Buzz Out Loud 1219: DARPA requests transformer flying cars. So do we. (podcast)

The folks who built the Internet are thinking it could be a great idea if flying cars were available in military zones to help extract soldiers quickly from sensitive locations. And they should transform. So, awesome future on our way. Plus, Apple sells 1 million iPads, we try to untangle the h.264 codec mess, and the future of the Internet is cloudy.

Watch this: Ep. 1219: DARPA requests transformer flying cars. So do we.

38:12

Podcast

Apple sells 1,000,000 iPads in revolution’s first month
http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/03/apple-sells-1-000-000-ipads-in-revolutions-first-month/

Apple may be in the eye of regulatory storm
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/an_antitrust_app_buvCWcJdjFoLD5vBSkguGO

FCC to Keep Broadband Services Deregulated, Chairman Says
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Midmarket/FCC-to-Keep-Broadband-Services-Deregulated-Chairman-Says-329216/

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 shuns open video
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/30/internet_explorer_9_closed_video/

Microsoft fires back at critics of its HTML5 strategy
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=2095

Internet Explorer Falls Below 60% Market Share
http://www.conceivablytech.com/796/science-research/internet-explorer-falls-below-60-market-share/

Google acquires 3D desktop BumpTop
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20003950-93.html

Nissan books 8,000 Leaf orders in nine days, gets turned on with that electric feel
http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/02/nissan-books-8-000-leaf-orders-in-nine-days-gets-turned-on-with/

Microsoft Kin One and Kin Two to go up for pre-order on May 6th, shipping on May 13th?
http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/02/microsoft-kin-one-and-kin-two-to-go-up-for-pre-order-on-may-6th/

Google Sees a New Role for YouTube: An Outlet for Live Sports
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/business/media/03cricket.html

Flying Car Proposals Sought by Pentagon
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/flying-car-proposals-sought-pentagon/story?id=10521080

Take a stab and rewrite your own take on the Buzz Out Loud theme music! BOL Remix contest is underway! Deadline is Wednesday, May 12.
http://www.cnet.com/8301-19709_1-20003121-10.html

Email
Hey, Buzz Crew,

Love the show and every night listen to it on my commute home with Dr. Podder, an amazing WebOS podcast streamer and downloader. BOL is one of the defaults, and that’s how I discovered you all.

I believe you may only have a nominal understanding of WebOS. While it is most known for its elegance and its swipe and tap multitasking and notifications, what ultimately strengthens the operating system is its plugin development kit (PDK) and its sophistication in the cloud. While only a couple of thousand of official apps have been released, what is remarkable is which apps have been released. For instance, EA, GluMobile and GameLoft have been able to port their most popular iPhone games such as Need For Speed, Assassin’s Creed, N.O.V.A., and Guitar Hero very easily, because of the PDK, which will be released to the public shortly. GameLoft especially seems to release a phenomenal game or two weekly on WebOS and has publicly commented on how profitable it has been for them. And Palm’s advancements in the cloud have allowed it to make uniform over-the-air updates MONTHLY. Neither iPhone nor Android can claim that. This is why the few million users of Palm are rabid over WebOS, as demonstrated in Laptop Magazine’s March Madness competition. Ultimately, at its core, Palm built an OS that had the capacity to grow quickly, flexibly, and easily, to scale to different devices in different environments, grounded at its core in HTML, CSS, and Javascript to make it easy to develop for by anybody who can build a web page. And they have the patents to defend itself from Apple’s and Microsoft’s legal assaults. HP’s purchase of Palm will ultimately be considered a steal.

Again, love the show, thanks for the daily entertainment.

Best,
Mike

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Molly,
There is an app (free and paid versions available) for android and blackberry called drivesafe.ly. When turned on, it will auto respond to texts and emails with whatever you want, and it can read out the messages as they come in with its own special text-to-speech. With the Motorola Droid and the car dock, it will automatically turn on the auto responder when placed in dock, and it can also be set to turn on automatically when connected to a Bluetooth headset for non-Droiders.
Outside the car, sending dirty or funny text messages back and forth between friends takes on a MacInTalk level of hilarity when the drivesafe.ly lady reads them aloud.
Don’t know if the iPhone can do this, but since it requires some semblance of multitasking I’d guess not.
Love,
Chad in Portland

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I like poker analogy of patents being a zero sum game with one modification. It’s more like playing poker at a casino where the house takes a percent rake off the top. In the case of patents you have the lawyers taking their share of every settlement between companies and everyone but the lawyers loses.

Paul
Stafford, TX