DigitalOutbox Episode 407

Chris and Ian discuss CES and Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard

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DigitalOutbox Episode 304

Chris and Ian discuss Uber, MWC and the Nintendo Switch

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DigitalOutbox Episode 295

Chris and Ian discuss Yahoo, DJI Mavic and Oculus Rift, Fitbit Charge 2 and Amazon Echo

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DigitalOutbox Episode 264

Chris and Ian discuss the Investigatory Powers Bill, Fast Broadband and Heart Twitter

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DigitalOutbox Episode 223

DigitalOutbox Episode 223
DigitalOutbox Episode 223 – Does it bend?

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0:50 – Larry Ellison Will Step Down as CEO of Oracle, Will Remain as CTO
4:01 – Cracking the problem of online identification
7:52 – Unix/Linux Bash: Critical security hole uncovered – ShellShock
10:38 – The Blackberry Passport is the most unusual smartphone on the market
19:09 – Apples New Flexible iPhone 6 Plus?
22:44 – Apple Pulls iOS 8.0.1 Update Amid Reports of Problems
27:47 – Amazon launches Kindle Unlimited – a Netflix-for-books – in the UK
29:45 – Crescent Bay is Oculus’ newest version of the Rift hardware, and one step closer to retail
31:39 – Steam Is Getting A Massive Overhaul
33:17 – Microsoft drops the price of the Xbox One to £329.99 in the UK

DigitalOutbox Episode 193

DigitalOutbox Episode 193
DigitalOutbox Episode 193 – Big Dog, Nest and CES

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1:11 – BlackBerry teams up with Foxconn for budget smartphones as sales continue to plunge
2:30 – Blockbuster gone
3:23 – BT default ‘porn filter’ switched on
9:45 – Pirate Bay unveils ambitious new software scheme to foil anti-piracy measures
11:12 – Gmail now lets you email your Google+ connections, but addresses are only shared when you hit send
13:21 – Google acquires Boston Dynamics
16:15 – Google acquires Nest
21:28 – EE now has over 2 million 4G LTE subscribers in the UK
22:33 – Instant messaging overtook SMS in the UK last year, will surpass it by more than 2:1 in 2014
23:34 – NSA collects millions of text messages daily in ‘untargeted’ global sweep
28:38 – London rolls out smart parking sensors
29:55 – Nintendo 3DS game sales up 45% to 16m in 2013, as lifetime hardware sales top 11.5m in the US
32:49 – CES

Picks
Ian
Wordiest for Android
– Form two words from 14 letters (some with bonuses attached), then see how you did versus 100 other players given the same starting letters.
– Free, fun addictive

Chris
The Stanley Parable
– Get it from Steam 9.99
– Had me in stitches and a brilliant concept.
– Can’t say any more because it would spoil the game.

DigitalOutbox Episode 188

DigitalOutbox Episode 188
DigitalOutbox Episode 188 – Deja Vu – Blackberry Fail and Patents

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1:08 – BlackBerry Takes $1B Investment From Fairfax, Others, Replaces CEO Thorsten Heins
4:39 – Twitter Prices IPO Above Estimates At $26 Per Share, Raising $1.82B At Valuation Of Up To $18B
9:26 – Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned Rockstar sues Google
13:19 – Google Patented the ‘Heart’ Gesture and Other Fun Hand Moves
14:35 – Tesco petrol stations use face-scan tech to target ads
17:51 – Milton Keynes in UK to trial £1.5m driverless car scheme
20:05 – Google ordered to remove Max Mosley orgy pictures
22:08 – Google Now for iOS up to par with Android app, updated with notifications, reminders, and more
27:50 – Google Drive for iOS adds support for multiple accounts, single sign-in, and printing
28:00 – Microsoft finally takes on Google Docs with real-time editing in Office Web Apps
28:34 – Out of the picture: why the world’s best photo startup is going out of business
33:11 – Full Gran Turismo 6 game details revealed

DigitalOutbox Episode 183

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

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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 178

DigitalOutbox Episode 178
DigitalOutbox Episode 178 – GTA Online and more Xbox One reversals

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Shownotes
0:38 – Ask.fm offers to name suicide teen’s anonymous tormenters
2:13 – Lavabit email service abruptly shut down citing government interference
5:38 – BlackBerry goes up for sale after years of struggle in smartphone market
12:05 – O2 unveils 4G pricing
13:30 – City of London calls halt to smartphone tracking bins
16:05 – Pirate Bay Launches PirateBrowser On Maiden Voyage
20:08 – Apple publishes rules for developers to calm row over in-app purchases
22:00 – Xbox One now functions without Kinect switched on confirmed
24:19 – Call of Duty: Ghosts Multiplayer Reveal
28:07 – GTA V Multiplayer Reveal

DigitalOutbox Episode 164

DigitalOutbox Episode 164
DigitalOutbox Episode 164 – Google I/O

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1:45 – Google I/O
– Just one keynote this year….that lasted for 3 ½ hours
– Notable absence – no new hardware. Unlike previous years there were no hardware announcement, but all attendees did get a Chromebook Pixel. There was however plenty of new software and services (but nothing on Google TV and no new version of Android). Key announcements…
– Google: 900 million Android activations to date, 48 billion app downloads

– Google announces Play game services, Android’s cross-platform answer to Game Center
– The platform will support cloud saves, thereby allowing users to save their progress or game state and pick it up on a separate device, as well as achievements and leaderboards using Google+.
– API will enable both turn-based and real-time multiplayer
– Google Play game services will be supported for titles on Android, iOS and the Web – truly cross platform

– Google Play services updated with new location, Google+ sign-in, and cloud messaging APIs
– 3 new location API’s including Geofencing and Activity Recognition API that will help users track their physical activity

– Android Studio
– It’s an IDE based on IntelliJ.
– This tool has more options for Android Development, making the process faster and more productive. A “live layout” was shown that renders your app as you’re editing in realtime.
– Tools to support beta testing and language translations

– Google takes on Spotify with Google Play Music All Access subscription service
– web and mobile interfaces feature millions of songs you can play instantly, recommendations, charts and playlists, and instant radio stations. The Spotify competitor launches today in the US for $9.99 a month, comes with a free trial month, and sign-ups before June 30th get it for $7.99.
– Everything from your Google Music locker is automatically pulled into Google Play Music All Access. Beneath the content you own, everything else an artist has ao All Access is automatically listed and plays at a tap. More countries will get Google Play Music All Access soon.

– Google redesigning Play apps and Play Store on the web
– Google turns the Samsung Galaxy S4 into a Nexus phone, coming June 26th for $649
– Unlocked
– Vanilla Android – no Samsung crapware added
– Should get quick updates of new Android releases

– Google takes on Apple in schools with Google Play for Education
– Play store for education – currently trialling now

– Google+ completely redesigned with new cards-based interface
– 41 new features
– Multi column stream (Like Facebook or Pinterest)
– Auto tag posts
– New features for hangouts and photos
– Photos
– automatically enhance the tonal distribution in an image, soften skin, sharpen certain parts of an image and remove noise – and all of those computations happen in the cloud.
– system can now analyze your images and kick out blurry photos, duplicates, images with bad exposure (which it will try to fix). It can also recognize good images with certain landmarks, for example, and detect faces and see if people are smiling and/or of those people are in your Google+ circles. It will also try to make some decision based on aesthetics. What used to take hours of work, Gundotra said, now happens automatically in the cloud and take seconds.
– Now that Google offers everybody 15GB of free storage, users an also upload 15GB worth of full-size images to Google+ Photos. In addition, the autobackup feature provides unlimited storage space for photos at sized under 2048px.
– “Awesome” – can automatically detect when an image is part of a series and stitch it together in one image or an animated GIF. “If we detect that you took a series of photos, in burst mode or otherwise, we can stitch them together,” Gundotra told us. To recognize these images, the system does a bit of analysis to make sure the background hasn’t moved.
– This is about more than animated GIFs, though. This new feature – which Google calls “auto awesome” – can also automatically create a group photo from a series of photos and pick the one where everybody is smiling. It can stitch together landscape photos to create panoramas and create HDR images from a series of photos where it detects bracketed exposures. All of this happens extremely fast, too, thanks to the power of Google’s data centers.

– Google unveils Hangouts: a unified messaging system for Android, iOS, and Chrome
– replaces the numerous Google services that currently help you have real-time conversations with other users, such as Google Talk, Google Voice and Google+ Hangouts.
– It will launch on most major platforms later today, including iOS, Android and the Web. (iOS works well, Android – doesn’t support Nexus 7)
– Conversations can either be one-on-one or in larger groups; the new Hangouts app can do both.
– As with many other apps, such as WhatsApp or even iMessage, conversations support multimedia content, including high-resolution photographs.
– Video chats as well
– Text, emoji, photos, video, see who’s typing, read receipts
– The service’s Google+ integration is one of the best features in the entire product: every photo that you or a friend posts is automatically saved in a private, shared album on Google+.
– One flaw – doesn’t bring in SMS, so not fully unified – Google confirm that SMS is coming soon

– Google adds button-free voice search in Chrome: just say ‘OK Google’
– You should, according to Google, be able to ask it when your upcoming flight is, and where your package might be in transit.
– Search getting a lot smarter – improving knowledge graph
– Making claims that search is only starting – next generation search coming….end of search as we know it

– Google Now updated to include voice reminders, emails, and public transit data
– new cards include a location-based Reminder feature, public transit travel times, and information about books, music, TV shows and video games that might be of timely interest to users.
– Reminder feature is based on time, people and location and can be set with simple voice commands using natural language processing. It’s like the geofenced Reminders that are used by Apple in iOS, but looks to be arguably more useful since it ties into the Google Now knowledge graph. Reminders takes Now further by giving users a way to actively set and retrieve content, which should help prove its worth among users who weren’t getting much out of the automated results previously being generated by the engine.

– Google Wallet comes to Gmail
– Google announced two important features regarding Google Wallet. The first is integration with Gmail so you can pay by sending an email. The second is the launch of the Google Wallet Instant Buy Android API, which lets developers integrate payment features into apps for selling physical goods and services.
– The first feature, which is rolling out “over the coming months” to all US Gmail users over 18 years old, means you can send money to whoever you want directly from Gmail. Recipients don’t need to have a Gmail address: any email will do. Google lets you send money for free as long as your bank account is linked to Google Wallet or using your Google Wallet Balance. There are “low fees,” however if you are sending money using your linked credit or debit card.

– Google redesigns Maps for mobile – Android, iOS incl iPad version coming this summer
– New look for Android, based on iOS
– iPad coming soon
– new floating search box is the highlight of the main map view, and it incorporates a new suggestion engine that will help you find relevant places nearby and more.
– new version of maps will also have live traffic incident reporting and re-routing.

– Google Maps integrates Google Earth and Street View in completely redesigned interface
– new version of Google Maps is heavily customized for every user, with knowledge about a user contributing to discovery of new places using the same data as Google Now.
– new service collates imagery from Google Earth, Google’s Street View and special projects including its space and underwater imaging. Instead of having to bounce around between products, you’ll now be able to get all of that in one place
– new overhead view, which is also rendered in 3D using WebGL, like Google Earth:
– Flight search and place reviews are now integrated fully into Google Maps, giving you the ability to search for directions including flights in one go. Reviews and ratings can be culled from top reviewers or your Google+ circles.

– Larry Page then came on stage, said a few statements (slammed Oracle – in it for the money, then went into a 45 minute Q&A. Most was fairly interesting but there was one bizarre statement..
– Google CEO Larry Page is holding a rare Q&A session with attendees of today’s Google I/O keynote, and he’s been offering up some pretty unfiltered answers. In response to a question about reducing negativity and focusing on changing the world, Page noted that “the pace of change is increasing” and said that “we haven’t adapted systems to deal with that.” Specifically, he said that “not all change is good” and said that we need to build “mechanisms to allow experimentation.” That’s when his response got really interesting. “There are many exciting things you could do that are illegal or not allowed by regulation,” Page said. “And that’s good, we don’t want to change the world. But maybe we can set aside a part of the world.” He likened this potential free-experimentation zone to Burning Man and said that we need “some safe places where we can try things and not have to deploy to the entire world.” Google is already well-known for coming up with some pretty interesting ideas — the idea of seeing what Page could come up with in this lawless beta-test country is simultaneously exciting and a bit terrifying.

– Also, this – Every story I read about Google is ‘us versus some other company’ or some stupid thing, and I just don’t find that very interesting. We should be building great things that don’t exist. Being negative isn’t how we make progress. Most important things are not zero sum, there is a lot of opportunity out there.
– A few hours later they put out a cease and desist on Microsoft
– Following Google’s demands for Microsoft to remove its Windows Phone YouTube app, Microsoft has responded saying it’s happy to include advertising. Google sent a cease and desist letter to Microsoft recently, with concerns that the Windows Phone YouTube app does not display ads. “We’d be more than happy to include advertising but need Google to provide us access to the necessary APIs,” says a Microsoft spokesperson.
– Microsoft appears to want to rectify the situation, noting Google CEO Larry Page’s comments at I/O today. “In light of Larry Page’s comments today calling for more interoperability and less negativity, we look forward to solving this matter together for our mutual customers.” Microsoft recently released an update for its Windows Phone YouTube application to support sign-in, downloads, and a full YouTube experience. The application has been available for just over a week, but Google has demanded that it be removed by May 22nd for violating its YouTube API rules.
32:52 – 50 Billion Downloads
34:10 – YouTube launches its paid subscription channels with select partners
37:05 – Google Unifies Its Free And Paid Storage Options
38:40 – Google completes the feedback loop
40:20 – Lulzsec hacker group handed jail sentences
40:58 – BlackBerry bringing BBM to Android and iOS this summer
43:51 – Nokia unveils the Lumia 925
46:18 – HTC First to be discontinued
47:25 – Windows Keeps Getting Better
47:57 – Players force EA to drop online pass for used games
49:35 – GT6 for PS3
52:29 – Chris Hadfield – the astronaut’s best tweets, photos and videos