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Little League World Series Expands Replay Usage
Little League World Series officials are expanding the sport’s now-limited use of video replay challenges, starting with the kick-off of the 64th annual tournament on August 20. The rule changes will now allow team managers the opportunity to challenge disputed plays, much like the National Football League. Introduced in 2008, the Little League World Series’ mechanism [...]
08.03.10 -
Research In Motion Bites Back With Blackberry Torch
Blackberry maker Research In Motion unveiled a new smartphone Tuesday that offers iPhone-like features to “crackberry” addicts — while adding a few unique touches. The BlackBerry Torch is targeted at consumers rather than BlackBerry’s traditional base of business users. It includes an updated version of the BlackBerry operating system, called OS 6. The phone will be [...]
08.03.10 -
Thanko’s Button Camera Helps You Start Your Spy Career
Jason Bourne I am not. I have neither the chiseled features nor the eagle-eyed marksmanship. But I do have a little bit of guile, a closet full of button-up shirts and a spare ??4,980 (about $58) to spend, so my international spy career may just get off the ground yet thanks to Thanko???s Spy Button [...]
08.03.10 -
BBC Spoof Look Around You Sends Up Science
Girls collecting iron filings? Ants building igloos? That's just part of the absurdist science in the BBC's comedic homage to '70s school science. Wired.com interviews show co-creators Robert Popper and Peter Serafinowicz.
08.03.10 -
Why Metadata Matters for the Future of E-Books
The world of digital publishing can be a lot more complicated than deciding whether to buy a Kindle, Nook, or iPad. If you want to know just how complex things are getting, just ask a publisher, author, or agent about Andrew Wylie. Along with Amazon announcing its new Kindle, the major — and I mean, epoch-making [...]
08.03.10 -
Google Lets You Sign In to Multiple Accounts at Once
People with two or three Gmail addresses can now switch between their accounts quickly and easily without logging out. Google launched the new multi-account sign-in feature across its suite of webapps Tuesday. It’s available on most (but not all) of the popular Google apps. You can switch accounts on Gmail, Calendar, Google Reader, Google Voice, Sites, App [...]
08.03.10 -
General Motors Invests In a Bright Idea
General Motors’ new venture capital division placed its first bet today, investing in an Indiana company with big plans to build plug-in hybrid delivery vans. General Motors Ventures is investing $5 million in Bright Automotive, a deal that gives GM a minority stake in the company and gives Bright access to the automakers’ vast parts bin. [...]
08.03.10 -
U.S. Air Force, Army Help With Pakistan Flood Relief
As if northern Pakistan hasn’t suffered enough during the rise of the Pakistani Taliban over the last several years, the mass flooding that began late last week provided a new level of devastation. UNICEF estimates that 3.2 million Pakistanis have been displaced or otherwise affected. As many as 1500 people have died. Over 25,000 are [...]
08.03.10 -
When The World’s Biggest Fish Poops
Reaching 40 feet long and weighing up to 15 tons, whale sharks are the world’s largest fish. They feed by filtering plankton and fish eggs from a vortex created by their opening mouths — and as shown in a first-of-its-kind photograph of a whale shark pooping, activities at the other end of the fish are [...]
08.03.10 -
Review: Remixed Castlevania Forges New Fun From Old Parts
Konami’s latest Castlevania is a great mishmash of videogames past, an experimental hybrid that stands as the most innovative title in the vampire-hunting series in years. The 24-year history of the chintzy horror game franchise can be neatly split into two eras. The first was dominated by straightforward arcade action. The second, led by 1997’s landmark [...]
08.03.10
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DIYers Mod a Nintendo to Play Mario by Moving Their Eyes
While Xbox Kinect may soon make controllers obsolete, allowing us to flail around in front of our TVs to play video games, some young DIYers couldn???t wait until November to go hands-free. So they modded an old-school Nintendo with some extra gear that allows them to play Super Mario Bros just by moving their eyes.
08.03.10 -
Inside the Red Machine: Movie Explores WWII Espionage & Codebreaking
The new independent film The Red Machine is a World War II espionage film aimed at puzzlers. Five-time American Crossword Puzzle Tournament champ Tyler Hinman delves into what makes this film tick. “The Red Machine, Decrypted” by Tyler Hinman Puzzle fans and history buffs alike know of German cryptography during World War II and the Allies’ attempts [...]
08.03.10 -
Sex Is Rough for Thomas Jane in Hung
What's it like to play a male prostitute on TV? We asked actor Thomas Jane from Hung, who says having sex in front of 150 crew members is about as fun as "wrapping dead fish."
08.03.10 -
The GeekDads Podcast Live Tonight 7:00pm/10:00 PDT/EDT
For those of you who enjoy our GeekDads podcast, we’ll broadcast the recording session live tonight. So if you’d like to waste an hour and participate via chat room, stop by right here at 7:00 this evening, Pacific Time. We hope to see you here!
