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With CES Sendoff, Microsoft Insists It’s Still Cool
Microsoft's final keynote at CES failed to impress...
01.10.12 -
A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Jan. 10
Google's daily brainteaser helps hone your search skills.
01.10.12 -
Samsung Smart TV 2.0 Can ‘Listen, See and Do’
The South Korean company is wading deep into the smart TV pool with sets that can recognize your face, your voice and your gestures.
01.09.12 -
They Froze for Science — and Got the Eggs
In winter I sometimes warm up by reading books with real cold. For a few years years I shuttled between Rick Bass’s Winter, about his first winter in Montana in the 1980s, and R.M. Patterson’s magnificent, shivering??Dangerous River, of his days trapping the Yukon in the 1920s. Last week, partly to commemorate the centenary [...]
01.09.12 -
Lenovo’s Yoga Is an Ultrabook With a Twist
Lenovo has announced its latest play in the ultrabook space: a thin, full-featured notebook with a funky hinge that lets you fold the screen all they way around, turning the device into a tablet.
01.09.12 -
Learn to Play Guitar, Keyboard, Drums — With Your iPad
runMobileCompatibilityScript('myExperience1377130917001', 'anId'); brightcove.createExperiences(); LAS VEGAS???Everyone should learn an instrument or two — and now with an innovative new iPad interface, it might be easier than ever. At CES Unveiled on Sunday night, Ion Audio showed off a suite of learning systems for piano, guitar, and drums, each starting at $99. Plug an iPad into the [...]
01.09.12 -
GeekDad Exclusive Preview: Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #5
Since last year’s relaunch of its comics universe, DC Comics has been doing their part to keep the new continuity clean and free of cross-overs. They seem to be holding tight, for the moment, on their moratorium on mega-events. What they are doing, as evident in books like Animal Man and Swamp Thing, is sprinkling [...]
01.09.12 -
Nokia, Microsoft Build ‘Beachhead’ in War of the Mobiles
Nokia declared all-out war on the mobile industry on Monday, publicly unveiling its flagship U.S. device at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
01.09.12 -
Mystery Buyer Wins Auction for Copyright Troll???s Domain
The online domain for Righthaven — a copyright-troll law firm that failed in its attempt to make money for newspapers by suing people for sharing stories online — has sold at auction for $3,300 to help satisfy the Las Vegas company’s debts, but the winning bidder has yet to come forward. Righthaven.com’s online auction opened [...]
01.09.12 -
Richard Owen vs. Textbook Cardboard
Within the pantheon of Victorian-era naturalists, there was no villain more sinister than Richard Owen. That???s what I had always been taught, anyway. Though undeniably brilliant, teachers and textbooks conceded, Owen was a jealous, religiously-motivated scientist who utterly despised the idea of evolution. Among his worst offenses was an anonymous review ??? which gave away [...]
01.09.12
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B&N: Free Nook With NYT Promo Not Linked to Sales or Spinoff Plans, ‘In the Works’ for Months
Barnes & Noble is selling its Nook e-readers at deep discounts to new customers willing to bundle their purchase with a one-year digital subscription to The New York Times or People magazine. In the case of the Times, after the cost of the subscription, that discount amounts to giving away the bookseller's much-lauded E Ink Simple Touch reader away for free.
01.09.12 -
AT&T Unveils 4G Windows Phones, New Android Devices
You knew it was coming. A huge wave of new smartphones, crushing last year's measly models with their impressive display, processor and camera specs.
01.09.12 -
Geeks to Testify (Finally!) About SOPA Blacklisting Implications
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California), a major opponent of the Stop Online Piracy Act, announced Monday he is bringing in the techies to hold a public hearing highlighting the online security implications of a proposed bill that would force changes to internet infrastructure to fight online copyright infringement.
01.09.12 -
Gas-Masked Warriors Fight Howlers in Sci-Fi Short Sons of Chaos
Men in masks navigate filthy rivers in an inventive indie film that makes the most of its pollution-themed backdrop, creepy costumes and weird gadgets.
01.09.12 -
US Patriot Act Bends Microsoft’s Cloud Computing Efforts Abroad
Over at CloudAve by Paul Miller, there’s??a great post??on Microsoft’s management and storage of personal identification information and how the US Patriot act and potential legislation in Europe may effect Redmond’s cloud strategy: It is unlikely that the PATRIOT Act is routinely invoked, or that US officials spend much time reading Europeans??? email. The cloud [...]
