I was going to post the same thing after playing around with it! Quick question just for curiosity - is there any reason to have the "track by $index" in the table row tag? This seems to also work:
<table id="table" border="1">
<caption>Caption</caption>
<tr>
<th></th>
<th>Period 1</th>
<th>Period 2</th>
<th>Period 3</th>
<th>Period 4</th>
<th>Period 5</th>
<th>Period 6</th>
</tr>
<tbody>
<tr ng-repeat="row in msg.payload">
<td ng-repeat="item in row track by $index" >{{item}}</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>