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The Technocolorshow Theme Song
We Talk Tech, Monday 7-8pm WHCR.org 90.3fm New York
Show Notes, September 8th, 2014
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Samsung’s Galaxy Tab Active is an 8-inch, ruggedized, waterproof tablet Amid a flurry of news about washing machines and massive, bendable televisions, Samsung unveiled a new tablet this morning at its IFA 2014 press briefing in Berlin: an 8-inch, ruggedized tablet named Galaxy Tab Active. “Ruggedized” doesn’t mean much…
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Chrome OS update brings multiple user log-ins and more Folks who share that Chromebook with one or two other people will be happy to download the latest Chrome OS update. The new version adds in Multi Sign-in support that makes logging on with one of a handful of different accounts a breeze. On top of…
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Google’s Megan Smith named America’s new CTO After the announcement that America’s current CTO Todd Park was stepping down, rumors swirled that Google X VP Megan Smith would be next to take the reins. Well, the White House has just made that official — the Washington Post reports that Smith…
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Google settles with the government for $19 million over in-app purchases Don’t think that Apple and Amazon are the only ones currently in the FTC’s crosshairs over their in-app purchasing policies. But while Jeff Bezos and company are fighting tooth and nail, Google has decided simply settle with the government and offer…
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Keep the surveillers at bay with Orwell-inspired clothes If you’ve read George Orwell’s 1984, you know of Big Brother’s constant surveillance tactics. Taking inspiration from the book, and in response to present-day tracking methods, clothing maker The Affair is looking to Kickstart the 1984 Stealth…
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Facebook wants you to double check your privacy settings, again Like it or not, your Facebook profile is one of the first places potential employers go to figure out if you’re a suitable candidate — meaning that your account’s privacy settings can potentially make or break or future. Facebook has been trying to…
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Twitter helps you keep track of NFL action with curated timelines While you’re sitting on the sofa watching your NFL team of choice take the field, you’re likely peeking at a mobile device for updates, too. If that’s the case, Twitter is looking to lend a hand this season with curated timelines for action around…
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Tesla Motors preps for its $35k Model 3 with a new battery factory in Nevada Tesla Motors is going to need to expand production to hit its goal of selling a $35,000 electric vehicle by 2017, and as rumored, today it’s announcing plans for a new plant in Nevada that will help it get there. Several states were in the running to…
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Healthcare.gov was hacked, but none of your sensitive data was stolen Healthcare.gov might have a dedicated team looking after its welfare thanks to its disastrous launch, but it’s still not completely bulletproof. Apparently, the insurance website was hacked in July, and the perpetrator managed to slip in malware that…
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‘The Sims 4’ turns into a pixelated mess if you pirate it Media piracy likely isn’t going away anytime soon, but a few game developers have designed clever ways to deal with it as of late. Take the newly released The Sims 4, for example. In series tradition, just before your virtual people shed their…
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Moto 360 smartwatch on sale now for $250, metal bands coming this fall Motorola’s long-awaited smartwatch is finally ready to be released, at least in the US. After roughly five months since being unveiled, the Moto 360 is due to hit the consumer market at last, one that’s been so patiently awaiting its arrival….
