Tech News Today 275
Episode 275 |
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Recorded: June 30, 2011 Published: June 30, 2011 Duration: 48:39 |
Contents
Tech News Today 275: Harvest Your Circles
An indestructible botnet, RIM in public spat with employee, Google Plus TOO popular for its own good, and more.
Hosts
- Tom Merritt (@acedtect)
- Sarah Lane (@sarahlane)
- Jason Howell (@raygun01)
- Iyaz Akhtar
- Patrick Beja
Top Stories
- TDL-4: The 'indestructible' botnet?
- Detailed explanation of TDL-4
- Kaspersky detailed TDL-4 calling it possibly "indestructible"
- Original appearedin 2008. This is the 4th generation.
- TDL-4 encrypted the protocol between bots and command
- It also added P2P communication through KAD (emule) to preserve access even if command servers are seized
- It infects the MBR, so hard to detect, also deletes other malware that may alert sec progs
- HP TouchPad: the reviews roundup
- And the HP TouchPad shipping in the US tomorrow for $499, coming to the UK on July 15 for £399
- HP TouchPad getting mixed reviews.
- Hailed as next best thing to iPad by many, intuitive UI, good features like pairing
- also called buggy, lacking apps, and feeling plasticy and cheap
- Topolsky "stability and smoothness of the user experience is not up to par"
- Google opens up, then closes Google+ invites due to “insane demand”
- Google+ invites being sold on eBay for up to $27 each
- As Google+ Invites Are Locked Down Here Are Some Work-arounds
- The first Google+ privacy flaw
- Google+ code reveals intent to unleash Games and Questions to the social world
- Google+ 'blocked in China'
- Google ended up turning off invites due to the sudden rush of new users. “We’ve shut down invite mechanism for the night. Insane demand,” Google’s head of social Vic Gundotra announced on the service. “We need to do this carefully, and in a controlled way.”
- Google+ is currently on sale on eBay for prices ranging between$0.99 and $27 by a number of sellers claiming to offer ‘instant delivery’.
- Workaround for invites? Creating a status update (it’s called a ‘Share’ on Google+), e.g. “inviting people” and then pasting the Gmail addresses of friends you want to invite into the “add people” box (Next to +1 and Comment links).
- They should then get a copy of your status update in their email and link saying “Learn more about Google+”. They can then click on that and will get taken to your post, with a Join Google+ button.
- FT calls "reshares" a privacy flaw. Google very politely agrees and says "this is exactly the kind of issue it hopes to identify and resolve while Google+ is still in “field trial” mode."
- Code in Google Plus implies the ability to send invites to "Google Games"
- Quickly and unsurprisingly, blocked in China
Discussion Stories
- Judge: Google Can Be Sued for Wiretapping in Street View Debacle
- Judge to Google: sniffing even open WiFi networks may be wiretapping
- A host of class-action lawsuits over the practice have been consolidated into a single case, and the California federal judge overseeing it has just refused Google's motion to completely dismiss the case.
- Judge argues that since packet-sniffing software was necessary,they are not "readily accessible to the general public,"
- Running an open WiFi network does not suddenly put all packets on that network into the public sphere
- RIM Gets its ‘Peanut Butter Manifesto’ as Employee Rails About Internal Woes
- Anonymous letter bemoans RIM management woes
- RIM’s Response to “Open Letter”
- Anonymous RIM employee sent an open letter which was posted on BGR
- calling for better marketing of products, accountability for failure, and input from employees.
- stop making product decisions based on carrier or retailer requests, but on what customers would actually want.
- Recommends CEO's split roles" On its blog RIM responded by chiding the anonymous author and stating "There is a fundamental business reality however that following an extended period of hyper growth (during which RIM nearly quadrupled in size over the past 5 years alone), it has become necessary for the company to streamline its operations in order to allow it to grow its business profitably while pursuing newer strategic opportunities." -- in other words, dear shareholders, pay no attention to the whiny employee.
- An Open Letter To Jeff Bezos On Terminating The Amazon Affiliate Program In California
- Amazon to shut down California affiliates over new sales tax law
- Amazon cuts affiliate program in California and suddenly everyone notices
- New York, Illinois, Rhode Island, and North Carolina, all of which have seen their own Amazon affiliate programs killed for exactly the same reason. And, as noted by The Tax Foundation, there are a handful of others—Arizona, Hawaii, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Tennessee, Texas, and Vermont—that are considering passing similar ""Amazon Tax"" measures.
- Affiliates left with no choice but to take business elsewhere. When Tom said so on Twitter started a fierce debate about who to blame. Who cares?"
