BBC

This morning we talked about the Olympics, and some of the tech stories that are coming out of there. So many of us were blown away by the way that technology was incorporated into the opening ceremonies. What made it work? We discussed the lighting, the fireworks and the CGI…

Opening Ceremonies in Beijing

We also discussed the fact that there’s a huge amount of high definition footage being shot by NBC in Beijing. The BBC also seems to have some great coverage. However, unless you’re a resident of either of these countries, with an IP address in those places, you can’t actually see that video. It actually irritates me, personally, quite a bit. The point of the web is connectivity – I can read the NY Times, The Financial Times, and the Jerusalem Post. Why is media different?

Changing topics — it’s one month to the day since iPhone 2.0 was announced. Over the weekend Steve Jobs announced that iPhone users have installed 60 million applications in the first month. There have never been download numbers like that from any application ever. Jobs says it changes software. But in the same breath we hear that the actual sales figures are around $30 million. $.50 average per application? So should we consider this a success?

Apparently T-Mobile does, since they’re planning to launch a store like App Store for their entire product line.

Now what about the kill switch in iPhone. Job’s acknowledged it was there and said “hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull.” We chatted about who’s phone it really is… and when they might be justified in pulling that switch.

And we had a short chat about “I am Rich”… apparently 8 people bought it, and it seems that they bought it intentionally. One woman was quite upset at the press coverage she’s been getting about it. Was Apple justified in pulling this one from the store?

On the SquawkBox this morning: Mark Hewitt, Bill Volk, Frank Abrams, Greg McQuay