Tag Archives: Quibi

PTJ 356: Season’s Greetings!

August 11, 2021 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

Like Clippy in a Microsoft Teams background, El Kaiser and J.D. are back after a somewhat inadvertent hiatus! The new season of Pop Tech Jam kicks off with El Kaiser’s thoughts on the most recent Suicide Squad reboot/remake/reimagining and includes J.D.’s usual roundup of technology and nerd news headlines — plus some tips for tidying your phone’s home screen and making the most of shortcut menus and widgets. Join us here on PTJ 356!

The S uicide Squad (2021 trailer)

T-Mobile Confirms It Was Hacked (VICE Motherboard)
U.S. Will Investigate Tesla’s Autopilot System Over Crashes With Emergency Vehicles (The New York Times)
Galaxy Unpacked 2021 (Samsung)
App Store Law Would Be a Direct Hit on Apple and Google (Bloomberg)

Microsoft Teams: Now you can invite Clippy to your next meeting (ZDNet)
Apple Readies New iPhones With Pro-Focused Camera, Video Updates (Bloomberg)
iPhone 13: Everything we know so far (Macworld)
Is Windows 11 the beginning of the end for Skype? (BBC News)
The Incredible Disappearing Return-to-Office Plans (Bloomberg)
Google planning Silicon Valley campus, hardware lab (CNBC)
Pay cut: Google employees who work from home could lose money (Reuters)
Amazon resumes mask mandate in warehouses amid rising Covid cases (CNBC)
When Amazon Customers Leave Negative Reviews, Some Sellers Hunt Them Down (The Wall Street Journal)
Here’s How Amazon Third-Party Sellers Reportedly Hound Customers Who Leave Bad Reviews (Gizmodo)
Expanded Protections for Children (Apple)
Apple FAQ on Expanded Protections for Children (Apple PDF)
Apple’s New ‘Child Safety’ Initiatives, and the Slippery Slope (Daring Fireball)
Apple defends new photo scanning child protection tech (BBC News)
Giving kids and teens a safer experience online (Google Keyword blog)
Google to Increase Privacy for Teenagers in Search and on YouTube (The New York Times)
Roku to release 23 more Quibi shows on Aug. 13 (CNET)
Safety brief: Don’t hide a WWII-era Panther tank in your basement (Task & Purpose)
Take Control of Your Home Screen (The New York Times)

Episode Links

PTJ 341: Tick Tock

July 21, 2020 J.D. Biersdorfer 2 Comments

How long until a hacked social-media platform causes real damage in the world? Are TikTok’s days in the US numbered? Is time running out for political ads on Facebook? Is anybody watching Quibi? El Kaiser and JD have questions — and opinions. Also, what local stores and restaurants are still open as the COVID-19 pandemic eases up or crashes down around the country? Just dial up PTJ 341 to find out answers to at least some of these questions!

Stories in This Week’s News Segment

An update on our security incident (Twitter)
Hackers Tell the Story of the Twitter Attack From the Inside (The New York Times)
EBay Nears Deal to Sell Classified-Ad Unit to Adevinta (The Wall Street Journal)
Spotify Fans Can Better Connect to Creators With New Video Podcasts (Spotify)
Apple commits to be 100 percent carbon neutral for its supply chain and products by 2030 (Apple)
TikTok: Amazon says email asking staff to remove app ‘sent in error’ (BBC)
TikTok Users Respond to Potential Ban (The New York Times)
DNC and RNC warn campaigns about using TikTok (CNNPolitics)
House votes to ban TikTok on federal devices (Politico)
Under fire from Washington, TikTok touts U.S. job growth (Axios)
Facebook Considers Banning Political Ads Before US 2020 Election (Bloomberg)
Facebook’s Civil Rights Meeting Didn’t Go Well (The New York Times)
SiriusXM Is Buying Stitcher in Deal Worth Up to $325 Million (Variety)
Apple allocates more than $400 million to combat California housing crisis (Apple)
Is Anyone Watching Quibi? (Vulture)
Quibi App Free Trial to Paying Customer Conversions Very Low (Vulture)
The Data-Driven Tech Engine at the Heart of Hollywood’s Content Factories (The Wall Street Journal)
Top Ubisoft Executives Out Amid Allegations Of Company-Wide Misconduct (Kotaku)
Mozilla suspends Firefox Send service while it addresses malware abuse (ZDNet)
Linux team approves new terminology, bans terms like ‘blacklist’ and ‘slave’ (ZDNet)

(Hopefully) Helpful Hint

COVID-19 Google Maps updates

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 331: Shack Wacky

April 7, 2020 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

As much of the country continues huddling at home to avoid spreading the coronavirus, El Kaiser and J.D. keep themselves busy with a look at the recent technology news — including the Zoom boom (and bust), Apple’s control of the weather and the debut of the new Quibi short-form video app. And for those who’ve now watched everything online, J.D. has a (Hopefully) Helpful Hint about digitizing your documents since you’re already stuck in the house. PTJ 331 is here to keep you company!

Links to Stories in This Week’s News Roundup

‘Zoombombing’ Becomes a Dangerous Organized Effort (The New York Times)
Zoom privacy and security issues: Here’s everything that’s wrong (so far) (Tom’s Guide)
NYC schools dropping Zoom because of security concerns (CNN)
School districts, including New York City’s, tell teachers to stop using Zoom because of online security issues (The Washington Post)
How to Keep Your Zoom Chats Private and Secure (WIRED)
Response to Research From University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab (Zoom Blog)
Skype has a Zoom-like video call function called ‘Meet Now’ (Mashable)
Tim Cook: Apple shipping custom face shields to medical workers as mask donations cross 20M (9to5Mac)
Apple Buys Dark Sky in an Android Worst-Case Scenario (WIRED)
Dark Sky Has a New Home (Dark Sky blog)
Exclusive: Apple likely buyer of NextVR, a live event streaming AR/VR company being sold for ~$100M(9to5Mac)
Leaked iOS 14 screenshot shows new wallpaper settings, beta code reveals Home screen widgets (9to5Mac)
Finally, progress on regulating facial recognition (Microsoft On the Issues)
A Microsoft Employee Literally Wrote Washington’s Facial Recognition Law (OneZero)
Broadband engineers threatened due to 5G coronavirus conspiracies (The Guardian)
People linking COVID-19 to 5G conspiracy in UK apparently cause damage (Business Insider)
Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman Gamble $1.8 Billion on Quibi (The New York Times)
Movie Theaters Turn to Streaming in Coronavirus Era (Variety)

(Hopefully) Helpful Hint

How to Digitize Your Most Important Documents (The New York Times)

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