Tag Archives: security

PTJ 348: Beer Me, Rosie

January 12, 2021 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

As 2021 starts off feeling like the surprise end-credit sequence to 2020, El Kaiser and J.D. discuss Twitter’s big move, the power of social-media companies and a little trade Vegas-based expo called the Consumer Electronics Show that’s having its first-ever all-virtual edition. All this, plus thoughts on “Wonder Woman 1984” and Apple’s beefy new over-the-ear headphones, right here on PTJ 348!

Wonder Woman 1984 (Trailer)
Twitter Permanently Bans Trump, Capping Online Revolt (The New York Times)
Permanent suspension of @realDon aldTrump (Twitter blog)
All the platforms that have banned or restricted Trump s o far (Axios)
Tr ump and T witter clash with White House preparing to blast big tech (The Washington Post)
Twitter Fall 7% Following Permanent Trump Ban (Bloomberg)
Merkel among EU leaders questioning Tw itter’s Trump ban (Politico)
Parler sues Amazon for cutting off its services (CNN)
Parler ban pushes r andom app ‘Parlor’ to top of app store charts (Mashable)
Eve ry Delete d Parler Post, Many With Users’ Location Data, Has Been Archived (Gizmodo)
He Created the Web. Now He’s Out to Remake the Digita l World. (The New York Times)
Google Stadia and GeForce Now are coming to LG TVs in 2021 (The Verge)
Amazon, Walmart Tell Consumers to Skip Retu rns of Unwanted Items (The Wall Street Journal)
What to expect from the first-ever vir tual CES (Ars Technica)
T he Verge: CES Expo Announcements
CES 2021 on CNet
Samsung’s CES 2021 robots will clean your house and pour you a glass of wi ne (CNET)
Apple AirPods Max
Sony WH-1000XM4 Wireless Noise-Canceling Hea dphones
Sony WH-1000XM3 Wireless Noise-Canceling Headphones

Episode Links

PTJ 347: Out With a Bang

December 22, 2020 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

As 2020 winds down to its final weeks, El Kaiser and J.D. discuss the recent spate of bad news regarding national security, pandemic spread and video-game fails. But as depressing as the news can be, there’s new hope for 2021 — at least when it comes to decent Star Wars movies and shows. Punch up PTJ 347 and join us for the ride!

A huge THANK YOU to BROS for hosting us and all our faithful listeners for riding along with us here in the Q-Zone. We’ll be back in January, so Happy New Year!

• Russia’s Hacking Frenzy Is a R eckoning (WIRED)
• Trump Contradicts Pompeo Over Russia’s Role in H ack (The New York Times)
• The Great iPwn: Journalists Hacked with Suspected NSO Group iMessage ‘Zero-Click’ Exploit (Citizen Lab)
• A l Jazeera journalists ‘hacked v ia NSO Group spyware’ (BBC News)
• The Antitrust Case Against Big Tech, Shaped by Tech In dustry Exiles (The New York Times)
• Google’s Legal Peril Grows in Face of Third Antitrust Suit
(The New York Times)
• U.S. and States Say Facebook Illegally Crushed C ompetition
(The New York Times)
• Tim Cook tweeted about App Tracking Transparency and it’s easy to see the targ et (iMore)
• Facebook’s Laugha ble Campaign Against Apple Is Really Against Users and Small Businesses (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
• C OVID-19 closes n early 100 Apple Stores during holiday season peak (9to5Mac)
• Cyberpunk 2077 Was Supposed to Be the Biggest Video Game of the Year. What Happened? (The New York Times)
• A Complete Guide to Every Star Wars Show Coming to Disney+ (Esquire)
• ‘St ar Wars’ and Marvel’s Futures Now Flow Through Disney Plus (Variety)

Episode Links

PTJ 343: Battle Royale

August 20, 2020 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

Epic Games has fired antitrust shots at Apple and Google over their app stores, Facebook does a bit of cleaning and fans of Microsoft Fight Simulator can take to the virtual skies again in a glorious new version of the program . Meanwhile, back on the ground, El Kaiser has thoughts on Star Wars: Resistance and J.D. shares some tips on what to do with your old gear after you upgrade to new stuff. All this and more, right here on PTJ 343!

