Eric Franklin from CNET joins us to talk about the new iPads out today and the future of tablets in general.
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Show Notes
Today’s guest: Eric Franklin, Cnet section editor covering how-to and tablets / co-host of CNET’s The Fix
Headlines
ReCode reports Twitter unveiled a developer toolkit called Fabric at Flight, the company’s first mobile developer’s conference. Fabric has three main parts. Crashlytics SDK helps devs fix any app’s stability. The MoPub SDK helps devs implement Twitter’s MoPub advertising in apps. And the Twitter SDK which as you might expect, allows Twitter posts to be embedded in apps, but ALSO has a password-free authentication mechanism called Digits. Rather than use a Twitter account, Digits can create an account for any service using only a phone number.
Google has a new email app called “Inbox” from the same people who built Gmail. TechCrunch reports that the Inbox app is designed to present information from your emails in a helpful context; it shares similar features with Google Now. “Inbox” Features include “Bundles” a way to group similar types of emails together, like receipts; “Highlights” which flags the user to upcoming events and all those links to articles your mom sends you; as well as Reminders, Assists and Snoozes. Best of all, it’s available cross-platform, however, as an app for iOS, web and Android, but only in the Chrome browser.
The Next Web reports Microsoft released the final build of it’s Kinect SDK 2.0 for Windows. For the first time, developers can publish Kinect apps tot he Windows store. The second-generation Kinect for Windows was released in July. Microsoft also announced a $49.99 adapter kit which can make the Xbox version of Kinect work with Windows.
Those of you waiting for the first Apple Pay glitch can relax now, or get excited if you’re a hater I guess. Bloomberg reports about 1,000 transaction made with Apple Pay were mistakenly duplicated. A processing mistake between BofA and one payment network, not Apple, was to blame according to a person familiar with the matter. A Bank of America spokeswoman apologized and said the company was correcting the mistake immediately.
TechCrunch reports on an app called PhotoMath from MicroBlink that can take a picture of a math problem and deliver the steps for solving it. While the app could be very attractive to math students, Microblink says it does not want to get into the education market but merely show off what its machine vision technology can do. The company provides ready-to-use SDKs for particular use cases, such as bill payments or equation solving. But I think I can prove students will find the demo very compelling.
The Verge reports Apple’s Tim Cook and Chinese vice premier Ma Kai met today. The Xinhua news agency says the pair “exchanged views on protection of users’ information” and “strengthening cooperation in information and communication fields.” No mention was made of the iCloud attacks alleged to be coming from within China, although Apple has acknowledged “intermittent organized network attacks.” Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is also in Beijing to visit Tsinghua University where he has been appointed a member of the School of Economics and Management’s advisory board.
TechCrunch reports Xiomi’s Hugo Barra announced the company will migrate international user data to servers outside of China. Barra believes the migration will cut network request latency for users in India by up to 350ms, and help users in Malaysia to experience 2-3x faster Mi Cloud photosync. Xiomi brings in a large part if its revenue from software services. MIUI services will be housed in Amazon AWS data centers in Oregon and Singapore with more locations being considered.
Samsung and Barnes & Noble are teaming up again with a tablet called the Galaxy Tab 4 Nook 10.1, because that’s a snappy name! According to Engadget, it’s essentially the same build and design as the Galaxy Tab 4, but with Barnes and Noble apps including Nook Library and Nook Shop. The cost is $199 after instant rebate and includes $200 worth of free book-related content.
News From You
UKtechBlogger sent us a New York Times article about the Hungarian government’s desire to tax the Internet. The draft bill in the Hungarian parliament would tax Internet providers 150 forints (that’s about 60 US cents) per gigabyte of data traffic. The economic minister says it will raise up to 20 billion in revenue. Fixed-line Internet traffic in Hungary was 1.15 billion gigabytes in 2013 plus another 18 million in mobile internet which is more like 175 billion forints. So maybe there’s going to be a cap on the total amount? Either way, Hungarian citizens are not happy, and have planned a rally on Sunday outside the economic ministry.
gowlkick submitted the CNET story about several companies demonstrating 1 Gbps or faster Internet service over DSL at the Broadband World Forum in Amsterdam this week. Broadcom, Triductor Technology and Sckipio are making network equipment chips that support something called G.fast that enables faster DSL speeds. Network equipment would need to be less than 50 meters from buildings to deliver top speed. G.fast service could arrive in homes beginning in 2016, although Telekom Austria has the tech working in real-world tests already.
