Monthly Archives: January 2014

Episode Links

PTJ 80 News: Time Flies

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As the week winds down, the State of the Union address is history and cloud service provider Akamai has popped out its latest quarterly  State of the Internet report. Once again, South Korea leads the world in average global connection speed; the United States ranks 8th. As if to rub it in, the South Korean government is dropping $1.5 billion into upgrading its mobile communications network by 2020, and says this will make it a thousand times faster than it is now. In theory, you could download an entire movie in one second on this mythical 5G network. Think of it, the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy in less time than it takes to sneeze and find a tissue.

But wait, this week had more reports to report. The Android operating system was tops in Europe in 2013, according to new numbers from research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. The little green robot snagged a 68.6 percent share of the European smartphone market, compared to Apple’s 18.5 percent. Windows Phone, showing some moxie, was able to claim 10.3 percent of the market. All three operating systems placed in the same order Stateside, but don’t even ask about BlackBerry (although BlackBerry OS 10 did get another update recently to make loading Android apps even easier).

Now, while Apple did set a record in the last quarter with 51 million iPhones sold, investors were hoping for 55 million iPhones out the door, so the company’s stock fell 8 percent. The tech press will now be filled with stories about how Apple needs to innovate again, although the company recently filed a patent for a solar-powered MacBook and seems to have new plans in the works for its Apple TV set-top streamer. Just last week, the tech press was filled with stories about the 30th anniversary of the Macintosh computer, which made its debut on January 24th, 1984, and had a very memorable Super Bowl commercial that can still be found online.

Google is still on its January shopping spree, buying up DeepMind, a privately held artificial intelligence company based in the United Kingdom. While replicants don’t seem to be in the near future, a DeepMind investor told the Re/Code website, “If anyone builds something remotely resembling artificial general intelligence, this will be the team. Think Manhattan Project for AI.”

Google Glass may be getting a little more affordable for some, particularly those with optical health insurance. The provider VSP has made a deal with Google to subsidize prescription lenses and frames for the Internet-connected spendy spectacles. However, Google Glass may not be the only wearable face computers strutting around town. The Korea Times is reporting that Samsung and Sony may be getting into the game. Samsung is rumored to be showing off its version this September at the annual IFA trade show in Berlin.

Shifting gears to Gears of War, Microsoft has purchased the shoot ‘em up franchise from Epic Games, which means future installments will likely be Xbox-only. And in other Microsoft news, the company announced that it was renaming its cloud storage service. The formerly known Hawaii Five-0 Approved Microsoft SkyDrive will now be known as OneDrive. Microsoft was forced into the name change after losing a trademark tussle to British Sky Broadcasting.

Government security groups have allegedly been harvesting player info from mobile games. Do people at the top of the leaderboards have anything to worry about? Angry Hackers, by the way, have already smacked up the Angry Birds website.

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The Better Business Bureau is warning consumers to be on the lookout for mysterious charges $9.84 on their credit-card bills. Those charges, often from unfamiliar sounding websites, are part of a scam. Call your bank and request a new debit or credit card, as this one’s been compromised.

The Chrome browser for iOS just got an update from Google that brings more speed and security to the app. And speaking of apps, a couple hotels in the Starwood chain are trying out new room door locks that can be opened by a smartphone with a Bluetooth connection and an Android or iOS app. (Here’s an idea: put this system in a few Vegas hotels during the annual DEF CON gathering and see how it holds up.)

And finally, Facebook marks its 10th birthday next week. The site was founded as TheFaceBook.com back on February 4th, 2004, and was intended as a resource for Harvard students. Flash forward a decade past a big-budget origin movie, a wobbly IPO and about 1.2 billion users around the world and you have the current social network. Now, if you’ve been wondering how much of your life in the past 10 years you’ve spent on the site, the folks at Time magazine’s website have created a handy tool called “How Much Time Have You Wasted on Facebook?” If the thought of letting an app trip merrily through your Facebook history disturbs you (it’ll probably meet up for drinks with the NSA bots in there), you can probably ballpark it yourself, especially if you’re a daily user. Just calculate the average amount of time you spend per day on the site, look up the date on your Timeline when you joined Facebook to see how many days it’s been, and factor those numbers together. Remember, there are 1440 minutes in a day…

