nails

The show title isn't just an SEO play, we actually have five copies of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 to give away on the system of your choice (Wii U, Xbox 360, or PS3). Just follow us on Twitter and tell us your best 404-related box art parody name--use this one as an example, and don't forget to use the hash tag #404COD!… Read more

Ace reporter Caroline McCarthy of CNET's The Social blog joins The 404 today, while Justin is apparently out on a road trip with his little brother and jumping out of airplanes. We have a (chill) blast with her on today's show, because we are not outside! It's one degree colder today in New York City than it was yesterday, but it's still a balmy 99 degrees outside!

Caroline surprises us with the FitBit, which apparently is "clipped to that thing." The FitBit is a sleep and activity monitor that clips on to the user. … Read more

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--For Rob Nail, Saturday was a bonanza of opportunity.

Over dinner that night in building 20 at the NASA Ames Research Center here, Nail found himself discussing 3D printing and housing with X Prize CEO Peter Diamandis. Already, Nail had been considering buying some farming land in Northern California and had been interested in the nascent concept of 3D printed buildings. He told Diamandis that he wanted to try that on the land.

"He says," Nail recalled, "I want to make this introduction," and grabbed Nail, pulling him a few tables over to … Read more

At last month's huge U2 show at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., how could you tell the difference between the professional photographers and your average amateurs?

Answer: the professionals were the ones whisked away after Bono and friends finished their third song, and the amateurs were still there, happily shooting to their heart's content.

Nearly every person at any show these days is going to have some form of camera with them, be it a point-and-shoot, an iPhone or some other camera phone, and it seems that there is almost no way to imagine keeping all those … Read more

When a pioneer of social networking turns his back on a social network, is this the beginning of a creeping social apocalypse?

Trent Reznor, frontman of Nine Inch Nails, Webby award winner, and generally interesting chap, has closed his Twitter account.

In June, Reznor declared that as far as social networking is concerned: "I'm out."

And though he briefly returned to microblog about the final, ultimate, totally farewell Nine Inch Nails tour, he has now shut the doors to Twitterdom.

Certain fans, he declared on the NIN blog in June, were driving him out: "Looks like … Read more

For those who have yet to grok the Open Core business model, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame will sing it to you. In a series of forum entries, Reznor explains exactly how to build a music business on the Web and, in the process, classically defines Open Core, the primary business model for open-source software, too.

Reznor writes:

Forget thinking you are going to make any real money from record sales. Make your record cheaply (but great) and GIVE IT AWAY. As an artist you want as many people as possible to hear your work. Word of mouth … Read more

For Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor, social networking is not working.

Which might seem strange to hear from a man who was presented this week with a special achievement award at the Webbys.

Still, in a blog post written Wednesday, Reznor seems to have come to an emotional fork in the road with Web 2.0. And he's decided to stick the fork in it.

"I will be tuning out of the social networking sites because at the end of the day it's now doing more harm than good in the bigger picture and the … Read more

I'll say this for celebrity Twitter accounts: they sure can stir up some news.

Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor used it to good effect on Wednesday when he tweeted that a version of his band's iPhone application is in the works for BlackBerry. Reznor's camp hasn't yet let slip a release date, except the vague and taunting promise of "soon."

Presumably, Reznor and NIN fans won't have to worry about the delays to the software's release that dogged an update to the rock band's iPhone application initially deemed "… Read more

Well, Apple has finally approved an update to the official iPhone app for industrial-rock band Nine Inch Nails, after previously rejecting it due to objectionable content pertaining to the band's 1994 album "The Downward Spiral." No changes were made from the rejected version

Maybe Apple relented just to shut up NIN frontman Trent Reznor, whose bloggy rant against Apple was pretty much the equivalent of trashing Steve Jobs' hotel room. Not only did he tell Apple to "think your policies through and for f***'s sake get your app approval scenario together," good heavens, he … Read more