Tech News Today 248

Tech News Today Episode 248

Tech News Today 248: Shoe Pie Plus

Hosts

• Tom Merritt (@acedtect)
  • TomMerritt.com
• Sarah Lane (@sarahlane)
  • SarahLane.com
• Darren Kitchen (@hak5darren)
  • hak5d.squarespace.com
• Jason Howell (@raygun01)
  • JasonHowell.net

Top Stories

• Full text: Apple Legal's letter to Lodsys
• Apple says developers are licensed for Lodsys patents
• Apple throws weight behind devs on patent issue
  • Bruce Sewell, Apple Senior Vice President and General Counsel sent a letter to Lodsys CEO Mark Small
  • Apple is undisputedly licensed to these patents and the App Makers are protected by that license.

• Sony estimates $3.2b loss this year, $171 million cost for PSN breach
• Sony losses feel double punch of hack and earthquake
• Sony BMG Greece the latest hacked Sony site
  • expected to post a $3.1 billion loss for FY, instead of the $857 million in profits forecasted back in February.
  • Cost of hack estimated ¥14 billion ($171.4 million) FY 2012
  • The company estimated a ¥17 billion ($208.1 million) loss of operating income FY 2011 due to the recent earthquake
  • Sony also described "incremental" losses, such as repair of structures and loss of inventory. "The impact of these expenses is approximately ¥11 billion ($134.7 million) although these should be offset by insurance
  • The natural disaster's impact of operating income for FY 2012 is estimated to be a staggering ¥150 billion yen ($1.84 billion).
  • Hacker News received a data dump from anonymous hackers, and has uploaded a user database to pastebin.com, including the usernames, real names and email addresses of users registered on SonyMusic.gr.

• Advocacy Group: Foxconn Blast Was No Accident
• Third Foxconn Worker Dies Due to Explosion, Apparently Caused by “Combustible Dust”
  • Foxconn released an update about the explosion that took place on Friday in one of its factories in Chengdu. A third worker has died from injuries sustained at the factory. The cause of the explosion is currently under investigation by government officials and law enforcement. Their initial findings are the blast was caused "by an explosion of ultra-light aluminum combustible dust in a duct." The dust is used to polish iPads.
  • The explosion is not accidental, "Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) wrote in a blog post that condemned working conditions at Foxconn's mainland China facilities as well as alleged inaction by partners of the contract computer and electronics manufacturer such as Apple, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell.
  • "SACOM pinpointed the problem of the aluminum dust in the polishing department in our report in early May,"
  • "Regrettably, Foxconn turns a deaf ear to SACOM's findings. After the spate of suicides, the blast also affirms Foxconn puts productivity of [the] iPad before workers' lives."
  • Workers always have excessive and forced overtime in order to gain a higher wage. Workers are exposed to dust from construction site[s] and shop floor[s] without adequate protection. Even worse, they are threatened by [the] potential harm of occupational diseases in various departments. Additionally, a military-styled management is still in practice, characterized by 'military training' for new workers."
  • Hon Hai chairman Terry Gou, meanwhile, has said that the explosion would not cause production delays for the iPad 2

Discussion Stories

• Google is blocking Android Market movie rentals on rooted devices because of copy protection
• Google blocks Android movie rentals from rooted devices, blames DRM
  • Google blocks Movie rentals on rooted Android phones
  • Google blames "requirements related to copyright protection" for the move
  • You'll receive this 'Error 49' message if you attempt to play a movie on a rooted device," according to Google's related support article. "Rooted devices are currently unsupported due to requirements related to copyright protection."
  • Only the Xoom has 3.1 right now, but this will roll out to others.

