Buzz Out Loud

Buzz Out Loud 858: Opportunistic Net-connecting Deer

buzz@cnet.com (CNET.com) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:53:00 PST

So we talked about a lot of serious news today including the Justin.tv suicide, the new Google wiki search, and the unauthorized access of Barack Obama's Verizon calling records. But really, Rafe's description of Net-connected Deer is what I'll remember about this episode. How about you?

Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 858

19-year-old Commits Suicide on Justin.tv
http://newteevee.com/2008/11/20/19-year-old-commits-suicide-on-justintv/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10104716-93.html

SearchWiki: Make search your own
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/searchwiki-make-search-your-own.html
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_to_turn_search_into_wik.php
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081120-roll-your-own-search-results-with-googles-new-searchwiki.html

Report: Obama’s cell records improperly accessed
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10104997-83.html

Apple releases the iPhone 2.2 update. It's a big one
http://venturebeat.com/2008/11/20/apple-releases-iphone-22-update-its-a-big-one/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10105145-37.html

Astronauts ‘drop’ space tool bag
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7737250.stm

Water ice glaciers spotted on Mars
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-10104926-76.html

New Internet goes to space, comes back to Earth
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10102081-2.html

DVD sales down; Blu-ray's missing its mark: What's Hollywood to do?
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-dvd-sales-down-blu-rays-missing-its-mark-whats-hollywood-to-do/

Economy takes bite out of CES
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10104399-1.html

Online quiz tests phishing knowledge
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10105144-83.html

YouTube tests out high quality, stereo surround videos
http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/11/youtube-tests-o.html
How to do it:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10104549-2.html?tag=mncol

Guitar Hero fake awesome video
http://kotaku.com/5095091/yes-bike-hero-was-viral-marketing

VOICE MAIL

Chace from Maryland - On the suicide story.

Steve from Cupertino - GSM BlackBerry

E-MAIL

Loved the Star Trek TNG / Data references in yesterday’s podcast. I just had to tell you, since you seem to enjoy about your listeners jobs so much, that I am a Data Production Specialist, which means my boss calls me Dr. Soongh.

(Actually, the company I work for does some pretty cool stuff with robotics, but not quite to the android level yet–check out the website.)

Love the show,

Renee

I reply about you commenting on MMS yesterday. I am getting an iPhone around Christmas this year and I did know about the lack of MMS but you just reminded me. Many of my friends are on a no data, or pre-paid plan for their phone. Now if I have an iPhone and want to send a picture to them they are kinda stuck! How can they check e-mail from their phone to see my picture? Is there some kind of redirecting service maybe? So it is pretty bad both ways. If someone sends me an MMS I have to go to weird page thing. And if I send them a picture over e-mail they have to find an internet connection somewhere.

Also, just to let you know that I created some icons for CNET and BOL users (like me) that I have uploaded here:
http://tinyurl.com/6b4ubd

Love the show.

Jono from Australia
(or skitterrusty in the forums)

I think you may have talked about this in the past. Baen books has several complete books available on-line for free at http://www.baen.com/library/. You can read them on line, or download a copy or load it on an e-book reader. The idea here is that you can read a book by an author you do not know, and will then be happy to pay for more books by This is the same benefit game companies get from used games. I think the software companies should learn from this and stop worrying about used games. Used book stores have not put book publishers out of business, and they have been around a lot longer then video games.

LTS
Darren
Columbus Oh

Hey jamoto + probably cooley,

I am in Nashville for a company annual meeting and, while chatting at
the hotel bar, I glanced over to a very professional looking gentleman
sitting and surfing on a Netbook. I’m not completely knowledgeable on
models, but it looked like dell’s new 11 inch model.

I guess they are emerging after all!

Love the show,

Damon the radiotherapy service engineer

Rick the Tennessee country lawyer here. Regarding the 2rd life divorce on 854. Internet marital misbehavior has become an all too common ground for divorce these days so the story is not surprising.

I have to say the Microsoft financing story made me think that Microsoft will have an “associate” named Gudio who will spend his time repoing software over the Internet . “first we will start with Power Point.”"Ya don’t pay then we will take your Exchange mailboxes”" One by one.”
Love the show.

