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The Power Geeks #98

by DarthMolen on Apr.27, 2011, under The Latest Shows

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We are LIVE on Ustream . This week we talk social responsibility in a digital age, the intarwebz got broke, big brother is watching you… everywhere

Intro Natali
Intro Ben

Items of Interest

  • The iCade Now A Reality (udg)
    • I mentioned during my April Fool’s Day rundown is that the glory of ThinkGeek’s “pranks” is that they often turn into real items. Well, their iCADE from last year is now up for presale. If you didn’t quite catch it from the name- it turns your iPad into an old-school arcade cabinet. You just slide your iPad in and it uses Bluetooth to connect so no cables to hook up.
    • ThinkGeek teamed up with Atari to bring back classics like Asteroids to the market for iCADE support. And to go with your iCADE comes the “Atari Greatest Hits” app with over 100 classic Atari games. You get pong for free right off the bat. The others are available in-app where you can get 3 for $1.00 or all 100 for $14.99.
    • The iCADE uses a unique API, which it will be opening up to developers so that they can add iCADE support to their games. ThinkGeek also teamed up with ION to develop the tabletop cabinet that features full button and joystick control.
    • Available for iPad and iPad 2, the iCADE is on presale now for just under $100 and is expected to start shipping on May 20, 2011. The first shipment that went on sale sold out in a day.

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Deals of the Week / New Releases

  • Hugo Nominees You Can Read Right Now… For Free! (udg)
    • The Hugo Awards recognize excellence in the genres of science fiction and fantasy. And because you know you don’t have enough to read, and I’m all about helping you find new stuff to add, I’ve stumbled upon a list of the nominees that are available for free online. Yup, free. And I’m not talking one or two. I’m talking 11 of the nominated Short Stories, Novellas, Novelettes and one movie. So, hope on over to our friends at TheMarySue.com and starting finding out how they earned their rank amongst the Hugo Award Nominees.
  • Dexter Ultimate Prop Giveaway (udg)
    • I hugely heart me some Dexter. And Showtime is handing out the ultimate props. 5 lucky winner will score 2nd place prize packs including one pack of Dexter Collectibles, one Baby Harrison Pack, a Debra Morgan Pack, a Trinity Killer Pack and a Dexter & Rita Wedding Pack.
    • One person will snag the Grand Prize which includes a “Bowl Till You Bleed” Bowling shirt, “Thank You for the Blood” Card, Dexter’s Kill Bag and Blood Spatter Pictures. It’s pretty damn awesome. So, head on over to the link in the show notes and… no don’t I want to win it!!
  • New Movies for 4th Week of April
    • Blow out -John Travolta at his best
    • Marvel “The Avengers”: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Vol 1 and 2 – Disney + Marvel = goodness!
    • The Girl Who Leapt through Time (Anime) – multiple genres, supposedly good
    • Dinoshark- (btm)(take Jurassic Park mix with Jaws and you get Dinoshark, just with a much lower budget and not as great acting but 1000% more cheese)

Movie Minute (new feature)

  • Hobbit Updates
  • WW Script Rewrite- AKA Your WW Train Wreck of the Week (udg)
    • It’s a REALLY good thing I missed the leaked pilot script for this because it included  scenes of Diana having a sleepover, and eating ice cream (“It’s been a three-scoop day!”), and teaming up with her press secretary Myndi to “scream like schoolgirls” over a Katy Perry video, and maybe even crying herself to sleep over her old flame Steve Trevor.  WHAT. THE. TRUCK. Seriously?!?!?
    • Even though they didn’t listen to us over the costume I guess the outrage over turning our beloved WW into Allie McFreakinBeal must have sunk in because, according to i09, it’s been rewritten.
    • The new script has  her lifting bad guys by the throat, gouging their eyes with her thumbs, kicking them into their air with those go-go boots and making obscene gestures at them. In a flashback, we see her pulling Steve out of a burning airplane, despite being told that doing so will be way too dangerous. Even her cat seems braver: In one scene, we discover it’s bitten her neighbor William Marston (named after the “Wonder Woman” creator), who tells Diana he thinks Wonder Woman is a fascist. And apparently, Diana’s glad the cat bit him.
    • Yup. Do you really need me to say what I think of the rewrite?

