We were left with nothing to remember Sean Birch except dozens of his high school graduation pictures.

Producer Sean Birch is back. So, Ray is under control, no more innuendos and inappropriate jokes. In this episode Ray, Tom and Sean tackle how Facebook helped France but forgot about Lebanon and talk about crappy USB-C cables, Microsoft putting the Zune out to pasture, the new Star Trek TV show and the Chromestick.

By the way, we don’t just have a subreddit page for the fame and the glory. We have it because we want to know what you want us to talk about! We know you’re purusing the tech news all week. Go to our subreddit page, reddit.com/r/deemable, and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down.

And make sure to subscribe to the show and leave a review on iTunes and on Stitcher. The more subscribers we have and reviews we get, the more people will find our show.

If you have a response or 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.

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.

THE RUN DOWN

Facebook Safety Check Helps France, Ignores Beirut

The Washington Post reports that Facebook turned on its ?Safety Check? feature for a man-made disaster last weekend for the first time, for the attacks in Paris. With Safety Check, users who are in an area affected by a disaster who login to Facebook are greeted by a message asking them if they are safe. If they indicate that they are, a status update is then posted to their wall letting their friends and family know.

Facebook said that about 4.1 million users checked in within 24 hours after the attack, about one-third of metropolitan Paris?s population. Safety check has been deployed on five previous occasions, including the earthquake in Nepal in April, Tropical Cyclone Pam in the South Pacific, and Typhoon Ruby in the Philippines. It was originally inspired by the aftermath of the 2011 Japanese tsunami.

Facebook has drawn criticism because it has not deployed the feature for several recent disasters in the Middle East, including for the double suicide bombings in Beirut just a day earlier. Facebook says that it plans to deploy the tool more frequently in the future.

Crappy Cables Be Crappy

One of the dangers of buying something online is that it could be a dud. This is especially a problem if you buy things from some random website. But sometimes even products from Amazon can be lemons, and the reviews ? which are often written by less-than-tech-savvy customers ? don’t always save the day. Well, one very tech savvy customer is doing everything he can to change that.

Gizmodo reports that a Google engineer is buying USB-C cables off Amazon, testing them and reviewing them. Benson Leung is a Chromebook engineer, specifically an engineer on the Chromebook Pixel team, which, no surprise, has a USB-C port on it.

From Benson’s experience, good USB-C cables are hit-or-miss. And unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to matter if they name brand or not. He’s found some cables with the wrong wiring, the wrong resisters, or will just completely burn out your charger, USB hubs or your mobile device.

You can follow him and read his reviews on Amazon or on his Google+ page, because? he works for Google? so of course he has a Google+ page.

Microsoft Finally Puts Zune Out of Its Misery

This week marks a sad time for those who love Microsoft?s Zune audio players (don?t laugh, there may be some out there).

PCWorld reports that Microsoft officially shut down all Zune-related services this week, including the Zune Music Pass streaming subscription service, and the Zune marketplace where users could buy MP3s.

Anyone still subscribed to Zune Music Pass was automatically switched to Microsoft?s new Groove Music service. As for the MP3s, if any of them had DRM they sadly might not work after a while because the license can?t be renewed.

It has taken a surprisingly long time for Microsoft to both stop the services and stop using the Zune name. The company stopped making Zune hardware all the way back in 2011. They kept using the brand name for a few years before they switched to using ?Xbox? branding for a lot of things.

Google Answers

Shout out to redditor BHK123 for suggesting our next story. Google?s search app is about to get better at understanding complex questions. According to VentureBeat, a new update to the Google search app allows it to better understand superlatives, ordered items, and dates. As an example, Google suggests the question ?Who was president when the Angels won the world series?? Google will figure out that you?re talking about US Presidents and baseball and combine the two to return the correct answer: George W. Bush.

Chromestick

Fans of ChromeOS rejoice, you are that much closer to being able to have Chrome on almost everything. Ars Technica says that Google and Asus have partnered up to create a 2.6 oz HDMI stick with ChromeOS that can be plugged into any monitor or screen, instantly turning it into a Chromebook. The stick contains 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage, supports 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. It also has a single USB port. The stick will reportedly retail for $85.

Star Trekkin’ Across The Universe

You are all no doubt very excited about the new Star Trek television show that has recently been announced. I know I am. Well The Hollywood Reporter claims that the show will not, as you might expect, be airing regularly on network TV. While the pilot episode will indeed air on CBS, the regular episodes will stream on CBS All Access and will require a $5.99 monthly subscription to view. CBS All Access includes CBS feed, which as of right now includes 85 shows, according to IT World. Some shows do appear to include commercials.

The new Trek show is slated to appear in January 2017.

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.

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.

Ardis loves his new Nexus 6P on Google Project Fi.

It’s Sean Birch’s turn to venture through the Pacific Northwest, so he is out of the studio for this week and next. (When’s Ray’s turn? #justsayin.) But Ray and Tom press on none-the-less. The Deemable Duo were joined by long-time listener Ardis Meade who showed us his new phone, the Nexus 6P and told us all about his phone carrier, Google Project Fi. Very interesting stuff if you’re in the market for a new phone or a new carrier. Stick around after the news for that.

By the way, we don’t just have a subreddit page for the fame and the glory. We have it because we want to know what you want us to talk about! We know you’re purusing the tech news all week. Go to our subreddit page, reddit.com/r/deemable, and submit a story, and vote other stories up or down.

And make sure to subscribe to the show and leave a review on iTunes and on Stitcher. The more subscribers we have and reviews we get, the more people will find our show.

If you have a response or 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.

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.

THE RUN DOWN

Turns Out Disney Isn’t That Bad After All

CNN reports that one Star Wars superfan with terminal cancer got to screen the film early. Daniel Fleetwood is a 32-year-old who lives in Spring, Texas and a Star Wars enthusiast who camped out to see new releases of the films and collected Star Wars paraphernalia. He is also dying of spindle cell sarcoma and is not expected to live to see the official release date of the new Star Wars film Episode VII: The Force Awakens. Hashtag  ForceForDaniel promoted by actors Mark Hamill and John Boyega persuaded director J.J. Abrams and Disney studio execs to let Fleetwood view an early edit of the film according to a spokesperson from Disney Studios.

The film will be released to the public on December 18th.

Chrome OS And Android OS To Become One

The Wall Street Journal reports that Google is planning to merge ChromeOS and Android OS starting in 2017, with a beta appearing next year. The first Chromebooks came out back in 2011. At the time, the idea that Google would release an OS that wasn?t Android created quite a stir. However Chromebooks soon made inroads thanks to their super-cheap, basic, and lightweight SKUs. Chromebooks have an OS that is essentially the Chrome browser plus a couple of simple add-ons. The Chrome app store has never really taken off, but the OS has delivered on its promises of being lightweight and receiving constant, invisible updates. While Android is also a relatively lightweight OS it works entirely differently from ChromeOS, and its update process is much more laborious. How the two operating systems will merge remains to be seen.

Facebook Kicks More Competition To The Curb

Facebook, and practically all companies on the web, stay in business from ad revenue. The more you are on the website, the more money they make. Yep, that’s right, Facebook is making bank from all those pictures of your kids and stupid quizzes you fill out.

Well, another social media network, Tsu.co, decided to share its revenue with the users. The more that people view your content, the more money you make. And you make money off of inviting people to join Tsu.co. You make money off of the posts that the people you invited posted. If that sounds like a pyramid scheme, it’s because it basically is.

And much like any other new social network that has started since Facebook took dominance, (Instagram, Pinterest, Vine, etc.) Tsu.co is trying to grow by letting its users share posts on Facebook.

This worked, right up until Facebook blocked them. Unlike how Facebook made YouTube videos look like crap on Facebook to make its own video platform stand out, Mashable is reporting that Facebook went with the nuclear option. Users cannot even mention the website on Facebook. If you type Tsu.co into a post or comment, Facebook will not allowed it to be posted.

Facebook says it’s because users posting links to Tsu.co are engaging in spammy behavior and Tsu.co encourages it. I will say after checking out Tsu.co, it doesn’t seem very spammy. It’s mostly the same type of posts I see on almost every social network: cats, muscle-heads, news, cats ? you get it.

Don’t Buy Things From The Guy In The Back Alley

Gizmodo reports that a security research blog claims that in third-party Android stores, popular apps like Candy Crush, Facebook, Google Now, Twitter, WhatsApp, and more are infected with adware that gives itself root access to a user?s device. It appears that hackers are taking popular apps and repacking them with their own malicious Trojans and uploading them to these other stores. Right now the Trojans do nothing but serve up ads, but with root access much nastier things are possible. So far, no Trojanized apps have been found in the official Google Play store. So as always, people, you sideload apps at your own risk. Playing outside the official sandbox is still the #1 way to get your device infected with malware. Be very certain that you trust an app?s maker before you sideload it.

One More Reason To Hate Comcast

If you live in Little Rock, Arkansas; Houma, LaPlace and Shreveport, Louisiana; Chattanooga, Greenville, Johnson City/Gray, Tennessee; or Galax, Virginia you’re about to have one more reason to hate Comcast. DSLReports says that the lucky customers in those cities will no longer have unlimited Internet on Comcast, but instead will have a cap of 300 GB per month starting in December. If you go over, you will be hit with $10 per 50 GB over the limit.

Why is Comcast doing this, you ask? They say it is for ?fairness and providing a more flexible policy to our customers?

According to the email DSLReports obtained, Comcast believes “that 300 GB is more than enough to meet your Internet usage needs.”

All hope is not lost though. You can still get unlimited Internet from Comcast in those markets. All you have to do is pay $35 more each month for unlimited Internet than you were already paying for unlimited Internet.

Teen Stoners Hack CIA Director’s Email. Yeah, It’s That Easy

A pair of teenage hackers who enjoy ?recreational pot smoking? are apparently on a hacking roll, according to Gizmodo. Calling themselves CWA, short for ?Crackas With Attitude,? they hacked CIA director John Brennan?s AOL email account last month. This week they did one better, posting the contact information of 34,000 government employees online, including the phone numbers of FBI agents. So far it appears that all the data leaked is legitimate.

The hackers have been communicating at times with the press, often via disposable Twitter accounts. Asked how he felt about hacking the government, one of them told Gawker, ?since only 13 i am pretty hype about it.? He also said he had no problem with being labeled a ?teen stoner?, saying that he felt that ?it just kinda describes us in away.?

We still don’t make any money doing this, so… you know… this is the best graphic we could find in the public domain.

It’s the 100th episode of Deemable Tech. It only took us three years to get here! Jessica Palombo, co-host of the mystical, never aired “Deemable Tech Pilot Episode,” and current WJCT News Director, joined Ray, Tom and Sean for the big celebration. The foursome talked about Facebook’s new “dislike” button, a new service that promises to be “Yelp for humans,” Amazon cuts out the competition and some guy who managed to buy the domain “Google.com” from — get this — Google!

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

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.

What do you think about comics on television? If you have a response or 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.

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.

THE RUN DOWN

Facebook ?Likes’ rumors of a ?Dislike’ button

Pretty much ever since Facebook introduced its ubiquitous ?like’ button, users have been clamoring for a ?dislike’ button. Well last month, Business Insider reported that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had announced that the company was working on one. Only, it isn’t quite what you think.

Don’t worry, the world’s most dominant social media site isn’t about to turn into a den of passive-aggressive backstabbing – anymore than it already is. Zuck says he wants to give users a way to express sympathy or empathy when someone posts that they are having a bad day or going through a difficult time.

While Facebook’s CEO promised that the ?dislike’ button would appear in the not-too-distant future, as of this recording it is not available. And you should be wary of scams. Gizmodo reports that ads have started appearing promising that people that take a survey can get early access to the ?dislike’ button. You can’t and you won’t. Although you may ?dislike’ what happens to you if you try.

The internet gives ?Yelp for Humans’ a one star rating

Ever app developer hopes that their app will go viral and gain massive media attention. Last week, one soon-to-be-released app did, although probably not in the way its creators wanted. The Washington Post ran a story about an app called Peeple, which founder Julia Cordray billed as ?Yelp for Humans’. Supposedly the app would allow you to rate anyone you had a phone # on a 1-5 scale. The people you were rating did not have to be signed up for the app.

Although Cordray promised that there would be controls in place to prevent cyber-bullying and that those who received negative ratings would have 48 hours to respond to them before they were posted, the internet backlash was swift and massive. Within hours, #Peeple was a trending topic on Twitter, with the Tweets about it almost uniformly negative. Peeple’s Facebook page was flooded with angry comments. Ironically, Peeple began to delete negative feedback from their Facebook page before taking both it and their Twitter feed offline entirely.

Over the weekend, Snopes.com speculated that Peeple was actually just a hoax intended to rile everyone up. However, there has been no confirmation that it is in fact a hoax at this time.

As of this morning, Peeple founder Julia Cordray has posted a lengthy ?clarification’ on LinkedIn. In her article, she claims that the purpose of the app has been misunderstood, that it is a ?positivity’ app, and that it will NOT in fact allow negative reviews or allow reviews of people who have not signed up for the app. This seems directly contradictory to what has been stated about the app before, including in a handful of ?webisodes’ that the team had posted on YouTube.

A further wrinkle in this crazy only-on-the-internet story: Peeple is also the name of another startup, this one a company which has developed an electronic, wifi-enabled peephole for your front-door. Wired reports that the other Peeple is less-than-pleased about the unwanted publicity. Since the other Peeple owns the trademark to the name in the US, it is not clear how the app makers will proceed. Should they choose to, their stated release date is in November.

Random guy buys Google.com from Google for $12

Mashable reports that last week a random guy was able to buy Google.com from Google for the massive price of $12. Sanmay Ved, a student at Babson University, was playing around with Google Domains when he noticed that the site said that “Google.com” was unclaimed. He added it to his cart, checked out, and a few minutes later had an email informing him of his successful purchase of “Google.com.”

Just a few minutes after that, however, his purchase was mysteriously cancelled. Ved reports that he did notify Google of the glitch after the fact. No word on why Google had its own domain up for sale in the first place.

Mashable notes that Microsoft lost Hotmail.co.uk in a similar glitch in 2003, but had more trouble getting it back.

Amazon.com to stop carrying competing streaming devices Chromecast and Apple TV

Competition in the world of streaming TV and movies continues to heat up. Several different companies now offer low-cost solutions that allow users to stream high quality video from several different services on the cheap. The leaders are Google’s Chromecast, Apple’s Apple TV, and Amazon’s Fire TV Stick. Well Bloomberg reports that Amazon.com has decided that that is a few competitors too many. It has announced that starting on October 29th it will no longer carry either the Chromecast or the AppleTV in its online store. Just in time for the Christmas season!

Amazon states that the reason for this move is that its competitor’s devices don’t “interact well” with Amazon Prime Video. Of course it would appear that it is up to Amazon to develop software for the devices, not the companies that make them.

Other streaming devices, including Roku’s set top device and Microsoft’s XBox One and Sony’s Playstation 4 are not affected

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.

If you have a response or 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.

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.

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.

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.

If you have a response or 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.

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.

THE RUN DOWN

A is for Alphabet, G is for Google

In our top story this week, tech giant Google announced a major corporate restructuring which included, to everyone’s surprise, a name change. A new holding company has been created called Alphabet. Alphabet is made up of a collection of companies including Google. Google itself is being slimmed down so that just the products and services traditionally associated with it, such as Google Search, Gmail, and Chrome, are part of it. Unrelated projects such as Google’s famous “moonshot” projects, Google Fiber, and its research into self-driving cars will be spun off into their own companies, all under the Alphabet umbrella.

As part of the restructuring, Google’s Senior Vice President Sundar Pichai has been made CEO of the new, slimmer Google, while Larry Page and Sergei Brin are taking control of Alphabet.

For the moment, no branding is changing, so if you want to search something you don’t suddenly have to “Alphabet” it and you won’t be checking “Alphabet Mail” anytime soon on your “Alphabet Phone.” At least, we sure hope not.

You can check out the new company’s website and a letter from its founders at abc.xyz.

Why not Alphabet.com?

You might be asking yourself, why didn’t Google just go with Alphabet.com? Well, it turns out, even the mighty Google can’t just have any domain name they want. The New York Times is reporting that car manufacturer BMW already owns Alphabet.com and they are not interested in selling it.

Alphabet is a subsidiary of BMW that provides vehicle fleet services. Micaela Sandstede, a BMW spokeswoman in Munich. She described the website as a “very active” part of Alphabet?s business. Which is ironic, because the website has been inaccessible ever since the Google Alphabet (or is it Alphabet Google?) announcement, presumably because of the increase in traffic. It makes us feel better knowing that even mega-companies like BMW have issues keeping their website running when they get hit with a ton of traffic.

The article points out that it would only be trademark infringement if it creates confusion with customers… which wouldn’t be an issue if Google and BMW were in entirely different industries, which they were, right up until Google entered the automobile industry with self-driving cars and Android for automobiles.

Android flaw that got patched actually not patched

You may recall that a couple of weeks ago we talked about a major security flaw in Android that allowed a remote attacker to execute code using a vulnerability in Hangouts. Google rushed out a patch for the vulnerability, which has now been codenamed “Stagefright,” and it was just a matter of getting it out to the phones for all the different carriers. Except, according to the BBC, it turns out that the patch doesn’t work – or at least, that it is easy to bypass. Better keep Hangouts disabled for the time being.

How to lose an internship at Facebook

If you figure out a huge flaw in the company you are going to start an internship at, perhaps it’s a good idea to keep it to yourself. According to Boston.com, Aran Khanna created a web-app demonstrating a huge privacy flaw in Facebook Messenger shortly before he was to begin his highly coveted internship at Facebook. Facebook Messenger stored your location automatically and shared it with anyone you chatted with on the app. Khanna’s web-app took that information and placed it onto a map showing where everyone you had chatted with was when they sent the message.

He tweeted about his app and posted it on Reddit and Medium, and a few days later, Facebook asked him to disable it, and then let him know that his internship was also disabled.

According to Khanna, he wasn’t fired from his internship because of the app, but because of the way he described Facebook?s user data collection. Khanna says the Medium post wasn’t in line with the high ethical standards expected of interns.

Drones make bears nervous

Drones seem like an ideal method for wildlife biologists to study the habits of wild animals such as bears, but it appears that there is a catch. NPR reports that a new study shows that the presence of drones make bears nervous, elevating their heart rates by as much as 400%. Mark Ditmer, a biologist at the University of Minnesota, St. Paul, flew a drone near bears that had been previously implanted with heart rate monitors to study their hibernation states. Although the bears appeared outwardly unphased, all of them showed elevated heart rates when buzzed by the drone.

Meet the world?s biggest hard drive

Samsung has unveiled a new device with the catchy name of PM1633a. According to The Verge, it’s a 2.5 inch solid state drive, and it packs a whopping 16 terabytes of storage space, making it essentially the biggest hard drive ever. Samsung has not announced a price tag, but they plan to sell servers with up to 48 of these drives installed, which they are calling JBOF. One JBOF should hold about 768 TB. JBOF stands for Just a Bunch Of Flash. Before you ask, the next step up after terabyte is petabyte.

Still No Apple TV

Apple TV, the long delayed, rumored, mystical device and service is further delayed. Bloomberg is reporting that negotiations between Apple and the big TV networks are holding up the works. According to Bloomberg, Apple was to announce a new live  streaming TV service at its Sept. 9 press event, but instead Buzzfeed News says Apple is only announcing a beefed up Apple TV set-top box.

eSports Drug Testing

Top-ranked Counter Strike: Global Offensive player Cory “Semphis” Friesen admitted in an interview last month that he and his competitive eSports team “were all on Adderall” during a recent tournament. According to NPR news, at least one eSports league has decided that it is not okay with that. The Electronic Sports League, which sponsored the $250,000 tournament Friesen and his team took part in, has announced a ban on drugs and alcohol during its tournaments and will be instituting random drug testing during its tournaments going forward. The League says the substances banned include those prohibited by the World Anti-Doping Agency. The first random drug testing at a League event will occur at ESL One in Cologne later this month.

LOL is OOS (Out of Style)

You may have seen an article from the New Yorker back in April about how we express laughter online – appropriately known as e-laughter – and the increase in the use of “hehe.”

This piqued the interest of the he research team at Facebook, who decided to look into how users showed amusement. They did so by analyzing posts and comments from last week of May. Don’t worry – they only looked at ones that had “at least one string of characters that matched laughter” and they left out private messages.

So what did their study find? Well, among other things, the form of e-laughter that is used more than any other is “haha” – which they found is used over 50% of the time. In second place are emoji, followed by “hehe” in third. And it last place… our dear friend “LOL.”

The first text speak that many of us learned is now used only about 2 percent of the time.

Mic.com has a great breakdown of all of Facebook’s findings, including which phrases are most popular among different age groups and states.

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.

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.

So much for Windows 10 fun. Now Ray has to reinstall Windows 8.1 just so he can upgrade it to 10, so he can reinstall Windows 10!

Killer robots, self-aware robots, cars, guns and Android phones getting hacked into and the death of another Google product? Yeah, that sounds like a typical Deemable Tech episode.

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.

If you have a response or 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.

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. We?re also looking for a new admin to help manage and moderate our subreddit page. Submit a text post to our subreddit explaining why you would make a great admin.

THIS WEEK?S RUNDOWN

Windows 10 is released.

Our top story this week is the long-awaited release of Microsoft?s Windows 10. In an unprecedented move, Microsoft has made the new Windows available as a free upgrade to anyone who had Windows 7, 8 or 8.1. The upgrade became available to download for most of those folks starting on Wednesday.

With Windows 10, Microsoft hopes to reunite its fractured userbase, many of whom are still stuck way back on Windows XP. Windows 10 will feature continuous upgrades and may be the last major windows version for the foreseeable future. To lure back customers scared off by the controversial Windows 8, Windows 10 brings back the Start Button and does away with the charms menu.

Other new features include the integration of Microsoft?s Siri-like virtual assistant Cortana, the brand new Edge web browser, virtual desktops, and Mission Control, which gives you an overview of all the apps you have running.

Ray Hollister has bravely volunteered to install Windows the 10th on the dual boot partition of his MacBook, so let?s dive right in.

The beauty of Windows 10 is that you can’t install Windows 10 as a fresh, clean install. Except you can. But you can’t.

Forbes – Windows 10 Updating, Reinstalling And Activation Guide: Essential Advice To Avoid Problems

The Verge – How to get Windows 10 on your Mac

CEO of Mozilla Firefox complains in an open letter that Windows 10 upgrade resets default web browser

Mozilla CEO Chris Beard is one person who is less than pleased with Windows 10. It appears that when you do an upgrade with ?Express Settings? that it will default your browser to Microsoft?s Edge browser, even if you had Firefox selected by default before. Even worse, in Windows 10 the default browser is now buried down in the settings control panel, meaning that it is difficult to find for non-technical users. Microsoft defends the changes as making the upgrade ?simple and cohesive? for users and says that they may make ?improvements? in the future.

Facebook builds an Internet drone

The BBC is reporting that Facebook has built a drone, with the wingspan of a Boeing 737 that will fly as high as 90,000 feet and for up to 90 days at a time to provide wireless Internet access at up to 10 Gigabits per second.

The drone will communicate via a laser beam that can hit a target the size of a dime more than 10 miles away. The lasers will connect the drones together and to the ground.

This is part of Facebook’s Internet.org project to bring Internet access to the developing world. No word on whether this will be like Internet.org’s last launch which only included access to a few sites, which caused a bit of a backlash since the access gave an unfair advantage to those sites.

Facebook will be testing the drones later this year in the United States.

Google+ dies a slow and painful death

Google?s ill-fated Facebook competitor, Google+, courted a lot of controversy in 2013 when Google started requiring users to create a Google+ profile to comment on YouTube. This week on the official Google blog, the search giant announced that they would be hitting the ?undo? button on that policy. They said that a Google account would be all you need to share content, create contacts, comment on YouTube, and more, across all of Google. This change will reportedly be rolled out ?in the coming months.? This announcement comes on the heels of Google splitting Google+ in two, with Google Photos becoming its own stand-alone service and app.

Killer Robots

I posted this on our Facebook page, facebook.com/Deemable, but it bears repeating. As a general rule, everyone here at Deemable Tech is anti-killer robots.

Unless, as I said, the uprising has already happened, in which case, let me rephrase that: How may we serve you, robot masters?

I bring this all up because Elon Musk (you know, Iron Man, the guy who brought you PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX, the Hyperloop, and who plans to die on Mars) and Steve Wozniak, (the reason why you have a computer at your desk, smartphone in your pocket and ultimately why you’re listening to this podcast) and Stephen Hawking (who you’ll know as the guy who played poker with Data, Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton.) and have joined a letter calling for the banning of autonomous weapons.

We talked about a weaponized drone last week that had a gun attached to it, well imagine an autonomous drone with a gun. The icons aren’t as concerned about them throwing a revolution and killing humanity as they are concerned about another cold war arms race where every country tries to build bigger, better faster killing machines. But considering a robot recently demonstrated self awareness, perhaps they should be concerned about a robot uprising too.

Hacking Smart Rifles

Speaking of things that shouldn’t be connected to the Internet, like killer robots. As much as I love my connected light bulbs, switches and thermostat, The Internet of things is not necessarily a good thing. Not everything should be connected to the Internet. Case in point, smart guns. In case you didn’t know, TrackingPoint makes an smart rifle that almost anyone can use to hit a bullseye up to a mile away. The gun, which sells for $13,000, has a computer screen for a scope where you can enter wind speed, ammunition weight and distance. The computer calculates the correct aim and after you pull the trigger, it waits until you have the shot lined up perfectly before firing the gun.

The Mirror is reporting that a couple of married hackers have hacked the gun wirelessly to shoot 2.5 feet away from the intended target. They also managed to get it to disable the firing pin, making the gun unable to fire.

Android hack

Speaking of hacks, NPR is reporting that the security firm Zimperium says there’s a “gaping hole” in Android that would allow hackers to take over your phone, and all they need is your phone number.

The app Hangouts automatically processes videos when they are received by text message. So, all a hacker has to do is send a video with malware inside it and send it to your phone. Since Hangouts instantly processes the videos, there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

Google has released a patch and manufacturers have been notified, but we’ll see how long it takes for them to get the update sent out to users.

Fiat Chrysler follow-up

Last week we reported that if you had a Jeep Cherokee with Fiat Chrysler?s ?uConnect? system, hackers could remotely take control of your vehicle and destroy everyone that you hold dear. It turns out that this was a source of some concern to Chrysler Fiat, as they have issued an official recall for 1.4 million vehicles to patch the issue. Affected models include certain Dodge Rams, Dodge Vipers, Dodge Chargers, Dodge Challengers, Chrysler 200s and 300s, and of course Jeep Grand Cherokees, all model year 2013 or later. If you are driving one of those vehicles you should check to see if your specific model is affected. The recall does not actually require the vehicles to be taken to the dealer: affected owners will receive a USB device which can be used to load the patch into their uConnect systems.

Wired – This Gadget Hacks GM Cars to Locate, Unlock, and Start Them

This week Ray, Tom and Sean discuss news about Netflix’s growth, videos on Facebook, SpaceX and more. Plus, Siri hits a little too close to home when we ask her to divide zero by zero. That and more on this week’s Deemable Tech!

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. We’re also looking for a new admin to help manage and moderate our subreddit page. Submit a text post to our subreddit explaining why you would make a great admin.

THIS WEEK’S RUNDOWN

Netflix expected to be bigger than major TV networks

A Wall Street research firm estimates that Netflix will have more viewers than ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX within a year. Or at least it would, if Netflix were a 24-hour broadcast television network and not a streaming video service. The way the networks and Netflix measure viewership are different, and they also serve up different kinds of programming. For instance, the networks carry live sports events and Netflix does not. Even so, a rough crunch of the numbers shows that Netflix is expanding rapidly even as the TV networks’ audiences are shrinking, which means that by next year Netflix will probably have more eyeballs than any of the big four.

Google Photos tags African-American developer as “gorilla”

Google Photos found itself scrambling to do damage control when a black developer found that the service had tagged pictures of him with his black female friend with the tag “gorillas.” After the dev posted a screenshot of the issue on Twitter, Google?s Chief Social Architect reached out to him within an hour-and-a-half saying, “This is 100% not OK.”

Google says that the “gorilla” tag has since been removed from the tag database and that Google is tweaking its algorithms, specifically in regards to dark-skinned faces. Google says that this is not the first time the automatic image tagging has had issues, and that an early bug labeled humans of all races as “dogs.”

Facebook considers paying video content creators

Facebook has built a video empire off of letting people rip videos off of YouTube and post them on its site. We can’t tell you how many times we’ve seen a video on Facebook that I know the person who posted it did not own.

To make things worse, Facebook reduced the size of YouTube video previews, so the creators had to choose between posting the video on Facebook natively where lots of people would see it, but not receiving any revenue, or posting the video on YouTube and sharing it on Facebook and few people seeing it.

Facebook is finally letting creators earn a bit of money. Now when you are watching a “suggested video” ? perhaps after you watched a funny cat video that your friend posted ? you’ll see a short ad before Facebook automatically goes to the next video. Facebook will keep 45% of the revenue and give the rest to the partner who posted the video which is right on par with YouTube’s rev-share terms.

Dan Rose, Facebook?s VP of partnerships told Variety, “We’ve heard consistently from media companies and other video creators that if they were able to make money from their videos, they would publish more.”

The question is going to be how will Facebook get rid of all of the pirated content on its website?

“Rampage” game developer releasing MS-DOS version

Game developer Vblank has announced that it will release a new version of its 8-bit-style game Retro City Rampage for MS-DOS. The game will be called Retro City Rampage 486, and the system requirements include 3.7 MB of hard drive space, 4 MB of RAM and, yes, an Intel 486 CPU. Oh, and a copy of MS-DOS, obviously. That’s the one with the blinking text prompt that you had to use before Windows 95, in case you’ve forgotten. You mean you don?t have a copy sitting around on six floppies somewhere?

This is not Vblank’s first port of Rampage to a decidedly “retro” system. They also recently finished a port designed to run on an original Nintendo. In case you?re keeping track, a classic Nintendo console squeezes out barely 300K of memory all told. Wow.

If you’re eager to run the game but don’t have a working computer from 1992 sitting around the house, we recommend the emulator DOSBox.

Leap second causes “sporadic outages” across the Internet

You may have heard that the world’s official time keepers added a leap second to the world’s official clocks this week. They do this every so often to keep the clocks in sync with the spinning of the earth – apparently the atomic clocks we use don’t account for small changes in the earth’s behavior. Time keepers have had to add 25 of these leap seconds since 1973.

You might think that one second wouldn’t make much of a difference to anything, but it totally does when computers are involved. Most machines rely on software code that isn’t prepared to deal with this extra second. In fact, the last time a leap second was added in 2012 sites like Reddit went down, and flights in Australia were grounded because machines at Qanta Airways went dark.

Companies were a little more prepared this time around, but according to analysis from a firm called Dyn Research, the leap second still caused sporadic Internet outages including a hiccup that lasted about five minutes. And apparently it was caused by a particular router.

There was a lag as internet service providers and other companies worked to reroute data through other paths.

SpaceX rocket explodes shortly after launch

Over the weekend NASA’s partnership with privately owned company SpaceX suffered a setback when an unmanned rocket on a mission to resupply the International Space Station exploded approximately two and a half minutes after launch. In a Tweet, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said that there had been an “overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank.” Up until Saturday’s explosion, the Falcon 9 rockets used by SpaceX have always been perfectly reliable. This is, however, the third ISS resupply mission in a row to fail. The ISS crew is currently reported to have enough supplies to last through September.

