Tag Archives: Apple

(Hopefully) Helpful Hint, Episode Links, Podcast

PTJ 309: Vaporized

May 20, 2019 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

Game of Thrones may be over on HBO, but El Kaiser and J.D are still here talking tech, pop culture and everything else in between. This week’s episode ponders the blacklist effect on Chinese telecom company Huawei and potential problems with accurate weather forecasting because satellites measure water vapor in the 23.8 GHz band on the wireless spectrum and the Federal Communications Commission is selling off adjacent frequencies. J.D. also has a suggestion for parents who need a project for their bored kids. All this and more, right here on Episode 309!

Links to News Stories on This Week’s Episode

Exclusive: Google suspends some business with Huawei after Trump blacklist (Reuters)
Trump Huawei Ban Ripples Across Industry as Supplies Halted (Bloomberg)
Snapchat’s new gender-changing filter provokes strong reactions (Axios)
Kissing Babies, Loving Scrapple, Fighting Viral Hoaxes: ’20 Race’s New Routine (The New York Times)
Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2 drops to $999 and adds Qualcomm’s XR1 (VentureBeat)
Microsoft’s Edge for Mac browser now available in preview (The Verge)
Your 5G Phone Won’t Hurt You. But Russia Wants You to Think Otherwise. (The New York Times)
5G Networks Could Throw Weather Forecasting Into Chaos (WIRED)
Twitch Streamers Are Getting Paid $50,000 An Hour To Play New Games: They Deserve It (Forbes)
Tim Cook visits Ellis Marsalis Music Center in New Orleans (9to5Mac)

(Hopefully) Helpful Hint: Give Your Kids A Movie-Making Project

How to Add Hollywood Special Effects to Your Videos (The New York Times)

Episode Links, Podcast

PTJ 307: Winging It

April 27, 2019 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

On this week’s episode, El Kaiser and J.D. discuss the current legal heat on Facebook over data privacy and misuse of its customer’s personal information. Google’s delivery drone program and Samsung’s woes with its Galaxy Fold smartphone are also in the mix. And, on the heels of Avengers: Endgame taking over cineplex screens, PTJ 307 looks down the list of other geekworthy movies headed to theaters this summer.

Links to News Stories on This Week’s Show

Facebook Expects to Be Fined Up to $5 Billion by F.T.C. Over Privacy Issues (The New York Times)
Facebook’s role in Brexit — and the threat to democracy (Carole Cadwalladr TED Talk)
New York Attorney General to Investigate Facebook Email Collection (The New York Times)
Regulators Around the World Are Circling Facebook (The New York Times)
Tim Cook calls for regulation of tech industry with serious issues (9to5Mac)
Google Employees Say They Faced Retaliation After Organizing Walkout (The New York Times)
How Nest, designed to keep intruders out of people’s homes, effectively allowed hackers to get in (The Washington Post)
Google Drone Delivery Gets First FAA Clearance (Bloomberg)
Wing becomes first certified Air Carrier for drones in the US (Medium)
Wing (Google X)
Samsung Galaxy Fold launch delayed by breaks (CNBC)
Samsung Galaxy Fold teardown (iFixit)
EU votes to create gigantic biometrics database (ZDNet)
Russian Twitter bot activity increased in the wake Mueller report release (Cyberdefense magazine)
Twitter Q1 flies past estimates with sales of $787M and EPS of $0.25, but MAUs drop to 330M (TechCrunch)
Scooters hacked to play rude messages to riders (BBC)

Geek Summer Movie Preview 2019

Summer Movie Calendar 2019(Rotten Tomatoes)
The Most Anticipated Movies of Summer 2019 (Esquire)
iTunes Movie Trailers (Apple)

Episode Links

PTJ 306: Internet Cleanup in Aisle Three!

April 12, 2019 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

Freshly returned from spring break, El Kaiser and JD jump into the week’s headlines — including government attempts to regulate technology platforms and robots rolling through Walmart. JD also has a (Hopefully) Helpful Hint for wrangling the massive photo collection stuffed on your smartphone. Push play to hear it all on Episode 306!

