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Single women rival single men as tech device owners, according to a Forrester Research survey released Thursday.

Obviously, to an organization filled with female tech geeks, the study was met with bemusement.

But the survey of more than 1,000 single adult males and more than 1,000 single adult females in the United States and Canada had some interesting gems.

Did you know that single women prefer laptops while single men prefer desktops? Among the adult singles surveyed, 47 percent of women said their next computer would be a laptop, and 29 percent said it would be a desktop, while 47 percent of men said their next computer would be a desktop and 38 percent said it would be a laptop.

Forty-four percent of all single women surveyed own a game console, compared to 53 percent of single men, confirming reports from International Game Developers Association and Entertainment Software Association illustrating that women do play video games.

When it comes to handheld-game devices, 27 percent of single women surveyed count themselves as owners while 29 percent of single men said they have one, according to the study. Single women, meanwhile, surpassed single men slightly on digital-camera ownership, 78 percent to 76 percent.

Alas, less than 20 percent of single women said they followed technology news, compared to less than 40 percent of single men.

(Credit: Forrester Research)

Scott Jones

(Credit: Crispy Gamer)

Scott Jones from online gaming web site Crispy Gamer comes to the show to talk about everything under the sun, including his stint as a writer at a porn magazine and the video game industry in general. Jeff and Scott wonder why anybody would ever buy the new Nintendo DS, while Wilson reminds everyone that there are a billion Asian girls who love cute gadgets.

In addition, Justin ponders out loud whether he should get rid of his iPhone 3G. After realizing that Apple and AT&T have bled him dry, he thinks a CrackBerry or maybe just a *shock* regular old flip phone and an iPod classic might be a better value for him. As usually, our listeners also call in shocked about discovering the meaning of some choice words on Urban Dictionary. We're never going to tell you on air what "sp--- d---ing" is. All that and more on today's episode of The 404.

Sunday, NPD released its January video game sales figures, and once again, Nintendo dominated.

According to the research firm, Nintendo sold 680,000 Wii units and 510,000 DS units. Microsoft was able to sell 309,000 consoles in January, and Sony once again trailed the pack with 203,000 units sold.

On the software side, Nintendo's Wii Fit, Wii Play, and Mario Kart Wii took the top three spots, while Left 4 Dead and Call of Duty: World at War rounded out the top five.

This ain't your grandfather's gaming industry.

(Credit: Rockstar Games)

At this point, after well over a year of leading the video game industry, it shouldn't be a surprise that Nintendo dominated the charts for yet another month. After all, the company has found a way to provide consumers with a fun and unique experience at a price that's more affordable than its competition. And in this economy, that's a necessity.

But as the months have worn on and more Wiis enter homes around the world, I'm left wondering if I'm an "old school" gamer who has been left behind. Sure, I own the Wii and I've played all the games listed here, but if we are to believe that sales figures can adequately determine the preferences of gamers, I don't think it's out of the question to say that I'm no longer the typical gamer. And it's Nintendo's fault.

(Credit: Shuttle)

If you're a hard-core gamer who hates monster computer boxes, Shuttle, the maker of custom built small form-factor PCs, now offers another choice.

The company unveiled on Friday its newest liquid-cooled SDXi Carbon Extreme gaming solution.

Shuttle's Liquid I.C.E. cooling solution.

(Credit: Shuttle)

The SDXi Carbon features a cream-of-the-crop quad-core Intel Core2 Extreme QX9770 processor, dual-slot Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 graphics card, and up to 16GB of high-speed DDR2 memory.

With these specifications, the box is designed to deliver the best possible experience for the most demanding applications and games.

Normally, this kind of powerhouse will generate a ton of heat and noise. This is why Shuttle equipped the SDXi Carbon with its Liquid I.C.E. cooling solution.

The company claims this new liquid cooling solution delivers the most efficient performance in an extreme small-form-factor system, while at the same time keeping it quiet even during the hottest gaming section.

Cosmetics-wise, the SDXi Carbon looks decent as it's painted in a unique-looking premium automotive level finish.

The Shuttle SDXi Carbon is available now as a pre-configured complete solution, starting at $2,599.

What used to be romantic tends to be seen as just plain creepy these days. And quite possibly somewhat stalker-ish too. So of course, we do what we always do when it comes to gadgets and accessories that have the potential of abuse...we mock them endlessly.

