Author: Ian

DigitalOutbox Episode 117

DigitalOutbox Episode 117
DigitalOutbox Episode 117 – Pirate Bay, John Lewis Broadband and Google Drive

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
0:49 – Pirate Bay blocked in the UK
– File-sharing site The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK internet service providers, the High Court has ruled.
– The Swedish website hosts links to download mostly-pirated free music and video.
– Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, O2 and Virgin Media must all prevent their users from accessing the site. A sixth ISP, BT, has asked for more time to consider its position.
– “Sites like The Pirate Bay destroy jobs in the UK and undermine investment in new British artists,” the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) said.
– The BPI’s chief executive Geoff Taylor said: “The High Court has confirmed that The Pirate Bay infringes copyright on a massive scale. “Its operators line their pockets by commercially exploiting music and other creative works without paying a penny to the people who created them. “This is wrong – musicians, sound engineers and video editors deserve to be paid for their work just like everyone else.”
– In November 2011, the BPI asked the group of ISPs to voluntarily block access to the site. The request followed a court order to block Newzbin 2, a site also offering links to download pirated material.
– The ISPs said they would not block the site unless a court order was made, as is now the case.
– Virgin Media told the BBC they will now comply with the request, but warned such measures are, in the long term, only part of the solution.
“As a responsible ISP, Virgin Media complies with court orders addressed to the company but strongly believes that changing consumer behaviour to tackle copyright infringement also needs compelling legal alternatives, such as our agreement with Spotify, to give consumers access to great content at the right price.”
– http://torrentfreak.com/how-to-unblock-the-pirate-bay-111004/
– The UK Pirate Party is also prepared for the block and is offering a reverse proxy which allows blocked Internet users to access The Pirate Bay. – http://tpb.pirateparty.org.uk/
– With censorship and plans to monitor traffic, is it time to configure a VPN?
3:25 – John Lewis Broadband
– John Lewis Broadband offers no activation fees, freephone support and a free wireless router. There are three packages, all on 12-month “no hidden catches” contracts.
Standard – up to 16Mbps, 20GB cap, £24.50 a month
Unlimited – up to 16Mbps, No limit, £31.50
Fibre – up to 38Mbps, 100GB cap, £38.50
– In the any questions section of its website John Lewis Broadband says it uses traffic management. Also the service will “let you know if you’re approaching your package’s limit. Once you’ve reached it you can buy more gigabytes for £5 per 5GB”.
– This is not the budget end of the market, where Tesco Broadband plays, for instance.
– Never knowingly…?
4:46 – Facebook buys Patents from Microsoft
– Facebook announced today that it will pay $550 million to Microsoft for the right to 650 patents and patent applications. Microsoft acquired those patents and hundreds of others in a deal with AOL earlier this month.
– The move comes as Facebook wades deeper into the waters of patent litigation while it readies for an IPO expected in May. The social network is in a major patent lawsuit with Yahoo and is also wrestling with dozens of smaller patent suits.
– The Facebook purchase is especially intriguing, however, as it suggests a deepening strategic alliance between Facebook and Microsoft . The latter was an early investor in the social network and both companies have common rivals in Google and Apple.
– Microsoft acquired 925 AOL patents and patent applications in an auction for $1 billion. Shortly after, reports stated that Facebook had been an unsuccessful bidder in the auction.
6:16 – Skydrive Improves
– Today, we’re excited to take another big step towards our vision by making SkyDrive far more powerful. There are new storage options, apps that connect your devices to SkyDrive, and a more powerful device cloud that lets you “fetch” any file from a Windows PC. Taken together with access from popular mobile phones and a browser, you can now take your SkyDrive with you anywhere, connect it to any app that works with files and folders, and get all the storage you need—making SkyDrive the most powerful personal cloud storage service available.
– Here’s what’s available for use, starting now:
SkyDrive for the Windows desktop (preview available now). View and manage your personal SkyDrive directly from Windows Explorer on Windows 8, Windows 7, and Windows Vista with this new preview app available in 106 languages worldwide.
Fetching files through SkyDrive.com. Easily access, browse, and stream files from a remote PC running the preview app to just about anywhere by simply fetching them via SkyDrive.com.
SkyDrive storage updates. A new, more flexible approach to personal cloud storage that allows power users to get additional paid storage as their needs grow.
SkyDrive for other devices. We’ve updated the SkyDrive apps on Windows Phone and iOS devices, bringing better management features and sharing options to those devices. We’re also releasing a new preview client for Mac OS X Lion, letting you manage your SkyDrive right from the Finder.
– So to claim your free 25gb, you need to upgrade to that option on the skydrive site
9:17 – Dropbox Improves
– We’re super excited to announce a whole new way to share: now you can send a link to the files or folders in your Dropbox!
– Sharing with friends and family is easy! Once you’ve saved that video of your niece’s birthday party to Dropbox, just make a link to send to grandma and she can simply watch online — no download required! This saves you the hassle of having to re-upload or attach it to an email.
– Dropbox for Windows and Mac Updated with Auto Photo Uploading and Up to 3 GB of Additional Free Space
– Windows/Mac: The desktop Dropbox client has been updated with the ability to automatically upload photos from SD cards and smartphones directly to Dropbox. When you do so, you’ll get a free 500 MB of space and if you continue to upload pictures you can get up to 3GB of additional space.
11:51 – Google Drive
– Just like the Loch Ness Monster, you may have heard the rumors about Google Drive. It turns out, one of the two actually does exist.
– Today, we’re introducing Google Drive
Create and collaborate. Google Docs is built right into Google Drive, so you can work with others in real time on documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Once you choose to share content with others, you can add and reply to comments on anything (PDF, image, video file, etc.) and receive notifications when other people comment on shared items.
Store everything safely and access it anywhere (especially while on the go). All your stuff is just… there. You can access your stuff from anywhere—on the web, in your home, at the office, while running errands and from all of your devices. You can install Drive on your Mac or PC and can download the Drive app to your Android phone or tablet. We’re also working hard on a Drive app for your iOS devices. And regardless of platform, blind users can access Drive with a screen reader.
Search everything. Search by keyword and filter by file type, owner and more. Drive can even recognize text in scanned documents using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. Let’s say you upload a scanned image of an old newspaper clipping. You can search for a word from the text of the actual article. We also use image recognition so that if you drag and drop photos from your Grand Canyon trip into Drive, you can later search for [grand canyon] and photos of its gorges should pop up. This technology is still in its early stages, and we expect it to get better over time.
– You can get started with 5GB of storage for free—that’s enough to store the high-res photos of your trip to the Mt. Everest, scanned copies of your grandparents’ love letters or a career’s worth of business proposals, and still have space for the novel you’re working on. You can choose to upgrade to 25GB for $2.49/month, 100GB for $4.99/month or even 1TB for $49.99/month. When you upgrade to a paid account, your Gmail account storage will also expand to 25GB.
– So more free than dropbox but less user friendly?
Privacy issues? PC Mag
17:54 – Apple
– they’ve got loads of cash ($110 billion). Nothing more to say, is there? Well,
– Looks like Tim Cook doesn’t quite want to go as “thermonuclear” on rival phone makers as Apple founder Steve Jobs did. Cook didn’t sound so eager to pursue patent infringement suits against Samsung, Motorola and HTC on today’s quarterly earnings call.
“I’d highly prefer to settle versus battle,” Cook said on Apple’s earnings call today. “But you know the key thing that’s very important is that Apple doesn’t become the developer to the world.” He added very pointedly, “I’ve always hated litigation. We need people to invent their own stuff.”
– WWDC – June 11th – 15th – nothing more to say. iOS 6? Mountain Lion?
– could buy Amazon and Nokia and RIM http://thenextweb.com/apple/2012/04/24/apple-could-theoretically-buy-amazon-nokia-and-rim-with-its-pile-of-cash/
22:19 – O2 Mobile Wallet
– Mobile network O2 has launched a smartphone app that allows users to transfer up to £500 via text message.
– It also allows customers to “digitise” their debit and credit cards to speed up purchases from online stores.
– The firm also intends to allow users of phones with near-field communication (NFC) chips to make contactless payments in high street shops.
It is the latest of several firms to charge retailers a transaction fee for making it easier to shop.
– The service will be free to consumers at first, but O2 said that it would charge 15p for each money message sent by text at a later date.
– The network provider said that more than 100 retailers had agreed to accept payments from the service. They include Debenhams, Comet, Sainsbury’s Direct and Tesco Direct.
– Users can also benefit from a search facility that compares how much goods cost, the ability to load money onto the app from their debit cards and a “transaction history” that keeps track of what they have spent.
– The firm said it had held off introducing contactless payments as only a handful of retailers had installed the necessary systems.
– O2 and its rivals Vodafone and EverythingEverywhere are working on a national mobile payments service – dubbed Project Oscar. They had hoped to have it up and running in time for the London Olympics. But the project is held up in Brussels, subject to an anti-competitive investigation.
24:45 – Visa launches v.me
– European digital wallet
– Launching this Autumn
– Combine bank accounts, credit cards into a payment service accessed via username and password
– It’s PayPal!
– Web only – mobile app’s and NFC…soon
25:32 – Spectrum is 30
– Released on April 23rd in 1982, the machine typified the British approach to industrial design – utilitarian but also idiosyncratic and characterful. It should have been buried by its more powerful contemporary, the Commodore 64, but somehow this strange little slab of plastic and rubber earned itself a considerable slice of the nascent home computingmarket, especially in Britain.
– Partly its success was about price. Since the launch of the ZX80 computer two years earlier, restless British inventor Clive Sinclair had been interested in computing for the masses.
Using cheap components and a minimalistic approach to design, he was able to manufacture machines at a lower cost than rivals such as Acorn, Apple and Tandy. The computer’s rubber keys, for example, were created from a single sheet, with a metal overlay to separate them – much less expensive than producing a conventional keyboard.
– So while the BBC Micro started at £235 for the Model A option and the C64 hit the shelves at around £350, the Spectrum launched at just £125 for the 16k version or £175 for the mighty 48k.
– Fond memories anyone?

