50 Shady Grey Markets

50 Shady Grey Markets
Number	2796
Broadcast Date	JUNE 28, 2016
Episode Length	44:53
Hosts	Tom Merritt
Guests	Patrick Beja

Can you have a resale market for digital game codes? Can you have it without fraud and accusations of theft? Patrick Beja and Tom Merritt discuss.

Guest

• Patrick Beja
  • Patrick's Patreon

Top Stories

• Airbnb sues San Francisco over new rules for short-term rentals
• Airbnb Sues San Francisco to Block Rental Registration Law

On Monday, Airbnb filed a lawsuit against the city of San Fransisco in US District Court over a new registration regulation passed by the city's Board of Supervisors earlier this month. The regulation, which goes into effect next month, would require all listings to be registered with the city's Office of Short-Term Rentals, with fines of up to $1000 a day for non-compliance. In the suit, Airbnb claims this violates the Communications Decency Act, as the law currently holds an internet platform liable for user generated content. A hearing on whether to issue an injunction on the law is scheduled for August 1st.

• Facebook now has official Save and Share extensions for Chrome

Facebook has released two extensions for the Chrome Browser, Save to Facebook and Share. Save stores links on Facebook to read or view later and share opens up a post creation box.

• Microsoft tweaks aggressive Windows 10 upgrade prompt following complaints

Microsoft Windows head Terry Myerson told the Verge the company will change the upgrade popup for Windows 10 with clear options to upgrade, schedule or decline. Closing the dialog box by clicking the x will no longer lead to an upgrade. The upgrade will stop being free on July 30th. A blog post from Microsoft indicated the Windows 10 Anniversary update is scheduled to arrive August 2nd though the post has been removed so that date may yet change.

Submitted by lokirobert

• Twitter Dives Into AR and VR, Hires Ex-Apple Designer To Lead New Team

UploadVR.com reports Twitter has hired former Apple interface designer Alessandro Sabatelli as Director of VR and AR. His LinkedIn profile says his job is to empower “us all in the spatial computing revolution.” Sabatelli most recently worked for IXO-MOXI on using VR and AR to enhance visual experiences. The company's app Lucy gives filtered views of the world in Gear VR. He worked on contextual and location based user interfaces while at Apple. It’s reasonable to expect this could tie in with Twitter’s recent acquisition of Magic Pony which is now Twitter’s Cortex division for machine learning including visual experience.

• Beyond video games: New artificial intelligence beats tactical experts in combat simulation

According to the Journal of Defense Management an A.I. dubbed ALPHA bested USAF veteran combat pilot Colonel Gene Lee in a series of simulated dogfights. ALPHA was developed by by Psibernetix, a company founded by University of Cincinnati doctoral graduate Nick Ernest in collaboration with the US Air Force Research Laboratory. It uses a subset of fuzzy logic called a genetic fuzzy tree. The system allows the AI to make decisions the way a human would by breaking large tasks into a series of smaller sub-tasks and considering only relevant variables. It runs on a $500 consumer PCs. Psibernetix issued a press release about this back on December 16 2015, but it may have got lost in the Star Wars hype.

Submitted by KAPT_Kipper

• Here One augmented reality earbuds make your world sound exactly how you want

Doppler Labs announced the launch of its Here earbuds --which can tune out undesirable sounds like sirens or crying babies-- and can now can stream music and answer phone calls using Bluetooth. Here earbuds also allow certain sounds in if you like, so you can carry on a conversation while listening to music. A directional mic even lets you pinpoint the source of the noise you want to cancel. A setup process customizes the profile for each user. The battery last about 4-6 hours on a charge. Here One ships in November for $299 and are available for preorder now.

• Russian ISPs will need to store content and metadata, open backdoors

Russia’s State Duma, the lower house of its parliament, approved an anti-terrorism law including new online surveillance provisions. Russian ISPs must store message content for 6 months and metadata for three years. MTS, Megafon and Vimplecom have all opposed the bill and Yandex said the legislation would cost more to implement than the companies would ever make. Publishing incitement to terrorism online now carry the same penalties imposed on media outlets with a maximum sentence of seven years in prison. Authorities also get the right to demand access to encrypted services. The legislation now goes to the Federation Council for approval before it goes to President Putin.

Discussion

• Embattled Retailer G2A Speaks Out About Grey Market Fraud And Theft Accusations
• Gray market reseller wants to make amends, indie dev remains skeptical
• G2A to give developers royalties on third-party auctions
• Revendeurs de clefs : notre enquête en téléchargement gratuit

Pick of the Day

• Tonight’s Decoded doc shows how much Mr. Robot outclasses CSI Cyber-types

When my DVR listed a Mr. Robot recording, I thought I had a new season 2 episode already. It turned out to be "_dec0d3d" ("decoded") an hour-long promo/documentary about the show and its relationship to the real world. It was interesting to reflect back on the past year in cyberspace and see what was both shadowed and fore-shadowed on the show. Ashley Madison, FBI-v-Apple, Sony data dump, a TV report shot, Stuxnet, and more.

Even the documentary itself does it. They talk about the idea of taping over your webcam and how it's not as paranoid as it looks. Thank you, Mark Zuckerberg.


It's not too spoilery about season one if anyone hasn't watched yet.

Submitted by Sara in Sunny Seattle

Messages

I am currently a technology integration specialist for a school corporation and husband to a 5th grade school teacher and this is great news for me and my wife.

…There is a market in education for what is called an LMS (Learning Management Systems). What is going to happen to LMSs if Google gives away all of these free tools for the teachers to use? I know these systems have other features but one could argue that new tools like Quizzes for Google Forms is slowly taking away from this market.

Love the show,

Sent by Charles

Dear Tom and DTNS Crew,

I understand Tom’s concerns about corporations and schools, but as a teacher I welcome these Tech companies working with schools. Veronica hit the nail on the head. The companies are not trying to control the content of my lessons. I’m an Interact Teacher. This is a program were a few teachers from each campus in my district go to a weeklong class. At the end of the class, teachers are given a grant to purchase a selection of technology for their classrooms. The focus of the workshops was not use X technology. Instead it was promoting high level thinking with projects that use technology. For every project we were shown multiple tech resources that can be used. Some of these were open source.

One example. The 2nd to last week of school. Textbooks and library books are turned in for the inventory. Teachers are having to pack away their classrooms. The whole 2nd grade team does an all subjects project based around the Amazon Rainforest. Students research using both books (teacher owned gathered over years) and online resources. They use math, ELA, science, and social studies to create a model rainforest in the common hallway. For the online research they use ipads and computers. They question facts they find – compare information from different sources. They measure out how long a anaconda snake is. They figure out how to build a model. They write books both physical and e-books. They create video or audio resources. When their model animals are put up in the jungle – they post a QR code so other students can access the digital content.

As far as evil corporations harming schools. I’m more worried about textbook companies that claim the Grand Canyon was form by a (or the) flood, Math Textbooks that are scripts teachers lock step (and we wonder why kids have math phobia). Then there is the fact Texas spent millions of dollars on STAAR Testing this year only to have all the results thrown out because of multiple violations of the law and common sense. (3rd grade math tests, testing 3rd grade math concepts, with word problems written on a 6th grade reading level).

Sincerely,

Sent by Texas Teacher

Links

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

Preceded by: "Feel the Learn"

50 Shady Grey Markets

Followed by: "Secretly Listening to Dr. Demento"