Ep. 1383: Hut Hut Hike! with the Blackberry Playbook

-Good morning, everyone. It is Friday, January 7th 2011. -I am Brian Tong. -I am Molly Wood and welcome to Buzz Out Loud, CNET's "podcasts of indeterminate length." It's episode 1383. -Day number 2. -It's also day 2 of our live Buzz Out Loud episodes from the floor and since it's day 2 of CES the show floor open in time for us to get an audience. Yehey! -Yeah, thanks for coming out, guys. We're gonna keep our voices alive as much as we can. They're slowly deteriorating already day 2. We got what? -Yeah. -3 more to go total now-- -Yeah, it's day 2 for you, guys-- -we'll hold it down. -It's day 3 of broadcasting for us and-- -Yeah. -you know, yesterday was about 2 days with the party and we're not gonna lie. -We're checking away. -If you are just watching our live stream, you know, that this is what we're doing here at CES, we are at the CNET stage in the south hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center. We're live streaming all day from the stage. We're doing our podcasts from here, we're doing interviews, we've got product demos, and later on, actually, coming up after the show, we're gonna announce our best of CES-- -Yeah. -finalists, you definitely wanna keep this stream on for that. -Yeah, also we're doing things like we have this live streaming back pack where we go on the show floor and every-- pretty much every hour on that, I would say, we'll be taking live hits from the CES show floor whether it's here in the south hall, central hall, wherever you guys kinda wanna see us go. We're gonna try and show everything that we can to give you guys a flavor for people that aren't here of what's really happening out there. -Yeah. And of course, we'll be rolling our first looks because we're doing these product videos all over the floor from all the parties. So these first looks will show up in the stream too. You'll be able to kinda get a look at, hopefully, pretty much every part of CES that we can possibly bring you. -So you know, how you know it's day 2, you said parties instead of products. -I did not. -You did. -I said part-- We're just bringing you video of parties-- -of every party possible. -Well-- -There you go. -I think we went to every party possible last time. -We didn't. -No I'm kidding. -I can see them in my eyes-- -I'm just thinking out of-- that didn't actually happen. Alright, let's get to the news-- -Yeah, let's do it. -shall we? Verizon had its long-- it's long-awaited two keynotes yesterday. -Second-- -yeah, yeah. -The first one had, I hate to admit, little to know and who's in it, the second one had 10 4G devices, boom! -Yeah, phones galore. -It was a little-- None of them were the iPhone. -None. -Let's get that out of the way. -Yeah, yeah, yeah, and we-- -I think-- -expect that not to happen. -you would have heard if one of them were the iPhone-- -Yeah. -but no, none of them were. They did, though they had-- there were 15 million phones, the first wave basically of their 4G LTE devices, it's seems like the hottest one, when everybody still talking about is the Thunderbolt. -Yeah, STC's Thundrebolt. The thing about Verizon now, their 4G LTE network is very raw, they came with a swamp of hardware and that's what we wanna see at CES-- -Yeah. -unlike some other pressers that didn't bring any hardware really to the table, this Microsoft. This was old-- -It's just a rhyme with micro puff. -Micro-- yeah, sure, but this was overflowing with and you can just see they are setting themselves up for this year to be the place or the carrier to go to if you really want every option for a 4G LTE phones-- -Yeah. -and tablet devices [unk]. -And tablet devices and mobile hotspots and NOOKbooks so they announced-- there were 10, there was 4 Smartphones, 2 tablets, 2 mobile hotspots and 2 NOOKbooks -- -Yeah. -all coming in the first half of the year and some as early as March-- -Yeah. -they say. So it was that-- yeah, it was gadget palooza. It was actual, you know, device porn. The Thunderbolt seems mainly to be the most porny because, well, it has kicks in. -Yeah. -I mean, literally that's everyone-- -[unk] kicks in? -that is the differentiator. -Yeah. -Yeah, I'm sure. No, it's hot, 8-megapixel cam-- I mean, really, it's just, it was gadgets galore. -Uh huh, uh huh. -Speaking of keynotes actually, Ford's keynote is happening later, a little bit later today at 11 a.m. Pacific, but we have a preview because Brian Cooley sat down on-- at our stage where all good things happen and talked to him for a little while yesterday. Let's take a look at that. -In the future is the connected services, the sync mobile apps, all of this great technology aimed at generating a new line of business that really is important in terms of revenue or is it about