February 28th 2014 - The WAN Show Document

[LinusTech]

Guest

Tom Merritt

Twitter: @acedtect

Bio:

Thomas Andrew "Tom" Merritt is an Independent podcaster and host of

Daily Tech News Show

Better than Bieber Nasa has discovered 715 new worlds.

Source: http://spaceindustrynews.com/nasa-has-discovered-715-new-worlds/4201/

- Nasa’s Kepler mission (launched in March 2009) announced on  Wednesday the discovery of 715 new planets orbiting 305 stars.

- 95% of the planets are smaller than Neptune, which is in turn 4 times larger than the Earth.

- This discovery marks a significant increase in the number of known small-sized planets more akin to Earth.

- Four of these new planets are less than 2.5 times the size of Earth and orbit in their sun’s habitable zone.

- One of these new habitable zone planets, called Kepler-296f, orbits a star half the size and 5% as bright as our sun. Scientists do not know yet, if this planet is made from gas or is surrounded by a deep ocean.

- This latest discovery brings the confirmed count of planets outside our solar system to nearly 1,700.

News Items HTC Power to Give. Your HTC phone can use its processing power for research.

Source 1: htc.com (Customer Page)

Source 2: htc.com (Press Release)

- Harnesses collective power of Android smart phones.

- Built using BOINC and made in partnership with inventor of BOINC; Dr. David Anderson.

- Currently in beta compatible with HTC One family, HTC Butterfly and HTC Butterfly S.

- Compatibility will be expanded in coming 6 months during the beta.

- Only runs while phone is charging …. so intended for overnight. (Slower charging?)

- Support for vital fields of research, including medicine, science and ecology.

- One million HTC One smartphones, could provide similar processing power to that of one of the world’s 30 supercomputers (1 PetaFLOP)

- Analysts estimate that over 780 million Android phones were shipped in 2013 alone.

- To Opt In simply download the app (Play Store link) from the play store and select the research program that you wish to contribute to.

Space Jam 2. It's (not) happening. w/UPDATE

Source 1: linustechtips.com OP: Vitalius

Source 2: ign.com

Source 3: theepochtimes.com

- Initially “Deadline” reported the news that Warner Bros. is partnering with (brothers) Charlie and Willie Ebersol on Space Jam 2.

- They said that the movie is still in it’s early stages.

- Space Jam was a hit in 1996, earning $230M worldwide. (18 years ago)

- Soon after, reporters from ESPN are refuting the Space Jam 2 story.

- However, no one from Warner Bros. is denying anything.

- Wording of tweet (Twitter Link) by Darren Rovell; “there has been no substantive discussions regarding his starring in a Space Jam sequel.” implies there there could have been non-substantive discussions.

- LeBron James Says it Would be ‘Great’ But Adds ‘It’s News to Me’.

- He says; “Maybe they’ve got it in my office. I haven’t been to my office in a while”.

Amazon rival Newegg expected to launch in the UK next month

Source 1: hexus.net

- Set to launch its store in European Markets including the UK at the end of next month.

- Aiming for a soft launch, hoping to gain a foothold against UK retailers.

- Firm is expecting to grow quite a bit considering it’s good reputation.

- Competition beneficial for UK residents.

- Will it be able to crush its European rivals or will it be sent home like bestbuy?

n.b.: This does not mean US prices in the UK. Import tax still exists.

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Guest Topics Yahoo webcam images from millions of users intercepted by GCHQ

Source 1: theguardian.com

- GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) is Britain’s Surveillance Agency..

- Surveillance Program “Optic Nerve” collected still images of Yahoo webcam chats in bulk.

- In one six month period in 2008 alone, the agency collected 1.8 million images globally.

- Substantial quantities of sexually explicit communications.

- Yahoo denied any prior knowledge of the program, accusing the agencies of "a whole new level of violation of our users' privacy".

- No restrictions under UK law to prevent Americans' images being accessed by British analysts without an individual warrant.

- Still active in 2012.

- Optic Nerve was based on collecting information from GCHQ's huge network of internet cable taps, which was then processed and fed into systems provided by the NSA.

- The document estimates that between 3% and 11% of the Yahoo webcam imagery harvested by GCHQ contains "undesirable nudity".

- Documents previously revealed in the Guardian showed the NSA were exploring the video capabilities of game consoles for surveillance purposes.

Mt Gox closes it's doors without warning, apparently declaring insolvency

Source 1: linustechtips.com OP: Bonsai99

Source 2: telegraph.co.uk

Source 3: reuters.com

- Interesting fact: MtGox stands for “Magic: The Gathering Online eXchange”

- MtGox was Tokyo based.

