Veronica Belmont and Roger Chang fill in for Tom and take your questions on the Apple Watch!

MP3

 

Using a Screen Reader? click here

Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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: Veronica Belmont and Roger Chang

Headlines: 

The NY Times is reporting that Apple has acquired a bay area based GPS Start Up Coherent Navigation.  Coherent Navigation works on high-precision navigation systems and creating commercial navigation services based on partnerships with companies like Boeing and Iridium. It is unclear exactly how Apple will use the company’s services or technology. The terms of Apple’s acquisition of Coherent Navigation were not disclosed with the company stating in email “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.” But self-driving cars… I mean, right?

Reuters reports that a US appeals court reversed part of a $930 million dollar verdict that Apple won in 2012 against Samsung.
The US Court of Appeals in Washington, DC ruled today that Apple’s claim of “trade-dress dilution” — the way a product is packaged or presented, could not be protected because it was related to the functioning of the phone and would have granted Apple a monopoly on the features forever. However the court did uphold the patent infringement violations. The appeals court ordered that the original court in San Jose reconsider the $382 million dollar part of the ruling.

TechCrunch reports that LG’s G4 smartphone is rolling out for sale worldwide “over the next month. “The phone is already on sale in Korea, and will show up next in Hong Kong, followed by Turkey, Russia and Singapore. After that” most of Europe, North America, the Middle East, Africa, South and Central– oh you know what? Just the rest of the world. In case you forgot, the G4’s screen uses “quantum display” tech, which promises better color reproduction, there’s a redesigned camera which now sports a larger sensor — a 16-megapixel rear camera and eight-megapixel front camera — and a 64-bit hexacore CPU Snapdragon 808 processor to power the show. The G4 includes a hand-crafted leather back, and subtle curve for improved feel in the hand. The price will vary worldwide, but early reports suggest it will retail for around $600 without a contract, or near $200 as part of a U.S. carrier deal.

Fusion has a great article about the challenges that US federal election regulators are facing with presidential candidates who are using Snapchat to communicate with voters. The main selling point of Snapchat is disappearing messages. So if someone wanted to break some federal election rules via Snapchat, how would anyone at the FEC know? A spokesperson for the FEC told Fusion that the commission has “internet regulations but they don’t specifically cover apps.”

GCHQ staff, intelligence officer and police in the UK have been given immunity for hacking into computers, laptops and mobile phones under new laws that were never fully debated in parliament according to The Guardian.  Rewriting of a key clause of the Computer Misuse Act exempts law enforcement officials from the prohibition on breaking into other people’s laptops, databases, mobile phones or digital systems. It came into force in May. Addressing the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which deals with complaints about the intelligence services and surveillance, lawyers for Privacy International said they had only been informed of the alteration earlier this week. Last May, Privacy International, along with seven internet and communications service providers, filed complaints with the IPT challenging GCHQ’s hacking activities. The full complaint is due to be heard in the autumn.

President Obama finally claimed his own twitter account. Re/code reports that the new verified account is @POTUS run by President Obama. According to the first tweet from the account Obama will actually be the one tweeting from the account. The more familiar @BarackObama account is run by members of his staff. The account added more than 280000 followers in its first hour.

CNET reports that Google teamed up with the University of Washington to create more than 10,000 time lapse-videos showing the evolution of some of the world’s landmarks, using 86 million photos gathered from publicly available photo sharing services like Flickr. An automated process finds similar images and then researchers arranged them in chronological order and then used a process called “geometric stabilization” to create the same perspective from varying images.

CNET is reporting that the FBI has applied for a search warrant on Chris Roberts. The security expert who tweeted about allegedly commandeering a United Airlines plane’s systems. The warrant application claims Roberts “exploited/gained accèss to the in-flight entertainment system and he overwrote code on the airplane’s Thrust Management Computer and commanded the system to issue a climb command. Roberts has admitted to Wired that he infiltrated the plane’s in-flight networks around 15 times solely for observation. Roberts hasn’t been charged with a crime.

 

News From You:

the_big_endian sent us this story from the Verge about Microsoft backtracking on its promise on free updates to Windows 10 for people running pirated Windows. The confusion has revolved around Microsoft’s offer to give free Windows 10 updates to people running Windows 7 and 8.1. Now, we’re finally getting a full clarification: there’s no free upgrade at all. Pirates just have to pay. Microsoft says that it’s planning to run some “very attractive Windows 10 upgrade offers” that will allow people with pirated copies to move to an official version. Specific details of that haven’t been announced yet, but that likely won’t come until we actually hear about when Windows 10 will arrive. For now, it’s still targeted for this summer.

jmbburg26 sent us The Verge report about a sea turtle who was struck by a boat propeller while swimming in its natural habitat in Turkey. The accident shattered the animal’s upper and lower jaw, which meant the turtle couldn’t eat on its own. So a group at Pamukkale (Pah-MOO-kal-AY) University teamed up with BTech, a Turkish biotechnology company specializing in 3D-printed prosthetics, and printed a medical-grade titanium turtle jaw. So far the turtle has not yet rejected the jaw, but it has a ways to go before it can be released back into the wild.

motang sent us the third Verge article which reports that Google will begging to test “buy buttons” that live inside ads above the normal search results. The sponsored results will take you to a special purchasing page that’s still hosted by Google where you can pick the product and how soon you want to get it — all without leaving Google. Users can store their credit cards. The tests will be mobile only will only run on a small percentage of search traffic. The new ads should show in “the coming weeks.”

Discussion Section Links:  

http://recode.net/2015/05/12/a-month-with-the-apple-watch-does-it-pass-the-test-of-time/

http://9to5mac.com/2015/05/18/apple-readies-first-significant-apple-watch-updates-tvkit-sdk-for-apple-tv/

 

Pick of the Day:

Christian writes:

Matt from Thirsty California:

I wanted to respond to Friday’s discussion on self driving cars and provide a recommended read on the subject of computer automation.

Darren touched on the problems of degraded response time and automation bias which are just a few of the issues that come with computer automation. These weren’t given much talk time on the show, but if listeners wanted to learn more about these sort of issues and the pros and cons of computer automation I would recommend the book The Glass Cage (Automation and us) by Nicholas Carr.

The book does a great job of talking about the rise of automation, focusing a lot on the human element of the equation, and goes beyond the technology to discuss what appears to be happening to us because of it. I found it fascinating and would recommend it to anyone who wants to take a deeper look into the impact that things like self driving cars have on everyone’s daily lives.

