Podcast

GRUBBRR CEO Bhavin Asher - TMO Background Mode Interview

John Martellaro · · Add Comment

Bhavin Asher is a technologist and entrepreneur. After graduating college with a computer science degree, he went to work for IBM. Later, Bhavin transitioned to a position at Deloitte as a CRM Strategy Consultant. Deloitte provided a learning environment to understand how successful businesses leverage technology to scale and grow. Most recently, he was a Director and Solutions Architect at Salesforce. Today, Bhavin is the founder and CEO of GRUBBRR.

Bhavin tells a career story that well prepared him to launch his own business. GRUBBRR is a full-service kiosk order and sales system for, to name a few, restaurants, fast-casual restaurants, cafes, bars, coffee shops, and bakeries. If you’ve ever waited an eternity for your food order or check, you’ll want to hear how GRUBBRR has re-engineered the whole process for the digital age—including great GUI displays, AI and Apple Watch support. Welcome to tomorrow.

TMO Deals

Learn a Language by Chatting with Native Speakers Around the World: $29

Bryan Chaffin ·

We have a deal on HelloTalk VIP, a language-learning app that connects you with native speakers around the world. You can search for language exchange partners by native language, city, distance from you, and you can chat with language partners via text, voice recordings, voice calls, video calls, and doodles. A lifetime subscription to HelloTalk VIP is $29 through our deal.

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Spotify Reaches 113 Million Paid Subscribers

Andrew Orr ·

Spotify announced that it reached 113 million paid subscribers around the world, and it’s growing twice as fast as Apple Music.

We continue to feel very good about our competitive position in the market. Relative to Apple, the publicly available data shows that we are adding roughly twice as many subscribers per month as they are. Additionally, we believe that our monthly engagement is roughly 2x as high and our churn is at half the rate.

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Australia, Please Don't Scan My Face When I Download Porn

Andrew Orr ·

The U.K. recently canceled its plans for an age filter on porn websites, but now Australia has taken up the mantle. It wants internet users to verify their identity using facial recognition before viewing pornography.

Writing in a submission to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs’ inquiry, launched in September, Home Affairs said it could provide a “suite of identity-matching services”.

One example highlighted by the department was the use of the Face Verification Service to prevent a child using their parent’s driver licence to get around any age verification.

At this point, me writing about porn is a running joke now. But stuff like this raises awareness on important privacy issues.

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That Apple Bluetooth Tile Product to be Named 'AirTag'

Andrew Orr ·

There’s a 99% probability that Apple’s new Bluetooth product will be named AirTag, according to assets found in iOS 13.2 which was just released today.

A folder within the filesystem for the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system possibly confirms the name “AirTag” for the new device, which will be paired with a user’s iPhone just like AirPods and will allow users to track any item using the Find My app.

I currently have a bet going that AirTag will be released tomorrow.

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Spotify Reaches 113 Million Paid Subscribers

Charlotte Henry ·

Spotify has hit 113 million paid subscribers, according to its latest financial update, Music Business Worldwide reported.  Apple Music hit 50 million paid subscribers in the final quarter of 2018.

The subscriber numbers were confirmed in a Q3 financial update today (October 28), in which SPOT confirmed that its premium subs count was up 31% year on year (on the same three months, to end of September, in 2018). The 113m is comfortably within the firm’s guidance range of 110-114m for Q3. The average paying Spotify subscriber across the world (ARPU) in Q3 2019 paid €4.67, down 1% YoY, but actually down 3% excluding the impact from foreign exchange rates. SPOT’s global Q3 Monthly Active User count (248m) was up 30% year-on-year, and up by 16m people quarter-on-quarter.

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President Trump Allegedly Ordered Defence Secretary Mattis to 'Screw Amazon'

Charlotte Henry ·

On Friday, the Pentagon awarded a huge contract to Microsoft. It had been expected to go to Amazon. A former aide to  Jim Mattis alleged that President Donald Trump told the Defense Secretary to “screw Amazon,” MotherJones reported.

