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Unleash an Army of Bees With Machine Guns on Your Website
Want to know if your website can stand up to a sudden, massive deluge of traffic? Sure, you could use some of the available tools like Flood, JMeter or The Ginder. But none of those options have bees with machine guns. The news applications team at the Chicago Tribune, has released a new tool it calls [...]
10.28.10 -
Microsoft Drops a New IE9 Preview, Boosts CSS Support
We're still months away from the official release of Internet Explorer 9 -- it's likely due some time during the first half of 2011 -- but Microsoft released a sixth pre-release "platform preview" of IE9 Thursday, rolling in new features and additional web standards support.
10.28.10 -
Video: Magnetic Twister Erupts on Sun
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory caught an enormous plasma twister erupting on the surface of the sun Oct. 28. The explosion was triggered by a tangled coil of magnetism that suddenly untwisted, acting like a loaded spring and hurling solar matter into space. At its peak, the twister towered more than 217,000 miles above the surface of [...]
10.28.10 -
Visualize the Game Console Generation Shift
An interactive infographic lets you visualize the videogame console wars in terms of how they've traded market share over the past several years.
10.28.10 -
TSA: MacBook Air Can Stay In Bag at Security Check
Going to the airport will be slightly less miserable for MacBook Air owners: Apple’s new ultra-thin notebook need not be removed from a bag at security checkpoints. The Transportation Security Administration told CNN that the 11-inch Air, like the iPad, can stay inside bags when passing through the checkpoint. However, the TSA hasn’t yet determined whether [...]
10.28.10 -
There Goes the Greatest World Cup-Predicting Octopus Who Ever Lived
Paul the Octopus, who captivated the civilized world this summer with his astoundingly accurate World Cup predictions, passed away earlier this week from natural causes at the age of two and a half. He leaves behind no known kin. From his comfy confines at the Sea Life Aquarium in Oberhausen, Germany, the British-born Paul dared to [...]
10.28.10 -
Tomorrow’s Troops Will Be Covered in Gadgets (the Army Hopes)
Someday, somehow, soldiers running around the battlefield are going to be able to swap data and talk to each other, just like us civilians at home. Surprising as it is to Blackberry-addicted civvies, the Army’s struggled for nearly twenty years to get soldiers tough, light, bandwidth-conserving gear that can allow them to find each other on [...]
10.28.10 -
Sleeping Mars Rover Finds Evidence of Liquid Water
The soft Martian soil that ensnared the rover Spirit holds evidence that liquid water still trickles below the planet’s surface. But this serendipitous discovery may be Spirit’s last. Spirit’s wheels broke through the crust of a sand pit called “Troy” in April 2009, after five years spent mostly exploring a region called Home Plate. NASA officially [...]
10.28.10 -
Analyst: Wii Price Cuts Likely as Kinect, Move Mature
If Microsoft and Sony want to seriously start siphoning sales from Wii, they’ll have to bring down the price of their Kinect and Move bundles, says Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter. And this will cause Nintendo to do the same, he says. “Without a new Wii model, we expect sales to continue to decline (in [...]
10.28.10 -
Tesla’s Got the Factory, Now It Needs to Fill It
Tesla Motors staged a grand opening of its new factory in Northern California, a largely symbolic but nevertheless key milestone in the history of the company and the electric car that will determine its future. There was a sense of limitless possibility as company CEO Elon Musk, joined by Sen. Dianne Feinstein and a slew of [...]
10.28.10
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Dems Go Populist on Net Neutrality
Nearly 100 Democrats gunning for seats in Congress are trying to turn net neutrality into a campaign issue Thursday. They’re casting themselves as the champions of the people against corporations that want to control the net and divide it into fast lanes and slow lanes. While net fairness rules were a part of President Obama’s campaign [...]
10.28.10 -
Verizon Coughs Up $77 Million to Settle Mystery Data Fee Probe
Verizon Wireless has agreed to pay $25 million to the federal government and refund $52 million to more than 15 million customers after federal regulators found that the company unfairly charged consumers who accidentally went online on phones with no data plan, the FCC announced Thursday. The payment — not technically a fine — is the [...]
10.28.10 -
Your Fingers Know When You Make a Typo
The brain uses two different checks to guard against sloppy copy, a new study finds. By using a doctored word processor to sneak errors into typed words and surreptitiously fix typists’ real errors, researchers teased apart the various ways people catch their own mistakes. The study, published in the Oct. 29 Science, highlights the complexity [...]
10.28.10 -
First Look at Formic Wars, Orson Scott Card’s Prequel to Ender’s Game
Orson Scott Card will reveal the origins of the Ender’s Game universe in Formic Wars, a seven-issue sci-fi comic book series from Marvel Entertainment. “I’ve been so happy with Marvel’s comic-book adaptation of Ender’s Game, Ender’s Shadow, Ender in Exile and Speaker of the Dead that I wanted my long-imagined story of the Formic Wars to [...]
10.28.10 -
Could A Google Nexus Two Be on Its Way?
If you didn’t get your fill of the Google Nexus phone, there may be a second chance. Google may have tapped Samsung to create the Nexus Two, a new smartphone that could debut early next month, according to a report on an Android news site. Samsung will announce the Nexus Two on November 8, claims Androidandme.com. [...]
10.28.10 -
Kindle App For Windows Phone 7 Is On The Way
Amazon keeps rolling out software applications for nearly every device it doesn’t make itself. Next up is the new player in the smartphone market, Windows Phone 7. The forthcoming WP7 Kindle app has virtually the same function as other mobile Kindle apps, but will have Microsoft’s look and feel. I may have been the only e-reading-focused [...]
