DTNS 2510 – WWDC: What Would Drake Curate?

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comVeronica Belmont and Justin Young join to break down the four big announcements from Apple’s WWDC about OS X, iOS, WatchOS and Apple Music.

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Show Notes

Today’s Guests: Veronica Belmont and Justin Robert Young, DTNS contributors

Headlines

Because there’s nothing developers like more than sitting apparently, Apple took 2.5 hours to announce four things. here’s the shorter version if you missed it. OS X. will have an API for search and spotlight gets some natural language search capabilities. You can slide a tab left to pin it in Safari and now mute from the address bar. Windows Snap comes to OSX too. The Metal graphics API comes from iOS to OS X bumping out OpenGl and delivering 50% rendering improvements and reducing CPU usage 40%. So better performance and battery life. OS X El Capitan comes to public beta in july and as a free upgrade int he autumn.

iOS 9 introduces Proactive assistance so it can do things like put “now playing” on the screen when you plug in your headphones or automatically add calendar appointments based on emails you get. Search can deep link into apps. The notes appgets checklists, camera integration, drawings and more. Maps gets transit directions. And Newsstand is replaced by a news app that pulls in pretty pages from partners and regular pages from everyone else. The iPad adds shortcuts to the keyboard, the ability to use the keyboard as a trackpad, a new task switcher and a slideover panel for using two apps at once, a split view if you have an iPad Air 2 and picture in picture for video apps. Finally low-power mode can turn 1 hour left to three hours left on your battery, HomeKit added support for more devices, Carplay can support wireless connections in future cars and Swift 2 is going to go open source with a compiler and standard libraries for iOS, OS X, and Linux by the end of the year. It’s coming to Public Beta in July then as a free upgrade in fall to all previously supported iOS devices.

WatchOS 2’s big news was native apps and the ability to connect directly to WiFi. Devs get to access the mic, healthkit, homekit, accelerometer, taptic engine and sounds, digital crown and play audio and video. Devs can also customize the ‘complications;’ that get added to watch faces and there are some new watch faces to boot. You can also time travel by rotaing the digital crown and seeing what appointments and notifications are coming up. And transit maps and Wallet with its loyalty cards are coming to the watch as well as the ability to control HomeKit. Devs get access to a preview of the SDK next week. Watch OS 2 will be a free update in wide release this autumn.

Finally Apple Music will be Apple’s new subscription music service. It has a 24/7 radio station called Beats One manned by Zane Lowe, Ebro Darden, and Julie Adenuga. a social network called Connect that lets artists post music, photos, videos and messages which can crosspost to Facebook and Twitter. And of course for $9.99 a month you can get access to everything in the iTunes library as well as curated recommendations based on your tastes and exposure to new music you might like. Apple Music will launch in more than 100 countries June 30 with iOS 8.4 and a new iTunes. Apple TV and Android versions are coming this autumn. And a family subscription allows up to 6 accounts to share a subscription for $14.99 a month.

Well that’s all the Apple news from WWDC. Now with the wasting no time award comes Bloomberg with a new Apple rumor. According to its sources, Bloomberg says Apple is assembling a high-speed data network and upgrading how it builds data centers so be more competitive in the cloud. Basically it wants its own connections between its 4 data centers in California, Nevada, North Carolina and Oregon, to increase reliability and speed. Its building new data centers in Arizona, Ireland and Denmark as well. Seems likely given that new music service and a rumored TV service.

The Next Web reports that Skype’s automatic voice translation tool, which was part of a separate Translator app, will be integrated into the main Skype desktop app for Windows by the end of this summer. You can still try out Translator app until then. The app translate voice conversations between English, Spanish, Italian and Mandarin speakers, as well as over 50 written languages. No word on when the integration will roll out to other operating systems.

9 to 5 google reports that AT&T has officially unveiled the Samsung Galaxy S6 Active on its website. The phone runs 5.0.2 Lollipop, comes with a 5.1″ QHD Super AMOLED display and gets its ACTIVE name from an IP68 rating and certification to meet military standards for water and dust resistance, shock, vibration, extreme temperatures, humidity, and high altitude. It comes in Blue Camo, White Camo, or Gray and as expected has a 5.1″ QHD Super AMOLED display and 16MP rear and 5MP front-facing cameras. The S6 Active will be available June 12th from AT&T with $0 down and installments ranging from $23.17 to $34.75 a month depending on your plan.

Tech Crunch reports that a company called Menlo Security emerged from stealth today with $25 million in Series B Funding. Menlo has some buzz because it plans to fight malware by isolating every email and web page in a virtual container and then delivering a safe mirror image to your browser. The malware is therefore trapped in a virtual container which is ‘disposed of’. It doesn’t use special software or require modification at the browser level.

Boing Boing brings us the news that The Reddit experiment The Button has ended. The Button was launched April 1 and after 1 million, 8 thousand three hundred 16 presses, the timer reached zero (for real this time) without anyone pressing it. Rest in peace button.

News From You:

starfuryzeta sent us the Engadget report that South Korea plans to fight the outbreak of Middle East Respiratory System, known as MERS by tracking the cellphones of 2300 people under quarantine to make sure they don’t leave home and infect others. The country’s deputy prime minister called it an “unavoidable measure”.

thegraphics sent us a Tech Crunch report that Showtime’s standalone streaming service will launch on Roku and Playstation Vue in addition the previously announced iOS and Apple TV launch. The service will cost $10.99 per month and include both the East and West coast live Showtime feeds. As with its launch on Apple devices, Roku customers in July will be able to try the service for 30 days for free before committing to the monthly fee. PlayStation Vue subscribers can add it as an alacarte option.

Discussion Links: 

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/06/apple-music-is-the-next-chapter-in-music/

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150608006468/en/Introducing-Apple-Music-%E2%80%94-Ways-Love-Music.#.VXX1XFxVikp

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/06/apple-gives-developers-a-more-powerful-native-apple-watch-sdk/

http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/08/apple-homekit-wwdc-update/?ncid=rss_truncated

http://thenextweb.com/apple/2015/06/08/apple-announces-swift-2-will-be-open-sourced/

http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/8/8737639/apple-ipad-split-screen-multitasking-wwdc-2015

http://recode.net/2015/06/08/apples-ios-9-software-promises-a-smarter-siri-multitasking-on-ipad/

http://thenextweb.com/apple/2015/06/08/apple-announces-news-its-flipboard-competitor/

http://recode.net/2015/06/08/apple-pay-wants-to-be-your-wallet-so-it-added-loyalty-and-store-branded-cards/

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2015/06/apple-announces-ios-9/

http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/08/osx-el-capitan/?ncid=rss_truncated

Pick of the Day: VTC.com 

Jeff has a pick: Recently you mentioned safaribooks.com, which is a great site for learning.

I would like to add VTC.com which offers high end sys admin training videos. I have learned so much from this site and I don’t know of any other site that offers so much high end technical content like this and when you are done with a course you can print a certificate to turn into HR. They have reasonable pricing and multiuser accounts.

Check it out at http://www.vtc.com

Tomorrow: Tom is on assignment, but DTNS contributor Patrick Beja and CNET’s own Iyaz Akhtar are on the show!

DTNS 2509 – Wireless Power Corrupts Wirelessly

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comDarren Kitchen joins the show to look back on two years of Edward Snowden leaks and whether it’s done good, bad or otherwise. Plus Darren’s encryption picks AND Len Peralta illustrates the show.

