Buzz Out Loud Podcast

We discuss a computer algorithm that can determine if photos are pretty or not. I guess hot or not is going out of business. We also look at the causes of the Google error and speculate on how Wolfram Alpha will be used.

EPISODE 975

Networking error caused Google outage
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10241126-93.html

International Energy Agency says CE is gobbling up energy faster than green measures can save it
http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE54C4K420090514?sp=true
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2009/05/power-hungry-gadgets-endanger-energy-efficiency-gains.ars
http://www.pge.com/mybusiness/energysavingsrebates/buyersguide/bce/index.shtml

Wolfram Alpha goes public today
http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2009/05/wolfram-alpha-set-for-launch-first-look-unveiled.ars

Nintendo DSi drives April gaming sales
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/05/nintendo-dsi-drives-april-gaming-sales.ars

eBikes come to Best Buy
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2347082,00.asp?kc=PCRSS03069TX1K0001121

MLB scores patent to black out streamed games
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10241356-93.html

N.Y. Tax on Games, DVDs, and junk food
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/14/1739258
http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/05/14/new-york-bill-would-add-fat-tax-video-games-dvds-junk-food

Exclusive: First Look at the BlackBerry Storm 2!!
http://crackberry.com/exclusive-first-look-blackberry-storm-2

http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2009/05/14/exclusive-blackberry-storm-2-shots/

Computers with opinions on visual aesthetics
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/15/0613204

1000th Episode June 18th!
Send email to buzz@cnet.com with the subject line 1000th Episode Invite, if you are serious about wanting to attend the recording at 10:30 AM Thursday June 18th. We have a limited amount of seats.

VOICEMAIL
Ben
Kids don’t use Twitter

E-MAIL
One note about Shop Safe … don’t use it when you have to show the card to pick up the item you purchased. This mostly applies to show/concert tickets, but it would be a bummer to have a lot of hassle in real life because you were being safe online.

Also, MBNA used to allow limits, almost like an allowance. I used to give myself a limit and an expiration date of a couple months for iTunes purchases. A little hassle, but it kept me on a budget.

Love the show!

Jason in Boston

**********

Hey BuzzCrew-

As usual I seem to be a day late and a dollar short (’a pound short’ doesn’t sound nearly as nice, need that alliteration) on the podcast. But it was mentioned about having a keyboard on the credit card to make it more secure. Well Europe again is ahead of the US on security. So all cards over here have a chip in them- Most stores make you insert your card to a machine and you have to type in your pin to use it as a credit card/debit card (Know as chip & pin service). And most banks over here (Barclay’s for one) have a small device (looks like a calculator) to allow you to check your account online, where you have to insert your card into the device type in your pin and it gives you a 8 digit number that has to be typed in with a few minutes of trying to log on to view ANY of your account info. Separately if you choose to purchase online from many stores, Visa for example, send you to another page to verify your info by asking for random characters from your specialized password just for online for purchases.

Moving here it was a major change to get use to all of that, but now I quite prefer it. Only frustration is if you are on the go and forget to bring your card reader you can’t access your bank account anywhere but Holes in the Wall (ATMs) or in your own bank.

Cheers from Oxford!
Tom Merritt the Doppelganger

I know you hate links but this is to info about Barclay’s PinSentry [the card reader]: http://www.barclays.co.uk/audiopinsentry/reader.html

**********

Hello BOL,

BOL had a call out for evidence of TimeWarner Cable leveraging the
analog TV broadcast shutdown to scare people to their service. I did
get a print version here in Southern California, but it’s on their web
site too. I’ve attached a screenshot of the image saying “Don’t Let
Your TV Go Dark”. It’s also on this link:

http://www.timewarnercable.com/SoCal/?divhome=1

if you click the “DTV Transition” right tab. I think the casual
reader could get caught in a misimpression.

Love the Show,
Dean
Huntington Beach, CA

Justin Yu is not a virgin, but he plays one on this podcast. And that's just the kind of thing you get when you have a member of the 404 on the podcast. We also evaluate the new nearly-buttonless iPod Shuffle, some online gaming stats, and Google's new ad-targeting system.

EPISODE 928

New talking shuffle
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/03/11ipod.html?sr=hotnews
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10193443-37.html

iPod touch 2G finally jailbroken with NitroKey
http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/10/ipod-touch-2g-finally-jailbroken-with-nitrokey/

Speaking of hacking…Chinese hack iTunes gift cards
http://i.gizmodo.com/5167465/get-200-itunes-store-vouchers-for-260

TelstraClear rejects New Zealand copyright code
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/2252415/TelstraClear-rejects-copyright-code

Report: Online gaming drops on PC, Wii beats out PS3
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/03/npd-group-online-gaming-rising-wii-beats-out-ps3.ars

NBC Universal content now available on PlayStation Network
http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/10/nbc-universal-content-now-available-on-playstation-network/

Google launches cookie-based ads
http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2009/03/giving-consumers-control-over-ads.html

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10193423-93.html

Google crowd sources Maps
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10193481-2.html

$1Million Xbox lawsuit
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2009-03-11-lost-xbox_N.htm?csp=34

Facebook launches in Arabic
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/mar/10/facebook-launches-arabic-version

Could Fuller take Trek back to TV?
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/11/1214223

Star Wars TV series also in the works
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/40384

Kutiman Mixes YouTube
http://www.jonathancoulton.com/2009/03/11/kutiman-mixes-youtube/

VOICEMAIL
Kim in PA
Kiss the floor musicians!

