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Cowboys & Aliens to Debut at Comic-Con for ‘2,000 Fans’
Cowboys & Aliens, Jon Favreau's sci-fi/Western mashup movie, will premiere during Comic-Con International at the home of the San Diego Opera.
06.14.11 -
A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Tuesday, June 14th
As we’ve reported before, our good friends over at Google are starting up a daily puzzle challenge. Each day’s puzzle will task your googling skills a little more, leading you to Google mastery. And much to our enjoyment, they’ve decided to share the puzzles with us at GeekDad (hmm… Google a Day? GD? [...]
06.14.11 -
Facebook Aiming For $100 Billion IPO in Early 2012: Report
Facebook, the dominant internet social networking company, is making plans to go public early next year at a vertigo-inducing valuation of over $100 billion, CNBC reported said Monday. The Palo Alto-based web phenom could file registration papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission as early as October.
06.13.11 -
U.K. Mutant Sci-Fi Series Misfits Is Coming to Hulu
Hulu has acquired British sci-fi series Misfits. The streaming web service, which usually recycles prime-time content from network partners including Fox, ABC and NBC, will debut the first two episodes June 20. In a comedic variation on the X-Men theme, Misfits features five young malcontents who assume superpowers after they get electrocuted in a storm while [...]
06.13.11 -
Do Athletes Play Better at Night? Better Sleep on It
New research suggests that players' natural sleep preferences may affect whether they play better in day or night games.
06.13.11 -
Android Tablets Come to First-Class Fliers
Attention all frequent flyers: Got the cash for first class? Those of you who do will soon get much more than a little extra legroom and some free drinks. On Monday, Samsung and American Airlines announced they will provide Samsung’s new Galaxy Tab 10.1 to travelers in seated in premium cabins for a select number of [...]
06.13.11 -
Video: It’s Gettin’ Real in the Whole Foods Parking Lot
Creepin’ in a Prius, hunting for a cheap pinot and facing off with an oblivious iPhone gabber — that’s how it goes when things get real in the Whole Foods parking lot. “Whole Foods Parking Lot” was written, produced and performed by DJDave, aka David Wittman. The music video is the first project by Fog and [...]
06.13.11 -
U.S. Faces Legal Challenge to Internet-Domain Seizures
One of Spain’s most popular websites, whose American domains were seized as part of a crackdown on internet piracy, asked a U.S. judge Monday to return its property that it claims was wrongly taken. The Rojadirecta .com and .org domains were seized in January along with eight others connected to broadcasting pirated streams of professional sports. The [...]
06.13.11 -
Look Out Above! Russia May Target U.S. Sats With Laser Jet
Back in the early 80s, Soviet engineers began outfitting an Ilyushin-76 jet with a laser cannon. Two models of the “Falcon-Echelon” planes were flown — presumably as counterweights to U.S. efforts to construct a fleet of missile-zapping jets. But when the Soviet Union collapsed, the Falcon-Echelon program perished, as well. Or so it seemed at the [...]
06.13.11 -
Ancient Fossils Have Evolution’s First Shells
A series of spectacularly preserved, 750-million-year-old fossils represent the microscopic origins of biomineralization, or the ability to convert minerals into hard, physical structures. This process is what makes bones, shells, teeth and hair possible, literally shaping the animal kingdom and even Earth itself. The fossils were pried from ancient rock formations in Canada’s Yukon by earth [...]
06.13.11
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Amazon to Connecticut, Arkansas: ‘Drop Dead’ Over Sales Tax
Amazon.com’s war with the states over sales tax is heating up, and the company’s affiliate programs in Connecticut and Arkansas are the latest casualties. The internet retail giant has managed to avoid collecting state sales taxes across the country thanks to a 1992 Supreme Court decision that ruled that states cannot require companies to collect such [...]
06.13.11 -
Rooks ‘Float’ in New Harry Potter Chess Set
Harry Potter fans who remember the enormous chess set from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone may want to contemplate their next move: Whether to buy a $250, scaled-down version of the game.
06.13.11 -
Blackwater Gets ‘Too Big To Fail,’ Hires AIG Castoff
Nothing says, “We’re through with scandal!” quite like hiring a former executive from one of the country’s leading economic bloodsuckers. Blackwater — sorry, Xe Services — really wants to turn the PR page from the bad old days of Nisour Square, when the infamous private security firm’s guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians. It’s no longer owned [...]
06.13.11 -
Android Malware Found in Angry Birds Add-On Apps
Google recently removed at least 10 applications from the Android Market, all of which contained malicious code disguised as add-ons to one of the most popular apps of all time. Each of the removed apps posed as a cheat or an add-on to Angry Birds, the much-lauded mobile application created by Finnish game development studio Rovio. A [...]