Buzz Out Loud 857: Dumber than a robot donkey

buzz@cnet.com (CNET.com) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:41:00 PST

In today's show, we find out that the demise of humanity is imminent (or that all of our robot mythology is fundamentally rooted in self-hatred), the RIM BlackBerry Storm takes the world by drizzle, and Microsoft hopes that actually giving you songs will convince you to buy a Zune. Oh, and we don't care about Yahoo Glue. In case you were wondering.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 857

RIM BlackBerry Storm arrives
http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/rim-blackberry-storm-verizon/4505-6452_7-33311850.html

Meet the first multitouch consumer laptop: HP’s TouchSmart tx2
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10102285-1.html

Mozilla revenue $75 million in 2007, up 12 percent
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081119-mozilla-revenue-75-million-in-2007-up-12-percent.html
http://www.download.com/8301-2007_4-10102627-12.html

Microsoft, labels try to revive subscriptions
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10102846-56.html
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-12519_7-10103777-49.html

Sources: Apple, music labels talk DRM-free songs
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10102414-93.html

Web debut for Guns N’ Roses album
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7739133.stm

Yahoo brings its Glue to the U.S.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10103776-93.html

Hey, remember Lively, Google’s Second Life, yeah, me neither. It’s gone.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/lively-no-more.html

Samsung launches 256GB solid-state drive
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10103645-64.html

IBM gets DARPA cognitive computing contract
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10103355-52.html

VOICEMAIL
Lee the exhaust guy: swarming with e-books

Daniel: MMS on the iPhone
http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/20/mobispines-iphone-mms-application-for-the-entire-universe/
Mobispine press release: http://www2.mobispine.com/press/readpress.dot?inode=4568

E-MAIL

Hello Buzz crew. Like many others, I downloaded the Xbox New
Experience update last night, wasted about 20 minutes tweaking my
avatar so I don’t look like a punk kid, upgraded to LIVE Gold, and
made a beeline for the Netflix player. Microsoft and Neflix have
provided an amazing service to Netflix subscribers. It’s a little
disappointing that you can only browse titles in your Instant Queue,
but the interface is slick and easy to use. I selected an episode from
the (otherwise disappointing) current season of Heroes. Within
seconds, I was watching the smooth playback in high definition. You
can scan forward and backward through the video using a coverflow-like
view that shows thumbnails from the show.

The only downside was that I had to switch to my TiVo to order pizza.
If the Xbox Netflix viewer is anything like what we can expect to see
from TiVo, then bring it on. Can you imagine Pizza AND Netflix in one
UI? Now THAT’s a great user experience.

- Richard
Washington, D.C.

**********

Hey JaMoTo and the extra crew member!

Looks like we’re not immune from the big media companies as much as you are in the States. According to The Age…

The Australian film and television industry has launched a major legal action against one of Australia’s largest Internet service providers for allegedly allowing its users to download pirated movies and TV shows.

The action against iiNet was filed in the Federal Court today by Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Disney and the Seven Network.

(Source: http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/biztech/film-pirates-put-iinet-in-the-dock/2008/11/20/1226770617457.html)

The interesting thing is, the Seven Network is in this suite. For those who don’t know, we have 3 major commercial television networks, namely the Seven Network, Nine Network and Network Ten. The last 2, offer Australians on-demand downloading of their shows on their website, and the Nine Network themselves have locally produced shows on the iTunes store. So why is the Seven Network resorting to suing when they could just easily join the other two networks by providing Australians more legal alternatives to the torrents? This goes for the other companies in the suit. If they really want to kerb illegal downloading, why don’t they open some US-exclusive options like Hulu to the Australian audience? You guys (maybe it was The 404, I can’t remember, haha!) said yourself that Hulu’s catching up to YouTube in terms of revenue.

It’s great to be an iiNet customer at this stage too. First the trial of the internet filter, now this from the entertainment industry. I’m with iiNet myself, so it’ll be interesting what’s to come.

Love the show guys!

Cheers!

**********

Mark

For the teacher and others who are having problems with HDCP issues there
are HD Strippers that are adapters or boxes that they themselves are HDCP
compliant and then pass through the signal without the HDCP DRM. a famous
example is the HDFury:

http://www.hdfury.com/

Robert Clark
Prince Albert,SK

**********

A hobo is a traveling homeless person who takes work when they can get
it. A tramp is a traveling homeless person who does not work.

Hobos are also governed by a code of ethics, have a duly appointed hobo
king, and a rich hobo-only written language based on a series of
pictographic symbols and codes which they used to communicate things
such as marking a good place to sleep, where you can find someone
willing to give you food, and what towns have cops that will beat the
crap out of you.

So I think Tom will be doing a decent service by launching a hobo social
site. I would give it a square missing it’s top line.

