DTNS 2428 – Death, Taxes and Now Facebook

Sarah Lane is on the show and we’ll talk about Facebook’s new options for managing your Facebook account after you’re dead. How much should you plan for your post-mortem social life?

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Show Notes

Today’s guest:  Sarah Lane! Executive Producer, Video at TechCrunch and host of iPad Today

Headlines:

Facebook announced today a new feature you can add to your account for after you’re dead. Up until now once Facebook confirmed a user had passed on, they would freeze the account. Now you can assign a ‘legacy contact’ who can write a post for the top of your timeline, change that embaarassing meme photo you were using as your profile picture and, if you pre-approve them, download an archive of your posts and photos. On the opposite end you can also now choose to have your account permanently deleted after you cease to be.

Engadget reports Pinterest is adding install buttons to images of iOS apps that users pin. The buttons will only show up when looking at Pinterest in iOS. Clicking them takes you to the app in the app store. Apple has even created an app store account, full of pictures from Fashion Week for some reason.

Tech Crunch reports that the snappily-named “Windows 10 Technical Preview for phones” is now available. It has customizable photo backdrops and notifications that sync between desktop and mobile. The big news is the much-anticipated merging of Skype chat into messaging and VoIP into the phone app. If you have the right kind of Lumia phone (630, 635, 636, 638, 730 or 830) running Windows Phone 8.1 you can download the preview using the Windows Insider App. And all you need to become a Windows Insider is your Microsoft account credentials and a tolerance for bugs.

The Verge has a preview of Dell’s new updated Chromebook 11 featuring an 11-inch, 1366 x 768 screen with a touch screen option Intel’s Bay Trail-M @ 2.16GHz Celeron processor and 16GB of storage. Dell claims 10 hours of battery life. The 4GB RAM model is $299 and the 2GB RAM model is $250. A similar spec’d out Windows version called Latitude 11 starts at $299 with a 250GB. The Chromebook is out now and the Latitude will launch March 3rd. Dell will also launch Windows and Android version of the Venue 10 Pro tablet March 3rd.

Wired reports Tactus Technology is taking preorders for case that adds a physical keyboard to an iPad Mini touchscreen using Microfluidics. The iPad Mini slots into the case, called Phorm (P-H-O-R-M), with a transparent screen cover. When you press a switch on the back, a change in pressure sends tiny amount of fluids through small grooves, causing a pre-determined pattern of small bubbles to rise up from the surface of the screen. Wired also mentioned an Android prototype with the technology built into the screen. The case arrives this summer for $149 or $99 on preorder at getphorm.com.

Reuters reports that South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission, is investigating Qualcomm. The commission will send inquiries to domestic smartphone makers like Samsung as well as competitors Intel. The South Korean investigation comes on the heels of similar antitrust investigations of Qualcomm in Europe, the US, and China. South Korea fined Qualcomm more than $200 million in 2009 for abuse of their dominant position and on Monday Qualcomm had agreed to pay $975 million in fines in China.

GigaOm reports Xiaomi’s vice president of international, Hugo Barra, told the press in San Francisco that it plans to launch its ecommerce website Mi.com in several international markets, including the US, in a few months. While they don’t intend to sell phones or tablets there right away, the international version of the site will have pretty much everything else, including fitness bands, headphones and TV streaming devices. Xiaomi sells phones in eight territories and is about to add Brazil.

News From You: 

MacBytes sent us the BloombergBusiness writeup of the brief appearance of ten episodes from the third season of House Of Cards on Netflix.The company realized it’s mistake, took the episodes down and blamed a “technical glitch”. The official House of Cards Twitter posted “This is Washington. There’s always a leak. All 13 episodes will launch February 27.”

lythander sends us this story from the verge: Elon Musk says Tesla is working on a consumer battery pack for the home. Tesla’s CEO let details slip after reporting on the company’s $108 million dollar fourth quarter loss. The battery design is allegedly complete and production could begin in as little as six months.

Discussion Section Links: 

You’re Going To Die. First, Choose Someone To Manage Your Facebook Profile

Adding a Legacy Contact

https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/651319028315841

https://www.facebook.com/help/103897939701143

http://what-if.xkcd.com/

http://www.theguardian.com/media/shortcuts/2013/feb/18/death-social-media-liveson-deadsocial

http://www.deadsocial.org/about

http://www.liveson.org/connect.php

https://www.google.com/settings/u/0/account/inactive

Pick of the Day: Beneficio Coffee

http://www.beneficiocoffee.com/

Yeah, I know, everybody has their own favorite coffee, but I’ve been dealing with this company for over 5 years. The coffee is awesome, reasonably priced, and the customer service can’t be beat. Oh, and they treat their Costa Rican farmers fairly, with profit sharing and donations to local schools and orphanages. Check them out, you won’t be disappointed!
Regards, Tom Brannan

Friday guests:  Justin Robert Young and Len Peralta