DigitalOutbox Episode 58

DigitalOutbox Episode 58
In this episode the team discuss Net Neutrality and Chris buys a Mac.

Playback
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Shownotes
0:54 – Pc vs Mac
– Some people didn’t like the Mac vs PC ad’s – arrogant, untrue (not really) but I think the bit that annoyed PC users was that they were on average pretty funny, especially for Mac users, that tiny 5-6% of the desktop market
– Microsoft just couldn’t let it go, so they’ve done a campaign – Deciding between a PC and a Mac
– Some of this stuff is just complete bullshit 🙂
– You can’t get a Mac that ships with a Blu-ray player, TV tuner, memory stick reader, or built-in 3G wireless
– Things just don’t work the same way on Macs if you’re used to a PC. For example, the mouse works differently.
– If you use Apple’s productivity suite, sharing files with PC users can be tricky
– Most of the world’s most popular computer games aren’t available for Macs. And Macs can’t connect to an Xbox 360. PCs are ready to play. Umm…yes they can 🙂
– With a Mac, it’s harder to set up secure sharing for your photos, music & movies, documents, and even printers with other computers on your home network (It’s one fucking checkbox)
– Macs only come in white or silver. PCs are available in a full spectrum of colors across a range of price points.
– What the buzz is about, which looks like a live twitter feed, is actually a carefully selected list of tweets, that’s the same no matter when you visit the page.
7:29 – Net Neutrality
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/aug/10/google-verizon-net-neutrality-reaction
– http://www.buzzmachine.com/2010/08/10/internet-schminternet/
– http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/08/why-google-became-a-carrier-humping-net-neutrality-surrender-monkey/
– http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2010/08/a-paper-trail-of-betrayal-googles-net-neutrality-collapse.ars – fact based rather than opinion based
– One of the biggest, important topics of the next couple of years
– Google and Verizon announced a 7 point proposal on net neutrality
– However, they controversially agree that neutrality and regulation of the home broadband market shouldn’t happen BUT
– Mobile internet…and anything new – that’s fair game and according to Google and Verizon, should be subject to restrictions and tiering
– My take on net neutrality – the fear is that if a deal is put in place then video from Verizon or Google say, will be streamed at 1 mb/sec, and video from everywhere else would be subject to throttling (management) and delieverd at 200k/sec
– Obvious advantage, and the end of the open internet as we know it today
– Couple of interesting points – everyone expects mobile to be the future of internet delivery, with many thinking that wireless is the only way to reach all consumers – easier and cheaper than laying miles and miles of fibre (or copper!!!)
– So I could watch a video at home, but then want to watch it out in the car and I can’t?
– Or I could watch a video at my house but visiting a friend who has wireless only, I can’t?
– Or some new technology comes along that the telco’s don’t like…so it’s instantly constrained, and I don’t mean pirate material, but anything that could be seen as a competitor
– Biggest surprise is Google – why did they sign up to this? What happened to ‘Do no evil?’. http://www.google.com/help/netneutrality_letter.html – Times are a changing.
– Android is the biggest seller, telco’s love Android because it is free, and Google needs the telco’s. Played the Apple is closed, you will like us card, now they are biggest seller, need to protect and side with telco’s. Stinks but like I said with Apple, it’s just business. See through the bullshit.
– It’s attempts to break down the carriers failed – Nexus One etc
– My fear is that where America leads, the rest of the world does tend to follow
– Google Responds – http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/08/facts-about-our-network-neutrality.html
– Myth and Fact 🙂
– Goggle says the compromises are good
– Myth – don’t be evil
– Fact – show me the money
– Shouldn’t overlook the FCC’s lack of action on this matter. They have the power to set rules and haven’t managed to do so. This agreement can be superseeded and it’s up to the FCC to find that agreement. There is an underlying problem in America in the faith of a market free from regulation – in the US, where there are only few large players, this is worrying. In Europe, there are more, smaller players and also a fragmentation between ISP’s and infrastructure.
16:44 – Trade ADSL Download for Upload
– Missed this last week – Bt offering “Annex M”. Basically, adjusting to 85% of download speed to allow higher upload rates.
– BT charges ISP’s £7 per user (Not sure monthly?)
– Only available on LLU or 21Century network and only on good quality lines.
– Could see uploads increased to 2.5Mbs for close exchange lines. More like 1
17:38 – Oracle sues Google
– Is this why they bought Sun?
– In developing Android, Google knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle’s Java-related intellectual property. This lawsuit seeks appropriate remedies for their infringement.
