Buzz Out Loud 849: Who you callin' 'barmaid,' larper?

A friendly member of Buzztown calls up to tell us how he named his Dungeons and Dragons characters after the core Buzz team. It all seems fine and dandy until he gets to Molly. Ahem. Not cool, guy. In actual news today, earbuds can be dangerous to your health (if you use a pacemaker), Circuit City files for Chapter 11, and the iPhone tops the RAZR as the most purchased U.S. consumer handset. Take that, RAZR!

Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 849

Your earbuds could stop your pacemaker
http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2008/11/09/2091277-music-headphones-can-interfere-with-heart-devices

Intel’s health care system
https://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE4A83I120081109

Circuit City files for bankruptcy
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10092366-92.html

iPhone trumps RAZR as most purchased U.S. consumer handset
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/11/10/iphone_trumps_razr_as_most_purchased_us_consumer_handset.html

iPhone trounces BlackBerry, Treo in reliability
http://www.intomobile.com/2008/11/10/iphone-trounces-blackberry-treo-in-reliability.html

MGM movies coming to YouTube
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10092283-93.html

Xbox 360 bests rivals on games sold per console metric
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081107-xbox-360-bests-rivals-on-games-sold-per-console-metric.html

AT&T video search site
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10092387-2.html

Dell MP3 player scratched
http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/11/10/dell-mp3-player-plans-getting-canned-hopefully/

Nvidia makes first 4GB graphics card
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/10/1434257

Study shows how spammers cash in
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7719281.stm

VOICE MAIL
Brandon the D&D guy … is so sorry he called

E-MAIL
Hey there Buzz Out Loud crew,

I don’t want to come off sounding grouchy, but I would like to point out there are people out there that can only get dial-up Internet service (like me for example). In my case, Verizon (my local phone company) has told me that they no longer install DSL in communities because they want to focus on rolling out their FiOS service. When I asked when they would get around to installing it in our little town, the rep said “Well, the schedule goes to 2012 but I don’t see your town on the list.”

To add insult to injury, AT&T is running a fiber optic line that goes right though the center of town, yet they refused to hook up our city.
Apparently, because we won’t make the providers enough money, they have no problem telling us “no internet for you.” So, when you talk about people not switching over because they “don’t know any better,” just remember there are some people out there that have to wait a couple of hours for your podcast to finish downloading so they can listen to it.

Love the show,
--Joel Getz
Powers, Ore.

P.S. It only takes me four minuets to check my gmail on dial up.

Hey Buzz Crew.
Upon listening to Episode 848 this evening, I downloaded the songbird beta to test it out. It’s much like iTunes. The only thing that made me sad about this was that I recently started using Lala.com’s wonderful service, and then got sad, because even though this program is great, it’s not Lala. Then I had a revelation! What if someone integrated Lala into songbird? This would be amazing! All of my online cloud media in my media player at home too! I think some developer listening should do this. It would just be Nifty.
Well anyway. Love the show.
Oh, and if you read this on the show, it should be read by Molly. She has an excellent reading voice.
--Chase

Niall from Dublin, Ireland here, I know that your feelings on Blu-ray is that it’s dead in the water but I think it may be given a life line. Recently, while talking to a friend I found out something interesting, my friend works for SR Technics, A large aircraft mantainance and repair company.

He was helping to install the new Blu-ray system onboard a airbus a340 belonging to LAN, a chilean airline. Which he tells me they will be doing with all there aircraft. He also tells me that gulf air and Air Lingus will be installing the same systems. Which provides all movies and shows that will be shown on the plane and also all the safety jargon video and audio that you hear at the start of every flight, but in hundreds of different languages.

Could this put enough blu ray players in the market to keep them going? These planes only get major revamps like the about every 10 years so this means a consistent production of the discs at least for the near future? I thought this was somewhat interesting.

Love the show a lot!

Niall Duffy.