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

Ma Bell is Back

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

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

An open table

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.

Locate where you are, and it does the rest for your (Courtesy of Arstechica)

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.

OpenTable's Mobile App (Thanks to LarryFire.Wordpress.com)

Given the focus of the original article and it’s Techcrunch spin-off, it’s clear that these complaints are not coming from people are using the full functionality of the software. If they were, we’d be hearing complaints about how it doesn’t or is too hard to make work, has fundamental algorithmic problems and so on. But they’re not mentioning anything that substantive at all, which leads me to believe that they are either ignorant of this functionality, or are purposefully ignoring it for the sake of a well-publicized rant.

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.

Back to the Mac - Apple's Conference Event

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)

Apple's Macbook Air 2010

• (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

Windows Phone 7

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 MSDN App Hub for Windows Phone 7 & X-Box 360

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.

The MSDN App Hub News Block

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.

Boxee Likes Google TV

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.

The Logitech Revuew Set Top Box, powered by Google TV. Image courtesy of Ecoustics.com

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”

Android-Zon.com

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.

A true scientist at work

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.

Blockbuster doesn't get the future.

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

The Age of Digital Streaming Has Arrived

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

Hoverboards beat Realtime Search and Video Codecs any day.

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)

Intel gobbles up McAffee & FB Places shows up too late.

The big Five-Oh! Devindra, Dwayne, and Chris go on about Facebook’s newly launched Places feature and whether it’s worth abandoning traditional geo-location social networks. They also head into the Intel purchase of McAffee, using the available data to look at where Intel’s heading a decade into the Third Millenuim. And then, of course, there’s the Rundown– this week, the three take time to explore New York’s rapidly growing tech scene.

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

• (02:18) Facebook launches “Places.” How does it stack up to 4Square, GoWalla, and the previous late entry, Twitter?
  • (07:49) And what are the privacy issues?
• (26:06) Intel Spends all of its cash on virus-scan software maker McAffee, but WHY?! The guys use the available data to make sense of it all, and spark a discussion on the ethics of tech & a free market.
• The Rundown!
  • (50:44) New York as New Tech’s Rising Star? Why now? Kelly Sutton has some valid points for NYC over SF.
  • (58:12) Yahoo – Bingified. Finally.

Featured Music

• Music: Neon Indian, “Psychic Chasms”, “Mind, Drips.”

Wikileaks puts the 'ass' in classified.

In this Episode, Dwayne and Chris are joined by Patrick Roanhouse of the Plan8 Podcasst. It’s all about Tech and Society– Literally. While law enforcement’s been using video as evidence in crimes for years, how does the flipside work in an age where every cell phone is a video camera, especially when social media allows these videos to easily be displayed for all eyes to see. The Freedom of Information Act is being usurped by WikiLeaks, a Web 2.0 strategy which allows anyone to distribute ‘secret data, and as technology moves citizens move from consumers to prosumers, large organizations like BP have to think twice before they attempt to fool the public with doctored propogandic images of their clean-up efforts in the Gulf. All right here, where we focus on how technology impacts our lives: The Symbiotek.

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

• (02:47) Consumer tech and law enforcement. What happens when citizens start watching the watchers?
  • (15:22) Law enforcement isn’t ready to give up the privilege of having the infrastructure of evidence on their side.
  • (22:55) As society catches up with tech, is the response to citizen surveillance one that goes too far?
• (29:26) BP gets caught using doctored photos of their Gulf Oil Spill clean-up efforts– not by experts, but by tech enthusiasts. The Pro-Sumer has finally arrived.
  • (37:36) www.ErrorLevelAnalysis.com! Like playing sleuth? Take your browser there, the tech is a great treat.
• (44:14) Wikileaks - What is it? Who runs it? What’s its impact? Why is this new media technology the greatest thing to happen to old     media in a long, long time.
  • (55:50) So what makes Wikileaks different from any other user/fan-based site which hosts illegal content?
  • (59:10) So what’s the link to Journalism again? We spell out how they affect how you get your news.

