Darren Kitchen is on today to comment on Amazon’s drone delivery testing approval and react to news of a promised head transplant. Len Peralta has the job of trying to draw an illustration representative of today’s conversation.

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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!

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Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guests:  Darren Kitchen from Hak5 & Len Peralta

Headlines: 

Did everybody who wanted to order an Apple Watch first thing last night get to? Good. Standard themes of sell-outs, shipping dates slipping to 4-6 weeks and reported website issues apply as to all Apple launches. The same applies to the new gold MacBook.

Meanwhile the Galaxy S6 went on sale in South Korea, home of the electronics giant, as well as Europe, the United States and markets in the Asia-Pacific such as Australia, Singapore and India.

The Washington Post reports on The Citizen Lab’s analysis of DDoS attacks on GitHub and GreatFire which they’re calling “Great Cannon”. While the “Great Firewall” attempts to block traffic from coming past it, the Great Connon attempts to make sites inaccessible. The Citizen Lab believes the Cannon could also be used to deliver malware. The only defense against it to encrypt more Web traffic. The Great Cannon appears to leverage infrastructure from China. A Chinese Embassy Spokesman said “China firmly opposes and combats any form of cyberattack in accordance with law.”

 Ars Technica reports Amazon launched a marketplace for desktop apps as a service Friday. Subscriptions start at $25 a month for a virtual Windows 7, something like Office 2013 Professional Plus adds $15 a month. Amazon released a tool called WorkSpaces Application Manager so administrators can add apps for users and make some required and others optional. All of it gets added to a monthly AWS bill. Benefits include extending the life of desktops and keeping corporate information separate from personal info.

Fierce Telecom reports that Cogent and Level3 are both considering filing complaints with the US FCC, testing the section of Open Internet rules regarding Interconnection. That section does not regulate interconnects but opens the way for the FCC to investigate complaints and possibly add rules. CEO of Cogent Dave Schaeffer told the National Journal his company might be forced to file a complaint. General Counsel for Level 3 Mike Mooney said it is evaluating options. Both companies will have to wait until 60 days after the rules are published in the Federal Register before they can file complaints. Monday’s edition of the Federal Register coinatins the new rules.

The Next Web reports New Zealand TV broadcasters MediaWorks, Sky TV and TVNZ sent cease and desist letters to a number of ISPs including Slingshot and Orcon, over the use of IP addresses that make users appear to be in the US. The media companies mind because the service can be used to watch the US version of Netflix which has different content than the New Zealand version.

BizTechAfrica notes figures from the Nigeria Communications Commission show a strong increase in GSM use in January. Mobile Internet subscribers rose 5,570,038 in January to a total of 81,892,840 mobile Internet users in Nigeria. MTN NIgeria has the most at 39 million followed by Globacom, Airtel and Etisalat in that order.

Extreme Tech has the news that Intel has teamed up with supercomputer company Cray to build a new computer system capable of reaching up to 180 petaflops. Currently, China’s Tianhe-2, considered the most powerful supercomputer on the planet as of last November, is 54.9 petaflops. The new system will be built at the Argonne National Laboratory and will be part of a joint collaboration between that facility, Oak Ridge, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The system will be comprised of two computers, one for testing and prototyping and one for comparing prices between Groupon and Living Social. It’s worht pointing out that the US has blocked sales of supercomputer parts from Intel to China.

Ars Technica reports Microsoft released a Windows 10 Technical Preview for phones. Build 10051 adds the new Project Spartan browser, outlook branded mail and calendar apps, and new universal apps for phone and messaging. Folks in the fast update cycle will get it first. Devices running Windows Phone 8.1 need to use the Insider App to get the update.

News From You:

KAPT_Kipper gave us a heads up on this Verge story covering a Facebook blog post responding to a Belgian report critical of its privacy policies. The report accused Facebook of making it impossible to opt out of tracking and in some cases tracked users who had never used Facebook. Facebook’s said “a bug” affected “a few” users and would be fixed. In addition what the researchers called “tracking,” Facebook argued should be called receiving “standard web impressions.”

tm204 posted a research note from the University of Cambridge describing how a new understanding of electromagnetism could lead to antennas small enough to be integrated into computer chips. This would allow a big improvement to wireless communciation. Essentially the researchers propose electromagnetic waves are generated from a phenomenon known as symmetry breaking, which as a sidenote could help merge classical electromagnetism and quantum mechanics. For makers of the Internet of Things it means piezoelectric materials like lithium niobate or gallium nitride can be used to make small effective antennas right inside the chip.