- As of Monday evening MtGox has completely stopped trading.

- Suspected theft of $330m worth of bitcoins.

- MtGox has left a response on their homepage.

- The close came two days after CEO Mark Kerpeles stepped down from the board of the Bitcoin Foundation.

- The company deleted all of its messages on twitter.

- It suspended withdrawals on February 7 following a series of cyber attacks, leaving customers unable to recover their funds.

- According to leaked documents which appear to be from MtGox that around $375m had gone missing from the exchange, forcing it to shut down.

- Japanese vice finance minister “Jiro Aichi” said on Thursday: “Any regulation of the bitcoin crypto-currency should involve international cooperation to avoid loopholes”.

- Karpeles told Reuters in April 2013 that Mt. Gox was seeing daily inflows of $5-$20 million.

- Karpeles' whereabouts in Japan were still unclear. The main Mt. Gox office remained deserted on Thursday, with bubble wrap inside the windows.

Samsung Galaxy S5: New features revealed

Source 1: androidpolice.com

Source 2: business.financialpost.com

- Will go on sale April 11.

- About 20% longer lasting battery (than S4). (2800mAh)

- Finger print reader (You need to swipe your finger on home button, unlike Apples version).

- Water Resistant (Not waterproof)

- 5.1” Super AMOLED screen. Slightly bigger than S4.

- Built-in heart rate monitor.

- 16MP camera w/2.1Mp front facing

- 4k video recording.

- Android 4.4.2

TWITTER BLITZ

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4.95 million people signed up for Telegram today (24/Feb/2014). Whatsapp Rival.

Source 1: twitter.com (Russian tweet)

Source 2: bloomberg.com

- After facebook bought whatsapp for $19 billion, the number of people using telegraph has skyrocketed.

- As many as 4.95 million sign ups a day compared to Whatapp’s 1 million a day.

- Whatsapp fans are saying facebook will compromise the messaging service.

- Telegram is seeing huge growth in Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and throughout Latin America. Regions in which M. Zukerberg said whatsapp is strongest.

- Telegram was most downloaded app in 56 countries on Monday.

- Telegram only has 20m registered users compared to Whatsapp’s 450m. So it isn’t that big of a threat yet.

Seth Rogen to make “Console Wars” film

Source 1: independant.ie (News Site)

- Movie based on Black Harris’s book, “Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo and the Battle that defined a Generation”.

- Sony optioned the movie rights to Console Wars, despite the fact the book hasn’t been released yet.

- Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have previously worked on films such as; Superbad, Pineapple Express and This Is The End.

CCP to erect monument to EVE Online Players In Reykjavik, Iceland

Source 1: community.eveonline.com (Press Release)

n.b.: Concept art of monument in Source 1.

- In celebration of the first decade of the EVE Universe.

- In honour of those who have helped establish the EVE universe.

- A gift to Reykjavik, the home of CCP Games and EVE Online development for the past 16 years.

- The monument will have the names of all the main characters of all active EVE Online players (Captured on March 1st, 2014) etched on it, as well as the names of the players who have passed away.

- A laptop will be buried under the monument serving as a time capsule.

Sandisk introduces 128gb MicroSD

Source 1: sandisk.com (Press Release)

Source 2: theregister.co.uk (News Site)

- RRP = $200

- Exclusive to amazon.com and bestbuy. $119 on Amazon.com (and $200 at bestbuy)

- Compatible with all devices that support earlier SDXC cards.

- 10MB/s write speeds. To fill up the card you would need to write data for about 3h30m…

- 30MB/s read speeds. To read the entire card you would need 1h10m..

- Card works by stacking 16 memory dies vertically, each thinner than a human hair.

- First microSD was launched 10 years ago (2004) at 128MB. Storage has gone up 1000 times over.

Tom’s Hardware debunks audio myths… once and for all?

Source: tomshardware.com/reviews

n.b.: Because they haven't yet covered 32 Ω headphones, the results discussed throughout this article only apply to 300 Ω headphones.

Intro to audio:

- Be able to play music you need a DAC, a amplifier and headphones/speakers.

- The source doesn’t really matter as long as it arrives to the DAC “bit perfect”. A quality CD player or just a PC playing the same file should sound the same.

- The challenge was that uncompressed audio was rather large so audio was compressed using formats such as MP3 first and AAC later. Audiophiles hated compression.

- Now that we can cheaply buy multi TB HDDs the storage aspect no longer matters that much.

- They go on to test four audio solutions from $2 to $2000.

