Read Deemable Tech’s live blog from the Apple special press event discussing the announcements of the iPad Pro, new Apple TV and the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus, and the new accessories, Apple Pencil and Keyboard.

Weaponized drones, Ashley Madison, Facebook’s new virtual assistant and artificial intelligence are all in the news this week.

If you?re listening to Deemable Tech on the website, make sure to subscribe to the show on iTunes or on Stitcher. And, while you?re there, leave a review. The more subscribers we have and reviews we get, the more people will find our show.

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THE RUN DOWN

Ashley Madison was nothing but a honeypot

Ashley Madison is still in the news. Gizmodo is reporting that hardly any of the real women on Ashley Madison actually used the site. Salon says that the number of fake female accounts is close to 95% which sounds about right from my experience. Like I’ve mentioned on the show a few times most of the women on the site are bots. By most, I mean, I don’t think I ever spoke to a single real person the entire time I was on the site. So, there were only about 5.5 million female accounts, meaning that there were only about 250 thousand real women on the website.

To make things even worse for Avid Life Media, of those 250 thousand women, a very small number of them actually used the site. Only about 2400 used the chat system and 1,400 used the messaging system. Considering the site also had 31.3 million men, and the site billed itself as a place to find women who wanted to have an affair, that is pretty rough for the company. It looks like they didn’t have the product to sell, so they built bots. Lots of the accounts have email addresses like 100@ashleymadison.com.

Ashley Madison CEO gets the “mutual agreement” boot

So, it shouldn’t come as much surprise that Avid Life Media CEO Noel Biderman, has quit his job as CEO ? “in mutual agreement with the company.”

A company that sold a service so crappy that women barely signed up for it, so the company had to make bots, and the site was so insecure that all of its data was dumped on the Internet. Yeah, I don’t know why they didn’t want to keep him around.

That being said, we are happy to say, this is the last time we are going to talk about Ashley Madison, Established Gentlemen or Avid Life Media, hopefully for a long time.

Facebook launches new virtual assistant “M”

Following in the footsteps of Apple?s Siri, Google Now and Microsoft?s Cortana, Facebook unveiled a new virtual assistant this week that they?re calling ?M.?

M will be built into the Facebook Messenger app. Unlike its competitors, M is – at least for the time being – is entirely text based.

As Wired reports, there is another huge difference between M and the other virtual assistants: M will use a hybrid of artificial intelligence and real people to complete tasks.

A team of employees called ?M trainers? will work alongside the software to make sure every question and request is answered. Facebook says M will offer a true personal assistant experience by helping users book restaurants, pick out and deliver gifts and more.

During internal employee testing, one of the most popular requests for M was to call the user?s cable company so they wouldn?t have sit through long wait lines and automated messages.

David Marcus, vice president of messaging products at Facebook, says they are also looking for a way to partner with businesses that get a lot of requests through M.

Facebook is currently doing a trial run for M with a few hundred users in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Facebook Hits 1 Billion Visitors A Day

Speaking of The Facebook, the Associated Press reported this week that the social media behemoth hit a major milestone as one billion users visited the site in a single day. Facebook hit a billion users back in 2012, but there is a significant difference between having a billion users and having a billion people actually logging onto your site and using it every day. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg celebrated the milestone in a Facebook post, stating that this meant that 1 out of every 7 people on earth had logged onto the site that day.

North Dakota legalizes armed police drones

NPR reports that North Dakota has passed a law legalizing use of drones armed with ?less than lethal? weapons by law enforcement. Less than lethal weapons apparently include  tear gas, rubber bullets, beanbags, pepper spray and Tasers. The bill?s sponsor, Republican State Senator Becker said that the bill was actually intended to require police to get warrants before using drones for surveillance. In order to pass the bill, however, compromises had to be included. Becker says that he hopes to get the weaponization part of the bill overturned in a future session.

Arrrrrrr-tificial Intelligence Predicts Pirate Attacks

Our next story is about the rapidly growing field of Arrrrrr-tificial intelligence. David Nield at Science Alert reports that the Navy has filed a patent for a computerized system that can predict pirate attacks based on previous intelligence, weather, and other factors. Modern day piracy is a real problem, costing the US maritime industry an estimated $16 billion per year. The Navy?s pirate attack computer model would be able to simulate attacks by large numbers of ?virtual pirates? and generate probability estimates of when and where pirate attacks are most likely to take place.

Uber hires Jeep hackers

Regular listeners will remember that not long ago we talked about the two hackers who were able to take control of a Jeep?s engine and brakes through its uConnect system. The hack made such big headlines that it caused Fiat Chrysler to issue a recall. Well Engadget reports that this week Uber announced that it had hired the men behind the hack, Charlie Miller and Chris Valacek, to work at its Advanced Technology Center in Pennsylvania. Like other tech companies, Uber is known to be exploring the possibilities of autonomous cars. Making sure that your driverless car has robust security to keep it from being remotely controlled by a hacker is probably a smart move.

