DTNS 2421 – Mesh Around

Daily Tech News Show / February 3rd, 2015

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comPatrick Beja joins to explore the brewing war between Google and Uber. Is it Apple and Google all over again?

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

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

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

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

Show Notes

Today’s guest: Patrick Beja, DTNS contributor and independent podcaster at Frenchspin.com

Headlines

Ars Technica collects various reports that broke yesterday evening about Uber and Google fighting over self-driving cars. Bloomberg’s sources say Google chief legal officer David Drummond, who is on Uber’s board, showed screenshots to Uber of a Google ridesharing app. WSJ says that’s just an internal test app for Google employees. Meanwhile TechCrunch reports Uber is teaming up with Carnegie Mellon University researchers to build the “Uber Advanced Technologies Center” in Pittsburgh to research its own self-driving cars.

Ars Technica reports on Eero unveiling their mesh networking routers that promise easy setup, constant security updates and easy coverage of large homes. The routers are not extenders or repeaters, but create a mesh network. Each Eero router has a pair of dual-band 2.4GHz and 5GHz radios.  The boxes run a custom firmware stack built on DD-WRT. A cloud-based app allows for users to easily add new routers but also send links in text messages to friends for easy connection to the WiFi network.  Eero is available for preorder today at $125 for one unit or $299 for three. That’s 40% off the eventual retail price when the unit arrives this summer.

Samsung sent out invites to Galaxy Unpacked 2015 on March 1 in Barcelona, during Mobile World Congress. TechCrunch’s picture of the invite shows the side view of a bent metallic device, possibly a fork or maybe a Galaxy S6 with a curved body. We can’t be sure. GigaOm notes that korea’s DDaily suggests Samsung may partner up with LoopPay for automatic payments used in conjunction with a fingerprint sensor.

The Next Web reports that Twitter will begin syndicating promoted tweets outside of Twitter.  The company will bring its promoted tweets to Flipboard and Yahoo Japan with the same design as regular tweets.  In 2014, Twitter had 185 billion tweet impressions off its own site.

TechCrunch passes along a report from Avast on Android malware that displays ads disguised as warning messages when user unlock their device. The malware is estimated to have been downloaded int he millions. Avast has analyzed three apps, Durak card game, an IQ Test and a history app that were infected. The malware waits for several days and at least one reboot before activating.

Engadget reports on Razer’s new Blade gaming laptop for 2015.
The new Blade has a 14-inch 3200 x 1800 touch display, GeForce 970M GPU, 16GB of RAM and a max of 512 GB of solid state storage. Starting price is $2,199 although you can opt for 1080p screen for $200 less.

PC Mag looks at the 2016 roadmap for ARM processor designs unveiled Tuesday. The 64-bit Cortex-A72 which successds the A15 and A57 as the BIG in ARMS Big.little scheme– includes the new CoreLink CCI-500 interconnect and upgraded graphics processing headlined by the Mali-T880 GPU. ARM chief marketing officer Ian Drew expects the next generation of chips to get about 3.5 times the performance of what you get today as well as advanced native voice support, render pictures into 3D print jobs, improved VR and better linkage to Internet of Things device. It will use 75% less energy than the A15. Mobile chip makers that have already licensed the Cortex-A72 include HiSilicon, MediaTek, and Rockchip. More technical info coming in April.

CNET reports the China Internet Network Information Center says the country added 31 million Internet users for a total of 649 million.  Mobile Internet users rose 57 million to 557 million.  That’s good news for Lenovo’s Motorola brand. The company reported sales up 118 percent in the last quarter. And that’s without China which Motorola is now returning to.  Motorola announced Monday on Weibo that it had seen 1 million reservations for the Moto X in China. Lenovo is also expected to announce a new smartphone brand in 2015 for China that will be sold directly to consumers online.

Console game maker OUYA confirmed this morning that Alibaba is getting the OIYA game library on its YunOS platform. YunOS is Alibaba’s version of Android in China. For the moment, OUYA’s game service will be limited to Alibaba’s Tmall set-top box, and will not appear in phones. OUYA did not say anything about the yesterday’s Wall Street Journal report that Alibaba is investing $10 million into OUYA.

 

 

News From You: 

Kaeltian, tm204, and starfuryzeta all wanted us to know about reports that retail electronics store RadioShack is in talks to sell up to half of its 4,000 stores and close the rest as part of an expected plan to file for bankruptcy. Bloomberg’s sources say Sprint, Brookstone and Amazon are all interested in the chain. Sources say Sprint might co-brand stores and keep the Radio Shack name alive.The New York Stock Exchange said Monday it would suspend trading of the stock immediately.

And finally, philo1927 sent us the GigaOm post that the Wall Street Journal has sources with knowledge about Tom Wheeler’s plans for February 5th.

According to the Journal, Wheeler plans to call for Title II reclassification of Internet in the US.

