Facebook is now a public company; the Lumia 900 is coming to Australia; Apple to buy a TV company (though they say they’re not); and what Apple rumour has pretty much made Stewart angry? All this and more on TECHGEEK Weekly.

Terence, Stewart and Chris are your hosts for this week as we take a look at this week’s biggest tech news, rumours and the other weird stuff on the web.

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Show Notes

Stories

Facebook stalls on IPO – $42.05 at open, closes just above $38

Facebook is Going Public (and other stuff that you should know)

GAME Australia goes into administration – will it find a buyer like GAME UK?

GAME: Diablo III pre-orders uncertain, gift cards honoured (with a catch)

Nokia Lumia 900 and 610 coming to Australia, available on Optus and Vodafone

Report: Google to sell ‘portfolio of Nexus’ devices with multiple partners

Researchers Tackle Android Fragmentation, Find 4,000 Devices

Here’s what Android fragmentation really looks like

RUMOUR MILL: Apple looking to buy German TV maker Loewe, potentially for Apple HDTV?

German TV maker Loewe denies Apple acquisition rumour, says report has “absolutely nothing to it”

Apple readies revamped 15-inch MacBook Pro: Retina Display, ultra-thin design, and super-fast USB 3

Apple Said to Plan Thinner Mac Laptops With Intel Chips

WSJ: production of 4-inch iPhone beginning in June

iPhone 5 A5X chip tipped in testing plus new iPod touch

Kiss Aero goodbye: Latest Windows 8 build reveals minimalistic desktop UI

Intel Windows 8 tablets to hit retail stores in November

Windows 8 Pro PC Upgrade Cost is Just $15

Microsoft: No Windows Phone ‘Mango,’ No Marketplace

Twitter rolls out weekly e-mail digest of tweets, stories

Twitter Improves Privacy Options, Now Supports ‘Do Not Track’

Man surgically attaches iPod to wrist

Tom’s Stockings

Yahoo’s CEO is out after faking his computer science degree in his resume. While only being on the job since January of this year, he’s managed to make himself stand out – such as suing Facebook.

Diaspora, the social network that was created after Facebook’s privacy problems, is likely to launch this summer. The open source network, which lets users own their data, will add more features like letting users customise how they post photos, texts and videos. Though, being a Facebook competitor? Ask Google+ and see how they are doing.

HBO’s Game of Thrones is looking likely to be the most pirated show of 2012, according to tracking and analysis firm Big Champagne. The show, now in its second season, is getting more than 25 million downloads a month. Why? Probably because many people don’t have HBO.

Mozilla has released Firefox for Android Beta. It’s new update sees improved performance, a new design to tie in with the Android interface and native support for Flash. The beta is available in the Android Marketplace now, so go check it out.

The Budget reveals some interesting facts, HP calls its new laptops a Sleekbook – but don’t call it an Ultrabook, and Chris tells us a story on not how to ride a bike. All this and more on TECHGEEK Weekly.

Join Terence, Tom and Chris as they recap the big, interesting and often little tidbits of this week’s news in tech.

Happy Mother’s Day, and don’t forget to listen and subscribe!

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Show Notes

Stories

Budget: NBN cancellation would cost nearly $2 billion

Budget: Bureau of Meteorology to trial advertising on its website

HP updates Ultrabooks with ENVY Spectre XT – promises extraordinary design, performance

HP launches new ENVY Ultrabook/Sleekbook range – prices start US$699

HP Envy Sleekbook and Envy Ultrabook stretch definitions with AMD processors, cheaper components

Zuckerberg’s Hoodie a ‘Mark of Immaturity,’ Analyst Says

7-inch iPad on track for October 2012 release, $200 to $250 price

iOS 6: Apple drops Google Maps, debuts in-house ‘Maps’ with incredible 3D mode

Apple rumoured to release $799 MacBook Air in Q3

Our Source Has Seen The Apple HDTV, Here’s What It Looks Like

Foxconn is “making preparations” for Apple iTV

Pebble smartwatch sells out: $10 million raised and over 85,000 sold

Mozilla calls Windows RT a return to the ‘digital dark ages’ for limiting browser choice, Google nods in agreement

Bing gets a redesign, adds Facebook support – and only available in the US

Apple’s Siri: the ‘best smartphone ever’ is the Nokia Lumia 900. Wait, what?

Samsung announces Omnia M Windows Phone handset, arriving in Europe initially

US Postal Service to stop international shipping of gadgets because of battery fears

Pwnage Playtime

Minecraft for Xbox 360

BioShock Infinite delayed – release pushed back to Feb 26, 2013

Tom’s Stockings

The Google+ iOS app has received a rather comprehensive update. Well, total redesign. The app now looks quite nice, though I’m only speaking from the screenshots in the attached article. I’m not too sure whether this will increase the usage of the currently failing social network, but it certainly looks good!

If you use Windows Phone, Twitter for Mobile web app has been updated. Sad news is that it is the one for feature phone, not smartphones. This version only has the basic essentials, rather than pull to refresh among other ‘advanced’ desktop features. Though, probably no one uses the official apps anymore since there are more better ones out there.

Security researcher David Emry is warning users of OS X’s FileVault encryption software that a new update that came with Mac OS X Lion 10.7.3 is logging user passwords in a plain-text debug file. FileVault 2 is unaffected, and changing your passwords is useless right now until Apple fixes the bug.

Some say two heads are better than one. We have three, and they were wrong. Samsung taps into nature, BlackBerry thinks swiping is the coolest thing ever, and AT&T pushes Windows Phone to spite Apple? All this and more on TECHGEEK Weekly

At the helm, Chris, Stewart and Terence go through this week’s big tech news stories – and make fun of the marketing attempts of Samsung.

Seriously, they are weird. Don’t forget to subscribe!

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Show Notes

Stories

Samsung Galaxy S III announced – ICS, 4.8-inch display, 8MP camera

Samsung packs a ton of new features into ‘TouchWiz Nature UX’ on Android 4.0 for the Galaxy S III

Samsung Galaxy S III owners to get 50GB of free Dropbox storage

LG launching new ICS-running Optimus L7 in Europe this month, Asia after

After Samsung, LG announces Optimus LTE 2: 2GB RAM, “True HD” IPS display

BlackBerry 10 unveiled

BlackBerry developers guaranteed $10,000 by RIM

BlackBerry 10 ‘Alpha’ device can’t make calls

Vlogger ‘Blunty’ admits involvement in Wake Up stunt

AT&T “sick of taking orders from Apple”, Nokia Lumia 900 marketing “to go into high gear in May, June.”

Windows Phone boost as carriers “sick of taking orders from Apple”

LG focusing on Android with no new Windows Phone planned

Is the Windows Phone Samsung Mandel built off of the new Android Galaxy S3?

Yahoo’s Board Will “Review” Resume Discrepancy of CEO                                               

Scott Thompson Resume Scandal Is Not ‘An Inadvertent Mistake’ — He Also Claimed Comp Sci Degree As CTO Of PayPal

Convergence Review: ‘Sixth multiplex’ should be used to launch new FTA channels

Small bloggers and publishers avoid ‘News Media Council’ body

Draw Something loses 5 million daily users in one month

Zynga’s New Ad Pitch for Draw Something: ‘Draw This Brand’

Making Windows Media Center available in Windows 8

Pwnage Playtime

$99 Xbox 360 + Kinect bundle launching next week with two-year subscription

See PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale in Action

Thatgamecompany to announce new game this year

Tom’s Stockings

Facebook has confirmed the price of its upcoming IPO, which is said to be soon. It has said that it will sell its common stock between $28-$35, meaning that they’ll raise about $5 to $6.3 billion. It’s a bit conservative, but it could be due to its fears over the lawsuit and the fact that Europe is still, well, in crisis.

Nokia are joining the suing game by launching lawsuits against HTC, RIM and Viewsonic. According to Nokia, there are 45 (unspecified) patents being infringed. Sounds like someone need some attention and/or money.

Speaking of patent disputes, Motorola has managed to secure an injunction that sees the Xbox 360 and Windows 7 banned in Germany. The dispute is all about patent infringement over the H.264 codec – a widely used technology for video recording. However, it gets more interesteing in that Microsoft got an injunction in America saying that Motorola can’t enforce this injunction in Germany. Has your mind blown yet?

Microsoft is trying to clean up the marketplace with introducing new guidelines on their development blog. Microsoft suggests that you should not use trademarks in any part of the app to avoid having it pulled, to differentiate your app icons if developing multiple apps, to keep under the 5 keyword limit for apps as developers have been abusing keywords and limiting the sex apps on the marketplace. Maybe we might see better apps on the marketplace? Chris will be happy…..

Security firm Symantec claims that a religious website is more likely to be infected by malware, as opposed to pornographic websites, saying they are have “triple the average number of threats per infected site”. While it hasn’t explictedly made a category in its top 10 list, porn was last with only 2.4% of all infected websites in 2011. Why? Quote: “We hypothesize that this is because pornographic owners already make money from the internet and… have a vested interest in keeping their site malware-free”.

And finally, in New Zealand. Kim Dotcom has been caught up in a political scandal that is plaguing the National-led coalition in New Zealand, with allegations that a minister may have broken election laws by not disclosing Dotcom’s donation to his unsuccessful mayoral campaign. He is claimed to have broken election laws by not disclosing his $50,000 donation because he knew where it came from. The minister in question, John Banks, has denied the allegations.

iiNet wins against Hollywood, Google and Oracle duke it out and Microsoft is confused about Windows Phone 8′s future – all this and more on TECHGEEK Weekly.

This week, you’re joined with Terence Huynh, Chris Southcott and Harley McEvoy. That’s going to be fun.

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Show Notes

Stories

iiNet wins copyright case against Hollywood – is not liable for users’ piracy

YouTube faces massive music royalty bill in German copyright case

YouTube ordered to filter uploads by German court

Android, Java, and the tech behind Oracle v. Google (FAQ)

Google’s chief Java architect: it’s ‘likely’ I copied Sun code found in Android, ‘I’m sorry’ if I did

Larry Page: Android isn’t critical, it’s a delivery vehicle for Google services

Oracle considered buying RIM or Palm to get into the smartphone game

Google Drive detailed: 5 GB for free, launching next week for Mac, Windows, Android and iOS

Google Drive spotted on Android developer’s phone in a live Google+ Hangout

Microsoft cuts version confusion, offers three consumer flavours of Windows 8

All Windows Phones to get upgrade to ‘next major version,’ according to Microsoft developer evangelist (update)

Sources: current Windows Phone devices will not get ‘Apollo’ upgrade

All current Windows Phones will/won’t get WP 8

MOG coming to Australia, partners with Telstra

Samsung Galaxy S III revealed on video, with a twist

Galaxy S II successor to have quad-core processor with ‘superlative’ benchmarks, will be shown on May 3rd

Next iPhone may be housed in ‘Liquidmetal’

Next iPhone said to get new touch panel tech

Pebble e-Paper Watch for iPhone and Android breaks Kickstarter records

Apple accused of price fixing, RIM looks for a radical shift, Google gets a massive redesign (which Chris doesn’t like) and does our theme music suck? Well, find out at this week’s TECHGEEK Weekly.

Recorded much earlier than when we usually record, Stewart, Terence and Chris delve into this week’s tech news.

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Show Notes

Stories

U.S. Files Antitrust Lawsuit Against Apple, Hachette

Australian government may also sue Apple over e-book pricing

Everything you need to know about the e-book lawsuit in one post

Apple’s “revolutionary” product is coming within 8 months, says designer Starck

Apple Says It’s Not Working on Anything With Philippe Starck

Report: RIM’s former co-CEO wanted “radical shift” before quitting

Lumia 900 Tops Online Sales, Network Connectivity Issues Reported

Nokia issues fix and $100 for bug in Lumia 900

Facebook Buys Instagram for $1 Billion

Instagram + Facebook

Insta-Backlash: Twitterverse Overreacts To Facebook’s Instagram Acquisition, Users Delete Accounts

Toward a simpler, more beautiful Google

Major Google+ redesign puts focus on discovery, lets users customize layout

Toshiba launches three new quad-core tablets running ICS

VEVO finally comes to Australia – but is it too little, too late?

Pwnage Playtime

Users defend EA after anti-gay activists sends complaints

Tom’s Stockings

Microsoft has finally ended mainstream support for Vista – meaning that the company will start charging for non-security patches to the OS. So, don’t worry, if there is a major security hole in Vista, Microsoft will patch it for free – well, until 2017 when it ends support completely.

AOL has struck a $1 billion patents deal with Microsoft, with the company selling 800 of its patents to Redmond and Microsoft getting a non-exclusive licence to use. It basically shocked Wall Street as expectations of a sale would be in the $200-300 million range. At least AOL has some money to spend to become a big blogging empire

Germans won’t be getting push email anytime soon with Apple’s appeal to the Mannheim regional court failed. The court basically sided with Motorola Mobility, and agreed with an earlier decision that saw the company forced to remove the service in Germany earlier in February. Now it will have to pay compenstation to Motorola – but the court has not decided the amount.

A US court has basically destroyed that if you lied on a social media website – the US government can’t use it to prosecute you in a criminal case. So, lying about your birthdate won’t send you to jail. But does that mean you can no longer read those stupid terms of service agreements? No – since you can still be sued in a civil case.

Facebook and Yahoo duke it out in court, SOPA could be back on the table, and the flying car is finally here! (And it could be rival Duke Nukem Forever to be vaporware). All this and more as we present a special Easter edition of TECHGEEK Weekly!

Nothing special, but our panel of ‘experts‘ – and that is in quotations for a reason – come and debate some of the week’s tech issues and news. Join Terence, Stewart, Tom, Chris and Harley on your Easter Sunday holiday with some laughs and rants.

And yes, complain away. Jesus would love you to do that. Happy Easter!

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Show Notes

Stories

TG at FIVE: An editor’s reflection over the past five years

IT’S ON: Facebook launches countersuit against Yahoo – claims 10 patents its violating

Yahoo to lay off 2,000 workers to ‘reshape’ company future

Viacom’s Copyright Suit Against Google’s YouTube Reinstated

MPAA chief hints of SOPA/PIPA revival

Widespread Virus Proves Macs Are No Longer Safe From Hackers

Trojan-Downloader:OSX/Flashback.I

Twitter sues spammers to beef up security

Shutting down spammers

Instagram for Android now available

What does it mean when iPhone users complain about Instagram on Android?

Google’s Project Glass augmented reality glasses begin testing

Project Glass: One day…

Microsoft’s IE reclaims lost ground in browser battle

Kim Dotcom Back Online, Prepares To Release Music Album

Flying car gets closer to reality with test flight, introduction to customers at New York show

Pwnage Playtime

THQ dead in six months, says GTA publisher

Free Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut coming this summer

Tom’s Stockings

Talk about choice. The BBC has announced on Tuesday that it will be launching 24 new channels in HD (plus another 24 in SD) for the duration of the London 2012 Olympic Games – each channel broadcasting each of the 24 sports. These were previously going to be online only, but a deal signed will allow it to go on TV.

Grooveshark’s luck is running up, with their last major record label partner, EMI, tearing up its contract with the company. Without any  major record label support, the streaming music service’s future is now even more uncertain than it was ever before.

BlackBerry manufacturer RIM has finally released its new Mobile Fusion software –  which will allow corporate environments to manage not only their BlackBerry and PlayBook tablets, but also any iPhone or Android device. what does Mobile Fusion do? Essentially, it manages connectivity on your phone, and makes sure your phone adheres to security policies. It’s free – but each device costs $99 per device, or $4 a month, and will require additional software for Android and iOS

Asus has announced that users who are having problems with GPS reception on the Transformer Prime will be able to get a free kit to fix it. Yes, you’re adding an attachment to the device – and while nobody knows what it will be, I bet you it’s an antenna.

The Australian Government has won a multi-million dollar legal settlement over its Wi-Fi patent, which underpins the entire platform worldwide. It will mean that 23 more companies will now have to pay CSIRO royalties to licence the technology before it expires next year. So, go us!

Are you going to get the NBN? Plus, the ACCC calls Apple a liar, and that name for that Android phone – does it sound familiar? It should, and find out what that is on this week’s TECHGEEK Weekly.

Terence Huynh, Chris Southcott and Harley McEvoy are on the roundtable this week. And like usual, Chris and Harley debate again on a different topic and find themselves united with one – Kotaku.

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Show Notes

Stories

Is advertising the new iPad supporitng 4G misleading? ACCC thinks so, sues Apple to stop claiming it

Are Australia’s 3G networks really 4G? It’s complicated…

NBN Co releases three-year rollout plan

In the CBD winners are grinners, in Prahran they’re not

Conroy sees “positive outcome” ahead on filter

Balsillie, two more execs leave RIM after company post loss (again)

RIM: We are not withdrawing from consumer market

Google Drive leaks suggest 5GB free storage, in-app document editing

Google Drive: Finally coming this April

Google to launch third-party commenting platform to rival Facebook

The Next PlayStation is Called Orbis, Sources Say. Here are the Details.