BEM Twitter Account

Just wanted to share a great Twitter account I just discovered: Bored Elon Musk. This parody account purports to be the downtime thoughts of Musk, the inventor, entrepreneur and cofounder of Paypal, Tesla and SpaceX.

Photo credit: “Don’t Taze Me, Drone!” by Ray Hollister is a derivative work of “Project 365 #121: 010515 Attack Of The Drones!” by Pete used under CC BY 2.0.

This week Ray warns us about storing our SSDs in hot places, unless you want to wipe your drives clean. Tom explores the dangers of asking questions on Quora. And Sean finds out why one company is trying to make the food replicators from Star Trek a reality. Plus the guys look at Facebook’s new “instant articles,” learn why Microsoft is saying Windows 10 will be the last version of Windows they’ll release, and delve into Verizon’s purchase of AOL. Then later, Sean acts like Steve Harvey as Tom and Ray play a few rounds of the online game Google Feud.

But first, could we ask a favor of you? If you’re listening to Deemable Tech on our website, would you subscribe to the show on iTunes or on Stitcher? And, while you’re there, would you leave a review and say a few nice things about us? The more subscribers we have and reviews we get, the more people will find our show.

The Deemable Tech Podcast is brought to you by A Small Orange, Homegrown Hosting. A refreshingly different approach to web hosting. On the web at asmallorange.com.

Make sure to share Deemable Tech on the forums, Facebook, Twitter and all over the interwebs.

Thank you to our Redditors who have been helping us decide what stories we talk about on the show. Go to our subreddit page and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down. Deemable.com/reddit will take you there.

THIS WEEK’S RUN DOWN

SSDs can lose data really fast

You know those amazingly fast SSDs that are replacing hard drives in high end laptops like practically every Mac on the market? Well, there is a trade off. You definitely don’t want to store your wedding pictures on them. Or your tax records. Or your receipts from Best Buy. Because, some SSDs can lose their data in only a few days.

According to Gizmodo, heat is the enemy. The length of data retention is cut in half for every nine degrees of temperature increase. So, if you do like a lot of people Ray has talked to have done, and stick your old computer in a hot storage unit, expect to reinstall Windows on it when you get it out, because the SSD might be blank.

Just another reminder to back up your data!

Man weighing two job offers finds one of them retracted after asking Quora which of them he should take

In the news this week, yet another cautionary tale about being very careful with what you post online.

Last week a San Francisco engineer who was weighing competing job offers from Uber and Zenefits posted on Quora, asking the advice of its users on which to take. The engineer said that he liked what Zenefits was offering but that it didn’t seem as compelling a ?buzzword? to have on his resume as Uber.

The dilemma was presumably cleared up for the engineer when Zenefits’ CEO responded, saying “Definitely not Zenefits,” and retracting the job offer.

While the post was later changed to remove the public job retraction, presumably the damage was done. It was not clear if the candidate, who remains anonymous, had accepted Uber’s offer.

Microsoft representative claims that Windows 10 is the “last” version of Windows

This week at Microsoft’s Ignite conference, tech evangelist Jerry Nixon was quoted as saying, “Right now we’re releasing Windows 10, and because Windows 10 is the last version of Windows, we’re all still working on Windows 10.” Microsoft confirmed this statement to The Verge, saying that it would be focusing on “Windows as a service,” delivering continuous updates to the system rather than rolling out new versions of Windows.

That is of course until the next time Marketing gets a bright idea in its head and they announce Windows 20.

Facebook rolls out “instant articles” from major news publishers

Starting this week on the iOS Facebook app, some news articles will load much, much faster when you click on them. Facebook is calling these ?instant articles?, and they will be available from a handful of publishers that have partnered with Facebook, including the New York Times, BuzzFeed, The Atlantic, BBC News and National Geographic, among others. Instant articles won?t look much different to users, at least at first – they will just load instantly when clicked. In the future, however, Facebook may add auto-playing “video covers” as well.

Facebook will allow new, special interactions with Instant Articles, including audio captions, geotagged photos, and interactive maps. And of course, there will be no ads.

No word yet on when Android users will see this feature.

Israeli company creates Genie, a futuristic appliance that can create instant meals on demand

A new Israeli device called the Genie, which claims its inspiration from Star Trek’s fictional replicators, can turn pods of dehydrated powders into meals on demand. While details are light, supposedly the meals can be customized to personal preference, including specifying whether they should be gluten-, dairy-, or egg-free. The Genie will also work with smartphones and mobile devices.

No word if it responds to voice commands like, “Tea, earl gray, hot.”

Verizon announces plan to buy AOL for 4.4 billion dollars

In a surprise announcement this week, Verizon and AOL announced that Verizon will buy AOL for $4.4 billion dollars. People with knowledge of the matter say that Verizon is looking to acquire AOL’s mobile, video and advertising technology. Verizon may be looking to offer its own streaming video platform which it can sell ads against. It will also acquire popular news site The Huffington Post, not to mention the legacy dial-up service which once made AOL a powerhouse.

Verizon is currently valued at $200 billion dollars, making the four and a half billion in cash they plan to spend on AOL little more than a rounding error.

