[music] ^m00:00:04
>> Today is Wednesday March 25, 2009.
>> I'm Natalie del Conte.
>> I'm Tom Merritt.
>> I'm Jason Howell.
>> Welcome to Buzz Out Loud, CNET's podcast of indeterminate length. This is episode 938.
>> And we're joined by Ron Richards today. Hey Ron.
>> Hey, thanks for having me.
>> Thanks for coming along. Ron from iFanboy. Also you're like a big wig at Revision 3?
>> Not a big wig, but...
>> You don't wear a wig, you're not bald.
>> Or you don't wear a 'big' wig.
>> Right yeah, it's a piece. But no, yeah I work at Revision 3 by day and I also host and run iFanboy dot com.
>> Excellent. Well thanks for joining us. We have some big scary news about the RIAA and the AT and T getting together. Those are letters that you don't want matched up.
>> Well we don't know how scary it is. We just know that AT and T is working along with the RIAA to find people who are pirating digital content. The RIAA last year said some of the ISP's are gonna be working for us, and we all quivered in our boots. We just don't know exactly what they're doing, but this is the RIAA's alternative to going out and suing individual offenders.
>> So instead they just send random take down notices whenver they think somebody has pirated, and we don't know whether AT and T is actually threatening to cut off your internet or if they're just being like overbearing.
>> Right. We don't know what kind of take down notices, like are they threatening to take you down from the web, or are they asking you to take down certain public websites that they're hosting? It just says take down notices. So we don't know exactly what they're doing, and certainly other ISP's are working on it, but AT and T is just the first one to admit it.
>> Didn't the RIAA say they were gonna stop doing this, or they were gonna back away from it?
>> They're gonna back away from suing people, and instead they're gonna do this.
>> Right, yeah.
>> I'm sorry, the ISP's have no business doing this. I disagree with AT and T even getting involved in this. This is not the way they should be dumb pipes. I know they don't want to be dumb pipes, but they're afraid of being dumb pipes, but they should be just carrying the data because once they start... really this is... this is what AT and T thinks is the most important for it to inspect, is whether the dying business model of physical music is being threatened by someone online. If they're gonna get into that then they have to get into child porn, they have to get into spam, they have to get into viruses, they have to get into all of this stuff that is clearly more threatening to the welfare of people than somebody trading music.
>> Well then what does the RIAA have to give to AT and T to have them do that? Like why did this get prioritized?
>> Because the RIAA probably golfs with the guys from AT and T.
>> They're boisterous, that's why. Because the RIAA makes a lot of noise. And I agree, this is not a good use of AT and T's time. It's a better tactic than just suing individual users for money that they don't have and they'll never see, and just making an example of people because that obviously does not work.
>> Right, neither one of them work. That's the problem. Let's go ahead and pull in the Jonathan Colton story. Jonathan had a blog posting today where he talks about how many people take his songs for free, versus how many people pay for them, and he says somewhere along the way he used to be obsessed with the traffic and he kind of stopped being obsessed because he sort of thinks of the whole engine as a special genetically engineering cow, who eats music and poops money. I have no idea what's going on in it's gut, and I have the luxury of not really caring that much about the particulars. And he goes through and says like lots of people take my stuff, and some people pay for it, and some people donate, and some people buy CD's. But in the end, what matters is he is making more money than he did as a software engineer.
>> He's also a compelling musician. I think that he can't really follow that model, not just everyone can be quite as lucky. He's famous.
>> Well, how did he get famous?
>> That's a chicken or egg question.
>> Well I think we're moving towards an environment, we talked about this a lot before where, you know, we're gonna move away from the old model to a new model where you'd want to put your music out there, put whatever out there and make money on concerts, make money on t-shirts, make money on that sort of thing. And that's just another step in that direction. We don't charge for any of our shows on Revision 3 and I used to spend hours hitting refresh to see how many people download, and I finally took the same thing where I said, I'm not gonna worry about it. Like people are gonna watch and they'll enjoy it, and then we'll make money later on.
>> And what the RIAA... this is where it gets me, which is why is music and video so important to society that it needs to be propped up? Would it be the most horrible thing in the world if musicians, as a whole, made less money?
>> Or recording companies, not necessarily musicians.
>> Well even musicians, even... I know it's not a popular stance to take, but really would the world end if suddenly musicians on a whole, on average across the world, made a little less money?
>> I think you're getting microsocial here though, because musicians are selling a brand, not just music. They're plenty of compelling musicians who are poor, ugly, and unattractive and we don't listen to that music. When we buy into an artist, we buy into an entire ecosystem of their image. And that's why it's so expensive, because we're paying for t-shirts and concerts and all of that stuff, rolled into the price of their music. And all of that is an image engine that comes from the music labels. That's why it's so expensive. And that's what the music labels want to propagate.
