Netflix is getting into late night talk shows. On demand at all times. Also who wants another dongle even if it is from Firefox?
DTNS 2262 – Google Does Not Want to See Your Bits
Lamarr Wilson is on he show to talk about the frightening prospect of Google owning Dropcam and everything else that watches you in your home. Plus why startups should not have thought it was OK to sell public parking spaces.
Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.
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If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here at the low, low cost of a nickel a day on Patreon. Thank you!
Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!
Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!
Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke and scottierowland on the subreddit
Show Notes
Today’s guest: Lamarr Wilson, host of Mashable’s YouTube Weekly & Socially Awkward
Headlines
WinBeta reports the Microsoft Store is offering up to $650 in-store credit when you trade in select MacBook Air models, as long as you use the credit to buy a Surface Pro 3. Also the MacBook Air must turn on and not have water damage.
TechCrunch reports Microsoft has doubled and rounded up the amiunt of free storage you get in your Microsoft OneDrive account from 7 GB to 15. That shoots up to a Terrabyte if you’re an Office 365 customer at $6.99 a month and 1 TB per user for 5 users at $9.99 a month. Additional plans drop to $1.99 monthly for 100 gigabytes, or $3.99 each month for 200 gigabytes.
Google subsidiary Nest Labs is using its own money to go out and get itself something nice. Dropcam. The makers of devices that know whether your house is the right temperature or burning down, can now know whether your pet is roaming around or your being burglarized. Nest says Dropcam will fall under Nest’s privacy policy which does’t share data with any company including Google, without the user’s permission.
The NextWeb reports Google Glass is finally leaving its home market and is now available in the UK’s Google play store for £1,000. Google is also selling the frames from its Titanium collection as an optional add-on. Back in the US, new frames designed by Diane von Furstenberg have gone on sale. The bundle of Glass plus shades and frames runs $1800.
ReCode reports a startup called Cruise will start taking preorders Monday for an aftermarket kit that will convert your late model Audi to a self-driving car while on San Francisco Bay area highways. The kits cost $10,000 and installation will begin in 2015.
News From You
metalfreak posted the top story on SubReddit from Ars Technica about the risks of AT&T and Comcast’s free WiFi hotspots. As Darren Kitchen has pointed out before, phones are set up to connect by default to the ssid’ attwifi and xfinitywifi. Malicious operators could set up devices that broadcast that ssid, capture login and password info then direct the device to the Internet so the device owner never knows the accoutn has been compromised. Best not to automatically connect to those kinds of hotspots, or if you’re an ATT phone owner, disable the setting on your phone that does so.
The 2nd most popular story, also from metalfreak and Ars Technica provides an alternative. Members of the “Open Wireless Movement,” including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Free Press, Mozilla, and Fight for the Future aim to get WiFi router owners to open up hotspots through the website openwireless.org. One project for example is open-sourced router firmware called Open Wireless Router lets you safely share a portion of your router with anyone nearby, password-free. The software prioritizes owner traffic and walls off guests from snooping.
Finally KAPT_Kipper points out the Verge article that security researcher Robert David Graham found at least 309,197 servers still vulnerable to the Heartbleed exploit. Graham found more than 600,000 vulnerable servers immediately after Heartbleed was discovered, but that dropped to 318,239 within a month. However in the past month only 9,042 more servers were patched.
Discussion Section Links:
http://www.engadget.com/2014/06/20/nest-is-acquiring-dropcam-for-555-million/?ncid=rss_truncated
http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/23/5834962/man-who-created-ipod-now-running-googles-hardware-future
https://nest.com/blog/2014/06/20/the-nest-family-is-growing/
http://recode.net/2014/06/20/googles-nest-buys-dropcam-for-555-million/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtT3oY8eJ_Q&list=UUOcE8WdQOSeqFczVxGatGKg
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/06/23/san-francisco-rent-public-parking-space-monkey-parking-sweetch-parkmondo/11263723/
Pick of the day: Light-Bot via Matt from Vegas
Matt from Vegas has our pick of the day, what he calls a ‘teaching kids to code’ game: “Hey DTNS I love the show and listen daily. I found this over the weekend and loved it. My 7 year old is completely hooked and for once I don’t care that she’s taken my tablet over. It’s a game that is teaching her programming called Light-Bot. It’s on IOS and Android and is just awesome. I know there are a number of games in this category and they’re all fantastic, just thought I would share this one that I ran across.
