Buzz Out Loud Podcast

Tom couldn't decide whether to go with the "marginalized whackjob" wall paint, or just get a marginalized whackjob fringe. Vote? In other news of the day, the McCain campaign discovers that the DMCA can be ANNOYING! Maybe they'll do something about it once they're back in politics-land! Also, EA says no one cares about DRM except an organized online cabal. We know how well that attitude worked out for the music industry.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 831

McCain campaign complains about takedown notice procedure
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1795
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081014-mccainpalin-campaign-angry-over-bogus-dmca-takedowns.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10066510-38.html

YouTube says: no special treatment
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10066738-38.html

99.8% of gamers don’t care about DRM, says EA
http://games.slashdot.org/games/08/10/15/1525259.shtml

Worldwide PC market grew 15 percent in third quarter of 2008
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=777613

YouTube passes yahoo as #2 search engine
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/14/1645227

First look: Firefox 3.1 beta 1 officially released
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081014-first-look-firefox-3-1-beta-1-officially-released.html

Software blocks car phone users
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7669533.stm

SanDisk releases $20 slotMusic Player, dozens of SD card albums
http://gizmodo.com/5063564/sandisk-releases-20-slotmusic-player-dozens-of-sd-card-albums

Amazon, EA, Microsoft, others win ‘Popular Mechanics’ Breakthrough Awards
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10066453-52.html

Banjo used in rain surgery
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/14/1945249

VOICEMAIL
Anonymous: Why with the MacBook Pro!? Why!?

E-MAIL

I’m still a day behind, so I just finished episode 830. Molly, you keep griping about this flash bug; I used to get it too, but no more. The solution is simple: Flashblock (http://flashblock.mozdev.org/). Flash items are not loaded, and are replaced with a little play button, allowing you to load selectively, so you never have enough flash things open to cause them all to break. It also ends up speeding up page load time, and you never have to see that annoying dancing person on the “mortgage rates” ad ever again.

Love the show!

-Anthony
Dallas, TX

**********

Totally disagree w/ your assessment. We have one Blu-ray player and several DVD players. Providing a DVD copy for the minivan, either of the kids’ rooms, and any of our computers is brilliant. I don’t want the kids handling the BD Disk b/c I’ve seen what they do to the DVD’s. Also, it allows my sister-in-law to borrow a movie, which she can’t whenever we only have it in Blu-ray.

Joe in WI

**********

Hi all of you,

I was checking out the new MacBook Pro on the American page of Apple
to see the specs and everything. http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs.html
Then I went the the Swiss page to check the price and… boom 30 minutes of
the battery life of the Mac Book vanished, only 4.5 hours. Then I went
back to the American site: 5 hours.
All the other specs are the same and everything except for the battery
life… strange

Pierre from Switzerland (Yes, I live nearby the CERN.)

P.S. could you send me a MacBook Pro from the USA with the 5 hours battery
life?

**********

Hola Buzz Brigade,

You guys have probably read that Sony has pushed out it’s latest firmware for the PS3. Some of the features include additional support for trophies and the ability to set a sleeper shutdown for the controllers (which is so freakin’ BOSS!). But the other “coolerer” feature that they didn’t mention during their original announcement is that Flash 9 was also included. Which mean now I can watch Hulu directly from the PS3 browser without having to use a third party app to stream it to my PS3 via XNLA. This is a great bonus.

Amazon on Demand doesn’t appear to work but I’ll take one win where I can. Besides, the PSN video store is pretty freakin’ huge and keeps growing by hundreds of titles each week.

Just thought I’d let you know.

Love the show (except when Molly rants on the PS3–such a lame 360 fanboi )

Tim

**********

Hey guys,
Just a “well actually.” The DisplayPort is actually a new industry standard. It’s not created by Apple. Dell started using it before Apple did, in fact. It’s supposed to be better in performance than DVI, not to mention plug in better than DVI ports.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displayport

OK, fine, so maybe the “Mini DisplayPort” is a proprietary version of the normal DisplayPort.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini_DisplayPort

They like to “improve” existing technology.

