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A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Nov. 20
Google's daily brainteaser helps hone your search skills.
11.20.11 -
Thanksgiving Break!
I’m off to Massachusetts tomorrow for Thanksgiving Break – and with that, I’ll be disappearing from the blog for most of next week. Unless something big happens, expect the next new post on November 28. It has been an exhausting but thrilling fall for me, so I think I need the time away. If you’re keeping [...]
11.19.11 -
Anonymous Hacks Back at Cybercrime Investigators
The Antisec wing of Anonymous has come out with another document release in its ongoing assault on law enforcement. Antisec anons, who specialize in hacks that show the net’s vulnerabilities, gained access to the Gmail/Google account of one “Fred Baclagan.” Baclagan appears to be San Diego-based Alfredo Baclagan, a retired supervisor of the multi-agency??Computer and Technology [...]
11.19.11 -
Bouncing Cats Brings Hip-Hop Horror to Television
Forget torture porn and zombies. Bouncing Cats, a documentary about hip-hop in war-ravaged Uganda, is a horror film with a human heart that manages to beat even as it records madness most of us see only in our nightmares.
11.19.11 -
Does NYC Really Want To Store 80,000 Gallons Of Diesel Fuel Atop a Critical Internet Hub?
Bundled, Buried & Behind Closed Doors from Ben Mendelsohn on Vimeo. Brad Mendelsohn has a great, short documentary on one of NYC’s most obscure yet most important historic landmarks: 60 Hudson St. This large brick building was once the headquarters of Western Union, but now it’s one of the world’s most important telecommunications hubs. The [...]
11.19.11 -
10 Reasons Super Mario 3D Land Makes Nintendo 3DS a Must-Have — Finally (GeekDad Weekly Rewind)
Mario titles are at the very heart of Nintendo’s legacy of quality software. The original Super Mario Bros. reinvigorated the North American home console market, and the continued adventures of the rotund mascot have served as additional high points across the series’ 26-year history. When a new Nintendo console or handheld launches, it is assumed [...]
11.19.11 -
Help Build a 12-Foot Tall Lego Yoda Santa, You May
You can help build a 12-foot tall Lego Yoda Santa if you are in San Francisco this weekend. And really, what could possibly be more geeky than that? A group of Lego master builders are creating a 12-foot high Lego Santa??in??San??Francisco’s??Union Square??and??inviting the??public??to??help.??The??three-day??build??started??yesterday??and will??continue??over??the??weekend.??At??the??end??of Sunday the completed??figure??will??be taken??away, so this weekend is really your only chance [...]
11.19.11 -
The GeekDads Episode #103: If You Can Make Something Light Up, Make It Light Up! (GeekDad Weekly Rewind)
Ken, Matt, Jonathan, and Tony talk about the impending Muppet movie, Ken’s new book, and more. Enjoy! GeekDad.com is the parenting blog at Wired.com, edited by Ken Denmead, Matt Blum, Jonathan Liu, Z and Chris Anderson. It is a community of like-minded geeky parents writing about our experiences raising our kids in the digital [...]
11.19.11 -
How I Went to a Convention, Met Sarah Sidle and Spent My Next Paycheck
A few weeks ago I had the chance to sit in a hall for 12 hours with like minded people, obsessing over detail and form, preoccupied with graphics and images. I tested new equipment that I now need to spend far too much money on, oh and I met Sarah Sidle. Here is [...]
11.19.11 -
Giveaway: Hurry! You Could Win $100 to Spend at Kodak Gallery
With the holiday season upon us, digital photos are going to be flying around everywhere. Kodak offers photo sharing capabilities through Group Albums and a new iPhone Kodak Gallery Mobile app that allows family and friends to get together for a special occasion, take some snaps and share them online, with restricted privileges that let [...]
11.19.11
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A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Nov. 19
Google's daily brainteaser helps hone your search skills.
