Tech News Today 414

Tech News Today Episode 414

Tech News Today 414: CES: Who Tweeted?

From CES 2012: Best of CES awards, Microsoft making more bank from Android, Foxconn suicide threat, and more.

Submit and vote on story coverage at technewstoday.reddit.com

Hosts

• Tom Merritt (@acedtect)
  • TomMerritt.com
• Sarah Lane (@SarahLane)
  • SarahLane.com
• Iyaz Akhtar (@Iyaz)
  • ThisOldNerd.FiniteComedy.com
• Jason Howell (@RayGun01)
  • JasonHowell.net
• Wil Harris
  • channelflip.com
• Lindsey Turrentine
  • CNET.com

Top Stories

• Best of CES
  • Phone - Nokia Lumia 900
  • Camera: fujifilm x-pro 1
  • Emerging: makerbot replica
  • Home theater: simple.tv
  • PC: HP Envy Spectre
  • Software: Bluestacks App player
  • Networking: D-link HD media router
  • Tablets: Asus Memo 370t
  • TV: LG 55-inch OLED
  • People's choice: Razer Project Fiona
  • Best of: LG OLED TV

• Microsoft now paid royalties on 70% of US Android smartphones
• Microsoft execs jab at Google after signing Android patent-licensing deal
• Microsoft: Windows Phone will not battle Android on specs, will instead fight for ‘quality’
  • Microsoft announced it now has an Android patent deal with LG
  • LG will pay Microsoft for use of patents related to Android and MS won't sue LG
  • Financial terms were not disclosed
  • MS now has deals with HTC, Wistron, Onkyo, Velocity Micro, Inc., General Dynamics Itronix, Acer, ViewSonic, Samsung, Quanta Computer and Compal Electronics.
  • In total, Microsoft says that more than 70 percent of all Android smartphones sold in the US are covered by a similar patent agreement.
  • MS poked at Google via Twitter
    • "Hey Google -- we are the 70%," Frank Shaw, Microsoft's vice president of corporate communications tweeted
    • "Can we just agree to drop the patents-as-weapons meme? When effective licensing enables companies to share IP, the metaphor falls apart." - Frank Shaw
    • "It's time to recognize that in #patent world, lawsuits are the 1%; license agreements are the 99%." - Brad Smith, Microsoft's vice president for legal affairs and general counsel

• Foxconn suicide threat resolved, 45 workers resign
• Foxconn Resolves Pay Dispute With Workers
  • The NYT reports a mass suicide threat at Foxconn's Wuhan was averted
  • There was an 8 hour standoff, 150 employees were threatening to jump off a roof
  • Of the 150, 105 are already back to work
  • Foxconn makes products for Apple, Amazon and Microsoft
  • Microsoft investigated and found that the dispute was unrelated to working conditions, and instead stemmed from "staffing assignments and transfer policies."
  • an anonymous Foxconn employee reported to The New York Times that the dispute actually stems from the company failing to deliver on a promised wage increase for workers transferring from the company's larger Shenzhen campus to Wuhan, where working conditions are more difficult.

Discussion Stories

• ARM chief not impressed with Intel phone chips
• Intel smartphone chip No. 1 in some benchmarks, says report
  • Arm Holdings plc CEO Warren East told Reuters Intel's mobile chips are ""good enough""
  • "Are they ever going to be the leaders in power efficiency? No, of course not. But they have a lot more to offer."
  • "Google's Android is flavor of the month, flavor of the year, and we certainly want to be part of the Google success," said East. "But there is a space for Microsoft, and we very much want to be a part of that success too."
  • Cortex A7 design has the same performance as chips in smartphones of only a few years ago, but at 20 percent of the power consumption.
  • Anandtech rated Intel's Atom Z2460 "Medfield" fastest on BrowserMark benchmark. Best performance on SunSpider Javascript benchmark
  • Intel reference design running some flavor of Gingerbread up against Samsung with ICS
  • ARM Cortex A15 design may change that

• Facebook Launches Social Music Feature ?Listen With Friends?
• Facebook Launches Turntable.fm-like “Listen With” For Simultaneous Music and Chat
  • music note appears next to name in Facebook chat, hover over name and music info appears
  • both parties need the same app in order for it to work, Spotify and Rdio only at this time
  • Users can also listen in as a group while one friend acts as a dj. Up to 50 friends can listen to the same song concurrently. gives turntable.fm competition