Oh, and you’ll probably know this by now, but the 9400M and the 9600M are not options. They’re BOTH found in the MacBook Pro. You get to switch between them to decide between battery life and performance.

Daniel from Singapore.

**********

FROM THE FORUMS — TOLLIE:
Here’s what I was hoping you’d amend/correct from your reporting yesterday: DisplayPort--not proprietary, VESA standard, will be Apple-wide, also backed by Dell, HP, Intel, et al… and Aluminum MacBooks have no firewire--Apple is bumping Firewire off the consumer line… Trackpad takes away a button, but you can now define TWO button regions (i.e. a right-click area). Hopefully not as dumb as the Mighty Mouse.

**********

Hey BOL crew, you said you wanted to try talking to the robots pretending to be humans online. Well actually, you can. http://elbot.com (press the red button)

I’m not sure if it’s exactly the same Elbot as in the test, because this has been on the Internet for quite a while.

Thanks for the great podcast ,
Keelin

EPISODE 818

Jack Thompson Disbarred
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/25/1822207
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10051241-52.html

AT& T, Verizon to refrain from tracking users online
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/25/AR2008092504135.html

Calif. bans text-and-drive. Crazy people sad?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10050928-94.html

Google’s plan to free you from cell phone carriers
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/25/googles-end-run-around-the-wireless-carriers/

Trent Reznor to NIN fans: Help us understand what you’ll buy
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10051824-16.html

Muxtape founder ‘walked away from licensing deals’
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10051297-36.html

EA skirts first-sale doctrine with limits on resale of Spore
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080925-ea-skirts-first-sale-doctrine-with-limits-on-resale-of-spore.html

College bookstores turn to kiosks to stem e-textbook tide
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080926-college-bookstores-turn-to-kiosks-to-stem-e-textbook-tide.html

Neuros open set-top box lets you crowd-subtitle the presidential debate
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/26/neuros-open-settop-b-1.html

Election season comes to Twitter
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10051813-36.html

Jet man Yves Rossy soars into record books with solo flight over Channel
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/3086878/Fusionman-Jet-man-Yves-Rossy-soars-into-record-books-with-solo-flight-over-Channel.html

VOICEMAIL
Rogue Tess: I love my Netbook

Justin: about the boot

E-MAIL

Hey Buzzards!

I may not be the first, but I wanted to direct your attention to an article in the Telegraph UK about how iTunes is in trouble. This ties directly back to your discussion on how Kid Rock didn’t want to sell his album on iTunes because it was a “concept album” (I cannot help but laugh every time I hear that). The only concept I’m seeing is that they want to sell us the whole album and not just the songs we like. AC/DC wants to sell only the entire album because blah-blah-blah, one song doesn’t represent who they are right now. Sure, fine, whatever, don’t give me any lines about art--this is all about commerce and selling the more expensive album and not the single. Radio and MTV seem to have done very well just playing one song off these albums for years.

What really got me was the first sentence of the last paragraph, “In the future we will all receive our music under a subscription model.” Like this is some forgone freakin’ conclusion? I’m thinking, ummmm NO! I like to own my music, as I know most of your listeners and the rest of the world do (not withstanding DRM, which is experiencing its death rattle’s as we speak). How many subscription models have we seen come and go? This line just blew me away.

Anyway thanks for reading,

Steve in Atlanta
Listener since the 200’s

P.S. Change is good!

**********

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/09/25/bmitunes125.xml

I finally saw my first one. The Aussie that owns this one was very gracious with his time in talking about. This thing is dead silent. Sorry about the bad pic, camera phone after all.

Tom the cube monkey
Boulder, Colo.

**********

Hey Buzz Crew-

Well, I’m a little behind again on the podcast, but in ep. 816 you got discussing narcissism and Tom Merritt believed everything is about him. Well, I believe it. I mean, I hear all the time Tom Merritt in my ears and I get e-mails for Tom Merritt, I write papers for publication and the lead author ends up being Tom Merritt (OK, officially, Thomas Merritt). I mean, in my life Tom Merritt is the most common name on my regular mail, too. And when I first signed onto twitter my posts were listed by Tom Merritt and then I get tweets from Tom Merritt. And I got followers for Tom Merritt (poor fools). So, Tom Merritt is right, my world is filled with Tom Merritt.

