VIDEO
Hi, I'm Molly Wood, and welcome to the Buzz Report, the show about the tech news
that everyone's talking about. This week, life lessons for dealing with lost iPhones,
the future of Palm, and Golden Poo. But first, it's some ... Breaking News at Press
Time.
Buzz Report has just learned that Hewlett Packard is buying Palm for 1.2 billion dollars.
HP says it's interested in Palm's Web OS, its portfolio of more than 16-hundred patents,
and the fact that HP doesn't really make any, like, phones and things, and Palm totally
does. More on that story and whether these two crazy kids can make it work over at
News.com.
And now, the Gadget of the Week.
The Gadget of the Week is the Nokia N8. Nokia officially announced this multimedia
monster this week, and I gotta say. It looks amazing. It's running Symbian 3, with a
12 megapixel camera WITH Carl Zeiss lens, HDMI and support for Dolby Surround
Sound, so you can hook it up to a home theater. Web TV, 16 gigs of onboard storage
PLUS expansion slot. Ridic.
AND, the other interesting thing about the Nokia N8 is that before its official
announcement, details about it leaked out on a Russian blog ... because, apparently,
the Russian blogger obtained an early prototype via shady means. Nokia put out a
blog post asking for the prototype back. But you know what they were really
thinking ... "um. Can we have a task force, too?"
AND speaking of task forces ... now for the news. Here's where we are in the lost iPhone saga. First thing
this week, a police task force broke down the door of a Gizmodo editor's house and confiscated all his
computers and other technology. This happened after Apple filed a complaint over what it said was the
actual "theft" of the iPhone prototype.
Then, journalists and lawyers freaked out because they said the warrant may have violated the journalistic
shield laws that protect journalists from having to divulge their sources.
THEN, some other lawyers said that if Gizmodo paid their five grand for the iPhone KNOWING it was
essentially stolen property, then they may be criminally liable and the shield laws don't really matter.
AND THEN, Gizmodo's lawyers hinted that Gizmodo might sue the San Mateo County police department
over what it says was, in fact, an illegal warrant.
And you know? This story is just nothing but crazy, and it all starts with a drunk guy who left his phone in
a bar. Kids? I think it's time for a new segment: the Buzz Report Public Service Announcement.
�Officer McCullagh here with a very important message. Boys and Girls, just because you find a phone in
a bar doesn�t mean it is yours to keep. If you can�t figure out who it belongs to and return it yourself, you
should hand it over to the manager of the bar where you found it, or to the police. Not only is it the right
thing to do, It�s the Law! (big smile) oh yeah, if you don�t, then the phone is considered stolen property,
and if you are a �journalist� or �blogger� and you buy this phone, you might even go to jail. Take it from
me kids� you might feel �cool� if you are the first kid on the block to have the new iPhone, but you won�t
feel so cool when you�re cooling your heels in prison.�
And now for the rest of the news.
Speaking of phones, Microsoft inked a patent licensing deal with HTC that gives them a cut of every HTC
phone sold! And they also hinted that Android might violate some of its patents. And by "hinted," I mean,
Microsoft suggested that Android might infringe broadly on everything from the user interface to the
underlying operating system. It's good to see these little startups fighting for their rights and keeping
innovation alive.
And finally, a big award for Comcast! Users voted to give the company its SECOND STRAIGHT ...
Consumerist Golden Poo award for being the worst company in the world.
Presumably, voter sentiment was influenced by such Comcastic activities as illegal bandwidth throttling,
restrictive bandwidth caps, unusable voice service as part of its near-mandatory Triple Play package, high
prices, unfriendly customer service, and of course, a DVR so annoying that I've considered using IT as a
field latrine.
And that's the Buzz Report for this week, everyone. I'm Molly Wood, and thanks for watching.
