Tech News Today 386

Tech News Today Episode 386

Tech News Today 386: Kindle Backdraft Coming Soon

The new Xbox dashboard, Facebook causes Gowalla to shut down, no need to worry about Carrier IQ, and more.

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Hosts

• Tom Merritt (@acedtect)
  • TomMerritt.com
• Iyaz Akhtar (@Iyaz)
  • thisoldnerd.finitecomedy.com
• Jason Howell (@raygun01)
• Don Reisinger (@donreisinger)

Top Stories

• Microsoft's bid to rule your living room with the Xbox 360 begins tomorrow
• Microsoft upgrades Xbox Live with 40 entertainment services, live TV, and Kinect voice control
• Xbox Live video partners listed in full, YouTube and FiOS TV coming later in December
• Xbox Companion app for WP7 will launch alongside the new dashboard December 6th
  • Xbox 360 update launches tomorrow
  • HBO Go not until early 2012, Comcast not launchign now either (list on Verge article)
  • Use Kinect to search through all content connected to Xbox, either voice or hand waves -- Also control with WP7 Mango
  • New visual interface in Metro style

• Gowalla Confirms It Will Shut Down As Founders and Team Members Join Facebook
• What Facebook buying Gowalla means for users
• Gowalla's official blog post
  • Gowalla foudners and several team members have joined Facebook and are moving to its Palo Alto HQ
  • Gowalla service will be 'winding down at the end of January'
  • Options will be made available for users to export their data
  • Facebook NOT acquiring the Gowalla company. Gowalla “plans to provide an easy way to export your Passport data, your Stamp and Pin data (along with your legacy Item data), and your photos as well.”

• Carrier IQ denies responsiblity for insecure log files, suggests manufacturers are to blame
• Apple, Motorola, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile latest to be sued over Carrier IQ tracking
• It's Bugs All the Way Down
• European regulators set sites on Carrier IQ, rootkit scandal goes international
• Carrier IQ interview: inside the brave new world of carrier phone tracking
  • Apple, Motorola, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile all now facing class action lawsuits filed in US District Court in Delaware Friday
  • Dan Rosenberg completed an analysis of a deployment of CarrierIQ on the Samsung Epic 4G Touch to find out exactly what CIQ records.
    • 1. CarrierIQ cannot record SMS text bodies, web page contents, or email content even if carriers and handset manufacturers wished to abuse it to do so. There is simply no metric that contains this information.
    • 2. CarrierIQ (on this particular phone) can record which dialer buttons are pressed, in order to determine the destination of a phone call. I’m not a lawyer, but I would expect cell carriers already have legal access to this information.
    • 3. CarrierIQ (on this particular phone) cannot record any other keystrokes besides those that occur using the dialer.
    • 4. CarrierIQ can report GPS location data in some situations.
    • 5. CarrierIQ can record the URLs that are being visited (including for HTTPS resources), but not the contents of those pages or other HTTP data.
  • The HTC phone used by Eckhardt stored log in plain text.Vice President of Marketing, Andrew Coward says that log was HTC's not CIQ's.
  • The British Information Commissioner's Office and the European Consumers' Organization have both started looking into the diagnostics software
  • I imagine you may not have an answer for this, but are users having to pay for those 200kb per day?
  • Actually, the answer, as far as I know, is no. We use the data connection, but what's happening — and I don't know if this is widely known — is that there are destinations within the operator's network that are non-billable. There's another angle on that too, and that's if you fly to London this weekend, and it's time to do an upload, we know that you're roaming, and we won't do the upload until you get back.

Discussion Stories

• Fire Will Kindle Interest in iPad
• Amazon Kindle Fire owners reporting Wi-Fi bug
  • J.P. Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz, believes the Kindle Fire will end up being a catalyst for additional iPad sales.
  • Moskowitz met recently with Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer
  • "the Kindle Fire as a device that stands to bring incremental consumers to the tablet market, and here, these consumers could gravitate to more feature-rich experiences"
  • some Fire tablet owners are saying they can't connect to their Wi-Fi network - seems to be fixed by updating firmware.

• US court denies Apple's preliminary request to ban Samsung Galaxy devices, but says patent infringement likely
• Apple licensed iOS scrolling patent to Nokia and IBM, offered license to Samsung
• ITC Puts Apple-HTC Patent Ruling on Hold
• Whoops! Apple, Samsung secrets leak from court document
  • California US District Court Judge Lucy Koh in California denied Apple's request for a preliminary injunction denying sales of Samsung Galxy Tablets and smartphones.
  • Judge Koh ruled Apple didn't prove that leaving Samsung's products on the market would cause irreparable harm.
  • Judge Koh did note Apple had proven it's likely to succeed in proving that Samsung's product infringe its patents
  • The Verge has excellent list of the design patents involved and the preliminiary ruling on each (props to Dieter Bohn and co-contributors)
  • Apple's licensed at least one iOS software patent related to scrolling functionality to Nokia and IBM, and offered a license to Samsung during failed settlement negotiations in November 2010.
  • An ITC ruling on HTC phones infringing Apple patents has been delayed until Dec. 14.
  • Apple's own studies found that its existing customers were unlikely to trade in their iPhone for a Samsung smartphone. --- Samsung, meanwhile, argued that Apple's supply cannot keep up with demand for its iPhone.