• (1:04:53) Finally some Android Tablets are coming down the pike. (Follow-Up of story from last week)
  • Asus Drops Windows for Android Based Eee Pad Tablet
  • HP Moves to TradeMark “PalmPad”

• (1:14:08)The Rundown!
  • (1:04:24) Microsoft’s New Slogan, “Be What’s Next.” Will it help? Does it really matter? Patrick is out for blood, and wants Ballmer ousted.
  • (1:20:47) Boxee Box hardware finalized, but bizarre as it may sound, it might be too late for it to take off given the imminent release of GoogleTV hardware. Then again, you’d still need cable for GoogleTV. We lay it out.
  • (1:33:15) Symbiotek Green: Lincoln’s MKZ mid-sized luxury sedan is now available as a Hybrid– but instead of charging more, it will costs the exact same amount of money as the traditional V6. When Hybrids are dollar for dollar the same outset cost as traditional vehicles, will the promise of cheaper payments at the         pump help them fly out of showrooms?
  • (1:44:40) BioTech – Rat Lungs regenerated by scientists. Scientists GREW a pair of lungs. Fifth Element, here we come!
  • (1:49:49) Patrick Speaks out on Education and Anti-Intellectualism. Get some of the former and throw away the latter!
• (1:57:49) Easter Egg: 15 seconds of ridiculum….

Featured Music

• Radiohead, Studio Kid A: “National Anthem,;” “Idioteque;” and Scala covering Radiohead from the music from the Original Motion Picture Soundrack: “Creep.”

Skimmers in Action (Courtesy of The Epoch Times)

The oil spewed from a mile beneath the gulf for around eighty days before being cappedn ad hopefully, eventually plugged. In the meantime, government scientists who studied the phenomenon via the underwater video cameras estimate as many as 50,000 barrels of oil spewed from the broken well every day– that’s four million barrels of crude oil altogether– an environmental disaster to be sure.

So the question becomes, how to deal with the clean-up. How do you take 4 million barrels of oil out of the Gulf of Mexico quickly and cleanly? Well, you ask the experts. The Gulf oil Spill is big, but surely, there are people who deal with spills approaching this size, or, more importantly, who’ve dealt with big spills recently.

Enter the Dutch. Rotterdam’s a port of call for oil, and the Dutch have made an industry of cleaning it up. The tech is called The Sweeping Arm Oil Skimmer. they have machines that can sift oil from the ocean’s surface and hold onto it while spitting filtered water back into the Gulf. PRI’s Marketplace reported that the Dutch offered Uncle Sam their technology and expertise in dealing with the spill at the outset in May, however–

American officials refused. Rather, they decided to tackle the millions of barrels of oil in the cheapest, most environmentally destructive way possible: burn it.

And that plan didn’t even begin until mid June– the explosion that began the spill happened on 22 April (or Earth Day). When that didn’t work, the people running the cleaning effort moved to a slightly less deadly technology: toxic oil dispersants…nevermind the vibrant fishing industry that works these waters. The EPA censured the use of the dispersants, but still refused to allow the use of the Dutch skimmers because the ‘filtered’ water that was being put back into the Gulf wasn’t covered by their rules.

To give you an idea of how ridiculous this decision was, understand that according to the Examiner, on 8 June, more than six weeks after the spill commenced, BP reported that they had collected ~64k barrels of oil…less than a days work for one of the Dutch skimmers.

But that wasn’t the only tech fail to occur in during the spill. Kevin Costner (that’s right, Mr. Field of Deams, and perhaps, more appropriately, Waterworld) attempted to get machinery that he heavily invested in, machinery that does indeed clean oil off the surface of the water. According to Costner, oil companies would not invest in the machines because they “did not think another spill could occur,” while regulators would not allow his unapproved machines on the scene. Logical as that may sound, the regulators would not allow the machinery to be approved without testing it first…but since it was unapproved testing could not happen… (you see the problem here).

It wasn’t until mid July that the US government started to re-consider the use of the Dutch skimmers. A move back in the right direction to be sure, but a move that came way too late.

