Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech stuff from how stuff Works dot com. Hey there, everybody,
Speaker 1: My name is Chris Bollett, and I am an editor
Speaker 1: here at how stuff Works dot Com and cracking up
Speaker 1: across from me as usual because I said something goofy
Speaker 1: as senior writer Jonathan Strickland, just think about it. Our
Speaker 1: whole world is sitting there on a computer. It's in
Speaker 1: the computer. Everything your your your d MV records, your
Speaker 1: your social security, your credit cards, your medical records. It's
Speaker 1: all right there. Everyone is stored in there. It's like
Speaker 1: this little electronic shadow on each and every one of us,
Speaker 1: just just begging for someone to screw with. And you
Speaker 1: know what, They've done it to me, and you know
Speaker 1: what they're gonna do it to you. Dune Dune, Dune,
Speaker 1: I was gonna gonna do that? Or Hi everybody, since
Speaker 1: you kind of started off that way at any rate,
Speaker 1: Today we thought we would talk about some of the
Speaker 1: interesting tech that debuted or became popular in the last
Speaker 1: year that being and kind of give our impressions on it.
Speaker 1: So some of it's going to be stuff that we
Speaker 1: particularly like. In some cases it might not be, you know,
Speaker 1: technology that we particularly like or use, but we found
Speaker 1: it notable in some sense. So, um, would you like
Speaker 1: me to start to do? Want to start? Um? Well,
Speaker 1: you know what mine is probably going to be. I
Speaker 1: can think of one or off the top of my head.
Speaker 1: Let's see if right, the one that I actually have
Speaker 1: in the office with me at the moment. It rhyme
Speaker 1: by dad, Yes it does. Okay, So you're talking about
Speaker 1: the iPad, Apple's device, which, uh, you know we made
Speaker 1: a prediction about last year. I mean, we had been
Speaker 1: sitting there. But I'm not doing this to torch you.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know what, frankly, I didn't expect it
Speaker 1: to be as big as it it did. Well, I
Speaker 1: thought it was gonna be there, seven screen or five
Speaker 1: inch screen popular, as popular as it was. I kind
Speaker 1: of figured it would be sort of a niche market thing.
Speaker 1: But and it it's it is, but the niches bigger
Speaker 1: than I thought. Well, And and part of that, I mean,
Speaker 1: you can't be blamed for that because, like we said
Speaker 1: back when we did our original podcast about the iPad rumors, uh,
Speaker 1: the tablet form factor had never really been successful, and
Speaker 1: so it was hard to imagine a product that would
Speaker 1: change that, and yet Apple did it. So yeah, that
Speaker 1: was a huge story in and of course, the rumors
Speaker 1: about a tablet device uh from Apple started years ago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were coming to um pretty much a frothy, steamy
Speaker 1: head by the end of two thousand nine. So if
Speaker 1: Apple had not come out with a tablet device in
Speaker 1: two ten, we would have all been upset. I was
Speaker 1: imagining beer. I just want to I just want a lot.
Speaker 1: I want a lat taste so badly. I need some caffeine. Okay, Well, uh,
Speaker 1: and the thing is too, I was thinking like the
Speaker 1: Windows tablets, and this is a completely different well I'm
Speaker 1: almost completely different form factor from those larger, more laptop
Speaker 1: like devices. So I think I think that that particular
Speaker 1: size UM and the fact that it already had an
Speaker 1: established base of software helped it a lot. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that that definitely was a big story this year. Of course,
Speaker 1: Oprah named it one of her favorite things well, and
Speaker 1: and so that always helps with the publicity. Epple made
Speaker 1: a really savvy decision to create a device that could
Speaker 1: run apps but was not trying to replicate what you
Speaker 1: do on a computer because that that model had been
Speaker 1: tried many times before and that was the one that
Speaker 1: had failed multiple times. So Apple said, no, that's not
Speaker 1: how we're going to do it. We're going to design
Speaker 1: this so that it runs apps that are either made
Speaker 1: specifically with this device in mind, or are easily convertible
Speaker 1: from our iPod Touch and iPhone platforms. So yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a really smart move and it paid off. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a that was a huge tech tech story
Speaker 1: in Okay, I'm gonna I've got one. This a little
Speaker 1: self serving. Actually it's a lot self serving, but I'm
Speaker 1: being sincere when I say this, the house stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot Com app, iPhone and iPod Touch. I actually really
Speaker 1: like it. Yeah, Okay, Now I don't own an iPhone,
Speaker 1: but my wife does. She has an iPhone now and
Speaker 1: the second application that she downloaded was the house stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot Com app, and uh, I played with it
Speaker 1: on there. I played with it a little bit before that.
