DTNS 2278 – iBM

Annie Gaus is on the show and we’ll talk about what Comcast’s customer service rep. call means in the light of monopolies and net neutrality. Plus a little insight into the Uber and Lyft fights, and IBM and Apple partner up.

MP3
Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

A special thanks to all our Patreon supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.
If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here at the low, low cost of a nickel a day on Patreon. Thank you!

Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!
Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!
Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke and scottierowland on the subreddit

Today’s guest: Annie Gaus, technology journalist

Headlines
News From You
  • normgregory and tm204 both submitted articles from Ars Technica and Hollywood Reporter about Dish's victory over Fox in the Hoper lawsuit. Fox had asked for a preliminary injunction and pointed to the Supreme Court's determination that Aereo was a public performance claiming, Dish'slingbox-like service in the Dish hopper was the same thing. On Monday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a district court didn’t abuse discretion by denying Fox’s motion for a preliminary injunction. The underlying case, Fox et al v. Dish et al, will continue to move towards a trial set to begin in federal court in Los Angeles on January 13, 2015.
  • habichuelacondulce posted the Mashable article on leaked Windows screenshots appearing on mydigitallife.info showing the restored Start menus. The size and format of the menu is the same as what Microsoft showed off at the Build conference in April, but the tiles themselves are different. The watermark on the images reads “Windows 8.1 Pro,” and 'confidential' However The forum where the screenshot appeared says it’s from Build 6.4.9788 of Windows 9.
  • michsineath submitted the GeekWire story that Transportation startups like UberX, Lyft, and Sidecar will finally be able to legally operate in Seattle. The City Council there voted 8-1 to approve a new law providing a regulatory framework for Transportation Network Companies. The 150 vehicle cap has been removed, insurance requirements adjusted and 200 taxi licenses added over the next four years. 
Discussion Section:

Pick of the Day: FB Purity

Dan White in mostly rainy Bristol, UK has our pick of the day: Hi Tom, I’ve been following the comments about Facebook and the annoying way that they mess with your news feed, changing the order and stuffing unwanted junk in to annoy you. I’d like to recommend a free browser plug in called “FB purity“. I like to think of it as what Facebook would look like if they didn’t hate their users! It’s compatible with Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, Opera and Maxton.

It has an awesome collection of features, including:

Force news feed onto chronological order. Block in line video playback. Hide or block posts based on keywords or phrases (handy for those Game of Thrones spoiler posting idiot friends) Revert news feed to single column. Stop external links from being tracked by Facebook. Block applications directly from your news feed. Receive an alert if someone de-friends you. And lots more.

Naturally Facebook hates this idea and regularly tweaks their code to overcome some features, even claiming that it is “unsafe” (well they would, wouldn’t they!). However, the plug in is inevitably updated almost immediately to restore sanity to your experience.

I don’t work for or have any connection to the FB Purity coders. I just think it’s an awesome plug in, and apparently about 160,000 other people agree with me.

EXTRA Message: TVsEgon has posted tons of Nerdtacular pics to a dropbox. You can find the link in the subreddit or the show notes!


Episode: http://archive.org/download/DTNS20140715/DTNS20140715.mp3