• YouTube passes Yahoo as 3rd most visited site on web
• Music Tech Guru says web is not the enemy
• Apple music event on Sept 1 should bring new iPods
• Is your phone the wallet of the future?
• Robots explore a Lego lunar surface
• Hotmail: now with ActiveSync
• Big Bang Theory starts Sept 23.

Feature Story – Getting Your Video

• Paid TV subscriptions dip
• H.264 goes royalty-free forever
• Should you buy a 720p HDTV?
• 3D ? How about no glasses…just ask Toshiba

Nerd History

• September 4, 1998 – Google is founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two students at Stanford University.

• The 5 billionth Internet-connected device will go live this month.
• Big Macs on campus
• You won’t be late for school on this bus
• New Kindles begin shipping Friday
• FaceBook adds geolocation & check-ins for mobile users
• Ubuntu 10.10 will add multi-touch gesture support
• Magazine publishers reach deal with Apple for subscriptions on iPad
• Cameron Diaz is most dangerous celeb to search for on Internet
• Could Verizon’s iPad app pave the way for eliminating your settopbox?
• Google is watching you.
• The Google Alarm alerts you when your information is sent to Google

• Internet traffic jams loom unless more cable is laid
• The Internet as a subway map. (contributed by listener Todd C in Cleveland, OH)
• FaceBook loophole reveals names and pictures.
• iPhone and iPad on Verizon getting closer?
• VMware releases 3.1.1 update for Fusion to address some Mac issues

Feature Story: Sports on the Go

• How do you use tech to get your sports info on the go?
• ESPN ScoreCenter, ESPN Radio, DirecTV SuperFan, MLB At Bat
• Madden 11 for iPhone
• Fantasy Football apps to keep track of your teams, leagues and player transactions
• Sports Illustrated app for iPad wants to charge you for the same content in the magazine; what’s up with that?

Nerd History

• August 16, 1858 – U.S. President James Buchanan inaugurates the new transatlantic telegraph cable.
• August 20, 1882 – Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture debuts in Moscow.
• August 16, 1977 – Elvis Presley, “The King of Rock and Roll”, dies in Memphis,Tennessee.
• August 17, 1982 – The first Compact Discs are released to the public in Germany.

Comment from listener Chris S from Florida on last week’s show about the ability to have eBooks read aloud.

Nerd News:

• Apple Stores block jail-breaking web site.
• But a fix for this problem is ready. It’s just not out. Yet.
• RIM announces BlackBerry Curve 3G. Is its ability to run BlackBerry 6.0 really innovation?
• Twitter adds recommendations on who to follow.
• Now you can manage two Gmail accounts in the same browser.
• 20 moves to solve the Rubik’s cube, not 23 silly.

Feature Story:

• The world’s most famous theoretical physicist says it’s time to leave Earth, OR ELSE.

Nerd History:

• August 8, 1876 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for his mimeograph.
• August 12, 1981 – The IBM Personal Computer is released.
• August 8, 1988 – The lights are turned on at Wrigley Field for the first time, making it the last major league stadium to host night games. (The game, against the Philadelphia Phillies, is rained out after three-and-a-half innings.)

Nerd News:

• Check Windows Update. Microsoft released an out-of-band patch on Monday to fix Windows shortcut hole
• YouTube videos, now up to 50% longer!
• End of an era: our local Blockbuster closes its doors. Do kids today care? Where do you get your movie content?
• Twitter: Now over 20 Billion served. It’s not slowing down. 15 Billion mark passed two months ago. 10 Billion passed 5 months ago. Service is 4 years old.
• Testing for HTML5 at, of course, www.html5test.com

1. Defeating a lawfully obtained DVD’s encryption for the sole purpose of short, fair use in an educational setting or for criticism
2. Computer programs that allow you to run lawfully obtained software on your phone that you otherwise would not be able to run aka Jailbreaking to use Google Voice on your iPhone
3. Computer programs that allow you to use your phone on a different network aka Jailbreaking to use your iPhone on T-Mobile
4. Circumventing video game encryption (DRM) for the purposes of legitimate security testing or investigation
5. Cracking computer programs protected by dongles when the dongles become obsolete or are no longer being manufactured
6. Having an ebook be read aloud (ie – for the blind) even if that book has controls built into it to prevent that sort of thing.

Nerd History:

• August 2, 1870 – first subway opens, in London
• August 5, 1914 – In Cleveland, Ohio, the first electric traffic light is installed.
• August 6, 1991 – Tim Berners-Lee releases files describing his idea for the World Wide Web. WWW debuts as a publicly available service on the Internet.

You can now listen to Words from Nerds on Stitcher Radio. You can stream our show without having to sync your smartphone to your computer. Download the app for your smartphone today and search for “Words from Nerds” to get started. It’s completely free!

Nerd News:

• Apple refreshed their desktop today with new iMacs and Mac Pros.
• Apple introduces Magic TrackPad.
• Apple will launch iLife ‘11 in August as an all-64 bit suite with one new mystery application.
• Walmart adding RFID to your pants?

Feature Story: Biggest Nerd Convention

• Comic Con has become the biggest annual gathering of nerds anywhere.
• 120,000 fans attended the 4 day festival in San Diego.
• Its also become the place where Hollywood starts building a cult following for their new movies.
  • Marvel made a big push for their 2011 movies – Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger.
  • Not to be outdone, DC Comics made a big push for their newest superhero movie, Green Lantern. Great video of hero Ryan Reynolds reciting the Green Lantern oath in response to a question from a little kid in the audience.
  • But Marvel stole the day by presenting the entire cast for their 2012 movie The Avengers.
  • Tron Legacy – new trailer revealed for the Christmas 2010 movie.
  • Harry Potter – Tom Felton appeared to talk about the final two movies and show some footage.
  • Harrison Ford coming out in handcuffs a la Han Solo to talk about Cowboys And Aliens.

