Episode 857

==Dumber than a robot donkey==
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.
==Stories==
RIM BlackBerry Storm arrives
*RIM BlackBerry Storm (Verizon Wireless)
Meet the first multitouch consumer laptop: HP’s TouchSmart tx2
*Meet the first multitouch consumer laptop: HP’s TouchSmart tx2
Mozilla revenue $75 million in 2007, up 12 percent
*Mozilla revenue $75 million in 2007, up 12 percent
*Mozilla chairman unfazed by Google Chrome
Microsoft, labels try to revive subscriptions
*Microsoft, labels try to revive subscriptions
*Going hybrid: New Zune Pass pressures Rhapsody, Napster, eMusic
Sources: Apple, music labels talk DRM-free songs
*Sources: Apple, music labels talk DRM-free songs
Web debut for Guns N' Roses album
*Web debut for Guns N' Roses album
Yahoo brings its Glue to the U.S.
*Yahoo brings its Glue to the U.S.
Hey, remember Lively, Google’s Second Life, yeah, me neither. It’s gone.
*Lively no more
Samsung launches 256GB solid-state drive
*Samsung launches 256GB solid-state drive
IBM gets DARPA cognitive computing contract
*IBM gets DARPA cognitive computing contract
==Voice Mail==
Lee the exhaust guy:swarming with e-books 
Daniel:MMS on the iPhone
*Mobispine's iPhone MMS application... for the entire universe?
*Mobispine press release
==Email==
Can you imagine Pizza AND Netflix in one UI?
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. 
First the trial of the internet filter, now this from the entertainment industry
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
a famous example
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 
The difference between Hobos and Tramps
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 
Thanks to the chat mods
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