We talk to three of the leaders in the Inkshares Sword and Laser collection contest. From animal people to lonely AI to epic flesh carvers have they got some stories for you!
DTNS 2664 – La Tech du Jour
France was the number 3 most represented country at CES. Patrick Beja talks with Tom Merritt about France’s roots as tech powerhouse.
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A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.
If you are willing to support the show or give as little as 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
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Cordkillers 103 – A Lot of Paperwork
Netflix adds 130 countries and lets you share your password, Sling cleans up its interface, and a new OTA DVR for cordcutters. With special guest Riley Blanton.
CordKillers: 103 – A Lot of Paperwork
Recorded: January 11 2016
Guest: Riley Blanton
Intro Video
Primary Target
- Netflix launches 130 countries
- Netflix and LG offering prepaid Netflix
- The Crown Sizzle – Netflix [HD]
- The Get Down Sizzle – Netflix [HD]
- Netflix is cool with you sharing your account
- That Voltron Movie Reboot Is a Netflix TV Series Reboot Now
- Netflix comedy Pee-wee’s Big Holiday will premiere at SXSW this year
- Netflix’s Reed Hastings Interview on Making of a Murderer, China, HBO
- Netflix search sucks? Flixed fixes it
-Netflix launched Wednesday 1/6 in 130 countries
– Everywhere but China, Syria, Crimea and North Korea
– Lg and Netflix partnering on a prepaid service
– Hastings said household password-sharing is fine “We love people sharing Netflix. That’s a positive thing, not a negative thing.” He said kids grow up and like to have control of their life and get their own account.
– “The Ridiculous Six,” our Adam Sandler movie, in its first 30 days, has been the biggest thing we’ve ever seen in the first 30 days for any movie on Netflix, ever.“
TIMELY RELATED PRODUCT
– 3rd-party Netflix search engines can show you what movies are in what countries
– Flixed: IMDB rating, metacritic score, trailer
– Flixsearch – sells DNS Service for changing region
– Netflixcosdes.me lets you search by Netflix’s secret category codes like “Campy movies” or “teen drama”
Signal Intelligence
- New Sling TV interface rolling out this quarter
- Sling TV CEO on the competition and internet TV’s future
– New section called “My TV” surfacing favorites (based on viewing habits and user selection)Continue Watching, Recommendations
– What’s Hot – beaking news, season finales – coming in a later release
– Sports section will make it easier to find favorite teams, with sign up to sports pack in app
– Adding ESPN3
– RCA will offer 10-day free trials with antenna
– Rolling out to all devices by end of March
Gear Up
- Magnavox’s DVRs don’t need cable TV or subscription fees to put recordings on your phone.
– Michael alerted us to the Magnavox OTA DVRS coming out Q4
– $400 with DVD burner, $450 w TB and 2 turnes, $500 w 6 tuners and 1 TB
– No subscription fees
– No apps
– can share recordings with each other and Android and iOS devices. - Nvidia’s Shield Android TV gets a little more customizable with Marshmallow upgrade
– NVidia Shield Android TV getting Android 6.0 Marshamallow (no date)
– Tablo app for AppleTV and LG smart TV coming in spring - Tablo Brings Live Network Television, DVR Functionality To Apple TV
Front Lines
- Streaming Services Dominate 2016 Golden Globes, But Amazon Takes The Win
– Amazon won Golden Globes for Best TV Comedy and Best Actor in a TV Comedy for Mozart in the Jungle and lead Gael Garcia Bernal. Netflix had 8 nominations but no wins. - Amazon will show President Obama’s final State of the Union on demand
– Amazon will show the President’s final State of the Union on demand, as will YouTube AND YouTube stars Destin, the engineer presenter of SmarterEveryDay, lifestyle vlogger Ingrid Nilsen and comedian sWoozie will interview the President, Friday January 15 following the address - YouTube will soon support HDR video for improved color and detail
– YouTube Chief Business Officer Robert Kyncl announced at CES that YouTube will soon support High Dynamic Range content, joining Amazon and Netflix which already provide HDR content. - Sony’s latest 4K TVs get their own HDR video service
– In conjunction with the announcement of Sony’s HDR capable Bravia Android TVs, Sony announced its own HDR streaming service called Ultra that will let TV owners buy and stream HDR shows from Sony Pictures on compatible sets. - Apple TVOS 9.2 beta adds Podcasts, bluetooth keyboard support, a new app switcher and folders.
- Exclusive: NFL to live-stream all London games, in talks with Apple, Google
– The NFL plans to live stream the three games to be played in London next season. Apple and Google are allegedly among the bidders. The three games will be played Oct. 2, Oct. 23 and Oct. 30. - NBCU’s Comedy Subscription Service For Cord Cutters, Seeso, Goes Live
– NBCUniversal’s comedy streaming service SeeSo came out of beta Thursday. That means anyone can get it but they have to pay $3.99 a month to see most of the content though some will remain freely accessible.