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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 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: Darren Kitchen and Len Peralta

Headlines: 

The Skype for Web beta is now available in the US and UK. New and existing users can sign in and connect to Skype without the Skype app by installing a plug-in for IE, Chrome, Safari or Firefox and going to Skype.com or web.skype.com. Skype will continue rolling out Skype for Web worldwide over the next few weeks.

USA Today reports that Google will begin to report incidents involving its driverless cars on a dedicated website with the human driver details redacted for privacy. In addition to reporting accidents, google.com/selfdrivingcar will give examples of how the cars adapt to everyday traffic situations, and take community feedback. After nearly six years of testing and 1.8 million miles driven, the Google fleet has been involved in 13 accidents, according to reports the company submitted to the Department of Motor Vehicles. Project leader Chris Urmson noted that all of the accidents were the fault of other drivers

Bloomberg reports that Apple is still negotiating with record labels over the revenue split from a music streaming service. Apple is expected to announce the service at its Worldwide Developers Conference this coming Monday. Music labels currently receive 55 percent of Spotify’s monthly $9.99 rate, and music publishers take 15 percent. The labels are allegedly asking Apple for 60%.

CNET reports that California based Microdia is showing off the Xtra Elite 512GB microSD card at Computex in Taipei. That’s right 512GB! The Micro SDXC card will use version 4.0 of the SDXC standard which means Ultra High Speed – II bus speeds of up to 300MB/s. This gargantuan yet tiny flash storage will cost $1000 and goes on sale in July.

VentureBeat reports that Google partnered with Adoble to make Flash more power efficient in Chrome. The Chrome beta will now automatically pause Flash content that isn’t “central to the webpage” while keeping central content playing without interruption. If Chrome beta pauses something you want to see you can resume playback by clicking on it. Google expects the feature to make its way into a stable release as early as September.

Earlier this week PayPal updated its user agreement with a clause that specifically allowed the company to send robocalls and promotional text messages to users even if the users had never shared their phone number with Paypal. This did not go over well. Today Tech Crunch reports that customers can “opt out of receiving auto-dialed or pre-recorded calls”, most likely because an angry customer and an advocacy group drafted a letter to the FCC, which takes a dim view of robocalls of any kind. It’s not clear yet just how Paypal will allow you to opt-out.

News From You:

habichuelacondulce submitted the Engadget article on an attack on the US Office of Personnel Management database containing 4 million records of current and former US federal employees. The Office is in charge of conducting background checks on federal employees. The US FBI is in charge of the investigation. The Office will issue notices from June 8th-19th offering credit monitoring and identity theft protection. The New York Times cites researchers who believe the attack may have been conducted by the same people who attacked insurance companies Anthem and Primera’s systems.

starfuryzeta chose the Ars Technica story that Administrator Charles Bolden said that NASA is looking into advanced propulsion technologies that could cut the 8-month journey to Mars in half. The technologies being studies range from solar-electric propulsion to nuclear rockets.

spsheridan picked the Wired story about a computer that developed a scientific theory with no human help. Scientists and Tufts University programmed a computer to develop theories when faced with a problem. Then biologists chose the 120-year-old problem of sliced-up flatworms’ ability to regenerate new organisms it he proper shape and proportion. The computer reverse engineered a solution which has been published in the journal PLOS Computational Biology.

Discussion Section Links:  

 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/opinion/edward-snowden-the-world-says-no-to-surveillance.html?ref=opinion
 http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/06/05/edward-snowden-claims-victory-on-surveillance-in-nyt-op-ed/
 http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/05/snowden-balance-power-shifted-people-defy-government-surveillance-nsa
 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order

 

Pick of the Day:

Darren’s Picks for Data Security:

For Linux Full Disk encryption go with LUKS  — it’s built into modern distros.

For Windows Full Disk encryption go with Diskcryptor — it’s been vetted by the EFF

For volume encryption I recommend EncFS – it’s open source and cross platform. Here’s a video tutorial on how to use it with DropBox.

Messages: 

Joe writes:

Joe just bought an Amazon Echo and well… He writes ” She arrived 2 weeks ago and I must say, I’m in tech love! She is extremely responsive to my voice. … I most commonly ask her the time, weather, to set alarms, and play music playlists. I sometime ask her to tell me a joke or for other words of encouragement or empathy. She sounds really sincere. I especially like lying in bed and having her read me my tech news casts for the day.

The only thing I would have liked to see is the ability for her to recognize that I am speaking to her without having to call out her name before each command. It looks like Jibo can do this but he is nearly $700 more so I think I’ll stick with Alexa…well, at least until we have a fight and break up, but for now, she’s the one for me!

=====

Friday’s guest:  Darren Kitchen and Len Peralta

DTNS 2508 – The Dish Ran Away with the Phone

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comJustin Young joins to look over the rumored T-Mobile USA Dish merger. Verizon has OnCue. AT&T is probably about to get DirecTV. Find out why all these mobile carriers want TV solutions and T-Mo/Dish may be the best match of all. MP3 Using a Screen Reader? click here

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A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible. If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here or giving 5 cents 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

Headlines:  The Wall Street Journal reports people familiar with the matter say Dish and T-Mobile USA are having high level talks about a merger. The two companies agree on the form a combined entity would take with Dish’s Charlie Ergen as Chairman and T-Mobile’s John Legere as CEO. The thing the two sides have not agreed about yet is money. Dish owns a lot of unused mobile spectrum and every self-respecting wireless carrier in the US dreams of marrying a video distributor someday. (Except for that jerk Verizon who went and just BOUGHT Oncue from Intel. Dirtbag.) Set the timer on your smartphone, people! Apple will begin selling some models of the Apple watch in retail stores beginning in two weeks, according to Tech Crunch. The watches will also go on sale in seven more countries on June 26th, including Italy, Mexico, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan and (gasp) Switzerland- the very backyard of many fancy watchmakers. If you ordered an Apple Watch online in May, you should get it within two weeks, unless its the 42mm Space Black Stainless Steel model, which has been slowest to reach customers.

Venture Beat reports that Yahoo announced several product closures including Yahoo Pipes, GeoPlanet, PlaceSpotter and Yahoo Maps. Some Maps functionality used by Search and products like Flickr will be kept running. Several international media properties will close down too, including Yahoo Music in France and Canada and the entire Yahoo home page in the Philippines. Yahoo is also killing support for Yahoo Mail on some older iOS devices. and let me see we have a PRO tip from our producer Jennie: If you work on any of these teams, and your boss wants to meet you in a conference room, start grabbing Kind Bars from the kitchen.

Ars Technica reports that the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, NY has named 6 games to its new World Video Game Hall of Fame. Pong, Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros., Tetris, Doom, and World of Warcraft were chosen by an advisory committee of about two dozen journalists, scholars, and game historians. The goal was to choose games “that have enjoyed popularity over a sustained period and have exerted influence on the video game industry or on popular culture and society in general.” The inductees will be included in playable form at the museum’s eGameRevolution exhibit.

Facebook is rolling out a new Android app that’s designed to use less data and run faster for folks with spotty data connections according to Reuters. Facebook Lite uses less than 1/2 a megabyte of data and supports Facebook’s news feed, status updates, notifications and photos, but doesn’t support videos or advanced location services. Facebook Lite is available in select Asian countries and will soon be made available in parts of Latin America, Africa and Europe.

What do you do when you want to have a nice conversation between just you and 200 of your closest friends? You install Line’s new Android app Popcorn Buzz. As The Next Web tells it, it lets you use your Line Messaging account to send out a link through email, text or social network and any of your Line contacts can join and talk. It’s voice only for now but Line says it’s working on group video chat, interconnectivity with Line Groups and of course an iOS version.