– Claiming that Android competes with Java as “an operating system software platform for cellular telephones and other mobile devices” and that the Android stack employs Java apps running on a Java-based framework, Oracle says that Android and the Android SDK infringe on its patents, and it wants to see some cash for its unwitting involvement in the mobile OS’s success.
– Oracle also says Google has known about these patents since the middle of the decade when the latter company hired several Sun Java engineers.
19:20 – Jump or Push
– Hardware chief, Mark Papermaster, leaves Apple. No comment from Apple for reasons.Obviously sparked rampant internet speculation over reasons for leaving.
– According to John Gruber, although his background at IBM was semiconductors he was known at Apple as ‘the antenna guy’
– Also seemingly didn’t fit in with the Apple culture
– Is it the Antenna, the white iPhone delay or just a convenient way of getting rid of someone who hadn’t embedded well and can take the hit, without anything being said publicly?
– Sacrificial lamb
– Antenna Guy title smacks of being created after he left… like Antenna Gate.
21:21 – Apple Plug Security Hole
– A hole was uncovered on the iPhone operating system that could allow unauthorised code to run.
– Relates to the phone auto-loading PDF files (think it might be the reason you can jailbreak just by visiting a website…)
– Apple have come out quickly and plugged the gap with 4.0.2.
– Hate these updates – 5-600mb for a few lines of code
– 3gb for Xcode updates – get a grip – must cost them a fortune in download costs never mind our time
– This was why I could run the jailbreak last week…
– Which after two days I swapped back
– App’s a bit crashy and system as a whole more unstable
– Cydia’s ‘make my life easier – sending my unique Apple ID to some server…somewhere to do…something…what?
– Just not compelling enough for me
26:47 – Android News
– Google Voice Recognition in Android allows you to now send texts and do other things via voice commands
– Voice Actions can send emails. “Send Email to Hugo Barra: I just booked a scuba diving trip to the turks and caicos for September!” You can even add onto the message after it’s been written. Saying “smiley face” also inserts the smiley emoticon.
– go to popular websites with Voice Actions. “Go to Wikipedia
– 10 actions, available now for Android 2.2
– Interesting – the voice recognition takes place on Google servers
– Voice on iPhone is a far simpler version of this
– Chrome-To-Phone
– extension allows you to take a page you’re currently viewing on your web browser and send it to your Android 2.2 device
– if you’re looking at a map and want it on your phone, you can just click the ‘Chrome to Phone’ button in your browser, and your phone will immediately open that map in the Maps application
– Closest on iphone is Prowl but it doesn’t have the same action contexts that Android does – http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/08/10/prowl-push-websites-from-chrome-to-iphone/
– Tasker
– http://tasker.dinglisch.net/
– Tasker is an application for Android which performs Tasks (sets of Actions) based on Contexts (application, time, date, location, event, gesture) in user-defined Profiles, or in clickable or timer home screen widgets.
– change phone settings by
application: long screen timeout in a book reader
time: screen brightness lower in the evening
location: ringer volume high at the office, turn off ke yguard at home
– take a time-lapse photo series (possibly ‘secretly’)
– make a regular backup of a file on the SD card
– track your phone location via SMS in case of theft
– sounds wonderfully geeky
33:33 – Camera+ Pulled from iStore
– This was Ian’s pick from a couple of weeks back
– Great app, version 1.3 was submitted and included an option for using the volume buttons as a camera button – easier and far less camera shake
– Apple rejected – it will confuse the users
– Taptaptap then revealed via twitter that current version had option – type camplus://enablevolumesnap into safari to enable
– 24 hours later, app gone – Apple removed? Hidden features, breaking rules?
– Biggest well known publisher to get into difficulty I think
– Before we get all fanboyish, Google does the same with their app’s
42:30 – iTV
– Apple TV to be rebranded iTV which is actually it’s original name
– releasing a $99 version of the set top box, similarly sized and packed with internals akin to that of the iPhone 4 (A4 CPU, 16GB of flash storage), and will introduce new iTunes streaming services the box could take advantage of
– Get this – 720p only – no 1080i or 1080p
– the device will be getting apps and presumably an App Store entry, though it’s unclear if there will be cross-pollination between iPad and iPhone / iPod touch offerings and new Apple TV applications.
– Seemingly ITV are ‘furious’ and will vigorously defend their ttrademark
– Apple spokesman – denied the names will be too similar
44:01 – News Fail
– http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/11/elyse-porterfield/
– Telegraph report on girl that quit via a whiteboard
– Pretty funny
– Not the story, but the reporting – it’s a hoax
– Techcrunch revealed all the details
– Don’t believe what you read…

