We still don’t make any money doing this, so… you know… this is the best graphic we could find in the public domain.

It’s the 100th episode of Deemable Tech. It only took us three years to get here! Jessica Palombo, co-host of the mystical, never aired “Deemable Tech Pilot Episode,” and current WJCT News Director, joined Ray, Tom and Sean for the big celebration. The foursome talked about Facebook’s new “dislike” button, a new service that promises to be “Yelp for humans,” Amazon cuts out the competition and some guy who managed to buy the domain “Google.com” from — get this — Google!

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THE RUN DOWN

Facebook ?Likes’ rumors of a ?Dislike’ button

Pretty much ever since Facebook introduced its ubiquitous ?like’ button, users have been clamoring for a ?dislike’ button. Well last month, Business Insider reported that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had announced that the company was working on one. Only, it isn’t quite what you think.

Don’t worry, the world’s most dominant social media site isn’t about to turn into a den of passive-aggressive backstabbing – anymore than it already is. Zuck says he wants to give users a way to express sympathy or empathy when someone posts that they are having a bad day or going through a difficult time.

While Facebook’s CEO promised that the ?dislike’ button would appear in the not-too-distant future, as of this recording it is not available. And you should be wary of scams. Gizmodo reports that ads have started appearing promising that people that take a survey can get early access to the ?dislike’ button. You can’t and you won’t. Although you may ?dislike’ what happens to you if you try.

The internet gives ?Yelp for Humans’ a one star rating

Ever app developer hopes that their app will go viral and gain massive media attention. Last week, one soon-to-be-released app did, although probably not in the way its creators wanted. The Washington Post ran a story about an app called Peeple, which founder Julia Cordray billed as ?Yelp for Humans’. Supposedly the app would allow you to rate anyone you had a phone # on a 1-5 scale. The people you were rating did not have to be signed up for the app.

Although Cordray promised that there would be controls in place to prevent cyber-bullying and that those who received negative ratings would have 48 hours to respond to them before they were posted, the internet backlash was swift and massive. Within hours, #Peeple was a trending topic on Twitter, with the Tweets about it almost uniformly negative. Peeple’s Facebook page was flooded with angry comments. Ironically, Peeple began to delete negative feedback from their Facebook page before taking both it and their Twitter feed offline entirely.

Over the weekend, Snopes.com speculated that Peeple was actually just a hoax intended to rile everyone up. However, there has been no confirmation that it is in fact a hoax at this time.

As of this morning, Peeple founder Julia Cordray has posted a lengthy ?clarification’ on LinkedIn. In her article, she claims that the purpose of the app has been misunderstood, that it is a ?positivity’ app, and that it will NOT in fact allow negative reviews or allow reviews of people who have not signed up for the app. This seems directly contradictory to what has been stated about the app before, including in a handful of ?webisodes’ that the team had posted on YouTube.

A further wrinkle in this crazy only-on-the-internet story: Peeple is also the name of another startup, this one a company which has developed an electronic, wifi-enabled peephole for your front-door. Wired reports that the other Peeple is less-than-pleased about the unwanted publicity. Since the other Peeple owns the trademark to the name in the US, it is not clear how the app makers will proceed. Should they choose to, their stated release date is in November.

Random guy buys Google.com from Google for $12

Mashable reports that last week a random guy was able to buy Google.com from Google for the massive price of $12. Sanmay Ved, a student at Babson University, was playing around with Google Domains when he noticed that the site said that “Google.com” was unclaimed. He added it to his cart, checked out, and a few minutes later had an email informing him of his successful purchase of “Google.com.”

Just a few minutes after that, however, his purchase was mysteriously cancelled. Ved reports that he did notify Google of the glitch after the fact. No word on why Google had its own domain up for sale in the first place.

Mashable notes that Microsoft lost Hotmail.co.uk in a similar glitch in 2003, but had more trouble getting it back.

Amazon.com to stop carrying competing streaming devices Chromecast and Apple TV

Competition in the world of streaming TV and movies continues to heat up. Several different companies now offer low-cost solutions that allow users to stream high quality video from several different services on the cheap. The leaders are Google’s Chromecast, Apple’s Apple TV, and Amazon’s Fire TV Stick. Well Bloomberg reports that Amazon.com has decided that that is a few competitors too many. It has announced that starting on October 29th it will no longer carry either the Chromecast or the AppleTV in its online store. Just in time for the Christmas season!

Amazon states that the reason for this move is that its competitor’s devices don’t “interact well” with Amazon Prime Video. Of course it would appear that it is up to Amazon to develop software for the devices, not the companies that make them.

Other streaming devices, including Roku’s set top device and Microsoft’s XBox One and Sony’s Playstation 4 are not affected

Q: What is the best way to hook my laptop up to my TV?

Image Credit: Alan Levine / Flickr

A: Thinking of cutting the cord, Aaron? With Netflix and Hulu Plus you can get most of the shows you watch on TV without cable. Or maybe you want to use your TV to show the baby videos stored on your laptop? Either way there are a few options.

If you have an HDMI port on both your laptop and your TV, the simplest approach may be to connect them using an HDMI cable. Most, but not all, laptops now support HDMI and virtually every modern TV does. A word of caution: don’t go to your local big box store to buy HDMI cables – they are way overpriced! You can find them online for literally a quarter of the price (we’re talking $10 vs. $40).

Once you have a cable connecting both the laptop and the TV, you need to select the HDMI input on your television. Then, if you are using a PC, you may have to tell your laptop to send the signal to the TV. This is usually accomplished by pressing the “function” or “FN” key and one of the F keys at the top of the keyboard.

Now, if you don’t want to cover your living room with HDMI cables, there are also a lot of wireless solutions out there. However, your choices depend on what kind of laptop you have and what you want to do with it. For instance, Intel has a very nice bit of technology to mirror your PC or Mac called WiDi (which stands for “Wireless Display”). Unfortunately it is not very widely available, and typically you’ll only find it on high-end Intel laptops.

Several manufacturers also make small boxes which enable wireless streaming from your laptop to your television. Apple TV and Roku are two of the most widely known. Either one can stream from a Mac or PC, and from Netflix, Hulu Plus and a variety of other services. They each cost around $100 (depending on which version of the Roku you buy). If we were answering your question six months ago, we would tell you to get one of these.

You see, there’s now another solution that’s a lot cheaper. Google sells a small gadget called the Chromecast which plugs into the HDMI port on your TV. It then connects to your home WiFi network. Once it’s set up, you can stream video from your laptop through the Google Chrome browser (it supports YouTube, Netflix, Hulu Plus and Pandora), and it will mirror any page you have open in the browser. And here’s kicker: it’s only $30.

However, you should know that there are some limitations. Since the Chromecast only streams what you can view through the Chrome browser, it most likely won’t work with video you have stored locally on your hard drive. So, it may not be the best solution if you are looking to show off your baby videos.

But, again, for $30 it may be worth a shot. If it doesn’t work out, there’s always the HDMI cable.

If you still haven’t purchased your special someone a present for Valentine’s Day, your sweet-heart is a gadget junkie, and there’s an electronics store on the way home, this article might help you from spending the night snuggled up with Fido. Here’s a list of eleven tech gifts under $100 (and one at $129) that will make great last-minute Valentine’s Day presents.