Tech News Today 268

Tech News Today Episode 268

Tech News Today 268: Not Everything Is A Phone

Is Hulu for sale, LulzSec, Nokia's awesome collector edition phone, and more.

Hosts

• Tom Merritt (@acedtect)
  • TomMerritt.com
• Sarah Lane (@sarahlane)
  • http://www.sarahlane.com
• Jason Howell (@raygun01)
  • http://www.jasonhowell.net/
• Iyaz Akhtar (@iyaz)
  • http://thisoldnerd.finitecomedy.com
• Nate Lanxon
  • wired.co.uk

Top Stories

• Hulu Considering Selling Itself After Receiving An Offer
• CNBC Reporter tweet: "Sources tell me Hulu was approached with a buyout offer- NO DECISIONS HAVE BEEN MADE..."
• WSJ Reporter tweet: "WSJ: Hulu is weighing whether to sell itself after a potential buyer approached it with an offer -- Sources. Story to follow"

• Teenager arrested on suspicion of hacking
• LulzSec blamed for UK census theft, hacker arrest; LulzSec denies everything
• Snitches get Stitches - purported pastebin post from LulzSec, but they have TWeeted it.
• LulzSec's Tweet re: Snitches get Stitches
  • Ryan Cleary, of Wickford, Essex, was arrested last night on suspicion of offenses under the Computer Misuse Act and Fraud Act. He is suspected to be a member of LulzSec and Anonymous
  • Cleary was responsible for running one of the IRC servers used by AnonOps, he is believed to have also run LulzSec's IRC after the split from Anonymous
  • Material seized in coordination with the FBI is undergoing forensic examination
  • LulzSec denies any of their members have been taken, although their IRC channel is offline.
  • A PasteBin post claimed to be UK census data hacked by LulzSec. LulzSec also denies this.
  • Metropolitan Police's e-crimes unit had confirmed the raid was linked to the recent intrusion attacks on the websites of the CIA and Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca).

• Nokia Introduces N9, Reiterates First Windows Phones Will Ship This Year
• Nokia shows off MeeGo-based N9 smartphone
• Nokia N9 first hands-on! (update: video)
• Nokia N9 officially announced: unibody design, buttonless ‘swipe’ UI, and the lost promise of Meego
• Will Nokia Launch Its First Windows Phone on Oct. 26?
  • speaking at the Nokia Connection event in Singapore, Stephen Elop stated he still thinks Nokia will ship a Windows phone by the end of the year.
  • Symbian support and software upgrades through 2016.
  • Nokia also introduced the N9, an all touch-screen smartphone based on MeeGo
  • Curved design, 3.9-inch AMOLED display one-hand operation, no buttons - just swipes, NFC-enabled Bluetooth pairing, (no pricing, launch by end of year)
  • Nokia set the date for its annual Nokia World conference on October 26-27 in London, fueling speculation that this will be the venue for the company to announce its first Windows Phones

Discussion Stories

• Apple Final Cut Pro X now available on Mac App Store
• 64-bit Final Cut Pro X now in Mac App Store, reaction is mixed
• Apple releases 2TB and 3TB Time Capsules, new Airport Extremes
• Apple: Use our stores' Wi-Fi to download Lion
  • Final Cut Pro X is now available on the Mac App Store for $299.99
  • Motion 5 and Compressor 4 kits, $50 each
  • No box, upgrade edition or ""Express""
  • Individuals can use one license on multiple machines, businesses must purchase one license per machine, volume licenses for educational institutions are available.
  • 2TB Time Capsule is now being listed for $299 and the 3TB version for $499. Apple has also updated its Airport Extreme store page and it's still being listed for $179
  • Apple store representatives today said that although its Genius Bar technicians won't install Lion for customers, Mac owners can use a store's Internet connection to download the 4GB upgrade.

• Dropbox Left User Accounts Unlocked for 4 Hours Sunday
  • Story was breaking before the show yesterday, but we wanted to confirm the details.
  • accounts became unlocked at 1:54pm Pacific time Sunday when a programming change introduced a bug. The company closed the hole a little less than 4 hours later.
  • The bug was made possible because of the security architecture choice that Dropbox made, where encryption and decryption happen on Dropbox’s servers, rather than on individual’s computers. This allows Dropbox to open files because it, not the user, holds the encryption key.
  • Wuala and SpiderOak encrypt data on users’ devices, not on a central server.
  • Dropbox says fewer than 1% of accounts were opened during that time and it force-closed all of those sessions to cut off access to anyone who authenticated with false credentials during that time.