06.13.11 -
Salty Dogs No More: Navy Cans Officers for Personal Failings
When Cmdr. Timothy F. Murphy turned the key in his ignition in April, he had no idea he’d be powering a trend that’s shaming the Navy. Murphy, the commander of an electronic attack aircraft squadron, got arrested for drunk driving in Anacortes, Washington. Within days, on April 12, he was stripped of command. That made him [...]
06.13.11 -
That Light in the Darkness? It’s Lightsabers in Star Wars Fan Film
Lightsabers flash in this exclusive preview of the second half of Star Wars: A Light in the Darkness, a short film about an insurgency that follows Emperor Palpatine's fascist coup.
06.13.11 -
Apple Recalls ‘Extremely Small’ Number of Verizon iPad 2 Tablets
Apple recalled an unspecified number of Verizon-carried iPad 2 tablets because of connectivity issues related to their mobile equipment identifier codes. Late last week, a number of people reported in online forums that their iPad 2s were being returned to China mid-shipment, prompting rumors of a recall. After getting shipment notification for an iPad 2 from [...]
06.13.11 -
Storyboard: Human Breast Milk for Sale
Writer Judy Dutton was running out of room in her freezer. Extra breast milk crowded out family staples like hotdogs and hamburgers. So she did what many mothers are doing: She turned to the internet to get rid of the excess. Storyboard Podcast: Episode 50 Subscribe to RSS feed Subscribe on iTunes » http://downloads.wired.com/podcasts/assets/Storyboard/Storyboard_050.mp3 Dutton found a new crop of [...]
06.13.11 -
Clean, Cheap Hydrogen Using Cobalt Catalysts
By Kyle Niemeyer, Ars Technica For years, proponents of the hydrogen economy have argued that hydrogen will replace traditional hydrocarbon fuels for transportation purposes. But, so far, a lack of new, inexpensive methods for hydrogen production and storage has impeded this goal. Over the last several years, an MIT professor has been pushing cobalt catalysts as [...]
06.13.11 -
Free MP3: Jessica 6’s Funky Disco Jam ‘Prisoner of Love’
New York-based dance outfit Jessica 6 knows exactly how to weave soulful vocals and swooning disco sounds for full effect. On debut album See the Light, released last week, the group takes front-woman Nomi Ruiz’s gentle voice and uses it to full effect to make jams that work just as well on the dance floor [...]
06.13.11
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Kinect Star Wars: Watch the Train Wreck in Action
Microsoft's new peripheral has a lot to offer gamers, especially when it's put in the hands of gifted developers who see the motion controls for what they are: A challenge to be met with novel mechanics. But when I played Kinect Star Wars, I began to despair.
06.13.11 -
Entering the Stretch Run of Ultramarathon Training
With 11 days to go before his 100-mile ultramarathon, blind runner Simon Wheatcroft reflects on how far he's come over the past year.
06.13.11 -
IMF Breached by Sophisticated Hack Attack
The International Monetary Fund is the latest victim in an epidemic of sophisticated computer breaches, according to reports.
06.13.11 -
‘Anonymous’ Attacks, Shutters Spanish Police Website
The web site of Spain’s federal police was hit by the hacking group Anonymous on Sunday, forcing it offline for about an hour. The distributed denial of service attack against www.policia.es, Anonymous said, was in retaliation for the Spanish government’s arrest of three Anonymous members accused of participating in a string of web bombardments that took [...]
06.13.11 -
Why Microsoft Has Made Developers Horrified of Coding for Windows 8
By Peter Bright, Ars Technica When Microsoft gave the first public demonstration of Windows 8 a week ago, the reaction from most circles was positive. The new Windows 8 user interface looks clean, attractive and thoughtful. And, in a first for a Microsoft desktop operating system, it’s finger-friendly. But one aspect of the demonstration has the [...]
06.13.11 -
Download The New GeekDad Song For Free!
GeekDad by John Anealio You can download the new “GeekDad” song for absolutely free! Just click the Download button on the player above. If you’re viewing this post in a feed reader, click here for the free download: The GeekDad Song I co-wrote this song with fellow GeekDad Z., who happens to host both the GeekDad HipTrax Podcast as [...]
06.13.11 -
‘Living Laser’ Engineered From Human Cells
By Mark Brown, Wired UK Medical researchers from Harvard University have created the first “living laser”; a biological cell that’s been genetically engineered to produce a visible laser beam. Lasers need two things to generate beams. They need a gain medium that amplifies light, and an arrangement of mirrors to concentrate and align that light. Normal lasers, [...]
