mcdonalds

Links from Monday's episode of Loaded:

Research In Motion announces a program called BlackBerry Balance that shuts corporate administrators out of your personal life on your BlackBerry

McDonalds launches a touch-and-go payment scanning system in the U.K.

Duke Nukem Forever has not been delayed for all time. The game sequel gets a launch date after over a decade of delays.

A JFK historian launches an interactive biography on the iPad

Studio executives have optioned the movie rights to a biography of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange

A woman hangs up on Apple when the company calls to offer her a $10,000 iTunes gift card… Read more

Thanks to a new technology that allowed people to drive a rover across the world of Pandora from the smash hit film "Avatar," we might soon see a wide range of games or other projects that use the exact same 3D models as the films they're based on.

In December, McDonald's launched a game called PandoraRovr, in which anyone could explore James Cameron's fantastical moon. While an otherwise normal Flash-based promotion put together on behalf of one of the film's corporate partners, what made the game unusual is that the imagery in it was … Read more

So the European Union and Microsoft have finally settled their differences and will begin the browser ballot with no less than 12 browsers to choose from. Is this a good thing? Also, Intel is now under the gun from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. What did it do this time? Listen to find out. And Cherrypal is selling a $99 laptop it bills as slow and sufficient. Nice.

FTC formally charges Intel with anti-competitive behavior http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704541004574599791659334798.html?mod=googlenews_wsj … Read more

This may be the last week of live 404 episodes for 2009, and it's also been the most hectic. With Wilson missing his second day in a row and Caroline McCarthy being bedridden by a holiday cold, Mark Licea and Bonnie Cha help me hold down the fort.

Today's show is all about giving, and McDonald's is jumping on board with the announcement that they'll be offering free Wi-Fi starting in 2010. Not sure the first thing we'd want to touch after scarfing down a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit is a laptop keyboard, but hey, free is free.

Speaking of giving, The Hangover giveaway is still going on! Send us your best (but most likely worst) hangover stories to the404 [at] cnet [dot] com before Friday for your chance to win!

Sick of AT&T service? Tired of seeing Luke Wilson in those misleading coverage ads? You might want to join up with Chokehold, a grassroots movement to overload the AT&T network this Friday. We're not condoning this type of behavior, but Luke really is annoying in those commercials.

All this plus more stories and a great calls from the public segment!

For all I know, the folks who run PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, are fine, upstanding individuals.

I imagine that at times, they get a little over-excited about their cause. But at least they care about something.

For example, Monday, PETA's blog celebrated the organization's success in persuading a hospital in Missouri to stop shoving plastic pipes down cats' windpipes.

I can't be sure if the hospital was searching for a cure for hay fever or merely allowing its internists to have some rather unpleasant fun. Because I was struck momentarily insensate by … Read more

It's not easy doing a show without Wilson G. Tang, but luckily our good friend CarMac steps into the game to help us out! Today, we tackle Cable versus Fios, Adult Twitter clones, and McDonalds' suspicious new Web site, 365black.com.

CNET reporter Caroline McCarthy fills in for Wilson while he's off in Rhode Island dining fine at a Red Lobster, but we ain't complaining because CarMac represents 1 out of 7 total females that listen to The 404. Jeff takes the first quarter of the show to complain about Verizon Fios not running his stick and puck games on television, but after that's over, we get to more important stories like this a spicy new Twitter offshoot.

Stick around for another Call from the Public courtesy of Sally Henderson and Sean Connery, and stay tuned to the rest of this week's Wilson-less shows!

Just like the LG Watch, we are a 21st century product for the 21st century consumer. Which means we exist now for people who exist now. Sigh. Ryan Block of Gdgt joins us to talk about an algorithm to steal your Social Security number and how Gmail finally came outta beta! Yay! Bad times and good times all in one. Now if only we could get those implants for cell phones. In our neck people, in our neck!

Gdgt http://www.gdgt.com/… Read more

Assault with a deadly burger, bar bathroom toiletries, perfect strokes, black balls and boba straws, and Asian gangstas are just a few of the topics brought up by today's guest, Mr. Brian Tong from CNET TV! He usually keeps it clean on his show, the Apple Byte, but The 404 is all about letting loose, and trust us--he does. This might be the most perverted, nasty, NSFW, and all around hilarious show EVAR- OMGBBQ!

I don't even know where to begin. Brian Tong, star of CNET TV's The Apple Byte joins … Read more

You can count on a chocoholic.

At least that seems to be the conclusion of a heartily interesting piece of research performed at Northumbria University in England.

The researchers, led by Professor David Kennedy, got hold of 30 people and asked them to count backwards in groups of three from various numbers between 800 and 999.

At some point during the research, they were drugged. No, not like that. Well, not totally. They were given a mysterious cocoa drink, full of flavanol, one of the happier constituents of chocolate.

This little concoction seemed to turn Frankensteins into Einsteins. Of course, … Read more