Veronica Belmont is on the show and we’ll talk about President Obama’s proposal to reclassify ISPs in the US as commence carriers to solve net neutrality concerns.

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 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: Veronica Belmont, co-host of Sword & Laser

Headlines:

The President of the United States of America posted a letter and video today declaring his support for reclassification of Internet Services as Common Carriers under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. President Obama expressed his opinion that regulations shouwl not allow blocking, paid prioritization or throttling and ISPS should provide increased transparency. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler welcomed the Presidents comments and said he would consider them, presumably along with the 4 million others the FCC has received on the issue.

Facebook’ stand-alone Messenger app now has 500 million monthly active users, according to PC World. The number of monthly active users doubled in the six months, since Facebook cut off access to chat in their main app and required users to download the separate Messenger app. Facebook-owned WhatsApp reported 600 million monthly active users in August.

Reuters reports researchers at FireEye have discovered a bug in iOS that could enable attackers to access sensitive data on devices by getting users to install malicious applications that replace legitimate apps. FireEye calls the attack “Masque Attack.” FireEye disclosed the vulnerability to Apple in July and Apple is working to fix the bug. The WireLurker exploit takes advantage of this vulnerability. FireEye advises iOS users not install apps from unofficial app stores.

CNET reports Apple has put out a tool to help former iOS users disconnect their phone number from iMessage. Some users who switch to a non-Apple phone find text messages are still routed to their iMessage account where they are lost. The solution has been to switch off iMessage on the old phone though some users said that didn’t work. The new tool lets you remove the phone number from iMessage so that text messages are never accidentally routed to your Apple accounts at all.

The Next Web reports Mozilla released some new features for Firefox in celebration of the 10 years since the release of Firefox 1.0 on Nov. 9 2004. Among the new features are an easier sign in process, a walkthrough of privacy features, and a forget button that clears anywhere from 5 minutes to 24 hours of browsing history. DuckDuckGo is also now a standard search option.

Andrew Lewman, executive director of the Tor Project told the BBC that the significance of Europol and US Agency busts of 17 people associated with darknet sites may be overblown. Originally several sites had been reported shut down and rumors circulated that Tor had been compromised. Europol later clarified that 400 pages were closed in association with the services that hosted them. 27 services were seized in the operation. Lewman does not believe Tor itself was compromised in relation to the raids.

Reuters reports Samsung applied for a license to invest $3 billion in a second smartphone factory in Vietnam. This new factory will also be located in Than Nguyen province. Samsung has been increasing production in Vietnam to reduce costs.

Ars Technica reports that Pirate Bay and Flattr co-founder Peter Sunde, also known as brokep, has been freed from a Swedish prison after serving 5 months of an eight month sentence. A Swedish court found Sunde and three other co-defendants guilty of aiding copyright infringement as part of The Pirate Bay. Upon release, Sunde tweeted, “My body just got re-united with my soul and mind, the parts of me that matters and that never can be held hostage.”

TechCrunch reports the United States Postal Service is the latest to have its database targeted. The attack focused on employee data like social security numbers, addresses. Some information recorded from customer calls may also have been accessed. The intrusion was detected in mid-September.

 

 

 

 

 

News From You:

KAPT_Kipper submitted the GigaOm story that the Raspberry Pi foundation has put the Model A+ on sale for $20, making it the most affordable RaspBerry Pi on the market. The A+ comes with the new 40-pin GPIO header which can use the same HAT add-on boards that the B= can use.

habichuelacondulce submitted the Torrent Freak report that based on information it has received, Comcast recently sent out its 1 millionth Copyright Alert notice in the US. That’s about 2,000 notices a day. The alerts are part of the “six strikes” system in the US that aims to educate users about copyright infringement. No impact on actual infringement has been shown as yet.

 

Discussion Section:  POTUS and Net Neutrality

http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/10/president-obama-calls-for-a-free-and-open-internet-wants-it-reclassified-as-a-utility/?ncid=rss

https://gigaom.com/2014/11/10/obama-tells-the-fcc-to-implement-real-net-neutrality-and-hes-serious/

http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/10/7186787/tim-wu-says-obamas-net-neutrality-plan-is-bold-courageous-and-just

http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/10/the-fcc-fires-back-at-the-presidents-net-neutrality-plan/?ncid=rss

http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/10/7186243/obama-just-did-the-right-thing-for-the-internet-and-made-life-hell

http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/10/hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaah-ted-cruz-you-silly-senator/?ncid=rss

http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/10/7186111/obama-net-neutrality-plan-draws-bold-reactions

http://www.whitehouse.gov/net-neutrality

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/11/10/protesters-descend-on-fcc-chairmans-house-over-net-neutrality/

http://www.fs.fed.us/specialuses/commsites/documents/pl-104-104.pdf

http://transition.fcc.gov/Reports/1934new.pdf

Pick of the Day: Atlas Wearables via Andrei

Hi Tom, Jenny, and guest ..

