Buzz Out Loud Podcast

Microsoft shows "Pink" (sort of), MMS disaster, er, feature about to launch on iPhone, Wii gets price cut, Archos new Win7 tablet looks great (too bad nobody will notice), and MIT has a synthetic eyeball on the way that amazes us. Oh yeah...and about that cuddle party...

Listen now: Download today's podcast

Microsoft’s “Pink” project emerges, sort of
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10360516-56.html

AppleInsider claims to have details on new iMacs
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/09/24/apple_ready_and_waiting_with_redesigned_imac_line.html

2009 PC sales way better than expected, thanks to notebooks, Netbooks
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-10359945-260.html

Intel LightPeak tries to minimize — but not eliminate — computer cables
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-10360047-264.html

Intel shows Larabee graphics technology, putting it in direct competition with Nvidia and AMD
http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/processors/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=220100672

Report: AT&T is girding for a rocky launch of iPhone MMS
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ATT-Nervous-About-Smooth-iPhone-MMS-Launch-104606
http://www.facebook.com/ATT?v=feed&story_fbid=138625780868

PS3 Motion Controller details
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10360590-52.html

Wii price cut
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10360550-1.html

Microsoft not going to buy EA
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE58N1EK20090924

Twitter direct message bot
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10360158-245.html

Bank sues Google for its own stupidity
http://mashable.com/2009/09/24/bank-sues-google-identity/

Archos tablet due out Oct 22
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/09/24/archos-9-tablet-due-october-22-for-499/

MIT eyeball chip is way better than eye patch
http://dvice.com/archives/2009/09/mits-eyeball-ch.php

ie8 runs 10 times faster with Chrome plug-in
http://www.infoworld.com/d/applications/ie8-runs-10-times-faster-google-plug-in-115

VOICEMAIL
Joe – panasonic licensed game machine dvd hybrid

E-MAIL
Hey Buzz Crew,

I am frustrated! I was hearing all the reports of people getting their Windows 7 Launch Party approvals and I was waiting for mine.

Well, I finally got my response on the morning of September 24. And you know what? They rejected me! They finally must have reached that mystery cap when they finally read my application.

Just thought you might like to know there is not an unlimited number of these party packs going around.

Chris

PS, if any of your listeners want to invite me and some friends to their launch party, let me know what is going on in north-central WV!

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Hey Buzzers,

I’m a long time listener to the show (since the 300s) and a professional web developer. On occasion, Internet Explorer-related stories come up and, from how you report them, it seems like you don’t quite understand how bad the Internet Explorer (IE) problem really is. Below I’ll provide some info on that and also how that has to do with Google Chrome Frame.

History of IE and why it’s crap:

On the web, primarily three programming languages are used to present sites: HTML for the content, CSS for the styles, and Javascript for interactivity.

HTML (until recently) has been fairly stagnant and is well supported -- even in IE. Javascript, though inconsistent across browsers and not particularly fast, isn’t all that relevant to web developers yet, since the vast majority of web pages only use of small amounts of it and because new libraries make writing cross-browser Javascript fairly easy. Although faster, better javascript will become much more important as the web shifts from web pages to web apps, it’s not a big issue right now.

The most important thing right now is good CSS support, as styles, unlike scripts, are essential to any website.

A good measure of this support is the Acid 2 test, a test put out by the Web Standards Project in 2005. Safari and Opera have passed the test since 2006 and, although Firefox didn’t pass until 2008, it was always pretty good. Chrome has passed since its release. Internet Explorer, however, did not pass until earlier this year with version 8, and versions 6 and 7 failed MISERABLY (see screenshot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid2#Non-compliant_applications).

This has been a huge source of developer outcry and a big pain because, not only are IE6 and 7 bugs so numerous, but they’re often totally random. A good (but incomplete) list is at: http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer.html. Please take a quick look and you’ll see just how ridiculous some of the bugs are.

Even worse than how bad older versions of IE are, is the speed (or total lack thereof) of its upgrade cycle. This is largely due to corporate applications depending on IE6. Many of these apps were built when IE6 market share was at 90% and corporations figured that they could take advantage of rendering flaws in IE to speed development time and then simply mandate that employees use it. Therefore, even 8 years after IE6 was released, it is still one of the most popular browsers online, despite various campaigns to bring it down (http://www.bringdownie6.com/, http://www.ie6nomore.com/).

Since it has a 15-25% user base, developers are still frequently required to support IE6. In a recent project I worked on, a complex, flexible grid-based layout was required. Although I was able to create this in about 6 hours for Opera, Safari, Firefox, and Chrome, adding IE support took an additional 25!!

To Microsoft’s credit, they’ve improved IE dramatically in versions 7 and 8, largely due, I believe, to competition from Firefox. However, the slow upgrade cycle has largely nullified these changes from a developer point of view.

