The Geekcast

The Geekcast #356 – Moar Speed!

  News:   Top iOS apps and games go free ahead of App Store's fifth anniversary 'Infinity Blade II,' Traktor DJ, 'Sword and Sworcery,' Day One, and more A host of highly regarded apps for iPhone and iPad have gone free today in what could be a major celebration to mark five years since Apple launched the App Store. So far, games such as Infinity Blade II, Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP, Where's My Water?, Badland and Tiny Wings (iPhone / iPad) are all on offer for nothing, alongside apps such as the beautiful photo-annotating app Over, Traktor DJ (iPhone / iPad), Day One, Over, How to Cook Everything, and Barefoot World Atlas.   None of these apps have ever been free on the App Store before, and many have commanded relatively high prices until now. In the case of Traktor DJ for iPad, the app normally sells for $19.99, and comes recommended by The Verge's Nilay Pateland Trent Wolbe. Apple is yet to make any announcement regarding the offers, and none of the apps in question give any explanation on their store pages. Since the App Store went live five years ago this week, the deals may be part of a coordinated celebration. The Verge has contacted Apple for more information on the matter. Update: According to ABC News, the CEO of Touch Press (who makes Barefoot World Atlas) confirmed that the app going free is for a fifth-anniversary promotion. "Barefoot World Atlas went free this morning and will remain so all this week to help celebrate five years of the App Store," said CEO Max Whitby. "Today's promotion is another step down the road to help spread the word [about our apps]." Whitby also indicated that the companies making their apps free were not being compensated by Apple for the loss of revenue. "In marketing apps you have to consider the big picture. The loss of one week's paid sales is far outweighed by the wider gain in awareness."   http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/8/4502810/ios-apps-and-games-go-free-five-years-after-app-store-launched   Earthworm Jim’s creator kickstarter campaign   Yesterday, lots of gaming sites reported that Nintendo has fast-tracked Pencil Test Studios to become an officially licensed developer for the Wii U, a move related to specifically to the developer’s efforts toKickstart their adventure game project, Armikrog. With 48 hours left before the funding period ends, the campaign is a bit over $160,000 short of its $900,000 goal, with a $950,000 stretch goal to make a Wii U port a possibility. From what I can see, the game looks pretty damn cool, But despite the fact that the video game world might be a bit better with the presence of a game likeArmikrog, I’m not going to be contributing. That’s because of the involvement of Doug TenNapel, the artist responsible for creating Earthworm Jim and on whose work this game is entirely based. Don’t get me wrong: I really dug Earthworm Jim back in the day, and I even liked his shortlived cartoon seriesProject G.eeK.eR. But I’ve discovered that TenNapel has made his views on the world pretty clear inhis columns for Breitbart.com a few years ago, not to mention some unfortunate public comments about same-sex marriage. Every person has the right to express his or her opinion in whatever way they like, and that’s one of the most important rights we’ve got here in the United States. On that same note, I have the right to express my opposition to those views with my words and with my dollars—specifically withholding them. Now, we’re running into some tricky gray area here. Shouldn’t I support the project despite the creator’s views? After all, the game doesn’t seem to have much to do with TenNapel, nor will contributing to it mean that I’ve suddenly changed my views. Many people can—and do—separate the artist from the art. But over the  years that I’ve been consuming art in various forms, be it film, novels, music, and games, I’ve tried to take a more conscious approach to what I support with my money, and what I don’t.

