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

Sponsor
Doghouse Systems

Here is the code: POI

This will give the customer free ground shipping in the continental U.S.

Don't just take our word for it...

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)

Sponsor
Doghouse Systems

Promo Code: POI

This will give the customer free ground shipping in the continental U.S.

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