DTNS 2333 – Windows 8, Nein and 10

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comMolly Wood and Patrick Beja join me to discuss why Microsoft skipped Windows 9, and what windows 10 means for the future of the world’s most popular desktop OS.

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 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 guests: Patrick Beja and Molly Wood!  

Headlines

Microsoft announced the next version of Windows will be called Windows 10 and be released sometime late in 2015. Windows 10 will be one platform and app store across phones, tablets, laptops and desktops. More info on universal apps will come at the BUILD conference in April. Among the new features, Microsoft confirmed the start menu will return in Windows 10 and tiled apps will be allowed to run in a windowed mode. A technical preview will be released starting tomorrow at preview.windows.com

Ebay announced Tuesday it will spin off Paypal into a separate publicly traded company in the second half of 2015. Carl Icahn has been encouraging the company to do so. So who’s in charge after the split? Ebay’s current CEO John Donahoe will step down. Dan Shulman recently of American Express, will take over as CEO of Paypal. And Devin Wenig who leads the EBay marketplace division will become CEO of eBay.

Engadget reports Apple has announced the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus will go on sale in China on October 17th. Apple received a license to sell the phones earlier Tuesday. Pre-orders for the iPhone in China will start October 10th. The phones will support TD-LTE and FDD-LTE, meaning 4G speeds on China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom.

Movie riddle: When is a sequel also a first? As you ponder all the possible answers to that question, The New York Times has theirs: Netflix and The Weinstein company are teaming up to make Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: The Green Legend, the first movie to have a major theatrical release and a Netflix release on the same day. The movie will only be released in IMAX theaters, not traditional theaters so it’s not the quite full Cordkillers dream come true, but Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos said he hoped this “will be a proof point that the sky doesn’t fall.” Said theater owners: “THE SKY IS FALLING!”

Spotted at Paris Fashion Week: The Apple Watch. Apple Insider reports that Apple design chief Jony Ive took his ‘Switzerland-terrorizing’ watch to Paris and introduced it to the likes of Vogue editor Anna Wintour and Chanel’s Karl Lagerfeld at hip, Parisian boutique Colette. Mere mortals were also briefly allowed to view the Apple Watch as well, making it the first time Apple’s wearable has been seen by the general public.

ReCode reports Intel-owned Basis announced a new watch called the Peak. The Peak counts your steps, measures your heart and does some smartwatch stuff like phone notifications using Bluetooth LE. It also claims 4 days of battery life and is waterproof. Its made of anodized aluminum ,with a Gorilla Glass 3 face and comes in matte black and brushed silver. The watch works with iOS and Android, starts at $200, and will ship starting in early November.

Reuters reports that outgoing US Attorney General Eric Holder expressed his concern about data encryption that allows you, the data’s owner to be the only one who can unlock it. In a speech to the Global Alliance Against Child Sexual Abuse Online, Holder said “It is fully possible to permit law enforcement to do its job while still adequately protecting personal privacy” and that quick access to phone data can help law enforcement officers find and protect victims, such as those targeted by kidnappers and sexual predators.

ReCode reports Reddit raised $50 million in funding which by itself isn’t huge news, but the interesting thing is that the round was led by Y Combinator president Sam Altman who plans to allocate 10% of the equity to Reddit users. How that equity would be distributed is yet to be determined but Altman said Reddit may dole out shares using a distributed accounting system, a la the bitcoin block chain.

 

 

 

News From You

metalfreak posted the liliputing article that Google’s Project Ara, the modular smartphone, will allow hot swapping of all modules except the CPU and screen. A custom version of Google L lets you swap out cameras, sensors, even the battery, without having to reboot. A working model of Project Ara will be shown off at a developer’s conference in December and the phone is expected to launch in early 2015.

mranthropology submitted the CNET article about Matchstick, a $25 HDMI streaming stick that powered by Firefox OS. The device is open on the software and hardware side. It’s compatible with many existing Chomrecast apps and hopes to have more apps from the Mozilla developers created by launch time. Backers of the Matchstick Kickstarter can get the stick at a discount.

MacBytes pointed out the Apple Insider story that Apple issued a patch late Monday to fix the Shellshock vulnerability in OS X. The update fixes the security flaw in bash for OS X Mavericks, Mountain Lion and Lion. Users would have to configure certain services for OS X to have been vulnerable, but now even those users have a fix.

