As you guys know, we don’t typically post reviews here on the website, and this is mostly because Tom and I rarely have time to read books outside of the actual book club. However, we’d love to feature reviews from you, our audience!
If you think you’d like to submit a book review for the blog, head over to the Reviews FAQ and learn more! We think this will be a great way to highlight other books as well as highlighting the talented writers we have in our very own community!
Iyaz Akhtar joins us as we get the lowdown on Roku’s updated streaming stick, Logitech’s new remote, and some thoughts on Facebook, Yahoo, Guns and the Winklevoss Twins in space.
Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.
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A special thanks to all our Patreon supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.
If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here at the low, low cost of a nickel a day on Patreon. Thank you!
Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the 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 & GFQNetwork.com.
Headlines
Pssst, CNN; you’re selling Zite: ReCode reports Flipboard is buying Zite from CNN, which acquired the tablet newsreader company in 2011. CNN reported its sources (itself?) said the deal is valued at $60 million, but CNN PR says the report valuation is not accurate. Guys, it’s really hard to keep secrets from yourself. Zite will apparently shut down and most of its 20 employees, with the exception of CEO Mark Johnson, will work for Flipboard. Flipboard has also agreed to produce custom magazines for CNN.
What’s my password again? This was our top-voted story on the subreddit, LifeDownloaded and KAPT_Kipper both submitted links. Engadget reports Yahoo will soon stop allowing users to log in with Google or Facebook accounts. Yahoo started allowing third-party logins in 2010. The change has already happened on Fantasy Sports sites and will eventually spread across all services, including Flickr and Tumblr. Happy Tumblr Day!
More purple punch: SIT DOWN you are not allowed to leave the tech news until you’ve finished your Yahoo news. Every bit of it. CNET reports Yahoo acquired Vizify, a company that lets users create infographics and video out of social media. Vizify will shut down and the company will work to bring a more visual approach to data at Yahoo! We’ve all been wondering when that would happen.
Guns? What guns? Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports Facebook will crack down on illegal gun sales. The social network will delete posts where users indicate they would break the law. Private gun sale posters will be reminded to comply with the law. And pages related to gun sales will be required to include language regarding the importance of the law. Posts about illegal weapons are already banned, so the new effort focuses on emphasizing the importance of things like background checks.
Take me to your (new) leader: VentureBeat reports former IGN chief Mark Jung is the new executive chairman of OnLive. He hit the ground running with two new services. CloudLift lets users log in on any devices to get their downloaded games from services like Steam. And OnLive Go lets users play online games like Second Life on mobile devices. Stop it. There are people who still play Second Life and they will send giant penises at you if you mock them.
I WIN EVERYTHING: ReCode reports Dish Network won ALL of the wireless broadband airwave licenses recently auctioned off by the federal government. As we all know, the incumbent carriers in the U.S. have made no secret about the fact that there is a serious spectrum crunch, thus the need to exempt them from regulation. Dish won the 176 licenses because NOBODY ELSE BID.
Winkle, winkle little star: The Winklevoss twins are headed to space as part of Virgin Galactic’s program and they’re paying with Bitcoins, of course. On the application form under vital statistics, Tyler Winklevoss wrote, “I’m 6’5″, 220, and there’s two of me.”
News From You
Mranthropology pointed us to a Verge article about another crypto currency hitting the scene called MazaCoin. Before you roll your eyes ALL the way to the back of your head, MazaCoin is now the official currency of the seven bands that make up the Lakota Nation. MazaCoin was developed by an anonymous cryptographer as a new implementation of the Bitcoin protocol. The Lakota will keep half of MazaCoins in reserve to help prevent wild speculation.
And MikepKennedy sent in the Ars Technica story AMD is very excited about its new AM1 chipset, an SoC for desktops launching April 9. Because… desktops are hot still. Well, AMD might not be totally off the deep end here. The AM1 is meant for the still-selling low-cost desktops with a starting price of $60 for the chipset and motherboard combined. At that price, you can’t draw more than 25W and you’re restricted to PCIe 2.0. AMD’s pitting the AM1 against Intel’s Bay Trail platform.
