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?
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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:
Pick of the Day:
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.
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Friday’s guest: Justin Robert Young and Len Peralta