This week Ray, Tom and Sean talk about quantum computers, Google’s new messaging apps, and the possibility of an all-glass iPhone. Plus the guys share some sad news.

A special message from Ray, Tom and Sean

If you’re an avid listener to Deemable Tech, it will probably come as no surprise that we’ve been having some difficulty putting out shows for the past few months. The three of us have gone through some major changes in our careers and lives over the past year, and those have taken away a lot of the time we’ve had to devote to bringing you this show every week.

So, after months of not recording an episode, we’ve made the tough decision to end the Deemable Tech podcast. For now, at least.

We’ve come to the realization that it is just not sustainable. We can’t keep producing the show to the level that we did before, and it was unfair of us to leave you in the dark about it.

We may relaunch the show down the road, if we are able to. If you are interested in finding out when we or if we do, sign up for our newsletter on the right side of this page. You’ll be the first to know.

We won’t be gone completely, though. You can still catch us answering your tech questions every week on Ask Deemable Tech, so be sure to subscribe to that podcast or listen live Thursdays on 89.9 FM WJCT.

If you have any farewell messages for us, leave us a voicemail at 1-888-972-9868 or send an email to feedback at deemable dot com.

We’ve truly appreciated you listening to (and sometimes even enjoying) our shenanigans for the past four years. It’s been a blast.

Now let’s take this baby for one last ride!

THE RUN DOWN

Google releases Science Journal app

For those of you who loved doing science projects as a kid, Google recently released a new app that you’ll love.

The app, Science Journal, uses the sensors in your phone to measure and record data in real time, including movement, light and sound.

As Google says on the Science Journal site, “See something you want to measure? How much light is in my room compared to outside? How loud is the dog’s bark compared to my cough? Record your observations in real-time at the press of a button. Explore your environment or measure things you’ve built yourself.”

Among other features, Science Journal lets you record measurements as charts and graphs, and record a voice memo as you’re doing your experiment so you can give extra details about it.

Google has also partnered with the Exploratorium in San Francisco to sell special little kits with materials like sensors your phone doesn’t have to let you measure other stuff.

Science Journal is currently only available for Android.

It’s all about the qubits, baby

Verge is reporting that IBM has made a working quantum computer that anyone in the world can play with.

What does that mean? Glad you asked! Basically, as anyone who has watched any movie from the 90s that involved computers can tell you, computers work by translating ones and zeros into machine understandable language and then translating that into human language and user interfaces. Quantum computers use ones, zeros and both at the same time.

Now the question is, what to do with that. We’ve built an entire industry out of a binary system, and now that we have the capability to expand it to a trinary or “ternary” system, the question is how to use it. So, IBM has opened it to the public for research and experimentation because basically the only people who understand what we just said are scientists.

Google says hello to Allo and Duo

One area where Google has long lagged behind competitors like Apple and Facebook has been in messaging. Rather than having a single, unified messaging app, Google has introduced numerous messaging systems like Gchat, Google Hangouts, and the default Android text-messaging app.

This week at Google’s I/O event, the company announced two new messaging apps, Allo and Duo. Allo is for text messaging, and includes Google bot technology which offers up auto-responses to messages based on things you usually type.

Duo, meanwhile, is a 1-on-1 video chat app. It is optimized to work even in low-bandwidth situations.

Both apps support end-to-end encryption, however, controversially, it will not be enabled be default. Some think this might be because it would impede their ability to offer features like the auto response bot.

All-glass iPhone?

We couldn’t do a final episode of the podcast without Ray talking about iPhones, could we?

Forbes is reporting that the iPhone 8 could lose the unibody aluminium case for an all glass one. No, you didn’t read that incorrectly, the next iPhone is the presumptively going to be coined the “7”, but this rumor is about the iPhone 8.

The glass case is expected to wrap around the entire device and have no bezel as a result.

And apparently the entire front of the phone will be screen. The front facing camera, touch ID sensor, speaker and proximity sensor will somehow all be behind the screen.

Android apps coming to Chromebooks

The Google Play Store is coming to Chromebooks. Along with every single Android app!

As Ars Technica puts it, everything “from Microsoft Word to Hearthstone to Firefox will be able to run on Chrome OS without noticeable performance penalties.”

That’s the pretty great stuff. Here’s the asterisk: Google has released a compatibility list for this amazing new feature and it basically excludes any Chromebook older than two years old. This even includes Google’s souped-up and overpriced Pixel Chromebook.

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.

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

Image credit: Ashley Madison

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

Google Launches New Router

Google announced this week that is partnering with networking manufacturer TP-Link to make a new a Wi-Fi router called the OnHub.

In the announcement on their official blog, Google says they want to alleviate the setup headaches and connection problems that many people experience with their wireless routers by introducing a simple, user-friendly device. The OnHub, which looks like a large cylinder with a single light on top, is filled with 13 antennas – 12 for signal, and one that checks the airwaves to make sure there is no wireless congestion in the area. This supposedly will make sure that you?ll always have the fastest connection.

You set up and manage the OnHub by using the Google On Android and iOS app, which Google says will let you prioritize connections for specific devices, and give you easy access to your router password so you can copy and text it to your friends. In a really cool twist, you connect your phone with the router at first by using SOUND.

As for the clean design, Google had this to say: ?Many of us keep our router on the floor and out of sight, where it doesn?t work as well. We replaced unruly cords and blinking lights with internal antennas and subtle, useful lighting, so you?ll be happy placing OnHub out in the open, where your router performs its best.?

The OnHub is available for preorder now (though it apparently is completely sold out). It?s a little pricey for a router at $199.

Google Project Sunroof Tool

According to an article on Vox, Google is working on a new tool called Project Sunroof that will help you figure out if solar power is right for your home. The Project Sunroof tool allows you to enter your address and then uses aerial imagery to calculate how much sunlight your rooftop receives. The tool then uses other information such as your monthly electric bill and whether you want to buy or lease the panels to determine how much going solar could save you.

The tool is still in its early stages. Right now, it doesn?t work for North Florida, where we are located, but you can have fun playing with it for Google?s stomping grounds in California.

And then there was one. Sprint stops offering two-year contracts.