06.13.11 -
How Early Twitter Decisions Led to Anthony Weiner’s Dickish Demise
‘We come from a world where privacy is important. But we realized that not everyone shared this feeling about privacy in that same kind of way’ Now that the Anthony Weiner Twitter meltdown has pretty much played out, I’m surprised that there hasn’t been much discussion of the butterfly wing-flap that brought him down: Twitter’s rules [...]
06.13.11 -
Tiny Rotary Engines Could Power Gadgets with Gasoline
Clarian Lab’s new generator is a gas-powered battery. That might sound backward in today’s world of hybrid cars, but it actually turns out to be a pretty clever device. The Hybrid Battery is small, ultra-simple rotary engine with just two moving parts. Rotary engines — like the famous Wankel — are highly efficient and do away [...]
06.13.11 -
Review: Element Case’s Formula and Ion iPhone 4 Cases Get the Job Done
I’ve never really understood the reluctance many people have to spend a bit of money on a good case for their iPhones. I realize nobody likes to spend more money than necessary, but is it really reasonable to get upset when the $20 case you bought for your $200 or $300 iPhone 4 isn’t enough [...]
06.13.11
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Has the Internet ‘Hamsterized’ Journalism?
‘In many newsrooms, old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting — the kind where a reporter goes into the streets and talks to people or probes a government official — has been sometimes replaced by internet searches.’ Hey there newspaper reporter — has your broadband-powered job got you filing not only conventional stories, but blogging, video blogging, Facebooking, podcasting, picture [...]
06.13.11 -
U.S. Counter-Intel Agents Could Outnumber Taliban Infiltrators
Updated 2:52 pm EDT He was the last person anyone expected to betray them. “Crazy Joe” was an Afghan cop — and a good one, his U.S. comrades believed. That is, until a day in October 2009, in Wardak province south of Kabul. A group of U.S. Army soldiers assigned to work alongside the Afghan police [...]
06.13.11 -
Downcast: Probably The Best Podcast Downloader for iPad and iPhone
ICloud SchmiCloud. Apple’s new non-syncing sync service might already let us iOS users get new apps and books and — in the future music — pushed to our devices, but it still doesn’t push podcasts. As these are likely the most often updated things on our iPhones and iPads, it’s an annoying oversight. There are several [...]
06.13.11 -
Google Breadcrumb: Slightly Geeky and Fun Mobile Learning Tool
According to a Microsoft infographic on the Digital Buzz website, there are four billion mobile phones in use around the world. Even more intriguing is that mobile Internet usage is on course to overtake desktop Internet usage by 2014. In addition, of those four billion mobile phone users, over 60% of them are using their [...]
06.13.11 -
Let’s See You Do That With an eBook!
In the digital-versus-paper book debate, I definitely lean towards paper. Yes, I know that Kindles and eReaders and iPads are really cool, and you certainly can’t beat them for traveling with a bunch of books and not having to pay a baggage fee. However, there are just some things that you can’t do with an [...]
06.13.11 -
Perspective Corrections in Tracker Video
Who doesn’t love Tracker Video for the analysis of videos? What isn’t there to love? Free? Yes. Multiple platforms? Yes (Mac OS X, Windows, Linux). And now, perspective corrections (latest version is 4.05). How many times have I looked at a video and had a problem with perspective? The simplest video [...]
06.13.11 -
Eatensil, A Multi-Tool for Takeout Food
This is the Eatensil, a multitool for fast food. Currently being hawked to manufacturers by British takeaway (takeout) website Just Eat, the tool is obviously designed to tackle British-style takeout, but I’d argue that the idea is flawed from the beginning, whichever country it is designed for. The oversized Swiss-Army-Knife style tool includes a [...]
06.13.11 -
GeekDad 2011 Father’s Day Gift Guide, Part 3
Gift suggestions from the writers of GeekDad. Also be sure to check out our previous guides for additional ideas. Nerf Swarmfire The Swarmfire is an electrically powered, fully automatic Nerf gun in the vein of the Stampede: you pull the trigger, and darts shoot forth until it runs dry. The Swarmfire doesn’t have a clip; it has a [...]
06.13.11 -
GeekDad Visits the Children’s Museum in Easton
On a rainy summer day you are probably looking for a place where your kids can run around like crazy and blow off some steam. In Greater Boston, your first choice may be the Children’s Museum on Boston’s waterfront. But if you live south of the city and are looking for a closer alternative at [...]