And finally, battlekoalatsu submitted an Android Central report about some new Android apps from Microsoft Garage, a newer ‘work on what you want’ division of Microsoft. Yes. Android apps. From Microsoft. Apps include “Next Lock Screen” a notification lock screen; “Journeys and Notes” a social travel app, Bing Torque, an app that launches a Bing search wen you turn your wrist. Finally there’s CityZen, an app to send information from the public to their local government to fix problems. This app only works for the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation in India.
Discussion Links: Tablets!
http://www.zdnet.com/whats-right-and-wrong-with-the-new-ipad-air-2-and-ipad-mini-3-7000034956/
http://www.cnet.com/products/apple-ipad-air-2/
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/20/us-apple-results-idUSKCN0I928I20141020
http://www.macrumors.com/2014/10/21/ipad-air-2-55-faster-iphone-6/
Pick of the Day: Presonus Studio One via Byron in Los Angeles
Just wanted to turn you onto an audio recording application I just learned about a couple of months ago: Presonus Studio One.
It’s a professional DAW (digital audio workstation) for both Windows and Mac, and comes in a variety of paid versions starting at $99.95, but the version that I’m most excited about is the FREE version! For 30 days, you can try out the Professional version which costs $399 (still cheaper than ProTools and comes with the Melodyne tuning plug-in and a mastering suite!), but after 30 days, it becomes a more limited free version, that is still quite functional!
I’ve been using the free Audacity program for years, but I have always wished it could do live effects processing, but unfortunately it can’t. I have also used GarageBand, but it has its own limitations as well, namely 24-bit recording at 44.1 khz.
Studio One Free lets you record unlimited tracks, with higher bit rates and sample rates (if your interface supports them) and it includes 9 plug-in effects. The only thing missing from the free version that I wish it had, is a compressor and gate, but it’s still pretty darn good without it, especially for free!
Thursday’s guest: Nate Lanxon,
You can’t Flamestrike yourself in the face because that spell only hits minions. What you probably did was Fireball yourself in the face.
Love the show.
Point you.
Tom, you mentioned that your nexus 7 is seeming pretty slow – all reports say that Lollipop will speed it up considerably. Hang in there for another few weeks and see how it goes, and you probably won’t have to buy anything new yet.
Didn’t the guys on “Big Bang Theory” already make an app where you could take a picture of a math equation and solve it? Oh sure, you’re going to tell me that it only happened on a TV show and wasn’t “real”, but years of listening to stories on patent lawsuits tell me the folks at Micro Blink might have a lawsuit on their hands. =)
Can’t be any dumber than most of the Apple/Google/Samsung lawsuits!
Stupid question related only to this site, not the show. I see an icon next to the person’s name whenever someone leaves a comment on here, but never an actual avatar or picture. I assume there’s some way to create an account of sorts so that one would show up, but haven’t figured out how to yet?
Not stupid at all. Those icons are Gravatars. You can set one up here. https://en.gravatar.com/
Just a note about tablets – I use a Kindle fire HDX 7″ – the cheapest- with a Poetic case which includes a blue tooth keyboard (my case cost less than $20). It has replaced my laptop – I still have a desktop win7 PC. My favorite apps are Beyond Pod for my 100+ podcasts and vodcasts like DTNS. A few itunes podcasts require an external player which means they get seen on my PC. It handles my email, Netflix, Hulu Plus, has a SILK browser which does most websites well including CBS.com and acorn.tv. It keeps track of my audible books and amazon books and documents from various sources. It has a good calendar and contact list Only problem is that I should have purchased the kindle with bigger memory. And I wish it had 2 cameras – I do not like the front-facing camera so it has a sticky covering it.. I do not miss a phone since I hate phones – people who know me use email to contact me. I have a separate phone with a number I give to very few people and use seldom. The only game I play on it is Scrabble – I don’t have much time for games. I use it with headphones in public – I don’t like to bother people with the sound capability – another advantage of not having a phone built in that would require me talking. I use the Amazon capability for lots of items that I might otherwise have to drive many miles around my small town to see if someone has the item and finding nobody has it. I prefer shopping at places with wi-fi so connectivity is not much of a problem around town. I still need a desktop for local storage, some secure transactions and recording or playing DVDs, CDs, etc. So there is a market for people like me with tablets but NO PHONE. PS The Mayday feature is seldom needed but on both occasions it worked very well!