Daily Tech News Show (VIDEO)

+Eric Olander joins us to discuss whether Facebook drones can help Africa, Japan's regulation approach to BitCoin and the real story behind the Flappy Bird f... 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 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit Show Notes Today’s guest:  Eric Olander, Vice President, Financial and Business News Channel,Vietnam Headlines Facebook to buy drone fleet. Because internet: TechCrunch reports its sources say Facebook is buying Titan Aerospace, makers of near-orbital solar-powered drones that can fly up to five years at a time without landing. For its 60 million dollars or so, Facebook would be able to use the drones to deliver Internet access to any part of the world as part of the Internet.org project, starting with Africa, according to the sources. One can only assume Facebook will not use its drones to shoot down competing Google weather balloons that deliver competing Internet. CarPlay powered by QNX: USA Today points out that the new Apple CarPlay system in part is powered by QNX, the embedded OS of choice among automakers, and QNX just happens to be owned by BlackBerry. Ford is actually moving off Microsoft’s Sync to QNX according to Bloomberg. N4BB first pointed out the interesting fact. Paul Leroux, public relations manager at QNX Software Systems, “We have a long-standing partnership with Apple to ensure high-quality connectivity with their devices, and this partnership extends to support for Apple CarPlay.” Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer to retire in September Cortana, voice assistant, in action: Unleash the Phones has video of Microsoft’s forthcoming Cortana voice assistant in action. Though no words are spoken by the operator or the phone, you can see the setup system which asks the user some personal questions, like most enjoyable part of an evening, and thoughts on food. No kidding. Cortana is expected to be part of Windows Phone 8.1 and be officially unveiled at the BUILD conference in April. Microsoft integrates Skype with Outlook.com Twitter mistakenly sends password reset email to many users Aether’s Cone Speaker reviewed: Several sites, including Wired, have a review of Aether’s Cone speaker. Unlike say a Sonos system, the Cone speaker has no remote and no Bluetooth connectivity. It uses WiFi to connect to a music service (available services have yet to be named) and then keeps tabs on your behavior to find out what you like to hear. It also has voice recognition in case you want to request something in particular. The only other control is the speaker grill which you can twist right to skip to a new song or twist left to replay. The Cone will sell for $399. Intel purchases wristwatch health tracker company Basis for around $100 – $150 million Bring me red page… I can’t… I can’t see you… Broderbund founder Doug Carlston has donated Broderbund’s software and corporate records to the museum, The Strong. Correspondence, photos and other material that reveals the culture of the studio that developed Myst, Prince of Persia, the original SimCity and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego, will be preserved. The high school version of our producer Jennie is SO happy. So is the college-aged version of Tom. Who feels really old now.  News From You Rich_Seattle submitted the Ars Technica story that the US Department of Justice has thrown in on the side of broadcasters, in the Aereo vs. the broadcast world Supreme Court knockdown coming this April. Recode reports the Justice Department made the filing Monday ar

+David Spark brings us tales from RSA. We also chat about Apple's CarPlay, Microsoft's Cortana, and other less prosaically named devices and services in the ... 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 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit Show Notes Today’s guest:   David Spark, journalist, producer, speaker, and owner of Spark Media Solutions. Headlines Apple to unveil CarPlay in Geneva this week: CNET reports iOS in the car is now called CarPlay. Ferrari, Mercedes and Volvo will all show off models at the Geneva auto show this week. CarPlay is till an in-car touchscreen display with voice command. It requires an iPhone 5, 5C or 5S to be connected with a lightning cable to work. Only Apple apps will integrate with the initial exception of Spotify and iHeartRadio. The system won’t show up at car dealers until later in 2014 for some brands with most others to follow in 2014. Microsoft testing voice-activated assistant: The Verge reports Microsoft is testing a voice-activated assistant currently named Cortana, yes like the Cortana in Halo, though on Windows Phone she’ll just be a circle. Sorry. Although apparently you can set Cortana to call you Master Chief. Cortana can use contacts, location reminders, and behaviors to help you out with notifications, similar to Google Now. Microsoft expects to unveil Cortana along with Windows Phone 8.1 at BUILD which starts April 2nd. Samsung to release two new Chromebooks in April Zynga’s push into mobile: Zynga has taken a lot of criticism for not being able to branch out past Farmville. So many will be happy to hear this PC Mag article that Zynga is making a big push into mobile with three new games. It’s first hot new title for mobile, Farmville 2: Country Escape. OK. Text MOO to 99642 if you want in on that one first. The second major advance is the still-existing Words with Friends. Now with dictionaries. Coming in the next few week.s Well it’s not like they went all the way back in time to when Zynga was just a poker app— The third new game is New Zynga Poker. Sigh. Gartners latest tablet marketshare numbers show Android tablets collectively overtook the iPad in 2013 Mt. Gox confirms loss of 750,000 bit coins deposited by users,  as well as 100,000 bit coins held by Gox itself have disappeared, likely due to a bug in the website’s code. Meanwhile, a chunk of code lifted from Mt. Gox and posted to Pastebin appears to be part of the exchange’s backend for the website. The code reveals that anyone with access to the server could have easily redirected transactions and taken coins from customers wallets. Google and Samsung express concerns to China’s Ministry of Commerce about Microsoft’s impending acquisition of Nokia Reddit to donate 10 percent of its advertising revenue for the year to non-profits: At the end of the year Reddit will take suggestions on what charities should receive the money. An election will then be held and funds donated to the top 10 non-profits selected.  News From You LifeDownloaded submitted the Verge story on Microsoft’s executive shakeup. Tony Bates, the company’s executive vice president for business development and evangelism, and Tami Reller, its marketing chief, are both leaving the company, according to an email sent to employees. Eric Rudder, executive vice president of advanced strategy, will take over Bates’ Biz-Dev duties while a full-time replacement is sought. Reller will stay to train up Chris Capossela, as executive vice president and chief marketing officer. Mark Penn also joins the Senior Leader

