Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Vale Robert Morris, Dropbox WTF, Swipe iOS Conference, Twitter Superinjunction

This week's hosts were Georgia, Ben, and Vanessa

The podcast is available here - listen back at your leisure.

Here's what we discussed on this week's show, aired Wed 6 July on Triple R:
  • The passing of computer scientist and cryptographer Robert Morris
  • Dropbox changing its terms of service and related backlash
  • Echoprint - new open source music fingerprinting technology
  • Songkick app, as recommended by Triple R's Incoming music show, which offers tour info for your music collection
  • The Australia and New Zealand Internet Awards are now open for entries. Businesses, organisations and individuals are encouraged to enter.
  • Why it's useful if your robot vacuum has a personality
  • Aesthetically and environmentally pleasing cable ties in the shape of leaves, for organising your computer cables
Guest: Sean Woodhouse talking about the Swipe iOS conference: http://swipeconference.com.au

Our regular social media correspondent Warren Davies, joined by Kate Hughes, talked about the superinjunctions on media in the UK and the suing of Twitter.


We also talked about News Ltd sale of MySpace (to Justin Timberlake!), and we chatted about Google+ again. Have you got your own circle of trust....?

Friday, June 10, 2011

WWDC, E3, blog evolutions and IPv6 Day

With Georgia, Paul and first-timer Dave (usually heard on To And Fro, Sunday nights on 3RRR)

On this week's show we were suffering keynote-dazzle-itis. So many evangelical WWDC and E3 sales pitches, phew.

Here's what we talked about:
  • Apple announcements: iOS 5, Lion OS X, iCloud and iMatch (Paul even had a dev version of iOS 5 on his iPad)
  • E3 reflections: where it's at for Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft right now. Check out the podcast for Paul's expanded thoughts on how Sony & Microsoft are interested in putting you inside the games whereas Nintendo are interested in bringing the games out into the real world...
  • Happy world IPv6 Day! What it means, how the IPv6 testing is going
  • Hilarious app update description from Aus ‘Pocket Weather’ app: screen cap on Georgia’s tumblr here
Our regular social media dude Warren (@nottheword) dropped by, to reflect a bit on blogging and where it's at right now. He also filled us in on publishing books via facebook and some cool stuff that's going on there.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Festivals, Facebook and Firefox updates

With Rose, Paul and Mike

Gaming Discussion
  1. Mike Reviews LA Noir
  2. We talk about Portal 2
  3. "Wii 2" news
  4. Flipping R18+ (when will it end?) - also this from New Matilda.
  5. COD:MW3 first look

Interview: Twitterfest and The Emerging Writers festival with Lisa Dempster.

Social Media with Warren Davies and Stanley Johnson

We don our tin foil hats and have a chat about facebook.



Also:
  1. Twitter acquires tweet-deck
  2. Celebrity product-placement tweets - should we put up with them? And do these ads even work?
  3. Facebook quashing activism?

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Bitcoin, NBN update, iMacs & Thunderbolts and a software comp to make the world a better place

With Georgia, Byron, Ryan and Ben

Not into reading? Here's the podcast from the May 18 episode.

Here's what we covered this week
  1. This BitCoin thing looks interesting. We're going to keep our eyes on it.
  2. NBN launches in Armidale with the PM and other dignitaries present. Also, the CEO of NBN Co. has been a bit naughty
  3. New iMacs on the market from Apple, specs here. We discussed the new features, talking through the further lock-downs in place on replacement hard-drives etc.
  4. Apple and Google are before a US tribunal this week for capturing data quietly. We're interested to see how this plays out. Background here.
  5. Some users of Nintendo 3DS are outraged by the terms of service attached to the device. There's a protest underway: more at http://www.defectivebydesign.org/nintendo3ds
Also, Professor Patrick Griffin from the University of Melbourne's Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills (ATC21S) project was our guest on the show this week. He talked to Byte's Rose Paton about a global crowdsourcing challenge to create a software module for the assessment of collaborative problem solving skills in schools. Keen to win $20,000 prize money? Check out the competition here.


Thursday, May 12, 2011

When you can't see technology....

With Rose and Paul

Newsy stuff:
  1. NBN Interim satellite service
  2. Greenpeace: how dirty is your data report
  3. Google to Unveil Service to Let Users Stream Their Music
  4. Microsoft buy Skype for 8.5 billion
Feature: Technology for the vision impaired with...

Glen Morrow: Glen is a regular tripleR host and works for Vision Australia
Michael Curran: Michael is the founder of Non Visual Desktop Access: an open-source initiative for the visually impaired.

Social Media with Warren Davies and Kate Kendall

Warren talked about social media use amongst visually impaired communities.
Kate had some more general news to talk on including

  1. Zynga and Lady Gaga
  2. Six degrees of separation couch surfing
  3. EA acquisition of local indie Firemint
  4. Instagram Melbourne meetup

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Digital Music, Digital Philosophy and Digital Security Breaches

With Rose Paton, Ed Borland and Ben Finney

News of the week:
  1. Playstation network outage, and the security breach that caused it
    1. Sony wrote an interesting Q&A response
    2. How will this impactthe PS3 v XBOX 360 battle?
    3. One of the first articles this one from Tech Crunch
  1. YouTube has launched a campaign to educate users on copyright infringement. It's pretty Naff!
     
