Darren Kitchen is here for his Friday gig along with Russ Pitts. We’ll talk with Russ about how he thinks sometimes you SHOULD engage trolls. Also why the Aereo case could kill cloud storage. Plus the two main reasons for SXSWi to exist. Plus Len Peralta illustrates the show!

MP3

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 guests: Darren Kitchen, Russ Pitts, & Len Peralta 

Headlines:

I am not Dorian Nakamoto: Yesterday was an eventful day for Dorian Nakamoto. CNET’ Eric Mack summed up the day and proposed a theory. First Dorian came out of his house yesterday afternoon, grabbed an AP reporter, saying he wanted his free lunch, and headed to the AP offices in downtown LA for an interview followed by a train of reporters. He told the AP he was misunderstood by Newsweek and as far as Bitcoin goes he told them, “I got nothing to do with it.” Later a new comment from Satoshi Nakamoto appeared on the original 2009 Bitcoin forum post, saying “I am not Dorian Nakamoto.” CNET freelancer Eric Mack’s theory? We’re all getting trolled and MAYBE Satoshi Nakamoto is Andy Kaufman.

Dev build of Mavericks gettin’ all 4k and stuff: 9to5 Mac reports Apple’s latest developer build of OS X Mavericks lets users with 4K monitors natively set them to run at a pixel-doubled “Retina” resolution. It ends up thesame as running a Retina MacBook Pro. The screen doubles the resolution in the same space so you see sharper graphics

Samsung brings the Milk: PC World reports Samsung announced a new online radio service Friday called Milk. The service is available for free. No ads. No log in. Really? really. Oh here’s the catch. It’s only in the US. AND It’s only available in the Google Play store and only works with Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones and tablets. Samsung says they are thinking of expanding to non-Samsung devices though, and they WILL expand worldwide eventually.

Pebble 2.0, now with more Android! Engadget reports Pebble 2.0 is now available for Android users, giving them access to the Pebble App Store, a new interface and a new locker for apps and notification improvements.

Privacy questions raised about Facebook & Whats App: Digital Democracy are asking the US FTC to investigate how Facebook’s proposed purchase of WhatsApp will impact the privacy of WhatsApp users, who exchange private messages via the service. The complaint alleges Facebook’s plans for WhatsApp would violate WhatsApps users understanding of their exposure to online advertising.

News From You

metalfreak submitted a ScienceMag article about a system that can turn images into sequences of sound, allowing blind people to see. The system builds on work from 1992 by Dutch engineer Peter Meijer, who created vOICe, an algorithm that converts simple grayscale images into musical soundscapes. In 2007, neuroscientist Amir Amedi and colleagues at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem began training subjects who were born blind to use vOICe. Amedi’s team recently released a successor to vOICe, called EyeMusic, as a free iPhone app. The new algorithm produces more pleasant tones and can even provide color information.

normgregory directed our attention to a Deadline article reporting that Aereo’s appeal of the injunction Utah has been denied. The 10th Cicrcuit Court of Appeals denied the request to overturn the injunction 2:1. That means Aereo will have to go dark after all in Salt Lake City and Denver, despite the fact that the company is headed to the Supreme Court April 22.

tsukiri submitted the Ars Technica story on the US Navy deploying its first directed energy weapon this summer on the USS Ponce. Oh wait did I not say laser? Because lasers. IN fact it’s called the LaWS for Laser Weapon System. The lasers can explode fuel aboard smaller targets and blind drone or missile imaging sensors. Larger targets still need missiles and guns, but the laser is cheaper to fire at a bout a buck a shot. Also, thank you to all the men and women serving on the USS Ponce.

And on the other side of the drone aisle, or weapons emplacement, KAPT_Kipper pointed us to the Ars Technica tale of Judge Patrick Geraghty dismissing a $10,000 fine against Raphael Pirker, who used a camera drone to film on the University of Virginia campus for commercial purposes. The judge said the FAA rules were not enforceable against model aircraft whether commercial or not.

Discussion Section Links: Don’t Feed The Trolls,  But Don’t Let Them Feed on You.

http://www.falsegravity.com/?p=603

http://www.takethis.org/

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140306/00350726450/aereo-case-isnt-about-aereo-about-future-cloud-computing-innovation.shtml

http://www.project-disco.org/intellectual-property/030414-why-aereo-matters-to-the-cloud-a-primer/

http://www.takethis.org/

SXSW Pick of the Day:  Austin BCycle.  Bike share, duh! If you’re at SXSW you can ride one of these cheerful red bikes to and from all the various events– believe you me, the walk from the Convention Center to the Paramount Theater is no joke. So don’t walk! Take a bike.  Also thanks to Kristin Nelson for taking the time to talk with us about SXSW.  🙂

Austin Pick of the Day: Barbecue! I’m going to to the Salt Lick, like, NOW. (jj)

What an online troll looks like in real life:  http://lenperaltastore.com/products/dont-engage-the-troll

What was that weird thing at the end of the show?  Matt talks tech in which Producer Jennie interviews her husband Matt about technology. Matt knows a lot about comedy, screenwriting, and 80′s sitcoms, but technology? Not so much.

