Orange is the New Black sucks— Brian in! Silicon Valley gets more fun-ding, and The Shield turns against one of its own.
00:45 – OITNB
09:15 – Silicon Valley
16:00 – The Shield
Today in Tech History – July 2, 2014
In 1897 – 23-year-old Guglielmo Marconi received a patent in England for his wireless telegraphy which we now call radio. The Wireless Telegraph and Signal Co. Ltd. was formed a few weeks later.
In 1928 – W3XK, owned by the Jenkins Television Corporation, went on the air becoming the first television broadcasting station in the US.
In 2001 – Bram Cohen first revealed BitTorrent on a Yahoo group called decentralization.
Subscribe to the podcast. Like Tech History? Get Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.
S&L Podcast – #182 – Ken Liu Translates Success
Ken Liu’s short story “The Paper Menagerie” swept the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Awards. His short story, “Mono no aware” won the 2013 Hugo, and his novella “The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary” was also nominated for a Hugo. We caught up with him at this year’s Nebula awards and asked him if he takes writing-enhancement supplements.
DTNS 2268 – Community Demands: Yahoo Answers
Justin Robert Young is racing from the airport, so his part will be played by Veronica Belmont and eventually we’ll all talk about Yahoo picking up Community and what this means for the future of television.
Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.
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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 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit
Show Notes
Today’s guest: Veronica Belmont & maybe, just maybe JuRY
Headlines
GigaOM reports Samsung announced the Galaxy S5 Mini Tuesday. The smaller version of the S5 has a 4.5-inch AMOLED screen that’s 720p capable, 1.4GHz quad-core processor, 1.5GB of RAM and a microSD card slot. Those specs are a touch below the bigger S5 but the mini also comes with the waterproofing, heart rate monitor, fingerprint scanner and Galaxy Gear compatibility just like the big version. It goes on sale in 4 colors starting in Russia in July and will expand to global markets afterwards.
TechCrunch reports Microsoft has increased security for OneDrive and Outlook.com. Outlook.com now supports TLS which keeps email encrypted as long as the receiving email service also supports TLS. Both Outlook.com and OneDrive now support Perfect Forward Secrecy encryption as well which helps mitigate damage if a secret key is compromised.
Engadget reports GE is taking on the smartphone-controlled light bulb dominance of Philips with some new bulbs called Link. The bulbs require a $30 hub to operate, but then the bulbs themselves are only $15-$25 each. Lifx bulbs run $100, Philips new Lux bulbs are $40 and even Insteon costs $30. Link bulbs are controlled through the Wink app made by Quirky and should last 23 years or so. Home Depot is taking pre-orders for the bulbs today and they’ll ship this autumn.
Computerworld passes along that DARPA has set the date for the final stage of its three-phase Robotics Challenge to be held June 5 and 6, 2015, in Pomona, Calif. 11 teams will compete for a $2 million prize, though DARPA expects the number of entrants to increase. The first two phases involved demonstrating software for autonomous etasks like walking, using tools, climbing and driving. In the finals, the robots will face a full-scale disaster situation, and have to use a series of ladders, doors, cars and valves to handle the situation.
TechCrunch The US National Archives and Record Administration has made its ongoing efforts to upload content to Wikimedia Commons a core part of its purpose. NARA uploaded 100,000 images in 2012 as a test. 4,000 Wikipedia articles featuring NARA records received more than one billion page views in 2013. The uploads range from mundane federal agency records to World War II photos and presidential portraits.
News From You
MacBytes posted the Verge article giving a few more details on Keurig’s Coffee pod DRM scheme. Key patents on Keurig’s pods expired in 2012 leading to third-party pods. Keurig makes most of its money selling pods not machines. The new brewer going on sale this autumn, scans pods for special markings, based on anti-conterfeiting technology used by the US Mint. Its essentially DRM for coffee. It’s also going to make your old Keurig machine much more valuable.
robodashy has the Mashable story that the United States Food and Drug Administration has approved ReWalk Robotics’ personal exoskeleton for marketing in the U.S. The 46-pound robotic legs support their own weight plus a 220-pound user who wears a 5-pound backpack. A wrist-device with physical buttons controls the device. The battery is designed to support a full day of intermittent walking, but if the wearer walks non-stop, the battery will last three to four hours. Users have to be between 5-foot-3 and 6-foot-3. The device costs $69,500 and is not covered by insurance in the US.
spsheridan submitted the Ars Technica story about No-IP.com going down after Microsoft seized 22 domain names it claimed were being abused in malware-related crimes. Millions of legitimate servers relied on No-IP for dynamic domain name services, including AlphaGeekRadio.Microsoft claimed No-IP domains were used 93 percent of the time by Bladabindi and Jenxcus malware and its operator, Defendant Vitalwerks did not take sufficient steps to address the abuse.
