All posts from Crave: The gadget blog

If you haven't heard the news from yesterday's Apple music conference, here's a quick recap: All but the iPod Classic feature new designs; the iPod shuffle gets its buttons back, the 6th generation iPod nano loses the iconic click wheel but now has a touch screen, and the new iPod Touch receives a super sharp display, a front-facing camera for making video calls, and HD video recording, and a ton of new internal features.

Apple days at the CNET office can be physical and mentally draining, so it's the perfect time to welcome professional Paul Ramsay back into the studio! The three of us are obviously ingrained in tech, but we're learning from Wilson's e-mail addiction that it's necessary to take a healthy break from the computer, work, Facebook, iPhone, or whatever gadget is commanding your life. Paul also practices hypnotherapy and offers us the following tips to save your sanity:Breathing is the most important thing to help alleviate stress in your life, so next time you're feeling overwhelmed, do the five-five-five: breathe in for five seconds, hold it for five, and breathe out for five. Adopting this short but meaningful breathing exercise can help as a mini-vacation from the demands of the work-day.Once you leave the office and finally arrive home, create a ritual that you can put into practice right away to help you unwind. This could be a bath, a project around the house you've been putting off, or making progress in a light book. Performing this daily ritual adjusts the barriers of your day, aids in battling insomnia, and lets you fall asleep easier at night.

In the second half of the show, Paul actually puts Wilson under and guides him through a meditation process that leaves him visibly relaxed- so much that even the thought of checking mobile e-mail makes him throw his iPhone on the ground!

Obviously Wilson needs to continue the process at home, so Paul hooks him up with a helpful self-hypnosis CD that you can check out on Paul's Web store- there's also plenty of other products to help you quit smoking, stop nailbiting, lose weight, and more!

Episode 658
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... Originally posted at The 404 Podcast

Epson debuts its NX625 all-in-one printer today just in time for the back to school shopping season. The multifunction printer, scanner, and copier features built-in 802.11n wireless connectivity, mobile printing by way of Epson's iPrint app, a 2.5-inch color LCD screen, and a memory card reader so ...

Unfortunately Jeff can't make it to the show today, but our good friend Kenley jumps into the hotseat to fill Wilson's shoes while he pulls out his beautiful hair trying to play sound engineer for the day. Meanwhile, we're making last minute predictions on what the Apple Music event will bring, so head over to CNET's live blog for more details and in-depth post show coverage.

The average e-mail user gets hundreds of message everyday, and while spam filters get rid of most of the junk, we're still blasted with e-mails from work, mailing lists, Facebook, and more low-priority comments. Gmail recently rolled out a new solution to organize your messages called Priority Inbox.

The Gmail feature automatically sorts your incoming e-mail into three sections: "important and unread," "starred," and "everything else," and the idea is to target messages that aren't outright spam but still aren't important...Google cleverly calls this "bologne," or BACN. The service also improves accuracy as you use it and will sort sort between senders you reply to and others that you just skip over, hopefully helping you sift through the piles of mail you get a day.

We've seen plenty of strange Nintendo Wiimote accessories in the past, but the a new detachable controller from a company called Mojowijo is by far the most NSFW. The device attaches to the Wii's accessory port and uses Bluetooth to run wireless software that basically turns it into a partner-controlled "marital aid." Its patent-pending "Motion2Vibration" technology transforms one user's motions into vibrations signals that get sent to another selected device, even if they're in another part of the country. Get it?

Thanks again to everyone that entered our JetBlue All You Can Jet contest! We've selected two winners for the 7-day and 5-day passes and will announce their names on tomorrow's show where we'll welcome hypnotist Paul Ramsay back into the studio! On his last appearance he hypnotized me into forgetting my name, so who knows what'll happen tomorrow- tune in at 11:30 ET to find out!

