Buzz Out Loud Podcast

We try to get all sentimental about the demise of the Mars Phoenix lander, but Brian Cooley ruins it with his outlandish assertions about the uselessness of space. Plus, he loses his mind about the crappiness of the BlackBerry Curve. In sum, a good time is had by all.

EPISODE 850

Mars Phoenix Lander completes its mission
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10092897-52.html
http://www.urbanhonking.com/universe/2008/11/interview_marsphoenix.html
http://gizmodo.com/5082385/this-is-my-farewell-transmission-from-mars

Flat-panel TV shipments begin their decline
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10093153-1.html

FCC OKs digital workaround for DTV signal range problems
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081111-fcc-oks-digital-workaround-for-dtv-signal-range-problems.html

AVG virus scanner removes critical Windows file
http://securityandthe.net/2008/11/10/avg-virus-scanner-removes-critical-windows-file/

Cooley Rant: How did RIM fool so many for so long with BlackBerry? It’s CRAP. Gimme’ that GD iPhone!!!
http://www.pcworld.com/article/153666/apples_iphone_so_far_the_best_phone_ever.html

Mininuclear plant is safe, affordable, and purifies water (but doesn’t turn lead into gold)
http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/11/mini-nuclear-plant-is-safe-affordable-and-purifies-water-but-d/

Best Buy’s holiday gift cards now double as speakers, still a lazy present
http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/11/best-buys-holiday-gift-cards-now-double-as-speakers-still-a-la/

Largest Aussie ISP agrees to “ridiculous” Net-filter trial
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/11/1329222

Windows 7 benchmarks show little improvement on Vista
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/11/0110251

Texting bug hits the Google phone
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7722367.stm

VOICEMAIL
John the Bomb Builder: cheap Blu-Ray!

Anonymous Ad-hater

E-MAIL

Hey Buzz crew-

Did you know most states have a public utility service commission? A
friend of mine was told by Bellsouth that it was too expensive to fix
the phone lines to her house and she could live with bad service or
find someone else to help. She called the Georgia Public Service
Commission and filed a complaint. The GPSC called Bellsouth and said
you fix it or you get fined. So they fixed it within two weeks.
Buzz Brigade you are having problems with your utilities Google public
service commission in your state and get some help sticking up for
yourself. And yes there is one in Oregon, so yesterday’s DSL caller
should look into it!

Sheala, GA

Ps- if I pay $3400 for a graphics card, it better be showing me the
future or something!

**********

From the Consumerist.

http://consumerist.com/5082090/timeline-how-circuit-city-came-undone

According to the chart it all starts in 2007 when they fired all employee’s that knew anything so that they could replace them with a team of monkey’s at a lower cost.

In the comments it is traced further back to 2003 when they converted all commissioned sales persons to hourly to lower costs (and pay) and the “good” people left. Of and they fired 4100 people at that time.
http://www.allbusiness.com/company-activities-management/sales-selling/6363203-1.html

The best comment is “Maybe Circuit City should fire all of their executives and hire lower-paid replacements.”

LTS

Brent

**********

The average life cycle of a game console, not including the ones that were colossal failures (I’m looking at you N-Gage), is five to six years. It is way too early for any of the big three to be releasing a new console. Updated versions of the current machines not included (Wii-HD anyone?).

Love the show,

Jonah Gregory
(Certainly not e-mailing from work)

What? What's wrong with you people? We're talking about Netbooks. Dell has a new "Mini" Note, but it's a 12-inch laptop. So, the question is: what is going on in the Netbook world these days? Also, the Internet makes you both smarter AND dumber, Google Earth shows up for iPhone, and Oprah gives out a Kindle discount. And Natali and Molly love Oprah. Deal with it.