>> But I think there's an adjustment that has to happen in society, like is this happening in TV too? A lot of people in entertainment are realizing that hey, we're gonna be making way less money soon and they're scared of that. And I think it's the same thing with music, is that we built up this idea of the rock star and these successful things, and millions of dollars, and the society and the economy is gonna adjustment and these people are gonna be making less money. Tom, I think you're kind of on to something there.
>> I don't mean that artists shouldn't be compensated for what they do, but it used to be that there was no physical media and so the only way you made money is if you were good and people came to see you, or the patrons gave you money. And the fact that we've pretty much gotten rid of physical media again, means that we have an infinitely copiable universe, and we just gotta get used to that. And that there'd be different ways of making money and Natalie, you're totally right about why things are so expensive and why they cost so much, I'm just questioning whether that model needs to be propped up at all.
>> Well I completely agree with you that it should, I'm saying that we pay so much and they're protecting it so much, because they're protecting a... this sort of really comfortable, yeah place that they're in.
>> It's self preservation. Everybody wants to be Coldplay... everyone has dreams of platinum records and millions of sales and stuff like that, and it's different now. There's more artists, the discipline of putting a record out is gone.
>> I have one friend that doesn't want to be Coldplay. He kind of hates that. [laughter] ^m00:06:58
>> I'm not sure if I would want to be cold plate either.
>> But it used to be really hard to put out a record... I'm sorry, that's how old I am, I say record still. But it used to be really hard to put out an album, and now you can just get in your garage, literally use a garage band, put out MP3's, and then you're on the same level as Coldplay on Myspace or wherever.
>> It's interesting, I actually read an article a couple of days ago and I'll search for the link and post it in here, because it's a good counter point to the Jonathan Colton articles written by John Mellencamp. And of all people... another John, yes, it's along the John line. But it's kind of an interesting take on the fact that... he agrees that the RIAA and the record industry has really kind of screwed things up, but what he goes into detail kind of goes against what Jonathan Colton's saying, which is artists should be artists and shouldn't have to worry about marketing themselves in all these different ways to make the money that they should be making or whatever. So it's kind of a different approach here because Jonathan Colton in this article is saying, that's how I do it, is I market myself in all these different ways and eventually somehow the cow poops money. Well that's where Natalie... they're okay with that, but others aren't.
>> That's where Natalie's talking about branding is that thing. John Mellencamp, that's an older idea, like I'm an artist, I'm an ar-tist and people will come and give me money because I'm so great. And it's more than just being an artist these days. You gotta engage, you gotta sell yourself to a certain degree is you want to be successful.
>> Sure.
>> I find it very obnoxious to think that artists, just because they're on TV or on the radio, should be making more money. And so I am actually really happy about this sort of evening of the playing field that you're discussing Tom.
>> And it's also hard to actually make money off of exposing artists and helping them with their marketing. Last fm has decided that they are going to start charging everyone outside of the UK, Germany, and the United States for the service. Right now you can get Last fm with ads, if you want to listen to the Last fm radio, for free; or you can pay and you get it without ads. What's gonna happen is that'll still be the case in the UK, Germany, and the United States, but elsewhere in the world you'll only have the option of paying. You won't be able to listen to it with ads for free.
>> It'll be about 3 Euros per month, which is an interesting model, I'm not sure. Even Yahoo music engine. That was what, 12 dollars per month or something like that?
>> It's pretty cheap.
>> So this is less.
>> But it's still money.
>> Right, it's something... probably people who love Last fm will just put it on their credit card as a recurring payment and not have to think about it, but it's kind of a pain in the butt. And also Last FM has just announced that they are going to have to yank all third party applications on mobile devices for now, because they have a licensing issue. And again full disclosure, Last fm is a CBS product.
>> Right. CBS Interactive owns both CNET and Last fm. But I don't have any inside info, sorry. There's 2 things going on here. One is the record industry is preventing Last fm from distributing through VAPI to mobile phones, for whatever crazy reason. They want to restrict exposure to the music, and then the other thing is Last fm is saying themselves, we don't make enough money off of people in the world outside of the UK, Germany, and the United States selling ads, so we've got to just start charging people directly because we can't sell enough ads in those other places. I don't know if I buy that.
>> Well that's just harsh reality. I mean, I kind of buy it.
>> You can't sell ads in Canada?
>> Well...
>> You can't sell ads in France, but you can in Germany?
>> Well it all depends on who knows...
>> They have lay offs you know. A lot of the Last fm team in our last round of lay offs, Last fm got raped.
>> The thing is too...
>> A lot of their sales people are just gone.
>> Last fm is now part of CBS Interactive, which has the whole CNET network's sales force which spans China and Russia and Hong Kong.
>> But how hard is it to harness that kind of worldwide sales force for the... how many other products are they selling? It could come down to a resource issue.
>> They should sell CNET first, you're right.
