Rafe Needleman joins us to talk about why you shouldn’t use any version of Internet Explorer for awhile, and how far off we are from Google’s self-driving car becoming available for everyone.

MP3

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

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here at the low, low cost of a nickel a day on Patreon. Thank you!

Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!

Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!

Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes
Today’s guest: Rafe Needleman, editorial director, Yahoo Tech  e

Headlines

Our top story on the subreddit today was submitted by both tekkyn00b and jaymz668. Ars Technica is among those reporting that attackers are actively exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer versions 6 through 11. There is no fix yet, so all users are advised to use an alternate browser. If that isn’t possible for some reason, users should install Microsoft’s Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit. FireEye wrote that disabling Adobe Flash neutralizes the attack. Disabling vector markup language support also mitigates the attack. 

Google’s Director of the Self-Driving Car project, Chris Urmson, made a blog post today about the project’s emphasis on city street driving. The self-driving car has logged 700,000 autonomous miles, but most of that is highway driving. City driving is much more complicated. New advances enable the car to read stop signs, recognize other objects like buses and pedestrians, and even tell when a bicyclist is indicating a lane change. 

Ars Technica reports that AOL is now urging all its customers to change passwords after an investigation into hacks reported last week. Turns out the breach affects at least two percent of accounts, with attackers getting email addresses, encrypted passwords, security question answers and other contact info. 

Recode has the story that Alibaba’s pre-IPO quiet period is not as quiet as you might have expected. The company invested $1.22 billion in video site YouKu Tudou today giving it an 18.5% stake in the popular video-sharing company. Alibaby also set up a joint venture with China’s leading mobile browser, UCWeb, to build a new mobile search engine called Shenma, in order to take on Baidu on mobile. Services like AliPay, Taobao and Tmall will be integrated into Shenma.

News From You

Spsheridan pointed us to the Skype blog post announcing that Skype group video calling is now free for all on Windows, Mac and Xbox One, with all platforms, including mobile, to get it free in the future. Existing paying users will be informed of the change, everybody else can just fire it up anytime they want.

KAPT_Kipper pointed us to the TorrentFreak article about Netflix posting a job for a software engineer experienced in peer-to-peer. Ars Technica spotted the ad which describes a focus on researching the possibility to allow users to stream videos via peer-to-peer technology. Netflix has pondered what would happen to peering agreements with it if ISP users were uploading as much as they downloaded. 

the_corley submitted the GigaOm story that Comcast has agreed to sell operations serving 1.4 million of its subscribers to Charter Communications and create a spinoff company to serve 2.5 million customers that would be part-owned by charter. The point would be to reduce the combined number of subscribers of a merged Comcast and TWC to less than 30% of the market by getting rid of 3.9 million subs. The FCC has tried to enforce a 30% subscriber market cap, though the courts wouldn’t allow it. COmcast is trying to follow the rule anyway as a way to win approval for the merger.

sebgonz posted the LA Times article about the discovery Saturday of the legendary ET Atari cartridges dumped in a landfill in Alamogordo, new Mexico. The excavation was done as part of a documentary being made to show on Microsoft’s Xbox game consoles later this year. No report yet if any of the cartridges were playable. 

metalfreak submitted the liliputing article about a new HP Slatebook running Android on a Tegra Chip. HP has not officially launched the device, but Notebook Italia discovered a promotional video on the HP website that describes it. The device will have a 14-inch HD display, 2 GB of RAM and 16GB storage, with microSD, HDMI, 3 USB ports and Beats Audio. No price or launch date was mentioned in the video. 

And lifedownloaded pointed out the Reuters report that Chinese authorities have ordered several television shows removed from Chinese video sites. The shows were shown with copyright approval from their makers, so this is not a piracy issue. Four shows, The Big Bang Theory, The Practice, The Good Wife and NCIS, were ordered removed from Youkou Tudou Sohu and Tencent. Last week a directive from the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television tightened the process for getting approval to put TV and short films online. It is not clear why these four shows were targeted, although state TV broadcaster China Central TV recently acquired the rights for Big Bang Theory.

