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

Click Here to Sign Up for the SDR Newsletter

Prefer a Direct Download ? (mp3)
Download today’s show.

If a news item has disappeared from the Del.icio.us list above, try the full list here.

SEARCH ANY STORY YOU HEAR ON THE PODCAST

More Info on Screencasts Online

Production Schedule Change

by Andrew McCaskey
Some changes in the production schedule for SDRNews are going to take the program to three days a week for the next few weeks, as well as some holiday scheduling. Part of the plan is preparation for the coverage of the Consumer Electronics Show, and part of the plan is a change in the business model.

I’ll be sharing parts of the upgrades and information on the Facebook Fan page for SDRNews, and looking forward to your comments there.

On CES, we have some really exciting news : The TPN field team has been invited to produce a portion of our CES coverage live from the NBC-Universal booth on two days during the CES Show. As more details become available, we will be certain to share. Also, the Geek News Central 24 hour podcast is coming up this weekend December 12, and we’ll have some more CES related announcements at that time as well.

Contact Us

Twoddler: Twittering Toddlers from Bart Swennen on Vimeo.

Twoddler

Watch Today’s Video Episode

Be sure to check out GoToMeeting. Why? Because you can hold meetings right over the Net — from anywhere. Plus, you can hold all the meetings you want for one flat rate. To get your free 30-day trial , visit www.gotomeeting.com/techpodcasts.

• Take 10% off any order at GoDaddy.com! Code SLASH
• Take $5 off any $30 order at GoDaddy.com! Code SDR530
• .com Domains $6.95 at GoDaddy.com! Code SLASH3
• More blogs about SlashdotReview and SDRNews…

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

Click Here to Sign Up for the SDR Newsletter

Prefer a Direct Download ? (mp3)
Download today’s show.

If a news item has disappeared from the Del.icio.us list above, try the full list here.

SEARCH ANY STORY YOU HEAR ON THE PODCAST

More Info on Screencasts Online

Ethanol Keeps Going and Going

by Andrew McCaskey
Ethanol Keeps Going and Going..

The New York Times noted that ” the EPA will likely approve an increase to 15% ethanol next summer, perhaps for use only in cars of the 2001 model year and later. This raises the possibility that gasoline retailers might need to carry different ethanol blends in different pumps, and that drivers with older cars might have to be careful about which blend they buy.

The E.P.A. was responding to a petition from ethanol manufacturers, who have complained that unless a higher blending level is approved, within two years they will not have a big enough market to absorb their production.

Congress ordered increased use of ethanol in energy bills that passed in 2005 and 2007 . Adjusted for its lower energy content, E85, as the higher blend is known, is more expensive than gasoline, and motorists thus have little reason to use it.”

Plus the fact that it takes more energy to produce it than it delivers- is there anything that can put this into it’s well deserved grave ? Or will it be like the monster in the grade B flick that keeps popping out of the grave ?

Contact Us

Jack Dorsey’s Square in Action

Watch Today’s Video Episode

Be sure to check out GoToMeeting. Why? Because you can hold meetings right over the Net — from anywhere. Plus, you can hold all the meetings you want for one flat rate. To get your free 30-day trial , visit www.gotomeeting.com/techpodcasts.

• Take 10% off any order at GoDaddy.com! Code SLASH
• Take $5 off any $30 order at GoDaddy.com! Code SDR530
• .com Domains $6.95 at GoDaddy.com! Code SLASH3
• More blogs about SlashdotReview and SDRNews…

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

Click Here to Sign Up for the SDR Newsletter

Prefer a Direct Download ? (mp3)
Download today’s show.

If a news item has disappeared from the Del.icio.us list above, try the full list here.

