Tech News Today 517

Tech News Today Episode 517

Tech News Today 517: My keyboard is leaking

More passwords are getting hacked, possibly a new iPhone case, a touchscreen with disappearing physical keys, and more.

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Hosts

• Tom Merritt (@acedtect)
  • TomMerritt.com
• Sarah Lane (@SarahLane)
  • SarahLane.com
• Jason Howell (@RayGun01)
• Ken Denmead
  • wired.com/geekdadday

News Fuse

• Add eHarmony and Last.FM to the list of sites on which you need to change your password. Last.Fm posted on Twitter this morning that they are investigating a leak of some password. They also posted on their site that they ask all our users to change their passwords immediately.

• Add another prepaid carrier to the iPhone bandwagon, and with a cheap plan too! Although the phones themselves are pricey. Virgin Mobile USA will offer the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S with unlimited data and messaging plans, starting at $30.. The iPhone 4S 16GB will cost $649 and iPhone 4 8GB will sell for $549. Virgin Mobile uses Sprint’s Beyond Talk plans and service.

• Foursquare today released a completely revamped mobile app for iOS and Android. Among the new features are a photo-centric news feed, moved Check-In button, more colorful profile pages, and a revamped Explore tab that uses data on every Foursquare user in real-time to creates more relevant recommendations. The new Explore feature takes into account where you’ve been before, what time it is, where your friends have been, where there are deals, if you’re new in town, if you’re outside your neighborhood, and where people like you hang out.

• Facebook is holding an app-themed press event this evening in San Francisco and TechCrunch reports the social network may launch a new mobile App Center. Facebook previously announced AppCenter plans in May and say they've been testing the new interface with users since then. TechCrunch says the new platform should launch within the next few weeks.

• Stay with me folks, we're about to descend into the strange world of Samsung's corporate politics. It starts simply. Samsung has replaced CEO Choi Gee-sung with Kwon Oh-hyun, head of its components operation. Fair enough. But here's where it gets weird. Kwon will still run Samsung's component business, while taking on "corporate-wide affairs." BUT the presidents of Samsung's TV and appliances and telecom and IT divisions will not report to Kwon. AND Ex-CEO Choi isn't leaving, he'll head up the Samsung Group Corporate Strategy Office, a central body that rules over the organization's dozens of companies. Choi will also continue to mentor Jay Y. Lee who is the son of the REAL boss, the chairman of Samsung Electronics, Lee Kun-hee.

• Microsoft's plan to require users to opt-OUT of Do Not Track in IE 10 just got thwarted. The latest proposed draft of the Do Not Track specification requires that users must choose to turn on the anti-behavioral tracking feature in their browsers and software. Microsoft is still free to turn it on by default, but that means advertisers can ignore IE's do not track flag and track users anyway, since it won't conform to the official spec.

• Oracle announced that it is launching a suite of services that businesses can access from just about anywhere. That's often referred to as 'the cloud' by hipsters. To celebrate CEO Larry Ellison started a Twitter account @larryellisonj, apparently just to taunt SAP. “Oracle's got 100+ enterprise applications live in the #cloud today, SAP's got nothin' but SuccessFactors until 2020.” well at least now you know who to at reply about all those Oracle customer email addresses revealed in the HP l-Oracle lawsuit.

• Say goodbye to the BlackBerry PlayBook folks. At least the one with the small capacity. RIM has decided to stop "making the 16GB model of the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet." However, the company is quick to point out that the 32GB and 64GB models will continue to be manufactured.

• Google hqas joined a revolution started by Computer Shopper in the mid 1990s. Web ratings of merchants! Online retailers who participate in Google's Trusted Stores Program will be able to display report cards on their sites that rate the stores’ overall service and the reliability of their shipping services. Google will also surface the scores in search results.

• Bloomberg reports HTC won't be allowed to use Windows RT for tablets. Sources told Bloomberg HTC doesn’t sell enough devices or have ample experience making tablets. Microsoft's Frank Shaw says HTC is a strong partner but did not elaborate. HTC said yesterday that second-quarter sales would be NT$91 billion (New Taiwan dollars) , below a previous forecast of NT$105 billion because of product delays in the U.S. and lower-than- anticipated sales in Europe.