08.03.10 -
The Itch of Curiosity
Curiosity is one of those personality traits that gets short scientific shrift. It strikes me as a really important mental habit – how many successful people are utterly incurious? – but it’s also extremely imprecise. What does it mean to be interested in seemingly irrelevant ideas? And how can we measure that interest???While we’ve analyzed [...]
08.03.10 -
Star Trek Fish Emblem for True Believers
For a long time, I thought that a lot of the people in my town just really, really liked fish. Why else would they put a little metal fish badge on their cars? Then, of course, I learned that putting a little Ichthus fishy on a trunk or fender was just a natural way to [...]
08.03.10 -
Male Spiders Dwarfed by Females Because (Small) Size Matters
Male spiders may be tiny compared to their female counterparts in part because it makes it easier for them to get around and spread their genes. Scientists studied different spiders’ aptitude for bridging — sending out strands of thread that get carried by the wind to another spot, and then crawling across — [...]
08.03.10 -
Pimp Your Ride: Cyglo Bike Tires with Embedded LEDs
Cyglo bike tires are the pimped-out equivalent of spinners for bikes. They have LEDs embedded into the rubber which will glow in a perfect circle of light as the wheels turn, making you safe but also making you look awesome/stupid as you ride. The design, patented in the US and the UK by inventor James Tristram, [...]
08.03.10 -
William Gibson Counts Down to Zero History
Sci-fi visionary and father of cyberspace William Gibson returns to the 21st century’s literary wasteland with Zero History. And he’s got the rocking teaser video to prove it. “Some geezer reads some dialogue from Zero History,” the Neuromancer and All Tomorrow’s Parties author tweeted Monday, adding a link to the clip above and commenting that he [...]
08.03.10 -
Help Out Kids Need to Read By Way of Hyde and Geek’s 36-Hour Tweetathon
We at GeekDad are huge fans of kids, of reading and of pretty much any initiative that encourages kids to read. If you’re a regular reader, you may recall the articles we’ve had about the Kids Need to Read (KNTR) organization. KNTR is dedicated to providing underfunded school libraries with books, which by itself is [...]
08.03.10
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Apple Adds RAW Support for Almost All Mirrorless Cameras
Apple has another RAW Compatibility update out today. This would not usually be of note (unless a camera I owned was on the list, in which case I would be too excited to keep quiet) but support has been added for many of the most interesting cameras of the last few months. With two exceptions, all [...]
08.03.10 -
Shades of Milk and Honey’s Book Trailer is Magical
Last month's GeekDad interview of Mary Robinette Kowal touched on her upcoming book release of Shades of Milk and Honey. Her book comes out today, and there is also a new trailer for the book to enjoy. Since Ms. Kowal is a puppeteer, she has created a two minute mini-movie complete with puppetry and silhouette. It is cinematically gorgeous.
08.03.10 -
Cell Phones And WiFi Set To Invade NYC’s Subways
After years of negotiations, a plan is afoot to wire New York City’s subway platforms for both cellular and WiFi service, a move that may see service extend into many of the subway system’s tunnels. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has been looking for a contractor to perform the service for a number [...]
08.03.10 -
Army’s Vaccine Plan: Inject Troops With Gas-Propelled, Electro-Charged DNA
The Army’s got a one-two punch to perfect vaccinations and offer scientists the ability to quickly develop inoculations that stave off new dangers. First, they’ll shoot troops up using a “gene gun,” that’s filled with DNA-based vaccines. Then they’ll follow it up with “short electrical pulses to the delivery site.” The Pentagon’s still [...]
08.03.10 -
An Insider’s Look At The MoonBots Teams: WEBstormers
This is a guest post by Will Pomerantz, Senior Director of Space Prizes at the X Prize Foundation. Over the weekend, I provided a quick introduction for myself, the X Prize Foundation, and the MoonBots educational competition as part of a profile of one of the finalist teams, the Shadowed Craters. In brief, MoonBots challenges [...]
08.03.10 -
Robot Reboot: Magnus Fights Thug-Bots in New Comic
Originally hatched in the 1960s, comic book robot killer Magnus launches a fresh assault on gangster-employed automatons Wednesday when Dark Horse Comics reactivates the cult figure with a new set of stories. In the inaugural issue, former Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Jim Shooter revisits the continent-spanning city of North Am, where mobsters dispatch “thug-bots” to kidnap a [...]
08.03.10 -
Maker Faire Detroit: Try This at Home!