Discussion Section Links:  Self Driving Cars & IE Security Flaws

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/5-things-to-know-about-googles-self-driving-cars-84125852129.html

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-latest-chapter-for-self-driving-car.html

http://gigaom.com/2014/04/28/google-car-gets-much-better-at-city-driving/

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/new-security-flaw-affects-all-versions-of-internet-84085229159.html

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27184188

Pick of the Day:  Tadpole bluetooth speaker from iFrogz

Just wanted to pass on a quick pick of the day. I have three kids with iPhones that love listening to music in various locations (work, camping, hiking, etc.). They love to share audio as well and bluetooth speakers can be too pricey to want to risk in some of those situations. Enter the Tadpole bluetooth speaker from iFrogz (www.zagg.com). The Tadpole is a keychain size “speaker” that comes in a variety of colors. The sound is much larger than it’s size would indicate. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the highest quality sound but for the situations above and for only $20, it is well worth the price. it was definitely a hit with my kids and I will be grabbing a couple more. Love the show and thanks for all you do!  Greg in Houston

Tuesday’s guest:  Scott Johnson, of the frogs! With pants! 

Darren Kitchen is here and we’ll give our thoughts on the future of Nokia’s mobile phone business now that Microsoft owns it, plus find out why if you’re not taking a selfie with your drone, you’re doing it wrong. Also a drone rock band exists. And Len Peralta illustrates the show!

MP3

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

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here at the low, low cost of a nickel a day on Patreon. Thank you!

Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!

Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!

Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Darren Kitchen and Len Peralta

Headlines

Microsoft announced it has acquired Nokia’s handset business for €5.44 billion (around $7.2 billion) although because of cash and capital adjustments over the 8 months since the transaction was first announced, the final price may end up being slightly higher. Nokia will make that clear next week. Their earnings report is scheduled for April 29. Microsoft now owns the Lumia, Asha and Nokia X brands of phones. It can keep using the Nokia brand for 10 years. Nokia can’t use its own name on mobile devices until after Decmber 31, 2015. Meanwhile Nokia retains its networking infrastructure arm, the HERE mapping division and Advanced Technologies which does research and licensing. 

GigaOm passes along a Boy Genius Report story with leaked information that Amazon’s rumored smartphone might be an AT&T exclusive and come with something called “Prime Data”. No details on what that would be, but Amazon’s Prime service gives free shipping, Kindle borrowing, and video streaming for a yearly fee. So some kind of data included in your prime membership is not too far-fetched.

The Verge reports Scott Croyle, head of design for HTC, will leave the company to work on his own projects. Croyle’s studio, One & Co. was acquired by HTC in 2008. Croyle will continue to consult with the company for a few months in a transitional role. Jonah Becker is widely expected to take over for his boss. Meanwhile User Experience chief Drew Bamford got a promotion to head of Creative Labs, making him in charge of all software and services.

CNET reports Apple and Samsung will have to extend their patent case for at least one more day, due to a decision handed down by a US Appeals court in a related Apple-Motorola patent case regarding the 647 patent on linking of phone numbers. The companies would have wrapped up testimony Friday but will now be allowed to present more evidence regarding the 647 patent on Monday. That would push closing arguments from Monday to Tuesday.

ReCode reports SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced the company’s Falcon 9 rocket first stage had executed a successful soft landing in the ocean last week, although the stage was not recovered due to subsequent ocean activity. The ultimate aim is to bring the stage down at Cape Canaveral by the end of the year. Musk also announced the company has filed a complaint in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, protesting the Air Force awarding of a contract to United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

News From You

The top vote-getter on the subreddit today came from KAPT_Kipper. TorrentFreak reports Hulu has begun blocking IP addresses of VPN providers in an effort to prevent people outside the US from viewing the US-only service. However the block also prevents US residents using US VPN servers from seeing Hulu. All blocked users receive a message suggesting if they are in the US to disable their VPN or proxy. In other words, you wanna watch Hulu, you need to surf less securely.

metalfreak submitted the PC World story that Google is considering deploying WiFi networks in places where it provides Google Fiber service. The information comes from documents given to the 34 candidate cities for the next round of Google Fiber. 