Discussion Links:  

http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2014/09/30/microsoft-announces-windows-10/

http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/30/6873963/windows-10-continuum-touch-interface

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/preview-coming-soon

http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/30/6874413/windows-10-whats-old-is-new-again

Pick of the Day: Archive.org via Allan Palmer

Like many of your listeners I am interested in the tech of podcasting itself, both as an aspiring podcaster and also out of technology interest. You host at archive.org. Not an obvious choice one hears about often. Could you use archive.org as a pick sometime and go through why you use it? Love the show. Keep going!

Wednesday’s guest: 

 

DTNS 2332 – There’s always room for Ello

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comTodd Whitehead is on the show today. In light of Facebook’s new launch of Atlas to market to people across devices and even offline, we’ll talk about whether we’re OK being the product or not. Ello anyone?

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 guests: Todd Whitehead of Alpha Geek Radio

Headlines

Facebook announced it’s relaunching its Atlas ad platform with a new interface and the ability to track people across devices and even bridge the gap between online ad impressions and offline purchases. Techcrunch reports Facebook is quick to remind us that Atlas isn’t an add network but meant to measure and verify ad impressions. Facebook calls it “people-based marketing.” Although it also assures us that the data is encrypted and not associated with individual people. So they in no way have little private dossiers about every single thing that you do in your life. Nope.

The Verge reports Cloudflare deployed universal SSL offering free SSL encryption to any site that opts in, including customers of Cloudflare’s free service. Cloudflare says “Yesterday, there were about 2 million sites active on the Internet that supported encrypted connections. By the end of the day today, we’ll have doubled that.”

The New York Times reports that all those folks waiting in line to buy iPhones so they could resell them in China may not have paid off as much as hoped. The iPhone 6 and 6 plus have not been approved for official sale in China yet. The Times tells anecdotes of falling prices on grey market iPhones and one wholesaler complaining they have way too many iPhone 6’s in stock. MacRumors reports a leaked internal memo indicates the iPhone may be approved for sale soon, hit stores October 7th and go on sale in China October 10th.

CNET reports that Microsoft will open a flagship retail store in New York City on Fifth Avenue, replacing a Fendi store. Back when Microsoft launched the original Surface back in 2012, the company opened a pop-up store in Times Square, and they do have some retail stores in the New York area, but this is their first permanent Manhattan location. No word on an opening date yet.

Ars Technica reports that Adobe is finally bringing Photoshop to Chromebook as part of its Creative Cloud offering. As such, the app will be accessed remotely not stored locally. This streaming Photoshop will run in a “”virtualized environment” but won’t have GPU support at launch. The network requirements are listed as “5 mbps/max latency 250,” and right now the program is in beta and only available to US education customers who subscribe to Adobe’s creative cloud.

Lenovo announced it will officially close its acquisition of IBM’s x86 server business on October 1st. CNET reports that will make Lenovo the third largest seller in the x86 server market. IBM will continue to provide maintenance support on the servers for a certain extended period time.

FireChat has become a popular tool for sharing information among students demonstrating in Hong Kong. The app allows communication in a mesh network using Bluetooth and Apple’s Multipeer Connectivity Framework when cell data or WiFi won’t work. TechinAsia reports student activist leader Joshua Wong posted a message urging people to download FireChat in anticipation of poor cellular network connectivity.

News From You

gullwingdmc passes along a 9 to 5 Mac report that Apple has removed an app called Launcher from its App Store for “misuse of widgets.” The app allowed users to create custom shortcuts to apps from Notification Center. Users who already upgraded to the pro version of the app through an in-app purchase will still be able to use the pro capabilities, but no one else will be able to purchase the upgrade. Apple said there is no chance that Launcher will be allowed back with the widget functionality still in place. So remember to treat your widgets with kindness and respect, people.

habichuelacondulce pointed out the Ars Technica article on research out of the University of Central Florida that indicated Google Glass is no safer than phones for texting while driving. However Glass users did regain control of their vehicles faster than phone users following traffic incidents. This adds to other studies that generally show the distraction of texting or calls is the danger not the form factor of the device upon which they are accessed.

diggsalot submitted the BGR report that Microsoft may make Windows 9 free at least for some customers. Among the many reports, Indonesian online publication Detik said earlier this week that President of Microsoft Indonesia Andreas Diantoro said Windows 9 would be free to existing Windows 8 users. Microsoft has an announcement about Windows scheduled for tomorrow Sept. 30.

