Darren Kitchen is on the show and we’ll talk about Professor Kim Heung-Kwang’s interview with the BBC claiming 6,000 North Korean hackers have the power to destroy whole cities. Plus Len Peralta rejoices over the Cavs success. And illustrates the show.

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

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Darren Kitchen and Len Peralta

Headlines: 

Apple posted its recommended workaround for the iPhone Messages bug according to the Verge. The support document directs iPhone users to reply to the malicious message. Apple is working on a fix, The bug is also affecting iOS users of Twitter and Snapchat who have notifications on for those services. With Twitter it crashes the phone but causes no lasting damage. With snapchat it makes the chat history with the sender inaccessible.

PC World reports on Google’s announcement that Levi’s is the first partner for its smart fabric called Project Jacquard. The experiment weaves electronics into cloth to create the equivalent of touch screen controls. Demos at Google I/O showed fabric that could manipulate a 3D image on a display, change the songs on a phone and control lights. Think of it like a mouse in your pants…. wait….

Reuters reports Path sold some of its apps to South Korea’s Daum Kakao. If you’re making the remark “who uses Path anymore?” you are giving yourself away as not Indonesian. INSTANT DATA MINING. IN any case the makers’ of Kakao Talk didn’t get all of Path. Just the social network and the Path Messenger. Path Places, which enables connections between customers and business like restaurants, stays with Path, though it has been disbaled for the time being. Path has also been developing non-Path branded apps like GIF creation app Kong.

A Washington Post reports cites a new report from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights that says digital security is essential freedom of expression and warns weakening encryption in some countries could undermine that freedom worldwide. The report was written by special rapporteur David Kaye, Director of the International Justice Clinic at UC-Irvine. . Kaye wrote governments “should avoid all measures that weaken the security that individuals may enjoy online, such as backdoors, weak encryption standards and key escrows.” because it results in weaker security for everyone.

Tech Crunch reports that Apple acquired augmented reality startup Metaio on May 22nd. The company launched back in 2003 as an offshoot of a project at Volkswagen. 9 to 5 Mac’s Mark Gurman, who has good sources, believes Apple is working on an augmented reality feature for its Maps app, and of course there’s that VR headset that Apple patented earlier this year.

The Verge reports the welcome news that you can finally use GIF’s on Facebook! Mostly. If you drop a link to a GIF which has already been uploaded elsewhere on the Internet, the GIF will appear. Upoloading a GIF directly to Facebook doesn’t seem to work just yet.

Engadget reports that Google is broadening out its Google Sign-In feature with Smart Lock for Passwords. In a Google Developers blog post Smart Lock for Passwords is described as a “frictionless” method for users to sign-in to apps on Android and sites in Chrome. Smart Lock works a bit like a password locker. Once a user saves a password to Smart Lock, they can skip entering their credentials on all of their authenticated Chrome and Android devices. For instance, Netflix is a partner meaning once you add Netflix to Smart Lock say on a laptop, you wouldn’t have to go through the painful process of signing in again on an Android TV.

News From You:

KAPT_Kipper sent this TorrentFreak story that Hola VPN sells users Bandwidth to others through a service called Luminati. An 8chan message board operator, Fredrick Brennan claims that Luminati was used to attack his website. Hola says it has suspended the user that misued its service and it would cooperate with any law enforcement activity related to the attacks. Hola’s FAQ makes it clear that it uses bandwidth from Hola users’ computers when they are sitting idle and the company defines idle as meaning a device is connected to electric power (not on battery), no mouse or keyboard activity is detected, and the device is connected to the local network or Wifi (not on cellular)). Any users who don’t want this to happen can buy Hola for $5 per month.

kyro5976 sent us the Cult of Mac report that more than half of the the founding artists in Jay-Z’s Tidal music streaming service may have to pull their music from site after Jay-Z failed to reach a music licensing agreement with Sony. Among the artists affected: Taylor Swift’s man Calvin Harris Alicia Keys, Daft Punk, Usher, and uh, Beyonce. Jay-Z was apparently hoping a deal with Sprint was going to cover the cost of Sony’s licensing terms, but apparently Sprint has decided that they are not in a “financial investment” situation.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32925495

http://www.businessinsider.com/these-are-countries-that-could-lose-internet-easily-2014-12

http://www.businessinsider.com/internet-outages-reported-in-north-korea-2014-12

http://bgp.he.net/AS131279#_asinfo

Pick of the Day:

Joel the Yooper DTNS Nickle-backer:

For a long time I have drooled from afar the world of home automation as the solutions were either too expensive or too complex for the whole family. The I saw this on the shelf for only $24 bucks. LINK Starter Pack by GE. It comes with a WINK based hub and 2 60-watt equivalent dimmable LED bulbs. I’ve found it to be a great way to test out this new tech trend without getting too invested. And if I do decide to go further, there’s a bunch of compatible products.

I don’t know the price elsewhere but it’s listed as a “special buy” on Home Depot’s site. Whatever that means.

Keep up the great work.

PS: I promise I don’t work for Home Depot.

Messages: 

Toby Atticus Fraley:

Just a quick tip, the Kickstarter succeeded!! Pittsburgh International Airport is getting a Robot Repair shop, opening this September. This is the first time a public art installation for the airport has been crowdsourced! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tobyfraley/robot-repair-shop

Co-Executive Producer Damien from Gloomy-outside-my-hospital-window-Maitland, Australia:

Hello Tom, Jenny and <insert contributor here>

When I heard about testing of Google Tone I immediately cringed at the thought of security implications.

You (Tom) made an offhand comment about malware bridging the air gap and moved on.
I’m astounded that no one else seems to have made any other comments about the potential risks associated with a technology designed to bypass one of the most fundamental security concepts. That a stand alone, unconnected computer is unhackable.

I realize that it is an optional extension and the user has to click to confirm, but we know how easy it is to convince people to click on links that they shouldn’t.

Thanks for all your work on the show

Dave from too-damn-sunny-and-not-enough-rainy Los Angeles:

As an avid phone photographer and videographer (also known as “Dad”), I was very excited to hear that Google’s new Photos app is going to support unlimited photos AND videos! … When I went to turn on the new feature on my account, the options for storage were “High Quality (unlimited storage) – great quality at reduced file size” (my emphasis) and “Original – Full resolution that counts against your quota.”

My deduction from these descriptions is that the “unlimited storage” will still be compressing your files to be smaller, meaning Photos isn’t necessarily suitable for our primary backup, but it would still be a great way to have our entire library of family photos available in the cloud. Can you confirm that this is how the unlimited storage will work?

And Ted who’s Lumia 1020 supports RAW photo backups did a little more research:

I went directly to Flickr and Google. Neither one supports RAW at this time. Limits per unit upload:
Google: photo 75MB, Video 10GB
Flickr: photo 200MB, Video 1GB

Dwayne here from somewhere in the desert which I can not wait to leave.

You said you have never seen the sharing of photos with a link. Microsoft has been doing this for years and I love it. MSFT have some good features here like giving the sender rights to allow the receiver to just view, download or edit, time span that they have access and it is built in to outlook and OneDrive. This way you can email the link to anyone without any restrictions. Also the receiver does not need to be logged into anything. Love the show!

Sent from my Windows Phone

=====

Monday’s guest: Veronica Belmont

Ron Richards and Justin Young join the show to make some sense of the avalanche of announcements from Google I/O. Stop your head from spinning and join us.

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A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here or giving 5 cents 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: Justin Robert Young and Ron Richards

Headlines: 

Recode reports when asked about the cost of an Oculus Rift headset, Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe said Wednesday, “We are looking at an all-in price, if you have to go out and actually need to buy a new computer and you’re going to buy the Rift … at most you should be in that $1,500 range.” Oculus plans to ship the headset in early 2016.

