Show #127

News

• Military Issuing ITouch
• $230 - vs. MUCH MORE for ruggedized specialized hardware
• Sheathed in a rugged case for Military purposes
  
• Soldiers = Swiss Army Knife
  
• Translation software - word translator and gesture translation (VCommunicator)
  
• Annotate Maps - In Dev - Take pictures of streetsigns and the Iphone will give intelligence about the location
  
• BulletFlight (Ballistics Calculator)
  
• Video Player
• Camera
• IPhone still a little too expensive for general deployment
  
• Oracle Buys Sun
• Oracle is the largest DB Vendor in the world
• Sun owns MySql, OpenOffice, Java, Large portion of Unix world
• Will Oracle still offer DB on Windows platform
• Will OpenOffice and Java still be free?
• Flash on TV's
  
• Software already written
• Announcement at the annual National Association of Broadcasters convention
• Set-top boxes by end of year, embedded into TV later
  
• TW admits defeat on Tiered Bandwidth
  
• Retracting Pilots for tiered bandwidth that were to start in fall
• Grass Roots, and Senators all went after Time Warner
• Claims of "Stifling Creativity" and Monopolistic practices (inability to stream video without exhorbitant pricing) were cited
• Last straw could have been when U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y got on board and threatened legislation
• Competitor Frontier communications was already in the process of retiring a tiered plan
• Will still provide tools so ppl can educate themselves on bandwidth
• No promise that program won't go into place in future
  
• Google 3D Plugin
• How many failures before they get hint that the Internet is a commodity?
• They are still in WAAAAAY exploratory phase
• Mozilla and Google presented different applications, not compatible
• What level will it take before 3D will be acceptable on Internet?
  

Gamer's Corner (Conferences, New Developments, Game Reviews)

• New Fallout IP game, New Vegas

Intarweb Goldmine

• 217k Texts, 27k bill
• Insurgent Truck Bomb

Reference

New Adult Swim GI JOE!!!

Show #126

News

• Twitter Slammed by Phishing Malware
• Usually manifest by a tweet: Visit DailyStalk, better than twitter, with pictures
• If you visited the profile of that person, you were infected too
• You began to send the same messages
• Different variations, happened twice
• Twitter "claims" to have fixed the problem
• shortened urls are just ripe for taking you to sites you don't want to go to.
• TinyUrl has a feature called "Preview" that will ask you if you want to visit that site
• Only go to links from twitterers that you trust and fit what they usually tweet (limits mass blast take-overs, can't target individuals and their prefs)
  
• Broadband Cap from Time Warner Draws Lawmaker's Ire
• U.S. Rep. Eric Massa of New York
  
• Lawmakers looking to legislate out the ability to cap in monopoly markets
• TW's response: $150 unlimited fee? (ridiculous)
• "Time Warner's decision has the potential to more than triple customers' current rates, and I think most families will find this to be too taxing to afford,"
• South Korean Blogger Arrested for Blogging about Failing Economy
• 18 Month jail sentence
• falsely reporting that South Korea had barred banks from purchasing U.S. currency.
  
• Google Losing 1.65 million a day on YouTube
• Bandwidth, Servers, Support, Bandwidth
• $1-2 per visit per user
• Loss Leader for keeping Google on the tongue?
• Investment for future. getting in early and being #1,
  
• Cost will go down, Bandwidth only becomes cheaper
• Facing more competition with places like DailyMotion, blip.tv, Hulu (diff. model but still online video entertainment), etc
  
• DiggBar Stirs Controversy, Unveils Compromise
  
• Diggbar acts as a URL shortener and disguises the site url in a frame
• Your URL is your identity on the Internet
• Companies have been writing programs for years that "break frames"
• A LOT of ppl have complained so Diggbar came halfway, they made it an "opt-out" service
  

Talk Points

• 20 Twitter Apps
• People are organizing politically on Twitter: #teaparty and #teabag
• http://michellemalkin.com/2009/04/15/live-tea-party-twitter-feedsopen-thread/
• #teaparty: Used to protest government's intervention into businesses / combat socialism
• #teaparty used the hashtag to organize demonstrations across the US and even has signage
  
• #teabag: organized in opposition to #teaparty / Basic tenet of group is that #teaparty is organized by a bunch of Obama haters and are currently happy with the changes in gov't
  
• Freedom of speech is a good thing right?
  

