When you rule the world of powder mages you can do what you want. Brian McClellan wields his powder for good. In addition to delivering us the complete Powder Mage trilogy with the third book The Autumn Republic, Brian is going to bring us a second trilogy in the same universe, all while growing his own spaghetti sauce and keeping bees. Impressive. Most impressive.
DTNS 2426 – Google Browser MD
Patrick Beja is with us today to talk about Google’s new health facts surfacing in search. Can Google claim to be unbiased while curating facts?
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Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.
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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 in Tech History – Feb. 10, 2015
In 1958 – Scientists at Lincoln Laboratory at MIT bounced radar signals off the planet Venus, calling it the first measurement of interplanetary distances.
In 1996 – Chess’s international grandmaster Garry Kasparov began a six game match against IBM’s Deep Blue. Deep Blue won the first game, the first time that a current world champion had ever been beaten by a computer opponent under regular tournament conditions.
In 2004 – While talking about their forthcoming game, Game Neverending, Ludicorp unveiled a side project called Flickr at the O’Reilly Emerging Tech Conference in San Diego. It was a service that melded chat rooms with real-time photo sharing.
In 2009 – One of Motorola’s communication satellites Iridium 33 collided with defunct Russian satellite Kosmos-2251 destroying both. It was an unprecedented space collision.
Subscribe to the podcast. Like Tech History? Get the illustrated Year in Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.
Cordkillers 57 – Second-hand Spoilering
Will AMC help Sling TV win, Why Cable is suffering from its own retention policy, Would you want a Star Wars channel?
DTNS 2425 – Samsung Listens to Its Customers
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?
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 in Tech History – Feb. 9, 2015
In 1870 – US President Ulysses S. Grant signed a bill authorizing “the Secretary of War to take observations at military stations and to warn of storms on the Great Lakes and on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts.” This agency operating under the Signal Service eventually became the National Weather Service.
In 1969 – The Boeing 747 jumbo jet took flight for the first time. It was the first wide-body plane ever produced.
In 1995 – Dr. Bernard Harris became the first African-American to walk in space. Joining him, Michael Foale became the first British-born American to walk in space.
Subscribe to the podcast. Like Tech History? Get the illustrated Year in Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.
Today in Tech History – Feb. 8, 2015
In 1971 – 10 years after the SEC suggested automation could solve the problem of fragmentation in over-the-counter stocks, the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations or NASDAQ index began trading, the world’s first electronic stock market.
In 1996 – The U.S. Congress passed the Communications Decency Act, part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. In part, it attempted to hold website operators responsible for anyone younger than 18 seeing porn on the Internet. That provision was later struck down by the Supreme Court, however Section 230 which provides safe harbor to service providers is still in force.
In 1996 – John Perry Barlow posted “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” written in Davos, Switzerland. He foresaw a “civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before.”
Subscribe to the podcast. Like Tech History? Get the illustrated Year in Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.
Today in Tech History – Feb. 7, 2015
In 1817 – The first public gas streetlight in the US was lit in Baltimore, Maryland at the corner of Market and Lemon streets.
In 1915 – The first completely successful tests of the wireless telephone from a moving train were conducted on the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. Spoken messages were clearly heard 26 miles from Lounsberry to Binghamton, NY.
In 1984 – Challenger astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart made the first untethered spacewalks.
Subscribe to the podcast. Like Tech History? Get the illustrated Year in Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.
DTNS 2424 – Glass Ceiling
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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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: 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
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!
Today in Tech History – Feb. 6, 2015
In 1957 – MIT introduced the cryotron, the first practical demonstration of superconductivity, invented by Dudley Allen Buck. The Cryotron paved the way for the integrated circuit which used semiconductivity.
In 1959 – Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments filed a patent for miniaturized electronic circuits, the first patent for what we now call integrated circuits.
In 1971 – Apollo 14’s Lunar Module lifted off from the moon returning astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell to the Command Module. Shepard had made extra history by becoming the first human to hit a golf ball on the moon.
Subscribe to the podcast. Like Tech History? Get the illustrated Year in Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.