And tjburbank sent in the story from Daily Dot about Paypal freezing the account of crowdfunded ProtonMail. The ProtonMail project wants to make an easy email encryption tool. A Paypal representative said it was not sure if ProtonMail was legal. Apparently Paypal figured it out as the account was restored late this morning. Paypal in a following statement claimed “a technical problem this week resulted in PayPal applying restrictions to the account.” Right. ProtonMail says it will not rely on Paypal for donations until its assured there will not be a repeat of this.
Discussion Section:
http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/30/community-will-get-its-sixth-season-on-yahoo/?ncid=rss
http://www.wired.com/2014/06/community-sixth-season-yahoo/
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/community-returning-sixth-season-yahoo-715857
Pick of the Day: SNL Archives on Yahoo Screen
Jennie’s pick of the day is the SNL archive on Yahoo Screen. Disclaimer: Jennie worked for Yahoo’s video department not too long ago. And then that ended. Yet she STILL wants to recommend the incredibly deep bench of archival Saturday Night Live clips that you can find on Yahoo Screen, including ones you don’t often see online due to music rights, like Will Ferrell’s gut-busting ‘Cowbell’ sketch as well as Chris Farley & Patrick Swazye’s legendary dance-off in the “Chippendales” sketch. The archive also includes older, deeply subversive clips like Buck Henry’s “Uncle Roy” and the legendary face-off between Chevy Chase & Richard Pryor known as “Word Association.” Enjoy the rest of your day, people.
Wednesday’s Guest: Scott Johnson with a Nerdtacular’14 preview.
Today in Tech History – July 1, 2014
In 1979 – Sony introduced the Sony Walkman TPS-L2. It weighed 14 ounces, was blue and silver, and had a second earphone jack. It was originally marketed in the US as the Sound-About and in the UK as the Stowaway.
In 1991 – Finnish Prime Minister Harri Holkeri made the world’s first GSM call over a privately operated network to Vice Mayor Kaarina Suonio in Tampere. The Prime Minister used Nokia gear on GSM’s original 900MHz band.
In 1984 – The book Neuromancer by William Gibson was published. The cyberpunk novel would go on to win the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick awards. The book is credited with popularizing the term cyberspace and laying out a blueprint for what the World Wide Web would become.
Subscribe to the podcast. Like Tech History? Get Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.
Cordkillers Ep. 26 – Drone drunk
We walk through the Aereo decision and how it will slow down mainstream TV. Meanwhile Yahoo steals Community from NBC.
CordKillers: Ep. 26 – Drone drunk
Recorded: June 30, 2014
Guest: Darren Kitchen
Intro Video
Primary Target
- Supreme Court puts Aereo out of business
- Aereo Says That SCOTUS Ruling “Sends A Chilling Message To The Tech Industry”
- Why the Supreme Court just set TV innovation back a decade
- Why the Aereo Shutdown Will Be a Disaster for Broadcast TV
- The US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Aereo is a public performance. The service which rented microantennas to users to watch over the air broadcasts on the Internet will have to wind up its operations in all regions. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the opinion for the majority, arguing Aereo operated like a cable company and “Insofar as there are differences, those differences concern not the nature of the service that Aereo provides so much as the technological manner in which it provides the service.“ Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a dissent arguing that ignoring the technical aspect could hmean other services could suffer “guilt-by-resemblance.” Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia said the decision would cause a chilling effect but the company would continue to fight. However, part-owner Barry Diller told cnbc “it’s over now.” and a “a big loss for consumers.” Thanks to Hurmoth for submitting this on the subreddit.
Secondary Target
- Fox moves to use Aereo ruling against Dish streaming service
- – Fox vs. Dish in 9th circuit court of appeals (Pasadena) oral arguments July 7
– Fox has submitted Aereo vs. ABC in support of their case.
