1. Toy Firm Designs Less-Lethal ‘Taser Me Elmo’ Rifle

    Lund Technologies dreams up prototypes for just about everything, from hydrogen-powered toy rockets and light-up footballs to the top-selling Honey My Baby Pony and T.M.X. Tickle Me Elmo dolls. But with a little financing from the Pentagon, the company has also devised a new type of less-lethal rifle. According to the company, the Lund Variable Velocity [...]

    03.22.10 From Danger Room

  2. The Art and Science of Crystals

    This month I’ve been teaching a Saturday morning “enrichment” class at a local elementary school combining science and art. Actually, I’ve been going pretty light on the science (since I’ve found that the students would much rather get to work on building their creations than listening to me lecture). And the art tends to lean [...]

    03.22.10 From GeekDad

  3. Viewfinder Turns iPhone Into Photo Visualization Tool

    We’re all familiar with the stereotyped image of the old-school movie director. Clad in jodhpurs, a monocle and a French beret, he would spot a possible scene and frame it in his fingers, or lift a fancy viewfinder to his face. Well guess what? Now there’s an app for that. Viewfinder (and the more expensive Viewfinder [...]

    03.22.10 From Gadget Lab

  4. Robots Ruled the Day at the 2010 FIRST Robotics Competition Dallas Regional

    On Saturday I took the drive into Dallas to attend the a FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) Regional at Southern Methodist University. Over 50 High School teams competed for fame, glory, and a trip to the FRC Championship in Atlanta. The event started on Thursday with robot inspection and practice rounds, and continues through Saturday morning [...]

    03.22.10 From GeekDad

  5. A Look Inside The Brains of Boeing Flight Test

    This weekend marked a major milestone for the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner as the flight test aircraft are now cleared to fly throughout their performance range for the first time. It is a critical step for Boeing in the company’s effort to receive Type Inspection Authorization from the Federal Aviation Administration for the long awaited [...]

    03.22.10 From Autopia

  6. 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.

    03.22.10 From GeekDad

  7. SXSW is a Bands’ Social Network Like No Other

    AUSTIN, Texas — Don’t expect the bands and labels gathered at the South by Southwest Music Festival to forsake MySpace, Twitter and Facebook anytime soon. Most musicians and industry players find that none of these virtual connections replace the need to shake hands, look one another in the eye or bond over a couple of Lone [...]

    03.22.10 From Underwire

  8. Hermaphrodite USB Cords Stack to Infinity

    Buying USB cables is like buying plastic shopping bags: both normally come free with a purchase (and both end up stuffed into the back of a cupboard or drawer). But Gonglue Jiang’s USB cable concept design would actually get me to part with some cash. The cables solve the problem of overloaded USB ports without resorting [...]

    03.22.10 From Gadget Lab

  9. T-fal ActiFry Asks “Does Salad Spinner + Deep Fat Fryer = Healthy Food?”

    T-fal’s ActiFry is marketed as a family friendly alternative to a deep fryer, claiming to achieve similar results while using only a tablespoon of oil. Is the ActiFry an answer to America’s obesity epidemic, or is it destined for the closet where failed kitchen gadgets bide their time until the next garage sale? I frequently review [...]

    03.22.10 From GeekDad

  10. Amazon Shows Off Kindle for iPad

    Amazon has announced Kindle Apps for Tablet Computers (including Kindle for iPad), a rather polished e-reader application that both makes the Kindle itself look rather old-fashioned and explains why last week’s Mac version was so unfinished: The Amazon developers have clearly been spending all their time on this instead. The app offers all the usual Kindle [...]

    03.22.10 From Gadget Lab

  1. GeekDad Interviews Comic Book Artist and Writer Dave Beaty

    I am the first to admit that I’m not a comic book expert. The idea of them has always appealed to me, but the potential for it to be a new addiction has always kept me away. But since I got the opportunity to do a post, interviewing comic book artist and writer Dave Beaty, [...]

    03.22.10 From GeekDad

  2. Freightliner Taps Tesla To Build an Electric Truck

    The technology underpinning the sexy Tesla Roadster is showing up in the last place you’d expect to find it — a truck. The Silicon Valley automaker is providing the batteries Freightliner Custom Chassis is putting in the electric trucks it will have on the road next year. Freightliner has offered CNG and hybrid electric trucks for [...]

    03.22.10 From Autopia

  3. The GeekDad Space Report for March 22, 2010

    Welcome to another addition of the GeekDad Space Report! The one launch scheduled for this past week successfully lofted a new EchoStar satellite into orbit.  I also want to report on the launch of of a Chinese satellite from the beginning of the month.  The satellite, called Yaogan, was launched on a Long March 4 [...]

    03.22.10 From GeekDad

  4. Cash for Clunkers: BMW M Bike Disappoints

    BMW’s M-Series branding is rapidly turning from a guarantee of extra engineering (and speed) into a badge which can be applied to anything in order to get fools to pay top-dollar for otherwise everyday gear. Exhibit A: The BMW M Bike. The M Bike is a slightly upgraded variant of BMW’s mountain and cruiser bike range, [...]