Discussion Links:  The Product is YOU.

http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/28/facebook-atlas-relaunch/

http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/28/facebook-acquires-atlas/

http://atlassolutions.com/2014/09/29/meet-the-new-atlas/

http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/13/facebook-custom-audiences-measurement/

http://www.businessinsider.com/interview-with-ello-founder-paul-budnitz-on-how-his-social-network-will-make-money-2014-9

Pick of the Day: The Evoluent vertical mouse via Dave Popovich

Dave Popovich of Stuart, Florida writes: Wanted to share a product that has saved me lots of medical bills. Being a network administrator for 500 users in 9 locations, you can guess I spend a lot of time at my computer using my mouse. And that meant I would drive home after work, and massage my right forearm because of the dull ache of the carpal tunnel pain.

I don’t remember how I discovered this product, but it has really made a difference – the Evoluent vertical mouse at http://Evoluent.com. I have been using the regular size, right handed, wired versions for years now, at home and at work and have no more wrist pain! It works by turning your hand 90 degrees so you rest your arm on the outside bones and not the soft tissue of the inside arm. They also make smaller mice and left-handed mice!

Only caveats: with years of training to use a mouse one way, you are a bit less accurate at first using the vertical mouse. just takes a little practice. Also, the mouse has LOTS of extra buttons, which I found got in the way, but just go into the driver and set those trouble buttons to not do anything.

It really has changed my life and many vendors and computer service folks are very interested when they see it on my desk.

Tuesday’s guests: Patrick Beja and Molly Wood!  

Current Geek 28: The bigger they are, the Titan they fall

On this edition of CurrentGeek: Thus endeth the Titan that never was. Netflix and Spoilers are buddies again. To shat or not to shat. Hero movies and what they mean for society. Crescent Bay is pretty hawt and we all want one. iPhone 6+ users are all bent out of shape this week. How about some Unix talk? Pop Quizes! How Blizzard will never make another MMO again. And your feedback! Kristin and Jules join us tonight!

DTNS 2331 – It’s a Fug

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comDarren Kitchen is back to follow up with what we should know about shellshock, plus some good news for a few drones out there. And Len Peralta illustrates the show, artprov style!

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 guests: Darren Kitchen and Len Peralta

Headlines

GigaOm reports good news for BlackBerry. But first the bad news. Handset sales were down 200,000 to 2.4 million and the company lost $207 million. HOWEVER that’s quite a bit less than the $965 million it dumped a year ago, not to mention it has $3.1 billion in the bank. Plus the Blackberry Passport has received 200,000 pre-orders.

SysAdmins the world over continue to deal with the shellshock vulnerability with patches out for most Linux distros, though not all of them complete. Consumers should be most concerned about devices with embedded systems like routers and webcams as well as OS X. Apple says most OS x users will not have the Unix services turned on that would allow attackers to take advantage of the vulnerability. However a patch is in the works. Bash maintainer Chet Ramey said on Twitter he had notified Apple of shellshock several times before it was made public. Apple uses an older version of Bash, v 3.2.51.(1) because the company avoids GPLv3-licensed software like Frankenstein’s monster avoids villagers with torches.

Reuters reports the European Aviation Safety Agency said Friday it will allow passengers to use portable electronic devices throughout the entire flight without being in airplane mode. EASA said This is the latest regulatory step toward enabling the ability to offer ‘gate-to-gate’ telecommunication or Wifi services.” Each airline will have to conduct a safety assessment before changing their policies.

TechCrunch reports Apple released iOS 8.0.2. The new update includes all original fixes promised in the earlier update, and fixes the cell reception issue with iPhone 6 and 6+, as well as a bug in the HealthKit app that delayed release of compatible apps, and a bug where third-party keyboards would default back to Apple’s keyboard when activated inside an app. Apple said in their apology that fewer than 40,000 devices were affected by the bad release which was pulled after an hour.

The tech press all decided to notice social network Ello today, possibly due to it being Friday. Engadget reports Ello is notching up 20,000 new users an hour despite being invite only. Ello is created by designers and artists, its CEO Paul Budnitz is founder of toy company Kidrobot. Its central premise is that it won’t turn you into a product to sell to advertisers. So no ads. The idea is to provide basic functions for free but more advanced functions, like multiple accounts managed from one login might cost you $2. Budnitz says “We’re not competing. We’re just building this thing that we really want to use.”

