Tag Archives: Instagram

PTJ 320: The Ups and Downs of Package Delivery

October 28, 2019 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

On this week’s episode, El Kaiser continues his foray into the world of wireless Bluetooth earbuds after the weekly news roundup with J.D. And in these news this week: The stress of Internet shopping on New York City streets, more software updates from Apple and a leak peak at Windows 10X.

1.5 Million Packages a Day: The Internet Brings Chaos to N.Y. Streets (The New York Times)
UPS gets government approval to become a drone airline (Associated Press)
UPS and CVS plan to deliver prescriptions via drone (Engadget)
Microsoft wins $10 billion JEDI defense cloud contract, beating Amazon (CNBC)
Spotify Technology S.A. Announces Financial Results for Third Quarter 2019 (Spotify)
Apple Releases iOS and iPadOS 13.2 With New Emoji, Deep Fusion for iPhone 11, Siri Privacy Options, and More (MacRumors)
Apple reveals new AirPods Pro, available October 30 (Apple)
Molly Russell: Instagram extends self-harm ban to drawings (BBC News)
Facebook takes down false ad from PAC on Republican Graham (Reuters)
Facebook alters video to make people invisible to facial recognition (VentureBeat)
Exclusive: Google owner Alphabet in bid to buy Fitbit (Reuters)
How 18 Malware Apps Snuck Into Apple’s App Store (Wired)
Google CEO Sundar Pichai acknowledges employee trust issues in closed-door meeting (The Washington Post)
Windows 10X details revealed in major leak (MSPoweruser)
Samsung Galaxy Buds

Episode Links, Podcast

PTJ 318: Honk If You Love ‘Untitled Goose Game’

October 6, 2019 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

As crisp autumn breezes swirl through New York City at last, El Kaiser and J.D. get back to business, pondering new studies on social media’s effect on news and mental health, Apple’s bugfest of an iOS 13 release and a recent addictive video game about a horrible little goose loose in a quiet English village. El Kaiser also shares his observations on some recently acquired gear. Pour yourself a cup of hot cider and settle in for PTJ 318!

Americans Are Wary of the Role Social Media Sites Play in Delivering the News (Pew Research Center)
College students who go off Facebook for a week consume less news and report being less depressed (Nieman Journalism Lab)
With Facebook’s Coming News Tab, Only Some Will Get Paid (Wall Street Journal)
What Is Facebook Dating For? (The Atlantic)
TiVo Debuts the Edge DVR and TiVo+, Its Own Live Streaming Service (Digital Trends)
Instagram makes its ‘Restrict’ anti-bullying tool available to everyone (Engadget)
Tesla’s Smart Summon feature is already causing chaos in parking lots across America (The Verge)
U.S. online privacy rules unlikely this year, hurting big tech (Reuters)
Apple iOS 13 Is Full Of Bugs, Reports Warn (Forbes)
Apple Releases iOS 13.1.2 and iPadOS 13.1.2 with Fixes for Camera, iCloud Backup, HomePod Shortcut, and Flashlight Bugs (MacRumors)
iOS 13: Security and privacy settings you need to tweak and check (ZDNet)
How a horrible goose topped the gaming chart (BBC News)
Samsung Galaxy Note
Samsung Galaxy Watch

Episode Links

PTJ 314: All Aboard the Claim Train!

July 29, 2019 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

Pop Tech Jam returns from Summer Vacation Phase 1 to buckets of money from the Equifax data-breach settlement — or alleged buckets of money. While El Kaiser files his Equifax claim online, J.D. serves up the news of the week, including the Fortnite World Cup results, pocket air-conditioners and worrisome multimedia surveillance. And for those who dove headfirst into the Apollo 11 50th-anniversary coverage in July, J.D. has tips on where to find more archival material from that historic 1969 event — and the many other Apollo missions through the years.
Jump on PTJ 314 right here!