– Dish Anywhere service and Hopper DVR “sideloading” feature
– Dish Anywhere is slingbox. Watch your Live or recorded TV on mobile devices, laptops, desktops.
– Hopper’s “sideloading” lets you move recorded shows to an iPad
– Aereo was deemed to be a ‘public performance’ equipment irrelevant.
– Letter to court by lawyer Richard Stone: “Dish, which engages in virtually identical conduct when it streams Fox’s programming to Dish subscribers over the internet – albeit also in violation of an express contractual prohibition
– Has repeatedly raised the same defenses as Aereo which have now been rejected by the supreme court.”
-What’s at issue is not really whether the Supreme Court would have also found this illegal. It’s the break on innovation and the chilling effect this NOW HAS on innovation.”
Signal Intelligence
- Stevie, the MTV of social video curation, adds Chromecast support to its mobile apps
- Stevie – Video curation based on Facebook and Twitter (similar to Qplay)
– Integrated now with Chromecast
– Streams your social feed on screen while you watch.
Gear Up
- Google Introduces Android TV, Its New Platform For Smart TV Apps And Navigation
- Chromecast’s ultrasonic device pairing is much simpler than it sounds
- – Android TV announced: a software system that will be embedded into the smart TVs and other devices from third-party OEMs.
– create apps using the same Android toolset that they use for mobile phones and tablets.
– Chromecast support too.
– TVs from Sony, Sharp and TPVision, and will soon run on other set-top boxes that will become available later in the year from the likes of Asus
– Chromecast can now play ultrasonic signal through TV speakers to pair with devices not on same network
– USer has to enable setting to allow nearby devices
Under surveillance
- Community’ getting sixth season on Yahoo
- Yahoo will release a 6th season of Community with 13 episodes
– Dan Harmon: “I look forward to bringing our beloved NBC sitcom to a larger audience by moving it online.”
– Joel McHale, Gillian Jacobs, Danny Pudi, Alison Brie, Ken Jeong, Yvette Nicole Brown, and Jim Rash will all return. (NO mention of Donald Glover)
Front Lines
- FilmOn announced a new service to pay to watch broadcast channels on computers and mobile devices.
- He claims FilmON is a cable company and he is willing to pay fair royalties for rebroadcasting channels. It ALSO uses “teleporter” technology to watch TV through a mini-computer screen in New York, no matter where they are in the world.
- LG has opened its smart TV platform to developers.
- LG has built their platform on WebOS which is open sourced and other TV manufacturers can use it. Will they? Do we even want that?
- More people watched the World Cup match between Germany and USA Thursday on WatchESPN than watched the SuperBowl.
- 1.7 million concurrent viewers in the second half. There were some authentication issues in the first half too.
- Knights of Sidonia come to Netflix July 4
- The series is based on Manga about genetically-altered mech pilots fighting shapeshifting aliens.
It originally aired in Japan earlier this year, but all 12 episodes of season one are set to hit Netflix everywhere. - AppleTV got a few new apps, PBS Kids, Willow TV, AOL On and ABC News.
- This gives AppleTV two sources of live news content between SkyNews and ABCNews.
- HBO is letting non-subscribers stream the first episode of “The Leftovers” through Yahoo Screen.
2014 Summer Movie Draft
draft.diamondclub.tv
- TMS: $513,382,797
- DTNS: $480,640,796
- Amtrekker: $472,024,132
- GodsMoneybags: $292,534,313
- Night Attack: $276,017,928
- /Film: $200,185,511
On Screen
- Brian: Orange is the New Black, Silicon Valley, The Brak Show, Legend of Korra, The Walking dead season 2 game
- Tom: The Shield 206 (Amazon), Orange is the New Black Ep. 4, 5, 6, 7 (Netflix) Silicon Valley Ep. 2, 3, 4 (HBOGo), Bob’s Burgers (Netflix) Rome (Amazon Prime)
- Darren: Team Blacksheep
Dispatches from the Front
Hi Brian and Tom,
I just finished reading the Aereo Supreme Court decision and wanted to give an opinion from a lawyer’s perspective.
