Peter Wells joins us to chat about Microsoft office for iPad and the experience of back-to-back phone launch events from Samsung and HTC in Sydney.

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:  Peter Wells from Reckoner, Australia

Headlines

Microsoft’s Satya Nadella led a live presentation in San Francisco of Office for iPad. Versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint and upgraded version of OneNote hit the iOS app store after the presentation. Written natively for iOS, the apps mimic their desktop conuterparts in many ways, and are a significant improvement over the office for iPhone apps. Documents can only be accessed locally from OneDrive or SharePoint though. The apps are free for viewing docs, but you’ll need a paid Office 365 account if you want to edit. Office 365 Home Premium subscriptions cost $99 a year, but a $70 Personal program is coming this spring.

Hot on the heels of Twitter’s court victory in Turkey, The Next Web noticed WebRazzi’s report that YouTube is now blocked in Turkey through all ISPs. The Turkish telecoms authority TIB confirmed to Reuters that it has taken “administrative measure” against YouTube. Google declined requests from the Turkish government to remove a YouTube video that accuses the government of corruption.

ReCode reports Amazon has sent out invites to reporters from Peter Larsen, that say “Please Join Us for an update on our Video business.” The event is scheduled for next Wednesday, April 2, at 11 AM Eastern time in New York City. The invite features a couch and some popcorn, so it’s either the long-rumored Amazon set-top box, or a lecture about snacking.

The Next Web passes along Twitter’s announcement of photo tagging and multiple photos for its Android and iOS twitter apps. Users can tag up to 10 people in a photo, and tags won’t count against your character limit. This comes along with new privacy options about who can tag you. The other feature lets you share up to four photos in a collage s part of one post. Twitter also announced it’s partnering with Billboard magazine for a real-time chart of the most popular music on Twitter.

The Wall Street Journal reports Intel will indeed sink an investment into Cloudera. Intel and Cloudera have competed in selling versions of the big-data analysis software Hadoop. Intel will discontinue its Hadoop product and put its muscle behind Cloudera’s. Cloudera in return will work to make its Hadoop product work particularly well on Intel chips.

Peter pointed us to this Verge article about Google Play Music allowing songs to be uploaded through the browser. The feature is now available in the labs section of Play Music. You can also select a number of folders to monitor and upload whenever new songs are added. You can download through the browser, so it all means you should never have to touch Music Manager again.

Pocket-lint reports Samsung is getting into the burgeoning smart lightbulb race. The Samsung Smart Bulb uses Bluetooth, not WiFi like others, to connect to your smartphone or tablet. You can access up to 64 bulbs to turn them on or off and dim them. The bulbs are supposed to last 10 years.

News From You

spsheridan posted the Verge story that US President Barack Obama did indeed announce his proposal to reform the NSA’s collection of telephone metadata as expected. The NSA would no longer collect data, but submit requests to phone companies for individual phone numbers after getting approval for the request from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. While the President works with Congress to pass new legislation, the current system will continue for 90 days. Alternative proposals already exist in Congress and Verizon has responded requesting that phone companies not be required to keep records longer than normally needed for business purposes.

DorkOfNerk submitted the Ars Technica story about two Google Play apps that mine Litecoin and DogeCoin while running without alerting users of the apps to that fact. A researcher from Trend Micro’s Veo Zhang posted about the behavior in the apps Songs and Prized. Prized has disappeared from the app store. Google told Ars Technica they would not comment on the post.

And mattblackcube sent in the Verge article that surgeons at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh are ready to test a technique that puts patients in a state of “suspended animation,” giving surgeons enough time to operate on injuries that would otherwise be fatal.  All you need to do is drain the patient’s blood really fast and replace it with a saline solution inducing a state similar to hyopthermia that reduces a cells need for oxygen. The process will be tested on ten patients in cardiac arrest who do not respond to attempts to restart the heart. Surgeons will have about two-four hours to repair injuries before blood must be returned and the heart restarted.

Discussion Section Links:  Office for iPad

http://gigaom.com/2014/03/27/office-for-ipad-available-today/

http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/27/5553364/microsoft-office-for-ipad-features

http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/27/office-for-ipad-review/?ncid=rss_truncated

Pick of the Day:  http://everytimezone.com/

Friday’s Guests:  Andrew Mayne and Len Peralta

Andy Ihnatko joins to settle once and for all whether we will someday live in Facebook’s evil Ready Player One-like universe or Facebook’s evil Snow Crash-like universe. Because they bought Oculus.

