Noisecast Roundup 5-16-2011

Welcome to another roundup. This one is a little longer than usual. There were a number of really interesting items and I had to eliminate a couple to shorten it. We get more leaks and a demo of new WP7.k “Mango” features. We get word that Amazon is prepping two new tablets. Nokia may sell its phone unit to Microsoft and presumably become the IBM of the mobile space. A new bill introduced in congress will make streaming unauthorized media a felony. *sigh*.  Netflix has inked a multi-year deal with Miramax. Samsung demos some really interesting tech that could be in your pocket in 5 years. Kinect SDK could be out soon, and much more. Check it after the jump. Also, don’t forget to give our latest podcast a listen

  • Microsoft Demos some new features on Windows Phone 7.5 “Mango”
    There is a video at the link. There’ve been a spate of WP7.5 leaks so far and Mango is really looking like it’ll be a doozie.
  • Amazon prepping dual-core “Coyote” tablet and a quad-core “Hollywood” tablets for 2011.
    This news is really exciting me. I love it. I can’t wait to see what they churn. Coyote will allegedly run on the tegra 2 and Hollywood will run on “Kal-El” the upcoming Tegra 3. Of course this is all rumor. We’ll have to see what’s up. Amazon is also reportedly expanding their skunkworks in Cupertino across from Apple by a lot.
  • Nokia may consider sale of phone unit to Microsoft.
    I’m really not sure how I feel about this news. It’s a bit disturbing. It’s not that I think Microsoft will ruin the Nokia brand. Microsoft is actually quite good at hardware. They make some of the best PC accessories and they’ve proven their ability to market hardware in the form of the Xbox. What I worry is that they will lose the Nokia brand equity by renaming it Microsoft or something, the way HP gobbled up the Palm name and erased its brand equity (what was left of it). Also, buying out phone makers hasn’t always worked out… *cough* Kin *cough*
  • Netflix inks multi-year instant streaming deal with Miramax.
    This is great news for us. Of course Netflix already had access to their catalog, but not the right to stream it. This is a good thing, it reduces the costs for Netflix when more people stream.
  • New Bill upgrades unauthorized streaming to a felony.
    Well, this is… wonderful. Are we still pretending we don’t live in a plutocracy/corporatocracy? Why do we bother with the pretense of voting?
  • Samsung’s foldable AMOLED display: No creases, even after 10,000 tries.
    Great concept. Samsung’s been demoing a lot of really cool concepts and show no sign of stopping. These won’t be widely available for a number more years. People forget how innovative Samsung is. That corporation, the Umbrella Corporation of Asia, is the company powering all the most innovative tech in most of your equipment. Either they invented it or they manufacture it, or both. This company knows what’s up… now if it just wasn’t so damn nepotistic and corrupt.
  • Kinect for Windows SDK due this week?
    That;s what runor says. The SDK was already announced and was supposed to be available in the Spring sometime. Whispers have it coming out this week. We’ve seen so many awesome things come out of the Kinect through low-brow hacking. Imagine what we’ll start to see with a full and powerful SDK?
  • iPhone 5’s big new features, Sprint and T-Mobile.
    That’s what rumor says. With it on AT&T and Verizon, it really wouldn’t be that hard to get it on the other two. The word seems to be that the iPhone 5 will actually be the iPhone 4S, with just slightly improved features and wider availability.
  • Leaked Memo shows that HP is in trouble. Times are hard.
    Not looking good for the world’s largest PC maker. A leaked memo has them getting increasingly shrill, trying to rein in spending. The quarter is expected to have been poor. The earnings call will be tomorrow morning so we should know shortly. Meanwhile, all they have in answer for their Palm purchase is exactly the same ugly design that was totally rejected and drove Palm nearly to bankruptcy. Except this time HP made the design bigger and smaller. Ugh. Of course that’s a tiny part of their business but illustrates the kind of whimsical fuckery that lands them in a ditch.
  • NewYorker sheds new light on NSA’s warrantless wiretapping and data mining.
    This is a riveting look into the warrantless wiretapping by the NSA. Not only was the act illegal, it was carried out with a conscious knowledge of its illegality. There was no murky legal maneuvering. Unfortunately, the whistleblower who now works at an Apple store (lolwut?) might get 30+ years behind bars. No good deed goes unpunished, especially if that good deed involves throwing egg on the face of the most technologically advanced intelligence gathering organization on the planet.

“The average black male, lives a third of his life in a jail cell, because the world is controlled by the white male, and the people don’t never get justice, and the women don’t never get respected, and the problems don’t never get solved, and the jobs don’t never pay enough, so the rent always be late. Can you relate? We living in a police state.” – Dead Prez

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