Verizon announced in early August that it would not be offering subsidized phones with two-year contracts to new customers. Existing customers could still get a new phone at a cheaper price, as long as they didn’t change phone plans. This made Verizon the second company to drop the ol’ two year routine. T-Mobile, the company Siri thinks I’m talking about everytime I say “Deemable,” started this trend in 2013 when they became the so-called “unCarrier.”

Now according to the Wall Street Journal, Sprint has jumped on the bandwagon. Sprint is no longer offering subsidized smartphones on two-year contracts, leaving poor old AT&T as the only major carrier that offers subsidized phones.

Now, if you can’t afford to drop $650 for a new iPhone Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile offer a payment plan to buy a phone. At Verizon and T-Mobile, if you have good enough credit, you can pay for the phone in 24 monthly installments. Sprint doesn’t have  a similar purchase plan, but it will let you lease an iPhone starting at $22 per month. No word yet if they will offer the same deal with Android phones.

Google Reveals Real Name Of ?Android M? Version of OS

Okay guys, so as you know Google likes to name each version of its Android operating system out of something sweet, in alphabetical order. The last three versions have been Jellybean, KitKat, and Lollipop, and the next one up is Android M. This week, Google revealed what the ?M? would stand for. Any guesses?

And the answer is?

Google says the new version will be 6.0. Android Lollipop is currently on version 5.1.1.

iPhone 6 Plus Camera-gate

If you have an iPhone 6 Plus, you may have bought it for its significantly better camera. Well, jokes on you! Engadget is reporting that the camera on several of the iPhone 6 Pluses are defective, making the image blurry. If you think you are a victim of this atrocity, you can go to a page on Apple’s website and enter your serial number to find out. If you don’t have an iPhone 6 Plus and your camera lens is blurry, for instance if you have an iPhone 6, 5S, Samsung Galaxy, Nokia 3390, you’re OK, it’s not a defect. Just wipe the lens off

A Dog Joined Twitter

While Ray was worried about robot civil rights last week, a dog joined Twitter! 

Computer science student Henry Conklin thought that his dog, Oliver, was so outspoken that his thoughts needed to be shared with the world. So he created the account @OliverBarkBark. As Conklin says on his blog: rather than transcribe every bark out of his dog?s mouth, he set up a system that ?automatically detected, filtered and published each one of Oliver?s deafening vocalizations.?

Conklin?s system consists of a Raspberry Pi – a type of microcomputer that is promoted for teaching basic computer science in schools – a microphone, and a Wi-Fi dongle. The computer starts recording when it hears a loud sound that matches a library of barks Conklin created. The system then tweets out a random string of ?barks,? ?woofs? and ?ruffs.?

Conklin says he hopes to replace this with a bark-to-text translator he says will be ?more accurate to Oliver?s actual voice.?

Boston Dynamics Unleashes Walking Robots

Robots: threat or menace? No matter what you think about our future robotic overlords, one thing is clear: they are getting better all the time. Gizmodo reports that cutting edge robotics company Boston Dynamics released a video this week showing off two of its robots. Spot, a quadrupedal robot, features a robotic arm that allows it to open doors. A bipedal robot named Atlas is shown walking over uneven surfaces, including a bed of rocks. Atlas is also shown navigating through a forest outdoors. Essentially, the only thing stopping it from running the Boston Marathon is the fact that the model is not yet wireless and must remain hooked up to a power source at all times.

The company reports that they are working on this.

Ashley Madison, Established Men

Hacker group, Impact Team, announced last month that it had gained access to Avid Life Media’s user database. ALM is the parent company of Ashley Madison, the dating website for married people who want to have an affair, and Established Men, the dating website for rich men to find young, beautiful women.

Impact Team demanded that Avid Life Media take down AshleyMadison.com and EstablishedMen.com, and last week, one month later, Impact Team published the data on the deepweb.

This is the second major hack of a dating website of ill repute. Back in May, AdultFriendFinder was hacked. CNN Money says that customers’ email addresses, usernames, passwords, birthdays and zip codes, were included in that hack.

The data in this hack is just as extensive, and more so. The data includes most recent communications, last four digits of member credit card numbers, and more.

Roughly 10 GB of data in the dump. Almost 23 GB uncompressed. It’s not available on the “regular” web; it was posted to the deepweb. If you don’t know what that is, or how to get on it? educate yourself, we are not going to get into that. We have the data, but we haven’t had enough time to dig into it before this episode was recorded.

CNN Money is reporting that almost 7,000 email American and Canadian government email addresses are in the data dump,

Obviously, this is causing a lot of marital fall outs. The Daily Mail is reporting that lawyers are saying this is going to be “Christmas in September” as spouses find out that their partner was registered or paying to be on the site in the next few weeks. Other lawyers are calling it “Legal Black Friday.”

CNN Money also pointed out one disturbing fact: “The website’s users were worldwide, and there are 79 countries where homosexuality is illegal. In Afghanistan, Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the punishment is death.”

Josh Duggar Had Paid Account

One of the first widely known names to be exposed in the Ashley Madison data dump is reality TV star and conservative value promoter Josh Duggar, of TLC?s 19 Kids and Counting fame. Gawker reports that Duggar had not just one AshMad account but two, one linked to his home in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and the other to an address in Oxon Hill, Maryland. Both accounts were ?paid accounts?, which included the $250 purchase of an ?affair guarantee? from the website.

Duggar drew controversy in May when it was reported that he had molested several girls as a teenager, including his own sisters. His family claimed that he had since reformed.

Josh Duggar has been married to his wife Anna for seven years and they have four children.

Ritch Workman

Closer to home, FloridaPolitics.com confirmed that Florida State Representative Ritch Workman was a paying Ashley Madison member. Workman did admit that he had an account on the site, and regretted it. He said it was when he was single, but he still wishes he had never joined the site.

Disney Unveils Plans for Star Wars Lands

Ever since Disney bought Star Wars, speculation has been rampant that the company would introduce Star Wars-themed attractions to its famous theme parks. Well this week Ars Technica reported that the company made it official, announcing massive, fourteen acre Star Wars expansions to California?s Disneyland and Florida?s Disney World. There are few details yet but Disney says guests will be able to fly around in the Millennium Falcon and visit the Mos Eisley space cantina. The attractions will reportedly be staffed by ?local inhabitants? of the Star Wars universe.