Under this reclassification, could prohibit ISPS from blocking, slowing down or speeding up specific websites in exchange for payment.

The reclassification would apply to mobile broadband, and would place peering arrangements under Title II.

Discussion Section Links:  Uber Google and Eero

http://arstechnica.com/cars/2015/02/uber-and-google-reportedly-go-to-war-over-self-driving-taxis/

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-02/exclusive-google-and-uber-are-going-to-war-over-taxis?hootPostID=86b6175a61f6b983b08a1c1055694458

http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/02/uber-opening-robotics-research-facility-in-pittsburgh-to-build-self-driving-cars/

http://blog.uber.com/carnegie-mellon

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/02/02/uber-chases-google-in-self-driving-cars/

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/02/eero-takes-a-crack-at-pushing-mesh-wi-fi-through-your-whole-house/

Pick of the Day: Tubes via Rusty in Virginia

Hey Tom,

I recommend Andrew Blum’s book “Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet.” His tour-guide approach to explaining the Internet’s infrastructure and is unique and fascinating. It’s much better than any of my CS textbooks. I’m reminded of this book whenever you explain peering and interconnects on DTNS or Cord Killers.

I think this pick is especially timely given the ongoing debate about net neutrality and the FCC’s upcoming vote at the end of February.

http://andrewblum.net/

cheers,
Rusty in Virginia

Also, Patrick likes this! https://www.youtube.com/user/crashcourse

Tomorrow’s guest:  Allison Sheridan

Cordkillers 56 – The Vue Looks Good from Here

Cordkillers / February 3rd, 2015

Playstation Vue is from Mars and Sling TV is from Venus. Plus how much is 1 billion Chromecast Sessions really?

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CordKillers: Ep. 56 – The Vue Looks Good from Here
Recorded: February 2. 2015
Guest: Roberto Villegas

Intro Video 

Breaking News

Primary Target

  • A sneak peek at Sony’s PlayStation Vue internet TV service
    – WAY more channels, CBS, Turner, Scripps, NBC, Fox, Discovery, Viacom
    – Looks like they’re missing ABC/Disney
    – Gallery view as seen at CES but also Guide view on side (like new TiVO default)
    – 3-day catchup, record to cloud DVR for 28 days
    – Add any show to ‘my shows’
    – No price yet!
  • CHANNELS: “Spike, CBS, NBC, Fox, My9, Telemundo, American Heroes, Animal Planet, BET, BET Gospel, Big Ten network, Bravo, CBS Plus, Centric, Chiller, Cloo, CMT Pure Country, CNBC, CNBC World, Comedy Central, Cooking Channel, Cozi TV, Destination America, Discovery Channel, Discovery Family, Discovery Life, DIY, E!, Esquire, Exits, Food Network, Fox College Sports (3), Fox Sports 1,2,3, FX, FXM, FXX, Golf Channel, HGTV, Investigation Discovery, LOGO, Movies TV, MSNBC, MTV (Hits, Jam, 2, U), Nat Geo, all the Nickelodeons, OWN, Oxygen, Palladia, Science, Sprout, SYFY, Teen Nick, Travel, TV Land, Universal, USA, Velocity, VH1, Vh1 Classic, Soul, YES Network.

Signal Intelligence

Gear Up

  • Google’s Chromecast has been used for more than one billion casts 
    – Google’s Chief Business officer Omid Kordestani updated investors on one metric during the company’s Q4 call Thursday
    – One billion cast sessions on Chromecast
    – In October said 650 Million
    – In July 400 million
    – Google defines a “cast session” as a user pressing the cast button within an Android, iOS or web app. In other words: Streaming multiple YouTube videos to your TV one after another counts as just one session.

