DTNS 2285 – Oculus Riffed

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comTim Stevens is on the show. We’ll reminisce about the great PlayStation Network outage of 2011 and posit just what the heck Oculus is up to.

MP3

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 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: Tim Stevens, editor-at-large at cnet.com

IDC released its estimate for the worldwide tablet market for the second quarter of 2014. 49.3 million tablets were shipped, an 11% rise over last year although a decline of 1.5% from Q1. While Apples shipment and market share declined they still lead with 26.9% followed by Samsung, whose tablet market is also declining to 17.2%.. The rise in the market is powered by the smaller tablet makers Lenovo, Asus and Acer in that order, although a whopping 44.4% of the market comes from tablets made by even smaller producers.

Remember the great Sony PlayStation Network outage of April 2011? Well Ars Technica reports Sony has agreed to a court settlement in the southern district of California, that could hold it liable for up to $15 million in damages, plus nearly $2.75 million in attorney fees. What does it mean for you? a free downloadable PS3 or PSP game (from a selection of 14 titles), three PS3 themes (from a selection of six), or a three-month subscription to PlayStation Plus. You have to pick one if you already took part in the Welcome Back” promotion back in 2011, otherwise youc an choose two. If you’re identity was compromised as a result of the breach Sony will pay up to $2500. 

ReCode reports HP will invest $50 million in Hortonworks, the Hadoop startup spun out of Yahoo. Big Data is a big problem for big companies. Hadoop is open source technology designed to make it easier to work with large collections of data in a distributed computing environment.

One year ago today Google unleashed the ChromeCast dongle on the world out of nowhere. Users have pressed the cast button on an app 400 million times since that day. Chromecast is now available in more than 30,000 stores worldwide, and repeated that more than 6,000 developers have signed up.

Oculus has begun shipping its DK2 virtual reality headset for developers. The DK2 costs $350 and is not a consumer version of the hardware but is a refined version of the Crystal Cove headset that won a Best of CES award. It features lower latency, a low persistence OLED screen and positional tracking as well as simplified cords. Oculus plans to ship 10,000 DK2 units in July, though as of April it had sold 25,000 headsets.

The Next Web reports Razer’s Nabu smartband will integrate WeChat alongside the usual fitness tracking applications. Messages could show up on the band’s screen but apparently things like ‘high five to exchange contact info’ might also be in the works. Nabu will debut in international markets over the next few months and make it to China before the end of the year. It’s meant to retail for less than $100. 

The Telegraph has a look at Twitter’s new diversity report which reports 30% of the company’s workforce is female. That’s the same as Google, 1 percent worse than Facebook and 7% behind Yahoo. The drag on balance comes from Twitter’s tech division which is 90% male and leadership which is 79% male. Twitter’s also revealed that 59 per cent of its global workforce was white, 29 per cent Asian. Less than 7% are Black, Hispanic, Latino or other.

Microsoft has released the first trailer for its upcoming Halo: Nightfall live-action TV series, which Ridley Scott is working on as an executive producer. The trailer reveals a new element that can selectively wipe out humans, which protagonist Jameson Locke, a an agent for the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and his squad must seek out and destroy. takes place between Halo 4 and Halo 5: Guardians.

Amazon reported Q2 earnings including a 27 cents per share loss on revenue of $19.34 billion. Amazon was expected to only lose 15 cents on revenue of 19.34 billion. Still, Amazon’s revenue grew 23% year over year. 

Also Pandora announced Q2 earnings Topping Expectations Slightly With $218.9M In Revenue, also announcing it Has 76.4M Active Listeners

News From You: 

jeff_rose submitted the Engadget report that you can now place phone calls directly from the Google Voice website using hangout. You don’t need to have enabled hangouts in Gmail or even have a G+ account. 

Inge_Aning pointed us to the MIT Technology Review article on Resistive Random Access Memory that could let you score ten to a hundred times as much data on a smartphone. RRAM already is being developed by several companies, but researchers at Rice University have shown how to make it easier and cheaper at room temperature and with lower voltage. RRAM stores bits using resistance and retains data without power just like Flash memory. It can operate a hundred times faster though, and can concentrate a terrabyte into the space of a postage stamp. The new method uses a layer of silicon dioxide poked full of holes, sandwiched between thin layers of metal. 

