It’s the Memorial day holiday in the US, so Tom’s just reading the headlines before he joins the rest of his US counterparts. Back with full shows tomorrow.

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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

Justin Young joins the show to talk about the latest reason why Apple TV rumors won’t be true, Uber’s autonomous car research and how LED lights in the grocery store can help you find the tortillas you like. Plus Len Peralta illustrates the show!

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Using a Screen Reader? click here

Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.

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A special thanks to all our Patreon supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here at the low, low cost of a nickel a day on Patreon. Thank you!

Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!

Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!

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

Show Notes

Today’s Guest: Justin Robert Young and Len Peralta

Headlines

Happy Birthday Puck-Man!
Hey that Apple TV service that Apple never announced is coming? It got delayed again. Re/Code reports that according to “industry executives familiar with Apple’s plans” Apple wants to include live local TV programming. That’s a tall order. Even CBS and ABC can’t get the rights to stream local channels in their various apps. All this mean that all those rumors that Apple would announce the service at WWDC and launch it in the autumn are likely to be wrong.

There’s a new kind of car cruising the streets of Pittsburgh. Actually it’s a Ford, but the Pittsburgh Business Times took a photograph of a car which has the words “Uber Advanced Technologies Center” on the side, and a box of electronic components on the roof. The Verge reached out to Uber, which said the Ford is NOT a self-driving car, but rather “part of our early research regarding mapping, safety and autonomy systems.” As you may recall, Uber has set up a research center in a strategic partnership with Carnegie Mellon University. In less exciting news the Pirates have already lost six games in extra innings this year making thier record 18 and 22.

9to5 Mac which is actually really good about finding out things before Apple is ready to announce them, has rounded up everything it knows about iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 ahead of next month’s WWDC announcements. A lot of it you’ve heard before but the big takeaway is both OS updates will focus on quality which means a lot of reliability improvements, fewer bugs but also fewer splashy features. Although one feature called rootless, would restrict access to certain files even from Admin-level users as a measure to combat malware.

Ars Technica reports Australian Security researcher Troy Hunt reported Friday morning that data from subscribers to AdultFriendFinder.com is a available in 15 spreadsheets posted on site protected by Tor privacy. The data included 3.8 million addresses as well as age, zip code, sexual orientation and even things like whether the user was seeking an extramarital affair. The spreadsheets include data for current, former and even deleted accounts.
PC World reports Firefox will begin testing advertising tiles based on a user’s browsing history. The ads will be called Suggested Tiles and will appear on a user’s new tab page. Ad display selection happens inside the browser on the user’s machine and only a minimal amount of data leaves the browser. Yo can try it out by getting a build from Firefox’s beta channel next week. Nightly test builds have contained the feature since last summer.

TechCrunch reports Korea’s Yello Mobile, which has acquired 61 companies over the past year, just picked up Singapore-based Gushcloud. Gushcloud is an influencer marketing platform in Southeast ASia, which means it pays people to tweet and vlog and such about stuff. Yello says it plans to acquire 20 more marketing companies across Asia this year. An interesting note is that when Yello Mobile acquires a company it leaves the founders in charge and lets them continue to build the companies as if they were still independent.

TechCrunch reports that the world’s leading seller of virtual stickers — messaging app Line — is trying out a music service with some of its users in Thailand. Line Music is available for IOS and Android there and integrates into the chat app to share songs with friends and post to timelines. The music service costs the equivalent of $2 a month, though the first month is free.Line has a YouTube like TV service, a payments platform, an Uber like service in Japan and makes most of its money on in-app purchases for games.
PC World reports that Pebble will start shipping its latest smartwatch next Wednesday May 27th and finish manufacturing all orders by the end of May. According the project’s Kickstarter page by mid-June every contributor should be able to track their shipment. Next week, Pebble will introduce new Android and iOS mobile apple that only work with the Pebble Time models.

Oh and hey if you were wondering who it was that was trying to buy Salesforce— and why wouldn’t you be— CNBC reports it was Microsoft the whole time. Likely in a clever mask. People familiar with the situation said Microsoft offered as much as $55 billion. But Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said NOT ENOUGH and wanted as much as $70 billion.

News From You:

TVSTRavis submitted the top story on the subreddit today. A Consumerist article from a couple days ago reports that General Motors attorney Harry Lightsey told a public US Copyright Office hearing that software in GM cars is licensed to the owner of the car. This is similar to claims we discussed regarding John Deere tractors. The Office is expected to issue a ruling in July.

johnsie776 posted the Ars Technica story that researchers from Cambridge University found an estimated 500 million Android phones do not completely wipe data when users choose the factory reset option, even if full disk encryption is on. The researchers were able to recover login credentials, text messages, email and contacts from 21 phones running Android 2.3 to 4.3. The findings are published in the research paper, “ Security Analysis of Android Factory Resets.”

Discussion Links: 

http://www.engadget.com/2015/05/22/philips-led-vlc-navigation/?ncid=rss_truncated

http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/networks/philips-creates-store-shopping-assistant-with-leds-and-smart-

phonehttp://blog.bytelight.com/post/93503988148/place-2014-recap-finding-technologies-to-scale#.VV9yaFnBzGc

http://website-assets.bytelight.com/assets/how_it_works-1ee62918322ee289a0c7d315b2554cd0.jpg

http://www.bytelight.com/http://phys.org/wire-news/193743383/carrefours-led-supermarket-lighting-from-philips-helps-shoppers.html

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150504005274/en/Floor-Ceiling-Philips-Showcases-Latest-Connected-Lighting#.VV9x11nBzGc

http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2015/05/tone-experimental-chrome-extension-for.html

Pick of the Day: The Rufus Cuff

dash2justice was listening to Veronica wishing that the Apple Watch could work on it’s own without having to be tethered to her phone, and has an alternative to the Apple Watch. The Rufus Cuff is a smart watch that has a 3″ screen and can either be tethered to your phone or can run on it’s own because it runs full android Kit Kat (with support for future OS updates). So it can run on it’s own but will stand out. But think about all the cool wrist computers like oh, I don’t know, maybe THE PIPBOY.”

Engadget wrote: “It connects to your Android or iPhone via Bluetooth for mobile data, making calls and sending texts, but it’s running a full version of Google’s mobile OS and can hook on to WiFi if you’re in a cellular dead-zone”

Messages of the Day

I enjoyed the discussion you had with Allison yesterday about social media and other technology. The introduction of the telephone was compared to what is being said about the internet. I am 79 remember when many people didn’t have a phone. My mother would often send me to the neighbors to tell them someone had call our house for them. I remember the family sitting around to listen to the radio. In 1960 , my wife and I moved 2000+ miles from home. Long distant call were expensive and only used for emergencies. We had a stretch of five years without being able to visit family and friends. Now I have daughter who lives in the Seattle area, a granddaughter who lives in Colorado Springs with three of her own children. We Skype with them several times a week. I have been able to re-establish relationships with high school and college classmates with Facebook. Although I don’t understand why kids will text each other when standing next to one another, I prefer the technology we have available today.

Bill Burlingame
Huntsville, AL

—

Hi Tom, Jenny, et al,

On Wednesday Llamar was talking about his disappointment in ad block. I understand that it is tough as a creator to see a revenue source blocked by the user, but there has to be a reason they are choosing to do this. Advertisements on the web are annoying to me, and while I want the creators I love to get paid, I want them to get paid because I am enjoying content, not because I am annoyed. I run add block on my machine and would on my phone with no reservation because I support the content I want to support (like this show) of my own accord. Didn’t make me a free loading jerk.

Anthony from finally thawed Maine

—

Ted Dushane from lovingly academic Ann Arbor, Michigan.

I listened with interest to your discussion of the very bad practice of using security questions.

My wife and I have developed a workaround that I recommend for your audience:

Following are the rules for our system:

(1) make up a secret phrase which will apply to all answers. Call it:

OURPERSONALPHRASE

(2) examine each security question. For each one, determine the subject of the question, call it:

SUBJECT

(3) the answer to the question will then be:

OURPERSONALPHRASESUBJECT

(4) Almost all sites give you several optional questions, but in case they force one of them to have a date for the answer, my wife and I have chosen a date which we always use for that question. Obviously, it is not a date of any importance to us but one we determined using a random number generator. We have never found a site requiring more than one date among the answers.

