Tech News Today 422

Tech News Today Episode 422

"Join The Rest Of The World"Hosts: Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Iyaz Akhtar and Jason Howell Recorded: January 24, 2012 Published: January 24, 2012 Duration: 48:03 Transcript Previous episode – Next episode

Contents 1 Tech News Today 422: Join The Rest Of The World 1.1 Hosts 1.2 Top Stories 1.3 Discussion Stories 1.4 News Fuse 1.5 Randomizer 1.6 Calendar 2 INCOMING 2.1 Email 3 Sponsors 3.1 Ford 4 Production Information

Tech News Today 422: Join The Rest Of The World

The Government can force you to Decrypt your laptop, Google changes their privacy policy, Apple gets rich, Ubuntu gets rid of menus 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

Top Stories

• Judge: Americans can be forced to decrypt their laptops
• Judge Orders Defendant to Decrypt Laptop
  • Judge Robert Blackburn ordered a Peyton, Colo., woman to decrypt the hard drive of a Toshiba laptop computer no later than February 21
  • "I find and conclude that the Fifth Amendment is not implicated by requiring production of the unencrypted contents of the Toshiba Satellite M305 laptop computer,"
  • Feds cleverly did NOT ask for the password, but merely for the defendant to enter the password and decrypt the contents
  • Ramona Fricosu, who is accused of being involved in a mortgage scam, has declined to decrypt a laptop encrypted with Symantec's PGP Desktop that the FBI found in her bedroom during a raid of a home. It is unknown if she CAN decrypt it.
  • Fricosu's attorney, Phil Dubois, hopes to appeal to 10th circuit court.
  • IS a passphrase an object like a key, or something known in your mind?

• Google’s New Terms Of Service & Privacy Policy: Anything You Do May Be Used To Target You?
• Official Google Blog Post
• Google FAQ about the privacy policy
• Google plans to merge more user data across its products
  • On March 1, Google has a new privacy policy and terms of service that goes into effect.
  • Google is consolidating more than 70 different privacy policies into a single overall document.
  • Separate privacy policies will be retained for a few products, such as Google Books and the Google Chrome browser
  • We will not combine DoubleClick cookie information with personally identifiable information unless we have your opt-in consent.

• Facebook Says It Will Now Push Timeline to All Users
• Facebook Timeline Now Pushed To Everyone, Users Get A Week To Clean Up Profiles
• Timeline: Now Available Worldwide
  • Starting today Facebook will roll out timeline "Over the next few weeks."
  • You get 7 days warning that it will go live once you're included.
  • the company is releasing a new tool today called Activity Log, which is where you can review all your posts and activity, from today back to when you first started using Facebook.
  • You can go to http://www.facebook.com/about/timeline and click "Get Timeline"

Discussion Stories

• HUD's up! Ubuntu creates menu-free GUI
• Ubuntu Linux's New 'HUD' Interface Will Do Away with Menus
• Introducing the HUD. Say hello to the future of the menu.
  • Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical, put up a blog post showing what the next version of Ubuntu will look like
  • Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, otherwise known as Precise Pangolin, will get rid of drop down menus in favor of a heads up display model.
  • Instead of clicking options, you would just start typing to bring up features normally found in those old menus.
  • The system will learn your behaviors and handles fuzzy matching (like searching for "settings" will bring up Preferences)
  • The change will apply to Unity apps and you'll see the new system in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS which is scheduled for April.
  • The HUD menu can access background apps without changing focus.
  • Shuttleworth says the HUD is faster than mousing or easier than hotkeys and that voice is the next step

• Verizon Reports $2B Loss Amid Pension Costs, IPhone Subsidy
• Verizon adds 1.5m new wireless customers in Q4 2011; 44 percent of subscribers use smartphones
• Verizon suffers $2B loss on pensions, iPhone costs
  • Verizon posted Q4 earnings of $0.52 a share on revenue of $28.4 billion, in line with Wall Street’s consensus. $2.02 billion fourth-quarter loss, mostly due to one-time charges of $3.4 billion for severance, pension and benefits, as well as increased subsidy costs for iPhone sales.
  • The company’s wireless unit added 1.5 million customers over the quarter, while its video FiOS offering added another 200,000.
  • 44% of wireless customers use smartphones.
  • Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo told analysts on the company's conference call that sales of the iPhone and other high-end LTE smartphones put pressure on profit margins, due to the subsidies. But he added that eventually the cost of the subsidies will pay off, since these customers will subscribe to more expensive data plans.
  • Craig Moffett, an analyst with Sanford Bernstein, wrote in a research note today that three years ago AT&T found itself with depressed profit margins due to the iPhone. But even though the company has promised that those margins would rebound over time due to higher service revenue from iPhone customers, the reality is that those margins have still not come back.
  • I think the story here may be that the idea of subsidizing smartphones (not just iPhone) with hope of making it back on contracts is a pipe dream. See analyst quotes in lower half of CNET story - tm