06.13.11 -
A Father’s Day Challenge: Join the Disconnect to Reconnect Campaign
For Father’s Day this year, I’m going to give myself one of the best gifts ever — 24 un-wired hours with my wife and children. No television. No email. No computer games. No mobile phone. And no complaints. For Father’s Day 2011, GeekDad is asking you to join with us as a willing participant in the Disconnect [...]
06.13.11
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DIGIS Awards Recognize Digital Achievements by Canadian Youth
I think that by this point, we all pretty much recognize the fact that the future of media is digital. Sure, there will always be a place for vinyl and other other analog technology, but the mainstream will be firmly ones and zeroes. In an age where kids are landing recording contracts and launching film careers [...]
06.13.11 -
BikeLits Replace ‘Hipster Cysts’ with Hanging ‘Hipster Cockscombs’
The problem: you want to use bike lights at night, but you don’t want to ruin the clean lines of your sweet minimalist ride with permanently attached lamps. The solution up until now, at least for fixed-gear riders, has been the “hipster cyst,” aka. the Knog Frog, a silicone creature that wraps itself around the [...]
06.13.11 -
Animals’ Most Amazing Acoustic Feats
From deafening monkey howls to snapping crustacean claws, animals use powerful sounds to do everything from claim territory to stun prey. In this gallery, we have collected some of the best, and look at the physics that produce them.
06.13.11 -
June 13, 1983: Pioneer 10 Reaches an End … and a Beginning
1983: Pioneer 10 becomes the first human-made object to pass outside Pluto’s orbit and leave the central solar system. Pioneer 10 must be considered one of the most successful spacecraft of all time. Designed for deep-space exploration, which at the time of its launch in 1972 meant pretty much anything beyond the moon, Pioneer 10 achieved [...]
06.13.11 -
Geekdad Puzzler of the Week: Happy Fathers Day GeekDads
With Fathers day coming up I had to do a Fathers Day puzzle. So for a chance to win a $50.00 Thinkgeek Gift Certificate to add to your Fathers Day stash of goodies I have a simple challenge for you … The four awesome GeekDad editors got gifts and breakfast in bed on Fathers Day. [...]
06.13.11 -
Leica 25mm ƒ1.4 Lens for Micro Four Thirds
Oh hello! In addition to the less-than-inspiring GF3 announced today, Panasonic has redeemed itself with the new Leica DG Summilux 25mm ƒ1.4 ASPH lens. This fixed lens, which works as a 50mm equivalent “standard” on the Micro Four Thirds bodies, is likely to be one sweet chunk of glass. First, the numbers. The lens has a [...]
06.13.11 -
Panasonic Announces Tiny, Feature-Lacking GF3
It took a year and a half for Panasonic to add the GF2 to the wonderful (big) pocket-sized GF1 mirrorless Micro Four Thirds camera. Now, just five months later, we have another one — the GF3. This camera is even smaller and feature lacking than the already cut down GF2, showing that Panasonic is clearly [...]
06.13.11 -
Brave Bolivia’s Bizarre Mercedes-Benz Bus-Train
By Justin Hyde, Jalopnik Michael Powell and Juergen Horn travel the world, living in various far-flung locales for just 91 days before moving on. In rural Bolivia, they came across a scenic and harrowing bus-train. Roads handle most of the traffic in even the remote corners of Bolivia, but there’s still a need for mass transit to [...]
06.13.11 -
A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Monday, June 13th
As we’ve reported before, our good friends over at Google are starting up a daily puzzle challenge. Each day’s puzzle will task your googling skills a little more, leading you to Google mastery. And much to our enjoyment, they’ve decided to share the puzzles with us at GeekDad (hmm… Google a Day? GD? [...]
06.13.11 -
Seafloor Sunday #88: Submarine Canyons Along West African Margin
This week’s Seafloor Sunday is from the site Virtual Seismic Atlas, which is a gallery of seismic-reflection images donated to the scientific community largely by petroleum and marine geotechnical companies and some other sources. The images are for anyone to use for education purposes. There’s some great stuff in there, I know I’ll be using [...]
06.12.11
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“Homophobia Is Apparently Associated With Homosexual Arousal”
“..that the homophobic individual is either unaware of or denies,” concludes a 1996 study published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. Yes, the research is 15 years old, but in light of several recent anti-gay rants in the news, I couldn’t help but notice Nathan Heflick’s latest post at Psychology Today: [Investigators] asked heterosexal men how comfortable [...]
06.12.11 -
Letter from the UK: Farewell to the Moleskine?