Picks
Henry
TunnelBear
– easy to use VPN
– free for 500mb per month
– $4.99 pm for (unlimited) or $49.99 for a year

Ian
ScoTutor for Mac
– for Mac or iOs
– Free for a limited time
– Great tutorial app for those new to Mac’s
– 150 minutes all about the Mac – great if you’ve just picked up a Mac, or you parents for example have just started on a Mac.
– ScoTutor for iPad also now free, on Mac and iPad

DigitalOutbox Episode 116

DigitalOutbox Episode 116
DigitalOutbox Episode 116 – Twitters IPA, Nokia Woes and Windows 8

Playback
Listen via iTunes
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Shownotes
1:07 – Twitter introduces the Innovators Patent Agreement
– Like many companies, we apply for patents on a bunch of these inventions. However, we also think a lot about how those patents may be used in the future; we sometimes worry that they may be used to impede the innovation of others. For that reason, we are publishing a draft of the Innovator’s Patent Agreement, which we informally call the “IPA”.
– The IPA is a new way to do patent assignment that keeps control in the hands of engineers and designers. It is a commitment from Twitter to our employees that patents can only be used for defensive purposes. We will not use the patents from employees’ inventions in offensive litigation without their permission. What’s more, this control flows with the patents, so if we sold them to others, they could only use them as the inventor intended.
– This is a significant departure from the current state of affairs in the industry. Typically, engineers and designers sign an agreement with their company that irrevocably gives that company any patents filed related to the employee’s work. The company then has control over the patents and can use them however they want, which may include selling them to others who can also use them however they want. With the IPA, employees can be assured that their patents will be used only as a shield rather than as a weapon.
– We will implement the IPA later this year, and it will apply to all patents issued to our engineers, both past and present. We are still in early stages, and have just started to reach out to other companies to discuss the IPA and whether it might make sense for them too. In the meantime, we’ve posted the IPA on GitHub with the hope that you will take a look, share your feedback and discuss with your companies. And, of course, you can #jointheflock and have the IPA apply to you.
6:38 – Nokia in Trouble
– In its latest quarterly results, the Finnish handset maker said things were “mixed” in the face of “greater than expected competitive challenges”, as it posted a loss of €1.3 billion ($1.8 billion).
– The problem stems in large part from dramatic falls in mobile sales. Despite the recent launch of the lower-priced Lumia 900, net sales for the first quarter were €7.4 billion — down 29 percent on the same period last year — and Nokia witnessed falls from top to bottom. There was a 52 percent drop in smartphone sales revenue on the same time last year, and a 32 percent reduction in revenue from featurephones.
10:37 – Apple make flashback removal tool available
– Apple has released an update for Java on Macintosh computers running Mac OSX 10.6 and 10.7 (“Snow Leopard” and “Lion”) which it says gets rid of the Flashback malware that has affected as many as 600,000 Macs worldwide. The tool is available through the company’s built-in Software Update system.
– Symantec published research on Thursday night as the tool was released which suggests that the number of infected Macs has dropped precipitously since the existence of the infection was publicised. It says that the number of infections fell from 600,000 on 6 April to 380,000 on 10 April, to around 270,000 on 11 April – suggesting a dramatic cleanup rate among Mac owners.
13:27 – Windows 8 will come in three flavours
– Windows 8, Windows 8 Pro and Windows RT
– Windows 8 will be the mainstream consumer edition. The Pro version will bring a number of features that most mainstream consumers don’t necessarily need to Microsoft’s next operating system. These include encryption, virtualization, PC management and domain connectivity. Both Windows 8 Pro and the mainstream consumer edition will be available in 32 bit and 64 bit versions. Microsoft will also offer an enterprise version of Windows 8. Microsoft has not shared any details about the pricing of these editions yet.
– Windows 8 Pro, according to Microsoft, was designed “to help tech enthusiasts and business/technical professionals obtain a broader set of Windows 8 technologies.”
– The RT edition – which is meant for machines that run on ARM chips – will come with touch-optimized editions of Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. While there will likely be desktops that will run Windows on ARM, this edition is mostly geared towards tablets (though the other Windows 8 versions can obviously also run on x86-powered tablets).
– Until now, it also wasn’t quite clear if Microsoft also planned to include its Media Center in Windows 8. Judging from today’s announcement, Media Center will only be an option for Windows 8 Pro users and will be “available as an economical ‘media pack’ add-on.”
– Microsoft will also offer an enterprise version of Windows 8 that will include all of the features of Windows 8 Pro. This version will also feature a number of tools “for IT organization that enable PC management and deployment, advanced security, virtualization, new mobility scenarios, and much more.”
– So that’s six editions really 🙂
16:23 – Ikea to sell TVs
– Ikea to sell TV’s, blu ray players and sound systems
– However they will be integrated into Ikea furniture
– “We’ve had very clear signals from customers that there is a need to be able to buy and integrate home electronics with the furniture in a simple way,” said Tolga Öncu, sales chief at IKEA Sweden, told Reuters.
– Ikea’s electronics come from Chinese CE giant TCL.
– The product range – called Uppleva: it means ‘Experience’ – will go on sale in Sweden in June, before being rolled out to other countries in the autummn. The UK won’t get a look-in until 2013
18:21 – Pocket
– Now called pocket
– Updated look and feel on iOS and Android – much better image and video support
– Now free – looks to be a great update
20:01 – Game selling EA titles
– Mass Effect 3 and Fifa Street now in stores and online
– Nintendo also back in stores
– Good to see Game back in business it seems
21:25 – Halo 4
– 6th Nov
– Microsoft said it marked a “new beginning” for the series, which it confirmed would now continue for the next decade.
The new game will be set four years after Halo 3 and see the game’s hero, Master Chief, “confront his destiny and face an ancient evil”.
– First game since 343 Industries took over the reigns from Bungie