 

Messages: 

Mike, from the sunny and dusty Pilbara (Pilbara : pill-bar-rah) region of Western Australia wrote in about our self-driving car discussion on Friday:

As a 26 year veteran of the Australian transport industry I have mixed feelings about self driving vehicles. It isn’t that I’m afraid I will be replaced by a machine, it’s that there are a huge amount of human and environmental factors that technology will have difficulty coping with.

In show 2494 Roger suggested an automated car may continue in an endless loop on a freeway until the human occupant re-asserted manual control and moved it out of the traffic stream. My immediate thought was “what if the driver had a heart attack or was rendered unconscious by illness or had a stroke?”. Sure, they would be safer in a self driving car because it wouldn’t leave the road and crash but no one would be aware of the need for medical assistance or an undertaker – the vehicle would continue on its merry way without some kind of dead-mans switch or Apple watch like health monitoring device linked to the vehicle.

Also, trucks would have to undergo radical redesign to enable monitoring of every system, moving part and point-of-failure that an experienced truck driver looks for subconsciously while driving down the road. I’m talking about flat tyres/blowouts, loads shifting, wheel bearing failures, air lines for braking systems rupturing or becoming uncoupled, unforeseen structural failures of equipment such as suspension/spare tyre or equipment racks and how about damaged or fatigued fuel lines. These are all actual things I have had to deal with and quite often the only indication of the problem has been a smell, a barely heard but definitely “wrong” noise that shouldn’t be there or, in one instance, a faint vibration felt through the seat of my pants ( I kid you not! ). After many millions of kilometres and untold thousands of hours behind the wheel my ability to detect problems in my vehicle has been honed to an almost sixth sense.

On average I drive 10,500km every fortnight and would welcome an autopilot to take care of the less difficult and boring stretches of road but, until I know it can watch over all 55.5 metres and 118 tonne of my triple roadtrain, I will just have to keep doing it myself.

=====

Tuesday’s guest:  Tom Merritt is Back with Patrick Beja

 

 

 

 

Veronica Belmont and Roger Chang fill in for Tom and take your questions on the Apple Watch!

MP3

 

Using a Screen Reader? click here

Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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: Veronica Belmont and Roger Chang

Headlines: 

The NY Times is reporting that Apple has acquired a bay area based GPS Start Up Coherent Navigation.  Coherent Navigation works on high-precision navigation systems and creating commercial navigation services based on partnerships with companies like Boeing and Iridium. It is unclear exactly how Apple will use the company’s services or technology. The terms of Apple’s acquisition of Coherent Navigation were not disclosed with the company stating in email “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.” But self-driving cars… I mean, right?

Reuters reports that a US appeals court reversed part of a $930 million dollar verdict that Apple won in 2012 against Samsung.
The US Court of Appeals in Washington, DC ruled today that Apple’s claim of “trade-dress dilution” — the way a product is packaged or presented, could not be protected because it was related to the functioning of the phone and would have granted Apple a monopoly on the features forever. However the court did uphold the patent infringement violations. The appeals court ordered that the original court in San Jose reconsider the $382 million dollar part of the ruling.

TechCrunch reports that LG’s G4 smartphone is rolling out for sale worldwide “over the next month. “The phone is already on sale in Korea, and will show up next in Hong Kong, followed by Turkey, Russia and Singapore. After that” most of Europe, North America, the Middle East, Africa, South and Central– oh you know what? Just the rest of the world. In case you forgot, the G4’s screen uses “quantum display” tech, which promises better color reproduction, there’s a redesigned camera which now sports a larger sensor — a 16-megapixel rear camera and eight-megapixel front camera — and a 64-bit hexacore CPU Snapdragon 808 processor to power the show. The G4 includes a hand-crafted leather back, and subtle curve for improved feel in the hand. The price will vary worldwide, but early reports suggest it will retail for around $600 without a contract, or near $200 as part of a U.S. carrier deal.

Fusion has a great article about the challenges that US federal election regulators are facing with presidential candidates who are using Snapchat to communicate with voters. The main selling point of Snapchat is disappearing messages. So if someone wanted to break some federal election rules via Snapchat, how would anyone at the FEC know? A spokesperson for the FEC told Fusion that the commission has “internet regulations but they don’t specifically cover apps.”

GCHQ staff, intelligence officer and police in the UK have been given immunity for hacking into computers, laptops and mobile phones under new laws that were never fully debated in parliament according to The Guardian.  Rewriting of a key clause of the Computer Misuse Act exempts law enforcement officials from the prohibition on breaking into other people’s laptops, databases, mobile phones or digital systems. It came into force in May. Addressing the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which deals with complaints about the intelligence services and surveillance, lawyers for Privacy International said they had only been informed of the alteration earlier this week. Last May, Privacy International, along with seven internet and communications service providers, filed complaints with the IPT challenging GCHQ’s hacking activities. The full complaint is due to be heard in the autumn.

President Obama finally claimed his own twitter account. Re/code reports that the new verified account is @POTUS run by President Obama. According to the first tweet from the account Obama will actually be the one tweeting from the account. The more familiar @BarackObama account is run by members of his staff. The account added more than 280000 followers in its first hour.

CNET reports that Google teamed up with the University of Washington to create more than 10,000 time lapse-videos showing the evolution of some of the world’s landmarks, using 86 million photos gathered from publicly available photo sharing services like Flickr. An automated process finds similar images and then researchers arranged them in chronological order and then used a process called “geometric stabilization” to create the same perspective from varying images.

CNET is reporting that the FBI has applied for a search warrant on Chris Roberts. The security expert who tweeted about allegedly commandeering a United Airlines plane’s systems. The warrant application claims Roberts “exploited/gained accèss to the in-flight entertainment system and he overwrote code on the airplane’s Thrust Management Computer and commanded the system to issue a climb command. Roberts has admitted to Wired that he infiltrated the plane’s in-flight networks around 15 times solely for observation. Roberts hasn’t been charged with a crime.

 

News From You:

the_big_endian sent us this story from the Verge about Microsoft backtracking on its promise on free updates to Windows 10 for people running pirated Windows. The confusion has revolved around Microsoft’s offer to give free Windows 10 updates to people running Windows 7 and 8.1. Now, we’re finally getting a full clarification: there’s no free upgrade at all. Pirates just have to pay. Microsoft says that it’s planning to run some “very attractive Windows 10 upgrade offers” that will allow people with pirated copies to move to an official version. Specific details of that haven’t been announced yet, but that likely won’t come until we actually hear about when Windows 10 will arrive. For now, it’s still targeted for this summer.

jmbburg26 sent us The Verge report about a sea turtle who was struck by a boat propeller while swimming in its natural habitat in Turkey. The accident shattered the animal’s upper and lower jaw, which meant the turtle couldn’t eat on its own. So a group at Pamukkale (Pah-MOO-kal-AY) University teamed up with BTech, a Turkish biotechnology company specializing in 3D-printed prosthetics, and printed a medical-grade titanium turtle jaw. So far the turtle has not yet rejected the jaw, but it has a ways to go before it can be released back into the wild.

motang sent us the third Verge article which reports that Google will begging to test “buy buttons” that live inside ads above the normal search results. The sponsored results will take you to a special purchasing page that’s still hosted by Google where you can pick the product and how soon you want to get it — all without leaving Google. Users can store their credit cards. The tests will be mobile only will only run on a small percentage of search traffic. The new ads should show in “the coming weeks.”