Detroit: The Motor City. You don???t become the world???s headquarters for automobile production without having a bit of do-it-yourself resourcefulness. General Motors, Chrysler and Ford all call Detroit home and with it bring an incredible amount of talent, engineering and manufacturing know-how to the area. Ford, one of the premiere sponsors, hosted the first full-fledged [...]
08.03.10 -
Suicidal Bluetooth Headset Looks Like Gun
Mike Haeg is the mayor of Mount Holly, Minnesota*. He also hates talking on the telephone, and to make his point he hacked together this amazing Bluetooth headset. Inside, the guts are that same as you’d find in any other Bluetooth earpiece. Outside, it’s a gun. Take a call and you look like you’re about to [...]
08.03.10 -
The Weight of a Geek Crush
As we turn towards August and the things that await us there, let us reflect a little on one small, but hugely significant event in the world of GeekDad that took place in July. If you missed the twitter frenzy or are not a regular reader of Girls Are Geeks you may just have missed [...]
08.03.10 -
FaceTime Over 3G on Jailbroken iPhone 4
Want a reason to jailbreak your iPhone 4? How about FaceTime calls over 3G? If you’re comfortable jailbreaking your iPhone by letting a website execute unknown code on it via a browser exploit, then you too could make normally Wi-Fi-only FaceTime video calls over the 3G network. The video above comes from the fine folks at [...]
08.03.10
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Grace’s Diary Is An Educational Adventure Game
As my kids grow up I’m aware that they need to build their own social networks. At the same time though I’m also aware how intense those relationships can be. Grace’s Diary is an adventure game on the PC that raises issues around teen dating violence. Although it sounds kind of extreme, having played it I [...]
08.03.10 -
Hacker Wonderland: DefCon 18 in Photos
<< previous image | next image >> LAS VEGAS — Roughly 10,000 computer hacking enthusiasts, poseurs, geeks, nerds and government agents gathered for DefCon this weekend. In its 18th year, the world’s largest hacker convention draws people from all walks of life to learn about the latest hacking techniques. Talks this year ranged from hardware hacker Chris [...]
08.03.10 -
New Huawei MiFi is One Hot-Looking Hot-Spot
That little gadget up there isn’t a cellphone, although it certainly shares some design points with the old G1 Googlephone. It is actually a MiFi-like cellular hotspot, a little battery-powered box which shares a 3G data connection over Wi-Fi. Like the MiFi, the Huawei E583C will support up to five devices over Wi-Fi, plus one more [...]
08.03.10 -
Report: Online Ad Groups and Microsoft Watered Down IE Privacy Controls
Microsoft crippled online privacy protections in the latest version of its Internet Explorer browser, due to vigorous opposition from Microsoft’s advertising executives ??and ad industry representatives, the Wall Street Journal reported. IE8’s architects planned to build sophisticated, default tools into the IE8 browser to thwart online tracking and profiling by advertisers who track users to place [...]
08.02.10 -
Overtime: Marathons, Messi, and the Infield Fly
Starting now, Playbook will end each workday with a roundup of links to stories that are maybe not-so-Wired, but which caught our attention anyway. Enjoy. Catching up with Bengals coach Mike Zimmer, 10 months after his wife suddenly died ??? ESPN 100 marathons in 140 days? It’s all for a good cause ??? Westchester News Online City of [...]
08.02.10 -
Aug. 3, 1977: The TRS-80 Is Bad, and That Ain’t Trash Talk
1977: In a New York City news conference Tandy Corp of Texas announces that it will manufacture the first mass-produced personal computer. The TRS-80 — lovingly called the ???Trash 80??? — would be an early rock star in the PC era and give the flagging Radio Shack franchise bragging rights as ???biggest name in [...]
08.02.10 -
Video: Chemical Brothers Cook Eyeballs With Waveforms
The Chemical Brothers’ latest effort, Further, pulses with sonic undulations. They’re all quite hypnotically transmitted in the video for the group’s newest single, “Another World,” out Aug. 17 on download and Sept. 28 on vinyl. Flying high between narcotic thumps and ecstatic outbursts, “Another World” is a bipolar pleasure. The video adds a neon wonderland of [...]
08.02.10 -
Trailer: Sequestro Documents Cops’ Anti-Kidnapping Efforts
This Brazilian documentary chronicles the efforts of the S??o Paulo police department's anti-kidnapping division from 2005 through 2009.
08.02.10 -
Adidas miCoach App Sets Sights Square on Nike+
When you pull up the homepage for Nike+ ??? the ground-breaking exercise system that combines a thumb-size sensor with iPod/iPhone functionality to track your daily workout regimen ??? there’s a constantly scrolling number in the lower-right side of the screen. It’s the total number of miles run by Nike+ users since the service went live [...]
08.02.10 -
Is Your Browser Ready for HTML5?