+Darren Kitchen shares some thoughts on TrustyCon, we discuss some new reasons why Comast-Netflix doesn't impact net neutrality directly, and +Len Peralta il... 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 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit Show Notes Today’s guest:  Darren Kitchen of hak5.org Headlines  Mt. Gox applies for bankruptcy: Ars Technica reports Mt. Gox applied for bankruptcy protection in Japan, claiming debt of about $63.6 million, with assets of just more than half that. CEO Mark Karpeles reportedly appeared at a press conference bowed in contrition and apologized in Japanese. A bankruptcy supervisor will develop a restructuring plan for the company. Tim Cook says Apple sold $1 billion worth of Apple TV devices: Reuters reports Apple CEO Tim Cook told investors at a shareholder meeting Friday that Apple sold $1 billion worth of Apple TV devices last year. Cook even got extremely close to telling a joke, for him, saying “It’s a little more difficult to call it a hobby these days.” Oh Tim, you kidder. Netflix internal hackathon produces dream product: TechCrunch has a story about Netflix’s internal hackathon producing some amazing mods for the video service. One monitors data from a fitbit to tell when you’re asleep and pauses your show for you. Another let you build multiple playlists for a lean back experience. Radial was a faster input keyboard for use on game consoles. And Beam let visitors temporarily use your Netflix account on their devices, then logged them off when they left your house. Sadly Netflix noted that the hacks might never become official part of the Netflix product. Might. So you’re saying there’s a chance! Microsoft may test a free version of Windows 8.1, which would be bundled with the Bing search engine Google yanks fake FBI listing in Google Maps Flocking Drones! California state appeals court rules drivers may legally read digital maps on their phones while in the car News From You uscwaller pointed us to the story on TorrentFreak that Creative Commons co-founder Lawrence Lessig prevailed over Liberation Music and will receive damages in his fair use fight. In a talk on Fair Use in 2010, Lessig used a clip of people dancing to a song by Phoenix as an example. A video of the talk was taken down from YouTube after a DMCA notice was issued by Liberation Music, the band’s label. Lessig fought the removal and sued Liberation Music. The two entities have settled and Lessig will receive an undisclosed sum for the damages the label caused with the wrongful takedown. Liberation admitted in a statement it agrees that Lessig was making fair use of the music. uscwaller got a twofer in NFY today pointing us to the Wired Article about drone cargo ships. Rolls Royce is developing unmanned vessels to move the world’s cargo around. Along with robots in the warehouse and self-deicing trucks, the entire supply chain could soon be automated and human-less. Kylde submitted a T3 post about Virgin media upgrading the speeds of its 12.5 million UK customers. Those who have the 120Mbps package will get 152Mbps while those on the 30Mbps plan have been bumped up to 60 and those on the 60 plan bumped up to 100. Yeah that’s right you just get more speed without asking. That’s this ISP’s response to people using more bandwidth. Well done Virgin Media. And KAPT_Kipper submitted a GeekWire article about Amazon having more talks with record company execs about creating a streaming music service. Amazon already provides a cloud music locker but not a service like Spoti

+Patrick Beja is on the show and we discuss British intelligence looking at nude photos of Yahoo chatters, plus more net neutrality thoughts, and a very spec... 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 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit Show Notes Today’s guest:  Patrick Beja, host of RDVTech Headlines British spy program ‘Optic Nerve’ captures Yahoo web chats, including nude images: The Guardian reports on documents obtained from Edward Snowden describing a UK GCHQ spy program called ‘Optic Nerve’ which ran from 2008-2010 for sure and was showing up on an internal wiki as recently as 2012. The program captured images from Yahoo chats, saving a still picture every 5 minutes. Analysts could only look at metadata in bulk searches but could get images if a username was the same or similar to targeted individual. In addition to testing facial recognition and feeding some data to the US NSA. the GCHQ was surprised to find a “number of people use webcam conversations to show intimate parts of their body to the other person.” Around seven percent of the images included “undesirable nudity.” The report did not estimate the amount of desirable nudity. Google’s Project Ara project to arrive as early as next year with $50 price tag:  Time’s Technologizer blog reports Google’s Project Ara modular smartphone could arrive early next year priced at $50. That’s the phone that has blocks you can plug in and replace to add or upgrade functionality. Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group reportedly will finish a functioning prototype within a few weeks.The $50 version would only have WiFi, but then you could always get more block later. The freemium model comes to hardware! Boeing to make secure phone CNET reports on Boeing’s dupe secure government and military phone: Yes Boeing is making a phone. Codenamed Black, it comes with loads of security features, dual SIM cards, a modular back for mission-specific needs like satellite communications or ultra-specific geolocation. Also any attempt to open the device would delete the data and software. The device won’t be available to the consumer market and technical information on “Black” is to remain confidential or protected by non-disclosure agreements. Also we never had this conversation. The European Commission plans to hold talks on clearer guidelines for in-app purchases to prevent free-to-download games from misleading customers GigaOm reports on crowd funding for a wearable fitness device called Moov which would audio and visual instruction WHILE you’re exercising Baidu finished 2013 with its fastest revenue growth in more than a year increasing 50.3 percent to 9.523 billion yuan beating analyst expectations of 9.319 billion  Pew research data shows 87 percent of people in the US use the Internet. That number shoots to 99 percent in households that earn more than $75,000 a year News From You Hey Steven Strogatz, I hope you made a bet on your prediction that computer-assisted math solutions would surpass human comprehension. Josh sent us an email with a link to the iO9 article about a computer that has solved the longstanding Erdős discrepancy problem. The solution is as long as all of Wikipedia’s pages combined and impossible for a human to confirm. The only way to check if it’s right is to see if another computer attempting to solve the same problem comes up with the same answer. KAPT_Kipper posted the TechCrunch article about Sony announcing it’s shutting down 20 of its 31 retail stores in the US. So