The bottom line:

IE6 is total crap, version 7 is better but not good, and version 8 is solid, but all of them are way behind browsers like Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Chrome. However, due to the slow upgrade cycle and dependent corporate applications, developers must continue to support even IE6, the lowest common denominator.

Google Chrome Frame, unlike how you guys described it, doesn’t make IE into Chrome under the hood. Rather, it installs the Chrome rendering engines along side IE’s. Developers can then specify, through a tag in their site, whether to use the Chrome engine, but all sites will render with IE’s engine by default (this is how the backwards compatibility is maintained). This is a fantastic solution since most users on IE either can’t switch or like the IE interface, but many of them would be willing to install a plugin, especially if the site won’t work without it (comparable to Flash).

Even if Chrome Frame doesn’t solve the problem all together, it creates one more case in which web developers don’t have to worry about IE (6 in particular) and hopefully makes convincing clients to ditch it a bit easier.

Keep on Buzzing,

Ethan Resnick

P.S. The Acid 3 test is out now, and it tests a wider array of features. Chrome, Safari (Desktop and Mobile) and Opera get a 100%; Firefox gets a 94%; and Internet Explorer 8 gets a 20%. Unfortunately for Natali, the “huevos” browser only gets a 1%, while the Android browser gets a 93%.

We're not real sure about the iRex reader, Microsoft's Courier is a lot of smoke, Palm gets told to sit down and be quiet about iTunes syncing, and a PlayStation 2 for you car. And finally, Brian imparts a valuable life lesson for everyone listening.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

New iRex reader
http://www.gearlog.com/2009/09/new_ebook_reader_getting_push.php

Verizon and Best Buy both make moves into e-readers
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/technology/internet/23ebooks.html

Microsoft Courier “booklet” computer still just a concept, in spite of “event” in NYC
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10359367-56.html
http://gizmodo.com/5365299/courier-first-details-of-microsofts-secret-tablet

USB gods tell Palm it has little claim to sync with iTunes
http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20090922/usb-if-slaps-palm/

In prep for MMS on the iPhone, AT&T has turned off ALL texted picture service.
http://www.macrumors.com/iphone/2009/09/22/atandt-deactivating-view-my-message-service-for-iphone-users-ahead-of-mms-launch/

New Picasa 3.5 has facial recognition
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-10358662-248.html

Google plug-in turns IE into Chrome
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/22/google-turns-internet-explorer-into-chrome-yes-seriously/

Google SideWiki
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10359112-265.html
http://www.buzzmachine.com/2009/09/23/google-sidewiki-danger/

PS2 for the car offered by Audiovox
http://telematicsnews.info/2009/09/22/audiovox-launches-rse-system-with-playstation2/

A few DEMO faves:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/gelato_the_friendfeed_of_dating.php
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/micello_google_maps_for_the_indoors.php

Ray Kurzweil says immortality is just 20 years away
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/6217676/Immortality-only-20-years-away-says-scientist.html

VOICE MAIL
Shaun from Boulder: AT&T’s 3G extender vs 4G rollout

E-MAIL
Hi guys,

Did I miss something? Or did Google just roll out push e-mail on the iPhone?
http://www.google.com/mobile/products/sync.html#p=apple
I’ve had push google calendar and contacts on my iPhone for some time, but have been wistfully waiting for my gmail to catch up.
Sure enough if you go into settings –> Mail –> Google contacts & calendar, there’s a slider there that enables… Mail!
I deleted my gmail iMap account on the iPhone, and now I have push e-mail…
Awesome! Instantaeous gmail on my iPhone – my life is complete(how sad)! I assume that it now looks like a full blown exchange server to the iPhone.
(One issue I see now is that the spinning beachball thingy (next to the WiFi symbol) is constantly spinning – not sure how my battery will fair)

Love the show, etc.

Alan

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Every story I’ve read says he stole the 30,000 dvds in a year.. Jan 2007-Feb 2008.

Doing the math…

Speculating the postal worker stole exactly 30,000 dvds and worked 13 months… which would be about 56 weeks… he would have stolen about 535 dvds per week. If he worked 5 days a week that is 107 dvds per day. That is a little more than 13 dvds per hour. (8 hour shift) If he worked 6 days a week, that would be 89 dvds per day with about 13 dvds per hour (6 2/3 hr shift).

Now if the postal worker actually stole the 30,000 dvds in 2 years, which would be about 25 months, which would be roughly 108 weeks, he would have had about 25 months to pull off his heist. He would have stolen about 277 dvds per week. If he worked 5 days a week, that would be 55 dvds per day. That would then be about 7 dvds per hour. If he worked 6 days a week, that would be 46 dvds per day with about 7 dvds per hour (40 hour work week considered).