01.09.12 -
GeekDad Puzzle of the Week: Numeric Crossword Puzzle
Most everyone that reads GeekDad has at least one friend or co-worker that can recite Pi out to a few dozen digits — or, more likely, we are that friend or co-worker. A lot of us probably have quite a few numbers “embedded” in our brains, like old street addresses, telephone numbers, or locker combinations. [...]
01.09.12 -
In 2013, Fox Will Approach Network Animation As Digital-First
More than 20 years ago, Fox brought animated TV back to prime time and into world-historical greatness when it took a chance on a squiggly-drawn, irreverant short from The Tracey Ullman Show called "The Simpsons." Now, Fox is betting that the next Simpsons might be found and fostered in YouTube-style short clips on the web.
01.09.12 -
5th Edition D&D Is in Development — Should We Care?
Wizards of the Coast announces a crowd-sourced effort for developing the next iteration of its venerable tabletop RPG, but will this be enough to bring back a fractured fan community?
01.09.12 -
Facebook Hacks Shipping Dock Into World-Class Server Lab
Like the other giants of the internet world, Facebook supports its online empire with a massive network of data centers and servers. And that costs money. Very large amounts of money. If you feed webpages to hundreds of millions of people, you're spending mountains of cash not only on the machines themselves, but on the power feeding those machines. At a certain point, you realize you're spending too much. You need something different from the stuff the rest of the world uses, and you hire a guy like Amir Michael.
01.09.12 -
Extinct Giant Tortoise May Still Be Alive in Galapagos
Genetic traces of a supposedly extinct giant Galapagos tortoise species have been found in living hybrids, and the tragically vanished behemoths may soon be resurrected.
01.09.12
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Video: Mastering the Mix of Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Many things in David Fincher's movie get expressed without dialog. They're communicated by the looks on characters' faces and, more subtly, by the sound textures behind the action. A new SoundWorks Collection video shows how Trent Reznor and his colleagues pulled off the powerful audio.
01.09.12 -
India Reports Completely Drug-Resistant TB
Physicians in Mumbai, India are calling a new strain of tuberculosis TDR, for Totally Drug-Resistant. In other words, it is untreatable as far as they know. Superbug blogger Maryn McKenna reports.
01.09.12 -
Sony, AT&T Price PlayStation Vita Data Plans
With a little over a month until the launch of PlayStation Vita, Sony and AT&T have finally nailed down the gaming machine’s 3G data plans. Two plans will be offered to consumers: 250MB of data for $15 per month, or 2GB for $25 a month, Sony said Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las [...]
01.09.12 -
App-Controlled RC Toys Make You Feel Like Ethan Hunt
At CES Unveiled Sunday night, Interactive Toy Concepts showed off its new Wi-Spi line of video surveillance vehicles: an RC helicopter and RC race car that house a camera that delivers a live stream of video to your device.
01.09.12 -
Sculpteo 3-D Printing App Uses Your Mug to Make a Mug
runMobileCompatibilityScript('myExperience1377234131001', 'anId'); brightcove.createExperiences(); LAS VEGAS — 3-D printing is a truly disruptive, revolutionary technology. It could completely change the way we acquire and consume goods in the not-too-distant future. But before we start 3-D printing our food, replacement mechanical parts or new tools, a creative app from Sculpteo makes it possible to print in 3-D [...]
01.09.12 -
Lean, Green Tablet Prototype Promises Mobile Computing for $100
If you're trying to get inexpensive computing devices to those in need, you (theoretically) couldn't go wrong with making that device a tablet. So thinks non-profit "One Laptop Per Child," an organization that strives to deliver rugged, cost-effective computers to children in developing nations. The group has jumped into the tablet space with a prototype tablet, on display at CES Unveiled Sunday.
01.09.12 -
Tweet Your Blood Cells With New Microscope Smartphone Adapter
Although a microscope smartphone adapter always seemed like an inevitability, that doesn’t make it any less cool now that it’s here. Andy Mill and Tess Bakke from SkyLight stopped by the Gadget Lab to show us a prototype for their upcoming project: a plastic adapter for a microscope that allows a user to mount almost [...]