I think Justice Scalia in his dissent correctly noted that we have some broad, unclear language in the Copyright Act. The majority bases it’s opinion in large part on the legislative history of the act (which is a matter of debate among lawyers. Some like Scalia look only at the language of the statute while others look to the intent of the legislature to guide interpretation). At the end, Scalia argues that the majority is interpreting the Act to reach the “right” result. Scalia acknowledges that he doesn’t think Aereo is necessarily above board, but essentially tips his hat to Aereo for coming up with a clever workaround. Scalia argues that the decision should have been based on the language of the statute, and if that result is unpopular the Congress should be the one to resolve it, not the Court.
I don’t know if the decision will have broad consequences because the majority focused closely on the impacts regarding TV licensing, so the cloud may be safe. Things like Dish and Slingbox… Not so much. We’ll have to wait and see, but this is definitely a step away from being able to watch what you want, where you want.
Love the show!
Geoff from Maryland
Hi Tom and Brian,
I was listening to episode 25 (it seems like such a low number for how long I’ve been listening to you guys) and your conversation about Netflix(?) picking up a Live-ish show, and the suggestion that they could recommend clips from a show based on what your tastes are.
What I got from that conversation was this crazy idea: What if Netflix is using their recommendation engine to figure out what original programming to produce. It would likely require some additional research, but I am suddenly in love with the idea of Netflix taking recommendations up a level by not only suggesting you should watch in their catalog, or what they should buy, but also generating original content based on what a size-able portion of their customers would be interested in watching.
For instance: “Hey, it looks like lots of people really like Sci-Fi horror, and that same segment ties into romantic comedy: We can make a romantic comedy sci-fi horror show!” (This is undoubtedly how Orphan Black was conceived – pun intended) So that’s not a great example, but hopefully you’ll get the idea. A large enough sample, with enough defining data could provide the keys to make a show for your audience, instead of hoping an audience will find your show.
Anyway
Thanks for the great show!
Aaron
As a cordkiller of the last year, thanks to you guys. I want to watch your shows (watch what I want) on my Roku3 (and any device I want). Any plans for a Diamondclub.TV app on the Roku? That might make me a patron supporter if you did.
Eric
Links
DTNS 2267 – Facebook Feeds You Sadness
Don Reisinger is on the show. We’ll chat about why Facebook thought it was OK to play with our emotions for science.
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 cost of a nickel a day on Patreon. Thank you!
Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit
Show Notes
Today’s guest: Don Reisinger, cnet.com
Headlines
ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley reports new details about the next Version of Windows, codenamed Threshold, expected to arrive in Spring 2015. Microsoft reportedly will aim Threshold squarely at disgruntled desktop users still using Windows 7. Some versions of Threshold will be all desktop, while some will focus on the tiled screen or desktop screen depending on whether a keyboard is attached and some version meant for tablets and phone swill have no desktop view at all. And yes word is STILl that the mini Start menu showed off at BUILD will be part of Threshold. A preview version of Threshold should arrive in the autumn and one more update to Windows 8.1 will arrive before Threshold does.
Reuters reports Google is finally pulling the plug on its social network from 2004 called Orkut on Sept. 30. Orkut was popular in Brazil and India, but Google says they’ve had more success with YouTube, Blogger and Google+. Orkut users can continue to post until Sept. 30 and can retrieve posts after that dat from an archive of all Orkut communities. I will miss you ‘fans of turn signals’ community!
Facebook got in some hot water as attention as called to a March publication of a study in PNAS that manipulated 689,000 users News Feeds from Jan. 11-18, 2012 in order to study emotional contagion. For the affected users either positive or negative emotional posts had a 10-90% chance of being removed. The study found those with fewer positive posts in their feed used 0.1% fewer positive words in subsequent posts and those with fewer negative posts in their feed used 0.07% fewer negative words. Controversy broke out over whether the Facebook Terms of Service sufficed as informed consent for the study.
VentureBeat reports Google Glass is now banned in some UK movie theaters over piracy concerns. Vue and the Cinema Exhibitors’ association trade group both feel the shaky 30-45 minutes of video Google Glass is capable of recording poses enough of a threat to their bottom line that they must fight back. Google said in a statement that Glass should be treated no differently than cell phones in a theater and that “The fact that Glass is worn above the eyes and the screen lights up whenever it’s activated makes it a fairly lousy device for recording things secretly.”