  2. CFO Patrick Pichette was asked about the importance of Chrome on  the company’s earnings conference call and his answer bonks was a little alarming, and a little against their "do no evil" mantra.
     
  3. Last week, the freshly appointed U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell gave copyright holders carte blanche to continue their profitable settlement schemes.

Interview: Frank Rodi from APRA | AMCOS on the state of the digital music industry


Rose had an extensive chat with Frank about all things digital music... From the dominance of iTunes, to combating piracy, to the changing role of record companies.


Warren Davies: Social Media

We talked extensively, and with differing opinions, about this: 





Thursday, April 21, 2011

Portal 2, iphonography and Byron's Faceb0rk defection

...with Georgia, Paul and Byron

This week's podcast is up - wrap your ears around this.

The show's main feature this week was Byron's "Why I've Abandoned Facebook" discussion. We talked through the various trade-offs that users have to deal with when signing up for Facebook's service. Byron has decided that the cons outweigh the pros - what do you think? Feel free to drop us a line, as always: byteintoit (at) rrr.org.au

We also talked about:
- iPhone 4's imminent take-over as the #1 Flickr device

- Apple has changed its ranking system for their App Store, to stop paid reviews and downloads rorting the system - more here from Ars Tecnica

-Meanwhile, Melbourne-made Skitch has been tearing up the Mac App store (without paying people to rate it up, we presume) - link

- Paul talked us through the Portal 2 release early after an ARG (more on there over at Wired); though there are a few disgruntled gamers - link

- Train Conductor was free on iPhone today - cute game, made in Oz

- Raskulls - Georgia talked us through this platformer, which has a lot of the hallmarks of Super Mario World (and in multi-player mode rivals Mario Kart for super funness).

- Byron's been playing Sword and Sworcery on the iPad - he reckons it's a beautiful little game.

- Established print journalist Jim Schembri's internet faux pas this week - Crikey talks about it here. We just feel a bit sorry for him, poor dear.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

operating lists, learning online and socially media

... with Mike, Rose and Ed

The podcast of the April 13 show is here.
General Tech News
  1. NBN announceds isps for mainland australia
  2. Dell and their data breach
  3. New Final Cut pro - where are they heading with this?
  4. Cisco to stop making Flip cameras
  5. Nintendo combats slowings sales of the Wii with mega price cut
  6. Gears of war 3 multiplayer beta
We had a couple of guests:
Social media chat with Warren and Caz. 
  1. Google Goggles and seeing the world without eyes.
  2. Social Television, Twelevision for Australia
  3. Gen Y and their connection obsession.
  4. Facebooks move into Chi
 

Monday, April 4, 2011

more on radiohead; music and social media

Some more info on our discussion on social media...
 
Radiohead's newspaper project
 
Oasis take it to the streets in 2009

The (amazing) Johnny Cash Project (started last year):  

Play Live With Iggy Pop campaign (2010)
 
Color, the new photo sharing application

Cloud Girlfriend as explained by PC Mag. 

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

open sourced stuff, v21 and radiohead

...with Rose, Byron and Ben Finney

General news:
  1. ipad 2 release in Australia
  2. NBN
    1. bill passes in the Senate. What does this change?
    2. NBN marketing fail. Shouldn’t this be an easy sell?
    3. The Labor governments mixed messages
  3. The Freedom Box Foundation 
    1. Moglen on Freedom Box and making a free net
    2. Eben Moglen Is Reshaping Internet With a Freedom Box
    3. Freedom Box Foundation
  4. R18+ Video game rating federal review

Warren Davies and Kate Kendal for Social Media (see separate post)

Interview: Brad Giblin from the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA). They're organising the V21 conference, happening in Melb on 12th April.

Other News

Mozilla Launches Firefox 4
  1. LibreOffice 3.3.2 continues improving, with €100 000 community funding
  2. Free Software Awards 2010 announced: Gnash, Tor projects
  3. GNU Telephony project   … announces new GNU Free Call … which receives community award of NKR 100 000 (~ AUD$17 000)
  4. Google Holds Honeycomb Tight
 


Thursday, March 24, 2011

SXSW, UI, and other important acronyms

On this week's show with Georgia, Keren and Byte n00b Kent Humphries (we reckon he did ok!) we discussed the following bits and pieces...

