DigitalOutbox Episode 196

DigitalOutbox Episode 196
DigitalOutbox Episode 196 – Nadella heads up Microsoft, farewell Sony Vaio

Playback
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Shownotes
1:09 – Insider Nadella Named Microsoft CEO
5:41 – Sony announces it will lay off 5,000 staff, exit the PC industry and spin out its TV business
8:43 – UK government launches Year of Code campaign and £500,000 fund to train teachers in programming
13:11 – Anti-piracy app launched by music industry
15:23 – Android Marches Onto Another Landline Phone
16:27 – Ready to cast: Chromecast now open to developers with the Google Cast SDK
20:57 – Amazon Acquires Video Gaming Studio Double Helix Games
24:46 – Xbox One’s first major update split in two, launching in February and March

Picks
Ian
Threes
– £1.49
– There’s a cramped and claustrophobic 4×4 grid that is littered with numeric tiles. When you swipe the screen, all the tiles are shunted over. Unless, that is, they’re already up against the edge of the grid.
– With this restriction in play, you can slip two numbers on top of each other. So, you can squash a blue ‘1’ tile with a red ‘2’ tile, which snap together to create a ‘3’ tile. Or you can squash two identically numbered white tiles (two ‘6s’, for example), which snuggle up and get added together (to form a ’12’ tile, for example).
– Your goal is to make as many combinations as possible before the grid inevitably fills up (a new tile is introduced every time you swipe) so that when you tot up all the tiles, you end up with a very high number indeed.

DigitalOutbox Episode 191

DigitalOutbox Episode 191
DigitalOutbox Episode 191 – Drones, Apple and Xbox One

Playback
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Shownotes
1:57 – Jeff Bezos promises half-hour shipping with Amazon Prime Air
5:38 – Ministers will order ISPs to block terrorist and extremist websites
8:26 – UK mobile networks agree to £50 charges cap on stolen phones, work towards eliminating roaming fees
11:23 – HBO shows are now available to purchase from the Google Play store in the UK
18:07 – Apple buys motion sensor maker PrimeSense
19:57 – EA reduces price of UK PS4 digital games to £59.99
22:50 – Microsoft Matches PS4 Sales With 1 Million Xbox Ones In 24 Hours, But Takes 11 More Countries To Do It
28:57 – Xbox One juddering plagues UK TV watchers
31:06 – Microsoft responds to Xbox problem with disc drive

DigitalOutbox Episode 189

DigitalOutbox Episode 189
DigitalOutbox Episode 189 – PS4, Motorola Moto G and Tories rewrite History

Playback
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Shownotes
1:04 – Google launches Helpouts
4:39 – Motorola Moto G review
9:08 – Europe approves use of in-flight electronics during take-off and landing
10:45 – Snapchat Spurned $3 Billion Acquisition Offer from Facebook
15:03 – Conservatives erase Internet history
17:27 – Amazon to start Sunday delivery service
18:38 – Netflix is now available on TiVo set-top boxes for Virgin Media subscribers in the UK
22:13 – Elop Is Going To Do What Now
26:08 – BBC working on iPlayer app for Xbox One
28:50 – PS4

Picks
Ian
Humble New Tab Page
– Redesigned new tab page featuring your bookmarks, apps, most visited, recently closed, and weather in a custom layout.
– Features:
– Simple, clean design
– Highly customizable
– Fast loading and lightweight
– Completely free and open source
– This extension replaces the default new tab page. Drag and drop folders to create new columns or reorder them. The font, colors, spacing, and more can be customized from the options menu.

DigitalOutbox Episode 183

DigitalOutbox Episode 183
DigitalOutbox Episode 183 – RIM retreats, Easyjet stumbles and a plethora of tablets.

Playback
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Shownotes
0:56 – BlackBerry to fire 4,500 employees as sales of new device plummet
2:59 – BBM’s Android And iOS Launch Weekend Going About As Badly As Possible
4:56 – BlackBerry Signs Letter Of Intent To Go Private For $9 Per Share In Deal Valued At $4.7 Billion
9:04 – iPhone 5s and 5c sales top 9m over Apples opening weekend
11:33 – The iPhones Fingerprint Sensor Has Already Been Hacked
13:42 – Argos and eBay join forces for click-and-collect service
16:28 – EasyJet under fire after claims it refused to let The Drum columnist Mark Leiser on board for sending critical tweet
19:13 – Rural superfast broadband chaos due BT’s ‘near monopoly’, say MPs
23:21 – Roku launches new TV streaming boxes and brings Roku 3 to the UK and Ireland
25:35 – Tesco enters the tablet fray with Hudl
28:15 – Surface Pro 2: hands-on with Microsoft’s new tablet powerhouse
31:31 – Amazons Kindle Fire HDX
35:28 – Amazon’s new $139 Kindle Fire HD is the cheap tablet to buy
37:02 – Valve announces SteamOS, a living room operating system for games
39:47 – Valve announces Steam Machines, the Steam Box hardware beta

Picks
Ian
Instacast
– Excellent Podcast player for iOS and Mac
– Mac – $19.99
– iOS – £2.99
– Excellent player, syncs really well between clients
– Supports downloading in the background
– iTunes update this week was the final push for me to try other clients – and this is great
– If you want to keep podcasts in sync over Android and iOS try Pocketcasts

DigitalOutbox Episode 181

DigitalOutbox Episode 181
DigitalOutbox Episode 181 – Apple Keynote and Microsoft buy Nokia

Playback
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Shownotes
1:07 – Nokia’s handset business bought by Microsoft for €5.44bn
6:48 – US and UK spy agencies defeat privacy and security on the internet
9:58 – Ministry of Sound sues Spotify
11:32 – Amazon’s ‘Kindle MatchBook’ finally bundles physical books with a copy for your Kindle
13:00 – Android KitKat unveiled in Google surprise move
14:41 – Google’s browser becomes a true platform with today’s launch of Chrome Apps
17:00 – Xbox Music gets iOS and Android apps, free web playback; cloud locker to follow
18:52 – Xbox One Launch Date
20:24 – Sony – thinner Vita and Vita TV
23:22 – Sony at IFA
26:59 – Samsung at IFA
31:14 – iOS 7
33:43 – iPhone 5c
35:49 – iPhone 5s

DigitalOutbox Episode 175

DigitalOutbox Episode 175
DigitalOutbox Episode 175 – Cameron bans porn, Google’s new Nexus and Chromecast and Kinightmare returns

Playback
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Shownotes
0:35 – Online pornography to be blocked by default, PM announces
13:01 – Net block MP Claire Perry in spat over porn hack
18:10 – Googles Breakfast
18:10 – Googles Breakfast
18:10 – Googles Breakfast
18:10 – Googles Breakfast
29:25 – Microsoft suffers poor fiscal Q4 with $19.9B in revenue and $0.59 EPS after $900M Surface RT charge
30:41 – Apple Confirms That Its Dev Center Has Been Breached By Hackers
30:41 – Apple Confirms That Its Dev Center Has Been Breached By Hackers
35:40 – Amazon UK will track Prime packages to within 15 minutes of delivery
40:29 – Xbox One will allow independent developers to self-publish titles
44:25 – Knightmare

DigitalOutbox Episode 172

DigitalOutbox Episode 172
DigitalOutbox Episode 172 – Doug Engelbart, Three and EE

Playback
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Shownotes
0:57 – Doug Engelbart, American inventor and computing legend, passes away
1:46 – Facebook to stop ads running next to offensive material
4:34 – UK to crack down on online piracy and counterfeiting with new government unit
6:31 – AutoRip comes to the UK
8:28 – Samsung buys set top box maker Boxee
11:15 – BlackBerry Misses In Q1 2014
13:34 – 3 mobile slashes pay-as-you-go costs
17:46 – EE doubles 4G speeds this week and offers UK’s first shared data plans
22:07 – Ubisoft website hacked, usernames and encrypted passwords exposed
23:40 – Zynga Confirms Xbox Head Don Mattrick as New CEO

DigitalOutbox Episode 158

DigitalOutbox Episode 158
DigitalOutbox Episode 158 – Facebook Home, Browser Forks and So Long Lucasarts

Playback
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Shownotes
1:29 – Facebooks New Home
8:28 – Google Forks WebKit And Launches Blink
13:05 – Mozilla and Samsung Collaborate on Next Generation Web Browser Engine
17:01 – Dropbox Now in Yahoo! Mail
18:36 – Amazon buys Goodreads
21:06 – Lodsys returns
23:52 – Disney closes Lucasarts
27:10 – British Library to archive one billion UK web pages by year’s end
30:12 – Tory MP accidentally tweets porn site instead of news
31:21 – Rumours

Picks
Chris
Kerbal Space Program
– Available on Steam. It’s still in Beta and is certainly rough round the edges but is an amazing Space Sandbox game – where you’re pretty much left to start up your own space program from scratch.
– Build rockets, send manned missions into space, to the mun, try and get everyone back safely!
– Nicely characterized but extremely technical
– Thanks to Paul for the pick.

DigitalOutbox Episode 155

DigitalOutbox Episode 155
DigitalOutbox Episode 155 – Rubin moves, Reader shuttered and the Boxer hunts a Troll

Playback
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Shownotes
0:51 – Sundar Pichai Takes Over For Andy Rubin As Head Of Android At Google
11:30 – Google takes harsh stance against ad-blocking apps, removes them from Play Store
14:03 – A second spring of cleaning
26:56 – Kindle Fire HD 8.9 finally hits the UK
28:23 – Netflix Speed Index
29:46 – Average UK broadband speed hits 12Mbps
32:20 – Pirate Bay for 3D printing launched
35:22 – The boxer and the troll

Picks
Ian
Pocket Casts
– £2.70
– Great features
– Great widget
– Digitaloutbox looks excellent in it – see the feeds

Ridiculous Fishing
– £1.50 ish?
– Great games for iOS
– Simple – drop anchor, catch fish

DigitalOutbox Episode 154

DigitalOutbox Episode 154
DigitalOutbox Episode 154 – Microsoft Fine, Evernote breach and EA dickery

Playback
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Shownotes
3:20 – Microsoft fined 561m Euros for browser choice error
7:00 – Evernote Security Breach
9:38 – Twitter discontinuing iPhone, Android, and Air versions of TweetDeck
12:21 – Facebook updates News Feeds
16:13 – Amazon acts to halt sales of Keep Calm and Rape T-shirts
18:54 – Tu Go app lets O2 UK customers use their mobile number with any iOS or Android device
20:55 – Tesco launches Clubcard TV, a Blinkbox-powered video-streaming service supported by advertisers
23:47 – Simcity – more EA dickery