DTNS 2517 – Keeping Up With The Droneses

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comScott Johnson and Raj Deut are on to talk about the Microsoft shakeup and oddly how it sheds light on the market for Virtual Reality headsets.

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Show Notes

Today’s guests: Scott Johnson and Raj Deut

Headlines: 

Ars Technica reports Microsoft made it’s seemingly yearly executive reshuffle today, though ReCode’s Ina Fried thinks it has more to do with people than strategy. Former Nokia CEO and head of MS devices Stephen Elop leaves and devices gets rolled into the Windows group under Terry Myerson as the Windows and Devices Group. Kirikk Tatarinov leaves Business Services and Dynamics which gets folded into Cloud and Enterprise under Scott Guthrie. Eric Rudder is leaving and his education responsibilities will move under Qi Lu in Application and Services. All those folks leave today. Separately Chief Insights Officer MArk Penn will leave in September and take his insights to a Steve Ballmer backed digital marketing services company called Stagwell Group.

Reuters reports the California Labor Commission has determined Uber drivers should be treated as employees not contractors. The ruling was filed Tuesday stating Uber is “involved in every aspect of the operation” and awarding $4,000 to Barbara Ann Berwick, a driver who complained. Uber is appealing the award.

Nest made some new announcements according to The Next Web. The Cam, is a 1080p successor to dropcam with night vision, a tripod, and a speaker you can talk through for $199. Dropcam’s cloud recording is now called Nest Aware and you get 30 days of storage for your $10 a month. It’s available in US, UK, Canada, Germany, France and the Netherlands today and ships next week. The Nest Protect gets an update that’s better at detecting fires, the thing that it is supposed to do. You can also silence it remotely with an app. It’s coming next month for $99. Nest also announced Hone Safety Rewards which gives you a 5% brake on insurance premiums and a free Protectif you share your data with insurance companies Liberty Mutual and American Family.

Reuters reports the FCC has proposed a $100 million fine for AT&T over the way it informed unlimited users about speed throttling.  AT&T has 30 days to respond after which the commission will review the proposal and make a decision. The FCC says AT&T did not properly inform customers when reductions would happen and mow much speeds would drop. That violates transparency requirements passed in 2010.

The Verge reports Amazon is updating the Kindle Paperwhite today with a new 300 pixels per inch display. That’s twice as sharp as the last iteration and the equal to the $199 Kindle Voyage. The new Paperwhite will sell for $119. You can preorder today for shipping by the end of June.

Engadget reports Dropbox has announced a new way to request files from multiple people, called File Requests. One link sent to multiple people lets them all upload files to the same folder with a maximum capacity of 2GB. None of the senders need to have a dropbox account. Pro and Basic accounts get the feature today and Business users get it in a few weeks.

Intel acquired Canadian smart-eyewear maker Recon reports CNET. Recon’s Jet $700 glasses have a built-in display to show directions, activity statistics, smartphone connectivity for texts and notifications and camera for photos and videos. The Recon team will partner with Intel’s New Devices Group to develop new wearables technologies. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

AMD unveiled several three new GPUs under the Fury name, according the Ars Technica; The flagship $649 R9 Fury X, $549 R9 Fury, and R9 Nano. All three are based on the Fiji chip an update to the GCN architecture and will feature 4GB of on-package high bandwidth memory. The R9 Fury X is comparable to Nvidia’s GTX 980 Ti with 4096 stream processors, up to 1050 MHz core clock speed, 256 texture units, 64 Render Output Unit, 512 GB/s of memory bandwidth, a 67.2 GigaPixel per second fill rate and six-phase Voltage Regulator Module for overclockers. It also has a water cooled 120mm radiator. The R9 Fury will be an air-cooled version of the Fury X and the R9 Nano a low-power GPU based on the same Fiji processor. The Fury X launches June 24th, Fury on July 14th and Nano sometime this summer.

The Next Web reports researchers from Indiana, Georgia and Peking universities demonstrated a vulnerability they call “Xara” in the OS X keychain that would allow attackers to gather passwords. The group created a malicious app and got it accepted into the OS X app store. Because there is no way to verify which app owns a credential in keychain the app can get access to every password stored after it’s installed. Another attack spoofs URLs to steal private token, since OS x does not check which apps are allowed to use which URL schemes. The group notified Apple of the issue on OCtober 15th and Apple asked for 6 months to fix. The problem still exists in 10.10.3 and 10.10.4.