Someone is cutting internet cables in California

The Wall Street Journal reported that early Tuesday morning unknown persons severed fiber-optic cables carrying internet traffic across Northern California, apparently intentionally. This was the most recent of several such attacks on internet infrastructure in California in the last year. Internet disruptions and slowdowns were reported between Sacramento and Seattle. The FBI says that someone broke into an underground vault to attack the cables. They are asking for the public’s assistance in finding the culprits.

Fiber goes faster

Speaking of fiber optic cables, reddit user FrakinBeast posted a story from Gizmodo that engineers were able to make fiber optic cables carry more data even further than ever before. The electrical engineers at UC San Diego got a transmission to travel 7,400 miles. Unfortunately, that’s all that we could understand in this story.

Ask Siri to divide zero by zero

An Easter egg found in Apple’s Siri virtual assistant has social media abuzz this week. When asked the question “What is zero divided by zero?” Siri responds with a philosophical – and at times personal – answer.

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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.

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.

This week Tom shares news about Taylor Swift tackling problems with Apple Music, Sean hits the “undo send” button on that embarrassing email he just sent, and Ray looks at why a branch of the U.S. military is still running Windows XP. That and more on this week’s Deemable Tech!

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. We’re also looking for a new admin to help manage and moderate our subreddit page. Submit a text post to our subreddit explaining why you would make a great admin.

THIS WEEK’S RUNDOWN

Taylor Swift makes Apple change its mind about paying artists during free trial period of Apple Music

In an abrupt about-face, Apple has changed course and decided to pay artists during the free trial period of Apple Music streaming.

Apple executive Eddie Cue specifically attributed this change of heart to an open letter penned to the company by Taylor Swift, in which she said that she would not be making her album “1989” available on the streaming service because she felt they were not compensating artists fairly. Since Apple’s announcement, several indie labels have announced that they were signing up with Apple Music.

Image credit: Jana Beamer / Flickr

Gmail officially adds “Undo Send” feature

If you’ve ever sent an email and realized that you didn’t attach an attachment — or worse, wrote something you never meant to say to the other person — Gmail added a feature this week that you will love: Undo Send!

Well, maybe “Undo Send” is a bit of a misnomer. What the feature really does is delay sending your message for 5, 10, 20 or 30 seconds to give you the chance to change your mind. Just turn on “Undo Send” in your Gmail settings, and the next time you send something you didn’t mean to you can just hit the “undo” button at the top of the page.

The team at Gmail has actually been experimenting with this feature for the past six years (and you could use it before now, if you knew that it existed and knew how their Google Labs section works), but they officially made it part of their mail service this week.

We should note that this appears to only work for personal Gmail accounts at the moment. So if your employer uses Gmail for your work email, you still need to be cautious about what you send for the time being.

Disney and ABC TV cancel plans to offshore IT jobs

Back in October, Disney gave notice to around 250 IT employees that work for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. To make it worse, they thought they were being called in to find out they were getting bonuses.

Actually, no, it gets worse than that, they then found out that they were being “given the opportunity” to work longer if they stuck around and trained their replacements. The controversial part was their replacements were foreigners in the country on H-1B Visas. The purpose of the H-1B visas was to attract IT workers to the US to fill the gaps in tech labor shortages, not to replace American workers with lower wage earning employees.

Some media outlets mentioned it, but it really picked up steam when a few weeks ago, Disney’s ABC Television Group called in about 35 application developers for a meeting, and told them they were being laid off, and they were going to be training their replacements, more foreign employees on H-1B visas.

However, just last week, Disney did a complete about-face, and canceled the layoffs. Of course, no one would speak to the media on the record, but an anonymous source told Computerworld that Disney just “want[s] this to go away — right now.”

A source at Disney also told Computerworld that this change had absolutely nothing to do with the dozens of negative news stories that popped up after the news got out.

You can get Windows 10 for free, but there’s a catch

Since Windows 10 was first announced, Microsoft has released a lot of conflicting statements about who exactly would be able to get it free. From the beginning they’ve been consistent in saying Windows 10 will be a free upgrade to users who have Windows 7 and Windows 8 and 8.1. But for other users, things have been less clear.

First they said that even users without legitimate copies of Windows would be able to upgrade, then they said they wouldn’t. Then this week there was more confusion. It appeared that Microsoft would be giving away a free copy of Windows 10 to any user who agreed to test it. However it now appears that the situation is more complicated than that.

Installing the Windows 10 preview will grant users free access to Windows 10, but only as long as they stay in the preview program. If they leave at any point, their preview copy will eventually expire. In other words, you can get Windows free as long as you agree to beta test new releases of the operating system… forever.

Facebook working on facial recognition software that doesn’t need to see your face

Facebook researchers say they are working on experimental systems that will allow Facebook to recognize users in photos based off their hairstyle and clothing. In other words, it is facial recognition that doesn’t actually need to see your face.

According to the researchers, the new system is accurate 83 percent of the time, far better than current facial recognition systems which need clear, full frontal shots of people’s faces to recognize them. The researchers described the project as “experimental” and “long term” and said that we shouldn’t expect it to be rolled out on the site any time soon.

Good thing, considering the controversies that Facebook’s facial recognition algorithms have caused in the past.

The Navy says Windows XP is worth $9 million

According to Computerworld, the U.S. Navy has about 100,000 computers running Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Office 2003 and Exchange 2003. Server 2003 expires in July, and all of the others have been expired. To keep their computers running in tip-top shape with security updates, the Navy is paying Microsoft $9.1 million.

If there was ever a computer you wanted to be secure, it would be a computer in the Navy.

And, to be fair to the Navy, Windows XP still has approximately 10-14 percent market share, depending on who’s counting, which, either way, still puts it over Apple’s OS X.

Ebay and Amazon banning confederate flag merchandise

Major online retailers, including Amazon, eBay, and Alibaba are banning and removing Confederate flag merchandise from their inventories in the wake of the tragic shooting at Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. The man the police have identified as the shooter, Dylann Roof, had posed in several photographs with a Confederate flag. As calls have spread for the flag to be removed from state flags and capitals, retailers have been quick to distance themselves from it publicly.

Actually getting flag merchandise off the shelf may take time, however. As of the time when we recorded this episode, however, some confederate flag merchandise was still available.

Microsoft Office coming to Android

Microsoft released full versions of its Office productivity apps (Word, Excel and PowerPoint) for the Android operation system this week.

This comes after about month of beta versions of these apps being available for Android users. Microsoft said in a statement that the incorporated a lot of feedback from users of these early versions into the final ones.

These apps won’t work on all Android devices, especially older ones, but they will work on a majority of smartphones and tablets. The Microsoft Office mobile apps are currently free in the Google Play store.

Amazon now paying Kindle Unlimited authors by the page

Amazon has announced that starting on July 1, they will begin paying authors in the Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Lending Library programs by the number of pages read, rather than simply when their book is downloaded. To keep the system from being gamed by large fonts, Amazon has introduced the Kindle Edition Normalized Page Count, or KENPC, which is a formula that will attempt to standardize page counts for all books.
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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.

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: “Taylor Swift RED tour 2013” by Jana Beamer is used under CC BY 2.0.

This week, Ray, Tom and Sean discuss the Federal Office of Personnel Management being hacked, Facebook finally adding support for GIFs, and a woman who didn’t realize the old computer she was throwing out was really a piece of Apple history worth $200,000. The guys are also joined by Ryan Thompson of GAAM (Games Arts and Music) to look at some of the week’s top video games news, including Lego’s new “Minecraft killer” game, Lego Worlds. All that and a whole lot more on this week’s Deemable Tech!

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. We’re also looking for a new admin to help manage and moderate our subreddit page. Submit a text post to our subreddit explaining why you would make a great admin.

THIS WEEK’S RUN DOWN

Woman junks $200,000 Apple I prototype

Okay, so you’re cleaning out the attic and you spot an old computer moldering in the corner, so you decide to cart if off to the electronics recycler. Stop! Is that an Apple I computer? Because if it is, it might be worth as much as $200,000!

Now the chances that you have an Apple I in your attic are slim, because only about 200 were ever made and they weren’t commercially available like their predecessor, the Apple II. But a woman in Silicon Valley apparently did have one lying around, as she showed up last month at a local recycler on dropped one off along with a bunch of junk, saying her husband had died and she was cleaning up.

The recycler is now searching for the woman because it is their policy to split half the proceeds of any sales with donors. Unfortunately, the woman left no information. In fact, when they asked her if she wanted a tax receipt, she said “No, I don’t need anything.”

An example of an early Apple I computer on display in the Smithsonian Museum.
Photo credit: Ed Uthman / Flickr

Science teacher suspended for using cellphone jammer to crack down on cell phones in class

This next news story was submitted by redditor FrakinBeast:

A Tampa Bay area science teacher has been suspended after he allegedly used a signal jammer to prevent his students from using their cellphones during class. The school board issued instructor Dean Liptak a five day suspension without pay, saying that he might have interfered with people trying to dial 9-1-1. It is not clear where Liptak acquired the jamming device, but they are available online. On its website, the FCC reminds consumers that “It is a violation of federal law to use a cell jammer or similar devices that intentionally block, jam, or interfere with authorized radio communications such as cell phones, police radar, GPS, and Wi-Fi.”

This is not Dean Liptak’s first run-in with the school board. He is a former professional wrestler and has previously been reprimanded for test questions referencing the velocity of a student thrown against the wall by a teacher, and the mass of a car running over a baby.

Facebook adds GIF support

After years of waiting, you can now share animated GIFs on Facebook! The site finally added support for GIFs this past week, and using it is as easy as posting a link.

Just like videos from YouTube, you simply copy and paste the link for a GIF into your status update window, wait for it to load, and hit post.

Also like videos, your auto-play settings affect animated GIFs. Depending on how you have those set, GIFs will either automatically start looping or they will show up as a still image with a little white circle that says “GIF” in the middle which you have to click to play.

We should note that while you can now post animated GIFs using links, you still can’t upload them directly from your computer or phone.

Facebook also tests pronunciation tool

In other Facebook news, they have started testing a feature that will let you tell the world how to pronounce your name. On certain profiles, a phonetic pronunciation of the user’s name is displayed in their details. You can also click that pronouncer to hear an audio clip of how to say the name.

They are just focusing on English speakers in the US at the moment. It looks like most people who fall into that category have this feature, which you can find in the About tab on your profile. Look under the “Details About You” menu for the “How do you say your name?” feature.

You’ll see that Facebook offers three suggestions on how they think your first and last names are pronounced, or you can enter your own pronunciation.