• Amazon's Android tablet coming in 10- and 7-inch models with quad-core Tegra power?
• Possible pricing according to sources: $349 and $449
  • Silicon Valley analyst, Tim Bajarin, who claims to have some inside information from his sources in Taipei.
  • 10-inch tablet before the holidays
  • a 7-inch model and plans to use NVIDIA's new quad-core Tegra SoC
  • Amazon wanted to use a switchable "black and white E Ink-like display and a color LCD" hybrid but the two vendors approached (Qualcomm and Pixel Qi?) won't be ready with a suitable display

• Apple's Mac growth in the enterprise against Windows isn't sustainable
• Apple makes huge inroads in enterprise as corporate Mac sales surge 66%
  • Mac sales in the enterprise during Apple's last fiscal quarter grew a whopping 66 percent, significantly outpacing the rest of the PC market, which grew just 4.5 percent in the enterprise.
  • highlighted on Friday by analyst Charlie Wolf with Needham & Company
  • well over overall enterprise growth of only 4.5 percent.
  • Macs still only account for a measly 3 percent of total sales to businesses. "Three percent does not a juggernaut make. It's practically a rounding error." - Preston Gralla
  • Back in 1997, the Mac posted 3% of sales to businesses.

• Dorsey's Square tries to eliminate the card swipe by bringing back the tab
  • two new services -- Card Case and Square Register
  • Starting today, customers can pay for purchases using their smartphones at any of Square's 50 launch partners.
  • Card Case users will eventually be able to use the app to order ahead from their favorite restaurants. For now, all you can do is browse the menu and open a tab when you get within 500 feet of your destination
  • you order a coffee at a participating shop, for example, and when you swipe your credit card, the receipt is emailed to you. Leave your card on file with Square, and next time you visit the coffee shop you can browse the menu and pay with the company's new app by pressing a button. They call it opening a tab, a high-tech homage to the pad-and-paper accounting that barkeeps, druggists and general store clerks were accustomed to many generations ago.

News Fuse

• According to a source at DigiTimes, Apple's next iPhone will have a curved glass display. This is based on Apple buying over 200 glass-cutting machines. Apparently, the yield rate for the machines are not satisfactory yet. Once Apple figures out how this stuff should work, all the machines will be online, but don't expect the iPhone 5 any sooner than the rumored September launch.

• The Apple Store app got an update. Now, you can fire up the app and order a Mac built to your specifications - previously, you could only pick stock configurations. If you're using the Apple Store app in a brick-and-mortar Apple Store, you'll be able to find out when the next available Genius Bar appointment is or when the next in-store workshop is scheduled. The app also lets you request help from a customer service rep in the store. Unfortunately, there is no "Steve Jobs Soundboard" built in yet.

• TechnoBuffalo is reporting details about the Droid 3. It will have a 4-inch qHD screen (that's 960x540), the slider keyboard will have a dedicated row for number keys, and it might be powered by an NVIDIA Tegra 2. The Droid 3 will have a front-facing cam as well as a 8MP shooter on the back. Those cameras will come in handy so you can take a picture of your disappointed face when you find out the Droid 3 doesn't support LTE.

• HP's Eric Cador, he's the Senior Vice President, Personal Systems Group – Europe, Middle East and Africa - says the HP TouchPad will unseat the Apple iPad as king of tablets. Speaking at a press conference Cador said, "In the tablet world, we're going to become better than number one. We call it number one plus." Good luck with that, HP!

• Hulu Plus locks arms with TiVo Premiere for TV streaming, in other words, TiVo Premiere has access to Hulu Plus starting today. The standard $8 a month rate still applies, but TiVo is running a deal where if you buy a TiVo Premiere from its site between now and August 30th, you'll get a 6-month free trial to Hulu Plus. If you already have a Premiere, you can get 1 month of Hulu Plus for free.

• The celebrity who arguably made Twitter mainstream is launching his own Twitter app. Ashton Kutcher is teaming up with UberMedia to build A.Plus, which is an Adobe Air app with content channels chosen by Kutcher. UberMedia has dabbled with celeb crossovers before - it offers a special UberSocial theme created by rapper 50 Cent.

