EdTech Situation Room Episode 78

Welcome to episode 78 of the EdTech Situation Room from December 20, 2017, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) and Wes Fryer (@wfryer) revived a Neiffer classroom holiday tradition: the "Airing of Grievances" (#edtech focused) inspired by "The Holiday of Festivus" and the 1997 Seinfeld episode, "The Strike." In addition to sharing technology grievances, Jason and Wes discussed the remarkable backstory to the Mirai botnet attacks revealed in an Alaska courtroom last week. Other security related topics included the U.S. government's fingering of North Korea for the WannaCry ransomware attack, China's livestreaming servers for public surveillance cameras, and DARPA's "unhackable" computer currently under development at the University of Michigan. Apple related topics included recent reports that the iPhone is designed to slow down with age, tips on how to increase iPhone performance, and a predication that Apple will allow developers to create universal apps in 2018 which run on both iOS and MacOS devices. Google articles included the expected launch in February of Google Chrome's built-in ad blocker and the updated function of Google Sites (the new version) to permit embedding and Javascript. Tears were shed for the death of AOL's instant messenger platform. Geeks of the week included the "Broadcast Voice Messages" feature of Google Home, the 2017 documentary "Unacknowledged" by Dr. Steven Greer (@DrStevenGreer), and the 6 year anniversary price ($1) for the Nova Launcher for Android. Note next week's "2017 EdTech Year in Review" show will start an hour earlier for east coast guests and livestream fans. Please join us, and follow @edtechSR on Twitter for updates.