308: Monday, November 10, 2014

Five Minute Tech News

The News for Monday, November 10, 2014.

Links for this episode:

• Obama pushes for FCC to scrap Internet ‘fast lanes’ plan, reclassify ISPs as utilities | BGR
  The president has come out in favor of net neutrality in a big way. In a statement released today, Obama reemphasized his commitment to preserving net neutrality and offered up his own plan that would reclassify Internet service providers as utilities under Title II of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. The surprise statement was an implicit rebuke of current FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, who this year proposed allowing ISPs to create Internet “fast lanes” that would let them charge content providers more money to ensure their traffic got delivered more quickly than traffic on the “standard” Internet.
• Apple & Barclaycard offer new Visa rewards card w/ Apple Store credit, chip-and-pin, & updated financing options | 9to5Mac
  Apple is offering a new credit card. The new Barclaycard Visa with Apple Rewards offers Apple Store gift cards, chip-and-pin support, and no-interest financing for Apple purchases made in the first 30 days. Customers with the new card will “get 3 points for every $1 spent at the Apple Store, 2 points at restaurants, and 1 point on all other purchases.” Earning 2,500 points with the new Visa will earn customers a $25 Apple Store gift card. The new card offers 6 month no interest for purchases under $498, 12 months for $499 – $998, and 18 months for purchases $999 and over. 18 month financing used to require purchases over $1999. I wonder if it works with Apple Pay?
• Overwatch is Blizzard's new team-based multiplayer shooter | Polygon
  Blizzard Entertainment announced a new title at BlizzCon: Overwatch, a team-based multiplayer first-person shooter and the developer's first new property in years. It will focus on an international team of soldiers — humans, humanoids and what appear to be mechs. And cyber-gorillas. In a pre-rendered video, Blizzard showed Overwatch's characters and action, including stealth snipers, gorillas wearing armor and masked mercenaries engaging in firefights. Blizzard's Chris Metzen says Overwatch is coming "sooner than you think."
• Elon Musk’s Next Mission: Internet Satellites - WSJ - WSJ
  Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk shook up the automotive and aerospace industries with electric cars and cheap rockets. Now, he's focused on satellites, looking at ways to make smaller, less-expensive models that can deliver Internet access across the globe, according to the Wall Street Journal's sources. Musk is working with Greg Wyler, a satellite-industry veteran and former Google executive. In talks with industry executives, Musk and Wyler have discussed launching around 700 satellites, each weighing less than 250 pounds. Musk and Wyler are also reportedly in talks to build satellite factories in Florida and Colorado.
• Comcast Sent 1,000,000 Copyright Alerts to 'Pirating' Subscribers | TorrentFreak
  Comcast has sent out its one-millionth copyright warning. In February of last year the MPAA, RIAA and five major Internet providers in the United States launched their “six strikes” anti-piracy plan.The main goal of this Copyright Alert System is to educate the public. Through various notifications subscribers are informed if their connections are being used to share copyrighted material without permission, and told where they can find legal alternatives. This year the number of notices are expected to double, but no exact details have yet been released. Half of those notices are probably from Game of Thrones. Maybe they should send ravens instead?
• God Particle Findings Were Inconclusive, According To New Analysis - Science News - redOrbit
  CERN discovered the Higgs Boson, the so-called "God particle" in 2012. Or did they? In an article published in the journal Physical Review, scientists from the University of Southern Denmark’s Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics Phenomenology said that the research was inconclusive. They wrote that it was possible that CERN had found the Higgs boson, but equally possible the particle was something else. While the researchers note that there are many calculations that indicate the particle discovered in CERN’s Large Hadron Collider indeed the Higgs particle, that there was no conclusive evidence to prove that. However, they said that most physicists do agree the experiments did discover a never before seen particle.
• Hayao Miyazaki: "I'm Going To Continue Making Anime Until I Die"
  If you're bummed out that animator Hayao Miyazaki has retired from feature films, don't be; he says he plans to keep making anime until he dies. He's currently working on a manga about samurai in the 16th century.

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