Paul in Austria
Don’t pick on FireWire

E-MAIL
Hi Tom:
Pinkeltje
It’s Dutch.
I once spent a year in the Netherland so I recognized the word structure of “Pinkeltje”.
The Dutch like to add je or tje to the end of words to denote that they are small. (A booklet would be a boekje.)
And Philips is a Dutch company.

So it’s a small pinkel.
I’m afraid I don’t know what a pinkel is….

Darlene in Edmonton Canada

**********

Hi BOL
I have been noticing lately that there has been some discussion on assigned seating in movie theaters. Well it’s becoming more popular here in the Kansas City area. AMC headquarters is based here in the area and they have recently opened a new venue of theaters that are designed for in-theater dining, with recliners and assigned seating. The theater staff also serve alcoholic beverages under certain circumstances. The prices are the same for all seats so Molly should be pleased,no first class seating, just first class service for everyone.

I just thought the listeners might want to know that a new movie experience is coming to theaters.
http://www.amctheatres.com/theatres/domestic/studio30/

Enjoy the show
Jimmie from KC

Within 15 years, cars will be made of seaweed, but will they be edible? That's your next task, auto industry. We also make book recommendations, give medical advice, and generally just try to help. Oh, and we talk about exploding donut factories.

EPISODE 918

Court upholds AP “quasi-property” rights on hot news
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/24/2229205

Conan copyright trolls censor fan-readings of public-domain stories
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/25/conan-copyright-trol.html

SMiShing’ fishes for personal data over cell phone
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10171241-83.html

Flexible touch screen debuts
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=PT0K4QBYDW122QSNDLSCKHA?articleID=214502697

Spotify could become the best music service ever
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13526_3-10171362-27.html

U.K. government backs open source
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7910110.stm

doubleTwist cross-gadget media library from DVD Jon debuts
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2009/02/doubletwist-cross-gadget-media-library-from-dvd-jon-debuts.ars

PlayStation 3 price drop finally in the offing? ("PC World")
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/pcworld/20090225/tc_pcworld/playstation3pricedropfinallyintheoffing

Toyota wants to build car from seaweed
http://blog.wired.com/cars/2009/02/toyota-makes-pl.html

Study confirms TXT SPK doesn’t hurt kids’ language skills
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2009/02/study-confirms-txt-spk-doesnt-hurt-kids-language-skills.ars

Meet us at SXSW
http://sxsw.com/interactive/talks/panels?action=show&id=IAP0901416

VOICEMAIL
Remy
Kindle questions and complaints

Doug
TV’s don’t explode

E-MAIL
On the iPhone so this will be brief (and possibly mispelled).

Just heard Tuesday’s show and the talk of slim apps in Snow Leopard
and had to mention the likely cause that did not come up. As far as I
know (still need to do my homework on this) Snow Leopard will be the
first release with intel only code, sans universal binaries and ppc
code. This seems likely because you can currently do this and save a
similar amount of space on an intel mac now with an app called
xslimmer. The space saved is similar and yes you can even cut some
ppc fat from itunes!

Love the show

James in Milwaukee

***********

Hey Buzzcrew

I have been trying to find something to contribute to BOL, for a while I found ONE!

Well actually iTunes in Snow Leopard is smaller, at least compared to the iTunes installed on my mac iTunes on my computer currently takes up 144.8 MB And according to the screenshot found on http://images.worldofapple.com/snowleopard_10a261_010.png it is 50 MB which is dramatically lower which if roughly calculated is 94.8 MB smaller which is pretty good, But remember this is a screenshot of an unfinished product so it may be much more when finished, but at least we can hope.

***********

So I wrote this the other day

http://thesoftlounge.com/blog/?p=1392

And then the restaurant refugee put together this based (in part) on my post:

http://restaurantrefugee.com/2009/02/25/the-google-economic-index/

I thought it was pretty funny (and techy).

Frank L

***********

Hey jaynato,
This is a couple of days old - I forgot to send this when it was fresh - but DragonflyBSD has released version 2.2.
I thought I would pass this along because I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk about *BSD-releases. Many listeners may not
be familiar with Dragonfly BSD, it’s a free open-source Unix-like operating system created as a fork of FreeBSD version 4.8.

Here’s the release announcement:
http://www.dragonflybsd.org/release22/

Also, in case you missed this, the first full lecture from Marshall Kirk McKusicks FreeBSD Kernel Internals was posted on the bsdconferences channel on youtube a while ago, you can find it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwbqBdghh6E. I thought you should pass this along to the other buzzers.

love-da-show <3

tobias from stockholm, sweden

***********

Hi Buzz Crew,
I’m a pediatrician on staff at one of the largest children’s hospitals in the United States and after listening to Episode 917, I felt compelled to write.

