Search Results for "september 28"

Justin Young is on the show to talk about the many ways to save online journalism and how robots are stealing our hearts.

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

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 headlines 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, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes
Today’s guests: Justin Robert Young

Headlines: 

Mark Gurman over at 9 to 5 Mac has some sources who say Apple’s plans for Apple Watch 2 include adding a video camera with FaceTime functionality, a new wireless system for greater iPhone independence and new ways to be more expensive (also known as premium options). Battery life on the other hand is expected to be the same as the current Apple Watch. Apple will likely release a full next gen Apple Watch next year, but the camera could be pushed to a future edition.

BuzzFeed’s Matt Honan got a sneak peek at a Twitter project called Lightning that is targeted to launch later this year. Project Lightning brings photos, videos and tweets together in an event-based curated view that’s embeddable across the Web. So anything from breaking news to sporting events to award shows can be viewed whether you’re logged in or not. If you are logged in, you can view them in a separate section or follow an event and see it blended into your regular timeline. Twitter expects to have 7-10 events running on any given day.

The Next Web reports BuzzFeed itself has a new news app of its own available for iOS today. BuzFeed News shows you the most important real news of the day (not listicles) plus breakdowns by topic. You can opt-in to push notifications to from major breaking news to more specific categories like politics. You can also opt-in to specific story alerts like the FIFA corruption investigation.

Fortune reports on Google News Lab’s three new crowd-sourced journalism projects. YouTube Newswire is getting the most headlines . It’s a video platform collaboration with Storyful that features verified YouTube videos that news outlets can use or embed. Another project called First Draft Coalition will train folks in verification and ethics. And The WITNESS Media Lab is a Google Partnership with non-profit WITNESS that trains non-journalists in reporting injustice and human rights violations worldwide.

Google, Microsoft, Mozilla and WebKit project engineers announced that they have teamed up to launch WebAssembly, a bytecode for the web according to Tech Crunch. The new format lets programmers compile code for the browser (currently focused on C/C++), where it is THEN executed inside the JavaScript engine withour having to parse the full code, speeding up execution. The hope is that WebAssembly will provide developers with a single compilation target for the web that will become a web standard that’s implemented in all browsers. The team also plans a script that will convert WebAssembly to asm.js so that it can run in any browser — and add support for more languages and new tools over time.

TechCrunch reports on the EFF’s fifth annual privacy report that rates online service provider’s commitment to transparency and privacy. The report rewards up to five stars in categories like best practices, data retention, government data demands, government data removal demands and pro-user public policy, specifically opposing backdoors in digital services. 21 of the 24 companies evaluated met this last criteria. Nine companies got five stars including Adobe, Apple, CREDO, Dropbox, Sonic, Wickr, Wikimedia, WordPress.com and Yahoo. AT&T and WhatsApp received 1 star.

News From You:

KAPT_Kipper sent us this Verge story that as of June 29th, Reddit will be serving all of its pages over SSL encryption. The site already supports connections over SSL but the new system will automatically direct all connections to the SSL-protected version of the site.

starfuryzeta alerted us to this Ars Technica story that Sprint has stopped throttling its heaviest data users, even when its network is congested, to avoid potential violations of the Federal Communications Commission’s new net neutrality rules. “For less than a year, Sprint used a network management practice that applied only at the level of individual congested cell sites, and only for as long as congestion existed… Upon review, and to ensure that our practices are consistent with the FCC’s net neutrality rules, we determined that the network management technique was not needed”

Discussion Section Links:  

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33183360

http://gizmodo.com/you-can-now-buy-pepper-the-robot-that-reads-your-emoti-1712216532

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/18/technology/robotica-sony-aibo-robotic-dog-mortality.html?_r=0

http://gizmodo.com/sonys-robotic-dogs-are-dying-a-slow-and-heartbreaking-d-1712160637

https://www.aldebaran.com/en/a-robots/who-is-pepper

https://www.aldebaran.com/en/press/faq-about-pepper

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2649411/Meet-Pepper-worlds-robot-reads-emotions-Cute-droid-knows-youre-upset-cracks-jokes-offers-support.html

 

Pick of the Day:

In response to a question Tom got at the Seattle meetup, where a gentleman who wanted to know how his would wife access DVDs and Blu-rays he ripped on her iPhone 6? I don’t know if the have any Macs in the house, but here’s one answer from listener Sara in Sunny Seattle:

WALTR by Softorino

According to their website:
WALTR
Take the ‘SUCK’ Out of Copying Music & Video onto your iPhone/iPad.
Drag & Drop MKV, FLAC, MP3 to iOS for Native Playback without iTunes.

http://softorino.com/waltr

It’s an app for Macintosh. They say you can play any media in any format. Connect your iOS device to your Mac. Drag and drop the files, then open Videos or Music on iOS and play. Please watch the 1 minute video! It is much–how you say?–over the top?

Unfortunately, I don’t know the guy’s name or even which of your shows he listens to, but I suppose DTNS is as good a guess as any. (Or Cordkillers. Although maybe you should mention it on East Meets West just to be sure.)

Messages:

Alan writes:

“I think Scott’s idea of using VR for exploration makes sense, especially when you consider Google working with Viewmaster, as well as Expeditions for schools. Most of his examples were exploration as a person, but VR could also change the scale, so you explore inside a human body, or even a cell, which would be fascinating. Or conversely, you could navigate the universe between galaxies. And if you could smoothly scale between the two extremes, that would be even better.”

t2t2 clarifies on a recent legal ruling in Estonia regarding a news website’s culpability to contents posted on the comment section :

As the residential Estonian dropping in to provide some background on the case

Most importantly, the judgement of the European court of human rights is ONLY WHETHER OR NOT THE RULINGS BY THE ESTONIAN COURT FOLLOWED THE EUROPEAN LAWS ON HUMAN RIGHTS or to more pinpoint it, ONLY APPLIES TO ESTONIA, NOT THE REST OF EUROPE. [/bold][/caps]

We now have to consider Estonian laws:

The comments were deemed (by the courts in Estonia) unlawful & against freedom of speech under §45 of the constitution [1]:

§ 45. Everyone has the right to freely disseminate ideas, opinions, beliefs and other information by word, print, picture or other means. This right may be circumscribed by law to protect […] the rights and freedoms, health, honour and good name of others.