Amazon Prime launches same day delivery in 14 cities

Good news for Amazon Prime members living in New York City, Seattle, San Francisco, Tampa Bay, and ten other select cities – you never have to leave your home again! Amazon is rolling out free same day delivery in your area for orders of $35 and up. For orders that don’t qualify for free same day delivery, it costs $5.99, truly a bargain when it comes to avoiding the unwashed masses! In fact, even if you live in one of the chosen fourteen cities you may not qualify for same day delivery, depending on where in town you are. Amazon has a zip code search page where you can check your eligibility.

Amazon has been rumored to be working on same day delivery for years. Expect these fourteen cities to just be the tip of the iceberg.

IRS and OPM hacked

The Office of Personnel Management, basically the HR department of the entire Federal government, was hacked this week. According to a letter released by the OPM, almost 4 million current and former federal employees may have been impacted, including yours truly. The source of the hack has not been confirmed yet, but CBS News White House Correspondent Major Garrett is saying all signs point to Chinese hackers.

As a former IRS employee, Ray is terriefied. The Office of Personnel Management has more personally identifiable information on him than his wife and his mother combined.

Netflix probably not planning to ruin everything

This week some news outlets reported that Netflix was experimenting with pre- and post-credits-roll advertising. This had some folks in an uproar – was Netflix about to devolve into a Hulu Plus-style cesspit of insidious advertising? Well, probably not. Think less Hulu Plus, more HBO. Netflix says it is experimenting, just experimenting mind you, with showing previews for Netflix’s own original series at either the beginning or end of streaming content. If this is in fact the case, this seems fairly innocuous to us and could even be welcome if the previews are well done and well targeted.

How did Vanity Fair keep Caitlyn Jenner a secret?

According to Mashable, Vanity Fair went to great lengths to make sure the story did not leak out. The story and photos were edited on a computer that was air-gapped. All network connections, Wi-Fi and bluetooth connections were disabled, and every night the files were deleted from the computer. The photos were even hand delivered to the printer.

GameStop to purchase ThinkGeek

In a surprise turn of events, game retailer GameStop appears to be buying nerd-themed online retailer ThinkGeek. ThinkGeek was set to be acquired for a cool $122 million by mall retailer HotTopic when GameStop swooped in and topped them with a $140 million offer. The acquisition will allow GameStop to display ThinkGeek merchandise in its stores, a move which has obvious synergies.

Valve begins offering refunds for all Steam games

Valve, the company behind the popular Steam PC game store and download client, announced this week that it is changing its refund policy.

It used to be that Valved that only offered refunds for games purchased through Steam in extreme circumstances. Their new policy, however, applies to all games.

“Maybe your PC doesn’t meet the hardware requirements; maybe you bought a game by mistake; maybe you played the title for an hour and just didn’t like it,” the policy reads. “It doesn’t matter. Valve will, upon request via help.steampowered.com, issue a refund for any reason, if the request is made within 14 days of purchase, and the title has been played for less than two hours.”

This does not necessarily mean you can try out games for free, though. Steam said they reserve the right to decline a refund if they think a user is abusing the system. BUT they will allow you to return a game right before one of the famous ridiculous sales and then repurchase that game for the newer, lower price.

Lego Worlds Launches

TT Games and the Lego Group have made Lego’s hotly anticipated “Minecraft Killer,” Lego Worlds, available as an early access beta on Steam. For under $15 you too can help TT Games and The Lego Group debug their open world plastic brick building paradise. Lego Worlds lets players build existing sets, do free-form building and even customize your own mini-figs. Still missing from the game is any form of multiplayer. Possibly Lego is concerned about players sharing certain types of anatomically-correct tall buildings.

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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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Photo Credit: “Apple I Computer” by Ed Uthman is used under CC BY-SA 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.

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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.

Image credit: Facebook

Karen writes, “I met someone for the first time in a meeting the other day. A few hours later, she showed up on my Facebook page as ‘someone I might know.’ I’ve also noticed that people sometimes pop up in this feed shortly after sending me emails. How does Facebook know about these interactions? Or am I just being paranoid?”

You’re not being paranoid, Karen. From what we can tell, Facebook has someone spying on you at all times. That secret spy is [insert dramatic music here]: your smartphone!

We would bet dollars to donuts that you not only have an iPhone or an Android phone, but that you also have the Facebook app installed and that you have location services enabled on your phone. If that is the case, your phone is allowing the Facebook app to occasionally check your location, which the app does to see if you?re near any other Facebook users. This is one way Facebook knows to suggest people you’ve come into contact with.

However, this doesn?t mean that the app will suggest you be friends with every random person you pass on the street. Facebook is smarter than that. Even though you met this person for the first time the other day, the two of you presumably have things in common: you have similar jobs, you work in the same industry, you know some of the same people, etc. You are in what Facebook considers to be a “network.”

Your colleague probably also had the app installed on her smartphone. When Facebook saw that the two of you, who are in the same network, spent an hour in the same location, it thought, “These people know each other! They should be Facebook friends!” And so she popped us as “someone you may know.”

You mentioned that Facebook also seems to know when you’ve emailed someone, and will suggest that you be friends with that person. You’ll be happy to know that Facebook isn’t reading your emails. What it is reading is your smartphone’s contact list, another thing the app has access to. You most likely have your contacts synced with your email, so when you email a new person they are added to your phone’s list. Facebook sees this, and again thinks that person is “someone you may know.”

These aren’t the only methods Facebook uses to suggest new friends. According to Facebook’s website, they “show you people based on mutual friends, work and education information, networks you’re part of, contacts you’ve imported and many other factors.”

If you don’t want Facebook to have access to this information on your smartphone, your best bet is to just uninstall the app. In fact, that is your only option if you have an Android phone. If you have an iPhone, though, you can change what the Facebook app has permission to see.

Here’s how you can revoke Facebook’s permissions on iOs:

• Open the Settings app

• Scroll down to the Facebook app

• Tap the toggle next to Contacts to turn that permission on or off

• Tap Settings

• Tap Location, and choose “Never”

Now the Facebook app should not have access to your phone’s contact list or location.

If you missed last week’s episode, we have rebooted the Deemable Tech podcast. From now on, we are not answering tech questions on this show. But, we are answering them on our spin-off show, Ask Deemable Tech. So, if that’s what you love, go subscribe to that podcast. It’s called Ask Deemable Tech – search for it on iTunes.

Help us decide what stories we talk about on the show, go to our subreddit page and submit a story. Or vote other stories up or down. reddit.com/r/Deemable

This Week’s Run Down

Season 3 of House of Cards leaks out early

Season 3 of the critically acclaimed Netflix original show House of Cards is scheduled to come out on Feb. 27th, but fans got an accidental sneak peek on Tuesday when the first ten episodes appeared on the streaming TV service early. Netflix quickly pulled it, but those who were already streaming an episode were able to continue to do so as long as they did not stop until the episode ended. Netflix kept a good sense of humor about it, tweeting ?This is Washington. There is always a leak.? Fans can binge on the twisted schemes of the conniving Frank Underwood starting February 27th.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/11/8021935/house-of-cards-season-three-is-on-netflix-right-now

Jeb Bush accidentally doxes thousands of Floridians

In his words, “In the spirit of transparency,” presidential candidate Jeb Bush released emails from when he was governor of Florida. Unfortunately, the sensitive information like Social security numbers, addresses, phone numbers and Credit Card numbers were not redacted from the emails. So, his team basically just accidentally doxed thousands of Floridians.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/10/8013531/jeb-bush-florida-email-dump-privacy

Jeb Bush’s CTO resigns over controversial tweets

Chief Technical Officer for Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign resigned Tuesday after it came out in the media that Ethan Czahor posted several sexist and racist jokes on Twitter several years ago. He did delete them before starting to work for Bush, but the backlash was apparently too intense.

Kristy Campbell, a spokeswoman for Bush says, “While Ethan has apologized for regrettable and insensitive comments, they do not reflect the views of Gov. Bush or his organization and it is appropriate for him to step aside. We wish him the best.”

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/new-tech-adviser-jeb-bush-potential-campaign-resignsm-article-1.2110482

Will.i.am Puls ?Smart watch? Beta Reviews

http://gizmodo.com/will-i-ams-puls-smartwatch-so-bad-im-actually-kind-of-1685130042

http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/15/will-i-ams-plan-to-bring-fashion-and-technology-together-with-the-creation-of-i-am/

Snapchat selfie leads to first degree murder charge

A Pennsylvania 16-year-old has been charged with first degree murder after posting a selfie on Snapchat with the dead victim.

Snapchat messages delete themselves after a short period of time, but the person who received the picture saved it before it deleted itself.

http://triblive.com/news/westmoreland/7729452-74/police-morton-photo#axzz3Qh0xyVti

Facebook makes plans for the afterlife

Facebook has announced new features that allow users to designate a very special Facebook Friend to administer their profile after they die. Before when a Facebook user died there were only two options for their account: permanent deletion or ?memorialization?. Memorialized accounts were frozen in time and could not be accessed, even by immediate family members.

Facebook?s new features will let the ?legacy contact? have SOME control over the memorialized profile. Among other things they will be able to post at the top of the deceased timeline, according to Facebook, ?to announce a memorial service or share a special message.? They can also approve or deny friend requests and update profile pictures.

What they cannot do is access the deceased? private messages. Some secrets, it seems, you take to the grave.

http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/02/adding-a-legacy-contact/

 http://news.wjct.org/post/facebook-virtual-you-planning-your-digital-afterlife

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes or whatever you use to subscribe to podcasts.

If you have a comment, contact us at feedback at deemable.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-888-972-9868.

Help us decide what stories we talk about on the show, go to our subreddit page and submit a story. Or vote other stories up or down. reddit.com/r/Deemable

Original image credit: darranl / Flickr

In this episode of the Deemable Tech podcast, Ray, Tom and producer Sean answer more of your burning tech questions. The guys take on a mysterious beeping cordless phone, discuss giving permissions to the Facebook app, and help a listener with a broken webcam.

Then it’s time for everyone’s favorite podcast game, DOES NOT COMPUTE! Tom quizzes Ray and Sean about obscure facts in this game where it’s more about the conversation than the answers and the points don’t matter. How did you do on all of these questions? Send us an email to feedback@deemable.com and let us know.

And, if you haven’t already done so, please leave a review of the Deemable Tech podcast in iTunes. As more of you review the show, the higher it’s listed in iTunes, allowing new listeners to more easily discover us. And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter where we deliver these podcast episodes and our radio segments straight to your inbox each week.