Picks
Chris
FamFam Silk
– Free
– Great icons for web development

Ian
Devour
– Devour sifts out the best videos and posts the well-curated collection every weekday. Fewer cute kittens, fewer skateboarding nutshots, fewer tween heart throbs, and lots more awesome.
– Hand picked (on Youtube there is 25 hours of video posted….every minute)
– every single video on Devour.com is in HD
– every single video plays on the iPhone and iPad
– Left out on thing – comments

DigitalOutbox Episode 56

DigitalOutbox Episode 56
In this episode the team discuss Wikileaks, Apple and Microsoft Quarters and Flipboard.

Playback
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Shownotes
2:36 – Broadbands Broken Promises
– http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2010/07/ofcom_broadbands_broken_promis.html
– No surprise to UK broadband users, ofcom’s report is pretty damning
– Its analysis of broadband speeds in the UK shows that, for some services, 97% of consumers do not get the advertised speed.
– It also shows a growing gap between the claims ISPs make for broadband and the speed being delivered.
– average residential broadband speed in the UK has risen in the last 12 months from 4.1Megabits per second (Mbps) to 5.2Mbps
– Virgin closest – 8.6 to 9 Mbps for it’s 10meg service
– Best adsl – O2, 4.3 to 5 Mbps for it’s up to 8 service
– the advertising of broadband speeds in Britain is scandalously misleading
– BT’s copper is incapable of delivering decent speeds
– Virgin Media is showing that fibre is the future
– the digital divide between town and country is bound to get wider
– Whenever I’ve looked at BB packages, I would say that they have been pretty clear that they would connect at the fastest possible speed up to a maximum possible. Also, BT offer an estimated line speed that other sites hook into. I don’t think it’s particularly misleading.
7:23 – Wikileaks Afghan War Diary
– 90,000 leaked coalition documents from the Afghan war
– Biggest leak ever
– Quote from Julian Assage, Wikileaks founder:
– This situation is different in that it’s not just more material and being pushed to a bigger audience and much sooner … but rather that people can give back. So people around the world who are reading this are able to comment on it and put it in context and understand the full situation. That is not something that has previously occurred. And that is something that can only be brought about as a result of the Internet.
– Old reports, not future plans
– The Afghan War Diary was simultaneously given to reporters from The New York Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel several weeks in advance so those reporters could study the documents and provide context with their public release. It was also given to those three publications so that no one national government could censor it.
– WikiLeaks removed data that could implicate its sources, but the U.S. military already has an alleged WikiLeaks source in custody: 22-year-old intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, who The Guardian says is suspected as the source of the video that depicted U.S. soldiers killing civilians. So far we’ve seen no evidence for or against any connection between the Afghan War Diary and Manning.
– Guardian has mapped the 300 major incidents – http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/datablog/interactive/2010/jul/25/afghanistan-war-logs-events
– Created a glossary for understanding those pesky TLA’s
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/datablog/2010/jul/25/wikileaks-afghanistan-war-logs-glossary
– Every IED attack with co-ords – map and spreadsheet – http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/datablog/2010/jul/26/wikileaks-afghanistan-ied-attacks
– US says it is irresponsible- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10758578
13:25 – EFF Victory Against DRM
– US only but major major legal victory
– Electronic Frontier Foundation had applied to the Copyright Office to grant exemptions permitting the cracking of DRM in three cases
– “jailbreak” a mobile device, such as an iPhone, where DRM is used to prevent phone owners from running software of their own choosing
