Lyfting Subscriptions
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| Lyfting Subscriptions | |
| Number | 3241 |
| Broadcast Date | MARCH 16, 2018 |
| Episode Length | 30:05 |
| Hosts | Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane |
| Guests | Iyaz Akhtar, Len Peralta |
Lyft is trialling a subscription plan for high frequency users. Is this a potential model for other ride hailing services and could this be another alternative to private car ownership and public transit?
Guest
Quick Hits
- Sources tell CNBC that former chairman of Qualcomm Paul Jacobs, who is the son of the company's founder, wrote to the board that he would like to purchase the company and take it private. Jacobs resigned as executive chairman last week and Dow Jones reported Friday he may leave the board altogether. The Qualcomm board is meeting to discuss Jacobs.
- Facebook apologized after its autosuggest in search began completing queries with offensive suggestions including sexual suggestions involving children. Facebook is investigating the issue.
- Microsoft is testing the idea of forcing anyone who uses the Windows Mail app in Windows 10 to have all links opened in the Microsoft Edge browser rather than their default browser. Microsoft’s Dona Sarkar wrote in a blog post about the test, "we look forward to feedback."
- Google Lens is rolling out version 3.15 of the Google Photos iOS app starting now with a complete release for all users over the next week. Google Lens analyzes what’s in an image to give more context on details on places of interest and photo subjects.
Top Stories
- Apple announced a media event for Tuesday, March 27 at Lane Tech College Prep High School in Chicago, focused on "creative new ideas for teachers and students." The announcements might include lower-priced iPads and MacBook Airs targeted at classrooms or a new Apple Pencil. Apple hosted a similar education-focused event in New York City in January 2012 and announced iBooks 2 with interactive textbooks, iBooks Author, and a new version of iTunes U for iPad.
- Amazon is rolling out a "brief mode" for Amazon Voice Services that uses sounds like chimes instead of spoken confirmations like "OK" after implementing requests. The Echo may ask you if you want to enable brief mode after you make a request. It can be enabled and disabled in the app.
- Thursday evening, the city council in Plattsburgh, New York unanimously voted to impose an 18-month moratorium on new Bitcoin mining operations. The move was proposed by Plattsburgh Mayor Colin Read after residents power bills rose in January. Plattsburgh is near a hydroelectric dam on the St. Lawrence river that provides 104 megawatt-hours of cheap electricity per month. Any overages must be bought on the open market at higher prices which are then distributed amongst citizens. This often happens in cold months like January, but residents feared more miners moving in might raise prices even more. Coinmint used roughly 10 percent of the city’s total power budget in January and February. Local miners say they're willing to work with the city to lift the moratorium.
- Microsoft officially announced its gaming cloud division Thursday, headed by Kareem Choudhry, a 20-year Microsoft veteran that has worked on Outlook, DirectX, and Xbox engineering. Microsoft wants more developers to use Microsoft cloud services like Azure. But Microsoft also has its own cloud service, Xbox Game Pass and streaming games is a big focus of the new division. Choudhry says Microsoft is looking at the ability to stream games no matter what device is being used.
- Next week at YC’s demo day, startup Nectome will describe technology behind “exquisitely preserving brains in microscopic detail using a high-tech embalming process.” Nectome promises a chemical solution to keep a body intact for up to thousands of years as a statue of frozen glass. Future scientists could then scan that brain and turn it into a computer simulation. Nectome’s plan is to connect people with terminal illnesses to machine in order to get their data while they’re under general anesthesia. The company says what they’re doing is legal and has consulted with lawyers familiar with California’s two-year-old End of Life Option Act. Oh, and there’s a waiting list. 25 people have signed up, with a deposit of $10,000, fully refundable if you change your mind.
Discussion
Mailbag
- ADS-B and MLAT Receiver to track flights - https://flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/
Super geeky way to track flights nearby. It does require additional hardware, at a minimal cost, and a clear line of sight to of the sky for the antenna. More money could be spent for a higher power antenna to track flights further away. Flight data is contributed to the FlightAware tracking site but in return you are awarded an Enterprise Account at no cost, https://flightaware.com/commercial/premium/
Pi Hole - https://pi-hole.net/ (suggested thurs)
KMTTG - https://sourceforge.net/projects/kmttg/
This is my next project, not completed yet. Originally KMTTG was created to download, decrypt, cut advertising and re-encode shows from a TiVo. Recently it has been updated to work with the Commercial Skip feature on newer TiVos, a user initiated manual button push on the remote to skip the commercial break. KMTTG will sit on the network and know when the previously recorded show playing on a TiVo enters a commercial break and will automatically initiate the commercial skip without human intervention. The previous feature of downloading to re-encrypting is still supported and is great to use when traveling and will not have network connectivity as the shows can then be loaded to a tablet without the commercial breaks., but my main use case will be the automatic commercial break. (Side Note: I already have KMTTG setup on an older Windows Desktop computer, but planning on decommissioning that machine and opting for raspberry pi for the power/cooling savings)
Honorable Mentions:
RetroPie - https://retropie.org.uk/
VPN
Kodi Media Center
Thanks - Sent by Paul In Always Burning Hot Clearwater, FL
- ADS-B and MLAT Receiver to track flights - https://flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/
YouTube
Links
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