  News:   Sony and Disney begin streaming movies still in theaters in a bold move against piracy   In a bid to limit movie piracy in Asia, Disney and Sony have quietly begun testing a bold new on-demand service in South Korea which offers movies to rent while they are still playing in theaters. As noted by the Wall Street Journal, the two companies are the first US studios to provide consumers anywhere with the option to buy a ticket to see a movie or watch it in their own home using their cable, internet, or satellite-TV subscription.Django Unchained, Wreck-it Ralph, and Brave had all been made available as part of the trial. In May, Shane Carruth's Upstream Color went online and hit iTunes and Amazon Instant Video after about a month in theaters. Similar attempts by studios have been met with resistance in the past. Tim Burton's film version of Alice in Wonderland was nearly not screened at Odeon cinemas in the UK, Ireland, or Italy in 2010 after Disney attempted to reduce the exclusive theater release window from 17 weeks to 12 weeks in order to bring forward the DVD launch. Disney also conducted an on-demand test in Portugal with a six-week window for animated movie Tangled a year later but has not repeated the experiment until now. As the world's eighth-largest film market, South Korea is a good place for Disney and Sony to start. Should they test the model outside of Asia, both companies will likely be met with greater opposition in countries like the US and UK. With movies like Iron Man 3performing fantastically at the US box office with an $175 million opening weekend (second only to The Avengers), theaters play a major part in building buzz for a title — helping Google to predict future box office hits. That said, the four other major Hollywood studios are said to be watching the situation closely and may follow suit, putting pressure on movie theater chains and the future of the exclusive 90-day play window in the US.   http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/24/4458644/disney-sony-on-demand-streaming-korea   Ouya CEO 'pissed' at delayed backer shipments as console hits stores The Android-based Ouya is hitting retail stores today, but the occasion hasn't quite gone off without a hitch. Some of the Kickstarter backers still have not received their early-edition consoles, prompting a message from the company CEO. "I am pissed," CEO Julie Uhrman wrote on the Kickstarter blog (via Polygon). "Some of you have not yet received your Ouya--and, to you, I apologize. I did not promise to ship to *most* of you before we hit store shelves. I promised to ship to *all* of you. I've been reading your comments, and we are working to solve this." She wrote that the Ouya shipments were delivered to a partner in May, but some were not delivered as promised. Head of operations Ken Stephens apologized for DHL's tracking system, and said that the "vast majority" of those who have not received their consoles yet are international customers. According to a press announcement released alongside the launch today, the console boasts more than 170 games and media apps so far. 17,000 game creators have registered, a number that must include quite a few indie devs alongside its bigger names like Sega, Square Enix, and Double Fine. The console costs $99.99, and additional controllers will run you $49.99. http://www.shacknews.com/article/79899/ouya-ceo-apologizes-delayed-backers-console-hits-stores ************   Geek This Week:   Aaron: Audio-Technica LP120-USB Turntable, BJ Timoner walks across America.   Gozer:  Redbox Last of Us, Xcom Enemy Unknown Ios, Home Theater, World War Z ETX   ************* Feedback and items of Note:   Home automation has taken me nearly 4 years to get to the current all inclusive state. Insteon switches are $40+ per, so I spread it out -- getting a few each month -- now I'm done (hopefully no more crazy storms -- Sandy killed a couple of switches with power surges,

  News:   Xbox One   AppleTV Update   ************   Geek This Week:   Aaron: Sonos!!!! Feedbands. Songza. Playing a ton of NES.   Gozer: Wii U   ************* Feedback and items of Note:   Hey guys I just wanted to mention one of the most important features of the Mac Pro you forgot to mention,IT'S MADE IN THE USA!!!!! As always love the show Dawson Hey guys I just got this photo of me and my cousin( the original apple fanboy in the family) from my mom watching the WWDC Keynote live on our Apple TV. We both have our iPad minis(you can't see mine) and he had his iPhone. As always, love the show   Dawson Ps I am the one on the left I'm trying to catch up on the E3 and it feels like Microsoft just doesn't get it. First it was just Windows 8, half touch/half garbage, now it's the X-Box with 24 hour check ins, no game rentals and the price point. Just because you can afford it, doesn't make it affordable -- there is such thing as stupid money. PS4 made their price point a lot more palatable. Plus putting MS in charge of my entire entertainment system, plus potentially home automation -- no thank you. MS has had their hand in the terrible Ford Sync venture, if you live with the car for a while you'll realize that having a Swiss Army knife approach in one system makes even the simplest tasks (like GPS) not work because the system is trying to do too much. Now the geeky stuff, you can skim over it -- I think you'd get a kick out of it.   I have a home automation server with my own code on it -- it communicates to insteon lights in my house via a powerline modem and communicates to other things, like locks, door/window sensors, fire and CO2 detectors, window shades, blinds etc via a server I wrote for Raspberry PI -- I have 2 of those with custom expansion boards I made which are located upstairs and downstairs so running wires to them is not hard. Most of the interfaces are simply RF remotes hidden behind furniture connected to relays on the expansion boards. I've written an android client for my system so everything is readily accessible from our GS4 phones or a number of inexpensive Android tablets I have mounted on walls throughout the house. Plus I have IR pickups in our primary rooms which forward commands from the Logitech Harmony remotes to the main server and execute various actions. Obviously since this is a bit of an obsession I have gone a bit overboard (ask my wife). As she says we have 50 ways to shut off one light switch. I am not going to say this is for everyone, it's expensive in time and money, but at least for me, it's fun. I like the fact that I can buy some random of the shelf motorized drape and in about 30 minutes have it fully integrated into my system. Of course I'm a computer programmer and have been doing this type of stuff for nearly 2 decades -- I'm 34 so that makes it more than half my life, so obviously not for everyone. PS. 4k on a 65" tv is a gift that keeps on giving, it's fantastic.   -Yakov   **************   Sponsors:   Check us out on Stitcher! Visit http://www.stitcher.com/geekcast and sign up. Not only can you catch the podcast through the app, but if you use the code ‘geekcast’ within the app and you’ll be entered to win $100! Audible: Try Audible Now and Get 1 Free Audiobook Download with a 14 Day Trial. Choose from over 85,000 Titles. Continue your membership and receive 1 audio book credit a month for only $14.95 per month!  Just visit AudiblePodcast.com/TheGeekcast  