selling cars? -Is really about providing the cars that people really do want value and work for them and, you know, as you've reported, well, we focused on the brand promise on quality, fuel efficiency, safety and smart design like sync and MyFord and of course with Ford's scale be able to provide that with a very best value so we can get it to millions of people around the world and we expect the sync, our focus has been on bringing the capability into the car, but also to make the driver even a better driver, so that's why we've adapted a philosophy of hands on the wheel, using the consumer electronics controller-- -Yeah. -like you are familiar with-- -Yep. -also, eyes on the road, voice command and control so that your sync was connected to a wide world, but you're absolutely even more focused on being able to be a terrific driver. -Now, Paul, you're coming in CTO top of the month, taking over for Gerhard Schmidt-- -Yeah. -and you're gonna be, you know, coach of technology. What's your style, what kind of place do you run for your new regime 'coz, you know, you're gonna have your own style of agenda and priorities? Give us a little flavor of what you're gonna push. -We're gonna continue to focus on the core values of our brand, quality, safety, vehicles that are clean environmentally-- -Uh huh. -and obviously, smart in terms of the technologies. Well, that really means for us going forward is focusing on electrification. We talked to a lot about them. We've been talking more at the show here, the connectivity solutions and then just innovation in a total vehicle sense. Vehicles that are really smart, vehicles that are cool, and a seamless experience between the consumer whether they are at home, whether they are in the work place-- -Uh huh. -into the vehicle and really creating a familiar environment, co-branding with key partners-- -Uh huh. -and providing that sort of open architecture so that can bring that device in and then seamlessly use it in the vehicle. You see that with our uplink that we're showing here-- -Right. -sync destinations, great examples of extending that mobile device into the vehicle and I like to think of the vehicle as being the ultimate mobile device. -Sync mobile apps was first of its kind first in the market, 3 mobile app partners initially coming out. Toyota has launched Entune. They have 5 mobile app partners. I have 2 questions on this, one, it looks as though the auto industry, in general, is going toward the model of slapping on your Smartphone eco it and contextualize it to the center stack; secondly, the idea of who's in the horse race for more apps 'coz everyone watches that. Are you guys gonna dramatically expand the number of apps that are available between my phone and my car with mobile apps or does that remain a very tightly controlled space because it's a car? -Well, I think you're clearly gonna manage that interface very carefully because there are certain apps that clearly you don't wanna have in the car, so-- -You don't wanna infect the vehicle either. -Absolutely! And so the most important thing we do is maintain this open architecture, but then we managed the apps getting to the driver, so-- 'coz the most important thing is keep your eyes on the road and your hands on the wheel-- -Yeah. -and as the voice activation and commanding control gets better I think that'll accelerate the use of those apps. So we're gonna watch that very carefully 'coz that really is the value that we're bring in to the consumer. -There's been a lot of talk that auto makers, Ford and others, would get into the business of connected services to the vehicle and find that to be a way to, aside from just the actual revenue that may or may not come from that, but find that is a way to stay in touch with your customer because let's face it the traditional model is, the dealer is in touch with your customer and you're more in touch with the dealer. -Well, I think you're gonna see the experience at the Ford store radically changed to your point, which has, you know, clearly the life cycle the car will be one thing, the life cycle, the consumer electronics go with it will be on a short time frame-- -Oh, that's 10 times faster. -so I think you'll be stopping by the Ford store. We'll make the open architecture, we'll have the competitional capacity to be able to hold that platform and then you stop by and get the latest application, the latest sync, the latest upgrade and you'll have even a tighter relationship with the Ford store and we will also. -I mean, that will come back. -Alright, welcome back everyone. We weren't as sharp as we could have been off that mark there. I want you to know because a gadget has appeared on our stage. -It's hard too when you have the Blackberry PlayBook in your hands-- -In