CNET reports on three concept announcements from Lenovo Tech World Wednesday. A smartwatch concept called Magic View that has a second screen that uses optical reflection to create a virtual display 20 times larger than the standard. A concept called Smart Cast would project a virtual keyboard from a smart phone and could also display content and games. And Smart Shoes would track your heart rate, calories consumed and display fitness info and even map directions on screens embedded in the shoes.

BBC reports Avago, a US and Singapore-based semiconductor manufacturer is buying competitor Broadcom. Broadcom makes semiconductors for set-top boxes, mobile phones and network equipment, with Apple and Samsung as clients. This is the 6th company bought by Avago since 2013.

Geekwire reports Amazon launching free same-day delivery for around 1 million items in 14 metro areas covering about 500 cities in the US. Orders have to be for more than $35 and the user has to be an Amazon Prime Member. Previouls Prime members paid $5.99 for same day a discount off the $8.99 plus 99 cents per item. Orders must be placed by 12:00 PM.

The Next Web reports Shazam has launched “Visual Shazam” which lets you scan certain products from participating advertisers to get an interactive augmented reality experience. When you see something with Shazam logo with a camera icon you can scan it and get AR visuals that work with the object, videos and coupons.

Ars Technica reports TWiTCH has updated its rules of conduct to prohibit streaming of “Adults Only” rated games. Previously Twitch banned individual games with overly sexual conduct or gratuitous violence. Games not rated by the ESRB may stiull be banned individually and five such titles are currently listed as banned. Players breaking the ban will receive a temporary suspension.

MacRumors reports Apple is partnering with Postmates to offer same day delivery for certain products in the Apple Store app. The option will only be available to areas Postmates serves and seems to be starting only in the San Francisco area. Delivery charge depends on location and distance.

News From You:

habichuelacondulce submitted our top vote getter, an EFF post detailing a leak of the secret Trade in Services Agreement. TISA, is cited alongside the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership as current trade deals that could be signed with the US President’s fast track authority. TISA includes provisions to require signatories to protect privacy, enforce a version of net neutrality, introduce anti-spam laws and require disclosure of source code in certain situations. TISA would also prohibit countries from requiring data to be stored locally to customers.

KAPT_Kipper submitted the Geekwire report that Amazon is launching free same-day delivery for around 1 million items in 14 metro areas covering about 500 cities in the US. Orders have to be for more than $35 and the user has to be an Amazon Prime Member. Previouls Prime members paid $5.99 for same day a discount off the $8.99 plus 99 cents per item. Orders must be placed by 12:00 PM.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/google-brings-turn-by-turn-directions-to-offline-maps/?ncid=rss

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/05/28/google-is-embracing-cocoapods-to-bring-its-services-to-ios-developers/

http://www.engadget.com/2015/05/28/google-cloud-messaging-on-ios/?ncid=rss_truncated

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/05/google-photos-leaves-google-launches-as-a-standalone-service/

http://www.wired.com/2015/05/google-unveils-brillo-answer-smartifying-home/

http://recode.net/2015/05/28/google-announces-brillo-an-operating-system-for-the-internet-of-things/

http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/android-wear-puts-more-information-a-single-glance-away/?ncid=rss

http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/28/8675257/android-m-os-update-google-io-2015

http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/28/8673227/android-m-developer-preview-release-date-availability

http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/google-takes-another-shot-at-mobile-payments-with-android-pay/

http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/your-next-android-phone-could-recharge-another-device/?ncid=rss

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/05/hbo-now-coming-to-android/

http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/google-launches-expeditions-an-app-for-shared-virtual-school-field-trips/?ncid=rss

http://www.engadget.com/2015/05/28/google-play-store-experiments-and-pages/?ncid=rss_truncated

http://recode.net/2015/05/28/google-teams-with-gopro-to-bring-vr-to-youtube/

http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/googles-new-cardboard-vr-kit-supports-phones-with-up-to-6-screens/?ncid=rss

http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/google-brings-turn-by-turn-directions-to-offline-maps/?ncid=rss

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/05/28/google-is-embracing-cocoapods-to-bring-its-services-to-ios-developers/

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/05/google-photos-leaves-google-launches-as-a-standalone-service/

http://www.engadget.com/2015/05/28/google-cloud-messaging-on-ios/?ncid=rss_truncated

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/05/android-ms-google-now-on-tap-shows-contextual-info-at-the-press-of-a-button/

http://www.wired.com/2015/05/google-unveils-brillo-answer-smartifying-home/

http://recode.net/2015/05/28/google-announces-brillo-an-operating-system-for-the-internet-of-things/

http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/android-wear-puts-more-information-a-single-glance-away/?ncid=rss

http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/28/8675257/android-m-os-update-google-io-2015

http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/28/8673227/android-m-developer-preview-release-date-availability

http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/google-takes-another-shot-at-mobile-payments-with-android-pay/?ncid=rss

http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/28/your-next-android-phone-could-recharge-another-device/?ncid=rss

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/05/hbo-now-coming-to-android/

 

Pick of the Day:

Joe the keyboard enthusiast and loyal $5 patron:

The pick on yesterday’s show was O’Reilly’s Safari Books Online service, available for $40/month.

I just wanted to mention that if Safari interests you, but the price is too steep, be sure to check with your local library. I can access Safari for free with my library card. I’m not certain that it’s the full selection of books, but it’s certainly a lot.

We’re quick to write off libraries as antiquated and useless, but there are still great benefits available.

=====

Friday’s guest: Darren Kitchen and Len Peralta

Scott Johnson is on today and we’ll talk about Mary Meeker’s annual Internet trends report. Can this woman ever be wrong? Will messaging apps become the dominant mobile hub?

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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: Scott Johnson

Headlines: 

An AppleInsider reader, Kaitlyn, let the blog know Tuesday that receiving a particular text message made up of Unicode characters from various character sets caused iPhone restarts and lockouts from messages. When the text is received while the screen is locked the phone reboots and messenger is unavailable until a new message is sent to it. The problem according to Apple Insider is that notifications can’t render the full block of Unicode text, so iOS hogs resources trying to render the message. Apple is aware of the problem.

During an interview with Walt Mossberg at Code Conference reports The Verge, an audience member asked Apple’s senior VP of operations, Jeff Williams what Apple was going to do with its huge cash reserves. Williams said, “Well the car is the ultimate mobile device, isn’t it?” Was he trolling or telling?—- Williams also confirmed that a preview of a native Apple Watch app development kit will be released at WWDC on June 8.

Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers delivered her Internet trends report at the Code conference. She started delivering them 20 years ago. Meeker says Messging is becoming the dominant use of mobile and messaging apps may become a hub for commerce and identity management. She also discussed the rising popularity of drones, identified Housing, Transportation and Food is areas ripe for innovation, the increasing easiness of freelance and contracting and the need for regulatory reform there and pointed out India is number 1 in new Internet users and is becoming the next big tech market.

Google will soon index some iOS apps in the search results it returns in the iOS versions of the Google app and Chrome, according to Tech Crunch. Google has been indexing apps on Android phones for a few years and started indexing apps whether installed or not a few months ago. Developers who want to have their iOS app indexed by Google will have to add deep linking support among a few other things and fill out an online form. The form does not guarantee Google will begin indexing the app.

Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel said the messaging service is planning an initial public offering, at Re/code’s Code Conference. Spiegel also mentioned plans to expand its reach to include older users including changes to the Apps hold-to-watch feature. Spiegel also predicted a market correction is coming and his company has prepared accordingly. You can catch the rest of the interview on the Re/Code website.

Fortune reports Pebble began shipping the Pebble Time to around 79,000 Kickstarter backers today. The Pebble cost $199 has an e-paper display multiple day battery life and works with multiple smartphone platforms.

