Mark and Michael were somewhat amused but concerned, whilst remaining calm, with Malcolm Turnbull describing the latest copyright motivated Internet filter as not being a filter. In a case of ‘it’s not raining until I tell you it’s raining‘ Turnbull insisted that stopping access to certain sites was not a filter.

Telstra have launched their WiFi anywhere product allowing existing Bigpond customers to get access to WiFi hotspots in commercial areas and to piggy back off other Bigpond customers when not at home. A similar product by Comcast in the US has recently seen one home owner sue for placing a “vast” burden on electricity bills.

Google is the latest tech company to recognise the Trans* community by moving away from a male/female gender identification and allow individuals to self-identify and select the pronoun that Google+ will use when referring to them.

Apple is in court, looking likely to win a 10 year old anti-trust case involving deleting non iTunes store music from a consumers iPod but has lost the right to Trade Mark the words App Store in Australia.

In a lighter note, Barack Obama has been nicknamed the Coder In Chief after writing his first Java line of code – moveForward(100);

The post Pollies Dictionary, Google Gender and Coder In Chief appeared first on Technogaze.

This special JOY 21st Birthday episode reunited Mark & Michael with Raena as she joined Bek, from Bekfast, and Jayson Williams from GLOBE as special guests during the show.

Apple became the first business in the world to reach a market capitalisation of $US700bn with 3 of the largest 4 companies being in the IT sector. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the father of the World Wide Web has called on politicians to learn how to code. This he says, will aid them in their policy decisions once they have a better understanding of how technology works.

The EU restates its position against monopolies by calling on Google to be broken up – separating its Search Engine business from the rest of the organisation. Although voted on by the EU Parliament, the group has no power to enforce their decision. In what appears to be state sponsored spying software, in a similar vain to Stuxnet, security researchers have discovered new malware that has been hidden since 2008. Infecting primarily computers in Russia and Saudi Arabia, it has been found mainly at ISPs and Telcos.

In what is a worrying finding, the report into the murder of British Fusilier Lee Rigby accused Facebook of “providing a safe haven for terrorists” because they did not alert the security services to a threat by one of his murderers. By contrast, a former director of MI6 has said Facebook would not have the resource to monitor all posts, nor would the security services be able to respond to the avalanche of data that this would result in.

A more efficient polarising filter is set to extend the battery life of smartphones as it allows more light through – compared to filters in use today. The subsequent reduction in brightness needed to illuminate the display will offer significant battery savings as well as improve low light performance of the camera.

The post Happy Birthday JOY, a $700bn Apple and Spying Malware appeared first on Technogaze.

Why did Tim Lenox call the Technogaze team Chaos Personified?   Was it because Mark, Raena, Jason and Michael squeezed into the studio for this weeks show?

The G20 was on everyone’s lips this weekend, with potential threats of hacking manifesting itself with Australian media organisations being targeted supposedly by Chinese interests.  It appears that the Chinese President wants to know what questions will be asked of him. Meanwhile, Queensland University researchers are geoparsing tweets to determine how disruptive the G20 is to residents and participants.

A recent study by a peak Telecommunications lobby group has found that Australians will pirate less content if it was more readily available and cheaper.  Coincidentally, Foxtel has recently cut its pricing, so it will be interesting to see the impact on subscriptions and illegal downloading.

Lissa joined the group to talk about her recent woes in upgrading from Windows 7 to 8.1 which was in stark contrast to her experience in upgrading OS X.  In further Apple news, they finally have provided a solution to SMS’ not being delivered when people move away from iPhones to another platform.  This coincides with a class action being launched against Apple on this issue – 3 years after it first came about.

In news that has excited the Microsoft development community, Microsoft have announced the open sourcing of its .NET platform, which will also mean that it will run on other operating systems – not just on Windows.

What is JOY’s loss is NZ’s gain, as we farewelled Technogaze regular Raena as she embarks on her next adventure.

The post Vixen Panda, Open Source .NET and Farewell to Raena appeared first on Technogaze.