EPISODE 839

Sling.com launch
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/26/slingcom-to-launch-on-november-10/

Google Earth for iPhone/Touch
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10075543-37.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10075860-37.html

iPhone most popular camera on Flickr
http://www.edibleapple.com/iphone-still-reigns-supreme-on-flickr/

Qik for BlackBerry
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/webware/~3/433186788/8301-17939_109-10075395-2.html

Dell Inspiron Mini 12-inch launch
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/corp/pressoffice/en/2008/2008_10_26_rr_000?c=us&l=en&s=corp

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/10/dell-mini-inspi.html

Security flaw revealed in T-Mobile’s Google phone
http://news.cnet.com/Security-flaw-revealed-in-T-Mobiles-Google-phone/2100-1002_3-6247261.html

Netflix streams to Macs
http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/433102357/
http://www.macworld.com/article/136380/2008/10/netflix.html

The Internet makes you smarter but may give you ADD
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE49Q2YW20081027

Cable TV provider plans its own wireless network (thanks trails2hike!)
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/biztech/10/27/cox.wireless.ap/index.html

Want $50 off an Amazon Kindle? Thank Oprah
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2333338,00.asp

VOICEMAIL
Jason the Runner: get my wife off the Oprah

Michah: Can’t split the UVerse

E-MAIL
Thomas:

You mentioned on Friday about the Speed Date application taking over for Oregon Trail. That has already happened at least one time before. I had one of those "wall" programs e.g. Fun Wall, Wild Wall, whatever. The Wall program went away and I got an e-mail announcing it's now Speed Date. I didn't remove the application or anything but I would get these e-mails saying that I matched with someone and someone was wanting to contact me, etc. I clicked on one one day for the heck of it and it asked me to fill in my information like name, e-mail, etc. I am a married man so I decided not to do that! After getting a bunch of e-mails about people wanting to match, I uninstalled the application when I figured out how.

**********

Dear Buzz Crew,

The name ‘Minefield’ is used during all betas. And it uses the Firefox logo without the fox. So basically a globe. With a wick on it. So it looks like a field mine. Think of the mines as bugs. To be exploded and thus removed before the final release.

That is all.

Thanks for reading,
Dylan from KC

**********

Hi Buzz Town,

This is in response to the e-mailer from episode 838 who tried to return his Rock Band 2 video game to Wal-Mart. I worked as a supervisor for a major competitor to Wal-Mart (starts with a “T”) for almost seven years, and was frequently the one behind the counter having to turn away such returns. This is a policy that every retailer I know of that sells unopened media has. Every store has their own policy about how long you have to make the return, assuming that the software/video game/CD/DVD is unopened, but once the product is opened, the ONLY action they can take is to exchange it for the same product. At the time that I was working in this position, we not only could only exchange it for the product, but we actually had to OPEN the product before the customer left the store (for the obvious reason). As a matter of fact, all of the media we sold was supposed to have a little white sticker adhered to it stating this very policy.

While I am not a lawyer, and my education in any kind of law doesn’t stem beyond Business Law 101, I, along with my co-workers, all knew that the reason for this policy was due to copyright, even though our corporate policies never directly stated this. Even in the days of Game Boys and N64’s, this policy applied, I guess because it was assumed that somebody, somewhere, had the equipment to make illegal copies of these console games that you could not even place into your CD drive. In all of the years that I worked in this position, I almost never had a customer give me a difficult time regarding this policy. They all seemed to understand, and even if they did challenge us, we would always offer the excuse the federal copyright law prohibits us from taking back these open products, and they were welcome to go to our competitor to try to return the item, but they would be met with the same frustration. That’s one of the reasons for used video games stores!

A hint for the e-mailer: assuming there are no markings on the copy that you bought online that would identify it as a product from a certain retailer, and the UPC is the same, you can always take THAT copy back to Wal-Mart (assuming it’s unopened).

Love the show…
Stephanie in Atlanta

**********

Hi there, BOL crew (greatest-podcast-in-the-cloud), I was listening to episode 838, and you had an e-mail from someone that wasn’t able to return his Rock Band game he bought from Walmart because of “Federal Copyright Law”, which Molly said she had never heard of and you generally all passed of as BS from a Wal-Mart customer service rep.

Well, I would have been in the same mind frame until yesterday. I work at Best Buy’s Geek Squad, where a customer approached me wanting to return a game she had purchased along with her new $1,200 laptop the day prior because no one told her that it wasn’t compatible with Vista. Despite the fact she came to the wrong counter, since I am not a customer service rep, I was more than willing to see what we could do for her, since I felt it was a simple oversight, and it was only a $10 game. When I asked a customer service supervisor if we would be able to exchange it for a different game for her, I was told that we couldn’t because of “Federal copyright law”! I know our policy is that we normally don’t return open software unless its defective, and even then we can only exchange it for the SAME software, but I figured we could make an exception. It took me by surprise, because I had never heard anything about this law before, and then you at the BOL podcast reiterated it. We made an exception in her case since we didn’t want to come off as total jerks (at least I didn’t). It makes sense, though, that we normally wouldn’t not return it, since we cannot resell open software once its open, the store pretty much has to eat the price of the software, which is not a good business model. Also, if we returned open soft, it would be quite possible for a customer to not only copy software, but copy down activation codes for products such as antivirus, or certain video games, and screw over the next customer who would want to purchase.

In short, this “Federal Copyright Law” in regards to software is not just a Wal-Mart reps attempt to blow off a customer, but actually a policy that carries over to legitimate establishments like Best Buy.

~Wez (The-geek-squad-agent-who-doesn’t-want-to-hear-the-same-best-buy-ads-in-BOL-anymore)

**********

I liked that BitTorrent is used as the distribution method for their content but there is a larger issue at hand: Wikipedia used as a reference source in schools. Isn’t Wikipedia banned as a reference source in many areas of academia?

Michael

It looks like Wii Fit will outsell Grand Theft Auto IV this year, Apple's already sold 10 million iPhones, people are lining up for the T-Mobile G1 Android phone (much to our surprise), and just when we started to think the economy might be turning around after all, we got the news about Yahoo laying off some 1,400-plus people. Ouch.
Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 836

T-Mobile delivers the G1 (aka Android) phone
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10072545-94.html
http://news.cnet.com/2300-1039_3-6247193-1.html

Google’s open-source Android now actually open
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10071093-92.html

Yahoo profit drops; at least 1,430 to lose jobs
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10071637-93.html

Wii Fit on track to outsell GTA IV this year
http://gigaom.com/2008/10/21/wii-fit-on-track-to-outsell-gta-iv-this-year/

Apple officially surpasses 10 million iPhones sold in 2008
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/10/21/apple-officially-surpasses-10-million-iphones-sold-in-2008

eBay goes pro-elephant, bans ivory sales--after the holidays
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081021-ebay-goes-pro-elephant-bans-ivory-salesafter-the-holidays.html

Boxee adds support for Hulu, CBS video
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10072002-2.html

New media player searches for spoken words in videos
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10069806-2.html

Device answers phone and stops telemarkerters
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7682111.stm

Robotic surgery on a beating heart
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/21/1914255

VOICEMAIL
Anonymous DMCA: Couric clip was about Clinton

Jeff from Nashville: on laws and politicians

E-MAIL

Congratulations on the nomination. If the Buzz Brigade (still not sure I like the moniker) is discouraged, then maybe we should find a show done by one of the community in some obscure category and vote for that show. If only we could think of one.

Chris, the nominated podcaster

**********

Tom mentioned that if you lose purchased content on a PS3 you were pretty much zitty out of luck, and there was no easy way to back it up. If you format an external drive, ( I used a $40 Seagate 120gig FreeAgent Go) FAT32, you can add the needed PS3 directories and copy your content. Of course, you have to use something such as Acronis to do this, as XP and Vista won't do it .
Thanks for the heads up on LaLa, and I really hope you guys are right about the amnesty part of it...Not that I am admitting anything. This e-mail will self destruct in 5...4...3...2.

Mr. Foolish

**********

I love that you complain about the cost of a MacBook Air, but don’t
know how much it costs.

Most computer users do not edit images or video. The MacBook Air is
perfect for any lawyer, banker, stock broker… paper pushers. You
always filter every product through your own usage, which is extreme
and NOT the norm.

Terrie

**********

Hey Jamoto +1,

Here is a pic of a Segway-bound Brazilian I saw in the wild at Burning
Man this year. The woman, with her fabulous pink tutu and umbrella, rented
it for $350 for the week. Due to a lack of rain, the playa dust was
uncharacteristically deep and terrible to bike in, making a Segway an
ideal vehicle this time round. As long as you didn’t run out of juice on
the way out, of course.

http://flickr.com/photos/catlaine/2827716966/in/set-72157607102831140/

Cheers.

Cat

PS <3 the show

EPISODE 832

IMDB turns 18
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10067397-52.html

Android Market has a killswitch, but Google will refund your money if they use it
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/10/16/android-market-has-a.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10067543-16.html

HTC Dream T-Mobile G1 (black)
http://reviews.cnet.com/htc-dream-t-mobile-g1/

FCC looks set to back “white spaces” as Chairman signs on
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081015-fcc-looks-set-to-back-white-spaces-as-chairman-signs-on.html

Details released on the Radiohead experiment results: A tremendous success
http://techdirt.com/articles/20081015/1640202552.shtml
http://musically.com/blog/2008/10/15/exclusive-warner-chappell-reveals-radioheads-in-rainbows-pot-of-gold/

iTunes sells 200 million TV shows, adds new HD TV lineup
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/10/16/itunes_sells_200_million_tv_shows_adds_new_hd_tv_lineup.html

Only 4.13 percent of the Web is standards-compliant
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/16/1325215

Hawaii's move to digital bumped up to January 15
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20081015/BUSINESS/810150351/1071

Adobe addresses Flash Player ‘clickjacking’ flaw
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10067544-83.html

First official photos from new Star Trek movie
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/16/1210210

Queen has fit of Google giggles
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7672149.stm

No financial chaos in virtual world of Second Life
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iXK9hDkozMzCd61pKw4Z38IvHBPA

Voice mail
Mike from Tacoma: cell phones on a passenger?

E-mail

As always, when people start talking about the consoles they usually start and end by comparing HD space.

Before my stance is undermined let me state some things. I do not own a PS3. I do own a Xbox 360 and a Wii.

The PS3 has 2.5 features over the Xbox 360.

The first being this magical thing called wireless networking. Now that I think about it the Xbox 360 is the ONLY platform that does not have wireless.

PSP? check
DS? yup
Wii? Indeed
iPhone? OMG yes
Zune? Seriously Microsoft….

And due to microsoft wanting to rake you over the coals, the wireless adapter costs $100

The second thing they are missing is something that THEY ALREADY MAKE! A browser. I will not run down the same list again, but you get the idea.

And the .5 is hdmi. only one of the models of Xbox 360 has the beloved hdmi port.

And do not get me started about the messed up proprietary HDs and…*sigh*

I am sure this rant is late but I had only 1 BoL on my ipod Shuffle during a 2 hour road trip so I heard you talk about over and over.

-Paul in Irving

PS the PS3 also cures cancer :p (FaH ftw)

PPS I know the fragmentation is horrible, but it is late. I apologize in advance if I offended Molly’s Grammar Sense. (Hmm super power?)

**********

Just to let you guys know that the first netbook (Asus Eee PC 700) was
released a year ago today. It’s amazing how far they’ve come.

Love the show,
Kyle from Ohio

**********

Saw a 40 to 50 years old lady, enjoying dinner at Ruby Tuesday alone with her Sony Ebook..

