CHRIS BURNOR



A quick search for companies like Virgin Airlines and a bit of glare lead us to click on one of the two ads at the top of the page rather than an organic search result. What happened? Google’s famous ‘not-quite-a-404-error-but-your-page-is-not-there’ screen. A few more quick searches, looking up DirectBuy, Hotwire, and a couple other household names yielded the same strange result. The server that manipulates, publishes and tracks the ads which make Google (and myriad Web based ad agencies and their clients millions of dollars a day) is down. Like it’s not working. And that’s a problem.

According to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Google pulled in 29.321 billion in 2010, which averages out to about $80 million a day. As of this writing, the advertising web servers were down from 11:13 Eastern until about 12:11 am Thursday morning —  you do the math.

So how did we know it was really down and it’s not just our computers, Internet connection or something unique to us? We checked on the world-renowned website, http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/and what we got back was the flagship image of this post.

Reasons? This might be due to Google’s roll out of their new +1 service, where users can rank ads they find useful. It might also be hacking, which huge companies like Epsilon have recently suffered. It’s hard to believe Google’s ad tracking server would be hacked though, especially when grabbing user records is so much more lucrative. Maybe, just maybe, someone forgot to renew the domain license for www.googleadservices.com. It did happen to Hotmail once.

*updated at 00:30, Eastern Time

In this episode, Devindra, Dwayne and Chris chat about the imminent sale of T-Mobile to AT&T, Amazon having won the race to Cloud-Based entertainment content and Google’s move to NFC from QR Codes.

Subscribe via iTunes or via RSS (for other media players), stream it with the player below, or download the episode. As always, you can email us at symbiotekpodcast@gmail.com.

News Discussion

Featured Music

• Get 9, Smile – Yoko Kanno, Ghost in the Shell Standalone Complex OST

In this episode, Devindra, Dwayne and Chris chat about the launch of the iPad 2, Motorola vs. Samsung as Android leaders, and more!

Subscribe via iTunes or via RSS (for other media players), stream it with the player below, or download the episode. As always, you can email us at symbiotekpodcast@gmail.com.

News Discussion

• (01:48) Motorola is back from the dead/The Droid was not a One hit Wonder.
• (17:15) Is Samsung ready for the big time? It’s ruling Android and home tech/entertainment products, will they
• (24:44) iPad 2 thoughts. Is the iPad about the specs?
  • (31:39) Determining who it’s for: The Post PC isn’t about PC Specs
  • (35:40)  Clean your phones. Don’t take them to the bathroom. It’s gross.
  • (41:00) Thoughts on the iPad 2′s screen resolution
  • (45:55) The iPad 2′s case, err cover…sorta reminiscent of InCase’s design.
  • (49:16) iPad 3. Will it come out later this year? We breakdown the pros and cons. 4G? Tighter/Higher resolutions? Position in the markets
  • (58:38) /is the iPad disposable?
• (59:00) Intel’s Thunderbolt interface, AKA Lightpeak
  • (59:00) Which name is better for you?
  • (1:00:04) What is Thunderbolt? An Apple/Intel Love child?
• Rundown
  • Man installs MS DOS on a virtual machine and does a steady stream of upgrades until he hits windows 7. So geeky. So awesome. Doom II played on every OS.

Featured Music

• M83, “Teen Angst”; Sidhe, “Amethyst Caverns” (from the Shatter game soundtrack)

In this episode of the show, Devindra, Dwayne, and Chris chat about Google’s big week with the launch of the Nexus S, Chrome OS netbook, online eBooks, and more.

Subscribe via iTunes or via RSS (for other media players), stream it with the player below, or download the episode. As always, you can email us at symbiotekpodcast@gmail.com.

News Discussion

• Google’s big week!
  • Nexus S coming
  • Chrome OS netbook stuff
  • Ebook store
  • Google Maps update looks CRAZY good
• Wikileaks talk
• Run down
  • Playstation Android phone gets benchmarked
  • Notion Ink Adam Android tablet up for preorder
  • BlackBerry PlayBook tablet updates
  • Looxcie

Featured Music

• “The Grid”, “Derezzed”, “Finale” – Daft Punk, Tron Legacy Soundtrack

Symbiotek Episode 57 is pretty much all about Mobile, with a little dash of Kinect. Devindra, Chris and Dwayne go into T-Mobile’s 4G network and Android handset offerings, which leads to a general discussion about the platform and where it’s going. The Apple competition still has some compelling properties which haven’t been outclassed yet, but was the iPhone 4 over-designed? All that and more on this episode of the Symbiotek  Podcast!

Subscribe via iTunes or via RSS (for other media players), stream it with the player below, or download the episode. As always, you can email us at symbiotekpodcast@gmail.com.