your hot little hands and we're literally up here fighting really. Okay, you've had it long enough. Let me look at-- -Alright, let's check this out-- -I wanna look at it. -So this is the Blackberry PlayBook, guys, a 7-inch tablet. We'll be seeing it sometime in spring, I believe-- -Yeah. -There is no price went on it, but just-- when this was announced, it was behind glass and whenever a product is behind glass, we're always skeptical, but looking at to some plane with it, the animation set-- let me just, at least, flip around here-- -Yeah. -is really, really smooth and snappy. We have your apps running here down the bottom. It's broken down to different categories, so if I wanna launch one I can click it. If it's already open, it'll jump right to that app and fill out that screen, but if you wanna do that-- -Yeah. -if you wanna go back to the main screen-- -Yeah, okay, so then-- -just get a little [unk] from the bottom to the top. -right, to get back to 'coz here you are and pretty much every app fills the screen, so then when you wanna get back, you'd literally swipe up from the bottom and then you get this kind of like groovy little with some-- -Just like butter. -Okay, look at this. -Go to click, go to click. -I pressed the wrong thing. Oh-- 'coz like I'm trying to do it backwards-- -I know. -but look, then-- -there you go. -I swipe up again and then what-- -I think the biggest thing about this tab-- -Look at the graphics on this thing that actually looks pretty remarkable. -The biggest thing about the tab, the tablet that we've seen here is a lot of them are so early baked that we haven't been able to play with them enough. -Right. -Like some of them are just showing up demo videos and we can't even mess with the interface so the biggest thing is that we can actually views-- -And I love how it still playing, sorry. -Yeah-- No, no, it's great. No, it's-- yeah. It's just-- it's fun. So I would definitely say I like the design; it's clean, the rubbery feel if that's like the final physical design. It's plane. -Your spreadsheets, right, 'coz it's from [unk]. -For your business application and news-- -for your business application, if you're not only gonna be playing quick. You know, I have to say it is frankly refreshing that this is not Android, like I'm just a little Android-- -Yeah. -you know, I mean, every tablet that we've seen-- -Every tablet that we've seen-- -we get and sort of like where you can look at the hardware design, but it's Android and we've all seen that before. So it is a kind of-- it's mostly just fun to actually play with something that is not-- -Yeah. -the interface that you're used to. -And some other key features will be on Sprints network. It's gonna be a 4G on their WiMAX network. It also have a WiFi support for BJ and so on--yeah, that's-- -Yeah? -From what we're seeing here right now-- -That's pretty hot. -this is pretty sleek. -I want to hear the pricing. And actually people we have-- -Well, we have the Blackberry reps over here. -We do. -[unk]. -Do you wanna give us like a ballpark? Competitive $500 to $700. -Competitive. -Boom! -There you go. -That is-- -There you go. -That is-- I am translating. I am assuming that it is code for $500 to $700 for all these tablets 'coz everyone says competitive. -Yeah. Very nice, yeah. -It's not if I'm right. Look at him, poker face over there. Total poker face. Now this is a good-looking device-- -Excellent! There you go. -and I have to admit-- I have to say rather now that it is starting to kind of trickle out. Analysts have gotten a little more bullish about the PlayBook-- -Yeah. -people are starting to say, "Alright, okay, now that it's out from behind the glass, it's looking pretty good." -It's sleek. -Yeah. -Good look. -Thank you, guys, for bring that app-- -Alright, thanks a lot. -'coz we're just-- we're gonna just keep that here in place and quick for a while. -Any of you on the audience that would like-- No, I'm just kidding. -And Patrick. Speaking of tablets, I know you thought that we were done talking about them, but not at all. Dell debuted some products yesterday, the new Streak 7 tablet. So that is a tablet that's gonna be this size. Oh, they're taking away. It's gonna be about that size. -Stop that man! -It's the followup to the-- Can you bring it back? -Stop that man! -You like to have toys on stage-- -Yeah. -we like that. Not they-- not just Angry Birds, more games either like electronics. -Yeah, that's why we're here. -It's the followup to the 5-inch Streak. It is now the Streak 7 tablet and it's dual-core 1 gigahertz and video integrity too, a 7-inch screen, 4G on T-Mobile, dual cameras and it weighs less than a pound. There you go. -There you go. -It's the next one. -It feels like a lot of the tablets that we hear