Patrick Beja is on today and we’ll talk about the FTC suing AT&T over the word “unlimited,” YouTube considering ad-free subscriptions, and a company that wants to pay you $50 to film your neighborhood 24/7.

MP3

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

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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

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

Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the 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 Grand High Inquisitor and host of Le Rendez-vous Tech

Headlines

The Verge reports that the US Federal Trade Commission is suing AT&T for throttling speeds of its unlimited mobile data customers. In a press release the FTC said AT&T has “misled million of its smartphone customers” by slowing down their data speeds after they’ve used up a certain amount of data in a month. According to the FTC, 3.5 million unique customers have had speeds slowed more than 25 million times. “The issue here is simple: ‘unlimited’ means unlimited,” said FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez. AT&T issued a strongly worded statement saying, “We have been completely transparent with customers since the very beginning.” and “The FTC’s allegations are baseless and have nothing to do with the substance of our network management program.”

The Verge reports Verizon’s latest Droid from Motorola was announced today. The Droid Turbo has 5.2-inch screen with quad HD, Snapdragon 805, 3 GB of RAM, 21-megapixel camera and a 3900 mAh battery. It’s similar to the Moto X but with better specs. It comes with a Turbo Charger than can add 8 hours of battery life on a 15 minute charge. Droid Turbo will launch with KitKat but get Lollipop after release. It arrives Oct. 30th for $200 on contract for 32GB and $250 for 64 GB.

BBC News reports that Google is working on technology to diagnose cancer and heart disease much earlier, using nano particles that can identify slight changes in a person’s biochemistry. The nano particles would enter a patient’s bloodstream in a pill, and communicate with a wrist-worn sensor. The Google X project is not meant to be a consumer device. The project lead, molecular biologist Dr Andrew Conrad, made clear that Google would invent the technology and license it to medical partners. It would not be comemrcialised or monetized directly by Google. So no adsense in your bloodstream.

ZDNet reports on a report from security firm FireEye called “APT28: A window into Russia’s cyberespionage operations?” The report describes an Advanced Persistent Threat focused on collecting intelligence from military, security and governmental organizations in eastern Europe. The report notes the malware involved were developed in a Russian-language environment and 96% was compiled during working hours 8AM- 6Pm Monday – Friday in Moscow’s timezone. FireEye believes APT28 is likely sponsored by Russia’s government but showed no direct links.

TechCrunch reports Tim Cook, speaking at the Wall Street Journal D technology conference, said Apple Pay activated one million credit cards in its first 72 hours. According to The Verge, when Cook was asked about retailers choosing not to support Apple Pay, he said, “In the long arc of time you’re only relevant as a merchant if your customers love you,” and called the CVS and Rite Aid incident “a skirmish.”

Be prepared to pour a little out for plasma TVs. LG says it will wind down its plasma TV business by the end of November and switch to LCD-based technology for its TVs. Samsung is the last major player manufacturing plasma TVs. This also confirms the “Tom Merritt buys TV tech that soon dies” principle as his lat two TVs were plasma and DLP.

TechCrunch reports the W3C published its recommendation of HTML5, the final version of the standard. Browsers already support most of HTML5’s features but the standard was still open for revision until now. Non-interoperable features, like support for DRM, have been moved to HTML 5.1.

The Wall Street Journal reports Facebook announced it’s Q3 earnigns of $3.2 billion in revenue with adjusted EPS of 43 cents. Analysts expected revenue of $3.1 billion and 40 cents a share. Daily active users was 864 million with mobile making up 703 million. Monthly active Users was 1.35 billion up 2.27% with mobile making up 1.12 billion up 4.67%. But what about the teeeens?

News From You

metalfreak posted the liliputing article about researchers at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology that have developed an LCD screen that can hold a static image for years without power. It uses an optically rewritable liquid crystal display (ORWLCD) that does not require an electric current to display an image.

habichuelcondulce sent in the Washington Post article about T-Mobile upgrading its network to make surveillance more difficult. The upgrade involves using A5/3 encryption on 2G GSM networks. Stronger encryption is already used on 3G and 4G service. An estimated 13 percent of cellular connections used 2G technology in 2013 in the US compared to 68.4% worldwide.

StarfleetMedical sent in the howtogeek.com post describing a package manager in Windows 10 called OneGet. The Linux-style package maagement system ships as part of PowerShell. It’s also available as part of the Windows Management Framework 5.0 Preview for Windows 8.1. Microsoft’s Garret Serack wrote about the new feature at Technet. Install-Package -Name VLC for instant would download and install VLC.

Discussion Links:  Placemeter

http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/oct/27/-sp-placemeter-app-street-view-window-new-york-smartphone

http://vimeo.com/user15240420

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140918006156/en/Placemeter-Raises-6-Million-Series-Funding-Led#.VE_a4JPF_ZJ

http://blog.placemeter.com/

http://placemeter.com/faq

Pick of the Day: MoveMouse via Allison Sheridan

This one might be too obscure but I bet you’ll still like it.

One of my blind listeners asked if there was a way to move the cursor on a Mac by a specific distance on screen. Slau said that sometimes there’s an unlabeled element on screen that he needs to click, and if someone else could tell him where it was relative to a labeled element AND he could move the cursor by precise increments, he could get to the unlabeled element.

So…Dorothy wrote him an application to do it!  She’s packaged it up pretty nice, and I did a blog post on it so there’s a link for download.

Wednesday’s guest: Andrew Mayne

Amber Mac joins us to talk about Facebook’s offer that journalism fears it can’t refuse. Is it AOL all over again or the death of journalism? probably neither. we’ll explain why.

MP3

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

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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

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

Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the 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: Amber MacArthur, Host of TechDownload on AOL/Delta & TV Host, Bestselling Author, Speaker, Blogger, Exec. Producer, Entrepreneur

Headlines

The Next Web reports that Fitbit has revealed three new activity trackers to wear on your wrist. The Fitbit Charge tracks steps, distance travelled, calories burned and allows you to see incoming calls. It costs $130 and is only available in the US today. The Charge HR adds a heart monitor for more accurate tracking, costs about $150, and will be available in the US in early 2015. Finally the Fitbit Surge has all of the above plus a GPS chip for collecting pace, distance, elevation and route history. It will also allow you to see incoming called, message and control music playback. The Surge will cost $250 in early 2015.

The Next Web reports Microsoft announced that Office 365 subscriber will get unlimited cloud storage in Microsoft OneDrive as a part of their subscription. The offer is rolling out to home, personal and university accounts over the next couple of months.

CNET reports on Amazon’s announcement of the Fire TV Stick in the US for $39. It comes with a dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage as well as apps like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Instant Video and a remote. You can also get the voice-recognition remote from Amazon for an extra $30. Fore the first two days of sales, existing Amazon Prime members can get the stick for $19. Other purchasers will get a free month of Prime.

The New York Times reports Facebook has been on a “listening tour” with media outlets suggesting the begin serving pages of content within Facebook Mobile in exchange for a revenue share. That deal would drive a lot of traffic of course but also put Facebook in control of customer data and the reading experience. News outlets have been struggling with the fact that large amounts of their traffic are driven from Facebook these days.

The Next Web reports the Xbox One will get a $50 price cut in the US during the upcoming holiday season, down to $350. Special edition bundles get a cut as well. The price cuts go into effect November 2nd, 2014 and lasts through January 3rd, 2015.

The latest in the saga of your TwitPic pictures is reported by the Next Web. TwitPics archive and domain name will be acquired by Twitter. No new pictures will be allowed but existing pictures will not disappear.

ReCode reports Twitter announced its Q3 earnings of a penny per share on revenue of 361 million dollars. That’s pretty much what the analysts expected. Twitter also had 284 million active users up from 271 million in Q2.

News From You

the_corley sent in an Engadget report that the US FCC fined phone carriers TerraCom and YourTel a combined $10 million in penalties for storing their customer information in the clear, including addresses and social security numbers. The carriers also failed to notify their customers after the mistake was discovered. TerraCom and YourTel provide lifeline cell phone service to low income customers.

habichuelcondulce submitted the CNET report that Elon Musk continues to warn us to be careful with Artificial Intelligence. Speaking at the MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics Department’s 2014 Centennial Symposium, Musk said, “With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon. You know all those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram and the holy water and he’s like… yeah, he’s sure he can control the demon, [but] it doesn’t work out.” Musk has warned on this matter before and believe some kind of national or international oversight should exist.

