Allison Sheridan is on the show today. We’ll cover the big GamesCon announcements like Skylander, how Viv will beat Siri’s pants off, and why women spend more money on and are more loyal to mobile games. Won’t you join us?

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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 and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guest: Allison Sheridan, host of The NosillaCast on podfeet.com

Headlines

Microsoft delivered a slate of Xbox news at GamesCon in Cologne , Germany. CNET compiled a list of the announcements. The Xbox will get an exclusive on “Rise of the Tomb Raider” set to arrive in late 2015. The Xbox One will get DLNA support for media centers as well as the ability to playback media from USB. Two new bundles are coming. An all-white Xbox One with “Sunset Overdrive” will sell for $400 w/o Kinect on 10/28/ and “Call of Duty Advanced Warfare” with a specially skinned Xbox One and 1TB hard drive arrives fro $500 November 3. Among several other game-related announcements, the Halo 5: Guardians beta begins December 29.

Bloomberg has talked with the secret society of “people with knowledge of the matter” and THEY say Apple’s suppliers have started manufacturing new 9.7-inch iPads. A new version of the 7.9-inch iPad mini is also entering production. A different group known as “people familiar with the situation” have said Apple will make announcements on Sept. 9.

Lyft gave some data to CNN which apparently shows 177 Uber employees ordered and canceled more than 5,000 rides from the rival company since October 2013. Lyft drivers complained that even when they don’t cancel they sometimes take short low-profit rides in which they try to convince Lyft drivers to come work for Uber. Uber told Ars Technica the claims are “patently false,” although Uber does run promotions to get riders and driver to convince other drivers to come work for Uber. 

GigaOm reports Apple is the latest in a string of tech companies releasing diversity reports. Of Apple’s 98,000 employees, 55% identify as white, 15% Asian, and 7% black. 70% are male, which is about the same as Google and Facebook. If you don’t count retail stores, 35% of Apple employees are women, but if you further limit it to tech roles, it drops to 20%. In Apple’s leadership team, 64% are white, 21% Asian, and 72% male. 

Wired has an excellent Steven Levy write-up about Viv Labs attempt to make a truly intelligent digital assistant in the mode of Siri. Viv’s cofounders Dag Kittlaus, Adam Cheyer and Chris Brigham all created Siri. For two years they’ve been working on Viv. The difference between Viv and Siri is that Viv should be able to learn on the fly and understand requests it wasn’t pre-programed to. For example take “Give me a flight to Dallas with a seat that Shaq could fit in?” Siri would search the Web for keywords. Viv will generate its own program to link information from Kayak, SeatGuru and an old NBA Media Guide. Viv is designed on three pillars: It will be taught by the world, it will know more than it is taught, and it will learn something every day. 

BBC News reports that Activision’s putting out a version of Skylander for tablets. Skylander is a free game where kids unlock in-game content by buying RFID enhanced action figures and placing them on a base station,— which IN TURN unlocked 2 billion dollars in sales for Activision. The tablet version will also be free. To use the figurines, you’ll need a new version of the portal base which connects by Bluetooth. The app comes out for iOS, Android and Kindle Fire in October.

Sony had its share of Gamescon announcements in Cologne as well. The company announced it sold 10 million PS4 consoles worldwide. Sold not shipped. A new feature called “Share Play” will come inSystem update 2.0 and allow your friends to join a game or take over the controls from anywhere even if they don’t own the game. NBA2K, Towerfall and Child of Light were all mentioned as implemtning SharePlay. Europe got a couple announcements. PlayStation Now the game streaming service, won’t arrive until sometime in 2015. However, Sony’s PlayStation TV, essentially a Vita in console form will come to Europe November 14th for99 euros.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/08/share-play-will-let-you-play-any-ps4-game-with-friends-online/

http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/12/sony-teases-a-virtual-couch-mode-for-ps4-multiplayer-even-if-your-friend-doesnt-own-the-game/?ncid=rss

http://www.engadget.com/2014/08/12/sony-playstation-tv-europe/?ncid=rss_truncated

News From You

ancrod2 posted the Washington Post story that the US FCC has established a task force to study misuse of surveillance technology that intercepts cellular signals to locate people, monitor calls, and send malicious software. The tech described is an IMSI catcher often called “Stingray” and is widely used by police and intelligence services. The devices work by mimicking cell towers. The FCC wants to determine the extent to which criminals and foreign intelligence services use the technology against US citizens. 