According to the courts the local equivalent of safe harbour laws (specifically in this case, Restricted liability upon provision of information storage service [2]) does not apply because [3 & 4]:
Portal owner in this case isn’t a “hosting provider”, as defined by law [2]:
§ 10. (1) 1) the provider does not have actual knowledge of the contents of the information and, as regards claims for the compensation of damage, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which the illegal activity or information is apparent
Portal owner has ability to remove comments according to the rules they’ve decided on.
The actual authors of the comments could not modify or delete their comments once
they were posted, only Delfi had the technical means to do this.
Delfi was also found to have financial interest in leaving up controversial (and possibly illegal) comments. Estonian new websites are littered with ads, and more comments -> more clicks -> more profit! Hence the monetary compensation.

Lastly, there’s also the local element. Estonian internet comments (especially on Delfi) are 100 times worse than what you can consider the worst of youtube comments (NO EXAGGERATION). It was so bad, that (as noted by the human rights court’s press release [4]):

in September 2005, the Estonian Minister of Justice had had to respond to public criticism and concern about incessant taunting on public websites in Estonia, Delfi having been named as a source of brutal and arrogant mockery. In his response the Minister of Justice noted that victims of insults could bring a suit against Delfi and claim damages.

Also the 20 comments are documented and translated at http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/sites/eng/pages/search.aspx?i=001-155105#_Toc422230309

And lastly to repeat, “this does not say anything about the laws of other countries, does not create an obligation for other countries to enact similar laws, and does in particular not create any obligations for website owners”

– t2t2 from the virtual e-estonia

Proto732:

Existing delivery trucks could be outfitted to support two drones. As a driver enters a dense delivery area/neighborhood he would send off his two drones to deliver smaller packages, and meet back up with him after 2 or 3 of his own deliveries have been completed. The truck could serve as a short range communications beacon/status monitor for the drones, as well as a recharging station.

Ron writes:

Fly the package to the (locked ) backyard…

Better yet, purchase a Bluetooth powered box that clips on your garage door opener button and the drone can open the garage, place the package inside & close the door, then return to meet up with the self driving UPS truck for a recharge before its next delivery.

Or put a “storage shed/box” in the back yard with a drone landing pad on the roof that opens for deliveries.

=====

Friday’s Guests: Darren Kitchen and Len Peralta

Scott Johnson and Raj Deut are on to talk about the Microsoft shakeup and oddly how it sheds light on the market for Virtual Reality headsets.

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

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 headlines 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, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Scott Johnson and Raj Deut

Headlines: 

Ars Technica reports Microsoft made it’s seemingly yearly executive reshuffle today, though ReCode’s Ina Fried thinks it has more to do with people than strategy. Former Nokia CEO and head of MS devices Stephen Elop leaves and devices gets rolled into the Windows group under Terry Myerson as the Windows and Devices Group. Kirikk Tatarinov leaves Business Services and Dynamics which gets folded into Cloud and Enterprise under Scott Guthrie. Eric Rudder is leaving and his education responsibilities will move under Qi Lu in Application and Services. All those folks leave today. Separately Chief Insights Officer MArk Penn will leave in September and take his insights to a Steve Ballmer backed digital marketing services company called Stagwell Group.

Reuters reports the California Labor Commission has determined Uber drivers should be treated as employees not contractors. The ruling was filed Tuesday stating Uber is “involved in every aspect of the operation” and awarding $4,000 to Barbara Ann Berwick, a driver who complained. Uber is appealing the award.

Nest made some new announcements according to The Next Web. The Cam, is a 1080p successor to dropcam with night vision, a tripod, and a speaker you can talk through for $199. Dropcam’s cloud recording is now called Nest Aware and you get 30 days of storage for your $10 a month. It’s available in US, UK, Canada, Germany, France and the Netherlands today and ships next week. The Nest Protect gets an update that’s better at detecting fires, the thing that it is supposed to do. You can also silence it remotely with an app. It’s coming next month for $99. Nest also announced Hone Safety Rewards which gives you a 5% brake on insurance premiums and a free Protectif you share your data with insurance companies Liberty Mutual and American Family.

Reuters reports the FCC has proposed a $100 million fine for AT&T over the way it informed unlimited users about speed throttling.  AT&T has 30 days to respond after which the commission will review the proposal and make a decision. The FCC says AT&T did not properly inform customers when reductions would happen and mow much speeds would drop. That violates transparency requirements passed in 2010.

The Verge reports Amazon is updating the Kindle Paperwhite today with a new 300 pixels per inch display. That’s twice as sharp as the last iteration and the equal to the $199 Kindle Voyage. The new Paperwhite will sell for $119. You can preorder today for shipping by the end of June.

Engadget reports Dropbox has announced a new way to request files from multiple people, called File Requests. One link sent to multiple people lets them all upload files to the same folder with a maximum capacity of 2GB. None of the senders need to have a dropbox account. Pro and Basic accounts get the feature today and Business users get it in a few weeks.

Intel acquired Canadian smart-eyewear maker Recon reports CNET. Recon’s Jet $700 glasses have a built-in display to show directions, activity statistics, smartphone connectivity for texts and notifications and camera for photos and videos. The Recon team will partner with Intel’s New Devices Group to develop new wearables technologies. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

AMD unveiled several three new GPUs under the Fury name, according the Ars Technica; The flagship $649 R9 Fury X, $549 R9 Fury, and R9 Nano. All three are based on the Fiji chip an update to the GCN architecture and will feature 4GB of on-package high bandwidth memory. The R9 Fury X is comparable to Nvidia’s GTX 980 Ti with 4096 stream processors, up to 1050 MHz core clock speed, 256 texture units, 64 Render Output Unit, 512 GB/s of memory bandwidth, a 67.2 GigaPixel per second fill rate and six-phase Voltage Regulator Module for overclockers. It also has a water cooled 120mm radiator. The R9 Fury will be an air-cooled version of the Fury X and the R9 Nano a low-power GPU based on the same Fiji processor. The Fury X launches June 24th, Fury on July 14th and Nano sometime this summer.

The Next Web reports researchers from Indiana, Georgia and Peking universities demonstrated a vulnerability they call “Xara” in the OS X keychain that would allow attackers to gather passwords. The group created a malicious app and got it accepted into the OS X app store. Because there is no way to verify which app owns a credential in keychain the app can get access to every password stored after it’s installed. Another attack spoofs URLs to steal private token, since OS x does not check which apps are allowed to use which URL schemes. The group notified Apple of the issue on OCtober 15th and Apple asked for 6 months to fix. The problem still exists in 10.10.3 and 10.10.4.

