This week Ray, Tom and Sean discuss the train wreck that was Amazon’s Prime Day, the loss of Nintendo’s Saturo Iwata and New Horizon’s historic visit to Pluto.

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

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

New Horizons flies by Pluto

Space has been in the news this week. The spacecraft New Horizons, which launched in 2006, ventured closer to the dwarf planet Pluto than any other man-made object has ever been, 7,800 miles from the surface of Pluto. And the best part is, it took pictures! New Horizons has already sent back a handful of high resolution images of Pluto and its moons and more are expected to follow. New Horizons? journey is not over yet, as it is scheduled to continue on out into the largely unexplored Kuiper Belt.

#PrimeDayFail

Amazon held their much-hyped Prime Day event this week to celebrate their 20th anniversary.

Described as a summertime Black Friday for customers with Amazon Prime accounts, the company promised great deals on hot items all throughout the day on Wednesday. And depending on who you are and what you were looking to buy, this was true.

It was certainly a success for Amazon, who reported that sales were up 80 percent on Prime Day. They also most likely saw a jump in Amazon Prime subscriptions, since you had to be a member to get the deals.

The overwhelming reaction on social media, though, was ?meh.? Disgruntled shoppers quickly took to Twitter and Facebook with the hashtag #primedayfail to voice their complaints about what they saw as Amazon?s failure to deliver on all of their hype. Reactions ranged from disappoint with the selection of sale items (some described it as being like a bad garage sale full of weird stuff), underwhelming prices, and frustration over limited quantities for items they actually wanted.

Gizmodo’s List of Prime Day Fails

Nintendo President & CEO Saturo Iwata

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata passed Saturday July 11th at the age of 55 after an almost year-long struggle with cancer.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Iwata-san, early in his career he helped develop or worked on the Mario, Legend of Zelda, Pokémon, Super Smash Bros., Animal Crossing and Kirby series.

Iwata was promoted to president of Nintendo in 2003 and became CEO of Nintendo of America in 2013. Iwata took over Nintendo when it was struggling from poor sales of the GameCube, and brought the highly successful Wii and Nintendo DS to market. He was uniquely the first Nintendo president that was not related to the Yamauchi family since its founding.

Iwata was a very charismatic business leader that reached out to the community. He started an interview series on the Nintendo website called “Iwata Asks” where he discussed games with the developers and gave gamers a behind-the-scene view of the process.

He famously said at the Game Developers Conference in 2005, “On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer.”

There have been tons of memorials to Iwata on the Internet since his passing, one of my favorites was Mashable’s “5 games you can play to honor late Nintendo President Satoru Iwata”

Hacking Team Gets Hacked

Secretive cybersecurity firm Hacking Team has long courted controversy for selling advanced cyber surveillance tools to governments with a less-than-spotless record on human rights. Well, two weeks ago they were hacked. Massively. An unknown hacker going by the pseudonym of Phineas Fisher broke into the company?s systems and dumped over 400 GB of the company?s data, including invoices, code for software, and software exploits it had paid for known as ?zero day exploits?, and posted it using the company?s own Twitter feed. Most controversially, the documents show that Hacking Team was doing business with Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Russia, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and the UAE, many of whom have been criticized by international human rights organizations for their aggressive surveillance of citizens, activists and journalists both domestically and overseas. Even Sudan, with whom Hacking Team had denied connections, was shown to be a recent client. These countries didn?t just use Hacking Team?s software, they often called upon Hacking Team?s specialized services to go after specific ?high value targets?, including journalists.

At this time Hacking Team has officially requested that its clients immediately cease use of all of its tools and software. This is slightly odd as leaked documents show that the company claims to have the ability to shut its own software down remotely.

The Hacking Team dump has also had some consequences for the larger software industry. The company had purchased a number of what are called ?zero-day exploits?, which are unpatched, undiscovered software vulnerabilities that can be used by hackers to infiltrate software or systems. Three major zero-day exploits were discovered for Flash, which Adobe had not known about and has been scrambling to patch. The fact that this company had access to loopholes in such a major, widespread piece of software is reason for concern.

