DTNS 2311 – Microsoft Kills the Messenger before the robots kill us

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comJonathan Strickland, Justin Young, Veronica Belmont join the show to talk about how the drones, AI and robots will kill us all thanks to Amazon and Google. +Len Peralta illustrates the show!

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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 headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!

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

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Show Notes

DTNS 2310 – Have you rebooted the plane?

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.com2014-08-28 11.00.36Tom’s traveling to DragonCon but still gives the headlines and tells how advice from the IT Crowd got his plane flying.

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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 and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

DTNS 2309 – Grand Theft Uber

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comDan Patterson is on the show and we’ll talk about super fast subs, banning after work email, and Timothy B. Lee will join in to talk about this whole Uber-Lyft fight.

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 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guest: Dan Patterson, technology journalist

Headlines

ReCode reports Apple plans to unveil a wearable device along with two iPhone at a yet-to-be-officially-announced September 9th event. The wearable will supposedly make us of HomeKit and HealthKit as one might expect. A rumored October event was rumored to announce a wearable but is still rumored to still be on.

Dropbox increased my storage to 1 TB today. As CNET reports Dropbox Pro users now have one tier that doublse the previous top tier of 500 GB and it costs $10 a month the previous price of the lowest tier of 100 GB. Dropbox also is rolling out the ability to password-protect shared links, share in edit or view only mode as well as add expiration dates. Finally users can remotely wipe folders on lost or stolen devices.

The Verge reports that Microsoft will begin selling the Kinect sensor as a standalone product on October 7th. The Kinect will sell for $149 dollars and come with a copy of Dance Central Spotlight. Back in May, Microsoft began selling the Xbox One without the Kinect for a reduced price of $399. Kinect for Windows is still expected later this year.

The Next Web reports Google will launch its first campus in Asia with a startup-focused location in Seoul. Google’s startup program currently has locations in London and Tel Aviv as well. Google hopes to launch the campus sometime next year.

The Next Web reports Twitter has opened up its Tweet activity dashboard to English, French, Japanese and Spanish users who have had an account for at least 14 days. Everybody else should get it soon. This is the dashboard previously only available to advertisers. Head to analytics.twitter.com if you have a few hours to get lost stats nerds.

Gigaom reports that Germany’s Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health is exploring the idea of passing a law to ban after hours work and email calls. German firms such as BMW, Volkswagen and Deutsche Telecom have banned after-hours work communication on their own already. The labor minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, called for such a law earlier this month to combat burnout.  

News From You

KAPT_Kipper submitted the GeekWire story on Google’s domain registration service which is currently invite only. Google offers free WHOIS privacy protection, and up to 100 free email forwarding addresses for $12. Domains can be configured as usual though there is built-in integration with Wix, Shopify and Squarespace. The downside is Google doesn’t support all domain names, like dot-TV, yet. 

davidpolanco pointed out that Seagate is now shipping an 8 TB 3.5-inch hard drive with a SATA 6 gigabit-per-second interface. Select customers are getting the drives now with wider availability next quarter. 

KAPT_Kipper passes along the Consumerist report that Hewlett-Packard is recalling nearly six million power cords because they can overheat, creating a fire and burn hazard. HP received 29 reports of melting cords, including two that included claims of minor burns. The LS-15 AC cords were distributed with HP and Compaq notebook and mini-notebook computers and with accessories such as docking stations. The cords were sold in the US and Canada from September 2010 to June 2012 at electronics stores and hp.com We’ll have a link to the instructions on what to do in the show notes, but instruction number one is unplug that cord!

MacBytes sent in the Engadget story that researchers at Harbin Institute of Technology’s Complex Flow and Heat Lab have developed a way that could allow submarines to travel from Shanghai to San Francisco, 9,873 km, in as few as 100 minutes. Using a sort of a airbubble that takes advantage of supercavitation and reduces drag, vehicles COULD reach the speed of sound underwater about 5800 km/h. They just need to crack launching, steering and powering it and BOOM Superfast Submarines.