Raena, Jason and Michael were surprised when Mark popped into the studio to address the Google/Apple imbalance.

Mac Malware spreading from OSX to iOS devices is infecting some users that are downloading OSX software from dodgy sites.  Unfortunately the malware has well formed security credentials so that the iOS devices believe it is software from the App store.

Meanwhile Spain has imposed the Google Tax on news aggregators by charging them to display news items from newspapers.  A similar move in Germany failed when traffic to newpapers dropped dramatically after they were no longer included in Google News aggregation.

New sexting laws in Victoria aim to stop sending of images of others without permission and to punish people who threaten to send revealing images.  Telstra have launched a faster 4G network and we looked at the new version of Safari for Yosemite.

The post Sexting, Google Tax and Mac Malware appeared first on Technogaze.

This week, Raena, Josh and Mark looked at an invisibility lens that hides objects in its view.  It must also twist reality, as this is the only explanation as to why Mark was sporting a Windows laptop, Raena an Android phone and Josh an iPhone.  This altered reality did not stop them from getting super excited about a recent Kickstarter project – A Hoverboard.  Yes, they went back to their childhood.

iiNet is heading to court to protect the privacy of its customers by refusing to give up customer details to a complaining copyright holder.  Facebook has gone down the pseudonym path in its implementation of Rooms, their latest chat app where you can gather and chat in specific topic rooms.  Rooms are accessible by invite only.

UTS’ Magic lab has recruited Steve Wozniak as its newest teaching staff to work in the innovation space, whilst Apple’s first computer the Apple I recently sold at auction for more than $900,000.  iOS8.1 has just been released supporting Yosemite’s handover feature – so when some one calls your phone, your iPad and Macbook ring as well.

Samsang’s Knox sandboxing security software, that protects data, isn’t quite as secure as Fort Knox. It has an unprotected file aptly named, pin.xml, that holds enough information to break into the sandbox.  A fix is on the way.

HRH Queen Elizabeth II has just sent her first tweet.  Although it’s taken her a while to tweet, she was one of the first British civilians to send an email.

The post Elizabeth R Tweets, Woz in OZ and Hoverboards appeared first on Technogaze.

The studio was empty this week as Raena & Michael ventured afar with an outside broadcast to bring to you this special In-Car Edition of Technogaze.

POODLE is the latest SSL vulnerability taking advantage of a technology that should have been retired long ago. Many websites are now likely to remove SSL 3.0 support which will result in applause from the tech community – as if a wooden stake was driven through the heart of IE6.

Chinese officials will tame the disorderly internet by prohibiting paid commentary. Affecting journalists and bloggers, the Government prefers that its own web commentators, the Wu Mao to guide public opinion on controversial issues.

The Tesla S D, for dual, has two motors to independently power the front and rear axles. Making the car super grippy it also improves driving range and allows the vehicle to go from 0-100 in 3.4 seconds. A software upgradeable Autopilot feature relies on in-built sensors, radar and camera to provide adaptive cruise control and in the future – a go-fetch feature where the car will come to you when you are ready to be collected. GM has changed tracks and will now support both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto for its vehicles instead of trying to write its own ecosystem. Aftermarket Navdy is a Heads Up Display unit that can be fitted to any existing vehicle to provide emails, texts and navigation that hover 6 feet in front of the windscreen.

Ello, the ad-free social network, burst onto our consciousness a few weeks ago. According to Google trends, which provides feedback on how often terms are used in Google searches, the interest in Ello has waned as quickly as it had peaked. Could this be goodbye for Ello? Apple & Facebook have added freezing of womens eggs to the medical coverage that they provide to employees – augmenting a number of existing fertility treatments that are available.

Both Apple & Google released new products this week. The iPad and iPad mini range have been revamped with the iPad2 faster, lighter and cheaper. Whilst Android Lollipop will appear on the latest Google reference devices – the Nexus 6 phone and Nexus 9, iPad Air competitor, tablet.