Monday’s Guest: Molly Wood of the New York Freakin’ Times! 

Paul Spain joins from New Zealand and we’ll discuss the topic of Newsweek doxxing Satoshi Nakamoto.

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 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:  Paul Spain, host of NZ Tech Podcast, NZ Business Podcast

Headlines

Bitcoin founder revealed: Newsweek reporter Leah McGrath Goodman published the results of her investigation into the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of Bitcoin. After finding a Satoshi Nakamoto in public records on naturalized citizens, Goodman tracked a model train enthusiast to Southern California. When she showed up at his house, he called the Sheriff’s department. After they arrived, he told her “I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it.” The Internet has largely reacted with rage, accusing McGrath of Doxxing Nakamoto.

The more things change … Engadget reports Facebook has redesigned its news feed to be a bit like the mobile version of the social network and bit like the older version of the feed. Typeface changes to Helvetica for Macs and Arial for PCs, shared stories will no longer indent when a friend leaves a comment, the left-hand column is simplified and photos will be full-width and multiple photos shared in a collage. The design is much simpler than the one showed off last March, which ReCode reports is the result of poor reactions in testing.

Apple vs. Samsung, Part XXIIVIIIIXXXXIIX: CNET reports Judge Lucy Koh gave the latest round of the long-running Apple-Samsung patent fight to Samsung. Apple had requested a ban on 23 Samsung devices found to have infringed on its patents. Early Thursday, Judge Koh denied Apple’s request. Judge Koh did uphold the $290 million in additional damages awarded to Apple by a jury last November. Both sides can appeal both rulings.

Oceans of money: TechCrunch reports cloud hosting company DigitalOcean raised a Series A round of $37.2 million. The company is aimed to compete with Amazon EC2, Rackspace and the like. DigitalOcean provides scalable virtual private servers for $5 a month to start.

How do you feel? How about now? GigaOm reports on an iPhone accessory called Wello. It looks like a typical iPhone case, but the small chip embedded in it along with two sensors, keep track of vitals like blood-oxygen level, blood pressure, ECG, heart rate, temp and more. You just hold your fingers over the sensors to begin tracking. Wello works by Bluetooth and is available for pre-order now in a number of countries. It is expected to retail for $199 in the U.S. and will ship in the fall, pending FDA approval.

Looking so long at these pictures of you: Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports Getty Images has begun a program where bloggers can get an approved embed code of Getty Images and use them for free on blogs and social media pages, as long as the use is not commercial. The embed code sends information about Web traffic back to Getty.

X marks your spot: Reuters reports Flickr co-founder Katerina Fake’s Findery site has launched its mobile app. Findery lets users mark important places on a map and include descriptions, pictures, videos and other information. Fake says Findery is meant to provide more meaningful info. The app is available in the iOS app store.

Doing the CEO shuffle: ReCode reports Sony has announced that Jack Tretton, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America (fine purveyors of PlayStations) will step down at the end of the month. Sony Network Entertainment International COO Shawn Layden will take Tretton’s place on April 1. Tretton has led the division since 2006 and worked on the team that launched the first PlayStation in 1995. In less disruptive, yet fun Sony news, Deadline Hollywood reports Sony Pictures’ Screen Gems production company has decided to develop a “live-action adaptation” of The Last of US.

News From You

KAPT_Kipper submitted the Next Web article about Firefox investigating why Dell UK is charging £16.25 to install Firefox on its machines. Mozilla, makers of Firefox, say they have no deal with Dell for such a questionably useful service, and it is a violation of the Mozilla terms of service. Dell told TNW it is charging for the service of installation, not the software itself.

TVSEgon sent us the sad AP story of the discovery of virtual currency exchange First Meta CEO Autumn Radke found dead near her apartment tower in Singapore. Singapore’s police say they do not suspect foul play, but did classify it as “unnatural,” which can mean accident or suicide.

And Draconos pointed us to the CNET story that hot on the heels of Dish’s deal with Disney, DirectTV told Reuters IT is in talks for a similar deal to be allowed to include Disney TV content in some future Internet-only video service.

