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Indistinguishable from Magic

by Andrew McCaskey
According to Wikipedia,

Arthur C. Clarke formulated one of three “laws” of prediction including the observation that ” Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Two articles today – one in the regular podcast and one in the video (and associated story published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ) reflect that we’ve seen a lot of that over the past few decades.

The Apollo Landing computer was impressive for it’s day “It’s cycle time was 1 Mhz, 11 instructions. It had 1K of 16 bit words of erasable (RAM) core memory and 12K of read-only memory (ROM).

And the VieVu wearable camera that was one of our CES Product of the Day selections in January of 2008 (4 hour of video, on board MPEG4 compression, 4 hours of battery life and 4GB of Flash memory ) is no less impressive.

As this gets filed into the Internet Archive, it’s going to bring a chuckle to someone in the future – and it will be in a lot less time than the 48 years since the Apollo Guidance Computer was designed and built.

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More Backchannel Processing

by Andrew McCaskey
Almost a full GB of backchannel videos posted today – but I am still not through with the backchannel videos from CES. We have 35 separate episodes on the backchannel now organized, lightly edited with credits, intro titles and the all important Promo codes for GoDaddy. I’ve posted an interesting sample – the Automotive section of CES in the North Hall. This is a very long video about 45 minutes- not too much talking, just a lot of looking at some really tricked out automobiles and all of the cool electronics that get crammed into them.

Each of these episodes is being posted to the Techpodcasts Blip.tv site, and I am pressing through to get them all in posted form. Then, the big work begins getting them re-posted through Tube Mogul to various video sites, including YouTube, AOL video and so forth. Then we have the work of posting the various product videos. It is a different sort of task, but kind of fun in it’s own way. Just thankful for Firewire external drives – gotta have e’m no matter how much room you think you have on your regular machine.

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White Space Round Two

by Andrew McCaskey
One of the most disruptive of the technologies that are being discussed are those surrounding re-use of unoccupied sections of spectrum in and among the UHF channels that will be used for digital TV.

WIth the 700Mhz blocks being auctioned for billions of dollars, there is great incentive for the established carriers to buy up the licenses, and basically sit on them. Whitespace devices are a possible killer technology that could wipe out that investment virtually overnight.

Not that Verizon or AT&T have asked – but it looks to me that they would be wise to put some innovative energy into deploying that 700Mhz spectrum immediately.

The combination of Microsoft, Intel, HP and half a dozen other heavyweights with vested interest in making White Space Devices (WSD) will eventually prevail – no matter how long the technical smokescreen holds at the FCC, egged on by broadcasters and the NAB.

Then, riding the learning and production curves in unlicensed white space spectrum, you will see an incredible rush of creativity, just as at 2.4 Ghz.

You could think of WSD as sort of the WMD of the RF world.

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Comcast Traffic Shaping

by Andrew McCaskey
Today’s article on Comcast traffic shaping (using Sandvine or injecting false RST packets) just set of some alarms for me.

It’s been several years since I have done any appreciable bittorrent traffic into or out of the house – the majority of which was providing distribution of SDR via bittorrent, the download of various disk images for open source software, and similar legit uses.

Although I did not, in principle, like the practices of Comcast – and still needed the fast speeds ( I get downloads approaching 15Mb/sec and uploads of 1.5Mb/sec during the day when the kids are in school on my Comcast cable modem). For example, today I pushed close to 500MB of video in the CES editing series. Plus, I have regular show uploads and commercial clients that I service as well moving things back and forth .

What alarmed me was the FCC comment filing of customers in the Indianapolis area that claim to have observed throttling of FTP traffic. I hope that my paranoids have not become inflamed, but I have noticed highly variable FTP speeds to my servers in recent weeks that did not seem to correlate closely to speedtests. I wonder if I’m starting to see that effects ? The video uploads are via HTTP transfer to Bliptv, not ftp.

I’m keeping an eye out, and suggest you do the same.

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Technology, Business and Society

by Andrew McCaskey

It’s a rare episode that brings together the three recurring themes for this podcast so well as the one today.