The HTML5 era is already here, it just isn’t evenly distributed yet. Browsers vary in their levels of support for the emerging standard, and developers are pushing the envelope with hacks, experiments and proof-of-concept demos. If you want to find out how well-equipped your browser is for the HTML5 future, just pay a visit HTML5test.com. You’ll [...]
08.02.10
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Is Your Browser Ready for HTML5?
The HTML5 era is already here, it just isn’t evenly distributed yet. Browsers vary in their levels of support for the emerging standard, and developers are pushing the envelope with hacks, experiments and proof-of-concept demos. If you want to find out how well-equipped your browser is for the HTML5 future, just pay a visit HTML5test.com. The [...]
08.02.10 -
Latest Launch Brings China Closer to ‘GPS’ Of Its Own
At 5:30 on Sunday morning, the Chinese government fired a Long March 3A rocket into orbit. It carried a navigation satellite — the fifth in a planned constellation of 30 or more Beidou orbiters that Beijing hopes will soon rival America’s Global Positioning System. For years, the U.S. Air Force has owned and operated the system [...]
08.02.10 -
Why Xbox Might Be Microsoft’s Future — and Computing’s, Too
It’s easy to dismiss Xbox’s new Kinect controller-free sensor as a “Wii Too” product. But I wonder whether Microsoft is onto something much bigger, something that will take the innovations introduced for the Xbox into the broader sphere of personal computing. Sure, from the perspective of gaming in 2010, it doesn’t offer much that Nintendo’s Wii [...]
08.02.10 -
‘GameTrekking’ Melds Indie Game Design, Travel Writing
Indie game designer Jordan Magnuson will travel Asia and create games inspired by his journey. The project, called GameTrekking, is being funded through Kickstarter. If Magnuson can get raise enough money to pay for his excursion through Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, he’ll spend his free time creating 10 to 15 free-to-play games inspired by the [...]
08.02.10 -
Electronic Arts Unveils User-Gen Platform Game Create
Looks like LittleBigPlanet has some competition. Electronic Arts unveiled Create, a sandbox platform game fueled by gamers’ creativity, on Monday morning. Due out in November for the Wii, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC and Mac, the game is being developed by EA Bright Light studios in the United Kingdom. The sandbox game will allow players to tackle [...]
08.02.10 -
Orangutans Are Extraordinarily Energy Efficient
Lie down on the couch, television blaring, a bowl of chips on your stomach and a Big Gulp of cola on your chest. If you need anything, yell for it. Wait a few hours. Guess what? You’re still burning more energy than a fully active orangutan. According to a new study of orangutan energy expenditure, our [...]
08.02.10 -
Video: Sun Puts on a Spectacular Eruption Show
?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? runMobileCompatibilityScript('myExperience374733519001', 'anId');brightcove.createExperiences(); NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded a trio of awesome solar phenomena on August 1. A sunspot gave rise to a solar flare which erupted nearly simultaneously with a huge magnetic filament. A solar tsunami can also be seen emanating from the flare. The different [...]
08.02.10 -
NASCAR Heralds Milestone in Solar-Powered Sports
Leave it to the gas guzzlers of NASCAR to pull off building one of the United States’ largest alt-energy installations. With the help of nearly 40,000 solar panels tucked away in an adjacent lot, yesterday’s running of the Pennsylvania 500 helped mark Pocono Raceway as the largest sports facility in the world to run on solar [...]
08.02.10 -
Antarctic Octopuses Discovered With Sub-Zero Venom
<< previous image | next image >> A research expedition to Antarctica to study the region’s octopus life has returned with descriptions of four new species, and the first known sub-zero venoms. “Antarctic octopus venom works at temperatures that would stop other venoms in their tracks,” said biochemist Bryan Fry of the University of Melbourne, who led [...]
08.02.10 -
Duck Penis Length Depends on Other Guys
WILLIAMSBURG, Virginia ??? New measurements find that the maximum length of a duck???s penis depends on the company he keeps. And in this case, it???s his fellow males who make the difference. A drake???s penis substantially wastes away at the end of one breeding season and then regrows as the next season begins. Among lesser scaup [...]
08.02.10
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SamplePlayer Makes Your Browser Sing, Sans Flash
It runs in the browser, it doesn't use Flash and it makes a whole lot of bleepy noises.
08.02.10 -
Video: Meteor Explodes Over New Mexico
runMobileCompatibilityScript('myExperience374722563001', 'anId');brightcove.createExperiences(); A meteor exploded in the atmosphere near Santa Fe, New Mexico just before 5 a.m. on the morning of July 31. Local amateur radio astronomer Thomas Ashcraft captured the event from his personal [...]
