Jonathan Strickland joins the show to give us some more insight on VR as we see new announcements from Sony’ Project Morpheus, Valve’s Vive and more.

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Show Notes

Today’s guest: Jon Strickland,  writer, howstuffworks  and host of FWThinking.com

Headlines: 

Ars Technica reports Sony Worldwide Studios president Shu Yoshida announced that the Project Morpheus VR headset will come to consumers in the first half of 2016. Morpheus will have a 5.7-inch 1920 x 1080 OLED display with a 100-degree field of view and a 120 Hz refresh rate. The headset will also have 9 LED trackers for 360-degree tracking. Separately Sony announced it has sold 20  million PlayStation 4 units worldwide as of March 1, making it the fastest selling game console the company has ever made.

Ars Technica reports Nvidia announced the Shield game console, running Android TV on a Tegra X1 chip capable of handling 4K video. It can also access games from Nvidia’s GRID cloud-gaming service which should come out of beta in May. Users can choose a subscription tier at 720p 30 fps or 1080p 60fps and starting in June buy or rent additional games from the GRID store. Users with a GeForce-powered PC can also stream their entire Steam library to a Shield on the same network. Shield will be available in early May for $199 including one gamepad.

http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/03/shield-set-top-box/

http://shield.nvidia.com/support/nvidia-grid/faq/1

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9046/nvidia-grid-game-streaming-service-to-become-commercial-service

As the Verge tells it, in a surprise appearance at Epic Games’ GDC 2015 event, NVIDIA co-founder Jen-Hsun Huang announced the Titan X, Nvidia’s most powerful GPU to date. The GPU will contain 8 billion transistors and 12 GB of VRAM. Sites like Anandtech have speculated the GPU to be an enlarged Maxwell processor possibly featuring a 384-bit memory bus. Nvidia’s own GPU technology conference happens in two weeks and more details about Titan X are expected then.

Engadget reports on Valve’s announcement of a VR input System and Lighthouse, a room-scale tracking system that will work with Valve VR headsets like the Vive coming from HTC later this year. The system can integrate into TVs, monitors, headsets, input devices or mobile devices and will be made available freely to hardware manufacturers. Valve will make a developer version of their VR headset available this spring.

Polygon reports Valve will release Steam Link in November, for streaming games from computers running Steam at 1080p and 60 Hz. It will cost $50, the same price as the Steam controller. . Steam Machines will also launch in November. Valve also introduced a successor to their Source game engine Source 2 for free. A special version will be compatible with the Vulkan 3D graphics API. No release date though.

http://www.polygon.com/2015/3/3/8145263/valve-steam-link-steam-controller-pricing-release-date

The Verge reports Oculus Chief Technology officer John Carmack said that Oculus will go forward “as hard as we can” to sell the next version of the Samsung Gear VR. While Carmack couldn’t say the date he said they had one and pointed out Samsung has two big announcements per year. The next one of those would be an autumn announcement when a new Galaxy Note is usually unveiled. No word on the PC version of the Oculus.

Cnet reports that Instagram is expanding the types of ads it shows, introducing a “carousel” that allows advertisers to post a sequence of photos and a link to a website. Instagram said the goal is to make it easier for users to interact with a brand. No word on actual Instagram users getting a carousel.

GigaOm reports a study from the Alliance for Affordable Internet shows that for more than two billion people, fixed-line broadband costs 40% of monthly income and mobile broadband 10%. The UN affordability target is 5% of monthly income. Almost 60% of global households are unconnected. Women and the rural poor have the hardest time affording Internet. Costa Rica, Colombia and Peru received top marks for having solid affordable infrastructure rollout plans. Policy areas that need attention include competition-friendly environments and good spectrum allocation.

Yesterday, Patrick and I were wondering if former US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton was using AOL or Yahoo for her personal email account that she used while in officer. Turns out she was much smarter than that. Engadget reports the former Secretary of State ran her own email server while in office. The Associated Press learned that Clinton used an email server registered to her home. It’s not clear where the server was or who ran it. If the server was in her house, she would have even had the Secret Service offering physical protection.

Mashable has a story up covering Uber’s acquisition of mapping start-up deCarta. deCarta focuses on location-based features, including mapping, local search and turn by turn navigation. 30 out of 40 deCarta employees will remain with Uber once the deal closes, including the CEO and President Kim Fennell. deCarta will continue to operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Uber, but will still use its own name. The mapping software will be used internally according to Uber.

 

News From You: 

Singularity alert! Ajax-Rex sent us this mind-blowing Gizmodo report. Jan Scheuermann, a 55-year-old quadriplegic woman with electrodes in her brain, has been able to fly an F-35 fighter jet using “nothing but her thoughts.” DARPA director Arati Prabhakar announced the breakthrough at the first Future of War conference and said, “Jan’s thinking about controlling the airplane directly. For someone who’s never flown—she’s not a pilot in real life—she’s flying that simulator directly from her neural signaling.”

habichuelacondulce sent us this story from Mashable about a preview version of Google Contacts that merges Gmail and Google Plus contact info. The app automatically pulls info Google + profiles and adds contextual information like meetings or email exchanges. The new Google Contacts also has a redesigned tool to fix duplicate contact information and quickly merge multiple entries. Google will roll out the updated Contacts to Gmail users over the next few weeks.