First, the legal opinion on the legality of searches that are ancillary to an arrest – with iPhones, Googlephones Smartphones or whatever – perhaps to include mp3 players, thumbdrives on keychains. All seem to be in play, searchable without probable cause. As more of your life, identity, secrets, asset keys and information are in digital form, what’s to prevent that information to fall into the wrong hands ? Once again, the fascination on both the right and the left – linking the right to strong encryption and the right to bear arms get closer than we ever could have thought.

DRM is dead. OK, now what ? As the PC World editor points out, that’s done a great job of eliminating the symptom. Add that to the behind the scenes playout of 700Mhz and white space. What happens if you are an entrenched carrier (Verizon or AT&T), you win the auction with intent of sitting on it or rationing it out to business users, and there is an end run by whitespace unlicensed spectrum ? Business models getting re-shaped daily.

Finally Technology. Even the best technology can’t protect a public that patronizes door-to-door tattoo artists.

I wish I could make up items like that – but check the link.

=====================

Neat Receipts 3.0 : Upgrade to 3.0 existing customers can get a $20 upgrade credit, bringing your cost to $29.95.

It’s a strong and capable system, takes a lot of processor power and has a large download about 150MB. I have found their customer service to be very helpful – even though I had lost my original CD – all I had to do was give them the scanner serial number and I had the download point and product key. Just make sure on the IM chat that you let them know the situation – the 3.0 upgrade will NOT install if you have beyond 2.4.1 – just ask for the full 3.0 download.

I recommend this book (and the free Nozbe implementation) because it has been an incredible help to me managing the demands of a daily podcast, travel, day job, and home responsibilities. Please give it a try – I think that you will find that after 30 days, you will be more productive, feel more in control, and better able to manage your day to day tasks.

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Load Out in Reverse

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More on Gizmodo

by Andrew McCaskey

I have spent this day reviewing and indexing 108 videos that I have recorded over the past seven days for the TPN CES Backchannel. Todd at GeekNewsCentral will have close to 80 interviews in HD. All through the day I have been doing a slow burn as I watch Paul’s recovery from food poisoning, watch Dave lugging equipment through set up and tear down interview after interview, and observe Todd and myself folding closer and closer to exhaustion as the week progressed.

You would think that I would cool off after 24 hours but the more that I think about the Gizmodo incident and read some of the other postings, I’m inclined to turn it up a notch.

The reason is, simply, pageviews. The perversity of this whole situation is that the market rewards controversy and notoriety. With a cheap trick, Gizmodo has come up with a way to spike their views, get rewarded by advertisers and readers alike, and bloggers and podcasters who are grateful for the opportunity to cover CES and begin to grow new media get the short end of the deal.

I have not fully formed my thoughts yet, but Todd and I spoke briefly today about what we may have accomplished as we are going through the videos. What we have are some practical advice and demo on citizen journalism that we have directed towards tech ends. It can be more than that.

This past week has not been just about two geeks on tour. We’re building something along with thousands of other bloggers and podcasters, because it’s the right thing to do. We just got punched back a few yards.

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IF there is any doubt as far as the commitment that TechPodcasts has made, or the personal and entrepreneurial risk, or the amount of dedication to our listeners and viewers, I hope that CES and CEA will take time to look at over 12 hours of real-life content that we have posted from our back channel. Check out the episode “Hitting the Wall” and the amount of preparation that each of us on the TPN team did – and the efforts to overcome food poisoning on one of our team.

If we had not had access to the press areas and events like Digital Experience and Showstoppers that CAME from the CEA’s efforts to support us and our access our listeners would have been severely limited in content. TPN and bloggers provide the ONLY non-corporate non-processed non-PR managed channel for CES. We can get to smaller companies, like the one with the tremendous product that combines a GPS receiver into a mouse for less than $100 that would NEVER get the time of day from a traditional media outlet.

I agree wholeheartedly with Todd on this one, from his post.

