Funk Da Crunk in the Elephant’s Trunk

Funk Da Crunk in the Elephant’s Trunk
Number	2171
Broadcast Date	February 14, 2014
Episode Length	36:14
Hosts	Tom Merritt
Guests	Brian Ibbott Len Peralta

Brian Ibbott is on the show and we’ll talk about the PS4 doubling Xbox One sales, Pandora guessing your political party, and what tech Coverville’s Mayor uses for music. Plus Len Peralta draws the show!

Guest

• Brian Ibbott, coverville.com
• Len Peralta, lenperalta.com

Headlines

• Senators introduce bill to require cellphone makers to include kill switch

Recode reports four US Senators have introduced a bill to require cellphone makers to include the ability to permanently deactivate devices if stolen, either through a kill switch or remote wipe. I hope it somehow involves a small plastic pocket of acid that causes the phone to self-destruct in the criminals hand. And eats their hand.

• Magazine reports about $2.7 million worth of bit coins have disappeared from Silk Road 2

According to its administrator Defcon, a Silk road 2 vendor exploited ‘transaction malleability’ to repeatedly withdraw coins from the system until it was empty. However, much of Reddit and an update on DeepDotWeb doubt that transaction malleability could be to blame and suggest Silk Road 2 staff may have taken the coins themselves and then blamed hackers. James from Irvine wrote in to point us to a Reddit thread that explains how transaction malleability works and how it cannot be used to directly steal coins.

• Xiaomi confirms its first launch outside of Greater China will be Singapore on February 21

Many have wondered when hot Chinese phone maker Xiaomi would expand beyond the Chinas (mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan). According to The Next Web, it happens February 21st. That’s when Redmi, the newly-named version of the Hongmi phone, goes on sale in Singapore for SG$169 unlocked . The Redmi will come with a 4.7-inch IPS display, 1.5GHz processor and the MIUI customization ROM.

News From You

• Surveying the state of broadband competition in the US.

The story points out how ISps are pushing state legislation to prevent municipalities from building their own high-speed networks, and have successfully passed some restrictions in 20 states. While ISps are notoriously slow to roll out faster Internet, they very much do not want governments providing it.

Submitted by: AllanAV

• The world’s largest solar thermal plant began electricity delivery from the Mojave Desert in California

CNET reports the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System — jointly owned by NRG Energy, Google, and BrightSource Energy — can produce 392 megawatts of solar power at full capacity. That’s enough to power 140,000 homes. However, like any power plant it’s not without controversy, as birds flying near its scorching hot towers have died or suffered burns.

Submitted by: habichuelacondulce AND KAPT_Kipper

• 37% of web traffic linked to live streamed Olympic hockey

Hamilton’s thespec.com reported Sandvine estimates as much as 37% of commercial and residential web traffic in Canada on Thursday afternoon was linked to streams of Olympic hockey opener between defending champs Canada and Norway. Canada won 3-1 on goals by Shea Weber, Jamie Benn and Drew Doughty.

Submitted by: dbrodbeck

Discussion

• Windows 8 exceeds 200 million licenses sold
• NPD’s latest numbers show Sony’s PS4 sales nearly doubled that of Microsoft’s Xbox One
• Japan’s Rakuten will pay $900 million for Viber, whose Skype-like messaging system has 300 million registered users

Links

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

Preceded by: "Comcastigated"

Funk Da Crunk in the Elephant’s Trunk

Followed by: "Happy Presidents Day"