>> And from what I can tell as an outside observer, it looks like Last fm has remained a little bit independent despite being owned by CBS. Like you guys are all CBS now and everything like that, which is fine, but Last fm seems to have had a little bashed in of independence being in England.
>> Well they're in London, they have their own offices. That's true of a lot of companies when they get acquired, various ones have different amounts of maneuverability here.
>> As operating several businesses that are based on advertising, it's not easy.
>> Yeah there's not a lot out there. That's true.
>> If you look at my debit card bill, it's like one micropayment after another. If they, honestly if Last fm said hey, pay 3 bucks a month for our service I'd pay it because I love their site.
>> I bet a lot of people just aren't gonna use it anymore though. And maybe they don't care. If they're like, you know what the money is coming from these 3 countries... that's all that matters to us. And then 3 Euros for everybody else. It's smart, I just feel like a lot of stuff on the internet right now is not being sold that should be sold. And I'm not even pointing the finger at Last fm's salespeople in this case, but there's just a lot of prejudice where people won't buy something on the internet, even though it's obviously good. Like why are they having such a hard time selling some ads in certain places?
>> It's hard. It is hard and I've been on both sides of the fence.
>> Why is it so darn hard? It shouldn't be.
>> I've been on both sides of the fence in terms of buying advertising as well as selling advertising, and it can be... and I don't understand why companies spend millions of dollars on billboards.
>> Yes! On magazines.
>> Where there's no guaranteed return, we're like let's hope people drive by and notice this billboard, notice our URL.
>> There's no click through on a billboard.
>> Exactly, and yet what happens then is that then the advertising online, you explain oh it's great, we can track it... then they follow those metrics to the letter and if you don't perform enough they pull the money.
>> That's kind of the inherent problem with podcasting these days, is that it's impossible to track how far into a show somebody gets, or into an MP3 file. You can do it when they're streaming online because you know when they connect and you know when they leave, but you can't do that with a file that they download.
>> But for some reason they'll trust to the ends of the Earth the orbitrary numbers from Orbitron for radio, where they have no idea, at least we know they downloaded it - they wanted the show. That's another old bug-a-boo. Let's move onto Blockbuster on demand coming to the Tivo.
>> Another old bug-a-boo. Blockbuster.
>> Yeah.
>> Earlier this year were were talking about how Netflix is doing so well in putting their streamed movies on all these devices, like the Samsung Blu-ray player, the Roku box, and now Blockbuster is saying that they're going to be on the Tivo series 2 and series 3. Now the Tivo already offers Amazon on Demand. It also has videos from You Tube and Jammin and Cinema Now, but now it will also have Blockbuster which is a good move for them. Around CES time when Samsung announced the Netflix Blu-ray player, Blockbuster made a statement and said, we're coming out with some stuff too on different devices. But we didn't know what yet, so this is the first actual non PC device that we've seen from Blockbuster.
>> You cannot watch the Blockbuster on Demand in a browser? Or can you?
>> I think you only can do it in a browser right?
>> I thought you could only do it on that box? Yeah you had to buy the box until now.
>> Right. I don't think they have the browser based.
>> I think they're way behind the ball. This is a better thing for Tivo than it is for Blockbuster, because Tivo now is looking like the one box that does it all; because it records your regular television as well as giving you everything that you could find on a Roku player. It doesn't have stuff that you would find on an Apple TV maybe, but with Amazon video on demand, You Tube, Jammin, Cinema Now, you've got a wide variety of stuff you can access here including podcasts.
>> Tivo's really stepping up in terms of trying to be that box... and all the Revision 3 shows are available on Tivo, a little plug there. And they're really embracing the... but they're really embracing the kind of the fact that there is an ethernet port in there and you can get data on there. Honestly, I have an Apple TV, I don't have a Tivo. I actually don't have cable either, but Apple TV's great because I can get my podcasts, I can download movies, but if I had TV in the DVR aspect and then Netflix or Blockbuster, that makes it a really attractive box to have on my TV.
>> It does, but Blockbuster's been slow to get the distribution streaming rights for titles. Still Amazon video on demand has more than Blockbuster. So more than likely, if you have a Tivo, you're gonna go to Amazon video on demand before Blockbuster. Maybe Blockbuster's just relying on brand recognition.
>> I think that's telling that we move this story from talking about Blockbuster to talking about Tivo. ^m00:15:47 [ laughter ] ^m00:15:54
>> Alright Facebook is launching facial recognition so that you could find out if any embarassing photos of you are out there that you didn't know about.
>> This is a Facebook app and you put it on your page, and what it does is it scans all the known pictures of you and then scans the rest of Facebook photos to figure out pictures of you that are up now that are not tagged, they might not know about. So you want some photos that are, maybe find whether people are posting your photos, you can do that. I think for me, this is undesirable.
>> Really?