Also, it is just one more reason that everyone should stop using Flash.

Firefox Axes Flash

Speaking of Flash. Computerworld is reporting that partly as a result of these new and really bad vulnerabilities, Mozilla Firefox has taken the unusual step of blocking Flash until it is completely patched. Alex Stamos, the chief of security for Facebook, has called on Adobe to announce an end-of-life date for Flash.

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

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

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

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

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

THIS WEEK’S RUN DOWN

Nintendo Theme Park

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

Have you tried turning your plane off and on again?

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

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

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

Yes folks, it’s the I.T. Crowd fix.

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

Oculus announces “Q1 2016” release for Rift

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

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

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

How low can you go?

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

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

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

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

MS-DOS games on Twitter update

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

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

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

Powerwall

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

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

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

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

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

Today, Ray and Tom finally took down the “NO GIRLS ALLOWED” sign as they were joined in the studio by Kristen Spencer, video game journalist and editor of CountGameula.com to talk to us about the Nintendo Wii U announcement.

Deemable Tech – Episode 14 – Cats on a Laptop

Links we mentioned on today’s show:

• Intel® Rapid Storage Technology (Intel® RST)
• Chrome Web Store – Google Chrome to Phone Extension
• Google Chrome to Phone – Android Apps on Google Play
• Downcast
• Podcasts by Apple
• Stitcher
• Our podcast RSS feed: http://dmbl.co/pod
• Why Mobile E-mail Signatures Can Hurt Your Business Relationships – CBSNews.com

Bumper Music

• Paul McCartney – Band On The Run (8-Bit Remix)
• The Beatles- Here Comes The Sun 8-bit

Hulu has announced that it has finally released the long-awaited Hulu Plus app on the Nintendo Wii. Now, Wii owners can dust off their Wii remotes, or take a break from Netflix (the only real reason most people still use their Wii) to download the new app from the Wii Shop Channel. If you’re not familiar with Hulu Plus, it is the premium version of the Hulu service that allows users to instantly stream television episodes and movies on mobile devices like the iPhone, iPad, many Android devices, and the Kindle Fire and now on all gaming systems. For the same price per month ($7.99) as its more familiar archrival Netflix, Hulu Plus instantly streams movies and current season episodes of many hit shows like Dancing with the Stars, The Biggest Loser, Grey’s Anatomy, Glee and Modern Family. Yay! I can’t wait to watch Glee on my Wii! (Clears throat) Ahem. I mean, yeah, awesome. I can finally watch Friday Night SmackDown!

Source: Hulu Blog

On Tuesday, Sony unveiled its next-generation portable gaming device, the PlayStation Vita, at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles. Sony President of Consumer Products, Kazuo Hirai, said that the PlayStation Vita will “revolutionize the portable entertainment experience.” As the heavily hyped successor to the PSP, the device looks like it will actually live up to the high standards that Sony has already set for its upcoming product.

The PlayStation Vita will feature a high-resolution, 5-inch multi-touch OLED touchscreen, 6-axis motion sensors, dual analog sticks, rear touch pad, dual front and back mounted cameras, built-in GPS, and will run on a quad-core ARM Cortex A9 Processor. Even more impressive, Sony announced that the Vita will give users the ability to enjoy continuous, uninterrupted gameplay by allowing for cross-platform play with compatible games on the PlayStation 3. According to Sony, there are over 80 titles already in development, and the company showed off the capabilities of the system with some of the top-tiered titles like a Diablo-like RPG game called Ruin.

Last but definitely not least, Sony revealed that the PlayStation Vita will start at the low price of $249 for the Wi-Fi only version and $299 for the 3G model, which AT&T will be the exclusive service provider for – much to the chagrin of the audience who openly booed the announcement. Price-wise, this means that the PlayStation Vita will be in direct competition to the Nintendo 3DS, which can’t really be considered in the same arena of portable gaming once the Vita is released later this year, just in time for the holiday season.

