Hi, I'm Molly Wood, and welcome to the Buzz Report, the show about the tech news
that everyone's talking about. This week, it's Apple suing HTC, Microsoft screwing
everything up AGAIN, and the most awesome mousetrap of all time. Let's begin with
the Gadget of the Week.
The Gadget of the Week is the new TiVo Series4 "Premiere" DVR. The new TiVos were announced this
week and the big news is that they can now search for show listings not only from your cable provider, but
also from online video sources like Netflix, Amazon Video on Demand, Blockbuster, and YouTube. The
interface is improved, and actually, the menus are now in wide-screen high-def. You can get either a 320
gig or a 1 terabyte hard drive, although there's no built-in WiFi. Still. Also, though, TiVo unveiled an
optional remote that has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. I'm actually mostly in it for that remote. That's
awesome. The remote alone probably won't save the company, but I still want one.
And now for more letdown news. Remember a couple of weeks ago when the Gadget of the Week was
Windows Phone 7 Series and I said, hey, if that's half as cool as expected, good job, Microsoft? Well, bless
their hearts, Microsoft can't help but screw up a good thing. A company rep said NO ONE who buys a
Windows Mobile 6 or 6.5 phone, even if it's an awesome brand-new phone like the HTC HD2 that hasn't
even launched yet, will be able to upgrade to Windows 7. Now, Microsoft hasn't completely clarified this
point. That's probably because they don't want to admit that a brand-new phone like the HTC HD2 will be
totally outdated by the time it even hits stores. But trust me, here. If you think Windows Phone 7 looks cool
at all? Don't buy a new Windows Mobile phone between now and when it comes out. And as for Microsoft
and the wireless carriers, um, you know. Sorry about your sales, guys. Ugh. IDIOTS.
And now, to some global thermonuclear patent war. Apple has sued HTC for violating 20 of its iPhone-
related patents, like the one on using a finger gesture to unlock a locked phone. No, yeah, they got a patent
for that. Don't forget, the patent office really only exists to give lawyers something to do.
But here's the thing. HTC? Makes the Nexus One, the officially anointed Google phone, and several other
Android phones that have potentially infringing features. Like multi-touch, which Google JUST began
rolling out to Android phones. Uh huh. And even though HTC had multi-touch on other phones before this,
Apple didn't sue until all of a sudden Google was making Android a little iPhone clone.
Google is not named in the lawsuit, but even so, they issued a statement saying they stand behind Android
and its Android partners. As in, don't even think it Apple, you do not EVEN want to go nuclear on our little
buddy HTC because you KNOW what happens when you take on the Goog superpower. Oh, man. Get
ready for some tech world destruction, right here. This is either going to be really good, or be really, really
expensive behind closed doors.
This week, PS3 owners freaked right the hell out when their game consoles basically wouldn't work for 24
hours because of a glitch with the PlayStation Network. Sony casually told people just not to use their older
PS3s, and then later said the problem was the console's internal clock, which incorrectly thought 2010 was
a leap year. Yeah. The problem, basically, was calendar math. Didn't we invent computers to do better math
for us? Anyway, no one is anywhere near as mad at Sony as I thought they'd be, so that's good for them.
Netflix is reportedly conducting a survey to see whether iPhone or iPod Touch users are interested in
streaming movies instantly to those devices. Uh, yeah, dude. We're interested.Seriously, you don't need to
ask any more people, just roll that sucker out, ok?
And finally, let's have a look at what's Clogging the Tubes. Duh. It's the new Ok Go video for "This, Too,
Shall Pass." When I watched it on Tuesday, it had just under 200-thousand views on YouTube. When I
refreshed it Wednesday, after 472 people sent it to me, it had 1.2 million views. Let's see why, shall we?
Those guys know what they're doing. I love the happy engineers who set it all up, how great are they!?
Goosebumps.
And that's the Buzz Report for this week, everyone. I'm Molly Wood, and thanks for watching.
