kutcher

Perhaps you, like me, were forcefully encouraged to see the new movie "Valentines Day" last weekend. In the course of diplomacy, perhaps you, too, said that it was a wonderful movie.

You will be fascinated, then, to discover that the movie's star, Ashton Kutcher, has become a U.S. government diplomat.

No, not one of those who takes an overseas posting, sleeps with women who are not his wife, and, having embarrassed himself by dropping his trousers at an official function, is forced to function at a slightly lower level for the remainder of his career.

According to the LA Times, … Read more

Today's episode of The 404 Podcast starts with a big change in the show title format. That's right, we're now announcing the date with the episode number and name. Can you feel the excitement! Well, if that didn't do the trick, check out this funny headline from the first story of the day: "Woman fired for eating boss' meatball." I don't even think that requires any further explanation, but you can read the whole story here

Now that you can invite friends to Google Voice, maybe Wilson will be generous and spread the love. Google Voice is great for users that want to consolidate several phone numbers into one. The service also transcribes voice mails, assign personalized greetings by caller, forward voice mails, and many more convenient features that help you screen your communication with the outside world. Do you have a Google Voice number already? Let us know what you think of the service, and share the wealth, will you!?

Models, high schoolers, and crime scene investigators will love this next story: Polaroids are making their triumphant comeback in 2010! A group called The Impossible Project is taking the reigns and collaborating with Polaroid to reproduce a limited edition of the Instant Film in mid 2010. If you can't wait that long, they've also partnered with Urban Outfitters and have the classic film and a special edition Polaroid camera kit available in stores now.

Finally, we definitely want to show our support to Drew Olanoff and Drew Carey for actually making philanthropic use of Twitter! Drew Carey will give away $1,000,000 to the LiveStrong foundation if his Twitter account receives a million followers by midnight on December 31, 2009. In the small chance that he doesn't get the million followers by that time, the amount will be prorated according to how many he ends up with. In other words, if he finishes with 600,000 followers, the LiveStrong foundation will receive $600,000. Right now he's at 92,017 followers--with The 404's help, we can get him closer to that million!

Oh yeah, do yourself a favor and go check out Loaded today to see Natali talking about the Love Vibes iPhone app that rates your lovemaking skill...or lack thereof.

Everybody panic!

Seemingly unable to let any hot social media start-up escape his hunky clutches, it appears that actor and prolific Twitter oversharer Ashton Kutcher is now using where-you-at, ping-your-friends city guide app Foursquare. A tipster pointed me to a Foursquare account for user "aplusk," the same handle that Kutcher uses on Twitter for his 3 million-plus followers.

Is it real? Well, his friends include Digg founder (and occasional bromancer) Kevin Rose, videoblogging personality Justine Ezarik, and "mrskutcher," which is the Twitter username for his wife, actress Demi Moore. Since Foursquare requires mutual approval of friend … Read more

Today, we're joined by two ladies: Ace Reporter Caroline McCarthy again and "Allie" of Heavy & Flo fame. This makes the two remaining boys of The 404 very happy. On today's show, we've got sex offenders, speakeasies, 1920s Prohibition, and Ashton Kutcher. Excited? We are.

So what does "spifflicated" mean? It means we all got wasted. According to 404 historian Caroline McCarthy, most of the terms we use today to mean inebriated come from the 1920s era of Prohibition. "Spifflicated" happens to be our favorite.

While Justin Yu was out, we found a way to track him using this new iPhone app, which will tell you where the closest sex offenders live near you. With the help of the girls, we come up with some more useful apps like an "Is she underage?" app, or a "Please, just cut to the chase. How much money do you make?" app. We wish there was an app to tell when you're about to make a mistake late one night at a bar. Apple? Anyone?

We chat a bit about the Microsoft and Yahoo deal, but we think it's funnier to ask the eternal question, "Why Ashton Kutcher?" We have no idea why nearly 3 million people are following him on Twitter. I mean, give us a break. We know you lucked out, and you get to wake up to Demi Moore every morning, Ashton. You don't have to rub it in our faces.

Finally, a woman gets sued for $50,000 because she Twitters out, "Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon Realty thinks it's okay." Of course, we think this a whole load of bull, but we are perplexed as to why this company, Horizon Realty, has decided to unleash the Internet because of its fairly asinine move to "[s]ue first, then ask questions later." So far, we've collected these tweets about our new favorite company we love to hate:

Send in your favorite "Horizon Realty" tweet to The 404 at the usual: the404 [at] cnet [dot] com. Also, leave a voice mail at 1-866-404-CNET (2638). Peace!

… Read more

PASADENA, Calif.--Ashton Kutcher said that the fact he beat CNN to a million Twitter followers is a significant deal.

Kutcher, known to his nearly 3 million followers as "aplusk," said that it shows that one individual can have the power to reach as many people in a new medium as a media conglomerate.

"Individuals are becoming consumers and (the) editors of the media," Kutcher said. "It has and will forever change media."

While he doubts his content has the broad relevance of, say, CNN, Kutcher said having such a large audience is both … Read more

Monday, I was concerned that the words "Ashton" and "Kutcher" had not yet been associated with the proposed new Twitter-based reality TV show.

Today, the real Ashton Kutcher himself tweeted his concern about the show's content: "Wow I hope this isn't true. I really don't like being sold out. May have to take a twitter hiatus."

When he wrote "this," he was referring to a report from the Examiner.com that speculated whether people would be asked to, in one way or another, cyberstalk those bathed by fame.

The … Read more

Sean Tice and Adam Bedient, directors of the online Web series "Streak to Win," join the show today to talk about college kids competitively streaking and the crazy antics they get into.

You can find the series online at streaktowin.com. On the Web site, you'll also find a guide to the best techniques of streaking. Most importantly, you have to be sure to tape down all appendages. Their words, not ours.

We also discuss a bit about how the Web is really opening up distribution for films that might get overlooked on the traditional festival circuit. These guys obviously didn't get too much love at Sundance when they pitched their film. And they share some interesting stories about getting arrested during the production of their Web series. Plus, plans for a follow-up featuring Ivy League streaking?

Also on the show today, we talk about a kid who mashed up Twitter, Twitpic, and the public arrest records of the Denton, Texas, Police Department. Kind of scary, but also pretty cool that there are more practical uses for Twitter than finding out that Ashton Kutcher just ate a sandwich. Just don't ever get pulled over for possession in Denton. These mug shots aren't pretty. As for Ashton Kutcher, we think this might be cheating a bit. There are starving people in the world, and someone donates money for this?

Be sure to send in your adventure stories and callbacks to 1-866-404-CNET (2638). Catch you all on the flip side.

A correction was made to this post. See below for details.

Oprah's crazy about it. Ashton Kutcher and Anderson Cooper are making fools of themselves trying to show what rabid fans they are. Friday, April 17, 2009, will pretty much go down as the day when the loyally followed indie-rock band known as "Twitter" made its big major-label splash.

If it were the late '90s, this would be its big debut on "Total Request Live" with Carson Daly emceeing and a bunch of screaming girls outside waving posters with crudely drawn fail-whales and "MARRY … Read more

Updated at 11:15 AM with reports from users. See end of story.

Twitter is getting fishy. In the race between Ashton Kutcher (aplusk on Twitter) and the CNN Breaking News feed (CNNbrk) to get to 1 million followers first, Kutcher won. But was the race goosed by Twitter itself?

Last night, various reports surfaced (see TechCrunch, for example) that while people could follow Kutcher and CNNbrk, they couldn't unfollow them.

But the real issue is this: The people of the world need a way to unfollow Kutcher, or whomever else they want to. The standard way of doing … Read more