+Sean Hollister is on the show to tell us how Google is about to conquer its own town. We'll also update you on BitCoin and trot out some exciting new net ne... 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 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit Show Notes:  Today’s guest:  Sean Hollister, senior reporter at The Verge Headlines Mt. Gox hit with federal subpoena:  Ars Technica reports on the latest with Mt. Gox, the bit coin exchange that’s been down for more than a week. Wednesday morning, CEO Mark Karpeles wrote a new post on the Mt. Gox website reassuring people that he is still in Japan working hard to find a solution to Mt. Gox’s issues. The WSJ reports the US Southern District of New York has issued a federal subpoena to Mt. Gox. That court often deals with financial crimes. Japanese authorities say they are looking into the collapse themselves. RSA CEO goes off-script, addresses RSA controversy: ZDNet reports RSA CEO appeared to go off the cuff during his keynote presentation at the RSA security conference. Coviello called for governments, intelligence agencies, vendors and individuals to unite under one set of guidelines. He said the guidelines should include renunciation of cyber weapons, cooperation in investigation and prosecution, insurance for economic activity and intellectual property and insurance of privacy. RSA previously denied allegations it took $10 million from the NSA to provide a backdoor into security software. Google exec says company never made an offer for WhatsApp Three mobile carries say they support ‘kill-switch’ legislation More bad news about consumer security breaches, via the BBC News From You habichuelacondulce brought our attention to an Ars Technica article indicating Naoki Hiroshima, who famously lost access to his Twitter account @N in January, has got his account back. Hiroshima’s account was taken when a hacker claimed to have obtained details from GoDaddy and Paypal and seized Hiroshima’s domain names in order to bargain for the Twitter account. At 1:32Pm Feb. 25th @N tweeted “Order has been restored”  spydrchick pointed us to a PandoDaily story about Daniel Lay, a 33-year-old blogger behind the VFX Soldier site using the MPAA’s own copyright policies against them. Two weeks ago the MPAA filed a briefing with the International Trade Commission, arguing that digital works should be considered every bit as real as traditional manufactured goods. They wanted strict import rules applied to copyrighted works. Howver MPAA member companies have been outsourcing visual effect work overseas, and then bringing those digital effects into the US to finish movies. Therefore the VFX workers can ask the Commerce Department and US ITC to slap a punitive tax on the import of subsidized VFX using the MPAA’s own logic. stephenator pointed us to the fascinating Ars Technica article describing a theoretical rescue mission to bring back the crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia from orbit, if they foam strike that caused the shuttle to be destroyed, would have been noticed earlier. The plan was created as part of the investigation of the disaster and involve scrambling to launch the space shuttle Atlantis and pulling off a daring in orbit transfer of the Columbia crew. Dear Alfonso Cuarón. Please make this into a movie. And tekkyn00b posted the Cult of Android story about the fact that unlike the Samsung Galaxy S4, the Samsung Galxy S5 will not take up most of the phone with pre-installed crapware leaving only 9 GB of free space on the 16GB model. Nope instead the Galaxy

