Tech News Today 170

Tech News Today Episode 170

Tech News Today 170: WWSEO Smackdown!

Google and Microsoft start name-calling over search, Will Kindle get kicked off iPad, What happens when the net runs out of addresses, and more.

Hosts

• Tom Merritt (@acedtect)
  • TomMerritt.com
• Becky Worley (@bworley)
• Jason Howell
  • JasonHowell.net

Top Stories

• Google accuses Bing of 'cheating,' piggybacking off its search results
  • Google, Microsoft trade barbs over Bing 'copying'
  • Spelling team at Google noticed some spell-corrected searches returning the same results on Bing WITHOUT spel-correction. - October Google noticed a rise in overlap with Bing in top 10 searches and percentage of searches engines had the same top result. First clue Misspellings, 2nd clue top 10 similarities, then the sting.

• Now Microsoft confirms Yahoo! as the data leak culprit
  • Researcher Rafael Rivera--Yahoo’s IMAP server (winmo.imap.mail.yahoo.com) does not respond to FETCH requests correctly. Yahoo is sending ~25 times as much data as it needs to. (This can also be read as: Your phone is downloading 25 times as much data as it normally would, had you sided with another email provider.)
  • Yahoo apologizes for Windows Phone 7 data bloat
    • temporary workaround is to change settings for "Download new Content" and "Download email from" to say "manually" and "last 7 days" to spare on the data.

• Apple Rejects Sony Reader App Over In-App Purchases. Kindle Next?
  • Apple on Sony Reader: “We Have Not Changed Our Guidelines”
  • Sony posted a note on its website, however, noting that it has “opened a dialog with Apple to see if we can come up with an equitable resolution but reached an impasse at this time.” The company says it’s exploring other ways to bring its Reader to iOS devices, indicating that it may try other routes in order to avoid the App Store tax

Discussion Stories

• Last blocks net addresses set to be shared
  • APNic requested to /8 blocks -- This triggers a policy that when five blocks remain they will be distributed to the regional internet registries (RIRs) (like APNic) --- a ceremony for this handing over is set to take place in mid-March. Five RIRs --AfriNIC, ARIN, APNIC, LACNIC, RIPE. Normal allocation will continue for 3-6 months from APNic and special allocation for up to five years to enable IPv6 transition.

• A press conference taking place on Thursday in Miami is expected to mark the last allocation of Internet Protocol, Version 4 addresses by the central authority that assigns them.
  • List of allocated /8 blokcs showing only 5 blocks unallocated

• Samsung's Lee Young-hee was misunderstood, Galaxy Tab sales are 'smooth' not 'small'
  • Buyer’s Remorse: 16 Percent of Galaxy Tabs Are Returned

• Sony's latest PS3 firmware gaffe: no hard drive upgrades

• India still wants BlackBerry access but ban unlikely - the deadline passed yesterday but BlackBerrys kept working. Looks like India blinked.

News Fuse

• The EFF has started defending John Does in those lawsuits that target massive lists of potential infringers in order to send threatening letters and get them to settle out of court for thousands of dollars. This angered Evan Stone, lawyer from Denton, Texas who became frustrated that the EFF's defense was preventing the rubber stamping of his requests. So he's withdrawn the lawsuit he was pursuing on behalf of German porn film Der Gute Onkel.

• Google Latitude just entered 2009! Google on Tuesday unveiled an updated version of its Google Maps Android app that adds check-in functionality to Google Latitude. But since Latitude normally works by tracking you in realtime, it can feature automatic check-ins that automatically update your location when you go to a certain place and a check-out feature that will check you out when you leave.

• You know those people who pour over every detail on their bill to find the overcharges? Patrick Hendricks is one of those guys. Hendricks bought an iphone, turned off push notifications, location services, closed all apps, and did not enable e-mail but was still charged for 35 data transactions over a 10-day period for a total of 2,292KB of usage. Hendrick's lawyers hired an independent consulting firm to analyze ipad and iphone bills and they say they are finding 7-14% data inflation on bills. tsk tsk at&t

• Sony's playstation move technology may port to your computer- you Want to use that funky glowing ping pong thing with your PC? Sony's John McCutchan, who heads the game systems team is planning to talk about the new Move Server project at Sony in a march talk at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco to discuss how hobbyists and enthusiasts can use the controller for pc apps- take that kinect!

• Halo- arguably the most famous first person shooter ever for consoles. Kinect revolutionary controllerless gaming technology- could the two be married? Microsoft is now the proud owner of KinectHalo.com, giving life to the idea that the company may eventually build a Kinect version of halo. this according to "the next web" this is causing fan boys across the globe to weak with joy.