BizTechAfrica reports Zimbabwe’s Dr. Lloyd Muzangwa and Tanzanian engineer George Kahabuka took home the mid-stage prize in the Standard Bank Water 4 Africa challenge for their MAJI 1200 water purification system. The mid-stage prize is given to a system ready for deployment. The MAJI1200 combines UV light with solar energy to make water purification available off the grid and with minimal maintenance. The team will use its $5,000 prize money to build and donate MAJI 1200 units to schools in rural Zimbabwe. A crowdfunding project has been set up at gofundme.com/ohyrac.

New data from IDC shows Xiaomi has risen to the world’s 2nd biggest seller of wearables just behind FitBit. TechCrunch reports that Xiaomi came in with 2.8 million shipments for Q1 2015 at 24.6% of the market ahead of Garmin’s 6.1 percent, Samsung’s 5.1 percent and Jawbone’s 4.4 percent. FitBit still leads the pack at 3.9 million shipments giving it 34.2% market. The data does not include Apple Watch which just started shipping in April.

The Verge reports that Nest will hold an event on Wednesday June 17th, which would be its first substantial smart home product announcement since Google bought Nest. Tech Crunch previously reported that Nest might be moving into audio, so um, stay tuned.

News From You: Griff72 submitted Yahoo Tech’s Rafe Needleman’s report that the updated Pebble app for Pebble Time is being delayed in Apple’s App Store. Pebble got approval on May 18 but found a minor bug which it fixed and resubmitted on May 22. The updated app has been in review since. The updated Android app is available in Google Play.

habichuelacondulce submitted this Engadget article noting a New York Times report that the US Justice Department issued two memos to the NSA in 2012 allowing the NSA to search US citizens International data traffic without a warrant in order to find foreign hackers or malware. The memos allowed tracking of IP addresses and cybersignatures that could be tied to foreign governments. The memos were obtained in documents provided by Edward Snowden. Discussion Section Links:  

 http://www.cnet.com/news/dish-and-t-mobile-said-to-be-in-early-stage-merger-talks/
 http://www.wsj.com/article_email/dish-network-in-merger-talks-with-t-mobile-us-1433383285-lMyQjAxMTI1MzA3NDEwMjQwWj
 http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/06/possible-disht-mobile-merger-could-be-trouble-for-att-and-verizon/
 http://www.cnet.com/news/six-burning-questions-if-t-mobile-dish-network-actually-get-together/
 http://fortune.com/2015/06/04/apple-streaming-video-adobe/

 

Pick of the Day: Tuesday on episode 2506 we talked about the Pinterest “buy” button, and Patrick Beja suggested that someone finding a recipe on Pinterest could use this button to add all the ingredients to a shopping list. Well Paul (aka HotBranch) enjoying Juneuary in Montreal, where Mother Nature is off her meds has a suggestion for an app that does just that!

Asparagus – My Recipes is available on Android and can pull down ingredient lists from web pages and categorize them for you. The paid version extends the abilities of the free version, including the ability to scale a recipe up or down. Now, when I find a recipe online that interest me, I share it to Asparagus and voila! It’s on my phone and tablet.’

Messages:  Joe writes: Joe just bought an Amazon Echo and well… He writes ” She arrived 2 weeks ago and I must say, I’m in tech love! She is extremely responsive to my voice. … I most commonly ask her the time, weather, to set alarms, and play music playlists. I sometime ask her to tell me a joke or for other words of encouragement or empathy. She sounds really sincere. I especially like lying in bed and having her read me my tech news casts for the day. The only thing I would have liked to see is the ability for her to recognize that I am speaking to her without having to call out her name before each command. It looks like Jibo can do this but he is nearly $700 more so I think I’ll stick with Alexa…well, at least until we have a fight and break up, but for now, she’s the one for me! =====

Friday’s guest:  Darren Kitchen and Len Peralta

DTNS 2507 – You Down with NDN? No More IP

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comScott Johnson joins Tom to talk with Dr. Lixia Zhang from UCLA about Named Data Networking (NDN) and how it could possibly solve many Internet problems, like security and net neutrality concerns.

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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: Scott Johnson and Lixia Zhang

Headlines: 

The Electronic Privacy Information Center honored Apple CEO Tim Cook at an event Monday. Cook gave a speech and a half. TechCrunch reports Cook said Apple rejects the idea that “customers should have to make tradeoffs between privacy and security,” saying morality demands it. He took a swipe at companies that are “gobbling up everything they can learn about you and trying to monetize it,” saying “We think that’s wrong” But saved his strongest rhetoric for the US government saying “weakening encryption, or taking it away, harms good people that are using it for the right reasons. And ultimately, I believe it has a chilling effect on our First Amendment rights and undermines our country’s founding principles.” He even quoted Abraham Lincoln saying “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”

Venturebeat reports that Skype has fixed a flaw that crashed Skype when you received the characters “http://:” In fact once you GOT that message Skype crashed any time you tried to sign in. The bug appeared on Windows, Android and iOS, but apparently not Skype for Mac or for the Windows tiled interface. In less than 24 hours though Skype fixed the bug so make sure to head to skype.com/download or your mobile phone’s app store and update to the latest version.

TechCrunch reports Cisco and IBM have both acquired OpenStack companies. OpenStack is an open source project that enables users to create their own cloud services, often used in what is called the private cloud. Cisco announced it has purchased private cloud company Piston Cloud Computing. IBM has acquired private cloud service provider Blue Box.

ReCode reports Apple’s Beats has voluntarily recalled the Beats Pill XL speakers after 8 reports of overheating. Beats has sold more than 200,000 of the speakers since November 2013. The speakers can be identified by a lowercase b on the speaker grill and the words beats pill XL on the handle. Apple urges owners to go to apple.com/support/beats-pillxl-recall/ for details on how to return the speakers and get $325.

PCMag.com reports that AMD announced its 6th generation Processors codenamed Carizzo in A8, A10, and FX-Series models. The A8 and A10 APUs feature 10 compute cores (four CPU cores plus six GPU cores) and the FX-Series APUs feature a total of 12 compute cores (four CPU and four GPU).The chip’s use Heterogeneous System Architecture (or HSA) design shares workloads and system memory between the CPU and GPU rather than have the CPU direct everything. The A8 and A10 processors get R6 graphics, and the FX-Series R7. When paired with a discrete graphics card the R6 or R7 APUs will work in conjunction with the discrete GPU to boost graphics performance. Look for laptops with A-Series APUs this month.

News From You:

metalfreak sent us this story from Ars Technica. At long last Microsoft is bringing SSH aka Secure Shell to Windows and PowerShell. Until now Windows lacked any native SSH client/server, however the Windows PowerShell Team has announced that Microsoft will work with and contribute to OpenSSH, the standard for SSH implantation in Unix, to add that functionality to Windows. This will let Unix/Linux and Windows machines securely access each other. The Linux-Windows war is over.

starfuryzeta submitted the Engadget article that the US State of Virginia has marked 70 miles of highway in the northern part of the state as the “Virginia Automated Corridors.” This allows companies who have received approval for their cars to do public road testing of self-driving cars. Nokia’s HERE mapping division will develop 3D maps for the test roads.

doorsrio submitted the TechCrunch report that augmented reality device Magic Leap has launched a development platform. Chief Creative Officer Graeme Devine announced it on stage at MIT Technology Review’s EmTech Digital conference. A developer’s section of the website has been launched where folks can sign up for the SDK, which is coming soon. CEO Rony Abovitz also said the company is out of the R&D phase and transitioning to a real product. Oh and they had author Neal Stephenson on stage to help convince you this is the real world arrival of the Metaverse.

