Is Guardians better the second time? The way to approach Snowpiercer, The Leftovers breaks Tom’s heart, the science of Europa Report.
01:00 – Guardians of the Galaxy
10:35 – Welcome back, Lamarr
10:45 – Snowpiercer
17:53 – The Shield
21:31 – The Leftovers
28:49 – Europa Report
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The Sword and Laser newsletter is our way of reaching out directly to you and letting you know when special things are coming up. As a way of saying thanks for signing up, we’re giving away stories.
“Once upon a time there was a frog stormtrooper–“
Sorry I’ve been informed by Veronica that we need to give away good stories if we really want to thank people for signing up for our newsletter.
Sign up for our newsletter and receive the story “A Night for Spirits and Snowflakes” by Aidan Moher, from the Sword and Laser Anthology!
Allison Sheridan is on the show today. We’ll cover the big GamesCon announcements like Skylander, how Viv will beat Siri’s pants off, and why women spend more money on and are more loyal to mobile games. Won’t you join us?
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: Allison Sheridan, host of The NosillaCast on podfeet.com
Headlines
Microsoft delivered a slate of Xbox news at GamesCon in Cologne , Germany. CNET compiled a list of the announcements. The Xbox will get an exclusive on “Rise of the Tomb Raider” set to arrive in late 2015. The Xbox One will get DLNA support for media centers as well as the ability to playback media from USB. Two new bundles are coming. An all-white Xbox One with “Sunset Overdrive” will sell for $400 w/o Kinect on 10/28/ and “Call of Duty Advanced Warfare” with a specially skinned Xbox One and 1TB hard drive arrives fro $500 November 3. Among several other game-related announcements, the Halo 5: Guardians beta begins December 29.
Bloomberg has talked with the secret society of “people with knowledge of the matter” and THEY say Apple’s suppliers have started manufacturing new 9.7-inch iPads. A new version of the 7.9-inch iPad mini is also entering production. A different group known as “people familiar with the situation” have said Apple will make announcements on Sept. 9.
Lyft gave some data to CNN which apparently shows 177 Uber employees ordered and canceled more than 5,000 rides from the rival company since October 2013. Lyft drivers complained that even when they don’t cancel they sometimes take short low-profit rides in which they try to convince Lyft drivers to come work for Uber. Uber told Ars Technica the claims are “patently false,” although Uber does run promotions to get riders and driver to convince other drivers to come work for Uber.
GigaOm reports Apple is the latest in a string of tech companies releasing diversity reports. Of Apple’s 98,000 employees, 55% identify as white, 15% Asian, and 7% black. 70% are male, which is about the same as Google and Facebook. If you don’t count retail stores, 35% of Apple employees are women, but if you further limit it to tech roles, it drops to 20%. In Apple’s leadership team, 64% are white, 21% Asian, and 72% male.
Wired has an excellent Steven Levy write-up about Viv Labs attempt to make a truly intelligent digital assistant in the mode of Siri. Viv’s cofounders Dag Kittlaus, Adam Cheyer and Chris Brigham all created Siri. For two years they’ve been working on Viv. The difference between Viv and Siri is that Viv should be able to learn on the fly and understand requests it wasn’t pre-programed to. For example take “Give me a flight to Dallas with a seat that Shaq could fit in?” Siri would search the Web for keywords. Viv will generate its own program to link information from Kayak, SeatGuru and an old NBA Media Guide. Viv is designed on three pillars: It will be taught by the world, it will know more than it is taught, and it will learn something every day.
BBC News reports that Activision’s putting out a version of Skylander for tablets. Skylander is a free game where kids unlock in-game content by buying RFID enhanced action figures and placing them on a base station,— which IN TURN unlocked 2 billion dollars in sales for Activision. The tablet version will also be free. To use the figurines, you’ll need a new version of the portal base which connects by Bluetooth. The app comes out for iOS, Android and Kindle Fire in October.
Sony had its share of Gamescon announcements in Cologne as well. The company announced it sold 10 million PS4 consoles worldwide. Sold not shipped. A new feature called “Share Play” will come inSystem update 2.0 and allow your friends to join a game or take over the controls from anywhere even if they don’t own the game. NBA2K, Towerfall and Child of Light were all mentioned as implemtning SharePlay. Europe got a couple announcements. PlayStation Now the game streaming service, won’t arrive until sometime in 2015. However, Sony’s PlayStation TV, essentially a Vita in console form will come to Europe November 14th for99 euros.
