Today in Tech History – April 7, 2016

20140404-073853.jpg1927 – The Bell System sent live TV images of Herbert Hoover, then the Secretary of Commerce, over telephone lines from Washington, D.C. to an auditorium in Manhattan. It was the first public demonstration in the US of long-distance television transmission.

1964 – IBM unveiled the System/360 line of mainframe computers, its most successful computer system. It was called the “360” because it was meant to address all possible sizes and types of customer with one unified software-compatible architecture.

1969 – The first Request For Comment, RFC 1 put together by Steve Crocker was distributed on the newly operational ARPANET. RFCs describe methods, behaviors, research, or innovations applicable to the working of the Internet.

2014 – OpenSSL issued a security advisory about a vulnerability that would come to be called ‘Heartbleed.’ The bug was in the TLS Heartbeat function, that when implemented could be
used to reveal up to 64k of memory to a connected client or server. Unpatched servers could have their private keys stolen making it easy for malicious hackers to pretend to have certified secure connections.

2015 – HBO launched it’s HBO Now service, allowing US viewers to watch HBO online without a cable subscription. The service was initially sold through Apple and Cablevision.

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DTNS 2729 – Vivaldi makes your browsing sing

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comFacebook’s adding lots of Periscope-like features to its live streaming function. Why is live casual video getting so much attention? Scott Johnson and Tom Merritt discuss.

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

If you are willing to support the show or give as little as 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
To read the show notes in a separate page click here!

Today in Tech History – April 6, 2016

20140404-073853.jpg1917 – Following a declaration of war against Germany, President Woodrow Wilson issued an executive order closing all radio communication not required by the US Navy.

1965 – Hughes Aircraft’s Early Bird launched into orbit. It was the first communications satellite to be placed in synchronous orbit and successfully demonstrated the concept of synchronous satellites for commercial communications.

1973 – NASA launched the Pioneer 11 spacecraft, the second mission to investigate Jupiter and the outer solar system and the first to explore the planet Saturn and its main rings.

1992 – Microsoft released Windows 3.1. It sold for $149 and added support for sound cards, MIDI, and CD Audio, Super VGA monitors, and support for 9600 bps modems.

2010 – Xiaomi, maker of fashionable affordable Android-based smartphones, was founded in Beijing, China.

Like Tech History? Get the illustrated Year in Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.

DTNS 2728 – Twitter Scored a Touchdown

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comTwitter is ready for some football. Live. On Streaming video. On Twitter. Most Thursdays this fall. Why? Tom Merritt and Patrick Beja discuss.

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Follow us on Soundcloud.

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

If you are willing to support the show or give as little as 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
To read the show notes in a separate page click here!

Cordkillers 115 – Strike While the Corpse is Hot (w/ Christina Warren)

Buying tickets to your couch, streaming fatigue, TiVo complains when their own ads get skipped. With special guest Christina Warren.

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CordKillers: Ep. 115 – Strike While the Corpse is Hot
Recorded: April 4 2016
Guest: Christina Warren

Intro Video

Primary Target

  • Flix Premiere tries to apply theatre distribution model to streaming  service
    – Curated movies (good indie films that haven’t found an audience)
    – Only platform exclusives
    – Promote movies online, trailers, interviews, behind-the-scenes to release date
    – 8 titles each week
    – pay a couple bucks for the “ticket”
    – Can still see what was playing in previous weeks. 12-month exclusive on all films
    -ios and Android more to follow
    – US and UK now in testing, end of May after Cannes Film Festival expand to Australia, Canada, France, Germany and Spain. 

Signal Intelligence

Gear Up

Front Lines

Under Surveillance

Dispatches from the Front

 

You were ruminating on Redbox creating a digital rental service and speculating on whether they would be able to maintain their price advantage over iTunes/Amazon et al rentals with that move; it made me wonder if either of you had heard of or used the service VidAngel. (vidangel.com). They have an interesting ‘purchase-and-return’ loophole scheme going on that allows you to ‘rent’ movies digitally for $1-2 (SD/HD). Pretty wild, but as far as I can tell, completely legit… I’ve heard them advertise on nationally syndicated radio shows, so I don’t think they’re trying to fly under the radar. They’re also interesting because they support filtering objectionable content in the video for families, and they rent some HBO/Netflix shows as well (Game of Thrones, House of Cards). They even have filters for Jar-Jar Binks scenes and ‘new edits’ in Star Wars… so they have a sense of humor about it. And they have apps on all the devices you’d want… If you haven’t checked them out, you might want to.