It’s time to play the feud!

Credit: Google Feud

You may have seen the site Google Feud making the rounds on social media recently. This online game combines weird Google autocomplete search suggestions with Family Feud style game play, in which you have to guess the top 10 ways Google autocompletes a specific sentence or question (for example, “Is it weird to _____”). Sean plays the role of Steve Harvey – or John O’Hurley, Louie Anderson, Richard Dawson, or whoever you favorite Family Feud host was – while Ray and Tom guess their way through a few rounds.

This week Tom brings the joyous news that Nintendoland is coming! Ray wants fast passes to the Mario Kart ride. But none of the guys want to ride on a Boeing 787 after Ray tells the guys that some of the planes are turning off… in mid air. Not good. Oculus finally announces a consumer model of the Oculus Rift. People are breaking/not breaking their Microsoft Surface 3 tablets. Twitter broke MS-DOS games, and Tesla just brought the future one step closer to today. All that on this week’s episode.

But first, could we ask a favor of you? If you’re listening to Deemable Tech on our website, would you subscribe to the show on iTunes or on Stitcher? And, while you’re there, would you leave a review and say a few nice things about us? The more subscribers we have and reviews we get, the more people will find our show.

The Deemable Tech Podcast is brought to you by A Small Orange, Homegrown Hosting. A refreshingly different approach to web hosting. On the web at asmallorange.com.

Make sure to share Deemable Tech on the forums, Facebook, Twitter and all over the interwebs.

Thank you to our Redditors who have been helping us decide what stories we talk about on the show. Go to our subreddit page and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down. Deemable.com/reddit will take you there.

THIS WEEK’S RUN DOWN

Nintendo Theme Park

Who is up for Mario Kart in real life? Nintendo announced during an earnings call this week that it is partnering with Universal Parks and Resorts which runs the Universal Studios theme parks to create Nintendo-themed rides and attractions. Nintendo has not announced specific details on which of its properties it would adapt, but it seems like a safe bet that it will leverage long lasting and popular characters and games like Mario, Zelda and Donkey Kong. In fact, Universal executive Tom Schroder said pretty much exactly that in a press release: “The immersive experiences will include major attractions at Universal?s theme parks and will feature Nintendo?s most famous characters and games.”

Have you tried turning your plane off and on again?

The FAA sent out a warning on May 1st that Boeing 787s may have some computer problems that could cause your terrible, terrible death. Mashable reports that the administration discovered the computers in 787s have a “software counter” that periodically shuts down all electrical systems, which results in “loss of control of the airplane.” Now, I’m not an aviation expert, but I think that is a bad thing. Am I right in assuming that guys?

Boeing is working out a software update that will eliminate the problem, but until then, they have issued a work around. If you work in the IT industry or have ever worked technical support you are probably familiar with it:

“Have you tried turning it off and on again?”

Yes folks, it’s the I.T. Crowd fix.

Call Roy and Moss or your plane will crash to the ground.

Oculus announces “Q1 2016” release for Rift

In other news that is sure to have gamers everywhere jumping for joy, Oculus announced this week that the first commercial release of their hotly anticipated virtual reality headset the Oculus Rift will be in early 2016.

The company also released promotional images of the sleek final consumer product after several years of prototypes.

Oculus first made a splash at the E3 gaming expo in 2012, followed by a very successful Kickstarter campaign. They also kicked off a virtual reality race, with other big companies like Sony and Valve and HTC working on releasing their own VR products.

How low can you go?

One of the most interesting tablets to come out, other than the iPad, has definitely been the Microsoft Surface. Sure, it’s had its share of troubles. It came out with Windows RT, which was this weird, stripped down version of Windows. It had two interfaces, the desktop and the “tablet” UI which really confused people. But, it was an incredible design that really changed the market, making it a serious contender for a laptop replacement. One of its signature features was the coveted kickstand that can hold the tablet in one of three positions. Well, now the Verge is reporting that Redditors have discovered a secret fourth position for the Surface 3 kickstand. Apparently, if you keep pressing the kickstand back after the third position it will break away and fold all the way back.

Microsoft said in a statement that the kickstand “contains a safety mechanism unique to Surface 3 to help protect the device, but the mechanism is not designed for use as a fourth kickstand position.”

So it might work once, twice or maybe even a few times, but it’s probably going to ruin your Surface 3.

The lesson here is, don’t play too rough with your toys. Just like a Slinky, once you bend it out of shape, you can’t bend it back, no matter what happened in Toy Story.

MS-DOS games on Twitter update

Last week we told you how you can embed and play classic MS-DOS games in tweets. Sadly, it looks like Twitter has put a stop to that.

It was discovered last week that Twitter users could embed these games from the Internet Archive?s site into tweets using Twitter?s Cards widget (that?s the system that allows videos, images and other media to be displayed in-line in the Twitter stream). But it turns out that embedding interactive media, specifically games, is against the terms of service for Twitter Cards.