Discussion Section Links:  

 http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-internet-of-names
 http://www.cs.ucla.edu/~lixia/
 http://named-data.net/
 http://www.networkworld.com/article/2602109/lan-wan/ucla-cisco-more-join-forces-to-replace-tcpip.html

Pick of the Day:

Devulu, genius from the west:

Here is another one for you, and today it’s a Chrome extension.

If you’re like me and use Google chrome with many extensions – each for a different purpose – and want to manage them easily, then SimpleExtManager is here to the rescue.

Features include:
– basic function to enable/disable, access options and uninstall extensions via popup
– customize the popup
– ability to create extension groups
– enable/disable extension groups via popup and right-click menu

Nothing much, but sure saves a lot of time, and is way better than the Chrome extensions page.

Messages: 

mikem.exe+yt writes in:

Hey Tom. Finally getting around to episode 2497 (Run, Spotify, Run) where you had a conversation with Lamarr Wislon about how YouTube would rather you watch videos from their recommended list instead of subscribing to a creator and binge-watching all of their uploads in order.

They make it pretty difficult to binge-watch a single creator. I find myself manually adding videos to the Watch Later list, then moving them from there into a new playlist, then playing that playlist.

Well, after enough of that every day (I watch a lot of youtube), I decided to write a little script that does all that for me. You can specify a user and it will automatically add any new videos as they’re released to the end of the associated playlist in your account.

If there’s anyone in your audience who would benefit from this, have them send me an email and I’ll get them set up. mikem.exe+yt at gmail.com

David says Hello from hot and rainy Florida: 

The New Broadwell cpus are an interesting shift for Intel. They are for most part uninteresting for workstations and high end gaming. The CPU performance is lower than the current Haswell CPUs because they run at a lower clock speed. For other users they are very important because they offer very good graphics performance and much better OpenCL performance than the Haswell CPUs.
As more of programs make use of OpenCL I expect to see more computing power shifting to the GPU and OpenCL from your traditional CPU. Of course when Silverlake comes out and we get a die shrink the clock speed should come up.

=====

Thursday’s guest:  Justin Robert Young

DTNS 2506 – Thunder-C(ats)

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comPatrick Beja discusses the theft of ThinkGeek by GameStop, Nintendo’s staunch denial of Android and Apple’s new curated games lists in the app store.

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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

DTNS 2505 – A Millennial Ways to Get Your News

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comVeronica Belmont is on and we’ll talk about Google and Facebook’s new tools to protect your privacy and how Millennials get their political news from Facebook. Is this going to make the echo chamber worse?

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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: Veronica Belmont

Headlines: 

Tery Myerson wrote on the Windows blog today that Windows 10 will become available as a free upgrade to existing Windows 7 and Windows 8 users starting July 29. The upgrade is only for PCs and tablets with no announcement for phones or other platforms. Myerson asks users to reserve the free Windows 10 upgrade now by looking for a Windows icon in the system tray and following the prompts. VentureBeat reports to see the reservation icon you must have installed Windows update KB3035583.

The Verge reports Google launched a new privacy and security site at myaccount.google.com. It has tools that walk you through checking your settings including what information is shared with which Google services, what permissions apps have, and what devices you’ve authorized to access your account. It also links off to and consolidates other services like downloading copies of your data and designating a trustee to handle your account.

The Next Web reports Facebook announced the ability to list an OpenPGP key on your Facebook profile. This sllows Facebook to sign notification emails with its own key and send them securely. Key management is only available for the desktop, though Facebook hopes to add mobile support int he future.

Eurogamer reports that Lego has launched a Minecraft-style game called Lego Worlds developed by TT Games and available from Steam Early Access for $14.99. The game will feature familiar lego game elements as well as procedurally-generated worlds, “discoveries and unlocks”, ridable creatures, vehicles and a day/night cycle. The main differences from Minecraft appear to be a focus on creativity rather than survival, and the ability to change vast chunks of the terrain at will.

It’s Computex time which means Asus announced more ZenPad tablets than we could possibly tell you about here. Anandtech does a good job of boiling down the announcement, breaking down the ZenPad 8 and the ZenPad S8. The 8 has LTE, a 1280 x 800 screen and a1.2GHZ Silvermont Atom processor. The S8 has a 2.33 GHz Silvermont Atom processor, a 2048 x 1536 screen and a USB Type C connector. It also suports a 1024 pressure level stylus Thery also have interchangable back plates one of which has a built in battery and another with 6 speakers that can deliver 5.1 DTS surround sound. From your tablet cover. Asus also announced a phone called Selfie with front and rear 13-megapixel cameras and the Zen Watch 2 which has a power button that looks like Apple’s ‘digital crown’ in 49-mm or 45-mm versions. None of these products have price or release dates yet.

Reuters reports BlackBerry and Ryan Seacrest-backed Typo have settled their dispute over Typo’s Blackberry-like keyboard case for phones and tablets. The settlement is that Typo won’t sell the cases for phones anymore but they can sell them for devices with screens larger than 7.9-inches.

Nvidia has unleashed its latest flagship GPU the GTX 980 Ti according to the Verge. The GTX 980 Ti sports 22 SM units, 2,816 Stream Processing Units, 6GB of VRAM with a clock frequency of 1000Mhz and texture filtering rate of 176 gigatexels per sec. The card achieved 4K performance well over 30fps on Battlefield 4 and Shadow of Mordor with max settings. The GPU is future-proofed with support for DirectX 12 and Nvidia’s new Virtual Reality API, GameWorks VR. The GTX 980 Ti will retail for $649.99. (A bit cheaper than the $1,000 Titan X)

TechCrunch is reporting that GoPro has announced the Hero+LCD. The camera targets YouTubers with an LCD touchscreen, 1080p 60fps recording, and WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. The Hero+LCD will release June 7th for $299.

Reuters reports Intel has agreed to buy FPGA chip maker Altera for $16.7 billion. Intel will be able to bundle its chips with Altera’s programable chips which are often used to do things like speed up Web searches.

TechCrunch passes along that a  Wall Street Journal’s source says Apple will reveal its new streaming music service next week at WWDC and it will cost $10 a month for unlimited listening. It will not have an ad-supported tier though there may be some free tracks available. New channels will come to iTunes radio too hosted by Dr. Dre and other talented recruited from places like BBC1.

News From You:

habichuelacondulce submitted the Guardian writeup of the fact that the US Patriot Act section 215 dealing with bulk surveillance was allowed to expire Sunday night meaning such data collection must be stopped int he US for the time being. The USA Freedom Act is expected to be revived and passed later this week to allow a more limited form of data collection to be allowed. The Freedom Act does not allow the NSA to collect records in bulk and includes rules on transparency.

tm204 flagged the CBC writeup about the woman who dropped off an original Apple computer for recycling at Milpitas’ California’s “Clean Bay Area.” She said she cleaned out her garage after her husband died and didn’t want a receipt and did not leave a name. Only 200 of the first Apple’s were made. Clean Bay Area sold the computer to a private collection for $200,000 and is seeking the woman to split the money with her.

KAPT_Kipper submitted the Engadget report that passes along info from Nikkei that Nintendo’s forthcoming NX console could use Android as the operating system. Nintendo has said it will not discuss NX until 2016.

