YATS 51: Aviators

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“It tells me nothing except it fixes bugs.”

Welcome to episode 51 of Yet Another Tech Show. This is your podcast featuring tech evangelists Mat Lee, Mike Rothman, Larry Press and myself Ant Pruitt. We’re here to bring you informative, yet entertaining tech discussions. This week we’re joined by Chris Miller and Richard Hay as guests. Thank you to both of them for coming out. Be sure to click their names to see their social connections.

Ads in your social media is bound to go to a new level. Facebook is now proposing an autoplay video ad strategy in your feed. Interested parties will have to pay approximately $1 million to promote products. How will this be accepted by the beloved Facebook users? What happens is a full screen video ad will play and basically intrude on your typical Facebook flow. Twitter, on the other hand, will be using video ads as well, but there’s a slight difference. The video will appear in a tweet.

As we were recording, sad news came from west Texas with the fertilizer plant accident. The YATS Crew hopes for nothing but the best for those involved and assisting with the tragedy. On a related note, we discuss how online news and social media is an extremely quick way to get breaking news. Granted, in some cases the news source can be wrong.

Why are manufacturers putting out products with security vulnerabilities? Software, and even your typical WiFi router has issues with security. It has been well known that wireless routers have holes which can be exploited. Mat shares a story about wireless routers lack of security and how the popular ones are easy to hack.

Microsoft is now putting two factor authentication on its software packages. It’s about time Microsoft. It will use an authenticator app. Google and Apple has shown us how useful this feature can be in protecting your products from those attempting to gather your information across your ecosystem of choice.

The Google Glass explorer editions are now getting into people’s hands. Robert Scoble received one and shares his thoughts in an audio file. As mentioned in several previous episodes, version one will be quite a mess. Later versions just might be the coolest tech we’ve seen. Time will tell.

The ACLU is now stepping in to look at the Android security issues. Who’s at fault here? The OEM’s or the cell carriers? We have an interesting discussion around the issue. Operating system versions are blocked from consumers from time to time by the cell carriers. Why are the blocked? Security or other reasons such as bloatware?

Larry posted on his blog a study around open data and economics. It details how analysis that are open for further research or fact tracking can be a good thing. Especially when looking at complex issues such as economic studies. If the data is closed, many analysis presented to boards, committees or even consumers would just be opinions. This is basically forcing researchers to “show their work.”

Ever sat down and wondered how much government money was wisely spent? Probably not. It just may anger most of us. Larry shared a list of top 10 Presidential science initiatives. This is a really good list. The government invested in the wonder internet we love. Was that a good investment? In a word… YES. Sure we all have may think the government should stay out of certain things, but we have to give credit when its due if it’s going to produce useful products and technology to be used for decades on in.

Thank you for joining us this week on Yet Another Tech Show. Make sure to share our show with your social media connections. Find us on Google Plus in our Yet Another Tech Show community as well as on Facebook and Twitter. Subscribe to us via RSS and also in iTunes and Stitcher. Be sure to give us a rating and comment. It’s greatly appreciated it. Thanks for listening, everyone!

Check out the hangout video below. If you want to watch us live, check out YATS tv Wednesday nights.