reunions

Man uses Google Earth to find long-lost mother

Sometimes Google Earth can help you find your way home after decades of not knowing where home is.

That is what apparently happened for an Indian man who was separated from his family as a 5-year-old. Saroo Brierley tells BBC magazine that he was accompanying his older brother on a train trip in 1986 when he fell asleep and awoke 14 hours later in the notorious slum of Calcutta. Without his brother.

At first, he lived on the streets, joining legions of children begging for their livelihood. Brierley would eventually be taken in by an orphanage and adopted by a … Read more

Rennsport Reunion IV: A collection of vintage and racing Porsches

Rennsport Reunion IV gathered Porsches of all vintages for a weekend of racing at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

The fourth Rennsport Reunion was held October 14-16, 2011, at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, and CNET was there to soak it all in. The previous three events were all held on the east coast, so this was the West Coast's first chance to bask in more than 50 years of Porsche racing glory. Everywhere we looked, fantastic examples of Porsche's most decorated cars were lurking, with 50 or so drivers from throughout the decades also on hand to tell stories … Read more

'Big Lebowski' cast reunites for Blu-ray release

Mark it here, dude.

Yes, after a long wait, "The Big Lebowski" has finally coming to Blu-ray, and it looks really good.

To promote and celebrate the launch, cast members reunited last night at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City, where a crowd of over 1,500 fans greeted them for an onstage press conference that featured Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, John Turturro, and Julianne Moore reflecting on the film that was released in 1997 and has since turned into a cult classic (see photos of the event below).

Here's the quick skinny on the Limited Edition release:

Available for a limited time with an all-new 28-page companion book featuring an exclusive interview with Jeff Dowd--the real-life inspiration for The Dude--Jeff Bridges' personal, on-set photography, a film timeline, trivia and much more. In addition to all-new features exclusive to the Blu-ray release, The Big Lebowski Limited Edition Blu-ray also offers a digital copy of the film that can be viewed anywhere at any time on the consumers' choice of devices including laptops, tablets, smartphones as well as Internet-connected TVs and set-top boxes.

It's also worth noting that the bonus features include "The Lebowski Fest: An Achiever's Story," which takes an "in-depth look at the popular Lebowski Festival," which co-sponsored the cast reunion along with Universal. Check out our photos (click on image to start slideshow).

The 404 Podcast 509: Where nobody likes country music, except for everyone

You guys filled up our voice mail box over the weekend with your thoughts on the new Apple iPad, but we have to spread the hate around with a quick chat about last night's Grammy Awards, PETA's robotic groundhogs, and high school reunions. We've also got plenty of your sticker pictures to show off, including one that might be NSFW....big surprise, 404!

The Grammy Awards are becoming less and less significant to our personal music tastes, but something has to be said about a show that nominates NICKELBACK for Best Hard Rock Performance. To make matters worse, the show paired together some of the worst collaborations in the history of live performance.

To quickly recap the night, all you need to know is that Lady Gaga won two well-deserved awards and performed Speechless with Sir Elton John, Green Day took the award for Best Rock Album, poor Stevie Nicks looked pissed to be singing about locker room romance with 16-year-old darling Taylor Swift, and the live studio audience got treated to a 3D clip from Michael Jackson's "This Is It" while the rest of us settled for 2Ds and a subsequent headache.

Speaking of bad news, we've got some bad news about the Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, the new Broadway musical coming soon to New York. We just found out that the entire musical soundtrack is composed by U2's Bono and The Edge. Don't get us wrong, the three of us all have a special place in our hearts for U2, but their music just doesn't evoke images of a masked web-crawler slinging his way about town snapping photos of criminals and taking down a few in the process.

Finally, much thanks to everyone for sending in their sticker pictures! We've sent out hundreds of envelopes so far, so keep them coming; send a photo of where you put the stickers and tattoos to the404(at)cnet(dot)com!

EPISODE 509 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Reunion.com and Wink tie the knot as MyLife

Back in November, people-search sites Reunion.com and Wink announced that they would be merging, and now it's happened: the sites have rebranded as MyLife, which can search over 60 social-networking sites (over 750 million profiles, the company says) and other information resources on the Web.

Among those social networks it can search are MySpace, Facebook (well, the public profile listings thereof), LinkedIn, Friendster, AOL's Bebo, Microsoft's Windows Live Spaces, Yahoo, and Twitter. New features include a Facebook-like news feed of contacts' activity aggregated across multiple social networks, and a "search scout" feature that keeps … Read more

People-search sites Reunion.com, Wink to merge

Social network Reunion.com has made a new friend: people search service Wink. The two have merged in a new deal that promises to make it dramatically easier to find people on the Web.

Early next year, the merger will produce "an entirely new brand," the companies said. The two have not said what its name will be, nor have financial details been disclosed. With the dual technologies of Reunion and Wink, the companies say that they will be able to search more than 700 million social-networking profiles. They'll be able to search profiles on MySpace, Facebook, … Read more

Zep video removals: Not Warner's fault

So Warner Music isn't as petty as I thought it was. According to this story in Billboard, Warner didn't ask for YouTube to remove videos of the recent Led Zeppelin show from YouTube. Rather, it was a company called GrayZone, which has been authorized to issue takedown notices on behalf of Warner. In this case, GrayZone acted on presumption, and YouTube's automated system inaccurately attributed the notices to Warner.

This makes an interesting point: under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the copyright owner is responsible for policing each violation and requesting its takedown. (I'm not a … Read more

Zeppelin fans vs. Warner

As a longtime Led Zeppelin fan, I was excited to tune into last night's reunion show in London. Strangely, the show wasn't broadcast anywhere--not even on LedZeppelin.com. Surely somebody could have sold some advertising for such a popular event, and if the promoters objected, they could have donated the proceeds to the Ahmet Ertegun Educational Fund (where funds from ticket sales went).

Fortunately, that's what YouTube is for. Unfortunately, as quickly as fans post their videos (taken on cellphones?) on YouTube, Warner Music Group asks for them to be taken down.

This is completely incomprehensible to … Read more

25 million Led Zeppelin fans?

Like many other suburban American males who grew up in a certain era, I [hearted] Led Zeppelin. And while my ardor's diminished considerably since adolescence, they're one of very few bands I discovered decades ago that I still enjoy today. (In contrast, I can't believe I actually own a half dozen Doors LPs.)

So when Led Zeppelin announced a one-show reunion (with their original drummer's son on drums) to celebrate the life of Ahmet Ertegun, the Atlantic Records cofounder who signed them, I expected it'd be popular. But apparently the registration site for tickets got … Read more

Wind-generated ocean swells not so swell

You may have missed this on your favorite blog site, and you definitely missed this if you looked at American TV news. Reunion Island got smashed on Saturday. Big waves. Lots of damage. It was not a tsunami this time. Certainly earthquakes can pack an enormous wallop, but the supporters of wind power surely have something going as well.

The European Space Agency (ESA) satellites were tracking the course of the big swells. Ocean swells, not rich guys with big heads. Big, really big waves. Some that slammed into Reunion without warning were over 35 feet high.

First, the satellite … Read more