Luv de show

Pranav

**********

http://blog.wellsfargo.com/StagecoachIsland/

I haven’t checked this out yet, but I can’t believe it exists. Nevermind who I work for at the moment, this is hilarious.

-Philip

On today's show, the world of anonymous chatting gets even more confusing, thanks to the increasing numbers of computers passing the Turing test. Is it a pervert? Is it a computer? Is it both? In other news, Chrome breaks Molly's heart, Sony breaks all the rules and keeps the PS3 prices high, and people keep preordering G1 Android phones. Who knew?

EPISODE 829

Test explores if robots can think
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/berkshire/7666246.stm
http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/10/13/1450205.shtml

Sony rules out PS3 price cuts for holiday season
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0c6d283e-988a-11dd-ace3-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1

1.5 million G1 Android phones preordered
http://www.tgdaily.com/html_tmp/content-view-39701-118.html

Employees, not hackers, cause most corporate data loss
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081012-employees-not-it-responsible-for-most-corporate-data-loss.html

OpenOffice.org overwhelmed by demand for version 3.0
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/13/openoffice_org_download_website_dead/

Google’s Chrome declining in popularity
http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/10/13/161238.shtml

FCC says Seattle tests back smutless, free broadband proposal
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081012-fcc-says-seattle-tests-back-smutless-free-broadband-proposal.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10063866-94.html

Microsoft launches PC Advisor Repair Utility. Going after Apple next?
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/microsoft_goes_after_apple_with_pc_advisor_utility

People prefer angry-faced cars
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/13/0631240

YouTube beams up ‘Star Trek’ for long-form video
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10063661-93.html

VOICE MAIL
Remy - Verizon isn’t sleazy.

E-MAIL
Hi Buzz Crew,

What do you guys think of this new way of clogging up those spam bot
servers:
http://www.auditmypc.com/freescan/antispam.html

It’s a different way of getting the spammers: instead of blocking e-mails, it clogs up their servers (as ant trap manufacturers would say, stopping it at the source). The description on the site is pretty good, but essentially it tricks spam bots into opening the Web page– full of useless, yet convincing e-mail addresses–and makes them regenerate it via the link at the bottom, thereby feeding them more useless e-mail addresses, and the cycle continues.

–Jonathan

Hey BuzzCrew (+1),
Just to let you know, if you select a Beatles track (I did Come Together), and ask iTunes to make a Genius playlist, it now does! I’ve been checking after iTunes updates my Genius every week, and after updating last night, it now creates the playlists. I guess it’s finally gathered enough data from users iTunes libraries to make Genius playlists. Either that, or The Beatles have come to iTunes.

Love the show!
Dave,
Melbourne, Australia
aka DaveBinM

Episode 817

Judge declares mistrial in RIAA-Jammie Thomas trial
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/not-for-publica.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10050757-38.html

DoJ agrees: IP enforcement bill is a bad idea
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/09/doj-agrees-ip-enforcement-bill-bad-idea

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080924-doj-to-senate-dont-make-us-be-big-contents-copyright-cops.html

T-Mobile lifts 1GB cap from new Android phone
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/TMobile-Lifts-1GB-Cap-From-New-Android-Phone-97982

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/24/t-mobile-lifts-bandwidth-cap-for-google-phone/

Move over, Netflix — Roku to open the box
http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/09/roku-box-will-b.html

Google founder lobbies FCC to free spectrum
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/09/googles-larry-p.html

MySpace launches interactive music service with labels, Amazon
http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/09/myspace-launche.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7635416.stm

Asus adds 3.75G to latest Eee PC; What the hell is “3.75G”?
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/09/25/asus-adds-375g-to-la.html

Netbooks win top-selling spots on Amazon
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/09/netbooks-win-to.html

Chinese say they’re building ‘impossible’ space drive
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/09/chinese-buildin.html

Russian town puts giant smiley on Google Maps
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/24/1646205&from=rss

Voice Mail
Anonymous Viagra

E-mail

Sorry, I have to be a whinger and disagree with your conversation from BOL 815. I think e-mail would be perfect, and in the end should replace MMS. If the e-mail client on phones became more streamlined, then it would be difficult to see the difference, and you would have a far wider range of options for sending and receiving (on your phone, computer or other e-mail-enabled device). Call me stoopid, I just don’t get MMS. It seems redundant.