You can, however, still play the MS-DOS games at the Internet Archive?s site, archive.org.

Powerwall

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, the maker of powerful electric sports cars recently announced that his company will begin manufacturing batteries for homes. This week Elon Musk announced that demand for their ?Powerwall? batteries was ?crazy off the hook?. He said they have received over 38,000 reservations, a level of demand which could take them up to a year to fulfill. Orders included over 2,500 from companies for their commercial-ready Powerpack.

The Powerwall batteries are designed for a 24-hour charge-and-discharge cycle, which would be ideal in combination with a solar power system that could charge them during the day letting them run the house at night. The batteries are designed to be mounted on the wall and a 7kWh unit starts at $3,000.

Note from Ray: The Powerwall is apparently not nearly as bad as the Power Glove.

If you have a suggestion, or just have a comment for the show. Give us a call and leave us a voicemail, 1-888-972-9868 or you can send us an email to feedback at deemable dot com.

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The new service will run almost four times faster than Comcast’s current fastest Internet and twice as fast as Google Fiber, but Comcast did not provide any idea of how much it will cost. Credit: Ray Hollister

Florida residents will be able to purchase extremely fast Internet service, starting next month. A handful of Florida cities, including Jacksonville, are among the nation?s first where Comcast is bringing fiber-optic Internet to people?s homes.

The new Internet service called Gigabit Pro is faster than anything currently available in Florida. That means customers could download the equivalent of a feature-length film in about 15 seconds versus the average 25 minutes it takes a current Comcast customer to download the same file.

A Comcast rep declined to give pricing on the service, which launches next month. She did say customers would be responsible for installation fees so Comcast can dig in yards and install the fiber-optic cables. And to get this new service, customers must live within a third of a mile of existing Comcast fiber cables.

A much slower service Comcast offers, called Extreme 505, runs about $400 a month. Extreme 505, runs at more than ten-times faster than what most customers have in the state of Florida but only a quarter of the speed of Gigabit Pro.

While they haven’t developed time travel, the engineers and designers behind the elevators that takes guests to the observatory at the very top of One World Trade Center in New York City have come pretty close. When you board the elevators, you will see a panoramic view of New York City rising out of the underground in the 1500s all the way up through time to the 102nd floor today.

The elevator uses nine 75-inch screens to create the illusion that it is a glass-walled elevator traveling through time.

Along the way, you’ll see the arrival of the Europeans, the Revolution and the rise of the skyscrapers. Inevitably, as time travels through the late-1900s, one of the Twin Towers enters your sight and just as quickly fades away as the 2000s begin. It is a touching, beautiful memorial to the history of the site.

Via New York Times, HT to Sploid. 

Ray Hollister reviews the BACtrack Mobile Breathalyzer on Deemable Tech

This week Ray, Tom and Sean talk about how Hilary Clinton used her personal email address the entire time she worked at the State Department. They discussed the announcement of the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, (which included the announcement of SamsungPay which is the implementation of LoopPay into the Samsung phones which Ray insisted two weeks ago would not happen!) They also talked about the death of Google+ and Google starting its own wireless carrier. Then, Ray shared his review of the BACtrack Mobile Breathalyzer. If you’re just here for the video, make sure to scroll all the way to the bottom.

#74 Ray Likes His Crow Breaded With A Light, Crispy Panko Crust

RUN DOWN

Samsung Galaxy S6 & S6 Edge

This week was the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Spain and Samsung used the opportunity to take the wraps off the next iteration of its flagship phone, the Samsung Galaxy S6? and the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge. That?s right, the S6 will come in two formats – a standard rectangular shape and a more curvy version with a display that wraps around the edge and which can display alerts by lighting up.

Regardless of what you think about Samsung?s latest gimmick, both phones are aimed squarely at the premium smartphone market. Samsung has ditched the removable plastic cases of previous Galaxy S?s for a phone that is completely encased in aluminum and Gorilla Glass, similar to the iPhone. The phone boasts an almost ridiculous Quad HD (2560 x 1440) Super AMOLED. Why would anyone need that kind of resolution on a 5.1 inch screen? Virtual Reality! You can strap your S6 into the latest version of Samsung?s Gear VR for a super-high-res virtual reality experience. Since the screen will be literally centimeters from your face, it has to look good.

Not all of Samsung?s longtime users are excited about the S6. The premium case materials means that the newest Galaxy phones no longer allow for a removable battery or an expandable SD memory card, two longstanding features of the Galaxy line.

Samsung Pay, formerly known as Loop Pay, with its magnetic card swiping technology, is built right into the phone.

Google announced that Google+, its one-time ambitious attempt to take on Facebook and Twitter, is going under the knife.

Google+ Divests

The Verge is reporting that the Google+ social network is getting split up into Streams, Photos and Hangouts. It is also getting a new lead: Bradley Horowitz, a long time VP, is taking over from David Besbris. Besbris had held his position less than a year after Vic Gundotra was let go with little fanfare.