SEARCH ANY STORY YOU HEAR ON THE PODCAST

More Info on Screencasts Online

We Have . . A Winner

by Andrew McCaskey
Slow Internet meets its Waterloo

Waterloo, Iowa isn’t a name that conjures up visions of “blazing-fast Internet,” but it’s about to get the fastest residential connections in the country: 105Mbps. Waterloo is no high-tech haven; more typical are the surrounding farms, the John Deere plant, and a massive Target distribution center. Cable operator Mediacom is changing that perception, though, installing DOCSIS 3.0 gear that will boost the top-tier 20Mbps speeds in town up to 105Mbps, the highest speed in the country.

Due to cable’s shared architecture, residents will rarely if ever see a full 105Mbps on their home connections. . If a modern cable plant has been properly installed, there is enough bandwidth that DOCSIS 3.0 upgrades require only headend upgrades and new modems, not extensive trenching and street-level work. The telcos, which depended on low-bandwidth copper wire for so many decades, now face a choice. To get more bandwidth, they can run fiber to the home (Verizon), fiber to the node (AT&T), or deploy new phone lines and rely on channel bonding. None is as simple or cheap as cable’s upgrade path.

Unless Verizon is willing to aggressively push the deployment of FIOS service, it is going to be very hard for them to overcome the lead that DOCSIS 3.0 provides. And very hard to plow that back into the rate base and get it past various state regulatory authorities.

On the other hand, it may be justice for 40 year amortization schedules of copper paid for 37 years ago that have enabled telcos to stay behind the times in comfort.

Contact Us

Knocking Live iPhone VIdeo App

Watch Today’s Video Episode

Be sure to check out GoToMeeting. Why? Because you can hold meetings right over the Net — from anywhere. Plus, you can hold all the meetings you want for one flat rate. To get your free 30-day trial , visit www.gotomeeting.com/techpodcasts.

• Take 10% off any order at GoDaddy.com! Code SLASH
• Take $5 off any $30 order at GoDaddy.com! Code SDR530
• .com Domains $6.95 at GoDaddy.com! Code SLASH3
• More blogs about SlashdotReview and SDRNews…

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

Click Here to Sign Up for the SDR Newsletter

Prefer a Direct Download ? (mp3)
Download today’s show.

If a news item has disappeared from the Del.icio.us list above, try the full list here.

SEARCH ANY STORY YOU HEAR ON THE PODCAST

More Info on Screencasts Online

Novell’s Google Wave

by Andrew McCaskey
Novell’s Pulse

The announcement of the first Google Wave application for the enterprise – Novell’s Pulse – is going to be the first step in a journey that is going to take many years to complete. In fact, by the time we get there, it might be unrecognizable. When you consider that the Google Wave is set to displace not only email but collaborative document development and sharing, social media, wiki, and archival functions in an enterprise environment, it’s a tall order, indeed.

Someone has to go first, but you can tell the pioneers by the arrows in the back. It’s going to be a long time before the IT manager of a company that exists today is going to go out on a limb and allow anything like Google Wave into the main shop production.

The growth of such a radical tool has to occur outside the system – and even though Novell is providing the impetus and name brand recognition, I’d not look for improvements or adoption there. Google’s Federation is what’s going to pull Google Wave through, and it’s going to be led by someone who has early access and a Federation Sandbox. And a tolerant spouse or parent who will allow the car to be parked outside the garage for the winter to make room for the server and three of his buddies to set the boardroom up in the garage, where the real Wave innovators are setting up shop.

Contact Us

Tweetradio at Tweetrad.io

Watch Today’s Video Episode

Be sure to check out GoToMeeting. Why? Because you can hold meetings right over the Net — from anywhere. Plus, you can hold all the meetings you want for one flat rate. To get your free 30-day trial , visit www.gotomeeting.com/techpodcasts.

• Take 10% off any order at GoDaddy.com! Code SLASH
• Take $5 off any $30 order at GoDaddy.com! Code SDR530
• .com Domains $6.95 at GoDaddy.com! Code SLASH3
• More blogs about SlashdotReview and SDRNews…

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

Click Here to Sign Up for the SDR Newsletter

Prefer a Direct Download ? (mp3)
Download today’s show.

