Uber-foodie Pattie Chan of 600 block on how location-based services can help you with your dinner plans and save you some money.

John Horrigan, Associate director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project joins us to discuss the obstacles that prevent Americans from using broadband internet and how Obama’s stimulus package ties into bridging the this gap of the digital divide.



The Cook County, Illiniois Sheriff’s Department made an announcement in March to sue Craigslist. They’ve asked a federal judge to make Craigslist remove their erotic services section as well as pay the department about $100,000 for the time and effort that it has spent on its Craigslist investigation during 2008. It’s a little puzzling since they, along with police departments all across the US, utilize Craigslist to aid in their investigations.

Over the course of the past five years the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has sued nearly 30,000 alleged copyright violators, with most cases settled out of court for a few thousand dollars.

Last month RIAA spokesperson Cara Duckworth announced “There’s no filtering… We are simply passing along a notice of detection and the ISPs will forward a notice to the subscriber.”

Dell, Acer, Asus, HP, and a bunch of other companies most people haven’t heard of are now selling their versions of netbooks, the portable low powered computers. Online shopping comparison website PriceGrabber.com’s president Ron LaPierre returns to talk about things to consider before deciding to purchase one and why Microsoft still reigns supereme in the netbook market even though computers bundled with Linux are often cheaper.

According to Amazon.com , 17 out of the 25 top selling laptops so far this year are netbooks. What can you really get done on a computer with a 9 inch screen? Ron LaPierre, President of online comparison shopping website PriceGrabber.com discusses the current computer trend.

On February 17th, all broadcast television signals are going DIGITAL. According to the National Association of Broadcasters, this will affect over 20 million households that watch television through the use of antenna. 25% of households mistakenly believe that they MUST subscribe to a satellite or cable service after February and 41% believe that they must purchase a converter box, even if they subscribe to satellite or television.

Mario goes to CES 2009 so you don’t have to and gives his highlights in less than five minutes.

For videos check out the 2009 CES blog.

Taylor McKnight, partner of music website The Hype Machine returns to discuss SanDisk’s effort to sell digital music without the Internet.

UK rock group Radiohead made an unprecedented move for a band of their stature last year, releasing their album In-Rainbows as a name your own price digital download from their site first. They sold 3 million copies of their album – 1.25 million copies were bought off their website and 1.75 CDs were sold, the number of copies sold online alone surpassed the physical sales of the band’s previous album – Hail To The Thief.

Taylor McKnight, a partner of music website The Hype Machine discusses the results of this digital experiment.