The Shield explodes, The leftovers leaves out Tom, and why books-based movies should sometimes not have book titles.
00:50 – The Shield
05:58 – The Leftovers
12:43 – Ridley Scott/Bladerunner
16:06 – World War Z
Shecky’s Lines for Week 8
Hot off the presses we have the lines for Week 8
DTNS 2288 – EA Access Your Wallet
Scott Johnson joins me to talk about EA’s new all-you-can-eat-of-what-they’ll-serve-you gaming service as well as Microsoft’s rumored selfie phone.
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 and scottierowland on the subreddit
Show Notes
Today’s guest: Scott Johnson of the Frogpants Network
Headlines
TechCrunch reports Facebook is getting rid of messaging in the main Facebook app for iPhone and Android and will force users to download the separate “Messenger” app if they want to chat. This is nothing new to European users who were the guinea pigs for the requirement back in April. Mobile web, iPad, feature phone, Windows Phone, Paper, and desktop users can still message like before, for now. Facebook believes the move will make both the Facebook and Messenger apps better.
The Next Web reports EA announced a new subscription service for the Xbox One today. For $5 a month or $30 a year members of EA Access can play older titles from the EA vault and get free access to new titles up to 5 days before release. After the release you’ll still have to buy the game, but you get a 10% discount on all EA titles and DLC in the Xbox store. PLus if you played early and buy the game any progress you amde carries over. Selected users are participating in a beta, but EA promises to take everyone’s money soon.
Is this good news or bad news for those hopeful of new MacBook pros this autumn? The Next Web reports Apple has done a minor refresh of the MacBook Pros with retina displays. The 13-inch starter model comes with a 2.6 GHz Core i5 processor and 8GB of memory. The entry-level 15-inch MacBook Pro now starts with a 2.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 chip and 16GB of memory.
ZDNet reports BlackBerry said Tuesday it will acquire German mobile security company Secusmart. The two companies have partnered since 2009. Secusmart makes popular anti-eavesdropping product. Or at least its become popular with Chanellor Merkel. The Secusmart Security Card contains the NXP SmartMX P5CT072 crypto-controller with a PKI coprocessor for authentication as well as a high-speed coprocessor that encrypts voice and data communication using 128 bit AES. All of that integrated into the micro-SD card.
Does the App boom smell like it’s ending? Bear with me. In 1999 what’s big Websites Along came DigiScents which made a device called iSmell, I KID YOU NOT, that would allow web pages to emit odor. Within two years, dot-coms were bust. In 2005 AJAX, XML Web 2.0 was all the reage. Everyone’s Rubies were starting to ride Rails. And researchers from the University of Huelva developed XML Smell, a protocol of XML that could transmit smells. Within two years smartphones had wiped Web 2.0 out of our minds. Today with the app universe going strong, Vapor Communications is promoting an Indiegogo campaign for the iPhone. A device to let people send and receive scented messages. Woe betide its funding and the decline of the appiverse.
TechCrunch reports Twitter reported revenue of $312 Million and earnings per share of two copper pennies. The street expected Twitter to lose the one pennie it did have on revenue of only 283.07 million Twitter allegedly said “TAKE THAT STREET WHAT DO YOU KNOW!” although that is unconfirmed. Twitter reported that it has 271 million monthly active users, up from its 255 million tally in the first quarter of 2014. That’s up 24%, year-over-year. Twitter’s monthly mobile user count was also up, to 211 million, a gain of 29%.
News From You
KAPT_Kipper submitted the Ars Technica report that researchers at Bluebox Security have discovered a hack that allows any malicious app to masquerade as an app with special privileges. The vulnerability has existed since Android 2.1 in early 2010. Apps like Google Wallet and Adobe Flash are allowed to act with other apps in ways the Android sandbox usually prevents. While Android checks the apps ID it does not verify the validity of cryptographic certificates that accompany it. Cleverly made forgeries can therefore get the same special access to private information and device settings. Bluebox calls the vulnerability “Fake ID”. Google has been informed of the vulnerability and say they’ve issued a patch. Bluebox CTO Jeff Forristal will present more details on the vulnerability at Black Hat next week.