First, Natali is awesome but she’s mistaken about vaccines. Vaccines do not weaken the immune system. Rather, they bolster immunity by exposing the immune system to carefully selected antigens which elicit an antibody response from the body and creates immune memory to combat future infections.

Second, the risk of flu for otherwise healthy adults is admittedly small. But for the most vulnerable members of society (the elderly, the young and the chronically ill), it can be very serious and causes about 36, 000 deaths in the United States every year.

Third, for anyone looking for information about vaccines, I would be wary of Google search results. There is so much misinformation and pseudoscience floating around on the interwebs, I would suggest going directly to a reputable source like the CDC or the WHO (or the new medical wiki you talked about in a previous episode).

I know that as a group, we pediatricians can be nagging and excessively risk averse. But considering who our patients are, it’s hard not to beoverly protective.

Anyhow, thanks for putting on a great show and keep up the good work.

Jonathan the Pediatrician

***********

Hey BOL crew + guest,

So you are all talking about twitter and how its used for news before
it gets picked up by “real news website/TV”
Well today here in the Netherlands an airplane crashed near the
biggest airport of our country.
A mid sided air craft crashed with 135 people on board, at this point
in time about 5 people died and about 10/15 are badly injured sadly
.
Well before the news really took off an eyewitness reported about the
crash via twitter and then the Dutch media picked it up and then
started to send out reporters and camera crews etc.
So in these times of twitter and media 24/7, twitter becoming the on
the scene source for news. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7909683.stm

Well I’l keep you posted if needed but for now this is the story as I
it know for now.

Have a nice day and keep up the great podcast.

LOVE THE SHOW.

Peter
The Netherlands

Oh snap, as they say. Palm has decided to get all vague in Apple's face about patents. Molly's back and she's hazelnut brown. And we determine that tech is, in fact, pretty sucky. All that and more, if you can get your sucky tech to work long enough to listen.
Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 897

Microsoft extends Windows 7 beta
http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212902415&cid=iwhome_art_Opera_mostpop
http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windows7/archive/2009/01/23/general-availability-for-the-windows-7-beta-to-end.aspx

How many versions of Windows 7 will there be?
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2009/1/how-many-versions-of-windows-7-will-there-be

Good sign for Blu? Blu-ray theft on the rise
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10148897-1.html

Wikipedia considers limiting user edits
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10149648-93.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7851400.stm

Monster.com suffers database breach deja vu
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/24/latest_monster_security_breach/

Fallout 3game updates coming to Xbox, PC, no PS3
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2009/1/things-for-ps3-go-from-bad-to-worse-game-publishers-abandoning-sonys-console-sne

RIM CEO: Buggy smartphone software is the “new reality”
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/26/rim-ceo-buggy-smartphone-software-is-the-new-reality/

Palm responds to Apple veiled threat
http://i.gizmodo.com/5137691/palm-responds-to-apples-legal-posturing-with-even-more-posturing

G1 for sale in non-3G areas
http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/01/23/t-mobile-g1-coming-to-the-rest-of-the-us-retail-stores-tomorrow/

Verizon Internet phone
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10149009-94.html

Obama launches Recovery.gov
http://mashable.com/2009/01/24/obama-to-launch-recoverygov/

Nintendo brain-trainer ‘no better than pencil and paper’
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/gadgets_and_gaming/article5587314.ece

Huge inauguration photo is like a presidential "Where's Waldo?"
http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/01/26/huge-inauguration-photo-is-like-a-presidential-wheres-waldo/

(which he took with a 14.7-megapixel point-and-shoot)
http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-cameras/canon-powershot-g10/4505-6501_7-33280758.html

VOICEMAIL

Tom the Plumber - Here’s how a black hole will kill you

I Miss Molly

E-MAIL
Hello JaNaToX and the Buzz Brigade

(The X is for the guest host, although Mondays are Molly,
so it should be JaNaToMo, but I digress…)

Jason’s back and so is the album artwork!

Some thoughts on the Russian OS:
It could be a fully localised version of one or more
Linux distributions, where both the interface and
documentation is in Russian. I’m not aware of how
far the community-driven localisation has progressed.

In India, the government has funded projects to translate
and localise both Linux and OpenOffice. And mind you,
this involves 15-18 languages! A Debian-derived
distribution called Bharat Operating System Solutions or
BOSS Linux is already available (http://bosslinux.in),
while CDAC, the national computing research establishment,
is working on a localised version of OpenOffice called
BharateeyaOO.o (meaning Indian OpenOffice.org in Hindi).
(See http://www.ncb.ernet.in/bharateeyaoo/details.shtml)

And I fully agree with Tom that governments should be
sceptical (if not paranoid) about proprietary software that
they might need to use. Imagine Russia was using an OS
made in Ukraine, and in the recent gas (natural gas, not gasoline)
dispute, this software vendor decided to push an update to just
Russia crippling the TCP/IP stack. It is certainly possible with
today’s IP Geolocation technology; the only question is how finely
one can tune the “attack” so as to reduce collateral damage and
the resulting bad publicity.