Conclusion was:

- Any music above 16bit/44.1kHz is a waste of hdd space and money.

- Anything above $2 buy more features, not quality. QUOTE: “Using world-class headphones, a $2 Realtek integrated audio codec could not be reliably distinguished from the $2000 Benchmark DAC2 HGC in a four-device round-up. Again, all four devices sounded great.”

- They will be testing 32 Ω headphones soon to see the difference.

- My issue here is only that the results are only for the testers - better to invite guests to participate.

Spritz lets you read 900 words per minute on your phone (or even smart watch)

Source 1: spritzinc.com (Company FAQ) - Written very well. A good read.

Source 2: geek.com (News Site)

n.b.: Go to spritz website and in the top right you can click “Click to Spritz” for a demo.

-Traditional reading involves publishing text in lines and moving your eyes sequentially from word to word.

- This shows you a word by word.

- It centers on the Optical Recognition Point (ORP) of the word.

- When reading traditionally your eyes have to wait till they find the ORP until they start processing the word.

- Spritz finds this ORP for you which allows you to immediately process the word.

- When reading text you spend 80% of your time finding the next word, and only 20% of your time processing the word. This saves you the 80%.

- They plan to roll this out on smart watches, mobile phones and E-readers and head mounted displays.

- It takes about 5 minutes to become accustomed to and starting at 250WPM you can quickly learn to read faster.

Framestore, VFX company behind Gravity, confirmed their Oculus Rift project will be going live at SXSW.

Source: twitter.com

- Article by Mike Woods (head of company): marketingmagazine.co.uk

- Whilst Oculus can be used for linear storytelling, consumers now have the ability to explore a scene.

- Consumers could experience the interior of a car more profoundly than any previously existing virtual test drive.

- The content needs to be produced in a game engine.

- “Use of real-time rendering game engines is still relatively new, but a few of us have been at it for nearly four years now.” - Mike Woods

- “We’re successfully blurring the line between filmic and interactive experiences.” - Mike Woods.

- Product demonstrations, architectural walkthroughs, short films, branded experiences; they’re all achievable.

- Price of Rift units makes it feasible to grab 10 rifts for a consumer-facing (advertising) event.

The Nokia XL, a Big Android Phone With Big Ambitions

Source: wired.com

- New family of android powered handsets from soon-to-be-Microsoft-owned manufacturer Nokia. (XL part of that range)

- Nokia’s implementation of Android (4.1) is heavily customised both visually and  functionally.

- Nokia has removed Play Store and Google Drive and replaced it with Nokia’s App Store and Microsoft’s One Drive respectively.

- The phones will still be able to run regular android apps from the playstore. You will just need to download them as .apks.

- The XL is not available in the US, but will be on sale everywhere else in the world.

- Chance of achieving due to price, only €109 (about $150).

- Comes with a 5-inch WVGA display, 5MP back and 2MP front camera.

Candy Crush Creator abandons “Candy” trademark efforts

Source: polygon.com

- Abandoned attempts to trademark the word candy according to “US Trademark Office”.

- Does not affect E.U. trademark for “Candy” and they will “continue to take all appropriate steps to protect our IP.”

- King withdrew their trademark application for “Candy” which they applied in Feb 2013, before they acquired early rights to Candy Crusher.

- They feel that: “having the rights to Candy Crusher is the best option for protecting Candy Crush in the U.S. market.” -King

Tesla announces plans to build battery-producing 'Gigafactory'.

Source 1: linustechtips.com OP: noname7931

Source 2: theverge.com

- US Based facility that will focus on manufacturing lithium batteries.

- $4-$5 billion investment. (About 3.5 times less than whatsapp deal).

- By 2020 Tesla says it hopes its “Gigafactory” will produce as many batteries as were produced worldwide in 2013.

- Tesla will be partnering with other battery-manufacturing partners to reduce costs.

- After one year of production, Tesla predicts battery cost will drop by 30% per kWh.

- Tesla hopes to start construction this year with a proposed opening date of 2017.

- By 2020, the company hopes its factory will produce batteries for a whopping 500,000 vehicles.

- (paraphrased) “This is going to be a very green factory. There's going solar power, essentially zero emissions, no toxic elements are going to come out and recycling capability will be built into it.” - CEO Elon Musk

Update your Mac NOW (25/Feb/14): Apple fixes OS X 'goto fail'

Source 1: theregister.com

- Gaping security vulnerability that potentially allowed hackers to compromise SSL-encrypted communications.

- A programming bug caused Apple's SSL code to skip over vital checks of a server's authenticity when establishing a connection.