Hurmoth pointed us to the Verge article about Sling TV adding new channels to it’s $20 a month Internet TV service. AMC and IFC are comign to the basic plan. Sling also announced a new “Hollywood Extra Plan” That includes 4 movie channels from Epix, plus Sundance TV for $5 a month. Meanwhile the International Business Times says “sources familiar with their plan” say HBO will launch its Internet-only service, called HBO Now next month for $15 a month. Game of Thrones premieres April 12.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/04/us-timewarner-hbo-apple-idUSKBN0M02DW20150304?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews

And Jonathan Strickland sent us the Next Web story that Maxis shut down its Emeryville studio. EA said that the changes “do not impact our plans for The Sims” as it is “consolidating Maxis IP development” to other studios Maxis employees will be given “opportunities to explore other positions within the Maxis studios and throughout EA

Discussion Section Links: 

http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/03/valve-lighthouse-vr/

http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/04/valve-vr-input/?ncid=rss_truncated

http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/01/htc-vive-vr-headset-with-valve/

http://www.htcvr.com/

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/03/sony-ps4-gets-vr-with-project-morpheus-in-early-2016/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2015/03/04/why-not-to-fear-the-impact-of-virtual-reality-goggles-on-your-long-term-health/

http://gizmodo.com/silly-virtual-reality-headphone-goggles-are-almost-read-1689381653

http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/04/mindleap-game-system-is-powered-by-players-brainwaves-no-controller-needed/

https://gigaom.com/2015/03/04/mindmazes-headset-brings-your-brainwaves-into-virtual-reality/

http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/4/8146523/htc-vive-valve-vr-headset-hands-on-preview

http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/04/htc-vive-hands-on/?ncid=rss_truncated

http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/04/weta-epic-games-vr-gdc-hobbit/?ncid=rss_truncated

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/15/03/03/2311201/amd-enters-virtual-reality-fray-with-liquidvr-sdk-at-gdc?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed

https://gigaom.com/2015/03/02/mary-lou-jepsen-formerly-of-google-x-takes-job-at-oculus/

 

Pick of the Day: 

Greeting Tom, Jennie and Jonathan:

I wanted to pass along a podcast that I have been listening to, The Star Wars Minute. As of this email, they are on minute 33 of Return of the Jedi and it is the second most entertaining podcast I listen to. The premise of the show is that the host break down each original trilogy, one minute at a time. As a bonus they also did a couple of shows of the infamous Holiday Special.
You can get the podcast at http://www.starwarsminute.com/

I hope everyone enjoys it as much as I have.

Sent from a mobile device
Matt

Messages:

I’ve been thinking about Pebble doing another Kickstarter and the reason’s behind it. Certainly it’s an easy way to drum up media attention, and pays lip service to fans who want to feel some kind of “ownership” over the product’s success. But what if another reason is to give developers some raw sales numbers just prior to the Apple Watch launch. Pebble recently crowed that they’ve sold one million watches, now they can show that they can bump their marketshare substantially just on a presale announcement of a new product. As of today they’ve got pledges for about 75,000 Pebble Time products, that’s a 7.5% increase in user base in 7 days (probably less because of repeat buyers, but still impressive growth). Now instead of having to wait until the Apple Watch launch to start talking about how well the product sold, they can directly point to hard numbers of watches. While its hard to imagine the Apple Watch not being a sales success, the estimate of how many will sell is pretty variable, giving Pebble critical time now to make their case to developers as a growing viable platform. I think the people at Pebble are pulling a brilliant move to get customer and developer support prior to actually releasing their product – admittedly I type this with a Pebble on my wrist and I’m biased in this regard.

Rich from Lovely Cleveland

====

Hi Tom,

I have enjoyed your discussions on the possible future for Smart Watches, and thought I would give my limited insights.

I bought a pebble that was reduced in last year’s black Friday sale, more out of curiosity than anything else. My wife was horrified when she saw me wearing it, as there is it certainly couldn’t be accused of being a thing of beauty.

There are some things it does really well:-
(1) Allows me to have my phone on silent, and alerts me of calls with the caller id by a vibration on my wrist. You can reject calls with a press of a button which is great for the mountain of “caller unknown” spam calls I get.

(2) The notifications of new e-mail, text messages, or even CNN breaking news are nice to have, and again let me know if there is anything urgent I need to react to while I am not at my desk.

(3) Music / Podcast / ‘Economist audio’ control. I am often out running with my phone in one of those arm cases. When I need to pause audio the pebble is just great.

(4) The Misfit step counter app is great, allowed me to replace my Nike Fuel Band (yes I can pick the winners!), nice to have sleep tracking too. An always on display with the time also showing is great – this Misfit screen is my default screen

(5) The battery life is not bad.

Some down sides:-
(1) Almost all of the Apps are terrible – I installed a number of them and quickly found them useless. If I need to browse evernote a watch interface is not the way to do it. This is probably why Pebble are moving to the timeline approach.

(2) The build quality of the original pebble is a bit toy-like. I scratched the plastic screen early on, something I had never done with any other watch.

(3) The watch can disconnect from the phone, and suddenly stop sending notifications – this problem has improved with O/S patches.

(4) It is big and ugly.