And KAPT_Kipper submitted a Torrent Freak article informing us that the European Union has ruled that embedding content on a website is NOT copyright infringement, even if the work in question was uploaded illegally. The full decision has not been published on the court’s website, but it states that embedding a file or video is NOT a breach of creator’s copyrights under European law, as long as its not altered. So give it up for iframes, people!

And many of you wanted us to talk about this. Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports pharmacy chains, CVS and Rite Aid have both decided not to support Apple Pay options in their stores even though some terminals reportedly would accept the payments. The two companies are part of the Merchant Consumer Exchange’s system called CurrentC which uses QR codes to conduct transactions, and more importantly lets merchants keep all the money rather than giving credit card companies a cut. (Justin Robert Young has more on the Merchant Consumer Exchange with a look at the numbers)

Discussion Links:  Facebook’s Mobile Content Play

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/business/media/facebook-offers-life-raft-but-publishers-are-wary.html?_r=0

http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-looks-to-woo-publishers-with-mobile-content-offer-2014-10

https://gigaom.com/2014/10/27/so-facebook-controls-the-way-millions-of-people-get-their-news-what-should-we-do-about-it/

https://gigaom.com/2014/10/09/a-tip-for-media-companies-facebook-isnt-your-enemy-but-its-not-your-friend-either/

Pick of the Day: Writeometer via Danny

Howdy Tom and Jenny,

For the last couple weeks, as I’ve been gearing up for NaNoWriMo, I’ve been using a free Android app called Writeometer. It’s primary function is to allow writers to track their word count progress. It can track several projects at once. In addition to that, it adds a bunch of other features such as a timer, a reward system, motivational quotes, a dictionary, thesaurus, and word-of-the-day function with WordNik as the backend.

I’ve been very pleased with it, and it’s become the Swiss Army knife of my writing tools.

Tuesday’s guest: Patrick Beja, DTNS King in the North

Sean Hollister rode the Hendo Hoverboard and chats with us about what the tech might actually be used for and what it was like to be Marty McFly for a moment. Also Len Peralta is hear to illustrate the episode!

MP3

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

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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

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

Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the 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: Sean Hollister, Reviews Editor at Gizmodo and Len Peralta, DTNS artist in residence

Headlines

Bloomberg BusinessWeek reported Amazon’s 95 cents per share loss in Q3 was worse than the 74 cents per share loss analysts expected. Although revenue came in at $20.58 billion, a 20% rise from a year ago though analysts expected it to be even better. Amazon is spending a lot, $21.1 billion on operations including new initiatives like Amazon Fresh and Fire devices, though the company barely mentioned the Fire Phone in its report.

GigaOm reports as expected, Microsoft is officially ending use of the word Nokia in the branding of its Lumia phones. New smartphones from the company will be called Microsoft Lumia devices. Microsoft has the right to use the Nokia name until 2023 and will continue to use it on entry level handsets like the Nokia 130.

Recode reports that Paris-based subscription music service Deezer has purchased podcast aggregator Stitcher. Deezer says it will keep Stitcher’s Android and iOS apps as standalone products, and integrate Stitcher into Deezer under the label ‘TALK.’ Stitcher has 35,000 radio shows and podcasts. The terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed.

The New York Times reports that 57-year-old Google SVP, Allan Eustace broke Felix Baumgartner’s word record for a high-altitude jump. Eustace attached himself to a series of high altitude helium balloons and floated up above Roswell, New Mexico. The balloons took more than two hours to ascend to 135,908 feet, at which point Mr. Eustace separated from the balloons using a small explosive device and started his fall down to earth at speeds up to 800 miles per hour, breaking the sound barrier on the way down, before opening his parachute and landing safely on the ground fifteen minutes later.  [Then  he got re-org’d, according to re/code. ]

MacRumors reports users in its forums report AT&T has locked the virtual SIM in some iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 3 models. A newly posted Apple support document backs this up saying, “When you choose AT&T on iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3, AT&T dedicates Apple SIM to their network only.” The device remains unlocked so you can get a new SIM if you switch off of AT&T. Why is AT&T subverting the every advantage of the programmable SIM? A spokesman Mark Siegel told ReCode “it’s just simply the way we’ve chosen to do it.”

GigaOm reports Bitcasa will remove its unlimited storage plan, known as ‘infinite drive’ as of November 15. The company will also reduce its free tier from 20 GB to 5 GB. Users who signed up for an infinite drive now have to choose from either a Premium account ($10 a month or $99 a year for 1TB) or Pro account ($99 a month or $999 a year for 10TB). Bitcasa claims less than 0.1% of accounts use more than 10 TB and implied many of those abuse the service.