Google+ was originally pitched to be Google?s answer to rivals like Facebook and Twitter. In 2012 it took the controversial step of forcibly assigning every Google user across all of its services a Google+ account. Despite this, Google+ never reached the critical mass of user activity needed to take on the big guys. Google has since backed away from their one-size-fits-all approach.

Google execs are now calling the social network side of the product ?Streams? and considering them to be separate from Photos, home of the ridiculous Auto-Awesome feature, and Hangouts, Google?s free and easy-to-use chat and videoconferencing system.

How to Auto-Awesome your photos manually – AndroidCentral.

While Google has not officially announced the death of ?Streams? as a product, some experts are predicting it could be on the chopping block soon.

Google Wireless

According to Mashable, Google?s latest crazy plan is to become a wireless carrier.

Google revealed this week at Mobile World Congress that it plans to get into the wireless carrier business, offering mobile voice and data service to customers. Google says that it will do this on a small scale, buying wholesale access from Sprint and T-Mobile?s networks and selling them to customers. Google says it wants to ?push the needle? when it comes to features offered to mobile customers, for instance allowing users to seamlessly transition between wifi and cellular connections.

Google was careful to emphasize that it does not intend to compete with AT&T and Verizon and that they have been informed of its plans.

BIG STORY

Hillary Clinton used a personal email account the entire time she was US Secretary of State

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/us/politics/hillary-clintons-use-of-private-email-at-state-department-raises-flags.html

Clinton apparently set up an email account one week prior to President Obama’s inauguration, and she did not use an official @state.gov email address.

For comparison, according to NBC News, Former secretary of State Condelezza Rice did not use personal email while she was in office, but she rarely used email at all. Clinton aides have also said that, Colin Powell did regularly use a personal e-mail account while Secretary of State.

A Powell aide confirmed that information, saying, “General Powell used a personal email account during his tenure as Secretary of State. He was not aware of any restrictions nor does he recall being made aware of any over the four years he served at State.”

According to the Washington Post, “Former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton appears to have operated in violation of what the White House said Tuesday was ?very specific guidance? that members of the Obama administration use government e-mail accounts to carry out official business.”

Hillary Clinton said on Twitter :

I want the public to see my email. I asked State to release them. They said they will review them for release as soon as possible.

? Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 5, 2015

REVIEWS

BACtrack MobileBreathalyzer Review

Last year Ray received the BACtrack Mobile Breathalyzer, which, unsurprisingly, tracks your BAC or your blood alcohol content. In other words, it’s a mobile Breathalyzer.

It is a really great product. (Disclaimer, BACtrack did provide a sample unit for review.) The BACtrack Mobile Breathalyzer connects with your Smartphone via Bluetooth.

It’s pretty comfortable to hold in your hand, and it is very easy to use. You just turn it on, open the BACtrack app and pair it with your phone via bluetooth and follow the on screen instructions.

It keeps track of your blood alcohol level over time while you are drinking, and it calculates how long it will take for you to be sober. In addition to a number calculation of your BAC, it give you an idea of where you should be feeling. It will say things like “You are experiencing slight alcohol intoxication.”

The strangest feature of the device is that it let’s you post your blood alcohol level on social media. I personally never use that feature, but I can definitely see it going horribly, horribly wrong. I can only imagine the legal implications but it could possibly have too. But, it would help to explain all of those wacky drunk pictures.

If you are a frequent drinker, this breathalyzer has a great feature that will let you track when and where you drank. You can choose what you share otherwise it always stays private.

The BACtrack Mobile Breathalyzer cost $99 now. It was $149 when I reviewed it. I feel like it was worth $149, but I think that $99 is the perfect price point for the features it has.

Now, there are other breathalyzers that BACtrack makes that are cheaper. They have a model that uses a different sensor that only costs $49, and they have keychain models that do not connect to your smartphone that are $29.

Personally, I like the model that uses the same technology that the police use to check blood alcohol level, because if I am trusting something to check if I am below the legal limit or not, I want to be absolutely certain it is right!

That being said, this is in no way an endorsement to drive while intoxicated. It’s never safe to drink under the influence of alcohol, and you can be arrested for DUI even if you’re under the legal limit.

The thing that surprised me most about using the backtrack mobile breathalyzer was that I am apparently a cheap date. I was drunk long before the device said I was a legally drunk. Or, at least I felt like I was drunk.

It was crazy to me that at .02, I felt that I could not drive a car, but I was still legal to drive.

Check out the video of the review below:

UNCUT!

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler pushed FCC to vote 3-2 in favor of Net Neutrality.

This week Ray, Tom and Sean talk about how the FCC has finally decided to step up to the plate and defend Net Neutrality, and the rest of the big stories in the tech world. Reddit is finally banning stolen pornography. Apple is holding a super secret press event in March. (SPOILER: It’s the Apple Watch announcement.) Pebble is Kickstarting another smartwatch. Three patients voluntarily had their arms amputated to receive bionic prosthetics. Google bought mobile payment company Softcard. And, we are one step closer to Skynet becoming self-aware, an artificial intelligence played 49 Atari games without instructions, beating the records of human players in 29 of the games.

