Now You’re Playing with Power. Cardboard power!
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| Now You’re Playing with Power. Cardboard power! | |
| Number | 3201 |
| Broadcast Date | JANUARY 18, 2018 |
| Episode Length | 31:54 |
| Hosts | Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane |
| Guests | Justin Robert Young |
Cryptocurrencies nose dive to just 50% of their 2017 value as governments crackdown. Google’s Project Fi caps data bills at $60/month. Amazon shortlists the 20 cities its considering for its 2nd North American HQ.
Guest
Quick Hits
- Uber's $8.8B deal with SoftBank has closed. Meaning, Softbank is now Uber's biggest shareholder. Rajeev Misra who's a board director of SoftBank and now an Uber board member—told the Financial Times that Uber would have a faster path to profitability if it returned to its core markets in the US, Europe, Latin America and Australia.
- Apple told MacRumors that a fix is coming next week for the malicious link that can freeze the iOS Messages app. Apple CEO Tim Cook told also told ABC News that Apple will soon give you a notification when a phone's battery gets to the point that Apple feels slowing performance will prevent unwanted reboots. It will allow users to turn that feature off.
- Intel says in the course of investigating problems with its Spectre/Meltdown patches that caused reboots in Broadwell and Haswell chips, it has discovered it can cause reboots in newer Skylake and Kaby Lake chips as well. Engadget says Intel VP Navin Shenoy claims they are close to identifying the root issue and expect to have beta microcode to vendors for validation by next week.
- Microsoft is promoting Minecraft head Matt Booty to head of Microsoft Studios, where he will oversee all games. Booty will report to Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft's gaming division.
Top Stories
- Nintendo announced a new product called Labo which lets users assemble pre-made cardboard attachments for the Nintendo Switch that can be used to create remote-controlled robots, a small piano and more. Starting April 20 you'll be able to buy two Labo kits. The $70 Variety kit contains an RC car a fishing rod, a house, a motorbike and a piano. An $80 robot kit lets you build an interactive robot suit with a visor, backpack and straps for your hands and feet, which lets you control an in-game robot.
- The value of Bitcoin has dropped to 50% of its 2017 peak, and other cryptocurrencies have also seen dives in their value. Tuesday, crypto exchange BitConnect shut down amid accusations of running a ponzi scheme with its BCC currency. Governments have been taking more adversarial stances against cryptocurrencies as well. The Verge's Simon Chandler noted the US SEC pressed charges against PlexCorps over an ICO. SEC Chairman Jay Clayton issued a warning on cryptocurrencies. China has cracked down further on cryptocurrency trading. And South Korea has indicated its government may restrict or ban cryptocurrency trading.
- Spotify announced "Spotlight" which will now include “visual podcasts” about news, politics, and entertainment...available in playlist form and featuring text, video, and photos. So when a user listens to a visual podcast, they get a video popup along with the audio. Partners at launch include BuzzFeed News, Cheddar, Gimlet Media, and Genius — Spotify also has its own original content such as Spotify Singles, and Viva Latino. Spotlight is US only for now.
- YouTube announced that they will be remove videos and punish creators who take part in the Tide Pod challenge. The challenge, which dares one to eat a pod of concentrated Tide detergent has led to a spike in calls to American Association of Poison Control Centers since becoming trendy. YouTube will issue anyone who posts a Tide Pod Challenge video one strike going forward.
- Google's Project Fi mobile service will now cap data bills at $60. Google only charges customers for data used at $10 per gigabyte per month with a refund for any unused data. Google will change from refunds to charging for data at the end of the month and will not charge for data used beyond 6 GB. At 15 GB users will see slower speeds but can choose to pay $10 a GB again to get normal speed back.
- Amazon announced the top 20 cities under consideration for its second North American headquarters. The company will now start working directly with those cities on their proposals. Amazon expects to make its decision by the end of the year and invest $5 billion in the new headquarters with up to 50,000 high-paying jobs added.
Mailbag
- Adding the word "podcast" at the end of my request actually worked.
Which is still kinda weird - if I want to listen to the regular DTNS show, I don't need to use the word "podcast".
I guess I'll need to apologise to Google assistant for the previous profanity-laden attempts? :-/
More importantly, after the show today I did a little digging into my Google home settings. There's a new feature (at least I never noticed it before) that allows you to pick news briefings from various regions.
DTH is listed under English US, but not under English AU. - Sent by Andrew
- Adding the word "podcast" at the end of my request actually worked.
YouTube
Links
| Preceded by: "Sorry Dave, I Can’t Comprehend That" |
Now You’re Playing with Power. Cardboard power! |
Followed by: "Making Animation More Nimble" |