08.02.10 -
RoboCop, Dirty Harry Go Retro in Rolling Roadshow Posters
See Also: Gowalla's RoboCop Trip Guides You Through Crumbling Detroit Exclusive: Tribbles Infest Alamo Drafthouse's New Star Trek Posters Tusken Triumph: Raider Poster Sells Out in 25 Minutes Flat
08.02.10 -
iPhone ‘Pull To Refresh’ in JavaScript
When it first arrived in iPhone apps, the simple “pull to refresh” action was instantly hailed as a genius bit of user interaction engineering. It’s an ultra-intuitive way of refreshing the displayed page content by simply pulling the page down with your thumb, then releasing it — sort of like pulling a lever on a slot [...]
08.02.10 -
Why Do We Care About Luxury Brands?
If I had access to a secret stash of iPhone knockoffs — a phone that worked identically to the real iPhone, but was a bootleg made of inauthentic parts — how much could I charge? Could I sell them for $10 less than the purchase price of a real iPhone? What about 25 percent off? [...]
08.02.10 -
Apple Removes Controversial Smartphone Videos
Apple deleted videos depicting the signal loss of the iPhone 4 and other smartphones from the U.S. and Asian versions of its website, after Wired.com (and others) criticized the way videos confused a reception issue associated with the iPhone 4’s external antenna design with a general absorption problem suffered by all radio devices. Instead of videos [...]
08.02.10 -
Navy Works to Laser-Proof Its Drones
In May and June, the U.S. Navy sent four drones crashing into the Pacific Ocean, after blasting them with a prototype laser weapon. If follow-up tests are successful, there’s a chance the ray gun might be ready for deployment some time around 2016. Other countries’ energy weapons will come years afterward — if they [...]
08.02.10 -
Grand Prix Hits Steel City
PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania — Goodwood, Monterey, Sebring. These are places steeped in racing history. The mere mention of these venues brings to mind power, passion and speed. Another city known for sports, but not necessarily motorsports, hopes to evoke some of that same sentiment — Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix has since 1983 grown into a [...]
08.02.10 -
Trucks Get Dual Clutch Transmissions
Drivers of Mitsubishi Fuso box trucks will soon be able to get their hands on the same transmission technology found in the Evo X — not to mention the Bugatti Veyron. Daimler, Mitsubishi Fuso’s parent company, announced last week that they’d soon be offering a dual clutch transmission (DCT) on their line of commercial trucks — [...]
08.02.10 -
Review: Limbo Is A Hauntingly Ethereal Puzzle Game Worthy Of Your Attention
I spent a few moments playing Limbo, an Xbox Live Arcade Game, at Comic-Con. It was immediately obvious this E3 darling was a game worth buying and playing through a few times. Its muted black and gray colors and echoing soundtrack evoke a dream state in the same way Ico or Shadow of the Colossus [...]
08.02.10
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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.
08.02.10 -
Fire Up The Grill: GeekDad Field Tests A Trio Of Portables
As a frequent camper and grilling enthusiast, I’ve had occasion to put a few of the better known portable grills currently being sold through their paces. I thought I might share my experiences in case any of you happen to be looking for something to take camping, tailgating or even for the back yard or [...]
08.02.10 -
Tesla Subsidy Vanishing Amid Electric Vehicle Boom
Twenty years ago the California Air Resources Board established the zero emissions vehicle mandate requiring the largest automakers to build and sell electric vehicles. Twelve states adopted the same aggressive targets, creating what remains the strongest regulatory force driving the development of battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. With General Motors and Nissan delivering [...]
08.02.10 -
August 2, 1790: New Nation Comes to Its Census
1790: In keeping with a tradition at least as old as the Romans and constitutionally mandated by the Founding Fathers, the first U.S. Census begins. Federal representatives fanned out across the original 13 states, tabulating information on American households, just as they have every 10 years since. The information was used to estimate taxes, assign [...]
08.02.10 -
Geek Culture’s Fiercest Female Ass-Kickers, as Picked by You
See Also: Geek Culture’s 26 Most Awesome Female Ass-Kickers
08.01.10 -
Update: Ex-Hacker Denies Alleged WikiLeaker Gave Him Classified Documents
An Army intelligence analyst who is charged with leaking classified documents to the secret-spilling site WikiLeaks also allegedly sent classified documents to the hacker who turned him in to the feds, according to a friend and associate of the hacker who helped connect him with federal agents. Note: Adrian Lamo has now denied this. See the [...]
08.01.10 -
From Samizdat to Twitter: How Technology Is Making Censorship Irrelevant
To understand what the web has done for free speech, it???s necessary to think about how Natalya Gorbanevskaya and her fellow dissidents produced 65 issues of the samizdat publication Chronicle Of Current Events in the Soviet Union between 1968 and 1983. Censoring the web poses a significant challenge to authoritarian rulers everywhere, and [...]
