Strange New World: Tech Picks of the Week

March 21, 2008 — -- This week it's strange upon strange here in the world of technology. Eliot Spitzer's not-so-excellent affair took a high-tech twist: his paramour is now an overnight digital rock star — no Simon, Paula or the fat guy needed.

And local broadcast blackouts of online streaming video of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament are being replaced by another online obfuscation: businesses saying "nyet" to net video at work. If there is not a constitutional amendment defending our right to watch undergraduates play basketball while we work, there really should be. In the meantime, feel free to share our techno-workarounds for staying tourney savvy without leaving your desk.

Plus, social networking has gone international. Want to know where Russian hotties go to face off online? Read on down.

Here are our picks for the top tech stories of the week.

Some Good from Spitzer-Gate

You've no doubt heard all the lurid details about the New York ex-governor's dalliance with the call girl he reportedly paid more than $4,000 for a few hours of her "time." But did you know that in the few days after the news broke she became a millionaire musician?

Oh yeah, before you shed a tear for this girl's smeared reputation, check this out: The courtesan/budding pop princess has two of her songs on the music site Amiestreet.com, where they are available for purchase for 98 cents each.

She casually mentioned this in an interview and, 24 hours later, the songs had been reportedly downloaded more than 2 million times (and counting). Because of the way the site is set up, she will receive 70 percent of the total profit. That's well up seven figures, for those of you scoring at home.

Attention struggling musicians, I think we have a new playbook for you to follow. Get infamous, upload your tracks to Amiestreet.com, and reap the profit.

Watch March Madness at Work

March Madness is our favorite sporting event of the year, but for some reason employers don't appreciate their workers watching it on company time. Something about how they lose billions in productivity during the first two days of the NCAA basketball tournament due to TV watching while working.

A lot of businesses now place limits on multimedia consumption using office computers. So to fight this clear encroachment on our rights, we dug deep and found some great tips for getting around those pesky NCAA bans at your office.

Get a USB TV tuner. The Diamond Extreme PV6600 ($99 at JR.com) turns your miserable, useless work computer into a college basketball media center. If your office has good TV reception, this is the way to go.

Go Slingbox, but with a twist. Get the mobile player for your smart phone. It's $30 for the software and boxes start at $130. It's a great answer, but pricey, and requires both good cell service in the office and Web access at home.

Step out Dick Tracy style with the wristwatch TV from NHJ for $99. Then just hang out by a window with a pile of paper and pretend you're working. Pathetic, yes, but it will work.

If all else fails, AT&T has a mobile highlight service. No live game video, just stats, clips and other stuff. But if you're desperate, you're desperate.

Worldwide Social Networking

AOL just paid millions for a social network called Bebo.com and we all wondered why. It turns out that Bebo is the No. 1 social network in Europe. So we wondered what the top networks around the world are.

After a little research we learned that social network adoption "snowballs." New users jump on the networks their friends are already on, so once a network is entrenched in a country it is very hard to unseat the champ. Anyhow, here are the No. 1 social networks from around the globe:

Jonathan Blum and Dan Evans co-host "Strange New World," a weekly syndicated radio show. Blum hosts the blog Blumsday.com and Evans is a features editor at PC Magazine.