Tech News 2Night 204 (Transcript)

[Top TN2 Animation ] Tonight! If you want to pre-order Google's Nexus 6 - good luck!, more details about the MCX/CurrentC's hack, and the war over mobile payment terminals heats up. Tech News 2Night is Next! [TWiT Open] [Main TN2 Open] This is Tech News 2Night Episode #204, for Wednesday October 29th, 2014 This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one platform that makes it fast and easy to create your own professional website or online portfolio. For a free 2 week trial and 10% off, go to squarespace.com, and use offer code TECHNIGHT I'm Sarah Lane, Let's get right to the Tech Feed! Google opened up pre-orders for its Nexus 6 today, The flagship Android 5.0 Lollipop phone starts at $649 for a 32GB model, or 64GB for $699. Both sizes sold out almost instantly — though additional stock may return, and Google isn't saying how big the inventory was. All four major US carriers will be carrying the Nexus 6, but on-contract pricing isn't official yet. Nexus 6 comes in two colors: "midnight blue" and "cloud white", and has a real big 5.9-inch Quad HD display. Google's getting serious about Android TV, and is ASUS-made Nexus Player became available for pre-order today as well for $99, with expected shipment in early November. It's got the hockey puck look with the Nexus logo on top, and acts as a guide to all the video Google's Play Store, which includes movies -- but also developers can create and modify apps to run on bigger screens through the Nexus Player. No HBO Go yet, but there is Netflix and Hulu for content. As for other Android TV optoins - Sony, Sharp, and Philips have all committed to making Android TV-powered sets come next year, so you'll have more choices soon enough. / MCX, the mobile payment technology company started by a consortium of retailers led by Walmart, CVS, Rite-Aid, Target, and other chains that allow retailers to sidestep the 2% to 3% fee they pay credit card companies, says, hey man, they're flexible. In a press conference today, MCX‘s CEO Dekkers Davison said “We’re agnostic about technology. We started with QR code-based technology that allows us to go to market broadly. If we need, we can pivot to NFC.” In other words, if a store prefers the NFC system used by Apple Pay to MCX’s mobile payment app CurrentC’s QR code system, CurrentC could switch over. Davison noted that MCX is working with retailers on “other technology that goes beyond QR codes” already. In response to a claim from the New York Times that it would make retailers pay fees for breaking exclusivity agreements and using other mobile payment methods like Apple Pay, Davison said “it’s simply not true, there are no fines”. Davison also addressed a hack of its email system made public this morning, saying its email provider was hacked, but that the hack exposed dummy zip codes and “some tester email addresses.” / Microsoft cut an additional 3,000 jobs from its workforce around the world this morning, making the 18,000 job cut totals that were announced by CEO Satya Nadella back in July, pretty much complete. About 638 of the job cuts were in the Seattle region where Microsoft is headquartered - the company employed more than 42,500 people in the area of the end of September. The overall reduction of 18,000 positions represents roughly 14% of the 127,000 people employed by the company as of June, and about 12,500 of those were in the newly acquired Nokia smartphone division. / Back in 2007, the FBI wrote a fake news story about bomb threats in Thurston County, Washington, and then sent out e-mail links that resembled the Seattle Times in order to fool a suspect into clicking the link and revealing his whereabouts. The actual Seattle Times editor Kathy Best said in response today “We are outraged that the FBI, with the apparent assistance of the US Attorney’s Office, misappropriated the name of The Seattle Times to secretly install spyware on the computer of a crime suspect. Not only does that cross a line, it erases it." So why the long delay? The information was gathered from documents about the 2007 FBI operation, which were acquired via a Freedom of Information Act request and published by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 2011. Yesterday, ACLU Technologist Christopher Soghoian referenced The Seattle Times reference in a post on Twitter, which prompted the Times' response. In response, Frank Montoya Jr., special agent in charge of the FBI in Seattle, told the Times "We identified a specific subject of an investigation and used a technique that we deemed would be effective in preventing a possible act of violence in a school setting. Use of that type of technique happens in very rare circumstances and only when there is sufficient reason to believe it could be successful in resolving a threat." The FBI e-mailed the fake news story via a link to a suspect's MySpace account. When the suspect clicked on the link, FBI software revealed his location and IP address to agents working the case. The suspect, a juvenile, was arrested in June, 2007. / Sources tell the Washington Post that Hackers believed to be working for the Russian government breached the unclassified White House computer networks in recent weeks, which resulted in temporary disruptions to some services. The intruders apparently didn't damage any of the systems and there's no evidence the classified network was hacked. The FBI, Secret Service and National Security Agency are all involved in the investigation. White House officials are not commenting on who was behind the intrusion or how much data, if any, was taken. Coming up, Uber delivers kittens, do I need to say more? And up next Ruth Reader from VentureBeat is here to talk about the next war in moblie payments -- the card reader terminals [AD] "This episode is brought to you by: squarespace.com, the all-in-one platform that makes it easy to create your own professional website or online portfolio. Some of the reasons why you’ll love Squarespace: Beautiful designs - They have 25 beautiful templates for you to start with, and recently added a Logo Creator tool. Easy to use - but if you want some help, Squarespace has live chat and email support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. E-commerce - Now available for all subscriptions plan levels, including the ability to accept donations - which is great for non-profits, cash wedding registries, and school fund drives. plans start at just $8 a month, and includes a free domain name if you sign up for a year. two apps- Metric app for iPhone and iPad allows you to check site stats like page views, unique visitors and social media follows. With the Blog app you can make text updates, tap-and-drag images to change layouts and monitor comments on the go. and Hosting is included - Squarespace takes care of the hosting, so you don't have to. [[Call to Action]] Start a free 2-week trial with no credit card required and start building your website. When you decide to sign up for Squarespace, make sure to use the offer code TECHNIGHT to get 10% off, and to show your support for Tech News 2Night. We thank Squarespace for their support of Tech News 2Night. A better web awaits...and it starts with your new Squarespace website. [Segment #2] Ruth Reader, Writer VentureBeat On this show we’ve discussed Apple Pay and CurrentC and how these systems work to make payments. Today you wrote an article about how the next battle will be payment terminals. - Tell us what is happening a year from now in October 2015 and the EVM (chip and PIN) type of payments? - What is the difference between Apple Pay, NFC and chip and PIN? - Who are the companies looking to get a foothold with their new terminals? (Verifone, Square, Poynt, etc.) - Tell us about Poynt, started by former Google Wallet head. ## Thanks Ruth Reader, Writer VentureBeat [Kicker!]"In honor of National Cat Day, ride-service Uber offered a one-day-only special charging $30 to have a kitten delivered to you for 15 minutes of snuggling. The company teamed up with Cheezburger and the ASPCA® for a second year to bring kitten delivery to Austin, Chicago, DC, New York, Phoenix, San Francisco, and Seattle. Every dollar from the visit is donated directly to the participating shelter in each city! In most cities, customers also have the option of adopting that little kittens themselves. Uber is also matching all donations made to the participating shelters via the Uber app! [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.