EPISODE 124

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Blow a Valentine’s kiss with your iPhone

If you're the kind of video game player who likes to spend hours in shooters like Call of Duty or Halo and you want to instantly pick up some serious street cred, what better Xbox Live gamertag than "Hitman" could you get?

To date, of course, the best you could do would be something like "Hitman238" or "xxHitman42." That's because "Hitman" itself was snagged back in the summer of 2002, during the beta phase of Xbox Live, by a then 16-year-old named Chris Graziano.

But now, Graziano, 22 and a student at SUNY New Paltz, has decided to sell Hitman, and has put it up for auction on eBay. He is hoping someone out there will plunk down big bucks for the right to shoot their way through the most popular war games while sporting such an obviously old-school gamertag.

Longtime Xbox Live player Chris Graziano has put his gamer tag, "Hitman," up for sale on eBay. It may end up netting big bucks as a desirable moniker.

(Credit: Chris Graziano)

"Don't bid on this item if you don't want to be the center of attention of every game lobby you're in," Graziano wrote on the eBay ad. "You'll regularly hear comments of 'You're the original Hitman?' and 'Wow, how did you get that gamertag?!'"

It's too early to tell how much money the Hitman name might bring in the end, as the auction doesn't end until February 19 and as of this writing, the high bid is $49.99. But Graziano said he was inspired to sell the account by another auction he'd seen not too long ago in which a player sold a gamertag with a very high gamerscore--the measure of how many achievements someone has earned in Xbox Live--for thousands of dollars.

The number of iPhone users downloading mobile games to their devices jumped 14 percent in November, putting them in the lead of all mobile-phone game downloaders in the U.S. that month, according to a ComScore report released Friday.

The figures, based on a year-over-year comparison of three-month averages, showed that game downloads in November rose 17 percent overall to 8.5 million.

(Credit: ComScore)

Although mobile subscribers users are increasingly putting their phones to work to download games, only 3.8 percent of all U.S. mobile phone users took the time to download a game in November, according to ComScore.

However, a significantly higher percentage of all iPhone users, 32.4 percent, downloaded a game that month, according to the report.

Mark Donovan, a ComScore senior analyst, said in a statement:

The rapid growth in smartphone adoption in the United States has provided a boost for mobile gaming, as 34 percent of those downloading a game in November did so using a smartphone.

Last year, not one smartphone appeared in the top 10 devices used for mobile downloads. This year, six out of 10 are smartphones, excluding devices with smartphone-like functionality, such as the Instinct and Voyager, which also make appearances.

Gamer Grub promises enhanced visual input, cognitive processing, signal transmission, and muscle reflexes--without keyboard crumbs or greasy fingers.

(Credit: Gamer Grub)

This just goes hand in hand with the Internet Urinal, survival gear for World of Warcraft gamers fixated on outwitting, outplaying, and outlasting their online opponents in their own Survivor hell.

But even chalking up the body count in a virtual world requires real-life sustenance, just so you can do more of the same. Enter Gamer Grub, which, considerately, delivers scientifically formulated performance snack food to your energy- and nutrition-starved body in a one-handed snackpod.

Fortunately, this is said to be tasty, shipping in four action-packed flavors: Strategy Chocolate, Action Pizza, Racing Wasabi, and Sports PB&J, aka peanut butter and jelly. The only thing missing is a DIY intravenous drip to make this a wholly hands-free experience.

(Via Crave Asia)

With the open-source nature of Google's Android platform, there should be no shortage of games available when it goes live in a few weeks. If you're waiting for really high-profile games though, you'll have to keep waiting--for now.

According to a story posted at Pocket Gamer, EA has stated that they're planning to support Android when Android can support them. In other words, when they can make money from Android games, they'll begin developing them.

According to the Pocket Gamer article, EA states, "EA will support the Android platform, as any platform that can deliver a robust game experience is good for introducing new consumers to mobile games. EA Mobile has elected to wait for the launch of a content-billing solution to bring their premier IP to market." Judging from the wording there, though, EA could release some smaller games before throwing in its hat with its "premier IPs."

So yeah, really can't wait for that version of Madden that plays and looks nowhere near as good as the console version. Should be awesome. OK, that's mean, but football games on handhelds inherently suck, IMO. A version of The Sims or Spore might be cool, though.