In Vero Veritas?
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| In Vero Veritas? | |
| Number | 3228 |
| Broadcast Date | FEBRUARY 27, 2018 |
| Episode Length | 27:59 |
| Hosts | Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane |
| Guests | Patrick Beja |
Vero is currently the hottest app on the App Store. The latest social networking platform, can Vero successfully break into a market dominated by FB, Instagram and Twitter? Plus, Apple is launching medical clinics to provide employees with healthcare and Facebook is using Messenger to de-radicalize extremists.
Guest
Quick Hits
- Amazon is acquiring Ring, makers of the Ring doorbell as well as solar security cameras and alarms. Amazon told Engadget it was "excited to work with Ring" and Ring said it'd "achieve even more" as part of Amazon. And no you're not crazy, Amazon did just buy a doorbell and camera company called Blink in December.
- The German Federal Court of Justice has ruled that Google is not required to make sure websites are free of defamatory content before linking to them in search results. Two individuals had been attacked verbally on websites and sued Google to set up search filters to prevent future attacks from showing up in search results.
- The Facebook Journalism Project announced a new project today called Local News Subscriptions Accelerator to help increase subscriptions to local news outlets. 10-15 US newspapers are participating including The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune and San Francisco Chronicle among others.
- Flutter, Google's Development framework for iOS and Android apps, is now officially in beta less than a year after it was announced at Google I/O last year. One of the big additions over the past year has been stateful hot reloads that allow developers to change code and see the result in the active app within a second.
Top Stories
- Apple has published a website and job listings for AC Wellness, a health care system for its employees. The company has already hired some health care professionals away from Stanford. AC Wellness will have two clinics, one inside Apple's main campus and another just north. Apple may be able to save money on health care for its 120,000 employees by operating the system itself.
- An AP story on Uber and Lyft got some attention in our Subreddit. It quotes Christo Wilson, a professor of computer science at Boston’s Northeastern University asserting that there is a consensus that ride-hailing increases congestion. One reason is people taking trips they wouldn't have. The main reason for preferring ride hailing over public transit is speed. And another factor is a larger number of vehicles on the roads waiting to pick up passengers. On the other hand, a study of London from 2012-2015 found vehicles including Uber cars dropped slightly there with congestion caused by construction and delivery trucks.
- In a transparency report, Google says it has received 2.4 million "right to be forgotten" requests since 2014, 89% from private individuals. Most of the rest of the requests came from celebrities and public officials. Google says it complied with 43.3% of those requests. It denies requests when there is a strong public interest in the information or when alternative solutions exist.
- Facebook is funding a pilot program by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue to use Facebook Messenger to de-radicalize extremists. The organization created fake profiles to carry out the interventions. 569 people were identified posting extreme content in the UK by scanning public pages and profiles. 76 had a conversation of five or more messages. Eight showed signs of a positive impact.
- The Entertainment Software Rating Board, a voluntary video game rating organization, you know them as the "Rated E for everyone" folks, announced a new policy for games with in-game purchases. The policy requires such games to have a label that says "in-game purchases" on any game that offers "the ability to purchase digital goods or premiums with real world currency." The policy makes no distinction between loot boxes and cosmetic items or even bonus levels.
Discussion
- Meet Vero: Why a billionaire's Instagram alternative is suddenly so popular
- Despite backlash to the redesign, Snapchat downloads are up
Pick of the Day
- Chris Christensen is back with a cool tip for aerospace nerds visiting Washington DC.
- Submitted by Chris Christensen
Mailbag
- It really became apparent to me that there is more programming than we can watch since I became a cord cutter three weeks ago. I tried a free trial of DirecTV Now and canceled because I seldom used it. I was surprised that so many channels that I thought were cable only are available as OTA channels. Most evenings, my wife and I watch a couple of hours of programming together. The source may be from Hulu, Netflix, Amazon or programs that I have recorded. I store my recordings locally and started doing that several years ago. I delete the ones I watch, but my recorded library still keeps expanding despite the fact that we no longer subscribe to cable. I have many terabytes of recorded shows. Plex does a good job of keeping the library organized.
We have noticed a few changes in programming over the course of our life. One is that it is imperative to watch modern series in order. They tend to be like a soap opera. That wasn’t true of older series. For example, a Kojak episode is not a carryover from the previous episode. It stands alone, even though the characters are the same in each episode. There’s no need to worry about watching them in sequence. In older TV series, if an actor quit a show, they didn’t kill off the character. They just replaced the character with a new actor. - Sent by Bill Burlingame from Huntsville, AL
- It really became apparent to me that there is more programming than we can watch since I became a cord cutter three weeks ago. I tried a free trial of DirecTV Now and canceled because I seldom used it. I was surprised that so many channels that I thought were cable only are available as OTA channels. Most evenings, my wife and I watch a couple of hours of programming together. The source may be from Hulu, Netflix, Amazon or programs that I have recorded. I store my recordings locally and started doing that several years ago. I delete the ones I watch, but my recorded library still keeps expanding despite the fact that we no longer subscribe to cable. I have many terabytes of recorded shows. Plex does a good job of keeping the library organized.
YouTube
Links
| Preceded by: "What Do You Do With A Rectangle?" |
In Vero Veritas? |
Followed by: "Minority Report in New Orleans" |