Front Lines

  • Netflix Prices $1.5 Billion in Debt to Fund Content, Other Initiatives
    –Netflix will raise $1 billion in debt for content acquisition and other purposes. Mostly they’re doing it because the interest rates are so low so they want to have low interest debt to cover the next few years of cash needs. However the company says they expect to launch 320 hours of original content in 2015 three times the amount of 2014.
  • NBC’s Super Bowl Live Stream Was Hugely Popular. It Was Also Terrible.
    –NBC live streamed 11 hours of Super Bowl and Super Bowl-related content online yesterday in the US. Apparently it reached a peak of 1.3 million simultaneous streams. Maybe that explains the lag. Also different commercials in the live stream which means the usual online repetition. Verizon mobile didn’t have as many complaints about its stream.
  • Sling TV strikes deal with Univision for its online TV service
    –SlingTV struck an agreement to carry Univision networks on the SlkingTV service. That includes Univision, UniMás, Univision Deportes, Galavisión, El Rey Network, Bandamax, De Película, De Película Clásico, Telehit, Tlnovelas and FOROtv. My guess? Spanish Language package available soon!
  • Adam Sandler’s first Netflix-exclusive movie has its cast
    –Ridiculous 6 will be one of Adam Sandler’s Netflix productions. Sandler will star as a man who was adopted as an orphan by a Native American tribe. Twilight’s Taylor Lautner, Rob Schneider and Terry Crews will play his adoptive siblings, while Nick Nolte has been cast as Sandler’s father. Rounding out the ensemble is Whitney Cummings, Jon Lovitz, Danny Trejo and Chris Parnell.
  • ESPN Takes Another Step Outside the Bundle, Starts Selling Streaming Cricket World Cup Subscriptions
    –ESPN will sell live and on-demand access to the 6-week Cricket World Cup for $100. The play starts Feb. 13. U.S. cricket fans can sign up Feb. 3 for a subscription at ESPNcricket2015.com, and then access streams on the Web; ESPN says it will have iOS and Android apps available by Feb. 11. Dish and Time Warner will also sell the package as PPV. 
  • Singtel, Sony And Warner’s New Video Streaming Service Beats Netflix To Asia
    –Asian Telecom company Singtel is partnering with Sony Pictures and Warner Brothers to launch a streaming video service in Asia. HOOQ will have Hollywood movies and US TV shows along with content from India, China, Thailand, The Phillipines, Indonesia, Korea and Japan. It will go online by end of March in Indonesia, Philippines, India and Thailand And then expand from there. 

Under Surveillance

2014 Winter Movie Draft
draft.diamondclub.tv

  1. Brett: $656,368,044
  2. Scott: $448,300,000
  3. Brian: $447,548,781
  4. Tom: $373,548,333
  5. Justin: $299,216,240
  6. John: $248,624,089

Dispatches from the Front

Hi Tom & Brian,

From this fans perspective I would say split the feed.

Thanks keep up the good work

Sean

 

 

I’m firmly in the doesn’t matter to me camp so long as you let us know about it. I use BeyondPod for my podcatcher and have a smart playlist that I can control what order things play in so I always get them in aired order.

Amber

 

 

I vote to split the spoilerin’ time episodes to their own podcast. In addition to the reasons Brian mentioned on the show, the main podcast is much more time sensitive, so need to keep those in my stream. I can always go back and listen to spoilerin’ time when I finally watch the shows you are spoiling.

Love the show, cutting the cord as soon as my Sling TV invite arrives!

Matt, Atlanta, GA (aka future site of Google Fiber! )

P.s. finally became your boss today, just signed up on Patreon

 

 

Hey guys as always thanks for the great weekly entertainment, was just listening to this weeks episode and Brian was doing his thing ranting about lack of bandwidth when in the sky and wondering why he can’t do any form of streaming video.

I am kind of an authority on this as I worked for Northwest Airlines subsequently Delta Airlines for 8 years and one of my job functions was to work with the aircraft engineers to install/maintain the In Flight Entertainment systems. I now work for a Major retailer and help consult on GoGo installs for the fleet of aircraft they operate.

The TV service is in fact satellite tv provided by Dish Network. That is how you are getting live tv.

The inflight wifi on the other change is provided by Aircell (Parent company to GoGo). Aircell was originally developed to provide in flight phone calls, remember the phones on the back of the head rests that you swiped a credit card to make in flight phone calls? Yea that is Aircell. When that didn’t take off (pun intended) they re-branded and changed their name and services to GoGo inflight wifi.

GoGo is an Air to Ground connection. GoGo has their own CDMA 3G towers that covers coast to coast of the lower 48 and parts of southern Canada. These towers and antennas are pointed to the sky which provides the wireless data connectivity to the aircrafts.

Each tower has very limited bandwidth, most of them are fed by a single T1, some maybe 3 T1’s. Then on top of that the actual bandwidth provided to each aircraft is also limited, at most 3mbps to a single aircraft.

3mbps that is then shared between all the users on the plane, so say you have 50 users all on a plane trying to use the inflight wifi, and sharing that single 3mpbs pipe so then you’ll start to understand why they proxy the connection and prevent steaming services.

Right now GoGo is in the process of upgrading their infrastructure to support CDMA EVDO Rev B and provide dual modems as a retrofit to aircraft, this could then provide up to 9mbps to an aircraft however you are still limited by the limited/shared backbone infrastructure that GoGo has to each tower.

So what I’m trying to say to Brian is that yes you’d think we’d be able to have 100mbps or even a gigabit connection while in the sky (wishful thinking) GoGo isn’t artificially keeping it slow and preventing users from doing youtube and Netflix while using the inflight wifi. How would you feel if you paid to use the service and one user was hogging all the available bandwidth because he was streaming a movie and you couldn’t even get a web page to load?

Anyways thought I could share some inside details about how inflight wifi works.

Josh S

 

 

Hey team!

Freakin’ love this show, and I’m proud to be a Patron! Thanks for all your hard work.