Discussion Section Links:  

 http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/1/8699719/pew-survey-politics-news-source-facebook-millenials
http://www.journalism.org/2015/06/01/millennials-political-news/

 

Pick of the Day:

Randy writes:

Since telling you what the weather is like seems like the thing to do, it’s humid here in Michigan! I have another YouTube channel that I’d like to suggest as a pick The Ben Heck Show is great for makers and maker-curious (like myself) to learn and get ideas. I’ve always described it as “The New Yankee Workshop for geeks”. I started watching around the time he made automatic light-sensing glasses that will flip his sunglasses down. More recently, he made a portable Dreamcast, made a DIY PIC32 dev board, and did a tabletop CNC tutorial. He’s been doing this for 4 years, so there’s a ton of back-catalogue to watch as well as a new episode every week.

Thank you for all you do and keep up the great work!

Messages: 

Drew writes in:

On Friday’s show, the subject of using VPNs to fool geofencing restrictions came up again, and Darren mentioned his dream of living in a world where so many people use VPNs that there’s really no telling where anyone is physically located, because the IP addresses are all obfuscated.

This made me think of an analogy with area codes, now that we all have cell phones. Not all that long ago, it was very practical to reverse-lookup a caller’s area code and be very confident in their physical location. With the prevalence of cell phones, and the ability to keep your phone number when you move or change carriers, and synchronized address books that keep any of us from knowing more than a handful of numbers….area codes mean very little these days.

I think that Randall Munroe summed it up most succinctly:

https://xkcd.com/1129/

As always, love the show…

Allan P. wrote about Google’s Project Jaquard:

In the early 1800s, Joseph Jacquard basically invented punched cards as a way of programming a machine. He designed a loom which could automatically and repeatably produce very complex patterns in fabric. The pattern was stored on a loop of cards; at each “clock cycle” of the weaving process, the machine would lift (or not lift) colored threads based on the pattern of holes in the next card in the chain.

Jacquard inspired both Babbage and (much later) Hollerith. I think Jacquard is the perfect name for a Google project which combines technology and woven cloth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquard_loom

In a slightly belated reaction to the Tesla Powerwall Alex wrote:

I used to design and oversee production of diesel tanks, systems support and enclosures for large commercial generators (think about the size of a truck trailer when enclosed and a 18 cylinder engine with several thousand gallons of diesel underneath it).
One of the big consumers of these systems was data centers. Facebook, Google, NSA, etc would buy these by the dozens and have grids of them around their data centers. If there was a brownout or blackout, these generators would kick on and keep the data centers at least partially operational until the grid came back up.
If Elon can prove the concept of these batteries, develop the technology further, and scale it, this could be a huge market for them. Currently a tank (empty) and enclosure with support systems could run around half of a million dollars and the generator could run twice that.

=====

Tuesday’s guest: Patrick Beja

DTNS 2504 – ICANN’t ban North Korea

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comDarren Kitchen is on the show and we’ll talk about Professor Kim Heung-Kwang’s interview with the BBC claiming 6,000 North Korean hackers have the power to destroy whole cities. Plus Len Peralta rejoices over the Cavs success. And illustrates the show.

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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

Today’s guests: Darren Kitchen and Len Peralta

Headlines: 

Apple posted its recommended workaround for the iPhone Messages bug according to the Verge. The support document directs iPhone users to reply to the malicious message. Apple is working on a fix, The bug is also affecting iOS users of Twitter and Snapchat who have notifications on for those services. With Twitter it crashes the phone but causes no lasting damage. With snapchat it makes the chat history with the sender inaccessible.

PC World reports on Google’s announcement that Levi’s is the first partner for its smart fabric called Project Jacquard. The experiment weaves electronics into cloth to create the equivalent of touch screen controls. Demos at Google I/O showed fabric that could manipulate a 3D image on a display, change the songs on a phone and control lights. Think of it like a mouse in your pants…. wait….

Reuters reports Path sold some of its apps to South Korea’s Daum Kakao. If you’re making the remark “who uses Path anymore?” you are giving yourself away as not Indonesian. INSTANT DATA MINING. IN any case the makers’ of Kakao Talk didn’t get all of Path. Just the social network and the Path Messenger. Path Places, which enables connections between customers and business like restaurants, stays with Path, though it has been disbaled for the time being. Path has also been developing non-Path branded apps like GIF creation app Kong.

Washington Post reports cites a new report from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights that says digital security is essential freedom of expression and warns weakening encryption in some countries could undermine that freedom worldwide. The report was written by special rapporteur David Kaye, Director of the International Justice Clinic at UC-Irvine. . Kaye wrote governments “should avoid all measures that weaken the security that individuals may enjoy online, such as backdoors, weak encryption standards and key escrows.” because it results in weaker security for everyone.

Tech Crunch reports that Apple acquired augmented reality startup Metaio on May 22nd. The company launched back in 2003 as an offshoot of a project at Volkswagen. 9 to 5 Mac’s Mark Gurman, who has good sources, believes Apple is working on an augmented reality feature for its Maps app, and of course there’s that VR headset that Apple patented earlier this year.

The Verge reports the welcome news that you can finally use GIF’s on Facebook! Mostly. If you drop a link to a GIF which has already been uploaded elsewhere on the Internet, the GIF will appear. Upoloading a GIF directly to Facebook doesn’t seem to work just yet.

Engadget reports that Google is broadening out its Google Sign-In feature with Smart Lock for Passwords. In a Google Developers blog post Smart Lock for Passwords is described as a “frictionless” method for users to sign-in to apps on Android and sites in Chrome. Smart Lock works a bit like a password locker. Once a user saves a password to Smart Lock, they can skip entering their credentials on all of their authenticated Chrome and Android devices. For instance, Netflix is a partner meaning once you add Netflix to Smart Lock say on a laptop, you wouldn’t have to go through the painful process of signing in again on an Android TV.

News From You:

KAPT_Kipper sent this TorrentFreak story that Hola VPN sells users Bandwidth to others through a service called Luminati. An 8chan message board operator, Fredrick Brennan claims that Luminati was used to attack his website. Hola says it has suspended the user that misued its service and it would cooperate with any law enforcement activity related to the attacks. Hola’s FAQ makes it clear that it uses bandwidth from Hola users’ computers when they are sitting idle and the company defines idle as meaning a device is connected to electric power (not on battery), no mouse or keyboard activity is detected, and the device is connected to the local network or Wifi (not on cellular)). Any users who don’t want this to happen can buy Hola for $5 per month.

kyro5976 sent us the Cult of Mac report that more than half of the the founding artists in Jay-Z’s Tidal music streaming service may have to pull their music from site after Jay-Z failed to reach a music licensing agreement with Sony. Among the artists affected: Taylor Swift’s man Calvin Harris Alicia Keys, Daft Punk, Usher, and uh, Beyonce. Jay-Z was apparently hoping a deal with Sprint was going to cover the cost of Sony’s licensing terms, but apparently Sprint has decided that they are not in a “financial investment” situation.

Discussion Section Links:  

 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32925495
http://www.businessinsider.com/these-are-countries-that-could-lose-internet-easily-2014-12 
 http://www.businessinsider.com/internet-outages-reported-in-north-korea-2014-12
 http://bgp.he.net/AS131279#_asinfo

Pick of the Day:

Joel the Yooper DTNS Nickle-backer:

For a long time I have drooled from afar the world of home automation as the solutions were either too expensive or too complex for the whole family. The I saw this on the shelf for only $24 bucks. LINK Starter Pack by GE. It comes with a WINK based hub and 2 60-watt equivalent dimmable LED bulbs. I’ve found it to be a great way to test out this new tech trend without getting too invested. And if I do decide to go further, there’s a bunch of compatible products.