11.19.11 -
Man Survives Steve Ballmer’s Flying Chair To Build ’21st Century Linux’
When Lucovsky walked into Steve Ballmer's office in 2004 and told the Microsoft CEO he was leaving the company for Google, Ballmer picked up his chair and chucked it across the room. Now, ex-Microsoft man Paul Maritz has turned the tables on Google, bringing Lucovsky to VMware, where's he's building a new software platform for the internet age.
11.18.11 -
How Many Neutrinos Does It Take to Screw Up Einstein?
Results from a second experiment uphold the observation that neutrinos are moving faster than the speed of light. The OPERA collaboration, which reported superluminal neutrinos back in September, have rerun their experiment and detected 20 new neutrinos breaking Einstein's limit.
11.18.11 -
New Apple Patents Address Geo-Location, Power Adapters and Breaking Glass
Around three dozen Apple patents made their way through the US Patent and Trademark Office this week alone. Here we share three of the most notable ??? one helps prevent cracked cover glass, another would deliver power to multiple devices with just a single adapter, and a third is a far-reaching location-based services patent that could keep Apple???s competitors on their toes.
11.18.11 -
When Whales Walked in Egypt
The story of Protocetus, one of the very earliest whales and the fossil that could have quickly closed a gap in our understanding of one of the greatest transitions in evolutionary history.
11.18.11 -
Neil Gaiman, Homer Bring Trolls to The Simpsons
Only Homer Simpson would take his daughter's disillusionment with tween books and try to cash in on it. Fantasy author Neil Gaiman makes a guest appearance in this Sunday's show to help out with Homer's potentially lucrative literary project.
11.18.11 -
Tiny USB Stick Brings Android to PCs, TVs
Thanks to FXI Technologies' Cotton Candy USB device, we may not have to wait long to see Android on more than just our mobile devices. FXI essentially built an ultra-lean computer inside a small USB stick. Stick it into any device that supports USB storage, and Cotton Candy will register as a USB drive. From there, you can run the Android OS in a secure environment inside your desktop, courtesy of a Windows/OSX/Linux-compatible virtualization client embedded in the device.
11.18.11 -
‘Tis the Season for Full-Disk Encryption, Cloud Backups, & Worry-Free Travel
Whenever we go on vacation as a family and leave the house completely empty, I always worry that someone is going to break into my home, take my desktop computer, and steal my data and my identity. I don’t actually worry that much about anything else in the house, since almost all of our stuff [...]
11.18.11 -
Congress Looking to Declare Pizza Is a Vegetable for School Lunches
The U.S. Congress is looking to vote on an appropriations bill that, among other things, will revise the guidelines set for federally-funded school lunch programs. In a move eerily similar to the “ketchup is a vegetable” rules in the ’80s, the new guidelines will allow frozen pizzas to be classified as a vegetable when determining [...]
11.18.11 -
Media Can Avoid NYPD Arrest By Getting Press Pass They Can’t Get
A NYC spokesman says reporters should get an official press pass from the police to avoid getting arrested while covering Occupy Wall Street. He neglects to mention that the NYPD won't issue press passes to cover the protests.
11.18.11
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Gadget Lab Podcast: Galaxy Nexus, Google Music and the Kindle Fire Tablet
This week on the Gadget Lab Podcast, the gang talks Android updates, competing music services and Amazon???s hot new tablet.
11.18.11 -
Video: Jeff Bezos’ Spaceship Takes Off
Jeff Bezos??? super-secretive commercial space program has opened up a bit, releasing a brief video showing low-altitude testing of its New Shepard suborbital space vehicle.
11.18.11 -
iPhone 4S Carrier Quality: AT&T; Wins for Data Speed, Verizon for Call Reliability
The iPhone 4S is available on three major carriers, leaving potential buyers to wonder whether AT&T, Verizon or Sprint is the better network choice. Pricing plans aside, carrier is a significant factor in anyone's purchasing decision, and now consumers have hard data to help them choose: A just-released study reports AT&T is tops for fast data speeds, while Verizon is the most reliable when it comes to making phone calls.
11.18.11 -
Game|Life Podcast: Skullgirls Fight In 2-D, Sony Fights For 3-D
We speak with the developers of a new 2-D fighting game called Skullgirls, and weigh in on Sony's ongoing ambitions for 3-D gaming on this week's episode of the Game|Life podcast.
