Patrick Beja is in today, to marvel over the Pebble Time and its record-breaking Kickstarter. Is the Pebble bigger and/or better than the Apple and Android watches?

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Show Notes

Peter Wells joins the show and we’ll talk about how the Lenovo Superfish issue is affecting dozens of other apps as well. Should you be worried?

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

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

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

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

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

Show Notes

Today’s guest: Peter Wells  of Reckoner, Australia

Headlines: 

ReCode reports Google is buying some of the tech intellectual property behind mobile payments system Softcard, formerly ISIS, the system created by AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile USA. Google also inked a distribution deal for Google Wallet with the the three US carriers. All three carriers will pre-install Google Wallet on their Android phones, starting later this year.

Today Google started accepting requests to use Inbox for Work according to Tech Crunch. “Google Inbox” has been available since late last year by invite, but didn’t integrate with “Google Apps for Work”. Google’s Director of Project Management, Alex Gawley, said the Inbox for Work experience will be indistinguishable from the consumer version. Google Apps for Work sys admins can request an invite by emailing inboxforwork@google.com. Invites should start arriving next month.

Ars Technica reports two US FCC commissioners, Ajit Pai and Michael O’Reilly have requested the commission delay its vote on Open Internet Rules for 30 days and make the entire proposal available for public review. The FCC usually does not release final drafts of rules publicly to reduce lobbying. Exceptions have been made in the past such as in the case of a change in rules on media ownership in 2003. The FCC is scheduled to vote on the new rules Thursday and DTNS is preparing a special roundtable discussion for Friday’s show.

Paul Thurrot on his still fresh and new thurrot.com reports Microsoft is delivering the first major update to the Microsoft Band fitness wearable and Microsoft Health online service. The updates includes new health and fitness insights, support for cycling, and a web app that allows you to view your data in a more detailed dashboard on any Web browser. Still no word on when more Microsoft Bands will be available for those who didn’t get in on the initial ‘measured launch’.

9 to 5 macfound an image on Pebble’s servers of a smartwatch with a color e-ink display, a larger bezel, and smaller buttons. Pebble quickly removed the image. 9 to 5 adds the image bears out what their sources say about latest pebble, which also includes a revamped OS, a battery life that compares to the first gen Pebble and no touchscreen.

After reports that the NSA and GCHQ had stolen its SIM keys, Gemalto said it would look into the matter. CNET reports Gemalto’s first statement says “Initial conclusions already indicate that Gemalto SIM products are secure.” Gemalto plans to release the full results of its investigation this Wednesday Feb 25th at a press conference in Paris at 10:30am.

News From You: 

habichuelacondulce submitted the PC World article that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Lenovo in the US District Court for the Southern District. of California. Plaintiff Jessica Bennett, on behalf of the class, complained her laptop was damaged, her privacy invaed, her computer performance degraded and her bandwidth used by Superfish. Lenovo issued a fix to remove Superfish and its compromised certificate from all browsers on affected Lenovo computers. Meanwhile the Komodia software used by Superfish to intercept HTTPS traffic has been disovered in several other programs.

MacBytes wanted to let us know about another announcement from last week’s annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Jose. The BBC reports on a project to scan the Amazon Forest in Brazil, using a drone equipped with LIDAR or Laser Illuminated Detection And Ranging– to peer through the thick forest canopy. The project hopes to locate geoglyphs or large geometric patterns in the ground. More than 450 geoglyphs have been found in places where the forest has been cut down. The project could help answer questions about the size and complexity of Amazonian civilization prior to european contact.

Discussion Section Links:  Superfish

Pick of the Day:  Hindenburg via Anders

My good friend and former coworker, Nick Dunkerley, has developed an excellent audio editing tool specifically for radio and podcast work. It’s called Hindenburg, and I use it almost every day – It has filtering and compression and that sort of thing, it can record Skype conversations (in separate tracks), etc. has lots of keyboard shortcuts and can be picked up in a few minutes

http://hindenburg.com

Anyway, as mentioned in full disclosure, I know Nick and the others behind the company, I was the first alpha tester and have remained in frequent touch with them for feedback, input and feature requests.

The name, I should say, comes of course from the (in-)famous radio piece from the airship disaster – I’ve always thought it was slightly morbid, but hey…

Cheers, and keep up the good work,
Anders

And Simplenote via Peter Wells

and a very quick pick from me, you mentioned iftt’s new Do Camera last week on the show, and it has already made it to my home screen. Why? Well I’m very frustrated with Evernote, I much prefer the speed and simplicity of Simplenote- but I always wanted a way to take quick picks of serial numbers, receipts, etc for work, without those photos clogging up my camera roll. Do Camera allows me to do just that! You can turn off “Save to Camera Roll” in settings, then take those little “important for a few minutes” photos on your phone, and know they’ll immediately be uploaded to Dropbox or your preferred cloud service.

