weddings

Rolls-Royce app lets you live (pretend) swank life

If you dream of riding around in a Rolls-Royce Phantom, but can only afford a rusted old beast with the fender hanging off, take heart. Rolls-Royce has released a free app for enthusiasts wanting to create a virtual customized version of the luxury car.

Using the Phantom app, users can apply any mix of trims to their car from a choice of 44,000 colors. If that's not enough variety for you, you can use an iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch camera to capture a new color from any surface (even nail polish--ever seen a Rolls in Miss Bossy Pants?) to create a completely unique version of the luxury car.

Users can experience interior ambiance interactively through features like a starlight headliner, where hundreds of illuminated optical fibers are woven into the roof lining of a virtual vehicle. The app even has the ability to turn up or down the degree of illumination.

The Rolls-Royce Phantom app features 360-degree exterior views and three interior angles from the front, side and rear seat. It can be used to create a virtual Phantom, Phantom Coupe, or Phantom Drophead Coupe.

Or users can recreate the Royal Wedding bride ride. Kate, you may have heard, was transported to Westminster Abbey in a 1977 Rolls Royce Phantom VI.

A similar app for the Ghost came out in March of last year.… Read more

The 404 810: Where our tablet could eat your tablet (podcast)

Stupid Andy returns to the show and delivers an impressive cover of Christina Aguilera's "Genie in a Bottle" using just an iPad and the Classic Guitar app! Andy also shows off his new non-Apple tablet, so be sure to check out Wilson throwing a schoolboy fit in the studio in protest. Plus, be sure to listen to hear how you can enter to win a pair of Gunnar indoor eyewear!

The 404 Digest for Episode 810

Google Doodles and Maps pay tribute to the royal wedding. Stupid Andy's new toy runs Windows 7 and has a Core i5 processor, but no kickstand. This November, San Francisco will vote to ban circumcision. Jenny Lawrence leaves us a video voice-mail, and here's the video she's referencing: Analog Pants: Rick Roll by the Red Balls.

We also have two pairs of Gunnar Optiks indoor eyewear to giveaway, but you only have this weekend to enter! Just follow us on Twitter and shoot us a tweet mentioning #Gunnar404 and why you deserve a pair of performance glasses optimized for the digital screen. We'll announce the winners on Monday, so good luck!

Episode 810 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Royal wedding a top destination for Web users

The royal wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton went off without a hitch today--both in Westminster Abbey and online.

According to global CDN provider Akamai, "early data" has revealed that the number of concurrent users streaming the royal wedding around the Web outstripped the highest peak of concurrent users who watched the World Cup last year. Akamai plans to provide final numbers on that later today.

Even so, comparing the royal wedding's performance with other major events can be difficult. For one, workers in the U.K. were given today off, which means many of them were likely watching the festivities at home from their televisions. Moreover, the event occurred when many in the United States were still sleeping, which could have negatively affected the live feed of the event, but buoyed viewership figures on videos watched later in the day.

"There are a lot of factors involved with these live events, which is why we can't call one event the biggest or larger than another," an Akamai spokeswoman told CNET in an e-mailed statement today. "It's like comparing apples and oranges sometimes."… Read more

A Twitter ban at the royal wedding? Tripe

Tomorrow, the world will witness one of the most beautiful and joyous anachronisms known to humanity.

A royal prince will marry his commoner bride, as tears are shed from London to Liverpool. Clockwise.

And yet reports have emerged that the likes of the Norway's king, Australia's prime minister, David Beckham, Sir Elton John, Guy Ritchie, Joss Stone and Mr. Bean will be prevented from letting the world instantly know their own feelings. (If you need the full guest list, it's here.)

For Yahoo itself has reported that a Twitter blanket is being thrown around Westminster Abbey, scene … Read more

The Royal Viral Wedding

Links from Friday's episode of Loaded:

Beware the Unfollowed Me virus on Twitter

The new Skype for Android lets you IM and make voice calls over Wi-Fi or 3G, though there are no video calls yet

Google launches its Groupon-mimicking Offers in Portland

Verizon says its next-generation iPhone will be a world phone

A public radio station in San Francisco lets listeners donate and then listen to pledge-drive-free programming

The royal wedding is mentioned about every 10 seconds online and will be streamed live on YouTube next week

T-Mobile makes royal family dance on YouTube

T-Mobile has made itself famous in the U.K. and elsewhere with spontaneous displays of joyful dancing at places such as miserable British railway stations, as it follows its strategy of sharing through connection.

Spontaneous displays of joyful dancing are not what one would necessarily associate with Britain's royal family, however. So how touchingly optimistic it is to see T-Mobile giving us Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, touching bottoms on the way down the church aisle

And not only these two royal members.

The company, you see, has re-created the infamously uplifting "JK's Wedding Dance" YouTube video … Read more

Google goes glossy

Links from Thursday's episode of Loaded:

Yahoo launches Search Direct to compete with Google Instant

Google launches an online quarterly magazine

Apple pulls an app that offended many people by claiming it could "cure" homosexuality

The new Ford Focus will use AT&T Wireless to send and receive car data

The New York Times asks Twitter to remove an account that gives a free feed of its articles in preparation for its paywall

The music from the upcoming British royal wedding will be available for download just hours after the ceremony

Research In Motion agrees to disallow … Read more

Royal wedding soundtrack to go straight to iTunes

Move over, Rebecca Black: Another unusual addition to the iTunes top-selling charts is on its way. Namely, it's the "soundtrack" to the much-ballyhooed royal wedding between Prince William and his fiancee Kate Middleton on April 29, set to appear on Apple's digital download marketplace "within hours" of the occasion's end, according to The Telegraph.

Were this a perfect world, the album would include a handful of wedding guests' merry karaoke recordings (Prince Harry is making sure that this is part of the program, right?), and perhaps the live cut of a surprise reunion … Read more

Royal-wedding phone dials up William and Kate

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to celebrate the union of two young people we've never met with a torrent of cheap tchotchkes. Yes, to celebrate the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, the Carphone Warehouse has announced a celebratory special-edition Royal Wedding Alcatel One Touch mobile phone.

As some are calling the blushing bride herself, the phone is common as muck. It's an Alcatel One Touch with a Union Jack on the front and the royal couple's initials and wedding date emblazoned on the back. The patriotic print is worth 15 of the groom's gran's English pounds, apparently, because the OT-209 costs just 1p normally--but buying that when you have the option of a royal version is treason or something.

The phone boasts a 1.5-inch screen for displaying royal-themed wallpaper. It also includes a ringtone of the Wedding March. It's a perfect gift for royal watchers, wedding fans, and simpering simpletons.

Read more of "Royal-wedding tatphone Alcatel One Touch dials up William and Kate" at Crave UK. … Read more

Egads! No 3D for royal wedding

They will be weeping as they clutch their commemorative plates, their mail order pendants, and their copies of Hello magazine.

They will be sobbing because they will not be able to experience the sensation of the bride's dress billowing about their ears and their eyes.

But the Royal Wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton will not be televised in 3D.

According to the Guardian, the stuffy staff at Buckingham Palace consulted with the Royal Couple and decided to nix the possibility of the whole world being able to examine the Royal Family's faces for dimples and pimples.… Read more