| DESC
| - We're so glad to be back! There's a lot of news that we need to go over today, but more importantly we want you to know that aliens may be among us. Not in that creepy invasion way yet, but we'll let you know if the situation escalates. Happy new year!
- It's day one of Buzz Out Loud at CES! Not only that, but you get a very special Sunday edition. There's a lot of cool stuff coming out this week, but there's also a lot of nongadget news that we'll have to share! For example, will the Brazilians revolt without their YouTube?
- We were expecting to hear about cool new things next week for sure, but Samsung got the jump on us by developing a new chipset that allows phones and other gadgets to receive over-the-air digital TV! Now you can be a couch potato wherever you are.
- Without Veronica to rein us in, we rambled on and on today, especially about Windows Vista. The new operating system doesn't come out until Tuesday for home users, but I've been playing with it, and it has some drawbacks. We discuss those as well as diving into the moral and ethical debate about Bittorrent again. Best of all, there's a new t- shirt that will absolve you from all EULAs.
- Apparently, everything we knew about snowflakes is wrong. And if that weren't big enough news, it seems there's a shift happening in the music industry toward DRM-free music! We can take the good with the bad, I suppose.
- His Gatesness announced yesterday that the Xbox 360 will be able to play IPTV in the future. Of course, you'll need to subscribe to an IPTV provider, but it's still a cool new feature. In other news, apparently we found some Martians, but then killed them. Didn't we learn not to violate the Prime Directive from Star Trek?
- Norway has an ombudsman who seems to understand the Internet and how digital society differs from real society. That's bad news for Apple, but don't weep too soon. Apple is fairly confident it can keep the ombudsman from forcing it to make its FairPlay DRM open. Where's Veronica? Somewhere deep in the bowels of Industrial Light and Magic...we hope. If the force is with her, she'll be back tomorrow.
- Amazon is going after Yahoo with its new answer page, called Askville. The citizens of BuzzTown wonder why people couldn't just google most of the questions we found there; after all, they're pretty basic. Maybe we just should ask the askers.
- A generic BOL podcast
- We're having our second Photoshop contest, so stay tuned until the end of the podcast for all the details! In other Photoshop news, we're not sure what we think of the images we've seen of the Google Switch: is it clever digital art or an iPhone killer?
- The Pirate Bay, a Swedish file-sharing Web site, is considering the purchase of their very own island to call home: Sealand, an itsy-bitsy plot of space in the middle of the ocean. We may not agree with everything they do, but I have to say that I back this plan completely. Who wouldn't want an island?
- We know the iPhone is going to be pretty expensive, but now Apple wants us to pay two whole dollars to upgrade wireless to 802.11n! Couldn't we just get that as a free firmware upgrade? Please?
- YouTube is not only adding commercials, but they're going to start a revenue-sharing program for creators of original content. That's great, but the program also takes into account how creative the video is! For my sake, I hope they think videos of cats are super-interesting.
- We're feeling a little more secure today for a couple of reasons: Bill Gates is letting everyone know that Microsoft Vista is going to be much more secure, and that's always good news! And another company is making new lithium-ion batteries that are less likely to, uh, explode. Yay?
- It's not too often that all three of us become embroiled in an argument, but if you're into that kind of thing, today is your day. Who is a patent squatter, and who is just protecting their innovations? You decide!
- Even though Moore himself said that his law isn't accurate anymore, HP is still determined to beat it. That means chips will have faster or, uh, more transistors? I don't know, something like that. It's too confusing.
- Just kidding! But it is Opposite Day, so be prepared for some wackiness. The big news is that researchers are predicting that universal disc players, like the LG BH100, will be the solution to the HD DVD vs. Blu-ray problem. Sounds like a good solution, if they knock down the price a bit!
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