DigitalOutbox Episode 198

DigitalOutbox Episode 198
DigitalOutbox Episode 198 – Goto Fail, Samsung S5 and Wearables

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Shownotes
2:03 – Goto Fail
5:33 – Netflix is paying off Comcast for direct traffic access, says WSJ
8:13 – Amazon takes on Netflix with rebrand of LoveFilm video-on-demand service
13:33 – Yahoo webcam images from millions of users intercepted by GCHQ
16:01 – Google Launches Project Tango Smartphone To Experiment With Computer Vision And 3D Sensors
18:11 – We Love Touch But Windows 8.1 To Focus On Non-Touch
21:25 – Nokia X
24:28 – Sony launch Xperia Z2 tablet and phone and Smartband
29:42 – Samsungs Galaxy S5 is here with more power, more pixels, and a refined design
33:09 – Samsung drops Android for Tizen in new Gear 2 smartwatches
34:23 – Samsung dives into fitness wearables with the Gear Fit
38:06 – Stephen Elop to lead Microsofts hardware division just as soon as hes back
39:52 – Xbox One gets price cut to £399 with free copy of Titanfall

Picks
Ian
Yahoo News Digest
– iOS
– Free
– Powered by Summly, 10 stories delivered twice a day
– Clean, fast and a great way to keep up to date

DigitalOutbox Episode 184

DigitalOutbox Episode 184
DigitalOutbox Episode 184 – Ballmers Tears, Sleazy Samsung.

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Shownotes
0:57 – Steve Ballmer’s intense, tearful goodbye to Microsoft
4:40 – Windows Phone catching up with iOS and Android in Europe
7:54 – Ofcom: no 5G networks in UK until ‘at least 2018’ as it rolls out white space trials
11:27 – Rail mobile internet speeds set to get faster in UK
12:49 – UK to create new cyber defence force
16:23 – What’s a security flaw worth? $12.50 for Yahoo
19:45 – FBI claims largest Bitcoin seizure after arrest of alleged Silk Road founder
24:17 – The Galaxy Note 3 comes with a ‘tiny screen’ mode that enables one hand usage
26:28 – Note 3’s benchmarking ‘adjustments’ inflate scores by up to 20%
30:51 – Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage
37:33 – GTA Online

Picks
Ian
The Great Suspender
– Extension for Chrome
– Unload, park, suspend tabs to reduce memory footprint of chrome.
Tabs can auto-suspend after a configurable period of time or be suspended manually. Tabs can be whitelisted to avoid automatic suspension. Suspended tabs are retained after closing and reopening browser, preventing many tabs from all reloading after a restart
– Saves memory and more importantly battery on laptops

Chris
Pocket Casts
– Great podcast app for Android and iOS
– Auto downloads, syncs between clients and a fantastic front end

DigitalOutbox Episode 165

DigitalOutbox Episode 165
DigitalOutbox Episode 165 – Xbox One, Tumblr and Flickr

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Shownotes
0:40 – Xbox One
30:38 – Yahoo buys Tumblr
34:06 – Flickr Refresh
38:57 – Twitter launch two factor authentication via SMS
39:40 – Emma Way suspended over cyclist tweet
42:50 – Vodafone delays 4G superfast mobile internet launch until September
44:19 – Youtube is 8 years old
47:28 – An Honor for the Creator of the GIF

Picks
Ian
Impossible Road
– £1.49
– iPhone/ipad
– Tough but enjoyable game
– If you like Super Hexagon, you will love this

DigitalOutbox Episode 158

DigitalOutbox Episode 158
DigitalOutbox Episode 158 – Facebook Home, Browser Forks and So Long Lucasarts

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Shownotes
1:29 – Facebooks New Home
8:28 – Google Forks WebKit And Launches Blink
13:05 – Mozilla and Samsung Collaborate on Next Generation Web Browser Engine
17:01 – Dropbox Now in Yahoo! Mail
18:36 – Amazon buys Goodreads
21:06 – Lodsys returns
23:52 – Disney closes Lucasarts
27:10 – British Library to archive one billion UK web pages by year’s end
30:12 – Tory MP accidentally tweets porn site instead of news
31:21 – Rumours

Picks
Chris
Kerbal Space Program
– Available on Steam. It’s still in Beta and is certainly rough round the edges but is an amazing Space Sandbox game – where you’re pretty much left to start up your own space program from scratch.
– Build rockets, send manned missions into space, to the mun, try and get everyone back safely!
– Nicely characterized but extremely technical
– Thanks to Paul for the pick.

DigitalOutbox Episode 157

DigitalOutbox Episode 157
DigitalOutbox Episode 157 – Yahoo buys a teen and Updates

Playback
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Shownotes
1:21 – Apple introduces 2 step verification
4:54 – Global internet slows after biggest attack in history
8:52 – Yahoo spends millions on UK teen Nick D’Aloisio’s Summly app
14:03 – Facebook launches free calling for iOS users in UK
17:43 – Google announces open source patent pledge, won’t sue ‘unless first attacked’
19:59 – Blockbuster UK sold to investment firm, half its stores to close
21:03 – Jessops Returns
23:21 – Telegraph extends paywall to UK readers
26:24 – Flipboard – Now You Can Publish Your Own ‘Magazine’
30:07 – U.K’s First 4G Network Reaches Half The Population Five Months After Launch
30:47 – Google gives Nexus 4 obvious design tweaks to keep it from falling off your desk

Picks
Ian
Forecast.io
– Hyperlocal forecasts for the UK
– Web app
– Shows now, next hour, next 24 hours and the week ahead
– Nice map view
– Supports multiple locations, toggle C or F
– Install on iOS or Android for great mobile view
– Also has a time machine for locations

DigitalOutbox Episode 145

DigitalOutbox Episode 145
DigitalOutbox Episode 145 – Piracy, Google Maps hit iOS and Filters, Filters, Filters.

