Buzz Out Loud 959: 99-cent sound of silence

One of our listeners is stunned that you can buy a song from John Cage in the iTunes store that is 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence. In other Apple news, Tim Cook thinks Netbooks suck. And Time Warner says, "Fine, if you don't want to pay our outrageous data fees we won't give you faster Internet. So there."

EPISODE 959

MySpace CEO to step down
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10225519-93.html

Microsoft in “much better place,” oversight extended to 2011
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/04/antitrust-oversight-of-microsoft-extended-to-may-2011.ars

No data caps, no DOCSIS 3.0? TWC’s math doesn’t add up
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/04/twc-without-data-caps-internet-upgrades-now-in-doubt.ars

Time Warner Cable won’t compete, seeks legislation
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/23/1521218&from=rss

AT&T cuts cord on VoIP service
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10225426-94.html

Pirate Bay lawyers demand retrial
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8014626.stm

YouTube video sharing
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10225416-2.html

New Mega-Botnet discovered
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/22/2223214

Apple's Tim Cook: Why don't we make Netbooks? Because they suck
http://venturebeat.com/2009/04/22/apples-tim-cook-why-dont-we-make-netbooks-because-they-suck/

MIPS architecture gets Android Port thanks to Embedded Alley
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/04/embedded-alley-announces-android-port-for-mips.ars

Facebook policy change
http://apps.facebook.com/fbsitevote/contests/208?_fb_fromhash=914932b0c630e9d25ea42dd469941cae

Slick new Ubuntu "Jaunty Jackalope" springs onto Netbooks
http://www.webmonkey.com/blog/Slick_New_Ubuntu__Jaunty_Jackalope__Springs_Onto_Netbooks

Robotic penguins
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/22/2235215

Vote for CNET TV on the Webby People's Voice Award!
http://pv.webbyawards.com/

VOICEMAIL

Brian from Chicagoland
iPhone vs. BlackBerry

B from Turkey
John Cage on iTunes

E-MAIL
Dear Buzz people,

I’m sure you’ve heard about the Pirate Bay trial’s judge and his alleged ties to the recording industry, but I wonder if you’ve heard about this and what you think of it: http://www.thepirategoogle.com/
Not only is the idea very amusing, but its simplicity illustrates something that we tech fiends have known for a while: Google is sort of a Pirate Bay too.

Which makes it easier to ask the question: “Would the RIAA ever take on Google and ask them to filter the Internet?”
(It does seem like too big an idiocy to even formulate, but maybe we shouldn’t underestimate the ability of the copyright lobby to shoot themselves in the foot. Indeed, if too many torrent sites started closing, new tools far more sophisticated than this one would surface in a matter of weeks. What would the copyrights holders say then? It’s probably too big a deal for anyone to have a chance of wining, even the copyright lobbies. The Pirate Bay is a bunch of kids in Sweden, but Google is a whole different animal. Still, I’m not certain they would understand that.)

So let’s review: FTP turned into centralized p2p, which turned into decentralized p2p, which became individual file p2p. Each time, pressure from the RIAA pushed the system to bury itself deeper into the fabric of the Internet. Could it be that they have finally pushed it so far that they cannot do anything about it anymore?

Patrick Beja
http://frenchspin.com
http://twitter.com/notpatrick

**********

Hi,

Sorry if this is old news to you but I just noticed it. If I go to google’s home page using IE7, there’s a little ad at the top telling me I should install chrome for faster browsing. When I use firefox to view the same page, it’s not there. Is google trying to say something about IE?

Regards,
duckling

**********

Tom,

There’s a simple yet awesome extension to your ridiculous-turned-
amazing idea about flash disc mice from yesterday: operating systems
in a mouse!

Get a lightweight Linux distro capable of installation on a USB stick
and presto! Your favourite mouse AND linux distro wherever you go.

Vikingbushi, infrequent chat room attendee

**********

Hi buzzers,
This old BluRay is useless and dead as a video distribution argument because of streaming is so tired and so wrong. This sounds like the argument that on deamand from the cable company is supposed to kill of DVDs. Yea, that happend. So the idea of ownership of phisical media is going to die, right? Yea and we’re going to be flying in hibrid air cars and wearing auto sizing sneakers and jackets. I have a really nice plasma tv, and BD is so much better, and no dvd is not good enough. The entire sentiment of good enough is anti progress and your podcast should be above that. And Tom’s argument that he doesnt have a PS3 because it is too expensive, is so lame. He has every single player box, worth a lot more than a PS3. He buys more tech than me, and thats saying something, so dont give me the too expensive crap.

Love the show

Y

**********

Hey Tom, Natali, Jason, random(GuestHost),

I am one of those individuals that does not yet have access to
Google ‘Me’. Based on your discussion of the offering yesterday, I have
a question: what is to stop a malicious person from potentially creating
false profiles for individuals, filled with less-than-genuine
information. It seems like I could create a false Google account under
the name ‘Tom Merritt’, then write all sorts of bad stuff about Tom,
which result in people thinking he’s a jerk or something (not that I’m
going to do that), and how then, would the real Tom Merritt combat this
doppelganger?

Sincerely,
Chris the Bioinformatician from Calgary

P.S. I realize that the above scenario can be played out on other social
networks as well, but somehow having this information popping up in
Google seems like the kind of place where authenticity would be more
important than say, Facebook.