Netflix shipped approxmiately 638,400,000 dvds in the 13 months.

ccarline

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Massive shake-up to net tax in UK

I actually defended this proposition to begin with (and I think even on BOL last time), but now it's closer to reality, and my over-taxed face feels slapped, pointed and laughed at. It's not good news for anyone in the UK, except for the people who can't afford computers, who can now be sold super-fast Internet.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/sep/23/broadband-tax-election

(he later emailed) Although this 'broadband tax' would bring broadband to poorer areas, the real goal is to offer 90% of the UK population broadband speeds of at least 2Mbps - that includes the poorer areas, but as well as the rural areas currently restricted to expensive satellite Internet packages which are priced out of their reach. To do this government plans to tax every single household which has a phone line.

Nate Lanxon (CNET UK)

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Hey Folks,
Thought you might be interested to know that a mobile phone running a GPS app is now considered illegal in my home state of Victoria in Australia. So it seems that the government is either in bed with GPS manufacturers or they consider this as bad a texting while driving. Stand alone devices in cars which are only your GPS unit with no mobile phone attached are still fine. Whats next? Our mobile phones have to be left at home because we cannot have them in the car at all??? I believe this will also apply to the Tom Tom app even when it is in the cradle when they release it would still be illegal.

http://www.smartcompany.com.au/media/20090922-navigation-apps-made-illegal-in-victoria.html

Im a guy, I don’t ask for directions I use my GPS so I can avoid those arguments and get where im going quickly(sometimes too quickly), now it seems they want my girlfriend and I to argue all the time. Thanks government!

Thanks Ladies and Gents

Kelly (Im a dude, just thought I would point that out again as with a name like Kelly I have a phobia of being referred to as a woman, although I guess I can thank my parents for that one.

T-Mobile's parent company is considering buying Sprint Nextel, meaning we'd have only three big cell phone companies in the US. But in a weird way that could be good for competition? We're not sure ourselves, actually. Also, a rogue ad hits the New York Times and we discover Pirates only see in 2D. Eye-patch FTW!

Listen now: Download today's podcast

Rogue ad hits New York Times site
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10351460-83.html
http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/what-to-do-if-you-saw-an-antivirus-pop-up-ad/
http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090913/home-delivery-the-new-york-times-serves-up-some-malware/

T-Mobile owner eyes multibillion dollar bid for Sprint
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/6180195/T-Mobile-owner-eyes-multi-billion-dollar-bid-for-Sprint.html

Intuit to acquire Mint for $170 million
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/13/intuit-to-acquire-former-techcrunch50-winner-mint-for-170-million/

Japan’s cell phones may get DRM, at music industry behest
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/09/14/0137225/Japans-Cell-Phones-May-Get-DRM-At-Music-Industry-Behest

Twitter officially makes ads an option
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-twitter-officially-makes-ads-an-option/

MMS For iPhone rollout begins, two weeks early
http://consumerist.com/5358089/mms-for-iphone-rollout-begins-2-weeks-early

As it nears obsolescence, 802.11n approved
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8254085.stm

Microsoft: Windows 7 upgrade can take nearly a day
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/09/microsoft-upgrade-to-windows-7-can-take-up-to-a-day.ars

Valve co-opts L4D2 boycott by giving leaders free trip to HQ
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/09/valve-co-opts-l4d2-boycott-by-giving-leaders-free-trip-to-hq.ars

Last.fm to take over CBS HD broadcast stations in four markets
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-last.fm-to-take-over-cbs-hd-broadcast-stations-in-four-markets/

VOICE MAIL
Alex on micropayments

Daniel on Palm’s brilliant PR move

E-MAIL
I work as a tech for a movie exhibitor and wanted to share some technical details about your ongoing discussion of 3D.

Tom, the reason you may have experienced flicker or strobing in the past is the rate at which you are presented frames. The old active glasses that came with computer video cards often were limited to 60Hz, giving only 30 frames/sec to each eye. Our modern Digital Cinema 3D uses what’s called ‘tripple flash’ alternating EVERY frame to each eye three times. In other words it’s operating at 144 frames/sec from film’s standard 24 fps times 6 (3 flashes of the same image * 2 eyes). This is easily fast enough that ‘persistance of vision’ eliminates the strobing.

At our chain we actually have many rooms setup with two projectors, one for each eye. This completely eliminates strobing as the screen never goes dark.

As for camming a 3D film, you’d simply scrap the 3D aspect and hold one lens of the glasses over the camera and just record one eye’s worth. Makes it 2D, but you still have something. You can even try this in the studio right now, cover one eye. Congratulations your world is now in stunning 2D!

And for the show notes… Even traditional 35mm film is shown as ‘double flash’. The slow 24 fps you’d get if you only showed each frame once nearly everyone would say is flickering. But just by blanking and flashing the same image a second time (48 flashes/sec) you see that familiar film effect to the light level. BTW, when the shutter does block the light for the 1/96th of a second over and over for 2 hours it is actually near dark in the room. i.e. You’re sitting in the dark for half the movie!

