Are you ready for Brutal Legend?

(Credit: Brutal Gamer)

Get ready to have your faces melted, because Brutal Legend finally comes out today for XBox 360 and the PS3. To quote Jeff, the game is a "metal fan's absolute fantasy come true." It stars Jack Black as the voice of Eddie Riggs, a roadie for a metal band that must fight off metal-infused demons to save the world. Unfortunately, Jeff has some criticism about the game that might influence your buying decision.

Speaking of video games, though, it just so happens that Uncharted 2 also comes out today exclusive to Playstation 3, although it's already garnering excellent reviews from critics, including our own Dan Ackerman. The game is essentially the male-centric version of Tomb Raider, a take on the Indiana Jones adventure-style franchise. The antihero of the story, Nathan Drake, acts as a treasure hunter and art thief for hire, and it's up to you to navigate him across the world as he battles through firefights and explores virtually limitless environments that add to the overall realism of the game. Can't decide between Brutal Legend and Uncharted 2? Jeff's got your answer on today's show!

Jon Heder likes Raisinhill...isn't it time you did too?

(Credit: MySpace/Raisinhill)

Big congratulations goes out to Natali Del Conte for making onto Manolith's list of the 12 hottest geeky girls in tech! NDC joins the ranks of other Internet hotties like Jade Raymond, Jessica Chobot, Morgan Webb, and more, so be sure to take a peek at the list and let us know who YOU think is missing! Don't even think about nominating Wilson...he's booked solid for the next decade.

Finally, it's my turn to choose the Beck's Beer Semi-Weekly Audio Draft Pick! Today's band is Raisinhill, a couple of talented chums hailing from Redding, Conn., who play a modernized version of up-tempo jazz/rock fusion. The trio are all classically trained and use their wide range of talents to create their dancey jams.

We understand that today's generation probably isn't running to record stores to pick up jazz CDs, so we're hoping you'll keep an open mind with Raisinhill and appreciate their instrumental talents. Besides, any band endorsed by Mr. Belding, Ron Jeremy, and Napoleon Dynamite HAS to be pretty good. The songs of the day are called "Nameless" and "The Ridge." You can listen to both songs on their MySpace page. If you like what you hear, you can buy their self-titled album as well. Enjoy!

(Credit: Apple)

Update (June 26, 2009): Now that the dust has settled, Jim Dalrymple has a more complete picture of how and why this app was removed.

Update: We initially reported that Apple had blocked the app, but it now appears that the developer's servers were simply overwhelmed (Apple's servers distribute the app, but the images themselves are pulled from the developer's server). We'll have further updates as the story continues to evolve.

Back when Apple first launched its App Store, Steve Jobs showed a slide with six categories of apps that would be verboten: "Porn, privacy, bandwidth hog, illegal, malicious," and "unforeseen." Well, on Wednesday Apple allowed a developer to add nude models to the 17+ rated app "Hottest Girls," ushering in what may--or may not be--a new era for iPhone apps.

When news of the nude images first leaked out, the Mac enthusiast site Macenstein proclaimed, "And then there was porn." The headline was followed by the rather titillating lede: "Today the iTunes app store became a man, having finally seen its first adult app. Meaning nudity. Meaning boobies."

As noted, "Hottest Girls" ($1.99), carries Apple's 17+ rating (for "Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity.") and until recently only featured women in lingerie and bathing suits. But Hottest Girls' developer Allen Leung told bloggers Wednesday that, "We uploaded nude topless pics today. This is the first app to have nudity."

Macenstein noted that the announcement rivaled "the first transmissions from the moon landing in importance."

That was Wednesday. On Thursday, TechCrunch discovered that it couldn't download the application and immediately assumed Apple had blocked it. But it now appears there were just too many people trying to download the application at once.

A note on the developer's Web site reads:

"The Hottest Girls app is temporarily sold out. The server usage is extremely high because of the popularity of this app. Thus, by not distributing the app, we can prevent our servers from crashing. Customer satisfaction is more important to us than profits. Those who already have the app will still be able to use our app. To answer the question on everyone's mind: Yes, the topless images will still be there when it is sold again."