Download: #67 Cordless Phones Stump Us

Links Mentioned in this Episode

• Panasonic Product Support
• Panasonic Tech Support Line: 1-800-221-7262

Every once in a while we like to take a few minutes to cover something everyone should know. This time, we want to talk about the website everyone loves to hate… Facebook!

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

If you are honest with yourself, you are probably on Facebook because it is kind of unavoidable, but you don’t love it. A lot of time it’s just full of stuff you don’t care about, like that friend-of-a-friend who posts a dozen posts a day about her dog, or your high school friend who is always starting political arguments.

But the fact is that you have more control over what you see on your Facebook feed then you think you do. There are things you can do to greatly improve that. And there are some ways that you can make sure that when you post something, it gets noticed.

Before we dive in, let’s explain what we mean when we say “Facebook feed”. Basically, we are just talking about the homepage of Facebook, where you see all the updates from friends and from pages you?ve liked. That is referred to as the “news feed” or just the “feed” for short.

The Facebook feed doesn’t show you EVERYTHING your friends post, however. Most people on Facebook have 300 or more friends, and if you saw everything every single one of them liked or posted you would be swamped with information. So Facebook employs an algorithm to decide what to show you.

The real question is how this algorithm works. The actual algorithm is top secret, but just from experimenting around with Facebook we know a lot about it. The Facebook algorithm is more likely to show you stuff from people it thinks you care about and from pages it thinks you really like.

Every time you like a post or comment on something someone wrote or visit someone’s profile, Facebook notices that, and it will start to move that person higher up in your feed. So if you’re always checking out someone?s profile, Facebook will show you more posts by that person.

Some people have said that Facebook knows that two people will start dating several days before it actually happens, supposedly because those people will start liking and commenting on each other’s posts much more frequently. Now, we don’t know if the secret algorithm really knows, that, but it feels like this would be the case . The more you interact with someone, the more Facebook knows that you like that person and want to see more posts by them.

Okay, but what if there?s someone who you really don?t want to see in your feed that much? Is there anything you can do?

Absolutely. A lot of people don’t realize this, but you can explicitly tell Facebook that you don’t want to see a post. You can try this out yourself by bringing up the Facebook home page on your web browser. Pick a post in your feed. At the top right of that post there should be a faint gray down arrow. You might have to hover over the post to see it if you?re on a computer. Click it.

You will get a pop-up with some options like ?I don?t want to see this,? and ?Report this.? Click ?I don?t want to see this.? Don?t worry if you actually do want to see it, on a computer you can undo your choices.

Now it should say that the post is hidden, and there should be a link asking you why you don?t want to see it. Click the link. You will see the options, ?It?s annoying or not interesting,? ?I?m in this photo and I don?t like it,? ?This shouldn?t be on Facebook? and ?This is spam.? Clicking any of those will give Facebook some useful information about what you want to see in your feed – and what you don’t want to see. Now if you click out of that box and then click “undo” in the gray box that tells you the post is hidden you will get that post back.

There’s another trick you can try also. Do you feel like many of your Facebook “friends” are more like “acquaintances”? You can tell Facebook that. Just over to a friend’s profile on Facebook. Up at the top you will see the “Friends” button – click that. In the drop down that pops up you should see the word “acquaintances”. If you click it, it will add this profile to a special friends list called “acquaintances”.

Acquaintances are still friends in Facebook?s world, but Facebook won?t show you very many posts by acquaintances. In fact, it will only show you posts by them that either have a lot of comments or that are about major life events. So if you made someone an acquaintance then you’d see if they got engaged or got a new job, but you wouldn’t see the three posts they made about what they had for lunch yesterday.

Before we go any further we should mention one important thing about your feed. You may have noticed that your feed isn’t strictly chronological. Stuff your partner or best friends post stays at the top of the feed for a day or two sometimes.

If you want to see a more chronological view of your feed, you can click the down arrow next to “news feed” in the bar on the left of the page, and then select “most recent”. That will make your news feed more or less ordered by date rather than how much the algorithm thinks you like stuff.

We should mention that if you are in the Facebook app on a tablet or smartphone, you won’t have this option. Actually, the app has a lot fewer options in general. So if something we’re talking about here isn’t working for you on the app, you may need to log in to Facebook on your home PC to change it.

Alright, time to get down to brass tacks. How do you make “the algorithm” show your friends YOUR posts? How can you be Facebook cool?

Well there’s no sure-fire way to be the most popular kid on the news feed, but we know that there are some things that Facebook likes and that it will factor in when deciding whether or not to show your posts to your friends. Facebook likes posts with pictures and links more than posts that are just updates. So if you link to a website or post a pic, you’re more likely to get noticed. The exception, of course, is if you post a link or a picture that people don’t like. Remember we talked about how you can hide posts? If a lot of people are hiding something you posted, Facebook is likely to downgrade that post. So you want to steer away from controversial topics if your main concern is Facebook popularity.

For instance, cute animals are always a big hit. Facebook also loves “positive” posts. It probably searches posts for keywords like “happy”, “engaged”, “married”, “pregnant”, “kitty”, “love” and so on. Facebook likes happy posts because they are more likely to be shared. Happy links are more likely to be clicked on. And when people click links, Facebook is usually making money.

So if you’re happy and you know it, tell Facebook!

Following these tips will give you much more control over your Facebook feed. More control, but not complete control. At the end of the day, the secret Facebook algorithm is still deciding what it thinks you should see. You may be wondering, is there a way tiycan have total control over my news feed?

There is only one we know of: switch to Twitter.

On this episode of the Deemable Tech podcast, Ray and Tom answer more of your questions about unwanted emails, transferring your copy of Windows to a friend and more.

The guys are also once again joined by producer Sean Birch to discuss some interesting news from the tech world, including the Kickstarter project that raised almost $60,000 to make a batch of potato salad, and a hotel that threatened to fine customers who left negative Yelp reviews.

#64 Bacn and Potato Salad

Links mentioned in this episode:

Lifehacker: How to Wipe Spam Email in Your Inbox

Use iTunes to Your iOS Device to Factor Settings

Restoring Your iOS Device Using Recovery Mode

Potato Salad Kickstarter – By the Numbers

Hotel Adds Negative Online Review Fine Clause to Terms of Service

Facebook Mood Experiment

OkCupid Experiment

Image credit: Stephen Jones / WJCT

In this first of four hour-long public radio specials for 2014, Ray and Tom hear from listeners experiencing problems with their Kindles, wondering how they can have safe and secure passwords, looking for advice on what kind of tablet they should purchase and more.

Links mentioned in the show:

• Laptop Magazine – Laptop Buying Guide
• Snopes.com – Facebook Blocking Religious Posts
• Avast! Anti-Virus
• PC Decrapifier
• Revo Uninstaller
• AdwCleaner
• Microsoft – End of Windows XP Support Guide
• Glympse
• MileBug
• CheckIt Speedometer
• Duolingo

You: “I’d really like to learn Photoshop. Ugh! There aren’t any classes when I am not at work. Private tutoring is so expensive, I guess I’ll just have to get a book and learn it on my own.”

Later, at the store…

You: “Man, there are so many books on Photoshop! I had no idea! I guess I will just get the book labeled “FOR DUMMIES” because I want to start from the beginning.”

Does that scenario describe your own experience? If so, you are reading the right post. Many people choose to buy a book when they want to teach themselves something on the computer. This works wonders if you are technically minded, a self starter, and extremely disciplined. The worst offenders are the “For Dummies” books. Have you even read one of them, actually read one? They may work for some people, but for most, they are too wordy and more technical than us “dummies” need. Their counter parts are the “Missing Manuals“. There was a reason they were missing. They come across as the bible of whatever subject their title boasts. However, upon further examination, they fall into the same mindset that anyone reading a technical book must be technically minded.

But, you are reading this to find out which books are the good ones.

The “Teach Yourself Visually” series is one of the better ones. They give you lots and lots pictures. There are some step-by-step instructions, but mostly pictures. I recommend this to my clients who are visual learners and those who learn by doing. The “Simplified” series come in a close second. Another great series for someone new to a certain subject is the “Plain & Simple” series. It is a great short book to get your feet wet in any subject.

“Visual Quick Tips” series is always a great reference. “Sam’s Teach Yourself” is good if you are attending a class where someone can explain what Sam fails to explain. It is a great supplemental read.

Portable Genius is a great series of how to and quick reference guides for anyone with an iPhone or iPad only. (Your parents, grandparents, etc.) It is a great series for those who just want to learn the basics and not be bogged down with too much outside info. Que came out with a “My…” series that rivals the “Portable Genius”. The “My…” Series covers all types of tablets, computers, phones. They even have a book on the Chromebook.

“In Easy Steps” and “In Easy Steps For Seniors” are two amazing series out of England. They are some of the best step-by-step and easiest to understand for seniors. I recommend both of these series to all seniors. The books are light, uncluttered, and a larger print; perfect for the Greatest Generation.

As you excel in your studies, “Digital Classroom” and Adobe’s “Classroom in a Book” series takes you to the next level. “Step by Step” is another series that can bring your skills from a 3 to a 7 in a matter of hours. They can be wordy, but they are easy to understand.

The O’Reilly books are not to be topped when it comes to the best in the business. If you are at a higher level and need that extra push or want to learn something new, O’Reilly is for you. They are comprehensive and serve as great desk references as well as paperweights when needed. They are worth every penny, and now available in non-paperweight edition (eBook).

When purchasing a book, Rule #1 is to always make sure you are getting the book that is right for you. If you have Mac OSX Lion, but the book you have in your hand is Mountain Lion, put it back. You should be getting the exact book for your exact program. If you have MS Word 2013, an MS Word 2010 book will not be kind to you. Close enough only works in horseshoes and hand grenades. Now that we know to match our book to our program, what about when the book was written? Was the program updated since the book was written? Take Facebook for example. People buy a book about Facebook, get it home and realize that nothing looks the same. Facebook doesn’t have a new “edition” out, but the program has been updated.

Rule #2 is always check the copyright! If a book was not published in the current year (ie: 2013), it is not worth looking at. When it comes to technology, everything changes so fast. It can take up to one year to bring a book to press and distribute it to the stores. If you have a book in your hand that says it was copyrighted in 2011, the info could be up to 3 years old!

For those of you on a budget, the library is a great resource, but remember to check on Rule #2! Many public libraries also now offer eBooks that can be “checked out” on a tablet or computer with an Internet connection. It takes a bit of time to figure it out, but it is a great alternative to the $60+ some books can run.

Another alternative is used bookstores. Sometimes, if you are trying to learn a program that is 1-2 versions back, the regular stores do not carry books on that software anymore. (See Rule #1.) Another option is a nifty little website called ALLBookstores.com. They have a one stop shopping approach to book buying. The site compares all other bookstore sites to find you the best price on any given book. They compile a list of well-known sites like Amazon, eBay, and Half.com, as well as the little guys like WonderBooks, and Textbookx.

