Iyaz Akhtar is on the show today. We’ll discuss some pretty cool flexible tech that could let you scan things by laying it on your screen. Also, we get the scoop on Android TV from The Verge’s Sean Hollister.

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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

Headlines

GigaOm reports Android lock screen app Cover said Monday it was joining Twitter. The app that launched in invite-only beta in October, replaces the Android lock screen with one that suggests apps based on location. The current Cover app will remain in the Google Play store for now, but the development team will be working on things for Twitter.

Geek.com has the story of Seagate’s 6TB hard drive, matching Western Digital in capacity, but without needing to fill the drive with helium. The Seagate Enterprise Capacity hard drive is available in 2, 4, 5, and now 6TB capacities with a 128MB cache and spin speed of 7,200rpm. No pricing or word on consumer models were made available.

GigaOm reports two new chips from Qualcomm were announced Monday. The Snapdragon 808 and 810 support 64-bit computing, support LTE-Advanced wireless speeds up to 300 Mbps and dual-stream 82.11ac WiFi. The 810 also gets 4K video support. Apple has 64-bit support in its A7, and Intel has a 64-bit Android Kernel, but Android does not have an official 64-bit version yet. Google I/O is coming up end of June though. The new Qualcomm chips will become available in commercial devices in the first 6 months of 2015.

Microsoft introduced a new version of Skype for broadcasters Monday morning, called Skype TX. The “studio-grade” version has high-quality audio and video without unnecessary features like call notifications and ads. Skype TX comes with HD-SDI video output and input, balanced audio output and input, auto aspect ration conversion, support for multiple, simultaneous calls, operator previews, and more. Media organizations can sign up at media.skype.com/skype-tx but no other details on pricing or shipping were announced.

The Verge reports M3D launched a Kickstarter today to bring a new consumer 3D printer called Micro. The Micro accepts PLA and ABS plastics as well the company’s own Micro filament spools. The company also claims it has made much more intuitive software. M3D hopes to have assembly line production rolling between August and September for delivery starting in March next year. The printer costs only $249 but you’ll have to back at $899 if you want one from the first batch. The $50,000 was reached in minutes and in the first day, M3D has raised almost a half a million.

News From You:

Our top vote-getter on the subreddit was submitted by KAPT_Kipper. The TechCrunch story relates the protest that took place against Kevin Rose outside his apartment in San Francisco. Rose, the co-founder of Digg and Revision3, works for Google Ventures now. Protestors targeted Rose because he is a venture capitalist and because of controversial things he said on the show DiggNation in the past. The group demands Google give $3 billion to an anarchist organization to create autonomous, anti-capitalist, and anti-racist communities throughout the bay area and northern California.

Draconos posted the Ars Technica article that the US Supreme Court has declined to rule on the constitutionality of the NSA’s bulk telephone metadata surveillance program. Activist Larry Klayman had appealed directly from the US Distric Court decision in December, skipping over the US Appeals Court, which has been done before. That means the case would have to go through the appeals court, which also means it would likely not be resolved before the US Patriot Act expires on June 1, 2015.

tekkyn00b submitted the 9to5 Mac story on a demonstration at Microsoft’s ThinkNext Conference of a device that charges batteries compact enough for smartphones in 30 seconds. StoreDot claims the commercial version of the charger will only cost about twice as much as today’s chargers but production isn’t expected until 2016.

gowlkick sent us the CNET story on HTC’s earnings. It’s not a good report. Between January and March 2014 HTC’s total revenue fell by more than twenty percent over the previous quarter with a loss of $62 million. However, sales didn’t fall for the first time in 28 months AND KGI INvestment projects a 50% rise in Q2 sales due to the popularity of the HTC One M8 and HTC Desire 816.

cincyhuffster posted the Verge article about the Amazon Dash, a 6-inch long plastic stick that lets customers of the Amazon Fresh grocery delivery service, add items to their shopping list either by voice command or scanning an item itself. Shoppers then have those items already queued up the next time they need to place an order.

And pnthrldy posted the OMG Chrome story that the London Borough Council for Barking and Dagenham is replacing 2,000 of its Windows desktops with Samsung Series 3s running Chrome OS. The council expects to save £400,000. About half that is from licensing costs and the other half to power efficiency.

Discussion Section Links: Android TV and flexible tech

http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/5/5584604/this-is-android-tv

http://gigaom.com/2014/04/07/how-thin-flexible-electronics-will-revolutionize-everything-from-user-interfaces-to-packaging/

Pick of the Day: Roboform.com

Tuesday’s guest: Michael Wolf, Forbes contributer and host of the Next Market Podcast

Darren Kitchen is here to talk about the 5-year-old who hacked an Xbox One and started a career in security research. Plus, a look at the Amazon Fire TV in use. AND Len Peralta is here to illustrate the episode.

