Episode 22: Talking Ducks In Japan

May 30, 2012 by justin | 18 Comments

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This week: Facebook’s terrible IPO, the dangers of using Android and why Kaspersky is angry with Apple. All this and so much more in episode 22 of Technophilia: Talking Ducks in Japan.

Justin recommends you check out ReadLists, which lets you compile lists of articles to share with friends. The lists can be downloaded to your Kindle, iPhone/iPad or any device that can open an EPUB. Check out this list of stories featured in this week’s episode. Dave is still playing Diablo 3. And James is too busy setting up MakeUseOf Rewards, which launches June 1, to use or play anything.

You’ll also hear Justin’s thoughts on advertising, and how it probably shouldn’t be the cornerstone on which the entire Internet is placed. James disagrees.

Here are our quick hits:

The RIAA sued Limewire for $72 trillion, say James and a few unreliable sources. That’s more money than exists on earth, which would be impressive except…
…the above story is total nonsense, according to the original source everyone misinterpreted.
A summary judgement rules that a Kelora owned software patent filed in the 1990’s for parametric search (ie, searching with more than one parameter) is too obvious to be patented.
Facebook’s IPO is the worst first week of any in 10 years, and only seems to be getting worse.
Google revealed tons of DMCA takedown requests, revealing some stupidity. Warner brothers demands takedown of the IMDB listing for Wrath of the Titans, as well as movie trailer from Hulu and iTunes.
In a related story: several pages Microsoft requested Google take down for piracy reasons can still be found on Bing.
Microsoft launched SO.CL, a new social network where you basically share search results. It kind of sucks.
People still like to jailbreak their iOS devices. We break down the numbers.
Google officially acquired Motorola, meaning the Droid is now a Google product. James doesn’t know what the Droid is.

And our actual headlines:

TV networks sue Dish Network for auto-skipping ads. Dish Network is counter-suing, because that’s something you can do apparently.
Reddit, WordPress, Craig from Craigslist and others form the “Internet Defense League” to fight SOPA-like legislation. Can they keep up enthusiasm indefinitely?
Factory wiping an Android phone doesn’t actually delete stuff securely, so resellers beware.
Kaspersky is angry that Apple won’t let them make anti-virus software for the iPhone. Should they be?
If you feel your phone vibrating only to find out it didn’t, you might have cell phone vibrate syndome. It’s time to unplug.
NVidia is going to make tablets, apparently.

Finally, the gaming news:

Diablo 3 won’t have a real money auction system anytime soon.
There’s actually a physical passowrd device, like the ones used for banking, that you can use to login to battle.net. Security!
Activision and a few ex Infinity Ward guys are going to court. Dave offers an amazing legal analysis.

And we answer Dave Parrack’s question about E3. In summary: it will be boring, as always.

15 comments

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koshyg15

We get HBO with adds in India.

DomTC

1 Like

Nice episode as usual, certainly a welcome break in the middle of GCSE's!

I saw so.cl being mentioned twice when it was 1st released (1st through my own research and 2nd on MUO) but nothing since - has any one who does not actually work at Microsoft signed up to it (or whatever you do...)?

I don't believe I am affected by advertising (although I probably am) but I can appreciate a entertaining / interesting advert. I do not and have never used an ad blocking script. When I used to write and publish content on the web, I believed it would have been hypocritical for me to block ads yet complain if other people did it when reading my content. I also think that, at the end of the day, I am getting some really good content for free and it's the least I can do to have a advert appear on the page. In terms of adverts for physical products, I am much more likely to change company due to a positive review as opposed to a televised advert.

My GREAT idea to fund you: Set up a kickstarter to have Dave banned from the internet. It would fund Technophilia for life! :D

I would like to play Diable 3 but do to being at a boarding school, I can not play any online games. That would mean I could only play from Saturday afternoon (after lessons in the morning) to Sunday mid afternoon (before a Sunday chapel thing that evening). As such, it is not worth buying at the moment - it does look/sound great from what I have seen.

I have a question for next week: How did you each get involved with tech and tech blogging etc.?

PS:

James, nice commenting system - Was it easy to implement into Wordpress (which I believe you are using...)?

Also James (- I guess): Have you seen the CodeClub charity (www.codeclub.org.uk)? If so, what do you think of the idea?

James Bruce moderator

1 Like

@DomTC Very easy to implement, and the admin interface is far superior. Just install the plugin, and link to livefyre account. Literally no other config needed. I've activated on a few of my own blogs now; getting all comments in one place is awesome.

Hadn't seen codeclub, thanks for the tip. It's difficult to comment on it though as it hasn't launched anything solid yet; in principle, I think the idea is fantastic. I'd love to look at the curriculum they come up with. It's certainly something I might sign up to help out as a teacher for, though I'd need quite a bit more arduino skills. I've been meaning to start a boardgame club first though, so I should really try and get that started. There's a distinct lack of community support for anything like that in the UK, I think.