Julian Assange Charged by U.S. With Conspiracy to Hack a Government Computer (The New York Times)
WikiLeaks Founder Charged in Computer Hacking Conspiracy (United States Department of Justice)
The UK’s online laws could be the future of the internet—and that’s got people worried (MIT Technology Review)
The Online Harms White Paper (GOV.UK)
Websites to be fined over ‘online harms’ under new proposals (BBC News)
The Deceptive Experiences To Online Users Reduction (DETOUR) Act (Scribd)
U.S. senators introduce social media bill to ban ‘dark patterns’ tricks (Reuters)
YouTube Disables Comments on Livestream of Hearing on Hate Speech (Variety)
#SquadGoals: How Automated Assistants are Helping Us Work Smarter (Walmart Newsroom)
Walmart to expand in-store tech, including Pickup Towers for online orders and robots (TechCrunch)
Asking Alexa for news no longer has to stop with the latest headlines (Nieman Journalism Lab)
Amazon Workers Are Listening to What You Tell Alexa (Bloomberg)
Facebook’s new Watch Party video-streaming feature is wildly popular with pirates, who use it to run illicit movie marathons (Business Insider India)
AP to fact-check video, Spanish-language content on Facebook (Associated Press)
Opera introduces Reborn 3, the first desktop browser with Web 3, faster VPN and ad blocker (Opera blog)
Will Apple Just Kill iTunes Already? (Gizmodo)

(Hopefully) Helpful Hint

Organizing Your Unwieldy Photo Collection Is Easier Than You Think (The New York Times)

Episode Links

PTJ 305: Green Apples

March 25, 2019 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

El Kaiser and J.D. wade through the highlights of Apple’s big March 25 event, which brought three new subscription services, a revamped TV app and…a new Apple credit card. And for those who don’t care about Apple’s swerve into paid services, there’s always data privacy and drones to talk about! Spin up PTJ 305, where you can also get tips on finding music-theory and instrument instruction.

Links to Stories on This Week’s Show

Apple Special Event Keynote video on March 25, 2019 (Apple)
Apple Event News Hub — live coverage from Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park (9to5Mac)
Apple Unveils Video Streaming and News Services to Run on Its Devices (The New York Times)
‘Sesame Street’-themed kids show for Apple TV+ will teach coding basics (Apple Insider)
Apple unveils Apple TV+, the new home for the world’s most creative storytellers (Apple Newsroom)
Apple launches Apple News+, an immersive magazine and news reading experience (Apple Newsroom)
Apple introduces Apple Arcade — the world’s first game subscription service for mobile, desktop and the living room (Apple Newsroom)
Introducing Apple Card, a new kind of credit card created by Apple (Apple Newsroom)
WSJ details how Tim Cook steered Apple towards Services since 2014, confirms $9.99/mo each for Starz/Showtime/HBO TV and News (9to5Mac)
Nintendo could launch two new Switch consoles this year (Engadget)
The majority of scooters in LA are going to share your location with the city (CNET)
Facebook Stored Hundreds of Millions of User Passwords in Plain Text for Years (Krebs on Security)
A family tracking app was leaking real-time location data (TechCrunch)
ShadowHammer: Malicious updates for ASUS laptops (Kaspersky Lab)
Hack Brief: How To Check Your Computer For Asus Update Malware (Wired)
A first look at Microsoft’s new Chromium-powered Edge browser (The Verge)
Dublin Airport has a novel idea for tackling rogue drones (Digital Trends)

(Hopefully) Helpful Hint

How to Take Music Lessons Whenever (and Wherever) Works for You (The New York Times)

Episode Links, Podcast

PTJ 304: Singing Backup

March 18, 2019 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

On this week’s episode, El Kaiser and J.D. work through the recent headlines — the good, the bad and the completely horrible — and offer a few tips for backing up personal content you’ve posted on social media. Because it’s not like any of those free services can be trusted to DO IT FOR YOU. Spin up PTJ 304 right here!

Facebook, YouTube and Twitter struggle to deal with New Zealand shooting video (CNN)
Slack removes hate groups (The Official Slack Blog)
Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp Go Down. At the Same Time. (The New York Times)
Facebook says it’s resolved outage issues and denies attack (CNN)
Facebook’s Daylong Malfunction Is a Reminder of the Internet’s Fragility (The New York Times)
Facebook product boss Chris Cox, and Whatsapp boss Chris Daniels are leaving (Recode)
Myspace lost all the music its users uploaded between 2003 and 2015 (Boing Boing)
Myspace loses all content uploaded before 2016 (Guardian)
Myspace, which still exists, accidentally deleted 12 years’ worth of music (Vox)
Microsoft announces Xbox Live for any iOS or Android game (The Verge)
Is there a limit to the number of devices I can link to my account? (Dropbox Help)
Apple’s Big Spending Plan to Challenge Netflix Takes Shape (The New York Times)
All-new iPad Air and iPad mini deliver dramatic power and capability (Apple)
WWDC 2019 announced, registration and event details (9to5Mac)
Leveling the Playing Field (Spotify)
Addressing Spotify’s claims (Apple)
Spotify’s EU antitrust complaint could be a serious threat to Apple (Ars Technica)
Apple addresses Spotify’s claims, but not its demands (TechCrunch)
Google killed 2.3 billion ‘bad ads’ in 2018, down 28% from 2017 (VentureBeat)
Pi in the sky: Calculating a record-breaking 31.4 trillion digits of Archimedes’ constant on Google Cloud (Google Cloud Blog)
The World Wide Web is 30 years old — and its inventor has a warning for us (NBC News)

