Dan talks about Microsoft temporarily bricking Xbox Ones as punishment for leaking Gears of War, the sad death of BB King, a little device that cracks a combination lock, your Amazon Echo can now purchase things for you, a fish tank on Kickstarter that incorporates plants, Tech Crunch Pitch-Offs, Lavaboom is the new encrypted email service, and more.

Links for this episode:

• Microsoft Punishes Gears Leakers By (Temporarily) Bricking Xbox Ones
  Over the past couple of days, testers for a contracting company called VMC Games have been leaking out videos from their current project, the upcoming (unannounced) Gears of War remake for Xbox One. As you might expect, neither VMC nor Microsoft is pleased about these videos, and today, the two companies came down hard, telling testers in an e-mail that the leakers have been banned from VMC’s program and will lose access to their Xbox Ones entirely for a period of time to be determined by Microsoft in the future.
• BB King, the King of Blues, dies at 89 - BBC News
  
• Crack a Combination Lock In 30 Seconds With This 3D-Printed Contraption
  
• Official Google Blog: Green lights for our self-driving vehicle prototypes
  When we started designing the world’s first fully self-driving vehicle, our goal was a vehicle that could shoulder the entire burden of driving. Vehicles that can take anyone from A to B at the push of a button could transform mobility for millions of people, whether by reducing the 94 percent of accidents caused by human error (PDF), reclaiming the billions of hours wasted in traffic, or bringing everyday destinations and new opportunities within reach of those who might otherwise be excluded by their inability to drive a car. Now we’re announcing the next step for our project: this summer, a few of the prototype vehicles we’ve created will leave the test track and hit the familiar roads of Mountain View, Calif., with our safety drivers aboard.
• United Will Reward People Who Flag Security Flaws—Sort Of | WIRED
  UNITED AIRLINES ANNOUNCED this week that it’s launching a bug bounty program inviting researchers to report bugs in its websites, apps and online portals.The announcement comes weeks after the airline kicked a security researcher off of one of its flights for tweeting about vulnerabilities in the Wi-Fi and entertainment networks of certain models of United planes made by Boeing and Airbus.
• Amazon Echo is finally becoming your shopping assistant - SlashGear
  Back when Amazon launched its Echo, a digital personal assistant squeezed inside a cylindrical speaker, the obvious question was "why can't I shop?" Now, roughly six months into its slowly-staged roll out, Echo is finally getting the ability to do voice-controlled shopping, with a new firmware update pushed out today adding support for re-ordering items you've previously purchased, all using nothing more than spoken commands.
• Microsoft will automatically install Candy Crush Saga on Windows 10 - GeekWire
  Solitaire, Minesweeper and Hearts are getting some company on Windows 10. Microsoft says it will automatically install Candy Crush Saga for people who upgrade to the new operating system during the launch period.
• EcoQube C- Your Window to Nature by Aqua Design Innovations — Kickstarter
  
• MacBook Pro Retina 15 lock Bracket - MacBook Pro Retina 13 lock Bracket - Macbook Pro Retina Lock - MBPR Lock - MacBOOK Pro Retina Cable Lock
  
• Lavaboom Is Another Zero Access Encrypted Email Service Hosted In Germany | TechCrunch
  “We use JavaScript. All encryption happens on your browser… We as a company can’t look into the contents of your emails because they will be encrypted and decrypted only on your device,” he adds. “We focus on integrating known standards, on the PGP encryption tool… That’s what we use on all our assets.”
• Pitch Your Startup In The Austin And Seattle TC Pitch-Offs | TechCrunch
  
• CBS’s Video Streaming Service Now Offers Live TV In Over 60% Of The U.S. | TechCrunch
  
• Mad Max: Fury Road is the future of pulp | The Verge
  
• New trailers: True Detective, Supergirl, The Muppets, and more | The Verge
  

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