Discussion Section Links:  

http://recode.net/2015/05/12/a-month-with-the-apple-watch-does-it-pass-the-test-of-time/

http://9to5mac.com/2015/05/18/apple-readies-first-significant-apple-watch-updates-tvkit-sdk-for-apple-tv/

 

Pick of the Day:

Christian writes:

Matt from Thirsty California:

I wanted to respond to Friday’s discussion on self driving cars and provide a recommended read on the subject of computer automation.

Darren touched on the problems of degraded response time and automation bias which are just a few of the issues that come with computer automation. These weren’t given much talk time on the show, but if listeners wanted to learn more about these sort of issues and the pros and cons of computer automation I would recommend the book The Glass Cage (Automation and us) by Nicholas Carr.

The book does a great job of talking about the rise of automation, focusing a lot on the human element of the equation, and goes beyond the technology to discuss what appears to be happening to us because of it. I found it fascinating and would recommend it to anyone who wants to take a deeper look into the impact that things like self driving cars have on everyone’s daily lives.

 

Messages: 

Mike, from the sunny and dusty Pilbara (Pilbara : pill-bar-rah) region of Western Australia wrote in about our self-driving car discussion on Friday:

As a 26 year veteran of the Australian transport industry I have mixed feelings about self driving vehicles. It isn’t that I’m afraid I will be replaced by a machine, it’s that there are a huge amount of human and environmental factors that technology will have difficulty coping with.

In show 2494 Roger suggested an automated car may continue in an endless loop on a freeway until the human occupant re-asserted manual control and moved it out of the traffic stream. My immediate thought was “what if the driver had a heart attack or was rendered unconscious by illness or had a stroke?”. Sure, they would be safer in a self driving car because it wouldn’t leave the road and crash but no one would be aware of the need for medical assistance or an undertaker – the vehicle would continue on its merry way without some kind of dead-mans switch or Apple watch like health monitoring device linked to the vehicle.

Also, trucks would have to undergo radical redesign to enable monitoring of every system, moving part and point-of-failure that an experienced truck driver looks for subconsciously while driving down the road. I’m talking about flat tyres/blowouts, loads shifting, wheel bearing failures, air lines for braking systems rupturing or becoming uncoupled, unforeseen structural failures of equipment such as suspension/spare tyre or equipment racks and how about damaged or fatigued fuel lines. These are all actual things I have had to deal with and quite often the only indication of the problem has been a smell, a barely heard but definitely “wrong” noise that shouldn’t be there or, in one instance, a faint vibration felt through the seat of my pants ( I kid you not! ). After many millions of kilometres and untold thousands of hours behind the wheel my ability to detect problems in my vehicle has been honed to an almost sixth sense.

On average I drive 10,500km every fortnight and would welcome an autopilot to take care of the less difficult and boring stretches of road but, until I know it can watch over all 55.5 metres and 118 tonne of my triple roadtrain, I will just have to keep doing it myself.

=====

Tuesday’s guest:  Tom Merritt is Back with Patrick Beja

 

 

 

 

Veronica Belmont and Roger Chang fill in for Tom and take your questions on the Apple Watch!

MP3

 

Using a Screen Reader? click here

Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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: Veronica Belmont and Roger Chang

Headlines: 

The NY Times is reporting that Apple has acquired a bay area based GPS Start Up Coherent Navigation.  Coherent Navigation works on high-precision navigation systems and creating commercial navigation services based on partnerships with companies like Boeing and Iridium. It is unclear exactly how Apple will use the company’s services or technology. The terms of Apple’s acquisition of Coherent Navigation were not disclosed with the company stating in email “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.” But self-driving cars… I mean, right?

Reuters reports that a US appeals court reversed part of a $930 million dollar verdict that Apple won in 2012 against Samsung.
The US Court of Appeals in Washington, DC ruled today that Apple’s claim of “trade-dress dilution” — the way a product is packaged or presented, could not be protected because it was related to the functioning of the phone and would have granted Apple a monopoly on the features forever. However the court did uphold the patent infringement violations. The appeals court ordered that the original court in San Jose reconsider the $382 million dollar part of the ruling.

TechCrunch reports that LG’s G4 smartphone is rolling out for sale worldwide “over the next month. “The phone is already on sale in Korea, and will show up next in Hong Kong, followed by Turkey, Russia and Singapore. After that” most of Europe, North America, the Middle East, Africa, South and Central– oh you know what? Just the rest of the world. In case you forgot, the G4’s screen uses “quantum display” tech, which promises better color reproduction, there’s a redesigned camera which now sports a larger sensor — a 16-megapixel rear camera and eight-megapixel front camera — and a 64-bit hexacore CPU Snapdragon 808 processor to power the show. The G4 includes a hand-crafted leather back, and subtle curve for improved feel in the hand. The price will vary worldwide, but early reports suggest it will retail for around $600 without a contract, or near $200 as part of a U.S. carrier deal.

Fusion has a great article about the challenges that US federal election regulators are facing with presidential candidates who are using Snapchat to communicate with voters. The main selling point of Snapchat is disappearing messages. So if someone wanted to break some federal election rules via Snapchat, how would anyone at the FEC know? A spokesperson for the FEC told Fusion that the commission has “internet regulations but they don’t specifically cover apps.”

GCHQ staff, intelligence officer and police in the UK have been given immunity for hacking into computers, laptops and mobile phones under new laws that were never fully debated in parliament according to The Guardian.  Rewriting of a key clause of the Computer Misuse Act exempts law enforcement officials from the prohibition on breaking into other people’s laptops, databases, mobile phones or digital systems. It came into force in May. Addressing the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which deals with complaints about the intelligence services and surveillance, lawyers for Privacy International said they had only been informed of the alteration earlier this week. Last May, Privacy International, along with seven internet and communications service providers, filed complaints with the IPT challenging GCHQ’s hacking activities. The full complaint is due to be heard in the autumn.