Picks
Henry
Myscript Memo
– universal app iOS.
– Free to download but exporting OCR’d txt is an in app purchase.
– Only works in portrait mode. OCR happens once you’re finished rather than as you type. Works well – multiple language support and you can add your own vocabulary. Nice palm rest feature so you don’t write with your palm and finger.

Pebble

Pebble is an e-paper watch that supports iPhone and Android. It launched on Kickstarter this week looking for $100,000 by May 19th to enable them to produce the wacth. As I write this they currently have $2.8 million pledged with 33 days to go. Two days ago they had raised $1 million in 28 hours. To say this is poplar is an understatement. But what does it do?

The specs are fairly limited – a 1.26-inch 144×168-pixel black and white e-paper display with backlight, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, four buttons, a vibrating motor and a three-axis accelerometer. However the clever part of this watch is the iPhone and Android support. Get notifications from your phone on your wrist, control music via the watch and see at a glance your running or cycling pace without reaching for your phone.

The low spec’s also give the Pebble a planned battery life of seven days. There will be app’s that work alongside Pebble and a Pebble app for iOS or Android that allows you to pick from a huge range of watch faces. This is picking up from the iPod Nano watch craze and taking it to another level. There will be an SDK available prior to launch so developers can look to take full advantage of the Pebble prior to launch and there was (it’s sold out!) a hackers special option on Kickstarter that gave you a Pebble in August ahead of users so you can start to develop for it early. There has also been an announcement that the Pebble will now be waterproof rather than splashproof which is great.

Prices start at $115 plus $15 for international sipping. I think thats a bargain for the Pebble but as Chris pointed out in the podcast it is a luxury – how hard is it to look at your phone? The geek in me loves it though so I’m looking forward to my Pebble shipping later this year.