01.09.12 -
Almost 1 In 3 U.S. Warplanes Is a Robot
Only six years ago, drones represented barely 5 percent of the U.S. military's thousands of airplanes. But a new report for Congress, acquired by Danger Room, marks a huge uptick in the flying, spying, deadly robots: now, 31 percent of the military's airfleet are drones, some 7500 machines. So why's the Pentagon spending so much more money on the planes with people in them?
01.09.12 -
Netflix Launches In the UK, Ireland as Amazon’s Lovefilm Battles Back
Netflix officially launches video streaming in the United Kingdom and Ireland, facing an unlikely incumbent: Amazon, whose LoveFilm streaming/video delivery service has played a similar role to Netflix in the states.
01.09.12 -
Porsche’s New 911 Looks Hot Topless
Porsche chops to top off the 911. Of course it's gorgeous. It's a Porsche.
01.09.12
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Aussie Brains Move Chip Design to Quantum Realm
The law of the land is Ohm's Law -- even when the land is really, really small. Contradicting what was previously thought, researchers at the University of New South Wales have announced that the law governing electrical resistivity -- how readily electrical current flows through a material -- extends into the quantum realm. This has major significance for chipmakers, who are starting to wrestle with the forces of quantum physics as transistors and interconnect sizes shrink down to a few dozen nanometers. These forces are among the barriers threatening to bring another famous law to a halt. Moore's Law holds that number of transistors you can fit on a chip doubles about every 18 months.
01.09.12 -
New Ways to Measure Science
The value of a scientist's contributions is extends beyond simple measures like citations. Social Dimensions blogger and mathematician Samuel Arbesman explores how can might better measure a researcher's contributions.
01.09.12 -
The Dumbest Uses of Twitter, Inspired by Kanye West
Kanye West gifted the world last week with an 86-Tweet-long monologue, using the social networking platform that is most commonly used to condense and shorten thoughts, news and culture as a soap box instead for a rambling and disjointed (but truly amazing) stream-of-consciousness dispatch about his life, the history of his passion for fashion, his [...]
01.09.12 -
Mercedes-Benz SL Returns to Its Lightweight Roots
To celebrate the SL's 60th anniversary, Mercedes-Benz puts the iconic roadster on a diet. The results are gorgeous.
01.09.12 -
Dr. Sudoku Prescribes: A Modest Proposal
This week???s prescription details the first (to our knowledge) marriage proposal delivered in sudoku form.
01.09.12 -
The Willpower Trick
People who can resist temptation don't have immaculate wills. Instead, they are able to intelligently steer clear of situations that trigger problematic desires. Frontal Cortex blogger Jonah Lehrer explains the science behind such willpower.
01.09.12 -
Relaunch Your OS Nostalgia With ‘The Restart Page’
Splash screens aren't what they used to be, but if you'd like to take a walk down memory lane a new site dubbed The Restart Page will let you relive the restart process in everything from Mac OS 7 and Windows 1 to Amiga Workbench.
01.09.12 -
Increasing Activity at Lewotolo in Indonesia Leads to Evacuations
Programming note for this week: I’ll be headed off to criss-cross North Carolina for a number of events over the next week, so posts this week might be sporadic. I have a post or two ready to roll (including a follow up to “Falling to Lava“) but if something new occurs, I might not be [...]
01.09.12 -
Molly Weasley Comfort Cooking
After a long winter’s day, ever wish you could just cozy up in the Burrow and have Molly Weasley whip you up a little roast chicken with mashed potatoes? Or feast in the Great Hall on some lamb chops? Now you can… with a bit of Muggle work. When I was sent The Unofficial Harry [...]
01.09.12 -
25 Big Ideas For 2012: Ubiquitous Face Recognition
Face recognition is now ubiquitous. In June,??Facebook??rolled out its “Tag Suggest” system, which recognizes pictures of users’ friends as they are uploaded;??face.com??claims it has scanned 25 billion images; and??Google??(which uses face recognition in its??Picasa??photo-management system) says that, once it gets the legals figured out, Google Goggles will be used to identify members of the public [...]
01.09.12
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Tablets, TVs and Ultrabooks: CES Day Zero Wrap-Up
From a TV running Android 4.0 to the world's thinnest ultrabook, the products rolled out early at this year's CES from a select few manufacturers.
