Yamaha Home TheaterApparently the Large Hadron Collider is doomed. It can't even survive a bread bombing by birds. The Droid arrived on the scene though, and people actually lined up. However tethering is gonna cost you on the thing. Are you still in love? And Gwen Stefani doesn't like you making her sing Honky Tonk Women.
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EPISODE 1101
Episode
Midnight Droid madness in Manhattan
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-10392128-266.html
Verizon Droid Tethering Will Cost You
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/181590/verizon_droid_tethering_will_cost_you.html
http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/06/psa-sears-charging-50-less-for-new-droid-activations-than-veri/
Windows 7 sales exceed Vista sales by 234%, new PC sales not as strong
http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_091105a.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10391484-75.html
Confirmed: Skype Founders Settle With eBay And Others, Get 14% Stake In Skype, Not 10%
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/06/confirmed-skype-founders-settle-with-ebay-and-others-get-14-stake-in-skype-not-10/
Twitter Cleaning Up Trending Topics Spam
http://mashable.com/2009/11/05/twitter-trending-topics-spam/
No Doubt sues Activision over Band Hero [Updated]
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2009/11/no-doubt-sues-activision-over-band-hero.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10391715-17.html
Judge Halts Online Sale of Beatles Songs
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/11/bluebeat-claims-to-own-new-copyrights-to-old-beatles-songs/
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/11/about-those-beatles-songs-its-weirder-than-you-thought.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss
Betting on a Metal-Air Battery Breakthrough
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/23877/?a=f
LHC Shut Down Again -- By Baguette-Dropping Bird
http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/11/06/0824213/LHC-Shut-Down-Again-mdash-By-Baguette-Dropping-Bird?from=rss
Sony to bring Risk to the big screen
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/06/risk_movie/
VOICEMAIL
Brian in Virginia on the PS3 Netflix
Anonymous Tony about 3G maps
Hey Buzz crew,
I am sure you will have this in today’s lineup..but just in case:
Comcast’s new throttling policies.
“Its network throttling implements a two-tier packet queueing system at the routers, driven by two trigger conditions. Comcast’s first traffic throttling trigger is tripped by using more than 70 per cent of your maximum downstream or upstream bandwidth for more than 15 minutes. Its second traffic throttling trigger is tripped when the Cable Modem Termination System you’re hooked-up to - along with up to 15,000 other Comcast subscribers - gets congested, and your traffic is somehow identified as being responsible. Tripping either of Comcast’s high bandwidth usage rate triggers results in throttling for at least 15 minutes, or until your average bandwidth utilisation rate drops below 50 per cent for 15 minutes.”
So…by analogy, will cops start giving out speeding tickets if you travel >=70% of the posted speed limit for more than 15 minutes as well?
Wasn’t there a recent story about the FTC/FCC rules about “Truth in advertising” about ISP speeds? Now Comcast pretty much says, that whatever the ADVERTISED bandwidth, you will be punished for using more than 70% of your ACTUAL bandwidth.
Lima Tango Sierra!
Bob in NJ…
**********
Hey,
First off, Love the Show
My brother just alerted me to the Darpa Network Challenge, http://networkchallenge.darpa.mil/, which is to mark the 40th anniversary of the Internet.
The goal of the Challenge is to be the first to submit the locations of 10 large red weather balloons scattered throughout the continental united states. One person can’t do it alone, so the winner will be the best one to use Social Networking to solve the challenge, and what better then getting the word out on BOL?
I’ve seen others on Facebook with the same idea, but I’m also shamelessly running a contest website at http://www.mgatelabs.com/wiki/Darpa_Network_Challenge
Thanks,
Michael Fuller
Graduate Student of Software Engineering @ Auburn University
Developer of Port Defender on the AppStore
**********
Greetings buzztown,
Tom, you were concerned about the lack of competition in the chip market.
Well actually there was more in the early days of Windows NT.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windo
NT was initially available on these platforms: Intel X86, MIPS R3000/R4000 DEC Alpha, IBM PowerPC, Itanium and AMD64.
I was in software development back then. With four Unix platforms, we had 10 platforms to develop and support. Expensive!
With the market consolidation, It is so much easier now. We support Windows X86, OS X, Solaris and HP-UX.
Any new chip maker is going to have to emulate the X86 instruction set.
AMD, in 1982 licensed the X86 architecture. That, I believe, is why they still exist today.
I can’t imagine Intel would do that again, Unless the Government ordered it.
It is nice to have a standard PC that can boot Windows, OS X and Linux as needed.
