The Personal Computer Radio Show – 03.01.17

THE PERSONAL COMPUTER SHOW
Wednesday March 1, 2017 – PRN.fm 6:00 PM ET

IN THE NEWS
o Massive Internet outage is sweeping the East Coast
o Unlimited plans: Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T and Sprint, compared
o H-1B visa cap is set at 85,000 – April 1st Lottery

FEATURE SEGMENTS
o Internet of Things – Cloud Your Judgement – Marty Winston
o Wearable Tech – Alfred Poor
o Computer Tips for Busy People – Joe Rejeski

Jesse Eisinger and Justin Elliott – These Professors Make More Than a Thousand Bucks an Hour Peddling Mega-Mergers

IF THE GOVERNMENT ENDS UP approving the $85 billion AT&T-Time Warner merger, credit won’t necessarily belong to the executives, bankers, lawyers, and lobbyists pushing for the deal. More likely, it will be due to the professors. A serial acquirer, AT&T must persuade the government to allow every major deal. Again and again, the company has relied on economists from America’s …

RYAN BANISTER – AT&T SECRET SPY PROGRAM UNVEILED: PROJECT HEMISPHERE

Project Hemisphere, a secretive program developed by AT&T, searches trillions of call records in order to analyze cell phone data, spying on the activity of private individuals in order to identify who they are speaking with and why, as well as GPS tracking on the location of each individual connected to the call, and it transmits this information to the …

Nadia Prupis – AT&T Preps “Media Colossus” with Time Warner at Customers’ Expense

A mega-merger between AT&T and Time Warner, which could come as early as this weekend, would create a “media colossus” at the expense of customers and fair competition, watchdogs warned on Saturday. The companies are reportedly in “advanced talks” for AT&T to acquire Time Warner—thus taking over CNN, HBO, TBS, TNT, and Warner Brothers, among other properties—at a time when …

Vic Bishop – The Illusion of Choice: 90% of American Media Controlled by 6 Corporations

It is worth repeating again and again that the bulk of America’s mainline media is owned and controlled by a mere 6 corporations. This, of course, means that unless you’re already consciously avoiding these mainline media sources, then most of the news and entertainment that makes it onto your screen and into your mind comes from a small pool of corporate sources, all of which play …

Why So Many Americans Feel So Powerless – ROBERT REICH

A security guard recently told me he didn’t know how much he’d be earning from week to week because his firm kept changing his schedule and his pay. “They just don’t care,” he said. A traveler I met in the Dallas Fort-Worth Airport last week said she’d been there eight hours but the airline responsible for her trip wouldn’t help …

Who Supports Comcast-Time Warner Merger? Follow the Money

With cable giant Comcast still hoping to receive a federal blessing for its bid to acquire Time Warner Cable, currently its largest rival, the lobbying blitz is in full swing to sway lawmakers and federal regulators that the mega-merger will not, as critics charge, negatively impact consumers by further monopolizing an already highly-concentrated sector. Known for having one of the …

Capitalism was supposed to reduce red tape. Why is bureaucracy worse than ever?

Last month, I became a customer of Time Warner Cable, New York’s favorite quasi-monopolistic provider of patchy broadband that’s worse than the internet in Bucharest. Given the firm’s reputation, I was genuinely surprised at how smoothly it all went, up to the point at which I’d entered my debit card details. (I know, I know; in hindsight it seems so obvious.) Then the …