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Flash Accelerates After Multiversal Crisis
Those who don’t know the Flash probably don’t know there used to be more than one. So the return of Barry Allen, known to most of those non-geeks as the Flash, probably isn’t big news. But as another strand in DC Comics’ multiversal makeover, lately repped by its excellent animated Justice League film Crisis on Two [...]
03.01.10 -
Millions of Tons of Water Ice Found at Moon’s North Pole
A moon probe has found millions of tons of water on the moon’s north pole, NASA reported Monday. The vast source of water could one day be used to generate oxygen or sustain a moon base. A NASA radar aboard India’s Chandrayaan-I lunar orbiter found 40 craters, ranging in size from 1 to 9 miles across, [...]
03.01.10 -
iPhone’s LCD Screen Beats Nexus One’s OLED Display
Google Nexus One’s luminous OLED screen may be state of the art when it comes to display technology in smartphones but an iPhone’s LCD screen ranks better, according to tests by DisplayMate, a firm that calibrates and optimizes displays. “The high resolution, high pixel density OLED display on the Nexus One is beautiful, even stunning [...]
03.01.10 -
The Perfect Car for a ‘Snowicane’
<< previous image | next image >> Brrrrrrr. Man, it is cold out there. And that snow is deep. The “snowicane” that’s dumped 3 feet of the white stuff on the Northeast has our one-man Pittsburgh bureau dreaming of a vacation someplace a little more hospitable — like, say, Nome, Alaska. And our man in Denver? [...]
03.01.10 -
67 Million-Year-Old Snake Fossil Found Eating Baby Dinosaurs
Scientists have found a 67 million-year-old fossil of a snake coiled around dinosaur eggs and a hatchling. This is the first evidence of snakes eating dinosaurs. “It’s a stunning, once-in-a-lifetime find,” said paleontologist Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago, who was not involved in the study. “We’ve caught one of the rarest moments in the [...]
03.01.10 -
Countdown to Tron Legacy Trailer Begins
Sam Flynn rolls up to his dad’s shuttered arcade in a new photo from Tron Legacy (above). Sam’s dad Kevin Flynn (played by Jeff Bridges in Tron as well as the highly anticipated upcoming sequel) disappeared in the original 1982 sci-fi movie. The new Tron Legacy image showing Sam (Garrett Hedlund) and the exterior of Flynn’s arcade [...]
03.01.10 -
PlayStation 3 Units Coming Back to Life
Twenty-four hours after PlayStation 3 owners first reported that their game machines were ceasing to play games or connect to the internet, many consoles are coming back to normal. PlayStation 3 machines around the world ceased to function properly Sunday, when a bug that had laid dormant in the machine’s internal clock reared its ugly head, [...]
03.01.10 -
Fans Say Gentlemen Broncos Bucks Stinker Rep
Not too many hardy souls turned out to defend Gentlemen Broncos‘ quirky honor after Wired.com asked readers to make sense of Jared Hess’ bizarro comedy. But several of those who did scored a free DVD. I guess there’s something to be said for loyalty after all. “Totally not afraid to fail,” wrote danelarsen, one of three [...]
03.01.10 -
Cyberwar Hype Intended to Destroy the Open Internet
The biggest threat to the open internet is not Chinese government hackers or greedy anti-net-neutrality ISPs, it’s Michael McConnell, the former director of national intelligence. McConnell’s not dangerous because he knows anything about SQL injection hacks, but because he knows about social engineering.??He’s the nice-seeming guy who’s willing and able to use fear-mongering to manipulate the [...]
03.01.10 -
Rumor: iPad’s A4 Chip Was Outsourced
Steve Jobs touted the iPad’s processor as “custom silicon” and the “most advanced chip” Apple has ever done, but it appears the company didn’t do much with it at all. Dubbed the A4, the iPad’s brain is actually a system-on-a-chip (SOC) consisting of the Cortex A8 single-core processor made by ARM and Imagination Technologies’ PowerVR SGX [...]
03.01.10
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Convertible Notebooks Seek to Share the Spotlight on Tablets
PC makers are betting the attention on an upcoming generation of consumer tablets could help generate interest in their less attractive cousins–convertible notebooks that are also referred to as tablets. HP has announced a new touch-enabled notebook that can twist into a slate-like tablet and open up to offer a traditional full keyboard laptop. Separately, Panasonic [...]
03.01.10 -
Steve Wiebe to Chase Donkey Kong High Score at GDC
Steve Wiebe (pictured) will shoot for the Donkey Kong high score next week at the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco. Gamasutra reports that Wiebe will appear at the booth for Atlassian, a maker of bug-tracking software, where he will sign autographs and do his darndest to beat rival Billy Mitchell’s Donkey Kong high score. Steve Wiebe [...]
03.01.10 -
Stone Age Engravings Found on Ostrich Shells
Long before human communication evolved into incessant tapping on computer keys, people scratched on eggshells. Don???t laugh???researchers say a cache of ostrich eggshells engraved with geometric designs demonstrates the existence of a symbolic communication system around 60,000 years ago among African hunter-gatherers. The unusually large sample of 270 engraved eggshell fragments, mostly excavated over the past several [...]
03.01.10 -
500-Horsepower Plug-In Porsche Makes Us Swoon
My my my. The boys in Stuttgart have been mighty busy. It wasn’t enough that they built a super-sexy hybrid race car based on the 911 GT3 R. No, they had to build a plug-in hybrid supercar that might just displace the Audi e-tron as the object of our green car lust. Porsche lifted the sheet [...]
03.01.10 -
Backpack Hydroelectric Plant Gives You 500 Watts on the Move
A human-portable hydroelectric generator that weighs about 30 pounds and generates 500 watts of power may soon be a new option for off-grid power. Developed by Bourne Energy of Mailbu, California, the Backpack Power Plant can create clean, quiet power from any stream deeper than 4 feet. The company showed off its more-rugged, militarized version of the [...]
03.01.10 -
Audi Says Ja! to EVs
Audi is diving headlong into electric vehicles. In addition to the awesome e-tron supercar concept, the Germans are rolling into the Geneva auto show with two more slick concepts and promising to build a line of cars wearing the e-tron badge. Never?? fear. Audi isn’t going all Tesla Motors on us. You’ll still see the gasoline [...]
03.01.10 -
10 Things to Do While Your PlayStation 3 Is Broken
Relax. Take a deep breath. Your PlayStation 3 is broken thanks to a glitchy internal clock, and it’s not going to right itself for a while. What will you do to fill the hours and pretend that your game console still works? Game|Life writers John Mix Meyer, Chris Baker, Gus Mastrapa and I have some suggestions. 10. [...]
03.01.10 -
Streamy Awards Name Webotainment Finalists
Creators of web-based video content got the big shout-out Monday with the announcement of this year’s Streamy Awards’ finalists. Contenders include Felicia Day (pictured), who got a nod for best comedic actress in The Guild, and The Hangover star Zach Galifianakis, singled out for web comedy Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis. Nominees were picked by visitors [...]
03.01.10 -
New Freescale Chip Could Birth a $150 E-Reader
A faster processor from chip maker Freescale could help cut down the cost of components for e-readers, paving the way to a $150 device later this year. Freescale’s latest system-on-chip, called the i.MX508, integrates an ARM Cortex A8 processor with a display controller from E Ink. It will have twice the performance at a significantly lower [...]
03.01.10 -
Older Windows Phones Can’t Be Upgraded to 7 Series
Even the newest and fastest Windows phones won’t be upgradable to Microsoft’s next-generation mobile operating system, Windows Phone 7 Series, when it lands later this year. Natasha Kwan, general manager for Microsoft???s Mobile Communications Business in the Asia-Pacific region, told APC Mag that current phones running Windows Mobile 6.5 OS will receive incremental upgrades, but they [...]
03.01.10
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Condé Nast Adds 4 Titles to iPad Initiative
With Wired magazine well on its way to releasing a tablet edition, Cond?? Nast is now preparing four more digital magazines in a “research and development effort” that should last through October, according to a memo distributed to select internal parties on Monday. The initiative expects to have an iPad version of GQ available with the [...]
03.01.10 -
ApocalyPS3: Buggy Clock Drives PlayStation 3 Haywire
[Update 2: As of 3:30 p.m. PST, many users are reporting that their PlayStation 3s are working properly, Wired.com's PS3 included. See PlayStation 3 Units Coming Back to Life for more.] [Update: This story has been updated to include a comment from Sony about the problem, as well as gamers' reactions.] Nearly 24 hours after a leap-year [...]
03.01.10 -
DNA Analysis Shows Polar Bears Have Adapted Quickly in the Past
Genetic analysis of an ancient polar bear fossil has formally dated the species’ birth to 150,000 years ago, shortly before an Ice Age thaw produced a climate comparable to what’s expected in a globally warmed future. “They’ve certainly experienced climate changes before,” said Charlotte Lindqvist, a biologist at the State University of New York at Buffalo [...]
03.01.10 -
The Pentagon’s New Social Media Policy: Your Turn
In a conversation this afternoon with bloggers, Defense Department social media czar Price Floyd said the Pentagon’s default option for web 2.0 was “open, not closed.” The Pentagon’s new social media policy is supposed to ensure that people in uniform have access to sites like Twitter and Facebook, provided they follow common-sense rules about operational security. [...]
03.01.10 -
Firefox Borrows a Bit of Safari’s Magic to Speed Up JavaScript
Mozilla’s Firefox web browser was one of the first to optimize for today’s JavaScript-heavy web pages. Mozilla’s new Tracemonkey JavaScript engine — released with Firefox 3.5 — put the browser at the top of most page rendering speed tests. But lately, Google Chrome, Apple’s Safari and the coming Opera 10.5 have been beating Firefox at [...]
03.01.10 -
Exclusive: Evolution of Darwin Opera Tomorrow, In a Year
Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution galvanized science in the 19th and 20th centuries, and is seriously inspiring the arts in the 21st. Next up: The Knife’s Darwin-inspired opera, Tomorrow, In a Year. A challenging 90-minute epic based on Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, the opera merges found Amazonian sounds, electronic atmospherics and swirling vocals from [...]
03.01.10 -
Wiseguys Indicted in $25 Million Online Ticket Ring
A ring of ticket brokers has been indicted in connection to an elaborate hacking scheme that used bots and other fraudulent means to purchase more than 1 million tickets for concerts, sporting events and other events. The defendants made more than $25 million in profits from the resale of the tickets between 2002 and 2009. According to [...]
03.01.10 -
iPad Inventories Might Be Tight at Launch, Says Analyst (Updated)
If you plan on camping outside an Apple store this month to buy an iPad tablet, you might still go home empty-handed. Rumored production delays could keep the iPad in short supply on the day of launch, says an analyst. In a research note this morning, Canaccord Adams analyst Peter Misek said he has heard of [...]
03.01.10 -
Cracking the Code for Crystal-Powered Super Spooks
Imagine coming up with a way to power an iPod by converting the energy from walking or jogging into electricity. That’s the idea behind new nano-technology research funded by the U.S. intelligence community that could potentially turn spies into self-powered electricity machines. Professor Michael McAlpine of Princeton University — who won funding as part of the [...]
03.01.10 -
The Volvo 780: Where Sophia Loren Met Rosie the Riveter
Don’t let the she-mullet and tie clip fool you: this couple has got style. After all, they’re about to get into one of the most attractive two-doors of the 1980s. This month marks the 25th anniversary of the Volvo 780’s debut at the Geneva Motor Show. The part-Italian, part-Swedish coupe melded the looks of Sophia Loren [...]
03.01.10
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The Universe Season 4: Destroying The Earth One Episode at a Time
If you liked 2012, you’re gonna love this one: “10 Ways to Destroy the Earth” and eleven other episodes that will fascinate you and make the most of your home entertainment system, while freaking out your kids. The Universe Season 4 seeks to educate, entertain and exhilarate. Spoiler alert: A lot of stuff blows up, [...]
03.01.10 -
Will the Pentagon Finally Get Web 2.0?
On Friday, the Pentagon announced a new social media policy that will the troops to use Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites, within limits. True to form, Pentagon social media czar Price Floyd announced the policy change in a Twitter update. It’s an important move, and has the potential to clear up the military’s longstanding [...]
03.01.10 -
Open Source DIY Retro Gaming Clock
MONOCHRON - open source retro clock from adafruit industries on Vimeo. They call it something else (for understandable reasons), but it still satisfies our grumpy old geek rant: “When we were kids, video games had two lines and a dot, and we LIKED IT THAT WAY!” Hardware hacker “Ladyada” has released an open source retro arcade style [...]
03.01.10 -
Dork Tower Monday
Read all the Dork Towers that have run on GeekDad. Find the Dork Tower archives, DT printed collections, more cool comics, awesome games and a whole lot more at the Dork Tower Website.
03.01.10 -
Shoulder Strap for Hands-Free Grocery Shopping
The Yoke Shopper is a bandolier-style strap that lets you carry plastic shopping bags hands-free. Throw it over your shoulder, hang your groceries from the waist-height plastic hook and you’re ready to walk home with your hands empty and your heavy, delicate goods banging away at your thighs and knees. The Yoke is meant for people [...]
03.01.10 -
The GeekDad Space Report for March 1, 2010
Welcome to the March 1st, 2010 edition of the GeekDad Space Report! No launches last week to report on but a couple of launches for the coming week are discussed below. Launches (Sources: Spaceflight Now World Launch Schedule, Wallops Flight Facility Daily Range Schedule) Monday, March 1- Launch Site: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan Launch Vehicle: Proton Rocket Payload: Glonass Launch Time: 21:19 [...]
03.01.10 -
Noktor ??0.95 Lens for Micro Four Thirds Cameras
US-based company Noktor has announced the HyperPrime 50mm ??0.95 lens for Micro Four Thirds cameras. And if you were wondering, that’s fast. The lens is completely manual, meaning you have to turn collars on the lens to set both aperture and focus. The 50mm focal length is effectively doubled by the M4/3 sensor to the [...]
03.01.10 -
10 Steps to an Awesomely Geeky Kids Birthday Party
Birthday season is upon us here. Seven weekends in a row we have parties to attend, with our little girl’s right in the middle. At the end of last year, around the time that Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox came out, we got a CD audiobook of Roald Dahl reading the story himself and Dulcie [...]
03.01.10 -
Ultra-Light DIY Tent-Pole Flash-Stands
Swedish photographer Peter Karlsson has come up with a lightweight, strong and beautifully designed light stand. The skinny tripods are somewhere between a tent and the rigging of a sailing boat. Peter, like many Strobists, uses small flash units for his work, the kind that slide onto the top of your camera. These small speedlights are [...]
03.01.10 -
GeekDad Puzzle Of The Week: Through The Looking Glass
Lewis Carroll, before sitting down to write Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, was a mathematician at Oxford University. Though he was good at it, he found the work boring and his mind wandered. However, he did enjoy playing with numbers and developing secret messaging systems. Eventually, his boredom led to writing and developing the amazing settings [...]
03.01.10
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RadTech Offers Whole iPad Accessory Line
We have seen surprisingly few iPad accessories so far, but RadTech has just filled the vacuum single-handed. The selection of cases, screen-protectors and a stylus is a mix of new products and re-purposed iPhone accessories, but worth a look if only because it poses the question “What will you carry your iPad in?” RadTech offers a couple [...]
03.01.10 -
Insect Character Recognition: Computers See Bees Like We Can’t
Studying animal behavior used to mean traveling into the wild and making detailed notes about gorillas. Now, biologist-coders are figuring out how to use computer vision techniques to convert the myriad motions of creatures large and small into crunchable data. Researchers are figuring out how track the movements of insects such as Drosophila, the fruit fly, [...]
03.01.10 -
Is Yahoo As Screwed As TechCrunch Says?
Michael Arrington of TechCrunch wrote a brutal post Saturday about Yahoo. Repeatedly citing a just-released report from analyst Jordan Rohan at Thomas Weisel Partners, Arrington explains that Yahoo is doomed. “This is no longer even close to an exciting company that thrives on chaotic creativity. Yahoo???s foundation is rotten. They have no plan to get [...]
02.28.10 -
RoboThespian’s Uncanny Soliloquy: ‘I Am a Machine’
RoboThespian shows more acting range than some Hollywood stars The third version of the robotic actor is a “life-size humanoid robot, an automated interactive actor. RoboThespian was created to educate, communicate, interact and entertain,” according to its maker, Engineered Arts. See how easy it is to program and control the mechanical actor in the videos below. Follow us [...]
02.28.10 -
Celebrating Black Lightning
I couldn’t let Black History Month go by without talking about Black Lightning. Jefferson Pierce was the first black superhero whose adventures I avidly followed. I grew up in a rural area of New England where the vast majority of people were white. Books for me were an escape to other worlds and superhero comic books were [...]
02.28.10 -
Write About Magic: The Gathering, Win a Trip to San Juan
Wizards of the Coast is running a contest: tell them an entertaining but true story about Magic and the best two stories win a trip to the MtG Pro Tour in San Juan, Puerto Rico. What is the most fun you’ve ever had playing Magic How long have you been playing Magic and what keeps you coming [...]
02.28.10 -
Light Cycles, Disc-Fu Juice Tron Legacy Trailer
LOS ANGELES — Devoted Tron fans were granted an early look at the trailer for Tron Legacy Saturday. Both Tron Legacy director Joseph Kosinski and original Tron helmer Steven Lisberger were on hand to introduce the two-minute trailer, screened in an Imax theater here as part of an ongoing viral promotion for the movie. Kosinski called [...]
02.27.10 -
Blowback: Did You Survive The Crazies?
A slick remake of George A. Romero’s 1973 horror flick, The Crazies casts Timothy Olyphant as a small-town sheriff dealing with an outbreak that turns citizens into hideous killers. But he’s also contending with a government crackdown designed to contain the catastrophe. While Romero’s original teed off on U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, director Breck [...]
02.27.10 -
Food Looks Foul in Disgusting Short Film Feeder
Anyone looking for weight-loss motivation could do worse than watching Feeder. From the looks of this trailer, the short film — shot entirely from inside a the dark confines of a hungry mouth — serves up a buffet of disgusting imagery. You would expect nothing more from a cinematic creation with the tagline “a short film [...]
02.27.10 -
Aren’t You a Little Nearsighted for a Stormtrooper?
If you’re a regular reader of GeekDad, you know how much we love the various Woot.com incarnations. And today’s Shirt.Woot is, as you can see from the picture above, brilliant. Yes, if the stormtroopers could but have seen their targets properly, Star Wars (Episode IV, that is) would have ended a whole lot sooner, and [...]
02.27.10
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Assembling the LEGO Atlantis Neptune Carrier
The latest addition to my geekson’s LEGO Collection is the Atlantis Neptune Carrier (#8075). This kit is the biggest of the LEGO Atlantis Collection, with 475 pieces. This includes four minifigures, a stingray, a seabed rover, a mini-sub and the main carrier ship. The seabed rover rolls into the belly of the main carrier and the [...]
02.27.10 -
Blowback: Is Kevin Smith’s Cop Out Really a Cop Out?
Cop Out, the new buddy-cop comedy from Twitter-loving director Kevin Smith, opens Friday. We loved his 2009 Seth Rogen comedy Zack and Miri Make a Porno, and everybody loved his stoner classics Clerks and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Sadly, we were too busy following Smith’s very public fat spat with Southwest Airlines and documenting his [...]
02.26.10 -
TV Ad Powerhouse FedEx Woos Small Biz With Web Parodies
NEW YORK (Reuters) - FedEx is famous for memorable television commercials, but like many big companies, it is following customers as they navigate from the television to the computer and in turn, shipping much of its marketing to the Web. One of the package delivery giant’s biggest Web campaigns, running on YouTube and Hulu, is [...]
02.26.10 -
No Lie! Your Facebook Profile Is the Real You
“On the Internet,” one dog tells another in a classic New Yorker cartoon, “nobody knows you’re a dog.” The internet is notorious for its digital dens of deception. But on Facebook, what you see tends to be what you get — at least in one study of tailless, two-legged young adults. College-age users of Facebook in the [...]
02.26.10 -
Flash-Freezing Technique May Boost Egg Survival Rates
A new study has identified the best way to flash freeze living tissue, which could lead to better human egg and stem cell storage. The technique could dramatically improve the odds that frozen, unfertilized eggs could be thawed out and still be healthy enough to be fertilized. That would reduce how many eggs must be harvested, [...]
02.26.10 -
Twitter Plans Search Ads Like Google’s
Twitter’s got a new plan to make money from its ultrapopular micropublishing system — copy Google’s lucrative search ads — according to All Things D. The idea is that Twitter will let advertisers sign up to have their ads show up as tiny 140-word posts when users search through Twitter or through other search engines that [...]
02.26.10 -
Sneak Peek! Ferrari 599 Hybrid
Mama mia! The Ferrari 599 Hybrid is real! Someone very brave or very stupid (unless it was a Ferrari flak looking to build buzz) surreptitiously snapped a couple of shots of the 599 Hybrid concept on the stand just days before it was to be unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show. They were posted at CarSpyShots.com [...]
02.26.10 -
At Long Last, Progress On a Transportation Bill
The Senate has finally passed its first major piece of legislation in 2010, extending a 2005 transportation spending bill that was an anachronism even when it was written. The bill, which is almost certain to be passed by the House and signed into law, continues Washington’s penchant for auto-centric transportation policy, but at least it [...]
02.26.10 -
Avis To Offer Cars With Cords
Avis is following Hertz into the EV arena, promising to offer Renault electric cars to customers in Europe next year. The deal announced today means Renault-Nissan will have cars with cords in rental fleets on both sides of the Atlantic. “Avis is an important long-term partner for Renault, so we are thrilled to be able to [...]
02.26.10 -
Using ‘Mad Libs’ to Make Web Forms More Fun
In an ideal world, the web would have a built-in identity solutions — websites would automatically know who you are when you arrive. In the real world, however, almost every website has its own sign up and authentication process, endless forms enticing you to enter your name, your e-mail, pick a password… yawn, what [...]
02.26.10
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Lawmakers Punt Patriot Act to Obama
Congress is sending President Barack Obama legislation that extends three provisions of the Patriot Act — despite heated debate among lawmakers that the surveillance measure goes too far. The act, hastily adopted six weeks after the 2001 terror attacks, greatly expands the government???s ability to spy on Americans in the name of national security. Three measures [...]
02.26.10 -
Diesel Hybrid Coming From Mercedes
Well well well. Mercedes-Benz, which knows a thing or two about making very nice diesels, is applying that expertise to a hybrid said to get 56 mpg. Autocar, offering no attribution whatsoever, say the Germans will launch their first diesel-electric hybrid early next year. The E 300 Bluetec Hybrid will sport a “specially tuned” 2.2-liter four-cylinder [...]
02.26.10 -
Man or Astro-man? Reboots for 21st Century
The sonic space cadets in Man or Astro-man? mashed surf, sci-fi, punk, samples and Tesla coils into a jagged rock juggernaut, touring nonstop in the ’90s before burning out at the dawn of the ’00s. But the Alabama-based band has rebooted for the ’10s, and returns to interface live with fans on a U.S. tour [...]
02.26.10 -
The Tester, Episode 2: We Straight Up Ballin’
Two weeks in, and The Tester has not yet been canceled. Probably because it’s not on TV. The Tester, a reality show available through the PlayStation Network, follows the adventures of 11 contestants as they attempt to win a series of contrived challenges and convince a panel of expert industry judges to please send them home [...]
02.26.10 -
Blizzard: StarCraft II Coming in First Half of 2010
Blizzard hopes to have StarCraft II on store shelves in the first half of 2010. Chris Sigaty, production director of StarCraft II, revealed the game’s targeted launch window in an interview for Blizzcast, an official podcast focusing on games created by Blizzard. Sigaty also stated in the interview that the current beta test of the game [...]
02.26.10 -
New Pentagon Sim Teaches Troops to Play Nice
The Pentagon’s added yet another video game to their growing collection. This time, they’re investing in a “First Person Cultural Trainer” designed to teach one-on-one cultural sensitivity to American troops. The Army’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) is backing University of Texas researchers to create the game, which is a 3D sim with scenarios in both [...]