There’s another tech tragedy here. The Deep Horizon oil rig, whose explosion commenced the spill that ill-fated spring night, was outfitted with alarms to wake and warn the oil drillers of anything out of the ordinary. That alarm was partially turned off, in an effort to ensure the  oil-rig personnel slept well.

Overall, the technological decision making taking place during this crisis has been horrendous. Many lives– human, wetlands and marine could have been saved if the leadership involved in this situation had been more technologically open, and more technologically aware. Allowing regulations to get in the way of legitimate the clean-up efforts of an environmentally and economically sensitive area is as close to criminal negligence as one can get; and what’s worse? It violates the spirit of those regulations at the expense of people’s livelihoods, and worse, nature’s majesty.

The Old AT&T was about transmitting Morse code and making phone calls. Today, the Data's a little more complex. And it shows.(Thanks Alice for the cert.)

About a week ago, AT&T unveiled some new data plans in advance of the WWDC iPhone 4 announcement. Rather than paying $30 for unlimited data, users would now have something of a choice: $15 for 200mb of data over 3G (dubbed DataPlus) OR $25 for 10x that much, or 2gb of data over 3G (dubbed DataPro).

There has been uproar. There’s been some serious evangelizing about how wonderful it is. We’ll see. What we know for sure, is that it looks like  AT&T’s missed an opportunity here to generate gobbs and gobbs of revenue from data-hungry subscribers, while also missing a chance making  some real waves in the industry on the customer service side, the kinds of waves that would likely siphon off yet more clients from the likes of Verizon.

But before we get into that, it’s time to drop some facts:

1. Who? – If you already had an iPhone before these changes were made by AT&T, your plan will remain the same, regardless of whether you upgrade or not.
2. iPad users?  - If you have an iPad w/ 3G capabilities, it doesn’t matter when you got it because there’s no contract with this device, only the ability to re-up with whatever 3G services they’re offering when your 30 days runs out.
3. Differences? – These plans (200mb and 2gb) are much less than those data plans advertised by Steve Jobs back on 27 January 2010 when he mentioned the ‘revolutionary new data plans’ from AT&T. Those data plans were 250mb for $14.99 and 5gb for $29.99 respectively. The current plans are 1/5th less for the same money in the case of the DataPlus and 3/5th less– less than half of the data for the same money when it comes to the DataPro.
4. Real Life Usage – This leaves many AT&T users upset but— fact no. 4 is that ~200mb a month is about what the average person with an iPhone uses on AT&T’s 3G network, so many new users won’t really feel the sting of these new plans with their average usage. Even John Gruber only uses 500mb a month. So in this case, he’s saving $5/mo.
5. Tethering – the ability to use your phone as a 3G modem for your computer (Windows pr OS X) will cost $20 /mo in addition to the DataPro and DataPlus plans… but that’s just for access to the tethering software. Users will NOT get access to any more data for that price. So while you may be able to get away with a $15 plan for your phone, if you move to $35/mo to use tethering and go over your 200mb limit, you’ll be charged $15 for every additional 200mb you use…so that’s at least $55 if you go over by as much as 1mb. If you’re gonna tether, get yourself on the DataPro plan!
6. iPad tethering? Not in the cards people. Unlike Android’s WiFi tethering capabilities, Apple and AT&T have left you in the stone age with wired, USB tethering– the same stuff that Blackberries and Treos have been able to do for cycle upon tech cycle now. This means that you need to plug your iPhone into a laptop to get that machine online over 3G. Currently, the iPad does not have a connector that supports direct connections to the iPhone. If you want to get your WiFi only iPad online in the absence of a good WiFi connexion, you’re going to have to either hack your iPhone to pull off wifi, OR, you’re gonna have to get yourself another device, like a MyFy, or an Android phone.

