generator

The 404 Podcast crew scored tickets for an advanced screening of JJ Abrams' new "Star Trek" movie! We had a lot of fun interviewing all the hard-core "Star Trek" fans, and even battled a few overzealous Enterprise crew members.

Will we successfully stump the Trekkies with our in-depth knowledge of Borg cube transwarp conduit projections, or will they overpower us with a temporal chroniton field? Watch the video below to find out!

Don't forget to check out our live videocast every morning at 11 a.m. ET or head over to CNETTV.com to watch … Read more

Command your own fleet of nerds with this replica of the original Star Trek communicator, and guess what? It also happens to double as a VOIP phone, meaning you can use it to actually talk to another human being using Skype, AOL Instant Messenger, iChat, etc...

Bad news, though: unfortunately, the device does not have built-in Wi-Fi, so you must use USB for connectivity...worst. communicator. ever. Good news, though! Whoever designed this replica had the foresight (and the fear of vengeful Trekkies everywhere) to include buttons that play sound effects from the original series and a real mesh flip … Read more

Wilson's out slaving for CNETTV at the Amazon Kindle DX unveiling, leaving Jeff and I to man the show sans laughter...we'll let you judge the outcome. Today we veryveryvery briefly touch on the biggie Kindle, and also discuss the dangers of gaming to the death, Apple's new iPhone replacement policy, Oprah's free chicken giveaway, and more!

We'd first like to thank Randall Bennett, former host of The 404, for having us on his new show Tech VI--check us out!

One story from today comes from our brothers in the East, and by "… Read more

Internet security is a priority for many users no matter how secretive their surfing. Hackers, with advanced password decoding software, are a major concern for many. Password Generator offers an opportunity to stay a step ahead of these predators, but we found a navigation flaw that was frustrating.

The program opens with a simple-to-navigate wizard that takes users through the steps of building a secure password. Users begin by entering standard password parameters, such as number of characters in the word, use of vowels, consonants, special characters and numbers. As these boxes are selected an example at the bottom changes … Read more

With all this hysteria about the pig sniffles, you'd think that an announcement about 100 million strange little organisms would be cause for alarm. That's not the case, however, when we're talking about the oddball life forms that players grow and control as part of video game Spore. The game created by industry legend Will Wright announced Monday that 100 million creatures have been created, far outrunning the number of species on Earth.

The game publisher, Electronic Arts, started counting last June. That's when it first released its Spore Creature Creator, several months ahead of the … Read more

The future of our climate might be summed up in one question: what do we do about coal?

Coal generates nearly half the electricity in the United States and the world. But it's the dirtiest fuel of all when it comes to carbon dioxide, or CO2, the leading greenhouse gas.

Last week, the Obama administration declared, for the first time, that CO2 is a threat to human health and it plans to impose limits. But making coal safe will come at an astronomical cost.

After the economy, this could be the biggest debate in Washington. One of the most … Read more

FireID was set to announce at RSA 2009 on Monday technology that allows people to access multiple Web sites on their mobile phone without having to remember all the passwords.

The FireID universal personal authenticator app turns any phone that runs Java into a one-time password generator and generates the password directly on the phone instantly so there is no risk of it being intercepted and no waiting for an SMS like with other password-generator systems, said Jenny Dugmore, chief executive of FireID.

The system also works with multiple applications and creates a unique encrypted password for each session. It … Read more

Captcha, or Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart, is a method used by many Web sites to fight against computer-generated input. As computers get smarter, Captchas hves become more of a nuisance because most of them are now tough for us humans to pass.

I recently blogged about a new and more humane way to create a Captcha by using 3D images and the implementation of that method at Yuniti.com. I've just run into a different approach, similar to the Asirra tool revealed by Microsoft in 2007, that seems even easier for humans … Read more

There aren't many new companies launching at this year's Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, which runs Tuesday through Friday. One of the few that are is Lunch.com, which strives to get a little more juice out of user-generated publishing.

Here's the premise of Lunch: You can review anything you want, from a TV show to a restaurant to a food product to a household appliance. I guess it aims to be, sort of, a Wikipedia for opinions. Founder J.R. Johnson, who started building the site after he sold previous creations VirtualTourist.com and … Read more