east

As we all know by now, over the past week (or so) the East Coast has recently suffered one of the worst winter storms ever. In fact, some have referred to this blizzard as "Snowmageddon" due to the turbulent, unforgiving nature of this regional weather system. Despite the hazardous conditions, many antsy, adventurous drivers have documented their attempts to brave the elements and drive around in these icy and snowy conditions with the end result being a video on YouTube. Because of their valiant efforts, parts of the world that are not having to endure this commuting nightmare … Read more

LONDON--The head of the U.N.'s panel of climate experts rejected accusations of bias on Thursday, saying a "Climategate" row in no way undermined evidence that humans are to blame for global warming.

Climate change skeptics have seized on a series of e-mails written by specialists in the field, accusing them of colluding to suppress data which might have undermined their arguments.

The e-mails, some written as long as 13 years ago, were stolen from a British university by unknown hackers and spread rapidly across the Internet.

But Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate … Read more

Surprises can be fun, but not when it comes to bills. Electronic Housekeeper, a CES newbie, has made it possible for homeowners to monitor their water, gas, and electricity. Knowing which devices are draining the most energy and who's taking the long showers might be the first step toward lower energy bills.

After selling its products in Europe and the Middle East, Denmark-based Electronic Housekeeper will bring its innovations to North America. The company has created a wall-mountable console that communicates wirelessly with electronics, appliances, heating, air conditioning, as well as water and electricity meters.

Monitoring household appliances and … Read more

With online education growing more popular, a recent survey has ranked the most affordable online business colleges.

Coming in No. 1 as most affordable was East Carolina University in North Carolina, according to the survey released Wednesday by GetEducated.com. Residents of the state can pay $11,880 for an online bachelor's degree in business, though out-of-state students pay a less modest $54,480 for the same degree.

The University of Wyoming came in second with its bachelor's in business administration program costing $16,080 for all online students, in or out of state.

GetEducated.com graded online … Read more

The weekend of my birthday, I read some unfortunate news online about the death of Chad McDaniel, a USAC midget car driver who died of neck and head injuries sustained during a race at Knoxvile Raceway in Iowa. McDaniel was just 34 years old, and was having one of the most successful years of his career. Also, McDaniel was liked and loved by his fellow competitors and of course his family. I thought of maybe doing a video blog tribute to McDaniel, but I feared that some people might view this as exploitative and in general bad taste. So instead, … Read more

Acer plans to unveil its first home server for the U.S. market on Thursday, called the Acer Aspire easyStore Home Server.

The server is intended for home use as well as small businesses that have a need for networking multiple PCs. The easyStore will run Microsoft Windows Home Server. It enables users to access files, including photos, videos, and documents on any other computer connected to the network, and creates an image-based backup of each PC daily.

The home sever is an 8x7x7 inch shiny black box, powered by Intel's Atom processor 230 and 2GB of DDR2 memory. There is a 1TB hard drive as well as three bays for swappable hard drives. Together, the easyStore can hold up to 7TB of data. There are also five USB ports, one eSATA port, and a Gigabit Ethernet port. The total price is $399.

Acer follows HP into the consumer home server market. Palo Alto, Calif.-based HP recently refreshed its MediaSmart server, and Acer's server has very similar specifications, including running Windows Home Server. … Read more

We had very mixed feelings after we put East-Tec Eraser 2009 to the test. While it provided us with stellar removal of unwanted files and browsing traces, it failed to provide us with its findings before it erased them, and a glitch caused the program to freeze up on several occasions.

The user interface is pretty self-explanatory. The sleek command buttons on the left side of the interface let you choose the cleaning options you'd like to employ. But from the get-go, the program would freeze up on us and become unresponsive at various times. Eventually, it would return … Read more

Watch what you say. Scientists in England have developed a computer that can not only read lips, but can tell the difference between languages.

Researchers at the University of East Anglia's School of Computing Sciences developed the technology by statistically modeling the lip motions of 23 bilingual and trilingual speakers. The resulting system is able to identify the language spoken by an individual with "very high accuracy," according to the university. Identifiable languages included English, French, German, Arabic, Mandarin, Cantonese, Italian, Polish, and Russian.

What gives you away? The movement of your articulators--when you wag your tongue, … Read more

This weekend, Justin Yu made an appearance on Tom Merritt's and Roger Chang's podcast, East Meets West. Ostensibly, it sounds like a podcast about technology and Asian and Western cultures, right? Nope. Turns out it's half an hour where Tom and Roger ream Justin and The 404 for our use of "curse words."

Also in the news this weekend, "Adventureland" came out. Contrary to its marketing campaign, it's not a film in the vein of "Superbad," but is actually kind of deep. As for way less deep films, "Fast and Furious" topped the charts with a cool 72.5 million bones. Michael McCarthy, ace reporter Caroline McCarthy's little brother, joins the show today to lend us his opinion on movies and provide a laugh track.

Twitter, for all the problems that it's caused in the world, may have actually saved the life of a suicidal woman. Apparently, if you @reply Demi Moore, you can get saved. There's some more bummer technology stories in there, too.

In happier news, Rick Moranis might make an appearance in "Ghostbusters III." We just hope that Seth Rogan, Michael Cera, Paul Rudd, and Jonah Hill aren't the new Ghostbusters. Also, Queen Elizabeth II gets an iPod from Barack Obama filled with show tunes. And finally, Domino's gives away 11,000 pizzas, accidentally.

Listen to this episode of East Meets West and let us know what you think. We're available via voice mail at 1-866-404-CNET (2638) or via e-mail at the404 [at] cnet [dot] com. Does bad language really bother you? Does it make us juvenile? Or are we just getting lectured by padre?