02.26.10 -
Atari Launches Browser-Based Missile Command
Atari re-released its classic arcade game Missile Command as a free, multiplayer browser game Thurdsay. The new edition of the game was created by social gaming outfit OMGPOP. The fresh take on Missile Command can be played at OMGPOP’s website or via its own dedicated site, where you’ll find lots of information about the history of [...]
02.26.10 -
Facebook Patents Social Network Feeds, Raising Innovation Worries
Facebook has won a patent on displaying a news feed of users’ actions in a social network, raising a ruckus in the blogosphere over the possibility that the world’s largest social network could keep competitors at bay through patent lawsuits. Facebook applied for the patent in 2006, and it was published on Tuesday. It covers a [...]
02.26.10 -
This Is F1’s Most Bad-Ass Safety Car Ever
The only thing cooler than driving a Mercedes AMG SLS like you stole it would be driving one around a Formula 1 track like you stole it. That’s what Bernd Mayl??nder will do for the next nine months whenever things go sideways at an F1 race, because the AMG SLS “Gullwing” has just been named the [...]
02.26.10 -
Win A Free Ticket to Google IO 2010
Google’s premiere developer event is coming up in just a couple of months, and we’ve got two passes to give away. Google I/O takes place on May 19 and 20 at Moscone Center in San Francisco. It’s the company’s largest developer event, with hundreds of sessions and demos of all the latest Google tech. Plus, there [...]
02.26.10
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Former Teen Cheerleader Dinged $27,750 for File Sharing 37 Songs
A federal appeals court is ordering a university student to pay the Recording Industry Association of America $27,750 — $750 a track — for file sharing 37 songs when she was a high school cheerleader. The decision Thursday by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reverses a Texas federal judge who had ordered defendant Whitney [...]
02.26.10 -
Blood-Chilling Device Could Save Stroke Victims From Brain Damage
SAN ANTONIO — Cool runnings, indeed. A tiny device placed inside a central vein can safely refrigerate blood as it flows through stroke patients, lowering their temperature and raising the possibility that they might gain brain protection from hypothermia without having to be packed in ice. Although the trial didn???t find that stroke patients getting their [...]
02.26.10 -
Stormtrooper Super Shogun Packs Retro Punch
<< previous image | next image >> SAN FRANCISCO — Brian Flynn is on a mission from the toy gods to create the ultimate collectible: a giant-size plastic mashup of Star Wars cool and retro Japanese cachet. His creation, a 2-foot-tall wonder called the Stormtrooper Super Shogun, is based on the Jumbo Machinder toys that were sold [...]
02.26.10 -
Targeted Audio Ads: Coming to a Cellphone Near You
Many of us grew up hearing ads on the radio, but those ads never knew where you were, what kind of radio you had, or your general demographic information. TargetSpot, a CBS-backed venture that calls itself the nation’s largest internet-radio advertising network, announced deals this week with Slacker’s music-streaming service to bring “the first-ever targeted mobile [...]
02.26.10 -
Building a More Survivable ‘Future’ for the Army
The Army once planned to build a family of networked, electric-powered combat vehicles that would use information — instead of inches of armor — to help them survive on the battlefield. Now, it looks like the service is completely rethinking its approach. Yesterday, the Army issued a request for proposals for a new Ground Combat Vehicle [...]
02.26.10 -
The Taliban Strike Afghan Capital, Again (Updated)
While the United States and NATO press an offensive in rural southern Afghanistan, the Taliban are continuing dramatic attacks in the capital, Kabul. Earlier today, militants struck a high-rise hotel and guesthouses frequented by foreigners in the city’s relatively upscale Shahr-e-Now neighborhood. One of the attacks hit Safi Landmark Hotel, a prominent glass-and-concrete building near Shahr-e-Now [...]
02.26.10 -
‘Rocketman’ Bob Maddox: Landing on a TV Near You?
Avid Autopia readers are by now undoubtedly familiar with the antics of Bob Maddox, the mild-mannered jet-powered daredevil from Medford, Oregon. The 800,000 or so of you who watched grainy YouTube videos of his jet-powered bike will no doubt be glad to learn that you soon may be able to see Bob jump from a [...]
02.26.10 -
Darko Dancing: World’s First Mixable YouTube Clip?
Freelance artist and designer Henrik Leichsenring claims to have invented the world’s first mixable YouTube video. But even if he didn’t, “The Mixable Dancer” is still an eerie reel worth freaking, thanks to its Donnie Darko disco vibe. “In terms of the creepy rabbit, we wanted some sort of animal costume because I’m a sucker for [...]
02.26.10 -
What Is Time? One Physicist Hunts for the Ultimate Theory
SAN DIEGO — One way to get noticed as a scientist is to tackle a really difficult problem. Physicist Sean Carroll has become a bit of a rock star in geek circles by attempting to answer an age-old question no scientist has been able to fully explain: What is time? Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist [...]
