It's the penultimate episode before our 404th episode of The 404. Yes, the Internet will exploded when we run our live show tomorrow. Today's episode, though, might keep us from ever reaching that magic number. In our first half, we discuss our recollections of learning about the birds and the bees. In the second half, we have a great Calls from the Public section, and we mention Best Buy's latest snafu.
(Credit:
CNET)
So, why the birds and the bees? Well, according to a study by Symantec, children are searching the Internet to learn about sex, not necessarily from their parents. While that might sound quite disturbing, Jeff, Justin, and Wilson reminisce about how we learned about it, and most of it involved dirty magazines and shared videotapes. Plus, we swapped tips on how to catch a glimmer of the Spice Channel by either jiggling the remote or hooking up a black box to our cable outlet.
We round out the show with some delightful Calls from the Public. We love it when a woman calls. Finally, we chat a bit about Best Buy and its mistake of putting a high-end Samsung HDTV on sale for $9.99. People are upset that the company won't honor the price. Well, duh. Come on, you knew it was a mistake when you bought it!
Be sure to send in your favorite show moments and congratulate us on our 404th episode tomorrow! The number is 1-866-404-CNET (2638). Or send in a MP3 or WAV to the404 [at] cnet [dot] com. Tomorrow, we've got an amazing roster of guests, including Clayton Morris, Caroline McCarthy, Mark Licea, and more!
EPISODE 403
Listen now: Download today's podcastSubscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video
... Read More
Wired's Gadget Lab blog has a story about how a group of about 250 Kindle owners are staging an online protest over Kindle e-books that cost more than $9.99. The weapon they're using is Amazon's own tagging system, as price offenders are getting hit with a special "9 99 boycott" tag.
The roving--and most likely growing--band of annoyed Kindle owners includes such folks as Connecticut librarian Crystal O'Brien, who spends "a few minutes every day in the Kindle book store tagging the more expensive digital books with the '9 99 boycott' tag and removing it once the price drops below the threshold."
Frame job: the Kindle version of "The Likeness" costs $4 more than the paperback.
(Credit: Amazon)I wish I'd known about the tag when I was searching for a new Kindle e-book the other day. I came across Tana French's "The Likeness" and was considering a purchase until I saw that the Kindle edition was priced at a shocking $14.27. What was so ridiculous was the $10.20 paperback version costs $4 less. However, I didn't notice the "9 99 boycott" tag until I read the Wired blog and went back to look to see whether it was tagged (it was).
Now, if you're new to the whole e-book pricing game, you might think Amazon's the villain here. But the unfortunate fact is that it's really the publishers who are behind the pricing.
Amazon isn't gouging the consumer, and according to my sources, may barely be breaking even on some best sellers that cost $10. You only need to look at the price of books in the eBook Store from Sony to get a pretty good idea that Amazon's trimmed its margins pretty close to the bone. (Typically, best sellers sell for a buck or two more in the Sony eBook Store--and Sony isn't turning big profits either).
Look, I understand publishers don't want to price the Kindle Edition too low for fear that it will hurt sales of the hardcover edition. But I still maintain Kindle best-sellers should cost a few bucks less than what the paperback version of the book would cost. Case in point: I'm not going to buy the paperback edition of "The Likeness" at $10.20. But I would have paid $7.99 for the Kindle version. Now, of course, no sale has been made.
To make my point, I'm slapping a 7 99 boycott tag on "The Likeness." An over $10 boycott is a start. But we really need to get to $7.99. Who's with me?
(Credit:
Crave Asia)
Late last year Philips made headlines with a Xenium 9@9 phone that could last for two months on standby, and the handset has another new trick in its latest version--a touch screen.
When the Xenium 9@9v makes its way to Asia next month, it will one of only a handful of touch-screen phones on the market (PDAs excluded). According to the literature, the handset uses handwriting-recognition software that converts doodles into SMS text so you can actually scribble out your messages.
The company didn't provide much information about the 9@9v's dual-SIM card feature, so we don't know if both cards can be active at the same time (like the Samsung SGH-D880), or if there are certain limitations to the secondary SIM. The 9@9v doesn't have quite the battery life of the earlier model but still claims standby time of up to one month and 8 hours of talktime on a single charge.
(Source: Crave Asia)
(Credit:
SCI FI Tech)
We're still waiting for Sony to hurry up and develop that sugar-powered battery for our mobile phones, but something like this might have to suffice in the meantime.
Philips is developing a handset for the Asian market that it says will provide 17 hours of talk time on a single charge and, on standby, will last for two months, according to SCI FI Tech. And it doesn't look like one of those one of those industrial-strength survival radios either.
The Xenium 9@9 has all the other usual appointments, including a color display, VGA camera, microSD card slot, and Bluetooth support. The only problem is that you won't be able to use dead batteries as an excuse for not calling back anymore.
- prev
- 1
- next
