Justin Young joins us with a timeline of the rise and fall of the Secret app and what it tells us about the inside the bubble mentality.
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Show Notes
Today’s guests: Justin Robert Young
Headlines:
Ars Technica reports Microsoft announced the release of two open source libraries called Windows Remote Arduino and Windows Virtual Shield for Arduino. The libraries let Arduinos connect to Windows 10 devices. The idea is to connect an Arduino controlled camera to the cloud or take advantage of the sensors in a Lumia phone. Microsoft also released a preview of Windows 10 IoT Core for the Raspberry Pi 2.
Engadget reports IBM, Apple and the Japan Post Group announced a project to deliver up to 5 million iPads to senior citizens in Japan. IBM has developed custom apps to help with medication reminders, groceries and such. Apple of course cites the benefits of default services like FaceTime and Messages.
The Next Web reports Uber has updated its SOS button in its app in India and is working with local authorities across the country to implement it. The service , which has been beta-tested in Kolkata, provides a button that connects the user to authorities by call while generating a text alert for police that contains location, rider info and driver info. The Delhi state government banned Uber after an alleged rape case last year.
The Verge reports that Amazon Instant Video for iOS now lets users stream video in HD. The Version 3 update also allows users to stream over their cellular data not just WiFi. However, those with data caps should be aware, streaming an hour of video at the “best” level will use 5.8 GB of data. Streaming “better” video will use 1.8 GB and “good” 1.6 GB.
IT World has a writeup of the recent Nigerian elections during which there were 58 election-related deaths. That’s lower than the previous election period of 2011, in which a thousand Nigerians died. The difference? Online services which kept people informed and provided an outlet for communication, as well as biometric card readers which helped minimize cheating.
9 to 5 Mac reports Apple added a clause to its App Store guidelines that says apps doing health-related human subject research must obtain the approval from an independent ethics review board. The guidelines previously recommended obtaining the review but now Apple may request proof. The guidelines apply to developers using the open source ResearchKit framework.adapted to other systems.
BizTech Africa reports the government of Malawi, the the United Nations Capital Development Fund’s Better Than Cash Alliance and the Mobile Money for the Poor Initiative have brought together digital payment companies to analyze and encourage the development of digital payments in the country. The program expects to raise the use of digital financial services from 3.%5 of active adults to 15% by 2019. Most people in Malawai use cash without banking services.
Jerry Chow, Manager of Experimental Quantum Computing at IBM Research told TechCrunch his team have achieved error correction for Quantum computing using two qubits that hold data and another two for checking errors. Quantum error correction is a significant hurdle since errors can be caused by common conditions in computers like heat, radiation, and material defects. Chow says the next important milestone is 13 or 17 qubits with encoded logic.
News From You:
The most popular story on the subreddit for most of the day, submitted by TheLazyOne, has been a Broadband Reports post of an LA Times report that 83-year-old AOL dial-up user Ron Dorff of Los Angeles was charged $24,298 by AT&T after his dial-up started using a long distance number. AT&T gave him the runaround until the LA Times called and now they’ve fixed the issue for him and are resolving the matter of the charges. The only news here is that someone uses AOL dial-up that much.
KAPT_Kipper sent us a CNET report that folks have discovered you can embed classic MS-DOS video games in your tweets, and play them right on twitter. Go to Archive.org’s Archive’s massive collections of classic games and software, emulated through JSMESS, copy the URL from the page of your favorite game and paste directly into your tweet. Soon you’ll be asking that age old question, Where in the World IS Carmen Sandiego? The tweet needs to be viewed from a desktop browser to play.
Discussion Section Links:
Pick of the day:
Mordechai Lightstone writes:
Hey Tom and DTNS guest,
I wanted to suggested a relatively low-tech but beloved pick for you.
The Blackwing 602 Pencil. A pencil with a literal cult following, the Blackwing was beloved by John Steinbeck, animator Chuck Jones [of Looney Tunes fame and Stephen Sondheim. It was discontinued back in 1998, but relaunched again by the Cal Cedar Pencil Company. Originals can still be found online, sold for upwards of $50 or more – and while current 12 pack of the cal Cedar “Palomino” 602s retail at $20, they’re are an amazing analog tool with a storied past and a beautiful design. If you have some money to order a pack, or a friend to give you one or two to play around with, they’re more than worth exploring in my opinion.
Messages:
Jonathan – Unofficial (hope to be official) DTNS Facilities Manager – writes:
While listening to you and Patrick discuss goats on Tuesday’s show, I couldn’t help but share my experience.
I’m a facilities manager and two years ago, while managing Adobe’s campus in Lehi Utah, my team decided to “rent” a group of goats for chewing down some of the weeds prior to the winter season. It worked very well for the area they were fenced in to. At one point, they did get loose and ended up distracting most of the thousand employees in the building.
To further the technology perspective on this, we decided to purchase a go-pro camera which was immediately dubbed the “Goat Pro” camera. I even found a Go-Pro website for a “Livestock Camera mount”, but after calling the Go Pro corporate office to inquire and stumping them for a while, we all saw the April 1st reference in the URL and realized we’d been had. That being said, the footage, was still fun and we got to use it in a promo on our sustainability efforts.
Alan writes:
I’m of two minds on the idea of being able to easily port Android apps to Windows. It seems to me that this only works if the app doesn’t use any of the Google services. (games, account management, contacts, etc…)
Writing your app to not use Google services limits its integration to Android (in the Google sense, not AOSP). On the other hand, an Android app that doesn’t use Google services should be able to run not only on Windows, but also Fire OS and other AOSP branches, including Cyanogen even if they stop supporting Google services.
I’m not sure if the downside of losing Google services is worth the upside of a larger potential market. My guess is that for Android app developers, probably not. For cross platform developers, maybe so.
Marlon”theguyfromtrinidad” here:
One aspect of the app development process that was left out of your conversation yesterday was maintenance. Its great that Microsoft wants Android and iOS developers to bring their apps over to windows but they will ultimately have to deal with the bugs, communicating with users and adding new features. For many developers the costs of going onto a new platform are often not worth it.
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Friday’s guest: Darren Kitchen & Ken Peralta