king

Report: Amazon scares up Stephen King for Kindle

When Amazon.com hosts its anticipated Monday morning e-book event, one of the highlights could be an exclusive deal for the Kindle with horror story master Stephen King.

The Amazon event, taking place at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York, is widely expected to feature the unveiling of a next-generation Kindle e-book reader. On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon also will say it has acquired a new work by King that would be exclusively for the Kindle.

The Journal says a Kindle-like device is a factor in the story. The work by King might later … Read more

Facebook drops a Whopper

You'll remember the hilarious Burger King Whopper Sacrifice promotion that offered you some cheap piece of meat in a bun in exchange of getting rid of 10 of your most obsequious or obscure Facebook friends?

Well, Facebook has defriended it.

You want the deep and meaningful statement from Facebook? Here it is:

"We encourage creativity from developers and brands using Facebook Platform, but we also must ensure that applications follow users' expectations of privacy. This application facilitated activity that ran counter to user privacy by notifying people when a user removes a friend. We have reached out to … Read more

King me!

Checkers Free is a free application for playing the board game checkers on your iPhone or iPod Touch. You can play with one or two players (on the same device), or you can even watch two computer players compete in a demo mode.

In the one-player mode, you can adjust the difficulty of the computer opponent with a slider, and in both modes you can type in player names and choose which color goes first. Clean, wood-grain-themed graphics and simple sound effects give the game a more realistic feel, and an undo option allows you take back your last move. … Read more

A matter of preference

It gives you more options for managing your PC's power-saving features, but Auto Shutdown King's price may seem a bit steep.

Auto Shutdown King launches a small, simple interface with two columns of radio buttons. Its options are clearly labeled, but determining how best to use this utility isn't obvious at first launch. Adding a more detailed Help feature would be a good start for the next upgrade.

After some trial and error experimentation, configuring the utility for scheduling shut downs, log offs, restarts, or simply hibernations was a matter of a few clicks. Auto Shutdown King … Read more

The 404 257: Where Vegas chewed us up and spit us out

Now that we've survived the frigid beast that is Las Vegas, we can finally get back into our everyday groove. Today's show is all about recovery and recollection, as we desperately try to piece together the last week of our lives. Listen in for a full CES 2009 recap with tons of juicy details and a few Internet stories on the side.

What. Just. Happened?! The past five days are completely a blur, and we collectively remember about four hours total. Did we really see a blind guy at a club where vision is a necessity? Did we really stay in a hotel room with double HDTVs and a third TV in the bathroom? Did we really eat more than 300 crab legs between the three of us? And most importantly, did we really lose that much money on the blackjack tables?

We ponder these questions and more on today's CES wrap-up show. If you didn't have a chance to watch the live shows, I've posted them below for your enjoyment. It's definitely good to be back after such a long vacation. Now let's try to forget what just happened again.

EPISODE 257 Download today's podcast

Live video from CES Day 1: Where no one cares about MacWorld

Live video from CES Day 2: Where we all wish we were at the OTHER conference

Live video from CES Day 3: Where we've jumped the virgin shark

Live video from CES Day 4: Where we celebrate good juju bad juju

… Read more

CES attendance down by 23 percent

Attendance at the Consumer Electronics Show, which wrapped up in Las Vegas on Sunday, was reportedly down about 23 percent, from 141,150 last year to 110,000 this year.

This is a lot fewer than preliminary estimates from CES officials, and it doesn't surprise me at all. I didn't count heads at the show, but I did the next best thing by talking with cab drivers who universally told me that their business was considerably lower than previous years. It was also obvious from the thinner crowds at the show and the fact that hotel rooms were … Read more

Delete 10 Facebook friends, get a free Whopper

Facebook's developer platform has been used for a zillion marketing campaigns so far, but this one is actually dead-on hilarious.

Fast-food chain Burger King has created "Whopper Sacrifice," a Facebook app that will give you a coupon for a free hamburger if you delete 10 people from your friends list.

Burger King has put out some interesting campaigns as of late ("Whopper Virgin," "Subservient Chicken"), but this one piques our interest because of how gleefully it pokes fun at our social-networking obsessions. "Now is the time to put your fair-weather Web friendships … Read more

Video game sales keep bucking recession trend

While you may think that the economic news is totally bleak, the video game industry seems like it may well be one very bright exception to the worldwide gloom.

Bolstering the theory that the industry may be recession-proof, or at least better positioned to weather the storm than most, the video game business posted a startlingly strong November, according to figures released Thursday by the analyst firm, NPD Group.

NPD reported that overall, the industry posted sales of $2.91 billion, up 10 percent from $2.64 billion in November 2007. And for the year, sales stand at $16.04 … Read more

Ad agency in 'virgin' controversy

It's not exactly the Pepsi Challenge.

A new teaser site, whoppervirgins.com, created by Crispin Porter Bogusky, claims to be the home of the world's "purest taste test."

Created on behalf of Crispin client Burger King, the site looks like it fell off the back of a National Geographic camel. It features people from remote Thai villages, deeper, darker Transylvania, and even the icy tundra of Greeenland.

These places were, apparently, chosen because burgers have never been seen or eaten there. In some cases, the people don't even know the word "burger." So, … Read more