President Obama finally claimed his own twitter account. Re/code reports that the new verified account is @POTUS run by President Obama. According to the first tweet from the account Obama will actually be the one tweeting from the account. The more familiar @BarackObama account is run by members of his staff. The account added more than 280000 followers in its first hour.

CNET reports that Google teamed up with the University of Washington to create more than 10,000 time lapse-videos showing the evolution of some of the world’s landmarks, using 86 million photos gathered from publicly available photo sharing services like Flickr. An automated process finds similar images and then researchers arranged them in chronological order and then used a process called “geometric stabilization” to create the same perspective from varying images.

CNET is reporting that the FBI has applied for a search warrant on Chris Roberts. The security expert who tweeted about allegedly commandeering a United Airlines plane’s systems. The warrant application claims Roberts “exploited/gained accèss to the in-flight entertainment system and he overwrote code on the airplane’s Thrust Management Computer and commanded the system to issue a climb command. Roberts has admitted to Wired that he infiltrated the plane’s in-flight networks around 15 times solely for observation. Roberts hasn’t been charged with a crime.

 

News From You:

the_big_endian sent us this story from the Verge about Microsoft backtracking on its promise on free updates to Windows 10 for people running pirated Windows. The confusion has revolved around Microsoft’s offer to give free Windows 10 updates to people running Windows 7 and 8.1. Now, we’re finally getting a full clarification: there’s no free upgrade at all. Pirates just have to pay. Microsoft says that it’s planning to run some “very attractive Windows 10 upgrade offers” that will allow people with pirated copies to move to an official version. Specific details of that haven’t been announced yet, but that likely won’t come until we actually hear about when Windows 10 will arrive. For now, it’s still targeted for this summer.

jmbburg26 sent us The Verge report about a sea turtle who was struck by a boat propeller while swimming in its natural habitat in Turkey. The accident shattered the animal’s upper and lower jaw, which meant the turtle couldn’t eat on its own. So a group at Pamukkale (Pah-MOO-kal-AY) University teamed up with BTech, a Turkish biotechnology company specializing in 3D-printed prosthetics, and printed a medical-grade titanium turtle jaw. So far the turtle has not yet rejected the jaw, but it has a ways to go before it can be released back into the wild.

motang sent us the third Verge article which reports that Google will begging to test “buy buttons” that live inside ads above the normal search results. The sponsored results will take you to a special purchasing page that’s still hosted by Google where you can pick the product and how soon you want to get it — all without leaving Google. Users can store their credit cards. The tests will be mobile only will only run on a small percentage of search traffic. The new ads should show in “the coming weeks.”

Discussion Section Links:  

http://recode.net/2015/05/12/a-month-with-the-apple-watch-does-it-pass-the-test-of-time/

http://9to5mac.com/2015/05/18/apple-readies-first-significant-apple-watch-updates-tvkit-sdk-for-apple-tv/

 

Pick of the Day:

Christian writes:

Matt from Thirsty California:

I wanted to respond to Friday’s discussion on self driving cars and provide a recommended read on the subject of computer automation.

Darren touched on the problems of degraded response time and automation bias which are just a few of the issues that come with computer automation. These weren’t given much talk time on the show, but if listeners wanted to learn more about these sort of issues and the pros and cons of computer automation I would recommend the book The Glass Cage (Automation and us) by Nicholas Carr.

The book does a great job of talking about the rise of automation, focusing a lot on the human element of the equation, and goes beyond the technology to discuss what appears to be happening to us because of it. I found it fascinating and would recommend it to anyone who wants to take a deeper look into the impact that things like self driving cars have on everyone’s daily lives.

 

Messages: 

Mike, from the sunny and dusty Pilbara (Pilbara : pill-bar-rah) region of Western Australia wrote in about our self-driving car discussion on Friday:

As a 26 year veteran of the Australian transport industry I have mixed feelings about self driving vehicles. It isn’t that I’m afraid I will be replaced by a machine, it’s that there are a huge amount of human and environmental factors that technology will have difficulty coping with.

In show 2494 Roger suggested an automated car may continue in an endless loop on a freeway until the human occupant re-asserted manual control and moved it out of the traffic stream. My immediate thought was “what if the driver had a heart attack or was rendered unconscious by illness or had a stroke?”. Sure, they would be safer in a self driving car because it wouldn’t leave the road and crash but no one would be aware of the need for medical assistance or an undertaker – the vehicle would continue on its merry way without some kind of dead-mans switch or Apple watch like health monitoring device linked to the vehicle.

Also, trucks would have to undergo radical redesign to enable monitoring of every system, moving part and point-of-failure that an experienced truck driver looks for subconsciously while driving down the road. I’m talking about flat tyres/blowouts, loads shifting, wheel bearing failures, air lines for braking systems rupturing or becoming uncoupled, unforeseen structural failures of equipment such as suspension/spare tyre or equipment racks and how about damaged or fatigued fuel lines. These are all actual things I have had to deal with and quite often the only indication of the problem has been a smell, a barely heard but definitely “wrong” noise that shouldn’t be there or, in one instance, a faint vibration felt through the seat of my pants ( I kid you not! ). After many millions of kilometres and untold thousands of hours behind the wheel my ability to detect problems in my vehicle has been honed to an almost sixth sense.

On average I drive 10,500km every fortnight and would welcome an autopilot to take care of the less difficult and boring stretches of road but, until I know it can watch over all 55.5 metres and 118 tonne of my triple roadtrain, I will just have to keep doing it myself.

=====

Tuesday’s guest:  Tom Merritt is Back with Patrick Beja

 

 

 

 

Jennie Josephson and Roger Chang host the Producer’s Choice edition of Daily Tech News Show with regular Friday team Darren Kitchen and Len Peralta. Self-driving cars! Rampaging Cows! Spin Doctors! It’s gonna be a Friday, all right.

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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: Darren Kitchen, Jennie Josephson, Len Peralta and Roger Chang

Headlines: 

TechCrunch reports that Google announced that it will begin testing autonomous vehicles on public roads in Mountain View this summer. The self-piloted vehicles will be limited to a maximum speed of 25 miles/hour, and each will include a safety driver, who can take over at any point. Google said its fleet has logged nearly a million miles of cumulative driving within its test facilities which Google says is equal to 75 years of human driving experience. Much more on this to come in the discussion section, but right now everyone gets one word: Roger? Darren?