–Keith from New York, not a hobo

**********

JaMoTo,

I just wanted to take a quick moment to ask that you recognize the BOL chat room moderators on the show as they do an absolutely fantastic job of making the chat extremely user friendly and pleasant.

I’m sure you guys are generally too busy either getting ready for, or actually executing, the show to really notice how hard they work at helping new users along and just generally making everyone feel comfortable within the community.

I’d list them all by name but I fear that I would forget someone and feel terrible about that - suffice it to say that if someone has a gold star next to their name they are nothing short of awesome personified.

Not as anonymous as I used to be,
Snit

Buzz Out Loud 856: Competition FTW

buzz@cnet.com (CNET.com) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 11:52:00 PST

We discover a fun new tautology on today's show (you know, competition...for the win?), have a fun time goofing off with Brian Tong, rail against Apple's decision to include HDCP restrictions in its new MacBooks, and rejoice at the arrival of Netflix streaming on the Xbox 360 (minus a few select Sony movies, ahem). Also: India takes on Google in the Earth-spying department. Yeah, India! Go, India!

Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 856

Apple’s new MacBooks have built-in copy protection measures (thanks Mager!)
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/11/18/apples_new_macbooks_have_built_in_copy_protection_measures.html
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/11/17/apple-brings-hdcp-to-a-new-aluminum-macbook-near-you

Psystar antitrust claim against Apple dismissed
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10101581-37.html

Microsoft’s new Xbox experience launches, Netflix users go wild
http://www.pcworld.com/article/154163/microsofts_new_xbox_experience_launches_netflix_users_go_wild.html
http://venturebeat.com/2008/11/19/new-xbox-experience-launches-looks-great-netflix-integration-fails/

Netflix streaming on Xbox doesn’t include Sony Columbia Pictures movies (thanks, Anu!)
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/11/18/nxe-netflix-streaming-queues-suddenly-gimped/

Quality pays: Hulu trumping YouTube
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10102220-16.html
http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20081117/when-will-hulu-catch-youtube-it-already-has/

Microsoft to offer free consumer security suite
http://www.download.com/8301-2007_4-10101582-12.html

A drink backed by a sports (gaming) hero
http://news.cnet.com/A-drink-backed-by-a-sports-gaming-hero/2100-1043_3-6247818.html

PC Magazine goes out of print
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/11/pc-magazine-goes-out-of-print
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-ziff-davis-to-close-print-pcmag-focus-on-online-still-looking-for-optio/

Indian space agency, Isro, to roll out a rival to Google Earth (thanks, Phil!)
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article5182639.ece

Woman wants a cyborg eye! - BTONG contribution
http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/267901/artist_wants_cyborg_webcam_eye

VOICE MAIL
Dwight the T-Grip: true Hollywood battery stories

Paul from Verizon: why the BlackBerry rocks!

E-MAIL
Hey Buzz Crew,

I’ve been traveling so I missed a couple podcasts, but I don’t think there has been a mention of the re-start of the One Laptop Per Child Give One Get One program this past Monday (11/17). I’ve been wanting to get one of these laptops for a while mostly because I think they’re interesting and I want to help out the program. I know the OLPC folks got a lot of grief last time they offered this program because they didn’t really have the logistical infrastructure to handle the delivery of laptops to people who bought them quickly and some people had to wait months to get theirs. This time however, they’ve teamed up with Amazon.com and things look like they should work much more smoothly. I placed my order with Amazon and I should get mine by Friday.

I’m sure there are listeners that would like to get a new NetBook/E-reader. And I think the keyboard is waterproof so in can be a great conversation opener for chatting by the pool (Chris from Austin). So deploy the Buzz Brigades to help kids in developing countries get a great tool for education.

Julian (San Diego)

http://www.laptop.org

http://www.amazon.com/xo

Hey JaMoTo

I was listening to episode 853 and 854 Re: The Wii speak application and then again on to the subject of the software companies not liking pre-loved games.

If the companies don’t like the idea of pre-loved games why don’t they have their own way of buying back sold games. This would allow people to get the same value from their games as trading their old games to EB etc… But allow credits to the new games. This would kill 2 birds with one stone so to speak.

Plus with the idea of saving the planet. Think about the latest game being made out of our old games.

Love the show.

Jon “The Student”

Australia

Hey Buzz Gang,

Just wanted to tell how impressed I was with the new NetFlix add-on to the Xbox 360. The quality is very good, particularly on cartoons. I just hope they update it so you can add stuff to your queue without a computer. I would hate to think the Xbox is just as dumb as a TV tuner and can only passively show videos. That would be as stupid as having a super gaming computer that’s hooked to my TV and my network that can’t browse the web… oh wait… never mind.