DigitalOutbox Episode 115

DigitalOutbox Episode 115
In this episode – Facebook buys Instagram. Microsoft buys some patents and BT doubles speeds.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
2:09 – Facebook buys Instagram
Facebook has just finished a deal to acquire mobile photo sharing app Instagram for approximately $1 billion in cash and stock. Instagram will remain an independently branded standalone app that’s separate from Facebook, but the services will increase their ties to each other. The transaction should go through this quarter pending some standard closing procedures
– Both Google and Facebook had approached Instagram several times over the past 18 months, but the talks clearly didn’t result in a deal. So Facebook was going to have to offer a huge premium over the last valuation
– Will still allow sharing to other platforms and services, not just Facebook
– Have they bought access to all old photos and their geo information?
– Gowalla? Beluga? Friendfeed?
– 27 milllion iOS users, 1 million on Androids debut – hit 50 million soon
– Competing with Facebooks mobile photo sharing service – it’s only true competitor?
– Facebook’s mobile offering still poor in comparison
– Tech communitys reaction pretty funny – instantly people deleting accounts, bemoaning the loss of Instagram especially in the snobby Apple community
– Guides popped up on how to back up your photo’s and then delete your account – http://mashable.com/2012/04/09/deleting-instagram-account-save-pics/
7:26 – Microsoft buys AOL Patents
– AOL is selling 800 patents to Microsoft for just north of $1 billion: $1.056 billion in cash to be exact.
– Tim Armstrong, the CEO of AOL (which owns TechCrunch), says that the company will continue to hold on to about 300 patents and patent applications after the sale. These span “core and strategic technologies” around advertising, search and content generation, he noted in a memo to employees. [Full memo below the break.]
– The sale to Microsoft came after a “competitive auction process” the company noted in a statement.
– The sale is expected to be completed by the end of 2012.
– The patent sale marks the end to a lot of speculation around what AOL would do with its patent trove. There had been pressure from shareholders, led by Starboard Value, to realize some of the value from those patents, starting last year, when investors began to grumble that the company was not focused enough on what it could be doing to make more money, and not monetizing fast enough on its growing media portfolio
– AOL stock soars by 43% on this news – thats not right is it?
9:00 – Jack Tramiel dies
– Jack Tramiel, the founder of Commodore International, has passed away at the age of 83.
– In 1981, they released the VIC-20, which at the time became the biggest-selling computer of all time. Its success was based on its versatility: it could play games, yes, but it could also be used for more practical purposes like family budgets. At USD$300, it was also “affordable”, at least by the standards of the day for such equipment
– In 1982, though, they went one better, and released the Commodore 64. It was, for the time, the perfect machine, striking a balance between performance and affordability that would see it sell over 20 million units. To this day it remains the single biggest-selling personal computer system of all time.
– What made the C64 so impressive was the way it blew away the competition in terms of both graphics and, more importantly, sound (indeed, the C64’s unique architecture means its still a favourite of chiptune artists today). This led to some of the most memorable games of the 1980s appearing on the platform, from Last Ninja to GI Joe, Elite to Little Computer People, Summer Games to Way of the Exploding Fist.
– Left in 84 and bought up remains of Atari – Tramiel’s son Sam oversaw the development of the Atari Jaguar, the company’s last important contribution to the home video game market.
11:02 – Apple respond as the Mac trojan is verified
– Apple has said it is developing a tool to “detect and remove” a Trojan that is said to have infected more than half a million Mac computers.
– It said it is working with internet service providers (ISPs) to disrupt the command network being used by hackers to exploit the malware.
– Trojans are infections that can expose computers to control by hackers.
– It is Apple’s first statement on the threat. It issued patches to prevent the malware’s installation last week.
– The two security updates were released eight weeks after Java’s developer Oracle issued a fix for other computer systems.
– What doe sthe trojan do – Although the Trojan is now only conducting click fraud scam by hijacking people’s search engine results inside their web browsers, it has the potential to do greater damage, such as stealing banking or login credential. If the botnet remains connected to computers, cybercriminals could send new malware to their systems that cause bigger problems.
– To understand the power of the Flashback, it’s important to note that it’s actually a family of Mac OS X malware that was first created in September 2011. It was designed to disguise itself as an Adobe Flash Player installer, using Flash player logos. After installing Flashback, the malware originally sought user names and passwords that are stored on Macs.
13:36 – DOJ sues Apple and book publishers over price fixing
– The US has filed an antitrust suit against Apple, Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, and Penguin
– The DOJ’s actions come after a year-long investigation into Apple and publishers, after Apple switched to an “agency” model that is said to have resulted in an industry-wide price increase — with only a few sellers in the market setting prices. Last month it seemed that publishers were ready to settle with the DOJ, and it appears that some are still prepared to do so: Bloomberg reports that Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, and HarperCollins want to avoid a legal battle and could settle with the government today. Others, like Penguin Group, are reportedly ready to fight in court.
– Three of the publishers settled with the Justice Department, agreeing to let Amazon and other retailers resume discounting of e-books. Settlement of a separate suit filed by 16 states and U.S. territories could lead to tens of millions of dollars in restitution to consumers who bought e-books at the higher prices.
– Amazon called the settlement a victory for consumers and users of its Kindle e-reading device. It promised to renew discounting, which could put pressure on such rivals as Barnes & Noble Inc. BKS -1.59% “We look forward to being allowed to lower prices on more Kindle books,” Amazon said.
– Apple and two publishers didn’t settle and are on track to face the government in court. Apple declined to comment but earlier denied acting in concert with the publishers.
18:04 – Google+ Refresh
– Now more beautiful?
– The new interface drops the static icons at the top and moves all the navigation off to the side, allowing users to reorder the icons as they wish. The list includes access to all of Google+’s features, including Hangouts, Photos, Circles, Games, your Profile page, an Explore option for browsing the site, and an icon called “More” which will hold all the icons you don’t care to see.
– Applications mentioned in nav bar – is this the start of app’s coming to Google+?
– Photos and Videos now bigger – much better display
– Facebook esque profile/timeline layout
– Hangouts – easier to manage/join with others
– Whats Hot is now called Explore
– Anyone still using it?
22:13 – BBC Launch Sport App for connected TVs
– True on-demand video from your TV via red buttin and this app
– Built around F1 initially but will be extended to support Wimbledon, Euro 2012 and the Olympics
– Launched on Tivo now – others to come soon
24:51 – BT doubling Infinity speeds
– BT broadband customers who subscribe to the company’s Infinity 2 package will see their fibre download speeds nearly double from tomorrow, the national telco has promised from 38Mbit/s to “up to” 76Mbps on 12 April – upstream speeds of “up to” 19Mbit/s
– This will not lead to cost hikes for its customers.
– Those subscribers on BT’s Infinity 1 package will also see their broadband download speeds swell to “up to” 38Mbps and with upload speeds that could reach 9.5Mbit/s, it said.
– Here’s the rub, though: Existing customers already signed up to Infinity will be required to agree a new contract – at no extra cost – with BT before being able to access the new speeds.
– A BT spokesman confirmed that such a customer would first need to order a “regrade” from the company before “extending” their contract to another 12 or another 18 months.

Picks
Ian
Pebble
– E-Paper Watch for iPhone and Android

Caines Arcade
– If you’ve got 11 minutes, watch this

Hero Academy

My pick this week is Hero Academy from Robot Entertainment, a light weight alternative to chess with great graphics and some strategic depth that isn’t obvious on your first few games. It is a universal app for iOS only and is free with in-app purchases to allow you to play with other teams within the game.

Hero Academy - I'm in trouble!

The aim of the game is to destroy your opponents crystals or knock out all of your opponents team. The game is entirely multiplayer against friends or randoms. Each player has a round, with a round made up of five turns. In that turn you can deploy units, move units, upgrade or heal units or attack your opponents. The game will randomly give you units and upgrades which you can place on the board, upgrade, use to heal your troops or hurt the enemy or alternatively swap out for another random unit.

There are a number of board layouts and there are some strategic tiles on the board which can really turn the game if used correctly. Stand on the crystal to weaken your opponents crystal, stand on the sword or shield to increase your defence or attack power. One critiscism with Hero Academy is at first it can feel like much of the game is hidden from you – what does this character do, how best to use them etc but play the game more and you will unlock it’s secrets. It’s a shame there isn’t a single player game as I found my first few games were mostly me being the whipping boy – think Call of Duty if you start playing a couple of weeks after everybody has started and your weapons suck and you don’t know the maps – Hero Academy can feel like that at first but stick with it.

To Help this, Robot Entertainment have put together a Hero Academy game guide thats well worth reading. Alternatively the staff at Tap magazine uploaded a good strategy guide video thats worth watching (embedded below).

As I’ve said, Hero Academy is free to play but only comes with the Council team playable. There are another three teams that you have to pay to unlock (£1.49 per team) and I was worried at first that the teams had purely cosmetic differences but each teams has different units and strengths/weaknesses so it extends the gameplay massively.

Hero Academy - In App Purchases

I’d suggest though sticking with the free Council team initially and once you understand how best to play with Council then move on and purchase a new team. One negative with Hero Academy though is that it is fairly aggressive serving out advert’s. These disappear with one in-app purchase so it might be worth your while buying a new team just to kill the ad’s – that’s what I did. It’s also worth noting that the in-app purchases don’t make it easier to win or play – a good move by the developers as I hate games that give you pay options to make it easier especially

Great audio and graphics coupled with hidden depth makes for a really fun game. The latest update also made Hero Academy a universal app so full support for the iPad is now included. Well worth playing but don’t blame me when Hero Academy starts eating up all your spare time.