Links to Stories Discussed on This Week’s Show

Fortnite gives away $3 million to its first-ever solo world champion (CNN Business)
Equifax settlement guide: How to get the money, and what you need to know (The Washington Post)
Welcome To The Equifax Data Breach Settlement Website
Look Out for Fake Equifax Websites That Are Trying to Steal Your Data, FTC Warns (Gizmodo)
In Hong Kong Protests, Faces Become Weapons (The New York Times)
Apple Siri Eavesdropping Puts Millions Of Users At Risk (Forbes)
Apple Contractors Reportedly Overhear Sensitive Information and Sexy Times Thanks to Siri (Gizmodo)
Sony Unveils Wearable Air Conditioner Reon Pocket (Hypebeast)
Young Instagram Users Give Up Privacy in Search of Metrics (Bloomberg)
Europe’s top court sharpens guidance for sites using leaky social plug-ins (TechCrunch)
(Don’t) hold the phone: new features coming to Pixel 4 (Google blog)
Samsung shows off what its fixed Galaxy Fold will look like (CNET)
Remember the Motorola Razer, 15 Years Later (Gizmodo)
This is What Photoshop Was Like in 1988 (PetaPixel)

The NASA Apollo Mission Archives Online

Episode Links, Podcast

PTJ 310: Apple-Picking Time

June 3, 2019 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

El Kaiser and J.D. were off binging Good Omens, but finished just in time for Apple’s 2019 edition of its World Wide Developers Conference. This week’s episode discusses the major announcements from the keynote — including a revamp of El Kaiser’s absolute favorite piece of Mac desktop hardware. Looming government regulation, verified Rotten Tomatoes reviews and a virus-riddled laptop celebrated as art are also in this week’s headlines. Listen in to Episode 310!

Links to Stories in This Week’s News Segment

“Good Omens” (Official Trailer | Prime Video)
How Amazon’s Good Omens series pays tribute to author Terry Pratchett (Polygon)
Robert Pattinson Is Officially ‘The Batman’ (Variety)

Apple’s WWDC Highlights: Death of iTunes and $6,000 Macs (The New York Times)
Why the iPhone 11 successor could be the phone to get (CNET)
Apple Suddenly Confirms Three New iPhones (Forbes)
Amazon could face heightened antitrust scrutiny under a new agreement between U.S. regulators (The Washington Post)
Google Is at the Center of a Storm Brewing Over Big Tech (The New York Times)
Twitter Is Running Lots More Ads, And Some Are Scammy Or Just Bad (BuzzFeed News)
Snapchat Employees Abused Data Access to Spy on Users (VICE)
An Update on How We Are Doing At Enforcing Our Community Standards (Facebook Newsroom)
Opinion | Nancy Pelosi and Fakebook’s Dirty Tricks (The New York Times)
IGTV Now Supports Landscape Videos (Instagram)
How Ireland became Europe’s data watchdog (BBC News)
What’s for dinner? Order it with Google (Google blog)
Amazon interested in buying Boost from T-Mobile, Sprint (Reuters)
Mobile carrier AT&T will now accept payments in crypto (The Block)
Amazon Is Working on a Device That Can Read Human Emotions (Bloomberg)
We’re introducing Verified Ratings and Reviews to Help You Make Your Viewing Decisions (Rotten Tomatoes)
Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass is coming to PC (Engadget)
Metadata is the biggest little problem plaguing the music industry (The Verge)
Auction for a laptop full of malware closes at $1.3 million (updated) (Engadget)

Apple World Wide Developers Conference 2019 Announcements

New iPod touch delivers even greater performance (Apple)
Apple previews iOS 13 (Apple)
The new iPadOS powers unique experiences designed for iPad (Apple)
Apple unveils powerful, all-new Mac Pro and groundbreaking Pro Display XDR (Apple)
watchOS 6 advances health and fitness capabilities for Apple Watch (Apple)
tvOS 13 powers the most personal cinematic experience ever (Apple)
Apple WWDC 2019 Keynote Video (Apple)
The Mac Pro Cheese Grater Is Back (And It Looks Powerful as Hell) (Gizmodo)

Episode Links, Podcast

PTJ 304: Singing Backup

March 18, 2019 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

On this week’s episode, El Kaiser and J.D. work through the recent headlines — the good, the bad and the completely horrible — and offer a few tips for backing up personal content you’ve posted on social media. Because it’s not like any of those free services can be trusted to DO IT FOR YOU. Spin up PTJ 304 right here!

