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The 404 789: Where we're desperately clinging to our last peanut (podcast)

Natali Morris is letting go of her peanuts and leaving CNET, but she'll be here until April 29, which means there are only four more Natali Thursdays left! In this edition of The 404, Google is making news with its latest social networking effort, +1; the government is developing a panic button smartphone app; and Reddit users are defending the integrity of the board against link fraud!

The 404 Digest for Episode 789

Single tires are available for sale on Amazon.com. Today is World Data Backup Day--thanks, Reddit! 4chan sends us the Anonymous Bad Guy 404 Augmented Reality app. Uncle Henry shows us The 404 playing on a white iPad 2. Hard Wok Cafe logo mock-ups by Hai Ho and Robin--thanks!

Episode 789 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Gaming sites game Reddit, get caught

A trio of gaming sites has been caught getting users to vote stories into popularity on social-news site Reddit.

The effort, which had been run by a Reddit user called "MasterOfHyrule," made use of multiple accounts to submit, vote, and comment on stories from gaming sites GamePro, G4TV, and GamrFeed. Those stories would then have a greater chance at making it to the front page of the site's gaming subcategory and possibly onto the front page of the site where even more traffic could be had.

After being called out in a post by Reddit user Deimorz … Read more

The 404 785: Where it's our so-called MemeMolly (podcast)

The 404 Digest for Episode 785

Our guest today is MemeMolly, who gives us an update on the latest memes, Internet culture, and why nobody can stand the word "viral." Add Molly on Twitter and follow her Tumblr.

Top Dog: one is tough, the other is a dog. Where are they now, featuring Star Wars Kid and Numa Numa Guy? Is Cathymay15 a troll, a genius, or another victim of online bullying? EU proposes right to be forgotten online.… Read more

Conde Nast mulling Reddit spinoff

Conde Nast, which bought Reddit five years ago, is considering spinning out the social news site.

The publisher would continue to own the site, but it's talking to investors about selling a stake. Sources tell me it is floating a $200 million valuation.

Reddit, which labored under the "Digg-clone" designation for many years, is now a much hotter version of Digg. Last summer, it was doing more than 400 million page views a month; now it's up to a billion. The free site has made some forays into advertising, but they've been very, very cautious. … Read more

Reports: Google yanks infected Android apps

Google apparently has used a kill switch to remove 21 malware-infected apps from both its Android Market and from people's Android devices.

Calling the Trojan the "mother of all Android malware," enthusiast site Android Police said yesterday the infected apps were discovered by a Reddit user. That Reddit user found that pirated versions of legitimate apps were infected by a Trojan called DroidDream, which uses a root exploit dubbed "rageagainstthecage" to compromise a device.

This piece of malware is especially virulent because it apparently cannot only capture user and product information from a device but … Read more

The 404 762: Where we're picking up the pieces (podcast)

Jeff's dad, aka Sweet Lou Bakalar, is celebrating a birthday today, but unfortunately he can't be live on the show to go through his 10-item birthday wish list with us so we'll have to settle on a 10-minute voice mail instead. Lou's back, and he's cracking down on cyclists!

We'll play his voice mail right after the break, but before that we want to talk about two Facebook apps that plan to ruin (or strengthen!) as many relationships as they can. First up is a service called Breakup Notifier that automatically sends you an e-mail when your crush breaks up with his or her significant other, giving you the opportunity to turn your lurk into love.

There's also Social Harpoon, an anonymous "hot or not"-style ranking system just for your Facebook friends. The app shows you two friends and judges rating percentages based on the elo rating system to show how likely each person is to "win" against you.… Read more

Got a question about Watson? Ask away on Reddit

You've probably heard about Watson, IBM's latest smarter-than-you supercomputer. This week it competed against champions on Jeopardy--and won.

Thankfully, Watson is not self-aware (yet), because we all know that once computers become self-aware one of the first things they do is try to wipe out humans, or even humanity itself. If my name was Sarah Connor I'd be nervous right about now.

But that lack of self-awareness doesn't mean Watson can't think for itself, or even speak for itself. In fact, right now you can (sort of) ask Watson questions online on this Reddit thread. It's part of Reddit's popular "Ask Me Anything" (AMA) feature, and while users are encouraged to ask anything, there's no guarantee you'll get a response.

Well, it's not actually Watson that's doing the answering, but the research team that created it, and that's because they don't yet know how to have him do it. That man-machine divide, by the way, is what we'll be addressing on tomorrow's Reporters' Roundtable podcast at noon PT. The topic will be "robobrain vs. humanity."

Still, it's still great that the scienticians who put together such an impressive machine are opening their minds to the public.… Read more

The 404 754: Where we're laughing our butts off (podcast)

Valentine's Day is around the corner, so we're sure a lot of you are scrambling to schedule dates so you won't be alone with your toy pet Lulu on February 14. The problem is that first dates are almost always awkward, especially if you met on a dating Web site.

To help, OkCupid analyzed user survey data to glean the best questions to ask on a first date that actually correlate to sexier issues you won't get to until the fifth or sixth outing.

According to the site, if you want to get a clue into whether the first date will end in the bedroom, you should ask if your date likes the taste of beer! Or if you want to determine the long-term potential of your future relationship, you inquire about the person's taste in horror movies. And lastly, if you're curious about your partner's political affiliation, the best question to ask is his or her preference for simplicity or complexity.

The Catholic Church just approved an iPhone app that invites followers to run down a sinful check list prior to ease the process of confession.

The Church hopes that wayward souls will be inspired by the app to seek out the church for redemption for the bargain price of $1.99. To our Catholic listeners: don't worry, our resident skeptic Jeff Mubakalar deliberately says very little in this segment.

Finally, we wait until the second half to unleash Jeff on John Brandon, a Fox News reporter who penned an article titled "Is Bulletstorm the worst video game in the world?"

That's unquestionably, absolutely, and without a doubt the most bombastic link bait headline IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD, and Brandon starts off the conversation with a quote from a psychologist that claims "the increase in rapes can be attributed in large part to the playing out of (sexual) scenes in video games." Let the twilight's last reaming begin.

The author also stumbles on the issue of ESRB warnings on the back of games not containing the full reason for the rating; instead, parents only see a truncated version of the objectionable content and are encouraged to go online to get the full justification.

I'll let the hosts speak for themselves, because I know it won't be the last time we get into a fiery debate about who is responsible for video games and the adverse effects they may or may not have on kids. Tune in for the full discussion!

Episode 754 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Reddit surges to 1 billion monthly page views

Reddit has joined an exclusive club on the Internet.

The Conde Nast-owned social news site announced yesterday that, for the first time, its monthly traffic exceeded 1 billion page views in January, according to statistics from Google Analytics that Reddit offered in a blog post. It is now among the 100 sites on the Web with that much traffic, according to Reddit.

"This is an accomplishment that all redditors should take pride in, because people wouldn't keep arriving in droves--and coming back--if not for the community that you've created here," Reddit spokesman Mike Schiraldi said yesterday … Read more