Veronica Belmont joins the show to talk about the rising use of emojis. Does it signal the final demise of our civilization or is it the birth of a new universal language that will unite humanity in peace and prosperity? Or somewhere in between.

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

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

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

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

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Veronica Belmont

Headlines: 

The BBC reports on Facebook’s announcement that it will open its Internet.org program to all developers who meet certain criteria. Internet.org allows mobile users to access certain services without incurring data charges. Net neutrality advocates in INdia have accused the service of picking winners and losers. In response Internet.org will allow developers to join if the service is not data-intensive, can run on feature phones as well as smartphones, and encourages exploartion of the broader Internet.

Engadget reports that Microsoft Office 2016 is now available for free public preview. You don’t have to be a dev, or even an Office 365 subscriber to test out the newly redesigned universal apps or try out real-time co-authoring in Word, one-click forecasting in Excel, or access to OneDrive attachments in Outlook. Just go to products.office.com/office-2016-preview or look for the link in our show notes.

According to a post from 9 to 5 Mac the makers of Reserve Strap have confirmed plans to take advantage of a hidden 6 pin port on the Apple watch. The hidden port means the strap doesn’t have to use the indictuive charging, allowing quicker and higher capacity charging, improving durability and eliminating interference with the Apple Watch’s sensors. The port is covered and hidden inside of the slot where straps connect to the device. Reserve Strap will provide a tool to access it. You can preorder Reserve Strap for $249, but availability has not been determined.

BizTechAfrica reports Alcatel-Lucent and the Algerian government have signed an agreement to deploy 560 km of fiber-optic cable to link Oran, Algeria to Valencia, Spain. Upon completion in 2016 the cable will deliver an ultimate design capacity of 20 Tbps.

Mozilla has made its https plans official. VentureBeat reports Mozilla announced it intends to “start removing capabilities from the non-secure Web” specifically sites that don’t support https. Before you freak out keep in mind Firefox’s security lead Richard Barnes said “… we will have to monitor the degree of breakage and balance it with the security benefit. We’re also already considering softer limitations that can be placed on features when used by non-secure sites.”

Security Researcher Luigi Vigneri and his colleagues at the French graduate school and research center Eurecom have developed an app that checks what sites Android apps connect to according to the The MIT Technology Review. The team say 10% of apps they tested connected to more than 500 different URLs. 9 out 10 most frequently contacted ad related domains run by Google. They call their new app NoSuchApp or NSA and plan to make the app publicly available on Google Play in the near future.

Every 3 years the US copyright Office considers proposed exemptions to Section 1201 of the DMCA which makes it a felony to break “an effective means of access control.” Boing Boing reports this year a petitioner has requested an exemption for the right to use unapproved materials in 3D printers. 3D printer maker Startasys has asked the Office to deny the exemption claiming only one person wants to use unapproved materials in their 3D printers. Interetsed parties can reply at https://dmca.digitalrighttorepair.org/form

Android Police reports Google + announced Collections today, a new way to group your posts by topic. Or a way to curate your content by sets, if that helps. Or a way to Pinterest on Google. Each collection can be shared publicly, privately, or with a specific set of people. Once you create your first collection, your profile will display a new tab where other people can find and follow your collections. Android Police dug into the code and noted that collections can be suspended for violating terms of service, including hate speech, illegal content and copyright infringement.

TechCrunch got Facebook and Nokia to admit they’re partnering to provide Nokia Here maps to some Facebook users. Facebook confirmed its testing Nokia HERE maps in Android versions of standalone apps like Instagram and Messenger. TechCrunch also discovered HERE maps being used in Facebook’s mobile site. Facebook has been among the companies rumored to be interested in acquiring Nokia’s mapping division.

News From You:

jaymz668 pointed out the Verge article that multiple sources say the US Departent of Justice is looking into Apple’s business practices regarding music services. Allegedly Apple has encouraged major music labels to push Spotify and others to shut down their free streaming tiers. Apple has an antitrust monitor on its campus after it was found guilty in an ebook antitrust case last year. Apple is appealing that decision.