• RIM’s Plunge May Beckon Microsoft, Dell
  • According to BMO Harris Private Banking, RIM's current state could make it quite an attractive acquisition target.
  • Speculates Microsoft and Dell could pick it up.
  • RIM, once worth $83 billion, fell more than 80 percent from its record three years ago
  • RIM closed yesterday at $25.89 a share, or 4.7 times earnings next year. That’s less than any communications-equipment provider, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
  • “It’s not hard to envision a stock price that’s somewhere between $40 and $50 a share” in an acquisition, according to BMO Harris's Chief Investment Officer Paul Taylor

• New iPhone rumors claim "radical new case design," August release
• Is this what the iPhone 5 will look like?
  • Boy Genius Report claims to have "independently confirmed" next iPhone sport a "radical new case design," and Apple is considering holding a special event in August
  • previous rumors from last week that stated the next-gen iPhone was already in final testing and that final prototypes are currently out in the field before production this fall.
  • Digitimes claims that Apple has reduced its iPhone 4 orders in anticipation of a new device in the third quarter of the year.
  • This is My Next has an image based on a sketch from a source

News Fuse

• The FCC is none too thrilled with certain phone carriers. Apparently, it is not unusual for some phone companies to charge its customers for services customers never signed up for. The practice is known as "cramming" and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has proposed over $11 million in penalties against cramming companies. The following carriers are in the FCC's crosshairs: Cheap2Dial Telephone, Main Street Telephone, Norristown Telephone, and Voicenet Telephone.

• You know how Sprint has been pretty vocal in its opposition to the whole AT&T-T-Mobile merger? Well, AT&T is pretty much saying "Shut it Sprint, we don't give a hoot". According to AT&T General Counsel Wayne Watts, the merger should be approved by March 2012. Looks like 2012 is shaping up to be a monumental year - first the merger, then the end of the world.

• To a lot of people, Facebook is the only site on the Internet and that's why it's been the target to all kinds of malware and scams. A new Facebook app called MyPageKeeper will act as your spam and malware protector. It monitors wall posts and news feeds for trouble and will warn you. The app is available for free.

• According to a Flurry study, the amount of time spent using mobile apps is greater than time spent on the web -- and that's the web on both mobile devices and PCs. On average, mobile apps consumed 81 minutes of a U.S. user's day, while the web took up a measly 74 minutes. The most popular apps are games and social networking.

• The EFF has announced it would no longer accept donations via Bitcoin. In a blog post on the matter, the EFF explains that it's unsure of the legality of Bitcoin and doesn't want its acceptance of Bitcoin to be misconstrued as an endorsement. Any Bitcoin donations made to the EFF in the past will be donated to the Bitcoin Faucet.

• You might ask yourself- how did I get here? You might also ask yourself- why would a 36-inch monitor cost $36,000? Is it dipped in gold? Nope. The Eizo Nanao Duravision FDH3601 is capable of displaying 4K footage thanks to its 4096 x 2160 resolution. Considering that price tag, odds are this monitor is really meant for industrial applications like air traffic control and for people with a few bucks left over from a trip to the ICANN store.

• Intel's released a trio of ultralow-voltage Sandy Bridge processors. The three use only 17 watts of power, but pack a lot of processing. The top of the line ULV processor, the Core i7-2677M, reaches speeds of up to 2.9 GHz in turbo mode. Expect to see these chips in the Asus UX21 and possibly the MacBook Air.

• Nintendo has partnered with Fuji TV to create a service called "SpotPass TV," which will bring 3D video content to Nintendo 3DS devices. People of the world, don't get too excited - this content will only be available to Japan. The service has already launched and features content like sports, museum tours, and magic lessons.

• Needham's Charlie Wolf claims Android is doomed. Using IDC data, Wolf shows Apple's share of the U.S. smartphone market gaining 12.3 percentage points to 29.5% in the March quarter while Android's share in the U.S. fell from 52.4% to 49.5% — its first sequential loss ever in any region of the world. Wolf thinks it will only get worse for Android, however, Nielsen and ComScore data have shown Android's US marketshare growing.

Randomizer

• Nanotechnology pushes battery life to eternity researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne---characterized the ability of piezoelectric thin films to turn mechanical pressure into electricity. --published in the 21 June Issue of the leading materials science journal, Advanced Functional Materials.

Calendar

• WiFi only Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 hitting Sprint on June 24th - Sprint would love for you to pair that with an Overdrive Pro 4G mobile hotspot or Novatel MiFi -- sold separately, of course.
• AT&T is going to offer a $50 unlimited version to its 'GoPhone' prepaid plans, June 26th
• Microsoft launching Office 365 on June 28
• Gigabyte's S1080 Windows 7 slate now up for US pre-order, ships July 1st for $650
• Digitimes reports sources tell them Intel is going to launch Ivy Bridge in March 2012. Big month, March of 2012!

Email

"Hey

The solution to Kindle spam is simple.

Let people return the books for a full refund within say 10 minutes of buying.

No one is going to be able to read a full novel in that time and it should be long enough to let people decide if its a spam book or not

Thanks

Aaron Kalair"

"I downloaded Atomic today for my iPad. The NYPost caught on.

Chris" Mercury browser app - BOOM

Sponsors

Freshbooks

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Production Information

• Edited by: Jeff
• Notes:

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