Just my thoughts on the matter.
Eagerly waiting for Ep 900
Aveek from India

**********

On episode 896, you mentioned that Seagate is claiming that they’ve
fixed the firmware issue for the 7200.11 drives.

You asked for reports from listeners of any continuing troubles, which
I’m more (less) than happy to provide:

While Seagate has issued a firmware fix to upgrade existing functional
drives, or drives that were bricked by the faulty update, there’s no
way to fix drives that failed prior to the firmware release, such as
my 1TB drive. The issue with drives that bricked prior to the
announcement is that they don’t appear in your BIOS, and are therefore
inaccessible by the firmware update utility.

Of course, Seagate has been quoted several times in the media as
saying they’ll provide free data recovery for bricked drives. The
unfortunate truth is that when I called about this, their support team
didn’t know about this offer, but told me that I would hear from
supervisor “soon”. That was last week. I called back and was simply
told that my request was “escalated”, however the person I spoke with
couldn’t provide any more information, including who was handling
escalations, how to get ahold of them or when I might hear from them.
All emails to the support line just result in automated responses
about the firmware update that won’t resolve my issue.

Frustrated in Cleveland,
Derek

CES has officially begun and we discuss a slew of offerings from the show floor, as well as the Steve Ballmer keynote. Also, Tom is offered the chance to record his voice for TomTom GPS devices. That's a lot of Tom!

EPISODE 887

Ballmer Keynote
http://ces.cnet.com/8301-19167_1-10131585-100.html
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/ces2009-microsoft-keynote.ars

Windows 7 goes Beta this Friday
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10135791-56.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10136418-75.html

Windows 7 might not come in '09
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10135943-56.html

CES Press conference roundup:
Samsung: super thin OLED
http://ces.cnet.com/8301-19167_1-10135532-100.html

Vizio takes the cover off Connected HDTV: Netflix, Blockbuster, Amazon, Yahoo! and more
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/07/vizio-takes-the-cover-off-connected-hdtv-netflix-blockbuster/

Yahoo! recaps a day of setting the Internet-on-TV movement on fire with Widgets
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/08/yahoo-recaps-a-day-of-setting-the-internet-on-tv-movement-on-fi/

Wall-mountable Blu-Ray player
http://ces.cnet.com/8301-19167_1-10134004-100.html

Audiovox, PlayStation 2 roll out
http://ces.cnet.com/8301-19167_1-10135464-100.html

Acoustic Research Harmony killers
http://ces.cnet.com/8301-19167_1-10133953-100.html

LG’s 240Hz LCDs flash backlights really fast
http://ces.cnet.com/8301-19167_1-10135326-100.html
http://ces.cnet.com/8301-19167_1-10135175-100.html

LG to implement noise-canceling in many of its phones
http://ces.cnet.com/8301-19167_1-10134765-100.html

The Sony P-series Lifestyle PC: Just don’t call it a Netbook
http://ces.cnet.com/8301-19167_1-10131906-100.html

OQO launches world’s smallest Vista PC with OLED screen
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20090107-oqo-launches-worlds-smallest-vista-pc-with-oled-screen-see-notes.html

Pols hit panic button as DTV coupon program goes broke
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20090107-pols-hit-panic-button-as-dtv-coupon-program-goes-broke.html

New energy efficiency rules for TVs sold in California
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09%2F01%2F07%2F1946223

E-MAIL
Hey Tom, Molly, and Justin,

I was listening to show 886, and something caught my attention when
Natali was talking about the Giffen good. She said that when demand
increases, price increases when talking about high-priced technology
products. What she was actually referring to is called a Veblen good;
a Giffen good is when the price of an inferior good, a good that low-
income people generally prefer (ramen, bread, etc), rises and those
low-income people end up buying more of that good. A Veblen good is
like a Giffen good, but Veblen goods are generally luxury goods, such
as that new 17-inch MacBook Pro or a Lamborghini, etc. People buy
these Veblen goods at higher prices because it is considered to be a
mark of your financial status.

Sorry for such a long email, feel free to truncate it however you
wish, just wanted to clear that up.

Love the show, keep it up!
Daniel Byon

***********

Hey jamoto,

In Replyness to Daniels Email from Wednesday, I am also a UK listener and would like to say that the BBC does indeed broadcast their tv shows live on the internet. To clarify, the BBC iplayer is where viewers can watch shows from up to 7 days in the past and they also have a bbc watch live service which at this very moment I am watching live tv on the internet and on my terrestrial tv. This was also in place last year so Tom, you do get another correct prediction from 2008.

Chris Hisgrove

***********

Hi Buzz crew,

Tom, did I heard correctly in episode 884 that you'd love to get your voice on a TomTom? That's great news!
An even better news is that you don't even have to license your voice to us. You just have to record a few voice commands, convert them in a TomTom format and publish yourself on our TomTom HOME platform where Buzz-fans from all over the world can download it for free and put it on their TomTom. I'd sure be one of them!

It's a rather easy process for geeks like us and I'd be very happy to assist.