Thank you to our Redditors who have been helping us decide what stories we talk about on the show. Go to our subreddit page and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down. Deemable.com/reddit will take you there.

Deemable Tech Episode #73 Freedom Is Just A Four-Letter Word

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This Week’s Run Down

Reddit bans revenge porn.

Gizmodo reports that Reddit ? has outlawed porn. Wait, no. Reddit has prohibited unwanted porn. No, that’s not right either. Reddit has banned involuntary pornography. Reddit announced that that it is no longer allowing pictures or videos to be posted to the site without the permission of the subjects.

In a statement on its website reddit said:

No matter who you are, if a photograph, video, or digital image of you in a state of nudity, sexual excitement, or engaged in any act of sexual conduct, is posted or linked to on reddit without your permission, it is prohibited on reddit.

To take the photos or videos down however, you will have to report the offense to reddit. This change in policy is considered to be a direct response to the incident known as “The Fappening,” where a cache of leaked celebrity nudes was leaked online and posted to reddit.

Apple’s Not Super-Secret Press Event

The Verge is reporting that Apple sent out press invitations to a super secret event on March 9th. No one has any idea what it is about. Nah, just kidding, it’s the Apple Watch announcement. The tagline is even “Spring Forward,” an obvious time reference.

At the event, we are almost certain to find out what features actually ended up in the watch ? that will likely only run for 4 hours before the battery dies. The Verge is saying that there have been rumors of a new Macbook air and there may be an update on Beats Music.

Pebble Get Another Kickstart

Speaking of watches, Pebble has decided to rock the crowdfunding universe again. Pebble announced Tuesday it was launching another smartwatch. This one, dubbed the Pebble Time, has a color e-ink display, a microphone for dictation and voice activation, and it’s thinner than the original Pebble and more contoured to fit the wrist.

The microphone only works with Android actions right now, but Pebble is working on getting it to work with iOS soon.

Three Men Undergo Voluntary Amputations To Receive Bionic Arms

Gizmodo is reporting that three men with irreparable nerve damage have had their arms amputated and replaced with prosthetics controlled directly through their nervous systems. The procedure was performed by Oskar Aszmann at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria.

The prosthetic is powered and controlled by a small piece of healthy leg muscle that has been grafted into the patients? arm.

What is perhaps most notable is that the three patients all volunteered to have their arms amputated to undergo this procedure. While their whole arms were previously useless due to the nerve damage, they were intact.

Google Buys Mobile Payment Competitor Softcard

PachydermMcGurts submitted this next story on our sub-reddit page.

Google looks like it is doubling-down on mobile payments. According to a report from DigitalTrends.com, Google has purchased competitor Softcard. On February 23rd Google made the announcement that it had bought the wallet app company Softcard which was formerly named Isis, just like the terrorist group.

Isis started in 2009 as a joint effort by Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile to get a foothold in the mobile payments industry. Unfortunately, in 2011, the terrorist group then known as the Islamic State in Iraq began fighting in Syria, and started being referred to as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS for short. The group apparently now just want to be called the Islamic State, but it was called ISIS long enough in the media to completely destroy the value, if it had any, of the company’s name.

Isis, the digital wallet app company, announced in September 2014 that it was changing its name to Softcard.

Google bought Softcard and work out a deal with AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, that all new Android phones will have Google Wallet pre-installed on them.

In a very ?Google? way, instead of consolidating the two services into one service. it’s going to keep the two services separate, and wait for this, add a new service.

Rumor has it that Google is going to announce Android Pay at the Google I/O next conference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKdvnhBFvXY

Artificial Intelligence Masters Atari Games

DeepMind Technologies, a tech startup that Google purchased last year, is working on artificial intelligence that will develop human-like problem solving skills. To do so, they needed to put it through exercises that have simple rules and clear standards for failure, yet still present a challenge for most people. They decided that old Atari 2600 games were perfect for this.

DeepMind made the AI play through 49 different Atari 2600 games without giving it instructions for how the various games were played. When it completed the games correctly and got a high score, the AI was rewarded. It eventually beat previous AI records for 43 of the games, and even exceeded the skills of master human players for 29 of them.

A DeepMind Vice President told Bloomberg that this represents “the first time anyone has built a single learning system that learns directly from experience and manage a wide range of challenging tasks,” and that their ultimate goal will be to use this for smart, general purpose tools.

THE BIG STORY

FCC Defends Net Neutrality

The Verge put together a great aggregation of reactions to Net Neutrality from around the net. It’s no surprise, the ISPs are NOT happy.

The FCC voted today, 3-2, to classify broadband internet as a public utility under Title II. This means that, for now at least, the FCC has the ability to regulate broadband internet and enforce net neutrality.

Verizon and Comcast released statements stating that they were disappointed with the ruling, while AT&T issued a more ominous statement hinting that the FCC might be overruled by congress or the courts.

Some Republican lawmakers have threatened legislative action to overrule the FCC. The FCC vote did fall along party lines, with the three Democrat board members voting for net neutrality and the two Republicans voting against.

