Crave

(Credit: Nicholas/The404)

Welcome to Justin's penultimate episode of CNET's The 404 Podcast! Tomorrow will be our last show as a team, but there's plenty of special Yuletide episodes, contests, 404 merchandise, and CES shows to look forward to in 2010.

I know we swore this story wouldn't get discussed on our show, but we finally cave in and say a couple quick words about the recent Tiger Woods sex scandal. As the story unfolds, Wilson tells us Tiger is in even hotter water for sending a racy text message to his lady on the side.

We all make mistakes, so we're not hating on the guy, even though these accidents are most common among teenagers.

(Credit: Sony)

Next, Jeff gives us an insider's look into the glitz and glamor of a professional video game reviewer with an overview of Sony's upcoming PS3 game lineup. One of the more unique titles is Heavy Rain, described by the director as "a very dark film-noir thriller with mature themes." Jeff describes the format as a graphic version of "Choose Your Own Adventure," where the decisions you make in the game help to route you through the levels and the storyline. Take a look at Jeff's PS3-exclusive gaming rundown for the full story and more previews.

Finally, virtual daps to Nicholas and Props Guy Jim for using their Photoshop skills to make a few special holiday images for the show. Be sure to subscribe to our iTunes or RSS feed to get the updated holiday album cover art! Also, we're saving Props Guy Jim's picture for the holiday blog, which will go live on Christmas Eve--thanks again, Nicholas and Jim!

Libe Goad

(Credit: Libe Goad)

The much-anticipated and controversial Modern Warfare 2 finally arrives in retail stores today, which gives us an excuse to invite AOL GameDaily.com's Libe Goad to give us some insight into all the action. Although it's definitely not the first Call of Duty game, Libe and Jeff tell us it's the most controversial of the pack, with disturbing scenes that let you take the side of terrorists.

It's hard to believe anything can be scarier than making the trip down to Chinatown, NYC, to pick up your "advanced" copy, though. Don't call it a bootleg; the copies they're selling down there are actually legit, a first for Canal St. merchants. And although they cost the same as copies from the big box stores, Modern Warfare 2 has been available at these "select retailers" for the past week! Good to know I live in such a respectable part of NYC.

Yesterday's episode sparked such a heated conversation about censorship, video game and movie ratings, and parenting video gamers that we're happy to revisit the topics today, with Libe's valuable industry input, of course! This time, we address the world of online gaming that's brought a new level of offensive material to young people who might not understand the implications of their trash-talking. With no moderators to police Xbox Live or PSN, players are allowed to communicate directly with each other, which often results in racist and misogynistic epithets. Tune in to today's episode to listen to our opinion on what should be done.

Finally, we hate to take the spotlight away from Libe, but we've been resisting the urge to announce our guest for the past week. We finally got the green light, so we're happy to announce that Tony Hawk will be in The 404 studio on Monday, November 16, to chat with us about his latest game, Tony Hawk: Ride and maybe even do a live in-studio demo! Start thinking up questions, as we'll most likely be taking questions from the audience as well.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2--photos

In Episode 23 of the Digital City, we discuss high-tech plans, but a low-tech budget at the MTA; the release of Resident Evil 5; Linux on Netbooks; and the Sirius/iPhone connection.

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(Credit: CNET Networks)

Pandora may be one of the better-known music-discovery apps to premier in the iTunes App Store yesterday (download | review), but it isn't the only free Internet music-streaming and discovery service-turned-iPhone-application out there. One of my iPhone-blessed colleagues here at CNET also heartily recommended AOL Radio.

AOL's channel of recommendations tops the category listings on this simple vertical app, followed by category genres from Alternative to Sports talk and World music. Clicking a category streams content by radio station or by predefined collection. All songs play on a darkened screen powered by CBS Radio. The artist's name and available album art are displayed when available. Below is a options button that can be "tapped" to save the song or find it on either iTunes or AOL Music.

All of these are useful functions of streaming media, but what won my colleague over is the ease of streaming local stations by selecting the city from a tab.

AOL Radio may not offer the same element of excitement or surprise as Pandora's music-picking engine, but with a song and station history, favorites, local stations, and collections, it's a viable contender for those who aren't as interested in rating songs or having an algorithm pick their next jam.

No matter how this story ends, it will have a big impact on all Web users. If Microsoft takes control of Yahoo, for example, many of Redmond's Web properties will likely get scuttled while Yahoo's become even bigger. If Google and Yahoo do a deal, the price of Internet advertising will go up (since the combined network would control the majority of keyword advertising), and so on. For the full rundown of what could change, what's likely to happen, and all the latest news, check out News.com's complete coverage of Yahoo and its suitors.

Digsby is a new service that aims to give people a way to link their contacts from leading IM clients with e-mail and social networks like Facebook and MySpace.com

(Credit: Jeff Hester, BigBlueBall.com)

If you're the type of person who communicates with friends, co-workers, relatives, and such via several different IM services, e-mail, and Facebook--and you know you are--software could soon offer you one of the cleanest ways ever to link them all together.

The software, called Digsby, went into private beta Tuesday, and its goal is to give people a way to organize their contacts from Yahoo Messenger, AOL IM, ICQ, Google Talk, Jabber, and Windows Live Messenger, as well as e-mail, Facebook, and MySpace.com into a single client.

Digsby went into private beta on Tuesday. It is the brainchild of Steve Shapiro, an MBA student at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

(Credit: Jeff Hester, BigBlueBall.com)

According to Jeff Hester, who runs instant message community site BigBlueBall.com and who wrote about Digsby late Wednesday night, the service is the smoothest integration of all the various communications tools that it links together.

Digsby offers the ability to have a single buddy list for all your (major) IM clients and to carry on several IM conversations via tabbed windows. Furthermore, you can create new aliases for each contact for convenience.

It also allows you to work with Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, Gmail, and other major Web-based e-mail services and to "stay up to date with everything happening on your Facebook or MySpace accounts," including friend requests, messages, group invites, and other communications.

Currently, Digsby only works with Facebook and MySpace, but it hints at other social network support in the near future.

Hester said he thinks it works better with Facebook.

"The integration with Facebook is best," Hester wrote on BigBlueBall.com, "and (there) is even a Digsby widget for your Facebook profile. With Myspace, you get the status and updates, but to take an action, Digsby launches a browser and takes you to the full Myspace Web site. It might be nice if they used a mini-browser and the mobile version of the site, but only as an option."

Hester told me late Wednesday night by instant message that the integration with Facebook is cleaner because of the API.

For now, Digsby is closed to general public sign-ups, but a visit to BigBlueBall might net you an invite.

I have to admit, I'm not sure whether there are other services that can do all of this, but even if there are, this may be the best yet.

AOL may have been one of the first mainstream services to really make its way onto most consumer telephones (with AIM), but the rest of its mobile services haven't exactly been keeping pace with Google and Yahoo's efforts. Today they're trying to change that with several mobile incarnations of AOL services that have been custom tailored for entry level handsets and smart phones running Windows Mobile.

For users with phones that aren't running a "smart" operating system there are two services that have been specially tailored for you. The first is a new WAP portal that serves up news, AOL and AIM Mail, Mapquest, weather, and various other sections of AOL's front page in byte-sized pieces. The other is a new SMS short code version of AIM that lets user sign on and message buddies using their SMS text messages--similar to what carriers offer with built-in AIM apps, sans the actual program. To try it out on your own phone, send a text message to 'AIMAIM' (246246).

AOL's new MyMobile app for Windows Mobile smart phones bundles together several services in one.

(Credit: AOL Inc.)

Windows Mobile users are getting a slightly better end of the deal with a new application that's a lot like Yahoo's Go service. It's called MyMobile, and it's home to a handful of AOL's services like search, Moviefone, Mapquest, and mail. The app will remember your history, so you can speed up searches on the go with your zipcode or address. Users of other Palm and Symbian phones have had something similar for some time now in AOL's software store. AOL intends to release the app "by the end of the year" and make it free with integrated advertisements.

Also of note is a new widget for WHERE users for tracking where your AIM buddies are online. This requires a GPS-enabled phone, and works using Mapquest to let you post your location without having to look up or type out an address--a little bit like Sprint, Boost Mobile (with Loopt) and Helio have done.

AOL is also officially launching their Winamp Remote mobile service, which lets you access music and videos from your Winamp library while on the go. The service is powered by Orb, which is capable of doing similar things with their standalone app on most mobile handsets and modern-day gaming consoles.

The most exciting bit of all of these is the new Windows Mobile app, since it will take some of the work out of using these services outside the confines of your mobile browser. I'm also a fan of Winamp Remote since Orb is one of the more user friendly personal streaming services out there, yet it's highly customizable for advanced users. I look forward to seeing it integrated into other services.

When Winamp 5.3 came out a year ago, it impressed many who had written it off, although that may have been simply because it hadn't died a quiet death of obsolescence. Long-needed steps to improve the old-school media player were implemented, with support for AAC encoding, CD burning, and a robust file-management system.

Thirteen months on, Winamp 5.5 ups the ante again with strong support for portable devices, including iPods, the ability to sync non-DRMed files to your PC from your device, an optional new interface layout, a built-in browser for media discovery, and other nifty tricks.

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I'm a smidgen skeptical of this rumor, if only because it seems so darn obvious: TechCrunch reported on Tuesday morning that Time Warner's AOL may have found a use for its Wow.com domain, which it acquired in 1998 as part of the offal of what had once been CompuServe.

The source's big scoop? Wow.com has been transferred to the AOL Games division and will become a World of Warcraft social network. If this turns out to be true, expect plenty of level-28 half-elf mages to be typing "Wow.com" into their browsers soon.

It does indeed make sense for the newly Gothamized AOL to use the domain in such a way. Maybe even too much sense, considering some of the company's faux pas in recent years.

TechCrunch's Michael Arrington aptly points out, however, that there are plenty of other World of Warcraft social networks out there--then there's also the fact that the wildly popular online role-playing game from Blizzard, famously lampooned in South Park, is really sort of a social network in its own right.

But you've got to admit that there are some much more heavily clogged niches that AOL could've chosen to dive into with a hot domain name like that. You know, like social news.