Tuesday’s guest:  Patrick Beja, DTNS contributor and independent podcaster.

Roger Chang is on the show. Will Samsung make mobile payments easier for everyone, or just be the final nail in the company’s mobile coffin. Plus Len Peralta takes on the challenge of illustrating mobile payments!

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

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

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

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

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

Show Notes

Today’s guest: Roger Chang, co-host of East Meets West 

Headlines: 

Ars Technica reports that an update to Windows Defender includes a signature to detect and remove Lenovo’s superfish software and certificate from affected Lenovo computers. Defender doe not appear to clean Firefox or Thunderbird though which users will have to do manually. Ars has instructions. Lenovo users should make sure Windows Defender is running to take advantage of the update. Reuters reports the US Department of Homeland Security issued an alert about superfish through its National Cyber Awareness System. Lenovo CTO Peter Hortensius told ReCode “We messed up.” He added they were talking a beating they deserved it plus “We are not just curled up in a ball,” he said. “We are taking real action to make this right with our customers.”

USA Today reports that YouTube will launch a kids channel called YouTube Kids this Monday Feb. 23 for Android devices. It has a simplified interface, and a parent-controller timer that shuts down the app after a set amount of time. The home screen shows eight large tiles featuring kids programming like Thomas the Tank Engine and educational videos from Khan Academy. No word on the biggest question: Will there be Minecraft videos???

CNET reports Gemalto issued a statement Friday that it is investigating allegations that the US NSA and UK’s GCHQ stole keys to SIM Cards the company makes. In addition the world’s largest SIM card maker’s statement said “We cannot at this early stage verify the findings of the publication and had no prior knowledge that these agencies were conducting this operation.”

Reuters reports the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia has opened a case against Google to investigate complaints made by Yandex about Google’s terms for use of Google apps on Android. European regulators are considering a similar investigation. At issues is Google’s practice of requiring Android devices who want to use Google’s brand and suite of apps to restrict competing apps and services from being pre-installed.

The US Department of Commerce will scale back its role in Internet governance according to TechCrunch, columnist, Leonard Hyman. In an editorial about the future of the US’s role in ICANN he says that with the Department of Commerce ICANN contract ending in Sept, oversight of ICANN will be completely handed over to the international community by the end of the year. ICANN’s next planning session happens this June in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The Next Web reports that the US FDA has cleared genetics testing company 23 and me to market one of their genetic tests. Back in 2013, the FDA asked 23 and Me to stop selling their DNA tests because they had not been reviewed and could lead to inappropriate treatments. The company is now approved to test whether a person is a carrier for Bloom syndrome, an inherited disorder characterized by short stature, sun-sensitive skin changes, and an increased risk of cancer.

News From You: 

Hurmoth sent us the Ars Technica report that Esperanza Martinez of Orange County California received a letter about canceling her Time Warner service, a letter that replaced her first name with a derogatory slang word beginning with the letter c. And Martinez never actually canceled her service. After the company was contacted by Ars Technica, Martinez received an apology and a free year of service. Time Warner blamed the issue on a third party vendor, and said they are changing their processes to prevent this from happening again. A timeline for the services? My guess is they’ll See You Next Tuesday

the_corley sent us a news story from RDMag.com revealing the National Institutes of Standards and Technology’s role in developing new tools to measure higher frequencies planned for next generation mobile communication technology like 5G. As devices reach millimeter wavelength frequencies above 10GHz, the tools to reliably and accurately measure them are incomplete. These toosl are needed to prevent interference and errors in transmission. So far NIST has produced a calibrated modulated signal source to test millimeter wave instruments and a new probe to measure electric fields operating over a 100GHz.

Discussion Section Links:  

Pick of the Day:  BOM.GOV.AU

Nik in wet and windy Gladstone writes:

As I wright this we have a category 5 cyclone bearing down on us. A site that many Australians may have heard of but not known how useful it is in the event of bad weather is bom.gov.au. Yes the good ol’ Bureau of Meteorology or just The Bom as us young’ins call it. It has rain radar, weather charts, satellite images, forecast, historical data, flood information, tropical cyclone information just to name a handful of features and is super useful in times of natural disaster. So if your in Australia and have some weather related event you want to know more about check out The Bom at bom.gov.au.

From Nik in wet and windy Gladstone.