metalfreak posted the PC World article noting the announcement over the weekend that Quantum Mechanix and Spark Plug Games will have the original cast of Firefly do the voicework for their upcoming Firefly game. Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk, Adam Baldwin, Sean Maher, and Ron Glass have already recorded their bits. Jewel Staite, Gina Torres, and Summer Glau will be in the studio soon. The game will come to iOS, Android, PC and Mac in Spring 2015.
spsheridan pointed us to a Wired UK article that researchers from the University of Michigan and New York University have been simulating wet information storage techniques which uses clusters of nanoparticles suspended in liquid. Working a bit like a rubik’s cube, clusters of particles can reconfigure to represent different storage states. A 12-particle cluster can have almost 8 million states. That means a teaspoon of the stuff could store a Terabyte! All you have to do is use your scanning tunnelling microscope to read the data!
Discussion Section:
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/07/29/ea-announces-5-gaming-subscription-xbox-one/
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/07/29/ea-announces-5-gaming-subscription-xbox-one/
http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/29/5947583/new-microsoft-windows-phones
http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/28/5660722/nokia-superman-windows-phone-features
http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/3/5867113/nokia-lumia-830-rumor-photos
http://www.wpcentral.com/verizon-htc-one-w8-windows-phone-august-21
Pick of the Day: ProClip via Kevin Klecker
Kevin Klecker has our pick of the day! My commute averages about an hour each way, and it would be much more torturous if I didn’t have The Daily Tech News Show to keep me informed and entertained. I always want my podcasts, music, and Waze at my fingertips, I never knew where to keep my phone until I stumbled onto ProClip.
ProClip offers vehicle mounting solutions for all of your tech and gadgetry. ProClip is a 2-piece solution. It consists of a custom base that is engineered to fit your specific vehicle (You can choose one of several mounting locations. This is paired with either a universal/adjustable mount or custom mount which is engineered for your device (phones, tablets, 2 way radios, GPS units, etc). They have mounts to fit a large variety of device (iPhones, iPads, Galaxy series, heck….even my Windows Phone 8 Device). Most have the option to include a hardwired charger, or a cigarette lighter adapters to automatically charge your device while docked. They are fairly easy to install (usually lock into vents or molding), and have always seemed sturdy. Since the system is 2 pieces, it is easy to replace the base if you get a new vehicle – or the mount if you get a new device. My wife and I will be customers for life!
Wednesday’s guest: Lamarr Wilson of all the funny. And also Mashable.
DTNS 2287 – Spain enforces its right to be forgotten
Pelle Eklund is on the show to chat about Spain charging to link to things on the Internet and NHL Refs getting sent off for Twittering.
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 and scottierowland on the subreddit
Show Notes
Today’s guest: Eklund of hockeybuzz.com
Headlines
GigaOm compiles reports from Reuters and the South China Morning Post that Microsoft offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu have been visited by authorities. The State Administration for Industry and Commerce is investigating the company. Chinese authorities banned government institutions from using Windows 8 in late May. Microsoft said Monday the company is “happy to answer the government’s questions.”
TechCrunch reports the European Commission has given Apple permission to acquire Beats Electronics. The approval was predicated partly on the fact that beats has a very small marketshare in Europe for both headphones and digital music. Apple still needs approval in the SU which it is expected to get. Then it can take on Bose which is suing Beats for patent infringement. And come on, you know Apple lawyers love a good patent infringement case, amiright?
Mozilla chair Mitchell Baker announced Monday that interim CEO Chris Beard has been appointed permanently as CEO of Mozilla Corporation. Beard joined Mozilla in 2004, left for Greylock Partners in July 2013 and re-joined Mozilla in April of this year when CEO Brendan Eich was removed in controversy over his support of Proposition 8 in California.
The Verge reports OKCupid co-founder Christian Rudder has admitted that his site experimented on users as well. In one of three described experiments, users were told they were good matches for people they were bad matches for in order to measure the change int he rate of correspondence. Being told you were a good or bad match did have an impact but did not fully offset the calculated compatibility. Users were informed after the fact that they were part of the experiment.