– allow video remix artists to break the DRM on DVDs in order to take short excerpts for mashups posted to YouTube and other sharing sites, as long as it’s use is non-commercial or educational
– EFF got the Copyright Office to renew its ruling that made it legal to unlock cellphones so that they can be used with any carrier
– So apple and others can say your voiding your warranty, but they can’t say your breaking the law..but, thats not what the ruling says. the ruling says your not violating copyright law
– So still might not be legal…yet
– Of course, Apple isn’t very happy with this
– Biggest is probably the mashup ruling – fair use of material you have bought, but of course it will be ‘you can legally jailbreak your iphone’ that will be most reported as that drives traffic – see leak of iphone 4 and antennagate for example
– in theory, should put a stop to many of the DMCA (1998’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act) removal requests sent to services like YouTube
17:03 – Android Updates
– Sales of Android-based phones more than quadrupled in the UK during the most-recent quarter.
– According to GfK, Android’s share of UK smartphone contract sales sales was a mere three per cent in the first three months of 2010, but skyrocketed to 13.2 per cent in the second quarter.
– Apple, conversely, saw its UK market share decline from 75 per cent to 64 per cent during the same period. And it wasn’t only Android phones that took a bite out of Cupertino: RIM’s UK share rose from two per cent to seven per cent from January through April.
– Samsung S is the new hotness in Android phones
– Were sending out free phones to twitter users complaining about iPhone dropped calls
– Also running Facebook competition
– Best mobile add for a while
22:25 – Apple Quarterly Results
– Boom
– Over 3 milllion iPads – almost outsells Macs, and that was their biggest Mac quarter ever
– Great sales for iphones which is only 2 days of iPhone 4
– They made billions…
– Can’t make enough iPhone 4’s and ipads – LG can’t make enough iPad screens – says it will do better
– Few days later, white iPhone 4’s are delayed again, just a few days after saying end of July:
– White models of Apple’s new iPhone® 4 have continued to be more challenging to manufacture than we originally expected, and as a result they will not be available until later this year. The availability of the more popular iPhone 4 black models is not affected.
– Coupled with September 30th limit on free bumper, iPhone 4 ver B later this year?
– Creating a version B probably raises more questions than answers… if it fixes aerial, won’t all “version A” users want one?
29:46 – Microsoft Quarterly Results
– Boomer
– revenues were up 22 percent, to more than $16 billion
– bigger quarter than Apple
– Strong Windows 7 sales + Office 2010 and a strengthening economy helped
30:57 – Facebook Hits 500 Million Users
– To celebrate, we’ve put together a collection of stories you’ve shared with us about the impact Facebook and your friends have had on your lives.
– We’re launching a new application called Facebook Stories where you can share your own story and read hundreds of others, categorized by themes and locations around the world.
– 5 1/2 months since they hit 400million – around same time to go from 300 to 400 million
– Details of 100m Facebook users collected and leaked
– http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10796584
– The personal details of more than 100 million Facebook users have been harvested and published on the net.
– Ron Bowles, an online security consultant, used a simple piece of code to collect the data from Facebook.
– The list, which has been shared as a downloadable file, contains the URL of every searchable Facebook user’s profile, their name and unique ID.
– In a statement to BBC News, Facebook said that the information in the list was already freely available online.
– “People who use Facebook own their information and have the right to share only what they want, with whom they want, and when they want,” the statement read.
– “In this case, information that people have agreed to make public was collected by a single researcher and already exists in Google, Bing, other search engines, as well as on Facebook.
– “No private data is available or has been compromised,” the statement added.