Discussion Section Links: Oculus What? Where? 

http://www.roadtovr.com/oculus-rift-dk2-pre-orders-now-shipping-breaking/

http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/2bjnlm/just_got_charged_and_received_an_email_its_about/

http://www.cnet.com/news/facebooks-oculus-teams-with-samsung-for-mobile-virtual-reality-push/

http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/24/5933039/we-piloted-a-giant-robot-from-pacific-rim-using-oculus-rift

http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/23/oculus-rift-tuns-x-men-into-a-vr-head-trip/

http://www.oculusvr.com/dk2/

https://support.oculusvr.com/hc/en-us/articles/201835987-Oculus-Rift-Development-Kit-2-FAQ

http://www.entertherift.fr/en/fiche-45-oculus-rift-dk2.html

Pick of the Day: Autohotkey via Conrad Lawrence

Autohotkey for PC. On the surface it is a hotkey generator, capable of reading abbreviations or key combinations and outputting long strings of text or data. For example type in “dtns” and get “Daily Tech News Show”.

Beneath the surface though, it is an easy to learn scripting language capable performing long, complex operations using data from a variety of sources, including user input. To easily enter this data and view the results Autohotkey also allows the creation of GUI windows.

I work in the Test Department of a hardware/software tech company, and in the year or so since discovering Autohotkey, I have created dozens of custom GUIs designed to facilitate testing and increase productivity. A signature check of almost 60 modules would once take hours. I can now perform the same task in just a few minutes.

Autohotkey is fully documented and supported at http://www.autohotkey.com/ and it can be downloaded for free for both personal and commercial use. It does not require a compiler but includes one so that applications can be shared with PCs where Autohotkey is not installed.

 

DTNS 2284 – Is that a store in your pocket…

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comThe Amazon Fire Phone is out tomorrow and Anthony Carboni is on the show to help us ask the question on everyone’s mind: why? Also a workers paradise is coming to Helsinki and robots may take over the Olympics.

MP3

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:  Anthony Carboni, of wehaveconcerns.com

Headlines

PC Mag among the folks reminding us that Apple’s public beta of OS X Yosemite begins tomorrow. The first 1 million people who signed up at applessed.apple.com will get a link to download the beta and be asked to submit feedback if/when they run into problems. Yosemite has been available to developers and will be finished and available to all later this autumn.

ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley points out a passing comment Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella made in the company’s earnings call yesterday regarding the mythical ‘One Windows’ strategy. Nadella said MS will, “streamline the next version of Windows from three operating systems into one single converged operating system for screens of all sizes.” Later int he call he clarified this meant one team developing all variants built off the NT core with a unified store and developer platform. It does not mean you can install the same copy of Windows on your phone as on your dekstop.

Anthony! Anthony! Anthony! Did you hear! Foursquare has a new logo that looks kind of like a superhereo and is a rosy shade of pinky russet. And the typeface! Its a darker blue! And there’s a new navigation bar at the bottom! And there’s mor ephotos. and recommendations. And it’s really confusing if you still want to check in because that button is hidden and only shows up if you have Swarm installed. And it’s coming in a couple weeks to android and iOS! Are you excited?

The Next Web reports Microsoft announced the Lumia 530 arriving at the beginning of August in Europe for €85 BEFORE tax and subsidies. The low-end Lumia has a 4-inch 854×480 screen and runs Windows Phone 8.1 on a 1.2GHz Snapdragon. You can also select from one of many brightly colored interchangeable shells! Well three of the colors are bright if you conisder white to be bright. They’re bright orange, bright green, grey or white. The 530 wil also be available in single and dual SIM versions. 

VentureBeat reports Google has purchased Helsinki’s own 3D graphics startup DrawElements for an unofficial $10 million according to Arcticstartup. DRawElements tech lets developers test various GPUs across mobile devices. That should be handy for Android devs at Google one might think. Also it will be party time in Finland as the management team will move to Mountain View while the rest of the team will be left to create a worker’s paradise in Helsinki.

