Darren Kitchen and I chat with Sean Hollister about his experience trying Microsoft’s HoloLens and ask Ek from HockeyBuzz about the NHL putting GoPros on hockey player’s heads during the all-star game.

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Jennie’s Friday Art!

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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!

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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: Darren Kitchen, Sean Hollister, and Hockeybuzz’s Ek 

Headlines

If you’re a Windows Insider, Engadget points out the new Windows 10 Technical Preview is now available via Windows Update. That gives you Continuum if you have a hybrid device, the new Xbox app and Cortana. Though Cortana on the desktop can take down notes and answer questions she’s still having a little trouble with complex reminders. No Project Spartan or Office update yet either. You can get the download at http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/preview-download

9to5 Mac has sources that say the battery in the Apple Watch may not last as long as Apple hoped. If you believe the sources the watch uses an Apple S1 chip, similar to the A5 running SkiHill, a modified iOS with a retina-class color display. Supposedly Apple wanted 3 days of pure standby time life but is only getting between 2 and 3 days. The sources also say 3,000 watches are in the wild being tested around the world and the watch is on track to ship in March.

TechCrunch reports Microsoft has acquired open-source analytics company Revolution Analytics which focuses on the R programming language for statistical computing. In marketing speak that means Microsoft wants to “use the power of R and data science to unlock big data insights with advanced analytics.” So like data mining. Um in simpler terms? Kind of a really super powerful spreadsheet that helps find trends that help drug makers and scientists discover things.

The Verge reports Uber has applied for a taxi license in New Delhi and resumed operations. Uber was banned a month ago after a driver was accused of raping a passenger. Uber will only allow drivers who have reverified police clearance within the last six weeks. Uber is also conducting background checks on all drivers and implementing vehicle documentation reviews.

ReCode reports Box.com’s IPO got off to a healthy start. The online storage company priced 12.5 million shares at $14 each and opened trading at $20.20, and closed at $23.23. Box raised $175 million in the offering which valued the company at $1.7 billion.

Ars Technica reports that the Raphael Pirker a drone operator who was fined $10,000 by the FAA for illegally operating the drone and flying it in a “reckless manner” has settled his lawsuit with the government. Pirker has agreed to pay $1100 and drop the lawsuit challenging his citation, that claimed the FAA was enforcing a non-existent law against drone operations. FAA ban on small drone flights for commercial applications are still in effect. Pirker used a drone while shooting a commercial for the University of Virginia.

According to a story by the NY Times the Winklevoss Twins are looking to take the Bitcoin virtual currency mainstream by creating the first regulated Bitcoin exchange for US customers, a “Nasdaq of Bitcoin”. The brothers have begun hiring engineers from hedge funds and engaged a bank and regulators hoping to open their exchange in the next few months. The exchange will be named Gemini.

 

News From You: 

KAPT_Kipper sent us the Ars Technica article that Google’s Project Zero has published three 0-day vulnerabilities in Apple’s OSX. Project Zero finds vulnerabilities and gives software manufacturers 90 days to deal with them before making the vulnerabilities public. These three were reported to Apple on October 20, 21st and 23rd,2014. One of the issues may have been mitigated in OS X Yosemite and all three appear to require prior access to machines. The program recently published three vulnerabilities in Windows.

tm204 pointed out the Skift article about Expedia acquiring Travelocity for $280 million. Expedia gets the websites in US and Canada. Swiss-based Bravofly has an ahreement to acquire Travelocity Europe AKA lastminute.com, pending regulatory approval.

Discussion Section Links: 

 http://gizmodo.com/project-hololens-hands-on-incredible-amazing-prototy-1680934585

http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/23/gopro-live-broadcast-nhl/?ncid=rss_truncated

http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/23/gopro-nhl-partnership/

http://gopro.com/news/gopro-and-nhl-new-partnership-will-change-the-way-you-watch-hockey

Pick of the Day:  Kuissential SlickFroth 2.0 – Electric Milk Frother, Cappuccino Maker via Christian

Hi Tom!

In response to whether Google is capable of offering decent customer support for a possible MVNO, I wanted to share my experience.

My general rule of thumb is that Google had fantastic support for anything they do where you pay them money directly. This includes Google Apps, the play store, Nexus devices, etc. In those instances I’ve had some of the best customer service I’ve ever experienced in the tech world. It’s only in Google services like gmail and calendar where Google had nonexistent customer service (at least I haven’t found it).

This is why I have no doubt that a Google MVNO would have superb customer service. I also think they’d probably do a great job at disrupting the market with great process and bandwidth caps. Maybe they won’t even have bandwidth caps!

Matt Maher
Sterling, VA

Peter Frazier wonders if Google as an MVNO would lead to free data on Chromebooks. Here’s his line of thinking:

“I wonder just how much data browsing is after subtracting away audio and video streaming?

