bush

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Hacker exposes George Bush's family photos, portraits.

Wait, so PS4 won't have better graphics?

- J.J. Abrams may direct a Portal and/or Half-Life movie!

- Snow panic has driven Weather.com completely insane.

- Patent troll says he owns "podcasting," sues Adam Corolla, HowStuffWorks.… Read more

One of the wonderful benefits HBO subscribers get these days is HBO Go, an online -- or mobile -- service that lets them access almost all of the network's archive.

But today, clearly embarrassed by the firestorm caused by an episode of its hit series "Game of Thrones" featuring former President George W. Bush's decapitated head on a spike, HBO has yanked the episode from both HBO Go and iTunes.

The controversy first arose earlier this week when the Web site io9 posted a story about its discovery of the Bush head in episode 10 of … Read more

It was inevitable.

Text-to-speech company iSpeech has released a pair of smartphone apps that tap the actual voices of President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush to allow you to convert any text into audio that's a dead ringer for the president or former president.

This could take phone pranks to an entirely new level.

The free iSpeech Obama and iSpeech Bush apps were released last week, and are designed to show off what the company's text-to-speech technology can do. The apps are available for iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry. iSpeech also sells its technology to other companies.

That anyone can make the former president's voice say anything, while satisfying in a certain sense, is a little unnerving. That anyone can do the same for the sitting president is downright scary.

Want to know what your graduation speech would sound like if the president spoke it? Now you can, and worse. Check out the video below to hear for yourself.… Read more

Aunt Jill aka @JillonMoney from CBS's MoneyWatch.com is on the show today to explain the upcoming US debt ceiling deadline. With the zero-hour approaching next Tuesday, August 2, Jill eases our fears that the economy will collapse and offers helpful tips on what exactly to expect, and how to prepare for economic fallout.

If you want to ask President George W. Bush a question, you'll have your chance.

Starting at 2 p.m. PT today, the former U.S. leader will be talking about his new book, "Decision Points," and fielding questions from Facebook users.

The event is shaping up to be a big one. Facebook's announcement yesterday of the event has been "liked" by over 7,000 people. The post also has over 2,600 comments, as of this writing. A similar announcement on the George W. Bush Facebook page has over 288 comments and more … Read more

A proposed law allowing the government to pull the plug on Web sites accused of aiding piracy received a sizable political boost yesterday.

Dozens of the largest content companies, including video game maker Activision, media firms NBC Universal and Viacom, and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) endorsed the bill in a letter to the U.S. Senate. So did Major League Baseball and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and co-sponsor of the bill, said new laws are needed to curb access … Read more

While today's Golden Globe announcements were a bit underwhelming, we were thrilled to see "The Hangover" get a nomination in the Best Picture: Comedy or Musical category. To coincide with the film's release on Blu-ray and DVD today we're giving away copies of the movie! Just send us an e-mail at the404 [at] cnet [dot] com telling us your best (or worst) hangover story. Everyone's got at least one, so send us yours for a chance to win!

In Justin and Wilson's absence, Natali Del Conte and Mark "MTI" Licea rush to fill their spots and discuss all the day's news. Should your company be able to check text messages you send out on work cell phones? Actually, don't answer that question--we debate the pros and cons and decide.

Most guys can't remember what shirt they wore yesterday, but apparently most women can recall the first pair of shoes they ever bought--more so than the first boy they ever kissed! What is it about the female obsession with shoes? We ask Natali to clear the air--because, well, she's the only woman who'll talk to us.

All this plus the location of 22 million missing e-mails from the Bush Administration on today's episode!

After going off on a rant in the preshow, we settle down for a hilarious episode, inspired by the near-extinct Snow Leopard. Jeff opens it up with a complete horror story about his experience trying to buy the new Mac OS upgrade from a local big box retailer. We won't name names, but clearly this company is hiring all kind of unqualified employees, and Jeff's had about enough.

Everyone's favorite cell phone for the elderly, the Jitterbug, is now available on Verizon Wireless for senior citizens who want to switch over to nationwide coverage. Well, we certainly can't talk about such a story without busting out a few impressions, so this time around we try to combo them up...look out for Verbose Space Beer Old Vampire!

In other news, the God of War collection is coming to Blu-ray for PS3, but what seems like a great two-for-one deal is actually a slice of the larger PS3 ripoff: since the console doesn't support older games, owners of the new PS3 Slim are forced to pay for the new package if they want to play this series, instead of just popping in an old disc like you could with previous PlayStations. It's true that the HD upgrade adds a lot of value to this offering, but it still seems like a shady deal.

What do you think? Leave us a voice mail at 1-866-404-CNET and let us know your thoughts on the PS3 Slim or tell us about the worst job you've ever worked. We want to hear your horror stories!

Yesterday's show with guest host Alli went so well that we ask her to help us out again! Today we show off some beautiful fan artwork, run through outdated tech terminology, dispel "Batman 3" rumors about Megan Fox, and more!

We want to give a huge shout-out and thanks to Joe from Honolulu for sending us these two amazing woodcarvings of The 404! We're still blown away by the level of detail in the paintings and the ridiculous amount of time it probably took to make. Best of all, we love that it's a collaborative effort between two 404 fans: Blake Stevenson helped design our logo and Joe just took it to the next level. Cheers to both of you!

We're all a little worried about Chris Nolan's next "Batman" movie. We've been hearing a lot of rumors about the follow-up to last year's "Dark Knight," and even though we think Megan Fox is next level hot, we just can't imagine her as Catwoman. First of all, there are one thousand other characters in the Batman universe, why resurrect the same ones over and over? Let's see a Killer Croc! In other Megan Fox news, gamers will be excited to hear that she will be on Xbox Live on Saturday, August 29 @ 3 p.m. PT to play Gold Members in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen the Game. Cross your fingers and let us know if you actually play her!

Many more crazy stories from the Web in addition to an "Ask The 404" segment on today's show. Thanks for listening, all!