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Thanks to Google you can now take a virtual stroll through Chinese history So far we’ve seen Google’s Cultural Institute feature everything from the father of manga to more traditionally historical fare like Bletchley Park. Its latest exhibit hews closer to the latter, with a keen eye toward Chinese history, featuring some…
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Huawei’s making an Android Wear smartwatch, too Having built up a consumer-facing business over recent years with smartphones and tablets, Huawei made its first move into wearables this year with a fitness tracker-cum-smartwatch (pictured above). The company is far from finished in this burgeoning…
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HTC reportedly pulls the plug on its smartwatch These days it seems like nearly every smartphone maker also has a smartwatch under its belt? Motorola? Sure. LG? It’s got two. Samsung? We don’t even need to go there. HTC has generally seemed content to avoid the fray, but according to a report from…
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Fake cellphone towers hiding in plain sight, intercepting your phone calls In response to the loads of info leaked on government surveillance, a number of ultra-secure handsets have popped up to elude prying eyes. One such option is the CryptoPhone 500 from ESD that’s built on a regular Galaxy S III frame. In a recent…
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We’ve dunked a Kobo Aura H20 in water and it lived to tell the tale When Kobo launched the Aura, the idea of selling a premium e-reader with a top-line price and a big screen was something of a risk compared to the Kindle juggernaut. When the device went on to become responsible for a full quarter of the Canadian…
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MOTA’s vibrating jewelry promises more subtle notifications Do you remember Ringly? The idea behind it was that people would use a vibrating ring to alert you about incoming calls, emails or text messages. If you can imagine that same concept, albeit in a smaller and less gendered package, then you have the…
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Boeing’s drone-killing laser takes down targets with an Xbox controller Boeing has a pretty storied history with lasers and now its testing one that can take out UAVs and rockets regardless of where it’s installed. A recent trial run of the tech was conducted in Florida under some pretty grueling conditions (heavy fog,…
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IKEA takes a jab at Apple in an ad for its latest catalog The biggest target is typically the easiest to hit, and ahead of Apple’s big event next week IKEA’s taking a good-natured swing at Cupertino. To debut its new 2015 catalog, the Swedish furniture company crafted a video that bears more than a passing…
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Android-powered smart hard hat comes with augmented reality features In Los Angeles, a startup called Daqri has designed a different kind of hard hat: an Android-powered one that’s capable of augmented reality. As such, it really looks more like a bike helmet than a hard hat, equipped with sensors, cameras and a…
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Robin Williams gets the World of Warcraft tribute gamers asked for Blizzard promised gamers a tribute to the late, great Robin Williams in one of his favorite titles, World of Warcraft, and it looks like the studio has been quick to act on its word. Just days after Wowhead found hidden character code paying homage…
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Facebook tackles YouTube with video counter, hits a billion plays per day Though it’s still far from YouTube, Facebook fired a shot across its competitor’s bow by saying it now serves up a billion native video views per day. In addition, its latest update (rolling out soon) has a YouTube-like view counter for public…
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Google’s latest object recognition tech can spot everything in your living room Automatic object recognition in images is currently tricky. Even if a computer has the help of smart algorithms and human assistants, it may not catch everything in a given scene. Google might change that soon, though; it just detailed a new…
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Airlines are getting better at spotting and dodging bad weather Turbulence hasn’t gone away, but apparently we experience a lot less of it now than we did a decade ago. The New York Times is reporting that as airlines upgrade their weather systems from telex to tablets, pilots’ ability to avoid choppy sky has…
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Spotify giving 30 minutes of nonstop music if you watch a video ad Though a quarter of Spotify users pay $10 a month to avoid ads, the other 30 million have to put up with them. Now, Spotify is set to roll out a new form of advertising that may ease (or add to) some of that pain: video commercials. There will be two…
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BlackBerry’s upcoming ‘Classic’ smartphone looks like this BlackBerry had no part in the torrent of mobile news that erupted at last week’s IFA tradeshow, but new leaked images remind us the company’s got a fresh batch of smartphones in its pipeline, too. Originating from the Weibo account of a reseller who…
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TiVo proves that ‘size matters’ with absurd 26,000-hour DVR TiVo has taken the TV-watching to a new, insane dimension with the Mega, a rack-mountable, 24TB DVR that will cost around $5,000. That trumps its current flagship Roamio Pro’s 4TB storage by sixfold and makes it look quaint in comparison. Like that…