Here are 2 examples, where the phrase chosen is “I love summer”

Security question: “What is your favorite touring car?”

Answer: Ilovesummercar (since “car” is the subject of the sentence)

Security question: “What is your wife’s first pet’s name?”

Answer: Ilovesummername

Monday: DTNS contributor Veronica Belmont!

Allison Sheridan is on the show. Are you addicted to your smartphone because of social networks? Has the Internet made you antisocial? Can these both be true?

MP3

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Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

A special thanks to all our Patreon supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here at the low, low cost of a nickel a day on Patreon. Thank you!

Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!

Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!

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

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Allison Sheridan

Headlines: 

The CBC reports the ‘five eyes’ intelligence alliance of Canada, US, UK, Australia and New Zealand sought to find ways to intercept app updates from the Google and Samsung app stores in order to install spyware. According to documents, the agencies targeted mobile app servers in France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Cuba, Morocco, the Bahamas and Russia. The same agencies also found security gaps in Alibaba’s UC Browser, the most popular 3rd-party browser on smart phones. Citizen Lab, a human rights and technology group in Toronto recently found the leak and alerted Alibaba in mid-April.

“sources briefed on the plans” have told 9to5 Mac that Apple could demonstrate a split-screen applications feature for the iPad in iOS9 at WWDC. Multi-user login support and the mythical 12-inch iPad — code names J98 and J99— are also in the offing later this year… still. Also a TV! And a car! And the iPony!

Engadget reports that YouTube now supports 60fps for LIVE streaming. For now you’ll need an HTML5-compatible browser to see the streams. YouTube will encode these streams in both 720p60 and 1080p60 formats but will automatically throttle down to 30FPS for devices that can’t handle 60. Other new HTML5 playback features include rewinding a live stream and double speed video play back to catch up. YouTube collaborated with Elgato and Spilt to ensure continued compatibility of Elgato Game Capture, Xsplit Broadcaster and Gamecaster.

Trivia game QuizUp is now a social network according to TechCrunch. The new app includes forums with comment threads, likes, and photo-sharing. Users can search for a specific type of user by location age and gender. QuizUp has more than 12,000 topics. There are 33 million users worldwide, who play approximately 7 million games per day, the average user spending 30 min a day playing.

Google may have an answer to Huawei’s ‘Lite OS’ for the Internet of Things when Google I/O rolls around next week. Ars Technica reports on an Information piece that Google’s OS is codenamed Brillo, will be marketed under the Android name and is developed by a group “linked to the Android unit.” So it’s probably Android-based. Brillo will be aimed at devices with 32-64MB of RAM and will allegedly be offered free to OEMs.

TechCrunch reports on a new study from Google regarding security questions like ‘what was your first pet’s name’. Researchers looked at ‘hundreds of millions’ of these questions and their answers from Google users and concluded that “secret questions are neither secure nor reliable enough to be used as a standalone account recovery mechanism.” The answers are either too easy to guess or too hard to remember. Google’s researchers recommend sites use SMS backup codes, secondary email addresses and other means to securely authenticate users.

Reuters says the US Department of Commerce proposed new export controls Wednesday that would treat zero-day software flaws as potential weapons. Among other things, that would require bug hunters to get a license to collect bug bounties from any company outside the ‘five eyes’ countries. The new rules are subject to a 60-day comment period.

The Pew Research Center has two reports out that show people in the US are fairly certain their privacy is gone in public and in private but they haven’t done anything to protect it themselves. More than 90% of adults surveyed felt that who gets information and what is collected about them is important. 31% are confident the government and phone companies can keep their info secure. 38% felt the same confidence in credit card companies. However 91% have not made any changes recently to internet or phone use to avoid tracking.

News From You:

themoke got the top vote getter on the subreddit today with a post of an Imgur gallery in which MacMAnsen uses a photocopier to back up his Kindle copy of Orwell’s 1984. He even made it a hardbound book. And then re-uploaded the scanned pages as an ebook.

the_corely sent us this The Next Web story that Amazon’s Prime Now service now offers one-hour delivery from local stores starting in select neighborhoods of Manhattan delivering from D’Agostino, Gourmet Garage and Billy’s Bakery. Amazon says it will expand its service across Manhattan in the coming weeks and add Eataly and Westside Market. Other cities with Prime Now will follow. If you’re in the area, you can place your orders through the Prime Now app to take advantage of Amazon’s new offering.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/humble/news/smartphone-use-while-driving-grows-beyond-texting-to-social-media/article_975e8fc9-482a-5687-b4e8-810aeec1df5a.html

http://www.govtech.com/data/Iowa-State-University-Researchers-Examine-No-Mobile-Phone-Phobia.html

http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alexander_Deursen/publication/271041232_Modeling_habitual_and_addictive_smartphone_behavior._The_role_of_smartphone_usage_types_emotional_intelligence_social_stress_self-regulation_age_and_gender/links/54bcb3bd0cf24e50e9408231.pdf

http://wilsonquarterly.com/stories/the-call-of-the-future/

 

Pick of the Day:

Mobee Magic Bar, Magic Feet

Messages: 

Chris, one of our nickel-backers from Fresno identified another reason that Spotify might be rolling out a running option for their service. He writes:

“As a consumer, I’ve got a budget for paying for services, and if I’m a runner/gym rat/fitness enthusiast who likes to listen to music mostly while I’m working out, there are already options that are geared towards my use like Rock My Run, and FIT Radio. By including similar features inside Spotify, that might get me to cancel my paid subscription to a different service and upgrade my free Spotify account to put all my music listening into a single app.

Michael from Scotland laments:

“Why can’t Spotify just be like an good ol’ PC music player (or an mp3 player on mobile) – I open it up and boom I am straight into a list of all the favourites songs, albums and artists I have added! No friend list! No recommended playlists! No trending whatevers! … Why does it feel like when music went online I suddenly needed to be constantly nagged about what I should be listening to? …It should just be a music player, for the music I like! Every Spotify annnouncement just sounds like feature creep.”
Sonia in Pure Michigan country assures us that up there in 4 season Southeast Michigan they have the self-driving car in winter problem covered! She writes:

“The Mcity test facility on U of M’s North Campus (home to the School of Music, my alma mater, as well as the School of Engineering, which I abandoned due to an allergy to physics) is slated to open this summer. It’s interesting to note that Google is moving their Ann Arbor presence to North Campus as well, building a new campus — an increase of jobs from their former home in downtown Ann Arbor. Coincidence? Perhaps — but I think not.

Here’s a link to the Mcity website:
http://www.mtc.umich.edu/test-facility

Can’t wait to see the data coming out of there!

Tim among the people:

(including Dave immediately in the chat room yesterday) Google bought songza (for a fraction of the price of beats) after Apple bought beats.

=====

Friday’s guest:  Justin Robert Young and Len Peralta

Scott Johnson and Lamarr Wilson join the show to discuss Spotify’s new custom playlist and running features. And can adding video and podcasts boost the money it makes from music?

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

A special thanks to all our Patreon supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here at the low, low cost of a nickel a day on Patreon. Thank you!

Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!

Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!

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

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Scott Johnson and Lamarr Wilson

Headlines: 

Spotify announced the addition of Spotify Now— Songza-like custom playlists — Spotify Running— sophisticated playlists for running that change with your pace— as well as the addition of videos and podcasts. Spotify Running will integrate with Nike + and RunKeeper apps later this year. Spotify Now launches for iOS in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Sweden today. Spotify Running comes to iOS globally today.

ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley reports that Twitter user @h0x0d discovered a download page marked ‘Microsoft Confidential’ for a Microsoft-made iOS app called ‘Flow by Outlook.’ Text describing the app read “Reach anyone with an email address and all conversations for you and others are also in Outlook.” Only conversations started in Flow appear in Flow. A Microsoft spokesperson said the company had nothing to share about Flow.