01.09.12 -
Dork Tower Monday
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.
01.09.12 -
What Rocks: The Week’s Best in the Geoblogosphere
On most Mondays I pick five posts from??the previous week in??the??geoscience blogosphere that caught my eye. I limit it to just five because I want those who [...]
01.09.12 -
Another Look at Launch Speed in Angry Birds
The last time Dot Physics blogger Rhett Allain looked at the launch speed in Angry Birds, there was a problem: It wasn't easy to get data about the speed of launching birds. Thanks to a new version of the popular game, a reanalysis is ready.
01.09.12 -
Ford’s Fusion of Style, Efficiency Lands in Detroit
Ford brings a measure of sexiness to the increased efficiency of the Fusion lineup.
01.09.12 -
Top 10 D&D Modules I Found in Storage This Weekend #5 (GeekDad Wayback Machine)
We were digging through the storage shed to find just the right box of Christmas decorations, when I should chance across the dusty stack of old Dungeons & Dragons modules I’ve had with me for… well, for a very long time. For all the GeekDads who have gamed, as I scan and read through these, [...]
01.09.12 -
Support Australia’s First Lego Therapy Group for ASD Kids
Rob Deakin is a Lego fan and incredibly passionate about supporting children with developmental issues through organized Lego play. Rob has seen first hand the powerful benefits of Lego for children with Autism and Asperger’s in helping them to communicate, learn to play and develop social skills. There is increasing research and evidence that Lego [...]
01.09.12 -
iOnRoad Collision Warning App for Android
For some reason, I’ve always spent a lot of time driving. There was that decade where my in-laws lived 650 miles away, making for many long weekends spent on narrow, Northern Ontario highways. Then 13 years or so enjoying a 250-mile round trip commute for work, five to ten times a month. The past few [...]
01.09.12 -
Mini Maker Faire in Melbourne, Australia, on January 14
While the GeekDad team hides away in bunkers and basements planning their grand appearance at this year’s Maker Faire, on the other side of the Pacific Ocean (also known as “the future” due to timezone differences) a small group of intrepid Aussie makers and tinkerers are bringing the movement to the antipodes. Australia’s very first [...]
01.09.12 -
The Game Loft Needs Your Help
A teen center called The Game Loft that teaches Dungeons & Dragons as a path towards leadership, socialization and community service needs the help of the geek community. In tiny Belfast, Maine, you’ll find this unique after-school program for middle and high school kids in the attic of a game shop called All About Games. [...]
01.09.12
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When Bricks Become Art
The obvious question when contemplating art made from Lego bricks is: what is the line that separates a kids’ toy from art? It doesn’t take long meandering amongst Nathan Sawaya’s wonderful creations to see that the line is clearer than you might think. The works display a depth of imagination that would be impressive in [...]
01.09.12 -
Open Source Maps Gain Ground as Google Paywall Looms
Nestoria is one of those companies that was told it would have to start paying real money for Google Maps. When Google couldn't tell it exactly how much, it kicked Mountain View to the curb and switched to OpenStreetMap, a free, collaborative effort to map the globe.
01.09.12 -
Hell on Earth: NASA’s Toxic Venus Test Chamber
In a bare concrete room at NASA Glenn Research Center, pieces of a 12-ton toxic oven patiently wait to be assembled. When engineers finish bolting the compact car-sized device together in May, it will subject anything put inside to hellish conditions similar to the surface of Venus.
01.09.12 -
Alt Text: Fun Facts From the Future
Excerpted from The Huge Book of Fun Facts About Neat Stuff, 2050 Edition: Solitaire was originally played using small pieces of paper called “cards.” Sometimes laying out a new game took more than three minutes. The first cars were driven by human beings rather than computers. There were many crashes, but no packs of feral Mini Coopers [...]
01.09.12 -
Marines Want iPads to Control Robo-Copter Brains
It's been less than a month since the Marines flew their first robotic supply helicopter on its debut combat mission in Afghanistan. Already, the amphibious combat branch is working on the next generation of pilotless cargo copter -- one that's an order of magnitude more sophisticated, and can be controlled by an iPad or other tablet.
