Category: Podcast

DigitalOutbox Episode 95

DigitalOutbox Episode 95
In this episode the team discuss Windows 8, Facebook and Google+ War and that man Hunt.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:11 – Windows 8
– Windows 8, the next version of Microsoft’s operating system, will sport a dual interface aimed at both tablet and desktop computers, and the company will approve or reject third-party apps for the tablet version.
– Although Windows 8 will run on both Intel and ARM chip architectures, apps will have to be recompiled for the latter; there will be no virtualisation of Intel apps to run on ARM chips, which are already used in Apple’s iPad, Android tablets and HP’s discontinued TouchPad.
– Furthermore, applications for the ARM version of Windows 8 will only be available through the “Windows Store” – and only apps compiled to use its “Metro” touch interface will appear there.
– Windows 8 is expected to be released to the public in about a year’s time.
– Windows 8 is an OS with a dual personality: for tablets, and for desktops.
– The tablet side, called Metro, is a new user interface built from the ground up for touch control, and borrowing from the design used for Windows Phone 7. Instead of a Start menu with small icons, Windows 8 has chunky tiles, used both for launching applications and to display information. Run a Metro app and it fills the entire screen – a style Microsoft calls the immersive user interface.
– Internet Explorer 10 nicely demonstrates this immersive style. Browse the web, and all you see is the web page. If you need to see the address bar or other controls, you swipe the screen at top or bottom to display the application bar. Tap the page again and the controls disappear.
– There is one concession to PC-style multitasking, which is the ability to have two apps side by side. In this mode, one app occupies most of the screen, but another app runs alongside it.
– Another feature of Metro is “Charms”. Flick the screen on the right, and five icons appear, labelled Search, Share, Start, Devices and Settings. These form a common user interface for performing standard tasks: searching, sharing content on social media such as Twitter or Facebook, interacting with devices like printers, or changing application settings.
– Although it is still Windows, Metro is properly described as a new platform, since it is not fully compatible with the old Windows API (Application Programming Interface). A wide range of programming languages is supported, but Microsoft is particularly promoting JavaScript, HTML and CSS – in other words, web technologies extended with Windows-specific libraries to create apps that use the internet Explorer engine as a runtime.
– While Metro in Windows 8 looks similar to Windows Phone 7, it is quite different under the covers, and Sinofsky says that will continue to be the case. “We’ve shown how code can be shared, but running the same apps on both is still a ways away, primarily because of the form factor,” he said.
– 5000 Samsung tablets running WIndows 8 handed out at Build
– Developer preview available to download now – Ian has running in VMware on Lion
– 2 browsers in Windows 8 – Metro browser and IE 10
– Metro browser will be plugin free – no Silverlight, no Flash – HTML5 only
– Big statement on battery life, usability and where the industry is heading
– Considering tablets are going to be mostly Metro driven and run on ARM it’s going to be an interesting year for technologies like Flash
10:46 – Ballmer admits lacklustre Windows Phone 7 sales
– Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer expressed disappointment atWindows Phone 7 sales during Microsoft’s financial analyst meeting Wednesday.
– “We haven’t sold quite as many as I would have liked in the first year. … I’m not saying I love where we are, but I am very optimistic on where we can be,” Ballmer said.
– The Windows Phone 7 platform was embraced by many of the world’s largest phone manufacturers, including Samsungand HTC, both of whom soon plan to launch devices based on the next version of WP7 or Mango. However, these mobile giants have the majority of their chips invested in Google‘s Android — and that’s where most of their smartphone sales come from.
– This leaves Microsoft with only one big and really dedicated WP7 partner — the stumbling Finnish giant Nokia. “With Nokia we have a dedicated hardware partner that is all-in on Windows Phones. They are not doing something on Android,” Ballmer said.
13:32 – Intel and Google in Android chip-making partnership
– The move is aimed at giving Intel greater access to the fast-growing mobile devices sector.
– Intel is the world’s biggest chipmaker in the computer and server market.
– However, it has so far played second fiddle to Cambridge-based designer ARM Holdings in the market for low power consumption chips.
– End of Wintel?
16:19 – Google Wallet launches
– limited to just the Nexus S on Sprint so even the Nexus S for both T-Mobile and AT&T will have to wait until a deal is struck with those carriers. Users have access to a Google Wallet application that can quickly be set up using a Google sign-on. From there, you can choose to load up a MasterCard credit card from Citibank, which will directly pull from your accounts. Or you can do what I did, which is load up funds on to a Google Prepaid Card with funds from other credit and debit cards. You have to fill out all the address information to add funds from a card.
– Once your Prepaid Card is provisioned, you can choose to make that the default payment card with one click. You will need to set a PIN to unlock Google Wallet but you can set the time-out for 1, 5, 15, or 30 minutes. That’s helpful when you want to unlock Google Wallet in line so you pay quickly. You can attach location to your payment history but it doesn’t record the actual store you visited, just an approximate address.
– While you’re out and about, you just go to any PayPass enabled point of sale terminal and in lieu of a card, you can just tap your phone to pay and get a buzz on your phone to confirm the purchase. You will need to wake up the phone because of security reasons, the NFC chip won’t work until that happens. And if the time-out period has expired on the lock for Google Wallet, you will also need to enter your PIN before completing a transaction. From Google Wallet you can see an updated balance on your pre-paid card but again there is no detailed history about what you bought or where.
– Google Wallet is tied to both Google Offers and Google Shopper. Users can search for local deals on Google Shopper and save them to their Google Wallet. They can apply their deals automatically through retailers and businesses who have enabled single tap and pay; their discount is deducted from their purchase. Many other offers, however, just require a user to show their phone coupon to an employee for instant redemption. You can also add loyalty cards to Google Wallet. That’s helpful for customers who forget their loyalty cards and it’s good for businesses who have enabled single tap and pay, so one wave of Google Wallet can also be recorded in existing loyalty programs.
– When works a advertised, it’s great according to reviews
– Some glitches though – sometimes they couldn’t make payment. Payment options limited, no payment history but it’s early days. Tis the future
19:18 – Google + Updates
– Big news – nine new features
– Hangouts on your phone – Android now, iOS soon
– Hangouts on Air
– just start a normal hangout, and you’ll have the option to broadcast and record your session. Once you’re “On Air,” up to nine others can join your hangout (as usual), and anyone can watch your live broadcast:
– Hangout extras
– Screensharing: for when you want to show off your vacation photos, your high score, your lesson plan or whatever else is on your screen
– Sketchpad: for when you want to draw, doodle, or just scribble together
– Google Docs: for when you want to write, plan or present something with others
– Named Hangouts: for when you want to join or create a public hangout about a certain topic (like fashion or music or sports…)
– Hangouts APIs
– Search in Google+
You’ve been asking for it, and we’ve been busy building it, so today we’re bringing Google’s search expertise to Google+. Just type what you’re looking for into the Google+ search box, and we’ll return relevant people and posts, as well as popular content from around the web.
– Anyone can sign up for Google+—no invitation required.
25:01 – Facebook Launches Subscriptions
– Facebook is rolling out another key new feature: a one-way follow model called Subscriptions. It’s sort of like Twitter, sort of like Google+, and it massages one of the service’s biggest pain points for users who have a lot of friends (or who want to share their status updates broadly).
– Here’s how it works. As you browse around the site, you’ll notice that some users have a button at the top of their profile that says ‘Subscribe’. Click it, and you’ll start seeing that user’s status updates in your News Feed, just as if you were their Facebook friend. But there’s a big difference: unlike normal Facebook friends, the people you subscribe to don’t have to approve your subscription request, and there’s no limit on how many people can subscribe to any given user.
– Facebook says the feature will appeal to anyone looking to reach a broader audience, like journalists, artists, and political figures. To start sharing your own posts publicly, head to the new tab beneath your profile photo that says Subscriptions. Click it, and you’ll have the option to broadcast your public updates to anyone who has subscribed to you. Note that you’ll only syndicate updates that are marked Public; updates shared with Friend Lists won’t be seen by your subscribers.
– Of course, Facebook has offered a similar feature called Pages for years now, which was meant for nearly the same thing (you’ll find that many journalists and politicians have already created Facebook Pages… because that’s what Facebook told them to do). The difference here, Facebook says, is that users no longer have to maintain two separate entities; they can just use the site’s sharing settings to decide which content they want to share very broadly, and what will only be shared with friends.
– Facebook adds that this isn’t the end of Pages by any means — they say that feature will still appeal to brands and major celebrities, because Pages can be managed by multiple admins and can be customized with applications. Pages also offer Insights (Facebook’s analytics tool), whereas Subscriptions don’t. Fortunately, Facebook is allowing users to merge their Pages with their profiles, so you don’t have to rebuild your audience if you want to use the Subscription feature.
– Maybe a coincidence but Google+ has started an arms race with Facebook…and Twitter hasn’t really changed much in the last 6 months
26:52 – Facebook Updates News Feed
– Alongside subscribe and smart lists, now comes updated news feed
– Now, News Feed will act more like your own personal newspaper. You won’t have to worry about missing important stuff. All your news will be in a single stream with the most interesting stories featured at the top. If you haven’t visited Facebook for a while, the first things you’ll see are top photos and statuses posted while you’ve been away. They’re marked with an easy-to-spot blue corner.
– News Feed often has a time lag. Usually when you’re on Facebook, a lot of your friends are too. Until now, there hasn’t been an easy way to see and chat with your friends about photos, articles, and other things they’re posting in real-time. The new ticker helps you do just that.
– Ticker shows you the same stuff you were already seeing on Facebook, but it brings your conversations to life by displaying updates instantaneously. Now when a friend comments, asks a question or shares something like a check in, you’ll be able to join the conversation right away. Click on anything in ticker to see the full story and chime in – without losing your place.
33:51 – Carol Bartz Fired
– Carol Bartz fired by Yahoo board
– She’s not happy as it was done via a phone call
– Is it any surprise – not innovating, can’t think of anything they’ve done in last 2 years that stands out
36:17 – Guardian App now on Android
– The app – which is free to download and is available from the AndroidMarket worldwide – includes the latest news, sport, comment, reviews, videos, podcasts and picture galleries from guardian.co.uk.
– A full list of features and further information is available from our FAQs, but there are two bits of functionality that we’re really excited about.
First, the homescreen is highly customisable – if you like football, you could do away with the usual mix of news and sport and instead see the top five stories from our Premier League page followed by the latest from your favourite team and then Barry Glendenning’s most recent posts. If you want in depth coverage of a particular story, you can add that topic to your homescreen – UK riots or phone hacking, for instance. This level of customisation has also influenced the offline reading options. Rather than manually selecting what you want to download, there is one button that allows you to download your homescreen and your favourites. Alternatively, you can schedule this download to take place at a certain time each day – for example via Wi-Fi before you leave the house and go offline.
– Ad-supported and free unlike iPhone which is subscription (but cheap)
– iPad app nearly ready!
38:29 – Adobe works around iOS Flash Limitations
– Ardent iOS supporters have been clamoring for true Flash support for years, and with the announcement of their new version of Flash Media Server, Adobe completely fails to deliver. Instead, they’ve managed to update their media server with a way to get streaming Flash video running on Apple’s myriad iOS devices.
– Alas, while you can’t start working through your backlog of artsy Flash games, Flash Media Server 4.5 allows content producers to easily to get their Flash content onto iOS devices without any additional headache.
– While older versions of the media server served up video streams in the F4F format, the update has added support for the HTTP Live Streaming format, which iPads and the like can handle just fine.
– The media server system, according to ZDNet, detects the device’s level of Flash-capability and will switch over to using the HLS format when it sees an iOS device. It’s actually pretty ironic: in order to make Flash video streaming work, the new version of Media Server actually has to un-Flash the content and wrap it in another, more iOS-friendly container.
39:35 – Lion passwords can be changed by any local user
– In Lion the permissions for the user’s shadow files are still restrictive and prevent tampering; however, the need for direct access can be bypassed in because the system holds the password hashes in the system’s directory services, which any user can look up. As a result, the hashes can be extracted without needing to supply admin privileges, and then be run through various hacking tools and scripts to recover the user’s password.
In addition to being able to extract the password hashes for a user, any user can also directly change another user’s password, including those of system admins, merely by supplying the following command in the Terminal (substituting USERNAME for the short name of the target account):
dscl localhost -passwd /Search/Users/USERNAME
When run, this command will appear to give an error, but if you enter the same new password at all prompts then the target account’s password will be changed. This is particularly notable, because once an admin’s password is changed, the hacker can log in as that the admin account and have full access to the system.
Overall this issue in Lion means that any user (even nonadmins) can extract or change the password of another user’s account, provided they have access to the directory, such as via the Terminal utility. However, this problem does have two limitations:
Local access
The first is that the hacker needs to have access to local accounts your system, which means that you will have had to set the hacker up with an account beforehand. This hack can be done remotely with SSH connectivity, but the hacker would need to already know a local account username and password to do this. Alternatively the hacker can approach a system that is already logged in and change the passwords of accounts on it, but in this case the hacker would still need local physical access to do this.
Directory service access
Besides local access, the hacker then needs to have access to the system’s directory services (such as via the Terminal). Even if a hacker can log into the system, without access to the directory setup then the hacker will not be able to modify account information.
44:04 – Waterstones enters ereader race
– The British company’s managing director, James Daunt, told Radio 4 that it planned to enter the market with both an electronic book store and an actual reader by spring of 2012. Mr. Daunt claimed he was inspired by the success of the Nook, and the challenge it posed to Amazon’s Kindle, to finally take a stab at ushering the UK chain into the 21st century.
46:16 – Hunts anti-piracy drive
– Jeremy Hunt, CUNTure Secretary, has delivered a hard-hitting speech, calling on net firms, advertisers and credit card companies to cut ties with websites that link to unlawful content.
– Many of the changes mooted by Mr Hunt are destined for the new Communications Act which is due to become law towards the end of the current Parliament in 2015.
Suggested measures include:
A cross-industry body, perhaps modelled on the Internet Watch Foundation, to be charged with identifying infringing websites against which action could be taken
A streamlined legal process to make it possible for the courts to act quickly
A responsibility on search engines and ISPs to take reasonable steps to make it harder to access sites that a court has deemed contain unlawful content or promote unlawful distribution of content
A responsibility on advertisers to take reasonable steps to remove their advertisements from these sites
A responsibility on credit card companies and banks to remove their services from these sites.
– The hope is that the tough new measures will sit alongside the already controversial anti-piracy legislation outlined in the Digital Economy Act (DEA).
– The DEA remains in a state of suspended animation as the government waits for the European Parliament to approve changes to it.
– For its part, Google said that it felt that its current anti-piracy policies were sufficient.
It operates a takedown process in which it removes links identified as infringing copyright. Last year it removed three million items from its search engine.
50:12 – Newzbin 2 fights upcoming block
– In July, BT was ordered to block access to Newzbin2 after legal action by the Motion Picture Association (MPA).
– The MPA said the member-only Newzbin2 site brings together pirated movies and music put on Usenet discussion boards.
– The block is to be enforced via BT’s Cleanfeed system which is more usually used to stop people visiting sites that peddle images of child sex abuse.
– Before the block goes into effect in mid-October, programmers who work for Newzbin2 have been working on software they claim will be able to defeat the blocking system.
– On 14 September, the first version of the Windows program Newzbin2 members will use to get at the site was released. Versions for Apple’s OSX and Linux are planned.
According to file-sharing news site TorrentFreak, Newzbin2 is not willing to reveal how the code attempts to get around the Cleanfeed block.
– However, TorrentFreak ran some tests using network sniffing software and found that the program relies on encryption to hide communication between users and Newzbin2.
– Another technique it uses is to route all traffic through a well-established system known as TOR, which masks the identity of users and what they are trying to look at.
52:36 – Court bans man called Peter from calling himself Peter Because he is accused of being Anonymous
– A man called Peter has been banned from using the name “Peter” on the internet as a bail condition after being charged today with unauthorised use of a computer.
Peter David Gibson, 22, from Hartlepool, was among three men and one unnamed 17-year-old charged at the City of Westminster Magistrates Court this morning for offences in connection with the LulzSec and Anonymous hacks.
– The court records state that bail has been granted on the following conditions:
1) Not to be part of any internet relay and not to participate in any internet relay action.
2) Not to use the internet using the name “Peter”.
– The reason given was “to prevent reoffending”.