Sketches of ‘PlayStation Orbis Features’ Surface, Then Disappear

Paper: the next great iPad app, from the brains behind Courier

HTC “shutting down” data synchronisation via Sense.com

RIAA: Consumers are shelling out for subscription music

What’s in a Name?

Pwnage Playtime

Confirmed: Sony Closes Zipper Interactive

Sega slammed with 7.1 billion yen loss, kills games, shrinks company

Turns out, the new iPad is really hot. So hot that it could potentially burn. Plus, could the new iPhone have a 4.6-inch display; and Tom discusses/mocks Logitech’s little Apple-inspired campaign over a iPod dock (or a towel, we don’t know). All this and more on TECHGEEK Weekly.

Terence, Tom and Chris are at the helm this week, as Stewart decided to go out this weekend. But don’t worry, you can find out why on his Foursquare profile.

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Show Notes

Stories

Visualized: new iPad burns 10 degrees hotter than its predecessor

Apple’s Chilly Response to iPad Heat Complaints

Our test finds new iPad hits 116 degrees while running games

Logitech stealing Apple’s swagger

Apple’s new iPhone will use bigger 4.6-inch display: report

Rumor: Next-gen iPhone to feature 4.6-inch Retina Display

iOS 5.1 code hints new iPhone could have 4G LTE

Windows 8 to debut on both x86 and ARM devices in October, report says

Microsoft Said to Finish Windows 8 in Summer, Debut October

New Internet Explorer will come in two flavors

Job seekers getting asked for Facebook passwords

Facebook warns employers not to solicit passwords, calls it an ‘alarming’ practice (update)

MPAA Wants Megaupload User Data Retained for Lawsuits — Updated

Criminals Target Megaupload Users With Fake Settlement Demands

For Samsung Galaxy designer Lee Min-hyuk, Apple’s allegations are personal

Exetel releases $55 ‘Fair Use’ unlimited ADSL plan

whatdoestheinternetthink?

Pwnage Playtime

Guess what? Zynga buys Draw Something maker OMGPOP

Minecraft officially comes to Xbox 360 on May 10

R18+ Classification passes House with bipartisan support, heads to Senate

Tom’s Stockings

The HTC One X smartphone has been confirmed to be on Optus’ network, and now we know when. Optus has announced that users can preorder the smartphone today on its website, and will start selling the device in April. If users preorder it before March 29, then users will get the phone on April 2 for metro users and April 4 for those in regional Australia.

It has been revealed that Facebook wants $710,000 a day for an ad on their logout page. The ad, is seen by everyone in the US who logs out.  Ad Age has said the figure is $550,000 for home-page ads plus $160,000 for the day’s log-out inventory.

Or, also known as the episode where Harley and Chris rant about the new iPad – seriously, that’s what it is called. Meanwhile, Chris says that LA Noire sucks and the iPhone is now 4G under AT&T’s network. What’s even more remarkable was that they didn’t change the hardware. What, how? We’ll tell you at this week’s edition of TECHGEEK Weekly.

And we’re back after a short hiatus. Terence, Chris and Harley hold up the fort while Tom goes out and Stewart drinks for St. Patrick’s Day (yes, the Catholic Church will be proud for the fact that a saint’s holiday is used for a day of drinking).

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Show Notes

Stories

New iPad announced – LTE, Retina Display, 5MP camera, March 16 release

No 4G support for 4G iPad for Australia – Here’s why?

Apple TV adds 1080p, new UI for “easier access” to content

Lulzsec hackers’ arrested in international swoop

LulzSec leader “Sabu” worked with FBI since last summer

Anonymous attacks security firm as revenge for LulzSec arrests

“Everything incriminating has been burned”: Anons fight panic after Sabu betrayal

Herald Sun launches paywall, new design on March 12

Hello, Google Play: Google launches sweeping revamp of app, book, music, and video stores

Rdio redesign hands-on video

Australia listed as “under surveillance” in new Internet Enemies list after Finkelstein report

Yep, Yahoo is suing Facebook on 10 patents relating to advertising and social networking

Everyone Has The Features Yahoo’s Suing Facebook For: Here They Are

iiNet dumps off-peak quotas … but not on NBN plans

In a triumph of marketing, AT&T upgrades Apple’s iPhone to ’4G’

From this to Kony 2012? Those other Invisible Children videos

Windows 8 is here – in beta, Nokia releases a 41 megapixel phone running on Symbian, and we finally get a date for an iPad 3 announcement. That’s this week on TECHGEEK Weekly.

Terence Huynh, Stewart Wilson and Tom Solari dwell into this week’s tech stories – and yes, the numerous edit points reveal some stuff a bit ‘too hot’ for podcasting.

So, you’ll have to listen and subscribe to find out what. Also, apologies if you missed the previous episodes – the redirect was looping in itself.

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Show Notes

Stories

Windows 8 Consumer Preview: Here’s how to get it!

TechAU’s review of Windows 8

Microsoft Demos Windows 8 on 82-inch Touchscreen

Nokia announces Nokia 808 PureView – 41MP lens on a Symbian smartphone

Nokia brings out new Lumia 610 – “most affordable Lumia smartphone” to date

Nokia Lumia 900 to go global – may even reach Australia, just not on LTE

HTC One X going to Optus, One XL going to Telstra

HTC reveals One series phones – heading to Telstra, Vodafone and Optus from April

MWC: HTC still to make Windows Phones, new line will feature Apollo

HTC Titan II goes global, Australia confirmed but date unknown

Samsung reveals the Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet

Sony adds Xperia P and Xperia U to NXT lineup – still no ICS until Q2 2012

Huawei announce MediaPad 10 FHD: Quad-Core, Android 4.0, 1920×1200 IPS display

Asus Padfone is coming, combines Phone, Tablet, Keyboard and Stylus

Telstra announces Samsung GALAXY Tab 8.9 4G

Telstra announces 4G for Pre-Paid customers

Raspberry Pi update, possible release this Wednesday

And breathe…

Apple iPad 3 event officially happening at 5AM on March 8 AEDT

The curious case of the missing iPad 3 home button

Digitimes: 14 inch Asian MacBook Air, in April, no more 64GB iPads, iPad Mini in Q3, Retina display shortages

iPad 3 Rumor Roundup: iPad HD, Higher Prices, and New Apple TV?

