Crave

Top 5 car technologies--photos

After driving hundreds of cars to evaluate automotive technology, we've settled on our top 5 car technologies. Amongst the many, many features different automakers are making available, these are the ones we've found the most essential for everyday use. Some of these technologies can be found on most new cars today, while others are rarer, only offered by a few automakers. Some of these technologies will keep you and others safer, some will save you money, and some will just keep you happy.

Check out our top 5 car technologies.

Once again, we dig into the CNET traffic logs to find out what reviews you folks have been looking at in the greatest numbers. Lately, it's been dominated by phones, but the Netbooks have started to make a move. What will the makeup be this week? Watch the video and find out.

Then come back here to post your answer to our trivia question for a chance to win a CES backpack--worn by actual journalists! But hey, it's still free.

Fifty dollars can buy you more MP3 player than you think.

(Credit: CNET)

Just eight years ago, a basic MP3 player could easily set you back $300 or more. These days, you can nab a decent player for less than $50--and I mean a legitimately decent MP3 player.

To make my point, I've rounded up my top five MP3 players for $50 or less. These aren't your bargain-basement screenless Shuffle-style players, either. With one exception, all the featured players include screens, FM radio, and voice recording. Each player also includes a little something extra, ranging from a workout tracker to a color screen.

The advent of genuinely useful, cheap, and small MP3 players also opens up the possibility of owning several players for different purposes. There's no reason to risk taking your iPhone on the treadmill when a $40 clip-on player will do the trick. Need some music in the kitchen? Just grab a cheap MP3 player with a built-in speaker.

What are you waiting for? Check out our favorite MP3 players for less than $50.

Every few months, we like to playfully poke fun at some of the less successful software on the site. While there are countless great products created (and covered in this blog, hopefully) every week, these five software applications are not included in that group. These programs are the other sort of download software--the head-scratching variety.

We love you, software publishers, we really do. Some of your products...are another story.

Watch CNET TV's Tom Merritt count down this summer's list of the worst software on Download.com, and see if you don't find yourself wondering, "What were they thinking?"

As one may suspect, working in digital music gives a person a somewhat skewed view about the permeation of online music in the general population. Everyone (aside from audiophiles and vinyl buffs) is getting their music fix though the Web nowadays, right? Wrong. Although digital music is on the rise, it's still well behind CDs in terms of overall sales ($2.8 billion versus $15.9 billion, according to one report).

Another report forecasts that digital music sales won't surpass physical media for another four years. Well, what say we prove some people wrong (always fun) and shave a year or two off that number? To help you sort through the clutter of online music, I've rounded up my Top 5 choices for digital tunes. These selections aren't really in any particular order; rather, each service offers a variety of advantages depending on your personal needs and preferences.

• iTunes: Owned by Apple, the iTunes store set the pattern for a la carte music shopping and still reigns king over the customer base. iTunes has sold more than 5 billion songs to date, and it offers excellent integration with the world's best-selling MP3 player, the iPod. It's catalog contains more than 8 million songs as well as a variety of podcasts, TV shows, and movies. The one major bummer is that most of the tracks sold in iTunes can only be played on the iPod or iPhone and not any other MP3 player. You must download the iTunes software in order to access the store, but it works on both Windows and Mac operating systems.

• eMusic: This indie representer is quite a ways behind iTunes in catalog numbers and sales, but it controls the second largest market share (10 to 15 percent, according to label feedback). eMusic has sold more than 200 million tracks in the past four years and is currently averaging five to six million song downloads per month from its catalog of over 3.5 million tracks. The company made a name for itself with an all-you-can-download service but now offers limited subscriptions, starting at $11.99 per month for 30 unrestricted MP3s. Thanks to this "track pack" pricing and the fact that the company doesn't currently sell big label songs, eMusic offers an incredible value: it is the cheapest of the bunch by far (27 cents per track with the Premium plan). It also has a large number of music reviews by editors and users alike.

• Amazon MP3: Started by online retail giant Amazon.com, this music store was the first to offer DRM-free MP3 tracks from the Big Four (aka major music labels). In fact, Amazon deserves a lot of credit for the current movement to do away with confusing restrictions on music downloads. Plus, the company has a huge audience and broad appeal, which will no doubt give digital music a violent shove into the mainstream mindset. Amazon offers a constantly growing catalog, which currently holds over 5 million tracks. It is a Web-based store with only a light app required for queuing downloads. Anyone with a Windows, Mac, or Linux machine can access the store, which also offers audiobooks, movies, and TV shows as digital downloads.

• Napster: Once the reigning peer-to-peer music service, Napster is now a legal music store. It recently transitioned its catalog from DRM-protected WMAs back to the ever-popular unprotected MP3 format that it slung back in its trading days and currently offers the largest selection of legal MP3s on the Web (more than 6 million tracks). Napster offers some excellent editorial content, including music reviews as well as preprogrammed playlists and radio stations. The downloadable client only works on Windows, but anyone with a Web connection can access the store online and purchase tracks.

• Rhapsody: Similar to Napster in most respects, Rhapsody offers a catalog of more than 4.5 million DRM-free MP3s. It's chock-full of preprogammed playlists made by editors and other listeners and includes an innovative radio feature called Channels, some of which are offered up for free listening. Rhapsody is the only service that allows full track previews (up to 25 per month) prior to purchasing the songs. It can be accessed directly on the Web or downloaded as a jukebox (for Windows only) and offers a subscription plan as well.

Now that Mac OS X Leopard has arrived, and Microsoft's Windows Vista slowly gains more acceptance, it's time for another battle of the heavyweight operating systems. Tom Merritt counts down the five biggest differences between Mac and Windows in another edition of CNET TV Top 5.

Each week, Crave tracks the most popular ringtones.

T-Pain feat. Yung Joc (not feat. in this photo) would like to buy u a drank. I'll take a Guinness. Thanks, fellas.

(Credit: T-Pain.net)

For all we know, the top five ringtones may be cemented in place for all of eternity. The same 10 ringtones make up the top 10 this week, except a few have switched places.

See the full Billboard ringtone chart right here.

Unk's "2 Step" holds on to the top spot and will presumably do so until everyone in America has downloaded it. Then, we'll all be confused whenever a phone rings, because everyone will have the same ringtone.

Elsewhere on the charts, Koji Kondo's "Super Mario Brothers Theme" celebrates its 137th week on the list and remains at number 3 in the top 10.

T-Pain and Yung Joc would like to "Buy U A Drank," and they feel so strongly about it that they've recorded a song. The ringtone version of this song is at number 5.

Still clinging to the number 9 spot is 50 Cent's "Candy Shop," not to be confused with "Ye Olde Candy Shoppe" by Moustache Trimmerz Barbershop Quartet (feat. Da Clippa). The latter remains at number infinity on the list for the eighth consecutive week.

(Credit: MAKE Magazine)

I just didn't know what to say about this picture that I found on the MAKE magazine blog. It kind of left me speechless. In fact, the only thing I was able to do was come up with a title for the post. Five titles, in fact. So, here's what I'd start off with if I weren't wholly without words regarding this...brilliant idea.

5. Guard against the bogeyman with a Tiger. Rarrr.

4. Bring iLife into your nightlife. Literally.

3. Make your nightmares about Bill Gates go away forever!

2. Ever wanted to know what it would be like if GarageBand and iMovie had a pillow fight?

1. Sex is overrated. Here's how to make sure it never happens again.