Picks
Ian
if this then that
– Put the internet to work for you by creating tasks that fit this simple structure:
– So I’ve created a task – e-mail me if it’s to Snow in Glasgow tomorrow
– If I post to Instapaper, copy the photo to Facebook as well
– Reminders based on events, calendar etc can be alerted via text message
– Popular recipes – http://ifttt.com/recipes?sort=most_popular

DigitalOutbox Episode 94

DigitalOutbox Episode 94
In this episode the team discuss Steve Jobs, Google, Touchpad and Windows 8

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:43 – Steve Jobs Resigns
– Steve Jobs steps down and will now act as Chairman of Apple and the board
– Tim Cook installed as CEO
– So Steve will still work at Apple, be involved but you’ve got to wonder for how much longer
– Ian – can’t help but feel sad about this, not because of the impact at Apple but how illness looks to have forced Steve Jobs out of a role that he excelled at and whether you like what Apple stands for or not, has shaped the digital world we live in
– Felt quite sad at the almost obituaries that were posted but then at the same time it was almost universal praise and some great storeis
– Ians fav – Vic Gundotra, senior vice president of engineering at Google
– One Sunday morning, January 6th, 2008 I was attending religious services when my cell phone vibrated. As discreetly as possible, I checked the phone and noticed that my phone said “Caller ID unknown”. I choose to ignore.

After services, as I was walking to my car with my family, I checked my cell phone messages. The message left was from Steve Jobs. “Vic, can you call me at home? I have something urgent to discuss” it said.

Before I even reached my car, I called Steve Jobs back. I was responsible for all mobile applications at Google, and in that role, had regular dealings with Steve. It was one of the perks of the job.

“Hey Steve – this is Vic”, I said. “I’m sorry I didn’t answer your call earlier. I was in religious services, and the caller ID said unknown, so I didn’t pick up”.

Steve laughed. He said, “Vic, unless the Caller ID said ‘GOD’, you should never pick up during services”.

I laughed nervously. After all, while it was customary for Steve to call during the week upset about something, it was unusual for him to call me on Sunday and ask me to call his home. I wondered what was so important?

“So Vic, we have an urgent issue, one that I need addressed right away. I’ve already assigned someone from my team to help you, and I hope you can fix this tomorrow” said Steve.

“I’ve been looking at the Google logo on the iPhone and I’m not happy with the icon. The second O in Google doesn’t have the right yellow gradient. It’s just wrong and I’m going to have Greg fix it tomorrow. Is that okay with you?”

Of course this was okay with me. A few minutes later on that Sunday I received an email from Steve with the subject “Icon Ambulance”. The email directed me to work with Greg Christie to fix the icon.

Since I was 11 years old and fell in love with an Apple II, I have dozens of stories to tell about Apple products. They have been a part of my life for decades. Even when I worked for 15 years for Bill Gates at Microsoft, I had a huge admiration for Steve and what Apple had produced.

But in the end, when I think about leadership, passion and attention to detail, I think back to the call I received from Steve Jobs on a Sunday morning in January. It was a lesson I’ll never forget. CEOs should care about details. Even shades of yellow. On a Sunday.

To one of the greatest leaders I’ve ever met, my prayers and hopes are with you Steve.

-Vic
16:01 – Facebook Privacy Changes
– Makes privacy easier…and looks like a direct response to Google+
– You can now approve photo’s you’ve been tagged in BEFORE they appear on your wall
– Making privacy around status updates more obvious – Everyone changed to Public
– Every post is more obviously tagged with how you are sharing it with
– Rolling out gradually
– Biggest/best privacy change they have made yet?
18:48 – Patent Folly
– Samsung cites Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ movie as prior art against iPad design patent
– Amazing
– Apple get granted an injunction against sale/distribution of Samsung phones in Holland… which happens to be major European distribution centre for Samsung… dickishtm
22:18 – Government Backdown
– The government has climbed down on plans to ban suspected rioters from social networking websites including Facebook and Twitter in times of civil unrest.
– Unprecedented measures such as shutting down websites and banning users are understood to have been dismissed by all sides early at a Home Office summit between the home secretary, Theresa May, and the major social networks on Thursday afternoon.
– The one-hour discussion focused on how law enforcement can better use Twitter and Facebook as part of day-to-day operations as well as in emergencies.
– Focussed on how authorities can use networks to spread messages, dispel fears, gather information
25:56 – Google TV coming to the UK within 6 months
– Priority for Google
– Sure to feature iPlayer and ITV Player but what else?
– Flopped in America, does it really matter anymore?
33:49 – Google brings back offline modes
– Chrome app’s give offline access to GMail, Calendar and Google Docs
– Been a gap since they dropped Google Gears
– Takes advantage of HTML5
– Available in the Chrome store
36:27 – Google Updates +1
– Now lets you share your +1’s on Google+
– Finally!
37:58 – Fall Spring Clean
Google closing many products as they start to focus on whats important
– Aardvark: Aardvark was a start-up we acquired in 2010. An experiment in a new kind of social search, it helped people answer each other’s questions. While Aardvark will be closing, we’ll continue to work on tools that enable people to connect and discover richer knowledge about the world.
– Desktop: In the last few years, there’s been a huge shift from local to cloud-based storage and computing, as well as the integration of search and gadget functionality into most modern operating systems. People now have instant access to their data, whether online or offline. As this was the goal of Google Desktop, the product will be discontinued on September 14, including all the associated APIs, services, plugins, gadgets and support.
– Fast Flip: Fast Flip was started to help pioneer news content browsing and reading experiences for the web and mobile devices. For the past two years, in collaboration with publishers, the Fast Flip experiment has fueled a new approach to faster, richer content display on the web. This approach will live on in our other display and delivery tools.
– Google Maps API for Flash: The Google Maps API for Flash was launched to provide ActionScript developers a way to integrate Google Maps into their applications. Although we’re deprecating the API, we’ll keep supporting existing Google Maps API Premier customers using the Google Maps API for Flash and we’ll focus our attention on the JavaScript Maps API v3 going forward.
– Google Pack: Due to the rapidly decreasing demand for downloadable software in favor of web apps, we will discontinue Google Pack today. People will still be able to access Google’s and our partners’ software quickly and easily through direct links on the Google Pack website.
– Google Web Security: Google Web Security came to Google as part of the Postini acquisition in 2007, and since then we’ve integrated much of the web security functionality directly into existing Google products, such as safe browsing in Chrome. Although our previous sales channel will be discontinued, we’ll continue to support our existing customers.
– Image Labeler: We began Google Image Labeler as a fun game to help people explore and label the images on the web. Although it will be discontinued, a wide variety ofonline games from Google are still available.
Notebook: Google Notebook enabled people to combine clipped URLs from the web and free-form notes into documents they could share and publish. We’ll be shutting down Google Notebook in the coming months, but we’ll automatically export all notebook data to Google Docs.
– Sidewiki: Over the past few years, we’ve seen extraordinary innovation in terms of making the web collaborative. So we’ve decided to discontinue Sidewiki and focus instead on our broader social initiatives. Sidewiki authors will be given more details about this closure in the weeks ahead, and they’ll have a number of months to download their content.
– Subscribed Links: Subscribed Links enabled developers to create specialized search results that were added to the normal Google search results on relevant queries for subscribed users. Although we’ll be discontinuing Subscribed Links, developers will be able to access and download their data until September 15, at which point subscribed links will no longer appear in people’s search results.
42:43 – BBC Crowdsources mobile data
– Coverage not 90% as mobile operators state
– Concentrated on how signal varied with normal use cases – not static.
– Liked this story more for the innovative use of croudsourcing data – we’ll see this more no doubt.
43:51 – Touchpad
– HP drops it
– Price slash.
– MADDDDD rush to pick up for £89
– Sells out everywhere.
– Now HP say they will perhaps build more…
– People trying to get Android onto hardware (and succeeding – although not fully baked yet)
48:50 – Amazon Tablet
– The tablet is reportedly going to have a 7-inch touchscreen with a backlit LCD for the display. The design is said to be very similar to RIM’s BlackBerry Playbook (hence the Photoshopped image above) and based on Android. However, Android will be little more than the underpinnings here, likeSony’s Reader Wi-Fi and Fusion Garage’s Grid 10, the entire UI is custom. The homescreen will be a Cover Flow-like series of images representing your content. Navigation will come via a row of buttons on the bottom that appear on a single tap. There will also be a status bar for notifications, battery life, and so on.
– Amazon has been creating the necessary building blocks for a tablet ecosystem devoid of Google services for some time now, having released the Amazon App Store for Android Apps, Amazon Instant Video for movies and television, Amazon Music play for cloud-based music, and of course Kindle for ebooks. So while this is technically based on Android, it’s fully an Amazon tablet with no Google involvement or Google apps. While we will need to see just how fully-featured the Kindle Tablet is when it’s released, for the time-being it looks like it will be be directly taking on the Nook, which is also an Android-powered ereader at the same price point.
– If everything works out as above, we should expect a late-November release for a very-affordable $250. The initial version will be a Wi-Fi-only device, with 3G and potentially even a 10-inch version coming later depending on how well the original Kindle Tablet does on the market.
54:18 – Windows Explorer 8
– Blog post on the research Microsoft has done into the new Windows 8 UI
– Lots of great facts…but that ribbon UI on explorer looks awful
– Real split in direction between Mac and Windows
– Ian’s tablet woes!!!!!!!

Picks
Chris
Academic Earth
– Online lectures/courses freely available from major universities around the world. (US focus, Princeton, Yale, Harvard, MIT etc
– Tonnes of topics – all available to watch/comment/interact free.
– Real lectures as you would receive if attending these places.
– Plenty of topics for a geek looking for self improvement
– Watch online – or even subscribe to all of a course as a pod/vodcast via itunes
Ian
Tweetmarker
– Syncs your position in twitter timeline
– Twitterrific, Tweetbot and Tweetings currently support it
– Simple but very very handy

DigitalOutbox Episode 93

DigitalOutbox Episode 93
In this episode the team discuss England Riots, Google buying Motorola and future games roundup.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:42 – England Riots
– Social Media to blame…
– Off course not…but was used for good
– The @RiotCleanup Twitter page has amassed more than 50,000 followers in fewer than 10 hours and is consistently broadcasting cleanup locations and times, along with other pertinent information regarding the initiative.
On Facebook, a similar page has emerged as the central location for information on the world’s largest social network.
And for a more static look at where the action is, riotcleanup.co.uk is being constantly updated with cleanup location information. In an email interview with Ian, the creator of the website and resident of rural Shropshire, England, he explained:
“I was sitting at home following the #londonriots hashtag — then I saw #riotcleanup start to appear. I am not in London, but wanted to do something. Near enough simultaneously, I registered riotcleanup.co.uk as someone else got the Twitter account @riotcleanup going. Then, I just knocked something together as fast as possible and uploaded it!”
– Beyond the riot cleanup, another effort to catch and prosecute looters has taken root, with the Tumblr account “Catch A Looter” accepting and posting images of looters for identification.
– Zavilla – http://zavilia.com/ – posting up pictures from the riots asking people to submit names of those they can identify
– Unless off course you read the Daily Mail, Express or Sun – then twitter is to blame for the riots
– Blackberry helping police as will T-Mobile/Orange
– 16 year old Glaswegian arrested over attempts to incite a riot via Facebook
– Twitter traffic sky rockets during riots
– Off course, the government need to blame something – http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/aug/11/david-cameron-rioters-social-media
– Social media tools have responsibility
– Home secretary to meet Facebook, Twitter and RIM to discus their responsibiliites
– Why not the mobile phone providers?
– A move to disconnect potential rioters would mark a huge shift in Britain’s internet policy, with free speech advocates likely to accuse the government of ushering in a new wave of online censorship.
– Scotland Yard has made a string of arrests of people suspected of inciting the violence across England by using BlackBerry Messenger, Twitter and Facebook.
– Cameron urged Twitter and Facebook to remove messages, images and videos that could incite more unrest across the country. “All of them should think about their responsibility and about taking down those images,” he said.
– Greater Manchester Police use twitter to reveal details of those convicted – http://thenextweb.com/uk/2011/08/11/greater-manchester-police-tweeting-names-dates-of-birth-and-addresses-of-looters/
– Names, DOB’s, Addresses are sent out via their twitter account
– Info already available due to court appearance, but making it much more available
– Back to Facebook – http://thenextweb.com/uk/2011/08/16/uk-man-gets-4-year-jail-sentence-for-setting-up-facebook-riot-page/
– UK Man gets 4 years in jail for setting up facebook riot page
– a 22-year old Latchford man named Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan has been charged with organizing some of the actions after setting up a page on Facebook.
– While that might seem extreme for merely setting up a Facebook page, Assistant Chief Contable Phil Thompson believes otherwise:
“If we cast our minds back just a few days to last week and recall the way in which technology was used to spread incitement and bring people together to commit acts of criminality it is easy to understand the four year sentences that were handed down in court today.”
11:28 – Google buys Motorola Mobility
– Google just announced that it is acquiringMotorola Mobility. The search and online advertising company is buying the company for approximately $12.5 billion (or $40 per share), in cash. The price represents a premium of 63 percent to the closing price of Motorola Mobility shares last Friday. Google had about $39 billion in cash at last count.
– The acquisition of Motorola Mobility, a dedicated Android partner, will enable Google to supercharge the Android ecosystem and will enhance competition in mobile computing. Motorola Mobility will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. Google will run Motorola Mobility as a separate business.
– It’s also a move to build up the company’s patent portfolio, he adds, as it will “enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies”.
– 17000 patents, 7500 pending patents (Google only had 1000 patents prior to this)
– Although announcement talks up Android and patents, Motorola Mobility also makes TV hardware
– Now fully vertically aligned like Apple
– If seen as purely as a patent buy, thats $18 billion on big patents this year alone
– Motorola Mobility is what used to be the Mobile Devices division of Motorola until January 2011.
– A few years ago, Motorola bet its future in the mobile devices market by going full Android, launching the “Droid” – initially on the Verizon network – on November 6, 2009. The “Droid X” and “Droid 2″ followed in 2010.
– Big question now is: how will HTC, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Acer, Lenovo and other Android device makers respond to this news? – http://www.google.com/press/motorola/quotes/
– It’s all about defending Android – allegedly
17:26 – HP to buy Autonomy…and spin off hardware business
– $10 billion for autonomy
– Spin off hardware…which includes web-os
– Post pc world, dominated by iPad and Apple, Google and Android – no profit in hardware for HP
– 250,000 touchpads unsold at best buy
– Look at IBM – top 5 company in world and mostly all software and services
21:39 – LinkedIn makes a dick move
– LinkedIn users are upset that the company has taken the Facebook approach in regards to online privacy with a recent change to the privacy policy. Under the guise of providing more privacy controlto the user, the social network has automatically opted-in its 100 million users into the social advertising program without informing them of the change beyond a blog post.
– When a LinkedIn user views a third-party advertisement on the social network, they will see user profile pictures and names of connections if that connection has recommended or followed a brand. Any time that a user follows a brand, they unwittingly become a cheerleader for the company or organization if it advertises through LinkedIn.
– In order to opt out of social advertising, the LinkedIn user has to take four steps to escape third-party advertisements:
– Hover over the user name in the top right hand corner of any LinkedIn page and click ‘Settings’. On the Settings page, click ‘Account’. On the Account tab, click ‘Manage Social Advertising’. Uncheck the box next to “LinkedIn may use my name, photo in social advertising.” and click the save button.
– Users also may want to opt out of receiving email from LinkedIn advertisers. This setting also allows LinkedIn advertising partners to spam users with promotions during email marketing campaigns if the user follows the brand. To opt out of this setting, click the Email Preferences tab and click on the ‘Turn on/off partner InMail’ link to locate the check box.
24:46 – Amazon release cloud based Kndle Reader
– Amazon may have changed its Kindle iOS app to comply with Apple’s revised in-app subscription policy, but the retailer has now come out with its own, web-based alternative, known as the Kindle Cloud Reader. Compatible with both Chrome and Safari, the new app is essentially a browser version of the Kindle eBook reader, providing PC, Mac and Chromebook users with access to their digitized libraries.
– The tool also offers local storage, allowing for offline reading, though Amazon’s device limit still applies, so if your library’s already strewn across multiple gadgets, the app’s reading functionality may be limited.
– The company unveiled the Cloud Reader today with relatively little fanfare or explanation, but its site highlights the service’s main attractions, including its iPad optimization
– Build around the app store restrictions
– Interesting to remember that first iPhone had no iPhone and told developers to build web apps, now dev’s are building web app’s to get around Apple restrictions.
26:57 – Apple win suit to block Samsung 10.1 sales in Europe
– A new ruling by a regional court in Dusseldorf, Germany has granted Cupertino a preliminary injunction, blocking the sale and advertising of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 across Europe, save for the Netherlands.
– Samsung can still appeal the ruling — in the meanwhile, however, the decision will stand. According to The Telegraph, the likely appeal will take about a month to be heard by the judge who granted the injunction.
– Samsung responded – The company notes that all products already distributed to retailers in Germany will not be affected by the decision. And naturally, Samsung promises to fight to have the injunction lifted.
– Looks really bad – Samsung didn’t defend themselves, Apple’s legal submissions look dubious (i.e. made up) and it’s now been reversed to just Germany
32:40 – Orange Film To Go
– Allows Orange customers to rent a free movie every week
– Text FILMTOGO to 85060 for redemption code
– Can be used on a Thursday, then normal iTunes rental conditions apply
– Although free, txt message costs 35p
34:24 – iPlayer updates for TV
– The app – launching initially on the Sony PlayStation 3 games console, which has run the browser-based version of iPlayer since 2008 – has been built from scratch and includes new features such as viewer recommendations. HTML5 based and will roll out to TV’s and connected devices over the coming months
– Daniel Danker, the BBC’s general manager of programmes and on demand, said that iPlayer viewing on internet-connected TVs increased five fold in the six months to July, reaching 3.1m programme requests a month.
– “We’re going beyond the tech-savvy. We’re making iPlayer easier to use for the mainstream audience,” Danker said. “With today’s announcement, we’re transforming iPlayer in its most natural home.”
36:15 – Sony Price Cuts
– PS3 now cut to £199, street price may be £180
– a new cheaper version of its PSPhandheld console, with a price point of €99 will be launched before christmas
– won’t have wi-fi support and I still can’t see it getting sales
37:56 – Slimmer Cheaper Wii
– Nintendo will launch a redesigned Wii gaming console in Europe by the end of 2011.
– The updated console will be part of a new Wii bundle, which will include “the newly configured Wii console in white, a Wii Remote Plus controller, Nunchuk, and copies of Wii Sports and Wii Party,” the company announced Wednesday.
– The device will be cheaper and slimmer than the original Wii. Nintendo did not announce the bundle’s price or release pictures of the new Wii. The console also will be designed to stand horizontally rather than vertically like the current Wii. Additionally, the new Wii will not be backward compatible with Gamecube games.
40:10 – Onlive UK Launch Date
– Launches in UK on September 22nd
– OnLive has claimed that more than 100 “top tier” titles will be available from the launch date. It is yet to announce specific games, but has told the Guardian that it is in the process of licensing most of the catalogue currently available in the US. Many major publishers including Ubisoft, THQ and Square Enix have partnered with OnLive to make games such as Assassin’s Creed, Homefront and Batman: Arkham Asylum available via the instant-play technology. However, the two biggest game publishers Electronic Arts and Activision have yet to announce any supporting titles.
– Users will be able subscribe for free at the official UK website. They can then choose to rent games for a limited periods, buy unlimited access to specific titles or pay a monthly fee to access the OnLive PlayPack Bundle, which gives unlimited access to a large chunk of the OnLive line-up. UK prices are yet to be announced, but in the US, most titles offer a three-day pass for $5.99, a five-day pass for $8.99 or a full price of $20-$60. The PlayPack bundle is $9.99 a month
– Can play on Mac, PC, iPad and Android tablets and via set top box
– Partnering with BT but will work on any broadband platform
– Still sceptical but time will tell
43:39 – Google+ Games
– Rolling out across the platform
– 16 games available initially
– Hopefully won’t pollute like facebook did
– It’s got Angry Birds!
47:32 – End of games drought
– Gears of War 3 – 20/09/11
– FIFA Soccer 12 – 30/09/11
– Forza – 14/10/11
– Batman: Arkham City – 21/10/11
– Battlefield 3 – 28/10/11
– Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception – 02/11/11
– Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – 08/11/11
– The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – 11/11/11