Now all these changes were likely made after looking intensely at the real world stats on how much people use, and how to give bandwidth hogs disinscentives to be, well, bandwith hogs. Theoretically, such actions would clear up the network and give each user access to more consistent data bandwidth and maybe even less dropped calls. The problem is that it’s all hogwash. Here’s why:

iPhone OS 4.0 or iOS4 allows for multitasking in a big way. It’s not TRUE multitasking, as some tech-heads would like it, but the fact is that it allows for things like Pandora and Rhapsody to play in the background, just as your iPod application would while you’re using the phone for something else which means that any user taking advantage of that data’s gonna use much more data without even knowing it.

The iPad…the 3G version just launched, and with it, NetFlix, ABC’s content App and even Wired’s multi-media interactive app. Unlike traditional Apple products, which focused on content creation, the iPad’s  focus is on media consumption. YouTube’s bigger and available in HD; the aforementioned applications all deliver streaming video, whether you’re in an airport or enjoying a drink at a charming street-side wifi-less cafe. The future is video people, and with 200 megabytes equating to about 20 minutes of standard quality video consumption…per month. And that doesn’t at all include emailing updated versions of Keynote or PowerPoint presentations to work, or blogging, or checking into 4Square or, well, anything else. The DataPro plan is limited to 200 minutes of standard quality video a month which leaves on with a film off of NetFlix along with a couple of TV shows from ABC’s streaming service. Again, forget email Twitter, or any other use for your 3G.

SO what do we take away from this? The first thing we take away is that WIFI IS YOUR FRIEND. The video looks better because the connection is faster, and AT&T has tens of thousands of  hotspots all around the country– mostly in the city. Starbucks cards give you at least twofree hours of fairly speedy wifi in their seemingly endless locations and feel free to be a little pushy and pester your friends for their WPA keys when you’re visiting their humble abodes. Use WiFi wherever possible and you should actually be fine.

Still, having to rely on Wifi does not leave the average consumer settled. Apple promised the world and AT&T took it away. Perhaps it’s because they’re just plain mean– but I don’t think so. They need to protect their 3G network while they build their 4G/LTE data distribution system or else their reputation will be so bad, no consumers will stick around to use it (iPhone or not). The missed opportunity here for AT&T was to charge $60 for a real unlimited data plan– even if it was only, in reality, 4GB. They’d have the money’d data hogs over there in a jiff, gathering data on their demographics, and the types of activities they do on their phones (at least), which would allow them to refine the data packages even more carefully, for near perfect price discrimination.

AT&T could have also taken care of their customers by auto-tiering the new DataPro and DataPlus plans. Switching a 200mb user to 2gb automatically should they go over and charging them $15 is much better than charing them $15 for 200 more measly megabytes. In the same vein, users of the 2gb plan who use less than 200mb should find a nice surprise on their bill when they realise that their usage left them with a $15 charge at the end of the month rather than $25. Such action would encourage lower usage.

Still, there seems room for a third tier of data. Yet AT&T offers no option for it. It seems that without offering a third, unlimited tier, that perhaps AT&T is showing their hand where their 3G network is concerned– the network simply cannot afford to care for new unlimited data subscribers at any reasonable price. And that means that in some way or another, these drastic steps are justified.

FourSquare rewards users with various badges depending on their activity.

When I first heard about Twitter in 2007, my initial reaction was something along the lines of “That is the silliest idea I have ever heard of.”  Time has proven me wrong and I was determined not to make the same mistake with the newest hot trend in the social web: GeoLocation based social networks like FourSquare, BrightKite and Gowalla.  Like Twitter, these networks took off at the uber-hip SXSW conference in Austin Texas and like Twitter, the tech world can hardly stop talking about them.   I was leery, but determined to see if all the hype is worth it.  For the last few weeks I have been dutifully living the GeoLocation lifestyle and am ready to report on my initial findings.

The first question, as with Twitter, is, “Why would you ever want to do this?” Well, to a certain extent we already do.  We share on Twitter, Facebook and via text where we are.  We invite friends and look for them. These services are a great way to meet up with people, particularly at large events like SXSW (where they first really began to take off).  So why not use the ubiquitous GPS and map applications on our smart-phones to add some clarity and structure to this type of interaction. It is fun to declare loyalty to your spots, and advertise businesses you care about! That local coffee shop? No longer let it languish in the shadow of the nearby Starbuck’s – shout it out!