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Gamer's Corner (Conferences, New Developments, Game Reviews)

• WoW: 3.1 hit with a thud on day 1, downloads were slow, finding the MAC patch was even harder. I personally chose to stay away for a couple days away
• Just goes to show that no matter how good your infrastructure is, its really hard to get out large content pushes to 10 million ppl all at once on the Internet.
  
• "Braid" comes to PC, Level Editor Included
• Very popular puzzle game that works on a time mechanic
• Unique Look-n-feel
• Was on consoles, now on PC (steam, etc)
• Hidden Level Editor included for PC version only
• Later support for imports from Photoshop
• Burnout Paradise reveals Cops and Robbers Mode
• Not much is known but it but introduces a chase mechanism
• There's a trailer out there, just follow the link in our shownotes
  
• Criterion is looking to continually change the way ppl play their popular racer by download packs, instead of releasing whole new games.
• I WANT A CRASH MODE (as seen in previous versions of Burnout)
  

Intarweb Goldmine

• Woman Rubs Chili Pepper in her Eyes After Setting New World Record
• Man Bites Snake to Save his Life
  

Show #125

News

• The Conficker Worm
• Removal Tool
  
• New Twitter Client for the Mac Desktop: Nambu
  
• 1 for full featured but unresponsive
• Time Warner set to introduce tiered pricing for bandwidth
• 5GB: $29.99/month
  
• 10GB: $39.99/month
• 20GB: $49.99/month
• 40GB: $54.90/month
• 100GB: No information yet
• Biggest argument by Cable companies: small percentage of users forcing caps
• (my argument: If such a small percentage, target those users because the 98% doesn't need a cap)
• Test-beds for this cap structure going into markets where no competition is available
• Homework assignment for users: Find out how much you use per month and then compare it to the pricing structures
• T-Mobile / HP to use Android OS for netbooks
• Microsoft claims they have 98% of netbook market despite no rise in sales
• Netbooks are about cost saving, why pay premium for a low feature item
• Microsoft should be giving this OS away (like they did with Win95) in order to corner market
• .69 songs a missing commodity on ITunes now that new Price Structure implemented
• Promoters decide pricing structure, which give no incentive to lower prices
• most older songs stayed put at .99 with some raising price to $1.29
• (derek open up itunes and get me some supporting numbers)
• MLB dumps Silverlight
• War inside browser being waged, who controls the media delivery mechanism
• Microsoft = Silverlight, Adobe = Flash, RealMedia = dead
• Olympics dumped Silverlight, now the MLB?
• last year plagued by glitches, admin needed to install, etc.
• Big hit because MLBAM also streams NCAA tourney and 2009 Masters

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Blizzard Game Designer User Experience

Gamer's Corner (Conferences, New Developments, Game Reviews)

• Beatles: Rockband and Canon CD simultaneous release Sept. 9
• Internal link to Games Press
• Soldiers Choose Game, instead of film, to recount Fallujah
• Notable because the younger generation of soldiers is choosing a medium that they are comfortable with to tell their story (not movies)
• Will feature all sides of the conflict: Soldier, Villager, Insurgent
• Konami promises that this will be realistic
• Free Game: The Power of Paint
• WoW note: 3.1 forthcoming
• End-Game furthered - Ulduar: Dwarves gone wild (NE Stormpeaks)
• DUAL SPEC - BIIIIIG game changer, only ooc and cast time to change your whole build
• No equipment manager - got pushed
• New holiday "Noble Garden" was pushed also
• Jack Thompson's unconstitutional bill gets vetoed in Utah, takes fight to airwaves
• Disbarred Florida Nut that really is just into grand standing and has chosen his target as gaming
• Wanted law in place that forced M games to be put under lock and key and was giving stiff penalties if this didn't happen.
• Stupid because rating system is voluntary and would force ppl away from rating their game
• Claims on radio that Doom was a trainer for Columbine, Germany shooting was CS and Far Cry 2's fault

