Crave

If there's a more disturbing image than a naked Wilson Tang eating a stuffed pepper and doing his taxes, it's got to be a naked Tim Geisenheimer's sockless foot stuffed into a suede moccasin. We invite Tim into the studio anyway and he surprises us with some bad news: turns out the economy ain't doing so well.

World famous weather-forecasting leg predicts spring is finally here.

(Credit: Tim Geisenheimer/CNET)

Do not attempt to adjust the white balance on your monitor: Tim Geisenheimer's legs are actually that pale. I guess he and Michael Jackson share more in common than their tastes in footwear. Anyway, for some reason Wilson felt the need to stay at home today to do his taxes, which means being a good Chinese boy and writing off everything he possibly can. Why he decided to get nakee and do said taxes is another issue entirely, and one that teases my upchuck reflex anyway, so let's move on.

If you haven't figured it out yet, 'tis I, Justin Yu--on the poop deck, handling the blogging for the day. The first half of today's show is pretty random, since it's just Jeff and I riffing on a few stories, including one about Japanese space underwear.

I feel compelled to break out Space Beer guy, but mixing beer and underwear just doesn't feel right. Leave it up to the Japanese to reinvent the last thing you should worry about in space--forget the zero gravity, space debris, and Klingon warlords. Nah, nah, let's make a pair of underwear that you never have to take off.

Next story is about a Jewish Facebook group whose name suddenly changed from "I Heart Jews" to "Hitler: Great Modern Man of History." While we disagree with that statement, Jeff Bakalar (devoutly Jewish, FYI) gives the rest of us a free pass to laugh at the prank. Hey, at the end of the day, if Mel Brooks can laugh at Hitler, I think we're all safe.

After long calls from the public, we finally decide on a date for The 404 Meetup: APRIL 16. Everyone living in the Tri-State area should definitely clear their evening hour for a night of fun with The 404. We decided that two weeks is enough time for everyone to plan ahead, and it gives Jeff, Wilson, and I ample time to exercise our wrists and buy as many sharpies as possible. Riiight. Finally, check out some of the submissions below for our running contest. Can you write a funny caption for this photo of your humble 404 host? Here are some of our current favorites:

• "Do these glasses make my eyes look less asian?" - Will Chan
• "The 404's Justin Yu was taken into custody shortly after molesting a lumberjack, a 90-year old woman, and robbing a Radio Shack in China Town last evening. Luckily there was no evidence of dicktopping at any of the crime scenes." - Andrew Teachout
• "What? I swear that printer was d**kto**ed before I got it!" - Jeff from Calgary

Send us your funniest caption to the404{at}cnet[dot]com and you could win a copy of Wheelman for XBox 360!

The iPhone is recording everything users see and do on their devices for caching purposes, an iPhone hacker says.

The device records screenshots of a user's most recent action so that it can achieve that cool effect of applications fading away when the home button is clicked, according to Jonathan Zdziarski, who wrote the forthcoming book iPhone Forensics: Recovering Evidence, Personal Data, and Corporate Assets.

The screenshots are presumably deleted after the application is closed, but they can be recovered with forensics techniques just like data deleted from most any storage device can be reconstructed for purposes of law enforcement, he said in a Webcast on Thursday in which he demonstrated how to break into password-protected iPhones.

"There's no way to prevent it," Zdziarski said of the screenshot caching, according to a Wired report. "I'm kind of divided on it. I hope Apple fixes it because it's a significant privacy leak, but at the same time it's been useful for investigating criminals."

Meantime, breaking into a passcode-locked phone took him nearly an hour to demonstrate and required creating a custom firmware bundle, the report said. The issue is different from a security hole discovered last month that allowed people to get access to e-mail, text, and voice messages on password-protected phones.

Apple representatives did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment for this story.

TipSoft SMS lets you send an anonymous text message about crimes to police.

(Credit: Anderson Software)

You see a crime, what do you do? Most people would just dial 911. But if you want to remain anonymous and there's no no pay phone around, you can now send a text message to the authorities.