08.01.10 -
Hacker Spoofs Cell Phone Tower to Intercept Calls
LAS VEGAS — A security researcher created a cell phone base station that tricks cell phones into routing their outbound calls through his device, allowing someone to intercept even encrypted calls in the clear. The device tricks the phones into disabling encryption and records call details and content before they’re routed on their proper way through [...]
07.31.10 -
Do Not Call List Tops 200 Million, Some Scammers Still Ignore It
The Federal Trade Commission announced a milestone this week: its Do Not Call registry has just passed 200 million numbers. It’s quite amazing that any of this came to pass, really. When the registry was being considered back in 2002, telemarketing opposition was fierce, and for obvious reasons. The industry was large, [...]
07.31.10 -
Biometric and Other Locks Fail to Foil Hackers at DefCon
LAS VEGAS — It wouldn’t be DefCon without a noted lock hacking team demonstrating the gross insecurity of some of the latest security locks, such as a biometric lock that could be easily cracked with a paper clip. This year the three-member team of lock hackers, Marc Weber Tobias, Toby Bluzmanis and Matt Fiddler who have [...]
07.31.10
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Real-World Dragon Quest IX Meet-Ups Begin
Charge up your Nintendo DS and prepare to get social: Retailers will begin hosting Dragon Quest IX meet-ups this weekend. Starting Saturday, select GameStop, Best Buy and Simon Mall locations will provide time and space to gamers who want to hook up for multiplayer rounds of Dragon Quest IX, recruit other players via the game’s “tag [...]
07.30.10 -
Analysis: Google Stumbles, Again, With China Outage Report
Google’s Chinese web-censorship monitoring page reported Thursday that its unfiltered Chinese search site had been blocked again, prompting eager news organizations, including Reuters, the Associated Press and Wired.com, to report the news widely. Fortunately for Chinese web users, there was no such general block, as was quickly reported through Twitter. Google retracted its outage report, saying [...]
07.30.10 -
Most Dangerous Week Ever
Zzzzzzzz… God, what a snoozer of a week in the Danger Room. I mean, except for the exclusive look at the business dealings between the investment arms of Google and the CIA and the the tens of thousands of secret reports leaked from Afghanistan, not much happened around here, right? Yeah, we found some weird contradictions [...]
07.30.10 -
American iPad Users Pay Among the Highest for Data Worldwide
iPad users in the United States are getting ripped off when it comes to their data plan, says a company that has compared monthly data plans for the magical Apple device across a number of countries. American users pay some of the highest prices in the world in terms of dollars per GB for data on the iPad, says Tableau Software, a company that compared data plans for the iPad across different countries.
07.30.10 -
Physicists Dream Up the Antilaser
Fifty years after physicists invented the laser, ushering in everything from supermarket scanners to music CDs, scientists have conceived its opposite ??? the ???antilaser.??? Unlike its more popular cousin, the antilaser is unlikely to take over the world. Still, it could be useful one day, for instance in new types of optical switches for computers. No one [...]
07.30.10 -
WikiLeaks Posts Mysterious ‘Insurance’ File
In the wake of strong U.S. government statements condemning WikiLeaks’ recent publishing of 77,000 Afghan War documents, the secret-spilling site has posted a mysterious encrypted file labeled “insurance.” The huge file, posted on the Afghan War page at the WikiLeaks site, is 1.4 GB and is encrypted with AES256. The file’s size dwarfs the size of [...]
07.30.10 -
Ackerman In Afghanistan: See You Guys On Disney Drive
On Monday, I’m getting on a plane at Andrews Air Force Base. A couple days later, I’ll be in Afghanistan for nearly three weeks. It’ll be my first trip back in two years, and my fourth warzone visit since 2006. When I was last in Kabul, Khost and Paktia, there was no troop surge, no [...]
07.30.10 -
Video: Tera Melos Probes the Limits of Dork Horror
Challenging math-punk trio Tera Melos takes dorks to the dark side in the hilarious but disturbing low-budget video for “The Skin Surf.” Its scattershot imagery, stuffed with suspicious liquids and mysterious meats, makes for destabilizing viewing, even though it seems to screen as tame as Super-8. Tera Melos has ferociously explored the outer limits of bizarre [...]
07.30.10 -
Vote: Afghan War’s Most Awesomely Bad Code Names
What is it about naming operations in Afghanistan? British troops from the 1st Battalion, The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment began a difficult fight on Friday to clear the Taliban out of Helmand Province’s Nad Ali district, an effort known as Operation Tor Shezada. That sounds fine enough — until you translate it into the Queen’s [...]
07.30.10 -
Danger, Media Whore!
My week as a talking head continues. On Thursday afternoon, I chatted about WikiLeaks on Talk of the Nation. Last night, I was back on Attack of the Show, trying hard not to get freaked out about Google and the CIA. (The video is above.) Can’t get enough of my blabbery? Here are my interviews from [...]