Perhaps to long and off-topic now, but I hope you share this around the crew.

LTS! (and thank you)

Dustin Hollon

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Hey Ballers
I cant believe you guys haven’t covered CEDIA, awesome developement in cablecard, they announce cablecard tuners will be available for your current machine! None of this “Certified PC crap! Ceton had a couple of tuners that should ship in the 1Q of 2010. 4 HD streams at once, sign me up!
love the show
Jon the electrician, Tacoma

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Watching Episode 1061, about the iPhone at Microsoft event. Coca-Cola will fire you for bringing/eating Lays Chips because they are owned by Pepsico. Even if you bring them from home for lunch/dinner. Drinking a Pepsi product is also forbidden….”Even Off The Clock.” If you are caught outside of work with these items can also lead to termination.

Thanks guys. Love the show
Ross

The monkeys are running the zoo: Rafe Needleman, Brian Cooley, and Brian Tong, with producer Lynn Fu, cover the iPhone finally getting MMS, Google's patent on its home page, Amazon re-delivering 1984 to Kindle, and the closure of the Oakland side of the Bay Bridge.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

AT&T says MMS coming to iPhone on September 25
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/09/att-says-mms-coming-to-iphone-on-september-25.ars
http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=1574

It’s official: AT&T Wireless sucks: NYT says so.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/technology/companies/03att.html?_r=2

Microsoft granted stay of Word injunction
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10345032-75.html

Google gets a patent on their home page design
http://valleywag.gawker.com/5350982/google-patents-worlds-simplest-home-page

Amazon Offers To Redeliver Deleted Orwell Books Or $30 Refund (AMZN)
http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-offers-to-redeliver-deleted-orwell-books-or-30-refund-2009-9

No money? AffordIt can get you a PS3, anyway
http://news.cnet.com/8301-19882_3-10344897-250.html

Samsung launches YouTube DVD players
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Samsung-Announces-YouTube-bw-1224305102.html?x=0&.v=1
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10345260-1.html

Android Market gets a fresh new look
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2009/09/some-news-from-android-market.html

Restoration starts on one of oldest computers
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10345307-92.html

Bridge is closed – now the real work begins
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/03/BALA19ICHH.DTL

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VOICEMAIL
What do Buzz hosts drive? (no name)

Matt from Raleigh: Ban billboards!

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EMAIL

Hi, Buzzcrew. Just thought I’d share with you what happened to me today. Tong
I work for Bath and Body Works here in Alabama and earlier this week the Limited Brands, who owns us and stores like Victoria’s secret, etc., had all of its employees sign an agreement about guidelines for social media. Basically, it was telling us what we can and cannot say on Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc. Several hours before they had us read the guidelines and sign the document, I jokingly tweeted about it and said it was stupid and that Limited could go F themselves. Two days later (which would be today, Thursday) I’m called into work and taken to the back with the store manager and the district manager and they pull out a sheet that has my tweet on it and that because of what I said I was being terminated without question. Did you get that? I was fired for something I said BEFORE I signed any agreement, which btw mostly stated that we couldn’t post insider secrets and some other crap. It said nothing of stating one’s opinion of the company. Needless to say, I’m enraged and am now looking into filing suit against Limited Brands for wrongful termination. Or at the very least alert people to what the company is doing to its employees. Thanks, guys. Love the show.
–
Josh M.

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Subject: Episode 1056 comment Cooley
RE: Sony Walkman #1 in Japan
One thing you neglected to mention is that the iPhone 3Gs is now the #1 smartphone in Japan
(http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/08/17/apples-iphone-3gs-is-no-1-in-japan/)
So Apple is basically cannibalizing one market segment with another. In fact the iPhone took up both spots in the Top 10 phone list (32 GB being #1, and 16GB being #9) This really doesn’t show that Apple’s market share is decreasing unless you add the iPhone to the statistics since the iPhone is an iPod.
I’m not the only one who believes this as this quote is straight from the article:
” the Tokyo-based researcher said in a statement yesterday. The iPhone also cannibalized iPod sales, according to BCN, which didn't count the iPhone in the survey because the product is also a wireless handset.”
It’s ok – sometimes I say wrong things when I read a headline instead of reading the entire article too! [uh oh - BURN!] – Love the show.
(btw – in case one of my emails ever make it on the show my name is pronounced: vin-oooo-d)
Thanks,
Vinod Tonangi

We learn that not only is a botnet using Twitter to store some of its data but that botnet follow Veronica. Who is a bot herself. We also ponder why leaked pictures of the Dell smartphone are so blurry. And bad news folks. Looks like no tablet for the Apple announcement, but it sounds like it will be in September.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

Dell’s first phone spied on web
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/08/14/dell_smartphone_pictures/

Apple planning September event?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10309110-37.html