+Roger Chang joins me to dig into the Mt. Gox Bitcoin mess, have some further thoughts on Comcast-Netflix and look at a new language! Also, do selfies cause ... 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 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit Show Notes Today’s guest:  Roger Chang, TV and web video producer Headlines Mt. Gox goes offline: Ars Technica and really the whole tech journalism sphere are reporting on Mt. Gox going offline. The site has been replaced by a message that transactions are closed for the time being for the protection of users. A joint statement from other Bitcoin exchanges accuses Mt. Gox of being a bad actor and promises make botching more secure and easy to use for customers. A leaked set of slides purports to show Mt. Gox plans to name a new CEO and possibly sell the company to new investors and relaunch under the name Gox. The domain name Gox.com is owned by MT. Gox’s CEO and the record was updated Feb. 24th. Apple releases OS X patch for SSL security bug: TechCrunch reports Apple has released their OS X patch for security bug that meant all data secured in SSL was susceptible to man in the middle attacks from nearby hackers. The bug was patched for iOS this weekend. Anyone running OS X 10.9 is urged to update the OS as soon as possible. The patch also adds audio-only capability to FaceTime on the desktop. Blackberry announces a Foxconn-made phone called the Z3: TechCrunch has the new BlackBerry announcements including the much-rumored Foxconn-made phone called the Z3. The touchscreen smartphone has a 5-inch qHD display, 1.2GHz dual core Snapdragon 400 processor, 1.5 GB of RAM, 8 GB of storage and an internal FM radio! The Z3 will launch in Indonesia first. BlackBerry also announced a 3.5-inch phone with a QWERTY keyboard called the Q20. T-Mobile adds 1.6 million subscribers in Q4: But they lost $20 million or 3 cents a share on revenue of $6.83 billion. All those snotty ads cost money. Still they only added 61,000 subscribers a year ago so the expensive ads did seem to work. Tivo founders launch QPlay device Motorola took to Twitter to announce the company is working on a watch to come out this year and promise a new version of Moto X coming late summer Freescale Semiconductor introduced an ARM-baed micro controller unit smaller than a golf ball dimple for use in embedded devices that make up the Internet of Things.  Ewwww…. News From You pete_C posted a ZDNet story to the SubReddit that got some up votes. Seems Ars Technica noted the security team at FireEye developed a proof-of-concept app that could run in the background of a mobile device and log your keystrokes. FireEye originally posted that they successfully got such an app through Apple’s app store but that post has been removed. The defense for now is to be careful what apps you install, and only allow apps you trust to run in the background. and sewell2 submitted the Ars Technica article on Stephen Elop becoming head of Microsoft’s Devices and Studios group, once Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia’s handset division is completed. Devices and Services makes the Xbox and the Surface among other things. The Nokia handset business will fall under that division as well. Julie Larson-Green, who currently heads Devices & Services, will become “Chief Experience Officer” of the “My Life & Work” team as soon as Elop joins. News from Roger: Google sets roadblocks to stop distracted driver legislation http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/25/us-google-glass-lobbying-idUSBREA1O0P92014022

We have +iyaz akhtar and +Nate Lanxon joining us to chat about the Samsung Galaxy S5. We also clear up *some* of the confusion around the Netflix Comcast agr... 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 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit Show Notes Samsung announces  the Samsung Galaxy V:  The 5.1-inch phone comes with a fingerprint unlock button, built-in heart rate monitor, and is IP67-rated for water and dust resistance. It can be submerged in one meter of water for up to 30 minutes. It also comes with a 16-megapixel camera capable of recording at 4K and inside sports a 2.5GHz quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM,and a 2800mAh battery. The Galaxy S5 is scheduled to launch globally on April 11 and will be available on all major US carriers. Samsung also announced the Gear 2, Gear 2 Neo and Gear 2 Fit with a heart rate monitor, the next versions of the Samsung Galaxy Gear smart watch. The new versions run on the Tizen operating system, promising better battery life and camera placement. Nokia introduces Android-based smartphone with Microsoft Apps Ars Technica reports Nokia introduced a line of Android-based smartphones. Similar to a Kindle Fire, the Nokia X phones will run Android underneath but without any of the Google services. Nokia will have its own app store, mapping services, search by Bing, and Microsoft apps like Skype and Outlook pre-installed. The interface also has a Windows Phone-like style. The 4-inch Nokia X goes on sale immediately for €89. The 4-inch X+ and 5-inch XL go on sale next quarter, at €99 and €109 respectively. HTC reveals mid-range smartphones, saves the ‘flagship’ device for March 25th: According to Recode, HTC announced two mid-range smartphones at Mobile World Congress. The HTC Desire 816 features a 5-megapixel front camera, 13 megapixel rear camera, a quad-cord Snapdragon processor and 5.5 inch display. The device hits China in March and other countries in April. The 4.7-inch Desire 610 ships to Europe In May. No pricing available yet for either phone. The company saved a new flagship device for an event on March 25th. The Verge reports HTC also announced the ‘Power to Give’ app which uses idle phone processors to provide up to a petaflop of processing power to speed help cure AIDS, fight cancer and help SETI find ET, who could then phone home on a new — nope. Not gonna do it. Zuckerberg talks internet.org at Mobile World Congress: The BBC wrote about Mark Zuckerberg’s speech at Mobile World Congress. Zuckerberg focused on the Internet.org effort he spearheads, which aims to put billions of people online. A pilot program was announced to bring free online education to students in Rwanda. A partnership between Facebook and Unilever will research lack of Internet access in India, and another survey will estimate the value of expanding access in the developing world in general. CNN reports that in a Q&A session, Zuckerberg also said WhatsApp was worth more than $19 billion because it has the potential for 1 billion users. He also indicated he though the government blew it in its response to the Snowden leaks. News From You MANAGEMIKE and elefunk both submitted stories about Netflix and Comcast announcing the two companies have reached a mutually beneficial interconnection agreement. The Wall Street Journal claims Netflix will pay for the deal. Ars Technica’s sources could not confirm that. Dan Rayburn argued on streamingmedia.com that this agreement is a good thing for both Netflix and Comcast. http://blog.streamingmedia.com/2014/02/media-botching-cov

+Ashley Esqueda and +Darren Kitchen join to get pumped for the Samsung Galaxy S V, buyout a Chevy's, and divine the release date of the Oculus Rift by readin... 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 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit Show Notes Apple acquires Burstly TechCrunch reports Apple acquired Burstly, the company that owns analytic tool FlightPath and the app TestFlight which lets developers distribute their apps to beta testers before they submit it to the app store. TestFlight plans to end support for Android app testing as of March 21st. Shocker. Samsung: Number 5 is Alive. (Also, wet.)  TechCrunch reports on Samsung’s teaser video promoting its upcoming February 24th announcement. The video shows a lot of people having fun doing things that involve phones somehow along with suggestive words like “Alive” and “Wet” all accompanied by the number 5. SO CRYPTIC SAMSUNG! I’ll be joining Cali Lewis and John P. for the GeekBeat.tv coverage of the event Monday at 2 PM Eastern. News From You Normgregory submitted our first News from You on the subreddit. This Reuters story tells how DirecTV Chief Executive Officer Mike White rather unsurprisingly has called for close scrutiny of the proposed Comcast-Time Warner merger, and the effective broadband monopoly it would create. But White didn’t exactly say he’s against it, just that his company has not decided what position to take, and wants to make sure it’s appropriately scrutinized. habichuelacondulce pointed us to this Engadget article on Broadcom’s new BCM4771 Global Navigation Satellite System System on a Chip. What does that mean in English? Better battery life for wearables like smart watches that want GPS built in. The 40-nanometer construction and new sensor hub also make it more accurate. Broadcom will show it off at Mobiel World Congress next week. And Rich_Seattle pointed us to an Engadget story that European streaming service Lovefilm will become part of Amazon’s Prime subscription in both UK and Germany starting Feb. 26th, under the new name Prime Instant Video. The Prime service which still gives one-day shipping will jump from £49 (€29) to £79 (€49). Existing subscribers won’t have to pay extra until the next time their subscription is up. Lovefilm will continue to run a DVD rental business. More links from the show Oculus Gearing Up to Host its Own VR Convention, ‘RiftCon’ Amazon getting ready to launch an Internet video streaming box? Google acquires Spider.io Fitbit issues a voluntary recall of the Fitbit Force following reports of skin irritation Nvidia announces the Tegra Note 7 LTE for $299 Korean Messaging Service Kakao Gets Ready For A $2 Billion IPO  Jolla’s Sailfish OS and smartphones are commercially ready and heading into new markets  Oculus, not just for games Pick of the day via listener Ron Kehn: I recently discovered an app that allows me to use my Google chromecast to play videos stored on my android device. The free application is called AllCast. It is available on the playstore.  A review can be found at Digital Trends

+Veronica Belmont and +Nate Lanxon join us to explain why Facebook REALLY bought WhatsApp. Also why Twitch Plays Pokemon is probably more important. 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 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit Show Notes Facebook Did What? I don’t know if y’all heard, but Facebook announced it has agreed to acquire messaging app company WhatsApp for $4 billion in cash and about $12 billion worth of stock. An additional $3 billion worth of stock goes to the founders of WhatsApp and its employees that vests over 4 years. Co-founder an CEO of WhatsApp Jan Koum also gets a spot on Facebook’s board. Fortune reported Google had offered $10 billion but no board seat. Reassuring Blog Post from Jan Koum Jan Koum’s first Tweet David Rowan of Wired UK spent three days with WhatsApp for article in March 6th issue of Wired Mark Zuckerberg has learned what Steve Jobs knew: You need to disrupt yourself before your competitors do NPD releases US smartphone market numbers:  The smartphone market grew there by 21% in 2013. Apple captured 45% of the market growing a bit over 2012’s 44%. Samsung and LG also grew at the expense of HTC and Motorola. The Kansas legislation attempting to ban nearly all municipal broadband networks is apparently dead: Joshua Montgomery, who runs a small ISP in Lawrence, KS, told Ars Technica he thinks they killed the issue at least for a year. A Senate committee hearing has been canceled and not rescheduled. Kansas Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudeau (D) told Montgomery in an e-mail that the bill “has lost its momentum at this time.” News From You KAPT_Kipper posted the GigaOm story about Aereo losing its court case in the US District Court covering the 10th Circuit including Utah and Colorado. Judge Dale Kimball is the first of three Distrcit Court’s not accept Aereo’s argument that renting a micro antenna to a customer over the Internet is not a public transmission. Judge Kimball wrote “Aereo’s device or process transmits Plaintiffs’ copyrighted programs to the public.” The Supreme Court will hear Aereo’s case April 22. In the meantime Aereo will have to shut down operations in Salt Lake City and Denver. Dmmacs submitted a GigaOm story about Visa and MasterCard announcing upgrades to their point-of-sale systems to take advantage of new capabilities in Android 4.4, aka Kit Kat. Previous NFC systems required hardware cooperation, meaning mobile carriers could keep out competing payment products in favor of their own. Google has developed host card emulation which allows the security element to be done in software allowing Visa and MasterCard to use NFC without any cooperation front he hardware makers. Kylde pointed us to a Slashdot posting about Mercedes-Benz new 360-degree video capture method. A ball made of wide-angle cameras allows the viewer to swivel and tilt the camera angle in pretty much any direction as the car speeds around the track. And yes there’s an iOS app. The device will launch with the Mercedes AMG F1 team this year. And flying spatula submitted this Engadget article about Waze updating its navigation map for Android and iOS to talk to your calendar. If your appointment has a location you can now ask Waze for directions right from inside the calendar. More links from the show Microsoft’s Office Web Apps changes its name to Office Online, launches new features HTC to  show first of three wearable devices at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next week.  Virtual keyboard Fleksy has made itself open and free for developers to integrate in