SPSheridan submitted an Ars Technica article reporting on the TechCrunch report that sources tell them that in the wake of the departure of Vic Gundotra from Google, Google + will go from being a product to a platform. The Google Hangouts team would allegedly shift to Android as would the photos team. Google + would no longer be required to integrate with Google products. A Google representative told TC “Today’s news has no impact on our Google+ strategy — we have an incredibly talented team that will continue to build great user experiences across Google+, Hangouts and Photos.”

metalfreak and SPSheridan both submitted links about the death of the California KillSwitch bill. The legislation would have required all smartphones sold in California have a kill switch that would allow consumers to remotely lock and disable the phone if stolen. PC World reports the bill fell short of the 21 votes it needed in the State Senate. 

Discussion Section Links:  Dronies!

http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/25/5652082/microsoft-nokia-acquisition-complete

http://company.nokia.com/en/news/press-releases/2014/04/25/nokia-completes-sale-of-substantially-all-of-its-devices-services-business-to-microsoft

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/features/2014/apr14/04-25nokia.aspx

http://conversations.nokia.com/2014/04/25/journey-begins-2/

http://www.suasnews.com/2014/04/28829/its-the-weekend-call-for-the-band/

http://youtu.be/Qlqe1DXnJKQ?t=22s

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/selfies-take-to-the-skies-meet-the-dronie-83682969237.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOgrU8BBT-U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL6e3co4Qqc

Pick of the Day: 

Meetup! If you live in the Los Angeles area, come by our meetup this Saturday! Jennie and I will be hanging out Saturday, April 26th, starting at 6pm, at the 326 Bar at The Original Farmers Market at 3rd at Fairfax. 6333 W 3rd St, Los Angeles, CA 90036 

Monday’s guest:  Rafe Needleman of Yahoo News

Patrick Beja is on the show and we’ll talk about the FCC’s proposed Open Internet rules. Are they good, bad or irrelevant? How worried should you 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 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: Patrick Beja! And we all rejoice! 

Headlines

The FCC’s Chairman Tom Wheeler posted on the FCC website that a draft Open Internet Notice of Proposed Rulemaking will circulate today to the commission. The notice will be discussed at a meeting May 15th, then opened for public comment. The notice tries to re-craft Open Internet guidelines after being struck down in court. It preserves the transparency requirement and prohibition against blocking. However it changes the non-discrimination rules from reasonable to “commercially reasonable” opening the way for paid prioritization of traffic to ISP customers. 

The Verge reports that Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff signed the “Marco Civil da Internet” the so-called “internet constitution” into law yesterday before speaking at a conference on web governance in Sao Paulo. The law protects Internet privacy and guarantees open access to the Web. 

TechCrunch reports Vic Gundotra announced he is leaving Google. Gundotra did not say where he is going next, merely that he is “looking forward to the journey yet to come.” Gundotra started the Google I/O developers conference and was its host. He also started Google +. CEO Larry Page told Recode that Google will continue to invest in Google +.

GigaOm reports Facebook plans to acquire Finnish company ProtoGeo which makes the fitness tracking app Moves. The app records a wide range of activities including walking, biking, and running and can tell when you’re riding public transit. Moves will continue to operate independently after the acquisition is complete.

TechCrunch reports Facebook also launched FB Newswire, in partnership with News Corp’s Storyful. Storyful verifies news stories arising from social networks so journalists can avoid fakes and exaggerations. FB Newswire will collect “newsworthy content” that Facebook users share and that has been verified by Storyful.

One of our top subreddit stories today submitted by tekkyn00b comes from Ars Technica. We knew Hector Xavier Monsegur, AKA “Sabu,” became a confidential FBI informant following his 2011 arrest. What we didn’t know was that FBI agents supervising Sabu knew he was directing attacks against websites operated by Iranian, Syrian and Brazilian governments, among tothers, and data from the attacks was passed to US intelligence agencies. The attacks toook advantage of the Plesk bug, meaning the FBI was aware of the bug for a month before its disclosure. The information comes from documents obtained by the New York Times.

TechCrunch reports that French Assembly member Thomas Thévenoud announced his report on an agreement between transportation startups like Uber and traditional French taxi companies. One of the 30 points in particular has caused outrage. Companies like SnapCar will not be able to show you how close their cars are to you via their apps. But taxi companies will be allowed to use geolocation. The report will become law in the coming weeks. 

Microsoft announced it’s Quarterly earnings with $20.40 billion in revenue and earnings per share of $0.68 Analysts expected $20.39 billion in revenue and $0.63 per share. Devices and Consumer revenue grew 12% to $8.30 billion, while Commercial revenue at the firm grew 7% to $12.23 billion

Amazon announced it’s Quarterly earnings Amazon reported net sales up 23 percent to $19.74 billion and earnings of 23 cents a share. Analysts expected $19.43 billion in revenue and $0.23 per share.

 

News From You

Draconos submitted the Ars Technica story that the Linux Foundation has announced a three-year initiative to pool at least $3.9 million to help underfunded open source projects, starting with OpenSLL. Amazon Web Services, Cisco, Dell, Facebook, Fujitsu, Google, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NetApp, Qualcomm, Rackspace, and VMware have all pledged to commit at least $100,000 a year. OpenSSL won’t be the only project getting money, so it won’t get all of that, but it should end up with significantly more than the $2,000 a year it was getting. 

KAPT_Kipper posted the CNET story that ARM says the shift to 64-bit mobile devices is happening faster than it expected. ARM expected 64-bit chip to be mostly needed for servers at first. TSMC made similar comments last week. ARM’s executive vice president of corporate strategy, Tom Lantzsch, said even 32-bit code runs better on a 64-bit processor which may be one reason. He also said he though the capability for 64-bit Android phones should arrive by Christmas.

Tekkyn00b submitted the Gizmodo story about Amazon Prime Pantry, a service that allows you to have up to 45 pounds worth of household items shipped to your door for $6. Of course you have to pay for the items too. 45-pounds of cheese puffs, on its way!

And KAPT_Kipper posted the Boing Boing story that previously unknown digital artwork created by Andy Warhol has been recovered from old Amiga floppy disks, circa 1985. Warhol created the works with Graphicraft on a commission from Commodore to demonstrate the graphic capabilities of the Amiga. A documentary film about the file recovery called “Trapped” will premiere on May 10 at the Carnegie Library Lecture Hall in Pittsburgh.

Discussion Section Links: FCC U

http://www.fcc.gov/blog/setting-record-straight-fcc-s-open-internet-rules

http://www.dailytechnewsshow.com/the-fcc-puts-the-internet-on-life-support/

http://gigaom.com/2014/04/24/the-fcc-doesnt-want-a-pay-to-play-internet-but-it-may-not-be-able-to-stop-it/

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/04/the-fccs-fast-lane-rule-is-awful-for-the-internet-just-ask-the-fcc/

http://boingboing.net/2014/04/24/a-musical-letter-to-the-fcc-by.html

http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/24/5646500/brazil-looks-to-protect-privacy-and-net-neutrality-with-internet-bill

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/u-s-plan-for-internet-fast-lanes-contrasts-with-european-rules/

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/content/20140331IPR41232/html/Ensure-open-access-for-internet-service-suppliers-and-ban-roaming-fees-say-MEPs

http://gigaom.com/2014/04/24/when-it-comes-to-net-neutrality-either-the-fcc-thinks-were-idiots-or-it-just-doesnt-care/

Pick of the Day: Unroll.me

Hey both, here’s a daily pick for ya: Unroll.me.

It’s a very useful “email decluttering” service. It gives you the option to gather all the “semi-unwanted” emails in a daily summary. You decide which ones go in the summary, and which ones you actually never see again. They all get stored in a specific folder, so you never really lose them.
It’s a great way to deal with “bacn”, and has become an indispensable tool in my endless quest for Inbox Zero (which I actually achieve every once in a while).
PS: I believe it only works with Gmail (of course), but seriously, who doesn’t use gmail nowadays?

Give it a try! Hugs, Patrick Beja

Meetup! If you live in the Los Angeles area, come by our meetup this Saturday! Jennie and I will be hanging out Saturday, April 26th, starting at 6pm, at the 326 Bar at The Original Farmers Market at 3rd at Fairfax. 6333 W 3rd St, Los Angeles, CA 90036 

Friday’s guest:  Darren Kitchen and Len Peralta

The magic of the Internet has been that anybody with the skills can make a service that looks and works just as well as a large company.