Ars Technica reports Verizon Wireless customers are being tracked with Unique Identifies Header added to each Web request sent through the system. The UIDH is used to help advertisers better target mobile ads. Verizon Wireless claims they do not use the IDs to create customer profiles, keeps users anonymous and changes the IDs after a set period of time. Users can opt out of the program by visiting:

https://wbillpay.verizonwireless.com/vzw/secure/setPrivacy.action

However UIDHs will still be attached to Web requests. Verizon says users who opt out will not have any information associate with those ID numbers. They promise.

A Hacker News post links to an eevblog forum post from FTDI saying the company has removed the driver that bricked Arduino’s that may have had counterfeit chips. TDI CEO Fred Dart said, “The recently release driver release has now been removed from Windows Update so that on-the-fly updating cannot occur. The driver is in the process of being updated and will be released next week. This will still uphold our stance against devices that are not genuine, but do so in a non-invasive way that means that there is no risk of end user’s hardware being directly affected.”

News From You

habichuelcondulce sent us Jon Brodkin’s Ars Technica writeup of T-Mobile’s need for low-band spectrum to help it better penetrate building walls and travel longer distances. The FCC is conducting an auction next year of the 600MHz spectrum, which is currently controlled by TV broadcasters. T-Mobile is asking the FCC to reserve at least 50 percent of that spectrum for competitors with little or no low-band spectrum in their market. According to T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon control nearly three-quarters of low-band spectrum in the US. T-Mobile USA did not participate in the 2008 700 MHz auction which famously carried open access restrictions pressed by Google.

And dmmacs flagged us to a Verge write-up about a new mini-documentary from Nate Silver’s 538 and ESPN which examines the legendary chess matches between Gary Kasparov and IBM’s Deep Blue computer in the latter half of the nineties. Turns out, when Deep Blue finally beat Kasparov, it was due to a computer ERROR. Essentially Deep Blue got stuck in a loop on the 44th move. The computer was programmed to make a safe move when it got stuck. Apparently Kasparov overthought the meaning behind that simple move, which led to his defeat.

Discussion Links: 

http://gizmodo.com/the-hoverboard-is-real-and-i-rode-it-1649345408

http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/dont-get-too-excited-about-that-new-hoverboard-just-y-1648896230

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenz’s_law

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

http://www.arxpax.com/#/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/21/technology/hoverboard-still-in-the-future.html?_r=0#

http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/21/7025197/i-rode-a-real-hoverboard

http://patents.justia.com/patent/8777519

Pick of the Day: The Logitech Harmony Ultimate via Tom. You know, Tom! The host! Of this show!

Monday’s guests: Amber MacArthur

Nate Lanxon is on the show today. we’ll talk about Ello making it illegal for themselves to sell ads, Facebook’s attempt to recapture the message board spirit of 1999 and the future of community on the Web.

MP3

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

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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

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

Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the 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: Nate Lanxon, editor of wired.co.uk, ed-in-chief of Ars Technica UK

Headlines

Facebook launched another independent app from their Creative Labs called Rooms. TechCrunch reports the app will allow users to set up Rooms devoted to a particular discussion topics. While users can choose any screenname they wish, participants must be invited by QR code. also moderators can ban users by device. Facebook will also have the ability to unilaterally delete posts ban members or take down entire rooms if they violate its community guidelines. Rooms will be available for iOS only in the US, UK ad a few other countries, with an Android version coming in 2015.

Ello raised another round of funding, $5.5 million this time, but made a more unusual move. The company has filed as a Public Benefit Corporation in Delaware. This means the company is not only beholden to its stockholders return but also to benefitting the public. Transit agencies, port authorities and government entities like the US Post Office and Corporation for Public Broadcasting are examples of Public Benefit Corporations. Ello made its investors sign a letter committing to never taking ads, never making money from selling user data and forcing any new owners that might acquire Ello to do the same.