Motang brings us the Guardian story that Twitter has disabled the feature that allowed you to play classic DOS games from Archive.org embeded in a Twitter post. Twitter’s policy prohibits gaming inside Twitter Cards. No word on whether FUN in general is prohibited by Twitter policy :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

Indi_de_lis posted the Ars Technica article about a bug in Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner Jet. The US FAA issued a memo last week that Boeing reports that when the 787 has been powered continuously for 248 days all generator control units go into failsafe mode and lose AC power due to a software counter error. If all 4 units were powered on at the same time they could conceivably all lose power at the same time 248 days later. Boeing is developing a patch, meanwhile the workaround is to turn the generators off and then on again.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://instagram-engineering.tumblr.com/post/117889701472/emojineering-part-1-machine-learning-for-emoji

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2483634,00.asp

http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/emoji-study-sex-lives-killing-language/

http://thenextweb.com/opinion/2015/05/04/emoji-the-new-language-of-the-internet-is-improving-the-way-we-communicate-online/

http://emojitracker.com/

http://unicode.org/versions/Unicode8.0.0/

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2482364,00.asp

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2483396,00.asp

http://www.emojidick.com/

 

Pick of the day:

Co-Executive Producer anotherJmartin:

Hello Tom, Jennie, and esteemed guest,

On DTNS #2473, Nate Lanxon talked about how he rips his music & syncs it with his mobile devices with iTunes. If you want to do this with your Android, I want to recommend the Google Music app. You can upload up to 50,000 songs to it for free, and you can either stream or download them to any device with the Google Music app. It’s great if you already have a collection of ripped music already and want to listen to it anywhere.

Messages: 

Dan from Marysville:

Last week on DTNS and later on CurrentGeek I heard you state that California doesn’t allow you to sell back excess power to the power company. I live in northern California and I have a solar home and I can tell you that I can indeed sell the excess back. Take a look at California’s Net Energy Metering Law

http://www.gosolarcalifornia.ca.gov/solar_basics/net_metering.php

Tim writes:

Listening to the latest DTNS while I draw buildings.

Another thing the Powerwall is an option for is a generator. I live on well and septic. When the power goes off we can’t flush the toilets. I think having a Powerwall in the garage is better than have a gas generator that I should to run once a month to make sure it always runs smoothly. Would be nice if the power went out that my electrical system just starts off the Powerwall, no hassles. You really appreciate the things you have once they are gone. Those on city water can always flush there toilets when the power goes out. We got woods for #1, not so much for #2!

Good to see the BOL reunion show!
Keep on keepin’ on and say Hello to Eileen, we do miss her too!

Adam wanted to comment on several statements around unlimited use of the Internet. He writes:

For example content for the World Cup or Masters tournaments must be blocked for the stability of the network but, there’s another side of this, the Top Talker. 90% of the time network congestion is driven by a few Top Talkers. They decide they need to fully replicate a database or backup during business hours and we have a capacity issue. We can often address our capacity issues by changing their behavior.

Chris with another goat report:

I’m a little behind on episodes due to work, but I have my own annual goat story. The city uses goats annually to clear the grass on the hillsides up here on hills in the East Bay. They simply erect a temporary electrified fence and then unload a few trailers worth of goats for a few days, and until they mow it all down. It is a very green approach, though the renewable remnants smell awful. They also tend to bleat allot and the billies feel compelled to ram each other for an unusual sound infusion on my corporate con calls.

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Tuesday’s guest:  Patrick Beja

 

Justin Young joins us with a timeline of the rise and fall of the Secret app and what it tells us about the inside the bubble mentality.

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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

Headlines: 

Ars Technica reports Microsoft announced the release of two open source libraries called Windows Remote Arduino and Windows Virtual Shield for Arduino. The libraries let Arduinos connect to Windows 10 devices. The idea is to connect an Arduino controlled camera to the cloud or take advantage of the sensors in a Lumia phone. Microsoft also released a preview of Windows 10 IoT Core for the Raspberry Pi 2.

Engadget reports IBM, Apple and the Japan Post Group announced a project to deliver up to 5 million iPads to senior citizens in Japan. IBM has developed custom apps to help with medication reminders, groceries and such. Apple of course cites the benefits of default services like FaceTime and Messages.

The Next Web reports Uber has updated its SOS button in its app in India and is working with local authorities across the country to implement it. The service , which has been beta-tested in Kolkata, provides a button that connects the user to authorities by call while generating a text alert for police that contains location, rider info and driver info. The Delhi state government banned Uber after an alleged rape case last year.