    03.22.10 From Gadget Lab

  5. SXSW: Comic Artist James Kochalka Heads to Mars and Beyond

    AUSTIN, Texas — James Kochalka is a bit of a nerd wizard. He’s a renowned comic book artist with a daily strip and several graphic novels to his name, and he’s almost finished designing his first videogame. He’s also a songwriter and musician who fronts his own rock band, called James Kochalka Superstar. Now, the Vermont native [...]

    03.22.10 From Underwire

  6. GeekDad Puzzle Of The Week: Perfect Sixes

    Six, now that’s a perfect number. Really it is perfect. Mathematicians define a perfect number as positive integer that is the sum of it’s positive divisors excluding the number itself. The first perfect number is six (1 + 2 + 3 = 6). This weeks puzzle is all about six. Below are [...]

    03.22.10 From GeekDad

  7. Shirt-Shiner Has Micro-Fiber Polishing Pads

    Whether you wear glasses or carry a cellphone, camera or anything with a screen, you’re all guilty of the same thing: Shirt-wiping. When you first get a new gadget (or pair of specs) you treat it with respect, using only the best microfiber cloth to polish and clean its see-through surfaces. After mere days or [...]

    03.22.10 From Gadget Lab

  8. Jill-e Clutch Bag: Tote Your Compact Camera in Style

    Jill-e makes camera bags for girls. Or rather, it makes camera bags that aren’t the dorky nylon utility packs everybody else makes. The bags combine designer-purse style looks (patent leather, chain straps and fancy detailing) with a practical, padded interior. The triple advantage is that the ladies can have a bag that goes with their [...]

    03.22.10 From Gadget Lab

  9. Quantum Technology Promises Wedding Photos From Phone Cameras

    A new sensor technology promises to make cellphone cameras good enough to use for wedding photos. InVisage Technologies, a Menlo Park, California-based company, has developed an image sensor using quantum dots instead of silicon. The company claims its technology increases sensor performance by more than four times. “We have all heard ‘Gee, I wish the camera on [...]

    03.22.10 From Gadget Lab

  10. Channeling Earth: Rivers Seen From Space

    << previous image | next image >> Rivers connect Earth’s mountains and lakes to its oceans, creating lifelines that provide water, food, transportation and recreation along the way. Some rivers, like the Nile, bring life to barren landscapes that would otherwise be uninhabitable. Others, like the Mississippi, defy our best efforts to tame them. Rivers carve their [...]

    03.22.10 From Wired Science

  1. China State Media Accuses Google of Political Agenda

    BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s state media on Sunday accused Google of pushing a political agenda by “groundlessly accusing the Chinese government” of supporting hacker attacks and by trying to export its own culture, values and ideas. In a commentary signed by three Xinhua writers, the state news agency also sought to defend [...]

    03.21.10 From Epicenter

  2. A Dr. Horrible Movie? Say It Ain’t So, Joss!

    Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog was easily the best forty-two minutes I spent in front of a computer in July of 2008. Not only was it a heck of a lot of fun to watch, but it also demonstrated to those unfamiliar with his work on Broadway that Neil Patrick Harris has a great singing voice, [...]

    03.21.10 From GeekDad

  3. Mythbusters Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage Interviewed by Kevin Kelly

    Saw this tweeted on Saturday and had to share it: our favorite Mythbusters Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage being interviewed by Wired co-founder and legacy GeekDad Kevin Kelly for the Commonwealth Club of California. Enjoy!

    03.21.10 From GeekDad

  4. SXSW Scenes: Hot Dogs, Hare Krishna and Rock

    AUSTIN, Texas — With crowds spilling out of the clubs and into the streets, South by Southwest brings together characters of all sorts. “It’s just a big, mellow event,” said Al Morris III, lead guitarist of “blacker than Black Sabbath” metal band Iron Man, out of Washington, D.C. “It’s like how Woodstock was back in ‘69.” The [...]

    03.20.10 From Underwire

  5. Video: Universal to Reveal Harry Potter Theme Park’s Opening Day

    After months of teasing and vague promises, Universal Orlando is gearing up to reveal the opening date of its Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park. In this video released Thursday, we see glimpses of the making of the attraction’s premier ride, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, which will star the cast of the blockbuster [...]

    03.20.10 From Underwire

  6. Palm Can Still Win: Here Are Five Things They Need To Do

    Palm kept its word this week and disappointed investors with dismal 3Q results. Investors responded by slashing another 20% from the embattled company’s shares. The financial situation doesn’t seem very good, and time is running out to turn things around as Palm continues to loses the big bets it has placed on the Pre and [...]