Facebook, YouTube and Twitter struggle to deal with New Zealand shooting video (CNN)
Slack removes hate groups (The Official Slack Blog)
Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp Go Down. At the Same Time. (The New York Times)
Facebook says it’s resolved outage issues and denies attack (CNN)
Facebook’s Daylong Malfunction Is a Reminder of the Internet’s Fragility (The New York Times)
Facebook product boss Chris Cox, and Whatsapp boss Chris Daniels are leaving (Recode)
Myspace lost all the music its users uploaded between 2003 and 2015 (Boing Boing)
Myspace loses all content uploaded before 2016 (Guardian)
Myspace, which still exists, accidentally deleted 12 years’ worth of music (Vox)
Microsoft announces Xbox Live for any iOS or Android game (The Verge)
Is there a limit to the number of devices I can link to my account? (Dropbox Help)
Apple’s Big Spending Plan to Challenge Netflix Takes Shape (The New York Times)
All-new iPad Air and iPad mini deliver dramatic power and capability (Apple)
WWDC 2019 announced, registration and event details (9to5Mac)
Leveling the Playing Field (Spotify)
Addressing Spotify’s claims (Apple)
Spotify’s EU antitrust complaint could be a serious threat to Apple (Ars Technica)
Apple addresses Spotify’s claims, but not its demands (TechCrunch)
Google killed 2.3 billion ‘bad ads’ in 2018, down 28% from 2017 (VentureBeat)
Pi in the sky: Calculating a record-breaking 31.4 trillion digits of Archimedes’ constant on Google Cloud (Google Cloud Blog)
The World Wide Web is 30 years old — and its inventor has a warning for us (NBC News)

Public Service Announcement: Protect Your Social Media Content

How to Backup Social Media in 2019: Duplicating Your Second Life (Cloudwards)
Social media backup (Acronis)
iDrive Social Media Backup (iDrive)
How do I download a copy of my information on Facebook? (Facebook Help)
How do I access or review my data on Instagram? (Instagram)
How to download your Twitter archive (Twitter Help)
Download your data (Google)
Google Takeout

(Hopefully) Helpful Hint, Episode Links, Podcast

PTJ 298: Over Easy

January 22, 2019 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

Famous eggs, self-delivering scooters, rabbit-ears making a comeback and YouTube tries to ban stupidity — El Kaiser and JD catch up on a big pile of technology news from the past week or two. And in a (Hopefully) Helpful Hint, J.D. explains how to use a free, pre-built spreadsheet to track your finances. Roll on into PTJ 298 to hear it all!

Stories Discussed on This Week’s Show

Facebook’s WhatsApp limits text forwards to five recipients to curb rumors (Reuters)
Uber plans to develop self-driving electric scooters and bicycles (The Daily Telegraph)
Google Maps wants to help you avoid that speeding ticket (Mashable)
Material Design for Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Sites on Web (G Suite Updates Blog)
Oscars: ‘Roma’ Lands Netflix Its First Best Picture Nom (The Hollywood Reporter)
Netflix just announced the biggest price increase in the history of its streaming service (BGR)
Netflix in advanced talks to join major Hollywood lobbying group (Poltico)
Nielsen: 16M U.S. homes now get TV over-the-air, a 48% increase over past 8 years (TechCrunch)
YouTube bans dangerous pranks following Bird Box, Tide Pod challenges (The Verge)
An issue with protected Tweets on Twitter for Android (Twitter Help)
DuckDuckGo Taps Apple Maps to Power Private Search Results (Spread Privacy)
Twitter is bringing back the chronological timeline, and in a sensible way (Android Authority)
Facebook’s ’10 Year Challenge’ Is Just a Harmless Meme—Right? (WIRED)
Facebook’s own employees appear to be leaving 5-star Amazon reviews for the Portal camera (The Verge)
Facebook launches petition feature, its next battlefield (TechCrunch)
You Deserve Privacy Online. Here’s How You Could Actually Get It (Tim Cook in TIME)
Apple Pay coming to Target, Taco Bell and more top US retail locations (Apple)
Google: data is more like sunlight than oil (Business Insider)
Who’s ‘Scam Likely’ and why do they keep calling you? (USA Today)
Roku Removes Infowars Channel Following Backlash (Variety)
An Egg, Just a Regular Egg, Is Instagram’s Most-Liked Post Ever (The New York Times)
Ishan Goel tells TooFab why world_record_egg struck such a powerful pop culture chord, and warns about the dark side of viral success. (TooFab)

(Hopefully) Helpful Hint

The Easy (and Free) Way to Make a Budget Spreadsheet (The New York Times)

Episode Links, Podcast

PTJ 297: Yes, It’s Time for Our Annual Smart Toilet Update

January 10, 2019 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

Early January is here at last and El Kaiser and J.D. are ready to explore all the unique creations launched on the floor of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. And as with last year’s round-up, the specifications and features on the Kohler Intelligent Toilet amaze. This week’s episode also features a look at recent technology news and a rave review for the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse film. Jump into 2019 with Episode 297!