11.18.11 -
10 Mesmerizing Time-Lapse Videos
Here are 10 of our favorite recent time-lapse films for your viewing pleasure (please excuse some of the over-the-top music). Feel free to point out any of your own favorites in the comments.
11.18.11 -
Message to Obama: Save the Bats!
Do you want to help save America's insect-eating bats from extinction? Then tell President Obama.
11.18.11 -
Batman Bows Out With Brave, Bold, Metafictional Finale
For three excellent seasons, Batman: The Brave and the Bold has skewered The Dark Knight's seriousness. On Friday, it bids television adieu with a multilevel satire on Batman's mythos, cartoons and fandom. Check out an exclusive preview clip and more images from the fantastic finale.
11.18.11 -
GPS Saves the World — But Who’ll Save GPS?
About 150 of the world???s best GPS engineers have gathered at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center this week, and the subject is war. At stake is the delicate satellite signals that power the $110 billion global positioning system market for military and commercial aviation navigation systems, automated agricultural machines and consumer mapping services in cars, to name a few.
11.18.11 -
Follow Your Heart: Darpa’s Quest to Find You by Your Heartbeat
The U.S. military can see you breathing on the other side of that wall. It can even see your heartbeat racing while you crouch behind the door. But if you think running farther away or hiding in a crowd will make you invisible to the Defense Department's sensors, you might be in for a surprise. The Pentagon's geeks are looking to tweak their life-form finder so they can spot your tell-tale heart no matter what you do.
11.18.11 -
Video: Robert Downey Jr. Shows Off Ridiculous Sherlock Holmes Disguise
Sherlock Holmes, master of disguise? Not really. Amid all the bare-knuckle brawling, slow-motion explosions and metaphorical chess play, the new behind-the-scenes clip for Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows sandwiches in a sight gag in which Robert Downey Jr. looks more like London's shrewdest crime-fighting rabbi than the dapper sleuth he played last time around.
11.18.11
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Rockstar Hints At Bully Sequel
Speaking in an interview posted by Gamasutra on Friday, Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser said the publisher may be working on a sequel to the schoolhouse sandbox game Bully. “Contrary to a lot of people, we like to take a little bit of time at the end of a game before starting a sequel,” he said, [...]
11.18.11 -
No Red Bull Air Races In 2012
Red Bull says the one year break its race series that happened this year will extend another year through 2012. The Red Bull Air Race series began in 2003 with just two events. By 2008 it had expanded to eight races in Europe, Australia, the middle east and the United States attracting more than 100,000 [...]
11.18.11 -
Astronauts Falling on the Moon
Just a little end-of-the-week fun for you: It’s like “America’s Funniest Home Videos” … on the moon! This minute-long clip shows astronauts tripping, falling, and trying to stand back up while wearing bulky space suits and dealing with low gravity. It reminds me a little of going on a tour of Space Camp and trying out [...]
11.18.11 -
Enough With the ‘Slut Gene’ Already: Behaviors Ain’t Traits
Earlier this week, WBUR’s Here and Now ran a taped interview with me about “Beautiful Brains,” my recent National Geographic article on teen brain and behavior. (You can listen to the interview here.) It’s only six minutes long, but nicely edited to highlight, from a high-altitude evolutionary point of view,??what distinguishes adolescence, when we peak [...]
11.18.11 -
Kindle Fire Dragged Into Apple’s ‘App Store’ Suit Against Amazon
Apple has set its sights on the Kindle Fire as part of the company’s trademark lawsuit against Amazon. In an amended complaint filed this week, Apple argued that Amazon began altering its own “Appstore” marketing when it introduced the Kindle Fire in September, and Apple sees the move as an attempt to conflate consumer expectations [...]
11.18.11 -
Special Ops Wants Commandos to Have Invisible Faces
Special ops commandos are already the savviest, most covert of all soldiers: They fly in stealth helicopters, wear high-tech camo suits and use nothing but the best face paint Pentagon cash can buy. But they've still got weak points. Most importantly, their own body heat and even the swiftest of movements can give them away.