Andy McCaskey and I just spent a week in Vegas working CES. We busted our butts did not get much sleep in fact from Monday to Thursday it was a whole 14 hours for me.

We spoke to hundreds of vendors and were well received by all. Every booth we went to we were welcomed with open arms. The vendors gave us access to Program Managers, Engineers, Product Development Teams, CEO’s etc..

We were invited to dinner by several groups in no pitch events that were really nice.

But what I have just seen on Gizmodo makes me really mad. A number of us have worked hard for a number of years to build the trust and gain acceptance in this show. We have had to provide examples of our content from previous years to get access to separate events like Show Stoppers.

We came and we worked, we did not Party we worked like dogs and to find out that some Gizmodo staff sabotaged a vendors booth at CES makes me sick to my stomach.

What a bunch of Amateurs, you have been invited to the event, they have given you credentials, you have been allowed access to a special lounge for the event to do work from an then you pull a stunt like this.

I say ban Gizmodo from every event that they want to cover in 2008. Many of us have worked this show on our own dime, and do not need some punks causing bloggers to get a bad name. My expenses to CES were at least $4000.00 alone that I paid out of pocket. This act can set the good will of companies towards podcasters and bloggers back a long way.

Gizmodo you deserve any punishment that is dished out. I hope Motorola, CEA takes legal action against you! [Stupid Gizmodo]

I will update in the morning, as it is 03:15AM

HOTLINE: The most recent content viewable on the CES 2008 Coverage of by the Tech Podcast Network.

It may show one of our HDTV product videos, a daily summary , or it may be one of our non-edited tactical Back Channel shows. Be sure and check out all three sites, since there may be several episodes that have been published prior to the current episode in this player.

Meantime, here’s what’s new on TPN

This is an SDRNewsroom Backchannel episode, with highlights from coverage of the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show- CES2008, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Thanks for supporting the venture with our sponsors at Nozbe and GoDaddy.com !

You can get a FREE Nozbe account on the green logo below, and take advantage of the deals from GoDaddy.com, your One Stop Shop for Internet Needs.

Player Difficulty ? try this link

The SDRNewsRoom Backchannel is a behind the scenes un-edited videoblog with coverage of what it’s like to cover an event with over 140,000 attendees as an independent podcaster. Instead of film crews, satellite trucks, luxury suites and private briefings with CEO’s, we show what CES is like from the point of two geek podcasters who took vacation from their day jobs, loaded up the Visa cards, and headed to Las Vegas…

Bloghaus to the Rescue

by Andrew McCaskey
I had no idea of the speed difference of a truly high capacity site. Bloghaus – even when full of bloggers, many of whom are video bloggers with monster files has the finest facilities available, bar none.

Rob Greenlee, one of the founders of TechPodcast Network, joined us and gave a quick demo of the 80GB Zune. Rob is the Podcast guru for the Zune – just started within the past few months.

For the third consecutive year, the Tech Podcast Network is providing independent podcast on-site audio and video coverage of CES, featuring Andy McCaskey of SDRNews-SlashdotReview Podcast and Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central Podcast

SDR News is a Daily (M-F) Technology Podcast with Tech News Highlights from Slashdot, Digg and Reddit

The TechPodcast Network is a group of over 70 independent technology oriented podcasters who present family safe audio and video podcasts to hundreds of thosands of listeners and viewers around the world.

Don’t miss our more professional, official TPN coverage at Techpodcasts.com

Meantime, have fun with this episode in … the BackChannel of the SDR Newsroom

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Play the most recent SDRNews Audio Coverage of CES2008

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Copyright (c) 2008 Review Communications, Inc.

CES-TPN2008-01-06_5 Bloghaus and a Zune Demo

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CES Coverage Continues

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CES Teamwork

by Andrew McCaskey
The videos will come fast and furious from now on. Most of the materials will be either at Techpodcasts.com (for official content) or here for the SDRNewsroom unofficial content. We will be cross posting so be sure to check out all three sites.

SlashdotReview.com
GeekNewsCentral.com
Techpodcasts.com

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