Sources confirm no Apple tablet at Sept. event, coming in 2010
http://www.loopinsight.com/2009/08/13/sources-confirm-no-apple-tablet-at-sept-event-coming-in-2010/

http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090813/here-it-comes-but-what-is-it-exactly-apple-plans-keynote-event-for-september/

Apple and AT&T targeted by iPhone MMS lawsuit
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7-10309783-233.html

New games at used prices: Best Buy’s Utah plan starts a feud
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/08/best-buys-new-games-at-used-prices-promotion-starts-feud.ars
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/08/nintendo-hardware-slips-software-dominates-in-july-sales.ars

Google Books partners with Creative Commons
http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2009/08/bringing-power-of-creative-commons-to.html

Open Textbooks Win Over Publishers In CA
http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/08/13/1450220/Open-Textbooks-Win-Over-Publishers-In-CA?from=rss

Twitter-based Botnet Command Channel
http://asert.arbornetworks.com/2009/08/twitter-based-botnet-command-channel/

AP to create landing pages to aggregate news like Wikipedia
http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/08/how-the-associated-press-will-try-to-rival-wikipedia-in-search-results/

US Tests System To Evade Foreign Web Censorship
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/08/14/0426247/US-Tests-System-To-Evade-Foreign-Web-Censorship?from=rss

Take Back the Beep: AT&T promises to make some changes, T-Mobile and Verizon slow on the uptake
http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/14/take-back-the-beep-atandt-promises-to-make-some-changes-t-mobile/

YouTube to show Sony’s “Ghostbusters” this week for film’s 25th anniversary
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/08/youtube-to-show-ghostbusters-tonight-for-films-25th-anniversary.html

VOICEMAIL

Bill from Ohio about Linux netbooks

EMAIL
Hey BuzzCrew,
This story popped up on Thursday, and I was really surprised you didn’t talk about it, but given the hatred for Entourage, I think it’s a decent story that Mac users are finally getting a native version of Outlook.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/08/next-office-for-mac-coming-in-late-2010-with-outlook-for-mac.ars

Love the show!

Dave,
Melbourne, Australia
aka DaveBinM

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Hi Guys,
I just wanted to show you guys my Buzz Out Loud OS X Dashboard Widget. It’s simple, but it’s great for listening to BOL streaming without opening [another] tab or iTunes. It’s called BOL Dash (Buzz Out Loud For OS X Dashboard… obvious). It comes in two versions, BOL Dash and my personal favorite, BOL Dash Mini which is the same as BOL Dash but it takes up less space on your dashboard. You can find them here: http://dashbol.weebly.com/ I know it’s not a great site but I made it fast to host the widgets. They are completely free so I’d love it if you would mention them on your show or better yet, put it on the BOL blog page.
Thanks,
Alex aka alexthekid from the chat, although I’m not in it as often anymore:-(

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Hey JaMoTo and company,

You’re probably (and hopefully) getting multiple emails with this link, but I figured I’d do my part to help make sure this makes it onto tomorrow’s show:

http://lifehacker.com/5336382/digsby-joins-the-dark-side-uses-your-pc-to-make-money

Now I know exactly why Trend Micro has been freaking out every time I’ve started Digsby in the past several weeks. I’m glad I gave the beta of Trillian Astra a try — I’ll be staying with it.

Mike

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Dear Buzz crew:
This is Siavash from Iran, remember my updates from Iran? Here is a new one and a very hot one.
Yesterday, my cousins phone rang and there was a private number, she picked it up and a man said, you have been updating your Facebook and sending emails about what was going on inside Iran, mentioning her name, her husband and her children, he said if you don't stop sending emails and Facebook updates and pictures about Iran's political and election issues we will arrest you and your husband and your child.

So I searched so much to find out what is going one, and it seems they have been able to access passwords of those using Gmail, hotmail and Yahoo mail, so they could check their mails and ... , but they could not find any Facebook passwords and any other personal host and domain names like the mail address I use.

So, my question is, why? Why Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail are giving out passwords to Iran's government and department of security? They are not supposed to, passwords are very confidential information and they should not betray people who trust these services. There is nothing mentioned in terms of agreement when you want to open an email account on any of these site and they promise you to keep it safe and protected? Ouh REALLY?

PS: I'm a security geek and I'm sure they can not track my emails , so be sure, I'm safe.

Best Regards

Siavash

Natali got a little flustered when we learned that AT&T is changing the subsidy so that folks who thought they would have to pay more might not have to. But it's OK: if you preordered, the company will refund the difference. So she calmed down eventually. We also discuss China backpedaling on the filter software, and the need to encrypt.

