Search Results for "october 13"

Andrew Zarian joins us and we’ll debate how good the possibility of HBO’s announced over the top Internet service might be.

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 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:  Andrew Zarian, founder of the GFQ Network

Headlines

CNET reports Google introduced three new Nexus devices today. The 8.9 inch Nexus 9 tablet by HTC, the Nexus 6 smartphone with a 5.93-inch display by Motorola and Asus’s Nexus Player, with Android TV. All run Lollipop, which is the new name for Android L. The Nexus 9 and Nexus Player start preorders October 17 – in stores November 3. Nexus 9 runs from $399 for 16GB up to $599 for 32GB with LTE The Nexus Player is $99 with an optional game controller for $40. You can preorder the Nexus 6 October 29 for sale in November. Sprint, US Cellular, AT&T and T-Mobile will have it in the US. Unlocked it runs $649 for 32GB and $699 for 64 GB.

So when will other phones are get Lollipop? Google says the Nexus 5 smartphone, Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 tablets and Google Play edition devices should get it in the coming weeks. Ars Technica reports HTC promised updates for some flagship phones within 90 days of Lolipop’s release. And Motorola says both the 2013 and 2014 Moto X, the 2013 and 2014 Moto G, the Moto E, and the Droid Ultra, Maxx, and Mini will all get it too though Motorola didn’t say when.

Usually I avoid Apple leaks especially the day before an announcement but this one has actual facts. Mark Gurman at 9to5 Mac discovered screenshots for the iOS 8.1 iPad user guide in iBooks included pictures of an iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3. The screenshots indicated both new models had touch ID sensors and the iPad 2 has a new Burst mode for pictures. The designs pictured are nearly identical to current iPads.

ReCode reports HBO CEO Richard Plepler told investors at the Time Warner Inc. Investor meeting, “in 2015, we will launch a stand-alone, over-the-top, HBO service in the United States. We will work with our current partners. And, we will explore models with new partners.” Current partners are cablecos who also happen to be ISPs.

ReCode reports Netflix hit expectations for revenue in Q3 with $1.41 billion and 96 cents per share earnings. However they missed on subscriber expectations and the stock market is not happy. In a letter to investors, Reed Hastings wrote, “This quarter we over-forecasted membership growth.”

Ars Technica reports a new vulnerability in SSL version 3 called POODLE has been discovered that could be used to recover session cookies and impersonate users through a man in the middle attack. This is NOT OpenSSL so does not relate to Heartbeat. Modern browsers have switched to TLS not SSL v3 so most client-server interactions won’t be affected. HOWEVER, browsers have a nasty habit of falling back to SSLv3 when TLS fails or doesn’t exist, which mans attackers could use a link to trick a user into becoming vulnerable. What is to be done? Server operators should stop supporting SSLv3. GigaOm reports companies like Twitter, Cloudflare and others have done so. Users should turn off SSLv3 support in their browser. Go to zmap.io/sslv3/browsers.html for instructions. Mozilla and Google have announced they will remove support for SSLv3 from their client software. There is not a way to turn off SSLv3 in Safari or IE6. Hopefully Apple will fix Safari. IE6 on the other hand should be long dead anyway.

Venturebeat reports that Qualcomm will acquire CSR, maker of Bluetooth and GPS chips for $2.5 billion in cash. CSR is based in Cambridge, England; in addition to its chips, the company has branched out into cars, and the internet of things. CSR had previously turned down an acquisition offer from Microchip Technology, a maker of microcontrollers.

ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley reports Microsoft and Docker have announced Docker container support will be included in the next release of Microsoft Windows’ Server, expected mid 2015. Docker container apps will run on Windows Server or Windows Server Next vm in Azure. Docker uses containers to enable apps to run across platforms, or have multiple apps run at once on one server, without needing a vm.

Ebay reported its 3rd quarter earnings, reported revenues of $4.4 billion, growing 12% from a year ago, and beating both Wall Street’s expectations and Ebay’s own estimates. PayPal is on track to process 1 billion mobile transactions in 2014, with mobile payments this quarter at $12 billion, up 72%.

News From You

ebridges13 submitted the Sploid post about the Aviation Week story on Lockheed Martin’s compact fusion reactor, which is safer and cleaner than nuclear fission. The CFR experiment T4 is about the size of a business jet engine. Up until now fusion reactors were massive in size and expense. Lockheed’s CFR uses plasma containment more efficiently such that for the same size it can generate 10 times more power than a typical fusion reactor. Before you get too excited Lockheed has yet to build a prototype and even then would be 5 years off from production.

MacBytes submitted The Verge Report writeup of the news that Facebook and Apple are offering a new employee benefit: both companies cover the costs of egg-freezing procedures up to $20,000 for individual employees. The procedure, known as oocyte cryopreservation, allows women to harvest healthy reproductive eggs during their most fertile years and freeze them for later. While the procedure is still relatively new, and doctors are still assessing its effectiveness it does indicate that Apple and Facebook are thinking about the needs of their current and possibly future female employees.

