Technogaze

19 Apr 2014

Techdrive, Inflight Internet, Haptic feedback, Commfail, NSA bleeds and NBN vs TPG

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The usual suspects were in the studio this week with Mark, Raena & Michael talking all things tech. With the help of generous listeners and Marks magnificent offer to match dollar for dollar all donations, we surpassed our expectations and managed to raise a large amount of money for Techdrive. Techdrive is raising money to properly equip volunteers with computers, software, office and recording equipment so we can continue to bring high quality audio production to you. Thank you for your wonderful support.

In this episode we took to the air and looked at the technology behind improving the tracking of aeroplanes around the globe. The FAA has mandated ADS-B on all commercial aircraft by 2020, with planes to report their position every minute to land and satellite based base stations as well as other aircraft. In-flight internet access is set for a boost with Gogo planning to use geostationary satellites to provide download speeds of up to 70mbs. Compared with access speeds of 3mbs today, mile high surfing is set to approximate NBN speeds.

The NBN this week countered TPG’s cherry picking of the fibre-to-the-basement market by announcing its own plans to provide FTTB to 50,000 apartments initially, thereby causing TPG and others to rethink their position. Heartbleed is still causing ripples, with Bloomberg reporting that the NSA knew about and exploited the vulnerability for the last two years. Meanwhile if you are a Google Chrome user the Chromebleed extension can help you detect sites that have not been patched.

During the week the Commonwealth bank suffered an extended outage of its EFT, Internet and phone banking services and then managed to confuse customers with its marketing doublespeak response to Heartbleed related questions.

On a lighter note we looked at the Alert Shirt from Foxtel that lets you feel what footballers feel, when on the field, with the use of haptic feedback technology. We closed the show with a look at an upcoming Facebook mobile feature called Nearby Friends, that with opt-in permission, will tell you when friends are in the area – so you can catch up.