I always remember one of the editors on a Silicon Valley start-up I worked at who was so defiantly digital that he had nothing on his desk but his Mac and a gnarled, aggressive piece of wrought iron sculpture. The message was simple: “I’m digital. I don’t do paper. So don’t even think about putting [...]
06.12.11 -
Hands-On: 5 Ways Madden NFL 12 Changes the Game
Electronic Arts knows what you're thinking: Its NFL-licensed Madden football series is just a cash cow, a cheap excuse to sell the same game every year with a new coat of paint. The developers of Madden NFL 12 want to change that perception.
06.12.11 -
Sometimes Giving Kids the Run-Around Is a Good Thing (GeekDad Weekly Rewind)
An elementary school in Maryland that was encountering discipline problems with the students recently came up with a solution that “ran circles” around their expectations. In recent years, the staff at Orchard Grove Elementary School in Frederick, Maryland, noted a steady increase in discipline problems at the school, with up to seven students per day ending [...]
06.12.11 -
Help With Geeky Travel in New York City
What should a geeky family do for a week in New York in September? We’ll be fresh from the wilds of Iceland and on our way to Peru and we have one week to make sure we extract maximum value from New York with our ten and eight year old boys. What should we do? Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Central [...]
06.12.11 -
Hands-On: Shifting to Victory in Driver: San Francisco
A demo of Driver: San Francisco shows off a fresh multiplayer take on car tag that lets you switch between automobiles on the fly.
06.12.11 -
National Geographic’s 50 Places of a Lifetime: The World’s Greatest Destinations (GeekDad Weekly Rewind)
Being a fan of both travel and maps, it’s no surprise that I like many things from National Geographic. Their latest endeavor is an iPad app, telling and showing us 50 different places around the world that would be good to visit. National Geographic’s 50 Places of a Lifetime: The World’s Greatest Destinations reads like a [...]
06.12.11 -
DIY Magnetic Silly Putty Is Black Magic
Instructables user mikeasaurus has posted a fun and easy guide that describes how to make your own magnetic Silly Putty. Basically, you just take some standard Silly Putty (which is a lot of fun by itself) and blend in some black iron oxide. As far as experiments go, this is simple and safe, [...]
06.12.11 -
The GeekDads Episode #93: We Are Even Awesomer This Year (GeekDad Weekly Rewind)
Ken, Dave, and Matt chat about the announcements from E3 and the Apple WWDC, plus Phineas & Ferb, and Ken’s upcoming appearance on The Nerdist. Enjoy! Special thanks to our sponsor Maphook, the location-based social network for geeks! GeekDad.com is the parenting blog at Wired.com, edited by Ken Denmead, Matt Blum, Jonathan Liu and Chris Anderson. [...]
06.12.11 -
Cracking Contraptions For Father’s Day
When I was growing up I would always watch with interest as my Grandad tinkered with cars. I had no desire to learn what he was doing, but I did enjoy going through the big vibrant books he had for each car he owned. I loved the look and feel of them in much the [...]
06.12.11
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A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Sunday, June 12th
As we’ve reported before, our good friends over at Google are starting up a daily puzzle challenge. Each day’s puzzle will task your googling skills a little more, leading you to Google mastery. And much to our enjoyment, they’ve decided to share the puzzles with us at GeekDad (hmm… Google a Day? GD? [...]
06.12.11 -
3QD: On to Round 2!
I’m proud to say that my post – “The Pelican’s Beak” – has made it to round two of the 3 Quarks Daily science writing contest. Many thanks to everyone who voted for my essay! Whether or not the post goes on to compete for the top prize is now up to the 3QD editors, but [...]
06.11.11 -
A Simple Exercise To Boost IQ
My latest column in the WSJ is now online. It’s about a forthcoming PNAS paper on the n-back test and fluid intelligence: Can we make ourselves smarter? In recent decades, scientists have accumulated increasing evidence that our intelligence, at least as measured by the IQ test, is sharply constrained by genetics. Although estimates vary, most studies [...]
06.11.11 -
Hands-On: Torchlight II Fires Up Addictive Multiplayer Dungeon Crawling
Blending the gorgeous isometric art direction and click-click-click, hack-and-slash combat of the first game with an array of new environments and features, Torchlight II could possess that same "oops, I stayed up all night playing" quality that entranced players back in 2009.
06.11.11 -
Video Breakdown: Khan and Kinematics
The Khan Academy. Surely you have heard of it – right? Well, just in case, let me summarize. Sal Khan – made some video tutorials on all sorts of stuff. Popular media hails Khan as the chosen one of education. Frank Noschese points out that Khan Academy isn’t really a new idea. Frank suggests the modeling [...]
