DOTA2 Purse Passes 34 Million, Malware Infected Phones Ship to Africa, Feds Prevent Corporate Ransom

Sucks

Y’all, it’s that last Thursday before school starts which means the Mapp household is about to ride the crazy train again. Here’s another week of tech talk with Mark Starling and the First News 570 crew. Apple becomes the most valuable company in the world, IE prepares for retirement, and Siri could let you know if you’re incapable of driving. You can listen to Mark and I point and laugh while talking about the wild and crazy technology world every Thursday morning, LIVE at 6:43am Eastern.

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Microsoft Duo Coming Soon, Lyft and Uber Try Their Pullout Game, and Charter Wants to Cap Your Data

Duality in Microsoft

For those that care, I am COVID free. It’s another Thursday which means another week of tech talk with Mark Starling and the First News 570 crew. Microsoft announces a delivery date for the Surface Duo, Lyft and Uber threaten to stop sharing rides in California, and Charter Communications want to impose new data caps on your Al Gore, God ge’en Internet. You can listen to Mark and I point and laugh while talking about the wild and crazy technology world every Thursday morning, LIVE at 6:43am Eastern.

DUO IS COMING SOON AND WILL WANTS ONE!

Folding devices might be here to stay. Yesterday, Microsoft unfurled news about its latest Surface device, the Duo. The Duo is an Android powered Surface Phone that folds in half like a little book. The device is reportedly super thin, and is part tablet, part phone, all sexy. The device has two 5.6in AMOLED screens that give you an 8.1 inch display. A lot of talk is being made about the price, the Duo clocks in at $1,400 which is just as much as a single screen and fully tricked out iPhone Max 11. You can drag content, watch a movie while working on a spreadsheet, or read a book while doing your taxes. The new device comes on September 10th, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it fares. Pre-order today.

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EX-GOOGLE EXECUTIVE SENTENCED TO JAIL, SAMSUNG ANNOUNCES NEW DEVICES, AND THE NSA ISSUES A PRIVACY ADVISORY

Alright, y’all!! We’ve been through COVID-19 since mid-March and we’re winding down the last few weeks of summer. Alas, I had planned an amazing summer this summer, and not it’s gone. BUT, It’s another Thursday which means another week of tech talk with Mark Starling and the First News 570 crew. This week…NASA shows Perseverance counts, $5 trillion of tech leadership sit before Congress, and the TikTok says other social networks should share. You can listen to Mark and I point and laugh while talking about the wild and crazy technology world every Thursday morning, LIVE at 6:43am Eastern.

Samsung Announces a Plethora of Phones

EX-GOOGLE CAR EXEC SENTENCED, THEN SUES

Man, the people who just go around suing give me the heebie-jeebies. Anthony Levandowski, the former Google-Waymo executive who founded Otto, who then sold to Uber has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for stealing trade secrets and then selling them to Uber. He was originally sentenced to 27 months in jail, but his sentence was dialed down to 18 months. He’ll serve his time later on, because of COVID. According to Levandowski, he’s, “come to terms with what he did,” and wants to apologize to his Google comrades. And for his trouble, he wants to sue Uber for $4.1 billion after the company hadn’t paid up for Otto.

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NASA Perseveres, Tech CEOs Appear Before Congress, and the TikTok Shares Its Algo

It’s another Thursday which means another week of big tech news talk with Mark Starling and the First News 570 crew. This week…NASA shows Perseverance counts, $5 trillion of tech leadership sit before Congress, and the TikTok says other social networks should share. You can listen to Mark and I point and laugh while talking about the wild and crazy technology world every Thursday morning, LIVE at 6:43am Eastern.

I Could Write a Lot of Material From This One Image

TECH HEAD HONCHOS APPEAR BEFORE CONGRESS

The CEOs of Amazon, El Goog, Apple, and Facebook all appeared before Congress yesterday with Jeff Bezos making his first appearance. The stakes, Congress is now scrutinizing these companies because they are being deemed too big to fail. The four companies are worth a combined $5 Trillion, that’s Trillion with a ‘T’ and are considered the Internet’s utilities. While other sectors have struggled during the pandemic, these companies are doing gang busters. Congress is scrutinizing these companies under the guise of anti-trust law, but it’s a lot trickier this time around. The anti-trust laws of the early 20th century were written for consumer protections. It’s hard to understand how consumers need protection when these services are free (Google and Facebook) are fast, easy, and cheap (Amazon), and down right convenient and easy to use (Apple). The stakes are different now, however. These companies punish smaller companies, and Amazon is known to buy companies and then crush their acquisition’s competitors using newly found information. I wouldn’t hold my breath, with need many enterprises in the mix.

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NASA PERSEVERES DURING COVID AND LAUNCHES ITS LARGEST ROVER

This morning, NASA will launch it’s latestest and largest rover, Perseverance at 750 am ET. The Perseverance rover checks in at 1,025 metric tons and is larger than Curiosity the last rover to visit Mars. Perseverance will launch from Cape Canaveral aboard an Atlas V rocket. This rover is carrying a new experiment that will be used to determine if humans can survive on Mars. The experiments will comprise tests to determine if oxygen can be produced from Mars’ CO2 rich environment. It’s exciting seeing NASA continue exploring our local cosmos. I think we should always keep pushing the limits. You can watch the launch on NASA Live.

TIKTOK RESPONDS TO CRITICISM AND SHARES ALGORITHM

After being labeled spyware for the Chinese government by the Senate, The TikTok’s CEO, Kevin Mayer, took to the blogosphere to say that his company isn’t the enemy. Mayer has stated that without TikTok, companies would have fewer choices to advertise their wares, and in a show of good faith, will be sharing their algorithm. (I’m interested) He also called on the other social giants to share their algorithms as well. Again, I won’t hold my breath, and I won’t download their app, but I’ll certainly try to get an invite to TikTok’s Transparency Center.

Batterygate Ends, Celebs Get Got in Bitcoin Scam, and the Senate Wants TikTok Banned

It’s another Thursday, and Mark Starling is back! That means it’s time to talk tech with the First News 570 crew. In this week’s roundup, the Batterygate saga ends with an Apple settlement, a bunch of celebrity Twitter accounts are implicated in a Bitcoin scam, and the US Senate bans TikTok. You can listen to Mark and I point and laugh while talking about the wild and crazy technology world every Thursday morning, LIVE at 6:43am Eastern.

A quick break from the silly world of technology news.

For real, for real people. We can fault leadership for not taking swift and definitive action while COVID-19 was just beginning to make its impact felt on all of us. Now, we have to take our health and safety into our own hands. This week, I’ve read reports of summer camps experiencing C19 outbreaks, cities and towns are re-entering shelter-in-place phases, and schools are pressing the issue of sending kids back to closed in spaces. I know it can sound elitist to talk about working from home, and I fully know that people need to work, but with 1% of our nation’s population having been infected, and 130k people died because of this, we have to operate on our own volition.

For Real, C19 Infection Rates Should Be Trending Downward

Personally, there have been two deaths in our family (they were older) due to covid, one of my software developers and his fiancee’ had contracted and it was touch and go, and I have friends who went on a water park trip, contracted covid, and now have ruined friendships over their behavior.

Wear a mask. Not only for your safety, but for the safety of your neighbors. Avoid large gatherings, get takeout from your favorite restaurants if you want to keep them in business (and tip well). If you want go out, practice social distancing so you decrease the chance of spread to your friends and family. And try to limit your time out and about.

This shit is real.

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