reddit posts on CNET

Reddit spins out, sort of

Reddit, the community-curated site that's picking up the pieces that Digg dropped, today announced that it's spinning out from the company that acquired it, Conde Nast. Sort of.

Reddit is moving up a notch in the org chart. No longer will it be a part of Conde Nast, which publishes among other things, Wired, Vanity Fair, GQ, and Ars Technica. Instead, Reddit becomes an independent company under Advance Publications, which owns Conde Nast.

By becoming a bigger wheel, Reddit General Manager Erik Martin (see his blog post) says, the site will be able to "go back into … Read more

This Day in Tech: Apple has best-ever quarter; Anonymous suspects arrested

Too busy to keep up with today's tech news? Here are some of the more interesting stories from CNET (and elsewhere) for Tuesday, July 19.

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt will support key Android partner HTC in its patent fight with Apple. Speaking at a Google mobile conference in Tokyo today, Schmidt didn't specify exactly how Google plans on supporting HTC but said "we will make sure they don't lose."

Apple, for its part, isn't losing any steam on the earnings front. The company this afternoon reported a profit of $7.31 billion, or $… Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1513: The FBI is coming after Anonymous. Run and tell that. (Podcast)

The FBI rolls out a massive raid across the United States in connection with the "Anonymous" hacking investigation. Google's Eric Schmidt will defend HTC at all costs and if you can't wait for the inevitable Mac OS X Lion release, it's already out on the internet. Because that won't get you in trouble at all.

Prominent Web activist arrested over data theft

Web activist Aaron Swartz was arrested in Boston today, accused of stealing 4 million documents from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Jstor, an archive of scientific journals and academic papers, The New York Times is reporting.

It isn't clear why Swartz was allegedly after obtaining the documents, but according to a copy of the indictment, the charges against Swartz by the U.S. Attorney include wire fraud, computer fraud, obtaining information from a protected computer, and criminal forfeiture. If convicted, Swartz faces up to 35 years in prison and three years of supervised release, according to a Boston … Read more

Is Reddit the new Twitter? 'Redditor' reports live from apt. complex turned crime scene

A standoff between New Jersey police and a man who reportedly shot another man with a rifle is being reported live on the Web. But not on Twitter, from which previous real-time incidents such as the river landing of US Airways 1549 were broadcast. This event is unfolding on the community site Reddit, where a "redditor" with the username Ellinika kicked off her reporting with:

Ellinika, or Stephanie in real life, has also been e-mailing with the local paper, the Trentonian, and has been sending the paper photos from inside her apartment.

This is hardly the first time … Read more

The 404 827: Where Lady Gaga makes Amazon's cloud cry (podcast)

Amazon's cloud music servers cut out for a brief period yesterday after the world's "little monsters" flooded the site to download Lady Gaga's new album "Born This Way" for just 99 cents. Jeff and Wilson are two such fans, and we love it when Wilson gets all righteous about piracy because we get to throw it back in his face.

Today's episode of The 404 deals with Jeff's addition to Reddit, digital projectionists in Boston AMC theaters purposefully making 2D movies dimmer than usual, and the debut of everyone's favorite PB&J in a can. Yes, the Candwich.

The 404 Digest for Episode 827

Amazon's key weapon in cloud music wars: Lady Gaga. Many theaters misuse 3D lenses to show 2D films, squandering brightness, color. The Candwich finally goes on sale! Check out The 404 Podcast SubReddit!

Episode 827 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

The 404 821: Where the water's polluted with germs (podcast)

After a 26-day service outage, Sony finally kickstarted its PlayStation Network, allowing users to resume online gameplay. It turns out the original server hack was hosted on Amazon's EC2 Cloud Computing network, but the outages aren't over yet--the servers crashed again after being flooded for password resets.

In other news, the Internet organized a mean prank victimizing online daters in New York on Friday, so to make all you single dudes out there fell better, we go around the room telling our favorite pranking stories. Let us know if you have a good one!

The 404 Digest for Episode 821

Hiccups dog PlayStation Network restoration. Internet organizes cruel, but kind of funny, online dating prank.

Episode 821 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

The 404 814: Where we're saying Cinco de 'Bye'-o (podcast)

It's Caroline McCarthy's final appearance on The 404 before she makes a move to the Googleplex where she'll be a member of the company's new Trends & Insights team. That also means she'll be splitting her time between Google projects and redirecting all of Google's 404 error pages to the show blog. But before she leaves, we're thanking her for all her help with The 404, introducing us to guests like Dennis Crowley of FourSquare, Dave Karp of Tumblr, Rex Sorgatz of 4Food, and many more. She's also credited for being the first to suggest recording our chats for a CNET Podcast, so we owe it all to her! Join us on today's show to see what kind of gifts she brings, as we share our best intoxication stories in the spirit of a hilarious Reddit picture.

The 404 Digest for Episode 814

Follow Caroline on her personal blog! Reddit, what is the drunkest photo ever taken of you? Still playing Game Boy!

Episode 814 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

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