Kitchen Table Encryption. Also Jobs.

Kitchen Table Encryption. Also Jobs.
Number	2686
Broadcast Date	FEBRUARY 11, 2016
Episode Length	37:36
Hosts	Tom Merritt
Guests	Justin Robert Young, Veronica Belmont, Dan Patterson

How much data do political campaign have on you? Dan Patterson discusses the relationship between politics, big data, security and social media with Tom Merritt, Veronica Belmont and Justin Young.

Guest

• Justin Robert Young
  • Night Attack
  • The Contender
• Veronica Belmont
  • Dear Veronica on Engadget
• Dan Patterson
  • danpatterson.com

Headlines

• Google reportedly building a completely stand-alone virtual reality headset

According to the Wall Street Journal’s sources, Google is working on a standalone VR product that would not need a smartphone or PC. The supposed device would include a screen, high-powered processors and outward-facing cameras. This would be in addition to a rumored improved Cardboard model to compete with Samsung’s Gear VR.

• Acer will preload Microsoft's apps on its Android phones

As part of a patent-licensing agreement, Acer will pre-install Microsoft apps on select Android devices starting the 2nd half of 2016. According to PC World the software bundle includes: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, OneDrive and Skype. Microsoft announced today that it has now partnered with 74 hardware vendors in 25 countries to bundle its apps with Android devices.

• Instagram Reveals Video View Counts To Score Creators And Ad Dollars

Instagram announced today it will begin showing view counts for videos in place of the like number. You can still click though to see the total number of hearts. 3 seconds counts as a view. Instagram told TechCrunch’s Josh Constine that more updates to video creation and consumption are coming this year.

• Qualcomm's bringing LTE connectivity to wearables with new Wear platform

PC World reports on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear platform. The platform is meant to let Android Wear watches work without being tethered to a smartphone. For example, an LTE module can attach to the Wear 2100 chip and maintain acceptable battery life according to Qualcomm. Wear 2100 is a smaller and more power-efficient version of the Snapdragon 400. LG said it will launch wearables with the Wear 2100 chip by the end of the year.

• Google to scrub web search results more widely to soothe EU objections

Reuters reports a person close to Google told it Google will change how it handles search results that are removed under Europe’s right to be forgotten rules. Google has been removing results only for the country-specific version of its site like Google.fr for France. Google will now remove the results based on the IP address of the visitor, not the country-specific version of Google being used.

Submitted by jsnphil

• The Physical Web expands to Chrome for Android

Starting with Chrome 49, Chrome for Android will support Bluetooth beacons. Google calls beacons the Physical Web. When a user walks by a beacon they’ll get a notification asking if they want to enable the Physical Web. After it’s enabled you can tap on a notification to see a list of nearby URLs. Chrome for iOS started supporting beacons through a widget last year.

• New report contends mandatory crypto backdoors would be futile

A report, prepared by security researchers Bruce Schneier, Kathleen Seidel, and Saranya Vijayakumar estimates that 63% of encryption products today are developed outside US borders and would be unaffected by any US laws that mandated encryption back doors. The most common non-US country was Germany which is known to be against weakening encryption. The report concludes that criminals would likely choose a product that isn't subject to mandatory backdoor laws.

• Scientists have finally proven Einstein’s century-old theory about gravitational waves

Researchers at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory Scientific Collaboration or LIGO say they have confirmed the first direct observation of gravitational waves. The signals were detected September 14, 2015 from two merging black holes. Their study was published in “Physical Review Letters” today. Einstein predicted such waves as part of his theory of General Relativity in 1918.

• Pandora Is Said to Have Held Talks About Selling Itself

AND ALSO The New York Times reports its sources say Pandora is working with Morgan Stanley to meet with potential buyers, Archive.org has a new section of emulated Windows 3.1 software and LG showed off a Quick Cover case for its forthcoming G5 smartphone that allows touch control with the case closed.

Discussion

• How The Presidential Candidates Spy On Their Supporters
• Iowa: Big data, big win - TechRepublic podcast episode 27

Pick of the Day

• Greenshot - a free and open source screenshot tool for productivity

My pick is the program Greenshot, availbable at getgreenshot.org.

It is a lightweight Windows program that lives in the taskbar, can be mapped to the Print Screen key and does all of the standard (region, window, fullscreen) capturing, plus allows for quick annotating (adding text, arrows, highlighting, etc.) and sending/saving the resulting image.

My favorite feature is its ability to directly OCR text from the captured image using the Microsoft Office Document Imaging (MODI) infrastructure. So with about 3 clicks, any text I on screen can be copied to the clipboard, even if that text is not "selectable".

Submitted by Kevin in Ohio

Messages

Joe from DC wrote in telling how Washington DC’s metro system used to run automated trains until an accident in 2009 caused by the failure to maintain sensors.

He says
“My biggest fear about self driving cars are not when they first get on the road, but when they are in their 10th year. Many people don't maintain cars well. Long term maintenance will be important. If there was a true driverless car with no way for a passenger to stop the car, I could imagine an incident where a car drives through a crowd of people without stopping due to some kind of failure. This would probably put an end to self-driving cars, at least ones, without a driver behind the wheel.”

Sent by Joe from DC

In reference to the Big Veronica and Patrick Debate of 2016 ~ Twitter Edition ~, it seems the New York Times listened to the show and decided to jump in...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/11/technology/twitter-to-save-itself-must-scale-back-world-swallowing-ambitions.html?_r=0

There are two things we learn from this article:
1) I'm not the only one who thinks Twitter could remain important even without growth
2) Farhad Manjoo is more articulate than I am

I can't summarize the entire article so I'd recommend you go read it, but I believe he is more or less making the same point I was trying to make during last week's show: we all hope Twitter will keep getting bigger and better, but even if it doesn't, I'll keep using it. And many others will too.

I felt very alone in that episode, so I'm glad Farhad is coming to the rescue. :)

Hugs to the flu-ridden Tom.

Sent by Patrick Beja

Links

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

Preceded by: "Twitterbolic"

Kitchen Table Encryption. Also Jobs.

Followed by: "The Oxen of the Cloud"