Links to Stories on This Week’s Show

No, Samsung isn’t pre-installing Facebook on your phone (The Next Web)
How a Russian firm helped catch an alleged NSA data thief (POLITICO)
Less than you think: Prevalence and predictors of fake news dissemination on Facebook (Science Advances)
People older than 65 share the most fake news, a new study finds (The Verge)
Microsoft adds more mobile, scheduling capabilities to Teams for firstline workers (ZDNet)
Three new ways Microsoft Teams empowers Firstline Workers to achieve more (Microsoft 365
AT&T promises nationwide 5G in early 2020 — using sub-6GHz spectrum (VentureBeat)
Pick up where you left off on Search (Google Keyword blog)
Building a Better World Wide Web (Chromium Blog)
Blog)
Instagram now lets you regram your posts to multiple accounts (TechCrunch)
Tim Cook: Apple wearables revenue is already exceeding peak iPod sales (CNBC)
Twitter will livestream some NBA game footage for the first time (Recode)

Consumer Electronics Show 2019

CES 2019: It’s the Year of Virtual Assistants and 5G (The New York Times)
CES 2019: Bread robots, bendy phones, talking toilets and everything else from day 1 (The Independent)
Hey Google, what’s new with the Assistant at CES this year? (Google)
Self-rolling suitcases and roll-up TVs: CES 2019’s craziest and coolest gadgets (The Washington Post)
The weirdest gadgets from CES 2019 (TechRadar)
Weird CES: The bizarre things we didn’t expect to see (Android Authority)
The Best Smart Toilets of CES 2019. Yup, We Said Smart Toilets (Digital Trends)
Kohler’s smart toilet promises a ‘fully-immersive experience’ (The Verge)
Numi 2.0 Intelligent toilet with KOHLER Konnect (Kohler)

(Hopefully) Helpful Hint, Episode Links, Podcast

PTJ 296: “Ring Out the False, Ring In the True!”

December 28, 2018 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

As 2018 comes clanging to a close. El Kaiser and J.D. discuss Amazon’s healthy holiday sales, Instagram’s effects on people, Snapchat’s “dog lenses” and a new essay that wonders just how much of the Internet is real anymore. And in the last (Hopefully) Helpful Hint of the year, J.D. offers a guide for preserving your one-of-a-kind family photographs and slides in the digital realm.
Ring up Episode 296, right here!

Links to Stories on This Week’s Show

Amazon’s Record Holiday Shows Consumers’ Spending Splurge (Bloomberg)
How Instagram has been good for independent bookstores like Books Are Magic and the Last Bookstore (Vox)
Instagram Apologizes for Horizontal-Scrolling Test Glitch, Rolls It Back After Quick and Furious Backlash (Variety)
Android TV sees huge growth thanks to 100 pay TV partners (9to5Google)
Apple’s Future Looks Rotten (Gizmodo)
Patreon Bars Anti-Feminist for Racist Speech, Inciting Revolt (The New York Times)
Snapchat Adds Dog Lenses, But I Still Won’t Use It (Gizmodo)
How Much of the Internet Is Fake? (New York magazine)
We finally started taking screen time seriously in 2018 (TechCrunch)
Hot tub hack reveals washed-up security (BBC News)
“Ring out, wild bells,” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

(Hopefully) Helpful Hint: Digitize and Fix Your Ancient Photos

How to Rescue, Repair and Revive Old Family Photos (The New York Times)
Printers & Scanners (Wirecutter)
Google PhotoScan
Adobe Photoshop Fix

Episode Links, Podcast

PTJ 295: Smokin’!