I think the Apple Watch (or at least version 1) will struggle:-
(1) A watch is for information you can get at a glance, I will be surprised if any killer apps that are more than glorified notifications emerge. (even maps on a watch seems limited use, especially as you need your phone with you)

(2) It might be made of high quality components, but it is not a thing of beauty (no matter how many pages Apple buy in Vogue).

(3) ApplePay (or NFC based tickets for something like the London Underground) might be nice, but not really a huge time saver to have them on your wrist as opposed to your phone.

(4) It is not cheap.

(5) If you are trying to monitor your steps and sleep patterns when will you charge it?

My my 2cents worth,

Simon

====

Hi Tom(and Patrick as he was there for the discussion),
I just wanted to write in about the discussion on yesterday’s show about the whole treason/no treason issue. There is a very clear legal definition of treason(well actually a couple different levels), that while most people may or may not be aware of, all cleared US government employees and contractors have explained to them upon receiving their clearance. By that definition, Edward Snowden absolutely, positively committed treason. The real discussion should be is: “Was it justified?”, and/or perhaps, “what punishment if any is deserved?”
The best analogy I can think of is Robin Hood vs Bonnie and Clyde. Both absolutely committed armed robbery, but we don’t say that Robin Hood didn’t commit armed robbery because we are happy with the results…
Love the show.

Todd

Thursday’s guest: Veronica Belmont

Patrick Beja joins to talk about whether Huawei, Pebble or someone else is winning the smartwatch war. And will Apple make it all pointless anyway? Plus Molly Wood pops in to sum up all you need to know about Mobile World Congress.

MP3

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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: Patrick Beja, DTNS contributor

Headlines: 

TechCrunch reports Gartner has its figures for smartphone sales out for both 2014 and Q4. Smartphones passed the billion mark last year selling 1.2 billion overall out of 1.9 billion total mobile phones sold. In Q4 Apple took over the top spot selling 74.8 million smartphones for 20.4% of the market. Samsung slipped to second dropping from 29.5% to 19.9% of the market. Lenovo maintained 3rd place rising from 5.8% to 6.6%. Huawei stayed fourth followed by Xiaomi which tripled its sales. Samsung still ended with 30.9% of the market for the year with Apple second at 15.5%.

The Verge reports Pebble announced the Pebble Time Steel, essentially a stainless steel version of the Pebble Time. It comes in three colors, steel, black and gold, for $250 on Kickstarter with a shipping date of July.  Pebble also announced the release of plans for Smartstraps that can integrate with the Pebble Time data port and add sensors for things like heartrate and GPS.

ReCode reports BlackBerry had 4 announcements at MWC. The BlackBerry Leap is a 5-inch touchscreen smartphone that will sell for $275 unlocked this spring. Also coming later this year are a new keyboard-based Blackberry, a curved screen devices with a slide-out physical keyboard and one other device. CEO John Chen noted BlackBerry finished Q4 profitable and stated revenue is stabilizing and future quarters should also be profitable.

Recode reports that cloud-storage company Box will buy Berkeley-based Subspace, shut it down April 3rd, and fold its employees into Box.  Subspace helps make sensitive data accessible on personal mobile devices in a secure fashion.

TechCrunch is reporting BitTorrent’s Free File Sharing Service, Sync has left beta. Now called Sync 2.0 the DropBox alternative will also feature a paid Pro plan starting at $40 per user a year. New feature highlights include a new UI thats more consistent between desktop and mobile versions and a new certificate security model. The free edition will be limited to 10 folders although each folder will have unlimited storage. Pro users avoid that limit and also get folder permission and ownership settings, making it easier to access folders across devices. Sync 2.0 is available now for Mac, Windows, Linux and Free BSD and mobile versions rolling out to iOS, Android, Windows Phone and Amazon Kindle. It also works on several brands of network-attached storage.

The Verge reports the HBO Go app for PS4 launched today and functions just like the PS3 version.  As with all new HBO Go apps, your cable provider has to allow you to log in.  The biggest cable provider not playing along with this version of HBO Go is Comcast.
Comcast, however, has made its HBO and Cinemax channels available today via its Xfinity TV Go app.

BizTechAfrica reports Visa and Bharti Airtel will bring mobile payments service to Kenya, Gabon, Ghana, Madagascar, Rwanda, the Seychelles and Tanzania. The service will allow users to us Airtel Mobile Money to pay in stores that accept Visa and withdraw money from ATMs. The Airtel Money Visa Card has launched in Kenya and will roll out to other markets in the first half of 2015.

CNET tried Fujistsu’s concept phone that uses infrared lasers and cameras to scan your iris and unlock your phone.  Fujistu explains that the human iris is more complex and more reliable than a fingerprint. CNET reporter Andrew Hoyle was impressed by the easy setup and use.  Fujitsu says the scanner should arrive in phones later this year.  And look for the horrible dystopian futurescape of eyeball stealing and eyeball replacement soon after that!

Reuters reports Russian lawyer Anatoly Kucherena, said Tuesday that his client Edward Snowden is working with US and German lawyers on a way to return to the US. Kucherena made the statement at a news conference for his book on Snowden.