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.

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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.

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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.

—

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

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

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

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

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

THIS WEEK’S RUN DOWN

SSDs can lose data really fast

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

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

Just another reminder to back up your data!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Facebook rolls out “instant articles” from major news publishers

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

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

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

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

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

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

Verizon announces plan to buy AOL for 4.4 billion dollars

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

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

It’s time to play the feud!

Credit: Google Feud

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

Anyone who’s ever owned an iPod knows that stainless steel scratches.

This week, Google launched a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO). The new phone service uses Sprint, T0Mobile and Wi-Fi, but it only has one phone, the Nexus 6. There’s a few Apple Watch ‘scandals’ ramping up: tattoo-gate, scratch-gate and tap-gate. Microsoft has a new “edge”ier web browser, a man shoots up his Dell and the robots are coming to steal your car.

If you haven?t subscribed to Deemable Tech yet, get on it! Subscribe to Deemable Tech in iTunes, on Stitcheror subscribe to the show in another podcast reader. Make sure to leave a review on iTunes and Stitcher. The more reviews posted, the higher Deemable Tech will be listed, and the more listeners will see the show.

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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.

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.

THIS WEEK’S RUN DOWN

You can now embed playable MS-DOS games inside tweets

Earlier this year, the Internet Archive added roughly 2,400 MS-DOS games to their digital archive that are playable through your web browser on their site, Archive.org. But if you?re too scared to leave Twitter to check this out, never fear. The folks at Wired discovered this week that you can embed the games inside of tweets and play them right from those tweets.

So, you can now get your Oregon Trail, Sim City or Wolfenstein 3D fix from Twitter. Or, you can try out other classic games like the adaptation of the 1991 Hulk Hogan cinematic masterpiece Suburban Commando (just kidding, you should never do that).

Google announces cellular data network, which is actually two networks.

Google has officially announced its long-rumored cellular data network: its name is ProjectFi. As anticipated it is an MVNO network, which means that Google is ?renting? time on someone else?s network like many other small cellular companies. The differences is that Google is renting not from one other network, but two: Sprint & T-mobile, as well as WiFi. When you are on a ProjectFi connection your phone will seamlessly switch to whichever one of those networks is strongest. ProjectFi?s offers a very straightforward billing structure which will be appealing to some. It also will let you ?bank? unused minutes each month. And it offers promises of more innovations to come. The catch? Right now it is only offered for a single phone: the Nexus 6, and there is no LTE high speed service.

Robot car movers

The robots are coming to steal your car, or just move it out of the way. Gizmodo shared a story that researchers in Europe have created AVERT, the Autonomous Vehicle Emergency Recovery Tool. It is a system of robots that look like something out of Battle Bots. They are flat pieces of steel with rotors on the ends of them. Eight of them work together to pick up your cars tires and wheel it away. They only lift the car about an inch off the ground, but that’s all they need to move it out of the way. The idea is that the robots can easily move a car parked in a tight spot if there is a bomb in a nearby car. They could also be used to move an illegally parked car or a car that is blocking emergency services. Or, when the robots become sentient, they will likely start a car robbing career.

Man puts 8 bullets in his Dell desktop, tells police it was worth the ticket.

Police say that at 7 PM on a Monday, Lucas Hinch, the owner of a homeopathic herb store in Colorado Springs, Colorado, took his Dell XPS 410 out into an alley behind the store and unloaded eight bullets into it with a 9mm pistol. Hinch was ticketed for discharging a gun within city limits.

Lynch told the Los Angeles Times, which interviewed him, that the machine kept giving him the blue screen of death and that he had ?had enough.? He said that the shooting was ?definitely premeditated? and that he had no regrets. He reportedly told officers he did not know he was breaking the law in discharging his weapon.

Microsoft unveils Edge browser

During the opening keynote of their Microsoft Build developers conference this week, Microsoft unveiled the successor to their Internet Explorer browser (which they recently announced was ending).

The new browser, now called Edge (formerly Project Spartan), is said to be faster and more modern and will be a universal app across all Windows devices. Features will include, among others, extensions like you find for Chrome and Firefox, integration of Microsoft?s Cortana virtual assistant to help you search for things, reading mode (which removes everything from a page except for the text), and an annotation tool (which lets you draw on a webpage, take a picture of it and share that picture).

The new browser will not be in the initial release of Windows 10 this year, but will be included in a later update. Windows 10 will be shipped with Internet Explorer 11 for legacy compatibility, so you will have one last chance to use everyone?s favorite browser before it goes softly into that good night.

Tired of remember your passwords? Try swallowing them instead?

In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Paypal?s global head of developer advocacy, Jonathan Leblanc, said that passwords might soon be available as ?embeddable, injectable and ingestible devices.? Mr. Leblanc said that in the near future thin silicon chips might be embedded under our skin or capsules might detect glucose levels to verify that someone is who they say they are.

The Wall Street Journal notes, “Mr. Leblanc admits that there’s still a ways to go before cultural norms catch up with ingestible and injectable ID devices.”

Google files patent for laptop with no spacebar.

Google already kicked the CAPS-LOCK key to the curb with its Chromebooks and now it appears it may be preparing to do the same thing to the spacebar. In a patent filed this week the company outlines a design where the spacebar is replaced by an extended trackpad. Sensors would determine whether the user wants the top of the trackpad to be treated as a spacebar or a mouse. Google told Quartz, who broke the story, that some patents get turned into products and some don?t, so only time will tell whether we will see a spacebar-free Chromebook.

Apple Watch – Tattoo-gate

Reports are coming in on Twitter and Reddit that people with tattoos on their wrists may have difficulty using their new Apple watches. iMore.com looked into it and confirmed the reports. The heart sensor detects pulse by flashing an LED light on your skin and senses the reflection. The problem is when you have a tattoo the reflection is distorted by the ink. Your mileage may vary, but for some folks it is really annoying. The Apple Watch uses the heart sensor to detect if you are wearing the watch, so when it doesn’t sense your heart rate, it forces you to re-enter your pin number.