If a news item has disappeared from the Del.icio.us list above, try the full list here.

SEARCH ANY STORY YOU HEAR ON THE PODCAST

Net Neutrality on the Cheap

by Andrew McCaskey
How’s That Working For You ?

That’s the question that Dr. Phil asks after a guest stumbles along explaining his actions, digging the hole deeper and deeper as Dr Phil and the audience become more incredulous that the guest can deliver the reasoning with a straight face. That’s the question that we might also want to ask critics of Net Neutrality rules.

Their answer would be – it’s not working too well, and that’s why we’d like for Net Neutrality to go away. We’ve made the investment, most of it under the old business model of setting up toll roads and as soon as this free/perfect/now madness passes, we can get back to business.

The answer should be that that model is long dead, just as the cost of long distance service has gone to effectively zero – and would be even lower still if there was not the overhead liability of the central office switching model that refuses to place the intelligence at the edge of the network.

After several years of excellent service from the Ooma VoIP system for a single home line, I just added a second number for my home office, configured the forwarding, voicemail, custom ring, set my choices of a second ring on the remote Ooma Scout, and placed three customer service calls to isolate a defective unit. A totally different experience than similar discussions with Verizon – or for that matter the telco clone Packet8 (8×8) that is following exactly the telco practice of maximum confusion, jargon, constant upsell, and less than perfect voice quality.

Net Neutrality – Ooma style – is working pretty well for me.

Contact Us

Dymaxion Car – Ford Museum Film

Watch Today’s Video Episode

Be sure to check out GoToMeeting. Why? Because you can hold meetings right over the Net — from anywhere. Plus, you can hold all the meetings you want for one flat rate. To get your free 30-day trial , visit www.gotomeeting.com/techpodcasts.

• Take 10% off any order at GoDaddy.com! Code SLASH
• Take $5 off any $30 order at GoDaddy.com! Code SDR530
• .com Domains $6.95 at GoDaddy.com! Code SLASH3
• More blogs about SlashdotReview and SDRNews…

BLOCKBUSTER Total Access click to activate coupon for $10 off your first month.

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

Click Here to Sign Up for the SDR Newsletter

Prefer a Direct Download ? (mp3)
Download today’s show.

If a news item has disappeared from the Del.icio.us list above, try the full list here.

Thumbnail Views: Via Thumblicio.us

SEARCH ANY STORY YOU HEAR ON THE PODCAST

HD-Radio – What’s in Store ?

by Andrew McCaskey
Stuck Shifting Gears

For the past four years at CES, I have always been somewhat mystified by HD-Radio. Not so much the technology, but the fact that HD-Radio been able to hold on with continued investment offering a solution to a problem. The only difficulty is that it is not a problem that the consumer has, it is a problem that the broadcaster has – how to maximize the return on programming within its local market in face of real competition from podcasts, recorded music, and now the iPhone and other smartphones as Pandora and Stitcher chew up the music and short form streaming news business.

Satellite radio has it’s own substantial problems, and there is some doubt that the combined XM-Sirius will be able to survive the year with over a $Billion in debt, $300Million due this spring, and a retail channel heavily dependent upon OEM installs in GM Automobiles. Good luck with that one. And, if former Sirius subscribers are as un-impressed by the merger of the two programming streams as I am as an XM listener, surviving finanancially is just the first hurdle to jump. Continued erosion of subscribers and a murderous ‘cost per acquisition’ of new subscribers can still finish them off. If satellite radio goes belly-up, it is not necessarily going to throw much business towards HD-Radio.

Historically, radio has re-invented itself when challenged; in the 1940′s and early 1950′s the demise of radio as dramatic entertainment and morphing into music and news began. By the late 1950′s and early 60′s Rock and Roll and Top 40. Seventies- FM, Eighties and Nineties – Satellite and Talk Radio. Then consolidation, homogenization and Clear Channel. No wonder HD-Radio was cooked up. Time to re-invent as the decades changed – but this time a mis-fire.

It’s just a case of market confusion. Up to a certain point, providers are the market. After that, the product has to meet a need that consumers want to solve and are willing to pay for the solution. HDRadio has broadcasters on the hook. It just looks like consumers aren’t following along.

Contact Us

CES 2008 Coverage for Tech Podcast Network

Kill-A-Watt Meter

Watch Today’s Video Episode

Click to view videos submitted or recommended by other SDR podcast listeners. . .

If you find a YouTube video that pertains to one of our news items, or have produced an item that would be of interest to SDR listeners, please send us the link slashdotreview{at}gmail.com

Save $10 on any order of $50 or more at GoDaddy.com!
Be sure to sign up for our upcoming roundtable. We will be using GoToMeeting. Also, be sure to check out GoToMeeting. Why? Because you can hold meetings right over the Net — from anywhere. Plus, you can hold all the meetings you want for one flat rate. To get your free 30-day trial , visit www.gotomeeting.com/techroundtable.

• Take 10% off any order at GoDaddy.com! Code SLASH
• Take $5 off any $30 order at GoDaddy.com! Code SLASH2
• .com Domains $6.95 at GoDaddy.com! Code SLASH3
• More blogs about SlashdotReview…
• Slashdot Review by Email – Sign up here:

BLOCKBUSTER Total Access click to activate coupon for $10 off your first month.

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

Click Here to Sign Up for the SDR Newsletter

Prefer a Direct Download ? (mp3)
Download today’s show.

If a news item has disappeared from the Del.icio.us list above, try the full list here.

Thumbnail Views: Via Thumblicio.us

SEARCH ANY STORY YOU HEAR ON THE PODCAST

You Better Own Your Cloud

by Andrew McCaskey
No Matter How Fine

No Matter how trustworthy – no matter how convenient – the cloud gives and the cloud can take away. There is lots of emerging enthusiasm for the Google GDrive. Just like GMail, it’s going to be incredibly convenient and versitile. Just remember that it is not the place where you want to have as a single point of failure for anything that might be important to you. Anything that is uniquely yours, that aggregates hundreds of hours of work, your contact information stores, or memories that your future will value above all else, that’s the digital stuff that we are talking about.

Family photos, videos and business contacts and agreements or resources are too important to entrust to local hardware alone. A crash on your local drive or fire at your business is one risk for loss of data, so offsite storage without administration hassle or expense is tempting.

The convenience factor is substantial, and the advantages of being able to pull business and personal data from some arbitrary machine wherever you happen to be located is a powerful siren call. It’s going to take substantial willpower not to be lulled into a sense of security – but resist you must. Because any cloud based service that can be given, can be taken away. And any data that you have carefully or casually stored into that cloud.

One of the most intriguing products of CES was a device, less than $100 called the Pogoplug. Pogoplug will enable you to place an arbitrary USB drive – or portions of it – as an addressable IP device. Select a 500GB or 1TB drive, make it a portion of your network, then physically position a similar unit at another family member’s home. Use the cloud freely and enjoy the convenience and flexibility. Just make sure that once every few hours there is a sweep of your new data to your counterpart, and their new data to you.

That’s into a cloud that you control and manage both physically and administratively.

Make some plans, use the new GDrive Cloud, but just remember to sweep up behind yourself.

Contact Us

CES 2008 Coverage for Tech Podcast Network

Boxee at CES2009

Watch Today’s Video Episode

Click to view videos submitted or recommended by other SDR podcast listeners. . .

If you find a YouTube video that pertains to one of our news items, or have produced an item that would be of interest to SDR listeners, please send us the link slashdotreview{at}gmail.com

Save $10 on any order of $50 or more at GoDaddy.com!
Be sure to sign up for our upcoming roundtable. We will be using GoToMeeting. Also, be sure to check out GoToMeeting. Why? Because you can hold meetings right over the Net — from anywhere. Plus, you can hold all the meetings you want for one flat rate. To get your free 30-day trial , visit www.gotomeeting.com/techroundtable.