Site briefly let people bet on expected iPad 3 features

Tom’s Stockings

Timeline is expanding! Facebook has announced that the new profile design will now be integrated to pages, meaning that companies will – like profiles – go all the way back to the past and add content easily to their very own “timeline”. Everyone will be converted to the new design on March 30, but now you can preview and make some changes before publishing it live.

The Nokia N9 has been hacked to run Ice Cream Sandwich. Made possible by Alexey Roslyakov, the N9 hack can actually run all of Android’s apps, including Angry Birds – Chris’ favourite game of all time. However, while sound works for apps, there is “no real sound yet”.

Google+ may claim 90 million users since its June launch, but it’s defintely a ghost town. New data from comScore has shown that users spend more minutes on MySpace than on Google+ – 3 minutes vs 8 minutes on MySpace.

If you think another webOS device will be made, tough luck. HP has announced that it will be axing 270 more employees from its webOS division after the company says that it doesn’t need any more people in engineering. So, while webOS may be “open sourced”, it’s dead.

And the iTunes App Store has now reached 25 billion app downloads. The winner hasn’t been announced yet, but the lucky person gets a $10,000 gift certificate to buy apps on the Mac App Store or anything within the iTunes one.

Telstra crashes under Dodo, Nokia is number one – in Windows Phone, and why you shouldn’t get the PlayStation Vita (despite the hype). All this and more on this week’s TECHGEEK Weekly.

Stewart, Chris, Tom and Terence once again bring the week’s tech news, compressed and opinionated for your ears fortunate/unfortunate listening. And yes, in the spirit of the #respill, we have channeled Julia’s and Kevin’s fighting spirit with a bit more debate than usual.

And apparently Vista is good. Wha? You have to hear Chris’ reasoning – in the podcast player below.

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Show Notes

The Top Stories

Telstra suffers nationwide outage

Dodo takes blame for internet outage affecting millions

UPDATED: Optus moves into 4G – buys vividwireless from Seven

Optus goes first, releases the Lumia 800 pricing plans – phones to start shipping March 1

Analyst: Nokia is largest Windows Phone vendor

LG brings out Optimus 4X HD – ICS, quad-core processor, 4.7-inch screen

LG brings out Optimus 3D Max – dual core, but no ICS (for now)

PlayStation Vita goes on sale in Australia

TechAU – Why you don’t need a PlayStation Vita

Shanghai court rejects Proview injunction, okays the sale of Apple iPads

Proview Brings Fight Over Apple iPad Name to U.S.

Motorola Fight Forces Apple to Disable iCloud Push Email in Germany

Apple, Google, other tech giants agree on mobile app privacy

“Unethical” HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps

New Apple fake: sent from my iPhone

Pwnage Playtime

‘Angry Birds Space’ Coming in March, Teaser Trailer Released

PlayStation Vita Facebook app pulled from PSN

Dreamcast’s Jet Set Radio coming to XBLA/PSN

Sony’s Rohde: proprietary Vita cards ‘completely necessary’ to combat piracy

Tom’s Stockings

Box, who provide online file storage, have announced that they are going to upgrade all Android Box user’s accounts and give them 50GB worth of storage. This is in an effort to get teams who work on the go or who are just looking for online collaboration on Box.

Guess what, the Herald Sun will be the second newspaper in Australia to open up a paywall! The “freemium” model – where you still get free daily news, but exclusive video and other items will remain behind the wall – will be implemented sometime in March, and follows sister newspaper The Australian in implementing it last year. If it works, then you can expect it on every single newspaper in Australia in the next few years.

MegaUpload’s founder Kim Dotcom has been granted bail, according to several reports from Germany. The North Shore District Court found that since the authorities froze all assets, he was incapable of fleeing the country. Also reported was that his extradition hearing could be delayed til August as the judge said that he was likely not to rule before May or even July.

Canonical has announced another big step for Ubuntu, with the unveiling of Ubuntu for Windows Phone 7. Now, it’s not actually running on your small screen, but instead plugs into a regular computer screen. It’s a full desktop version of Ubuntu running on ARM and it’s quite impressive to see. Data and settings are synced between your phone and the Ubuntu install, with things such as SMS’s appearing in the Messaging application. You can make calls and see your phones contacts too.

Just when you thought Windows XP was dead, Microsoft has yet again extended its support life cycle policies to 8 April 2014 for XP. Meanwhile, Vista’s support has been extended to 11 April 2017 and Windows 7 will stop being supported in 7-8 years, which is 14 January 2020. This means that if any big security flaws are found in XP, Vista or 7 then they will be patched, until the support date comes.

YouPorn has been hit, with an attack that managed to compromise all of its users’ emails and passwords. The main site wasn’t hacked, but its chat site was – and it was held by an external company. However, this data was unencyrpted, uploaded to an FTP server and made available in .torrent form. While it has been reportedly removed, there are ways to retrieve the stolen data. So, if you happen to visit a site like that, then you should be a bit more careful.

Apple unleashes the Mountain Lion, Windows 8 gets a new logo and will Google Drive come alive? All this and more on this week’s edition of TECHGEEK Weekly.