The BBC reports that Mark Zuckerberg was in Beijing and gave a speech in Mandarin during a meeting with students at the Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management. The reviews are in: Quartz said he sounded “like someone was stepping on his face”. Isaac Stone Fish at Foreignpolicy.com wrote “he can communicate like an articulate seven-year-old with a mouth full of marbles.” Zuck himself said “The Chinese language is difficult, and I speak English, but I like challenges.” Zuckerberg set a goal in 2010 to learn Mandarin, in order to better communicate with his in-laws. And maybe also China’s 641 million internet users. And the Chinese government, which does not currently allow those users access to Facebook.

GigaOm reports Amazon launched its sAWS region in Germany, its second in Europe, the other being in Ireland. The region is run out of Frankfurt. The location will improve reliability and latency for many customers and also make it easier for Germany companies to use AWS. Germany has the strictest data protection laws in Europe.

TechCrunch reports Google has hired by acquisition the teams behind deep learning startups Dark Blue Labs and Vision Factory which both spun out of Oxford University in the UK. Google will also partner with Oxford on wider research efforts int he area of AI. The teams will join Google DeepMind which Google acquired in January. The teams specialise in natural language understanding algorithms that help robots process 3D objects and movement.

Engadget reports that Canonical released Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn today in celebration of 10 years of Ubuntu. The update is very minor featuring a developer tool center that makes it easier to write Android apps, as well as support for zero-setup printers and 64-bit ARM chips. So enjoy your ‘humanness’, you 25 million Ubuntu users–it’s your special day. (If you want to read more about the ten year history of Ubuntu Ars Technica has a great writeup)

If you, like me, and almost nobody else were following the story of China cornering the market on rare Earth minerals, you can rest easy. Vox has a story showing that a combination of stepped up production in the rest of the word and reduction of dependence on the minerals in manufacturing has combined to avoid a crisis. Rare Earth minerals like Neodynium and Dysprosium are used in the manufacture of many electronics. In 2010 China produced 97% of the world’s rare earth minerals and began restricting exports.

TechCrunch reports Microsoft earnings are in and they are good! Revenue was $23.2 billion in the fiscal first quarter with earnings per share of 54 cents. That beat analysts expectations of $22.02 billion and 49 or 50 cents a share. Surface revenue was a bright spot with $908 million. And the phone line was $2.6 billion a rise from Q4.Office 365 for consumers grew to 7 million subscribers, up 25 percent from the preceding quarter. Devices and Consumer revenue was up 47 percent to $10.96 billion. Its Commercial revenue was up 10% to $12.28 billion. Windows.

 

News From You

KAPT_Kipper pointed out the Ars Technica article that driver update deployed through Windows Update for USB-to-serial chips made by FTDI is causing some Arduino microcontroller to become unresponsive. Bricked. The twist is the drivers actually only affect counterfeit chips. This may be an accident, it may be a side effect that FTDI doesn’t mind, or it may be on purpose. FTDI has recovery software that enables chips to be reprogrammed, and when used with some older drivers, it appears possible to reset the bricked chips.

swiftpawz sent us an Android Central report that Chromebook shipments increased by 67 percent in the second quarter of 2014. ABI Research, the company that rounded up the data, predicts total 2014 shipments will double those of the previous year. The US accounted for 78% of Chromebook purchases. In emerging markets, especially in Asia-Pacific and Eastern Europe, business-purchasing entities account for 75 percent of Chromebook sales.

In space, no one can hear you scream, but on Soundcloud, you can now hear the sounds of space. Or at least the sounds from things that flew into space. thisisnotjr sent us the BBC report that NASA has released 60 sound samples of historical audio from NASA missions on Soundcloud, including the immortal words of Neil Armstrong when first stepping onto the moon, and Apollo 18’s “Houston, we’ve had a problem.” Commencing download in 10, 9, 8…

Discussion Links: 

http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/23/facebook-rooms/?ncid=rss

http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/23/josh-miller-rooms/?ncid=rss

http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/23/ello-raises-5-5-million-legally-files-as-public-benefit-corp-meaning-no-ads-ever/

https://ello.co/wtf/post/FsXDQrTHGLKhHbaSaVrHXg

https://ello.co/downloads/ello-pbc.pdf

http://www.tsu.co/

Pick of the Day: on{x} via Christian W

You were mentioning Microsoft Garage…

I believe one of the most exciting things to come out of that endeavor is on{x}.

https://www.onx.ms/

It can best be described as Tasker on steroids. Using javascript you can make your Android phone react to certain situations.
Just got home? Text someone.
Geolocation near anything matching the bing search “Science museum”, get a notification.