Reuters reports an Apple spokesman actually said something to the press today. Apple plans to release a fix next week for the security flaw called “FREAK” On March 3, researchers disclosed a vulnerability in SSL/TLS that dates back to the 1990s. The FREAK attack was originally discovered by K. Bhargavan at INRIA in Paris and the mitLS team.  You can learn more at the website freakattack.com

News From You: 

Philo1927 sent us the news that Canadians have been “spocking” their currency to honor the late Leonard Nimoy. Canada’s $5 bill features the 7th Canadian Prime Minister, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who looks enough like Mr. Spock to make the transformation easy with a few pen strokes. The bank note is also a shade of blue that’s close to Spock’s uniform. Canadians have been spocking fives since at least 2008, but picked up again when Design resource tweeted encouragement for Spocking. When word got out to Canadian William Shatner, he said via Twitter, “…the defacing of the Canadian $5 bill warms my heart.” The Bank of Canada? Not as thrilled. stating that “Writing on a bank note may interfere with the security features and reduces its lifespan,” and “markings on a note may also prevent it from being accepted in a transaction.”

Zuntax sent us The Verge version of the New York Times report that Hillary Clinton exclusively used personal email when she was the US Secretary of State from 2009-2013.

According to The Times, Clinton did not have a government email account during her term as Secretary.

US Federal law states that letters and emails written and received by federal officials are government records and, unless they contain classified or sensitive materials, should be kept where third parties can access them.

Personal email accounts are supposed to be reserved for use in emergencies.

Discussion Section Links: 

http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/3/8140837/huawei-watch-design-interview-mwc-2015

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/03/us-huawei-tech-usa-idUSKBN0LZ0BM20150303

http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/3/8139835/pebble-time-steel-smartstrap-announcement-launch

http://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2015/03/03/pebbles-smartstraps-are-a-big-deal-and-bad-news-for-apple/

http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/03/pebble-time-is-now-the-most-funded-kickstarter-project-ever/?ncid=rss

http://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2015/03/03/pebbles-ceo-isnt-worried-about-apple-watch-because-its-lacking/

http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/1/8128483/lg-watch-urbane-lte-hands-on

 

Pick of the Day: F-Lux  via Eric from Lovely Cleveland

First, Great Show. Been listen since BOL. Tom you do a wonderful Job, You ever think you might want to do it for a living?

A pick for you.. F-Lux. https://justgetflux.com/ It changes the computer’s monitor output from brightness to color output. Blue light segments are bad for sleeping and this changes the hue to remove it. The program also dims the screen at night to match your room. Being a dedicated IT guy I spend hours on my computer and at night. This helps saves my eyes.

I liked the show you did where you told everyone how you guys at DTN work. I think you should take this another step and show how other people work. I would even continue and go the next step and show how couples and households work together with technology.

Thank you to you and the other people who help. Jenny, Roger and so on.

Eric from Lovely Cleveland.

Wednesday’s guest: Jonathan Strickland

Why Samsung Pay may be the biggest announcement at Mobile World Congress, and you won’t believe what +Lamarr Wilson thinks of the Galaxy S6.

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 guest: Lamarr Wilson, host, showcaser, and internet personality at lamarrwilson.com

Headlines: 

Google’s Sundar Pichai dropped some announcement bombs at MWC. Project Titan is about to be where Project Loon was a couple years ago, taking its first test steps. Titan delivers Internet by drone where Loon does it by balloon.

In addition to continuing to experiment with balloons and drones for delivering data, the company plans to launch an experimental mobile network in the US in the “coming months” as an MVNO. The network will be rolled out in cooperation with unnamed mobile carrier partners and will combine WiFi and LTE for coverage. TechCrunch reports Pichai said the company does not intend to be a network operator at scale. Interesting sidenote. T-Mobile also announced a combined WiFi and LTE network in the WiFI bands coming in 2016.

Pichai also said he works closely with Magic Leap and used Google Translate as an example of something the mythical AR product can improve.

He also mentioned Google Pay, a project to give app developers a consistent back-end to operate mobile payments in their apps. Google would provide API access to a secure way to store payment info and tokenize card numbers for any app maker.  So consider it all a big Google I/O teaser trailer.

Not be outdone, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told the MWC audience that Facebook is still building drones, lasers and satellites of its own in order to spread Internet around the world as part of the Internet.org project. According to Mashable, Zuck even said he love to do more in cooperation with Google on the project. Although he did downplay the lasers and satellites saying most of Internet.org will be delivered through more traditional means.

CNET noted that responding to a concern from Telenor Group CEO Jon Frederik Baksaas, Zuckerberg emphasized that apps like FB Messenger and WhatsAPP— which compete with carriers own messaging services — will not be included in Internet.org offerings.

GigaOM reports Mario Zanotti, SVP of operations at Millicom said data users rose 30% in Paraguay and 10 times in Tanzania after rolling out Internet.org.

Reuters reports HP says it will buy WiFi networking gear maker Aruba Networks for around $2.7 billion. That would be HP’s biggest acquisition since it bought Autonomy Plc in 2011, an acquisition that did not go well. The acquistion would boost HP’s share of enterprise WLAN market from 4-5% by adding Aruba’s 10-13%. HP still plans to separate its compuert and printer business from its enterprise hardware and services business later this year.