Discussion Section Links: Roku Streaming Stick vs Google Chromecast: How do they stack up?
http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-media-receivers/roku-streaming-stick-2014/4505-6739_7-35835337.html
http://reviews.cnet.com/google-chromecast/
Thursday’s Guest: Paul Spain
We finish our thoughts on House of Cards season 2. One third of the panel liked it. Then we move on to the amazing True Detective from HBO. Or was it?
In 1975 – The Homebrew Computer Club, held its first meeting in the garage of Gordon French in Menlo Park, California. 32 people showed up for the first meeting. John Draper, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs were some of the more famous members of the club.
In 1981 – The ZX81 was launched by Sinclair Research in Britain for £69.95 and would go on to sell over 1.5 million units around the world. It was much more successful than it’s predecessor the ZX80.
In 1982 – Four days after it’s twin, the second of two Soviet probes to Venus, the Venera 14 landed on the planet. Venera 13 and 14 would continue to send data until 1983.
Like Tech History? Purchase Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.
We kick off our March book pick, Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan, ponder the brief career of Jonathan Ross as LonCon MC, and discover that at least Houghton Mifflin thinks SciFi is lit.
WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?
Tom: Yorkshire Gold Tea
Veronica: Napa Smith Brewery Wheat Beer
QUICK BURNS
Another Layer of J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst’s Book Onion
Science fiction and fantasy are now officially part of American Literature
FINALISTS: 2013 Nebula Awards (With Free Fiction Links!) – SF Signal
FINALISTS: 2013 Aurealis Awards – SF Signal
TV, MOVIES AND VIDEO GAMES
Lara Takes On HBO and Game of Thrones in an Open Letter | Saurian Saint
The Wertzone: GAME OF THRONES Season 4 fan trailer
NBC’s ‘Heroes’ is coming back | Inside TV | EW.com
BOOK KICK-OFF
Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
Altered Carbon Wikipedia article
Richard K. Morgan Wikipedia article
BARE YOUR SWORD
Did you get to read fantasy in school?
Written accents annoying or what?
Anthology cover reveal.
Eric Olander joins us to discuss whether Facebook drones can help Africa, Japan’s regulation approach to BitCoin and the real story behind the Flappy Bird flap. It’s 4 AM in Vietnam where he is, so be kind.
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: Eric Olander, Vice President, Financial and Business News Channel,Vietnam
Headlines
Facebook to buy drone fleet. Because internet: TechCrunch reports its sources say Facebook is buying Titan Aerospace, makers of near-orbital solar-powered drones that can fly up to five years at a time without landing. For its 60 million dollars or so, Facebook would be able to use the drones to deliver Internet access to any part of the world as part of the Internet.org project, starting with Africa, according to the sources. One can only assume Facebook will not use its drones to shoot down competing Google weather balloons that deliver competing Internet.
CarPlay powered by QNX: USA Today points out that the new Apple CarPlay system in part is powered by QNX, the embedded OS of choice among automakers, and QNX just happens to be owned by BlackBerry. Ford is actually moving off Microsoft’s Sync to QNX according to Bloomberg. N4BB first pointed out the interesting fact. Paul Leroux, public relations manager at QNX Software Systems, “We have a long-standing partnership with Apple to ensure high-quality connectivity with their devices, and this partnership extends to support for Apple CarPlay.”
Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer to retire in September
Cortana, voice assistant, in action: Unleash the Phones has video of Microsoft’s forthcoming Cortana voice assistant in action. Though no words are spoken by the operator or the phone, you can see the setup system which asks the user some personal questions, like most enjoyable part of an evening, and thoughts on food. No kidding. Cortana is expected to be part of Windows Phone 8.1 and be officially unveiled at the BUILD conference in April.
