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What if every time a Facebook friend liked one of your Facebook posts, that friend appeared out of nowhere, wrapped her arms around you, and gave you a big hug of appreciation? That would be pretty sweet.

Since that's not likely to happen in reality, you'll have to settle for the Like-A-Hug vest from Melissa Chow, Andy Payne, and Phil Seaton at the MIT Media Lab.

When a friend likes your photo, video, or status update, the vest inflates. Send a hug back to your buddy by squeezing and deflating the vest.… Read more

With the Photokina show in Germany producing so many new high-end cameras, it's evidently been a busy season for Adobe Systems' Lightroom team.

That team just released Lightroom 4.2, which supports 22 new cameras, 43 new lenses, and lets people shoot with 11 new cameras tethered to a computer. It takes work to figure out how to decode each camera's proprietary raw format.

Here's the full list of new cameras supported, but note that the Nikon D600 support is "preliminary and there is a minor risk that the appearance of your images may change when … Read more

One guy has definitely found the ultimate gig -- shooting at inanimate objects with high-powered weaponry and monetizing the results through videos on YouTube.

That gentleman, known online as RatedRR (Richard Ryan), shoots up a Marudai bulletproof iPhone case with a high-powered sniper rifle for our enjoyment. The very thick iPhone case came out last April with tank-like aesthetics and the claim of being able to withstand a .50 caliber bullet. Aside from a boisterous weight of 4.6 pounds, the Japanese iPhone case costs 52,000 yen ($665). … Read more

Back before the iPhone 5 was a known quantity, back before we even knew it was definitely going to have a larger screen, the iPhone was already a great gaming handheld. Millions of people know that. Gamers may hate to admit it, because the iPhone lacks physical buttons. It doesn't matter.

What the iPhone did to mobile gaming has reverberated across the industry, forcing the Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita into catch-up mode, battling for second and third place. Free-to-play and the very concept of redownloadable gaming apps -- not to mention the rebirth of indie development -- can all be traced to Apple's App Store and this little handheld device. … Read more

The silicon powering the new iPhone 5 appears to be more powerful than previously thought.

The A6 processor found in Apple's next-generation smartphone has been clocked at 1.3GHz by a new version of iOS benchmarking software Geekbench, faster than the 1.02 GHz previously reported .

The new version of Geekbench, which landed today at the App Store, "features a dramatically improved processor frequency detection algorithm, which consistently reports the A6's frequency as 1.3GHz," Primate Labs John Poole told Engadget.

Earlier results posted by Geekbench suggested the A6 was roughly twice as fast as any chip … Read more

Shows from the A&E cable channel, such as "Ice Road Truckers," "Hoarders" and "Storage Wars" will no longer appear on Netflix's streaming video service.

A licensing agreement for about 40 A&E shows expired last week and the shows were removed from the site, Variety reported. At the same time that Netflix is doubling down on scripted television serials, the Web's top video-subscription service seems to be pulling back on unscripted reality shows.

Earlier this month Netflix announced it had penned a licensing deal with ABC for three TV … Read more

It's the logical next step in iPhone development: a much, much, much longer screen. It's 18 percent thinner and 795 percent taller than the previous iPhone. A parody video has popped up on YouTube to tout the phone's ability to reduce "scrolling fatigue" and offer full-body FaceTime.

The video, called "A Taller Change Than Expected" comes from YouTube comedy troupe Satire, makers of the "We're NASA and We Know It" video. NASA Mohawk Guy, complete with stars in his hair, makes a cameo appearance rocking his extra-long iPhone 5 as a guitar.… Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Check out Scott Stein's comprehensive review of the Apple iPhone 5.

- Scott writes about the 5 things that surprised him about the iPhone 5.

- Apple delivers iOS 6, available for download now.

- First Look video of Apple's new Maps application.

- How to control your privacy settings on iOS 6.

- Apple Lightning Adapter adds life to your old gear.

- Sony unveils super slim PlayStation 3.

- … Read more

Nothing gets older faster than high-tech, but the Harbeth P3ESR sounds so good you may never want to replace it with another speaker. That's no hype; I know audiophiles still using similar speakers originally manufactured in the 1970s.

That's when American audiophiles first fell in love with small British monitor speakers engineered and designed by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and manufactured by a number of companies, including KEF, Goodmans, Rogers, Spendor, and Harbeth. Though the speakers were all built around the same design, known as the LS3/5A, not all LS3/5As sounded exactly the same. Back … Read more