Gadgetory

hi I'm Brian Cooley in for the new mom Mollywood and this is the buzz report first the gadget of the week the gadget of the week it's the corporate kitchen remember these used to be a place where you'd find some tap water a Dixie cup of plastic fork and maybe someones leftover ketchup pack look at the water the in a way of uvf it's got an ultraviolet lamp cold water hot water is 190 that's hotter than the coolant in your engine by the way and then you can get extra hot by pressing both buttons did these guys not talk to the lawyers at McDonald's and learn a couple lessons and what about that American icon the coffeepot look what happened to it it's this big ugly faux wood grain thing although it kind of reminds me of the last infinity we reviewed it's got this touch panel deal here with a nice tote background green LCD and a strangely incongruous antique clock but what I don't understand is what's going on inside there it's too big to make coffee there's a lock on this side that's not for the beans because they live up here and the water comes through a pipe in the wall so who put this here the CIA and check this out we have a microwave and we have popcorn but no microwave popcorn the folks here decided it was a fire hazard so now we have to use this thing like it's not it's a hot air torch that blows straight up this may look like a snack but I'm telling you it's not it's actually an employee aerobic program masquerading as a midday treat now the news let's go to the dumb idea file to start the show huh that wasn't too hard a new service called same lane allows you to call someone's license plate number and chat with them on the phone the company says it would be used by people who want to share a good joke or talk sports for example Yeah right it's a singles bar on wheels you register with same Lane you add your license plate number to their database link your phone number to the license plate and then put a sticker on your car that says hey everybody I'm up for being hassled folks who want to do that call a 900 number enter your license plate number and are connected to your phone now caller ID is blocked in both directions so that's the good news the bad news is their materials say same Lane quote is putting adventure back into driving yeah in a way don't go too much into that adventure because when you call via same Lane you're paying a dollar ninety-nine a minute to talk about a ball game or share a joke with a complete stranger and we hear this week that Wikipedia may soon start verifying the credentials of contributors to that trusted online encyclopedia to make sure they are who they say they are so if you go to them and say I'm a tenured professor of theology and I'd like to edit entries on religion they're gonna snoop around a little bit and verify you have at least a nodding education along those lines if it turns out you're actually let's say a 24 year old college dropout who is just gonna crib Catholicism for dummies to write your entries you're not gonna get in again yeah that's exactly what happened frankly this problem seems overblown to me I use Wikipedia all the time even today in writing up this buzz report and nothing about it raised any red flags for me and the US government just announced a voucher plan it'll help consumers pay for the converter box they'll need to let their old tired analog TV work with the all new digital broadcasts that begin in February 09 each household will be able to apply for up to two of these $40 vouchers but get this there's no upper income limit so millionaires can apply there's no process in place to see if the $40 voucher is actually more than you need to buy a converter and there's no rule against re selling that converter for a profit on ebay I'm telling you this feels like an 890 million dollar Kluge we're about to deploy across the country with tax money and finally a correction last week I reported on a BMW lane departure warning system that vibrates your seat when you drift out of the lane to simulate lane divider dots but in fact we learned it doesn't vibrate your seat at all it vibrates the steering wheel this is disappointing to me because not only does that not the story out of my beloved cocktail party banter cat gori but I can guarantee you a number of folks who drive 08 BMWs are gonna bring them into the shop saying something's loose in the front end and worse a fair number of dealer mechanics are going to spend hours trying to find the problem trust me on this one at least if your butt was vibrating you wouldn't bother your BMW dealer with the issue I'm Brian cooling this has been the buzz report thanks for watching