singularity posts - Buzz Out Loud Podcast

February 3, 2009 12:20 PM PST

Buzz Out Loud 903: Moons over my HAM radio

by Tom Merritt

1 comment

While we inadvertently promote a chain restaurant's free luncheon, we also talk a lot about space. Which annoys Brian Cooley to no end. We talk about Google Mars, and contacting the ISS and the NASA-sponsored Singularity university. But he gets his revenge when he announces the retirement of the inventor of the BMW-butt.

Listen now:

Download today's podcast

EPISODE 903

Google Earth adds Mars roving
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10154741-52.html

Google privacy counsel facing criminal charges
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09%2F02%2F02%2F2337207
https://www.privacyassociation.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1745&Itemid=228

VMWare virtual desktop on any device including mobile
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10155486-92.html

Amazon moves into casual gaming in a very big way
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/02/amazon-moves-into-casual-gaming-in-a-very-big-way.ars

NASA-sponsored Singularity University offers grad courses in accelerating technological change
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/03/nasasponsored-singul.html

Students call space station with home-built radio
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090202.wcollegeradio0202/BNStory/Technology/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20090202.wcollegeradio0202

New paper offers additional reasoning for Fermi’s Paradox
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09%2F02%2F02%2F1719236

Retrevo sets up DTV coupon swap site — seems like the govt coulda’/shoulda’ thought of this.
http://retrevo.com/dtv

Chris Bangle, the guy who made BMWs ugly, quits the auto business
http://www.motorauthority.com/bmw-design-chief-chris-bangle-quits-auto-industry.html

GM working to make San Francisco, D.C. the showcase launch cities for the Chevy Volt.
http://www.streetinsider.com/Press+Releases/General+Motors+Outlines+Roadmap+for+Cities+to+Plug+Into+the+Chevrolet+Volt+Electric+Vehicle/4352330.html

Mobiles connect across the waves
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7867091.stm

Nearly half of consumers think an Internet tablet could replace their cell phone
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/abi-research-survey-nearly-half/story.aspx?guid=%7BD7D6EF92-92BE-4D7B-A3CA-5195FA49A31F%7D&dist=msr_2

Garbage-powered garbage truck now making its way across merry England
http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/02/garbage-powered-garbage-truck-now-making-its-way-across-merry-en/

VOICEMAIL
Arsha from Illinois
Windows 7 UAC

Joe
Why I’m against delaying DTV transition

Jeremy Denver
What’s with the using the bandwidth limit faster?

E-MAIL
Hi Buzz Crew, this is Josh from American Fork, Utah.

I was pleased to hear that the developer of Podcaster, which failed Apple’s approval process, was able to get Rss Player into the App Store. But as he mentioned, the app dosen’t currently have a podcast directory. The only way to subscribe is to input the URL of the RSS feed, but since the iPhone dosen’t have copy/paste, this can get quite difficult, since most podcasts (including CNET’s) don’t have an easy to remember URL. I got an idea, however, from the app itself on how to simplify this process.

On Rss Player, there is a screen where you enter the address of the feed. Under the location box, the developer explains how to enter the URL of a feed. And just in case you don’t know where to start, the developer suggestts you try his favorite podcast by entering http://tinyurl.com/ourfav. This address redirects to the Buzz Out Loud .xml file, and is a lot simpler to type than the direct URL (which is http://feeds2.feedburner.com/cnet/buzzoutloud?format=xml)

So I took his idea, and simplified the URL’s of some other CNET podcasts using TinyURL.com. Here’s what I have:

http://tinyurl.com/cnetAppleByte
http://tinyurl.com/cnetBuzzReport
http://tinyurl.com/cnetCnetLive
http://tinyurl.com/cnetTop5
http://tinyurl.com/cnetInsiderSecrets
http://tinyurl.com/cnetMailbag
http://tinyurl.com/cnetQuicktips

Josh Davis

– Editors Note: All RSS feeds at podcast.cnet.com have friendly URLs. Check ‘em out! -Jason

**********

Not sure if have gotten to this or not.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/02/hd-nvd-is-chinas-home-grown-answer-to-blu-ray-but-does-it-have/

Not this is going to make a difference against the far too expensive blu-ray, but if the Chinese could get it together (not gonna happen though) and get some support for English language studios, this could actually be a threat to blu-ray, why? Price for the units and the disc’s.

Even if they could not get that, they ought to promote this format heavily to places like India, Middle East, Africa etc.

Jack

**********

Hi, Buzz Crew.

Tom — I’m ready to do my part to fund alternative energy. You
mentioned that a few distillers are going to start generating energy
from whisky by-products. Of those, only the Macallan made the cut
onto your list of “Tom-approved” whiskies. So now I’m curious: which
other distillers do you wish were moving to this green energy source?
Of course, this is simply a roundabout way of asking for a whisky
recommendation.

–Ian from Portland

Topics:: Buzz Out Loud

Tags:: google,; earth,; mars,; privacy,; vmware,; mobile,; amazon,; casual gaming,; nasa,; singularity,; ham,; space station,; fermi paradox,; bmw,; chevy,; volt,; garbage

Share:: Digg; Del.icio.us; Reddit; Facebook; Twitter

March 5, 2008 11:14 AM PST

Buzz Out Loud 674: Pomme not Pom

by Molly Wood

10 comments

On today's episode, we have a little misunderstanding vis-a-vis the French language, and also there's some tech news. Specifically, Yahoo might be plotting a way to become the biggest tech giant of them all, some CEOs get serious with the smack-talk, and Ask.com becomes Molly's own personal search engine. Aw, that's sweet.

