Molly Wood is on the show today. We’ll discuss whether the $129 Moto E is a smoking gun, and why Microsoft is backtracking on Kinect Xbox One bundles and the Xbox Live requirement for Netflix.

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:  Molly Wood, columnist for The New York Times. 

Headlines

CNET reports Microsoft announced a new Xbox One without the Kinect bundled will begin selling June 9th for $399 in the US and £350 in the UK. A separate Kinect will become available later, though no timeline was announced. Microsoft also announced that sometime in June, its paid subscription service, Xbox Live Gold will no longer be required for most apps, including Netflix, ESPN, and YouTube. If you do keep paying though, Xbox One owners will get Games with Gold and Deals with Gold features starting in June. 

Ars Technica reports Motorola announced the Motorola E Android smartphone for sale unlocked at $129. The E runs Android 4.4.2 Kit Kat, has a 4.3-inch 960 x 540, 256 PPI display, a 1.2 GHz dual-core Snapdragon 200 processor, 1 GB of RAM and 4 GB of storage. Although it does have a microSD card slot that can add up to 32GB.Motorola even promises it will get at least one update to the next version of Android, possibly more. Like the Moto G has swappable rear shells you can buy for $15. One big gap, no front-facing camera. The phone comes to 40 countries in the next few weeks.

9to5 Mac cites “sources with knowledge of the enhancement in development” say Apple will add split-screen multitasking to iOS8 for iPad. It’s described as similar to how Windows 8 can snap multiple apps in the tiled interface on tablets. The iOS feature would let users drag content from one app to another. On the back-end this means iOS developers could share content between apps. Sources do warn that the feature might be pushed back to a later version or canceled altogether. Oh sources.

ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley reports Microsoft is adding advanced rules and a new undo option to Outlook.com.  Users will be able to create multi-condition, multi-action rules, including options for options for time constraints, email tallying, checking read/unread email state and more. Microsoft also simplified undo functions by adding an undo button and allowing CTRL-Z to work wherever you need to undo. The new features start rolling out today and should arrive for all users in the next few weeks.

GigaOm reports LG will begin selling its Lifeband Touch fitness wristband on May 18 in the US for $150, with Asia and Europe releases to follow. The lifeband can track the usual fitness metrics but can’t track your heartbeat. That’s why it’s fortuitous that LG will also start selling its Heart Rate earphones this month exclusively at Best Buy for $180, with additional retailers coming mid-June.

Recode reports 28 CEOs of US Internet Service Providers sent a letter to the US FCC urging the agency not to reclassify their services as Telecommunications. Some have urged the FCC to classify ISPs as telecommunications providers, as they were until 2002, in order to have a firmer legal justification for net neutrality regulations. The ISps say in their letter that doing so, “would impose great costs, allowing unprecedented government micromanagement of all aspects of the Internet economy.”

More elements of the cold war are returning! The Verge reports Russia has rejected a request by the United States to continue to use the International Space Station after 2020. The US wanted to extend joint missions until 2024. The US currently pays Russia $60 million per person to ferry its astronauts to the space station. Russia will also bar the US from buying Russian rocket engines that would be used to launch military satellites from the US.

News From You

Our top story on the subreddit today came from ancientbearwizard who submitted yesterday’s Guardian excerpt from a book by Glenn Greenwald alleging the NSA has been intercepting shipments of routers heading for export. The US spy agency then installs surveillance tools, repackages the device and sends it along. The allegation is based on a leaked June 2010 report from the head of the NSA’s Access and Target Development.

mranthropology sent us a Wired article that Volkswagen announced it will introduce a 10-speed dual-clutch transmission targeted to arrive in the 2015 Passat. More gears allows the engine to optimize RPMs and save fuel. VW Group Chairman Dr. Martin Winterkorn believes the design can help improve fuel economy across VW’s group model range by 20 percent. That includes not only Jettas and Audi A4s but Bugattis and Porches as well. 

MikePKennedy posted the Verge story about  a European Court of Justice ruling that Google is responsible for content on its servers and must respond to individual requests to remove outdated or irrelevant information originating from third parties. A Spanish resident asked Google to remove links to an article about his house being auctioned after a failure to pay taxes. The individual said the matter had been resolved making the articles outdated. The decision runs counter to a statement made last year by the Advocate General.

tm204 sent us a Rice University posting that Rice chemist James Tour and his colleagues have developed a flexible material that combines qualities of a battery and a supercapcitor without using lithium, which is found in almost all commercial batteries today. It can charge and discharge quickly like a supercapacitor or discharge more slowly like a battery. The capacitor is about a hundreth of an inch thick and flexible like graphene. The researchers hope they can make it even thinner.

The Kicker

 According to former Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield, today the last day you can (legally) watch the video of him singing ‘Space Oddity’ aboard the International Space Station. The first music video shot in space was filmed in 2013 near the end of Commander Hadfield’s tenure on the ISS  and his license of the David Bowie song expires today. Although Hadfield says he’s working with Bowie’s people to extend the rights, it’s worth watching again, for the weightless guitar solo, and to honor Hadfield for proving that astronauts don’t just have to be stoic scientific ciphers; they can also take the time to be creative in space. If you’re listening to this podcast on Wednesday, never fear, Hadfield’s original song “Jewel in the Night” is still available.

Discussion Section Links: Ground Control to Moto E

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/05/motorolas-moto-e-runs-kitkat-resists-scratches-costs-129-unlocked/

http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/12/htc-sensation-4g-official-1-2ghz-dual-core-qhd-display-and-th/

http://www.cnet.com/news/new-399-xbox-one-without-kinect/

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/05/head-of-xbox-says-plans-to-decouple-kinect-from-xbox-one-began-in-april/

http://gigaom.com/2014/05/13/microsoft-wants-to-boost-xbox-video-streaming-by-making-it-free/

http://news.xbox.com/2014/05/xbox-delivering-more-choices

Pick of the Day:  Ghostery via Loren Lang

Ghostery is a web privacy tool that is available as a browser add-on (for most major browsers, anyway) and an iOS app. It blocks all sorts of trackers, beacons and cookies from over 1900 sources and you can choose to allow or disallow any or all of them with individual granularity as well as whitelisting sites to allow everything from them. You can also choose to allow an item once and then automatically go back to blocking it which is extremely useful when blocking something breaks a site in some way. I’ve first checked it out when i heard Steve Gibson recommend it in 2011 (see Security Now, Ep. 305) and have been using it ever since. I’m not fully in the Tin Foil Hat Brigade but I also don’t necessarily want to have everything I do on the web tracked and sold. There wasn’t a lot of middle ground between being not caring and locking things down so much as to make some sites unusable. Ghostery is exactly the compromise I was looking for.