Guy Snodgrass, one-time aide to former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, alleged in a book that was published only recently that Trump had indeed attempted to intervene. Here’s Task & Purpose, via Jake Tapper: Trump called Mattis in the summer of 2018 and directed him to “screw Amazon” out of a chance to bid on a $10 billion cloud networking contract. Snodgrass writes: “Relaying the story to us during Small Group, Mattis said, ‘We’re not going to do that. This will be done by the book, both legally and ethically.” The Department of Defense defended its decision in a statement yesterday, saying that that everything was mad legit: “The acquisition process was conducted in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.” and totally cool and stuff: All parties, the statement said, “were treated fairly and evaluated consistently with the solicitation’s stated evaluation criteria.”

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Arguing That Platforms Can't Moderate Content is a Cop Out

Andrew Orr ·

Mike Masnick writes about Elizabeth Warren’s Facebook feud over its advertising policy that leaves room for fake information. He also says it’s “impossible” to moderate content at scale. I disagree. Facebook and the rest of Big Tech have billions of dollars. They absolutely can moderate content. They either choose not to, or put in place petty measures that don’t do anything. Perhaps the new motto for corporations should be, “If you can’t do it ethically, don’t do it at all.” Online platforms should follow the same/similar rules that broadcasters do.

And this is the point that lots of us have been trying to make regarding Facebook and content moderation. If you’re screaming about all the wrong choices you think it makes to leave stuff up, recognize that you’re also going to pretty pissed off when the company also decides to take stuff down that you think should be left up.

Podcast

iCloud Keychain vs. Catalina Cage Match – Mac Geek Gab 786

John F. Braun · · Add Comment

Today, your two favorite geeks dig into your questions about recovering photo data, removing malware, resolving iCloud Keychain in macOS Catalina, and more. But that’s not all! You’ve got some great tips for automating those un-automatable Personal Reminders, fixing DNS, Mono Podcast Listening, and creating disk images. All of this and more from Dave Hamilton and John F. Braun, as soon as you press play. Do it now and don’t get caught!

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5 New Apple Arcade Games Include Fallen Knight, Yaga, Lifelike, Hogwash, and Tales of Memo

Andrew Orr ·

Today Apple has added five new games to its Arcade gaming service, which you can find in the App Store.

Apple Arcade has added five more games to its new $4.99 monthly subscription service on Friday. Players can now check out Fallen Knight, Yaga, Lifelike, Hogwash and Tales of Memo as part of Apple Arcade’s growing catalog of games. The games are available on iPad, iPhone and Apple TV to start, with content slowly coming to Mac as well.

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Behind AT&T's Streaming Competitor HBO Max

Andrew Orr ·

AT&T wants to take on the likes of Netflix, Disney, and Apple with its streaming service HBO Max.

By 2025, AT&T aims to reach about 80 million global subscribers, with about 50 million in the United States, a source briefed on the plans told Reuters. They are ambitious targets that would be consistent with Netflix Inc’s (NFLX.O) early progress, and in the mid-range of Disney+, Walt Disney Co’s (DIS.N) Netflix rival, set to launch on Nov. 12.

WarnerMedia hopes this service will get a boost in 2021 when it launches an advertising-supported option at a lower cost, insiders said.

TMO Deals

Line Up Your Shots with This Wearable, Compact Bluetooth Golf Rangefinder: $54.99

Bryan Chaffin ·

We have a different sort of deal for you today, the GoGolf GPS Bluetooth rangefinder. With this device, you can push a single button and immediately know the distance to the pin. It will also tell you how far you hit a drive down the fairway, giving you a more precise feel for the game. It will speak ranges on it is, but but it also reports to both iOS and Android devices through a companion app. The GoGolf GPS is $89.99 through our deal, but coupon code GOLFSAVE brings the price down to $54.99 at checkout.

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New Messaging Standard RCS Won't Have Encryption

Andrew Orr ·

Everyone is talking about a new messaging standard the Big Four carriers have agreed upon. It’s called RCS and it’s meant to replace SMS. But your RCS conversations won’t be end-to-end encrypted.

The CCMI neatly fixes both the first and the second problem. Garland says the carriers believe there are some implementation issues with the Universal Profile that the CCMI can address more elegantly, but it will follow the standard to ensure interoperability.

As for encryption, Garland wouldn’t commit. He emphasizes that the CCMI intends to make sure that the chats are “private” and that the app it’s making is “an experience [customers] can trust.”

Having Apple join the project would certainly legitimize RCS, but if it doesn’t have encryption I don’t think Apple will partake.