This Week in Tech 454 (Transcript)

Leo Laporte: It’s time for Twit! Dan Patterson is here, Jill Duffy from PC Magazine, our own Alex Lindsay. We are talking about the week’s tech news. By the way, I don’t mention it any time in the show but this is the ninth anniversary of the twit network. We will begin our attempt were here today! We’ll also talk about those wearable devices. Is it the end of the line for the Fuel Band? And Project Aura, the phone you put together. True blood, it's actually real. It’s all coming up next.

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This is Twit. This Week In Tech, Episode 454 recorded April 20, 2014.

Kansas City, Oklahoma

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Leo: This is Twit. Welcome everybody. The weekly show that covers the week’s Tech news, and we have a great panel today to talk about everything going on. We dragged Alex Lindsay in, he is going to explain in a little bit about what he’s going to do. This is a little bit different than what we normally do on Twit. Alex usually covers MacBreak Weekly and of course Man about Town. On air via Skype from New York City is Dan Patterson. He is a broadcast digital journalist and he just got back from teaching Sudanese media makers how to use Android phones to change the world. He was in Cairo for the month of March with the group Small World News. I think that is really exciting. We’ll talk about that some more. It’s great to have you Dan. Welcome.

Dan Patterson: Wonderful to be here.

Leo: I want to welcome in the studio with us, Jill Duffy. Jill writes for PC Magazine, she’s been around a little bit for TNT. We persuaded her to spend her Easter Sunday with us. Thank you Jill. Not your first time on Twit though.

Jill Duffy: No, but the first time live in the studio.

Leo: It’s a little different! My head, don’t stare at it. It is rather enlarged. So what are we going to do with questions today? This is a little different.

Alex Lindsay: Okay, so for a couple years we’ve been building question engines. A lot of them we do live shows and we want to find ways that users can interact with us on the air. And so we’ve been experimenting with it. This is our newest version, version 3. And so what you can do here is go to bit.ly.

Leo: You’re watching live.

Alex: There’s a reason to watch live. You can go to bit.ly/twit454. And this is a question system and what you can do here is that you can watch the show, there is a login and don’t worry about it.

Leo: Instead of using Chat for the time being if you wanted you could use this. It won’t be as interactive as Chat but we’ll see the questions?

Alex: You’ll see the questions, and you can pull them up. I can see them right here. You can see them right here if you want.

Jill: So Alex, you're the one who has the answering power at this point?

Alex: I can give it to you too. If you'd like. You can jump in there.

Jill: Yet I would like.

Alex: Okay I’ll send you a link in a login for that. Just let me know what you register as. And I will have my programmer for London add you as an admin.

Leo: You might use this for hangouts and stuff. Just ask Alex.

Alex: I’ve been doing this kind of flash words I give everyone 10 minutes warning and let them ask questions. It’s a great little conversation. You can ask questions, you can vote on the questions up and down. You will see us experimenting. We can answer them off-line in text, or online live. We can also timestamp them which is a useful now but will be in the future when we answer them. There is a lot of little bits and pieces that we are working on. It is just designed to keep the online audience more engaged. Sometimes with the IRC things are going too fast.

Leo: It’s just an experiment, but I am always looking for ways to make it more interactive. One of the reasons we do stuff live is so that people can watch live and interact with us live. We’ve tried a lot of things, and some things don’t work so well. We tried Google hangout and it kind of was hard because we had nine people and we couldn’t get them all in and stuff. But this is an interesting thing.

Alex: We’ll try it.

Leo: So if you want to participate and you’re watching the live show…

Alex: For instance the most popular question right now is: When is Chad getting a raise?

Jill: I say there is a typo.

Leo: When I, Chad, get raise…!

Jill: You have some people on your side, Chad.

Leo: I think this is the top story, you know why? because I see a lot of people around here wearing these fitness bands, including you Jill Duffy. You wear a Fit Bit?

Jill: I wear everything. I wear a fit that, but I also love the basis.

Leo: Yeah, they just got sold.

Jill: Yet they were bought by…

Leo: Somebody big right?

Jill: Intel?

Leo: Intel. You're right.

Jill: And that is great for the company. I mean it is a wonderful product, it really came out first in this sense of having a heart rate monitor that you didn’t have to wear around your chest. Having a heart rate monitor on your wrist, it will count your steps. It will do really cool stuff too if you bicycle, which I do.

Leo: The force doesn’t know you’re bicycling. It thinks you're not exercising.

Jill: It doesn’t really count anything.

Leo: I used to put it around my ankle.

Jill: The Basis though, when you start to bicycle it knows your wrist position in the amount of speed you are moving. And it says, oh, she’s bicycling. The same with running. Once you start running it automatically knows that you're running. A lot of other devices that have that capability you have to actually enable it. This one just does it automatically that also does your skin temperature so between the heart rate, the skin temperature and the movement it can tell when you are in REM sleep versus light sleep, versus deep sleep.

Leo: So you just leave it on all the time?

Jill: Yes. You just leave it on all the time.

Leo: Is at your favorite?

Jill: Yet it is.

Leo: A kind of looks like a watch.

Jill: It does. It has a wonderful display on it. It is $199 so it is more expensive than a lot of the other fitness trackers out there that it is by far my favorite one.

Leo: Dan you sound like you’ve bought into this too.

Dan: Yeah, it has been said before but it’s worth saying again, the wearables market is kind of waiting for its iPod. But having said that, the Fit Bit has really helped me do exactly what this silly hyperbole will lead you to believe. Which is to bend your data curve in a positive direction. Simply having access to this data. I did the same thing when I quit smoking. I just made a spreadsheet and having access to this data helps you identify positive trends in your own usage.

Jill: Which Fit Bit do you have?

Dan: I have the belt wearable one.

Jill: Fit Bit 1. It is super accurate.

Dan: It is fantastic. The only danger of course is that is just waiting to be thrown into the laundry. But in the last year or so that I've been using it I’ve really bent my daily curve into a positive direction. I get a tend more exercise and I see the beautiful city.

Leo: I have lost every one of these. Several times.

Alex: I killed my Nike Fuel Band by accident.

Leo: That is where the story begins. Because according to CNET they published this two days ago on Friday, Nike fired the majority of the fuel band team and will stop making wearable hardware. Nike responded and said, “no absolutely not”. They told recode, “the Nike Fuel Band SE remains an important part of our business, we will continue to improve the Nike Fuel Band App, watch the new manolux colors and we will sell and support the Nike Plus Fuel Band SE for the foreseeable future”. Nevertheless I think it is pretty clear that they did lay off a lot of people. What made me wonder is are we about to see the big shakeout? I thought the Fuel Band was the best device out there.

Jill: I totally disagree.

Leo: What’s wrong with it? It told you what time it was.

Jill: It did. In a hard angle that wasn’t going to bend or move it all. I found it uncomfortable.

Leo: Well you have smaller wrists than I do.

Jill: I have pretty big wrists. For $150, which is what the Fuel Bend SE costs, you don’t really get a lot of data. A lot of these other trackers will tell you your steps, your mileage, your heart rate and all this other stuff. They tried to do this thing called fuel point. The problem with it…

Leo: It wasn’t real numbers.

Jill: I talked to them and they were talking about how Weight Watchers started weight watchers points because nobody knew what calories were at that point. We know what steps are, we know what miles are, we know what calories are now. You cannot invent a new standard and hope that other people will get it.

Alex: Was that related to FDA issues though?

Jill: No. There is a fine line between what is something that needs to be FDA approved because it is considered a medical device and it has to give you a diagnosis.

Dan: I think the mistake, well it seems like a mistake, Nike made, is overlooking the importance of data in your fitness tracker. Yes these are neat little gadgets that we can wear. But really, the heart and soul of this is access to data and having met the standard to know what steps, what miles, what calories and that is what I really care about. This access to the data and the value proposition is how this data can make my life better. It is not having a gadget that is flashy, isn’t standard and doesn’t work in the way that I would expect it to work.

Jill: I focus a lot on the software side, the App side. The usability. Because exactly what you were saying, Dan, is that if you don’t understand all the data it is collecting then there is no point in having that data.

Leo: Okay. So I bought the Basis while you were talking. Another thing to lose. It shares with everything else, kind of this ugly form factor. I’m really thrilled to see that I can order even more ugly straps. So that I think is part of the problem, that while I see every geek I know wearing one of these, or maybe less so now. But for a while everybody had one. I think that even the geeks are not wearing them as much anymore. And I don’t think I’d ever seen on a normal person wear one.

Alex: I wore my Nike fuel band pretty religiously until it broke. And then it was out of stock. And I dropped out. I guess the question is, of course, it is surprising that not all the smart watches are just incorporating this into it. Obviously we’ve heard about Apple’s meetings with the FDA and they’re definitely thinking about it.

Jill: Yeah. And I had a chance to really test the Samsung Gear Fit.

 Leo: That's the pretty one. It is sort of curved.

Jill: It is curved, it has the sort of rectangular display. The display itself is beautiful. The functions, as a smart watch are pretty good. You get notifications from your android, you can quickly text somebody back with a canned response that are programmed in there. But if you're actually using it as the fitness tracker, it was not ideal because that touchscreen on it was so sensitive that I found if I was moving around and I went to touch it I had to stop what I was doing. Sort of like the biathlon. You had to slow your heart rate and get your motor skills back. I found, for that it didn’t really have an active person in mind.

Leo: And you’re an active person.

Jill: I’m a pretty active person.

Leo: It would be perfect for me.

Alex: Now do you want that to be voice activated, would that make it easier?

Jill: Now we are starting to get into the idea of the true one wearable device. I think there is so much that I want to see out of it and we’re not quite there yet. I want to interact with it, not really by voice but I want to interact with it through passive gestures. So there is some experimental pieces on the market, that are coming to the market soon anyway. One I saw at CES that I really loved was called Kiwi Move. It looks like nothing, it looks like a little chip, a little box that you can wear in your pocket. You can teach it to learn from your passive gestures. So, for example, every time I leaned down to tie my shoes, activate my running sensors. If you have the connected home you have your doorway set up so every time you would leave the door it would lock my house.

Leo: How do you teach it? Does it say I notice you bend over a lot, what are you up to?

Jill: So the guys that are making it have an App, it isn’t out yet. I’m on their early lesson I think it’s coming out in July or August. You would train at with this App. So you can do active gestures to. The one they showed at CES was when I am drawing a music note in the air that means launch Shazam, find out what song is playing and offer for me to buy it through my store of choice.

Leo: That’s a weird gesture but I guess you can have other gestures.

Jill: It is neat because other people cannot mimic your gestures. Because they are very specific things that humans do. It is a wonderful parrying of humans and computers I think.

Leo: Chad is a big Pebble guy. I gave him my old pebble because that is another one I got tired of. And that is a different category. So right now you’ve got a big division between the health stuff and the notification stuff and I guess Samsung is mixing a little bit of the two went together. Do you wish you had help features in the Pebble?

Chad: What is interesting though is with the Pebble you can go and install that from the store. It does some stuff. So run keepers is one of their most popular ones, it’s basically a speedometer. It isn’t doing anything cool, heart rate, skin temperature stuff. But it is still a pedometer. One thing that I got really excited about, but I haven't tested it yet, is the sleep tracker. That is all built into the Pebble because it is just a smart watch at this point.

Leo: That’s why you don’t get raises, by the way, Chad. I just give you my old crap. That is kind of like a raise!

Jill: I think the whole wearable movement in general, there is a lot of stuff that I think we are going to jump over. So, I always talk about Google Glass. The problem is you are still looking at a screen. I think that is something that we need to jump over.

Leo: What would you have instead?

Jill: Well, as I was talking about passive gestures I think something that…

Leo: That you need a screen to read.

Jill: Right but I think eventually you will look at your smart phone. I think the smart phone…

Leo: You’re actually going to get rid of the smart phone.

Alex: I think what would help when you look at Google Glass and you look at the context of their building it seems that probably Google glasses kind of an early version of something that is going to be a lot more bedded into what we are doing. I have Google Glass. And it is not something I wear every day. I do use it a lot for video. The shooting videos and having the screen becomes super important. There are a lot of other wearable devices that I can put on and what I use it for a lot of the times is instructions. We have a lot of technical stuff and this is how you do this, and send off a little video. Or capture a little bit of a moment. I can’t do that with anything else. Effectively.

Leo: Sounds like you guys think that this is a fairly useful category.

Jill: I do, yes.

Alex: I wonder if there are market projections for the size of this market if it is only fitness-based versus if the value proposition comes from being able to do what Chad just described. Which is installed, just like we do with our smart phones, things that do add utility to our life. And if we can, like Jill said, jump over that screen and really embrace something that adds value to our lives. Then the market must be pretty massive right?

Leo: I think you guys have an overdeveloped imagination. You are fantasizing about something that doesn’t exist. You agree right? This is kind of, well someday this will be a useful category. Right now it is a pedometer. Basically a pedometer.

Jill: Unless it gives you heart rate.