All the best,
Jeff from TomTom and long time listener

PS: Love the show

***********

Hey Buzz Crew,

Hope your enjoying CES. I’m stuck in snow snow and more snow…

I was listening to yesterday’s show (1/7) where you talked about a 10
meg max download over 3G for iTunes on the iPhone. While this is
true, I just go to your www and download the mp3. This works fine, so
I’m not sure why AT&T doesn’t block this then?!?

- Bob, the Nuclear Engineer

Episode 871

Chrome breaks outta beta
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10120965-2.html

Nintendo Wii outsells Xbox 360 more than two-to-one
http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/peripherals/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212500018&subSection=All+Stories

Sony’s PS3 A sinking ship: Sales plummet (SNE)
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/12/sonys-ps3-a-sinking-ship-sales-plummet-sne

Acer Aspire One goes official on AT&T’s 3G network
http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/11/acer-aspire-one-goes-official-on-atandts-3g-network/
http://www.jkontherun.com/2008/12/acers-99-netboo.html

Android susceptible to apps that turn on roaming
http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08%2F12%2F12%2F149242
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/11/g1_roaming/

Cellphone jammer crammed into key fob, ends texting / talking while driving (thanks, Greg and Michael and Jordan et al)
http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/12/cellphone-jammer-crammed-into-key-fob-ends-texting-talking-wh/

FCC Commissioner blames World of Warcraft addiction for huge college dropout rate
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/12/fcc-blames-college-dropout-rate-on-world-of-warcraft-addiction

Five PC power myths debunked
http://weblog.infoworld.com/sustainableit/archives/2008/12/pc_power_manage_1.html

NFL launches “Game Rewind”, every game on-demand in HD with no commercials
http://blog.streamingmedia.com/the_business_of_online_vi/2008/12/nfl-launches-game-rewind-every-game-ondemand-in-hd-with-no-commercials.html

Russian hopes to cash in on
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7778767.stm

Puppy Cam: Viewed 15 million times, for 773 years
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/12/puppy-cam-viewed-15-million-times-for-773-years

E-mail
Hello Buzz crew,

Since you talk about it SO MUCH, yesterday I finally signed up for Twitter . And looking for CNET celebrities to follow, I went to see who does Rafe Needleman follow. Guess who. Yahoo’s top search term for 2008. That’s right, Rafe Needleman follows Britney Spears on Twitter. I just can’t imagine Rafe listening to "Baby One More Time," so, may I ask why?

Love the show.

Regards,
Bernardo

**********

Have you all been following the USPS outages? I am 2 episodes behind (been to cold and rainy to walk my dog), so apologize if you've mentioned.

http://www.usps.com/homearea/onlinesysteminterruptions.htm

Seems it is affecting small business, too:

http://cbs3.com/local/Loca.l.Business.2.884808.html

LTS,

/John in Fairfax

AAAAAND its fixed.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10121982-38.html

**********

Hey JaMoTo / buzz crew +1,

I think the whole ‘In The Wild’ bingo game is great, and I’m just
waiting for someone to run up and snap a picture of me, being that I
bring my Kindle everywhere and I am a ‘Kindle in the wild’.

Anyhow, after yesterday’s show where Molly mentioned a Retro Edition
of BOL Bingo would be fun, I decided she shouldn’t be denied and I
made one up and attached it below. I’ve also uploaded it to my Flickr
account so it can be shared with the citizens of Buzz Town. It can be
found here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/98865482@N00/3102895508/
I hope you enjoy it. Love the show!

-Aaron the Delorean driver (and Kindle in the wild)
New York

**********

Hi guys!

In the last show, Molly made a comment about how the ustream
video-page “isn’t an RSS-feed”. Well, now it is! I used Yahoo! Pipes
to create an RSS-feed of your live video shows. I wrote it up in the
forums, at:

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-10152_102-0.html?forumID=97&threadID=320004&messageID=2926270&tag=forums06;forum-threads

Hope you like it!

–Oskar

**********

Ahoy Buzz Brigade,
Regarding episode 870 on LTE, y’all made a few missteps about the facts.

First off, the commonly held misconception is that LTE has anything to do with GSM. This is similar to the misconception that WCDMA, more commonly known as the tech behind UMTS, HSDPA, HSUPA, HSPA and HSPA+, has anything to do with GSM. While the tech that preceded GSM for AT&T, TDMA, was the technical precursor to the speaker-buzzing wonder iPhone fans know and love, HSPA (the 3G in the iPhone 3G, etc.) is only GSM’s successor because that was the preferred upgrade path of most GSM carriers. LTE is OFDM-based (as is 802.11g WiFi and…gasp…WiMAX in higher-speed modulations), and is thus another completely different underlying technology with no built-in backward compatibility to either GSM or HSPA. However, the majority of GSM carriers across the world, plus many CDMA carriers (Verizon being one of them) have chosen LTE as their upgrade path. It’s like saying that Mac OS X is a technical upgrade to OS 9…while the same company is going with the precedent as the successor, OS X is based on BSD/Unix while OS 9 is based on some witch’s brew Apple cooked up eons ago.