11.18.11 -
Dork Tower Friday
Read all the Dork Towers that have run on GeekDad. Find the Dork Tower webcomic archives, DT printed collections, more cool comics, awesome games and a whole lot more at the Dork Tower Website.
11.18.11 -
‘WTF Mobile Web’ Tracks Terrible Mobile Web Design
Building great mobile websites is not easy, even some of the best in the business get it wrong. Now you can learn what not to do from a new website dedicated to calling out the worst of the so-called mobile web.
11.18.11 -
Volcanoes Blamed for Greatest Land and Sea Extinctions
The biggest volcanic eruptions of the past half eon had seemed a likely culprit in the greatest mass extinction Earth has seen -- both biotic cataclysm in the sea and on land.
11.18.11 -
200+ Labels Withdraw Their Music From Spotify: Are Its Fortunes Unravelling?
Following a study that claims that streaming music is damaging to record sales, a distributor representing more than 200 labels has??withdrawn its entire catalogue from Spotify, Napster, Simfy and Rdio. Disquiet from musicians and labels over the royalties paid out by Spotify has plagued the music service almost since it first launched The study, which was conducted [...]
11.18.11
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Beautiful Swooping Landline Phone Is Sadly Foredoomed
Hands up if you still use a landline telephone. No? Nobody? Ah, there, I see a hand. Well, sir, this post is for you. It’s about the Eclipse, a cordless DECT telephone that looks like a piece of sculpture. In fact, it was inspired by the old 1970s Sculptura, a rotary dial phone which swooped from [...]
11.18.11 -
ATV Turns Apple TV Into Multimedia Powerhouse
ATV Flash is now available for the new, puck-sized Apple TV. Now called aTV Flash (black) to distinguish it from the add-on for the old Apple TV, adds all kinds of extra functionality to your set-top box. With aTV up and running, you will be able to play pretty much any movie file (MKV and AVI, [...]
11.18.11 -
A Steven Thomas-Designed T-Shirt at Ript Apparel, Saturday Only!
What would Ben Kenobi do to make money on Tatooine? I mean, he was a hermit, but he had to get money to eat somehow, right? And to keep his robes mended and Luke’s light saber in good, working order? Tomorrow, Saturday, November 19th, a T-shirt is for sale at Ript Apparel that will answer this [...]
11.18.11 -
LuminAID Solar Lamps For Developing (and Developed) Countries
More solar powered shenanigans for Friday, this time for the developing world. The LuminAID Light consists of a solar panel, a slimline battery and some LEDs, all wrapped up in a tough, inflatable plastic bag. The lamp itself is dead simple, and therefore less likely to go wrong. The bag inflates like a pair of kids’ [...]
11.18.11 -
Nyko Charge Base 3 for the PlayStation Solves a Big Problem
One of the things about the Playstation 3 that drives me absolutely nuts is how Sony designed the charging of controllers. The console must be on, the USB cable that Sony provides for charging the controller is barely two feet long, and you can’t simply replace the batteries in the controller. There are other workarounds, [...]
11.18.11 -
Oeuvre Showcases the Iconic Movie Art of Drew Struzan
If you have even a little love for the movies in you, then you’ve likely seen (and enjoyed) the work of Drew Struzan. The artist, who has created the art for more than 150 movie posters, has been called “my favorite movie artist” by no less than Steven Spielberg. From Harry Potter to Blade Runner [...]
11.18.11 -
Grain Flow on a Martian Dune
NASA released a series of images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) this week showing movement of sand dunes over a 2-4 year period. Yesterday afternoon, the editor here at Wired Science, Betsy Mason, posted a gallery of the animated GIF images, including the one above. These images are a simple and effective way to [...]
11.18.11 -
How Many Sips in a Bottle of Beer?
Physics professor Rhett Allain investigates the rings of foam in his glass of beer.