TechCrunch reports SGP Technologies announced the BlackPhone 2 at MWC. The new security-focused phone has an all-glass front and rear, along with a 5.5-inch full HD display, 64-bit processor and more RAM. It goes on sale this summer. Silent Circle also showed of a prototype of an 8-inch tablet called Blackphone+ set for an autumn release. SGP also announced a tablet-based secure audio conferencing system called Silent Meeting.

Intel has announced a slate of new mobile processors from Mobile World Congress according to Wired. The X3, is an inexpensive, entry-level System on a Chip with either a 3G or 4G LTE modem, bluetooth and x86 architecture. The X5 and X7 are positioned as mid and high end chips and also the first 14nm System on a Chip designs for tablets. Both chips have double the graphics power of previous intel chips and support for features like RealSense 3D and TrueKey face recognition password authentication all without reducing battery life. Intel also announced a new LTE advanced modem, the XMM 7360 with promises of more stable connections and download speeds of 450 Mbps via carrier aggregation. Devices featuring the modem will appear in the 2nd half of the year. X3 devices will ship this quarter while quad-core 3G and LTe versions as well as X5 and X7 devices will come in the 2nd half of the year.

9to5 Mac reports Apple CEO Tim Cook told Apple store employees in Berlin last week that the Apple Watch will launch in Germany in April, the first indication the Watch would launch in multiple countries.

Gamasutra reports that Unreal Engine 4 is now completely free to download for all. Current subscribers to the rights to develop on the engine will receive a prorated refund for the current monthly charge. Anyone who ever had a subscription will receive a $30 credit of the Unreal Engine Marketplace. While development is now free royalties on sales of games that use the engine remain thes same. 5% on gross revenue of each project after the first $3,000 earned.

CNET reports Alcatel launched a reversible phone called the OneTouch Idol 3— meaning you can hold it upside down and still talk on it— and a 6-inch Hero 2+ phablet for $299 both running Cyanogen OS.

Ars Technica reports despite Google’s frequent claims that Lollipop will come with encryption on by default, this seems to apply only to Nexus devices. The latest version of the Android Compatibility Definition document gives carriers an out by saying, “it is very strongly RECOMMENDED as we expect this to change to MUST in the future versions of Android.” So not quite yet for all phones. It’s suspected that performance issues may have caused Google to give way a bit this time around.

Ars Technica also notes that OS X 10.10.3 beta is now public, bringing the new Photos app with it. You can find out more at https://appleseed.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/

News From You: 

starfuryzeta sent us the news that Google Plus has changed leadership again. Ars Technica reports that Bradley Horowitz has taken over for Dave Besbris, who took over for Vic Gundotra eleven months ago. Some recent comments by high ranking Googlers seem to indicate that Hangouts will be “split out” from G+. Horowitz referred to his department as Photos and Stream products.

Cosmicvibes sent us this Register UK story that Blackberry has announced it will port key client features like the soft keyboard, Universal Search and Hub to iPhone and Android in the enterprise. Blackberry will offer 3 bundles: The Security Suite which includes containers, authentication and VPN features, The Communcation Suite and a Productivity Suite. All bundles will require a blackberry server and will only be available to consumers if their mobile provider makes it available to them.

davidpolanco pointed out the Engadget story that SanDisk showed off a 200GB microSD card that still transfers at 90MB a second. And it only costs $400 when it ships in Q2!

More News From WWC:  

Samsung had an uncharacteristically straightforward announcement at Mobile World Congress yesterday. No dancing. No singing. No skits. Just The Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge smartphones, a new version of the Gear VR for those phones.

The S6 has a 5.1-inch Super AmOLED screen capable of 577 ppi. It has an Exynos Octacore processor with 3GB of LPDDR4 RAM. Options from 32 to 128 GB of storage, and no SD card slot. Built-in wireless charging for WPC and PMA standards BUT no more removable battery. The fingerprint scanner no longer requires a swipe. The S6 Edge is essentially the S6 with a rounded touch screen that wraps around both sides of the phone and can deliver specialized alerts.

Coming to both phones later this year is Samsung Pay which bundles in LoopPay’s magnetic swipe emulator along with NFC which means it should be accepted at almost any retailer that takes credit cards. And a new Gear VR takes advantage of the S6’s improved display resolution, is 15% smaller than the older Gear VR, although it’s still an Innovator’s edition.

Both S6’s go on sale April 10 around the world, in white, pearl, Black Sapphire and Gold Platinum with a Blue Topaz S6 option and Green Emerald S6 Edge.

HTC announced a new One, the HTC One M9. It looks similar to the M8 but has a Snapdragon 810 processor, moves the UltraPixel camera to the front in favor of a 20-megapixel camera on the back. It comes with 100 GB of Google Drive storage too. The Next Web says the M9 will come to Taiwan and Europe in mid-March and the US later in the month.

HTC also announced a standalone fitness tracker called the Grip GPS. It’s rugged and waterproof with an OLED touchscreen. It goes on sale in the US for $199 this spring, and the Verge says a series of global devices coming later this year.

We also heard about the HTC Vive, a virtuality reality headset made by HTC in partnership with Valve coming sometime in the Spring to developers. This is not a case you slide an HTC phone into either it’s a full on Oculus Rift competitor. Engadget says it will plug into your PC and work with some kind of tracked controllers. Google, Lionsgate and HBO are all on board as partners.