DigitalOutbox Episode 114

DigitalOutbox Episode 114
In this episode the team discuss Project Glass, Privacy and Apple woes

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
0:58 – Girls Around Me
– When you load it up, the first thing Girls Around Me does is figure out where you are and load up a Google Map centered around your location.
– It’s when you push the radar button that Girls Around Me does what it says on the tin. I pressed the button for my friends. Immediately, Girls Around Me went into radar mode, and after just a few seconds, the map around us was filled with pictures of girls who were in the neighborhood. Since I was showing off the app on a Saturday night, there were dozens of girls out on the town in our local area.
– These are all girls with publicly visible Facebook profiles who have checked into these locations recently using Foursquare. Girls Around Me then shows you a map where all the girls in your area trackable by Foursquare area. If there’s more than one girl at a location, you see the number of girls there in a red bubble. Click on that, and you can see pictures of all the girls who are at that location at any given time. The pictures you are seeing are their social network profile pictures.”
– Tap on a girl – Girls Around Me quickly loaded up a fullscreen render of her Facebook profile picture. The app then told me where Zoe had last been seen (The Independent) and when (15 minutes ago). A big green button at the bottom reading “Photos & Messaging” just begged to be tapped, and when I did, I was whisked away to Zoe’s Facebook profile.
“Okay, so here’s Zoe. Most of her information is visible, so I now know her full name. I can see at a glance that she’s single, that she is 24, that she went to Stoneham High School and Bunker Hill Community College, that she likes to travel, that her favorite book is Gone With The Wind and her favorite musician is Tori Amos, and that she’s a liberal. I can see the names of her family and friends. I can see her birthday.”
– While the app is bad, this is a wake up call for privacy on social sites
– Data was publicly shared by these girls – du to Foursquare and Facebook allowing friends to sign them in, they might not realise that their friends are sharing their location
– Lot’s of fallout – Foursquare suspended the app’s API access
– Apple then withdrew the app from the app store – actually the app developers did, not because of the -ve publicity but due to the API restrictions. The app no longer worked.
– Developer defends app – it was about venue discovery, not girl discovery – http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2012/03/31/girls-around-me-developer-defends-app-after-foursquare-dismissal/
4:02 – Govt plans increased email and social media surveillance
– Ministers are to introduce a new law allowing police and security services to extend their monitoring of the public’s email and social media communications, the Home Office has confirmed.
– It is expected that the new system will allow security officials to scrutinise who is talking to whom and exactly when the conversations are taking plac, but not the content of messages.
– Labour tried to introduce a similar system using a central database tracking all phone, text, email and internet use but that was ditched in 2009. It followed concerns raised by internet service providers and mobile phone operators over the project’s feasibility, and anxieties over who would foot the bill.
– The coalition’s proposals are likely to be introduced in the Queen’s speech on 9 May and will centre on internet service providers gathering the information and allowing government intelligence operatives to scrutinise it.
– “It is vital that police and security services are able to obtain communications data in certain circumstances to investigate serious crime and terrorism and to protect the public,” said a Home Office spokesman, who said the plans would be brought forward “as soon as parliamentary time allows”.
– Internet service providers are obliged to keep details of users’ web access, email and internet phone calls for 12 months, under an EU directive from 2009.
– Although the content of the calls is not kept, the sender, recipient, time of communication and geographical location does have to be recorded.
– The proposed new law – which the Home Office says will be brought in “as soon as parliamentary time allows” – would extend those requirements to social networking sites and internet phone services such as Skype.
– It would also reportedly allow intelligence officers to access emails, calls and texts as they happen, without a warrant, rather than retrospectively.
– Overzealous civil servants driving policy?
– Lib dem briefing doc – https://docs.google.com/file/d/1_wMtlFHrktpyOEFSkRSmBnOBPYDkPF6y-gL7Es_h0tu58aPVeHq9p45ulRcX/view?sle=true&pli=1
– Also, Gove fought to keep his e-mails private in early March
– http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17235168
– *** How would this work in practice? What about data that is held on servers overseas? Surely that can’t be part of this?
10:02 – Twitter suing spammers
– Twitter is officially putting its foot down and enlisting the help of the federal courts, filing a suit in San Francisco today against its five most aggressive spammers. In pursuing legal action, Twittersaid in a statement on its blog, it believes it’s going “straight to the source”.
– By shutting down tool providers, we will prevent other spammers from having these services at their disposal. Further, we hope the suit acts as a deterrent to other spammers, demonstrating the strength of our commitment to keep them off Twitter … While this is an important step, our efforts to combat spam don’t stop here. Our engineering team continues to implement robust technical solutions that help us proactively reduce spam.
– Finally doing something about spam?
– Annoying thing is a spammer is so obvious – why is it down to users to report?
13:29 – Game rescued
– The administrators of Game Group have announced that the 333 of its UK shops that are still open have been sold to OpCapita.
– The agreement will safeguard the jobs of nearly 3,200 Game Group employees. A small number from head office who were previously made redundant may also be re-employed.
– OpCapita is a private investment firm specialising in retail. It has set up a company called Baker Acquisitions to buy the shops.
– Former Halfords Group chief executive David Hamid, now a partner at OpCapita, has been appointed chairman of Game. A chief executive is expected to be named shortly. Ian Shepherd held the role until last week, when he resigned with immediate effect after a two-year battle to turn the company around.
– OpCapita acquired electrical retailer Comet from its owner Kesa Electricals last year for a nominal sum of £2. The financial terms of its Game acquisition have not been disclosed, but it is thought to have paid a nominal sum and taken on the company’s debts.
15:07 – Foxconn audit
– A report into working conditions at Chinese factories operated by anApple supplier has revealed “serious” labour violations, including excessive hours, unpaid wages and major health and safety risks.
– The Fair Labor Association (FLA) said employees at Foxconn, which produces products including iPhones and iPads, typically worked more than 60 hours a week during peak periods but were paid unfair compensation for overtime.
– Around two-thirds of workers told investigators that their take-home pay was insufficient to meet basic needs.
– In addition, 43% said they had witnessed an accident at work, leading to fears of poor safety provisions at the plants.
– The (FLA) was asked by Apple to investigate working conditions at Foxconn after reports of long hours and poor safety.
– The FLA says it has now secured agreements to reduce hours, protect pay, and improve staff representation.
– Apple said it “fully accepted” the report’s recommendations. “We share the FLA’s goal of improving lives and raising the bar for manufacturing companies everywhere,” it said in a statement.
– Of course, some employees aren’t happy with the reduction in money:
-“We are here to work and not to play, so our income is very important,” said Chen Yamei, 25, a Foxconn worker from Hunan who said she had worked at the factory for four years.
“We have just been told that we can only work a maximum of 36 hours a month of overtime. I tell you, a lot of us are unhappy with this. We think that 60 hours of overtime a month would be reasonable and that 36 hours would be too little,” she added. Chen said she now earned a bit over 4,000 yuan a month ($634).
17:58 – iPad Wifi Issues
– Besides the supposed third-generation iPad charging and overheating issues, the iPad WiFi issues were noted by the media during the past couple of weeks. Apple has taken notice and has admitted internally to some new iPad models having the WiFi issues described in numerous reports and on forum threads. The company says “symptoms can include, but are not limited to: intermittent connectivity, slow WiFi speeds, and WiFi network not seen.”