Plug of the Day: It’s a Thing, a podcast about things that are becoming  ‘ a thing’ with Tom Merritt and Molly Wood.

Wednesday ‘s guest:  Dr. Kiki Sanford, host of This Week in Science

CNET’s Iyaz Akhtar is on the show today. We’ll talk about Twitter’s new mute feature, float a few more idea about why Apple might want to by Beats, and discuss FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s latest revision to net neutrality rules.

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.com and GFQ Network

Headlines

Our top story on the subreddit submitted by spsheridan, tekkyn00b, saxonjf and others reports FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler will circulate new Open Internet Guidelines language Monday with new wording to make it clear that allowing paid prioritization should not lead to unfair discrimination against non-paying traffic. Wheeler also will propose an ombudsman position to handle complaints. Comments on paid prioritization and reclassification of the Internet as a telecommunications service will also be specifically sought as well as comments on outside proposals from Mozilla and Professor Tim Wu.

The Next Web reports Twitter added a mute feature to its Android and iOS apps as well as Twitter.com. To mute someone, go to a users profile page, click the gear icon, and choose mute. This allows you to avoid seeing posts from the person in your timeline but you can still communicate by DM with that person if need be. Muted users can still favorite, reply to, and retweet your tweets.

CruxialCIO reports IBM introduced new software-defined storage technology based on methods developed for IBM’s Watson, the cognitive-computing platform. Watson could process 200 million pages of structured and unstructured data using a similar process, according to IBM. A key part of the offering is Elastic Storage which makes it easier to scale access to billions of files. Applications could include genomic data for cancer research, product-design simulations or even travel reservations. Yes that implies curing cancer and booking travel efficiently– are equally complex tasks. The Elastic Storage technology will be available through IBM’s SoftLayer cloud platform later this year.

The Next Web reports LG published a video teaser of its first smartwatch, called the LG G Watch. The watch will be the first powered by Google’s Android Wear platform. It will be water and dust resistant and have a metal body. When it will arrive and how much it will cost are still mysteries. 

News From You

Habichuelacondulce submitted the Mashable story on The Parrot Bebop quadcopter drone. The Bebop has an HD video camera, built-in GPS, image-stabilization AND Oculus Rift compatibility. Oh yeah. A 14-megapixel fisheye lens sends HD video which can be viewed in real time and controlled on a smartphone or tablet. OR an optional Skycontroller extends the range of the drone to 2 km AND an be connected to a Display like say, an Oculus Rift headset. The headset can then control the Bebop’s camera position. The drone and skycontroller will be available sometime in Q4.

spsheridan sent in the Recode story about  a bionic arm with three joints and four fingers that can catch objects in mid-flight, developed by researchers in Switzerland. In a video, the arm catches a bottle and a tennis racket. The robot is trained to catch objects by watching humans. While you and I may imagine playing a game of catch with our robot pals, researchers plan to affix the arm to satellites in order to catch flying space debris. 

habichuelacondulce submitted a Washington Times article that was a little light on details, so we dug up a MassLive.com version, about a woman charged by Springfield, Massachusetts police with violating the state’s wiretapping laws by using her phone to make an audio recording of her arrest. The woman was also charged with disorderly conduct and carrying an open container of alcohol. She denies all the charges. Massachusetts law prohibits the recording of audio without the consent of the person being recorded, although U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled that the First Amendment protects the right of individuals to record video of police at work in a public place.

Discussion Section Links: Mutes & Beats

http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2014/05/12/twitter-introduces-mute-feature-android-iphone-web/?utm_source=social&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=profeed&utm_reader=feedly

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-12/apple-s-deep-ties-with-iovine-key-driver-of-beats-deal.html

Pick of the Day:  Package Buddy via Luke Pohr

Luke Pohr has today’s pick: “Hi, Tom and Jennie. My Pick of the Day is Package Buddy. Its on Android, and what it does is allow you to keep track of shipments of items that are being shipped to your address. All you do is get the tracking number and select the carrier that your shipment is on. Add that info to the app. The app will search for the tracking info for you. Also update you where your shipment is. This is way more convenient than going through your email every single time. I have used this app for years, still do and its great. And best of all its free!”

Important: Beatmaster just flagged us that Gigi B. Sohn, FCC Senior Counsel for External Affairs, will be doing Q&A on Twitter tomorrow at 2pm ET. Follow @GigiBSohnFCC and add #FCCNetNeutrality to your question, leaving almost no more characters for your question. 

Tuesday ‘s guest: Molly Wood–you may have heard of her. 

On the show today I made a passing reference to Tim Wu’s plan to solve the regulation of the Internet by using alternate justification.

After the show I got this email from Sandy1202

Could you explain what this article means on your show? I can’t follow it all.

Here’s a revision of what I wrote back to her.

It’s a legal trick. The court said in January that Section 706 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act was not a sufficient basis for net neutrality regulations.

They said the FCC could do two things. Come up with a new basis for the regulation, or reclassify broadband providers as telecommunications providers, so-called Title II classification.

Internet was classified as telecommunications until 2002, when ISP’s convinced the FCC to reclassify Internet providers as Information providers, similar to cable TV providers. This allowed the ISPs to close their networks to third party competitors.

The ISPs currently lobby very hard against classifying the Internet as telecom again.

So current FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler won’t reclassify Internet as telecom because he would face a fight. Instead he’s trying to strike a compromise. Use the rules that were thrown out in court, with the Section 706 justification, but change them to allow commercially reasonable discrimination. This is an attempt to appease ISPs by letting them charge, but still having some rules against discrimination. He hopes by doing this ISPs won’t take him to court, but there will be enough net neutrality regulation to satisfy others.

What Professor Wu suggests is a legal maneuver called arguing in the alternative. The idea is to put the old rules back in place, while still using Section 706 as a primary justification. HOWEVER, in addition you also justify the rules on the basis that the FCC has the authority, which they do, to classify ISPs as telecoms.

What that does is makes it so that if an ISP goes to court, they not only have to convince the court that Section 706 is not a proper basis for regulation but that the FCC doesn’t have authority to regulate them as a telecom. This would be very hard to prove, since the authority to regulate as telecoms is well-proved and Internet has been regulated as a telecom previously and fits the definition under Title II. (defined as “the transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user’s choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received.”)

