Episode 1414

Donald Bell joins us today to show off the Xoom in the flesh ... and yes, it's gorgeous, but is Verizon going to ruin it with high carrier prices and contracts? Molly lays down some shocking advice. Also, the new MacBook Pros have Light Peak, called Thunderbolt, Breakup Notifier gets the cold shoulder from Facebook, and the loosest adaptation of a true story we've ever heard. Good try, Battle L.A.
==Stories Covered==
Happy Birthday Steve Jobs 56th B-day
Motorola Xoom lands: tablet wars: ON!
Official details of the 4G LTE upgrade process for the Motorola Xoom
Getting Ready for your Motorola Xoom 4G LTE Upgrade
Apple Release new MacBook Pro line
Mac OS X Lion developer Preview is released
Apple Launches $0.99 Mac FaceTime App on Mac App Store
iOS 4.3 Hitting Golden Master, Public Debut at Next Week’s Media Event?
Crush-Stalking App Breakup Notifier Amasses Over 3.6M Users, Is Shut Down By Facebook
More answers about our first software update
Apple can keep mum about succession plan
Michael Robertson bucks the music industry again
DAR.fm is TiVo for radio. That's not necessarily good
Disney Acquires Social Network For Kids Togetherville
==Quick Hits==
Wikileaks Opens Online Store, Looks For Revenue Stream
Foursquare gears up for SXSW with all-caps, all the time
==Gadgets==
Researcher Create Computer That Fits On a Pen Tip
==Science News==
Dinosaur named ‘thunder-thighs’
==Happy Ending==
American Idol to allow online voting for the first time
The Battle of Los Angeles: 69 Years Later, Still No Explanation
==Feedback Loop==
===Voicemail===
J-Rock: Amazon rocks, too! Does iPad 2?
DonCornelius feels the love
Mike the Diplomat: kill switch … not so bad?
===Emails===
Hey buzz crew I was just listening to episode 1413 when I heard your winner for the breakup mixtape contest! I didn’t submit any of mine because they’ve all been a little absurd, but I was shocked when I heard your winner, as the SAME thing happened to me. I went on vacation with my family to Disney World, and forced them to change our vacation plans cutting it short by five days to surprise my lady friend for her birthday. I had bought a diamond bracelet from Kay which required using ALL of my Christmas money, oh yeah, I was 16 at the time. The first morning I was there I got a call on my cell phone while in the middle of French Toast announcing it was over. I had to spend the rest of the vacation knowing I’d cost myself and my family tons of money, and vacation time. The fact that something similar happened is quite possibly the greatest addendum to the story I could have ever had, somewhere, someone else can also say they were dumped at the happiest place on earth. Keep up the good work, love the show.
College Sophomore – Journalism major.
Peace & Love
~ Brandt Ranj
—–
Hey Molly, Benito, BT
I loved your heartbreak stories contest but You wont imagine the bad stories that I hold that I have seen at the Happiest Place on Earth. As the frequent Disneyland visitor here (I sent you the pic of Disneyland crowds and gwolla receptions issues some episodes ago) I have seen all kinds of peoples have their heart broken. The worst things I have seen marriage proposals gone Wrong, and the break ups. One time I saw girl break up with a guy inside Small World. Just saying it happens alot.
Luis From Murrieta, CA
—–
Hey Buzz Crew,
Just picked up my Xoom, along with the massive crowd of four(4) other
people who pre-ordered it at my local Best Buy.
The gal that helped me said that I had to activate it on Verizon. I
told her that I would like to do it at home, which she said would be fine.
Once I got home, I turned the Xoom on, and low and behold, wifi worked
right out of the box. No need to activate with verizon!!
No special tricks or easter eggs. Just turned it on, and wifi worked.
So glad I didn’t have her activate it at the store.
Hiram
Salt Lake City
—–
“Hello MoTongBen!
I literally winced in agony from your evisceration of Windows Phone 7 and Samsung today. If you only knew how hard it is to pull off a successful remote update, you would be a little more generous to those guys who failed so badly.
Without going into boring details, this failure by Microsoft and Samsung illustrates why Google will never force cellphone manufacturers or carriers to do mandatory updates to the “”latest and greatest”" version of Android.
Wincing aside, I really do love the show!
Richie, “”The Programmer”"
P.S. I know my sh*t when it comes to mobile updates… if you paid for *anything* with a credit card on an aircraft in the past five years it passed through software that I wrote… the hundreds of software updates produced by my team were done in the same manner that Windows Phone 7 uses. Hope that doesn’t sound douchey, but it’s the truth.
P.P.S. Seriously, love the show. More “”Computer Love”" please!
==After The Credits==