Have a good one!
Tom Merritt

**********

Solar power + the Amish = sign of impeding …
doom?
Weirdness?
Wake up call to the rest of us who are suddenly freakishly behind in technology of the Amish.

Here’s the original story:

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_top_left_story/20080920_Amish_turn_to_solar_power_for_electricity.html

Sheala, Ga.

**********

So, I’m on my morning bus commute this morning, watching Mythbusters I recorded last night on Vista Media Center on my Zune, and a dialog box pops up. Something like “Someone is sending you a file. Do you wish to accept?”. Being the curious and naive person that I am, I accept. It ends up being “Who are You?” by The Who. The woman beside me on the bus nudges me, holding up HER Zune. I soon realize, I’ve just been squirted!!! I quickly respond back with “Do you think I’m sexy?” by Revolting Cocks. Her next squirt was “Good Girls Don’t” by The Knack.

We exchanged “gamertags”, and I’m hoping to chat some more with my new “squirting” friend.

Just though you might enjoy my strange bus ride story.

See you this afternoon in the chat room;

Paul (alamode) Cyopick

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

BTW, neither of us owns a Kindle or a Segway.

EPISODE 813

New Microsoft Commercials Are Live
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/18/new-microsoft-ads-are-live/

EA Relaxes Rules on Installing ‘Spore’
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122178384121054773.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10046288-16.html

Zuckerberg: ‘Change can be difficult,’ but the redesign stays
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10045887-36.html

PlayStation 3 gets weather, Google News, and other Web goodies
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10045886-1.html

Study claims cell phones can affect sperm quality
http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/105897

Large Hadron Collider downed by faulty transformer
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-10046156-76.html

Social engineering cracked Palin’s e-mail account
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10045969-83.html

Report: Voting problems in several swing states
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/18/voting.problems/index.html

eBay looking to unload StumbleUpon?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/cnet/20080919/tc_cnet/8301100131004628992

Voice Mail
Trish: Land lines and emergencies

E-mail

Hey, guys,

After listening to you talking about what you have as your homepage, I just thought I'd make a suggestion. A site called Alltop.com which is the only homepage you will ever need! It summarizes every story of the day about one of the topics you choose on one page. For example if your interested in the iphone, go to iphone.alltop.com and it summarizes all recent stories/ articles about the iphone from sites like macrumours.com

Hope that helps...Jason!

Thanks
Jake

**********

Dear B.O.L. crew,

I could not believe my ears last night when I was listening to you talk about what you use for a home page. I personally use Symbaloo.com for mine. This site lets you create a custom page that links to your most common sites. And Jason, it even lets you read RSS feeds on the page to. I could not believe you guys hadn’t heard of this thing. I have been using it for 2 years and love it.

Loving B.O.L,
Josh from Indiana

**********

Hey, I thought of a solution for the Google Streetview privacy issue…
The Google Streetview vehicle should drive slowly and play music like the ice cream truck so people could run out and wave or dive into the bushes.

Love the show

Anthony

**********

FYI, BOL crew -

Just got this e-mail.

Looks like Chrome will not be adopted by large companies for the time being.

—
From:
Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2008 4:29 PM

Subject: URGENT: Google Chrome Browser Vulnerabilities - Serious Security Risk
Importance: High

To TXU Energy and CGE Personnel with Google Chrome Browser Installed:

In early September, Google release the beta version of its new browser named Chrome. The CGE Data Security group has requested a Group Policy block of the install or execution of Google’s Chrome browser due to serious vulnerabilities that exist in this product (see links below). These vulnerabilities allow both denial of service attacks and remote control, and the exploit code for the remote control vulnerability is already available on the internet. The CGE DSM Team agrees with the Data Security team's recommendation that this is a serious security risk.