Engadget is reporting that Adblock Plus app is returning to the Google Play Store after being pulled in 2013 for “interfering” with other apps. To avoid problems the new Adblock Plus is a modified version of the Firefox Android browser with ad blocking built in. It does not support extensions or Firefox’s synchronization feature. The app hasn’t yet gone live in the Play store so users are encouraged become testers by signing up to Adblock Plus’s Google+ community and download the app directly.

TechCrunch reports that Microsoft is now offering the digital tv tuner designed by Hauppage for the Xbox One. The tuner is compatible with Snap, voice control, OneGuide and streaming to other devices, even if someone else is using the Xbox for gaming. It does not support DVR functions, though you can pause, FF and rewind live TV for up to 30 minutes. Microsoft is offering a bundle that includes the tuner and a Mohu Leaf 50 antenna for $100.

PCMag.com reports on Google’s Tone Chrome extension. When you want to send a URL, click the blue button and the service broadcasts a series of tone. Any machine within earshot that also uses the extension (including those on a phone or Hangout) will receive the URL. Just remember that ANY computer that can hear the tone will get the URL.

Yonhap News reports that LG Display has unveiled an OLED display panel that sticks to the wall. The 55-inch wallpaper panel is 0.97 mm thick, weighs 1.9kg and sticks to the wall using a magnetic mat. LG’s existing 55-inch OLED panel is now seemingly fat 4.3 mm. No word on when the new wallpaper panel wil make it in to production.

News From You:

Starfuryzeta submitted the ArsTechnica report on a new attack on HTTPS-protected websites detailed in a research paper called “Imperfect Forward Secrecy: How Diffie-Hellman Fails in Practice.”. The attack, being called ‘logjam’ affects servers that support Diffie-Hellman key exchange by downgrading to 512-bit encryption. It takes advantage of a weakness in the encryption added in the 1990s to allow US law enforcement to break the encryption if used by foreign entities. It’s similar in this way to the FREAK attack uncovered in March. The attack is estimated to affect 8.4% of the top 1 million websites as well as a slightly larger percentage of mail servers. Internet Explorer is protected and updates to other browsers are expected in the next few days. Server admins are encouraged to disable support of DHE_EXPORT ciphersuites that allow downgraded connections. ore info can be found at weakdh.org/

cdnDude74 submitted the TechRepublic article that Google plans to roll out their own VPN service. A reference to Google VPN was found in “Google Connectivity Services” in Android 5.15 on a Nexus 6. However the service isn’t active yet.

mranthropology submitted The Verge article about Huawei’s announcement of an Internet of Things operating system called LiteOS, that’s 10 kb large. LiteOS is meant for any smart device from wearables to cars and will be made open to all developers with zero configuration necessary for users. Huawei is also marketing its Agile Network architecture to help companies manage all those incoming connections.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/20/8629623/spotify-video-podcast-fitness-profit-loss-music

http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/20/spotify-introduces-video-clips-podcasts-and-activity-based-playlists/?ncid=rss

http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/20/8629335/spotify-adds-podcasts-videos

https://news.spotify.com/us/2015/05/20/say-hello-to-the-most-entertaining-spotify-ever/

Pick of the Day:

J. wrote in with an explanation of why customer service reps often ask you for all the information you already told the phone tree:

“I’m a tech support rep for a major ISP. In regards to account info when you call customer service. With large companies, different call centers handle different regions. The system is in place more to route you to the right person than to give that person your account. That having been said, I do get a pop-up with your account number about 60% of the time. The account number is generated and auto-pops based on the phone number you typed or said in most cases. The difficulty is that a person with your phone number may or may not be a person you want accessing your account, so we ask for it anyway, along with other CPNI info. Consider it 2 factor authentication.

Short version… I’m not gonna be that Apple rep who let someone into Tom Merrit’s email account.”

Messages: 

Doug wrote regarding municipal broadband:

“First, the existing monopolies or near monopolies on broadband are the direct result of municipal interference in the market. Both telephone companies and cable companies were granted monopolies to encourage infrastructure buildout. Why should I expect further interference in the market to be more competently accomplished?

Second, in most cases where cities provide services, they grant themselves monopolies and charge monopolistic prices. An example: My last house was in an unincorporated part of the county I live in, and I could get trash service for $10 per month, up to 10 containers, the trash company would return the containers from the curb to the side of my house, and recycling was free. After moving to a municipality that has city pickup, the price is $30 per month, I have to buy containers at $60 ea. from the city, and if I want to recycle, I have to buy a separate container for that. Three times the price for much less service.

If you could guarantee that cities:
1. Had to charge their real costs (that is, that they were prohibited from subsidizing broadband with other revenues, including amortization of the buildout costs) OR had to allow access to any subsidized infrastructure to any competitor at an audited fair price
2. Were prohibited from enforcing a monopoly on broadband
I’d support municipal broadband.

=====

Thursday’s guest:  Allison Sheridan

Patrick Beja is on the show and we’ll talk about protest letters regarding encryption back doors and zero-rating, an app store for your 10-year-old car and the most annoying innovations in tech.

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

A special thanks to all our Patreon supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here at the low, low cost of a nickel a day on Patreon. Thank you!

Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!

Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!

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

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Patrick Beja

Headlines: 

The Washington Post reports 164 tech companies organizations and security researchers sent a letter to US President Obama asking him to reject any proposed law that would “deliberately weaken the security of their products.” US FBI Director James B. Comey is among several US government officials pushing companies to allow government to have access to all encrypted data. The letter is signed by three of the five members of a presidential review group appointed to assess policy in the wake of the Snowden leaks.

The BBC reports 67 digital rights groups from around the world signed a letter to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stating concerns about the Internet.org initiative. The letter says the project threatens freedom of expression, privacy and the principle of net neutrality. Internet.org lets users access participating services without incurring data charges. It does not currently support https, ssl or TLS. Internet.og is currently available in Zambia, India, Colombia, Guatemala, Tanzania, Kenya, Ghana, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malawi.

TechCrunch has the tech specs on Apple’s just updated MacBook Pro iMac. The 15” Retina MacBook Pro now comes with a new force touch trackpad, improved PCIe-based flash drive with 2.5x the performance, one more hour of battery life, and a new Radeon R9 M370X discrete GPU option. Prices start at $1999 for a 16GB, 2.2GHz quad-core Core i7, and 256GB of storage. The iMac 5K Retina now comes with a 3.3 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor and Radeon R9 M290 graphics card. And Apple is now selling a lightning dock for your iPhone 6 and 6 plus for $40. This one should last through a few more models since the base is open.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple shelved plans for a 4K television, according to people familiar with the matter. The reason? The features — including a camera that would allow users to make video calls — were not compelling enough to impress executives. However, according to Reuters, prominent investor Carl Icahn says Apple will still introduce a TV, and a car. And he wants Apple to buy back more stock. And he wants a pony. The pony part is unconfirmed.

ZDNet reports that Microsoft has released public previews of Word, Excel and PowerPoint for Android phones today. The new Office app previews require KitKat 4.4.x or higher and devices with 1 GB of RAM or more.You’ll also need to join the Office Android Preview group. “Become a tester” on Google Play by visiting the Word,Excel and PowerPoint apps. Wait for Google Play to replicate permissions, then click above mentioned links and follow the download links to install apps from the Google Play Store. Finally join Microsoft’s Google+ community for support, feedback and queries. But that’s all!

Tech Crunch reports that Google is adding tweets to its search results. Use the word Twitter in your search request or just search for a term and see if people are saying anything about it on Twitter.
Results will show up for English-language mobile users today on browsers and Android and iOS Google apps. Google is working on adding it to the desktop and other languages.

Automatic is launching an app store and SDK for its on-board diagnostic— or OBD plug— according to CNET. First-generation Automatic dongles are compatible with the new App Gallery but not the new SDK. The new dev platform includes a streaming SDK that only works with second-generation Automatic hardware. The new hardware is able to send raw, real-time performance data to select third-party apps over Bluetooth. The streaming SDK is in currently in private beta. The second-generation Automatic adapter will retail for $99.95 same as the first-gen.