- Any software running on OS X 10.9.1 that relies on Apple’s Security Library: Safari, Twitter for Mac App, iMessage, FaceTime, and the Mail email client was compromised.

- A malicious router or Wi-Fi point could intercept HTTPS, IMAPS, and other SSL-encrypted traffic from the machine.

- Professionals disappointed because: Apple allowed a change to the Security framework that broke SSL handling to pass through Q&A.

- Professionals disappointed because: Apple waited days to fix the issue even though knowledge of the terrible flaw was in the wild, ready to be exploited, seemingly so that it could conveniently bundle the patch with an upgrade for making voice calls with FaceTime.

- Visiting gotofail.com, will test whether your web browser correctly rejects a malicious SSL certificate.

Pokémon Episodes will be put on Netflix.

Source 1: pokemon.com

- Beginning on Sat, March 1st NetFlix members can stream hours of Pokémon.

- The very first season of Pokémon; Pokémon: Indigo League will be available.

- You can watch episodes from the Pokémon: Black and White Season.

- The movies: “Pokémon the Movie: Black—Victini and Reshiram” and “Pokémon the Movie: White—Victini and Zekrom.” will be available.

- No mention of the banned episodes of Season 1? Will they be available in English?

Apple leaves OS X Snow Leopard vulnerable to attacks

Source 1: computerworld.com

n.b.: Sensationalist title

- Snow Leopard on roughly 19% of Macs. (End of January report)

- Snow Leopard 4 and a half years old.

- Apple delivered the final security update for Snow Leopard in September 2013.

- Traditionally, Apple has patched only the OS X current edition and the previous edition. (“n” and “n-1” if n is the newest edition”.)

- Recently, Apple has continued support for last 3 OSs due to more frequent releases. (Up to “n-2”).

- Currently last 3 OS X editions have updates. (Lion, Mountain Lion & Mavericks)

- Under those rules Snow Leopard should have finished support in mid-2012.

- Annoying because; Apple leaves users guessing about when their operating systems will fall off support. No EOL date.

- Snow Leopard was the final version to be able to run on 32bit hardware. So it’s impossible for some to upgrade.

- Lion and Mountain Lion users offered free upgrade to Mavericks.

LG named most innovative company of 2014.

Source 1: telegraph.co.uk

- Awarded at “Global Mobile Awards” by GSMA

- Company showcased 8 smartphones at this years Mobile World Congress including: G Pro 2, G Flex, G2 mini, F70, F Series and L Series.

- Retains market share of just under 5%.

- Gro Pro 2 features a 13MP camera with optical image stabiliser plus technology.

Nintendo discontinues “Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection Service”.

Source 1: twitter.com (Tweet to linus from fan)

Source 2: nintendo.com (Service Update)

n.b. Sensationalist title.

- Effective date: May 20, 2014

- Only online features for games using the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service are impacted. (Wii, Nintendo DS and Nintendo DSi games)

- Other online functionality on Wii and Nintendo DS, such as access to the Wii Shop Channel, the Nintendo DSi Shop and video-on-demand services, are not affected at this time.

- Online play for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS games will be unaffected (aside from backwards compatibility online modes).

- List of affected games. (nintendo.com) show on stream (multiple pages)

- Examples of discontinued functionality at Source 2.

[Izaya Orihara]

You're a little late  

[Rashy]

No news on the giveaway?

[Tr3vor]

You shouldn't care about the Nintendo DS losing online functionality. You really shouldn't want to play Mario Kart on it anymore either. If you have played it in the past 3 years, it has been plagued by a shit ton of hackers and half the time there is nobody playing. It's so bad.

 

It makes me miss the time when I could get online Metroid Prime Hunters and kill those stupid alt-spammers on there.

[Jumper118]

why is the intel club enthusiast only in us and canada! 

[algoat]

The first time I heard Linus or Slick say how bad the ncix.com site is.  That was awesome!

[Dr_Orpington]

Comment on Spritz, what if Spritz combined with eye tracking so it would stop if you blinked or looked away.

[PortentousLad]

Holy BAALLLS! I just almost soiled myself over the spritz thing I read very slow for the most part anyways, this is a GODSEND!

 

 

installed telegram... nobody in my contacts...

[jvkeizer]

Holy BAALLLS! I just almost soiled myself over the spritz thing I read very slow for the most part anyways, this is a GODSEND!

Yeah, I had the same experience, it's amazing! At first I read the 250 wpm and couldn't really keep up, but after trying it a few times the 250 already seems so slow!