Take Care,
Kelvington

I have to disagree that the ‘Remote Spy’ program is significantly different then EA’s DRM. Well, on a technical level at least.

Both should have EULA’s stating don’t use their program illegally.
Both are meant to be put onto a computer you have legitimate access to.
Both change how your computer works and that change can be percieved as negative.
An unauthorized user can install both of these programs without permission by owner of the computer.
Both have removal issues.
Both can have legitimate uses.

In the discussion the case was made for business sales of this product, but for private sales one completely legitimate reason for a spy program that quickly comes to mind is by parents monitoring their children’s computers. I’m sure there are other things people can think up, but that’s my strongest legitimate use point.

In the class action lawsuit (http://www.courthousenews.com/2008/09/23/Spore.pdf) it states that the irremovable DRM is not disclosed (properly/at all) in the EULA and even if you made a case that it didn’t inappropriately phone home, the fact that it can prevent legitimate hardware/software from working is malware like behavior that occurs after an uninstall of the game itself.

In both cases when looking from a certain perspective they are put in a good or bad light… but if the government goes after one they should be going after the other.

Ben @ Nova Scotia

Buzz Out Loud 855: The iPhone changes everything

buzz@cnet.com (CNET.com) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:40:00 PST

On today's show, Brian Cooley announces that he's made the switch...I mean, the big switch. He bought an iPhone. The world briefly stopped rotating, and when it resumed, we laid down the smack on poor Jerry Yang, the Justice Department, the XM-Sirius merger, and subsequent channel flipping, and some poor guy who thought it was a good idea to call our show. Good times!

Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 855

Yahoo's Jerry Yang to step down, as a search for new CEO commences
http://kara.allthingsd.com/20081117/yahoos-jerry-yang-to-step-down-as-a-search-for-new-ceo-commences/
Jerry Yang's entire memo to his employees on stepping down as CEO
http://kara.allthingsd.com/20081117/jerry-yangs-entire-memo-to-his-employees-on-stepping-down-as-ceo/

Yahoo’s ultimate search: A new CEO
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/cnet/20081118/tc_cnet/8301102331010077393

Intel’s 3.2GHz monster Nehalem roars onto the scene
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081118-intels-3-2ghz-monster-nehalem-roars-onto-the-scene.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10098484-1.html

Feds can locate cell phones without telcos
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/17/2218209

Expanding the cloud: Amazon CloudFront
http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2008/11/amazon_cloudfront.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10100883-2.html

Sirius, XM subscribers revolt over merger-induced changes
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081118-sirius-xm-subscribers-revolt-over-merger-induced-changes.html

Magnatune — sharing-friendly, artist-friendly label — goes all-you-can-eat, no-strings-attached
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/11/18/magnatune-sharingfri.html

More “Vista Capable” e-mails unsealed, revealing sassy civil war
http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/18/more-vista-capable-e-mails-unsealed-revealing-sassy-civil-war/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10097511-75.html

Google ‘Voice Search’ hands-on verdict: Awesome
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10100719-2.html

District Court halts keylogger sales
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10099123-83.html

Facebook app verification fee draws criticism
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/154099/facebook_app_verification_fee_draws_criticism.html

VOICEMAIL

Ned from Missouri: I call collusion!

E-MAIL

JaMoToNaCooTonRa...oh forget it.

I think it's funny when everyone laughs at President Bush's old e-mail address. In 2000, wasn't AOL the myspace/facebook of it's time? We've come a long way, to be sure, but that was then.

Cent me, 2 times!

Jason the curator.

**********

I’m surprised that Domino’s Pizza in the U.S. is only now catching up with Domino’s Pizza in the U.K. when it comes to couch potato ordering - Domino’s Pizza has been on Sky’s digital TV platform for the last several years (IIRC, since the beginning 7 years ago). And if you’d rather order your Domino’s Pizza from your laptop instead of your TV then just go to the Dominos Pizza website (http://www.dominos.co.uk/) which has also been running for years.

cheers

Scot in London

**********

On the topic of pollies and tech, and Web 2.0.

The Australian Prime Minister had joined Twitter. http://twitter.com/KevinRuddPM

It would even appear that Kevin himself is putting up some post (I am
skeptical as ever), but some posts are signed off by what would appear
to be his media department.

What is even crazier, they have been replying to questions and
comments. I would NEVER have expected to see this used as a two way
communications method.

LTS.