11.18.11 -
Hot Diggity! Putt-Putt Comes to iOS
When I was in high school, I worked at Waldensoftware (once part of Waldenbooks and later bought by Electronics Boutique), and I remember seeing the Putt-Putt PC games, which were a series of point-and-click puzzle-adventure games for younger children. We often had one of them running on a demo computer (Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon, [...]
11.18.11 -
What is Mario’s Secret Ingredient?
Our recent posts and discussions on GeekDad about Super Mario 3D Land got me wondering what it was about Mario that makes him such an enduring character. Before writing I thought I’d be saying how he ticks all the casual gaming boxes. However, it turns out that Mario is about as hardcore as they come. It’s [...]
11.18.11
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App Measures Vital Signs Using iPad Camera
Amazingly, it’s possible to count your heart rate just by observing tiny changes in the color of your skin, caused by the movement of blood through the body. Even more amazingly, it’s possible to detect these changes using the terrible camera in the iPad 2. The app that performs this double-rainbow of technological magic is Philips [...]
11.18.11 -
Vulcan’s View: Eruption News and Volcanoes From Space for November 18, 2011
The week's volcanic eruptions as seen from space (and in space).
11.18.11 -
Review: A Boy and His Bot by Daniel H. Wilson
Roboticist and author Daniel H. Wilson has already had one hit this year with Robopocalypse, currently being made into a film by Steven Spielberg. But earlier this year he released a robot uprising tale for younger readers. A Boy and His Bot is the story of Code Lightfall, a Cherokee boy from Oklahoma who finds [...]
11.18.11 -
Skylanders In-Game Stats Revealed
After the popularity of our Skylanders card stats, I started collecting together the in-game starting stats for each Skylander Character. These are the figures that actually determine how each toy performs in the game. It has been interesting to see the spread of abilities and the variance in the totals. I’m sure that some of this [...]
11.18.11 -
Anatomical Sculpture of Lego Minifig’s Guts
Jason Freeny’s incredible sculptures are extremely creepy. This one, named the “Lego Man Anatomical Sculpt,” looks like Gunther von Hagens got loose inside a toybox. The Anatomical Sculpt is a real oversized Lego flashlight toy, cut open and stuffed with organs sculpted from Milliput modeling clay and Apoxie Sculpt clay (an epoxy clay with a longer [...]
11.18.11 -
Prepare to Storm the Beaches Again with Memoir 44 Campaign Book, Volume 2
Game company Days of Wonder is on a bit of a roll these days. After bringing longtime favorite Memoir ‘44 online this year, releasing a truly excellent iOS version of its popular Ticket to Ride, and a nice two-player port of Smallworld to iPads, it was very nice to see some great board games available [...]
11.18.11 -
Judge Dredd Coming to Gamebook Adventures
GeekDad is a big fan of Tin Man Games’ Gamebook Adventures, they bring back the 1980s fun of Choose Your Own Adventure and Steve Jackson’s Fighting Fantasy books to mobile devices. ??Gamebook Adventures plot lines are really engaging, the stories well written and their game mechanics are pretty simple and solid. So, we are very [...]
11.18.11 -
SolarCycle, a Sun-Powered USB Port for You Bike
If you want to charge your gadgets while you ride your bike, then the best way has been to think ahead and get the bike fitted with a dynamo hub when you buy it. Now, there’s another option: a seat-post-mounted solar panel. It’s called the SolarCycle Delux, and it comprises an aluminum rack along with the [...]
11.18.11 -
All Aboard New York City’s Geek Train
There is now Wi-Fi access on the New York City subway. Well, only on the "L" train. Okay, just the last two cars of the L train, on a portion of the line, from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Only for the week of Nov. 14???19.
11.18.11 -
Cartel Plot: Use U.S. Guns for Massive Mexico City Attack
In October of 2008, the boss of Mexico's deadly Sinaloa Cartel proposed buying heavy weapons from returning U.S. troops -- and then using those arms to stage a massive attack in Mexico City. "Let it be a government building," the chief said, "it doesn???t matter whose."
11.18.11
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Review: Quarrel DX for iOS
D G A E D H E K Quick, come up with a 7-letter word from the 8 letters above! What did you get? If you got GEEKDAD, good job, and if you enjoy that kind of challenge on a regular basis, then I have the game for you. Quarrel DX is a new word game for [...]