01.09.12 -
Learn About Tempo With GarageBand Music Theory
Tempo can be defined as how fast or slow a piece of music should be sung or played at. Tempo is what listeners are talking about when they refer to a song as being “upbeat” or “slow.” Musicians measure tempo in B.P.M. or Beats Per Minute. Even though one beat per second sounds like [...]
01.09.12 -
Alien vs. Predator Chess Set
One of the things that particularly delights my brain is the juxtaposition of unexpected elements in a creative and surprising way. And what could be more unexpected and ironic than combining the ultimate cerebral game with the ultimate mindless action flick? Clearly the result of such an audacious mash-up would be an unprecedented singularity of [...]
01.09.12 -
With Zombies on Your Heels, You’d Better Run for Your Lives
Forget your gun, your sword, your axe, and even your chainsaw. One on one, these are suitable weapons against a slow or fast zombie, but when you’ve got dozens, maybe even hundreds of zombies coming your way, you better run! Pause to fire off a round or take a swing at the nearest zombie and [...]
01.09.12 -
NerdTrivia Brings Geeky Pub Quizzes to Twitter
Pub trivia nights mix booze and brains, turning the rapid-fire recall of arcane facts into a raucous barroom sport enjoyed by infomaniacs around the world. Now, thanks to NerdTrivia, you can relish that sort of fun all day on Twitter (cocktails optional).
01.09.12 -
Chrysler Hopes its Dart Hits the Mark
After 37 years, Chrysler brings back the Dart nameplate with its first cool small car since the Dodge Neon.
01.09.12
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A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Jan. 9
Google's daily brainteaser helps hone your search skills.
01.09.12 -
New Year, New Game Launches
The ENnie award-winning RPG blog Gnome Stew??is launching a new side project this year to encourage roleplayers to get out and play some new games: New Year, New Game (NYNG). The event’s goal is for game masters (GMs) around the world is to run a new game this year. The hobby, after all, depends on [...]
01.08.12 -
The Waiting Is Over: Downton Abbey Season 2 Airs Tonight!
Many of us here at GeekMom have been champing at the bit for the American premiere of Downton Abbey Season 2, and now at last it’s here: two whole hours of Edwardian intrigue and house-politics. I’m all aflutter. Come over to GeekMom for a clip featuring ten of the Dame Maggie Smith’s most deliciously withering [...]
01.08.12 -
Board Game Review: Ninja: Legend of the Scorpion Clan
Overview: The Lion Clan’s castle is well-guarded, with two moats and sentries. Patrols walk a regular path around the compound, watching for anything amiss. Of course, the ninja from the Scorpion Clan isn’t easily seen or heard ??? and what’s more, he has a traitor accomplice on the inside. The ninja and the traitor must [...]
01.08.12 -
The GeekDads Episode #106: Skylanders Farming (GeekDad Weekly Rewind)
Ken, Matt, Jonathan, and James talk about the Hobbit trailer, games we got for Christmas, 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 [...]
01.08.12 -
Audio: Stephen Hawking’s Best Quotes
It would be hard to find a geek who doesn't recognize the world-famous theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, who turns 70 today.
01.08.12 -
5 Nintendo 3DS Games You May Have Missed
Five Nintendo 3DS games that snuck out under the radar. Which are worth your time, and which are secret wastes of $40?
01.07.12 -
Website Gives Coding Lessons to Rogue Employees
CodeAcademy is a website that gives you programming lessons. Its Code Year program sends weekly exercises straight to your email inbox. Right now, it focuses on web languages such as JavaScript, Ruby, and Python. Traditionally, those aren't the languages big businesses use in honing their back-end infrastructure, but so many companies now need web programmers, and these languages are gradually working their way into the back-end. "Enterprise is not our focus, at this point," Sims says. "But the enterprise already seems to be using it."
01.06.12 -
Olympic Runner Auctions Ad Space — On His Body
Olympic runner Nick Symmonds will wear the winning bidder's Twitter handle on his shoulder to raise money -- and awareness.
01.06.12 -
Jason Silva’s Captivating Videos Deliver a Dose of ‘Techno-Optimism’
Enough with the 2012 apocalyptic pessimism. Jason Silva's positively mesmerizing indie videos will jolt you with a joyous hit of good vibes about technology and its place in our world.
