Crave

Nokia 2330

(Credit: Nokia)

The Nokia 2330 is a recent addition to AT&T's lineup. The candy bar phone is a simple device in all regards with a slim, silver body, a 65,000-color display, and a standard keypad and navigation array. Inside you'll find a VGA camera, an FM radio, Bluetooth, a speakerphone, a basic personal organizer, messaging, a 500-contact phone book, and a WAP browser. AT&T is offering it for free with a service contract.

This may be the last week of live 404 episodes for 2009, and it's also been the most hectic. With Wilson missing his second day in a row and Caroline McCarthy being bedridden by a holiday cold, Mark Licea and Bonnie Cha help me hold down the fort.

I'm leechin' it.

(Credit: McDonald's)

Today's show is all about giving, and McDonald's is jumping on board with the announcement that they'll be offering free Wi-Fi starting in 2010. Not sure the first thing we'd want to touch after scarfing down a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit is a laptop keyboard, but hey, free is free.

Speaking of giving, The Hangover giveaway is still going on! Send us your best (but most likely worst) hangover stories to the404 [at] cnet [dot] com before Friday for your chance to win!

Sick of AT&T service? Tired of seeing Luke Wilson in those misleading coverage ads? You might want to join up with Chokehold, a grassroots movement to overload the AT&T network this Friday. We're not condoning this type of behavior, but Luke really is annoying in those commercials.

All this plus more stories and a great calls from the public segment!

EPISODE 488

Where's the "All of the Above" option?

(Credit: AT&T)

Before we get into the stories on today's episode of CNET's The 404 Podcast, let's spend a moment on the magic of Lady Gaga. In this morning's pre-show, Jeff admits he's finally fallen for the incendiary pop star, and it's all because of her newest video, "Bad Romance." We all agree that the diva is definitely the most talented pop star, but the nerds inside of us have to ask: does she have to constantly pimp her Monster Heartbeat headphones in every single music video?

Out of this world?

(Credit: Sapporo)

Wilson also shows us a "no duh" iPhone app from AT&T called "Mark the Spot." The app gives AT&T customers a chance to vocalize and report their poor service complaints. It even lets you note your current location and the frequently of the issue. Anyone else think it's ironic that you have to use AT&T's servers to access this complaint software? How are we supposed to use it if the network is struggling?

We've been patiently waiting for Space Beer to come out ever since the debut of Space Beer Guy back on Episode 109, and it's finally here! The beer made with barley grown in space is finally available for the low price of $113, which actually isn't that much when you consider the shipping fee. Unfortunately, there are only 250 boxes of the stuff available, so you might have to fight us to get your hands on a bottle.

Finally, we've received so many new theme song submissions that we've decided to play a new one every day for the rest of this week! Today's entries include two 8-bit versions from Callum and Adam and a synth-y remix from Mad Dogg. Keep listening to the rest of this week's episodes for more submissions, and thanks to all the talented folks who are taking the time to help out this podcast. We owe you all a Coke!

EPISODE 482

(Credit: Joi Ito, via Flickr)

There are a handful of topics guaranteed to get readers all ginned up and at each others' throats in the comments section of any Web site. While PS3 vs. Xbox or AT&T vs. Verizon are solid go-to choices, anything that gives Apple and Microsoft fans a chance to vent at each other is on another level entirely.

Not that we don't enjoy pouring a little lighter fluid on the fire occasionally, but in the spirit of the holiday season, we have a proposal for peace between PC and Mac laptop users--or at least finding some middle ground both sides can agree with.

With that in mind, we offer the following modest proposal for a détente in the war between Mac and PC fanboys.

>PC Makers will agree:
To adopt the large multitouch touchpad that has become so popular on MacBook laptops. Once you get the hang of using two fingers to scroll down a page or flipping four fingers up to hide all your active windows, there's really no going back.

Yes, we acknowledge that many Windows laptops now support some kind of multitouch gestures. But we have yet to find a single PC that implements them particularly well--the worst offenders being touchpads that require your fingers to be lined up on a mathematically precise plane to activate simple two-finger scrolling. Even worse, they shoehorn gestures into the same tiny touchpads we've been cramping our fingers on for years.

Additionally, when you close the lid on a MacBook, it goes into a low-power sleep state, and then wakes up in a few seconds when you open the lid. It works the same every time, like clockwork. No matter what kind of sleep, hibernate, or other lid-close function we set up on a Windows laptop, the result is always a roll of the dice--yes, even in Windows 7. We particularly like the one where the machine wakes up, but the screen doesn't, requiring us to open the close the lid repeatedly until it randomly starts working.

Therefore, PC makers will agree to work with Microsoft to come up with a sleep mode that actually works the same way every single time.