If you can code it, it works.

I used it when I had an android phone. Now I have a Lumia 930, and the sucker is more locked down than an iPhone.

Love the show.
From wet, cold and currently sucky, Trondheim Norway.

Christian W.

Friday’s guests: Sean Hollister, Reviews Editor at Gizmodo and Len Peralta, DTNS artist in residence

Eric Franklin from CNET joins us to talk about the new iPads out today and the future of tablets in general.

MP3

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

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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

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

Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the 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: Eric Franklin, Cnet section editor covering how-to and tablets / co-host of CNET’s The Fix

Headlines

ReCode reports Twitter unveiled a developer toolkit called Fabric at Flight, the company’s first mobile developer’s conference. Fabric has three main parts. Crashlytics SDK helps devs fix any app’s stability. The MoPub SDK helps devs implement Twitter’s MoPub advertising in apps. And the Twitter SDK which as you might expect, allows Twitter posts to be embedded in apps, but ALSO has a password-free authentication mechanism called Digits. Rather than use a Twitter account, Digits can create an account for any service using only a phone number.

Google has a new email app called “Inbox” from the same people who built Gmail. TechCrunch reports that the Inbox app is designed to present information from your emails in a helpful context; it shares similar features with Google Now. “Inbox” Features include “Bundles” a way to group similar types of emails together, like receipts; “Highlights” which flags the user to upcoming events and all those links to articles your mom sends you; as well as Reminders, Assists and Snoozes. Best of all, it’s available cross-platform, however, as an app for iOS, web and Android, but only in the Chrome browser.

The Next Web reports Microsoft released the final build of it’s Kinect SDK 2.0 for Windows. For the first time, developers can publish Kinect apps tot he Windows store. The second-generation Kinect for Windows was released in July. Microsoft also announced a $49.99 adapter kit which can make the Xbox version of Kinect work with Windows.

Those of you waiting for the first Apple Pay glitch can relax now, or get excited if you’re a hater I guess. Bloomberg reports about 1,000 transaction made with Apple Pay were mistakenly duplicated. A processing mistake between BofA and one payment network, not Apple, was to blame according to a person familiar with the matter. A Bank of America spokeswoman apologized and said the company was correcting the mistake immediately.

TechCrunch reports on an app called PhotoMath from MicroBlink that can take a picture of a math problem and deliver the steps for solving it. While the app could be very attractive to math students, Microblink says it does not want to get into the education market but merely show off what its machine vision technology can do. The company provides ready-to-use SDKs for particular use cases, such as bill payments or equation solving. But I think I can prove students will find the demo very compelling.

The Verge reports Apple’s Tim Cook and Chinese vice premier Ma Kai met today. The Xinhua news agency says the pair “exchanged views on protection of users’ information” and “strengthening cooperation in information and communication fields.” No mention was made of the iCloud attacks alleged to be coming from within China, although Apple has acknowledged “intermittent organized network attacks.” Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is also in Beijing to visit Tsinghua University where he has been appointed a member of the School of Economics and Management’s advisory board.

TechCrunch reports Xiomi’s Hugo Barra announced the company will migrate international user data to servers outside of China. Barra believes the migration will cut network request latency for users in India by up to 350ms, and help users in Malaysia to experience 2-3x faster Mi Cloud photosync. Xiomi brings in a large part if its revenue from software services. MIUI services will be housed in Amazon AWS data centers in Oregon and Singapore with more locations being considered.

Samsung and Barnes & Noble are teaming up again with a tablet called the Galaxy Tab 4 Nook 10.1, because that’s a snappy name! According to Engadget, it’s essentially the same build and design as the Galaxy Tab 4, but with Barnes and Noble apps including Nook Library and Nook Shop. The cost is $199 after instant rebate and includes $200 worth of free book-related content.