Leo: Okay, maybe it’s a a pedometer plus heart rate. If Chads watch says someone is calling you, okay but you still have to pull out the phone. These things have very limited use and I think it’s white or not taking the market. And the problem is the elephant in the room. Which is Apple. Is Apple going to do something, as they have done in the past, that puts us on the map? I think Apple doesn’t have the mojo anymore without Steve Jobs.

Alex: You do have a lot of people working on it. They're going to do something.

Leo: Presumably. I figure there are three categories. There is the quantified-self category, there is the phone adjunct category, and then there is the health category. A medical device. So I think if you could make one device… I don’t know are you going to have one device that does all three and also understand that when you go like this, I mean is that what you are fantasizing about here?

Jill: I mean isn’t that the beauty of tech is that we dream big and we think about the things that we would like to see, and we would like to have in this wonderful creative future? And we get there slowly.

Leo: But we are often disappointed.

Jill: Sure.

Leo: Your heart gets broken a lot. And I always think of my job is to be the brutal sceptic. Kind of like Dvorak, and they had this is all nice and all believe it when I see it. I was very excited, and I still am a little bit, about the android wearable space. Because we saw a completely fabricated demo they say they will sell this summer which is basically Google now on a circular screen.

Alex: I don’t understand the whole circular screen thing.

Leo: It looks like a watch.

Alex: We started making movies by shooting people on stage and then we realized we didn’t need…

Leo: Well I’ve yet to see something better. The peer fit is weird really. Kind of the oblong curve but not to your wrist curve. It is not flexible. It is as hard thing.

Jill: The watch face is not flexible, but the band is.

Leo: That is why I like the Nike Fuel Band because it had a clock, and it fit my wrist.

Alex: I find myself using not quite a bit just as a watch.

Leo: Isn’t there some irony that we have done all this stuff in this era where people have stopped wearing watches entirely? Nobody in your generation wears wristwatches.

Jill: Oh, I don’t think that’s true.

Leo: Really? It is a jewelry or is it still to tell the time.

Jill: That is a big part of what I like about the Force was I liked having the time on my wrists. I didn’t want to pull out my phone.

Leo: Well maybe we’ll get young people wearing watches again. How about pocket watches with Bob’s?

Dan: That is a very exciting and wonderful thing about being journalists in this phase. Is that we can dream big and aspire for cool things. But we don’t have to be cheerleaders. If and when this market collapses then in a year or two we have a fantastic story to keep talking about, why did this not take off?

Leo: God knows I spent a lot of my time talking about it. I don’t know if I want to be a cheerleader for any technology.

Dan: You don’t have to be.

Leo: I want to science fiction a lot, I love the idea of pouring my brain into a machine so I never have to die. But I am not going to wait around till that happens.

Alex: We have one question that is very well voted and part of this. This is from Christopher John in San Diego and he said, “Do you think Nike backing out of the Fuel Band has to do with them having an inside to the iWatch and working exclusively with Apple?”

Leo: Jay Blahnik, who was at Nike is now an Apple employee. But I will tell you will what they said on Secret. Our new source for all things…

Dan: Of course Secret has to be tied in with the watch and you can secretly look down…

Leo: This was posted by someone, not one of my friends, earlier this week, Secret is the App on iPhone that allows you to share anonymously. And I have mixed feelings about it.

Dan: It’s addicting. Have you posted anything on it?

Leo: I posted once or twice. Mostly I just read. Which of my friends is doing that? But this one was posted this week. “The douche bag execs at Nike are going to lay off a bunch of the engineering team who developed the fuel band and other Nike+ stuff. Mostly because the execs committed gross negligence, wasted tons of money and didn’t know what they were doing.”

Jill: Ouch.

Leo: And I have to say, before this came up before the story, and then the story came out I have to think that maybe this is somebody on the inside that had a little information about it.

Alex: Lots of times on Secret it is stuff that is made up.

Leo: And I shouldn’t really be quoting Secret at this point. That is pretty lame. But Nike speaks some of the problem. It is not an internal problem it is a Nike problem. That is the only reason I bring it up.

Alex: I definitely don’t think it is a problem with the category. The new category just needs to find… phones are horrible until the iPhone.

Leo: Can Apple do it again? The magic touch?

Alex: I think we’re going to find out this year. If they can do it, I don’t know if they can or not. But I think this is going to be the year to figure it out.

Leo: Hey, this is fun. We’ve got a lot more to talk about. Jill Duffy is here from PC Magazine, Dan Patterson Digital Journalist, and Alex Lindsay from the PixelCore. Alex is our question master, if you have a question and you are watching live, bit.ly/twit454. It will get you into the question room and you can vote up questions. I think it is a good idea!

Alex: It is kind of fun. It is working really well. I was afraid it would melt down with the number of people watching Twit but so far it seems to be holding up. I’m answering some of the questions off-line and by the way for Jill and Chad just refresh your page and you should see questions.

Leo: Did you all get in there?

Chad: I did. I’m moderating.

Leo: Atlassian is an Australian company that I really like. It is like one of those companies that you have never heard of but they’re doing 200 million in annual sales because they help developers develop great products. I think we see these days that the project management is so important to the success of a product, to the security of a product, to the well-developed product. Atlassian’s Jira is the project management solution for teams that are planning, building and launching great products. It is a really neat company that kind of snuck under the wire. I want to tell you about Jira because you can try it. Forbes wrote, “ Atlassian is to software as Forbes was to design.” I like that. this is a little complicated, so if you’re not a software developer this may not make a lot of sense. But if you’ve ever worked on a team developing software you will probably recognize the issues. You would love to easily capture, organize, and prioritize your teams issues, tasks, features and bugs. Give your team a simple intuitive interface to collaborate in real time, you can integrate all your planning documents wherever they are, your backlog, your issues, and your code repository. They have great integration. Atlassian will follow your code from development all the way to delivery. They have rest API so it is very easy to code your own tools to use with Jira. Everything from the planning doc, the files, the chain sets, the repository, all the way through to deployment. You even have notifications via email, chat, RSS. You can monitor streams of activity, self-updating reports and dashboard. It is pretty sweet, pretty slick, pretty modern. 70% of the Fortune 100 use Atlassian Jira. NASA uses Jira. 25,000 companies use Jira, if you haven’t tried it go to atlassian.com/twit for more information. Monthly plans start very affordably. $10 a month for up to 10 users and it is free for 30 days if you visit atlassian.com/twit. Really thrilled to have Atlassian as part of the family. I just love this ad. I think this is from an Australian marketing firm. It is a billboard ad for Atlassian. If your wife were in labor, we would think… get, push. Okay that is kind of geeky. I just like that. Do you get it? atlassian.com/twit.

Leo: Let’s move along. We’ve talked about watches enough. A little more Google News. In fact heart bleed news… we were talking last week with Bruce Schneier about heart bleed. He had originally classified it an 11 on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of severity. He says it is not so bad as we thought. I guess the patching process is a little slower than we might’ve liked. He said most of the big sites now have patched. Most of the top 10,000. It is the next 10,000 that are not moving fast to patch. And I’m just reading this blog post from Google on Wednesday and it is a perfect example. Google, which knew about heart bleed before anybody, they had a lot of advance notice. They have patched most of the big services. Search, Gmail, YouTube, apps, app words, app engines, double-click maps, maps, Earth analytics, Tag manager. But, cloud, SQL, Google search apps, versions of android… there is still stuff not patched. It is hard to do I guess. To fix it all. The message we have been passing along is to wait until the services updated and then change your password.

Jill: Have you gotten any emails from companies telling you to change a password?

Leo: Yes, lots.

Jill: I got only two.

Leo: Who have you gotten emails from?

Jill: Tumblr, and Any Due.

Leo: So Tumblr may’ve been over aggressive. They said “take the day off tomorrow and change all your passwords”. And some people said that is a little bit over-done. Just because you have the problem Tumbler doesn’t mean we did. For instance my bank did not use open SSL so we didn’t have to worry about that.

Alex: I think, there again, this comes up every time you see one of these. The lesson is, change your passwords a lot.

Jill: Use unique passwords.

Alex: And really, whether you use One Pass or not. We use Last Pass. What I like about Last Pass is that company-wide we can share passwords for specific things with everyone. I don’t even have to show them what the password is. I can simply give them a login for a specific site or whatever and then I love just using hashes. I don’t really know anything about my passwords which makes me a little dependent, if I don’t have Last Pass then I’m in trouble. But I change them pretty often and I think that is how most of us don’t get ourselves in trouble. All the things that we think make it easier. It is hard to get used to something that uses One Pass, or Last Pass, once you get used to it, it becomes easier.

Dan: I don’t even remember what I was like before.

Jill: I have to say that since I've really gotten into technology that is the thing I had no idea I was so passionate about. And once I started using a password manager I really wanted to spread that message to the people in my life who are not technological. I don’t think they understand what password managers really do. And how simple they make it to use the web, and websites in general that require a login. So if you are a techie evangelist go and tell everyone to use a password manager. And show them how easy it is. I think people have a misconception about it.

Dan: Spreading the word, I think is one of the most important things to come from heart bleed. While you guess there are things you can do, you can change your password, but really, making more evangelists out of normal people and say look change your passwords regularly. Use a password manager. This is why it makes the web easier to use and how your life will be better by simply doing these small steps. That is the best thing that can come from something like heart bleed.

Alex: Now the one thing I will say is that you do need to teach people that with great power comes great responsibility. Like for instance we had to train people in our office to have it auto log off if it is not being used for a certain period of time, like Last Pass, because now if you leave it logged in you walk away from a computer and every password in your whole life is opened. you do have to keep in mind that there are lots of little new wants is to turning them on and off, to make sure that you stay safe.

Jill: Yet, that is a good point.

Leo: You probably wouldn’t want to do what this guy who reads the Washington Post did. This is from the Washington Post, the switch blog. One of the readers posted in comments, “I couldn’t give a flying fake about the heart bleed thingamajig. Two years already the thing has been running, there is not a word about anyone crying over its damage.” So he gave at his two passwords that he uses on all his accounts. And he said read all my email, break into my Facebook or Twitter accounts, go ahead I don’t care. And so what happened? His accounts on word press, tumbler, Twitter appear to have been hacked almost immediately. His location on twitter now reads Gas City, Indiana. And people have been tweeting things like “I am really stupid”. So maybe putting your password on national news site not a good idea. Our friends over at IT Pro TV have done that how to. I did a how-to last week on how to use Last Pass. They did one on heart bleed. How it is, how it works, how to fix it if you have a server that you might think is vulnerable. So I’m going to give a bit.ly link to this so you can get it. Never mind. Forget I mentioned it. Don’t give out your password. I was just looking, you asked the question jail did I get a lot of emails? And I looked in your right I just got a handful of them. Daniel acted like you got a bunch of them to digital?

Dan: Yet. Especially from Horoku. I try to use best practices with passwords and I’ve been using One Password for years. Most of the sites that I use offer two factor authentication and regular prompts to change passwords.

Leo: As far as we know two factor authentication was not affected, although I read an article the other day that implied that some people have had some issues with that.

Alex: I have a feeling the session token would lend a vulnerability. But that’s not really the two factor, that is a session token.

Leo: It’s only good for a short amount of time. The real issue is if you are using to factor in your password has been compromised. You are only using one factor. So you still want to change your password. We didn’t mention this last week did we? I think we mentioned that Google had changed it terms of service to admit the scan in your email. Apparently it wasn’t explicitly in the terms of service. So they have updated their terms of service on Monday saying that your incoming and outgoing emails are automatically analyzed by software to create targeted ads. We think this is in response to the various lawsuits against Google doing this. They are being sued by a number of different groups.

Jill: Is it mostly outside the US?

Leo: No, there are two big lawsuits in the United States. Google has argued that users implicitly consented to the activity. Because they don’t hide the fact that it is part of the process. But now, they are being a little bit more clear about it. Are you surprised by this?

Alex: No, it is a search company that is providing email.

Leo: You kind of thought they might be doing it.

Jill: When email rolled out that tab feature did you keep it or did you get rid of it?

Leo: I kept it. I love it.

Jill: I immediately got rid of it.

Leo: You are an organizational expert. And you got rid of it.

Jill: Why would I give them an opportunity to start giving me more ads? More promotions. More newsletters.

Leo: It's all under promotion tab.

Jill: But I didn’t want that. I was happy that they gave me the option to get rid of it.

Leo: If you had your promotional tab now all the promotional ads look like Pinterest.

Jill: If it looks good I’ll keep it?

Leo: But it's in its own tab set up so you don’t have to look at it at all. And now my social stuff is in one tab. when I request the password update, it always goes to update tab so I can find it. Like my order confirmation for my new Basis wearable.

Dan: I’ve been using filters and labels obsessively within Gmail for years. So that actually made the four tabs across the top very useful. Because if you get in the habit of doing this in training Gmail for a month, I’m going to label and filter everything for a month, and then all of a sudden I only see the email that is important to me, and I only get what I care about. Those other tabs really filter away the noise. It is a little bit of sweat going into it but a month or so of training Gmail and all of a sudden it is wonderful.

