Buzz Out Loud 1390: Pentabular screws and the bourbon fairy (podcast)

On today's show, Brian Cooley kindly drops in to keep the streak alive -- with bourbon! Also, to discuss one analyst's counter-intuitive assessment that the Nintendo 3DS is priced too low. Well, I suppose it is, if you're a shareholder. But we're happy. In other news today, the iPad 2 will have a camera (duh), Google Voice might let you port your number for $20, and Angry Birds is probably coming to TV. Why didn't we think of Angry Birds, is what I want to know? --Molly

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EPISODE 1390

NEWS

Facetime, Camera, and Photobooth icons confirm camera in iPad 2

http://www.macrumors.com/2011/01/20/facetime-camera-and-photobooth-icons-confirm-camera-in-ipad-2/

HTC to launch Flyer tablet PC in March

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20110119PD217.html

Nintendo will regret pricing the 3DS at $249

http://www.industrygamers.com/news/nintendo-will-regret-249-pricing-on-3ds-says-pachter/

Google Voice ports your number for $20 — feature in development

http://www.cnet.com/8301-17918_1-20029006-85.html?tag=cnetRiver

AD BREAK

LivingSocial Hits A Million Amazon Gift Cards Sold, $20 Million In Card Value

http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/19/livingsocial-hits-a-million-amazon-gift-cards-sold-20-million-in-card-value/

Angry Birds to become an animated series

http://mashable.com/2011/01/20/angry-birds-animated-series/

Nokia cancels launch of X7 phone

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704590704576092263659541434.html

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-20028968-266.html

Facebook launches new low-tech mobile site

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-20028979-36.html

Motorola sticks to its guns on locking down Android

http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/11/01/19/2322215/Motorola-Sticks-To-Guns-On-Locking-Down-Android

Mail service costs Netflix 20x more than streaming

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/01/19/1814237/Mail-Service-Costs-Netflix-20x-More-Than-Streaming

Spotify signs Sony deal in U.S.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20029003-93.html

Quick Hits

Amazon buys LoveFilm, the “Netflix of Europe,” for $200 million

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2011/01/amazon_buys_online_movie_servi.html

Playboy iPad app will actually be a Web page

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2376009,00.asp

Third-party app blamed for phantom Windows 7 data use

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-20028970-75.html

Gadgets

Apple iPhone 5 to have “diabolical” pentalobe screws?

http://www.itproportal.com/2011/01/20/apple-iphone-5-have-diabolical-pentalobe-screws/

Science News

Tatooine’s twin suns – coming to a planet near you just as soon as Betelgeuse explodes

http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/special-features/tatooines-twin-suns-coming-to-a-planet-near-you-just-as-soon-as-betelgeuse-explodes/story-e6frg1ac-1225991093670

Happy Ending

Fountain girl to sue?

http://abcnews.go.com/US/fountain-falling-texter-cathy-cruz-marrero-dont-text/story?id=12685189

VOICEMAIL

Anonymous: we’re just training them!

EMAILS

Hi all,

A merger like this may be unheard of in the US, but in Canada Bell is one of the biggest telecommunication firms in the country with coast to coast internet, tv, cellular, and land line telephone. They also run most of the biggest TV networks in Canada including CTV, TSN (the sports network), Comedy Central, /A\ Channel, Much Music, Discovery (Canada), Bravo!, and many more. See the bottom of http://www.Ctv.ca for the full list. They also own Chum radio

(http://www.ctvglobemedia.com/en/chumRadio.aspx) which owns stations all across the country, and the Globe and Mail, one of Canada’s biggest daily newspapers.

Rogers has started getting into this as well with their purchase of the Sportsnet channels, and part ownership in both the Toronto Bluejays and Toronto Raptors sports teams, as well as RogersonDemand online streaming, and their premium channels on their digital cable service.

I can’t say wether this will be good, bad, or otherwise for us in the future but so far the content providers owning the content creators doesn’t seem to be making things any worse here, but it’s been this way for a long time. Hopefully the same holds true for the Comcast/NBC merger, but with the way it sounds, the only thing worse would be if AT&T bought NBC instead..

Good luck.

Ben in Nova Scotia, Canada.

—–

It’s a bit unfair to compare iOS adoption to Gingerbread adoption. The day Gingerbread hits, it hits for carriers who then have to spend time to get it to work on their devices. All of this process takes place behind the scenes for Apple, so we hear about an update when developers get it and then it hits a few weeks later. Android just doesn’t work under that model. Gingerbread was literally released less than a month ago and the latest iOS was released in November. Why do they count a version of Android that is under development by manufacturers but not the development version of iOS? They’re counting Android adoption when a piece of its development cycle – getting it onto the actual device – has only just begun.

Froyo does already have over a 50% adoption rate. http://gizmodo.com/5737440/froyo-is-finally-being-used-by-over-50-of-android-users?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+gizmodo/full+(Gizmodo)

Fragmentation is an issue for Android, sure, but the life cycle for a phone is pretty short compared to say, a computer. If your Android phone is outdated in its software, then within 6 months it’s also outdated in hardware.

-s

—–

http://bol.cnet.com, 800-616-2638 (CNET), buzz@cnet.com