The post Disorderly Internet, Fast Cars, Frozen Eggs and POODLE appeared first on Technogaze.

This week, Raena and Michael looked at two new phones – targeted at two very different consumers.  The $35 Firefox OS based phone destined for India and the super secure Blackphone with bundled encryption and security software.

China has blocked access to privacy conscious search engine DuckDuckGo, extending the restrictions on Internet access in the country.  The NSA’s wide reaching powers to collect data can be traced back to the Reagan era and Google falls foul, yet again, to EU laws on the rights of people to decide how their private data is used.

The Greens are using Grindr to target pink voters – with ads appearing on the users app when they are in the St Kilda/Prahran area. Whilst in Egypt, Grindr users are being warned about entrapment by law enforcement agencies. Snowball is a new Android app that combines a number of different chat apps into a single location, so its easier to manage your chats.

Budgee the robot comes to your rescue when you have run out of hands.  Linked to your smartphone, Budgee is a bag on wheels that will follow you about, carrying your shopping.

The post DuckDuckGone, Pollies on Grindr and a Snowball’s chance .. appeared first on Technogaze.

Mark and Michael were in the studio this week and started the show looking at Apple.  There is a #shellshock patch for OS X that was released this week.  Researchers looking at the randomised WiFi MAC addressing on iOS8 discovered that it only worked under very limited circumstances.  Meanwhile the EU has found that Ireland’s and Apples tax arrangements are not legal.

This week saw the announcement of Windows 10, the replacement for Windows 8.  More of a morph between Win7 & Win8 this is likely to be the last major release from Microsoft with the company moving to smaller and more frequent incremental updates.

Facebook apologised to the GLBTIQ community over its handling of ‘non-real’ names and has adjusted its definition to names that people use on a daily basis – as opposed to their birth names.  What was Facebook’s loss when they kicked off so many users was new social network Ello’s gain.  Ello has promised not to have any advertising so as to protect people’s privacy by not selling user details to advertisers.

On a lighter note, Thailand has invented a food tasting machine to check the authenticity of Thai food made overseas.

The post Windows 10, Facebook Apology, Ello and Tax Avoidance appeared first on Technogaze.

It may have been Grand Final day, but Mark and Michael resisted the urge to kick a footy round the studio and opted to look at how a future Space Elevator may change the way we go into space into the future.  The Victorian Government in conjunction with Facebook have launched a campaign to combat cyber bullying with targeted videos and messages to young people and their parents – to help equip them with tools and confidence to react to it.

Yahoo as an early investor in Alibaba has made a lot of money, but shareholder confidence is still waning.  And Eric Schmidt, the Google Chairman, was doling out advice to the Europeans on accepting disruption or face the peril of higher unemployment.

The world was #shellshocked by the latest bug found in open source linux.  Lying dormant for 22 years, the bug in the bash shell can be easily exploited by injection type attacks.  There was a lot of noise and probably less substance to the iPhone 6+ bending stories that have occupied the blogosphere this last week.

Australian ingenuity and fondness for a brew, combined in Queensland with QUT students fermenting leather like textiles.

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In this special extended episode, Adam Richard joins Mark, Raena and Donna to discuss the latest in tech, including Apple’s announcement of the iPhone 6, Apple Watch, and Apple Pay.  We discussed Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s announcement to turn off Community TV here in Australia by discontinuing the allocation of spectrum currently allocated to Channel 31, and other channels across the country.  We also discussed how well entrenched platforms, along with DRM, can very easily enable content to simply vanish from all our devices.

Grindr’s privacy concerns came up again this week – where it turned out to be very easy to pinpoint the location who had their “distance” featured turned on.  Competitor Scruff responded with a very easy-to-follow explanation of the technological problem, and steps they took 1 year ago to ensure such a breach isn’t feasible on their app.

The post Aussie Community TV’s future in doubt, Apple made a small announcement, Scruff responds to Grindr privacy breach appeared first on Technogaze.