Wise Guys on WHO Radio - April 9, 2016
Please note: These show notes may be in various stages of completion -- ranging from brainstormed notes through to well-polished monologues. Please excuse anything that may seem rough around the edges, as it may only be a first draft of a thought and not be fully representative of what was said on the air.
In the news this week
- SpaceX finally lands a rocket intact (5th try is a charm)
Twitter buys NFL Thursday night game streams for $10 million
Seems like a bargain, and the NFL says it wasn't the highest bid. But it does put the NFL in the middle of the preeminent real-time events service on the Internet, while giving Twitter something new entirely to attract new users. An interesting gamble all around.
Why you need to own the domain of your name if you're in the public view
A bunch of staffers at Mashable just got laid off abruptly. They work in the public eye, and reports have it their e-mail accounts were shut down as part of the sudden layoffs. People who are (or might be) in the public view need control over their public-facing image, and it doesn't get more public-facing than the Internet.
But first...
- What happens if Yahoo gets sold?
- No worries for mail users
- Other products may be pieced off
- Several being shut down
- Sometimes you have first mover advantage
- Sometimes better to be a fast follower
- Google got the reputation for innovation
- Google also keeps killing good ideas
- Google's weaknesses should have been Yahoo's opening...but they were not
- Could Yahoo have become a better learning institution? It still can.
- Separate off names - Yahoo ubiquitous but not respectable
Your role in cyberwar
Security update
Street-smart social media
Gadget of the week
You ought to follow...
Technically funny
Productivity tool
Dispatches from the flying-car future
SpaceX finally sticks the landing
They managed to launch and then land a rocket, vertically, on a floating platform in the ocean. It was the fifth try and its success means this has been a very, very good week to be Elon Musk. The landing as viewed from the chase plane is downright surreal.
Brian's Big Picture
Politics of technology
Jargon alert
Iowa tech this week
Listener questions
From Lisa: Which parental control app do you recommend? I have two teens and I fear one may be be in some trouble. He has a slight learning disability. We have iPhone 6's and I am not very tech savvy. We already use find my friends and find my iPhone, but if want to keep track of text messages and social media, what is the best way? Teen safe, teen shield, secure teen, mSpy? I don't think I would be able to figure out how to jailbreak an iPhone.
- Tracking/blocking software:
- On device
- On router at home
- Within antivirus protection
- Evasion:
- Burner phone
- VPN
- IP masking
- Any wifi you don't control, including your neighbor's unsecured network
- Reluctant to suggest or recommend anything:
- False sense of security
- Human instinct to resist censorship
- Cat-and-mouse
- May undermine trust
- If you must:
- Wifi router controls (because it will make you go through other important setup steps)
- Device antivirus (because you should have it anyway, and many sites with objectionable content may also contain malware -- honeypots)
Listen again on-demand
- Podcast of this episode - segment 1 (The future of Yahoo!)
- Podcast of this episode - segment 2 (Google's product graveyard)
- Podcast of this episode - segment 3 (Online mapping options)
- Podcast of this episode - segment 4 (Your-name-dot-com)