Speaker 1: I had written an article about the the app, uh
Speaker 1: to times so that it would come out at the
Speaker 1: same time at the app went public, and uh it
Speaker 1: really I like it a lot. And the reason why
Speaker 1: I like it is it it collects all our stuff
Speaker 1: in a very easily accessible way. Because if you've visited
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com, you know that we have
Speaker 1: these amazing articles on our site, articles, quizzes, games, that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff on our site. We have another site
Speaker 1: that houses our blogs, because you can read all the
Speaker 1: blog entries written by the people who do the various podcasts,
Speaker 1: as well as some blogs that that don't have a
Speaker 1: podcast yet. Then we've got the podcasts, so you can
Speaker 1: go to an rss uh site or you can go
Speaker 1: through iTunes or whatever to get access to the podcasts.
Speaker 1: And then we have our social networking right so then
Speaker 1: you'd have to go to Facebook or Twitter in order
Speaker 1: to interact with us on those social networks. But this
Speaker 1: app collects it all in one place and makes it
Speaker 1: really easy to go back and forth. You know, I
Speaker 1: know I am not the only person who wants to
Speaker 1: know what the first app was, but I bet I
Speaker 1: can guess. I will. I will put it this way,
Speaker 1: and without revealing what that app was, I will say
Speaker 1: that it relates directly to her job. So it was
Speaker 1: not Angry Birds. I thought it was gonna be Angry Birds. No.
Speaker 1: The first app I downloaded on my HTC G two,
Speaker 1: which by the way, another tech story that I like,
Speaker 1: uh was Angry Birds. Actually, you know that that was
Speaker 1: a big The HTC G two is a story, but
Speaker 1: so it was Angry Birds. It was huge. I actually
Speaker 1: have not on my list too. Yeah, which is kind
Speaker 1: of amazing to think about. Uh, you know, just an
Speaker 1: individual game, and not even a console game or a
Speaker 1: PC game, but an app. I didn't think any game
Speaker 1: was ever going to really take the focus away from
Speaker 1: the discussion about Farmville. But then Angry Birds came out
Speaker 1: and that became the game everyone talked about. It wasn't
Speaker 1: Farmville anymore. It was Angry Birds. Not that not that
Speaker 1: you played the game on the same platform. You didn't,
Speaker 1: but you can now. Yeah, But Angry Birds was was
Speaker 1: just the thing that everyone talked about so much so
Speaker 1: that I had to download it when I got my
Speaker 1: my G two because um, I just heard so much
Speaker 1: about it and I had seen videos, but I never
Speaker 1: played it, right, I mean, I've never had a chance to.
Speaker 1: And here's what I have to say about Angry Birds.
Speaker 1: Thank goodness, I now know what those strange noises are
Speaker 1: from the bathroom stall next to me. Because I thought
Speaker 1: I thought we had people with severe digestive problems. But
Speaker 1: now I know it's just that people playing angry birds
Speaker 1: while they're in the John. Okay, that's way too much
Speaker 1: information about our coworkers. How do you think I feel?
Speaker 1: I lived it, and I don't. I don't have anger birds,
Speaker 1: so it's not me. Okay, Yeah, all right, yeah about
Speaker 1: Windows Phone seven, Windows Phone seven a big story. That's
Speaker 1: one of those things. I was going to say it
Speaker 1: in our our Predictions episode, but I uh, we're recording
Speaker 1: this after we've recorded our episode about Predictions, so it
Speaker 1: did not make it into that episode. I can say
Speaker 1: that for sure because I didn't say it. But um,
Speaker 1: I think that Windows Phone seven is going to have
Speaker 1: a decent but not spectacular year in eleven. I think
Speaker 1: it's going to build a good foundation, and I think
Speaker 1: after it'll really start to become a contender in the
Speaker 1: smartphone space. Because I gotta tell you, that is a flashy,
Speaker 1: nice looking OS or smartphone. Yeah yeah, I think. Uh.
Speaker 1: I think Microsoft's past in the mobile market is hurting
Speaker 1: it as far as this this OS is concerned, because
Speaker 1: I've from what I've seen, it's a nice operating system
Speaker 1: and the critical claim has been pretty pretty Critics have
Speaker 1: responded very well to it. I mean, all the first
Speaker 1: look stuff seems to be that you know, this is
Speaker 1: this is definitely a contender. It can go toe to
Speaker 1: toe with iOS and Android in the smartphone space. I
Speaker 1: just think it's going to take about a year for
Speaker 1: it to really get its footing, and then it'll they'll
Speaker 1: I think will be when we see like some great
Speaker 1: competition in the smartphone space. I'm looking forward to that
Speaker 1: because no matter which platform you support, everyone benefits from competition,
Speaker 1: that's right, because everyone starts to innovate and invest in
Speaker 1: their platforms and everyone improves as a result of that.
Speaker 1: And there will be more flame wars as people talk
Speaker 1: about how crummy the other yours. I hate you and
Speaker 1: the phones you like, yeah said, I hate you and
Speaker 1: the bands you like exactly very much. I've got one
Speaker 1: piece of tech that did not that that I wanted
Speaker 1: so badly to come out, but it it died in development,
Speaker 1: the Lenovo you One. Now, you guys might remember after
Speaker 1: cs I was talking about this a lot. I blogged
Speaker 1: about it. I think I talked about it on podcasts.