9to5 Mac reports sources say Apple is developing an alternative to Google Now supposedly codenamed Proactive. It would automatically provide timely information based on the user’s data and device usage pattern. Apple acquired the personal assistant app Cue in 2013, which was sort of a mix of voice-recognition assistant like Cortana and predictive notification like Google Now.

Xiaomi (Shao-me) posted on Facebook that it will officially launch online stores in the US on June 1 and Germany France and the UK on June 2 at http://mi.com/store. The Mi Stores will not sell phones in these regions but will sell lots of accessories like headphones and the Mi Band.

News From You:

starfuryzeta sent us the Business Insider report that AdBlock Plus won again in court, this time in Munich, Germany. Two German broadcasters RTL Interactive and ProSiebenSat 1 had sued saying that users should not be allowed to block ads. The court ruled that the software was not anti-competitive because users chose to install AdBlock Plus and Eyeo did not have enough dominance of the market to stop online publishers from finding sufficient users who would see ads.

Kylde, our self-described subreddit janitor, sent us a Washington Post report that Chuck Johnson has been permanently suspended from Twitter after asking for funds to “take out” civil rights activist DeRay McKesson. Twitter has also suspended several of Johnson’s new accounts.

AllanAV noted the Ars Technica writeup on the US Internal Revenue Service’s disclosure that it has shut down its transcript service, which allowed taxpayers to request copies of past tax returns. The IRS noticed unusual activity and found that more than 100,000 accounts had been accessed by unauthorized parties. The system required knowledge of personal, financial, and tax information—including date of birth, tax filing status, and address. It appears the attackers had such information on the accounts that were accessed.

tm204 sent us the Engadget report that pop culture retailer Hot Topic has purchased Geeknet, owners of the ThinkGeek online store for $122 million. Companies who license pop culture, FORM A… MEGASTORE.

starfuryzeta sent us the Recode announcement that Vox Media which runs The Verge will acquire Revere Digital, which runs ReCode. Several ReCode staffers will move over to The Verge (including Bonnie Cha and Lauren Goode) to write reviews while Walt Mossberg will write for both sites.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://www.kpcb.com/internet-trends

http://www.cnet.com/news/mary-meeker-sees-messaging-taking-over-mobile/#ftag=CAD590a51e

http://simplicity.laserfiche.com/11-takeaways-mary-meekers-internet-trends-report/

http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/29/mary-meeker-2013-internet-trends/

http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/03/mary-meeker-releases-stunning-data-on-the-state-of-the-internet/

http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/18/mary-meekers-2011-presentation-on-internet-trends-slides/

https://gigaom.com/2010/04/12/mary-meeker-mobile-internet-will-soon-overtake-fixed-internet/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2011/12/15/what-if-mary-meeker-is-wrong-and-mobile-ads-never-really-take-off/

http://www.kpcb.com/blog/october-2005-internet-trends

 

Pick of the Day:

Derek aka Bishma – Director of Engineering in Eugene, Oregon writes:

Here is a pick I’d like to share: Safari Books Online

Safari is a service from O’Reilly and Associates (makers or the iconic animal books on all things technology) that offers on-demand access to tens of thousands of titles. The service is not limited to O’Reilly as the make titles available from other big technical publishers like Adobe Press, Prentice Hall, Pragmatic Bookshelf, and more. Additionally you get access to many titles as “rough cuts” (not necessarily their final edit) or “fresh cuts” (finished editions sometimes weeks before they arrive in stores) so that you can get a jump on the latest and greatest. They also have a good collection of videos including many from O’Reilly’s conferences (OSCON, Velocity, Strata, etc).

Reading can be done via website or mobile app – their features page says the Android app is “coming soon” but it is in fact available in the play store. Each month you’re on the service you can earn credits toward downloading titles or chapters in pdf, mobi, or epub formats if you need or want offline access.

The cost, at $39/month or $399/year, seems a high compared to things like Netflix but when you consider many of the titles available retail for $40+ dollars it pays for itself quickly if you spend a lot of time researching new technologies or improving your tech skills as I do.

I’m always surprised how many technology professions I encounter who don’t know this service exists so I wanted to share with everyone in DTNSland.

Messages: 

Rich from Lovely Cleveland:

Once Google Tone makes its way to mobile, I could see it being a huge boon for radio advertisers. Imagine if radio ads had Google tones embedded, each time your phone hears one, it pings Google and lets the advertisers know (and Google gets to keep the demographic info of the phone user for their own purposes). All of this could easily be accomplished by including some small bit of language in the EULA and providing for some obscure method to opt-out. It could totally change the metrics used for ad sales on radio.

What’s that, Google Tone is included in the next Google Now update that’s already installed on every new Android phone? I could NEVER see that happening <insert yet-to-be-agreed-upon-sarcasm-punctuation-mark>.

=====

Thursday’s guest:  Justin Robert Young

 

Patrick Norton joins us to talk about Microsoft announcing Cortana for iOS and Android and Microsoft’s continuing cross-platform strategy. Crazy, genius or both?

MP3

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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, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Patrick Norton

Headlines: 

Microsoft announced today that it will bring a Cortana app to Android in June and iOS later this year. The app will have most of the functions of Cortana but can’t work with settings or launch apps. Windows 10 is also getting a companion app for phones that helps you integrate whatever phone you have with your Windows 10 device. And the Xbox Music apps are getting an update in late June or July that will let them play music stored in One Drive without additional charge.

Twitter’s Periscope is now available for Android users according to CNET. The Android version of the popular broadcasting App will have comparable features to the iOS version including the ability to tweet links to their broadcasts and location sharing. Additionally Android users get specific control over notifications, including when a follower goes lives, shares a broadcast or is followed by someone else, and if a user leaves a broadcast to answer a text message, they will get a notification inviting them back to the broadcast they were watching.

9 to 5 Mac reports that Apple’s Jony Ive has been promoted to the newly created position of Chief Design Officer at Apple. Ive will still be in charge of the company’s hardware and software design teams overall, but day-to-day management of the Industrial Design department will go to Richard Howarth, and Alan Dye will manage User Interface Design on desktop and mobile devices. Ive will focus on the design of Apple’s retail stores and the new Apple campus.

9 to 5 Mac has sources that say Force Touch will come to the next version of the iPhone and be supported by iOS9. Force Touch is built into new MacBooks and MacBook Pros as well as the Apple Watch. On the phone it may replace some long press-and-hold interactions.

ZDNet reports EMC will buy Virtustream for $1.2 billion allowing the company to offer hybrid cloud managed service. The acquisition ads the as-a-service element to VMware, Enterprise Hybrid Cloud, converged infrastructure and such. If you’ve been following the chatter about hybrid cloud impress your friends and say “I think managed services marketing is going to supersede that.”

CNET reports that Android Police has revealed rumors from a reliable source that Google will release two new Nexus phones but no tablet this year. One phone produced by LG codenamed “Angler” will feature a 5.2” screen, possibly a Snapdragon 808 processor, and 2700mAh battery. The second phone will be a 5.7”, a Snapdragon 810 processor, and 3500mAh batter from Huawei codenamed “Bullhead”. Both phones should be out around Oct.

The Verge reports that Ford has expanded their test of a car-sharing service in London with a full service called GoDrive. The service is one way, with guaranteed parking at your destination. It will use a fleet of Fiestas and Focus Electrics and initially be open to 2,000 people who will have access to 50 cars spread across 20 locations around London. Realtime charges are displayed on GoDrive’s smartphone app, and the first five minutes are free so that you can figure out how to use the car’s controls.

