TWTW: April 8th – April 14th, 2018

The week that was (TWTW) takes a look back at the week’s most prominent tech stories from around the world.

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Lastly you can find a full transcript of this week’s episode below.

In the week that was April 8th to April 14th, 2018:


Intro

Hey everyone, Raj Deut here for Reckoner with a look back at the tech news in the week that was:

April 8th to April 14th, 2018.

Stories

It feels like it wouldn’t be an episode without some more Facebook news lately. This week it’s Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg appearing for a two day series of senate hearings.

The first and larger went on for nearly five hours where Zuckerberg answered a series of questions from US senators covering a wide range of topics all loosely related back to the company’s recent data breach.

Some of the highlights of his testimony included a 100% “No” on the persistent rumour the company listens in to your personal conversations using your phone’s microphone.

A failure to emphatically name a single Facebook competitor in the global marketplace.

And that a paid version of Facebook could very well be a true possibility.

Despite all the recent bad news surveys of Facebook users seem oblivious to the company’s privacy issues with it having little no affect on user opinion beyond the bubbled tech circles.


Hand motion tracking specialists Leap Motion announced an open sourced project they’ve been working on called Project North Star last week.

The project is the outline for a new low-budget, wide field of view, augmented reality headset said to be viable at less than US$100.

Demonstrated in a series of videos of company VP Keiichi Matsuda’s Twitter feed the new device has two 1600×1440 LCD screens that combine for a 100 degree field of view with impressive response times and full hand tracking abilities.

There are no word on a release date for the open-sourced design at this stage but expect word soon.


Some 200,000 Cisco switches have been hacked by a vigilante group who’s aim was to supposedly target networking hardware in Iran and Russian only. Spreading globally the worse hit countries were the US and China making up 70% of those affected.

The group replaced the hacked switches configuration files with a new one that contained a text-based picture of the American flag along with the words “Don’t mess with our elections”, ironically hurting their own country’s hardware more than either of the targets.


God of war reviews hit ahead of the game’s April 20th release with the game receiving nothing but heaped praise from all major outlets.

Deviating from the game’s original style the new version follows Kratos as a father guiding his son through a new, more open format.

While many were slightly concerned about the game’s new tone it would appear there’s absolutely nothing to worry about the game blowing away expectations.


And finally Australia’s beloved NBN turned the first of yet another type of connection on in the Multi-Technology-Mix being used now. The latest known as Fibre to the Curb is a hybrid solution running cable almost to the premise but not quite and doesn’t require the large, expensive battery powered boxes that encumber fibre to the node.

Fibre to the Curb was switched on for 1000 homes in two pilot locations in Victoria and New South Wales.

Outro

And that’s it for another week! As always be sure to subscribe and like the show on your listening-slash-viewing platform of choice.

Jump on over to the Reckoner website for more news and exciting features and reviews. Also be sure to check out our Instagram at @ReckonerAU for news story updates as they happen.

Have a great week and bye for now.