To be clear, I’m not bashing LTE, though WiMAX is out in the field now whereas LTE has so far not ventured out of lab doors. But to say either technology is the technical successor to either GSM/HSPA or CDMA (which has a direct 3G upgrade, EvDO) would be flawed. Though the same standards board responsible for GSM and WCDMA also dreamed up LTE (3GPP)…

Second and finally, though tests confirm that LTE, at similar range to WiMAX it seems, can provide link speeds comparable to WiFi, you won’t see speeds like those in the wild for quite awhile. The reason is mostly that of backhaul. To provide 100 Mbps to a subscriber, LTE not only needs a liberal swatch of spectrum (something only ClearWire, the WiMax guys, has), but it needs a tower connected to some serious backhaul. To give you an idea of how serious this backhaul would need to be, think about your local cable company’s node, that serves a few hundred people. If your cable operator is Comcast and you just got a speed upgrade, they can offer a total of 114 Mbps over an entire node on the downstream, and 30 Mbps on the upstream. This would be enough for a single LTE customer to get full-speed access. Then again, AT&T U-Verse and Verizon FiOS have the infrastructure for LTE at the node level, but you’re still looking at more bandwidth than anybody is pushing over copper or cable right now. Of course, if Verizon rolls it out in FiOS areas (WiFiOS anyone?) it’ll work on the backhaul side, but…

…you have the problem of femtocells. Anyone using a femtocell for LTE has their internet connection as the bottleneck for service. You can’t get 100 Mbps over a 6 Mbit cable connection. Of course, if Verizon allowed femtocells to hook directly into customers’ FiOS installs, independent of the 10-50 mbps download and 2-20 mbps upload limits on users’ accounts, that’d work. But that’s about the only solution if they want to actually get the speeds they’re boasting about.

Hope this clears things up and love the show!

Ian (the Colorado college student, iansltx on Twitter)

On today's show, we discover that "scareware" is a thing (that never should have been) and that you can tell a bad business idea by the bad name. Also, PlayStation Home comes out (in beta) after a year and a half in development, and it seems kind of lame, and we talk about the few folks making money in TTT (These Troubled Times).

EPISODE 870

PlayStation Home opens its doors
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7777122.stm
http://news.wired.com/dynamic/stories/A/AS_JAPAN_SONY_PLAYSTATION_VIRTUAL_WORLD?SITE=WIRE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-12-11-07-55-27

Reselling MP3s: The music industry’s new battleground?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10120951-93.html

Verizon ups ante on LTE deployment: 2009
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081210-verizon-says-early-lte-deployment-in-2009.html

U.S. district court puts scareware on ice
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081211-us-district-court-puts-scareware-on-ice.html

Report: Tumblr rolls into new financing round
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10121055-93.html

YouTube videos pull in real money
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/11/business/media/11youtube.html

iPhone copy and paste now working between Safari and Mail
http://gizmodo.com/5107138/iphone-copy-and-paste-now-working-between-safari-and-mail
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10121068-37.html

Apple and AT&T bring back iPhone home activation
http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/11/apple-and-atandt-bring-back-iphone-home-activation/

Google doubles Street View coverage in U.S.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10120351-2.html

VOICEMAIL
Jason from Georgia: gimme that song

Jomo? the Janitor: riding robots, yippee!

Roy: Spare a thought for the Kiwis
http://roythekid.tumblr.com/post/63980981/my-voicemail

E-MAIL
Hi Guys,

Just listening to Tuesdays show and wanted to chime in, myself a being Java developer by profession. The promise of write once, deploy anywhere actually did pan out, but only on the server side. Java is still the number one most used programming language and many of the most popular web applications are powered by a Java back-end.

Now, to the point you made in the show, it did fail as a client/presentation layer for a few reasons. Firstly, the overhead of downloading the entire JVM and the fact that the browser would block while loading an applet made it obnoxious to load an applet based page, especially for those with slower machines/connections. One major reason why Flash took off was because the plugin was small in size and the overhead of install and running were/are negligible. It is unfortunate, because there are a ton of people with proficieny in the Java language, which is arguably superior to Flash and definitely has a much richer developer toolset.

GNC may take off if it can avoid the pitfalls of client Java while giving a more familiar programming environment than Flash does, but it should be noted that a huge part of the upcomming Java release is focused on browser performance. The new version of the JVM will give the ability to download components on an”as need” basis, and the applet initialization will now be non-blocking. This could be a huge step forward for Java in the browser, though I fear the bad reputation is already ingrained in the minds of the average web user, and it may be too little too late.

Love the show!
Nick the Software Engineer from Boston

Nicholas Bonatsakis
Software Engineer

**********

hi guys,

The google list was “fastest *rising* google searches” right? The Yahoo list was just plain old “most searched” terms. Maybe Google gets 10 000 000 brittney searches last year and only 1000 more than that number this year, meaning it didn’t make the “fastest rising” list. Perhaps Yahoo’s gets a consistent 90 000 000 and that would qualify brittney for the list cus their list isn’t about rising searches.

