spike

OK, I know this next comment is going totally show my age, but when I was a child, I wanted to slip through the window of the General Lee and make the big jump like they did during the opening of that '70s TV show "The Dukes of Hazzard." As we all know, the 01 car was (at least at first) a 1969 Dodge Charger, a well known and revered classic American muscle car. But to paraphrase car restoration expert Travis Bowe: Dodge made cars, not airplanes. The first General Lee used on "Dukes" didn't … Read more

We couldn't record today's Podcast without spending a little time on Gizmodo's big unveiling of Microsoft's secret tablet PC. The blog is reporting that even though our first inclination is to call it a tablet, it's really more of a booklet, with two 7-inch(ish) screens with multitouch, a 3MP camera on the back, and a fancy stylus for clicking, writing, dragging, and drawing. In typical 404 fashion, we have to poke fun at the fact that while a long plastic pen is very innovative, we wish it had fully functioning voice recognition, but as we've seen from the Google iPhone app, that technology will likely never be perfected. In the meantime, it looks like the Microsoft booklet will materialize before the fabled Apple tablet.

Speaking of Apple, Wilson and I are very psyched for Google to finally release push e-mail support on Google Sync for the iPhone. This means there will always be a connection to Google's servers to keep your mailbox up to date. There's no additional application necessary, just head to m.google.com/sync from your computer and follow these instructions.

If you're a long-time 404 listener, you'll remember a few months back when my iPhone camera stopped working and the Apple Genius at the store told me that my phone had somehow been submerged in water, judging by the indication on the external water sensor. Well as it turns out, that liquid sensor is a filthy liar. There are actually two liquid sensors on the phone, an internal and an external, which more often than not, tell contradicting stories. If a Genius sees the external one is triggered, the official Apple protocol tells them to report that the warranty is now void and Apple is no longer responsible for fixing the damaged phone. More importantly, the protocol says not to open iPhones and check the internal sensor. If you've had a similar experience, we want to hear about it, but you should also head back to the Apple store and ask them to open up the phone and double-check it. Who knows, you might leave with a brand-new iPhone.

During the summer I dedicated my blog to the infamous Baja 1000 race inspired by an episode of "Jesse James is a Dead Man" that aired around that time on Spike TV. The Baja off road races are sponsored by a race organization known as SCORE International, a promotion that sponsors several annual off road race competitions for trophy trucks, and one of their signature events begins today and lasts through the end of this weekend in Las Vegas. This event is called the Terrible's Primm 300.

The SCORE Terrible's Primm 300 is an off road … Read more

The other day I saw a cell phone commercial featuring Whoopi Goldberg, Phil Jackson and Jesse James. The sight of Jesse made me think of an episode of his fun little show on Spike TV, "Jesse James is a Dead Man", where he was the co-pilot for a sidecar race where it was as much his responsibility for guiding the vehicle as it was for the guy officially steering the damn thing. (Trust me, these are not the same sidecars you saw in reruns of "Batman" from the 60s - these cars are high tech and … Read more

As you probably know by now, I'm a sucker for videos full of fast cars. And as you may have noted a couple of weeks ago, I'm also a fan of the show "Jesse James is a Dead Man" on Spike TV. In a recent episode, Jesse takes his custom-modified muscle car on a chase through the desert, with the object being to see if the police can actually catch him. Apparently, real police officers from Orange County were used in performing this stunt, and sure enough, the police finally catch Jesse when his tires give … Read more

PROMONTORY SUMMIT, Utah--On May 10, 1869, the extraordinary happened here.

After crews from the Central Pacific Railroad had started in Sacramento, Calif., and laid 690 miles of track to the east, and teams from the Union Pacific Railroad had put down 1,086 miles of track to the west of Omaha, Neb., they met on that spring day at this spot just north of the Great Salt Lake.

They completed the Transcontinental Railroad.

For the first time, trains could traverse most of the United States. The huge event was celebrated on that day when the Central Pacific's Jupiter and … Read more

SpikeSource on Friday is introducing a version of its automated support and testing service tuned for the needs of IT industry platform providers.

The company also announced that Intel, a customer, has invested an additional $10 million into SpikeSource. Existing investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Fidelity Venture Partners, CMEA Ventures, and DAG Venture reinvested for an undisclosed sum.

The company's software, called the Solution Factory, automates the process of patching software for security problems and resolves conflicts among different components of a software "stack."

The twist with this product, which is hosted, is that SpikeSource will … Read more

If there's one thing you can be sure of about Jon "Neverdie" Jacobs, it's that he's always up to something crazy.

A couple of years ago, he became the first person to ever pay $100,000 for a virtual asset--a space station in Entropia Universe that he insists is profitable. More recently, he bought one of the valuable banking licenses in that virtual world, paying tens of thousands of dollars more for it.

Now, Jacobs' newest effort is a reality show that will focus on the finalists of the Massive Multiplayer Online World Championships. This, … Read more