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Shownotes
1:34 – BPI Chase Pirate Bay Proxies
4:17 – Legit Promo Bay is blocked
5:20 – Nook Video launches in the UK
6:51 – BBC Launch Red Button 2.0
7:19 – BBC iPlayer – focus on Android
9:44 – The Daily shuts down
10:51 – Times Nexus 7 Offer
11:56 – Daily Mirror moves to free on the ipad
13:16 – UK Internet Monitoring Bill to be rewritten
15:27 – EE to roll out 4G to another 17 cities and towns
17:44 – Instagram makes Twitter look worse
19:52 – Twitter adds filters to photos
20:52 – Flickr says me too
23:46 – Yahoo updates mail
26:06 – GMail for iOS version 2
27:50 – Google launch Maps for iPhone
33:10 – Google Kills Free Google Apps For Business
35:30 – 2012
38:08 – Last.fm launch Scrobbler for iOS
40:02 – Sony ceases production on cassette player/recorders

Picks
Ian
1Password 4
– Universal iPad and iPhone
– Faster syncing, cleaner app, better in built browser
– £5.49 for limited time then £10.99

DigitalOutbox Episode 135

DigitalOutbox Episode 135
DigitalOutbox Episode 135 – iOS6, Maps and UK Pirates

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Shownotes
2:31 – Manchester is the UK piracy capital
– Manchester has been named the piracy capital of the UK, according to a new study seen exclusively by the BBC. The research said there were more illegal downloads per person in the city than any other in the country, followed by Nottingham and Southampton.
– The statistics, from monitoring service Musicmetric, conclude that in the first half of 2012, UK users illegally shared over 40 million albums and singles.
– The data, collected independently by Musicmetric and seen exclusively by the BBC, is believed to be the biggest analysis of its kind to be conducted.
– Globally, the research suggested that the UK is a significant player on the world stage as a country of illegal music downloaders. The country was placed second in the world in terms of pure volume of illegal activity, with Musicmetric logging 43,263,582 downloads in the first six months of this year.
– The US topped the list, with 96,681,133 downloads tracked in the same period. Italy (33,158,943), Canada (23,959,924) and Brazil (19,724,522) made up the remainder of the top five.
– Musicmetric’s findings said that singer Ed Sheeran was the most pirated act in the UK for the first half of 2012, followed by hip-hop duo Rizzle Kicks and Barbadian megastar Rihanna. The data suggested that Ed Sheeran’s 2011 album + (Plus) was illegally downloaded an average of 55,512 times every month, and was the most popular download in over 460 towns and cities in the UK.
– Legal UK sales of his album in the first half of 2012 hit the 448,000 mark – making it the fourth most popular album behind releases from Adele, Emeli Sande and Lana Del Rey.
6:44 – Amazon brings Cloud Player music service to the UK
– Amazon Cloud Player now live in the UK as of now, offering 5GB of online storage and the ability to stream 250 of your tracks (or 256Kbps matched versions) to a range of devices free of charge. Adding extra storage will cost from £6 per year for 20GB, rising to £320 p/a for a full terabyte. If you’re a heavy user, though, you may also need to fork out £22 p/a for the right to stream up to 250,000 of your tracks.
9:11 – iOS6 – updated maps disappoint
– iOS6 released
– 200 new features – allegedly
– Maps is one of the high profile changes
– Replaces Google maps with Apple’s own version
– Cleaner look, free navigation, 3d maps for a few select citites
– Local transit features gone
– Many satellite images are poor especially across the UK
– Searching is poor or worse innacurate
– Among the user complaints regarding Apple’s maps sent to the BBC were:
– Users have complained about the quality of satellite images in the new software (bottom)
– Some towns appear to be missing, such as Stratford-upon-Avon and Solihull.
– Others, like Uckfield in East Sussex, are in the wrong location.
– Satellite images of various locations, particularly in Scotland, are obscured by cloud.
– A search for Manchester United Football Club directs users to Sale United Football Club, a community team for ages five and above.
– Users also reported missing local places, such as schools, or strange locations. Another screenshot showed a furniture museum that was apparently located in a river.
– But don’t worry – Apple want US to fix it – http://www.imore.com/how-add-location-or-report-problem-ios-6-maps
– Crowd sourcing will address the shortfalls over time
18:34 – Record preorders for the boring iPhone 5
– Apple today announced that it managed to rack up 2 million pre-orders for the iPhone 5 in 24 hours, two times as many as it managed for the iPhone 4S last year, which sold over 1 million devices during its first 24 hours of pre-order sales. That’s a new record, which shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s been watching the progress of iPhone pre-order sales since the device originally hit the market.
– The iPhone 4S eventually went on to sell more than 4 million devices over the course of its first weekend actually on store shelves, so expect the iPhone 5 to blow past that milestone, too. The iPhone 5 is initially available in the U.S., Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and the U.K., adding two new countries (Hong Kong and Singapore) to the list of launch regions for the iPhone 4s, so expect that to influence early sales as well, especially since Hong Kong is a popular destination for those looking to resell the iPhone at a premium on the grey market in China.
20:22 – HTC Windows Phone 8X
– HTC is unveiling its flagship Windows Phone 8 handset today, the Windows Phone 8X. The branding might sound Microsoft-like, but there’s a good reason for that — the two companies have joined forces on a marketing campaign that will make HTC the face of Windows Phone 8.