Engadget reports Google announced Tuesday it is funding a $20 million grant to make the world more accessible. The Google Impact: Disabilities program wants to “create universal access for people with disabilities.” The gernal public is asked to submit What If questions and startups and inventors are asked to respond. The program is open for submissions until September 30, 2015 at 2:00 pm at http://get.google.com/disabilitiesimpactchallenge/

News From You:

Derekhuether shared a post from inhabitat.com with stills of Tesla’s gigafactory under construction in Nevada. The factory will span 10 million sq. ft. when completed. In a Tweet, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said, “This is not the full Gigafactory, it is just the pilot plant (1/4 size).” The finished factory will cover hundreds of acres and be among the largest factories in the world. Tesla’s Gigafactory will be run on renewable energy, using power from three sources: the flat roof will be covered in solar panels and the factory will be plugged into a nearby wind farm and a geothermal electricity plant. Emory Peterson, a Nevada local, shot the video using a DJI Phantom 3 Professional Quadcopter Drone from a mile away.

habichuelacondulce posted the BloomBergBusiness article that Charter Communications was near a deal to buy TWC and that deal is now confirmed. Charter will pay about $55 billion. Patrick Drahi’s Altice SA had also been pursuing TWC, driving up the price. .Bright House Networks will also be acquired by Charter and merged into the combined entity. The combined business will have about 17 million subscribers second in the US to Comcast’s 22 million. Comcast dropped their pursuit of TWC in April due to regulatory concerns. French billionaire The transaction is expected to be completed by the ned of 2015.

Metalfreak flagged the PC World report that Orange is moving Kenyan mobile subscribers off CDMA and launching five LTE networks in Africa this year. This is a growing trend in Africa. Telecom Namibia shut down al its CDMA sites March 31st and moved customers to HSPA+ and LTE. One factor for the moves besides speed and service is that CDMA handsets cost more than GSM.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2015/05/26/your-windows-10-pc-will-love-all-the-devices-you-own/

http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/26/microsoft-brings-cortana-to-ios-and-android-with-companion-app/?ncid=rss

http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-confirms-cortana-is-coming-to-iphones-android/

http://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2015/05/26/microsoft-expands-cross-platform-services-strategy-through-agreements-with-additional-device-partners/

Pick of the Day:

Devulu recently wanted a self-hostable way to save articles and webpages like a personal Pocket. Devulu writes:

After some searching I found Wallabag which is free and open source and does the job quite well. While the interface may not be as intuitive as other partially free or paid services, the features make up for it.

It has Apps for Android iOS and Windows Phone, I have not used the apps myself but I hope they are good.

There are Firefox and Chrome extensions/addins plus a bookmarklet

You can also download all your saved links in ePub 3, Mobi or PDF format, it can import from similar services like Pocket Readability or Instapaper and export for moving to a new wallabag.

You can customize the theme, have multiple users and probably some more features I have left out.

Messages: 

Allison Sheridan writes:

I asked Steve to post in the Reddit an article by Wired about changes at GoDaddy but I wanted to give a plug about it too. The new CEO seems to have made substantive changes about women. From hiring female CTO to hiring 40% women into technical and engineering internships this year, and finally getting rid of the sexy lady ads.

http://www.wired.com/2015/05/godaddy-isnt-company-think/?mbid=social_twitter

Marlon”theGuyFromTrinidad” writes:

I don’t know if you will be doing a Google I/O preview, well…because sorry to say your contributors Android Fu…isn’t that strong, but that’s ok cause Ron Amadeo is here to rescue you. Last week he published this epic 6000+ word article that breaks it all down. So now, you to, can look like an Android shaolin master. (apologies, I was listening to Wu Tang Clan when I wrote this)

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/05/google-tracker-io-2015-edition-android-m-chromecast-2-and-lots-more/

=====

Wednesday’s guest:  Scott Johnson

 

It’s the Memorial day holiday in the US, so Tom’s just reading the headlines before he joins the rest of his US counterparts. Back with full shows tomorrow.

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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

Justin Young joins the show to talk about the latest reason why Apple TV rumors won’t be true, Uber’s autonomous car research and how LED lights in the grocery store can help you find the tortillas you like. Plus Len Peralta illustrates the show!

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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 Guest: Justin Robert Young and Len Peralta

Headlines

Happy Birthday Puck-Man!
Hey that Apple TV service that Apple never announced is coming? It got delayed again. Re/Code reports that according to “industry executives familiar with Apple’s plans” Apple wants to include live local TV programming. That’s a tall order. Even CBS and ABC can’t get the rights to stream local channels in their various apps. All this mean that all those rumors that Apple would announce the service at WWDC and launch it in the autumn are likely to be wrong.

There’s a new kind of car cruising the streets of Pittsburgh. Actually it’s a Ford, but the Pittsburgh Business Times took a photograph of a car which has the words “Uber Advanced Technologies Center” on the side, and a box of electronic components on the roof. The Verge reached out to Uber, which said the Ford is NOT a self-driving car, but rather “part of our early research regarding mapping, safety and autonomy systems.” As you may recall, Uber has set up a research center in a strategic partnership with Carnegie Mellon University. In less exciting news the Pirates have already lost six games in extra innings this year making thier record 18 and 22.

9to5 Mac which is actually really good about finding out things before Apple is ready to announce them, has rounded up everything it knows about iOS 9 and OS X 10.11 ahead of next month’s WWDC announcements. A lot of it you’ve heard before but the big takeaway is both OS updates will focus on quality which means a lot of reliability improvements, fewer bugs but also fewer splashy features. Although one feature called rootless, would restrict access to certain files even from Admin-level users as a measure to combat malware.

Ars Technica reports Australian Security researcher Troy Hunt reported Friday morning that data from subscribers to AdultFriendFinder.com is a available in 15 spreadsheets posted on site protected by Tor privacy. The data included 3.8 million addresses as well as age, zip code, sexual orientation and even things like whether the user was seeking an extramarital affair. The spreadsheets include data for current, former and even deleted accounts.
PC World reports Firefox will begin testing advertising tiles based on a user’s browsing history. The ads will be called Suggested Tiles and will appear on a user’s new tab page. Ad display selection happens inside the browser on the user’s machine and only a minimal amount of data leaves the browser. Yo can try it out by getting a build from Firefox’s beta channel next week. Nightly test builds have contained the feature since last summer.

TechCrunch reports Korea’s Yello Mobile, which has acquired 61 companies over the past year, just picked up Singapore-based Gushcloud. Gushcloud is an influencer marketing platform in Southeast ASia, which means it pays people to tweet and vlog and such about stuff. Yello says it plans to acquire 20 more marketing companies across Asia this year. An interesting note is that when Yello Mobile acquires a company it leaves the founders in charge and lets them continue to build the companies as if they were still independent.

TechCrunch reports that the world’s leading seller of virtual stickers — messaging app Line — is trying out a music service with some of its users in Thailand. Line Music is available for IOS and Android there and integrates into the chat app to share songs with friends and post to timelines. The music service costs the equivalent of $2 a month, though the first month is free.Line has a YouTube like TV service, a payments platform, an Uber like service in Japan and makes most of its money on in-app purchases for games.
PC World reports that Pebble will start shipping its latest smartwatch next Wednesday May 27th and finish manufacturing all orders by the end of May. According the project’s Kickstarter page by mid-June every contributor should be able to track their shipment. Next week, Pebble will introduce new Android and iOS mobile apple that only work with the Pebble Time models.

Oh and hey if you were wondering who it was that was trying to buy Salesforce— and why wouldn’t you be— CNBC reports it was Microsoft the whole time. Likely in a clever mask. People familiar with the situation said Microsoft offered as much as $55 billion. But Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said NOT ENOUGH and wanted as much as $70 billion.

