March 7th 2014 - The WAN Show Document

[LinusTech]

firefox 25$ phone

“free to play” no longer free to play if there are in-app purchases

HTC M8 leak…

Verison charging gamers/streamers for more internet

 

Better than Bieber Solar Powered Blimps are the new Satellites

Source: motherboard.vice.com/

- Last year, researchers from Nasa, Caltech, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman met to discuss the future of airships.

- Many believe they are the future of surveillance & environmental monitoring

- Planned to be at 8-50 miles above sea level. At that height they could perform similar tasks to satellites.

- The best idea so far is to use solar panels to keep the afloat.

- Cheaper to build, cheaper to launch, less expensive tech to achieve similar results -cameras, transmitters, etc.

- Stratospheric airships still a ways off - US Air Force has invested $400 million into research and nothing has come of it.

- There are also political reasons why it can’t be done yet - worried about spying...

- Still a long way to go but it’s probably the future.

News Items RadioShack closing 1100 stores after dismal holidays

Source 1: articles.chicagotribune.com WARNING AUTOPLAY VIDEO AD AT TOP OF PAGE

- Over 4000 left still

- Huge drop in sales over the holiday sending its stock down 23%.

- Reported a wider quarterly loss on Tuesday and will close 1100 US stores.

- Net loss widened to $191.4 million from $63.3 million a year earlier.

- Sales fell to $935.4 million from $1.17 billion in the quarter covering the holiday season.

Under CEO Joe Magnacca who took the job in February 2013, RadioShack has changed its logo, reduced store clutter and improved displays of key brands.

- He blamed the loss on poor shopper traffic, intense discounting by rivals, tepid mobile phone demand and operational problems.

Mozilla made a $25 phone.

Source 1: wired.co.uk (Orginal Podcast)

Source 2: pcadvisor.co.uk

n.b.: Pictures of phone in Source 2.

- Mozilla and Spreadtrum Communications - the Chinese chip company that worked on it.

- Intended for emerging markets.

- Made for web browsing, emailing, music playing and picture taking.

- OS has Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia and Pintrest apps working.

- OS built on HTML 5.

- It’s a “rubbish” phone by modern standards.

- 128MB of RAM, a 1.2GHz A5 processor, a  3.5-inch HVGA (480x320) display, 2GB storage, 0.3MP camera.

- Didn’t feel solid or cheap. Somewhere in the middle.

- Could be game changing - even in the west - pay as you go anyone? Drug Dealer’s delight?

Telegram Features

Source 1: telegram.org (Member chitranjan informed me about this feature list.)

n.b.: Go to feature list on website and read off features.

- $200,000 in BTC to the hacker who can break telegram.

- To gain prize you must successfully intercept a message (sent daily between two known devices) containing an e-mail and send your BTC address with an explanation of how you achieved it to that e-mail address.

HTC M8 Leaked by Teenager - HTC: “We’ll be in touch”.

Source 1: linustechtips.com OP: Dylan522p

Source 2: r/Android

Source 3: expertreviews.com (News Site)

Source 4: dailymotion.com (Video 1080p Mirror)

Information about leak:

- Video uploaded on Feb 19th.

- Teenager makes “homemade” video review.

- Fails to cover identifying info such as S/N, P/N and IMEI.

- Shows picture of himself in video. (6:27)

- Shows his e-mail: <removed>

- Opens up messaging app (Kik): “Let me just shake it so you don’t see my messages”

- Plays video on youtube, pauses it because: “I don’t want to get a copyright”

- HTC have allegedly fired his parents.

- Gets tweeted by HTC person - “We have the IMEI and all other info. We'll be in touch.”

Leaked Info:

- M8 has two rear cameras.

- (Micro?) SD card slot.

- Larger screen.

- Android 4.4 (w/ Sense 6.0)

- Battery stayed at 40% for 8 minutes with screen on. (Might be going down in increments of 10)

Web browser roundup (01/Mar/14)

Source 1: thenextweb.com

n.b.: Pie Chart in Source 1

- Data based on unique visitors on Net Applications.

- IE is still at 58% market share.

- IE 10 falls below IE 9. (n.b.: Currently on IE 11)

- IE 8 is still the worlds most popular web browser.

