November 17, 2008 11:53 AM PST

Buzz Out Loud 854: Death to the Moon

by Tom Merritt
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We thought about calling this podcast graves in space, or delicious Yak, or Jason makes the earth move. But soup_n_salad in the chat room nailed it. A new company wants to send 5,000 capsules full of cremated remains to the moon for burial. Natali and Jason think this is littering, essentially. I think they gotta go somewhere and the Moon has space. We also talk about the new Asus phone, Flash on Windows mobile, and more.
Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 854

Obama can’t use his BlackBerry
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/us/politics/16blackberry.html

Asus phone
http://gizmodo.com/5090348/asus-announces-800mhz-worlds-fastest-smartphone
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/11/17/asus_p565/

Google speech application supposed to really launch today
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/16/update-on-google-iphone-voice-recognition-app-look-for-it-on-monday/

Flash on Windows Mobile
http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2008/11/16/adobe-to-demo-flash-on-mobile-but-only-windows-still-working-on-the-iphone/

AOL video uploads shutting down
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/15/aol-gets-out-of-user-generated-video-business/

Most users don’t office in the cloud: 1% use Google Docs
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081117-report-users-continue-to-prefer-office-over-google-docs.html

Old people are scared of technology
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/scared_of_technology_youre_old.php
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10097839-1.html

UK couple in real-life divorce over virtual affair
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27718230/?gt1=43001

Order pizza from your TiVo
http://www.gearlog.com/2008/11/ordering_dominos_pizza_from_yo.php
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10098333-93.html

Lost Beatles song may bring Fab Four to Net sales
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10098215-93.html

Quantum cloaking makes molecules invisible
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/16/2137230

US space-funeral company plans lunar cemetery
http://news.sg.msn.com/oddities/article.aspx?cp-documentid=1786876

VOICEMAIL

Jason in Georgia - What happened to exploding batteries

Andy Novosibirsk, Siberia - Netbooks galore here!

CT baggage handler - But how did they get there?

EMAIL

Hey guys, Looks like MS has decided what to do with all the cash they were going to spend on Yahoo.

I work for one of the Microsoft managed partner ISV's. MS was just on our weekly internal sales call and our MS partner manager was on talking about how we can offer up Microsoft financing through the end of the MS fiscal year (June).

This financing is not just for MS products but anything that is involved in the entire enterprise solution including hardware and other software.

The internal MS guys are touting that 2-5 business days turn around and touting that it will be easier and cheaper than going with traditional financing . They are willing to finance anything from small 10k deals and up, and depending on customers credit rating with D&B will determine the % rate. He was saying that it was going to be in the range of 5-8%.

https://www.microsoftfinancing.com/

Rob

**********

$139 blu-ray players on Woot.com today.

Just sayin...

Ryan the Biologist

**********

In trying to catch up with BOL, I was listening to #845 and I want to
pose a question related to the AT&T experiment with bandwidth caps. Has
anyone thought about the licensing contracts that AT&T might be looking
to sign with media companies? Think about it, AT&T or Comcast could sign
usage contracts with sites like Netflix, YouTube or Hulu so that their
site usage does not apply to their customers’ bandwidth caps. This would
allow ISP’s to make more $$$ and control traffic.

Coming soon to a legal agreement near you… AT&T merges with YouTube.

So far I have not heard anyone bring up this point via CNET or that TWiT
guy. If ISP’s can stop Bit Torrent, then they can probably allow
certain, preferred content to flow freely.

No charge for this two cents opinion. LTS.

Thanks,

Rodney

**********

In show 853, you had two stories which prompted me to type in... First, you made a big deal out of Google search on the iPhone supporting speech. Windows Live Search Mobile has had this feature for quite some time - and I find it quite useful. Like the Google offering, you speak to it, it sends the speech to the servers, and the servers do the speech-to-text. The use of the accelerometer in the iPhone is new - and a cool idea - but the speech part is not new. I use Google Search on my Windows Mobile phone if I am in a place where I can type easily, but use Windows Live Search Mobile specifically for the speech-to-text if I am driving or walking.

You also made a big deal out of President-elect Obama making use of technology by planning to put his weekly address on YouTube. President Bush podcasts his weekly address - see http://www.whitehouse.gov/podcasts/, or http://www.whitehouse.gov/rss/radioaddress.xml. Not sure YouTube video is an earth-shattering improvement for a weekly address that most people won't pay any attention to after the first month. I also happened to listen to an NPR Podcast just after BOL, and they made it sound like Obama invented the Internet because he plans on putting government information on the web. While I'm all for using technology, and more is certainly better, can we have a reality check? Some of the advances in technology use are simply because time is elapsing. When the government launched THOMAS back in 1995, that was newsworthy from a tech perspective. Saying you will put more stuff on the web is, well, simply expected.