– The 8X will ship in a choice of four colors in early November, ones that represent the bold colors of Windows Phone 8. California Blue, Graphite Black, Flame Red and Limelight Yellow will all be available — with accent colors in the Windows Phone 8 interface to match the hardware color. European operators will only stock blue, black, and yellow versions — and while HTC refused to reveal which operators will stock each color, it insisted that it is not restricting colors to certain carriers at this time. The 8X takes advantage of a 4.3-inch 720p HD super LCD 2 display with a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, and NFC support.
– HTC is shipping Beats Audio support on both of its Windows Phone 8 handsets, with an extra amplifier for audio out on the 8X to power larger headphones in the Beats range without distortion. A notification will launch the Beats Audio app on Windows Phone 8 once headphones are plugged in, allowing users to turn the Beats integration on or off.
– On the camera side of things, HTC has opted to include an 8-megapixel shooter on the rear of the device with the usual LED flash. That’s a fairly standard affair for most flagship smartphones these days, but HTC has gone one step further with the front facing camera. A 2.1-megapixel camera is available for Skype or forward facing shots, with an f/2.0 lens and BSI sensor to help with low-light shots. The 88 degrees wide angle lens will also work well for forward facing group shots and 1080p video recording.
23:11 – MS Employees to get Surface Tablet
– Microsoft has found an eager early audience for its Windows-8-powered Surface Ultrabook: its own employees.
– The software giant is reportedly giving each of its 94,000 full-time staff a Surface computer for work and home use, in a gesture of mass Windows 8 munificence announced at the company’s annual staff meeting in Seattle’s KeyArena.
– Employees are also getting new Windows Phone 8 handsets – a repeat of the giveaway Microsoft made of phones running Windows 7.
24:07 – Yahoo replace RIM smartphones
– New Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer just sent an email to all of Yahoo’s full time and part time employees in the US, promising them a new Apple, Samsung, Nokia, or HTC smartphone.
– We learned about this plan from an internal memo, which we received from one source and confirmed with another.
– Through the program, Yahoo employees will have a choice of phones: iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S3, HTC One X, HTC EVO 4G LTE, or Nokia Lumia 920.
– Yahoo is also going to pay its employees data and phone bills.
25:20 – Twitter hearts Facebook
– Changes to profiles and mobile app’s ape Facebook
– Starting today you can make your presence on Twitter more meaningful with new Twitter profiles. Upload an all-new header photo on mobile apps for iPad, iPhone and Android or twitter.com, and the same image will appear whenever anyone views your profile on the web or these apps. You can upload your header photo, which appears above your Tweets, to express yourself instantly, anywhere.
– New profiles also help you get to know people better through their pictures. Photo streams now appear below anyone’s most recent Tweets on iPhone, Android and iPad. Swipe through the stream to see the photos other users have shared or tap any thumbnail to view their photos in fullscreen.
– While the header photo keeps your profile simple and consistent on iPhone, iPad and Android, you will also still have an additional photo – a background photo – on twitter.com. Upload a background image to complement your header and profile photos.
28:51 – Google acquire Snapseed
– Google has agreed to acquire Nik Software, the German developer of photography app Snapseed, for an undisclosed amount. Sources close to the deal tell The Verge that while Nik Software produces all sorts of apps for photographers like Color Efex Pro and Dfine for Mac and Windows, iOS app Snapseed was the golden egg in the acquisition. The $4.99 app won Apple’s coveted iPad App Of The Year award in 2011 for its inventive multitouch photo editing interface, and gaines over nine million users during its first year on sale. Nik Software also sells Snapseed for Mac and Windows, and the company is apparently working on an Android app as well.
– “We want to help our users create photos they absolutely love, and in our experience Nik does this better than anyone,” Google+ boss Vic Gundotra wrote in a blog post. Snapseed is no Instagram in terms of popularity, but the two apps’ use of filters and various means of manipulating images serve a similar purpose. The portion of Nik Software that worked on Snapseed, which includes the company’s San Diego outpost, will relocate to Google headquarters in Mountain View to work directly on Google+, sources say.
29:37 – BBC announce new media player and updates for iPlayer on Android
– The BBC has confirmed plans to launch a new version of its iPlayer app for Android devices which will use its own BBC Media Player technology to securely stream audio and video, replacing Flash on android
– The technology, which was developed in-house at the BBC’s Future Media division, is already being used for the mobile website version of iPlayer according to a blog post by executive product manager Chris Yanda.
– “Next week we plan to release a new version of BBC iPlayer on Android which will use this player. Other applications and websites will follow,” he writes, before telling Android owners that “I want to reassure you that Android is an important platform for us”.
31:33 – New slimmer PS3
– The PS3 Even Slimmer takes up just three-quarters of the space the PS3 Slim does. It’ll come in 12GB and 500GB capacities, Sony said today at the console revamp’s Tokyo Game Show debut.
– The former contains Flash storage only – though Sony will offer a 250GB HDD add-on. It’s aimed at folk keen to use the PS3 as a media player.
– The 500GB PS3 will arrive on 28 September, priced at €299 (£240) and bundled with Fifa 13. The 12GB model will cost €229 (£184) and will arrive on 12 October.