KAPT_Kipper submitted the VentureBeat article that Firefox 33 arrives today for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android. Among the new features is support for encoding and decoding OpenH264 sandboxed support through Cisco’s H.264 implementation. It works for WebRTC but not the video tag yet. There are also improvements to the search bar. The Android version has added a send to device option for video that works with Roku and Chromecast devices.

Discussion Links: HBO To Go?

http://recode.net/2014/10/15/hbo-says-its-going-to-start-selling-on-the-web-next-year/

http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/15/6982281/hbo-go-no-cable-streaming-netflix-worst-nightmare

http://www.timewarner.com/newsroom/press-releases/2014/10/15/hbo-chairman-and-ceo-richard-plepler-announces-hbo-to-offer-a

Pick of the Day: NoRoot Firewall via Loren Ahrens

I developed a problem with my android phone telling me, “Temporary server error, please try again later.” To isolate the app that is causing the problem I am using NoRoot Firewall. Every app that is calling home is easily identified. I’m surprised by a few and the will be uninstalling them now. Since it has been so easy and useful, I thought I’d share it.

Tomorrow’s guest: Andrea Smith, technology journalist

Jony Ive accuses imitators of laziness and theft. Lamarr Wilson joins the show to talk about Ive’s reaction and decide which one of us he’s talking about. It certainly isn’t Len Peralta who is neither lazy nor thieving but will work hard to illustrate the show with original artprov!

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 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

The Verge reports 13 GB of private snapchats are circulating through 4Chan. The leak is being called ‘The Snappening.’ Snapchat has confirmed that the leak came from a third-party app that users installed to save snaps that would otherwise be deleted. The identity fo the app in question is not yet known. Snapchat pointed out that use of any such app violates its terms of service precisely because it weakens security.

Cnet reports that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella went to a conference about women in computing and was asked what advice he’d offer women who were unsure how to ask their boss for a raise. His answer: “It’s not really about asking for the raise but knowing and having faith that the system will actually give you the right raises as you go along,” adding “I think might be one of the additional superpowers that quite frankly women who don’t ask for raises have.” This answer did NOT go over well with women everywhere, and Nadella said, CTRL+Z! CTRL+Z! Actually what he eventually actually said was that his response was ‘inarticulate’ and that the tech industry must close gender pay gap, and sent a letter to all of Microsoft saying “I answered that question completely wrong.”

Engadget reports Tesla finally unveiled the D yesterday. It’s a model S with all-wheel drive and autopilot and a dual motor that can go from 0-60 in 3.2 seconds. I get why they said ‘the D’ now. Because it’s the P85D of course. GigaOm reports the autopilot can read speed limit signs, recognise animals an dobjects and follow lanes through curves. The base model will run $120,000 list but come down below 6 figures with electric vehicle subsidies.

GigaOm reports Google released a European transparency report Thursday that indicates on a country-by-country basis how many requests it has received under right to be forgotten rules, and how many it has honored. The two biggest sources of requests were Germany and France who got their way just over half the time. Top domains for de-lisiting were Facebook, ProfileEngine.com, YouTube and Badoo. The report details the reasons for requests along with whether they were honored or not but does not identify the requestors.

Reuters reports Cisco and TCL Corp will create an $80 million joint venture to invest in commercial cloud services. TCL, a will pay $64 million for an 80% share while Cisco will drop $16 million for the other 20%. The new company will build data centers in China, and set up cloud-based video communication and collaborative office systems for Chinese small- and medium-sized enterprises and industry users.

Reuters reports Microchip Technology CEO Steve Sanghi’s warning is being taken seriously by the markets. Thursday Sanghi warned of a broad downturn in the semiconductor market. Several U.S. semiconductor makers with global operations have recently worried that industries like autos and network equipment, are reducing demand for chips.

The Verge reports that Norway has new banknotes with pixelated drawings of the sea on them. Norges Bank selected the blocky and abstract work of Snøhetta for the back of its notes, with traditional drawings on the front. The Verge notes that the money is designed in an “unashamedly modern style that the designers intentionally built around pixels in the belief that they are “our time’s visual language.” 8-bit MONEY!

News From You

TheLazyOne passes along a Washington Post report via Yahoo News that Head of Google Fiber Milo Medin said paying for the right to transmit television programs is the biggest impediment to the further spread of Google Fiber. Medin claimed that Google was paying double what Comcast and Time Warner pay in some markets. Who gets the licensing money? TV studios who pay to create the programs, and are not excited about seeing their business model disrupted by a bunch of nasty cordkillers.

diggsalot submitted the Business Insider story that San Francisco Quarterback Colin Kaepernick has been fined $10,000 for wearing Beats headphones in a press conference. They were pink Beats by Dre models. The NFL has an exclusive licensing agreement with Bose. Dr. Dre was in no way quoted as saying “Oops, I dropped $10,000 by your locker on accident but I’m too busy to go back and pick it up Colin.”

