Tech News 2Night 92 (Transcript)

[Top TN2 Animation ] Tonight, eBay says change your password, Nest smoke alarms to go back on sale, get ready for Google ads everywhere, and prepare yourself for Bitcoin Pizza day! Tech News 2Night is Next! [TWiT Open] [Main TN2 Open] This is Tech News 2Night Episode 92, for Wednesday, May 21, 2014 I'm Sarah Lane, Let's get right to the Tech Feed! eBay has informed its users about a cyberattack on its system between late February and early March that compromised a database containing encrypted passwords and other non-financial data, such as customers’ names, encrypted passwords, email addresses, physical addresses, phone numbers and birthdates. The company says it has no evidence in any unauthorized activity, and no evidence that users’ financial info or credit card details were accessed. Those are stored separately from the password data, and is also encrypted. But eBay still says users should change their passwords. Interestingly the company said the attack compromised a “small number of employee log-in credentials,” meaning the attackers had unauthorized access to eBay’s corporate network. The company says is now working with law enforcement and security experts to investigate the issue further. / A story that Nest Labs is recalling 440,000 smoke alarms that may not have properly functioning alarms, because of a feature that allows users to temporarily silence alerts by waving their arms at the units, made the rounds today, but it appeared to be a much delayed response to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission's recall from April, even though an update to Nest Protect fixed the problem by disabling Wave. However, the CPSC ordered the recall since Nest Protect does not require a Wi-Fi connection to work. Nest is offering an automatic update to disable this feature for users who are connected to the Internet and linked to an account, but says it hasn't received any reports of incidents, injuries or property damage. Next was acquired by Google earlier this year and halted new sales of the alarms last month after the problem became apparent. Now, the company says it will start selling new Next units in the coming weeks. / "A class action lawsuit was filed today in the US District Court for the Northern District of California against Google over its AdSense platform, over allegations from a former employee that the company is canceling the AdSense accounts of some customers to avoid paying out revenues. Matt Cutts, the head of Google's Webspam team, says the claims have been investigated and are ""complete BS"" and ""a conspiracy-laden fake."" The class action was filed on behalf of a California firm, Free Range Content, which says it's owed $40,000 in fees after Google canceled its account." / In the next few weeks, Facebook will roll out an opt-in feature in its iOS and Android app status composer which can activate your phone’s microphone to identify a TV show or song you’re listening to, and tag it in your News Feed post. Friends can then listen to a 30-second preview of a song via APIs from Spotify, Rdio, and Deezer, or see a link to a TV show’s Page. Facebook says 5 billion posts have already used the option to share what you’re feeling, doing, or what media you’re enjoying, and this is just the next phase of that information. The new feature will directly compete with audio ID companies like Soundhound and Shazam, though Shazam has an index of over 25 million songs and 90 million users, so Facebook hasn't exactly killed it off. / Want to submit a video Yelp review? Well too bad, you can't do that oh actually yes you can! The company is adding a new video feature to its app to allow users to upload short clips along with photos, which is designed to help reviewers better descibe the atmosphere of a restaurant, store, or other business. Each video can be between 3 and 12 seconds long, although Yelp will give the video to its "Elite users" first in early June, and roll the feature out to the rest of its userbase later. / Vimeo has launched Copyright Match, a system that it explains in a blog post is designed to "respect the boundaries of copyright law and the rights of other creators." The company says its service is about showcasing original work, not for pirated content like TV shows, movie screeners, and professional sports broadcasts. Copyright Match will automatically capture an audio "fingerprint" from a portion of your video and look for a potential copyright match. If it finds one, you'll get an email alerting you of the problem. To avoid some of the issues YouTube has experienced with its own copyright flagging feature, Vimeo says video creators can appeal false matches, or replace audio that's triggered a music match with a selection from Vimeo's music store. Coming up... when is Bitcoin Pizza Day and are you ready for it? [Segment #2] Eric Lime-r Associate Editor Gizmodo Gizmodo article today: ""Google Wants to Put Ads on Thermostats (And Everything Else You Own)"" - December letter to the SEC, disclosed yesterday, Google said that it could start serving ads and other content on “refrigerators, car dashboards, thermostats, glasses, and watches, to name just a few possibilities.” -Of course the Nest themostat comes to mind but Google relased a statment saying, “Nest, which we acquired after this filing was made, does not have an ads-based model and has never had any such plans.” -So what do you think Google is planning here? -If not Nest, what devices do you think we will start seeing ads on and when? (Car dashboards? really?) -Are we talking pre-roll video ads before you open the 'fridge? -What kind of backlash do you think Google would get? (Would they have a paid, ad-free version?!) /Thanks Eric Lime-r, assoc. editor Gizmodo [Kicker!] Finally, guess what tomorrow is, besides the day before Friday happy hour? Why, it's Bitcoin Pizza Day! Four years ago on May 22, 2010, a bitcoin programmer named Laszlo Hanyecz offered 10,000 Bitcoins – which equaled about $40 at that time – in exchange for two pizzas from Papa John's. A volunteer in the UK ordered the pizzas for $25 and sent them to Hanyecz, which was the first known trade of bitcoin for pizza. That amount of bitcoin would add up to about $3 million per pizza today, pretty great trade. So, enjoy Bitcoin Pizza Day tomorrow, everyone, but please, purchase wisely. A calendar note before we go: Apple's confirmed its annual WWDC 2014 keynote will be held Monday, June 2nd at 10 AM PT, as usual. If you like that sort of thing. [good bye] That's it for this edition of Tech News 2Night. Subscribe to this show at Twit.tv/tn2, and write us at tn2@twit.tv Don't miss our morning news program, Tech News Today, tomorrow and every weekday at 10am Pacific, 1 pm Eastern. I'm Sarah Lane, thanks for watching. [Close, Cache Fly BB, Credits] [Bandwidth Billboard]