Geek Speak

  • With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: Social Responsibility in a Highly Digital Age
    • Sadly there have been story after story in this country of people being beaten, raped, even stabbed to death in broad daylight with many onlookers witnessing the horrendous acts. Fear of getting involved has been the biggest reason that people use when stating why they did not do anything to help. When there is a madman with a gun, it’s understandable why you wouldn’t want to.  When you are outnumbered and the situation is violent and ugly, trying to break it up may get you killed. But, with the technological advances we carry with us on a day to day basis I would hope that more would be done to aid in crisis situations. And when I say more being done, I sure as Hell don’t mean put that shit up on YouTube.
    • By now I’m sure you have either heard of or seen the video of the brutal beating
    • of Chrissy Lee Polis. Chrissy is a trans woman that stopped in a Rosedale, MD to use the bathroom and was told by a male employee there that she needed to buy something first. Without warning, she is attacked by two women, one claiming that Chrissy was “talking to her man”- her man being the oh so friendly guy behind the counter that made her buy something first.
    • Employees of the restaurant not only stood around and watched as the two pummeled her, one of them also stood there video taping the incident. He was also kind enough to stop laughing long enough to warn the girls “Y’all better get the fuck up outta here before the cops come” while he’s zooming in on the poor victim who is now mid-seizure from getting dragged across the restaurant by only her hair and beaten.  Then bitches about the fact she’s having a seizure on “his” floor.
    • If you were there, what would you have done?
    • One of my twitter followers posed “Are they trained to break up fights? What about liability issues?”  My thoughts on that- there comes a time where that simply doesn’t fuckin matter. An older woman (Vicky Thom) didn’t give a crap about that and she tried but got hit. If the person video taping it plus the at least 3 employees seen standing there watching all jumped in to contain the situation, it would have ended.
    • Cyber Bullying Statistics