about, they're basically all sporting the same specs. -Yeah. -and on Android that's why it's like, "Okay, there's another tablet, here we go." -It really is. In fact, I'm gonna skip ahead to this, the Mac Observer is doing a CES tablet count and they're just gonna like, "Alright, here's the other one, Sharp," 'coz they-- 'coz Garry Shapiro, the CEO of the CEA told us on stage yesterday that there were gonna be 80 tablets announced at the show, and so we've literally been trying to figure out where these are gonna come from-- -Uh huh, uh huh. -what's gonna account for them. Sharp, apparently, did a couple, so we have to, I don't know, we've spotted 7 or 8-- -Oh, 7, yeah, something like that. -10 or 12. Dell also finally showed of the venue. We have been waiting for this guy. This is the first high-end Smartphone, Android Smartphone from Dell with Android 2.2, 4.1-inch AMOLED screen and it is just a gorgeous-looking piece of hardware that nobody has seen until now-- -Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh. -and they finally vowed it here. I'm talking like a new story. They vowed the Dell venue. -Now, in other stories, yesterday, I don't know if you guys were on the central hall, but if you're wondering what that huge crowd was about, Lady Gaga made her announcements at the Polaroid booth for her great label line-- There were people-- -He was there. -Well, yeah-- We have to cover it, but-- we were there. There were people like standing on the rafters of other booth to see it. It was that massive. -Really? -Yeah, so-- -He is a fire hazard. -At least Polaroid got some good publicity out of it, but what Lady Gaga announced were 3 products; one of them was these basically sunglasses, these big, fat glasses that take pictures with them and then can display the pictures or video in the glasses, which I will not be purchasing. -That sounds like something straight out of one of her stage shows, like she would look at-- and that would actually be kinda cool, right? She looks out of the crowd-- -Right. -click, and then it displays the pictures on the outside and you can all see yourself, "Hey, I can see my house from here." -Yeah. -Other than that, I cannot imagine what you would ever use this for. -Yeah. They also announced the GL10, which is like an instant mobile printer. It was probably about-- it was almost the size of like a portable CD drive. -Yeah. -So if you wanted to do-- print your pictures on the go from a Bluetooth device, it work to that, but the main thing it's not compatible and she said it's compatible with Blackberry phones, Android phones, but not the iPhone and the entire crowd was "Boo!" and she said-- -I know-- -like "It's not me, it's not me." -It's Apple. -Yeah. -Come on. -Yeah, so-- -That's too bad too 'coz that iPhone does take really good pictures. -Yeah, it does. -I was most excited, though about the GL30 instant digital camera, which is almost like the next generation Polaroid camera. It's got the traditional instant Polaroid printing and it's also a 12-megapixel digital camera. So you can decide kind of at the moment if you wanna print the photos or not. -Yeah, yeah. -I love it. I love the Polaroid thing. So that's-- that was the Polaroid announcement, which was probably-- -Yeah. -we pooped it last year where they announced that Lady Gaga was the creative director and all thought, "Oh, we'll never see her again." It turns out-- -Yeah. -they're milking it. -Yeah. -and they're getting their moneys worth. Alright, we're gonna take a quick break. When we come back, we're gonna talk about Skype buying Qik. We're going to talk about the PlayStation phone and hacked iTunes accounts. -You know you can watch CNET live and on-demand content on your computer, but did you know you can watch all that same great content on your TV, your phone and your tablet? Let me give you a tour of all the different devices. You can watch CNET's video content on. First up is Tivo. CNET TV content first came to TV's five years ago with one show on Tivo and we're still there today with a huge library of CNET content. You'll find all of our shows listed under the video on-demand section. Next up the Google TV. You'll find Google TV on a variety of TVs, Blu-ray players and set-top boxes for manufacturers such as Sony and Logitech. And you'll find CNET TV's entire library of content in the spotlight section or by navigating to cnettv.com. Once in the app, you can watch the today on CNET playlist or navigate to your favorite shows or product categories. We're also on the Boxee box; you'll find us under apps. On Apple TV, you can find us under Internet and then select podcasts and choose cnet.com under providers. We also recently launched CNET on DivX enabled devices like LG's Blu-ray players. Also in 2011. You'll find