106: I'll Measure His Head

The Frequency

Dan and Haddie discuss WhatsApp moving to a subscription model, Andrew 'weev' Auernheimer being sentenced to 41 months in prison, and Warby Parker's new shaving subscription site.

Links for this episode:

• WhatsApp for iOS moving to a subscription model this year, says CEO | The Verge
  Popular cross-platform messaging service WhatsApp is shifting its iOS app from a flat-fee purchase to a $0.99 annual subscription model sometime this year, reports TechCrunch. The move would bring pricing in line with WhatsApp’s other offerings on Android, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry, and possibly making it free to use for the first year, as it is on those platforms.
• EA CEO John Riccitiello Steps Down, Larry Probst Becomes Executive Chairman | TechCrunch
  EA’s CEO John Riccitiello has just submitted his letter of resignation to the company’s board. He’s stepping down on March 30 and Larry Probst is stepping in as Executive Chairman. Probst will lead the hunt for a permanent CEO.Riccitiello has led EA since 2007 and through a dramatic transformation in the industry as the gaming world has moved from selling expensive console games on the shelves of big-box retailers to one in which mobile phones and tablets are fast-becoming a platform of choice for many developers. He was president and chief operating officer from 1997 to 2004, then left EA to co-found and lead Elevation Partners until he was later rehired by the company
• BlackBerry chief upbeat (and the iPhone is old hat)
  BlackBerry chief executive officer Thorsten Heins has said the rapidly advancing global smartphone market has left Apple’s iPhone in its wake, and predicted his company would have 100,000 native apps available for its Z10 devices in time for the US launch later this week.Speaking exclusively to The Australian Financial Review, ahead of the local launch of its make-or-break smartphones, Mr Heins said last week’s launch of the Samsung S4, along with a wave of recent smartphone releases had reeled in the lead Apple used to hold in the market.
• Andrew 'weev' Auernheimer sentenced to 41 months for exploiting AT&T iPad security flaw | The Verge
  Security researcher Andrew 'weev' Auernheimer was today sentenced to 41 months in prison and immediately remanded to custody for his role in Goatse Security's collection and disclosure of 114,000 AT
• Supreme Court Refuses to Hear $220k Music Piracy Case
  Jammie Thomas-Rasset won't have her day in court at the highest judicial authority in the United States. On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case of the famous music pirate who was sentenced to pay $220,000 for downloading 24 songs with the now-defunct file-sharing software Kazaa.In 2007, Thomas-Rasset became the first person to go to trial against the Recording Industry Association of America, when she refused to settle her case after receiving a piracy cease-and-desist letter in August 2005. In the mid-2000s, the RIAA sued thousands of Americans for copyright infringements
• Warby Parker Co-Founder Brings Style (At a Discount) to Shaving | Wired Business | Wired.com
  Warby Parker did it for eyeglasses, offering style at a discount. Now one of the co-founders of the trendy retailer is tackling something almost every guy needs: razors. Warby Parker co-founder Jeff Raider and his longtime friend Andy Katz-Mayfield have built Harry’s, a startup selling more than just blades and handles, but what they are calling “shaving experiences.” The two decided they would build razors for the “more discerning guy” and make them cheaper than both the dominant brands – Schick and Gillette – and what you’d find at a shaving boutique like Art of Shaving. They called their new brand Harry’s, after a grandfather figure in Raider’s life. Next they spent nine months to learn as much as they could about shaving technology and the business. “That journey took us to Germany where we formed a partnership with company that makes some of the highest-quality razor blades in the world,” says Raider. From there the duo designed their own razor handles, packaging and shaving cream that would work perfectly with the blades, and spent many months refining, tweaking, and using the products to before landing on the final designs. The finished razors don’t resemble the safety razors of the past, nor do they look like a Mach 3. “We took aesthetic inspiration from older ballpoint pens and old knives that have unique handles,” says Katz-Mayfield. “From there we linked up with industrial designers to take that aesthetic to create handles that are stylish and ergonomic.”
• Funny or Die Makes a Steve Jobs Movie - NYTimes.com
  Techies have been keeping a hot eye on dueling Steve Jobs biopics, one an indie starring Ashton Kutcher and the other, written by Aaron Sorkin, in the works at Sony, which made “The Social Network.”But it turns out there was also a joker in the deck nobody knew about: Funny or Die, the comedy Web site, said over the weekend that it had made its own Jobs movie — “iSteve” — and planned to unveil it online on April 15.
• Digg Blog, We're Building A Reader
  Digg is building an RSS news reader to replace Google Reader. Digg says they have been planning to build a reader in the second half of 2013, saying it will "make the Internet a more approachable and digestible place." After Google’s announcement, they are moving the project to the top of their priority list, building a reader, starting immediately.
• Samsung is working on a smart watch of its own—and it could be more than just a little phone – Quartz
