2012

The UK-based McLaren Group, which sponsors the likes of Jenson Button in Formula 1 racing, has created a wireless system that stores data and telemetry info for other athletes as well, including cyclists, rowers, and sailors.

UK Sport, which plans to invest about $500 million (300 million British pounds) in various Olympics endeavors as the country preps to defend its turf during the 2012 games in London, approached McLaren because it has "unique expertise" in data mining, according to the group's head of research and innovation Scott Drawer.

McLaren's Applied Technology division could eventually develop commercial … Read more

This video of the 2012 Ford Focus popped up on YouTube yesterday. The Focus will, no doubt, be the talk of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Both the four-door sedan and five-door hatchback body styles of the next-generation Focus will be previewed at the show.

According to an announcement today on Ford's Web site, the company is showing a "completely new 2.0-liter gasoline engine for the North American market that features DI and Twin Independent Variable Camshaft Timing (Ti-VCT) for enhanced performance and fuel efficiency. The new 2.0-liter DI Ti-VCT engine is up … Read more

Welcome back to another Yuletide Mini-sode of CNET's The 404 Podcast. We'll be keeping you company all season with fresh episodes, year-end wrap-ups, CES 2010 previews, and much more!

We're all a little torn up about the top 50 highest grossing movies of 2009. Films like Watchmen, Bruno, and Star Trek blew us away and easily lived up to the hype; it's too bad that flops like Hotel For Dogs and Paranormal Activity had to ruin it for the rest!

In typical 404 fashion, we run down the list and pick out the movies that we love, and of course the movies that we love to hate.

Enjoy, and have a fun (and safe!) New Year!

An extensive team of engineers, designers, and architects from around the world unveiled plans on Monday to create a digitally connected structure to grace the 2012 Olympics in London.

The structure, called the Cloud, is both a physical and digital cloud designed to broadcast real-time data and images on spherical, three-dimensional screens. While the images would float high above the city, the sound would be broadcast at ground level.

Carlo Ratti, head of the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a team leader on the project that includes experts from across the world and Google as a partner. … Read more

It's National Toilet Day today, and Justin isn't here to celebrate. Fortunately, we more than make it up with dozens upon dozens of fecal jokes. Mark Licea of The Green Show joins the show today to talk tech and...lingerie?

Admittedly, we here at The 404 celebrate National Toilet Day at least three times a day, but we're glad to see that people across the planet are starting to recognize the importance of the porcelain throne. It may sound a bit unusual for us to be so beholden to the toilet, but most New Yorkers can sympathize. After all, most of us here have to deal with a mixed bag of ethnic food and $20 dollar fees to use a public restroom.

In nonpoop news, we talk about a Warner Bros. program to let DVD owners upgrade their discs to Blu-ray versions. The program is called DVD2Blu. This only applies to Warner Bros. films, and viewers must pay a fee of $8 to $10 per disc. We think this is a great idea. Wilson is especially keen on not having to pay $30 for each disc in his "Lord of the Rings" and "Star Wars" collections.

Also, Jeff has a follow up to our video game censorship series. He interviewed Major Nelson of Microsoft to talk about racism, misogyny, and homophobia in online gaming. Check it out. A keen chat room listener though points out the irony of talking about derogatory words when players are shooting people in the head.

If you're worried about your cheating wife or girlfriend, a Brazilian line of lingerie from LindeLucy that comes with a built-in GPS tracking device. Now, the device is not exactly subtle, but for the paranoid ones out there, this might be the trick to keep your lady in line--or get her mad at you, again. Trust, after all, is the bond that holds all relationships together.

Finally, we get to some voice mails and viewer feedback about cool moms that play video games before their children do and an early review of "2012." Wilson is disappointed with the fact that the film won't be available in IMAX. He just wants to watch the world burn. Meanwhile, the rest of the crew remember the movie magic of the first "Jurassic Park" movie. The t. rex at the end: Priceless.

Send in your feedback and callbacks to the404 [at] cnet [dot] com. Or call us! We are after all an audio podcast too! The number is 1-866-404-CNET (2638). Thanks again!

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It's hard to believe that anyone would want to unsubscribe from The 404 Podcast, but we're here to say that the unspeakable act comes with a $250 termination fee, which actually ain't that bad considering Verizon recently doubled its early termination fees from $175 to $350. Verizon attempts to justify it by reducing the fee by $10 as each month of your contract passes, but we're not entirely convinced you're saving money. Case in point: if you buy a Droid with a two-year contract on Verizon but want to jump ship after a year, the penalty is still a rip-off at $230, which is already $80 more than what I paid to terminate my fee when I switched to AT&T for the iPhone three years ago. With a Verizon iPhone around the corner, we're hoping to finally have a way to escape AT&T's frustratingly spotty 3G service. Sing it with me..."We want prenup, we want prenup, YEAHHH."

If you just couldn't wait for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 to come out and modded your Xbox 360 to play a pirated version of the game, you might want to check the status of your Gamertag because you might be one of the 1 million players that Microsoft banned earlier this week. This week's release of the popular Call of Duty sequel caused a spike in players altering their consoles to play a bootleg version of the game, but many are unaware that Xbox 360s all contain "digital right management technologies designed to detect pirated software," says a report in InformationWeek. Unfortunately, once a Gamertag is banned, the person responsible is banished for life and must purchase a brand new console in order to reregister and play again. There's no doubt that Modern Warfare 2 is an amazing game, but it's worth it to keep your Xbox 360 clean and shell out the dough for the legit game. Piracy doesn't pay!

Finally, all our New York listeners should pay special attention to our next segment, because this new iPhone app could literally shave minutes off your commute time. I joke you not, any time saved on the subway is a blessing, so we're all very excited about Exit Strategy NYC, a mapping application that downloads an entire map of the city to your iPhone, so it works underground. It displays zoomable, scrollable, and interactive maps of the subway system as well, and even shows you which specific car to board so you'll exit exactly at the street level stairs.

The app is available on the iPhone App Store for $4.99, and it's well worth the purchase if you live in New York or plan to travel in the area. You can also download it for the BlackBerry, Android, and Amazon Kindle. The good folks at Exit Strategy were generous enough to give our listeners a handful of codes to download the app for free! All you have to do is comment on this blog with the words "EXIT STRATEGY" and you'll be automatically entered into the random lottery. We'll choose five winners over the weekend and send out the codes on Tuesday, so leave a comment now!

Also, don't forget that Tony Hawk will be on the show Monday to chat with us and do an in-studio demo of his latest video game, Tony Hawk Ride, so be sure to send in any questions to the404[at]cnet{dot}com and pick a few to ask. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Over the past few weeks, we've heard more and more about 2012 when, according to some, the world will end. Responding to all that talk with a healthy dose of skepticism, scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration have launched a Web page to dispel the myths surrounding the momentous occasion.

On an FAQ page called, "2012: Beginning of the End or Why the World Won't End?" NASA wrote that much like the Y2K scare a decade ago, the end of the world won't come in 2012.

"Impressive movie special effects aside, December … Read more

Recording your PC, console, or Flash video games for reviewing your play or sharing with friends just became easier with this application. Limitations on the trial version may put a damper on some of your fun, though.

Quobi Game Recorder opens a compact, stylish interface that lets you choose the type of game to record and watch, edit, and upload the results. The tabbed navigation allows for quick and easy movement around the app's features, and the options and commands are straightforward and simple to master.

In our tests, this application performed satisfactorily, although it responded a bit slowly … Read more

I have tried to avoid the Balloon Boy, his dad, and all who sail in this online/offline/out-of-line clattermaran.

However, thanks to CBS News, I have learned that Richard Heene once appeared on a fine YouTube extravaganza called The Psyience Detectives and offered 15 reasons why our haggard old world will end on December 21, 2012.

I have no idea if the world will end in 2012, though I suspect Richard Heene doesn't know either. And yet there is something quite eerie that he should assault our eyes and ears in the same week that a movie called &… Read more