Picks
Ian
Lion Tweaks
– The application has been developed to quickly turn off numerous exclusive features of Lion; the list includes, enable 2D-dock, remove system window animation, remove mail window animation, disable auto-spelling correction, change iCal and Address Book leather UI to aluminum look, enable permanent scrollbars, show hidden files, disable crash dialog popup.

DigitalOutbox Episode 92

DigitalOutbox Episode 92
In this episode the team discuss Newsbin Blocked, UK Copyright Laws Updated, Google Patent Issues, trouble for Nintendo and Sony handhelds and don’t mess with Duncan Bannatyne

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:42 – Police charge Scottish Teen over SOCA attack
– UK police have charged an 18-year-old with hacking the Serious Organised Crime Agency’s (Soca) website as part of an ongoing investigation into the infamous LulzSec and Anonymous hacktivist crews.
– Jake Davis, who allegedly used the online nickname Topiary and acted as a spokesman for the groups, will face five computer hacking charges at a hearing at the City of Westminster Magistrates Court on Monday.
– The rap sheet includes a charge related to participating in denial of service attacks that floored Soca’s website in June.
– Davis, who was arrested in the Shetland Islands last week, is the second person to be arrested over attacks on Soca’s website, following the arrest of Ryan Cleary, 19, of Wickford, Essex, last month. A 16-year-old teenager from South London was arrested and questioned by police around the same time as Cleary’s arrest and bailed to return in late August, pending further inquiries.
4:39 – BT Ordered to block links to Newzbin 2
– A High Court judge has ruled that BT must block access to a website which provides links to pirated movies.
Newzbin 2 is a members-only site which aggregates a large amount of the illegally copied material found on Usenet discussion forums.
– The landmark case is the first time that an ISP has been ordered to block access to such a site. It paves the way for other sites to be blocked as part of a major crackdown on piracy.
– In his ruling, Mr Justice Arnold stated: “In my judgment it follows that BT has actual knowledge of other persons using its service to infringe copyright: it knows that the users and operators of Newzbin 2 infringe copyright on a large scale, and in particular infringe the copyrights of the studios in large numbers of their films and television programmes.”
– He continued: “It knows that the users of Newzbin 2 include BT subscribers, and it knows those users use its service to receive infringing copies of copyright works made available to them by Newzbin 2.” BT and the Motion Picture Association (MPA), which brought the case, will be back in court in October to work out how the blocking will work. BT said it will not appeal the ruling.
– Justice Arnold ruled that BT must use its blocking technology CleanFeed – which is currently used to prevent access to websites featuring child sexual abuse – to block Newzbin 2. In an email interview before the verdict, Newzbin 2 threatened to break BT’s filters.
– “We would be appalled if any group were to try to sabotage this technology as it helps to protect the innocent from highly offensive and illegal content,” said a spokesman for BT.
– The Internet Service Providers’ Association has been a fierce critic of web blocking. It said that using blocking technology designed to protect the public from images of child abuse, was inappropriate.
10:46 – UK Proposing changes to Copyright and Website Blocking Rules
– Plans to block websites that host copyright infringing material are to be dumped by the government. Website blocking was one of the key provision contained in the Digital Economy Act. Internet Service Providers had objected to the idea that copyright owners could compel them to cut off some sites.
– Speaking to the BBC, Vince Cable appeared to suggest that the Newzbin2 case had opened up other legal avenues.”We’ve discovered that the drafting of the original laws, which took place a year or so ago, were not tight.
– The government’s decision to drop the DEA’s blocking provision was criticised by UK Music, the body which represents musicians and record labels in the UK. Its chief executive, Fergal Sharkey said: “Who wants to tell the 80% of music businesses that employ fewer than five people, and the thousands of artists who self-finance the production of their own albums, that to enjoy the protection of the law, all they need now is to have millions of pounds and spend years in court to protect their work.”
– Mr Cable also announced a raft of measures intended to update the UK’s copyright laws. The changes are based on the Hargreaves Review which was set up to examine current legislation’s fitness for purpose in the digital age. One of the most significant recommendations that the government plans to implement is the legalisation of “format shifting” – where users rip content from CDs or DVDs for their own personal use.
– “Bringing the laws more up-to-date to have a proper balance which allows consumers and businesses to operate more freely, but at the same time protect genuinely creative artists and penalise pirates.” The business secretary said the economy would benefit by £8bn over the next few years by updating the legislation.
– Millions of people regularly convert movies on DVDs and music on CDs into a format that they can move around more easily, although most do not realise that it is technically illegal. “The review pointed out that if you have a situation where 90% of your population is doing something, then it’s not really a very good law,” said Simon Levine, head of the intellectual property and technology group at DLA Piper.
– Legalising non-commercial copying for private use would bring the UK into line with many other nations and also meet the “reasonable expectations” of consumers, said the government.
– Could also include fair usage and re-use clauses so that fan fiction, remixes etc are now legal and can be published online without threat of takedown
16:21 – Smartphone Watershed in the UK
– for the first time, smartphone sales outstripped sales of regular mobiles in the first half of this year as the enormous demand continues to rise. Just over half of the total 13.6m mobile sales from January to June 2011 were smartphones, according to research by GfK Retail and Technology UK.
– Of the new generation of smartphone users, 60% of teenagers classed themselves as “highly addicted” to their device, compared to 37% of adults.
– “Our research into the use of smartphones, in particular, reveals how quickly people become reliant on new technology – to the point of feeling addicted. As more and more people acquire smartphones, they are becoming an essential tool in peoples’ social lives whether they are out with friends socialising or using Facebook on the move.”
– Facebook remains far and away the most popular website for mobile users, with users spending almost four times the amount of time socialising online than using Google or any other website. Unsurprisingly, multi-tasking teenagers said they were less likely to read books if they owned a smartphone. But they also said that owning a smartphone made them more likely to ditch games consoles like the PS3 and the computer, in favour of their pocket-sized handset.
– The huge boost in smartphone sales has led to a 67% increase in mobile data use as phone users watched videos and sent emails on the go. Mobile operators, such as O2 and Vodafone, have been put under huge strain by the new load. But Thickett said the carriers are coping with the enormous demand.
– Over half (51 per cent) of adults and two thirds (65 per cent) of teenagers say they have used their smartphone while socialising with others, nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of adults and a third (34 per cent) of teenagers have used them during mealtimes and over a fifth (22 per cent) of adult and nearly half (47 per cent) of teenage smartphone users admitted using or answering their handset in the bathroom or toilet.
19:56 – BBC Launches Global iPlayer App
– The BBC is launching an international version of its on-demand video service, the iPlayer, for Apple iPad users.
– Customers who pay a monthly subscription will get access to a range of current and classic programmes. The app will have one feature not available in the UK – the ability to download content and watch offline.
– The project is being run BBC Worldwide– the corporation’s commercial arm – which said that money earned would help supplement licence-fee income. Initially, global iPlayer will be available in 11 European countries: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, The Republic of Ireland, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.
– It will cost 6.99 euro per month (£6.14), with the option of an annual subscription priced at 49.99 euro (£44). According to BBC Worldwide, the international product will look and feel similar to the UK iPlayer, but function in a different way.
– Rather than a seven-day catch-up service, it will offer a showcase of BBC shows, old and new. Examples given include Fawlty towers, Only Fools and Horses, Sherlock and Doctor Who.
– It is possible that may provoke questions from viewers in the UK who do not have access to older shows.
21:14 – Amazon App Store – Rotten to the Core
– Amazon’s biggest feature by far, has been their Free App Of The Day promotion. Publicly their terms say that they pay developers 20% of the asking price of an app, even when they give it away free. To both consumers and naive developers alike, this seems like a big chance to make something rare in the Android world: real money. But here’s the dirty secret Amazon don’t want you to know, they don’t pay developers a single cent.
– Did the exposure count for much in the days afterwards? That’s also a big no, the day after saw a blip in sales, followed by things going back to exactly where we started, selling a few apps a day. In fact Amazon decided to rub salt in the wounds a little further by discounting our app to 99 cents for a few days after the free promotion. All we got was about 300 emails a day to answer over the space of a few weeks, that left us tired and burnt out. For all we know most of the people who wanted our application, now have it. To add insult to injury Pocket Casts relies on a server to parse podcast feeds (allowing instant updates on your phone), and all these new users forced us to buy more hardware just to meet demand. Hardware that we are going to have to support indefinitely at our own cost.
– But that’s not our only beef with Amazon:
Lengthy review times of anywhere up to 2 weeks (I’ve lost count of the amount of emails from people asking why our Google Market app is newer)
Amazon gets to set the price of your app to whatever they want, without any input from you, or even the chance to reject their price
Amazon re-writes your description, and in ours they even made up things like ‘add up to 100 podcasts’. No idea where on earth they got that number from
Amazon don’t provide error reports like Google do making it hard to fix errors
They don’t yet support Google’s new multiple APK initiative
Amazon pays far later than Google does, and to date we haven’t received any cheques from them, even though we are listed as being ‘payed’
US Only
Much less real-time sales information than Google
Update: (and this one surprised us) you can’t remove apps from their store! You have to ask them for permission via an email. Every other store lets you remove apps from sale.
28:09 – Trojan risk for Android phones
– A mobile application for Google’s Android smartphones can secretly record users’ phone calls and transmit them to malicious hackers,security researchers have found.
Once downloaded by a user, the app – which the researcher has not named, but seems to have a name relating to “System Messages” – surreptitiously stores a recording of the user’s incoming and outgoing calls to the phone’s memory card, according to the New York-based security experts CA Technologies.
– In a blog post unveiling the finding, researcher Dinesh Venkatesan said the so-called “Trojan app” is one of the most invasive they have ever uncovered. He also warned that there is an increasing trend targeting smartphones using Google’s Android software, which allows developers to submit apps with little vetting.
– Google had not returned requests for comment at the time of publication.
– Venkateskan wrote on the researcher’s official blog: “In one of our earlier blogs, we have demonstrated how a Trojan logs all the details of incoming/outgoing calls and call duration in a text file.
– “This Trojan is more advanced as it records the conversation itself in ‘amr’ format [which is optimised for recording speech]. Also it has many other malicious activities that we have seen in many of the earlier malware incidents targeted for Android platform.”
– The app, which was not named by the researchers for security reasons, asks users’ permission to intercept outgoing calls and record audio before it is installed. Once downloaded, all calls the user makes will be logged on the phone’s memory – which can potentially be accessed by the app’s makers. The sound is filed in a folder called shangzhou/callrecord, suggesting that its author is Chinese.
30:39 – Nortel Patent Argument Continues
– Remember the group of tech companies that bought the Nortel patents for $4.5 billion – Microsoft, Apple et all?
– Google is still smarting – In a post just put up on the main Google Blog, Google SVP and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond takes shot after shot at Google’s competitors. By name, he calls out Microsoft, Apple, and Oracle. What’s this all about? What else? Patents.
– “I have worked in the tech sector for over two decades. Microsoft and Apple have always been at each other’s throats, so when they get into bed together you have to start wondering what’s going on,” is the way Drummond kicks off his post. He goes on to lay out what he believes is a “hostile, organized campaign against Android by Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and other companies, waged through bogus patents.”
– While Drummond says that their rival’s “anti-competitive strategy” is driving up the price of patents on the market to insane levels, he believes the law will eventually prevail and “this patent bubble will pop”.
– “In this instance we thought it was important to speak out and make it clear that we’re determined to preserve Android as a competitive choice for consumers, by stopping those who are trying to strangle it,” he notes, going on to say that the Department of Justice is currently looking into if Apple and Microsoft’s acquisition of the Nortel patents was for anti-competitive means.
– “We’re also looking at other ways to reduce the anti-competitive threats against Android by strengthening our own patent portfolio. Unless we act, consumers could face rising costs for Android devices — and fewer choices for their next phone,” is how the post ends.
– Typical Google – painting themselves as the white knight in amongst these big bad companies who are out to destroy, not innovate…yawn. Post also doesn’t mention that Google bid over $4 billion as well.
– A couple of hours later…“Google says we bought Novell patents to keep them from Google. Really? We asked them to bid jointly with us. They said no,” Brad Smith, Microsoft General Counsel tweeted out in response.
– Just in case that wasn’t enough, Frank Shaw, Microsoft Head of Communications, followed up with the real heat-seeker. “Free advice for David Drummond – next time check with Kent Walker before you blog. tweeted, referring to another Google SVP and General Counsel. Attached to that tweet was the picture of an email Walker apparently sent to Smith on October 28, 2010. It reads as follows:
Brad –
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you — I came down with a 24-hour bug on the way back from San Antonio. After talking with people here, it sounds as though for various reasons a joint bid wouldn’t be advisable for us on this one. But I appreciate your flagging it, and we’re open to discussing other similar opportunities in the future.
I hope the rest of your travels go well, and I look forward to seeing you again soon.
– Kent
– While it’s only one instance, this really does undercut Google’s entire argument. Google was attempting to set up a pattern of Microsoft teaming up with other Google rivals to damage them. But the first instance listed was actually the result of Google turning Microsoft down, as the email shows. That doesn’t not look good for Google.
– Love this – Google are pussies – http://brianshall.com/content/google-are-pussies
39:44 – Push Pop Press acquired…by Facebook
– Now we’re taking our publishing technology and everything we’ve learned and are setting off to help design the world’s largest book, Facebook.
– Although Facebook isn’t planning to start publishing digital books, the ideas and technology behind Push Pop Press will be integrated with Facebook, giving people even richer ways to share their stories. With millions of people publishing to Facebook each day, we think it’s going to be a great home for Push Pop Press.
– Al Gore’s Our Choice will remain available for purchase, and we’ve decided that our future profits from the book will be donated to The Climate Reality Project. There are no plans to continue publishing new titles or building out our publishing platform that was in private beta. We are incredibly grateful to everyone who has supported and expressed interest in Push Pop Press.
– Both Push Pop Press and Facebook share a passion for improving the way we share and explore ideas and we couldn’t be more excited about what the future holds.
– Good for them, sad for everyone else? Good talent acquire by Facebook but that future of digital publishing that worked so well for Our Choice and promised so much has now gone. However Mike Matas, lead at Push Pop Press, was part of the iPhone UI team at Apple. Rumours of Facebook phone still around and there’s no doubting hat Facebook UI as they move into HTML5 is in need of help.
42:49 – Vita in Europe…next year
– Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Kaz Hirai has today been quoted as saying that the portable console will not be available in the US or Europe until “early next year.” Japan, he hastens to add, is still on track for the “holiday season” release window we’ve been hearing since the PlayStation Vita’s first announcement under the NGP moniker.
– So import if you want it this year looks to be only option
44:22 – Nintendo 3DS Price Drop
– Price to drop by around a third
– Trying to kickstart poor sales
– Additionally, Nintendo Europe plans to offer an exclusive Nintendo 3DS Ambassador Programme to consumers who have purchased the Nintendo 3DS at the original launch price.
– The programme will enable these Nintendo 3DS owners to download ten NES games and ten Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games for free.
– To register for this programme, Nintendo 3DS owners need to connect to the Nintendo eShop before the 12th of August. The free software will then be made available at a later stage.
– Currently, the machine has a recommended retail price of £269.99, which retailers have already eroded to a street price of £199.99 with a game bundled in. But from 12 August, presuming that retailers resist the urge to increase their margins on the 3DS, we can anticipate a new RRP of around £170 – equating to a street price of between £130 and £140.
– Why is it struggling – EA results – http://investor.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=594196
– iPad is fastest growing platform and consoles used to account for 80% of sales…now 40%
47:49 – EA launches Sports Season ticket
– $25 or 2000 points a year
– It will grant full access to digital versions of games three days before their retail launch, offer a 20-percent discount on DLC, and enable “free premium web content” and brand you as a paying customer (i.e. “membership recognition”).
– However…”The digitally downloaded game will time out when the game is available at retail and consumers have the option to purchase the same full game on disc at retail.” If we’re reading that correctly, it means you get to download the game three days early, but you still have to go to the store to actually buy it.
– What?
– 5 games supported – Madden NFL 12, along with NHL,FIFA, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR golf and NCAA Football
51:05 – Don’t Mess With Duncan Bannatyne
– The Dragons’ Den star Duncan Bannatyne has been forced to delete tweets after offering a £50,000 reward for anyone who broke the arms of a man who used Twitter to threaten his daughter.
– Someone going by the name of Yuri Vasilyev tweeted Bannatyne three days ago, saying: “I’m looking for a £35,000 investment to stop us hurting your Hollie Bannatyne. We will bring hurt and pain into your life. We are watching her. She is very attractive. Want photos?”
– After revealing that police had been informed of the threat, Bannatynetold his 371,653 Twitter followers: “I offer £25,000 reward for the capture of the coward who calls himself @YuriVasilyev_ Double if his arms are broken first.”
– Got lots of criticism on twitter
– The criticism appeared to bring about a change of heart, and Bannatyne deleted the offending tweets and amended his offer to “£30,000 reward for info leading to his arrest”.
However, he kept up the pressure, telling his followers he had tracked the alleged criminal to an internet cafe in Moscow.
– “@YuriVasilyev_ My people are getting closer to you every minute, run and hide you little coward in Moscow,” he tweeted. “Go home to your mum and cry we are closing in on you little boy.”

