Crave

(Credit: Alison Rosen)

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

For those of you in parts of the world where there remain only four or five sunny days--London, New York--the wonderful news that I am about to impart may well be a little frustrating.

However, for those of us in the deserving paradise of the American west coast, this is the sort of joy that only indispensability can bring.

For a man in Seattle named Marc Johnson has invented the perfect solution to laptop usage on a gorgeous sunny day.

The Laptop Burka.

So practical. So you.

(Credit: Marc Johnson)

You might be shuddering in the thought that this has religious connotations. But, no. Johnson is not a member of the Seattle Taliban. He is just an inventor who has come up with the ingenious notion of donning a rather all-enveloping burka so that you might be able to blog on the boardwalk or comment in Cannes.

(Credit: Marc Johnson)

As you can see from the images that I have placed here to bring you excitement, the Laptop Burka is the ultimate in deep-seated privacy, as well as keeping the light at bay for as long as you might be able to breathe your own slightly stale air.

You know that antiglare filters don't work. So this hugely practical item, retailing at a piffling $20, could bring an entirely new meaning to your outdoor life.

Johnson seems to have begun his quest for your heart, mind, and most of your torso with this Craigslist posting . He claims something called Trend Setters has described the Laptop Burka as a "hot new item." He also claims a patent has been filed by axioslawgroup.com. However, this URL seems to engender no Web site.

There is an Axios Law Group in Seattle whose URL is axioslaw.com, so perhaps these are the patent filers. There is certainly a Dylan Adams on the staff, the name Johnson quotes on Craigslist.

No matter. The Laptop Burka is clearly a marvelous invention and I can see the beaches being full of beburka'd bloggers banging their thoughts out across the world, while enjoying a cooling sea breeze.

It's back to the regular news stories on today's show, and we start off strong with talk about how the iPhone 3.0 may give sex toys a run for their money. See what happens when you give developers control over the vibration functionality?

This isn't going to end well.

(Credit: Amazon)

Microsoft has announced it won't be making Money anymore--the software that is--but who actually used that program anyway?

Next, we discuss how the Internet is successfully turning the English language into nothing more than a bunch of incoherent misspellings of words with numbers in them. "n00b" is now a real word? We're starting to regret this whole Internet thing.

A Stretch Armstrong movie? Really? This isn't going to end well.

There won't be an episode tomorrow, but fear not, we're going to feed you with a classic 404 from the past that's sure to tickle you. See you Monday!

EPISODE 361

Episode 32 of the Digital City, where we discuss the hurdles for electric cars in NYC, read the tea leaves on new iPhone hardware at WWDC, find out why Craigslist is (sort of) dropping sex ads, and ponder the improbable physics of Star Trek's black holes.

>>Subscribe to Digital City on iTunes
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>>Need more? Follow Dan on Twitter!

Wilson Tang is back in the house today, along with the lovely and ever-gracious Natali Del Conte. She's just come back from her vacation, and we find out how she stalked Tom Hanks from the film "Angels & Demons" (check out her Loaded piece this Thursday). And Justin disappears from his first ever hate-on during the show.

Watch out boys.

(Credit: Natali Del Conte/CNET)

On today's show, we've got Wilson Tang backers calling to defend the man. Lots of e-mails as well from supporters, who think finding out Tyler Perry is in a movie is about as much of a non-spoiler as you can get. But if you really want spoilers, check out Wilson's lastest Tumblr post, where he finds many faults in the new "Star Trek."

In more stories from the Interwebs, Craigslist has finally acquiesced to state attorneys general, who wanted the erotic service section taken down. Now, a new section will appear, which will be moderated by Craigslist employees. We think it's too bad that all it took was one bad apple to ruin it for everyone. Now, Jeff has to find a new side job.

Speaking of bad apples, Microsoft has been running these "Laptop Hunter" ads on television, and Apple comes back with its own "Megan" ad. We just think it's hilarious that these customers end up buying a 10-pound monster with a 22-inch screen. Wilson thinks it's even funnier that a "filmmaker" would buy a PC to edit her film on. What's she going to use? Windows Movie Maker? Come on, if you can afford Avid, the price difference between a Mac and a PC is trivial.