LTS,

/John in Fairfax

**********

You guys were teasing about using old software on Friday’s show. Well I am
one of those use it till it dies dudes.
I am still using Quicken Version 3, 1993 that dates back to the Windows 95
days. It still works on XP just fine.
There is more than one reason for sticking with it. Don’t have to learn new
version and best of all hackers are not
going to be looking for a realistic user of a 15 year old version of
financial software. Also still use Eudora for email.
Have been using it since 1995 and it also still works fine on XP. I have
years worth of elaborate filters which I have
moved every time I get or build a new machine. I figure all the hackers and
attackers out there are trying to
break into Outlook and MS stuff in general. At work I use Outlook on our
office exchange server just fine but
at home I am still with Eudora V5.1.

Really like BUZZ and all the CNET podcasts. Keep up the funnin’ with us
…. half the time I almost crash on
the way to work or on my way home because I am rollin’ in laughter while
listening to BOL

BYE
Darrell in Virginia
Also got email about Grandpa using Sidekick ‘98 and a user that brings back kids software

**********

Wii Speak
In fact the game does not come with that hardware it just can use it
if you have it. So, the game can travel through the rental and used
markets as normal, just not the hardware. Now whether the hardware
should work the same, that you can debate. Thanks for the great
podcast.
Johnny P

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by mhesketh November 17, 2008 5:59 PM PST
I think it might have been a case of Bus Out Loud guys. lol.
Reply to this comment
by Petrifiedwood November 17, 2008 11:41 PM PST
Not Natali again!

I'd never use an online document service like Google Docs. It would be bad enough to give them access to all of your DATA but Google and other services like LIVE can now see your thoughts and your revisions. That is right, have a tough letter to write? Don't know exactly how to say it? Let's try this or that. Hey, it's online and there are various ways for many people to capture what you type as you type. Remember the Auto-Backup some online apps offer. So, if you were only joking about hurting a public figure in your first or second draft and it never was in your final letter.... watch out! Someone might still have seen a copy.

P



....shoot Natali to the SUN! Where's Cooley when you need him?
Reply to this comment
by andysibirsk November 18, 2008 5:52 AM PST
Thanks for playing my message today, the fleeting moment of fame made me want to confirm some of my facts about computer prices in Siberia. For comparisons sake I checked out some prices today. Asus comptuers are pretty common here which might be one reason netbooks are so popular. The Asus EeePc 700 Linux is 9200 rubles or 335 rubles, the EeePC 900 Linux is $529 and the 900 with Windows XP is $570. The Eee PC is just 21000 rubles or $766. The ruble has dropped 10% in the past 3 weeks and the prices haven't changed. To compare in the world of Apple the new aluminum MacBook with the 160gb hard drive is $1890 dollars (51,800 rubles), the MacBook Air with a 80gb hard drive is $2383. The 24" iMac with 2gb of RAM and a 1TB hard drive is 99,0000 rubles or $3613. Unlocked iPhones without a contract are the priciest items: the 8GB is 21,999 rubles or $802 and the 16gb is $948. Prices are high but at least there isn't a contract with AT&T. The carriers here aren't any better but at least you can choose your own misery.

Enjoying the podcast. PS Novosibirsk is in Southern Siberia (what a concept) so the taiga is north and east of us.
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by Astinsan November 18, 2008 8:34 AM PST
Asus Smartphone.... 800mhz... with a marvel cpu (ARM/RISC CPU). I have a few routers that run in the 100s of mhz but they are underclocked because of excess heat. I can only imagine how much heat it would create in such a small package.

I guess what I am really asking is: Do we know if this phone can cook food?
Reply to this comment
by john.stone November 25, 2008 3:20 AM PST
I'm sorry, but Petrifiedwood is right. Natali is getting really awkwardly clingy to the show, she's not a host, she's a guest and she needs to understand that. I'm sure she wants to be part of CNET's most popular podcast, and she can, but just as a guest. She was so quick to jump on "Ooh Monday is my day!" and the rest of the Buzz team was like "Yeaaah... we'll see... *awkward*" and I'm sure they're all too nice to tell her she can't be on every Monday, but they should.

Fact is there are better guests that could have her spot or just have a day where it's just the traditional Buzz team. Every time I open a podcast I slump a little when I hear her voice because I know the podcast won?t be as good as it could have been.
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About Buzz Out Loud Podcast

Buzz Out Loud features Tom Merritt, producer Jason Howell, and a rotating roundtable of CNET's top tech experts reviewing the day's tech news. Each episode, five times a week, the crew analyzes, interprets, and argues about what all this technology means and what it's doing to us. Fans can join in the show by calling 1-800-616-2638, e-mailing at buzz@cnet.com, or commenting on the blog.


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