Thought I’d throw out a hiccup I’ve discovered with my FireTV Stick. When I plug in into my television, I lose all of my OTA signal. When I unplug the stick from the TV, the signal comes back. My antenna is mounted outside the house and connected using the home’s existing cable.

Could be wi-fi interference. Could be the age of my TV (2008). Just curious if anyone else had this issue, or just posting as a possible solution for other cordkillers.

My AppleTV (2nd gen) hasn’t given me any issues.

Mitch
 

 

Hello Tom & Brian.
On the previous episode you guys talking a bit about Plex. Listen, Plex is fantastic, not just great but excellent. Tom brought a good point and it was that his DRM purchased content wouldn’t play.
The reason Plex is so popular is in part yes because you can have all your ripped own content (home videos, DVD/BR ripped movies/tvshows, etc,). The other reason Plex is so popular is because it provides an easy and convenient way to stream and access all your *pirated* content.
I know you guys do not support piracy, but let’s not close our eyes to it. Obviously the reason Plex is so widely loved is because a large portion of its users pirate content and use Plex as their media server. I’m not saying that’s all they do, they probably have home movies, ripped content, etc., but let’s also not pretend that the reason Plex has become so popular is any other than the massive love of its piracy-loving users.

Keep up the great show.

Franklin.

 

Links

patreon.com/cordkillers
Dog House Systems Cordkiller box

DTNS 2420 – Who Watches the Watches?

Daily Tech News Show / February 2nd, 2015

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comChristian Cantrell is on the show to talk about Pebble’s claim to revolutionize the smart watch and be less focused on apps. What would that mean?

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

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

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

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

Show Notes

Today’s guest: Christian Cantrell, sci-fi author & tech writer

http://www.livingdigitally.net/  

http://darkmatter.fm

Headlines

A new Raspberry Pi is here! Still $35 but packed with more power. Ars Technica reports the Raspberry Pi 2 looks close to the Model B+ but has 4 USB ports, more GPIO pins, and a microSD slot instead of a regular one. The 2 also runs a 900 MHzquad-core (drool)ARMv7. That means you can run Ubuntu Core and even Windows 10 if you don’t want Raspbian. Microsoft will offer Windows 10 free to Raspberry Pi owners. The 2 is the new Model B. The $20 Model A+ remains available.  

Everquest has broken free of Sony as the company announced it has sold it’s Sony Online Entertainment games division to investment management firm Columbus Nova. The Next Web reports the division has been renamed Daybreak Game Company. The company will continue to produce MMORPGS like Everquest and H1Z1 while embracing the multiplatform world.

The Verge interviewed Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky who said Pebble shipped its 1 millionth watch on December 31st. And as Android Wear grows and Apple Watch arrives, Migicovsky says Pebble has “found a new framework to use as an interaction model on the watch.” He said apps will no longer be the main focus on the platform, saying “it doesn’t look like what is on your smartphone.”

Intel doesn’t want to get left out of the Internet of Things market the way it missed mobile at first. So it’s buying its way in. Reuters reports Intel has agreed to buy German chip maker Lantiq for an undisclosed sum. In addition to chips for networked devices, Lantiq also produces chips for networking connections, mobile broadband and WiFi. The deal is still subject to regulatory approvals and although the terms of sale have not been disclosed price estimates are around $280 million.

The Washington Post reports the US FCC will consider a draft decision this week to intervene against state laws in Tennessee and North Carolina that puts legal limits on Internet service operated by cities. The decision is expected to say that laws limiting municipal Internet prices or geography inhibit timely and reasonable deployment of high-speed Internet under section 706 of the Communications Act. The draft decision will be followed by a vote on Feb. 26, the same day as an expected vote on Open Internet Guidelines.

Reuters reports Japan message app company Line is launching online grocery delivery in Thailand, Line’s second biggest market after Japan. Line’s service will be offering products such as water, coffee and instant noodles at up to 50 percent discounts and free delivery for Thai shoppers. The service will compete against similar services from Tesco Lotus, CP Fresh Mart and Tops Supermarket.

In a story from the-next-web The Pirate Bay is back up, after being taking down Dec 9 during a raid on a Swedish data center by local police. The site is back on its original domain with a Phoenix image. The first new torrent added contained an image of a phoenix titled “Like a Phoenix, it rises from the ashes”. While the site is up features like RSS feeds are still down.

TechCrunch reports that Google’s share of the US search market, excluding mobile, dipped below 75% for the first time since July 2008. If mobile is included, Google’s share rises to 78%. Yahoo become the number 2 search engine in the US, increasing its share of the search market to more than 28% of all searches, compared to less than 10% in November 2014. This surge is due mostly to Yahoo becoming the default search engine in Firefox, which also helped.