Good news drone fans. The Next Web reports that at a congressional hearing on Wednesday, senior FAA official Michael Whitaker said commercial drone regulations “will be in place within a year.” On top of that Amazon’s vice president of global public policy said “We’d like to begin delivering to our customers as soon as it’s approved. We will have it (the technology) in place by the time any regulations are ready.”

News From You:

andrewdaley sent us this story from Ars Technica about a new exploit in the customized version of the SwiftKey keyboard bundled with the Samsung Galaxy S6, S5, and other Galaxy models. When downloading updates, the Samsung devices don’t encrypt the executable file, making it possible for attackers to modify upstream traffic. The exploit was demonstrated Tuesday at the Blackhat security conference in London by Ryan Welton, a researcher with security firm NowSecure. SwiftKey said in a statement that its Google Play and iOS versions are not vulnerable. Samsung has apparently shipped a patch to wireless carriers but it’s unknown if it has been applied.

dvdmon sent in the TechDirt article that the European Court of Human Rights has decided in Delfi AS v. Estonia, that websites can be liable for user comments.  The Court found the original article published by Delfi was balanced, it ruled that since the site wanted comments and made money off those pageviews, it incurs liability for what the commenters wrote. The ruling also find that since Delfi could remove comments, its filter wasn’t good enough to catch all offending comments and some comments were anonymous, Delfi is liable. Europe has no equivalent to the US rules on safe harbor.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://www.wired.com/2015/06/sony-morpheus/
http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/17/8794907/oculus-rift-touch-virtual-reality-hands-on-e3-2015
 http://www.dailytech.com/Microsoft+Plays+the+Field+Backs+Valves+VR+Push+Too/article37402.htm
 http://readwrite.com/2015/06/15/microsoft-wants-to-own-virtual-reality-hololens-oculus
 http://www.cnet.com/news/why-oculus-partnered-with-microsoft-for-its-rift-virtual-reality-headset/
 https://www.google.com/search?q=microsoft+valve+vr&oq=microsoft+valve+vr&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i60l2.3674j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=119&ie=UTF-8
 http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/06/microsoft-partners-with-valve-vr-and-oculus-shows-minecraft-for-hololens/

 

Pick of the Day:

Brian write:

I’d like to recommend Security Now! on TWiT’s network as a fantastic educational podcast with a large still-relevant backlog. It has all kinds of good info from how networking works to how operating systems work, along with current news and updates.

Messages:

Travis writes in:

On Monday’s show (Episode 2515) Veronica mentioned her frustrations about having to use multiple different Facebook apps for things like messenger, photos, etc. I feel very much the same way as Veronica and found that Facebook has an app called Paper, which has virtually all the main Facebook features such as News Feed, groups, and yes, even messenger in a flipboard-esque layout. Another nice perk, no ads (at least as of now).

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Thursday’s Guests: Justin Robert Young

DTNS 2516 – Password: Cake, Monkey, Fish Flag

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comPatrick Beja is on to talk about announcements from Sony and Nintendo. Was there nothing good at E3 this year?

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Show Notes

Today’s guests: Patrick Beja

Headlines: 

CNET called Sony’s E3 press event a mix of nostalgia and exclusives. Halo creator Bungie announced a new expansion for Destiny coming in September. Sony has exclusive deals for early access to Square Enix’s next Hitman, called Hitman, Street Fighter V and Call of Duty: Black Ops. Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Syndicate will offer PlayStation only missions and the next Disney Infinity game will come with an exclusive Star Wars figure in a PlayStation-only bundle. Square Enix remake Final Fantasy VII as a timed exclusive for the ps4. Sega launched a kickstarter for Shenmue 3 which funded its first 2 million dollar goal in 9 hours. Sony introduced a first-person shooter called Rigs that’s exclusive for Sony’s Morpheus virtual reality headset. And Sony PlayStation Vue the TV service arrived in San Francisco and LA while Sony promised future al la carte channel purchasing options. OH and Last Guardian is coming in 2016. Yeah they opened with that bombshell.

