. The first iPad mini was introduced in October 2012. Refurbished iPad minis will remain available from the Apple Store for $209 and new iPad minis will be available from third-party resellers until they run out of stock.

Engadget passes along a report from Juventud Rebelde that Cuba’s telecom company will open WIFI hotspots in 35 locations across the country starting in July. An hour will cost $2 with speed capped at 1MB per user. Presumably meaning 1 MBps.

Reuters reports Nokia is finally admitting it wants to get back into the phone business. Nokia can’t sell its own phones until 2016 due to its agreement to sell its handset business to Microsoft. But Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri told Germany’s Manager Magazine that Nokia “will look for suitable partners” to design and license phones to be manufactured under the Nokia brand name.

News From You: 

d8uv would like you to know that the Heinz company had great idea to put a QR code on its Ketchup bottles so Ketchup enthusiasts could design their own labels. A German man named Daniel Korell thought that was a great idea, so he scanned the QR code on his phone. One problem: He was directed to a German porn site Fundorado. Turns out Heinz ran the contest between 2012 and 2014 and the link expired this year. Unlike the ketchup in Daniel Korell’s fridge, apparently. Korell wrote to Heinz on Facebook saying “Your Ketchup isn’t really for underage people.” Heinz’s social media team apologized and said Korell could still design his own label. Porn site Fundorado offered Korell a free year’s subscription to their site. So, pretty good day for Daniel Korell!

starfuryzeta submitted the IT World article that the US Court of Appeals for the ninth Circuit rules Thursday that Google Earth Images can be used as evidence in court. Paciano Lizarraga-Tirado claims he was on the Mexico side of the border when US agents arrested him and charged him with illegal reentry. The government has introduced GPS coordinates recorded at the arrest and used Google Earth to show the location. The court determined that machine results cannot be dismissed as hearsay though they can be contested on grounds for accuracy.

Discussion Section

http://www.wired.com/2015/06/global-solution-networks-emerging-alternative-governments/ 

http://gsnetworks.org/ten-types-of-global-solution-network/http://gsnetworks.org/the-gsn-team/

http://gsnetworks.org/the-world-needs-solutions/

http://gsnetworks.org/gsn-blog/http://dontapscott.com/global-solution-networks/http://martinprosperity.org/

https://us.fsc.org/our-history.180.htmhttp://www.accenture.com/Microsites/ungc-ceo-study/Pages/home.aspx

http://www.bitnation.co/

https://www.freedomonlinecoalition.com/

Pick of the Day

Great discussion on robotics yesterday in DTNS 2518. This has been an area I’ve been paying closer attention to recently because as you stated we are now getting to the point where we have the option to buy robotics for our home. One point I wanted to raise is the impact this will have as our population ages. As Pew has highlighted the population pyramid (large base of young people with a small peak of older adults) is turning into a solid bar ( http://www.pewresearch.org/next-america/age-pyramid/  ). That means we won’t have enough caregivers to take care of us in the same way that people are cared for today. While we may not all get a Rosie the Robot yet, we are seeing massive advances.

So here is a related pick of the day. The movie Robot & Frank (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1990314/) which talks about an ex-jewel thief whose kids get him a robot to take care of him. Really enjoyable film – but maybe as we get robot caregivers we’ll also need a few extra robot security guards!

Thanks again, love the show!

Steve

Messages 

Tom – you’re brilliant! Your comment on garage door openers being just a little unsecure led to a flash of inspiration.

I’ve been setting up Belkin Wemo LED light bulbs, cameras, motion sensors and switches in my home. It occurred to me that I could set up two factor authentication for my garage door by using a Wemo switch as well as the garage door remote – as I arrive home I use the app on my phone to turn on the Wemo switch which supplies power to the door opener and then I use the remote to trigger the door opener. Hey presto!

Even if someone spoofs my remote while I’m not home the door won’t open because it doesn’t have power.

Of course this won’t stop someone physically forcing the door but a couple of antipersonnel mines should do the trick there

Cheers, Mike from wet and windy Western Australia.

==

Hey, guys. Really enjoyed yesterday’s discussion on technology and companionship. It brought to mind part of Mary Meeker’s 2015 Internet Trend Report where she discussed messaging leaders.

Apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat and Snapchat started out as relatively straightforward messaging platforms, but are now providing things like payments, games, taxi services, and even food delivery.

I think this transformation is fascinating because a more traditional software mindset would be to solve a particular problem (like food delivery), then tack a social element on as an additional feature. But we’re now seeing models emerge where human connection is at the heart of the service — where social is the platform — and then additional value is added from there.

In my mind, these types of approaches are a much better reflection of who and what we are — and hence, what we really want from our technology.

Best,
Christian

 

Friday’s Guests: Darren Kitchen and Len Peralta

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

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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: Justin Robert Young

Headlines: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

News From You:

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

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

Discussion Section Links:  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Pick of the Day:

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

WALTR by Softorino

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

http://softorino.com/waltr

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

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

Messages:

Alan writes:

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

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

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

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

We now have to consider Estonian laws:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

– t2t2 from the virtual e-estonia

Proto732:

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

Ron writes:

Fly the package to the (locked ) backyard…

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

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

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Friday’s Guests: Darren Kitchen and Len Peralta

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

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Show Notes

Today’s guests: Scott Johnson and Raj Deut

Headlines: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

News From You:

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

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

Discussion Section Links:  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Pick of the Day:

Brian write:

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

Messages:

Travis writes in:

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

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Thursday’s Guests: Justin Robert Young