EPIC Maneuvers
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| EPIC Maneuvers | |
| Number | 3341 |
| Broadcast Date | AUGUST 7, 2018 |
| Episode Length | 32:24 |
| Hosts | Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane |
| Guests | Patrick Beja |
Epic’s Fortnite makes it way to Android but won’t be released via the Google Play Store. Is Fortnite and aberration with its ability to blow off the official or does it signal a change in the way consumers trust which platform they get content from?
Guest
Quick Hits
- Google announced updates to its Google for Education suite, consolidating dashboards and improving management and feedback to students. And starting this fall, Google’s ARCore software development kit (SDK) will support the Acer Chromebook Tab 10, the first Chrome OS tablet and the first non-smartphone to use ARCore.
- The old version of Skype was scheduled to stop working in September, but now, Thurott.com notes the Skype team has given it a reprieve. The team posted to its forum that it is extending support for Skype 7 (aka Skype classic) for "some time". The team added they are working to bring requested features to Skype 8.
- At 9:48 AM Tuesday August 7, Elon Musk tweeted "Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured." An hour later trading of Tesla shares was halted. Weed joke or irresponsible executive disclosure? In any case, if you're mad he was just joking, OK? Sheesh lighten up.
- The UK is getting a new alternative to Uber after India-based ride-hailing company Ola announced plans to expand to the country, which will become its first market in Europe.
Top Stories
- Instapaper is reintroducing its $2.99 a month Instapaper Premium subscription service, which was made free when Pinterest owned them. Now that they're independent they need to make money again. However, the core bookmarking and parsing features of Instapaper will continue to be available for free. But you won't have to pay for 6 months if you're in the European union. That's by way of apology for taking so long to make Instapaper compliant with the GDPR, which it now is. Instapaper is also posting its privacy policy to GitHub where you can view a versioned history of all the changes.
- There are few things that established media giants agree on. But two of them are 1. That somebody needs to make bite-sized videos to compete with the likes of YouTube and 2. Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman are the ones to do it. That's why Disney, 21st Century Fox, NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Viacom, WarnerMedia , Lionsgate, MGM, ITV, Entertainment One, and Alibaba have all teamed up to give NewTV $1 billion in seed funding. NewTV plans to launch by the end of 2019, with a premium lineup of original, short-form series around 10 minutes each. The service will have two subscription tiers: an advertising-free plan and an “advertising-light” option, according to Whitman. The company will license programming and won’t own or produce any shows itself. Yes friends, the idea behind Vessel is back!
- Firefox is launching an experimental browser extension called Advance, which offers up content based on what you're currently reading and your recent browsing history. “Read Next” recommends related articles based on your current tab, and the “For You” section uses your recent history to populate its recommendations. Advance is powered by a machine learning startup called Laserlike.
- The Information reports that people who own devices with Amazon Voice Services rarely use them for shopping. Of about 50 million users, 1 million tried it for shopping at all and about 100,000 reportedly bought something by voice more than once. The Echo and similar devices are mostly used for listening to music, asking about the weather, and setting timers.
- West Virginians serving overseas will be able to cast upcoming federal election ballots using a smartphone app. West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner and Boston-based app developer Voatz, say the technology is secure. Voters register by taking a photo of their government-issued identification and a video of their face, then upload both via the app. State officials will let each county decide whether to use the app and paper ballots will always be an option for voters. Last Thursday I posted a column on patreon.com/dtns about how blockchain works in voting, based on the test West Virginia did in two counties last May. Securely identifying people can be done. votes on a blockchain are much more tamper-proof than paper ballots. But when it comes to maintaining anonymity while ALSO verifying the registration it gets tricky. Doable but tricky. And Voatz doesn't explain how they do that nor has Voatz published source code for wider review beyond the four state audits. Engadget notes that security researcher Sarah Jamie Lewis of Open Privacy Research says Voatz uses "weak" single-user blockchain technology that in practice is just a database.
Discussion
- Epic Games sidesteps the Play Store with Fortnite for Android launch
- Fortnite Has Picked a Favorite in the Battle Between Apple and Android
- Fallout 76 | FAQ
Mailbag
- As many of you are, I am a tech enthusiast and have taught myself much of what I know. I am mostly blind and have been for about 11 years now. Since then I have struggled to keep my tech skills and knowledge up to date, and DTNS has been a great asset in that regard.
Though I may be of the minority, but it would be incredible to hear your thoughts on accessibility and existing or emerging tech to help the blind. I am in my final semester at my university and have some assistive technology – but to be honest, it feels as if assistive tech is 20 years behind the rest of the world. Any thoughts?
P.S: I used to be a gamer and would love to hear any ideas on accessibility in gaming!! - Sent by Thomas
- As many of you are, I am a tech enthusiast and have taught myself much of what I know. I am mostly blind and have been for about 11 years now. Since then I have struggled to keep my tech skills and knowledge up to date, and DTNS has been a great asset in that regard.
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| Preceded by: "As Android as Pie" |
EPIC Maneuvers |
Followed by: "Do You Believe in Magic Leap?" |