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| VPN Virtual Pigeon Network | |
| Number | 3336 |
| Broadcast Date | JULY 31, 2018 |
| Episode Length | 31:08 |
| Hosts | Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane |
| Guests | Roger Chang |
Samsung’s growth slows weighed down by low Galaxy S9 sales while Huawei posted a 15% increase in revenue. How OpenAI is improving robotic hands work. Yahoo Finance is planning on launching its own full-day live video stream network by the end of the year.
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Quick Hits
- Logitech has agreed to acquire Blue Microphones. Blue is known for mics that range in price from $60 to over $4,000, such as the USB Yeti Mic. Logitech already owns Astro Gaming, Jaybird, and Ultimate Ears.
- Facebook’s head of Cybersecurity, Policy Nathaniel Gleicher said the company identified coordinated inauthentic behavior designed to influence US politics and has therfore suspended 8 Facebook pages, 17 profiles and 7 Instagram accounts. Facebook says the accounts spent $11,000 to run 150 ads between April and June. They used VPN and internet phone services and paid third parties to run ads on their behalf. Facebook says it cannot determine who is behind the accounts.
- MoviePass shut down for a night last week over financial woes. Now the company says it will increase its price to $14.95 a month within the next 30 days. First-run movies will only be viewable on a limited basis during the first two weeks of release, outside of promotional deals.
- Dual SIM is a requirement for many users in the world who face stric usage caps or travel between carrier markets. Dual SIM lets you have two SIMS in a phone so you can switch between two different carriers. 9to5Mac reports evidence in iOS 12 developer beta 5 of dual-SIM support with references to “second SIM status”, “second SIM tray status”, and “dual sim device.”
Top Stories
- Sources tell Axios that Yahoo Finance will launch a full-day live video streaming network by the end of the year. The network would reportedly include 8-hours of live market and global financial news updates. Sources say the company is in talks with OTT providers and bundles about getting the content on platforms other than Yahoo's own distribution channels.
- Samsung posted its slowest quarterly profit growth yet. Chip sales returned record profits. The problem is Mobile. The S9 fell short of sales targets and mobile showed its steepest operating profit decline since Q1 2017 at 34%. Sony tells a similar story. Its PS4 console brought in more than twice as much money as any other department. Sony Music, home entertainment and sound and image sensors all did well. Smartphones however, lost Sony $97 million and its not expected to get better. On the other hand, Huawei posted a revenue rise of 15% on the half year and operating profit rise of 14%. While that's the slowest growth in its first half sales since 2013, it came while being pushed out of the US and Australia and expanding its marketshare in China to a record 27 percent. More affordable Chinese phones are pressuring margins. Cheaper phones have better design and hardware. Samsung is pinning it hopes on foldable phones.
- WhatsApp for iOS and Android now supports voice and video group calling for up to four people worldwide. WhatsApp says the app is designed to send video even on slower network connections, and calls are end-to-end encrypted. WhatsApp first launched video chatting in 2016 and voice calling back in 2014, and says users now spend a total of 2 billion minutes per day talking within the app.
- Mae Ryan, Cade Metz and Runsey Taylor from the NYTimes have a feature on robotic hands that's worth a read. It describes several different projects at OpenAI, and labs at Berkeley and Washington that really give you asense of where the state of machine learning and robotic hands are. OpenAI and Washington used simulations to train hands with five fingers to manipulate objects. Training by simulation for use in the real world was not a sure thing but these two labs have shown it can be done. The other examples in the article are all how to use machine learning to train grippers ot be able to pick up any object and move objects around on a surface.
- Nintendo reported net sales up 9 percent from last year and Profit up 42 percent. Nintendo says it sold 19.67 million Switch consoles to date and 86.9 million games. Nintendo had sold 17.79 million consoles as of March 31, so it seems the rate has slowed. Nintendo plans to launch a ton of new games in its next quarter including Super Mario Party on October 5, Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu and Pokemon Let’s Go Eevee on November 16, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on December 7.
- Here are the Apple earnings: Revenue of $53.3B (+17%) beats a $52.3B consensus. GAAP EPS of $2.34 beats a $2.16 consensus. iPhone units came in at 41.3M, +1% Y/Y and slightly below consensus. But iPhone revenue grew 20% thanks to ASP growth (points to good iPhone X sales). iPhone revenue totaled $29.9B. iPad revenue -5% to $4.7B, Mac revenue -5% to $5.3B, Services revenue +31% to $9.5B, Other Products +37% to $3.7B. Revenue by geography: Americas +20% Y/Y, Europe +14%, Greater China +19%, Japan +7%, Rest of Asia-Pac +16%.
Pick of the Day
- Call about the blockchain being used for shipping
- Submitted by BigJim
Mailbag
- on friday's round table show, you compared 2FA devices that use Bluetooth to those using USB and NFC. Much of the criticism of Bluetooth was super insightful, specifically the concerns regarding placing your security in a device that can run out of batteries.
But... I believe you may have overstated the insecurity of Bluetooth. Bluetooth is merely a transport mechanism like wifi, Ethernet, or NFC. Some transport mechanisms are more secure than others, but protocols that run over those transports can still be equally secure. An example: HTTPS or VPN traffic over Bluetooth is just as safe as Ethernet, NFC or even carrier pigeon.
Until we've seen what software Google is using between the computer and their device, it's far too soon to make any real claims about how secure it is compared to the competition. - Sent by David The Software Engineer
- on friday's round table show, you compared 2FA devices that use Bluetooth to those using USB and NFC. Much of the criticism of Bluetooth was super insightful, specifically the concerns regarding placing your security in a device that can run out of batteries.
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