A company called mBlox, which operates a mobile transaction network, and Anderson Software, provider of law enforcement tip management software, have launched a service that lets people send in anonymous tips via SMS.

The TipSoft SMS service provides an alias for the tipster and allows for two-communication without sharing the tipster's phone number with authorities. The text messages are encrypted and routed through secure servers.

The anonymity will likely mean more tips to police, which is good. But there's also the chance there will be pranks pulled and people ratted out for unwarranted activities, which is not so good.

TipSoft is already available in 16 cities in Canada, is launching in 32 U.S. cities, and will be available in the U.K. soon, the companies said.

(Credit: USB Fever)

Even after seeing all the crazy functions that have been incorporated into the once-lowly mouse, we never anticipated that privacy would be one of them. Yet that was the stated goal of a combo Skype phone-mouse we saw recently, and now it's been cited for another one as well.

There are many different types of privacy, however, and the purpose of the "USB Smart Privacy Mouse" isn't to protect confidential conversations and such--instead, it's intended to keep prying eyes from snooping on your computer monitor. That makes it quite similar to the "Phantom Mouse" that debuted in Japan last month: Both can instantly "conceal any and all programs in windows" with the touch of a button, as described by GeekAlerts.

And as we noted with its predecessor, it can be a lot quicker than searching around under the desk for a "StealthSwitch."

(Credit: Tuvie)

If this concept Internet search device by designer Mac Funamizu takes off, the privacy advocates will be out in force to protest.

It's like having Wikipedia wherever you go, but way cooler and far more advanced. The artist's idea is for this portable device to have a touch screen, built-in camera, scanner, Wi-Fi connectivity, Google Maps, and Google Search capabilities, among other features.

The screen would probably double as the camera viewfinder, so it would be like looking through a piece of transparent glass. And when you point it at an object, the screen would show more details about it, such as the name of an insect, a car model, or food on the table. With existing technologies, we suppose it would use the onboard Wi-Fi to grab information off the Web.

A concept like this isn't new--we've actually written about it before--but Funamizu's rendition takes it up a few notches. However, while it would be great to have such information at our fingertips, it wouldn't be so fun if someone were to point the device at us.

(Source: Crave Asia)

The New York Times recently reported a heartwarming story about a lost digital camera being returned after a kindhearted stranger analyzed the photos on the camera to find the owner.

The camera was left in the backseat of a New York taxi, and contained sightseeing photos of Manhattan, as well as Florida snapshots including people wearing name tags. Leads took the hunt to Ireland, back to New York, and finally to Syndey, Australia, where the rightful owner lives. He was "over the moon" with gratitude to get his camera back.

This story has a happy ending, and perhaps most of us would be glad to get our camera back in that situation, but it also made me uneasy to realize how much personally identifiable information was stored on one camera card. I would rather have a locked camera than could not be accessed if it was found, than have a stranger be able to peer into my photos.

The situation is even more crucial when it involves smartphones. ... Read more

(Credit: Thanko Japan)

Some people (not us, of course) might think that this is the best invention since the "StealthSwitch." That ingenius device, as you'll recall, has a foot-operated switch that instantly hides whatever is on your screen when your boss happens to walk by at the most inopportune times.

The "Phantom Mouse" improves that concept by doing the same thing with a red emergency button that sits directly above the scroll wheel, according to Newlaunches. That way you won't have to frantically stomp around under your desk looking for a switch.

It's being marketed in Japan at present, as you might have gleaned from the photo accompanying this post. But given that it costs less than half of the StealthSwitch, we're guessing that it would find the U.S. workplace a fertile market.

File photo: This is a tiger. Do not taunt.

(Credit: Declan McCullagh/mccullagh.org)

A California judge has said the San Francisco Zoo may inspect the mobile phones of two brothers involved in a deadly tiger attack on Christmas Day.