Under Surveillance
- Daredevil’ season two hits Netflix on March 18th
- Game of Thrones season six premieres on April 24th
- Mad Dogs return Jan. 22
- Brian: One Hundred Eyes, The Expanse (ep 1), Harmontown live, Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Master of None
- Tom: Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Transparent (204 – 206), The Expanse, Agents of SHIELD, Haven, Age of Adaline, Golden Globes, One Hundred Eyes
- Riley: These Are The Actors You’re Looking For, The Big Short – The Force Awakens… Again
- On the Look Out: Broadchurch
Dispatches from the Front
Dear Tom and Brian,
I’m writing to comment on your discussion on Episode 102 about whether Netflix should concentrate solely on original content and de-emphasize the back catalog content. And you were also discussing how more and more streaming services are coming out with their own original content, and networks who already produce original content are making paid apps (like CBS).
And I think there’s a tipping point.
Here’s a scenario:
We want to watch the 11/22/63, and we plan to pay for Hulu+ to get that — But we already pay for Amazon Prime, Netflix, HBO and we still have cable. And one of my kids is a big anime fan so we have a membership to Crunchyroll, too. (And I support several podcasts via Patreon). I’ve reached my limit of what I will pay for.
So my idea is to binge watch 11/22/63: pay for one month of Hulu+ and then put the membership on hold. I figured we’d do something similar when the new Star Trek episodes come to the CBS all-access plan.
So, my question is, where’s the tipping point? How many memberships will people pay for before they decide to do some kind of a round robin like I described above?
If they only have original content, I can see myself doing this kind of thing. But services like Netflix, with their large back catalog, would be the ones I’d be least likely to put on hold. If they let their back catalog dwindle, I may find I can go a month or two without it.
Wondering what you think about this.
Love the show!
– Beelissa
You questioned if “the kids” are still downloading torrents, or if streaming is kind now. I work at a university, and we’ve recently implemented stricter controls on Peer-to-Peer / filesharing activity on our network. Based on the number of students who got caught by that this fall (and based on subsequent conversations with some of them, as they basically get kicked off our network when we see torrent activity), I feel like I have some idea anyway. Downloads certainly seem to be down some from the heyday for those things, but we certainly saw that the activity is still common enough. Interestingly enough, when we returned from Christmas break, we saw an upswing again as everyone went back to using the filesharing programs while at home and forgot to uninstall when they got back to campus!
–Anonymous
HBO Now was not available on my platform of choice (Android) until after Game o Thrones was over.
I did not torrent the show even though I have both torrented and borrowed HBO Go credentials in the past. I did enjoy binge watching it with my wife during our free trial. I left my subscription active for one more month after the free trial to show my appreciation for the service.
I think next year will be different. HBO Now is a great experience and I can’t wait to watch Game of Thrones on my Android TV devices next year.
–Tony
Links
DTNS 2663 – Stream Oddity
Nielsen released their 2015 numbers and streaming is way up while sales are down. So is that good or bad news for music? What does it mean for you the listener? Tom Merritt and Veronica Belmont discuss.
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Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.
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A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.
If you are willing to support the show or give as little as 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
To read the show notes in a separate page click here!
WEEKLY TECH VIEWS – Jan 9, 2016
Real tech stories. Really shaky analysis.
Surprising nobody, the top New Year’s resolutions for 2016 are 1) getting in shape, 2) getting organized, and 3) reading more bastardized tech news. Showing up today for the Weekly Tech Views is a great first step. Congratulations on your commitment!
You Don’t Often See Accountants Cry Like That
Speaking of New Year’s resolutions, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg made his. In a post to Facebook, he challenged himself “to build a simple artificial intelligence to run my home and help me with my work.” He declined to add the statement prepared by his accountant, which announced that “any bold proclamations made more than thirty days prior to January 1, like, say, pledging, on the day my daughter was born, to give away $44.5 billion of my personal fortune to charity, do not qualify as New Year’s resolutions and are not binding in any other respect. I mean, I’m still gonna to donate to charity, but $44 billion? You can’t hold me to that. I was high on new baby fumes.”
Do You Know How Many F-Bombs That Is?
There is talk that Twitter will be doing away with its 140 character limit, possibly expanding to as many as 10,000 characters. That deafening rustling sound you hear is thousands of customer service reps, tasked with fielding Twitter complaints, hurling resignation letters onto their bosses desks.
The Tweet Awakens
On the plus side, 10,000 characters means it will only take me two or three tweets to fully express my “compare and contrast” theories about BB8 and R2D2.
Yeah, Well, My Wife Keeps Saying I Should Get That Tattoo Anyway
Microsoft’s fitness tracker, the Band 2, can integrate with automaker Volvo’s On Call app, allowing users to remotely start, heat, or lock their vehicle (should that vehicle, of course, be a Volvo). On the fitness side, future updates are expected to record how far you drive, and if the round trip is less than two miles the Band 2 will submit an entry to your workout log reading “Tsk-tsk-tsk.” If the Band’s GPS indicates the trip was to the corner convenience store and you spent time in the potato chip aisle (it’s a really good GPS) the Band 2 will burn I’M NOT WORTHY into your wrist and disintegrate.
