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The 404 433: Where we're a bit slow on the uptake

Jeff has the day off today, so you know what that means: TOTAL CHAOS AND DESTRUCTION! Well, not exactly...Wilson has a little trouble getting the show started, but eventually we get off the ground and welcome our guest on today's show, Mr. Tim Geisenheimer. However, we only get to chat with Tim 1-on-1 for a second before Natali Del Conte pops in to help us out too, making it an all-star lineup!

So after a quick Seinfeld moment about the woes of moving Ikea furniture, we break into a story about a real life "Gaydar" developed by two MIT students which uses social networking data to determine the sexuality of a user. Our major issue with this "study" is that the computer program takes statistical analysis way too seriously. It assumes that if you have a high volume of gay friends, then you must also be gay yourself...interesting jump there. Subscribing to a "birds of a feather, flock together" adage, the two students trained their "Gaydar" to be "very accurate" on men, but not so great on bisexuals or women.

Speaking of women, apparently a group of 3,000 female participants voted the SHOWER RADIO the worst gadget ever invented. It's unclear whether or not they forced the women to choose overtly female-target gadgets (which tend to be cheesy anyway), but Natali has a few things to say about the other gadgets on the "worst ever" list, which include electric fluff removers at #8, egg slicers at #10, and the electric can opener at #18. Although I think we're all starting to doubt Natali's sanity after she tells us all the infomercial junk she's bought over the years...can you say...SLAP CHOP?

Have you heard about CNET TV's newest show called CNET Conversations? To kick off the first episode, CNET's Molly Wood and Ina Fried will sit down with Steve Balmer at the Microsoft offices in Redmond, Washington, and they're bringing questions from viewers. If you have a question for Balmer, head over to the CNET Conversations blog and ask it in a comment!

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Grace Digital Bravado Wi-Fi radio steps up the sound quality

The Wi-Fi radio category has grown steadily over the last two years, thanks to greater consumer awareness and the popularity of streaming music services like Pandora. Grace Digital Audio was one of the early entrants to this product category, and the Bravado (model number GDI-IRD4400M) represents a different direction for the company.

The Bravado ditches the standard tabletop radio look, instead placing a pair of stereo speakers on top of the unit and giving the faceplate the feel of an old-school stereo component. The rest of the unit will feel familiar to Grace Digital fans, as the radio supports streaming … Read more

Review: Grace GDI-IR2000 Wi-Fi radio packs extra features, but won't please audiophiles

When we reviewed the Grace ITC-IR1000B Wi-Fi radio last year, we were almost uniformly impressed, except for two criticisms in the features department; the unit lacks a remote and an auxiliary input for connecting an iPod. So when Grace announced its new lineup of Wi-Fi radios for 2009, we were particularly excited by the GDI-IR2000, which looked nearly identical to last year's model but added a remote and auxiliary input.

So then how did the GDI-IR2000 receive a lower score than last year's model? Sound quality. We put the GDI-IR2000 head-to-head with the ITC-IR1000B, and the new model … Read more

Five new Wi-Fi radios from Grace Digital Audio

The Grace ITC-IR1000B Wi-Fi radio wound up being one of our favorite surprise products on the year. We weren't familiar with Grace before testing this radio, but its solid mix of design, features, and sound quality made us fans, and it stacked up well in our Wi-Fi radio roundup.

The company has announced five new Wi-Fi radios coming out this winter, ranging from a second-generation version of the ITC-IR1000B to new products like the portable GDI-IRP600. Here's the full rundown:… Read more

The 404 195: Where Jeff isn't really Jewish

Since Jeff is out today, we grab our favorite guest host Clayton Morris from Fox and Friends to help us keep the juices flowing. Wilson hops on the board and, before we have a chance to get into any of the stories in today's rundown, we plummet into Clayton's favorite topic of conversation: SUPERHEROES! We discuss potential Spiderman 4 villains, Batman hype, Iron Man eBay auctions, and before we know it, the show is over. This show is for supergeeks only!

After you listen to today's show, do yourself a favor and listen to Clayton's own … Read more

Grace Wireless Internet Radio updated, now with Pandora

When we reviewed the Grace ITC-IR1000B Wireless Internet Radio back in March, we gave it a mostly positive review, but a couple annoying quirks and a general lack of connectivity kept us from a stronger recommendation. Since that time, Grace has released a firmware update that fixed most of the software bugs we complained about, and the company added the ability to access the Pandora streaming audio service. Since these changes added a good deal of functionality to the radio--and it's still one of the most affordable Wi-Fi radios on the market--we decided to take a second look at it.… Read more

A vinyl converter for the midlife crisis

There are scads of products that convert vinyl records to digital files on the market, but most look either utilitarian or like an old dorm-room stereo. So even though its retro look may not be for everyone, Grace Digital is at least trying to make its design a little more interesting.

The "Victoria Classic" looks like a radio from yesteryear, which may appeal to those who may be entering the Digital Age for practicality but aren't quite ready to part with their past just yet. One of three new models being introduced, the Classic can burn vinyl … Read more

Sina.com's anti-CNN imagery is violent

The logo looks like something CNN would cook up at the dawn of a new military campaign, but this time the computer-generated bullet holes are in the CNN logo itself.

"Will" at Imagethief noticed this banner on a special page devoted to resisting "Western" media coverage about Tibet and China in general.

The text, according to Will's translation, which is about as good as I can do as well, reads: "Rise up! Angrily resist the demonization of the Tibet affair! / Chinese netizens roast CNN and other Western media!"

Here's a good Global Voices postRead more

Olympus skins bring back the '60s

If traditionally stuffy HP can come up with a psychedelic laptop, then certainly Olympus can do the same with its cameras. (Though that doesn't necessarily mean that's a good thing.)

Like it or hate it, Olympus is releasing a limited-edition "Mju 1020" sporting colors and patterns that could be spotted by a one-eyed beggar a mile away. Designed by Romanian artist Matei Apostolescu, 5,000 of the 10.1-megapixel cameras will be produced with skins worthy of a Jefferson Airplane album cover. Aside from the funky threads, it features a 7x optical zoom, 2.7-inch LCD, … Read more

Not all Wi-Fi radios can be a 'Chumby'

Many times when an Internet radio appears on Crave, it's from Europe or some other galaxy far, far away (unless it's the most awesome "Chumby" or "Nabaztag," of course). So we always appreciate the opportunity to note that they do exist in the States too.

Case in point: Intuit's "Grace" digital radio is a desktop receiver that promises to stream more than 10,000 Internet stations through a Wi-Fi connection without any subscriptions. It also claims to have a "low distortion, high-quality sound" with "deep bass effect" … Read more