Intarweb Goldmine

• Wii Dumbells

Show #124

News

• Google April Fools
• GMail This Day in Tech History
• Windows 7 RC Available in May 2009
• Steady iterations of Beta. Now at 7068
• Will Windows 7 help re-establish stranglehold on consumer market and buzz gallery?
• Mobile Media (i.e. cell phone) Internet Usage on rise
• 50% of Mobile phone internet usage happens from IPhones
• Touchscreens: The top handset on each carrier is a touchscreen. T-Mobile has the Android device, the T-Mobile G1, Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) has the BlackBerry Storm; AT&T (NYSE: T) has the iPhone and Sprint (NYSE: S) has the Samsung Instinct.
• Top five smartphones: Globally they are: iPhone (above, top), Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N70 (above, left), BlackBerry 8300 (above, right), Nokia N80, and Nokia N73. In the U.S.: iPhone, BlackBerry Curve, BlackBerry Pearl, Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Centro, and HTC Dream (G1).
• OS Breakdown: Symbian lost market share in February, but is still number one worldwide with 43 percent of requests; the top Windows Mobile device is the Samsung BlackJack II, but six of the top 10 Windows Mobile devices are from HTC; Android accounts for 5 percent of the US smartphone market; iPhone generated 33 percent of worldwide traffic and 50 percent of US traffic.
• Recharge your electronics via movement
• Scientists working on nanogenerator
• Uses tiny nano wires that react to vibrations to generate electricity
• Electricity can then be used to fuel electronics
• Being studied and prepared for military applications but personal devices also targeted
• Kitchen PCs - The wave of the future?
• At about $600 to $800, kitchen PCs could be to desktops what netbooks have become to notebooks today: cheap, cheerful alternatives to overpriced, overpowered machines.
• Kitchen PCs offer a stylish form factor, a touchscreen interface to get to e-mail, weather forecasts, calendars, news or recipes — all wrapped up with an attractive price tag.
• The Computer Work That Played an April Fools Joke on the World
• Like Y2K the Conficker virus was set to "wake up" this past Wednesday on April fools
• And it did, but no commands came down -- it was a dud.
  
• Google Ventures
• Google ammasses a $100MM venture fund (news story)
  
• Blu-hoo-hoo: Blu-ray No More: Netflix Increases Blu-ray Cost by 500% and I quit!
  
• First Bluray and HD DVD was a free add-on to your existing Netflix service, I was in love with Netflix and was enjoying the spoils of Hi-Def -- but I knew it couldn't last forever.
• Then Netflix moved with the industry and removed HD DVD and stuck only with Bluray, they even vowed to get all of the latest releases, and that they have. As far as customer service I have no complaint!
  
• Then the first e-mail came, they were adding $1 to my subscription, a sigh of relif, no biggie, that made sense, the discs were a little more expensive than DVDs, the demand was not super high at the time, but as demand increased the $1 would make a big difference for Netflix, or at least I thought
• This past week I received the e-mail that made me change my mind, Netflix (NFLX) decided to raise the Bluray cost from $1 to $5 for me added on to my already $20ish/month subscription, that's 5X the previous cost!
• Now I can say that on more than one occasion my wife and I have experienced a Bluray come in with a crack in the actual disc, Netflix I assume pays to replace these -- one would assume not at full cost, but still if this occurs a lot (and I have to assume it does, because as I said, its been more than a few times) this could be part of the price increase, or it could just be inflation.
• The price increase is also not the same across the board, the more expensive (or more discs you have out at a time) the higher the increase. It's $1 more than the number of DVDs out at a time, so if you have a 4-DVD plan like me, its $5 extra dollars ($28.99 instead of $23.99), if you have a 8-DVD out plan, it's $9 extra dollars ($56.99 instead of $47.99)
• If you have Netflix and you have Bluray enabled and this sounds too pricey for you all you have to do is click 'Your Account' at the top right, and click 'Change Bluray Access'
• About 10% of Netflix's subscriber base has Blu-ray enabled, and on average Blu-ray costs as much as 30% more in stores, but this demand for Blu-ray is new on Netflix and has risen to this level through a 60% increase over the last six months, I am curious how many people are going to jump ship.
  
