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Show Notes
Today’s guest: Jason Hiner, editor in chief of Tech Republic & Lyndsey Gilpin, staff writer at Tech Republic
Headlines:
The Next Web reports Facebook has launched a ‘Privacy Basics’ site to help people understand what options they have to protect their privacy while using the social network. The company also has made public their proposed new terms of service which are written in plain language. Users have until November 20 to provide feedback on Terms and Conditions, Data Usage and Cookies policies.
Sony is the first of the potential cord-cutter TV services to announce they’re ready to go. PlayStation Vue will offer live and on demand programming from more than 75 channels. Subscribers will need Internet and a PS3 or PS4. Sony intends to launch an iPad app too as well as apps for other devices. Networks include NBC Universal, Fox, Viacom and Scripps, but NOT ABC/Disney or Time Warner’s HBO. The service will launch in invite-only beta this month in New York, followed by Chicago, Philadelphia and Los Angels. Sony intends to launch commercially in Q1 of 2015.
TechCrunch reports the Great Book War of 2014 has ended, just in time for the holiday shopping season. Amazon and the Hachette Book Group have agreed on a new multi-year agreement for e-book and print sales. Hachette will set its own prices for e-books, the so-called Agency model, but will receive “better terms” (aka more promotion) when those prices are closer to Amazon’s guidelines. The new prices will take effect in 2015, but Amazon will stop holding back pre-orders for Hachette titles now.
Reuters reports BlackBerry announced its new mobile security and device management platform Thursday. BES12 will let companies and government agencies manage Android, iOS and Windows devices along with BlackBerry’s own products. It will also be able to handle medical diagnostic equipment, indsutrial machinery and motor vehicles. Among the partnerships is one with Samsung to combine BB device management with Samsung’s KNOX Security platform for Android phones starting in early 2015. BlackBerry also announced partnerships with Salesforce.com and wireless distribution company Brightstar.
According to The Next Web, Nvidia announced the North American launch of its new cloud gaming service, called Grid. The service launches November 18th, and requires an Nvidia Shield tablet or handheld, on a 10 Mbps internet connection with a ping of 60ms or less to Grid servers. Once you have all that in place, you can play 20 games at launch including Batman: Arkham City, Borderlands 2 and Darksiders II and the service is free until June 30. Nvidia also revealed that its Shield tablet will upgrade to Android 5.0 Lollipop on November 18th.
The Verge drops a little mathematical reality on the Taylor Swift Spotify grudge match. Spotify’s founder Daniel Ek said that Swift was projected to earn $6 million on his service, before she pulled all her tracks. Then the head of Swift’s label Scott Borchetta said, WTF? Spotify only gave us $500,000! Turns out, both numbers are true. Spotify paid Ms. Swift $500k for her US streams. Globally, they paid T-Swift $2 million dollars.The six million number Ek used was, as he said, projected earnings over time. Granted they were the most optimistic projection he could use since that gave him the biggest number.
Ars Technica reports Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington DC ruled country code top-level domains cannot be transferred as part of a civil judgement. The plaintiffs in Rubin v. Islamic Republic of Iran sought to have the top-level domains for Iran, Syria and North Korea transferred in compensation for damages awarded in a case brought regarding a 1997 suicide bombing in Jerusalem by Hamas. The Court determined that country code top level domains cannot be conceptualized apart from domain name services and therefore cannot be garnished.
TechCrunch reports Reddit CEO Yishan Yong has resigned. Investor Sam Altman wrote on his blog that Yong resigned due to a disagreement about the price and location of a new Reddit office. COO Ellen Pao has become interim CEO and co-founder Alexis Ohanian has returned as full time executive chairman.
Microsoft said on Twitter today “We plan to upgrade all Windows Phone 8 devices to Windows 10 in the future.” So there you go folks. Upgrade path assured.
News From You:
anotherjmartin gave us the Ars Technica story that digital rights activists are continuing to criticize AT&T subsidiary Cricket for preventing email from being protected by STARTTLS by removing the STARTTLS flag that causes the encryption to take effect. EFF staff technologist Jacob Hoffman-Andrews posted Tuesday that ISPs must stop removing customer security measures. Last week VPN provider Golden Frog petitioned the FCC opposing the practice. A Golden Frog engineer discovered the issue. In our Oct. 15 show, Patrick Wolfe wrote in to note he had used Cisco ASA firewall software that broke STARTLS in a very similar way and speculated that might be going on with Cricket.
tm204 sent us a BBC article about physicists from the University of Vienna using the “twist” of a visible light beam to transmit information by laser through the sky above Vienna. Here’s how it worked. Twisted light photons, aka light with “orbital angular momentum” can twist like a corkscrew. Researchers set up a green laser in a tower and shone it on a spacial light modulator, which twisted the beam twice. When the light showed up on a screen three kilometers away it had a detectable pattern of dots, which the scientists then used to transmit black and white images. It could be used for fast transmission of data where separate channels can be sent simultaneously. The results were reported in the New Journal of Physics
Discussion Section: Facebook has new Terms of Service
https://www.facebook.com/about/basics
https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/?id=541939745937896
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102138902#.
https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=ads§ion=platform&view
Pick of the Day: Desert Bus via krvhill
Charity season is here and I wanted to pick my favorite “desert bus for hope” https://desertbus.org a comedy troupe playing the world’s most boring videogame for child’s play charity. It is in its eighth year and keeps getting bigger. If you prefer different games check the schedule at http://www.childsplaycharity.org to see a list of other webathons coming in the next months.
Friday’s Guests: Molly Wood and Len Peralta