Tech, Gaming, and Geek News

  • The Intarwebs Got Broke (udg)
    • So, remember last week when we talked Cloud? Well, the sky fell last week when Amazon’s cloud network crashed, taking with it  a host of web 2.0 companies – including Reddit, Foursquare, Hootsuite  and thousands of others.  Oddly, two of Amazon’s biggest Web Services’ biggest customers- Netflix and Zynga were not affected by Crash 2.0.
    • Amazon EC2 was believed to be impossible to crash, after hacktivist group Anonymous failed to take it down in December. So what happened?
    • The company said that an early-morning “networking event” caused a cascade of problems that started with a glitch at its East Coast facility. The glitch made its servers automatically create back-ups of themselves which eventually led to crashes in that zone. After roughly 3 days, Amazon had everything under control, with one exception- about 0.07 percent of the data storage in its restored eastern cloud service isn’t fully recoverable. Needless to say this is going to shake the faith that many have in the all mighty cloud.
    • As if this weren’t enough, this rare phenomenon came on the same day as the massive PlayStation network went offline after a then unexplained outage that left 77 million users frustrated to say the least.
    • After going down several times at the end of February and outages throughout March, this is just the latest in a string of problems for the network. And it’s still down as they struggle to completely rebuild it
    • The outage wasn’t the most frustrating thing for PSN users, believe it or not. Instead it was the lack of communication from Sony. To make matters worse, after nearly a week, they finally announced to the public yesterday via the US PlayStation blog that this was indeed due to a massive breach. They stated the “illegal and unauthorized person” obtained people’s names, addresses, email address, birth dates, usernames, passwords, logins, security questions and more. With 77 million users and an estimated $500 mill in annual revenues just from this service,  this makes it one of the largest-ever Internet security break-ins.
    • Sony immediately shut down the network as soon as they learned the information had been stolen. The company said user account information for the PlayStation Network and its Qriocity service users was compromised between April 17 and April 19. Going undetected for several days is a huge red flag and probably accounts for the entire rebuild.
    • While they saw no evidence credit card numbers were stolen, Sony warned users it could not rule out the possibility.
    • “Out of an abundance of caution, we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained,” they said.
    • Sony said it has hired an “outside recognized security firm” to investigate. Of course I’m hoping that firm has no links to China.
    • The timing is also rather unfortunate for them. Monday night Sony unveiled its first two tablets. Like most Sony products they use access to its media networks as a selling point. In the case of these tablets, Qriocity, which was also highly compromised and is part of this ongoing outage.
    • The incidents involving Amazon and Sony are believed to be unrelated and Anonymous is claiming they nothing to do with it.
  • Apple secretly tracking your Location (SM)
    • Lets not get hysterical now, It’s pretty muddy data
      • precision is lacking, aggregates by week, no personal info really
    • Why you should care that Apple tracks you
      • Its not that they are tracking, its that there’s a unencrypted history on your handset
      • I.E. a beacon for hackers
    • Guess What? Android is a Much Bigger Offender (udg)
      • Haters always gotta be hatin’. According to industry expert Christopher Soghoian, the iPhone reports your location data to Apple twice a day, but Android reports your location data back to Google several times per hour.
    • App to dump your android location information (SM)
    • Yep, they all do it :) … and that’s the big dirty secret :)
    • Most apps cache data and then re-use to help speed things up
    • When you connect to their backend db, guaranteed there is logging
    • Not something to declare armegeddon on but why the huge history on the local phone?
    • Don’t forget the file is also located unencrypted on whichever computer you back up your iPhone. Of course you could put a password on your phone and your computer, but that’s kinda complicated to do, right?(btm)
  • AT&T Admits it can’t handle the iPhone (btm)
    • (SM)Thats like the pope admitting he’s Catholic… everyone already knew :)
    • Explains they need to buy T-Mobile to expand their network
    • iPhone produces 24 times the mobile network traffic than a conventional phone
    • Between 2007 (iPhone introduction) and 2010 mobile network volume jumped 8000%
    • They expect the first 5-7 weeks of 2015 will see more traffic than all of 2010
    • (btm) I wonder if putting iPhones on multiple carriers will help reduce the load or will all carriers see this kind of increase as people who avoided AT&T sign up?
  • Valve Probably Done With Single Player Games (udg)
    • According to journalist Geoff Keighley’s Final Hours of Portal 2 iTunes app, Valve may be leaving its single player days behind.
    • “Portal 2 will probably be Valve’s last game with an isolated single-player experience. What this all means is something Newell is still trying to figure out,” wrote Keighly, relating a comment made by Valve founder Gabe Newell.
    • Valve’s Portal 2 introduced multiplayer to the Portal games through a two-player co-op mode. Most of their major games now feature some form of multiplayer mode. In fact, the company’s primary single-player-only experience Half-Life hasn’t seen anything new since 2007.