Terence Huynh and Chris Southcott are joined by Mark Caetano as Stewart and Tom were a bit busy. So, hope you enjoy the ranting, shouting and poor internet quality from Exetel. Yes, you heard that right.

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Show Notes

Stories

Apple unleashes Mountain Lion, beta released

Apple PR’s dirty little secret

Proview calls for iPad export ban without a hint of irony

A ban on iPads in China? Not a chance, Beijing says

Windows 8 gets a new logo – drops the flag and divides many

Google’s embarrassing Safari exploit

Exclusive: Google Drive gets closer: subdomain becomes active

MySpace touts 1 million new users in last month

Paul McCartney pulls tracks from streaming services

HP ENVY 14 Spectre Ultrabook comes to Australia – end of Feb, $1899

Where The Ladies At? Pinterest. 2 Million Daily Facebook Users, 97% Of Fans Are Women

Google+ Facts and Figures (infographic)

In Russia, downloading 419GB over 3G in one week wins you a $5000 holiday

Making Sense of the Android 5.0 “Jelly Bean” Timeline

Pwnage Playtime

Lego to launch Mojang-approved Minecraft set

R18+ Classification Bill finally introduced to Parliament

Facebook uncages Angry Birds

Xbox 720 has ‘Wii U touchscreen controller’ – Report

Tom’s Stockings

Domains such as essendon.afl, operahouse.sydney and mcg.melbourne could exist next year after revelations that both the Victorian and New South Wales governments, and the AFL have made bids to have their own top-level domain. No word on who will manage these domains, but the final decision is expected later in the year by ICANN.

Whether you like it or hate it, Facebook sees its future on Timeline. The new profile design is being rolled out to all users, and a new report has stated that Facebook plans to push the design onto brand pages. It will initially be in beta with only a select number of partners, and will open it slowly to other brands as it expands.

If you have read Chris Southcott’s little complaint about Windows Phone 7, then you would have also noted his dislike of the Facebook app. Well, Facebook has pushed a new update that is said to fix some of the problems of the app. There have been several improvements in version 2.3 with the news feed, including in performance and filtering. As well, you can now view who liked what, and manually set your post’s privacy from the phone. You can download it from the marketplace

Facebook has announced that it will allow prominent public figures to verify their accounts and then opt to display a preferred nickname instead of their birth name. Those with verified accounts will gain more prominent placement in Facebook’s “People To Subscribe To” suggestions. That means, for example, Stefani Germanotta could be verified as “Lady Gaga”.

The Nokia Lumia 710 is reportedly have found a carrier and will launch in the same month as its counterpart the Lumia 800. The phone will be coming to Optus and Virgin (also owned by Optus) for a price of $379.

Both the European Commission and the Department of Justice in the United States have cleared a deal that will see Google and Motorola finally tie the knot, after the US$12.5 billion deal was announced last August.

Path shares everything on your iPhone, Zynga spys on you and, do you want to own your very own Aperture Science Portal Gun? Well, find out how on this edition of TECHGEEK Weekly.

Hosted by Terence Huynh, Stewart Wilson and Chris Southcott, the three-man panel discuss and commentate over the week’s important news. And yes, among other things.

Listen, download and subscribe!

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Show Notes

The Top Stories

Major security flaws found in Google Wallet – allows thief to steal information

Path shares photos–oh, and uploads your contacts, too

We are sorry.

British Govt: Internet slowness, outages could occur during London 2012

Microsoft might be ditching the Start button in the Windows 8 ‘Consumer Preview’

Thurrott: Windows 8 is NOT dropping the Start Button (technically)

Microsoft Office 15 enters Technical Preview, public beta due in summer

OPINION: Windows Phone: Sweet on the outside, sour on the inside

Google brings Chrome to Android – only ICS (for now?)

Ex-Zynga employee exposes secrets – copying, spying, contractors treated like “second citizen employees”

Want to own your own Portal Gun? It’ll cost you 16,000 yen

Telstra ditches email service, moves to Windows Live

Meet @Horse_ebooks: The worst, yet also one of the most hilarious Twitter spambots

Facebook files an IPO, we learn Zynga makes 12 percent of its revenue, and Anonymous manages to swipe a recording about them from the FBI? Wow, and we thought Sony’s security was lax. All this and more on TECHGEEK Weekly.

Stewart is away this week, so Terence, Chris and Tom are joined by the wonderful (and often replacing Stewart whenever he isn’t on the podcast) Harley McEvoy.

Don’t forget to listen and subscribe!

You may be wondering why this was late on schedule. Well, we had some technical issues with CDN. It’s all fixed now. Sorry for the problems. – Terence

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Show Notes

The Top Stories

Facebook files IPO, wants to raise $5 billion

Facebook Goes Public: Surprising Facts Learned From IPO Paperwork

Zynga made up 12% of Facebook’s revenue in 2011

Zuckerberg will take a $1 annual salary starting next year

Facebook Javascript API Goes Down, Taking Down Likes, Comments And Apps With It

Howard Stringer to leave Sony CEO role, promotes Kazuo Hirai

Remember that rumoured February iPad 3 event? Make it March

Anonymous gain access to FBI and Scotland Yard hacking call

Pwnage Playtime

GAME looks to offload Australian stores after Christmas disaster in UK

Minecraft Will Never Be Finished

Nintendo Announces Online Gaming Network

Tom’s Stockings (1)

Exetel founder John Linton has passed away, after having a stroke. Linton was known for his opinions on technology and the ISP industry. His family has asked those to donate to his favourite charity – the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds

Micron CEO Dead At 51

Microsoft’s head of Windows Phone developer experience, Brandon Watson, leaves for Amazon

In Other News

Microsoft’s terrible ‘Gmail Man’ video becomes official, attacks Gmail’s ‘lack of privacy’

Windows Phone 8 ‘Apollo’ video details Skype plans, Windows 8 integration, and hardware support

Apple: Piper’s Munster Finds More Evidence TV Coming Soon

Feds: Megaupload user files may be deleted starting Thursday

Megaupload data to get two-week extension

Google must pay $660,000 for offering Google Maps for free

Is This the First BlackBerry 10 Phone? [PIC]

WiFi Kindle Touch gets its passport, now available internationally

Tom’s Stockings (2)

The latest update of Skype (version 5.8) for Windows is now available. The update, while fixing some bugs, also brings several key new features – including full HD video calling, Facebook video calling and group desktop sharing. Some, however, require you to have Skype Premium. You can download the latest version on its website.