• Skype now LIVE on the IPhone App Store for Free
• Sound quality reportedly pretty good
• News of this going Live hit Twitter first
• Will this change the face of cell phone usage? (probly not since your paying premium price for at&t service)

Talk Points

• Dilbert Moment:
  My boss walks in, says his boss can't use my report due to crappy pc. Not my report I say, fix his pc. "No, i can't tell him that. U need to fix report". So I'm "fixing" a non-broken report.
  
• Will spam be the death of Email?
• Easy to codify
• No cost whatsoever to send en-masse(except marginal programming costs)
• According to Google, 94% of all email is spam
• Possible solutions:
• Paid
• Black Lists
• Opt-In feature (i.e. Facebook and myspace)

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Gamer's Corner (Conferences, New Developments, Game Reviews)

• PS2 Price Drop
• Now $99, going on 9th year
• 2500 titles out for this console
• Looking to compete with Wii, but not sexy or casual friendly enough
• Where is our PS3 price drop?

Intarweb Goldmine

• NASA contemplating naming toilet on Space Station after Stephen Colbert.
  
• Stephen Colbert won Internet Voting for Rights to name latest module of space station
• NASA threatens to name toilet after him, Colbert threatens succession if the whole module doesn't carry his name
• Funniness abounds

The Ultimate Button Masher

Show #123

News

• OnLive Cloud Gaming Console
• Video Demo from GDC
• 1 milisecond lag
• VOD for gaming
• Future gaming
• Crysis Wars
• GRID
• Mirror's Edge
• Burnout Paradise
• Dell Having Troubles entering Phone Market
• Lackluster PC sales eating into its profit
• Phone OS really is the next-gen profit cow (see IPhone)
• It's more likely the hardware that is the profit cow
• Even Apple gives away the latest version of their OS to their users
• Right now it is because it lacks features other phones take for granted
• But they are setting the precident, and Android has promised even before iPhone to be the OS that is upgradable for free
• So getting the hardware that works, and maintains the functions and battery life you want will be the future of phones.
  
• Its really the hardwareOr has the boat been missed because
  
• PocketPC not glitzy enough, despite its utilitarian roots
• Will they buy Palm to get PRE?
• Twitter announces Pro account
  
• Facebook, Yahoo, Aim all jumping on Twitter craze
• Facebook was one of the first there
  
• Yahoo Updates is coming soon and will likely be integrated into Y!'s very popular e-mail service
  
• AOL Site Social
  
• Skype now #1 International Phone Provider
• International calls via Skype grew 41% in 2008
• That made Skype 8% of all of the International traffic combined last year
• IPhone Hits 17 million sales Landmark
  
• Sucker born each day
• Great device but it feeds the monopoly
• The devices do come locked to specific networks
• That is the work of the networks, not of Apple
• And lots of people have successfully unlocked their phones to use with other providers
• Article on why Carriers rule the market

Talk Points

• Alternatives to the Universal Remote
• The New Canon Digital Rebel 500D T1i
• 15.1MP up from 12 in XSi
• HD Video (no autofocus)
• 1080p @ 20fps (unusable)
• 720p @ 30fps
  
• 3.4fps burst shooting (170 JPEG buffer)
• Thanks to Canon for letting me play with it ($899 kit/$799 body)
  
• What would make the IPhone a perfect device? (This discussion at the top of the show during the iPhone segment)
  
• Slideout Qwerty keyboard
• Non-locked device
• No Data plan option

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Gamer's Corner (Conferences, New Developments, Game Reviews)

• Sony Charges Publishers for DLC Bandwidth
• Max Payne 3 in Winter 2009
• DRM Re-branded by Microsoft
  
• Steam counters with "Steamworks"

Intarweb Goldmine

• How many Hard Drives does it take to stop a .50 caliber round?