It Leaves Their Hands Free For Texting
Faraday Future introduced a concept car featuring, among other things, a helmet that delivers oxygen and water to the driver. Sure, this starts out as a boon to racecar drivers dealing with 120-degree temperatures inside their car, but before you know it, it’s coming standard in the family minivan, the tech has improved to include a food delivery system, and suddenly thousands of people with I’M NOT WORTHY burned into their wrist are getting Red Bull and Cheetos pumped down their throat without the third world inconvenience of having to reach over to the gaping Extended-Family Size snack bag seat-belted on the passenger seat.
Why I Won’t Be Wearing The Microsoft Band 2
In even more fitness tracking news, Fitbit now has a smartwatch, the Blaze, which can automatically recognize the activity you are performing and record it. It also claims battery life of five days, but if it’s dependent on how much activity it has to track, I’ll bet I can go Thanksgiving through Super Bowl Sunday without recharging. Unless the software has to work particularly hard to record the “eating cookies” activity.
New Tech, Same As The Old Tech
One of the CES’s biggest surprises was the absence of Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd for the announcement that, at this Mecca for cutting-edge technology, Panasonic and Kodak presented brand new, mind-blowing devices called, respectively, a turntable and a Super-8 video camera!* What times we live in!
Guess It’s Back To Far Cry 2
Oculus started taking preorders for the Oculus Rift VR system, setting a $599 price tag. There is also a package which includes the Rift and an “Oculus-ready” computer for $1499. This does not bode well for my hopes of getting a truly immersive virtual reality experience from the integrated graphics in my six-year-old Compaq laptop.
“Making A Murderer” Sounds Legit
Netflix launched in 130 additional countries, leaving only China, Syria, Crimea, and North Korea on the outside looking in. This, of course, is contrary to reports out of North Korea which insist that not only does Netflix exist there, but that the Supreme Leader invented it and stars in House of Cards, Wet Hot American Summer, and The Unbreakable Kimmy Jong-un.
* A turntable is a music playing device, like your phone, but instead of the inconvenience of tapping a button on your phone’s screen to get one of your stored 3,000 songs to play, all you have to do with a turntable is place a large grooved vinyl disc (a record) onto a spindle, start the turntable spinning, then carefully (so as not to scratch the record and ruin it) place a needle on the vinyl’s surface. With expert placement, you can choose any of up to six songs per side! What a turntable lacks in portability (the clothing industry has not yet cracked the manufacturing process necessary to create pockets that will comfortably hold even the smallest of record players), it makes up for in crackle, clicks, and hiss!
Similarly, a Super 8 camera is a video recording device, like your phone, but instead of having to remember to switch your camera app from “photo” to “video,” all you have to do with a Super 8 is insert a film cartridge (read your manual for specific loading instructions), remove the lens cap, manually focus, and pull the trigger to capture up to two-and-a-half minutes of memories per 50-foot roll of film! To view your artistry, simply set up a film developing lab at home, or take the modern no-hassle route and send your film to a developer. You and your friends will be enjoying the results in just a matter of days!**
** Odds-on favorite for longest footnote of 2016.
And we have kicked off 2016. Welcome to the future! If you are looking for one more resolution (or looking to replace a broken one with something more reasonable), pledging to spread the word about the Weekly Tech Views among your tech-minded friends would certainly be a commendable goal.
And for a last look back at 2015 (through poorly prescribed lenses), why not check out The Internet Is Like A Snowblower (And 200 Other Things I Got Wrong About Tech This Year). Only $2.99, and now with an average Amazon review of 5 stars! Yes, it’s from a total of one review, but let me have this, huh?
OK, I’ll click here, but it better not be 5 stars out of 10.
Weekly Tech Views by Mike Range is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
DTNS 2662 – A Node to Joy
The Dark Web is not just for porn and crime. Darren Kitchen and Tom Merritt discuss non-profit news outlet ProPublica’s launch of a version of their site as a hidden service on Tor.
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A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.
If you are willing to support the show or give as little as 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
To read the show notes in a separate page click here!
DTNS 2661 – Ads Kill the Messenger
Facebook wants to kill text messaging. Do we want it to? Can messaging apps even make money? Justin Young and Tom Merritt discuss. Plus VR for the blind.
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Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.
A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.
If you are willing to support the show or give as little as 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
To read the show notes in a separate page click here!
DTNS 2660 – Virtual Makeouts
Is the Oculus Rift too expensive? Netflix releases for almost the entire planet. CES continues to spill forth announcements and Patrick Norton and Jennie Josephson help Tom Merritt and Scott Johnson make sense of it all.
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 are willing to support the show or give as little as 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
To read the show notes in a separate page click here!
It’s Spoilerin’ Time 102
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Fargo (210), Master of None (Season 1), Making of a Murderer (Season 1)
01:40 – Winter Movie Draft
5:43 – Star Wars: The Force Awakens
14:20 – Fargo (210)
18:26 – Master of None (Season 1)
22:56 – Making of a Murderer (Season 1)
#240 – Wish We Were There
Over the break, we took a little time out of vacation to talk about our holiday reads, from ancient history to Chewbacca. Sigh. No Star Wars spoilers we promise. We’re not there anymore. But we can pretend we are in this episode.