• Wyden, Issa, CEA prepare for critical battles against SOPA and PIPA
• Role Reversal: Congressman Urges Fellow Online Gamers to Oppose SOPA
• Comcast network upgrade blocks DNS blocking, could make SOPA self-incompatible
• Jon Stewart promises to read up on SOPA, have "the Internet" as his guest
• If SOPA's Main Target Is The Pirate Bay, It's Worth Pointing Out That ThePirateBay.org Is Immune From SOPA
• Wikipedia’s Wales wants to join Reddit’s SOPA blackout
  • At a CES press conference, CEA's Gary Shaprio, rep. Darrel Issa and Sen. Ron Wyden voiced their opposition to SOPA and PIPA
  • "There are no amendments that would make these bills acceptable," Issa explained. 
  • Issa, who is chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, will hold hearings starting on January 18th to present what he called "more balanced testimony" about the impact of the two pieces of legislation
  • Jan 17th:Issa will introduce an alternative to the acts called called the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act, or OPEN.OPEN is sponsored by Wyden in the Senate. **Rep. Jared Polis of Colorado posted on a gaming message board encouraging gamers to oppose SOPA
  • Meanwhile, Comcast deployed DNSSEC across its entire Internet service, Comcast admits DNSSEC is "technically incompatible" with DNS redirect tools, which means SOPA's redirect method won't work. Comcast is a supporter of SOPA.
  • Jimmy Wales consulting Wikipedia community about joining Reddit in the Anti-SOPA blackout.

News Fuse

• Google's Matias Duarte announced today that Ice Cream Sandwich OS will be the first Android software to institute design standards for developers. Android Design at http://developer.android.com/design/index.html is an online repository for the UI guidelines and blueprints for version 4.0. The standards are guidlines not mandates, but Google hopes manufacturers will adopt them.

• At CES, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said he wanted Congress to offer incentive auctions to free up spectrum for wireless use. However, plenty of people were more focus on Genachowski using a Samsung Galaxy 8.9 for his notes. Normally he uses an iPad but called his Android adventure a "seamless experience."

• According to comScore, Bing is now the number two search engine in the United States moving past Yahoo. Bing now has 15.1% of the US market and also powers Yahoo search which now is at 14%. Meanwhile, Google is sitting pretty at number one with 65.9%.

• Speaking to Pocket-Lint, Windows PR director Janelle Poole suggested that Windows 8 will likely be available in October. The quote is "…Windows releases come round about every three years and this year will be three years in October since we launched Windows 7. So I think that's a good guideline to consider." Microsoft has yet to make an official announcement however.

• A Dutch court ordered two ISPs to block ThePirateBay from their services. If the two don't comply, they will be subject to a fine of €10,000 a day. The ISPs were given ten working days to make this happen, but one has already said it would appeal.

• Six hotel companies are banding together to create a new joint venture called "Room Key" which is set to compete with other hotel deal sites like Priceline. The joint venture includes Hilton, Marriot and Wyndham hotels. The site has a very straight forward interface asking you to enter the usual travel information, but it's a beta.

• Amazon released a new piece of Widows software that allows you to right click to send files and web pages to a Kindle. The application also installs a virtual printer so you can print to your Kindle. Amazon said an OS X version is coming soon.

• YouTube head of content Robert Kyncl announced some of the content partners it has already lined up including Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee, Felicia Day, and Rainn Wilson of "The Office" fame. YouTube will not be guiding the program content, but does have some program quality requirements.

• Verizon associate director of device marketing Keith Lampron told CNET at CES that Verizon will no longer accept any smart device without LTE. Kevin Fitchard at GigaOm points out if there was ever an indirect confirmation that the iPhone 5 will have LTE, then this is it.

Randomizer

• Olly makes your retweets smell like spearmint - it's a kickstarter

Calendar

• On this day in 1992, the HAL 9000 was "born" at Urbana, Illinois. Hal of course is the fictional supercomputer who "malfunctions" in 2001: Space Odyssey.
• The iPhone 4S comes to China tomorrow, January 13th, as well as 21 other countries including Ecuador, Ivory Coast, and Jamaica.

INCOMING

Email

"Tom and Posse,

Per Sanjay Jha's comments on Android differentiation, the problem with Android phone manufacturers is that their customers are the carriers, not consumers, which is why we get slow to little updating and skinned Android experiences. The way you could incorporate stock android is to enable either a separate mode when you first activate the phone, or to provide ROMs online with an open bootloader so that the geeks that wants stock Android have that option, but ""ordinary"" consumers can still have the wonderful world of TouchWiz, HTC Sense and MotoBlur available to them should they want it, that way the manufacturers and carriers can differentiate in the store, but offer consumers choice. Alas it seems the myopic vision of Mr. Jha won't let this happen.

Love da' sho'

Rich in Lovely Cleveland"

"Dear TNT.

When Sarah mentioned the Boxee Live TV Dongle was at CES, Simon Dingle mistakenly presumed it would work outside of the USA, although a customer can go to the boxee box store and pre-order a live tv dongle from outside the USA (which I think is very naughty), it actually will NOT work outside the USA/Canada initially. Before everyone outside USA/Canada rushes out to buy one, I think they should know this first.

Source (check the FAQ): http://blog.boxee.tv/2011/11/16/boxee-live-tv-is-coming-time-to-cut-the-cord/

Keep up the good work, Love the show,

Jake Cattrall / UK."

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Production Information

• Edited by: Jason
• Notes:

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