Episode 2229 – Wii U Buy Me?

Pelle Eklund, founder of hockeybuzz.com, and Tom talk about whether proposed net neutrality regulations are already slowing investment and why an LG fridge that text messages you is actually a step backward for tech.



Or you can download the MP3 version here.

Headlines

 * You WILL be more organized: The Verge reports Evernote announced an expanded partnership with LinkedIn for better address book organization and improved business card scanning in the iOS app. Evernote’s scanner will pull information from LinkedIn as well as add time and place of the contact. LinkedIn will start directing folks to Evernote for card scanning rather than its own CardMunch app which is shutting down July 11th.


 * Bring it, Amazon: GigaOm notes Google is buying StackDriver, which monitors cloud workload, especially for customers of Amazon Web Services. Google has been trying to build up its own cloud platform to compete with Amazon.


 * The gatekeeper is gone: Most of you will not care at all that Apple’s VP of worldwide communications, Katie Cotton is retiring after more than 18 years at the company. But this is big news for journalists who have deal with Apple PR. Apple told Re/code Cotton wants to spend more time with her children.


 * To the cloud, Jeeves! ZDNet reports that HP is the latest to get on the open source OpenStack cloud platform. HP will invest $1 billion in cloud computing and add openstack in 20 data centers over the next 18 months. HP is joining NASA, Rackspace, IBM and others in promoting Openstack and running your own private cloud as an alternative to the Amazon and Google’s of the world and their public clouds. Insert “get off my cloud” joke here for those over 30. Convert to &#8216;cloud rap&#8217; subgenre reference for others.


 * Google HONGRY: TechCrunch reports Google is buying Appetas, a site that helps restaurants build their own websites, even integrating services like GrubHub and OpenTable as well as social networks in an easy, cost-effective manner. Google plans to shut the service down.


 * From bad to worse: Ars Technica reports Nintendo— oh Nintendo. Wii U sales missed fiscal year projections by 80,000 to come in at 2.8 million. Nintendo went into the fiscal year expecting to sell 9 million. Hey, but the 3DS sold 12.2 million units still below the 13.5 million projected. Nintendo also lost money. Lots and lots of money. ¥46.4 billion, the third straight annual loss. Hey, but Nintendo has three things going for them. Mario, Zelda and no debt!


 * Because the world needs more selfies: CNET reports on Huawei’s launch of the Ascen P7 smartphone. It’s a 5-inch Android phone with 1920&#215;1080 display running Huawei’s Emotion interface. But the big feature is the 8-megapixel front-facing camera. Yep. Front-facing, rear one has 13 megapixels. But 8 megapixels should give you some nice high-res selfies. Just in time for selfies to become passé. Which is why Huawei made up a new word to describe group selfies like Ellen would take at an awards cermonies. Groufies. Huawei would like you to call those groufies. The phone will be available initially in June in dozens of European and Asian countries for a price of 449 euros (US$625) unlocked.


 * The Internets wins the world: The Verge passes along data from a UN ITU report that the Internet will have 3 billion active users, about 40% of the world’s population, by the end of this year. Active means they used the Internet once in the past three months, not just had access to it. Three out of four people in Europe will be using the Internet by the end of the year, compared to two out of three in the Americas and one in three in Asia and the Pacific. In Africa, nearly one in five people will be online by the end of the year. Mobile phone subscriptions should reach 7 billion and mobile internet subscriptions should make up 2.3 billion.


 * Ooooh, pretty! io9 reports on a team led by Mark Vogelberger at MIT using a network of supercomputers have created the Illustris Simulation, which models how the universe expands, how galaxies are formed, and the mechanics of how stars and black holes are formed. Also, it looks AMAZING. The results of the simulation will also be detailed in an article in Nature coming out tomorrow and you can see it at the website, http://www.illustris-project.org/.

News From You

 * spsheridan had our top story of today on the subreddit. BGR reports Al Franken, my friends, has made a video promoting a website called noslowlane.com. The US Senator is trying to rally opposition to the FCC regulations that would allow comercially reasonable traffic prioritization. He uses Google Video vs. YouTube as an example of the open Internet working to make a scrappy up and comer defeat a behemoth incumbent. ‘Cause Google Video sucked and YouTube was better and so Google bought YouTube and killed Google Video and YouTube might have never got off the ground if it had to pay commercially reasonable video rates to a bunch of ISPs.


 * tm204 pointed out that App.net has good news. They’re profitable and self-sustaining thanks to paid subscriptions for the social network. App.net will continue to operate normally on an indefinite basis.Without any employees. Yeah the bad news is to be profitable App.net can’t have any full time employees, including the founders. So they’re all gone. The company will get by with contracters and will be open sourcing a larger and larger percentage of the App.net codebase.


 * tekkyn00b gave us the Verge story thatRussia’s President signed a law requiring any blogger with more than 3,000 readers to register with the Roskomnadzor, Russia’s media agency. The law covers microblogs and social networks as well. Registered writers will be responsible for fact-checking and are forbidden from harming the reputation of a person or group or hiding or falsifying “information of general interest.&#8221; Writers will also be required to publish their surname, initials, and email address.


 * MikePKennedy submitted the Verge story that the US Navy announced the Navy eReader Device, yep, abbreviated as NeRD. It’s an e-ink tablet with no Internet, no removable storage, and come preloaded with 300 books that will never change. The Navy doesn’t allow devices like iPads which have cameras and emit signals that could be detected.


 * And here's some breaking good news ABOUT calendars! It only took 90 minutes to fund the kickstarter to bring [upcoming.org Upcoming.org] back to life. Remember Upcoming? The terrific arts and tech calendar site that yahoo bought in 2005 and then ignored and then sunsetted in 2007? Well Yahoo allowed the Andy Baio, the sites original creator to buy back the domain, and then today, 90 minutes after he launched the kickstarter it was funded. Jennie, who writes up the calendar each day is VERY happy about this. YAY!

Discussion Section Links

 * http://www.technologyreview.com/news/527006/talk-of-an-internet-fast-lane-is-already-hurting-some-startups/
 * http://bgr.com/2014/05/07/senator-franken-net-neutrality-campaign/
 * http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27308869

Pick of the Day

 * Google Keep via Vance McAllister
 * "Vance McAllister has our pick of the day: Tom, as you might guess, my pick is a Google app, but one that tends to fly under the radar despite doing one simple thing very well. Although I am a dedicated Evernote user, I have been finding myself using Keep more and more without any overlap. Whereas Evernote is my digital file cabinet, I use Keep as digital Post-It Notes. It is fast and easy to pull up on a phone or computer to jot down a name, number, create a quick list, or anything that I need to save for later. Then, just like a Post-It Note, that information is usually used and discarded. Anything important enough to keep still goes into Evernote, but I am not cluttering Evernote up with these small, temporary bits and pieces. The Keep interface on Android and iOS is clean, simple and attractive, and there is even a standalone Chrome App for Windows and Mac in addition to the web interface. Since it is free and available on every platform, I encourage folks to give it a go! Vance, from the increasingly hot California desert."