Jill: You know what I do is I set up my theory about this a while ago, I use three different email programs mainly. One is for my personal email, one is for all the shopping that I do, and one is for junk sign up. What happens is, instead of having a tab I have an entire other account that I’m not tempted to even log into unless I have to. So I compartmentalize; I just do it in a very different way.

Leo: The tab does the same thing you just don’t have to… Do you feel like if it is sitting there you are going to look at it?

Jill: Yeah. And especially anything that has a batch count on it it gives me anxiety.

 Leo: Somebody who is an organizational expert is less likely to like the automated kind of one-size-fits-all organization that Google imposes. But I’m not an organizational expert so I’m very happy that Google gave me any tools at all.

Jill: They did it for you.

Alex: And I have 50 or 60 folders with a couple hundred rules. So I don’t have like inbox zero I have inbox 26,000 because that is like the refuse of what didn’t get into the folders which of all the important stuff. I go through my inbox every day, kind of wander through it and see if I miss anything and I occasionally do. I literally get 400 actionable emails a day.

Leo: Email is so broken its unusable. Right?

Alex: I thought when my kids moved away from email and they really just expected text? I wondered how could anybody even lived that way. But now I find myself forcing my company more and more to use text.

Leo: Can I put the question in there? Question: is email screwed up and unusable? Yes or no. That should be in our question. It just seems like, unfortunately you cannot abandon it.

Jill: There is a lot of companies now who were trying this new push to get rid of internal email by a certain date. I did think that is great I think if you can foster communication among your employees in-house, get them to talk to one another, get them to use something like Instant Messenger system or something, Some other way where they can have a clearer idea of what they are doing day to day, who is responsible, etc. All these things that email doesn’t really give you. And then you save email for external communication only. I think that is great.

Leo: Last week Internet went crazy because a blogger published a story saying that France had banned email after 6 PM. The companies could not require employees to read their email after 6 PM. And it turned out not to be true, it’s much more complicated than that. But I think everybody wanted it to be true and thought what a good idea, can we do that here?

Alex: I didn’t think that but I definitely… I have to admit last week was a pretty heavy production week for me and I was in Coachella shooting and everything and I didn’t check email for three or four days. I realized how calm I was in I was thinking maybe I should do this more often?

Leo: It is not a former law, it did not affect 1 million employees, it did not even specify a specific time, but two groups of employers last week signed an agreement with French unions outlying certain workers obligation to disconnect. The obligation to disconnect applied to a smaller group of workers. Flexible hour workers, workers who work more than the mandated 35 hour work week. With 10 hour a day limit. It is basically an acknowledgment that because they are always on the clock, they have a minimum daily rest period of 11 hours. Which is to say they can work legally no more than 13 hours a day.

Alex: That is our minimum! That’s where we start. I mean sometimes you get Sunday off.

Leo: This also underlines another problem with email and with smart phone and texting is that you are always connecting, you’re always working. Even if you are a 9-to-5 employee there is nothing to stop the boss from texting you at 5 AM saying, “Hey Smithers. Pick up a paper on your way in”.

Alex: in a lot of ways technology has put us in a position that we have to make lots of choices. Whether it is to choose what we eat, choose whether we pick up the phone, choose whether we check our email, we have to choose. It is no longer that it just isn’t available. We have to make choices about what those limits are.

Jill: And I’m sure that Dan will remind us that there are certain job functions where you are never off. If you are reporting from the field, if you’re reporting from abroad that is your job is to be on all the time.

Alex: And when it becomes global, like when I’m in Rwanda, I get up and I finish the emails at 6 o’clock until 7:30. Then I am at school until 8 o’clock at night, and then from eight until midnight I’m in meetings with people in the US. And then I start it over again. So those are the hardest weeks. We are becoming much more global, where you really just have to decide what you are going to turn off. Because there is not going to be any turn off otherwise.

Dan: That is a very interesting idea that whether you love or hate technology, or somewhere in the Gulf in between, that you have no choice but to have technology as a part of your life. So the degree to which you want to interact with it, you cannot just be passive and say I don’t want to watch TV or listen to the radio. It’s not like that. You must make a decision. It is not something that is passive in our lives. If you hate technology, then making that decision probably increases your resentment of technology.

Leo: You two are from New York, the people here to my right. I think the tech scene in New York is starting to pick up a little bit. It’s like a big startup scene right? Google has announced that it is going to have space for 3000 more employees and leasing as much as 600,000 square ft. in Manhattan.

Jill: They already have a beautiful office.

Dan: It is amazing.

Leo: I’ve seen pictures. With like slides and stuff right? That’s all I pay attention to. Jungle gyms? They are in Chelsea right? Chelsea is kind of like a hipster, down-market little bit hipster area right? Is it expensive now? Is it fancy? Is that where the superstars hang out?

Dan: Oh no, no, not at all.

Leo: They have 750,000 square ft. in Chelsea on 8th Ave. They bought the building in 2010 for $1.9 billion. And then on ninth Avenue, at Chelsea market. And they can’t find more space.

Dan: Welcome to New York City Google, searching for space.

Leo: You know you can have the Google buses. Let the protesters vomit on your buses for a change.

 Dan: We won’t be able to tell the difference!

Leo: That is the thing! New York is probably going yeah come on.

Jill: We’ll just keep building up right?

 Leo: Tech, advertising and media jobs in New York City have grown from 265,000 in 2006 to 327,000. It is booming. If San Francisco keeps acting nasty to the tech sector than it could be a bigger boomer.

Alex: I guess it is natural to go to a lot of these big cities. But I start looking, and a lot of people that I know, what we really care about is it being clean, having a really good connection.

Leo: Are you talking about Internet connection? Or like a A-train connection?

 Alex: I think it is very hard to make the turn, but we did the job in Oklahoma City, or was it Kansas City? But it’s in Oklahoma.

Leo: Kansas City is not in Oklahoma.

Jill: It is in two states.

Alex: Anyway, it is very confusing.

Leo: Which Kansas City is Google in?

Alex: Oklahoma.

Leo: It's not Oklahoma. I don’t know where you are getting Oklahoma. It’s called Missouri. Have you heard of it?

Alex: Oh I’m sorry.

Leo: Oklahoma?

Alex: Okay Missouri. I apologize. It has been a very long week.

Leo: I’m not stupid. I know that Kansas City, Kansas is not the Kansas City in Missouri but I never heard of the Kansas City in Oklahoma.

Alex: And now there’s a lot of people in Missouri that are upset with me. South Kansas City, Missouri.

Leo: And you guys both sound like, “Oh it’s in Oklahoma”.

Alex: Know we knew it wasn’t. So anyway, I was asking a guy do you really get a gigabit at home?

Leo: And does he?

Alex: And he said you never get over 930 megs. And he said that’s the only speed test. After that I thought, I wonder if we could open an office here. When you look at a lot of the protests we see in San Francisco and people being upset, I wonder when these companies are going to start deciding which is going to find somewhere that is cheap, give it a great connection.

Leo: How about Petaluma? We could use a little fiber love up here. Have you been here Dan?

Dan: I used to live in Sebastian for years.

Leo: Oh that’s right. You were a hippie. Okay.

Alex: A lot of those decisions are based on infrastructure, who owns the pipe, how hard will it be to run the fiber, etc. it has a lot less to do with people interested and how the city is set up, it is structure.

Leo: Oh I know you guys. You are thinking of Lincoln City, Nebraska. That’s what you are thinking of.

Alex: I wasn't thinking of anything. I was still waking up!

Leo: More questions.

Alex: From Steve in Florida he said “Are you going to comment on Adam Corolla’s patent troll fight”?

Leo: No! Moving on. You know under the advice of my attorney use I have been advised not to talk about that. But we support and love Adam and love and support his fight and I know so many things that I cannot say.

Dan: By the way, I will say that This American Life is a must listen to.

Leo: And also The Money podcast that NPR does. I am hopeful that all kinds of patent trolling are going to go away because there is a move in Congress to restrict software patents, there is an executive order to change that as well from the Obama administration. I feel like we are kind of understanding the problem with these software patents lead to. So regardless of my own dog in the hut I do think that it is bad in general. I hope that things are going to look up. Intellectual Ventures, which is Nathan Myhrvold’s company, is one of the worst in this group. They were putting together a group trying to create another patent fight. Microsoft and Sony are investing, but Apple and Intel did not. This was a story that ran on TNT last week. Intellectual Ventures which was started by a Microsoft millionaire, a guy who really was pro-innovation. But, basically it was created to be at patent troll. To collect patents for things they didn’t do, they didn’t invent, and sue people. Microsoft and Sony have invested in this Intellectual Ventures effort to raise more money to buy some new patents. Good news is that Apple and Intel turned them down. It’s an interesting story.

Jill: Oh, he went to cooking school. He is so phenomenal. He is one of the most phenomenal people are people ever.

Leo: He is brilliant.

Jill: He has found archaeological…

Leo: I know! What's he doing with this patent troll stuff?

Alex: Those patent trolls pay for all the other crazy stuff he does. Like make really really expensive cookbooks. They cut the charcoal thing in half.

Jill: It is a beautiful book.

Leo: I don’t care, I am not supporting Nathan in any of his ventures unless he backs it off from intellectual ventures and the patent trolling. It is called Modernist cuisine. $468! What is he need to be a patent troll for!

Jill: It is like seven or eight volumes.

Alex: It is the best book on cooking ever written. A collection of books.

Leo: It better be at that price. Does this guy have enough money? He has to charge $500 for a book!

Alex: You'll believe it when you see it.

Jill: I believe they built a lab specifically to shoot this book.

Alex: This move cooking like you’ve never seen.

Leo: So I guess really make me buy that? This is the most expensive show I’ve ever done. Let’s take a break, I maybe need to make some money. I have mixed feelings about Nathan because on one hand he’s this brilliant guy who is done amazing things and yet, at the same time years causing huge havoc in the world with intellectual ventures. And they do sleazy staff like they are making small holding companies… just sleazy stuff.

Dan: And the tactics kind of betray their intent.

Leo: They are very much a part of this.

Alex: And part of it is this that we have allowed the patent system to go much past how it was originally set up. How it was set up actually works very well but we kept making compromises to a word doesn’t work anymore.

Leo: Oh, he also has $100 book on the photography of the cookbook. So it’s not just enough to buy the cookbook, oh I want that too. Do you have the other one? The modernist cookbook?

Alex: I'm still waiting for somebody to give it to me. I’ve looked at it.

Leo: Is to put on your Amazon wish lists, media fan will get it for you. $100 photography…

Joe: I think the New York Academy and sciences when this book came out and Nathan was there so the most brilliant man you have ever met standing next to a supermodel and I got into a conversation with them for about five seconds. He is really, I would say in person he was very soft-spoken, very inquisitive, not like an egomaniac by any stretch. But he really knows so much about everything. I don’t know, I mean he has figured out a way to make money, it was a loophole.

Leo: He is not doing anything illegal. He is taking advantage of the patent system as it exists. But he is unethical. And it has a huge consequence to pressing innovation. And you know, here is a guy who made his money as a software scientist, an innovator for Microsoft. And he is doing something that is really terrible for innovation. He is draining billions of dollars from our RDF are to go to lawyers in court. And it is wrong. So whether it is legal or not, it is wrong. This is an interesting fellow, you’ve got to wonder about the contradictions of this guy. “I’m just going to stay home can cook, start a company and I won’t pay any attention to what they do”.

Alex: You know it is the job of Congress to fix it.

Leo: That it is immoral for him to be taking advantage.

Alex: I agree. But the solution is not going to be to get people like him to stop. The solution is to rebuild the patent system.

Leo: By the way, if you don’t want to pay $500 for the cookbook or $100 for the photographs from the cookbook for an mere hundred dollars you can get the home version. Or even get all three for $677.

Dan: It is like Microsoft pricing right?

Leo: But they are not going to update it. Oh by the way! Did you see that Microsoft says if you’ve got Windows 8.1 we are not going to give you security patches anymore after next month? Let’s save that for after the break. I was all hot, I was all excited, I was really invigorated about the future of Microsoft and then I read that and I thought oh, they're not changing that much.

Leo: Our show brought to you by audible.com. The great source of audiobooks. Radio shows, classics, nonfiction, science fiction. I just love audiobooks, I’m a major Audible fan. I’ve been listening to Audible books since the beginning of the century. Since 2001. I have a terrible commute. Gabriel García’s Marques passed away this week, it was very sad. Of course audible has his books, if you've been thinking that you never read any of his books and you want to read some, they've got them all. And beautiful, beautiful narration. I listened to Love In The Time of Cholera. One of my favorite books. I've listened to it on Audible and it is just gorgeous. If you haven’t read that or 100 years of solitude you must. You can get one of them, or both for free right now. We are offering a special deal@audible.com/twit to. That is audible.com/twit two. You will be signing up for the platinum plan, that is two books per month. But the first month is free, so your first two books are free. Pay nothing the first 30 days, cancel at any time, keep the books forever. You also get the daily digest of the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal when you get a subscription plan. Is Lisa Marquez too literary? Perhaps you would like to have some fun. You could listen to the Wind in the Willows. Or, oh the new Daniel Suarez book we talked about that before. This is a page turner. Audible has done a great job with science fiction. Mark Russinovich, if you haven’t read Zero Day yet, Mark is a Microsoft researcher and security expert. He wrote this novel a couple of years ago and it has basically come true. It is a terrifying story of technology, and security and if you are a geek you are going to love it. Steve Gibson just raves about Mark’s books. Zero Day and then the new one I think is coming out soon. It's not on Audible yet but it will be any day now. Trojan Horse, Zero Day and then the third one just came out or is about to come out any minute now from Mark Reserfage. Get those, those are great. All you got to do is go to Audible.com/twit2 and you will be getting 2 books to try it out. If you have never listened to audio books this is a great opportunity to try them and listen. I love them, I listen all the time. Highly recommended. I am listening to Dog Fight right now.

