Episode 34 – Star Wars, Jessica Jones and Augmented Humanity
(music one)
Welcome to another episode of Geek Bytes Podcast.
I’m Ramon Mejia…….and I’m Edgar Acosta
Now every podcast we bring you the roundup of the week’s best Geek and Tech news, then we discuss that news and anything else we’re interested in that week.
In Geek News this week, we’ll talk about how Amazon plans to sue fake reviewers, Facebook warns Users of State Sponsored Attacks, Autism treated With Google Glass, Star Wars Pre-Sales breaking records and the internet, Disney to launch subscription service, Back to the Future Day, Gilmore Girls Returns, Trailers of the Week and more
In our Discussion Section we’ll talk about an Augmented Humanity and if you’d allow your work to implant a computer chip under your skin?
Now let’s Begin our show with Geek News
(Music 2)
Geek News
Amazon sues over 1,000 fake reviewers
The BBC reports that Amazon is taking legal action against more than 1,000 people it says have posted fake reviews on its website.
The retail giant has filed a lawsuit in Seattle, Washington saying its brand reputation is being damaged by "false, misleading and inauthentic" reviews paid for by sellers seeking to improve the appeal of their products.
It comes after Amazon sued a number of websites in April for selling fake reviews.
Amazon says the 1,114 defendants, termed "John Does" as the company does not yet know their real names, offer a false review service for as little as $5 on the website Fiverr.com, with most promising five-star reviews for a seller's products.
In a statement to the Press Amazon said "While small in number, these reviews can significantly undermine the trust that consumers and the vast majority of sellers and manufacturers place in Amazon, which in turn tarnishes Amazon's brand,"
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34565631
Register your Drones
This week the U.S. government announced a program that will require drones to be registered with the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced the plan. The department will be creating a task force comprising public and private industry leaders to devise exactly how the registration system will work.
Secretary Foxx noted that the agency will be acting fast to develop and implement the registration plan. Specifically, the DOT hopes the task force will have recommendations in place by the middle of November, with a registration being implemented before the end of December.
Foxx said that registration will reinforce the need for hobbyists and drone operators to learn the airspace rules before they fly, and use their devices safely. Secondly, he noted that registration will allow these rules to be enforced, and let the FAA identify any operator who breaks these rules.
Facebook warns Users of State Sponsored Attacks
Years after Google implemented a similar feature for Gmail users, Facebook says it will begin alerting users if it suspects they’re a target of state-sponsored attacks. That is, if the network believes a user’s account has been either targeted or already compromised by an attacker working on behalf of a nation-state, Facebook will pop up a notification warning them of the incident and instructing them to turn on “Login Approvals” – an additional security mechanism that better protects their Facebook account.
Stanford Researchers Treat Autism With Google Glass
Researchers at Stanford are using Google Glass to help autistic children recognize and classify emotions.
Catalin Voss and Nick Haber are pairing face-tracking technology with machine learning to build at-home treatments for autism. The Autism Glass Project, uses custom software that classifies emotions in faces that the device is pointed at, and instantly gives users a read on the face’s expression.
The project’s second phase is a 100-child study to investigate the system’s viability as an at-home autism treatment..
Using images to translate emotions for children is only the first hurdle to cross, though. The bigger issue the team faced was ensuring the device’s use led to measurable learning when the children were no longer on the device.
The team monitors performance in the game and combines their analysis with video analysis and parental questionnaires to build a ‘quantitative phenotype’ of Autism for each participant in the study. By tracking this over time, the team can show how their device helps improve emotion recognition over the long term.
http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/19/stanford-researchers-treat-autism-with-google-glass/#.dlih31:tMtE
YouTube Ad Free
Google is finally taking the wraps off of its long-rumored subscription video service at an event in Los Angeles this week. YouTube Red is a $9.99 monthly subscription that'll include everything on YouTube without ads, as well as a free music service. One of the most important features of the service allows for users to view YouTube videos ad-free and the ability to save anything you want to a device for offline viewing.