 

 

 

News From You

UKtechBlogger sent us a New York Times article about the Hungarian government’s desire to tax the Internet. The draft bill in the Hungarian parliament would tax Internet providers 150 forints (that’s about 60 US cents) per gigabyte of data traffic. The economic minister says it will raise up to 20 billion in revenue. Fixed-line Internet traffic in Hungary was 1.15 billion gigabytes in 2013 plus another 18 million in mobile internet which is more like 175 billion forints. So maybe there’s going to be a cap on the total amount? Either way, Hungarian citizens are not happy, and have planned a rally on Sunday outside the economic ministry.

gowlkick submitted the CNET story about several companies demonstrating 1 Gbps or faster Internet service over DSL at the Broadband World Forum in Amsterdam this week. Broadcom, Triductor Technology and Sckipio are making network equipment chips that support something called G.fast that enables faster DSL speeds. Network equipment would need to be less than 50 meters from buildings to deliver top speed. G.fast service could arrive in homes beginning in 2016, although Telekom Austria has the tech working in real-world tests already.

And finally, battlekoalatsu submitted an Android Central report about some new Android apps from Microsoft Garage, a newer ‘work on what you want’ division of Microsoft. Yes. Android apps. From Microsoft. Apps include “Next Lock Screen” a notification lock screen; “Journeys and Notes” a social travel app, Bing Torque, an app that launches a Bing search wen you turn your wrist. Finally there’s CityZen, an app to send information from the public to their local government to fix problems. This app only works for the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation in India.

 

 

Discussion Links: Tablets!

http://www.zdnet.com/whats-right-and-wrong-with-the-new-ipad-air-2-and-ipad-mini-3-7000034956/

http://www.cnet.com/products/apple-ipad-air-2/

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/20/us-apple-results-idUSKCN0I928I20141020

http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/15/tablet-sales-growth-plummets-in-2014-as-android-smartphones-continue-to-soar-gartner/

http://www.macrumors.com/2014/10/21/ipad-air-2-55-faster-iphone-6/

Pick of the Day: Presonus Studio One via Byron in Los Angeles

Just wanted to turn you onto an audio recording application I just learned about a couple of months ago: Presonus Studio One.

It’s a professional DAW (digital audio workstation) for both Windows and Mac, and comes in a variety of paid versions starting at $99.95, but the version that I’m most excited about is the FREE version! For 30 days, you can try out the Professional version which costs $399 (still cheaper than ProTools and comes with the Melodyne tuning plug-in and a mastering suite!), but after 30 days, it becomes a more limited free version, that is still quite functional!

I’ve been using the free Audacity program for years, but I have always wished it could do live effects processing, but unfortunately it can’t. I have also used GarageBand, but it has its own limitations as well, namely 24-bit recording at 44.1 khz.

Studio One Free lets you record unlimited tracks, with higher bit rates and sample rates (if your interface supports them) and it includes 9 plug-in effects. The only thing missing from the free version that I wish it had, is a compressor and gate, but it’s still pretty darn good without it, especially for free!

Thursday’s guest: Nate Lanxon, 

Patrick Beja is on the show today and we’ll discuss whether Google’s use of U2F (like Yubikey) for login security is the wave of the future.

MP3

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Show Notes

Today’s guest: Patrick Beja, DTNS contributor and host of Le Rendez-vous Tech

Headlines

Reuters reports augmented reality startup Magic Leap raised $542 million in funding led by Google and Qualcomm. This would be just another startup receiving another round of funding if it weren’t for the mystery. Very few people know what Magic Leap’s product is. CEO and founder Rony Abovitz has said Magic Leap will develop “the most natural and human-friendly wearable computing interface in the world.” Apparently the device will track your eyeballs and project images directly on them, meaning that images appear within the natural world. Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of Android, Chrome and Apps at Google, will join Magic Leap’s board.

PC World reports the US Federal Trade Commission has appointed privacy consultant Ashkan Soltani as its new chief technologist, beginning in November. Soltani is a security researcher who won the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2014 along with his co-authors who covered the US NSA surveillance programs.

GigaOm reports China denies any involvement in a man in the middle attack on Apple’s iCloud within China. The attack coincided with the launch of the iPhone 6 in China according to Greatfire.org. Swedish security researchers at Netresec said the attacks seem are being performed from within China, on backbone networks belonging to China Telecom and China Unicom. Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry, told journalists the government was “resolutely opposed” to hacking. China Telecom also said accusations against the government were “untrue and unfounded.”

Nielsen, the company that tracks tv ratings has partnered with Adobe Systems to measure viewership of digital video across all Internet-connected platforms. According to Reuters, this includes desktops, smartphones, tablets, game consoles and over-the-top boxes. The system will launch in 2015 with ESPN, Turner Broadcasting, Sony’s Crackle, Viacom and Univision already signed up.

