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Rumor Round Up: Xoom 2 with LTE, Sonos S3:Play, Tech Blog Wars and More!

2011-07-08
this episode of technobuffalo is brought to you by audible.com console wars and blogger wars PlayStation pass sonos play droid 3 zoom to John and New York Noah in San Francisco and yes it's your weekly Apple rumor update but we'll keep this one small I promise it step don't ever do this on camera it's techno Buffalo's rumor roundup what is happening everybody I'm Noah Kravitz from techno Buffalo and this is the roundup for today Friday July eighth 2011 this week's roundup is brought to you by audible.com and I'll tell you what it's also brought to you by the mad editing skills of our own John quach last week I'll tell you I feel a little lonely this week doing the show by myself last week I had the opportunity to be in person with jon rettinger so we filmed the roundup together so we could say that we don't know what the status is of the chacha oh look at that see that's why no I'm just I'm just happy to be here folks our man John Q he's our post-production editing production mastermind he made John look prettier and he made my head look even shinier so you know he he's got the skills to pay the bills people used to say way back in like nineteen ninety-two anyway John Q also put together a little blooper reel from last week's shenanigans your packet for gene I listen up thank you I'm begging 12g so if you haven't seen that golden technobuffalo calm and check it out speaking to going over to technobuffalo calm the new episode of console wars is up now if you haven't seen it our man LP taking you through this season of console wars its PlayStation vs xbox but in particular its move versus connect the past present I guess not past but the present and future of motion based gaming move versus connect in this week's episode LP takes a look back at e3 2011 and what the show what the announcements mean and will mean to both platforms the PlayStation 3 base move the xbox 360 bass connect at the end of the episode LP awards a point I'm not going to spoil it you're going to have to go watches check it out console wars on TechnoBuffalo calm speaking of wars what is going on in the tech blogosphere I'm not one to generally report let alone condone to report on blogger on blogger violence if you will but a former AOL can i call him the superstar I've never met him but I've heard he's a good guy got some friends and um I think he's a superstar a former ll superstar in gadget editor-in-chief ex editor-in-chief Josh Topolsky left and gadget a while back one of the world's biggest tech blogs of course not as cool as TechnoBuffalo but you know they do a good job left a while back to go start a new site with the folks at SB Nation the new site which will be SB nation's first foray into tech reporting is slated to go live this fall in the meantime Josh and his crew are working on something called this is my next it's a tech blog this is my next calm and Josh brought some of his engadget friends with them initially they've been picking up a few more as they go and in the past week or so they've just raided the pantry bringing a bunch more x + gadget folks and also somebody from switched another AOL property or former ll property over to this is my next and presumably to stick around for when the new site begins all things D reported this week that this is my next squad is now up to 16 writers almost all of them former AOL employees there's one person that comes to mind not an al l person but everybody else I'm sure there's more than one boss how my head I can't think anymore in the meantime so they've got 16 in the meantime engadget lost a bunch of people hired a bunch of new people they're running with about twenty four writers right now although by the time you read this you know the way tech things go that those numbers could change but what is going on is it a personal thing there's kind of this weird thing that happened with back before Josh left with Josh and the editor-in-chief of another blog I'm going I'm gonna let that one remain nameless for my own personal reasons but we just kind of went off on some some forums and in a blog post and stuff slinging mud at Josh even though they were both under the AOL umbrella I don't know what's going on there you know I've got friends at this is my next I've got friends it engadget okay they're not really friends but i like to call them friends because it makes me feel good so I'm not taking as they're both cool sites but I tell you what if you like tech you like the internet and you like soap opera drama keep an eye on this one it'll be interesting to see what happens within gadget and this is my next when it becomes whatever it's becoming later on this year with SB Nation speaking of wars speaking of console wars speaking of consoles here I did that just backed up to go forward our own joey davidson reported earlier this week on something called PSN pass that may or may not actually be coming to a playstation 3 near you in the near future but there's something going around in the gaming community PS somebody discovered something called PSN paths which I know details on it but it does make folks think of EA pass which is basically a system to ensure that if you buy a used copy of the game the publisher has a chance to make a little extra money off of you by locking you out of certain features like online play stuff like that until you buy a pass so basically the deal I guess the way it works with EA you know I'm not the gaming expert that's why you got to go read Joey story I'm not just trying to get you to go to the site it's true feels more about than I do basically you have to pay 10 bucks to unlock those features that when you buy the game new in shrinkwrap off the shelf you get a code and you can enter that code to access you know online features and add additional gameplay features but then you know in the gaming community life throws you play game you're done with it you sell it you trade it whatever you buy used games and so EA has done something or if you buy the used game you have to pay 10 bucks extra to unlock those additional features it looks like Sony may be gearing up to do something similar with their PlayStation games nothing official on this just a rumor but something called PSN pass worth keeping an eye on if you're a PlayStation gamer the cost and size requirements for entering the world of high-end wireless audio may be dropping maybe it's a rumor sonos makers of and I have when sonus was kind enough to send me a couple of their s 5 boxes to check out with their new Android app and and just straight up in all honestly they're very impressive still knows that a wireless music system it runs on their own net worth is meshed network which basically means I it's more reliable than Wi-Fi it works really well you can play different