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:  Andy Ihnatko, technology columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times

Headlines

All of the Internet, but I saw it first on TechCrunch, reported yesterday that Facebook announced plans to buy Oculus Vr, the makers of the Rift virtual reality headset for $400 million in cash, 23.1 million Facebook stock shares and a $300 million earnout, for a grand total current valuation of around $2 billion also expressed as two Instagrams or 1/10 of a WhatsApp. The Internet is pleased, outraged, confused but mostly outraged. That is also known as being the Internet. As if speaking on behalf of the Internet, Markus Persson, aka Notch of Minecraft posted on Twitter that he had canceled his deal with Oculus because “Facebook creeps me out.” Also Facebook denies the New York Times report that it plans to redesign the Rift and brand it with a Facebook logo.

Hurriyet Daily News out of Turkey reports the Turkish government will abide by an Ankara court ruling staying the decision to block Twitter in the country. Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç told reporters the government may not like the decision but they will carry it out, although they may take up to 30 days to do so. The court stated in its ruling that the ban of the entire website was contrary to the Turkish Constitution and the European Convention of Human Rights, as it restricted the freedom of expression and communication.

ZDNet reports Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies voted in favor of the Marco Civil da Internet which has provisions for net neutrality, privacy rights and protection for ISPs against liability for offensive content published by their customers. A controversial provision to require data on Brazilians to be stored in Brazil was dropped before passage. The bill will need to clear the Senate before it is sanctioned by president Dilma Rousseff.

Engadget reports ZTE just launched the Nubia X6 handset/tablet with 6.44-inch 1080p screen. It also carries a snapdrgon 7801 chip, 3GB of RAM, up to 128GB of storage and a 4,250 mAh battery. Both front and back cameras are 13-megapixels. It’s up for pre-order in China at $HK 5,010. (US$640).

News From You

LifeDownloaded submitted the TechCrunch story on CandyCrush maker King’s initial public offering of stock. King sold the shares at $22.50 each raising $326 million on a valuation of $7 billion. The stock began trading at $20.50 a share Wednesday morning dropped to $19.58 midafternoon and ended the day at [$19.25]

habichuelcondulce pointed us to the SB Nation Lookit story about the folks at the dogecoin subreddit raising $55,000 to sponsor Josh Wise’s N0.98 car in NASCAR races. Hopefuly the car will get wrapped in Shiba Inu meme-ness in time for the Aaron’s 499 at Talledega May 4. A design competition has begun to determine the look of the logo on the car.

MikePKennedy posted the story from Engadget that NASA has stitched together more than 2 million infrared pictures taken in the past decade by the Spitzer Space telescope to create the clearest infrared panorama of our galaxy ever made. The photos from the Galactic Legacy Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire (GLIMPSE360) show 3 percent of the sky but more than half of all stars in the Milky Way. You can pan through the photo online, or if you have loads of free hard drive space, download the full resolution raw images.

LifeDownloaded submitted the TechCrunch story on CandyCrush maker King’s initial public offering of stock. King sold the shares at $22.50 each raising $326 million on a valuation of $7 billion. The stock began trading at $20.50 a share Wednesday morning dropped to $19.58 midafternoon and ended the day at [$19.31]

Discussion Section Links:  Pick of the Day:  Fock-u-lus Rift?

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/03/welcome-to-the-vr-social-what-to-expect-from-oculus-in-the-facebook-era/

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/03/minecraft-dev-halts-talks-with-oculus-following-facebook-acquisition/

http://www.cnet.com/news/zuckerberg-facebook-only-spends-big-on-rare-companies/#ftag=CAD590a51e

http://recode.net/2014/03/25/under-facebook-oculus-will-still-focus-on-games-for-now/

http://www.cnet.com/news/what-does-the-facebook-oculus-deal-mean-for-kickstarter/#ftag=CAD590a51e

http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/25/5547946/welcome-to-planet-facebook

http://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-oculus-deal-a-downpayment-on-gaming-and-everything-beyond/#ftag=CAD590a51e

Thursday’s Guest:  Peter Wells

Stephen Shankland joins the show to talk about the HTC One M8 and the new CEO of Mozilla. Can Firefox rule mobile?