Messaging app LINE announced a new ‘Hidden Chats’ feature for Android and iOS users that lets users send messages with a time limit attached for more ephemeral private conversations. Time limits can be set from 2 seconds up to 1 week. Bloggers are now working furiously to post how-tos describing ways to subvert the feature and keep the ephemeral messages anyway.

TechCrunch reports Facebook beat earnings projections with 2.91 Billion in revenue and earnings per share of 42 cents. Analysts expected revenue of 2.81 billion and earnings per share of .32 cents. Facebook reported 1.07 billion monthly MOBILE users and 654 million DAILY mobile users. 62% of its ad revenue came from mobile. Facebook now has 1.32 billion monthly users and 829 million daily users. Facebook’s total user count is up 3.125% from Q1. 

Reuters reports that AT&T announced that its quarterly revenue rose, but slightly less than Wall Street forecasts. AT&T earned $3.6 billion, or 68 cents per share, in the second quarter, compared with $3.8 billion, or 71 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter. Revenue rose to $32.6 billion from $32.1 billion in the year-ago quarter.

News From You

metalfreak posted the Wired article calling attention to the fact that Marvel is selling one month of access to its online comics archive for 99 cents. That gives you access to more than 15,000 digital comics from the golden age to the halcyon days of 6 months ago. The service is usually $10 a month or $69 for a year. The 99 cent offer ends in one week. 

eean submitted the Ars Technica story that Verizon has been opposing net neutrality rules partly under the argument that so-called fast lanes could be used to make more accessible services fro blind, deaf and disabled users. Several groups who lobby for accessibility filed comments asking the FCC not to let Verizon speak for them, writing “In no case should accessibility considerations form a basis for permitting paid prioritization more broadly, and the Commission should reject any overture to the contrary,” wrote the Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Inc.; the National Association of the Deaf; the Hearing Loss Association of America; Deaf and Hard of Hearing Consumer Advocacy Network; and Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Telecommunications Access. The American Association of People with Disabilities also wrote to oppose allowing paid prioritization.

exfig pointed out the Verge posting that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said “In 2020 I would like to gather all of the world’s robots and aim to hold an Olympics where they compete in technical skill.” Tokyo will be hosting the allegedly unenhanced human Olympics that same year. Switzerland plans to host games for athletes with robotic prosthetics in 2016. 

spsheridan posted the Scientific American article on China’s planned supercollider. Scientists at the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) in Beijing, working with international collaborators, want to build a 52-kilometer electron-positron collider by 2028. It would be used as a ‘Higgs factory’ allowing the Higgs boson to be studied with greater precision than can be achieved at the smaller Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

Discussion Section:  Amazon Fire

http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/22/amazon-fire-phone-review/

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EOE0WKQ/ref=amb_link_423232362_2?ie=UTF8&nav_sdd=aps&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=1G6WNRNJBCQRXNN4CDR4&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1869136282&pf_rd_i=507846

http://recode.net/2014/07/22/can-the-amazon-fire-smartphone-take-on-iphone-and-samsung/

http://venturebeat.com/2014/07/23/the-voice-renaissance-why-amazon-and-apple-are-returning-to-the-roots-of-mobile/

Picks of the Day: Scottevest via Russell Manthy

 A couple of weeks ago Scottevest was mentioned in passing on DTNS and thought it might be a good pick of the day. Scottevest was founded by Scott Jordan in 2000. He had noticed a problem early on that people were carrying more and more gear, gadgets, chargers, etc. and that the only vests on the market with pockets enough were designed for fishing or photography. Scottevest sells ‘technology enabled clothing’ which has pockets which are tailored especially for your gear. Some pockets have translucent touch sensitive lining so that you can operate your smart phone while not taking it out, others are RFID shielded. In addition to smaller pockets there are also bigger pouches for tablets and cameras. Wire ways are also provided for lacing wires for headphones from a device in a pocket to the collar. The vests and jackets are engineered to balance the load so that the clothes do not hang on you oddly. From the outside you would think they were normal vests or jackets but on the inside they are really great for keeping all your gear organized and concealed. I have been using one through fall and winter for the last few years and it is great; I actually miss it in the summer!