Hurmoth pointed out the 9to5 Mac story that the USB 3.0 Promoter Group announced the USB Type C connector is ready for production. The new smaller USB port features a reversible connector. Its powerful enough that one design can work for both PCs and mobile devices. The spec allows for 10 Gbps speed and USB Power Delivery of up to 100W. 

habichuelcondulce and TexasTeacher both submitted links about Tim Davis. Who is Tim Davis? Well, if you’re one of the many people who’ve been feeling a little empty inside because there’s been no outrageous Comcast customer service call lately, Tim Davis is your new best friend. Davis moved to a new apartment, and chose to self-install his Comcast wireless equipment. Everything worked just fine for a few weeks. Until it didn’t. A Comcast technician was dispatched, and discovered a problem with the wires outside. Since the problem was out of Davis’s control, he was told there would be no cost to him. On a call. Which he SECRETLY RECORDED. Then he got the bill. And lo, there were charges. Almost two hundred dollars worth, including a failed self-install. So Davis called again. And things did Not Go Well. But that crafty Tim Davis, he had a SECRET RECORDING, which he played for the Comcast rep. And only because of this SECRET RECORDING, he got his money back. So Comcast customers, perhaps its time to start SECRETLY RECORDING every single call you make to Comcast. Ever. Needless to say the link to this SECRET RECORDING will be in the show notes.

Discussion Links:

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/08/08/report-women-are-more-engaged-and-spend-more-than-men-when-it-comes-to-mobile-games/

http://www.flurry.com/blog/flurry-insights/mobile-gaming-females-beat-males-money-time-and-loyalty#.U-pbDoBdXA7

http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/09/women-gamers-are-spending-more-time-in-the-mobile-gaming-sphere-than-men-says-report/

Plug of the day: The Sword and Laser Anthology collects 20 amazing stories from new writers in the Sword and Laser book club audience. 10 SciFi and 10 fantasy stories with an introduction by Patrick Rothfuss. Get a copy at the Sword And Laser Store.    

Pick of the Day: MouseWait via Producer Jennie.

Producer Jennie has returned from conducting very important business at Disneyland. While she was there she relied heavily on The Mousewait app.——— If you’re in the US and headed to Disneyworld in Florida or Disneyland & California Adventure in Anaheim, CA, the MouseWait app uses close to real-time data from their dedicated social community to post wait times and fast pass availability for every ride and popular food spots in both parks. The app also features an overall crowd index, a programmable To-Do list and a lively community posting advice. I rigorously field-tested the app, on our past two trips and found it impressively accurate. The app is ad-supported and free, and available on iphone for both parks and on Android just for Disneyland so far. If you want to learn more about it, check out mousewait.com

Wednesday’s guest: The Podfather, Adam Curry of the No Agenda podcast and curry.com

Nate Lanxon is on the show today to chat about the Hachette-Amazon spat, as well as a little on Broadwell chips and the $300 million 60 Tb/s cable Google wants to lay.

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 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes
The New York Times spoke with three Apple employees about a training program known as Apple University. Steve Jobs started the program in 2008 and hired the dean of Yale’s School of Management to head it. Classes are described using things like Picasso’s “The Bull” to illustrate simplification. The classes are taught year-round tailored to particular positions within the company.

CNET reports Intel’s long-delayed 14 nm Broadwell chips are finally in significant production. Intel said the first systems using Core M, the lowest power Broadwell variant, will hit store shelves during the holiday season. Most Broadwell powered devices will come in 2015. The Core M “enables less than 9 millimeter fanless two-in-ones for the first time from Intel. Core M is 50% smaller, 30% thinner and has a 60% lower power idle than Haswell.

The Next Web reports Google has joined an effort to create a Trans-Pacific cable system called Faster by Q2 2016. Google joins China Mobile International, China Telecom Global, Global Transit, KDDI, and SingTel, with NEC as the system supplier of the $300 million project. FASTER will feature 6-fiber-pair cable and optical transmission with expected capacity of 60Tb/s connecting the West coast of the US with Chikura and Shima Japan.

GigaOm reports Microsoft announced the Nokia 130 Monday, on sale for €19. The candybar styled handset runs Nokia OS and can play music and display videos on its 1.8-inch screen. http://gigaom.com/2014/08/11/microsoft-debuts-e19-phone-and-no-it-doesnt-run-windows-phone/
Huawei told Shanghai’s China Business News that the company plans to phase out more than 80% of its low-end mobile phones in the second-half of this year. Huawei says the majority of low-end phones it makes are for carriers, not because of customer demand. Huawei intends to focus on branding its own models.