BUT WAIT. Spsheridan points out Apple may have the last laugh or at least a laugh of some kind. MacRumors reports a reliable source tells it that Apple will remove all Bose products from its retail stores starting early next week. — In good Bose v. Beats news, the two companies agreed to settle their patent dispute out of court. Presumably with a game of American Football.

Finally, tm204 brings us the tale of a comedy club in Barcelona that has a new business model. No more will they rely on the classic ‘two-drink minimum’, no, this comedy club is asking customers to pay, BY THE LAUGH. The Teatreneu club has installed tablets on the back of each seat equipped with facial recognition software that can detect when you laugh. The going rate is 0.30 Euros ($0.38) per laugh, up to a maximum of 24 Euros ($30.45). “I was just holding back a sneeze!” said everybody.

Discussion Section Links: Jony Ive on all the steals

http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/9/6954467/jony-ive-companies-that-copy-apples-style-are-stealing

http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/09/apples-jony-ive-is-not-flattered-by-xiaomi/

http://www.businessinsider.com/jony-ive-vanity-fair-summit-interview-2014-10?op=1

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2014/10/jony-ive-lessons-from-steve-jobs

http://gizmodo.com/343641/1960s-braun-products-hold-the-secrets-to-apples-future

http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-accused-of-ripping-off-famous-swiss-clock-design/

http://www.cnet.com/news/jonathan-ive-steve-jobs-stole-my-ideas/

Meetup in New York next week!

I’ll be doing the show from New York City next week with lots of great New York guests live and in person! I’ll also be hosting a meetup on Wednesday October 15th, at 7pm. The location is Peter McManus Cafe, which is a very old bar in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan.

Scott Johnson is on the show and we’ll talk about why the PC market is not as doomed like everybody says. It’s doomed in a different way.

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 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:  Scott Johnson, co-host of The Morning Stream, The Instance, Current Geek and more! Chief Frogpantser.

Headlines

Yesterday we had an Apple invitation, today we have the reemergence of people familiar with the matter. Gigaom passes along the news that The Wall Street Journal’s sources say Apple had wanted to supersize the iPad with a 12.9 inch display this December, but those plans have now been pushed back so Apple’s suppliers can cope with demand for the iPhone 6 Plus. So yes. The iPad Apple never announced is now said by anonymous people not to be happening because reasons.

PC Mag reports that Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel said ads are coming. Speaking at Vanity Fair’s New Establishment Summit, Spiegel said ads would show up in the Snapchat stories feature, between shared photos and videos. Spiegel said ads won’t be too disruptive to users, and at this point the ads would not be targeted. This would be Snapchat’s first source of revenue.

Yesterday Carl Icahn told Tim Cook on Twitter he was going to send an open letter he believed Tim would find interesting. Today Icahn’s letter says he believes Apple is undervalued and therefore should accelerate its stock buyback program. That would turn some of Apple’s cash into some of Carl Icahn’s cash. Interesting!

Ars Technica reports Microsoft wants to reassure you its serious about hardware so its safe to buy a Surface. A new package bundles a Surface Pro 3, docking station and Type Cover keyboard for a savings of $150. There’s also a 3-year warranty option that covers accidental damage and speeds up hardware replacement. Microsoft also announced Surface Pro 3 is now Energy Star compliant and it will provide more info on driver and firmware updates.

Reuters reports Google will ask the US Supreme Court to rule on whether APIs can be copyrighted. Oracle is suing Google for incorporating parts of 37 Java APIs in Android. It’s not a patent lawsuit. It’s a copyright one. A San Francisco federal judge familiar with coding ruled Oracle could not claim copyright protection of parts of Java. A US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington overturned the decision. The case is not only about direct copying. The main issue is whether Google is guilty of infringement for writing its own different code to carry out exactly the same function or specification of any methods used in the Java API.

Sony announced its Xperia Z3 smartphone will launch in the United State on Verizon Wireless in slightly updated form as the Xperia Z3v. The new version will still have a 5.2-inch display, a Snapdragon 801 processor, and the ability to stream PlayStation 4 games within your home. But it will have soft plastic sides, instead of rounded metal, and the battery will be larger and use Qi wireless charging. The phone will be available October 23rd for $199.99, and only in black and white. Verizon will also begin offering Sony’s SmartWatch 3 later this month.

What will we get if everybody has gigabit Internet? PC World reports Pew Research Center asked more than 1400 experts that question. The most common theme in the answers was that it would change basic human interactions. Online interactons would feel more real including vivid telepresence and holograms some of which will disrupt the education models we use now. Wearable health monitoring could become more widely accepted.

Skype today announced Skype 7 for OSX today and a preview version for Windows. The Next Web reports that the latest desktop version of the app resembles the mobile version with a stronger focus on text chat and improved inline photo support. This version will also make it easier to text and share images while on a video chat, and include icons for file sharing that display the file type.