Nintendo’s E3 digital announcement conference had a lot of new titles for 3DS and a lot fewer new titles for the Wii U.  Nintendo will release Amiibo for Bowser and Donkey Kong that will work in the Wii U version of Activision’s Skylanders Superchargers in September. The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes comes to the 3DS. A three-player cooperative take on the classic adventure franchise that has online play and arrives this fall. For 2016 the 3DS will also get Metroid Prime: Federation Force a multiplayer-focused online shooter set as a spin-off and Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam.
For Wii U owners this year there’s Super Mario Maker coming September 11th. Yoshi’s Woolly World October 16th. And later this year Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival, Mario Tennis:Ultra Smash, and Star Fox Zero. Nintendo also teased Fire Emblem: Fates and Xenoblade Chronicles the next installment in the popular JRPG.

Twitter is going the way of autoplay. The Next Web reports that video and GIF’s will now play automatically, but that the sound will be muted until you click on the video or turn the phone to landscape view. Users can opt out, and Twitter automatically disables the feature if it thinks you have low bandwidth. The change rolls out today to Twitter.com and Twitter for iOS. Android coming soon.

Computer World reports that a UK company called Intelligent Environment is promising to bring emoji-only passcodes to banks.
They claim emojis as a PIN will prevent hackers from identifying common and easily obtainable numerical passcodes, like a date of birth or a wedding anniversary. There are forty four available emojis which equals 3,498,308 unique combinations of non repeating emoji. No banks have signed on to the system yet.

TechCrunch reports Adobe’s Creative Cloud new milestone update was announced. The big addition is Adobe Stock a new stock photo and video service created after the acquisition of Fotolia. Photoshop and Lightroom get a dehaze filter. And Photoshop now has support for artboards as well a an HTML5-based design space that shows only the tools optimized for app design.

TechCrunch reports Box is now integrated in Microsoft Office Online. Box has already been available in Office 365. Box competitor dropbox integrated into office online in April.

The Verge reports Razer’s Open Source Virtual Reality platform will now support Android and position tracking. Position tracking, was a noted absence from OSVR’s initial release back in January. Hardware support within OSVR will eventually be added to allow Android phones to take the place of a dedicated VR display. In total, OSVR is now up to 144 supporters including the Unity and Unreal engines.

News From You:

KAPT_kipper submitted the Last Pass blog posted that attackers had penetrated the password manager’s network and accessed account email addresses, password reminders, server per user salts and authentication hashes. The passwords may still be difficult to crak as Last Pass uses 100,000 rounds of server-side PBKDF2-SHA256 in addition to client side rounds. And to be clear the database of stored passwords for OTHER accounts, the whole reason one would use Last Pass, was NOT accessed. LastPass has put in place email verification, suggest turning on multifactor authnetication if you haven’t already, and encourages all accounts to change their master password.

Starfuryzeta posted the article from Mashable that Google Maps can now warn you if a destination will be closed by the time you get there. Of course, the hours of operation have tobe correct and Google’s traffic estimator has to be accurate. But still, nice touch Maps.

TheRealFrankL sent us the New York Times report that the FBI is investigating whether employees of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team hacked into the internal networks of the Houston Astros to steal data on players. Investigators have uncovered evidence that Cardinals officials may have obtained internal discussions about trades, proprietary statistics and scouting reports. Astros GM Jeff Luhnow left the Cardinals in December 2011. The FBI believes the attackers used a list of passwords Mr. Luhnow had used while working for the Cardinals, to access the Astros network.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/16/super-mario-maker-will-let-you-build-your-own-mario-levels-this-september/?ncid=rss
http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/15/8773903/sony-e3-2015-playstation-games-list-summary
 http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/16/sony-e3-reaction-video/?ncid=rss_truncated
 http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/16/8789519/legend-of-zelda-triforce-heroes-e3-2015
 http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/16/nintendo-shows-off-starfox-zero-for-wii-u-with-gamepad-aiming/?ncid=rss#.7yzb2u:LZCI
 http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/16/8789563/nintendo-amiibo-skylanders-wii-u-e3-2015
 http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/16/hyrule-warriors-new-metroid-nintendo-3ds/?ncid=rss_truncated
 http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/15/ubisoft-e3-2015-roundup/?ncid=rss_truncated
 https://plus.google.com/u/0/+PatrickBeja/posts/M5SnqhmA8B9

Pick of the Day:

Franz from -insert weather conditions here- Austria:

To play your existing PC games in full stereoscopic 3D, I recommend TriDef 3D.