News From You:

This was our top vote-getter on the subreddit today. johnsie776 posted the Ars Technica report that the state of North Carolina has sued the US Federal Communications Commission. The FCC pre-empted state law to help the City of Winston expand its municipal broadband network. The state claims that the FCC unlawfully inserted itself between the State and the State’s political subdivisions. The case is now in the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Tennessee is also suing the FCC in the Sixth Circuit regarding municipal broadband in Chatannooga.

jaymz668 sent the KitGuru post noting a Chrome and Android engineer said in a Reddit AMA session late last week— that developers are working on improving Chrome’s resource usage on mobile as well as memory leaks on the desktop. Here’s hoping.

habichuelcondulce pointed out the PC World article that the Center for Digital Democracy and the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood filed an update to their U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) complaint against The YouTube Kids app. The update adds a video of allegedly harmful content to the complaint originally filed in April. The groups also added the complaint that Google is deceiving parents about the effectiveness of the screening process. Google said it is working to make the videos in YouTube Kids as family friendly as possible.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://www.studyweb.com/hated-internet-innovations/

https://twitter.com/anocelot/status/600710282890125312

https://twitter.com/kjblank80/status/600710710172196865

https://twitter.com/sjh_canada/status/600713825353125888

https://twitter.com/bloreboy/status/600714102944698368

https://twitter.com/airwhale/status/600718740527968258

https://twitter.com/reject69187/status/600731252015046657

Pick of the Day:

Daryl Sensenig (in lovely Lancaster County, Pennsylvania):

My pick is Bing Maps. I know that nearly everyone uses Google Maps, but I feel that Bing is much better in several ways:

1. In my experience, the routing is better and the travel time estimates are more accurate.
2. Their satellite view (bird’s eye view) is actually photos from airplanes and not satellites. So, it is much more detailed than Google Maps in many areas.
3. I prefer the interface over the new Google Maps

That said, there are a few drawbacks:

1. Their street view doesn’t have quite as good coverage
2. Business search isn’t quite as strong.

Messages: 

Alex writes in:

Long time listener to the show. Since the United In-Flight systems “hack” keeps popping up in the news, I figure I should clarify some points. My company created and maintains the In-flight Entertainment (IFE) system for United. The IFE server receives one-way communication from the planes avionics, such as altitude and heading. Those values are saved as a variable and used to trigger automated functions, such as retracting overhead monitors when descending for landing. In my test lab, I have to manipulate those variables to test the systems operations during various flight scenarios, since I’m not on a real aircraft. Those are the variables that the security researcher saw. Modifying them in flight will have no effect on other systems. You can trick the IFE system to show that we are flying to Hawaii on the passenger map display, but plane’s auto-pilot won’t change. Also on the real aircraft, the avionics systems will periodically refresh any modified data with real data. It just that the polling rate is really slow to avoid flooding these underpowered systems.

Reports also say that he tampered with his seat box casing and got access to the internal diagnostic port to achieve this hack. Also, reports say that he obtained the admin password which how he was able to jump firewall from the seat subnet to the server subnet.

TL;DR if you have physical access to a client machine and the admin password, you can get access to the servers. But you can’t change anything beyond the server. Only what the server perceives to be real data, but the data will be refreshed periodically anyways.

Sean wrote:

“On Fridays show Darren talked about car trains. He was using some sarcasm, but had a point. Everytime I hear about self driving cars I get frustrated. I live where we have snow and other forms of weather. This never seems to be addressed by companies developing self driving technology.”

Rolando – Your fan from Paraguay, the heart of South America writes:

As our communication becomes increasingly more digital, I think we need a symbol for ironic comments, pics, etc. to have the same immediate recognizable unmistakable effect as other symbols have for their own meaning [for instance, no one doubts the meaning of the ‘bird’ (pardon my French)].
This has been tried before, but the proposed symbol for irony didn’t catch on.
So, when I heard you talking with @veronica in her official appearance (great add!) about emojis, I thought that I’d ask you, to ask to your bright and passionate audience, to create and establish a universal Irony emoji.
Wouldn’t it be great? It’ll be a great legacy! #NotBeingIronicHere
Congrats on your newest milestone and keep it up!

=====

Wednesday’s guest:  Scott Johnson & Lamarr Wilson

 

Patrick Beja is on the show and we’ll talk about protest letters regarding encryption back doors and zero-rating, an app store for your 10-year-old car and the most annoying innovations in tech.

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

A special thanks to all our Patreon supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here at the low, low cost of a nickel a day on Patreon. Thank you!

Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!

Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!

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

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Patrick Beja

Headlines: 

The Washington Post reports 164 tech companies organizations and security researchers sent a letter to US President Obama asking him to reject any proposed law that would “deliberately weaken the security of their products.” US FBI Director James B. Comey is among several US government officials pushing companies to allow government to have access to all encrypted data. The letter is signed by three of the five members of a presidential review group appointed to assess policy in the wake of the Snowden leaks.

The BBC reports 67 digital rights groups from around the world signed a letter to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stating concerns about the Internet.org initiative. The letter says the project threatens freedom of expression, privacy and the principle of net neutrality. Internet.org lets users access participating services without incurring data charges. It does not currently support https, ssl or TLS. Internet.og is currently available in Zambia, India, Colombia, Guatemala, Tanzania, Kenya, Ghana, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malawi.

TechCrunch has the tech specs on Apple’s just updated MacBook Pro iMac. The 15” Retina MacBook Pro now comes with a new force touch trackpad, improved PCIe-based flash drive with 2.5x the performance, one more hour of battery life, and a new Radeon R9 M370X discrete GPU option. Prices start at $1999 for a 16GB, 2.2GHz quad-core Core i7, and 256GB of storage. The iMac 5K Retina now comes with a 3.3 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor and Radeon R9 M290 graphics card. And Apple is now selling a lightning dock for your iPhone 6 and 6 plus for $40. This one should last through a few more models since the base is open.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple shelved plans for a 4K television, according to people familiar with the matter. The reason? The features — including a camera that would allow users to make video calls — were not compelling enough to impress executives. However, according to Reuters, prominent investor Carl Icahn says Apple will still introduce a TV, and a car. And he wants Apple to buy back more stock. And he wants a pony. The pony part is unconfirmed.

ZDNet reports that Microsoft has released public previews of Word, Excel and PowerPoint for Android phones today. The new Office app previews require KitKat 4.4.x or higher and devices with 1 GB of RAM or more.You’ll also need to join the Office Android Preview group. “Become a tester” on Google Play by visiting the Word,Excel and PowerPoint apps. Wait for Google Play to replicate permissions, then click above mentioned links and follow the download links to install apps from the Google Play Store. Finally join Microsoft’s Google+ community for support, feedback and queries. But that’s all!

Tech Crunch reports that Google is adding tweets to its search results. Use the word Twitter in your search request or just search for a term and see if people are saying anything about it on Twitter.
Results will show up for English-language mobile users today on browsers and Android and iOS Google apps. Google is working on adding it to the desktop and other languages.

Automatic is launching an app store and SDK for its on-board diagnostic— or OBD plug— according to CNET. First-generation Automatic dongles are compatible with the new App Gallery but not the new SDK. The new dev platform includes a streaming SDK that only works with second-generation Automatic hardware. The new hardware is able to send raw, real-time performance data to select third-party apps over Bluetooth. The streaming SDK is in currently in private beta. The second-generation Automatic adapter will retail for $99.95 same as the first-gen.

