It’s Martin Luther King Jr. day in the US, so Tom gives his contributors the day off and hits the headliens regarding US infiltration into North Korea’s nets, Amazon making movies for theaters and Elon Musk’s plans for space Internet.

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

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

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

Darren Kitchen is on the show and we’ll talk about the new Hacker’s List. Are hackers for hire always a bad thing? Plus Len Peralta is here to illustrate the show!

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

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

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

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

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

Show Notes

Allison Sheridan is on the show and we’ll talk about Google Glass moving out of the lab. Is it dead? Or just beginning?

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

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

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

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

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

Show Notes

Today’s guest: Allison Sheridan, host of the NosillaCast on podfeet.com

Headlines

The Google Glass team announced on Google Plus today that the “open beta’ that has been the $1500 a pair Google Glass Explorer program will end Monday Jan. 19. Additionally Ivy Ross and her team will move out of X labs and under the supervision of Nest CEO Tony Fadell, though not as a part of Nest. The post only said “you’ll likely see future versions of Glass when they’re ready” but rumors have indicated Intel would power the next version of glass and a consumer version might be announced at Google I/O this year.

Elon Musk took to Twitter today to announce the building of a Hyperloop test track for companies and students, “most likely in Texas.” He also mentioned holding “an annual student Hyperloop pod racer competition.” The Verge reminds us a California project is building models for possible Hyperloop pods already, but Musk has been silent himself on the project for awhile.

Engadget reports on Xiaomi’s new line of device announced by CEO Lei Jun. The 5.7-inch 1080p dual-SIM Mi Note comes January 27th for CN¥2,299 (US$370) at 16 Gb or CN¥2,799 (US$450) for 64 GB. At 6.95mm thick and 161 grams it’s a touch slimmer and lighter than an iPhone 6 Plus. The Mi Note Pro will have a 2560 x 1440 display for $530 in March.

Yesterday, Reuters published an exclusive report that claimed Samsung had offered to buy Blackberry for as much as 7.5 billion dollars. Today, BlackBerry issued a press release to state plainly that they have not “engaged in discussions with Samsung with respect to any possible offer.” Also they don’t comment on rumors, and won’t comment any further on this one. So there.

CNET reports that Marriott has removed a ban on personal Wi-Fi networks in their hotels. The decision comes just three months after Marriott was fined $600,000 by the Federal Communications Commission for using the containment features of a Wi-Fi monitoring system at the Gaylord Opryland and then charging consumers, small businesses and exhibitors as much as $1,000 per device to access Marriott’s Wi-Fi network. The company claimed that it had banned personal hotspots to protect its visitors from rogue hot spots. A group of hotel chains has issued a request to the FCC for permission to block personal hotspots in order to protect its guests.

TechCrunch reports that Rdio has launched in India becoming the first International streaming service to do so. It’s not unexpected as Rdio purchased Indian streaming service Dhingana in early 2014. The premium Rdio service will be priced at 120 Rupees per month (about US$1.99) and the company will offer a free internet radio player for mobile as well.

Reuters reports China is setting up a 40 billion yuan ($6.5 billion) to support start-ups in emerging industries. The fund is expected to be established within a few weeks. China hopes to expand its small venture capital market with the fund.

Bloomberg reports Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a plan for a free Internet.org app in Colombia. Customers of mobile service Tigo will have free data access when using the Internet.org app, including a group of global and local websites with information on health, education, finance, employment and weather.

Intel reports its 4th quarter earnings today.
Analysts expect a profit of 66 cents on revenue of 14.7 billion. Strong server sales are part of the reason for Intel’s results. The focus is on whether Intel is making any headway selling chips for smartphones and tablets. Intel lost $4 billion on its wireless business in 2014 and is not expected to break even before 2016.

News From You: 

spsheridan sent us the Business Insider report that the founder of the super successful website Ship Your Enemies Glitter has asked people to stop using his service. Matthew Carpenter wrote “HI guys I’m the founder of this website. Please stop buying this horrible glitter product – I’m sick of dealing with it.” Wrote one commenter “You have made your glitter-coated bed and I’m afraid you will have to lie in it.” Carpenter has suspended orders for the moment writing on the site “You guys have a sick fascination with shipping people glitter. We’ve received all orders & working through them. There was a tonne so be patient.

motang tipped us off to the WSJ report that people still use MySpace. In fact 50.6 million unique users in November, up 575% year over year. MySpace also racked up 300 million video views that month, good enough for 16th on ComScore’s Video Metrix ranking. MySpace gets a lot of visits from the 17-25 year old demographic and sees a spike on Thursday when people come to look for old pictures to use for Throwback Thursday.

Discussion Section Links: Google Glass

https://plus.google.com/+GoogleGlass/posts/9uiwXY42tvc
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30831128

http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/15/google-glass-exits-x-labs-as-explorer-program-shuts-down-team-now-reports-to-tony-fadell/

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/01/google-glass-graduates-from-google-x-will-be-a-stand-alone-division/

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/01/google-glass-graduates-from-google-x-will-be-a-stand-alone-division/

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/12/google-glass-isnt-dead-intel-powered-update-reportedly-due-in-2015/

Pick of the Day: My Data manager via Jamie in Beautiful BC

My data Manager is a solid app to track your data usage for your iphone/ipad/iPod Touch in real time. It tracks both your wifi and cellular data, and you are able to set your billing cycle and data cap as well. You can see a graph of your usage to see where you use the most data and get notifications when you’re getting close to your limit. Best of all it’s 100% free!