Picks

DigitalOutbox Episode 127

DigitalOutbox Episode 127
DigitalOutbox Episode 127 – Marissa Mayer, Office 13, Apple Woes and don’t criticise the Olympics

Playback
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Shownotes
1:05 – O2 Compensation
– The firm says customers who pay monthly will get back 10% of their July subscription, the equivalent of three days’ charges, applied to their September bill.
– Pay-as-you-go customers will get back 10% on their first top-up in September.
– All customers, even those who were not affected, will also be given a £10 voucher to spend in one of its stores.
2:14 – UK Texts more than Talks
– Mobile voice calls in decline for the first time ever, as more switch to text and online communications
– Newer ways of communicating led by 16-24s, with texting and social networking more frequently used than either phone calls or face to face communications
– The average Briton now sends 50 texts per week
– Two fifths of UK adults now own a smartphone, with the same proportion saying their phone is the most important device for accessing the internet
– Tablet ownership has jumped from 2% to 11% in 12 months
5:29 – Marissa Mayer is Yahoos new CEO
– Marissa Mayer, one of the top executives at Google, will be the next chief of Yahoo, making her one of the most prominent women in Silicon Valley and corporate America.
– The appointment of Ms. Mayer is consider a coup for Yahoo, which has struggled in recent years to attract top talent in its battle with competitors. One of the few public faces of Google, Ms. Mayer, 37, has been responsible for the look and feel of some of the search company’s most popular products.
– The move to Yahoo is an opportunity for Ms. Mayer to step out on her own and claim a bigger stage. Ms. Mayer, an engineer by training whose first job at Google included computer programming, was behind the famously unadorned white search home page and the way users interacted with Gmail, Google News and Google Images. She also sat on Google’s operating committee, part of a small circle of senior executives who had the ear of Google’s co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
– Marissa Mayer, the Google (GOOG) executive who today was named Yahoo’s (YHOO) new chief executive, is pregnant.
– Mayer told Fortune exclusively that her first child is due October 7. It’s a boy!
“He’s super-active,” Mayer told me in a phone call tonight, three hours after Yahoo announced her appointment. “He moves around a lot. My doctor says that he takes after his parents.”
– Great move by Yahoo – bold and looks to have put someone in place that will actually do something with the assets they have.
9:29 – Office 2013
– a “modern” version of the software that is used on a billion PCs worldwide. Cloud-connected and designed to work well on Windows 8 tablets, Office 2013 signals a shift to document collaboration and anywhere any device access. Notably, Microsoft is introducing an on-demand subscription version of Office 2013 that can be streamed from any Windows 7 or Windows 8 PC, with the ability to sync settings and documents.
– Perhaps the biggest change to Office 2013 isn’t the way it looks or its features, but rather the way documents are delivered along with some important under-the-hood changes. Microsoft is really pushing the ability to create a Word document on a Windows PC and edit it on a Windows Phone, Windows 8 tablet, or any Windows 7- or Windows 8-based PC with an internet connection. Home users can store documents in Microsoft’s SkyDrive cloud storage and businesses can use a range of the company’s SharePoint offerings. Office 2013’s big innovation is its ability to let users stream a full-featured version of Office to a PC with personal settings intact — an on-demand Office suite whenever you require it.
– Office on demand is a powerful aspect to Microsoft’s Office 2013 subscription offering, providing a way to access a full version of Office wherever you are. The service lets you stream a full-featured Office application to any internet-connected PC running Windows 7 and Windows 8, providing access to the settings and documents you use regularly. Simply put, you can sign in to a streaming version of Office at a friend’s PC and finish a document; the app will then be removed from the PC once it’s closed. This all requires an Office 365 Home Premium subscription, but its ease-of-use makes it a compelling prospect for users who are comfortable using Microsoft’s Office suite and require more document editing functionality than Google Docs or Microsoft’s own Office Web Apps provide. Despite this, you can still opt to simply buy a standalone version of the Office 2013 desktop software and utilize SkyDrive as an online storage hub for documents. You won’t get the streaming Office 2013 apps, but you’ll benefit from the cloud and avoid having to pay a subscription fee.
– Lots of different editions – Office 365, the company’s software plus services platform for Office, will power Office 2013 as a subscription service for those who want to avoid the up-front costs of a perpetual license and take advantage of some of the on-demand features. Available in Home Premium, Small Business Premium, Pro Plus, and Enterprise — Office 365 has a variety of offerings that are flexible based on needs, but like many of its other products there’s still no one size that fits all. The new Home Premium product allows a family to install Office 2013 on up to five PCs and get an additional 20GB of online SkyDrive storage to share documents online. Home Premium includes access to Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, Access, and Publisher through an Internet-connected Windows 7 or Windows 8 PC. Documents and settings, and even the actual apps will roam across whatever PC you choose to use Office 365 with. Other editions, like ProPlus and above, include additional user accounts and access to apps like InfoPath and Lync — designed for businesses. Office 365 will also include access to Office for Mac.
– Metro look and feel – A Touch Mode feature is present in each Office 2013 application, but it does very little. Although hit targets become larger, making it slightly easier to navigate with touch, and it’s easy to navigate or type data in documents, the feature feels a little gimmicky and is hidden away from immediate view.
– Word – open, edit and save pdf’s, embed web video, better layout options
– Outlook sees most improvements, but mostly back end
– OneNote look nice – could be great on a surface device
15:43 – Nokia Woes
– The woes at the Finnish mobile phone company Nokia continue to mount, with further losses in its main division in the second quarter of 2012, and a €220m (£170m) write-off on unsold stock of its smartphones.
– Nokia also admitted its high-profile attempt to break back into the US smartphone market with its new range of Lumia phones, running Microsoft’s Windows Phone software, had led to only about 600,000 sales in the US – down on the 1.5m sold in the same period a year ago when the company was only offering its outdated Symbian software.