+Andrew Zarian joins us as we talk about Google Fiber possibly invading 34 new cities, and the FCC cracking down on Net Neutrality violations again. 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 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit Show Notes FCC announces it will create new rules to strengthen net neutrality Ars Technica reports US FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler announced today that the agency will not appeal the court ruling that struck down parts of the Open Internet Order. Instead the FCC will begin the process of creating new rules to prevent ISPs from blocking or discriminating against websites, that have a more solid basis in law. Wheeler said the FCC will also continue to consider reclassifying ISPs as a common carrier as an option. Google Fiber expands Ars Technica also reports Google posted that Google Fiber will investigate 9 new metro areas, a total of 24 cities, as possible sites for Google’s 1 Gbps Internet service. Google will send representatives to Portland, San Jose, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, San Antonio, Nashiville, Atlanta, Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham to meet with municipal governments and make detailed studies of the areas. Google hopes to make decisions about the new locations by the end of the year. Important thing that happened after the show Facebook to buy WhatsApp for $16 billion News From You pete_c submitted this Wired article about Steve Perlman’s attempt to end cell phone congestion, and increase speeds about 1,000 times what they are now by replacing cell phone broadcast antennas and adding a card into existing cell phones. Perlman’s technology is called pCell which works by targeting individual cell phones and using a data center and an algorithm, provides each device with its own connection, rather than sharing bandwidth with every other device in the area. Perlman demonstrated the technology publicly for the first time this morning at Columbia University in New York. lythander sent in a story from the Charleston Daily Mail describing how customer complaints have dropped nearly 70% since Frontier Communications took over Verizon’s West Virginia landline operations. Frontier has also expanded access to roughly 176,000 households. Regulators required Frontier to invest in infrastructure and increase access as a condition for buying the operation from Verizon. And ancientbearwizard posted this Popular Mechanics story about a study published in Current Biology showing that an app called UltimEyes lengthened the distance people could see by an average of 31%. The app works by taking advantage of neuroplasticity, the way the brain can require itself. The app confronts you with patterns based on the Gabor stimuli which the brain uses to represent incoming visual information in the visual cortex. This trains your brain to process the patterns more efficiently. Researchers are still unable to say what is happening int he brain that improves acuity. More links from the show Microsoft OneDrive launches Canonical  announces the first Ubuntu-powered phones for sale; will ship later this year from BQ in Spain and Meizu in China  Nokia to introduce Treasure Tag, a previously rumored device meant to pair physical objects like keys and wallets with a Nokia smartphone Glove for Android to help you pick the right mobile carrier by collecting your mobile data Russian company Yandex launches a firmware kit for Android phones offering a suite of services for carriers and device manufacturers wanting to use Android without agreeing to Google’s terms  Pick of the day: Jennie Pick! Ridiculous awesome

+Lamarr Wilson joins as we ponder the wonders of an IPO based on Candy Crush, and watch our audience debate a la carte cable TV. 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 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit Show Notes New details on Samsung’s high-end smart phone: Bloomberg reports Samsung’s forthcoming high-end smartphone will have a 5.2-inch screen with improved resolution.  Marketing will focus on improved security, an upgraded camera and integration with wearable devices. It also may be sold for less than the Samsung Galaxy S4. The phone is expected to be released at the same time as an update Galaxy Gear smart watch. Samsung has an event scheduled for Monday 2/24. New Snowden docs show debates in NSA about treatment of WikiLeaks: Glenn Greenwald and Ryan Gallagher of The Intercept revealed details from documents leaked by Edward Snowden, showing debates in the NSA about how to treat organizations like WikiLeaks and The Pirate Bay as well as general Internet users. The debates centered on when it was required to filter out data on US users, when monitoring visitors to a site like Wikileaks. One document argued Wikileaks particularly should be dubbed a “malicious foreign actor” so that no filtering would be required. ON a side note, The Verge reports AT&T issued their first transparency report, indicating the company received 301,816 total requests for phone records and subscriber information in 2013.  News From You AllanAv called our attention to this Verge article about BitCoin ATMs coming to Seattle and Austin this month. Robocoin will install similar machines to the one it set up at Waves coffee in Vancouver last year. Robocoin also plans to bring its machines to Asia in a few weeks. The Vancouver ATM processed more than $900,000 in transactions in its first month. Maurice emailed us a Daily Mail story about an organization called the Media Development Investment Fund that wants to create wifi access beamed from hundreds of cubesat satellites launched into orbit by 2015. The company calls the project the Outernet. Each satellite would receive data from a network of ground stations and use UDP to send data to users. The folks at Lightsquared will likely be very interested to see if this is allowed. gigitrix posted this GameSpot article about the weekend craze of up to 7,000 people at a time playing a game of Pokemon on Twitch. An emulator allowed viewers to input text commands like A, B, Start and Select in chat which controlled the game. As of yesterday the game had four badges under its belt, and more than 80,000 people watching. You can watch and play at:  http://www.twitch.tv/twitchplayspokemon KAPT_Kipper pointed us to the Verge article about Gabe Newell’s blog post where he explains why Valve’s Anti-Cheat software was looking at users DNS data. What VAC does look for is DNS that matches the DRM used by cheat software. Details on matching DNS entries are sent, checked again and if matched to known cheat software, the client is marked for a future ban. and pete_c submitted the Ars Technica article about hackers taking advantage of a known critical vulnerability in Asus routers to place text files on drives connected to the routers. Asus reportedly patched the vulnerability late last week. Readers are advised to lock down their routers by installing any available firmware updates, changing any default passwords, and ensuring that remote administration, Cloud, and FTP options are set to off if they’re not needed. More links from the show AT&T files first transparency repo