33:54 – Flipboard
– Personalised social magazine
– It turns your Facebook and Twitter account into something that looks like a magazine.
– It also lets you build a custom magazine, either by choosing from Flipboard’s pre-built curated “boards” or by importing Twitter lists.
– You can also turn a single person’s Twitter account, or a single brand’s Twitter account, into a Flipboard. For instance, you can follow Techcrunch on Twitter with it and it will turn Techcrunch into a beautiful magazine-like interface that’s easier to read than any other reader.
– Massive buzz, unusabale (for Ian) on day one. Creating invite system to manage demand. Sigh.
– iPad killer app?
– Why does it need to sign into Facebook and Twitter via their own servers?
– May be controversy over how they deliver content – not using RSS, scraping from source websites – http://gizmodo.com/5594176/is-flipboard-legal
– Revenue not from users but from content owners
40:24 – Skype
– http://blogs.skype.com/en/2010/07/iphone_multitasking_3g.html
– Supports calls over 3G
– More importantly, works in background – you can now receive Skype calls, and instant messages, while running any other application.
– Even more importantly – scrapped their planned move to charge for calls over 3G
41:32 – BBC News App Launched
– http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/news/press_releases/july/mobile_apps.shtml
– iPhone News and Sports app’s approved
– Launched on Friday 23rd
– News will add regional news in future
– News will come to blackberry, android and other devices later in the year
– Looking at findings, why did this take 3-4 months to review?
– To appease “industry”? Doesn’t matter though, correct consumer decision.
43:44 – Daily Star Lies
– The Daily Star has today expressed its “fury” at news that a Raoul Moat version of Grand Theft Auto is in production.
– Apparently “gaming websites” (though obviously not the ones we read) have shown the cover of “a version of the XBox hit Grand Theft Auto”, supposedly called GTA Rothbury, that’s based on the recent Northumberland shootings that dominated the news earlier this month.
– “It is sick – it’s blood money,” the sister of Moat’s ex-partner Samantha Stobbart told the paper. “The game is beyond belief.”
– Journalist, Jerry Lawton, defends his story
– http://www.mcvuk.com/news/40124/Journalist-defends-GTA-Raoul-Moat-story
– “Baffled by the fury of adult gamers,” he wrote, as reported by Destructoid. “These are grown (?!?) men who sit around all day playing computer games with one another who’ve today chosen to enter the real world just long enough to complain about my story slamming a Raoul Moat version of Grand Theft Auto!
– “You would think I’d denied the Holocaust!!! Think I’ll challenge them to a virtual reality duel….stab….I win!!!”
– Cue Apology
– http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/145880/Rockstar-Games-Grand-Theft-Auto-An-apology/
– Grovel grovel grovel
– We made no attempt to check the accuracy of the story before publication and did not contact Rockstar Games prior to publishing the story. We also did not question why a best selling and critically acclaimed fictional games series would choose to base one of their most popular games on this horrifying real crime event.
– It is now accepted that there were never any plans by Rockstar Games to publish such a game and that the story was false. We apologise for publishing the story using a mock-up of the game cover, our own comments on the matter and soliciting critical comments from a grieving family member.
– We unreservedly apologise to Rockstar Games and we have undertaken not to repeat the claims again. We have also agreed to pay them a substantial amount in damages which they are donating to charity.

Picks
Chris
Limbo
– Limbo is a truly stunning looking (and feeling) game. Xbox Live Arcade.
– Eerie, dark, mysterious, funny, scary, frustrating, satisfying.
– No colour, very little sound, no dialogue, largely silhouettes

Ian
Camera+
– Great camera app for iPhone
– Faster than built in app with a lot more features
– Filters, borders etc
– Now my goto app for taking pictures – can also share on the Camrera+ website or to flickr, e-mail etc