Spsheridan sent us the disturbing news that Italian surgeon Sergio Canavero has a volunteer for the world’s first human head transplant. According to The Independent, 30-year-old Russian Valery Spiridonov who suffers from a severe form of spinal muscular atrophy has volunteered for the 36 hour operation requiring the assistance of 150 doctors and nurses. Some scientists have called the idea “not possible” and “ludicrously stupid.” The operation leads to the possibility that the man’s body could reject the new head which led Dr Hunt Batjer, president elect of the American Association for Neurological Surgeons to say “there are a lot worse things than death.” Have a great weekend everybody!

Discussion Section Links:  

Pick of the day:

Here is something else to use those computer sticks for.

I work at a medium size school district and we use the FREE cloud based RiseVision.com service to display information on TV’s district wide. This marquee/display service lets you link you content to many google services and rss feeds. Currently we use raspberry pi devices stuck to the back of big tv’s to display our content. The new computer stick would allow us to deliver better content such as video. Rise Vision actually has some huge companies including many airports, colleges and food chains. Check them out at http://risevision.com

Jeff from Warm, Windy and Friendly Corpus Christi Texas

Messages

Colby identified a critical point about YouTube’s subscription plan:

“YouTube had to force content creators to accept the new terms or turn off revenue. It would be a terrible user experience if you pay $10/month and some channels still have ads because the creators refused to switch to the new model.”

Toby Pinder from uncharacteristically sunny England added:

“Youtube only has a limited number of ads they can serve from their paying pool of advertisers. If a significant enough chunk of users are no longer viewing advertisements …users that aren’t part of the subscription program see more ads as the system has more to show them.

Eventually this might lead to user backlash as people might believe YouTube is trying to push too many ads in order to send them to the subscription service.”

And Roberto Villegas wrote:

“I would pay $10 in a heart beat to get rid of ads and if it came down to it cancel others services to absorb the cost such as Netflix. The majority of my watching habits are going to youtube. From a creators standpoint I am also for it. I fully understand the issue the anonymous million subscribe has, but Google gets to set the terms of service. … Ultimately, I think this change is a good one and may force creators to make things that are less optimized for ad revenue and push for more quality programming. I’d love to see more long form content on YouTube, but I know I’m in the minority. ”

Bryan thinks there are 2 “camps” forming among the smartwatch followers:

Camp A seems to want everything that a smartphone has (apps, mobile internet, touch screens, etc.), in their smartwatch. They want an device independent of their smartphone.

I think those (like yourself) ask “Why would I want a smartwatch? I already have a smartphone.” This is why they may not interest a lot of people. It’s redundant.

Camp B (which I’d include myself in) see the smartwatch as a way to:

1. Get quick info (time, date, weather, notifications, next appointment)
2. Perform quick actions (Media player control, reply to an SMS with “Yes, No, OK, and other app-specific actions)

The watch isn’t meant to replace a smartphone, it’s to complement it. Camp B therefore would get a lot more out of the Pebble, since that’s exactly the scope the Pebble watch aims for (and succeeds in.)
And of course, 1-week battery life, always on display and a significantly lower price-point doesn’t hurt either.

Love the show!
#LetsGoCards
#LetsGoBlues

Chris from Harrisburg, PA thought we should take a look at. The Olio Model One coming this summer:

“They are doing a limited run of 1000 and just recently dropped the price of the watch by $250.00 (to $345-$545). The watch appears to be well constructed and designed so that it could be upgraded down the road as technology changes. It will work on both Android and Apple and is a closer competitor in my mind to the Pebble watch.

https://www.oliodevices.com/index.php

Xindi in Verdant Virginia compliments the show:

Tom, you are pronouncing Xiaomi beautifully and correctly!! Please continue to avoid using any and all Z sounds when speaking this company’s name! Xi in Mandarin sounds a lot like the English “she.” I guess to write it phonetically for an American English speaker, you might quickly run together the English words “she” and “yow” or “ow” (sheyow) and add on “me.” As you are currently doing.

Pronunciation is difficult to explain in text because everyone speaks uniquely. Only I wanted to reassure you. Hope this helps.

=====

Monday’s guests: Anthony Carboni

Justin Young joins the show to talk about what YouTube’s coming subscription plan means for viewers and creators.

