DTNS 2417 After Show – Robert Heron talks more TV

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comAfter Wednesday’s show Robert Heron, Jennie and Tom kept talking about TVs and more. The conversation was captured on the YouTube video but we thought it was good enough to give the audio listeners a version as well. Happy bonus weekend content.

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DTNS 2419a – Opting Out of Opacity

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comDarren Kitchen is on the show and we’ll talk about transparency in light of Google’s new commitments to privacy and Reddit’s new transparency report. Plus Len Peralta tries to illustrate transparency. Will you be able to see what he draws?!?

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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 guest: Darren Kitchen of hak5.org and Len Peralta, artist!

Check out Len’s show art this week, it’s pretty hilariously awesome.

http://lenperaltastore.com/products/im-not-touching-you-print

Headlines

The NY Times reports Verizon announced Friday it will soon allow wireless users to completely opt out of its supercookie tracking program. Previously customers could opt out of the tracking being USED by anyone but the tracking still happened. This allowed clever third parties to figure out how to track users anyway. Expanding the optout to remove the number called a “UIDH” will be available “soon.”

CNET reports on a recent upgrade to China’s Internet filtering system to make it harder to circumvent with VPN and providing more scope to block unwanted material. A senior official confirmed that popular VPN Astrill has been disrupted.

Bloomberg reports AOL is firing 150 employees and closing TUAW and Joystiq, folding content from the sites into Engadget. Most of the job cuts come from the sales division. A source told Bloomberg AOL is automating its digital ad sales and simplifying its portfolio. TechCrunch reports Parentdish in the UK and MyDaily, also in the UK, are going to become a part of Huffington Post’s UK site. AOL reports Q4 earnings on Feb. 11. TUAW’s last day as TUAW is Feb. 2.

Rap artist Jay-Z has tabled a bid to purchased a Swedish company called Aspiro for $56 million US dollars. Aspiro runs the WiMP and Tidal music streamign services. CNET reports WiMP is popular in Scandinavia, Germany and Poland with 25 million songs, 75,000 music videos, and half a million subscribers. Tidal is a streaming service in the US and UK that focuses on high quality audio in the lossless FLAC format. Shake it off? Oh hell no. Jay-Z’s the new Sinatra, he can make it anywhere, yeah they love him everywhere.

Alameda is not just for nuclear wessels anymore. CNET reports that what seems to be a Tesla Model X was caught on camera, during testing at the former Alameda Naval Air Station near San Francisco. The video shows a car slightly more angular but similar to the Model X concept unveiled in 2012. The Model X is Telsa’s take on an all-electric SUV. The video was caught on an iPhone 5 and uploaded to YouTube.

Engadget reports that British Telecom, known as BT, says faster broadband is coming to the UK. BT has been testing G.fast a technology that uses a wider frequency band to increase performance on copper wire. Two pilot programs will begin this summer in Huntingdon (Cambridgeshire) and Gosforth (Newcastle) with speeds of a few hundred megabits per second which will be increased to 500 mbps over time to around 4,000 homes and businesses. Delivering those speeds to most of the UK, however will take about a decade.

Engadget reports starting today, Google Now will support cards with data from more than 40 third-party apps. For example apps like Pandora can push a card recommending a playlist or if you land at an airport a Lyft card might quote you a fare for a ride. The feature does not share data with the third-parties and works only on Android and only with selected apps.

The Verge reports Google is moving another program from research to regular old corporate division. Project Tango, the 3D-sensing and scanning technology is leaving the Advanced Technology and Projects group, aka ATAP, and into Google proper, though reporting to whom is not yet announced. Google said the same thing it did about Google Glass, namely it will keep iterating and building new devices and this is a step towards a final consumer product. But for some reason none of the headlines seeem to say Project Tango is dead. Hmm.

 

 

 

News From You: 

goofball_jones pointed out the VentureBeat article about Reddit’s first transparency report. Reddit revealed that it received 55 requests for user info in 2014, all from government agencies and all but 5 from the US. It provided some information in response to 32 of the requests. 218 requests were made to remove content and 68 of those requests were granted, all on copyright grounds. Last month Reddit had 3.2 million logged in users.

spsheridan submitted the Huffington Post article that Google has agreed to changes regarding user policy as the result of discussion with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office. The changes, which will apply to all Google users globally, will make its privacy policy easier to read and to find and give users more control over what information is shared. It will also do more to make employees, third parties, and users aware of privacy issues. While Google agreed to changes, ICO enforcement head Steve Eckersley said the investigation found no substantial damage and distress to consumers.

Discussion Section Links: Transparency

https://gigaom.com/2015/01/30/google-promises-better-privacy-information-to-settle-uk-case/

https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-blogs/2015/01/google-to-change-privacy-policy-after-ico-investigation/

http://www.zdnet.com/article/reddit-hands-over-user-data-in-over-half-of-government-requests/

https://www.redditstatic.com/transparency/2014.pdf

http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/28/dropbox-transparency-covers-non-us-requests/?