Alex: That's how I clean my house, I listen. I run out of TWIT and I run out of NPR then I just move to Audible. Then I am listening to some book and working my way through the yard in the back. It's perfect.

Leo: If you have a tread mill and if you listen an hour a day on your tread mill. Life will change for you. There are so many good books here. Terry Prachits newest just came out. I am a big fan of the Disk World series

Alex: I have kind of gotten to the point where I take offense to the fact that there are some books that are you know, when I find out they aren't on Audible.

Leo: I am a little behind. That's what I take offense too. I don't commute anymore, so I am actually behind. I just got Laviath and Wakes, Flash Poison by Michael Lewis and I can't wait to read that but I am finishing Dog Fight. There is a new 43 hour biography of the Beetles that just came out and that's volume one.

Alex: Holy Smokes.

Leo: I can't wait to read that. Nick Builtons, Hatching Twitter, I just finished that. Brad Stones, The everything Store. I just, I mean I am behind. More listening less working. More working out, less working. Audible.com/twit2 first 2 books are free and then the rest of it is up to you. So I saw this and I thought this was a very strange story. Apparently Microsoft wants you to move along on Windows 8. Now Windows 8.1 came out a few months ago, I think. When did it come out? Help me out Chat room. 6 months ago it and really fixed a lot of the issues with Windows 8. Then they did an update just recently. Windows 8.1 update 1. Apparently they are so anxious that you apply Windows update that starting with May patch Tuesday, Windows 8.1 users devices without the update installed will no longer receive security updates. This is from Microsoft's Tech Net Blog. No more updates for Windows 8.1 if you don't apply update 1. Your being nagged by now a little bit to update the 8.1 and you have a few weeks to install it. That is just bizarre to me. They will support 8.0 but if you have 8.1 you have to get update 1.

Alex: Makes you wonder whether if there's something they don't want to deal with there.

Leo: It say's if the Windows 8.1 update is not installed new updates will be considered not applicable.

Alex: Right there is something deeper in there they don't want to talk about, I mean that is what it feels like. Is that there is something, because it’s not like they aren't supporting other more historical ones.

Leo: No they are going farther back, yeah absolutely.

Dan Patterson: What a confusing way to coax your audience along though.

Jill: Microsoft confusing?!

Leo: I have been bullish after Satya Nadella and I think I just bought a Windows phone because I can make it Windows phone 8.1 and I am really impressed with it. They've added to Cortata Speech, they've added the swipe keyboard style that I really like. I think they are giving away Windows for sub 9 inch screens. They are doing a lot of things right. Office 365 is now, you get the personal edition for 7 bucks a month.

Alex: They may be doing this right, we just know all the reasons they have to.

Leo: All right you’re the voice of reason, thank you very much Alex Lindsay.

Alex: It seems illogical that they are doing it other than there is something seriously wrong with that and they don't want to advertise whatever that is but they definitely don't want to keep it in the wild.

Dan: One of the problems with Microsoft very obviously that it became a conglomeration of different silo's and the silo's moved at different speeds. They had different priorities within the company and it's going to take a long time to kind of recombine the in-congruency's there. To get not just a product but a culture that has shifted entirely. So seeing Window 1 update 1 .x.monkeys, we are probably going to see that for a while, right?

Leo: I don't know, we will talk about it. I tell you what Windows Weekly Wednesday will be interesting Paul Neely and Rachel Foley. I am going to put that, I am going to say Okay. Sometimes I will say that to Paul, Okay explain to me what the hell is Microsoft thinking. And he will go What are you asking me for, I don't know. I was about to buy a new car because I wanted to get Apples Car Play. But I don't have to now I can get an Alpine or Pioneer after market. Both companies have announced they will be making a 3rd party after market in dash systems that work with Car Play.

Alex: I think it is awesome. I haven't bought an after-market car system for so, I mean a radio system for so long. When I was in college I have a Nocamechi.

Leo: Normally you would have to buy a 2014 Ferrari, Mercedes Benz or Volvo. But now you can put it in your Hyundai. It uses believe it or not, not IOS but QNX.

Dan: Really?

Leo: Well Car Play can be added to existing systems as the technology works in conjunction with Blackberry's QNX. My car has QNX, a lot of cars have QNX as the operating system. It is in real time OS owned by Blackberry oddly enough. Alpine's are less expensive they are going to debut this fall in Europe and U.S. With a base price of 500 to 700 bucks. Pioneer stuff is a little more expensive it starts at 700 and goes all the way up to 1400 dollars. I am not sure when the availability is, early summer. Wait a minute now, they are going to add this to existing receivers via a firmware update in early summer.

Alex: I wonder if I can put it in my car. I have an older car that is in that horrible in between where it only had a cd player.

Leo: Explain to me Mac Break Weekly host, Does Car Play just put the screen up? Another words the car system just displays whatever you want, it’s not runny the system its running on the phone still.

Alex: It's still running from the phone. So the phone it is just like Air Play. But it is in your car.

Leo: But you get Sirius, you get Maps.

Alex: Right, but it is still using the processing power from your phone.

Jill: Does it have its own mic then built into the dash board?

Alex: I don't if it does or not.

Jill: Because that would be important I would think.

Leo: Yeah you wouldn't want to have to talk to the phone.

Jill: Yeah you need that audio there. I know a lot of times you have an in car dash board there is often a toggle on your steering wheel column. But this I am assuming wouldn't have that so you would need to have really good voice control on it somehow.

Leo: Yeah that's right. So if you buy it built into a car you'll probably have controls on the steering wheel. It's a little dangerous if you have to reach for your phone.

Alex: Not that I would ever do that.

Leo: Marissa Myer's secret plan according to Recode. Kara Swisher always knows up with Marissa Myer. She says, Marissa Myer has a secret to get Apple to dump Google and default to Yahoo Mobile Search. Who knew Yahoo had a search. I thought that was Bing.

Jill: This is the IOS 8 rumor, I think. That Google is going to get dumped and Yahoo is going to come in. Yahoo needs some partnerships.

Leo: They have been moving that way.

Alex: I guess I don't understand why Apple would go to Yahoo rather than go back to, for instance, developing their own solution. I mean they just got out of Google Maps so they wouldn't have to be dependent on a 3rd party.

Jill: Well that didn't go so well for them.

Leo: Yeah that really worked.

Alex: Well yeah but it is still becoming. It actually did go really well for them. It didn't go well from a PR prospective. But what happens is that you’re an iPhone user and you hit a link and you’re in Apple Maps which is getting better. It is still a little funky.

Leo: Not bad.

Alex: I admit UI is better than Google Maps in my opinion but the accuracy is not.

Jill: So which would you rather have when you are lost.

Alex: Which is why I use Google Maps. But I notice what happens I'll click on something and I end up in Apple Maps and I will just use it. I think that a lot of people are that way. What really gets confusing by the way is if you have voice activated on one of them and you open the other one for some other search then you see one telling you, I got into this trying to get to Coachella. Where I had one telling me to go one direction and the other one telling me another. I had given 2 different searches, so having both on the phone got its own problems.

Leo: How was that?

Alex: Coachella? Amazing.

Leo: What are you 18?

Alex: I was working. I was working there. The best thing to do at Coachella or any of these big things is work there. Because then you get a film pass which means you can go anywhere.

Jill: I'm so much of a nerd on that. Tell me about Coachella.

Alex: It is this massive music festival.

Leo: Surely those of you from back East have heard of this.

Jill: I have heard of it, it is a big concert.

Alex: Its going on right now it is finishing up. Its 2 weekends.

Jill: Its music.

Leo: It is in the Palm Desert, right?

Alex: 90,000 people in the Palm Dessert.

Jill: Ok South by Southwest used to be music film and now it is something weird and crazy.

Leo: Coachella is more of a festival.

Alex: It is a music festival.

Ben: Yeah, yeah it is way more. South by is an industry thing, regardless of the shows or not it is an industry thing. Coachella and a couple others that have popped up have been these evolving. They're what happened after Lalapalooza fell apart, right?

Leo: I have always wondered what happened after Lalapalooza fell apart, I have always wanted to know that.

Dan: Now you know.

Alex: I went to the early Lalapalooza's, I was in the industry back then. Coachella is a much more laid back, really cool. You don't have people running over each other. The biggest problem you have is people taking to many drugs, typically and in the sun.

Jill: Yeah it is in the desert.

Alex: The desert is pretty unforgiving. I was there last weekend, so what we would do we would work all day and then about 8 we would finish what we were doing and then we would wonder into Cochello and watch the Pixies.

Jill: So wait what's the working angle to it?

Leo: He gets invited everywhere to do anything. He's got a scam like you wouldn't believe. I was working at Coachella, late one night. So you were doing what helping with hang ups there?

Alex: Yeah people doing hang ups of bands and such.

Leo: So they have bandwidth out in the desert?

Alex: We did. We had a lot of bandwidth.

Leo: How did you bring that bandwidth in? Was it in a truck?

Alex: I didn't bring it in. We were just providing a little bit of the extra bits and pieces to make it work.

Leo: Alex runs a company that does this kind of stuff. Very high end video conferencing stuff, solutions.

Jill: I think it is funny, I mean, South by Southwest is probably the best example of it. These festivals that have kind of come up as music and film festivals that grew into something else because people were interested in tech or food or something else. It’s just funny because it is so different from the days of Woodstock.

Alex: Coachella is much more like that though.

Jill: Or even the Burning Man where it is sort of about the music, it is sort of about this creative community.

Alex: This one is really about music.

Leo: This is not an art festival this is music.

Alex: There is a little art in there, but this is 5 stages, 4 or 5 stages. Really cool installations, really cool location. The only thing about it is for instance if you weren't working there, getting in and out people are walking for miles to get to parking and everything else. But it is great bands.

Leo: It is like everybody plays there, right? I mean everybody.

Alex: What is crazy, it is the cool place to go. So people just show up. Like we were watching Ferrell and Gwen Steffani just pops out of nowhere. She's not advertised she just like comes out and sings as song. Snoop Dog just shows up on stage. I think Beyonce showed up at her sisters concert. So you get a lot of these kind of impromptu collaborations that kind of pop up. Impromptu from the fans perspective.

Leo: I see large scale art installations. So I see there is some art to this as well.

Alex: Well there's this huge astronaut, it looks like the MTV astronaut, that is literally 30 feet high that was roaming around the system. Again it is pretty surreal especially at night. It is a pretty surreal experience. And the Replacements played so I was like wow. I was wondering around going I think that is the Replacements. I am old enough to know who that is. There is a lot of mixture of old bands and new bands. You get ones from the alternative, you know the Pixies were playing. So you get these 80's alternative rock then you also get Ferrell and the Outcasts.

Leo: Muse was the world's worst band.

Alex: That was supposed to be one of the best concerts there. I didn't see it I was seeing something else.

Jill: You were working.

Alex: No, at the time I actually was not.

Leo: He ate the brown acid. Don't eat the brown Acid, how many times do I have to tell you.

Alex: Chocolate was awesome.

Leo: So are you getting the Galaxy S5?

Jill: Well I did play with it a little bit. You know I have an iPhone for my personal phone and then I use a number of different Android devices to sort of test software from time to time. I'll play with anything.

Leo: Alex and I have settle on the HGC1 M8's.

Alex: I really like it. I still use my iPhone.

Leo: You've had a lot of trouble. Two weeks ago on Mac Break Weekly you picked this as your pick of the week.

Alex: I chose it. It is the best camera. This is the coolest camera.

Leo: It is pretty cool.

Alex: My kids want them to make them aliens all the time. There is this think where you can enhance the eyes, make the eyes really big. So my kids are like alien, alien, alien. Like today I had to literally make 3 alien shots for them while we were at Easter Sunday. But the idea to short up the field, automatically and then be able to post it. There's not really other phone right now. The reason I picked it specifically was because it.

Leo: I am trying to find the alien. You know what Google decided the one with alien eyes is not a highlight.

Alex: I am looking for something, there it is.

Leo: So this is built into the camera, what a thrill.

Alex: My kids think it is awesome.

Leo: That you can do that.

Alex: But it is also the short depth of field. That's not probably what you use a lot.

Leo: But you can see it is a pretty crisp even though it is just 4 megapixels. A lot of people have given it negative revues because David Haselhoff seems to show up from time to time. But I think it is a very good camera. I like it. Now times have changed a bit because Google has released its official camera app to the play store. So you can use it on, in fact you can use it on the M8.

