There’s a Pill for That – #101

Everything that is right with this episode was brought to you by the guys at Squarespace.com! And by the letters E, M, and Gherd.

It was a comedy of errors just trying to get the equipment to work for this podcast episode, so you may notice some extra sounds in the background.  You should consider them “extra features”!

Headlines:

• New Nokia phones
• Why is anyone still using Java 7 anymore?
• Six strikes and you’re out? Will this new anti-piracy tactic work?  This is what the alerts look like from Comcast.
• Google launches the “WTF” (Against the Asus “Cheap as hell”)
• You can “win” a Google “OMG THAT’S EXPENSIVE”
• Yahoo’s honeymoon might be over (And why that’s ok)
• The judge that ruled in favor for Samsung now works for Samsung. Cause why not?!
• An upcoming version of the Firefox browser may block all third-party cookies by default.
• Rating system to finally join us in the 21st century. (even more on this)
• iOS apps leak more personal data than Android
• Illinois proves they have no idea how the internet works.

Fastlane:

• A recent survey found that 58% of American adults believe video games directly contribute to violent behavior.  However, it also showed that 38% of American adults have no clue what the ESRB ratings are and 33% let their kids play whatever they want.  In the end, a survey recently found that about half of American adults have no clue about video games.
• The popular Twitter app for Android, Falcon Pro, hit its 100,000 token limits earlier this week meaning that new users could not use the app. To discourage new users, the developers raised the price to more than $130. After resetting the tokens, the price is now back to normal and new users can take part in the awesome. The whole fiasco just goes to show that Twitter hates developers.
• The Music Recording industry finally made some growth this last year, actually rising for the first time since Napster’s original launch in the ’90s.  The growth came from, surprise surprise, digital downloads.  Now imagine how differently things could have been if only they started doing this sooner!
• Parents whose children paid lots of real money for lots of smurfberries originally thought they were smurfed. However, Apple has agreed to pay $100 million to parents who don’t know how to manage their children. But only to those parents who didn’t manage their children for a specific 45 day period. If your kids loaded up on smurfberries outside of this window, you’re still smurfed.
• iOS Kindle released an update to fix some bugs but instead ended up deleting everyone’s library and settings. It has supposedly been fixed, but there are still many users that have to manually rebuild their library.
• Groupon’s CEO was let go this week after a series of underperforming quarters.  His resignation memo to the company was posted online (since, as he pointed out, it’d just be leaked anyway) and is an amazing example of accountability, humor, humility, and Battle Toad knowledge.

Talking Point:

Where will the next copyright fight come from?  Look ahead and see 3D printing as that battlefield.

Zuke’s Favorite: The Lost Grey Poupon Footage
Zohner’s Favorite: Kill everyone. Feel good about yourself.
Stark’s Favorite: This is a proper tribute to 50 years of Bond, James Bond
Schmidty’s Favorite: Rubik’s Cube Juggling