Pick of the Day: Off to be the Wizard via Big Jim

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1612184715/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1612184715&linkCode=as2&tag=subbrcom-20&linkId=4SXHRD34CRSYUQND\

Monday’s guest: Christian Cantrell

DTNS 2418 – Outlook is Good?

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comMyke Hurley is on the show. We’ll talk about Apple’s declining iPad sales and what that means for the tablet as a product. Plus some good tips from listeners on buying TVs.

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

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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

If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here at the low, low cost of a nickel a day on Patreon. Thank you!

Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!

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

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

Show Notes

FEATURED REVIEW: Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie

Welcome to our Featured Reviews! In this series, we’ll be highlighting book reviews by the S&L audience. If you want to submit a review, please check out the guidelines here! -Veronica

Review by Daniel Eavenson



Ancillary Sword (Imperial Radch Book 2)

By Ann Leckie

I’ve read the first part of the Imperial Radch series, Ancillary Justice, which I enjoyed very much.  It was an excellent introduction to a new world of science fiction, and an interesting arc for a series where an empire would wage a secret war against itself.  Therefore, I went into this second entry with a set of expectations about the content of this novel.  Expectations that were thoroughly thwarted by the author writing something else.

I had expected more intrigue and action.  More surprises and technological horrors that raged through the last third of Ancillary Justice.  I guess I had forgotten the first two thirds of quiet introspection and excellent world building that had proceeded all that fun. Instead, Ancillary Sword takes us to new places, but they are small intimate locations that hold none of the galactic level chess game that the end of the first novel had primed me for.

Ancillary Sword follows the same main character as Ancillary Justice.  The cybernetic former ship AI turned revenge driven walking corpse Breq takes command of a new ship at the behest of the emperor of the titular Radch.  Instead of pursuing the secret war raging at the heart of the empire, Breq decides that personal matters must be seen to, and travels to Athoek station, where the only living relative of his beloved Lieutenant Awn works as a Horticulturalist.

This is an extremely personal story for Breq.  The character is trying to come to grips with a new position while also dealing with the ongoing degradation of the empire due to the secret war.  On Athoek station this is mostly through the examination of class.

Of course, this being a continuation of the themes of Ancillary Justice, class is explored through an additional layer of what it means to be human.  Are you still a worthwhile being if you have been ordered and cataloged by the society around you?  Are you even human if you don’t speak the language of civilization?  This of course all being explored by someone who is decidedly not human.  An AI walking around in a stolen body.  It’s the best quality of the series and Leckie doesn’t let us down with her continued examination of our own society through the lens of the one she created.  The strength of her vision is evident through every carefully chosen word of the novel, continuing the thought provoking work she started in Ancillary Justice.

Even her “trick” of avoiding the naming of characters specific gender is continued here and used to great effect. The true genius of it is that you grow to simply not care who has what set of genes in their pants.  The trick is not to leave you guessing, but to reach the point where you stop guessing, because it just doesn’t matter.  Her other themes are done with the same deft hand, not getting in the way of the story, but always there and available to be found without a lot of guessing and pretentious philosophizing. It’s one of my favorite points of the series is that Leckie doesn’t just ask these questions but shows us the path her created empire takes when it tries to answer basic questions about who is human and what it takes to be human.

As impressed as I was by the quality of the writing I still felt that there were missed opportunities by staying with the small personal stories of Athoek station and not going out into the deep problems of the war inside the Imperial Radch.  I would probably have less concerns if the ideas and concerns of the war weren’t constantly being brought up in the story.  If I could have just been left to live in Athoek station I might have come to terms with the breaking of my expectations.  The story, though, constantly takes me back to all of the galactic level problems that Breq is actively avoiding and risking by going to Athoek to deal with his own personal issues.  Issues that I ultimately just found less interesting the possibilities that existed out in the warring universe that Leckie had crafted for us.

This is still an excellent extremely recommendable book, but it loses a star for me for breaking my expectations and then reminding me over and over about how broken they were.  3 out of 5. (Honestly 3.5 but goodreads don’t got half numbers 🙁 )

DTNS 2417 – The Big TV Game

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comRobert Heron joins the show to talk about the quality of Sling TV and what TV to get whether you’re watching the Super Bowl or not.

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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: Robert Heron, technologist and home theater expert at http://www.heronfidelity.com/blog 

Headlines

Sony and Spotify announced a new partnership today that will let PS4, PS3 and Xperia users link their PlayStation Network IDs with the Spotify service to subscribe to Spotify Premium. The new service will launch in 41 markets. At the same time Sony’s current Music Unlimited service will close down in 19 markets as of March 29. Active Music Unlimited Subscribers on Feb. 28 will get 30 days free access through the close of the service on March 29.

The Next Web passes along the WSJ report that Amazon is launching a corporate backend email and calendaring service called WorkMail. The service starts at $4 per email inbox for 50GB of storage, or $6 if bundled with Amazon’s document management service Zocalo.