There are also non-social applications to these services. They provide a way for you internally to keep track of where you have been.  This seems rather minor, but at the end of the month when going over your credit card bills how often do you wonder where a particular bill you don’t recognize came from? Check Foursquare and you’ll find out where you were on that day and rather easily narrow it down.  Secondly, Foursquare is experimenting with a sort of location based wiki at each venue.  You can leave tips for other Foursquare users who go there (try the Pad Thai and avoid the tofu) as well as notes to yourself (make an appointment to get a tune up next time I’m at the gas station).

Most of the utility and business-models of these services are relatively untapped, but they are simply fun ways to connect with friends and places in real life.  I will say one of the real advantages for nerds like myself is that they are definitely an encouragement to get out of the house and explore new places.  It is fun to check into a new place and find out what others have thought about it.  Also, you may find places you did not know that existed right in your area.  It is a very quickly growing field and it will be very interesting to see where we end up (both literally and figuratively).

Still, there are a number of hurdles that these networks will need to overcome if they are going to really take off.  As long as Foursquare is a game without any real consequences, there is no real motivation (other than obsession) to game the system.  However, as Foursquare monetizes and business start to offer real life rewards for being the mayor, people trying to game the system will become much more of a problem. How to define what constitutes a ‘check in’ and how long before you can check-in again?  Also, as the network grows, they will need to find better ways to fix broken/duplicate venues, spam-tips and other such pests of large networks.

For right now, it is fun to vie for dominance at your local venues.  Hopefully the creativity that pushed these networks will continue to increase their utility as well as their fun.

Image via Mariss007

When the first computers were being developed, every functional aspect of the computer had to be programmed into every program.  Want your program to use a keyboard? You would have to program your punch-cards to handle this.  Want to output to a printer? You have to do that too.  Eventually, machines became powerful enough and the computer science sophisticated enough that the handling of these basic aspects of the computer were handled by the operating system.  It managed the system so that users and programmers could focus on the higher-level operations that they wanted to be doing.

Right now the social web is in very much the same position as those early computers.  Ways to share information, links, comments, pictures, videos and more are unending.  What are you thinking? Post it to Twitter.  Want to share pictures of that crazy party you had last weekend? Post them to Facebook. Email them to your friends. Want to share pictures of your cousin’s first child? Go on Facebook.  It is getting almost too overwhelming to figure out how to share it all. Want to tell your friends where you are? Check into Foursquare.

Part of the complexity is that different social networks are built around different types of sharing, but the deeper complexity is that human networks are not like relational databases.  We don’t share our weekend experiences with our boss and neither do we share our work details with our family.  Some of this is because of actual privacy concerns, but more often it is simply about which people in our lives care about which aspects of our life.  My technical musings on Python are just noise to my family.

What is needed is an operating system for our social interactions that can actually help smooth over these various different systems.

Right now the internet functions as this system.  It enables the sharing and, via its various technical protocols allows us to share data between our friends.  However, getting the system to work in a human way rather than a technical way is the next large challenge.  In a sense we have the operating part of the system, but not the GUI.  The GUI smoothes over all the technical aspect’s of the computer and allow its power to be harnessed in a very human way.

Very little progress I think is being made in this direction.  The more successful projects like Facebook’s Facebook Connect, Twitter’s OAuth and OpenID seek simply to unify your identity around the internet.  More ambitious projects like Disqus aim to unify types of behaviors (in this case, commenting) across different services.  There are hints of real high-level SocialOS apps with projects like Diaspora, Pip.io, Facebook’s Connect and OpenGraph, as well as services like Google Buzz, but none of them really make interacting with people in cyberspace feel as natural as physical space.  They feel more like social interactions that are squeezed into the mold formed by relational databases and API requests.

Part of the problem is that it is really uncertain just exactly what a system like this would look like.  We are not always sure ourselves where we want and so encoding the nebulous nature of interactions into literal code is an extremely complex enterprise that requires people who understand, not just computers, but people.