06.11.11 -
FYE’s Green Lantern Movie Ticket Deal – Is It Worth It?
Did I take advantage of this offer, or was I the one taken advantage of? Let’s analyze my last purchase together and I’ll find out right alongside you. Can you guess which one I’m hoping for? The Offer: Buy two specially marked movies at FYE, and receive a card good for eight dollars off one admission [...]
06.11.11 -
Norway to Train Diplomats in ‘True Norwegian Black Metal’
The government of Norway has begun offering training for foreign diplomats in black metal, following a reported rise in global interest in the genre. Black metal, or “TNBM — True Norwegian Black Metal,” as the country calls it, developed as a genre in its own right in the early 1990s with bands like Mayhem, Darkthrone, Burzum, [...]
06.11.11 -
Portal 2 Done ’70s Style
I am LOVING this 70’s style movie poster for Portal 2. Might even pick one up when it’s finally for sale in the Valve Store. It’ll go nicely with my Aperture Parking Permit, which I have been quietly sporting on my car for a couple of years now. What do you think… [...]
06.11.11 -
Hands-On: Making 4-Player Mayhem With Rayman Origins
Rayman Origins is just like New Super Mario Bros. Wii, except you can slap the other players. And I think we can all agree that is the exact feature Mario needed.
06.11.11 -
Le Mans Racer’s Mystery Bumps Explained
This weekend is the annual gathering of sports cars in Le Mans, France for the most prestigious endurance car race of the year, the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Raced over a mix of public roads and race track, the eight and a half mile road course is a challenge to engineers with much of [...]
06.10.11
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Nude Nuns Mass BitTorrent Lawsuit is Terminated
A Utah investment company late Friday dropped its copyright-infringement lawsuit against 5,865 BitTorrent users who allegedly downloaded the movie Nude Nuns with Big Guns between January and March of this year. Incentive Capital, which is embroiled in litigation with another company called Camelot Distribution over who actually owns the B-rated flick, notified the Los Angeles federal [...]
06.10.11 -
Most Dangerous Week Ever
This is what you come to expect: the secret near-death experience of Boeing’s Phantom Ray killer drone. Drug lords who build their own MRAPs and Afghan insurgents who blow up MRAPs with our reporter in them. Mental calisthenics for intelligence analysts. On one side of the ledger, stealth is on the way out; on the other side, missiles and [...]
06.10.11 -
NATO’s Newest Bombing Tool: Twitter
In the early days of the Libya war, U.S. commanders were adamant that they didn’t communicate with the Libyan rebels about what targets to bomb. As it turns out, they don’t need to. They’ve got Twitter. NATO officials conducting air strikes on forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi don’t have soldiers on the ground to spot for [...]
06.10.11 -
Final Space Shuttle Mission Will Feature iPhones
NASA’s final shuttle mission will feature outer space’s first iPhone, tricked out with an app to measure spacecraft radiation levels, orbital location and altitude. The iOS-based software, called SpaceLab, will come pre-loaded on two iPhone 4s. Testing the software isn’t mission-critical, but it may lead to terrestrial commercial devices being repurposed for space in the [...]
06.10.11 -
Hands On: New Kinect Games Take You From Disneyland to Tatooine
Soon, Kinect will drop you into the worlds of Star Wars and Disneyland, have you dancing with friends and playing more complicated sports games than the ones that launched with the system in November. On the E3 show floor, Wired.com tries a range of new Kinect games that Microsoft will release this year. These are our impressions.
06.10.11 -
Navy Commandos Expect Their Shrinks to Be Waterboarded
Want to help Navy SEALs stay mentally fit enough to survive capture by the enemy? Good. Just let me put this cloth over your face while I fill my water bucket.
06.10.11 -
Trailer: Sane Woman Sees Ghosts in John Carpenter’s The Ward (NSFW)
Amber Heard’s character goes nuts in horror maestro John Carpenter’s new movie The Ward. Or does she? In the NSFW trailer, embedded above, “Kristen” sets a house on fire, then starts seeing things after authorities ship her off to a brutal mental institution. Ghosts, surgical instruments and shower scenes find their way into the R-rated drama, [...]
06.10.11 -
Cops Arrest Three Anonymous Members Allegedly Involved in Sony Hack
Spanish authorities announced Friday they have arrested three members of the hacking group Anonymous in connection to attacks against Sony’s online Playstation network and other sites. The police said the three, whose identities were not disclosed, carried out the attacks from a server based in one of the suspect’s houses in northern Spain, Reuters said. Anonymous, a [...]
