Buzz Out Loud 1289: Facebook's momentary lapse of evil (podcast)

The social network stands up to Googlezon's net neutrality proposal, and meanwhile plots Foursquare's demise. Also Farmville pulling up stakes at MSN, and your car's tire pressure sensors can be hacked by drive-bys. Everybody panic!

Watch this: Ep. 1289: Facebook's momentary lapse of evil

38:05

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Facebook at Odds With Google, Verizon on Net Neutrality
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/08/11/facebook-at-odds-with-google-verizon-on-net-neutrality/

Facebook’s Foursquare competitor is imminent
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-20013223-36.html

Facebook Had Offered Foursquare $120 Million, Foursquare Asked For $150 Million, Then Facebook Walked Away
http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-had-offered-foursquare-120-million-foursquare-asked-for-150-million-and-facebook-walked-away-2010-8

Zynga Pulls FarmVille Off MSN Games
http://www.insidesocialgames.com/2010/08/10/zynga-pulls-farmville-off-msn-games/

Amazon building other devices?
http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/10/report-amazon-building-prototype-hardware-other-than-kindle/

Plastic Logic cancels its Que e-reader
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20013245-56.html

Dell Streak to go on sale August 13th, $300 on-contract, $550 off-contact
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/08/10/dell-streak/

HP tells employees webOS tablet coming Q1 2011
http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/10/hp-tell-employees-webos-tablet-coming-q1-2011/

Samsung tablet to be unveiled in Berlin
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2924446

First Trojan for Android Phones Goes Wild
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/first_trojan_for_android_phones_goes_wild.php

Cars hacked through wireless tire sensors
http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2010/08/cars-hacked-through-wireless-tyre-sensors.ars

Get Twitter via SMS without a Twitter account
http://blog.twitter.com/2010/08/introducing-fast-follow-and-other-sms.html

Twitter Launching Official Tweet Buttons This Week
http://mashable.com/2010/08/10/twitter-official-share-buttons/

Motorola Droid 2 (and R2-D2 edition!) finally official: Android 2.2, Swype, $200 on contract
http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/10/motorola-droid-2-and-r2-d2-edition-finally-official-android/

Girl quits her job via 33-photo email, outs boss’s Farmville habit
http://thechive.com/2010/08/10/girl-quits-her-job-on-dry-erase-board-emails-entire-office-33-photos/

It’s fake
http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/11/elyse-porterfield/
http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20100810/meet-the-prankster-brothers-behind-jenny-the-whiteboard-using-farmville-exposing-hpoa-girl/

Voicemail (800-616-2638)
Mike has a word about the back-mounted KB

Email (buzz@cnet.com)
I have been listening to your discussions about Net Neutrality over the past few days, but I fear that you are looking at the wrong end of the tubes (to paraphrase the late Senator Stevens) for the real danger.

Why would Google pay Verizon or any else to prioritize traffic on YouTube? Isn't it more likely that Google charge Verizon for the privilege of carrying Google products? And isn't this the most obvious way to monetize Facebook, or even Wikipedia?

After all, this is what developed in the Cable Satellite Biz, which has it's own version of Google, called ESPN. Whether you watch any of the channels or not, if you have cable or satellite service you are paying about $20 a month for ESPN. It's a must-have.

And ESPN3 (which used to be called ESPN360) is an "Internet channel" which is only available on those ISPs that pay for it.

What's to prevent Google, or anyone else on the net, from doing the same thing? It would be technically easy. I could do it. The "Must-Haves" would include Google, Facebook, Espn, ETC.

Structurally, the internet looks like Cable TV, which if anything is more capacity constrained than most ISPs. Content is King. A fast internet connection is useless without content to download.

LOVE THE SHOW.
Ed Joras

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I could not help but laugh as Molly argued for an open free internet unencumbered by any traffic prioritization based on traffic type . . . and her Skype call fell apart on air.
Of course, if the internet could prioritize voice calls over web page loads, or ftp . . . . then Skype would not experience drop outs.
I do not believe there will ever be enough bandwidth for all internet traffic. (until someone invents free bandwidth.) Because of this it makes sense to treat traffic that is sensitive to latency and packet drops differently from other traffic. To maintain an open internet, ISPs should not prioritize one web sites traffic over another, but in many cases prioritizing types of traffic will enable a better overall user experience. (How to keep people from cheating could be pretty tricky).
PS I never write in, but since I work on ICs that handle traffic inside cellular base stations, I just had to comment. (Oh . . . and we allow vendors to configure several levels of traffic priority)

Larry Wakeman

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With ref to episode 1288, you mentioned that Apple already have some patents for touch controls on the back of devices, well how cool would it be to be able to zoom & scroll your browser, photos, etc with your finger tips that are already on the back of your iPhone or iPad when your normally viewing it?

Plus there’d be much less finger prints on the front screen.

The iPhone 4 already has a glass back…….. how hard could it be???

Cheers from England

And love the show!
Neal

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Amazon is building other devices… What do you think those might be? Send us a comment via Blackberry Messenger. Our PIN is 24523C65.

Watch this: Ep. 1289: Web Exclusive

22:44