07.30.10
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NASCAR Tries Out Solar Power
While we’d gladly spend the day drinking beer outside a rented RV to watch a solar car covered in ads for Home Depot and Coors Light taking turns at a buck fifty, diehards need not worry: it’s only the track that’s gone solar. Less than a year after the groundbreaking ceremony for a 25-acre solar array, [...]
07.30.10 -
iPad Popular With Aviation Crowd in Oshkosh
OSHKOSH, Wisconsin — Apple’s iPad continues to find a very receptive audience in the aviation community. This week at Airventure, a number of companies are offering applications for the device ranging from simple study guides to weather and navigation tools aimed at pilots. The most interesting use of an iPad is in the iCub. When we [...]
07.30.10 -
Roush’s P-51B Mustang Really Flies
OSHKOSH, Wisconsin — Pilot and NASCAR team owner Jack Roush made headlines here for all the wrong reasons earlier this week when he crashed his private jet on the runway. He remains hospitalized, and the mishap overshadowed the unveiling of Roush’s latest hot-rod, a 510-horsepower Mustang. Roush is a fixture here at the AirVenture air show, [...]
07.30.10 -
July 30, 1935: Penguins Invade Britain, Readers Rejoice
1935: Penguin publishes the first paperback books of substance, bringing the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Andr?? Maurois and Agatha Christie to the masses. As Britain emerged from the worst of its Great Depression, and the storms of World War II gathered, some of the finest literature in the world was being produced. But it was [...]
07.30.10 -
Alt Text: Library of Congress Rulings That Could Have Been
In a ruling sure to make Steve Jobs stomp around like an angry Yosemite Sam, complete with steam erupting from his ears making a train-whistle sound, the Library of Congress has ruled that jailbreaking one’s iPhone is perfectly legal. This should, if nothing else, improve conditions in our nation’s prisons, which up until now have been [...]
07.29.10 -
WikiLeaks Suspect’s YouTube Videos Raised ‘Red Flag’ in 2008
An Army private suspected of leaking classified information to WikiLeaks was admonished as a trainee in 2008 for uploading YouTube videos discussing classified facilities, according to an Army official with direct knowledge of the incident. Bradley Manning, now 22, was three months into his 16 weeks of training as an intelligence analyst when about 25 [...]
07.29.10 -
Pakistanis Ask: Drones? What Drones?
Here in the America, the CIA’s drone program targeting extremists in the tribal areas of Pakistan is the subject of heated debate. The CIA calls it a uniquely valuable and precise counterterrorism tool. The Obama administration, which has stepped up the program significantly since taking office, considers it legal under the 2001 congressional Authorization to [...]
07.29.10 -
Top U.S. Officer: WikiLeaks Might Have ‘Blood on Its Hands’
As Pentagon leaders go, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen are fairly mild-mannered — prone to quiet, careful assessments, not table-pounding bluster. But they could barely contain their anger on Thursday at WikiLeaks for publishing tens of thousands of secret documents about the Afghanistan war. Mullen, the chairman [...]
07.29.10 -
Former NSA Director: Countries Spewing Cyberattacks Should Be Held Responsible
LAS VEGAS — Attribution is one of the biggest problems on the internet when it comes to cyberwarfare. How do you hold a nation responsible for malicious attacks if you can’t determine whether the activity was state-sponsored? Retired General Michael Hayden, former director of the National Security Agency, said Thursday that one solution being discussed in [...]
07.29.10 -
Trailer Mashup: Inception + Toy Story 3 Equals Spooky Laughs
By syncing Leonardo DiCaprio’s urgently whispered Inception dialogue to the mouth of Toy Story 3’s perky Ken doll, video editor Mike Eisenberg came up with a brilliant trailer that repurposes the summer’s two best-reviewed blockbusters into a candy-colored nightmare. Eisenberg, who works at Screen Rant, used Hans Zimmer’s ominous music score to transform Pixar’s chirpy [...]
07.29.10
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Gowalla’s RoboCop Trip Guides You Through Crumbling Detroit
A special RoboCop-themed trip on Gowalla acts as a self-guided tour of Detroit, the city used as the setting for the sci-fi franchise. Check in at three locations on the RoboCop trip and you’ll receive a custom pin (pictured) for your Gowalla passport. The first 50 fans who hit all nine destinations on the RoboCop trip [...]
07.29.10 -
Test Drive Your Type With Google Font Preview
Google launched a new web-based tool Wednesday that helps you configure, test and easily embed one of the company’s free fonts into your web pages. The Font Previewer lets you pick one of the open source fonts from Google’s Font Library, then tweak the size, spacing and decorations using simple sliders and buttons. Once you have [...]
