Nicole Lee joins us to talk about Meerkat. Has it brought back SXSW’s app magic? Can it survive?
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Show Notes
Today’s guests: Nicole Lee of Engadget.com
Headlines:
The Verge reports Facebook updated its community standards page Sunday night to clarify what the policies are. They haven’t actually changed the policy. Among the clarifications Facebook says they want people to use the name they go by regularly, not necessarily their legal name. Hate speech is allowed for satire or commentary. Nudity is still not allowed but more strictly defined and exceptions made for artwork.
TechCrunch notes numbers of government requests for Facebook data were also released. Requests decreased in the US and UK while increasing in India, Turkey and Russia. The US still requests the most while India is number 2. The total number worldwide rose from 34,946 in the first half of the year, to 35,051 between July and December 2014.
The Verge reports Microsoft launched Office 2016 preview. Microsoft improved search, storage footprint, and email delivery performance, as well as image insertion in Word and Excel 2016. Not all the new features for Office 2016 are in the rpeview yet. Microsoft also launched a test version of Skype for Business, with the ability to integrate with Office apps. The final version of Skype for Business will be available in April, with the final Office 2016 coming later this year. Interested? sign up at Microsoft Connect website at connect.microsoft.com.
Reuters reports BlackBerry will launch high security tablet aimed at governments and enterprise in cooperation with IBM and Samsung. The SecuTABLET is based on the Galaxy Tab S 10.5 and works with BlackBerry’s SecuSuite for voice and data encryption. The device is undergoing certification by the German Federal Office for Information Security for secure rating. According to the Wall St Journal, the tablet will be available this summer at a price of $2,380
TechCrunch notes Elon Musk tweeted yesterday that a Tesla press conference will take place Thursday at 9 AM and “end range anxiety… via OTA software update. Affects entire Model S Fleet.”
TechCrunch has covered a new report by the Pew Research Center found 30% of US citizens surveyed have taken steps to shield or hide their information from the US government. TechCrunch notes 52% of those surveyed said they were “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” by government surveillance programs, but 46% said they were “not very concerned” or “not at all concerned.” The survey found that 87% of adults have heard at least something about government surveillance programs and 57% said it is unacceptable for the government to monitor the communications of US citizens, but a majority said spying elsewhere is OK. Most often peopleo change privacy settings on social media, avoiding apps entirely and using social media less. Well… is that about government interference or drunk selfies?
Engadget reports on the launch of free public Internet service at a Havana cultural center. Popular artist Kcho got approval from the state telecom Etecsa to open up his WiFi router at the cultural center. The connection is 2 Mbps but doesn’t caust a centavo.
Variety reports HBO Now will be offered by Cablevision to its broadband-only subscribers. In other words if you get your Internet fro Cablevision, you won’t also have to sign up for TV if you want HBO. Cablevision said it will provide pricing and other details about how HBO Now will be made available to broadband subs in the coming weeks.
News From You:
Rpattony posted the TorrentFreak article highlighting another of the many nuggets found in the recent US Open Internet order. “Nothing in this part prohibits reasonable efforts by a provider of broadband Internet access service to address copyright infringement or other unlawful activity.” It is apparently OK for the ISP to determine what is illegal and what is infringement.
Starfuryzeta sent us this story from the Verge reporting on Yahoo’s new Password-free email login. The new approach dubbed “on demand” passwords sends Yahoo email users a time sensitive code through an app or cellphone text message. No more need to remember a password. Every time you login you’ll be sent a new code. Just don’t lose the phone tied to the account. The new password features is available now and can be enabled from the security section of your account information page.
KAPT_Kipper found the Yahoo Tumbler post announcing the release of source code for Yahoo’s new end-to-end encryption browser extension for Yahoo Mail. The encryption interface is described as intuitive, however, it will have to be activated each time you want it and info like recipient, subject line and time will remain unencrypted. Yahoo used the Google end to end extension in the project. Yahoo released the source code to GitHub and plans to have end to end encryption available for all users by the end of the year.
Eziwireless sent us this Engadget report on Windows 10’s unique update feature. The Verge noticed that a leaked version of Windows 10 lets you grab updates from other PCs whether they’re local or online.This peer-to-peer network patching would accelerate the updating process as well as limiting bandwidth usage on metered internet connections.
Philman 132 submitted the Boing Bong BBS post about GNU Terry Pratchett. When implemented on Apache or Nginx, web-servers transmit a special “X-Clacks-Overhead” header reading “GNU Terry Pratchett.” Pratchett’s book Going Postal described a system called The Clacks where workers who died in the line of duty could have their name transmitted in the system’s signaling layer, because (“A man is not dead while his name is still spoken”
Discussion Section Links: Twitter & Meerkat
www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/16/meerkat-twitter-block-ben-rubin-social-graph
techcrunch.com/2015/03/16/meerkatroullette-is-chatroulette-for-meerkat-because-meerkat
techcrunch.com/2015/03/14/bird-vs-mammal
Pick of the Day:
Christopher Ragsdale writes: In listening to this discussion on episode 2448 I was reminded of an interview I had heard recently with author Douglass Rushkoff about his book “Present Shock”. Not trying to sell books here. I think you and Jennie might be interested in the info in this book:
Messages
Every time y’all talk about how bandwidth caps on home Internet access is a thing of the past, my left eye twitches in a peculiar manner. Y’see, I have Comcast as my ISP. The highest tier home service available in my area (Charleston, SC). And we have a 300GB per month cap. Did I mention that this cap only went into place about a year and a half ago? Surprisingly (or not?), not very long after the cap went into place, Comcast had the infamous share holder call in which the CEO stated flatly that Comcast has no plans to implement bandwidth caps.
Cheers,
-Sam
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Buzz Out Loud REUNION!
Join the Buzz Out Loud 10 Year reunion on March 29th at 12:30 pacific /3:30 p eastern and 7:30p GMT! It’s free! Tom, Molly, Veronica, Jason and many other special guests! Tickets for the event at the Hak 5 warehouse are available at http://bit.ly/BOLreunion but if you want to attend online you don’t need even need a ticket. The event will stream live on Alpha Geek Radio and on YouTube with more details forthcoming.
Buzztown’s Back!
PODCAST AWARDS
Also Podcast Awards! Remember yesterday, and the day before, when we told you how you could vote for your favorite podcast in the Podcast Awards? Well guess what, you can vote again today! For example, you could vote for DTNS in the technology category, but you can also support Night Attack in the “Mature” and “Video” categories. Also you can vote for The Instance, Film Sack and our good friends at The Morning Stream and Night Attack. I guess you could also vote for Serial. But only once. Vote once a day at http://www.podcastawards.com/ until March 24th.
Tuesday’s guest: Patrick Beja!