Discussion Highlights

• (02:34)The Nexus S and why we’re so excited for it.
• (12:40) My Touch 4g and hands on w/ T-Mobile’s 4G network.
• (17:30) Near Field Communication (NFC) and the amazingly convenient possibilities it could bring to our lives:
• (21:45) Is Android still a second class community in the world of smartphones?
• (34:10) What’s the difference between Chrome and Android?
• (36:20) What’s Android Missing? Does Chris have buyer’s remorse?
• (44:05) The iPhone 4 – could it actually be that Apple overdesigned the uberphone? The 3G S is more reliable!
• (54:48) The Rundown!
  • (54:49) Introduction to Kik – the wildly popular alternative to SMS & texting.
  • (1:01:12) Facebook adds a serious messaging component to its platform.
  • (1:05:59) Introduction to Path – less of a social network and more of a online Clique environment.
  • (1:10:30) Is Kinect dangerous? We think it’s pretty safe, but man, do you have to be careful.

Featured Music

• Music: Bad Dudes – Chronotorious, Castle Rock, Cave Girl – from the Chrono Trigger tribute album Chronotorius

There’s been a lot of talk about OpebTable, the wildly popular online reservation service which helps optimize table traffic and server productivity.  It all started with a blog post by Mark Pastore, a restaurant owner in San Francisco, who claimed that the costs for the reservation service, which focuses on using consumer-friendly ways to fill empty seats in 13,000 restaurants across the US, may not be worth it.

I read the post carefully and must confess that while he made some compelling arguments, he seemed to just be complaining about the fact that it was yet another mega-corporation making its money off the backs of the hard-working restaurateur. I have a friend at OpenTable, so I reached out to her in order to get her perspective.

I’ll start by saying that OpenTable’s one of those tech’s that theoretically totally inline with the idea of Symbiotek: a user can pop in what time they want to eat, along with where they are, and voila, a list of nearby eateries pop onto the screen, allowing the user to make a real reservation– without having to pick up the phone/use minutes/ or do anything really but tap or click their way to a dinner date.

Pastore’s article speaks of OpenTable’s meteoric rise to a $1.5 Billion market cap and how, via his informal, non-scientific survey, he determined that the service is problematic at best. The problem is– he’s never used OpenTable himself. A further problem is that TechCrunch picked up the story in the form of a ‘something’s not right here’ complaint from Sarah Lacy, a confessed OpenTable detractor.

From a marketing perspective Open Table seems to be fundamentally sound– the people who run fine dining establishments are working 80 hours weeks to keep the ship running, they have little time for promotion (when was the last time you saw a great restaurant website?

OpenTable’s designed around bringing in customers and getting paid on a CPA or Cost Per Action basis. The action’s different for different companies. Some drive leads, membership sign-ups or sales. They get paid on those actions and those alone– delivering something to the client which the client can then work their magic on.  After the OpenTable’s of the world get the consumer in the door of the restaurant, it’s the proprietor’s responsibility to get the most out of the new consumer. In the case of a restaurant the wait staff should be trained on the up-sell, whether that’s the bottle of wine or wine pairing over a single glass or carafe, or caressing the consumer into  appetisers or desserts, etc.

But OpenTable is much more than that. The service provides its restaurant members with software and tools that allow them to track both the productivity of the tables (are there two people at a 4-top?) and the productivity of their wait-staff (in which sections are desserts and the other entre add-ons I mentioned above being sold the most?). There’s even a video site designed to get people new to the platform started.

Truthfully, these owners should be clamouring for a chance to partner more deeply with OpenTable in order to drop the customers CRM (Customer Relationship Management) offers in an effort to make those people into return customers. Perhaps OpenTable can begin to license the database of similar customers of restaurant X to restaurant X for the purpose of targeted but limited promotions, which would allow the restaurant owner the user-access these people are complaining about.

OpenTable may not be perfect, but it’s clear that like all CPA business models, it’s designed to be an opportunity engine, one which can produce more growth by how well a restaurant owner chooses to wield it.

Symbiotek Episode 56! A foursome. Patrick Roanhouse guest hosts. We get into the Apple’s Back to the Mac event, go deep into Google TV, and talk about some other stories that border on the Rundown. This episode features one of our favorite people, Patrick Roanhouse from the Plan8 podcast.

Subscribe via iTunes or via RSS (for other media players), stream it with the player below, or download the episode. As always, you can email us at symbiotekpodcast@gmail.com.