Apple Watch – Scratch-gate

If you don’t like scratches, you probably shouldn’t get the stainless steel Apple watch. A lot of folks are reporting on social media that their steel Apple watches are already scratched up. 9to5Mac.com has an easy fix. Just buff it, like every other stainless steel watch in existence. Or, get the aluminum model, which is actually harder than the steel version.

Apple Watch – Tap-gate

Now for the first, actual, real problem with the Apple watch. According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple has found a major defect in the taptic engine in the watches. The taptic engine is the feature that causes the watch to vibrate or tap the wearer. It was a pretty groundbreaking feature because it models sounds so a tweet “feels” like a tweet, and a tap feels like a tap. Two companies built the taptic engines, but one of the suppliers has produced faulty engines. The Verge says that Daring Fireball’s John Gruber received an Apple Watch that had a taptic engine that didn’t work.

OUTRO

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@deemable.com.

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

I’m Ray Hollister, I’m Tom Braun, I’m Sean Birch and this is Deemable Tech. Thanks for listening.

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

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

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

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

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

I’m hoping it doesn’t work like this!

The biggest story this week is Google getting itself into hot water with the EU over allegedly pushing out the competition in online searching for products. The coolest/creepiest story was a self-powered camera that could theoretically run forever!

If you haven’t subscribed to Deemable Tech yet, get on it! Subscribe to Deemable Tech in iTunes, on Stitcher or subscribe to the show in another podcast reader. Make sure to leave a review on iTunes and Stitcher. The more reviews posted, the higher Deemable Tech will be listed, and the more listeners will see the show.

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

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

This Week’s Run Down

Tumblr, Tinder, Wikipedia and Twitter updates

Tumblr, Tinder, Wikipedia and Twitter have updated their websites and mobile apps.

The new Tinder app adds the ability to connect to a cutie using an Instagram account. Now you can swipe pics with a Kelvin filter to the left and Earlybird to the right.

The new Tumblr app loads GIFs better than ever before. Because that is the only reason why anyone uses Tumblr ? to look at GIFs. And yes, the word is pronounced GIF, it’s not peanut butter. I don’t care what Steve Wilhite says.

Wikipedia improved the mobile version of its site, making it more readable and better at displaying images.

Twitter changed its homepage for users that are not signed in ? or just don’t have a Twitter account. Now, instead of just seeing a login screen, you’ll see several curated channels of tweets. The idea is that you’ll get an idea of what Twitter is about, before you even sign up for it.

Game of Thrones Season 5

On Sunday the fifth season of HBO?s hit show Game of Thrones began, the first four episodes had already leaked online by Saturday evening. TorrentFreak reports that the first episode was downloaded over 100,000 times within the first three hours after it appeared.

HBO has been making an effort to crack down on sites that are illegally streaming the show, however they don?t seem to be able to do anything about the relatively high quality torrents, which appear to be ripped from watermarked DVD screeners.

Don?t forget, you now have more options for getting your legal Game of Thrones fix thanks to HBO Now?s availability on iOS devices, and to HBO becoming part of Direct TV?s Sling TV app.

Self-Powered Camera

Researchers created a camera that powers itself. Essentially the camera’s light sensors also work as photovoltaic cells creating power. So, this camera could effectively work forever without a battery. The prototype only shoots in 30 x 40 resolution, so it has a lot of room for improvement. The NSA placed an advanced order for twenty pallets once they hit VGA resolution.

EU accuses Google of abusing search engine dominance by favoring Google Shopping

The European Union competition regulator announced Wednesday that the EU intends to file antitrust charges against Google. The regulator accuses Google of abusing its dominance of the European search engine market by favoring its own comparison shopping tool over competitors. Google commands over 90% of the search engine market in Europe, while it controls just 67% of it in the US. The EU commission has been investigating Google for five years. Google nearly settled the case last year but the deal fell apart over objections from member countries and rival tech companies. Google responded in a blog post with its defense: more people use its services simply because they are better.

Patent trolls get slayed

On April 10 the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office invalidated several key claims of a patent that was used to sue several well-known podcasters.

Success Kid helps his dad get a kidney transplant

Success Kid, the cherubic Jacksonville boy with a fistful of sand, and triumph in his eye, has another success story to add to his résumé. His dad Justin Griner has been struggling with kidney disease for the past six years. His mom, Laney Griner, recently set up a GoFundMe account to raise money so that Justin could get a kidney transplant. The goal was to raise $75,000, but Laney said she would be happy with anything.

She didn’t mention her son Sammy’s Internet stardom because she wanted the focus to be on Justin, but the Internet did what the Internet does ? it figured out who that cute kid in the picture was and started telling everybody.

So far, the GoFundMe fundraiser has brought in almost $90,000 and continues to grow.

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.

Credit: Google

Lori asks, “I have found a beautiful picture of an old barn that I would like to use for my website but the picture is too small. Is there such a thing as a website that will help you find a larger size of image?”

As a matter of fact there is, Lori. It’s called Google!

You probably already know that you can use Google to search for images through their Google Images site, but there is a function of it that a lot of people miss. On the right side of that search bar is a camera icon which opens Google?s “Search by Image” page. This is commonly called “reverse image searching.”

Click that icon and a pop-up will appear. In that window you will have a few options:

1. You can drag an image to it from your computer;
2. Browse to an image on your hard drive;
3. Or paste the web address of an image you found on the internet into it.

Once you’ve done one of those things, Google will search for other similar images. It is actually pretty good at finding different sizes of the same image, so you are in luck. It will also show you what Google calls “visually similar images,” so you might see other pictures of old barns in addition to the one you were looking for.

Speaking of similar images, when you do a regular Google Image search, it’s going to show you a page with dozens of images on it as a result. You can actually use this page to do even more image searching. Click on any of the resulting, pictures and you’ll see some related images plus a link above them that says “search by image.” You can actually click that and launch a new search based on the image you just expanded.

That should help you find the image you’re looking for, Lori, but there is something else you need to think about before you put it on your site: who took the picture that you like so much, and is it free for you to use?