– The mobile phone division recorded an operating loss of €474m, its second successive quarter of losses, on revenues down 26% year-on-year to €4.02bn. Overall, the company recorded a loss, including one-off restructuring costs, of €826m compared to a loss of €487m in the same period in 2011. Without the restructuring costs, losses would be €327m.
– Elop said Nokia had delivered 4m Lumia smartphones in the second quarter, and that he expected Microsoft’s launch of the new Windows Phone 8 software in the autumn would be “an important catalyst”.
– Existing Lumia phones won’t run the new Windows Phone 8 software…
18:15 – Man assaulted for wearing digital eye by McDonalds staff
– Steve Mann pioneered and wears a digital eye glass
– Think a more permanently attached Google Glass
– On the evening of 2012 July 1st, my wife and children and I went to McDonalds at 140, Avenue Champs Elysees, Paris, France, after a day of sightseeing (8 museums and other landmark sights, as part of a boat cruise package), and while we were standing in line at McDonalds, I was stopped by a person who subsequently stated that he was a McDonalds employee, and he asked about my eyeglass (digital computer vision system, i.e. EyeTap).
– Because we’d spent the day going to various museums and historical landmark sites guarded by military and police, I had brought with me the letter from my doctor regarding my computer vision eyeglass, along with documentation, etc., although I’d not needed to present any of this at any of the other places I visited (McDonald’s was the only establishement that seemed to have any problem with my eyeglass during our entire 2 week trip).
– Since I happened to have it with me, I showed this doctor’s letter and the documentation to the purported McDonalds employee who had stopped me in the McDonalds line.
– After reviewing the documentation, the purported McDonalds employee accepted me (and my family) as a customer, and left us to place our order. In what follows, I will refer to this person as “Possible Witness 1”.
– We ordered two Ranch Wraps, one burger, and one mango McFlurry, from a cashier who I will refer to as “Possible Witness 2”. My daughter handled the cash to pay Possible Witness 2, as my daughter wanted to practice her French. Possible Witness 2 complimented my daughter on her fluency in French.
Next my family and I seated ourselves in the restaurant right by the entrance, so we could watch people walking along Avenue Champs Elysees while we ate our meal.
– Subsequently another person within McDonalds physically assaulted me, while I was in McDonand’s, eating my McDonand’s Ranch Wrap that I had just purchased at this McDonald’s. He angrily grabbed my eyeglass, and tried to pull it off my head. The eyeglass is permanently attached and does not come off my skull without special tools.
– I tried to calm him down and I showed him the letter from my doctor and the documentation I had brought with me. He (who I will refer to as Perpetrator 1) then brought me to two other persons. He was standing in the middle, right in front of me, and there was another person to my left seated at a table (who I will refer to as Perpetrator 2), and a third person to my right. The third person (who I will refer to as Perpetrator 3) was holding a broom and dustpan, and wearing a shirt with a McDonald’s logo on it. The person in the center (Perpetrator 1) handed the materials I had given him to the person to my left (Perpetrator 2), while the three of them reviewed my doctor’s letter and the documentation.
– After all three of them reviewed this material, and deliberated on it for some time, Perpetrator 2 angrily crumpled and ripped up the letter from my doctor. My other documentation was also destroyed by Perpetrator 1.
– I noticed that Perpetrator 1 was wearing a name tag clipped to his belt. When I looked down at it, he quickly covered it up with his hand, and pulled it off and turned it around so that it was facing inwards, so that only the blank white backside of it was then facing outwards.
– Perpetrator 1 pushed me out the door, onto the street.
– The computerized eyeglass processes imagery using Augmediated Reality, in order to help the wearer see better, and when the computer is damaged, e.g. by falling and hitting the ground (or by a physical assault), buffered pictures for processing remain in its memory, and are not overwritten with new ones by the then non-functioning computer vision system.
– As a result of Perpetrator 1’s actions, therefore images that would not have otherwise been captured were captured. Therefore by damaging the Eye Glass, Perpetrator 1 photographed himself and others within McDonalds.
21:40 – Apple ordered to run Samsung didn’t copy ad’s
– A UK judge has ordered Apple to publish announcements that Samsung did not copy the design of its iPad, according to the Bloomberg news agency.
– It said the judge said one notice should remain on Apple’s website for at least six months, while other adverts should be placed in various newspapers and magazines.
– It follows the US company’s failed attempt to block sales of the South Korean firm’s Galaxy Tab tablets.
– Apple has not commented on the news.
– The order did not feature in Judge Colin Birss’s judgement published on 9 July, but Bloomberg said the matter was discussed in the court following the verdict.
– It said the notices must make reference to the court case and should be designed to “correct the damaging impression” that Samsung’s tablets had aped the look of Apple’s products.
23:08 – Apples in-app purchasing circumvented
– a Russian developer has published a method of obtaining in-app purchases from iOS apps for free. First noticed by Russian blog i-ekb.ru, the “in-app proxy” method does not require a jailbreak, can be completed by novices in three steps using just an iOS device, and allows users to install in-app content for free. The hack also works on all devices running iOS 3.0 to 6.0. We confirmed the method works (at least temporarily), and the published instructions are starting to get attention, so we decided to publish this story as a warning to the Apple developer community.
– The hack appears to come from Russian developer ZonD80 who posted the above video demonstration. ZonD80 also appears to run a website called In-AppStore.com, where donations are being accepted to support the development of the project and help keep servers up and running. The developer explained the three steps of the hack, which include the installation of CA certificate, the installation of in-appstore.com certificate, and the changing of DNS record in Wi-Fi settings. After the quick process, users are presented with the message pictured above when installing in-app purchases, opposed to Apple’s usual purchase confirmation dialog. The fact that this hack is being used to steal in-app purchase content is perhaps just as troubling as the developer’s terms of service. Below is a list of data processed through the devs servers as part of the process (but again, we are imploring readers not to try this):
-restriction level of app
-id of app
-id of version
-guid of your idevice
-quantity of in-app purchase
-offer name of in-app purchase
-language you are using
-identifier of application
-version of application
-your locale
– Developers concerned – in app purchasing is a major source of revenue
– Apple has responded to The Loop regarding the situation with the following statement:
