t-pain

The 404 747: Where we're interrupting your dogmatic conversation (podcast)

We're back to start another week of shows, but before Wilson bores us to death with avant-garde filmmaking movements from 1995, we briefly summarize each of our weekends spent swimming at the local "prison gym," watching all-star hockey games, and whatever it is that Wilson spends his time doing outside of work.

After that, look forward to a dynamic chat about the mysterious location of T-Pain's Facebook "Like" tattoo, Dragon Quest VI arriving too late for a gamer grandma, push-up tighty whities for the modest man, and five families in Boston that unanimously decided against ditching their cable TV connection in lieu of various on-demand set-top boxes.

Oh, and the city of Austin, Texas, is launching a Twitter campaign to rename its Solid Waste Services Department to the "Fred Durst Society of the Humanities and Arts." So there's that, too.

Episode 747 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

T-Pain gets Facebook tattoo

When you go to Hawaii, do you slip into a tattoo parlor in order to engrave a permanent memento of your visit onto your, say, thigh?

I ask because T-Pain, the rapper who eats a little messily in a Toshiba laptop ad, seems to have become carried away on a recent trip to Hawaii.

It is not known why he chose to honor Facebook with a tattooed presence on his forearm. Perhaps someone in a hula skirt offered him a little Facebook love.

Helpfully, though, he tweeted a picture of his new armwork, so that his followers could, well, like … Read more

What we Craved this week: Cute bots, MMS, tablets, and T-Pain

It's been a busy week here at Crave with a whole lot of gadget news coming out of IFA 2009 in Berlin, including Toshiba announcing a touch-screen tablet called the JournE. This is, perhaps, Toshiba's effort to take on Apple's mythical machine before it's even official. Begun, the tablet wars have.

We also saw some new photo and video gear from Panasonic. The company's betting quite a bit on the future of cinema being in 3D, and we think that's a good bet to make.

Nokia's World Conference, also in Germany, was the … Read more

The 404 419: Where Alison Rosen is shrinking

Alison Rosen is back on the program today, and no, she's not really shrinking. That said, she is mystified by Craigslist missed connections, so we debate about what sort of scenario would lend itself to the use of the site's bizarre feature.

Next stop, Cougarville--better known as San Fransisco--where we investigate a disturbing new expo: The National Single Cougars Convention. Should cougars be given their own convention or should they be hunted in public, the natural way?

Finally, it seems we're just never going to get rid of Autotune. Especially now that the new T-Pain Autotune iPhone app makes robot voice manipulation so easy--as if it wasn't to begin with.

We've got all this and more on today's 404. Enjoy the weekend! (No show on Monday).

Check out Alison's blog or The Daily Alison.

EPISODE 419 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

T-Pain's Auto-Tune iPhone app: You can do it all by yourse-el-el-el-elf

After months of anticipation, singing robot T-Pain has finally unleashed his secret weapon: an iPhone application that gives users the power to make their tone deaf voice sound...just as crappy. But digitized! The iPhone application is called I Am T-Pain, and it might be the end of music as we know it.

Even though T-Pain isn't the first artist to use the Auto-Tuner, this is the easiest and cheapest way to obtain the popular vocoder software that disguises and corrects improper pitch by distorting the human voice.

The $2.99 app is a portable version of the tool that includes an instrumental collection of T-Pain's greatest hits in addition to a "Freestyle" mode to cover your own songs. You can also record yourself singing and easily upload the tracks to various social networks.

I installed the app on my iPhone and it works pretty well, but instead of "Buy you a Drank (Shawty Snappin')" I went for Cher's timeless hit "I Believe" on today's episode of The 404 Podcast. Check it out and let me know if I have a future in the recording industry.

Check out more screenshots of the I Am T-Pain iPhone app after the jump.… Read more

The 404 368: Where we're rollin' with the homies

We love having guests on the show, but it's always good to get back to our bread and butter: making fun of silly tech news! Today we cover several stories that've slipped through the cracks, including the new "Alice in Wonderland" movie, a new autotune iPhone application in the works, a new Queen of Text Messaging, and a huge Calls from the Public.

I hadn't heard about this, but Jeff shells out some news about the upcoming "Alice in Wonderland" remake, directed by 404-favorite Tim Burton. Check out the video below to see the pictures and hear our comments, but so far we're pretty impressed with the CGI and makeup used on Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, and Matt Lucas. Wilson, film buff extraordinaire, has a healthy dose of skepticism based on Burton's recent disasters, but we'll have to wait until March 2010 like everyone else to see how it all pans out.

We also have more news to report about Autotune. Turns out T-Pain is in the process of developing his own Autotune application for the iPhone. Expect the usual dose of hatred from Beff Jakalar, but I'm personally a huge fan of autotuning no matter how much it's overdone. How can you listen to this and not want to get up and dance?

Thanks to everyone that's been leaving us voicemails. Rest assured that although we've had a long string of guests, we'll play all of them in the coming weeks. If you want to hear yourself on the radio, give us a call at 1-866-404-CNET and tell us how much you love/hate the show. You can also e-mail us at the404{at}cnet(dot)com. Check us out on Twitter and Facebook as well!

EPISODE 368 Download today's podcast Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more