29 EFH Network Users already have Google Chrome installed, and you have been identified as one of these users. If you have a legitimate business reason for testing with this new browser please send both myself and Jeff Westerheide (See cc list for e-mail link) your business justification for review. CGE Websense is currently blocking the download site from Google. CGE Change Record CHMN00004653718 has been submitted for implementing the Group Policy block, and that change is scheduled for Friday, Sept 26, 2008, at 9 AM. That allows you one week to respond to this e-mail.

Google Chrome vulnerabilities starting to pile up
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=1858

More Google Chrome Vulnerabilities emerge
http://www.ghacks.net/2008/09/11/more-google-chrome-vulnerabilities-emerge/

In the meantime, IT Security is requesting that you uninstall the Google Chrome browser from your workstation to protect you and the EFH network from existing malware threats.

If you have trouble uninstalling Chrome due to a message about that function being prohibited by the Administrator, run the following EXE to accomplish the uninstall. Let me know if this fails to work for you for any reason:

\\eptxudsl001\ClientApps\Chrome_Uninstall.exe

Manager, CARE System Operations

**********

Hi there, JaMoTo (and special guest)

I just have a really dumb question for the Twitter engineers. Why are they spending time and resources on a redesign of Twitter when IM and Tracking still don’t work? Seriously, that’s just dumb. Fix your features, then change your image if you’d like. Don’t add features, don’t redesign, don’t do anything until you fix the bugs you have.

Just my 2 cents, as a Web designer and programmer. As an aside, this is what happens with the Agile Development Paradigm if you aren’t careful. It’s all about moving changes out the door. I’ve signed the Agile Manifesto, and I believe in Agile Development, but it’s not the end all and be all of programming. No paradigm is. You shouldn’t move on until the bugs are fixed.

Joe AKA dOgBOi

The evil power of Dr. M is even greater than we thought...strong enough, in fact, to tarnish the shining reputation of the long-awaited Spore. Also in the news today, DVD ripping goes legit, a little too late, thanks to RealDVD, but we determine it's probably not worth getting sued over. And we put gurus against geniuses in a battle to the tech support death.
Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 804

Happy Birthday Google - 10
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=9930
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2008-09-06-google-ten-years_N.htm

DVD ripping goes legit with RealDVD
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10034540-1.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/technology/08dvd.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Gamers fight back against lackluster Spore gameplay, bad DRM
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080908-gamers-fight-back-against-lackluster-spore-gameplay-bad-drm.html
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/07/amazon-reviewers-clo.html

4,000 Anti-Scientology Videos Yanked From YouTube
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/08/09/08/0256208.shtml

Apple admits iPod is from 1970s U.K.
http://slashdot.org/articles/08/09/08/1343248.shtml
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/09/08/ipodlike-gadget-from.html

Microsoft “Gurus” coming to a store near you
http://www.dailytech.com/Microsoft+Gurus+Coming+to+a+Store+Near+You/article12887.htm

McAfee brings nearly instant malicious software updates
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10034741-83.html

New e-newspaper reader echoes look of the paper
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/technology/08ink.html
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-the-dream-lives-on-plasticlogics-e-newspaper-reader-esquires-e-ink-cove/
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/09/08/new-epaper-tech-to-b.html

Creating a ‘Facebook for spies’
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10034509-93.html

VOICE MAIL

Joel Chandler
Demolition Man is here.

Remy
On the guest hosts.

Sgt. Wagner
ON Chrome's password storage.

E-MAIL

Hello, Buzz Crew!

I’ve been listening to the speculation about how hard it might be for Comcast to provide users with a bandwidth usage number and though I’d comment on a few realities. The idea that “they already have this data in a database with your account number because they assign your IP address” is just plain silly. Your IP address is irrelevant to the process. Carrier-class routers are amazingly powerful computers, but… the Comcast device that’s in a position to meter your usage is a fast but cheap and none-too-smart Layer 2 aggregating neighborhood switch modem that has a port physically connected to the cable that goes to your house. It knows your port number and not much else--even your IP address is assigned at a higher level by another device. The neighborhood switch isn’t primarily built for accounting--fast and cheap, remember?--and asking it to report very much info in real-time will blow its tiny mind.