EPISODE 999

iPhone OS 3.0 wide release coming Wednesday
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10265918-37.html
http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/17/stop-hitting-f5-iphone-os-3-0-release-still-hours-away/

June 17 Announcement: iPhone 3G S upgrade eligibility update
http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=1574

Apple/iTunes doesn’t like supporting the Pre
http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/16/apple-says-itunes-syncing-only-for-apple-devices-looks-sternly/

China backpedals on filtering software
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2009-06-16-china-web-filtering_N.htm?csp=34

Windows 7 downgrade to XP limited to 6 months
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10265750-56.html

Firefox 3.5 ‘Web upgrade’ planned for end of June
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10265652-2.html

AT&T and Verizon deny price fixing SMS
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2348890,00.asp?kc=PCRSS03069TX1K0001121

Gmail may HTTPS encrypt everything all the time
http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2009/06/https-security-for-web-applications.html

NSA e-mail surveillance pervasive and ongoing
http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/06/17/1323207/NSA-Email-Surveillance-Pervasive-and-Ongoing

Disney Asus Netpal Netbook…get ‘em young!
http://blogs.usatoday.com/technologylive/2009/06/disney-asus-team-up-on-netbook.html
http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/16/disney-and-asus-announce-netpal-netbook-for-kids/

VOICEMAIL
Remy – very excited about Apple 3GS

Anonymous – Google Voice frustration

Christy L – HD Makeup

E-MAIL
Buzz crew,

You have mentioned this story previously – thank you for that as I
have been the person publicizing it – but the telephone incumbent TDS
just lost its last opportunity to appeal at the Supreme Court. A full
2 days before the city would have lost the investor money (they had
one year from the lawsuit start), the Supreme Court declined to review
the Appeals Court judgment. The City is now moving forward with its
all fiber network.

I have put the details up at muninetworks.org

Thank you for mentioning this story, over the past year, folks in
Monticello took great heart that people were watching from across the
country, indeed planet when one counts your listeners.

Christopher Mitchell
Director, Telecommunications as Commons Initiative
Institute for Local Self-Reliance
http://www.newrules.org/information/
http://www.muninetworks.org

**********

Hey guys, just thought I’d make you aware of plans in the uk to pay
for faster broadband in the long run by charging 50p per month ontop
of our landline bills. Currently in Britain the majority of people
have a landline with a line rental payable to ‘British Telecoms’ even
if you have another provider, so a £10 per month phone package starts
to cost £20. And with the prices of mobile Internet, mobile calls and
voip services (especially being free on mobile carrier ‘Three’)
becoming more popular and cheaper it is conceivable that the only
people paying for this upgrade are going to be the ones that aren’t
actually going to require it, namely the older technophobics who will
never ditch their landline and never been online. Anyway just though
I’d let you know what was going on this side of the Atlantic. Have a
great 1000th.

Si from Sheffield, England.

**********

here is a quick video showing the augmented reality possibilities that the compass in the new iPhone will unlock. This is already on G1. As you can see, this seemingly pointless feature can have some pretty remarkable affects on the apps created for the iPhone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b64_16K2e08

Donald S. Clark
University of Illinois: Urbana-Champaign

**********

Hi Buzz Crew,

Let me cut to the chase. I heard on last Friday’s episode that this 1,000th Buzz Out Loud Podcast is going to be “longer.” How much longer will it be?

As much as I enjoy listening to the daily audio podcast, a longer one is not going to work for me. If the 1,000 episode was two months ago I would have jumped for joy (I “used to” listen at work). Recently, I’ve made a deal with myself (and my wife-to-be) that leading up to our wedding, I would go to the gym in an effort to be healthier (not as fat). I begin and end my routine with Buzz Out Loud. I press “play” on my 2nd gen ipod (I know I’m behind the times) to begin my work out, and I and end it the second the closing music finishes. If I’m in the middle of a set, it doesn’t matter, I stop and I leave. You see, I HATE the BORING gym. It’s the bane of my existence.

So that said, you will KILL ME if I have to work out for an hour and a half, or god forbid, two hours. I promise I will curse your names down to the last email, caller, or heaven help us, horrible Opera reference…

Speaking of Opera, Can someone please tell me why our country is so ridiculous that a company, such as Microsoft, can’t include or make their software the “default” browser within…well…. their software? What happened to a little elbow grease? If you have a browser “Opera” and you think you should have the right to be on someone’s machine, do what every company on the planet has done to gain market-share. “Do a little advertising. Make a better product. Creatively distribute it.” Perhaps that will help you get your product to the masses & gain some name recognition. I don’t recall firefox ever having a pity-party. I don’t hear them running to big brother, crying “It’s not fair! It’s too hard for me to get into the game.” Grow up, learn to hit, and then maybe you’ll get to play. Why does everyone think they deserve a trophy?

Thanks for listening. Thanks for sometimes having unusually short podcasts. Finally, Thanks for being my daily hub into the tech world. Congratulations on 1,000!

Sincerely,
Joe Pifher (Pie-fur).

**********

The 1000th episode is tomorrow! There will be no pre-show, here will be a live audience it will be streamed live on cnet.com/live. There will be audio and video on demand afterwards in the normal podcast feeds.

