Brian Brushwood joins the show to talk about Samsung’s SmartTV that listens to everything you say and reports back to headquarters. Is that really what’s going on? is it worse than the Xbox or Amazon Echo?

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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

Justin Young is on the show and the two of us will decide the true fate of Google Glass. Is it dead, for the enterprise, or poised to have its greatest moment yet? Plus Len Peralta is here to illustrate the show!

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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: Justin Robert Young and Len Peralta

Check out Len’s amazing art for the week: “Would You Hit A Guy Wearing Glass?”

Headlines

The Verge reports the first Ubuntu phone will go on sale next week in online flash sales throughout Europe. The Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Editions is built by Spanish company BQ and will sell for €169.90. It’s a modest price for a modest phone. 4.5-inch display with 540 x 960 qHD resolution, a 1.3 GHz quad-core processor 8 GB of storage and no LTE. It does have dual micro-SIM. The OS uses cards instead of apps, delivering content by category. Services include Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Time Out, Yelp, and Cut the Rope with Spotify, SoundCloud, and Grooveshark also included through web APIs. Followers of @ubuntu and @bqreaders on Twitter will get first alert each time the phone becomes available.

Bloomberg reports a large number of people who work at Tesla, used to work at Apple. In fact 150 of the 6,000 or so Tesla employees have Apple on their resume. Musk says the two companies design philosophies are closely aligned and that Apple tries to recruit from Tesla as well. Execs and engineers from larger established tech company relocate to smaller Valley start up. Also, water is wet. Lebron James is good at basketball and Tom’s Beard is majestic. What else is new?

CNET reports an advisory group set up by Google recommends the company limit its “right-to-forgotten” search result removals to Europe, where it is the law. Google does not alter search results for its non-European domains, even though they can be accessed from within Europe.

TechCrunch reports Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In project has started a CS&E Chapter to help women in computer science and engineering find advice and support. The chapter is launching in partnership with Facebook, LinkedIn and the Anita Borg Institute.

TechCrunch reports that Uber is adding two new safety features to its app in India. An in-app panic button and journey and location sharing with up to five people will roll out to users beginning February 11. The features will come to the app worldwide at a later date.

BuzzFeed wrote up a profile of ride-hailing service Gett moving in on Uber’s turf in New York. Gett or Gettaxi is the second largest international ride-hailing company by revenue, after Uber. The two companies have squared off previously in Tel Aviv, Moscow and London. Gett rolled out fixed rate rides of $10 in Manhattan in September. Gett’s biggest advantage is coming into markets with legal approval. Almost the opposite tactic Uber takes.

News From You: 

starfuryzeta sent in The Guardian post reporting the UK’s Investigatory Powers Tribunal declared Friday that regulations covering access by Britain’s GCHQ to emails and phone records intercepted by the US National Security Agency (NSA) breached Articles 8 and 10 of the European Convention on human rights. 8 relates to private and family life and 10 to freedom of expression. The court made the decision because the public was unaware of safeguards int he program. The GCHQ was pleased that the surveillance itself was found legal and only the details to be made public needed to change.

DocSneer posted the ProPublica article calling attention to the financial problems of Werner Koch, the coder maintaining Gnu Privacy Guard. After the publication of the article the Linux Foundation awarded a one-time grant of $60,000 and his donation page reached a funding goal of $137,000. Additionally Facebook and Stripe each pledged to donate $50,000 a year to the project.

And jaymz6689 posted the TechDirt article which, bear with me takes details from a Music Business Worldwide post about a report from Ernst &Young and French record label trade group SNEP. What did they all find? Of streaming revenue generated by platforms like Spotify, about 20.8% goes to the platform itself, 16.7% to taxes, 10% to songwriters, 6.8% to artists and the largest share, 45.6% goes to labels. If you take out taxes and the platform, payouts of royalties go 73.1% to labels.

Discussion Section Links: 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/05/style/why-google-glass-broke.html

http://www.cio.com/article/2879048/google-glass/google-glass-is-alive-and-well-in-the-enterprise.html

Pick of the Day:  Lots of pics for Jody

Hey Tom – as a brand new co-executive producer, I felt compelled to offer up a couple of picks…

As someone who just started a new job, Charlie App has been a great tool for me to not only see how I may be connected to the new folks I meet but also a great way to remember people’s names.

Charlie App – charlieapp.com
Charlie combs through 100s of sources and automatically sends you a one-pager on everyone you’re going to meet with, before you see them.

Another great tool I recently found is Sidekick. Sidekick is a Google Chrome extension that when open will track when and where a person reads your email. Kinda creepy but also kinda cool.

Sidekick – app.getsidekick.com
Sidekick is a free service that gives you email superpowers with contact insights, email tracking, and email scheduling.

Keep doing your thing! Really enjoy DTNS.

Best, Jody

Monday’s guest: Brian Brushwood!

Todd Whitehead is on the show. We’ll talk about Twitter’s teacups and troll regrets along with the appearance of the annual Apple TV rumor.

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

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

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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

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

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

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

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

Show Notes

Today’s guest:  Todd Whitehead, Alpha Geek Radio

Headlines

Remember the Swatch Watch? No? (damn kids) Well, it was a super popular casual watch from the 1980s — Swatch stands for Second Watch, if you were wondering. According to Bloomberg Business, the Swiss watch company plans to sell a smartwatch, or perhaps a Swartwatch. Swatch CEO Nick Hayek said in an interview that the device will use NFC, let consumers make mobile payments, and somehow won’t have to be charged, while still working with Windows and Android software. It may be available by April, around the same time as the Apple Watch.