Public Service Announcement: Protect Your Social Media Content

How to Backup Social Media in 2019: Duplicating Your Second Life (Cloudwards)
Social media backup (Acronis)
iDrive Social Media Backup (iDrive)
How do I download a copy of my information on Facebook? (Facebook Help)
How do I access or review my data on Instagram? (Instagram)
How to download your Twitter archive (Twitter Help)
Download your data (Google)
Google Takeout

Episode Links, Podcast

PTJ 303: Fire in the Troll Hole!

March 11, 2019 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

Can Big Tech get busted up and does Facebook’s pivot to privacy seem legit? El Kaiser and J.D. roll through the recent news, stopping to ponder the “Save the Internet” Act, a slew of new streaming channels and the success of Captain Marvel at the box office — despite concentrated efforts from certain quarters to drag down the film’s ratings. It’s all here on PTJ 303, where we also have our annual guide to helping your friends and family avoid tax-season scams this spring.

Links to News Stories on This Week’s Show

Here’s how we can break up Big Tech (Elizabeth Warren on Medium)
Elizabeth Warren vows to break up tech giants if elected in 2020 (BBC News)
A Privacy-Focused Vision for Social Networking (Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook)
Facebook says the future is private messaging, not public posts (Columbia Journalism Review)
This could be the beginning of the end for Facebook’s social network (Recode)
The False Promise of Mark Zuckerberg’s Come-to-Jesus Manifesto (Vanity Fair)
Combatting Vaccine Misinformation (Facebook Newsroom)
Facebook sues Ukrainian quiz-makers for stealing user data with malware plugins (The Verge)
SXSW Festival
Sunshine Week
The US Government Will Be Scanning Your Face At 20 Top Airports, Documents Show (BuzzFeed News)
In New York City? Grab a BuzzFeed print newspaper, today only (Nieman Lab)
Bicameral Democratic Leaders Unveil Save The Internet Act To Restore Net Neutrality Protections (House Committee on Energy & Commerce)
Text of the “Save the Internet” Act (House Committee on Energy & Commerce)
“I’m Just a Bill” (Schoolhouse Rock)
Democrats unveil “Save The Internet Act” to restore net neutrality laws (NBC News)
Colorado Senate passes bill to reinstate net neutrality regulations (Colorado Watchdog)
Disney’s new streaming service will offer entire Disney Vault of classic films (Fast Company)
NBC News Readies May Launch of Streaming-Video Service (Variety)
Comedy Central Launches YouTube Originals Channel (Variety)
Crew Dragon Splashes Down in Atlantic Ending First Commercial Crew Mission (NASA)
Trolls Are Tanking Captain Marvel’s Rotten Tomatoes Reviews. But They Can’t Stop Its Box Office Haul (Fortune)
Box Office: “Captain Marvel” Flies to Historic $153M in U.S., $455M Globally (The Hollywood Reporter)

Be On Guard This Tax Season

IRS Dirty Dozen 2019 (Internal Revenue Service)
Tax Scams / Consumer Alerts (Internal Revenue Service)
How to know it’s really the IRS calling or knocking on your door (Internal Revenue Service)
IRS Impersonation Scam Reporting (Treasury.gov)
Automated calls requesting tax payments in the form of iTunes or other gift cards (Internal Revenue Service)

Episode Links, Podcast

PTJ 302: Social Disorder

February 22, 2019 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

Has social media become more trouble than it’s worth? El Kaiser and J.D ponder the topic while discussing virtual-reality pioneer Jaron Lanier’s 2018 book, “Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now.” And as always, this week’s episode of Pop Tech Jam serves up a look at the recent tech headlines. Fire up Episode 302 to hear it all!

