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 Facetime, election day, and finding out
who pirated the "Hurt Locker." But first, it's the gadget of the week.
The Gadget of the Week is the iPhone 4, of course. Everything Gizmodo said was true. But we did learn
more at Steve Jobs' WWDC keynote. A new 5 megapixel camera with a flash, the front-facing camera, the
ability to take high-def video and even edit it with an iMovie app just for the phone. Improved battery life,
thinner more square design, crazy antenna bands that go all the way around and will hopefully improve
reception. Super high-res display. And then the big keynote one more thing ... was video calling with a ne
app called Facetime.
Which. Yeah. I mean. It's kind of neat. It's only iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 over WiFi right now, so not like, a
world-changing revolution. Actually, the biggest problem for me really is that even the normally hot
looking Jonathan Ive looked like a big-nose, big-chin stretched-out weirdo. And it didn't do Steve Jobs any
favors either. So, I'm just saying. No, thank you.
But don't worry, Apple totally anticipated that kind of cynical thinking from narrow-minded journalists,
and that's why they prepared this video to convince you of just how great the video calling is.
That's just ... yeah. Well played, Apple. Well played.
And now for the news. It was election day in California this week, and tech took over the state's political
scene. Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman won the Republican nomination for governor, and I sincerely hope
she'll use "Buy it Now" as her campaign slogan. And ex HP CEO Carly Fiorina got the Republican nod for
U.S. Senate. Slogan: "Only term limits can force me out this time." Not surprisingly, Facebook's former
privacy chief, Chris Kelly, did not get the Democratic nod for state attorney general. His slogan right now:
"Damn you, Zuckerberg. DAMN YOOOUUUU!"
Now, sure, the iPhone 4 was the phone everyone was talking about this week. But the HTC Evo had kind of
an exciting few days, too! It debuted on Monday and is now apparently COMPLETELY SOLD OUT. So if
you were waiting to get one till after seeing if the iPhone 4 was unveiled at WWDC, well, it sucks to be
you.
Now, granted, it turns out Sprint did TOTALLY exaggerate the number of Evos they sold in those first
days. Analysts now think it's around 150 thousand and not likely to go up, since it's sold out. But hey, still.
Any competition is good competition.
Moving on, the producers of the "Hurt Locker" are looking to sue anyone who illegally downloaded the
movie. And this week they filed a legal motion to get ISPs to identify customers based on a list of IP
addresses. And they made that list public. Which is bound to lead to some false accusations, and of course,
we know IP addresses are notoriously unreliable as a way to pinpoint pirates, because people can spoof IP
addresses, sniff your WiFi, sneak into your house and download stuff when you're not there. It's just not a
good situation.
Although, I admit, there IS something weird about the fact that like, this universally well reviewed movie
only grossed like 40 million dollars, while Sex and the City 2, which I think even Sarah Jessica Parker gave
a bad review, has made more than 100 million dollars. That kind of makes me want to sue somebody. Like,
anybody.
And finally, let's have a look at what's Clogging the Tubes. This week ... it's the World Cup. The
international football slash soccer tournament starts Friday, and it is ON the INTERNET. Live streaming of
almost every game on ESPN3.com, mobile phone streaming, Yahoo's got David Beckham pimping soccer
all over its pages. And IT managers say company networks might be disrupted because of all the people
expected to stream the game during work hours. And who can blame us? I mean, the action ... the gameplay
... the excitement of the global stage. Vanity Fair helpfully reminds us what's important here ...
MAN, Annie Liebowitz has a good gig. Why don't we make videos like that at CNET? "Sexy beasts of the
tech world ..."
Ok, yeah, no. Futbol!
And that's the Buzz Report for this week, everyone. I'm Molly Wood, and thanks for watching.