UNITED AIRLINES ANNOUNCED this week that it’s launching a bug bounty program inviting researchers to report bugs in its websites, apps and online portals. It’s believed to be the first bounty program offered by an airline. Wired reports that United’s program specifically excludes “bugs on onboard Wi-Fi, entertainment systems or avionics” and United notes that “[a]ny testing on aircraft or aircraft systems such as inflight entertainment or inflight Wi-Fi” could result in a criminal investigation. Researchers who report vulnerabilities in the airline’s web sites or apps will be rewarded in mileage points. The awards range from 50,000 points for cross-site scripting bugs to 1 million for high-severity vulnerabilities that could allow an attacker to conduct remote-code execution on a United system.

According to The Wall Street Journal, activist investor Carl Icahn has invested $100 million in ride-sharing startup Lyft. The money is an extension of a round of funding Lyft announced in March that values the three-year-old company at $2.5 billion. In an interview, Mr. Icahn said putting money into San Francisco-based Lyft is a good deal when compared to larger rival Uber Technologies valued at $41 billion. Jonathan Christodoro, one of Icahn’s managing directors, will be added to Lyft’s board of directors. Uber has expanded to more than 250 cities internationally. To date, Lyft operates in 65 cities, only in the United States. So, Carl Icahn is bargain hunting.

The Next Web has a story from the Financial Times  reporting that “an executive at a European carrier confirmed that it and several of its peers are planning to start blocking adverts this year” and will be available as an “opt-in service” however they are also considering applying the technology across their entire mobile networks. According to the report’s anonymous sources, the carriers have installed software from Israeli ad-blocking firm Shine in their data centers to block advertising in Web pages and apps, but not social networks. The plan – which would be devastating to companies reliant on advertising – is not limited to a single European network. Its apparent aim is to break Google’s hold on advertising.Windows 10 Mobile’s latest build “10080” adds some important updates according to TechCrunch. The biggest is the first look of the Windows Store for mobile which will allow MS to deliver universal Office apps plus music, movies, and TV shows. Other features include an Xbox app, a music app, a new camera app and a video app.

KrebsOnSecurity reports a cache of data apparently stolen from spyware service MSpy has appeared on a TOR website. The data includes account information but also 4 million events including photos, calendar data, corporate email threads, and more. MSpy promotes itself as a way to monitor family members and boasts over a million users (or jealous lovers). When syrupticiously installed on iOS or Android, it collects messages from SMS, Skype, WhatsApp and Snapchat along with every keystoke typed.

Oculus has revealed the recommended specifications for PC rigs powering the Oculus Rift headset according to Tech Crunch. Recommended: NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290 equivalent or greater, Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater, and 8GB+ RAM. Required: Windows 7 SP1 or newer, 2x USB 3.0 ports, and HDMI 1.3 video output supporting a 297MHz clock via a direct output architecture. In their blog post, Oculus’ Chef Architect Atman Binstock says GPU performance is highly important, since you’re basically running two, 2160×1200 displays at 90Hz simultaneously, which takes around three times the GPU power of your average full HD, 1080p rendering. Dropped frames are also fine on traditional desktop monitors, for the most part, while missing frames in VR results in considerable discomfort. Binstock also notes that Oculus still wants to develop for Mac and Linux, but that at this stage, they “don’t have a timeline.”

IGN reports that Harmonix, maker of the upcoming Rock Band 4 revealed the first six songs in the new game, only one of which I really know, can you guess which one?

Avenged Sevenfold – “Hail to the King”
Fleetwood Mac – “You Make Loving Fun”
Jack White – “Lazaretto”
The Killers – “Somebody Told Me”
Spin Doctors – “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong”
The Who – “The Seeker”

Spin Doctors! Hey 90’s, Great to have you back! Rock Band 4 is coming some time this fall, and Harmonix just did a live demo a little while back so check out that video which we’ll link to in the show notes

Polygon reports that Blizzard’s Diablo 3 has been overrun by cows in honor of the third anniversary of the game. Battle.net will only say that “Rumors allege” that townships throughout Khanduras are being overrun by bipedal, bardiche-bearing bovine, and then strenuously denies any knowledge of their existence. The event is homage to The Secret Cow Level in Diablo 2 and will continue until dusk on May 21st.

Engadget reports that Hulu will pick up the Mindy Project, starting with a 26-episode fourth season. The show, named for star Mindy Kaling, already streams on the TV subscription service as one of several Fox series available there, so the news isn’t too surprising.  There’s no word on a premiere date just yet, but when it arrives, it’ll be one of the many Hulu original series that you really mean to watch but just haven’t yet. Cancelled broadcast shows are getting revived online regularly these days, as Yahoo nabbed Community and Netflix is no stranger to picking up discarded series. All this magic and STILL NO QUANTUM LEAP. Strive to put right what once went wrong, Hulu!

News From You:

habichuelacondulce sent us this warning about mobile payments and passwords. Starbucks app users are getting their bank accounts drained by password-guessing thieves according to Gizmodo. People with Starbucks rewards can link the coffee-payment app to their bank accounts, credit cards, or PayPal accounts. Scammers buy gift cards then sell them illegally. Consumer journalist Bob Sullivan said Starbucks mobile payments fraud are a big deal with the company processing $2 billion in mobile transactions last year. Starbucks has acknowledged that this scam is happening but says it hasn’t been hacked, and that its hacked customers likely used bad passwords.

anotherjmartin submitted the ArsTechnica article with the amazing headline:

Humanity weeps as Candy Crush Saga comes preinstalled with Windows 10. Microsoft announced that King’s addictive game will be the Minesweeper of Windows 10, and will include cross-play options for iOS and Android devices. No word if there’s an opt-out for those who want to use the new Windows operating system to actually work.

thelouisguy sent us a TorrentFreak article about angry YouTube man Benajmin Ligeri, who has filed a lawsuit at the US District Court for the District of Rhode Island which lists Google, Viacom, Lionsgate and another YouTuber as defendants, Ligeri bemoans a restrictive YouTube user contract and a system that unfairly handles copyright complaints. Ligeri says that he has uploaded content to YouTube under the name BetterStream for purposes including “criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and/or research,” but never in breach of copyright. Nevertheless, he claims to have fallen foul of YouTube’s automated anti-piracy systems when he uploaded what he claims is a parody of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo movie, only to have it removed by YouTube after another YouTube user filed a complaint.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/15/google-self-driving-cars-mountain-view/

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32691887

http://www.wired.com/2015/03/dash-cam-videos-remind-us-crazy-roads-will-self-driving-cars/

http://www.wired.com/2014/12/nokia-here-autonomous-car-maps/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/aarontilley/2015/01/06/bmws-self-driving-car-parks-itself-and-picks-you-up-when-youre-ready-to-go/

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/28/google-self-driving-car-how-does-it-work

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/197262-its-2015-self-driving-cars-are-more-than-a-promise

 

Pick of the Day:

Christian writes:

Hey, guys. With all the recent wearable discussion, I thought I’d submit one of my favorite devices for a pick of the day: the new Garmin Fenix 3 fitness/smartwatch.