• Liveblog: Apple's FY2012 Q1 earnings call this afternoon
• Apple reports record Q1 blowout, biggest quarter ever with 37 million iPhone, 15.4 million iPad sales
• Apple’s Monster Quarter
• Apple now the largest buyer of semiconductors according to Gartner
• Apple: iCloud Now Has 85 Million Users
  • Q1 2012 Earnings: Revenue Of $46.3 Billion, 37 Million iPhones Sold, 15.4 million iPad sales
  • Earnings per share were $13.87, far more than the $10.08 per share analysts had been expecting. (Yahoo earned 24 cents per share)
  • In 2011 Apple increased its semiconductor spending by 34.6 percent, from $12.8 billion to $17.3 billion. Now the biggest semiconductor buyer.
  • There was a 14th week in this quarter

News Fuse

• In an amended complaint filed today with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia Microsoft claimed Russian citizen Andrey Sabelnikov of Sankt-Peterburg ""wrote and/or participated in creating"" the Kelihost malware and used it to control the botnet. Microsoft helped neutralise Kelihos in September. It had infected 41,000 machines. Mr Sabelnikov's LinkedIn profile lists St Petersburg-based antivirus firm Agnitum among Mr Sabelnikov's former employers.

• Apple just lost a copyright case against Samsung in the Netherlands which means Samsung tablets will not be banned in the country. The design of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 was deemed to be different enough from the Apple iPad that it does not infringe on Apple's copyright.

• Lots of people are upset that Megaupload's servers were seized without getting one last chance to get their files. Speaking to DigitalTrends.com, an unnamed Department of Justice spokesperson says that Megaupload's own Terms of Service say that its users don't have a proprietary interest in the files on their servers. That suggests that the DoJ has no plans to bring those servers back online any time soon.

• The Australian Communications and Media Authority has fined Nokia $55,000 over its text messaging practices. The Authority found that Nokia’s text ‘tips’ delivered to handset users did not include details of how customers could stop receiving them, as required by Australia's Spam Act. Nokia also must appoint an independent consultant to audit its systems and processes. This comes a few days after Nokia got in trouble int he UK over disclosure of sponsorship of Channel 5.

• InsideMobileApps reports that Microsoft will drop Microsoft Points from Xbox Live and use real money instead. Xbox Live already uses cash purchases for full games. The point system usually led to confusion and left over points that would require more purchases. The move would greatly simplify the whole experience. Microsoft officially said, it "doesn't comment on rumours or speculation."

• Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is calling for MPAA chairman Chris Dodd to be fired. Dodd made some controversial statements to Fox News saying that Hollywood wouldn't be giving money to Congress people who oppose its agenda. Wales says Dodd's statements make the MPAA sound corrupt and Dodd's got to go.

• Video site, Vimeo is making waves after announcing a redesign of its site. Up front, the new version has a much larger video player, a video browser that auto hides so it doesn't take up screen real estate and a new search. It's currently in a closed testing stage, but you can sign up to try it out at Vimeo.com/new.

• BoyGeniusReport got its hands on RIM's roadmap for this year and for the first quarter of 2013. So what can you expect? In a few months, we'll see two new BlackBerry Curves. A revised PlayBook with HSPA+, NFC and a 1.5GHz processor is scheduled for May or June. There will be three BlackBerry 10 phones - the London in September, a Bold in December and a QWERTY slider in Q1 of 2013.

• Microsoft has nixed Mix, one of its developer events. The conference had been held six times, but it will be replaced by a new developer event this year although no details like time, place, or name have been given.

Randomizer

• Ben Heck invents controller-mounted Hot Pocket holder

Calendar

• Droid RAZR MAXX is coming to Verizon Shelves On January 26 for $299 with a 2-year contract. And hopefully its 3300 milliAmphour battery will hold up for heavy users. also has 32 gb of storage.

• Boxee Live TV dongle has been released. If you've got a Boxee Box and $49, you can pick up OTA broadcasts! version 1.5 software which was available to PC users last month is now available for Boxee Box.

• Canon EOS C300 is set for the January 31st release in Japan. 1080p-shooting cinema camcorder with 14.5-60mm T2.6L lens. US release should come shortly after, with a $15,999 price tag. Japanese retailers will sell the C300 for 1.5 million yen.

INCOMING

Email

"You guys seem kind of clueless when it comes to this stuff, so let me clarify for you. None of the hosts like megaupload, filesonic, fileserve, uploaded.to, mediafire, or rapidshare allow users to search all the files available for download on their servers. Megavideo, a property of megaupload, allowed users to search videos that were available for streaming. 3rd party services indexed available links to these hosts that were posted publically to forums. If you uploaded something personally and never posted the link anywhere, no one would ever be able to download it.

The problem lies because properties like mediafire and rapidshare comply with take-down requests and filtering, while megaupload, filesonic, fileserve, and uploaded.to did not comply to a sufficient standards, so they shuttered their services when megaupload went down.

- Blockman Bing"

"In show 421 (January 21), you made several references to the fact that the "hosting sites" could not be searched- I must disagree. If you do a simple google search ending with site:(website address), you will get results for anything that has been crawled by google on the site. I tried this by searching: ""Black Eyed Pea site:filesonic.com"" and I got several results of available songs to download. I had never tried that with megaupload, but it probably worked similarly.

Joah"

Sponsors

Ford

• ad times: 00:34 to 00:47 & 21:26 to 22:25

Production Information

• Edited by: Bryan
• Notes:

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