Discussion Highlights

• (01:33) We review the Apple Back to the Mac Event.
• (13:17) The Macbook Air gets more than a re-fresh and signifies where laptops are going.
  Note: Dwayne’s Core i5 is a 520m, not a 460m, and it performs just under a Core 2 Duo Extreme Edition at lower temps due to the Nehalem technology)

• (30:30) Java and Flash – Patrick and Chris show why Apple means to change more than the conventional computer form factor.
• (34:20) Google TV via the Logitech Revue set top box. Devindra explains his hands on experience.
  • Is it all we expected?
  • Is it worth picking up right now, or worth waiting for maturity?
  • How does GoogleTV’s paradigm work with a No Cable Generation?

• (46:34) Ads. They play a huge role in the changing paradigm of television and online video. But most people hate them. Is there another way?
• (1:07:03) The Rundown!
  • (1:07:07) Who needs Flipboard when you’ve got PadPress!?!
  • (1:09:05) Hulu drops the price of their Plus service by half ($4.95), but they’re also dropping their service parameters too. 30 Days after air date… not so exciting.
  • (1:12:30) Foursquare from SPACE.
  • (1:15:50) Netflix is responsible for 20% of all downstream Internet use. Once again, TV is changing.

Featured Guest

• Patrick Roanhouse comes to us via the Plan8 podcast at www.Plan8ts.com. Check it out. Or just listen to this ep to gain some Proanhouse knowledge!
  

Featured Music

• Music: “Sidhe – Kinetic Harvest, Amethyst Caverns” from the Shatter OST

Welcome to Symbiotek Episode 55, where it’s all about Mobile. This week, Chris, & Dwayne delve into the recent Apple/Verizon iPad deal – Verizon stores are more than a new place to buy an iPad, they’re the beginning of a new strategy for Apple. They get into Windows Phone 7, why it’s one to watch, and whether you should run out and get one. We’ll also talk about the deal is with “Free Public WiFi.”  There’ll also be a short rundown.

Subscribe via iTunes or via RSS (for other media players), stream it with the player below, or download the episode. As always, you can email us at symbiotekpodcast@gmail.com.

Discussion Highlights

• (02:39) Apple announces “Back to the Mac” event, and also explains that come November, the iPad will be available in Verizon Wireless stores. We explain why it actually might be a better deal.
• (14:45) But why announce on the 14th? To Steal Google’s earnings thunder.

• (14:45) Google is earning billions and showing phenomenal growth – but on more than just Search. We get into why this is important for them, even if the average consumer doesn’t care.
• Google’s also diversifying on some other fronts:
  • Renewable Energy
  • Cars that drive themselves

• (24:15) Windows Phone 7 – The New Kid on the Block.
  • Is it too late for MS?
  • How will they differentiate themselves in what seems to be a crowded mobile space? Answer? The HUB.
• (44:00) What the heck is Free Public WiFi? And how come whenever I join it, it never works!?! NPR broke it down, and we absolutely crush it into little digestible bits.
• (59:08) The Rundown!
  • (50:40) Logitech Revue does not support over-the-air HD TV. You need Cable!
  • (52:30) Google has a car which drives itself!
  • (57:40:) New Unbuntu is out – and Chris is excited.
  • (1:01:32) Virgin Mobile MiFi is not quite sold out, so get one soon if you want a wireless hot-spot with no contract.
  • (1:03:01) Chris’s Awesome Announcement. Congratulate the guy people.

Featured Music

• Music: The Dust Brothers, “Medulla Oblongata,” “Homework,” and “Psycho Boy Jack.”

The Europeans have done it again – the Finnish Raceabout car seems to push hard at our American electric car efforts on a few key levels. It is:

1. Just as beautiful as a Tesla and seems as
2. fast (super light because no mechanical transmission is needed) but it’s got
3. all wheel drive (four motors for four wheels) and it
4. charges in 10 minutes for a 125mile range

Now, the thing to note here is that this isn’t a production vehicle, while Tesla’s roadster is. That’s a big deal as questions of true afford-ability and road worthiness need to be put to the test if you’re going to sell the thing retail. What it does show is that where Americans have been leading via Elon Musk’s electronic supercar, the Europeans aren’t far behind.

Check out the videos below:

Intro to the RaceAbout

The RaceAbout at the Automotive X-Prize

Today, Microsoft announced App Hub, a subset of the Microsoft Developers Network that focuses on submitting apps & games for the newly announced Windows Phone 7 & the Xbox360.

We all know how important it is for any smart phone platform to have access to third-party applications. If late-to-the-game MS wants to push this Windows Phone 7 operating system into the hands of millions around the world, it needs to make sure that the device’s functionality is always growing – like iOS and Android devices.