The Verge reports that Lenovo announced the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro, which is 17% thinner and 15% lighter than the Yoga 2 Pro. The 3 features a watchband hinge to improve ‘flipping’ and is powered by Intel’s Core M-70 processor,with up to 8GB of Ram and 256 GB of flash storage. Battery life is advertised at 9 hours. The Yoga 3 Pro will cost $1,349 at Lenovo’s online store and Best Buy and come in three colors, silver orange and gold. Lenovo ALSO announced the Yoga Tablet 2 Pro with a built-in projector, which lets you beam 16:9 high res images (including movies) directly to a wall or screen. It has a recommended retail price of $499.

News From You

tm204 pointed out Imgur announced Project GIFV. GIFs uploaded to Imgur will be converted on the fly to MP4 video format. The conversion reduces file size, improves quality but still looks and behaves like an animated GIF.For instance a 50 MB animated GIF becomes 3.4 MB after conversion. Imgur plans to submit an accompanying specification for GIFV to relevant standards organizations before the end of the year.

ancrod2 didn’t want us to miss that Belkin explained why its routers stopped working earlier this week. Belkin told Techrunch that a cloud service associated with router operations caused a false denial of service. It took Belkin about 15 hours to fix the issue. Belkin did not specify what service it was.

Discussion Links: PC Life!

https://gigaom.com/2014/10/09/pcs-are-making-a-comeback-in-europe-and-the-u-s-analysts-say/

http://www.electronista.com/articles/14/10/08/market.still.slumping.overall.but.name.brands.see.growth.in.third.quarter/

https://gigaom.com/2013/11/07/think-the-pc-market-is-generally-scary-these-days-wait-until-you-see-the-uks-figures/

https://gigaom.com/2014/07/07/despite-slowing-growth-tablet-sales-expected-to-overtake-pcs-next-year/

http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/10/08/surging-mac-sales-put-apple-among-top-five-global-pc-vendors-for-first-time-idc-says

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2869019

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS25187214

Pick of the Day:  Telegram Instant Messaging via Dean aka ​DRAiNO

Telegram is a very lightweight instant messenger app that not only supports copy and pasting images and uploading of documents, but it is very secure (since it uses the MTProto protocol) and it simply requires only a mobile phone number and a unique code given to you via SMS for each device you set it up on. What’s even more awesome is that it integrates with your contacts on mobile platforms.

It is available for almost every phone/tablet platform (iOS/Android/Windows) as well as a very stable (yet unofficial) desktop application.

Tomorrow’s guest: Lamarr Wilson, 

Justin Robert Young is on the show and we’ll talk about Facebook’s alleged anonymity app, and Apple’s invite for the Oct. 16 announcement. How much parsing does it really need?

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 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: Justin Robert Young, co-host of Night Attack.tv

Headlines:

Tech Crunch reports that Apple sent out an invitation to an event on October 16th at Apple’s Town Hall theater in Cupertino, California. The invitation features a rainbow outline of the top of the Apple logo and the words “It’s been way too long.” Possible devices and software that COULD be announced on that date? Perhaps, a thinner iPad Air. Maybe a a retina display desktop iMac. Possibly the public version of OS X Yosemite. Or, maybe it’s just a barbecue.

JuRY: You know what I dislike, Tom? Cramming. You know when somebody unauthorized charges on your cell phone bill. Reuters reports that AT&T has agreed to pay $105 million to settle allegations of such things. The US Federal Trade Commission has been investigating consumer complaints about charges for ring tones, horoscopes, love tips and other things they never asked for. $25 million goes to penalties and fees and $80 million to consumer refunds. So if you were wrongly billed for a love tip that showed up as a generic “usage charge” you deserve a little something back. Besides love.

Bloomberg reports Symantec is considering breaking itself into two companies, which is all the rage these days. One of the resultant companies would sell security software the other data storage. Symantec bought storage company Veritas in 2005 and has been fighting off pressure to break up ever since. A split Symantec would be ripe for acquisition according to wall street analysts who may or may not have been salivating.

TechCrunch reports Facebook’s Josh Miller took to Twitter to respond to a NYTimes report that he’s leading a team working on an anonymous forum app. Miller acknowledge he’s working on soemthing but assured it’s not just a ripoff of Secret or IRC. Miller wrote “Identity isn’t a product goal. Focus should be on what human desire you want to enable, not anonymity as the focal point.” and “Can encourage positive use cases through product design.” In other words he wants to make a Secret type app without the damaging gossip aspect? Godspeed Josh Miller.

Google recently improved its sitelink subsection in search results for some websites. Now some search-related websites, like Vimeo, now get their own little search box just for their site. Torrentfreak points out that The Pirate Bay is one of these sites. Google has been under pressure to remove sites like The Pirate Bay. So expect that to become the next bone of contention with the MPAA. Oddly Bing doesn’t get it’s own search box in its sitelink section.

Apple Insider reports on a recent survey that show US teenagers still think iPhones and iPads are ‘pretty tope’ (that’s a tight+dope=cool) but are not yet OMFG about the Apple Watch. The survey conducted by Piper Jaffrey polled 7,200 teens; Only 16 percent of those surveyed said they would drop some cheddar on an Apple Watch. That’s down from 17% this past spring. However the survey also revealed that 67 percent owned an iPhone and 73 percent said they planned to buy one as their next phone. No reports on whether the pollsters asked teenagers if they had ever seen a real watch in the wild.

Investor Carl Icahn took to Twitter today to write “”Tmrw we’ll be sending an open letter to @tim_cook. Believe it will be interesting” Yes Mr. Icahn, requets for Apple to give more cash to its stockholders is always very intersting… to the stockholders.

HTC unveils the Desire Eye

http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/8/6945967/htc-desire-eye-selfie-phone-announcement

News From You:

Attention aspiring coders! KAPT_Kipper submittted the Engadget report that GitHub has launched a new Student Developer Pack that gives students free access to fifteen tools for writing code, including Stripe, the Unreal Engine and a GitHub micro account with five private repositories. It’s available to students 13 and up who are enrolled in a degree or diploma granting course of study, and who can verify their students status. You can find it at education.github.com/pack

sleep-d-prived passes along a must-read Wired write-up about two men who discovered a bug in in a popular video poker game, won hundreds of thousands of dollars in Las Vegas and Pennsylania, overused the hack, were arrested and charged in federal court for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and even after the charges were dropped are still being hounded by the IRS for back taxes on the seized winnings. Oh, and it also destroyed their friendship. So maybe just go see a show and have a nice steak, eh?

metalfreak noted the Wired story that security researchers Adam Caudill and Brandon Wilson released a software patch for USB drives that demonstrates one method of addressing the vulnerability known as BadUSB. The patch disables boot mode preventing firmware updates for USB 3.0 firmware distributed by Phison. In addition Caudill suggests painting the inside walls of the drive with epoxy to prevent pin-shorting. Phison is the kind of controller BadUSB was demonstrated on at Black Hat by Karsten Nohl which was replicated by Caudill and Wilson.

Discussion Links: Invitesies

http://9to5mac.com/2014/10/08/its-been-way-too-long-apple-sends-out-invites-for-thursday-october-16th-ipad-mac-event/#more-345803

http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/21/4852132/history-of-apple-event-invitations-and-hints

https://plus.google.com/103207773865797007066/posts/Ctu4NVQqKN6 

Pick of the Day:  Ghostery via Loren Lang

Ghostery is a web privacy tool that is available as a browser add-on (for most major browsers, anyway) and an iOS app. It blocks all sorts of trackers, beacons and cookies from over 1900 sources and you can choose to allow or disallow any or all of them with individual granularity as well as whitelisting sites to allow everything from them. You can also choose to allow an item once and then automatically go back to blocking it which is extremely useful when blocking something breaks a site in some way.

Tomorrow’s guest:  Scott Johnson, co-host of The Morning Stream

Molly Wood and Patrick Beja join me to discuss why Microsoft skipped Windows 9, and what windows 10 means for the future of the world’s most popular desktop OS.

MP3

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 and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Patrick Beja and Molly Wood!  

Headlines

Microsoft announced the next version of Windows will be called Windows 10 and be released sometime late in 2015. Windows 10 will be one platform and app store across phones, tablets, laptops and desktops. More info on universal apps will come at the BUILD conference in April. Among the new features, Microsoft confirmed the start menu will return in Windows 10 and tiled apps will be allowed to run in a windowed mode. A technical preview will be released starting tomorrow at preview.windows.com

Ebay announced Tuesday it will spin off Paypal into a separate publicly traded company in the second half of 2015. Carl Icahn has been encouraging the company to do so. So who’s in charge after the split? Ebay’s current CEO John Donahoe will step down. Dan Shulman recently of American Express, will take over as CEO of Paypal. And Devin Wenig who leads the EBay marketplace division will become CEO of eBay.

Engadget reports Apple has announced the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus will go on sale in China on October 17th. Apple received a license to sell the phones earlier Tuesday. Pre-orders for the iPhone in China will start October 10th. The phones will support TD-LTE and FDD-LTE, meaning 4G speeds on China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom.

Movie riddle: When is a sequel also a first? As you ponder all the possible answers to that question, The New York Times has theirs: Netflix and The Weinstein company are teaming up to make Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: The Green Legend, the first movie to have a major theatrical release and a Netflix release on the same day. The movie will only be released in IMAX theaters, not traditional theaters so it’s not the quite full Cordkillers dream come true, but Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos said he hoped this “will be a proof point that the sky doesn’t fall.” Said theater owners: “THE SKY IS FALLING!”

Spotted at Paris Fashion Week: The Apple Watch. Apple Insider reports that Apple design chief Jony Ive took his ‘Switzerland-terrorizing’ watch to Paris and introduced it to the likes of Vogue editor Anna Wintour and Chanel’s Karl Lagerfeld at hip, Parisian boutique Colette. Mere mortals were also briefly allowed to view the Apple Watch as well, making it the first time Apple’s wearable has been seen by the general public.

