Tech News Today 237

Tech News Today
Episode 237


"Lawyers Are Just Loaded Guns"Hosts: Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Iyaz Akhtar, Jason Howell Recorded: May 6, 2011 Published: May 6, 2011 Duration: 42:51 Transcript Previous episode – Next episode

Tech News Today 237: Lawyers Are Just Loaded Guns

Third Sony hack coming, Bandwidth caps under fire, Apple to ditch Intel for ARM?, and more!

Hosts

Discussion Stories

IDC says smartphones grew 79.7%, Apple takes #2 spot behind Nokia
Nokia Is Now Number-Two In Its Home Market, Thanks To Samsung and Apple
- IDC worldwide numbers for Q1 put Apple as the number 2 smartphone vendor, passing RIM
- HTC, Samsung and Apple showed triple-digit growth in smartphones
- In Western Europe, Apple is now the number one smartphone maker and Samsung the number one phone maker, Nokia sunk to number two in both categories.

Google, Facebook: "do not track" bill a threat to California economy
- Google, Facebook, Time Warner Cable, CTIA - The Wireless Association, the California Chamber of Commerce, and about thirty other associations and companies sent letter protesting California's do not track bill (Senate Bill 761)
- Bill would force California companies to provide a method for consumers to opt-out of data collection
- Companies claim existing laws already protect consumers
- Points out browsers already have do not track capability and are coopertaing with FTC on self-regulation
- Warn legislation would hurt the economy
- Call the legislation unconstitutional because of interstate commerce concerns. Finally warn black bats of vampiric doom will steal all of our children.

App stores march toward shared ratings system
- CTIA launched near end of March a ""voluntary self-certification of apps"" a
- App makers would be asked to define content in their creations based on a set of ratings and guidelines
- advocacy group ACT said its 3,000-member association of software developers believed the initiative could stifle innovation and interest in app development.
- Morgan Reed, ACT's executive director. ""If it's a CTIA self-derived push, that seems like an intermediary regulator. A preferred model would be the ESRB, which is funded and managed by game developers. ESRB's rating system is actual self-regulation.""
- ESRB is already putting in place a self-rating system for downloadable games"

Demand Media in Demand After Content-Quality Pledge
- Demand is planning to hire more-experienced writers to produce articles of as many as 850 words, for $350
- The company made the announcement on a conference call with Wall Street analysts Thursday evening
- On Google's algorithm change (Panda) CEO Richard Rosenblatt: “It seems like they put the best content up to the top and penalized the lowest-quality content… Everything seems to be running through their system like it should.”
- Demand sites plummeted 20-40 percent after Panda
- Demand said that it would shut down the user-generated content program on its eHow website."

News Fuse

Linux is coming back to PS3! Gitbrew.com has come up with a way for PS3 users to install Linux on all PS3s - both fat and slim models. This time, Linux won't be a virtual machine - Linux will be able to access all of the PS3 hardware. Apparently, the method isn't super-easy and of course, it's not officially sanctioned by Sony.

San Francisco was pondering a law that would require cellphone retailers to slap a label on cellphones warning customers about radiation levels. The CTIA decided to sue the city over it. Guess what? That law isn't happening any more. The law is expected to get redrafted if it ever sees the light of day again at all.

Turns out there's a reason to join one of those hotel loyalty clubs - free WiFi. Hilton, Hyatt and Starwood Hotels loyalty members will get free WiFi if they are part of the Gold or Platinum clubs. Anybody who joins the Marriott club gets WiFi for free - no exclusions.

If you didn't know, Oracle is suing Google citing over 100 patent claims. Well the judge presiding over the case thought this was bit ridiculous and has told Oracle that it needs to reduce the number of patent claims and defenses to 3. Why 3? The judge says that is a "triable" number - something a jury could actually handle in a reasonable amount of time. Swift justice? Alright.

It's a bad time to be T-Mobile. Not only is AT&T trying to swallow them whole, but the company also lost almost 100,000 customers in Q1 of this year. On the sort of bright side, revenue is stagnant compared to last year around the same time.

HTC is offering a stylus for its Android tablet called "The Flyer." The Flyer costs a somewhat reasonable $500, the stylus is extra - 80 bucks extra! Perhaps HTC took Steve Jobs' comment of "If you see a stylus, they blew it" seriously, so they priced this thing to the point very few will buy it.

Worried about javascript enough to run NoScript or NotScript? Get ready to add it to your smartphone mates! NoScript Anywhere (NSA) is the nickname for the next major iteration of the NoScript security add-on, which will work in Firefox 4 mobile, available on Android and Maemo smartphones.

Some time ago, Sprint with Google Voice integration went official. There's just one small, minor problem. Apparently it's not working for everyone. Sprint is telling users to visit the Google Voice Forum for support. The Google Voice Forum is full of angry people who can't get Google to help. Maybe this is Google's way of getting its users to be more social - they can bond over Google's lack of customer support.

Kickers

The 4-D cinema seats that move you in time with the action
- The effects, carefully synchronised to the action, range from 'intelligent vibrations' to a popcorn-throwing jolt backwards if a character is punched on screen. At the moment D-Box seats are available in just 70 cinemas across the world, and he has yet to obtain a contract with America's two biggest cinema chains, Regal Entertainment Group and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc.

Calendar

Meteor Shower Tonight to Rain Bits of Halley's Comet on Earth... well, over the earth. the annual Eta Aquarid meteor shower will peak early tomorrow morning and is expected to put on a dazzling display of "shooting stars" for skywatchers graced with good weather and clear skies.

Email

"Hi Tom I am an avid listener to TNT. I tend to download a week's worth at a time and then listen them as I ""enjoy"" my weekly commute to and from the West Country.

It is becoming ever clearer to me that the biggest inhibitor to growth and innovation in the USA is lawyers. Listening from across the Atlantic to the news of one law suit or claim or patent infringement or another on a day by day basis makes me realise why my gadgets cost so much. It is nothing to do with research and development costs, manufacturing costs, or marketing - it is about clawing enough money from the poor suckers that buy the gadgets to pay the parasitic lawyers that seem to dictate and control everything you do. Has anyone in the US done any research to calculate how much they cost the consumer each year?

Isn't it about time for a revolution?

Andy (The Gorsefox)"

"http://www.geek.com/articles/games/game-developer-david-braben-creates-a-usb-stick-pc-for-25-2011055/

David Braben has developed a tiny USB stick PC that has a HDMI port in one end and a USB port on the other. You plug it into a HDMI socket and then connect a keyboard via the USB port giving you a fully functioning machine running a version of Linux. The cost? $25.

The hardware being offered is no slouch either. It uses a 700MHz ARM11 processor coupled with 128MB of RAM and runs OpenGL ES 2.0 allowing for decent graphics performance with 1080p output confirmed. Storage is catered for by an SD card slot. It also looks as though modules can be attached such as the 12MP camera seen in the image above. - the moke"

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Tech News Today 237

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