Buzz Out Loud 1453: The poke lobby (Podcast)

On today's show, prep is minimal, but the news is pretty interesting: Amazon's cloud service went down overnight, taking lots of sites with it -- including the Cydia jailbreak app delivery store. Apple blew it out with earnings, and so did Verizon -- and HTC Thunderbolt sales. We continue to debunk the iPhone tracking "discovery," but that doesn't mean we're not worried about the data. And Amazon's increasingly imminent tablet, too. --Molly

Watch this: Ep. 1453: The poke lobby

55:11

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NEWS

Amazon’s Cloud Crashed Overnight, And Brought Several Other Companies Down Too
http://newenterprise.allthingsd.com/20110421/amazons-cloud-crashed-overnight-and-brought-several-other-companies-down-too/

Apple Blows It Out ... Again
http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20110420/thar-she-blows-a-whale-of-a-quarter-for-apple/
http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-earnings-analysis-2011-4?op=1

Verizon activates 2.2 million iPhones in first quarter, 260,000 HTC Thunderbolts
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/verizon-activates-22-million-iphones-in-first-quarter-260000-htc-thunderbolts/47663

AT&T and Verizon iPhone sales are nearly the same — 40,000 per day
http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/ATT-and-Verizon-iPhone-sales-are-nearly-the-same-40000-per-day/1303398412

Three major issues with the latest iPhone “tracking” discovery
http://alexlevinson.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/3-major-issues-with-the-latest-iphone-tracking-discovery/

Rep. Ed Markey wants privacy answers from Steve Jobs (again)
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/04/rep-ed-markey-wants-privacy-answers-from-steve-jobs-again.ars

Obama at Facebook: let’s go science!
http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/20/obama-i-want-people-to-feel-the-same-about-the-next-internet-breakthrough-as-they-did-about-the-moonwalk/

Facebook Ramps Up Lobbying Spend In Q1 2011, Up 400 Percent To A Record $230K
http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/21/facebook-ramps-up-lobbying-spend-in-q1-2011-up-400-percent-to-a-record-230k/

Nokia and Microsoft Sign Definitive Agreement Ahead of Schedule
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2011/apr11/04-21msftnokia.mspx
http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/20110421/exclusive-microsofts-lees-and-nokias-oistamo-talk-about-the-final-contract-they-just-signed/

Is an Amazon Tablet Inevitable? Yes!
http://www.pcworld.com/article/225861/is_an_amazon_tablet_inevitable_yes.html

USPS rules for GameFly: mailing DVDs to be cheaper for all
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/04/usps-rules-for-gamefly-mailing-dvds-to-be-cheaper-for-all.ars

Google Offers lets you subscribe to local offers in Portland, NYC, and SF
http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/21/google-allows-you-to-subscribe-to-offers-in-portland-new-york-city-city-san-francisco/

Quick Hits

Hulu Wasted Little Time to Block the PlayBook
http://www.berryreview.com/2011/04/20/hulu-wasted-little-time-to-block-the-playbook/

Retail Giant Ebay Acquires Where for $135 Million
http://bostinnovation.com/2011/04/20/retail-giant-ebay-acquires-where-for-135-million/

Moto delaying Droid Bionic until summer
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19736_7-20055486-251.html

PlayStation Network could be down ‘a day or two’
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2XO6B0/www.shacknews.com/article/68187/playstation-network-suffering-sporadic-outages

Gadgets

Google might sell Chrome notebooks as a monthly subscription
http://www.businessinsider.com/google-will-sell-chrome-notebooks-as-monthly-subscription-2011-4

VOICEMAIL

David fom Durham talks about the 3d Porno movie breaking Avatars sales records in Hong Kong.

Gill from San Diego thinks his phone is having more fun than he is.

EMAILS

Hey Buzz Crew,
Just over 1 hour ago today Brian Tong put the fear of death in me! Getting online, I went to check CNET TV (like I do every morning) and started to watch the opening CNET TV video. Brian started to mention that today was Judgment Day (As in The Terminator) and mentioned that some time today the machines would rise up and take over. Just as he finished that sentence, my power went out at my house! I imediately sat up and took a few steps back from my PC and said “”Oh SH**…Skynet!”". I then went into my den to see if my PS3 or 47 inch Flat screen were coming to life with no power. This entire time my heart was racing! Everthing seemed to be off. So I cautiously went outside for a smoke and watched the skies for Nukes, or Flying T-1′s heading this way. I even gave my ’97 “”POS”" Nissan a dirty look. While I was outside the power came back on. It took me an hour to feel comfortable to get back online and send this email. This seriously freaked me out. So I say to you, is Brain Tong a Prophet, or is this just a coincident?

Ever Vigilant of the Tech,
Justin from Oklahoma

P.S.
Love the show

—–

In regards to surviving judgement day, I have, through no fault of my own, a large supply of Windows ME and AOL 5.0 disks.

If that doesn’t bring Skynet to a screeching halt I’m not beyond busting out a DOS 6 disk and installing doublespace.

Sean Barr

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Hey Buzz crew. Listening to Wednesday’s Podcast, and all I could think was How to Survive a Robot Uprising by Daniel H. Wilson. He lays out exactly what to do to improve your chances. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. Short and easy read. Enjoy.
Steve
From Sean Daly

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Hi buzz crew,

Great tip yesterday regarding the email address to use to update your Facebook status

Checked it out and it worked fine….then I thought….hmmmm, I wonder if they check the email address from where the update is sent from?
So I checked with my unregistered gmail acct….and low and behold….it updated facebook!

So DO NOT let this email address get into the public domain! Or…..have lots of fun with your friends facebook statuses if you manage to get them to let you know what it is (never leave your facebook logged on unattended for a second now!)

Not sure it would be too difficult for FB to close this by checking where the email was sent from

Matt

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Hello Buzzers,

I’m a little surprised that you guys didn’t know more about Overdrive before you ran the store about the Kindle library books yesterday. This is kind of a big deal.

How Overdrive works is the library licenses a certain number of books to be used to lend out. One person at a time can download these books and use them on their e-readers and the books cannot be renewed. After a preset period of time, the books automatically delete themselves (no late fees) and someone else can download them. Clean and simple. Up until now Overdrive has only used the proprietary “”Sony epub”" format, meaning that the books could not be read on the Kindle, which uses the azw and mobi formats. Overdrive also licenses audiobooks in a similar way.

Also, as a librarian, I ensure you that the “”local libraries”" portion of the story is very important, given that libraries won’t lend these books out to people who do not pay them taxes. This is why libraries will continue to be relevant and useful going forwards, unless you want to have to pay a netflix-style fee to get your books, reference materials, DVDs, etc.

Joseph aka lunixer in the chat room

—–

http://bol.cnet.com, 800-616-2638 (CNET), buzz@cnet.com

Follow us on Twitter: @mollywood @brian_tong @stephenbeacham