My Data Manager: http://www.mydatamanagerapp.com/

Cheers! Jamie in Beautiful BC

Tomorrow’s guests: Darren Kitchen and Len Peralta

Patrick Beja and I talk about DailyMotion’s new Twitch competitor and whether Facebook at Home can meet the desire for a ubiquitous work replacement for email.

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

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

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

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

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

Show Notes

Simon Dingle joins us as we review Prime Minister David Cameron’s desire to be able to read all your SnapChat messages if necessary. Can you have a back door that bad guys won’t use?

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? click here

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

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

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

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

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

Show Notes

Today’s guest: Simon Dingle, broadcaster and product guy out South Africa

Headlines: 

Engadget reports that Facebook has partnered with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to deliver location-specific Amber Alerts to inform users about missing or abducted children in the US. The alerts include photos of the child, license plate numbers and any other relevant information and will appear on mobile devices and desktops. Facebook was inspired to add Amber Alerts after missing children were recovered due to information posted independently by users.

PC World reports AllCast is now available for iOS users. As Android users already know, AllCast can send photos, videos and music from your mobile device to multiple devices like Xbox (360 and One), Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV and certain smart TVs. The app can access anything on your camera roll as well as Google+ Dropbox and Instagram. The free version has a time limit. The $5 paid version takes away that limit and removes ads.

Windows 7 is getting old. The first sign occurred today as free tech support for the operating system has ended. That also means no new features will be added to the OS. Microsoft would rather you upgrade to Windows 8.1 please. Believe it or not Windows 7 is more than 5 years old after all. You can still pay for support through 2020 and Microsoft will continue to patch security issues.

Fujitsu has a smart ring that not only does motion control but recognizes in air handwriting. Trace letters with your fingertip in the air and motion sensors translate the movements to written characters. The ring also has an NFC reader. Engadget reports Fujitsu is conducting real world tests and hopes to have a product out before March of 2016.

Boing Boing has the tale of a man from Hong Kong who tried to cross over the Chinese border with 94 iPhones strapped to his torso, legs and groin. Customs officials stopped the man for “weird walking posture” and “joint stiffness.” I’m guessing they don’t use metal detectors at that crossing. The man was carrying iPhone 6 and 6 Plus models, which have been available for purchase at Apple Stores in China since mid-October.

El Nuevo Herald reports Cuba’s ETECSA telecom denies they would offer wiFi service in Santiago de Cuba as we had mentioned yesterday. The original report was based on an announcement from the Cuban Journalists Association. ETECSA called the information false, and said it is only offering WiFi at a technological park through the Youth Club navigation network called Tinored.

Engadget reports Uber announced it will share some of its ride data with the city of Boston. The anonymized metadata zip code tabulation area for starts and ends of trips, distance traveled, time, date and duration of trip. Boston hopes to use the data to improve city planning.

TechCrunch reports a report from appFigures indicates more new apps came to the Google Play store than the iOS app store in 2014 for the first time. Google Play developer community growth also exceeded iOS for third year. The fastest growing app category for Apple was Business while for Google it was Games. Both app stores, and Amazon ’s app store experienced growth of at least 50%.

News From You: 

Philo1927 posted the Multichannel News article assessing the world’s readiness for 4K streaming. Akamai’s latest State of the INternet Report suggests 15 Mbps is required for sustained adaptive bitrate 4 K streaming. OK. How we doing? 12% of connection to Akamai arounf the world can be considered 4K ready. That’s a 32% jump from last year at this time. South Korea is most prepared with 66% of its connections ready, followed by Hong Kong, Japan, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Latvia, Sweden, Norway, Singapore and Belgium. Those last three had 21% readiness. The US as a whole is 19% ready.

HobbitfromPA sent us the Business Insider report that Amazon Studios has signed Woody Allen to create his first ever television series. The show will be a half-hour long, and available to Prime Instant Video subscribers in the US, UK and Germany. Allen got his start writing in television in the late 1950’s. He wrote monologues for The Tonight Show, and various comedy specials, including one for Sid Caesar. But Allen’s standup career began to blossom, and he began appearing on TV shows instead of writing them. Allen’s Amazon show does not yet have a title or a release date.

Pick of the Day via Joe Fruchey

My pick is the book Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold.

If you’re at all interested in technology (and you certainly are, since you’re listening to a tech news podcast!), this book is a serious eye-opener. We use these things–computers, tablets, smartphones–every day, but the vast majority of us don’t know how they work. How DO they work? How can an array of transistors play a movie on my screen?

In this book, the author takes you through the process of building a theoretical computer, starting with nothing but a flashlight. It’s very easy to understand, and is highly relevant, despite the fact that it was published 15 years ago(!).

It’s the #1 seller in Theory of Computing on Amazon, but don’t let the categorization scare you. It’s very approachable and requires no prior computing knowledge.

It is definitely my favorite book.