December | 2017 | POP | TECH

As the tired old year of 2017 limps toward the exit, it seems fitting that age discrimination is in the news this week — both for smartphones and human job-seekers. El Kaiser and J.D. sort through two weeks’ worth of headlines, share their musings on Star Wars: The Last Jedi and offer up a warning about using browser extensions.

It’s been a crazy year in many ways, but Pop Tech Jam returns in early 2018, just in time to make fun of the weirdest products at the Consumer Electronics Show. Spin up Episode 256 here and look for us in a few weeks. Happy Holidaze, Jammers!

Links to Stories Discussed on This Week’s Episode

Apple Plans Combined iPhone, iPad & Mac Apps to Create One User (Bloomberg)
Apple responds to reports of worn batteries forcing iPhone CPU slowdowns (Apple Insider)
Facebook Job Ads Raise Concerns About Age Discrimination (The New York Times)
Facebook Is Also Helping Employers Keep Job Ads Away From Older People (Gizmodo)
How to use login verification (Twitter)
Web browsing comes to Amazon’s Fire TV ahead of YouTube ban (CNET)
The War Over Net Neutrality (Bloomberg)
New York AG to Sue FCC Over Net Neutrality Repeal (The Hill)
Netflix rips net neutrality repeal: ‘This is the beginning of a longer legal battle’ (The Hill)
Three U.S. men plead guilty to crimes tied to 2016 botnet attacks (Reuters)
How a Dorm Room Minecraft Scam Brought Down the Internet (Wired)
Twitter says Russians spent ~$1k on six Brexit-related ads (TechCrunch)
New to Office 365 in December—extending human ingenuity with everyday AI (Office Blogs)
Microsoft looks to make Bing results smarter with new AI-powered features and Reddit partnership (TechCrunch)
Google Assistant is coming to older Android phones and tablets (TechCrunch)
News Feed FYI: Fighting Engagement Bait on Facebook (Facebook)
Facebook plans to stop paying publishers to make news feed videos (Digiday)
Disney’s Buyout of Fox Officially Announced, Bringing Home X-Men, Deadpool, Fantastic Four (The Mary Sue)

(Hopefully) Helpful Hint

Protecting Your Data When Using Browser Extensions (The New York Times)
After Blowback, Firefox Will Move Mr. Robot Extension to Store (Gizmodo)

The cryptocurrency Bitcoin is all over the news this month, and El Kaiser and J.D. discuss some of the more recent developments, along with the Consumer Reports verdict on the iPhone X and the legal tussle between oracle and Google. El Kaiser shares his thoughts on Crisis on Earth X and J.D. offers a (Hopefully) Helpful Hint on converting those meeting notes scrawled on the office whiteboard into text you can edit on your phone. Oh, and there’s a little movie called Star Wars: The Last Jedi headed to theaters this month, so if you need something to listen to while you’re waiting around in line for it, push Play on Episode 255 here!

Bitcoin Shakes Off Bubble Warnings in Race Past $15,000 Mark (Bloomberg)
Steam Community Announcements (Steam blog)
Digital currency exchange NiceHash says Bitcoin worth nearly $64 million hacked (Reuters)
Instagram is testing a separate messaging app and may remove DMs from the core app (The Verge)
iPhone X is inferior to Samsung’s new phones, Consumer Reports says (CBNC)
CR’s Final iPhone X Test Results: Top-Scoring Camera and Display But Also Some Flaws (Consumer Reports)
Inside Oracle’s cloak-and-dagger political war with Google (Recode)
Chrome Apps are dead, as Google shuts down the Chrome Web Store section (Ars Technica)
Lyft’s self-driving pilot with nuTonomy begins rolling out in Boston (TechCrunch)
Your Search questions, answered selfie-style on Google (The Keyword blog)
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (StarWars.com)

(Hopefully) Helpful Hint

Scanning, Converting and Editing Text on the Go (The New York Times)

Hey, Jammers! Had to deal with a little bit of life this week, but Pop Tech Jam will be back later this week with a new episode. In the meantime, we just have to finish the holiday prep…

Monthly Archives: December 2017

PTJ 256: Age/Old Problems

PTJ 255: Boom or Bust?

One More Week…

The independent audio magazine devoted to mashing up pop culture, technology and more. J.D. Biersdorfer and Pedro Rafael Rosado are your hosts. It's an Internet Radio revolution!