But that’s not the big news here. The big news is that the App Hub specifically asks for Xbox 360 development, and this is where Microsoft has the advantage. Currently, the Xbox 360 is often compared to its 7th generation game console rival, Sony’s PlayStation 3. Both have similar hardware specs, and both create top-notch game playing environments for those into console gaming, but for a while now, that world has not been enough. Both Sony and MS have launched Netflix support, and earlier this year, MS made a deal with ESPN, which plans to bring live streaming sports to the console.

Now one would think that between the gaming and the Netflix and the sports, the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 would be kings of the living room, with no end of media options for their owners to choose from. The thing is, that spot under the TV is about to get a lot more crowded with devices focused on movies and sharing, and video.

Huge tech giants like Apple and Google are pushing their way into the living room with consumer-friendly devices like the new Apple TV and Google TV, in the form of the Logitech Revue (to start with). The first to market streaming media player, the Roku, has seen some serious update and Boxee, the media platform that’s been in beta for so long, is finally on the cusp of launch via the D-Link manufactured Boxee Box.

These are the new kids on the block, the next generation of techie-consumer love-children which seek to displace the age old HTPC (stick a computer next to your TV and play stuff off of it) model with something that doesn’t quite require a mouse and keyboard. But they’re not the only ones.For years now the generation 7 game consoles have been making inroads into the media consumption experience. Sony’s Playstation 3 is the de-facto Blue-Ray player for many a household, and the Xbox 360 continues to remain the best NetFlix Streaming experience around. Now MS is solidifying that station.

With MS’s App Hub asking for developers to code apps and games for the console, they’re asking their MSDN faithful, and all that would join them, to create not just another Roku Channel or Android-based Google TV app. They’re asking them to take a tested platform, sitting in the center of 41.7 million homes worldwide. With 25 million Xbox Live accounts, MS has valuable credit or debit card information on these users already – users that have already purchased through them.

With the exception of Apple’s iTunes App Store, no app marketplace has ever had such reach. And unlike Apple’s phone/tablet/ipod based store, this device isn’t enjoyed by one person at a time, it’s enjoyed by everyone in front of the TV at once. That means it’s not a question of what apps Mom wants to download on her iPhone, but more about what Mom and Dad are going to purchase that night to keep the kids quiet, and that’s a wholly different way of making decisions about what your purchasing for your Xbox 360.

So what does this mean? Are devices like D-Link’s Boxee Box dead in the water? It’s hard to tell. We do know that Boxee sees Google TV less as a threat and more as a platform for their content navigating application. Given that Boxee is based on Xbox Media Center (XBMC), which was created for the original Xbox, there’s no doubt that the 360, as a backwards-compatible console with a 3.2Ghz Tri-Core processor would be able to handle just such an application should Boxee want to develop one.

Now there’s a lot that needs to happen to make the dream of an extensible app-laden Xbox 360 console to come true. The SDK or Software Developer’s Kit has to be robust and easy to use. The guidelines for the applications developers want to create need to likewise be easy to deal with, and most importantly, developer talent has to be lured away from all the other App marketplaces out there in order to head over (or back to) Microsoft for the purposes of turning the X in Xbox back into the mysterious mathematical variable that’s symbolically Symbiotek.

—-
Felipe Oduardo Sierra contributed to this article.

Welcome to Symbiotek Episode 54, an episode all about possibilities. This week, Chris, Devindra & Dwayne delve into the recent talks between Microsoft and Adobe – are they plotting against a mutual enemy? Or are they in talks to merge? There’s also a lot of new talk behind a possible Verizon iPhone, and some analysis of what that might mean to the ever popular Droid line of Android powered smartphones carried by Verizon. We also try to understand the newly announced Blackberry Playbook tablet.

Subscribe via iTunes or via RSS (for other media players), stream it with the player below, or download the episode. As always, you can email us at symbiotekpodcast@gmail.com.

Discussion Highlights

• (02:39) MS in talks with Adobe. Is this about acquisition or just how to compete with Apple?
• (21:09) Google TV! The Logitech Revue is the first set-top box powered by Google TV. Pricing and feature-set have been announced. What does it mean to Google and more importantly, what does it mean to you?
  • $299 for the box & keyboard remote control.
  • $129 for the miniature remote which uses Logitech’s Harmony technology.
  • $150 for the Logitech optional WebCam.
  • Free Android and iPhone remote control apps.
• (37:33) Resurgence of the Verizon iPhone Rumour, and why it seems to matter more this time:
  • White iPhone 4′s delay could be to Apple ramping up on CDMA iPhone 4 production
  • Qualcom’s CDMA antenna technology mentioned as a piece of phone for the Verizon network
  • Verizon mentions that their LTE network will be in certain major US cities by the end of 2011 – exactly what would be needed to put all of the functionality of the current iPhone on Verizon.
  • The concrete bullet points are reminiscent of the buzz before the iPad announcement.
• (47:13) Amazon to launch their own marketplace for the sale and distribution of Android Apps. Is this more Android cannibalization? Or is it exactly what Google’s mobile platform needs?
• (51:10) The Blackberry Playbook: Enterprise’s dream device? Or vaporware desperation from the complacent grandfather of smartphones which doesn’t want to be left behind?
• (59:08) The Rundown!
  • (59:13) GDGT investigates & evangelizes an iPhone 4 problem which they see as the next AntennaGate
  • (1:04:29) LaTimes reports that Red Light/Traffic Camera’s don’t stop accidents and they don’t earn the city money.
  • (1:07:11) Graphene could change the world here in the 21st Century the same level silicon did in the 20th Century.
  • (1:12:28) Moore’s Law is in effect, but we wanna see higher specs! We love our quad cores and Nihalem technology, but where’s the 5ghz CPU!?!