Tweets by Scott Browning, marketing director for JB Hi Fi, has noted that the company has plans to release the app for its JB Hi Fi NOW streaming service “by the end of March” and has confirmed that it will allow users to download songs on their mobile devices for offline use.

Panasonic has announced that it will post a $10 billion annual loss – a record – for the year, blaming restructure changes and writedowns. As well, Sony and Sharp are expected to post heavy losses as all three are trying to fix their TV business.

Anonymous retaliates over the MegaUpload shutdown, RIM ditches their co-CEOs and Twitter starts censoring the tweets? And Stewart responds to Chris’ piece on Windows Phone 7 – all that and more on TECHGEEK Weekly.

Sadly, Chris wasn’t on, so that gave Stewart a chance to rebut without any interruptions.

Don’t forget to listen and subscribe.

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Show Notes

The Top Stories

MegaUpload Founder Again Denied Bail, High Court Appeal Launched

Filesonic Kills File-Sharing Service After MegaUpload Arrests

Hackers retaliate over Megaupload website shutdown

MegaUpload Trial: NZ politicians question Kim Dotcom’s resident status

MegaUpload, Pirate Party to sue FBI for users’ lost files

Kim Dotcom ‘scared hell out’ of neighbours with bizarre email

RIM co-CEOs step down, new leader vows to overturn fortunes

Exclusive: What BlackBerry Lovers Are Looking For

Tweets still must flow

Twitter’s new censorship plan stirs global furor

Tom’s Stockings (1)

HP has announced a timeline for when webOS will be open sourced. By September, HP expects that the full open webOS will be released to developers. However, for those wanting to create apps, it has released the framework today. You can find a link at our site.

Nokia is reported to have announce that the Lumia 800 and 710 will be out in Australia in March. The Lumia 800′s price has not been revealed, but Nokia’s Chris Carr also stated that all three major carriers will be on board.

Get ready for more uproar from Facebook users. The company plans to roll out Timeline “over the next few weeks” to all of its users. You will also have seven days to preview what is in your timeline before it goes live. So, start editing – and delete those embarrassing messages.

In Other News

OPINION: Windows Phone: Sweet on the outside, sour on the inside

Google+ changes naming policy – now allows pseudonyms and “abstract” names

Google+ finally opens its doors to teenagers after adding new safety features

“Streamlined” Google privacy policy and terms of service coming March 1st

Updating our privacy policies and terms of service

One policy, one Google experience

Pirate Bay to allow real-object downloads

Tom’s Stockings (2)

Anonymous – or whoever is trying to claim to be from them – has announced Jan 28 to be the day they will try and take down Facebook. AnonOps’ Twitter account is claiming it is not and is a “mass media lie”. But Facebook reassures everyone that it is ready.

Motorola is suing Apple, saying that the iPhone 4S and iCloud are infringing on its patents. It seeks to have an injunction on these two products, meaning they could be banned. Apple has not responded to the claims.

Nokia has been fined by ACMA for sending SMS messages with ‘tips’ but failing to provide details on how to stop receiving them – which is a violation of the Spam Act. Nokia will pay $55,000 in fines and agree to be audited.

The internet goes through a blackout, MegaVideo’s CEO arrested in New Zealand, and Apple becomes greedy again with your words. Yes, TECHGEEK Weekly is back and in full swing.

This week Terence Huynh, Tom Solari and Chris Southcott talk about the day’s news. And sadly, no Stewart today, meaning that you have the magical free MP3 Skype Recorder.

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Show Notes

The Top Stories

What is SOPA & PIPA

Wikipedia to blackout for 24 hours in protest of SOPA and PIPA this Wednesday

Who else is participating in the Jan 18 Blackout?

RIAA posts (not) funny tweet about Wikipedia

MPAA CEO Chris Dodd: Blackouts Turn Users Into “Corporate Pawns”

PIPA – the race is still on, who still supports the bill?

Reid shelves PROTECT IP Act in response to “recent events”

MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom arrested in New Zealand. US Justice Department: ‘organized criminal enterprise’

MegaUpload goes back up (sort of); CEO denied bail and could be extradited

Copyrights: Feds push a few novel theories in MegaUpload case

Apple launches iBooks 2 digital textbooks

Apple’s new iBooks Author targets e-book creators

This Is Apple At Its Absolute Worst: It Thinks It Owns Any Book You Make Through iBooks Author

Microsoft Mocks Apple’s iBooks Author policies on Twitter

Tom’s Stockings (1)

Telstra announces first 4G phone – HTC Velocity – to land on Jan 24

Live blogging platform CoverItLive hacked, all passwords reset

Microsoft introduces new robust “Resilient File System” for Windows Server 8

In Other News

Kodak files for bankruptcy – now who will buy its patents?

Jerry Yang resigns from Yahoo, cuts all ties – is someone buying Yahoo?

Research In Motion pushing for sale to Samsung [updated]

Updated: RIM Said To Court Samsung’s Bid After Pushing Others Away

Facebook adds over 60 new apps with auto-share

The Koobface malware gang – exposed!

Facebook Koobface worm ‘hacker gang named’

RUMOUR MILL: iPad 3 to have LTE, HD screen?