02.26.10 -
Introducing to the World… Leo Visceglia Shachtman
Born at 10:35 am on February 23rd, weighing in at 7 pounds 8 ounces, measuring 20 inches in length, meet… Leonardo “Leo” Visceglia Shachtman. Named after his great-grandfathers Lee Guber, the renowned Broadway producer, and Leon Shachtman, the world traveler and gentleman’s gentleman, Leo is now resting comfortably at home with his mother. His dad is [...]
02.25.10
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Alt Text: Apple Purges App Store for Your Own Good
Apple has been sanitizing its app store with the zeal of a ’50s-era television-commercial housewife. Sexually provocative, sexually suggestive and sexually reminiscent apps have been purged from the store, reassuring consumers that they’ll never have to see a bikini again, provided they stare intently at the app store for the rest of their lives and [...]
02.25.10 -
Q&A;: Nintendo’s Cammie Dunaway Says Wii May Have Peaked
SAN FRANCISCO — Nintendo’s Wii console might not sell as well this year as it did in 2009, executive vice president Cammie Dunaway said Thursday. Speaking to Wired.com during the company’s media summit at the W hotel in San Francisco, Dunaway said that at this point in the lifecycle of Nintendo’s home console, sales might not [...]
02.25.10 -
Active Time Babble: Discussing Final Fantasy XIII For 2 Hours
If you only listen to one two-hour podcast about Final Fantasy XIII, make it this week’s Active Time Babble. I’m usually on 1up’s Retronauts, but just this once Parish let me on his role-playing game podcast because, well, I actually played an RPG just recently. Also, I really liked doing this show: JP, co-host Kat Bailey, [...]
02.25.10 -
Military Monitored Planned Parenthood, Supremacists
The U.S. military monitored Planned Parenthood and a white supremacist group as part of the government’s security preparations for the 2002 Olympics in Utah, according to new documents released by the Department of Defense. The U.S. Joint Forces Command liaison collected and disseminated information on U.S. citizens who were members of Planned Parenthood and the white [...]
02.25.10 -
Whistleblower Site Back After Microsoft Withdraws Complaint
Cryptome, the secret-document-spilling site, is back online Thursday, after Microsoft withdrew a copyright complaint that shuttered the site the day before. Microsoft’s efforts to suppress a document about how to subpoena online user data backfired, leading instead to widespread attention to (and republication of) the document it tried to suppress. Microsoft did not apologize in its [...]
02.25.10 -
Apple’s Jobs: Time to ‘Think Big’
Steve Jobs ??? sporting a new shadow beard by at least one account ??? suggested to Apple shareholders Thursday that the $40 billion in loose change it has laying around will almost certainly not be returned to them in the form of a dividend because it provides ”tremendous security and flexibility.” ”Who knows what’s around the [...]
02.25.10 -
Of Course On-Demand Music Replaces Sales - It’s Supposed To
At the Digital Music Forum East in snowy New York, executives gathered to hear new data comparing what happens to music sales when people use interactive radio services such as Pandora as opposed to subscribing to unlimited streaming services such as Rhapsody and Spotify. The Pandora-like radio model has a promotional effect on music sales, increasing [...]
02.25.10 -
Review: Captivating Freaks Populate Eye-Popping Alice in Wonderland
Everybody keeps jabbering about the Jabberwocky monster in Disney’s 3-D reboot of Alice in Wonderland. But like many of the most excellent adventures, it’s the journey — not the destination smackdown between Alice and the evil serpent beast — that makes for a thoroughly engaging escapade. Aided by especially strong work from costume designer Colleen Atwood, [...]
02.25.10 -
Palm Acknowledges the Pre Isn’t an ‘Anything’ Killer. But Is It Game Over?
Palm shares were hammered Thursday after the company lowered its 2010 estimate and admitted that its Pre and Pixi smartphones were not selling well. That’s been an anecdotal certainty in a wireless world dominated by the iPhone, Blackberries and a raft of new Android handsets. Shares in the company closed down nearly 20 percent after it [...]
02.25.10 -
The Blackwater-South Park Hearings: A Postscript
Anti-war group Code Pink now claims that an ex-employee of Blackwater, the improbably named Johnnie Walker, threatened activist Tighe Barry during yesterday’s hearing on Blackwater/Paravant/Xe/whatever. What, did someone wave the jazz hands at him?
02.25.10
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Wisconsin Teen Gets 15 Years for Facebook Sex-Extortion Scam
A Wisconsin teenager was sentenced to 15 years in prison??Wednesday for an extortion scheme that had him tricking male classmates into sending them nude photos of themselves, then blackmailing them with exposure if they didn’t have sex with him. In 2008, defendant Anthony Stancl, who was 18 at the time, posed as a girl on Facebook [...]
02.25.10 -
Code Organ Spins Web Into Music, But What’s It For?