• If you bought a samsung PC that's been acting weird- rejoice- there's a refund for you buddy. Samsung has said it will offer full refunds for anyone who bought a pc with the new Intel 6 Series chipset, 6 lines of pcs with the chips were sold in korea only one line released in the US. Intel said Monday that the chipset connecting the Sandy Bridge processors to other parts of the PC system had a problem that could potentially cause hard-disk or DVD drives to malfunction. this is a billion dollar boo boo for intel and an embarassment for the new line of ships

• Comcast announced a new long term deal with Time Warner that brings more content to all of its TV Everywhere-related efforts. That means shows from TNT, TBS, CNN, HLN, truTV, Turner Classic Movies, Cartoon Network and Adult Swim will be available on Xfinity's website, cable VOD and mobile apps and the addition of live streaming video later this year as part of a larger agreement between Time Warner and Comcast.

Kickers and Weird Science

• Taxi driver does dead-on Michael Jackson voice when singing Billie Jean

Calendar

• Airlines offer free in-flight Facebook starting today. American Airlines, AirTran, Alaska Airlines, Delta, United Airlines, US Airways and Virgin America.
• Rupert Murdoch's Daily for iPad Debuts tomorrow at Guggenheim, tonight at cocktail party at Rupert's apartment.
• Dell Streak 7 launching at T-Mobile on February 2nd: $200 with two-year contract, $450 without
• Google event to show off Honeycomb tomorrow at 10 AM Pacific - Google Music and web-based Android Market could be announced tomorrow
• HTC Inspire 4G hits AT&T on February 13th, does HSPA+ for $99.99
• Samsung preview trailer launched to teas 2/13 announcement in Barcelona of the next Galaxy S
• World's first 3D smartphone, LG Optimus 3D, to debut February 14

Voicemail

• Anonymous: Regarding metering in Canada

Email

* The federal government will decide by March 1 whether to reject a CRTC decision on usage-based internet billing, after Prime Minister Stephen Harper requested a review.

"Hey,

Just wanted to let you guys know that Prime Minister Stephen Harper plans to review the issue of usage based billing in Canada.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/tech-news/pm-orders-review-of-internet-billing/article1890567/

From the article: ""The Harper government will decide by or before March 1 whether it will overturn the federal regulator’s decision which effectively kills unlimited Internet download plans.""

""Mr. Harper put more weight Tuesday behind Industry Minister Tony Clement’s Monday decision to order a review of the CRTC ruling. The move thrusts the Conservatives into a contentious debate over just how much Canadians should pay for Internet service – one that erupted after the Jan. 15 ruling that will hike prices for consumers and businesses.""

Love the show!

Mike (thirdstage in the chatroom)"

*SaskTel is government owned and provides unlimited broadband and wireless with no caps. -Nse Ekong

"Hey Tom,

Just wanted to send a quick note regarding the story of Canadian ISPs lowering their bandwidth caps to 25 GB from 200 GB.

SaskTel is a provincial Crown Corporation (meaning that it is owned by the executive branch of the government) and operates under the authority of the Saskatchewan Telecommunications Act. It is the only remaining Crown Corporation in the Canadian telecommunications industry.

As far as I know, SaskTel is the only ISP in North America that offers both unlimited broadband and unlimited wireless Internet usage with no data caps whatsoever. Also, because SaskTel is effectively government owned, they try to provide services to as much of the population as possible. According to Wikipedia, SaskTel provides telecommunications services to 13 cities, 535 smaller communities and surrounding rural areas, including 49,000 farms. In contrast, Rogers cellular coverage is comparably poor in many places in the province as they only cover only a fraction of the areas that SaskTel does. Residents of Saskatchewan end up subsidizing SaskTel services through higher taxes and other fees (similar to the CBC or BBC).

Anyway, just thought that I'd bring this up as it's unlikely that SaskTel will follow the other ISPs and meter Internet in the province of Saskatchewan.

Regards,

Nse Ekong Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada

P.S.: Love the show. More Worley!"

* Rogers cable Internet comes down hard on caps too.

"Hey gang, First, just like to say how great it was to see you guys cover the frustrating download cap situation going on up here. If you could mention openmedia.ca that'd be great. There's a petition going on there that has already drawn the attention of the Liberal party, which is a nice start.

Besides the fleecing we're getting up here from Bell, we do also have Rogers coming down HARD on caps. We pay phenomenal amounts of overage fees to Rogers, and where Bell at lease has the CRTC behind them in stating that the costs are so high, we've heard no justification of jacking the prices on the cable networks. Just heard word yesterday too that TekSavvy will be forced to drop their Unlimited plan (run over Rogers network) stifling the entire country under caps (as far as I know anyway).

A HUGE smile came to my face hearing you guys talk about the mesh networks, as it feels all doom and gloom up here with Rogers and Bell having their way with us.

Love the show, Spencer"

"Today Google opened the virtual doors to 17 famous museums, using street view technology the unwashed masses can get a lot closer to classic paintings that they could ever hope to do if they actually visited the real world buildings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GThNZH5Q1yY

/HateBadDesign (In Exile)"

"Hi guys again! Here is a link to translations of the Google Speak to Tweet service. http://egypt.alive.in/ thanks!

-Dena Reiter"

Sponsors

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• Gazelle.com offer code TNT
• ad times: :35-:46 and 19:54-21:55

Production Information

• Edited by: Jason
• Notes:

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