1000th episode meetup in San Francisco: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=113374732587

Send us buzz at buzz@cnet.com or call us at 1-800-616-CNET (2638)

Chinese filtering software has been criticized for having holes. The solution? Fix it. How communist. We also give you a hack for getting free tethering on the iPhone and we bemoan the fate of MySpace.

EPISODE 998

Opera Unite aims to reinvent the Web
http://blogs.siliconvalley.com/gmsv/2009/06/hi-my-name-is-opera-and-ill-be-your-server-today.html

http://mashable.com/2009/06/16/opera-unite/

AT&T won’t charge extra for MMS on iPhone
http://www.applethoughts.com/news/show/94126/at-t-not-planning-on-charging-for-mms.html

…And here’s how to get free tethering
http://9to5mac.com/9to5mac-tether-iPhone-hack

Hackers find remote iPhone crack
http://it.slashdot.org/story/09/06/16/0017221/Hackers-Find-Remote-iPhone-Crack

Facebook finally catches up to MySpace in the U.S.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/15/facebook-finally-catches-up-to-myspace-in-the-us/

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10265163-2.html

MySpace slashes head count by 30 percent
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10265566-36.html

Twitter downtime gets delayed for Iranian election news
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10265213-2.html

Chinese filtering software ordered to be cleaned up
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/16/business/global/16censor.html

Blackberry Tour for international Sprint and Verizon customers
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=67187&full_skip=1

Mercedes demos a car with airbags *everywhere*
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-10263120-48.html

Cars driving in the parking lot generate electricity to power a U.K. supermarket
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1193070/Shoppers-cars-soon-able-power-supermarkets.html

Science Academies: Renewable power tech ready for big growth
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/06/science-academies-renewable-power-tech-ready-for-big-growth.ars

VOICEMAIL
Shalin – Ranger Panda for Mascot

Aaron – Another way to call out from Google Voice

E-MAIL
Dear Buzz Crew:

One again this is Siavash, from Tehran/Iran. As you may know from the news there a revolution going on in Iran, after the changes in votes by Iran's government, people are on the street every day and night.
We have no access to technology at all, all the mobile services and SMS,MMS and EDGE services are down, Facebook, YouTube and many other sites have been filtered, most of the time there is no internet connection with ADSL lines and a very powerful noise in satellite services, because of these problems I was not able to send you the videos I made for 1000 episode of BOL, know I'm using a 2way satellite service which has a very low bandwidth because of the noise, and I'm not able to download or stream BOL anymore.

Just wanted to say congratulations to all you guys for making this 1000 episode happen, I've enjoyed every minute of the show since the episode 50 or 60 that I started listening, and I have to say you guys are the best in tech field.

I hope there will be a day that we could have proper internet access and I could join you guys again.
Here is a link to my Facebook album and some pictures of what is going on in Tehran : http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=24107&id=1081415824&l=c9e2b20028

I Love the Show, YOU ARE THE BEST

Best Regards

Siavash

***********

Hey BOL,

Just wanted to pass on an idea on getting subsidized iphone upgrades annually, instead of every 2 years. My friend does this and it’s so simple. I can’t believe no one else has sent this in. All he did was add a second line to his account for 9.99 per month. The second line shares minutes, has no extras, no texting, nothing. Just the cheapest 2nd line plan you can get. Now he can upgrade either line and have the AT&T store switch phone numbers on each line everytime he upgrades. If you want to get the new iphone each year, it might be work 120 bucks per year to have the luxury of upgrading yearly at the subsidized price.

Love the show,
Ragan

***********

Hey Guys,
By now, I’m sure someone has mentioned this already, but thought I’d pass it along.

In epised 994 you discussed maps for the iPhone and the possibility of TomTom using Open Street Maps. TomTom bought TeleAtlas a year or two ago, so it’s doughtful they can lower their cost with open source maps.

Love the show, keep rockin’ Molly,

Mike

***********

I think it is great that Microsoft is donating to the poor for everyone who downloads IE8. Now can we get them to donate $6 for each person who downloaded IE6 and put this in a fund for the mental health care of all the web professionals who had to support that piece of #$%&^*?

Chris the podcaster

L.T.S.

***********

The 1000th episode is Thursday June 18th. There will be no pre-show, here will be a live audience it will be streamed live on cnet.com/live. There will be audio and video on demand afterwards in the normal podcast feeds.

1000th episode meetup in San Francisco: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=113374732587

Send us buzz at buzz@cnet.com or call us at 1-800-616-CNET (2638)

In today's show, we find out that the demise of humanity is imminent (or that all of our robot mythology is fundamentally rooted in self-hatred), the RIM BlackBerry Storm takes the world by drizzle, and Microsoft hopes that actually giving you songs will convince you to buy a Zune. Oh, and we don't care about Yahoo Glue. In case you were wondering.