  News:   E3   YOU DON'T KNOW JACK is coming to OUYA with a brand new feature called party play that allows players to turn their iPhone, iPad or Android device into additional game controllers. Players become contestants in a truly interactive game show experience, complete with cash, prizes, backstage characters, pounding music, bizarre sound effects and your lovable but verbally sassy host, Cookie Masterson. WWDC   ************   Geek This Week:   Aaron:   Gozer:   ************* Feedback and items of Note:   Hi Guys!   Despite not feeling very positive about the Xbox One I was taken a back when I saw some of the quality of the games that appeared at E3.   I think I will be leaving it a year at least so they can iron out the kinks -as we know there will be tons of them!   One thing that did get me excited and when I say excited I mean I nearly bounced off the wall, was the new Halo teaser.   Check out this YouTube video which although is about Skyrim totally sums up how I feel about a new Halo game!   http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=c9eGtyqz4gY&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dc9eGtyqz4gY (Video is just called Skyrim if the link won't work)   Can't wait to see what happens over the next while with Xbox One.   As always love the show -Barry Cork, Ireland Hey guys! I just listened to your most recent episode and I just wanted to clarify that I wanted to be like Steve Jobs in that he is a visionary and not his personality. Also I got mailbox and I am loving it! As always love the show Dawson Glad to see you guys back. I'm catching up on my podcasts and was hoping you didn't disappear after I was reconfiguring my podcast tool on my brand new gs4, which I love BTW. Actually I could not go to an iPhone, even a 5 now because the screen is to small. I use different mobile smart phones at work to test our software and was using the iPhone 5 and felt like it was a little toy compared to my gs4. Of course note 2 looks huge even compared to my phone. I digress. The reason I'm writing is to provide some insight into some rather bleeding edge tech. I am in a position to be able to affoard some of the higher priced toys. So my most recent purchase is the Sony 65 inch 4k TV. My wife tends to keep in control from going of the deep end so the 85 inch model was nixed. Jk, 25k on a TV... that's even to rich for most of the people I work with who have a lot more money than me. So, the Sony 4k. Design wise, gorgeous, the speakers are built in, which is odd because for a high end consumer, speakers on a TV are useless since most if not all will have a surround sound system. Its not a deal breaker by any means though. 4k content, well its hard to come by. I upgraded my media center to display 4k content, doesn't take much a 7000 series card can do it pretty well. I ran some 4k YouTube clips and its absolutely beautiful. The installers who hung this thing on the wall for us hung around to see me get the media center hooked up because they never seen 4k up close. Now I am in a rathole of HDMI switches and splitters, not fun. A lot of returns to Amazon for devices that claim to be 3d compatible or 4k compatible and are not. 3d is generally a gimmick, but on this TV at this size with how clear it is, with passive glasses, it works and its awesome. So from the bleeding edge signing off.   Yakov Hey Aaron and Gozer,   So you guys have been run off your feet of late eh? Yes, parenthood does that! How did our parents ever cope?!   Taking time out for your family isn't a bad thing. And it's not something you guys need to apologise for. This is something you do for fun, so make it as fun as you can when you do it!   Onto some show thoughts.   1) PS 4 vs XBOX ONE. I'm really bummed about the XBox One. I wanted it to be so much better, but it feels like Microsoft has totally lost its way. I don't think we'll be buying a console unless there's a killer game that Kate wants.