People often assume that just because you found an image on the internet it is free for anyone to use. However, this is not the case. Most images have owners, and unless those images are specifically licensed under Creative Commons or are in the public domain, you need to obtain written permission to use them. The only exception to this rule is if you’re using them for educational purposes or some other very specific reasons. That’s known as “fair use.” What counts as fair use can get complicated, so you should always just try emailing the person that originally took the picture and asking them if you can use it. If you found the picture on an image sharing social media site like Flickr, the photographer usually isn’t hard to find.

There are also lots of websites offering Creative Commons images, which are basically totally free to use as long as you credit them properly. The easiest way to find them is to use the Creative Commons search engine at search.creativecommons.org. It can search both Flickr and Google Image Search, as well as several other sites.

If Google can do it, we can too! The title of this episode is this GIF.

This week the guys geek out over Tesla adding an autopilot feature to their electric cars, mourn the death of TigerDirect retail stores, and wonder if they can follow in Google’s footsteps and communicate purely through GIFs. Plus, Ray shares his thoughts on the Cogito smartwatch.

If you haven’t subscribed to Deemable Tech yet, get on it! Subscribe to Deemable Tech in iTunes, on Stitcher or subscribe to the show in another podcast reader. Make sure to leave us a review in iTunes and Stitcher. The more reviews we have the higher we’ll be listed, and the more listeners will see our show.

And make sure to share us on the forums, Facebook, Twitter and all over the interwebs.

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

This Week’s Run Down

Tesla Announces Software Update for Cars Which Adds “Autopilot” Feature

Tesla CEO Elon Musk held a press conference this week at which he announced that late model Teslas will be getting a software update that will give them a new feature called ‘autopilot.’ The autopilot feature will bring ordinary Tesla electric cars that much closer to being self-driving, enabling them to stay in their lane on a well-marked highway without driver intervention. Musk claimed that the autopilot technology would enable to a driver to make it from San Francisco to Seattle without steering.

Musk also announced a feature called Range Assurance which will alert Tesla drivers when the charge in their car is getting too low to make it to the nearest charging station.

$10 Million Target Credit Card Data Breach Settlement Gets Preliminary Approval

You probably remember the massive data breach that hit Target during the 2013 holiday season where tens of millions of credit cards were stolen right out of their systems. A class action lawsuit was filed and now Target is preparing to settle? for $10 million dollars.

If that amount seems low to you, it is because Target is not going to do the usual thing and send five dollars to every customer whose card number was stolen. Instead, card holders can only be reimbursed if they can show that they were actually hurt by the data breach. They need to have had fraudulent charges placed on their card that they were not reimbursed for, that negatively affected their credit score, or show that they spent a lot of time and money resolving the problem, or that it harmed them in some other way.

The proposed settlement is only preliminary, and members of the class action suit have until November 10th to object.

RadioShack Puts Customer Data Up for Sale in Bankruptcy Auction

RadioShack is on the auction block this week as its creditors attempt to sell the company?s assets – this apparently includes a large chunk of customer data, including 65 million customer names and physical addresses and 13 million email addresses. Consumer advocates are concerned, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton claims it may be illegal under state law. Texas does not allow companies to violate their own privacy policies and signage in RadioShack promises that they will not sell their private mailing list.

AT&T is also opposing the sale of data because they say RadioShack is not entitled to personal information it collects from wireless sales. AT&T wants the data destroyed to keep it from falling into competitors hands.

A bankruptcy court still has to approve the deal.

TigerDirect Closing Retail Stores

Speaking of defunct electronic stores, remember Circuit City… CompUSA… Ultimate Electronics? Well, TigerDirect bought them in the late aughts. Well, now TigerDirect is joining them in the electronic retail store afterlife. Two of the former executives for TigerDirect were recently sentenced to 60 and 80 months in jail for a kickback scheme that cost the company $27 million. Apparently that hurt the company enough that the company decided to close all by two retail stores.

It makes me sad because TigerDirect was a “dot com boom” success story. They actually started as a catalog company, but transitioned into internet sales early. When all of the retail computer stores started dying, TigerDirect was holding strong, and they bought up the stores and their IP and entered the retail market. They did a fantastic job of turning stores like CompUSA and Circuit City, which were known for fancy displays and overpriced electronics, into stores with smart employees, simple displays and prices that competed with the Internet.

TigerDirect is going to continue selling computers, electronics and computer components on its website.

No word yet if NewEgg is planning on buying its stores, but that would be the perfect irony.

Facial Recognition Software Leads To Arrest of Jacksonville Man Who Faked His Own Death

Another thing the internet has ruined: faking your own death. Jacksonville businessman Jose Lantigua had been reported dead in Venezuela two years ago. But when he attempted to apply for a new passport under his new, false identity the US State Department used facial recognition software to match him to his original identity in their database. Federal agents then set up a sting operation and caught him wearing a brown toupee and ?a poorly dyed beard.?

Lantigua is wanted on numerous counts of insurance fraud, since his family attempted to collect on his life insurance policy after his death. The insurance company has long viewed this with suspicion.

Google Responds to Reporter with GIF Instead of “No Comment”

This week, Daily Dot writer Richard Lewis published a story about YouTube reportedly planning to relaunch its livestreaming platform with a focus on computer gaming and esports. This is similar to Twitch, which Google tried to buy last year before it ended up being purchased by Amazon.

Lewis reached out to Google for a comment on the reports, and they apparently responded with something only Google could get away with. Instead of the usual “no comment,” the representative sent Lewis this animated GIF of a little girl shrugging. No text, just the GIF.

Lewis at first assumed that this was a joke, and said that he received a “no comment” response from Google in his story. The same representative sent another message saying that the GIF was, in fact, their official response.

Reviews

Ray shares his thoughts on the Cogito swartwatch this week.

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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

Ray Hollister reviews the BACtrack Mobile Breathalyzer on Deemable Tech

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

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

RUN DOWN

Samsung Galaxy S6 & S6 Edge

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

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

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

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

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

Google+ Divests

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

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

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

How to Auto-Awesome your photos manually – AndroidCentral.

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

Google Wireless

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

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

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

BIG STORY

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hillary Clinton said on Twitter :

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

? Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 5, 2015

REVIEWS

BACtrack MobileBreathalyzer Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Check out the video of the review below:

UNCUT!

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

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

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

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

Subscribe to Deemable Tech in iTunes, on Stitcher or subscribe to the show in another podcast reader. Make sure to leave us a review in iTunes and Stitcher. The more reviews we have the higher we?ll be listed, and the more listeners will see our show.

This Week’s Run Down

Reddit bans revenge porn.

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

In a statement on its website reddit said:

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

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

Apple’s Not Super-Secret Press Event

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

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

Pebble Get Another Kickstart

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

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

Three Men Undergo Voluntary Amputations To Receive Bionic Arms

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

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

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

Google Buys Mobile Payment Competitor Softcard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Artificial Intelligence Masters Atari Games

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

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

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

THE BIG STORY

FCC Defends Net Neutrality

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Nest Thermostat is a learning, programmable thermostat.

If you’re like most people your eyes just glazed over. I mean, those are two of the most boring words in the English language: thermostat and programmable. Thermostats are something that people use because they have to, not because they want to. They are boring gray boxes that go on the wall somewhere in your house. And, only nerds like to program stuff. I mean who enjoyed programming the time on their VCR?

What should be the most boring thing in my house is actually my favorite device in my house. Okay, let me be fair, maybe it’s my third favorite device after my Macbook and my iPhone. Let’s start with aesthetics. The thing is beautiful. It’s round, and has a glass front, and brush steel ring around the outside. It blends in and compliments every wall it is on because it reflects the colors of the wall. It doesn’t look like a gadget, It looks like a piece of modern art on my wall.

The interface is incredibly intuitive. It’s a thermostat, so to turn it up, or make it warmer, you turn it clockwise, to turn it down or make it colder, you turn it counterclockwise. Just like the old-fashioned thermostat that used to be in every school-house and home. When the AC is on, and the house is cooling, the screen is blue. When the heater is on and the house is warming, the screen is orange. So it gives you a visual indicator of what you’re heating and cooling system is doing. And, I’ll tell you, if that was all that it did, it would be a really nice thermostat. It would still be better than almost everything else on the market.

But, that’s not all that it does. One of the features that I love is that the Nest detects whether you are in the house, and if you’ve been away for a certain time, it goes into “auto?away “mode. You don’t have to worry about making sure that the air is turned down when you go on vacation anymore! Or when you go away just for the weekend.

Another great feature is that the nest thermostat connects to the Internet via your Wi-Fi network, and you can control it from the web and from your iPhone or android device. That way when you’re on your way home from your vacation, you can turn the AC back on, and it will be nice and comfortable when you walk in the door. The inherently lazy part of me also appreciates that I don’t have to get out of bed in the middle of the night when my wife complains that it’s too cold, Lord do I have to get off the couch in the middle of a movie marathon because it’s too hot. Nest Labs recently announced Works with Nest, which essentially turns a Nest Thermostat into a hub for your home automation. Companies like Whirlpool, Mercedes-Benz, and Jawbone have added integration with the Nest Thermostat into their products to make them more convenient and energy-efficient.

At this point, you probably noticed that I haven’t said anything about how to program it. Well, that is really one of the greatest things about it. You don’t have to do anything. All you have to do is use it for a couple of weeks, and the Nest thermostat just figures out how long it takes your house to cool down or warm up, and it figures out how you like the temperature in your house to be and when, and sets your schedule based on how you use it. So, for instance, if you like it to be kind of cold when you go to bed but warmer when you wake up, and you always set it to 72° around 10 o’clock and 78° when you wake up at 6:00, after a couple of weeks, the thermostat will automatically set itself to cool down to 72° by 10 PM and warm back up to 78° by 6 AM. And, if you always leave the house to go to work at about 8:15 AM and get home by 6:30 PM, your house will start going into auto away mode automatically at 8:15, and it will automatically turn back on in time to have the house cooled back down by 6:30.

Americans waste a lot of energy running our our air conditioning units all the time. Most people forget or just don?t want to turn their AC up when they go to work. If you don’t think that matters, just think about this, half of most home’s electric bill is controlled by the thermostat. If you have a properly programmed thermostat, you can save 20% off of your energy costs.

Finally, the Nest Thermostat is ridiculously easy to install. It took me a total of 20 minutes. Most of that time was me reading over the instructions 4 times because I was nervous that I would mess something up. The instructions are super easy to follow, and if you have a “complicated” old thermostat like I did, all you have to do is take a picture of your old thermostat, send it to Nest, and they will email you back a custom wiring diagram. All you have to do is remove the faceplate of your old thermostat, apply the included labels, and then plug them into the Nest Thermostat base plate. Everything you will need is included in the box, including a screwdriver. But if you really don’t think you can do it, or you just don’t want to do it, Nest has certified installers that will be more than happy to take your money from you to install a Nest thermostat in your home.

The Nest Thermostat is available for $249 at Amazon, Apple, Best Buy, Google Play, The Home Depot, Lowe’s, and of course, Nest.com.

Q: A classmate came over to my house recently to work on a project with me. She brought her laptop. When it came time to print, we had to print from her laptop, which meant I had to find the printer disk, hook her laptop up to the printer, and install it, just to print one thing. Is there a better way to do this?

A: Thank you for your question, Parker! This is a problem we probably have all faced at one time or another. The good news is that there is actually a pretty easy way to remedy this situation, and it involves one of our favorite things: The Cloud! Specifically, Google’s Cloud Print service.

Image Credit: Google

The idea behind Google Cloud Print is that you can print from any computer to any printer without having to connect the two physically or install a bunch of drivers. As long as both the computer and the printer have an Internet connection, you can print. For example, if your work printer was connected to Cloud Print, you could print to it from home. If your home printer was connected to Cloud Print, you could print to it from work. And if your friend is at your house and needs to print, you can just share your Cloud Print connected printer with them , no printer connection required.

Another cool thing about Google Cloud Print is that you control who gets to see your printer. You specify the email addresses of people you want to share your printer with, and only they are allowed to print to it. You can also revoke access to your shared printer at any time.

Now, how do you start using Cloud Print? Well, you may have noticed that many new printers are labeled as being “Google Cloud Print Ready”. That means that once you have them turned on and connected to a network, you can share them through Google Cloud Print quickly and easily. If you don’t have a “Google Cloud Print Ready” printer, don’t worry! You can still use what Google calls “classic printers” with Cloud Print, with the only extra requirement being that the printer must be hooked up to a computer with Google Chrome installed on it.

Open up the settings in Google Chrome on that computer, search for “cloud printer”, and you’ll see options to add your printer to Cloud Print. Once your printer is connected, it’s simple to print from Google Docs, your Chrome browser, or from a Google app.

Yes, you read that correctly: you can print from Google apps. Most Google apps on iOS and Android let you use Cloud Print by default. For example, you could open the Gmail app, tap print and print away! For other apps on iOS, you can download the PrintCentral Pro app to connect your device to Google Cloud Print (this app costs $4.99 for iPhone, and $7.99 for iPad). Many apps on Android have this function built in.

So, Parker, try out Google Cloud Print, and see how it works for you. That way if you’re ever in that predicament again, you can simply share your printer without all of the extra work.

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!

The most recent trending on tech news today is centered on the invitation sent by Google to different companies, manufacturers, and media organizations regarding an Android event scheduled on July 24th in San Francisco. Despite the urgency of the invites, it is still unclear to everyone what is special about it that Google took the lead.

What could an important event be that required the attendance of Google’s Senior Vice President for Android Sundar Pichai? Google might be cooking up something major and worth everyone’s attention. Take note that there was a huge leap in Google’s latest update for Android and Nexus products that was released in May. Whatever is in the works for next week’s event is something to look forward to because it just might be worth the wait.

Many people have assumed that the main goal of Google for setting up such a momentous gathering is the possibility of launching the newest version of Android OS which is Android 4.3 and the introduction of the most recent Nexus product the Nexus 7.2.

These two products will surely take the gadget world through hype because hungry users have been waiting for them to come out in the market. The newest Android version 4.3 is similar to 4.2 in some aspects. It has been said that the 4.2.2 version of the operating system was skipped for some reason. The 4.3 release is expected with a big bang and should not be missed.

Android 4.3 is the upgraded version of the 4.2. Some new features include Bluetooth Light Energy or LE, font changes and personalization, and some easy tweaks to the gadget’s camera application.

In contrast to Android’s OS upgraded version 4.3, sources say that Nexus 7.2 is a total upgrade from the old Nexus 7. Some of the major changes you might see in the Nexus 7.2 tab that may be available later this month are 1980×1200 displays, 5 megapixel cameras, and the Snapdragon 600 quad-core processor. All of these features are very significant to techy nerds out there.

It is said that the ASUS-built Nexus 7.2 series of tablets will really hit it big after the launch, and have been the object of discussion in blogs and write-ups.

These two new products offered by Google, Android 4.3 and ASUS-built Nexus 7.2 will surely be a fantastic hit and might mean higher price tags on initial launch.

Google did not give out a word about the purpose of the event on the 24th but people have strong ideas as to what it is all about. The internet giant never confirmed or denied the news about the product release. Better leave people to speculate, most especially those who belong to social networking sites. We really have no idea whether or not Google will launch two of their latest products. Meantime, hang on to your seats!

Perhaps the most important question is, what will Google be serving for breakfast?

Q: I used to have a link to my email on my desktop, but somehow it got deleted. Now I search for my email on MSN. My son says I’m doing things the long way. To be honest I don’t know much about the web and I get a little bit overwhelmed every time I open Internet Explorer. Any advice?

A: Deep breaths, Kevin! It’s going to be okay. We’re here to help.

The good news is that you are definitely not alone here. We talk to people all the time who can’t figure out how to get from Point A to Point B on their browser. When you open Internet Explorer you may see up to three different fields where you can type things. You know you want to go to a specific website, but where do you type it in?

What you want to do is type the URL into the address bar. URL stands for “Uniform Resource Locator,” which is just the formal name for a web address. For example, www.google.com and deemable.com are both URLs. Either way, they usually look like “www.nameofthewebsite.com”.

Now here’s a secret: 99% of the time you can leave off the “www”. You don’t have to type “www.google.com”, you can just type “google.com” and your browser will figure out the rest.

The place you want to type it is not the search bar of the website that is your home page. That will search for any web page that references the name of the website. Granted, the web page itself will probably be the first search result, but you’re adding an extra step. You want to type the web address, or URL, into the address bar, which is above the web page. You can identify it because it will have the address of the current page, usually prefixed by “http://”/ or “https://”/ (incidentally, you don’t have to type “http://”/ either, because your browser will fill that in as well).

Telling the difference between a search box and your address bar can sometimes be a challenge, especially if you’re new to surfing the Internet.

There are a couple of things to be aware of. First, you may or may not have another field at the top of your browser that is for searching. Typing the web address into that field is just the same as if you went to Yahoo or Google or Bing and searched for the web address there. It’s for searching, not for navigating directly to a website.

The other thing to be aware of is that in newer browsers the address field can also do web searches. So if you type “facebook.com” you will be taken directly to Facebook, but if you type in “books of faces” it will search for “books of faces” on your preferred search engine.

So, Kevin, try typing the URL for your email site into the address bar and hitting enter. Once you’re there, don’t forget that you can bookmark websites that you use frequently. Look for a star icon up at the top of your browser and click that. That will add your email to a list of favorite websites. Once you do that, you won’t have to type anything – your email will always be just a click away.

What do you think? I think the artist did a great job. Sean wanted his on the right because he’s left-handed.

The Internet loves April Fools’ Day. We didn’t pull any pranks this year; we’re too mature for all of those shenanigans. Also, we were too busy getting our new Deemable Tech tattoos. However, if you enjoy all that tom-foolery, here’s a break down of the best April Fools’ Day pranks for 2013. We’ll keep it updated throughout the day.