Just a quick glance at the headlines. No guest today as it's a holiday in the US. 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 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit Show Notes Kickstarter security breach:  Maximum PC noted the Kickstarter security breach reported over the weekend. Some usernames, email addresses, mailing addresses, phone numbers, and encrypted passwords were compromised in the data breach, though Kickstarter says no credit card data was accessed. Kickstarter had hashed older passwords with SHA-1 multiple times while more recent passwords were hashed with crypt. Kickstarter found out about the breach Wednesday and after investigation, alerted users Saturday and advised changing your password. News from you KAPT_Kipper submitted a CultofAndroid post about Google buying Israeli startup SlickLogin. The technology from SlickLogin lets you login into a website by holding your phone close to the computer you’re logging in on. The website plays an ultra-sonic sound that the phone hears and interprets as encrypted data which is used to authenticate the login. The code is temporary and only used for one login. habichuelacondulce points out a CNET article about Apple’s head of mergers and acquisitions, Adiran Perica meeting with Tesla’s Elon Musk at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California last spring. The San Francisco Chronicle has a source claiming Apple was very much interested in buying Tesla, and that Apple CEO Tim Cook was “probably” involved int he meeting. jaymz668 posted a PlayerAttack report that Valve’s Anti Cheat System scans your browsing history to see if you visit hack sites. The details were posted to the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Reddit claiming the VAC goes through all DNS cache entries, hashes each with MD5 and reports back to VAC servers. It is not clear what happens after that. More links from the show Dropbox accessible, stable in China for the first time since 2010 Kakao Talk, a popular messaging app from Korea, has launched an app for Nokia’s 500, 501, 502 and 503 Asha phones

+Brian Ibbott is on the show and we'll talk about the PS4 doubling Xbox One sales, Pandora guessing your political party, and what tech Coverville's Mayor us... 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 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit Show Notes Senators introduce bill to require cellphone makers to include kill switch: Recode reports four US Senators have introduced a bill to require cellphone makers to include the ability to permanently deactivate devices if stolen, either through a kill switch or remote wipe. I hope it somehow involves a small plastic pocket of acid that causes the phone to self-destruct in the criminals hand. And eats their hand. Bitcoins stolen from Silk Road 2: PC Magazine reports about $2.7 million worth of bit coins have disappeared from Silk Road 2, the replacement for the shut-down original Silk Road marketplace. According to its administrator Defcon, a Silk road 2 vendor exploited ‘transaction malleability’ to repeatedly withdraw coins from the system until it was empty. However, much of Reddit and an update on DeepDotWeb doubt that transaction malleability could be to blame and suggest Silk Road 2 staff may have taken the coins themselves and then blamed hackers. James from Irvine wrote in to point us to a Reddit thread that explains how transaction malleability works and how it cannot be used to directly steal coins. Xiomi to expand sales area:  Many have wondered when hot Chinese phone maker Xiaomi would expand beyond the Chinas (mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan). According to The Next Web, it happens February 21st. That’s when Redmi, the newly-named version of the Hongmi phone, goes on sale in Singapore for SG$169 unlocked . The Redmi will come with a 4.7-inch IPS display, 1.5GHz processor and the MIUI customization ROM. News From You  AllanAV topped the subreddit charts pre-show with a BGR report surveying the state of broadband competition in the US. The story points out how ISps are pushing state legislation to prevent municipalities from building their own high-speed networks, and have successfully passed some restrictions in 20 states. While ISps are notoriously slow to roll out faster Internet, they very much do not want governments providing it. habichuelacondulce AND KAPT_Kipper both all-star Subreddit submitters, and both submitted this story about the world’s largest solar thermal plant began electricity delivery from the Mojave Desert in California. CNET reports the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System — jointly owned by NRG Energy, Google, and BrightSource Energy — can produce 392 megawatts of solar power at full capacity. That’s enough to power 140,000 homes. However, like any power plant it’s not without controversy, as birds flying near its scorching hot towers have died or suffered burns. And dbrodbeck sent in this story emblematic of Canada’s love of hockey. Hamilton’s thespec.com reported Sandvine estimates as much as 37% of commercial and residential web traffic in Canada on Thursday afternoon was linked to streams of Olympic hockey opener between defending champs Canada and Norway. Canada won 3-1 on goals by Shea Weber, Jamie Benn and Drew Doughty. More Links From the Show Windows 8 exceeds 200 million licenses sold Ars Technica reports NPD’s latest numbers show Sony’s PS4 sales nearly doubled that of Microsoft’s Xbox One  Japan’s Rakuten will pay $900 million for Viber, whose Skype-like messaging system has 300 million registered users    

