All Melodies Belong To Us!
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| All Melodies Belong To Us! | |
| Number | 3726 |
| Broadcast Date | FEBRUARY 26, 2020 |
| Episode Length | 30:45 |
| Hosts | Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Roger Chang |
| Guests | Scott Johnson |
Some clever musicians are trying to place every melody under a Creative Commons License to bring an end to music copyright lawsuits regarding melodies they feel are stifling creativity.
Guest
Quick Hits
- Foxconn is getting advice on virus prevention from Zhong Nanshan who is credited with finding the correct way to treat SARS 17 years ago. Zhong was recently appointed head of China’s National Health Commission investigation into the COVID-19 virus outbreak.
- Panasonic will end its four-year joint venture with Tesla to produce solar cells and modules at a factory in Buffalo, New York. Panasonic's solar manufacturing operations at the plant will cease in May and Panasonic will be out of the factory entirely by September. Tesla plans to continue operations at the factory on its own. Panasonic still works with Tesla on a joint battery cell factory in Reno, Nevada.
- The Brave browser now automatically offers users a link to an Archive.org webpage when the current page is unavailable. Clicking the link takes you to the Wayback Machine where you can scroll through snapshots of the historical record of the page and choose one. The Internet Archive also offers the function in extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Safari.
- Research firm Omdia estimates Apple shipped 46.3 million iPhone XRs in 2019 making it the most popular phone worldwide. The rest of the top 5 in order, was the iPhone 11, Galaxy A10, Galaxy A50, and Galaxy A20. Xiaomi's Red Note 7 was the highest shipping phone not from Apple or Samsung at number 8.
Top Stories
- The US National Transportation Safety Board announced Tuesday that a March 2018 fatal crash of a Tesla Model X SUV was caused by a combination of Tesla's Autopilot operating in conditions it couldn't handle and the driver distracted by a game on his phone. The SUV hit a concrete barrier at high speed killing the driver. A cushion at the end of the barrier had been damaged in a previous crash and if replaced might have saved the driver's life. The board made nine recommendations including Tesla prevent Autopilot from operating in conditions it was not designed for and create a more effective method of ensuring driver attention. The NTSB also recommends phone companies lock out distracting phone features when it detects someone is driving.
- Clearview AI disclosed to its customers that an intruder “gained unauthorized access” to its list of customers, the number of user accounts those customers had set up, and the number of searches its customers have conducted. Clearview said the company’s servers weren't breached or compromised, and that the vulnerability has been fixed. The company also said law-enforcement agencies’ search histories weren't accessed. Clearview's customers are mostly North American law enforcement agencies in Canada and the US. Clearview scrapes images form the public Web and uses associated data to train an algorithm to provide possible identity matches.
- A Pew Research Center survey conducted in January shows that 74% of Americans have little or no confidence in technology companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google to prevent the misuse of their platforms to influence the 2020 presidential election. However, 78% of people surveyed say these companies have a responsibility to prevent such misuse. Over the past decade, other surveys have found sharp declines in the shares from those associated with both Democrat and Republican parties who say technology companies have a positive impact on the country. As for the age breakdown, 31% of adults aged 18 to 29 say they are at least somewhat confident in these companies to prevent the misuse of their platforms to influence the election. 20% of those ages 65 and older are at least somewhat confident.
- LG's V60 ThinQ 5G is its third dual screen phone with the second screen in a case that can be separated from the main phone. The V60 has the Snapdragon 865 processor, an improved camera that can handle 8K video and a headphone jack. Both screens are 6.8-inch FHD+ OLED with a small notch. LG and Google apps can span both screens. The 5G is optimized for Sub-6 networks but there will also be a model optimized for mm-wave. On the rear is a 1/1.7-inch sensor 64-megapixel f/1.8 camera which uses pixel binning for 16MP images. The V60 has 128GB storage, 8GB of RAM, WiFi 6 and a 5,000mAh battery. Prices will be announced by carriers but will be less than $1000 when the V60 arrives in the spring.
- Tempo is a 42-inch HD touchscreen with Microsoft's Azure Kinect camera inside to track your exercise form while you take live streaming classes. As you follow the on screen instructions in strength training, cardio, yoga and more, dots on screen plot your movements and instructions appear to help you perfect that form. Classes grade you on your form not total number of reps. The classes cost $39 a month for a subscription and the Tempo cabinet, screen and standard barbell and weights up to 100 pounds costs $1,995. Deposits of $250 are needed to reserve one now, shipping in the summer.
Discussion
- Damien Riehl and Noah Rubin wrote an algorithm to determine every possible 8-note 12-beat melody contained within an octave. They released the algorithm under an open source license on GitHub and released the melodies under a Creative Commons "no rights reserved" license on archive.org. The idea is to reduce the number of copyright lawsuits based on simple melodies rather than whole songs.
Mailbag
- Mike in Dusty Riyadh says he was struggling with the laptop or tablet debate we had on last Friday's show.
My laptop (2017 HP Spectre X2) had a battery that was starting to explode, so needed something to replace it ASAP. I like Windows 10, want my full keyboard and touchpad, and agree that multitasking is easier in Windows. However, the contrast in price between a Surface 7 and an iPad Pro with 512 GB of on board storage had me seriously considering going for the iPad.
One key reason? My workplace Office 365 account only lets me access my work files/apps via web browser, meaning I need an internet connection to work on the go. Between public WiFi paranoia and not wanting to burn through data tethering, this is a huge inconvenience. In contrast, I can access all my apps with biometric authentication on an iPad. It's great being able to take notes in OneNote and just go home and have it sync up over my home network or work on a document on a plane and save it to the cloud later.
I ultimately went for the Surface, but I don't know if I'll do a Surface 9 or 10 when it comes time to replace this guy.
- Mike in Dusty Riyadh says he was struggling with the laptop or tablet debate we had on last Friday's show.
YouTube
Links
| Preceded by: "How do you like them Amazon Apples?" |
All Melodies Belong To Us! |
Followed by: "Remix the Smithsonian" |