Culture

Buzz Out Loud 772: Tom's 3D house of terror

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.

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Molly Wood

July 23, 2008 1:44 p.m. PT

4 min read

We debunk yesterday's story about how the studios are going to develop new 3D standards. That is, we like the standards idea, but we know there are glasses in there somewhere. Also, the San Francisco mayor makes a secret, underground visit to imprisoned IT martyr Terry Childs and get's the city's network passwords out of him. It's so very Jack Bauer. Oh, and Google might buy Digg. Call us when it happens.
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EPISODE 772

Episode 772

SF mayor gets codes to hijacked city network
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-9997177-83.html

Lawyer says client was protecting city’s code
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/22/BAGF11T91U.DTL&tsp=1

Report: Google in acquisition talks with Digg
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-9997070-93.html?tag=newsEditorsPicksArea.0

Cuomo strong-arms Comcast over Usenet
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9997051-38.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.0

MySpace signs up to OpenID scheme
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7521002.stm

Esquire first publication to use electronic ink
http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/ebusiness/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=209400613

Vimeo bans video game clips for lack of ‘creative expression’
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-9996743-2.html

Call someone--without having to talk to them
http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/22/1558236&from=rss

Cassette tapes are big business in prison
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/22/cassette-tapes-are-b.html

VOICEMAIL

Tom didn't empty the mailbox. So no.

E-MAIL

I was thinking about this whole hijacking of the SF network (ep. 770)
and how there is only one person who knows all the passwords and network
data. It’s unfortunate that he’s in jail and not giving up the
passwords, but what if he was in a car accident? It was a poor choice
by those working with him to let him be the only one with the
information. If he died, was injured or in a coma then it would cost the
city a huge amount of money that they could have saved by just having
him tell someone else the data. Hopefully if any company is doing this
out there this will be a sign that it is a BAD IDEA.

Thanks. Love the show.

Ryan

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Hi Tom, Molly, Jason, Guest Host TBA and/or Guest Producer TBA.

I tried to leave this on the BOL voicemail but it was full.

In (yesterday’s) Episode 771, you discussed the TiVo/Amazon team-up and
suggested that beyond featured products (books, CDs, whatever), it might
eventually extend to product placement items — a sort of “buy it now”
option for products appearing on screen. Hopefully everyone thinks this
is a horrible idea.

Above and beyond the distraction factor and sheer crassness of the
concept, can you imagine the truth-in-advertising issues they’d run
into? You’ll have people buying the new Nokia N-whatever because the
one Jack Bauer was using got a five-bar signal when he was 500 feet
underground. And hey, that new MacBook Air can crank out a DNA analysis
in three minutes, so just think what it could do with your vacation
photos? And that shirt you just bought is totally going to fit you the
way it fits Sawyer, even though you’re built more like Hurley.

The result? The time you save by being able to skip over commercials
will be paid back tenfold when you have to scroll through ten
unskippable pages of disclaimer every time someone hits the “Buy it Now”
button (conveniently located right where the “30 second skip” button
used to be on the TiVo remote). Awesome.

Liking the show a lot but unwilling to say “love the show” in case it
gets canceled and I have to spend the rest of my life brusquely
dismissing every podcast that vies for my affections for fear of the
same thing happening again,

George

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WarGames will be back in the theaters for one night only for the 25 year anniversary.

http://www.fathomevents.com/news/default.aspx?newsid=135

Great geek movie!

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This is G-Dog from Grand Rapids, writing about the 3D movies at home. Have you ever seen these before?

http://edimensional.com/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=39

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Hey guys,
Regarding your claims that PC gaming is too expensive, I completely disagree. Yes, having a top-of-the-line computer is quite expensive (up to between $2,000 and $4,000) but having a computer that can play any game (even Crysis) is not expensive. Numerous forum discussions have concluded that you can build a great gaming PC for as little as $800.

http://boards.1up.com/zd/board/message?board.id=hometheaterstuff&thread.id=10504&jump=true

Here’s a link to a pretty good (though dated, which means you can probably get it for much less) setup that costs $900 (could be as little as $600 now).
That’s not including a monitor, but overall it’ll still be cheaper than the $1,000 or so that you’ll spend on an HDTV, even though most monitors do have better resolutions than HDTVs for much cheaper($150-$250). You should find that a good PC gaming setup will cost less than a good console gaming setup.

Also, it’s not too expensive to keep up with the current generation of games, since all you need to do is to buy a good video card(assuming you have an OK computer), and those are getting cheaper now.

Love the show,
Victor from British Columbia, Canada

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