07.29.10 -
Nintendo Takes Loss, Will Reveal 3DS Price in September
Nintendo posted a rare quarterly loss on Thursday, attempting to put a silver lining on the news by telling Bloomberg that it will unveil the details of its anticipated 3DS in September. The gamemaker lost $289 million over the last three months, which it blamed on a strong yen and a decline in demand for Nintendo [...]
07.29.10 -
Director Del Toro Ponders Producing Videogames
The once-rumored director of the BioShock movie has decided to make videogames of his own. Guillermo Del Toro is on the verge of announcing a partnership with a major company that would see him making videogames, the director told MTV News on Wednesday. “We’re going to do games that are going to be technically and narratively very [...]
07.29.10 -
It’s (Not) a Trap: Vote for Fave Star Wars Fan Films
“He goes fishing with Admiral Ackbar on Tuesdays, because Wednesdays might be a trap — and it’s comic book day,” says geeked film short The Star Wars Fan above. It’s one of a galaxy of candidates seeking to be crowned most Force-ful homage in Atom.com’s Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge. One entrant will make the [...]
07.29.10 -
Typekit Gets an API
Font startup Typekit introduced an API Thursday that lets web programmers generate kits from the Typekit library behind the scenes. The company has previously only offered the option of picking fonts and generating kits using the web-based tool on its site. But by releasing an API, it’s giving people the option of building Typekit into their [...]
07.29.10 -
Rebooted Animated Avengers Assemble on Disney XD
runMobileCompatibilityScript('myExperience292348155001', 'anId'); brightcove.createExperiences(); Marvel famously assembled its live-action cast for The Avengers movie at Comic-Con International last week. Now it’s the toons’ turn to shine in animated series The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, arriving this fall on Disney XD. Those who think Marvel’s new show might be for kids’ eyes only might want to remember [...]
07.29.10 -
Dornier Builds Composite Version of Timeless Flying Boat
OSHKOSH, Wisconsin – More than 80 years after first transporting passengers in its uniquely designed seaplanes, the Dornier name is back and redefining the flying boat marketplace. Dornier Seaplanes is here at Airventure with its new airplane, the all composite Seastar CD2. Priced at $6 million, the Seastar CD2 isn’t aimed at the casual pilot [...]
07.29.10 -
Brammo Builds Another Sweet Electric Race Bike
Racing improves the breed, they say, and the guys at Brammo are taking that to heart with the Empulse RR, a one-off racer built with an eye toward developing the company’s next electric street bike. The RR was designed strictly for competing in the budding electric motorcycle racing scene, so you’ll never see it on the [...]
07.29.10 -
Proving It: Wind-Powered Cart Goes Faster Than the Wind
The results are in and a new record has been set in a new category after a wind-powered vehicle officially traveled downwind faster than the wind. Naysayers said it couldn’t be done, but Rick Cavallaro and the crew at fasterthanthewind.org proved it could be by actually doing it. They made the record runs during the July [...]
07.29.10
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Antarctic Octopuses Discovered With Sub-Zero Venom
08.02.10 -
Geek Culture’s Fiercest Female Ass-Kickers, as Picked by You
08.01.10 -
Video: Sun Puts on a Spectacular Eruption Show
08.02.10 -
Aug. 3, 1977: The TRS-80 Is Bad, and That Ain’t Trash Talk
08.02.10 -
Hacker Wonderland: DefCon 18 in Photos
08.03.10 -
Apple Removes Controversial Smartphone Videos
08.02.10 -
Why Do We Care About Luxury Brands?
08.02.10 -
JailbreakMe Unlocks iPhone 4, iPad With Your Browser
08.02.10 -
Video: Meteor Explodes Over New Mexico
08.02.10 -
Duck Penis Length Depends on Other Guys
08.02.10 -
Orangutans Are Extraordinarily Energy Efficient
08.02.10 -
NASCAR Heralds Milestone in Solar-Powered Sports
08.02.10 -
Cell Phones And WiFi Set To Invade NYC’s Subways
08.03.10 -
Update: Ex-Hacker Denies Alleged WikiLeaker Gave Him Classified Documents
08.01.10 -
Why Xbox Might Be Microsoft’s Future — and Computing’s, Too
08.02.10 -
RoboCop, Dirty Harry Go Retro in Rolling Roadshow Posters
08.02.10 -
Army’s Vaccine Plan: Inject Troops With Gas-Propelled, Electro-Charged DNA
08.03.10 -
Hacker Spoofs Cell Phone Tower to Intercept Calls
07.31.10 -
Navy Works to Laser-Proof Its Drones
08.02.10 -
Latest Launch Brings China Closer to ‘GPS’ Of Its Own
08.02.10
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