Engadget reports Samsung has four new budget Android KitKat phones. The 4.5-inch Galaxy Core II leads the way with a 1.2GHZ processor 768 MB RAM and 4GB of storage. There’s also the 4-inch Galaxy Ace 4 and the 3.5-inch Galaxy Young 2 and Star 2. All run TouchWiz with pricing and availability to be announced.
TechCrunch reports Twitter is rolling out mobile app promotion ads that take users to app downloads or the apps themselves if already installed. Along with that, Twitter’s unveiling new cost-per-app-click pricing for the unit and a dashboard to track usage. The ads appear only for iOS and Android mobile users.
The Verge notes the US Supreme Court decline to hear Google’s challenge to dismiss a complaint that its streetview cars illegally collected data from private WiFi networks. Google has admitted its cars were accidentally collecting unencrypted traffic and stopped the practice when it was discovered. Google is fighting a lawsuit that it violated the Wiretap Act. Google’s defense has been that tyhe act allows the interception of unencrypted radio communication, but a federal appeals court rejected that logic saying the act referred to predominantly auditory broadcasts.
News From You
spsheridan submitted the GigaOm story that US President Obama is expected to name Phil Johnson, a pharmaceutical industry executive, as the next Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Johnson has previously tried to block legislation aimed at reigning in patent trolls. The Director’s job has been vacant for 18 months, and former Google employee Michelle Lee, the deputy director, has been managing the department.
Could Netflix be called a cybersecurity threat? metalfreak pointed us to the Slashdot posting that quotes Greg Nojeim of the Center for Democracy and Technology making the argument that wording in the proposed US bill “Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act” could do just that. A ‘threat,’ according to the bill, is among other things anything that may result in an unauthorized effort to ad-
adversely impact the availability of information. Nojeim argues that the vague wording could be used to justify slowing down Netflix at congested connections.
KAPT_Kipper submitted the GigaOM story that Blackphone has started shipping. Blackphone is aconsumer grade handset running a forked version of Android called PrivatOS bundled with privacy-related apps including Silent Phone and Silent Text (for normal voice, video and text communications), Disconnect (VPN and search), SpiderOak (cloud storage) and the Smarter Wi-Fi Manager (for protection from dodgy hotspots). The first units of the $629 handset to ship are for European LTE users, and U.S. units will follow.
Discussion Section:
http://www.engadget.com/2014/06/28/facebook-experiment-emotions/
http://www.engadget.com/2014/06/29/facebook-explains-emotion-experiment/?ncid=rss_truncated
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/24/8788.full
https://www.facebook.com/akramer/posts/10152987150867796
http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/29/ethics-in-a-data-driven-world/
I religiously watch The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and some other such shows. But why not watch them faster? Swift is one of many apps I’ve tried which speed up video playback without distorting the audio at all – I can watch some shows at 2x playback speed without issue.
Many apps do this, but Swift integrates really well with YouTube too. Want to listen to a lecture from YouTube at 2x speed? Plop the URL into this app and you can do so, and even download the entire video for offline playback 
Or just play videos already in your library. Or stream over your local home network. Lots of other cool features too. More than worth the $3 I paid for it.
Tuesday’s Guest: Justin Robert Young
Today in Tech History – June 30, 2014
In 1945 – The first draft of a Report on the EDVAC was published. It discussed the advantages of using just one large internal memory, in which instructions as well as data could be held.
In 1948 – Bell Labs introduced the point-contact transistor, demonstrated by its inventors, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain at a press conference in Murray Hill, NJ.
In 1948 – The FCC authorization of recording devices in connection with interstate or foreign telephone service went into effect. Users of the service had to be given adequate notice including a tone warning signal at regular intervals.
Subscribe to the podcast. Like Tech History? Get Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.
Today in Tech History – June 29, 2014
In 1975 – Steve Wozniak built the first prototype of the Apple I, the first computer to show letters on the screen as you typed them.
In 1995 – The Space Shuttle Atlantis docked with the space station Mir, the first-ever docking of a Shuttle to a Space Station.
In 2007 – The Apple iPhone went on sale for the first time.
Subscribe to the podcast. Like Tech History? Get Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.
FSL Tonight Week 4 – Palpatine Banned for Life
Commissioner Selden bans Palpatine from the FSL and Gallifrey’s “The Doctor” deals with taunts from Vader.
Get the episode here.