Are you a good writer? Your blog can compete with the New York Times because the platform is the same. Good at video? You can deliver it to a worldwide audience right alongside Hollywood. Talent and promotional acumen become more critical deciding factors than wealth.

What the FCC seems to be considering would change that. New entrants to a market would face a cost barrier. A Netflix or a YouTube will be fine, because they can’t be outright blocked under this proposal and they can afford to pay for the smooth access their product needs.

This is a solution designed to make sure big businesses get a fair break. Not you.

A new video company that wants to compete with Netflix? Now they need to gather even more venture capital. The cost of innovation gets higher, meaning fewer attempts at innovation, meaning a greater trend towards oligopoly and a resulting stagnation.

The FCC seems to be constructing their approach to look for immediate harm, which they will not find. You can’t prove that a company that never entered the market because it was too expensive was harmed. This is insidiously dangerous whether it is intentional or not.

This isn’t about “neutrality” or packet prioritization or even peering. Small innovators don’t start out big enough to need peering agreements like Netflix does. When they get that big, they can afford to negotiate them, like Netflix is.

However what seems to be on the table is allowing ISPs to charge for traffic coming to the individual consumer as well as charging that consumer to access it. That would be fine if customers could make a choice. If a competing ISP could market themselves as an open Internet provider where ALL sites perform well not just the big ones. Since we do not have ISP competition in the US, that won’t happen. ISPs can do what they want, with no market recourse for the consumer.

And that’s what gives the lie to Chairman Wheeler’s statement.

He writes, “The Notice does not change the underlying goals of transparency.” However transparency is almost useless when you have no choice of provider.

He also writes, “behavior harmful to consumers or competition by limiting the openness of the Internet will not be permitted.” That seems to be aimed at content providers, but wouldn’t it be great if that applied to ISPs? Except there is almost no competition on the ISP level, which hurts consumers and the FCC does nothing about that fundamental root problem.

This entire procedure of developing Open Internet Guidelines seems to be a practice in misdirection. Rather than treat the problem, lack of ISP choice, the commission, and the public are arguing over the symptoms.

If the Internet was a patient and the FCC its doctor, that doctor would seem to be saying, “We will not allow this nose to get unreasonably runny and we will let you know every symptom of the illness. But we won’t worry about trying to cure the disease. No lobbyist has paid for that.”

Rich DeMuro is on and we’ll talk about the gorgeous and extremely affordable One PlusOne and whether Rich has any invites for us since you have to be invited to purchase one. Also prior art for monkey math and why 3D printers will never print your spare parts.

MP3

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

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here at the low, low cost of a nickel a day on Patreon. Thank you!

Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!

Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!

Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes
Today’s guest: Rich DeMuro, technology reporter at KTLA News

Headlines

OnePlus unveiled the OnePlus One smartphone today with a 5.5-inch 1080p 401 ppi dislpay,a 2.5GHz Snapdragon 801, 3 GB of RAM and a 3,100 mAh battery. A 13-megapixel Sony Exmor camera can shoot 4K video. The internaional version runs CyanagenMod’s 11S version of Android 4.4 the Chinese version will run Color OS. The 16GB version with a silk white backplate will run you $299 and the 64GB in sandstone black costs $349. Yep. those are unsubsidized prices. It supports LTE and will be available initially in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, the UK and the US. When? Who knows the first 100 come out April 25 as part of a competition and you have to get invited to buy one after that.

Reuters reports Facebook received antitrust approval for their acquisition of Oculus VR according to a list published by the US Federal Trade Commission Wednesday. Facebook announced the deal March 25th, planning to pay $2 billion for Oculus.

The New York Times reports IBM has opened up its Power microprocessors for third parties to modify and manufacture under the supervision of the OpenPower Foundation, incorporated by IBM in December. The foundation includes two dozen members including its founder, IBM as well as Google, Samsung, and Nvidia. IBM’s first sever computers based on the Power8 chip technology were announced Wednesday as well. IBM’s ARM-like approach is meant to battle against Intel which dominates the server chip market. 