- Firefox beating Chrome by 0.84% but Chrome is gaining.

- Data from StatCounter that measures data by page views as opposed to unique visitors, listed chrome first at 44% with IE second at 22%.

Verizon wants to charge gamers/streamers more for internet.

Source 1: hardware360.com

- When it comes to downloading games and streaming movies it is easy to surpass 15Gb worth of data in a day” - Verizon CE Lowell McAdam

- “It’s only natural that the heavy users help contribute to the investment to keep the Web healthy,” -  McAdam

- He also wants to charge Netflix and Comcast an undisclosed sum for a “more direct route to users homes”.

- Says it is all for “Net neutrality” but in fact it would be the opposite as users would not be charged evenly for the same service.

- I have no problem with this IF… - bring up ICBC

Apple Carplay

Source 1: apple.com

Source 2: appadvice.com

- Promises a smarter safer way to use your iPhone in your car.

- Current partners: Ferrari, Honda, Hyundai, Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz, and Volvo.

- 12 more have signed up to be future partners.

- Compatible with lightning equipped mobile phones.

- Launching with OS 7.1 late this month.

- You can; get directions, make calls, send and receive messages and listen to music.

- More app support coming soon. (Podcasts, Beats Radio, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Stitcher)

- Operated with Siri, Touchscreen or physical knobs and controls.

Free to play w/in-app purchases - misleading advertising in Europe

Source 1: gameindustry.biz

- European commision wants devs to stop calling games free if they have in-app purchases.

- "Consumers and in particular children need better protection against unexpected costs from in-app purchases” - Consumer Policy Commissioner - Neven Mimica

- Causes financial harm to consumers.

- Can also put at stake the credibility of this very promising market.

- “The use of the word 'free' (or similar unequivocal terms) as such, and without any appropriate qualifications, should only be allowed for games which are indeed free in their entirety, or in other words which contain no possibility of making in-app purchases, not even on an optional basis” - Consumer Protection Cooperation

- Want developers to cut out any direct calls for purchasing in-game items in any title likely to appeal to children.

- In-app purchases should not be made without the consumer's explicit consent.

- All app listings should feature an e-mail address where consumers can ask questions.

Kickstarter: Open Source Laser Tag

Source 1: kickstarter.com

- Single gun costs $115

- “Better that airsoft and lasertag combined”

- Powered with an arduino board.

- Open source so you can control everything (Friendly fire, firing modes, etc)

- Introduces killstreaks (switch gun LED off after 3 kills for example).

- Delivery in December.

- Stretch goals every $100,000 up to $500,000 stretch goal which includes phone integration for “virtual air strikes” with GPS and anything else you can come up with.

- imagine this with project tango and portable oculus… I’m glad I have kids.

Death of Desktop - Gadget Show

Source 1: youtube.com Channel: The Gadget Show

Debunk link: http://youtu.be/zO4JIg-68gg?t=3m59s

- Gadget Show believes that in 2014 the Desktop PC is well and truly dead.

Reasoning for claim:

- By 1986 laptops only represented 2% of computing market.

- As batteries got lighter and lasted longer laptops started becoming more popular.

- 2004 gave us good wireless connectivity with wifi and 3G meaning you didn’t have to plugged into a wall to get online. Proper mobile computing was born.

- When the smartphone entered the market desktop sales fell even further.

- In 2010 tablets came that drove desktop sales down even more.

- In 3 years tablet sales outstripped those of desktops and as a result there isn’t space for desktop PCs any more.

- Desktops no longer have more storage due to 1TB USB drives (Cost: £929.98)

- 4G on phones is often faster than home connections.

Dual Graphics Discussion

Source 1: youtube.com (linustechtips)

- Grab graphs from google docs

- (No notes as requested)

Samsung S5 to arrive with $500 worth of app subscriptions

Source 1: linustechtips.com OP: Misanthrope

Source 2: techspot.com

Source 3: samsung.com (list of ALL the apps)

- Users receive the “Galaxy Gift Bundle”. Go to Source 3.

- A total of 15 apps.

- Includes things like:

• 1 year sub. to Bloomberg Businessweek

• 1 year sub. to Lark

• 6 month sub. to Wall Street Journal

• 3 month Premium LinkedIn account

• 3 months of Evernote premium

• 3 months of 1Tb of storage from Bitcase

- No word on pricing of the phone itself yet.