CNET on your Roku box. And finally on the set-top box front, our CNET app for Samsung Adobe air enabled TVs made its debut at CES 2011. These devices will be released later this year we've been working with Samsung and Adobe to design a slick you live for exploring all of the great CNET content directly from your TV. We've also been working hard on the mobile phone front; we now have several apps available that allow you to consume CNET video content. CNET TV for iPhone and Android feature our entire on-demand library along with all of our live broadcasts under the CNET live tab. Our newly updated CNET news app for iPhone and Android also features video and all of our great live content as well. And finally, you've been able to enjoy our CNET iPad site for a while, but now we've expanded it to include all of our CNET live content with shows like Buzz Out Loud. So, there you have it, a boat load of new ways that you can watch CNET's live and on-demand content on devices that you care about. -Alright, guys, welcome back to Buzz Out Loud here at CES on day 2, 2011 in the south hall. Joining me is Ms. Molly Wood holding it down. -Hello! Yeah, our live streaming extravaganza continues. This is our 3rd day of live streaming here from the floor, our 2nd day of Buzz Out Loud, and I wanna say hello again to our audience 'coz it's so exciting when you guys come and see us. -I know. -It makes the show-- because really by Friday, by the time you guys show up, we are pretty tired and a little hang over. -And instead of running to the floor, they came to sit down in here with us. -And you came to sit down and it's just like it puts us right back in the mood. -Yeah. -So, thank you. -Don't forget those 3D glassless TV's that look awesome. I'm gonna sit down here. -It has passed. Forget the Panasonic's glorious immersive wall of television set. They're leaving. They're getting-- you can't see it on the screen, but they're actually walking out now, which is-- -No, no. -Forget the fact that Gaga is walking around in a mini bikini right now. See, those are loyal fans. -Yeah, someone did run off definitely. -Loyal. -Yeah. -Alright, back to the news. Skype, apparently, announced yesterday that it bought Qik-- -Yeah. -which is the mobile streaming video service if you haven't seen it. It's the one that lets you basically do video calling phone to phone. -So this is gonna be like basically Skype versus Fring? -Yeah. -That kind of a-- two left to battle it out. -Yeah, it's gonna be that one you've heard of versus that one you've maybe haven't heard. -And they had a little beep before-- -Skype and Fring? -early in the year. -Yes. -Skype and Fring getting access to their networks and went out, so-- well-- -Yeah, this is-- Well, it's interesting because Skype just released. The reason I thought this was dishy is 'coz Skype had just released a version of Skype for iPhone and iPod touch-- -Yeah. -that let you do-- -video over 3G, yeah. -video over 3G and now, they're, apparently, just getting way more serious about it, which is good, I mean, otherwise, you know, Face Time is gonna runway with it, although I have to admit, I tried them both one after the other and Face Time was better-- -Yeah. -way better. -Yeah. -Anyway, that's good news for the Qik, folks. Sony's PlayStation phone got an in-depth preview and you would think that it would be at CES, but it wasn't. -No. -No. -Thanks for our friends from China who basically there was a unit that was essentially taken from their factories that was shown online 2 days ago. They gave us an in-depth, a detailed to look at it, detailing things of, even what? Up to the processor, a 1 gigahertz snap dragged in. They showed some of the interface of the PSP phone and there's an app on it called the PlayStation Pocket. It doesn't necessarily mean that's the name of the device, but it could potentially go that way. -That's not as bad [unk]. -Yeah, it's not bad at all. -I'm feeling that one. So PlayStation phone, now the worse kept secret in history. -Yeah. -Apple isn't trying as hard as it has in the past that overshadowed CES; however, the Mac store, the Mac app store did open up yesterday downloads, they say have already topped 1 million, Apple says, in the first day. There are also stories out today about how a weakness in the copy protection system in some of the apps that are being downloaded can lead them to be hacked and, well, copy them. -You can, basically, essentially like download 3 files or so that give you authorization if other apps that weren't built and validated correctly. Those 3 hacked files then allow you essentially purchase some of these other apps and just use them automatically without paying a dime. Not purchase, but acquire them-- -Right. -whether they are through other sites or