Patrick Hanlan

**********

Hey, Buzz Crew,

In response to the story on episode 816 about using your phone to unlock/start your car: what took so long?! I have been waiting for this for years, not only because it means I might no longer have to carry around keys and a phone, but also because I think the security of this device could be much better than a normal set of keys. You seemed worried about someone getting your phone and then being able to find and steal your car. But what if your phone had a built in fingerprint reader or some other method of authentication (even if it’s just a simple 4-digit PIN as you mentioned), and required you to authenticate yourself before it would unlock your car? Also, many phones already have remote data wipe, so if you lose your phone you can just wipe it and your personal data and your car are safe. Furthermore, if the phone is required to start the engine and keep it running, and if your phone has a GPS device built in, a thief is forced to carry around a real-time tracking device if they want to take your car.

I don’t even know how tightly integrated the phone and key portions of the system can be, and I know there are issues such as the phone’s battery dying, but I think that eventually this technology could be both cool and very secure.

Love the show,

James from Texas/South Korea

**********

Hey JaMoTo (or… whoever happens to be filling in today)

In case you haven’t heard, Nullriver has posted a notice saying that Apple is going to now disallow any tethering apps.
WHAT!? Molly, help me rage a little bit here.
Tethering is officially supported in MANY countries (including up here in Canada!) by the telcos. WHY can Apple not just find out which countries it is allowed in and selectively allow it in those App stores? Ridiculous!
To make matters WORSE--I managed to buy the app while it was still available for $9.99. However, this means Nullriver can’t do any updates for it. What if 2.2 firmware breaks Netshare? Can I get my $10 back?

A big WTF, Apple. You are really starting to make me angry.

Kevin

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1721598&tstart=0
http://www.nullriver.com/

I bet you think this podcast is about you. Don't you? Don't you!? On today's show, we learn how easy it is to spot a narcissist on Facebook (stay away!), terrible ideas that will criminalize professional eBay sellers and kill eBay even faster than it's killing itself, and how video games might be the only thing that can survive a recession.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 816

Bill would give retailers power to halt online auctions
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080924-bill-would-give-retailers-power-to-halt-online-auctions.html

Users fail to spot fake pop-ups
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7633402.stm

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080923-study-confirms-users-are-idiots.html

T-Mobile soft capping 3G data at 1GB per month
http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/23/t-mobile-soft-capping-3g-data-at-1gb-per-month/

Other G1 flaws
http://gizmodo.com/5053747/android-and-t+mobile-g1s-five-most-obnoxious-flaws

Games are recession-proof earners?
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/23/games-are-recessionp.html

China to run out of IPv4 addresses in 830 days
http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/09/24/1254235.shtml

Narcissists easy to spot on Facebook--if you know how
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080923-narcissists-easy-to-spot-on-facebookif-you-know-how.html

Google gets political with quotation tool
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10049591-36.html

Two ways to get Comcast to increase the data cap
http://gigaom.com/2008/09/24/two-ways-to-get-comcast-to-ditch-the-data-cap/

LHC shut down until early spring
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-10049188-76.html

Phone that works as car key
http://www.nttdocomo.com/pr/2008/001415.html

VOICE MAIL
Daniel: a phone is a phone

E-MAIL
After listening to Molly and Brian rant on about the SanDisk microSD thing, I started to think about the issues you all raised:

The cards are too small to see album art or album titles
The cards are easy to loose

And also the email that a listener sent in about storing his entire music collection in a Velvetta box when the LHC forces us all underground.