The software acts as a middleware driver for games that use Direct3D 9,10 or 11. It offers extensive tweaking, works with all brand GPUs and many types of 3D technologies including color separation, and even VR headsets. There is a list of supported games on their website, but after testing all my other games, I found that a surprisingly large amount of them (>75%) did work – some even as old as 2003!

There are two downsides however:
One: At 40 USD, it’s expensive, but there is a free 2 week trial.
Two: the hardware requirements are steep, obviously, and also it takes a certain mindset to tolerate the necessary tinkering and potential frustration that come with the initial setup process
But once it runs, it’s great. So if 3D is your sort of thing, check it out.

Messages:

Alan writes:

I find it interesting that Microsoft is adding backwards compatibility to XBox One. If I remember correctly, they omitted it completely from Xbox 360. Sony got a little backlash for no backwards compatiblity in PS4, but they did start out with some backwards compatibility in PS3 before phasing it out. To me, this makes it seem like backwards compatibility is only a move to make when you’re behind in the market. That may not be the case, but it kind of looks that way. I still haven’t bought a current gen console, but I tend to favor Playstation. It seems to have more variety, since I’m not big on the most popular genres of shooters, sports, and racing. Nor fighting or zombies, so as you can see I’m really not a gamer.

Jonathan writes:

Catching up on my DTNS feed, I listened to episode 2513 where Allison and Todd talked about the FTC taking consumer protection action against Erik Chevalier for his 2013 Kickstarter campaign; a game entitled “The Doom That Came to Atlantic City”.

As an active member of the Columbus Area Boardgaming Society (CABS), I try to keep up with the boardgaming news. I wanted to note that in 2013, board game publisher Cryptozoic Entertainment, rescued the project and delivered the game in 2014 to the Kickstarter backers as was promised by Mr. Chevalier. Cryptozoic did this without receiving any money from the original campaign.

I felt they deserved a shout-out for that amazing gesture of good will toward the boardgaming community.

Relevant links:
Cryptozoic Entertainment 2013 press release – https://www.cryptozoic.com/articles/cryptozoic-saves-doom-came-atlantic-city-board-game

Dice Tower News coverage – http://www.dicetowernews.com/the-doom-that-came-to-atlantic-city/1220

Cryptozoic Entertainment 2014 game fulfillment page – http://www.cryptozoic.com/articles/doom-filled-dream-becomes-reality-42

Boardgame Geek listing – https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/124548/doom-came-atlantic-city

Columbus Area Boardgaming Society – http://www.cabsgamers.org/ 

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Wednesday’s Guests: Raj Deut & Scott Johnson!

DTNS 2515 – We’re Doomed

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comVeronica Belmont and Roger Chang join to discuss Microsoft’s announcements of backwards compatibility and Minecraft for Hololens at E3. And is it truly the best lineup of Xbox games in history?

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

Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

DTNS 2514 – Two Can Stream At This Game

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comJennie Josephson and Roger Chang fill in for the last day of Tom’s assignment! Lamarr Wilson appears just in time to talk You Tube’s new gaming site, and what a producer actually does anyway. Len Peralta is here to draw it all.

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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, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Lamarr Wilson, Jennie Josephson, and Roger Chang

Headlines: 

YouTube announced a standalone app and website focused on video game related content. Tech Crunch reports that the site will be called YouTubeGaming and will launch in the US and UK this summer. The site will have pages dedicated to more than 25,000 games and will focus on allowing gamers to live stream their games while they play, just like Twitch. Not at all ominously for this show, YouTube says it’ll be rolling out changes to its livestreaming tool to “simplify the broadcasting experience.”
We’ll be talking much more about this in the discussion section.

The BBC reports that a panel of three US judges will not postpone implementation of net neutrality rules despite opposition from the AT&T and Verizon. The FCC’s Tom Wheeler called it a “victory for internet consumers” and said that “starting Friday, there will be a referee on the field to keep the internet fast, fair and open.” But Berin Szoka, president of lobby group TechFreedom which is opposed to the new rules, said: “Today simply marks the beginning of a protracted legal fight over the legality of the FCC’s takeover of the internet.”