The Verge reports that most Hilton-owned hotels worldwide plan to allow customers to use a smartphone to unlock their rooms by the end of 2016. Hilton also plans to allow guests to check themselves in and choose their own room locations.
News From You
ayserk56 posted the Engadget story that researchers at Stanford have developed a new lithium battery that uses a nanoscopic carbon shield to allow for denser more efficient lithium use in a batteries anode, the part that discharges electrons. The result is a battery that lasts considerably longer, won’t decay quickly and remains relatively safe. They estimate the battery could get 2-3 times the life of current cell phone batteries.
spsheridan sent along the ReCode report that Apple is close to buying Swell, an app that plays podcasts and other talk shows in a Pandora style, that surfaced shows adapted to the listeners tastes. Swell will apparently be shut down this week.
metalfreak pointed out the OS News story that Trend Micro’s report that Android is populated with many fake apps, half of which are malware, turns out to be an exaggeration. Techrepublic and Android Police both uncovered that Trend Micro’s promotion of their report didn’t work very hard to make clear that the fake apps in question did not exist in the Google Play store but had to be side-loaded, meaning a user had to ignore and disable security warnings to make the apps work.
KAPT_Kipper posted the Verge article that Amazon appears to be going after Square. 9to5 Mac showed off internal documents from Staples indicating an “Amazon Card Reader” will arrive on store shelves August 12 for $9.95 right next to Square and Staples’ own payments dongle.
geewhipped submitted the Vice article detailing disclosures that reveal 3 US FISA Court Judges own Verizon stock, two purchasing it within the last year. That includes Judge James Zagel who signed off on a government request to renew ongoing metadata collection in June.
And Ek sent us a report from Scouting the Refs.com detailing the rise and fall of NHL official Tim Peel’s Twitter account. Turned out Mr. Peel was excited to reach out to fans and put a human face on Referees, but he hadn’t read the rules closely. The NHL-NHLOA Collective Bargaining Agreement forbids officials from having have social media accounts. His time on Twitter was brief but burned brightly. We will miss you @TimTpeel
Discussion Section:
https://medium.com/@JulioAlonso/the-story-of-spains-google-tax-5434d746df48
http://coalicionprointernet.com/?page_id=7#APOYOS
http://qz.com/241005/nobody-seems-quite-sure-how-spains-new-google-tax-will-work/
Pick of the Day: canistream.it
Our pick of the day comes from Julio M. Romero a fellow cordcutter: “I don’t know if you have already heard about this app/website/service is called canistream.it and is just that, a service that let’s you find out if that movie or show episode is available for streaming legally in different services iTunes, Amazon, play store, Netflix and some others. It even tells you prices so you can check which one is better for your wallet. The site is available as an app in the Apple & Android stores as well as the Windows Marketplace AND as a chrome extension. JMR
Tuesday’s guest: Scott Johnson
Cordkillers Ep. 30 – Let’s Speculate Irresponsibly
What the Nerdist thinks of YouTube these days, the best trailers from ComicCon and Google may still have bought Twitch.
CordKillers: Ep. 30 – Let’s Speculate Irresponsibly
Recorded: July 27, 2014
Guest: Kristi Kates
Intro Video
Primary Target
- All the trailers from Comic-Con
- Watch the first trailer for Halo: Nightfall, the live-action TV series by Ridley Scott
- Here’s the First Mad Max Trailer, and It Will Make You a Believer
- Humanity is running out of oxygen in the trailer for ‘Air’
- Legendary announced that it was developing a movie based around Skull Island, home of King Kong
- Sam Raimi announced that he and his brother Ivan are writing a show based on the franchise, and that it will star Bruce Campbell.
Secondary Target
- Nerdist Knocks YouTube’s Stickiness, Commenters at Comic-Con
- – Google’s video site is not a place where people “hang out,” Hardwick said.
– He also got an appreciative hoot from the crowd after dissing YouTube’s commenters as “toxic.”
– “YouTube is a bunch of 13-year-olds who are like, ‘Look at me, I am unattended!’” he joked. “The second comment is always ‘FIRST,’ because they never make it.”
– Rooster Teeth regularly puts videos on its website a few hours ahead of uploading them to YouTube, and sells paid subscriptions that provide access to exclusive content.