Alex: So what you can do is take a picture and then move the camera a little bit to give is paralax.

Leo: Yeah it is kind of interesting.

Alex: I think it is fine, I like the idea I can just take photos. The reason I picked it was I love the idea of something that is just automatic. I think everyone is going to have it in two years. You know this is early on.

Leo: I think it was very interesting way to implement it. So I took a picture for instance, here is a picture of the microphone that I took. Actually the first one was with everything in focus and then I went and made the background a little bit blurrier, then I made it even more blurry. This looks like a fancy SLR shot. You can by the way can make the foreground blurry and the background in focus because it has enough information to change focal points. It's actually a little more flexible than the built in application on the HGC1. And its free, Google is giving it away.

Jill: Now what do you think about project Ara, if I may go there.

Leo: Let’s talk about Ara. I like that idea.

Jill: This is the module phone that Google announcing as sort of a playground piece. This week they announced that they were going to give 100K prize to somebody who developed the best module that will plug into this phone. I believe it is going to be one piece of glass and then the flip side of it will be ports for different components that you can plug in.

Leo: Do they intend to sell it that way? It seems like it might fall apart in your pocket.

Jill: I think they had a demo of it that actually didn't work because the screen was already cracked. They had dropped it and the screen had already cracked. But the idea is that we would get away from some of the issues of fragmentation because you would have these swappable pieces.

Leo: Like Lego block phone.

Jill: You will be able to update the component that you wanted. I think that interesting, instead of screwing on a lens to your camera, you could swap in a different camera.

Alex: I love the idea of someone building a half inch chip with the crazy camera for my phone. I love the idea of being able to swap that in and out. That would be really cool.

Jill: Or if memory was the most important thing you could put that in and get rid of other pieces that you don't need.

Leo: I like it that there is a Microsoft One Drive ad and a Nokia phone ad in front of the Project Ara video demonstration. Let’s jump ahead on that.

Jill: They know their audience.

Leo: I can't skip it, we'll just have to wait.

Jill: I think Project Ara though is a neat idea. But it’s another one of these Google experiments. Let’s not take it to seriously yet.

Leo: In fact it was a Motorola experiment which Google kept when they sold Motorola mobility they kept. Actually this is Peter Emerno from the Verge visiting the Project Ara team. So this is an RD team that will stay with Google after the Motorola Mobility sale goes through to Lanova. Look at this, this is really interesting.

Dan: This could really help mature niches in the market. Like photography or other things you would use a mobile device for. This is never going to mainstream. But this could really push the edges of that market to do very creative stuff.

Leo: I guess, I think if a consumer is going to look at a feature set in a phone and just buy the phone. This is not the first time we seen this. Visor has a spring board modules, remember. You could pop, you don't remember.

Dan: Oh there is a parallel trend with gaming PC's. You know Razor just released a modular PC with swappable components. So I think there is something to be said for that. You know if you care about a particular spec and want to tweak that then that's interesting if it’s not mainstream.

Jill: It gives you a whole lot more flexibility over the price to. You know you don't pay for the stuff you don't want.

Leo: What it is encouraging is we are far from the end of. It felt like a little bit that we were at the end of the line in the innovation in smart phones. The Galaxy S5 isn't really much better than the Galaxy S4 for instance. The HGC1 M8 is a little bit better than M7. But maybe there is still a lot of room for improvement.

Alex: I think there still is a lot. Even though this HGC is really great. I think there is an enormous amount improvement in low light performance for camera's. I think cameras are still the number one thing people use their cell phone for. Over voice, over everything else.

Leo: I agree.

Alex: The only thing people should be focusing on, in my opinion at this point, is low light. Because that's what people, really the average person is doing a lot of.

Leo: Low light is not just you sitting there with one candle but low light is anything that's not in bright sunlight. Its inside is low light.

Alex: Yeah, being able to shoot inside without grain. That technology is out there but it takes a bigger chip. It takes less focus on resolution and more focus on light sensitivity.

Leo: Do you think HGC was moving in the right direction with this ultra pixel?

Alex: Yeah I think they are definitely going in the right direction. I don't think they are there yet but I think they are definitely.

Leo: I think the hardware is going to get de-emphasized and they are going to really focus on software. I think we are getting into the era of computational photography. If we can get the data, and I think we can get the data. We are going to see computational photography really take over.

Dan: That's where Apple has always focused with photography in the iPhone. It has begun to de-emphasized the hardware and talk so much about what the software is capable of doing. That is really the thing that differentiates them and Android. I mean this new Android app, the actual camera app may make some difference. But that slow shutter speed and slow processing speed and Android is just. I don't care how many megapixels you throw in it, it is incomparable next to an iPhone.

Leo: I have a new metric for rating camera's. Because it doesn't make any sense anymore to talk about pixels. I have a new metric, it is called pleasing-ness. Like am I pleased by the photo's I get. This is the HGC1 camera.

Alex: You know what the number 1 problem is with this camera is?

Leo: What?

Alex: The fact that they put it on an apex of a convex surface. So you are most likely to scratch everything as you set it down. I am always careful now. I actually find myself setting my HGC down facedown all the time because I don't want to scratch the camera. I don't know if it has become a real problem but I can already see tons of micro-scratches that are in front of the lens.

Leo: Let me take a picture of you. Now I think I have it set on the, yes slowly raise your devise and keep the subject centered. So I slowly raised the devise and kept the subject centered. Now its processing the image, look you've got alien eyes, no that's the other thing. Then now I can tap the background. Oh it made it something. Did it do anything? Oh wait first I got to edit.

Alex: I think it made it out of focus.

Leo: Does it just do it? It does, the background is out of focus.

Alex: It looks pretty accurate.

Leo: I think this to me is pleasing. So it’s not the most megapixels, it’s not, I don't know what the numbers are. But I find the images pleasing and I find the iPhone images pleasing. I do agree with you Dan that the iPhone sets the standard for all of this. But I think we are getting close. I think the S5 is very good. Obviously the Nokia cameras are extremely good. Have you played with the 1020 or other Nokia camera's, Dan? Do you still think the iPhone best's them?

Dan: I have not. In fact I have seen them only very rarely. I get sent Android phone's to test all the time but I never get sent the Delumia phones. Which also kind of shows not the highest on tech totem pole but it shows where the priority is and it just has not shifted to Windows phone.

Leo: I agree we don't see review units either. I have ordered a 1520 just so I'll have it. That's 20 megapixels, I think. Not the 41 of the 1020. Well we will see. I think what the good news is, is at least at the high end the capability is getting pretty good. And across the board, iPhone still probably the best although I think there are those who argue he 1020 is better. Nokia, by the way also has that focus choice.

Jill: Do you have other feature wish list items you want to see in a phone that we don't have today?

Leo: Well one thing that is interesting, I see that Samsung is doing to and now HGC has done it on the M8. This works with the Fit Bit app. It does some of that health stuff. Both the Galaxy S4 and S5 and the HGC M8 you can actually have Fit Bit monitor you foot steps.

Jill: So it will track where you are going all the time. That sounds great.

Leo: And it sends it right back to Google.

Dan: Which is also in parity with the iPhone.

Leo: There you go.

Alex: I think for me again low light performance that I don't see on any phone. Only recently did we see, and probably because now we have camera's, Cannon's and Icons that do incredible low light. So you know that it is possible. So I think that is frustrating. I want more interaction of my phones with other hardware devises. I am kind of a pro user, so I am a little frustrated by how hard it is to get, for instance an iPhone to interact through the lightning connector or to lots of other things.

Leo: I agree having a situational awareness. Becoming part of the internet of things. Being able to control stuff.

Alex: Not necessarily just wireless.

Leo: Because you have a very powerful processor in your pocket.

Alex: Just like Maci makes a mixer which is basically a hull that you can just shove your iPad into and take it over. While a little limited it is an incredible idea of like having manufacturer's stop doing the interface. Like literally just stop and create a hull and let it be Apple or Android or whatever. I think that is something we are just seeing the beginning of. I think a lot of manufacturer's, when you see Car Play, what you are seeing manufacturer's starting to realize that they aren't very good at that. That's really hard.

Jill: Point of sale systems. Who gets a cash register anymore if you’re a small business. I mean you get an iPad and get a square.

Leo: Yeah it is pretty amazing. By the way somebody in the chatroom says: I just popped in to mention the sensor used by iPhone, Galaxy S4 and the Lumina 920 all are from Sony. It's true they make the sensors for most of these. He says he believes the Experia Z2 has the best camera of all. That actually is not my experience. But he does quote a review and a sight that is really pretty good on this stuff. DXO optics where they talk about optics involved in this, in sharpness. Because that's what they do, they measure this stuff and they say it is a very accurate camera.

Alex: I think Instagram has proven that accuracy is only pretty small part of the pie.

Leo: I don't think it is everything is it.

Alex: No I don't think it is. Again I think the pleasing-ness of the style you like the most.

Leo: I agree you can look at a graph like this.

Dan: It is composition.

Leo: Which is their mobile benchmark tests. I don't think this tells the story. I think pleasing-ness tells the story.

Alex: I think cool features, for instance the other thing the HGC has is the photo sphere where you can shoot the sphere and then I can post it to Gplus and people can actually click on it and experience the sphere. Those kinds of, getting people a better way to interact with where you are or what you are sharing are great features.

Leo: I did have Z2 for a review. I took bunch of pictures with it. I was underwhelmed they weren't particular pleasing.

Alex: But it goes underwater.

Leo: Almost everyone goes under water except our phones and Apple's.

Alex: I have a case for mine.

Leo: Don't dunk Apple's.

Alex: It can do 300 feet.

Leo: But see on the graph the Z2 is ahead.

Alex: There you have it.

Leo: That's all that matters. There is a very class of geeks including obviously this fella in the chatroom who look at this. They look at Specs, speeds and feeds as you said and they say well I can see on the graph its better, so it must be better. Pleasing-ness does not take that into account. It is a totally subjective measurement.

Chad: The Z2 just came out so we haven't gotten that information.

Leo: We haven't? What did I have?

Chad: You had the Z1S.

Leo: Oh yeah the Z1S, I apologize. So I haven't seen the Z2 it just came out? Are we going to review it soon? Apologies I had the Z1S your right. Also waterproof but I didn't dare dunk it because I have a bad history with that stuff. Our show brought to by Square space the all in one platform hosting and software that makes it easy for you to create a gorgeous website. I am not going to say Inside Twit is a gorgeous website that is our blog site running on Square space. Insidetwit.com but I tell you what you can't bring it down. If every single person right now went there, we could bring almost any sight down but not Square space. No siree. That's because Square space so tightly integrates the software with the hosting that they have virtually endless capacity. They could fire up more bandwidth like that. In fact it happens all automatically, transparently and instantaneously. So what the effect is, you always have a highly responsive sight that looks great, that's always secure because they apply the patches for you. It's easy for you, you don't have to be a web guru to use Square space. You start with the 25 gorgeous designer templates. Use the logo creator tool to create a great logo. Use their IOS apps to post, to check metrics, to approve comments. You can always use the designer and do some more heavy duty stuff because they do have a great developer platform if you are a CSS guru, for instance. Look Chad is making us a new logo. I love it. You have access to more than 300 Google fonts. I mean it is really great and getting better all the time. Now they have added ecommerce to all subscription plan levels including the ability to accept donations. So if your nonprofit or a school fund raiser whatever. It starts at 8 dollars a month. That includes the free domain name when you sign up for a year. All the sights look great on all size screens. They're automatically mobile ready. Even the code underlying is beautiful. I don't think you are going to need help because it is very intuitive but they do have the best support in the biz. 24/7 from their Square space offices in luxurious Chelsea, actually I think they are in Soho. South of Houston.

Dan: They are.

Leo: Oh you know, what am I saying. Dan you used to work out of their office's.

Dan: Yeah with Dan and Anthony. They are great guys. Not to plug.

Leo: I really like them. I don't mind saying that. I really love these guys and I think they do a great product and I want you to try it out.

Alex: Our sights are all Square space.

Leo: It is really easy to talk about this. If you go to squarespace.com you don't need to use a credit card or even our Twit offer code just start playing with it. Import your existing content make your own site, change how it looks with a single click of the mouse. But when you do decide to sign up make sure you use the offer code TWIT you'll get 10% off and you'll be showing them that you heard about it on This Week in Tech. Squarespace.com a better web awaits starting with your new website at squarespace.com. Use the offer code TWIT when you decide to buy, you will save money. Yeah I forgot you know those guys very well, Dan.

Dan: Their wonderful people.

Leo: Who is it that is a big supporter of what you’re doing with his new effort?

Dan: Dane was but Anthony, I think Square space just landed another 40 million.

Leo: Well there they go.

Dan: Not to contribute to the plug here.

Leo: You know when they bought a Super Bowl ad I had a feeling they were doing ok.

Dan: They are doing okay and they are good people.