11.18.11 -
H(ackers)2O: Attack on City Water Station Destroys Pump
Hackers gained remote access into the control system of the city water utility in Springfield, Illinois, last week and destroyed a pump, according to a report released by a state fusion center and obtained by a security expert.
11.18.11 -
iPhone Boots BlackBerry From Business World
Crushed under an avalanche of Angry Birds, FourSquare check-ins, and Skype chatter, the BlackBerry is finally losing its grip on the enterprise. At least, that???s what mobile services seller iPass found in its latest survey of people who use mobile devices such as laptops and smartphones for work.
11.17.11 -
Microsoft Kills Own Big-Data Project in Favor of Open Source
Microsoft is not only putting its weight behind Hadoop, the open source platform for crunching large amounts of data across thousands of servers. It's abandoning the proprietary platform it built to do much the same thing.
11.17.11 -
Cracking the BBC’s Code at Bletchley Park
The BBC hid a series of puzzles and clues throughout The Code, a three-part program on the naturally occurring mathematical patterns that shape our lives. Avid puzzlers in the UK used these clues to tackle 84 pages of puzzles before three dedicated players took a trip down to Bletchley Park to tackle a final set of challenges inspired by the historic site.
11.17.11 -
Colossal Storm Rages Over Saturn’s Surface
One of the biggest storms ever seen on the planet Saturn has now been raging for 200 days.
11.17.11 -
Martian Sand Dunes Caught in Motion
NASA???s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has caught sand dunes on the surface of Mars in the act of shifting. Images from the spacecraft show dunes and ripples that have been pushed by wind as much as 3 meters over the course of several years.
11.17.11 -
Congress Fears Chinese Telecom Gear May Phone Home
Are telecommuniations??deals with China good business — or a trojan horse for espionage? Some of Congress’ top intelligence officials are worried it’s the latter. And they’re launching an investigation to find out. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), and the committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, announced on [...]
11.17.11 -
The Twilight Issue: Why Geeks Should Get Behind Breaking Dawn
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn -- Part 1 is not for everyone. The movie's plot is a little start-and-stop, a good portion of it won't make sense to the uninitiated, its visual effects border on cartoonish, and -- despite the best efforts of its cast -- the characters are nearly impossible to relate to. Which is to say, it's a nerd movie if there ever was one.
11.17.11 -
Analysis: Internet Blacklist Bill Is Roadmap to ‘the End’ of the Internet
The rhetoric on both sides of the debate concerning the Stop Online Piracy Act almost peaked when Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) said the House proposal "would mean the end of the internet as we know it." Lofgren's statement, however, is not that farfetched. Not if you actually read the bill.
11.17.11
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Report: Kojima Confirms Metal Gear Solid 5
Hideo Kojima is working on Metal Gear Solid 5, the director revealed in Issue 65 of the Official PlayStation Magazine. In the issue, Kojima discusses the “past, present and future” of his Metal Gear Solid series, which blends action and stealth in cinematic fashion. Kojima also talks about the upcoming Metal Gear Solid Rising, the [...]
11.17.11 -
Good Old Games Adds Newer Games in 2012
Digital retailer of old-school PC games Good Old Games will begin selling newer titles next year, the company announced Thursday. Good Old Games, launched in 2008, is an online marketplace where users can download classic PC games from the 80s and 90s at dirt-cheap prices, with no DRM and full compatibility for modern computers. Right [...]
11.17.11 -
Video: NYPD Rallies to Keep Occupy Wall Street Out of the NYSE
Occupy Wall Street attempted Thursday morning to actually occupy the New York Stock Exchange, only to be met by a large contingent of police in riot gear. Wired.com's video team was there to capture the action.
11.17.11 -
New Army Plan To Avoid Bombs: Ghostridden Trucks
The Mongol hordes were masters of deceit. Roaming across the great Asian steppe, the fiercest cavalry the world has ever seen understood it was vulnerabile to arrows. So the Mongols opted to fool enemy archers. Constructing and armoring mannequins of straw, the Mongols saddled their dummy riders and tethered each dummy-rigged steed to the human [...]