Hot on the heels of launching MI.com, The Next Web reports Xiaomi revealed it will expand into 10 more countries this year tarting with Malaysia, the Philippines, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, followed by Russia, Turkey, Brazil and Mexico. The company also announced a new dual-band 2.4GHz/5GHz router called the Mi Router Mini for CNY129 ($21) and a full-sized router the Mi Router, which comes with a Terrabyre hard disk CNY699 ($112).

Recode reports US FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said Wednesday that the agency would consider draft “Open Internet,” or net neutrality, rules at an agency meeting May 15. Wheeler is expected to propose the same guidelines as before but with different legal justification. A recent court case indicated the FCC had the right to regulate the Internet, just not with the justification it used for its last set of guidelines.

Facebook announced it’s Quarterly earnings with $2.00 billion in revenue and earnings per share of $0.34 Analysts expected $2.36 billion in revenue and $0.24 per share. It now has 1.28 billion total monthly users, 802 million daily users, and 609 million daily mobile users. with 59% of ad revenue coming from mobile. Also, David Ebersman — the CFO who took Facebook public is departing the company later this year.

Apple announced its quarterly earnings with $45.6 billion in revenue and earnings per share of $11.62. Analysts expected $43.6 billion in revenue and $10.16 per share. Apple also announced an increase in its share buyback and dividend as well as a 7-for-1 stock split.  iPhones: 43.7 million versus 37.7 million expected
iPads: 16.35 million versus 19.7 million units expected

News From You

spsheridan submitted the Recode story that Google is including a time machine feature in its street view imagery in the Web version of Google Maps. Users can move a slider in many street view images to see what the scene looked like in any other images taken by Google over the past eight years. Some of the most dramatic views come in Onagawa, Japan where the GPS-locked images show you how the ground shifted 3 degrees after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. 

KAPT_Kipper posted the Gizmodo story that Amazon has struck a deal to add some back-catalog shows from HBO to its Amazon Prime Instant Streaming service. Prime members will get access to every episode of The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, Six Feet Under, Rome, Eastbown & Down, Enlightened, and Flight of the Conchords; and select seasons of Boardwalk Empire, True Blood, and Treme. Early seasons of Girls, The Newsroom, and Veep will be included as they pass the three-year mark from original airing.

Beatmaster80 pointed out Paul Thurott’s posting about Google offering to help Samung mount its defense against Apple. A deposition of Google attorney James Maccoun played for jurors in the Apple-Samsung patent case described email messages in which Google offered to help cover Samsung’s legal expenses and possible damages payments, and offered indemnity on some of the patent infringements. Samsung has said it did not seek help from Google and the deposition makes it clear Google approcahed Samsung.

Tahras pointed us to the Roku blog where the company announced that YouTube is now available in the Roku Channel store for all current-generation Roku devices in the US Canada, UK and Ireland. Current generation players refers to those introduced after July 2011

Discussion Section Links:  OnePlus One = Phone

http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/23/5642810/oneplus-one-smartphone-official

http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/23/oneplus-one-launch-ceo-pete-lau-interview/

http://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2014/04/23/oneplus-unveils-one-powerhouse-android-smartphone-cyanogenmod-starting-299/
http://oneplus.net/

Pick of the Day:  PFsense 

My pick is PFsense , if you like DDWRT as a router firmware you will LOVE PFsense it is a opensource free router software that runs on old hardware AOK. Loaded FULL of enterprise level features and easy configuration. It is able to keep up with my 100 MB internet and high user demands with logging, multiple network segments, Guest network capture portal with vouchers, and so much more. It is overkill for any residential router but that’s how use geeks role!

Also +1 for Plex!

Harrison,  Flower Mound, TX USA

Meetup! If you live in the Los Angeles area, come by our meetup this Saturday! Jennie and I will be hanging out Saturday, April 26th, starting at 6pm, at the 326 Bar at The Original Farmers Market at 3rd at Fairfax. 6333 W 3rd St, Los Angeles, CA 90036 

Thursday’s guest:  Patrick Beja! And we all rejoice!