Podcast

PTJ 80: We Heart Latvia

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If you’ve listened to the show for any length of time you’ll know that the software development company BROS is directly responsible for Pop Tech Jam making its way through the Intertubes and into our preferred listening devices.  Founder and lead bro Christian Serron joins Pedro to discuss the burgeoning tech sector in Uruguay and to finally reveal why he helped unleash J.D. and El Kaiser on the podcast world… again.  If the Polar Vortex is keeping you indoors (or if you just enjoy playing classic video games) J.D. tells us where we can find some venerable titles for our mobile devices. In the news South Korea still has the need for speed when it comes to connection speed; Android continues to dominate in Europe; Blackberry rolls out a new version of their Blackberry 10 OS; Google buys artificial intelligence research company Deep Mind; and Facebook turns 10.

Episode Links, Games, Software

Any Port in a Storm

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January 2014 brought several winter blasts to the Midwest, South and Northeast — and a lot more indoor time for many people. But winter’s not over yet and if you’re running out of new games to play while you’re stuck inside during the next blizzard, consider taking a stroll through your app store for some old favorites in new formats.

mystFor example, remember Myst, the ground-breaking interactive adventure puzzle game with the lovely graphics that first appeared on the Mac in 1993 and went on to conquer just about every other platform in the years to come? There is now an official version of Myst for the iPhone and it costs a mere $5. You can also get the game’s sequel, Riven, for $4 in the App Store. And while there’s no official version of Myst for Android, developers for that platform have created similar puzzle games for the touchscreen. And fans of Myst, be sure to check out The Room, a tactile 3D puzzler from Fireproof Games for iOS, Kindle Fire and Android that costs just a few bucks. (A sequel, The Room 2, is also out for iOS now and headed to Android soon.)

Want a little something from the FPS Department? Going old school, you can find Castle Wolfenstein and Doom for iOS as well as the various Android versions and ports of the game, like AnDoom and DoomGLES. More recently, there’s also Call of Duty: Strike Team for iOS and Android.

Seeking adventure? There’s Baldur’s Gate for iPad as well as Balder’s Gate II or Final Fantasy V for Android and iOS. Ravensword: Shadowlands (which has been described as an equivalent to The Elder Scrolls) awaits on Android and iOS.

Now, if you have fond memories of a particular game but don’t see a version of it in your app store, check out the Games Finder site, which offers reviews and information on games that are sort of like other games. The Games Like Directory page can point you to an alphabetical list of games like RuneScape, Age of Empires, Harvest Moon, Diablo, World of Warcraft and more. Some games may be for mobile devices and some may be for the computer, console or a web browser, but it’s a great place to start your quest. (And for fans of Gears of War, Shadowgun for Android and iOS, has often been mentioned as a viable substitute.)

And remember, if you want to go way back, you can find many iconic arcade games available as mobile apps now, like Midway Arcade for iOS, NAMCO Arcade for iOS and Atari’s Greatest Hits for Android. If you’re browser bound, don’t forget the Console Living Room section of the Internet Archive (which also virtually houses the Classic PC Games collection), where you can really rock your Atari 2600 memories with dozens of old cartridge classics running in emulation. There’s nothing like warm memories of 8-bit glory to make you forget about Mother Nature pitching a hissy outside.

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Sorry Johnny T and the NFL, New York City Is PTJ Territory

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Let me just set the record straight: Super Bowl 48 (I don’t do Roman Numerals) is NOT in New York City. The Giants and Jets abandoned us decades ago for Northern New Jersey and THAT is where the game will be played.  No dome.  No warm weather climate.  Just a New Jersey swamp.  I, of course, have christened this event the “Swamp Bowl”.  Let Bill Lumbergh break it down for us:

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[BTW: I really dislike that whole blue shirt, white collar look. It’s so indecisive.  Pick a color and stick with it, dangit. ]

Now don’t go thinking I’m hating on the Garden State because I’m not.  Personally, I think New Jerseyans should be offended. The NFL’s massive marketing machine has gone out of its way and are pulling out all the stops to brand this as a New York event. Why all the heat for Jersey?  It has to sting a little if you live on the paying side of the George Washington Bridge.  Of course the game’s proximity to my beloved Big Apple ensures this side of bridge will be overrun with people looking for the sights, sounds, and experiences only the greatest city on the planet can offer.