Long time listener … first time caller (?).

About fitness trackers being able to track more, I thought I’d pass along Atlas Wearables (www.atlaswearables.com). Through their Motion Genome Project should be able to recognize different exercises.

2nd production units can be preordered for $249 (!) + S&H for spring 2015

Love the show, Andrei

Tuesday’s Guest: Breki Tomasson, founder of the CSICON podcasting network

Patrick Beja and Todd Whitehead to talk about Marvel going to court to get Google to hand over the identity of the person who leaked the Avengers: Age of Ultron trailer.

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 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: Patrick Beja, the Charlemagne of Podcastagne

Headlines:

Ars Technica reports the law enforcement action against Silk Road 2 yesterday was part of a larger action called Operation Onymous. Spelled with a Y. Police in 12 countries seized 414 darknet domains, confiscated $1 million in bitcoins, $250,000 in cash , a variety of drugs, gold and silver and arrested at least 17 people. Among the sites taken down were Hydra, Cloud Nine, Pandora (not the music site) and Blue Sky. Agora and and Evolution markets were not affected according to Ars.

TechCrunch reports that Facebook has launched a tool in the Newsfeed Settings to show users which of their friends and pages take up the most space in their feeds. The tool allows you to quickly unfollow the over sharers without actually unfriending them. Related question: If a baby picture is posted on Facebook, and nobody sees it, does that baby still exist?

The Next Web passes along that Microsoft will reveal detail on its first non-Nokia branded Lumia phone November 11th. The announcement was made in a short post at the Nokia Conversations Blog.

The Verge reports Google’s mysterious barge showrooms were shut down because of fire safety concerns. The Wall Street Journal filed a Freedom of Information Request which revealed the US Coast Guard warned that having 5,000 gallons of fuel on the main deck next to a “substantial amount of combustible material was worrisome. Other concerns were also reported and despite Google’s best efforts the fire risk was determined to be too high and the plan was scrapped. Literally. The barge was dismantled and sold in Portland in August.

PCMag reports that Twitter has teamed up with nonprofit advocacy group Women Action and the Media to launch a new reporting tool that allows victims of gendered harassment to submit a detailed complaint along with the twitter handles of the harassers. The non-profit group will validate the reports, escalate them to Twitter and track the response.

Reuters passes along the Wall Street Journal reports Twitter plans to open an office in Hong Kong in Q1 of 2015 to serve greater China and sell advertising to Chinese companies. While Twitter itsels is blocked in China, the mopub advertising arm has several Chinese companies as clients.

Blizzard announced its first new game franchise in 17 years. Overwatch is a Team Fortress inspired multiplayer team shooter with superhero type characters. Overwatch will launch in Beta in 2015.

News From You:

spsheridan passed along the Business Insider writeup of Marc Zuckerberg’s first public Q&A recorded yesterday. Among other things, Zuckerberg shed light on Facebook’s reason for making Messenger a standalone app. “On mobile, each app can only focus on doing one thing well, we think.” Zuckerberg explained that the primary app is for the newsfeed, and that made messenging hard to get access.

HobbitfromPa submitted an Engadget report that scientists have built micro-robotic scallops that can swim through bodily fluids, repair damaged cells and deliver medicine. The scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Scallops…er Systems believe that mimicking the way scallops swim is ideal for navigating through your body liquids.

Discussion Section: Marvel v. Google

http://io9.com/marvel-subpoenas-google-over-the-avengers-age-of-ultro-1655853984

http://www.engadget.com/2014/11/07/marvel-avengers-2-leak-google/?ncid=rss_truncated

https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/marvel-google-subpoena-request.pdf

https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/marvel-avengers-ultron-google-supoena.pdf

Pick of the Day: Clicky Keyboards via Amar

You and Ek talking about nostalgia regarding archive.org and video games made me think of a recent purchase I made:

http://www.clickykeyboards.com/index.cfm

http://www.pckeyboard.com/

I bought a clicky keyboard from the latter (because I have a mac) and it plugged and played to perfection. While I guess U like the current keyboards that are noiseless…there’s something about a clicky keyboard that gives me the immediate feedback and nostalgia that makes writing more fluid.

They are bit pricey I’ll admit…but I love mine. Customer service is awesome.

Monday’s guest: Veronica Belmont

Patrick Beja and Todd Whitehead to talk about Marvel going to court to get Google to hand over the identity of the person who leaked the Avengers: Age of Ultron trailer.

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 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: Patrick Beja, the Charlemagne of Podcastagne

Headlines:

Ars Technica reports the law enforcement action against Silk Road 2 yesterday was part of a larger action called Operation Onymous. Spelled with a Y. Police in 12 countries seized 414 darknet domains, confiscated $1 million in bitcoins, $250,000 in cash , a variety of drugs, gold and silver and arrested at least 17 people. Among the sites taken down were Hydra, Cloud Nine, Pandora (not the music site) and Blue Sky. Agora and and Evolution markets were not affected according to Ars.

TechCrunch reports that Facebook has launched a tool in the Newsfeed Settings to show users which of their friends and pages take up the most space in their feeds. The tool allows you to quickly unfollow the over sharers without actually unfriending them. Related question: If a baby picture is posted on Facebook, and nobody sees it, does that baby still exist?

The Next Web passes along that Microsoft will reveal detail on its first non-Nokia branded Lumia phone November 11th. The announcement was made in a short post at the Nokia Conversations Blog.

The Verge reports Google’s mysterious barge showrooms were shut down because of fire safety concerns. The Wall Street Journal filed a Freedom of Information Request which revealed the US Coast Guard warned that having 5,000 gallons of fuel on the main deck next to a “substantial amount of combustible material was worrisome. Other concerns were also reported and despite Google’s best efforts the fire risk was determined to be too high and the plan was scrapped. Literally. The barge was dismantled and sold in Portland in August.

PCMag reports that Twitter has teamed up with nonprofit advocacy group Women Action and the Media to launch a new reporting tool that allows victims of gendered harassment to submit a detailed complaint along with the twitter handles of the harassers. The non-profit group will validate the reports, escalate them to Twitter and track the response.

Reuters passes along the Wall Street Journal reports Twitter plans to open an office in Hong Kong in Q1 of 2015 to serve greater China and sell advertising to Chinese companies. While Twitter itsels is blocked in China, the mopub advertising arm has several Chinese companies as clients.

Blizzard announced its first new game franchise in 17 years. Overwatch is a Team Fortress inspired multiplayer team shooter with superhero type characters. Overwatch will launch in Beta in 2015.

News From You:

spsheridan passed along the Business Insider writeup of Marc Zuckerberg’s first public Q&A recorded yesterday. Among other things, Zuckerberg shed light on Facebook’s reason for making Messenger a standalone app. “On mobile, each app can only focus on doing one thing well, we think.” Zuckerberg explained that the primary app is for the newsfeed, and that made messenging hard to get access.

HobbitfromPa submitted an Engadget report that scientists have built micro-robotic scallops that can swim through bodily fluids, repair damaged cells and deliver medicine. The scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Scallops…er Systems believe that mimicking the way scallops swim is ideal for navigating through your body liquids.

Discussion Section: Marvel v. Google

http://io9.com/marvel-subpoenas-google-over-the-avengers-age-of-ultro-1655853984

http://www.engadget.com/2014/11/07/marvel-avengers-2-leak-google/?ncid=rss_truncated

https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/marvel-google-subpoena-request.pdf

https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/marvel-avengers-ultron-google-supoena.pdf

Pick of the Day: Clicky Keyboards via Amar

You and Ek talking about nostalgia regarding archive.org and video games made me think of a recent purchase I made:

http://www.clickykeyboards.com/index.cfm

http://www.pckeyboard.com/

I bought a clicky keyboard from the latter (because I have a mac) and it plugged and played to perfection. While I guess U like the current keyboards that are noiseless…there’s something about a clicky keyboard that gives me the immediate feedback and nostalgia that makes writing more fluid.

They are bit pricey I’ll admit…but I love mine. Customer service is awesome.

Monday’s guest: Veronica Belmont

Lamarr Wilson joins us to talk about Amazon’s new invite-only cylindrical virtual assistant/bluetooth speakers called Echo but named Alexa. Seems simple enough.

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 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: Lamarr Wilson, YouTube sensation

Headlines:

Microsoft has truly become Satya Nadella’s. The Verge reports on the big news that Microsoft released a preview version of Office for Android and editing in that version as well as the iOS versions, is now free, no Office 365 subscription required. You will need a Microsoft account to login though. The free versions are only for individuals too, businesses will need to pay a subscription fee. Microsoft will also add premium features for consumer subscribers.