We're back.

Yup, an episode that's long overdue.

News: Foursquare revamps business pages to take on Yelp as web visitors hit 50 million per month   As Foursquare has evolved from friend-finder to expansive recommendations engine,Yelp has emerged as the company’s most formidable enemy. Foursquare’s mobile apps have for some time stood head and shoulders above Yelp’s, but there was always one area where Foursquare lagged: the web. Today, a big update on Foursquare's web app hopes to change that — a fresh coat of paint that front-loads Foursquare's top selling points over its rival. "This is the place to make a first impression," says Foursquare’s lead web engineer Mike Singleton. 50 million people come to the site every month, which is an astounding number compared to the 33 million users Foursquare says it has. A large portion of that traffic comes from Google, Singleton says, and that’s where he sees the greatest opportunity to earn new users. In fact, the number of referrals from Google has doubled in the last year, and that trend is expected to continue. Despite ballooning web user numbers, the site had not seen a significant visual update since November 2011. Foursquare’s new business pages are far more colorful, and put a much greater emphasis on the areas where Foursquare stands out: its ability to generate relationships between similar places and judge appeal based on hundreds of signals like check-ins and likes. The service has to some extent evolved into Pandora, but for restaurants and bars. The tough part is creating pages that work for both "super users" and for the increasing number of people flocking in from Google searches. These are two very different kinds of people, Singleton says. http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/23/4256192/foursquare-revamps-business-pages-50-million-web-visitors Cry for Verizon to kill contracts grows louder A petition from Change.org needs just 30,000 more signatures before it can take it to Verizon. The calls for Verizon Wireless to drop the contract are getting louder. The petition posted on Change.org calling for Verizon to kill off its contract model has garnered nearly 120,000 signatures, with 25,000 signatures added over the weekend alone. It only needs another 30,000 before it can take it to the company. The petition was created by Verizon customer Mike Beauchamp on April 7 after Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam told CNET on the sidelines of an event held earlier this month that he would consider moving to a no-contract model if consumers demanded it, and said the process to shift to no-contracts wouldn't be difficult. The comments came shortly after T-Mobile dropped service contracts and subsidies as part of its "Uncarrier" campaign. Under the new plans, consumers pay the full price for their smartphones, but pay a lower monthly rate for cellular service, ultimately saving consumers money. A Verizon representative noted that the company already offers a month-to-month plan that requires customers to pay the full cost of a device upfront. "Verizon Wireless has for years offered many different choices for customers, including contract plans or month-to-month plans that do not require a contract," the representative said. In addition to eliminating the contract, Beauchamp challenged Verizon to come up with an affordable way for consumers to pay for that smartphone. He added that a no-contract model is a better reflection of the faster moving wireless industry, and noted that he didn't start the petition because of any dissatisfaction with the service. "I've been a long-time Verizon customer and I don't see myself ever leaving; but I want that choice myself; I don't want them making it for me and imposing stiff penalties if I do decide to leave," he said in the petition. T-Mobile, for instance, has changed the model by charging a smaller upfront fee and a monthly payment that covers the cost of the device over 24 months. Consumers can pay in advance. They can also leave whenever they want,

Show notes lost to the ether of the Internet. Sorry!