Engadget reports Sony announced the Xperia Z4 tablet and the mid range Xperia M4 aqua phone at Mobile World Congress. The Z4 tablet is pitched as an iPad Air competitor. It has a Snapdragon 810 octacore processor, 2560 x 1600 screen and is 6.1 mm thick weighing 389 grams all running Android 5.0 Lollipop. No price but it’s coming this spring. The M4 Aqua looks similar to the Z3 compact. It has a 5-inch 720p display, an octa-core Snapdragon 615 processor, LTE, 8GB of storage (expandable with microSD) and a 13-megapixel rear camera with a wide f/2.0 aperture. It’s priced at €299 coming to 80 countries in the spring. Both devices are waterproof.

The Next Web reports Microsoft launched the Lumia 640, a 5-inch Windows Phone device that will go on sale in April. The device will ship with Windows 8.1 but will be upgradeable to Windows 10 later this year. It comes with 8GB of onboard storage and will have single and dual-SIM variants. Microsoft also announced a “super-sized” 640 XL with a 5.7-inch HD display and a 13-megapixel camera, which measures 9mm thick, also on sale in April. Both models include 1 year of Office 365 included, both have 3G and LTE models. The Lumia 640 3G model will cost around €139 ($156), the LTE version will cost €159 ($179), the XL version with 3G will cost €189 ($212), and the LTE version will cost €219 ($246)

Qualcomm announced the forthcoming 64-bit Kryo- based Snapdragon 820 will run its Zeroth cognitive computing platform. That means your phone could supposedly learn how to protect against unknown malware, and use interfaces that recognize expressions and head movements among other contextual behavior. Samples should deliver to by the end of the year. Engadget reports Qualcomm also announced a new 3D fingerprint sensor called Sense ID which uses ultrasound to detect fingerprints through glass and metal. It should come to hardware later this year.

Reuters reports NTT DoCoMo and Nokia are partnering to bring 5G wireless to the Olympics in Tokyo in 2020. The companies say they can achieve 2 Gbps in an indoor trial using the 70 GHz spectrum. They plan an outdoor trial later this year. CNET reports AT&T and Nokia Networks believe 5 G networks may also be rolled out elsewhere in 2020.

ZDNet reports Cyanogen and Qualcomm will partner up to provide Cyanogen OS for future Qualcomm reference devices running the 200, 400 and 600 series processors. The reference design program is meantto streamline the rapid introduction of devices at lower development costs. Cyanogen’s new Launcher will be provided to these low to mid level devices.

CNET reports that Jolla is launching Sailfish OS 2.0 and issued a call to companies from Russia, India, China and Japan to join the Sailfish crew. Jolla promises that Sailfish will have an improved interface and support for intel chips, include enhanced notifications, event view simpler access to functions via swiping, and features to improve privacy. Sailfish 2.0 is available for licensing to manufacturers and partners.

arstechnica posted a hands on preview of HP’s Spectre x360, a convertible laptop/tablet featuring Broadwell processor and all metal construction. The 15.9mm thick and 3.3lbs device folds similar to the Lenovo Yoga has, 3 USB ports, SD card reader, a mini DisplayPort 1.2, HDMI port, an Intel HD 5500 GPU for 4K output at 60Hz, 13inch screen. Pricing starts at $899 for a 1080p IPS touchscreen, with a Broadwell i5 processor, anintegrated HD 5500 GPU, 4GB of RAM, and 128GB SSD

Xiaomi announced a GoPro-Style action camera for $64. The Yi Action Camera records video at 1080p (60 frames per second) and includes a 16-megapixel camera that uses Sony’s Exmor R BSI CMOS image sensor. The Yi has 64GB of memory and weighs 73grams, and can go 40 meters underwater. The device is available in China at the Mi.com store.

Pick of the Day: The Tea Table via Eric

I know you have had a lot of coffee picks, so I thought I’d throw in one for the tea-lovers in the audience. I’ve been buying my loose-leaf tea from http://theteatable.com/ for a few years now, and I can’t recommend them highly enough. They have a great selection of teas– black, green, herbal, you name it– at great prices. They also have a pretty good selection of teapots and other accessories, including the Finum Brew Basket, which could be a pick in its own right. -=Eric

Tuesday’s guest: Patrick Beja

Tim Stevens is on the show to chat about Tim Stevens world tour and the idea of Apple Watch controlling your car. We’ll also share a moment about how Leonard Nimoy affected our lives. And Len Peralta will be there to memorialize it all in song. Or art. Probably art.

MP3

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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 is in to talk about the US FCC’s vote to adopt new Open Internet Rules under a Title II classification for ISPs. Plus Jonathan Strickland joins to help us understand what the heck Title II is.

MP3

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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 Jon Strickland

Headlines: 

The US FCC voted 3-2 to adopt an order for new Open Internet Rules. Broadly the rules will enhance the existing transparency order and prevent blocking and discrimination under the authority of Title II of the Communications act of 1934. The new rules have not been made public. The FCC must receive and respond to dissenting statements from the commissioners who voted against the rules. Once that has happened the rules will be published in the Federal Register and will go into effect 60 days from the date of publication.

The US FCC also voted 3-2 to preempt state laws to allow the City of Wilson, North Carolina and the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, Tennessee to expand their existing gigabit broadband service to nearby towns where speeds offered are not as fast.