Those port-level traffic counts have to be passed up to an accounting computer in batches--and not too often or for too many ports at once. Otherwise Comcast starts using up too much network bandwidth and router processing power for accounting, reducing what’s available to users.

And then the accounting computer has to correlate the neighborhood and port ID and traffic count data with the billing records to account for network changes, port reassignment and customer movement in the middle of the accounting period, and all that other boring real-world stuff. I’d guess that the only way it’s practical to do this for millions of users is an overnight mainframe batch run--and maybe not every night.

How many years did it take cell phone companies to get geared up to do a similar job and tell you *approximate usage as of a day or two ago? They don’t ever seem to tell you EXACTLY when the cutoff for the online > total is, and they never guarantee it will correlate 100 percent with your bill, do they?.

Certainly Comcast has an obligation to provide me with a usage meter if they’re going to cap my usage. No doubt they will--once they get their IT and Billing departments to catch up with the Grand Concept their executives decided was appropriate for the FCC. But give them a little time and recognize that it just might not be QUIE as simple as it looks.

Carl
Spokane, Wash.

Hey buzz-crew, long time listener Bob (from Michigan) here. I had an interesting experience today with Micro$oft and thought it deserved a rant. I sold my Xbox 360 via Craigslist, but forgot to delete my credit card information off of the console. I get billed $25 the next day from Microsoft. I rush to Microsoft’s Xbox Web site to cancel my account, but I can’t. I can’t even remove my credit card information! After wrestling my way through the tangled Webs of their customer service site, I ended up getting their 800 number. I immediately gave it a call and was put on hold. I talk to a girl after a few minutes and she transfers me to her supervisor. Ten minutes into this hold, I get charged again for $12.50 from Microsoft. That sunuvagun is still using my card! I finally get the supervisor, and after another long hold, she tells me she cannot refund any of the funds. Not even the funds that were charged during the ridiculous 45 minutes of waiting I did! To add insult to injury, she said she could only put a “hold” on the account and that my card could not be removed from the system for a billing cycle! GRRR, Molly, please back me up on this one.

ps. I’m happy I switched to Sony for my gaming needs.

Hello Jamoto,

I’ve been a long time listener and have heard you refer to the listeners of BOL as the “buzz army”. Well….we already have an army…the twit army.

Therefore I move that we adopt “The Buzz Force” or “The Buzz Air Force” moniker. I’m an Air Force Communications Officer and believe that the sophistication of the BOL audience lends itself to an elite Air Force rather than the a ground pounding Army (just kidding Leo).

Just a thought, keep up the great work and LOVE THE SHOW..

Brian, in O’Fallon IL.

I thought I made up a word, but upon further review, slaver turns out to mean to smear as if with saliva. Ew. But we also talked further about listening to media in the shower and even got to some tech news. That involved the release of Spore, the recall of Sony laptops, and Amazon launching a new video streaming service.
Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 802

Spore (PC) game reviews
http://reviews.cnet.com/pc-games/spore-pc/4505-9696_7-31484467.html

Microsoft cuts Xbox 360 to $199 in throw down with Sony
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080903-microsoft-makes-play-for-second-place-360-price-cut-to-199.html

Sony recalls 440,000 Vaio laptops
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7598344.stm

Amazon flicks on its streaming-video service
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10032491-93.html

BBC to launch music download store
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/03/1937241

Sprint Touch Diamond reviewed
http://www.phonescoop.com/news/item.php?n=3336

Dell plays defense with Mini 9 netbook
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10032134-1.html

Google on Chrome EULA controversy: Our bad, we’ll change it
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080903-google-on-chrome-eula-controversy-our-bad-well-change-it.html

What exaflood? ‘Net backbone shows no signs of osteoporosis
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080903-what-exaflood-net-backbone-shows-no-signs-of-osteoporosis.html

The 5 most laughable terms of service on the Net
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/03/2130233

VOICE MAIL

Anonymous
Mad PC gamer

FORUMS

Bandwidth metering software
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6035_102-0.html?forumID=97&threadID=306977&messageID=2847675

E-MAIL

I’m upset at my ISP. The wrote to me a few months ago with an amazing offer, to ‘upgrade me’ from my naked uncapped ADSL connection to a less expensive capped DSL connection with phone included. Now I’m a busy person so I didn’t write them back to tell them where to take their amazing offer.