Of course, this brings into question the whole notion of just what "porn" is--and isn't. In some parts of America, an app that boasts "completely naked pics" would be considered indecent, plain and simple. But in parts of Europe, well, Hottest Girls is just a day at the beach.

What do you think? Is this good news? And how relaxed do you think Apple will be? Or is it just a matter of time before the company shuts down tawdry apps like this because it potentially damages its reputation?

(Source: Macenstein via Gizmodo)

Until recently, the Hottest Girls app just featured scantily clad models.

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.

Jeff Bakalar makes his return on Fat Tuesday--how appropriate. Justin reveals to the world that he loves Alvin & the Chipmunks, on top of his fascination with Disney music. Disney we can forgive, but really? An Alvin & the Chipmunks cover of "Uptown Girl?" And we figure out that Alvin wears a giant "A" because he's committed adultery.

On today's show, Justin learns some new racial slurs from Clint Eastwood's "Gran Torino." Jeff tells us to check out Mickey Rourke in "The Wrestler"and reveals to us that he once was a professional wrestler known as "The Flying Daisy." In actual news, newspapers are asking the federal government for a bailout. Get with it! Newspapers are going the way of the dodo. On top of that, it's National Pancake Day, so head on over to your local IHOP! Let Fat Tuesday's debauchery begin in earnest.

(Credit: Fred Flare)

Inside all of us, there lives an inner creep just itching to get out and secretly take photos of unsuspecting members of the opposite sex. The secret book camera, offered here by Keith Carollo and Chris Bick of Fred Flare, definitely confirms that theory. The camera uses inexpensive 110 film and is the perfect size to stick in your backpack or Miley Cyrus-approved clutch purse.

You know what this camera reminds me of? That one scene in Troop Beverly Hills where shevillain Velda Plendor hides a camera inside the Girl Scouts book so Herman can spy on the tragically affluent Girl Scouts of Beverly Hills. Wait, what? You're not as self-deprecating as I am? OK, well I loved TBH and now I can finally live out my cinematic fantasies. Never mind that it's seafoam green and made to look like an antique toy for children--I just so happen to have $55 burning a hole in my apron. Patches?! We don't need no stinkin' patches!

Check out more pictures of the camera after the jump.

(Credit: MacRumors/markm49uk)

The iPhone 3G was one of this year's most anticipated products from Apple. With more than a million handsets sold, one in particular shipped with three images of an Asian Foxconn Technology Group worker posing over an iPhone assembly line.

The photos were posted by a British consumer who purchased the iPhone, then posted the photos to Mac Rumors under the username "markm49uk." Since the photos have surfaced, many questions and discussions have taken place as to who she is, and whether she will lose her job.

According to Mac Rumors, a Foxconn representative confirmed that she was an employee of the Shenzhen Factory and addressed the termination concerns expressed by many readers.

He was quoted by the Xiandai Kuaibao newspaper as saying, "She is definitely not fired," and proceeded to say the photos were left on the iPhone by mistake, possibly during testing. The unnamed girl has now been dubbed "China's prettiest factory girl," according to the China Morning Post.

We're no Sigmund Freud, but...

Here at Crave, we don't normally think of ourselves as sociologists, psychologists, or anything else that claims to be particularly insightful about the human psyche. We write about gadgets, games, and things that are more likely to lighten your wallet than elevate your soul.

But after a day's worth of poll-taking, we can offer a little insight about our readers: they still prefer women to gadgets, even the wicked big expensive ones.

We posted an item Monday on a new Playboy reality TV show that even the great Chuck Barris, he of The Dating Game, The Gong Show, and alleged spy game fantasies, would think was cruel: The show will force geeks to choose between a weekend getaway with what is surely a rather appealing woman (it is Playboy, after all) and some sort of gadget. They won't know what the gadget is until they make their decision.

To settle a bet here in the newsroom, we asked our readers in the poll included here: What would you do? Not so surprisingly on this side of the winning money, our readers choose the woman.

More than 4,000 readers responded, and just a tick over 50 percent as of this writing picked the girl. Interestingly, more than 39 percent picked a 60-inch flat-screen television (well, that is an awfully big TV), and 6.4 percent went with an iPhone with one year free from AT&T. Another 3.7 percent (and we have to believe this is a joke) picked a PlayStation 3 over the lovely lady.

