DTNS 2276 – Amazon to Hone Drones in Test Zones?

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comAshley Esqueda is on the show today. We’ll talk about Amazon’s plea to let them test their shipping drones. I guess they were serious! Len Peralta is also along to illustrate the show.

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Show Notes

Today’s guest:  Ashley Esqueda, host of Tomorrow Daily on cnet.com and Len Peralta of the arts

Headlines

GigaOm passes along that Chinese state broadcaster CCTV claims iPhone are a threat to national security because of tracking. iOS7 has a frequent Locations function that learns where users frequently visit in order to provide location-based information. The function can be turned off. Apple has about 6% of the market in China. 

Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports Google blogged that it wants a European users to share their thoughts on right-to-be-forgotten laws through an online form and public hearings. later this year. A panel including Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and former German justice minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger have also been enlisted to advise Google on how it should comply with European rules. Google admits it incorrectly removed links from search results to article in news sites that have since been restored. The company has received 70,000 take-down requests covering 250,000 webpages since May.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Superintendent of Financial Services Benjamin Lawsky sought a temporary restraining order against Lyft to stop it from beginning operations in New York City today. Lyft asked a judge to block the state’s subpoena, calling requested documents “utterly irrelevant.” The New York State Department of Financial Services issued a cease and desist to Lyft on July 8 and on July 9th the New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission said Lyft has not complied with safety requirements and licensing criteria. Not one of these agencies complained about the stupid pink mustache. 

Recode reports the US FCC has set aside $2 billion to help pay for Wi-Fi networks in schools over the next two years. The National PTA and teachers unions wanted a larger fund in order to cover more schools. There are also questions about how to cover continuing costs once the networks are set up. The E-Rate program is part of the Universal Service Fund, a government subsidy program funded by a monthly fee on phone bills.

PC Mag reports The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) awarded Seattle-based supercomputer maker Cray a $174 million contract to develop a new machine to manage nuclear weapons. Yep that’s a story from today not 1978. The Trinity supercompuer will be installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in cooperation with the Sandia National Laboratories. Trinity will use Intel Haswell and Knights Landing processors, run at 1.37 petaflops and have 82 petabytes of storage. It should arrive in mid-2015.

News From You

ancrod2 posted the TechCrunch story that a version of The Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act was amended and approved by a US Senate Committee and sent to the Senate floor for a full vote. The US House passed it in February, meaning its getting closer to passage. The bill would make it legal for US consumers to unlock their phones at the end of a contract, without violating the DMCA. 

metalfreak called attention to the Ars Technica article from yesterday that Microsoft issued an emergency update for most versions of Windows to prevent attacks using digital certificates that impersonate sites like Google and Yahoo. The update update blocks 45 SSL certificates that attackers managed to generate after compromising systems operated by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) of India. 

MikePKennedy submitted the Engadget story about Amazon’s response to a French law banning free shipping of books and taking away the companies right to give a 5% discount on book titles. Amazon will now charge one eurocent for shipping in France. Thought they didn’t have a clever way of getting around the discount ban. French booksellers may offer free shipping and up to a 5% discount.

KAPT_Kipper posted the WPXI story about the US Selective Service System, sending draft notices to 14,000 Pennsylvania men born between 1893 and 1897. The men are likely all dead, but they were warned they must register for the draft anyway. The error happened because birthdates were stored with only the last two digits of the year and a clerk working with the database forgot to specify the century when generating notices.  

Both lythander and TVSEgon posted stories about Verizon’s response to Netflix’s accusations that Verizon’s network is congested. In a long post filled with charts and arrows, Verizon, rightly, points out that Netflix could use other transit providers to get around congestion but refuses to do so. Netflix has said that if Verizon would upgrade the interconnection with its preferred transit provider this wouldn’t be a problem. Both companies are using you as a bargaining chip while trying to reduce their own costs.

Discussion Section: 

http://gigaom.com/2014/07/11/amazon-asks-faa-to-test-prime-air-says-drones-will-go-over-50mph-with-geo-fence-for-safety/

http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/10/amazon-asks-faa-for-permission-to-test-its-delivery-drones/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/12/30/the-6-lucky-states-thatll-shape-the-future-of-drone-technology/

http://gigaom.com/2014/06/27/faa-scrambles-to-control-consumer-drones-but-its-legal-case-is-shaky/

http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=FAA-2014-0474-0001

http://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/uas/media/model_aircraft_spec_rule.pdf

 Pick of the Day: Buy Me A Pie via Tom

Monday’s guest: Peter Wells of Reckoner, Australia