Signal Intelligence
- Google reportedly finalizes deal for live stream service Twitch
- -VentureBeat reported Google finalized a deal to buy Twitch for $1 billion
– Neither Google or Twitch are talking
– The average viewer watches 106 minutes of Twitch live streams per day. About 58% spend more than 20 hours a week watching videos on Twitch
Gear Up
- Chromecast turns one: why this small streaming stick became such a big deal
- – Chromecast turned one July 24
– Chromecast users have pressed a cast button 400 million times since the device was first released a year ago.
– more than 6,000 developers have signed up to add casting to their mobile or web apps.
– #1 selling electronics item on Amazon
– COMING SOON: Screen mirroring, personalized home screen
Under surveillance
- FXX will marathon the entire ‘Simpsons’ series next month before releasing it online
- – FXX will marathon all 25 seasons of the Simpson’s from August 21st to September 1st.
– FXX will launch the “Simpsons World” digital hub in October, which will allow cable subscribers to watch every episode on demand on their desktops at SimpsonsWorld.com, mobile devices via the FXNow app, and on compatible smart TVs and set-top boxes
Front Lines
- Netflix made 1.34 billion dollars last quarter doubling its profit from last year.
- -Netflix grew to 36.24 million US subscribers and 13.8 million international subs. That’s about 25% growth in the US and 77% elsewhere.
- Ultra Music is suing YouTube star Michelle Phan for $150,000 a song.
- –Ultra Music alleging she did not have the rights to use 50 tracks in her videos. Phan claims she had permission to use the tracks. DJ Kaskade defended her.
- Comcast added a Labs section to its X1 set-top box letting subscribers test drive new features.
- -One new feature that’s coming is a personalized “virtual video channel” made of shows and movies from a variety of sources that will appear in the regular programming grid.
- A new ‘Host Mode’ on Twitch lets streamers log off but keep live chat running while running video from another channel.
- Book 3 of The Legend of Korra will not air on Nickelodeon’s TV channel but will stream on the channel’s website.
- -Co-creator Bryan Konietzko told the ComicCon audience” “pulling it off the channel and moving it to digital exclusively is part of the huge sea change in the whole industry.” Thanks to Indi_de_Lis for the link on the cordkillers subreddit.
- Lions Gate will add special features to an app for people who buy certain movies through Comcast, starting with the film “Divergent”
2014 Summer Movie Draft
draft.diamondclub.tv/
- Amtrekker: $689,515,120
- TMS: $598,450,443
- DTNS: $595,014,272
- Night Attack: $443,836,166
- GodsMoneybags: $390,588,309
- /Film: $282,356,843
On Screen
- Brian: Das Experiment, World War Z, The Leftovers, Orphan Black (mostly)
- Tom: The Leftovers, The Shield (210)
- Kristi: Begin Again, Stargate Atlantis , Transcendence
Dispatches from the Front
Hi tom and Brian I am one of the reported 250,000 people in Australia who subscrbes to netflix, which as you know isn’t officially available here, so i have to use a VPN. I use unblockus.We never have any problems streaming at full quality even though we are yhe other side of the planet.
I hear that in the USA some people are having problems as their isp is slowing down their streams, i was wondering if they would still have the same problem if they used a vpn service, whats your thoughts? Plus it also gives you the advantage of chosing what Netflix region uou want.
Keep up the good work
Alan
In a recent show you talked about why Nielsen only counts 18-49. Psychologists in the 1960 and 70’s measured Brand Loyalty and found that people over a certain ago become inflexible in the their brand choices. Basically the younger people are then the more effective the advertising. Brand Loyalty is why markets don’t advertise to people over 49, these studies have been shown to be flawed. Also the disposable income difference by age has flipped in the last 40 years with college loans and a stagnant job market reducing youth spending power. But given that markets are still focused on broadcast viewership that has been decimated in the last twenty years they can be the brightest group of company executives.
Mark
Aereo’s next work around… Rent me a 1 square inch apartment in the city. Cram an antenna and slingback like device (and whatever additional tech is needed) in how ever many feet tall apartment. Then they are technically just renting a prefurnished apartment. Totally legal.