music in different parts of your home on different you know if you have more than one system then you can also sync them all up to play the same music at the same time you're throwing a party or whatever you know like me and all my made-up blogger friends when we have a party exactly anyway but the cost to entry for sonos is kind of high especially as compared to systems you can throw together you know using Apple hardware or a lot of the android based phones you can use their systems out of that kind of thing well apparently there are rumors kicking around that sonos is working on something called the s3 or maybe the s3 play which would be a little teeny tiny wireless speaker system with the built in amp perhaps you know kind of a bedside table size apparently it's not there's no alarm clock on the spy shots that have surfaced on the internet but you know kind of alarm clock sized which hopefully would bring down not only the size of the unit all the s5 i have is not that big kind of the size of a big ipod dock but also hopefully the price because right now the s5 400 bucks great audio quality but 400 bucks have a lot for you know one's own of the system when you have to piece together system so maybe the s3 will bring down on the size but the price of getting into the world so knows and you know I don't know it's just a rumor but I'm keeping an eye on an ear on it if you will because I've had great luck with the sonos system but I was lucky enough just to have them send me one it definitely is pricey so stay tuned for more on that from sonos if the s3 play does come to life speaking of right how can I do this speaking of the number three we're talking about the sonos s3 Motorola released the droid 3 earlier this week and now there are rumors going to keep doing this because the numbers keep going back forth now there are rumors that something that might be called the zoom to has cleared the FCC if you remember Motorola Xoom was the first Android 30 honeycomb tablet to hit the u.s. big advertising campaign that started back at the Super Bowl earlier this year came out on verizon and when it first came out it was like boom the first big you know I tablet with android made for tablets and the whole thing and then all the sudden the market flooded with Android Honeycomb tablets and frankly the zoom now looks a little big a little heavy the screens a little washed out the price was a little high well Motorola already started doing something about it by cutting prices this week zoom the Wi-Fi version to zoom now available at most outlets for five hundred dollars some places selling a cheaper with coupon codes and sales and whatnot but apparently zoom to may be in the works with a slightly refined form factor a little bit shorter a little bit longer I guess and also this is the big one the inclusion of an LTE radio 4G radio in addition to cdma now that would mark the zoom too if that's what it's indeed going to be called for launch on verizon and if you recall when the first zoom came out the idea was that it would be LTE upgradeable and then eventually they would start shipping an LTE version right out of the box so might we be seeing that with a slightly reformed form factor slightly refined form factor you have to perform the form factor yet reformer you do with it we've already seen samsung launched the galaxy tab internationally the 10 one and then decide they needed to make a thinner sleeker lighter version to actually ship to compete with ipad 2 so Motorola might be doing you know a similar thing the tablet Wars definitely heating up did I mention console wars yeah I did are you need me to say that again audible.com is the leading provider of downloadable digital audiobooks and spoken word entertainment they've got over seventy five thousand titles to choose from that can be downloaded to your ipod or mp3 player and playback anywhere anytime they've got all kinds of books across the genre so whether you're in the science fiction thrillers drama comedy business history or whatever else audible com has something for you if you go to audible podcast.com slash techno john key's put that up on your screen there so you cannot write it down yourself put in your browser head on over there and you get a free audiobook download of your choice when you sign up today so go over to audio audible podcast.com slash tech notes tec hno and you know if you happen to run into somebody so I'm Noah sent yet Tom you're part of the herd audible podcast.com slash techno for your free audio book download of your choice when you sign up today speaking of mobile speaking of new stuff next week's going to be crazy by the time you're watching this it may be this week the week starting monday july eleventh our own jon rettinger is going to be barnstorming across the the east coast i say Barnstorm he's gonna be blazin it's gonna be hot yo he's going to be blazin John's going to be in New York City and the surrounding areas hitting up a bunch of mobile related events so if you're into smartphones if you're into mobile stuff if you're into new products if you're in the technology just keep an eye out as long i'm saying we'll have I'm sure there'll be some interesting new news and perhaps product announcements coming out of the new york city area next week the week of monday july 11 so keep it on TechnoBuffalo John's gonna you know whatever it is if you can get his hands on it he will and I'm going to be doing the same out here in San Francisco I will be at the mobile beat conference we are a media sponsor of that and a little birdie told me there may be a product launch on the west coast out here as well I can't tell you what it is but it might also have to do with mobile so stay tuned for that looks to be an interesting week shaping up next week the week of the 11th in TechnoBuffalo land for sure finally last but not least Apple rumor update you know the drill at this point new iphone new iPad in September the latest is that the new iPad might be called ipad 2 plus that the iphone 5 might be headed to sprint that's all i got for you till next time thanks again to our friends and sponsors at audible.com as always thanks to the indefatigable there's a word for you John quach happy canada day belated John for all of his post production efforts and you know jon rettinger if you're watching this we got to get the band back together let's new do another one of these in person because I you don't make me any funnier but you know the light reflecting off my head makes a you know it lights your eyes up so we should do it for sure till next time I'm Noah Kravitz much more information on all these stories and more on technobuffalo calm our Twitter feed our Facebook page all that good stuff and you know maybe we'll start a google hangout we can all get together and talk tech we'll see you later
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