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“We bought it because we needed a better name.”
O. . .M. . .G. We have completed 100 episodes of YATS! It’s Yet Another Tech Show with Mat Lee, Larry Press, Mike Rothman and myself I’m Ant Pruitt. Thanks for taking a listen of our podcast. Thank you for sharing it with others. This is the technology podcast which aims to bring you interesting tech discussions, but it you will also be entertained. We have fun on this show. This episode we’re joined by our friends from Attack of the Androids. Mr. Eric Finkenbiner and Mr. Nick Carroll joins us. Be sure to click on their social profiles and follow them. Ok, click download up top and check out this week’s show notes for your enjoyment.
Fresh off of IO, Google has officially acquired Songza for approximately $39 million. None of us were familiar with Sonza so we dug into the service a little more. Songza is music service that offers curated playlists based on your moods. Sounds somewhat familiar to other music streaming services such as Spotify. We discuss the feasibility behind this acquisition. How can Google use this service to enhance its existing music service.
Image Credit: Ant Pruitt
Microsoft. . .er uh. . .Nokia. . .launched a new Android smartphone. The Nokia X. Did you hear about it? What is the reason for this move by Nokia and Microsoft? Microsoft owns a decent smartphone operating system within Windows Phone, so jumping into an Android market comes off an peculiar.
From a cross-platform compatibility, having the Office Suite work with multiple mobile platforms can be an advantage for Microsoft from a revenue standpoint. We look at this as well as the last few discussions on the Surface Pro3. This also lead us into thoughts around the push Google is making towards emerging markets for getting more smartphone phones to consumers. Did you notice that the “lower end” phones from Google to emerging markets have better quality sepcs than that of the Nokia X. C’mon, Microsoft!
Last week we chatted about the Chromebook, today Eric brought the Chromebase to our attention. The Chromebase is a ChromeOS computer with the form-factor of an all-in-one desktop computer. It comes with a 22-inch IPS 1080p monitor with a keyboard and mouse. Similar to the Apple iMac computer. The pricing is great, but is this something consumers wants in their households? The Chromebase brings an interesting debate for home computing as it isn’t the typical Windows computer nor the higher end iMac. Is the Chromebook and Chromebase going to shift people away from tablets? These devices are capable of pretty much the same thing tablets can do.
Image Credit: Amazon
Facebook continues to give you a reason to trust them. Not! Facebook performed research regarding the moods of its users. Over 600,000 users were slyly fed stories in their news feed that were sad and not so cheerful. The test was to see if users would then post sad or downing posts of their own as a result of the previously viewed sad story. It was an interesting project, but executed poorly regarding the best interests of users.
Word on the street is Eric Schmidt made a visit to Cuba. Yes. Cuba. Somehow he was able to get there to further discuss the internet connectivity around the globe and particularly in Cuba. What is up his sleeve? is there plans to further connect Cuba more efficiently to the rest of the world? Larry shares more on his blog about this as he’s done a lot of research on the connectivity issues of Cuba.
I want to go to Stockholm. Why? Because it is touted as being one of the best cities for the internet in the world. So many great wholesale deals are in place allowing for speedy and reliable internet connections as Larry explains. What’s fascinating about this is it’s based on a competition-neutral infrastructure.
Lastly we discuss the state of Massachusetts issues a ruling that criminal suspects must now decrypt the data on a seized computer. What’s odd is supposedly the suspect said the files law enforcement was looking for was on the computer. Since this statement was made, he was forced to give up the decrypted data. What if he hadn’t mentioned this data was on the computer. What about the fifth amendment right?
That’s it for this week’s show. We truly appreciate the support you all have shown over these 100 episodes of Yet Another Tech Show. It’s been a fun ride and we look forward to sharing more informative and entertaining tech discussions. Stay tuned, subscribe and be sure to share with your friends!
Check out the hangout video below. If you want to watch us live, check out YATS tv Wednesday nights.