Tomorrow’s guest: Tim Stevens of cnet.com

S&L Podcast – #184 – Threeways to Save Humanity

There’s so much you can do with us this week, including bringing Neil Gaiman to the stage, discovering 20th century high fantasy, and saving humanity. And how we can save humanity makes Tom blush. Plus, we wrap up this month’s pick, Dawn by Octavia Butler!

Download direct link here!

WHAT ARE WE DRINKING?    

Tom: Original Sorghum Malt Beer – Bard’s Tale Beer Company, LLC    
Veronica: Racer5    

QUICK BURNS 
    
“After extensive research, the Jane Austen Centre in Bath has determined what Jane really looked like and it’s Mary Robinette Kowal – successful Rothuss impersonator, puppeteer, and regency author”    

    
A TV series based on The Elfstones Of Shannara has been greenlit.
    
    
Daniel Abraham has an update on The Expanse TV show, including first casting news and the creative team behind the television adaptation.
    
There is currently a kickstarter campaign for a theatrical adaptation of 5 of Neil Gaiman’s short stories, a bunch of the backer rewards are various books and things signed by Neil Gaiman and he’s in the video so check it out if you’re a fan.
    
World Fantasy Award nominees were announced, as were two Lifetime Achievement Award winners.     

PICKS    

Killian: Finished The City and the City by China Miéville earlier today and was absolutely blown away by it. Here’s my review: I think I’ll read a Feist book next for some light, mindless fun.   
    
Rabindranauth – Finished Royal Assassin earlier, dived headlong into Assassin’s Quest immediately. I will forever kick myself for not reading these incredibly brutal books before now.
Here’s my review.    
     
COMING SOON

July 29
Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch is out in paperback

July 31
Equoid: A laundry Novella by Charles Stross

August 6
The Widow’s House (The Dagger and the Coin) by Daniel Abraham
Rise of the King: Companion Codex, II (Companions Codex) by R. A. Salvatore
The Magician’s Land: A Novel by Lev Grossman”    
    
Find more upcoming releases at swordandlaser.com/calendar    
    
BARE YOUR SWORD 
    
A Suggestion for New Topics on Club Picks    
Are there any “high fantasy” books that take place in the 20th century?   
Local Group Meetups     
Amazon Unlimited    
    
BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION    
    
Wrap-up Dawn by Octavia Butler    
What did you think? (full spoilers)    
What Makes Us Human?    
Ending issues (here be spoilers)    

Next Month’s Book: The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss is our August book    

DTNS 2283 – Amazon Wallet is a POS

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comMolly Wood is on to talk about Amazon’s new wallet app, the future of payments, and possibly a tiny little patent rant.

MP3

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

DTNS 2282 – Trust Us, We’re Apple

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comMarques Brownlee is on the show today. We’ll touch on iOS backdoors, sapphire screens and opinions on the Tesla 3.

MP3

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:  Marques Brownlee, aka MKBHD, web video producer

Headlines

ZDNet reports Jonathan Zdziarski gave a talk at the HOPE/X conference Friday called “Identifying Backdoors, Attack Points, and Surveillance Mechanisms in iOS Devices.” in which he did that. Zdziarski identified undocumented services that access user data with no reasonable explanation. He said, “Your device is almost always at risk of spilling all data, since it’s almost always authenticated, even while locked.” Even so, he wrote on his blog “DON’T PANIC,” noting that these are not security vulnerabilities. He wants Apple to explain and disclose the services and correct the problem. He wrote on his blog, “I want these services off my phone. They don’t belong there.”

TechCrunch reports Facebook launched a read it later feature for its website and iOS and Android apps, called Save. It lets you save links from News Feed and certain Facebook Pages to a list where you can view them later. In the news Feed the save button is in the drop-down menu accessed from the arrow in the top right of each story. On Pages it’s next to the like button. You can access your saved list in the Web homepage’s left sidebar list of bookmarks, and the More apps list on mobile.  