Discussion Section Links: Finding the founder of Bitcoin/CEO of Bitcoin exchange found dead

http://mag.newsweek.com/2014/03/14/bitcoin-satoshi-nakamoto.html

http://www.businessinsider.com/leah-mcgrath-goodman-responds-2014-3

http://gigaom.com/2014/03/06/of-bitcoin-and-doxxing-is-revealing-sakamotos-identity-okay-because-it-was-newsweek-and-not-reddit/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/ceo-of-bitcoin-exchange-found-dead-in-singapore/2014/03/06/7649bc60-a4f3-11e3-b865-38b254d92063_story.html

http://stream.wsj.com/story/markets/SS-2-5/SS-2-474236/

Pick of the Day: Producer Jennie recommends Intelligentsia coffee. Yeah, so the name’s a little much, and it ain’t cheap, but the fresh-roasted coffee is just that good. Intelligentsia has coffee bars in three cities: Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. If you live elsewhere, they have a great online shop for both coffee and tools of the trade and a tremendous app that helps you make a perfect cup of coffee–whichever method you prefer. (They sell some pretty delicious tea, too.)

Friday’s Guest: Darren Kitchen & Russ Pitts

Iyaz Akhtar joins us as we get the lowdown on Roku’s updated streaming stick, Logitech’s new remote, and some thoughts on Facebook, Yahoo, Guns and the Winklevoss Twins in space.

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 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: Iyaz Akhtar of CNET & GFQNetwork.com.

Headlines

Pssst, CNN; you’re selling Zite: ReCode reports Flipboard is buying Zite from CNN, which acquired the tablet newsreader company in 2011. CNN reported its sources (itself?) said the deal is valued at $60 million, but CNN PR says the report valuation is not accurate. Guys, it’s really hard to keep secrets from yourself. Zite will apparently shut down and most of its 20 employees, with the exception of CEO Mark Johnson, will work for Flipboard. Flipboard has also agreed to produce custom magazines for CNN.

What’s my password again? This was our top-voted story on the subreddit, LifeDownloaded and KAPT_Kipper both submitted links. Engadget reports Yahoo will soon stop allowing users to log in with Google or Facebook accounts. Yahoo started allowing third-party logins in 2010. The change has already happened on Fantasy Sports sites and will eventually spread across all services, including Flickr and Tumblr. Happy Tumblr Day!

More purple punch: SIT DOWN you are not allowed to leave the tech news until you’ve finished your Yahoo news. Every bit of it. CNET reports Yahoo acquired Vizify, a company that lets users create infographics and video out of social media. Vizify will shut down and the company will work to bring a more visual approach to data at Yahoo! We’ve all been wondering when that would happen.

Guns? What guns? Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports Facebook will crack down on illegal gun sales. The social network will delete posts where users indicate they would break the law. Private gun sale posters will be reminded to comply with the law. And pages related to gun sales will be required to include language regarding the importance of the law. Posts about illegal weapons are already banned, so the new effort focuses on emphasizing the importance of things like background checks.

Take me to your (new) leader: VentureBeat reports former IGN chief Mark Jung is the new executive chairman of OnLive. He hit the ground running with two new services. CloudLift lets users log in on any devices to get their downloaded games from services like Steam. And OnLive Go lets users play online games like Second Life on mobile devices. Stop it. There are people who still play Second Life and they will send giant penises at you if you mock them.

I WIN EVERYTHING: ReCode reports Dish Network won ALL of the wireless broadband airwave licenses recently auctioned off by the federal government. As we all know, the incumbent carriers in the U.S. have made no secret about the fact that there is a serious spectrum crunch, thus the need to exempt them from regulation. Dish won the 176 licenses because NOBODY ELSE BID.

Winkle, winkle little star: The Winklevoss twins are headed to space as part of Virgin Galactic’s program and they’re paying with Bitcoins, of course. On the application form under vital statistics, Tyler Winklevoss wrote, “I’m 6’5″, 220, and there’s two of me.”

News From You

Mranthropology pointed us to a Verge article about another crypto currency hitting the scene called MazaCoin. Before you roll your eyes ALL the way to the back of your head, MazaCoin is now the official currency of the seven bands that make up the Lakota Nation. MazaCoin was developed by an anonymous cryptographer as a new implementation of the Bitcoin protocol. The Lakota will keep half of MazaCoins in reserve to help prevent wild speculation.

And MikepKennedy sent in the Ars Technica story AMD is very excited about its new AM1 chipset, an SoC for desktops launching April 9. Because… desktops are hot still. Well, AMD might not be totally off the deep end here. The AM1 is meant for the still-selling low-cost desktops with a starting price of $60 for the chipset and motherboard combined. At that price, you can’t draw more than 25W and you’re restricted to PCIe 2.0. AMD’s pitting the AM1 against Intel’s Bay Trail platform.

Discussion Section Links: Roku Streaming Stick vs Google Chromecast: How do they stack up?

