ice

When you don't have an icemaker built into your freezer, you have to make your own. It's not a particularly difficult process, but the odds of filling up a tray in your sink, getting it across the kitchen, and then placing in the freezer without splashing aren't so great. Generally, we just put up with it, but there is an alternative: The Covered Ice Cube Tray. The idea is simple, but makes filling up ice cube trays less of a hassle. This ice cube tray simply has a lid that snaps on over the tray, with a … Read more

If you didn't see Shaun White destroying the competition at the Men's Olympic Halfpipe Finals in Vancouver last night, check out the video and prepare for a face melt, and don't forget to watch our interview with the man himself! And there's even more good news: it's Thursday, which means Natali Del Conte is on today's show! We start off the show with a quick news recap from the Olympic games, then NDC tells us about last night's interview with Justin Timberlake.

The first story of the day is about PleaseRobMe.com, a new Web site that uses geolocation check-ins from Gowalla, Brightkite, or Foursquare to exploit folks broadcasting their unprotected abodes. The vulnerability assumes that you don't have a roommate, and, of course, it doesn't say where your houses actually is, but it certainly highlights the continued lack of privacy surrounding this latest batch of social networks.

The Barbie poll results are in. Over a half million votes were cast, and the public chose her next career: Computer Engineer! The new doll will hit shelves this fall and will feature a binary code patterned shirt, a pink laptop, a teched-out watch, and a Bluetooth headset. We all agree that Barbie isn't the best toy for young girls, but we can still appreciate the cultural relevance, even if everything she owns is blasted in bright pink. Besides, it could be worse: auto-tune Barbie with talk-box accessory, anyone?

Everything from flywheels to giant batteries have been proposed for utility-scale storage. Utilities in Southern California are going to try ice-powered air conditioners.

The Southern California Public Power Authority, which represents 11 municipal utilities, said on Wednesday that it will use ice storage units from Ice Energy to significantly cut its peak-time energy consumption.

The project will move 53 megawatts' worth of electricity consumption from peak times, typically from noon to 6 at night, to times of lower demand. A large retail store could use about 1 megawatt of power to operate. By shifting energy usage to off-peak times, such … Read more

We've been promising you guys 404 stickers for the past year now, and we're happy to report that we finally have them in the office! We literally have 15,000 of them in boxes at our desks just waiting to ship out to our faithful listeners, so if you want a stack and a handful of 404 temporary tattoos, all you have to do is send a self-addressed stamped envelope with the appropriate postage to CNET NY (address in link), care of "The 404 Podcast - STICKERS.

A note to our international fans: we're happy to send stickers and tattoos out to wherever you live, but please make sure the postage on your envelope is correct, or they'll get lost in limbo somewhere. Thanks for your patience in advance, we prepare and seal each envelope ourselves so it might take a little time for them to get back to you.

It's our second day back in the office, but it's also the first time we're back together for a normal episode. There's a ton of voice mails to get to, but we get right back into our usual fare with the death of Spiderman 4. Sam Raimi just announced that he's pulled out of the directing role and some speculate that the studio will use James Cameron's screenplay for the next movie in the arachnid-superhero franchise. Speaking of movie news, we also check out the new A-Team movie trailer featuring Bradley Cooper, Liam Neeson, and Jessica Biel- oh my.

Big thanks to everyone who sent us happy new year voice mails over the break, and keep them coming. Now that we're back, we're anxious to play more on the air, so phone us up at 1-866-404-CNET and give us a piece of your mind! Stay tuned during the second half of today's show to learn about the back end technology behind JDate and other popular online dating Web sites.

Have a great Tuesday, everyone!

Looks like Samsung is taking a pre-emptive strike against any potential embargo slip-ups by jumping the gun with its CES announcements, at least on the portable audio side of things. The first device out the gate is the YP-H1, Samsung's next-generation touch-screen MP3 player and likely complement to the P3. In that vein, what say we go ahead and drop that "YP-" now, eh?

Since I won't have a chance to lay hands on the actual device until CES starts later this week, my initial impressions of the H1 are rather generic. It certainly seems pretty … Read more

While nothing beats enjoying a cooler full of ice-cold beverages at the park, beach, or backyard barbecue, there is a bit of a downside risk: wet cans. As drinks are plucked from the murky depths of the ice chest, ice that is no longer ice clings to the can. It's something even cold-activated cans cannot fix.

Since the dawn of mankind (or at least the invention of the tailgate party), people have looked for a way to enjoy the crisp, clean taste of their favorite drinks without the inconvenience of wet fingers. Now, finally, there is a way.

The … Read more

Making a bigger splash than expected, the crash of an empty rocket stage in a permanently shadowed crater near the moon's south pole last month kicked up a surprising amount of water ice and vapor, confirming the presence of a potentially valuable resource for future space travelers.

"I'm here today to tell you that indeed, yes, we found water," said Anthony Colaprete, the project scientist and principal investigator for the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite. "And we didn't find just a little bit, we found a significant amount."

Holding up water jugs to make the point, he said "if you remember, a month ago we were talking about teaspoons going into glasses over football fields. Well, now I can say today that in the 20- to 30-meter (65- to 100-foot-wide) crater LCROSS made, we found maybe about a dozen of these two-gallon buckets worth of water."

And more than water. Data from the LCROSS instruments show signs of other compounds that may shed light on the moon's evolution.

"It's a whole lot more beyond the water," Colaprete said. "That's the exciting part in my mind, it's not only about the water now. There's actually a lot more here that we're going to be talking about in the months ahead, looking at the LCROSS data."

Said Greg Delory, a researcher at the University of California at Berkeley: "This is not your father's moon. Rather than a dead and unchanging world, it could in fact be a very dynamic and interesting one that could tell us unique things about the Earth-moon system and the early solar system."… Read more

Ice cream is a staple of my diet. And with five kids in the house, we serve up a fair amount of the good stuff 'round these parts. But even with a lot of practice, I've never been good at packing ice cream into a cone. I often wind up smushing the cone, which leads to many tears and much whining. And then the kids start complaining!

But seriously, folks, this ice cream scoop and stack tool from Cuispro is a neat little kitchen gadget that lets you create an attractive presentation with very little effort. Its simple twist-and-lift … Read more

In a brute-force search for ice on the moon, an empty 5,000-pound rocket stage traveling twice as fast as a rifle bullet crashed into a permanently shadowed crater near the moon's south pole Friday, presumably blasting out tons of debris for examination by an instrumented probe that carried out its own kamikaze plunge four minutes later.

While the initial impact at 4:31 a.m. PDT did not prove especially dramatic--it was not even visible in real-time video from the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS)--scientists said a camera sensitive to temperature variations clearly recorded the … Read more