Now some months later, the lovely people at my ISP have telephoned me 10 times in eight days offering to ‘upgrade’ me. I--again being busy--pretended not to be the account holder and told them to go away. But the really frustrating thing is that today, my Internet has been down since about 4 a.m. yet they still called me to tell me how I could get the great Internet connection I’m getting just now for less!

I don’t have the time to explain the the minimum wage employee on the end of the phone at 1) the deal is crap, you really expect me to give up an uncapped connection and my static IP address to save £5 a month and 2) that I have something called VoIP and that means I really don’t give a crap about their phone service.

So BOL, please send a nice big Buzz Off to Pipex in the U.K.. They annoy me with their phone calls and with their two instances of downtime, I’ve already exceeded the 5GB cap on my HSDPA account only four days into the month.

ross(cbrown)

Dear Jamoto,

I have been a long time listener and passively enjoying your show, but, I think I may be missing the point on the Psystar issue. I won’t go into some crazy analogy comparing Psystar with some middle earth subcreature or something. I just want someone to clear up how what apple does is so much different than the OEM license that Microsoft issues. Isn’t that copy of the operating system locked to a specific machine?

Someone help me out. Explain to me the difference. Feeling a little dense on this.

Steve

Have you guys wondered why the new 250GB bandwidth cap is not exposed as a meter customers can lookup?

If Comcast knows how much bandwidth a customer consumes in a months time, wouldn’t it simply be an number, adjacent to their account number in a giant database somewhere? How hard would that be to expose to customers via a password protected customer portal…

OR…

Perhaps, the don’t know how much bandwidth each customer uses. After all, its pretty difficult to track this on a shared loop network, like a cable broadband network.

Nilay

Hi Guys,

I loved the story about the waterproof TV because I have to admit I am a shower media junky. I recently upgraded to a smartphone and have loaded it with BOL and other tech podcasts. At home I put the phone on a ledge and play it over the speaker but have contemplated bringing a ziplock to the gym so I can play it in the shower there as well. I drive my wife crazy because I move around with the phone playing the podcasts as I get out of the shower, brush my teeth, and so on. Nothing gets my day off to the right start like a good Molly rant!

My only regret is that I heard this story while in the car, not the shower this time, which would have been really cool. Love the show!

Thanks,

Matt

Just thought you guys would like to know that while watching CNBC today (sadly a little after the live stream concluded) they had a segment on what the Apple announcements might be and one of their highlighted items was a possible Beatles deal. Looks like your rumor is spreading like wildfire. Keep up the good work.

Tommy in Atlanta

EPISODE 800

Apple Store in Hawaii still not open
http://www.ifoapplestore.com/db/2008/08/23/hawaiian-spirits-dictate-storefront-materials/

Meet Chrome, Google’s shiny new browser
http://news.cnet.com/Meet-Chrome%2C-Googles-shiny-new-browser/2009-1032_3-6246210.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10030025-2.html
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-09-02-n72.html

Apple makes September 9 iPod event official
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10030344-37.html

Is Cuil killing Web sites?
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/01/is-cuil-killing-websites/

IE8 Beta 2 fatter than Firefox and XP
http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/09/02/1418252.shtml

Lenovo won’t refund the Windows tax without an NDA
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080831-lenovo-wont-refund-the-windows-tax-without-an-nda.html

Spore to finally appear later this week
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/09/02/spore-finally-appear-later
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122031227102788791.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Nokia ‘Comes With Music’ to offer ‘Free’ music to cell phone subscribers
http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/09/nokia-comes-wit.html

Ultrasound to give feel to games
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7593444.stm

Is technology making it harder to be unfaithful?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10029985-71.html

Shower TV!
http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/02/sony-floats-waterproof-bravia-xdv-w600-1-seg-tv-for-the-bath/

VOICE MAIL

Jim from London
About bandwidth caps.

Bill
An example of an album as a single file.