Speaker 1: The Lenovo you one was a pretty neat uh computer.
Speaker 1: It was a laptop computer where you could detach the
Speaker 1: screen from the computer base and it would become a tablet.
Speaker 1: And not only that, but it ran on two different
Speaker 1: operating systems to when it was connected as a laptop,
Speaker 1: it ran I believe it was a Windows and when
Speaker 1: you detached the the screen it would become a Lenox tablet.
Speaker 1: Um It was supposed to launch in the summer of
Speaker 1: Lenovo ended up shelving that. There was talk that Lenovo
Speaker 1: might relaunch the one, but use a different operating system
Speaker 1: for the tablet, possibly Android, but we still haven't seen it,
Speaker 1: and so I don't know if they if that project
Speaker 1: still has any steam in in Lenovo land, but I
Speaker 1: really hope so, because it was actually, I mean, it
Speaker 1: was the kind of tablet that I wanted because it
Speaker 1: meant that you could if you needed to use a
Speaker 1: laptop like capability, you just connected and then you can
Speaker 1: type away and whatever. But if you just wanted something
Speaker 1: where you could, you know, read a book or watch
Speaker 1: a movie, pop that screen out and you're good to go. Um,
Speaker 1: let's see other big text stories. Really you want to
Speaker 1: do that one? Yeah? Google Buzz Yeah, Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: tech story. Yeah, not a good one. Well at least
Speaker 1: not not the initial response. Yeah, Google, Google had a
Speaker 1: couple of sort of busts this year Buzz, which was
Speaker 1: their answer to Twitter, sort of a microblogging service. But
Speaker 1: the problem wasn't with the service so much as it
Speaker 1: was with the privacy settings. Yeah, it allowed you to
Speaker 1: see another person's connect contacts essentially, that's their Gmail contacts,
Speaker 1: really is what it boiled down to. And it it
Speaker 1: revealed more information about people and the people they know
Speaker 1: than a lot of folks were comfortable with. And so
Speaker 1: there was a pretty big backlash to Google Buzz early
Speaker 1: early on, just shortly after it launched, and as a result,
Speaker 1: Google actually apologized and went back and tweaked those settings
Speaker 1: so that it wasn't so open and um, and there
Speaker 1: are still people who use Google Buzz. It's it hasn't
Speaker 1: gone away. In fact, I still use it, and a
Speaker 1: couple of my friends use In fact, one of my
Speaker 1: friends has stopped using really Facebook and Twitter for the
Speaker 1: most part, and she still uses Google Buzz, which pretty
Speaker 1: crazy to make I use all three, But then I'm
Speaker 1: a social media junkie, So yes you are, yes, well,
Speaker 1: pot and kettle, dear Piette. Well, then there's then there's
Speaker 1: Google Wave, which was supposed to be a big tech
Speaker 1: story is a big tech story in two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: and then it just sort of People had a difficult
Speaker 1: time learning how to use it, and then came the
Speaker 1: news that they weren't going to support it anymore. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you figured they're going to incorporate that technology into
Speaker 1: their other products. Oh sure, yeah, and it's not it's
Speaker 1: not gone. That was the initial word was that they
Speaker 1: were going to just get rid of it. But you know,
Speaker 1: I still have access to my Google notebook. I checked
Speaker 1: the other day. Um, So I think they'll probably leave
Speaker 1: it there for people who want to and can use it.
Speaker 1: I just don't think they're going to make any significant
Speaker 1: improvements and not supporting it like they were. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: may just look at bits and pieces of it and say,
Speaker 1: you know what, this would work really well in Gmail.
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and adapt this so that we can
Speaker 1: incorporate into a Gmail feature. That kind of think. Chris
Speaker 1: and I actually found a really good use for for
Speaker 1: Wave back when we had Tech Stuff Live. We would
Speaker 1: use that to build our show order and uh, and
Speaker 1: it became pretty helpful. We could put in links and
Speaker 1: we could order the show exactly the way we wanted to.
Speaker 1: We would discuss the various news stories and narrow it down,
Speaker 1: and it became a nice way to have an interactive
Speaker 1: meeting without having to actually, you know, book a conference
Speaker 1: room or something. But that's a very specific use and
Speaker 1: it's hard to argue for a tool that, you know,
Speaker 1: I couldn't really come up with another use that I
Speaker 1: could put it to use for, you know, on a
Speaker 1: regular basis. So, yeah, the writing was kind of on
Speaker 1: the wall for that one. Yeah, they they they sort
Speaker 1: of promoted it with you know, you're going to have
Speaker 1: Google Wave discussions with your friends and set up meetings
Speaker 1: and things, you know, get togethers, not not corporate meetings,
Speaker 1: but parties, parties and things like that. And I just
Speaker 1: don't see how, Yeah, Evite has that. It's already so
Speaker 1: easy to create an electronic invitation using Evite or one
Speaker 1: of the many other services that have similar features that
Speaker 1: even Facebook you create a Facebook event, or heck, you
Speaker 1: even put it out on Twitter if you want to
Speaker 1: do an impromptu it thing. It just I think there
Speaker 1: were enough other tools that did it well enough that
Speaker 1: Google Wave was so not a really steep learning curve.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just one of those things where
Speaker 1: you're looking at that for the first day or so
Speaker 1: thinking what the heck can I do? Yeah, there's too much.
