Episode 338 – Aussie Tech Heads Shownotes

posted in: Show Notes

GLENN’S SHOWNOTES

The power of one wrong tweet

 

On Tuesday, hackers took over the Associated Press Twitteraccount and falsely claimed that there had been explosions at the White House and that the president was hurt. The tweet was up for a few minutes and retweeted more than 3,000 times before Twitter took the account offline.

 

The AP immediately confirmed the news was not true, but the tweet was up long enough to send a shudder through the stock market, which plunged 143 points before recovering.

 

There is no way to edit or append a correction to a tweet, and once it has been retweeted, those 140 characters take on a life of their own. A follow-up tweet with the correct information might not be seen by the same people.

 


 

LulzSec ‘leader’ arrested on Central Coast

Australian Federal Police confirmed they arrested the unnamed 24-year-old man from Point Clare yesterday.

The man was charged with hacking offences, and is alleged to have defaced a Government website. He is the first alleged member of the LulzSec group to be arrested by the AFP.

 

The AFP said the man was an IT professional and held a “position of trust” within his unnamed company, with access to “sensitive information from clients including government agencies”.

 

His knowledge and skills presented “a significant risk to the clients of the company for which he was employed had he continued his illegal online activities,” police said.

LulzSec claimed responsibility for a series of high-profile attacks against government agencies and large corporations during 2011.

 

Another Lulsec member ‘Recursion’ who had pled guilty in April last year for an attack on Sony Pictures.  Other members have pled guilty including leader ‘Sabu’.


 

Kogan Mobile and ispONE to face off in court

Kogan Mobile and Telstra wholesaler ispONE are set to have their day in court, after mediation between the two failed to deliver any agreement.

ispONE plans to lodge a counterclaim this week, arguing Kogan Mobile’s decision to promote “unlimited” plans meant it was engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct, thereby breaching the master wholesale agreement. ***But remember last week, ‘unlimited’ was in the ISP contract to Kogan ?!!****

 

The trial is expected to commence on Monday in the Victorian Supreme Court.  Bang head together

 


Surface Pro Aussie launch date firms

Microsoft is set to release its Surface Pro tablet in Australia next month, way ahead of schedule

No local pricing available as yet but

The Windows 8 tablet sells for US$899 ($A862) for the 64GB model and $US999 (A$968) for the 128GB model in the US.


Click Frenzy goes AWS

The organisers behind shopping event Click Frenzy have dumped hosting provider UltraServe for Amazon Web Services (AWS) in a bid to avoid the embarassing glitches which marred last year’s November debut.

The end of year Click Frenzy sale was Australia’s answer to the Cyber Monday event in the United States, offering discounted products and services from over 200 retailers.

 

The website experienced a high volume of traffic and was inaccessible within minutes of going live, staying down for the first three hours of the 24 hour sale.

 


 

Twitter launches Aussie-powered music app

Twitter has launched a stand-alone music-streaming app, opening another front in the micromessaging service’s ambitious expansion into multimedia content.

 

The iPhone app, called #music, will recommend and stream songs based on who users follow on Twitter and artists’ recommendations. The songs will be streamed via Rdio and Spotify, the subscription-based music services, and iTunes, Apple’s music store.

 

The app is based on technology developed by an Australian start-up called We are Hunted.

 

#music will be available in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Ireland, Australia and New Zealand beginning Friday local time – tomorrow!

 


Perth-Singapore undersea cable repaired

Repairs to the Perth to Singapore leg of an undersea cable that was cut in January this year have finally been completed, with connectivity restoredyesterday at 11am WST, according to Australian ISPs using the link.

Taking almost four months to complete, the restoration of the 480 gigabit per second SEA-ME-WE 3 cable were hampered by Indonesian government red tape that stopped the repair ship from operating in that country’s waters.


Get your own Doctor Who inspired TARDIS fridge for $185

artists and engineers B.E.Johnson and Joy Alyssa Day who will gladly make you your very own TARDIS refrigerator for just $185.

It also comes with an optional audio module to make Tardis-y noises for $12 and side skins for $65. Also the designers will install an icemaker inside the telephone floor for $14. That is one classy TARDIS fridge.


 

Durex app makes cybersex a real thing

Durex has invented an app that lets people have cyber sex “with touch” over the internet.

The company designed a pair of “fundaware”, men and women’s undies which are equipped with technology that mimics human touch and is controlled by the app.

The stunt is part of a global PR campaign called “the future of foreplay” which launched two days ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qb7DN3kpl2o#!

 


 

New challenges for iTunes as it celebrates a decade in business

 

iTunes celebrates its 10-year mark on Sunday,

 

SHAYNE’S SHOWNOTES

 

Microsoft to unveil ‘new generation’ Xbox in May

 

http://www.news.com.au/technology/microsoft-to-unveil-new-generation-xbox-in-may/story-e6frfro0-1226629089310

 

MICROSOFT is expected to unveil in May a successor to Xbox 360 videogame consoles that have been evolving into hubs for home entertainment in the digital age.

 

Microsoft sent out invitations Wednesday to a May 21 event at its main campus in Redmond, Washington at which Xbox team will reveal a “new generation.”

 

Industry tracker NPD Group reported last week that as of the end of March, the Xbox 360 had been the top-selling console in the United States for 20 consecutive months.