Cheers, Tim.

**********

I talk to one of the Phoenix mission managers today. I asked, “If by some mirical Phoenix powers back up after the winter would the mission continue?”

Apparently Phoenix cannot analyze any more soil. The equipment they use to test soil samples has exhausted. The camera and weather station may still work, but they would have to request more money from NASA to continue the mission. Then he told me they really don’t think phoenix will come back.

Why name it Phoenix if you’re going to let it die. Here’s keeping hope alive.

Love the Show
Roeurn (Ru-in
not Rerun:)

**********

This is Daniel, tech support from Memphis. Just writing in reference to episode 852 where another Daniel asked "WHY THE HELL WOULD SOMEONE REGISTER HOBOBOOK.COM?" ..sigh. Thank you Tom and Molly for sharing my vision for the online hobo community! You have inspiring me to do something with one of the domains I've been sitting on for a while: Hoboforums.com. Why hoboforums? I honestly can't remember, BUT now I am glad I actually have something to do with this domain! If you are wondering, yes, the site is exactly what you think it is.

Hoboforums, where transients meet technology.

We're still throwing around slogans.

LTS

Daniel Lewis

Buzz Out Loud 854: Death to the Moon

buzz@cnet.com (CNET.com) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:53:00 PST

We thought about calling this podcast graves in space, or delicious Yak, or Jason makes the earth move. But soup_n_salad in the chat room nailed it. A new company wants to send 5,000 capsules full of cremated remains to the moon for burial. Natali and Jason think this is littering, essentially. I think they gotta go somewhere and the Moon has space. We also talk about the new Asus phone, Flash on Windows mobile, and more.
Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 854

Obama can’t use his BlackBerry
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/us/politics/16blackberry.html

Asus phone
http://gizmodo.com/5090348/asus-announces-800mhz-worlds-fastest-smartphone
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/11/17/asus_p565/

Google speech application supposed to really launch today
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/16/update-on-google-iphone-voice-recognition-app-look-for-it-on-monday/

Flash on Windows Mobile
http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2008/11/16/adobe-to-demo-flash-on-mobile-but-only-windows-still-working-on-the-iphone/

AOL video uploads shutting down
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/15/aol-gets-out-of-user-generated-video-business/

Most users don’t office in the cloud: 1% use Google Docs
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081117-report-users-continue-to-prefer-office-over-google-docs.html

Old people are scared of technology
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/scared_of_technology_youre_old.php
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10097839-1.html

UK couple in real-life divorce over virtual affair
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27718230/?gt1=43001

Order pizza from your TiVo
http://www.gearlog.com/2008/11/ordering_dominos_pizza_from_yo.php
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10098333-93.html

Lost Beatles song may bring Fab Four to Net sales
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10098215-93.html

Quantum cloaking makes molecules invisible
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/16/2137230

US space-funeral company plans lunar cemetery
http://news.sg.msn.com/oddities/article.aspx?cp-documentid=1786876

VOICEMAIL

Jason in Georgia - What happened to exploding batteries

Andy Novosibirsk, Siberia - Netbooks galore here!

CT baggage handler - But how did they get there?

Hey guys, Looks like MS has decided what to do with all the cash they were going to spend on Yahoo.

I work for one of the Microsoft managed partner ISV's. MS was just on our weekly internal sales call and our MS partner manager was on talking about how we can offer up Microsoft financing through the end of the MS fiscal year (June).

This financing is not just for MS products but anything that is involved in the entire enterprise solution including hardware and other software.

The internal MS guys are touting that 2-5 business days turn around and touting that it will be easier and cheaper than going with traditional financing . They are willing to finance anything from small 10k deals and up, and depending on customers credit rating with D&B will determine the % rate. He was saying that it was going to be in the range of 5-8%.

https://www.microsoftfinancing.com/

Rob

**********

$139 blu-ray players on Woot.com today.

Just sayin...

Ryan the Biologist

**********

In trying to catch up with BOL, I was listening to #845 and I want to
pose a question related to the AT&T experiment with bandwidth caps. Has
anyone thought about the licensing contracts that AT&T might be looking
to sign with media companies? Think about it, AT&T or Comcast could sign
usage contracts with sites like Netflix, YouTube or Hulu so that their
site usage does not apply to their customers’ bandwidth caps. This would
allow ISP’s to make more $$$ and control traffic.

Coming soon to a legal agreement near you… AT&T merges with YouTube.

So far I have not heard anyone bring up this point via CNET or that TWiT
guy. If ISP’s can stop Bit Torrent, then they can probably allow
certain, preferred content to flow freely.