Speaker 1: There's so much stuff that I don't know how to
Speaker 1: use this UM keeping it kind of connected to Google
Speaker 1: UM in a way and talking about stuff that died
Speaker 1: out Cool c U I L Cool, the the search
Speaker 1: engine that was headed by former Google employees and UH
Speaker 1: and other people as well, the Google Killer, the Google Killer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they that search engine went away in the the plug
Speaker 1: was pulled UM. All the employees were let go and
Speaker 1: the servers were turned off, and now there is no
Speaker 1: cool an you can't find it. I mean if you
Speaker 1: go to the website, there's nothing there. So you're saying
Speaker 1: we've lost our cool. Yes, we have lost our cool
Speaker 1: and the cool encyclopedia that went along with it. That
Speaker 1: actually did launch in but it wasn't enough to keep
Speaker 1: the search engine around. We did gain WOLL from Alpha.
Speaker 1: We did game was that might actually be a little earlier.
Speaker 1: It's hard for me to remember too, because I was
Speaker 1: like I had to actually look stuff. Oh we got
Speaker 1: rock Melt, new browser that's intimately tied with your Facebook profile. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's really the only way to use it, and so
Speaker 1: that's made some people nervous about privacy issues as well.
Speaker 1: So rock Melt is brand new, it's still in beta,
Speaker 1: it's still invitation only, but those invites multiply because when
Speaker 1: you get invited, then you suddenly have three invitations, and
Speaker 1: when you invite other people, they get invitations. Plus if
Speaker 1: they download. If people you invite download rock Melt, you
Speaker 1: get your invitations back so you can invite more people.
Speaker 1: So really it's it's one of those you know, they
Speaker 1: tell two friends and they tell two friends, and so
Speaker 1: I can hear you thinking about except that it's more
Speaker 1: than that, right, because I tell two friends, they tell
Speaker 1: two friends. Well, meanwhile I'm telling to other friends and
Speaker 1: they're telling two friends. So it just it explodes very quickly. Um,
Speaker 1: stuff like that usually does, I think, based on the
Speaker 1: encounters I've had with betas and things like that, it
Speaker 1: just it just takes off. Um. And yes, you're right,
Speaker 1: that was two thousand nine for a will from Alpha,
Speaker 1: so I thought it might be to remember. You know,
Speaker 1: it's funny people say that tech years are like dog years. Um,
Speaker 1: I can see that, all right, I've got another one.
Speaker 1: And this actually goes back to Apple and and phones
Speaker 1: again iPhone four oh yes, and antenna gate, antenna gate
Speaker 1: and glassgate. Yes. So the iPhone four coming out having
Speaker 1: the front facing camera, FaceTime all that stuff, plus the
Speaker 1: iPod Touch with the new cameras so that you can
Speaker 1: use FaceTime on those as well. Um. Yeah, Apple really
Speaker 1: had a pretty big year for introducing new devices when
Speaker 1: you factor in the iPad, the iPhone four, in the
Speaker 1: new iPod Touch, plus the other new iPod form factors
Speaker 1: as well. The only one that did not get an
Speaker 1: update was iPod Classic, which actually wasn't referred to it
Speaker 1: all in their event, but it still exists, it's still sale,
Speaker 1: So there was that. It was a big year for games.
Speaker 1: We had games like Fallout, New Vegas, Halo, Reach, Left
Speaker 1: for Dead Too, Epic, Mickey Medal of Honor, h lots
Speaker 1: and lots and lots of games. I spent many many
Speaker 1: hours playing games until my Xbox three sixty died. Yes,
Speaker 1: I should be getting that in the mail any day now.
Speaker 1: Oh um. I I remember one thing it came out
Speaker 1: of our predictions for but as a good thing, um,
Speaker 1: which was Palm being acquired. So it looks like uh,
Speaker 1: Palms new web OS operating system will continue to live
Speaker 1: on now that the company has been acquired by Hewlett Packard.