Good news drone fans. The Next Web reports that at a congressional hearing on Wednesday, senior FAA official Michael Whitaker said commercial drone regulations “will be in place within a year.” On top of that Amazon’s vice president of global public policy said “We’d like to begin delivering to our customers as soon as it’s approved. We will have it (the technology) in place by the time any regulations are ready.”

News From You:

andrewdaley sent us this story from Ars Technica about a new exploit in the customized version of the SwiftKey keyboard bundled with the Samsung Galaxy S6, S5, and other Galaxy models. When downloading updates, the Samsung devices don’t encrypt the executable file, making it possible for attackers to modify upstream traffic. The exploit was demonstrated Tuesday at the Blackhat security conference in London by Ryan Welton, a researcher with security firm NowSecure. SwiftKey said in a statement that its Google Play and iOS versions are not vulnerable. Samsung has apparently shipped a patch to wireless carriers but it’s unknown if it has been applied.

dvdmon sent in the TechDirt article that the European Court of Human Rights has decided in Delfi AS v. Estonia, that websites can be liable for user comments.  The Court found the original article published by Delfi was balanced, it ruled that since the site wanted comments and made money off those pageviews, it incurs liability for what the commenters wrote. The ruling also find that since Delfi could remove comments, its filter wasn’t good enough to catch all offending comments and some comments were anonymous, Delfi is liable. Europe has no equivalent to the US rules on safe harbor.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://www.wired.com/2015/06/sony-morpheus/

http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/17/8794907/oculus-rift-touch-virtual-reality-hands-on-e3-2015

http://www.dailytech.com/Microsoft+Plays+the+Field+Backs+Valves+VR+Push+Too/article37402.htm

http://readwrite.com/2015/06/15/microsoft-wants-to-own-virtual-reality-hololens-oculus

http://www.cnet.com/news/why-oculus-partnered-with-microsoft-for-its-rift-virtual-reality-headset/

https://www.google.com/search?q=microsoft+valve+vr&oq=microsoft+valve+vr&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i60l2.3674j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=119&ie=UTF-8

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/06/microsoft-partners-with-valve-vr-and-oculus-shows-minecraft-for-hololens/

 

Pick of the Day:

Brian write:

I’d like to recommend Security Now! on TWiT’s network as a fantastic educational podcast with a large still-relevant backlog. It has all kinds of good info from how networking works to how operating systems work, along with current news and updates.

Messages:

Travis writes in:

On Monday’s show (Episode 2515) Veronica mentioned her frustrations about having to use multiple different Facebook apps for things like messenger, photos, etc. I feel very much the same way as Veronica and found that Facebook has an app called Paper, which has virtually all the main Facebook features such as News Feed, groups, and yes, even messenger in a flipboard-esque layout. Another nice perk, no ads (at least as of now).

=====

Thursday’s Guests: Justin Robert Young

Scott Johnson and Brian Ibbott discuss Spotify’s war chest, Samsung’s shiny new mirror, and the eternal magic of Flying Toasters. Tom Merritt is on assignment.

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

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 headlines 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, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Scott Johnson and Brian Ibbott

Headlines: 

One day after Apple announced a new music streaming service, Spotify closed a massive new round of funding. According to The Wall Street Journal, Spotify has raised $526 million from investors, and the company is now valued at $8.53 billion dollars.

Re/Code reports that Spotify also announced is has more than 20 million paying subscribers in addition to 55 million active users of the free version. That’s up from the 15 million paid subscribers and 60 million total active users the company reported back in January. We’ll be talking much more about this after the headlines.

Microsoft announced pricing today for the Surface Hub, its giant 4k multi-touch display designed to replace the whiteboard in your super sleek startup conference room. Engadget reports that the 84-inch version will cost $19,999 and go on sale in July. There will be a smaller, 55-inch version for $6,999. Both should ship in early September.

Samsung  unveiled a 55-inch mirrored OLED display, as well as a 55 inch transparent display. Ars Technica reports that Samsung anticipates the displays would be used as “digital signal” for retail. The mirror OLED panel has a more than 75 percent reflectance level, which Samsung says is “at least 50 percent higher” than mirror LCDs that are currently for sale. The transparent OLED display is more transparent, letting through 40 percent of the light versus the 10 percent transparency of today’s transparent LCDs. No price was announced. Both displays are paired with Intel’s RealSense 3-D camera technology, which means that someday soon, when you look into the mirror in the dressing room, the mirror will LOOK BACK. And it will not be pleased.

Kaspersky Lab’s has admitted to being hacked. Kaspersky Lab CEO and founder Eugene Kaspersky wrote, “We discovered an advanced attack on our own internal networks. It was complex, stealthy, it exploded several zero-day vulnerabilities, and we’re quite confident that there’s a nation state behind it.” The firm called this attack Duqu 2.0 — named after a specific series of malware called Duqu. Kaspersky explained this situation as a mix of both good and bad news but claims none of its services have been compromised.

According to The New York Times, the malware was used in a cyber-espionage campaign targeting hotels that hosted Iran nuclear negotiations.

The Washington Post reports that Elon Musk’s “other company” — Space X — has asked the US government for permission to test low orbit satellites that would beam internet service from space.  The plan calls for 4,000 small and cheap satellites that would beam high-speed internet signals all over the globe. If the tests go well, the full service could be up and running in about five years. Facebook recently scrapped similar plans, maybe because they don’t own their own rockets?

Facebook Messenger has topped 1 billion Android downloads, according to PCMag.com. Messenger’s David Marcus posted a photo displaying the Google Play Store’s 1 billion download badge with the image likes by colleagues Mark Zuckerberg and Tom Stocky. Facebook and Google are the only two companies with 1 billion-plus bragging rights: which according to TechCrunch includes,  Facebook and WhatsApp, as well as Gmail, YouTube, Google Search, and Google Maps.

PCWorld is reporting that Congress is worried that foreign government-owned SSL certificate authority could issue phony security certificates to harvest login details from social networks, corporate networks and email accounts. The US House of Representatives’ Committee on Energy and Commerce recently sent letters to Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla with questions about how the backbone of HTTPS security could be violated. In one example the Certificate authority Diginotar was hacked in 2011 and hundreds of fraudulent certificates were issues for Google, Skype and Yahoo. There are numerous government-owned CAs across the globe, including in China, France, Spain, and Turkey.