TechCrunch reports that Apple sent out invites today for an event at 10am on Monday, March 9th with the tagline “spring forward.” What in the world could they possibly be talking about on that day? Well Daylight Saving Time begins in the US on March 8, the day before the event so it could just be a really elaborate reminder to test smoke alarms and reset clocks. Or it could be the Apple Watch. And I guess it could also include MacBookAir or iPad updates to um, pad out the announcement.

TechCrunch reports Google launched a pilot program to allow app developers to advertise their apps in the Google Play store. Devs running Google search ads already can choose to have the ads also run against Play store searches. This would put their app at the top of the search result with a small ‘Ad’ button appearing under the App’s name. To start, the ads will begin running on the latest version of the Play store for a small number of smartphone users only.

ZDNet reports Docker’s orchestration services are now available to the public. Compose 1.1 and beta version of Machine and Swarm are all available for download. Machine lets any laptop, server or VM run Docker apps, Swarm clusters multiple servers into a single machine and Compose makes it easier to build a complex distributed app from a number of containers. This marks the evolution of Docker from one-off containers into a full platform. Docker has more than 30 partners including AWS, Google, IBM, Microsoft and VMware.

VentureBeat passes along news from Strategy Analytics that Apple’s estimated global smartphone operating profit reached $18.8 billion last quarter up 31% year over year making up 88.7% of the market. Android cashed in 4.8 billion for 11.3%. Careful mathematicians will note that adds to 100%. That means while Android dominates sales, Apple’s making all the money and no other platform is making squat.

Ars Technica reports on a blog post on EFF.org indicating evidence of possible exploitations of the insecure certificates issued by Komodia as part of Superfish and other software. Researchers Joseph Bonneau and Jeremy Gillula found more than 1600 entries in the Decentralized SSL observatory of certs that should have been rejected but were accepted by Komodia. Some of the certs might have been invalid due to routine issues but the researchers felt it was unlikely all of them were.

News From You: 

melchizedek74 and KAPT_Kipper want us to know that if that Superfish news wasn’t enough of a headache for Lenovo, Engadget reports that Lenovo.com was hijacked to show pictures of kids at computers with a link to a Twitter account claiming to represent the group Lizard Squad. In addition Ars Technica reports the DNS hijack was also able to intercept email before Cloudflare updated the MX records. Which basically means they took this hijack to the Max, Justin.

HobbitfromPA wanted us to make sure we mentioned the DroidLife story that Google Play Music has doubled its capacity from 25,000 songs to 50,000 all still at the low low price of nothing.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/26/fcc-passes-strict-net-neutrality-regulations-on-3-2-vote/?ncid=rss

http://publicpolicy.verizon.com/assets/docs/VZ_NR_–_2-26-15_VZ_Statement_on_Open_Internet_Order_FINAL_1.pdf

http://live.theverge.com/fcc-title-ii-net-neutrality-live-blog/

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-25/at-t-verizon-set-to-clash-with-fcc-over-mobile-web-regulations

https://gigaom.com/2015/02/25/mark-cuban-on-net-neutrality-fcc-cant-protect-competition/

http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/why-everyone-was-wrong-about-net-neutrality

http://strawpoll.me/3738696/r

https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2011/09/23/2011-24259/preserving-the-open-internet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_Communications_Inc._v._FCC_%282014%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comcast_Corp._v._FCC

http://www.circleid.com/posts/20100406_fcc_comcast_ancillary_jurisdiction_ancillary_to_something/

http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/26/8115953/fcc-net-neutrality-vote-reactions

 

Pick of the Day: Hola.org
Co-Executive Producer Biocow recommends hola.org. Hola is a browser plug-in that creates a VPN through dozens of countries.

Hola was simple to instal and very easy to use. It creates a button in the browser which when clicked opens a nice interface that lets you scroll through countries and displays a small flag of the country you’re browsing through.

I used this on a Mac using FireFox but their site says they have solutions for Mac and PC, FireFox and Chrome and even Androids, iPhone and iPad.

Thursday’s guest:  Tim Stevens and Len Peralta

 

Chris Ashley joins us to talk about whether we believe Gemalto when they say no SIM keys were stolen, and whether Microsoft plans to supplant Google on Android.

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 guest: Chris Ashley, co-host of the SMR podcast

Headlines: 

Gemalto issued a press release today stating it detected two sophisticated intrusions in 2010 that it now believes could have been an operation by the US NSA and UK GCHQ as described in leaks from Edward Snowden. Gemalto is the world’s largest supplier of SIM Cards for phones. One intrusion was an attempt to intercept communication by employees in a French office and another was a phishing attempt on a mobile operator. Gemalto detected no breaches in its SIM Card database and does not believe the breach of office networks could have resulted in massive theft of SIM encryption keys.

ReCode reports The US District Court for the eastern district of Texas ordered Apple to pay $533 million dollars after being found guilty for patent infringement. The jury found Apple willfully violated three Smartflash patents in iTunes related to DRM, storage and access through payment systems. Smartflash lodged the suit in May 2013 in Cupertino California but was held in Tyler Texas where Smartflash is based. Apple had asked the jury to find the suit invalid because previous patent inventions covered the same technology.