EPISODE 857

RIM BlackBerry Storm arrives
http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/rim-blackberry-storm-verizon/4505-6452_7-33311850.html

Meet the first multitouch consumer laptop: HP’s TouchSmart tx2
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10102285-1.html

Mozilla revenue $75 million in 2007, up 12 percent
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081119-mozilla-revenue-75-million-in-2007-up-12-percent.html
http://www.download.com/8301-2007_4-10102627-12.html

Microsoft, labels try to revive subscriptions
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10102846-56.html
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-12519_7-10103777-49.html

Sources: Apple, music labels talk DRM-free songs
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10102414-93.html

Web debut for Guns N’ Roses album
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7739133.stm

Yahoo brings its Glue to the U.S.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10103776-93.html

Hey, remember Lively, Google’s Second Life, yeah, me neither. It’s gone.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/lively-no-more.html

Samsung launches 256GB solid-state drive
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10103645-64.html

IBM gets DARPA cognitive computing contract
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10103355-52.html

VOICEMAIL
Lee the exhaust guy: swarming with e-books

Daniel: MMS on the iPhone
http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/20/mobispines-iphone-mms-application-for-the-entire-universe/
Mobispine press release: http://www2.mobispine.com/press/readpress.dot?inode=4568

E-MAIL

Hello Buzz crew. Like many others, I downloaded the Xbox New
Experience update last night, wasted about 20 minutes tweaking my
avatar so I don’t look like a punk kid, upgraded to LIVE Gold, and
made a beeline for the Netflix player. Microsoft and Neflix have
provided an amazing service to Netflix subscribers. It’s a little
disappointing that you can only browse titles in your Instant Queue,
but the interface is slick and easy to use. I selected an episode from
the (otherwise disappointing) current season of Heroes. Within
seconds, I was watching the smooth playback in high definition. You
can scan forward and backward through the video using a coverflow-like
view that shows thumbnails from the show.

The only downside was that I had to switch to my TiVo to order pizza.
If the Xbox Netflix viewer is anything like what we can expect to see
from TiVo, then bring it on. Can you imagine Pizza AND Netflix in one
UI? Now THAT’s a great user experience.

- Richard
Washington, D.C.

**********

Hey JaMoTo and the extra crew member!

Looks like we’re not immune from the big media companies as much as you are in the States. According to The Age…

The Australian film and television industry has launched a major legal action against one of Australia’s largest Internet service providers for allegedly allowing its users to download pirated movies and TV shows.

The action against iiNet was filed in the Federal Court today by Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Disney and the Seven Network.

(Source: http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/biztech/film-pirates-put-iinet-in-the-dock/2008/11/20/1226770617457.html)

The interesting thing is, the Seven Network is in this suite. For those who don’t know, we have 3 major commercial television networks, namely the Seven Network, Nine Network and Network Ten. The last 2, offer Australians on-demand downloading of their shows on their website, and the Nine Network themselves have locally produced shows on the iTunes store. So why is the Seven Network resorting to suing when they could just easily join the other two networks by providing Australians more legal alternatives to the torrents? This goes for the other companies in the suit. If they really want to kerb illegal downloading, why don’t they open some US-exclusive options like Hulu to the Australian audience? You guys (maybe it was The 404, I can’t remember, haha!) said yourself that Hulu’s catching up to YouTube in terms of revenue.

It’s great to be an iiNet customer at this stage too. First the trial of the internet filter, now this from the entertainment industry. I’m with iiNet myself, so it’ll be interesting what’s to come.

Love the show guys!

Cheers!

**********

Mark

For the teacher and others who are having problems with HDCP issues there
are HD Strippers that are adapters or boxes that they themselves are HDCP
compliant and then pass through the signal without the HDCP DRM. a famous
example is the HDFury:

http://www.hdfury.com/

Robert Clark
Prince Albert,SK

**********

A hobo is a traveling homeless person who takes work when they can get
it. A tramp is a traveling homeless person who does not work.

Hobos are also governed by a code of ethics, have a duly appointed hobo
king, and a rich hobo-only written language based on a series of
pictographic symbols and codes which they used to communicate things
such as marking a good place to sleep, where you can find someone
willing to give you food, and what towns have cops that will beat the
crap out of you.

So I think Tom will be doing a decent service by launching a hobo social
site. I would give it a square missing it’s top line.

–Keith from New York, not a hobo

**********

JaMoTo,

I just wanted to take a quick moment to ask that you recognize the BOL chat room moderators on the show as they do an absolutely fantastic job of making the chat extremely user friendly and pleasant.

I’m sure you guys are generally too busy either getting ready for, or actually executing, the show to really notice how hard they work at helping new users along and just generally making everyone feel comfortable within the community.

I’d list them all by name but I fear that I would forget someone and feel terrible about that - suffice it to say that if someone has a gold star next to their name they are nothing short of awesome personified.

Not as anonymous as I used to be,
Snit