Picks
Henry
Tilt
– Still developing and updating… may have debugging purpose but really it just looks cool.

DigitalOutbox Episode 91

DigitalOutbox Episode 91
In this episode the team discuss Lion, Quarterly Numbers and the new Macbook Air and Mac Mini’s.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
2:11 – The Hackers Get Hacked
– Looks like hacker group LulzSec is back in action, this time redirecting the homepage of the Murdoch-owned The Sun (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/) to a fake story about Murdoch’s death from a drug overdose located on the Murdoch-owned URL used to broadcast theLondon Times’ redesign http://www.new-times.co.uk/sun. After the amount of requests caused a 404 failure on the Times site, the group then redirected The Sun’s homepage to the @LuzSecTwitter account. (The original page is archived at http://freze.it/pX)
– From what I can see the fake story was meant to mirror an actual The Sun story about the latest development in the messy Murdoch/New Corp/News of the World scandal, “Ex News of the World journalist found dead.” After about 10 minutes of being up (and I swear the real Sun homepage was redirecting) the fake story was pulled from the UK Times site.
– E-mails also grabbed
5:13 – Apple Earnings
– Cupertino just reported its best quarter ever, with earnings of $7.79 per share, revenue totaling $28.57 billion, and a net profit of $7.31 billion. We know you’re probably more interested in sales figures, however, and as you might expect, Apple’s continued to ship iPhones and iPads at a steady pace, with 20.34 million smartphones and 9.25 million tablets sold last quarter. It’s also shipped 3.95 million Macs — a 14 percent jump over Q3 2010’s numbers. Fewer iPods made it out the door this quarter, however, totaling 7.54 million compared to the 9.41 million Apple sold in Q3 2010.
7:26 – Google Earnings
– “We had a great quarter, with revenue up 32% year on year for a record breaking over $9 billion of revenue,” said Larry Page, CEO of Google. “I’m super excited about the amazing response to Google+ which lets you share just like in real life.”
– £3.5 billion in profit
– 550,000 android activations per day
13:30 – Microsoft Earnings
– The US technology giant Microsoft said its annual revenues hit a record of $69.94bn (£43.4bn).
– Sales of the company’s Xbox 360 videogame console and its Office software helped fuel the growth.
– Net income at the world’s biggest software maker jumped 23% to 23.15bn for the year.
– The figures, which beat forecasts, showed final quarter revenues reached a record high of $17.37bn, leading to profits of $5.87bn.
– Sales rose 8% to $17.37 billion, a boosted chiefly by sales of Office, Xbox and server software behind Microsoft’s push into cloud computing.
– Microsoft’s business division, which sells the Office suite of programs, including Outlook, SharePoint and Excel, was the company’s biggest seller in the quarter, increasing sales by 7% to $5.8bn.
– The company’s online services unit, which runs the Bing search engine and MSN internet portal, increased sales by 16.5% to $662m, but saw losses increase to $728m as it struggles to fight competitor Google.
– One weaker spot was sales of its widely-used Windows product, which are slowing as tablet PC sales eat into demand for traditional PCs.
16:43 – Nokia Earnings
– The Finnish phone-maker Nokia crashed to a loss for the second quarter as its smartphone and mobile business collapsed, leaving it in third place in the sector behind Samsung and Apple, and with no clear sign of any improvement in the short term.
Overall the company made a loss of €368m despite receiving a one-off payment of €430m from Apple to settle a long-running patent dispute. Revenues fell overall by 7% to €9.3bn.
– The company’s mobile revenue, normally the stalwart of its business, fell by 20% year on year to €5.47bn and made a loss of €247m, as the number of phones sold dropped by the same amount, to 88m – both figures not seen since 2006. Its existing Symbian smartphone business, which it has said that it will phase out in favour of phones using Microsoft Windows Phone from later this year, fell by 30% year on year to just 16.7m.
– The Navteq mapping and Nokia Siemens Network (NSN) businesses offered no comfort either, both racking up operating losses of €58m and €111m respectively, although sales at NSN were up by 20%.
20:11 – Lion
– Out for £21
– Digital download only
– Ian – speedier, like Mission Control, restore, versioning and some nice touches but overall a bit meh
– Ian – love Mail – hateful design choices on iCal and Address Book
– Ian – gestures is very nice, full screen turning to a Space is good…but OTT on a 27” iMac
– Ian – natural scrolling – disabled as use windows so much – too much adjustment
– August – available from Apple stores on USB stick
– http://www.apple.com/macosx/recovery/
– Lion has Recovery options and new Air and Mini can be recovered from the Internet
– iTunes 10.4 – 64 bit, Cocoa, Full screen
– iWork – updated to support full screen and versioning
– Xcode – 4.1 now free on the app store
37:19 – New Apple Hardware
– Airs – double the speed, more ram, better chip, backlit keyboard and thunderbolt – same price – lovely
– Mini – thunderbolt, better chip, no drive – cheaper – £650 down to £525
– White Macbook – dead
– The 27-inch Thunderbolt Display has an LED-backlit, 2560-by-1440 pixel, 16:9, in-plane switching (IPS) screen, which Apple says has a brightness of 375 cd/m2 and a 1000:1 contrast ratio. A single two-ended cable attaches to a Thunderbolt-equipped MacBook Pro or Air, one lead going to the notebook’s MagSafe power port, and the other to its Thunderbolt port.
-The display has three powered USB 2.0 ports, plus one FireWire 800 and one Gigabit Ethernet port, all connected to its Thunderbolty host – MacBook Pro or Air, Mac mini, or iMac – through that single Thunderbolt cable. The display also has its own Thunderbolt port so you can daisy-chain up to five more Thunderbolt devices
– The display also has Apple’s FaceTime HD camera – an upgrade from the earlier iSight camera – and a 2.1 speaker system with 49 watts of oomph. There’s also an ambient light sensor that’ll adjust display brightness based on the level of lighting in its surrounding environment.
– £900
44:40 – Apple updates International App Store Prices
– Apple update international pricing
– Uk – £0.59 is now £0.69
– Apple’s iWork apps now cost £13.99, up from £11.99, on the Mac App Store in the U.K., while the popular iOS versions have jumped from £5.99 to £6.99.
– Most rises around 10-15% – £1.19 per issue will now pay £1.49 – a 25 per cent price rise
– No warning – magazines running adverts caught out
– Lion price of £20.99 should have been a clue of impending changes in price points
– Certainly interesting that no pre-warning!
46:37 – HTC (Android) Infringes two Apple Patents
– ITC judge prelim judgement finds in favour of Apple – HTC infringes Apple in two areas…
– Decision needs ratifying by a panel.
– Will outcome be ban of product? Damages? Technology Licence?
– And now HTC are willing to negotiate with Apple
50:19 – Fake Apple Stores in China
– Fake stores, look real, sell real products
– Same branding, staff where same brands
– Staff even thought it was real
– Apple are aware…and China are now shutting them down.
51:52 – Illegal Film Downloads up 30% in UK
– The number of illegally downloaded films in the UK has gone up nearly 30% in five years, new figures suggest.
– That research, from internet consultancy firm Envisional, indicates that the top five box office movies were illegally downloaded in the UK a total of 1.4 million times last year.
– Film industry bosses say it is costing £170m every year and putting thousands of jobs at risk.
– But it’s not just illegal film downloading that’s on the rise – research suggests people are illegally downloading more TV shows too.
– The top five most popular shows were illegally downloaded a total of 1.24 million times in the UK last year. That’s a 33% increase from 2006 figures.
– Surely that just reflects the larger capacity broadband that we’re all now getting our hands on (well, some of us at least). Again – the end game is surely that better legit delivery methods need to be put in place. This takes time – so no doubt we’ll see more letters being sent in the mean-time.
53:15 – Cheaper broadband for rural users
– Up to 3m homes and businesses in rural parts of the UK could receive better value broadband services by the end of the year, following an Ofcom decision to force BT Wholesale to reduce the amount it charges other internet service providers (ISPs) to use its networks.
– The communications regulator has ruled that BT must reduce its charge to ISPs each year, by a rate of at least 12 percentage points below inflation. For example, if the RPI inflation rate is 5%, BT will have to cut its charges by 7%.
– The ruling is to take effect by mid-August 2011 and remain in force until 31 March 2014, and paves the way for cheaper broadband prices for millions of consumers and businesses in less densely populated areas across the UK.
– The rural areas set to benefit from the change include parts of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well as Norfolk, Yorkshire, Cumbria, Northumberland, the south-west of England and other areas. These are predominantly areas lacking in competition among ISPs.
55:12 – Govt releases more data
– Following their pledge and success of data released so far, Cameron has announced another set of data that will be published and available to public and devleopers
– NHS, Education (single portal to compare schools), Crime (more detailed local crime maps), Transport (rail data will be hot), Govt financial transactions – every spend above £500
57:11 – Google detects and warns on malware
– “Recently, we found some unusual search traffic while performing routine maintenance on one of our data centers. After collaborating with security engineers at several companies that were sending this modified traffic, we determined that the computers exhibiting this behavior were infected with a particular strain of malicious software, or “malware.” As a result of this discovery, today some people will see a prominent notification at the top of their Google web search results.”
– Windows malware only
58:43 – Google to kill labs
– Google just announced it is ending its Labs program, in an effort to focus more on its existing products, For many of Google’s hard-core or even medium-core users, certain labs features have become essential tools to personalize the apps to their needs.
– a Google spokesman said that Gmail Labs, Calendar Labs and other Labs will not be shut down, merely the Labs program that brought us such applications as Google Goggles and Google Reader. There are still cool affected apps, but it’s not the end of my personal world.
– 20% projects still exist though
1:00:42 – Think with Google
– The new online channel will feature each new issue of Google’s Think Quarterly along with Think Voices, which showcases the shared experiences and insights of marketing leaders, digital influencers and academics. The content is filled with bite-sized TED-like videos for inspiring ideas on topics like the latest in digital technology, the future of marketing and how to channel innovation to inspire your business decisions.
– add link to youtube channel

Picks
Henry
Halftone
– Halftone goes beyond typical “photo filter” apps to give images a unique, vintage style that makes them look like they came from an old comic strip.
– Easy to use
Comic Life
– Make comics on teh iPad
– Again easy to use with lots of effects that can be added to images

Ian
Conquist 2
– Great strategy game for the iPad
– Lots of singleplayer options – variations on Risk
– Now includes multiplayer