Show #122

News

• Apple Catches up to Industry with IPhone 3.0
• Cut and Paste
• Spotlight (Search)
• Support for MMS
• A2DP Stereo Bluetooth
• 1000+ new APIs (Turn-by-turn directions... etc)
• iPod Touch = $9.95 upgrade fee (bluetooth now available on the touch)
  
• Google Voice
• SMS Forwarding
• Google Contact Integration
• Unlimited Groups
• Still Free
• Integrated Calling Out
  
• Dell Unleashes Adamo
• MacBook Air Equiv
  
• IE8 the last IE version from Microsoft?
• WebKit instead?
• What is WebKit?
  
• Amazon doesn't want your Kindle to be more useful
• threatened the smackdown on a site offering instructions on how to trick the Kindle into reading other types of files.
  
• Russian guy figured it out, Amazon threatened DMCA, said he was circumventing processes
• kindlepid.py, allows e-books purchased legally from other stores to play nice with the Kindle
  
• Star Wars Live Action TV Series
• casting is already in motion
• Set between Revenge of the Sigh and A new Hope
• Focus on minor characters and help fill in the storyline
  
• Hopefully this is better than the cartoon movie that was released

Talk Points

• Try Before you Buy is here to stay, bittorrent could boost your sales
• Chris Zabriskie leaks all his albums to bittorrent before they get released
  
• Don't let the labels tell you otherwise
• Already in effect with different media
• Free CD's with full ebooks leads to Webscriptions.net

• Driving Tips with and without technology

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Gamer's Corner (Conferences, New Developments, Game Reviews)

• Pro WoW Player set to make half a million dollars
• $486,500
• $521,000+ is highest paid Starcraft player
  

Intarweb Goldmine

• $1500 Dollar Headphones, the opulence of audiophilia
• $11 Million Stimulus Funds Slated for Bridge on Microsoft Campus
• 36.5 Million dollar project
  
• Steve Wozniak doing the Cha-Cha (MY EYES!!!)

Show #121

News

• Tech Boom in Afghanistan
• Windows 7 IE Kill Switch
• MacBook Air Hinge Defect Not Covered By Warranty
  
• Control your IPod with Facial Expressions
• Twitter IPhone app Rejected because Twitter might have Naughty Words
• 10 Inch Touchscreens Order by Apple
• MetroPCS is offering $50 unlimited Blackberry plans
• Similar to services like

Steven's Twitter Feed

• The tiny new iPod Shuffle: It Now Talks
• Cool Things People Have Made with Twitter
• Using the cool Kill-A-Watt (of which we have one in the studio) Tweet-A-Watt
• Botanicalls $99 has a device that tells you when your plants need water
• Pay Washing Machines that Tell You Which Are Free
• Popcorn Robot That Takes Orders Via Twitter
  

Talk Points

• 20 Unforgettable Case Mods
  
• Is Twitter a "Poor Man's Email"

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Gamer's Corner (Conferences, New Developments, Game Reviews)

• Guitar Hero with a Real Guitar
• Yellow Dog Linux Distro, PS3, and Emulators

Intarweb Goldmine

• Chinese Establishing Military Space Station
• Don't tell the chinese that it's fatal to shoot a gun in space...
• US MOL project, 1967, surveillance purposes
• Chinese guy sitting at the porthole with a pair of bino's....

No Alchohol, just plenty of beef....