News Fuse
- All around loud guy, Steve Ballmer publicly addressed all the calls for his dismissal as CEO of Microsoft. Well, let's just listen to what he had to say.
- In these tough economic times, it's hard to make a buck. Even spammers are having problems making a living annoying people. Apparently, spam filters have gotten so good that the spam game no longer pays the same. Because of that, the amount of spam dropped at the end of last year.
- LightSquared filed its official plan for reducing interference between its proposed wireless data service and GPS navigation systems. "This issue will be resolved by good data, smart engineers and good-faith problem-solving dialogue," said Sanjiv Ahuja. LightSquared said GPS device makers need to adapt their equipment not to bleed into other frequencies. GPS makers were not too pleased by that statement.
- Not content with just making a Jeopardy-playing computer, IBM has made a new kind of phase change memory that is 100 times faster than flash. It's also supposed to handle 10 million write-cycles, which is also better than flash's thousands. IBM says the technology ought to be in storage systems by 2016.
- What's going on in Myspace-land now that News Corp is done with it? It turns out that Specific Media, the buyer of Myspace, is partly owned by Justin Timberlake - so maybe he can make the social network cool again. Also, Myspace said it would cut half its 450 person workforce, and they lived up to that today - so that's 225 people who will try out that Google Plus.
- Today some Android users will be able to do video calls via Skype thanks to a new version of Skype for Android. Video chats will work on both Wi-Fi and 3G. Right now, only the Google Nexus S, the HTC Desire S, along with Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo and Xperia Pro can access video chats. Skype says support for more devices are coming soon.
- You know what people hate? Facebook. That's right. According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index Facebook is the 10th most hated brand out there, more hated than AT&T and Dish. But don't worry, Comcast, you're still very hated at number 4.
- Sony's Android tablets, the S1 and S2 are real and there are images to prove it. The S1 got the still picture treatment while the clam-shell style S2 was captured in video. The S2 was shown to power on and off as well as be responsive to touch - this was no mock up. More tablets! Competition is good.
- If you needed a reason to travel on Virgin America beyond its Linux-powered touchscreen entertainment screens - how about a free trial of a Google Chromebook? Starting July 1st, passengers will be given the chance to try out a Chromebook on certain flights. As a bonus for trying out the Chromebook, those passengers get free WiFi. The promotion will run until September 30th.
Randomizer
Calendar
- New Apple rules for in-app purchases kick in today, June 30
- T-Mobile to tout 'truly unlimited' mobile data plan in UK - new users, or those eligible for upgrade, can take up the offer if they take out a two-year contract of £25.54 or more. hose who are not yet eligible for the upgrade can sign up too, as long as they're on a contract of equivalent length and cost, with some data included.
- Starting tomorrow, July 1 Facebook Credits Will Be Mandatory Payment Platform
- Also July 1 Gigabyte's S1080 Windows 7 slate ships for $650
- Sprint updating the Samsung Galaxy Tab with Gingerbread on July 5
- The first Twitter townhall with President Obama will take place on July 6th at 2 pm eastern. Use the hashtag AskObama to ask questions
- Mark Zuckerberg said expect something "awesome" to launch next week on Facebook. Possibly that iPad app? project spartan?
"Hey TNT crew,
Just wanted to let you know that Microsoft has had automatic camera switching in group video chat, as part of OCS/Link, for many years.
Microsoft has both Mac and Windows clients for OCS/Link which work very well. We use it in the corporation I work for.
What do you know? Microsoft did something first for a change!
Thanks
- Nick"
"Hey TNT crew,
I was listening to episode 274 where you mentioned Google+. It got me thinking as to some of the other google projects that haven't seen ""Market Success."" facebook started out limiting access to just Harvard students then progressed to college students. They didn't get real growth and acceptance until they opened up to the public. Google's products are always limited to google accounts. I know, business wise that's a just decision. I know you guys mentioned previously that gmail users aren't a biggest percentage globally of webmail users. So you can't expect the 'common' consumers to care about a new google social product if they aren't google consumers already. Just my thought
- Omar "If you use this, you can call me PrOmar" Forrester
"Hey TNT kids!
Maybe a tad offtopic but you guys talk about both fairly often. So, you've heard of xbox achievements and ps3 trophies... what if after you beat a game it printed out a real trophy! it could have your name engraved on it including the date and the name of the game etc. then you would finally have something to show for all those hours spent improving your hand-eye cordnation and put the 3d printer to work. as far as i know, nobody is doing this yet and i just thought it up so i thought id throw it out there.
love the show
- bwoogie, sometimes in the irc :)"
Sponsors
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Production Information
- Edited by: Jason
- Notes:
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