E-MAIL

Josh Denver wasn’t very far off, in fact BMW developed a racecar that runs on the same principal. It was super fast setting 9 speed records and its only byproduct was water. It was called the BMW H2R. Here is the the Wikipedia article link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_H2R

Google it if you have any other questions

Comcast’s limits:

Take 250GB and divide by thirty (8.3GB daily cap), 347MB hourly cap, 5.7 meg per minute, and 96k per second. The key question is, “What applications do I run that consume 100kpbs per second?” In a family of five, here’s the math:

Son 8 - Club Penguin
Daughter 11- Homework, AIM chat
Daughter 4 - iTunes video
Wife - Web browsing/online chat, Internet radio
Me - Buzz out Loud, Skype, Adium, Transmission, Slingbox, Pandora

OK, maybe we ought to switch off our router at night… that would double our numbers, but let’s face it, the real problem is if you need to run something that persistently consumes bandwidth: Torrents & Persistent Music & Video connections are still the big issue. Who’s kidding who?

Glad I’m on Time Warner...so far, we’re safe, for another five minutes. Even so, I know we all know they’re shaping our traffic, it’s just a matter of how sneaky they are at it.

Love the show,

Ernest

I am sure that this is beat to death but I am one of the few who may be affected by this new cap. My husbands employer just allowed him to work at home as a software developer. He VPNs everyday for 8-to-9 hours into his works network. I myself work from home as a writer for a daily news blog and maintain a personal blog where I upload pictures and videos daily. My husband and I do online gaming at night, watch Hulu, just browsing, and so on. My children are home schooled and we use an online learning program and lots of Web sites as educational resources. We even use VoIP for our phone! We pay for the most expensive Comcast plan at $75/month. It was advertised as a “gaming and entertainment plan”. So much for that. If we get booted from Comcast our only choice is 1.5MB DSL thru Fairpoint. Sounds ridiculous but we may have to buy a new house just to get the Internet we need.

-kate

Hey JaMoTo,

Quick update on your analysts site, I settled with NTT DoCoMo. After having a few e-mail discussions with DoCoMo, they eventually told me it was a mistake to send me that e-mail, and the person who sent the e-mail misunderstood what causes infringement on there copyright! Also you can now access the site from a new URL, Jamotoanalysts Dot Com. Plus the first press release comes out wednesday!

-Hayden

August 31, 1998, is when the very first mp3 player was available:

http://www.teamteabag.com/2008/08/31/retro-computing-corner-the-worlds-first-mp3-player-c-1998/

The mp3 player is now a decade old!

Hi Crew,

Regarding Lloyds "password" saga (BOL 799)--it isn't actually a password, it is a "secret word".

Amongst the many joys of the British banking system, any call to customer service will involve (after a 20 minute wait and multiple choice questions) providing such information as age, date of birth, inside trouser (pant?) measurement, and so on, and finally the Secret Word.

From this word you are asked to provide, for example, the first and third letter--all this is to supposedly prove you are you and no one else, said word is not part of any login system and is purely for human consumption.

Finally--Top Gear and the i-pod pronunciation, that is just James May aka Captain Slow, he has made it into the 21st Century, but only just.

Regards

Mike Lumley
Torquay U.K.

While listening to episode 797 the superbug of piracy, you guys were talking about spreading the rumor about The Beatles coming to itunes September 9, well I just wanted to let that the other day at work (I work at Best Buy…… yeah Best Buy, who buy the way are proud sponsors of CNET TV just wanted to throw that in there). I informed a friend of mine (who is also a BOL fan), that The Beatles were coming to itunes September 9 and he was all like REALLY!!!!!!!!! (all excite) and I was like no….. it’s just a rumor that Molly and the guys from BOL are spreading, and he than just started laughing, than later in the day when I was sitting in the lunch room talking with a bunch of other staff, Pat walked in and said “So Nicole did you hear that The Beatles are coming to iTunes September 9” everyone in the room was like really…….and I was like ya didn’t you hear. It was a super funny moment anyways LOVE THE SHOW.

