PTJ 338: Flight CLUB

May 29, 2020 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

Twitter’s act of adding fact-checking labels to a couple of presidential tweets set off a storm in the social-media world — almost at the same time real-life stormy weather caused officials to scrub the NASA-SpaceX launch to the International Space Station, the first on an United States rocket since 2011. El Kaiser and J.D. discuss it all ahead of America’s rescheduled return to space this weekend. Blast off with PTJ 338!

Trump signs executive order targeting Twitter after fact-checking row (BBC News)
Trump’s Order on Social Media Could Harm One Person in Particular: Donald Trump (The New York Times)
Trump’s Illiberal Internet Fairness Doctrine (National Review)
What journalists should know about Communications Decency Act Section 230 (Poynter)
Jack on Twitter
Defying Trump, Twitter Doubles Down on Labeling Tweets (The New York Times)
Facebook and Twitter clash over fact-checking as Trump threats intensify (CNN)
Appeals court ruling suggests little legal traction for Trump’s anti-Twitter campaign (POLITICO)
Twitter adds native “scheduled tweets” function (Twitter support)
Twitter, Facebook Win Appeal in Anticonservative-Bias Suit (Bloomberg)
Arizona sues Google for allegedly violating Android users’ location privacy (The Washington Post)
Microsoft launches Cortana app for Windows 10 without Amazon’s Alexa (VentureBeat)
Apple Buys Machine-Learning Startup to Improve Data Used in Siri (Bloomberg)
Apple acquires the full Fraggle Rock collection in first major licensing play (The Verge)
How Delivery Drones Are Being Used to Tackle COVID-19 (WeRobotics)
Drone drops off Isle of Mull coronavirus masks (BBC)
Visit Isle of Man (Isle of Man Government)

Spaaaaccce!

Space Out and Explore the Universe Without Leaving Home (The New York Times)
Launch America Overview (NASA)
NASA
SpaceX

Episode Links

PTJ 337: Pod People

May 23, 2020 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

Are podcasts The Next Big Thing — again? With Spotify, Amazon and Apple all scrapping to get big names and fresh content while throwing around big money, it sure seems like something’s going on. After El Kaiser and J.D. roll through the rest of the week’s headlines, El Kaiser also offers a few suggestions for remote podcasting software. It’s all right here in PTJ 337 from the comfort of your own home!

Links to News Stories on This Week’s Show

“She-Ra and the Princesses of Power” (DreamWorks)
“She-Ra and the Princesses of Power”(Watch on Netflix)
Privacy-Preserving Contact Tracing (Apple-Google)
Apple and Google launch coronavirus exposure software (The Washington Post)
Mark Zuckerberg: Half of Facebook may work remotely by 2030 (NBC News)
Facebook to Limit Offices to 25% Capacity, Require Masks at Work (Bloomberg)
Preventing Unwanted Contacts and Scams in Messenger (Messenger News)
Twitter is testing a feature that limits who can reply to your tweets (TechCrunch)
Accessibility updates that help tech work for everyone (Google Keyword blog)
Amazon pushes Prime Day to September as it returns to normalcy: WSJ (Reuters)
The podcasting world is now Spotify versus everybody else (The Verge)
Amazon’s Audible Goes Beyond Books to Chase Spotify in Podcasts (Bloomberg)
Apple Ramps Up Original Podcasts, in Part to Help Promote TV+ (Bloomberg)
Chrome 83 arrives with redesigned security settings, third-party cookies blocked in Incognito (VentureBeat)
Protecting against resource-heavy ads in Chrome (Chromium blog)
Apple Buys Older Shows for TV+, Stepping Up Netflix Challenge (Bloomberg)
Helping members who haven’t been watching cancel (Netflix)

VoIP Podcasting Apps

Episode Links

PTJ 336: Slice of Life

May 16, 2020 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

Thinking of spending some of your inside time recording a podcast or your own music? After a tour through the week’s technology headlines with J.D., El Kaiser offers some shopping tips on microphones that make you sound way better than the one built into your laptop. Just click the Play button to hear it all on PTJ 336 — starting with a suggestion for another binge-worthy show to pass the time in the Quarantine Life.

Links to Stories in This Week’s News Segment

Community (NBC)
The 15 best episodes of Community (EW.com)
Community Cast — Including Donald Glover — to Reunite for Virtual Table Read (Variety)
TikTok Broke Privacy Promises, Children’s Groups Say (The New York Times)
Your Second First Trip (Uber Newsroom)
Google removed 813 creepware apps from the Android Play Store (ZDNet)
The Many Kinds of Creepware Used for Interpersonal Attacks (Semantic Scholar)
Merkley, Colleagues Continue to Lead Charge to Protect Consumers from Internet Shut-Offs During Pandemic (Jeff Merkley)
Keeping our employees and partners safe during #coronavirus (Twitter)
Apple Plans to Return More Staff to Offices in Break From Rivals (Bloomberg)
Organize your tabs with tab groups in Google Chrome (Keyword blog)
Protecting against resource-heavy ads in Chrome (Chromium Blog)
A first look at Unreal Engine 5 (Unreal Engine)
PlayStation 5 will launch in 2020 holiday season despite coronavirus: Sony (CNBC)
Facebook to pay $52m to content moderators over PTSD (BBC News)
Jeffrey Katzenberg Blames Pandemic for Quibi’s Rough Start (The New York Times)
‘Hamilton’ coming to Disney+ in July (CNN)
Slice raised $43M in Series C funding to power local pizza (Slice Pizza Blog)

Shopping for Microphones

Episode Links

PTJ 335: Going Batty

May 8, 2020 J.D. Biersdorfer 2 Comments

Comic-book worlds (and their heroes) are great for passing the time or taking your mind to new places when you’re stuck inside — and this week’s episode offers insights on the Batwoman TV show as well as making your own comics (even if drawing isn’t your strong point). El Kaiser and J.D. also discuss news from the video-game world and other headlines from around the technosphere. Spin up PTJ 335 right here!

Links to Stories Discussed on This Week’s Episode

Batwoman (The CW)
Nintendo smashes Switch sales view; says Animal Crossing is device’s fastest-selling game (Reuters)
Fortnite is now one of the biggest games ever with 350 million players (The Verge)
Twitch Is Developing Talk Shows and Dating Programs for Gamers (Bloomberg)
Microsoft reveals Xbox Series X boot screen, confirms July event for Halo Infinite and more (The Verge)
Opinion | We Are a New Board at Facebook. Here’s What We’ll Decide. (The New York Times)
Apple awards $10 million from Advanced Manufacturing Fund to COPAN Diagnostics (Apple)
Apple WWDC 2020 announced for June 22, but will be digital only (CNBC)
UK finds itself almost alone with centralized virus contact-tracing app that probably won’t work well, asks for your location, may be illegal (The Register)
Airbnb is laying off a quarter of its staff (Vox)
Parking Lots Have Become a Digital Lifeline (The New York Times)
Twitter rolls out changes to threaded conversations following tests in its prototype app, twttr (TechCrunch)
Twitter tests a warning message that tells users to rethink offensive replies (The Verge)

Do-It-Yourself Comics

Create Your Own Digital Comics Whether You Can Draw or Not (The New York Times)
Classroom-Friendly Websites and Apps for Making Comics (Common Sense Media)
ComicBook! (iOS)
Comic Strip Pro (Android)
MediBang Paint
Comic Draw for iPad
Procreate for iPad
Comics Pages templates (Printable Paper)
Can You Draw This? Of Course You Can. (The New York Times)

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!