Taking that rule to court might end up with the court throwing out the Section 706 justification but then LEAVING the telecom justification, resulting in all Internet providers being reclassified as telecom operators which is exactly what they don’t want.

Wu’s proposition is that the ISP’s won’t want to risk a lawsuit in that case, and will happily agree to Section 706 regulation rather than risk the reclassification.

Darren Kitchen is on the show and we’ll talk about Apple buying Beats Electronics and the UN debating the need for autonomous killer robots. also Len Peralta will illustrate the whole shebang. Join us won’t you?

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 guests:  Darren Kitchen and Len Peralta

Headlines

The Financial Times reports “as early as next week” Apple will announce a deal to acquire Beats Electronics for $3.2 billion. Beats is the leading headphone seller in the US, founded by musician Dr. Dre and record producer Jimmy Iovine. The company recently launched an online music streaming service as well. FT says some details have yet to be agreed on and the talks could still fall apart.” The Next Web reports a video posted to Facebook by actor-singer-songwriter Tyrese Gibson had the caption “Dr Dre ON THE night his deal went public that he did with Apple 3.2 BILLION!!!!” It has since been removed.

TechCrunch reports Apple has hired Ari Partinen, the senior engineer who worked on Nokia’s PureView smartphone camera technology. Partinen confirmed the move on Twitter. Nokia’s PureView technology uses a technique of pixel oversampling to reduce noise in images — enabling lower resolution shots to be produced with high clarity and strong color.

The Verge a federal court ruled Google must pay Oracle for the use of the Java API in Android, overturning a lower court decision. Google built its own version of Java but used the Java API to make it easier for programmers to write for Andorid. The district court had ruled the API was “a utilitarian and functional set of symbols.” Oracle appealed the ruling and a Federal Court says the API is Oracle’s property and as such Google has to pay. Lawyer Sara Jeong tweeted the decision is like “getting mad at a screwdriver for looking like a screwdriver.” Supreme Court here we come.

CNET and many Netflix users noticed today that Netflix has raised their prices as promised, $1 a month in the US and £1 a month in the UK and €1 a month in the Eurozone. That means monthly rates for new customers of £6.99 per month €8.99 or $8.99. Exisiting Netflix customers are exempt for the next two years. Netflix also says it will reintroduce the old pricing levels but those plans will only get you standard def and one user per account. 

PCMag reports link shortening service, Bitly announced late Thursday it has been hacked, exposing user email addresses, encrypted passwords, API Keys and OAuth tokens. At this time no accounts appear to have been compromised. The company has secured all paths that led to the compromise and urged all users to reset passwords. 

Reuters reports Xiaomi will release its first tablet soon. Reuters says its sources say the tablet will have a 7.9-inch screen and be called the MiPad.The Chinese smartphone company will hold an event in Beijing May 15 but has not said what it will announce. A 4G sucessor to the Mi3 smartphone widely being referred to as the Mi3S is also a possibility. 

Engadget reports that UK ISPs BT, Sky, Virgin Media and Talk Talk have all signed a deal with the music and movie industry organizations to send out educational missives to alleged pirates starting next year. So if someone thinks you’re infringing copyright and you’re a customer of one of these ISPs, starting next year you might get a letter telling you to stop infringing copyright.

News From You

Our top story on the subreddit comes from spsheridan who posted the GigaOm story about new groups opposing FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s Net Neutrality plan. The latest protest letter comes from more than 50 venture capitalists asking for the commission to reconsider the proposal that would allow commercially reasonable discrimination. Several organizations are planning a May 15 protest, the day of the FCC open meeting where the notice for proposed rulemaking will be voted on. Professor Tim Wu writing in the New Yorker proposed a clever plan where the previous rules could go into effect but if companies sued the FCC again, ISPs would be reclassified as telecommunications services, thus discouraging lawsuits.

One company has already started a direct protest, dillydobbs and Aractor both posted this one.  Ars Technica reports on Neocities.org, a webhosting company that has throttled any connections to its homepage from IP addresses arising inside the FCC, to 28.8Kbps speeds. Neocities creator Kyle Drake wrote “ I’m not removing it until the FCC pays us for the bandwidth they’ve been wasting instead of doing their jobs.”

KAPT_Kipper submitted the Ars Technica story that Amazon has taken action against the wireless device company Mediabridge Products, that you may remember sent a threatening legal letter to an individual who wrote a negative review of one of their wireless routers. Mediabridge posted an official statement to its Facebook page defending its actions and admitting Amazon has revoked its selling privileges. 

And TheFixxer sent us the CNET article about self-healing plastic developed by researchers at the University of Illinois. Jeffry Moore, who worked on the research team under aerospace engineering professor Scott White said the material is nonliving but repairs itself in a way similar to living organisms. When the plastic is damaged, liquids flow into the gap and form a gel, similar to the way blood coagulates to heal a wound. The technology can regenerate a hole created by a nine-millimeter bullet. 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/09/us-xiaomi-tablet-idUSBREA480I920140509

http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/09/isp-warning-letter-uk-downloaders/?ncid=rss_truncated

Discussion Section Links: 

http://recode.net/2014/05/09/what-is-tim-cook-thinking-lets-pretend-we-can-read-his-mind/

http://www.cnet.com/news/beats-boss-jimmy-iovine-to-join-apple-report-says/#ftag=CAD590a51e

http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/9/5698158/what-apple-is-really-buying-with-beats

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27340359

http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/09/beats-apple-confirmed/?ncid=rss_truncated

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27343076

Pick of the Day:  Tonx and Misto box – They send you coffee!

Monday ‘s guest: Iyaz Akhtar of cnet.com and GFQ Network

Dan Patterson is on the show. He’ll talk about his experience training Sudanese media makers in Egypt and how mobile phones are changing the world.

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: Dan Patterson, technologist and journalist

Headlines

Did I say “forever”? I meant, “not really”: The Next Web reports Snapchat agreed to a “Consent decree” with the U.S. FTC over a database leak and misrepresentation of how the service stored user messages. Snapchat had said photos and videos would “disappear forever,” although there were many ways to work around that. Snapchat changed its privacy policy, app description and in-app notifications. Snapchat’s agreement with the FTC requires that it create a privacy program, subject itself to independent monitoring for 20 years, and stop misrepresenting how it handles user data.