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/08/share-play-will-let-you-play-any-ps4-game-with-friends-online/
http://www.engadget.com/2014/08/12/sony-playstation-tv-europe/?ncid=rss_truncated
News From You
ancrod2 posted the Washington Post story that the US FCC has established a task force to study misuse of surveillance technology that intercepts cellular signals to locate people, monitor calls, and send malicious software. The tech described is an IMSI catcher often called “Stingray” and is widely used by police and intelligence services. The devices work by mimicking cell towers. The FCC wants to determine the extent to which criminals and foreign intelligence services use the technology against US citizens.
Hurmoth pointed out the 9to5 Mac story that the USB 3.0 Promoter Group announced the USB Type C connector is ready for production. The new smaller USB port features a reversible connector. Its powerful enough that one design can work for both PCs and mobile devices. The spec allows for 10 Gbps speed and USB Power Delivery of up to 100W.
habichuelcondulce and TexasTeacher both submitted links about Tim Davis. Who is Tim Davis? Well, if you’re one of the many people who’ve been feeling a little empty inside because there’s been no outrageous Comcast customer service call lately, Tim Davis is your new best friend. Davis moved to a new apartment, and chose to self-install his Comcast wireless equipment. Everything worked just fine for a few weeks. Until it didn’t. A Comcast technician was dispatched, and discovered a problem with the wires outside. Since the problem was out of Davis’s control, he was told there would be no cost to him. On a call. Which he SECRETLY RECORDED. Then he got the bill. And lo, there were charges. Almost two hundred dollars worth, including a failed self-install. So Davis called again. And things did Not Go Well. But that crafty Tim Davis, he had a SECRET RECORDING, which he played for the Comcast rep. And only because of this SECRET RECORDING, he got his money back. So Comcast customers, perhaps its time to start SECRETLY RECORDING every single call you make to Comcast. Ever. Needless to say the link to this SECRET RECORDING will be in the show notes.
Discussion Links:
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 the Sword And Laser Store.
Pick of the Day: MouseWait via Producer Jennie.
Producer Jennie has returned from conducting very important business at Disneyland. While she was there she relied heavily on The Mousewait app.——— If you’re in the US and headed to Disneyworld in Florida or Disneyland & California Adventure in Anaheim, CA, the MouseWait app uses close to real-time data from their dedicated social community to post wait times and fast pass availability for every ride and popular food spots in both parks. The app also features an overall crowd index, a programmable To-Do list and a lively community posting advice. I rigorously field-tested the app, on our past two trips and found it impressively accurate. The app is ad-supported and free, and available on iphone for both parks and on Android just for Disneyland so far. If you want to learn more about it, check out mousewait.com
Wednesday’s guest: The Podfather, Adam Curry of the No Agenda podcast and curry.com
Nate Lanxon is on the show today to chat about the Hachette-Amazon spat, as well as a little on Broadwell chips and the $300 million 60 Tb/s cable Google wants to lay.
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
The New York Times spoke with three Apple employees about a training program known as Apple University. Steve Jobs started the program in 2008 and hired the dean of Yale’s School of Management to head it. Classes are described using things like Picasso’s “The Bull” to illustrate simplification. The classes are taught year-round tailored to particular positions within the company.
CNET reports Intel’s long-delayed 14 nm Broadwell chips are finally in significant production. Intel said the first systems using Core M, the lowest power Broadwell variant, will hit store shelves during the holiday season. Most Broadwell powered devices will come in 2015. The Core M “enables less than 9 millimeter fanless two-in-ones for the first time from Intel. Core M is 50% smaller, 30% thinner and has a 60% lower power idle than Haswell.
The Next Web reports Google has joined an effort to create a Trans-Pacific cable system called Faster by Q2 2016. Google joins China Mobile International, China Telecom Global, Global Transit, KDDI, and SingTel, with NEC as the system supplier of the $300 million project. FASTER will feature 6-fiber-pair cable and optical transmission with expected capacity of 60Tb/s connecting the West coast of the US with Chikura and Shima Japan.