Gigaom reports that IDC shows tablet sales were down by 3.2% tduring the holiday quarter compared to last year. This was the first time IDC showed year over year decline for worldwide tablet shipments since the market’s inception in 2010, only shipping 76 million tablets in Q4. The rest of the years increases balnced the bad Q4 out with Tablet sales for the entire year increasing by 4.4% over 2013 with 229.6 million units shipped. Apple continues to lead the tablet market with a 28.1% share, followed by Samsung, then Lenovo, ASUS and Amazon. Although only Lenovo managed to grow year over year.

 

 

 

 

News From You: 

MacBytes sent us the Reuters report that IBM is bringing back annual performance bonuses for its CEO and other top executives, despite 11 straight quarters of lower revenue, 7% drop in 2014 profits and 11% decrease in stock performance. CEO Virginia Rometty will get a $3.6 million annual incentive payout for 2014, on top of a base salary of 1.5 million, which increases to 1.6 million in 2015. She is also slated to received a $5 million award for 2015 and a long-term stock grant worth 13.3 million payable in 2018. She must have met her personal deliverables or Q targets or OKRs or some such thing. IBM did not deliver bonuses in 2013 at the request of executives.

metalfreak submitted the Liliputing.com report that Dell will offer Ubuntu installed on its new XPS 13 and Precision M3800 laptops. The linux option will cut the starting price of the M3800 by a $100 to $1533 . Machines will ship with Ubuntu release 14.04 installed. Unfortunately that means there will be no out of box support for the laptop’s Thunderbolt port although that may be addressed with 14.04.2 maintenance release. If you need something even smaller and cheaper the latest revision to the XPS 13 ultrabook will come in at $1189.

Discussion Section Links:  One Million Pebbles

http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/2/7947799/pebble-1-million-smartwatches-sold-new-hardware-coming

http://developer.getpebble.com/blog/2015/01/22/cloudpebble-pebble-emulator/

http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/02/apple-watch-retail-plans/?ncid=rss

http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/2/7950257/apple-watch-apps-google-uber-foursquare

Pick of the Day: Windscape via Tom Sidla

One of my favorite Apps is Windscape. It’s another weather App, yes, but not like any other I’ve seen. It gathers wind speed data and temps from around the globe and simulates the info with little moving dots. Very cool looking. You can zoom in and out around the globe and see typhoons, storms, polar vortexes, who’s hot and who’s not (literally). It’s $.99, so if you like science and weather, definitely check it out.

Tom Sidla, Pipe Dream Plumbing, Inc.

Tomorrow’s guest: Patrick Beja

A love letter to Borderlands Books, but not a goodbye

Shows/ Sword and Laser / February 1st, 2015

This is a post by Veronica Belmont, reprinted from the Sword and Laser website

The first time I saw Borderlands was a month or so after I had moved to San Francisco in 2004. I remember walking down Valencia Street and ogling all the stores I could not yet afford to shop in (moving to an expensive city with no job straight out of college will do that to a girl). I was probably with one of the gals I had moved out with, who couldn’t comprehend my excitement at finding a store completely devoted to science fiction and fantasy. 

It was perfect. It was as though it had sprung fully-formed from within the deepest reaches of my nerdy brain. Rows and rows of books. All my favorite authors, and many more that I didn’t even know I loved yet. Dark wood. That delicious book smell. A small, completely hairless cat named Ripley.

Here I am nervously getting my book signed by Robin Hobb at Borderlands

Here I am nervously getting my book signed by Robin Hobb at Borderlands

Throughout the years I came as much as I could, though I never became the regular I wanted to be. I wanted it to be my Cheers. That place I could go where everyone would know my name and ask me how I liked the most recent Tad Williams or Robin Hobb. In fact, I met Robin there during a book signing, and it was the most nervous I had ever been speaking with another human being in memory. She was wonderful, of course.

But I didn’t go enough. Even now, after S&L has been meeting there monthly for our book club, and even after I’ve been back many, countless times for signings or just to browse the latest releases, I don’t know if they’d even know me or know how much that store has meant.

Borderlands is closing. This physical lynchpin of my obsession for SFF is going away, and I don’t know if we can save it. San Francisco is expensive enough as it is, but a recent minimum wage increase (which I voted for…) is their real undoing. Not to mention the on-going stress of being a small, niche bookstore in a town obsessed with the digital. There’s going to be a meeting next month at the store to discuss options, and I definitely plan on being there.

Mostly, I just needed to write this to vent. I’m sad, and I’m angry, and I regret not doing more. Alan and Jude have worked so hard to keep this beautiful store open for so many years, and so many wonderful authors have come through its doors. 

Thank you, Borderlands, for being that place for us. But we’re not ready to say goodbye just yet!

Sword & Laser meet-up and anthology reading January 2014

Sword & Laser meet-up and anthology reading January 2014

DTNS 2417 After Show – Robert Heron talks more TV

Daily Tech News Show / January 31st, 2015

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comAfter Wednesday’s show Robert Heron, Jennie and Tom kept talking about TVs and more. The conversation was captured on the YouTube video but we thought it was good enough to give the audio listeners a version as well. Happy bonus weekend content.