    03.20.10 From Epicenter

  7. Review: Hubble 3D Takes You on Beautiful, Brief Space Journey

    The premise of Imax: Hubble 3D is simple: Make home movies in space. And what beautiful movies they are. The stunning space vistas and intimate moments with astronauts make for a fascinating flash of interstellar eye candy. The images were captured in 2009 when the space shuttle Atlantis crew left Earth to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. [...]

    03.20.10 From Underwire

  8. Top 10 Endearing Habits of a Geeky Spouse (GeekDad Wayback Machine)

    What is it about us geeks that makes us such great catches for non-geeks? It’s easy to see how geeks would find partners within the world of geekdom, provided they had compatible geek interests. But many of us have managed to find spouses or significant others who are if not completely “normal,” then at least [...]

    03.20.10 From GeekDad

  9. Boeing 787 Completes Critical Flutter Testing

    Boeing passed a major milestone today in the 787 Dreamliner program. Today’s flight test of airframe ZA001, the first 787 to fly back in December, marks the end of flutter testing for the airplane. Wired.com was in Boeing’s telemetry room today in Seattle and will have a full report of flight testing from the engineers [...]

    03.19.10 From Autopia

  10. Artists Get Their Geek On to Celebrate Yuri’s Night

    << previous image | next image >> On April 12, 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin embarked on the first manned voyage into outer space. The geek equivalent of St. Patrick’s Day takes place next month in more than 70 locations as science-minded revelers throw parties to celebrate Gagarin’s historic feat. Getting the jump on the international [...]

    03.19.10 From Underwire

  1. Bad Magic Comic Mysterius Makes Good Tech Satire

    The line between magic and technology in the 21st century is blurrier than ever, especially in Mysterius, the Unfathomable, Jeff Parker and Tom Fowler’s hilarious comic released this week as a paperback collection from DC’s Wildstorm imprint. “I would liken tech to stage magic,” Parker told Wired.com. “The tech that catches on has the best barkers, [...]

    03.19.10 From Underwire

  2. The Tester, Episode 5: Tinned Pies and Canned Laughter

    Previously on The Tester, the Death Panel voted out Luge for the sin of not having learned how to LARP during her sheltered Brooklyn childhood. She was cast to the wolves, by which I mean panelists David Jaffe and Katherine De León, who smothered her with honey barbecue sauce and ate her the minute the [...]

    03.19.10 From GameLife

  3. Dogfighting over the Taiwan Strait

    For national-security dorks who like to read the Defense Department’s 36(b) arms sale notifications, watching the back-and-forth over weapons sales to Taiwan is pure entertainment. It’s partly a question of political spin, but it’s also an interesting look at how the Pentagon sizes up the military balance between China and Taiwan. Back in January, the Defense [...]

    03.19.10 From Danger Room

  4. Heavy Rain ‘Taxidermist’ DLC Coming April 1

    The “Taxidermist” add-on for Heavy Rain was given away to those who preordered the PlayStation 3 game last month. Sony said Friday that the downloadable content will go up for sale to the unwashed masses on April 1 for $5. This bit of DLC — apparently the first chapter in an upcoming series of bite-sized bits [...]

    03.19.10 From GameLife

  5. Rich Get Richer in ‘Hot News’ Stock-Tip Fight

    A well-known financial news aggregator is being ordered by a federal judge to delay publication of prominent financial analysts’ buy and sell recommendations to allow the well-to-do the first crack at capitalizing on that trading research. The 3-year-old litigation, brought by Barclays Capital, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and others, rests on the so-called “hot news” doctrine [...]

    03.19.10 From Threat Level

  6. SXSW: Scenes From a Musical Madhouse

    AUSTIN, Texas — With hundreds of bands playing simultaneously at any given time, South by Southwest can be a musician’s wildest dream or a band’s worst nightmare. A bad monitor mix can lead to an ear-splitting set; an unfortunate show time or venue can mean playing to a tiny crowd. Even simple logistics can be [...]

    03.19.10 From Underwire

  7. 6 Cars So Alluring They’re in an Art Museum

    Some cars are so beautifully designed and exquisitely engineered that they transcend mere transportation to become works of art. They are rolling sculptures, and to see them is to think, “That car belongs in a gallery.” digg_url ="http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/03/high-museum-of-art-allure-automobile/"; Curators at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta agree. The museum is hosting an exhibition to celebrate automotive [...]

    03.19.10 From Autopia

  8. Shark-Bitten Crocodile Poop Fossils Found (No, Really)

    Paleontologists have stumbled across a scientific first that’s sure to inspire both fascination and disgust: coprolites, or fossilized fecal matter, bearing the distinct impressions of a creature’s teeth. The coprolites — one chunk of rock is fist-sized, the other is about 30 percent larger — were discovered on a beach along the western shore of [...]

    03.19.10 From Wired Science

  9. iPad Developers Code Their Apps in the Dark

    Apple on Friday said it would begin accepting submissions for iPad apps next week to launch with the grand opening of the iPad App Store. Apple’s e-mail, provided to Wired.com by a developer who asked to remain anonymous, told developers to submit their apps by March 27, 5 p.m. PT if they wished to release their [...]