 

Motorola’s new Moto E has LTE and a bigger screen for $149 The second-gen Moto E has a 4.5-inch (but still 540 x 960 pixel) display, 4G LTE networking, and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor. The removable backplate has been replaced by six colored bands that can be used to personalize the device. Other upgrades include a new 5-megapixel camera withautofocus, 8GB of internal storage, up from 4, and Android 5.0 Lollipop. Motorola also added its Quick Capture feature, which lets you launch the camera with just a twist of your wrist and the Active Display feature that wakes the screen up with notifications or when you pull it out of your pocket.

ZDNet reports Google unveiled an Android for Work program Wednesday which can establish work profiles on mobile devices. The program lets sys admins manage approved apps on the profiles and set up default encryption on Android 5.0 Lollipop devices. Employers can only manage work data and do not see personal data. Likewise users can add and remove apps at will on the personal side. Google is partnering with enterprise management firms to deliver the program, including Cisco, Salesforce, BOX and SAP among others.

Threatpost reports Google is making its bug-finding contest Pwnium a never-ending affair. Bug-hunters no longer need to wait for a security conference to cash in. Security researchers can submit bugs found in Chroium year round and Google will not place a limit on the number they will reward with cash money. In fact Tim Willis of the Chrome security team said the rewards pool “goes all the way up to infinity million dollars.” The bugs just have to meet the same criteria they always did. And winners have disclose all the details of the vulnerability along with the exploit.

Deep Q-network or DQN a product of Google’s DeepMind artificial intelligence program has successfully mastered 49 Atari 2600 games according to Ars Technica. Unlike previous AI game masters where information like rules for playing chess or trivia information was pre-loaded into the system, DQN taught itself how to play the games and win. Researchers modeled DQN’s AI on a trial-and-error behavior similar to humans and animals, and developed a process called “deep reinforcement learning”. By “remembering” past outcomes and its associated actions DQN was able to score about 75% of the points of a human game player. Games DQN successfully mastered include Breakout and space invaders but it failed at Ms Pac-Man and similar games that required planning and foresight.

CNET passes along the South Korean daily Donga News’ report that Amazon may open branch offices in Seou’s Gangnam area as early as next month. Amazon’s US carerres website lists several positions in Seoul and first-round interviews for 300 positions reportedly took place over the last week. That’s a challenge to local ecommerce heavyweights eBay Korea and Gmarket. At least it’s not Alibaba’s Tmall… Yet.

News From You: 

KAPT_Kipper sent us the news that the Eiffel Tower now generates its own power with new wind turbines. CNET reports that a pair of VisionAIR5 wind turbines designed by renewable energy specialist Urban Green Energy have been installed on the second level, about 122 meters or 400ft from the ground. The turbines have been painted to blend in with the Eiffel tower, and produce almost no sound. They can produce, a total of 10,000kWh per year — enough to power the tower’s first floor. The tower will also soon get LED lighting, solar panels, a rainwater collection system and high-power heat pumps. Not bad, giant iron tower built in 1889, not bad at all.

AllanAv submitted the Tom’s Hardware exclusive that A “source with knowledge of the matter” says the DirectX 12 will work much differently than older versions. For one the API will combine all graphic resources in one bucket and let devs divide up the workload as they wish. The upshot is reduced latency by reducing the frame queue to one or zero. The source also indicated that DirectX12 could work across multiple GPU architectures at once. Meaning you could build a system with a Geforce and Radeon working in tandem or even aggregating APUs with GPUs.

mranthropology passed along a Windows Central report that Microsoft will remove Google Chat and Facebook Chat support from Outlook.com in the next couple weeks. The People page in Outlook will stay updated with the latest contact information from Facebook and Google if you’ve connected them. Microsoft blames Google for discontinuing its Google Talk chat protocol. No word on why Facebook is getting the boot.

Discussion Section Links:  

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31619907

http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/24/8101585/the-nsas-sim-heist-could-have-given-it-the-power-to-plant-spyware-on

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/19/great-sim-heist/

https://gigaom.com/2015/02/25/gemalto-downplays-impact-of-nsa-and-gchq-hacks-on-its-sim-cards/

http://www.gemalto.com/press/Pages/Gemalto-presents-the-findings-of-its-investigations-into-the-alleged-hacking-of-SIM-card-encryption-keys.aspx

http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/05/a-few-thoughts-on-cellular-encryption.html

 

Pick of the Day: http://testmy.net/

Bill Russell writes: “I wanted to throw in another ISP speed test. TestMy.Net is a great alternative that I’ve been using since I read about the possibility that ISPs were prioritizing their packets to boost the numbers. TestMy.Net randomly generates the data that is sent so ISPs can’t even cache the data to deceive the meter.

One thing I really like about TestMy.Net is the ability to run repeated tests. You can set it to run once every 5 minutes for 100 repeated tests or every 24 hours for only 5 tests. This recently helped out a coworker that had a 60Mbps connection that was being slowed down every night around 11pm to the point that he couldn’t watch Netflix or play online games(less than 500kbps). He used TestMy.Net to show his ISP exactly when and how often this was happening and within a few weeks the ISP replaced hardware and now he’s getting his 60Mbps and sometimes more.”

Thursday’s guest:  Justin. Robert. Young.