Episode 2193 - Wear IT

Don Reisinger joins Tom to chat about Android Wear, the new line of clothing from– wait– nope just another smart watch platform. Does this one catch your eye or wrist?



Or you can download the MP3 version here.

Headlines

 * Wear IT: GigaOM reports Google’s SVP for Android Sundar Pichai took to the Google Blog to announce Android Wear, an implementation of the mobile operating system for wearables. Of course the wearables demonstrated were watches. The system uses Google Now to surface information the wearer needs, responds to voice commands triggered by the “OK Google” phrase and also does fitness tracking. A preview SDK is up at developer.android.com/wear. Expect more on the SDK at Google I/O in June. Lots of partners were announced but LG went ahead and said it’s G Watch will arrive next quarter and Motorola’s Moto 360 should come this summer. Plus it’s actually round. Like a watch.


 * MYSTIC Leakza: The Verge posted about the Washington Post’s latest Snowden leak story about an NSA tool called MYSTIC. The tool can record 100% of a country’s phone calls and play back any individual call for up to 30 days. It’s like the DISH hopper but for private conversations! The system launched in 2009 and became fully operational in 2011 and is deployed in at least one country, with at least six others others up for consideration.


 * Peace in our time!  Ars Technica reports Google and Viacom have settled the Viacom vs. YouTube copyright case. In fact they seem to be buddies now since the joint statement said they look forward to working more closely together. Vicaom filed the suit against Google in 2007, alleging YouTube operated outside the parameters of safe harbor. Most judges along the way didn’t agree. The seven years of fighting the suit can be indirectly held responsible for the amazing google robot that helps takedown potentially infringing content like news reports, public domain photos, and garage band music loops.


 * The Next Web reports on Mozilla and Unity announcing plans to bring Unity games to the Web without needing to install plugins or extensions


 * ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley reports Microsoft has scheduled a March 27th press briefing in San Francisco at 10 AM Pacific with news, “focused on the intersection of cloud and mobile computing.”CEO Satya Nadella will kick off the briefing, which will be WebCast. Foley, and the rest of the Internet, speculate Microsoft Office for the iPad could be the centerpiece of the briefing. Sources tell her that the iPad version of Office will include Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, be downloadable from Apple’s app store, and require an Office 365 subscription.


 * Also TechCrunch reported this happened today. In Gregory Ferenstein’s words:“Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin hung out with whistleblower Edward Snowden, who was attending the TED conference via a telepresence robot.” TED will post an interview with Snowden soon.


 * The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is building modules that will allow the military to capture solar power in orbit and project it back down to Earth, potentially capturing more energy than ground-based solar collectors. The power would be beamed back to the ground using high-energy radio waves. In other news, Australian researchers want to beam lasers into space to clean up space junk. This is all good as long as the scientists, remember not to cross the streams.

News From You

 * MikePKennedy pointed us to our daily Amazon set-top box/dongle rumor, this time from the Verge passing along WSJ sources. Amazon will begin selling its mythical dongle in early April on its own site as well as in Best Buy and Staples.


 * tekkyn00b submitted the 9to5 Google post where they explain they’ve heard Google’s going to get rid of Google Voice and incorporate most of its functionality into Google + hangouts.The hangouts app already allows voice calls over the app, but if Voice was folded in, the hangouts app could be able to make and receive VoiP calls to and from traditional phone numbers. Google has already rolled in it’s messaging and Android SMS functions into the hangouts app.


 * KAPT_Kipper posted the CNNMoney story of the curious case of a Turkish developer named Ibrahim Balic, who was testing a vulnerability in the Google Play store and it worked. WAY too well.IN fact it crashed the Google Developer Console which is used to submit new apps and app updates. Balic told CNNMoney he did not have malicious aims, he just wanted to be sure about the vulnerability. He has contacted Google about the issue he discovered. Balic previously claimed to be behind the attempted hack of Apple’s Developer Center last summer.


 * BullioMarf submitted the gog.com announcement that the game website will support Linux. Initital evidence of the support will be in GOG.com website support for Ubuntu and Mint. They hope to come with 100 Linux games ready for people to play this autumn. Games the website sells that already have Linux clients will be the easy ones to include but they also promise a variety of classics as well.

Discussion Section Links

 * http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2014/03/sharing-whats-up-our-sleeve-android.html
 * http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57620495-94/lg-to-launch-g-watch-with-android-wear/
 * http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/03/the-moto-360-is-the-first-android-wear-device-has-a-round-display/
 * http://recode.net/2014/03/18/google-announces-android-wear-its-plan-for-the-smart-watch-and-beyond/
 * http://developer.android.com/wear/design/index.html

Pick of the Day

 * Pocketcasts
 * "Hey Tom, I wasn’t planning on sending another one of these for a while but yesterday, what I consider the best podcasting app on Android, Pocket Casts. Pocketcasts got updated with Chromecast support (iOS update coming soon). But the real reason I am recommending it is that the Daily Tech News Show is one of the featured podcast on the Chromecast standby image that you see on the television between podcasts. For that alone it gets my tip of the hat. Love the show, Marlon"""


 * - AND -


 * "Hi Tom and Jennie!"
 * "I have a suggestion for a pick, one that seems very appropriate for DTNS. Pocketcasts is one of the best podcast apps on Android and iOS (I’m listening to a DTNS episode with it as I type this)."
 * "It’s been around for a while and offers sync between devices, great for if you have a phone and tablet that you both use for podcasts, supports audio, video, playlists, everything you would expect."
 * "I mention it because it was just recently updated to add chromecast support, which is a pretty nice add for it, especially on video podcasts."
 * "It is how I’ve been consuming content created by Tom for years, and I imagine that many of the listeners use some kind of podcast app, and this one is absolutely worth checking out."