    03.19.10 From Gadget Lab

  10. Large Hadron Collider Triples Its Own Record

    The Large Hadron Collider set a new record for the creation of energetic particle beams this morning. The particle accelerator, which surpassed Fermilab’s Tevatron in December as the baddest atom smasher of them all, smashed its own record, charging particles to 3.48 trillion electron volts. That’s three times the energy of any beam ever created by [...]

    03.19.10 From Wired Science

  1. Lucasfilm’s The Clone Wars: Best Political Cartoon Ever?

    Political murder, mercenary violence, military occupations and callous terrorists don’t just kill as newspaper headlines. They’ve also made excellent thematic fodder for Star Wars: The Clone Wars, whose dark second season returns with a seven-week stand starting Friday night. The procedural and corporate intrigue has also solidified Lucasfilm’s CGI tween fever dream as one of Earth’s [...]

    03.19.10 From Underwire

  2. Marvell Teases with $100 Tablet for Students

    Chip maker Marvell wants to get into the tablet business and it is showing a prototype that will offer web access and high-definition content at a price that would beat the competition by a wide margin. The prototoype tablet, called Moby, is targeted mainly at students who may be looking for a digital device that could [...]

    03.19.10 From Gadget Lab

  3. No More Heroes‘ Suda 51 Mulls Collab With Filmmaker Sono

    Goichi Suda, creator of No More Heroes, hopes to adapt film director Sion Sono’s next movie into a videogame. In an interview with the My Big Fat Geek Running blog, the iconoclast gamemaker revealed how a dinner with Sono, director of the amazing four-hour geek epic Love Exposure led to the potential collaboration. “I told him how [...]

    03.19.10 From GameLife

  4. Unprecedented 25-Year Sentence Sought for TJX Hacker

    Computer hacker Albert Gonzalez deserves a quarter-century behind bars for leading a gang of cyberthieves who stole tens of millions of credit and debit card numbers from a transaction processor and several giant retail chains, federal prosecutors argued in a court filing Thursday night. “[T]he sentences would be the longest ever imposed in an identity theft [...]

    03.19.10 From Threat Level

  5. SXSW Podcast: ‘Power-Ups and Press’

    AUSTIN, Texas — What is the deal with this “videogame journalism” thing? At South By Southwest on Tuesday, a panel of experts and me convened to discuss this topic in front of a rapt audience. Karen Chu (PlayFirst) moderated the discussion, with me representing the “bloggers,” Matt Chandronait (Area 5) representing video production, Philip Kollar (Game [...]

    03.19.10 From GameLife

  6. Feds Deem Pedestrians, Cyclists and Motorists Equals

    At long last, the feds have said the needs of pedestrians and cyclists must be placed alongside, not behind, those of motorists. digg_url ="http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/03/lahood-policy-statement/"; In what amounts to a sea change for the Department of Transportation, the automobile will no longer be the prime consideration in federal transportation planning. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says the needs of [...]

    03.19.10 From Autopia

  7. Code Optimizers Can Make View Source Useless

    HTML, CSS and JavaScript have always been visible to the interested end user. Whether through the good old view source option in your browser, or something a bit more sophisticated — like developer favorite Firebug — the code has always been there to learn from. It’s part of what makes the open web open. But when [...]

    03.19.10 From Webmonkey

  8. The Jackson 5 Appear at SXSW … as an iPhone App

    AUSTIN, Texas — Michael Jackson is no longer with us, but the spirit of his younger self lives on in the Zoozbeat Jackson 5 Remix mobile app for iPhone, slated to be announced Friday morning at South by Southwest. The app’s creator, Zooz Mobile, makes a suite of music-creation apps for the iPhone that have [...]

    03.19.10 From Underwire

  9. Scenarios: What’s Next for Google’s Operations in China?

    SHANGHAI (Reuters) — Two months after Google shook the world with its threat to leave China on censorship and hacking concerns, there are increasing signs that an exit is imminent as the two sides refuse to back down. Google said in January a key condition to staying on in China, the world’s largest [...]

    03.19.10 From Epicenter

  10. Scoot-Along Lawn-Mower Lazier Than it Seems

    Spring is upon us, and as the days lengthen and we venture out into the world after our pizza-n-TiVo hibernation, we are confronted with the dual problems of extra belly-fat and extra long lawn-grass. A clever invention could take care of both these modern scourges in one go, but instead offers a kind of poor-man’s [...]

    03.19.10 From Gadget Lab

  1. ‘Business as Usual’ for Military IT? Not So Fast

    Last month the Pentagon lifted a blanket ban on thumb drives and other “removable flash media” on military networks. Well, sorta. In a little-noticed news item, Air Force officials made it clear they considered the ban to still be in place. “This will not be a return to ‘business as usual,’” said Maj. Gen. Michael Basla, [...]