Google has built a reputation for almost every product at Google putting out several April Fools’ pranks each year. Starting with the one that made the front page, here are Google’s pranks for the year.

• New! What’s that smell? Find out with Google Nose 
  • Smells like a winner.
• YouTube’s ready to select a winner.
  • And they’re closing, YouTube?! God, Please No!! What am I supposed to do when I am supposed to be working? They have Facebook blocked at work!
• Gmail Blue
  • For those days you miss WordPerfect 5.1 on DOS. (Wait, does anyone have days like that?)
• Google Maps finds pirate, William ?Captain? Kidd’s treasure map and adds Treasure Mode
  • It looks like he didn’t bury any treasure in Jacksonville.
• Google+ adds emoticons to your pictures.
  • Because apparently seeing your face isn’t enough to know how you feel, because “when it comes to expressing yourself, nothing beats the richness and elegance of a few properly placed colons, parentheses, letters and hyphens.”

Another site that has become famous for their hilarious April Fools’ hijinks is the specialty online retailer ThinkGeek. Many of their past April Fools’ jokes have been so genius that they have gone on to become real products. Here’s a selection of this year’s pranks.

• The Eye of Sauron Desk Lamp
  • Don’t take off your wedding ring and leave it on the night stand next to this lamp.
• Play-Doh 3D Printer
  • Why do only thermoplastics and metals get to have all the 3D printing fun?
• Bane Mask Walkie Talkies
  • You will buy these, then when it is done and Gotham is ashes, then you have my permission to die.
• Death Star Trench Toss
  • Practice taking advantage of the universe’s worst design flaw ever made.
• Batman Family Car Decal Set
  • I hate those stupid family car decals.
• Creeper Body Pillow
  • Ah, Creepers, what would Minecraft be without them? More fun. that’s what it would be. More. Fun. Kill them with a Minecraft Foam Sword, also from ThinkGeek.

Other sites:

Ready to learn how to fly in a wingsuit? Why not learn from an expert that was made that way? For $50 you can take wingsuit lessons from a flying squirrel!

For $4 dollars a month, you can use Twitter premium. – Tme 2 drp d vwls. Twttr s nw chrgng 4 vwls.

Sprint launches Sprint Specs.  – Never look rude again when you’re completely ignoring someone.

 Update 1:03:45 PM EDT

The White House has gotten into the act. – You might not agree with his policies, but Kid President sure can get the world to dance.

Pokester – It’s time for a social network that only lets you do one thing, poke someone. (Thanks, reader Joey for the heads up.)

Search for “Google” on Bing. Try not to get confused.

Upload images to Imgur by mail!

Update 1:37:32 PM EDT

Virgin launces glass-bottomed plane. – As if air travel isn’t scary enough.

Hand written search results from Wolfram Alpha. – Basically, it’s a bunch of nerds being forced to do your homework.

Scope Bacon – We’re actually still not sure if this is a hoax or not. We are hoping that it is. We are really hoping that it is.

Kayak adds Dates. – Compare hundreds of dating sites at once!

Toshiba launches the Toshiba TubeTop, the world’s first inflatable laptop. – How many times have I wanted to surf the web while I was swimming in the pool? (That’s not a joke. I can think of at least 5 times off the top of my head!)

Digg + Konami code + Rick Astley = hilarious. – Just go try it.

Update 2:54:11 PM EDT

iFixit finds the least repairable tech product on the market: the Orange. After a complete teardown, they find it cannot be put back together at all. Orange mobile has not responded.

Nokia changes how you do TV dinners with a smart microwave.

HEX announces new cases for the Apple Newton.

Funny Or Die announces the Darkwing Duck, Wings, Sliders, Family Matters and Baby Sinclair from Dinosaurs Kickstarter movie projects.

Two of our favorite news sources, NPR and WJCT, pulled off their own April Fools Pranks. NPR’s Morning Edition aired this story, Hootie And The Time Traveler Love The 90s, and WJCT 89.9 FM aired Amusement Park Proposed For Shipyards Property.

 Have you found some that we haven’t seen yet? Let us know in the comments down below.

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.

Ray may not have written Johnny B Goode like Marty McFly, but he almost broke the space-time continuum.

On this week’s episode of Deemable Tech, Ray creates a temporal causal loop by leaving a voice mail for Deemable Tech and answering it.Then, he and Tom answered questions about whether you can play 3D Blu-Rays discs on your HD TV, if can you delete a picture without deleting the picture, how to stop your Kindle devices and apps from synchronizing, how to Google better, how to extend the battery life of your cellphone, what order you should unplug your laptop in, and does Facebook owe you money?

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 this week’s show:

• PhotoAlbums+
• ?You Google Wrong? by The Atlantic Wire
• Inside Seach – Advanced Power Searching – Google
• www.fraleyfacebooksettlement.com
• AppGratis
• Apps Gone Free

Episode 28 – A Voicemail Causal Loop

Crowdsourcing an Answer

Ardis asked,

Dear Deemable Duo,
I’ve recently been having some issues scheduling D&D games due to the busy lives of my fellow dice rollers. I’m sure you find the idea of D&D players having lives as shocking as I do, but regardless, if games are to continue we need to find some way around this problem. I was wondering if there was any kind of program that might make it easier to coordinate our schedules? Not necessarily something that will show our full schedules but something that could let us see what free time we have in common or something to that effect. Thank you for whatever insight you might be able to give.

What do you recommend for Ardis? Leave your suggestion in the comments down below. Thanks!

We’re back and we’ve got spam! Yes, folks, even we here at Deemable Tech get spam now and then. But, this is a new kind of spam scam, so tune in to find out more about it so you don’t fall victim to it. Also, we have our predictions for 2013 in the tech industry, and we have apps to help you keep your New Year’s resolutions. And one listener wants to know, can a laptop be used as a desktop? 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 904-372-3336 (DEEM), or send us an email to questions at deemable dot com. We’ll take the best questions and answer them on the show.

Episode 25 – Single-Handedly Fixing New Year’s Resolutions and 2013 Tech Predictions!

What are your resolutions for 2013, and what apps are you using to keep track of them? Also, do you have any tech predictions for 2013? Tell us in the comments down below!