06.10.11 -
Who’s Ready For Super 8?
I love a good science fiction story and–as a fan of J. J. Abrams LOST–I’ve been anticipating the release of Super 8 for months. The plot has been kept under wraps, but here’s what we know so far: It’s 1979 in a fictional town called Lillian, Ohio, where a group of teens set out to [...]
06.10.11 -
For Apple, Yesterday’s Banned Apps Are Tomorrow’s Great New Feature
It’s good to be king. Apple deserves lots of credit for creating an entirely new market for mobile software in the iTunes app store, over which it justifiably reigns. But the army of developers who have created over half a million Apple iOS apps to date perform another valuable function, in addition to making Apple’s hardware more [...]
06.10.11
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New Tevatron Particle May Be a Mirage
The Tevatron’s Hail Mary shot at particle-physics glory may be fizzling in a puff of protons. New particles recently claimed one of the particle collider’s detectors could not be confirmed by its other detector. In April, the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) researchers reported hints that particles not predicted by the standard model of particle physics [...]
06.10.11 -
Top 10 Revelations That Rocked E3 2011
Nintendo's Wii U and Sony's PlayStation Vita make headlines at this year's E3 Expo, but publishers mostly opt to take attendees on a deeper dive into previously announced games and their features. Here are Wired.com's takes on the big announcements that made E3 2011 surprising, momentous and just plain fun.
06.10.11 -
Hands On: Stunning, Gorgeous El Shaddai Is Action-Gamer Bliss
The upcoming Japanese action game is an impressive, surrealist take on the Book of Enoch.
06.10.11 -
Dr. Sudoku Prescribes: Mystery TomTom
This week’s prescription is a themed calcu-doku puzzle where the numbers to enter are unknown.
06.10.11 -
NSA Declassifies 200-Year-Old Book
A cryptology instruction book… 202 years old. A photograph of the U.S. Army’s cypher bureau… from 1919. A breakdown of Russian electoral districts… circa 1948. Schematics for a magnetic tape memory system… nearly half a century old. These are just some of the items that, had you seen them, would have irreparably damaged U.S. national security. [...]
06.10.11 -
Trouble Hooking Up? There’s an App for That
Whether you’re in need of a hip come-on (or a just plain douch-y tactic), these books and apps are bound to up your game.
06.10.11 -
Studio Might Alter Tattoo in Hangover DVD Release
Warner Bros. says it would digitally alter the tattoo on a character in the upcoming DVD version of its new comedy, The Hangover: Part II, if the studio is unable to resolve copyright litigation surrounding the ink design. A lawsuit brought by a Missouri tattooist asserts the movie features a “virtually exact reproduction” of a copyright tattoo [...]
06.10.11 -
Fore! The Best New Golf Gear That’ll Save Your Game
Golf and technology go hand-in-hand, as evolving clubs, balls, clothes and teaching aides serve as enticements to any casual or die-hard golfer looking to chop a shot here or there from his handicap. With Father's Day approaching and the golf season in full swing, now's the time to scour the market for that one piece of golf equipment that can translate into success on the links. Here are 12 items, many of which are new in 2011, to help you make sure your good walks aren't spoiled.
06.10.11 -
The Turtle Moves
Wouldn’t you know it? Just a few weeks after I leave the garden state, the New Jersey State Museum – where I was a research associate – gets enough funding to start an extensive excavation of the extremely fossil-rich muck of the Inversand marl pit. This is great news. The Inversand pit is one of [...]
06.10.11 -
Friday Field Photo #147: Cape Town Cross-Bedding
This week’s Friday Field Photo is from the top of Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa. These cross-bedded sandstones (actually, I think they are technically quartzites as a result of low-grade metamorphism) are part of the Cape Supergroup and Ordovician in age (448-443 million years ago). In this photo I like how the rocks [...]
06.10.11
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Pentagon’s New Factory: Your DNA
Darpa is sick and tired of waiting around for Mother Nature. Instead, it wants to take the life-making business into its own hands — and manufacture new biological forms in a factory of mix-and-match bio-bits. A recent call for research by the Pentagon’s mad science agency proposes a new program called “Living Foundries.” The idea is [...]
06.10.11 -
J.J. Abrams Champions Sense of Mystery in Era of Information Overload
Whatever happened to the ignorance-is-bliss school of going to the movies? That’s what J.J. Abrams wants to know as his new sci-fi thriller Super 8 heads for theaters. Opening Friday, the ’80s-inflected story about a group of child filmmakers who get tangled up in a mysterious conspiracy has been shrouded in secrecy, encircled with a trail [...]