ReCode reports Intel-owned Basis announced a new watch called the Peak. The Peak counts your steps, measures your heart and does some smartwatch stuff like phone notifications using Bluetooth LE. It also claims 4 days of battery life and is waterproof. Its made of anodized aluminum ,with a Gorilla Glass 3 face and comes in matte black and brushed silver. The watch works with iOS and Android, starts at $200, and will ship starting in early November.

Reuters reports that outgoing US Attorney General Eric Holder expressed his concern about data encryption that allows you, the data’s owner to be the only one who can unlock it. In a speech to the Global Alliance Against Child Sexual Abuse Online, Holder said “It is fully possible to permit law enforcement to do its job while still adequately protecting personal privacy” and that quick access to phone data can help law enforcement officers find and protect victims, such as those targeted by kidnappers and sexual predators.

ReCode reports Reddit raised $50 million in funding which by itself isn’t huge news, but the interesting thing is that the round was led by Y Combinator president Sam Altman who plans to allocate 10% of the equity to Reddit users. How that equity would be distributed is yet to be determined but Altman said Reddit may dole out shares using a distributed accounting system, a la the bitcoin block chain.

News From You

metalfreak posted the liliputing article that Google’s Project Ara, the modular smartphone, will allow hot swapping of all modules except the CPU and screen. A custom version of Google L lets you swap out cameras, sensors, even the battery, without having to reboot. A working model of Project Ara will be shown off at a developer’s conference in December and the phone is expected to launch in early 2015.

mranthropology submitted the CNET article about Matchstick, a $25 HDMI streaming stick that powered by Firefox OS. The device is open on the software and hardware side. It’s compatible with many existing Chomrecast apps and hopes to have more apps from the Mozilla developers created by launch time. Backers of the Matchstick Kickstarter can get the stick at a discount.

MacBytes pointed out the Apple Insider story that Apple issued a patch late Monday to fix the Shellshock vulnerability in OS X. The update fixes the security flaw in bash for OS X Mavericks, Mountain Lion and Lion. Users would have to configure certain services for OS X to have been vulnerable, but now even those users have a fix.

Discussion Links:  

http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2014/09/30/microsoft-announces-windows-10/

http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/30/6873963/windows-10-continuum-touch-interface

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/preview-coming-soon

http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/30/6874413/windows-10-whats-old-is-new-again

Pick of the Day: Archive.org via Allan Palmer

Like many of your listeners I am interested in the tech of podcasting itself, both as an aspiring podcaster and also out of technology interest. You host at archive.org. Not an obvious choice one hears about often. Could you use archive.org as a pick sometime and go through why you use it? Love the show. Keep going!

Wednesday’s guest: 

Todd Whitehead is on the show today. In light of Facebook’s new launch of Atlas to market to people across devices and even offline, we’ll talk about whether we’re OK being the product or not. Ello anyone?

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 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Todd Whitehead of Alpha Geek Radio

Headlines

Facebook announced it’s relaunching its Atlas ad platform with a new interface and the ability to track people across devices and even bridge the gap between online ad impressions and offline purchases. Techcrunch reports Facebook is quick to remind us that Atlas isn’t an add network but meant to measure and verify ad impressions. Facebook calls it “people-based marketing.” Although it also assures us that the data is encrypted and not associated with individual people. So they in no way have little private dossiers about every single thing that you do in your life. Nope.

The Verge reports Cloudflare deployed universal SSL offering free SSL encryption to any site that opts in, including customers of Cloudflare’s free service. Cloudflare says “Yesterday, there were about 2 million sites active on the Internet that supported encrypted connections. By the end of the day today, we’ll have doubled that.”

The New York Times reports that all those folks waiting in line to buy iPhones so they could resell them in China may not have paid off as much as hoped. The iPhone 6 and 6 plus have not been approved for official sale in China yet. The Times tells anecdotes of falling prices on grey market iPhones and one wholesaler complaining they have way too many iPhone 6’s in stock. MacRumors reports a leaked internal memo indicates the iPhone may be approved for sale soon, hit stores October 7th and go on sale in China October 10th.

CNET reports that Microsoft will open a flagship retail store in New York City on Fifth Avenue, replacing a Fendi store. Back when Microsoft launched the original Surface back in 2012, the company opened a pop-up store in Times Square, and they do have some retail stores in the New York area, but this is their first permanent Manhattan location. No word on an opening date yet.

Ars Technica reports that Adobe is finally bringing Photoshop to Chromebook as part of its Creative Cloud offering. As such, the app will be accessed remotely not stored locally. This streaming Photoshop will run in a “”virtualized environment” but won’t have GPU support at launch. The network requirements are listed as “5 mbps/max latency 250,” and right now the program is in beta and only available to US education customers who subscribe to Adobe’s creative cloud.

Lenovo announced it will officially close its acquisition of IBM’s x86 server business on October 1st. CNET reports that will make Lenovo the third largest seller in the x86 server market. IBM will continue to provide maintenance support on the servers for a certain extended period time.