Added your question to the list; though we're having some scheduling difficulties this week with Dave at e3, and venus passing across the sun, or something. ;)

Latest blog post: Splut

DomTC

@James Bruce I definitely agree about lack of community support - I have never seen anything similar,

By the way, what do the numbers next to names mean, you and I have 5 pts (I am presuming points) and @jhpot has 6?

DomTC

@James Bruce @jhpot Thats what I thought, except the fact you started on 5 confused me! Anyway, you can have 6 too! Likes for everyone!

James Bruce moderator

@DomTC @jhpot Likes, I think. Now you have 6 too!

Latest blog post: Splut

jhpot moderator

1 Like

Whoa, new commenting system. James put his British four-day weekend to good use.

jamie

1 Like

They sprung that on me, that isn't fair! You should hear my Hermione accent, that's way better.... I assume during a Zombie apocalypse, said Nokia will be thrown at larger targets?

scutterman

I'm terrible at all accents, never got the hang of them. During a Zombie Apocalypse said Nokia will be used as a communications device until the cell towers go down. The battery life will undoubtedly outlast my HTC, and it being indestructible makes it a good long-term option.

scutterman

I think I'm fairly immune to advertising, probably partly due to a poor memory. If I see an advert, I'll have forgotten about it by the end of the ad break (or by the time I leave the page) so I never really spend any more money no matter how much advertising I see. Even really good adverts (like the Honda "Hate Something / Change Something" advert) don't make me want to buy the product any more, I just appreciate the fact that I'm not completely bored for 30 seconds. Having said that, I've started watching the ads of content I record, on the basis that advertising creates this content at no cost to me. On a similar note, Sony have a patent (Created in 2006 and updated at the end of last year) to allow them to insert advertising content into "interactive media". Mainly games, which they went into in great detail including solutions for multi-player and networked games, but they also said about dvd players, blu-ray players, media centres, media servers, and essentially any hardware they produce that will play media. Patent is at http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=20110274409.PGNR. I tend not to sell my phones. I'm a techno hoarder and still have a Nokia 3310 that I plan to use in the upcoming Zombie Apocalypse and any other number of situations. If I did plan to sell my phone, however, I would use a third-party app to ensure it was securely wiped. I used to get phantom vibrations all the time, but now recently it's been happening less often. It may be because I rely on the text alert / ringing more than the vibration now, since HTC allows it to play sounds louder when it's in my pocket. James' "BBC Accent" sounded more like Kryten from Red Dwarf. No offence :) Potential specs for both the PS4 and the xBox 720 have been leaked, neither seems too spectacular. I'm sticking to PC gaming for now.

Dave Parrack

Thanks for discussing E3, guys, even with the sarcasm from Mr. LeClair ;) I'm got a sneaking suspicion Microsoft is going to tease new hardware, but it's based on a hunch more than anything. I don't think they'll harm 360 sales by doing so because new customers are likely to be the mainstream buying it for Kinect, and they won't care that a successor is imminent. If that makes sense. I think this year's E3 is going to be a good one... by the usual E3 standards. Expect a new question for next week... whether you want it or not. Oh, and you're still getting my name wrong. Tch.

jamie

We actually had a lengthy discussion about your name, because these bloody fools just don't get it. I had to cut that bit though. Hopefully they've learnt now. I read rumors of the ps3 successor today, to be launched late 2013. It was from the wall street journal or something respectable. That makes the possibility of it being teased at e3 a little more likely, but I'm still going with no on either.

Dave Parrack

Tch, Americans ;) You're probably better off just referring to me as "a listener" instead of by name anyway, at least until more people start submitting discussion topics!

I'd lay good money on both consoles launching before Christmas 2013. Sony was considering going all-digital and removing the optical disc drive. I don't think the world if ready for that yet, although I'm guessing you'll disagree as you sold all your DVDs.

Dave Parrack

@James Bruce You're completely right. Unfortunately they won't do that because they're money-grabbing dicks. Unlike books, which I still like owning physical copies of, I have no innate desire to own copies of games. There is a rumor Sony is doing a deal with OnLive for streaming, which would be an even bigger departure from what we're used to.

James Bruce moderator

If the distribution costs were taken off the price (physical media, store front cut etc), then people would absolutely buy all-digital. It's this dumbassery of pricing them the same that leads everyone to think, "well fuck it, I might as well get an actual *thing* if I'm paying the same anyway".

Latest blog post: Pilot Episode - In the backend

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$72 Trillion: You Can’t Believe Everything You Read on the Internet [Opinion] | betaSir - We love software says:

July 4, 2012 at 9:23 am

[...] good friend and fellow MakeUseOf writer James reported this news as fact on Technophila. I corrected him on air: I found out the story was fake by Googling “$72 Trillion”. By [...]

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Episode 22: Talking Ducks In Japan

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