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

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here or giving 5 cents 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 guests: Justin Robert Young

Headlines: 

Apple announced today that orders for its Apple Watch will only be taken online during the initial launch period. TechCrunch asked how long that would last, but Apple had nothing to add. Meanwhile the Verge has a Google “source close to the development team” that says Android Wear watches are close to being able to work with iPhones through a companion app.

Microsoft and Dropbox expanded their integration today. According to TechCrunch, Dropbox users can now click the Open button when previewing a file on the web and select an option to edit using Office Online. Users can also save new files to dropbox from within Office Online. The feature is available to Dropbox for Business customers who have an Office 365 license, and Dropbox basic and pro users. Dropbox says over 35 billion Office documents are stored on its service presently. Microsoft has over 1.2 billion Office users.

Reuters passes along data from a Pew Research Report that Facebook is still the most popular social network among teens, despite a dip in total teen users over the last few years. 71% of teens 13-17 use the service. Instagram is at 52% and Snapchat in third at 41%. Facebook is not so popular with 27-year-old Max Schrems and the 25,000 users that joined a lawsuit accusing Facebook of violating privacy cooperating with the US NSA. FAcebook’s lawyers began the first day of hearings by challenging Schrems standing to bring the case.

TechCrunch reports Xiaomi sold 2.12 million smartphones during their 12 hour “Fan Festival” Sale yesterday. Celebrating Xiaomi’s 5th birthday the 12 hour fan festival was held across 7 Asian countries, including India, Indonesia, and Malaysia, and brought in RMB 2.08 billion (US$335 million) of revenue. In addition to the phones, 38,000 Mi TVs and more than 770,000 smart appliances were also sold. This event broke the record of its previous best flash sales event.

CNET reports Adobe has lots of updates coming to its Creative Cloud video tools. Project Candy uses Augmented Reality to capture palettes from your iPhone’s cameraor stored photos, for use in Premiere and After Affects. Character Animator has face-tracking algorithms that map a characters face to your own to create more realistic facial movements and sync with speech, using data from a new app called Face Tracker. Think Andy Serkis, without ping pong balls.

 Samsung warns that the Galaxy S6 Edge will be in short supply according to Engadget. In a Reuters report Samsung mobile head J.K. Shin revealed production yields of the phone’s curved glass screen are low and will not be able to keep up with anticipated demand. Samsung is “working hard to resolve the difficulty in supply,” but yields could be low “for a while.” The issue will not affect the Galaxy S6 with its conventional display.

News From You:

Starfuryzeta submitted the TechCrunch article that LinkedIn will purchase online learning company Lynda.com. The acquisition is expected to close sometime in Q2. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner hopes the acquisition can help job seekers with education and skill acquisition.

KAPT_Kipper alerts us to Amazon taking a legal stand against review mills. The e-commerce titan’s lawsuit targets one Jay Gentile (if that is his Reeeal name) who sold reviews via sites buyreviewsnow.com, bayreviews.net, buyazonreviews.com and buyamazonreviews.com. The Seattle Times notes that Mark Collins apparently owns buyamazonreviews.com, not Gentile, but Collins is not named in the suit. This is the first lawsuit Amazon has ever filed regarding the pay for play review practice despite it being an established industry for anyone looking to pad their star count for coin.

TheLazyOne wants to call our attention to a BBC report from yesterday that Google has purged almost 200 extensions rom its catalogue of browser add-ons after a security reviews. Google enlisted several security experts to research how extensions from multiple browsers behaved when visiting Google sites. The findings are due to be published in full in May at the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy.

Discussion Section Links:  

Pick of the day:

Your about GPS tracking constituting an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment remind me I wanted to recommend Supreme Podcast, produced by supremecourtreview.com.

It frames the case and offer the context to better understand it, and cuts to the relevant exchanges from the argument audio. Of course if I find a case particularly interesting, I’ll then download and listen to the full audio from supremecourt.gov. Supreme Podcast also provides analysis of the majority and dissenting opinions when they’re issued.