David
Hey guys,
I know that we are between Game of Thrones seasons but I wanted to pass on my experience as someone who watched the shows without reading the books first. I love the show and have watched it from the beginning. I have to admit, though, that I would get confused sometimes about who all of the characters are and where the story was going. After the first season I tried to read the first book. At the time I found myself getting bored because I knew what was going to happen. Fast forward to the present and I decided to pick up the books again. After a few years the details of season 1 are a bit fuzzy. I was instantly hooked on the book. Not only that, but I suddenly realized the relations between the characters and why some of them acted the way they do in future seasons. Having knowledge of future events is really making the books enjoyable and I can see the foreshadowing and the mistakes the characters make that lead to their downfall. Of course reading the beginning of book one and seeing the Starks as one big happy family was kind of depressing. My goal is to have all of the books read before the next season starts so I can see what it’s like to be on the other side of the experiment. One book down, 4 to go…
Thanks for the great podcast,
Scott from Houston
Living in South Africa, cord killing is near impossible, as we only have over priced satellite and free terrestrial shit, that is not even HD yet. However I managed to get a Fire TV, and now proudly use Netflix, Hulu plus and Amazon Prime, HBO Go and WatchEspn (via a friends Verizon account). Filling in the blanks with sickbeard, couchpotato and Plex. All this costs me less than $80 a month, including internet. Not bad, compared to what you have to deal with in the USA.
Long live the Cord Killers.
Thanks
John Mac
Links
East Meets West 323 – No, No, They’re Lunatics
The misplaced priorities of corporate work, how to avoid getting distracted by the short-term, how to avoid getting swamped by technological change, how hard it is to take risks, what our goals for society actually should be.
Download the episode at this link.
FSL Tonight Week 7 – Hooves and Worms
Upsets abound in Week 7. Are the Senators ready to rule? Or is the Master Skaro’s own worst enemy?
Get the episode here.
DTNS 2286 – They Kicked My Glass Out of the Trailer
Scott Sigler joins the show to talk about Comic-Con and the unholy merging of tech, nerds and the entertainment industry.
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 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit
Show Notes
Today’s guest: Scott Sigler, author and podcaster
Headlines
GigaOm passes along a Wall Street Journal piece describing a Google X project to establish what a fully healthy human looks like in order to identify disease faster and easier. The BAseline Study Project will be led by molecular biologist Andrew Conrad, who joined Google X 16 months ago. All info will be anonymized and used only for health-related purposes though it will not be shared with insurance companies. Google will see benefits for the development of its wearable devices.
TechCrunch reports Lyft will begin operations in all five boroughs of New York City, not just Brooklyn and Queens, starting at 7 PM tonight. After negotiations with the New York Attorney General and the Taxi and Limousine Commission, Lyft will license all its drivers through the Taxi and Limousine Commission in NYC and pause operations in Buffalo and Rochester while it works to comply with insurance requirements there.
A Google representative confirmed to CNET on Friday that the company removed more than 50 percent of “right to be forgotten” requests it processed so far. The Wall Street Journal, citing a person familiar with the matter, reported that information Thursday night.
The US House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill today legalizing cell phone unlocking. The bill will allow consumers and third-parties to legally unlock phones that were received through a carrier. The US Senate passed the bill earlier this year, and President Obama is expected to sign it into law. Today’s legislation will not permanently allow legal phone unlocking. The rule will be reconsidered by the Library of Congress once again in 2015 and every three years thereafter unless circumstances should change.
News From You:
KAPT_Kipper submitted the Ars Technica story that Wikipedia has imposed a 10-day ban on the IP address connected to the US House of Representatives. A series of edits described as “disruptive” were revealed on the Twitter account @congressedits that tracks edits made from Congress IP addresses. The account bans all anonymous edits from the IP which affects thousands of staffers. House staffers could make a Wikipedia account, which would allow them to continue editing.
the_big_endian posted the Verge report that Comixology is making DRM-free backups of purchased comics available for some of its catalog. Some publishers have not agreed to remove DRM, and comics from those publishers will not be available. However those that are can be downloaded from the “My Books” section of Comixology’s site as PDF and CBZ files. posted the Verge report that Comixology is making DRM-free backups of purchased comics available for some of its catalog. Some publishers have not agreed to remove DRM, and comics from those publishers will not be available. However those that are can be downloaded from the “My Books” section of Comixology’s site as PDF and CBZ files.