Anyway, great show guys! 

Gabriel

 

 

 

Check this one out. They are offering me cable for 10 bucks a month!  Last one was for 30 bucks with HBO and Showtime. The next one will probably be for free. They won’t get me!  Gladly, my wife Teresa agrees.

Thanks,

Steven
Cedar Park, Texas

 

 

 

Dear Cordkillers,
 
As one of your bosses, I wanted to point out some interesting numbers that recently came out about TV viewing.
 
“1,004 hours were spent watching live TV, up from 936 hours a year ago, and time spent watching programs on DVRs up to 15 days after they originally aired rose to 356 hours from 332 hours.”
 
“Among millennials, time spent viewing live TV has been eclipsed by use of desktop computers and phones. Live TV still accounts for 47% of time spent.”
 
 …comScore/Rentrak use electronic devices to register TV viewing in all their markets not just the top 50 or so…. Rentrak uses equipment like cable boxes and other electronic means to get the their numbers. 

 
Jay

KEY POINTS from report

– comScore also says that the largest digital media properties can reach as big an audience as the Big 4 broadcasters in primetime. Google websites reach 247 million people per month, compared to 228 million for the top broadcast network.

– The TV landscape continued its shifting of time and space, with more delayed, on-demand and digital viewing of TV programming than ever before.

– Digital media usage continued to grow at a fast rate, driven by smartphone app usage which is inching closer and closer to 50 percent of all digital media time spent.”

  • 2016 U.S. Cross-Platform Future in Focus
  • Nielesen getting access to Dish Set-top box data
    – “The competitive pressure on Nielsen also got ratcheted up when two of its competitors in the measurement space—Rentrak and comScore—merged in a $770 million deal that was announced last year and closed in February. Rentrak already has deals with a number of cable and satellite companies like Dish to get data from their set-top boxes, and comScore specializes in online measurement.”

 

 

I think that there are many ways to kill the cord and it seams your show dismisses physical media and TV antenna viewing when you should be embracing both “”old”” technologies as another way to kill the cord (unless you consider the cord from my antenna to my TV and the cord to my Blu-Ray player to be the enemy also).

Thank you and keep fighting the good fight.

Sincerely,

Richard

 

Links

www.patreon.com/cordkillers

2016 Summer Movie Draft
 

Today in Tech History – April 5, 2016

20140404-073853.jpg1911 – Cuthbert Hurd was born in Estherville, Iowa. He would grow up to work at IBM where he quietly persuaded the company that a market for scientific computers existed. He sold 10 of the very first IBM 701s and managed the team that invented FORTRAN.

1951 – Dean Kamen was born in Rockville Centre, New York. He grew up to found DEKA Research in 1982 which developed a portable dialysis machine, a vascular stent, and the iBOT — a motorized wheelchair that climbs stairs. Oh and the Segway.

1998 – Long before texting or cell phones were considered a danger in the car, a driver in Marseilles, France was distracted by her Tamagotchi virtual pet. She ran into a group of cyclists killing one and injuring one other.

Like Tech History? Get the illustrated Year in Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.

DTNS 2727 – Nobody’s touching contactless payments

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comDepending on the source contactless payments like Apple Pay are skyrocketing or unused. Veronica Belmont and Tom Merritt talk about what they’ve seen, including veronica’s attempt to replace her wallet with her phone for a day.

MP3

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

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

Follow us on Soundcloud.

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

If you are willing to support the show or give as little as 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
To read the show notes in a separate page click here!

Today in Tech History – April 4, 2016

20140404-073853.jpg1954 – Daniel Kottke was born in Bronxville, New York. He would go on to befriend Steve Jobs at Reed College, assemble the first Apple Computers with Steve Wozniak and work on the original Macintosh team.

1975 – Bill Gates and Paul Allen formed a partnership in Albuquerque New Mexico. The venture was later named Micro-soft.

1994 – Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark founded Mosaic Communications Corp, which they later renamed Netscape Communications Corp. Andreesen developed the Mosaic browser while at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois.

2013 – Facebook announced Facebook Home, an integrated Android app that took over the home and lock screens. The HTC First would come April 12 as the first featured Facebook Phone to run Home.

Like Tech History? Get the illustrated Year in Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.