Monday’s guest:  Peter Wells

Jason Snell is with us today to talk about just how likely it is that Apple will build a car.

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

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

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

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

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

Show Notes

Today’s guest: Jason Snell, editor of sixcolors.com 

Headlines: 

Oh Lenovo. See. Let me tell you story, Jason. Lenovo had this idea. It would make a little extra money off consumer models by preinstalling some software called Superfish that would subtly alter ads contextually in browser sessions. Now see they would do it right though. The software was quiet. Kept to itself. It didn’t profile or monitor user behavior. It didn’t record user information. It didn’t even know who the user was.

But then then the neighbors began to notice odd behavior. Popups at all hours of the night. So Lenovo stopped pre-installing it in December turned off Superfish in January. But Chris Palmer wasn’t satisfied. Palmer conducted his own investigation. And he found bodies. Bodies of evidence that Superfish installs its own root certificate, meaning it’s a master of disguise, it can impersonate any site on the Web including your bank and you’d never know the difference. Now, it doesn’t do this. But it’s not careful with its keys. In fact Rob Graham of Errata Security cracked the key on the Superfish’s certificate meaning Rob can now sign any website as legitimate for any Lenovo computer with Superfish still running.

It’s going to take a lot to get Superfish off a computer. You need to uninstall it and then remove the certificate. And even though Lenovo stopped preinstalling it, how do you know the Lenovo you bought didn’t have it? Well thanks to Filippo Valsorda you can go to /filippo.io/Badfish/ and check. Read Dan Goodin’s article at Ars Technica if you want all the gory details. (Lenovo’s chief technology officer, Peter Hortensius told WSJ they’re working a tool that “removes all traces”)

Tech Crunch reports that A company called A123 Systems is suing Apple for allegedly poaching auto engineers in order to build an “advanced battery division.” A123 claims that it had to shut down some of its projects due to talent loss. The company filed for bankruptcy protection in 2012. According to Reuters, Apple has also been trying to hire battery engineers from LG, Samsung, Panasonic and Toshiba, as well as hiring engineers from Tesla.

Happy 25th birthday, Photoshop! The Next Web has a nice writeup about how on February 19th, 1990 brothers John and Thomas Knoll launched their small software package meant to be bundled with a scanner. Check out the interview with Photoshop’s senior product manager Zorana Gee, who’s been with the Photoshop team since 1999, and the great illustrations of Photoshop icons and toolbars through the years.

TechCrunch reports on a new direction for IFTT the incredibly useful service that lets you automate online tasks. First of all, IFTT has three new apps that make it dead simple to use pre-made IFTT recipes. Do Camera will do something anytime you take a photo with it. Do Notes will do something any time you take a note. And Do Button lets you basically do anything by just choosing from pre-made recipes. Like “get out of an awkward situation” rings your phone. Each app can store up to three recipes so you can simply tap the right button to do what you want to do.

The Intercept has a report describing how agents of the US NSA and UK’s GCHQ stole encryption keys from Dutch company Gemalto, the largest manufacturer of SIM cards in the world, in order to facilitate spying on cellphone communications. The allegations are based on documents from 2010 leaked by Edward Snowden.

News From You: 

Google opposes the US Justice Department’s proposal to ease the requirements for search warrants to know the location of a search when the location of a computer is hidden by something like a VPN. The justice department calls it tweak to protocol for remote searches. Google calls this a “monumental” constitutional concern. 1MoreMatt sent us The National Journal writeup noting Google believes any change in accessing computer data should be decided by the US Congress.

Starfuryzeta sent us the story from Fusion.net that Dropcam says it has received a “limited number of law enforcement requests” for stored video from individual accounts. Dropcam notifies owners of accounts of such requests by email unless prevented by law from doing so. Although Google-owned Dropcam says it is working on a way to report these requests it’s not not clear if such requests will be included in Google’s transparency report in the future.

Discussion Section Links:  Apple Car?

Pick of the Day:  Tempo.ai

Co-executive producer Charles Silvey wants to recommend an iOS calendar app called Tempo at tempo.ai He writes “the killer features for me is that Tempo looks at all of the people that are in a meeting and gives me one click access to their contact information in the calendar, it also looks at the meeting invite and determines what are the conference call numbers and allows you to dial numbers and pin codes with just one click. The app also looks at the location, and with one click launches Waze to give you directions. You also have the ability to send off quick “i’m late” messages if you are running late, boy does this come in handy sometimes. This is a great app and the current beta offers new features and an enhanced user interface and it is FREE!”

Friday’s guest: Iyaz Akhtar

Justin Young is on the show and we’ll talk about how Sony shows the days of the electronics company are over.

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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