There is more competition in electrical outlets around the world.
There are 12 different connectors and about 6 different voltages.
It’s tough charging you laptop around the world.
Love the Show,
Henry C.
Livonia MI
Listen now: Download today's podcast
 |
EPISODE 779 |
Judge rules Sprint’s early-termination fees illegal
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10004049-94.html
Travelers’ laptops may be detained at border
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/content/article/2008/08/01/laptops.html
In-flight cell ban advances in congress
http://mobile.slashdot.org/mobile/08/08/01/0124258.shtml
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10004170-1.html
Apple quickly kills popular iPhone-‘tethering’ app
http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/007376.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13515_3-10004278-26.html
http://www.macrumors.com/2008/07/31/nullriver-introduces-3g-edge-tethering-app-for-iphone/
College funding bill passed with anti-P2P provisions intact
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080801-college-funding-bill-passed-with-anti-p2p-provisions-intact.html
Hands on: Delicious 2 cleans up social bookmarking
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080801-hands-on-delicious-2-cleans-up-social-bookmarking.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10003874-2.html
China eases Internet restrictions for journalists
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/02/sports/olympics/02beijing.html
Online fantasy game's absurd cancellation policy leads to new law
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/7/final-fantasy-online-s-arcane-cancellation-policy-baffles-lawmakers-leads-to-new-law
iPhone + Twitter + sedatives = not a great idea, really
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/7/iphone-twitter-sedatives-not-a-great-idea-really
NASA: “We have water” on Mars
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/31/nasa-we-have-water-o.html
VOICEMAIL
Grahame, New York
Gift card horror story.
BlackBerry Guy
A little hands-free headset stuff.
Hey Buzz crew!
A word in defense of providing lunch for employees. I recently joined a start-up here in Boston which does this. We just reviewed the policy and concluded that it’s a great investment. My personal top three arguments in favor:
1. Builds camaraderie and fosters healthy mixing of individuals from different departments.
2. Keeps an otherwise, uh… “distractible” team in the office, rather than wandering around Chinatown looking for Boston’s best dumplings. More importantly, it keeps lunch hour contained within a fixed window of time--1:00 p.m. is actually a usable meeting time in our company.
3. In a competitive recruiting market, free lunch is an attractive perk. We get far more bang from our lunch dollars than if we allocated them toward standard comp.
Waldron, in Boston
**********
Drunk Dialers in Norway get heard through fjords!…fjords..fjords…fjords…
http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/public_megaphone_for_drunk_dialers_in_norway_10660.asp
http://www.unsworn.org/telemegaphone/
excerpt:
By dialing the Telemegaphone’s phone number, your voice will ring out across the fjord, the valley, and the village of Dale. A bright light at the top of the pole will be lit as your call goes through, projecting your voice across the valley.
Wanna try? On Aug 2, go here for the phone number. (This’ll work day & night until September 6, 2008).
Best,
Shalin
**********
Tom, to help you out on the iPhone end, go into settings. Under Safari
there’s an option to switch the search from Google to Yahoo.
Steve from Buffalo, New York
**********
Hey BoL,
The caller in episode 778 who clarified some info on China’s Great
Firewall is right - VPNs are one path around China’s Net censors. A
friend of mine attended the Beijing University of Post &
Telecommunications, where she was taught how to use VPNs and other
proxy server techniques to evade the Great Firewall entirely. I
visited her dorm room when she was still in grad school there, and all
of her roommates (computer science students) were browsing and
downloading content quite freely. Apparently, they’re still huge fans
of ‘Friends.’
The real impact of the Great Firewall is psychological --China’s
government knows they can’t block everything, but if they make certain
information inconvenient enough to access for most of the population,
almost all users just get frustrated and give up. I’m constantly
surprised by how disinterested and oblivious my friend is about world
events, although I can’t speak for the other 1.32 billion. She’s
coming to the States for the second time in August and I’ll be very
curious to see how she reacts to western media’s perceptions of the
Olympics coverage.
<< “L O V E T H E S H O W”;
-Andrew
Portland, Oregan
**********
Dear Tom, Molly, and Jason,
While the new FireWire standard may be
faster then the current USB standard, the soon-to-be-released USB 3.0
spec has a max throughput of about 4.8 Gbit/s.
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Tom Merritt appears on
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lists. He also co-hosts CNET's The Real Deal podcast. 
Jason Howell can
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updating XML feeds from the comfort of his cubicle, and saying "uh-oh"
from time to time. 
