POI: Show #83

[Download Show #83 as MP3]

Tech Headlines [Koby] (Computers, Cameras, Cell Phones, Big News)

Record Gas Prices 20 Straight Days
How Many have to Die for iPhone's 3G <-- this is a story full of exaggerated conjecture, and no real facts (Steven Responding :Exxagerated conjecture can be fun as long as we treat it like a gag)
Google I/O<-- How techie do you want to go, because most people listening to talk radio aren't going to care about this.

Some researchers at MIT have found a way to easily identify the subject of an image with only a small number of pixels
If the concept can be honed, it could lead towards being able to index images across the internet with ease
What's the minimum a human needs to see in order to recognize the subject of an image? The researchers say only 32x32 pixels (about the size of a Windows desktop icon)

Tivo has had a VOD service for a while now. They use Amazon's UnBox service for this.
Now they have announced a deal with CinemaNow to (at the very least) get Disney content.
This shows that Tivo is willing to partner with more than one VOD service (any takers on Netflix coming to Tivo within the year?)
This is also good for Tivo because there was a lack of VOD on their end before the Unbox deal and the more they add to their boxes, the more value they add to that 19.95/month subscription fee you'll pay for their box.

Tech Picks [Derek] (Software, Hardware, Websites, Reviews)

If you have a webcam and you like the idea behind Twitter, you might want to take a look at Seesmic.
Currently Alpha (pre-beta) & invite only, this service allows you to create short little videos that can then be uploaded. You can also record directly from the webpage, so no uploading necessary.
The interface is slick and the concept might be overkill but they are working with various blogs to allow the ability to do video comments (see TechCrunch or Disqus).
After using this a few times, I have to say the concept is extremely interesting. You are left with videos between 15 seconds and 1:30 long. People hold entire conversations this way. You can follow people like on Twitter or you can just select a specific conversation (it keeps a running tab on the more recent/popular ones).

We talked about this two-three weeks ago
As I recall I was told that "Google Sky is better because you don't have to download anything"

Thanks to Steven's kid, I have been recently shoehorned into subscribing to Wired again and somehow square foot gardening caught my attention?!?
When you think of growing your own food, you probably think of endless rows of corn, the middle of nowhere, people in overalls and dial-up internet.
With high-speed internet and no room to drive a tractor (well at least most of us)
Based on a method of farming call biointensive which you can read lots about on Wikipedia, this cool little way to plant stuff that uses very little "land" and yields a fair amount of edible produce.
There's even a guy that's written a book about it.

Enables you to store the VIDEO_TS folders and access them from the nice Front Row interface.
It uses some Applescript to do some fancy footwork in the background, it actually uses the Apple DVD player software and closes Front Row when you select a specific hard-drive based DVD.

MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, DivX, 3ivX, H.264, FLV1, FSV1, VP6, H263I, VP3, HuffYUV, FFVHuff, MPEG1 & MPEG2 Video, Fraps, Windows Media Audio v1 & v2, Flash ADPCM, Xiph Vorbis (in Matroska), MPEG Layer II Audio

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

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