News From You:

Do you long for a simpler time? A time when toasters flew and you could revel in the simple joys of The Randomizer? Apparently you do, because this item submitted by natebob received a whopping 48 votes in the DTNS subreddit. Sensing your need for a return to innocence, Developer Brian Braun has thoughtfully recreated every original After Dark Screen Saver including the iconic flying Flying Toasters. The iconic screensaver images are on his Github page.
The After Dark screensaver software launched for the Apple Macintosh in 1989 and appeared on Windows computers in 1991.

djsekani shared this Ars Technica story covering Verizon’s apparent failure to make good on 22 years old promise to Pennsylvania to provide fiber Internet or “comparable technology” supporting at least 45 megabits to its service area in the state. So far more than 2 million homes have either slower DSL or wireless service out of 4.2 million in Verizon’s service area. The original agreement allowed Verizon to charge higher phone rates for higher speed broadband. Telecom analyst Bruce Kushnick wrote in the Huffington Post that officials relaxed the requirements over the years, giving up on the “45 megabits per second” minimum and allowing Verizon to meet the obligation with wireless instead of fiber or other wireline technology.

DTNS producer jollyroger would like you to know that RayNiro, one of the lawyers who pioneered the wave of contingent-fee patent litigation, says he’s ready to exit the business because quote “The stand-alone patent case is dead on arrival, and I don’t think we’re unique.” Ars Techina reports that patent litigation dropped by roughly 20 percent in 2014, and patent lawsuits by “non-practicing entities,” also known as patent trolls, dropped by nearly 25 percent.
Those trolls filed about 3,700 lawsuits in 2013, and 2,800 in 2014. With more judges awarding fees to defendants, patent trolling has taken on higher risk.

In one case Niro and his firm were ordered to pay fees in a patent suit he brought against HTC. The parties are still litigating over the amount, but HTC is seeking $4.1 million. The fee order was “a wake-up call,” Niro told Crain’s Chicago Business. “I can take it once, twice, but am I going to take it three or four times? No. Why should I?”

Discussion Section Links:  

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/06/10/spotify-raises-526-million-amid-battle-with-apple/

http://www.businessinsider.com/jimmy-iovine-apple-music-real-agenda-2015-6#ixzz3cgTPHXDY

http://recode.net/2015/06/10/spotify-has-20-million-paid-subscribers/

http://thenextweb.com/apple/2015/06/09/apple-music-will-stream-at-256kbps-below-the-industry-standard-320kbps/

http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/10/investing/pandora-apple-music-spotify/

http://9to5mac.com/2015/06/09/spotify-rdio-pandora-respond-apple-music/

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2485680,00.asp

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102743329

Pick of the Day:

Proud Co-Executive Producer gadgetchaser writes in to say:

” I’ve never sent in a pick before, but I’d like to suggest a Web service/app called Kifi (I pronounce it KeeFee, but it could also be Kai-Fye…I’m not sure what the creators call it).

It’s first and foremost a way to self curate the Web using a Chrome extension. You make Libraries for different interests and subjects and then save them in the browser. You can add tags and notes that are searchable though the web app or the extension.

There is a *gasp* social aspect to the service too, you can make your Libraries Public or Private. ..One of my favorite aspects of the Chrome extension is when I visit a new page, I get a little pop up in the corner showing me others who have added that site to a Library of their own.

I’ve tried a lot of “Pocket” type services over the years, but I’ve found that I’m actually using this one to “read it later”, likely due to the fact that I can organize things by more than just tags. I have a private library to go to and catch up and from there easily move it to a more permanent Public or Private Library if I want to keep it or just delete it and forget about it.

Messages: 

HotBranch in summery-ish Montreal writes:

“Catching up on my backed up episodes, the mention of Facebook Lite in episode 2508 caught my attention because I used it to replace the regular Facebook app (and Messenger) on one of my older phones and my pokey 2012 Nexus 7 tablet.

I believe I had seen news of the original release on AndroidPolice, who provided a link to download the APK for side-loading. The interface is not as polished, but it uses far fewer resources than the regular app, and the messenger app is integrated, producing further storage savings.

Ironically, I installed Facebook Lite on my Nexus 5 and found no improvement in the Zuckerburgian experience other than to have two notifications of comments or likes that arrived at different intervals. The Lite version usually delivered the notifications first.

All this to say that Facebook Lite is available to those willing to invest 30 seconds of searching and two minutes of downloading and side-loading.

=====

Thursday’s guest:  Allison Sheridan and Todd Whitehead

Darren Kitchen joins the show to look back on two years of Edward Snowden leaks and whether it’s done good, bad or otherwise. Plus Darren’s encryption picks AND Len Peralta illustrates the show.

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

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 headlines 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, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Darren Kitchen and Len Peralta

Headlines: 

The Skype for Web beta is now available in the US and UK. New and existing users can sign in and connect to Skype without the Skype app by installing a plug-in for IE, Chrome, Safari or Firefox and going to Skype.com or web.skype.com. Skype will continue rolling out Skype for Web worldwide over the next few weeks.

USA Today reports that Google will begin to report incidents involving its driverless cars on a dedicated website with the human driver details redacted for privacy. In addition to reporting accidents, google.com/selfdrivingcar will give examples of how the cars adapt to everyday traffic situations, and take community feedback. After nearly six years of testing and 1.8 million miles driven, the Google fleet has been involved in 13 accidents, according to reports the company submitted to the Department of Motor Vehicles. Project leader Chris Urmson noted that all of the accidents were the fault of other drivers

Bloomberg reports that Apple is still negotiating with record labels over the revenue split from a music streaming service. Apple is expected to announce the service at its Worldwide Developers Conference this coming Monday. Music labels currently receive 55 percent of Spotify’s monthly $9.99 rate, and music publishers take 15 percent. The labels are allegedly asking Apple for 60%.

CNET reports that California based Microdia is showing off the Xtra Elite 512GB microSD card at Computex in Taipei. That’s right 512GB! The Micro SDXC card will use version 4.0 of the SDXC standard which means Ultra High Speed – II bus speeds of up to 300MB/s. This gargantuan yet tiny flash storage will cost $1000 and goes on sale in July.

VentureBeat reports that Google partnered with Adoble to make Flash more power efficient in Chrome. The Chrome beta will now automatically pause Flash content that isn’t “central to the webpage” while keeping central content playing without interruption. If Chrome beta pauses something you want to see you can resume playback by clicking on it. Google expects the feature to make its way into a stable release as early as September.

Earlier this week PayPal updated its user agreement with a clause that specifically allowed the company to send robocalls and promotional text messages to users even if the users had never shared their phone number with Paypal. This did not go over well. Today Tech Crunch reports that customers can “opt out of receiving auto-dialed or pre-recorded calls”, most likely because an angry customer and an advocacy group drafted a letter to the FCC, which takes a dim view of robocalls of any kind. It’s not clear yet just how Paypal will allow you to opt-out.