After one of their drones ended up on the White House lawn, drone maker DJI plans to release a mandatory firmware update that will restrict Phantom drones from flying in the Washington, DC area. The Verge reports that DJI’s drones currently use GPS to enforce restrictions near airports. Now Phantom pilots will not be able to take off or fly within a radius of 15.5. miles (25km) of downtown DC. The update will arrive in the next few days for the Phantom 2, Phantom 2 Vision, and Phantom 2 Vision+.

The US FTC ordered prepaid mobile provider Tracfone to pay $40 million for slowing down speeds of customers who had paid for unlimited data service. The FTC said Tracfone generally slowed data service after the customer used 1 to 3 GB, and suspended data service at 4 to 5 GB. Before those of you on other unlimited plans get too excited keep in mind that Jessica Rich, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection told ReCode that “if a company advertises unlimited, but very clearly discloses their practices with regard to throttling we would not challenge that action.”

Ars Technica reports on vulnerability in the ultrasecure BlackPhone. Mark Dowd, a principal consultant with Australia-based Azimuth Security reported a “type confusion vulnerability” in SilentText. Attackers could send a payload to a SilentText account that would overwrite a pointer in memory and allow surreptitious decryption. Silent Circle, the makers of Silent Text and BlackPhone have fixed the vulnerability. There is no evidence it was ever exploited.

TechCrunch reports on a new keyless deadbolt from Lockitron. The previopus crowdfuned project from the company cost $179 and to put it nicely, had problems. The new smaller Bolt sells for $99 although it replaces the deadbolt altogether rather than fit over your old one. The new Bolt connects to a smartphone by Bluetooth LE. There’s also a $49 adapter that can allow for remote unlocking, although this can be done without the adapter by email or SMS.

Ars Technica reports on another round of good news for Nintendo’s Wii U. Wii U sales rose 40% in the Americas in the past year and 64% in other non-Japanese countries (Europe and Australia mostly). The bad news came from the home country. Wii U sales dropped 40% last year in Japan. The new Nintendo 3DS shipped 1.84 million units after its debut in Japan and Australia. Nintendo reduced annual sales projections for the current fiscal year by 6.8% citing a weakening yen.

Are you ready for some football? Well, Facebook is. According to Engadget by way of Reuters, Facebook will be selling ads that target users based on what they’re talking about in real time on Super Bowl Sunday. That means there’s a good chance your Facebook feed will be full of American football chatter, which means lots of related ads, including video ads that will play automatically in your newsfeed. So if you live in Seattle, and you start seeing a lot of ads for bicycle pumps, proper car tire inflation, and nerf balls, you’ll know why. (For those who are not into sportball, this is about deflategate. You can look it up.)

Are you ready for some earnings? Facebook has 1.39 billion users up 2.96% over the previous quarter. The company had earnings per share of $0.54 on revenue of $3.85 billion, beating analysts expectations.

 

News From You: 

andrewdaley submitted The Intercept report on another Snowden leak this time about Canada’s Communications Security Establishment. According to documents a program called LEVITATION can monitor downloads in several countries across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and North America. LEVITATION analyzes records of up to 15 million downloads daily from popular websites commonly used to share videos, photographs, music, and other files. Only RapidShare, SendSpace and MegaUplaod were named int he documents. LEVITATION gets its data from a separate operation called ATOMIC BANJO that obtains data directly from tapped cables.

johnsie776 submitted this Engadget story. Need a new trachea? Within the next five years you may be able to print one on your MakerBot. Although you should let a doctor put it in. Engadget reports a team at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research have developed a technique to produce cartilage to repair damaged tracheas using a MakerBot Replicator 2X Experimental to print a scaffold. The technique is faster than other reconstruction methods and a lot cheaper than current biological printers.

 

Discussion Section Links:

http://www.heronfidelity.com/blog/deal-alert.html

http://www.heronfidelity.com/favorite-gear/

http://www.heronfidelity.com/blog/lcd-update-quantum-dot-color.html

http://www.heronfidelity.com/blog/tv-picture-setup-guide.html

http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-sling-tv-launches-review-20150125-story.html

Pick of the Day:  Revo Uninstaller via Andrew Hughes

I use Revo Uninstaller often and think a lot of other people could benefit from using an uninstaller like this. Revo is a free program but has a pro version for a bit extra depth but what’s most important is that it removes all the files that programs leave behind so if I wanted a clean reinstall or I want to rid myself of a program that leaves behind a lot of excess clutter it is a quick and easy task.
Thank you to everyone at the DTNS crew I love what you do.

Tomorrow’s guest: Myke Hurley, co-founder of Relay.fm

DTNS 2416 – Don’t Drink and Drone

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comPatrick Beja and Justin Young are on to talk about Twitter getting group messaging, SnapChat getting news and Wickr getting cat steganography.

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

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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