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Buzz Out Loud 736: Plurk that Plurkin' Facebook

Facebook comes under attack by Canadian privacy groups, but everyone's already moved on to Plurk. Er...maybe. Also: self-destructing DVDs are back! Yay!

Molly Wood Former Executive Editor
Molly Wood was an executive editor at CNET, author of the Molly Rants blog, and host of the tech show, Always On. When she's not enraging fanboys of all stripes, she can be found offering tech opinions on CBS and elsewhere, and offering opinions on everything else to anyone who will listen.
Molly Wood
4 min read
Facebook comes under attack by Canadian privacy groups, but everyone's already moved on to Plurk. Er...maybe. Also: self-destructing DVDs are back! Yay! They were such a good idea the first time around, we're betting they'll be a monster hit, what with their wasteful, throwaway nature and ridiculous pricing and all.
Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 736

Mars lander’s robotic arm makes contact
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9956964-7.html

U.S. town tells Street View to push off
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/02/north_oaks_street_view/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9956753-7.html

Motley Crue single does better on Rock Band
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/30/184204

Radiohead to Prince: Put “Creep” back on YouTube
http://www.musicradar.com/news/ guitars/radiohead-to-prince-put-creep-back-on-youtube-157573
http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/blog- radiohead-vs-prince-157937

Gartner’s Top 10 technologies list
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-9956573-16.html

Self-destructing DVDs make a comeback
http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/007040.html

Canadian group charges that Facebook violates privacy laws
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/ id;1185625472;fp;16;fpid;1

Best Buy offers up free electronics reycling in 117 stores
http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/02/best-buy-offers-up-free-electronics-reycling-in-117-stores/

Adobe Acrobat takes big online leap
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9956334-7.html
http://mashable.com/2008/06/01/adobe-acrobat/
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/adobe_launches_online_office_suite.php

I like Plurk better than Twitter, but should I even bother?
http://mashable.com/2008/06/02/plurk-better-than-twitter/

VOICE MAIL

Shalin
Intriguing new idea for cable charging.

Jeff from Jacksonville
Why are they called …

Wayne from Michigan
It’s obvious why Apple stopped selling old iPhones.

E-MAIL

BOL at WWDC?

Is BOL planning a WWDC-related event next week? As a dedicated BOL listener, I’m flying into SF to attend WWDC and hoped to participate in a BOL meet-up.

Thanks and love the show,
Dean

**Yes! Thursday, June 12! Details to follow**

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Mini laptops

Hi, I thought Molly might want to know that not all mini laptops have the small keyboard that the Asus EEE-PC has. The newly announced MSI Wind mini laptop actually has a full-size keyboard while maintaining a size that is only slightly larger than the EEE-PC.

I believe the HP/Compaq 2133 mini note also has a larger keyboard than the EEE, as well as the new Dell mini laptop.

As a side note, I think you guys are very wrong on the mini laptop craze that is going on. I really see small non-optical drive flash hard drive Linux OS machines as perfect for the “school” market. Have you ever tried to take notes on a desk in a typical college lecture hall?? The size is perfect, the flash hard drive gives them durability (something that’s important for college), and Linux gives them almost a free pass in the malware department. As companies experiment with designs, it looks like they are finding a happy medium on the keyboard size.

Matt from Maine

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Firefox 3? Delicious!

Hey Tom, Jason, and Molly,
Kyle from Chicago here. On either your Thursday or Friday show, Molly was saying that she hasn’t upgraded to Firefox 3 rc1 because the Delicious add-on wasn’t made for it. Turns out, there is a beta that Yahoo has released for rc1. I’ve installed it on my machine, and it works exactly like the old one. (robot voice) Love the show.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ delicious-firefox-extension/message/2512

Kyle Crumrine

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Twitter clone

I have been working on a Twitter clone since Molly issued her challenge last week. It’s nothing special, but if you want to check it out, http://www.ONE4T.com. (pronounced one-four-tee) It runs on PHP and PostgreSQL. While I don’t personally know how to scale the site, there are solutions out there, and I’m someone in Buzz Town would be willing to help scale to site if it outgrows its current incarnation. Again, it’s a work in progress and I’d love some feedback.

Dan the computer forensic technologist

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Indiana Jones sound blockouts

Hey, it's Brad, and I just had to say two things about that Indiana Jones and The Crystal Skull movie and how Paramount is taking out random bits of sound. First, when I went to see it and noticed the random sound cuts, I asked for my money back and got it (in the theatres defense, it was the midnight premiere on Wednesday the 21, so they might have not been informed about this sound policy). What I find funny about this is that they are trying to eliminate piracy, yet me and my four friends saw it for free. Secondly, If a person recording the film (pirate) sees the movie twice, couldn’t they edit the film so the sound that is missing from one can be made up from the other. Since they said that each film will have a different segment of sound cut out, if the pirates sees it twice, they could just edit in the second of sound they're missing, and no one would know where it was pirated. Just had to ridicule this retarded policy. I —- the podcast (fill in the blank with your preference of word choice). Bye

Bradley

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Idea for anti-copy movies

Hey guys, I’m not a inventor or light specialist, but I was staring at my paycheck today and thought about the "void if copied" idea in movies. Why not infuse all screens in movie theaters with little infra-LEDs inside the screen. They are invisible to the eye but cameras pick them up, ruining the movie. I’m sure special cameras or special filters would block it out, but “hopefully” it will stop most of the copiers and they will stop messing with our movies! Love da show!

Micheal