News: It’s official: Google Fiber is coming to Austin “by mid-2014” Product, pricing will be “roughly similar to Kansas City," Google says Just days after Google sent out a sneaky little announcement inviting the press to the Texas capital, the company has now confirmed what we’d all long suspected. Austin is slated to receive the gigabit speed of Google Fiber “by mid-2014,” with a “similar choice of products as our customers in Kansas City,” priced at “roughly similar to Kansas City.” Google has been reticent to say what its broader plans are for bringing Google Fiber to other communities around the US—on Monday, two Wall Street analysts concluded that Google likelywouldn’t bring it to the rest of the country. Currently, in the Kansas City area, the service comes in three options: a $120 per month package (which includes TV-over-IP and a DVR to go along with it), a $70 per month package (same gigabit speed, minus the TV), and an option to get your house “Google Fiber”-ready at a one-time construction cost of $300 (which can be split up over 12 months)—that will bring 5Mbps, for free, over seven years. “We’re also planning to connect many public institutions as we build in Austin—schools, hospitals, community centers, etc.—at a gigabit for no charge,” the company added in a corporate blog post on Monday. Google will be hosting a conference call for reporters on Monday afternoon, and we will update this story once we’ve heard more from the call. http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/04/its-official-google-fiber-is-coming-to-austin-by-mid-2014/ Google begins rolling out Google Play revamp for Android It was only yesterday that we reported on the leaks, but it looks like Google has made it official. In a blog post on the official Android blog, Michael Siliski, group product manager for Google Play, announced the rollout of the redesigned Android marketplace for Android phones and tablets running Android 2.2 Froyo or higher. Siliski says that the redesign is focused on being “simple [and] clean” and that it's meant to help users find content faster. We've done a side-by-side comparison to show the old Google Play store—a jumbled mix of images and text—next to the revamped version. The latter shows a nicely compartmentalized interface with a dedicated row of buttons at the top for the types of media that can be downloaded from the service. The new design has bigger images that “jump off the page.” Content that belongs together is grouped together, and purchasing has been simplified so that it’s faster to check out of the Play store. Even individual categories have been given a makeover. If you haven’t received an update to Google Play just yet (we haven't), sit tight. Google says it will roll out over the next few weeks. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/04/google-begins-rolling-out-google-play-revamp-for-android/   60,000 Apps pulled from Google Play - http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/08/nearly-60k-low-quality-apps-booted-from-google-play-store-in-february-points-to-increased-spam-fighting/   Waiting for a 1TB SSD below $1 per GB? Crucial says wait no more Crucial announced in a press release this morning that it has begun selling its latest round of consumer-grade solid-state disks (SSDs), the M500. The 2.5-inch SATA III SSDs are the follow-up to Crucial's M4 SSDs, which are a pretty popular choice for people adding SSDs to existing systems (I think I have four or five M4s scattered in computers around my house). The drives use 20nm MLC NAND sourced from Micron (and if you're not sure what MLC NAND is, we've got a great SSD primer right here), along with a Micron-provided SSD controller. Performance for the M500 drives is what you'd expect from a drive in this class: sequential read and write speeds of 500MB per second and 400MB per second. But the big news about the announcement is the capacities. The M500 is available in standard pedestrian capacities of 120GB and 240GB,

News:   'House of Cards' coming to Blu-ray and DVD June 11th according to Amazon   Sure, House of Cards has proven enormously popular among Nettflix subscribers, but someone was bound to cash in on physical media sales. Per a newly discovered listing on Amazon, Sony Pictures Entertainment will bring the political drama to Blu-ray and DVD on June 11th. As of now, Amazon indicates the HD season one set will be priced at $52.99, with the DVD offering expected to fall somewhere around $44.99. House of Cards was produced by Media Right Capital and licensed by Netflix for online streaming, but as Deadline reported back in 2011, Sony managed to secure distribution rights for the series. A June release means Netflix will have been the sole avenue for viewing Cards for a bit over four months. Unfortunately, the Amazon listing doesn't reveal what (if any) bonus material fans can expect.   http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/2/4173894/house-of-cards-blu-ray-dvd-release-june-11   XCOM: Enemy Unknown coming to iOS Today at its PAX East panel, Firaxis and 2K Games announced that XCOM: Enemy Unknown is coming to iOS devices. The iPhone and iPad will sport slightly different interfaces catered to each device. Jake Solomon, lead designer of XCOM, told Shacknews that this will be a complete port of the game at a set (and so far, undecided) price, rather than charging for microtransactions or chapters as we've seen from some mobile ports.. No Android version is planned currently, but Solomon says that doesn't mean the door is shut on the possibility.   http://www.shacknews.com/article/78361/xcom-enemy-unknown-coming-to-ios Amazon turns Cloud Drive into a Dropbox rival with file syncing File sync comes to Windows and Mac, but smartphones still have to wait.   Amazon's Cloud Drive was unveiled two years ago for the primary purpose of letting customers store music files purchased from Amazon. Although you could upload other files to Cloud Drive, it wasn't a replacement for cloud storage services like Dropbox because it didn't automatically sync files from one computer to another.   Today, that limitation is gone. "The new app for Windows and Mac now includes File Sync, which lets users easily store and access files in the Amazon Cloud from a folder on their computer," an Amazon spokesperson told Ars in an e-mail. "Files in this folder are automatically stored in Cloud Drive and can be accessed from a computer or the Web. When you install the app on a second computer all of your synced files are available there as well. The updated app makes it simple for users to put files in Cloud Drive and to access them from any of their computers, ensuring that they always have access to the latest version of their files from home and on the road."   Like Dropbox, Google Drive, or Microsoft's SkyDrive, the Cloud Drive desktop application (download it here) creates a new folder in your file manager. The desktop application supports all Windows versions from XP to 8 and Mac OS X 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8.   The application requires Java. If you attempt to run the application on a Mac without Java installed, you will be prompted to install a Java runtime. On Windows, the application apparently comes with an embedded Java runtime. Java security flaws are well-known, but are mainly a problem with the browser plug-ins, which Cloud Drive doesn't require.   File syncing is desktop-only for now. There is a Cloud Drive photo storage app for Android, but it hasn't been updated since February 1. Amazon told us it has "nothing specific to share" about plans to bring file syncing to iOS, Android, or other mobile platforms. Dropbox, Google Drive, and SkyDrive already support smartphones and tablets.   Cloud Drive offers 5GB of free space with the option to buy more. Dropbox provides 2GB free, while Google Drive provides 5GB and SkyDrive provides 7GB.   In Amazon Cloud Drive, 20GB costs $10 a year, 50GB costs $25 a year,

