Episode 59 – Microsoft Sues and CinemaCon
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Welcome to Episode 59 of Geek Bytes Podcast.
I’m Ramon Mejia and this week I’m flying solo.
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 Microsoft Sues Washington, New Amazon Kindle released, Singapore Gigabit LTE, the entertainment news from CinemaCon, the best Trailers of the Week and More…
Now let’s Begin our show with Geek News
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Geek News
Microsoft Sues Washington
Microsoft filed suit in US federal court in the Western District of Washington for the right to inform customers of government requests for email and other documents. Microsoft says in the past 18 months it has received 5,264 legal orders under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 2,576 of which prevented disclosure and 68% of those had no end date to the secrecy. The US House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday approved legislation requiring that authorities get a court warrant to obtain e-mail stored in the cloud, though without a provision regarding notification.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-privacy-idUSKCN0XB22U
New Amazon Kindle released
The Verge reports that an accidentally published page on T-Mall gave an early look at Amazon’s Kindle Oasis. It has a large bezel on one side, a 300ppi screen weighs 131 grams, 3.4 to 8.5 mm thick. The translated page described a rechargeable battery case that attaches with magnets and comes in three colors, providing 20 months of standby time. It’s available now in red, brown and black covers for $289 and begins shipping April 27th.
http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/11/11407696/amazon-new-kindle-oasis-leak-details-features
Singapore Gigabit LTE
CNET reports that Singapore’s carrier, StarHub is partnering with Huawei to bring gigabit LTE to Singapore in the spring of 2017. The 4.5G service which promises will roll out in the central business district. The improved speeds from the new small cell network will easily surpass this, however such service will only be achieved indoors, as the technology uses mini cellular towers to blanket an area, such as a mall or office building, with coverage. Devices that can take advantage of the speed have yet to hit the market. StarHub is currently rated as the world’s fastest LTE operator with average speeds of 38 Mbps.
http://www.cnet.com/news/singapore-will-get-super-fast-1gbps-lte-next-year/
Facebook Chatbots and VR camera
Further proving this is the year of bots and VR, Facebook announced some interesting new products.
· Facebook announced “Agents on Messenger” a program for business to create chatbots for customer service, ecommerce and more. Customers can send a text to the chat and the Chatbots can respond with texts, custom links, and buttons that would allow users ask questions, to pay for items, or book rooms.
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· Facebook also launched a Live video API that lets you broadcast to Facebook from any device.
· The company also revealed an open source VR camera called Surround 360. The 17-lens camera require almost no post-production work. Rather than selling it Facebook will open source the designs and video stitching-algorithms and post to Github. Parts are estimated to cost $30,000.
http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/12/agents-on-messenger/
Facebook Ends Freebooting
Freebooting is the practice of using someone else’s videos without permission on Facebook. Tuesday Facebook launched Rights Manager, its own version of YouTube’s Content ID. Facebook Pages admins can upload video they wish to claim as their own. If a video matches, a notification can be sent to the offender it can be automatically reported as a violation. Whitelists can be made for pages allowed to republish. For now, content owners must apply through Facebook to get access to the dashboard and API.
http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/12/content-fb/
Instagram adds Video Channel
Instagram made a change to its explore page adding new video channels, including one called “Videos You Might Like”. Other channels are curated around topics like Coachella or particular people. The update comes to Android and iOS in the US today with other countries to follow.
Avatar gets 4 sequels
This week at CinemaCon, film maker David Cameron announced that his hit movie Avatar is getting not one but four sequels. Avatar 2 will be released at Christmas 2018 with sequels following at Christmastime in 2020 and 2022 and 2023.
Batfleck to Direct Batman Solo film
Kevin Smith, said it first but this week Warner Bros. chairman and confirmed that the studio is moving forward with a standalone Batman movie, which Ben Affleck will both star, write, and direct.
http://nerdist.com/ben-affleck-will-go-full-batfleck-and-direct-the-batman-movie-too/
Men In Black/21 Jump Street Crossover
While the movie cross over between 21 Jump Street and Men in Black seems like one of the weirder proposals it finally got an official title. This week at Las Vegas at CinemaCon 2016, Sony announced the name of the movie will be MIB 23. Not the most creative title but maybe seeing Jonah Hill shooting Aliens in the near future will make up for that.
http://nerdist.com/men-in-black21-jump-street-crossover-gets-a-very-obvious-title/
Channing Tatum Enlists In ‘Kingsman 2’
Kingsman: The Golden Circle just beefed up its cast with a beefy American. Channing Tatum has announced on twitter that he’s joined the cast of the upcoming sequel to the 2014 (released stateside in 2015) hit comedy spy-thriller The Kingsman.
https://deadline.com/2016/04/channing-tatum-joins-kingsman-2-1201737447/
Cumberbatch to Voice The Grinch
Illumination Entertainment took the stage at Cinema-Con to wow exhibitors with new footage and project revelations that included setting Benedict Cumberbatch to voice the title character in How The Grinch Stole Christmas set for a release date of November 10, 2017.
That’s it for Geek New
We’ll move on to trailers of the week.
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In our Trailers of the Week section we discuss the best trailers that came out this week. Remember you can watch the full trailers at geekbytespodcast.com; We begin this week with…
Suicide Squad
First Bohemian Rhapsody, now Ballroom Blitz. The Suicide Squad seems to have the most fun music from the 1970’s.
In theaters Aug. 5th, 2016.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
The trailer is the briefest glimpse into the American magical society of the 1920’s. From the fiction released on the Pottermore site we’re sure to see issues of magical segregation and secrecy in the film.
In theaters Nov. 18th, 2016.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows
The more we see of this movie the more we like it. In addition to the battle with Shredder and the aliens led by Krang there is a subplot of the turtles wanting to be human.
In theaters May 15th, 2016.
Doctor Strange Official Teaser Trailer
Our first look at footage from the Marvel film Doctor Strange. It’s 1:56 of magical goodness. We see Stephen Vincent Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) go from broken surgeon to sorcerer supreme with the help of the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton). The visuals remind us of the reality altering effects found in Inception.
In theaters Nov. 4th, 2016.
That’s it for Trailers of the Week
I wanted to let you know that we have some great content coming up on the website including author interviews, and a A Lady Geek’s guide to romance novels.
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Thanks for listening.
For the Geek Bytes Podcast I’m Ramon Mejia.
Now Go Geek out about something.
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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