Next stop – Head of the WORLD! Reuters reports that Samsung replaced the head of its mobile design team, Chang Dong-hoon, who offered to resign last week. Lee Min-hyouk will take over the role. Chang will focus on the Design Strategy Team, which is responsible for long-term design across all Samsung’s businesses. Lee has been a rising star at Samsung, becoming the company’s youngest senior executive in 2010 for his role in designing the Galaxy series of phones. 

Can’t wait to see the comments section: Reuters also reports more than 100 technology companies, including Google, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon signed a letter to the U.S. FCC opposing proposed open Internet guidelines that would allow commercially reasonable traffic discrimination. The letter called the rules a ‘grave threat to the Internet’ and called for a delay in their proposal. A meeting is set for May 15th which would make the proposal official, and open the guidelines to a public comment period.

Mario figurine, anyone? Ars Technica reports Nintendo plans to release a low-priced game console targeted towards “emerging markets.” Nintendo President Satoru Iwata spoke to the press following an investor briefing Wednesday, but didn’t give details on the new hardware or what countries it would be released in. Nintendo also announced “the Nintendo Figurine Platform” featuring collectible toys that share data with a variety of Nintendo games using NFC.

I would like all the players to wear pink: The Verge reports Epic Games announced the next Unreal Tournament will be completely free and developed in the open. The development will be lead by senior Epic Games programmers, but anyone can contribute. The company plans to use forums and Twitch Streams as well as a GitHub repository. The company plans to make money off a forthcoming online marketplace for user-generated mods and content. 

Thanks, I think? Re/code reports executives from Comcast and Time Warner Cable appeared before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. Most of the questions asked what the benefit to the consumers would be. Comcast replied the combined company would deliver a significantly improved customer experience, but not lower prices. Rep. Blake Farenthold of Texas, noted that the combined company would serve 91% of Hispanic households, and asked for assurances the company would not discriminate against non Comcast-NBC spanish-language programming.

Move over, Twitter: The Next Web reports Japanese messaging app Line reported revenues have increased 223% over the past year and 19% over the past quarter. Line has more than 420 million registered users and makes half its revenues from in-app purchases related to some 30 games connected tot he messaging app. Line also makes money from advertisers who can push messages to followers who have asked for them. Paul McCartney for instance has more followers on Line than on Twitter. The company has been piloting flash sales through the app. And also stickers. They sell virtual stickers. 

News From You

Angryfuture submitted the top story on the subreddit today from Tweaktown, which I also found reported on Ars Technica. Lawyers for Mediabridge Products who make routers, sent a letter to a redditor called trevely Monday threatening to sue unless he deleted a negative review of a Medialink Wireless Router from Amazon. Mediabridge’s attorney, Neal Jacobs says trevely’s review was a “campaign to damage, discredit, defame and libel Mediabridge.”

toddkam posted the Business Week article about a group from Université Laval in Quebec who won Shell’s Eco-marathon Americas competition with a car that achieved 2,824 miles per gallon. If that impresses you, it shouldn’t. Last year the same school achieved 3,587 miles per gallon. The car, which competed in the prototype class of the competition has a teardrop shape, and is not built for comfort or speed.

Spydrchick submitted the Gawker story that a band from LA called Vulfpeck racked up $20,000 in royalties from Spotify thanks to their album Sleepify. The band asked fans to stream the entirely silent album through the night as they slept, racking up plays for Vulfpeck that paid $.007 cents per track. Fans could generate $3 a night for the band and enough nights and enough fans added up to $20K. Spotify spokesman Graham James said, “Sleepify seems derivative of John Cage’s work.” Spotify has also made the band remove the album for violating terms of service. Whether they’ll get paid a check remains to be seen.

Discussion Section Links: 

http://danpatterson.com/2014/04/28/sudan-stories-language-guns-phones/

http://www.itu.int/net/pressoffice/press_releases/2014/23.aspx#.U2vHKq1dXA6

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/23/mobile-reading-revolution-unesco-study-phones-africa-subcontinent

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/themes/icts/m4ed/mobile-reading/reading-in-the-mobile-era/

http://www.cp-africa.com/2014/05/03/gallup-africa-continues-going-mobile/

https://www.undpegov.org/mgov-primer.html

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/africa-in-focus/posts/2014/04/18-women-mobile-technology-maret-rakotondrazaka

Pick of the Day:  Todoist via Ashish Bogawat

Ashish Bogawat has our pick of the day: the task list management app Todoist. “With a pretty minimalistic interface, the app can be as simple or complex as you want – no mean feat in this day & age. That it has native clients available for virtually every platform out there, as well as offline mode in the web app is just icing on the cake.”

Friday’s guest: Darren Kitchen and Len Peralta

Pelle Eklund and I talk about whether proposed net neutrality regulations are already slowing investment and why an LG fridge that text messages you is actually a step backward for tech.

MP3

Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.

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: Eklund, founder of hockeybuzz.com

Headlines

The Verge reports Evernote announced an expanded partnership with LinkedIn for better address book organization and improved business card scanning in the iOS app. Evernote’s scanner will pull information from LinkedIn as well as add time and place of the contact. LinkedIN will start directing folks to Evernote for card scanning rather than its own CardMunch app which is shutting down July 11th. 

GigaOm notes Google is buying StackDriver, which monitors cloud workload, especially for customers of Amazon Web Services. Google has been trying to build up its own cloud platform to compete with Amazon. 

Most of you will not care at all that Apple’s VP of worldwide communications, Katie Cotton is retiring after more than 18 years at the company But this is big news for journalists who have deal with Apple PR. Apple told Recode Cotton wants to spend more time with her children. 

ZDNet reports that HP is the latest to get on the open source OpenStack cloud platform. HP will invest $1 billion in cloud computing and add openstack in 20 data centers over the next 18 months. HP is joining NASA, Rackspace, IBM and others in promoting Openstack and running your own private cloud as an alternative to the Amazon and Google’s of the world and their public clouds. Insert “get off my cloud” joke here for those over 30. Convert to ‘cloud rap’ subgenre reference for others.

TechCrunch reports Google is buying Appetas, a site that helps restaurants build their own websites, even integrating services like grubHub and OpenTable as well as social networks in an easy cost-effective manner. Google plans to shut the service down. 

Ars Technica reports Nintendo— oh Nintendo. Wii U sales missed fiscal year projections by 80,000 to come in at 2.8 million. Nintendo went into the fiscal year expecting to sell 9 million. Hey but the 3DS sol 12.2 million units still below the 13.5 million projected. Nintendo also lost money. Lots and lots of money. ¥46.4 billion, the third straight annual loss. Hey but Nintendo has three things going for them. Mario, Zelda and no debt!

