Patrick Beja is on today and we’ll talk about the FTC suing AT&T over the word “unlimited,” YouTube considering ad-free subscriptions, and a company that wants to pay you $50 to film your neighborhood 24/7.

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, DTNS Grand High Inquisitor and host of Le Rendez-vous Tech

Headlines

The Verge reports that the US Federal Trade Commission is suing AT&T for throttling speeds of its unlimited mobile data customers. In a press release the FTC said AT&T has “misled million of its smartphone customers” by slowing down their data speeds after they’ve used up a certain amount of data in a month. According to the FTC, 3.5 million unique customers have had speeds slowed more than 25 million times. “The issue here is simple: ‘unlimited’ means unlimited,” said FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez. AT&T issued a strongly worded statement saying, “We have been completely transparent with customers since the very beginning.” and “The FTC’s allegations are baseless and have nothing to do with the substance of our network management program.”

The Verge reports Verizon’s latest Droid from Motorola was announced today. The Droid Turbo has 5.2-inch screen with quad HD, Snapdragon 805, 3 GB of RAM, 21-megapixel camera and a 3900 mAh battery. It’s similar to the Moto X but with better specs. It comes with a Turbo Charger than can add 8 hours of battery life on a 15 minute charge. Droid Turbo will launch with KitKat but get Lollipop after release. It arrives Oct. 30th for $200 on contract for 32GB and $250 for 64 GB.

BBC News reports that Google is working on technology to diagnose cancer and heart disease much earlier, using nano particles that can identify slight changes in a person’s biochemistry. The nano particles would enter a patient’s bloodstream in a pill, and communicate with a wrist-worn sensor. The Google X project is not meant to be a consumer device. The project lead, molecular biologist Dr Andrew Conrad, made clear that Google would invent the technology and license it to medical partners. It would not be comemrcialised or monetized directly by Google. So no adsense in your bloodstream.

ZDNet reports on a report from security firm FireEye called “APT28: A window into Russia’s cyberespionage operations?” The report describes an Advanced Persistent Threat focused on collecting intelligence from military, security and governmental organizations in eastern Europe. The report notes the malware involved were developed in a Russian-language environment and 96% was compiled during working hours 8AM- 6Pm Monday – Friday in Moscow’s timezone. FireEye believes APT28 is likely sponsored by Russia’s government but showed no direct links.

TechCrunch reports Tim Cook, speaking at the Wall Street Journal D technology conference, said Apple Pay activated one million credit cards in its first 72 hours. According to The Verge, when Cook was asked about retailers choosing not to support Apple Pay, he said, “In the long arc of time you’re only relevant as a merchant if your customers love you,” and called the CVS and Rite Aid incident “a skirmish.”

Be prepared to pour a little out for plasma TVs. LG says it will wind down its plasma TV business by the end of November and switch to LCD-based technology for its TVs. Samsung is the last major player manufacturing plasma TVs. This also confirms the “Tom Merritt buys TV tech that soon dies” principle as his lat two TVs were plasma and DLP.

TechCrunch reports the W3C published its recommendation of HTML5, the final version of the standard. Browsers already support most of HTML5’s features but the standard was still open for revision until now. Non-interoperable features, like support for DRM, have been moved to HTML 5.1.

The Wall Street Journal reports Facebook announced it’s Q3 earnigns of $3.2 billion in revenue with adjusted EPS of 43 cents. Analysts expected revenue of $3.1 billion and 40 cents a share. Daily active users was 864 million with mobile making up 703 million. Monthly active Users was 1.35 billion up 2.27% with mobile making up 1.12 billion up 4.67%. But what about the teeeens?

News From You

metalfreak posted the liliputing article about researchers at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology that have developed an LCD screen that can hold a static image for years without power. It uses an optically rewritable liquid crystal display (ORWLCD) that does not require an electric current to display an image.

habichuelcondulce sent in the Washington Post article about T-Mobile upgrading its network to make surveillance more difficult. The upgrade involves using A5/3 encryption on 2G GSM networks. Stronger encryption is already used on 3G and 4G service. An estimated 13 percent of cellular connections used 2G technology in 2013 in the US compared to 68.4% worldwide.

StarfleetMedical sent in the howtogeek.com post describing a package manager in Windows 10 called OneGet. The Linux-style package maagement system ships as part of PowerShell. It’s also available as part of the Windows Management Framework 5.0 Preview for Windows 8.1. Microsoft’s Garret Serack wrote about the new feature at Technet. Install-Package -Name VLC for instant would download and install VLC.

Discussion Links:  Placemeter

http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/oct/27/-sp-placemeter-app-street-view-window-new-york-smartphone

http://vimeo.com/user15240420

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140918006156/en/Placemeter-Raises-6-Million-Series-Funding-Led#.VE_a4JPF_ZJ

http://blog.placemeter.com/

http://placemeter.com/faq

Pick of the Day: MoveMouse via Allison Sheridan

This one might be too obscure but I bet you’ll still like it.

One of my blind listeners asked if there was a way to move the cursor on a Mac by a specific distance on screen. Slau said that sometimes there’s an unlabeled element on screen that he needs to click, and if someone else could tell him where it was relative to a labeled element AND he could move the cursor by precise increments, he could get to the unlabeled element.

So…Dorothy wrote him an application to do it!  She’s packaged it up pretty nice, and I did a blog post on it so there’s a link for download.

Wednesday’s guest: Andrew Mayne

Amber Mac joins us to talk about Facebook’s offer that journalism fears it can’t refuse. Is it AOL all over again or the death of journalism? probably neither. we’ll explain why.

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: Amber MacArthur, Host of TechDownload on AOL/Delta & TV Host, Bestselling Author, Speaker, Blogger, Exec. Producer, Entrepreneur

Headlines

The Next Web reports that Fitbit has revealed three new activity trackers to wear on your wrist. The Fitbit Charge tracks steps, distance travelled, calories burned and allows you to see incoming calls. It costs $130 and is only available in the US today. The Charge HR adds a heart monitor for more accurate tracking, costs about $150, and will be available in the US in early 2015. Finally the Fitbit Surge has all of the above plus a GPS chip for collecting pace, distance, elevation and route history. It will also allow you to see incoming called, message and control music playback. The Surge will cost $250 in early 2015.

The Next Web reports Microsoft announced that Office 365 subscriber will get unlimited cloud storage in Microsoft OneDrive as a part of their subscription. The offer is rolling out to home, personal and university accounts over the next couple of months.

CNET reports on Amazon’s announcement of the Fire TV Stick in the US for $39. It comes with a dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage as well as apps like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Instant Video and a remote. You can also get the voice-recognition remote from Amazon for an extra $30. Fore the first two days of sales, existing Amazon Prime members can get the stick for $19. Other purchasers will get a free month of Prime.

The New York Times reports Facebook has been on a “listening tour” with media outlets suggesting the begin serving pages of content within Facebook Mobile in exchange for a revenue share. That deal would drive a lot of traffic of course but also put Facebook in control of customer data and the reading experience. News outlets have been struggling with the fact that large amounts of their traffic are driven from Facebook these days.

The Next Web reports the Xbox One will get a $50 price cut in the US during the upcoming holiday season, down to $350. Special edition bundles get a cut as well. The price cuts go into effect November 2nd, 2014 and lasts through January 3rd, 2015.

The latest in the saga of your TwitPic pictures is reported by the Next Web. TwitPics archive and domain name will be acquired by Twitter. No new pictures will be allowed but existing pictures will not disappear.

ReCode reports Twitter announced its Q3 earnings of a penny per share on revenue of 361 million dollars. That’s pretty much what the analysts expected. Twitter also had 284 million active users up from 271 million in Q2.

News From You

the_corley sent in an Engadget report that the US FCC fined phone carriers TerraCom and YourTel a combined $10 million in penalties for storing their customer information in the clear, including addresses and social security numbers. The carriers also failed to notify their customers after the mistake was discovered. TerraCom and YourTel provide lifeline cell phone service to low income customers.

habichuelcondulce submitted the CNET report that Elon Musk continues to warn us to be careful with Artificial Intelligence. Speaking at the MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics Department’s 2014 Centennial Symposium, Musk said, “With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon. You know all those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram and the holy water and he’s like… yeah, he’s sure he can control the demon, [but] it doesn’t work out.” Musk has warned on this matter before and believe some kind of national or international oversight should exist.

And KAPT_Kipper submitted a Torrent Freak article informing us that the European Union has ruled that embedding content on a website is NOT copyright infringement, even if the work in question was uploaded illegally. The full decision has not been published on the court’s website, but it states that embedding a file or video is NOT a breach of creator’s copyrights under European law, as long as its not altered. So give it up for iframes, people!

And many of you wanted us to talk about this. Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports pharmacy chains, CVS and Rite Aid have both decided not to support Apple Pay options in their stores even though some terminals reportedly would accept the payments. The two companies are part of the Merchant Consumer Exchange’s system called CurrentC which uses QR codes to conduct transactions, and more importantly lets merchants keep all the money rather than giving credit card companies a cut. (Justin Robert Young has more on the Merchant Consumer Exchange with a look at the numbers)

Discussion Links:  Facebook’s Mobile Content Play

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/business/media/facebook-offers-life-raft-but-publishers-are-wary.html?_r=0

http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-looks-to-woo-publishers-with-mobile-content-offer-2014-10

https://gigaom.com/2014/10/27/so-facebook-controls-the-way-millions-of-people-get-their-news-what-should-we-do-about-it/

https://gigaom.com/2014/10/09/a-tip-for-media-companies-facebook-isnt-your-enemy-but-its-not-your-friend-either/

Pick of the Day: Writeometer via Danny

Howdy Tom and Jenny,

For the last couple weeks, as I’ve been gearing up for NaNoWriMo, I’ve been using a free Android app called Writeometer. It’s primary function is to allow writers to track their word count progress. It can track several projects at once. In addition to that, it adds a bunch of other features such as a timer, a reward system, motivational quotes, a dictionary, thesaurus, and word-of-the-day function with WordNik as the backend.

I’ve been very pleased with it, and it’s become the Swiss Army knife of my writing tools.

Tuesday’s guest: Patrick Beja, DTNS King in the North