Buzz Out Loud

Apple, evidently, has a lot of employees with drinking problems, and it keeps letting those employees take iPhone prototypes out of the building. Really? Wow, dudes. Also, T-Mobile tries to pump up its employees over the merger situation, you can finally legally play Doom in Germany, tablet makers try everything but the easy solution, and China is going to kill us all. Or give us $99 tablets, hard to say. And Buzz Out Loud is getting out of the daily deals business.

Wow, look at the big consumer-friendly brain on the DOJ! The Justice Department files an unexpected suit to block the AT&T and T-Mobile acquisition, and we discuss whether we think that will mean the end of it, or whether AT&T will just start buying members of Congress left and right. You decide. Plus, the TouchPad rises once again, we have a winner in the "what does HP now stand for" contest, and it's not Hypothetical Pandas, although it should be.

The cast of Buzz Out Loud has a message for HP that we hope they'll hear: guys. Seriously. Please stop talking. Don't tell the press you may or may not spin off your PC unit if you can figure out what that would mean for the company, and don't let the EVP of the PC business say HP might get back into tablets. I mean, how hard is that, really? Plus, Wikileaks springs a major leak, and Beyonce's baby pwns Twitter.

The Wall Street Journal devastates Hewlett Packard in one incredibly accurate editorial that compiles all the mistakes of the past year or so. And well ... it hurts. In that "oh so true" way. Speaking of hard truths, Eric Schmidt says Google + is an "identity service" and not a social network, and if you don't want to use your real name, don't use G+. Respect. Less respect for the possibility that Larry Page knew about the rogue Canadian pharmacy ads that were posting on Google. Hmm.

On today's show, we discover the universe's biggest diamond floating out there in space. Plus, the FCC is investigating why cell phone networks went down during this week's East Coast earthquake, especially with Hurricane Irene bearing down on the East Coast even as we speak. Our BOL PSA to you: text, don't call. And also, be safe. Plus, Pandora makes some money and the most awkward voicemail session ever.

On today's show, Josh Lowensohn joins us to talk about Steve Jobs' departure from Apple, the coming Tim Cook era, and the new org chart. And don't worry, there's other news, too: Google pays $500 million for assisting pill popping in the U.S., GameStop's dirty tricks, CmdrTaco pulls a Steve Jobs, and the best song tribute to Steve Jobs you'll ever hear (listen all the way to the end!).

On today's show, cute-animal-song wunderkind Parry Gripp joins us to talk about his new Baby Monkey iPhone game, and he's represented by the cutest bunny ever. Seriously. We can barely focus. Seriously. Also, Facebook's major sweeping privacy changes mean you can finally erase your ex from your profile, which is actually kind of awesome. And how "2001: A Space Odyssey" apparently constitutes prior art for tablet design. Oh, yeah.

On today's show, an earthquake appears to be headed right for us, and all we can talk about is HP and WebOS some more! Plus, Lenovo's baffling decision to drop the ThinkPad Tablet into the marketplace at $500, when fire-sale frenzy is at its peak. Um. Oops. And would Apple risk fragmenting the iPhone in order to get into emerging markets? We'll see. Oh, and quick hicks!

HP has a winner on its hands, now that it's killed off that particular winner. The Internetorati clamor to buy discounted TouchPads, while HP's stock plummets 20 percent to a six-year low. So, Apotheker, who's right? You or the geeks? Also, Facebook finds out once again that censorship is hard, and the real reason aliens want to kill us: we'll ruin the entire galaxy if we get off this rock!