Supreme Podcast
http://supremecourtreview.com/default/podcast/view/
and listed on many podcast aggregators

Supreme Court Arguments Audio
http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_audio.aspx

Thanks for a great show,
Technosquid

Messages

Rich from Lovely Cleveland:

With all the new Macbook reviews out critiquing the performance of Core M CPU, I thought I’d point your audience to an article just posted on Andandtech about how OEM design decisions actually have as much of an impact on performance of Core M laptops as the actual CPU model. The TL;DR version: even if a CPU has a higher Turbo frequency, if the design of the machine doesn’t dissipate heat adequately, it’ll be forced to throttle its performance. This is relevant to the Macbook in that the higher spec’d CPUs might not actually perform better in many scenarios (haven’t seen any reviews though yet to verify).

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9117/analyzing-intel-core-m-performance

Trung writes:

“A New Hope won’t be Disney Movies Anywhere. It will be ultraviolet. The other five movies will be Disney Movies Anywhere.

If you search Star Wars on vudu.com, you’ll see that there’s no Disney Movies Anywhere banner on the bottom of A New Hope. If you go on disneymoviesanywhere.com, the image for A New Hope says “This movie is currently unavailable on Disney Movies Anywhere.”

Patreon backer Rob from Geelong, Australia adds:

Disney Movies Anywhere is only available to US residents. So, if you’re outside the US and buy the digital copies from any service your purchase will be locked to that service. Hooray for DRM.

Anyway, I already own all 6 movies on Blu-Ray. And DVD. And VHS. So I’m not in a hurry to buy them again.

=====

Wednesday’s guests: Darren Kitchen & Len Peralta!

Scott Johnson joins us to look over the first reviews of the Apple Watch. Should you buy one?

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

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: Scott Johnson, chief among the Frogpants, 

Headlines

9 to 5 Mac reports that the 8.3 release of iOS is out. The update brings more than 300 new emojis and a new keyboard with scrolling UI to accommodate them. Siri gets new languages: English (Indian, NZ), Danish, Dutch, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Swedish, Thai and Turkish, and the ability to start calls on speakerphone. Users can also set free apps to download without a password, and there’s an Apple Watch fix for apps that use continuous background location updates.

MacRumors reports the 10.10.3 update for OS X Yosemite has been released. The update includes the new Photos app, more than 300 emoji characters, adds Spotlight suggestions to look up, prevents Safari from saving website favicon URLs in private browsing and support for Google 2 step verification. The Photos App is a replacement for Aperture and iPhoto and integrates with the iCloud Photo Library and Photos for iOS app.

CNET reports AT&T has settled with the US FCC over data breaches in Mexico, Colombia and the Philippines that resulted in the unauthorized disclosure of almost 280,000 US customer names, Social Security numbers, and other protected data. AT&T agreed to pay a $25 million fine and offer credit monitoring to all affected customers as well as hire a compliance manager.

Ars Technica reports banking consultant Faisal Kahn recently found a Microsoft application to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to become a Money Services Business (MSB). That is a step a company might take it it wanted to develop its own mobile payments platform. Windows 10 for phones will support Host Card Emulation.

CNET reports HTC announced the HTC One M9+ will come to China though no date has been set. The M9+ has a 5.2-inch screen with 2K resolution, a 20-megapixel Duo Camera and a fingerprint sensor. Inside you’ll get a 2.2GHz MediaTek Helio X10 octa-core processor.

Ars Technica reports that Tesla’s Model S 60 is being replaced by the Model S 70 D, which features a 70 kilowatt hour battery and dual motors, and extends the electric car’s range to 240 miles, for a cost of $75,000. A Tesla Motors spokesperson said that with tax incentives and savings in gasoline, the Model S 70D ” “becomes competitive with $55,000 cars like the Mercedes E class and BMW 5 series.” Because you buy a Tesla to save money.

Tom just got this email from YouTube: “We’re excited to build on this momentum by taking another big step in favor of choice: offering fans an ads-free version of YouTube for a monthly fee. By creating a new paid offering, we’ll generate a new source of revenue that will supplement your fast growing advertising revenue.”

TechCrunch reports Facebook has launched a standalone Web version of Facebook Messenger available at Messenger.com. The English language version is rolling out now with more versions to come.

