The vertiginous closing scenes as the ship rises out of the sea will be worth seeing in 3D, as will Kate Winslet’s cleavage and Billy Zane’s scenery-chewing, but it’s hardly worth sitting through the whole three hours yet again.

Mario and Sonic, together! Halo Warthog Mario Kart! Modern Warfare Duck Hunt! Imagined video game mashups don’t get much better than this. And I would serious pay money to play a good chunk of these. More »

Remember when a gigabyte seemed gargantuan? The Telegraph
UK reports that the total amount of digital information we humans have created will surpass the measure of the petabyte this year and take us into the era of the zettabyte, which is equivalent to 1 million petabytes, or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes.

Zettabyte is a new term created to accomodate the exponential increase of data creation, inspired by social networking, image, and video files, and the wealth of new kinds of devices on which bytes can be stored. The Telegraph reports that IDC, which released the new figures, had first estimated the world’s digital output in 2007 to be at 161,000 petabytes; in the next ten years it expects the digital universe to expand by a factor of 44.

Greg Sandoval, senior writer for CNET News, has been covering the story of the iPhone 4G prototype.

(Credit:
Greg Sandoval)

We’re all wondering what’s going on with the story of the Apple iPhone 4G prototype found in a Redwood City, Calif., bar and its subsequent sale to Gizmodo. CNET News Senior Writer Greg Sandoval drops by the studio to fill us in on all the latest developments, including who exactly found the phone, how it eventually got into the hands of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen, and why it’s never a good idea to purchase anything you know for a fact is stolen! Unfortunately, “finders keepers, losers weepers” only holds water on the playground.

Wired published an article last week outing Brian J. Hogan as the person who found and sold the iPhone prototype to Gizmodo, but CNET also learned that he had help finding a buyer for the device from Sage Wallower, a UC Berkeley student who attended Santa Barbara City College with Hogan.

The investigation is still ongoing (San Mateo County police still have Chen’s computers), but Greg tells us felony criminal charges are still a very serious possibility since a California law specifically states that “any person who knowingly receives property that has been obtained illegally can be imprisoned for up to one year.”

We also have a collection of silly stories to even out the show in the second half, including a very discomforting story about an unlikely pairing between a 59-year-old Chinese man and a 20-inch long eel. We can’t go into much detail, but there’s a very important lesson to take away from it all, and that is to never, ever pass out in front of your friends.

Finally, Roger Ebert has written an open letter to the public decrying the concept of 3D movies as a way of life. His points are direct and address many of the issues we’ve already discussed with David Katzmaier, senior editor of TVs and home theater for CNET.

(Credit:
Gizmodo)

Ebert claims that the 3D element, even in popular movies like “Avatar,” add nothing essential to the moviegoing experience. It also doesn’t help that these movies often cause nausea and headaches for people who just want to be entertained for two hours, not to mention the inflated surcharges that theaters tack onto already expensive tickets. Listen in to hear our take on the future of 3D movies and home theater.

Big thanks to Greg for taking time out of his schedule to join us on today’s show. If you have a question for us or simply want to comment on the show, give us a call at 1-866-404-CNET or e-mail the404(at)cnet(dot)com. Thanks for listening!

EPISODE 573

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Originally posted at The 404 Podcast

We’d heard a somewhat sketchy report from the New York Post yesterday that the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission were considering launching an antitrust inquiry into Apple and its various iPhone-related practices, and now it’s being confirmed by Reuters and the Wall Street Journal, who say the inquiry was triggered by complaints from Apple’s competitors and app developers — specifically Adobe, according to Bloomberg. The DOJ and FTC are currently deciding which agency will take the lead in any inquiry, but if and when it gets underway there are a few issues at play: the first is obviously Apple’s decision to block Flash and other middleware from app development, and the second is Apple’s new iAd platform, which comes with its own changes to the iPhone developer agreement that could potentially lock out third-party ad and analytics services like AdMob — itself under regulatory scrutiny due to the Google acquisition — and Flurry.

We’d also imagine regulators will take a close look at Apple’s App Store policies in general, but from a distance looks like the focus is on mobile advertising: both Apple and Google have made aggressive moves into the space in recent months, and both have come under regulatory scrutiny. We’ll just have to wait and see how this one plays out — there’s still no official word from either agency on what’s happening, and the timeline of any potential investigation and lawsuit will be measured in months and years.

Apple under preliminary antitrust investigation over iPhone, triggered by complaint from Adobe originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 May 2010 11:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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