>> Because I have no problem untagging myself from pictures that I don't think are flattering, so I don't want to see those pictures.
>> But this would help you find those?
>> Yeah, exactly.
>> Well usually I find them and I untag them. Then I never have to think about them again.
>> Yeah but somebody might think it's you.
>> It's vanity isn't it? Terrible.
>> I'm more worried about the accuracy of it. How accurate is the facial recognition going? I've never seen a facial recognition that was spot on. A lot of people are trying to do it but I'd be worried about me getting tagged in photos that aren't actually me.
>> Well you don't necessarily have to tag that, it just finds them and then you do with that information what you will. But have you seen that funny article about the 26 types of Facebook photos, profile photos? It's like the junk guy, the pointing guy, the guy on a bike, the guy who's wearing ski goggles, the guy with the guitar, the guy looking into his web cam, like there's all these archi-types of different types of profile pictures. So whatever pictures you choose to put up there, it may not be able to really take facial features from the ones that you allow in there in the first place.
>> Because everybody's pointing.
>> Everyone's pointing.
>> I'm not pointing in mine. I need to get a pointing picture.
>> I mean this one... I was trying to find the link and put it in the show notes, but it's really a funny story. I don't think they've done it for girls yet.
>> There was a time period where I flipped off every camera I was taking a picture of, because I didn't want it to get on the internet.
>> Yeah, that works against you.
>> That's what actually happened too.
>> They all end up on the internet, people just think you're a real jerk.
>> Real jerk? Wow.
>> Our next story just is more of a numbers story than anything. Skype apparently handles more international calls now than AT and T. This according to Telegeography.
>> Yeah, that's not a big surprise. It's cheaper to Skype internationally than it is to call from any kind of traditional phone service though. Way to go Skype.
>> And well Voip passing up the land line. I mean, AT and T doesn't even care. They're making a lot more money than Skype, but they're making it elsewhere. Long distance is dying.
>> I think they care. We don't know that.
>> They care about Voip as a competitor, but they're not looking at long distance calling as their big cash cow like they used to.
>> You know the international long distance program manager is worried.
>> He's gonna lose his job.
>> Yeah, exactly. So someone at AT and T cares. But I wonder, are they tracking, they're just tracking calls to actual numbers internationally? They're not tracking international usage to domestic, because that'd be... because that's gotta flip side. I know anytime I gotta call somebody internationally I use Skype, set up an account and not even pay any money.
>> Skype is the largest provider of cross boarder voice communications in the world. So I assume that means both paid and unpaid. eBay's gotta figure out how to make some more money off that. I mean really.
>> Yes, definitely.
>> That's a big pile of usage going on there that's not really turning over. What do they turn over? 550 million in 2008? And eBay paid 2.6 billion for them?
>> Yeah, well that's the epic boom purchase that didn't pay off. When Skype got bought by eBay nobody could believe how much it went for, and they just haven't been able to monetize it.
>> I think it's a big story though, that Voip passes up land line in usage, which is what they all feared. And now it has come true. Their fears have been realized.
>> Well another legal fear of Apple's has been realized. They are being sued in Switzerland for promoting themselves as an eBook reader. A company named Monec Holding says that they have a patent for a mobile reader device, that they have had since January of 2002, and they say because Apple is promoting itself and engaging in unfair practices and unfair marketing, they want to sue Apple and make them stop pretending that they're a digital book reader.
>> Patent number 6335678 is titled "Electronic Device", preferably an electronic book. We don't know. Can you really get a patent that way? Electronic device, I don't know, preferably a book but hey, it could be something else and we'll sue you then.
>> It is pretty dubious, we don't know exactly what they're asking for or what... kind of a we'll see.
>> The patent describes a lightweight electronic device with a touch screen, LCD display, having the dimensions that approximately one page of a book can be illustrated at normal size. That's not the iPhone! Is it an LCD display, first of all?
>> No.
>> It certainly doesn't have the dimensions of one page of a book, and cannot display a page of a book at normal size.
>> No, it can't.
>> I deny this patent.
>> Well shouldn't the Swiss be neutral about patents anyway? Is there some sort of... ^m00:21:04 [ laughing ] ^m00:21:06
>> Well the Swiss may be but the Swiss based companies aren't.
>> Yeah, I guess.
>> And they're in court in Virginia so I guess that's what throws that out. Pretty soon we're all going to be interacting with each other in virtual reality anyway, and we're moving closer with that because of Mozilla. They are working with a graphics consortium, Chronos, to set up a working standard for what they call accelerated 3D graphics on the web.
>> Well that's kind of scary.
>> Widespread browser based gaming, as well as creating 3D environments and social networking sites. This would be a big boom for places like second life, because it would allow javascript to do a lot of the handling of open GL graphics, and render all of your 3D stuff instead of having to have everybody download a client.