News:   Hands on: Apple’s Podcasts app loses reel animation, gains playlists Apple's Podcasts 1.2 for iOS replaces skeuomorphism with iCloud and playlists. Last summer, Apple released the Podcasts application as a new way to play podcasts on your iOS device. Until that time, this was a job done by the built-in iPod or Music app, but as of iOS 6, podcasts disappear from Music if you have the Podcasts app installed. The initial poor performance and bugginess were addressed as the year progressed, albeit not to everyone's satisfaction. And the astonishingly accurately animated reel-to-reel tape deck displayed as podcasts played was seen as a prime example of Apple's foray in excessive skeuomorphism.   But as of this week's release of Podcasts 1.2, skeuomorphism is out the door. And you know what? I actually miss the reel-to-reel tape deck animation a little. But now at least I don't have to worry about the animation using up valuable battery life. Playlists A more important change is that Podcasts now has playlists, found under "My Stations." Four different types, even: the On-The-Go playlist, custom "stations," and both smart and regular playlists synced from iTunes. The iTunes playlists behave largely as expected: you get to edit the regular ones, letting you reorder and remove episodes... but not add any. There's no editing of smart playlists, and Podcasts inherits an issue that Music has had in recent years: the order of episodes in a smart playlist set in iTunes is not carried over. Instead, episodes are sorted by the Artist field (usually the podcast's name), then the star rating from high to low, and finally alphabetically by episode name. The On-The-Go playlist doesn't suffer from these issues: it lets you add, reorder, and remove episodes. Although you can set whether episodes are shown from old to new or from new to old and, separately, whether they play oldest first or newest first for each individual podcast feed, the On-The-Go interface always adds episodes at the top. But you can also add episodes to the On-The-Go playlist through a big button on the episode's information screen. In this case, they're added at the bottom. As a strong old-goes-on-top proponent, I really hope Apple doesn't simplify all of this by making new-goes-on-top the only option. If that's the alternative, please give me this mess instead. But a global new-goes-on-top vs old-goes-on-top default setting would certainly go a long way here. Stations Last but not least, you get to build your own stations. These are basically smart playlists. Two are provided out of the box: Most Recent and All Unplayed. The Most Recent station has one episode of every podcast. Strangely, for podcasts synced from iTunes, it's the oldest episode, while for podcasts that you're subscribed to within Podcasts, it's the newest. The episodes are ordered from the newest to the oldest. The All Unplayed station obviously has all unplayed episodes in it, grouped by podcast. You also get to make your own stations. You can select which podcasts to include, and how many episodes. You only get to select the 1, 2, 3, 5, or 10 most recent ones (if you don't want to include all), but for iTunes-synced podcasts, this actually seems to mean "oldest." The episodes can then be ordered manually, in "most recent" order or in the order you've set up in "My Podcasts." Please Apple, how hard is it to add "least recent" and "alphabetically"? The ordering is important, because episodes play one after the other. (You can still avoid automatically starting the next podcast with the sleep timer, now reachable through the little clock with zz icon above the artwork in the playback screen.) Last but not least, you can include audio or video podcasts or both, and limit the station to unplayed episodes only. I listen to several science podcasts, so I make a station that collects those. I'm also catching up on some podcasts I recently discovered. For these,