Discussion Links: 

http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/26/6067663/this-is-ubers-playbook-for-sabotaging-lyft

https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/504379051050414081

http://gigaom.com/2014/08/26/those-canceled-lyft-rides-were-all-part-of-ubers-elaborate-master-plan-to-recruit-drivers/?

http://www.businessinsider.com/kalanick-defends-ubers-tactics-2014-8

http://www.vox.com/2014/8/27/6074919/the-uber-recruitment-scandal-isnt-scandalous

http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/11/technology/uber-fake-ride-requests-lyft/

http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/12/uber-lyft-slap-fight/

Plug of the Day:  Like tech history? I’ve teamed up with Scott Johnson to put out monthly looks at what happened in history this month. For 99 cents you get what happened on each day of the month that helped make the tech we sue today, plus illustrations from Scott Johnson. Check them out for 99 cents each at tommerrittbooks.com or just search Amazon.

Pick of the Day: Slice.com via Scott Odle

After hearing a while back about Luke Pohr’s pick Package Buddy I wanted to add my pick for tracking purchases, SLICE.COM. Slice builds on Package Buddy by automating tracking and putting all your purchase and tracking info in one app. It scrapes your email to give you a purchase history and can give you notifications for items shipping, out for delivery, and delivered. Slice also helps you track all your online purchasing habits. Once I signed up it gave me my entire online purchasing history since I first began ordering online, 8 years worth!

Thursday is a headlines only show, as Tom gets on his dragon and flies to the Con!

See Sword and Laser Live This Saturday!!

If you’re in Atlanta this weekend and headed to DragonCon you MUST join us in the Crystal Ballroom of the Hilton at 2:00 PM (Eastern) on Saturday afternoon August 30th. Why?

BECAUSE we’re doing a live Sword and Laser episode and interviewing the incomparable Naomi Novik! You cannot miss it. So DON’T!  See you there.  

Time: Sat Aug. 30, 02:30 pm Location: Crystal Ballroom – Hilton (Length: 1 Hour)

Come See DTNS Live!

If you’re in Atlanta this weekend and headed to DragonCon be sure to head to the Grand Ballroom West at the Hilton at 10:00 PM (Eastern) on Friday night August 29th. Why?

BECAUSE that’s when the live performance of the Daily Tech News Show (AFTER DARK) takes place. Jonathan Strickland of Tech Stuff will be alongside and you know we won’t stop there with guests. Come join us!!

Fri Aug. 29, 10:00 pm Location: Grand Ballroom West – Hilton (Length: 1 Hour)
(Panelists: Tom Merritt, Jonathan Strickland and More)

Come See FSL Tonight, LIVE!

If you’re in Atlanta, get thee to DragonCon this weekend! Once you’re there make sure to be in room 203 of the Hilton at 5:30 PM (Eastern) on Friday night August 29th. Why?

BECAUSE that’s when the live performance of the FSL Tonight Championship coverage happens. You will not want to miss it. BE THERE!

Time: Fri Aug. 29, 05:30 pm Location: 203 – Hilton (Length: 1 Hour)
(Panelists: Tom Merritt, Justin Robert Young)

DTNS 2308 – Discourse Remorse

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comMolly Wood is back and ready to talk Hyperlapse’s in app-maker’s judgements along with why we’re scared to talk on the Internet.

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 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guest: Molly Wood, columnist and deputy technology editor at The New York Times. s

Headlines

Instagram released a new app called Hyperlapse that lets you record up to 45 minutes of video and then choose a rate to speed it up with options as fast as 12x. The video can be saved to the camera roll and you can do whatever you want with it There are buttons that will launch the Instagram or Facebook apps for easy sharing if you have those, but they’re not required.

ZDNet reports that Google is acquiring Zync, whose main product is Zync Render,  a cloud-based rendering and storage platform for both 2D and 3D applications. Zync Render has been used on a number of Hollywood films, including Looper, Star Trek: Into Darkness and Transformers: Dark of the Moon. No word yet on how much Google paid. The service will be moved to Google’s Cloud Platform.