Featured Music

• Music: M83 “Teenage Angst, Running into Flowers”, The Prodigy “Colours”

Ever since the iPad launched, we’ve seen a slew of Android based tablets and other devices hit the market and a bunch more in the press as pipeline pieces for some of the top brass tech companies. The problem is that many of these offerings or intended offerings fall flat – either because either they are running the ancient Android 1.6 or they’re pushing Android devices that do not connect to Google’s Marketplace, the chief Internet space where users can download and manage their Android devices, not unlike Apple’s iTunes Store.

It seems that Amazon’s out to change some of that. According to Yukari Iwatani Kane of the WSJ, Amazon.com is planning to launch a software store for products that run on the Google’s Android operating system. Just like Apple’s iTunes, Amazon would take a 30% chunk of the profits of any sales off of their store. Another interesting piece of the deal concerns exclusivity. It looks like Amazon is asking that developers that sign the Amazon Android store agreement to place their apps in the store within two weeks of pushing it anywhere else. This means that as long as the app is publicly available anywhere online, consumers can expect it to show up in a bona-fide, sketch-free market place within two weeks of that launch date.

While the WSJ article alludes to the potential for marketplace cannibalism in the Android software market as Google and Amazon will be selling many of the same products, there are some really positive aspects to this new relationship. Amazon is responsible for  8% of all online sales, which means that not only do they know retail, but that they are extremely powerful at the promotion of new products. We can highlight their popularity with the tech savvy crowd by mentioning that right now, both the Boxee Box and Logitech Revue are available for pre-order exclusively on Amazon.

People know this store. People have accounts on this store. Rather than Google having to ask its Android user base to sign up and and over their credit card information, Google’s making a play to take market share by extending the range of people who can buy and download android apps easily, by leveraging Amazon’s considerable existing user base.

The bottom line is that here, Google’s trading marketplace exclusivity for a push at delivering all that android has to offer to the mainstream, hassle-free, and that’s Symbiotek.

Less than a week after the zany P.R. that is the Facebook movie, The Social Network, CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg laid out the changes to the massive site in his blog today. Along with the new group features, users will be able to download all the data (updates, photos, videos) that comprises their Facebook presence. Felipe brought up that the strange thing here is that competing social networks like Disaspora will likely be able to take that data, and allow users to import it, so that they can move from one network to another without missing a step.

Here’s a link to where you can watch the announcement yourself.

Sometimes satire says a thousand times more than explanatory criticism every could. Martin Robbins lays out a scathing satire of most scientific journalism that, quite frankly, is spot on.

Scientific reporting in mainstream media is abysmal. While major news outlets are not generally known for their ‘fair and balanced’ reporting in general, they surpass themselves in failure when it comes to reporting on science. Science articles generally are shallow, tell very little about the actual research involved, and often entirely misrepresent the results and significance of the research.

Partly this is a result of poor journalistic practices, but more importantly, I think this is the result of a terrible misunderstanding of science as a part of our society. Science is not done by lone researchers in their dark mountaintop lairs who shout ‘Eureka’ when they make a discovery. It is a group enterprise with progress coming not out of individual discoveries, but through the creation of theories, repeated and differentiated tests of those theories, and most importantly, consensus among those who have spent time actually contemplating the deep problems in the relevant fields. This makes scientific reporting rather incompatible with traditional journalistic models. Scientific findings don’t generally ‘break’ and even when they do, much further research and study is necessary to even understand that they were in fact breakthroughs. Furthermore, the drive towards consensus is difficult for a news environment that seems to think ‘balanced’ means throwing two things on a scale, regardless of whether their weight actually balances.

All of this is deeply depressing for such a time as now where so much great scientific research is happening.