01.06.12
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Friday Field Photo #164: Cruising the Big Sur Coast
This week’s Friday Field Photo is from a short research cruise I went on with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in 2006 on their vessel the Western Flyer. We went to an area offshore of the spectacular Big Sur coastline of central California to collect sediment cores from the 1,000 meter-deep seafloor using [...]
01.06.12 -
Supreme Court to Decide if Cops Can Raid Homes Based on Drug-Sniffing Dog
The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide for the first time whether judges may issue search warrants for private residences when a drug-sniffing dog outside the home detects dope inside it.
01.06.12 -
Volvo Brings a 3-in-1 Plug-In Hybrid To Detroit
Attention, college professors and conservation lawyers! Bust out your tweed blazers: Volvo’s finally bringing a hybrid to the US. Yes, it’s a concept car and no, it isn’t the V60 diesel hybrid, but it’s the next best thing. The folks in Gothenburg have partially electrified an XC60, giving it a combined total of 350 horsepower, [...]
01.06.12 -
Photo: The Bounty of Species in a Single Scoop of Seafloor Mud
A mere handful of seafloor mud may contain as many species as are found in a square meter of tropical rainforest. The fantastic assemblage seen above was gathered from a single scoop of mud, about 2 inches deep and 5 inches across.
01.06.12 -
Micromanagement Material: Electronic Sleeves Monitor Workers’ Efficiency
Computerized sleeves may soon allow manufacturing bosses to monitor and record workers' moves and mine them for efficiency data.
01.06.12 -
From Best Buy to Apple: The Transformation of Retail
Over 600 Best Buys feature dedicated "Apple Shops," hands-on "stores within stores" that prominently feature Apple's full line and (in 250 stores) specially trained solution consultants. Soon, that same model may come to Target.
01.06.12 -
Game|Life Podcast: How the Angry Birds Stole Christmas
When Angry Birds is the modern-day Pac-Man, what can Nintendo and Sony really do?
01.06.12 -
The Devil Inside Brings New Twist to Exorcism Flick
Borrowing a page from its Paranormal Activity marketing strategy, Paramount Pictures hypes its new exorcism thriller with footage of freaked-out moviegoers reacting to the film.
01.06.12 -
Chinese Crunch Human Genome With Videogame Chips
The world's largest genome sequencing center once needed four days to analyze data describing a human genome. Now it needs just six hours. The trick is servers built with graphics chips -- the sort of processors that were originally designed to draw images on your personal computer. They're called graphics processing units, or GPUs -- a term coined by chip giant Nvidia.
01.06.12 -
Romanian Man Charged in $1.5 Million ATM Skimming Scam
A Romanian man has been arrested in a $1.5 million card-skimming operation that targeted 40 ATMs belonging to HSBC branches in New York.
01.06.12
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Make Your Own Little Pony (Because the Intenet Needs More Ponies)
It’s been a crazy couple of weeks for fans of My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic. First there was that PonyArchive.org debacle and then The New York Times mixed up Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy (for shame). What the world needs now is some time to sit back and make their own pony. Flash game Pony Creator [...]
01.06.12 -
Hackers Get Symantec Anti-Virus Source Code
Symantec has confirmed that hackers obtained source code to two of its enterprise security products and have released portions of it on the web, portending a worst-case scenario where its security software could be perused by hackers to devise ways to circumvent it.
01.06.12 -
Our Sickening Rush to See PTSD – and What It Costs Vets
When Iraq-war veteran Benjamin Colton Barnes shot park ranger Margaret Anderson dead last week, the speculation started almost as soon as the gun reports faded: Barnes must have PTSD. I first saw this speculation on Twitter, where I suggested it was a tad early to speculate, since police were still trying to track Barnes down [...]
01.06.12 -
Help NASA Code Its Way Through Space
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has launched a new website to help build a community around the agency's open source projects.
01.06.12 -
Navy Balloon Launches Drone, Which Drops Two More Spy Bots
It just might be the most convoluted spy program in the Pentagon's history: Fly a balloon up to 60,000 feet, and have it unleash a drone. Then, have that drone deploy several smaller surveillance drones that glide to the ground and collect data. Rube Goldberg, call your office.