News From You:

TVSTRavis submitted the top story on the subreddit today. A Consumerist article from a couple days ago reports that General Motors attorney Harry Lightsey told a public US Copyright Office hearing that software in GM cars is licensed to the owner of the car. This is similar to claims we discussed regarding John Deere tractors. The Office is expected to issue a ruling in July.

johnsie776 posted the Ars Technica story that researchers from Cambridge University found an estimated 500 million Android phones do not completely wipe data when users choose the factory reset option, even if full disk encryption is on. The researchers were able to recover login credentials, text messages, email and contacts from 21 phones running Android 2.3 to 4.3. The findings are published in the research paper, “ Security Analysis of Android Factory Resets.”

Discussion Links: 

http://www.engadget.com/2015/05/22/philips-led-vlc-navigation/?ncid=rss_truncated

http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/networks/philips-creates-store-shopping-assistant-with-leds-and-smart-

phonehttp://blog.bytelight.com/post/93503988148/place-2014-recap-finding-technologies-to-scale#.VV9yaFnBzGc

http://website-assets.bytelight.com/assets/how_it_works-1ee62918322ee289a0c7d315b2554cd0.jpg

http://www.bytelight.com/http://phys.org/wire-news/193743383/carrefours-led-supermarket-lighting-from-philips-helps-shoppers.html

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150504005274/en/Floor-Ceiling-Philips-Showcases-Latest-Connected-Lighting#.VV9x11nBzGc

http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2015/05/tone-experimental-chrome-extension-for.html

Pick of the Day: The Rufus Cuff

dash2justice was listening to Veronica wishing that the Apple Watch could work on it’s own without having to be tethered to her phone, and has an alternative to the Apple Watch. The Rufus Cuff is a smart watch that has a 3″ screen and can either be tethered to your phone or can run on it’s own because it runs full android Kit Kat (with support for future OS updates). So it can run on it’s own but will stand out. But think about all the cool wrist computers like oh, I don’t know, maybe THE PIPBOY.”

Engadget wrote: “It connects to your Android or iPhone via Bluetooth for mobile data, making calls and sending texts, but it’s running a full version of Google’s mobile OS and can hook on to WiFi if you’re in a cellular dead-zone”

Messages of the Day

I enjoyed the discussion you had with Allison yesterday about social media and other technology. The introduction of the telephone was compared to what is being said about the internet. I am 79 remember when many people didn’t have a phone. My mother would often send me to the neighbors to tell them someone had call our house for them. I remember the family sitting around to listen to the radio. In 1960 , my wife and I moved 2000+ miles from home. Long distant call were expensive and only used for emergencies. We had a stretch of five years without being able to visit family and friends. Now I have daughter who lives in the Seattle area, a granddaughter who lives in Colorado Springs with three of her own children. We Skype with them several times a week. I have been able to re-establish relationships with high school and college classmates with Facebook. Although I don’t understand why kids will text each other when standing next to one another, I prefer the technology we have available today.

Bill Burlingame
Huntsville, AL

—

Hi Tom, Jenny, et al,

On Wednesday Llamar was talking about his disappointment in ad block. I understand that it is tough as a creator to see a revenue source blocked by the user, but there has to be a reason they are choosing to do this. Advertisements on the web are annoying to me, and while I want the creators I love to get paid, I want them to get paid because I am enjoying content, not because I am annoyed. I run add block on my machine and would on my phone with no reservation because I support the content I want to support (like this show) of my own accord. Didn’t make me a free loading jerk.

Anthony from finally thawed Maine

—

Ted Dushane from lovingly academic Ann Arbor, Michigan.

I listened with interest to your discussion of the very bad practice of using security questions.

My wife and I have developed a workaround that I recommend for your audience:

Following are the rules for our system:

(1) make up a secret phrase which will apply to all answers. Call it:

OURPERSONALPHRASE

(2) examine each security question. For each one, determine the subject of the question, call it:

SUBJECT

(3) the answer to the question will then be:

OURPERSONALPHRASESUBJECT

(4) Almost all sites give you several optional questions, but in case they force one of them to have a date for the answer, my wife and I have chosen a date which we always use for that question. Obviously, it is not a date of any importance to us but one we determined using a random number generator. We have never found a site requiring more than one date among the answers.

Here are 2 examples, where the phrase chosen is “I love summer”

Security question: “What is your favorite touring car?”

Answer: Ilovesummercar (since “car” is the subject of the sentence)

Security question: “What is your wife’s first pet’s name?”

Answer: Ilovesummername

Monday: DTNS contributor Veronica Belmont!

Allison Sheridan is on the show. Are you addicted to your smartphone because of social networks? Has the Internet made you antisocial? Can these both be true?

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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

Headlines: 

The CBC reports the ‘five eyes’ intelligence alliance of Canada, US, UK, Australia and New Zealand sought to find ways to intercept app updates from the Google and Samsung app stores in order to install spyware. According to documents, the agencies targeted mobile app servers in France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Cuba, Morocco, the Bahamas and Russia. The same agencies also found security gaps in Alibaba’s UC Browser, the most popular 3rd-party browser on smart phones. Citizen Lab, a human rights and technology group in Toronto recently found the leak and alerted Alibaba in mid-April.

“sources briefed on the plans” have told 9to5 Mac that Apple could demonstrate a split-screen applications feature for the iPad in iOS9 at WWDC. Multi-user login support and the mythical 12-inch iPad — code names J98 and J99— are also in the offing later this year… still. Also a TV! And a car! And the iPony!

Engadget reports that YouTube now supports 60fps for LIVE streaming. For now you’ll need an HTML5-compatible browser to see the streams. YouTube will encode these streams in both 720p60 and 1080p60 formats but will automatically throttle down to 30FPS for devices that can’t handle 60. Other new HTML5 playback features include rewinding a live stream and double speed video play back to catch up. YouTube collaborated with Elgato and Spilt to ensure continued compatibility of Elgato Game Capture, Xsplit Broadcaster and Gamecaster.

Trivia game QuizUp is now a social network according to TechCrunch. The new app includes forums with comment threads, likes, and photo-sharing. Users can search for a specific type of user by location age and gender. QuizUp has more than 12,000 topics. There are 33 million users worldwide, who play approximately 7 million games per day, the average user spending 30 min a day playing.

Google may have an answer to Huawei’s ‘Lite OS’ for the Internet of Things when Google I/O rolls around next week. Ars Technica reports on an Information piece that Google’s OS is codenamed Brillo, will be marketed under the Android name and is developed by a group “linked to the Android unit.” So it’s probably Android-based. Brillo will be aimed at devices with 32-64MB of RAM and will allegedly be offered free to OEMs.

TechCrunch reports on a new study from Google regarding security questions like ‘what was your first pet’s name’. Researchers looked at ‘hundreds of millions’ of these questions and their answers from Google users and concluded that “secret questions are neither secure nor reliable enough to be used as a standalone account recovery mechanism.” The answers are either too easy to guess or too hard to remember. Google’s researchers recommend sites use SMS backup codes, secondary email addresses and other means to securely authenticate users.

Reuters says the US Department of Commerce proposed new export controls Wednesday that would treat zero-day software flaws as potential weapons. Among other things, that would require bug hunters to get a license to collect bug bounties from any company outside the ‘five eyes’ countries. The new rules are subject to a 60-day comment period.

The Pew Research Center has two reports out that show people in the US are fairly certain their privacy is gone in public and in private but they haven’t done anything to protect it themselves. More than 90% of adults surveyed felt that who gets information and what is collected about them is important. 31% are confident the government and phone companies can keep their info secure. 38% felt the same confidence in credit card companies. However 91% have not made any changes recently to internet or phone use to avoid tracking.