FireChat has become a popular tool for sharing information among students demonstrating in Hong Kong. The app allows communication in a mesh network using Bluetooth and Apple’s Multipeer Connectivity Framework when cell data or WiFi won’t work. TechinAsia reports student activist leader Joshua Wong posted a message urging people to download FireChat in anticipation of poor cellular network connectivity.

News From You

gullwingdmc passes along a 9 to 5 Mac report that Apple has removed an app called Launcher from its App Store for “misuse of widgets.” The app allowed users to create custom shortcuts to apps from Notification Center. Users who already upgraded to the pro version of the app through an in-app purchase will still be able to use the pro capabilities, but no one else will be able to purchase the upgrade. Apple said there is no chance that Launcher will be allowed back with the widget functionality still in place. So remember to treat your widgets with kindness and respect, people.

habichuelacondulce pointed out the Ars Technica article on research out of the University of Central Florida that indicated Google Glass is no safer than phones for texting while driving. However Glass users did regain control of their vehicles faster than phone users following traffic incidents. This adds to other studies that generally show the distraction of texting or calls is the danger not the form factor of the device upon which they are accessed.

diggsalot submitted the BGR report that Microsoft may make Windows 9 free at least for some customers. Among the many reports, Indonesian online publication Detik said earlier this week that President of Microsoft Indonesia Andreas Diantoro said Windows 9 would be free to existing Windows 8 users. Microsoft has an announcement about Windows scheduled for tomorrow Sept. 30.

Discussion Links:  The Product is YOU.

http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/28/facebook-atlas-relaunch/

http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/28/facebook-acquires-atlas/

http://atlassolutions.com/2014/09/29/meet-the-new-atlas/

http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/13/facebook-custom-audiences-measurement/

http://www.businessinsider.com/interview-with-ello-founder-paul-budnitz-on-how-his-social-network-will-make-money-2014-9

Pick of the Day: The Evoluent vertical mouse via Dave Popovich

Dave Popovich of Stuart, Florida writes: Wanted to share a product that has saved me lots of medical bills. Being a network administrator for 500 users in 9 locations, you can guess I spend a lot of time at my computer using my mouse. And that meant I would drive home after work, and massage my right forearm because of the dull ache of the carpal tunnel pain.

I don’t remember how I discovered this product, but it has really made a difference – the Evoluent vertical mouse at http://Evoluent.com. I have been using the regular size, right handed, wired versions for years now, at home and at work and have no more wrist pain! It works by turning your hand 90 degrees so you rest your arm on the outside bones and not the soft tissue of the inside arm. They also make smaller mice and left-handed mice!

Only caveats: with years of training to use a mouse one way, you are a bit less accurate at first using the vertical mouse. just takes a little practice. Also, the mouse has LOTS of extra buttons, which I found got in the way, but just go into the driver and set those trouble buttons to not do anything.

It really has changed my life and many vendors and computer service folks are very interested when they see it on my desk.

Tuesday’s guests: Patrick Beja and Molly Wood!  

Peter Wells joins us from Australia where it’s already iPhone release day. We’ll chat about Apple’s new privacy promises and whether we can blame Australians if Netflix starts blocking VPNs.

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 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guest:  Peter Wells of Reckoner, Australia

Today’s title “Canary in a Coal Mine” was chosen by tondagossa at showbot.replex.org

Headlines

Bloomberg reports Larry Ellison intends to step down as CEO of Oracle and hand over CEO duties to president Mark Hurd and president and CFO Safra Katz. Ellison will become chairman, replacing Jeff Henley who becomes Vice Chairman. Ellison will also take on the title of chief technology officer. Ellison co-founded Oracle in 1977 when it was called Software Development Laboratories.

Amazon announced a revamp to its Kindle lineup yesterday. Here’s the list. The Fire HD now comes in two sizes. A 6-inch for $99 and 7-inch for $139 both shipping next month. For $50 extra you can make them Kids editions with a free year of kid-friendly Amazon FreeTime Unlimited, a big durable case and a two-year warranty. The HDX 8.9 got a faster processor and the addition of Firefly among other things. The entry-level e-Ink Kindle stays at $79 but gets a touch screen and more memory in October. Amazon also announced Family Library for sharing books, audiobooks, Prime Instant videos, apps and games among family members. But the star of the show was the Kindle Voyage. The screen is eInk but 300 ppi, high contrast fro even paperwhitier than the paperwhite, ambient light setting that adjusts gradually, a flush glass screen that’s not glossy or reflective, and a function to squeeze the right or left bezels to turn pages. The Kindle Voyage ships in October for $199 for WiFi or $269 more for a 3G-enabled version.

Apple posted a new privacy policy and a whole subsite at apple.com/privacy explaining changes in iOS8 as well as pre-existing privacy protections. The subsite has sections on privacy design, privacy management and government requests. In an introductory letter to the site, CEO Tim Cook says Apple has never put back doors in their products for the government. The site also claims that most of your data is now encrypted on the device with a passcode and cannot be recovered by Apple even if it wanted to.

ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley reports Microsoft conducted its second round of layoffs Thursday letting go 2,100 people. Microsoft let go 13,000 in July of a total of 18,000 they intend to cut. That leaves 2900 still to go by July 2015. 747 of the current 2100 were in Washington State with the rest distributed globally.

The Verge reports that the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 will go on sale in the US on October 17th. If you live in the UK, the phablet will go on sale October 10th. Pre-orders begin tomorrow in both countries. On the carrier side, AT&T announced it will ship the Note 4 beginning October 14th for $299.99 on-contract, and $825.99 for the unsubsidized, contract-free version. You can also pay for the phone in monthly installments of $34.42 over 18 months or $41.30 over 12 months. If you want a Note 4 from T-Mobile, you’ll have to wait until Sept 24th to pre-order, but it will still arrive October 17th and you can have up to 24 months to pay it off. And Verizon and Sprint ask you to please hold, they will get right back to you about their Note 4 availability.

GigaOm reports Twilio will add MMS support for regular phone numbers. Twilio allows developers to embed multimedia messaging into apps. The new function means companies can use a single phone number for voice, text and multimedia, similar to existing offers from companies like ZipWhip and Bandwidth. No more shortcodes necessary.

News From You

habichuelacondulce passes along another Ars Technica article about the ongoing debate over what is considered broadband. Last week AT&T and Verizon said 4Mbps was sufficient. This week, US FCC chairman Tom Wheeler told a Congressional Committee that 4Mbps is too slow and that Internet service providers who accept government subsidies to connect rural areas should offer at least 10Mbps to avoid a ‘digital divide’ between city and country internet users. Wheeler says he hopes to “have that issue tidied up” by the end of this year.

KAPT_Kipper submitted the MobileSyrup post that Microsoft has changed its developers fee to a lifetime subscription you only have to pay once. One developer account serves for Windows or Windows Phone stores. Developers were previously charged $19 annually for an individual account. Now they just have to pay once to get in and that’s it. That also means existing accounts will not expire.

And diggsalot submitted a Torrent Freak article stating that Simon Bush, CEO of the Australian Home Entertainment Distributors Association says some of his members are lobbying Netflix to block users that connect through a VPN. Coincidentally, an estimated 200,000 Australians are estimated to use the US version of Netflix. Quickflix CEO Stephen Langsford renewed his calls for Netflix to block VPN users, accusing Netflix of profiting off “back door” tactics. Of course, banning VPN use of Netflix would affect non-Australian users with a legitimate account as well. So thanks ALOT, Australia.

Discussion Links:

http://www.apple.com/privacy/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/2014/09/17/2612af58-3ed2-11e4-b03f-de718edeb92f_story.html

http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/18/6409915/apples-privacy-statement-is-a-direct-shot-at-google-and-i-love-it

http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/18/6404767/apple-offers-mixed-signals-whether-police-can-access-your-data

http://www.wired.com/2014/09/apple-iphone-security/

https://gigaom.com/2014/09/18/apples-warrant-canary-disappears-suggesting-new-patriot-act-demands/

http://images.apple.com/privacy/docs/iOS_Security_Guide_Sept_2014.pdf

Plug of the Day:  ‘Events of a Different Nature‘ by Tom Merritt

I want to let you know I have a new self-published book out called ‘Events of A Different Nature.’ It’s about two dogs who solve crimes. NOW WAIT. It’s not nearly as cute as it may sound. It’s more Raymond Chandler than Wind in the Willows and they never once admit that they’re dogs or in any way inferior to humans. So if you want to check it out you can find a free version as well as print and versions for various ebook platforms at tommerrittbooks.com

Pick of the Day: Knowroaming via Marc Gibeault and xcomglobal via Kayo

“I bought Knowroaming when it was first announced (on Indiegogo I think) but had the occasion to use it only last week-end. And now I think it’s the best tool for travelling with your phone!
-Good rates anywhere for voice/messages/data
-No need to think about it in advance; you arrive at destination and install the profile and it works. You get back home, you remove the profile and it’s done.
-Switches to the strongest network
-Easy to use app and website where you buy credits. That also mean you cannot spend more than you planned without knowing.
Only drawback for some; it requires an unlocked phone.”
For those with locked phones, Kayo has another option: “”I used xcomglobal in Vancouver and it worked great. It was about $15 per day which sounds pricey but it was the same price as hotel wifi, and all of our phones were locked so we couldn’t rent a SIM card anyway. I took a portable battery with me so my family and I had access to the internet all day. I was so happy that when I sent along a thank you post-it with the returned device, they wrote back and gave me a 10% coupon code (embarrassingly, it’s ‘kayolovesxcom’) to share with others. It’s good for a year from June. (I don’t get a kickback for that and I don’t work for this company, btw.)

In Japan, I used a similar service from Global Advanced Communications and that worked really well too. Their coverage was good and the speed was faster than my Comcast connection at home. My brother recently used his free T-mobile 2G roaming plan in the Tokyo area and he was pleased with it as well. Hope that helps!”

Tomorrow’s guests:  Eklund and Len Peralta and maybe a new iPhone.