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Buzz Out Loud 777: Eight-letter word for fail: Scrabble

On today's show, we discover that it's hard to stand out in an orgy, only about a quarter of things Molly says are words, and EA poops all over you. That's just the kind of show we have when Rafe Needleman fills in for Tom.

Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 777/b>

Happy birthday, NASA! http://science.slashdot.org/science/08/07/29/2120225.shtml

EA: Hack took Facebook Scrabble down http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10002363-36.html

Garmin delays Nuvifone http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121742654018296961.html

Dell tests player to renew iPod battle … Read more

Red Hat's new CEO aims Linux at the cloud

Red Hat's new chief executive, Jim Whitehurst, has his eyes on the sky.

The former Delta Airlines chief operating officer, who took the reins of the most established open-source software company from Matthew Szulik in January, names cloud computing as a top priority. Loosely speaking, the term refers to computing services available to anyone online rather than custom data centers isolated within corporate confines, but it also dovetails with the general idea of computing services running at massive scale on a more flexible infrastructure.

"The clouds will all run Linux," Whitehurst said in an interview.

Being Red … Read more

Amazon automates Mechanical Turk outsourcing service

Amazon has added a Web-based tool to help automate use of its Mechanical Turk program, a marketplace that seeks to unite people across the world with companies that need help with tasks that humans accomplish.

The new interface makes it possible for those offering work to manage many tasks. "The new Web-based interface guides business users through the process of designing Human Intelligence Tasks (HITs), publishing up to hundreds of thousands of HITs simultaneously, monitoring worker activity, and retrieving work results," Amazon said Wednesday.

Previously, such automation was possible through use of an API (application programming interface), but … Read more

Amazon unveils new online-payment services

Amazon.com quietly unveiled on Tuesday new online-payment services it will offer to other online merchants--a move that puts it in direct competition with eBay's PayPal and Google's Google checkout.

The Seattle-based e-tailer describes Checkout by Amazon as a "complete checkout solution," with features such as Amazon's "one-click" payment option and tools for managing shipping charges, sales tax, and promotions. Google introduced a similar online payment processing system called Google Checkout in 2006, but analysts say it has been slow to catch on with merchants and consumers.

Amazon also unveiled Amazon Simple Pay, … Read more

Westerberg on Amazon: an exercise in frustration

I'm a Replacements fan. Paul Westerberg's new album, 49:00, sounded intriguing. Like Radiohead and Trent Reznor and others, he's released it as a download first. Unlike these previous experiments, 49:00 is sold as a single album-length track. And while he's not technically giving it away, it costs only $0.49--a bit more than one cent per minute. (Paradoxically, the album is not 49 minutes long, but 43:55. The number refers to his 49th birthday, which occurs on the last day of 2008.)

So I headed over to Amazon.com's MP3 store. The … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 774: The feel-good episode of the year

That's sarcasm, I'm afraid. Lots of bad news today, including the tragic end to the Spam King escape story, the cell-phones-and-cancer debate makes a resurgence with some serious recommendations for careful use, and AOL starts up a fire sale. In good news, though, a new iPhone firmware upgrade is on deck, and it may bring turn-by-turn GPS AND copy and paste. But you know, don't get your hopes up. Have a great weekend! Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 774

Escaped ’spam king’ allegedly kills self, family http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-9999451-83.html

Cancer doc urges … Read more

Report: MySpace could work with Amazon on music service

Updated at 9:22 a.m. PDT

Amazon.com could become the e-commerce engine behind the MySpace Music service expected to launch in September, according to a report on TechCrunch.

In April, MySpace, which is already used by young acts trying to promote their music, announced it was working on a music service that would handle songs from at least three of the four major record labels. The labels will get an equity stake in the new joint venture and a share of all the revenue the service collects.

TechCrunch reports that Rhapsody and (interestingly) Apple are also bidding for … Read more

Sony opens e-book reader to outside publishers

Sony announced on Thursday that its Reader Digital Book will be able to read electronic books published using the .epub format that many of the largest book publishers are using.

Until now, Sony's e-book reader could only read books available from the Sony e-book store, PDF documents, and DRM-free text. Starting next month, the new PRS-505 Sony Reader model will be able to access secure DRM- and non-DRM-protected content in the .epub format, formerly called the Open eBook format. (Here's a review of the device.)

The Sony Reader Digital Book is the first e-book reading device to support … Read more

Comparison of Amazon, Google, AppNexus, and GoGrid Cloud offerings

Peter Wayner at Infoworld published a good overview of Cloud offerings from Amazon, Google, AppNexus, and GoGrid. The main takeaway: Cloud Computing is as nebulous as it is cumulus.

The first surprise is that the services are wildly different. While many parts of Web hosting are pretty standard, the definition of "cloud computing" varies widely. Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud offers you full Linux machines with root access and the opportunity to run whatever apps you want. Google's App Engine will also let you run whatever program you want -- as long as you specify it in … Read more