Tech News Today 252

Tech News Today Episode 252

Tech News Today 252: Even More Simpler

Paypal sues Google, Apple's Cloud music service imminent?, Zuckberg on privacy: you'll get over it, and more.

Hosts

• Sarah Lane (@sarahlane)
  • SarahLane.com
• Jason Howell (@raygun01)
  • JasonHowell.net
• Iyaz Akhtar
  • thisoldnerd.finitecomedy.com
• Patrick Beja
  • patrickbeja.com

Top Stories

• PayPal lawsuit alleges Google stole trade secrets
• PayPal files lawsuit to protect trade secrets: A reason worth fighting for
• Google to fight PayPal's trade secrets lawsuit
  • PayPal sued Google on Thursday over trade secrets
  • Vice President at Google Osama Bedier, Google VP of Electronic Commerce Stephanie Tilenius are also being sued in the same case
  • Allege Osama Bedier misappropriated PayPal's trade secrets when he went over to Google
  • Before moving to Google, Bedier was working on a deal where PayPal would serve as a payment option for mobile app purchases on the Android Market
  • Lawsuit also alleges that Stephanie Tilenius violated contractual obligations by recruiting Beider (that's why she's being sued). Tilenius also was an exec at PayPal
  • Google has responded:
    • "Silicon Valley was built on the ability of individuals to use their knowledge and expertise to seek better employment opportunities, an idea recognized by both California law and public policy. We respect trade secrets, and will defend ourselves against these claims."

• Apple's iCloud music service will automatically mirror your iTunes library using 'high-quality' tracks?
• Apple's Deals May Transform Digital Music
  • Details of Apple's iCloud service apparently leaked to Bloomberg Businessweek
  • Apple would scan your collection, mirror the collection on its servers (no uploading necessary)
  • Low bitrate versions of songs will be replaced with higher-quality versions (in the cloud locker)
  • Stream whenever, you'd pay a monthly subscription cost for streaming

• Details about Google's attempted deal: pay $100M upfront to the 4 labels for licenses. The deal fell apart when the labels were concerned about Google search results poiting to pirated music.

• Sony to Partially Restart PlayStation Network Operations in Asia Tomorrow
• PSN service coming back in Asia tomorrow, Welcome Back package detailed
• Sony: We’ll Restore PSN By May 31, Unless We Don’t
  • PSN should resume in Asia tomorrow except for Korea and Hong Kong
  • Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Malasia, Indonesia and Thailand should get service tomorrow.
  • The welcome back package is similar to the US, you'll get to pick 2 out of 5 games, games selection is a little different
  • In an investor meeting, Sony reps said that the company aims to restore PSN within the month of May "And even if we're late on that, it'll only be by a matter of days."

Discussion Stories

• HTC officially dissolves locked bootloader policy
• HTC’s bootloader decision: what does it mean?
  • HTC announced on its Facebook page that HTC will no longer be locking the bootloaders on its devices.
  • Over 2000 comments on the post with over 7000 "Likes"
  • ThisIsMyNext tried to explain the impact of the move:
    • Legit custom ROMs, carriers won't be able to have exclusive features, Moto still locks its bootloader, additional warranty liability. HTC has long been somewhat mod-friendly in the sense that the system was locked but exploitable... until this came to light with the discovery of locked bootloaders requireing signature checks on the HTC Sensation and news of the upcoming EVO 3D bing locked down as well. That is all reversing.

• Microsoft not too late for tablet party: Citigroup
  • Citigroup analysts think Microsoft has a shot in the tablet market and could have ""meaningful"" market share in 2013
  • Its analysts base its prediction on Windows 8 being customized for tablets
  • "Of course this is dependent upon the company's ability to deliver a competitive operating system on partner hardware that is priced competitively,"

• Zuckerberg: Privacy anxiety is fleeting
  • Mark Zuckerberg spoke at the e-G8 Forum about privacy
  • Particularly, he spoke about how new features like the News Feed were initially met with a backlash and how people eventually get used to them.
  • 1 million people protested the News Feed feature back in 2006

• People Have No Clue How To Use iPad Apps [STUDY]
• iPad Usability Study Reveals What We Do and Don’t Like In Apps
  • Nielsen Norman Group issued a ""Usability of iPad Apps and Websites"" report that shines a light on how people are actually using the tablet
  • Non-obvious controls were often missed/people more likely to interact with buttons that plainly look like buttons
  • People don't want to learn special gestures for your apps
  • Users hate splash and loading screens. Startup sounds also were hated
  • iPads were found to be shared, used for gaming, email, social networking"