Tom’s Stockings (2)

Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft have been sued for being responsible for obscene content in India.

Venture capital firm Y Combinator, known for investing in high-profile tech startups, is taking on Hollywood

Google+ now has 90 million users, according to Google’s Larry Page.

And we’re back for another year. This week, we recap that CES event with the latest craze of ultrabooks, look at the Galaxy Nexus and talk about Rdio.

Terence Huynh, Stewart Wilson, Tom Solari and Chris Southcott come back for another series of TECHGEEK Weekly and we’ve also produced a video version – which we are editing at the moment.

We also like to thank Sony, Rode Microphones, AVerMedia and Telestream for their support with our ambitious CES coverage.

Don’t forget to listen and subscribe.

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Show Notes

The Top Stories

CES PRESS DAY
CES 2012 LIVE BLOG
Kinect for Windows – Coming February 1

ULTRABOOK CRAZE
Acer announces Aspire S5 – 13.3-inch “thinnest ultrabook”
Acer reveals Aspire Timeline Ultra – ultrabook with dedicated graphics
Lenovo unveils business-orientated ultrabook – ThinkPad T430u
Samsung’s Ultrabook Debut: the Series 9 and the Series 5 Ultra
LG to launch series of “Super Ultrabooks” at CES

GOOGLE TV
Sony tries Google TV again with motion controls, voice search, and gaming
Google TV to be integrated within LG’s own televisions
ANALYSIS: Google TV ditches Intel, moves to ARM, to make it an appealing product

OTHERS
JVC joins 4K craze – launches first 4K handheld camcorder
Polaroid announces new “Smart Camera” SC1630; powered by Android
First 4G smartphone coming to Australia this month: sources

Tom’s Stockings (1)

Man suing Facebook fined $5k by court
Hard drive demand will exceed supply this year
The HP TouchPad is alive, receives OTA software update
Google+ Hangouts get a facelift, now includes screensharing

In Other News

If SOPA’s Main Target Is The Pirate Bay, It’s Worth Pointing Out That ThePirateBay.org Is Immune From SOPA

Reddit to go silent in SOPA protest

The Pirate Bay Will Stop Serving Torrents

EMI Sues Irish State For Not Implementing Piracy Blocking Provisions

Rdio quietly opens its doors to Australia

Sponsored Stories begin to appear in News Feed

TPG may buy iiNet, Telstra tells staff

Hackett hammers iiNode critics

Tom’s Stockings (2)

A UK woman has won a court order to prevent explicit photos being shared via BitTorrent

Foursquare is down. What now?

Apple to stop selling the iPhone 4S in Beijing and Shanghai due to safety concerns

So, if you did miss our Holiday Gift Guide Live podcast this year, Stewart actually found a way of recording it. So this is the entire two-hour live show, unedited and uncensored for your own listening pleasure.

Featuring Stewart Wilson, Terence Huynh and Tom Solari to answer the 120-ish questions, we gave away many prizes. We couldn’t get through of all of the questions, but we will be using it to write some stuff for TECHGEEK.com.au in the upcoming year.

So listen, like, tweet and subscribe! See you next year.

If you’re looking for the news portion of the podcast – it’s episode 72. Also, it is a 71MB-ish file, so it will take a while to download. So you’re much better off streaming it from the handy player below.

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There isn’t an intro because this our final episode. So, instead we’re giving away products – and this is the obligatory news part of TECHGEEK Weekly. So, stay tuned for the Holiday Gift Guide recording tomorrow to hear your questions answered and the humour from our three panellists.

This episode, you’re joined with Terence Huynh and Stewart Wilson. And we wish all of you a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We will be compiling our best of series of the year – and yes, one year of TECHGEEK Weekly is good.

So, listen, tweet, like and subscribe.

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Show Notes

The Top Stories

Samsung Galaxy Nexus coming to Telstra tomorrow

Optus CONFIRMS Galaxy Nexus is heading to its network

Judge gives Universal Music 24 hours to explain takedown spree

Universal has ‘Tech News Today’ episode yanked from YouTube for reporting on MegaUpload promo video

Alienware announces Aurora – promises extreme gaming performance

Facebook Timeline now available for all – and get ready for the users to scream hate

Wikipedia ponders total blackout ahead of SOPA

Microsoft to introduce automatic background IE upgrades in Australia, Brazil

Bill Gates speaks out in Sydney … on Microsoft, Steve Jobs, and the weather

Don’t forget! We have our live podcast on this Friday, 16th December 2011 starting at 7:00PM. The show will be filled with Gift Ideas, best products to buy and of course, giveaways! However, you have to be an Australian citizen to win. But how do you win? Simple. Ask us a question.

The live show will start at 7:00PM Sydney/Melbourne Time (6:00PM Brisbane Time, 3:00PM Perth Time) with our Pre-Show (we will be recording the last episode of the year of TECHGEEK Weekly), then at 7:30PM we will get straight into the Holiday Gift Guide special. We will have different sections of the podcast to announce winners and also

Any answer from November 21 up until Friday December 16 7:00PM, will be in the running to win one of these great products:

• NETGEAR N600 Dual Band Gigabit Router – Premium Edition
• 5 x BitDefender Total Security 2012
• Buffalo Home Networking Pack w/ LinkStation Pro
• Kingston Wi-Drive
• 10 x TegaTech Screen Cleaner – Double Pack
• 3 x 50GB Binverse Download Accounts
• AlfaHosts Web Hosting Account (US-Web-Standard)

So what do you need to go in the running to win one of these prizes? Simply submit a question to our team via http://holiday.techgeek.com.au or by filling in the form below by the 16th of December 2011. It’s that easy! After the 16th of December 2011, we will pick someone at random. Please remember to take a look at our giveaway rules.