Reuters reports Xiaomi rolled out a software upgrade Sunday to fix a loophole in its cloud messaging system that triggered unauthorized collection of data from user’s contacts. Xiaomi Vice President Hugo Barra apologized for the unauthorized data collection and said the company only collects phone numbers in users’ address books to see if the users are online. The messaging system will be opt-in from now on and numbers sent to Xiaomi will be encrypted and not stored.

NEWS FROM YOU
MikePKennedy sent the Engadget story that Acer announced a new 13-inch ChromeBook with a 1080p HD display and a claimed 13 hours of battery life running a quad-core Tegra K1 chip from Nvidia. That makes the $299 laptop the first with an NVIDIA processor inside.

dbrodbeck posted the Wired article by Mat Honan reporting his experience after liking everything he saw on Facebook for two days. After the first hour of the experiment the humans were gon from his feed. Content mills rose to the top and it became about brands. His entire feed was filled with Huffing ton Post and Upworthy. It also littered his friends feeds with all the things he liked.

Plug of the day: Alpha Geek Radio – mobile and regular

Discussion Story

Hachette CEO: “More than 80% of the ebooks we publish are priced at $9.99 or lower” — Tech News and Analysis

Amazon Drags Authors, Readers and George Orwell Into Its Fight With Hachette | Re/code

Amazon puts Disney DVD and Blu-ray pre-orders on hold in latest contract dispute | The Verge

An Important Kindle request

If you love books then you should be rooting for Amazon, not Hachette or the Big Five — Tech News and Analysis

Authors United

Amazon and Hachette: The dispute in 13 easy steps – LA Times

Much at Stake in Amazon-HBG Fight

German Publishers Seek Amazon Inquiry – NYTimes.com

Amazon’s E-Books Antitrust Clash in Germany on EU Radar – Bloomberg

Calendar
EA’s new subscription service is now available to all Xbox One owners, not just beta participants. The service gives you unlimited access to select EA games for $4.99 a month or $29.99 per year

In 1950 – Steve Wozniak was born in San Jose, California. He would grow up to invent the first successful personal computer, and revolutionize desktop computing.

In 1965 – Shinji Mikami was born in Japan. He grew up to become a video game designer for Capcom, revolutionizing survival-horror games with his popular series, Resident Evil.

Lockheed Martin has set the launch of DigitalGlobe’s high-resolution WorldView-3 satellite for August 13th. Its creators can start selling extra-sharp pictures (with detail down to the 10-inch level) six months after the craft is up and running.

Pick of the day:
Elder Scrolls Online from Nate Lanxon
Send your picks to feedbackatdailytechnewsshow.com and you can find MY picks at dailytechnewsshow.com/picks.

Messages of the day ([email protected])
Call from Dave in Orlando on Twitch

“Hi Tom & Jennie,

The head-up display discussed on Friday was provided by my car manufacturer. It really is very useful – showing my speed, turn-by-turn directions, etc. while keeping my eyes on the road. I also have my phone connected through bluetooth which allows me to see and interact with a limited amount of information such as audio tracks and incoming calls. And that’s it! I can’t read texts or email nor would I ever want to.

I look forward to seeing third party apps built into our cars (after all Waze is more accurate than my in-car sat nav), but there needs to be continued thoughtful consideration about what kinds of information drivers should be allowed to access.

Love the show!
Dave”

Thanks to Nate Lanxon

Tomorrow’s guest: Allison Sheridan of Nosillacast

Veronica Belmont is here to talk Twitch crackdowns and WarKittehs. Yes Kittens who hack WiFI. No kidding.

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 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Fraser Cain is on the show and we’ll chat about uBeam’s ubiquitous wireless power claims and how we so very much want them to come true.

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 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guest: Fraser Cain, publisher of Universe Today

Headlines

Ars Technica reports scientists from Cornell University and IBM Research have designed a chip that mimics how the brain works though an asynchronous collection of thousands of processing cores capable of spikes of activity and complicated connections just like neural networks. Computers have been able to model neural networks but the binary nature of transistors have limited the efficiency. This new processor, dubbed TrueNorth, uses the cores to receive and send to 256 other “neurons.” The power density of TrueNorth is 20mW per square centimeter and was fabricated by Samsung using a 28nm process. Next up, software!