December 18, 2018 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

The year is winding down, but the movie selection at the local cineplex is heating up with several sizzling releases this month. Also in the hot seat: Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai, who got to have his belated chat with Congressional members, and social-media companies who missed the massive amount of misinformation spread across their platforms in 2016 and beyond. And for those don’t want to burn a lot of cash on wireless headphones, El Kaiser has a a review for you. Fire up Episode 295!

Links to Stories Discussed on This Week’s Show

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse won the box office with a $35 million opening weekend (Vox)
How Peter Jackson Made WWI Footage Seem Astonishingly New (The New York Times)
Can Aquaman and Wonder Woman save the DC superhero universe? (The Independent)
Aquaman (Official Movie Site)
New report on Russian disinformation, prepared for the Senate, shows the operation’s scale and sweep (The Washington Post)
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube Withheld Russia Data, Reports Say (The New York Times)
Russian disinformation teams targeted Robert S. Mueller III, says report prepared for Senate (The Washington Post)
Russian Trolls Came for Instagram, Too (The New York Times)
Russian 2016 Influence Operation Targeted African-Americans on Social Media (The New York Times)
Google Hudson Square: our expanded New York campus (Google Keyword blog)
Google CEO Sundar Pichai grilled by Congress on privacy, bias and China plans (CNN)
Amazon Is Reportedly Sick of Hawking You Cheap ‘Crap’ That Doesn’t Make It Any Money (Gizmodo)
A Year Without Net Neutrality: No Big Changes (Yet) (Wired)
Huawei Hemorrhages Allies in Europe on Growing Security Concerns (Bloomberg)
France to introduce digital tax in new year (BBC News)
SQLite bug impacts thousands of apps, including all Chromium-based browsers (ZDNet)
Kiwibot delivery robot catches fire after ‘human error‘ (BBC News)
Students set up candlelight vigil for delivery robot that caught on fire (Mashable)

The El Kaiser Hardware Review

Mixcder E7 Active Noise Cancelling Bluetooth Headphones with Built-in Mic

Episode Links, Podcast

PTJ 293: Mars, In Sight!

November 20, 2018 J.D. Biersdorfer Leave a comment

Facebook’s horrible, bad, no-good, you-brought-it-on-yourself-pal year continues with major revelations about how the company handles its problems and Apple’s iPhone orders have dipped, but at least we have a NASA event next week. El Kaiser and J.D. wade through the headlines of the week — including a long-awaited podcast-discovery announcement from Pandora. And El Kaiser takes a look at a sleek new pedestal to charge multiple devices. Once you put down the pie, spin up PTJ 293 — and everyone, have a happy Thanksgiving weekend!

Links to News Stories on This Week’s Show

Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis (The New York Times)
Zuckerberg Defends Company in Friday Meeting with Employees (The New York Times)
With Facebook at ‘War,’ Zuckerberg Adopts More Aggressive Style (The Wall Street Journal)
A Look Inside the Tactics of Definers, Facebook’s Attack Dog (The New York Times)
Now eight parliaments are demanding Zuckerberg answers for Facebook scandals (TechCrunch)
Reducing Inauthentic Activity on Instagram (Instagram blog)
How Hackers Are Stealing High-Profile Instagram Accounts (The Atlantic)
Apple Suppliers Suffer With Uncertainty Around iPhone Demand (The Wall Street Journal)
Amazon, Apple and Facebook Once Led the Market. Now They Are Driving it Down. (The New York Times)
Public Attitudes Toward Computer Algorithms (Pew Research Center)
Inside the British Army’s secret information warfare machine (Wired UK)
Amazon Is Getting Helipads At Its New Headquarters In New York And Virginia (BuzzFeed News)
Pandora launches Podcast Genome Project to make personalized recommendations (Apple Insider)
Pandora Podcasts Beta Access Request
New, Independent Criterion Channel to Launch Spring 2019 (Criterion)
NASA Brings Mars Landing, First in Six Years, to Viewers Everywhere Nov. 26 (NASA)
Mars InSight Mission (NASA)
Experience InSight (NASA)
Mars Insight: Watch Online (NASA)
Civil War Photo Sleuth is using facial recognition software to identify people in pictures (Slate)
Civil War Photo Sleuth

The El Kaiser Review

The independent audio magazine devoted to mashing up pop culture, technology and more. J.D. Biersdorfer and Pedro Rafael Rosado are your hosts. It's an Internet Radio revolution!