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: Stephen Shankland, senior writer, CNET News

Headlines

HTC announced the new HTC One today AKA the M8, in Gunmetal Greay, Glacial Silver or ugly, I mean Amber Gold. Many gadget reviewers have admitted to crushes on the all-metal design. Among the features are two rear-facing cameras to allow changing focus on photos after they’re taken. You can also answer a call just by picking up the device and holding it to your head. The Android 4.4 KitKat phone runs HTC’s Sense 6 on a Snapdragon 801 processor, with 2 GB of RAM with either 16 or 32 GB of onboard storage. The 2600 mAh battery should be good for up to 20 hours of 3G talk time, though the phone is LTE. A $50 Dot View case from HTC allows you to see notifications like 8Bit graphics through the cases cover. AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, Rogers, Bell and Telus in North America have it for pre-order now, it’s coming to more North American outlets in early April and Australia, UK, Taiwan and France by the end of the month. Price runs $649 unlocked, $699 for the Google Play edition without Sense and from $199 to $249 with a contract.

The New York Times reports US President Barack Obama will propose bills to the US Congress to eliminate the NSA’s in-house phone call data storage and create a new surveillance court to handle phone data requests. The new court would review requests for phone data directly from the phone companies, that go no more than two hops from a phone number of interests. The bill would not address overseas surveillance programs.

Google made waves in enterprise cloud service announcing a 32 percent across the board price cut.  SVP Urs Hölzle told attendees at Google Cloud Platform Live that the company will also offer sustained-use discounts without pre-payment. Amazon is holding its own cloud event tomorrow so expect Amazon Reserved Instances to possibly get a price adjustment themselves.

MacStories reports developer Olga Osadcha noted Apple is testing a related search suggestion feature for its App Store which started rolling out today for iPhone users on iOS7. The suggestions show up as a scrollable menu bar with similar or related searches.

ExtremeTech reports Nvidia’s Jen-Hsun Huang made a handful of announcements at the GPU Technology Conference. Nvidia and IBM have partnered up on NVLink which connects GPUs and CPUs at a claimed 12-15x over the current implemntation of PCI-Express. Nvidia also talked up the successor to Maxwell, code-named Pascal coming with new features in 2016. And Nvidia announced a dual-GPU Titan card called Titan Z with up to 8TFLOPS of theoretical FLOPS performance. The dual GK110 card will run companies $3,000.

News From You

beatmaster80 submitted the Business Insider story on the IRS decision to classify Bitcoins as property not currency. That means every time you spend BitCoins you have to report it the way you would selling something like stock or a house. Put another way, buy something with bitcoins, pay capital gains tax. The good news is the US Treasury Department should now begin developing formal regulations, so this guidance may not be the final word.

ancientbearwizard submitted the Ars Technica story on Microsoft donating the source code for MS_DOS 1.1 and 2.0 and Word for Windows 1.1a to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. The museum also holds source code for Adobe Photoshop 1.0 and Apple II DOS. The source is now freely downloadable by anyone.

KAPT_Kipper gave us the TechCrunch story on Google signing up Italian company Luxottica to design and build Google Glass. Luxottica makes the Ray-Ban, Oakley, Miu Miu, Armani, and other brands of eyewear. Google cited Luxottica’s experience selling eyewear to the public as a key factor in the deal. This can easily be read as a sign Google’s getting closer to making a Google Glass product available to the general public.

cincyhuffster sent in the Engadget story about new lighter weight airbags for mortorcycles. The Ducati Multistrada D-Air has sensors attached to the bike’s electronic system that monitor the vehicle’s acceleration, breaking and orientation. In the event of a crash, it can send a signal over WiFi to your jacket, so that the internal airbags will deploy before you hit the ground. The produce is scheduled to launch in Europe in May.

Discussion Section Links:  HTC One M8

http://www.cnet.com/news/htc-one-m8-to-arrive-in-google-play-edition/

http://www.cnet.com/news/htc-announces-htc-one-m8/

http://www.cnet.com/products/htc-one-m8/

http://www.cnet.com/news/the-inside-story-of-the-htc-one-m8/

http://androidcommunity.com/htc-one-m8-dot-view-case-hands-on-20140325/ 

http://www.cnet.com/news/brendan-eich-mo zillas-alpha-nerd-takes-over-as-ceo-q-a/

Pick of the Day: Boxcryptor

I came across this great piece of software for encrypting your documents in cloud storage accounts called Boxcryptor
They have a free and paid for accounts that allow you to…….wait for it…..encrypt your files…..
You can use it with OneDrive, Box, Dropbox, Google Drive etc…. It uses AES-256 bit encryption, you can use it on Mac or PC. It’s just a great way to keep you stuff secure. I found this program looking for something to put on added security with my tax returns in the cloud.

As always a huge fan of all your podcasts and keep it up!

Chris Denny

Wednesday’s Guest: Andy Ihnatko, technology columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times