With Apple Watch, Android Wear, and Pebble Time getting most of the smartwatch attention, it’s easy to overlook the Fenix. But if you’re looking for a smartwatch that is a watch first, fitness tracker second, and a smart device last, this is it.

The best features of the Fenix 3 are:
– Always-on color display (highly visible in bright light).
– Built-in GPS (so you don’t need your phone to track runs).
– Both activity (steps, goals, etc.) and hardcore training features.
– Extensive outdoor and hiking features (compass, altimeter barometer, etc.).
– iOS and Android compatible.
– Smart notifications from your phone (customizable per app).
– Water-resistant to 100 meters.

I could go on and on about why I think, for many people, the Fenix 3 is the best smartwatch, but it basically reduces to this: it’s a watch first, activity/fitness device second, and an extension of your smartphone last. For me, that’s exactly the right priority.

David Wilke writes in:

Hello Tom, Jenny, & co-host from just south of lovely Cleveland….Columbus. A few months ago I lost my pebble watch. I’ve been holding out on a replacement decision pending the Pebble II & Apple watch release.

I was in the golf store the other day and all the golf GPS widgets and wearables caught my eye….but they were all geared toward golf. I asked if they had any wearable’s that do all fitness stuff plus notifications….They pulled out the Garmin Vivoactive which they had just got in, but was not yet on display.

Similar to the new Pebble it has a color e-ink display but the Vivoactive is touch screen….just swipe the display to bring up notifications, calendar, music player, weather, and activity. Additionally the Vivoactive has built in GPS and specific tracking apps for Run, Bike, & Walk both stationary/treadmill or outside. It also has a swimming tracking app as the watch is water resistant to 5 ATM’s (I think 50 feet or so). Oh…and yes it has a golf app that you upload your most frequent courses to the watch, and viola! you have your golf GPS.

It’s very lightweight and has a very similar look/feel to the original Pebble and they are slowly building out their app store so you can download different faces, etc….I’m bummed I lost my pebble but I’m pleasantly surprised with how Garmin is becoming competitive in the smart-watch space.

Messages: 

Paul Franz writes:

In the discussion on Thursday (May 14th, 2015), I think the comparison of Walmart to Amazon is off base. I think Walmart is missing their greatest strength and that is their stores being every where. What they should do is use the Best Buy model. That is to buy things that are in the local store and just have them ready for pickup. I find BestBuy’s service in this category to be awesome. No looking through the store for the items that you are looking for. The items are available within the same day. If Walmart had the same ability I would love it. It would save a lot of time that is normally wasted looking for items through out the store.

Josh Gardner, who wrote an email we read last week, wrote us again! He writes:

“Yesterday my email regarding the audio spec that will be used on Blu-ray was read on the show and I incorrectly stated that DTS had not yet announced their audio spec (Dolby has, it will be called Dolby Atmos as a quick reminder), apparently DTS DID announce a spec last week and I missed it, it will be called DTS:X, aside from the afore mentioned compressed audio (Dolby Digital) and uncompressed audio (DTS), DTS:X will NOT use discreet channels like Dolby Digital, instead, it will use an algorithm to extrapolate your particular speaker setup, supporting a limitless number of speakers in any shape and positioning.

The Blu-ray spec will support DTS:X and Dolby Digital Atmos.

=====

Monday’s guest:  Veronica Belmont & Roger Chang!

 

Justin Robert Young fills in for Tom, with guest Andrew Mayne. Walmart v Amazon is discussed.

MP3

 

Using a Screen Reader? click here

Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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 fills in as host for Tom and Andrew Mayne joins!

Headlines: 

Apple’s Beats-based streaming music service will be renamed “Apple Music” and integrate deep social networking for artists, according to 9 to 5 mac. The service will allow artists to have pages so they can post samples, photos, video, concert information and content from other artists. iTunes users will have the ability to comment on and like posts from artists but won’t have user social network profiles like Ping. Apple Music will be introduced at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference Kickoff keynote on Monday, June 8th.

Meanwhile Rdio has launched a new premium tier allowing listeners to stream music on-demand. Rdio Select costs $3.99 per month and offers unlimited streaming radio without ads. You can stream up to 25 on-demand tracks per day or store them for offline playback. Plus you can swap out tracks for alternatives but you’re still limited to 25 streams or downloads per day. The new tier is available for users in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and South Africa. Other countries will be added in the future.

Wal-Mart challenges Amazon with unlimited shipping service for $50 per year. The service promises 70,000 items at launch and 3 day shipping. According to a company spokesman the program will be invite only initially and will evolve with feedback from early customers. Will this be a legitimite comeptitor to Amazon Prime? We pick apart that and more in the discussion section a little later on.

VentureBeat is reporting that Google has announced six new apps for its $35 streaming media stick: CBS All Access, HGTV, FOX Now, FXNOW, Pluto TV, and Haystack. Pluto TV curates over 100 channels of news, music, sports, web, and TV shows while Haystack presents trending TV news. You can get the apps from chromecast.com/apps.

Windows 10 Mobile’s latest build “10080” adds some important updates according to TechCrunch. The biggest is the first look of the Windows Store for mobile which will allow MS to deliver universal Office apps plus music, movies, and TV shows. Other features include an Xbox app, a music app, a new camera app and a video app.

Polygon reports Konami’s big focus moving forward will be mobile, not AAA games, according to a translated interview with the company’s new CEO Hideki Hayakawa.

Excited for the Mario themed Candy Crush knock off? Or Zelda enhanced Clash of Clans? Well you can hold on to your Rupees because according to Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata the venerable video game titan won’t obsess over trends to avoid ‘imitating’ other games as they venture into the mobile space. He adds “I don’t think we can realize what we aspire to by simply imitating a past success formula.”

The New York Times reports that reddit announced an update to its site-wide policies today that explicitly prohibits harassment against users. As of today, users who view or experience harassment will be able to email reddit moderators who can remove content and ban offenders from the site. reddit defines harassment as “continued actions” that would make someone “conclude that Reddit is not a safe platform to express their ideas.” The company said the number one reason reddit users do not recommend their site to others is to avoid exposing friends to hate and offensive content.