>> Everything's moving to the browser, so I'm not surprised.
>> More cloud based crap.
>> Yeah, I'm just curious how much harder it would be for the browsers to actually process that? Because when you get into high intensive, even with the faster processors and more memory we have now, like 3D processing is a bear.
>> Well this is taking a cue from Quake III on the browser that was released back in February. And so it's javascript accessing the graphics card in the browser. Javascript never plays as well in reality as it does in concept.
>> Right.
>> So I'm wondering how good this is, but apparently the Quake III thing is pretty good.
>> I've avoided that on purpose, because I have to work and my fear is that it's actually really good and I'm just gonna sit there and play Quake all the time. Like 1997.
>> You're gonna party like it's 1997?
>> Totally.
>> IOGEAR has a new USB device on the market. It's called the 4 port USB net share station. It let's you access all of your USB devices over your local network. So that's kind of cool. You can put your printer or whatever else, on this USB hub and then use it to send it out over your network. Speaking of things that look better than they are in actuality, I'm totally a sucker for this kind of thing, like the little Addonics gear thingy. Essentially the same thing, you plugged it in by USB, you could plug anything into it - a printer. So this is a 4 port version of the Addonics. And the Addonics did work well with the printer, but it didn't work great with all the hard drives. It would lose net connection a lot. Networking is tough.
>> Yeah.
>> We just don't have a really solid home networking standard.
>> No, I can't imagine getting this for my parents for Christmas. They wouldn't know what to do with it.
>> The 2 port one is 40 bucks, and the 4 port one is 100 bucks?
>> Right.
>> That's reasonable I guess, little bit pricey. If it works though it's great. I would totally do this.
>> It would just be incredible frustrating when it doesn't work. When you know it's on the network and you can't see it.
>> Yeah, exactly! That's what happened with my Addonics. I got it networked on the Mac and then I was transferring files and then all of the sudden said, oh I don't know where it is anymore - right in the middle of a file transfer.
>> Nice.
>> Yeah.
>> Oh, that's so annoying.
>> What has also been annoying is the fact that you couldn't get DTV coupons anymore, but they're back! National Telecommunications and Information Administration announced that they have cleared the backlog of people who wanted coupons, and they're now fully funded to send out more.
>> Yeah, since the government now has sufficient funding to send these along, this is the 40 dollar rebate coupon that comes along when you buy the digital converter box that will make your analogue TV compatible with the digital signals that we will be moving to sometime, someday, in June.
>> Maybe June 12, maybe it'll get delayed again.
>> When they push the deadline again. You should not get these coupons unless you really need them.
>> I was gonna say, I feel like I missed out on getting a coupon. I think my family might have some TV's left.
>> If you have cable TV you don't need to get one of these things. I know a lot of people who get them just to have them, because it's free. Oh - I get 40 dollars off.
>> Right, right, yeah.
>> And they don't know what the gadget is.
>> Then the people that need them can't get them because they run out of coupons.
>> Well I'm gonna get a lot of coupons and then put them on eBay when they run out again.
>> You can't do that, it's illegal.
>> No, no...
>> It's not legal. We don't condone that kind of behavior here on Buzz Out Loud. ^m00:25:09 [ laughing ] ^m00:25:17
>> Alright, Fox is starting a social network. Wait, doesn't Fox owned by Newscorp, which owns Myspace?
>> Yes, they already have a social network, but apparently they need 2. According to Media Bistro they will be launching the Fox Nation.
>> Oh this is for Fox News fans specifically. Okay.
>> Right, but why wouldn't they use Myspace for Fox News?
>> Maybe they are, maybe they just re-branded it or something.
>> Who knows? It looks like it's own separate thing. It launches on March 30, and it says it's for people who want to express their views, values, and voice through the Fox engine.
>> Yeah, you know people are very defensive of Fox News. I made a crack about Fox the channel, the one that runs the Simpsons and American Idol and Nanny and Hell's Kitchen. And I got all these angry emails from people who were defending Fox News, and I was like - [whispering] I didn't say Fox News. So I could totally see this working actually, but it does bring the question, when you own Myspace wouldn't it just be part of Myspace?
>> That's what I think.
>> That would require them to actually talk to each other. I'm not surprised at all. They probably went and they paid somebody a lot of money to go build something completely different, and then high up going hey, what about them over there? But then again, do they really want your social network to be running Myspace's platform?
>> Maybe that was it. Maybe Fox News was like, we don't want that.
>> Exactly. I wouldn't choose Myspace if I... I would say we can build that better.
>> Heck no. Good point, good point, but still they paid a pretty penny for it. You'd think they'd utilize it or somehow integrate. We don't know that it won't be integrated, we just don't know.
>> That is how large conglomerates work though.
>> Oh yeah, one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing and it's a nightmare.