11.17.11 -
Get in, Buckle Up and Hold on as We Top 200 MPH
What's it like covering 293 feet per second? Very loud, a bit nerve-racking and so much fun. We cross another item off our bucket list.
11.17.11 -
Honda’s Gassy Civic Wins Green Car of the Year
The Rodney Dangerfield of alt-fuel cars beats two electrics, a diesel and the Prius V to take the green-car crown.
11.17.11 -
Google Merges Checkout and Wallet For Your Shopping Convenience
With Black Friday?? looming, Google has decided it’s time to merge its Checkout and Wallet services, kicking-off the hectic holiday shopping season with a way to streamline user experience. This move makes sense, as the two services have essentially the same function, now it’s just one single wallet. Google also announced that it will start [...]
11.17.11 -
Astronomers Make High-Resolution Topographical Map of Moon
Astronomers at Arizona State University have used Nasa's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) to build this jaw-dropping map of the Moon. It's the highest-resolution, near-global topographic image of our lunar neighbour yet.
11.17.11 -
Can Sedition Create a Marketplace for Limited-Edition Digital Art?
A new platform for digital art signs up some impressive names, including Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and Shepard Fairey. But can certificates of authenticity really help pricey digital images retain their value?
11.17.11 -
2,400 Miles in Minutes? No Sweat! Hypersonic Weapon Passes ‘Easy’ Test
For a test of a hypersonic weapon flying at eight times the speed of sound and nailing a target thousands of miles away, this was a relatively simple demonstration. But it worked, and now the military is a small step closer to its dream of hitting a target anywhere on earth in less than an hour.
11.17.11
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Skype Announces Facebook-to-Facebook Calling
Skype Thursday announced that Skype and Facebook can now be linked from Skype’s end. With Skype’s new 5.4 Beta for Mac and 5.7 Beta for Windows, users can conduct a “Facebook to Facebook” call from within the Skype platform. It’s a major component of?? July’s announcement that Skype would be powering Facebook’s new video-chat feature. To [...]
11.17.11 -
Asteroids Designer Ed Logg Honored With Pioneer Award
Ed Logg, designer of Asteroids and Centipede, will receive the Pioneer Award from the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences.
11.17.11 -
LHC May Have Found Crack in Modern Physics
In late 2008, a few onlookers believed that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) would bring the end of the world. Three years later, our planet remains intact, but the European particle smasher may have made its first crack in modern physics.
11.17.11 -
Spend Some Time with Maps of Volcanoes
Busy day for me today, but I wanted to point everyone to a great new gallery put together by Betsy Mason here at Wired Science. It contains 11 stunning geologic maps of volcanoes from another the world – with links to to webcams and other information on the volcanoes. Really, if you want to kill [...]
11.17.11 -
Get Bitten By Lamborghini’s New Spyder
By Mike Spinelli, Jalopnik Lamborghini’s flirtations with rear-wheel drive started (or, rather, re-started) with the Lamborghini Gallardo LP 550-2 Valentino Balboni. Two-wheel-drive Lambos are now a solid part of the Italian automaker’s lineup, with the Gallardo LP 550-2 Spyder joining the coupe. Not since the ultra-rare Diablo SV Roadster appeared in 1998 has Lamborghini built a rear-drive [...]
11.17.11 -
Neon Indian Builds Cool Mini Synth for New Album Era Extra??a
Alan Palomo created the PAL198X to make music all his own. The device -- called a -- was created by Palomo with the help of Bleep Labs and is used throughout the band's new album.
11.17.11 -
Monogamy Helps Geese Reduce Stress
With monogamy so uncommon in the animal world, the idea of lifetime fidelity can seem a little strange, at least to evolutionary biologists. But in greylag geese, who can live for 20 years and share them with just one mate, biologists have found a benefit: stress reduction.
11.17.11 -
Honda’s Little EV Is a Nice Fit
Optimistic range and recharge specs aside, the Honda Fit EV looks like an impressive, if expensive, bit of kit.
