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Reporters' Roundtable: Facebook and privacy (podcast)

Our topic this week: Facebook and privacy. At the F8 conference on April 21, Facebook rolled out privacy changes and new data sharing features. As usually happens when Facebook makes a privacy change, there was a swift and mighty backlash against them. But this time, even the federal government is getting involved--four senators sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg asking the company to roll back some of the new features.

Do the words Facebook and privacy even belong together anymore? What is going on at the world's largest social network?

To discuss, our guests today are two people who have studied the company in depth. First, in the studio, Declan McCullagh, our politics and policies reporter. And joining us in from Washington DC, Kara Swisher from All Things Digital and co-producer of the D8 conference with WSJ's Walt Mossberg. Thanks for joining us!

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Reporters' Roundtable: Twitter's business model (podcast)

Today: Twitter's business model. Yes, there is one. Finally. To talk about what Twitter is going to do--and if they really need to do it--we have two great guests with us here in the studio. First, from CNET, author of our social-networking blog The Social, Caroline McCarthy (@caro on Twitter). And from The New York Times, that paper's Twitter expert, Claire Cain Miller (@clariecm).

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Reporters' Roundtable: Can the iPad save journalism? (podcast)

Today's show: Can the iPad save newspapers and magazines? Or, to be more general, can tablets save journalism? It's an important topic and we have two excellent and overqualifiied guests to get into it.

First, in the studio, Damon Darlin, the technology editor of a small newspaper that's still printed on actually paper. You may have heard of it: The New York Times.

And joining us from his headquarters in New York, the founder, publisher and editor of ContentNext Media and the insightful PaidContent news site, Rafat Ali.

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Reporters' Roundtable: The Web meets the TV (podcast)

Today's show: Internet meets your TV. Or, the elusive set-top Internet box. We're going to talk about how the Web is coming to television, both for video programming and other content. Because, really, we all want to surf Facebook on our TVs, don't we? No? How about Hulu?

Our guests for this show are, first, Boxee CEO Avner Ronen. Boxee is one of the most popular companies out there in this space, as it makes both an Internet TV app as well as, somewhat unusually for an Internet start-up, its own set-top box.

Also joining us is Christina Warren, who covers this market for Mashable. Christina also writes for the AMC Script to Screen blog. Welcome.

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Reporters' Roundtable: Google vs. Apple (podcast)

Today's topic: Google vs. Apple. Or, "It all started out so well." When Google and Apple first started to get to know each other, it looked like a match made in heaven: Apple had Macs and Macbooks running its own operating system and browser, and it wanted to provide non-Microsoft apps and services to users. Google had apps and services--Search, Maps, Docs, things like that, and wanted to make these products default services on as many products as possible. But it clearly was facing an uphill battle betting them on Windows machines, since Microsoft had its own competing products. Apple made money selling hardware. Google made money selling advertising. It was glorious! When the iPhone came out, a device that married Apple's hardware and OS to Google's apps and services out of the box, it looked like the relationship was cemented for good.

And then Google released its own browser. Then its own phone and operating system, putting the two companies that were once in love into mortal combat. Google CEO Eric Schmidt had to leave the Apple board of directors. The sparks started to fly. Apple CEO Steve Jobs reportedly called Google "evil" in a company meeting. And here we are...with a great topic for today's roundtable, and a dynamite panel of guests. They are:

• From CNET News, our reporter on the Google beat and formerly our Apple reporter, Tom Krazit. • From The New York Times, co-author of the great March 14 story, "Apple's spat with Google is getting personal," Brad Stone. • And from Slate, technology columnist and frequent Google/Apple observer, Farhad Manjoo, returning for his second appearance on the roundtable.

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Reporters' Roundtable: Maps and mapping (podcast)

Who doesn't love a good map? But maps aren't what they used to be. Today's "maps" do more than show us what's where: They tell us where we are and how to get where we want to go. Mapping is also now a privacy and security issue. Criminals are using public satellite imagery and street-view photos of structures to plot property crimes. We'll talk about these issues, plus how maps are made, and the as-yet unsolved challenges for map developers, in this week's show. Our guests are Peter Birch, product manager of Google Earth, and Nick Black, cofounder of Cloudmade, a company doing business around the OpenStreetMap project.