Calendar Item of the Day: CE Week New York
Today is the start of CE Week, the consumer electronics industry’s annual mid-year check-in in New York City.The Exhibits and Conference Program, better known as as ‘the place with all the shiny things you covet’, begins Wednesday June 25 — we’ll have a preview on tomorrow’s show. Want more? Check out ceweekny.com
Tuesday’s Guest: Jeremy Kaplan, editor-in-chief of Digital Trends.com
Today in Tech History – June 23, 2014
In 1912 – Alan Turing was born in London, although his father worked for the Indian Civil Service and his parents lived in India. He helped break the code of the German enigma machine and developed the Turing test for artificial intelligence.
In 1943 – Vint Cerf was born in New Haven, Connecticut. He grew up to become known as one of the fathers of the Internet, most famously for his co-creation of the protocols underlying TCP/IP.
In 1983 – Paul Mockapetris and Jon Postel ran the first successful test of the automated, distributed Domain Name System at the University of Southern California School of Engineering’s Information Sciences.
Subscribe to the podcast. Like Tech History? Get Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.
Today in Tech History – June 22, 2014
In 1675 – Britain’s King Charles II established the observatory at Greenwich with the main purpose of determining precise longitudes to aid in navigation. This purpose led to Greenwich being marked as the prime meridian and later Greenwich Mean Time.
In 1799 – The first definitive prototype metre bars (mètre des Archives) and kilograms were constructed in platinum.
In 1999 – The first demonstration of live rats directly controlling a robot arm with their thoughts was published by Nature Neuroscience.
Subscribe to the podcast. Like Tech History? Get Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.
FSL Tonight Week 3 – A Palpable Problem
While the controversy over Palpatine’s remarks dominates league attention, there are still games to be played and comebacks to be forged in the FSL. Will Skaro exterminate Ponyville at home? Can Arrakis shake off their stagnation against the Time Lords?
Get the episode here.
FEATURED REVIEW: Doctor Sleep by Stephen King
Welcome to our Featured Reviews! In this series, we’ll be highlighting book reviews by the S&L audience. If you want to submit a review, please check out the guidelines here! -Veronica
It turns out that you can go home again. Or at least you can if you’re Stephen King.
I just finished this, King’s sequel to a much earlier work. The Shining is the story of a small child, trapped in a world so much more dangerous than the one other kids inhabit, because he has a special talent. A power that supernatural forces want to consume. In Doctor Sleep, we get to see that small child, now grown, haunted by the same affliction that nearly drove his own father to murder his wife and son. Not his power, but the drinking problem he now has, the only thing he has yet found to suppress his terrible, awesome power, and keep the ghosts of his childhood quiet.
To me, this story is largely about demons. Recognizing the worst of them for what they are, and realising that you are never alone with them.
Its also a story about another small child, afflicted (or gifted) with her own set of abilities, and because ka is a wheel, and it always turns, this little girl is also chased by supernatural forces eager to consume her.
I can’t overstate how much I enjoyed this book. I first read The Shining over 20 years ago, and its one that’s always really resonated with me. Getting to revisit the landscape of that work with King, seeing what happened to Danny Torrance after the events at the Overlook Hotel, and finding out how his life turned out because of it was a lot of fun.
Fans of King’s other novels will find a healthy helping of the usual Easter eggs here as well. If you’ve read any of his other books, you’ll enjoy the many references to King’s integrated universe.
The only item to note (and it’s not a negative, but it is a warning), would be that I consider either reading The Shining or seeing the original Kubrick movie a definite prerequisite to reading this book. Preferably both, so you’ll know the correct version of the story that King uses to jump from, but also so that you’ll have the awesome imagery from the movie to help light the way.
Today in Tech History – June 21, 2014
In 1948 – The Small-Scale Experimental Machine, SSEM took 52 minutes to run its first program, written by Professor Tom Kilburn. SSEM was the first computer to store programs electronically. The SSEM was nicknamed the “Manchester Baby”.
In 1981 – IBM retired the last of its “STRETCH” mainframes. These mainframes were part of the 7000 series that made up the company’s first transistorized computers.
In 2004 – SpaceShipOne became the first privately developed piloted vehicle to leave Earth’s atmosphere and reach the edge of space.
Subscribe to the podcast. Like Tech History? Get Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.
Vote for the 2014 All-Star Game
It’s time once again to vote for who will represent their division in Pern! The East-West all-star game is coming July 5th. Make sure you vote will count!
DTNS 2261 – Drones are OP, Please Nerf
Darren Kitchen is on the show to talk about the US House’s restrictions on surveillance by the NSA, the National Park Service’s restrictions on drones, and why Saturn might be the best place to take a quadcopter. Plus Len Peralta is here to illustrate the show!
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 music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!
Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!
Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke and scottierowland on the subreddit
Show Notes
Today’s guest: Darren Kitchen and Len Peralta
Headlines
People familiar with the matter are BACK! Remember yesterday’s Reuters rumors about an Apple iWatch? Well the Wall Street Journal has even RUMORY Rumors that say the non-existent unannounced watch will have 10 sensors including ones to track health and fitness and come in multiple screen sizes. Now those are just statements from unidentified sources, however, somebody willing to go ON the record was KGI Securities analyst Ming-chi Kuo who said, “watches are fashion accessories.”
TechCrunch reports three Georgia Tech students claim to have hacked the Yo app. That’s the app that searches your contacts for other people that have the Yo app and then allows you to send each other messages that say Yo both outloud and in text. The GT students emailed TechCrunch details on their ability to get any Yo phone number, spoof Yos, spam users and send notifications with any text. Yo founder Or Arbel says some of the security issues have been fixed and they are working on the others.
TechCrunch reports Path is separating out a messaging app called Path Talk from the main Path app. Path Talk has ambient status updates that let friends know things like when you’re traveling, nearby, and or have a low battery. Path also bought TalkTo and will roll its features into PathTalk soon. TalkTo lets you text businesses and provides the backend communication over the phone for businesses that don’t take texts.
The Next Web reminds us the Microsoft Surface Pro 3’s i5 processor version goes on sale in the US and Canada today starting at $799. The i3 and i7 models will follow on August 1. As a side note The Verge passes on Paul Thurott of WinSuperSite’s discovery that the Surface Pro 3 user guide has references to a Surface Mini. A lot of people expected a smaller Surface to be unveiled at the announcement on May 20.
CNET reports that search results for music on Android phones now returns links to launch music apps where you can listen to that music. Android detects which apps you have installed and offers you links to launch them. This only works for Google Play, iHeart Radio, Rdio, Spotify, TuneIn, or YouTube. It also only works in the US but Google plans to expand to other countries and other services.
News From You
tekkyn00b posted the TechCrunch story that the US House of Representatives passed an amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill, placing limits on on how the NSA can gain access to communication, including email, online browsing, and chat histories. The amendment received bipartisan support, passing 293-123. It must also be approved by the US Senate.
ssnapier sent along the Verge article that the FCC has issued its largest fine in history, $34.9 million, to CTS Technology, a Chinese company that has been selling hundreds of models of signal jammers, which are against the law in the US. The jammers could block radio communications including cell phone, WiFi, Bluetooth, satellite radio and GPS, sometimes up to half a mile away. CTS must stop selling and marketing the jammers to US customers and hand over information about who bought them.
tm204 has the post from ComputerWorld about the passing of another print tech magazine. June 23 will be the last dead tree edition of Computerworld. Computerworld’s website will continue and get a redesign later this summer. A new tablet version of the magazine will launch August 1.
metalfreak submitted the Ars Technica report that Johns Hopkins University professor Matt Green asked one of the developers of TrueCrypt for permission to fork the existing code to start a new independent version. TrueCrypt’s developers ceased work on the project at the end of May. One of the developers responded to Green, “I don’t feel that forking truecrypt would be a good idea, a complete rewrite was something we wanted to do for a while. I believe that starting from scratch wouldn’t require much more work than actually learning and understanding all of truecrypt’s current codebase.”
Discussion Section Links: Drone and where in the galaxy you can fly them
http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/20/5828046/us-park-service-directing-national-parks-to-ban-drones
http://rt.com/usa/167124-nasa-send-quadcopter-drone-titan/
http://phys.org/news/2014-06-nasa-titan-potential-prebiotic-chemistry.html http://www.nasa.gov/content/titan-aerial-daughtercraft/#.U6R_yo1dXA4
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-cassini-titan-20140618-story.html
Alternate awesome titles:
Title: No drones in parks. DRONES IN SPAAAAACE!
Title: “Drones Are OP Please Nerf”
TItle: I was offered a griffen, so I’m going with the horde.
Title: Yodor
Title: That drone is after my picnic basket!
Title: “Full NASA Regalia”
Title: Parks and Drone Limitations
Title: “Is that a hodor mini?”
Title: So I married a drone
Title: “Park Your Drone”
Title: “Hodorcrypt”
TItle: This is a drone-free park
Pick of the day: Duolingo via Tom
Monday’s Guest: Lamarr Wilson
Today in Tech History – June 20, 2014
In 1840 – Samuel F.B. Morse received a U.S. patent for “Improvement in the mode of communicating information by signals by the application of electro-magnetism.” We call it Morse code.
In 1963 – A hotline was established between the Soviet Union and the United States following the Cuban Missile Crisis. While later it would become the famous “red telephone” it started as a teletype.
In 2003 – The WikiMedia Foundation was founded in St. Petersburg, Florida by Jimmy Wales to oversee the various Wiki projects like Wikipedia.
Subscribe to the podcast. Like Tech History? Get Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.