Despite some glitzy play the by Guardians, Skaro hangs on to exterminate LA, and Cylon raids the waivers.
DTNS 2519 – Always Use a Condiment
Darren Kitchen is on the show to talk about Global Solution Networks. Awful management buzzword for NGOs or the key to solving world problems? Len Peralta is in to illustrate the show too. Be nice to him folks. He’s from Cleveland.
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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, founder of hak5.org and Len Peralta, artist
The Next Web reports that Twitter is testing two new types of pages. First, dedicated pages for businesses where users can find information, images, related tweets and prices. And in great news for businesses, users can also buy products right from the app or web. The second page type is Collections, where you can aggregate products and places that might be of interest to your followers. So if you want to know what type of products Reese Witherspoon and William Shatner really love, this is your lucky day.
USA Today reports Google says it will honor requests to remove nude or sexually explicit images posted on the Internet without consent, the same way it honors requests to remove personal information like bank account and Social Security Numbers. An online form will launch in the coming weeks for submitting requests. Google normally only removes links subject to a valid legal request.
The US FCC has clarified its interpretation of a 1991 consumer protection law to assert that text messages are the same as phone calls, and that phone carriers may block robocalls to consumers if asked.The Wall Street Journal reports that despite the creation of a national Do Not Call List, the FCC still receives more complaints about robocalls than any other issue. The FCC will also make it easier to remove consent for robocalls.
9 to 5 mac reports that the original iPad mini has disappeared from Apple’s website and is no longer available to purchase new from the Apple Store. The first iPad mini was introduced in October 2012. Refurbished iPad minis will remain available from the Apple Store for $209 and new iPad minis will be available from third-party resellers until they run out of stock.
Engadget passes along a report from Juventud Rebelde that Cuba’s telecom company will open WIFI hotspots in 35 locations across the country starting in July. An hour will cost $2 with speed capped at 1MB per user. Presumably meaning 1 MBps.
Reuters reports Nokia is finally admitting it wants to get back into the phone business. Nokia can’t sell its own phones until 2016 due to its agreement to sell its handset business to Microsoft. But Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri told Germany’s Manager Magazine that Nokia “will look for suitable partners” to design and license phones to be manufactured under the Nokia brand name.
News From You:
d8uv would like you to know that the Heinz company had great idea to put a QR code on its Ketchup bottles so Ketchup enthusiasts could design their own labels. A German man named Daniel Korell thought that was a great idea, so he scanned the QR code on his phone. One problem: He was directed to a German porn site Fundorado. Turns out Heinz ran the contest between 2012 and 2014 and the link expired this year. Unlike the ketchup in Daniel Korell’s fridge, apparently. Korell wrote to Heinz on Facebook saying “Your Ketchup isn’t really for underage people.” Heinz’s social media team apologized and said Korell could still design his own label. Porn site Fundorado offered Korell a free year’s subscription to their site. So, pretty good day for Daniel Korell!
starfuryzeta submitted the IT World article that the US Court of Appeals for the ninth Circuit rules Thursday that Google Earth Images can be used as evidence in court. Paciano Lizarraga-Tirado claims he was on the Mexico side of the border when US agents arrested him and charged him with illegal reentry. The government has introduced GPS coordinates recorded at the arrest and used Google Earth to show the location. The court determined that machine results cannot be dismissed as hearsay though they can be contested on grounds for accuracy.
Discussion Section
http://www.wired.com/2015/06/global-solution-networks-emerging-alternative-governments/
http://gsnetworks.org/ten-types-of-global-solution-network/http://gsnetworks.org/the-gsn-team/
http://gsnetworks.org/the-world-needs-solutions/
https://www.freedomonlinecoalition.com/
Pick of the Day
Great discussion on robotics yesterday in DTNS 2518. This has been an area I’ve been paying closer attention to recently because as you stated we are now getting to the point where we have the option to buy robotics for our home. One point I wanted to raise is the impact this will have as our population ages. As Pew has highlighted the population pyramid (large base of young people with a small peak of older adults) is turning into a solid bar ( http://www.pewresearch.org/next-america/age-pyramid/ ). That means we won’t have enough caregivers to take care of us in the same way that people are cared for today. While we may not all get a Rosie the Robot yet, we are seeing massive advances.
So here is a related pick of the day. The movie Robot & Frank (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1990314/) which talks about an ex-jewel thief whose kids get him a robot to take care of him. Really enjoyable film – but maybe as we get robot caregivers we’ll also need a few extra robot security guards!
Thanks again, love the show!
Steve
Messages
Tom – you’re brilliant! Your comment on garage door openers being just a little unsecure led to a flash of inspiration.
I’ve been setting up Belkin Wemo LED light bulbs, cameras, motion sensors and switches in my home. It occurred to me that I could set up two factor authentication for my garage door by using a Wemo switch as well as the garage door remote – as I arrive home I use the app on my phone to turn on the Wemo switch which supplies power to the door opener and then I use the remote to trigger the door opener. Hey presto!
Even if someone spoofs my remote while I’m not home the door won’t open because it doesn’t have power.
Of course this won’t stop someone physically forcing the door but a couple of antipersonnel mines should do the trick there 
Cheers, Mike from wet and windy Western Australia.
==
Hey, guys. Really enjoyed yesterday’s discussion on technology and companionship. It brought to mind part of Mary Meeker’s 2015 Internet Trend Report where she discussed messaging leaders.
Apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat and Snapchat started out as relatively straightforward messaging platforms, but are now providing things like payments, games, taxi services, and even food delivery.
I think this transformation is fascinating because a more traditional software mindset would be to solve a particular problem (like food delivery), then tack a social element on as an additional feature. But we’re now seeing models emerge where human connection is at the heart of the service — where social is the platform — and then additional value is added from there.
In my mind, these types of approaches are a much better reflection of who and what we are — and hence, what we really want from our technology.
Best,
Christian
Friday’s Guests: Darren Kitchen and Len Peralta
Today in Tech History – June 19, 2015
In 240 B.C. – Greek astronomer, geographer, mathematician and librarian in Alexandria, Eratosthenes calculated the Earth’s circumference. His data was based on the length of shadows in different locations and simple geometry, but his calculations were not far wrong.
In 1623 – Mathematician Blaise Pascal was born in France. He invented a digital calculator, the Pascaline, to help his father in his tax-collecting work.
In 2003 – Apple released dock connector-to-USB 2.0 cables and drivers for third-generation iPods. Previous iPods had been FireWire only.
Like Tech History? Get the illustrated Year in Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.
East Meets West 335 – Sine Wave
Tom’s dog barks and some people eat dogs, power dynamics and culture, race and the danger of getting lost in the minutiae, what is racism, classism vs. racism, is prejudice being reduced over time?
Download the episode at this link.
DTNS 2518 – 00000001 is the Loneliest Number
Justin Young is on the show to talk about the many ways to save online journalism and how robots are stealing our hearts.
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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
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:
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:
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
Today in Tech History – June 18, 2015
In 1908 – Scottish electrical engineer, Alan Archibald Campbell-Swinton, published a brief letter in the journal Nature, describing the essentials of making and receiving television images. He described using an electron gun in the neck of a cathode-ray tube to shoot electrons toward the flat end of the tube, which was coated with light-emitting phosphor. Others like Farnsworth and Baird would make just such devices years later.
In 2002 – Kevin Warwick had his chip removed. Warwick implanted the chip earlier that year in order to experiment with human-computer interaction, culminating in a direct connection to his wife.
In 2009 – The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), a NASA robotic spacecraft was launched on its mission to collect information about the Moon, particularly around the poles.
In 2014 – Amazon announced their first cell phone the Fire Phone at an event in Seattle. The phone featured object recognition and a dynamic perspective 3D interface.
Like Tech History? Get the illustrated Year in Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.
S&L Podcast – #220 – Why The Healer Deserves to be a Hero
We talk with author Beth Cato, author of The Clockwork Dagger, about why healers are never the hero in genre fiction — and how she decided to change that. We also press her for baked brie recipes and discover how the Foo Fighters helped shape Octavia Leander.
DTNS 2517 – Keeping Up With The Droneses
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.
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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:
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
It’s Spoilerin’ Time 75
Movie Draft Update, Orange is the New Black (301), Game of Thrones (510), The Shield (603)
00:29 – Movie Draft Update
04:22 – Orange is the New Black (301)
14:45 – Game of Thrones (510)
37:40 – The Shield (603)
Today in Tech History – June 17, 2015
In 1936 – Edwin Armstrong presented FM radio at FCC headquarters. Armstrong played a jazz record over conventional AM radio, then switched to an FM broadcast. “[I]f the audience of 50 engineers had shut their eyes they would have believed the jazz band was in the same room.”
In 1946 – The first mobile telephone call was made from a car in St. Louis, Missouri.
In 1997 – Programmers deciphered code written in the impenetrable Data Encryption Standard, the strongest legally exportable encryption software in the United States. The hackers organized over the Internet and cracked the software in five months, proving that stronger encryption was needed.
Like Tech History? Get the illustrated Year in Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.