CNET reports on Huawei’s launch of the Ascen P7 smartphone. It’s a 5-inch Android phone with 1920×1080 display running Huawei’s Emotion interface. But the big feature is the 8-megapixel front-facing camera. Yep. Front-facing, rear one has 13 mehgapixels. But 8 megapixels should give you some nice high-res selfies. Just in time for selfies to become passé. Which is why Huawei made up a new word to describe group selfies like Ellen would take at an awards cermonies. Groufies. Huawei would like you to call those groufies. The phone will be available initially in June in dozens of European and Asian countries for a price of 449 euros (US$625) unlocked. 

The Verge passes along data from a UN ITU report that the Internet will have 3 billion active users, about 40% of the world’s population, by the end of this year. Active means they used the Internet once in the past three months, not just had access to it. Three out of four people in Europe will be using the internet by the end of the year, compared to two out of three in the Americas and one in three in Asia and the Pacific. In Africa, nearly one in five people will be online by the end of the year. Mobile phone subscriptions should reach 7 billion and mobile internet subscriptions should make up 2.3 billion.

News From You

spsheridan had our top story of today on the subreddit. BGR reports Al Franken, my friends, has made a video promoting a website called noslowlane.com. The US Senator is trying to rally opposition to the FCC regulations that would allow comercially reasonable traffic prioritization. He uses Google Video vs. YouTube as an example of the open Internet working to make a scrappy up and comer defeat a behemoth incumbent. ‘Cause Google Video sucked and YouTube was better and so Google bought YouTube and killed Google Video and YouTube might have never got off the ground if it had to pay commercially reasonable video rates to a bunch of ISPs. 

tm204 pointed out that App.net has good news. They’re profitable and self-sustaining thanks to paid subscriptions for the social network. App.net will continue to operate normally on an indefinite basis.Without any employees. Yeah the bad news is to be profitable App.net can’t have any full time employees, including the founders. So they’re all gone. The company will get by with contracters and will be open sourcing a larger and larger percentage of the App.net codebase. 

tekkyn00b gave us the Verge story that Russia’s President signed a law requiring any blogger with more than 3,000 readers to register with the Roskomnadzor, Russia’s media agency. The law covers microblogs and social networks as well. Registered writers will be responsible for fact-checking and are forbidden from harming the reputation of a person or group or hiding or falsifying “information of general interest.” Writers will also be required to publish their surname, initials, and email address.

MikePKennedy submitted the Verge story that the US Navy announced the Navy eReader Device, yep, abbreviated as NeRD. It’s an e-ink tablet with no Internet, no removable storage, and come preloaded with 300 books that will never change. The Navy doesn’t allow devices like iPads which have cameras and emit signals that could be detected.

And here’s some breaking good news ABOUT calendars! It only took 90 minutes to fund the kickstarter to bring Upcoming.org back to life. Remember Upcoming? The terrific arts and tech calendar site that yahoo bought in 2005 and then ignored and then sunsetted in 2007? Well Yahoo allowed the Andy Baio, the sites original creator to buy back the domain, and then today, 90 minutes after he launched the kickstarter it was funded. Jennie, who writes up the calendar each day is VERY happy about this. YAY!

Discussion Section Links: 

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/527006/talk-of-an-internet-fast-lane-is-already-hurting-some-startups/

http://bgr.com/2014/05/07/senator-franken-net-neutrality-campaign/

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27308869

 

Pick of the Day:  Google Keep via Vance McAllister

Vance McAllister has our pick of the day: Tom, as you might guess, my pick is a Google app, but one that tends to fly under the radar despite doing one simple thing very well. Although I am a dedicated Evernote user, I have been finding myself using Keep more and more without any overlap. Whereas Evernote is my digital file cabinet, I use Keep as digital Post-It Notes. It is fast and easy to pull up on a phone or computer to jot down a name, number, create a quick list, or anything that I need to save for later. Then, just like a Post-It Note, that information is usually used and discarded. Anything important enough to keep still goes into Evernote, but I am not cluttering Evernote up with these small, temporary bits and pieces. The Keep interface on Android and iOS is clean, simple and attractive, and there is even a standalone Chrome App for Windows and Mac in addition to the web interface. Since it is free and available on every platform, I encourage folks to give it a go! Vance, from the increasingly hot California desert

Thursday’s guest: Dan Patterson, technology journalist

Allison Sheridan joins me to talk about the rising maker revolution, open source hardware, and Google’s advance on the classroom.

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: Allison Sheridan of podfeet.com and The NosillaCast

Headlines:

CNET reports Google and Intel announced more than 20 new devices running Google’s Chrome OS on Intel’s Bay Trail and Haswell processors. PC makers: Acer, Asus, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, LG, and Toshiba will all make the devices. Lenovo had their own Chrome OS announcement including a 64-bit Bay Trail powered Yoga Chromebook. Samsung was notably absent. All announced devices use conflict-free metals in their construction. I haven’t seen this many non Wintel PCs since the OS/2 Warp days. 

Remember we said the jury awarded Apple $120 million in the latest Apple-Samsung patent dustup? Well surprise, suprise, Samsung is plans to challenge the verdict as “unsupported by evidence,” according to Bloomberg. Samsung will tell the court they would rather pay a lower amount, according to Samsung lawyer John Quinn. Zero. They would like to pay zero please. Both companies will also likely pursue bans on each others devices. Want to know why Samsung and Apple are at each others throats like this? Go read Kurt Eichenwald’s excellent in depth writeup at vanityfair.com.

CNET reports Microsoft sent out invites to the press for a “small gathering” on the morning of May 20th in New York City. It could mean Microsoft just wants a few of their favorite journalists to have brunch, or it could mean Microsoft is being clever and wants to announce a smaller Microsoft Surface tablet.

CNET reports Flux, once a part of the secretive Google X labs has raised $8 million in Series A funding. Flux is developing and testing its collaborative-design software for the building construction industry. The idea is to help build sustainable structures that reduce energy consumption. It hopes to launch the product in early 2015.

Gigaom reports Dropcam will launch a line of sensors called Tabs, that can tell when a door or window has been opened as well as detect movement. The Tabs work with the dropcam cameras and will sell for $29 starting in August. The cameras themselves will also get an upgrade in August, being able to use the cloud to tell when a human is in its view and eventually tell which human that is. More details to follow at the GigaOm Structure Conference June 18th and 19th.