• Take 10% off any order at GoDaddy.com! Code SLASH
• Take $5 off any $30 order at GoDaddy.com! Code SLASH2
• .com Domains $6.95 at GoDaddy.com! Code SLASH3
• More blogs about SlashdotReview…
• Slashdot Review by Email – Sign up here:

BLOCKBUSTER Total Access click to activate coupon for $10 off your first month.

Free Information on EVault 1-866-928-0735

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

Click Here to Sign Up for the SDR Newsletter

Prefer a Direct Download ? (mp3)
Download today’s show.

If a news item has disappeared from the Del.icio.us list above, try the full list here.

Thumbnail Views: Via Thumblicio.us

SEARCH ANY STORY YOU HEAR ON THE PODCAST

Even Apple

by Andrew McCaskey
The New York Times blog entry reminds us that MobileMe and some of the problems on the 3G iPhone are the flip side of the success that Apple has enjoyed. Moving in parallel with the introduction of the App store, the stumbles of Vista, the domination of the iTunes Music Store, and the continued roll of the iPod/iPod Touch there were a group of less than spectacular also rans.

The Apple /// was mentioned, along with the infamous Newton, just about eight years before its time. Lisa did not make the cut, nor did some of the other detours along the road, including a miserable set of confusing model numbers all with underpowered and overpriced versions.

The Apple TV ? The jury is still out. The potential is there, but the entertainment industry makes sure that the business model is troubled and it may end up with the short life of a sickly child.

The important thing to realize is that Apple, just like Microsoft are no longer spring chickens. They are well into middle age as far as corporations go. In fact, if you look at the top 20 companies from 1955 to 2005, and you will see very few that have survived fifty years.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500_archive/full/2005/

That simple fact should remind us all that the time on top of the heap is short indeed.

Contact Us

CES 2008 Coverage for Tech Podcast Network

Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

Ubiquity from Mozilla Labs

Watch Today’s Video Episode

Click to view videos submitted or recommended by other SDR podcast listeners. . .

If you find a YouTube video that pertains to one of our news items, or have produced an item that would be of interest to SDR listeners, please send us the link slashdotreview{at}gmail.com

Save $10 on any order of $50 or more at GoDaddy.com!
Be sure to sign up for our upcoming roundtable. We will be using GoToMeeting. Also, be sure to check out GoToMeeting. Why? Because you can hold meetings right over the Net — from anywhere. Plus, you can hold all the meetings you want for one flat rate. To get your free 30-day trial , visit www.gotomeeting.com/techroundtable.

• Take 10% off any order at GoDaddy.com! Code SLASH
• Take $5 off any $30 order at GoDaddy.com! Code SLASH2
• .com Domains $6.95 at GoDaddy.com! Code SLASH3
• More blogs about SlashdotReview…
• Slashdot Review by Email – Sign up here:

BLOCKBUSTER Total Access click to activate coupon for $10 off your first month.

Free Information on EVault 1-866-928-0735

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

Click Here to Sign Up for the SDR Newsletter

Prefer a Direct Download ? (mp3)
Download today’s show.

If a news item has disappeared from the Del.icio.us list above, try the full list here.

Thumbnail Views: Via Thumblicio.us

SEARCH ANY STORY YOU HEAR ON THE PODCAST

TPN Roundtable Saturday August 23

by Andrew McCaskey
This Month’s TPN Roundtable will be held in a live GoToMeeting session on Saturday August 23 at 1:00PM Pacific / 4:00PM Eastern.

There were several TPN members in attendance at the Las Vegas New Media Expo, and the TPN Roundtable is a great way to get their first hand impressions of the conference – and insight into the world of podcasting a new media from a business and technology perspective.

If there were one word to characterize this year’s NME, it would be “stretch” . I’ll be talking about that on Saturday.