Episode 53, is all about Social Media growing pains and the fact that we’ve arrived at the Age of Streaming Media. We break down what happened when Facebook broke down, alongside Twitter’s recent security issues. As for streaming media; we talked about all the set-top boxes last week, but this week, it’s really about the services that run on them, and how quickly the paradigm has shifted. The watershed moment? The bankruptcy of Blockbuster Video. And then, there’s The Rundown.

Subscribe via iTunes or via RSS (for other media players), stream it with the player below, or   download the episode. As always, you can email us at symbiotekpodcast@gmail.com.

Discussion Highlights

• (03:50) Twitter Mouse-Over Exploit. How’d it happen? Repercussions?
• (12:47) Twitter in the long run – Security & Monetization (Chris breaks it down)
• (19:33) Facebook goes down…and the US sees a productivity uptick along the lines of the Arsenal of Freedom.
• (25:44) YouTube & Vimeo have HTML5 players, and Vevo’s App gets an update. Let’s not forget Netflix on iPhone
• (25:44) Netflix launches in Canada. What does this mean for content in the living room? Blockbuster finally falls and we take apart the media giant’s colossal fall (Redbox)
• (43:43) Apple changes it’s iOS developer agreement again – this time it’s for the better. Google Voice apps get accepted, and Apple allows for a VLC player app.
• (56:24) A Preview of Windows Phone 7 – Chris & Dwayne were hands on with the test devices.
• (1:02:32) Video and Casual gaming – then and now, a Chris Burnor perspective (read: MineCraft)
• (1:09:25) The Rundown!
  • (1:09:32) www.planetmichael.com – A Michael Jackson Massively Multiplayer game
  • (1:03:31) Transform your pizza box into plates! Saves some papr/cardboeard people!
  • (1:13:16) TuneUp – organize your music collection, automgically.
  • (1:17:33) Devindra goes over the Venturebeat DEMO conference with an emphasis on E-Fuel and Card 2.0.
  • (1:21:08) iPhone Awareness app will save hipsters’ lives.
  • (1:24:05) Mint – the Roomba-type robot that will mop your wood floors.

Featured Music

• Music: My Morning Jacket — One Big Holiday, Mahgeetah, Steam Engine

Welcome to Episode 52 people, where Apple reigns the conversation!  Apple drops new iPods, iTunes 10 and a new Apple TV. Ping falters as Apple forgets to add their Genius tech. The team gets into how to get the hell off the narcotic that is the cable We also speak about some tablet updates. And then, there’s The Rundown.

Subscribe via iTunes or via RSS (for other media players), stream it with the player below, or   download the episode. As always, you can email us at symbiotekpodcast@gmail.com.

Discussion Highlights

• (02:50) Apple’s September 1st Event – Announcements and significance.
  • (08:19) The iPod Touch as a gaming platform: Epic Citadel & Apple’s Entertainment Competition
  • (17:52) Ping (and it’s problems) – Apple’s new “Social” network, but not really.
  • (22:36) Apple TV 2010 – Netflix, iTunes, AirPlay, FOX+ABC rentals, but no Hulu and no Apps.
• (33:39) Ready to free yourself from the Clutches of Cable?
  • (33:40) We start by looking at Boxee (platform) & Boxees’s upcoming Boxee Box by D-Link.
  • (40:24) Roku Player – $99 for 1080p, Netflix, Pandora, ABC+FOX rentals, & Hulu, but no DLNA.
  • (42:12) Google TV attempts to evolve TV – Apps, Netflix, full Flash support(YouTube) & built into your cable service without the clutter of many set-top boxes. Maybe DLNA
  • (46:34) X-Box 360 - ESPN3.com, Netflix, DLNA, MS Media Rental & Purchasing, but no 1080p divx streaming support.
• (49:06) The Fall and Winter will be full of Tablets (Christmas time):
  • Samsung Galaxy Tab (based of the Galaxy S), Notion Ink Adam update, and why Google may be choosing Chrome over Android for tablets
  • Archos is back too – with 5 separate tablets – “how do you tab?“
• (58:25) The Rundown!
  • (58:29) Virgin Mobile’s no-contract, $40/mo., unlimited data plan, MiFi (On Sprint’s Network)
  • (1:03:31) New Skype Beta allows for 10-person simultaneous video chat? This is crazy!
  • (1:05:36) Google purchases Social Deck – a social game developer.
  • (1:06:28) The JooJoo Saga - Judge throws out many of Arrington/TechCrunch’s Complaint claims. When will this Tale be over!?

Featured Music

• Music: Hans Zimmer – Mombasa, Dream Within A Dream, from Inception OST

Episode 51!  Facebook’s new places feature has been alive for a week and there’s already a follow-up.  Google and Yahoo announce new moves in the Realtime Search market and Digg debuts it’s new version 4.x interface— Chris, Dwayne and Devindra break down what the big deal is. They also go into the headlines spawned by MPEG-LA’s move to keep their h.264 codec “free” until their rights to it run out. And then, there’s The Rundown.