The Next Web reports Google Maps for Android and iOS got an update with several new features including the ability to tell you which lane to be in so you don’t miss your exit off the highway, as well as avoid high traffic lanes! Maps also gets an easier way to take an alternate route while driving as well integration of Uber alongside other transit options. 

TechCrunch reports Google is rolling out a new Classroom app which uses Docs, Drive and Gmail to make it easier to hand out track and accept student assignments. The system is free and Ad-free but will be invite only to start. Educators can apply to the preview program at https://classroom.google.com/signup and the first group of testers will be notified in about a month. 

News From You: 

AtomicSpaceGun posted the Gizmodo article about a series of email exchanges revealed by Al Jazeera News between the US NSA director at the time Keith Alexander and executives from Google. The exchanges from 2012 were obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request. The meetings indicate Google along with Microsoft, HP, AMD, Apple, and others were working on cybersecurity issues such as efforts to secure BIOS on enterprise platforms and participation in “classified threat briefings.” The meetings were part of seomthing called the Enduring Security Framework and don’t seem to have any relationship to programs revealed by Edward Snowden’s leaks. 

the_corley sent us the Engadget story that Dropbox closed down many of their shared links after realizing a security flaw could unintentionally expose those documents. Apparently Dropbox was not doing anything about blocking referrer links from being logged. Let’s say Allison sent me a document via a dropbox link that had a link to apple.com in it. Then I open that document from the dropbox link and click on the link to Apple.com. The sysadmins at Apple could look int heir logs and see that someone was referred to their site from the dropbox link. Then they could access that same document using that link. Dropbox says they have patched the problem.

HouseofBrick had the most popular new story on subreddit today. Ars Technica reports that a ban on drones announced by the US National Park Services does not appear use a legal basis that could apply to drones. Instead of creating a new regulation and holding the public comment that usually comes with it, the Park Service cited an existing regulation that restricts “delivering or retrieving a person or object by parachute, helicopter, or other airborne means.” So no riding your drones into or out of Yosemite people!

And TVSEgon posted the Gizmodo story of a man who accidentally received a $400,000 unmanned aerial vehicle delivered to his door by UPS. Not by drone. Reddit user Seventy_Seven. said he called UPS who said it was up to him whether to keep it or not. A card in the box said it belonged to NOAA Aircraft Operations Center in Tampa, Florida, whom Seventy_seven said would get a call next.

Pick of the Day: Goodreader via Russell Manthy

Russell Manthy has the pick of the day: “We have been using iPads for business for about two and a half years now and the key tool we have found is Goodreader. As there is no native file manager on the iPad you need a way to manage, present and share files. After trying a number of others we have found that Goodreader is the best for what we do. It handles almost any standard file type (PDF, MS Office, video, images, etc.) and allows you to manage and display them in a manner very similar to the typical file manager on the desktop. It populates from cloud services like Dropbox, Box, the Microsoft cloud service and a variety of others. Documents can also be added from email attachments and it links to your email to send documents from the app. One other really nice feature is that it has a fairly robust markup tool for PDF files. We utilize this in meetings quite a bit when the iPad is connected to a projector. It allows for real time markups and speeds the consensus building on projects.”

Tomorrow’s Guest: Eklund of hockeybuzz.com

Jonathan Strickland is on the show with an intriguing story about a way to combine solar AND wind to solve our energy woes. Plus Mozilla gets all creative with the net neutrality problem. Did they solve it?

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: Jon Strickland, host of FW:Thinking, co-host of Tech Stuff and writer for How Stuff Works ho

Headlines

CNET reports Apple and Samsung have finally reached the end of one of their patent battles. A jury handed down a verdict Friday in San Jose California, ordering Samsung to pay Apple $119.6 million and ordering Apple to pay Samsung $158,400. Apple had asked for $2.2 billion and Samsung wanted $6.2 million. Apple’s lawyers disputed one of the damages figures so the jury deliberated again Monday morning. The jury raised the award for one Samsung violation but also lowered the award for another leading to essentially the same $119.6 million decision. Some suspect that might not even cover Apple’s court costs.

CNET reports Amazon and Twitter have teamed up to make it easier to shop. Starting today Twitter users can link their account to an Amazon account. Once that’s done products can be added to an Amazon shopping cart by responding to any Tweet with an Amazon link and using the hashtag #AmazonCart or in the UK #AmazonBasket. No word on the terms of the deal though Amazon did say Twitter is not getting a cut of each purchase.

Reuters notes that over the past year Apple has hired a half dozen promintent experts in biomedicine, the latest moving over to Apple two weeks ago. Apple is reportedly recruiting other medical professionals as well. Much of the hiring is apparently around sensor technology. Most people suspect it’s related to a wearable device. Apple has trademarked the name iWatch in Japan, though apparently Swatch is not too happy with that name being taken by Apple.

TechCrunch reports Oculus responded to allegations by ZeniMax that John Carmack violated his non-disclosure agreement after he left ZeniMax-owned iD software, which he founded, to go work for Oculus on VR technology. Oculus repeated Carmack’s claim that ZeniMax shelved their own VR projects which led to Carmack’s departure. Oculus stressed ZeniMax never contributed any IP or technology to Oculus products.

GigaOm reports EvLEaks has pictures of a smaller version of the HTC One M8 called the One Mini 2. The Mini 2 does not look to have the second sensor that measures depth during photo-taking. It also has only one LED flash. Otherwise if the leaked picture is accurate, and EvLeaks has a good track record, the Mini2 looks just like the M8 only smaller.

News From You

Our top story on the SubReddit was submitted by MikePKennedy. Engadget reports teams competing at Harvard, Cambridge and California found that pumping blood from young mice into older ones led to the elderly mice developing more blood vessels in the vein, demonstrating clearer thinking and faster running. Harvard researchers subsequently isolated a protein called GDF11, which helped both the operation of hearts and brains. Before your steal your younger friends and family’s blood, remember that you are not a mouse.

spsheridan posted the Next Web article about John McAfee launching a secure messaging app called Chadder.  Produced by McAfee’s Future Tense Private Systems, the app aims to be like Wickr and others encrypting messages so only the recipient can read them. Chadder is in beta but available for Android and Windows Phone. 

cincyhuffster pointed out the GigaOm report on Mozilla’s effort to help the FCC fix the Net Neutrality problem. One solution has been to reclassify ISPs as telecommomunications providers, often referred to as Title II classification. The idea is politically impossible. ISP’s were classified as Information providers in the early 200s partly because they host email and storage, or did in large numbers back then. Mozilla’s clever plan is to leave ISP’s as information providers when managing their own systems, but classify any inbound traffic from content providers as telecommunications. IN other words split it in two. Mozilla hopes to influence the Notice for Proposed Rulemaking the FCC will deliver on May 15th.

tekkyn00b and MrAnthrpology both submitted reports of Target’s CEO resigning in the wake of the Target data breach. The Verge reports Gregg Steinhafel will step down as CEO, President and Chairman of the company and give up his seat on the board of directors. Chief Financial Officer John Mulligan is expected to take over as president until a successor can be found. Target’s former head of technology, Beth Jacob, resigned in March.