– Apple tells AppleCare employees to ensure that devices they test are not facing these issues due to normal software bugs, but instead because of the actual hardware components.
WiFi-only third-generation iPads are the only devices affected by these issues, according to Apple. The 4G LTE models are presumably safe from these issues due to the extra network power allowed by the black rubber cut on the top of the unit.
19:44 – Mac trojan affects 600000
– Apple released a Java 1.6.0_31 update for OS X on Tuesday that claims to deliver “improved compatibility, security, and reliability.” The patch closes multiple vulnerabilities found in Java 1.6.0_29, the most serious of which allows malicious code to be executed just by visiting a compromised website. The update is available from Software Update on any Mac running Mac OS X v10.6.8, Mac OS X Server v10.6.8, OS X Lion v10.7.3, or Lion Server v10.7.3.
– Russian security firm Doctor Web claims that attackers began to exploit the Java vulnerability on March 16th which Apple closed with the release of the Java update on April 3rd. Dr. Web now estimates that about 600,000 Macs, most of which reside in the US (55 percent) and Canada (19.8 percent), are now infected members of the Flashbackbotnet. The company also notes that some four million compromised web-pages could be found in Google search results at the end of March with some users claiming infection by visiting sites as mainstream as dlink.com.
– Security company F-Secure has instructions for detecting and deleting the Flashback botnet on infected computers.
22:47 – Project Glass
– Glasses not for sale but Google has begun public testing of it’s augmented reality glasses
– The prototype version Google showed off on Wednesday looked like a very polished and well-designed pair of wrap-around glasses with a clear display that sits above the eye. The glasses can stream information to the lenses and allow the wearer to send and receive messages through voice commands. There is also a built-in camera to record video and take pictures.
– This is the future…or is it?
– On sale this year – Google says unlikely
28:06 – HTC One X and S Launched
– O2, Vodafone, Three, Orange, and T-Mobile are all taking orders for the brand new One X and One S Android 4.0 smartphones from HTC. As usual, Three will give you the most for your money, though O2’s new On & On tariff — which the company describes as its best ever — is also worth a look, costing you £36 per month over a two-year contract, but also giving you unlimited minutes and the One X for no upfront cost. Should you be more inclined to buy the handset by itself, Amazon will sell you an unlocked and SIM-free One X for £489.99
– The One X got some great reviews – best phone you can buy today – http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/2/2919202/htc-one-x-review
29:35 – Instagram launches for Android
– The app adds creative, nostalgic filters to your pictures and makes sharing them easy (almost addictive).
– You can add effects to a picture you take with your front or back camera or choose a picture from your gallery. There are a number of custom filters and borders to choose from, including several ’70s effects and a black and white effect. Instantly upload the photo to your Instagram account and share it if you please to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Foursquare; Flickr is in the works.
– 1 million downloads in a day
– Hated the snobs on twitter – oh no – now I need to see android users photos on instagram
– Now I need to see photos from poor people
31:13 – Olympics Overload
– The BBC will make 24-HD quality live Olympic streams available to cable and satellite providers for the duration of the Olympics Games
– Viewers will be able to watch every Olympic sport, live from every venue, via tools such as Sky EPG and BBC Red Button. Virgin Media and Freesat customers will also have access. This complements previously confirmed plans for 24 simultaneous streams live online on the BBC Sport website.
– 48 new channels will be added to the Sports section of Sky’s EPG from July 24. The channels are free-to-air and available to any Sky home. The HD channels are available on any Sky+HD box and do not require a subscription, but do require an HD ready TV.
– Freesat viewers and Freesat standard definition viewers will also have access to the streams.
33:39 – Virgin throttles all users
– Virgin Media has introduced new throttling “trigger levels” for customers who make heavy use of its network.
– The telco updated its subscriber traffic management (STM) policy yesterday to “ensure the vast majority of customers get the high quality of service they expect from Virgin Media’s fibre optic broadband without being negatively affected by extremely heavy users” at peak times.
– It classified a so-called “bandwidth hog” as a 60Mbit/s customer, for example, who can download 5,000MB of data between 4pm and 9pm on a weekday before having their broadband connection throttled.
– A company spokesman told The Register that around 5 per cent of users would be affected by the STM policy. Those punters can expect to see their speed usage of the network temporarily throttled by 50 per cent.
36:03 – 0x10c
– Next game from Minecraft creator Notch
– Space game

Picks
Ian
Hero Academy
– RPG’ish battle between friends
– Like mini chess
– Seems simple but has real depth due to different factions, characters, powers and upgrades
– Multiplayer – play quickly or over a few days like words with friends
– Now universal – lovely lovely graphics
– Free, but in app purchases to unlock other classes

Paper

Paper is a new sketch and note taking iPad app from FiftyThree. Considering the iPad is two years old it’s a later addition to an already saturated market so whats marks out Paper when compared to the other sketch tools? Simplicity.

Paper is free and is well worth downloading. You can have a number of sketch books, the only customisation option being the name and cover photo of the book. Touch on a book to open the book in a coverflow view of the pages. Swipe through the pages and when you reach a page you want to edit touch on it. You will be presented with a blank page. No lines, no toolbars. Just one default tool that allows you to draw on the page. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to open the tool tray which allows you to select from one of 5 tools and only 9 colours.

Although the app is free it only comes with one tool – Draw. To use the other tools which are Sketch, Outline, Write and Colour you need to buy them individually or buy them all for a slightly reduced price (around £5 from memory). Initially I thought that was slightly rude but it’s a great model that I’m surprised more tools don’t adopt. One really nice feature is a 20 step undo/redo. Place two fingers on the screen and rotate anti-clockwise to step through recent changes and undo them, rotate clockwise to reinstate them. Simple and effective. You also have access to an erase tool but thats it – a very clean environment that leaves you free to concentrate on your notes rather than how to use the tool. The video below from FiftyThree highlights the key features.

It’s easy to add a new page within a book and to move back to the home screen, select a new book and cary on sketching. Paper has limited but very clever sharing features. You can share a sketch on Tumblr, Facebook and Twittter or send via e-mail. I was surprised by how limited the options seemed to be – no way to save to image folder for example but you can just take a screenshot and share that way.

The reason it’s clever is how the images are shared, take Twitter for example.

By adding the hashtag #MadeWithPaper it’s easy to click and view the thousands of sketches that are being shared on Twitter and hence generating a lot of buzz about the app. Paper is easier to use with a stylus (sorry Steve!) but it helps if you have a bit of talent.

These are two sketches from Shak, one of the founders of DigitalOutbox, who also has some skills…unlike me.

It’s all positive so far but there are some negatives to be aware of. Firstly there are no brush sizes at all so it can feel a bit clumsy and imprecise especially with the colour tool. There’s also no zoom or layer support so when you look at something like SketchBook Pro which costs £2.99 it can seem expensive. Yes – I’ve just criticised a free app for being expensive.

So why is Paper a pick? The simplicity helps you focus on content rather than the application, and the tools that come with Paper feel right. I’ve created a few screen mock ups in Paper and they look so much better than what I’ve managed so far in the other sketch tools. If you’ve got an iPad Paper is well worth trying, especially if you’ve one of those lovely new retina iPad’s. Happy sketching.