“The security of the App Store is incredibly important to us and the developer community,” Apple representative Natalie Harrison, told The Loop. “We take reports of fraudulent activity very seriously and we are investigating.”
– One of the suggestions for a method by which Apple could improve the security of In App Purchasing was to include a unique identifier in validation receipts, and we’ve received word that developers are now seeing something along those lines coming from receipts issued by Apple since late yesterday. The receipts carry a new field called “unique_identifer” that appears to include the Unique Device Identifier (UDID) for the device making the In App Purchase – 5 days after the above report Apple has updated the purchase process
26:08 – Apple reverses course on EPEAT environmental standard
– Apple has posted a letter from retiring senior VP of hardware engineering Bob Mansfield to its website, walking back the company’s abandonment of the EPEAT certification for its eligible products. Per the letter:
– We’ve recently heard from many loyal Apple customers who were disappointed to learn that we had removed our products from the EPEAT rating system. I recognize that this was a mistake. Starting today, all eligible Apple products are back on EPEAT.
– There’s a corresponding statement from EPEAT president Robert Frisbee on the organization’s site. It was only last week that Apple’s 39 EPEAT-eligible products were pulled from the industry registry at the company’s request.
– As recently as this Tuesday, Apple’s PR team was pointing out that the company’s environmental efforts are continuing and include many areas of progress not covered by the outdated EPEAT standards. It’s likely that the “loyal Apple customers” who raised their concerns with Mansfield and Apple management included many large institutional and government accounts, which may have purchasing rules mandating EPEAT-eligible gear when possible.
– Both Mansfield and Frisbee emphasize that this experience has strengthened the collaborative efforts of Apple and EPEAT, and that Apple’s input will be crucial in evolving the standard to deal with more modern devices.
28:32 – Betaworks Acquires Digg
– Betaworks, the company behind bit.ly, news.me, Chartbeat and a number of other successful products, has acquired the social news site Digg.com for an undisclosed amount. Betaworks’ founder John Borthwick will become the new CEO of Digg. The site’s current CEO Matt Williams will join Andreessen Horowitz as Entrepreneur in Residence after the Betaworks transition is complete. Digg’s founder Kevin Rose joined Google a few months ago after the search engine acquired his latest startup Milk.
– Betaworks promises to turn Digg “back into a startup,” with low budgets, a small team and fast update cycles. None of the remaining Digg employees, it seems, are moving to Betaworks. Instead, the News.me team will take over the management of the site. Betaworks, says Digg, will soon unveil a new “cloud-based version of Digg” that will complement News.me’s iPhone and iPad apps.
– According to Digg’s outgoing CEO Matt Williams, his team “considered many options of where Digg could go, and frankly many of them could not live up to the reason Digg was invented in the first place — to discover the best stuff on the web. We wanted to find a way to take Digg back to its startup roots.” Betaworks says it’s planning to “build Digg for 2012.”
– Update: Rumor has it that the price was just $500k, but that number doesn’t really make a lot of sense, given that the site still gets enough traffic to make more than that in a year by just selling ads. Talking to AllThingsD, Digg CEO Matt Williams confirmed that “the overall consideration is significantly larger” and includes a combination of cash and equity. Another source close to the negotiations tells us that the price was indeed not $500k. We haven’t been able to pinpoint the exact price yet.
31:56 – Now TV Launched
– BSkyB is to launch its internet service Now TV on Tuesday, with the aim of taking on rivals such as Netflix and LoveFilm, offering movies for £15 a month or up to £3.49 per view.
– The service, which will launch this week on PC, Mac and some Android smartphones, will initially only offer Sky Movies content at launch with access to 600 films and 11 channels.
– However a typically aggressive rollout plan will see Sky Sports content including Premier League, cricket, rugby and golf before the end of the year, as well as channels including Sky1, Sky Arts and Sky Atlantic.
– Now TV will be priced at £15 a month for customers who want to access Sky Movies content, with a “pay and play” option of selecting individual films from 99p to £3.49.
– Sky is aiming to break beyond its pay-TV roots and target the 13m UK households who refuse to sign up for what can be costly subscription packages.
– BSkyB has more than 10m pay-TV customers, however the number of new sign ups has dwindled to as low as 15,000 per quarter.
– The launch of Now TV is seen as potentially as important as BSkyB’s move into the broadband market in 2006, a move to protect and grow its business model to tap into shifting consumer viewing habits such as watching TV on mobile and handheld devices.
– “We are targeting the 13m non-pay TV households out there with a no commitment, no contract way of delivering Sky content they want in a dip in and dip out way,” said BSkyB managing director of sales and marketing Stephen van Rooyen. “The whole idea is to have something ‘not Sky’, it is purposely designed to attract new customers.”
– BSkyB intends to roll out the availability of Now TV rapidly to other devices including iPhone, iPad, Microsoft Xbox and Roku, while the company is also in discussions to bring it to the PlayStation 3.
36:04 – You can’t link to Olympics website if you say something mean about them
– For years, we’ve highlighted the overaggressive nature of the Olympics in over-protecting their intellectual property — even to the level of getting host countries to pass special IP laws that only apply to the Olympics. But this sense of ultimate entitlement seems to pervade everything that the Olympics does. It was recently noted that the terms of use for the London 2012 website include a restriction on how you can link to the site:
Links to the Site. You may create your own link to the Site, provided that your link is in a text-only format. You may not use any link to the Site as a method of creating an unauthorised association between an organisation, business, goods or services and London 2012, and agree that no such link shall portray us or any other official London 2012 organisations (or our or their activities, products or services) in a false, misleading, derogatory or otherwise objectionable manner. The use of our logo or any other Olympic or London 2012 Mark(s) as a link to the Site is not permitted. View our guidelines on Use of the Games’ Marks.
– Either way, this claim that you can’t link to their site in a “derogatory or otherwise objectionable manner” has inspired the creativity of the internet, it appears. Specifically, lots of folks have taken to Twitter to share their own derogatory or otherwise objectionable statements along with links to the website.