I don’t know the price elsewhere but it’s listed as a “special buy” on Home Depot’s site. Whatever that means.

Keep up the great work.

PS: I promise I don’t work for Home Depot.

Messages: 

Toby Atticus Fraley:

Just a quick tip, the Kickstarter succeeded!! Pittsburgh International Airport is getting a Robot Repair shop, opening this September. This is the first time a public art installation for the airport has been crowdsourced! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tobyfraley/robot-repair-shop

Co-Executive Producer Damien from Gloomy-outside-my-hospital-window-Maitland, Australia:

Hello Tom, Jenny and <insert contributor here>

When I heard about testing of Google Tone I immediately cringed at the thought of security implications.

You (Tom) made an offhand comment about malware bridging the air gap and moved on.
I’m astounded that no one else seems to have made any other comments about the potential risks associated with a technology designed to bypass one of the most fundamental security concepts. That a stand alone, unconnected computer is unhackable.

I realize that it is an optional extension and the user has to click to confirm, but we know how easy it is to convince people to click on links that they shouldn’t.

Thanks for all your work on the show

Dave from too-damn-sunny-and-not-enough-rainy Los Angeles:

As an avid phone photographer and videographer (also known as “Dad”), I was very excited to hear that Google’s new Photos app is going to support unlimited photos AND videos! … When I went to turn on the new feature on my account, the options for storage were “High Quality (unlimited storage) – great quality at reduced file size” (my emphasis) and “Original – Full resolution that counts against your quota.”

My deduction from these descriptions is that the “unlimited storage” will still be compressing your files to be smaller, meaning Photos isn’t necessarily suitable for our primary backup, but it would still be a great way to have our entire library of family photos available in the cloud. Can you confirm that this is how the unlimited storage will work?

And Ted who’s Lumia 1020 supports RAW photo backups did a little more research:

I went directly to Flickr and Google. Neither one supports RAW at this time. Limits per unit upload:
Google: photo 75MB, Video 10GB
Flickr: photo 200MB, Video 1GB

Dwayne here from somewhere in the desert which I can not wait to leave.

You said you have never seen the sharing of photos with a link. Microsoft has been doing this for years and I love it. MSFT have some good features here like giving the sender rights to allow the receiver to just view, download or edit, time span that they have access and it is built in to outlook and OneDrive. This way you can email the link to anyone without any restrictions. Also the receiver does not need to be logged into anything. Love the show!

Sent from my Windows Phone

=====

Monday’s guest: Veronica Belmont

DTNS 2503 – Google I/O Recap

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comRon Richards and Justin Young join the show to make some sense of the avalanche of announcements from Google I/O. Stop your head from spinning and join us.

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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

Today’s guests: Justin Robert Young and Ron Richards

Headlines: 

Recode reports when asked about the cost of an Oculus Rift headset, Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe said Wednesday, “We are looking at an all-in price, if you have to go out and actually need to buy a new computer and you’re going to buy the Rift … at most you should be in that $1,500 range.” Oculus plans to ship the headset in early 2016.

CNET reports on three concept announcements from Lenovo Tech World Wednesday. A smartwatch concept called Magic View that has a second screen that uses optical reflection to create a virtual display 20 times larger than the standard. A concept called Smart Cast would project a virtual keyboard from a smart phone and could also display content and games. And Smart Shoes would track your heart rate, calories consumed and display fitness info and even map directions on screens embedded in the shoes.

BBC reports Avago, a US and Singapore-based semiconductor manufacturer is buying competitor Broadcom. Broadcom makes semiconductors for set-top boxes, mobile phones and network equipment, with Apple and Samsung as clients. This is the 6th company bought by Avago since 2013.

Geekwire reports Amazon launching free same-day delivery for around 1 million items in 14 metro areas covering about 500 cities in the US. Orders have to be for more than $35 and the user has to be an Amazon Prime Member. Previouls Prime members paid $5.99 for same day a discount off the $8.99 plus 99 cents per item. Orders must be placed by 12:00 PM.

The Next Web reports Shazam has launched “Visual Shazam” which lets you scan certain products from participating advertisers to get an interactive augmented reality experience. When you see something with Shazam logo with a camera icon you can scan it and get AR visuals that work with the object, videos and coupons.

Ars Technica reports TWiTCH has updated its rules of conduct to prohibit streaming of “Adults Only” rated games. Previously Twitch banned individual games with overly sexual conduct or gratuitous violence. Games not rated by the ESRB may stiull be banned individually and five such titles are currently listed as banned. Players breaking the ban will receive a temporary suspension.

MacRumors reports Apple is partnering with Postmates to offer same day delivery for certain products in the Apple Store app. The option will only be available to areas Postmates serves and seems to be starting only in the San Francisco area. Delivery charge depends on location and distance.

News From You:

habichuelacondulce submitted our top vote getter, an EFF post detailing a leak of the secret Trade in Services Agreement. TISA, is cited alongside the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership as current trade deals that could be signed with the US President’s fast track authority. TISA includes provisions to require signatories to protect privacy, enforce a version of net neutrality, introduce anti-spam laws and require disclosure of source code in certain situations. TISA would also prohibit countries from requiring data to be stored locally to customers.

KAPT_Kipper submitted the Geekwire report that Amazon is launching free same-day delivery for around 1 million items in 14 metro areas covering about 500 cities in the US. Orders have to be for more than $35 and the user has to be an Amazon Prime Member. Previouls Prime members paid $5.99 for same day a discount off the $8.99 plus 99 cents per item. Orders must be placed by 12:00 PM.

Discussion Section Links:  

 http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/google-brings-turn-by-turn-directions-to-offline-maps/?ncid=rss
 http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/05/28/google-is-embracing-cocoapods-to-bring-its-services-to-ios-developers/
 http://www.engadget.com/2015/05/28/google-cloud-messaging-on-ios/?ncid=rss_truncated
 http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/05/google-photos-leaves-google-launches-as-a-standalone-service/
 http://www.wired.com/2015/05/google-unveils-brillo-answer-smartifying-home/
 http://recode.net/2015/05/28/google-announces-brillo-an-operating-system-for-the-internet-of-things/
 http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/android-wear-puts-more-information-a-single-glance-away/?ncid=rss
 http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/28/8675257/android-m-os-update-google-io-2015
 http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/28/8673227/android-m-developer-preview-release-date-availability
 http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/google-takes-another-shot-at-mobile-payments-with-android-pay/
 http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/your-next-android-phone-could-recharge-another-device/?ncid=rss
 http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/05/hbo-now-coming-to-android/
 http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/google-launches-expeditions-an-app-for-shared-virtual-school-field-trips/?ncid=rss
 http://www.engadget.com/2015/05/28/google-play-store-experiments-and-pages/?ncid=rss_truncated
 http://recode.net/2015/05/28/google-teams-with-gopro-to-bring-vr-to-youtube/
 http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/googles-new-cardboard-vr-kit-supports-phones-with-up-to-6-screens/?ncid=rss
 http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/google-brings-turn-by-turn-directions-to-offline-maps/?ncid=rss
 http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/05/28/google-is-embracing-cocoapods-to-bring-its-services-to-ios-developers/
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/05/google-photos-leaves-google-launches-as-a-standalone-service/
http://www.engadget.com/2015/05/28/google-cloud-messaging-on-ios/?ncid=rss_truncated
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/05/android-ms-google-now-on-tap-shows-contextual-info-at-the-press-of-a-button/
http://www.wired.com/2015/05/google-unveils-brillo-answer-smartifying-home/
http://recode.net/2015/05/28/google-announces-brillo-an-operating-system-for-the-internet-of-things/
http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/android-wear-puts-more-information-a-single-glance-away/?ncid=rss
http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/28/8675257/android-m-os-update-google-io-2015
http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/28/8673227/android-m-developer-preview-release-date-availability
http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/google-takes-another-shot-at-mobile-payments-with-android-pay/?ncid=rss
http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/your-next-android-phone-could-recharge-another-device/?ncid=rss
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/05/hbo-now-coming-to-android/

 

Pick of the Day:

Joe the keyboard enthusiast and loyal $5 patron:

The pick on yesterday’s show was O’Reilly’s Safari Books Online service, available for $40/month.