Vice president of Amazon games, Mike Frazzini talked with Fortune about Amazon’s newest $970-million all-cash acquisition Twitch. He said, “First and foremost, we want Twitch to just keep going.” I’m sure they do. Meanwhile Forbes’ Ryan Mac heard from a source that antitrust fears played a part in the deal going to Amazon instead of Google. Google allegedly wanted a breakup fee in case the acquisition was not approved because it already owns YouTube. 

GigaOm passes along details about a US NSA tool called ICREACH, revealed by the Intercept Monday. ICREACH apperss to be a search tool used to share data with 23 US government agencies as well as foreign intelligence agencies in Canada, the UK, New Zealand and Australia. The data shared included emails, phone calls, faxes, internet chats, and text messages, as well as location information collected from cellphones.

BitTorrent’s Dropbox competitor Sync got a little more Dropbox-like today according to GigaOm. BitTorrent sync can now make Web links for shared files and folders expanding it beyond simple folder synchronization. Previously users had to exchange cryptographic keys or QR codes to share links to files. The new Web links automatically expire after three days although you can set them to expire faster.

According to Ars Technica, Microsoft is under investigation by Chinese regulatory authorities for bundling its Internet Explorer browser and Windows Media Player app with its operating system. If you sense that all this has happened before, you might be remembering similar complaints from the European Union and South Korea which led to the creation of separate software packs for each country. Microsoft says it will fully comply with the investigation.

News From You

Kelleyb alerted us to the Ars Technica report that California Governor Jerry Brown has signed a law requiring all smartphones in the state come with a kill-switch. While I had hoped the law meant all phones would be required to go into kill mode to defend you when attacked, it actually means as of July 1, 2015 all smartphones sold in California will have to have a remote wipe feature. The kill switch and new civil penalties of $500 to $2500 for stealing phones are hoped to reduce phone theft.

tm204 shares the Ars Technica report that Microsoft has reduced the prices of the Surface 2 Windows RT tablet by $100. The least expensive 32 GB unit now costs $349, the 64GB unit costs $449, and the 64GB model with LTE version costs $579. With the price cut, the 32GB 1920×1080 Microsoft Surface is now less expensive than most other tablets, with the exception of the non-Retina iPad mini. The discounts are available through Microsoft’s physical and online stores, as well as through some other retailers such as Amazon. 

ancrod2 pointed out the SlashGear writeup about RoboBrain, a project led by robotics researcher Ashutosh Saxena, to organize information from the Internet to make it easier for robots to learn. RoboBrain would be a cloud based storage system integrating 100,000 data sources and various types of supervised and unsupervised machine learning algorithms The idea is to give robots access to a remote system that provides a more complex understanding of the world. In other words the individual robot’s NET would be in the cloud or rather— SKY.

Discussion Links: 

http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/08/26/social-media-and-the-spiral-of-silence/#fn-11806-1

http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/26/social-media-is-silencing-personal-opinion-even-in-the-offline-world/?ncid=rss

Plug of the Day: The Sword and Laser Anthology collects 20 amazing stories from new writers in the Sword and Laser book club audience. 10 SciFi and 10 fantasy stories with an introduction by Patrick Rothfuss. Get a copy at swordandlaser.com/store http://swordandlaser.com/store/

Pick of the Day: Go Contact Sync Mod  via Rolando- from the Paraguay, the heart of South America

I’ve using Outlook since the 90s–a critical component of my workflow was an easy wireless way to sync desktop and phone for contacts and calendar. The magic was accomplished then by Nokia Suite through bluetooth. When modern smartphones became a thing, a new component (“the cloud”) was needed in the mix. So I used Google Calendar Sync and a little great desktop app called Go Contact Sync Mod to have Outlook-Cloud-Phone two-way wireless sync nirvana: my contacts, appointments and notes were available to me in my desktop, phone or cloud in perfect harmony. But the Microsoft-Google fight has gotten in the way of my sync heaven, first by stopping support for Exchange ActiveSync and then Google Calendar Sync. Luckily, the wonderful guys of Go Contact Sync Mod came to the rescue by updating their app and providing 2-way sync (Outlook-Google) for Calendar, Contacts, Notes. Best of all, it’s free and opensource. Finally, my workflow equilibrium has been restored.

Wednesday’s guest: Dan Patterson, technology journalist