Spsheridan submitted the GigaOm report on a blog post from Internet transit provider Level 3, accusing 5 US ISPs and one European one of using market powers to interfere with traffic flow. Level 3 says it has saturated ports with 12 of its 51 peers. Six of those peers are in the process of cooperating on upgrades to alleviate congestion. The other six are doing nothing and Level 3 says they are also networks with dominant or exclusive market share in their local market. 

Discussion Section Links: Solar Wind!

http://phys.org/news/2014-05-energy-tower-electricity-arizona.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-28/solar-wind-wins-approval-for-1-5-billion-power-tower.html

Pick of the Day:  Video DownloadHelper

Hey Tom, Fascinated Video Size Guy here. Got a pick for the show that will also solve the confusion for the YouTube video download. My pick is Video DownloadHelper. It’s a free add-on for Firefox and it gives you the ability to download any video on YouTube and other video sites. But wait there’s more!!!! YouTube always stores multiple versions of videos so YT and it’s users can adjust the quality to best match their connection speeds and needs. VDH adds a button that allows you to simply choose which version of the YT video you want to download. I’ve used VDH for many years and can recommend it highly to anyone looking to download YT videos, especially people who produce a daily tech news shows Love the show, Fascinated Video Size Guy

Tuesday’s guest: Allison Sheridan, podfeet.com

Darren Kitchen is on the show to help us understand why we shouldn’t freak out about the OAuth flaw, and what Apple, Google and Facebook are really doing to protect their users from government data requests.

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: Darren Kitchen, hak5.org

Headlines

Our top story on the subreddit was submitted by Beatmaster80 and tekkyn00b. Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Google are all updating their policies to expand the notification they give users when a government agency requests their personal data. Yahoo announced a similar policy in July, and Twitter has always done so. Users would not be notified if a court order prevents it or if there is imminent risk of physical harm to a potential crime victim. The policies will have no effect on NSA data collection or National Security Letters both of which are required to remain secret by law.

bmorales submitted a CNET story about Nanyang Technolohical University student Wang Jing uncovering a flaw in OAuth and OpenID that could be used to steal a login token from services like Facebook or Google, when using those services to login to a third party site. The token could then be used to retrieve data from Google or Facebook. Mashable’s Christina Warren has an excellent writeup of the issue. It’s not a weakness in OAuth at all but caused by a weak implementation on the third-party website’s side, which could be mitigated by certain practices on the side of Facebook or Google. Also, the attack requires you to click a suspicious link AND choose to then login with a service. So no. This is not another Heartbleed.

The Next Web reports Microsoft’s Windows Phone manager, Joe Belfiore held a Reddit AMA today where he said Windows Phone will get a file manager by the end of the month, hopefully. The app will let you create new folders, move files from one folder to another, and search within folders.

Ars Technica reports on a system called Large Emergency Event Digital Information Repository, meant to let citizens upload videos and photos to help police investigations and disaster response. Amazon Web Services has teamed with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department on the project. Santa Barbara, CA authorities are the first to use the system and are calling on the public to upload images taken of a riot last month at the Isla Vista community near the University of California at Santa Barbara. Apps for LEEDIR are available for iOS and Android. 

The Verge reports the next Call of Duty game, Advanced Warfare, will launch on November 4th, and star Kevin Spacey as head of a private military corporation that has launched an attack on the US. The first trailer showed up on the official Call of Duty YouTube page late last night. 

Macrumors reports Apple is expanding its iTunes Match service to Japan. The service, which costs ¥3,980 per year, lets iTunes users match their library with cloud versions of the songs for quick storage, which can then be accessed from any Apple device.  

News From You

KAPT_Kipper posted a GigaOm story that a class action complaint has been filed against Google, alleging secret deals force Samsung and others to use the Google search engine on mobile devices, creating a search monopoly, which in turn makes devices cost more. The crux of the complaint is that Google offers Mobile Application Distribution Agreements, which require device makers to make Google the default search engine if they want to include Google’s other mobile apps like YouTube and the Google Play app store. Google told GigaOm by email “Anyone can use Android without Google and anyone can use Google without Android. 

metalfreak sent in the PC World story about the Attorney General for the US state of Washington filing a lawsuit against a company that raised $25,000 on Kickstarter but failed to deliver its product, a retro-horror playing-card deck called Asylum. The project funded in October 2012 and has yet to deliver any rewards. Kickstarter’s terms of use requires creators to fulfill all rewards of their projects or refund backers. The complaint, filed in King County Superior Court, seeks restitution for consumers and as much as $2,000 per violation of the state’s Consumer Protection Act.

Beatmaster80 pointed us to the Record story that Lila Tretikov has been named Executive Director of Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that runs Wikipedia among other projects. Outgoing director Sue Gardner will end her term on June 1. Tretikov was previously chief product officer at SugarCRM. Tretikov’s personal background growing up in the Soviet Union and her experience with open-source engineering seem to be the main reasons she got the job.

KAPT_Kipper posted an ITWorld story that Sony has developed magnetic tape that stores data at 148 gigabits per square inch, 74 times the density of standard tapes. That could mean 185 TB tape cartridges. Current LTO-6 cartridges can handle up to 2.5 TB. Tape is still used for long-term data storage. The Tape Storage Council industry group reports tape capacity shipments grew by 13 percent in 2012 and were projected to grow by 26 percent last year.

Pootinky pointed to a a slashdot posting about a Vanderbilt University graduate student, working at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, who has discovered a way to create three-atom-thick nanowires capable of linking transistors and other components. It’s a step toward devices that could be as thin as paper.