Microsoft integrates Skype with Outlook.com
Twitter mistakenly sends password reset email to many users
Aether’s Cone Speaker reviewed: Several sites, including Wired, have a review of Aether’s Cone speaker. Unlike say a Sonos system, the Cone speaker has no remote and no Bluetooth connectivity. It uses WiFi to connect to a music service (available services have yet to be named) and then keeps tabs on your behavior to find out what you like to hear. It also has voice recognition in case you want to request something in particular. The only other control is the speaker grill which you can twist right to skip to a new song or twist left to replay. The Cone will sell for $399.
Intel purchases wristwatch health tracker company Basis for around $100 – $150 million
Bring me red page… I can’t… I can’t see you… Broderbund founder Doug Carlston has donated Broderbund’s software and corporate records to the museum, The Strong. Correspondence, photos and other material that reveals the culture of the studio that developed Myst, Prince of Persia, the original SimCity and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, will be preserved. The high school version of our producer Jennie is SO happy. So is the college-aged version of Tom. Who feels really old now.
News From You
Rich_Seattle submitted the Ars Technica story that the US Department of Justice has thrown in on the side of broadcasters, in the Aereo vs. the broadcast world Supreme Court knockdown coming this April. Recode reports the Justice Department made the filing Monday arguing that Aereo gives users access to copyrighted content in the first instance without paying licensing fees. KAPT_Kipper also submitted this story under a different link.
biocow posted the Verge link about Radio Shack closing 1,100 shacks in the US. That’s more than twice the number expected.Radio Shack will have 4,000 locations left. The company lost $191.4 million last quarter. TVSEgon also submitted a link for this story.
dillydobbs & Tekkyn00b submitted the Gizmodo link about Flexcoin shutting down. While not nearly as large as Mt. Gox, Flexcoin says 896 bit coins were stolen from its store. Bit coins that were not stolen will be returned to customers before the shutdown. Polonix also admitted thieves stole 12.5% of its bit coin reserves, but that company will replenish the lost coins itself.
adi_lachman pointed us to a WSJ article about Dish striking a deal with Disney to limit the use of its Hopper ad-skipping feature on Disney-owned channels. Interestingly in return, Disney granted DISH rights to stream Disney channels like ABC and ESPN as part of an Internet delivered, IP-based multichannel offering.
Discussion Section Links: How Japan is dealing with bit coins / Flappy Bird Perspective
http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0001087024
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/27/flappy-bird-clones-iphone-ipad
Wednesday’s Guest: Iyaz Akhtar of CNET & of the excellent podcast Quest for Peace.
In 1976 – The first Freon-cooled Cray-1 supercomputer was shipped to Los Alamos Laboratories, in New Mexico at a cost of $19,000,000.
In 2000 – The Sony PlayStation 2 went on sale in Japan.
In 2007 – Election Day was held in Estonia, and for the first time in the world, voters were allowed to vote on the Internet. Approximately 30,000 voters took advantage of electronic voting. Ballots had to be completed three days before election day.
Like Tech History? Purchase Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.
If Apple’s making billions of dollars on Apple TV, what do they do with it next? Can and should Microsoft buy DailyMotion. Who wants to Q with the TiVo co-founder’s new TV streamer.
David Spark brings us tales from RSA. We also chat about Apple’s CarPlay, Microsoft’s Cortana, and other less prosaically named devices and services in the news.
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: David Spark, journalist, producer, speaker, and owner of Spark Media Solutions.
Headlines
Apple to unveil CarPlay in Geneva this week: CNET reports iOS in the car is now called CarPlay. Ferrari, Mercedes and Volvo will all show off models at the Geneva auto show this week. CarPlay is till an in-car touchscreen display with voice command. It requires an iPhone 5, 5C or 5S to be connected with a lightning cable to work. Only Apple apps will integrate with the initial exception of Spotify and iHeartRadio. The system won’t show up at car dealers until later in 2014 for some brands with most others to follow in 2014.