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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

DTNS 2419a – Opting Out of Opacity

Daily Tech News Show / January 30th, 2015

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comDarren Kitchen is on the show and we’ll talk about transparency in light of Google’s new commitments to privacy and Reddit’s new transparency report. Plus Len Peralta tries to illustrate transparency. Will you be able to see what he draws?!?

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

Check out Len’s show art this week, it’s pretty hilariously awesome.

http://lenperaltastore.com/products/im-not-touching-you-print

Headlines

The NY Times reports Verizon announced Friday it will soon allow wireless users to completely opt out of its supercookie tracking program. Previously customers could opt out of the tracking being USED by anyone but the tracking still happened. This allowed clever third parties to figure out how to track users anyway. Expanding the optout to remove the number called a “UIDH” will be available “soon.”

CNET reports on a recent upgrade to China’s Internet filtering system to make it harder to circumvent with VPN and providing more scope to block unwanted material. A senior official confirmed that popular VPN Astrill has been disrupted.

Bloomberg reports AOL is firing 150 employees and closing TUAW and Joystiq, folding content from the sites into Engadget. Most of the job cuts come from the sales division. A source told Bloomberg AOL is automating its digital ad sales and simplifying its portfolio. TechCrunch reports Parentdish in the UK and MyDaily, also in the UK, are going to become a part of Huffington Post’s UK site. AOL reports Q4 earnings on Feb. 11. TUAW’s last day as TUAW is Feb. 2.

Rap artist Jay-Z has tabled a bid to purchased a Swedish company called Aspiro for $56 million US dollars. Aspiro runs the WiMP and Tidal music streamign services. CNET reports WiMP is popular in Scandinavia, Germany and Poland with 25 million songs, 75,000 music videos, and half a million subscribers. Tidal is a streaming service in the US and UK that focuses on high quality audio in the lossless FLAC format. Shake it off? Oh hell no. Jay-Z’s the new Sinatra, he can make it anywhere, yeah they love him everywhere.

Alameda is not just for nuclear wessels anymore. CNET reports that what seems to be a Tesla Model X was caught on camera, during testing at the former Alameda Naval Air Station near San Francisco. The video shows a car slightly more angular but similar to the Model X concept unveiled in 2012. The Model X is Telsa’s take on an all-electric SUV. The video was caught on an iPhone 5 and uploaded to YouTube.

Engadget reports that British Telecom, known as BT, says faster broadband is coming to the UK. BT has been testing G.fast a technology that uses a wider frequency band to increase performance on copper wire. Two pilot programs will begin this summer in Huntingdon (Cambridgeshire) and Gosforth (Newcastle) with speeds of a few hundred megabits per second which will be increased to 500 mbps over time to around 4,000 homes and businesses. Delivering those speeds to most of the UK, however will take about a decade.

Engadget reports starting today, Google Now will support cards with data from more than 40 third-party apps. For example apps like Pandora can push a card recommending a playlist or if you land at an airport a Lyft card might quote you a fare for a ride. The feature does not share data with the third-parties and works only on Android and only with selected apps.

The Verge reports Google is moving another program from research to regular old corporate division. Project Tango, the 3D-sensing and scanning technology is leaving the Advanced Technology and Projects group, aka ATAP, and into Google proper, though reporting to whom is not yet announced. Google said the same thing it did about Google Glass, namely it will keep iterating and building new devices and this is a step towards a final consumer product. But for some reason none of the headlines seeem to say Project Tango is dead. Hmm.

 

 

 

News From You: 

goofball_jones pointed out the VentureBeat article about Reddit’s first transparency report. Reddit revealed that it received 55 requests for user info in 2014, all from government agencies and all but 5 from the US. It provided some information in response to 32 of the requests. 218 requests were made to remove content and 68 of those requests were granted, all on copyright grounds. Last month Reddit had 3.2 million logged in users.

spsheridan submitted the Huffington Post article that Google has agreed to changes regarding user policy as the result of discussion with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office. The changes, which will apply to all Google users globally, will make its privacy policy easier to read and to find and give users more control over what information is shared. It will also do more to make employees, third parties, and users aware of privacy issues. While Google agreed to changes, ICO enforcement head Steve Eckersley said the investigation found no substantial damage and distress to consumers.

Discussion Section Links: Transparency

https://gigaom.com/2015/01/30/google-promises-better-privacy-information-to-settle-uk-case/

https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-blogs/2015/01/google-to-change-privacy-policy-after-ico-investigation/

http://www.zdnet.com/article/reddit-hands-over-user-data-in-over-half-of-government-requests/

https://www.redditstatic.com/transparency/2014.pdf

http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/28/dropbox-transparency-covers-non-us-requests/?