Leo: Well I knew them when Anthony was practically still in a dorm room. So it is really great to see that success and their progress. That's what happens when you make a great product. DSL report says cord cutting on the rise especially among the young. This is actually a study by Experian marketing services. The number of cord cutter, and Experian describes that as people who have broadband but do not have cable. It has gone up 44% in the last 3 years.

Alex: We have Cable but I barely know why. I watched this Week with George Stephanopoulos, is the only thing I watch live.

Leo: According to this study in 2013, 6.5% of U.S. Households were cord cutters. That is up 50% from 2010, 44% from 2010. The number increases for users who subscribe to Netflix or Hulu. A fifth of Americans who use those services don't subscribe to Cable. So there is a strong correlation between using Netflix or Hulu and not having to use Cable. That makes sense. One quarter of adults between 18 and 35 who subscribe to Netflix or Hulu don't pay for TV. That makes sense you don't have the money. You don't want to spend the money. And your used to watching on a screen.

Alex: This goes back to interfacing user experience. If anyone has used the Comcast interface. If you think the Apple TV interface is bad just go into Comcast. I mean you get used to it but that is the most butt ugly stupid messed up system ever made. I think it is running on a 1988 ROM chip.

Leo: Feels like it doesn't it.

Alex: It is so horrible. What is wrong with these people.

Leo: I am going to do a review actually on Before you Buy, I think tomorrow. The TIVO Romeo Pro. TIVO is another company that hasn't evolved as much as I expected it. By now it should be, we were using TIVO's in 2000 right? But it works with a Cable card so I don't need a Cable box. It does at least in some areas, in this area we can do On Demand from Comcast. So that means I don't have to listen,On Demand in this area, I don't know if this is everywhere maybe it is the same in New York. They have this E-hostesses who just blather on about programs.

Alex: When you are in On Demand.

Leo: And you can't get out of it. If you stop a show or pause a show, they come back. Like it's quiet and you leave the living room and then all of a sudden you hear voices coming from the living room and it is the E-hostesses trying to get you to watch the Good Wife or something and I don't want that. Anyway that's not on TIVO. You can cross channel and service search. So they have Netflix, Hulu, Amazon streaming and of course On Demand. Plus whatever is on your Channel guide and you search all at once. So it will say you can watch that show and then it will show you all the different ways you can watch that show.

Dan: Your right TIVO kind of blew that first member advantage. What it did do, them and Sling Box really helped prime the market for what we are seeing now, right.

Leo: In fact, with the high end TIVO. I think the Romeo Pro and the Romeo Premier or Plus whatever it’s called. It has Sling Box style features. So I can watch on my iPad here and I can watch my TIVO at home or anywhere in the house. That is kind of cool. Control it and do all that stuff, it is very much like a Sling Box. I think there are better solutions. I wish it were a little more elegant. By now it should be.

Alex: I am curious to see. This is my big theory for Apple, is that the safest way for Apple to experiment with this is to incorporate Apple TV into a 4K monitor that's designed for their MacPro. So they just have a 4K monitor, by the way the 4K monitor has you know it is a 32 inch or a 40inch or whatever and by the way it has an Apple TV built in.

Leo: What? O they don't but you’re thinking of it.

Alex: No I am just saying.

Leo: You go me excited for a moment.

Alex: That would be the safest way for them to continue the hobby. You know just cause it’s a chip set that they just add. It would be simple for them to add to it. Then it’s just a monitor. They aren't selling it at the Apple TV.

Leo: Your right, they're looking at studies like this, going okay that market is creeping up. By the way they don't call it a hobby anymore, notice. It’s not a hobby anymore. I like that idea.

Alex: But I think you add a webcam to it. You have it with a little slide thing or whatever. But the point is, that's something I think would be very interesting to see Apple safely do.

Leo: We know the difference but do you think mainstream America knows the difference between the crap interface on their DVR box from the Cable company verses an Apple TV.

Alex: No my kids won't use the Comcast one.

Leo: Your kids are different.

Alex: My kids are, I have a 4 year old daughter who all she knows how to do is get to the Apple TV. Like she switches the input then she totally understands the Apple TV.

Leo: If you have never had filet mignon the hamburger from McDonald's tastes fine. I think that most people haven't had the experience of a good user interface. So they just don't know any better.

Jill: Well you know the user interface will stop you but the real matter is the content, right? So I don't want to watch regular TV with commercials. I don't want to have a DVR that I have to set up to record it then fast forward through the commercials.

Leo: It's a lot of work.

Jill: I want toge be able to binge watch shows when I am interested in them. I want creators who are making content that is more suited for online distribution and streaming. I want somebody to be writing a 3 part series or a 3 season series where they know the end of the story, they can plot it all out. They can have good arc. I think that is the more important revolution that's happening with TV. How we are writing differently for it. Because the distribution model has changed.

Leo: Also this stuff can be smarter. It needs to be smarter. As a result you get a smaller audience. But this new model works. You can have Mad Men, has a million viewers, it’s not a huge show. But you can succeed for AMC in these new models. That's kind of critical as well. That you have a model so you can reach out and you can make better smarter programming for the smaller audience because you have a way to monetize it.

Alex: Well one of, as these get bigger, we really live in this 2 hour, 44 minute, 22 minute world. Youtube has already started to really break that up. Where you can start thinking in 3 minute or 8 minute and as that market continues to get bigger.

Leo: That's funny, Youtube is getting bigger on the small, short stuff. Meanwhile we are watching 13 hour movies on AMC.

Jill: I do think we have become accustom to the 25 minute cycle, right? 30 minutes with commercials. 22 to 25 minutes and then the 42 minute which is the hour long show with commercials. That we have become accustom to it both in watching, like what our attention span will hold. How often we expect to have plot twist happen.

Leo: There is a beat.

Jill: Writers are really good at hitting that pacing too. I think those formats are fine. There are certainly room for a lot of experimentation. But I like those time frames.

Alex: I think they are great.

Leo: Are we going to have another format, that is an 8 minute format or a 5 minute format? Is there a sweet spot on Youtube?

Alex: I think there is a really interesting possibility of like 8 minute, 5 to 8 minute formats. What used to be a segment, could be really its own little bit.

Leo: So a network package ranges depending on the show. Good Morning America, 2 to 4 minutes. If it is 60 minutes then you may get as much as a 15 minute package. Really they are shorter than you think, believe it or not.

Alex: I think the 5 to 8 minute, because there is really do small. I have to admit I have been working on a bunch of stuff that is like 5 to 8 minutes long. So you definitely can tell a whole mini story that is connected to a larger series in that little segment. Because that's what you’re seeing when you’re watching. But when you are watching something like 24 you really are seeing it in 8 minute chunks. You know 6 to 8 minute chunks and then there is an ad.

Leo: I guess you are because of the ads.

Alex: So you know the thing is it told you a whole story there and then it stopped.

Jill: Well like in a movie trailers.

Dan: The story is key. What Jill said is exactly right. We are in the process of refining and getting very good at narrative content and narrative story telling. It doesn't really matter what the format. Formats evolved and change and they always have. If you look at the last 50 years televisions, formats have tightened and become more refined. What really does matter is the economics. Like you said a moment ago, Leo. We can and we see this in web publishing. We can live in niches and those niches can make money. But as long as there is distribution and a market for it this stuff will continue to evolve and we will see changes in how we consume content and what a good package is and that kind of stuff. As long as there is a market for it and as long as it is a good story and the distribution is there then it will continue to evolve.

Leo: I think it’s so interesting that we are seeing such a short attention span in our culture. Yet Lord of the Rings, 8 hours before you can see the end or 9 hours before you can see the end of that story. House of Cards that was two 16 hour story arcs or whatever. For such a short attention span society we seem to like long form stuff and awful lot. A 90 minute movie now is almost seeming too short to tell a compelling story. The character development we get on modern episodic drama is so rich and deep.

Alex: My wife while I was gone, just watched all of Game of Thrones again, you know just to get caught up as she got ready for the new season. She was like there are so many things that you see when you see it all together that you don't see each week.

Leo: That's a good example because that show is complex.

Alex: There are so many complicated things going on.

Leo: There are not many shows that need a Wiki and an app just to figure out who the hell, who is that guy? Why did he shoot him?

Alex: It took me a while I thought there were 3 different people who were Stanus.

Leo: They look similar.

Jill: The Rathean.

Alex: There are 2 people that look the same.

Leo: You just can't keep track of them. I did too.

Alex: I said that's Stanus and my wife said no that's not Stanus.

Leo: Then the King slayer came on and I said that's not the King Slayer because his hair is not blond anymore. So I got very confused. So fortunately there's a Wiki and there is a great app on the iPad. But you have to buy each season. It's like a premium app for Game of Thrones. It gives you everything you need to know about what's going on. I swear to God last season, remember the show where they are all standing on the pier and somebody has died. I don't know who has died and he is in a boat and the boat is going down. They keep shooting the flaming arrow and they keep missing. I don't know who is shooting. Then another guy says out of the way kid and shoots the arrow. I don't know who any of these people are. I'm watching this and I am going I am sure this is a meaningful scene but I don't understand the meaning because I don't know who the hell they are.

Jill: There's no spoiler here because Leo doesn't know the names of anybody.

Leo: I just told you nothing.

Alex: Did you talk about the English teacher? I think it was a English teacher or History teacher he was having trouble with his class paying attention, so they got out of hand. So he just started writing down who dies in Game of Thrones.

Leo: Oh that's cruel, he should be fired.

Alex: You know what it solved that problem very quickly.

Leo: Long list too.

Alex: He would start with the ones they knew, but then he would keep on going. Because he had already read the whole book.

Leo: They have never done nothing this season to make that better, I can tell you right now. Alright we are going to take a break. No more spoilers.

Alex: Any more questions.

Leo: I actually got up out of bed last Sunday night because I hadn't watched Game of Thrones or Silicon Valley and I started seeing Tweets. I thought this is bad. So I actually got up and went and watched them. Because I knew there is no way I am going to keep my head clear so I better watch it. Terrible teacher that is cruel.

Alex: I just thought well played.

Leo: I know there is a lot to watch on TV and off. But if you missed any of the great stuff we did this week on TWIT we have taken it and we have made an 8 minute compendium of the best of TWIT, take a look.

Ad: Previously on TWIT, Tech News Today: Mike Eglin- Ario takes its case to the Supreme Court next week but first the company is throwing itself on the mercy of the public. Protect my Antenna.org is part of that companies PR push to convince the world that its merely renting antenna's not stealing content. Marketing Mavericks: John Koetsier- What we really see with developers who are successful at making more than 100,000 dollars a month, are using between 4 and 10 monetizations per gain. TWIT live specials: Leo Laporte- I thought it would be kind of a good thing given all the attention to Heart Bleed and the need for people to change their passwords. To talk about the use of a password vault. How you set it up, how you use it, why it’s a good idea. Giz Wiz: Chad-The Beer Belly is a way to conceal and and hold liquid, in a fake belly. It makes you look like your fat. Oh my word I would not walk around the block with it hanging down like that. I already have a beer belly so I don't need one. TWIT it's where your brain and tech meet.

Leo: Are you still wearing that Beer Belly, Chad?

Chad: All the time.

Leo: I thought you had gained a little weight. I am really glad you ordered that. I've wanted to order one of those for a long time, ever since I saw it on TV.

Chad: It’s in my office if you want to keep it.

Leo: Mike Elgin is in charge of our news operation he does TNT, Tech News Today Monday through Friday, 10a.m. Pacific, 1p.m. Eastern time, 1700 UTC. Mike what are we looking at this week?

Mike Elgin: Coming up this week, a whole lot of earnings reports, Apple, Qualcom and Facebook report earnings on Wednesday the 23rd. Microsoft, Verizon and Amazon are up next on Thursday the 24th. Back to you Leo.

Leo: We'll be watching with interest. Somebody in the chatroom said very kindly, I have no more room for a beer belly, Chad. That space is currently occupied.

Chad: They need to make a Beer 2nd Belly or maybe.

Leo: You can have double chins, you could have a double belly.

Chad: Yeah a beer chin.

Leo: Hey I hope you are all having a happy Easter. I don't know if you celebrate Easter. But if you are in the group of people that do, I hope you had a happy Easter and the Easter bunny was kind to you. We had a very good, I didn't get it in the promo but I wanted to mention it. This episode in This Week in Law episode 255 the guest and I am going to try and get him on Triangulation, James Barrett. He has written a book called Our Final Invention. It is well worth watching the first 45 minutes, actually watch the whole show. But the first 45 minutes they talk about Our Final Invention. Basically it is artificial intelligence and the end of the human era. We've talked a lot about this in the last few episodes of Triangulation. The idea that in as little as a decade many have said this AI could match and then surpass human intelligence. We had Jeff Hawkins on founder of Palm a couple of episodes ago. He's the guy who said he is working on a new kind of artificial intelligence. In fact he is making hardware and software that works the way our brains do. I said, are you worried? He said don't worry it’s not going to be a problem, machines are going to take over as long as you don't let them replicate. If you let them replicate, all bets are off. What Barrett has been saying is okay don't you think with so many people and machines around the world. Somebody is going to let machines make machines and then it is all over.