Adel

**********

Hi Tom, Molly and Jason +1,

I was listening to the BBC World Service this morning and came across a story that would tie in very well with Jason’s idea of having the holograms in your car, from a few episodes ago. Although, this seems like a scary slippery slope to head towards. Scientists in Japan claim the can “read images from the human brain.”

Here is the link:
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/science/20081211TDY01306.htm

I, for one, am not entirely sure I’d want to “see” what’s going on in someone else’s brain, but I can only imagine where that might go…(I’ll keep those thoughts to myself).

Anyway, thought you BOL chieftans might enjoy the story and run away with it (and please do).

Always love the show and keep up the great work.

Nuno, nthsquare in the chat and forums.

**********

Okay, okay, okay

That dude by the trian called in about the singing captcha, but I’ve got a better idea- RAPTCHA! A couple lines pop up from a popluar hip-hop song and it uses the built-in mic to validate what you rap! Amazing! Surely that would fool the phishbots. LOL

(T&C’s): warning, may cause immediate removal from current location and user may be relocated to a place with pearly gates.

Love the show

Chris the Designer from Bristol, UK

**********

Bonjour Dame et Messieurs,
This is Katie Noor, Elam’s wife!
Yesterday you decided that you might have created/discovered a “love
connection” between Elam and Heather from Boston because of a comical
cut & paste error.
Just wanted to say that, in the future, I would appreciate it if you
would at least…consult me before trying to set my husband up with
random citizens of buzz town. I mean, I don’t even know this Heather
from Boston. I disapprove. Back off Heather, he’s taken!
Love you guys!
Katie

**********

Hi JaMoTo and Guest
I am sick of hearing about BOL Bingo. I cant contribute because there are a few products on the list that are unavailable here in OZ. So I made one for us. Presenting BOL Bingo Australia!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23696006@N08/3099539782/
Sam
Melbourne, Australia

**********

Hey Buzzards,

In regards to the no smiling policy for Indiana driver’s licenses, they will continue to allow facial hair right? Because my friend (photo attached), and every Hoosier who can grow one, should be entitled to the half-beard.
http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/33/l90579e347fa2d74bb8136fob2.jpg
btw, i’m subscribed to the audio/video combo podcast through itunes but i never receive a video version… am i doing something wrong??

~dave (indianapolis, in)

**********

Buzz Out Loud Video (Past episodes!)
http://www.ustream.tv/cnetstudio/videos

News of the Yahoo demographic's searching habits arouses a sudden love for space in Brian Cooley today. Also, the Nokia N97 gets a chilly reception, especially in light of all those delectably cheap Netbooks flooding the market. Pownce disappears, Apple suddenly starts recommending antivirus for Mac users, and Microsoft claims the Xbox 360 pwned Black Friday.

EPISODE 863

iPhone beware, the Nokia N97 is coming (PC World)
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/pcworld/20081202/tc_pcworld/iphonebewarethenokian97iscoming
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10110873-1.html
http://www.nokia.com/A4136001?newsid=1274500

Netbooks dominate cyber-Monday, at least on Amazon
http://www.pcworld.com/article/154754/

Asus: $200 Netbooks next year
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/12/02/asus_200_dollar_netbook/

Pownce to shut down after Six Apart sale
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10110443-2.html

Microsoft: Xbox 360 Routs PS3 in Record Black Friday Sales
http://www.pcworld.com/article/154778/microsoft_xbox_360_routs_ps3_in_record_black_friday_sales.html

Forbes: Nintendo making $6 profit on every Wii sold
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/12/01/forbes-nintendo-making-6-profit-on-every-wii-sold/

Data shows Wii games discounted fastest
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/11/25/data-shows-wii-games-discounted-fastest/

Apple suggests Mac users install antivirus software
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10110852-83.html

DVR commercial skipping: 50 or 97 percent? Depends on who you ask
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081202-dvr-commercial-skipping-50-or-97-depends-on-whom-you-ask.html

Cell phones are even worse than chatty passengers
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/02/AR2008120201066.html

No escaping Britney Spears: 2008’s top searches
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10110841-2.html

VOICE MAIL
Dwight the key grip: so close to bingo!

E-MAIL
Molly,
You know how you we a little peeved about Apple's new proprietary but not proprietary “mini display port”. Well here is a Gizmodo story that gives you a glimmer of hope!

http://gizmodo.com/5100514/apples-mini-displayport-might-not-be-bs-proprietary-port-after-all
- Elam

**********

Great idea for a CNet Channel broadcast through CBS affiliates. I would have to say from a technology standpoint that couldn't be difficult and really shouldn't require the person to manage it. I personally have an auto updating video playlist in iTunes that nearly does this already. Just subscribe to all of your RSS feeds and then play through the list starting at a certain time every day. Once that's done playing go to an "off air" static screen until the next day, that's if you run out of video in the 24 hour period. It could probably be done with Automator and some apple scripts come to think of it. Interesting…might have to play with this for fun. jason

Regards,

Daniel

**********

Hi buzz crew,
Sorry for any typing mistakes but I am writing this on a blackjack 2. I just wanted to let you know that I saw my first Netbook today at a coffee shop. I really wanted to get a dell mini9 but chickened out because I didn’t know how I would deal with a ridiculously small keyboard.
(Ironic I know.)
So apparently this guy with the Netbook had the same problem as me because he had a full size usb keyboard connected to it! What is the point of a tiny little glove compartment computer if you need to lug that beast around with it?