>> Thankfully NASA isn't like that. NASA always knows where their hands are. NASA has also launched mission madness. You get to vote on various missions from NASA's history to find out which one will win the tournament.
>> I love this!
>> Winner to be announced April 8, 2009.
>> Hilarious!
>> It's kind of cute, but the winning mission doesn't really get anything since it happened so many years ago, depending on which one wins. But each bracket has 2 days and you vote on which one was a more exciting mission, or historical, or whatever. You judge on your own criteria. It's really cute though, if you go to the site and we have the URL, we'll put it in the show notes.
>> This is the type of thing you can only do once every like 30 or 40 years, until you've built up enough missions.
>> Well no, they can do it next year and maybe the outcome will change. Maybe the next generation will like different missions. Who knows?
>> That's true, that's true.
>> Anyone not gonna vote for the one that landed on the moon? That's gonna win right? Game over.
>> The top seed, Apollo 11. I can't believe the Friendship 7 lost SR71.
>> That was an upset.
>> A big upset. Also it's not fair that Voyager 1 and 2 are combined. That's like a dream team. ^m00:28:08 [ laughing ] ^m00:28:11
>> You're right, you're right.
>> Also Apollo 13 probably is gonna get a lot of votes as well.
>> Just because...
>> Everybody knows Apollo 13.
>> I had a sleeper pic of Aqua but it didn't make it through.
>> NASA is also adding images from, or 2 Microsoft's worldwide telescope. This is Microsoft's software that lets you surf around the universe, and they're going to be providing high resolution images and data from Mars and the moon.
>> And they're gonna serve it themselves out of the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field. I believe that NASA's working really closely with Google too, as they allow them to land their party jet at... is it Ames? Is that Moffett? So it's not like NASA's picking a side here, but it is cool that you'll be able to get this stuff in the worldwide telescope which is, if you haven't checked it out it's a really... awesome, excellent.
>> It's fun.
>> Fun.
>> Microsoft is literally like next door to Moffett, I think if I remember correctly.
>> Yeah they are.
>> Yeah, so.
>> Do they complain about the party jet's noise when it lands at Moffett?
>> I think they do, yeah.
>> That's not Microsoft's home campus? It's their bay area campus right there? Microsoft is in Seattle.
>> Alright let's move on to our calls from the phone. Our first one comes from Paul. Did you hear about the OnLive News Ron?
>> Yes I did.
>> Okay so for anybody who didn't out there, it's the gaming system that is going to be like a Fin client where you can run the games on whatever computer you've got, and all the processing is done elsewhere over the network. Paul from Hawaii's got some thoughts on that. ^m00:29:53
>> Hi this is Paul. I'm calling from Hawaii. I was listening to episode 937 and you were talking about the OnLive online games console thing. Something that seems to be being missed by Ron is the concept of network latency. And that needs to be tied in kind of online first person achieving like [inaudible] that kind of thing. You notice any kind of increase in latency between you and the server you're playing on, can make the world of different in between how good you are at the game. Even just the slightest increase and you'll find that you're achieving... an opponent for example. As you imagine, you're going to be trying to do this to your normal gaming, let alone your online gaming. With something like OnLive I just can't see how they can get past that, unless they're putting, that's actual content provided in the machines [inaudible] in each ISP's infrastructure. Anyway, love the show. Paul. ^m00:30:44
>> First of all you're calling from the sandwich islands, with that accent.
>> I know.
>> Why are we always getting these people with British accents calling from Canada and Hawaii now?
>> Maybe that's because they want to leave Britain for some reason.
>> They're everywhere. But very good question, very good point. We had a few other people email us with the same thing. I found a good article on PC's, on Australia's Pal gaming network, that kind of digs into the whole latency aspect of OnLive. They looked at some Ghana suture numbers about latency, and figured out that games around the 167 millisecond mark start to feel sluggish. So they feel like OnLive could just be able to pull it off, but it's a... you don't have a lot of variability there.
>> That was my first, when I listened to the show yesterday when you guys were talking about it, and as I was on the bus my exact thought was how was the latency gonna work, because nothing kills an online experience than having to wait and especially when you're trying to bring other people's games and other people's systems in through one pipe. I'd be worried about it.
>> Yeah, so we'll throw that link in the show notes for you if you want to dig into the numbers. But an excellent point, again we're just gonna have to wait and see OnLive in reality.
>> You have to think that if they're building a business around it, they figured it out. I mean I have faith in... like they...
>> We thought that about the Segway too.
>> That's a good point.
>> It's a very good point. Let's move on to our next caller who has a proposed new name for micropayments. ^m00:32:11
>> Hello Jaytona, this is Dan from Pompass Ass Words dot com. On episode 936 you were talking about what different name you could give micropayments, and I was thinking those... stupid little small sized candy bars that are so tiny you could lose them in your pocket. They call those fun-sized. So maybe they could call these micropayments, call them fun-payments and maybe that would get people even more excited about having, being nickle and dimed to death. Alright, thanks very much. Love the show! ^m00:32:42
>> Oh, and then you could give them out for Halloween.