News From You:

themoke got the top vote getter on the subreddit today with a post of an Imgur gallery in which MacMAnsen uses a photocopier to back up his Kindle copy of Orwell’s 1984. He even made it a hardbound book. And then re-uploaded the scanned pages as an ebook.

the_corely sent us this The Next Web story that Amazon’s Prime Now service now offers one-hour delivery from local stores starting in select neighborhoods of Manhattan delivering from D’Agostino, Gourmet Garage and Billy’s Bakery. Amazon says it will expand its service across Manhattan in the coming weeks and add Eataly and Westside Market. Other cities with Prime Now will follow. If you’re in the area, you can place your orders through the Prime Now app to take advantage of Amazon’s new offering.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/humble/news/smartphone-use-while-driving-grows-beyond-texting-to-social-media/article_975e8fc9-482a-5687-b4e8-810aeec1df5a.html

http://www.govtech.com/data/Iowa-State-University-Researchers-Examine-No-Mobile-Phone-Phobia.html

http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alexander_Deursen/publication/271041232_Modeling_habitual_and_addictive_smartphone_behavior._The_role_of_smartphone_usage_types_emotional_intelligence_social_stress_self-regulation_age_and_gender/links/54bcb3bd0cf24e50e9408231.pdf

http://wilsonquarterly.com/stories/the-call-of-the-future/

 

Pick of the Day:

Mobee Magic Bar, Magic Feet

Messages: 

Chris, one of our nickel-backers from Fresno identified another reason that Spotify might be rolling out a running option for their service. He writes:

“As a consumer, I’ve got a budget for paying for services, and if I’m a runner/gym rat/fitness enthusiast who likes to listen to music mostly while I’m working out, there are already options that are geared towards my use like Rock My Run, and FIT Radio. By including similar features inside Spotify, that might get me to cancel my paid subscription to a different service and upgrade my free Spotify account to put all my music listening into a single app.

Michael from Scotland laments:

“Why can’t Spotify just be like an good ol’ PC music player (or an mp3 player on mobile) – I open it up and boom I am straight into a list of all the favourites songs, albums and artists I have added! No friend list! No recommended playlists! No trending whatevers! … Why does it feel like when music went online I suddenly needed to be constantly nagged about what I should be listening to? …It should just be a music player, for the music I like! Every Spotify annnouncement just sounds like feature creep.”
Sonia in Pure Michigan country assures us that up there in 4 season Southeast Michigan they have the self-driving car in winter problem covered! She writes:

“The Mcity test facility on U of M’s North Campus (home to the School of Music, my alma mater, as well as the School of Engineering, which I abandoned due to an allergy to physics) is slated to open this summer. It’s interesting to note that Google is moving their Ann Arbor presence to North Campus as well, building a new campus — an increase of jobs from their former home in downtown Ann Arbor. Coincidence? Perhaps — but I think not.

Here’s a link to the Mcity website:
http://www.mtc.umich.edu/test-facility

Can’t wait to see the data coming out of there!

Tim among the people:

(including Dave immediately in the chat room yesterday) Google bought songza (for a fraction of the price of beats) after Apple bought beats.

=====

Friday’s guest:  Justin Robert Young and Len Peralta

Scott Johnson and Lamarr Wilson join the show to discuss Spotify’s new custom playlist and running features. And can adding video and podcasts boost the money it makes from music?

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

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, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Scott Johnson and Lamarr Wilson

Headlines: 

Spotify announced the addition of Spotify Now— Songza-like custom playlists — Spotify Running— sophisticated playlists for running that change with your pace— as well as the addition of videos and podcasts. Spotify Running will integrate with Nike + and RunKeeper apps later this year. Spotify Now launches for iOS in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Sweden today. Spotify Running comes to iOS globally today.

ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley reports that Twitter user @h0x0d discovered a download page marked ‘Microsoft Confidential’ for a Microsoft-made iOS app called ‘Flow by Outlook.’ Text describing the app read “Reach anyone with an email address and all conversations for you and others are also in Outlook.” Only conversations started in Flow appear in Flow. A Microsoft spokesperson said the company had nothing to share about Flow.

Engadget is reporting that Adblock Plus app is returning to the Google Play Store after being pulled in 2013 for “interfering” with other apps. To avoid problems the new Adblock Plus is a modified version of the Firefox Android browser with ad blocking built in. It does not support extensions or Firefox’s synchronization feature. The app hasn’t yet gone live in the Play store so users are encouraged become testers by signing up to Adblock Plus’s Google+ community and download the app directly.

TechCrunch reports that Microsoft is now offering the digital tv tuner designed by Hauppage for the Xbox One. The tuner is compatible with Snap, voice control, OneGuide and streaming to other devices, even if someone else is using the Xbox for gaming. It does not support DVR functions, though you can pause, FF and rewind live TV for up to 30 minutes. Microsoft is offering a bundle that includes the tuner and a Mohu Leaf 50 antenna for $100.

PCMag.com reports on Google’s Tone Chrome extension. When you want to send a URL, click the blue button and the service broadcasts a series of tone. Any machine within earshot that also uses the extension (including those on a phone or Hangout) will receive the URL. Just remember that ANY computer that can hear the tone will get the URL.

Yonhap News reports that LG Display has unveiled an OLED display panel that sticks to the wall. The 55-inch wallpaper panel is 0.97 mm thick, weighs 1.9kg and sticks to the wall using a magnetic mat. LG’s existing 55-inch OLED panel is now seemingly fat 4.3 mm. No word on when the new wallpaper panel wil make it in to production.

News From You:

Starfuryzeta submitted the ArsTechnica report on a new attack on HTTPS-protected websites detailed in a research paper called “Imperfect Forward Secrecy: How Diffie-Hellman Fails in Practice.”. The attack, being called ‘logjam’ affects servers that support Diffie-Hellman key exchange by downgrading to 512-bit encryption. It takes advantage of a weakness in the encryption added in the 1990s to allow US law enforcement to break the encryption if used by foreign entities. It’s similar in this way to the FREAK attack uncovered in March. The attack is estimated to affect 8.4% of the top 1 million websites as well as a slightly larger percentage of mail servers. Internet Explorer is protected and updates to other browsers are expected in the next few days. Server admins are encouraged to disable support of DHE_EXPORT ciphersuites that allow downgraded connections. ore info can be found at weakdh.org/

cdnDude74 submitted the TechRepublic article that Google plans to roll out their own VPN service. A reference to Google VPN was found in “Google Connectivity Services” in Android 5.15 on a Nexus 6. However the service isn’t active yet.

mranthropology submitted The Verge article about Huawei’s announcement of an Internet of Things operating system called LiteOS, that’s 10 kb large. LiteOS is meant for any smart device from wearables to cars and will be made open to all developers with zero configuration necessary for users. Huawei is also marketing its Agile Network architecture to help companies manage all those incoming connections.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/20/8629623/spotify-video-podcast-fitness-profit-loss-music

http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/20/spotify-introduces-video-clips-podcasts-and-activity-based-playlists/?ncid=rss

http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/20/8629335/spotify-adds-podcasts-videos

https://news.spotify.com/us/2015/05/20/say-hello-to-the-most-entertaining-spotify-ever/

Pick of the Day:

J. wrote in with an explanation of why customer service reps often ask you for all the information you already told the phone tree:

“I’m a tech support rep for a major ISP. In regards to account info when you call customer service. With large companies, different call centers handle different regions. The system is in place more to route you to the right person than to give that person your account. That having been said, I do get a pop-up with your account number about 60% of the time. The account number is generated and auto-pops based on the phone number you typed or said in most cases. The difficulty is that a person with your phone number may or may not be a person you want accessing your account, so we ask for it anyway, along with other CPNI info. Consider it 2 factor authentication.

Short version… I’m not gonna be that Apple rep who let someone into Tom Merrit’s email account.”

Messages: 

Doug wrote regarding municipal broadband:

“First, the existing monopolies or near monopolies on broadband are the direct result of municipal interference in the market. Both telephone companies and cable companies were granted monopolies to encourage infrastructure buildout. Why should I expect further interference in the market to be more competently accomplished?