GigaOm reports Microsoft announced the Nokia 130 Monday, on sale for €19. The candybar styled handset runs Nokia OS and can play music and display videos on its 1.8-inch screen. http://gigaom.com/2014/08/11/microsoft-debuts-e19-phone-and-no-it-doesnt-run-windows-phone/
Huawei told Shanghai’s China Business News that the company plans to phase out more than 80% of its low-end mobile phones in the second-half of this year. Huawei says the majority of low-end phones it makes are for carriers, not because of customer demand. Huawei intends to focus on branding its own models.
Reuters reports Xiaomi rolled out a software upgrade Sunday to fix a loophole in its cloud messaging system that triggered unauthorized collection of data from user’s contacts. Xiaomi Vice President Hugo Barra apologized for the unauthorized data collection and said the company only collects phone numbers in users’ address books to see if the users are online. The messaging system will be opt-in from now on and numbers sent to Xiaomi will be encrypted and not stored.
NEWS FROM YOU
MikePKennedy sent the Engadget story that Acer announced a new 13-inch ChromeBook with a 1080p HD display and a claimed 13 hours of battery life running a quad-core Tegra K1 chip from Nvidia. That makes the $299 laptop the first with an NVIDIA processor inside.
dbrodbeck posted the Wired article by Mat Honan reporting his experience after liking everything he saw on Facebook for two days. After the first hour of the experiment the humans were gon from his feed. Content mills rose to the top and it became about brands. His entire feed was filled with Huffing ton Post and Upworthy. It also littered his friends feeds with all the things he liked.
Plug of the day: Alpha Geek Radio – mobile and regular
Discussion Story
Amazon Drags Authors, Readers and George Orwell Into Its Fight With Hachette | Re/code
Amazon puts Disney DVD and Blu-ray pre-orders on hold in latest contract dispute | The Verge
Amazon and Hachette: The dispute in 13 easy steps – LA Times
Much at Stake in Amazon-HBG Fight
German Publishers Seek Amazon Inquiry – NYTimes.com
Amazon’s E-Books Antitrust Clash in Germany on EU Radar – Bloomberg
Calendar
EA’s new subscription service is now available to all Xbox One owners, not just beta participants. The service gives you unlimited access to select EA games for $4.99 a month or $29.99 per year
In 1950 – Steve Wozniak was born in San Jose, California. He would grow up to invent the first successful personal computer, and revolutionize desktop computing.
In 1965 – Shinji Mikami was born in Japan. He grew up to become a video game designer for Capcom, revolutionizing survival-horror games with his popular series, Resident Evil.
Lockheed Martin has set the launch of DigitalGlobe’s high-resolution WorldView-3 satellite for August 13th. Its creators can start selling extra-sharp pictures (with detail down to the 10-inch level) six months after the craft is up and running.
Pick of the day:
Elder Scrolls Online from Nate Lanxon
Send your picks to feedbackatdailytechnewsshow.com and you can find MY picks at dailytechnewsshow.com/picks.
Messages of the day ([email protected])
Call from Dave in Orlando on Twitch
“Hi Tom & Jennie,
The head-up display discussed on Friday was provided by my car manufacturer. It really is very useful – showing my speed, turn-by-turn directions, etc. while keeping my eyes on the road. I also have my phone connected through bluetooth which allows me to see and interact with a limited amount of information such as audio tracks and incoming calls. And that’s it! I can’t read texts or email nor would I ever want to.
I look forward to seeing third party apps built into our cars (after all Waze is more accurate than my in-car sat nav), but there needs to be continued thoughtful consideration about what kinds of information drivers should be allowed to access.
Love the show!
Dave”
Thanks to Nate Lanxon
Tomorrow’s guest: Allison Sheridan of Nosillacast
Subscriber numbers are declining less quickly for cable TV, which has some people declaring cord-cutting is dead. Is it?
Subscriber numbers are declining less quickly for cable TV, which has some people declaring cord-cutting is dead. Is it?
Any team could make the playoffs and 3 of the four could get relegated in the east! All of this has happened before, but does Cylon’s win mean playoff prophecy?
Get the episode here.
Tonight, on CurrentGeek: Disney really wants more starwars stuff in their parks. Warner Brothers is serious about more DC movies to come! Legend of Korra gets more legendary. The NFL might let Weird Al perform this year. Old Mans War comes to old mans TV. Twitch stuff is all the talk this week. MIT blows our minds. Big increases to digital downloads coming and soon. Plus a lot more!
Veronica Belmont is here to talk Twitch crackdowns and WarKittehs. Yes Kittens who hack WiFI. No kidding.
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
