Netflix Bites the Bully | Tech Talk Today 3

Posted on: June 4, 2014

Netflix is naming and shaming ISPs right on the buffering screen of your movie and Verizon is not happy about it.

Plus Amazon is putting the hurt on book publishers, leveraging it’s growing monopoly and why despite our better judgment, we can’t help but live Prime.

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Headlines

Valve shows off updated VR headset prototype with Dota 2 demo

Valve’s prototype unit looks a lot like Oculus’ recently demoed Crystal Cove test unit. It’s a black wrap-around device covered with white IR-reflective dots. A separate camera uses those dots to keep tabs on how the wearer is moving his or her head. This allows for much more accurate motion tracking and a better immersive experience than simply using accelerometers and gyroscopes in the device itself. The last prototype, which was demoed in a very limited fashion, used QR codes and a camera attached to the visor to improve tracking.

Safer email – Transparency Report – Google

Gmail has always supported encryption in transit by using Transport Layer Security (TLS), and will automatically encrypt your incoming and outgoing emails if it can. The important thing is that both sides of an email exchange need to support encryption for it to work; Gmail can\’t do it alone.

Our data show that approximately 40 to 50 percent of emails sent between Gmail and other email providers aren’t encrypted.

Of course this is not talking about email storage, but email in transit.
ProtonMail – Secure Email, Made Simple

ProtonMail was founded in summer 2013 at CERN by scientists who were drawn together by a shared vision of a more secure and private Internet. Early ProtonMail hackathons were held at the famous CERN Restaurant One. ProtonMail is developed both at CERN and MIT and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland

Intel Reaches 5GHz with New Core I7 Chip for Gamers

Intel is shipping a new Core i7 chip for gamers that runs at 4.4GHz — and can be overclocked to 5GHz.

The Core i7-4790K is a quad-core chip based on the Haswell microarchitecture. It draws 88 watts of power and has 8MB of cache, integrated graphics, memory controllers and support for the latest I/O technologies. It also supports multithreading and allow cores to process two tasks at one time.

Netflix Blames Verizon for Slow Streams

In April, Netflix signed a Web traffic deal with Verizon. Now it is telling some of its customers that Verizon\’s pipes — and, presumably, other ISP\’s as well — aren\’t up to snuff.

Amazon

Amazon/Hachette dispute unlikely to provoke regulators, experts say

Amazon has delayed the delivery of some Hachette Book Group titles and even removed an option to pre-order \”The Silkworm,\” by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling writing as Robert Galbraith. Hachette, the fourth largest U.S. book publisher, is owned by France\’s Lagadere SCA.

How the Amazon-Hachette Fight Could Shape the Future of Ideas – Jeremy Greenfield – The Atlantic

By some estimates, today Amazon controls around 50 percent of all book sales—physical and electronic—in the U.S. In the past decade, the company has steadily grown that market share, taking it from Barnes & Noble (shrinking), Borders (bankrupt since 2011), and independent bookstores (around 2,000 remain today out of the nearly 7,000 there were in the mid-1990s).

Amazon CEO wins World\’s Worst Boss

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is the world\’s worst boss, according to the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).

More than 20,000 voted for nine bosses who exemplified the worst behavior and abuses in workers\’ rights, tax avoidance, and corporate bullying and other abuses.

Bezos resoundingly won.

\”Jeff Bezos represents the inhumanity of employers who are promoting the American corporate model. The message to big business is back off, you are not going to mistreat workers,\” said Burrow.

Amazon Robotics Kiva Systems

Amazon currently uses some 1,000 robots by Kiva Systems, a company it bought for $775 million in 2012, to fill its customers\’ orders. Now CNN reports that Amazon will have 10,000 robots doing the same by the end of this year.

CEO Jeff Bezos revealed the plan to double down on robotics during a shareholder meeting and emphasized that despite the popular sci-fi theme of robotic uprising, no humans will lose their jobs as a result of the increased robotic workforce.

A Day in the Life of a Kiva Robot

Kiva Systems founder and CEO Mick Mountz narrates a play-by-play video of how Kiva robots automate a warehouse environment.

The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon Audiobook

Amazon.com started off delivering books through the mail. But its visionary founder, Jeff Bezos, wasn\’t content with being a bookseller. He wanted Amazon to become the everything store, offering limitless selection and seductive convenience at disruptively low prices. To do so, he developed a corporate culture of relentless ambition and secrecy that\’s never been cracked. Until now.