So I started to think...

Wouldn't it be cool if you had a case for all of your microSD albums (so it could hold a whole bunch of them), so you wouldn't lose them. And wouldn't it be cool if this case had a color screen on it, so you could cycle through all of your cards and see the album covers? And wouldn't it be cool if this case could also play the songs on your microSD albums?

Oh yeah, isn't that an iPOD? Store all of your albums in flash memory, be able to see album covers, and listen to your music.

LTS,

Jamie

Hi JaMoTo

Regarding Gregory’s comments (BOL #815) about MP3-CDs, it would seem the BBC have experimented with the format, although not with music. The soundtracks for ‘deleted’ Doctor Who episodes have been released on MP3-CD — for example you can get almost 5 hours worth of classic ‘Troughton’ on one disc (see below). Given that many CD players seem to recognise the format (at least here in Europe) I wonder why it isn’t used more widely? Possibly the licensing costs for a year’s worth of music would be a nightmare?!

Still, works great as an audio book format.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Abominable-Snowman-Audio/dp/0563494182/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1222267428&sr=8-2

LtS,
Simon

(PS. It just occurred to me: why is the snowman “abominable”? I mean what did he ever do to deserve such a title? He just keeps to himself, and never bothers anyone. Clearly he’s been the subject of some kind of slander. Should we start a campaign to clear his name?
I blame Bigfoot! Grrr!! )

Hey Buzzites,

i just heard the discussion about possibly selling MP3 cd’s and how the quality wouldn’t be as good as normal cd audio.

Even though i’m not one of the people that really notices the difference between lossless and high bit rate MP3’s, I agree with Brian C in that i’d rather have the full quality audio than not. But I couldn’t help but think your missing one real option.

Surely you could around get the same amount of lossless audio on a dvd as you could get compressed audio on a cd.

John B off of England.

I laughed when I read “funnerer”. It is a PERFECT way to ridicule Apple’s “Oh, we’re so smart that we can bend grammar rules and it makes us cooler because everyone knows that we are so smart).

It’s only derivative because Chunky chocolate bar pushed that it’s “thickerer” back in the 70’s.
Dana

Exchange on the android is going to take a while. Android may be open, but Exchange is not. Someone (T-Mobile, Google) will have to make a deal with Microsoft to get the specifications of Exchange, and implement it in a /Close sourced/ application. Alternatively, someone can reverse engineer the Exchange protocol, and implement it. There are actually already reverse engineered versions of the protocol out there, but none of them are complete. Enterprises would never release an application like this, so it would probably be a small 2-man shop, and no enterprise would accept an app from such a small shop.
Sargun

While the idea of another physical media for music might seem dumb in the US.. other countries, such as Canada where I live, don’t have access to a wide array of un-DRM online music stores (Amazon.ca sucks!). Canada and other countries probably have more restrictive distribution rules around media, or the online companies just might not have bothered yet (ahem.. Amazon?). So this might be a way to get digital music to those markets, rather than us being force to get it by other.. less legal means. Dumb yes. Completly pointless… maybe not.

LTS

Jamie

The introduction of the G1 phone (the HTC Dream) is very nearly overshadowed by the marketing decision to destroy perfect innocent words in the commercials for it. But we do eventually get around to discussing the features, the delay of Windows Mobile 7, electric cars from Chrysler (for real!), and SanDisk takes a beating.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 815

Live blog: First Google Android phone is unveiled
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10048519-94.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10048538-94.html
http://mossblog.allthingsd.com/20080923/googles-g1-first-impressions/
http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/23/t-mobile-g1-site-goes-live-for-real-first-ad-appears/

Each Android phone will include Amazon’s MP3 store
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10048726-17.html

Windows Mobile 7 release delayed
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10048061-56.html