News Stories Discussed on This Week’s Show

What’s Next for Smartphones? Samsung’s New Galaxy Line Offers a Few Answers (The New York Times)
Samsung debuts the Galaxy S10e, S10, and S10+ (VentureBeat)
Samsung’s foldable phone is the $1,980 Galaxy Fold (The Verge)
Galaxy S10’s in-screen fingerprint scanner is ultrasonic. Here’s exactly what that means (CNet)
Apple Is Said to Target Combining IPhone, IPad, Mac Apps by 2021 (Bloomberg)
Google to Unveil Netflix-Like Game Streaming Service in March (Fortune)
Google plans to announce long-rumored ‘Yeti’ hardware at GDC event (9to5Google)
Facebook reportedly gets deeply personal info from some apps, like ovulation times and heart rate (CNBC)
Facebook will shut down its spyware VPN app Onavo (TechCrunch)
Improving Location Settings on Android (Facebook Newsroom)
‘Sustained and ongoing’ disinformation assault targets Dem presidential candidates (Politico)
Russian Hackers Targeted European Research Groups, Microsoft Says (The New York Times)
Defending Democracy Program (Microsoft)
How an Investigation of Fake FCC Comments Snared a Prominent D.C. Media Firm (Gizmodo)
On YouTube, a network of paedophiles is hiding in plain sight (WIRED UK)
Pinterest Quietly Blocks All Vaccine-Related Searches, Which Is One Solution, I Guess (Gizmodo)
Ten threats to global health in 2019 (World Health Organization)
Nike app for self-tying shoe comes undone (BBC)

Is It Time to Dump Social Media?

“Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now” by Jaron Lanier
Click ‘Delete’ to Save Your Soul (The New York Times Book Review)
Jaron Lanier interview on how social media ruins your life (Channel 4 on YouTube)
We Need to Remake the Internet: Jason Lanier TED Talk

Episode Links, Podcast

PTJ 301: Golden “Opportunity”

February 14, 2019 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

As NASA declares its Mars Opportunity rover’s mission to be over, El Kaiser and J.D. raise a glass to the plucky little machine who did far more than what was expected of it — and sent back so much science. This week’s batch of headlines also brings a potential new subscription service (or two) from Apple, Amazon bailing out of New York City and a Tinder-like app for cattle. J.D. also discusses apps to better plan your home renovation. Here’s a toast to Opportunity from PTJ Episode 301!

Links to Stories Discussed on This Week’s Show

NASA’s Opportunity Rover Dies on Mars (The New York Times)
NASA’s Opportunity Rover Mission on Mars Comes to End (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
Photos From the Opportunity Rover’s Mission on Mars (The New York Times)
Publishers Chafe at Apple’s Terms for Subscription News Service (The Wall Street Journal)
Publishers cry foul at Apple’s terms in new sub service (Digital Ad Age)
Apple targeting April launch for video service (CNBC)
Apple Invites Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon to Video Launch (Bloomberg)
Apple Event Planned For March 25 Around A News Subscription Product (BuzzFeed)
Announcing Extra Crunch (TechCrunch)
Apple fails to block porn & gambling ‘Enterprise’ apps (TechCrunch)
620 million accounts stolen from 16 hacked websites now for sale on dark web, seller boasts (The Register)
JP Morgan is rolling out the first US bank-backed cryptocurrency (CNBC)
Mozilla to use machine learning to find code bugs before they ship (Ars Technica)
Amazon Pulls Out of Planned New York City Headquarters (The New York Times)
Amazon is acquiring Wi-Fi router company Eero (Business Insider)
An Update on Android Things (Android Developers Blog)
LinkedIn debuts LinkedIn Live, a new live video broadcast service (TechCrunch)
Tudder (ProductHunt)
Tinder-style app for cows tries to help the meat market (BBC)
Tinder for Cows: Tudder Mobile App for Breeders (Bloomberg)

Home Improvement

How to Make a 3-D Model of Your Home Renovation Vision (The New York Times)

Episode Links

PTJ 300: Close Comfort

February 7, 2019 J.D. Biersdorfer 3 Comments

As Pop Tech Jam hits the canonical 300-episode mark, El Kaiser and J.D. ponder the skill (or lack thereof) needed to create a good grilled-cheese sandwich — before discussing the week’s technology news and a roundup of public-safety and information apps. Cook yourself up a toastie and have a listen!