If they took Chrome OS in a direction where the on board storage was beefed up, and Google Music was a lot smarter about caching your most played songs when on WiFi.

Throw in an option to only use video on WiFi. Now that were starting to see ‘download video’ from YouTube, you could expand the caching of some of your ‘watch later’ as well, and put more development time into that aspect of YouTube to make it a lot more seamless and the videos are just there.

Also they have the ‘low bandwidth’ option on phones, what if they brought that to Chrome OS as well in a HUGE way. Same content but using considerably less bandwidth.

I’m thinking if this was on their plan of attack for the last year, they ‘could’ provide an all you could eat data plan for a large portion, if not all, of our day to day browsing when you buy a chromebook. If they get the bit’s down enough, and adjust the advertising strategy on this class of Chromebook it in theory could be viable.

Monday’s guest:  Veronica Belmont

Shannon Morse joins us. Do we want Google to be our mobile phone service? Also a little more from the experts about HOLOGRAMS!

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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: Shannon Morse, tekthing.com and hak5.org

Headlines

The Verge reports BlackBerry CEO John Chen published an open letter to the US Senate supporting the principles of net neutrality. Most of it is what you’d expect. However Chen accuses Apple and Netflix of discriminating against its users for not making apps for BlackBerryOS. He writes: “All wireless broadband customers must have the ability to access any lawful applications and content they choose, and applications/content providers must be prohibited from discriminating based on the customer’s mobile operating system.”

 

The Next Web reports Kim Dotcom’s Mega has launched an audio and video chat service with end to end encryption. Any registered Mega user can try out the beta service. Text chat is expected to be added soon as well as video conferencing. MegaChat users made more than a half million video calls in the first hour after launch. But nobody but the participants knows what happened in them.

The Next Web reports that Twitter is rolling out a new feature called Recap, today for iOS and in the next few weeks to Android and Web. A heading will appear called “while you were away…” that will show users the best tweets that happened– wait for it– while they were away. The more you use Twitter, the more recaps you’ll see. Which tweets you see will be determined by “engagement and other factors” according to the company. You won’t be able to adjust how it works or even turn it off, but hitting X at the top of the summary often enough will direct the system to show fewer recaps.

ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley clarifies that Microsoft Office for Windows 10 will be preinstalled for free on Windows 10 smartphones and tablets as long as they are smaller than 8 inches. The suite of “touch-first” apps will be available from the Windows Store for Windows devices with larger screen sizes. If you want to take a look at the new apps, Microsoft posted a blog with screen caps. Microsoft also officially has named the next version of Office for the desktop, Office 2016. Office universal apps will be available with the Windows 10 technical preview in the coming weeks and general availability for the Office for Windows 10 suite will be “later this year.”

Also from Engadget, Nvidia has released a GPU targeting AMDs video cards at the $200 price point. Although the recently released GTX 970 and 980 are powerful, their high costs ($350 -$600+) have turned many towards AMDs cheaper but still capable Radeon offerings. Nvidia’s Maxwell based GTX 960 sports 1025 CUDA cores and clock speed of 1.1 GHz although with overlocking and decent cooling the GPU speed can be bumped up to 1.5 GHz. For the past year AMD has been able to leverage the $200 sweet spot in GPU price/performance arena, but with the release of GTX 960 AMD will be under pressure with their next generation of products.

Ars Technica lets us know about a report from cloud backup provider Backblaze on the reliability of its hard drives. HGST, owned by Western Digital now, led the way with low failure rates. For instance 2 TB 7K2000s were on average 3.9 years old but had a failure rate of 1.1%. Seagate improved a little from the last Backblaze report but still 23.8% for the Barracuda 7200.11 and 9.6% for the Barracuda LP. The 3TB Barracuda 7200.14 had an awful 43.1% failure rate with an average of 2.2 years in service. However newer Seagate model 4 TB HDDD15 only had a 2.6% failure rate albeit after an avaerage 0.9 years in service.

The Verge reports journalist Barrett Brown has been sentenced to 63 months in prison after pleading guilty to charges of transmitting threats, accessory to hacking charges, and interfering with the execution of a search warrant. Brown uploaded YouTube videos containing threats, tried to redact sensitive email procured by hackers and hid laptops in a kitchen cabinet. Brown had been originally charged with fraud for sharing a link to an Anonymous IRC chat room where stolen credit card details were being shared. Those charges were dropped. Brown has served 28 months in prison during trial which will count toward his sentence.