The Verge reports that Amazon Instant Video for iOS now lets users stream video in HD. The Version 3 update also allows users to stream over their cellular data not just WiFi. However, those with data caps should be aware, streaming an hour of video at the “best” level will use 5.8 GB of data. Streaming “better” video will use 1.8 GB and “good” 1.6 GB.

IT World has a writeup of the recent Nigerian elections during which there were 58 election-related deaths. That’s lower than the previous election period of 2011, in which a thousand Nigerians died. The difference? Online services which kept people informed and provided an outlet for communication, as well as biometric card readers which helped minimize cheating.

9 to 5 Mac reports Apple added a clause to its App Store guidelines that says apps doing health-related human subject research must obtain the approval from an independent ethics review board. The guidelines previously recommended obtaining the review but now Apple may request proof. The guidelines apply to developers using the open source ResearchKit framework.adapted to other systems.

BizTech Africa reports the government of Malawi, the the United Nations Capital Development Fund’s Better Than Cash Alliance and the Mobile Money for the Poor Initiative have brought together digital payment companies to analyze and encourage the development of digital payments in the country. The program expects to raise the use of digital financial services from 3.%5 of active adults to 15% by 2019. Most people in Malawai use cash without banking services.

Jerry Chow, Manager of Experimental Quantum Computing at IBM Research told TechCrunch his team have achieved error correction for Quantum computing using two qubits that hold data and another two for checking errors. Quantum error correction is a significant hurdle since errors can be caused by common conditions in computers like heat, radiation, and material defects. Chow says the next important milestone is 13 or 17 qubits with encoded logic.

News From You:

The most popular story on the subreddit for most of the day, submitted by TheLazyOne, has been a Broadband Reports post of an LA Times report that 83-year-old AOL dial-up user Ron Dorff of Los Angeles was charged $24,298 by AT&T after his dial-up started using a long distance number. AT&T gave him the runaround until the LA Times called and now they’ve fixed the issue for him and are resolving the matter of the charges. The only news here is that someone uses AOL dial-up that much.

KAPT_Kipper sent us a CNET report that folks have discovered you can embed classic MS-DOS video games in your tweets, and play them right on twitter. Go to Archive.org’s Archive’s massive collections of classic games and software, emulated through JSMESS, copy the URL from the page of your favorite game and paste directly into your tweet. Soon you’ll be asking that age old question, Where in the World IS Carmen Sandiego? The tweet needs to be viewed from a desktop browser to play.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://medium.com/secret-den/sunset-bc18450478d5

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/30/technology/a-founder-of-secret-the-anonymous-social-app-shuts-it-down-as-use-declines.html?_r=0

https://twitter.com/ginatrapani/status/593510945726435328

http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/14/anonymish-app-secret-has-raised-another-25m-adds-facebook-login-and-collections/

http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/05/the-temporary-backchannel/

http://startupbook.co/2014/02/07/rap-genius-founders-smoke-weed-during-job-interviews-and-other-silicon-valley-secrets/

http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/18/7413417/secret-is-re-launching-as-a-faster-anonymous-social-network-with-chat

http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/06/secret/

http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/27/secret-plans/

http://recode.net/2015/04/29/anonymous-messaging-startup-secret-is-shutting-down/

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCQQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpostsecret.com%2F&ei=TG1CVeSOE8WzoQSU34D4CA&usg=AFQjCNHlMCbFc_xaVM9KqOLBb-XKgZa74Q&sig2=R5F4jO_CY_4QjNQfKVXzAA

Pick of the day:

Mordechai Lightstone writes:

Hey Tom and DTNS guest,

I wanted to suggested a relatively low-tech but beloved pick for you.

The Blackwing 602 Pencil. A pencil with a literal cult following, the Blackwing was beloved by John Steinbeck, animator Chuck Jones [of Looney Tunes fame and Stephen Sondheim. It was discontinued back in 1998, but relaunched again by the Cal Cedar Pencil Company. Originals can still be found online, sold for upwards of $50 or more – and while current 12 pack of the cal Cedar “Palomino” 602s retail at $20, they’re are an amazing analog tool with a storied past and a beautiful design. If you have some money to order a pack, or a friend to give you one or two to play around with, they’re more than worth exploring in my opinion.