Star Wars: Resistance (StarWars.com)
Epic used its playbook for Fortnite events against Apple and Google (The Verge)
Apple’s Epic retaliation: Unreal Engine on iOS and Mac in jeopardy (VentureBeat)
Epic Games’ Fortnite lawsuits against Apple and Google, explained (Polygon)
“Nighteen Eighty-Fortnite” (YouTube)
Apple tells Epic ‘we won’t make an exception’ for Fortnite (The Verge)
Facebook restricts more than 10,000 QAnon and US militia groups (The Guardian)
QAnon: Facebook takes action on conspiracy groups (BBC News)
Facebook algorithm found to ‘actively promote’ Holocaust denial (The Guardian)
A Single Way to Log Into Oculus and Unlock Social Features (Oculus)
A Facebook Account Will Be Mandatory for Future Oculus Devices (Gizmodo)
Instagram launches QR codes globally, letting people open a profile from any camera app (The Verge)
A more detailed, colorful map (Google blog)
TikTok announces a deal with UnitedMasters, its first music distribution partnership (TechCrunch)
TikTok Starts Website to Take on Rumors, Misinformation (Bloomberg)
Cops in Miami, NYC arrest protesters from facial recognition matches (Ars Technica)
Save 50%: CBS and Showtime bundle offer now available for Apple TV+ subscribers (9to5Mac)
Microsoft outlines its IE, legacy Edge phase-out timetable (ZDNet)
Microsoft Flight Simulator: The entire world in a game (BBC News)
Opinion | I Tried Microsoft’s Flight Simulator. The Earth Never Seemed So Real. (The New York Times)
Microsoft Flight Simulator
Microsoft Flight Simulator (Steam)
Protect Your Privacy and the Environment While Upgrading Your Gear (The New York Times)

Episode Links

PTJ 342: Summer Grilling

August 4, 2020 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

The recent weather across much of North American isn’t the only thing that’s been a little toasty — TikTok, Big Tech and the kids who hacked Twitter last month are also feeling the heat. El Kaiser and J.D. take in the latest headlines from the technology world and also offer more tips for entertaining yourself in a partially closed pandemic city. Come join us here on PTJ 342!

Star Wars: The Clone Wars Returns On Disney+ (StarWars.com)
Star Wars: The Bad Batch is a new Clone Wars spinoff coming to Disney Plus in 2021 (The Verge)
Microsoft to continue discussions on potential TikTok purchase in the United States (Microsoft blog)
With TikTok, ‘Uncool’ Microsoft Aims for the Love of Tweens (The New York Times)
Florida Teenager Is Charged as ‘Mastermind’ of Twitter Hack (The New York Times)
Three Individuals Charged For Alleged Roles In Twitter Hack (Department of Justice)
Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google grilled on Capitol Hill over their market power (The Washington Post)
New Pixels—and new prices—are here (Google Keyword blog)
Google Pixel 4A Review: At $350, a Win for Those on a Budget (The New York Times)
A partnership with ADT for smarter home security (Google Keyword blog)
More Than 1,000 Companies Boycotted Facebook. Did It Work? (The New York Times)
Is Your Chip Card Secure? Much Depends on Where You Bank (Krebs on Security)
Instagram morphs into an information powerhouse (Axios)
‘An Incredible Day’: Splashdown Concludes NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 (NASA)
NASA, ULA Launch Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Mission to Red Planet (NASA)
The Official Guide to New York City (NYCgo.com)
Self-Guided Walking Tours of NYC (FreeToursByFoot.com)
Self-Guided Walking Tours (GPSMyCity.com)

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 333: ‘MYST’ E-Memories

April 22, 2020 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

As much of the United States drifts into its second month of lockdown to help stop the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus, El Kaiser and J.D. discuss the joy of playing old predictable games in decidedly unpredictable times. This week’s episode also includes a roundup of the past week’s technology news and a sharing of feelings about the Titans show on DC Universe. Spin up PTJ 333 to hear it all!