    03.19.10 From Danger Room

  2. SXSW: LaDiDa iPhone App Lets Anyone With a Voice Make Music in Seconds

    AUSTIN, Texas — Outside of isolated cultural pockets — the Irish countryside, Appalachia and church among them — most people think of music as something other people make for them to enjoy. But as anyone who sings or plays an instrument knows, making music can be a deeply satisfying act, and it’s a shame that [...]

    03.19.10 From Underwire

  3. How I Survived My SXSW Keynote Interview

    “You must feel like the third wife of Henry the 8th,” Hugh Forrest told me as I prepared to interview Spotify CEO Daniel Ek in front of thousands of South by Southwest Interactive attendees, many poised to review my performance in real time on Twitter. “What do you mean?” I asked. “Well, you know what happened to [...]

    03.18.10 From Underwire

  4. Alt Text: Final Fantasy, Then and Now

    I am currently hip-deep in Final Fantasy XIII, and I can say with confidence that it has more Roman numerals than any Final Fantasy game I’ve ever played. My first Final Fantasy game was VII, and I’ve felt like it would take a really special game for me to take on that third “I.” When I [...]

    03.18.10 From Underwire

  5. Review: Squishy Repo Men Sticks Shiv in Organ-Extraction Action

    Repo Men’s Jude Law and Forest Whitaker are perfectly capable actors but here’s the brutal truth: In this organ-swiping thriller, the most compelling moments belong to liver, kidney and spleen. Set in a near-future, Tokyo-meets-New Jersey urbanscape crowded with JumboTrons, monorails, skyscrapers and shantytowns, the R-rated Repo Men, which opens Friday, blasts off with a brilliant [...]

    03.18.10 From Underwire

  6. Accusations Fly in Viacom, YouTube Copyright Fight

    Google deliberately weakened its copyright compliance standards after it acquired YouTube in 2006 so it “would profit from illegal downloads,” Google co-founder Sergey Brin once said, according to a Friday filing by Viacom in its infringement suit against the company. YouTube, in its own Friday filing and in a blog post, said it was legally immune [...]

    03.18.10 From Threat Level

  7. SXSW Podcast: BioWare, Zynga on Making MMOs More Social

    AUSTIN, Texas — Big players in the massively multiplayer online games space say they don’t need a World of Warcraft killer, as long as they can keep expanding the audience for MMOs. On Monday at South By Southwest, a panel composed of top executives from Zynga, BioWare, Nexon and Funcom tackled several questions about the MMO [...]

    03.18.10 From GameLife

  8. Evolution of Fairness Driven by Culture, Not Genes

    Human behaviors are often explained as hard-wired evolutionary leftovers of life on the savannah or during the Stone Age. But a study of one very modern behavior, fairness toward total strangers one will never meet again, suggests it evolved recently, and is rooted in culture rather than biology. In a series of three behavioral tests given [...]

    03.18.10 From Wired Science

  9. Jackson and Del Toro’s Hobbit Journey Begins This July

    After false starts, lawsuits, hype and drama, Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro’s cinematic adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s mythic classic The Hobbit finally starts filming this July in New Zealand. According to Sir Ian McKellen, who returns as the masterful wizard Gandalf, casting has commenced and is taking place in Los Angeles, New York and London. [...]

    03.18.10 From Underwire

  10. Boeing Completes Design of Shipboard Superlaser

    The U.S. military is bankrolling all kinds of projects to harness the power of directed energy, from laser-equipped aircraft that can shoot down ballistic missiles to smaller beam weapons mounted on Humvees that could zap mortars or artillery shells. The Navy is no exception: It wants a shipboard laser that is powerful enough to destroy [...]

    03.18.10 From Danger Room

  1. Delta Motorsport, Britain’s Automotive X-Prize Contender

    The Automotive X-PRIZE has drawn competitors from all over the globe, but for some reason there is but one entrant from England. Delta Motorsport is all-British contender in the race to find the most environmentally friendly car on the planet. The Automotive X-Prize, the road-going equivalent of what put Richard Branson’s outfit in orbit , is [...]

    03.18.10 From Autopia

  2. Court: Cyberbullying Threats Are Not Protected Speech

    A California appeals court ruled this week that threatening posts made by readers of a website are not protected free speech, allowing a case charging the posters with hate crimes and defamation to proceed. The case raises fundamental questions about cyberbullying and the line between online speech and hate crimes. In her dissenting opinion, Judge Frances Rothschild [...]

    03.18.10 From Threat Level

  3. Jamie Foxx to Star in Kane & Lynch Film

    Jamie Foxx will star in the Kane & Lynch movie, says screenwriter Kyle Ward. The news comes via a status update on Ward’s Twitter account, which has since been deleted. “Done deal… Jamie Foxx is in,” he wrote. The scribe then clarified that Foxx has been cast as Lynch, the mentally unstable bank robber from Eidos’ [...]