You can get meeting details at Techpodcasts.com

Contact Us

CES 2008 Coverage for Tech Podcast Network

Microsoft PhotoSynth TED Talk

Watch Today’s Video Episode

Click to view videos submitted or recommended by other SDR podcast listeners. . .

If you find a YouTube video that pertains to one of our news items, or have produced an item that would be of interest to SDR listeners, please send us the link slashdotreview{at}gmail.com

Save $10 on any order of $50 or more at GoDaddy.com!
Be sure to sign up for our upcoming roundtable. We will be using GoToMeeting. Also, be sure to check out GoToMeeting. Why? Because you can hold meetings right over the Net — from anywhere. Plus, you can hold all the meetings you want for one flat rate. To get your free 30-day trial , visit www.gotomeeting.com/techroundtable.

• Take 10% off any order at GoDaddy.com! Code SLASH
• Take $5 off any $30 order at GoDaddy.com! Code SLASH2
• .com Domains $6.95 at GoDaddy.com! Code SLASH3
• More blogs about SlashdotReview…
• Slashdot Review by Email – Sign up here:

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

Click Here to Sign Up for the SDR Newsletter

Contact Us

Prefer a Direct Download ? (mp3)
Download today’s show.

CES 2008 Coverage for Tech Podcast Network

TouchWall Demo at Microsoft

Watch the You Tube Episode

Today’s Headlines Include…

If a news item has disappeared from the Del.icio.us list above, try the full list here.

Thumbnail Views: Via Thumblicio.us

SEARCH ANY STORY YOU HEAR ON THE PODCAST

BLOCKBUSTER Total Access click to activate coupon for $10 off your first month.

Contest Day 2

by Andrew McCaskey

Good activity today on the contest survey and Day one . Release the rules and open entries for the SDRNews version of the 31Days of the Dragon promotion from Hewlett-Packard and BuzzCorps, LLC.
.
Here is the contest entry point for Day 2:

In order to make the contest available to the largest number of SDRNews listeners, I have selected a process that will enable you to enter up to six times (once per day) during the contest period.

Each day’s entry will be posted sometime before midnight Eastern time, and remain active for 24 hours.

You can submit one entry per day, and then submit another entry the next day.

You may have up to six entries in that drawing if you complete your entry on each of the six days May 19-May 24. The final winner will be selected in a random drawing among all completed survey entries.

One alternate winner will also be drawn for an additional prize package to be offered by the TechPodcast Network.

Once again, you will want to study up on the details.

Welcome to first time listeners who have arrived courtesy of the promotion, as well as some that indicate that they have been tracking SDRNews for years.

Make sure that you have studied the details of the 31 Days of the Dragon Promotional Offer.

Special Conditions apply – see contest entry for details.

In Play

13 May – 20 May www.geekstogo.com
14 May – 21 May bink.nu
15 May – 22 May www.mediablab.com
16 May – 23 May www.last100.com
17 May – 24 May www.labnol.org
18 May – 25 May www.notebooks.com
19 May – 26 May www.slashdotreview.com
20 May – 27 May www.neowin.net
==========================

Click to view videos submitted or recommended by other SDR podcast listeners. . .

If you find a YouTube video that pertains to one of our news items, or have produced an item that would be of interest to SDR listeners, please send us the link slashdotreview{at}gmail.com

Save $10 on any order of $50 or more at GoDaddy.com!
Be sure to sign up for our upcoming roundtable. We will be using GoToMeeting. Also, be sure to check out GoToMeeting. Why? Because you can hold meetings right over the Net — from anywhere. Plus, you can hold all the meetings you want for one flat rate. To get your free 30-day trial , visit www.gotomeeting.com/techroundtable.

• Take 10% off any order at GoDaddy.com! Code SLASH
• Take $5 off any $30 order at GoDaddy.com! Code SLASH2
• .com Domains $6.95 at GoDaddy.com! Code SLASH3
• More blogs about SlashdotReview…
• Slashdot Review by Email – Sign up here: