Tech News Today 452

Tech News Today Episode 452

Tech News Today 452: Tweet Me A Beer

Intel pumps up cheap ultrabooks, the new iPad, Netflix partners with cable companies, and more.

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Hosts

• Tom Merritt (@acedtect)
  • TomMerritt.com
• Sarah Lane (@SarahLane)
  • SarahLane.com
• Iyaz Akhtar (@Iyaz)
  • ThisOldNerd.FiniteComedy.com
• Jason Howell (@RayGun01)
• Joanna Stern
  • abcnews.com/technology

Topics

• Apple iPad
• The new iPad specs
• Apple's iPad with retina display, quad core graphics ships March 16
• New iPad first hands-on, detailed pictures, and more!
• iPad 2 price drops to $399 (Wi-Fi) and $529 (Wi-Fi + 3G)
• Apple reveals new 1080p Apple TV: $99, arrives March 16th
• Netflix on new Apple TV supports 1080p, all boxes get integrated signup and pay via iTunes
• Apple TV Update Coming to Older Devices
• iTunes in the Cloud now supports movies
• iOS 5.1 available today, bringing Siri to Japan soon
• Apple releases free updates for iWork, iMovie and GarageBand for iPad, pricing remains the same
• HBO Deals Keep Fox, Universal Out of New iCloud Movie Service

• Intel Sets Sights on Ultrabook Adoption
• Ivy Bridge benchmarks: CPU boosted 5-15 percent, onboard GPU handles Skyrim
• Acer: $799 ultrabooks make no profit, aiming for $499 price nonetheless
  • Intel expects that by the end of 2012, 40% of all notebooks shipped will be ultrabooks.
  • test results of a Core i7 3770K CPU, courtesy of AnandTech.
  • 5-15 percent boost in CPU performance for the same money as Sandy Bridge, not to mention lower power consumption and the ability to run the latest games on the HD 4000 integrated graphics.
  • Acer Global President Jianren Weng has been quoted at CeBIT today reiterating something he said at the beginning of December: ultrabooks will drop to the crazy-low price of $499 in 2013 and compete directly against Apple's iPad.
  • the current $799 / €699 price for the Aspire S3 is too low for Acer to actually generate any profit from it.
  • Christoph Pohlmann of Acer's laptop team efficiencies in production and cheaper components could drag the price down, but he was generally dubious on the idea of a sub-$500 ultrabook.

Discussion Stories

• Anonymous attacks security firm as revenge for LulzSec arrests
• Everything incriminating has been burned: Anons fight panic after Sabu betrayal
  • Members claiming association with Anonymous hacked over 20 subdomains owned by Panda Security overnight to add a YouTube video of both exploits and apparent u/n and password details of over 100 Panda employeees, claiming revenge for the LulzSec arrests earlier this week, & a Panda Security post from this week titled "Where is the lulz now?" (post now offline), & accusations that Panda Security is working with law enforcement to arrest more
  • Panda employee/Author of "lulz" post Luis Corrons has been tweeting about the hack, denies Panda's helping catch anyone but "I would have loved to be involved in that."
  • Official Panda response on FB: "The attack did not breach Panda Security's internal network and neither source code, update servers nor customer data was accessed. The only information accessed was related to marketing campaigns such as landing pages and some obsolete credentials, including supposed credentials for employees that have not been working at Panda for over five years."
  • A hacker known as "Avunit" left LulzSec last year before the group dissolved, says he doesn't know if he's been exposed, unindicted so far. Chatted with Ars Technica via IRC, says he's a "bag of nerves" and is ending his Anonymous participation. "[I'm] on a new laptop I bought today and everything else that could be incriminating has literally been burned."
  • Avunit split with LulzSec after their attacks on government servers/FBI operations. Now he's working the AnonOps collective within Anonymous, where he has restricted himself mostly to working on denial-of-service tool development and guiding new recruits.

• SimCity reboot announced at GDC, coming to PC in 2013
• Maxis announces new SimCity for 2013
  • EA announced SimCity 5 at GDC
  • Will be on PC in 2013 (wno Mac plans despite youtube post)
  • Curvy roads, political responses get more detailed, effect nearby cities, play side by side with friend's cities
  • first truly 3D
  • "what you see is what we sim" system that gives direct, visual feedback for everything you need to know about your city."