E-mail, photo programs stripped from Windows 7
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10048142-56.html

Chrysler Bombshell: Electric Cars by 2010
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10048704-54.html

eBay to ban checks and money orders in U.S.
http://news.slashdot.org/news/08/09/22/2115217.shtml

Renegade iPhone ‘Podcaster’ developer neutered by Apple, headed to Google’s Android
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/9/renegade-iphone-podcaster-developer-neutered-by-apple-headed-to-google-s-android

Extinct Galapagos tortoise may be resurrected with genetics
http://arstechnica.com/journals/science.ars/2008/09/23/extinct-galapagos-tortoise-may-be-resurrected-with-genetics

Netflix signs deals with CBS and Disney
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122213209024665825.html

VOICE MAIL
Paul from Verizon: people are ditching their iPods!

E-MAIL

What’s most funny/tragic about SanDisk’s slotMusic fiasco is that the company tried this almost exactly three years ago. Remember “gruvi?” That was music on flash memory, but it was even worse… the music used a proprietary DRM format and cost $40 per card! I’m wondering if it’s less the labels trying to resurrect physical music sales and more SanDisk desperate to foist its memory on us whichever way it can.
These are the folks who sell a whole range of music players with microSD slots, after all.

Much love,

Jon
Ottawa, Canada

JaMo_ _ (Input todays guest host), In reference to episode 814, concerning the new music format you trashed, I hope that I am not the only one defending it, but I feel I need to supply a view for those of us who would support it.

Much like the connection to a Land Line that you were talking about recently, I like the dependability of a physical copy. I like the idea that I paid for this, and even if my hard drive crashes, I still have my music. If I make the mistake of ripping all my music in WMA format, and switch to a Mac, I can put that CD in my MacBook and save it as MP3 (still working on finishing that project). If the computers take over the planet and I have to live in the sub-terrain to avoid the Matrix, I can slap something physical into a music player and listen to it without connecting to ‘the cloud’.

I like the idea of the cloud for many things, but the thought of the time needed to backup all my music makes me shutter, and brings me back to the hard drive crashing idea again. I’ll agree with you that the storage method is a question (I won’t keep them in my pocket), and a Micro SD is too small. I think a standard SD would be perfect. Still very small, but large enough for some album artwork, or artist and title. One CD case could house what, 40-50 SD Cards. But it seems Micro SD’s are more prevalent in Phones now and that may be their reasoning.

I just look forward to the day when we don’t have 100 pounds of CD’s and I can physically store all of my future music in something the size of a Velveeta box. But, let’s be honest, this will disappear faster than Sarah Palin’s Yahoo account.

Go Bobcats!

Jeff
Cleveland

I want the music companies to start making MP3 CDs. I would love to be able to buy the top 100 songs for the year on one CD. It would be totally awesome. I would love to get the CD case with the CD art and maybe a special collector magazine or book to go along with the CD. I do not understand why the music companies have not tried MP3 CDs.

Oh yeah they are scared would drag-and-drop the files onto your computer. Which is totally different than ripping a CD and turning it into MP3 files.

If the morons at the record companies would make MP3 CDs they could fit all of an artists’ greatest hits onto one CD. If they would make a MP3 DVD, they could fit a decade of music onto one disc. Most DVD players also play MP3s, and most people have their DVD player hooked up to surround sound.

The record companies are freakin’ morons.

Gregory

While my wife was on the (shared) laptop this weekend I noticed that she was browsing through my Facebook page! I mean come on! Granted, it’s my fault for saving my password… although it’s probably all Chrome’s fault for displaying my recently viewed pages and tempting her into clicking on Facebook… but anyhow… although there is nothing that I would not want her to see on my Facebook page… she did not seem to understand that it’s just RUDE! I told her to get her own Facebook page and I would think about letting her be my friend… but why would she do that when she can just look at mine.

Am I overreacting?

Love the show…

~ Frustrated Facebooker