- Arrives on April 11th.

New magnetic material could boost Hard Drives

Source 1: linustechtips.com OP: Entropy

Source 2: bbc.co.uk (News Source)

Source 3: natureworldnews.com (Scientific Source)

Source 4: sciencedaily.com (Scientific Source)

- New class of materials called “multiferroics” can reduce energy consumed by electronic devices.

- The magnetization of these materials is controlled by electricity.

- Increase power efficiency 1000 times.

- Could lead to faster/more efficient devices.

- Multiferroic materials have been used to reduce energy consumption of logic gates.

Several research groups have been trying to use this technology to development memory devices and logic gates.

Windows 9 expected to push people off Windows XP

Source 1: tomshardware.com

- Rumoured release dates indicate Fall 2014 or Spring 2015.

- Dell is talking about Windows 9 indicating that the OS may be unveiled in April during the BUILD conference.

- Windows 8 is too different from the norm for users.

- Windows 8.1 (Oct 2013) made the platform feel more like a single unit that the previous desktop/Modern UI double-feature.

- Windows 8.1 Update 1 (leaked already) scheduled to launch in April will supposedly help merge them even more and Windows 9 will probably merge them even more.

- The problem with large businesses replacing windows XP is legacy software that doesn’t work well with OSs like Windows 7. Upgrading that software could be a huge expense.

- There is pressure to start moving OSs when support for XP ends in April.

OCZ Launches New Z Drive

Source 1: linustechtips.com/ OP: 4960X

Source 2: pcworld.com

- PCI-E SSD.

- OCZ was acquired by Toshiba for $35 million

- 3.2TB Size (priced at $6,553 = $2.00 per GB)

- For comparison; a 1TB 840 Evo is priced at $490 which is $0.47 per GB.

- Has an endurance or 2.5PB.

- SSDs slowly catching up to HDDs storage wise.

- 5 year warranty on the drive.

- Drivers for WIndows and Linux have been rebuilt from scratch.

- Would you buy an OCZ SSD now that they’re owned by Toshiba?

Dell Charges £16 to install Firefox on PCs

Source 1: theregister.co.uk

Source 2: bbc.co.uk

- Dell was charging users £16.25 to have Firefox installed on their new Dell PC.

- Mozilla has a launched a preliminary consultation with legal teams but the process is at an early stage.

- Mozilla has a Trademark Policy which covers the distribution of Firefox.

- There has been no agreement between Mozilla and Dell.

- Dell says the charge is to cover the time and labour involved.

- Assuming Firefox takes 10 minutes to install this is £100 per hour.

TwitchTV to allow streaming from mobile platforms

Source 1: linustechtips.com OP: TheDoubleYGamer

Source 2: twitch.tv (Press Release - Blog)

- This will allow live broadcasting, capturing and archiving of your mobile games.

- Offers features such as front facing video capture.

Features listed in Source 2.

- There are currently 10 million installs of the TwitchTV app across iOS and Android.

F@H Chrome App

Source 1: folding.stanford.edu

- Currently in open beta.

- Only runs on Chrome.

- Works on Windows, Linux, MacOS-X

- Chrome Store link for app:chrome.google.com

- You can fold without installing the app; to start folding go to the URL: folding.stanford.edu/nacl

WARNING STARTS FOLDING WHEN YOU PRESS LINK.

- Active investigations in the possibility of using this to start folding from a phone or tablet.

Points raised by Whaler:

- Only supports CPU folding at this point, you still need the full client for GPU folding.

- The “light” folding is excellent for laptops and keeps temps reasonable.

- Tab needs to be open to actively fold and sometimes stalls when it gets a new WU, you need to hit the start button to fix it. (But app is still in beta)

- coin

- Linustechtips Team: 223518. Currently ranked: 49th.

Short News Items Reddit donating 10% of ad revenue. You decide where.

Source 1: engadget.com (01/Mar/13)

- At the end of the year reddit will donate 10% of ad revenue to non-profit organisations.

- Reddit will add a virtual suggestion box for nonprofits.

- Election will be held to decide on top 10.

- Funds will be awarded to top 10.

- Reddit reserves rights to take power away from the people if things get out-of-hand.