News From You:

habichuelacondulce submitted the Engadget article on an attack on the US Office of Personnel Management database containing 4 million records of current and former US federal employees. The Office is in charge of conducting background checks on federal employees. The US FBI is in charge of the investigation. The Office will issue notices from June 8th-19th offering credit monitoring and identity theft protection. The New York Times cites researchers who believe the attack may have been conducted by the same people who attacked insurance companies Anthem and Primera’s systems.

starfuryzeta chose the Ars Technica story that Administrator Charles Bolden said that NASA is looking into advanced propulsion technologies that could cut the 8-month journey to Mars in half. The technologies being studies range from solar-electric propulsion to nuclear rockets.

spsheridan picked the Wired story about a computer that developed a scientific theory with no human help. Scientists and Tufts University programmed a computer to develop theories when faced with a problem. Then biologists chose the 120-year-old problem of sliced-up flatworms’ ability to regenerate new organisms it he proper shape and proportion. The computer reverse engineered a solution which has been published in the journal PLOS Computational Biology.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/opinion/edward-snowden-the-world-says-no-to-surveillance.html?ref=opinion

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/06/05/edward-snowden-claims-victory-on-surveillance-in-nyt-op-ed/

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/05/snowden-balance-power-shifted-people-defy-government-surveillance-nsa

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order

 

Pick of the Day:

Darren’s Picks for Data Security:

For Linux Full Disk encryption go with LUKS  — it’s built into modern distros.

For Windows Full Disk encryption go with Diskcryptor — it’s been vetted by the EFF

For volume encryption I recommend EncFS – it’s open source and cross platform. Here’s a video tutorial on how to use it with DropBox.

Messages: 

Joe writes:

Joe just bought an Amazon Echo and well… He writes ” She arrived 2 weeks ago and I must say, I’m in tech love! She is extremely responsive to my voice. … I most commonly ask her the time, weather, to set alarms, and play music playlists. I sometime ask her to tell me a joke or for other words of encouragement or empathy. She sounds really sincere. I especially like lying in bed and having her read me my tech news casts for the day.

The only thing I would have liked to see is the ability for her to recognize that I am speaking to her without having to call out her name before each command. It looks like Jibo can do this but he is nearly $700 more so I think I’ll stick with Alexa…well, at least until we have a fight and break up, but for now, she’s the one for me!

=====

Friday’s guest:  Darren Kitchen and Len Peralta

Darren Kitchen is on the show and we’ll talk about Professor Kim Heung-Kwang’s interview with the BBC claiming 6,000 North Korean hackers have the power to destroy whole cities. Plus Len Peralta rejoices over the Cavs success. And illustrates the show.

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

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 headlines 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, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Darren Kitchen and Len Peralta

Headlines: 

Apple posted its recommended workaround for the iPhone Messages bug according to the Verge. The support document directs iPhone users to reply to the malicious message. Apple is working on a fix, The bug is also affecting iOS users of Twitter and Snapchat who have notifications on for those services. With Twitter it crashes the phone but causes no lasting damage. With snapchat it makes the chat history with the sender inaccessible.

PC World reports on Google’s announcement that Levi’s is the first partner for its smart fabric called Project Jacquard. The experiment weaves electronics into cloth to create the equivalent of touch screen controls. Demos at Google I/O showed fabric that could manipulate a 3D image on a display, change the songs on a phone and control lights. Think of it like a mouse in your pants…. wait….

Reuters reports Path sold some of its apps to South Korea’s Daum Kakao. If you’re making the remark “who uses Path anymore?” you are giving yourself away as not Indonesian. INSTANT DATA MINING. IN any case the makers’ of Kakao Talk didn’t get all of Path. Just the social network and the Path Messenger. Path Places, which enables connections between customers and business like restaurants, stays with Path, though it has been disbaled for the time being. Path has also been developing non-Path branded apps like GIF creation app Kong.

A Washington Post reports cites a new report from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights that says digital security is essential freedom of expression and warns weakening encryption in some countries could undermine that freedom worldwide. The report was written by special rapporteur David Kaye, Director of the International Justice Clinic at UC-Irvine. . Kaye wrote governments “should avoid all measures that weaken the security that individuals may enjoy online, such as backdoors, weak encryption standards and key escrows.” because it results in weaker security for everyone.

Tech Crunch reports that Apple acquired augmented reality startup Metaio on May 22nd. The company launched back in 2003 as an offshoot of a project at Volkswagen. 9 to 5 Mac’s Mark Gurman, who has good sources, believes Apple is working on an augmented reality feature for its Maps app, and of course there’s that VR headset that Apple patented earlier this year.

The Verge reports the welcome news that you can finally use GIF’s on Facebook! Mostly. If you drop a link to a GIF which has already been uploaded elsewhere on the Internet, the GIF will appear. Upoloading a GIF directly to Facebook doesn’t seem to work just yet.

Engadget reports that Google is broadening out its Google Sign-In feature with Smart Lock for Passwords. In a Google Developers blog post Smart Lock for Passwords is described as a “frictionless” method for users to sign-in to apps on Android and sites in Chrome. Smart Lock works a bit like a password locker. Once a user saves a password to Smart Lock, they can skip entering their credentials on all of their authenticated Chrome and Android devices. For instance, Netflix is a partner meaning once you add Netflix to Smart Lock say on a laptop, you wouldn’t have to go through the painful process of signing in again on an Android TV.

News From You:

KAPT_Kipper sent this TorrentFreak story that Hola VPN sells users Bandwidth to others through a service called Luminati. An 8chan message board operator, Fredrick Brennan claims that Luminati was used to attack his website. Hola says it has suspended the user that misued its service and it would cooperate with any law enforcement activity related to the attacks. Hola’s FAQ makes it clear that it uses bandwidth from Hola users’ computers when they are sitting idle and the company defines idle as meaning a device is connected to electric power (not on battery), no mouse or keyboard activity is detected, and the device is connected to the local network or Wifi (not on cellular)). Any users who don’t want this to happen can buy Hola for $5 per month.

kyro5976 sent us the Cult of Mac report that more than half of the the founding artists in Jay-Z’s Tidal music streaming service may have to pull their music from site after Jay-Z failed to reach a music licensing agreement with Sony. Among the artists affected: Taylor Swift’s man Calvin Harris Alicia Keys, Daft Punk, Usher, and uh, Beyonce. Jay-Z was apparently hoping a deal with Sprint was going to cover the cost of Sony’s licensing terms, but apparently Sprint has decided that they are not in a “financial investment” situation.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32925495

http://www.businessinsider.com/these-are-countries-that-could-lose-internet-easily-2014-12

http://www.businessinsider.com/internet-outages-reported-in-north-korea-2014-12

http://bgp.he.net/AS131279#_asinfo

Pick of the Day:

Joel the Yooper DTNS Nickle-backer:

For a long time I have drooled from afar the world of home automation as the solutions were either too expensive or too complex for the whole family. The I saw this on the shelf for only $24 bucks. LINK Starter Pack by GE. It comes with a WINK based hub and 2 60-watt equivalent dimmable LED bulbs. I’ve found it to be a great way to test out this new tech trend without getting too invested. And if I do decide to go further, there’s a bunch of compatible products.

