When you host a show, sometimes circumstances beyond your control force you to do things that you never thought you’d have to do. Case in point, this week, we had to do research on Dr. Dre. Between that and a bunch of other semi-depressing news, it’s a good thing we have a corny musical bit at the end of this week’s episode to lift our spirits.

Note: This episode was recorded before a few of the tech headlines we covered were confirmed or modified with new details by the companies in question. Some of the articles we cite below may now be out of date.

Our tech headlines this week:

• 
  
• Apple In Negotiations to Buy Audio Company Beats Electronics for $3.2 Billion; Beats would be Apple’s biggest acquisition ever
  
• FCC Chairman reportedly revises net neutrality proposal after public outcry
  
• Leaked screenshots hint at possible major Gmail redesign
  
• AT&T may buy DirecTV for $50 billion
  
• Study finds being ignored on Facebook may lower self-esteem
  
• Nintendo apologizes for lack of virtual equality
  

Josh continues our long-running failure-inducing segment with a new spate of FLUNKS:

• 
  
• FLUNK: 3D-Print your own 4.7-inch iPhone 6 model prototype
  
• FLUNK: Amazon patents process of taking a photograph with a white background
  
• FLUNK: Bitcologne… ’nuff said
  
• OKAY THEN, UMM: Lawmaker to accept political donations in bitcoin
  
• OKAY THEN, UMM: Human Rights Organizations campaign against killer robots
  

In this week’s installment of A Very Tiny Bit of Awesome, Douglas offers a shout-out to Uberconference, whose hold music is a country song about being on hold on a conference call: “I’m on Hold” by Alex Cornell.

Episode Duration: 59:57

On This Episode: Douglas Bell and Josh Feldman

Download: Tech tAUk Reloaded #33 (28.8 MB MP3)