We go over Amazon’s new smart phone, and discuss if they’ve missed the mark.
Then the Feds screw up the Silkroad Bitcoin sale, and T-Mobile decided some bits are more privileged than others – and why they might just fool you into liking it.
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Show Notes:
— Headlines —
Amazon announces the Fire Phone, $199 with 2-year contract for 32GB
- A quad-core 2.2GHz SoC
- Adreno 330 GPU
- 2GB of RAM
- 802.11ac Wi-Fi
- Fire OS 3.5.0
- 13MP camera with optical image stabilization.
- A dedicated shutter button.
Fire Phone exclusively available July 25 on AT&T: $199 for 32GB, $299 for 64GB, $649 and $749 off-contract
Equipped with Firefly, its standout feature, the Fire Phone will be able to scan and identify more than 100 million items, enabling users to perform instantaneous price checks alongside a contextual database search of everything from music and street signs to the handwritten contents of notes and letters.
Firefly, when rolled into Amazon’s network of services anchored by Prime, is meant to be the linchpin of the Fire Phone. With a device that customers can take with them to every physical store and location and scan their surroundings, Amazon is adding a powerful new avenue to reroute users back to its platform and marketplace.
At closing, Amazon stock was up 2.69 percent, or 8.76 points, at $334.28 per share
List of Possible Silk Road Bitcoin Bidders Leaked by US Marshals
A list of individuals interested in the auction of the 30,000 bitcoins confiscated from the now-defunct Silk Road black marketplace has been leaked via email by the US Marshals Service (USMS), the US government agency confirmed.
In a statement to CoinDesk, Lynzey Donahue, a US Marshals spokeswoman, indicated that the emailer had intended to send all the recipients an attached informational document and to blind copy all those it intended to contact. The US Marshals service is the federal agency that has been charged with carrying out the auction of the bitcoins, originally seized by the FBI.
T-Mobile’s ‘Music Freedom’ is a great feature — and a huge problem | The Verge
T-Mobile has decided, arbitrarily, that some of the data traveling over its pipes should count against a cap, while other data should not. What’s to stop it from using data cap exemptions as a punitive measure against content providers that aren’t on good terms with T-Mobile (or its parent company Deutsche Telekom)?
Japan’s ruling party says won’t regulate bitcoin for now
Japan’s leading Liberal Democratic Party said it decided against regulating bitcoin for the time being, after the collapse of Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox prompted them to consider more scrutiny of the virtual currency.
SnappyTV is joining the flock | Twitter Blogs
One of the best ways to follow events as they unfold is through real-time videos on Twitter. As we continue to invest in video, it’s important for us to provide tools that make it easy for TV broadcasters, businesses, and event producers to share high-quality videos. To that end, we’ve agreed to acquire SnappyTV.