Discussion Section Links:  New Security Flaw discovered

http://www.cnet.com/news/serious-security-flaw-in-oauth-and-openid-discovered/

http://tetraph.com/covert_redirect/oauth2_openid_covert_redirect.html

http://mashable.com/2014/05/02/oauth-openid-not-new-heartbleed

http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-oauth-v2-threatmodel-08#section-4.1.5

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/apple-facebook-others-defy-authorities-increasingly-notify-users-of-secret-data-demands-after-snowden-revelations/2014/05/01/b41539c6-cfd1-11e3-b812-0c92213941f4_story.html?hpid=z1

Pick of the Day:  Dogeforsale.com via Luke Olsen

Looking to get into some Dogecoins before the DogeCar takes the track at Talladega this weekend. Not sure how to how to navigate crypto exchanges? Have no fear dogeforsale.com is here. Its a site where users can buy and sell Dogecoins with paypal, google wallet, debit cards, etc. The site is a basic escrow service, it holds the coins during the transaction. Get Dogecoins fast and securely. much speed very secure. DISCLAIMER: I’m a seller on the site “SkyJedi” 

Good cause of the day: Podcamp Nashville

PodCamp Nashville happening May 17 in Nashville, TN is one of the last and largest Podcamps in the country. They are in need of sponsors and patrons or will have to cut out major parts of the event or cancel. For as little at $100 you can become of friend of this event the has been so vital to the Nashville creative community. This Friday is a deadline that they need to make a $2500 payment for the event. If you or a company you many know would like to help out Podcamp Nashville please visit: http://bit.ly/pcn14friend

Len Peralta was on assignment today So Jennie did some 8th grade-level fear-based art: What’s A Poor Normal To Do

Monday’s guest: Jon Strickland

Denise Howell is on the show today and we’ll touch on Foursquare splitting, what Hulu’s model should be, and how you can tell the FCC what you think of their net neutrality stance.

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: Denise Howell, of This Week in Law

Headlines

TechCrunch reports Foursquare will split its app into two. The original FourSquare app will no longer have a check-in function but focus on discovery, exploration and recommendations. It will use geolocation to track where you go and how long you stay. The other app, called Swarm, will have the traditional check-in feature with a heat-map and the ability to see nearby friends. Swarm will also have a messaging feature. 

Boy Genius Report, which seems to have a never-ending supply of Amazon smartphone leaks, has another Amazon smartphone leak. This time it’s a picture of the phone, NOT hidden in a case. Instead multiple sources have verified to BGR that they have a real image of the design of the front and back of the yet-to-be-officially-acknowledged phone. Amazon is widely expected to launch the phone in Q3.

TechCrunch reports snapchat added two new features today. A traditional chat like interface lets you talk in text in realtime. You know like text messaging. The other feature lets you make a video call from that text chat screen. You’ll have to keep your finger on the screen to keep the video active, although the call will stay live. When you leave a call or chat and swipe back to the main screen your chat history disappears in typical snapchat fashion. The update should arrive for iOS and Android later today.

Microsoft has released patches for all supported version of Internet Explorer to fix a nasty zero-day vulnerability that could allow attackers to get full user permissions over a PC. In a surprise move, Microsoft issued patches for users of Windows XP. Microsoft officially stopped supporting the 12-year-old XP in April. 

News From You

Spsheridan submitted our top story on the subreddit. BGR passed along a WSJ story that big tech companies like Google, Netflix and Yahoo, “say they are considering mobilizing a grass-roots campaign to rally public opinion around the idea that the Internet’s pipes should be equally open for all.” Last week FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler admitted he will propose Open Internet rules that would allow for “commercially reasonable” prioritization of certain Internet traffic.

tekkyn00b posted all the T-Mobile stories from Android Central today. For one T-Mobile USA has acquired 700 MHz spectrum from Verizon, which will help improve LTE coverage. T-Mobile also published its Q1 earnings reports. The good news, is the company added 2.4 million customers, bringing it close to third place Sprint. The bad news, it lost $20 million because of the costs of acquiring all those new customers. Still long-term that bet should pay off. IN adition Recode reports T-Mobile CFO Braxton Carter and marketing chief Mike Sievert say a potential merger with Sprint would only allow them to become more disruptive. Like an un-carrier on steroids, Carter’s words. 

habichuelacondulce submitted the CNET story that AT&T has raised the possibility of acquiring DirecTV according to sources talking to the Wall Street Journal. Apparently AT&T started flirting with DirecTV in February in response to the potential Comcast TimeWarner Cable merger. Of course AT&T has allegedly flirted with Dish Network before as well. Are they serious or just a tease? They’ll never tell. Until they file with the SEC then they’ll be legally required to tell. 

Spsheridan spotted the Ars Technica story about Google Now for Android helping you remember where you parked, automatically. You don’t even have to yell “remember where we parked!” or anything. Using Android’s Activity Recognition System to detect when you go from driving to stopping then walking, Google Now notes the GPS location of the stopping part. Of course if you’re in a multi-level garage you still need to remember what floor you’re on. 

MikePKennedy submitted the Verge story that Amazon has admitted it has been offering same-day delivery service to San Francisco, Dallas, since earlier this year. Don’t you feel better not hiding that anymore Amazon? Other same-day markets also got their deadlines pushed a little later in the day. So you folks in Indianapolis now have until 11:30 AM not that ungodly 7 AM deadline you’ve suffered under up until now. Although there’s bad news fro Las Vegas which is losing its same day service. Sometimes you win sometimes you lose your same-day service, Vegas. And New Yorkers now have to make their orders 30 minutes earlier to qualify. Stop yer whining New Yorkers just get up earlier and order!

Beatmaster80 pointed us at the Ars Technica story about Zenimax Media, the parent company of Id Software and John Carmack’s old employer, alleging that Carmack is a thieving little thief. Actually Zenimax alleges that technology Carmack developed while he was still at Zenimax was the genesis of what would eventually become the Oculus Rift development kit. Carmack left Zenimax-owned id in November. Carmack tweeted, “No work I have ever done has been patented. Zenimax owns the code that I wrote, but they don’t own VR.”

Discussion Section Links:  Net Neutrality

http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/04/state-laws-that-ban-municipal-internet-will-be-invalidated-fcc-chair-says/

http://bgr.com/2014/04/30/google-netflix-fcc-net-neutrality/
http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/30/5666628/your-corporate-internet-nightmare-starts-now

http://www.fcc.gov/comments 

Pick of the Day:  Waze

Friday’s guest: Darren Kitchen of hak5.org