This week on the show I discuss some of my favorite apps designed to help tourists get around and enjoy their time in New York City.

New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority offers an app gallery at their  website with a variety of free and paid apps that will help you get around using mass transit.

If you need more practical tips for your trip to New York City, take a peep at this video from a puppet with almost as much attitude as El Kaiser:

 

Podcast

PTJ 79: Welcome to Kaiser Town

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Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these podcasters from sharing their hi-jinks and shenanigans! Well, actually gloom of night might give us pause… This week J.D. gives us some helpful hints on how to prevent our children from making unapproved in-app purchases and Pedro tells us what apps to use to navigate and experience NYC like a native. In the news, Verizon buys Intel Media’s OnCue Internet-based television service; the Internet of Things gets hacked; the video game console war rages on; Hewlett-Packard brings back Windows 7; Samsung Galaxy S5 rumor mill picks up the pace; a comet chasing spacecraft wakes from a long nap; and The New Yorker magazine reminds us that there is still nothing quite like the power and reach of live over-the-air radio.

Episode Links

PTJ 79 News: And Now an Update From the Hoth Bureau

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A deep winter chill may have settled over a large part of the country this week, but things are heating up in the streaming-TV business. Still on a roll from last week, Verizon has now reached out and purchased Intel Media’s OnCue Internet-based television service for an undisclosed sum. OnCue, which is still under development, includes a traditional bundle of TV channels, but delivered over the Internet instead of by coaxial or fiber-optic cable. Especially since a recent survey from the research firm NPD Group found that US households that subscribe to premium cable channels dropped six percentage points from March 2012 to August 2013. In that same period, homes that signed up for Internet video-on-demand subscription services rose four percentage points. (The study can’t scientifically show cause-and-effect, but still, ya gotta wonder…)

According to the security firm Proofprint, the Internet of Things has been hacked. (Didn’t take long now, did it?) Researchers for Proofprint report that along with hacked laptops and tablets, more than 100,000 smart, Internet-connected appliances like multimedia set-top boxes, game consoles, routers, television sets and even a refrigerator were compromised by intruders, looped into a botnet and used to send out more than 750,000 malicious email messages. (Keep in mind, though, that the company making this discovery did have a dedicated interest in putting out a press release on the incident as quickly as possible.)

Google’s recent acquisition of Nest, the maker of Internet-connected thermostats and smoke alarms has some people worried about their personal information being passed around. However, in a Q&A on the Nest site, the company says it takes privacy very seriously and states, “Our privacy policy clearly limits the use of customer information to providing and improving Nest’s products and services.” Nest CEO Tony Fadell repeated the company’s vow at a conference in Germany last week, although when a CNNMoney correspondent asked him if she’d start seeing Google ads for sweaters if her Nest thermostat knew she was cold all the time, he said he’d let her know if the Nest policy would change.

The console wars, which escalated late last year with the arrival of both the Sony PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One, rages on, but Sony appears to have the upper hand. But while Sony and Microsoft slug it out, Nintendo is not doing so well in hardware sales. A reported profit loss and disappointing sales figures for its Wii U console have sent its stock price down and some analysts are saying the company should get out of hardware and stick to software and game development.

Google has booted two browser extensions out of its Chrome store for violating the company’s terms of service. The “Add to Feedly” and “Tweet This Page” extensions got kicked to the curb when it was discovered that code for serving up ads when browsing websites had been quietly added in an update. And Windows 8 continues to get dissed, now even by at least one major OEM. HP has been touting new machines running Windows 7 on its home page, as part of a “back by popular demand” sales campaign. The company has pushed several desktop and laptop models with Windows 7 preinstalled to the spotlight, while keeping Windows 8 in the background.

