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The 404 401: Where we take everything out of context

Jeff's back and gives us a rundown of his minivacation to Atlantic City, N.J., and his love affair with pinball machines. A lot of other stories to talk about today, like the Zune HD, the new Chevy Volt, Spielberg taking over the Halo movie, and Hayato Shimizu's interpretation of Jeff as the superhero COMMODORE!

The team is back together now that Jeff is back from his trip to Atlantic City, where he reportedly spent the majority of his time playing blackjack and a series of analog video games like Batman: Dark Knight pinball, skeeball, and bubble hockey. In celebration of Jeff's return, we surprise him with the image you see above, the final superhost of The 404--COMMODORE! Defending the world from positive vibes with his giant hockey stick, Commodore also wields the might Power Glove, which, unfortunately, is incompatible with today's villains, but it still looks cool! Big thanks goes out to Hayato Shimizu for his great work with all three characters, maybe we'll even seen a picture featuring LaserJet, G-Force, and Commodore battling crime for the future of podcasting!

As usual, we have a lot to talk about today, and kick it off with some rumor mongering about the latest Zune HD. CNET's own Donald Bell reports that Amazon is showing off retail pricing for the portable media player, listing the 16GB Zune HD at $219 and the 32GB at $289. The rumor mill continues to churn over Steven Spielberg taking over as producer for the Halo movie adaption, although the three of us are still skeptical about any long-form video game story adaptation, as we all remember what happened with CHUN-LI. We also look at the latest commercials for the Chevy Volt and its how viral advertising is affecting viewer participation.

Finally, Wilson G. Tang took it upon himself to create a 404 Dashboard Widget for Mac OS X users! You can download the video or the audio version and have the show play in the background while you finish "working." Best of all, this blog description populates nicely into the widget as well, making it super easy to auto-update and listen to your favorite episodes! Download them and let us know what you think!

EPISODE 401 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS VideoRead more

The 404 397: Where Justin's back, and so are the glasses

With Justin's return from his sojourn into the great outdoors, The 404 crew is complete again to bring you another awesome show, replete with "GI Joe" and "District 9" reviews, optical gaming, and a surprise appearance by Motherboard!

After getting mauled by a bear in Yosemite (where's the app for THAT?), I'm back, and much to Jeff, Wilson, and everyone else's dismay SO ARE THE GLASSES! That's right suckers, a little Krazy Glue goes a long way, but I'm not sure how long these things will last, so please continue to e-mail us submissions for the contest to choose my next frames. I'm not gonna lie, I've missed the show dearly and it's great to be back!

The first half of today's show has a lot of movie talk, starting with us talking all sorts of garbage on the new "G.I. Joe" movie. The movie won't be prescreened to critics, and we suspect it has something to do with the trailer receiving so much backlash from justifiably angry fans of the original television series. Jeff also gives us his take on the trailer for "District 9", the new science fiction movie based on the short film Alive in Joburg. Go check that out and let "G.I. Joe" go the way of the buffalo!

The second half just gets nuts, that's all I'll say. OK, well, without giving too much away, it all starts with the Get It Guy, a fake Australian accent, and a very steamy call from SadaCori in the chatroom (a must listen!), but then we get a surprise knock from Motherboard herself, who has something very special to show us...something that NOBODY HAS SEEN BEFORE, so be sure to check out the video for all the details. After that, we dredge up a claim about racism in Resident Evil 5 and it all devolves from there. Trust us, it's the last time you'll hear about it!

As always, feel free to leave us a voicemail at 1-866-404-CNET or get in touch with us on Twitter or at the404[at]cnet[dot]com!

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Angelle Sampey joins the 6 Second Club...again

Y'know, I dig cars and car racing. But I also appreciate motorcycles and bike racing as well. And I think I'm long overdue to show a little love for motorcycle racing. And to keep with this week's salute to the women of motorsport racing, I have selected a hot vid of Pro Stock Motorcycle superstar Angelle Sampey.

Besides her status as a female in a male dominated sport, Angelle Sampey is a rare breed in the bike racing world. She owns a record of consecutive qualifying races starting with her debut in 1996, leaving her previous career … Read more

Simple but not oversimplified

What began as a freeware project to easily share basic screen captures and screen recordings has grown into a solid application and capture distribution system with a premium component. Jing's attractive application takes a sound, simple approach to capturing; begin by dragging the crosshairs to define your capture field and then take a still or start a recording. When you're done, save it to your computer or upload it to Screencast.com (operated by Jing's publisher), an FTP site, Flickr, or YouTube (for a premium). If you've got Snagit or Camtasia Studio, TechSmith's premium programs … Read more

Remastered music that'll make your hi-fi sing

Rhino mastered the remastering game long ago; it seeks out the best sounding tapes, locates killer unreleased tracks, and spruces up the packaging. I must own a hundred Rhino CDs, and they're always in heavy rotation.

