This week, Ray, Tom and Sean look at the dangers of over-the-top Christmas decorations, wonder when a tablet is too big, and try to solve the mystery of Bitcoin’s creator.

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

C130 pilots blinded by Christmas decorations

Are your Christmas decorations sufficiently over-the-top this year? Apparently if you’re not blinding low-flying planes, you aren?t really trying.

In mid-November, the crew of a Coast Guard C130 plane over Sacramento radioed that it was being blinded by a laser light – a distressingly common ‘prank’ that has dangerous consequences for pilots. However, when Sacramento police tracked down the source of the laser, it was not a prankster, but a home Christmas light display.

NBC Los Angeles reports that a Christmas light display projector called the Star Shower was the culprit. The Star Shower uses hundreds of pinpoint laser lights to simulate a surface covered with lights. It comes with a warning to point it only at solid surfaces, not the sky, and not to use it within ten miles of an airport. However, it appears that it is easy for someone attempting to project it up onto the wall of their home to allow the projector to accidentally beam lights into the sky, and the cockpit of passing planes. Homeowners using this product are advised to exercise caution.

Google ProjectFi gives customers the gift of Lego

You guys will remember we had long time listener Ardis on a few episodes ago to talk about his experience using Google?s ProjectFi cellular service. Well Ardis informed us last week that Google had sent him an interesting gift in the mail: a Lego kit that could be assembled into a charging stand for his Nexus device.

The Verge reports that a number of ProjectFi subscribers have been reporting receiving the kits, along with a note that says ?Thank you for your support, let?s build on this.? It is not known if the kit will go out to all ProjectFi subscribers or not.

Samsung unveils new giant tablet

It seems like the giant tablet arms race has officially begun. Apple has released the 12.9 inch iPad Pro to compete with Microsoft?s Surface Pro, which is a measly 12.3 inches. So they’re the winner, right? Not even close.

Samsung has jumped into the game with the Samsung Galaxy View, a “tablet” with a massive 18.5 inch screen. The only problem is, no one knows quite what to do with this monstrosity. In an Engadget piece entitled I just don’t understand why Samsung?s Galaxy View exists, tech writer Nathan Ingraham says that “Because it’s a giant tablet, you need to be close to get your videos playing, but because it’s so giant you naturally want to be a little farther away than your arm’s reach.” Samsung seems to want to position the tablet as a media playing device, but if this is a portable TV, it is one without a remote.

$599 is not a bad price for an elephantine tablet, but it?s very pricey for a small flatscreen. And when your screen is over 18 inches, you are definitely getting into flatscreen territory.

When drones are outlawed, only outlaws will have drones

A warning to drone enthusiasts: get in the way of the police, and they may take away your toys. According to a report by Ars Technica, Martin Sheldon of Los Angeles was caught after allegedly buzzing a police helicopter with his drone over Sunset Boulevard. He was charged with interfering with a police investigation. He has now been sentenced. In addition to community service and probation, Sheldon must turn over his drone and is banned from owning or operating a remote-controlled airplane, helicopter, or drone for a period of three years.

Hackers steal massive trove of children’s data from Vtech

Another major data breach is in the news lately. In November high tech toymaker Vtech reported that hackers got into its servers and stole the personal information of over ten million users, half of whom were children. The rest are parents.

Gizmodo reports that the data includes first names, genders, and birthdays of over six million children. But if that wasn?t scary enough, the cache of leaked data also contains 190 gigabytes of photos from Vtech?s kid connect service, most likely containing headshots of kids who used the video chat service to talk with their parents.

The hack has been catastrophically damaging to Vtech, which has suspended of their stock on the Hong Kong stock exchange after word got out that they had been transmitting customer data completely unencrypted.

Is Australian entrepreneur actually the creator of Bitcoin? Eh, probably not.

Bitcoin fascinates people for at least two reasons: one is the digital cryptocurrency itself, but two is because nobody knows the true identity of the person who really invented it. The inventor was known on online listservs as Satoshi Nakamoto, but this is undoubtedly just an alias. Last year a major Newsweek investigation featured a California man named Dorian Nakamoto as Satoshi, but this was later proven false.

Well this month the media is at it again, as both Wired and Gizmodo published stories claiming that an Australian entrepreneur named Craig Wright, in partnership with a Florida man named Dave Kleiman, was probably the secretive inventory of Bitcoin. The stories were based on documents leaked to the outlets by an anonymous source including unsent emails in which Wright admitted to being Nakamoto.

However, since the media have been burnt by false leads before, so both outlets hedged their bets, with Wired writing, ?Either Wright invented bitcoin, or he?s a brilliant hoaxer who very badly wants us to believe he did.?
That was a smart thing to say, because things got weird in a hurry. The day after the stories were published, the Australian Federal Police raided Wright?s home and office, according to the Guardian, executing a warrant on tax issues unrelated to the Bitcoin story.

Since then, Wired reports, more holes have appeared in the story, casting doubt on whether or not Craig Wright really has two PhDs or whether his company in fact owns one of the world?s most powerful privately-owned supercomputers. Wright does, however, appear to own millions in Bitcoin, a point in his favor that is hard to explain away.

A post on a listserv supposedly from Satoshi Nakamoto denied that Craig Wright was him the day after the original stories ran, however there was no way to verify.

The full story is still unfolding and appears to involve either an extortion scheme or a hoaxer pretending to extort himself.

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.?