No charge for this two cents opinion. LTS.

Thanks,

Rodney

**********

In show 853, you had two stories which prompted me to type in... First, you made a big deal out of Google search on the iPhone supporting speech. Windows Live Search Mobile has had this feature for quite some time - and I find it quite useful. Like the Google offering, you speak to it, it sends the speech to the servers, and the servers do the speech-to-text. The use of the accelerometer in the iPhone is new - and a cool idea - but the speech part is not new. I use Google Search on my Windows Mobile phone if I am in a place where I can type easily, but use Windows Live Search Mobile specifically for the speech-to-text if I am driving or walking.

You also made a big deal out of President-elect Obama making use of technology by planning to put his weekly address on YouTube. President Bush podcasts his weekly address - see http://www.whitehouse.gov/podcasts/, or http://www.whitehouse.gov/rss/radioaddress.xml. Not sure YouTube video is an earth-shattering improvement for a weekly address that most people won't pay any attention to after the first month. I also happened to listen to an NPR Podcast just after BOL, and they made it sound like Obama invented the Internet because he plans on putting government information on the web. While I'm all for using technology, and more is certainly better, can we have a reality check? Some of the advances in technology use are simply because time is elapsing. When the government launched THOMAS back in 1995, that was newsworthy from a tech perspective. Saying you will put more stuff on the web is, well, simply expected.

LTS,

/John in Fairfax

**********

You guys were teasing about using old software on Friday’s show. Well I am
one of those use it till it dies dudes.
I am still using Quicken Version 3, 1993 that dates back to the Windows 95
days. It still works on XP just fine.
There is more than one reason for sticking with it. Don’t have to learn new
version and best of all hackers are not
going to be looking for a realistic user of a 15 year old version of
financial software. Also still use Eudora for email.
Have been using it since 1995 and it also still works fine on XP. I have
years worth of elaborate filters which I have
moved every time I get or build a new machine. I figure all the hackers and
attackers out there are trying to
break into Outlook and MS stuff in general. At work I use Outlook on our
office exchange server just fine but
at home I am still with Eudora V5.1.

Really like BUZZ and all the CNET podcasts. Keep up the funnin’ with us
…. half the time I almost crash on
the way to work or on my way home because I am rollin’ in laughter while
listening to BOL

BYE
Darrell in Virginia
Also got email about Grandpa using Sidekick ‘98 and a user that brings back kids software

**********

Wii Speak
In fact the game does not come with that hardware it just can use it
if you have it. So, the game can travel through the rental and used
markets as normal, just not the hardware. Now whether the hardware
should work the same, that you can debate. Thanks for the great
podcast.
Johnny P

Buzz Out Loud 853: The Netbook and the girl

buzz@cnet.com (CNET.com) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 11:40:00 PST

On today's Buzz Out Loud, sage dating tips from a bunch of old married people. Meanwhile, Microsoft launches an online store where you can go buy things if you like to pay more than you have to; a girl offers to pimp your start-up for a mere $75 a day and we give her about a million dollars worth of grief; and Google loves the iPhone more than Android--at least for now!
Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 853

Microsoft launches online store: Is there deeper meaning here?
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=10849
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10097239-75.html
http://www.pcworld.com/article/153874/microsoft_opens_online_store_im_not_impressed.html

PSP outsells PS3 and Nintendo (Wii and DS) outsell anything you can think of
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081114-october-npd-sales-the-console-market-is-all-about-pricing.html

Nintendo’s Wii Speak a new front in war against used games
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081113-nintendos-wii-speak-a-new-front-in-war-against-used-games.html

Google brings speech recognition to phones
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/technology/internet/14voice.html
http://www.iphoneatlas.com/2008/11/14/google-iphone-app-already-lists-voice-function-but-its-not-there/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10092525-2.html?tag=mncol;title

Universal Music Group: We're still selling tunes, amazingly
http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20081114/universal-music-group-were-still-selling-tunes-amazingly/

Obama to deliver weekly address via YouTube
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10097321-38.html

Lawmaker plans bill on Web neutrality
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE4AC7SU20081114
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081114-is-government-regulation-needed-to-ensure-net-neutrality.html

GirlInYourShirt: $75 buys your start-up marketing for a day
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/13/girlinyourshirt-75-buys-your-startup-marketing-for-a-day/

DNA strands modified into tiny fiber-optic cables
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/14/135213

Purified urine to be astronauts’ drinking water
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE4AD3MB20081114#

Voice mail
Eric from Michigan: Wii Fit!