Nerd History:

• July 30, 1932 – Premiere of Walt Disney’s Flowers and Trees, the first cartoon short to use Technicolor and the first Academy Award winning cartoon short
• July 29, 1958 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs into law the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
• July 31, 1964 – Ranger program: Ranger 7 sends back the first close-up photographs of the moon, with images 1,000 times clearer than anything ever seen from earth-bound telescopes.
• July 23, 1996 – Stand By … High Definition TV Is on the Air

• Raytheon Corporation and the United States Navy have announced that an anti-aircraft laser gun was successfully tested in May against drones.
• Free TRON game out !
• Damn Vulnerable Linux (DVL) is everything a good Linux distribution isn’t: broken, ill-configured, outdated, and exploitable software that makes it vulnerable to attacks. DVL isn’t built to run on your desktop – it’s a learning tool for security students.

Feature Story: iPhone Antenna issues

• Apple will provide a free case to anyone who buys (or already bought) an iPhone until 9/30. At that time they will reevaluate (or release a new phone!)
• iOS 4.0.1 changed the formula used to display AT&T bars for signal strength.
• Anandtech.com published a study showing how the signal strength changed between 4.0 and 4.0.1 as well as how Verizon does it on ‘Droid phones.
• iOS software update will fix proximity sensor issues.
• White phone expected to go on sale by end of July.

Nerd History

• July 9–10, 1856 – Scientific genius and visionary inventor Nikola Tesla is born at the stroke of midnight in the unassuming village of Smiljan, in what’s now Croatia.
• July 13, 1940 – Sir Patrick Stewart is born. (see also July 19, 1620 – Jean Picard, French astronomer)
• July 12, 1948 – Ben Burtt was born. Sound designer for Darth Vader’s breathing, R2-D2’s whistles and beeps, WALL-E’s voice, the hum of a lightsaber.
• July 20, 1969 – Apollo Program: Apollo 11 successfully lands on the Moon at 20:17 UTC on July 20.
• July 16, 1995 – Amazon.com sells it’s first customer.

Nerd News:

• Apple sells 1.7 Million iPhone 4’s in first weekend. (and Mike gets a sympathy card). Retail store supply limited. Long wait times online, too.
• Antenna problems on the iPhone 4. Steve Jobs just says to ‘hold it differently’. This might be a software issue.
• iPad stolen? No problem if you are a MobileMe subscriber. Install an iPhone app to locate your missing iPad.
• iTunes Podcast Page coming to 67 new countries on June 29th, the 5 yr anniversary of podcasting in iTunes 4.9. This is 4.3 Billion people, or just over 64.2% of the worlds population. Welcome new listeners!
• Rumor floating on the Net is that Google is preparing a FaceBook competitor to be dubbed GoogleMe.
• Hulu announces subscription model. Hulu Plus will be on TVs, BluRay, iOS will cost $9.99/mo and include ads.
• SanDisk SD 1GB WORM cards last 100 years, already in volume use by Japanese police.
• Visa vs. Paypal. It’s payclick.com.au for now. But Paypal’s Security Key rocks!
• 7th graders, studying 200 images, spot a cave on Mars.

Nerd History:

• July 4, 1776 – American Revolution: the United States Declaration of Independence is adopted by the Second Continental Congress
• June 30, 1905 – Albert Einstein publishes the article “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies“, in which he introduces special relativity.
• June 23, 1912 Mathematician/Scientist Alan Turing born
• June 25, 1967  - First CES in NYC
• June 28, 1953 – First Corvette assemble in Flint
• July 1, 1963 – ZIP Codes are introduced for United States mail.

• Utah Attorney General Announces Execution on Twitter
• WordPress 3.0 update has 1200+ fixes
• Korean Minister of Culture shutting down 43,000 sites.
• Sports fans breaking records on Twitter. The social media site has been experiencing growing pains again.
• Data captured by Google Street View includes passwords and emails
• All kinds of order processing problems as iPhone 4 sells out on 1st day to preorder.
• Amazon slashes price of Kindle 2 after B&N does same for Nook.
• Surprise! new Mac Mini with HDMI.

Feature Story: iOS 4

• iOS4 is out. 378MB download. Went live at 1PM ET.
• What was the Monday rush to download it like?
• How does it behave on 3GS?
• New features that they didn’t advertise?
• Promised features
  • Multi-tasking (if app has been updated)
  • Global Inbox (threaded views, too)
  • Folders (12 apps max/folder)
  • Spell Check in Mail, Notes, other apps
  • Home screen wallpaper
  • Bluetooth keyboard support
• Sell your old phone
• iOS 4.0 Gold Master SDK publicly released
• Windows Live Messenger for iPhone? and Hotmail?

Nerd History

• June 20, 1877 – Alexander Graham Bell installs the world’s first commercial telephone service in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
• June 21, 1948 – The Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine, the world’s first stored-program computer, ran its first computer program.
• June 20, 1963 – The so-called “red telephone” is established between the Soviet Union and the United States following the Cuban Missile Crisis.
• June 20, 2003 – The WikiMedia Foundation is founded in St. Petersburg, Florida.
• June 21, 2010 – The Summer Solstice is today. The longest day of the year!