Our mostly American and Canadian readership seems to be less deferential (but not by much) to women than gadget fans in the United Kingdom. A February survey conducted not so surprisingly by a company that makes TVs found that 47 percent of men in the U.K. would give up sex for six months in return for a 50-inch plasma TV. By comparison, only 25 percent would give up chocolate.

What does this say about what goes on behind bedroom doors in the English-speaking world? Like I said, we're not sociologists, so we're not going there (and we've yet to find a similar survey for Australia and New Zealand). But when you add lower-cost items such as the iPhone and the PS3 to our total (And really, a PS3? Come on now...), we have to conclude the Brits have more of an eye for the ladies.

Have you seen this?

So have 2.56 million other people. And there's one who's really not happy about it.

The video, now a legitimate Internet phenomenon, features one Lauren Bernat, an advertising executive in Florida, exercising--or gyrating rather suggestively is more like it--while using Nintendo's Wii Fit.

Another Lauren Bernat, a master's degree candidate for library science at St. John's University, is not amused. Actually, "utterly freaked out" is probably the most accurate way to describe it.

Bernat, 22, works as a librarian at a library for teenagers in New York, and said she first became aware of the Wii Fit girl video on YouTube (real title: "Why every guy should buy his girlfriend a Wii Fit"), when several "random guys" began sending her Facebook friend requests Thursday. Bernat, who has the strictest privacy setting on her Facebook profile, says she responded to several and asked who they were and why they were adding her.

"One of them told me, 'Google yourself, you obviously haven't seen the video,'" Bernat said in an interview Thursday.

When she did a search for her name, she was shocked to see it connected with the video, which has been linked to many times over. She quickly began to fear for her reputation, and her career, since she's currently in the process of applying for jobs.

"If someone has my business card, and doesn't know what I look like, and they Google me, it looks like it's me, and that's my whole career down the tubes," she said.

Bernat contacted Google, which owns YouTube, and several news sites that reposted the video, including CNET, asking that her name be removed. But therein lies the problem. It's an accurate story because the video does contain a Lauren Bernat--it just so happens there are more than one of them.

There's probably not much she can do, which is why the librarian Bernat is at a loss for how to proceed.

"This is bizarre to me, because I am this normal (person), and to seek the spotlight like this is not me," she said.

Fingers crossed that any potential new employers realize the same thing.

Titled "Why every guy should buy their girlfriend a Wii Fit," the YouTube clip shows 25-year-old Lauren Bernat hula hooping in time with the fitness video game in her T-shirt and underwear. The video has been viewed more than 2.4 million times and was suspected to be a viral marketing ploy for Nintendo's Wii Fit.

The speculation emerged after learning that both Lauren Bernat and Giovanny Gutierrez, who filmed the footage, work in advertising. Gutierrez works as the director of Interactive Media for Tinsley Advertising in Miami, Florida. Bernat works as an account executive at the same company, where her duties include evaluating the responses to the company's Internet advertising.

Nintendo has denied that the footage is part of an advertising campaign. "This has, and is, absolutely 100 percent, nothing to do with Nintendo," a spokesman said. "Nintendo did not create it and was not aware of it until it was brought to our attention."

Gutierrez has also denied that it was a viral advertisement for the Wii Fit. Gutierrez says he filmed Bernat to show the world how attractive his girlfriend is. "My girlfriend loves Wii Fit and looks hot doing it."

Bernat says she was unaware she was being filmed by her boyfriend on his mobile phone and was extremely upset with him at first, but is now reveling in her 15 minutes of fame as the "Wii Fit Girl," adding she would have made herself more attractive if she had known about the camera.

The game--which incorporates yoga, balance, strength training, and aerobics--hardly needs the free publicity. Even Amazon has a purchase limit policy in place for the Wii Fit because of the shortages across the U.S. Now does that sound like Nintendo is hurting for some sales?

The YouTube video has done much to boost the profile of Gutierrez, Bernat, and the ad agency where they work, so it looks as if everybody wins regardless.