I just wanted to mention that if Safari interests you, but the price is too steep, be sure to check with your local library. I can access Safari for free with my library card. I’m not certain that it’s the full selection of books, but it’s certainly a lot.

We’re quick to write off libraries as antiquated and useless, but there are still great benefits available.

=====

Friday’s guest: Darren Kitchen and Len Peralta

DTNS 2502 – AdBlock, Now With SueBlock

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comScott Johnson is on today and we’ll talk about Mary Meeker’s annual Internet trends report. Can this woman ever be wrong? Will messaging apps become the dominant mobile hub?

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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 headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!

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

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Scott Johnson

Headlines: 

An AppleInsider reader, Kaitlyn, let the blog know Tuesday that receiving a particular text message made up of Unicode characters from various character sets caused iPhone restarts and lockouts from messages. When the text is received while the screen is locked the phone reboots and messenger is unavailable until a new message is sent to it. The problem according to Apple Insider is that notifications can’t render the full block of Unicode text, so iOS hogs resources trying to render the message. Apple is aware of the problem.

During an interview with Walt Mossberg at Code Conference reports The Verge, an audience member asked Apple’s senior VP of operations, Jeff Williams what Apple was going to do with its huge cash reserves. Williams said, “Well the car is the ultimate mobile device, isn’t it?” Was he trolling or telling?—- Williams also confirmed that a preview of a native Apple Watch app development kit will be released at WWDC on June 8.

Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers delivered her Internet trends report at the Code conference. She started delivering them 20 years ago. Meeker says Messging is becoming the dominant use of mobile and messaging apps may become a hub for commerce and identity management. She also discussed the rising popularity of drones, identified Housing, Transportation and Food is areas ripe for innovation, the increasing easiness of freelance and contracting and the need for regulatory reform there and pointed out India is number 1 in new Internet users and is becoming the next big tech market.

Google will soon index some iOS apps in the search results it returns in the iOS versions of the Google app and Chrome, according to Tech Crunch. Google has been indexing apps on Android phones for a few years and started indexing apps whether installed or not a few months ago. Developers who want to have their iOS app indexed by Google will have to add deep linking support among a few other things and fill out an online form. The form does not guarantee Google will begin indexing the app.

Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel said the messaging service is planning an initial public offering, at Re/code’s Code Conference. Spiegel also mentioned plans to expand its reach to include older users including changes to the Apps hold-to-watch feature. Spiegel also predicted a market correction is coming and his company has prepared accordingly. You can catch the rest of the interview on the Re/Code website.

Fortune reports Pebble began shipping the Pebble Time to around 79,000 Kickstarter backers today. The Pebble cost $199 has an e-paper display multiple day battery life and works with multiple smartphone platforms.

9to5 Mac reports sources say Apple is developing an alternative to Google Now supposedly codenamed Proactive. It would automatically provide timely information based on the user’s data and device usage pattern. Apple acquired the personal assistant app Cue in 2013, which was sort of a mix of voice-recognition assistant like Cortana and predictive notification like Google Now.

Xiaomi (Shao-me) posted on Facebook that it will officially launch online stores in the US on June 1 and Germany France and the UK on June 2 at http://mi.com/store. The Mi Stores will not sell phones in these regions but will sell lots of accessories like headphones and the Mi Band.

News From You:

starfuryzeta sent us the Business Insider report that AdBlock Plus won again in court, this time in Munich, Germany. Two German broadcasters RTL Interactive and ProSiebenSat 1 had sued saying that users should not be allowed to block ads. The court ruled that the software was not anti-competitive because users chose to install AdBlock Plus and Eyeo did not have enough dominance of the market to stop online publishers from finding sufficient users who would see ads.

Kylde, our self-described subreddit janitor, sent us a Washington Post report that Chuck Johnson has been permanently suspended from Twitter after asking for funds to “take out” civil rights activist DeRay McKesson. Twitter has also suspended several of Johnson’s new accounts.

AllanAV noted the Ars Technica writeup on the US Internal Revenue Service’s disclosure that it has shut down its transcript service, which allowed taxpayers to request copies of past tax returns. The IRS noticed unusual activity and found that more than 100,000 accounts had been accessed by unauthorized parties. The system required knowledge of personal, financial, and tax information—including date of birth, tax filing status, and address. It appears the attackers had such information on the accounts that were accessed.

tm204 sent us the Engadget report that pop culture retailer Hot Topic has purchased Geeknet, owners of the ThinkGeek online store for $122 million. Companies who license pop culture, FORM A… MEGASTORE.

starfuryzeta sent us the Recode announcement that Vox Media which runs The Verge will acquire Revere Digital, which runs ReCode. Several ReCode staffers will move over to The Verge (including Bonnie Cha and Lauren Goode) to write reviews while Walt Mossberg will write for both sites.

Discussion Section Links:  

 http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends
 http://www.cnet.com/news/mary-meeker-sees-messaging-taking-over-mobile/#ftag=CAD590a51e
 http://simplicity.laserfiche.com/11-takeaways-mary-meekers-internet-trends-report/
 http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/29/mary-meeker-2013-internet-trends/
 http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/03/mary-meeker-releases-stunning-data-on-the-state-of-the-internet/
 http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/18/mary-meekers-2011-presentation-on-internet-trends-slides/
 https://gigaom.com/2010/04/12/mary-meeker-mobile-internet-will-soon-overtake-fixed-internet/
 http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2011/12/15/what-if-mary-meeker-is-wrong-and-mobile-ads-never-really-take-off/
 http://www.kpcb.com/blog/october-2005-internet-trends

 

Pick of the Day:

Derek aka Bishma – Director of Engineering in Eugene, Oregon writes:

Here is a pick I’d like to share: Safari Books Online

Safari is a service from O’Reilly and Associates (makers or the iconic animal books on all things technology) that offers on-demand access to tens of thousands of titles. The service is not limited to O’Reilly as the make titles available from other big technical publishers like Adobe Press, Prentice Hall, Pragmatic Bookshelf, and more. Additionally you get access to many titles as “rough cuts” (not necessarily their final edit) or “fresh cuts” (finished editions sometimes weeks before they arrive in stores) so that you can get a jump on the latest and greatest. They also have a good collection of videos including many from O’Reilly’s conferences (OSCON, Velocity, Strata, etc).

Reading can be done via website or mobile app – their features page says the Android app is “coming soon” but it is in fact available in the play store. Each month you’re on the service you can earn credits toward downloading titles or chapters in pdf, mobi, or epub formats if you need or want offline access.

The cost, at $39/month or $399/year, seems a high compared to things like Netflix but when you consider many of the titles available retail for $40+ dollars it pays for itself quickly if you spend a lot of time researching new technologies or improving your tech skills as I do.