Pick of the Day: Off to be the Wizard via Big Jim

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1612184715/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1612184715&linkCode=as2&tag=subbrcom-20&linkId=4SXHRD34CRSYUQND\

Monday’s guest: Christian Cantrell

DTNS 2418 – Outlook is Good?

Daily Tech News Show / January 29th, 2015

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comMyke Hurley is on the show. We’ll talk about Apple’s declining iPad sales and what that means for the tablet as a product. Plus some good tips from listeners on buying TVs.

MP3

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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

FEATURED REVIEW: Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie

Shows/ Sword and Laser / January 28th, 2015

Welcome to our Featured Reviews! In this series, we’ll be highlighting book reviews by the S&L audience. If you want to submit a review, please check out the guidelines here! -Veronica

Review by Daniel Eavenson



Ancillary Sword (Imperial Radch Book 2)

By Ann Leckie

I’ve read the first part of the Imperial Radch series, Ancillary Justice, which I enjoyed very much.  It was an excellent introduction to a new world of science fiction, and an interesting arc for a series where an empire would wage a secret war against itself.  Therefore, I went into this second entry with a set of expectations about the content of this novel.  Expectations that were thoroughly thwarted by the author writing something else.

I had expected more intrigue and action.  More surprises and technological horrors that raged through the last third of Ancillary Justice.  I guess I had forgotten the first two thirds of quiet introspection and excellent world building that had proceeded all that fun. Instead, Ancillary Sword takes us to new places, but they are small intimate locations that hold none of the galactic level chess game that the end of the first novel had primed me for.

Ancillary Sword follows the same main character as Ancillary Justice.  The cybernetic former ship AI turned revenge driven walking corpse Breq takes command of a new ship at the behest of the emperor of the titular Radch.  Instead of pursuing the secret war raging at the heart of the empire, Breq decides that personal matters must be seen to, and travels to Athoek station, where the only living relative of his beloved Lieutenant Awn works as a Horticulturalist.

This is an extremely personal story for Breq.  The character is trying to come to grips with a new position while also dealing with the ongoing degradation of the empire due to the secret war.  On Athoek station this is mostly through the examination of class.

Of course, this being a continuation of the themes of Ancillary Justice, class is explored through an additional layer of what it means to be human.  Are you still a worthwhile being if you have been ordered and cataloged by the society around you?  Are you even human if you don’t speak the language of civilization?  This of course all being explored by someone who is decidedly not human.  An AI walking around in a stolen body.  It’s the best quality of the series and Leckie doesn’t let us down with her continued examination of our own society through the lens of the one she created.  The strength of her vision is evident through every carefully chosen word of the novel, continuing the thought provoking work she started in Ancillary Justice.

Even her “trick” of avoiding the naming of characters specific gender is continued here and used to great effect. The true genius of it is that you grow to simply not care who has what set of genes in their pants.  The trick is not to leave you guessing, but to reach the point where you stop guessing, because it just doesn’t matter.  Her other themes are done with the same deft hand, not getting in the way of the story, but always there and available to be found without a lot of guessing and pretentious philosophizing. It’s one of my favorite points of the series is that Leckie doesn’t just ask these questions but shows us the path her created empire takes when it tries to answer basic questions about who is human and what it takes to be human.

As impressed as I was by the quality of the writing I still felt that there were missed opportunities by staying with the small personal stories of Athoek station and not going out into the deep problems of the war inside the Imperial Radch.  I would probably have less concerns if the ideas and concerns of the war weren’t constantly being brought up in the story.  If I could have just been left to live in Athoek station I might have come to terms with the breaking of my expectations.  The story, though, constantly takes me back to all of the galactic level problems that Breq is actively avoiding and risking by going to Athoek to deal with his own personal issues.  Issues that I ultimately just found less interesting the possibilities that existed out in the warring universe that Leckie had crafted for us.

This is still an excellent extremely recommendable book, but it loses a star for me for breaking my expectations and then reminding me over and over about how broken they were.  3 out of 5. (Honestly 3.5 but goodreads don’t got half numbers 🙁 )

DTNS 2417 – The Big TV Game

Daily Tech News Show / January 28th, 2015

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comRobert Heron joins the show to talk about the quality of Sling TV and what TV to get whether you’re watching the Super Bowl or not.

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 guest: Robert Heron, technologist and home theater expert at http://www.heronfidelity.com/blog 

Headlines

Sony and Spotify announced a new partnership today that will let PS4, PS3 and Xperia users link their PlayStation Network IDs with the Spotify service to subscribe to Spotify Premium. The new service will launch in 41 markets. At the same time Sony’s current Music Unlimited service will close down in 19 markets as of March 29. Active Music Unlimited Subscribers on Feb. 28 will get 30 days free access through the close of the service on March 29.

