Buzz Out Loud 945: Born to be WILB

Turns out surfing Facebook at work has a name and it's good for your productivity. A study shows that 20 percent of your time spent Workplace Internet Leisure Browsing (WILB) will improve your output. Texas also says hasta la vista to Vista, and AT&T tries to block movies on its wireless network.

EPISODE 945

Google reported sniffing at Twitter, but to what end?
http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/04/google-reported.html
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/02/sources-google-in-late-stage-talks-to-buy-twitter/
http://www.appscout.com/2009/04/google_incorporating_twitter_f.php
http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090403/sorry-to-get-you-all-a-twitter-but-google-is-not-in-late-stage-talks-to-acquire-the-hot-microblogging-service/

Google reveals “Secret” server designs
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/02/157244
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10209580-92.html

AT&T changes TOS to limit mobile video
http://newteevee.com/2009/04/02/att-changes-tos-to-limit-mobile-video/

Older Slingboxes incompatible with Sling iPhone app
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10210377-1.html

Study: Surfing the Internet at work boosts productivity
http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2009/04/study-surfing-the-internet-at-work-boosts-productivity.ars

Telcos said its testing plan to offer PCs to businesses
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10787_3-10211116-60.html

Texas Senate proposes a budget with a no-Vista-upgrades rider
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/02/2158253

OS diversity protects cell phones from virus outbreaks
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/04/cellphone-os-diversity-protecting-against-viruses.ars

Angry villagers run Google out of town
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/02/1731231

Robot achieves scientific first
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f2b97d9a-1f96-11de-a7a5-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10211175-1.html

MIT scientists build virus-powered batteries for Your next electric car
http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/ariel-schwartz/sustainability/mit-scientists-build-virus-powered-batteries-your-next-electric-c

Chicks can do math
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/03/1525244

VOICEMAIL
Steve from Calgary
Howell world tour!

Alex in Buffalo
Linux not good on Time Warner Cable

Tony
West Virginia insulting issue

E-MAIL
This looks cool. Add this to the list of alternate game consoles.

http://digg.com/d1nnEK Envizions announced that it is taking orders for an open-source Linux gaming system, and will start shipping beta units to game developers, resellers, and software partners on April 10. The EVO Smart Console is based on a 2.4GHz Athlon, and includes a Fedora-based Linux distro.

-MC Fisticuffs

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Hi guys!

About the Windows Live update for Windows Mobile 6.5. Tom said “I don’t know how many folks use Windows Live anymore.” Well, here in the Netherlands and some other european countries many people use Windows Live Mail and almost everyone has a Windows Live Messenger account. Actually, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t use the Windows Live Messenger. Just wanted to let you know.

Love the show!

Wessel
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

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Forgot to tell you about this very clever conficker test in my previous email. Not sure if you’ve heard about it but if you haven’t it’s worth checking out:

http://www.confickerworkinggroup.org/infection_test/cfeyechart.html

Patrick Beja

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http://linux-foundation.org/weblogs/press/2009/04/02/linux-foundation-to-host-moblin-project/

Interesting one there. Mobilin is a linux distro created and until now
managed by Intel that is aimed at the Atom based MIDs and Netbooks.
It’s looked pretty interesting, taking lightweight and fast Xfce desktop
environment and a standardised API to make it easier for programmers,
whilst including GTK and QT as well.
It also manages something few other OSs have achieved, a true boot up in
just 5 seconds, from scratch not Suspend To Ram, not hibernation.

With that announcement Intel has passed over management of the
application to the Linux Foundation, whilst retaining a person on the
steering committee. What hasn’t changed is the core developers. Intel
is still employing them full time to work on it, so it appears to be an
almost political rather than practical change here to try and pull other
parties in and get them invested in the development.

Paul,
Hawaii.