Natali's best contribution to the show today is that she says the words "penis phone" on air and teaches us the Spanish slang for "schlong." Apparently, Venezuela's leftist president Hugo Chavez is releasing a government-subsidized cell phone named after a certain male body part. It's because of the vibration function we suspect.

Finally, "404" shows up in some of the most random places. Check this out. It's a demolished building with a 404 sign. Be sure to send in your favorite 404 signs around the world at the404 (at) cnet (dot) com. Or drop us a voice mail with more Wilson love at 1-866-404-CNET (2638).

Jasmine France joins The 404 today. Just a little warning: she had just flown into New York City on the red-eye from San Francisco and is pretty loopy for part of the show. But she does give us the 411 on the best MP3 player and headphones to get.

(Credit: Wilson G. Tang/CNET)

Jasmine dishes the dirt on Justin as an intern years ago. Let's just say dry cleaning, coffee, foot rubs, and walking her dog were part of his daily routine. Oh, how far he has come.

We talk a bit about how popular "casual encounters" has become on Craigslist. It's even bigger than Match.com, eHarmony, or even Yahoo! Personals. Jasmine tells us about her "missed connections" story. It gets juicy. Find your subway crush here.

Also, we discuss a bit 'bout how piracy is ruining the PSP. Justin doesn't really care; Jeff gets upset; and Wilson's fourth cousin is selling pirated games back home in Zhong Guo. Speaking of China, for about five minutes too long, Wilson exposés on Jackie Chan's recent comments in the press. This is why we don't discuss anything with any seriousness.

Finally, it's "Earf Day"...we think that's how it's spelled. Anyway, as part of our effort to be friendly to the environment, CNET TV is launching The Green Show, starring Mark Licea. That's right! MTI has his own show now. Check it out and send us your comments at greenshow [at] cnet [dot] com.

Dan Ackerman joins us on today's show to talk about his not-critically-acclaimed album "Tales Out of Night School" and the technology world in general. Be sure to check out his podcast Digital City on iTunes. Also, he give his opinion on digital-music distribution and makes fun of our game of marry/boff/kill with Ms. Natali Del Conte.

On today's show, we talk about the release of the new "Watchmen" movie. The first reviews are mixed. Justin is still holding out hope that the film will be watchable. In other movie and television news, Showtime, a sister company of CNET, is releasing Emmy screeners on iPods. Amazon finally gets the sense to pull a video game featuring rape simulation. The cast of "Seinfeld" rejoins on "Curb Your Enthusiasm." Hopefully, Michael Richard won't drop any bombs on the show. Justin is disappointed that a sheriff in Cook County is finally starting to crack down on prostitution on Craigslist. And Matel releases a Barbie doll in China with a tattoo.

Wang Jianshuo, an avid English-language blogger based in Shanghai found this scene in the rare Shanghai snow tied to a holiday travel nightmare storm throughout much of China over the last week.

(Credit: Wang Jianshuo)

Craigslist's China sites are not particularly lively. In Beijing, English-language readers tend to head for classifieds run by the local expat magazines that's Beijing and City Weekend. Several friends, Chinese and foreign, have mentioned Kijiji as a more commonly-used alternative. At least their promotional team knows how to play in the snow!

Lately I've been really impressed by some of eBay's latest Web gizmos, including their auction-sharing widget that's got both a standalone embed, and even their less-than-stellar Facebook app. There's also their Adobe AIR application that's both beautiful and useful at the same time. The one thing that I think needed some work was their search tool, which the folks at GetItNext seem to agree with. Their eBay search tool helps sort through results before you even see them. In essence, it's trying to overcome the inherent clutter that's come of eBay since the service became immensely popular.

If you had used eBay in its early days, the search experience was completely different, and searching for a cell phone would often actually give you handsets as the top results instead of faceplates, phone chargers, stick-on crystals, etc.

With GetItNext when you search for something on eBay, you might actually find what you're looking for instead of a mess of crazy auctions.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

The best way to really see the difference between the two search tools is stacking them up against each other with a smattering of identical queries. All in all, I was pretty impressed with GetItNext, as it managed to come up with fairly similar results, but often the GetItNext results had less junk. Even better, GetItNext will include the shipping price in each result to help you avoid some of those great deals that have a less than great, or ridiculously high shipping price.

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