Links to News Stories Discussed on This Week’s Show

Apple iPhone SE 2020 update (MacRumors)
Zoom’s Security Woes Were No Secret to Business Partners Like Dropbox (The New York Times)
Virtual Nightlife Grows Past DJ Livestreams to Paid Zoom Clubs (Bloomberg)
Walmart is selling its on-demand video service Vudu to Fandango (TechCrunch)
Facebook removes some events calling for protests of stay-at-home orders (NBC News)
Facebook to Introduce an App for Gaming (The New York Times)
Mark Zuckerberg: How data can aid the fight against covid-19 (The Washington Post)
Instagram founders launch COVID-19 spread tracker Rt.live (TechCrunch)
‘One World’ concert raises more than $127m for WHO emergency response fund (CNN)
San Diego Comic-Con Canceled Amid Coronavirus Pandemic (The Hollywood Reporter)
The Entire Weekend Box Office Report Is From a Single Drive-In in Florida (ScreenCrush)
Domestic 2020 Weekend 16 (BoxOfficeMojo.com)

Retro Games for Uncertain Times

The Comfort of Childhood Media During Lockdown (The New York Times)
Myst
How to Find the Video Games of Your Youth (The New York Times)
Some Alternatives for the Bored Gamer (The New York Times)
It’s a Perfect Time to Play Video Games. And You Shouldn’t Feel Bad About It. (The New York Times)
How to Run Old Games on Your Modern PC (PCMag.com)
Castle Wolfenstein (1984) in the Internet Archive
Return to Castle Wolfenstein on Steam
The Internet Archive Software Collection
Untitled Goose Game

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)

(Hopefully) Helpful Hint, Episode Links, Podcast

PTJ 322: Disney, Plus…

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

On this week’s episode, El Kaiser and J.D. offer their initial impressions on The Mandalorian, the new Disney+ live-action show set in the Star Wars universe. After a quick trip through recent tech headlines, J.D. also supplies a (Hopefully) Helpful Hint about getting started with touch-screen drawing apps. Use the Force and punch the button for Episode 322!

Links to News Stories on This Week’s Show

“The Mandalorian” (Disney+)
An update on our political ads policy (Google Keyword blog)
Hey Google, play me the news (Google blog)
Spotify turns its personalization technology to podcasts with launch of Your Daily Podcasts (TechCrunch)
Uber Embraces Videotaping Rides, Raising Privacy Concerns (The New York Times)
Uber safety push includes plans to start audio recording rides in the U.S. (The Washington Post)
How Attackers Could Hijack Your Android Camera to Spy on You (Checkmarx)
U.S. approves first licenses for tech sales to Huawei (The Washington Post)
PayPal to acquire shopping and rewards platform Honey for $4B (TechCrunch)
Doorbell camera footage can be kept by police forever and shared with whomever they’d like (The Washington Post)
Amazon Announces New Fire TV Blaster, Giving Users Voice Control Over TVs and Cable Boxes (The Streamable)
Dead musicians are taking the stage again in hologram form. Is this the kind of encore we really want? (The Washington Post)

(Hopefully) Helpful Hint

Can You Draw This? Of Course You Can. (The New York Times)

Episode Links, Podcast

PTJ 299: Tumblin’ Down

January 31, 2019 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

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)

(Hopefully) Helpful Hint, Episode Links, Podcast

PTJ 296: “Ring Out the False, Ring In the True!”

December 28, 2018 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

As 2018 comes clanging to a close. El Kaiser and J.D. discuss Amazon’s healthy holiday sales, Instagram’s effects on people, Snapchat’s “dog lenses” and a new essay that wonders just how much of the Internet is real anymore. And in the last (Hopefully) Helpful Hint of the year, J.D. offers a guide for preserving your one-of-a-kind family photographs and slides in the digital realm.
Ring up Episode 296, right here!

Links to Stories on This Week’s Show

Amazon’s Record Holiday Shows Consumers’ Spending Splurge (Bloomberg)
How Instagram has been good for independent bookstores like Books Are Magic and the Last Bookstore (Vox)
Instagram Apologizes for Horizontal-Scrolling Test Glitch, Rolls It Back After Quick and Furious Backlash (Variety)
Android TV sees huge growth thanks to 100 pay TV partners (9to5Google)
Apple’s Future Looks Rotten (Gizmodo)
Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt (The New York Times)
Snapchat Adds Dog Lenses, But I Still Won’t Use It (Gizmodo)
How Much of the Internet Is Fake? (New York magazine)
We finally started taking screen time seriously in 2018 (TechCrunch)
Hot tub hack reveals washed-up security (BBC News)
“Ring out, wild bells,” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

(Hopefully) Helpful Hint: Digitize and Fix Your Ancient Photos

How to Rescue, Repair and Revive Old Family Photos (The New York Times)
Printers & Scanners (Wirecutter)
Google PhotoScan
Adobe Photoshop Fix

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!