Messages: 

Jonathan – Unofficial (hope to be official) DTNS Facilities Manager – writes:

While listening to you and Patrick discuss goats on Tuesday’s show, I couldn’t help but share my experience.

I’m a facilities manager and two years ago, while managing Adobe’s campus in Lehi Utah, my team decided to “rent” a group of goats for chewing down some of the weeds prior to the winter season. It worked very well for the area they were fenced in to. At one point, they did get loose and ended up distracting most of the thousand employees in the building.

To further the technology perspective on this, we decided to purchase a go-pro camera which was immediately dubbed the “Goat Pro” camera. I even found a Go-Pro website for a “Livestock Camera mount”, but after calling the Go Pro corporate office to inquire and stumping them for a while, we all saw the April 1st reference in the URL and realized we’d been had. That being said, the footage, was still fun and we got to use it in a promo on our sustainability efforts.

Alan writes: 

I’m of two minds on the idea of being able to easily port Android apps to Windows. It seems to me that this only works if the app doesn’t use any of the Google services. (games, account management, contacts, etc…)

Writing your app to not use Google services limits its integration to Android (in the Google sense, not AOSP). On the other hand, an Android app that doesn’t use Google services should be able to run not only on Windows, but also Fire OS and other AOSP branches, including Cyanogen even if they stop supporting Google services.

I’m not sure if the downside of losing Google services is worth the upside of a larger potential market. My guess is that for Android app developers, probably not. For cross platform developers, maybe so.

Marlon”theguyfromtrinidad” here:

One aspect of the app development process that was left out of your conversation yesterday was maintenance. Its great that Microsoft wants Android and iOS developers to bring their apps over to windows but they will ultimately have to deal with the bugs, communicating with users and adding new features. For many developers the costs of going onto a new platform are often not worth it.

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Friday’s guest:  Darren Kitchen & Ken Peralta

 

Ron Richards is on the show today reacting to the Microsoft BUILD announcements, specifically Android apps running on Windows 10 phones.

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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: Ron Richards

Headlines: 

BREAKING: Secret, the app that Silicon Valley insiders used to tell nasty things about each other to each other is shutting down. It’s survived by YikYak.

TechCrunch is reporting Windows 10 Microsoft Developers will be able to reuse code from the Web, Old desktop apps built in Win32 and .NET, Android apps built in Java and C++ and even iOS apps built in Objective C.  ArsTechnica is reporting that Microsoft released Visual Studio Code, a free editor for Windows OS and Linux with support for GIT. Final release expected this summer.

TechCrunch has revealed Microsoft announced the availability to developers of the release candidate for the full .NET framework for Windows AND a full preview for the .NET core runtime for Linux and OS X at aka.ms/netcore. According to The NextWeb  Microsoft’s next cross-platform integrations that allow developers to build apps that embed inside Microsoft Office. The example used was an Uber ride reminder created in Outlook on the desktop that pops up on an iPhone.

In even more Windows news TechCrunch says the new browser in Windows 10 will be called Microsoft Edge. The Verge revealed Microsoft demonstrated the Windows 10 feature called Continuum working on phones. The idea is to plug a phone into a mouse keyboard and full-sized monitor and universal apps will adapt tot he screen size to work like a desktop. And Engadget is reporting carrier billing is coming to all Windows 10 devices so you can buy something in the Windows Store and put it on your phone bill.

Finally Hololens is still damned impressive can help architects and anatomy teachers and make a real robot look even cooler with a virtual overlay and it’s all universal Windows Apps!. Is the face-mask designed by Alex Kipman too cool to care if its vaporware? (Yes I know MS promises it will come in the Windows 10 timeframe) Also Microsoft said AFTER the announcement that its working with Unity Technologies to bring HoloLens support to the Unity game engine.

The Verge reports Google has announced a new Chrome extension called Password Alert to defend against Phishing attacks. The extension compares a hashed version of your Google password to any string of characters you submit through a browser. If it finds a match— and you’re not on a real Google login page— it will redirect you to a warning page. The code is open source and could be adapted to other systems.

Instagram announced a new official account dcalled @music. Tech Crunch reports that this is the first time the company has created a dedicated account devoted to a single subject. TechCrunch also says the account will only have six posts per week but they’ve posted three times today so… who knows. Posts will be grouped by specific hashtags. for instance #LocallySourced will cover unsigned acts, and #15SecondLessons will include how to videos. Instagram created the account because it noticed that one quarter of the most popular accounts on the service were from musicians.