01.06.12 -
You’re Welcome, Tehran! U.S. Navy Frees Iranians From Pirates
This is how the U.S. Navy repays Iran's bluster about attacking its ships: It saves Iranian fishermen from Somali pirates. Anytime the Iranians want to thank the Navy, it's cool.
01.06.12 -
ICANN Pushes Ahead With January 12 Launch For New Top-Level Domains
Despite protests and threats of legal action, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is pushing ahead with its plans to expand the availability of top-level domains. The plan,??approved in June of 2011, will potentially lead to a flood of new name space for websites beyond the established national TLDs (like .us and .uk) [...]
01.06.12 -
Latest Chrome Beta Prerenders Websites You’re Likely to Visit
In an effort to speed up web browsing, Google is trying to add psychic powers to its Chrome web browser. The latest beta release of Chrome attempts to anticipate which sites you're most likely to visit and renders them ahead of time.
01.06.12 -
Octopuses Edit Proteins to Beat the Cold
Octopi in frigid Antarctic waters use a trick called RNA editing to customize crucial nervous system proteins to work at low temperatures.
01.06.12 -
Portlandia Brings Out the Fan in Carrie Brownstein
Carrie Brownstein ripped it up on guitar with critically acclaimed power trio Sleater-Kinney and her new indie supergroup Wild Flag. And she let her comedic hair down in IFC???s excellent hipster satire Portlandia. So why does she still feel like a noob as Portlandia???s second season, whose cameo-riddled fun is previewed in the gallery above, premieres Friday night?
01.06.12
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Trillion-Dollar Stealth Fighter Program Delayed, But Still Tracking
As expected, the Pentagon will delay acquisition of more than 100 early-model Joint Strike Fighters in a bid to save short-term money and to give more time for testers to work out the finicky F-35 warplane's many technical kinks. But the real surprise is that a newly cash-conscious Defense Department still seems fully committed to buying nearly 2,500 of the stealth jets. Total cost: about a trillion dollars.
01.06.12 -
Suggest a Hatch Design for Space Capsule Tycho Deep Space
Want to help design a hatch for a do-it-yourself space capsule? Submit your sketches to Rocket Shop blogger Kristian von Bengston.
01.06.12 -
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Sidecar
Our intrepid adventurer travels to Siberia to visit the IMZ Ural motorcycle factory and master a machine that tried to kill him.
01.06.12 -
Mario … Or Am I? Videogame Anagrams Hide Secret Messages
Anagrams were once thought to possess mystical powers, the ability to divine hidden secrets. Today we understand that this is not true, except possibly in the case of videogames.
01.06.12 -
Short Films Expose Cities’ Subterranean Spaces
What lurks beneath our cities? That question has spurred a few intrepid urban explorers to take cameras into the bowels of urban areas to find out.
01.06.12 -
Four Contradictions in Obama’s New Defense Plan
Many of the key points in President Obama’s new blueprint for the next decade of U.S. defense strategy are straightforward. More spy gear; more special forces; fewer land wars; Asia, Asia, Asia. Whatever you think of the merits of those points, at least they’re internally consistent. Others… not so much. Sometimes the analysis in the [...]
01.06.12 -
Oily Secrets of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’s Title Sequence
runMobileCompatibilityScript('myExperience1367832334001', 'anId'); brightcove.createExperiences(); The oil-drenched title sequence that opens David Fincher’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo includes mesmerizing details from all three of Stieg Larsson’s books about hacker heroine Lisbeth Salander, not just the one upon which the movie is based. That might seem like an odd choice, but it was intentional. Blur Studio, the creator [...]
01.06.12 -
Video: A Short, Strange History of Anonymous
Anonymous's growth from a group of lol-seeking pranksters to a crusading army of hacktivists is a long, strange trip. Wired.com's video team gives you a tour.
01.06.12 -
Livestreaming Journalists Want to Occupy the Skies With Cheap Drones
Meet the Occucopter. The livestreaming media stars of the Occupy movement are using cheap technology to provide streaming coverage of protest events from the air -- challenging the big budgets of mainstream TV news stations.
01.06.12 -
WikiLeaks Supporters Lose Court Bid to Protect Twitter Records
Three WikiLeaks supporters have lost their bid to protect their Twitter records from U.S. investigators trying to prosecute the whistleblowing site over its publication of secret and sensitive government documents.
01.05.12
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