DigitalOutbox Episode 90

DigitalOutbox Episode 90
In this episode the team discuss Google. That’s it. It’s all about Google. Almost.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
2:35 – Dropbox Breach
– Fewer than 100 accounts accessed
– But according to the letter, those accounts were all accessed by a single individual. In other words, these weren’t accidental logins due to typos — someone discovered the hole and actively used it to access files that were not theirs.
5:09 – Tony Blairs Personal Details Hacked…and Leaked
– A member of hacker group TeaMp0isoN (Team Poison) leaked personal information of U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, plus the phone numbers and addresses of dozens of members of the government who allegedly supported the war on Iraq, on Friday night.
– TriCk posted the list on Friday night, which included the National Insurance number of Tony Blair, the phone number of 10 Downing Street, plus the alleged phone numbers and addresses of some of Blair’s contacts, including Lord and Lady Irvine and Denis MacShane, Baroness Thornton, the MP for Rotherham. MacShane’s name was misspelled “McShane,” however.
– The information was obtained in Dec. 2010, TriCk posted. “We still have access to the Webmail server, phone numbers may have changed but all the information is 100% legit.”
– Strange – hardly any mainstream media coverage – Telegraph only
8:47 – Bye Bye Lulzsec
– Hacker group LulzSec has announced that after 50 days of hacking companies and organizations, it is finally done. Check out the message from LulzSec below, which was posted on Pastebin. Check out the video as well (embedded below).
LulzSec most recently released a torrent of data from Arizona law enforcement which included hundreds of classified documents including personal emails, names and phone numbers.
– As the post, says the group of six hackers has been “disrupting and exposing corporations, governments, often the general population itself, and quite possibly everything in between, just because we could.”
10:30 – Google +1
– Google’s +1 button, the search giant’s challenger to the Facebook Like button, is making its worldwide debut.
– “Today, +1’s will start appearing on Google search pages globally,” Google Product Manager Nick Radicevic announced on Google’sAdSense blog.
– “We’ll be starting off with sites like google.co.uk, google.de, google.jp and google.fr, then expanding quickly to most other Google search sites soon after.”
– In addition to an international rollout on search result pages, Google is expanding its rollout of the +1 button on websites across the world. The company announced partnerships with several publications, including The Telegraph, The Independent, Last.fm, SnapDeal, and El Pais.
13:09 – Google+ Project
– sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it. We’d like to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software. We want to make Google better by including you, your relationships, and your interests. And so begins the Google+ project:
– Circles
– It’s through Circles that users select and organize contacts into groups for optimal sharing. I know, I know — not more group management. But the truth is that Google has made the process as pleasant as possible. You simply select people from a list of recommended contacts (populated from your Gmail and/or Google Contacts) and drag them into Circles you designate. The UI for all of this is simple and intuitive — it’s so good, that you might even say it’s kind of fun. It beats the pants off of the method for creating a group within Facebook.
– Sparks
– With Sparks, you enter an interest you have and Google goes out and finds elements on the web that they think you’ll care about. These can be links to blog posts, videos, books — anything that Google searches for. If you find something you like, you can click on an item to add it to your interest list (where it will stay for you to quickly refer to anytime you want). Or you can see what others are liking and talking about globally in the “Featured interests” area.
– Mobile
– “Our goal here is to connect people. And everyone has a camera in their pocket,” Gundotra says as he shows me “Instant Upload”. This feature of Google+ relies on the use of an Android devices to take photos or shoot video. From a new app, you’ll do either of these things and the content will automatically be uploaded to Google+ in the background and stored in a private album (which you can share with one click later). We didn’t want “just” a mobile experience, however, so with Google+ we focused on things (like GPS, cameras, and messaging) to make your pocket computer even more personal.
– Hangouts
– Hangout attempts to solve the social problem of video chat by making it easy for you to let others know that you’re interested in chatting. And if you’re already chatting with a Circle, everyone else in that Circle will get an alert to come hang out. This works for up to 10 people. And seeing it in action is a bit magical. Gundotra starts a Hangout with some co-workers and as they join, conversations start between multiple people. But the Google+ system is smart enough to focus on who is controlling the conversation in any given minute. This makes the conversation easy to watch. It was almost as if an editor is working behind the scenes, cutting between people.
– Even cooler is that you can share a piece of content, like a YouTube clip, and everyone in the Hangout can watch it together while talking about it. It sounds a bit cheesy, but it’s really pretty great.
– Huddle
– It’s essentially a group messaging app that works across Android, iPhone, and SMS to allow you to communicate with the people in certain Circles.
– key to the project is the attempt to unify everything. This is done via the toolbar (which features a drop-down showing you all of your relevant Google+ activity), but also on the mobile apps (again, Android and iPhone), and, of course, on the web. The Google+ site is the main stream on which you’ll find everything. From here, you can easily switch between all of your Circles, share content with any of them, start a Hangout, look up Sparks, etc.
– All of the information flowing through the system does so in real time. As something is shared with you, it appears at the top of your stream. It’s a bit like FriendFeed…and Facebook 🙂
– Google is beginning to roll it out today, but it will only be a very limited field trial. You can submit your email address here to be entered into the system and notified as roll-outs continue, but Google says that they have no set time table for a full rollout. Again, this is phase one of what Google hopes to do with Google+, so they’re taking it slow.
– Learning from Buzz and Wave – slow roll out to make sure it works….spread word, tweak, create demand
– Design also looks very un Google – fun, clean and something different
– http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/06/inside-google-plus-social/all/1
– That’s no surprise since the key interface designer was legendary software artist Andy Herzfeld. The former Macintosh wizard now works at Google — though he loves the company, he had previously felt constrained because its design standards didn’t allow for individual creativity. But with [Google+], he had a go-ahead to flex his creative muscles. “It wasn’t a given that anyone would like what I was doing, but they did,” he says.
– Photos up to 2048*2048 won’t count towards your free 1gB of Picasa storage – neither do 15 min videos – http://lifehacker.com/5817483/picasa-now-offering-virtually-unlimited-storage-brings-google%252B-tagging
– Not all photographers happy
– http://photofocus.com/2011/07/06/google-plus-read-the-fine-print-before-you-sign-up/
– Concern over Terms of Service and what it allows Google to do
34:14 – Google Swiffy
– Google Labs just launched Swiffy, a new web-based tool that allows developers to easily convert Adobe Flash animation SWF files into HTML5. This will allow developers to make Flash ads and basic ActionScript interactions accessible to users on devices that don’t support Flash, like the iPhone and iPad.
– Swiffy is very similar to a tool that Adobe released earlier this year called Wallaby. The main difference is that Swiffy is web-based, whereas Wallaby is a client that runs on a Mac or PC. Additionally, Wallaby’s code is designed to be edited and reused, whereas Swiffy’s code is optimized and compressed in such a way that makes editing difficult.
– The Swiffy demo page shows off the power of the tool. In addition to converting basic banner ad animations, click-event interactions can also be converted to HTML5. To be clear, this won’t convert videos, complex animations or games, but the tool meets its desired goal quite adequately.
35:31 – Google Redesign
– The new Google experience that we’ve begun working toward is founded on three key design principles: focus, elasticity and effortlessness.
Focus: Whether you’re searching, emailing or looking for a map, the only thing you should be concerned about is getting what you want. Our job is to provide the tools and features that will get you there quickly and easily. With the design changes in the coming weeks and months, we’re bringing forward the stuff that matters to you and getting all the other clutter out of your way. Even simple changes, like using bolder colors for actionable buttons or hiding navigation buttons until they’re actually needed, can help you better focus on only what you need at the moment.
Elasticity: In the early days, there was pretty much just one way to use Google: on a desktop computer with an average-sized monitor. Over a decade later, all it takes is a look around one’s home or office at the various mobile devices, tablets, high-resolution monitors and TVs to see a plethora of ways to access the web. The new design will soon allow you to seamlessly transition from one device to another and have a consistent visual experience. We aim to bring you this flexibility without sacrificing style or usefulness.
Effortlessness: Our design philosophy is to combine power with simplicity. We want to keep our look simple and clean, but behind the seemingly simple design, use new technologies like HTML5, WebGL and the latest, fastest browsers to make sure you have all the power of the web behind you.
– And a big black bar at the top of the screen
39:06 – Google Web Fonts
– Now have 180 free open source fonts that you can use on your website
40:25 – Google Update Calendar and Maps
– A couple of new features but the first of many updates to focus on design
– Will we start to see a more unified look and feel alongside the Google+ rollout?
43:20 – Picasa and Blogger brands to be replaced
– Picasa to become Google Photos
– Blogger to become Google Blogger
43:41 – Google Realtime Search disappears
– Googles realtime search has gone offline – reason?
– Google’s agreement with Twitter to carry its results has expired, taking with it much of the content that was in the service with it.
– Google also stressed that went Google Realtime Search relaunches — something it says will happen but with no set time frame — it will include content from a variety of sources and not just be solely devoted to Google+ material.
– There were multiple sources for Google realtime but mostly twitter
– Still, as said, Twitter was the by far the most dominant content within the service. It’s unclear why the agreement was allowed to expire. Twitter sent me this:
Since October 2009, Twitter has provided Google with the stream of public tweets for incorporation into their real-time search product and other uses. That agreement has now expired. We continue to provide this type of access to Microsoft, Yahoo!, NTT Docomo, Yahoo! Japan and dozens of other smaller developers. And, we work with Google in many other ways.
– For its part, Google said:
Twitter has been a valuable partner for nearly two years, and we remain open to exploring other collaborations in the future.
– I’d say we have a bit of a standoff.
46:46 – Facebooks Awesome Announcement
– They’ve hit 750 million users
– Group Messaging
– Rolling out today, group message everyone in a group
– 1 to 1 Video chat
– Your chatting to friend, click on video icon and start a video conversation
– Done via skype
– New design!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
– If browser is wide enough your buddy list will be displayed in a sidebar
51:22 – Spotify coming to US
– Confirmed it’s coming
– Sign up to be one of the first
– They just aren’t sure when
52:08 – Huff Po launches UK edition
– Huffington Post launches UK edition
– Will it be as successful as US version?
– Lots of kickback over the free journalism that takes place
– Guardian don’t like it either
– Editorially, HuffPo feels like a very traditional kind of threat and certainly doesn’t feel like the future. Its formula relies on a fluency of established online skills (though admittedly ones traditional news organisations are still mystifyingly slow to deploy) such as comprehensive aggregation of news around a key story, live blogging and the obligatory social media bells and whistles. HuffPo’s UK launch is one very much for the news junkies. HuffPo’s cluttered design looks more dated than ever – moreDrudge than Flipboard. None of that seems groundbreaking, so what is the HuffPo’s killer proposition?
54:51 – Intereactive UK Broadband Map
– The first interactive map of broadband across the UK has been launched today.
Ofcom, the independent regulator for the UK communications industries, has created the map with data sourced from communications providers to visualise broadband infrastructure across the UK.
– The map allows users to zoom and shows information on the average sync speed (Mbit/s), percentage getting less than 2Mbit/, superfast broadband availability and broadband take up for that specific authority. The colour coded map also ranks areas for the best and worst (slowest) broadband, with one (green) the highest and five (red) the lowest.

Picks
Ian
Aupeo
– Europe’s Pandora?
– Web, iPhone and Android
– Great mix of stations and a good way to discover new music
– Free and paid options – free is ad supported and they can be loud!
– Sign up and if you hand over personal data you get premium access – 7 days