Discussion Section:
http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/24/comic-con-bans-google-glass/?ncid=rss_truncated
Pick of the Day: Waze
Monday’s guest: Eklund of hockeybuzz.com
DTNS 2285 – Oculus Riffed
Tim Stevens is on the show. We’ll reminisce about the great PlayStation Network outage of 2011 and posit just what the heck Oculus is up to.
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 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit
Show Notes
Today’s Guest: Tim Stevens, editor-at-large at cnet.com
IDC released its estimate for the worldwide tablet market for the second quarter of 2014. 49.3 million tablets were shipped, an 11% rise over last year although a decline of 1.5% from Q1. While Apples shipment and market share declined they still lead with 26.9% followed by Samsung, whose tablet market is also declining to 17.2%.. The rise in the market is powered by the smaller tablet makers Lenovo, Asus and Acer in that order, although a whopping 44.4% of the market comes from tablets made by even smaller producers.
Remember the great Sony PlayStation Network outage of April 2011? Well Ars Technica reports Sony has agreed to a court settlement in the southern district of California, that could hold it liable for up to $15 million in damages, plus nearly $2.75 million in attorney fees. What does it mean for you? a free downloadable PS3 or PSP game (from a selection of 14 titles), three PS3 themes (from a selection of six), or a three-month subscription to PlayStation Plus. You have to pick one if you already took part in the Welcome Back” promotion back in 2011, otherwise youc an choose two. If you’re identity was compromised as a result of the breach Sony will pay up to $2500.
ReCode reports HP will invest $50 million in Hortonworks, the Hadoop startup spun out of Yahoo. Big Data is a big problem for big companies. Hadoop is open source technology designed to make it easier to work with large collections of data in a distributed computing environment.
One year ago today Google unleashed the ChromeCast dongle on the world out of nowhere. Users have pressed the cast button on an app 400 million times since that day. Chromecast is now available in more than 30,000 stores worldwide, and repeated that more than 6,000 developers have signed up.
Oculus has begun shipping its DK2 virtual reality headset for developers. The DK2 costs $350 and is not a consumer version of the hardware but is a refined version of the Crystal Cove headset that won a Best of CES award. It features lower latency, a low persistence OLED screen and positional tracking as well as simplified cords. Oculus plans to ship 10,000 DK2 units in July, though as of April it had sold 25,000 headsets.
The Next Web reports Razer’s Nabu smartband will integrate WeChat alongside the usual fitness tracking applications. Messages could show up on the band’s screen but apparently things like ‘high five to exchange contact info’ might also be in the works. Nabu will debut in international markets over the next few months and make it to China before the end of the year. It’s meant to retail for less than $100.
The Telegraph has a look at Twitter’s new diversity report which reports 30% of the company’s workforce is female. That’s the same as Google, 1 percent worse than Facebook and 7% behind Yahoo. The drag on balance comes from Twitter’s tech division which is 90% male and leadership which is 79% male. Twitter’s also revealed that 59 per cent of its global workforce was white, 29 per cent Asian. Less than 7% are Black, Hispanic, Latino or other.
Microsoft has released the first trailer for its upcoming Halo: Nightfall live-action TV series, which Ridley Scott is working on as an executive producer. The trailer reveals a new element that can selectively wipe out humans, which protagonist Jameson Locke, a an agent for the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and his squad must seek out and destroy. takes place between Halo 4 and Halo 5: Guardians.
Amazon reported Q2 earnings including a 27 cents per share loss on revenue of $19.34 billion. Amazon was expected to only lose 15 cents on revenue of 19.34 billion. Still, Amazon’s revenue grew 23% year over year.
Also Pandora announced Q2 earnings Topping Expectations Slightly With $218.9M In Revenue, also announcing it Has 76.4M Active Listeners
News From You:
jeff_rose submitted the Engadget report that you can now place phone calls directly from the Google Voice website using hangout. You don’t need to have enabled hangouts in Gmail or even have a G+ account.