Second, in most cases where cities provide services, they grant themselves monopolies and charge monopolistic prices. An example: My last house was in an unincorporated part of the county I live in, and I could get trash service for $10 per month, up to 10 containers, the trash company would return the containers from the curb to the side of my house, and recycling was free. After moving to a municipality that has city pickup, the price is $30 per month, I have to buy containers at $60 ea. from the city, and if I want to recycle, I have to buy a separate container for that. Three times the price for much less service.

If you could guarantee that cities:
1. Had to charge their real costs (that is, that they were prohibited from subsidizing broadband with other revenues, including amortization of the buildout costs) OR had to allow access to any subsidized infrastructure to any competitor at an audited fair price
2. Were prohibited from enforcing a monopoly on broadband
I’d support municipal broadband.

=====

Thursday’s guest:  Allison Sheridan

Patrick Beja is on the show and we’ll talk about protest letters regarding encryption back doors and zero-rating, an app store for your 10-year-old car and the most annoying innovations in tech.

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

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, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Patrick Beja

Headlines: 

The Washington Post reports 164 tech companies organizations and security researchers sent a letter to US President Obama asking him to reject any proposed law that would “deliberately weaken the security of their products.” US FBI Director James B. Comey is among several US government officials pushing companies to allow government to have access to all encrypted data. The letter is signed by three of the five members of a presidential review group appointed to assess policy in the wake of the Snowden leaks.

The BBC reports 67 digital rights groups from around the world signed a letter to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stating concerns about the Internet.org initiative. The letter says the project threatens freedom of expression, privacy and the principle of net neutrality. Internet.org lets users access participating services without incurring data charges. It does not currently support https, ssl or TLS. Internet.og is currently available in Zambia, India, Colombia, Guatemala, Tanzania, Kenya, Ghana, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malawi.

TechCrunch has the tech specs on Apple’s just updated MacBook Pro iMac. The 15” Retina MacBook Pro now comes with a new force touch trackpad, improved PCIe-based flash drive with 2.5x the performance, one more hour of battery life, and a new Radeon R9 M370X discrete GPU option. Prices start at $1999 for a 16GB, 2.2GHz quad-core Core i7, and 256GB of storage. The iMac 5K Retina now comes with a 3.3 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor and Radeon R9 M290 graphics card. And Apple is now selling a lightning dock for your iPhone 6 and 6 plus for $40. This one should last through a few more models since the base is open.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple shelved plans for a 4K television, according to people familiar with the matter. The reason? The features — including a camera that would allow users to make video calls — were not compelling enough to impress executives. However, according to Reuters, prominent investor Carl Icahn says Apple will still introduce a TV, and a car. And he wants Apple to buy back more stock. And he wants a pony. The pony part is unconfirmed.

ZDNet reports that Microsoft has released public previews of Word, Excel and PowerPoint for Android phones today. The new Office app previews require KitKat 4.4.x or higher and devices with 1 GB of RAM or more.You’ll also need to join the Office Android Preview group. “Become a tester” on Google Play by visiting the Word,Excel and PowerPoint apps. Wait for Google Play to replicate permissions, then click above mentioned links and follow the download links to install apps from the Google Play Store. Finally join Microsoft’s Google+ community for support, feedback and queries. But that’s all!

Tech Crunch reports that Google is adding tweets to its search results. Use the word Twitter in your search request or just search for a term and see if people are saying anything about it on Twitter.
Results will show up for English-language mobile users today on browsers and Android and iOS Google apps. Google is working on adding it to the desktop and other languages.

Automatic is launching an app store and SDK for its on-board diagnostic— or OBD plug— according to CNET. First-generation Automatic dongles are compatible with the new App Gallery but not the new SDK. The new dev platform includes a streaming SDK that only works with second-generation Automatic hardware. The new hardware is able to send raw, real-time performance data to select third-party apps over Bluetooth. The streaming SDK is in currently in private beta. The second-generation Automatic adapter will retail for $99.95 same as the first-gen.

News From You:

This was our top vote-getter on the subreddit today. johnsie776 posted the Ars Technica report that the state of North Carolina has sued the US Federal Communications Commission. The FCC pre-empted state law to help the City of Winston expand its municipal broadband network. The state claims that the FCC unlawfully inserted itself between the State and the State’s political subdivisions. The case is now in the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Tennessee is also suing the FCC in the Sixth Circuit regarding municipal broadband in Chatannooga.

jaymz668 sent the KitGuru post noting a Chrome and Android engineer said in a Reddit AMA session late last week— that developers are working on improving Chrome’s resource usage on mobile as well as memory leaks on the desktop. Here’s hoping.

habichuelcondulce pointed out the PC World article that the Center for Digital Democracy and the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood filed an update to their U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) complaint against The YouTube Kids app. The update adds a video of allegedly harmful content to the complaint originally filed in April. The groups also added the complaint that Google is deceiving parents about the effectiveness of the screening process. Google said it is working to make the videos in YouTube Kids as family friendly as possible.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://www.studyweb.com/hated-internet-innovations/

https://twitter.com/anocelot/status/600710282890125312

https://twitter.com/kjblank80/status/600710710172196865

https://twitter.com/sjh_canada/status/600713825353125888

https://twitter.com/bloreboy/status/600714102944698368

https://twitter.com/airwhale/status/600718740527968258

https://twitter.com/reject69187/status/600731252015046657

Pick of the Day:

Daryl Sensenig (in lovely Lancaster County, Pennsylvania):

My pick is Bing Maps. I know that nearly everyone uses Google Maps, but I feel that Bing is much better in several ways:

1. In my experience, the routing is better and the travel time estimates are more accurate.
2. Their satellite view (bird’s eye view) is actually photos from airplanes and not satellites. So, it is much more detailed than Google Maps in many areas.
3. I prefer the interface over the new Google Maps

That said, there are a few drawbacks:

1. Their street view doesn’t have quite as good coverage
2. Business search isn’t quite as strong.

Messages: 

Alex writes in:

Long time listener to the show. Since the United In-Flight systems “hack” keeps popping up in the news, I figure I should clarify some points. My company created and maintains the In-flight Entertainment (IFE) system for United. The IFE server receives one-way communication from the planes avionics, such as altitude and heading. Those values are saved as a variable and used to trigger automated functions, such as retracting overhead monitors when descending for landing. In my test lab, I have to manipulate those variables to test the systems operations during various flight scenarios, since I’m not on a real aircraft. Those are the variables that the security researcher saw. Modifying them in flight will have no effect on other systems. You can trick the IFE system to show that we are flying to Hawaii on the passenger map display, but plane’s auto-pilot won’t change. Also on the real aircraft, the avionics systems will periodically refresh any modified data with real data. It just that the polling rate is really slow to avoid flooding these underpowered systems.

Reports also say that he tampered with his seat box casing and got access to the internal diagnostic port to achieve this hack. Also, reports say that he obtained the admin password which how he was able to jump firewall from the seat subnet to the server subnet.

TL;DR if you have physical access to a client machine and the admin password, you can get access to the servers. But you can’t change anything beyond the server. Only what the server perceives to be real data, but the data will be refreshed periodically anyways.

Sean wrote:

“On Fridays show Darren talked about car trains. He was using some sarcasm, but had a point. Everytime I hear about self driving cars I get frustrated. I live where we have snow and other forms of weather. This never seems to be addressed by companies developing self driving technology.”