News Fuse

• Time to give credit when credit is due: the Stuxnet worm that wound up infecting a whole bunch of computers in Iran may have been, in part, the work of the United States Department of Defense. In a CNBC documentary, Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn was twice asked directly if the US was involved. His first response didn't answer the question and his second response was "this is not something that we’re going to be able to answer at this point"

• Flickr announced that it will hold on to users' photos for 90 days after a user deletes their account. Flickr says it's doing this to help users in case they change their mind and want their pics back. Somewhere, privacy advocates are foaming at the mouth.

• HTC's Android phones are making a lot of money… for Microsoft? Yep, thanks to a patent settlement between the companies, Microsoft gets $5 from HTC for every HTC Android handset sold. Citi analysts estimate that Microsoft made $150 million thanks to HTC's sales numbers. The same analyst estimates that Microsoft only made $30 million from Windows Phone sales.

• Some Skype users were stymied by connection issues yesterday. Skype told users to delete an xml file to fix the problem and has also released new versions of its app for Windows and OS X that should take care of the problem.

• Sony VP and CFO Masuru Kato said that the PS4 is in development right now. In March, President of Sony Computer Entertainment Kaz Hirai said the PS4 was not arriving in the near-future. The PS3 was introduced in 2006 and was expected to have a 10 year lifecycle. Maybe Sony wants people to forget about the last couple of months with shiny new hardware.

• Lodsys, the patent holding company that went after iOS developers over in-app purchases isn't playing favorites. According to a Google groups thread, Lodsys is now gunning for Android developers over the same patents! Apple has already backed its devs, Google will probably do the same.

• Twitter CEO Dick Costolo is going to the White House! Well, an advisory committee, anyway. U.S. President Barack Obama plans to appoint Costolo and others in the tech sector to the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committe, which will hold regular meetings entirely via Twitter. Just kidding about that last part.

• Nokia may be partnering with Microsoft to build Windows Phone 7 devices, but Stephen Elop, Nokia's CEO, says that Symbian will receive updates at least until 2016. So if you're a die-hard Symbian user, you'll be taken care of.

Randomizer

• Majority of Kids Would Rather Lose Their Sense of Smell Than Lose Facebook

Calendar

• US Uncut plans Apple Store protests over tax law on June 4, an organization that fights companies that try to avoid taxes, is planning to target Apple retail stores on June 4, protesting the company's support of the Win America Campaign. The group seeks to have Apple leave the WAC, which it claims is lobbying Congress for what would end up being a $4 billion tax cut for the company, as well as to cease other lobbying activities relating to "tax loopholes."

• EA puts iOS catalog on sale for Memorial Day
• The World Wide Web Consortium has reached an important point in the long journey to standardize HTML5, the next version of the Hypertext Markup Language used to describe Web pages- HTML5 officially reached "last call" status this week, which means the W3C believes it's got a version of the specification mature enough for organizations to decide whether to express support.

Email

"TNT-ers,

Listened to your commentary on the upcoming Android video game console announced by Envizion. One important thing I noticed in the press release that you didn't specifically address was where these games are coming from. Since this device will be using a modified version of Android and will not meet Google's requirements, they will not get access to Google services including the Android Marketplace. This is I think intentional for Envizion because they want their own "marketplace" so developers can create games specifically for their system:

""Game development for EVO 2 is cheaper for developers so they have the opportunity to create games on a platform that will increase their return on investment. Developers can also submit pre- existing Android games""

This also makes sense so that they can control the games that make it onto the system (which hopefully means higher quality ones), and can make sure the control system works well for them.

So if you have a game that's designed for touchscreen use, this probably won't carry it. If they do a good job of controlling this it could turn out to be a great system. I think categorizing the games and keeping them cheap is crucial.

I believe this has potential for people in how the games can be cheaper and how they want to integrate the community of users and social features. I'm not sure they're going to get a lot of developer support though considering you can do this for other game consoles already that will have a much higher install base. They definitely need to make it really cheap though. If it was $99 then they might have some chance.

Keep up the good work!

-- Scott Clay"

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Production Information

• Edited by: Jason
• Notes:

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