Nicole Drummond
just another BOL fan

EPISODE 747

Firefox Download Day To Start At 10 a.m. PT
http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/06/17/1250229.shtml
http://www.cnet.com/firefox-3/

Survey: Young people happy to pay for music--on their terms
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080616-survey-young-adults-willing-to-pay-for-musicon-their-terms.html

Associated Press expects you to pay to license 5-word quotations (and reserves the right to terminate your license)
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/06/17/associated-press-exp.html

Ineligible AT&T customers need to pay full price for iPhone 3G
http://gizmodo.com/5016912/ineligible-att-customers-need-to-pay-full-price-for-iphone-3g

Apple settles suit over iPhone visual voice mail
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-9969909-37.html

Cease-and-desist notices sent to Internet DNA testing centers
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9970396-7.html

Support grows for universal power adapter (Thanks royterp!)
http://www.infoworld.com/archives/emailPrint.jsp?R=printThis&A=/article/08/06/16/Support_grows_for_universal_power_adapter_1.html
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/147086/support_grows_for_universal_power_adapter.html

Spore Creature Creator goes live
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2320409,00.asp

Road rage linked to automobile bumper stickers
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/17/0148238

VOICE MAIL

Doug DMCA Canada
About the DMCA…. In Canada.

Jeremy
Flash problems… Solution?

E-MAIL

Hey JaMoTo,

Simon Phipps, Sun Microsystems open-source guy, took a picture of the Sydney Opera House. He then tried to enter his photo into his portfolio at istockphoto.com. However, his photo was rejected as the opera house claims all copyrights on all images of the building.

He is trying to bring attention to this issue by entering his photo into a contest. Go to his Flickr page for details, and a link to the contest if you want to vote.

Flickr Page:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/webmink/480398424

Twitter Page:
http://twitter.com/webmink

–kevin

Hi Buzzers. I just listened to the joint rant on Ep. 746 about whether AT&T’s iPhone plans are unlimited, although they charge different rates for personal and business accounts. First, let me point out that they’ve done this with other smartphone users for some time. I don’t get my corporate e-mail on my personal BlackBerry because it’s not worth the extra $10 to me. Also, the entire crux of your objections is based on speculation that a personal user would be limited or forced into a business plan based on the amount of data that they use. Can you cite any document that AT&T plans to do this or point to any customers who have been forced to a business plan based on their data usage? The only “limit” that I’ve seen with these plans is not based on data usage but rather on using a specific application, Exchange. There is no evidence that the amount of data a personal user can consume is any more limited than a business user. Couldn’t part of that $10 difference be a licensing fee to Microsoft for providing Exchange connectivity or the cost of any additional infrastructure needed to support Exchange? Until someone can provide evidence that a personal plan user is allowed to consume less data than a business plan user, it is perfectly reasonable for both plans to be called “unlimited.” iPhone users, welcome to the world of us “average” smartphone users.

--Jeff, The Supercomputer Guy

Just threw together two quick Unmnemonic devices for the “new” plant list. Hope you like them. DOWN WITH PLUTOIDS!!!

#1)
Molly
Very
Excitedly
Mauled
Jason to
Steal the
Unused
Nokia N95

#2)
Microsoft
Vista
Executed
Malicous
Java
So
Um
Noooooooooooooooooooooooo

--Matt S
Baltimore, Md.

P.S. - [monotone voice] Love the show. [/monotone voice]

Hi Guys,

The U.K. military satellites known as Skynet that you discussed on ep. 745 is actually the fifth version of Skynet used by the U.K. military. The original Skynet was deployed in 1969, long before the Terminator. Maybe the guys who wrote the Terminator stole the name from the U.K. military and not the other way around.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skynet_(satellites)

Kind regards,

--Andrew.

You have talked about the upcoming Firefox 3 download event in a couple of previous episodes. But so far I haven’t heard anyone remind you that Microsoft came up with this idea years ago. I still have the T-shirt from Midnight Madness, August 13, 1996, when we waited by our computers until 12 a.m. to download Internet Explorer (some 1,000,000 downloads if I remember correctly). Now that makes me “really” old!
--Pauline
Phoenix, Ariz.