Minority Report in New Orleans

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Minority Report in New Orleans
Number 3229
Broadcast Date FEBRUARY 28, 2018
Episode Length 29:11
Hosts Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane
Guests Scott Johnson

Is big data based predictive policing the key to better law enforcement or is it a bandage for more serious issues? Plus, Fitbit teases a new fitness tracker watch and researchers at MIT have come up with a faster and safer way to build wood furniture.

Guest

Quick Hits

Vodafone and Nokia announced they are working to provide 4G connectivity to robots on the Moon for a group called PTScientists. SpaceX will launch two lunar rovers made by Audi which will explore and transmit HD video from the Apollo 17 landing site. The 4G network will be used to stream video from the robots to a stationary transmitter that will broadcast back to Earth.
Businesses in 40 countries will now be able to post job openings on Facebook to a Jobs tab on their Page, Jobs dashboard, Facebook Marketplace, and the News Feed. Job seekers can auto-fill applications with their Facebook profile info and submit it as well as use Messenger to schedule interviews. The feature rolled out in the US and Canada last year.
Starting April 1st, all apps in the BlackBerry World app store will be free. BlackBerry will remove paid apps from the store on that date. Apps can still be monetized but developers have to support that and build it into the app themselves.
Spotify filed its IPO Wednesday. Spotify plans to use a direct listing instead of a traditional IPO route. So, no bank is listed as an underwriter, although Morgan Stanley is serving as financial advisor. This also makes the $1 billion number subject to change. Tencent is the only shareholder restricted from selling shares once Spotify lists. CEO Daniel Ek has 25.7% of ordinary shares, Tencent has 7.5%, Tiger Global 6.9%, Sony Music 5.7%, and Technology Crossover Ventures 5.4%. Europe is still Spotify's largest market, representing 37% of its total user base.

Top Stories

Apple Watch ski and snowboard apps Snoww, Slopes, Squaw Alpine, Snocru, and Ski Tracks have all been updated with custom workout APIs released in watchOS 4.2 that allow tracking of specialized metrics such as: total vertical descent and horizontal distance, number of runs, and average and maximum speeds. The ski and snowboard tracking is limited to Apple Watch Series 3 models. They're the only ones with a built-in altimeter to track elevation.
Fitbit teased a new smartwatch on its latest investors call, and Wareable has obtained photos of what it says could be a new Fitbit Blaze 2. A source tells Wareable that Fitbit wanted a watch that appeals more to the female market, unlike its large Ionic model, and with a lower price point. The watch will be water resistant to 50m and will come in four colors: black, silver, rose gold, and charcoal, with a range of straps.
Google's Hangouts Chat is out of preview and now available to the general public as a core part of G Suite, rolling Chat out to all G Suite users over the next seven days. Hangouts Chat was first announced at Google Cloud Next 2017 along with Hangouts Meet. Hangouts Chat competes with Slack, Microsoft Teams and similar projects. Hangouts Chat is available on iOS, Android and the web.
Twitter has publicly launched its bookmarks feature which has been in testing since last year. Rather than publicly having to press a heart icon on a story about a Tsunami or famine, you can now privately save it to read later. The bookmark option is bundled in with sending a tweet via DM and sharing a tweet in the new Share icon. Bookmarks now have their own section in the profile as well.
Scientists at MIT created a robot called AutoSaw that can assist with carpentry to make custom furniture safer, easier and cheaper. You can select a template and adjust things like size and shape. Semi-autonomous robots then pick up and saw the materials needed. You assemble the final piece yourself. So far there are only four design templates with a limited number of customizations. You also have to lay things out for the robots and occasionally pick them up and place them on their target as in the case of the jigsaw, which is a modified Programmable Roomba.

Discussion

Mailbag

Re Vero: The only reason I had heard about this before yesterday's show is because I had logged into twitter for the first time in a few weeks and a few of the "influencers" I had followed at one point had been whining and complaining that the new way Facebook was doing it's news feed was hurting their business because now not as many people were seeing their posts and they were going to this other app called Vero and people should check them out there. Chris Hardwick even promoted it on Talking Dead last week. I believe this is why there was a sudden upswing in the use of Vero.

Anyway, on to my main point. I know that Vero is free right now and not ad supported, but that leads me to the thought of, "how will they pay for this?". Nothing is ever truly free. Somebody, somewhere, is always getting paid. So, will they be selling your personal info to other companies or putting up a pay wall (like you mentioned yesterday) so that you just need to pay them to interact with your friends that are on there? Will they keep it free for users but charge businesses and creators to use the service to interact more directly with their followers/fans? Eventually they will need to add more servers and have a paid staff to handle issues, maintain the software, etc. and those things mean that the company will need to make money at some point.
Sent by David from the sun is out and turning all the snow into ice Minnesota

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Links



Preceded by:
"In Vero Veritas?" 		Minority Report in New Orleans
 Followed by:
"Twitter: Toxic or Tonic?"
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