If you still can’t find the right book, try this tried and true test. Grab three books off the shelf on your subject. Open each one into the middle. If you can comprehend and understand what they are asking you to do, and it makes some sense, it is the book for you! Not all writers write books for everyone. Find one that has a writing style you can learn from, hence the test.

Happy Hunting!

RAY: Hi, I’m Ray Hollister,

TOM: I’m Tom Braun,

RAY: and we’re the hosts of Deemable Tech. On the show, we answer your questions about computers, tablets, mobile phones and the Internet, like this question:

TOM: Marjory writes, Can you help me understand Facebook’s privacy settings? I want to finally join the 21st century and sign up so I can see my son’s baby pics and updates, but I don’t want the whole world to see everything I write or upload.

RAY: Welcome to the 21st century, Marjory!

TOM: You’re definitely right to be concerned. Facebook privacy settings can be hard to figure out. In fact you’d be surprised how little even people who are heavy Facebook users know about Facebook privacy settings.

RAY: Tom, doesn’t Facebook keep all your information private by default?

TOM: No, in fact they do the complete opposite, Ray. Facebook’s default assumption is that you want to broadcast everything to the whole wide world. Posts and statuses marked with the little globe icon are visible to anyone with a Facebook account, which is pretty much… everyone. However, any time you post something on Facebook you can choose to make it friends-only, friends-of-friends, or a custom security setting.

RAY: What is a custom security setting?

TOM: You can actually make lists of friends and choose to share posts only with friends on that list. That way if you have a post that you think would be funny for your college buddies but not your grandmother, you can make sure that only the right people see it.

RAY: The first thing you’ll want to do, Marjory, is check out the Facebook privacy settings menu. Up in the blue bar that runs across the top of the Facebook page you should see a little gear icon next to your name. That’s the ?settings’ button. Click the button and a drop-down menu will appear. Then click the ?Privacy Settings’ option. This will take you to ?Privacy Settings and Tools’.

You’ll see a list of options that you can change. ?Who can see my future posts? allows you to set the default for posts to friends-only, for instance.

TOM: You can still set it back to ?Public’ any time you post something.

RAY: Right. You can also decide whether or not you want people to be able to search for you by email address or phone number, or whether search engines like Google can search for your profile.

TOM: Ray, if you say ?no’ to all this stuff, can people still search for your profile on Facebook?

RAY: Yes, they can. It used to be that you could hide your profile completely from anyone who wasn’t your friend, but Facebook has recently made all profiles searchable. You can still make all the information IN your profile, including your profile pic, private though.

TOM: Be sure to visit the ?Timeline and Tagging’ menu while you’re tweaking privacy settings. There’s a link to it on the left-hand side of the privacy page.

This page allows you to manage tags.

RAY: A tag is when someone labels a picture with my name, right?

TOM: Right. When you start typing a friend’s name and Facebook pops up their picture and you click it, that’s a ?tag’. When you tag someone in a post or on a picture it adds a link to their profile page and notifies that friend that they’ve been ?tagged’.

If you are tagged in another friend’s post or picture, your friends will be able to view that picture or post by default, even if they’re not friends with the person who tagged you.

The ?Timeline and Tagging’ page allows you to change this, and even to approve tags with your name before they appear on posts and pictures.

RAY: With a working knowledge of Facebook’s privacy settings and how to control who sees your posts, you can spend a lot less time worrying about who sees what you wrote on Facebook and more time communicating with your friends!

RAY: To hear more answers to questions like this one, visit our website at Deemable dot com, that’s D-E E-M A-B-L-E dot com. There you can listen to our full length show, and all of our previous radio segments.

TOM: If you have a question for Deemable Tech give us a call us at One Eight Eight Eight, Nine Seven Two, Nine Eight Six Eight, or you can send us an email at questions at deemable dot com.

RAY: For Deemable Tech, I’m Ray Hollister…

TOM. And I’m Tom Braun.

What if someone hacked into your email, and stole all of your personal information? Luckily, many sites like Gmail and Facebook offer an extra layer of protection to make sure that you, and only you, can log in to your account. So how can you make your login more secure? The hosts of Deemable Tech, Ray Hollister and Tom Braun, look into two-step verification in this week’s Ask Deemable Tech.

RAY: Hi, I’m Ray Hollister,

TOM: I’m Tom Braun,

RAY: and we’re the hosts of Deemable Tech. On the show, we answer your questions about computers, tablets, mobile phones and the Internet, like this question:

FRANKLIN asks: My Gmail account was recently broken into by hackers who guessed my password. I have regained access to the account through Google Support and changed my password, but I am concerned that something like this could happen again. Is there any way to increase the security of my online accounts?

RAY: Yes Franklin, you could have stopped the hackers from getting into your Gmail account if you had enabled two-step verification. Many online services are now offering two-step verification, and it’s a great idea. The way it works with Gmail is that you provide Gmail with a phone number. Then, if anyone tries to either reset your password or access your account from a new computer or device, Gmail will contact you through either a text or a phone call. They will give you a pin # which must be used in addition to your password to proceed.

With two-step verification, any time you or someone else tries to access your Gmail account from a new computer, phone or tablet, not only do they have to enter the password but they also have to enter the special pin code they send to your phone. You can set up special, single use passwords for apps and devices that don’t have the ability to input pin codes.
Two-step verification allows you to greatly enhance the security of your personal accounts. I have enabled it, so if somebody tries to reset my Gmail password, or attempts to login to those accounts from a different computer or phone, I will be immediately notified by text. Meanwhile, they won’t be able to log into my account without that all-important pin code. Even if they know my actual password.

Setting up two-step verification for Gmail takes a few minutes, but is well worth your time. Sign into your Google account, go to settings, and under Personal Settings, then under Security there’s a link that says “Using 2-step verification.”
Once you’re there it will ask you for a phone number to either send you a text message or call you to give you a pin number for verification. Once you get the pin number, enter it back into your Gmail account. Now you are ‘double verified’.

TOM: Facebook has a very similar system under their security settings. They call them ‘login approvals’. To turn on login approvals, login to Facebook and click the ‘gear’ icon in the upper right hand corner of the web page. Then click on ‘Account Settings’. Now, on the left side of the screen you should see ‘Security’ right under ‘General’. Click that. On this page you should see the ‘Login Approvals’ section. Check the box next to it and click ‘save’.
You will then be asked to enter a mobile phone number where you can receive text messages. Facebook currently requires this to activate Login Approvals. However once it is activated you can also receive login approval pin codes through the Facebook app on your phone.

RAY: Now, we don’t want to make you completely paranoid that hackers are out to get you. But Franklin’s story is a sobering reminder that we need to take all the steps we can to protect our most valuable online accounts. And two-step authentication, or ‘login approval’, is a great way to add an extra layer of security to your Gmail and Facebook accounts.

TOM: Now we just gave you a lot of directions, so if you want to hear this segment again when you’re in front of your computer, go to Deemable.com and click the radio segments link.

RAY: To hear more answers to questions like this one, listen to our show at Deemable dot com, that’s D-E E-M A-B-L-E dot com. There you can listen to all of our previous episodes and, of course, subscribe to our podcast.

TOM: If you have a question for Deemable Tech give us a call us at One Eight Eight Eight, Nine Seven Two, Nine Eight Six Eight, or you can send us an email at questions at deemable dot com.

RAY: For Deemable Tech, I’m Ray Hollister

TOM: And, I’m Tom Braun.

On today’s episode of Deemable Tech, Ray and Tom answered questions about how to find out what your teenager is texting, if you need to post a message on your Facebook wall so that your friends will set your posts to private, why is it that you can’t share some posts but you can others, and what happened to the &^%$ Start menu in Windows 8?

All that and more, on this episode of Deemable Tech!

Make sure to subscribe to the show in iTunes by clicking here, or subscribe to the show in another podcast reader by clicking here. Also, make sure to leave us a review in iTunes. The more reviews we have the higher we’ll be listed in iTunes and the more listeners will see our show!

Need tech help? Got a problem or tech question about your computer, phone or tablet? Give us a call and leave us a voice mail at 1-888-972-9868, or send us an email to questions at deemable dot com. We’ll take the best questions and answer them on the show.

Links mentioned on today’s podcast:

• PicsChecker
• Mobile Spy
• My Mobile Watchdog
• 5 Facebook privacy settings you need to check now – Kim Kommando
• Lifehacker – The Always Up-to-Date Guide to Managing Your Facebook Privacy
• Monocube’s Power Schedule
• How to bring back the Start menu in Windows 8

Kickable

• CST-01: The Worlds Thinnest Watch
• Cynaps: Bluetooth, Bone Conduction Headset – in a Hat!
  
• GCW-Zero: Open Source Gaming Handheld
• StickNFind- Bluetooth Powered ultra small Location Stickers
  
• MeterPlug.Lower your ElectricBill.Measure real Electric cost
  
• http://www.indiegogo.com/Pub

 Episode 27 – How to keep track of what your cat is text messaging

Steve wants to know if logging in to a website using your Facebook username and password is safe. Hosts of Deemable Tech, Ray Hollister and Tom Braun, say it all depends on whether or not it uses the service “Log In with Facebook.” Listen to this week’s Ask Deemable Tech.

RAY: Hi, I’m Ray Hollister, I’m Tom Braun, and we’re the hosts of Deemable Tech. On the show, we answer your questions about computers, tablets, mobile phones and the Internet, like this question:

TOM:
Steve asks: I’ve noticed that a lot of websites and apps on my phone have been asking me for my Facebook login. My teenage son keeps telling me it’s fine, but I don’t feel comfortable giving them my Facebook password. Should I be worried about this, or is it OK?

RAY: Thanks for your question, Steve. Well, Maybe…? The question is whether or not you are on a website that uses a service called “Login with Facebook” or if the website is actually asking for your Facebook username and password?

TOM: If the website is actually using “Login with Facebook” it is relatively safe. Facebook saves something on your computer when you log in called a cookie, so that the website knows who you are and knows that you are signed in.

Login with Facebook allows other websites and apps on your phone – or tablet – to use that same information. That way they know who you are and you can log into their website. So, for example, if you were on NPR.org, and you wanted to comment on a story, normally you would have to create a username and password just for their website to comment. OR, you could sign in with your Facebook account instead. That’s one less username or password you have to remember!

RAY: Facebook doesn’t share your password with the website or the app, but it usually does ask for permission to do things like: see who your friends are on Facebook, look at your Timeline, or post things on your Timeline and look at your pictures, videos and messages. So, make sure to read what you are giving the website or app permission to do, and don’t agree to anything you are uncomfortable with.