I don’t know the price elsewhere but it’s listed as a “special buy” on Home Depot’s site. Whatever that means.

Keep up the great work.

PS: I promise I don’t work for Home Depot.

Messages: 

Toby Atticus Fraley:

Just a quick tip, the Kickstarter succeeded!! Pittsburgh International Airport is getting a Robot Repair shop, opening this September. This is the first time a public art installation for the airport has been crowdsourced! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tobyfraley/robot-repair-shop

Co-Executive Producer Damien from Gloomy-outside-my-hospital-window-Maitland, Australia:

Hello Tom, Jenny and <insert contributor here>

When I heard about testing of Google Tone I immediately cringed at the thought of security implications.

You (Tom) made an offhand comment about malware bridging the air gap and moved on.
I’m astounded that no one else seems to have made any other comments about the potential risks associated with a technology designed to bypass one of the most fundamental security concepts. That a stand alone, unconnected computer is unhackable.

I realize that it is an optional extension and the user has to click to confirm, but we know how easy it is to convince people to click on links that they shouldn’t.

Thanks for all your work on the show

Dave from too-damn-sunny-and-not-enough-rainy Los Angeles:

As an avid phone photographer and videographer (also known as “Dad”), I was very excited to hear that Google’s new Photos app is going to support unlimited photos AND videos! … When I went to turn on the new feature on my account, the options for storage were “High Quality (unlimited storage) – great quality at reduced file size” (my emphasis) and “Original – Full resolution that counts against your quota.”

My deduction from these descriptions is that the “unlimited storage” will still be compressing your files to be smaller, meaning Photos isn’t necessarily suitable for our primary backup, but it would still be a great way to have our entire library of family photos available in the cloud. Can you confirm that this is how the unlimited storage will work?

And Ted who’s Lumia 1020 supports RAW photo backups did a little more research:

I went directly to Flickr and Google. Neither one supports RAW at this time. Limits per unit upload:
Google: photo 75MB, Video 10GB
Flickr: photo 200MB, Video 1GB

Dwayne here from somewhere in the desert which I can not wait to leave.

You said you have never seen the sharing of photos with a link. Microsoft has been doing this for years and I love it. MSFT have some good features here like giving the sender rights to allow the receiver to just view, download or edit, time span that they have access and it is built in to outlook and OneDrive. This way you can email the link to anyone without any restrictions. Also the receiver does not need to be logged into anything. Love the show!

Sent from my Windows Phone

=====

Monday’s guest: Veronica Belmont

Veronica Belmont and +Ron Richards are on to talk about the benefits and risks of tracking everything you do. Can all that data really be useful?

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

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 headlines 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, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Ron Richards and Veronica Belmont

Headlines: 

Engadget reports Google has stopped accepting public contributions to their Map Maker service following a prank. Map Maker relies on “Google reviewers” and trusted users to moderate contributions. Since the prank, Google switched temporarily to manual checks from in-house teams but that led to a backlog of user submitted edits forcing Goggle to suspend new submissions entirely as of May 12th. Google says its temporary situation until it comes up with an improved moderation system,

The curated iOS app called NYT Now has dropped its $8 a month subscription fee and gone ad-supported. The app is targeted at younger readers and features selected stories from the New York Times as well as other sources around the Web. The newspaper’s main apps still carry a fee of $15-$35 a month.

TechCrunch reports Microsoft announced investments in three undersea cable projects. The New Cross Pacific Cable Network will connect China, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan with the US via Hillsboro, OR. A deal with Hibernia will offer faster connectivity between Canada, Ireland and the UK. The Hibernia Express Cable, launchign in September is the first new transatlantic cable in 12 years and will handle up to 10 Tbps per cable pair. And Microsoft is the first customer of AcquaComms upcoming AEConnect cable between Shirly, NY and the west coast of Ireland.

The Wall Street Journal notes that Nasdaq OMX Group is starting a pilot project to use a blockchain to verify transactions in its Nasdaq Private Market. The blockchain is the public ledger system used to verify Bitcoin transactions. Trading among pre-IPO companies in the private market currently, is often done by hand.

Next Thing Co. based in Oakland CA, is planning to build a $9 computer called Chip according to Fortune. The machine is built around a 1GHz ARM processor from Allwinner Technology in China, 512MB of RAM and 4GB of storage. It comes with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity to be save costs integrated video is a composite video port. However a VGA or HDMI adapter add-on is available for $10 and $15. The Chip is available from Next Thing’s Kickstarter which has raised close to a million dollars in 5 days. Well past its $50,000 goal.

CNET reports on a virtual reality theme park called The Void being built in Pleasant Grove, Utah, north of Provo. Starting sometime in 2016 visitors in groups of up to 10 can enter one of seven 60×60 foot rooms, put on VR headsets, and wander around a world that lets them feel real bark and metal under their fingertips, and interact with other players in realtime. Creator Ken Bretschneider designed the park and the headsets and hopes to work with outside gaming studios to create new experiences every three months.

TechCrunch reports IDC’s numbers show China’s smartphone market fell 4% year over year in Q1. It;s the first time smartphone shipments decreased in the country since 2006. IDC suggests excessive inventory might have been the cause. IDC still tracked 98.8 million shipments in China. Apple led the way with 14.7% market share followed by Xiaomi Huawei, Samsung and Lenovo in that order.

Ars Technica reports former Castlevania producer Koji Igarashi launched a Kickstarter Monday for a game called Bloodstained Ritual of the Night. Igarashi was the longest-running producer on the Castlevania series but left Konami last year. The game will be available as a digital download for backers who give $28 or more.