• Intel Ivy Bridge processors set for Q2 2012 release, specs leaked
  • Intel Ivy Bridge 22 nm CPUs set to ship in 2nd quarter 2012
  • Leaked specs show i5 and i7 IB focuses on improved graphics (supports DX11) and lower power consumption
  • The eight standard chips have a 19 percent lower TDP (Thermal Design Power) than their current Sandy Bridge equivalents

News Fuse

• A new hack by CD-Dev Team called H1Siri (aka "Hi Siri") brings Apple's assistant to jailbroken iPod Touches and iPhone 4's. Some users have complained of server unresponsiveness and camera issues. TechCrunch is waving a big flag saying the files necessary for this hack were taken from copyrighted code from the iPhone 4S. iPhone hacker Grant Paul noted on Twitter that data transferred via H1Siri may be transferred through the developers' server, so use it at your own risk.
• Don’t Do It! New Siri Port H1Siri Is Illegal, Breaks Your iPhone

• A non-announcement turned into news when Mozilla did not announce whether it had renewed its deal with Google that was set to expire in November. Today, Mozilla issued a statement published at AllThingsD saying that "We are in active negotiations and have nothing further to announce at this time." In 2010, Google searches ran through the Firefox browser accounted for 84% of Mozilla's revenue.

• Speaking to the Inquirer via Twitter, Kaspersky CEO Eugene Kaspersky announced the company will no longer be a part of the Business Software Alliance as of the first day of 2012. The BSA's initial support of SOPA is the reason for the departure. The alliance has since softened its stance saying SOPA needs work before it would fully support the legislation. Kaspersky has yet to comment if the company's decision will be influenced by the BSA's slight change of stance.

• Samsung released a video showing of a new concept - a flexible and transparent mobile display that could handle phone calls, project images in 3D, be capable of real time translation as well as handle touch inputs. The super-thin display concept also apparently has a camera and some kind of power supply. Samsung does plan to introduce devices with flexible displays next year, but don't expect this concept too soon.

• Dell is no longer offering the Android-powered Streak 7 on its site and issued a statement to Engadget referring to the Streak 7 in the past tense. Dell did point out that the tablet is still available at certain retailers, but it sure looks like the Streak 7 will join the Streak 5 in the the great beyond.

• Verizon announced that two new Motorola Xyboard Droid tablets are coming out this month. Those are rumored to LTE versions of the 10 and 8-inch Xoom 2 tablets. Verizon also mentioned that the Galaxy Nexus is "coming soon" without actually specifically stating a release date. The Wall Street Journal's sources say it'll cost $299 with contract and it'll be out this month.

• A new bill called the "Mobile Informational Call Act of 2011" would allow automated calls to cell phones. Currently, the practice is illegal based on the concept that the receiver of the call would have to pay for it. This bill would still ban telemarketers from calling, but you'd still be able to get a call offering "information." The act is backed by several groups including the Chamber of Commerce and bill collectors.

• IBM's managed to manufacture its "racetrack" memory from standard chip-making tools. First explained in 2008, "racetrack" computer memory uses nanoscale metal wires to store data. IBM's manufactured component bodes well for the future, but practically IBM can only move a single bit in each nanowire according to an experimental physicist.

• RIM just fired two executives - no, it's not the co-CEOs, it's the two not-quite-gentlemen who had a drunken fight on a flight last week. George Campbell and Paul Alexander Wilson plead guilty to charges of mischief last week. RIM said it "employees are expected to act, at all times, with integrity and respect." So now you know - fighting on a plane is not advocated by RIM.

Randomizer

• Silicon rival MoS2 promises small, low-energy chips

Calendar

• Julian Assange received approval to submit an appeal of his extradition to Sweden on 'public interest' grounds. He has two weeks to make his argument to Britain's Supreme Court

• Tomorrow, Microsoft plans to hold an event detailing the Windows App Store

• Canadians, come and get your Galaxy Nexus on December 7th from Bell or Virgin Mobile. That's one whole day earlier than the official release date

• Sony Ericsson's rebranding to just "Sony" will take place in the middle of 2012. Sony bought out Ericsson in October.

INCOMING

Email

"For what it's worth, Amazon already has a competitor to Amazon Prime on the shipping end. It's ShopRunner.com. For the same price as Amazon Prime, you get free two day shipping on ShopRunner-eligible items and free shipping on returns. They work with plenty of major sites, including New Egg, Toys 'R' Us, DrugStore.com, Sports Authority, Radio Shack, and more. Others, like MacMall, Musician's Friend, Guitar Center, Holabird Sports, and more are coming soon. With ShopRunner already having some pretty big names locked up, would Google be better off buying them than starting fresh?

- David Bixenspan"

"Last week, it was mentioned about making a microwave that would read bar codes and heat your food accordingly. Evidently, we are closer to this than realized. As I was strolling through the store, I noticed a coffee maker that does just this. You scan the specially made coffee packets and it will brew according to that packet.

Tassimo is the maker if you are interested.

http://www.tassimodirect.com/The-Tassimo-System/tassimo-system,default,pg.html

Love the show, Signed, THE ONE AND ONLY...Anonymous"

Sponsors

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Production Information

• Edited by: Jason
• Notes:

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