Alex: We already have machines making our cars. They just aren't making each other yet.

Leo: Our final invention, the heedless pursuit of advanced artificial intelligence there is nothing you can do about it, it is too late.

Alex: You know what my big thing is?

Leo: What are you worried about?

Alex: I think we are more likely to virtualize our world into a big giant video game that we lock into. Than we are to have machines take over this world.

Leo: How do you know that hasn't already happened?

Alex: I know.

Leo: Mind blown.

Chad: One more bit of promo.

Leo: More!? Oh let’s not forget our t-shirt.

Alex: Oh a new t-shirt, I really like that.

Leo: This is our new one. Now what we do, these are limited time only, we only allow you to buy these for a month. This is our spring 2014 t-shirt. Again a wonderful design from our 99 design team. 99 designers. There is a tank, we have woman's sizes as well, so we have a woman's tank. We need to get 500 before we will even begin to think about printing these. So right now only 106 sold. Teespring.com/twit I think these are very nice, I really like these. By the way the hoodies are starting to arrive. People are loving the hoodies. So thank you for everyone who bought one. Once these are sold out we don't make them anymore, that's it. We break the mold, we shoot the designer.

Alex: Those guys at 99 designs thought this is great I got paid for this, then some guy shows up at the door with 22.

Leo: I am sorry you will never make another design again. Actually they used to do that in the middle ages, I remember going to Prague, they have a beautiful in old town Prague. A beautiful, very elaborate clock made in the middle ages that people come out on the hour, they dance and do all sorts of stuff. The king who commissioned it didn't want another one made so he blinded the inventor. That's cold. That's terrible. I am a little worried. Remember I did a review of this, I bought this LaCie little big disk. Love it, very fast SSD drive for my new Macpro. Apparently the French hardware company which is now a Seagate subsidiary says virtually everyone who shopped on LaCie's website for the last year is at risk. A year-long credit card breech on one of them. But how could this happen for a year? They were informed about the breech March 19th by the FBI. The think all transactions between March 27th, 2013 and March 10th 2014 were affected. Brian Cribs actually broke this on Cribs own security blog last month. He was the guy who discovered it. It's a group of hackers that have broken into dozens of online stores that use Cold fusion. It is a security flaw they found in Adobe Coldfusion is very popular in online commerce. Adobe itself of course had the similar problem.

Alex: I think this is the new generation of malware of going after, instead of trying to hack your computer, it is much more efficient to hack a server that has 3 million points of data.

Jill: So about a year or 2 ago I met with this company, I am not going to say the companies name because I am not sure that they are still in business. But they were coming up with a business solution for handling company credit cards, essentially. What they did was they issued to each employee a unique card that could then generate new unique 16 digit numbers. So that they could restrict how and how much each employee spent. So imagine that you went to make a purchase online and you had a unique code that was only good for 50 dollars and once you used it, it was gone forever.

Leo: It's a great idea.

Jill: It is, why aren't we doing it? It is kind of simple.

Leo: Discover and American Express will give you one time numbers. You should ask your credit card company. Some card companies do this, where you call up and you say I want a one-time number. They will generate a number for you either on the website or over the phone. You use and there are 2 choices, you can use one that is merchant restricted, so this will only be used at Amazon or you can have one that can be only used once and then it’s no good anymore. That's a great idea.

Jill: It is, it’s got to be more convenient than that though.

Leo: Yeah it's too hard, you’re not going to do it. Chip in pin is coming in the next year. So we will get a little more secure on our credit cards.

Alex: When I am in Europe I always feel like I am like a caveman. They always look at me like what’s your pin, slide it in.

Leo: Oh right your American.

Alex: Then there is a discussion of how to deal with the American and his crazy card.

Leo: I used my credit card on the Hurtigruten in Norway. The guy practically patted my head. He said no it's going to be okay. He said oh your American I didn't realize. Wow! Let's take a break when we come back Maglev trains for all. I just like that, that is a good tease.

Alex: Love that.

Leo: Everybody and you will get a maglev train and you. Our show brought to you by Carbonite.

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Alex: Yes Leo. From Hawaii cop in Washington, U.S.: What is Google going to do with the end of Google voice?

Leo: So this is something that is coming up and I don't think it’s the end of Google Voice. God I pray that it’s not. But March 15th wait was it the 15th that doesn't sound right.

Alex: March 18th or May 18th .

Leo: Wait a minute we are in April now. Maybe May 15th they have announced they are going to merge Voice with Hang outs. Google has been doing this all along, right. They took Google Talk and made it part of Hang outs. The concern, nobody knows, some features may get swallowed in the merger. If they do I will be very disappointed. Remember Google bought grand central at Google voice and its insanely useful for free. You use it right?

Alex: I mostly just use Hang outs. I don't talk to people.

Jill: Sometimes I give out a Google voice number if I am working with a PR contact and they really, really want a phone number. I am a little hesitant to give out my personal phone so I give them my Google Voice number. I know I can get text.

Leo: Control it.

Jill: I can control it and its free.

Dan: I think within Hang outs you can already add a phone number to the Hang out which seem to be quietly rolled out. I would imagine this is a similar inbound outbound routing feature.

Leo: It is bad for people like me who use O be high or talk a tone. There are a number of services, I use both this is how I know, that tie to Google voice. So I for instance can place phone calls on my iPad which is amazing. My iPad mini is big for a phone but I always wanted phone capability. If someone calls my Google Voice number, rings my iPad among all the other devices. Using Talk a Tone which is a free premium service. I get text messages, Google Voice text message, I get phone calls, I can answer the phone. It's awesome. But that's not going to work after May 15th, O Be high the same thing.

Dan: I bet it will be integrated though. It’s working now. You can already do that now in add phones and remove phones. So I imagine it will just be integrated.

Leo: Talk a tone does something a little weird as does O be high. I think they integrate through Google chat, they do something weird. But they said after May 15th talk a tone will not work with Google Voice there are no exceptions. But you can transition to a new account I guess move your voice number. But that means that it’s not going to be Google Voice anymore. I don't care about Talk a tone, I want Google Voice. This is just a service that worked with Google Voice.

Alex: I think what is probably missing in the Hang out app in general is, when I am oversees I make all almost all my calls with Apple face time audio. I don't need to do it video I just want to talk to people. I feel like that is one thing you don't have, Hang Outs you can add a number but you can't just do a voice call. I think that is something that I would love to see. Obviously we do a lot of Hang outs so I use the Hang out app a lot.

Leo: But one thing that is going away is XMPP and that is what both Talk a tone and O Be High use.

Dan: Its jabber right?

Leo: Yeah its jabber, its Google Talk was the underlying service. They killed Talk, they kept XMPP going for a little longer. But that's over May 15th. I guess maybe this is Google's plan, this cuts off these 3rd party services riding on top of voice. I would love to see Hang Outs add some features like. One of the reasons our audience is particularly interested, I've been pushing O Be High for a long time. This was a great deal. You could buy a 40 dollar hardware device, you get a land line phone that uses your Google voice. It was really awesome. But you might as well toss it now.

Alex: I am finding myself, I can barely remember my number. I had to give a number you know on an international flight, for my wife. It took me a little while to come up with my wife's phone number now. I just know her as whatever I say, I haven't dialed her number for a long time. I think we are a decade away from not having phone numbers. I don't think we are really going to do this for much longer.

Leo: I don't mind having one number for the rest of my life.

Alex: I don't think it is going to be a number.

Jill: Your stamp I.D.

Leo: You have to have an I.D. That's unique.

Dan: Unique.

Alex: But I think we are going to have like our Skype ID or

Leo: Phone numbers work so well though because everyone in the world has a unique phone number.

Alex: But I pick my numbers now, my Android phone is a Washington D.C. Phone number because that's our other office. But as for me that whole global needing to be specific somewhere doesn't really mean anything anymore. I think we are all, how to contact me is what's important. I like the fact that without a number I control completely who can call me, who can't call me, who can. The big problem with a lot of these right now is the voice solutions don't actually manage bandwidth very well. That's the biggest problem I have oversees is they try to make it really high quality whether it’s Go to Meeting or Apple Face Time audio or any of these other ones. They try to use up bandwidth, Skype even. Whereas what you really need is to be able to say I want low bandwidth, I don't want use more than 8K a second. You make it phone and then I can get a good solid connection.

Dan: You know what this could be very good for are companies like Twillio provided that type of, they do the infrastructure. So this will be good, 3rd party developers will be fine. No it won't be Google Voice but it could be that 3rd party developers will come up with Twillio and that kinds of stuff.

Leo: I agree and there are lots of good choices.

Alex: We use Team Speed for a bunch of our.

Dan: Yeah, right, right.

Alex: It has a really low bandwidth impact.

Leo: But that's not free. We have been lucky because we had free.

Alex: Exactly, we have it, we just put up our own server.

Leo: I don't want to be Chicken Little, I don't know what's going to happen. This is merely something Google said they were going to deprecate years ago, well almost a year ago for XMPP. I am not saying bad things are going to happen, I just want to put a work out to anybody. Google Voice is hellaciously useful. Even if Alex doesn't want to use it, I want to use it.

Dan: Within Hang outs you can toggle to voice. In fact I did that yesterday with my Fit Bit as I was walking through town. You do have to turn the within Hang outs the no video thing. Which is not quite a hack and it's fine. But what that is, is just toggling everything over to voice and then all of a sudden voice really improves. So it’s a user interface thing that Google obviously does to push you into video. But it is just as effective to send voice.

Alex: Yeah, no it is, I just think that for me I use it so often. If it was there I would never call anyone in my company again. You know I would be constantly using that as the phone. That would be it. That is the issue. What I love about Hang outs in general is like for instance I can have text conversations, video conversations and I can do it on my laptop, on my iPad, on my iPhone all those are continuous between any of those and I don't have to think about it. It is just a much better solution. My disclaimer is of course we do 300 Hang outs a year and a lot of them are for Google. But we like it a lot.

Leo: I think the good news is that it has been somewhat transparent this move from Voice to Hang outs. So, so far so good. No I use Hang outs all the time. I make calls with Hang outs all the time.

Alex: You have What's app if you want to.

Leo: They are going to add phone by the way.

Alex: I know. The problem with What's app is it is attached to one of my phone numbers. I want it attached to all of my phone numbers. That's the problem with it. I use What's app because we have a lot of our partners in South America and Africa use it. So to contact them I am using What's app but the problem is it limits me to one device.

Leo: Pono got funded. I just like saying that. Pono got funded.

Alex: By everybody.

Leo: To the tune of 6 million. Pono is Neil Young's high Bit

Alex: Are you going to get one?

Leo: Of course I am. High Bit Ray music player. It looks like a triangular Ipod. I ordered one for 400 bucks. The kick starter has now closed. They were asking for 800,000 and they raised 6.2 million. There is some question however over whether this is snake oil because the premise is that even uncompressed CD quality audio 44.1000 KH.

Alex: They aren't doing just 44.1 they are doing much higher than that aren't they?

Leo: Well cd's and 16 bit resolution is not enough. Your losing music. Golden eared people, I talked to Joe Walsh. He was on A.M nation a little while ago and I said what do you record at, record master at? He said 44.1 24 bit. He said anything more with a higher sample rate the file just gets too big. My whole thing is you can hear the difference.

Alex: So for recording the acquisition medium I think that's crazy to be honest with you.

Leo: Use higher resolutions.

Alex: The thing is when you record, like I had one I accidentally recorded 40 DB off but I recorded it at a 192. When I scaled it up, there was enough information there that it sounded just fine.

Leo: So you recorded, what do you prefer to record at?

Alex: Well for voice stuff I am still doing 44.1. If we are doing music I record at 192.

Leo: So this player will play 192,000 H by 24 bits. That is a lot of detail.

Alex: The big thing is what you’re committing to in that player though is an entirely different scale of headphone and infrastructure.

Leo: It has a very good quality deck.

Alex: Or you will not hear it. But you definitely hear at 44.1. What I will say is at 44.1 you can definitely hear it. What your hearing is when the song is ending and the high tones. You'll hear quantization. Basically when you see blocking on Youtube it's like that.

Leo: So this is not Golden Ears product this is going to be something that people are going to be happy they bought.

Alex: I think the people who are buying it are definitely going to be people who can hear that and are willing to invest. If you take your little earphones that.

Leo: Yeah you’re not going to want to put your iPhone earphones in this of course.

Alex: The commitment is you’re going to spend less that 3 to 500 dollars on headphones you’re not going to hear any difference. So that is the other thing you need to remember is that your buying this but then you are going to have to invest in headphones that can hear it. The ones you are really going to hear it on are these really expensive air ones that are 1,000 to 2,000 dollars each. You're definitely going to hear the difference.

Leo: Even if it is because you spent so much money.

Alex: People spend, but you definitely can hear it. I used to be a stereo filer a long time ago and I could spend a lot of money on it.

Leo: By the way these will not be compressed, well they will be compressed but with loss less compression. They will be stored in Flak. No DRM which I like. That is brave of the music industry. The companies that will make albums available and master quality albums with no copy protection are really saying we trust you.

Alex: Well I think DRM is...

