Welcome to the Buzz Report.
I'm Brian Cooley in for Molly Wood who is busy this week
First, the Gadget of the Week:
Is the BlackBerry 9900.
No, that isn�t the wrong picture, that�s it.
Didn�t change much.
The screen is now touch -- but still 2.8�.
Why bother?
It runs BB OS7, which looks and works a lot like OS 6.
It�s got 4G support, but given how Verizon�s 4G network bonked this week, most
consumer are OK waiting on that.
It�s thinner.
A little.
Bottom line, this is not the reset device that RIM needs to put out there to affect the most
recent data from NPD that shows that just 14% of new smartphones sold in the U,.S> in
Q1 were BBerries.
On second thought, GOTW should have been Paint for Cats.
KITTY!!!!!!
OK, top of the news this week is the Sony PSN/Qriocity customer records breach.
First it was 77 million records, then it got revised up to over 100 million.
Sony says it
waited 2 days before contacting anyone and 5 days before meeting with the FBI and it
flat out blew off a request to attend a hearing on data theft at the U.S.
House a couple
days ago.
And still, there hasn�t been official word 1 from Sony CEO Howard Stringer (who is
perhaps just too busy working parties as a Will Ferrell lookalike � see?
Its not just me,
right?)
Anyway, this is one of the big personal data hacks in internet history and Sony�s
handling of it reminds me too much of how Toyota handled their unintended acceleration
story.
Sony fumbled away its dominance in TV, portable audio, and more over the
years, but when the ball handling my privacy, dropping it isn�t your choice.
I�m as tired as you are by now of all the tortured sidebar angles the media has fished up
on the Bin Laden story, but I have just this to add: The miscalculation he and his crew
made that killed him was the internet:
It�s 2011 in Abbottobad, Pakistan, a fairly modern military city.
And what may be the
nicest pad in town has no internet or phone connections?
No wireless signals coming in
and out?
Possibly the only modern residence left on earth like that?
And we weren�t
gonna� make something of that?
Memo to al Qaeda: In this day and age, the most conspicuous thing is NOT being
connected.
Here�s one you haven�t heard in a couple of decades:
Fewer American homes have a TV.
Nielsen folks tell us that 114.7M U.S.
homes have a
TV now, down around 1.2 million households from a year ago.
And I bet this isn�t the last time we hear this going forward.
A TV is not a device, but a behavior.
Wherever you relax and take something in that is
more or less long-form and usually well-produced, that�s the TV that matters.
The fact
that you do it on a laptop or tablet or smartphone - -that�s the part of TV that doesn�t
matter.
Honestly, the idea of having to take myself to a big flat thing bolted to a wall really will
seem weird a few years down the road.
This one�ll make your blood boil: RTO chain Aaron�s is being sued by a family that
rented a laptop from them.
That�s fine.
But when they failed to make the final payment,
the collection dude from Aaron�s supposedly arrived at their door with a picture of the
dad sitting at the laptop a few days prior.
Turns out Aaron�s rented them a machine with software installed that regularly takes
webcam shots, grabs screencaps and does keylogging!
The family that was spied on is obvious looking to make this a class action � if you�re
sitting at an Aaron�s rental machine right now I imagine your bowel just turned to water.
But the stupidest move by Aaron�s has to be showing up at the door with a photo that
proved you had surrreptitious software installed.
Oh, and the reason the computer payments were in arrears?
The family says its
because Aarons� bungled the final payment.
That�s the Buzz Report, I�m Brian Cooley in for Molly Wood.