News:   Amazon planning to launch a $99 Kindle Fire HD, claims report   Amazon may be expanding its Kindle Fire line of tablets with a new, low-cost version of the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD, according to a report from TechCrunch. Allegedly, this new Ki...

Enjoy TWO episodes of The Geekcast!   Show Notes for #343:   News: Target reportedly signs on with rumored Google Shopping Express same-day delivery service Google's rumored same-day delivery service may already have one major partner on board. In an alleged internal letter printed by TechCrunch, Google says that it is "excited to open Google Shopping Express to every Googler in the Bay Area," listing partnerships with "Target, Nob Hill Foods, Babies 'R' Us, and more." TechCrunch has previously said that Google Shopping Express will be priced at $69 a year, and this email says that test subscriptions will include free same-day delivery for a year for Googlers, with deliveries priced at $4.99 apiece for non-members. Google has said it has nothing to announce at this time about Shopping Express, and we still don't know when the service might launch if it is indeed in testing. It has, however, openly made several moves towards bolstering its shopping services in the past year, and something like Shopping Express would help it compete with Amazon — it's said to have started testing same-day delivery late last year. Target, meanwhile, was a launch partner with eBay Now, another same-day delivery service that recently began expanding outside San Francisco. http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/12/4093974/target-reportedly-signs-on-with-google-shopping-express Sony retail stores slash Vita 3G price in the US After Sony officially dropped the price of the PlayStation Vita by about a third in Japan last month, Sony Worldwide Studios head Shuhei Yoshida came out and said the US shouldn't expect a similar price drop. But US Sony retail stores seem to have a different idea about that, lowering the price of the more expensive 3G system by $100, to $199, ahead of a possible discontinuation of the cellular model. Joystiq was among the first to notice the price drop, which seems to be limited to a dozen or so of Sony's retail locations throughout the US. Store representatives at locations in Denver, New Jersey and Las Vegas told Joystiq the 3G unit was being discontinued, but other stores had not even registered the price drop yet. Sony's own online store is now showing a reduced price of $249, down from the original $299 price from just last night. Comparative sales for the 3G and Wi-Fi-only units aren't available for the US, but in Japan, the 3G model of the system is slightly more popular, according to recent data from Media Create. That may be due to both official and unofficial discounts provided by Sony and retailers on the 3G unit, which currently sells for the same suggested price as the Wi-Fi model in Japan. Sony has publicly admitted multiple times that overall Vita sales have been below expectations. http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/03/sony-retail-stores-slash-vita-3g-price-in-the-us/ Microsoft backs away from Flash ban in IE10 Arguing that support for Adobe's browser plug-in is an advantage, Microsoft now permits Flash by default on Windows 8 and Windows RT. Tablets that can't run Flash are merely "a companion to a PC." An about-face in Internet Explorer 10 shows Microsoft is not merely backing off from its hostility toward Flash Player, but actually warming up to the Adobe Systems browser plug-in for competitive reasons. In September 2011, Microsoft declared that browser plug-ins are a relic from the Internet's early days, calling them bad for battery life, security, reliability, and privacy, and said that it would ban them when IE10 was running withWindows 8's Metro user interface, now called the "immersive UI." But Microsoft gave Flash a reprieve in May 2012 by building a special version of Adobe's plug-in directly into IE10. It only worked, though, on sites that were specifically authorized through a Microsoft whitelist when browsing with the immersive UI on Windows 8 and on either the immersive or traditional "desktop" interface on Windows RT. Yesterday,

News: PS4 release date, news and features UPDATED PlayStation 4 is headed for a 'Holiday 2013' release date The DualShock 4 pad will launch alongside the PS4 The PS4 has been announced by Sony! At long last we've had our first look at the new Pla...