Inge_Aning pointed us to the MIT Technology Review article on Resistive Random Access Memory that could let you score ten to a hundred times as much data on a smartphone. RRAM already is being developed by several companies, but researchers at Rice University have shown how to make it easier and cheaper at room temperature and with lower voltage. RRAM stores bits using resistance and retains data without power just like Flash memory. It can operate a hundred times faster though, and can concentrate a terrabyte into the space of a postage stamp. The new method uses a layer of silicon dioxide poked full of holes, sandwiched between thin layers of metal.
Discussion Section Links: Oculus What? Where?
http://www.roadtovr.com/oculus-rift-dk2-pre-orders-now-shipping-breaking/
http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/2bjnlm/just_got_charged_and_received_an_email_its_about/
http://www.cnet.com/news/facebooks-oculus-teams-with-samsung-for-mobile-virtual-reality-push/
http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/23/oculus-rift-tuns-x-men-into-a-vr-head-trip/
https://support.oculusvr.com/hc/en-us/articles/201835987-Oculus-Rift-Development-Kit-2-FAQ
http://www.entertherift.fr/en/fiche-45-oculus-rift-dk2.html
Pick of the Day: Autohotkey via Conrad Lawrence
Autohotkey for PC. On the surface it is a hotkey generator, capable of reading abbreviations or key combinations and outputting long strings of text or data. For example type in “dtns” and get “Daily Tech News Show”.
Beneath the surface though, it is an easy to learn scripting language capable performing long, complex operations using data from a variety of sources, including user input. To easily enter this data and view the results Autohotkey also allows the creation of GUI windows.
I work in the Test Department of a hardware/software tech company, and in the year or so since discovering Autohotkey, I have created dozens of custom GUIs designed to facilitate testing and increase productivity. A signature check of almost 60 modules would once take hours. I can now perform the same task in just a few minutes.
Autohotkey is fully documented and supported at http://www.autohotkey.com/ and it can be downloaded for free for both personal and commercial use. It does not require a compiler but includes one so that applications can be shared with PCs where Autohotkey is not installed.
DTNS 2284 – Is that a store in your pocket…
The Amazon Fire Phone is out tomorrow and Anthony Carboni is on the show to help us ask the question on everyone’s mind: why? Also a workers paradise is coming to Helsinki and robots may take over the Olympics.
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 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit
Show Notes
Today’s guest: Anthony Carboni, of wehaveconcerns.com
Headlines
PC Mag among the folks reminding us that Apple’s public beta of OS X Yosemite begins tomorrow. The first 1 million people who signed up at applessed.apple.com will get a link to download the beta and be asked to submit feedback if/when they run into problems. Yosemite has been available to developers and will be finished and available to all later this autumn.
ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley points out a passing comment Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella made in the company’s earnings call yesterday regarding the mythical ‘One Windows’ strategy. Nadella said MS will, “streamline the next version of Windows from three operating systems into one single converged operating system for screens of all sizes.” Later int he call he clarified this meant one team developing all variants built off the NT core with a unified store and developer platform. It does not mean you can install the same copy of Windows on your phone as on your dekstop.
Anthony! Anthony! Anthony! Did you hear! Foursquare has a new logo that looks kind of like a superhereo and is a rosy shade of pinky russet. And the typeface! Its a darker blue! And there’s a new navigation bar at the bottom! And there’s mor ephotos. and recommendations. And it’s really confusing if you still want to check in because that button is hidden and only shows up if you have Swarm installed. And it’s coming in a couple weeks to android and iOS! Are you excited?
The Next Web reports Microsoft announced the Lumia 530 arriving at the beginning of August in Europe for €85 BEFORE tax and subsidies. The low-end Lumia has a 4-inch 854×480 screen and runs Windows Phone 8.1 on a 1.2GHz Snapdragon. You can also select from one of many brightly colored interchangeable shells! Well three of the colors are bright if you conisder white to be bright. They’re bright orange, bright green, grey or white. The 530 wil also be available in single and dual SIM versions.