    03.18.10 From GameLife

  4. SXSW: Dick Jokes, ’80s Action Tropes Power MacGruber

    AUSTIN, Texas — MacGruber is funnier than it has any right to be. The comedy, a sendup of ’80s action flicks starring Saturday Night Live’s Will Forte and Kristen Wiig, had its star-studded premiere Monday at South by Southwest, with co-stars Ryan Phillippe and Val Kilmer also in attendance. Director Jorma Taccone was there to preface the [...]

    03.18.10 From Underwire

  5. SXSauced: Bid Austin Good Knight With a Bit of Bourbon

    AUSTIN, Texas — The big browns — Scotch and bourbon — hold a place of sanctity among aficionados. They’re considered perfect just how they are, and aren’t mixed as often as their colorless cousins. Whiskey is usually served neat, or maybe with a little bit of water or ice. That’s about as far as most serious [...]

    03.18.10 From Underwire

  6. New DJ Hero Downloads, Four Months Later

    Three new mash-up tracks from Jay-Z and Eminem are the first fresh bits of content for Activision’s DJ Hero since November. The new music for the turntable-based game is available for the Xbox 360 version as of Thursday, but PlayStation and Wii mixmasters have to wait until March 25 to nab the downloads. To call the [...]

    03.18.10 From GameLife

  7. Court Slaps Prosecutor Who Threatened Child-Porn Charges Over ‘Sexting’

    A Pennsylvania appellate court upheld a preliminary injunction on Wednesday barring local prosecutors from filing felony child-porn charges against a teenage girl who took a partially nude photo of herself with her cellphone. The court said prosecutors were using the threat of charges as retaliation against the teen for exercising her constitutional right to refuse a [...]

    03.18.10 From Threat Level

  8. Watch Out, Ferrari — McLaren Is Back With Another Supercar

    Ron Dennis has proven he knows how to build cars. Now he wants to prove he knows how to build a car company. His latest supercar, the McLaren MP4-12C, is more than an insanely quick, insanely expensive sports car designed to take on the best from Italy, Germany and everywhere else insanely quick, insanely expensive supercars [...]

    03.18.10 From Autopia

  9. Op-Ed: Why the Internet Should Win the Nobel Peace Prize

    This year, a Chinese dissident and a Russian human rights advocate — recent nominees for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize — are joined by an unlikely, nonhuman contender: the internet. A campaign to nominate the web, first put forth by the editors of Wired Italy, proclaims that the internet has “laid the foundations for a [...]

    03.18.10 From Wired Science

  10. Cosmic Dust Gives Milky Way a Fiery Mane

    The Planck space telescope, which is surveying the entire sky in four massive sweeps, has nearly finished its first scan. Rotating in orbit, Planck takes data of the sky in strips, almost the reverse of a chef peeling an apple in one long, thin strip. This image, taken from the scan, shows the structure and form of [...]

    03.18.10 From Wired Science

  1. The Tester, Episode 4: LARPing Towards Gomorrah

    Previously on The Tester: Star: “I think we’re in deep space [bleep].” This week on The Tester: Luge: “I think we’re in deep space shit.” What can we learn from this? Well, first of all, apparently the producers of the PlayStation Network reality show are no longer bleeping out the word “shit,” which is convenient because I think I’m [...]

    03.18.10 From GameLife

  2. SXSW: Amps Set on 11, Bagpipes Set on Stun

    AUSTIN, Texas — Bands brought the noise during Wednesday’s transition between the interactive and music portions of the South by Southwest festival here. After days of power-tweeting and foursquare badge wrangling during SXSWi, suddenly there’s music everywhere: Bands play in hotel lobbies, on street corners and anywhere else there’s a little bit of spare space and [...]

    03.18.10 From Underwire

  3. Mozilla Labs Seeks to Tame Your Address Book With ‘Contacts’

    Mozilla Labs has a new goal — saving your contacts list from the chaos of the web. If you’re like most of us, your contacts are probably spread out all over the place — in your webmail provider, on social networks like Twitter or Facebook, on your mobile and maybe even hiding in a desktop [...]

    03.18.10 From Webmonkey

  4. Chrome Web Browser Adds Automatic Translation, Better Privacy Controls

    The stable versions of Google’s Chrome web browser have been updated, including some important security fixes for users of the Windows version. Among the feature highlights in the recent update are better privacy controls, automatic translation of sites not in your native language, and the ability to selectively block JavaScript, pop-up windows, cookies and images by [...]

    03.18.10 From Webmonkey

  5. Controversy Erupts Over Captive Endangered Bat Colony

    A bitter controversy is brewing over a captive colony of endangered Virginia big-eared bats, founded in November as a hedge against disease driving the species to extinction in the wild. Of 40 bats put in the colony, only 10 have survived. According to environmental activists and a consultant to the project, their demise wasn’t just an [...]

