306: Thursday, November 6, 2014

Five Minute Tech News

The News for Thursday, November 6, 2014.

Links for this episode:

• No link found between movie, video game violence and societal violence - PsyPost
  A recent study published in the Journal of Communication by Christopher Ferguson of Stetson University found that there were no associations between media violence consumption in society and societal violence. Ferguson conducted two studies that raised the question if whether the incidence of violence in media correlates with actual violence rates in society. The first study looked at movie violence and homicide rates between 1920 and 2005. The second study looked at videogame violence consumption and its relationship to youth violence rates from 1996-2011. He found that societal consumption of media violence is not predictive of increased violence rates in society.
• Tinder's CEO Is Stepping Down - Business Insider
  Tinder CEO Sean Rad is stepping down. IAC, Tinder's largest stakeholder, is looking for a more experienced CEO to replace 27-year-old Rad, who was accused of sexual harassment by cofounder Whitney Wolfe. Tinder settled with Wolfe in September, for a reported 1 million dollars. Tinder's monetization plan, Tinder Plus, will roll out "imminently." The premium content will include a travel feature, allowing users to visit other cities and swipe through matches there, and an "undo" feature.
• Nose Spray Ebola Vaccine Protects Monkeys - NBC News.com
  The good news is that there is a potential Ebola vaccine. The bad news is that it's in trouble. A needle-free Ebola vaccine protects monkeys 100 percent of the time from the virus, even a year after they’ve been vaccinated, researchers have reported. The vaccine uses a common cold virus genetically engineered to carry a tiny piece of Ebola DNA. But now the research is dead in the water without funding, Maria Croyle of the University of Texas at Austin’s College of Pharmacy said.“Now we are at the crossroads, trying to figure out where to get the funding and resources to continue.”
• Lyft Accuses Former COO Of Stealing Confidential Documents Before Joining Uber | TechCrunch
  Lyft is taking its former COO Travis VanderZanden to court for breach of his confidentiality agreement after the executive joined arch-rival Uber. In a complaint filed yesterday in San Francisco Superior Court, Lyft claims VanderZanden downloaded a number of non-public company documents to his personal Dropbox account in the lead-up to his departure, including confidential strategic product plans, financial information, forecasts, and growth data. VanderZanden left Lyft in August after reported tensions with company founders John Zimmer and Logan Green. Several months later VanderZanden landed at Uber, where he was hired to aid with the company’s international growth.
• Former NSA lawyer: the cyberwar is between tech firms and the US government | Technology | The Guardian
  Could encryption be bad for business? Former general counsel Stewart Baker, at the Web Summit in Dublin, blamed encryption for Blackberry's woes. “Blackberry pioneered the same business model that Google and Apple are doing now - that has not ended well for Blackberry,” said Baker. He claimed that by encrypting user data Blackberry had limited its business in countries that demand oversight of communication data, such as India and the UAE and got a bad reception in China and Russia. Baker, of course, was referring to Apple and Google's initiatives to better encrypt user data to keep it out of NSA reach.
• Apple Watch Pricing to Reportedly Start at $500 for Stainless Steel, $4,000 for Gold - Mac Rumors
  French Apple website iGen.fr is reporting that pricing for the stainless steel Apple Watch may start at $500, while the gold Apple Watches' pricing could start between $4,000 and $5,000. iGen.fr has been reliable in the past, most recently reporting the dimensions of both the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. The site's sources also indicate that Apple still aims to release the Apple Watch by Valentine's Day 2015, which somewhat echoes an earlier report that said the company would be "lucky" to release the device by that timeframe.
• Space Oddity | Chris Hadfield
  Astronaut Chris Hadfield's in-space cover of David Bowie's Space Odyssey is now back on YouTube. The video was originally published under a one-year arrangement that ended in May, but now it's back with a new, two-year deal. Leave it to David Bowie to be the first to have to negotiate copyright in space.

Sponsored by Squarespace. Use offer code THENEWS for 10% off.