According to ZDNet, Google has released a preview of its Android fitness platform to developers. Google Fit, announced in June at Google I/O, will collect fitness activity from Android smartphones and wearables. Google says developers will be able to launch their apps when the SDK goes into general availability later this year through Google Play services for handsets, Android Wear and the web.

ReCode reports Facebook announced Thursday it has acquired PrivateCore, a server security startup. PrivateCore will help defend Facebook’s data centers from malware and other security breaches. PrivateCore’s founders and other members of the team will work at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters on the Facebook security team run by Joe Sullivan.

GigaOm reports Google said late Wednesday it will start taking TLS connections, the secure URLS that begin with https:, into account in search engine rankings. It will affect fewer than 1% of queries and carry less weight than other content signals. The move may encourage sites to provide secure connections to their webpages in order to help SEO. 

The Verge notes Twitch has begun scanning archived video for copyrighted music and muting entire 30 minute chunks if such music is found. Many games incorporate music and already high profile streams like the dota2 streams from Valve, maker of dota 2, have reportedly been muted. Twitch partnered with a company called Audible Magic for the scanning. The heavy-handed and often capricious nature of the policy reminds many of YouTube’s similar contentID system further fueling rumors that Google is acquiring TwiTch. Twitch CEO Emmett Shear said on Reddit Twitch has no intention of flagging songs due to original in-game music and will try to fix the problem and stressed the no live streams will be scanned or blocked. Twitch also announced it will no longer allow videos to be archived forever, Making 14 days the maximum that video will be preserved. However you can push a button and have your archived videos saved— to YouTube.

News From You:

MikePkennedy submitted the Verge article noting several reports that Microsoft will get rid of the Charms bar from Windows 9. That’s the devilish bar that you have to hover over to the right just right in order to access things like settings and shutdown. It works much better on touch screens than with a mouse. Windows 9 will also add an amazing Linux feature from the early 2000s known as ‘virtual desktops’. 

sdc111 pointed out the Boing Boing post that USIS, a federal contractor that does background checks for the US DHS, disclosed Wednesday that federal employees’ personal data has likely been stolen. USIS said the attack had “all the markings of a state-sponsored attack,” because reasons. The US FBI is investigating.

diggsalot submitted the Android Police report that T-Mobile claims it is now the number one pre-paid wireless provider in the United States. The company reports it has 15.64 million pre-paid subscribers to Sprint’s 15.19 million. Pre-paid contracts are not generally considered as lucrative as customers can stop anytime. The real money is in ‘post-paid’ subscribers–people locked into nice, predictable two-year prison sentences–er contracts. T-Mobile CEO John Legere predicts his company will overtake Sprint in overall subscribers by the end of the year. 

And tm204 passes along good news for European gamers from The Verge: Microsoft will release an over-the-air TV tuner/adapter for the European X-Box One, allowing users to pass broadcast channels through the Xbox’s HDMI port. The device goes on sale in October in France Italy German Spain and the UK, and will cost 29,99 Euros. Microsoft has not yet committed to going full DVR, but users will be able to pause live television and get program listings. No word yet on when this technology will reach other regions of the world, so Australia, you just keep doin’ what you do. 

Pick of the Day: The Red Cross First Aid App via Grant in beautiful Northern Ontario.

As a passenger train conductor, I am extensively trained in first aid. But, when an emergency pops up, I like to double check everything I am doing to make sure passengers are getting the best treatment possible. The Red Cross First Aid app is amazing for this purpose. It makes finding emergencies quick and easy right on the home screen and keeps updating for any new techniques that may have been implemented since my last first aid class. It is available for different countries and is free.

Plug of the Day:  It’s Thursday, which means its time for another article+video combo from Molly Wood in The New York Times. This week Molly checks out three services competing to be the Netflix of Books. Check out nytimes.com/machinelearning to read up on e-books.

Friday’s guest: Lamarr Wilson and Len Peralta

Jessica Naziri is on the show today. We’ll debunk the big Russian hack a bit and talk about her experience visiting the tech scene in Israel.

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 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Bloomberg reports ten Apple products, including iPads and MacBooks have been omitted from a Chinese government procurement list distributed in July. The models had been included on the June list. Products not on the procurement list cannot be purchased with government money.

The Verge reports Apple and Samsung issued a joint statement Tuesday announcing the companies have “agreed to drop all litigation between the two companies outside the United States.” The two US cases are the biggest with Apple winning the first with more than $1 billion in damages and a split decision in the second heavily in Apple’s favor with Samsung owing $119.6 million and Apple owing $158,400.