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East to west, 'Street Sounds' maps U.S. in audio

Do New York pigeons sound different from California pigeons? I'm not sure, but The Smalls Street Sounds could help me find out.

The new interactive online project aims to create a sort of sonic landscape of the U.S. by overlaying local sound snippets on Google Maps. Clicking through the 270-plus clips uploaded as of late Wednesday afternoon offers an imaginative audio tour from East to West and in between. It's a great way to relive the drama of a tropical Florida thunderstorm, amble through San Francisco's Chinatown, or visit that Radio Shack in Danbury, Conn., you've always wanted to check out.

Some sounds are decidedly location-specific (subway performers in New City, a Las Vegas casino, a student demonstration in Berkeley), while others could be heard anywhere (phones ringing, steam heaters sputtering, doors closing, zippers being zipped, plastic crinkling, computer keyboards tapping). You'll hear traffic, boots on pavement, trains, buses, wind, crying children, the sounds of running in snow--all captivating in their own way.

The Sound Map is a project of The Smalls, a curator of independent short films whose mission is to "champion the use of diverse and inspiring sounds in filmmaking and support talented artists who use sounds in a creative way to tell their stories and convey their own unique vision."

Next week, in fact, the Smalls Street Sounds will launch a competition challenging filmmakers to create short films (three minutes or less) based on sounds taken from the Sound Map. The theme of the contest will be announced on February 8.

In the meantime, anyone can contribute sounds (MP3 files only for now), with no limit on clip length, only file size. I'm just hoping no one uploads the voice of a San Francisco MUNI operator announcing yet another delay. I just don't think I could take hearing that one again.

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Maps for iPad hands-on

The Google-powered maps for the iPhone and iPod Touch have been a mainstay of the iPhone OS since its inception. With the iPad, the maps app gets some subtle new features.

More importantly, and perhaps harder to convey in words, is the fact that the screen real estate afforded by the iPad transforms the app from a squinting approximation of a map into a full-fledged map replacement. Holding it in my hands, I couldn't help feeling a little like Dr. Evil, plotting my course for world domination.

There are a few things to know right off the bat. First, all versions of the iPad include an integrated digital compass, which the maps app can use along with Wi-Fi triangulation to approximate your location and orientation.

Also note that you'll need to invest in a 3G-capable model if you really plan on utilizing the iPad as a proper "Where the heck am I?" kind of map. Not only will the 3G-enabled iPad ping nearby cell towers as an additional means to determine your location (along with Wi-Fi signal triangulation), but the hardware on the 3G models includes extra assisted-GPS hardware, providing a true GPS experience that you can't get on the Wi-Fi only iPads.

Technical details aside, what's so special about maps on the iPad? Well, as the hands-on video at CNET TV demonstrates, the map's street view mode feels all the more godlike on a nice, big, capacitive touch screen. With the screen nearly three times the size of the iPhone's, you can literally see the steam coming off a cup of coffee, or in the video's Lombard Street example, you can see an enthusiastic tourist giving the thumb's up. In short, street view is much more impressive on iPad than it is on the iPhone, though no more practical. Contrasted with a comparable laptop screen, iPad's capacitive touch screen makes the experience feel like spinning a digital globe. It's fun. … Read more

Free, painless way to geotag photos

Google's Picasa is an excellent photo organizer. One of my favorite features, though, is its capability to quickly geotag images--adding longitude and latitude to the photo's EXIF metadata--with little effort. Basically, it requires little more than selecting a photo or photos, clicking a couple of buttons in the interface, and the software handles the rest. Plus, you can use either Google Maps for tagging or place them on the Google Earth globe.

The biggest catch is, unless you noted it at the time, you have to remember approximately where you were when you took your photos. Once you'… Read more