Tech companies were almost uniformly ecstatic, with Netflix, Kickstarter, Microsoft and Tumblr all chiming in.

At the heart of the new classification are rules banning the blocking or throttling of traffic, as well as paid prioritization, and a requirement that ISPs disclose network management practices.

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Next week we are going to be tossing in some app and gadget reviews like we’ve been promising. If you have a suggestion, or just have a comment for the show. Give us a call and leave us a voicemail, 1-888-972-9868 or you can send us an email to feedback at deemable.com.

And, don’t forget to help us to decide what stories we talk about on the show, go to our subreddit page and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down. deemable.com/reddit will take you there.

Photo credit: “Tom Wheeler – Caricature” by DonkeyHotey is used under CC BY 2.0.

This is our first day at One Spark. We haven’t seen any creators yet. But what we did is we searched through the One Spark website to see which creators we definitely wanted to check out while we were here. Now, this is in no way saying that these are the best tech creators here at One Spark, but these are the ones that got our attention.

Verti Bluetooth item finder – Urban Grind Coffee Company (50 N Laura)

This is similar to the Tile you may have seen advertised on Facebook. This is a small bluetooth device that you can attach to your key ring, or stick to something. If you lose your item, you can open the app on your iPhone or android smartphone, and find the item.

What makes the Verti different is that it has a button on it. So, if you lose your phone, you can press the button on the Verti and find your phone. Also, according to the creator, the Verti will have a much larger range 200 feet instead of the normal 50-100 feet. It also has motion detection so you can tell if an item has moved.

What I want to know is if you can replace the battery. A lot of these Bluetooth finders have batteries that cannot be replaced, Which means you have to buy a new one every time the battery dies.

Park Genius – North Bank Riverwalk (341 South Hogan Street)

Instead of replacing the existing parking meters with electronic ones that can cost tens of thousands of dollars, their idea is to just augment them with a mobile app. All the city has to do is put a sticker on the parking meter that tells parkers that they can pay on the iOS or Android app, and the parking enforcement can check on their mobile device to see if you paid or not.

Marbel – SunTrust Building (76 N Laura Street)

Ultralight electric skateboard that can travel up to 10 miles with a top speed of 20 mph, and only weighs 9.9 pounds. The coolest part is that it also has an iOS app that you can use to control the ride! My inner twelve-year-old boy is thrilled.

Bucketwish – Jacksonville Bank Building (100 N Laura Street)

Bucketwish is a social network where you can post your wish list. It gives a fun way to share the crazy dreams and wishes that you want to do with your family, friends and strangers, and they can contribute to them and help make them happen.

The idea is, it’s kind of like Make-A-Wish or Dreams Come True, but not just for kids with life threatening illnesses.

The idea behind Bucketwish sounds odd. Who would want to pay for you to live out your dream, but honestly Kickstarter would’ve sounded insane just five years ago.

We’ve seen this kind of thing happen on crowd funding sites, where someone will do it for someone else, Like what happened with the bus driver who was being harassed by the students. Someone saw that terrible video and then turn around and raised enough money for her to go on vacation. There was such a huge response, that he ended up raising over $750,000.

WaZINIT – SunTrust Building (76 N Laura Street)

WaZINIT is an app that lets you scan the bar code of food products to see if they contain anything that you are trying to avoid. So, if you are allergic to peanuts, or you just don’t like artificial sweeteners, WaZINIT would let you know whether to avoid it or not.

It reminded me of an app that we talked about on our show one time called secretly vegan. Secretly Vegan lists common supermarket products that are vegan. WaZINIT takes it one step further.

Brash – The Jacksonville Landing, 2 Independent Drive

A universal gift card that is randomly filled with money throughout the day by various stores. But the money is only on the card for a limited amount of time.

The example they give on their profile page really explains it best. John Doe would get a text message saying “Hey John, you just received a $23 gift from Kohl’s! Hurry, that money is only good for 72 hours. BTW Kohl’s has 20% all coats this week!” John goes to Kohl’s and uses his Brash Card like a normal gift card. But, if John doesn’t spend that gift in time, that $23 goes directly back to Kohl’s. Merchants are guaranteed nearly full return on marketing investment, consumers get a few extra bucks.” Everybody is happy!

Alert The Boss – Visit Jacksonville (208 North Laura Street)

Alert the Boss is a text messaging service that allows customers to interact with businesses before they post a negative comment or complaint on a site like Yelp or Urbanspoon.

Evan Diamond from Alert The Boss was on Deemable Tech last year to talk about it before One Spark last year. At the time, Alert The Boss was really still just a concept. They were literally still working on the prototype right up until we started recording the podcast. In the year since then Alert the Boss has grown tremendously, and is a really great service.

SwitchTick – The Jacksonville Landing (2 Independent Drive)

Switch take is a website that allows you to exchange items with other people. So, for example if you had a microwave that you no longer need, but you need a new recliner, you could trade someone for a recliner on SwitchTick

#crtfreejax – South Laura Street

This is something that we’ve talked about on our radio segment and on our podcast before, you cannot just throw out computers, especially computer monitors. #crtfreejax wants to fabricate a machine that can recycle the Cathode Ray Tubes, which are the most difficult and dangerous part of computers.