  This morning both an anonymous source at Samsung and vice president of mobile Lee Young Hee said that the company is working on a smart watch, one that “will perform many of the tasks of a smartphone.” In the wake of an earlier rumor about Apple’s work on a smart watch—supposedly involving a team of 100 engineers—this feels a bit like a new kind of tech arms race. At the very least, it’s the race to be the first to hint at products that may be many months or even years in the future, in order to prop up the endless hype cycle required to capture the interest of consumers who have come to expect that revelations like Google Glass should arrive with some regularity.
• Swarming cockroaches turn bus to New York into roach-mobile | Reuters
  A Greyhound bus ride into New York City on Friday turned into a horror show for passengers suddenly swarmed by an invasion of cockroaches that forced the driver to pull over and evacuate the vehicle. Cockroaches began emerging about 15 minutes after the bus departed from Atlantic City, New Jersey, on Friday morning, a Greyhound spokesman said. The driver soon pulled over and the 48 passengers scuttled off the infested bus to wait for a replacement vehicle. Cell phone photos showing armies of cockroaches scampering over the seats and floor were posted by local media outlets, supplied by passengers on the bus.
• Security Expert Brian Krebs Faced A Real-Life SWATing After Posting About Russian Cybercrime Site | TechCrunch
  Security writer Brian Krebs’ phone was spoofed and a SWAT team was called to his home last week by hackers who apparently took offense at his investigations into various online hacking organizations. His website also suffered a denial of service attack for a short period.
• Early treatment sometimes lets the body keep HIV in check | Ars Technica
  Recently, came a report that early treatment with antivirals has allowed one individual to keep an HIV infection limited for extended periods of time without treatment. Now, a report in PLOS pathogens suggests that this case may not be as exceptional as we might have thought. In a small population of people treated immediately after infection, about 15 percent managed to keep the virus in check after they discontinued other treatments.
• Smile Blog
  There is no mechanism for offering upgrades in the Mac App Store. To accommodate customers who wish to purchase Mac App Store versions, special pricing will be offered for the first 48 hours. PDFpen will be $29.99 and PDFpenPro will be $39.99 for this very limited time. The special pricing expires on March 20 at midnight PDT.
• Behold Google's Stunning Street Views from the Top of the World | Gadget Lab | Wired.com
  Google, which seems determined to map every square inch of the planet, on Monday released Street View images from four of the seven tallest mountains on earth. One lucky engineer, who happens to be a passionate mountaineer, led the Google Mountain Enthusiast team during a project that was strictly a labor of love for all involved.
• Flattr now lets you make money from your Twitter Favorites, Instagram Likes and more - The Next Web
  Flattr has allowed users to pay money into an account and use it to tip money to content creators whose work they appreciate by clicking a button on their sites. The ‘chicken and egg’ problem was that despite support from the likes of Dailymotion and Wikileaks, publishers generally didn’t want to add the buttons to their sites until Flattr had enough users to make it worthwhile, and users didn’t want to put money into a service that wasn’t widely supported by the sites they visited.Now Flattr is circumventing the need for its own buttons by monetizing Twitter’s Favorite, Instagram’s Likes and similar actions on some of the most popular social sites.
• Why We Need More Solar Companies to Fail
  Suntech, a Wuxi, China-based company that as recently as 2011 was the world’s largest producer of solar panels, is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. It’s running low on cash, owes bond investors half a billion dollars (which it failed to pay Friday), and is saddled with payments on billions of dollars in loans as it struggles to make money in a market flooded with solar panels.If Suntech fails and shuts down its factories, that might not be a bad thing. Some industry experts say that hundreds of solar companies need to fail to help bring solar panel supply back in line with demand.
• Canada Takes on 'Social Farting'
  Flatulence is a fairly taboo subject for U.S. advertising. Not so in Canada, apparently. This public service announcement from that country's Ministry of Health likens social smoking to passing gas in public.
• What It's Like to Be Pope Francis' Social Media Intern
  Pope Francis sent his first tweet from the resurrected @Pontifex Twitter account Sunday, only four days after being elected as Benedict XVI's successor. A little-known fact is that Pope Francis has a couple of helping hands on social media: a pair of American undergraduate interns from Villanova University, a Catholic school in Pennsylvania.
• Apple proposes 'on-the-go' wireless charging via iPad Smart Cover with built-in battery
  An Apple patent application discovered on Thursday reveals that the company is actively investigating wireless charging for its line of portable devices, but proposes to use the technology in a slightly different way than existing solutions.
• Stunning Landscape Imageries, Created Using Nokia 3D Maps - DesignTAXI.com
  
• Northern eXposure - Maggie Needs Glasses - YouTube
  
• Amazon.com: Hotel Transylvania (Blu-ray / DVD + UltraViolet Digital Copy): Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Genndy Tartakovsky: Movies & TV
  
• Amazon.com: Hotel Transylvania: Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James: Amazon Instant Video
  
• iTunes - Movies - Hotel Transylvania
  
• Amazon.com: Xbox 360 250GB Spring Value Bundle: Video Games
  
• Amazon.com: Xbox 360 Wireless Controller - Glossy Black: Video Games
  
• Amazon.com: Halo 4: Xbox 360: Video Games
  
• Amazon.com: Assassin's Creed II - Platinum Hits edition: Xbox 360: Video Games
  
• Amazon.com: Forza Motorsport 4: Xbox 360: Video Games
  

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