I’m always surprised how many technology professions I encounter who don’t know this service exists so I wanted to share with everyone in DTNSland.

Messages: 

Rich from Lovely Cleveland:

Once Google Tone makes its way to mobile, I could see it being a huge boon for radio advertisers. Imagine if radio ads had Google tones embedded, each time your phone hears one, it pings Google and lets the advertisers know (and Google gets to keep the demographic info of the phone user for their own purposes). All of this could easily be accomplished by including some small bit of language in the EULA and providing for some obscure method to opt-out. It could totally change the metrics used for ad sales on radio.

What’s that, Google Tone is included in the next Google Now update that’s already installed on every new Android phone? I could NEVER see that happening <insert yet-to-be-agreed-upon-sarcasm-punctuation-mark>.

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Thursday’s guest:  Justin Robert Young

 

DTNS 2501 – Ive Been Promoted

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comPatrick Norton joins us to talk about Microsoft announcing Cortana for iOS and Android and Microsoft’s continuing cross-platform strategy. Crazy, genius or both?

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Show Notes

Today’s guests: Patrick Norton

Headlines: 

Microsoft announced today that it will bring a Cortana app to Android in June and iOS later this year. The app will have most of the functions of Cortana but can’t work with settings or launch apps. Windows 10 is also getting a companion app for phones that helps you integrate whatever phone you have with your Windows 10 device. And the Xbox Music apps are getting an update in late June or July that will let them play music stored in One Drive without additional charge.

Twitter’s Periscope is now available for Android users according to CNET. The Android version of the popular broadcasting App will have comparable features to the iOS version including the ability to tweet links to their broadcasts and location sharing. Additionally Android users get specific control over notifications, including when a follower goes lives, shares a broadcast or is followed by someone else, and if a user leaves a broadcast to answer a text message, they will get a notification inviting them back to the broadcast they were watching.

9 to 5 Mac reports that Apple’s Jony Ive has been promoted to the newly created position of Chief Design Officer at Apple. Ive will still be in charge of the company’s hardware and software design teams overall, but day-to-day management of the Industrial Design department will go to Richard Howarth, and Alan Dye will manage User Interface Design on desktop and mobile devices. Ive will focus on the design of Apple’s retail stores and the new Apple campus.

9 to 5 Mac has sources that say Force Touch will come to the next version of the iPhone and be supported by iOS9. Force Touch is built into new MacBooks and MacBook Pros as well as the Apple Watch. On the phone it may replace some long press-and-hold interactions.

ZDNet reports EMC will buy Virtustream for $1.2 billion allowing the company to offer hybrid cloud managed service. The acquisition ads the as-a-service element to VMware, Enterprise Hybrid Cloud, converged infrastructure and such. If you’ve been following the chatter about hybrid cloud impress your friends and say “I think managed services marketing is going to supersede that.”

CNET reports that Android Police has revealed rumors from a reliable source that Google will release two new Nexus phones but no tablet this year. One phone produced by LG codenamed “Angler” will feature a 5.2” screen, possibly a Snapdragon 808 processor, and 2700mAh battery. The second phone will be a 5.7”, a Snapdragon 810 processor, and 3500mAh batter from Huawei codenamed “Bullhead”. Both phones should be out around Oct.

The Verge reports that Ford has expanded their test of a car-sharing service in London with a full service called GoDrive. The service is one way, with guaranteed parking at your destination. It will use a fleet of Fiestas and Focus Electrics and initially be open to 2,000 people who will have access to 50 cars spread across 20 locations around London. Realtime charges are displayed on GoDrive’s smartphone app, and the first five minutes are free so that you can figure out how to use the car’s controls.

Engadget reports Google announced Tuesday it is funding a $20 million grant to make the world more accessible. The Google Impact: Disabilities program wants to “create universal access for people with disabilities.” The gernal public is asked to submit What If questions and startups and inventors are asked to respond. The program is open for submissions until September 30, 2015 at 2:00 pm at http://get.google.com/disabilitiesimpactchallenge/

News From You:

Derekhuether shared a post from inhabitat.com with stills of Tesla’s gigafactory under construction in Nevada. The factory will span 10 million sq. ft. when completed. In a Tweet, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said, “This is not the full Gigafactory, it is just the pilot plant (1/4 size).” The finished factory will cover hundreds of acres and be among the largest factories in the world. Tesla’s Gigafactory will be run on renewable energy, using power from three sources: the flat roof will be covered in solar panels and the factory will be plugged into a nearby wind farm and a geothermal electricity plant. Emory Peterson, a Nevada local, shot the video using a DJI Phantom 3 Professional Quadcopter Drone from a mile away.

habichuelacondulce posted the BloomBergBusiness article that Charter Communications was near a deal to buy TWC and that deal is now confirmed. Charter will pay about $55 billion. Patrick Drahi’s Altice SA had also been pursuing TWC, driving up the price. .Bright House Networks will also be acquired by Charter and merged into the combined entity. The combined business will have about 17 million subscribers second in the US to Comcast’s 22 million. Comcast dropped their pursuit of TWC in April due to regulatory concerns. French billionaire The transaction is expected to be completed by the ned of 2015.

Metalfreak flagged the PC World report that Orange is moving Kenyan mobile subscribers off CDMA and launching five LTE networks in Africa this year. This is a growing trend in Africa. Telecom Namibia shut down al its CDMA sites March 31st and moved customers to HSPA+ and LTE. One factor for the moves besides speed and service is that CDMA handsets cost more than GSM.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2015/05/26/your-windows-10-pc-will-love-all-the-devices-you-own/
 http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/26/microsoft-brings-cortana-to-ios-and-android-with-companion-app/?ncid=rss
 http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-confirms-cortana-is-coming-to-iphones-android/
 http://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2015/05/26/microsoft-expands-cross-platform-services-strategy-through-agreements-with-additional-device-partners/

Pick of the Day:

Devulu recently wanted a self-hostable way to save articles and webpages like a personal Pocket. Devulu writes:

After some searching I found Wallabag which is free and open source and does the job quite well. While the interface may not be as intuitive as other partially free or paid services, the features make up for it.

It has Apps for Android iOS and Windows Phone, I have not used the apps myself but I hope they are good.

There are Firefox and Chrome extensions/addins plus a bookmarklet

You can also download all your saved links in ePub 3, Mobi or PDF format, it can import from similar services like Pocket Readability or Instapaper and export for moving to a new wallabag.

You can customize the theme, have multiple users and probably some more features I have left out.

Messages: 

Allison Sheridan writes:

I asked Steve to post in the Reddit an article by Wired about changes at GoDaddy but I wanted to give a plug about it too. The new CEO seems to have made substantive changes about women. From hiring female CTO to hiring 40% women into technical and engineering internships this year, and finally getting rid of the sexy lady ads.

http://www.wired.com/2015/05/godaddy-isnt-company-think/?mbid=social_twitter

Marlon”theGuyFromTrinidad” writes:

I don’t know if you will be doing a Google I/O preview, well…because sorry to say your contributors Android Fu…isn’t that strong, but that’s ok cause Ron Amadeo is here to rescue you. Last week he published this epic 6000+ word article that breaks it all down. So now, you to, can look like an Android shaolin master. (apologies, I was listening to Wu Tang Clan when I wrote this)

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/05/google-tracker-io-2015-edition-android-m-chromecast-2-and-lots-more/

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Wednesday’s guest:  Scott Johnson