>> That's not coming from mine.
>> I don't know what that is. ^m00:32:51
>> That's weird.
>> Sorry about that. Actually it might have been a pop up.
>> Ahhh, okay.
>> Surfing over there. ^m00:33:01 [ laughing ] ^m00:33:06
>> Isn't that the Windows 98 lauch, Start Me Up?
>> Yeah, exactly.
>> I was like what the heck?
>> Anyway, back to the fun-sized.
>> That was really funny.
>> I was like, is that part of the voicemail?
>> Well then. Anyway, fun-sized payments. I like it.
>> I like it.
>> Alright, sorry you got pre-empted but, with start me up Dan. But we did like your call. Onto the emails, to Buzz at CNET dot com. Mike wrote directly to me actually and said, Rotable airplanes - we were mocking them on Monday's show - it makes me wonder why I listen when I hear things like that. Of course Joe idiot can't fly a car ever! That's why they call it a rotable airplane instead of a flying car! It's an airplane first, requires a pilot's license to fly, all of the FAA requirements for airplanes apply, and no black boxes are not required. What happened to your common sense? Mike. Phew. That makes me feel better.
>> Better?
>> Well we don't know that he was screaming like that, but...
>> Kind of figured he was.
>> Probably, but I don't think that's good for your sore throat.
>> He did not write in all caps.
>> He didn't. Alright let's move onto Diego, the hospital IT security guy in Miami Beach. He says, hey Buzz crew, on the PS3 you can download full versions of some current Jin games. Examples I can recall off the top of my head are Grand Turismo, Prologue, and Burn Out Paradise. These still can be found on disc format. XBox 360 currently has no current Jin games available for full download. I personally thought that they would expand the selection of available games if they ever did make a PS3, with no Blu-ray, especially since the PS3 uses standard hard drives that are easy to replace and upgrade, versus the overpriced XBox 360 120 gig HD at 134 dollars at Amazon. Just some insight from an XBox 360 and PS3 owner. Thanks and love the show. ^m00:34:59 Are you guys there?
>> Yeah. ^m00:35:00 [ laughter ] ^m00:35:04
>> Yes.
>> Yes to that.
>> Yeah, I don't know. Ron...
>> I don't own either, so it's... I'm a Wii user. I'm a Nintendo Wii guy, which has no hard drive at all, so... but the thing is, is that the PS3 is expandable. Is it as easy as the XBox to be expandable?
>> That's the thing. Yes and no. Yes it's easier if you don't want to pay the 134 dollars for the external hard drive, and you want to mod it yourself. It's much easier on a PS3. But no, for the average person you just go buy the XBox thing and plop it in.
>> I think people are gonna do that, and then therefore the downloadable thing then becomes more of a reality on the XBox side of things. Personally, from what I've seen from my people who I know have XBoxs.
>> Cool.
>> Jonathan writes in and says, Cooley's discussion about Nissan bringing EV's to the U. S. in the next few years reminded me of this. Basically Mitsubishi has been testing their new EV here in New Zealand for the past few months, and a vehicle intended to be sold for around 30 to 40 K, that's about 15 to 20 K in U. S. currency. Wasn't Tom's 15K? Anyways, you can already register your interest in the vehicle and there's a link that I'll put in the show notes. Wikipedia notes that the vehicle should be on the market in the 2009-2010 timeframe.
>> So I can... for 15 K buy one in New Zealand, then have it shipped over here? You know it's not gonna be 15 K by the time it gets over here.
>> Yeah, I know that's gonna cost you a lot. And you'll put so much carbon on that car that's not supposed to be there. The whole point if for it to be eco friendly, and then you're gonna ship it across the world?
>> Well yeah, where are they made? They're probably made in Japan.
>> Right.
>> So they'd have to bring them to the U. S., and then when they sell them in the U. S. it's not gonna be cheap.
>> But if they think there's a viable market in New Zealand for 15 K electric car, that's promising.
>> Maybe I should just move to New Zealand.
>> Yeah, beautiful landscapes. Lord of the Rings.
>> There we go. Alright, another email from Robert and he says reference - your discussion about Warner's burned order DVD's in episode 937. It would be nice if you folks would keep in mind all the poor souls who still don't have high speed internet access. I live more than 40 miles away from downtown San Jose, and dial up is the best I can do. There's no files where I live, there is no cable here. I live too far from the closest phone company central office for DSL, and satellite is a non starter for me, price and latency issues. So while I might enjoy the ability to download a movie for 14.95 in a matter of seconds or minutes, I can't Mr. Cooley. For someone in my situation, the 1995 burned order DVD might make a great deal of sense, in fact I wonder if a dual layer DVD sent via the postal service might give me higher throughput than the crappy dial up connection?