ZDNet reports that Amazon has officially acquired game-streaming service Twitch and its more than 55 million active monthly users, for $970 million. Amazon VP of games Mike Frazzini said the deal came together after Amazon met with Twitch leaders and decided their culture was “an awesome fit with Amazon’s culture.” To recap, Amazon now owns an incredibly popular live-streaming platform for less than one Instagram.

Re/code reports that Intel will pay up to $1.5 billion for a 20% stake in two mobile chipmakers with ties to the Chinese government. Intel will acquire the stake in Spreadtrum Communications and RDA Microelectronics through a deal with Tsinghua Unigroup in an attempt to catch up to rival Qualcomm in the mobile chip market.

 

News From You

habichuelcondulce pointed out Samsung announced its highest capacity SSD yet. The SM1715 can store 3.2 TB of data and is in production. The drive is made using Samsung’s 3D V-NAND technology, in which storage chips are placed on top of each other. The random read speed of the drive is 750,000 IOPS (input/output operations per second) and write speed is 130,000 IOPS. Price and ship dates were not announced. Hopefully it’s cheaper than the $20,000 LSI Nytro 3.2 TB SSD.

spsheridan shares a BBC report that the US Federal Bureau of Investigations is “very concerned” about Apple and Google’s plans to create file encryption systems to which the companies would have no access. The head of the FBI James Comey told reporters that lives could depend on continuing access to device data. The FBI is holding conversations with both companies. Apple and Google have not yet responded. “we have keys to all your houses… oops I wasn’t supposed to say that,” Comey is imagined to have said.

ancrod2 pointed out the Moscow Times article noting Russia’s Roskomnadzor agency, which supervises the media and communications, has notified Google, Facebook and Twitter that they must register as “organizers of inofrmation distribution” and therefore keep information about Russian users on servers located inside the country. The companies have until the end of the year to register or risk administrative sanctions.

Discussion Links:  Shellshock and Drones

http://seclists.org/oss-sec/2014/q3/741

http://www.imore.com/apple-working-quickly-protect-os-x-against-shellshock-exploit

http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/146849/how-do-i-recompile-bash-to-avoid-shellshock-the-remote-exploit-cve-2014-6271-an/146851#146851

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/09/25/google-and-amazon-respond-to-shellshock-security-flaw/?mod=rss_Technology

Google, Amazon and others react to Shellshock flaw with patches and advice

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/25/us-drones-exemptions-implications-idUSKCN0HK2RG20140925?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews

http://www.cnet.com/news/faa-opens-the-door-for-movie-making-drones/#ftag=CAD590a51e

Pick of the Day: Teleprompter+ via Tom

Monday’s guest: Todd Whitehead of Alpha Geek Radio

DTNS 2330 – B*A*S*H

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comBreki Tomasson is on the show and while we will touch on a glaring omission from Healthkit, the main story is the bash vulnerability Shellshock. Thankfully Steve Gibson agreed to drop in and explain it to us!

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: Breki Tomasson, creator of the CSICon podcasting network and Steve Gibson, co-host of Security Now and head of the Gibson Research Corporation

Headlines

Last week a vulnerability in bash was reported to Red Hat by Unix expert Stephane Chazelas. The vulnerability was revealed late Wednesday. GigaOm has a good roundup of the details, but it essentially allows an environmental variable with an arbitrary name to carry a malicious function definition with trailing commands. That means it can get your server to execute code. It affects any OS that implements bash which includes Apache, most versions of Linux and Mac OS X. It also can include many routers, webcams and other embedded systems. Red Hat issued a partial patch and Akamai published some mitigation measures, but more fixes from more vendors are expected.

TechCrunch reports Apple says bent iPhone 6s are extremely rare and claims only nine people have complained to the company about it. Apple claims under normal use the problem rarely occurs and notes the new iPhones are built with steel/titanium inserts to reinforce stress locations. Apple also claims iPhone 6 models underwent testing to ensure they can endure bending, sitting, torsion and other kinds of stress.

Kotaku reports Valve released the Steam Music player for its desktop client. It’s not a streaming (or should we say steaming?) service just an in-game music player for your existing collection. So for instance if you want to be able to listen to Peter Gabriel’s Steam on the Steam Music Player, we now live in a world where that’s possible.