+Don Reisinger joins us to talk about the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger and the new Xbox One remote. Guess which one he likes? That may be a trick question. 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 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit Show Notes Comcast, Time Warner Cable agree to merge, deal must receive regulatory approval from FCC & DOJ:  Bloomberg reports Comcast has agreed to acquire Time Warner Cable for $45.2 billion in stock, combining the two largest cable television and Internet companies in the US. TWC stock holders will receive 2.875 shares of Comcast for each TWC share they hold, valuing TWC shares at $158.82. Charter Communications had been attempting to acquire Time Warner Cable, with Comcast’s help but talks broke down. The acquisition would give Comcast 30 million total customers, just under 30% of the US market and operations in New York City and Los Angeles. The merger must receive regulatory approval from the FCC and US Department of Justice, neither a foregone conclusion. There is no breakup penalty if the deal does not go through. Facebook to allow users to choose genders other than male and female:  Reuters reports Facebook is letting users choose genders other than male and female when they create or edit their profiles.  Members in the US can choose male, female or the new ‘custom’ option. The custom option allows the user to select from 10 different gender identifications, including transgender, intersex, and fluid. Users can also restrict who can see their gender selection and choose to be referred to by the pronoun their instead of his or her. Hyperlinks allowed. Whew.  PC World reports the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled Thursday that a website does not require authorization to link to a freely accessible copyright work, even if they Frame it so it looks like its on their site not the works. The CJEU provided the advice to the Court of Appeal in Svea, Sweden, regarding a case where journalists complained their articles were linked to from Retriever Sverige in a way that made them look like they were on Retriever’s site. News From You Maurice from Easy New Orleans, sent in this story from the Kansas City Star about Mason Wild who used the Johnson County library’s 3-D printer to make a hand for nine-year-old family friend, Matthew. Such a hand would normally cost around $18,000. Instead, Wild used a freely available design from Ivan Owen and South African woodworker Richard Van As, 8 hours of time on the library’s printer and $60 worth of materials. Boom. Hand. cosmicvibes pointed us to a TechCrunch article on Google and VMWare’s partnership to allow Chromebook users to access Windows app and the Windows desktop on their Chrome machines. While this kind of access to virtual machines already exists for ChromeOS, the partnership will provide a secure enterprise-ready way to do it. AllanAV posted a Futureistech post describing how physicists have produced nanoribbons of graphene — single-atom-thick carbon — that conduct electrons without resistance at room temperature. The international researchers measured ballistic transport that exceeded theoretical limits by a factor of ten. Good know for potential graphene-based electronics that could greatly outperform silicon-based devices. And habichuelacondulce submitted this Register article that the Chinese Jade Rabbit lunar explorer, thought to be dead after an emergency shutdown has started to receive signals normally again. However it’s still troubled by a mechanical control abnormality that led to the shutdo

+Jeff Cannata joins us to talk about the FCC's new commitment to Net Neutrality. Should you believe it? Fear it? Ignore it? Plus a Flappy Bert chaser. Yes, y... 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 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 and scottierowland on the subreddit Show Notes Apple plans to introduce a new Apple TV set-top box by April: Bloomberg reports Apple plans to introduce a new Apple TV set-top box as early as April. The company is negotiating with Time Warner Cable and other partners to add video content. The idea is to have the box available for sale by the end of the year, though problems striking deals could still delay it. Oh wait— I’m sorry— I’m reading a story from last year— wait no from 2012— OH no, no this is from today. It’s so hard to tell with these Apple TV rumors. FCC Chairmen says agency is working to reinstate Net Neutrality protections:  KAPT_Kipper, ssnapier, and many others pointed us to versions of this story. CNET reports that during a speech at the University of Colorado Law School, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said his agency is working on a plan to re-instate Net Neutrality protections. A Federal Appeals Court recently ruled that the FCC could regulate broadband providers but had used an incorrect legal justification in its Open Internet Order. Wheeler said: “…the Court of Appeals invited the Commission to act to preserve a free and open Internet. I accept that invitation, and in the coming days, I will be outlining how I propose to proceed.” Most important story ever! Our producer Jennie spotted this psfk story about some folks from Studio Diip giving goldfish the keys to a car, sort of. “Fish on Wheels” is a fish tank, a motorized go cart controlled by Arduino,a Beagleboard, and a webcam pointed at the fish. The cart moves automatically in the direction the fish swim. Likely a demonstration of the companies image recognition prowess, we prefer to think it’s because somebody cared that fish get bored. No, wait. Flappy Bert  is more important: News From You t2t2 submitted this on the subreddit. In response to reports of large-scale surveillance, the European Commission has published a proposal for changes in Internet governance. The proposal calls for the globalization of ICANN, the institution that manages domain names and numbers. It also proposes strengthening the Internet Governance Forum, promoting more transparency in Internet Policy and commitments to globalize key decision-making while safeguarding the open and unfragmented nature of the Internet. The Commission does not support handing over the keys to the International Telecommunications Unions as some countries have proposed, but prefers a multi-stakeholder approach. KAPT_Kipper pointed us to a TechCrunch article on how the “Day We Fight Back” protest went yesterday. More than 87,000 phone calls were placed to Congressional representatives, along with more than 182,000 emails. Nicole Perlroth at the New York Times, suggested a better response could have been had if the goals were clearer. Rather than the simple message of Stop SOPA, visitors were urged to fight one surveillance bill, the FISA Improvements Act, and support another, the USA Freedom Act. More links from the show Google’s Nest deal closes Jobs time capsule discovered Twitter redesign coming? Mozilla to show ads when users open new tabs