News Stories Discussed on This Week’s Show

Facebook ordered by Germany to gather and mix less data (BBC News)
Facebook will reveal who uploaded your contact info for ad targeting (TechCrunch)
Many popular iPhone apps secretly record your screen without asking (TechCrunch)
Spam does not bring us joy—ridding Gmail of 100 million more spam messages with TensorFlow (Google Cloud Blog)
Gmail using TensorFlow to block 100M more spam messages (9to5Google)
Spotify is spending up to $500 million on podcast startups including Gimlet, Anchor (Recode)
Apple’s head of retail Angela Ahrendts is leaving after 5 years (CNN)
Facebook turnover: The woman who’s been leading Facebook’s PR team is leaving (Recode)
Lime raises another $310 million, bringing its valuation to $2.4 billion (VentureBeat)
E-Scooter Ride-Share Industry Leaves Injuries and Angered Cities in its Path (Consumer Reports)
How Hackers and Scammers Break into iCloud-Locked iPhones (Motherboard)
Security researcher demos macOS exploit to access Keychain passwords, but won’t share details with Apple out of protest (9to5Mac)
New design improves firefighting robots, increases maneuverability to fight fires better, save lives (Purdue University)

Apps for Public Safety and Civic Duty, plus Grilled Cheese Recipes

Citizen app for Android
Citizen app for iOS
‘Citizen,’ the app that alerts you when crime is happening nearby, rolls out in San Francisco (The Washington Post)
Controversial NYC Crime-Fighting App Returns With Live Video (NBC New York)
See Something, Send Something app for NYC
Keep your ear to the streets with the best police scanner apps (Digital Trends)
Waze app for Android and iOS
Google and Waze Must Stop Sharing Drunken-Driving Checkpoints, New York Police Demand (The New York Times)
NYPD Says Waze Ruins Checkpoints, But Google Lawyers Won’t Likely Shift (Forbes)
Broadcastify
Ultimate Gourmet Grilled Cheese (The Chunky Chef)
Best-Ever Grilled Cheese (Bon Appétit)
Grilled Cheese Sandwich (NYT Cooking)
Noorman’s Kil Whiskey & Grilled Cheese of Brooklyn
Full text of “The Garden Of Forking Paths Jorge Luis Borges 1941” (Whoops, 1941, not 1948!)

Episode Links, Podcast

PTJ 299: Tumblin’ Down

January 31, 2019 J.D. Biersdorfer 2 Comments

The winter temperatures in the American Midwest may have plummeted, but in the technology world, it’s Apple and Facebook bouncing off the floor — and into each other over user privacy. El Kaiser and J.D. chew through the events of the past week, and also pause to ponder another question: How many streaming services can one actually have until it feels like paying the same old big bucks for a cable subscription? Click up Episode 299 to hear it all!

Links to News Stories Discussed on This Week’s Show

Apple Bug Lets IPhone Users Listen in on Others Via FaceTime (Bloomberg)
Apple Was Slow to Act on FaceTime Bug That Allows Spying on iPhones (The New York Times)
Attorney General James and Governor Cuomo Announce Investigation Into Apple FaceTime Privacy Breach (New York State Attorney General’s Office)
Apple Music takes flight on American Airlines (Apple)
New iPhone, iPad in 2019 and 2020: What to Expect from Apple (Bloomberg)
Apple bans Facebook’s Research app that paid users for data (TechCrunch)
Apple is punishing Facebook big-time for breaking its rules (Recode)
Apple blocks Facebook from running its internal iOS apps (The Verge)
Google will stop peddling a data collector through Apple’s back door (TechCrunch)
Maybe Only Tim Cook Can Fix Facebook’s Privacy Problem (The New York Times)
Facebook Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2018 Results (Facebook)
Does Facebook Really Know How Many Fake Accounts It Has? (The New York Times)
What you need to know about the sunset of consumer Google+ on April 2 (Google Cloud Blog)
IBM Research Releases ‘Diversity in Faces’ Dataset to Advance Study of Fairness in Facial Recognition Systems (IBM Blog Research)
MIT robot combines vision and touch to learn the game of Jenga (MIT News)

Swimming in Streams

How Long Do We Have Until We Reach Peak Streaming Service? (Gizmodo)
Expect peak streaming to further fragment the industry (The Business Journals)
Guide to Streaming Video Services (Consumer Reports)
Best Streaming Video Services 2019 (Tom’s Guide)
The Complete List of Streaming Services – 100+ Services (Flixed)

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!