Chris from Austin: the girl and the netbook

E-mail

This is Kevin Yeaux from openSUSE again. We’re on our way to our first
release candidate for openSUSE 11.1 on November 27th, but there was some
other big news today: Banshee, the open-source music player sponsored by
openSUSE/Novell, just released it’s 1.4 version.

The biggest news in here is for owners of the T-Mobile G1 Android phone:
full support for the phone’s music playing capabilities. Full automatic
or manual synchronization, cover art, and the ability to import music
purchased on the Amazon MP3 store into your computer.

The other major news is that there is a beta release of Banshee 1.4 for
Mac OS X. Also included are many areas of UI polish and bugfixes.

Banshee is a Mono-based open-source media player that supports music,
movies, podcasts, features Last.fm integration, and more. Banshee is the
default music player for openSUSE.

For more info, see http://www.Banshee-Project.org and
http://abock.org/2008/11/13/banshee-14-hits-the-streets-packed-with-awesome/

Thanks, and *love* the show, ya’ll.
–
Kevin

**********

I think I can explain why RIM went with the suretype keyboard on the new BlackBerry Storm. I have the Pearl, which has the same double lettered keyboard.
I can type so much faster on this phone than I can on any other; even my friends with full QWERTY phones can’t nearly keep up with me. And I think I know why: You can just hit the general direction of the key you want, the area you are aiming for is twice the size of a normal key. The phone software does an excellent job of guessing what you mean, and it learns new words as you type. It also has the added bonus of doing punctuation for you! On a touchscreen, that would be even more usefful.

Good job!
Ryan from Fresno

**********

This is in response to the netbook email you guys received in episode 851. Upon hearing the email, I recalled a recent Kotaku.com article (http://kotaku.com/5083584/the-number-one-location-for-portable-gaming-is-home). I wouldn’t be surprised if people bought these netbooks and just used them around the house. I think Kotaku puts it best saying ” ‘portable’ can be defined as ‘will work on the toilet or in bed’ “.

Love the show! Not a long-time listener, but hope to be a… future long-time listener…?

-Alex M.
Berkley, MI

**********

In addition to having a trademark on a word (CBS ) or a logo (think about the CBS Eye) you can also protect what is called Trade Dress . Remember this branch of law is about protecting indicators of source-that is the mark by which consumers know your products from someone else’s. Pretty much anything that can be tied to a specific good or service, or a source of those goods and services, is protectable. That includes how that good or service looks/is packaged. Need easy examples?

Think about how all McDonalds look the same on the inside. Or how, even without the label, you’d know what a Coke bottl e looks like (or a Mrs. Butterworths for that matter.) These aren’t names or logos per se, but you’d know what the goods/services were anyway. This Trade Dress can apply to both the packaging of the goods, or the goods themselves. Usually the Office will not say something is inherently distinctive (and instantly protectable under TM law) but will require a showing of acquired distinctiveness (meaning you have to show that consumers have come to associate the trade dress with your products only).

Now I know what you’re thinking-isn’t it incredibly dangerous to grant Trademark protection to how a good is shaped etc? Isn’t there a possibility that the Office would be granting a Patent in perpetuity for a design or invention that should only be protected by Patent’s limited term? And you’re right-it is tricky business. This is why the good people at the USPTO get paid to do what they do. It is a very tricky job to separate those elements of packaging/the goods that are protectable to those that are functional or patentable etc-but this is what is done. It is incredibly complex at times and would bore the Buzz audience beyond repair to explain it in full detail-so go look it up if you want to know more.

So let’s get back to Lego-Apparently they were granted a EU Trademark for the design of their blocks (which is to say that the EU office originally thought that there was something about the Lego block in its appearance that made it distinct from other building blocks and that consumers would recognize it as a lego block based on its shape alone). Mega Block , which brought the cancellation suit, must have said something like “wait a minute! This a patent/functional thing and the EU should have never granted protection for this design. We should be able to make competing blocks and the protection is baring us from doing so.”

(For a point of reference think about how the coke bottle, while protected, doesn’t prevent Pepsi from putting soda in a bottle the way that the protection here might prevent Mega Block from making toys.)

What has happened is that that court has agreed and cancelled the protection for Lego. This will get appealed, clearly, and we’ll have to see what happens.

Also-this analysis involved a little guesswork because I”m not that familiar with how EU trademark law works-but it works roughly the same.

For the record-I didn’t find any trade-dress protection for the Lego block in the US.

