EMILY: Hey, I?m Emily Dreyfuss.
KARYNE: and I'm Karyne Levy.
EMILY: Welcome to Rumor Has It! The show where we
round up the week's hottest tech rumors.
KARYNE: And vote on what sounds legit, and what seems
like total bunk.
EMILY: The best part is that you guys can vote, too, so don?t
go anywhere.
EMILY (To EMILY's camera): Our first rumor is from Pacific
Crest analyst Andy Hargreaves, who predicts that Apple will
introduce a 7.85-inch iPad Mini in October.
KARYNE: He suggests that Apple would kill the $399 iPad 2,
and could introduce a 16GB iPad mini for a similar price.
EMILY: This is the rumor that will never die. Steve Jobs
famously said that a 7-inch iPad would have to be
?accompanied by sandpaper, so people could sand down
their fingers to a quarter the size? in order to use it, and
even that couldn?t kill this rumor. It?s like a zombie rumor.
(Show image of zombie iPad?)
KARYNE: But what about the iPhone? That's like, 4 inches,
and people aren't using their pinkies to tap on that.
EMILY: I gotta go with Jobs on this one.
Despite the success of the Kindle Fire and the new release
of Google's Nexus 7, I don?t think Apple can be forced to do
something they don?t want to, and I think lower-cost is not
their style, and it?s antithetical to their ?one size fits all?
ethos.
KARYNE: Here's why I say YAY. First of all, there are all
kinds of iPods out there: the Shuffles, Nano, Touch,
Shmouch. The other thing is one word: competition. Apple
loves to watch other people make stuff, and then blow them
out of the water with its supposed superior product. Here's
the perfect opportunity to do that.
KARYNE: What do you guys think? iPad Mini in the fall? If
you?re watching on CNET, cast your vote now with the
thumbs up, thumbs down right next to Emily?s head in the
interactive player.
EMILY: You?ve got 30 seconds to vote. We?re going on the
street to see if the people of San Francisco can shed some
light on this rumor. Then in a few minutes you?ll find out
your vote matches our CNET Council of experts.
MILY (To EMILY's camera): Our second rumor might be the
feather in capitalism?s cap. Our beloved addiction Facebook
may be thinking of rolling out a ?Want? button, according to
developer Tom Waddington who posted on his personal
blog that he found a "Want" button buried in Facebook?s
JavaScript SDK.
KARYNE: The data collected using this "Want" button would
be HUGE for advertisers; and annoying for us. People would
basically be making universal wishlists, and companies
could better target their ads.
EMILY: I don't want Facebook ads to be any creepier than
they already are. if Facebook does this, then all pretense
that the site is about ?connecting with your friends? will be
gone and it will finally be revealed for what it is: a money
making scheme. I want to see pictures of my friends, not
their shopping lists.
KARYNE: Right? Get out of my face Facebook. Where is the
"Dislike" button?
KARYNE: Our third and final rumor is from WM Power User,
which found a photo of a new Windows 8 keyboard design,
which they claim is from a leaked Microsoft Research
presentation.
EMILY: The keyboard is designed for typing with one thumb,
without having to look, and will probably feature predictive
text, so it can figure out what you mean.
KARYNE: This type of keyboard is similar to what was used
on the BlackBerry Pearl: clustered QWERTY keys. I loved
the BlackBerry Pearl. Anyway, one-thumb typing seems
super awesome -- possibly awesome enough to woo me
away from my iPhone. Did I just say that?
EMILY: This will be great for sending snarky text messages
while waving to the person you're pretending to like.
EMILY: OK, so let?s get back to our first rumor. (What does
the CNET council think?)
KARYNE: So we asked them: is the iPad mini coming out in
October?
EMILY: And the CNET verdict is a unanimous no. Seriously,
all 5 of our anonymous experts say there is no chance of
that happening.
KARYNE: Pessimists.
EMILY: I mean, I?m happy they agreed with me, but I am
surprised that not a one thinks an iPad Mini is coming out. A
lot of consumers want this. I guess we are just used to
Apple telling us what to want, not asking what we want.
KARYNE: Our comment of the week comes from our friend
Andrew Hoover, who tweeted: "I'm digging the new
@RumorShow, but I miss distracting @karynelevy and
@EmilyDreyfuss during the show."
EMILY: Well, Andrew, we are going to throw you and all our
podcast listeners a bone and do a throwback old school
wager, so if the next time the ipads are updated there is no
smaller mini, then I get to humilarte Karyne.
KARYNE: And if there is a smaller mini, then I get to
humiliate Emily.
Emily, which will be easy. That?s out show everyone, share
your rumors at rumorhasit@cnet.com or call us at 1-800-
750-CNET.
KARYNE: Tune in next week for more tech rumors.