DigitalOutbox Episode 113

DigitalOutbox Episode 113
In this episode the team discuss Game, Racists, Kindle Touch and Paper.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:42 – Game Enters Administration
– Enters administration
– Immediate closure of 277 stores in the UK and Ireland.
– Administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) said 2,104 employees would be made redundant this week.
– The remaining 333 stores will stay open as the administrators search for a buyer for the business.
– PwC said that the retailer had suffered from high fixed costs and an ambitious international expansion. “Our priority is to continue trading the business as normal while we continue to pursue a sale,” said one of the administrators, Mike Jervis. “The recent job losses are regrettable, but will place the company in a stronger position while we explore opportunities to conclude a sale.
– PwC also said that all gift cards for Game and Gamestation had been suspended, meaning that customers would not be able to use them to buy merchandise and no cash exchange would be offered.
– http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/game-to-exit-administration-tomorrow-rbs-consortium-wins-race/093563
– Sources close to the negotiations are certain that a deal to save the retailer is incredibly close, with a likely exit from administration as early as tomorrow (Friday March 30th).
– Furthermore, multiple sources have told us that it will be the RBS-led bank consortium – and not GameStop or OpCapita – that will seal the deal.
6:10 – Racist twitter user jailed for 56 days
– A student who admitted posting racially offensive comments on Twitter about footballer Fabrice Muamba has been jailed for 56 days.
– Swansea University student Liam Stacey, 21, from Pontypridd, admitted inciting racial hatred over remarks about the Bolton Wanderers player, who collapsed during a FA Cup tie at Tottenham.
– Stacey broke down in tears as he was led away to begin his jail term.
– A second year biology student at Swansea, Stacey was arrested after his comments on the social networking site were reported by other users.
– A number of people challenged Stacey on Twitter following his first comment, and he responded with a number of offensive posts aimed at other Twitter users.
– Last week the court heard how Stacey posted the offensive comments shortly after the former England Under-21 star collapsed during the FA Cup quarter-final at White Hart Lane on 17 March.
– Magistrates were told police forces across Britain received complaints following the comments.
– Stacey tried to “distance himself” from the tweets by claiming his account had been hacked, the court was told. He later tried to delete his page but was arrested the following day at his student house in Swansea.
– When interviewed by police, Stacey said he had been drinking since lunchtime on Saturday and was drunk when he made the comments.
– Stacey was initially released on bail pending sentence and was ordered not to use Twitter and other social networking sites.
11:06 – Kindle Touch hits the UK
– The Kindle Touch will be available for delivery from 27 April, five months after it went on sale in the US. Unlike in America, there will not be a discounted version with adverts.
– The Touch is being sold for £109 with wi-fi, and £169 with both wi-fi and 3G connectivity, with no monthly fee.
– In the States, the units cost $99 and $149 for the Wi-Fi and 3G editions with adverts, $139 and $189 without adverts
– Still no Kindle Fire!
– What does Bezos do with his billions? Finds Apollo 11 F1 engines and plans to raise then from the Atlantic ocean – they are only 14,000 feet below the surface – http://www.bezosexpeditions.com/engine-recovery.html
15:40 – Harry Potter ebooks finally available
– All seven of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books are now available to download in e-book format from Pottermore, having been initially scheduled for last October.
– The first three can be bought for £4.99 (compared with their paper price of £6.99) and the last four can be bought for £6.99 (compared with their £8.99 printed price). Alternatively the whole lot can be bought as a bundle for £38.65. The titles can be read on e-book devices and platforms including Amazon’s Kindle, Sony’s Reader, Barnes & Noble’s Nook and Google Play — although iBooks is conspicuously not listed. The audiobooks are more pricey, at £17.99 and £32.99 respectively or £167.34 for the bundle.
– landmark move because you can only buy the books on Pottermore, but can fulfil the orders of those books through the Kindle platform. So although you find a shop front for the books atwww.amazon.co.uk/pottermore, the user is directed through to Pottermore to purchase the e-books, which will then be seamlessly pushed to their Kindle Library. Otherwise the books are available in ePub format, which is compatible with a wide range of readers, including Apple devices.
17:49 – Dot scot on the way
– The UK government has reportedly granted Dot Scot Registry, a not-for-profit company, with approval to apply for .scot, a new internet top-level domain.
– The wannabe registry can now apply to domain name policy oversee ICANN for .scot, paying a $185,000 (£116,970) application fee for the privilege.
– Under ICANN rules, any proposed new gTLD that purports to represent a geographic region needs to get a letter of approval or non-objection from the relevant local government. Dot Scot Registry now has that letter, according to The Scotsman.
19:19 – Friends Reunited Relaunches
– Early social networking pioneer Friends Reunited has been relaunched.
The UK-based network, which began in 2000, now invites users to sign up for its new “memories”-based service.
– The original site was bought by ITV for £175m in 2005, only to be sold for £25.6m four years later to online publishing group Brightsolid
– The site’s owner, Brightsolid, believes a host of professional archive content coupled with users’ own material will help make Friends Reunited the choice of social network for people keen to partake in online nostalgia.
– The site has teamed up with the Press Association and the British Library to allow users to attach old material – including newspaper clippings – to their own “memory box”.
– These boxes can be shared on various other networks online – including Facebook, where users can add a Friends Reunited app to their profile.
– The service is currently free to use – although Mr Kuyl said revenue-generating options were being considered further down the line, including inviting brands to offer their own nostalgic material, such as old cars, to be added to users’ memories.
22:02 – Shitter
– New startup will deliver your tweets on toilet rolls

Picks
Ian
Paper
– a blank slate of paper devoid of settings panels, menus, and adjustable line widths.
– team behind it had an interesting history: a handful of them spent several years at Microsoft, with a good chunk of that time focused on the Courier
– Fountain pen is only tool at startup
– Free app but £6 for 4 tools – Write (ballpoint), Sketch (pencil), Outline (marker), and Color (watercolor paintbrush)
– Simplicity and clear toolbar free UI is really nice. Great for sketching, but here’s the funny. A stylus really helps.
– Undo is really nice – hold two fingers on iPad and rotate anti clockwise – step through additions removing one at a time
– Share – twitter, facebook, tumblr and e-mail

Wind Map
– Lovely visualisation of current wind flows in the US
– Team hope to expand ot other countries if they can find the data feeds they need