>Apple will agree:
To turn touchpad tapping and click-dragging on by default, and not make us dig around in the menus for this very basic functionality. Secondly, Apple will agree to finally acknowledge the concept of two mouse buttons once and for all. That means second buttons on all mice (although the two-finger touchpad tap really works quite well), and no more pretending to be a one-button OS while actually including right-click functions for just about everything.

Finally, Apple will agree to ditch (or augment) its mini-DVI ports with plain old HDMI. It carries HD video, plus audio, and it's built into pretty much every other AV device known to man. Heaven forbid we should want to watch HD iTunes videos on a TV by plugging our laptops directly in, instead of buying an Apple TV unit.

AT&T recently launched a service that will convert English and Spanish language voice mail to text. Powered by Nuance Communications, the service will then deliver the messages via SMS, e-mail, or both. You can then choose to respond, either by returning the call or replying via text or e-mail. The service costs $9.99 a month, on top of your existing plan, and you can still dial in to your voice mail as usual if you wish.

LG Expo

(Credit: LG)

And you think your smartphone is powerful. Announced Monday, LG's new Expo offers a couple of "firsts" for AT&T, and we don't quite know which excites us the most. Not only does the Expo have a 1Ghz processor, but it also supports an optional pico projector for sharing videos, photos, and presentations stored on the phone.

On the outside the Expo sports a standard candy bar design with a 3.2-inch, 16 million-color touch-screen. You'll also find a QWERTY keyboard behind the sliding face. As you can imagine, the features set is rather high end, with a 5-megapixel camera with a flash, a microSD card slot, Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional, a personal organizer, e-mail and messaging, and a media player.

The Expo will be available December 7 for $199 with a two-year contract (a minimum $69 per month service plan is required) and after a $100 mail-in rebate. The LG Mobile Projector, which snaps on to the back of the handset, will cost you an additional $179. According to AT&T it will be available in the coming weeks.

(Credit: Jacques Gene)

Chances are good that someone on your shopping list is pining for an iPhone for the holiday season. If you know of such a person, then we've got a surprise Black Friday deal for you. AT&T is offering refurbished 16GB iPhone 3Gs for $49 for new customers. That's the shipped price, and they're even waiving the activation fee, normally $35.

The refurbished units have the same warranty as new units so you don't have to worry about getting someone junk. As an owner of a refurbished 3G I can attest to the quality of the devices.

Of course a two-year contract with AT&T's iPhone plan is required, but anyone who's asking for an iPhone probably already knows this. Currently, the 16GB black is out of stock, but the 16GB in white is still available.

Rumors about me are just rumors.

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET)

Almost as soon as the iPhone debuted on AT&T back in 2007, rumors started swirling that the popular touch-screen handset would head to Verizon Wireless as soon as AT&T's exclusivity ended. And since then, as AT&T's network has struggled to keep up with the demands of iPhone users, the rumor has only intensified. Indeed, every day I hear it repeated somewhere, whether it's from a tech/gadget site, a random Facebook friend, or a stranger I meet on the street.

Analysts have also dished the rumor on occasion, and just last week Brian Marshall, an Apple analyst with Broadpoint AmTech in San Francisco, mentioned it in an interview with Bloomberg News. Marshall suggested that Apple pursue Verizon Wireless as a possible carrier after AT&T's exclusivity contract ends next year.

The problem with Marshall's argument, and the rumor itself, is that it relies on a "fact" that has yet to be proven. To date, neither Apple nor AT&T have publicly said when the exclusivity contract will end. Though the summer 2010 is the most common time frame given--it would mark the third anniversary of the original iPhone--the details of the contract have yet to be released. We know that AT&T's exclusivity will end at some point, but we don't know exactly when that will be. Perhaps Marshall was told something in confidence, but I can promise you that I haven't heard anything of the sort.

Like I said back in August, I think that a Verizon iPhone is still possible (remember that Verizon's misfit toy ad is slamming AT&T's network and not the iPhone). Yet, I don't think it will happen until Apple produces a hybrid GSM/CDMA phone or adopts LTE technology (Canada's Telus did something similar with an HSPA device). Otherwise, I think it's unlikely that Apple would produce a CDMA-only version, even for America's largest carrier. I could be wrong, but I'm not going to believe any rumors about a Verizon iPhone until I hear something from Apple and Verizon. And similarly, I'm not going to believe anything about AT&T's exclusivity until I hear it from AT&T.

Until that time I can speak only to the rumor as I've always done. No matter what you heard through the grapevine or from a customer service rep in a Verizon store, we still don't know when, or even if, the iPhone will come to Verizon. Until that changes, I wouldn't take the rumor--and that's exactly what is it--seriously.