Buzz Out Loud 809: Best Buy, Napster. What, now?
Don Reisinger joins the cast today for a rousing discussion that goes something like this: "Best Buy bought Napster." "Really?" "Yeah, I know, right? Weird." "Huh. Yeah. Wonder why they did that." "Dunno." It's a great show. You'll love it. (No, seriously! Don rants more than I do!)
Listen now: Download today's podcast
| EPISODE 809 |
Best Buy nabs Napster for $121 million
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10041431-93.html
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080915-best-buy-eyes-apple-microsoft-with-napster-purchase.html
In-flight Internet: Web sites, but not phone calls
http://blogs.zdnet.com/gadgetreviews/?p=353
American Airlines flight crews want online porn banned
http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/200838/2026/American-Airlines-flight-crews-want-online-porn-banned
AT&T will 'temporarily reduce' speeds for U-verse customers
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080915-att-will-temporarily-reduce-speeds-for-u-verse-customers.html
Employers admit checking Facebook before hiring
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/151044/employers_admit_checking_facebook_before_hiring.html
Hackers break into Large Hadron Collider computer
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10040525-83.html
Survey: Plans to buy a Mac hit an all-time high
http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/09/15/survey-plans-to-buy-a-mac-hit-an-all-time-high/
iPhone: Big trouble in the App Store (thanks, Philip!)
http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/09/14/iphone-big-trouble-in-the-app-store/
Report: HP trying for ‘end-run’ around Windows
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10040719-92.html
Google search finds seafaring solution
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article4753389.ece
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Dale the physics teacher
the ultimate textbook
Tom
New Buzz forces name is …
Greetings, JaMoTo + 1 guest
It’s worth mentioning that games without DRM can be successful, an example is “Sins of a Solar Empire”, a real time strategy game .. in SPAAACE…
The game sold over 500,000 copies, 100,000 via digital downloads. The game disc came with no DRM or copy protection.
http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2008/09/05/solar-empire-moves-500-000-units
Let’s hope EA learns Stardock (the publisher of Sins of a Solar Empire).
Best regards…
Khaled A.
Hey JaMoTo! I just was wondering if Adam was willing to release Podcaster as a jailbroken application. I know that I personally have been dying for An application like this ever since I had to stop using mobilecast with the 2.0 update. I don’t really mind jailbreaking my phone, if it means incredibly useful applications like Podcaster or Intelliscreen, which Apple has apparently decided are not okay.
Taylor (from Canada)
Buzzcrew + guest,
My prayers have been answered.
I am a field computer tech so I spend a lot of time traveling from customer to customer. There has been an occasion on two that I forget to sync up my iPhone before I leave for work. So I am left in my car without my newest BOL.
I though how great would it be to have an application that could download some of my favorite podcasts. I was excited when Alex S. had sent in an email about his podcaster, not so excited when I heard Apple rejected it. So I was searching through the free apps on the iTunes store and I noticed this application called FlyCast. I read the description and thought it sounded interesting. I downloaded it and installed it. When you launch the program it gives you several option: city guide, radio with 3G/Wi-Fi, radio on Edge, AccuRadio, and something called On-Demand Audio. I clicked the on demand and then clicked on Technology. Lo and behold, whats on TOP! Buzz Out Loud! It buffered for a while and then played. It was awesome. One cool feature is that it buffered a couple of minutes of audio in case of network problems. I wanted to pass this along to other listeners. Thanks for a great show!
Love the show,
Phillippe (computer tech from Iowa)
Hi Tom, Molly and Jason,
You have been talking a lot about Spore and how the DRM is terrible, so I thought I would bring this to your attention. According to TorrentFreak, Spore is the most pirated game ever, thanks to DRM! Here is a link to the full story, http://torrentfreak.com/spore-most-pirated-game-ever-thanks-to-drm-080913/
Love the show!
Simon
How do I save Podcaster? A Buzz soldier awaits your orders.
Thermonuclear Tom

Molly Wood engages in
ruthless industry analysis in the form of the Daily Buzz, the Buzz
Report video, and, of course, Buzz Out Loud.
Tom Merritt appears on
CNET TV, specializing in help and how-to and the ever popular Top 5
lists. He also co-hosts CNET's The Real Deal podcast.
Jason Howell can
often be found producing Buzz Out Loud from the audio studios at CNET,
updating XML feeds from the comfort of his cubicle, and saying "uh-oh"
from time to time. 
Although the commentary about Google's offshore server farm idea as a tax evasion move may be accurate, you didn't touch upon the environmental merits of the proposal that may be considerable. The vision includes powering of the server farm using wave power (40 MWe) and cooling using seawater. As servers consume a not insignificant fraction of the US's power and thus its CO2 emisisons, this may be a concrete way for Google to achieve the environmental goals it has laid out for itself while simultaneously improving its operating economics. Of course large scale deployment of wave power is still a bit in the future so wind might be a better prospect depending on the location.
Cheers,
Bob
Komae-shi, Tokyo
Sadly it is a constant problem in most libraries. I work in a nice middle class suburban library and we have to tell customers to get out of their porn all day long. We're not talking soft porn either: hard core, extreme violence, child porn (we call the cops when we see this), and more.
Frankly, after being exposed to this much porn and being forced to be the Library Porn Cop for the last ten years, my heart goes out to the flight crews on those planes.