News From You: 

tm204 posted the VentureBeat story that Amazon has introduced a program t help produce ebooks for students. The Kindle Textbook Creator, now in open beta, can make books to be sold through the Kindle Direct Publishing EDU service. It’s available for OSX and Windows. The books can have flashcards, allow note-taking, and highlighting, “cut” segments out to a separate notebook, or annotate with context.

metalfreak pointed out the PC World article noting that Documents, prepared by the Latvian presidency of the Council of the EU, note that blocking or filtering content in the “public interest” as part of a proposed net neutrality law could violate privacy laws that protect the confidentiality of communication. Last week EU ministers called on ISPs to do just such blocking and filtering of extreme content. The Latvian presidency plans to discuss changes to three articles of the proposed text at a meeting of the Council’s working party on Jan. 27

starfuryzeta sent us an Associated Press report about a drone overloaded with methamphetamine that crashed into a supermarket parking lot in Tijuana, Mexico. Tijuana police said six pounds of meth were taped to the six-propellor remote controlled craft. Authorities are investigating where the flight originated, but said it was not the first time they’d seen a drone used to smuggle drugs. Said the drone, “I am the one who flies.”

Discussion Section Links: 

http://www.cnet.com/news/google-reportedly-wants-to-sell-wireless-service-through-sprint-t-mobile/#ftag=CAD590a51e

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/01/22/google-could-become-a-wireless-carrier-heres-what-that-means-for-you/

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2391605/google-to-become-mvno-in-rumoured-deal-with-us-carriers

https://www.theinformation.com/Google-s-Next-Telecom-Move-Becoming-a-Wireless-Carrier?token=ab0427829572f58d05a85f83758ffdb5

Pick of the Day: Freedom(TM) by Daniel Suarez via Paul Wheatley

Boss #1248 Paul writes, “Hi Tom, Hope you are well?

The HoloLens Microsoft announced yesterday got me very excited for a possible future 2nd dimension overlaid over our current dimension described in the book Freedom(TM) by Daniel Suarez, this is the sequel to Daemon. Both are excellent reads and great audio books on Audible.

The book describes a dimension overlaid using hologram glasses (and contact lenses) using augmented reality, but where people can almost entirely live in that dimension, separate currency, jobs, relationships, experience point and levelling up in ‘real’ life. Of course the book details it in a partially scary way but i for one welcome our Daemon overlords and cannot wait for this second dimension to be created.

Tomorrow’s guest:  Darren Kitchen

Lamarr Wilson joins us to talk about HOLOGRAMS! Also Windows 10 and Xbox app but also HOLOGRAMS!

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: Lamarr Wilson, YouTube sensation

Headlines

Microsoft conducted a 2 hour and 15 minute press conference this morning but did pack in a lot of announcements. First Windows 10 will be a free upgrade for all Windows 7 and 8.1 for the first year after release. Windows 10 also gets Cortana, the voice-activated digital assistant. Universal apps were highlighted including photos, maps and Outlook that are the same from phones to desktops. Microsoft demonstrated a touch-first version of Office for phones and tablets. We also got a look at Project Spartan, a new lightweight browser with shared note-taking, improved reading experience and built-in Cortana of its own. Skype is now integrated into messenger on Windows Phone. New release of Windows 10 goes to Insiders next week and comes to phones in February.

But that’s not all: an Xbox App is coming in Windows 10 that integrates gaming across platforms including phones and the Xbox One. Along with messaging and an activity feed similar to the Xbox’s the app enables cross-platform gameplay between an Xbox One and PC was demonstrated using Fable Legends. Players will also be able to stream Xbox One game to any windows 10 PC or tablet later this year. DirectX 12 was shown with the expected improvements including cutting power consumption in half. Oh and those universal apps will also be able to run on Xbox One if developers want.

Microsoft also showed off an 84-inch 4K display called Microsoft Surface Hub that’s essentially a huge version of Microsoft OneNote meant for collaborative meetings. It’s multitouch and multipen and includes Skype for Business. It can automatically share meeting notes to all participants.

And the company finished with Windows Holographic, a technology developed in partnership with NASA’s JPL. Every Windows 10 install will have a Holographic API allowing software and hardware makers to use the augmented reality functions. Microsoft is making HoloLens, which is wireless and has seethrough HD lenses, spatial sounds and a Holographic Processing Unit or HPU that tracks eye and head motion. HoloStudio is software meant to let users create objects with holograms and then 3D print them.

Bloomberg reports Samsung will stop using Qualcomm chips in the next version of the Galaxy S smartphone. Bloomberg’s sources said Samsung tested the Snapdragon 810 overheated during testing. Samsung will use its own chips instead. Samsung is Qualcomm’s second largest customer making up 12% of its sales. The Snapdragon 810 is expected to be used in Xiaomi’s Mi Note Pro and LG’s G Flex2.

