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Show Notes
Today's guests: Darren Kitchen & Len Peralta
Headlines:
Last night Tesla announced batteries for home and business. The Tesla PowerWall is a 400 volt lithium-iON battery pack available to installers for $3500 at 10 kWh and $3,000 at 7 kWh. It takes 60-90 minutes on average to install the 6-inch thick 220 pound battery which can go on walls inside or out. The Powerwall comes with a 10 year warranty and you can pre-order now for delivery later this summer. SolarCity told Fortune it would sell the 10 kWH pack for $5,000 including installation and AC converter. Tesla also announced the Tesla Powerpack, a 100 kWh battery for larger utilities and enterprises available for $250 per kWh.
I've been avoiding this issue for days, but now it's official. 9 to 5 mac reports that Apple has confirmed the Apple Watch tattoogate issue. Apple revised a paragraph on its support page to say "Permanent or temporary changes to your skin, such as some tattoos, can also impact heart rate sensor performance. The ink, pattern, and saturation of some tattoos can block light from the sensor, making it difficult to get reliable readings." We have our Apple Watch launch controversy people. Congrats.
The Verge reports Microsoft VP of PC, Tablet and Phone at Microsoft said at BUILD yesterday that not everything will launch along with Windows 10 on PC this summer. "You should expect that the other devices — phone, HoloLens, Xbox, Surface Hub — will be staggered, probably not on the same date as the PC." Even the OS itself will continue to evolve after launch. Belfiore also said, "…there's gonna be a lot of rapid updates, new features, and app changes in the months after launch."
TechCrunch reports that Microsoft has acquired pen technology and related assets from partner N-trig. Microsoft uses the pen tech in the Surface 3 and Surface Pro 3. Today's acquisition covers just the pen technology not the N-Trig itself.
Mozilla has made its https plans official. VentureBeat reports Mozilla announced it intends to "start removing capabilities from the non-secure Web" specifically sites that don't support https. Before you freak out keep in mind Firefox's security lead Richard Barnes said "… we will have to monitor the degree of breakage and balance it with the security benefit. We're also already considering softer limitations that can be placed on features when used by non-secure sites."
Mashable reports Australia's proposed Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2015 access to VPNs could be blocked if the service's "primary purpose" is found by a federal court judge to facilitate copyright infringement. Fiona Phillips executive director of the Copyright Council told a public hearing that geoblocks were not the target fo the law saying, "if I were to set up a VPN called 'Highway To Pirate Bay' That service could and should be the subject of the legislation. Several rights groups complain the vague nature of the bill could be interpreted to target many legitimate uses of VPN. A parliamentary committee reviewing the bill will report back with recommendations by May 13th.
Every 3 years the US copyright Office considers proposed exemptions to Section 1201 of the DMCA which makes it a felony to break "an effective means of access control." Boing Boing reports this year a petitioner has requested an exemption for the right to use unapproved materials in 3D printers. 3D printer maker Startasys has asked the Office to deny the exemption claiming only one person wants to use unapproved materials in their 3D printers. Interetsed parties can reply at https://dmca.digitalrighttorepair.org/form
News From You:
KAPT_Kipper sent us an Ars Techinca article about Comcast bringing 2 Gbps service to 200,000 residents of Chattanooga Tennessee beginning in June. That's of note because back in April 2008, Comcast sued the Chattanooga Electric Power Board to prevent it from building a municipal fiber network that was faster than Comcast. Comcast lost and EPB built its own network and launched Gigabit service in 2009. Six years later, twice as fast.
Magoojc and Starfuryzeta both sent us word that the Grooveshark music service has shut down as part of a settlement of various copyright infringement lawsuits. IT World reports Grooveshark will cease operations immediately and erase all the copyrighted works. The company will also surrender ownership of the website, mobile apps and intellectual property. Groovesharkstarted in 2006 claiming it didn't need licenses from rights holders for music uploaded to the service as it was protected by DMCA safe harbor rules. Today in a statement the company said "We made very serious mistakes, we failed to secure licences from rights holders for the vast amount of music on the service."
Discussion Section Links:
http://fortune.com/2015/05/01/tesla-energy-reveal/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/05/01/teslas-new-powerwall-home-battery-will-cost-3500-for-10kwh-units/ http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2015/05/01/tesla-battery-pilot-supplements-amazon-data-center-power-supply/
Pick of the day:
Mike a boss in the great white north writes:
My pick of the day is UXPin. It's the best prototype/ wireframe software I've ever used. It's simple easy and intuitive with built in user testing and great sharing features. A must have for any UX designer.
Messages:
John in Detroit writes:
What I think many people are getting confused about with the new news about iOS and Android apps running on Windows is that they are not just side loading an APK and have it run in an emulator.
What Microsoft is doing is allowing Visual Studio to take code written in the app's native format, Java for Android and Objective C for iOS, and the compiler will interpret the code and build it into a Windows app. This will mean more native apps for Windows and not just reused apps from other services.
Microsoft has also provided APIs for developers to use in place of Google services to fix the majority of back end issues.
As a college senior in Mobile Development, this is great news for me as it allows me to use one code base and add few tweaks for each platform.
This article from the Verge does a good job at explaining it. Just my two cents.
Back on October 5 Franz wrote:
Regarding the Windows 10 Continuum model. Having the same OS on the phone as on the desktop opens up the possibility to plug your phone into a docking station and have it be literally your PC in your pocket"
Yesterday Franz wrote back:
Called it!
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Monday's guest: Veronica Belmont
Episode: http://feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/203495797-tom-merritt-dtns-2484-tesla-drives-it-home.mp3