Two projects that aren’t tech related that we have to mention:

Dawgtown – Icon Boutique (108 East Adams Street)

Dawgown is a hand-drawn animated movie by my friend Justin Murphy about a pitbull that is trying to escape the world of underground dogfighting. And, Al Letson, the host of State of the Re:Union is the voice of the MC in the movie.

Chomp Chips – Chomp Chomp (106 W Adams Street)

Curry. Potato. Chips. That’s all I have to say. If you haven’t had them… you haven’t lived. In fact, I have to wrap this up so I can go get some right now.

Looking for apps to download for your shiny new iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. Here’s where to start. Here’s a not-so-scientific list of some of the absolute best apps that came out this year.

The Top 20 Best Apps of 2013 (via Apple Gazette)

It?s been quite a year for iOS apps. With the release of iOS 7 many apps have started to take on the flat look and feel of the new operating system. A lot of new apps were released while most were updated with new features and layouts. We?ve compiled…

Unlike previous Apple press events, we believe that Apple will lift the veil to allow those of us who weren’t lucky enough to receive a golden ticket to peer into the magic of this year’s Apple iPhone event. This year, we have rumors of the mystical iPhone 5C, a more cost effective (that’s a nice way to say cheap) iPhone that will come in a multitude of colorful plastic backs. We also have rumors of a gold-plated, or golden-colored, iPhone and a fingerprint scanner. We’ll see what plays out.

If you want unadulterated, pure Apple goodness, you should be able to watch the event live at http://www.apple.com/apple-events/. If the live stream of the Apple iPhone event works the same way that WWDC 2013 worked, you will need to be running Safari on iOS 4.2 or later on any iPhone, iPad, iPad mini or iPod touch; Safari 4 or later on Mac OS X v10.6 or later or a second or third generation Apple TV with software 5.0.2 or later. We will update this article if that changes.

If Apple decides not to live stream the Apple iPhone Event, several reputable websites will be running live blogs or live streams of the event, including:

• The Verge – live blog,
• TWiT.tv – live video and commentary,
• TechCrunch – live blog,
• SlashGear – live blog,
• Mashable – live blog,
• iMore – Video commentary and live blog,
• Gizmodo – live blog,
• Engadget – live blog,
• CNET – live blog,
• Apple Insider – live blog

We will add links directly to the live event web stream and blog pages as they are announced.

Don’t forget, the event starts at 10AM Pacific or you’re time.

What site will you be watching the iPhone event on while you try not to get caught by the boss? Know of another reputable website where you can watch Apple’s iPhone event? Let us know in the comments down below.

Is this a early leak of the iPhone 5S product video? No, it’s just some good-hearted ribbing of the way that Apple presents something as remarkable and magical that otherwise would seem pretty mediocre. Here’s to hoping the event is a little more spectacular than this video. It would be pretty hilarious if they showed this video during the Apple Live event though! The S stands for Same.

Back in the 90’s Bill Gates predicted that we would all be carrying “wallet PCs,” small computers with screens the size of a wallet that we would hold our money, ID, credit cards and tickets, and would have basic computing functions like calculator, calendar and note applications. Unfortunately, he did not predict that we would also use them to watch endless cat videos and fling birds at green pigs. The modern smart phone has practically fulfilled his prediction, except for replacing the fundamental functions of the old leather wallet. All but very few of us still carry a piece of leather that holds our IDs and credit and debit cards. The problem with most digital wallet apps has been that none of them have yet to become more convenient than simply pulling out a debit card and swiping it. Even Apple’s Passbook, which was supposed to be the pinacle of simplicity, is much more complicated than most people are willing to put up with. Until an app makes paying for something with your smartphone as simple and easy as paying for something with a credit card, digital wallets will never replace credit cards. But, PayPal is still willing to try with its latest app update. For more on that story, here is Landon Robinson‘s article from BestTechie.

The photo editing app, Pixlr shown working as a packaged Chrome app.

The most substantial criticism that could be lobbed against Chromebooks has been there are very few apps for the system that can be used offline. Most of the “apps” for Chromebooks are, in fact, actually just websites. The Chrome Web Store is full of apps that you give you big icons and sometimes include special splash screens for Chrome, but essentially, they are just bookmarks for the browser. However, that is about to start changing. The new Chrome Packaged Apps, found in the For Your Desktop section of the Chrome Web Store has apps that work outside of the browser. The apps download to the computer, work offline and are able to use more of the computer’s hardware such as the bluetooth and USB connections. Right now, the Packaged Apps only work on Windows and Chromebooks, but Mac and Linux support is being developed. Unfortunately, these apps will not work in Android or iOS as both mobile platforms prevent apps from running inside other apps.

For more on this story, check out Seth Rosenblatt story at CNET: New Chrome Apps take the Web out of the browser.