11.17.11 -
Archive Your Social-Network Life With ThinkUp 1.0
The new ThinkUp web app wants to help rescue your online social life from the clutches of Twitter, Facebook and Google. ThinkUp 1.0 can make backups, archive conversations and make sure your data remains in your control.
11.17.11 -
If Israel Bombs Iran, It’ll Jam, Spoof and Hack First
It's anyone's guess if Israel will really bomb Iran for its nuclear program. But if Israel does, it's not going to be a conventional bombing raid. Israel will spoof Iran's air defense sensors, disrupt its cellphone communications, and insert malware into its military command networks. In fact, the actual bombing might be the weak spot in the plan.
11.17.11
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Gallery: Crossing Time and Space in Final Fantasy XIII-2
Get a good look at the timespace crossroads Historia Crux in these new Final Fantasy XIII-2 screenshots, released Thursday by publisher Square Enix. You can also see the Crystarium, Final Fantasy XIII-2‘s version of character progression, as well as the menu screens in which you’ll interact with your horde of collectible monsters. One of them [...]
11.17.11 -
Damn the Torpedos: Mozilla Adds Flash to Firefox for Android
Adobe may be throwing in the towel, but Mozilla is going ahead with plans to add Flash support to Firefox for Mobile. The company says that despite battery drain and performance woes, fans of Firefox on Android want Flash.
11.17.11 -
How Does Prozac Work?
What’s the point of neuroscience? Why do we spend billions of dollars investigating those three pounds of flesh inside the head? Sure, human nature is interesting, and self-knowledge is a virtuous pursuit, but let’s be honest: we study the brain because we don’t want to die. Because we want cures for awful afflictions. Because we’re [...]
11.17.11 -
U.S. Kills 70 Taliban, Loses No One In Huge Outpost Battle
Twice in the span of a month, the Taliban has unleashed human waves on one of the U.S. Army’s most isolated Afghan outposts. Twice, the American soldiers guarding the tiny fort have beat back the attackers, killing scores of extremists while suffering no losses of their own. The U.S. troops’ skill, and luck, have been remarkable. [...]
11.17.11 -
Intel Shrinks Supercomputer Into the Palm of Your Hand
Intel has designed a supercomputer chip that fits in the palm of your hand. It's expected to go online in a 10 petaflop computer in January 2013.
11.17.11 -
Box.net Rallies Super Friends Against Microsoft
On Thursday, Box.net launched what they call the Box Innovation Network -- or /bin -- a program that gives outside developers the opportunity to contract with existing Box customers and build new applications that run atop its file-sharing service.
11.17.11 -
The Humor Code: Does Mad Men-Style Boozing Yield Funnier Ads?
You've seen it on Mad Men: The ad agency's creative staff enjoys a liquid lunch, then whips off a Lucky Strike campaign that gets the masses chomping at the bit for tobacco sticks. Our boozy experiment investigates whether alcohol really fuels the creation of funny stuff (with Venn diagrams).
11.17.11 -
Occupy the Skies! Protesters Could Use Spy Drones
Demonstrators in Poland just got a whole new vantage on the cops they battled, thanks to a camera-rigged spy drone that shot into the sky to shoot YouTube-ready video. Could the skies be the next place the 99 Percenters occupy?
11.17.11 -
Beautiful Destruction: 11 Gorgeous Geological Maps of Volcanoes
Geological maps can be so beautiful you'd want to hang them on your walls. And maps of volcanoes are among the most stunning works that geologists produce. This gallery has some awesome examples from the United States and Japan. You don't have to be a scientist to have trouble picking a favorite.
11.17.11 -
Unfrozen Caveman CIO at Google Atmosphere: “So ‘Cloud’ is Gmail, Right?”
As Google’s Atmosphere conference was winding down on Monday afternoon, I sat in the press box and ruminated on the vague discomfort that had been nagging me since lunch. Something was bothering me about the way the CIOs that Google had gathered to give testimonials were talking about “going Google,” but I couldn’t quite put [...]
11.17.11
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