>> Alright, I want to find out.
>> We should test that, yeah.
>> Let's have you Robert, buy one and figure out how long it takes for you to get it, and then we can do a bit rate comparison. It might actually be faster.
>> It depends on what speed dial up he's on. If he's on 56K versus 33.6? Yeah?
>> Yeah, could make a difference.
>> Do they still make modems?
>> They sell them... but I don't know if they have to make them.
>> That's a really good question.
>> Think about it. Haven't seen a modem in years.
>> I see them in the... like the Mom and Pop computer stores. But no, you're not gonna walk into most Best Buys and find a modem. ^m00:38:27 Not a dial up modem.
>> We should do that, we should go try to buy a modem, see how long it takes.
>> Yeah, that would be a good field package. Alright Dave wrote in, said my Kindle topic is in response to the free eBooks on the Sony reader. For some time there's been a pretty awesome way to download public domain eBooks straight to the Kindle over the EVDO from Feedbooks dot com. Way it works is you open up www.feedbooks.com slash Kindle guide in your Kindle browser, which downloads the book guide that shows up in your home menu. From the guide, you can browse the available books by title, author, gender, and popularity and download them straight to the Kindle in Mobipocket format. I don't know how the selection compares to the Sony Google offering, but there are supposedly thousands of books on Feedbooks. That's fantastic!
>> That's awesome.
>> Yeah, thanks for sending that along Dave. I'm gonna try that, Feedbooks.com slash Kindle guide. And finally Saul wrote in with a long email that was just too long to play on the show, but within the email he said he wanted us to tell his wife Fam that he and his friends are geeks, not nerds.
>> That's a good...
>> Subtle distinction.
>> Yeah, exactly.
>> It is a subtle distinction. I don't know that I really like one over the other. I don't know if I like either actually, it's become such a throwaway term where people who, just like their cell phones, can quantify themselves as geeks and nerds. And I don't think that is okay.
>> For the longest time, both of those could have been applied to... back in the 80's, whatever, when we were younger. Could be applied to someone who was really into technology. And now everybody's into technology. Right?
>> The distinction I make is there's like, people geek out about a lot of different things. My dad's a car geek. I'm a comic book geek. I'm a technology geek. So geek is like different strata level, but I see a difference between geek and nerd in that geeks have social skills while nerds are a little more, it's a more of a negative connotation. It's like kind of nerdy, kind of the...
>> Revenge of the Nerds?
>> Yeah.
>> I always think of geeks as hands on. Like you're a geek because you really dig in, you get your hands dirty on whatever it is that you're geeking out on. Like especially with computers it's like really like doing base level programming or hardware mod's. And nerds are people who are just information oriented. They're just into knowing about things. I don't have any basis for that, but I just made that up.
>> I don't know, I think geeks are about knowing about things too.
>> Well yeah, obviously you'd have to be to be a geek. So there's a lot of overlap there.
>> I'm trying to champion the dork. ^m00:40:48 [ laughter ] ^m00:40:52
>> Back, I don't know, like 8 years ago or so we were like championing geek in Tech TV and like be a super geek, and we were powering the term. But nerd was still a bad thing, and it's only been with the web 2.0 crowd that nerd seems to be going through the same thing. So maybe dork will be next.
>> I think so. I think that's the leading indicator. ^m00:41:13
>> When I was naming my shows, both Texter and Loaded, I really wanted to avoid anything with the name geek or nerd or dork in it, because I think that technology like Jason was saying, just is all encompassing these days and you alienate people who want to know about cell phones and computers, but don't consider themselves weekend warrior geeks and nerds. And so I just don't think it means what it used to mean. We'll need to come up with a new... I don't know, poster child geek movement.
>> If I see 1 more article that's the year of the geek or whatever, I'm just gonna throw up.
>> I am too. I'm gonna tear it up. I'm gonna print it and then tear it up.
>> Nice!
>> You can catch iFanboy at Revision 3.com slash iFanboy. Correct?
>> Exactly. You go there and also check out Revision 3 where we've got all other shows like Textilla, which is also on CNET TV. And you can check out Dignation, but also like Scam School and Systm. The Digg Reel. So if you like internet television, Revision 3.com is where you want to go, and also if you like comic books check out iFanboy.com where we got our video show, and an audio podcast as well as great discussion about comics and stuff.
>> And of course podcast.cnet.com for all the podcasts from CNET, and our own blog has all the answers to every question you've ever had about life, the universe, and everything.
>> Wow.
>> Probably not, but close.
>> We are nice.
>> I'll just put 42 in the show notes and we'll be covered.
>> BOL.cnet.com, go take a look at it. You won't be sorry. See y'all later.
>> Bye. ^m00:42:44 [ music ]