Reuters reports that BlackBerry is considering using Google’s Android operating system on an upcoming SmartPhone. Yeah, you heard that right. Blackberry had previously shunned Android in a bet that its BlackBerry 10 line of phones would be able to claw back market share from iPhone and Android phones. BlackBerry’s new device management and encryption system BES12 works across multiple platforms including Android and iOS. Two sources said that by launching an Android-based device of its own, BlackBerry would be sending a signal to skeptics that it is confident that the BES12 system can not only manage, but also secure smartphones and tablets powered by rival operating systems.

TechCrunch would like you to know that the French government has a data protection watchdog committee and they have put their foot DOWN and ordered Google to widen its implementation of Europe’s “right to be forgotten” ruling to include all Google domains all over the world. Google had been removing requested links only from European sub-domains. The CNIL Select Committee has *generously* given Google 15 days to comply. A Google spokesperson said, “we’ve been working hard to strike the right balance in implementing the European Courts ruling.”

The Globe and Mail reports that Google lost a legal appeal in British Columbia, Canada, and will be forced to block results for the website of a clandestine company accused of violating trademarks. Back in 2011, a company called Equustek Solutions that sells industrial networking devices accused a company called Datalink of relabeling its products and passing them off as their own. Only Datalink stopped responding to the lawsuit. So a B.C. judge granted an injunction ordering Google to stop mentioning Datalink in its search results. Google was like, excuse me, what do WE have to do with all this? (but in a legal filing). But a three judge appeals panel said that Google targets internet users in British Columbia through ads and therefore they have jurisdiction. A Google spokesperson did not say whether Google would appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, but I’ll bet you a box of Tim Horton’s donuts they will.

The Associated Press reports that a government workers union claimed hackers stole detailed personnel data and social security numbers of EVERY US federal employee, making the recently uncovered cyber theft much more damaging than first reported.
Wired further explained that the hackers, who are believed to be from China, accessed so-called SF-86 forms, documents used for conducting background checks for worker security clearances. The forms can contain a wealth of sensitive data not only about workers seeking security clearance, but also about their friends, spouses and other family members. And Ars Technica reports that the breach was not discovered by the US government, but was revealed during a sales demonstration of a network forensics software package by a company called CyTech Services. The malware may have been in place for more than a year.

Business Insider reports that starting in July, Twitter will remove the 140 character restriction for direct messages. Sachin Agarwal, Twitter Product Manager Sachin Agarwal said no changes are planned for removing the character limit elsewhere.

Variety is reporting that Lucasfilm and its subsidiaries have formed a new unit dubbed ILMxLab that is tasked with using virtual and augmented reality technologies for immersive storytelling. Lucasfilm’s president Kathleen Kennedy said ““We are currently exploring the fictional universes of ‘Star Wars,’and I think a lot of people would like to be immersed in them. The challenge of ILMxLab will be to find out what storytelling looks like in this new space.” The lab plans to announce the results of this work later this year, but said on Friday that it will be exploring virtual reality, augmented reality, real-time cinema and theme park experiences.

News From You:

tglass1976 sent us the Ars Technica report that Kathleen Cox of Jacksonville, Florida has been a loyal Comcast cable subscriber for 13 years.

She also used a Comcast email address, until Comcast took her email address and gave it to a woman in Michigan. Which mean 13 years of emails and contacts went POOF. Ms. Cox spoke to 18 Comcast agents who promised to fix the problem. None of whom did. Kathleen Cox then contacted her local news station which reported the story, and then POOF! Kathleen Cox got her email back. So let’s all take our hats off to First Coast News — they really are First For You.

Discussion Section Links:  

 http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/12/youtube-announces-youtube-gaming-a-standalone-app-to-compete-with-twitch/?ncid=rss
 http://www.slant.co/topics/1639/compare/~hitbox-tv_vs_twitch-tv_vs_ustream
 http://www.hitbox.tv/
 http://youtube-global.blogspot.ca/2015/06/a-youtube-built-for-gamers.html
 http://espnmediazone.com/us/press-releases/2015/06/espn-the-magazines-first-ever-esports-issue/
 http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/13059210/esports-massive-industry-growing

Pick of the Day:

Mark W from Dependable-Detroit:

Since we’re on a run of the Do-It-Yourself learning sites in the Daily Pick section, might I suggest Learnable.com? It’s from the fine folks that bring you the Site Point library of web development books. Recently, they added the thoughtful titles from “A List Apart”, the people who brought us Responsive Web design for mobile computing and very clever Cascading Style Sheets. It’s a good place for those sites that are “Ready to be Born” from guys who were Born Ready.