Discussion Stories

• Like LinkedIn, eHarmony is hacked; 1.5 million passwords stolen
• MD5 password scrambler 'no longer safe'
• That Was Fast: Criminals Exploit LinkedIn Breach For Phishing Attacks
• What LinkedIn can learn from Sony about a hacking crisis

• Dear Eric Schmidt, It’s Been 6 Months — Where Are Those iOS-Slaying Android Exclusive Apps?
• Eric Schmidt at Le Web: Why do people develop for iOS first?
• Google’s Eric Schmidt envisions Google TV on majority of new TVs by summer of 2012
• Eric Schmidt at Le Web: Google TV in six months
• MG Seigler calling Eric Schmidt out:
  • On December 6, 2012 at Le Web an audience member why most application developers still choose to develop for iOS first rather than Android?
• Schmidt’s response: “Six months from now you’ll say the opposite. Because ultimately applications vendors are driven by volume. And the volume is favored by the open approach that Google is taking.”
• Android has market dominance at this point.
• Why aren't the developers following?
  • MG points out - as of June 1 — seven months after the launch of the OS — 7.1 percent of Android phones are actually on it.
• And what about this one: “By the summer of 2012, the majority of the televisions you see in stores will have Google TV embedded in it,” Schmidt said onstage at the LeWeb conference

• Megaupload: while FBI defends seizure overseas, MPAA is 'sympathetic' to users who uploaded legal files
• FBI FedExed copies of MegaUpload data without permission
• FBI Illegally Pirated Kim Dotcom’s Data Out of New Zealand, File-Sharing King Charges
  • The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) says that it is "sympathetic" to users that stored "legitimately acquired or created data" on Megaupload's servers, but points out that the file-sharing service's terms of use "clearly disclaimed any guarantee or continued access to uploaded materials."
  • EFF filed a brief with Eastern Virginia District Court on behalf of a user who wants their non-infringing data back
  • ALSO FBI in some hot water over what they took:
    • Kim Dotcom's lawyers claim the FBI illegally removed data from the Megaupload servers
    • Under international law, the FBI has no right seize property and take it back to America without permission from New Zealand's Attorney-General.
    • FBI didn't take the actual drives but it did clone 7 of them and FedExed the copies back to the US
    • According to Stuff, John Pike, a lawyer representing the Attorney-General asserted that the FBI acted legally as the copied data did not amount to physical material. Pike said that "(information) may be the most valuable thing we have, but it is not scooped up by the act — nothing of the physical items have gone overseas and that was our undertaking."

• Tactus Technology unveils touchscreen prototype with appearing and disappearing keys (hands-on)
• Source video
  • Tactus Technology has unveiled a tactile layer component that creates dynamic physical buttons that rise out of the surface of the screen. The haptic user interface lets users see and feel the buttons for the experience of operating a physical keyboard.
  • Showed the tech off at SID Display Week 2012 in Boston
  • Based on microfluidics - channels underneath the surface with small reservoir of fluid (usually an oil) - can pump the fluid to raise a deformable membrane covering the screen
  • or now, the channels need to be made in a predetermined patter — say, an outline of a QWERTY keyboard for a tablet — The long-term goal would be to have much finer control over a wide-ranging variety of patterns
  • Nathan INgrham of The Verge said the feedback wasn't much and he could see where the keys were supposed to be after they disappeared
  • Customization of resistance and feel should be possible
  • Tactus believes it will bring its new haptics to shipping products in 2013.

Randomizer

• Community' fan creates playable 'Journey to the Center of Hawkthorne' video game
  • Currently in version 0.0.12b, the 2D side-scroller features a roster of playable characters, music, sound effects, a couple of stages, and running and jumping mechanics. OS X, Windows, and Linux users can download the free game now

Calendar

• Federal Judge Richard A. Posner has canceled the Apple v. Motorola Mobility patent infringement trial originally set to start on June 11. Posner canceled the jury trial because the parties were unable to reconcile their damage reports, an issue he apparently found unacceptable.

• Tomorrow June 8 kicks off the SouthEast Linux Fest in Charlotte, North Carolina

• Geek Dad Day is June 17.

INCOMING

Email

"Hi TNT Gang, I heard you guys talking about the "How the Internet Works" video on Wednesday's show, and I just wanted to share with you a similar video I've been showing for almost a decade now. Its called "Warriors of the Net."

I'm in a position to mentor high school aged kids in a pursuit of Computer Science and networking from time to time, and every one of them watches this video. Not only is it informative, but nerd-hilarious and somewhat campy.

Thanks for the great show, I listen to you on my morning commute every day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBWhzz_Gn10

-- Andy Hull the Network Engineer, Michigan"

"Hi TNT crew, I just listened to you talking about the offline google maps on episode 516. I´m currently studying in Spain for two months and I am already using the labs feature of google maps on my ICS phone that lets me precache maps. I can´t afford the £4 a megabyte roaming fees for data, so the feature has stopped me getting lost many times because it means I can navigate by GPS without data. What it is missing, and I hope they fix, is that the data needs to be redownloaded every month, so if I don´t pay attention I may find the rug pulled out from under me.Lastly, if you need to find a place while offline, you need to look manually since it cannot search the cached data, it can merely show the map.

Depending on how big the map files are, this could (finally) be the death of the dedicated sat nav, because with these features my Galaxy Note can do anything a satnav can. Hasta Luego.

Azzedine"

Sponsors

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Production Information

• Edited by: Jason
• Notes:

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