News From You:

This was our top vote-getter on the subreddit today. johnsie776 posted the Ars Technica report that the state of North Carolina has sued the US Federal Communications Commission. The FCC pre-empted state law to help the City of Winston expand its municipal broadband network. The state claims that the FCC unlawfully inserted itself between the State and the State’s political subdivisions. The case is now in the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Tennessee is also suing the FCC in the Sixth Circuit regarding municipal broadband in Chatannooga.

jaymz668 sent the KitGuru post noting a Chrome and Android engineer said in a Reddit AMA session late last week— that developers are working on improving Chrome’s resource usage on mobile as well as memory leaks on the desktop. Here’s hoping.

habichuelcondulce pointed out the PC World article that the Center for Digital Democracy and the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood filed an update to their U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) complaint against The YouTube Kids app. The update adds a video of allegedly harmful content to the complaint originally filed in April. The groups also added the complaint that Google is deceiving parents about the effectiveness of the screening process. Google said it is working to make the videos in YouTube Kids as family friendly as possible.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://www.studyweb.com/hated-internet-innovations/

https://twitter.com/anocelot/status/600710282890125312

https://twitter.com/kjblank80/status/600710710172196865

https://twitter.com/sjh_canada/status/600713825353125888

https://twitter.com/bloreboy/status/600714102944698368

https://twitter.com/airwhale/status/600718740527968258

https://twitter.com/reject69187/status/600731252015046657

Pick of the Day:

Daryl Sensenig (in lovely Lancaster County, Pennsylvania):

My pick is Bing Maps. I know that nearly everyone uses Google Maps, but I feel that Bing is much better in several ways:

1. In my experience, the routing is better and the travel time estimates are more accurate.
2. Their satellite view (bird’s eye view) is actually photos from airplanes and not satellites. So, it is much more detailed than Google Maps in many areas.
3. I prefer the interface over the new Google Maps

That said, there are a few drawbacks:

1. Their street view doesn’t have quite as good coverage
2. Business search isn’t quite as strong.

Messages: 

Alex writes in:

Long time listener to the show. Since the United In-Flight systems “hack” keeps popping up in the news, I figure I should clarify some points. My company created and maintains the In-flight Entertainment (IFE) system for United. The IFE server receives one-way communication from the planes avionics, such as altitude and heading. Those values are saved as a variable and used to trigger automated functions, such as retracting overhead monitors when descending for landing. In my test lab, I have to manipulate those variables to test the systems operations during various flight scenarios, since I’m not on a real aircraft. Those are the variables that the security researcher saw. Modifying them in flight will have no effect on other systems. You can trick the IFE system to show that we are flying to Hawaii on the passenger map display, but plane’s auto-pilot won’t change. Also on the real aircraft, the avionics systems will periodically refresh any modified data with real data. It just that the polling rate is really slow to avoid flooding these underpowered systems.

Reports also say that he tampered with his seat box casing and got access to the internal diagnostic port to achieve this hack. Also, reports say that he obtained the admin password which how he was able to jump firewall from the seat subnet to the server subnet.

TL;DR if you have physical access to a client machine and the admin password, you can get access to the servers. But you can’t change anything beyond the server. Only what the server perceives to be real data, but the data will be refreshed periodically anyways.

Sean wrote:

“On Fridays show Darren talked about car trains. He was using some sarcasm, but had a point. Everytime I hear about self driving cars I get frustrated. I live where we have snow and other forms of weather. This never seems to be addressed by companies developing self driving technology.”

Rolando – Your fan from Paraguay, the heart of South America writes:

As our communication becomes increasingly more digital, I think we need a symbol for ironic comments, pics, etc. to have the same immediate recognizable unmistakable effect as other symbols have for their own meaning [for instance, no one doubts the meaning of the ‘bird’ (pardon my French)].
This has been tried before, but the proposed symbol for irony didn’t catch on.
So, when I heard you talking with @veronica in her official appearance (great add!) about emojis, I thought that I’d ask you, to ask to your bright and passionate audience, to create and establish a universal Irony emoji.
Wouldn’t it be great? It’ll be a great legacy! #NotBeingIronicHere
Congrats on your newest milestone and keep it up!

=====

Wednesday’s guest:  Scott Johnson & Lamarr Wilson

 

Veronica Belmont and Roger Chang fill in for Tom and take your questions on the Apple Watch!

MP3

 

Using a Screen Reader? click here

Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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

en route!

Veronica Belmont and Roger Chang fill in for Tom and take your questions on the Apple Watch!

MP3

 

Using a Screen Reader? click here

Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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: Veronica Belmont and Roger Chang

Headlines: 

The NY Times is reporting that Apple has acquired a bay area based GPS Start Up Coherent Navigation.  Coherent Navigation works on high-precision navigation systems and creating commercial navigation services based on partnerships with companies like Boeing and Iridium. It is unclear exactly how Apple will use the company’s services or technology. The terms of Apple’s acquisition of Coherent Navigation were not disclosed with the company stating in email “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.” But self-driving cars… I mean, right?

Reuters reports that a US appeals court reversed part of a $930 million dollar verdict that Apple won in 2012 against Samsung.
The US Court of Appeals in Washington, DC ruled today that Apple’s claim of “trade-dress dilution” — the way a product is packaged or presented, could not be protected because it was related to the functioning of the phone and would have granted Apple a monopoly on the features forever. However the court did uphold the patent infringement violations. The appeals court ordered that the original court in San Jose reconsider the $382 million dollar part of the ruling.

TechCrunch reports that LG’s G4 smartphone is rolling out for sale worldwide “over the next month. “The phone is already on sale in Korea, and will show up next in Hong Kong, followed by Turkey, Russia and Singapore. After that” most of Europe, North America, the Middle East, Africa, South and Central– oh you know what? Just the rest of the world. In case you forgot, the G4’s screen uses “quantum display” tech, which promises better color reproduction, there’s a redesigned camera which now sports a larger sensor — a 16-megapixel rear camera and eight-megapixel front camera — and a 64-bit hexacore CPU Snapdragon 808 processor to power the show. The G4 includes a hand-crafted leather back, and subtle curve for improved feel in the hand. The price will vary worldwide, but early reports suggest it will retail for around $600 without a contract, or near $200 as part of a U.S. carrier deal.

Fusion has a great article about the challenges that US federal election regulators are facing with presidential candidates who are using Snapchat to communicate with voters. The main selling point of Snapchat is disappearing messages. So if someone wanted to break some federal election rules via Snapchat, how would anyone at the FEC know? A spokesperson for the FEC told Fusion that the commission has “internet regulations but they don’t specifically cover apps.”

GCHQ staff, intelligence officer and police in the UK have been given immunity for hacking into computers, laptops and mobile phones under new laws that were never fully debated in parliament according to The Guardian.  Rewriting of a key clause of the Computer Misuse Act exempts law enforcement officials from the prohibition on breaking into other people’s laptops, databases, mobile phones or digital systems. It came into force in May. Addressing the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which deals with complaints about the intelligence services and surveillance, lawyers for Privacy International said they had only been informed of the alteration earlier this week. Last May, Privacy International, along with seven internet and communications service providers, filed complaints with the IPT challenging GCHQ’s hacking activities. The full complaint is due to be heard in the autumn.

President Obama finally claimed his own twitter account. Re/code reports that the new verified account is @POTUS run by President Obama. According to the first tweet from the account Obama will actually be the one tweeting from the account. The more familiar @BarackObama account is run by members of his staff. The account added more than 280000 followers in its first hour.

CNET reports that Google teamed up with the University of Washington to create more than 10,000 time lapse-videos showing the evolution of some of the world’s landmarks, using 86 million photos gathered from publicly available photo sharing services like Flickr. An automated process finds similar images and then researchers arranged them in chronological order and then used a process called “geometric stabilization” to create the same perspective from varying images.

CNET is reporting that the FBI has applied for a search warrant on Chris Roberts. The security expert who tweeted about allegedly commandeering a United Airlines plane’s systems. The warrant application claims Roberts “exploited/gained accèss to the in-flight entertainment system and he overwrote code on the airplane’s Thrust Management Computer and commanded the system to issue a climb command. Roberts has admitted to Wired that he infiltrated the plane’s in-flight networks around 15 times solely for observation. Roberts hasn’t been charged with a crime.