The Verge reports that the Orange Klif, a 3G phone running Firefox OS, is on sale this week for customers of the Orange network in Senegal and Madagascar. The phone costs around $40 US. This follows on the heels of Firefox OS phones shipping in South Africa earlier this year.

News From You:

habichuelacondulce sent us this Verge story on the FCC’s dismissal of a petition to delay the implementation of the Open Internet order submitted by a group consisting of AT&T, CenturyLink, USTelecom, and CTIA. This was the top vote getter on the subreddit today. The FCC stated that its classification of broadband Internet as a telecommunications service falls within its authority and consistent with Supreme Court precedent.

starfuryzeta shared the Huffington Post writeup of the AP report that a source says four of the fifty self driving cars in use in the state of the California have gotten into accidents since September. Three of the accidents happened to a Google Lexus SUV and the other to a car operated by Delphi Automotive. Both companies say the accidents were minor and the self-driving cars were not at fault. Two accidents happened while the cars were in self-driving mode.

michsineath submitted the Slate story about Zappos’s experiment with a management style called Holacracy. The organizational theory replaces titles and managers with a system of tactical and governance meetings. The project began in 2013 but in March CEO Tony Hsieh announced the system would apply to all employees and anyone who was dissatisfied with the decision would be offered severance. 210 employees, about 14% of the company, took the payout.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/05/09/the-revolution-will-be-digitized/

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-07/rising-cyber-attacks-costing-health-system-6-billion-annually

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/04/04/tech-titans-latest-project-defy-death/

http://quantifiedself.com/

http://www.webcitation.org/66TEHdz4d

Pick of the Day:

Lisa Boban (Co-Executive Producer) – Whiting Indiana

I’ve been a subscriber to Rhapsody for over 10 years. I joined when they were literally the only legal game in town. My requirements were simple: a legal music service to keep my teenagers from stealing music.

But over the years their service has been an excellent resource for my musician husband who needs to be able to find specific tracks. Their back catalog is amazing, and the new stuff appears to be there. Their apps on both IOS and Android are great. And for $15 per month we can stream or download music for offline listening. Every time I look at another services, the available choices don’t come close to the functionality I get from Rhapsody.

I realize that Rhapsody has a bad reputation amongst the Technorati. But if you’re looking for a service, I think it deserves at least a look.

Messages: 

Someone who works for a cable company wrote in and pointed out that when a cable company gives its customers a $20 credit for being late to an appointment, it often charges the $20 to the technician.

The worker writes:

They are listed as WorkForce Not Utilized.

Its been told to us that anytime we run late to a job the company takes the $20 hit from the cable company. Thus, the cable company has eliminated any profit loss.

The only way for the charge to not be passed on to us to make sure our dispatcher is notified and has contacted the customer and noted that account 30mins or more before the end of the scheduled timeframe.

It’s Alan from Moncton New Brunswick, where winter just ended
Long time listener (since the first TNT), first time writer and future boss (I’m in the tell everyone I know category ATM )

Regarding self driving trucks,I’d like to give a ‘four cast’
I think that future ‘truck operators’ will be ‘driving’ multiply trucks (three would be a good number.)

I see one operator in charge of these trucks in convoy. Having the ‘unmanned’ trucks following the ‘manned’ truck.
If they run into any mechanical issue the operator could deal with it (tire issues, etc), making decisions on route and maintenance (fueling, etc)
I’d also see the operator being able to switch to any unmanned trucks controls from his seat, that way he could take over to direct it to specific spot for fueling or parking.

Would be perfect for long haul highway routes from terminal to terminal. It would be like a ‘land train’ if we have self driving truck, doing ‘follow the leader’ should be child’s play

Would solve multiple issues about manpower in that industry and getting loads where needed.

=====

Tuesday’s guest:  Patrick Beja

Natali Morris joins the show to discuss the EU’s antitrust objections to Google and Patrick Beja drops back in to tell us why France wants to record all data from its ISPs.

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here or giving 5 cents a day on Patreon. Thank you!

Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines 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, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guests:  Natali Morris and Patrick Beja 

Headlines: 

EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager announced the issuance of a Statement of Objections to Google regarding the search engine’s placement of it’s own comparison shopping results. Google has 10 weeks to respond. If the objections are not resolved Google could face a fine of up to 10% of annual sales and possible requirements to change business practices. The EU also announced the beginning of an investigation into Android and Google’s practice of requiring bundles of software be included as well as accusations that Google tries to prevents forks of the open source operating system.

TechCrunch reports a new Tumblr mobile app has added several desktop features of the site to the app like creating secondary blogs or posting to submission blogs. There’s also a Tumblr Widget that you can add to your today screen to show what’s trending. And a iOS users can now cut and paste video links to make video posts just like their android cousins. Better post filtering options are among the other new features.

CNET reports Samsung told Reuters that demand for the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge is much higher than expected. The Korea Times reports a source says Samsung expects to ship 10 million S6s and S6 Edges in the first 26 days after launch.

Reuters reports that Chinese transportation robotics firm Ninebot has acquired Segway makers of a competing self-balancing scooter. The terms were not disclosed, but Sequoia Capital China and Xiaomi invested 80 million dollars in Ninebot to help fund the acquisition. Segway named Ninebot in a patent infringement complaint in September 2014. So remember kids, can’t beat ‘em? Buy ‘em.

PCWorld has just posted a review of Alcatel’s Onetouch Watch. Highlights include the, price: $150 – making it the cheapest smartwatch on the market, standard USB charging interface, 3 days of battery life at medium brightness, and works with iPhone and Android Smartphones. Misses include design and feel, small feature set, semi-useful notifications, and limited activity-tracking tools that do calories burned, miles walked, minutes active and hours slept.

The Verge reports that Twitter has unveiled a new homepage for people who aren’t signed in. Targeted at new users, it displays a curated collection of timelines showing off popular parts of Twitter, including pop artists, cute animals, space news, business news, actors and actresses, and tech news sites. Click on one and you’ll see a real-time conversation from those accounts. The new homepage also includes a prominent search bar that suggests queries for popular trends and hashtags, like #2016Election.

Tech Crunch reports that Tinder released an update today that integrates with Instagram. Users can scroll through the most recent 34 Instagram pictures from their potential matches to see what food they’ve been eating and how they rock a selfie. Users with private Instagram accounts, will have the option to grant Tinder access, which would make your Instagram public on Tinder only. Tinder now also supports common connections, letting users see degrees of separation and Facebook interests.