    03.18.10 From Wired Science

  6. FlashForward Flashes Forward Without Its Creator

    FlashForward producer Marc Guggenheim and creator David S. Goyer sketched out a meticulous mythology for the time-warp series last summer, right down to a key scene planned for the season finale that would air 10 months in the future. Then the show, which deals with the aftereffects of a catastrophic global blackout, suffered its own potentially [...]

    03.18.10 From Underwire

  7. Sex.com Firesale Delayed As Creditors Bicker

    The strange saga of the jinxed Sex.com domain name continued Thursday as its sale in a foreclosure auction was postponed just hours before the sale was to start due to drastic, last minute legal filing by the domain owner’s creditors. Sex.com has a tawdry but telling history. Its current owner spent $14 million dollars on the [...]

    03.18.10 From Epicenter

  8. Bureaucrat Who Allegedly Hired ‘Jason Bournes’ Speaks

    The Pentagon official who allegedly boasted of running his own private team of “Jason Bournes” is finally speaking out. Early this week, the New York Times landed a curious scoop about a freelance spy ring in Afghanistan and Pakistan that is reportedly under criminal investigation by the Defense Department. Now the San Antonio Express-News has landed [...]

    03.18.10 From Danger Room

  9. Report: Google Working With Intel, Sony on TV Project

    SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) — Google is working with Intel and Sony to develop a new class of internet-enabled televisions and set-top boxes, according to the New York Times. The effort, known as Google TV, has been under way for several months and is based on Google’s Android software which is currently available in certain smartphones, [...]

    03.18.10 From Epicenter

  10. The Oldest Trees on the Planet

    << previous image | next image >> Trees are some of the longest-lived organisms on the planet. At least 50 trees have been around for more than a millenium, but there may be countless other ancient trees that haven’t been discovered yet. Trees can live such a long time for several reasons. One secret to their longevity [...]

    03.17.10 From Wired Science

  1. SXSW: Geeks Defend Their Foursquare Turf

    AUSTIN, Texas — You weren’t cool enough to be elected class president in high school, but now you can become mayor of your local Yogurtville. Foursquare has given geeks a second shot at being a big shot, but as the mobile location-sharing service piles on new users, some are finding themselves defending their turf. “I can’t throw [...]

    03.17.10 From Underwire

  2. Ruling: State Can Dump Non-Sex Offenders Into Registry

    Georgia’s Supreme Court is upholding the government’s right to put non-sex offenders on the state’s sex-offender registry, highlighting a little-noticed (but growing) nationwide practice. Atlanta criminal defense attorney Ann Marie Fitz estimated that perhaps thousands of convicts convicted of non-sexual crimes have been placed in sex-offender databases. Fitz represents a convict who was charged with false [...]

    03.17.10 From Threat Level

  3. Book Now: Nuclear Disarmament Conference in Tehran

    Tensions remain high over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and Western nations are pushing for tougher sanctions against the Islamic regime. What better time to book a holiday in Tehran, right? Next month, the Iranian government is inviting academics, foreign dignitaries and scientists to Tehran for a conference on — you guessed it — nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation. [...]

    03.17.10 From Danger Room

  4. Canon First in Line for Its Own Top-Level Domain, .canon

    Canon announced Wednesday it intends to be the first company to say goodbye to .com and buy its own top-level domain, taking advantage of ICANN’s decision to broadly widen the number of top-level names. If — or rather when — this starts happening, web address conventions may never be the same. If successful, the global electronics [...]

    03.17.10 From Epicenter

  5. Cool: New Exoplanet Is Near Habitable Zone

    Extrasolar planet hunters are excited about a not-so-hot discovery. For the first time, they’ve found a relatively cool extrasolar planet that they can study in detail. The finding is a milestone, says study co-author Hans Deeg of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias in Tenerife, Spain, because it is the first time astronomers have found [...]

    03.17.10 From Wired Science

  6. Seminal ’70s Environmental TV Series Now Online

    Every episode of what was probably the environmental movement’s first television series is now available on the web. Our Vanishing Wilderness first aired almost 40 years ago. The eight half-hour episodes were broadcast by the PBS precursor, National Educational Television beginning in October of 1970. They are now available on a website created by another NET [...]

    03.17.10 From Wired Science

  7. Report: Nexus One Launch Dismal, Though Droid’s Bests iPhone’s

    Mobile analytics firm Flurry says Google’s Nexus One is a sales flop. Using estimates based on usage of its apps, Flurry believes that the new Android-driven smart phone debuted to dismal sales. The same metrics show that Motorola’s Droid launched to better-than-expected numbers, selling over one million units faster than the iPhone did when it was [...]

    03.17.10 From GameLife

  8. GM Makes Your Entire Windshield a Head-Up Display

    General Motors has been fiddling around with head-up displays for 22 years now, and there was a time when you could get Buicks with speedometers that projected your speed right there on the windshield. Cool, if limited in its usefulness. But the General is back at it with a system it says will make driving [...]