--Molly

Listen now:

Download today's podcast

EPISODE 674

Yahoo, Time Warner reportedly talk deal to thwart Microsoft
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9886157-7.html
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9886254-7.html

Gates to Google: 'Your business applications stink'
http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9884752-16.html

Adobe bites its tongue after iPhone Flash jab
http://www.news.com/8301-10787_3-9886265-60.html

Warning: Your iPod may get you mugged
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9885873-7.html
http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/ 1282422/researchers_ipods_attract_violent_crime

Is Microsoft’s ‘Singularity’ the OS of the future?
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9886184-7.html

NIN’s music experiment sells big numbers
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/05/076221

Ask.com seeks makeover as women’s site
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080305/ap_on_hi_te/ask_makeover

Rumors of Facebook music service bubbling again
http://www.news.com/8301-13577_3-9886214-36.html

AOL gets it right with Open AIM 2.0
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/05/ aol-gets-it-right-with-open-aim-20-embraces-meebo-and-ebuddy/

FCC: No plans for a Comcast-BitTorrent hearing at Stanford
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9885394-7.html

New video overtakes 'Evolution of Dance' for No. 1 Spot on YouTube
http://www.waxy.org/archive/2008/03/05/new_vide.shtml

DIA keeps Wi-Fi on the mild side (Thanks Wayne!)
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_8455504

Levitating haptics joystick gives good feedback
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/05/149231

Electronic tattoo display runs on blood (Thanks Chris!)
http://www.physorg.com/news122819670.html

Dungeons & Dragons co-creator dies at 69
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080304/ap_en_ot/obit_gygax

VOICE MAIL

Mark the Animator
Send letters to everybody.

Jason?
What should I call myself?

Amanda Atlanta
Fruit-naming conventions

E-MAIL

Phone wiretapping

Hey guys I love the show, but I have to take issue with Toms file-sharing comparison to phone wire-tapping. Now with phones and information going over the phone, what’s going over phone is the information relevant to the product, not the product itself. Like if two dealers were discussing a coke deal, the coke isn’t going to come through the phone, but if an ISP is looking for certain mp3 files, that file will be where they are looking, in that same pool.

A better analogy would be comparing file sharing to chasing drug cartels on the seas and in the air. Not all the ships and the planes in the air have drugs on them, or are transporting anything illicit, but if you want to catch who you need to catch that is where your going to find them.

Shoby

Insecurity of banks

yes Bank of America and AT&T have the highest number of identity thefts per month as BofA is the largest Bank in the U.S. (by far) and AT&T is the largest wireless provider in the U.S. (by a bit i believe) so of course they have the most.

It seems to me that your professor used some fancy statistics to smear his data. A more accurate representation would the the percent of customer base whose identity was stolen.

love the show

~Chirstophahahaha from MA

Warn Buzztown!

Warn Buzz-Town: MacBook Pro Power Transformer Will Burn

I fell asleep with my exposed arm on top of the white power brick of my 2007 MacBook Pro and woke up with first degree burns and a tiny second degree burn. People, watch out! Blog and photo to follow but for now, be warned.

In other Mac news, my Mac’s logic board failed in the Apple Store when I was talking Mac Tech. Poor Apple! My dog (rusty) also died this weekend. Sucks for me!

Peace out,

Ross(cbrown)

My Napster settlement phone call

Hey folks, this is “Alex” from Columbus, Ohio, wanted clear up the confusion regarding the Napster Settlement story and my call. Seems I didn’t do my research, because there are multiple settlements against Napster, and the one my company is handling is not the same as the one reported in the New York Post. Our settlement was started by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who wrote songs like “Hound Dog” and “Jailhouse Rock,” and encompasses songwriting royalties and music publishers, not the EMI/Warner/Universal case currently in the news. In my excitement to contribute something actually relevant to show, I confused the two settlements. My bad, sorry for the confusion, I’ll take a time out in the penalty box.

“Alex”

Speedtalkers

Hey Buzz Crew,

About a year ago, I e-mailed about a way Mac users could convert their podcasts to audiobook format so they could play them at a faster speed — a way for power podcast listeners to really get their podcast on.

[Refresher: The JOIN TOGETHER program http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/scripts07.php?page=1#jointogether can be used to group several podcasts into one audiobook file with each podcast being a chapter.
For individual files, QUICK CONVERT APPLESCRIPT http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/scripts02.php?page=1#quickconvert allows you to easily convert the file to AAC format, and the MAKE BOOKMARKABLE APPLESCRIPT http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/scripts07.php?page=1#makebookmarkable converts an AAC into a bookmarkable (audiobook) format.]

What I’m writing to say is that after spending a year speed-listening to many podcasts from many different sources, I’ve only run into three situations where I couldn’t make out what was being said and had to slow it back down to normal speed to make the speech intelligible. Oddly enough, they’re all on BOL: