Episode 733

That is, sadly, the new name for the International Space Station, where astronauts have a real problem to contend with, unlike the New Mexico folks trying to ban public Wi-Fi. In other news, Warner Music is backing a hilariously insane plan to get you to rent a song, one time, for 10 cents a pop, and it turns out that all those furious, ranty e-mails about Dell's terrible tech support were true!
==Stories Covered==
$20 Million Dollar Experiment to See if You’ll Rent a Song for 10 Cents
http://michaelrobertson.com/archive.php?minute_id=265
Microsoft unveils multitouch technology for Windows 7
http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/ operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208400573
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9953361-7.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13953_3-9953055-80.html
Fraud ruling against Dell validates years of gripes
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13554_3-9953318-33.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/146371
Sony to build ‘Tru2way’ Interactive TVs
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2309865,00.asp
http://newteevee.com/2008/05/27/sony-tru2way- no-more-set-top-boxes/
Viacom ups ante in YouTube copyright spat: Google more than a mere enabler
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/ 2008/05/27/AR2008052702870.html
Google fights for the right to hide its privacy policy (Thanks, royterp!)
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/27/google-fights- for-the-right-to-hide-its-privacy-policy/
256GB Samsung SSD heading for MacBook Air?
http://www.tuaw.com/2008/05/27/256gb-samsung-ssd- heading-for-macbook-air/
New Mexico group tries to ban Wi-Fi
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2217507/ mexico-group-tries-ban-wi
Toilet aboard International Space Station is broken
http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/05/28/ toilet-aboard-international-space-station-is-broken/
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/28/1213259
==Voicemail==
Richard
Top Gear news for Molly'''
==Emails==
Netflix box
It seems like Netflix should issue a disc for the PS3 and Xbox 360 to allow those to stream. They could sell the disc for 5 bucks and then market the service. The consoles are already in place in a lot of homes and have more capability than a TV box would have.
Mark P. Snyder, PE
----
Scientific imagers
Why are scientific images not color? It has nothing to do with bandwidth. Think about images from earthbound telescopes. They are also often black and white. The reason is that the imager is designed to provide informative images, not purdy pictures. For standard imaging, we sample red, green, and blue, but a scientist might not be interested in those specific colors. So a scientific imager is often a very high-quality black-and-white CCD in front of which a variety of filters can be placed, allowing for an image to be taken in a number of useful colors that might, for instance, sample emission-lines for a specific element. These images are much more informative than sampling just red, green, and blue. Plus, all of that weird pixel shifting and interpolation is avoided quite nicely. For a really good description, I recommend you check out episode 85 of Astronomycast about detectors (www.astronomycast.com). On that note, I should point out that I am not an imaging specialist, but that’s my understanding of the problem, so enjoy!
-Colin
----
ChaCha hourly rate
You were trying to figure out how long it takes to answer a question and how much a guide would make an hour. My average time to answer a question is about 3 minutes. So I make about 4 dollars an hour. And most of the time I get another question as soon as I finish my last one. So I don’t plan on getting rich.
just fyi.
Thurman
----
A great microbanking caper
I don’t know if you saw this, but it’s fantastic. This guy made over $50,000 by writing a script that opened tons and tons of brokerage accounts, then taking the tiny deposits they make into your bank account for verification. I love this; it’s even better than Superman III.
enjoy!
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/05/man-allegedly-b.html
casey
----
The Kindle update
Hello BOL.
My calendar just alerted me that today is “How good is the Kindle” and that I need to e-mail you guys about it… I guess it was some bet a few months ago … “how good is the kindle after x months” or something.
So, how good is the Kindle now? And how will they implement it in the rest of the world (the world that does not use EVDO).
Best regards…
Khaled A.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/28/bezos-second-kindle-is-not- that-near-amazon-to-launch-paid-v/
==After The Credits==