Controversially, YouTube has also confirmed that any “partner” creator who earns a cut of ad revenue but doesn’t agree to sign its revenue share deal for its new YouTube Red $9.99 ad-free subscription will have their videos hidden from public view on both the ad-supported and ad-free tiers.
Do you think YouTube being a bully?
http://www.engadget.com/2015/10/21/youtube-red-google-ad-free-video-subscription/
http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/21/an-offer-creators-cant-refuse/#.dlih31:brnz
Star Wars Pre-Sales breaking records and the internet
Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens is set to break every movie sales record. Fans are actually breaking pre-sale ticket sites like Fandango in their attempt to get opening weekend tickets. Deadline reports that pre-sales for the move are already 8 times as high as other block buster record holder, the Hunger Games. Even the IMAX version of the movie is already reporting $6.5Million in domestic ticket sales, with pre-sales breaking every Imax record. The film is set to open in about 390 Imax screens in North America. Just the IMAX pre-sales have already beat The Dark Knight Rises, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and The Avenger.
Disney to launch subscription service
Disney will launch a digital subscription streaming service next month which will combine its movies, books, TV series, and music offerings into one bundle, according to a report today from The Financial Times. The service, called DisneyLife, will include TV shows from the Disney Channel, classic movies like Snow White, Lady and the Tramp and The Jungle Book, as well as content from the complete Pixar catalog, like Toy Story.
The service, however, is aimed the European market, with a launch in the U.K. followed by expansions across Europe in 2016, to reach countries including France, Spain, Italy and Germany.
While this type of service is clearly the sort of thing that could attract subscribers in the U.S. market, Disney’s agreements with satellite and cable TV companies on distribution would overlap with DisneyLife, the report noted, which is why the U.S. will not be included at launch. However, Disney has fewer of those sorts of agreements in Europe.
At launch, Disney plans on charging £9.99 a month for access to the content, which will be made available in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.
Back to the Future Day
In Back to the Future Part II, Marty and Doc Brown travel into the far flung future of 2015. Or to be more precise October 21, 2015. This date has come to be known as Back to the Future Day.
Back to the Future II got a lot of things right: Hoverboard, 3D movies, Video chat, Wearable Tech like Google Glasses, Biometric Sensors, Smart Home devices
Great Promotional stuff: Pepsi Perfect, Jaws 19, Nike Self Lacing shoes, Behind the Scenes Documentary (Back in Time).
http://www.geekbytespodcast.com/reviews/2015/10/20/back-to-the-future-day
Gilmore Girls Returns
Netflix is the knight in shining armor for fans of shows that ended before their time. Gilmore Girls appears to be the latest show to come back to life after a long time dead and buried: According to TV Line, Warner Bros. has reached a deal with Netflix, series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and executive producer Daniel Palladino to bring Gilmore Girls back to Netflix as a series of four 90-minute mini-movies. Negotiations have only just begun, but major series participants Lauren Graham, Alexis Bledel, Kelly Bishop and Scott Patterson are all said to be on board.
http://www.engadget.com/2015/10/19/gilmore-girls-netflix-miniseries-report/
Harry Potter’s next adventure
Today on Pottermore, J.K. Rowling’s Official Harry Potter site, part of the next adventure of Harry Potter was revealed. The snipit reads:
It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn’t much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband and father of three school-age children.
While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child will be a London play which will be produced in two parts. Thankfully you can watch them back to back.
https://www.pottermore.com/features/how-to-book-tickets-for-harry-potter-and-the-cursed-child
(Music 5)
Trailers of the Week
Every week we bring you the best trailers that came out this week. We play you clips and talk about them.We’ll start with…
Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens Trailer
During the past weeks Monday Night Football Disney released a new Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer and it nearly crashed the internet. Here are 2 minutes and 35 seconds of Star Wars goodness.
Jessica Jones
Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) is the second Marvel title to be made into a Netflix original series. Jessica Jones is the story of a former superhero who opens a private detective agency. The series premieres November 20th.
The Man in the High Castle
An Amazon original series that wowed fans of the book. The series asks the question: What if U.S.A and the allies didn’t win WWII? All the episodes of the series will be available on Amazon on November 20th.