Rolando – Your fan from Paraguay, the heart of South America writes:

As our communication becomes increasingly more digital, I think we need a symbol for ironic comments, pics, etc. to have the same immediate recognizable unmistakable effect as other symbols have for their own meaning [for instance, no one doubts the meaning of the ‘bird’ (pardon my French)].
This has been tried before, but the proposed symbol for irony didn’t catch on.
So, when I heard you talking with @veronica in her official appearance (great add!) about emojis, I thought that I’d ask you, to ask to your bright and passionate audience, to create and establish a universal Irony emoji.
Wouldn’t it be great? It’ll be a great legacy! #NotBeingIronicHere
Congrats on your newest milestone and keep it up!

=====

Wednesday’s guest:  Scott Johnson & Lamarr Wilson

 

Patrick Beja is on the show and we’ll talk about protest letters regarding encryption back doors and zero-rating, an app store for your 10-year-old car and the most annoying innovations in tech.

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

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Patrick Beja

Headlines: 

The Washington Post reports 164 tech companies organizations and security researchers sent a letter to US President Obama asking him to reject any proposed law that would “deliberately weaken the security of their products.” US FBI Director James B. Comey is among several US government officials pushing companies to allow government to have access to all encrypted data. The letter is signed by three of the five members of a presidential review group appointed to assess policy in the wake of the Snowden leaks.

The BBC reports 67 digital rights groups from around the world signed a letter to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stating concerns about the Internet.org initiative. The letter says the project threatens freedom of expression, privacy and the principle of net neutrality. Internet.org lets users access participating services without incurring data charges. It does not currently support https, ssl or TLS. Internet.og is currently available in Zambia, India, Colombia, Guatemala, Tanzania, Kenya, Ghana, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malawi.

TechCrunch has the tech specs on Apple’s just updated MacBook Pro iMac. The 15” Retina MacBook Pro now comes with a new force touch trackpad, improved PCIe-based flash drive with 2.5x the performance, one more hour of battery life, and a new Radeon R9 M370X discrete GPU option. Prices start at $1999 for a 16GB, 2.2GHz quad-core Core i7, and 256GB of storage. The iMac 5K Retina now comes with a 3.3 GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor and Radeon R9 M290 graphics card. And Apple is now selling a lightning dock for your iPhone 6 and 6 plus for $40. This one should last through a few more models since the base is open.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple shelved plans for a 4K television, according to people familiar with the matter. The reason? The features — including a camera that would allow users to make video calls — were not compelling enough to impress executives. However, according to Reuters, prominent investor Carl Icahn says Apple will still introduce a TV, and a car. And he wants Apple to buy back more stock. And he wants a pony. The pony part is unconfirmed.

ZDNet reports that Microsoft has released public previews of Word, Excel and PowerPoint for Android phones today. The new Office app previews require KitKat 4.4.x or higher and devices with 1 GB of RAM or more.You’ll also need to join the Office Android Preview group. “Become a tester” on Google Play by visiting the Word,Excel and PowerPoint apps. Wait for Google Play to replicate permissions, then click above mentioned links and follow the download links to install apps from the Google Play Store. Finally join Microsoft’s Google+ community for support, feedback and queries. But that’s all!

Tech Crunch reports that Google is adding tweets to its search results. Use the word Twitter in your search request or just search for a term and see if people are saying anything about it on Twitter.
Results will show up for English-language mobile users today on browsers and Android and iOS Google apps. Google is working on adding it to the desktop and other languages.

Automatic is launching an app store and SDK for its on-board diagnostic— or OBD plug— according to CNET. First-generation Automatic dongles are compatible with the new App Gallery but not the new SDK. The new dev platform includes a streaming SDK that only works with second-generation Automatic hardware. The new hardware is able to send raw, real-time performance data to select third-party apps over Bluetooth. The streaming SDK is in currently in private beta. The second-generation Automatic adapter will retail for $99.95 same as the first-gen.

News From You:

This was our top vote-getter on the subreddit today. johnsie776 posted the Ars Technica report that the state of North Carolina has sued the US Federal Communications Commission. The FCC pre-empted state law to help the City of Winston expand its municipal broadband network. The state claims that the FCC unlawfully inserted itself between the State and the State’s political subdivisions. The case is now in the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Tennessee is also suing the FCC in the Sixth Circuit regarding municipal broadband in Chatannooga.

jaymz668 sent the KitGuru post noting a Chrome and Android engineer said in a Reddit AMA session late last week— that developers are working on improving Chrome’s resource usage on mobile as well as memory leaks on the desktop. Here’s hoping.

habichuelcondulce pointed out the PC World article that the Center for Digital Democracy and the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood filed an update to their U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) complaint against The YouTube Kids app. The update adds a video of allegedly harmful content to the complaint originally filed in April. The groups also added the complaint that Google is deceiving parents about the effectiveness of the screening process. Google said it is working to make the videos in YouTube Kids as family friendly as possible.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://www.studyweb.com/hated-internet-innovations/

https://twitter.com/anocelot/status/600710282890125312

https://twitter.com/kjblank80/status/600710710172196865

https://twitter.com/sjh_canada/status/600713825353125888

https://twitter.com/bloreboy/status/600714102944698368

https://twitter.com/airwhale/status/600718740527968258

https://twitter.com/reject69187/status/600731252015046657

Pick of the Day:

Daryl Sensenig (in lovely Lancaster County, Pennsylvania):

My pick is Bing Maps. I know that nearly everyone uses Google Maps, but I feel that Bing is much better in several ways:

1. In my experience, the routing is better and the travel time estimates are more accurate.
2. Their satellite view (bird’s eye view) is actually photos from airplanes and not satellites. So, it is much more detailed than Google Maps in many areas.
3. I prefer the interface over the new Google Maps

That said, there are a few drawbacks:

1. Their street view doesn’t have quite as good coverage
2. Business search isn’t quite as strong.

Messages: 

Alex writes in:

Long time listener to the show. Since the United In-Flight systems “hack” keeps popping up in the news, I figure I should clarify some points. My company created and maintains the In-flight Entertainment (IFE) system for United. The IFE server receives one-way communication from the planes avionics, such as altitude and heading. Those values are saved as a variable and used to trigger automated functions, such as retracting overhead monitors when descending for landing. In my test lab, I have to manipulate those variables to test the systems operations during various flight scenarios, since I’m not on a real aircraft. Those are the variables that the security researcher saw. Modifying them in flight will have no effect on other systems. You can trick the IFE system to show that we are flying to Hawaii on the passenger map display, but plane’s auto-pilot won’t change. Also on the real aircraft, the avionics systems will periodically refresh any modified data with real data. It just that the polling rate is really slow to avoid flooding these underpowered systems.

Reports also say that he tampered with his seat box casing and got access to the internal diagnostic port to achieve this hack. Also, reports say that he obtained the admin password which how he was able to jump firewall from the seat subnet to the server subnet.

TL;DR if you have physical access to a client machine and the admin password, you can get access to the servers. But you can’t change anything beyond the server. Only what the server perceives to be real data, but the data will be refreshed periodically anyways.

Sean wrote:

“On Fridays show Darren talked about car trains. He was using some sarcasm, but had a point. Everytime I hear about self driving cars I get frustrated. I live where we have snow and other forms of weather. This never seems to be addressed by companies developing self driving technology.”

Rolando – Your fan from Paraguay, the heart of South America writes:

As our communication becomes increasingly more digital, I think we need a symbol for ironic comments, pics, etc. to have the same immediate recognizable unmistakable effect as other symbols have for their own meaning [for instance, no one doubts the meaning of the ‘bird’ (pardon my French)].
This has been tried before, but the proposed symbol for irony didn’t catch on.
So, when I heard you talking with @veronica in her official appearance (great add!) about emojis, I thought that I’d ask you, to ask to your bright and passionate audience, to create and establish a universal Irony emoji.
Wouldn’t it be great? It’ll be a great legacy! #NotBeingIronicHere
Congrats on your newest milestone and keep it up!

=====

Wednesday’s guest:  Scott Johnson & Lamarr Wilson