Now that the folks at Lyft have made us feel *mostly* comfortable with the idea of riding in a stranger’s car because that car is wearing a pink mustache, The Next Web reports Lyft is adding more strangers to the equation. Lyft Line allows up to three solo passengers who share a common route to ride together. The company claims Line rides could be sixty percent cheaper. Yesterday Uber announced a ride-sharing experience called UberPool, so the arms race between the two companies remains in balance til at least tomorrow.

The Next Web reports that Foursquare has officially relaunched its mobile app with a renewed focus on location-based recommendations. The company introduced a new tagging system called “tastes’ which gather initial input from the user and then use that data to suggest nearby establishments that fit your preferences. For those still smarting from the loss of their Foursquare mayoralties, the new app introduces the concept of experts–every time a user adds a tip, and every time that tip is saved or shared by another user, they gain expertise. 

The BBC reports Wikipedia has begin naming links that have been removed from European versions of search engines under the right-to-be-forgotten rules there. Wikipedia pages no longer indexed include a photograph of a musician, Tom Carstairs, holding a guitar, Dozens of Dutch-language pages that mention Guido den Broeder, a chess player from the Netherlands, An English-language page about Gerry Hutch, a Dublin-born businessman nicknamed “the Monk” who was jailed in the 1980s, as well as several-Italian pages. Wikimedia also issued its first transparency report about takedown requests. One involved a selfie taken by a macaque.

News From You:

biocow pointed out the Engadget story that Softbank has given up its efforts to buy T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom and merge it with Sprint. Regulatory approval proved to be too unlikely for CEO Masayoshi Son’s taste. Subsequently Sprint announced Sprint CEO Dan Hesse will step down August 11 and Marcelo Claure, the chief of wireless distributor Brightstar, will take over. Dish Network Chairman Charlie ERgen told analysts on an earnings call that now that Sprint is out of the picture, “T-Mobile is something that we would have an interest in.”

spsheridan pointed out the Verge article that pokes some holes in the report that Russian hackers had stolen email and passwords for 1.2 billion accounts covering 420,000 websites. Among the reasons for skepticism is that Hold Security, which revealed the hack, is charging a $120-a-year subscription to check if your name and password are on the list. The technique to acquire the database involved buying names on the black market as well as SQL-injection attacks, which mostly affect small sites. Finally Russell Brandom points out the attackers responsible have been using their vast bounty to do Twitter spamming rather than something more lucrative.

duxbak99 submitted the Ars Technica story that researchers from FOX-IT and FireEye recovered private encryption keys to ransomware CryptoLocker and have created a website at http://www.decryptcryptolocker.com/ that allows victims to unlock their computers without paying the $300 or so ransom. Victims must upload one of the files encrypted by CryptoLocker along with the e-mail address where they want the secret key delivered. KAPT_Kipper and magoojc also submitted links about this story.

spsheridan pointed out the Planetary Society article about the arrival of European Space Agency probe Rosetta arriving at comet 67P/Chryumov-Gerasimenko becoming the first spacecraft to maneuver alongside a speeding body. The comet is traveling at 55,000km per hour. The craft will study 67P from alongside and then in November, the Philae lander will put down on the comet’s surface to carry out closeup experiments. 

Discussion Section Links: 

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101804286

http://www.wamda.com/2014/08/palestine-s-only-startup-accelerator-announces-its-latest-round

Pick of the Day from Willie X. Gluck : My pick is Clipjump, a clipboard manager for Windows that has changed the way that I work (for the better!). It’s easy and intuitive to use in that it uses the usual copy and paste shortcut keys. Now I can copy multiple items that I will need to paste, switch, and paste them sequentially without the need to switch back-and-forth between applications. It also has a feature that will strip the formatting, allowing me to replace PureText, which was a great but single purpose app. I also like that you get a preview of what you’re going to paste. The developer also introduced plug-ins that do stuff like change case. There are also a bunch of other cool features.

Plug of the day:  Like tech history? I’ve teamed up with Scott Johnson to put out monthly looks at what happened in history this month. For 99 cents you get what happened on each day of the month that helped make the tech we sue today, plus illustrations from Scott Johnson. Check them out for 99 cents each at tommerrittbooks.com or just search Amazon.        

Calendar item of the Day:  The super awesome FAQ for DefCon:  http://www.defcon.org/html/links/dc-faq/dc-faq.html

 Tomorrow’s Guest: Fraser Cain