• Holzer, Holzer & Fistel, a lawfirm based in Atlanta Georgia, announced that it is investigating RIM for potential violations of U.S. securities law. The investigation revolves around whether RIM adequately disclosed that it was having problems with an aging product line. The law firm is encouraging RIM stock holders to contact them so they all can make a boat load of cash - correction - so the law firm can make a boat load of cash.

• Nissho is bringing its big screen glasses-free 3DTV to Japan today, and will be available for the low low price of 1.7 million yen (or almost $21k). The 52-inch display is marketed as "2D + depth." Expect to see this thing as a business display or in the homes of the super-rich.

Kickers and Weird Science

• Architect of Great Firewall of China 'takes shoe to face'

Calendar

• T-Mobile lauches new individual and family plans right on schedule, they range from about $70 for 200 mb of data to $120 for 10 gb
• Kobo unveils WiFi Touch Edition e-reader for $129.99
• Amazon is selling digital downloads of ”Born This Way,” Lady Gaga’s newest album, for 99 cents.
• Barnes and Noble to announce new e-reader Tuesday May 24
• Microsoft previewing their next major Windows Phone tomorrow May 24 - 500 new features says Steve Ballmer! features features features!
• Verizon rolling out LTE coverage in 21 additional markets on June 16th - one of those markets is SLC.. good timing for Nerdtacular

Email

"Hello TNT crew,

I was watching episode 247, and you talked about the idea of Facebook Jr. I believe something like this is extremely essential to a child's experience on the Internet. Being a 13 year old, I have gone through many years of not being able to do anything on the Internet except for playing a few games (which I personally do not enjoy). I ended up, at around age 10, signing up for a Gmail account, then went on to Twitter and Facebook, all lying about my age. I would rather have been able to tell the truth about my age, and me marketed to accordingly.

Love the show,

Luz"

"Hey Guys,

First, welcome back Tom. We've missed you. Please everyone give Tom a hug to convey the fact that we've missed him. Ok, with that out of the way...

During last week's discussions about the rise of Apple malware, I was surprised that no one in the tech community mentioned anything about the Mac AppStore. Many valid points were made, but nothing was said about the fact that an AppStore driven OS would be much less susceptible to attacks. Indeed, if only AppStore signed applications can be installed, it makes the system that much more secure... Of course this wouldn't happen tomorrow, but Apple doesn't drink its own cool aid. Meaning: they know that Macs aren't inherently secure, and they realize that they'll become bigger targets as they gain popularity. This is probably on the ""plus"" side of their plan called ""let's make an AppStore-only MacOS for dummies"". It wouldn't be perfect, but it would certainly help keeping it ""more securerer"" than their Windows brethren...

Just a thought. And a hug. *hug!*

-- Patrick Beja"

"Hi TNT crew!

Just wanted to let you know, in case you hadn't heard, that Apple is yanking the IFPI's, International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, chain a bit.

In Sweden there's a weekly radio show called what's roughly translated to ""the digi-chart"". It's your standard radio chart show - except it lists the most downloaded songs instead of the most physically sold ones (hence the name digi-).

And what's been neat about it is it also included statistics from streaming music services - mainly Spotify since they're huge in Sweden, being Swedish and all. But just recently, Apple suddenly decided that it didn't want to play that game. So they've basically said that they will stop delivering the iTunes store statistics as long as Spotify's statistics are in there too.

- From what we've gathered by indirect means and through phone calls it has to do with that we in Sweden, as one of the first countries in the world, have included streaming music in the chart as well. And that didn't go to well with Apple's thoughts on how to create a chart, says Ludvig Werner, CEO of Swedish Ifpi, in an interview with the Swedish national radio. [That's my translation by the way]

Apple Sweden declined to comment, apparently.

I personally don't get the reasoning behind this, or even what Apple may have to gain from doing so. Do you?

Great show, by the way. I love it. And good luck with your new Twit crib!

André from Sweden"

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Production Information

• Edited by: Jason
• Notes:

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