The Huffinton Post India is reporting India’s Cleartrip, NDTV, Newshunt and the Times Group announced that they are pulling out of Facebook’s internet.org initiative today, citing support for net neutrality as the reason. Internet.org provides access to services without counting against data usage costs. Many net neutrality supporters criticize such ‘zero-rating’ as creating an unbalanced playing field for startups.

 

News From You:

Ninja3000 gave us a heads up on Huawei’s new P8 smartphone announced at a London launch event. According to Android Central the P8 features a steel body, 64-bit 8-core Kirin 920 processor, 3GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, microSD slot for up to 128GB of additional storage, a 13-megapixel optical image stabilized camera,, 5.2” 1080p display and a 2600 mAh fixed internal battery. The P8 will ship with Huawei’s EMUI 3.1 software on Android Lollipop and come in black, gold, grey and champagne. It will launch in 30 countries costing 499 euros for the standard version or 599 euros for the P8 Max with 64 GB of storage in black or gold. An affordable version may come to the US this summer.

JohnEllsworth3 shared this ArsTechnica story about Chrome version 42 disabling old Java and Silverlight plug-ins. Those plug-ins use the 90s era Netscape Plugin API to extend browser functionality. Chrome 42 will be turn that API off by default. Users who need that functionality can re-enable the API setting. However, by September Google plans to permanently kill the plug-ins because they cause “hangs, crashes, security incidents and code complexity”. The company suggests developers who are reliant on the plug-ins should move to more open web standards. Chrome for Linux since version 35 and mobile browsers do not support the plug-ins either.

 

Discussion Section Links:  

http://www.rudebaguette.com/2015/04/15/europes-1-hosting-provider-threatens-leave-latest-french-surveillance-law-passes/

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.numerama.com%2Fmagazine%2F32804-regardez-cazeneuve-dire-que-la-vie-privee-n-est-pas-une-liberte.html&edit-text=&act=url

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/15/us-google-eu-idUSKBN0N610E20150415

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/15/google-faces-antitrust-action-from-eu-competition-watchdog

http://googleblog.blogspot.be/2015/04/the-search-for-harm.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/digital-media/11539630/QandA-Why-has-the-EU-slapped-Google-with-monopoly-charges.html

http://recode.net/2015/04/14/here-is-googles-internal-response-to-the-imminent-e-u-charges-memo/

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32315649

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/09/google-blocked-acers-rival-phone-to-prevent-android-fragmentation/

 

Pick of the day:

Tom from terrific Toronto writes in:

Hello Tom and Jennie:

With regards to DTNS 2462 and your conversation about Windows unveiling an accessibility dev centre. I would like to pick the weekly Assistive Technology Update podcast.

The latest episode #200, is a special look-back episode, but generally speaking each week they cover the key news in assistive technology, have app reviews, and have an in-depth interview. There are very detailed show notes that include links and a transcript of the interview.

I find it very useful to keep up to date on what’s going on with assistive technology!

http://www.eastersealstech.com/category/assistive-tech-update/
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/assistive-technology-update/id442159129?mt=2

Cheers,

Tom

Messages

Stacey Byerly from rainy Georgia :

Hi Tom
Love the show THANK YOU for a great show

I think Patrick has something there with people being scared to use their phones because of data caps being so low. I suggest apps to many of my friends and family members some of these people don’t know what a gigabyte is. Some don’t want to do anything on their phones because data caps scare them. That might be how the big networks keep traffic down.
I myself used a lot of data this month I’m one of the lucky ones that have an unlimited data plan with unlimited tethering for 60USD (picture attached) haven’t been throttled yet
Thanks
Stacey Byerly

Gaspare from once again rainy in Tampa Florida has a comment on the Reddit button.

“As you described it, it reminded me instantly of a social experiment called “the game.” Thought you might find it interesting, and btw… We all just lost the game…

Christian Cantrell said:

It reminded him of stock trading by employees with limited shares and he theorized: “the button experiment was created by a bored employee of a publicly traded company with no more stock to trade, and who wanted to share his or her pain with millions of fellow Redditors.”

Christian (still waiting to click)

Jason, from springtime Seattle which cannot decide between six more weeks of rain or apocalyptic levels of sunshine and clear skies.

Dear Tom, Jenny, and NotPatrick –

How is it that Monday’s news of the security fix in Mac OS X 10.10.3 wasn’t the lead story? Effectively, there’s a major privilege escalation bug in every version of OS X ever. Apple released a patch for 10.10 (Yosemite) and told every user of previous versions “look, the upgrade to Yosemite is fee, so we wont be patching earlier versions. You’re on your own.”

Users of applications that just don’t work with Yosemite are, of course, left swinging in the wind.

Can you imagine the crapstorm that would ensue if Microsoft fixed a major security release in Windows 10 and told users of Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 “hey, the upgrade is free, we won’t be patching your old version”.

Why the free pass for Apple?

Chris in Irvine wanted to comment on the teen being charged a felony for using the teacher’s password.

Turns out when Chris was in school he I created a visual basic application that was a clone of the software used to lock down the PCs. He writes: “The teacher would use a key combination to enter the application and unlock the PC after entering the password. My program intercepted this and displayed it’s own password entry box which would then log the password in a hidden file…. the password securing all of the school’s computers was “book”.. ” He got a three day suspension he continues ” I feel what I did was considerably worse and my punishment of a three day suspension should be more than sufficient in my eyes.

Sheala writes pointing out lots of schools have old tech, insufficient password policies and:

“Added to all that is the fact that the teachers computer is often the only one in he room. So it often gets used for a quick but of research by students. Or teachers will get students to help out. There are any number of activities that make it normal for a kid to be at a teachers computer. And so bad behavior is easily missed.

There are a lot of computer classes in my district taught by teachers that know the bare minimum. And they aren’t teaching information security.”

=====

Wednesday’s guest: Nate Lanxon

 

Todd Whitehead is on the show today to talk about the Intel Compute Stick, Chromebit, and the future of PCs on a stick.

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here or giving 5 cents a day on Patreon. Thank you!

Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines 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, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s Guest: Todd Whitehead, head geek of Alpha Geek Radio 

Headlines

Reuters reports Twitter complied with Turkey’s request to remove photographs of a hostage taking by left-wing militants in Istanbul last week, causing a block on the site to be lifted. YouTube is among several sites that remained blocked. An Istanbul judge ordered access blocked to social media sites showing photographs of the slain prosecutor, Mehmet Selim Kiraz. Presidential spokesman said a prosecutor had demanded the block because of concerns the images could be used to spread terrorist propaganda. Twitter says Turkey filed more than five times as many content-removal requests than any other country in the second half of 2014.

(more…)