Buzz Out Loud 1429: Spies on Facebook? Yes, it's true. (podcast)

The government is planning a new "sock puppet" program that will create fake online personas to play on social networks in countries around the world (but not America -- they say). Microsoft and the feds shut down another giant spam-sending botnet, and HP continues its bold moves: next up, a cloud computing platform. Also, a look inside Amazon's app store (and the continued Balkanization of app delivery mechanisms), and the Nintendo 3DS reviewed. Where's the Mario? --Molly

Watch this: Ep. 1429 Spies on Facebook? Yes, it's true.

42:22

Podcast

Subscribe: 

NEWS

Microsoft, Feds Pull Plug on Spam Network
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703328404576207173861008758.html
http://it.slashdot.org/story/11/03/18/1228227/Microsoft-Conducts-Massive-Botnet-Takedown-Action

Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks

HP to offer cloud computing platform
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/03/hp-cloud-computing.html

Component video is missing or crippled on 2011 Blu-ray players: Here’s why
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20042864-1.html

Exclusive: Yahoo Is About To Sell Delicious For $1-$2 Million
http://www.businessinsider.com/yahoo-selling-delicious-2011-3?op=1

AT&T aggressively moving against unauthorized tethering
http://www.tuaw.com/2011/03/18/atandt-aggressively-moving-against-unauthorized-tethering/

A glimpse at Amazon’s app store
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/18/amazon_app_store/

Fan backlash over adverts injected in Angry Birds HD
http://www.9to5mac.com/56632/fan-backlash-over-adverts-injected-in-angry-birds-hd/

Toshiba LCD plant out, Lenovo frets about supplies
https://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/17/us-japan-supplychain-idUSTRE72G64D20110317

Japan Earthquake Pushes Component Prices Higher
http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/desktop/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229301252&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_All

Gadgets

Nintendo 3DS reviewed
http://reviews.cnet.com/consoles/nintendo-3ds-cosmo-black/4505-10109_7-34469175.html?part=cnet&subj=Nintendo+3DS+(Cosmo+Black)

Science News

Supermoon Rises: Biggest Full Moon in 18 Years Occurs Saturday Night
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/03/18/supermoon-rises-biggest-moon-18-years-occurs-saturday-night/

VOICEMAIL

Sam in Salt Lake City with his thoughts on iPad/Time Warner App

Mike our resident FaceBookie knows what Paramount is really up to

EMAILS

Dear Buzz Crew,

While my first reaction to the news of the paywall were the same feelings of annoyance and questions of feasibility that most people have expressed, I think that these issues may be hiding the long term repercussions on American journalism, and how that impacts our society. While $15 a month may well be worth the high quality of reporting from the Times, it will make it out of reach, by choice or by income, to the majority of Americans, who will be even more likely to turn towards low quality reporting reporting or even simple aggregation. If the internet and the 24/7 news cycle move us towards greater and greater specialization of the news, must be wary of the choices and opportunities of most consumers. While having subscribers has let HBO produce great content, far more people watch Jersey Shore. Is this the future of news?

Nick the economist

—–

Hey Buzz Crew,

Enjoyed your take on Sony jailbreaking, and thought I’d share a company which embraces jailbreaking: HP. HP not only tolerates WebOS jailbreaking/homebrewing, but has invited the head of the main jailbreak organization, WebOS Internals, to speak at its WebOS Developer Day, has donated a corporate server to WebOS Internals, and, because WebOS Internals is open source, has even used one of its features–compcache memory swapping–in the latest version of WebOS. As a result of this embrace of the homebrew community, customizing of the WebOS experience has been awesome, from overclocking kernels to themes to location-based modes. Earlier in the week, Molly spoke about how WebOS users absolutely LOVE WebOS–HP’s decision to embrace the jailbreakers is one of those reasons.

Love the show,

Mike

—–

COMPUTER LOVE

Dear Buzz Crew,

I’ve got a Computer Love question that I bet a lot of listeners can relate to.

My girlfriend is not real good with tech. Sometimes her lack of knowledge is endearing (she asked me for a “”Netflix magic box”" for Christmas last year, which I had to figure out meant a Roku). But sometimes, it’s really frustrating. Particularly when I use her laptop/Blackberry/GPS/etc. and something goes wrong. While clearly it’s my responsibility to fix it, she has a habit of blaming me for the issue because I don’t use her stuff EXACTLY the same way she does.

The most recent example was her scanner, which went on the fritz while I was scanning a document for her. Suddenly, I was being interrogated about what EXACTLY I had done. She claimed that the fact that I had used the “”one click”" save-to-PDF option instead of the regular “”scan”" option was the source of the problem. Or that I had opened the scanner software myself rather than let the machine automatically open it for me. I know all-in-ones are finicky, but clearly neither of these were the issue. Nonetheless, they were now capital offenses.

So I guess my question is, is there a nice way of telling my girlfriend “”If you knew anything about technology, you would know that what you just said makes absolutely no sense. I am not the source of the problem. Now, don’t get mad while I ignore your suggestions and actually fix this for you.

Alright, maybe not a lot of people can relate to that. Maybe it’s just my crazy girlfriend.

Sincerely,

In Need of Some Tech(no Love) Support

—–

Thanks for the advice Buzz! You’re right, I need to keep my business off the Internet and deal with this emotional cheating in a mature way. I always imagined myself as the type of Husband, Father, and Man others look up too. Time to become that and you don’t find yourself with my marriage problems overnight. We both neglected each other and it’s time to stop pushing each other away. I am not missing out on the Life we both dreamed of or telling my son that he came from a broken family because of Facebook. Computer didn’t cause anything, but it did reveal it. Computers rock!!
Here’s to the very best in each of us! Rock the house at SXSW, you’ve got a great show! (No worries if you ever refer back to this w/a few zingers…I probably deserve them and might help someone.)
Head Clearing…Answers Found!

—–

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

Follow us on Twitter: @mollywood @brian_tong