Microsoft, however, is still fighting for Windows 8 acceptance and has published a new, free how-to guide to the system called “The Windows 8.1 Power User Guide for Business”. Run, don’t walk to get your copy, folks.

Photos purporting to be the new Samsung Galaxy S5 are leaking out online, and those who have seen the new user interface describe it as “looking like an attractive Google Now.” While officially unconfirmed by Samsung at the moment, most expect the schmancy new phone and UI to make a splash at next month’s Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona.

Meanwhile, out in space, NASA reports that the Rosetta spacecraft woke up from a 957-day hibernation on January 20th and is getting back to work on its mission of chasing Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The Rosetta project, which began back in 1993, is actually a mission of the European Space Agency, but scientists from NASA contributed three of the 25 scientific instruments the spacecraft will use to monitor the roaming comet.

SonyRadioAnd finally, while the consumer world is all abuzz with streaming online radio stations, high-fidelity equipment, satellite receivers and other high-end gear, The New Yorker has an insightful article online right now about the humble analog pocket AM/FM radio, specifically the Sony SRF-39FP. While broadcast radio may seem like a quaint notion from yesteryear, the article is another reminder that there’s nothing quite like the power and reach of live over-the-air radio. And it’s still one of those few entertainment activities you can even do when your Internet connection is down. Imagine that.

Episode Links

Control Issues

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inappsThe problem of unapproved in-app purchases was back in the news last week, as the Federal Trade Commission announced a settlement with Apple in that case over children’s iOS shopping sprees without parental consent. Apple will be paying out at least $32.5 million in refunds to parents who suddenly found a whole pile of unexpected charges on their credit-card bills after letting the kids use their phones and tablets. As part of the settlement, Apple must change its billing practices to show that it has obtained informed consent from the credit-card holder before charging them for extra power packs, coins, weapons, lives and other virtual merchandise typically sold inside a mobile app itself — and not as a separate download from the App Store.

The FTC’s report said Apple failed to warn parents that by entering a password for what many assumed was just a single in-app charge, they were also giving their kids 15 minutes to make unlimited purchases without further parental permission or passwords. As many parents know, that’s plenty of time for some kids to rack up a few hundred dollars in charges. Since the suit, Apple has released an online guide to in-app purchases in its stores and more parents have educated themselves, (and are perhaps watching the kids a little more closely now).

The FTC-Apple case also gave Consumer Reports a reason to go looking at the Google Play Store, to see what its in-app purchase policies entailed. The magazine reported its findings in an article titled “Google Play Store lets your kid spend like a drunken sailor.” As Consumer Reports reminds everyone, Google Play has a policy of giving an in-app buyer 30 minutes of unsupervised shopping time before the store password needs to be re-entered.

Both Google and the FTC aren’t saying if the Google Play store is under similar scrutiny for failure to notify or require explicit permission for in-app purchases even within the gaping 30-minute window, but given the Apple settlement, it wouldn’t be surprising if discussions underway. (Stories about how to get refunds if the kids do go wild are available around the Web and Google has refund info on its site as well.) A Google spokesperson did state to Consumer Reports that: “We always appreciate feedback and are currently working on new features that give our customers even more information and control over their Google Play purchases.”

In the meantime, if you have kids and mobile devices, take advantage of the available  parental controls to keep your children from not only buying things from online app stores directly, but from even using certain apps on the phone or tablet without supervision. After all, the HBO GO app has a lot of great shows you can stream, but you probably don’t want your pre-teen kids gawping through a Sex and the City marathon while you’re at work.

Here are a few ways to lock down various systems and devices:

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While software parental controls may not be as effective as real-time human parental controls, they can help virtually corral the kids  during those times when Mom and Dad are doing something else — like paying bills.

Article

Pop Tech Jammers, We Need Your Help!

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Please subscribe, rate and review Pop Tech Jam at iTunes, Stitcher Radio or any of the many podcast directories featuring the show. To those of you who already have, we extend our deepest and sincerest thanks. This is a labor of love for me and J.D. and getting that feedback from you helps us attract attention from new listeners and potential advertisers which in turn helps us keep doing what we do.