Subscribe via iTunes or via RSS (for other media players), stream it with the player below, or   download the episode. As always, you can email us at symbiotekpodcast@gmail.com.

Discussion Highlights

• (02:17) Facebook Places Vs. Google Places. Both are aiming for local advertisers. Which tech giant’s strategy will succeed?
• (17:47) Google’s Gmail Voice Call allows users to make calls from a web browser… to a real phone. Without paying. What’s Skype to do?
• (22:01) Realtime Search! What is it and why are Yahoo and Google making moves in this area?
  • Google’s Realtime Search Update
  • Yahoo’s Realtime Search Update (OneRiot)
  • Blekko’s New Search Tactics (Customized Searches)
• (33:55) The New Digg.com: Digg 4.x Can Kevin Rose save one of the pillars of Web 2.0?
• (40:20) MPEG-LA’s new plans for the H.264 Codec: It’s Free. Sort Of.
• (53:13) The Rundown!
  • (53:22) Facebook gives Hacker News/Y Combinator start-up’s “VIP treatment.”
  • (1:00:16) Diaspora’s almost here. Chris has the updates.
  • (1:05:20) Finally, a “stovetop” heating surface for the 21st Century.
  • (1:10:27) Nike patents automatically lacing sneakers and finally, we’ve been brought Back to the Future! (2!)

Featured Music

• Music: Shiro Sagisu – Magma Diver, Barefoot in the Park (from the Evangelion soundtracks)

We mentioned the Samsung Galaxy S some weeks ago back in Episode 49. It looks like Samsung’s strategy of making what’s basically the same device available on all carriers is working for them. They’re not selling in iPad numbers (1 million the first month of availability) but at 1 million units in just over ~six weeks, this launch is fairly remarkable…and maybe that’s because the marketing is not being pushed by one carrier alone. This is certainly easier on everyone’s wallet.

You can expect more from the accessory manufacturers too, with these numbers– something that iPhone users get great support from, and which is part of the secret sauce of that platform’s success.

If you’re looking to upgrade from a 2008 era device, the Galaxy S is worth investigating, especially if you’re an Android fan. Given that the device is being sold across the aisle from the iPhone at the AT&T store, it shows that when there are valid options, people will choose what’s best for them…especially if they don’t have to pay an Apple premium for it…and that goes double for when Samsung gives them away for FREE!

I’m reading through Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book ‘The Cost of Discipleship’ right now and am absolutely amazed by how convicting and motivating it is.  Bonhoeffer’s life was motivation enough, but his way with language and insights into scriptural texts are brilliant.  In discussing the rich young ruler in Luke (18:18-23), he observes that we should be inspired by the honesty of such a seeker that, when presented with the command to  ”give up everything and follow Me,” he admitted that he in fact could not do this.

How often do we do the opposite? We pretend that we are following the commands of Christ while rationalizing the exact opposite.  If only we could see ourselves as we actually are and be saddened like this young ruler.  He in his honest disobedience may have more chance at attaining true salvation than many of us in our dishonest ‘obedience.’

Funny how two of my favorite theology blogs today both quoted the same Hassidic saying:

Everyone must carry in their pockets two pieces of paper which we are to read from time to time as the need requires:In the one pocket it shall read, “For my sake were the heavens and the earth created,”

and in the other pocket, “I am but dust and ashes.”

Such dialectical thinking I’m convinced is at the core of what it means to live well.

In my Church Bible study group, one of the on-going sources of confusion is how everyone has their own Bible translation and trying to figure out where one person left off, or which phrase in one translation corresponds to which phrase in a different one is rather difficult.

However, I think it’s quite important to have and read from several different Bible translations.  The fact is that as 21st century readers, even those of us with backgrounds in Ancient Greek and Ancient Hebrew, we’re never really going to be able to read and understand the language as it was by those who wrote it.  Different (good) translations capture different aspects of the passage.  Literal translations capture the meaning of certain words well, but lose the overall picture, while  more loose translations challenge us to see the text in a fresh light, while losing some of the exact meaning in them.

In one of the most famous Twilight Zone episodes, ‘The Monsters are Due on Maple Street,’ aliens come to Earth with the intent of taking conquering the world.  However, the aliens are quite limited in number (two are shown in the episode), and rather than unleash an all-out frontal assault on Earth, they simply manipulate the electricity in a small, suburban neighborhood and let human nature take over.  Soon the people of the neighborhood are rioting and destroying themselves.

