We always find it interesting (albeit sometimes dispiriting) when our tech headlines align with the national political scene. But this week we go one further, offering not just an international flair to our stories, but an interstellar one as well. You’ll have to listen in to find out.

Our tech headlines this week:

• 
  
• U.S. Charges Chinese Government Officials with Cyber Espionage; U.S. May Block Visas for Chinese Hackers Attending DefCon
  
• EU Court Ruling Establishes Controversial Principle of “The Right To Be Forgotten”
  
• Amazon Accused of Monopolistic Practices as it makes books from Hachette unavailable
  
• Apple, Google Agree to Drop Patent Infringement Dispute
  
• Apple Acknowledges iMessage Bugs That Cause ex-iPhone users to lose text messages
  
• Wireless broadband can reach the Moon, and maybe Mars
  
• Microsoft unveils thinner, lighter Surface Pro 3
  

In our Bytes of the Week, Josh discusses the controversial ethics of creating CGI characters to replace deceased actors Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Walker in movies they were in. And in advance of next week’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, Douglas acknowledges some default OS X apps that get under-recognized, some of which have some rather interesting stories: Automator, Calculator, Chess, Font Book, Image Capture, Preview, Stickies, and TextEdit.

Join us on Monday when we will be live-tweeting Tim Cook’s WWDC Keynote on @TechtAUk from 1-3 pm EDT, followed by our post-WWDC Keynote episode coming out next week!

Episode Duration: 1:13:26

On This Episode: Douglas Bell and Josh Feldman

Download: Tech tAUk Reloaded #34 (35.2 MB MP3)