Superior Court Judge Socrates Peter Manoukian in Santa Clara County ruled late Friday that the city and the zoo can review the devices for photographs that might provide clues about what happened that day, and for logs of conversations near the time of the 911 call.

He wrote: "Under the maxim that a picture is worth a thousand words the Court believes that the allegation of existence or nonexistence of any photographs is specific enough to justify an attempt to perpetuate them."

The defendants in the civil lawsuit are brothers Kulbir Dhaliwal and Amritpal Dhaliwal. They were mauled during the tiger attack and their friend, Carlos Sousa Jr., was killed. The tiger pen's wall was only 12.5 feet high, 4 feet below generally accepted safety standards. The Siberian tiger, Tatiana, was shot dead by police that day.

Manoukian said, however, that the city and the zoo could not inspect the contents of the car. (There have been reports that a bottle of alcohol was present.) Their attorney has called these efforts a fishing expedition.

It's unclear what the real impact of this ruling will be--that's because the San Francisco Police Department has obtained a search warrant allowing them to examine the car and mobile phones in conjunction with a separate criminal investigation.

WASHINGTON--Ever tried giving your mother a primer on cookies--the Web, not chocolate chip, variety, of course?

It's not easy, but a user-generated video contest chiefly bankrolled by Google wants to help.

The competition began accepting entries about a month ago from about two dozen filmmakers interested in helping to demystify the tiny, widely used text files for a general audience. It concluded here Friday, at the second day of a Federal Trade Commission workshop on behavioral advertising, with the announcement of the victor, who was set to receive a $5,000 grand prize. (Click here to view all the entries that made the final cut at Google's just-launched YouTube privacy channel.)

The winning entry, picked by a panel of judges from a pool of five finalists, was created by Clayton Miller, a 27-year-old Chicagoland resident. His animated creation, which was arguably the most subdued of the finalists, likens cookies to "virtual note cards" that, "just like real-world note cards...are used to help Web sites remember things." It then runs through the pluses and minuses of having Web cookies turned on, off, or somewhere in between. Here's the clip:

In case you don't have time to sit through the two-minute videos, here's a short reminder: Cookies are the small text files that are dished up by Web sites, record certain user information and are saved on one's hard drive. Retrieved during return visits, they enable Web sites to recall things like a user's e-commerce shopping cart selections and log-in data. They're typically set to expire within a certain amount of time.

Google, like the vast majority of advertising-supported Web services, has a stake in making users more comfortable with the concept of cookies. The company has encountered complaints from privacy advocates who argue it retains information about its users' search habits for too long. In response, it announced this summer that its cookies would expire after two years, instead of in 2038.

Granted, consumers aren't powerless to fight placement of cookies on their computers if they'd prefer not to have their information stored. But, as Google noted at the time of its policy change, many of them simply don't know how--or that it's possible--to delete cookies.

Google may have provided most of the financial backing for the venture--and is hosting the final videos on its newly unveiled YouTube privacy channel--but the idea for the contest came from Internet luminary Esther Dyson, a former CNET editor at large. She told workshop attendees that her goal was not so much to select a winner, but to educate consumers and to drive a discussion about online privacy issues. She was quick to note that cookies aren't the only way consumers' Internet behavior can be tracked, so understanding how they work is only a "first step," she told FTC workshop attendees.

Some of the contest judges, which included representatives from the online advertising industry, a Washington Post technology reporter and public-interest groups, suggested the intense focus on cookies left something to be desired.

"The problem isn't cookies," argued Jeff Chester, director of the Center for Digital Democracy, which is advocating for the government to impose tougher privacy rules related to Web advertising. "The industry knows this, and in many ways, this contest fits the way the industry wants to frame the problem--in a very narrow, technical way."

There's not a one-size-fits-all approach to blocking or allowing cookies, either, said Alissa Cooper, policy analyst for the Center for Democracy and Technology, which has received funding from Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL. "If youre someone who likes getting relevant ads," she said, "maybe your choice is going to be different than someone concerned about their privacy."