The Verge reports that the best features of music service Songza–including smart playlist creation– will now be a part of Google Play Music on Android iOS and the web. Google acquired Songza back in July. An update today will add a version of Songza’s Concierge service, offers a colorful list of activities (working out, sleeping, studying, calling Comcast, etc.) designed to match your activities and mood. The feature is available only to All Access subscribers, but there are no ads. A Play Music representative said it’s “business as usual” for the stand-alone Songza app.

Everyone, you can relax now, the continuity of our future timeline is assured. There WILL be a working hoverboard available for purchase in time for the Back to the Future ‘Oh My God It’s The Future’ deadline next year. Gigaom reports that a California startup called Arx Pax has created a board called the Hendo, which can hover three quarters of an inch above the ground, but only on certain types of metal capable of generating a magnetic field, like copper. And it definitely won’t work on water. Oh, and it will cost $10,000. The company’s ultimate goal is to create a small white box that adds hovering capabilities to anything in your home, office, or museum. So, hovering Mona Lisa, coming in 2015.

Hold on to your pants, people. Yahoo beat expectations in their Q3 earnings report, announced today. TechCrunch report that Yahoo with sales of $1.09 billion excluding traffic acquisition costs and non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.52. Revenues including acquisition costs were $1.15 billion. Analysts were expecting on average non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.30 on ex-TAC sales of $1.04 billion.Yahoo’s stock is up over 4% in after-hours trading, following this news. Now, what’s Yahoo going to do with their five billion dollars in Alibaba cash.

ReCode reports HP will demonstrate a new product called ‘Sprout’ at an event in New York Oct. 29. According to people who’ve seen it, the product combines a large flat-screen display with a flat touch-enabled work surface and an overhead assembly that combines a projector and a 3-D scanner. The overhead device projects images downward onto the work surface, which users can manipulate with their hands or with a stylus.

 

 

 

 

News From You

Kylde pointed out a Lifehacker post about what will be our main discussion story today. Google is implementing a new second-factor authentication scheme called Security Key which allows you to use a Universal 2nd Factor key, like Yubikey, to login. The key uses the open FIDO framework to authenticate you rather than typing in numbers that could be phished. In other words you just stick a special USB key in your device and press a button. For now Security Key only works with Chrome.

KAPT_Kipper submitted a TechCrunch article reporting that Microsoft will drop Nokia branding from its Windows phones. The phones will now be called “Microsoft Lumia” phones. The rebranding will begin in France and move around the world. That means the name Nokia will only be used by Nokia which still exists as a mapping and network technology company.

hometownrival submitted the iMore story that Apple has responded to a Washington Post story co-written by future FTC Chief Technologist Ashkan Soltani, pointing out the OS X Yosemite’s spotlight search sends data back to Apple. Apple said it limits what data is collected, does not even attach it so an IP address or any kind of persistent identifier and points out you can opt out of Spotlight Suggestions, Bing or Location Services for Spotlight.

 

Discussion Links: USB Security

https://gigaom.com/2014/10/21/this-usb-key-secures-and-unlocks-your-google-account-in-chrome/

http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2014/10/strengthening-2-step-verification-with.html

http://www.zdnet.com/duo-security-announces-u2f-authentication-support-7000034911/

https://fidoalliance.org/

https://fidoalliance.org/specifications

http://www.biometricupdate.com/201410/nok-nok-labs-adds-apple-touch-id-support-unlocking-fingerprint-authentication-possibilities-for-app-developers

Pick of the Day: GAuth Authenticator via Stephen Funkhouser

Tom I agree with your skepticism about using a tool like Authy that syncs your 2nd factor authentication keys between machines. Security and convenience are always at odds, and in this case we don’t know enough about how Authy works to trust them blindly.

I personally use Gauth Authenticator as a chrome extension (there’s a Firefox one available also). It’s open source with a public repo on github. It stores your key data locally, so only you have it. I also like to backup the text version of my 2nd factor keys in LastPass in the notes section under each accounts record. Thanks for a wonderful, and insightful podcast.

Plug of the week:  DTNS artist in residence Len Peralta has a new comic out that’s burning up the charts on Amazon. It’s called Exterminite about a company that can go into your dreams and exterminate your nightmares. Check it out!

Wednesday’s guest: Eric Franklin, Cnet section editor covering how to and tablets / co-host of CNET’s The Fix