Speaker 1: I've got some fun which is kind of interesting, some
Speaker 1: fun text stories that we can talk about briefly. Do
Speaker 1: you remember chat Roulette? Oh? I do. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: a news story that broke in. Of course, that was
Speaker 1: the video chatting service that would random repair people uh
Speaker 1: for chatting UM sessions. And of course that was where
Speaker 1: we learned that many people apparently have no problem with
Speaker 1: nudity in front of strangers. Yes, And we learned that
Speaker 1: some people like to imitate Ben Folds and sing to
Speaker 1: whomever is on the other end of the and sometimes
Speaker 1: and sometimes apparently it is Folds apparently, but one of
Speaker 1: those people Ben Folds. Yes. Yeah. Chat Roulette was funny
Speaker 1: and UM, I'll never forget. The greatest screen capture I
Speaker 1: did all year long was when The Daily Show ran
Speaker 1: a segment about chat Roulette, and at the end of
Speaker 1: the segment they had a certain Natalie de Conti now
Speaker 1: Natalie Morris, who was commenting on chat Roulette and then
Speaker 1: hiding her face in her hands as one of the
Speaker 1: the nudists I referred to UH joined chat with her
Speaker 1: and so I got a great screen capture of Natalie
Speaker 1: hiding her past in her hands in a window above
Speaker 1: John Stewart's shoulder. It was a beautiful thing. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a proud moment for her. She was on Daily Show.
Speaker 1: Congratulations Natalie, um double rainbow? What does it mean? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go with memes. And there's certain memes that
Speaker 1: I I would mention, but I couldn't go into any
Speaker 1: detail because it's objectionable material. Like there's a certain song
Speaker 1: that got really popular. Actually, there's two songs I could
Speaker 1: think of off the top of my head we got
Speaker 1: really popular in the Internet, and neither of them are one.
Speaker 1: So we can talk about you should you should probably
Speaker 1: refrain from mentioning them at all at all because to
Speaker 1: talk about insane clown posse and cel Okay, I won't. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's how about this. Here's a great story. Yeah, Old
Speaker 1: Spice and their YouTube ad where they in real time
Speaker 1: to Twitter messages sp a whole day shooting replies and
Speaker 1: posting them rapid fire. This was that reminds me of them. Yes,
Speaker 1: Conan Cam another another example of using the Internet in
Speaker 1: a brilliant way. A very absurd silly way to get attention. Uh.
Speaker 1: So with the the Old Spice one, of course, they
Speaker 1: were using the the the I'm want a horse guy. Yeah, Isaiah,
Speaker 1: Isaiah exactly. And he was responding to Twitter messages. People
Speaker 1: were sending tweets and he would direct these responses to
Speaker 1: specific people and they got posted to YouTube and they
Speaker 1: were all hilarious and bizarre and absurd, and people just
Speaker 1: flipped out on Twitter. They I can't believe that the
Speaker 1: Old Spice guys talking to me. And there were conversations
Speaker 1: that started up between the Twitter people and Isaiah and
Speaker 1: it was just hilarious, great marketing. And of course the
Speaker 1: Conan thing was a twenty four hour camera set up
Speaker 1: in the stairwell of teen Cocoa. Yes, Conan O'Brien new
Speaker 1: show on on TBS. They were preparing for the launch
Speaker 1: and as as the first show is impending. Uh, they
Speaker 1: had show staffers come out and do stuff in the
Speaker 1: stairwell like they do dramatic readings. Uh. They would play games,
Speaker 1: the dancing top pairs, aerobics, bears doing aerobics were awesome,
Speaker 1: but the dancing taco was my favorite. And here's why.
Speaker 1: The camera angle was in a stairwell, and you could
Speaker 1: also see down a hallway, and in the hallway there
Speaker 1: was an elevator. Right there's one point where the dancing
Speaker 1: Taco starts to It's a guy in a taco outfit
Speaker 1: doing just goofy dance moves to this, to this looped
Speaker 1: free music. About half an hour so he's dancing. At
Speaker 1: one point he starts dancing down the hallway and then
Speaker 1: he dances down to the elevator, pushes the button, continues
Speaker 1: to dance, the elevator doors open, He gets in the
Speaker 1: elevator to the doors closed. About two minutes later you
Speaker 1: see him dancing up the stairs and then his when
Speaker 1: he gets to the topic, he says to the camera
Speaker 1: stairs a heart, let's limit the stairs, and it just
Speaker 1: goes right back to dancing. And I was like this
Speaker 1: that I know it's incredibly stupid. I know that there's
Speaker 1: no sophistication to this humor. I love it. Yeah, yep.
Speaker 1: And of course the dancing Taco bell, the dancing taco
Speaker 1: bell that followed another fun story. Yes, trolla la la
Speaker 1: la la, la la la, one of my pet favorites. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'll kill a Soviet entertainer from the nineties, sixties and seventies.
