These Boots Were Made for Tracking

These Boots Were Made for Tracking
Number	3460
Broadcast Date	FEBRUARY 1, 2019
Episode Length	35:25
Hosts	Sarah Lane, Roger Chang
Guests	Lamarr Wilson, Len Peralta

Apple rolled out the ban hammer on Facebook and Google apps this past week for bypassing the App Store’s vetting process. What exactly happened and what does it mean for other iOS App developers?

Guest

• Lamarr Wilson
  • YouTube Unboxer
• Len Peralta
  • All DTNS drawings
  • This episode's drawing

Quick Hits

• Amazon Web Services reports 45 percent jump in revenue in the fourth quarter

Amazon reported Q4 earnings per share of $6.04 on revenue of $72.4 billion. Analysts had expected earnings of $5.65 on revenue of $71.88 billion. Amazon Web Services revenue grew 45% on the year to $7.43 billion. While AWS now accounts for 10% of overall revenue, it represents 58% of operating income, with $2.18 billion on the quarter. Amazon's "Other" segment, which largely consists of ad sales, grew 95% on the year to $3.39 billion in revenue.

• Apple restores Google’s internal iOS apps after certificate misuse punishment

Apple temporarily revoked Google's Enterprise Certificate for the App Store, preventing use of iOS apps for internal testing by the company. TechCrunch reported that Google was violating Apple's rules for these certificates by distributing the Screenwise Meter app outside of Apple's App Store. Facebook faced a similar temporary loss of its Enterprise Certificate from Apple after TechCrunch reported on the Facebook Research VPN app violated its terms of service. Revoking the security certificates not only disabled the violating apps, but reportedly broke all internal testing iOS apps and tools used by the organizations. As of Thursday night, Apple confirmed that both Facebook's and Google's Enterprise certificates were restored.

Top Stories

• Americans are lining up to work for Amazon for $15 an hour

In Amazon's latest quarterly earnings report, the company said it received a record 850,000 work applications for hourly jobs in the US in October 2018 after the company said it would raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour starting Nov. 1... that's more than double its previous record for job applications received in a single month. Amazon said the new $15 minimum applies to more than 250,000 current employees in the US and 17,000 employees in the UK, and more than 200,000 seasonal workers.

• Alphabet’s Verily has been working on health-tracking shoes to measure movement, weight and falls

Alphabet’s life science arm Verily has pitched a prototype of smart shoes - how smart? They can track weight, movement, and potentially even detect falls. A co-development partner would be necessary to move forward, sources tell CNBC. Besides shoes, Verily’s team is working health-related hardware projects including “smart” contact lenses and a “smart” spoon to make it easier for people with movement disorders to eat.

• ALPHABET’S LOON SETS ITS SIGHTS ON THE SATELLITE INDUSTRY

Alphabet's Loon subsidiary announced a partnership with the Canadian telecommunications company Telesat to use Loon's “temporal-spatial” software defined-network to manage Telesat's new fleet of low Earth Orbit satellites. Loon originally developed the proprietary software to provide internet access via an LTE balloon fleet. It can adjust the shape of the network to account for the shifts of both nodes and end-users in physical orientation and across time simultaneously. Telesat plans to use the tech to provide internet connectivity to remote areas like ships at sea and planes in flight.

• Huawei’s 5G foldable phone is coming this month

Mobile World Congress is right around the corner, and Huawei is set to announce an (expected) foldable device. Huawei’s keynote is scheduled for Sunday, February 24th, at 2PM Barcelona time / 8AM ET. Huawei also promised that MWC will see “the world’s first 5G foldable device.”

• Apple fixes FaceTime eavesdrop bug, with software update incoming

Apple announced a fix for the bug in FaceTime allowing users to eavesdrop on people before they accept a call, saying it will be rolled out in a software update next week. The company thanked the Thompson family who tried to warn Apple about the bug adding, “We are committed to improving the process by which we receive and escalate these reports, in order to get them to the right people as fast as possible.”

Discussion

• Everything you need to know about Facebook, Google’s app scandal
• Why Apple went to war with Facebook and Google this week
• ProBeat: If your company uses iOS, it’s time for an internal audit

Mailbag

For as long as people are willing to outsource and rent things versus OWN them, this will forever be the case as you will always be at the mercy of companies either making decisions in your favor, or simply continuing to exist. People want technology to solve this problem, but there's a fundamental contradiction here that won't be solved by technology. Streaming services are fickle regarding what's there today and gone tomorrow, and things like UV and Movies Anywhere are ephemeral in and of themselves. The actual solution is for people to stop criticizing and dismissing ownership as something antiquated that only old people do, and instead use technology to augment ownership and provide them the features they desire. I find that solution in Plex, which my family and I use exponentially more than even my extensive UV collection. This way, I know my content will remain available to stream to all our devices until *I* choose to remove it. If something happens to Plex itself, I still have my original discs and can migrate my collection to the next great thing.

(This is not necessarily expensive: I pick up almost all my DVDs and Blu-rays on big sales or used off eBay)

As the old adage against outsourcing goes: "nobody cares about your stuff more than you." If you want the benefits and safety of ownership, you need to stop moving away from ownership.

Sent by Scott

Please make the point on my behalf that no one is losing ownership of anything with UV shutting down. They're just stopping the linking of accounts across stores.

Sent by Tom

Links

• This episode on dailytechnewsshow.com
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• DTNS subreddit
• DTNS Facebook Group

Preceded by: "Dark Web K-Mart"

These Boots Were Made for Tracking

Followed by: "It’s Like Eating Sugar"