 

More than 70 million Xbox 360 consoles have been sold worldwide since they were introduced in November 2005.

 

A new-generation Xbox would take the field against the latest offerings from Sony and Nintendo.

 

3 Awesome And Inspiring Inventions From The White House Science Fair

 

http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/22/3-awesome-and-inspiring-inventions-from-the-white-house-science-fair/

 

1. A 3D-Printed, Mind-Controlled Prosthetic – 17-year-old Easton LaChappelle has created a mind-controlled prosthetic arm for the low price of $250, thanks to parts cheaply replicated from a 3D printer.

 

2. Cancer Detection – Google Global Science Fair Winner, 17-year-old Brittany Wenger, found a low-cost way to radically increase early cancer detection.

 

3. Tactile sound – Eighth-grade Californian Jonah Kohn developed a tactile-sound device to help the hearing impaired enjoy music.

 

Nowhere to hide if you’re not at school

 

http://www.news.com.au/technology/biztech/nowhere-to-hide-if-youre-not-at-school/story-fn5lic6c-1226626214100

 

A new smartphone app which enables parents and schools to locate missing students with GPS technology will be available in schools from June 3.

 

The software mines daily attendance data for students listed as missing without an explanation and links their parents’ mobile phone to the app called MGM PinPoint, pre-installed on the student’s phone.

 

Parents receive an SMS alert about the absence and a link to a Google map showing the location of the student at that time, but only during school hours and only if the student’s phone is switched on.

 

Improving attendance rates – which are as low as 70 per cent in some areas – has become a critical factor in lifting the academic performance across the state, particularly in disadvantaged areas.

 

MGM Wireless – which developed the technology – said the app would be free to the 1000 Australian schools already paying for its SMS service, which sends an automated message to parents about absences.

 

This includes 180 NSW schools but principals will have the choice to opt out of the GPS technology feature.

 

For an extra cost principals can receive a map showing the location of every student with an unexplained absence that day.

 

Federation of Parents and Citizens of NSW spokeswoman Rachael Sowden said parents wanted to know the whereabouts of their children but tracking them using GPS technology raised privacy issues.

 

Newcastle mother Judy Morgan said her daughter Sasha’s school dealt with absences by sending a letter to the parents: “I guess (the usefulness of the app) would probably depend on the child, if there were issues and you needed to do that for their safety then it could be OK, but generally with my girls I wouldn’t want to do that.”

 

Newly Discovered Android Malware Was Downloaded Millions Of Times

 

http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/20/newly-discovered-android-malware-was-downloaded-millions-of-times/

 

Security firm Lookout has detailed a clever new bit of Android Malware lurking in the Google Play store. The good news: unless you’re downloading questionable Russian clone apps, you’re probably not affected. The bad news: that hasn’t kept it from being downloaded a few million times.

 

The new malware, fittingly dubbed “BadNews”, has been spotted tucked into 32 different apps from 4 separate developer accounts. Since Google Play only gives download numbers as huge ranges, no one can say exactly how many devices this has affected. With the lowball estimates, it’s around two million. On the high end, it’s as many as nine million. In reality, it’s somewhere in between the two.

Steve Wozniak: ‘Apple is working on new products that will surprise and shock us all’

 

http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/459776/steve_wozniak_apple_working_new_products_will_surprise_shock_us_all_/

 

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has said that he is confident that Apple will launch new products that will “surprise and shock us all,” and help boost the company’s “disappointing” share price higher than the 16-month low it fell to last week.

 

“Apple’s stock is a little low right now,” Wozniak said at the Login technology conference on Friday. “Over time I’ve seen Apple go up or down 2x over a few months. It’s very disappointing because if you look at the amount of cash that translates to one to two hundred dollars per share of stock just in cash form. So the expectations are a little lower even than they expect.”

 

On Thursday, Apple’s share price declined to $392.05, wiping 44.16% or $310.05 off the value of each AAPL share since September 2012 (the stock closed at $702.10) on 19 September), and dropping to its lowest level since December 2011. SEE: What’s happening to Apple’s share price?

 

“But where are the profits of the whole industry though?” Wozniak continued. “They are still with Apple and profits are all that really matter in the long run. Apple’s business model tends to be new products, even products that didn’t exist before and doing well out of them and not re-making the same thing, as eventually it just gets a little bit stale. So I would guess that Apple is very well prepared, and working on new things that are going to surprise and shock us all. And I honestly don’t know [what].”

 

Also during his talk, Wozniak also said that he expects the future will see computers that can think for us. “Computers should save us from a lot of thinking, like calculating numbers,” he said. “When electronic calculators came about they freed our minds to think of other things and enables us to get where we are today.”

 

Eventually, computers will be able to deliver us “to a place of perfect happiness,” Wozniak predicted, adding that voice recognition will become more popular and powerful in the future.

 

“The iPhone 5 is one of the hottest products today,” Wozniak said, reminiscing about his time working with Steve Jobs. “Back then, the HP35 hand-held calculator was the iPhone 5 of its day.”

 

“I gave up trying to guess a long time ago,” said Wozniak when talking about what the future may hold for Apple. “There can be rumours which are false, or something gets cancelled. I never ask key insiders at Apple what they are about to come out with.”

 

Wozniak said he hopes that, one day, he’ll be able to buy a robot that can clean his car at night in the garage.

 

 

 

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