 

News From You:

the_big_endian sent us this story from the Verge about Microsoft backtracking on its promise on free updates to Windows 10 for people running pirated Windows. The confusion has revolved around Microsoft’s offer to give free Windows 10 updates to people running Windows 7 and 8.1. Now, we’re finally getting a full clarification: there’s no free upgrade at all. Pirates just have to pay. Microsoft says that it’s planning to run some “very attractive Windows 10 upgrade offers” that will allow people with pirated copies to move to an official version. Specific details of that haven’t been announced yet, but that likely won’t come until we actually hear about when Windows 10 will arrive. For now, it’s still targeted for this summer.

jmbburg26 sent us The Verge report about a sea turtle who was struck by a boat propeller while swimming in its natural habitat in Turkey. The accident shattered the animal’s upper and lower jaw, which meant the turtle couldn’t eat on its own. So a group at Pamukkale (Pah-MOO-kal-AY) University teamed up with BTech, a Turkish biotechnology company specializing in 3D-printed prosthetics, and printed a medical-grade titanium turtle jaw. So far the turtle has not yet rejected the jaw, but it has a ways to go before it can be released back into the wild.

motang sent us the third Verge article which reports that Google will begging to test “buy buttons” that live inside ads above the normal search results. The sponsored results will take you to a special purchasing page that’s still hosted by Google where you can pick the product and how soon you want to get it — all without leaving Google. Users can store their credit cards. The tests will be mobile only will only run on a small percentage of search traffic. The new ads should show in “the coming weeks.”

Discussion Section Links:  

http://recode.net/2015/05/12/a-month-with-the-apple-watch-does-it-pass-the-test-of-time/

http://9to5mac.com/2015/05/18/apple-readies-first-significant-apple-watch-updates-tvkit-sdk-for-apple-tv/

 

Pick of the Day:

Christian writes:

Matt from Thirsty California:

I wanted to respond to Friday’s discussion on self driving cars and provide a recommended read on the subject of computer automation.

Darren touched on the problems of degraded response time and automation bias which are just a few of the issues that come with computer automation. These weren’t given much talk time on the show, but if listeners wanted to learn more about these sort of issues and the pros and cons of computer automation I would recommend the book The Glass Cage (Automation and us) by Nicholas Carr.

The book does a great job of talking about the rise of automation, focusing a lot on the human element of the equation, and goes beyond the technology to discuss what appears to be happening to us because of it. I found it fascinating and would recommend it to anyone who wants to take a deeper look into the impact that things like self driving cars have on everyone’s daily lives.

 

Messages: 

Mike, from the sunny and dusty Pilbara (Pilbara : pill-bar-rah) region of Western Australia wrote in about our self-driving car discussion on Friday:

As a 26 year veteran of the Australian transport industry I have mixed feelings about self driving vehicles. It isn’t that I’m afraid I will be replaced by a machine, it’s that there are a huge amount of human and environmental factors that technology will have difficulty coping with.

In show 2494 Roger suggested an automated car may continue in an endless loop on a freeway until the human occupant re-asserted manual control and moved it out of the traffic stream. My immediate thought was “what if the driver had a heart attack or was rendered unconscious by illness or had a stroke?”. Sure, they would be safer in a self driving car because it wouldn’t leave the road and crash but no one would be aware of the need for medical assistance or an undertaker – the vehicle would continue on its merry way without some kind of dead-mans switch or Apple watch like health monitoring device linked to the vehicle.

Also, trucks would have to undergo radical redesign to enable monitoring of every system, moving part and point-of-failure that an experienced truck driver looks for subconsciously while driving down the road. I’m talking about flat tyres/blowouts, loads shifting, wheel bearing failures, air lines for braking systems rupturing or becoming uncoupled, unforeseen structural failures of equipment such as suspension/spare tyre or equipment racks and how about damaged or fatigued fuel lines. These are all actual things I have had to deal with and quite often the only indication of the problem has been a smell, a barely heard but definitely “wrong” noise that shouldn’t be there or, in one instance, a faint vibration felt through the seat of my pants ( I kid you not! ). After many millions of kilometres and untold thousands of hours behind the wheel my ability to detect problems in my vehicle has been honed to an almost sixth sense.

On average I drive 10,500km every fortnight and would welcome an autopilot to take care of the less difficult and boring stretches of road but, until I know it can watch over all 55.5 metres and 118 tonne of my triple roadtrain, I will just have to keep doing it myself.

=====

Tuesday’s guest:  Tom Merritt is Back with Patrick Beja

 

 

 

 

Veronica Belmont and Roger Chang fill in for Tom and take your questions on the Apple Watch!

MP3

 

Using a Screen Reader? click here

Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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: Veronica Belmont and Roger Chang

Headlines: 

The NY Times is reporting that Apple has acquired a bay area based GPS Start Up Coherent Navigation.  Coherent Navigation works on high-precision navigation systems and creating commercial navigation services based on partnerships with companies like Boeing and Iridium. It is unclear exactly how Apple will use the company’s services or technology. The terms of Apple’s acquisition of Coherent Navigation were not disclosed with the company stating in email “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.” But self-driving cars… I mean, right?

Reuters reports that a US appeals court reversed part of a $930 million dollar verdict that Apple won in 2012 against Samsung.
The US Court of Appeals in Washington, DC ruled today that Apple’s claim of “trade-dress dilution” — the way a product is packaged or presented, could not be protected because it was related to the functioning of the phone and would have granted Apple a monopoly on the features forever. However the court did uphold the patent infringement violations. The appeals court ordered that the original court in San Jose reconsider the $382 million dollar part of the ruling.

TechCrunch reports that LG’s G4 smartphone is rolling out for sale worldwide “over the next month. “The phone is already on sale in Korea, and will show up next in Hong Kong, followed by Turkey, Russia and Singapore. After that” most of Europe, North America, the Middle East, Africa, South and Central– oh you know what? Just the rest of the world. In case you forgot, the G4’s screen uses “quantum display” tech, which promises better color reproduction, there’s a redesigned camera which now sports a larger sensor — a 16-megapixel rear camera and eight-megapixel front camera — and a 64-bit hexacore CPU Snapdragon 808 processor to power the show. The G4 includes a hand-crafted leather back, and subtle curve for improved feel in the hand. The price will vary worldwide, but early reports suggest it will retail for around $600 without a contract, or near $200 as part of a U.S. carrier deal.

Fusion has a great article about the challenges that US federal election regulators are facing with presidential candidates who are using Snapchat to communicate with voters. The main selling point of Snapchat is disappearing messages. So if someone wanted to break some federal election rules via Snapchat, how would anyone at the FEC know? A spokesperson for the FEC told Fusion that the commission has “internet regulations but they don’t specifically cover apps.”

GCHQ staff, intelligence officer and police in the UK have been given immunity for hacking into computers, laptops and mobile phones under new laws that were never fully debated in parliament according to The Guardian.  Rewriting of a key clause of the Computer Misuse Act exempts law enforcement officials from the prohibition on breaking into other people’s laptops, databases, mobile phones or digital systems. It came into force in May. Addressing the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which deals with complaints about the intelligence services and surveillance, lawyers for Privacy International said they had only been informed of the alteration earlier this week. Last May, Privacy International, along with seven internet and communications service providers, filed complaints with the IPT challenging GCHQ’s hacking activities. The full complaint is due to be heard in the autumn.

President Obama finally claimed his own twitter account. Re/code reports that the new verified account is @POTUS run by President Obama. According to the first tweet from the account Obama will actually be the one tweeting from the account. The more familiar @BarackObama account is run by members of his staff. The account added more than 280000 followers in its first hour.

CNET reports that Google teamed up with the University of Washington to create more than 10,000 time lapse-videos showing the evolution of some of the world’s landmarks, using 86 million photos gathered from publicly available photo sharing services like Flickr. An automated process finds similar images and then researchers arranged them in chronological order and then used a process called “geometric stabilization” to create the same perspective from varying images.