Leo: It's dead.

Alex: For music it's over.

Leo: So I am happy. I look forward to this.

Dan: Do they come with a 2 inch tape deck?

Alex: That would be awesome.

Leo: Real to Real, 32 RPM.

Dan: I did that in Catati, I cut the Price Son. I cut 2 inch tape with razors.

Leo: Was it Eight Track?

Dan: It was bajillion.

Leo: A bajillion track.

Dan: A bajillion track. No it wasn't eight track.

Alex: Mine was only a quarter inch. I am really glad I was in radio long enough to have had to cut quarter inch tape where a crossvade was 45 degrees and a cut was 90 degrees. That was good times.

Dan: Bloody fingers, man.

Leo: So Jill they are talking about this idea that you used to record on a magnetic medium.

Alex: Cutting into the beat was like this.

Dan: Carts, do you remember carts?

Leo: Carts, oh yeah. We are old radio guys, I apologize Jill. Every radio station had a little template that you, an aluminum block that you would cut on. They would have razor blades all over the place. Very handy when you wanted coke you had the razor blade and then we used a grease pencil. So you would mark it and then you would slice it. Look at that.

Alex: There it is.

Leo: There it is ladies and gentleman.

Alex: Oh my God let me touch it. I haven't touched it in so long. All your commercials would be on carts and you would pop the cart.

Leo: Music too in some crap stations like the ones I worked at. These were basically eight tracks except they only had one track. They had a cue tone at the beginning so you would always cue up back to it. Slam it in, push play.

Dan: It was satisfying.

Alex: That's how you got your listeners too. So if you had someone call in you would slam one of those in and hit record. Talk to them on the phone and make fun of them and then put it back in and play it for everybody.

Leo: Wow this is the real deal, Fidela Pack Master Cart.

Alex: That is so awesome. I miss those days.

Leo: Lots of radio stations ran with these. It's sad because it gets in your head. I think this means that I have Alzheimers. I can remember the Cart numbers of songs. Like Kenny Rogers the Gambler, 1938. That was the number you had to file it.

Alex: After 11 CD service was 134.

Leo: You remember too.

Alex: Because you grab it all the time.

Leo: I would always get the Gambler. I would always get that one. “You have to know when to hold 'em, Know when to fold 'em” Oh I did mention maglev, so let's mention briefly then Popular Science article. The company in Japan that owns the rights to Maglev trains says we will give the technology to the United States for free. J. R. Torche says it will not charge the U.S. To license proprietary Maglev technology. It allows the trains to hover 4 inches above tracks and travel at speeds of 310 miles per hour. This will never fly in the U.S.

Alex: We're really missing out too.

Leo: I know.

Jill: We barely have trains as it is.

Leo: Have you ever ridden on a Maglev?

Jill: No.

Leo: Like a bullet train.

Alex: It wasn't a Maglev. When we do work in Tokyo we always go up to outside Onogino and there is a high speed train. I don't know if it is a Maglev but it is a really fast, probably 180 to 200 miles an hour. It is awesome. Every time I am on it I am just like I cannot believe we do not have these. People are bringing little things to eat.

Jill: It is comfortable.

Alex: I take Amtrak all the time up between D.C. And New York.

Leo: Well that's the plan. They want to build a 300 mile an hour from New York to D.C. It would make the trip in 40 minutes.

Alex: No way.

Leo: I am sorry, in an hour. New York to D.C. In an hour.

Alex: Yeah because like now it takes 2 hours and 45 minutes going to New York to D.C.

Jill: That is the Esella. The regular Amtrak is still close to 4 hours.

Leo: You know I took an Esella once and because the tracks are so crappy, half the time it is going slow.

Dan: Yeah, you can't go fast.

Leo: You can't go fast.

Alex: But it is still 2 hours and 45 minutes. You save that extra hour and 15.

Dan: The infrastructure is terrible. They are running on the same infrastructure and the same routes. So there are traffic issues and it becomes very narrow. Terrible infrastructure.

Leo: So Amtrak right now is trying to fix up Union station in Washington D.C.

Alex: I would rather them spend money on a tracks.

Leo: Do you know what the bill for that is? 7.5 billion dollars.

Alex: I would spend more money on the tracks. The station there is fine.

Leo: Who cares. It could be a dumpy station, let’s get good tracks.

Alex: Just keep the birds out of it.

Leo: It's expensive to build Maglev's but at least we won't have to pay licensing fees. And True Blood is true. This is actually a very big story. Artificial blood Wel Cums Trust funded stem cell research had produced red blood cells fit for transfusion. Paving the way for mass production of artificial bloods in factories. This is in the UK that is why it has a strange name, Wel Cums Trust. Limitless supply of type O blood free of disease compatible with all patience. Currently it cost about 120 pounds to transfuse a single unit of blood. If you could actually manufacture blood using this technique it would be a lot cheaper. So this is very exciting news. This could be a big break through. And it means the Vampires, you can come out of the closet. Come on now guys it’s okay we've got blood for you. Alright I think I am going to wrap it up after that bad joke. I have no reason to go on. Anything else, no I am just looking. Hey Jill, I want to thank you for coming all the way out here.

Jill: Oh thank you it was my pleasure.

Leo: Next time, Dan you've got to come all the way out here. We invite all our New Yorkers to come out. It's really nice to have you. Dan Patterson what are you working on next? Danpatterson.com of course.

Dan: Yeah so I just got back from this trip to Cairo where we spent several weeks training Sudanese human rights activist how to use mobile devices and encryption security and story telling tactics on Android devices. So what's next is managing the content that comes out of places like Darphoric, Cortaphin, parts of Sudan very interesting places within Sudan. Then after that I might have just been cast on a reality show.

 Leo: What?!

Dan: Yeah we'll see.

Leo: About what? Silicon Valley?

Dan: That is my next, I have not signed anything. It involves desert islands and surviving.

Leo: No, well I am rooting for you.

Dan: Oh my God. We will see.

Leo: That's exciting. When will you know?

Dan: I know now. We are just talking about timing and money.

Leo: Do they pay you to do stuff like that?

Dan: Well they do, how much we will see.

Leo: So you are negotiating that.

Dan: Yeah, yeah we're chattering.

Leo: Do you say things like I will not eat bugs.

Dan: Yeah that's what we are talking about. Like A. I won't do anything that is embarrassing to my friends, family and colleagues. A career.

Leo: Your allowed to stipulate that or is that something they've fought you over. No we want you to embarrass you friends and family.

Dan: Nobody has pushed back yet. But safety is in there too.

Leo: Let me ask one question, are you going to be naked in this show?

Dan: I, No, No nudity.

Leo: OK because there is one.

Alex: That is the craziest.

Leo: I was shocked. I am tune in around on the dial, I immediately erased the channel. Its the Discovery Channel. That's it your dead to me.

Dan: Yeah right.

Leo: Naked and Afraid it is the worst think I have seen in my life. They cover up the naughty bits so what is the point. You know their naked but you can't see that they are naked, I don't understand it. Is there a naked and afraid subscription model where they don't cover up the naughty bits?

Dan: Let's hope not.

Leo: Truthfully the people they got I don't want to see the naughty bits.

Alex: Isn't that always the case?

Leo: Now Dan do you have to any tattoos, anything you want to tell us about?

Dan: Yeah covered in ink. Yeah we'll see.

Leo: He is sleeved on both sides.

Dan: Sleeved and Clean.

Leo: So that's exciting. How do you get, do you have an agent who shops you around?

Dan: You know this has been in progress for about a year, so no not yet and I honestly hope it doesn't come down to that. Because I love the life that I live covering geeky stuff.

Leo: So you really have mixed feelings about agreeing to do this.

Dan: Yeah yeah I mean it really I am very appreciative of the opportunity to do this. It sounds like it could be very interesting. But again I love the life that I live and I love what I get to do. If they want to do a reality show about a guy who goes to Africa and covers stuff, I am all in for that.

Leo: Yeah but they don't.

Dan: Yeah like you said with this other show. I am not going to do anything that will embarrass my friends or family or be professionally limiting. Bush Wood's show now that is cool.

Leo: Did he get renewed yet? I know they are trying to get him renewed.

Dan: Sometimes he is naked and afraid.

Leo: Jill Duffey, great to have you. Where can we find your work, PC magazine I guess.

Jill: pcmagazine.comget/organized. I have a new get organized e-Kindle single coming out next month about travel. So if you are a disorganized travel person. Don't know what size stuff to book, don't know how to plan, don't know how to budget. Kindle single coming out next month.

Leo: I need that. I am glad you told me this at the end of the show because I would have been very nervous sitting next to you. Because I am so disorganized. I feel like your judging me right now.

Jill: I am not judging. I am here to help. You know I read this book called Lot of love. It really about to help people not to shame them about their messy digital lives.

Leo: Wine note taking for beginners. This is good.

Alex: I am a mess in that.

Jill: Oh I have talked to some great people for that.

Alex: I haven't figured out how to do that well.

Jill: The excu7tive editor of Wine Spectator spoke to me for that. He told me a whole bunch of stuff I never would have thought of on my own.

Leo: I use Corks, COR.KZ and cellartracker.com. Highly recommend cellartracker.com. You have a data base of all your wines. They tell you it's time to drink.

Alex: Does anyone let you take a picture of the wine glass?

Leo: Yes.

Jill: Well the label, you want the label.

Alex: That's what I want. I want to take a picture of the thing and then have it tell me automatically what the wine spectator is...

Jill: Most of them do that, yeah.

Alex: I tried, maybe too long ago and then gave up. It's not going to be useful until I can walk into the store and take pictures. Drives me crazy when they don't give me the rating because I'm not very smart.

Jill: Yeah you need professional guidance.

Leo: None of them are perfect. Frankly they don't do a great job. But hey at least you can do it. The book is going to be out, when next month?

Jill: Next month, middle of May.

Leo: Come back and you can plug it then. Amazon single kind of thing?

Jill: Kindle Single.

Leo: Kindle Single. 99 cents?

Jill: 2.99 I think what we are going for. It's high quality stuff.

Leo: I was friends with the old editor in chief of Wine Spector as a matter of fact. I used to do a cooking show with him. Of all things, Harvey, I can't remember his last name. Alex Lindsay anything you want to plug? Everything you do is top secret.

Alex: I am going to do more of these Flash Ask Alex's if you want to. As we keep on experimenting with this question system. I think the question system went really well.

Leo: Did we get any? I didn't ask you enough about questions.

Alex: So we had about 300 people using it. Which was, I really appreciate everybody who was willing to be part of our little experiment. We've been doing lots of little ones and we were like well can it really handle a large audience. I think we got a lot of great suggestions. So as we keep on developing it I will keep on doing some Ask Alex's so you'll probably see more of that. So if you follow me on Twitter which is just Alex Linday or Google Plus. Follow the one with my picture. There is one without my picture, that is my account but I don't use it.

Leo: So any last questions?

Alex: The last one which was particularly highly voted was from Will D in Washington D.C. : He said should software companies stop supporting older versions if the upgrade is free?

Leo: Yes, you know why? Because not everybody wants to update. There are reasons not to update. In fact if your using Windows 8 in business it has not yet been vetted for update 1.

Alex: I don't even have Mavericks yet. It broke some of our hardware.

Leo: So yes they should be required to support it because not everybody can upgrade even if it's free. It’s not that it cost money not everybody can do it. When was get organized day? How did I miss that?

Jill: Get organized day, that has free cone day.

Leo: Free cone day. Leave no hand unconed.

Jill: Ben and Jerry's gives out free scoops once a year. My favorite day.

Leo: See if you’re really organized you don't miss stuff like that. That was April 8th and I missed it. Man I got to start reading your column. Thank you everybody for joining us. We do TWIT Sunday afternoon's even on Holiday's like Easter at 3p.m. Pacific, 6 p.m. Eastern, 2200 UTC on twit.tv Watch live, you can ask questions. I think we should keep using that. I think it is a slow start this time because we've never used it before, we didn't tell anybody ahead of time. But can we keep using that?

Alex: Sure absolutely.

Leo: Because I like the idea of being able to take questions.

Alex: Yeah we will integrate it better.

Leo: We will integrate it into the flow of the show. That's why you want to watch live because we like that interaction. If you can't watch live, of course we make on demand audio available and video too after the fact on our website twit.tv and wherever they aggregate netcasts like Itunes, the Xbox music store, Dog catcher and Instacast and pocketcast and all them. There are a lot of casts apps now. Thanks for being here. Did I do everything, Chad? Did I thank you Chad Johnson underpaid employee, Chad Johnson. Didn't you just get a raise, am I wrong?

Chad: I didn't hear of that.

Leo: Well I'll go talk to Lisa and we'll get you a raise.

Chad: I think you spilled the beans, I think it was going to be a surprise.

Leo: It was a surprise, for an Easter surprise. I hid it in an egg somewhere in the back yard, go look for it. Thank you Chad, thank you everybody we will see you next time. Another TWIT is in the can. Happy Easter everybody! There is a little tradition going on here in the studio of applauding after shows and really, really it’s too much. No, no please thank you. Thank you very much.