Remember FreedomPop? The MVNO that offers free data plans as a gateway to their other other low-priced plans. It has previously run on the Sprint network. Last year, FreedomPop began selling a wi-fi only phone. Today, Gigaom reports that FreedomPop has announced its own Wi-fi network of 10 million hotspots. For $5 a month, users can purchase an unlimited voice, sms and wi-fi data plan. The Wi-fi network actually owned and run by many different ISPs and hotspot aggregators (though not Boingo) and can be found in places like Starbucks, Panera Bread, Walmart and Home Depot, with more deals in the works. An Android app ties all the services together into one interface. It doesn’t use Hotspot 2.0 yet but it will as more services migrate to the instant login technology.

9 to 5 Google reports that third party WhatsApp users are reporting that they’re being banned from the service for 24 hours. Most of those reporting the bug are using third-party WhatsApp clients on Android, such as WhatsAppPlus. WhatsApp has posted an article on the site suggesting that users uninstall the third-party client and reinstall the official one, saying “WhatsApp Plus contains source code which WhatsApp cannot guarantee as safe and that your private information is potentially being passed to 3rd parties without your knowledge or authorization.”

But hey you don’t even need an app, because Whats APP also launched a Web version of the service you can use on your desktop. Just go to web.whatsapp.com in Chrome, scan the QR code inside of WhatsApp to connect. And leave your phone on. And make sure it’s Android because they don’t support iOS for this service yet due to “platform limitations.”

The Verge reports Christopher Poole, AKA moot, is stepping down as administrator of 4Chan. moot founded 4Chan in 2003 when he was 15 years old. He called himself “an uncomfortably large single point of failure” and indicated he might return to the site as Admin emeritus or just another anonymous. He also wants to write about his experiences running the site. He’ll answer questions during a live stream on Friday.

Ars Technica reports that US District Court Judge Dolly Gee found that the Dish Anywhere service does not infringe copyrights of broadcasters. DishAnywhere allows users to watch their home programming outside the home on tablets and phones. Fox sued claiming this was an unauthorized retransmission. Judge Gee, ruled that Dish customers have a “fair use” right to watch television as they see fit, because they legitimately obtained the programming.

The Verge reports Twitter has launched Digits, a way to log into Web services without a password. Sort of. It’s separate from Twitter’s own app. Users associate a password with an account. Then in the future when logging in the user merely enters the phone number and a one-time code texted to that number. Twitter hopes other apps will adopt Digits. If they do once you authneticate at one site you’re authenticated at all sites that use Digits for the duration of that browsing session.

 

 

 

 

 

News From You: 

lythander pointed out a Slashdot snippet from Foundation for Economic Education that claims the US Department of Justice wants to be able to get a nonspecific warrant to search a computer if its location is hidden using something like Tor or a VPN. The requested change would have to be made to Rule 41(b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Another proposed change would allow the same non-specific warrant if a computer has been damaged by a botnet that is spread among at least five jurisdictions.

anotherjmartin submitted the Sploid article about a hydrophic metal that causes water to bounce off it. Researchers at the University of Rochester etched a nanostructure with femtosecond laser pulses on platinum causing the water to bounce and eventually roll right off. Because it is etched into the material it doesn’t wear off like chemical waterproofing can. Possible applications range from deicing airplane surfaces to non-stick pans to efficient water collections systems.

 

 

Discussion Section Links: 

http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2015/01/21/windows-10-will-free-upgrade-windows-7-8-8-1-users/

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/01/21/everything-microsoft-announced-windows-10-event-one-handy-list/

http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/21/7866741/cortana-windows-10-announced-microsoft

http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/21/windows-10-mobile-for-phones-and-tablets/?ncid=rss_truncated

http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2015/01/21/skype-now-microsofts-imessage-competitor/

http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/21/7865973/microsoft-windows-10-new-desktop-features

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/01/microsoft-unveils-project-spartan-the-browser-after-internet-explorer/

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/01/microsoft-announces-xbox-app-for-windows-10/

http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/21/microsoft-reveals-the-surface-hub/

https://gigaom.com/2015/01/21/microsoft-jumps-into-augmented-reality-with-hololens-windows-10/

Pick of the Day: Moments via Jamie in Beautiful BC

Hey Tom & Jenny,

My pick this week is an app for iOS called Moment from Kevin Holesh. One of the biggest downsides to smartphones these days is that everyone is constantly staring at their devices and not socializing. This is especially true for families. Moment allows you to track your phone usage throughout the day invisibly in the background and lets you track other members of your family as well. You can set dedicated phone free family time, and a very loud audible alarm will go off if you go on your phone. It will also help you manage your smartphone addiction by setting daily limits for yourself and encouraging you to put your phone down once you reach your limit for that day.

Good for the phone addicts out there that want to be able to have screen-free time at home. Free in the iOS App Store with In-App Purchases.

https://appsto.re/ca/MUm_T.i

Thanks!
Jamie in Beautiful BC

Tomorrow’s guest: Shannon Morse