Daddy’s Home
A mild-mannered radio executive (Will Ferrell) competes for the affection of his stepchildren when their freewheeling and freeloading father (Mark Wahlberg) shows up. In theaters Dec. 25th.
Joy
A story of a family across four generations, centered on the girl who becomes the woman who founds a business dynasty and becomes a matriarch in her own right. Facing betrayal, treachery, the loss of innocence and the scars of love, Joy becomes a true boss of family and enterprise in a world of unforgiving commerce. Allies become adversaries and adversaries become allies, both inside and outside the family, as Joy's inner life and fierce imagination carry her through the storm she faces. In theaters Dec. 25th.
Freaks of Nature- Red Band Trailer
In the town of Dillford, humans, vampires and zombies were all living in peace - until the alien apocalypse arrived. Now three teenagers-one human, one vampire, and one zombie-have to team up to figure out how to get rid of the visitors. In theaters Oct. 30th. Warning the trailer contains some cursing, if you don’t want to hear that skip ahead about 2 minutes.
That’s it for Geek News
If there are any news stories you want to hear us talk about you can contact us on Facebook at Geek Bytes Podcast, on Twitter @GeekBytesPod, or e-mail us at feedback@geekbytespodcast.com
Onto our Discussion section
(Music 3)
Discussion Section
Augmented Humanity – TestTube put up a video this week that talked about the Swedish company Epicenter. You might be familiar with tech that allows employees to wirelessly enter a building with a key FOB or have access to a variety of office equipment like copy machines wirelessly. While this type of wireless access has been around for a while, Epicenter is testing out having employees implanted with a sub-dermal chip that does all the same stuff through a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). The chip is about the size of a grain of sand and is implanted under that skin. Once implanted it can then be programed to allow access to the building, offices, or equipment wirelessly.
The BBC covered this same company in Feb of this year when they announced the project. To date Epicenter has had over 400 employees volunteer for the chip implant.
This idea falls under a larger umbrella movement of Bio Hacking.
One of our Facebook followers Daren Koch commented on the story “This is insane. People who do this need backbone enough to say "No, I am sorry. You don't own me". The only thing I would add is that, in my opinion, generally speaking, it is by our addiction for more tech and better tech that this exponential loss of privacy is pushing forward. We are so addicted to trying the next best thing that our privacy is, at best, an after thought. Sometimes it seems as though privacy isn't fully considered unless there is an incident that negatively impacts users. I mean, what should be more sacred to a person than their own body? Tech? Tech is more important to us than our own body? Where do we draw the line, once it's implanted in our body?
Not to mention, if a company pays for it, they own it and have rights to it. I, for one, will not allow a company to own me. What am I, Jason Bourne? Lol”
Other implant RFID applications include: Wireless key systems to open locks, phones, computers, etc. Storage of medical information for hospital visits. Wirelessly pay for items by storing credit card info. Smart access to firearms- Gun won’t work without correct RFID tag.
What is RFID? RFID tags contain an integrated circuit and an antenna, which are used to transmit data to the RFID reader (also called an interrogator). The reader then converts the radio waves to a more usable form of data. Information collected from the tags is then transferred through a communications interface to a host computer system. Two types of RFID tags: Active and Passive. Passive-Only send information when requested by reader (like CD in CD reader). Active- Can actively broadcast information for any reader in range, requires power source. (http://www.abr.com/what-is-rfid-how-does-rfid-work/)
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31042477
Should you be held responsible for the lies you tell on the internet?
That’s it for us this week.
For a review of the topics we covered and any of the links in show notes for this episode visit our site geekbytespodcast.com and click on our link to the podcasts.
If you like the podcast and want to support us you can find all the ways to do so by visiting geekbytespodcast.com/support
For the Geek Bytes Podcast I’m Ramon Mejia and I’m Edgar Acosta. Thanks for listening everyone. Now Go Geek out about something.
(Music 4)
Music Credits
"Happy Bee", "Movement Proposition", "Theme for Harold (var.3) ", "Take the Lead"
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/