• Exclusive: Netflix in talks for cable partnership
• Netflix is in talks to partner with cable providers for bundles, could mean higher quality streaming
• Amazon May Join Netflix and Hulu and Produce Original TV Content, Report Says
• Is Amazon getting into original TV?
  • Reuters reports that Netflix has held meetings with "some of the largest US cable companies" to partner up
  • You'd be able to stream via your cable STB and be billed on your cable bill
  • Netflix on your STB could include higher quality video and audio and won't count against bandwidth caps
  • Cable companies get a cut obviously
  • Some of Netflix's content partners stop the service from already being on Cable boxes
  • Engadget's sources say the talks begun initially b/c of Netflix's bandwidth load
  • Meanwhile Amazon may be setting foot into original programming
  • Joe Lewis, an exec at Amazon, changed his LinkedIn profile - his title read "Vice-President of Original Television at Amazon"
  • Hours after Fortune requested details from Amazon, Lewis' title changed to ""Vice-President, Production at Amazon Studios."
  • Lewis was previously Director of Production at 20th Century Fox and Manager of Development at Comedy Central"

News Fuse

• Bloomberg reports Sprint's about to end its partnership with LightSquared. The two companies entered into a 15-year deal, but considering that LightSquared's LTE network is DOA, Sprint wants out ASAP. Bloomberg says the deal could be off as soon as next week.

• So two tablets walk into a bar and the first tablet says to the second tablet, "Patent Wars!" Samsung is suing Apple in South Korea saying the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S infringed on three patents. The patents are related to text messages, UI and displaying data.

• Google doesn't even own Motorola Mobility just yet and according to the NY Post, Google is already considering selling Motorola's cable box unit. Google's hired Barclays Capital and Qatalyst Partners to set up the deal. So who's going to buy it? Maybe Cisco, Scientific Atlanta, or maybe even you.

• Google Operating System spotted an "Audio Books" page and a "Magazines and journals" in the Google Play help pages. Both pages were blank, so we're all left to speculate wildly about what they could mean.

• Facebook was face down this morning in parts of Europe. Facebook says it was having "technical difficulties" but whatever the issue is, it is resolved. While the site was down, people took to Twitter using the hashtag "facebookdown."

• Sony's decided that starting April 1st it will start "unilateral" pricing in the United States which means it will set a minimum price for its products. The goal is to bring back some of that premium brand luster to Sony. Sony will also be working with retailers to make sure staff is educated about Sony products.

• If you like the Olympics and you like YouTube, you're are going to have your mind blown. NBC is partnering with YouTube to livestream the London 2012 Olympics. NBC says it will be streaming all events live. YouTube will also be the "official video-on-demand partner" for the event.

• If you like the Olympics, this has nothing to do with that. NVidia joined the Linux Foundation. Nvidia has been closed off when it comes to drivers for Linux, so this has people hopeful that things may change. NVidia says that hopes to shape the future of Linux, but didn't comment on its driver policy.

Randomizer

• You can now buy any of your Twitter pals a drink via Tweet-a-Beer

Calendar

• SXSWi starts on Friday in Austin, TX
• Next Friday March 16th, the new iPad and Apple TV are shipping for pre-orders and available in stores

INCOMING

Voicemail

• A call from Florida about album sales

Email

"Hello TNT!

I’m writing because I, and I assume many other people, am slowly becoming trapped in ecosystem hell!

Recently apple’s competitors have started creating and implementing their own iTunes-esque systems. Google Play, windows 8, amazon cloud – yet in spite of their good intentions, I find myself now in the worst kind of ecosystem hell. Having bought content from Microsoft, amazon, Google, and yes even apple, I have content scattered across devices, websites, cloud servers. If I want to watch a movie on my TV I have to try and remember where I bought it first, was it Zune on the Xbox, or amazon on my roku, or did I buy it on Google TV? Well of course I didn’t buy on Google TV because no real people have them, but again you get the idea.

My question and hope for discussion is this, how will players like Microsoft, Google, and amazon help consumers get previously purchased content in one place? For music or documents I can just upload everything, but that becomes a problem with things like movies. Will anyone ever solve this or is it just time for me to choose a team and say goodbye to old content?

Thanks,

Scott the camp director in California"

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Production Information

• Edited by: Jason
• Notes:

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