Ars Technica reports Verizon is getting symmetrical, increasing upload speeds on its FiOS service to match download speeds with no increase in current charges. New customers get the service right away and the increases will roll out to existing customers throughout the autumn. Customers who enroll in Verizon’s new rewards program will get first access. 

The Next Web passes along a report from the China Internet Network Information Center shows Chinese users accessing the Internet by mobile grew 83.4 percent as of June 2014, passing the percentage of users who access the internet by PCs (80.9 percent) for the first time. Overall number of Internet users in China is growing although not as fast as before. 46.9% of China uses the Internet up 1.1% from the end of 2013. Shopping and messaging are two of the most popular activities. 

Engadget reports the Sainsbury supermarket chain in the UK is powering its store in Cannock, West Midlands entirely with bio-methane gas generated from waste foods. Sainsbury’s gives any food from its stores that can’t be used by charities or fed to animals to waste specialists Biffa, which uses microbes to turn it into gas. The program generates enough energy to power 2500 homes and will come completely off the grid for its day-to-day energy consumption. 

News From You

AllanAV posted a link to Comcast’s page on OpenSecrets which details how much money Comcast has donated to US politicians in the first half of 2014. The number is $2 million across all parties. In a comment on his post AllanAV wrote, “As anyone can see both parties are in bed with Comcast. So no matter if you are republican or democrat lets stand together and defend OUR internet!”

metalfreak submitted an InternetNews.com story that ICANN has suspended Domain Registry of America aka Brandon Gray Internet Services aka NameJuice. The registrar is forbidden from registering any new domain names or accepting any inbound transfers until 17 October 2014. ICANN accuses Brandon Gray’s resellers subjecting Registered Name Holders to false advertising, deceptive practices, or deceptive notices. ICANN would also like an explanation of how the company mined WHOIS records to send unsolicited marketing messages to domain name holders.

KAPT_Kipper pointed out the Register article about a study in the journal Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, that found California’s 2008 law banning handheld use of cell phones while driving, had no affect on the rate of accidents. The study accounted for seasonal driving differences, weather, gas prices and other factors. The authors believe that even a small amount changing their behavior as a result of the law should have caused a change. Possible explanation could be that hands free cell phone use is just as dangerous, drivers switched to equally dangerous behaviors or that cell phone use is not dangerous to drivers.

Hurmoth posted the Verge story that the city of Seoul, South Korea plans to not only ban Uber but come out with its own GPS_based app by the end of the year for use with existing taxis. 

Discussion Section: 

 http://www.zdnet.com/forensic-scientist-identifies-suspicious-back-doors-running-on-every-ios-device-7000031795/

http://www.zdziarski.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/iOS_Backdoors_Attack_Points_Surveillance_Mechanisms.pdf

https://www.apple.com/legal/more-resources/law-enforcement/

http://www.zdziarski.com/blog/?p=3441

http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/07/undocumented-ios-functions-allow-monitoring-of-personal-data-expert-says/

http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/07/21/apples-ios-dishing-out-a-lot-of-data-behind-our-backs-security-researcher-charges

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1742287614000036

The Iphone 6 VID 🙂 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7ANcWQEUI8

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/tesla-go-down-market-mainstream-model-3-n158931

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregorymcneal/2014/07/16/a-35000-tesla-model-iii-is-coming-in-2017/

 Pick of the Day: If This, Then That via James Eriksen

This is a great way to automate social networks and web services to make your life easier. The three uses cases I set up so far?

# Text-message when it’s going to rain tomorrow, or when severe weather is coming my way. [It’s Texas.]

# Repost Instagram pics to Twitter.

# Repost a new Blogger entry to Twitter.

Lots of pre-made ‘recipes’ to choose from, easily tailored for your use. iOS, Android, and just about anything running a web-browser. [Jennie checked this site out and was SUPER intrigued by the recipe entitled ‘YO IFTTT, get me out of this meeting’]

Tomorrow’s guest: Molly Wood, of the paper of record!