Don’t Call It a Zeitgeist

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Don’t Call It a Zeitgeist
Number 2387
Broadcast Date DECEMBER 16, 2014
Episode Length 33:12
Hosts Tom Merritt
Guests Patrick Beja

Patrick Beja is with us today to look at the search engines top trending searches for 2014. What do they tell us about humanity? Or France?

Guest

Headlines

The Verge reports Apple has won against a class-action lawsuit seeking damages of more than $350 million for preventing non-iTunes protected music from playing on iPods. A jury decided Apple’s updates to iTunes 7.0 were a “genuine product improvement” and did not violate antitrust laws. An appeal is planned.
Bloomberg reports Apple halted online sales of its products in Russia today due to fluctuations in the value of the ruble. An Apple spokesman said the company is currently reviewing pricing in the country. Apple raised the price of the iPhone 6 by 25% last month. The company operates no Apple retail locations in Russia.
The patent wars are winding down. PC Mag reports Google and Verizon are teaming up to fight patent trolls. The two companies signed a cross-license agreement on a broad range of products and technologies. Verizon general counsel Randal Milch wrote in a blog post that he hopes to strike similar deals with more companies. Google’s head of patent transactions, Kirk Dailey said his company welcomes discussions with companies who might be interested in a similar arrangement.
Reuters reports a class-action lawsuit has been filed against Sony Pictures Entertainment for failing to protect employee data. Two former employees seek compensation for damages as well as credit monitoring services, identity theft insurance and other assistance for themselves and any former or current U.S. employees whose data was similarly compromised. Sony Pictures Entertainment has offered identity-theft protection and credit monitoring to its approximately 6,500 employees.
Meanwhile The Next Web reports an email was sent to journalists with links to more data claiming to be taken from Sony Pictures Entertainment along with a threatening letter. The data purports to target Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton. The threat targets showings of the movie “The Interview.”
OK. Let’s lighten the mood. Perhaps the Crema filter on Instagram will do just that. The Verge reports Instagram added its first new photo filters since December 2012. The new filters are called Slumber, Crema, Ludwig, Perpetua, and Aden. Instagram also added a new perspective tool, real-time comments and the ability to upload slow-motion video. The updates will come to iOS and Android today.
Patrick, it’s time for a digital pay, triple play. TechCrunch reports Apple told the New York Times that Apple Pay now supports cards from providers of 90% of credit card purchases in the US. ReCode says sources say Samsung is talking to LoopPay to partner on a payment system of its own for devices in 2015. LoopPay mimics a card swipe. And TechCrunch says messaging app Line has begun rolling out its payment feature called Line Pay to all users except those in South Korea or China.
Reuters reports an Indian Court has allowed Xiaomi to resume sales of its devices until a hearing on Jan.8. Ericsson is suing Xiaomi in India for patent infringement. Xiaomi had to agree to deposit 100 rupees for every device sold in advance of the hearing.
Author Neal Stephenson, who wrote the book Snow Crash which includes a world filled with virtual reality and augmented reality has joined secretive startup Magic Leap which is rumored to be working on really amazing virtual reality and augmented reality. Stephenson wrote in a blog post that Magic Leap aims to, “produce a synthesized light field that falls upon the retina in the same way as light reflected from real objects in your environment.” Stephenson’s title witll be Chief Futurist. He did not mention his previous effort, Clang from Subutai Corporation, which aimed to make a realistic sword-fighting game mechanism.

News From You

The Wall Street Journal reports that NBC is launching a live stream of its broadcast network available today online and on mobile early next year. Viewers will need to verify they pay for a cable subscription in order to access the content.
Submitted by F1Ben
The Verge reports that T-Mobile USA will let customers save unused data for later. The program is called Data Stash. You must be a Simple Choice customer who has purchased additional 4G LTE data AND uou must buy at least 3GB of data a month on a phone or 1 GB a month on tablets. Starting in January qualifying customers will get 10 GB of data free. After that is used up any unused data each month will be stored in a customer’s Data Stash for a year before it expires.
Submitted by tehSMOOF

Discussion

Pick of the Day

I have been on a few road trips recently, and I wanted to pass along a site that I have found to be fairly helpful in my travels. The site is fuelmyroute.com (with an app available on Google Play). If you give FuelMyRoute your starting location and destination, the site will identify the cheapest gas prices along your route. You can edit the fuel grade, how far off your route it should search for gas stations, and how often it should report gas prices (every 50, 100, 150, etc. miles). It reports the prices on a Google map, with stations color coded to based on if their prices are below or above the average price. You can zoom in on the map to show prices at other stations along your route.

The service does not allow for routes with multiple destinations, and it will only report prices along the default driving route from Google Maps. Even with these limitations, I have found the site to be very helpful in planning out my road trips. I thought I would pass this along to the rest of the DTNS community.
Submitted by Benjamin Chamness

YouTube

Links



Preceded by:
"You Can’t Hug Through Skype" 		Don’t Call It a Zeitgeist
 Followed by:
"They’re Bringing Berry Back"
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