Picks

DigitalOutbox Episode 119

DigitalOutbox Episode 119
DigitalOutbox Episode 119 – Twitter privacy issues, Facebook IPO and the Google Knowledge Graph

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:08 – Twitter Updates
– Will support Do Not Track
– Twitter says it will honour requests from users who do not want their online behaviour tracked, the company said on Thursday, in contrast with web companies such Google and Facebook whose business models rely heavily on collecting user data.
– Twitter announced that it will officially support “Do Not Track,” a standardised privacy initiative that has been heavily promoted by the US Federal Trade Commission, online privacy advocates and Mozilla, the non-profit developer of the Firefox web browser.
– Thats GOOD however
– Micro-blogging site Twitter is to start recommending users for you to follow, based on your recent web browsing history. The site calls these ” tailored suggestions,” and it will track your footsteps across the web by using integrated Twitter buttons and widgets as surveillance outposts. So, every website with a “Tweet this” button will log your visit.
– Then, the social network can recognise which accounts are frequently followed by people who visit popular websites, and recommend those accounts to others who have visited those sites within the last ten days. It’s specifically targeted at new Twitter hatchlings, as it hopes to provide them with a relevant list of accounts to follow as soon as they’ve made an account. Right now, Twitter has a default handful of popular users — including Justin Bieber and Kim Kardashian — that it shows to all new sign-ups.
– There’s an obvious privacy worry, but Twitter’s Othman Laraki writes, “we are committed to providing you with simple and meaningful choices about the information we collect to improve your Twitter experience.”
– Thats NOT SO GOOD however
– Twitter now sends weekly e-mail digest
– Twitter just added a new feature that sends you a weekly email with the most popular tweets and links from people you follow.
– Sadly, Twitter signs you up without asking you, so you’ll have to take some action to get rid of them. You could wait until it comes and unsubscribe directly from the email, but if you want to stop them before they start, just head to Twitter’s Settings > Notifications > and uncheck the “Weekly digest of Stories & Tweets from my network” box at the bottom. Save your changes and you should never have to see one of those buggers make its way into your email.
– Thats POOR
5:12 – Facebook IPO
– Finally hits the stock market for $38
– Banks keep the price at just over $38 on day one but shares in Zynga drop 13% and they are suspended
– Monday sees Facebook drop
– It’ s a bubble!
– Facebook gets suited because some information only given to institutional investors…http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/23/us-facebook-lawsuit-idUSBRE84M0RK20120523
12:21 – Facebook Camera
– Facebook on Thursday announced a new application for the iPhone and iPod Touch called Facebook Camera, which is intended to make it easier to take pictures and share them on Facebook.
– Dirk Stoop, a Facebook product manager for photos, said that the application was much faster than the current Facebook app for Apple’s iOS, and that it puts photos at the center of the experience.
– “We can basically show you more photos on the app, so we can make a more immersive experience around your photos,” Mr. Stoop said. “On the side of publishing these photos, Facebook Camera lets you upload much higher resolution photos at up to 2,048 by 2,048 pixels wide.” The standard Facebook application uploads lower-resolution pictures.
The application will also finally bring photo filters to Facebook.
– Facebook Camera will offer 15 filters, and will also include tools for cropping and straightening photos, much like the photo editing tools within Apple’s photo app. The filters will include cool, light, bright, golden, cream and neon. “They are stylistic in nature, they are not just enhancements,” Mr. Stoop said.
– It might seem strange for Facebook to release a camera application with built-in filters just weeks after announcing plans to buy Instagram, the social photo app. But Facebook Camera is aimed at a different audience. Instagram has 40 million users, while Facebook has 900 million. This leaves a large swath of people who are not on Instagram but are actively taking photos and uploading them to Facebook. The filters in Facebook Camera were developed by Facebook and are not borrowed from Instagram.
14:20 – HP to lose 27000 employees
– Restructuring
– 27,000 employees to go worldwide
– The company said the cuts – about 8% of its workforce – will reduce costs by up to $3.5bn (£2.2bn) a year.
– HP employs about 350,000 people worldwide and about 20,000 in the UK.
18:22 – Yahoo Axis
– Yahoo introduced its new Axis browser tonight, with versions for the Apple iPad and iPhone, as well as plugins for the top desktop browsers.
– The company briefed a media army on the product and the consensus is that it’s very good. My favorite headline from Gizmodo: “Yahoo Came Out With Its Own Web Browser and It Actually Doesn’t Suck.”
– It’s a slick offering, which essentially eliminates the texty link-filled search page for one of pretty visual tiles and pull-downs and more. Think Pinterest of search and you have the general idea.
– iPad app is nice but US only for the moment – won’t replace my browser but something different. It’s more than handsome enough, it runs very smoothly (thanks mostly to its WebKit underpinnings), and your bookmarks sync between devices quickly once you make sure you’re logged in.
– Not sure if it’s a browser as such
21:43 – Google finally gets Motorola
– Google has today announced that it has closed its acquisition of Motorola Mobility, buying the Illinois-based device maker for $40 per share in cash for a total of $12.5 billion.
– As widely expected, Sanjay Jha is stepping down as CEO and Dennis Woodside, Google’s former Americas head, will take the helm at Motorola Mobility, which will be operated as a standalone company. The company says the acquisition will help Google “supercharge” the Android ecosystem: while Motorola will be making devices using the platform, it will also remain open.
– “It’s a great time to be in the mobile business…I’m confident Dennis [Woodhouse] and the team at Motorola will be creating the next generation of mobile devices that will improve lives for years to come,” Page writes.
26:06 – Google launches the Knowledge Graph
– The Knowledge Graph enables you to search for things, people or places that Google knows about—landmarks, celebrities, cities, sports teams, buildings, geographical features, movies, celestial objects, works of art and more—and instantly get information that’s relevant to your query. This is a critical first step towards building the next generation of search, which taps into the collective intelligence of the web and understands the world a bit more like people do.
– Google’s Knowledge Graph isn’t just rooted in public sources such as Freebase, Wikipedia and the CIA World Factbook. It’s also augmented at a much larger scale—because we’re focused on comprehensive breadth and depth. It currently contains more than 500 million objects, as well as more than 3.5 billion facts about and relationships between these different objects. And it’s tuned based on what people search for, and what we find out on the web.
– Helps you get a good summary of the search topic and go deeper if you wish to
28:26 – Waterstones teams up with…Amazon
– Waterstones will sell Kindles in their own stores and also the best Kindle experience
– The thinking seems to be that since we all like browsing in bookshops, and we all like reading on digital devices, combining the “singular pleasures of browsing a curated bookshop” with the “best digital readers” will make for the best of both worlds. But that seems to fundamentally misunderstand the appeal of the digital reading experience. Full disclosure: I don’t use a Kindle, but price aside, the attraction of the Kindle experience seems to be that you can have lots of books, straight away – neither of which is usually much of a problem when you’re standing in a bookshop. And the risk that Waterstones runs is that by welcoming its greatest rival onto the high street it puts Amazon’s device into the hands of its most committed customers.
– The terms of the deal won’t be announced until the autumn, but the success or failure of this deal will be determined by what people think digital reading is
– Basically says Kindle is the device/platform for reading books. Amazon wins.
30:36 – O2 rolling out 42Mbps 3G to major UK cities
– UK mobile network operator O2 has confirmed it is currently rolling out a variant of DC-HSPA which will support connections of up to 42Mbps. Although the dual-cell HSPA technology can support impressive speeds, the technology will still operate as 3G ahead of the 4G spectrum that is being planned for the UK. British owners of the latest iPad or Nokia Lumia 900 (devices that support DC-HSPA) will be able to take advantage of the speeds providing their local mast has been upgraded. O2 says it’s rolling out to “major UK cities,” but there’s no word on exact locations.
– Three is also planning to rollout a 42Mbps version of DC-HSPA over the summer and T-Mobile / Orange are planning to support the technology later this year. Vodafone, the fourth major UK network operator, started to rollout a variant of DC-HSPA last year, but with support for up to 28.8Mbps — the company says it has no plans to support the 42Mbps variant.

Picks
Henry
Swordigo
– £1.49
– Nice platform/adventure.
– Quite easy but nicely done.

Ian
Habit List
– £1.49
– Helps create good habits and break bad ones
– Add a habit, pick frequency, track how often you keep or break habits
– Looks great – finding it very handy

DigitalOutbox Episode 118

DigitalOutbox Episode 118
DigitalOutbox Episode 118 – Yahoo, Internet Porn and the Samsung Galaxy SIII