Now, on the other hand, if the website is asking for Facebook username and password. It’s a scam. Run away. If you are already signed into Facebook, you should not get a prompt to sign in to Facebook again. So, if the website redirects you to the Facebook sign in page, make sure that you are actually on Facebook’s website before you sign in. Facebook’s website is facebook.com. That’s it. It’s not facebook.com.ex3Aa.com or anything other than Facebook.com.

TOM: If you’re not sure, an easy way to check is to open a new web browser tab or window and go to Facebook.com. If Facebook loads up and you are already signed in, close the other site and don’t go back, it’s definitely a scam.

RAY: If you are on an app on your phone or tablet, that you bought from the App Store on iOS or Google Play or Amazon App Store on Android, then chances are very slim that the app is a scam app, but the same rules apply. The app should not be asking you for your user name and profile if you are already signed into Facebook.

TOM: So, again, switch over to Facebook and see if you are already logged in. If you’re not logged into Facebook, log in directly, and relaunch the app and see if it asks you to log in again. If you are already logged into Facebook, and it asks you to log in again, then forget that app. It’s not worth it.

Just like you wouldn’t normally hand your car keys to a stranger on the street, you shouldn’t give your Facebook username and password away.

RAY: To hear more answers to questions like Steve’s listen to our show at Deemable dot com, that’s D-E E-M A-B-L-E dot com. There you can listen to all of our previous episodes and subscribe to our podcast.

TOM: If you have a question for Deemable Tech give us a call us at 1-888-972-9868, or you can send us an email at questions@deemable.com.

RAY: For Deemable Tech I’m Ray Hollister,

TOM: and I’m Tom Braun.

This week it seems like everyone wants to know what other people can see on their Facebook page and who’s been stalking them on Facebook. Then, it got really creepy. Also, Ray and Tom launch a new segment called, well, they don’t know what to call it. If you have an idea, leave it in the comments down below. Make sure to subscribe to the show, and leave a review!

If you have a tech question for Deemable Tech call us, leave us a voice-mail at 904-372-3336.

Subscribe to the show in iTunes by clicking here.

Subscribe to the show in another podcast reader by clicking here.

Deemable Tech – Episode 16 – We Took The Lollipop

Today’s Questions:

Need tech help? Got a problem or tech question about your computer, phone or tablet? Give us a call and leave us a voice mail at 904-372-DEEM (3336), or send us an email and questions@deemable.com. We’ll take the best questions and answer them on the show.

Debunkable

• Now you can see who’s been stalking your Facebook page…or can you?

Links we mentioned on today’s show:

• Take This Lollipop
• Google Drive
• Call Blocker by NQ Mobile
• iBlacklist from Cydia
• Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA)
• Federal Trade Commission
• FTC Debt Collection FAQs’s website
• ioSafe Rugged Portable
• Western Digital My Passport

Deemable Tech – Episode 12 – Fly Me 2 d Moon

The News Feed:

1. The world lost a reluctant hero, Neil Armstrong.
2. Samsung’s worst scenario happened; Apple won. Samsung was found guilty of wilful infringement of Apple’s patents.

Debunkable:

• Neil Armstrong was misquoted, or was he?
• Good luck Mr. Gorsky!

Links we mentioned on today’s show:

• http://www.markpilarski.com/deal-me-in/getting-ignored-by-a-touch-screen.html
• The official NASA transcripts from the Apollo 11 mission.
• lingo2word.com/translatetxt.php
• transl8it.com/
• Text Talk: the Top Text Message Abbreviations, 2012

Bumper Music

• Frank Sinatra – Fly Me To The Moon (8-bit) by Bryan Lopez
• The Clash – I Fought The Law (8-bit NES Version)

Deemable Tech – Episode 11 – Call Me (Internationally), Maybe

The Deemable Dozen:

1. Apple’s attorney’s are on crack? 
   As the legal smack-down in California heads into its final stretch, District Court Judge Lucy Koh’s patience appears to be wearing thin. With Samsung having rested their case and Apple left with only a few hours to wind up theirs, they submitted a massive 75-page document detailing 22 separate witnesses that they supposedly intended to call. Judge Koh reportedly told Apple’s attorney, ?Unless you’re smoking crack, you know these witnesses aren’t going to be called when you have less than four hours.? Apple’s lawyer protested that he was not smoking crack, but agreed to pare down the list. The trial is expected to wind up this week, which will give everyone a brief reprieve before the inevitable appeal process begins.
2. Motorola-Google fires first shot at Apple, seeks ban of all major devices in US.
   In other tech lawsuit news, Google’s Motorola Mobility division, which Google purchased for its extensive patent portfolio, is seeking an injunction from the US International Trade Commission against just about everything Apple makes. Motorola claims that Apple has violated patents it owns regarding email notifications, location reminders, and phones that can also play video. Siri, Apple’s popular voice-recognition software, is also implicated in the lawsuit.
3. Apple rumored to be in talks with cable companies.
   The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple is apparently in talks with cable companies to add cable service to their set-top box. Although AppleTV has been something of a hobbiest’s toy up until now, being able to get cable through it would definitely be a game-changer. On the other hand, after seeing what Apple did to the music and publishing industries, the cable companies probably aren’t going to roll over easily on this one.
4. HP turns Palm into Gram.
   Fans of the old Palm WebOS rejoiced last week with word that HP was forming a subsidiary called Gram to manage the now fully open-source mobile platform, which they own. But don’t get too excited guys, because HP has also created another mobility unit which will apparently work on Windows tablets. At this point HP’s strategy appears to be: ?Yes, let’s do something with mobile… stuff.? They are also rumored to have ?the cloud…”
5. Square’s flat rate.
   In a bid to court small businesses, mobile payment provider Square has announced that it will begin offering flat rates for companies that are processing less than $250k in transactions through the service. Square normally takes a 2.75% cut of each transaction, but are now offering smaller users the option to pay $275 a month. That sounds like a lot to me, but people don’t offer me their credit card numbers a lot, so what do I know?
6. Facebook’s stock fall.
   Facebook’s stock took a huge hit Friday, tumbling to $19/share, half of what it was at the company’s Initial Public Offering in May. The plunge comes a day after the expiration of a lock-down period where early investors and insiders were required to hold onto their shares. Apparently once they were free to dump them, they did. Since Facebook went public it has taken a real beating in the stock market. I wonder if Mark Zuckerberg has updated his Linked In profile recently?
7. Washington state to enable Facebook voter registration.
   Washington state is poised to allow citizens to register to vote through Facebook. Washington was the second state in the US to allow online voter registration. I suppose this is the next logical step. At least half my Facebook friends already seem to think that ?Liking? Obama or Romney is equivalent to voting for them.
8. iPhone SMS spoofing.
   ?White hat hackers? (those are the good kind) have discovered an iPhone bug that allows someone to send text messages masquerading as any phone number. ?Black hat hackers? (those are the bad kind) might be able to use this technique to impersonate friends and extract personal information from iPhone users. So play it safe: when your friend starts texting you and asking for your credit card number and SSN, don’t give it to him.
9. Adobe announces Flash for Android is dead!
   Flash is dead. Long live Flash. Adobe pulled the Flash Player from the Google Play store this week, meaning it is no longer available for download for Android devices. For nearly a decade Flash was the technology of choice for doing things like animation or streaming video on the web. Things took a turn for the worse for Adobe’s platform after Apple spurned it by refusing to allow it on iOS. Last Christmas Adobe apparently saw the writing on the wall and announced that it would begin focusing on other technologies. If you already have Flash on your Android phone or tablet, it’s not going away, but many websites and apps are already steering away from using Flash towards sleeker, more reliable mobile-friendly technologies such as HTML5.
10. eBay to officially ban ?intangible? items, such as including ?spells, curses, hexes, conjuring, magic, prayers, blessing services, magic potions, healing sessions?.
    Bad news for enterprising Hogwarts students: Ebay has updated its selling policies to ban sales of “advice, spells, curses, hexing, conjuring, magic, prayers, blessing services, magic potions, [and] healing sessions,” beginning in September. In related news, Magical Ebay has reportedly banned sales of ?useless muggle items such as cars, power-tools and digital wristwatches.? This just in: this may be the nerdiest news item we have ever reported.
11. Publishers fight over whether or not to sell DRM-free (Digital Rights Management) eBooks.
    E-books outsold traditional hard-cover books for the first time in the first quarter of this year. They are now officially Big Business. Tor, the world’s largest science fiction publishing imprint announced in April that it would release all of it’s books without any Digital Rights Management. That announcement didn’t sit well with British publisher Hatchette UK, who this week sent out a letter to its authors gently suggesting that they are not okay with having books they sell with DRM sold DRM-free in another territory. Science fiction author, Boing-Boing editor and opponent of all things DRM Cory Doctorow lashed out at Hatchette, saying ?Hachette has balls the size of Mars if it thinks it can dictate what other publishers do with titles in territories where it has no rights.?
12. Cloud gaming service ?OnLive? has been sold.
    Cloud-based gaming service ?OnLive? announced Friday morning that it had laid off all 200 or so of its employees and sold all of its assets to a new owner. OnLive later issued a press release claiming that it would continue to offer all its services, that nearly half of its employees would be hired back, and that everything was ?business as usual’. Dissolving your entire company only to re-form it hours later doesn’t sound like ?business as usual’ to us.

Links we mentioned on today’s show:

• http://speedtest.net/

Bumper Music

• Violin Super Mario!!!!!
• Skrillex – Scary Monsters And Nice Sprites – Ferro Version (piano tutorial with sheet music)

This week Ray Hollister, Tom Braun and Aaron Edelson ignore their friends on Facebook, but then change their mind, shoot at an iPhone, loan out a book or two and watch movies on their phones. All that and more on this episode of Deemable Tech.

Deemable Tech – Episode 8 – I want to shoot my iPhone because my Android is so slow

Today’s Questions:

1. 01:00 – How can I block and unblock people annoying people on Facebook?
2. 08:33 – I can haz Bulletproof iPhone case? Don’t taze me (with your iPhone,) bro!
3. 13:30 – The front facing camera on my Nexus 7 doesn’t work on Skype!
4. 19:04 – How can I watch my DVDs and Movies on Android and iOS?
5. 26:26 – Can I share my books on Kindle?
6. 37:31 – Why is my Android Phone so slow?
7. 47:07 – Opera won’t open an iTunes link, and the Podcast takes forever to download

Links we mentioned on the show:

• How do I control what I see in my Facebook news feed?
• Bulletproof iPhone
• iPhone Tazer
• Vudu
• Flixster
• UltraViolet
• Watchdog Manager Lite from Zomut