Buzz You Long Time.
Dave in Saratoga, NY.

**********

Dear BOL Crew,

First of all, thanks for a great daily podcast to keep me up to date on tech.

I will be going on a 7 month navy cruise soon and I don't want to miss my daily BOL fix. Available bandwidth during the cruise does not allow me to download podcasts or anything else. There just is not enough bandwidth. I have also tried getting BOL via your RSS feed, but it does not work again due to bandwidth limitations.

I can received email attachments, but I don't know if there is a way for me to setup before my cruise an automatic daily email attachment with the BOL audio file.

Can you recommend a solution?

Thank you! I love listening to BOL daily when I am on tierra firma.
Mark

Commander Mark
Supply Officer
P.S. You need to do a show from a navy ship while on cruise. We could fly you on and catapult you off! (0 to 150 mph in 3 seconds!)

(How would http://www.podlinez.com/ work for you? -JH)

**********

Hey guys,

There is going to be a protest about the Australian Internet Censorship on the 13th and I was wondering if you could give it a little publicity.

http://www.stopthecleanfeed.com/

Cheers,
Brad
The Australian

A friendly member of Buzztown calls up to tell us how he named his Dungeons and Dragons characters after the core Buzz team. It all seems fine and dandy until he gets to Molly. Ahem. Not cool, guy. In actual news today, earbuds can be dangerous to your health (if you use a pacemaker), Circuit City files for Chapter 11, and the iPhone tops the RAZR as the most purchased U.S. consumer handset. Take that, RAZR!

Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 849

Your earbuds could stop your pacemaker
http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2008/11/09/2091277-music-headphones-can-interfere-with-heart-devices

Intel’s health care system
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE4A83I120081109

Circuit City files for bankruptcy
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10092366-92.html

iPhone trumps RAZR as most purchased U.S. consumer handset
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/11/10/iphone_trumps_razr_as_most_purchased_us_consumer_handset.html

iPhone trounces BlackBerry, Treo in reliability
http://www.intomobile.com/2008/11/10/iphone-trounces-blackberry-treo-in-reliability.html

MGM movies coming to YouTube
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10092283-93.html

Xbox 360 bests rivals on games sold per console metric
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081107-xbox-360-bests-rivals-on-games-sold-per-console-metric.html

AT&T video search site
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10092387-2.html

Dell MP3 player scratched
http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/11/10/dell-mp3-player-plans-getting-canned-hopefully/

Nvidia makes first 4GB graphics card
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/10/1434257

Study shows how spammers cash in
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7719281.stm

VOICE MAIL
Brandon the D&D guy … is so sorry he called

E-MAIL
Hey there Buzz Out Loud crew,

I don’t want to come off sounding grouchy, but I would like to point out there are people out there that can only get dial-up Internet service (like me for example). In my case, Verizon (my local phone company) has told me that they no longer install DSL in communities because they want to focus on rolling out their FiOS service. When I asked when they would get around to installing it in our little town, the rep said “Well, the schedule goes to 2012 but I don’t see your town on the list.”

To add insult to injury, AT&T is running a fiber optic line that goes right though the center of town, yet they refused to hook up our city.
Apparently, because we won’t make the providers enough money, they have no problem telling us “no internet for you.” So, when you talk about people not switching over because they “don’t know any better,” just remember there are some people out there that have to wait a couple of hours for your podcast to finish downloading so they can listen to it.

Love the show,
--Joel Getz
Powers, Ore.

P.S. It only takes me four minuets to check my gmail on dial up.

Hey Buzz Crew.
Upon listening to Episode 848 this evening, I downloaded the songbird beta to test it out. It’s much like iTunes. The only thing that made me sad about this was that I recently started using Lala.com’s wonderful service, and then got sad, because even though this program is great, it’s not Lala. Then I had a revelation! What if someone integrated Lala into songbird? This would be amazing! All of my online cloud media in my media player at home too! I think some developer listening should do this. It would just be Nifty.
Well anyway. Love the show.
Oh, and if you read this on the show, it should be read by Molly. She has an excellent reading voice.
--Chase

Niall from Dublin, Ireland here, I know that your feelings on Blu-ray is that it’s dead in the water but I think it may be given a life line. Recently, while talking to a friend I found out something interesting, my friend works for SR Technics, A large aircraft mantainance and repair company.

He was helping to install the new Blu-ray system onboard a airbus a340 belonging to LAN, a chilean airline. Which he tells me they will be doing with all there aircraft. He also tells me that gulf air and Air Lingus will be installing the same systems. Which provides all movies and shows that will be shown on the plane and also all the safety jargon video and audio that you hear at the start of every flight, but in hundreds of different languages.

Could this put enough blu ray players in the market to keep them going? These planes only get major revamps like the about every 10 years so this means a consistent production of the discs at least for the near future? I thought this was somewhat interesting.

Love the show a lot!

Niall Duffy.