Speaker 1: That's a that's a meme. That's pretty clean. Although apparently,
Speaker 1: which is funny, because he had no idea that he
Speaker 1: had come back into vogue. He used to sing this
Speaker 1: song all over you know that the TV. He was
Speaker 1: a very popular singer. Um and he has a very
Speaker 1: interesting facial expressions when And the funny thing is he's
Speaker 1: he seems like a really nice guy. They've done interviews
Speaker 1: with him since then. He and he apparently was told
Speaker 1: by one of his grandchildren, Hey, you're an internet sensation now,
Speaker 1: and yeah, exactly, they've done interviews with him, and and uh,
Speaker 1: it turns out the song the reason he was doing
Speaker 1: these vocalizations instead of using actual lyrics, where the lyrics
Speaker 1: were basically about being free, it was it was like
Speaker 1: a cowboys song, being free on the open range. And
Speaker 1: that was uh an idea that the Soviet government wasn't
Speaker 1: really a percent behind at the time. So he was
Speaker 1: strongly encouraged to change the lyrics. So he just he
Speaker 1: just made it where it was just him making sounds,
Speaker 1: really singing these sounds to the tune and sort of
Speaker 1: like scat singers used to do when they would forget
Speaker 1: the lyrics that sort of gave birth to the movement
Speaker 1: of scat, the vocal movement of Scat. The song is great,
Speaker 1: but the video, the video is awesome, possibly the greatest
Speaker 1: thing to ever be on the Internet ever. And the
Speaker 1: fact that he is it became sort of a joke
Speaker 1: overnight and has a good a good sense of humor
Speaker 1: about it. Um, I think just makes them that more
Speaker 1: endearing to people. Yeah, so anyway, Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1: I mean, wow, that was a long time ago, but
Speaker 1: I guess it was this year. Man, lull Here. Here's
Speaker 1: the thing about memes to write. Memes tend to have,
Speaker 1: with a few exceptions, a meteoric rise. They're really popular
Speaker 1: for a couple of months, and then they disappear and
Speaker 1: then typically and then the next meme will take over.
Speaker 1: Some of them last longer, some of them become kind
Speaker 1: of a joke later on that you can reference, but
Speaker 1: no one's really, you know, watching the videos actively anymore. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, right, You'll see you'll see a
Speaker 1: two or three week period where the views on YouTube
Speaker 1: just skyrocket, and then after that they trickle off pretty quickly,
Speaker 1: and they still might have steady viewership that it will
Speaker 1: be a fraction of what used to be. Oh nos, Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's see what else Internet Explore nine. Internet Explore nine,
Speaker 1: there's another browser that that debuted, um, and people talked
Speaker 1: about how fast it was. That There's some other developments
Speaker 1: within and to Explore nine that seemed pretty interesting to me, like, Uh,
Speaker 1: they're going to incorporate the no tracking system, so you
Speaker 1: can if you have it active, then you aren't tracked
Speaker 1: while you navigate the Internet. Uh. You know, you've got
Speaker 1: private browsing on various systems as well, but the definition
Speaker 1: of private seems to be somewhat flexible depending upon the browser.
Speaker 1: So let's see that that came out. Uh, what else?
Speaker 1: One other big big stories should we talk about or
Speaker 1: just Google? We like Google Chromos. Google Chromos which is
Speaker 1: just at the end of well, at the end of
Speaker 1: two thousand nine, we knew that the developer rolled for
Speaker 1: Chromos was out and they had said at that time
Speaker 1: that this was geared toward a launch in the end
Speaker 1: of right, so it's not a surprise, but but it
Speaker 1: is releasing and the the app store that goes with it. Now,
Speaker 1: the the the surprise I would say from Google was
Speaker 1: the driverless cars. Yes, that was a big surprise. It
Speaker 1: was a big surprise because it turns out that they
Speaker 1: had been testing this for a long time ye hundred
Speaker 1: forty tho miles before they actually announced it. That's that's
Speaker 1: a lot of miles to be driving around with no
Speaker 1: actual active human driver. And there was there was someone
Speaker 1: behind the wheel at all times. There was never a
Speaker 1: moment where the car was by itself, like there was
Speaker 1: no one in the car. They always had someone who
Speaker 1: could take over should there be a catastrophic failure of
Speaker 1: the system. But as far as we know, there there
Speaker 1: were no such incidents. There was a couple of stories
Speaker 1: about accidents that the Google Car was involved in, um
Speaker 1: at least one of them. I remember it being the
Speaker 1: Google Car was rear ended, so it may or may
Speaker 1: not have been the Google Car's fault. I mean, if
Speaker 1: the Google car stop suddenly, then it probably was its fault,
Speaker 1: But I just don't know the details of that. I
Speaker 1: think I said that when we did our podcast on
Speaker 1: the Google Car, and I never went back to actually
Speaker 1: read the story to see how it turned out. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then there was the incident with the the black
Speaker 1: trans Am, which apparently was jealous of the other driverless car. Michael,
Speaker 1: I'm going to sing about the Constitution. I'm sorry, I'm
Speaker 1: mixing up the movies now, yes you are. And one
Speaker 1: of them is the TV show it's not even a movie. No,
Speaker 1: there were. There was the made for TV movie I'll
Speaker 1: have you know. Oh, night Writer. Yeah, okay, so Night
Speaker 1: Writer six, it was brilliant. And then and then the
Speaker 1: Google Phone. Yeah, also the Nexus one, yeah, which which
Speaker 1: was released into the nine but really yeah, but at
Speaker 1: the time we were talking about it like it was
Speaker 1: going to start with the Google Store and they were
Speaker 1: going to sell they were going to get in the
Speaker 1: phone business, and they were really going to do this.