    • Even outside of Valve, single-player-only modes seem to be on their way out. Even Super Mario now includes second-player support. Series like Uncharted or BioShock that launched as solo-only have added multiplayer modes in their second installments. Capcom has been slowly but surely pushing it’s once single-player only series, Resident Evil into a vehicle for multiplayer.
    • The comment from Valve is striking, though, in that it doesn’t sound like Newell and Johnson said they’d probably never ship a game that didn’t have a multiplayer mode somewhere in it. Rather, they told Keighley they “probably” wouldn’t make a game “with an isolated single-player experience.” That would mean no more modes that couldn’t connect in some fashion to other people.
  • Samsung / Apple Rivalry Heating Up (SM)
    • Apple slapped a lawsuit on Samsung for their Galaxy S and copyright violations
    • Funny thing, Samsung (South Korean) manufactures a lot of the IPhone parts
    • (SM) I own one and it DOES look like an IPhone plus the interface is pretty slick
    • Lets say they win… and have to pay a “licensing” fee, what does that mean for the rest of the industry?
    • Samsung has since fired back their own set of lawsuits on copyright infringement
    • Can their partnership last through all this litigation?
  • WikiLeaks at it Again (udg)
    • WikiLeaks has done another dump of confidential government and military documents. This time they focused on the Prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay. In all 779 classified dossiers on current and former detainees were released.
    • New York Times, Washington Post, NPR and a number of other media outlets have published, either in whole or in part, these classified files. So, will the government pursue them for espionage charges like they are pursuing WikiLeaks?
    • The Obama administration condemned the leaks in a statement: “These documents contain classified information about current and former GTMO detainees, and we strongly condemn the leaking of this sensitive information.”
    • In addition to shedding light on the actions of Al-Qaeda’s leadership before and after the 9/11 attacks, the documents pertain to the treatment of the detainees: While the Times reports that the documents “are largely silent about the use of the harsh interrogation tactics at Guantánamo — including sleep deprivation, shackling in stress positions and prolonged exposure to cold temperatures — that drew global condemnation,” it also notes that many prisoners appear to have been held for long periods without cause.
  • Old Republic Expected to turn a profit, But will it? (SM)
    • Old Republic is a Star Wars MMO done by the Bioware folks
    • These were the same folks who did BG and KOTOR
    • EA expects to draw 500,000 subs in the first year and make a profit
    • Investment firms expect a million from the company
    • Puts 12 million (wow) into perspective, right?
    • One big hitch… Free to play MMO’s are here (LOTRO,  DDO, etc)
    • Can a new sub without current user base survive?
  • Look Out Groupon, Here Comes FaceBook (udg)
    • When FB launched “places,” first thought was they were trying to compete with 4sqr.
    • Now they’ve launched Deals. And, again, first glance may seem like 4sqr. But, FB’s Deals are actually like Groupon.  See, with 4sqr, checking in to a place may get you a free app or 10% off. With Deals, like Groupon, FB users will be able to buy a certificate for some goods or services at an extremely discounted rate (typically 50% off) for future use. And you’ll be able to use FB credits to buy them.
    • Facebook is starting with 5 cities- SF, Austin, Dallas, Atlanta and San Diego. Any FB user can sign up for Deals notifications and the users in these 5 test cities will be able to see and use Deals now.
    • We suspected Facebook had plans to bring Credits to the real world since around the time of f8, the company’s developer conference, when Facebook announced its ambitious Open Graph. Looks like this is the start.
  • Open home Wi-Fi leads to FBI raid on wrong houses(btm)
    • FBI raided homes of those suspected of downloading child porn
    • After its investigation, FBI finds that neighbors using open Wi-Fi were the actual culprit
    • Wi-Fi Alliance says router security is like seat belts, it only works if you use it
    • Set a password on your router, seriously.
  • Xbox to Have Streaming TV Service (udg)
    • Streaming TV may not seem like a new concept for the 360. Microsoft already allows it via AT&T’s U-verse service. But, it looks like they are in talks with major TV networks and could be branching out.  Right now they are reportedly working with Australian TV Network, Foxtel, in bringing a wallet-friendly cable package to the 360.
    • Reports also indicate there is quite a heated battle internally at Microsoft over this with many employees believing that the Xbox franchise should remain as a strictly gaming platform. Others argue it already does video streaming and should evolve into more than just games.
    • In a recent interview Ross Honey, head of content acquisition for Xbox, stated “Microsoft Xbox is very interested in delivering great entertainment to consumers, entertainment in the broadest sense. From our perspective, gaming and TV are going to coexist.”
    • Just recently, Microsoft brought Kinect support to the 360 for the Netflix app now allowing for voice or gesture control of the Netflix interface to select any content.
    • Perhaps the days of a console being used simply for gaming will be over. I think we started to see that already before this announcement came.