06.10.11 -
Extra Gene Copies May Trigger Some Cases of Autism
By John Timmer, Ars Technica Viewed from some perspectives, autism is a genetic disease. Studies of identical twins show that, when one sibling is affected, the other is also, with a frequency approaching 90 percent. Several genes associated with autism have been identified due to their prevalence in individual families with high rates of autism. All [...]
06.10.11 -
Perry For President?
Taegan says it looks likely that Texas Governor Rick Perry will run for president. As I recently wrote in an Austin Statesman OpEd, Perry supplanted $3.25 billion in state education funding with $3.25 billion in federal education dollars in 2009, leaving Texas schoolchildren as if Congress had never voted to approve that federal money in the [...]
06.10.11 -
Dude, Where’s Cesar’s Car? The Super Civic Quest
Cesar the Luchador has lost his prized Honda Civic, and has refused to compete in his title bout against el Burrito Caliente until the car is recovered. In this online puzzle hunt RPA created for Honda, participants must hunt through a series of popular online websites for a chance to win music downloads, Facebook Credit, [...]
06.10.11 -
New Aircraft Aluminum Set To Compete With Composites
Aluminum producer Alcoa says they have a new aluminum alloy that can can save weight over composites in new airplane designs. The company claims an airplane built with the new metal is up to 10 percent lighter than “composite-intensive planes” which it points out translates to a fuel savings for the airlines. The new aluminum lithium [...]
06.10.11 -
Alt Text: Apple Reveals Fatal, and Extremely Lucrative, Flaws in iCloud, OS X Lion
After any Apple announcement, the haters make the following complaints: 1. Apple’s new product is just a tedious rip-off of stuff that’s already been done, with a few curves slapped on. 2. Apple’s new product is too weird and unfamiliar and nobody’s going to want something that strange. And the fanboys launch the following defense: 1. Shut up, you. And [...]
06.10.11 -
The Soviet Superplane Program That Rattled Area 51
The Lun ekranoplan weighs 380 tons, has a 148-foot wingspan and can launch six anti-ship missiles from flight. Or rather, it could, before it was retired to a forlorn pier in southern Russia.
06.10.11 -
Why 3-D Sports Could Be the Future of Television
In theory, ESPN 3D is the ultimate sports network, but theory has a way of clashing hard with reality. Over the past 12 months, ESPN 3D has broadcast a lineup of sporting spectacles that would rival any network available today. College football’s BCS National Championship Game? Done. The Masters golf tournament? You bet. How about we [...]
06.10.11 -
Miracle On The Hudson Plane Hits The Road
It’s not your average sight at a rest stop, but motorists from New Jersey to South Carolina have been able to catch a glimpse this week of the Airbus fuselage recovered from the Hudson River after the historic emergency landing back in 2009. The 120 foot long airplane from US Airways flight 1549 spent the night [...]
06.10.11
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Amazon to Connecticut, Arkansas: ‘Drop Dead’ Over Sales Tax
06.13.11 -
Look Out Above! Russia May Target U.S. Sats With Laser Jet
06.13.11 -
Animals’ Most Amazing Acoustic Feats
06.13.11 -
Android Malware Found in Angry Birds Add-On Apps
06.13.11 -
Hands-On: Torchlight II Fires Up Addictive Multiplayer Dungeon Crawling
06.11.11 -
Android Tablets Come to First-Class Fliers
06.13.11 -
Why Microsoft Has Made Developers Horrified of Coding for Windows 8
06.13.11 -
IMF Breached by Sophisticated Hack Attack
06.13.11 -
Apple Recalls ‘Extremely Small’ Number of Verizon iPad 2 Tablets
06.13.11 -
U.S. Faces Legal Challenge to Internet-Domain Seizures
06.13.11 -
Do Athletes Play Better at Night? Better Sleep on It
06.13.11 -
Storyboard: Human Breast Milk for Sale
06.13.11 -
Ancient Fossils Have Evolution’s First Shells
06.13.11 -
“Homophobia Is Apparently Associated With Homosexual Arousal”
06.12.11 -
Salty Dogs No More: Navy Cans Officers for Personal Failings
06.13.11 -
How Early Twitter Decisions Led to Anthony Weiner’s Dickish Demise
06.13.11 -
Kinect Star Wars: Watch the Train Wreck in Action
06.13.11 -
Has the Internet ‘Hamsterized’ Journalism?
06.13.11 -
That Light in the Darkness? It’s Lightsabers in Star Wars Fan Film
06.13.11 -
‘Living Laser’ Engineered From Human Cells
06.13.11
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