    03.17.10 From Autopia

  9. Judge Approves $9.5 Million Facebook ‘Beacon’ Accord

    A federal judge on Wednesday approved a $9.5 million settlement to a class action lawsuit challenging Facebook’s program that monitored and published what users of the social networking site were buying or renting from Blockbuster, Overstock and other locations. The case concerned allegations Facebook’s now defunct “Beacon” program breached federal wiretap and video-rental privacy laws. Terms [...]

    03.17.10 From Threat Level

  10. With Splinter Cell Demo Inbound, Sam Fisher Joins Twitter

    Sam Fisher, protagonist of Splinter Cell, has been updating his Twitter account with details of his flight from authorities. The fictional special agent’s bio says it all: “I’m being set up. I need to find out who killed my daughter. Please help me.” Imagine the tweets posted by Real_SamFisher are being read by Michael Ironside, [...]

    03.17.10 From GameLife

  1. Hacker Disables More Than 100 Cars Remotely

    More than 100 drivers in Austin, Texas found their cars disabled or the horns honking out of control, after an intruder ran amok in a web-based vehicle-immobilization system normally used to get the attention of consumers delinquent in their auto payments. Police with Austin’s High Tech Crime Unit on Wednesday arrested 20-year-old Omar Ramos-Lopez, a former [...]

    03.17.10 From Threat Level

  2. Internet Explorer 9 Shows Up Faster, But Still Lacking

    Microsoft has announced more details about Internet Explorer 9 the next version of the company’s much-maligned, but still dominant web browser. The highlights for IE’s update include much-needed performance improvements, hardware acceleration for graphics, as well as support for a number of new HTML5 elements and CSS 3 features. If you’d like to take the developer [...]

    03.17.10 From Webmonkey

  3. Fun Times Ahead as Transportation Bill Takes Shape

    As Congress starts hammering out a transportation spending bill, keep your eye on who asks for what and how the horses are traded. Transportation is a tried-and-true way for legislators to bring home the bacon, so we’re sure to see legislation packed with pork barrel projects that range from the necessary to the advisable to [...]

    03.17.10 From Autopia

  4. Porsche to Produce a Passably Pretty Panamera

    Porsche has figured out how to make the bulbous Panamera reasonably attractive — chop off the roof and make it a drop-top. Rumors of a convertible Panamera have circulated for ages, and the U.S. Patent Office recently approved a patent for a design by Grant Larson. Inside Line uncovered the American patent after Autocar uncovered a [...]

    03.17.10 From Autopia

  5. Darpa Wants Self-Guiding, Storytelling Cameras

    The Pentagon’s risk-taking research agency is kicking off a new program to turn everyday cameras into autonomous ‘bots with problem-solving smarts. Darpa is already after all kinds of highly intelligent robo-critters. In the past few months, they’ve launched projects to create a real-life C3PO and a surveillance system to pinpoint threats in heaps of visual data. [...]

    03.17.10 From Danger Room

  6. Danger Room Explainer: Outsourced Intel in Afghanistan

    When is intelligence really intelligence, and when is it merely “atmospherics”? It may sound abstract, but it goes to the heart of a New York Times scoop about a defense official who apparently set up an off-the-books intelligence operation in Afghanistan. On Monday, the Times ran a story about Michael Furlong, the Defense Department official being [...]

    03.17.10 From Danger Room

  7. SXSW: YouTube Launches Partner Program for Indie Bands

    AUSTIN, Texas — If you can play the guitar, you can quit your day job! Well, maybe. But independent musicians who are accepted by YouTube’s “Musicians Wanted” section will be able to do just that if their music videos and live musical performances draw enough views through a new feature of Google’s YouTube Partner Program. Another wrinkle: [...]

    03.16.10 From Epicenter

  8. Google’s Traffic Is Giant, Which Is Why It Should be Your ISP

    Everybody knows Google is one of the net’s big kids, but how big is it exactly? Well, as Arbor Networks measures it, if Google were an ISP, it would be the third largest in the world and the fastest growing — if you are measuring the amount of traffic passed from its network to another. Arbor sells [...]

    03.16.10 From Epicenter

  9. PayPal Fist Bumps Square

    PayPal, which made its initial splash in 1999 by letting Palm Pilot owners beam each other money — only to abruptly drop the feature — has returned to its roots. The latest upgrade to the PayPal iPhone app lets you pay (and be paid) by bumping fists. As the internet goes mobile, so come ways of [...]

    03.16.10 From Epicenter

  10. Mission Accomplished: Astroturfing Baghdad

    Lots of strange press releases land in my inbox, but the first line of this one stood out: “The world leader in artificial turf is proud to announce that the first artificial turf sports field in Iraq for the U.S. Government has been installed at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.” That’s right, FieldTurf, which makes artificial [...]

    03.16.10 From Danger Room
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