DigitalOutbox Episode 89

DigitalOutbox Episode 89
In this episode the team discuss Apple, Lulzsec and Google Search.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
2:24 – Apple loosens grip on subscription terms
– Apple has lifted the conditions on in-app pricing.
– Significantly, these have now been replaced by a term that says publishers can include content that consumers have paid for elsewhere. So if a newspaper subscribers has paid the paper directly for a year’s online and in-app access, then Apple won’t take a piece of that payment because it was processed outside the App Store. The same applies for services including Spotify, or Netflix.
– Previous terms had insisted that in-app subscriptions were to be the same price or cheaper than subscriptions elsewhere, and also that external subscriptions had to be made available within the app.
– It means publishers can choose whatever price point they like for subscriptions wherever they are, and won’t have to include what might be irrelevant external subscription offers in the Apple apps.
– Apple blinked
4:11 – Apple antes up in Lodsys developer lawsuits
– Apple has made its move in support of theseven small app developers sued by Lodsys over in-app purchases in U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas on May 31, filing a motion to intervene in the proceedings on June 9 according toFOSSpatents’ Florian Mueller. If granted, Apple would be added to the Lodsys suit as a defendant and counterclaim plaintiff.
– Mueller believes that even though Lodsys may oppose Apple’s motion to intervene, the Mac maker is likely to be admitted as a defendant, in which case it has already submitted its answer to Lodsys’ complaint of infringement, and its counterclaim. Apple also cites a number of other precedent-setting similar cases where tech companies were allowed to intervene in patent disputes, which back up and strengthen its motion. If Apple joins as a defendant, Mueller thinks it’s very likely it will take on any legal costs incurred by its developer partners.
6:48 – iTunes in the Cloud not until 2012 for the UK
– The music storage part of the iCloud, due to launch in the US around September time, will not be coming to the UK until at least quarter one of 2012.
– A spokesman for the Performing Right Society (PRS), which ensures that composers, songwriters and music publishers are paid for their work, told The Telegraph, that negotiations with Apple about ensuring rights in the UK had started but were at a “very early stage”.
– “The licensing team at the PRS have started talks with Apple, but are a long way off from any deals being signed…It is very much the early stages of the negotiations and is similar to the launch of iTunes – which began in the US and took a while to roll out to other countries,” they said.
– A music executive at one of the major record labels, who wished to remain unnamed, said: “Tentative talks have begun between the major labels and Apple in the UK. However, all talks are at the really early stages and no one expects to see the cloud music service live on this side of the pond until 2012.”
– Mark Mulligan, vice president and research director at Forrester Research, said: “Apple’s cloud music service will not launch in the UK until at least quarter one of 2012. These types of negotiations take a long time… For one thing the UK arms of all the major record labels are biding their time and waiting to see how the service affects download sales in the US before they sign up to anything.”
– Quicky – Final Cut Pro X, Compressor 5 Motion 4 available on Mac App store from Tuesday 21st as well as 3TB Time Capsule and updated Airport Extreme
13:14 – Nokia and Apple Settle
– Nokia and Apple have agreed a technology licensing agreement that ends the long-running legal dispute between the two firms.
– “The agreement will result in settlement of all patent litigation between the companies,” Nokia said. Nokia sued Apple for patent infringements in 2009 and extended the action in December last year. Apple had countersued, accusing Nokia of infringing its patents.
– Nokia said Apple had agreed a one-off payment, the value of which was not disclosed, and ongoing royalties to use its technologies. Apple said the deal covered both companies’ patents.
15:30 – Google Search Updates
– Google Search on the Desktop
– We first offered speech recognition on mobile search, but you should have that power no matter where you are. You should never have to stop and ask yourself, “Can I speak for this?”—it should be ubiquitous and intuitive. So we’ve added speech recognition into search on desktop for Chrome users. If you’re using Chrome, you’ll start to see a little microphone in every Google search box.
– English only initially, beta version of Chrome soon
– Search by image
– Next to the microphone on images.google.com, you’ll also see a little camera for the new Search by Image feature. If you click the camera, you can upload any picture or plug in an image URL from the web and ask Google to figure out what it is. Try it out when digging through old vacation photos and trying to identify landmarks—the search [mountain path] probably isn’t going to tell you where you were, but computer vision may just do the trick. Search by Image is rolling out now globally in 40 languages. We’re also releasing Chrome and Firefox extensions that enable you to search any image on the web by right-clicking.
– Google Instant: Instant Pages
– Instant Pages can get the top search result ready in the background while you’re choosing which link to click, saving you yet another two to five seconds on typical searches. Let’s say you’re searching for information about the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, so you search for [dc folklife festival]. As you scan the results deciding which one to choose, Google is already prerendering the top search result for you. That way when you click, the page loads instantly.
– Next beta version of Chrome will have this feature
– It’s the borg!
– Sorry officer, I have no idea why my computer was downloading THAT page. 🙂
23:11 – iCann greenlights expansion of web domains
– Icann has decided to allow the number of internet “domains” to expand enormously in one of the biggest changes ever to the internet’s method of naming sites.
– New website suffixes should start appearing late in 2012 and could be categorised by subjects including industry, geography and ethnicity and include Arabic, Chinese and other scripts.
– A special meeting of Icann’s board approved a plan to expand the number of possible internet domain name endings from the current 22 – such as “.com”, “.org” and “.net” (which are separate of the country-specific domain endings such as “.uk”) – to allow domains “in any language or script”, according to Rod Beckstrom, president and chief executive of Icann.
– Icann will receive applications for new domain names for 90 days from 12 January 2012. The fee is $185,000, and the form for application is 360 pages long. It will also begin an awareness campaign pointing out that it has introduced the new scheme.
26:08 – Mobile phone firms develop wave and pay system
– Vodafone, O2, Orange and T-Mobile announced plans on Thursday for a joint venture that would allow shoppers to pay for goods and services with their phones rather than cash or cards.
– Consumers will be able to pay for sandwiches, drinks and train tickets by placing their phones close to a reader similar to the Oyster card system on the London Underground. In the future the technology might even allow you to unlock your front door and start your car.
– Kevin Russell, chief executive of 3, the UK’s smallest operator, hit out at his larger rivals for leaving 3 out of the project. “We would want and expect to be a part at the heart of a cross-industry development like this and are more than a little concerned that, as a core competitor, we have not yet been invited to be part of this joint venture,” he said.
– Vodafone, O2 and Everything Everywhere said the service would be open to all retailers, banks, ticketing companies, advertisers and other mobile companies, including 3, Tesco and Virgin Mobile.
– The trio said they would inject significant capital into the project and would each own one third of the equity. The service is expected to go live early next year, subject to regulatory clearance.
29:36 – O2 will not sell the Playbook
– Blackberry Playbook which launched on Jun 16th won’t be sold by O2 in the UK
– The telco emailed interested punters that RIM’s 7in, QNX OS-based slate will not be available after all, saying it had issues with the “end to end customer experience” offered by the gadget
31:17 – HP Touchpad Pricing and Launch
– HP wants £399 for the 16GB model, £479 for the 32GB version – exactly what Apple is asking for the equivalent iPads 2s.
– Both are driven by a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon chip, and sport 2.4GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 and a 1.3Mp webcam too. 9.7” screen
– The 240 x 190 x 14mm gadget weighs 740g and ships in July.
32:16 – Sky Go Launches July 4th
– Sky Player and Sky Mobile TV, the two services for watching Sky away from your telly are being combined to form Sky Go — and it’s free to all Sky customers.
– Sky Player lets you watch Sky online, and Sky Mobile TV lets you watch on your phone. With the introduction of Sky Go there’ll be just one service for your phone, tablet, laptop and computer, which is free to all Sky subscribers.
– Sky Go will show live programmes and catch-up TV from across the board of Sky channels. That includes all five Sky Sports channels, ESPN, Sky News, Sky Movies, Sky News, Sky 1, Sky Atlantic, Sky Arts, MTV, Disney, GOLD, Nickelodeon, NatGeo, History, Eden and ESPN.
– On your computer or laptop you can choose from 30 channels to watch on the go. Tablets and smart phones are limited to slightly fewer stations, but can get all the Sky Sports channels, ESPN and Sky News. More channels will be added to the phone and tablet line-up over time.
– You can register two devices to watch Sky Go, whether it’s your laptop in bed or your phone on the bus. Sadly you won’t be able to watch when you’re on holiday, as rights issues prevent overseas streaming.
– Sky Player and Sky Sports on the iPhone were previously subscription options so great to have these free for Sky subscribers
– In August, Sky Go will become available to non-Sky TV customers for a monthly subscription price ranging from £15 to £40. Sky Player will remain available on Xbox Live and Freeview service Fetch TV, but will rebrand as just ‘Sky’.
35:46 – PR firm busted
– Redner Group stated:
– Too many went too far with their reviews…we are reviewing who gets games next time and who doesn’t based on today’s venom,” the company tweeted. “Bad scores are fine. Venom filled reviews…that’s completely different,” another tweet read.
– That was on companies official twitter feed…but has since been removed and an apology tweeted out as well
– Everyone kind of expects it…but still not good to see
– Currently, Duke Nukem Forever has a Metacritic score of 49 on the Xbox 360
40:26 – Dropbox Left User Accounts Unlocked for 4 Hours Sunday
– Yesterday we made a code update at 1:54pm Pacific time that introduced a bug affecting our authentication mechanism. We discovered this at 5:41pm and a fix was live at 5:46pm. A very small number of users (much less than 1 percent) logged in during that period, some of whom could have logged into an account without the correct password. As a precaution, we ended all logged in sessions.
– We’re conducting a thorough investigation of related activity to understand whether any accounts were improperly accessed. If we identify any specific instances of unusual activity, we’ll immediately notify the account owner. If you’re concerned about any activity that has occurred in your account, you can contact us at support@dropbox.com.
– This should never have happened. We are scrutinizing our controls and we will be implementing additional safeguards to prevent this from happening again.
– If you were affected then you will have been e-mailed as review is complete
– Worried – check your event log – https://www.dropbox.com/events
– For those who are seeking a service similiar to Dropbox, but with more security, Wuala and SpiderOak encrypt data on users’ devices, not on a central server.
43:01 – WordPress.org Password reset
– Noticed suspicious commits to several popular plugins (AddThis, WPtouch, and W3 Total Cache) containing cleverly disguised backdoors. We determined the commits were not from the authors, rolled them back, pushed updates to the plugins, and shut down access to the plugin repository while we looked for anything else unsavory.
– To use the forums, trac, or commit to a plugin or theme, you’ll need to reset your password to a new one. (Same for bbPress.org and BuddyPress.org.)
44:25 – Lulzsec and Anonymous Declare Open War Against All Governments and Fat Cats
– Lulzsec and Anonymoushave just declared full open war against all governments, banks and big corporations in the world. They are calling all hackers in the world to unite. Their objective is to fully expose all corruption and dark secrets
– This is getting tiring…..and dangerous. Real change ala wikileaks is powerful but hacking user accounts and throwing them online for individuals to be damaged…is childish
– Trying to be characters like robin hood?
– Net may be closing in – http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/21/lulzsec-hacker-group-who-belongs
– http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13859868 – 19 year old arrested in UK
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/22/ryan-cleary-charged-lulzsec-hacking
– Charged with 5 offences of computer hacking
51:05 – Microsoft launches Kinect SDK for Windows
– Embraces hacking community by launching official SDK for Kinect on Windows
– This will allow users to create games, UIs, and apps with Kinect’s 3D sensing technology including 3D scanning, audio tracking, and the creation of 3D wireframes in real time.
The three major features include, Raw sensor streams, Skeletal tracking, Advanced audio capabilities
52:41 – Popcap bought for $1 billion
– Huge news in the gaming world: PopCap Games, the company behind such hits as Plants vs Zombies and Bejeweled, is in the process of being acquired — and we’re hearing from multiple sources that the price is over $1 billion.
54:29 – iOS Apps
– Bungie Mobile
– http://www.tuaw.com/2011/06/14/bungie-releases-free-ios-app/
– Free app from Bungie
– Track your Halo stats
– Login with Bungie ID and enable blue flames!
– Discovr Apps and Music
– http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/14/discovr-launches-awesome-tool-to-find-and-discover-new-apps-think-interactive-graphs/
– Great apps for discovering new apps and music
– Graphically shows related apps or music, then details more on the app or artist
– Both £0.59 but very nicely written
– Order & Chaos
– http://toucharcade.com/2011/04/27/order-chaos-online-goes-worldwide-lets-take-over-the-arcadian-forest-server/
– Gameloft MMO – rip off of WOW
– Monthly sub but at the moment it’s £0.59 for 3 months gameplay
– Pretty amazing to have this running on iPhone/iPad
– Exfm
– Great music discovery app out today
– Get the chrome plugin to understand what it’s about
– Follow friends, industry leaders, music blogs etc
– Great way of finding new music
– Free!
59:02 – Lytro Light Field Cameras
– Introducing a light field camera this year
– Amazing demo – take a photo and in post you can change what is in focus
– Light field means capturing all the light moving in all the directions in the view of the camera
– A real step change in photography…
1:04:47 – Facebook – Spartan and iPad App
– Project Spartan is the codename for a new platform Facebook is on verge of launching. It’s entirely HTML5-based and the aim is to reach some 100 million users in a key place: mobile. More specifically, the initial target is both surprising and awesome: mobile Safari.
– Yes, Facebook is about to launch a mobile platform aimed squarely at working on the iPhone (and iPad). But it won’t be distributed through the App Store as a native application, it will be entirely HTML5-based and work in Safari. Why? Because it’s the one area of the device that Facebook will be able to control (or mostly control).
– Facebook iPad app

Picks
Chris
SlideIT
– Android Keyboard. Like HTC sense.
– Drag your fingers over the keys rather than pressing individual ones. Magically your words appear. Clever stuff.
– Trial – or buy full versoin £3.99
Ian
Reeder for Mac
– Reeder for Mac – £5.99 from Mac App Store
– The best feed reader for Mac
– Great Google reader integration
– Fast and it looks great too