not and then run them on your devices so. -Yeah, there is no word, no comment from Apple that I know of. The news of the hack spread quickly, but they think that, at least, part of the problem lies with the software developers and Apple-suggested verification procedures. -Uh huh, uh huh. -So that's the on the Mac app store. Apparently, also, China and Apple, according to complainants, have not done anything close to shut down the sale of hacked iTunes accounts in China. There are still, all these accounts for sale like your hacked iTunes and account information is for sale for pennies. -Yeah. -on various Chinese website. -Well, essentially, these are actually-- these are people's personal accounts, but they are accounts that-- -No, they're yours-- -No. -No, I'm kidding, no. -I'm like, "No they're not." But essentially you could have buy these hacked accounts that are worth a $100 of U.S. value for like $8.30. -Oh, I see. Okay-- -So then someone just parlays that and then converts that into, you know, whatever they want. -Right. ComScore new numbers are out and it appears that Android has topped Apple in market share in the U.S.-- -U. S. -at least. According to ComScore, they are up to 26% of the U.S. market; Apple has 25%; and RIM actually is still the leader. It did lose 4.1% in its point, but has 33.5% on the market. -Well, I can tell you by going out on the show floor and seen the direction of phones. It's gonna-- that number is gonna grow-- -Oh yeah -without a doubt, I mean, there are so many phones, not only that, but compelling ones with 4G connectivity. -Yeah. -We haven't really seen too many Windows 7 phones. -I haven't seen a single one on the floor. -We really haven't seen many. -I saw one-- I saw someone using one yesterday. Actually, using one, as his-- his devices, which was surprising, but yeah, there is not a lot of-- I mean, they-- you know, Microsoft talked about Windows phone 7 and the Kinect-- -Uh huh. -but I haven't seen many of them and Android phone-- I mean the Android phones are like bees coming out of the hive right now, I mean, they're just-- it's fast and furious growth for sure. And yesterday-- -We gotta do-- -maybe you saw the video or maybe saw in the live stream or you'll get a chance to see it later, but Brian Tong had a little encounter with Darth Vader. -We got a talk to Darth Vader in person, basically at Panasonic booth, they announced that Star Wars, everyone hold on, hold on to your seats, is coming to Blu-ray in September-- You can go through Amazon to get it. It's gonna be a $139.99 for the entire 6 episode series featuring Jar Jar Binks. If you would like the trilogy separate from each other, they are $69.99. But one thing that had someone-- Panasonic rep had told me and kinda tease me he said, "Oh, there's an 80% chance it's gonna be on 3D." -That's why I heard, too. -And-- but it didn't happen. So we all know how Luke-- you know, Luke has does it. It's the Blu-ray first then give a few months and then do the 3D-- 3D Blu-ray and guess who's gonna buy them, those same people who bought the Blu-ray. -Yeah. -Those die hard collectors. -I was very surprised 'coz they put on this-- they put on this big insane show, right? -Yeah, yeah. -Actually a Darth Vader, the video of Brian next to Darth Vader is hilarious. -He did choke me. -He did. -I challenged him; I said it didn't work. -How can he not, I mean, pretty much, you know-- -His [unk] works. -Prints out. -It was. -He had to be revived. There were a bunch Storm Troopers that was this big announcement, but we had heard exactly that there was-- it was coming out on Blu-ray and then he was doing them on 3D; no mention of the 3D yesterday, so consider that a leak, I guess, a little bonus leak that-- -Yeah. -that slipped out on our stage. Alright, that's it for our tech news today. We are going to continue the live stream, though, of course, but if you tuned in just for Buzz Out Loud, you can find all the links to the stories that we've talked about in our blog, bol.cnet.com. We're really sorry that we're not reading your e-mails, keep 'em coming. We just can't exactly get to them. -We just can't get to them. -It's a complicated technical reason that is-- -Yeah. -too lame to get into. But, we look forward to hear in you-- from you. When we get back, I think that's our last Buzz Out Loud from CES actually-- -Yeah, yeah. -because tomorrow, on Saturday, here at the stage at 10 a.m. Pacific, we will be having the best of CES awards ceremony giving those out, so you definitely wanna tune in to the stream for that. We'll see you guys back on Buzz Out Loud next week. -Alright. Is that gonna do it? -That's it. -Okay. Hey, have a great week. Enjoy CES. Come check it out all our contents at cnet.com/live and we will catch you guys later.