Episode 657
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... Originally posted at The 404 Podcast

(Credit:

My Cancun TV)

It's not too late to enter the JetBlue All You Can Jet Giveaway! You only have until 12 p.m. PDT/3 p.m. EDT to tweet out this message:

Follow @the404 and RT this for a chance to win 1 of 2 #AllYouCanJet @JetBlue passes. Rules: http://bit.ly/dodRKs #AYCJ

Don't forget that you have to be at least 18 years old and a resident of the United States to enter. We'll tweet a congratulatory message at 3 p.m. EDT today to announce the winners- good luck!

Apple's yearly iPod and iTunes event goes down tomorrow and we've got plenty of predictions (and dreams) for what Apple will show off. We'll likely see a "Retina display" and a forward-facing camera come to the iPod Touch devices, but Wilson's hoping for a revamped Apple TV that could bring iOS 4, an A4 chip, 1080p playback, 16GB of storage, and a $99 "impulse" price tag.

Check out our Crave poll, submit your own predictions, and don't forget to check back with us tomorrow for official news!

This summer, a hot springs resort in Atami, Japan, became a vacation destination for men who just can't stand being single. For almost two months, the resort offered players of the dating sim Love Plus Plus a physical location to bring their virtual girlfriends.

Once there, the players visited romantic locations and took pictures next to black-and-white markers on the ground that acted as triggers for the corresponding augmented-reality smartphone app. In real life, it looks like the men posed by themselves, but the app inserted a picture of their virtual girlfriends to simulate companionship. As the only single dude on the show, it's apparently my job to investigate this matter in greater detail, so see you in Japan!

What's with everyone just throwing away animals? First there was the security camera clip of a British woman trashing a cat, and now LiveLinks just posted a video of a young girl chucking puppy after adorable puppy into a river! Luckily, we can rely on the vigilante justice of 4Chan's /b/ thread to come to the rescue in both cases.

The infamous message board is on the hunt to reveal the identity of said puppy-chucker, and they've already narrowed down the location of the river to a city in Croatia- they even found two potential Facebook profiles that match her description, although it could be anyone- she's around 5'7", blonde, and Caucasian...nevertheless, we're confident that they'll bring the culprit to justice- just don't hurt us!

Again, there's only one hour left to add us on Twitter (add Jeff, Wilson, and Justin while you're at it) and tweet out the bolded message up there for your chance to win 1 of 2 All You Can Jet prizes, courtesy of JetBlue! Good luck to everyone entering, we can't wait to see where you go!

Episode 656
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... Originally posted at The 404 Podcast

Mark Licea fills in for Jeff today who's on vacation in Montreal re-enacting The Hangover, so get ready for a hate-free show. On today's episode of The 404, we're chatting about the new Netflix app for the Apple iPhone, Sumo wrestlers using iPads, character amnesia hitting China, ... Originally posted at The 404 Podcast

Cee-lo Green
(Credit:

Ace Showbiz)

You know you have a hit single when Jeff gets off his antiboogie butt and dances to it; such is the case with Cee-lo Green's latest single from an upcoming album titled "The LadyKiller."

The song title described by the Washington Post as a "... Originally posted at The 404 Podcast

Who?

I've never been afraid to write a blog post for The 404 Podcast before, but I'm expecting a world of pain after this morning's broadcast. Full disclosure: most of the first half is Jeff and Wilson getting mad at me for a long list of classic ... Originally posted at The 404 Podcast

This week, a heated argument breaks out over the cable TV regulatory landscape (we're sure you were just think about that as well).

Plus, check out footage of a new laser weapon ready for use on LA County jails, and groove to some live music on the YouRock MIDI guitar.

More importantly, this may sound a lot like the classic "dog ate my homework" excuse, but it appears that the gremlins in our broadcast facility actually did eat the video version of this week's show (which aired live on Monday at 3PM ET).

While we attempt to recover the video file, this episode is only available as audio at the moment (see the "Listen Now" player at the bottom of the page). If you need some visual stimulation while listening, feel free to flip through this slideshow of Scott and Dan modeling back-to-school backpacks.

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Originally posted at Digital City Podcast