DigitalOutbox Episode 88

DigitalOutbox Episode 88
In this episode the team discuss WWDC, Windows 8, E3 and the most damaging DM mistake ever.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:41 – Windows 8 Revealed
– Appears to be a rethink of what Windows is
– Tiles similar to Windows Phone (Metro) are viewed – bigger so can show more
– Touch based OS – does look very nice
– Applications will be of two types: traditional Windows apps built using existing APIs, and new apps built on Javascript and HTML5. APIs and guidelines for these will be released a little further down the line. There is a big focus on making applications friendly to both touch and mouse/keyboard.
– Can go back to ‘traditional’ windows – almost jarring moving between the two environments
– When in windows the touch Metro environment feels like a skin on top – like a dashboard?
– For touch though I think it’s a bold move from MS and great to see that Javascript and HTML5 are the basis (even though the app’s written for Windows 8 won’t run elsewhere!?!)
– Too early to tell how good this will be
6:52 – Facebook launch face scanning
– Facebook has apologised for the way it rolled-out a new system that recognises users’ faces. The social network said that it should have done more to notify members about the global launch.
Its Tag Suggestions feature scans photos and automatically picks out existing friends.
– Although users have the option to switch it off, some complained that they were not explicitly asked if they wanted it activated.
Facebook said that the system was intended to speed up the process of assigning a name to a picture, known as tagging.
– It was introduced in the US in December 2010 but has only now been launched globally.
9:37 – WWDC
– Lion
– 10 new features that were known already
– App Store only, July, £20.99, 4GB download for Snow Leopard
– 200 new features overall
– App Store updates
– For enhanced security, apps will have a built-in sandbox mode whilst developers will have the ability to send “delta updates”, which are effectively ‘patch based’ updates, meaning the entire app will not have to re-downloaded with every update.Apps will also be able to send push notifications to users and just like iOS apps, can also have in-app purchases
Lots of their new features were really refinements (as always with Apple!). Nice to see development, just seems that the desktop PC is now rather an after-thought…
Full screen apps – finally a way to maximise an app on OSX 🙂
– iOS 5
– 1. Notifications: no more interruptions. Notifications will appear like Android . SLide your finger across the notification and you will go to the app. More information will be visible form the Home screen. You can also click on the X to lea all the notifications.
Quick Android, sue Apple for copying 🙂
2. Newsstand: Newsstand is the place for all your Magazine and newspaper subscriptions. On the iPad, this app will let you read, listen to audio and video as well. Each edition is automatically downloaded to your device.
3. Twitter: Twitter is not integrated into iOS. SIngle sign-on is integrated into the settings and you won’t have to login in for every app. It’s also integrated with Camera and photos so you can upload with a few clicks. Location and thumbnails are also included. As expected, the Twitter integration taps into your contacts.
4. Safari: Safari is the most popular web browser of all time and the basis of 90% of mobile browsing. Apple introduced Safari Reader which will bring an articles content into one page and lets you email the content of the article or tweet about it. Includes full tabbed browsing in Safari on the iPad.
Will be interesting to see how advert driven websites react to this feature! There are tools available already (as covered by Ian in his picks) but this will bring to the masses an ability to cut off revenue streams for site owners!
5. Reminders: Reminders does exactly what it says — remind you od al the important things you need to do. Includes location information and can remind you when you arrive and leave an event. Searchable and will sync with iCal.
6. Camera: The Camera app got a refresh with a new Camera shortcut on the lock screen (yay!). Double-click the home button and the camera app will launch. Will let you take a new picture even if you have a passcode set. You can use the volume up button as a snap for the camera and grid lines to help frame your photos. You can even pinch-to-zoom and set AE/AF lock without losing your previous settings. . Built-in editor will let you crop, rotate, reduce red-eye and more.
After months of stopping hardware buttons for shutter, finally they relent! Feel sorry for those apps that got the chop because of doing just that.
7. Mail: Mail also gets some fresh new features including full text searching, rich text formatting, and flagging. Swipe to add an inbox and new enterprise features that add support for S/MIME. New dictionary will help with your definitions. A new split keyboard will make typing text easier.
8. PC Free: Cut the cord. PC Free gives you the ability to setup and activate your brand new iPhone right on the handset. Software updates are now over the air (double-yay!), even minor patches and little changes like add/delete calendars and add/remove mailboxes can be done from the handset.
9. Game Center: Game Center now includes photos with the profiles, game recommendations, achievement point comparisons. You can also purchase games right through the game center. Support for turn-based games is now added into iOS so games like Scrabble will be easier to build.
10. iMessage: A new messaging service just for iOS 5 owners. It’s BBM for iOS! You can send text, photos, videos contacts, group messaging, delivery receipts and more. iMessages are pushed to all iOS device and it works over 3G and WiFi. And its all encrypted!
– Airplay mirroring – does that mean any app will mirror over Airplay without the app having to support it – thats massive for home and corporate environments
– Many app developers will be feeling the pinch – Instapaper, Camera+, ToDo apps, Messaging apps
– After all the previewed features and great news about iOS 5 (OTA updates, wireless sync, new apps, iMessage), Apple confirmed that iOS 5 will ship this Fall (perhaps with a new iPhone?), with a first developer seed available later today. The best part? Just like iOS 4, iOS 5 will run on your iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS (unlike a previous report claimed, 3GS is supported), iPad and iPad 2, iPod touch 3rd and 4th gen
If you have an app in the areas where Apple has now “baked in” functionality, you’ll be cursing at the moment! Always a risk for developers who come up with a great idea.
– iCloud
– http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/06/apple-details-iclouds-digital-storage-and-syncing-free-5gb-of-storage.ars
– iCloud integrates with a number of apps on both iOS devices and Macs to sync content like pictures, documents, and music between devices, and will provide 5GB of storage free to all users.
– iCloud can wirelessly push content to all the listed devices automatically and integrate with apps like Contacts, Mail, and iCal that were all previously handled by Apple’s old cloud service, MobileMe. Jobs said these apps have been “rebuilt from the ground up” to be iCloud apps.
– The iCloud version of iCal includes calendar sharing, so that an update to a calendar is not only pushed to all of a user’s own devices, but to those who subscribe to the calendar as well. In e-mail, @me.com addresses can sync mail between all devices.
– Jobs also announced a few newly iCloud-optimized apps. Integration with the App Store allows users to see a purchase history of all of their apps and pull one down to a device if they need it, as long as it’s compatible. A newly bought app can be automatically pushed to all devices. Likewise, new books and their bookmarks in iBooks can be auto-synced to all devices, and new Pages document will automatically be backed up to the service, then pushed to all other Pages-enabled devices.
– Another feature, called PhotoStream, pulls images directly from the camera roll of a user’s device, puts them in the cloud, and sends them to any desired devices, including Macs and the Apple TV. The last 1,000 photos are kept for 30 days by default, and moving the pictures to an album keeps them forever.
– iTunes was also primed for iCloud, and lets users pull down songs or albums purchased through the iTunes Store from their purchase history to the device they are using. Jobs noted there is a “switch” where users can tell iCloud to sync all songs bought on any device to up to 10 authorized devices.
– Jobs also described a new feature called iTunes Match, which attempts to match up songs in a user’s library with what is available in the iTunes Store. If a song can be matched, a customer will have access to it via iCloud without having to upload it, though they will be able to upload songs they already own as well. The service has no data caps, but costs $24.99 per year. So Apple’s basically betting you’ll pay $25 a year to legalize all your content, and for the convenience of having it with you everywhere
– Similar to HP’s webOS, iCloud will also allow iOS devices to complete automatic daily backups of your devices to the cloud.
– Jobs said little about how users will control the actions of iCloud (other than through iTunes), which is relevant to those concerned about data usage limits. During a demo, Roger Rosner, VP of iWork, indicated that when he wanted to access a Keynote presentation on his iPad from his iPhone, he first had to give consent for the phone to use the iCloud service.
– APIs for iCloud storage and a beta version will be available to developers starting today, and device owners running iOS 4.3 will also get access to a beta version of iTunes in the cloud. The full version of iCloud will be available with iOS 5, which is due out this fall. Jobs announced that 5GB of storage will be available free to all users for mail, documents, and backup, with the PhotoStream service operating outside that limit.
Another case of end to end control helping Apple to make a service that, in theory, ‘just works’. Extremely impressive stuff – not because we haven’t seen it before, just because it’s so completely realised. The data-centre was impressive!
However, what about people with low/limited upload speeds… Pictures and songs are large beasts and the data-centre is in the US after all. I’m sure they’ve thought about it and if anyone can pull it off, Apple can.
Their push towards delta updates on everything was also evidence that they are on the case.
How long before EU/Competitions commissions start getting involved? We’re talking features and functionality that you don’t have any options over – iCloud as a service for example. Microsoft are still suffering from having to open up their operating system to competition. Will this appen to Apple as well? I don’t think it’s that far away.
56:32 – FT bypass the Apple Tax
– The Financial Times would rather not have Apple take a 30 percent cut of in-app subscriptions for its iOS publications, and has launched a HTML5 Web app that enables readers to access content across tablets and smartphones.
– The browser app enables readers to access content when offline by saving a shortcut to articles, receive automatic updates without the need to download new versions of the app and access content exclusively made for tablets.
– An upcoming feature is ‘Clippings’, a service that will allow users to read articles later, either on their tablet or on their desktop PC. Sound familiar? (look for ‘reading list’)
– FT acknowledges that the Web app has been initially optimized for the iPhone and the iPad, but says it will also be adapted for Android-based devices and the BlackBerry PlayBook.
– Accessing FT content is free for up to ten articles per month, if you register.
– Performance – pretty poor
What have I been bleating on about? Yep, the future is web-based services. Not apps.
1:02:39 – Microsoft Keynote
– Kinect dominated
– Ghost Recon:Future Warrior – kinect gesture and voice support, as will all future Tom Clancy games
– New dashboard this fall, kinect powered, metro’ish design, Bing and Youtube channels controlled by voice
– Bing allows you to search across Xbox content
– TV channel in the Fall – US only?
– Halo:Combat Evolved – Nov 15th – 10 year anniversary – HD graphics, co-op, multiplayer maps as well but you need Halo Reach to play multiplayer – 6 maps – no multiplayer with Halo:CE apart from co-op
– Fable: The Journey – first person journeying via kinect
– Minecraft coming to 360 this winter…with kinect support
– Forza 4 – October 11th – head tracking via kinect, new community features – not much else revealed
– Kinect Fun Labs, Disneyland – Wiitastic games coming to kinect
– Kinect sports 2, Dance Central 2
– Halo 4 – end of 2012 – new 3 parter
– Buried – Cloud storage for game saves and profiles – sign in anywhere to any console
Kinect seems to = games on rails… not exactly the future of gaming as I see it.
Mind you, all the games shows seemed to have massive amounts of “watching” the game rather than actually “playing” it.
1:11:44 – Sony Keynote
– Apologise for outage and hack
– Ico and Shadow of the Colossus to launch September 28
– A TV. And some 3D glasses. Available in one $499 bundle this fall, the 3D-enabled 24-inch television includes a pair of PlayStation-branded 3D glasses (extra glasses are available for $69.99 separately), a six foot HDMI cable and a copy of Resistance 3. Best of all, the screen includes some clever technology which allows two players looking at the display at two different angles to see separate images, effectively eschewing traditional split-screen multiplayer.
– Resistance 3 – September 6
– Dust 514 – spring/summer 2012
– When playing your FPS title of choice, have you ever wished that there was something more to it beyond your rank, weapon unlocks, your kill/death ratio and leaderboard prominence? Those things are all great – but what if those matches you fought in actually meant something? What if your successes and failures against your opponents impacted the course of events in a vast setting, potentially changed a virtual world and the gameplay experience of thousands of other players? More than that, what if that impact was felt across two separate games – one on PS3 and one on PC/Mac – that share the same sci-fi universe?
DUST 514 is that game.
– “Persistence” is the key word here. The world of DUST 514 doesn’t spawn when you fire up your PlayStation 3 — it’s always there and always being experienced and influenced by other players in the EVE universe. When you take part in events in the EVE universe through combat in DUST 514, you’re taking part in something greater than your own individual experience of that world.
– Your fights impact the entire EVE setting, comprised of both DUST 514 mercenaries and EVE Online starship pilots, known as “capsuleers“. When you capture or destroy planetary structures, you are asserting dominance over regions of that planet – perhaps eventually the planet itself. As you profit while wiping out your opposition in DUST 514, the outcomes of these conflicts can affect territorial control of vast regions of space in EVE Online, something of great importance to EVE’s starship pilots.
– Uncharted in september – looks really good
– Sony announce slew of games with Move support
– Saints Row:The Third with move – Nov 15th
– NGP is Playstation Vita
– The NGP PlayStation Vita will feature both Wi-Fi and 3G functionality, with AT&T being named the official wireless carrier of the new handheld. Audible groan and boo’s when AT&T announced. front and rear cams, Wi-Fi with optional 3G, a 5-inch AMOLED display, and touchpads on both sides
– As for pricing, the Wi-Fi model will retail for $249, while the 3G/Wi-Fi model will retail for $299 (£229 and £279)
– Launched globally by the end of 2011
– Streetfighter x Tekken a launch title as is Wipeout, Modnation Racers…and of course Ridge Racer
– This is my next hands on
– It’s big. Certainly not very pocket friendly, but not comical. It’s a pretty reasonable size given the fully articulated analog controls and all the other wild stuff going on here. Still, it’s big if you’re used to doing your gaming on a phone or even a recent PSP.
It’s light. Vita actually feels hollow. It’s a little bizarre given the fact that we’re looking at a seriously large display, and takes some getting used to. We’re happy to report, however, that this is some seriously quality craftsmanship. The see-through plastic triggers are big, meaty, and have a whole bunch of finely crafted travel.
The “cheapest” feeling part is probably the back touchscreen. It kind of feels (and looks) like a plastic sticker, and it actually made some tasks requiring rear touch a little sub-par feeling. We’d prefer something a bit more like brushed glass.
This screen is AMAZING. Not only is it amazing in size, color, and resolution, but the games are actually pumping enough pixels to look wonderful on it. Virtua Tennis was especially spectacular, with oodles of polygons available for every nuance of Federer’s face.
The analog sticks are good, but not DualShock or Xbox 360 controller good. We got through most gaming tasks fine, but shooting in Uncharted felt a little sloppy. Of course, there’s always a bit of a learning curve with a new shooter and a new analog stick, so we’re willing to give this one time.
1:18:48 – Nintendo Keynote
– The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword will arrive on Wii during Holiday 2011
– 25th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda. Part of the celebration, as announced by Shigeru Miyamoto, includes the release The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening on the 3DS eShop. And by “release,” we mean that the classic Game Boy title is actually available today.
– Luigi’s Mansion 2 officially announced for 3DS
– Super Mario 3D, the 3DS title briefly teased back at GDC, would launch before year’s end.
– Mario Kart for 3DS – winter
– Starfox 64 for 3DS this fall
– Nintendo Wii U
– The controller features a large, touch-capable screen, paired with two circle pads, a directional pad, face buttons, a camera, a gyroscope and an accelerometer. Nintendo is positioning it as an entertainment sharing device, with video and gameplay working across the controller and your home console.
– You can play games solely on the controller, which handles like a tablet and presumably includes the stylus we saw interacting with it during the reveal. It’s got a 6.2 inch screen, is backward compatible with all Wii games, Wii Remotes and other accessories — a video showed showed it being used with the Balance Board and as a Wii Remote, so it’s got motion controls built in. An example during the reveal showed an individual using it in a golf game, just like a Wiimote.
– It’s got rumble, trigger buttons, touch-screen, microphone and speakers, and an accelerometer. It’s also got a camera built in. Iwata says it’s got support for the “widest variety of games can be supported” and can play games independently of the Wii itself. Oh, and it’s HD.
– Expected 2012
– No games demo’d, just rolling montages – from 360 and PS3 versions of the games
– 1.8 inches tall, 6.8 inches wide, 10.5 inches long
Single-touch display
The new controller incorporates a 6.2-inch, 16:9 touch screen and traditional button controls, including two analog Circle Pads. This combination removes the traditional barriers between games, players and the TV by creating a second window into the video game world. The rechargeable controller includes a Power button, Home button, +Control Pad, A/B/X/Y buttons, L/R buttons and ZL/ZR buttons. It includes a built-in accelerometer and gyroscope, rumble feature, camera, a microphone, stereo speakers, a sensor strip and a stylus
Up to four Wii Remote (or Wii Remote Plus) controllers can be connected at once. The new console supports all Wii controllers and input devices, including the Nunchuk controller, Classic Controller, Classic Controller Pro and Wii Balance Board
A single self-loading media bay will play 12-centimeter proprietary high-density optical discs for the new console, as well as 12-centimeter Wii optical discs
Supports 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 480p and 480i. Compatible cables include HDMI, component, S-video and composite
Uses AV Multi Out connector. Six-channel PCM linear output through HDMI
The console will have internal flash memory, as well as the option to expand its memory using either an SD memory card or an external USB hard disk drive
IBM Power®-based multi-core microprocessor
Four USB 2.0 connector slots are included. The new console is backward compatible with Wii games and Wii accessories
1:24:31 – E3 News
– Mass Effect 3 – Mar 6th 2012
– Battlefield 3 – October 25th
– A new social client for FIFA gamers launching with FIFA 12, known as “Football Club”. The service is said to track “status, bragging rights and progression,” allowing players to access their cross-game stats from FIFA titles. Think Bungie Pro or Call of Duty Elite, but, ya know, without the paid part. Thats right — it’s free! Football Club will launch with FIFA 12 this fall
– Tomb Raider – 2012, reimagined in some ways but classic Tomb Raider in many others
– On-Live hits the UK Q3 2011
– http://www.reghardware.com/2011/06/03/onlive_hits_uk_in_autumn/
– After a successful first year in the US, cloud-based game service OnLive is finally heading to the UK this autumn.
– Customers with fast internet connections will be able to stream games such as Borderlands and Prince of Persia straight to their computer or TV set, no download required.
– OnLive’s UK page now shows a countdown set to end June 7 at 8pm. Sign up then and you’ll be given an OnLive UK Founding Member account for early access.
– OnLive will launch in the UK in collaboration with BT
– iPad client also launching in the Autumn
1:28:38 – Finally – most damaging DM mistake yet?
– Rep. Anthony Weiner has confessed at a press conference that he sent via Twitter the picture that has captivated Washington for the past week — and that he lied about his account being hacked.
– “I regret not being honest about this,” Weiner said in a tearful statement. “I was embarrassed, I was humiliated. I was trying to protect my wife. I was trying to protect myself from shame.”
– He claimed to have tweeted the picture on May 27 to Seattle student Gennette Cordova “as a joke” but then “panicked” and removed the tweet from his Twitter account. Cordova, however, doesn’t understand what joke that would be. “Am I the only one still confused?” she tweeted during the press conference.
– “Once I realized I had posted it on Twitter I panicked, I took it down and said I’d been hacked,” Weiner explained.
– Weiner said he has had “cursory direct message contact” with Cordova and that she was not one of the women he was having an online relationship with.

DigitalOutbox Episode 87

DigitalOutbox Episode 87
In this episode the team discuss Twitter, Eric Schmidt and Activision.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
1:16 – Paypal sues Google
– Mentioned PayPal on last podcast in regards Google Wallet and how they would fight to retain their control – hours after we finished PayPal sued Google
– The complaint (embedded below) alleges “misappropriation of trade secrets, and “breach of fiduciary duty.” It revolves around Osama Bedier, who was the VP of Platform, Mobile, and New Ventures at PayPal before he was recruited to work at Google by Android chief Andy Rubin, Google co-founder Larry Page, and Bedier’s former PayPal colleague Stephanie Tilenius (who now heads up Commerce and Payments at Google, and I interviewed yesterday onstage at Disrupt NYC).
The lawsuit reveals that Google was negotiatiating with PayPal for two years to power payments on mobile devices. But just as the deal was about to be signed, Google backed off and instead hired the PayPal executive negotiating the deal—Bedier.
– Inferring that Google bought the knowledge and then used it to launch google Wallet
3:41 – SeeSaw Closes
– SeeSaw, UK based video TV venture to close
– At its launch in February last year, SeeSaw offered 3,000 hours of free programmes including Skins, Kingdom and Doc Martin. Three months later it began offering paid-for content, with 1,000 hours of shows including South Park and Spooks, and struck deals with US broadcasters including MTV and NBC Universal.
– But third-party internet TV aggregators have strugged to compete with broadcasters’ own in-house on-demand services, and SeeSaw failed to gain a significant following compared to rival offerings such as the BBC’s iPlayer, ITV Player and Channel 4’s on-demand service, 4oD.
– We first covered this back on Episode 37 and said we couldn’t see a reason to use this over iPlayer, 4OD etc
7:15 – Lodsys responds to Apple
– Sues developers and chases Android dev’s too
– Says if it has improperly targeted a developer it will give them $1000
12:09 – Apple responds to Malware
– Security update that spots and removes MacDefender and will update daily for new varients
15:24 – Twitter in UK Legal Landmark
– Twitter has been forced to hand over the personal details of a British user in a libel battle that could have huge implications for free speech on the web.
– The social network has passed the name, email address and telephone number of a south Tyneside councillor accused of libelling the local authority via a series of anonymous Twitter accounts. South Tyneside council took the legal fight to the superior court of California, which ordered Twitter, based in San Francisco, to hand over the user’s private details.
– It is believed to be the first time Twitter has bowed to legal pressure to identify anonymous users and comes amid a huge row over privacy and free speech online.
– Ahmed Khan, the south Tyneside councillor accused of being the author of the pseudonymous Twitter accounts, described the council’s move as “Orwellian”. Khan received an email from Twitter earlier this month informing him that the site had handed over his personal information. He denies being the author of the allegedly defamatory material.
– “I don’t fully understand it but it all relates to my Twitter account and it not only breaches my human rights, but it potentially breaches the human rights of anyone who has ever sent me a message on Twitter.
– “A number of whistleblowers have sent me private messages, exposing any wrongdoing in the council, and the authority knows this.”
– He added: “I was never even told they were taking this case to court in California. The first I heard was when Twitter contacted me. I had just 14 days to defend the case and I was expected to fly 6,000 miles and hire my own lawyer – all at my expense.
22:41 – Twitter Integrates photos and improves Search
– New version of search – more relevant tweets – huge opportunity for twitter in realtime search
– Also show relevant photos and videos
– Speaking of photo’s…
– Over the next several weeks, we’ll be releasing a feature to upload a photo and attach it to your Tweet right from Twitter.com. And of course, you’ll soon be able to easily do this from all of our official mobile apps. A special thanks to our partner Photobucket for hosting these photos behind the scenes.
– For users without smartphones, we’re working with mobile carriers around the world so you can also send photos via text message (MMS). Share what’s happening in your world, anywhere you are.
24:38 – Eric Schmidt D9 Revelations
– Google is the default search engine for Apple computers and iOS devices (iPhone and iPad). Google Maps also gets featured placement. That’s going to continue. “We have a very,very good search partnership” and map relationship with Apple, Schmidt said, saying that deals on both have been renewed.
– Schmidt said repeatedly that it would be “useful” to get social data from Facebook or elsewhere to improve its own products: “From Google’s perspective, it would be useful to have the information; it would make our products better.” Later, when asked if Google might need to buy Twitter or some other company, he said: “Our social strategy does not acquire the acquisition of any company, because we can get people to give us that information.”
– Google has facial recognition technology, but it’s uncomfortable with how it might be used, so it has withheld it. That’s apparently pretty unique for Google. “As far as I know, it’s the only technology that Google built and stopped,” Schmidt said.
– “Four years ago, I wrote memos on identity and did nothing …. I clearly knew I had to do something, and I failed to do it,” Schmidt said. Why – “I think I was busy,” Schmidt said. “CEOs should take responsibility. I screwed up.
– Mossberg said that Bing seems to have more direct answers in some cases. “There’s that in some narrow cases,” Schmidt said.
There you go — one of the top three execs at Google admitting that Bing beats Google, even if it’s in a narrow case. I’m sure there have been some statements like that before, but they’re few and far between.
32:07 – Button Plague
– Twitter launch Follow button
– The Follow Button is to establish connections with other Twitter users remotely. So if we were to add a Follow Button to the sidebar on DigitalOutbox, with one click, you could follow our account
– Different from the tweet button that tweets content
– Google +1 for websites
– Do you want to +1 a page while you’re on it. After all, how do you know you want to suggest that recipe for chocolate flan if you haven’t tried it out yet?
– Today, we’re releasing +1 buttons to the whole web. As a result, you might start seeing +1 appear on sites large and small across the Internet.
– All competing with Facebook Like button
34:54 – Amazon launch Mac Download Store
– Amazon launches Mac Download store
– 250 titles including MS Office
– No way for independents to submit titles – for now – works with established software sellers only
– Downloads unlimited, linked to your Amazon account
– Another shot across Apple’s bow’s but will Apple users really care with the Mac App store built into OS X?
40:48 – Microsoft make more money from Android than from Windows Phone 7
– Microsoft gets $5 for every HTC phone running Android, according to Citi analyst Walter Pritchard, who released a big report on Microsoft this morning.
– Microsoft is getting that money thanks to a patent settlement with HTC over intellectual property infringement.
– Microsoft is suing other Android phone makers, and it’s looking for $7.50 to $12.50 per device, says Pritchard.
– A rough estimate of the number of HTC Android devices shipped is 30 million. If HTC paid $5 per unit to Microsoft, that adds up to $150 million Android revenues for Microsoft.
– Microsoft has admitted selling 2 million Windows Phone licenses (though not devices.) Estimating that the license fee is $15/WP phone, that makes Windows Phone revenues to date $30 million.
– So Microsoft has received five times more income from Android than from Windows Phone.
44:12 – BT to embrace IPTV
– British Telecom will change the bulk of its broadband network to use multicast routers as from next year – this will mean that full IPTV services, using quality of service protocols, could then be launched for the first time on the BT network.
– at the Connected TV Summit in London last week Steve White, head of information systems and technology for IPTV at BT, said that the BT network was being upgraded to multicast to allow full IPTV. When asked why, White said: “It’s too expensive renting DVB-T multiplex space to deliver Sky Sports to BT Vision customers, so we want to send it multicast.”
– A multicast network uses a Type D internet addressing system whereby content is sent from one point in a network to another, and any branch along the way can opt to also access that address, or not. It is the basis of the Internet Group Management Protocol and is the basis of modern IPTV systems and saves a huge amount of bandwidth, because each TV channel only has to be sent around a city fiber network once, not as multiple unicast copies. Most public broadband networks across Europe do not cater for multicast, except where they have been specifically upgraded for IPTV.
– Potential for BT to launch hundreds of IPTV channels up to HD quality
48:00 – Apple launch iWork on iPhone
– Keynote, Pages and Numbers now available for iPhone
– Universal version so if you’ve bought them for iPad you can now use them on your phone
– £5.99 each or free if you have them for iPad
– Key part of iCloud next week?
51:49 – Call of Duty Elite
– Activision is set to launch a new social gaming platform for fans of its multi-million selling Call of Duty titles. The long-expected service, named Call of Duty Elite, will feature detailed multiplayer gaming statistics, community elements and user-generated content sharing.
– Downloadable map packs and other similar offerings for all subsequent Call of Duty game releases will be included in the monthly subscription fee.
– A public beta will begin in the summer, with a launch following in autumn. Vitally, basic multiplayer gaming will remain free of charge, despite fears that Activision would seek to monetise online play.
– Elite is essentially a thorough online matchmaking service, combined with elements of FaceBook, YouTube and the “Autolog” in-game social networking concept developed by EA for its Need for Speed titles. Players will create a single Elite profile, which then unites their experiences in all CoD titles. Access Elite via console, PC or mobile
– 4 sections – Career – stats on your CoD games, heatmaps of matches etc – Connect – extension of basic matchmaking, search for players by topic, eg photography, groups and clans – Compete – prize events – Improve – hints and tips
– Price – less than other competing services – rumours of $5 a month