Richard Allan, Vice President Public Policy EMEA at Facebook wrote an opinion piece in the Financial Times warning that Europe risks strangling companies by forcing them to deal with national regulators in the eurozone according to the The Wall Street Journal. Allan wrote: ““Facebook’s costs would increase and people in Europe would notice new features arriving more slowly, or not at all.” Facebook is facing a wave of privacy probes from various EU national governments and has argued that it believes that they do not have jurisdiction over it because it is headquartered in Ireland and has passed EU audits.

The Verge reports that Samsung is once again in sole possession of the title of “world’s biggest smartphone shipper“. According to Strategy Analytics, Samsung shipped 83 million smartphones in Q1 of 2015 down from 89 million a year ago but still good enough to wrest first place away from a tie with Apple. This quarter Apple sold 61 million smartphone devices. Samsung’s growth comes from less profitable mid and low range devices. Lenovo-Motorola combine for third though also down from a year agao and Huawei took fourth.

The Verge reports that an error in American Airlines’ iPad app delayed a dozen flights yesterday. One chart in the American Airlines navigational database shares its name with another chart for Ronald Regan Washington National Airport. The iPad app that American Airlines uses became unresponsive because of the duplication. The problem won’t be fixed until an update is pushed out May 8th. Until then, pilots flying to Ronald Regan Washington National Airport will have to use paper charts or a PDF of the charts in a separate app. In 2012 American Airlines became the first airline to get FAA approval to use iPads in all stages of flight replacing 35 pounds of paper flight manuals and saving about 1.2 million a year on fuel.

News From You:

Starfuryzeta sent an IT World article about how Ham radio operators have been helping to fill communication gaps in Nepal after the earthquake on Saturday that killed at least 5,000 people. Ham operators in Nepal and India are working in shifts to help people try to get in touch with relatives and pass on information. Ham radio can work off solar power and low-voltage batteries too, which means the radios can continue to work long after smartphones and laptop batteries die. Operators in Nepal and India have been working in shifts to keep communications going with hams in other parts of the world like Turkey, Australia and New Zealand, often helping trace relatives and friends.

Habichuelacondulce sent us a Boing Boing post that a Forbes source says Tesla is contributing a car to be used by two researchers to demonstrate the reality and limits of remote car attacks at this year’s Defcon hacker convention. The talk is called Remote Exploitation of an Unaltered Passenger Vehicle and will be conducted by Charlie Miller Security engineer at Twitter Chris Valasek Director of Vehicle Security Research at IOActive. Tesla hasn’t commented officially on the talk and is not listed in the summary.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/29/microsoft-makes-it-easier-for-developers-to-bring-their-android-and-ios-apps-to-windows-10/?ncid=rss

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/04/29/microsoft-brings-android-ios-apps-to-windows-10/

Pick of the day:

Russell writes:

A while back this book was mentioned on the show and it sounded interesting so gave it a read (listen on Audible actually).

Tubes outlines the history, design, and implementation of the physical infrastructure that is the internet. It is a really great story about what the internet really is, as opposed to the world wide web; hard, complex infrastructure. The internet is in a lot of cases thought of by its use as opposed to what it actually is and this book explores the fascinating and complex web (no pun intended) of individuals, companies and municipal entities that have worked together to create the this massive and pervasive piece of infrastructure that we depend on. Blum meets a number of pretty interesting characters along the way and brings a human dimension to the story of the people who make the internet go; a somewhat different breed than the C-suite folks that you more find in the media more often. A great story for those curious about what the internet is and how it works.

Great content on DTNS as always! Looking forward to having Scott and Veronica as regulars!

Messages: 

Marlon made us a tutorial video:

Also I am very excited about the addition of these 3rd party apps being added to Google Now cards, because many of the cards are usually time and location sensitive so a spotify playlist card could appear around the time when I would usually be listening or a hotel reservation card from Hilton could show up as I walk into the hotel. Many of these cards are also pushed to my Android Wear watch giving me the information as I need it. But you have Ron Richards on the show he can tell you all about it. LOVE the SHOW
From a Boss in the Great White North:

In Episode 2481 you and Patrick were talking about the comment features coming to Dropbox. I wanted to Chime in with my two cents.