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 and Len Peralta

Headlines

Graphene, a substance poised to take over for silicon for many years, may finally made it out of the lab. CNET reports Samsung’s researchers have synthesized a crystal of graphene that retains its charge across a larger area, which could lead to industrial scale production. Graphene is just one atom thick, more conductive than silicon, stronger than steel and able to leap tall buildings if carried by Superman. It could make it easier to construct flexible or unbreakable screens and be useful in things like bionic implants.

CVG reports the Unreal game engine will get an update later this month that will add support for Linux and SteamOS in Unreal Engine version 4.1. In March Epic made the Unreal Engine available for $19 a month plus 5% of gross revenue from any commercial products that use the engine.

io9 reports The US National Institute of Standards and Technology a new atomic clock called NIST-F2, that uses a fountain of cesiujm atoms to determine the length of a second, and can go 300 million years without gaining or losing a second. That makes it three times as accurate as the current NIST-F1.

The Verge reports the Samsung Ativ SE Windows Phone is now official and available for pre-order on Verizon. Thhe 5-inch phone has a 1080p display, 13-megapixel camera, 2.3 GHz quad-core processor, 2 GB of RAM and a 2600 mAh battery. It also comes with Ativ Beam which can use an infrared blaster on the phone to control your TV. Verizon promises it will ship by April 12 and runs $200 on a two-year contract or $600 without a contract.

Josh Constine at TechCrunch has a piece up, looking at the question of Facebook’s declining page reach. Even though the total number of pages liked on Facebook grew 50% last year, companies like Eat24 and presumed people like Rainn Wilson have complained and even broken up with Facebook over a declining number of people visiting their pages. A study from News Feed optimization service EdgeRank Checker has found reach per fan has steadily declined. Constine finds the increase in things for people on Facebook to pay attention to, plus the number of alternatives like Twitter and Pinterest are the most likely culprits.

News From You:

MrMaxPowers247 pointed us to the ABC News 10 San Diego story about 5-year-old Kristoffer Von Hassel discovering that filling the Xobx One’s secondary password box with all spaces let him log into his father’s Xbox Live account and play some not necessarily age-appropriate games. His father, Robert Davies, is a security researcher, who was not only proud of his boy’s l33t skillz but also contacted Microsoft after documenting the vulnerability. Microsoft has patched the problem and given Von Hassel four games, $50 and a year-long subscription to Xbox Live from Microsoft, as well as acknowledging him as a March 2014 Microsoft Security Researcher.

SpSheridan let us know that Nest has announced it halted sales of the Nest Protect smoke alarm, after it found that the Nest Wave feature could delay the alarm from going off during a fire. Nest Wave let a user wave hands at the detector to shut off the alarm. Nets researchers found this feature could be unintentionally activated. Protect smoke detectors that have already been sold will automatically update and deactivate the feature within 24 hours if the device is connected to the Internet. Nest is also offering refunds. It may take up to three months to get regulatory approval of changes to the software for Nest Protects to be sold again.

metalfreak pointed out the Network World story that Linus Torvalds has banned Kay Sievers, a prominent Red Hat employee and code contributor, from working on the Linux Kernel. Sievers develops the system management framework systemd. Torvalds banned Sievers for failing to address an issue that caused systemd to interact with the Linux kernel in negative ways. The command line entry of debug would run both the base kernel and systemd’s debugging routines potentially flooding some systems. Torvalds wrote on a mailing list that he is “tired of the fact that you don’t fix problems in the code *you* write.” referring to Sievers.

And motang pointed out the ReactOS Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign. – ReactOS is a free open source operating system based on the design principles of the Windows NT architecture. It is intended to be binary compatible with Windows software. The group wants to raise $50,000 to help develop a ReactOS community edition, which will focus on developing compatibility with the community’s favorite Windows apps and drivers, based on a vote.

Discussion Section Links: The Littlest Hacker

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/04/microsoft-plugs-xbox-one-security-hole-discovered-by-five-year-old/

http://www.10news.com/news/5-year-old-ocean-beach-exposes-microsoft-xbox-vulnerability

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/cc308589

https://www.linkedin.com/pub/robert-davies/5/302/b17

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnQhhEv4cKw&list=UU-vIANCum1yBw_4DeJImc0Q

Pick of the Day: Capresso 560.01 Infinity Burr Grinder

If you like to make coffee at home, but you’re still using good old reliable Mr. Coffee with good old reliable pre-ground coffee, perhaps its time for an upgrade? Today’s pick of the day: A Capresso 560.01 Infinity Burr Grinder. Grinding your own beans ups your coffee quality by at least 50%. Using a conical burr grinder instead of the traditional two-blade grinder produces a uniform grind by only allowing grains of a specific size to pass through the machine, among other benefits. Amazon has them for about eighty bucks, which is NOT cheap, but it’s worth the investment. Now you can all fight among yourselves about which method of coffee preparation is the best. Jennie choses a Chemex brewer, but that’s another story for another pick of the day.

Monday’s Guest: Iyaz Akhtar