Intarweb Goldmine

  • Tweeting election results in Canada will get you fined (btm)
    • 73 year old Canadian law makes it illegal to announce or send messages about election results until all polls are closed.
    • Carries a $25,000 fine and up to 5 years in jail.
    • Election officials won’t be actively monitoring the Twitter but if there are complaints they will investigate
    • Law originally intended to prevent radio stations from announcing East Coast results and potentially affecting West Coast elections where the polls were still open.
  • Kid Not Guilty til he opens mouth on Facebook (SM)
    • Guy stops up sink in library at closing
    • Ppl don’t find the stopped sink until the next day
    • 200,000 dollars of damage later…
    • Kid gets on Facebook and brags about it and subsequently gets caught
  • And the Stupid Tattoo of the Week Goes to… (udg)
    • L.A. County Sheriff homicide investigator Kevin Lloyd was flipping through tattooed gang members when he notice Anthony Garcia. Why? Well his tattoo depicted, in great detail, a 2004 liquor store murder scene.
    • Yup, every key detail was there: the Christmas lights that lined the roof of the liquor store where 23 yo John Juarez was gunned down, the direction his body fell, the bowed street lamp across the way and the street sign- all under a huge banner that said “RIVERA KILLS.” Yeah, as in the gang Rivera-13.
    • It even gets creative with some screaming symbolism-  the helicopter shooting down what seems to be Mr. Peanut is a reference to the gang member’s alias, “Chopper,” while the lovable peanut mascot symbolizes a rival gang member, as the term “peanut” is a gang slang term for a rival gang member.
    • Apparently, the tattooed mural on the chest of Chopper–real name Anthony Garcia–evolved over time, with pictures of him taken at various points since the liquor store murder having new additions inked onto the scene. I’m guessing Chopper is now probably regretting his cockiness just a bit.
  • Rules of Golfing During A German Bombing (udg)
  • Computer opens grocery store, without employees (btm)
    • Grocery store was closed for Good Friday but computerized security system opened the doors on time at 8AM
    • 3 minutes later customers began shopping
    • Many honest customers used the self check-out lanes to pay.
    • Some realized there was no staff and left without paying
    • Owner is asking those that didn’t pay to fess up and pay. All money received will be donated to the Christchurch recovery effort.
    • Owner isn’t pressing charges yet, even though CCTV cameras recorded it all.
  • Christ is Coming, get Tweeting (udg)
    • Could Facebook and Twitter be the salvation of man?
    • Rev. Franklin Graham, son of Christian evangelist Billy Graham thinks so according to the “prophecy” he gave ABC’s “This Week” host Christiane Amanpour.
    • “The Bible says that every eye is going to see [the Second Coming of Jesus],” Graham told Ammanpour. “How is the whole world going to see [him] all at one time? I don’t know, unless all of a sudden everybody’s taking pictures and it’s on the media worldwide. I don’t know. Social media could have a big part in that.”
    • The 58-year-old cited a verse that says Jesus will be coming on “a cloud and the whole world will moan.”
    • Graham was quick to point out that he is not saying Jesus will come back on Facebook or Twitter himself but instead he could make his announcement on the Silicon Valley social networks, or his arrival could quickly become a trending topic of the likes that no one has seen.

Extra Links

  • Last flight of the Endeavour (btm)
  • Tesla CEO, Elon Musk will put a man on Mars in 10 years(btm)
  • Who are you really talking to online? (btm)
    • Los Angeles woman met a Firefighter from Colorado in a message board for fans of HBO’s Deadwood
    • Began exchanging emails, letters, postcards, photos and talking everyday on the phone
    • Woman left her unhappy marriage but as she was preparing to move to Colorado was told that the Firefighter had died from Liver Cancer.
    • 7 months later her friends discovered the truth, the Firefighter, his son and 20 other family members were all characters created by a woman from the Chicago suburbs.
    • Chicago woman allegedly used a voice-altering device to disguise her voice and plotted out entire coordinating shorelines for her characters interacting with the LA woman.
    • Chicago woman had posed as a friend of the firefighter and introduced him to the LA woman becoming her friend
    • LA woman learned the truth while watching TV with the Chicago woman, who was visiting.
    • LA woman is now suing the Chicago woman.
  • Hotel linens may have more bugs than you think (btm)
    • Hotels are now using specially designed RFID tags to prevent theft
    • tags can be sewn directly into towels, linens and bathrobes
    • Hotel in Hawaii has already saved $15,000 using the system
    • So far only the Hawaiian hotel and 2 others are using system
      • The hotels are remaining anonymous for security reasons
  • Jersey Shore gone Wilde (btm)
    • Takes Jersey Shore transcripts adds Broadway actors and gives us re-enactments in the style of Oscar Wilde
    • Series of videos produced by Playbill.com
    • More entertaining than actual Jersey Shore

How To Reach Us on the IntarWebs

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