Ads Kill the Messenger

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Ads Kill the Messenger
Number 2661
Broadcast Date JANUARY 7, 2016
Episode Length 46:34
Hosts Tom Merritt
Guests Justin Robert Young

Facebook wants to kill text messaging. Do we want it to? Can messaging apps even make money? Justin Young and Tom Merritt discuss. Plus VR for the blind.

Guest

Headlines

Facebook’s VP of Messaging Products David Marcus posted a roadmap for Facebook Messaging today, announcing more than 800 million people use Messenger each month. TechCrunch reports that makes Messenger the fastest growing messaging app of 2015.
Reuters reports that Time Warner said Wednesday up to 320,000 customers may have had their email passwords stolen. The FBI informed Time Warner of the issue and Time Warner does not know yet how the data was obtained although none of its own systems were breached. The passwords may have been stolen through malware downloaded to user’s computers or through a data breach of a TimeWarner partner.
Submitted by stevei0
Bloomberg reports Amazon subsidiary Annapurna Labs announced Wednesday it will sell its Alpine line of chips to manufacturers and data centers. The 32-bit ARMv7 and 64bit-bit ARMv8 based designs are targeted towards makers of Wi-Fi Routers, NAS, home gateway and Internet of Things devices. Amazon acquired Annapurna Labs in Jan 2015. And no, despite all the clever headlines, currently, Annapurna chips are not directly available from Amazon.
Submitted by tm204
Uber will pay a $20,000 fine for failurre to report a data breach in a timely fasion, after being the subject of a 14 month investigation by the NY Attorney General's office. The investigation was prompted by an executive’s use of data to track a reporter with aa system called “God View.”. The investigation found a data breach exposed personal data of 50,000 Uber drivers in Sept 2014 but Uber did not disclose the incident until Feb 2015. BuzzFeed reports that the Attorney General Eric Schniederman is expected to announce the settlement tomorrow.
TechCrunch Palmer Luckey apologized in a Reddit AMA for misleading people into believing the Oculus Rift would sell for less than its $599 retail price. Luckey had said the final price would be in the ballpark of the $350 the dev kit sold for. He explained he was thinking of $599 being closer to $350 than the $1500 some had been estimating. Luckey also emphasized the $599 is close to the cost of making the Oculus Rift.
The Wall Street Journal reports Apple has acquired Emotient, an artificial intelligence startup that specializes in emotion and sentiment recognition based on facial expressions.
Microsoft has a blog post reporting on diagnostic information obtained by Microsoft from Windows 10 users. 44.5 billion minutes have been spent using the Microsoft Edge browser, 82 billion photos have been viewed in the Windows photo app and Cortana has answered 2.5 billion questions. The data is anonymized when collected. USers can choose not to send such data by changing a setting to Basic which will still collect encrypted error reports. Some third-party apps can block all collection.
Submitted by TheLazyOne
Twitter filed a lawsuit in Ankara, Turkey Thursday seeking to annul a 150,000 lira fine for note removing content the government says is “terrorist propaganda.”
A Chinese company announced the Ehang 184 Autonomous Aerial Vehicle which can carry a passenger weighing up to 200 kilograms for 20 minutes. The Guardian reports the drone’s cabin is equipped with air-conditioning and a reading light. Vertical takeoff and landing points are preset and in case of a malfunction the drone will land in the “nearest possible area safely”. The craft has flown over 100 times at low altitude. Expect the Ehang 184 later this year for around $200,000 to $300,000.
CNET reports BlackBerry CEO John Chen confirmed in an interview that the company will release one and possibly two new phones this year, both running Android. Chen said the company will concentrate on national security certification for its own BlackBerry 10 OS in order to sell to government and corporate projects.
30 rights groups in India have written an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg, posted on Facebook, criticizing Facebook for encouraging users to take action against Net neutrality rules being considered by the Regulatory Authority of India. The group said it was disingenuous to claim that a small group oppose Free Basics by Facebook’s practice of zero-rating particular services.
The UK’s Investigatory Powers Bill was published in November and a cross-party committee has been collecting feedback. Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter and Yahoo have filed a list of their concerns about the unclear state of encryption in the bill, and the potential for conflict with overseas regulations on information sharing. Meanwhile in the US, Reuters reports US government officials will meet with tech executives on Friday to discuss the use of social media by militant groups.

Discussion

Pick of the Day

WE CAN STOP THE PICK OF THE DAY, IT WILL NEVER GET BETTER THAN THIS:

​WE'VE REACHED THE FUTURE, WE CAN ALL QUIT!!!!!!!!​
Submitted by anonymous

Messages

First let me say I'm a patreon and love the show.

I wanted to make one quick comment about yesterday's show and reporting on the Casio SmartWatch(although I'm sure someone else has already made it). The Casio Android wear watch mentioned has one key feature that truly makes it separate from all other smart watches. It actually uses two screens. It can function as a normal color Android wear watch, however when no longer in use it transitions to the 2nd screen, an LCD monochrome. This is somewhat similar to the LG models and their use of P-OLED. When not in use it goes toal a darkend screen to conserve battery. When the Casio transitions to its monochrome LCD, if left in this mode it can run 1 month on a single charge. It also has the capability to toggle this mode on and off. This seems like a great capability and I can see using it toggled off and on over a long camping trip.
I've definitely geeked out on this one as I've always used their Pathfinder ABC watches plus we've not seen any other product coupling these two screen types.
Even with limited use of my legs my daughter and I camp often and I'm truly looking forward just throwing this one on my wrist..

Love the show and looking forward to day 6.
Sent by Matt cowering at home trying to avoid CES invading my town in rainy Las Vegas


Hi Tom, Esteemed Contributors, and Distinguished Guests;

I'm a VR researcher with a Computer Science and Math background, and over the past months I've heard the Oculus and other VR devices referred to as having 360 degree and 2pi by 2pi degree views. Unfortunately, even the latter does not adequately describe their capabilities. The devices, in combination with the application, are denoted by the degrees of freedom (DOF) possible to experience. For instance, Brian and Jury's project would constitute a 3 DOF experience, since the user can move their view in azimuth, elevation, and roll movements (more technically, in angles about the X Y and Z axes). Further, a VR game that also allows users to control their position with additional input devices would have at most 6 DOF.

Best wishes in the New Year,
Sent by Nic


William in cold Portland, Oregon wrote in with a substantive email asking whether designers are considering blind and visually impaired people when designing VR. He writes: "Is the solution to have a VR visor that does the visual work for you, and is continuously talking to you, describing the environment?"
Sent by William in cold Portland, Oregon

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Preceded by:
"Virtual Makeouts" 		Ads Kill the Messenger
 Followed by:
"A Node to Joy"
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