Episode 37: Go Bing Yourself

September 19, 2012 by justin | 6 Comments

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Apple announced their sixth iPhone: the aptly-named iPhone five, Twitter is forced to hand over the private messages of an Occupy protester, and Microsoft gives all of its employees a Windows RT tablets. When reached for comment employees said, and I quote, “Horray.” All this and the proper way to use “Bing” as a verb in episode 37 of Technophilia: Go Bing Yourself.

As always, the headlines:

The iPhone 5 is here, and it’s the biggest product launch since day 6 of creation. We contemplate just how big the news is, together. Check out Justin’s column on this momentous occasion if you want to know more immediately. I know you do.
Twitter handed over the personal message of an Occupy protester. Justin suggests a way for companies to avoid
Archive.org just added every news shows since 2009 to their site. You read that correctly, and it’s seriously amazing; check it out
A former UK Dragons Den applicant used the DMCA to silence a competitor. That law is way too easy to abuse.
(Dave) Internet Explorer users have yet another reason to switch browsers: a new Zero-day exploit could give bad folks full access to your computer.
Google goes hipster and buys Snapseed, because every major tech company should offer a photo-ruining service.
An American judge can’t lift the ban on the Galaxy Tab 10.1, even thoguh she wants to.
Canada is third world according to Netflix. Between this and the NHL lockout it’s a dark time to be Canadian.
Demonoid said There’s still hope, but we are not coming back soon.
The WiiU is coming; we discuss the new TV service and whether it will sell like the Wii.
Every Microsoft employee gets an RT Windows 8 tablet. James thinks this is because they can’t sell them.
The nanny scam reveals the perils of doing business online.
And finally, Microsoft is responsible for the worst product placement in history:

We explain the proper way to use Bing as a verb. Use it wisely, and by that we mean constantly and without discretion.

Scutterman

Hey, Guys, what's the name of the element with the chemical symbol "Al"? http://www.ptable.com/

A hash is one-way, so if you hashed DMs then the users that the DM is between wouldn't be able to retrieve it either. The only way to prevent reading a DM from the database would be to allow users to encrypt it using a key not in the Twitter system. That would be a good feature for a twitter app actually, but Twitter couldn't do it without storing the key or generating it, giving it to the user, and if they loose it it's gone and they can't access their messages.

Our commonwealth still includes Australia and India. That's a fair land mass right there, as well as a fair population.

An app named Slapseed? Sounds like something that helps with happy slapping. Maybe putting filters over your videos of random sadistic violence against strangers?

I don't think the Wii-U will sell like Nintendo want it to. The Wii sold because it was a novelty, and it appealed to casual gamers. The casual gamer market is diluted by smartphones and tablets, and the novelty controller doesn't seem to offer much.

Secondly, from what I've heard, they are also offering a more standard controller to broaden the appeal to hardcore gamers. This is smart, but they are pretty much saying "Yeah, the gamepad controller isn't really that good for games, it's a novelty", which isn't helped by the fact that they called it the "Pro" controller.

And finally, they are also trying to aim at a more hardcore market alongside their casual market. While the system specs bring the console alongside the current generation, this is supposed to be a next generation console and it's competitors will be released shortly after it, offering higher specs. This will discourage both the hardcore market and the hardcore games developers trying to push forward gameplay and graphics at the bleading edge.

Overall, nothing here to make me want to buy it compared to the current consoles I own, let along compared to my PC.

That section on product placement was binging hilarious. Had me laughing my binging ass off.

jhpot moderator

@Scutterman Canada is part of the commonwealth as well; it's nearly as big as Australia and India combined. So there's certainly a lot of land in the commonwealth yet.

I'm glad you liked the Bing section. We'll try to find more bad product placement in the future.