CNET is reporting that the FBI has applied for a search warrant on Chris Roberts. The security expert who tweeted about allegedly commandeering a United Airlines plane’s systems. The warrant application claims Roberts “exploited/gained accèss to the in-flight entertainment system and he overwrote code on the airplane’s Thrust Management Computer and commanded the system to issue a climb command. Roberts has admitted to Wired that he infiltrated the plane’s in-flight networks around 15 times solely for observation. Roberts hasn’t been charged with a crime.

 

News From You:

the_big_endian sent us this story from the Verge about Microsoft backtracking on its promise on free updates to Windows 10 for people running pirated Windows. The confusion has revolved around Microsoft’s offer to give free Windows 10 updates to people running Windows 7 and 8.1. Now, we’re finally getting a full clarification: there’s no free upgrade at all. Pirates just have to pay. Microsoft says that it’s planning to run some “very attractive Windows 10 upgrade offers” that will allow people with pirated copies to move to an official version. Specific details of that haven’t been announced yet, but that likely won’t come until we actually hear about when Windows 10 will arrive. For now, it’s still targeted for this summer.

jmbburg26 sent us The Verge report about a sea turtle who was struck by a boat propeller while swimming in its natural habitat in Turkey. The accident shattered the animal’s upper and lower jaw, which meant the turtle couldn’t eat on its own. So a group at Pamukkale (Pah-MOO-kal-AY) University teamed up with BTech, a Turkish biotechnology company specializing in 3D-printed prosthetics, and printed a medical-grade titanium turtle jaw. So far the turtle has not yet rejected the jaw, but it has a ways to go before it can be released back into the wild.

motang sent us the third Verge article which reports that Google will begging to test “buy buttons” that live inside ads above the normal search results. The sponsored results will take you to a special purchasing page that’s still hosted by Google where you can pick the product and how soon you want to get it — all without leaving Google. Users can store their credit cards. The tests will be mobile only will only run on a small percentage of search traffic. The new ads should show in “the coming weeks.”

Discussion Section Links:  

http://recode.net/2015/05/12/a-month-with-the-apple-watch-does-it-pass-the-test-of-time/

http://9to5mac.com/2015/05/18/apple-readies-first-significant-apple-watch-updates-tvkit-sdk-for-apple-tv/

 

Pick of the Day:

Christian writes:

Matt from Thirsty California:

I wanted to respond to Friday’s discussion on self driving cars and provide a recommended read on the subject of computer automation.

Darren touched on the problems of degraded response time and automation bias which are just a few of the issues that come with computer automation. These weren’t given much talk time on the show, but if listeners wanted to learn more about these sort of issues and the pros and cons of computer automation I would recommend the book The Glass Cage (Automation and us) by Nicholas Carr.

The book does a great job of talking about the rise of automation, focusing a lot on the human element of the equation, and goes beyond the technology to discuss what appears to be happening to us because of it. I found it fascinating and would recommend it to anyone who wants to take a deeper look into the impact that things like self driving cars have on everyone’s daily lives.

 

Messages: 

Mike, from the sunny and dusty Pilbara (Pilbara : pill-bar-rah) region of Western Australia wrote in about our self-driving car discussion on Friday:

As a 26 year veteran of the Australian transport industry I have mixed feelings about self driving vehicles. It isn’t that I’m afraid I will be replaced by a machine, it’s that there are a huge amount of human and environmental factors that technology will have difficulty coping with.

In show 2494 Roger suggested an automated car may continue in an endless loop on a freeway until the human occupant re-asserted manual control and moved it out of the traffic stream. My immediate thought was “what if the driver had a heart attack or was rendered unconscious by illness or had a stroke?”. Sure, they would be safer in a self driving car because it wouldn’t leave the road and crash but no one would be aware of the need for medical assistance or an undertaker – the vehicle would continue on its merry way without some kind of dead-mans switch or Apple watch like health monitoring device linked to the vehicle.

Also, trucks would have to undergo radical redesign to enable monitoring of every system, moving part and point-of-failure that an experienced truck driver looks for subconsciously while driving down the road. I’m talking about flat tyres/blowouts, loads shifting, wheel bearing failures, air lines for braking systems rupturing or becoming uncoupled, unforeseen structural failures of equipment such as suspension/spare tyre or equipment racks and how about damaged or fatigued fuel lines. These are all actual things I have had to deal with and quite often the only indication of the problem has been a smell, a barely heard but definitely “wrong” noise that shouldn’t be there or, in one instance, a faint vibration felt through the seat of my pants ( I kid you not! ). After many millions of kilometres and untold thousands of hours behind the wheel my ability to detect problems in my vehicle has been honed to an almost sixth sense.

On average I drive 10,500km every fortnight and would welcome an autopilot to take care of the less difficult and boring stretches of road but, until I know it can watch over all 55.5 metres and 118 tonne of my triple roadtrain, I will just have to keep doing it myself.

=====

Tuesday’s guest:  Tom Merritt is Back with Patrick Beja

 

 

 

 

Jennie Josephson and Roger Chang host the Producer’s Choice edition of Daily Tech News Show with regular Friday team Darren Kitchen and Len Peralta. Self-driving cars! Rampaging Cows! Spin Doctors! It’s gonna be a Friday, all right.

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Show Notes

Today’s guests: Darren Kitchen, Jennie Josephson, Len Peralta and Roger Chang

Headlines: 

TechCrunch reports that Google announced that it will begin testing autonomous vehicles on public roads in Mountain View this summer. The self-piloted vehicles will be limited to a maximum speed of 25 miles/hour, and each will include a safety driver, who can take over at any point. Google said its fleet has logged nearly a million miles of cumulative driving within its test facilities which Google says is equal to 75 years of human driving experience. Much more on this to come in the discussion section, but right now everyone gets one word: Roger? Darren?

UNITED AIRLINES ANNOUNCED this week that it’s launching a bug bounty program inviting researchers to report bugs in its websites, apps and online portals. It’s believed to be the first bounty program offered by an airline. Wired reports that United’s program specifically excludes “bugs on onboard Wi-Fi, entertainment systems or avionics” and United notes that “[a]ny testing on aircraft or aircraft systems such as inflight entertainment or inflight Wi-Fi” could result in a criminal investigation. Researchers who report vulnerabilities in the airline’s web sites or apps will be rewarded in mileage points. The awards range from 50,000 points for cross-site scripting bugs to 1 million for high-severity vulnerabilities that could allow an attacker to conduct remote-code execution on a United system.

According to The Wall Street Journal, activist investor Carl Icahn has invested $100 million in ride-sharing startup Lyft. The money is an extension of a round of funding Lyft announced in March that values the three-year-old company at $2.5 billion. In an interview, Mr. Icahn said putting money into San Francisco-based Lyft is a good deal when compared to larger rival Uber Technologies valued at $41 billion. Jonathan Christodoro, one of Icahn’s managing directors, will be added to Lyft’s board of directors. Uber has expanded to more than 250 cities internationally. To date, Lyft operates in 65 cities, only in the United States. So, Carl Icahn is bargain hunting.

The Next Web has a story from the Financial Times  reporting that “an executive at a European carrier confirmed that it and several of its peers are planning to start blocking adverts this year” and will be available as an “opt-in service” however they are also considering applying the technology across their entire mobile networks. According to the report’s anonymous sources, the carriers have installed software from Israeli ad-blocking firm Shine in their data centers to block advertising in Web pages and apps, but not social networks. The plan – which would be devastating to companies reliant on advertising – is not limited to a single European network. Its apparent aim is to break Google’s hold on advertising.Windows 10 Mobile’s latest build “10080” adds some important updates according to TechCrunch. The biggest is the first look of the Windows Store for mobile which will allow MS to deliver universal Office apps plus music, movies, and TV shows. Other features include an Xbox app, a music app, a new camera app and a video app.

KrebsOnSecurity reports a cache of data apparently stolen from spyware service MSpy has appeared on a TOR website. The data includes account information but also 4 million events including photos, calendar data, corporate email threads, and more. MSpy promotes itself as a way to monitor family members and boasts over a million users (or jealous lovers). When syrupticiously installed on iOS or Android, it collects messages from SMS, Skype, WhatsApp and Snapchat along with every keystoke typed.