Speaker 1: And then a few months later, earlier this year, they said, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what, No, Yeah, that was kind of a well,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's still a developer phone, and it originally
Speaker 1: was a developer phone. It became a consumer phone at
Speaker 1: the very beginning of two thousand ten. I remember because
Speaker 1: I was at CS and there were people who had
Speaker 1: literally just had it delivered to them before they left
Speaker 1: for the show. Yeah, but CS is right at the
Speaker 1: bleeding edge of the first of the year. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so it depends on how you look at it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: twenty ten was pretty much when the consumer Nexus one
Speaker 1: became a reality. It had already been a developer phone
Speaker 1: for a few weeks before that, and as and Google
Speaker 1: employees had had it for months. Yeah, yeah, and apparently
Speaker 1: and now when they discontinued, they also said that it
Speaker 1: might be available to Google developers and some other people
Speaker 1: after the fact that they were no longer going to
Speaker 1: sell it to the public. Now, the Nexus S may
Speaker 1: mark the It seems to be marking the return of
Speaker 1: Google to the phone market. And that seems to be
Speaker 1: an interesting device too, But it's not going to I
Speaker 1: don't it's not supposed to actually hit the streets by
Speaker 1: the end of twenty ten. It will actually happen from
Speaker 1: what I've read if and I you may or may
Speaker 1: not know the answer to this question. But as I recall,
Speaker 1: do you remember what was the Nexus one? Was that
Speaker 1: an HTC device, and the Nexus S is a Samsung
Speaker 1: I believe that to be true. That's right. When you
Speaker 1: actually start to start talk about something else, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: let me look at my list. Um, motion controlled gaming
Speaker 1: became yet another story. Of course, we already had the
Speaker 1: we mote m Yes, I'm we loading that story. But
Speaker 1: you know, we had the that and then Sony and
Speaker 1: Microsoft both came out with their motion controlled systems in
Speaker 1: two thousand ten. Of course, the Sony Move and the
Speaker 1: Microsoft Connect respectively, and uh, they are two different systems.
Speaker 1: Both of them use cameras to track movement. In the
Speaker 1: case of the Sunny Move, the camera is tracking the
Speaker 1: motions of a l e ED that's on the end
Speaker 1: of the controller. That's the thing that's inside the little
Speaker 1: snowball thing at the end of the controller. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: the wand and stuffing like that. The LED can light
Speaker 1: up different colors. It's supposed to light up a color
Speaker 1: that shows up out against whatever background it happens to
Speaker 1: be in front of, and then the camera attracts that
Speaker 1: motion and translates that into the actions in the game.
Speaker 1: The Connect of course, has cameras that are trained on
Speaker 1: the user him or herself, and your motions can control
Speaker 1: the actions of a character in the game. Um. And
Speaker 1: we've seen some really really cool hacks with a Connect already,
Speaker 1: some neat stuff where like we saw the one where
Speaker 1: a guy was able to do real time lightsaber effects
Speaker 1: using the Connect where he just picked up essentially like
Speaker 1: a broom handle, but it looked like a lightsaber, and
Speaker 1: he could, you know, waving the broom handle around and
Speaker 1: then in real time, his digital version of himself is
Speaker 1: waving around a lightsaber. We've also seen them some people
Speaker 1: use it for digital puppetry and other applications as well,
Speaker 1: so that it seems like that's going to be really
Speaker 1: a cool device in eleven, something for people to play
Speaker 1: with and find new ways to to uh create user
Speaker 1: interfaces and and interactive computing devices and all sorts of application.
Speaker 1: And yes, the answer to our question, uh, the NEXTUS
Speaker 1: one was built by HTC and this the Samsung will
Speaker 1: do the Nexus s excellent. So, UM, I'm what we're
Speaker 1: kind of running low on time. Um, We've we've gone
Speaker 1: for a good while here. I've got one other thing
Speaker 1: I will talk about that I thought was kind of neat.
Speaker 1: Something that was launched in kick Starter. Now are familiar
Speaker 1: with Kickstarter a little bit. Kickstarter is a it's it's
Speaker 1: a fund raising um uh system. Really, it's what you
Speaker 1: can use Kickstarter to be able to raise funds for
Speaker 1: various um um charities or or causes. And the way
Speaker 1: it works is that you create an amount that you are.
