tigertext

Ten years after Y2K, the folks over at Sony still can't seem to remember to set their clocks right. The major firmware bug that shut down (almost) everyone's PlayStation 3s over the weekend turned out to a glitch in the "clock functionality incorporated in the system," according to Patrick Seybold, Sony's senior director of corporate communications and social media.

Despite the company's claims that the glitch has been fixed, we're still harboring some serious doubts that Sony did anything to fix it and probably just waited until March 1 in hopes that the bug would fix itself, which thankfully it did. So go ahead and stop caressing your consoles and return the drums of apple sauce you bought to survive the Armageddon, and...turns out the Mayan calendar ended two years earlier, and much less severely than predicted.

In less serious news, a new iPhone app called TigerText will hopefully help you succeed where Tiger failed. The application acts as a third-party call center for your text messages and erases your texts after a given period of time that you specify. Your options for lifespan go from 30 days all the way down to just one minute, depending on the NSFW-ness of your texts.

Both parties must pay for the service ($2.49 per month), and the app is only available for the iPhone for now (BlackBerry and Android support coming soon), but that's a small price to pay for the freedom to send those "Hey...you awake?" texts at 3 a.m. on a Saturday night.

Finally, we're happy to report that despite accusations of child labor abuse, Wilson G. Tang is still happily riding the Apple train, except that this time we're actually right there with him.

Apple recently released a report that exposed three facilities in China that employed underage workers to build its products. Apple subsequently terminated all of its contracts with that factory, but certain outlets continues to blow the story out of proportion, when in fact Apple independently investigated a situation that they had no legal responsibility to address, which deserves commendation in our book. You win this round, Tang...

All this plus a face-melting psychoanalysis Calls From the Public segment you won't want to miss on today's episode of CNET's The 404 Podcast!

This post will have no Tiger Woods jokes.

Tiger Woods has a serious problem. And there is absolutely no reason to encourage cheap laughter just because of an astonishing new iPhone app that makes it easier for you to cheat on your spouse, offer heinously regrettable insults, or employ a hitman--all without worrying that your texts will betray your true self.

So this app is called TigerText. So what? I am sure the golfer's deep and troubling recent past did not enter into the creators' heads when they named this ingenious little technological concoction.

TigerText, you see, erases your texts. It makes them go away. It makes them disappear like the midriff of a magician's assistant. What is so beautiful is that not only do your texts disappear from your own phone records, they also vamoose from the phone of your unfortunate recipient.

You can even decide when they vamoose. After a minute. Or, if you are fond of self-torture, after any time period up to 30 days.

Tiger Text demo from Jason Evans on Vimeo.

This concept seems brilliant on so many levels that my vast and excited arms cannot embrace all of these levels simultaneously.

I am sure you, too, sometimes send texts that you would dearly love to take back. You liken your boss, your lover, or your chiropodist to some human orifice or dubious sexual practice. You allow your fingers to work slightly ahead of your editing skills. Suddenly, words that don't reflect your true, kind, thoughtful self, wing their way across 3G until they stir up emotions in 3D. … Read more