Oculus has revealed the recommended specifications for PC rigs powering the Oculus Rift headset according to Tech Crunch. Recommended: NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290 equivalent or greater, Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater, and 8GB+ RAM. Required: Windows 7 SP1 or newer, 2x USB 3.0 ports, and HDMI 1.3 video output supporting a 297MHz clock via a direct output architecture. In their blog post, Oculus’ Chef Architect Atman Binstock says GPU performance is highly important, since you’re basically running two, 2160×1200 displays at 90Hz simultaneously, which takes around three times the GPU power of your average full HD, 1080p rendering. Dropped frames are also fine on traditional desktop monitors, for the most part, while missing frames in VR results in considerable discomfort. Binstock also notes that Oculus still wants to develop for Mac and Linux, but that at this stage, they “don’t have a timeline.”

IGN reports that Harmonix, maker of the upcoming Rock Band 4 revealed the first six songs in the new game, only one of which I really know, can you guess which one?

Avenged Sevenfold – “Hail to the King”
Fleetwood Mac – “You Make Loving Fun”
Jack White – “Lazaretto”
The Killers – “Somebody Told Me”
Spin Doctors – “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong”
The Who – “The Seeker”

Spin Doctors! Hey 90’s, Great to have you back! Rock Band 4 is coming some time this fall, and Harmonix just did a live demo a little while back so check out that video which we’ll link to in the show notes

Polygon reports that Blizzard’s Diablo 3 has been overrun by cows in honor of the third anniversary of the game. Battle.net will only say that “Rumors allege” that townships throughout Khanduras are being overrun by bipedal, bardiche-bearing bovine, and then strenuously denies any knowledge of their existence. The event is homage to The Secret Cow Level in Diablo 2 and will continue until dusk on May 21st.

Engadget reports that Hulu will pick up the Mindy Project, starting with a 26-episode fourth season. The show, named for star Mindy Kaling, already streams on the TV subscription service as one of several Fox series available there, so the news isn’t too surprising.  There’s no word on a premiere date just yet, but when it arrives, it’ll be one of the many Hulu original series that you really mean to watch but just haven’t yet. Cancelled broadcast shows are getting revived online regularly these days, as Yahoo nabbed Community and Netflix is no stranger to picking up discarded series. All this magic and STILL NO QUANTUM LEAP. Strive to put right what once went wrong, Hulu!

News From You:

habichuelacondulce sent us this warning about mobile payments and passwords. Starbucks app users are getting their bank accounts drained by password-guessing thieves according to Gizmodo. People with Starbucks rewards can link the coffee-payment app to their bank accounts, credit cards, or PayPal accounts. Scammers buy gift cards then sell them illegally. Consumer journalist Bob Sullivan said Starbucks mobile payments fraud are a big deal with the company processing $2 billion in mobile transactions last year. Starbucks has acknowledged that this scam is happening but says it hasn’t been hacked, and that its hacked customers likely used bad passwords.

anotherjmartin submitted the ArsTechnica article with the amazing headline:

Humanity weeps as Candy Crush Saga comes preinstalled with Windows 10. Microsoft announced that King’s addictive game will be the Minesweeper of Windows 10, and will include cross-play options for iOS and Android devices. No word if there’s an opt-out for those who want to use the new Windows operating system to actually work.

thelouisguy sent us a TorrentFreak article about angry YouTube man Benajmin Ligeri, who has filed a lawsuit at the US District Court for the District of Rhode Island which lists Google, Viacom, Lionsgate and another YouTuber as defendants, Ligeri bemoans a restrictive YouTube user contract and a system that unfairly handles copyright complaints. Ligeri says that he has uploaded content to YouTube under the name BetterStream for purposes including “criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and/or research,” but never in breach of copyright. Nevertheless, he claims to have fallen foul of YouTube’s automated anti-piracy systems when he uploaded what he claims is a parody of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo movie, only to have it removed by YouTube after another YouTube user filed a complaint.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/15/google-self-driving-cars-mountain-view/

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32691887

http://www.wired.com/2015/03/dash-cam-videos-remind-us-crazy-roads-will-self-driving-cars/

http://www.wired.com/2014/12/nokia-here-autonomous-car-maps/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/aarontilley/2015/01/06/bmws-self-driving-car-parks-itself-and-picks-you-up-when-youre-ready-to-go/

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/28/google-self-driving-car-how-does-it-work

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/197262-its-2015-self-driving-cars-are-more-than-a-promise

 

Pick of the Day:

Christian writes:

Hey, guys. With all the recent wearable discussion, I thought I’d submit one of my favorite devices for a pick of the day: the new Garmin Fenix 3 fitness/smartwatch.

With Apple Watch, Android Wear, and Pebble Time getting most of the smartwatch attention, it’s easy to overlook the Fenix. But if you’re looking for a smartwatch that is a watch first, fitness tracker second, and a smart device last, this is it.

The best features of the Fenix 3 are:
– Always-on color display (highly visible in bright light).
– Built-in GPS (so you don’t need your phone to track runs).
– Both activity (steps, goals, etc.) and hardcore training features.
– Extensive outdoor and hiking features (compass, altimeter barometer, etc.).
– iOS and Android compatible.
– Smart notifications from your phone (customizable per app).
– Water-resistant to 100 meters.

I could go on and on about why I think, for many people, the Fenix 3 is the best smartwatch, but it basically reduces to this: it’s a watch first, activity/fitness device second, and an extension of your smartphone last. For me, that’s exactly the right priority.

David Wilke writes in:

Hello Tom, Jenny, & co-host from just south of lovely Cleveland….Columbus. A few months ago I lost my pebble watch. I’ve been holding out on a replacement decision pending the Pebble II & Apple watch release.

I was in the golf store the other day and all the golf GPS widgets and wearables caught my eye….but they were all geared toward golf. I asked if they had any wearable’s that do all fitness stuff plus notifications….They pulled out the Garmin Vivoactive which they had just got in, but was not yet on display.

Similar to the new Pebble it has a color e-ink display but the Vivoactive is touch screen….just swipe the display to bring up notifications, calendar, music player, weather, and activity. Additionally the Vivoactive has built in GPS and specific tracking apps for Run, Bike, & Walk both stationary/treadmill or outside. It also has a swimming tracking app as the watch is water resistant to 5 ATM’s (I think 50 feet or so). Oh…and yes it has a golf app that you upload your most frequent courses to the watch, and viola! you have your golf GPS.

It’s very lightweight and has a very similar look/feel to the original Pebble and they are slowly building out their app store so you can download different faces, etc….I’m bummed I lost my pebble but I’m pleasantly surprised with how Garmin is becoming competitive in the smart-watch space.

Messages: 

Paul Franz writes:

In the discussion on Thursday (May 14th, 2015), I think the comparison of Walmart to Amazon is off base. I think Walmart is missing their greatest strength and that is their stores being every where. What they should do is use the Best Buy model. That is to buy things that are in the local store and just have them ready for pickup. I find BestBuy’s service in this category to be awesome. No looking through the store for the items that you are looking for. The items are available within the same day. If Walmart had the same ability I would love it. It would save a lot of time that is normally wasted looking for items through out the store.

Josh Gardner, who wrote an email we read last week, wrote us again! He writes:

“Yesterday my email regarding the audio spec that will be used on Blu-ray was read on the show and I incorrectly stated that DTS had not yet announced their audio spec (Dolby has, it will be called Dolby Atmos as a quick reminder), apparently DTS DID announce a spec last week and I missed it, it will be called DTS:X, aside from the afore mentioned compressed audio (Dolby Digital) and uncompressed audio (DTS), DTS:X will NOT use discreet channels like Dolby Digital, instead, it will use an algorithm to extrapolate your particular speaker setup, supporting a limitless number of speakers in any shape and positioning.

The Blu-ray spec will support DTS:X and Dolby Digital Atmos.

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Monday’s guest:  Veronica Belmont & Roger Chang!