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:05 – Yahoo CEO Steps Down
– Scott Thompson hired from PayPal to reinvigorate the business, has been forced out over an error in his CV – which wrongly claimed he has a computer science degree.
– Lied about computing degree on his CV
– Apologised to staff, not for lying, but that this was a distraction
– He has seemingly been diagnosed with thyroid cancer which contributed to his decision to step down
– Thompson, who started in January, was initially praised by Wall Street for his first round of cuts – removing 2,000 jobs (from a headcount of around 14,000) in order to save $375m per year, saying that it was “an important next step toward a bold, new Yahoo – smaller, nimbler, more profitable and better equipped to innovate.”
– He will be succeeded — at least for now — by Ross B. Levinsohn, the company’s head of global media.
– Mr. Levinsohn, who is most likely auditioning to keep the role on a permanent basis, has been with Yahoo since late 2010, when the chief executive at that time, Carol Bartz, brought him in to lead its Americas operations. He is now the company’s global head of media, overseeing Yahoo’s core multibillion dollar advertising business.
– I don’t really know what Yahoo is or does anymore!
6:36 – Internet Porn – Government to consult on tough new measures
– The government is to consult on tough measures to protect children from internet pornography. Under plans being draw up by Downing Street, it would be up to customers to “opt in” to receive adult content online when they take out a broadband contract.
– Campaigners have argued it is too easy for children to access explicit adult content on their phones and computers. Parents who want to ensure their children currently do not have access to internet pornography must opt out of services.
– But under the proposals, internet service providers (ISPs) will be forced to ask customers if they wish to access sites when they sign up for broadband. David Cameron is due to meet large ISPs to discuss the measures but he is understood to be against tougher controls on internet porn.
– Tory backbencher Claire Perry has accused internet companies of being “complicit” in exposing children to pornography. She said ISPs had been “dragging their feet” on reforming the way explicit material is accessed online.
– A report by MPs found 77% of women would sign up to having a default filter barring pornographic content.
– Nick Pickles, director of the privacy and civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, welcomed the consultation as a “positive step”, but said ministers needed to focus on giving parents the ability to restrict their children’s access rather than trying to censor the internet.
– is it not better to educate children and parents
10:46 – Apple rejecting apps that use Dropbox SDK
– Last year Apple caused a bit of a stir by forcing developers to remove links in iOS apps that allowed for external subscriptions or purchases to be made — unless the same transaction was also available as one of Apple’s in-app purchases. A new wrinkle in the policy has developed, with Dropbox confirming that third-party developers incorporating its service are now being rejected under the same rule “because we allow users to create accounts.” PandoDaily first reported on a support thread in Dropbox’s user support forums, with developers complaining that their apps are being kicked back by the App Store review team. The issue is the way Dropbox’s new SDK handles the authorization of third-party apps: it sends users to a page in Safari where they can grant access. However, that same page also allows new users to create accounts, after which they could drill down through Dropbox’s site and upgrade to a paid account.
– Dropbox initially tried removing a link to the desktop version of the site as a possible workaround, but the review team continued to reject apps. Earlier this evening, the company posted a version of its SDK that removed the ability to create a new account altogether. While Dropbox believes this should resolve the issue, it’s hardly a convenient solution for iOS users looking to add functionality, and should only further stoke the flames of controversy over some of Apple’s review guidelines.
– Protecting iCloud, punishing DropBox or staying true to it’s word that you can’t offer paid options from links in the app without offering in app purchase as well?
– Dropbox have now worked around problem – still pretty stinky
13:18 – Apple barred from using 4G when advertising iPad in the UK
– Apple has been selling the device billed “4G”, even though the 4G chip inside will work only on 700MHz and 2100MHz spectra in the U.S. and Canada.
– In the UK, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), which regulates advertising, will on Wednesday publish an informal adjudication after receiving complaints from disgruntled customers, who said Apple’s claims wrongly suggested lightning-speed browsing.
– But the authority could open a new investigation in to whether Apple is mis-leading customers.
– Apple no longer using 4G in the UK store
14:29 – Facebook launches App Centre
– Instead of selling apps that integrate with Facebook, the new App Center will refer users to other app stores where they can buy them.
– What Facebook has announced is more of an app showcase. In addition to apps built on Facebook, it includes apps that use Facebook Login, regardless of whether they’re iOS, Android or web apps.
– Though you will find iOS and Android apps in the App Center, you will be directed to Apple’s App Store orGoogle Play to actually download the apps. Facebook announced on Wednesday that it will allow developers to charge for “apps built on Facebook” for the first time, but is not clear whether users will purchase apps directly from the App Center.
– Facebook’s App Center will launch on the web as well as within the iOS and Android Facebook apps.
16:58 – Facebook testing pay to promote
– Facebook is testing a new feature called Highlight that allows users to pay a nominal fee to promote their posts, making them more prominent in others’ news feeds. Last year Facebook raked in $1.14 billion in revenue, about 85 percent of which is from ads, but this would be the first time the site attempts to monetize ordinary posts.
– In a converation with Stuff, Facebook spokeswoman Mia Garlick confirmed the tests: “We’re constantly testing new features across the site. This particular test is simply to gauge people’s interest in this method of sharing with their friends.” She also added that the company is testing the service at a number of price points, including free. The feature is similar to a new addition from Tumblr that lets users pay to promote their blog posts.
20:16 – Rdio launches in UK
– Similar to Spotify, listen to music on the web or devices
– No fanfare, just available with 7 day free trial
– Looks ot be more US centric with some new additions for UK market
22:14 – Samsung Galaxy SIII
– Major specs include a 4.8-inch PenTile Super AMOLED display at 720p resolution, 8-megapixel primary and 1.9-megapixel front-facing cameras with 990ms start-up time, 3.3fps burst mode, and best-shot selection (similar to the HTC One series), 16 or 32GB of storage (a 64GB version is coming later) with microSD expansion, Bluetooth 4.0 support, GPS with GLONASS reception, high-throughput 40MHz 802.11n Wi-Fi, NFC, and a relatively large 2,100mAh battery.
– The global version of the device will be using the recently-announced Exynos 4 Quad quad-core system-on-chip — regional variants could be using alternatives, just as the Galaxy S II did. The phone measures 8.6mm thick (136.6 x 70.6 x 8.6mm, to be exact) which is actually a bit thicker than the S II’s 8.5mm. The global version will support 21Mbps HSPA+, though Samsung is quick to point out that certain local models will have 4G.
– Flipboard is exclusive to Samsung SIII owners on Android for a limted time
– 50GB of Dropbox space – double HTC
– Samsung says that Europeans can look for the Galaxy S III to launch on May 29th with the 32GB model as a Vodafone exclusive for the first month
28:13 – Games Update
– Diablo III launches at midnight tonight
– Max Payne 3 – some great early reviews, out friday
– Ghost Recon Future Soldier next week
– Trials Evolution and Fez – great arcade games, not forgetting Minecraft too

Picks
Ian
Bartender
– Free while in beta,
– Tidies menu bar icons
– Hide icons in bartenders own bar
– Can display an app if it updates for 5 seconds
– Really cleans up my messy menu bar