Picks
Chris
The Website Is Down
– Very funny videos for anyone in IT
Henry
Polychord for iPad
– Music creation app for iPad
– Easy to use with loads of features

DigitalOutbox Episode 86

DigitalOutbox Episode 86
In this episode the team discuss Ryan Giggs suing Twitter, sleazy Facebook, Apple Malware and Sony woes.

Playback
Listen via iTunes
Listen via M4A
Listen via MP3

Shownotes
2:30 – Footballer Sues Twitter
– A footballer has launched legal action against Twitter after a number of the microblogging site’s users purported to reveal the name of the player who allegedly had an affair with model Imogen Thomas.
– The footballer’s legal team began the legal action at the high court in London on Wednesday, in what is thought to be the first action against the US social media firm and its users.
– The lawsuit lists the defendants as “Twitter Inc and persons unknown”. The latter are described as those “responsible for the publication of information on the Twitter accounts” in the court document, according to reports.
– Earlier this month, an unknown person or individuals published the names of various people who had allegedly taken out gagging orders to conceal sexual indiscretions on a Twitter account. The account rapidly attracted more than 100,000 followers.
– Twitter declined to comment.
– The lord chief justice, Lord Judge, on Friday said Twitter and its users were totally out of control when it comes to privacy injunctions and court orders.
– Thousands tweet player name on Friday and Saturday – everyone knows who it is
– Sunday Herald publishes a picture of player with his eye’s blacked out – http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/may/22/scottish-newspaper-identifies-injuction-footballer
– They don’t publish story online – only in the actual paper
– “Today we identify the footballer whose name has been linked to a court superinjunction by thousands of postings on Twitter. Why? Because we believe it is unsustainable that the law can be used to prevent newspapers from publishing information that readers can access on the internet at the click of a mouse.
– “Because we believe it unfair that the law can not only be used to prevent the publication of information which may be in the public interest but also to prevent any mention of such a court order. The so-called superinjunction holds no legal force in Scotland where a separate court order is needed. We should point out immediately that we are not accusing the footballer of any misdeed. Whether the allegations against him are true or not has no relevance to this debate.”
– MP eventually reveals Gigg’s name in the House of Commons
8:46 – Patent Troll targets iOS Developers
– a Texas-based company called Lodsys said it has four patents relating to in-app purchases, interactive online ads, online help and subscription renewals.
– Instead of suing Apple or any of the big companies like EA, it’s chasing small indie developers
– One claim was served on Friday by hand on James Thomson, a Glasgow-based developer who wrote the apps PCalc and DragThing. Another who received the couriered legal package was Matt Braun, a developer based in Toledo, Ohio, author of the best-selling iPhone kids game MASH who runs a mobile app development company, Magnate Interactive. Patrick McCarron of MobileAge, based in Chicago, has also received a demand.
– Developers have raised this with Apple legal hoping for some assistance – they are leveraging tools and API’s delivered by Apple
– May 23rd – Apple respond to developers and Lodsys – we have licenced your patent, our app developers aren’t in violation – do one you trolls
13:26 – Apple Malware
– A fake security program for Apple computers called MACDefender has racked up a significant number of victims.
– Hundreds of people who installed the software have turned to Apple’s forums for help to remove it.
– The program’s tactic of peppering screens with pornographic pictures has made many keen to get rid of it.
– MACDefender seems to have been successful because of the work its creators did to make it appear high up in search results.
– Has to be downloaded and then users supply username and password to install
– Note – the vast majority of malware that Sophos and other security firms see is aimed at Windows users. About 100,000 novel malicious programs for Windows are detected every day, he said.
– Joel Esler of the Sourcefire Vulnerability Research Team, who hasanalysed the attack, told the Guardian that when users visit a page with an infected ad or link, the download – called “mac-antivirus.zip” – is started automatically by Javascript. Because Apple’s Safari defaults to a setting of “open files after download”, the program – which contains an application package wrapped in a zip archive – is first unzipped and then triggers the installer program.
Users are then presented with a dialog asking for their administrator name and password so the installation can proceed. If they do, the program installs itself in the /Applications folder and adds itself to the user’s login items, and puts a menu item in the top right of the menu.
– Apple eventually issues a support doc – http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4650
– Update to become available for OS X which will delete all instances of the malware and also warn against future downloads
– New version of malware released – doesn’t need admin password – http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/mac-malware-authors-release-a-new-more-dangerous-version/3385?tag=mantle_skin;content
– Nothing to fear at the moment for Apple users but Apple can’t be complacent, which I don’t think they are being
19:50 – iPad Explosion
20:35 – Facebook Apps Leak User Information
– Symantec said that, until recently, Facebook apps have inadvertently been leaking user data to third-party developers. In response, Facebook said the problem has been fixed and that no unauthorized Facebook data was shared with third parties.
– In a blog post, Symantec’s Nishant Doshi said that third-parties, mostly advertisers, have “accidentally” had access to Facebook user information like profiles, photographs, and chat.
– “Fortunately, these third-parties may not have realized their ability to access this information,” Doshi wrote. “[But] we estimate that as of April 2011, close to 100,000 applications were enabling this leakage. We estimate that over the years, hundreds of thousands of applications may have inadvertently leaked millions of access tokens to third parties.”
– Facebook said it worked with Symantec to rectify the issue, but took issue with how it characterized the situation.
– “We’ve conducted a thorough investigation which revealed no evidence of this issue resulting in a user’s private information being shared with unauthorized third parties,” Facebook said in a statement. “In addition, this report ignores the contractual obligations of advertisers and developers which prohibit them from obtaining or sharing user information in a way that violates our policies.”
– At issue is the permissions-based app menu to which users must agree when installing an app. Facebook has been working to transition from a legacy Facebook authentication system and HTTP to the more secure OAuth 2.0. In the wake of the Symantec investigation, Facebook said Tuesday that it will require all sites and apps to migrate to OAuth 2.0 and obtain an SSL certificate by October 1.
22:57 – Facebook exposed in Google smear campaign
– It has been revealed that Facebook embarked on a smear campaign against rival Google.
– The social network has admitted that it hired a PR firm to plant anti-Google stories related to user privacy.
– The details came to light when one blogger approached by PR firm Burson-Marsteller published the e-mail exchange. Burson had been touting stories on behalf of an unnamed client about the Google service Social Circle. Blogger Chris Soghain did not want to pursue the story and later released the e-mails he had exchanged with Burson.
– When the e-mails were published there was a mass of rumours about who the client could be, with Microsoft and Apple in the frame.
– It was down to US-based news website, the Daily Beast to uncover that the client was in fact Facebook.
– Facebook has confirmed that it used Burson-Marsteller to expose things which Google was doing that “raised privacy concerns”. Burson told Mr Soghain, among others, that “the American people must be made aware of the now immediate intrusions into their deeply personal lives Google is cataloguing and broadcasting every minute of every day – without their permission.”
– A Facebook spokesman later told the Daily Beast that it resented Google’s attempts to use Facebook data in its own social networking service.
27:56 – Windows Phone 7.1
– 500 new features
– Says MS: “The smartphone experience can be complicated by a sea of disconnected apps and accounts.”
– Its solution: integrate as much as possible. But not too far – it doesn’t want to dissuage developers from writing software for the platform, of course. But don’t think ‘apps’ so much as ‘plug-ins’ as MS “sees the promise of apps in how they can be integrated directly into the core experiences of the phone”.
– This approach will be aided by Mango’s improved multitasking and the ability to present more live information in WinPho’s main-screen tiles.
– Expect too SMS, Facebook and IM chats to be merged into a single thread, and a single inbox for all your email accounts. MS promised “deeper social network integration” and the ability to group contacts into a single tile. Built in Facebook and Twitter
– The browser will be based around IE 9. Fast – on a speed reading test it was way faster than anything else demo’d
– Search far more powerful than seen before – smarter – best demo yet seen on a mobile deice?
– Free update this autumn – Nokia phone this year?
– Very quickly MS have caught up with features on iOS and Android…but they have neither market or mind share
31:21 – LTE UK Trial
– BT & Everything Everywhere staging LTE trial in Cornwall, England’s most southerly county, which will last from the 1st of September through to the end of December.
– Connection speeds could scale as high as 40Mbps, though the typical rate is expected to be closer to 10Mbps.
– Volunteers are now being sought to participate in the trial, though they have to reside (or be willing to move, we presume) in the pretty tiny 4G coverage area near Newquay
33:27 – Mobile Money arrives in the UK
– The mobile wallet has arrived in Britain, in the form of a Samsung phone and a joint venture between Barclaycard and Orange.
– UK is years behind many Asian and African countries
– On the Orange Barclaycard phones you will only be able to spend a maximum of £15 a time, so you’re unlikely to decide you can afford to leave your credit cards behind when you leave home in the morning.
– But other operators will follow Orange, and once NFC becomes a standard feature of new phones, it’s possible that mobile payments will become commonplace too.
36:43 – Google Wallet
– Google Wallet, an app that will make your phone your wallet. You’ll be able to tap, pay and save using your phone and near field communication (NFC). We’re field testing Google Wallet now and plan to release it soon.
– Because Google Wallet is a mobile app, it will do more than a regular wallet ever could. You’ll be able to store your credit cards, offers, loyalty cards and gift cards, but without the bulk. When you tap to pay, your phone will also automatically redeem offers and earn loyalty points for you. Someday, even things like boarding passes, tickets, ID and keys could be stored in Google Wallet.
– Working with 15 major partners
– With Google Wallet, we’re building an open commerce ecosystem, and we’re planning to develop APIs that will enable integration with numerous partners. In the beginning, Google Wallet will be compatible with Nexus S 4G by Google, available on Sprint. Over time, we plan on expanding support to more phones.
41:33 – YouTube Turns 6
– YouTube says global daily views have gone up 50 percent in thepast 12 months, which means they currently handle a whopping 3 billion views per day.
– Also worth noting: YouTube says it has exceeded over 48 hours of video uploaded to the site every single minute (which, they add, represents a 100 percent increase year over year).
42:45 – Sony gets PSN back online
– Download new firmware
– Reset password on signing in
– Gaming, Home, Video rental playpack and Qriocity back online
– Store will come later with…
– Welcome back pack
– All existing PlayStation Network members will be able to access the following from PlayStation Store*:
Two PS3 games from the following list:
LittleBigPlanet
Infamous*
Wipeout HD/Fury
Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty
Dead Nation*
– For those with PSP accounts, you will also be eligible to download two PSP games from the following list:
LittleBigPlanet PSP
ModNation PSP
Pursuit Force
Killzone Liberation*
– 30 days free PlayStation Plus membership for non PS Plus subscribers*
– Existing PlayStation Plus subscribers will be given 60 days free subscription.
– For existing Music Unlimited subscribers, you will be given 30 days free subscription.
– We are working on a Welcome Back offer in PlayStation Home and will share that when it is confirmed.
– EU Identity Theft Protection Programme
– http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2011/05/17/details-of-snee-scees-identity-theft-protection-programme/
– That said, we are pleased to advise that Affinion International Limited, a leader in identity protection products in Europe, will be offering a comprehensive service that covers a significant proportion of PSN users free of charge for the first 12 months.
Affinion International Limited will be offering the following identity theft protection service and insurance through their fraud protect programme for the UK, France, Spain, Italy and Germany.
The fraud protect proposition cover three key areas:*
Personal Information protection
Monitoring and Alerting Service
Personal Information Protection Software
Help / Assistance and guidance
Dedicated helpline
Victim of Fraud support
Financial Protection
Insurance that covers the expenses incurred in identity restoration following identity fraud
Card Monitoring and Alerting Service
– Just when you thought it was safe
– http://kotaku.com/5803070/sony-playstation-network-password-reset-page-exploited-customer-accounts-potentially-compromised
– Sony’s PlayStation Network password reset system-the one just put in place after the PSN hack-has been compromised, allowing hackers to change a PSN password if they know your email and date of birth. Exactly the sort of information that was released in the original hack.
– Sony has taken the password reset system offline.
– Fixed within 24 hours
– If you were affected you would receive an e-mail about the reset
– Announce massive loss too
– In the lead-up to its fiscal year 2010 earnings report this Thursday, Sony today released a revised forecast — forewarning a $3.2 billion loss (yowzah!) — for the twelve months ending March 31, 2011. Having occurred in late April, the PlayStation Network attack and subsequent data theft and outage fall outside of that period, but the company nonetheless addressed “the impact” of the event during an investors call today, “since there have been so many media inquiries about this incident.”
49:30 – Mobile Minecraft
– Hit game Minecraft is being developed for iOS and Android
– First platform will be Android, specifically Sony Ericsson’s PlayStation-certified Xperia Play.
– Xperia Play version will feature customized controls that utilize the phone’s PlayStation-styled slide-out buttons.
– Strange to launch on brand new platform against all the millions of other Android phones not to mention iOS
51:06 – BBC News hits Android
– BBC News App finally available for Android
– 6-8 months on from iOS release
– Ability to share a story via email, SMS or social networks
– If your phone is running Android 2.2 or higher, BBC News can also be live-streamed using Flash.
51:58 – Dell make thinnest 15 inch laptop
– Noted in passing: advert for the Dell XPS-15, containing the phrase
Finally, the power you crave in the thinnest 15″ PC on the planet*.
– Wow, the thinnest? But wait, what’s the asterisk?
– Small print time: “Based on Dell internal analysis as at February 2011. Based on a thickness comparison (front and rear measurements) of other 15″ laptop PCs manufactured by HP, Acer, Toshiba, Asus, Lenovo, Samsung, Sony, MSI. No comparison made with Apple or other manufacturers not listed.”

Picks
Henry
Splashtop Remote
– Control your pc or mac from your iPad
– Fast and secure
Ian
Fantastical
– Easy to use Mac calendar
– Runs from your task bar
– Add events easily via natural language