Speaker 1: You know, it's your target amount. This is how much
Speaker 1: money you want to raise, and you create the amount
Speaker 1: of time that you have to raise that money. So
Speaker 1: let's say you've got two months to raise two thousand
Speaker 1: dollars and then you start soliciting donations to this cause
Speaker 1: through Kickstarter. People can go and they can make a
Speaker 1: donation through Kickstarter to your cause. If you hit two
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, then everything goes through and you're able to
Speaker 1: use that money for whatever the cause was. If you
Speaker 1: don't make it, if you only get to dollars, then
Speaker 1: all of those payments are canceled. No one has charged
Speaker 1: any money for using you know, for donating to the cost.
Speaker 1: So if you if you donated fifty dollars and they
Speaker 1: did not make their amount, it's not like that fifty
Speaker 1: dollars is gone, you get you get it back. It
Speaker 1: doesn't actually get charged to you. Cool. So it's a
Speaker 1: neat Yeah, it's neat internet based way to try and
Speaker 1: do fundraising. Yes, and I came up with one last
Speaker 1: one o UM the Governmental Release of Data Data dot
Speaker 1: gov and the the equivalent in the the UK as well,
Speaker 1: those that both launched this year. People have been able
Speaker 1: to get their hands on a lot of information from
Speaker 1: all kinds of government agencies that can be used in
Speaker 1: reports and and mash ups. Um and you know it
Speaker 1: just previously it was very hard, not because it was
Speaker 1: classified so much, but because you didn't know where to go.
Speaker 1: It was hard to find um. And you know, it
Speaker 1: could be used used by lots of different people for
Speaker 1: a lot of different things. Uh. You know, of course
Speaker 1: journalists like having that kind of thing on hand, so um,
Speaker 1: you know, the the making that information more readily available
Speaker 1: as a pretty neat deal. And if you couldn't find
Speaker 1: it there, you could go to wiki leaks. We didn't
Speaker 1: talk about that either. That's a that's a different sort
Speaker 1: of governmental That was a big story. But launch launched
Speaker 1: in two thousand seven, but it it did make huge
Speaker 1: headlines around the world in UM I have I totally
Speaker 1: forgot to mention this, but it's one that I can't
Speaker 1: let go because it was one of those things that
Speaker 1: people anticipated and then we're still kind of anticipating it.
Speaker 1: The BlackBerry Playbook, Oh, that's true, we totally forgot about that.
Speaker 1: That was another tablet device that got launched in just
Speaker 1: like Samsung Galaxy Tab also launched in But the BlackBerry
Speaker 1: Playbook was this, you know, that was the enterprise tablet,
Speaker 1: right because you think of the iPad. Not everyone thinks
Speaker 1: of that as an enterprise device. I think of that
Speaker 1: as a personal device, although there are apps on it
Speaker 1: that you can use in enterprise functions. But I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people think of that as a play thing,
Speaker 1: not a work thing. And so the the BlackBerry Playbook,
Speaker 1: despite the name, is more of a work thing than
Speaker 1: a plaything. Now we still haven't really seen this yet,
Speaker 1: so it'll we'll have to wait to get our hands
Speaker 1: on it. But that announcement got a lot of attention
Speaker 1: in Yeah, and I think one that will get some
Speaker 1: attention in that was announced in is uh mac os
Speaker 1: ten point seven Lion, which will come up in the
Speaker 1: Linux community. The Linux community had two releases as they
Speaker 1: always do this year and uh Maverick mere Cat UM.
Speaker 1: They're they're going through some interesting changes to that's the
Speaker 1: most current release where they're changing the look and feel
Speaker 1: of the the Ubuntu UM releases. So I think the
Speaker 1: Lenox community has a lot to look forward to in
Speaker 1: the next couple of years too. But they moved some
Speaker 1: some made some big steps this year as well. But
Speaker 1: you know, that's probably a different community than a lot
Speaker 1: of our listening audience. Yeah, although it's becoming more of
Speaker 1: a news worthy item now that more people are aware
Speaker 1: that it exists. Of course, it's the underpaintings of the
Speaker 1: Chrome operating system, Sure, and many and Rock Melton. Many
Speaker 1: of our our devices, um non computer devices run on
Speaker 1: a form of Lennox one or another. So a lot
Speaker 1: of the servers pretty much all of them. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: not all of them, but a very large percentage of
Speaker 1: web servers run Lennox. Extremely important, but maybe not as
Speaker 1: uh acclaimed as it as it could be. Well, we're
Speaker 1: gonna acclaim this thing over that doesn't make any sense,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna say that it does. It's nice of
Speaker 1: you to stake your acclaim. Yes, thank you. So guys,
Speaker 1: if you want to tell us what some of your
Speaker 1: favorite stories from ten in the tech industry were, if
Speaker 1: we missed one of your favorites, or if you have
Speaker 1: something to say but one of the ones we talked about,
Speaker 1: let us know. You can follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
Speaker 1: That handle is tech Stuff h s W. Or you
Speaker 1: can email us and that address is tech Stuff at
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works. Dot com and Chris and I will
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. For more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works dot com.
Speaker 1: So learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast
Speaker 1: icon in the upper right corner of our homepage. The
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