Keurig (Coffee company) taking DRM to a whole new level.

Source 1: linustechtips.com OP: _tylermatthew

Source 2: techdirt.com

- Keurig is developing coffee DRM for their new coffee machine.

- Growing market for reusable pods that retail from $5-$15.

- Third party pods often retail for 75-95% of what Keurig charges.

- Keurig CEO confirms that the new coffee maker won’t work with “unlicensed pods”.

Rewritable paper and ink.

Source 1: yale.edu

- Paper uses water as ink.

- Paper contains hydrochromic (changes colour when wet) dyes.

- New system costs less than 1% of inkjet printing.

- You can simply refill your inkjet cartridge with more water when it runs out.

- Print only remains on paper for 22 hours or until paper dries. (However, this is okay for most)

Ultimeyes trains you to see further

Source 1: popularmechanics.com

- (No notes as requested)

UK Porn Filter Architect Arrested On Child Porn Charges

Source 1: theguardian.com

Source 2: techdirt.com

- David Cameron’s (PM) aide; Patrick Rock has been arrested on suspicion of possession of child pornography.

- Rock helped draw up the proposals for the country’s internet porn filters.

- Cameron was “profoundly shocked”.

- Downing Street kept the arrest secret.

Extra discussion topics Razer key switches

https://www.facebook.com/LinusTech/posts/585958744833908?stream_ref=10

Upcoming pilot episodes Gaben’s AMA Twitch Plays Pokemon won:

https://www.facebook.com/LinusTech/posts/10152074378952648?stream_ref=10

Builds of the Week

LIST MADE BY GHOST - UNCONFIRMED

“First build Liquid Cooling Upgrade” by ces160

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/123283-first-build-liquid-cooling-upgrade-complete-high-res-pics/

- All pics in Opening Post

“The Lightning 350D” by avenge_peach

n.b: This build is from December (but after BoTW ended)

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/95937-the-lightning-350d/

- Full build album: http://imgur.com/a/32cDo

New BoTW system

- Submissions in the week before the voting week. (In a submissions thread)

- MAX 200 word write up, 1 link to your thread, 1 picture.

- The next week all submissions will be numbered at put into a new thread where they can be voted on through a poll system.

- Top 2 voted systems will win.

- Thread for your build submission must have been [completed] within the week of your entry

 

 

[MasterJV]

Better Than Beiber... Best segment in my opinion.

[Dmon]

Finally, Build of the week =D

[Grave]

Now, just to wait for the archive video on Youtube.. I hate how I get on the computer just as the WAN show ends now.

[prolemur]

Uhh, I really hate missing the wan show, but I'm eagerly awaiting the archive's upload

[stuwoac]

archive is normally up by now was there a problem?

[ChrisxIxCross]

[Hans Power]

I agree 100% with Luke on the switches discussion - I don't mind the change of the switches at all but I ALWAYS want as much information about the product and I always prefer the manufacturer who delivers the most information as transparent as possible to me.

[Monchi]

about the verizon issue, uhm... based on their website you get 15mbps for 30$ per month... sooo.... is this fixed or is there a cap behind this plan because in my country for 30$ you get 2mbps (TT_TT)

[TheMissxu]

I guess I should mention how angry Dark Theme users are.

[Kallb123]

I may be going crazy and/or posting this in the wrong place, but it seemed to me that the results of the competition could be a bit off. Hear me out, it's a small point that I may be wrong about anyway:

 

Random.org was generating numbers in the range of 1 to 184, it gave you 9, you looked at cell 9 in Google Doc. That's cool, but what if you got a 1 or 2? They were header rows. It's possible you could generate a new number and go from there, but this only works if the max random number is equal to the max cell row.

 

A likely setup is that the max random number was set as the number of entries, which would be 2 less than the max rows in excel. That would mean that 2 people (6 across 3 draws) had no chance of ever winning. As in, you would never have gotten a 185 or 186 for the cells containing those last two entries.

 

I didn't actually enter (I don't think), so I'm not trying to win anything, it's just something I noticed while watching.

 

I apologies in the case of me being right or wrong, as wrong would've wasted your time and right would likely cause some anxiety and troubles.

[Gregulimy]

So i was watching it on youtube and happen to pause it here.....