Follow the path of the Beam

Follow the path of the Beam
Number	2156
Broadcast Date	JANUARY 23, 2014
Episode Length	28:00
Hosts	Tom Merritt
Guests	Jason Hiner

Jason Hiner joins the show to talk about Lenovo buying the last of IBM’s PC business and where 3D printing meets the Internet of things. Also don’t text while walking.

Guest

• Jason Hiner Global Editor in Chief of @TechRepublic
• @jasonhiner

Headlines

• Apple to release two new iPhones in 2014

The Wall Street Journal reports Apple plans to release two new iPhones this year. Shocker, we know. Each of the two would have a bigger display than the iPhone 5S, estimated to be 4.5 inches and 5 inches respectively. Both phones would have the same aluminum design as the %S, meaning no plastic phone like the 5C. The smaller is allegedly in production while the bigger is in preliminary development.

• Lenovo agrees to buy IBM server unit for $2.3 billion in cash and stock

Ars Technica reports Lenovo agreed to buy IBM’s x86-based server unit for $2.3 billion in cash and stock. IBM will keep it’s high-end server and mainframe unit but all its x86-based businesses are now gone. IDC reported in August that IBM held the top spot in server market share, and about 3/4 of that was IBM’s x86 unit. That means Lenovo will quickly reach parity with Dell and likely come close to HP in the server market.

News From You

• Virginia Tech research team that developed a battery that runs on sugar

Maltodextrin to be exact, with an energy density an order of magnitude greater than other sugar-based batteries. A sugar-based battery would be cheaper, refillable, and biodegradable. Sweet!

Submitted by: clemro

• Seay’s daughter died in a car accident last year. He recently received an absolutely awful piece of junk mail

Office Max, sent junk mail to “Mike Seay, Daughter Killed in Car Crash.” Office Max told the LA Times the letter is a result of a mailing list rented through a third-party provider” and offered its apologies to Seay. OfficeMax is investigating why the information was aggregated in that way.

• Library audiobooks going DRM-free

Overdrive, which is a main supplier of digital material for libraries has announced it’s retiring its DRM’ed Windows media format for audiobooks and replacing it with unrestricted MP3s.

Discussion

• Walking while texting is dangerous. Science says so
• TIVO says they’re ‘not out of the hardware business’, despite layoffs
• 9to5 Mac reports a new Apple TV set-top box is well into testing and could be introduced in the first half of this year.
• Neiman Marcus announced 1.1 million customer credit and debit cards may have been compromised by malicious software
• The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board said that the statute upon which the NSA’s phone record collection program was based “does not provide an adequate basis to support this program.”

Links

• http://www.dailytechnewsshow.com/dtns-2155-follow-the-path-of-the-beam/
• patreon.com/acedtect
• subreddit

Preceded by: "The YASMS Chasm"

Follow the path of the Beam

Followed by: "Take that outages!"