DigitalOutbox Episode 112

DigitalOutbox Episode 112
In this episode the team discuss Apple and it’s money. Mike Daisey, Game and iPlayer hits the 360.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:01 – Twitter turns 6
– wowzers. launched 6 years ago in 21st March.
– known as twttr back then!
1:58 – Apple makes announcement on spending money
– Buy Twitter?
– Buy a carrier?
– Buy Samsung?
– Increase Foxconn salaries?
– Invest in cloud?
– Philanthropic?
– Reduce prices?
– No, Apple plans to pay shareholders a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share sometime in Q4 2012, which for Apple begins this July. In case you were wondering, the last time Apple paid dividends was in 1995 – a move that netted shareholders $0.12 per share.
– On top of that, Apple’s Board of Directors gave their blessing for the company to buy back $10 billion of stock over the next three years. The repurchase program is slated to begin in September 2012, and is meant to help neutralize “the impact of dilution from future employee equity grants and employee stock purchase programs.”
– Overall cost is $45 billion, but they made almost $15 million last quarter alone
5:05 – This American Life retracts episode on Foxconn
– US public-radio show This American Life has retracted a story it aired in January – the most listened-to show in its history – in which monologist Mike Daisey detailed what he claimed were his personal experiences when investigating heinous working conditions in plants operated by Apple’s Chinese contract manufacturers.
– A new episode of This American Life detailing the issues and what happened airs later today, with an MP3 of the broadcast available Sunday. Host Ira Glass is taking full responsibility for the error, saying that he’s “horrified to have let something like this onto public radio.”
– Daisey lied to me and to This American Life producer Brian Reed during the fact checking we did on the story, before it was broadcast. That doesn’t excuse the fact that we never should’ve put this on the air. In the end, this was our mistake.
– For his part, Daisey does not seem to be contrite at all, with a statement on his blog saying that his work is “not journalism” and “operates under a different set of rules and expectations” from a show like This American Life.
– What I do is not journalism. The tools of the theater are not the same as the tools of journalism. For this reason, I regret that I allowed THIS AMERICAN LIFE to air an excerpt from my monologue. THIS AMERICAN LIFE is essentially a journalistic ­- not a theatrical ­- enterprise, and as such it operates under a different set of rules and expectations.
– The bit that pisses me off about Daisey – he lies to justify his show:
– To my audiences: It’s you that I owe the most to. I want you all to know that I will not go silent—I will be making a full accounting of this work, shining a light through this monologue and telling the story of its origins, construction, and details.
– I believe the truth is vitally important. I continue to believe that. I believe that I will answer for the things I have done. I told Ira that story should always be subordinate to the truth, and I still believe that. Sometimes I fall short of that goal, but I will never stop trying to achieve it.
– Ironic
– http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xnb2hi_mike-daisey-on-technology-journalists_tech
– video of Mike Daisey lamenting tech journalists and the lack of journalism in the industry
11:12 – New iPad Sales
– Three million sold
– “The new iPad is a blockbuster with three million sold-the strongest iPad launch yet,” said Philip Schiller
– Strongest launch as it’s on sale in the most countries?
13:03 – Sky launches NowTV
– broadcaster is branching out into internet TV, launching a completely new brand called Now TV.
– it will be pay-as-you-go and “over-the-top” [i.e. IPTV that won’t require having a Sky contract or Sky hardware installed].
– service will launch with films, then sports before adding the broadcaster’s entertainment content.
14:21 – iPlayer finally added to 360
– free for all Xbox Live users, making it the first UK entertainment app on the system that doesn’t require an Xbox Live Gold subscription.
– No login support, but can favourite, search
– HD available as well as subtitles
– Worked well in my tests – easy to use and good clear picture
16:20 – Game shares suspended
– shares were suspended and it admitted the business has no value.
– The company, which operates 1,300 stores worldwide and employs 10,000 staff, was reported to be trying to raise £180m this week or face administration after several suppliers refused to provide it with new products.
– In a statement on Wednesday morning, Game said discussions were taking place with a potential third-party funder but it was unable to assess its financial position and was “of the opinion that there is no equity value left in the group”.
– Its shares were suspended on the London Stock Exchange “pending clarification of the company’s financial position”.
– Some 600 of Game’s stores are in the UK, employing 6,000 staff. All the group’s stores, which also include the Gamestation brand, are still open for business.
– It has been reported that Game faces a £21m rent payment on Sunday and a £12m wage bill at the end of the month. It also owes more than £10m in VAT and £40m to suppliers. A new investor would have to pay up to £100m to Game’s banks.
19:15 – A budget for game developers
– Chancellor George Osborne has heeded calls from the videogame industry and agreed to provide it with tax breaks.
– Announced in today’s Budget, the scheme will commence in April 2013, giving time for civil servants and stakeholders to thrash out the details – “subject to State Aid approval and following consultation”, as Mandarin-speak puts it.
– That said, the Treasury estimates the relief, which will also apply to animation companies, will cost the Exchequer £15m in the 2013-2014 tax year, rising to £35m in 2014-2015.
– Videogame industry organisations such as Tiga, which represents developers, believe that cost will be more than balanced by extra tax revenue generated by UK publishers who would otherwise send development work overseas to countries already offering generous tax breaks to games coders.
1:29 – BBC Boss coad Service
– Chancellor George Osborne has heeded calls from the videogame industry and agreed to provide it with tax breaks.
– Announced in today’s Budget, the scheme will commence in April 2013, giving time for civil servants and stakeholders to thrash out the details – “subject to State Aid approval and following consultation”, as Mandarin-speak puts it.
– That said, the Treasury estimates the relief, which will also apply to animation companies, will cost the Exchequer £15m in the 2013-2014 tax year, rising to £35m in 2014-2015.
– Videogame industry organisations such as Tiga, which represents developers, believe that cost will be more than balanced by extra tax revenue generated by UK publishers who would otherwise send development work overseas to countries already offering generous tax breaks to games coders.
19:55 – Zynga buys OMGPOP
– Zynga has acquired OMGPOP, addingDraw Something to its list of popular social and mobile gaming titles. Zynga paid OMGPOP $178.5 million, plus another $30 million in employee retention
– For OMGPOP the deal is a culmination of six years of blood, sweat and tears, as it started primarily as a maker of Flash-based games for the desktop. But mobile and social changes everything: Putting Draw Something on a mobile device, making it accessible wherever and whenever and harnessing the power of Facebook to connect players and their friends has made OMGPOP an overnight powerhouse.
22:35 – Facebook launches HD photo
– will now display photos in high resolution by default, and will allow you to enter a full screen gallery mode by clicking arrows in the top right corner of a photo. On a big display, the company claims, photos will display up to four times larger than before (assuming they were taken using a half-decent camera). The maximum resolution the photo viewer can handle is 2048 x 2048, we’re told.
– While the social networking site has allowed high definition photo uploads since late 2010, only now will the site default to displaying the biggest image at hand. With these new features Facebook is placing an even bigger bet on high quality photo content going forward, which will have a huge impact on its server farms; six billion high definition photo uploads per month will take up a lot of space (and bandwidth, for that matter)
24:08 – Pirate Bay Drones
– Suffered some downtime at the weekend – they then posted this…
– With the development of GPS controlled drones, far-reaching cheap radio equipment and tiny new computers like the Raspberry Pi, we’re going to experiment with sending out some small drones that will float some kilometers up in the air. This way our machines will have to be shut down with aeroplanes in order to shut down the system. A real act of war.
– We’re just starting so we haven’t figured everything out yet. But we can’t limit ourselves to hosting things just on land anymore. These Low Orbit Server Stations (LOSS) are just the first attempt. With modern radio transmitters we can get over 100Mbps per node up to 50km away. For the proxy system we’re building, that’s more than enough.

Picks
Henry
CloudOn
– free office on ipad.
– Now accepting signups

Cloak
– Zero config vpn app for Mac and iOS