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Fishing is supposed to be relaxing. Kick up your feet, have a cold domestic brew, and wait for the little swimmers to nibble on the bait. This calm experience is sometimes rudely interrupted by the flurries of energy required to reel in a fish.

If you have a Power Fish'n Pro Hybrid Reel from Rock Island Equipment Company, you won't even have to set down your beer to catch a bass. It's the ultimate fishing relaxation-enhancement gadget.

The Power Fish'n Pro uses a standard Shakespeare spinning reel with a motor that activates at the push of a switch. The motor is quiet enough not to scare away your prey. You can still set it to manual mode if you want the full thrill of the hunt. It runs on four AA batteries.

This isn't a case of another gadget for lazy Americans. It's aimed at people with disabilities and senior fishers that could use a little extra assistance. … Read more

The Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 not only showed up at the Amelia Island Concours D'Elegance in Jacksonville, Fla., but Mercedes-Benz Assistant Product Manager William Vetter took a few minutes to host a video walk-around of the race car.

The video shows the race car's features, from the lowered, lightweight carbon fiber body to the features on the steering wheel, from the gear-shift paddles to the button you can push to take a sip of whatever beverage you've got squirreled away.

There are other cool features such as a center console button that literally blows the doors off … Read more

Our guest on today's episode of The 404 Podcast is Russ Frushtick, the games and tech editor for MTV Multiplayer, but the ESRB has assigned him an AO rating for Adults Only, so he won't be visiting Australia anytime soon. Similarly, Australia also refuses to welcome the latest Mortal Kombat game due to excessive violence.

The real story, however, is Australia's outdated rules for video game classification that currently only accommodate a maximum MA15+ rating, so video games that surpass these limitations are automatically banned in the country.

Since Australian adults still have access to mature media in its other myriad forms, it doesn't make sense that local gamers can't also enjoy video games with similarly "explicit" content.

And speaking of risque video games, a U.K.-only Nintendo Wii title is promising "flirty fun for all" with its latest adult-friendly release, called We Dare. The trailer for We Dare illustrates gameplay in the form of four consenting adults using the Wii remote to control virtual versions of party games like Spin The Bottle, Kiss Under the Mistletoe, and the ever-popular Take Off Your Clothes.

The We Dare trailer is a perfect example of vendors using viral marketing to hype up the release of video games that may not be as fun as the videos suggest.

The Dead Island trailer is making similar waves for two reasons: because of its graphic nature that makes sensitive babies like Wilson and me squirm, but also because it doesn't show footage of actual gameplay in Dead Island.

Game previews often show cut scenes or, worse, videos exclusively created for the trailers, which leaves plenty of gamers feeling cheated when the gameplay doesn't even come close… Read more

A 1965 Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullman landaulet built specially for Pope Paul VI will make its first U.S. appearance at the the 16th annual Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance held March 11-13, 2011.

The pontiff not only rode in comfort, but also stayed protected in the modded 600. The vehicle featured an individual seat that could be raised and lowered during processions through crowded streets. The car also featured an elevated roof, extended rear doors, and raised floor were also fitted along with other special equipment such as bulletproof glass.

The 600 was likely chosen to be modified for the … Read more

Every year the citizens of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania gather around a small hut in Gobbler's Knob (pause) to witness a 100-year old marmot predict the future, and this year it looks like Spring is on its way. Old Phil may be losing his eyesight, because we also happen to be in the middle of the largest storm in the last few decades, according to a less-credible operation called NASA.

Maybe we should shift our focus to a closer weather-predicting rodent at the Staten Island Zoo, Mr. Charles G. Hogg aka Staten Island Chuck, who has accurately predicted winter weather 23 out of the last 30 years.

Still don't trust him? What if we told you that Staten Island Chuck has a Facebook page AND lives in a wireless log cabin adorned with solar-powered weather station panels that allows him to make daily weather predictions using renewable energy from the sun? It's not a joke, this guy is legit.

We can make fun of Groundhog's Day for the next 364 days, but let's move onto our next story about an unfortunate photographer in Zurich who lost over 4,000 puppy photos thanks to a Flickr fumble that accidentally mixed up his account with another scheduled for deletion.

To make up for it, the Yahoo-owned photo uploading service generously offered four years of a Pro account for free, worth about a hundred bucks- sounds fair. Think about this story the next time you can't find the time to back up your data to a physical storage drive.

We also suggest backing up your back ups to a disaster-proof drive, but the truly paranoid should also load their precious data on hidden thumb drives around the office for extra security.

Finally, the big tech story of the day is News Corp. and Apple's latest publication generated specifically for the iPad called The Daily. It's a modern news brand that Apple and News Corp. call the first "all media product" and includes highly interactive and curated text articles, photos, and videos, not to mention text-to-speech audio clips of selected stories.

Unlike most of the news sites on the web , however, The Daily won't be available for free. The publication introduces a new pricing model that costs $0.99 a week or $39.99 for the year. The subscription also includes access to the Web version and users can share articles for free on Facebook and Twitter.

The 404 is truly the Paris Hilton of the Web, so we happen to know the Technology Editor at The Daily. We're hoping Peter Ha can join us on Friday's show to tell us more about the publication, so check our Twitter for the latest updates!

Almost a third (31 percent) of all mobile phone users in the United States own smartphones, but their adoption is higher among specific minority groups, says a report out today from Nielsen.

Based on a survey conducted in December, Nielsen found that 27 percent of white mobile phone users in the U.S. currently own smartphones. But that rate was lower than the 45 percent of Hispanics, 45 percent of Asians/Pacific Islanders, and 33 percent of African-American mobile users polled who said they have a smartphone.

The adoption rates for smartphone ownership are also rising, especially among minority groups. … Read more

I have a thing about busybodies. They never seem all that busy to me. Unless stooping to snoop into other people's lives can be called busy work.

Now I am not entirely sure that the town criers of Riverhead, Long Island, New York, can be classified as busybodies, but I still feel a little shiver at their reported behavior.

You see, according to MyFox New York, the town's official representatives are most fascinated with whether the wily and sometimes dubious residents of Long Island have installed swimming pools in their backyards without necessarily securing all the appropriate permits. … Read more

If you like adventure games, monkeys, hideous puns, and pirates, today be your lucky day, mateys. GamersGate has Tales of Monkey Island - Complete Season for $13.98. Regular price: $34.95.

The vague "Complete Season" means you get all five chapters, which were originally released in serial fashion (at a cost of $8.95 apiece). And you get them as a download, not in a box.

If the name Monkey Island doesn't ring a bell, you were probably born sometime after 1980, in which case I hate you. These were "graphic adventures" at their … Read more

Aquamarine Power on Wednesday unveiled the next generation in its development of wave energy machines.

The Oyster 2 is a wave-harnessing machine enabling the conversion of hydraulic power to electricity. The new 800-kilowatt model, to be built in Scotland, will be capable of producing 250 percent more power compared to the older Oyster model. The Oyster 2 also has fewer moving parts, and is modular so that parts can be swapped out for maintenance as needed.

As with the earlier Oyster, the Oyster 2 is not the type of wave-harnessing machine that uses underwater turbines or buoys to directly generate … Read more