Photo via PlayStation

With Nintendo’s sales slumping due to the rise in popularity of the Xbox Kinect and PlayStation Move, the company unveiled the prototype to it’s next-generation console, the Wii U, today at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles. Nintendo opened their press conference with interactive demos of the system’s video gameplay, largely focusing the event on the Wii U’s revolutionary new controller.

Nintendo revealed throughout the keynote that games on the Wii U can either be played on the television or through the 6.2-inch touchscreen controller – which can display exactly what is on the TV, offer different camera angles, or allow the user to view a completely separate picture. The company’s executives made it clear that the Wii U is not a portable gaming device as the content is streamed wirelessly from the console to the controller.

The Wii U, unlike its predecessor, will feature High Definition graphics and to the jubilation of Wii owners, the console will be fully backward-compatible with all Wii games and accessories, such as the Wii Remote and Wii Fit board. The gaming system will also supply internal storage, plus the ability to upgrade memory by using SD cards and flash drives through its four USB 2.0 slots.

Additional features of the intuitive Wii U handheld controller will include:

• Motion sensors, accelerometer, gyroscope
• Contoured grips with traditional directional pad, buttons, and analog joysticks (as well as the touchscreen controls)
• Built-in microphone, speakers, in-ward facing camera, and internet access

Gizmodo blogged about the Wii U controller:

“Nintendo showed it doing some seriously wild stuff: Attached to a gun it’s acting like a sight (kind of like Silent Scope), and in another demo, held portrait-style, it was a way to flick shuriken. In another, your holding up the controller like a shield to block pirate arrows. You can basically play an entirely different game on the touch controller than everybody else is playing on the big screen. Or use it for another view of what’s happening up on your TV. The possibilities do seem legit limitless. Multiplayer with Wiimotes is interesting?in one example, the touchscreen remote has a top-down view of the gaming, while everybody else plays normally with Wiimotes… It also does video chat, it’s web browser, and it mirrors photos/videos up on the TV.”

According to Nintendo, Wii U games will be released on “proprietary high-density optical discs”, and an assortment of games were announced for the console including Batman: Arkham City, an Assassin’s Creed game, Dirt, Ghost Recon Online, Tekken, Metro Last Light, Aliens Colonial Marines, Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge, Darksiders II, Lego City Stories, and a brand new entry in the highly popular Smash Bros. series.

The Wii U will be launched sometime in 2012, and gamers throughout the world will be patiently anticipating their opportunity to (hopefully not…) throw their Wii U controller through their expensive HDTV.

Photo by Vlad Savov via Engadget

Wii! Nintendo announced earlier this week that the successor to the popular Wii gaming console will be launched sometime after March of 2012. Although the Wii was already cheaper than its rival consoles, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3, Nintendo lowered the price of the gaming system even further from $199 to $169 on April 18th. Details and a playable model of the successor to the Wii console will be released at this year’s E3 Expo (held from June 7th to June 9th) where the computer and video game industries showcase their latest and greatest to fans and the media.

The broad appeal of the Wii to friends and family, the use of Motion Controllers with built-in accelerometers instead of the traditional gaming controller, and Nintendo’s throwback to developing games that were actually fun to play made the system the most successful console release of its generation, selling over 86 million units compared to the 53 million units sold of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and 49.5 million units sold for the Sony PlayStation 3.

There are many rumors flying around about what the Wii 2 has to offer, but one thing is for certain: Nintendo always brings gaming to another level.

Official Press Release

April 25, 2011

To whom it may concern:

Re: Wii’s Successor System

Nintendo Co., Ltd. has decided to launch in 2012 a system to succeed Wii, which the company has sold 86.01 million units on a consolidated shipment basis between its launch in 2006 and the end of March 2011.

We will show a playable model of the new system and announce more specifications at the E3 Expo, which will be held June 7-9, 2011, in Los Angeles.

Sales of this new system have not been included in the financial forecasts announced today for the fiscal term ending March 2012.

 

 

Photo by Vlad Savov via Engadget