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-33199_7-57619907-221/roku-streaming-stick-vs-google-chromecast-how-do-they-stack-up/

http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-media-receivers/roku-streaming-stick-2014/4505-6739_7-35835337.html

http://reviews.cnet.com/google-chromecast/

Thursday’s Guest: Paul Spain

Eric Olander joins us to discuss whether Facebook drones can help Africa, Japan’s regulation approach to BitCoin and the real story behind the Flappy Bird flap. It’s 4 AM in Vietnam where he is, so be kind.

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 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:  Eric Olander, Vice President, Financial and Business News Channel,Vietnam

Headlines

Facebook to buy drone fleet. Because internet: TechCrunch reports its sources say Facebook is buying Titan Aerospace, makers of near-orbital solar-powered drones that can fly up to five years at a time without landing. For its 60 million dollars or so, Facebook would be able to use the drones to deliver Internet access to any part of the world as part of the Internet.org project, starting with Africa, according to the sources. One can only assume Facebook will not use its drones to shoot down competing Google weather balloons that deliver competing Internet.

CarPlay powered by QNX: USA Today points out that the new Apple CarPlay system in part is powered by QNX, the embedded OS of choice among automakers, and QNX just happens to be owned by BlackBerry. Ford is actually moving off Microsoft’s Sync to QNX according to Bloomberg. N4BB first pointed out the interesting fact. Paul Leroux, public relations manager at QNX Software Systems, “We have a long-standing partnership with Apple to ensure high-quality connectivity with their devices, and this partnership extends to support for Apple CarPlay.”

Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer to retire in September

Cortana, voice assistant, in action: Unleash the Phones has video of Microsoft’s forthcoming Cortana voice assistant in action. Though no words are spoken by the operator or the phone, you can see the setup system which asks the user some personal questions, like most enjoyable part of an evening, and thoughts on food. No kidding. Cortana is expected to be part of Windows Phone 8.1 and be officially unveiled at the BUILD conference in April.

Microsoft integrates Skype with Outlook.com

Twitter mistakenly sends password reset email to many users

Aether’s Cone Speaker reviewed: Several sites, including Wired, have a review of Aether’s Cone speaker. Unlike say a Sonos system, the Cone speaker has no remote and no Bluetooth connectivity. It uses WiFi to connect to a music service (available services have yet to be named) and then keeps tabs on your behavior to find out what you like to hear. It also has voice recognition in case you want to request something in particular. The only other control is the speaker grill which you can twist right to skip to a new song or twist left to replay. The Cone will sell for $399.

Intel purchases wristwatch health tracker company Basis for around $100 – $150 million

Bring me red page… I can’t… I can’t see you… Broderbund founder Doug Carlston has donated Broderbund’s software and corporate records to the museum, The Strong. Correspondence, photos and other material that reveals the culture of the studio that developed Myst, Prince of Persia, the original SimCity and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, will be preserved. The high school version of our producer Jennie is SO happy. So is the college-aged version of Tom. Who feels really old now.

 News From You

Rich_Seattle submitted the Ars Technica story that the US Department of Justice has thrown in on the side of broadcasters, in the Aereo vs. the broadcast world Supreme Court knockdown coming this April. Recode reports the Justice Department made the filing Monday arguing that Aereo gives users access to copyrighted content in the first instance without paying licensing fees. KAPT_Kipper also submitted this story under a different link.

biocow posted the Verge link about Radio Shack closing 1,100 shacks in the US. That’s more than twice the number expected.Radio Shack will have 4,000 locations left. The company lost $191.4 million last quarter. TVSEgon also submitted a link for this story.

dillydobbs & Tekkyn00b submitted the Gizmodo link about Flexcoin shutting down. While not nearly as large as Mt. Gox, Flexcoin says 896 bit coins were stolen from its store. Bit coins that were not stolen will be returned to customers before the shutdown. Polonix also admitted thieves stole 12.5% of its bit coin reserves, but that company will replenish the lost coins itself.

adi_lachman pointed us to a WSJ article about Dish striking a deal with Disney to limit the use of its Hopper ad-skipping feature on Disney-owned channels. Interestingly in return, Disney granted DISH rights to stream Disney channels like ABC and ESPN as part of an Internet delivered, IP-based multichannel offering.

Discussion Section Links:  How Japan is dealing with bit coins / Flappy Bird Perspective

http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/Policy-Politics/Japan-to-regulate-Bitcoin-trades-impose-taxes

http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1440514/japan-considers-regulation-bitcoins-wake-mt-gox-failure

http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0001087024

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/27/flappy-bird-clones-iphone-ipad

Wednesday’s Guest:   Iyaz Akhtar of CNET & of the excellent podcast Quest for Peace.