renting

With Airbnb for Android, you can easily search for unique accommodations while on the go. If you have an account already set up, you can edit your profile, add favorite properties, and, of course, book a room. If you don't have an Airbnb account, you can still search through listings.

If you're not familiar with Airbnb, it's a marketplace where people can list and book unique accommodations around the world. Think vacant Manhattan apartment while its owner is away, or quirky London flat while it's not in use. In short, Airbnb is all about offering and … Read more

Popular real-estate research site Zillow.com now has an Android app, which you can use to check real estate and home values while on the go. The app even syncs with your Zillow.com account to give you access to all of your saved homes and searches, from anywhere.

If you've never used Zillow, it's a powerful service that tracks current real-estate listings, rentals, and even recently sold properties. What's more, it uses local data and its own set of algorithms to come up with estimated values, or Zestimates, of just about any home in the U.… Read more

Links from Tuesday's episode of Loaded:

Amazon lets students rent textbooks

Hackers attack News Corp.

Apple Mac OS X Lion launch tomorrow

CNN live news comes to mobile

Google buys g.co

We couldn't have said it better ourselves: Rent is Too Damn High isn't just a resounding truism for all NYers, it's also a candidate party AND a slogan created by NY governor hopeful Jimmy McMillan. At last night's NY gubernatorial debate, McMillan looked and sounded more like an SNL skit than a serious cry for change.

Regardless, we can definitely see this guy getting his own TV show, or at least a dedicated segment on the next Autotune the News video. Despite his karate expertise, he won't likely get our vote--not because we don't trust the guy, more due to all the GIFs on his "Web site."

"Man accidentally impregnates wife after losing Apple iPod" is a deceiving headline, but that's exactly what happened to 28-year-old Doug Wilson when he forgot to look at an iPod app pre-coitus that explained the details of the "rhythm method" (Google it) for contraception. Checking your phone before getting down isn't very romantic, although it does sound like something Wilson would do, so don't skip this segment or you might end up with a baby in beta.

Despite Steve Jobs' surprise announcement at yesterday's Apple earnings call that there will not be a 7-inch iPad, we're still waiting with open wallets for the next generation to come out. On the other hand, nasty news about the amount of germs on the average American's touch screen might put that purchase off for awhile.

According to a British study, cell phones have 18 TIMES the germs of a public toilet seat handle. Add that to the list of other filthy objects we touch on a daily basis, including elevator buttons, door handles, and money, and it's only a matter of time before Apple debuts its own line of sanitary gloves to use with all its touch screen devices--blech!

After a quick review of "Jackass 3D" by yours truly, we discuss whether or not Mark Zuckberg learning Chinese will help get Facebook back into the country's list of unblocked sites. Apparently the Facebook founder has set a personal challenge to learn the language one-hour per day, in an effort to understand the "language, the culture, and the mind set" of a country that has 420 million active Internet users. Tune in to hear Wilsons' personal experience with Web censorship in China, and what roadblocks Zuckerberg can expect to face.

When we first read the description for Rental Calendar, we weren't quite sure what it was for. Renting out housing? Cars? Machinery? It turns out that the answer is "all of the above," and then some. Rental Calendar is a basic program that manages the rental of just about anything that can be rented. Of course, the drawback to the program's broadness is that it doesn't provide specialized features; it's designed to be general and nonspecific.

Rental Calendar's interface is attractive and intuitive, with the same visual style as recent versions of Microsoft … Read more

Busy hotels, motels, and bed and breakfasts require reservation systems that are both easy to use and powerful. Comfy Hotel Reservation, though not terrible, didn't really impress us on either front. It works fine, but we suspect that there are better programs out there for this purpose.

The program's interface is attractive, reminding us of more recent versions of Microsoft Office applications. We got the sense that the program was originally meant for another purpose--just a generic scheduler, perhaps--and that it was tweaked slightly so that it could be passed off as a reservation system. Rooms--which are referred … Read more

Parents can rest a little easier knowing that kids can now hit a "panic button" on Facebook to protect them from online predators. The social network is allowing the UK's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre to promote an ad for its ClickCEOP that will show up on pages of members between the ages of 13 and 18.

Once installed, the application will serve as an easy way kids can contact the authorities when they're faced with a potentially dangerous situation. Although this is admittedly not a "silver bullet" to make the Internet safer, … 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

Movies are a great way to ease the boredom of a long flight or road trip. Getting your movies mobile isn't always easy, though, and the cost of buying DVDs or movie downloads can add up quickly at $10-$20 a pop.

If you don't feel like dragging around a laptop or a portable DVD player, there are some great options out there for taking downloaded videos on the go. Some of them will even let you rent movie downloads for less than $5 each.

To learn more, check out our list of top five portable video players that support movie rental downloads. … Read more