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Trading ‘presence’ for untethered virtual reality: Gear VR versus Oculus Rift Standing up and moving around with a virtual reality headset is risky. What if you walk into a table? Or step on your dog? Or bash your face into the wall? Standing up and moving around while wearing Samsung and Oculus VR’s Gear VR headset isn’t…
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Ladies and gentlemen, presenting the Selfie Brush Imagine waking up one day, wondering what you’d have done with your life if you hadn’t listened to your parents and gone into the family hairbrush business. “Everyone needs hairbrushes,” they said, waggling a warning finger at your infant face, “it’s…
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PayPal and Coinbase are partnering to enable Bitcoin payments Remember that One Touch mobile payment solution PayPal announced last month? It’s ready — Braintree CEO Bill Ready announced at Disrupt that customers with the PayPal app will have access to mobile payments starting today. The mobile payment…
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Google must offer more to end EU antitrust case A few months back, it looked like that Google was set to avoid fines from the European Commission stemming from a multi-year probe into the outfit burying rival ads in search results. With new “arguments and data,” the competition said it isn’t…
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Take a ride in Honda’s self-driving car (video) One day (soon, according to GM) it won’t be weird to get in a car, go for a drive and see the driver take their hands off of the wheel while the car continues on self-guided. That day isn’t today though, so while I’ve already had demos of “autonomous…
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This Sleep Tracker Actually Tells You Why You Slept Poorly — Design News There are plenty of devices and apps that track your sleep, but not many that explain why you’re waking up. Sense is a ball that sits on your bedside table and records changes in sound and light that might wake you. It corresponds to a “Pill” that clips on to your pillow that records your movement, and an app that gives you a full report of the night, so you you can do something t
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Unboxing the 2015 IKEA Catalog The morning after I touched down from the trip, still groggy from jet lag I heard my doorbell chime ding-dong. I slinked out of bed and answered the door, only to have the delivery guy shove this huge box to my face. I was expecting some materials from the IKEA Malaysia’s Social Media Agency but this … this was heavy! I ripped open the brown paper and the 2015 IKEA catalog in – wait – an Apple box
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The Best Hotel Alternatives (Besides Airbnb) Airbnb has grown to be the most popular alternative to a traditional hotel, but there are other options out there. Here are a few services that share a lot of the same perks. HomeAway, VRBO, TravelMob, and Vacation Rentals HomeAway is the parent company to quite a few Airbnb alternatives, including HomeAway itself. In an effort to appeal to a certain crowd, HomeAway focuses on rentals picked by tr
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Create Customizable GeoMaps with Google Sheets If you want to display a range of data by region, you need a GeoMap. You may not have known this, but it’s quite easy to create your own in Google Sheets after entering your data. Highlight the data and go to Insert > Charts. On the charts tab of the new window you can select maps and choose which type of map you want. On the customize tab you can choose the colors and select which region you want
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The Sims 4’s anti-piracy systems take pixelation to the extreme If you decided to grab a copy of EA’s recently-released simulation game, The Sims 4, without paying for it, you might run in to a few issues playing it. Player Attack reports that some pirates have found themselves battling against the developer’s clever anti-piracy system, which doesn’t prevent you from playing…
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What Everyone Needs: An Eight-Foot LED Light Staff Hackaday.io blogger ‘Risknc’ updates his Light Staff prototype, much to the excitement of the LARPing community. It is a 8-foot staff filled with High Intensity LEDs that put on quite a show.Read more on MAKE
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The Electronic Cigarette Debate: Are They The Future Of Smoking? If I told you that you could smoke two packs of cigarettes a day and no longer face the risk of lung cancer or other ailments usually associated with smoking, would you believe me? Well, if claims by manufacturers of e-cigarettes are true, that’s exactly the case. There are two sides to electronic cigarettes. On the one side, you’ve got organizations traditionally fighting against tobacco companie
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Kickstarting a line of Orwell-inspired clothes with radio-shielding pockets “The 1984 Collection” is a line of clothing for men and women with removable, snap-in pockets that act as radio-shields for slipping your devices and tokens (cards, phones, etc) into to stop them from being read when you’re not using them. Read the rest
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IKEA Products “Appear” in 16th Century Art — Design News We can’t imagine a world before IKEA. Apparently, those classic Swedish designs are truly timeless, since one clever Tumblr is spotting DOCKSTAs and TROGENs in pre-16th century art.
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