BOL 1093: E-book Mania

MySpace and Facebook are hooking up? In a way. Maybe. But the real meat of the news today is all the e-book hype. Barnes and Noble will sell the Que, Bridgestone has a color one coming out, and Barnes and Noble may not always have its own Nook eReader. But does anyone want them?

Listen now: Download today's podcast

MySpace and Facebook?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10383501-36.html

Google Voice makes steps to work with your phone number
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-10383573-248.html

Microsoft pulls out of “Family Guy” special
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=8923276

Plastic Logic Que will be sold in Barnes and Noble.
http://www.plasticlogic.com/news/pr_quedistributedbybarnesandnoble_oct272009.php
http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/27/que-proreader-hitting-barnes-and-noble-retail-stores-in-2010/

Barnes & Noble won't sell Nook to go in all stores
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-barnes-noble-wont-sell-nook-to-go-in-all-stores/

Bridgestone announces flexible touch-screen color e-reader
http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/27/bridgestone-announces-flexible-touchscreen-color-e-reader/

Lost Northwest pilots were trying out new software
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/10/27/0613244/Lost-Northwest-Pilots-Were-Trying-Out-New-Software
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/10/26/airliner.flyby/

Japanese OnStar-like system tells emergency responders if you’re just gonna’ die anyway
http://blog.taragana.com/n/now-an-emergency-medical-service-system-that-predicts-callers-fate-201661/

Facebook memorializes the dead…with a profile
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10383015-36.html

Nintendo to launch a big screen DS for old people
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/afp/20091027/tc_afp/entertainmentjapangamecompanynintendo

Mantis shrimp eyes could show way to better DVD And CD players
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091025162459.htm

Voice mail
Joe on France’s three-strikes law

Jimmy the clan-jumper is frustrated

E-mail
Hey Buzz crew,

I wasn't sure whether to send this one to mylifeisaverage.com or you guys, but I think I made the better choice

It's my yearly exams this next two weeks, so I went to the school library today to get the CD version of my commerce textbook. I went to the librarian, asked for the CD and she went to get it. When she came back, I told her that borrowing that wasn't necessary because I could just copy the PDFs onto my notebook here and now and be gone.

Then the dragon came out.

She snapped and said, "I don't want to know about it. What you are suggesting is a highly illegal act. You can't copy the files because of copyright law."

I looked at her slightly strangely (for effect, of course) and told her, "That's what we've been told to do with the CDs ever since we came to this school."

She said, "Very well, but borrow this and copy it at home, not at school. If you want to pay the fine, that's your problem." She loaned it out to me and off I went.

I'm still amazed that I had that conversation. Isn't it perfectly reasonable to copy context from the CDs in the back of the textbook to study and peruse when I need to? What are they good for otherwise?

Sean

PS. I went to an empty classroom and copied the files to my hard disk anyway. I returned the disc to the library within the space of fifteen minutes. My life is average

**********

Hey buzz crew,

I was listening to episode 1092 and heard you talking about a survey that shows the time wasted by employees using twitter. Tom mentioned, what about time spent at toilets, as a joke. I would just like to make mention of a stunt pulled by the Australian Government branch know as Medicare where that was just the case.

Workers at the Parramatta centre were actually required to log the time spent on the loo and were also given surprise “pop ins” by their team leaders while doing their “business”.
It ended when the media caught wind of what was occurring, when questioned Medicare denied knowing of the practice then stated “A log of time away from work was only ever a local practice and never a national policy”.

http://safetyinaustralia.com.au/latest/safety-news/151009-nswact-toilet-police-bullying-employees–200910143092.html

– Ian from Australia

**********

Looking at BOL 1092 on the RSS feed, I see that “Kevin” has sent in an email with some invalid assumptions about Net Neutrality, and who has paid for the infrastructure build-out of the existing Internet.

If you look at http://eldotelecom.blogspot.com/2009/09/fcc-more-subsidies-needed-for-us.html you’ll see that in 2009 *alone* the Federal government has provided $7.2 billion in grants and loan subsidies.

If you look at http://www.theamericanmind.com/2008/04/09/study-finds-us-internet-infrastructure-fourth-worldwide/ you’ll see that the US currently ranks 4th in the world for broadband infrastructure. That means to me that, in spite of Federal subsidies and municipal monopoly grants, US telecom providers have NOT brought the American broadband infrastructure forward as rapidly as other nations where the infrastructure is heavily regulated. And the logical conclusion to be drawn from that is that lassez-faire capitalism *does* *not* *work* if you want the world’s best broadband infrastructure. If it did, we could take back all the tax money that has been poured into the telecoms, turn them loose, and have what we want in a year or less.

Net Neutrality means we *all* play on a level field; consumers, competing ISPs, telecoms, content providers, and government. No more secret bandwidth caps (I’m talking to you, cable modem ISPs)), no more blocking content that competes with *your* content so you can charge more (I’m talking to you, Time-Warner/Roadrunner), no more force-moving customers off DSL and onto fiber so you can steal them from third-party ISPs (I’m talking to you, Verizon).

Net Neutrality means *fair* and *real* competition. And that’s what American broadband needs.

– “Morely” aka “Icesnake”