- Could Australia’s NBN be blacked out like Egypt and Libya? Unlikely, says the Internet Society of Australia

- iPad 2 out soon in Australia (Apple confirms availability in spite of US shortages), and ViewPad10 Android tablet in-stores in Harvey Norman in Oz

- Amazon launches its ‘Amazon Appstore for Android’ (US only). Apple sues them for using ‘app store’ trademark

- Firefox 4 Released - even more tab manipulations (video overview) with panorama, app tabs! Using download statistics tool we watched it click over 5,000,000 downloads during the show

- Vimeo launched the Vimeo Video School recently, adding an education/training service to its platform. It’s been up for 2-3 months, so it’s now got a bit of momentum and some great tutorials and almost 1000 user-contributed tutorial videos

- Twitter turned five this week. Gizmodo says: Twitter, you are incredible and horrendous

- Facebook is booting 20,000 under-age users OFF every day

- Homophobic Exodus International iPhone app has been removed from the App Store 
  
Check out the podcast for the full experience, including Keren's report on SXSW and a chat with Guy Walshe, a local user interface designer working on awesome games in Melbourne.

As always, we welcome your emails to byteintoit (at) rrr.org.au - get in touch anytime.

Friday, March 18, 2011

On this week's show...

...with Rose, Georgia and Paul

General News
  1. Townsville deemed a ‘smarter city’ and wins $400k grant
  2. "Linked in Today" launched
  3. ipad 2
    1. sales - pretty hefty.
    2. 3rd party covers already out and about
    3. ipad2 sells in Hong Kong for $1000
  4. Internet Explorer 9 launched on Monday, Microsoft says it’s better. Microsoft has also said bye bye to the Zune, says the rumour mill.
  5. Facebook party hoax has lead to arrest of NSW teen.
  6. Zynga games (farmville) raises cash for Tsunami & US Military switches off YouTube etc to conserve bandwidth for relief effort.
  7. E-book loan times reduced from libraries in the US
Interview

Dr Steffen P Walz Director, GEElab (Games & Experimental Entertainment Laboratory)
RMIT University


The GEElab will invent new game and entertainment visions, products, services, narratives and business models, whilst critically reflecting the role of games and entertainment in culture and how play, games, and game mechanics can be used to innovate.
 
At the GEElab, games will be understood as a cross-disciplinary function as well as the engine of entertainment media and Internet innovation. Practice oriented game and entertainment media research will be carried out by the way of cross-medial experimentation and an understanding of science as fiction, and not being afraid to think and design differently and speculatively. GEElab members will investigate how to “gamify“ traditionally non-linear media such as TV, film, radio, developing design strategies, narratives and service prototypes.

The Cyborgs:
  1. Crowd-sourcing ad content as shown by Poptent.net Should we participate or is it just unpaid work? Poptent 
  2. Path verse Instagram? The case for and against mobile photo sharing.
  3. Twitter has just told its third party client devs they’re no longer needed
Light News
  1. .com.au reaches 2 million
  2. pwn to own results
  3. Pokemon black and white
  4. Early in week the Mortal Kombat RC on appeal, but today permanently refused. Government ‘threatened’ to shake-up classifications system.
  5. PEGI respond to misleading We Dare advertising in Europe
  6. angry birds doin pretty well for itself!

Thursday, March 10, 2011

On this week's show - March 9, 2011

With Georgia, Mike and Jay

The podcast is up here if you'd like to listen back.

During this week's show, we talked about this stuff:
  • Skype's new video conferencing service
  • Quanp for sending big files
  • Adobe releases Flash to HTML5 converter, codenamed Wallaby
  • 1000 Charlie Sheen related domain names registered
  • iPad 2 - hits, misses and the Australian pricing that we should expect
  • iOS 4.3
  • Game Developers Conference in the US (Mike recommends the wrap-up at Gamasutra)
  • The twitter iphone app update and the “quickbar uprising
  • The Million Song Dataset which just been released 

Friday, March 4, 2011

Here are some links from the social media segment. There are lots of interesting ideas going on here. Let us know what you think!


Are we all Cyborgs?

Technology is evolving us, says Amber Case, as we become a screen-staring, button-clicking new version of homo sapiens. We now rely on "external brains" (cell phones and computers) to communicate, remember, even live out secondary lives. But will these machines ultimately connect or conquer us? Case offers surprising insight into our cyborg selves.



Social media and Slacktivism.
Matthew Ingram
As Facebook and Twitter have come to play a larger role in getting the word out about issues such as unrest in Egypt, much of what is done using these social tools — particularly by younger users — has been criticized as “slacktivism.” In other words, it is seen as just empty gestures such as changing an avatar or posting a status update, rather than real activism around social issues. But a new study from the University of California has found that younger Internet users become more socially engaged in the real world, not just online

Egypt and the utilization of social media
Sam Taute
Here are some of their thoughts on what makes social media such a powerful, unpredictable force in global politics:
  • It replaces the need for a charismatic leader. A cause no longer needs a  champion to attract followers. Certainly, there were a number of noble and courageous protesters (and some not so noble, unfortunately), but there was no single face attached to this revolution. Social media has created the possibility of what Ben Scott calls an “aggregate leader,” where the responsibility of advancing a movement can be dispersed.

The cyborg nature of videogaming.
Jim Rossignol:
Videogames are the reason I could be considered a cyborg. Not in the sense that I have had parts of my physical body taken over by electronic or mechanical systems, but in the sense that I often have had my imagination taken over by electronic and mechanical systems. Gaming, particularly electronic gaming, often imbues me with some of the most essential properties of a cyborg.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011