Cloud Country

Cloud Country
Number	2639
Broadcast Date	DECEMBER 4, 2015
Episode Length	35:20
Hosts	Tom Merritt
Guests	Darren Kitchen, Len Peralta

Estonia wants to be able to restore their country from a cloud backup. Plus news from Uganda’s municipal WiFi to Kazakhstan’s government security certificate (bad idea). Tom Merritt and Darren Kitchen discuss while Len Peralta draws live during the show.

Guest

• Darren Kitchen
  • Hak5
• Len Peralta
  • All DTNS drawings
  • This episode's drawing

Headlines

• Samsung finally agrees to pay Apple $548 million, with a few caveats

Samsung has agreed to pay Apple $548 million before Dec 14th to settle patent violations if it receives an invoice from Applethis weekedn. However, according to a joint statement filed to the US district Court for the Northern District of California Samsung added it “continues to reserve all rights to obtain reimbursement from Apple,” if future appeals find the patent violations invalid. Apple replied that it “disputes Samsung’s asserted rights to reimbursement.” Samsung requested a Supreme Court review of its case this summer.

• Twitch Arrives on Android TV

Twitch launched an app for the Android TV platform found in Nexus Players and some smart TVs. The new app lets you log in, follow and search for content and chat. Streams are in 1080p/60fps. Twitch also upgraded its Android mobile app with the Whispers 2.0 enhanced chat. Nvidia’s Shield Android TV now becomes the only streaming device that lets you watch and share Twitch.

• Worldwide Smartphone Market Will See the First Single-Digit Growth Year on Record, According to IDC

IDC cut its 2015 smartphone shipment forecast for the second time in four months. IDC expects smartphone shipments to grow 9.8% for 2015, which would be the first year of single-digit growth. Growth in China has slowed to single digits and the Middle East and Africa will likely see the highest growth for the year passing India and Indonesia. Worldwide iOS is expected to grow 17.3%, Android 9.5% and Windows will fall by 10.2%.

• Latest IDC wearable numbers show Xiaomi's continued surge

IDC also put out the much more dynamic numbers for the wearables market in Q3. Fitbits still holds the top spot with 22% of the shipments. Apple held on to the number two spot it took last quarter with 18.6%. But the star mover is Xiaomi which now has 17% of the market even with most of its wearable sales coming in China. Year over year Xiaomi’s wearables shipments have grown 815.4%. Garmin has 4.1% of the market for fourth and BBK’s XTC brand has 3.1% debuting at number 5 with one device a children’s watch sold in China called the Y01.

• Porsche to spend $1 billion on new electric car plant, create jobs

Porsche announced it will spend 1 billion euros on new plant to produce the all electric “Mission E” car. According to Reuters, 700 million euros will be spent on expanding a factory in Zuffenhausen, Germany. The remaining money will be spent on a development center in Weissach. The Mission E is expected to have more than 600 horsepower and a range of more than 310 miles. Porsche hopes to have it on the market by the end of the decade.

• Japan’s ailing PC makers consider joining together instead of failing apart

Nikkei reports Toshiba and Fujitsu are talking about merging their PC businesses into Vaio. Fujitsu said it will spin out its PC business next year. A Vaio spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal the report was “complete speculation.” Sony just confirmed it will acquire Toshiba’s image sensor business for 19 billion yen to be completed by March 31st. Toshiba’s CEO resigned in July due to an accounting scandal.

• Google launches wi-fi network in Kampala, Uganda

Google launched its first broadband wi-fi network in Kampala, Uganda’s capital. The BBC reports the network is live and covers 120 locations in the city. Google will sell the service to local telcos with the hope that improved network capacity will allow better broadband at cheaper prices. Google hopes one day's Internet will seell for 1,000 Ugandan shillings ($0.30, £0.20) though telcos will set the prices. Google has built 800km fiber optic cable in Uganda. The project next plans to connect the Ghanaian cities of Accra, Tema and Kumasi.

• Kazakhstan will force its citizens to install internet backdoors

Meanwhile ZDNet reports Kazakhtelecom JSC, Kazakhstan’s largest telco, announced citizens there will be obliged to install a national security certificate on every connected device as of January 1st. That means every secure connection in the country will pass through government servers. Linux users seem to be excepted from the requirement.

• Skype offers free calls to Chennai as it battles destructive floods

Skype has announced that all calls made to Chennai mobile and landline numbers will now be free. Chennai or Madras is India’s 4th largest city with around 5 million people. A month of heavy rainfall caused the reservoir to overflow flooding the city for weeks. Skype has provided instructions in English, Hindi and Tamil for the service.

Discussion

• With an eye on Russia, Estonia seeks security in computing cloud
• How to back up a country
• Decentralized autonomous organization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pick of the Day

• Pluralsight

I don't know if anybody else has mentioned this site pluralsight.com which is my pick of the day. I think of this a Lynda for programmers rather than creatives. If you plan on spending more than a few years in IT training is incredibly important, on learning new technologies. I've found the course very in depth and covers everything from server administration to game programming. I try to spend at least 30 minutes a day working on a learning task.

Submitted by Mark

Links

• This episode on dailytechnewsshow.com
• Support DTNS on Patreon
• DTNS subreddit

Preceded by: "Apple Gets Swifty"

Cloud Country

Followed by: "Airbags and D-Bags"