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Show Notes
Today's guests: Roger Chang
Headlines:
The US FCC's Open Internet Order was published in the Federal Register today. A trade group representing ISPs called USTelecom filed suit in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Sharp announced a 5.5 inch 4K IGZO display with an 806 pixels per inch density according to phone arena.com. The Ultra-HD display will sport a resolution of 2160 x 3840. IGZO or Indium gallium zinc oxide is a semiconducting material used in the TFT Backplane of flat-panel displays. Rival smartphone maker Samsung has hinted at a 4K display for their upcoming Galaxy Note 5.
Engadget reports that ASUS is getting ready to launch the VivoWatch, a fitness-centric wearable with a claimed 10 day battery life. The watch will have a tough stainless steel body, your standard IP67 rating against dust and water, heart-rate monitoring and sleep tracking. No price has been revealed yet, but expect that info to emerge during Milan Design Week which begins tomorrow.
Ars Technica reports on a shocking case of potential cause and effect in the free market. After Google Fiber announced its expansion into Charlotte, North Carolina, Time Warner Cable announced that their residential internet customers will "experience" internet speed up to six times faster than their current speed, at no extra cost. Customers who get up to 15Mbps will now receive up to 50Mbps, those who get up to 30Mbps will now receive up to 200Mbps; and customers who get up to 50Mbps, will receive up to 300Mbps, all at no extra charge.
TechCrunch reports Apple updated Final Cut Pro X, Motion and Compressor software, with support for new camera hardware, and new 3D animation resources and effects features. Final Cut Pro 10.2 supports four video scope views at once, and support for additional video formats. Motion 5.2 adds improvements to 3D title building, and 12 new generator effects. Compressor 4.2 makes it easier to get a movie up for sale on iTunes. CNET reports Apple also sold about 1 million Apple Watches this weekend according to analyst estimates.
TechCrunch reports 3D Robotics launched a new quadcopter called the Solo meant to be easy to fly for beginners, with a focus on aerial photography. Pilots can use a GoPro to stream video to a phone through the 3-axis Solo gimbal. The Solo can update firmware over WiFi and has an accessory bay for future hardware expansion, like a forthcoming Lidar camera. The motor pods are also swappable for easy replacement. The Solo costs $999 and the Gimball an extra $399 coming to the US in May and globally in June and July.
The Financial Express reports Singapore-based FireEye released a report about online espionage operations targeting government and commercial organizations going back to 2005. FireEye believes the group responsible is state-sponsored likely by the Chinese government. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hong Lei "I want to stress that the Chinese government firmly bans and cracks down on all forms of hacker attacks," and called for international cooperation against such attacks.
News From You:
AllanAV sent us this story from the Slate. 14-year-old eighth-grader Domanik Green of Paul R. Smith Middle School in Holiday, Florida, was recently arrested and charged with a felony: offense against a computer system and unauthorized access. He was released from Land O'Lakes Detention Center on Wednesday. The Tampa Bay Times reports that the Pasco County sheriff's department took action after Green used a teacher's administrative password, a person's last name which he saw the teacher type in - to log onto a school computer and change the background image. "I logged into a teacher's computer who I didn't like and tried putting inappropriate pictures onto his computer to annoy him," Green told the Times.
StarFuryZeta alerted us to a Gizmodo post about Mysterious Radio Signals being received by astronomers at the Parkes Observatory in Australia for years. Astronomers were puzzled over the source of these brief but intense bursts. Astronomer Emily Petrol installed a real-time radio interference monitor and it turns out they were coming from the microwave in the lunch room anytime someone opened the door before the timer was done.
Paulgannon01 sent us The Next Web report that in the UK, new regulations are in effect providing legal recourse to people subjected to "revenge porn." The new offence criminalizes "the disclosure of photographs or films which show people engaged in sexual activity or depicted in a sexual way, where what is shown would not usually be seen in public," The sharing must be done deliberately with the intention of causing the person in question distress.
Discussion Section Links:
http://boingboing.net/2015/04/13/reddits-hot-button-game.html http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/11/8388797/old-spice-twitch-nature-adventure-marketing-stunt http://np.reddit.com/r/EncyclopediaButtonica/comments/31xq68/a_brief_history_of_the_button/ https://www.reddit.com/r/thebutton http://www.reddit.com/r/thebutton/comments/312lwm/official_button_push_regret_thread/ http://boingboing.net/2015/04/05/realtime-chart-of-the-button.html https://www.reddit.com/r/thebutton/wiki/index http://button.mtsanderson.com/index_orig.html http://www.unwinnable.com/2013/10/07/salty-bet/#.VSwF2xPF8wz
Pick of the day:
Dear Tom,
After hearing the pick from DTNS 2452 concerning RiffTracks, I wanted to expand on the selection of commentaries available online. Zarban.com (quoting from the website)
is a catalog of audio commentaries for movies and TV episodes available on the Web. You can download a commentary and listen to it while you watch the show and enjoy the scholarly insights and/or hilarious insults they offer.
They are mostly fan-made commentaries but some are official tracks (e.g. Aronofsky's "The Fountain" commentary that he originally hosted personally is now archived by Zarban.com). Other contributors can be hit and miss, but I would highly recommend What Are You Doing Movie (formerly Down In Front), Tysto, and Film Grok. They generally have a countdown after a short minutes of introduction, and listeners can sync their copies with the recorded commentary audio.
At the time of this correspondence, Tysto has a commentary for "Resevoir Dogs" that I am very much looking forward to visiting. Listeners can also find entries for such gems as "Nightmare Sisters," if that's their bag.
PATRON since day 1:
Nic in Louisiana
Messages
Good day Tom,
I work for high tech manufacturing company like your guest, and single source parts are actually more common than your guest suggested. He was giving the text book answer.
It's often normal with anything cutting edge to only have one vendor. And sometimes it's easier too, especially if you have a relationship with a vendor who performs better than others.
Keep in mind that marketing's plan is forward looking, and their dreams might not match what's possible on a new product. They should dream. The goal normally is to reach marketing's plans, not the other way around.
Natron
Episode: http://feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/200664769-tom-merritt-dtns-2470-felony-wallpaper.mp3