So it turns out thieves can bypass Apple Watch passcode to pair a stolen watch with their own phone. The Verge has compiled a bunch of reporting from 9 to 5 mac and iDownloadblog and concluded that the Apple Watch incredibly easy to steal. Because it’s very easy to reset an Apple Watch if you forget the password–just hold the side button until the menu with three options (power off, power reserve, and lock device) apears, then force touch that screen to unlock a hidden option to erase all content and settings. The watch has to be connected to its charger to activate the erase function. Which is exactly what a thief would do the moment he or she stole your Apple Watch. Time for an Activation Lock update, perhaps?

Biz Tech Africa reports that Safaricom a Kenyan mobile network operator has announced the launch of “The Big Box” a set top device that allows subscribers to watch TV and share broadband connectivity. The device will connect to Safaricoms 3G and 4G network and offer subscribers access to several high def TV channels as well as on demand video content. The device also services as a Wi-Fi hotspot for up to ten users. Subscribers have the option of several plans based on their needs.

Re/code is reporting that Sharp secured a $1.9 billion dollar bailout. Under the deal, main lenders Mizuho Bank and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ will inject a combined 200 billion yen ($1.7 billion) in a debt-for-equity swap. In return for the funding, which will be used to repay debt and finance investments, Sharp will also sell its headquarters and said it might seek a partner for its TV business in North America and 5000 job cuts in its global workforce. Sharp posted an annual loss of 222 billion yen. This is Sharp’s 2nd bank led rescue in 3 years.

Engadget reports that Samsung Wallet will stop taking purchases on June 30th in anticipation of Samsung Pay, which is scheduled to arrive in September. Any reservations and tickets in Wallet will still be valid through partner apps, but coupons will not be available.

News From You:

Starfuryzeta wanted to make sure we saw that the US House of Representatives voted 338-88 for the US Freedom Act which rejects the NSA’s bulk collection of phone records. The vote heads to the Senate with support from the White House, intelligence agency leaders and the US federal appeals court. However, the Senate leadership wants to extend the existing language of the Patriot Act through 2020.

Spsheridan sent us the The Verge report that the Wolfram search tool can now identify any item in an uploaded picture. According to creator Stephen Wolfram, “It won’t always get it right, but most of the time I think it does remarkably well.” The Wolfram Language Image Identification Project was fed “a few tens of millions” of images to learn, including tricky images of a cat in a spacesuit, a sloth in a party hat, and Chewbacca. When given an image of Tom Merritt, the image identifier pronounced that he is a person.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/13/us-wal-mart-stores-shipping-idUSKBN0NY2NK20150513

http://news.walmart.com/news-archive/2014/10/15/walmart-ceo-outlines-growth-strategy-at-annual-meeting-for-the-investment-community

 

Pick of the Day:

Messages: 

Alex Hanna writes:

Howdy Justin, Andrew Jennie, Roger and crew (too numerous to mention),

I’ve got a pick for you, it’s a website that’s been around for a year or so but arguably has increased in usefulness over time.

https://haveibeenpwned.com/

It is a very simple site that does one VERY helpful thing, it scans through known data breaches for an email or username that you enter. Why is this helpful? As the saying goes, knowing is half the battle. If you see that your information has been compromised on a website, you can change your password or take other similar actions to re-secure your information.

The site also has some good info on large data breaches that have been in the news if you want the pants scarred off of you. I hope this helps people be more secure!

Yesterday Tom and Scott discussed the announcement of a new Ultra Blu-Ray format which supports 4k video. Joshua Gardner wrote in about that “unspecified audio format” they mentioned:

Just an FYI, the reason the audio format is unspecified is because there is an audio war going on. Dolby is fighting for Dolby Atmos which involves the traditional seven speaker setup plus a subwoofer but also adds two speakers into the ceiling for additional height. Dolby has stated this sound format is expandable to as many speakers as you wish, although, they have stated that most audio will be mastered to support a maximum of twelve speakers plus a subwoofer (discreet channels) requiring the receiver to create additional audio channels for anything over twelve channels.

DTS has yet to announce a sound format but should very soon.

One of the primary differences between DTS and Dolby Digital is DTS uses uncompressed audio (which consumes more disk space) vs Dolby Digital which sacrifices a fraction of audio quality and frequency response both on the upper and lower end to use about one quarter of the required space. It should be noted that most people do not have high enough end equipment to hear the difference.

=====

Friday’s guest: It’s Producers Choice with DTNS contributor Darren Kitchen and artist-in-residence Len Peralta

Scott Johnson joins the show to talk about Facebook’s attempt to host major news stories inside its mobile app. Is it trying to eat the Internet after all?

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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

Show Notes

Today’s guests: Scott Johnson

Headlines: 

Facebook announced a new tool called Instant Articles that it hopes will encourage publishers to host their articles on Facebook. The new product reduces the average load time of an article and incorporates interactive features like the ability to zoom in and explore high resolution images by tilting the phone, and the ability to like and comment on individual parts of an article in-line. Publishers can either sell ads themselves and keep all the money or let Facebook do it and share revenue. Tracking can be done through ComScore and other analytics tools. Facebook is working with nine launch partners for Instant Articles: The New York Times, National Geographic, BuzzFeed, NBC, The Atlantic, The Guardian, BBC News, Spiegel and Bild.

Continue reading DTNS 2492 – 10 Windows One Garden →

Patrick Beja joins the show to discuss the ad tech Verizon is buying with AOL and what it plans to do with its content publications.

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: 

Verizon announced today it has signed an agreement to buy AOL for $50 a share an estimated value of $4.4 billion AOL will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Verizon. Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam said AOL’s “advertising platform provides a key tool for us to develop future revenue streams.” AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, who will stay on as the subsidiary’s leader, said the combination “creates a unique and scaled mobile and OTT media platform for creators, consumers and advertisers.” The deal is expected to be completed this summer.

The Verge reports that Skype Translator is now available for anyone with a Windows 8 or Windows 10 PC to try.  The software can translate English, Spanish, Italian, and Mandarin in real time, converting the original language into either text or audio.

The Verge reports on a new drone called Lily that you can throw into the air and ignore as it films whatever you’re doing. You have to strap a small GPS tracker to your wrist and then Lily uses computer vision technology to recognize its owner. The tracking device also records audio that syncs to the video, shot in 1080p at 60 frames per second. It can also shoot 12-megapixel stills. Oh and its waterproof to IP67. What it doesn’t have is avoidance detection, so you should only use it in wide open spaces. The device goes on sale today for pre-order at $499, a discount from the planned $999 retail price.

ReCode reports Google’s Android One program for affordable smartphones added Turkey as its seventh country.  General Mobile will produce the devices starting around US$260. Android One devices are normally supposed to sell for around $100 but electronics in Turkey generally have higher prices.

Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company MediaTek is prepping the launch of a 10-core chip called Helio X20 according to Engadget. The chip is a 20nm “tri-cluster” design consisting of two 2.5GHz Cortex-A72 cores, four 2GHz Cortex-A53 cores and four 1.4GHz Cortex-A53 cores. While all ten cores can run simultaneously MediaTek General Manger of International Corporate Sales, Finbarr Moynihan said the chip’s software will pick the ideal cluster to use depending on power and processing needs. The first commercial device using the chip will arrive in consumer devices by the end of the year at the earliest.

ZDNet reports that Samsung has unveiled a new line of chips for Internet of Things devices, called the Artik. Artik One is the size of a ladybug with a 9-axis motion sensor, Bluetooth Low Energy support.
Artik Five is the size of a 25-cent coin with a video decoder and encoder. And Artik 10 comes with an HD encoder and decoder, 5.1 audio meant for home servers and personal clouds. Samsung also has established an open source-based developer platform and starter kit, which will become available immediately.

TechCrunch reports Aliyun, Alibaba’s cloud computing unit announced a joint-venture with Dubai’s Meraas, to create apps, cloud architecture and big data tools for clients. The venture will be located in Dubai and serve the wider region. According to IDC, spending on ICT products and services in the Middle East and Africa will exceed $270 billion in 2015.

News From You:

Spsheridan sent us this story from 9 to 5 Google that following a Reddit AMA on government surveillance, Google admitted that while Hangouts conversations are encrypted, it does not use end-to-end encryption. That means Google can tap into sessions when it receives a government court order to do so. Google’s Transparency Report reveals it has received 26 US government wiretap requests from the beginning of 2013 to the middle of last year. The company did not identify how many of these, if any, were for Hangouts.

Drtolbert submitted the Engadget story that Warner Music Group announced today it made more money in Q2 from streaming licenses than it did from digital downloads. Streaming revenue rose 33% while digital sales rose 7%.

Habichuelacondulce sent us the Gizmodo report that researchers at MIT have solved one of the great artistic condundrums of our time. Sort of. A group of scientists led by YiChang Shih have developed an algorithm that can extract and automatically remove reflections in an image, like when you take a shot of something through a window. The catch is that the window has to be double-paned or very thick. Gizmodo helpfully points out that in addition to Adobe Photoshop, the military might also benefit from the algorithm, to help robots look through windows and not get confused by their own reflection.

 

Discussion Section Links:  

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/verizon-to-acquire-aol-300081541.html

http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/12/verizon-aol-4-4b/?ncid=rss

http://recode.net/2015/05/12/verizon-buys-aol-for-4-4-billion/

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/05/12/verizons-deal-to-buy-aol-will-make-life-uncomfortable-for-techcrunch-and-engadget/

http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/05/verizon-buying-aol-for-4-4-billion-calls-it-a-digital-trailblazer/

http://adage.com/article/media/ad-tech-is-king-verizon-aol/298574/

http://fortune.com/2015/05/12/verizon-aol-content-advertising/

http://recode.net/2015/05/12/aol-in-talks-to-spin-off-huffpost-as-part-of-acquisition-deal/

http://www.dailydot.com/politics/verizon-sugarstring-us-surveillance-net-neutrality/

 

Pick of the Day:

Devulu writes:

I wanted to share the following website with your listeners.

https://www.whynopadlock.com/

When creating a HTTPS secure website one sometimes needs to troubleshoot why Chrome or Firefox do not display the lock icon usually associated with HTTPS.

The usual culprits are external elements which are being loaded over HTTP, so https://www.whynopadlock.com/ helps you check for those elements and fix them.

Messages: 

Alastair Mitchell from Edinburgh, Scotland:

Just wanted to contributed to the discussion on wearables from yesterday’s episode (2490).

The majority of wearables on the market just now are focussed on people losing weight but if you’re someone like myself who needs to gain weight they are quite unhelpful. Because my focus is to gaining weight I mostly do weight training at the gym rather than cardio which wearables right now can’t track well.

I played with a Fitbit for a month or two but that was purely for geek reasons and the information I got from it was interesting but not beneficial for myself.

A wearable which focuses on overall health rather than losing weight would be really interesting to me but I’m not sure how many others want such a device.
Great show, makes my bus to work much shorter.

Rich from Lovely Cleveland:

Your discussion on the issue of interpreting the info provided by wearables left out one player. Microsoft is making an interesting push to be the service that will work cross platform to cull and interpret all of your health data. They support their Health app and Band across all the major OSes, and seem more interested in people feeding the data in than forcing people to exclusively buy into their platform (although I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if you did). Their service is still nascent, so we’ll see if Microsoft lives up to their lofty goals, but I like what they are proposing better than the device lock-in that a lot of wearable makers seem to be forcing (although I guess by being cross-platform it makes it easier for MS to lock you into their service, but at least it feels like a bigger gilded cage).

Heather from Charleston, SC:

Your conversation with Veronica and Ron on Monday got me thinking about how I’ve benefited from fitness tracking. I recently started on a new medication, and one of the potential side effects is an increased resting heart rate. Since I have heart rate data for several months back, I was able to look at the new data, see a significant increase over average, and then have a conversation with my doctor on how to proceed. Without that trend, it would have been harder to determine if there was a meaningful change.

Russell writes:

On yesterday’s show you were discussing that 14% of Zappos staff took an exit package based on the new management approach. We look at statistics like that as a part of the analysis that we do for our work and wanted to offer some perspective on that number. According to Gallup’s ‘State of the American Workplace’ report from 2013 30% of the workforce is actively engaged and inspired at work, 52% are present but not fully engaged and 18% are actively disengaged and looking to make a change. The 14% at Zappos seen in this context might actually be a positive and given the factors associated with career path, etc. this number might actually be low. As always, there are many forces that impact things like this so this is just some conjecture based on some recent statistics.

Great to hear Veronica on her first ‘regular’ appearance last night.

Thanks for all that you do!

Bill Strait writes:

I just wanted to clarify a few points about the blockchain getting more buzz than bitcoin. The Bitcoin Blockchain is the world’s most secure public ledger. Why? Because it has the most hashing power of any distributed computer in the world. This hashing power isn’t coming from volunteers, it’s coming from bitcoin miners. Miners secure the network in exchange for bitcoin. If bitcoin becomes worthless, the miners go away. Without numerous geographically dispersed miners the blockchain is no longer secure. You cannot separate Bitcoin from it’s blockchain, but you can make other blockchains that compete with it for miners. If someone wants to put together a proposal for a Dollar Blockchain I’m all ears. For now, I’m going where the hash rate is.

=====

Wednesday’s guest:  Scott Johnson