"The Sound of the Smiths" 45 track, best-of collection totally trumps the sound of my old Smiths "Louder Than Bombs" LP. The Smiths recordings tended to have thin, sometimes even harsh tonal balances. The new CD set corrects that. Morrissey's vocals are beautifully fleshed out, and the rhythm section now packs a wallop that lights up the music. The remastered CD even has better dynamic kick than the LP, which sounds compressed and lifeless by comparison.

There's no previously unreleased bonus tracks, but this two-disc collection's wealth of B-sides and live material should satisfy Smiths fans. The booklet's bevy of photos of the band are simply gorgeous.

"The Ry Cooder Anthology: The UFO has Landed" is another two-disc best-of collection. He somehow fuses Tex-Mex, rock, blues, country, folk, with a mess of other stuff in his music, but it all comes out sounding like Ry Cooder. It's a pleasure to hear music as good as this, mastered without the wretched compression that squashes the life out of so many contemporary recordings.

For "Warren Zevon: The Collector's Edition" Rhino refreshed the sonics of the original album, and there's a second disc of rarities. Disc one sounds splendid, again with more of LP-like analogness of the original recordings intact. Older Zevon CDs sound leaner, more ragged than this new remaster. But it's disc two's demos that present literally another side of Zevon's music. A solo piano take of "Mohammed's Radio" is reason enough to get this collection.

An early take of "Desperados Under the Eaves" feels more desperate than the one found on the album. I'm thrilled that it's included here. … Read more

Q&A: The Ultimate Gamer--keeping a cool head

This post was updated at 11:30 p.m. PDT with a corrected photo credit. The photo of Alyson, aka Nin9ty Nin9, was taken by Stephen Couratier.

On Tuesday, after eight weekly episodes, video game enthusiasts--and others--saw a winner crowned in the Sci-Fi Channel's reality TV show, "World Cyber Games Ultimate Gamer."

Pitting 12 hard-core gamers--whom the public knew only by their first names and their "gamertags"--against each other in what could be called the video game version of "Big Brother," the show highlighted the difficulties of top-level gaming, as well as … Read more

'Microsoft Bridge' turns into a lightning rod

A freeway overpass connecting two parts of Microsoft's Redmond headquarters has become a well-traveled road for critics of how the federal government is spending its stimulus dollars.

The "Microsoft Bridge," as it has been dubbed, is slated to receive $11 million in stimulus dollars--money that critics say is a waste, but local and state officials have praised as a prudent use of transportation dollars.

The overpass indeed connects two parts of Microsoft's campus. But as proponents point out, it also connects two parts of Redmond's business community with each other and with the local … Read more

Inside Microsoft's landmark Novell deal

Just two days before Microsoft and Novell signed a controversial deal in 2006, the two sides still hadn't figured out a way to make peace over Linux without violating the licensing terms that govern the open-source operating system.

The terms of the GNU General Public License made it tough for Microsoft to get paid a royalty for each copy of Linux that Novell sold and also made it tough for Microsoft to offer patent protection to Novell without giving it to all users of Linux. But, just hours before it hoped to announce a deal, Microsoft workers thought up … Read more

Intel moves up rollout of new chips

Despite being slammed by the financial crisis, Intel is not slowing down. It made this crystal clear in a chip technology briefing on Tuesday, putting rivals on notice that the competition will only get more intense.

The world's largest chipmaker is accelerating introduction of new chips, particularly silicon targeted at laptop computers. Intel is achieving this by moving quickly to processors based on next-generation 32-nanometer manufacturing process technology and investing heavily to keep its most advanced chip factories humming, as CEO Paul Otellini pointed out in a speech in Washington, D.C., earlier today.

In a nutshell, this means … Read more

The 404 260: Where you can take it two ways

Major props to Capt. Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III of U.S. Airways Flight 1549 for ditching the plane in the Hudson River after a double-engine failure and flying over the George Washington Bridge. Jeff Bakalar remains frightened for his life by flying.

In addition, the Watchmen movie debacle is settled between Warner Bros. and Fox, giving Justin Yu an early birthday present. Speaking of which, Wilson Tang will be joining the soon-to-be 25-year-old Mr. Yu for an Asian karaoke lovefest. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Rickrolls the Interwebs about a year and a half way too late, but … Read more