News From You:

TooMuchScrolling sent us the Tech Crunch report that Xbox One owners in the US and Canada can now get oan over the air television dongle just liek their European friends, if they buy the $80 Hauppauge WinTV-955Q TV tuner and an HDTV antenna. And if they are a part of the Xbox One Preview program. And if they are in range of an over the air TV signal. But once all that is in place, users can pause programming for 30 minutes, use the Xbox one’s snap feature to split the screen between television and games, and over-the-air channels can be streamed to Xbox One SmartGlass apps on Windows, Windows Phone, iOS and Android for remote viewing.

starfuryzeta pointed out an interesting bit of code-examining from Myce.com. Optional Windows Update KB3035583 which showed up as recommended March 28, ads a folder to System32 called GWX whcih contains 9 files and a folder called download. One of the files description is “Download Windows 10.” More code sleuthing revealed clues about how you’ll be notified of the free Windows 10 upgrade and how it will proceed. Head over to M-Y-C-E.com if you want all the details.

Dersch42 and GeekCitizen submitted stories about a CNN report that attackers who breached the US State Department system fro months also gained access to an unclassified White House computer system. The system has access to US President Barack Obama’s private schedule. Congressional officials briefed on the investigation have called the intrusion the “worst ever” cyberattack intrusion against a federal agency.

Discussion Links: 

Pick of the Day:

I’ve been reading up lately on security and end-to-end encryption, and while I’m no expert, I did blog about it while staying at a Holiday Inn.

There are a couple different ways to encrypt communications. PGP is a general purpose mechanism that works on files, email, and even dick pics (pardon my French). PGP is great, but it can be tricky to setup for the average user. S/MIME is great for email encryption but only works in that medium.

That brings me to my suggestion for end-to-end message and voice encryption on a mobile device.

Signal for iOS
TextSecure/RedPhone for Android
Web interface in the works

The apps interoperate and use Off The Record (OTR) Messaging for securing their communications. It’s a pretty simple solution that the average user can do to help encrypt their communications. All apps are available from Whisper Systems: https://whispersystems.org/#privacy

This topic might be a good extra feature for the Patreon supporters. Get Daren from Hak5 and maybe a couple other guests and do a special all-in on what needs to be done to improve secure communications.

Bonus material: Glenn Greenwald has a great TED talk about Why Privacy Matters: http://www.ted.com/talks/glenn_greenwald_why_privacy_matters?language=en. I also found this article very interesting on what the journalist needed to do in order to communicate with Edward Snowden: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/10/28/smuggling-snowden-secrets/

—
Kevin… from my nondescript mobile device.

Message of the Day

Hey Tom,

Just wanted to follow up on your conversation, from yesterday, about Star Wars finally becoming available for digital download. I wanted to suggest letting everyone know that since Disney owns Star Wars now, you can use the Disney Movies Anywhere app to be able to access the Star Wars movies from a variety of devices, as long as you purchase them from either iTunes, Google Play, or Vudu and have your accounts linked through the Disney app. Now hopefully Disney will make a deal with Amazon and Xbox movies in the future to make accessibility even greater.

Even though we all wish for DRM free movies, this does help us “watch what you want, when you want m on any device you please” for Disney, Marvel, and now Star Wars Movies.

If you don’t have a pick for today, I would suggest the Disney Movies Anywhere app.

Keep up the great work!

—
Zac from Indy | ADigitalFix.com |

========

As s former HBO GO user, I am blown away by HBO NOW. The interface is about the same, but the streaming quality (backed by MLB tech) is fantastic, smooth, and let’s you “scrub” to a location smoothly. Maybe it’s because it’s day 1 and not the Game of Thrones Premiere, so demand wasn’t crushing them, but so far it’s the best streaming service I’ve used.

Mike in rainy Northern Virginia

====

Tom and Jennie:

On the show yesterday there was some additional discussion around making tech stories accessible to the masses.

I was thinking about how well Richard Feynman made very complex technical subjects very accessible to anyone who cared to pick up his books. He utilized some very nuts and bolts real world examples and analogies that made the subject matter very accessible, yet never really pulled any punches by dumbing down the subject matter. He also added a dash of wit and humor which made them more relatable. He is probably a good example of how this can be done really well. Others who write in this arena such as Stephen Hawking, Carl Sagan and Brian Greene are also good examples of how to do this well.

Thanks.

Russell

=====

Hi Tom,

Since you talked about accessibility testing on recent shows, I thought I’d mention another company that does that: 3 Mouse Technology (http://3mousetech.com/). 3MT is an accessibility consulting company that does both testing and development.

Anyway, keep up the great work!

====

Joseph: A really good one already exists, it’s called google. Just type whatever you are searching for and add “gif” and VOILA! You can find a gif JUST LIKE THIS

Matt

Tomorrow: Justin Robert Young