The holiday season is coming up and The Drill Down would like you to be ready for it. So as we do every year around this time, we’ve prepared a list of what we consider the perfect gifts to give... and get this holiday. So before you stand around for hours this Black Friday, spend some time with us.

Headlines

• How Tech Learned From Past Crises And Reacted To The Paris Attacks
  • Encryption Is Being Scapegoated To Mask The Failures Of Mass Surveillance
• SteamOS gaming performs significantly worse than Windows, Ars analysis shows
• Rdio shutting down, and Pandora will buy its technology
  • Beats Music, Zune Shut Down: Apple And Microsoft Shutter Music Streaming Services

Audible Book of the Week

• The Hunger Games: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
• Sign up at AudibleTrial.com/TheDrillDown

Holiday Gift Picks

Dwayne:

1. Comixology - $50 Gift Card
2. Pebble Time Steel/ Pebble Time Round
3. Anker Astro E1 5200mAh Ultra Compact Portable Charger
4. Streaming Media Players - Amazon Fire TV, Roku 4, Apple TV, Chromecast, Chromecast Audio
5. Pyro Mini- Fireballs from your wrists!!

Tosin:

1. Indie Darlings: Tales from the Borderlands, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, Rocket League
2. Amazon Echo
3. Philips Hue Lighting System
4. Audio-Technica ATH-M50x Professional Studio Monitor Headphones
5. Card Games: Exploding Kittens (by Matthew Inman) - You can get a box that meows, Codenames

Andrew:

1. Apple TV (4) $149, Apple Store
2. Automatic $99.95
3. Sphero BB-8 $149.99
4. Anova Culinary Wifi Precision Cooker $199
5. The Wire (Blu-Ray box set) $199.99 MSRP

Favorites

• Netflix - Netflix subscription (Tosin + Andy)
• Amazon Echo (Dwayne + Tosin)
• Amazon Prime $99/year
• Black Friday ads

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Geeks Of Doom’s The Drill Down is a roundtable-style audio podcast where we discuss the most important issues of the week, in tech and on the web and how they affect us all. Hosts are Geeks of Doom contributor Andrew Sorcini (Mr. BabyMan), marketing research analyst Dwayne De Freitas, and Box tech consultant Tosin Onafowokan.

This week, TAG Heuer’s smartwatch, will fantasy sport betting soon be illegal?, Are data caps really because of network congestion?, Google makes machine learning open source, What streaming video player is right for you? ...all this and more ... on The Drill Down.

What We're Playing With

Dwayne: a second Amazon Echo! (Thanks Inga C Earle)

Tosin: Tales from Borderlands, Automatic

Headlines

• Apple Watch reaches 7 million sales, but will miss ambitious analyst predictions
• TAG Heuer's Connected smartwatch looks like an actual watch
• NY atty gen'l: DraftKings & FanDuel constitute illegal gambling under state law, orders them to stop accepting bets
• Happy? Sad? Angry? This Microsoft tool recognizes emotions in pictures

Audible Book of the Week

• James Bond series by Ian Fleming
• Sign up at AudibleTrial.com/TheDrillDown

Music Break: Surrender (Tomorrow Never Dies) by k.d. lang

Hot Topic

• Leaked Comcast Memo Reportedly Admits Data Caps Aren’t About Improving Network Performance
• Google's TensorFlow is open source—and it's about to be a huge, huge deal

Music Break: Crawl Out Through the Fallout by Sheldon Allman

Final Word

• The ultimate, 10,000-word review of streaming media players: Apple TV vs. Roku 4 vs. Fire TV vs. Chromecast

The Drill Down Videos of the Week

• To see how driverless cars might perceive — and misperceive — the world, ScanLAB Projects drove a 3-D laser scanner through the streets of London.

• This Is What Tesla Autopilot Sees

• ‘Fallout 4’ Launch Trailer

Subscribe!

The Drill Down on iTunes (Subscribe now!)

Add us on Stitcher!

The Drill Down on Facebook

The Drill Down on Twitter

Geeks Of Doom’s The Drill Down is a roundtable-style audio podcast where we discuss the most important issues of the week, in tech and on the web and how they affect us all. Hosts are Geeks of Doom contributor Andrew Sorcini (Mr. BabyMan), marketing research analyst Dwayne De Freitas, and Box tech consultant Tosin Onafowokan.

This week, the Tesla gets downgraded, Amazon sells books... from a building, privacy concerns rise in the US & UK, and we’re boldly going back where no one has gone before...All this and more!

What We're Playing With

Dwayne: Dark Matter

Tosin: Dell U2415 Black 24.1" 6ms(GTG) Dual HDMI Widescreen

Headlines

• Consumer Reports Stops Recommending the Tesla
• Google says there are 'no plans to phase out' Chrome OS
• Amazon is opening its first physical bookstore this week
  • Amazon Killed the Bookstore. So It's Opening a Bookstore
• Activision Blizzard buys Candy Crush maker King for $5.9 billion

Audible Book of the Week

• How Music Got Free: The End of an Industry, the Turn of the Century, and the Patient Zero of Piracy by Stephen Witt
• Sign up at AudibleTrial.com/TheDrillDown

Music Break: Too Late to Apologize by One Republic

Hot Topic: US & UK Privacy Issues

• The CISA Act Passed Last Week and Here's Why You Should Care
• U.K. Users’ Online Activity To Be Logged Under New Surveillance Law

Music Break: Main Theme (from 'Star Trek Into Darkness') by Michael Giacchino

Final Word: Rebooted Sci-Fi

• New ‘Star Trek’ TV Series Officially On The Way
• ‘Six Billion Dollar Man’ Release Date for Mark Wahlberg Film

The Drill Down Videos of the Week

• CODEGIRL http://www.codegirlmovie.com/

• Girls Can Code - BBC Documentary

Subscribe!

The Drill Down on iTunes (Subscribe now!)

Add us on Stitcher!

The Drill Down on Facebook

The Drill Down on Twitter

Geeks Of Doom’s The Drill Down is a roundtable-style audio podcast where we discuss the most important issues of the week, in tech and on the web and how they affect us all. Hosts are Geeks of Doom contributor Andrew Sorcini (Mr. BabyMan), marketing research analyst Dwayne De Freitas, and Box tech consultant Tosin Onafowokan.