I read today about a Cabbie in NYC who was asked if he was a Muslim and then stabbed by a passenger.  This combined with the embarrassment that is the movement to block the construction of an Islamic cultural center in lower Manhattan are merely the most recent chapters in a steady decline in American values and world-view that are a far worse cancer in our society than the external threat of Terrorism.  Civil liberties have been trampled until they are little more than catch-phrases.  War and the idea of war is thrown around as though it is a simple, quick and painless solution for all ills.

I wonder sometimes if there haven’t been any additional attacks on American soil since 9/11 because there don’t need to be. The events from September 12, 2001 onward seem to match this theory.  After one terrorist attack 9 years ago, the hatred between the West and Islam seems to be higher than ever, and in the U.S., particularly, we seem happy to do far more damage to our society than terrorists ever could.

While political assassinations carried out by the U.S. clearly violates our (oft violated) moral precepts as a country, that has not stopped us from attempting to pull them off over the last 60 years (quite a bit more in the last 10).  However, it looks like there is yet another argument against them: they don’t work.  The survival rates of terrorist groups where the leader was assassinated generally went up from 67% chance of survival to 83%.

I doubt that this will really do much to stop political leaders from attempting to assassinate leaders.  The point of an assassination is not really to increase security, but to show off power to the constituency.  Voters tend to remember high profile events like assassinations, not the slow-progress of real security actions.

Schneier on Security: The Effectiveness of Political Assassinations.

I think I’m officially going to boycott Apple. This HTC lawsuit (as a proxy of course against Google’s Android OS) is clearly an attempt to clear the marketplace of any competition. Rather than innovating and competing they are stooping to bullying because when you get right down to it, as much as Jobs is a genius, he’s also and asshole and and asshole worth 5.4 billion and leading a company with 30billion in cash is an asshole with way too much power.

Yes the root cause of this is that the patent system is broken. Patents are given for anything and everything and the only winners are those with enough money to fight protracted legal battles. However, the system stays moderately functional because of the Mutual Assured Destruction of patent wars. Everyone holds tons of patents that their competition no doubt infringes upon so no one sues for the danger of counter-suit. Apple wants to break all that so that they can dominate their markets.

Who wins if Apple gets its way? Apple wins. No one else. Do developers in the mobile application space win with one platform stuck on one carrier? Do consumers win with no choice and no competition? Do internet sites win with a stagnant mobile internet market? Do other smartphone manufacturers win with the fear of patent wars constantly hanging over them? The short term winners now seem to be Windows Mobile and Symbian, but its pretty clear that they are next in Apple’s scopes. Honestly nobody wins, and even Apple might lose out by effectively chilling the marketplace and pushing manufacturers and developers in different directions.

Obviously Apple is a business in a competitive marketplace and they will do anything to stay ahead, as a good business should. However as we saw in the fall of 2008, a business aggressively pushing its own dominance of the marketplace can easily take down the marketplace (AIG, Lehman Bros, etc) and we are dangerously close to that happening here.

Simple Marriage is has become one of my all time favorite blogs on the internet for its simple, yet wise insights on relationships and life.  Though the name includes the word ‘marriage,’ it really is much more about just living and most marriage advice applies to relationships in general.

Today there is a wonderful post on adequacy, reminding us, that though the world, and the internet in particular, is caught up in a whirlwind of superlatives and potential growth, we do not have to.  Sometimes, success means getting to the point where you are just content, rather than constantly striving for more.

via Simple Marriage.

By now the Conservapedia project is relatively old news on the internet. Someone decided that Wikipedia was too ‘liberal’ (whatever that means) and decided an open encyclopedia based on conservative values should be created.  More recently the projects creators have set their eyes on a much older and more venerated source of knowledge: The Bible.  Apparently that is also too liberal (or at least English translations going back to King James are).  They aim to create a translation of the Bible that conforms to explicitly conservative values.  The aims of the project are listed on their webpage.

I will not even bother to waste my time rebutting such a project other than to point out the somewhat hilarious irony of a religious movement with a worldview supposedly based upon literal adherence to the Bible, re-interpreting the Bible to fit with said worldview. The rotations per minute of such circular reasoning are off the charts.

What is more interesting to me is the way that such fringe groups color the perspective of more mainstream groups.  One sees this in liberal as well as conservative groups that such fringe groups (Greenpeace, PETA, Conservapedia, Timothy McVeigh) are used by people to establish their ‘moderate’ credentials.  On the reverse side, members of the opposite group point to such extremes as indicative of the character of the group as a whole.  So while one side looks at such fringe groups as indicative of the validity of their non-extremist beliefs, the other looks on those same groups as representative.

Frankly, we should be less concerned with the ‘extremism’ of the beliefs (which is really just a measure of their deviation form the norm) and more on whether they make sense, stand up to logical scrutiny and real world experience.