The Next Web passes along the WSJ report that Amazon is launching a corporate backend email and calendaring service called WorkMail. The service starts at $4 per email inbox for 50GB of storage, or $6 if bundled with Amazon’s document management service Zocalo.

After one of their drones ended up on the White House lawn, drone maker DJI plans to release a mandatory firmware update that will restrict Phantom drones from flying in the Washington, DC area. The Verge reports that DJI’s drones currently use GPS to enforce restrictions near airports. Now Phantom pilots will not be able to take off or fly within a radius of 15.5. miles (25km) of downtown DC. The update will arrive in the next few days for the Phantom 2, Phantom 2 Vision, and Phantom 2 Vision+.

The US FTC ordered prepaid mobile provider Tracfone to pay $40 million for slowing down speeds of customers who had paid for unlimited data service. The FTC said Tracfone generally slowed data service after the customer used 1 to 3 GB, and suspended data service at 4 to 5 GB. Before those of you on other unlimited plans get too excited keep in mind that Jessica Rich, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection told ReCode that “if a company advertises unlimited, but very clearly discloses their practices with regard to throttling we would not challenge that action.”

Ars Technica reports on vulnerability in the ultrasecure BlackPhone. Mark Dowd, a principal consultant with Australia-based Azimuth Security reported a “type confusion vulnerability” in SilentText. Attackers could send a payload to a SilentText account that would overwrite a pointer in memory and allow surreptitious decryption. Silent Circle, the makers of Silent Text and BlackPhone have fixed the vulnerability. There is no evidence it was ever exploited.

TechCrunch reports on a new keyless deadbolt from Lockitron. The previopus crowdfuned project from the company cost $179 and to put it nicely, had problems. The new smaller Bolt sells for $99 although it replaces the deadbolt altogether rather than fit over your old one. The new Bolt connects to a smartphone by Bluetooth LE. There’s also a $49 adapter that can allow for remote unlocking, although this can be done without the adapter by email or SMS.

Ars Technica reports on another round of good news for Nintendo’s Wii U. Wii U sales rose 40% in the Americas in the past year and 64% in other non-Japanese countries (Europe and Australia mostly). The bad news came from the home country. Wii U sales dropped 40% last year in Japan. The new Nintendo 3DS shipped 1.84 million units after its debut in Japan and Australia. Nintendo reduced annual sales projections for the current fiscal year by 6.8% citing a weakening yen.

Are you ready for some football? Well, Facebook is. According to Engadget by way of Reuters, Facebook will be selling ads that target users based on what they’re talking about in real time on Super Bowl Sunday. That means there’s a good chance your Facebook feed will be full of American football chatter, which means lots of related ads, including video ads that will play automatically in your newsfeed. So if you live in Seattle, and you start seeing a lot of ads for bicycle pumps, proper car tire inflation, and nerf balls, you’ll know why. (For those who are not into sportball, this is about deflategate. You can look it up.)

Are you ready for some earnings? Facebook has 1.39 billion users up 2.96% over the previous quarter. The company had earnings per share of $0.54 on revenue of $3.85 billion, beating analysts expectations.

 

News From You: 

andrewdaley submitted The Intercept report on another Snowden leak this time about Canada’s Communications Security Establishment. According to documents a program called LEVITATION can monitor downloads in several countries across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and North America. LEVITATION analyzes records of up to 15 million downloads daily from popular websites commonly used to share videos, photographs, music, and other files. Only RapidShare, SendSpace and MegaUplaod were named int he documents. LEVITATION gets its data from a separate operation called ATOMIC BANJO that obtains data directly from tapped cables.

johnsie776 submitted this Engadget story. Need a new trachea? Within the next five years you may be able to print one on your MakerBot. Although you should let a doctor put it in. Engadget reports a team at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research have developed a technique to produce cartilage to repair damaged tracheas using a MakerBot Replicator 2X Experimental to print a scaffold. The technique is faster than other reconstruction methods and a lot cheaper than current biological printers.

 

Discussion Section Links:

http://www.heronfidelity.com/blog/deal-alert.html

http://www.heronfidelity.com/favorite-gear/

http://www.heronfidelity.com/blog/lcd-update-quantum-dot-color.html

http://www.heronfidelity.com/blog/tv-picture-setup-guide.html

http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-sling-tv-launches-review-20150125-story.html

Pick of the Day:  Revo Uninstaller via Andrew Hughes

I use Revo Uninstaller often and think a lot of other people could benefit from using an uninstaller like this. Revo is a free program but has a pro version for a bit extra depth but what’s most important is that it removes all the files that programs leave behind so if I wanted a clean reinstall or I want to rid myself of a program that leaves behind a lot of excess clutter it is a quick and easy task.
Thank you to everyone at the DTNS crew I love what you do.

Tomorrow’s guest: Myke Hurley, co-founder of Relay.fm