VentureBeat reports Google has purchased Helsinki’s own 3D graphics startup DrawElements for an unofficial $10 million according to Arcticstartup. DRawElements tech lets developers test various GPUs across mobile devices. That should be handy for Android devs at Google one might think. Also it will be party time in Finland as the management team will move to Mountain View while the rest of the team will be left to create a worker’s paradise in Helsinki.
Messaging app LINE announced a new ‘Hidden Chats’ feature for Android and iOS users that lets users send messages with a time limit attached for more ephemeral private conversations. Time limits can be set from 2 seconds up to 1 week. Bloggers are now working furiously to post how-tos describing ways to subvert the feature and keep the ephemeral messages anyway.
TechCrunch reports Facebook beat earnings projections with 2.91 Billion in revenue and earnings per share of 42 cents. Analysts expected revenue of 2.81 billion and earnings per share of .32 cents. Facebook reported 1.07 billion monthly MOBILE users and 654 million DAILY mobile users. 62% of its ad revenue came from mobile. Facebook now has 1.32 billion monthly users and 829 million daily users. Facebook’s total user count is up 3.125% from Q1.
Reuters reports that AT&T announced that its quarterly revenue rose, but slightly less than Wall Street forecasts. AT&T earned $3.6 billion, or 68 cents per share, in the second quarter, compared with $3.8 billion, or 71 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter. Revenue rose to $32.6 billion from $32.1 billion in the year-ago quarter.
News From You
metalfreak posted the Wired article calling attention to the fact that Marvel is selling one month of access to its online comics archive for 99 cents. That gives you access to more than 15,000 digital comics from the golden age to the halcyon days of 6 months ago. The service is usually $10 a month or $69 for a year. The 99 cent offer ends in one week.
eean submitted the Ars Technica story that Verizon has been opposing net neutrality rules partly under the argument that so-called fast lanes could be used to make more accessible services fro blind, deaf and disabled users. Several groups who lobby for accessibility filed comments asking the FCC not to let Verizon speak for them, writing “In no case should accessibility considerations form a basis for permitting paid prioritization more broadly, and the Commission should reject any overture to the contrary,” wrote the Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Inc.; the National Association of the Deaf; the Hearing Loss Association of America; Deaf and Hard of Hearing Consumer Advocacy Network; and Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Telecommunications Access. The American Association of People with Disabilities also wrote to oppose allowing paid prioritization.
exfig pointed out the Verge posting that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said “In 2020 I would like to gather all of the world’s robots and aim to hold an Olympics where they compete in technical skill.” Tokyo will be hosting the allegedly unenhanced human Olympics that same year. Switzerland plans to host games for athletes with robotic prosthetics in 2016.
spsheridan posted the Scientific American article on China’s planned supercollider. Scientists at the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) in Beijing, working with international collaborators, want to build a 52-kilometer electron-positron collider by 2028. It would be used as a ‘Higgs factory’ allowing the Higgs boson to be studied with greater precision than can be achieved at the smaller Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
Discussion Section: Amazon Fire
http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/22/amazon-fire-phone-review/
http://recode.net/2014/07/22/can-the-amazon-fire-smartphone-take-on-iphone-and-samsung/
Picks of the Day: Scottevest via Russell Manthy
A couple of weeks ago Scottevest was mentioned in passing on DTNS and thought it might be a good pick of the day. Scottevest was founded by Scott Jordan in 2000. He had noticed a problem early on that people were carrying more and more gear, gadgets, chargers, etc. and that the only vests on the market with pockets enough were designed for fishing or photography. Scottevest sells ‘technology enabled clothing’ which has pockets which are tailored especially for your gear. Some pockets have translucent touch sensitive lining so that you can operate your smart phone while not taking it out, others are RFID shielded. In addition to smaller pockets there are also bigger pouches for tablets and cameras. Wire ways are also provided for lacing wires for headphones from a device in a pocket to the collar. The vests and jackets are engineered to balance the load so that the clothes do not hang on you oddly. From the outside you would think they were normal vests or jackets but on the inside they are really great for keeping all your gear organized and concealed. I have been using one through fall and winter for the last few years and it is great; I actually miss it in the summer!
Tomorrow’s guest: Tim Stevens of cnet.com