carving

We want to reward all the under-appreciated pumpkin artists out there by announcing the "Carve a pumpkin for Crave" contest. We're seeking the best reader-created pumpkin featuring a geeky or technology-inspired theme.

We won't judge too strictly on content (as long as it has a loose relation to tech and/or geek culture), but we wouldn't mind seeing submissions with subjects such as video game characters, sci-fi movies, techy art, and so on. As we've already seen from your Instagram photos and your entries in the biggest "Star Wars" fan contest, Crave readers have a seriously creative knack. … Read more

No matter what you've got on the carving board, it always seems to slide around. You can wind up awkwardly trying to pin a roast in place with one hand while carving off slices with the other. The Gripper Carving Board can make the project easier: it's designed to hold food in place as you slice. A removable metal ring sits in a groove built in to the center of the cutting board. The ring has four points that sink into your food, anchoring it into place. It works well with meat and poultry, but the points will … Read more

Yesterday's show with guest host Alli went so well that we ask her to help us out again! Today we show off some beautiful fan artwork, run through outdated tech terminology, dispel "Batman 3" rumors about Megan Fox, and more!

We want to give a huge shout-out and thanks to Joe from Honolulu for sending us these two amazing woodcarvings of The 404! We're still blown away by the level of detail in the paintings and the ridiculous amount of time it probably took to make. Best of all, we love that it's a collaborative effort between two 404 fans: Blake Stevenson helped design our logo and Joe just took it to the next level. Cheers to both of you!

We're all a little worried about Chris Nolan's next "Batman" movie. We've been hearing a lot of rumors about the follow-up to last year's "Dark Knight," and even though we think Megan Fox is next level hot, we just can't imagine her as Catwoman. First of all, there are one thousand other characters in the Batman universe, why resurrect the same ones over and over? Let's see a Killer Croc! In other Megan Fox news, gamers will be excited to hear that she will be on Xbox Live on Saturday, August 29 @ 3 p.m. PT to play Gold Members in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen the Game. Cross your fingers and let us know if you actually play her!

Many more crazy stories from the Web in addition to an "Ask The 404" segment on today's show. Thanks for listening, all!

Cutting boards are an essential item in any kitchen. There is no denying any cook needs a good place to safely cut meats and vegetables. Anybody who is doing any amount of cooking will have to be doing some cutting too. Cooking and cutting simply go hand in hand. The problem is not only finding the perfect spot to set up your prep station, but finding the perfect cutting board too. I know when I prep foods, often more than what should ends up on the floor. When it comes time to carve things that are a bit trickier, say … Read more

Photo-editing specialist OnOne Software has acquired technology called Liquid Resize that brings a new twist to the task of resizing digital images, the company said Thursday.

There are numerous ways to expand or shrink a photo, but Liquid Resize's method, called seam carving, is unusual in that it can change the height-to-width proportion called aspect ratio. It does this by trying to determine what areas of the photo should be preserved intact and what parts are background that can be stretched or deleted.

The result is that background can stretch to fill gaps between people in a shot that'… Read more

MONTEREY, Calif.--In August, researchers unveiled a new way of shrinking or expanding photos called seam carving. Now it turns out the technique applies to video, too.

Ariel Shamir, a senior lecturer at the Efi Arazi School of Computer Science in Israel and a visiting scientist with Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, showed off the technique at the 6sight digital-imaging conference here last week. (Adobe Systems has hired another seam carving researcher, Shai Avidan.) The technology analyzes a picture for vertical or horizontal "seams"--the term the researchers use to describe a path traversing the photo where pixels are … Read more

Making a Cylon Jack-o-Lantern will be a piece of cake--er, pie--with the Pumpkin Gutter, a $12 drill attachment that lets you zip through the sticky pumpkin prep stage and get right to carving. All you have to do is cut a hole in the top of the pumpkin, use the dishwasher-safe Pumpkin Gutter to loosen the strings and thin out the walls, and then dump the guts out. The tool even leaves the seeds intact for those who like to turn them into snacks.

We're always wary of seasonal gadgets, which often turn out to be a waste of … Read more

I've played around with a variety of online image editors, but "played" should be the operative word. For any serious image-editing work, I've always used traditional software methods. I hadn't found a Web service that could replace my usual standby apps (Photoshop at work, and Paint.NET at home) ... until I tried the new Web-based rsizr this weekend. I was blown away by its speed and ease of use in resizing and cropping digital images.

Even cooler than those basic-yet-essential functionalities are the app's flexible image-sizing features. Rsizr uses an algorithm called "seam carving" to expand or contract images in any direction while maintaining focus on the areas rich in detail. In essence, it lets you stretch or condense pictures without making them look blurry or smooshed. With a bit of practice, you can also perform the trick of removing people or objects from photos.… Read more

If you haven't noticed many advancements in printer technology lately, maybe you're looking looking at the wrong medium. Apparently there's some notable competition going on in the area of printers for wood.

Just as the "Craftsman CompuCarve" is literally making its mark in 3D, Roland Japan is hoping to do the same with its new EGX-350 desktop engraver, which the company claims is 50 percent faster than its earlier model thanks to improvements in its motor and other technologies. Able to produce a "hand-carved look," according to Fareastgizmos, the new machine can even … Read more