Patrick Norton is on the show today. We’ll talk how Google’s driverless car could impact Uber and whether Microsoft’s real-time Skype language translation is the Universal Translator.
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Show Notes
Today’s guests: Patrick Norton of Tekzilla
Headlines
It’s official: Apple is buying Beats Electronics for $3 billion. Mashable & Gigaom. Part of the deal will be Beats Music,which launched as a Spotify competitor earlier this year. It will be announced, you guessed it, at the Code Conference. Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine will join Apple. Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, told the NYT “These guys are really unique,” Mr. Cook said. “It’s like finding the precise grain of sand on the beach. They’re rare and very hard to find.”
CNET reports from the Code Conference by Recode that Sergey Brin of Google unveiled a prototype two-seater driverless car without a steering wheel. The cars built-in sensors and software are the only control system. The project has only been tested at low speeds of 25 mph or less but has experienced no crashes.
More people said things at the Code conference including Kleiner Perkins investor Mary Meeker with her annual trends report. One trend is the slowing of people joining the Internet to less then 10% per year but the fast growth of mobile usage, as mobile data is up 81%. Meeker also asserted that “fans trump audiences” meaning that a fan base that shares, comments, and creates content around a show is much more valuable to advertisers than a large audience number. :- )
Recode reports Microsoft’s VP of Skype Gurdeep Singh Pall demonstrated Skype Translate on stage at the Code conference yesterday afternoon. The feature uses speech recognition, text to speech and machine translation to offer real-time translation on a live Skype call. Pall demonstrated it translating from English to German and back in a conversation with a German employee. Pall said the feature should launch in beta later this year with a limited number of languages for the Windows version of Skype.
ZDNet reports Apple has acknowledged the attack, largely targeting Australian users, that has locked some people out of their iOS devices. Apple noted “Cloud was not compromised during this incident. Impacted users should change their Apple ID password as soon as possible.” Users from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the US report being hit by the attack.
Oh you thought we were done with news about people talking at the Code Conference? Not quite. Intel CEO Brian Krzanich wore a smart shirt during his talk. The shirt measured heart rate and other vital signs and was made in conjunction with AiQ. The battery-powered shirt shold be available this summer. Krzanich also showed off Jimmy, a white robot that can walk, talk and dance. Intel has plans for a cosnumer robot-making kit that could sell for $1600. Krzanich admitted Intel missed the tablet trend, and while they haven’t given up on tablets they’re focused on not missing the next big market.
Mashable passes along that the WSJ reports Facebook asked the European Commission to review its acquisition of WhatsApp in order to prevent future legal challenges in European countries. Facebook was not required to get European approval, but may have decided it was just easier than fighting country by country later.
GigaOm reports Samsung announced plans to create an open platform for developing sensors and services to track personal health in real time. The initiative will start with a modular wristband reference design called Simband that tracks heart rate and blood pressure, but could expand into other devices. Samsung also announced a $50 million digital health challenge to encourage development of better sensors and algorithms for health care. Oddly Samsung didn’t cover federal approvals and told GigaOm it is not seeking FDA approval.
TechCrunch reports on a new $199 3-D printer called the MOD-t designed by Frog Design and backed by Idealab. The low entry level price gets you a minimum layer height of .02 mm and the ability to print using the starch-based plastic, PLA. The printer is small and the printing plate moves under the stationary head reducing some complexity though printing slowly. Backers of the Indiegogo for the printer can get the model even cheaper for $149.
Looks Like Mark Zuckerberg can skip a court date. BuzzFeed passes along that the Iranian Student’s News Agency has removed the story from yesterday stating a court in Fars had required Facebook’s Director or his attorney to appear in court. ISNA has published a statement by the Fars province prosecutor’s office denying the report. Al Monitor reports the chief prosecutor of Shiraz also told the official Islamic Republic News Agency that the reports were false.
News From You
Our top story on the subreddit was submitted by KAPT_Kipper. Valve announced it will not be releasing its own version of the Steam Machine and Steam controller until 2015. Valve’s Eric Hope said the company got a “ton of useful feedback” on the controller and want to get it right. The delay will not impact the release of SteamOS and has no affect on third-party steam machines not made by Valve.
MikePKennedy submitted the Verge article that Amazon has confirmed it is buying less inventory from Hachette Publisher and no longer taking preorders for Hachette books as part of a dispute over ebook prices. Amazon even suggested customers might want to consider Amazon competitors for buying Hachette books. Amazon also suggested that it and Hachette create a pool of funds to disburse to Hachette authors who are being affected by the slowdown in Hachette sales. Hachette declined the offer at least until after Amazon and Hachette come to an agreement.
Discussion Section Links:
http://recode.net/2014/05/27/microsofts-skype-star-trek-language-translator-takes-on-tower-of-babel/
http://blogs.technet.com/b/next/archive/2012/11/08/microsoft-research-shows-a-promising-new-breakthrough-in-speech-translation-technology.aspx#.U4TdctwSdTL
Pick of the day: Bossjock Studio via Dave Brodbeck
I have been using Bossjock Studio for IOS for about a year now. It is a really nice podcasting app that allows you to mix in music and such as well as export files as mp3 or AACs to various platforms. You can email the files, transfer them to your computer and ftp them to many places. It is a great mobile podcasting platform and I use it a lot with my son for his podcast, the Jonathan Files.