Microsoft testing voice-activated assistant: The Verge reports Microsoft is testing a voice-activated assistant currently named Cortana, yes like the Cortana in Halo, though on Windows Phone she’ll just be a circle. Sorry. Although apparently you can set Cortana to call you Master Chief. Cortana can use contacts, location reminders, and behaviors to help you out with notifications, similar to Google Now. Microsoft expects to unveil Cortana along with Windows Phone 8.1 at BUILD which starts April 2nd.
Samsung to release two new Chromebooks in April
Zynga’s push into mobile: Zynga has taken a lot of criticism for not being able to branch out past Farmville. So many will be happy to hear this PC Mag article that Zynga is making a big push into mobile with three new games. It’s first hot new title for mobile, Farmville 2: Country Escape. OK. Text MOO to 99642 if you want in on that one first. The second major advance is the still-existing Words with Friends. Now with dictionaries. Coming in the next few week.s Well it’s not like they went all the way back in time to when Zynga was just a poker app— The third new game is New Zynga Poker. Sigh.
Mt. Gox confirms loss of 750,000 bit coins deposited by users, as well as 100,000 bit coins held by Gox itself have disappeared, likely due to a bug in the website’s code. Meanwhile, a chunk of code lifted from Mt. Gox and posted to Pastebin appears to be part of the exchange’s backend for the website. The code reveals that anyone with access to the server could have easily redirected transactions and taken coins from customers wallets.
Reddit to donate 10 percent of its advertising revenue for the year to non-profits: At the end of the year Reddit will take suggestions on what charities should receive the money. An election will then be held and funds donated to the top 10 non-profits selected.
News From You
LifeDownloaded submitted the Verge story on Microsoft’s executive shakeup. Tony Bates, the company’s executive vice president for business development and evangelism, and Tami Reller, its marketing chief, are both leaving the company, according to an email sent to employees. Eric Rudder, executive vice president of advanced strategy, will take over Bates’ Biz-Dev duties while a full-time replacement is sought. Reller will stay to train up Chris Capossela, as executive vice president and chief marketing officer. Mark Penn also joins the Senior Leadership Team as chief strategy officer.
AllanAV posted the IFLScience article about skin cells being transformed into human liver cells that can not only function in an organ but even inside the liver of another species. A team from the Gladstone Institutes and the University of California San Francisco announced the success in the publication, Nature. Successfully transplanting the cells will not only make growing transplants for humans more possible, but increase other research possibilities.
KAPT_Kipper sent us the Kotaku story of a Texas man, Eugene Thompson who appears to have stabbed his girlfriend’s estranged husband with a replica Legend of Zelda Master sword. The man must have still had some hearts left because he smashed Thompson with a flower pot before succumbing and heading to the hospital in serious condition.
And Jaymz668 posted the Verger story about Kickstarter celebrating the milestone of $1 billion in pledges from 5.7 million people. The site announced the landmark figure today with a special page full of stats about campaigns and pledgers. According to Kickstarter, just 40 people pledged a total of $1,084 to seven projects on the site’s first day; the site now brings in over $1 million per day.
Discussion Section Link: RSA Roundup
http://www.sparkminute.com/2014/02/28/video-2014-rsa-conference-end-of-show-report/
Pick of the Day: Buy Me A Pie
In 1847 – In Edinburgh, Scotland, an expert in vocal physiology and elocution welcomed his newborn son into the world. He was named after his father. Alexander Graham Bell would go on to become synonymous with the telephone.
In 1885 – The American Telephone and Telegraph Company was incorporated in New York State as a subsidiary of American Bell Telephone.
In 1966- The BBC announced plans to begin broadcasting television programmes in colour the following year, becoming the first European broadcaster to provide regular colour broadcasts.
Like Tech History? Purchase Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.