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Most counter tops and cabinets are designed with average height in mind. If you're taller, though, you can find yourself hunched over as you try to chop vegetables and handle other kitchen tasks--not a comfortable position, especially if you spend a lot of time in the kitchen. AWP Butcher Block offers an entire line of cutting boards made with taller cooks in mind. The company's solid cutting boards start out by adding an additional inch to 3 inches to your cutting surface. If that's not enough, the company can add legs of any height to a cutting … Read more

10 Pin Shuffle Lite is a preview version of 10 Pin Shuffle, a physics-based shuffleboard simulator with polished graphics and a convincing interface.

The interface is simple but subtle: you look down the length of a traditional, barroom shuffleboard table, with a realistically rendered shuffleboard weight in front of you. You have a number of options for positioning and shooting the weight, with left and right arrows that slide the weight laterally, and another pair of arrows that let you rotate your aim to the left or right. You can also just tap and drag the weight into position, and … Read more

Today's episode of CNET's The 404 Podcast features a pink Ouija Board, the newest Facebook meme, search engine profiling, and Google's latest mapping feature that waves good-bye to your shopping privacy.

The infamous Ouija Board is still just as popular as it was when Hasbro first unleashed it in 1967. In fact, it even got extra publicity with a flaming cameo in last year's horror flick Paranormal Activity, but angry Christians aren't happy about Hasbro's latest idea for a Pink Ouija Board. Who knew that a pink square of cardboard and a magnifying glass could get so much controversy?

First there was Doppelganger Week, then Urban Dictionary Week, and now we finally have a Facebook meme that The 404 Podcast can get behind: Can this pickle get more fans than Nickleback? In less than a week since its genesis, the Facebook group already has more than 100,000 members, but it still needs your help to get beat out Nickelback's 1,392,481 (and growing) fans.

This next story might make you think twice before ducking into the back room at your local video store. Google's latest "Store View" is as yet unconfirmed (but not outright denied), but the service will ideally let users check out the inside of any participating retailer through Google Maps. Imagine browsing the Web for a supermarket and then virtually inspecting the interior for the best way to route yourself through a grocery store and you can see why we don't quite understand the point of Store View.

Those stories and more on today's 404, plus a meaty Calls From the Public and more of your sticker picture submissions! Keep sending them to the404(at)cnet[dot]com and we might just feature it on the show! Much thanks to Derrick for sending us a pic of the cubicle dressing you see up top.

Board games are already experiencing a renaissance as they move from the tabletop to the desktop (think Lexulous and Scrabble), but researchers from Canada's Queen's University are trying to further advance the ol' board game with a technology that essentially turns each piece into a graphics-saturated mini-display, thus merging the tangible aspects of board games with software-generated action normally seen in strategy games such as World of Warcraft.

Queen's Human Media Lab Professor Roel Vertegaal and HML graduate Mike Rooke say their technology (PDF) would let groups of people play electronic games in a sociable, physical setting … Read more

No matter what you've got on the carving board, it always seems to slide around. You can wind up awkwardly trying to pin a roast in place with one hand while carving off slices with the other. The Gripper Carving Board can make the project easier: it's designed to hold food in place as you slice. A removable metal ring sits in a groove built in to the center of the cutting board. The ring has four points that sink into your food, anchoring it into place. It works well with meat and poultry, but the points will … Read more

While keyboard layout seems like something that is (or should be) set in stone, Guru'board's Miniguru is trying to shake the keys up a bit.

I'm all for anyone trying to improve upon previous technologies, but typing is something that is so natural to me at this point that changing functions and placements makes me nervous. (At least on U.S. keyboards; it took me a long time to become fluent on a French one.)

But maybe the Miniguru (PDF) deserves a chance. This keyboard's goal is to keep the user's fingers on the home … Read more

Facebook has formed a safety advisory board comprised of five Internet safety organizations that will consult with the social-networking site, the company said Sunday.

Facebook said it plans to meet regularly with the advisory board to review the existing safety resources it provides its users, develop new materials, and seek advice on best practices for safety in general.

"We believe that the only way to keep kids safe online is for everyone who wants to protect them to work together," Elliot Schrage, Facebook's vice president of global communications and public policy, said in a statement. "The … Read more

I love tools that are all about providing people with information they want, and on Tuesday, the video game industry's official ratings board got my attention with something awfully useful.

The Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) announced on Tuesday its new iPhone app, which is designed to put the board's full written summaries of more than 2,500 video games right at parents' fingertips.

The idea is that with the app--officially called ESRB Rating, and available now, for free, in Apple's App Store--parents can punch in the name of any game rated by the board after July … Read more

Back when I used to work at Sony Online Entertainment many, many years ago, I became a board game geek. The game designers and producers gathered once a week to share their sizable collections and obscure finds up in Mira Mesa, Calif., and I got hooked. The fact that the Game Keeper chain of stores was simultaneously going out of business and liquidating their supplies encouraged me to start building my own game cabinet, and I profess without shame that I rapidly became a full-blown board game geek.

I still like hunting for new games, and a few years ago at the New York Toy Fair I came across the brilliant and simple tile-based game called Hive.

Like a cross between chess and dominos, Hive's hexagonal pieces are shaped like insects, each of which can move differently on their mission to surround the opponent's queen bee. I tried to order Hive online but it wasn't available, and no local game retailer would stock it. I finally found the game in a small town in Devon, England, while visiting my in-laws, and paid close to $35 for it.

This long story comes to a quick point: I found Hive on the iPhone App Store last week for $4.99, and instantly bought it. I hope this trend continues, and it should.

Hive joins my collection of Settlers of Catan, Go, Mancala, and what I'm sure will be many, many more board games shrunken to pocket-size on my iPhone. It's wonderful, and I feel like it's groundbreaking, too.

While game systems like the Nintendo DS and PSP have had a variety of fantastic titles, they'd certainly never proceed into European board games. The low overhead and microprices on Apple's ever-enormous App Store becomes, for both developers and consumers, a great live petri dish to grow a new legion of board game fans. … Read more