Messages: 

James from Springville, Utah:

I’ve been a listener since the Buzz out Loud days, and I appreciate
the great value you and your fellow hosts offer.

I’m a bit ignorant of the difference between producer and show host,
and was wondering if you could expound a little bit on the topic. In
past shows Jason Howell always seemed like he was an active part of the show, with great insights to offer, just as much as any other
host. [compliments redacted :) ]

I’m not sure if the producers you choose are different from the norm, but I get just as attached to their personalities as I do with the rest of your co-hosts.

=====

 

DTNS 2513 – XBoxulus Rift

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comAllison Sheridan and Todd Whitehead discuss Oculus Rift! Tom Merritt is on assignment.

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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, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Allison Sheridan and Todd Whitehead

Headlines: 

Oculus unveiled the finalized consumer version of the Rift VR headset, ahead of E3 2015, which begins next week. According to Tech Crunch, the Rift will ship with a Wireless Xbox One controller and a small table-top camera to track LED markers on the headset. The Rift features removable headphones as well as space to let users keep normal eyeglasses on when the headset is worn. The partnership with Microsoft also means Rift will work “natively” with Windows 10 plus the ability to play Xbox One games on the headset.

Oculus also showed off a prototype of its Oculus Touch controllers. Known as the “Half Moon”, they’ll let you pick up objects, fire a gun, or point at things and include integrated inertial and 360-degree movement tracking, plus give haptic feedback.

Ars Technica reports that the European Commission has opened an antitrust investigation into Amazon’s distribution of electronic books. The commission is particularly interested in the company’s contracts with publishers, especially clauses that say Amazon must be informed when a publisher gives favorable or different terms to a competitor, and the right to equal or better terms for themselves.

When contacted for a statement, Amazon expressed confidence in the legality of their agreements, and said they would cooperate fully.

GeekWire reports that T-Mobile’s “outspoken and rakish” CEO John Legere (their words, not ours) posted a YouTube video lashing out against rivals AT&T and Verizon for their tactics in trying to control the upcoming wireless spectrum auction. Legere said, “There’s some serious [BLEEP] about to go down in D.C., and if you are one of the 180 million Americans out there using a smartphone, and you are not pissed off right now, then you are not paying attention, but you need to.” GeekWire reports that he asked consumers to “make some noise,” and reach out directly to the FCC. The remarks come as T-Mobile considers a tie-up with Dish Network Corp., a deal that could alter the landscape in the wireless industry and give T-Mobile more spectrum.

Wired reports that the US State Department has issued new statements on how it plans to restrict published online data for 3-D printed guns. Earlier this week, the State Dept send a letter to Defense Distributed, the group responsible for developing a 3D printed gun, stating that it will require the group to get permission to publish its files online. Last week, the State Department wrote that it intends to require prior approval for the online publication of any “technical data” that would allow for the creation of weapons.
This continues a long legal battle between creators who say that the data is a freedom and speech issue and the State Dept which considers the information could be violation of the International Trade in Arms Regulations. The new State Department restrictions come as Congress starts to re-examine potential regulations on 3-D printed weapons.

Today the US Federal Trade Commission took its first consumer protection action on a crowdsourcing campaign. Re/code reports that the case involves an Oregon man named Erik Chevalier, who launched a Kickstarter campaign to produce a board game called “The Doom That Came to Atlantic City!” Chevalier asked for 35k, got 122k, then 14 months later announced he was canceling the game. Except, you know, he didn’t give the money back. Investigators found he used most of the money on personal expenses. The FTC fined Chevalier $111,793, which he cannot pay, and barred him from misleading people in future crowd funding campaign or publicizing any customer data or not honoring stated refund policies.

Digital camera fanatics there’s a new king in the digital camera landscape. Engadget is reporting that Sony has released A7R II. A camera using the “world’s first back-illuminated full frame sensor”. The Back-illuminated sensors increases the sensor’s light sensitivity in this case an ISO level of 102,400. Until now the technology has been limited to high end camera phones and smaller sensors. The camera’s 35mm sized sensor also sports 42.4 MegaPixels, 5-axis stabilization system and 399 point has detection AF. If that’s not enough the A7R II shoots 4K video using the full sensor without resorting to pixel-binning, a technique where groups of pixels on the sensor are read as one pixel degrading image quality. The camera ships in the US at a wallet busting $3200.

Google would now like to organize cities. According to the Telegraph, the search company has announced a new startup that will focus on improving city living. Sidewalk Labs will independently develop new technologies to deal with cost of living, transportation and energy usage. Google’s Larry Page said a “modest” amount of money had been invested in the new company.

Engadget reports that Skype has announced it will end the “modern” (aka Windows 8-only) version of its messaging app on PC’s as of July 7th. After that date, the next update will move users over to the desktop version. Skype says it’s simplifying its experience around a single program that you can use with both a touchscreen and a mouse and keyboard. The move won’t affect Windows RT or the Skype features in Windows 10.

Breaking News: According to Buzzfeed, Dick Costolo is stepping down as the CEO of Twitter, following months of questions about the company’s performance under his leadership. Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s cofounder, has been tapped as interim CEO. Costolo released a statement which said lots of nice things about Dorsey. Dorsey released a statement which said lots of nice things about Costolo. Twitter stock is up 7% on the news in after-hours trading. There is almost certainly more to come.

Dorsey will continue to lead Square, the mobile payments company he founded after he first left Twitter in 2008. This is Dorsey’s second time returning to Twitter in an increased capacity. He returned in 2010 to lead product after Costolo became CEO, and then gradually scaled back his commitment.

News From You:

KAPT_Kipper sent us the The Verge report that Reddit has banned five subreddits under its new anti-harassment policy. The subreddits were closed for “violating the Reddit rules to keep everyone safe.” One forum dedicated to posting pictures of overweight people had about 151,000 subscribers. A Reddit spokesperson said sites all had numerous complaints that they were harassing people on and off Reddit. The company also said it is taking a “step by step” approach to the recent harassment changes.

habichuelacondulce sent us this story from The Wall Street Journal reporting that Netflix is partnering with Marriott Hotels to bring its streaming video service to more than 300 hotels in the US. Marriott guests will be able to sign into their accounts through a Netflix app on hotel-room TVs or use the app to subscribe to the service if they’re not already subscribers. The service requires some recoding of the Netflix app to allow guests to stay signed in over multiple days and wipe their information clean after they check out. The companies plan to roll out the service over the next year and a half, targeting implementation at nearly all of its hotels by the end of 2016. Six Marriott hotels already offer the service, and six more will by the end of the summer.

spsheridan shared this surprising bit of news. Ars Technica reports Hyperloop Transport Technologies has secured permission to build a five-mile, $100 million Hyperloop test track in California. That’s right, Elon’ Musk’s vision of high speed mass transit will be built.
The first test track will only be five miles long, and it won’t operate at the supersonic speeds that Musk envisioned somewhere between 200 to 300 mph instead of the 760mph envisioned. The test track will be built near Quay Valley in California, in between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2016 and completed in 2017.

Discussion Section Links:  

 http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/11/oculus-rift-consumer/?ncid=rss#.ydkp2n:Ax83
 http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/oculus-vr-consumer-rift-headset-microsoft-xbox-one/
 http://www.techradar.com/us/news/world-of-tech/future-tech/the-vr-race-who-s-closest-to-making-vr-a-reality–1266538

Pick of the Day:

Brandon in Frosty Cobron Australia writes:

As someone who has been listening to the net neutrality debate come to a head over the past 12 months, I thought I understood the importance of the outcome but felt somewhat disconnected from the issue living in Australia. That was until I listened to the two most recent episodes of Upvoted by Reddit, e20 A Neutral Net Pt.1 and e21 A Neutral Net Pt.2. The in depth look into issue of net neutrality, with a special focus on developing internet markets like India and the impacts outside influences like Facebook and internet.org are having.

It’s a great listen for anyone still struggling to understand the net neutrality debate or its importance. Having listened myself, I am now questioning the value of zero rated services at home in Australia.

Messages: 

Stephen Hoos writes in:

I heard on DTNS that Apple will have terrestrial radio stations as part of their new streaming service.

Perhaps Apple has a terrestrial radio so they qualify for the lower mechanical royalty fees.

They want to sound like they are being innovative, but they are just squeezing every penny they can out of the music companies. Pandora came up with the same idea a while ago.

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Friday’s guest:  Darren Kitchen and Len Peralta