-Anon.

Buzz Out Loud 852: Tempest in a Twitter teapot

buzz@cnet.com (CNET.com) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 11:42:00 PST

Turns out a lot of people are all too happy to hand over their password to some unknown Web site just to find out if they're popular. Oh, people. When will you learn? Also, Microsoft Live gets a purpose, Valleywag loses its teeth, the BlackBerry Storm gets a release date, and we're all going to become (a) elves in the Wrath of the Lich King or (b) total buffsters on the new EA Sports Active Wii game.
Listen now: Download today's podcast

Episode 852

BlackBerry Storm gets release date
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2008/11/13/verizon-announces-blackberry-storm-release-date-november-21st-199/

Microsoft Live becomes social network
http://home.live.com/
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-and-now-windows-live-is-a-social-network/

The flap over Twitterrank and the social echo chamber
http://blogs.zdnet.com/collaboration/?p=164
http://blogs.zdnet.com/collaboration/?p=163

End of a snarky era: Gawker shuts down Valleywag
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10095984-36.html
http://valleywag.com/5085562/valleywag-clusterfuck-faq

Spam sees big nosedive as rogue ISP McColo knocked offline
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081112-spam-sees-big-nosedive-as-rogue-isp-mccolo-knocked-offline.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10095730-83.html

EU court rejects Lego trade-mark
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7726700.stm

Worldwide Wrath of the Lich King launch nerfs credit card systems
http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/207893/worldwide-wrath-of-the-lich-king-launch-nerfs-credit-card-systems/

Move over Wii Fit, EA announces EA Sports Active
http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2008/11/13/move-over-wii-fit-ea-announces-ea-sports-active

Korean geniuses invent lithium batteries with eight times the juice
http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/13/korean-geniuses-invent-lithium-batteries-with-eight-times-the-ju/

Boot Windows Vista In Four Seconds
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/12/2249253

Voice Mail
“Anonymous”: Google terrifies me!

Rafa: On the flu

Dan: Hobobook

E-mail
Hey buzzards!
First off love the show!
This email is in response to the voice mail about online video. I wanted to point out that you shouldn’t be mad at cbs as all the shows they produce are online. If you will notice all the shows that warner brothers produces, ie “the mentalist” “cold case” and “without a trace” are not online anywhere. Same goes for the shows produced by abc studios for cbs- “criminal minds” and “ghost whisperer”. Instead of cbs you should be mad at the company that produces the show .
Just my two cents.
Stephen
Charlotte, nc

**********

Maybe this explains why Apple’s Cinema Displays are so expensive:

http://www.macobserver.com/article/2008/11/13.4.shtml

Steve Jobs was just waiting for the verdict to come in before he
released new models at a lower price.

-Andres (Austin, TX)

**********

Hey JaMoTo

This was regarding what Ken said in 851 I live downtown Chicago and I see net books every day around the Merchandise Mart and I actually saw one when I was Noodle Company this past weekend. So they’re out there I actually don’t have one but my laptop is close VGNS-360 Sony Vaio running Ubuntu 8.10

Thanks I love the show!

Zach in Chicago

**********

Lee from Boston writes:

Regarding Episode 851 and the discussion of the many press releases,
pitches and the like that use the phrase “in these troubled times”.

I’ve decided to put together a new economic metric, the Buzz Phrase
Index (BPI) — I’ll be tracking the number of hits that a Google
search for the phrase “in these troubled times” yields. We’ll see how
this curve compares to the national and international economic
situation over the next year or so.

Details will be on my blog at http://www.tlex.com/wordpress

A search on November 13, 2008 yielded 334,000 hits.

**********

I’ve come across a few Netbooks (Asus EeePC’s) out here in the wilds of
Dublin…

The GameSoc lads here in DIT have all got laptops, at the moment four of
them are equipped with XP-running EeePC’s. But that is tech-savvy crowd.
However my uncle who is not at all tech-savvy bought an EeePC for my
cousins. They’re running the EeePC linux operating system and really
loving it.
So there you have it, wild.

-ANkh, the Computer Engineering Student, Dublin, Ireland.

**********

Hurricane Electric:
Hey! People have heard of us! You have execs from the company in the
buzz army! Since I am a director for the company, I feel obligated to
point out we are the 8th largest ISP in the world for IPv4 and the
largest ISP for IPv6 in the world. Anyhow, just thought I would touch
base again as an offer of assistance if you need anyone from the IP
backbone industry…
–Reid
Director, East Coast Operations
he.net