The Verge obtained a message written by Twitter CEO Dick Costolo on an internal forum taking personal responsibility for Twitter’s harassment and abuse problems. After an employee asked what they could do to stop cyberbullying, Costolo wrote, “we suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we’ve sucked at it for years. It’s no secret and the rest of the world talk about it every day.” Costolo said “we’re going to start kicking these people off right and left and making sure that when they issue their ridiculous attacks, nobody hears them.”

You hear that? — That’s the sound of NDAs lifting. Last June at WWDC Apple announced the Photos app, the replacement for Aperture and iPhoto and previews abound on the Internet today. The Verge reports key highlights include icloud integration. When you take a pic on your iPhone it will automatically be uploaded to your iCloud drive. There’s also a new auto crop tool, a new zoom out view and new square book formats. Keep in mind, you won’t have the same level of granular control especially compared to Aperture’s pixel-peepers level of tweaking. So don’t delete Aperture or iPhoto for Photos app, just yet. Developers can download the beta version of OS X that includes Photos now.

Bloomberg reports Twitter has licensed direct access to its data— the so-called firehose— to Google. While Google can index and include Twitter posts in its search without paying, access to the firehose allows for posts to show up in search as soon as they’re posted. Engineers are working on the connection which should start having an effect sometime int he first half of this year.

Buried in a history of why Google Glass died, the New York Times reports a glimmer of hope for the product. According to people with knowledge of Tony Faddell’s plans, Ivy Ross’s team will be redesigning Glass from scratch and will not release it until it’s complete.

ReCode has this year’s winter tale of Apple creating a TV service. This year’s rumor takes the form of Apple in preliminary talks with TV programmers to create bundles of programming to be sold directly to consumers over the Web. With SlingTV and PlayStation Vue in beta and HBO and Verizon’s services expected later this year, this could be the year the Apple television service rumor comes true. But just don’t be too shocked if the autumn rumor about talks with Apple falling apart makes its usual appearance.

BT has confirmed it is acquiring UK mobile network service company “EE” from Orange and Deutsche Telekom for $19 billion dollars. The move will allow BT to sell its broadband, fixed telephony and pay-TV services to those EE customer who don’t already subscribe to BT’s offerings. EE has a subscriber base of 33 million in the UK and the largest 4G customer base in Europe.

The Verge reports Mattel and Google will hold a join event February 13th in New York, the day before Toy Fair 2015. The invite features a graphic reminiscent of the ViewMaster and reads “Mattel invites you to view what’s possible with exclusive announcement and product debut” followed by the Mattel and Google logos.

GigaOm reports Twitter earnings are out. $479.078 million in revenue beat expectations of 453.1 million and Earnings per share of 12 cents beat expectations of 6 cents. User growth was not as rosy. Monthly average users went from 284 million in Q3 to 288 million in Q4 which is a 20% jump over Q4 last year. Analysts are already grouchy about that slow growth.

News From You: 

HobbitfromPA sent us the story from NBC reporting that the FBI is investigating an attack on the IT systems of Anthem, one of the largest health insurance companies in the US. Anthem spokesperson, Kristin Binns said attackers, “obtained personal information relating to consumers and Anthem employees who are currently covered, or who have received coverage in the past”. The information accessed included names, birthdates, Social Security numbers, addresses, income data, employment information and email addresses. Anthem serves customers in 14 states.

starfuryzeta sent us The Next Web’s report that Under Armour, a company that makes workout clothes, has acquired personal training app Endomondo for $85 million and diet and exercise counter MyFitnessPal for $475 million. My Fitness pal has 80 million users and Endomondo has 20 million. Add that to the 120 million users of MapMyFitness, already owned by UnderArmour and that is a huge community of people who need just might need some exercise clothes.

Discussion Section Links: 

http://recode.net/2015/02/04/apple-is-talking-to-tv-programmers-about-its-own-web-tv-service/

http://variety.com/2015/digital/news/apple-in-talks-again-to-offer-tv-channels-report-1201424182/

http://allthingsd.com/20091102/apples-itunes-pitch-tv-for-30-a-month/

http://nypost.com/2012/03/01/apple-throws-weight-around-in-tv-negotiations/

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Unshockingly-Apples-Dream-of-TV-Disruption-Held-up-By-Cable-129924

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-02-12/apple-said-to-plan-new-set-top-box-amid-time-warner-cable-talks

Pick of the Day:  MapMyFitness.com via Jamie in beautiful BC

Another app pick I want to share with my fellow DTNS’ers. As 2015 just started and a lot of people are trying to stay on track with their new years resolutions, I wanted to make people aware of the Map My Fitness line of apps for iOS and Android, more specifically MapMyWalk. The free version of this app provides a wealth of features to help you both track your various workouts, as well as provide incremental audible updates as to your current pace and distance travelled. The GPS functionality will plot your walk/run on a map for you to save and use later, and you can save your favorite routes to use on a later date. It will also give you a weekly recap of how many workouts you did, total distance travelled, and total calories burned. It also works with many fitness trackers, as well as uploading data to Health Kit on iOS. Can’t say enough good things about this great free app for those wanting an easy way to live an active lifestyle.

Thanks as always! Jamie in beautiful BC

Update on Windscape

“Windscape software recommended and apparently that was bad timing. Thomas Sidla emailed the company that makes it Gaucho Software and got this reply: “”Last week, the National Weather Service changed something on their servers, so I’ve been scrambling to update my apps for the change.” The Update went live last night so it’s all working again.

Tomorrow’s guests: Justin Robert Young, Len Peralta!