The PC is NOT DEAD! At least not in the US. NPD reports consumer retail PC sales grew 3% in the US from July 4th through Labor Day week. Last year sales declined 2.5% in that period. Chrome OS led the way increasing 37 percent over 2013 and Mac products rose 14 percent. Windows devices dropped 3%. Overall laptops rose 3.4% while desktop sales were essentially flat.

TechCrunch reports Apple apologized for the “great inconvenience” caused by its faulty iOS 8.0.1 update and claimed developers are working around the clock to prepare iOS 8.0.2 with a fix that will hopefully arrive in the next few days. Apple officially recommends rolling back iPhone 6 and 6 Plus from 8.0.1 to 8.

Reuters reports that European data privacy regulators gave Google guidelines on legally collecting and storing user data. Google came under privacy scrutiny from the European Union as well as six individual European countries after the company combined its privacy policies and data collection from sixty services into one, and giving users no way to opt out.

Apparently the EU feels a little warmer towards Facebook, because Reuters UK has two sources that say Facebook is about to win unconditional EU approval to purchase mobile messaging startup WhatsApp for $19 billion. European telecom companies like Deutsche Telekom and Telefonica want the EU to extract concessions from Facebook in light of WhatsApps plan to add free voice-call services later this year, but it looks like that may not happen. US regulators approved the deal in April.

 

 

News From You

BigJim1 submitted the ABCNews story on the successful arrival of India’s Mars Orbiter Mission and our subreddit users voted it up. The Indian Space and Research Organization is the first agency to be successful on a Mars mission in its first attempt. The orbiter program cost $75 million which Prime Minister Narendra Modi pointed out was less than it cost to make the movie Gravity. It’s also quite a bit less than the $671 million NASA spent on the Maven mission to Mars.

Kylde didn’t want us to miss the Technology Review report that Google X Lab’s head Astro Teller, speaking at the EmTech Conference on Tuesday, said Google aims to have a continuous ring of high-altitude balloons above the Southern Hemisphere within the next year. Project Loon as its called will provide LTE data service to cell phones on the ground at rates of 22 megabits per second to fixed antennas, and five megabits per second to mobile handsets. Teller said “if we can figure out a way to take the Internet to five billion people, that’s very valuable.”

Discussion Links:  Shellshock and a glaring Healthkit omission

http://www.troyhunt.com/2014/09/everything-you-need-to-know-about.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/25/us-cybersecurity-shellshock-idUSKCN0HK23Y20140925

http://lcamtuf.blogspot.com/2014/09/quick-notes-about-bash-bug-its-impact.html

http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2014/09/24/11

https://twitter.com/taviso/status/514887394294652929

https://gigaom.com/2014/09/25/the-critical-shellshock-flaw-affects-many-linux-and-apple-systems-heres-what-you-need-to-know/

http://www.wired.com/2014/09/internet-braces-crazy-shellshock-worm/

http://blog.erratasec.com/2014/09/bash-bug-as-big-as-heartbleed.html#.VCRaXildXA4

http://www.zdnet.com/first-attacks-using-shellshock-bash-bug-discovered-7000034044/

http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/25/6844021/apple-promised-an-expansive-health-app-so-why-cant-i-track

Pick of the Day: SpeedCrunch via Cody Olivier

My pick is SpeedCrunch. As a game programmer and CS graduate student, I need a quick, straight forward, and simple calculator with some power behind it. Enter SpeedCrunch. It is a calculator that is completely controlled by your keyboard ( similar to command-line ) which supports user defined variables, a multitude of math functions, and comes with a table of scientific constants. It shows history, lets you retrieve previously entered equations, and my favorite feature is as you type in an equation, it will have a little pop-up with the current answer to the equation. This is very useful when I am adding up a lot of numbers and want to see the current total. It works for Windows and OSX and has a portable Windows version. I also believe the program is open source for anyone who wants to modify or look at the code.

Friday’s guest: Darren Kitchen and Len Peralta

DTNS 2329 – Will It Bend™

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comBrian Brushwood is on the show and we’ll cover the history of post-iPhone release controversies including this year’s which involves the fact that when you put slim aluminum things under stress, they bend. But should they? The answer may surprise you.

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: Brian Brushwood, co-host of Night Attack and Cordkillers

Today’s title ” ” was chosen by  at showbot.replex.org

Headlines

Watch out Google X! Reuters reports Amazon will increase staff at it’s Lab126 R&D division by at least 27% over the next five years according to a tax agreement reached with the State of California in June. Among the projects. Sources told Reuters that areas of research at the lab include wearable devices and connected home devices. One would allow one-button product ordering from the kitchen over WiFi. Products like the Kindle ereader and FirePhone came out of Lab126.

