Today’s Guests:
Sebastian Rupley , Co-Crank, Editorial Director, PCMagCast.com
Jason Young , CEO, Ziff Davis Media
Jason Cross , Senior Editor, ExtremeTech.com

The Topics:

Imitation New York Times
New Yorkers were truly perplexed when a fake, 14-page version of The New York Times was circulated on a mass scale throughout the streets of New York City this morning. The imitation paper was reinforced by a seemingly professional online version. The headlines announced that the Iraq War had ended and that ExxonMobil has been taken into public ownership. The one thing that was a dead giveaway was the date which read July 4th 2009. The Yes Men, a left-wing activist group, took credit for the prank.

AT&T May Impose Tiered Broadband Pricing
AT&T is testing the concept of restricting the amount of data that subscribers can use. AT&T, also the largest Internet provider, will begin apply the limits in Reno and further consider expanding the operation. AT&T will limit downloads to 20 gigabytes per month for users of their slowest DSL service, at 768 kilobits per second, beginning in November. In order to receive more gigabytes per month users must increase the speed of the plan, up to 150 gigabytes per month at the 10 megabits-per-second level.

Sun Microsystems Aiding Microsoft Get Search Traffic
Sun has announced it will promote a Microsoft toolbar for the Internet Explorer browser to U.S.-based Web surfers as they download Sun’s Java software. The software is necessary to view certain Web sites. Microsoft is focusing on toolbars and default settings because 35 percent of Web searches are conducted from the browser’s address line, built-in search boxes and add-on search toolbars, not the search provider’s Web page.

CEO of Google Denies Techie in Chief
CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, claimed he was not interested in becoming CTO for the nation under President Barack Obama. Schmidt publicly endorsed Obama and supports his plans for more investment in renewable energy but told the New York Times. “I am extremely happy serving the shareholders of Google as the C.E.O., so I have no interest in serving as a government employee.”

Former IBMer gone Apple Forced to Stop Work
Mark Papermaster has been commanded by a federal judge to quit working immediately in his new job at Apple, because he may be violating an agreement with IBM, his past employer of 26 years. IBM filed a “non-compete” lawsuit against him maintaining that as a primary designer and executive Papermaster was “privy to a whole host of trade secrets and confidences” used by Big Blue to design products. The defense upheld that Apple offered a “once in a lifetime ‘dream job’” and that IBM and Apple had completely different tech gear.