Ars Technica reports Amazon announced a new product called Echo that s a bluetooth speaker and virtual assistant in a 9-inch tall cylinder. It can stream directly from Amazon Music, TuneIn radio and iHeart Radio or take music from mobile devices and stream over bluetooth. It also responds to a wake word, which is by default Alexa, and answers questions with facts from Wikipedia, adds items to lists on the Echo app and can play news and sports from NPR and ESPN. The device can only be purchased by invite only. It’s $99 for Prime users and $199 for everyone else.

CNET reports Palo Alto Networks identified malware they call “WireLurker” that infects OS X devices through apps downloaded from a third-party Chinese app store then can infect any iOS device connected by USB my adding malicious code to otherwise legitimate iOS apps. The malware is aimed at Chinese users. Apple says it has blocked the identified apps to prevent them from launching.

Commuters rejoice! Venturebeat reports that the ebook subscription app Scribd is adding more than 30,000 audio books to its unlimited ebook subscription service. Audio books include titles like Divergent, The Hunger Games, No Country for Old Men and plenty of books that DIDN’T get made into movies. The total ebook + audio book subscription is $9 a month. Compare that to Audible’s $15 a month subscription that gets you one audio book a month or Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited which has 700,000 titles but only lists ‘thousands’ of audiobooks.

Wired reports that the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and Europol joined forces to take down Silk Road 2 and arrest the alleged operator of the site, 26-year-old Blake Benthall. Benthall was charged with narcotics trafficking and a other conspiracy charges. According to the criminal complaint, Silk Road 2 had been infiltrated by at least one undercover law enforcement agent before it went online. The FBI discovered the foreign server running Silk Road 2, despite being behind TOR, along with server records identifying Benthall.

PCMAg reports Google said in a forum thread Wednesday that the company was aware of problem with battery usage for Nexus 5 users running Android 5.0 Lollipop. A fix has been issued. Google says OTA updates should still come to to other devices in the coming weeks.

For those who keep track of these kinds of things, the Verge notes that Microsoft’s acquisition of Mojang officially closed today. Xbox head Phil Spencer tweeted a welcome to the makers of Minecraft.

Reuters reports Iraq’s major mobile phone network operators have agreed to pay $307 million each for radio spectrum to launch 3G service. Iraq is one of the few middle eastern countries still relying on 2G. The three companies are Orange affiliate Korek, Zain Iraq, a subsidiary of Kuwait’s Zain, which operates in Baghdad and southern Iraq, and Ooredoo subsidiary Asiacell which has a base in the Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah.

It may be getting near the end for Aero. The streaming service that fought all the way to the Supreme Court for its right to exist officially notified the State of Massachusetts today today that it is shutting down its Boston operation. Aereo will lay off all 43 local employees as of November 12th. Aereo’s Virginia Lam told BetaBoston the company is laying off some employees in Boston and New York to “conserve resources while we chart our path forward.”

 

 

 

News From You:

habichuelacondulce posted the Washington Times article that Orbital science, the aerospace company who’s rocket exploded shortly after takeoff last week will likely discontinue use of refurbished Soviet-era NK-33 engines in future missions. The cause of the explosion is suspected to be a failure in the AJ26 turbopump in the rocket’s main engine. CBS News also reported the same information.

the_corley submitted an Engadget reports that OnePlus says it has sold 500,000 One phones, and wants to sell a million phones by 2015. If you couldn’t get a One phone in the first pre-order round, there will be a second chance on November 17th.

And goofball_jones sent the Reuters report that Lenovo missed analyst expectations in its quarterly revenue due to a decline in smartphone sales. Mobile device sales fell 6%. The decline was offset in part by desktop sales which rose 6.4%. An accounting shift and the reduction of handset subsidies by Chinese carriers contributed to the decline. Lenovo just acquired handset maker Motorola Mobility last week. Lenovo also named Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang to its board of directors.

 

Discussion Section: Echo, Alexa? Alexa, Echo?

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/11/amazon-announces-echo-a-199-voice-driven-home-assistant/

http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/06/amazon-echo/
http://www.amazon.com/oc/echo/

http://www.cnet.com/news/amazon-debuts-siri-like-digital-assistant-echo-for-your-home/

http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/06/lets-call-the-amazon-echo-what-it-is/?ncid=rss

Pick of the Day: The Serial podcast via Mordechei Lightston

I wanted to suggest a pick of day for the show. I listen to a lot of podcasts, and have been following the Serial podcast since it came out. For those of you not familiar with what has become a phenomenon, Serial is a podcast from the creators of This American Life,which follows one true story over the course of a whole season.  For any of you listeners who haven’t heard it yet, I urge you all to check it out. It’s utterly addictive and perfect for binge listening.

Tomorrow’s guest: The Blizzcon gang! The Blizzcon gang! That’s the waaay we became the Blizzcon gang!