I’m a full time UX Designer and Part time teacher at a local college. This new feature will solve two big issues for me:

1. Sharing files with VERY non-technical clients that need to comment on the work we’ve done. This will allow us to send files and have them comment in the same system we’ve already trained them in.
2. Getting files from students. The course I teach (mobile web development) has the students creating files in all kinds of formats. So at the begging of a semester I set up a folder for each student and and shared drive for the class. I can then drop any file type I want in the appropriate folder and the students have access to it right away. The comment feature will make marking so much easier as I won’t have to open 6 different applications to add comments, just dropbox.

Big add for me.

Jason Hill from hot, summer-like Hachimantai City, Japan:

I’m a proud Patreon supporter. Your discussion of the steam mod communities on yesterday’s show reminded me of another Internet community that I was a part of way back in 2005. It was bought out by Yahoo and the community started to flee in droves all over the ‘net when they tinkered with site. Eventually just let it stagnate all together. The members of the community begged and pleaded, but their words fell on deaf ears. That place was flickr, and while it might still exist, and is still probably one of the best places for serious amateur and semi-pro photographers to highlight their work, there really isn’t much of community there anymore. It’s an empty husk of its former self. This is sad, because I learned most of my trade from the people there. If yahoo had actually responded to the feedback, I imagine flickr might still be a dominant player today. But that’s a what-if. The community can make or break you as a company, and I think Steam knows this. You can’t let a community hold you hostage, but you can’t ignore them either. There is a fine balance. Anyways, keep up the amazing work.

Joshua wrote:

To put the valve story into perspective, imagine Apple steps in, says to podcast creators, you can sell your podcasts and we will give podcasters 25% of the proceeds…

That puts the valve story into perspective. It’s both insulting to content creators and those of us paying knowing that Apple / Valve would be taking 75% of the proceeds with very little going to those making the content.

The part I think you guys missed is where we the people paying are not ok with content creators only receiving 25% of the proceeds.

It’s a record company disguised as a software company, valve should have first and foremost had a better price split.

Levi wrote on the blog:

I would have liked some additional info about the G4. It’s not simply a leather back on a G3. One of the big features that I’m looking forward to is the much improved camera, with lots of great stuff for photography enthusiasts, including a much faster lens (F1.8), manual controls, and a RAW format option. Theoretically the faster lens should make low-light photography MUCH better, and the manual settings will allow for longer exposures, again, making low-light images much better and less noisy.

Bishma from blissfully rainy Eugene, Oregon writes:

I just wanted to give my two cents on the G4 announcements from yesterday. Certainly the leather back made all the headlines because it was headline worthy. That said, I think the most important differentiator that the G4 has going for it is what didn’t change from the G3. The battery in the G4 is still user swappable unlike, I believe, all the other flagship phones announced this spring. This is the feature that will have me purchasing from LG next moth rather than Samsung or HTC next month.

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Thursday’s guest:  Justin Robert Young

 

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

MP3

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

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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

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

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

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

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

Show Notes

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

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

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

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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

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

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

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

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

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Patrick Beja

Headlines: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

News From You:

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

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

Discussion Section Links:  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pick of the day:

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

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

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

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

Messages: 

Jim writes: 

Tom, Jenny, et. al.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hi Tom,

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

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

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

=====

Wednesday’s guest:  Ron Richards

 

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

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

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

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

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

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Rich Stroffolino 

Headlines: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

News From You:

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

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

Discussion Section Links:  

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

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

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

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

Pick of the day:

Andy from increasingly spring like CT:

Hi Tom,

Pick of the day for you – Mountek smartphone mounts.

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

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

Thanks!

Messages: 

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

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

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

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

Which leads us to Alan who pointed out:

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

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

Randall pointed out:

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

Daryl Sensenig writes:

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

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

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

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

=====

Tuesday’s guest:  Patrick Beja

 

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

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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: Darren Kitchen and David Spark

Headlines: 

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

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

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

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

News From You:

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

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

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

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

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

Discussion Section Links:  

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pick of the day:

WScottis1 in ChatrealmMessages:

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

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

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

Thanks!

Messages: 

Rob wrote on the DTNS blog:

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

Brian writes:

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

Jeff writes:

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

Tad writes:

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

=====

Monday’s guest:  Rich Stroffolino