A nifty party trick making the rounds this week called Code Organ translates just about any web page into a song within seconds. Here’s what the Epicenter blog sounds like using this easy-to-use Flash-based tool, which was conceived and created by London advertising agency DLKW. So far, the firm says over a quarter of a million [...]
02.25.10 -
Opera Updates 10.5 Beta for Windows, Adds Mac Support
Opera software has released the second beta for the company’s upcoming Opera 10.5 for Windows and the first beta for Mac users. Mac users can grab the latest beta from the Opera website, the Windows beta 2 release remains, for now, an FTP download. While the Opera web browser may not have the largest market share, it [...]
02.25.10 -
Gmail Features Graduate From Labs to Big Leagues
Google has pushed six of its Gmail experiments out of Labs and into Gmail proper. Handy tools like the forgotten attachment detector, search auto-complete, vacation dates, custom label colors and in-mail previews of YouTube videos are all now standard Gmail features. The features Google moved from Labs to Gmail feel a bit arbitrary — for example, [...]
02.25.10 -
Using Google Earth and GPS to Track Afghanistan Cash
In Operation Moshtarak, the current NATO offensive in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, commanders have a powerful tool at their disposal: cash, and lots of it. According to Lindy Cameron, head of the Helmand Provincial Reconstruction Team, the fighting is being quickly followed by “cash-for-work” programs meant to put local communities back to work, along with other [...]
02.25.10 -
I’m a Congressman, Get Me out of Here!
During yesterday’s Senate hearing on government oversight of security contractors, an interesting tidbit emerged. In his prepared testimony, Fred Roitz, executive vice president of contracts and chief sales officer for Xe (a.k.a. Blackwater), disclosed that his company, through its subsidiary Presidential Airways, evacuated a congressman from Niger during a recent military coup. That caught the eye [...]
02.25.10 -
Shepard Fairey Auctions Portrait Sitting for Charity
Graphic artist Shepard Fairey has crafted crossover iconography using images of Andre the Giant, Barack Obama and our next president, Stephen Colbert. Will you be next? It’s possible, as long as you’ve got mad cash on hand. For the first time in his career, Fairey — whose “Hope” poster helped Obama’s presidential campaign but landed the artist [...]
02.24.10 -
Yelp Accused of Extortion
Yelp, the online review site, is being accused of extortion in a class-action lawsuit filed in Los Angeles this week. The suit alleges that the site tried to get a Long Beach veterinary hospital named Cats and Dogs Animal Hospital to pay $300 a month — for a minimum 12-month commitment — to suppress or delete [...]
02.24.10 -
Microsoft Takes Down Whistleblower Site, Read the Secret Doc Here
Microsoft has managed to do what a roomful of secretive, three-letter government agencies have wanted to do for years: get the whistleblowing, government-document sharing site Cryptome shut down. Microsoft dropped a DMCA notice alleging copyright infringement on Cryptome’s proprietor John Young on Tuesday after he posted a Microsoft surveillance compliance document that the company gives to [...]
02.24.10 -
China Widens Net Censorship; Google Exile Looms
The Chinese government is imposing new internet restrictions demanding personal-website operators to acquire central-government permission to operate their sites. The latest censorship measure, which covers .cn domestic domains, comes as Google is trying to convince Chinese censors to ease up. Google said 43 days ago it would undertake a self-imposed exile from China if the government [...]
02.24.10
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10 Things to Do While Your PlayStation 3 Is Broken
03.01.10 -
The Perfect Car for a ‘Snowicane’
03.01.10 -
500-Horsepower Plug-In Porsche Makes Us Swoon
03.01.10 -
ApocalyPS3: Buggy Clock Drives PlayStation 3 Haywire
03.01.10 -
Condé Nast Adds 4 Titles to iPad Initiative
03.01.10 -
Wiseguys Indicted in $25 Million Online Ticket Ring
03.01.10 -
Backpack Hydroelectric Plant Gives You 500 Watts on the Move
03.01.10 -
Cyberwar Hype Intended to Destroy the Open Internet
03.01.10 -
Stone Age Engravings Found on Ostrich Shells
03.01.10 -
iPad Inventories Might Be Tight at Launch, Says Analyst (Updated)
03.01.10 -
Older Windows Phones Can’t Be Upgraded to 7 Series
03.01.10 -
DNA Analysis Shows Polar Bears Have Adapted Quickly in the Past
03.01.10 -
Light Cycles, Disc-Fu Juice Tron Legacy Trailer
02.27.10 -
PlayStation 3 Units Coming Back to Life
03.01.10 -
PlayStation Network Problems Cause PS3 Meltdown
03.01.10 -
67 Million-Year-Old Snake Fossil Found Eating Baby Dinosaurs
03.01.10 -
Rumor: iPad’s A4 Chip Was Outsourced
03.01.10 -
TigerText Deletes Text Messages From Receiver’s Phone
03.01.10 -
New Freescale Chip Could Birth a $150 E-Reader
03.01.10 -
The Volvo 780: Where Sophia Loren Met Rosie the Riveter
03.01.10
Extreme Test Video
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