The Next Web reports BlackBerry unveiled its square Passport smartphone today. The Passport has a 4.5-inch, 1440 x 1440 resolution display, a 2.2GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, 3GB RAM and 32GB of onboard storage, a 13 megapixel camera on the back and a 2 megapixel camera on the front. The phone runs BlackBerry 10.3, which features BlackBerry Blend, allowing users to manage files and communications across devices and platforms including Windows, Mac, iOS and Android device. The phone is available now and cost $599 in the US, $699 in Canada, £529 in the UK and €649 in Europe.

http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/24/6838103/blackberry-passport-att-availability

The Verge reports Apple says they “received reports of an issue with the iOS 8.0.1 update, are actively investigating the reports and have pulled the update for the time being. 8.0.1 was the first bug-fix update to iOS 8. These first patches notoriously cause unexpected problems. This time affected phones showed no service and touchID was unresponsive. The issue seemed only to affect iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. The best workaround if you already updated would be to downgrade to iOS 8. Search “downgrade to iOS 8” for several tutorials.

Recode reports Comcast filed its response to comments on its proposed merger with TWC. Comcast told the US FCC that Netflix, Dish Network and Discovery, among others opposed the deal because the companies failed in “extortion” attempts to get special favors. Yeah, Comcast used the word extortion once and “extortionate demands” twice in the filing. Discovery said Comcast continues to intimidate opposing voices and Netflix said, “It is extortion when Comcast fails to provide its own customers the broadband speed they’ve paid for unless Netflix also pays a ransom.” Whoa whoa whoa! Ransom? Extortion? Intimidation? C’mon folks, this is not Fat Tony’s House of Legitimate Business here… or is it?

Reuters reports Adobe will close its research and development arm in China by the end of December. Adobe will maintain its sales presence in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Taiwan and focus on market development in the region. Last week, Adobe reported its worst quarterly revenue for Asia in the last five years.

News From You

t2t2 submitted the Polygon story that Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime said the company will end development of a rumored video game codenamed Titan. Today Kotaku compiled everything it had heard about the game from various sources inside Blizzard. It had apparently been intended to be a near-future Earth set after an alien invasion had been fought off. Players would choose one of three factions and work normal jobs during the day, while at night turning into superhero like fighters against the other factions in a TF2 style game. Morhaime told Polygon they canceled the game because it just wasn’t good enough.

habichuelcondulce passes along the CNET report that Boeing has partnered with a company called Liquid Robotics to make SEA-FARING ROBOTS! That’s right, Boeing wants to build robots that can surveil the open seas, looking for drug traffickers and submarines. Or maybe drug traffickers IN submarines, because why limit yourself. Liquid Robotics is the company that built the Wave Glider SV3, a self-powered sea-faring data center that can stay in the ocean for months at a time. So add Boeing and BOOM SEA-ROBOT SOLDIERS

Discussion Links: What does the E.U. want?

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-29331349

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1785905

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=19826437&postcount=41

http://www.engadget.com/2014/09/23/bent-iphone-6-plus-problem/

http://www.geek.com/apple/iphone-6s-are-being-bent-in-peoples-pockets-including-mine-1605177/

http://www.cultofmac.com/297404/get-bent-shocking-history-bent-smartphones/

http://www.cultofmac.com/248603/iphone-5ses-are-bending-in-peoples-pockets/

http://thenextweb.com/apple/2014/09/24/apple-support-says-bent-iphones-must-pass-visual-inspection-qualify-warranty-replacement/

Pick of the Day:  Lootcrate via Rob Jennings

Today we have possibly the shortest recommendation we’ve ever received from Rob Jennings. And I quote: “Lootcrate.com a subscription services for monthly swag . It has different levels of boxes.” To elaborate just a bit: If you sign up for Lootcrate.com, they will send you a themed mystery box with a retail value of $40 or more. In August the theme was ‘HEROES’ and included a Groot Bobblehead, some mini ninja turtles, and a pair of Shwings (that’s wings for shoes) among many other things. The monthly plan costs $13.37/mo + $6 shipping and handling. Sign up for more months at a time and get a discount. Every month one lootcrater wins a megacrate, with $750 worth of stuff.

Thursday’s guest: Breki Tommason