A Decentralized Web 3.0
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| A Decentralized Web 3.0 | |
| Number | 3240 |
| Broadcast Date | MARCH 15, 2018 |
| Episode Length | 31:45 |
| Hosts | Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane |
| Guests | Justin Robert Young |
Say so long to Web 2.0 and make way for Web 3.0. It’s new, it’s fresh, and it’s already here. So what is it? Find out and what it means for your digital life. Linus Torvalds casts a critical eye on the CTS Labs security report on security flaws on AMD’s new processors and Fortune weighs the national security merits of blocking the Broadcom/Qualcomm merger.
Guest
Quick Hits
- Google has officially renamed its Android Wear operating system for watches to Wear OS. The name change more accurately reflects the fact that the watch OS works with Android and iOS.
- Nest announced a temperature sensor that works with its thermostats, is scheduled to ship in April for $39 each or in a three-pack for $99. Up to six sensors can be paired with the Nest Learning Thermostat or the Nest Thermostat E. The sensors do not work with first or second-gen Nest Thermostats. Nest also launched its Nest Hello video doorbell for $229, and the Nest x Yale door lock for $249.
- Intel's next generation Xeon processors and 8th gen Intel Core processors shipping later this year will come with new architecture partitioning that guards against the Spectre vulnerability. This will provide protection without the performance hit that can occur with firmware updates to current chips. Intel also said firmware updates are available for all chips made in the last five years.
Top Stories
- Twitch Streamer Ninja, aka Tyler Blevins brought rapper Drake onto his stream to play Fortnite, setting a Twitch benchmark for concurrent streams at 635,000. The two were later joined by Steelers rookie JuJu Smith-Schuster and rapper Travis Scott. Ninja is the most popular Twitch streamer with 3 million followers and 160,000 paid subscribers. The previous record for concurrent viewers was 388,000 by Dr. Disrespect.
- Reuters reports Amazon company documents indicate more than 5 million people worldwide joined Amazon Prime by early 2017 in order to watch TV shows. The internal documents indicate Amazon's US audience for TV is about 26 million. That's half of Netflix's Q1 2017 US subscriber number. The Man in the High Castle had 8 million US viewers by early 2017 and attracted 1.15 million new Prime subscribers worldwide. Amazon estimated that show's cost meant each new subscriber it acquired cost $63.
- So, Monday we talked about the Qualcomm/Broadcom acquisition being scuttled by the President and our curiosity as to why. I thought we'd follow up a little on what the general consensus is.
- It seems to mostly have to do with 5G. Qualcomm and Huawei are two of the dominant manufacturers of 5G equipment and the US Government has prohibited itself from buying from Huawei. Broadcom has a history of cutting costs and production at companies it acquires, so it may be that the US feared Broadcom would gut Qualcomm's 5G efforts leaving Huawei in charge of the market.
- How can the President do this? First is to use the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which was created during the Ford administration to keep tech out of the hands of the Soviets. It's historically been rather quiet, but during the Obama administration it began to be used to protect what Fortune calls "national champions" from mostly Chinese competition. The CFIUS usually can discourage acquisition just by influence. But in this case, it required more.
- So the other possibility is national security. Broadcom is a Singaporean based company but mostly exists in the US and is re-domiciling here no matter what. So this wasn't about the Chinese directly. But that same fear about Huawei dominating 5G production can be spun into a security concern.
- AND THEN you get to do this! In 1988, the Congress passed the Trade And Competitiveness Act of 1988 which included an amendment often called the Exon-Florio amendment that said all foreign investments that might affect national security may be reviewed and if deemed to pose a threat to security, the President of the United States may block the investment.
- So, Monday we talked about the Qualcomm/Broadcom acquisition being scuttled by the President and our curiosity as to why. I thought we'd follow up a little on what the general consensus is.
- Linus Torvalds has criticized the CTS Labs security report on AMD chip flaws saying, "When was the last time you saw a security advisory that was basically 'if you replace the BIOS or the CPU microcode with an evil version, you might have a security problem?' Yeah." Torvalds agrees the bugs are real but are not critical. CTS gave AMD 24 hours notice before publishing its report rather than the industry standard 90 days. Torvalds also said, "It looks more like stock manipulation than a security advisory to me."
- Today, Google is rolling out a ‘wheelchair accessible’ routing option to Google Maps. So for anyone who needs them, wheelchair ramps and elevators will now be factored in to guide people with mobility needs. Google says it's working with local governments and information provided by users in its Local Guides program. The rollout is limited to six cities across the globe, so room for improvement, but a good start.
Discussion
Mailbag
- I'm a long-time listener and Patreon supporter from baseball-anticipating St. Louis. You asked for suggestions that Scott Johnson could use for his now-outdated Raspberry Pi.
Check out Pi-hole (https://pi-hole.net). This program started out as a geeky ad-blocking program but has become an easy-to-install and use program that not only sends ads to a "black hole" but can also be configured to block malware and other undesirable sites. The program installs with a single command line and has grown to include a graphical interface with a lot of information about browsing on your network. Instructions are on the site.
Nice thing is that it doesn't require the newest or fastest Raspberry Pi. As a matter of fact, I run mine on a Raspberry Pi Zero with no problem.
Love the show. Go Cards! - Sent by Dave
- I'm a long-time listener and Patreon supporter from baseball-anticipating St. Louis. You asked for suggestions that Scott Johnson could use for his now-outdated Raspberry Pi.
- [Seeing a lot of disturbing images] does have an effect on you. A fellow team leader had a breakdown after a couple of tours. All of us who did the work have our issues. Some people are better at compartmentalizing it than others (I consider myself one of them), but there are times when what I've seen comes back unexpectedly. I try not to let it get to me in everyday life, but I do suffer from depression and anxiety, some of it I'm confident was exacerbated by that work along with other factors.
In the DMX/Forensics community, which is majority law enforcement, there are a lot of post traumatic stress issues from dealing with (mostly) child pornography. It's real and I feel for these young people at Google, Facebook etc. who have to deal with it. I'm glad they're taking steps to make it a smaller portion of their work and I sincerely hope they are providing good free counseling for these folks. - Sent by anonymous
- [Seeing a lot of disturbing images] does have an effect on you. A fellow team leader had a breakdown after a couple of tours. All of us who did the work have our issues. Some people are better at compartmentalizing it than others (I consider myself one of them), but there are times when what I've seen comes back unexpectedly. I try not to let it get to me in everyday life, but I do suffer from depression and anxiety, some of it I'm confident was exacerbated by that work along with other factors.
YouTube
Links
| Preceded by: "Raspberry Pi Day" |
A Decentralized Web 3.0 |
Followed by: "Lyfting Subscriptions" |