We can’t stop being amazed by the support you’ve shown us since the announcement was made that our old New York Times radio show would be back with a new name and a new attitude.  We promise to keep producing the show for as long as we can but the reality is that to compete with the media powerhouses and podcast factories churning out cookie-cutter marketing spiels masquerading as Internet radio we need all of you to keep spreading the word.

You know we’re more than just a tech podcast. It’s time to let the rest of the world in on the secret. The Pop Tech Jam revolution will not be televised…it will be podcasted.

Tech Term

TECH TERM OF THE WEEK: CRYPTOCURRENCY

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Our very first tech term for 2014 is a very hot topic these days. You can’t turn on a cable news channel or read the business section of a newspaper…. HA!… I said newspaper. I’m so silly. Of course I mean you can’t scroll through the tech or currency verticals of a news platform’s online product without reading a story…I did it again…without reading a post giving us the latest, and occasionally sordid, details of the antics of this geek word.

This week’s tech term is cryptocurrency. Never heard of it you say? oh yeah, you have. Does bitcoin sound familiar? Well, that my droogs, is a cryptocurrency.

You know what before we get into that, I mentioned it earlier in the show and I just wanna know why? That’s all. Have I not been the most benevolent and kind Internet Kaiser in all of Internet kaiserdom? Have I not gone out of my way to produce the greatest geek-cuture and tech themed podcast in this and all known universes? (Trademark Pending) with the one and only J.D. Biersdorfer (The latest edition of iPad: The Missing Manual available in bookstores now) Haven’t I?

So why does Kanye West and a frickin’ dog meme have a Cryptocurrency before I do?!?!?!  You know what, forget it. Obviously I haven’t worn nearly enough leather kilts or have shiny enough fur for so… don’t even bother. Despite the hurt, I’m a professional so I’ll through this.

Before we can fully appreciate the technology behind Dogecoins and Coinyes, we must first understand what puts the crypt in cryptocurrency. Cryptography, that’s what.

Cryptography is the practice of the enciphering and deciphering of messages in secret code in order to render them unintelligible to all but the intended receiver. Cryptocurrency uses cryptography for security, making it difficult to counterfeit. The digital currency uses public and private keys  for transfers from one person to another. Now keys are pieces of information that determine the functional output of a cryptographic algorithm. Without the appropriate key it would be impossible to decrypt the virtual currency.

Okay, I can’t blame you if you’re all a bit skeptical and dismiss cryptocurrencies as just some silly internet fad but the reality is there are currently over 70 of them in play with bitcoin leading the market capitalization race with over 9 billion dollars.  Oh yeah, that’s billion…with a B.

If you’re thinking cryptocurrencies might be a prime target for some hacker baddies out there you’d be right on the money. If you also think Cryptocurrency has the potential for being the preferred currency of the dark web, rest your head. It has fulfilled it’s potential.

I’m not a luddite and I’m not as paranoid as many of you seem to think (Hey, I happen to look good in tinfoil hats, thank you very much) but let’s just say you can keep your bitcoins, litecoins and peercoins. In my world cash is still king…well until some enterprising type starts mining some of that digital moolah in honor of yours truly. When that happens you can bet I’ll be making it rain cryptocheddar…

Podcast

PTJ 78: The Case of the Missing Kaisercoins

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Series 3 of the BBC’s “Sherlock” finally makes its debut on PBS stations across the United States but if you can’t get enough of the deerstalker hat wearing detective, J.D. fills us in on other ways to get our Sherlock fix. Pedro deals with the disappointment of not having any cryptocurrency named in his honor by telling us what he knows about digital money.  In the news,  the U.S . Court of Appeals strikes down F.C.C. net neutrality rules; hackers mark the one-year anniversary of the death of programmer and digital-rights activist Aaron Swartz; Winamp will whip more llama ass; Google goes shopping; Snapchat continues to deal with its growing pains; and the bells begin to toll for Microsoft’s Windows 8.