10.28.10 -
Making The Walking Dead’s Gruesome Zombies
Gore maestro Greg Notero's makeup works to chilling effect in AMC's new zombie show. Get a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of The Walking Dead's lumbering parade of reanimated corpses. Plus: Enter to win a mystery grab back in our 666 Halloween Giveaway.
10.28.10 -
Odds of Finding Earth-Size Exoplanets Are 1-in-4
Nearly one in four sun-like stars should host an Earth-mass planet, according to a new census. The finding is the first quantitative measurement of the frequency of planets of various masses in the galaxy. “It’s a landmark paper,” said exoplanet expert Josh Winn of MIT, who was not involved in the new study. “There’s been all this [...]
10.28.10 -
First Look at Chris Evans in Captain America Suit
The new issue of Entertainment Weekly serves up the world’s first look at Chris Evans in his superhero suit from Captain America: The First Avenger. In the feature story, the actor — who signed a six-movie deal with Marvel to play Cap — explains why he was reluctant to take the role. “I was just scared,” he [...]
10.28.10 -
Intel Gets Into the ‘News’ Business
Intel has launched what looks to be the semiconductor industry’s answer to the venerable in-flight magazine: Free Press, a “news” site hosted and published by Intel. It’s sort of like Delta Sky magazine, but with a more direct and pervasive focus on Intel. The new site hosts byline-less articles on topics that range from Moore’s [...]
10.28.10
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Meet Bigby in the League Against Pirates and Dragons
Look out bad guys, there???s a new crime-fighting kid in town! This month, Worldwide Biggies Inc., the digital entertainment studio helmed by family entertainment hit-maker Albie Hecht, is introducing its latest animated character sensation Bigby, a 9-year-old genius who believes that 96% of all bad things in the world are caused by pirates and [...]
10.28.10 -
China Beats U.S. For the World’s Fastest Supercomputer Title
Add the ‘made in China’ tag to yet another gadget: the world’s fastest supercomputer. China says it has the most powerful computing system — a machine called Tianhe-1A. The supercomputer uses 7,168 NVIDIA Tesla M2050 GPUs (graphics processing units) and 14,336 Intel Xeon CPUs and is capable of clocking 2.507 petaflops or 2,507 trillion [...]
10.28.10 -
Video: Cranky Marksman ‘Carves’ Pumpkin With Handgun
Grab a Glock, and your ultimate DIY jack-o-lantern is just a few clips away. Not the most imaginative design, but still. [via Laughing Squid] Follow us on Twitter: @lewiswallace and @theunderwire. See Also: Maniac Pumpkin Carvers Create Custom Jack-o'-Lanterns LED Jack o' Lantern howto Star Wars Lights Up the Pumpkin Patch
10.28.10 -
Broke Taiwanese Company to Sue Apple Over ‘iPad’ Trademark
If you’re going broke, look for reasons to sue rich people. That seems to be the strategy behind a Taiwanese company’s threat to take legal action against Apple. Struggling Taiwanese company Proview told Financial Times that it plans to sue Apple over infringement of the trademark “iPad.” Proview over a decade ago made an unsuccessful attempt [...]
10.28.10 -
Hands-On: Donkey Kong Country Returns Tickles Nostalgia Bone
NEW YORK — When I first heard that Nintendo was developing a new Donkey Kong Country game for the Wii in the style of the 1990’s Super Nintendo games, my inner eight-year-old started jumping for joy. The Donkey Kong Country trilogy was a huge part of my childhood, and I’ve spent many an hour trying [...]
10.28.10 -
Adobe Shows Off Flash-to-HTML5 Conversion Tool
Even though its Flash technology is used as a punching bag by web-standards fans, Adobe has been building tools that embrace HTML5. The company recently released its own HTML5 video player, and Adobe Illustrator and Dreamweaver CS5 now contain a number of new HTML5 export tools. Now it seems Flash might be joining the party. At [...]
10.28.10 -
Sinking Royal Navy Shifts Burden to U.S. Fleet
The U.K.’s new Conservative government is ruthlessly cutting spending in an effort to close the country’s roughly 100-billion GBP annual deficit. For the Ministry of Defense, that means a gradual 8-percent reduction in its 40-billion GBP yearly budget. As laid out in the Strategic Defense and Security Review, published on Oct. 19, the British military [...]
10.28.10 -
Adobe Shows Off Flash-to-HTML5 Converter
Even though its Flash technology is used as a punching bag by web standards fans, Adobe has been building tools that embrace HTML5. The company recently released its own HTML5 video player, and Adobe Illustrator and Dreamweaver CS5 now contain a number of new HTML5 export tools. Now it seems Flash might be joining the party. [...]
10.28.10 -
Climate Change Blurs Definition of Native Species
GLACIER NATIONAL PARK, Montana ??? As climate changes, some environments are becoming hostile to the flora and fauna that long nurtured them. Species that can migrate have begun to move into regions where temperatures and humidity are more hospitable. And that can prove a conundrum for officials charged with halting the [...]
10.28.10 -
‘Mosque Monitoring’ and Insurgent Banksys: WikiLeaks Details Iraq’s Propaganda War
The Iraq war isn’t just a war of guns, bombs and homebrew weapons. It’s also a war of words, a contest that elevates politics and propaganda to the same plane as kinetics. With the release of Wikileaks’ tranche of Iraq reports, we get a psy-operator’s??eye-view??of how Iraqis and Americans tried to fight that war with [...]
10.28.10
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New PS3 Model Has Bigger Hard Drive, Still Awfully Expensive
For the holidays, Sony is releasing a standalone Playstation 3 with a 320 GB hard drive, retailing $350. The same PS3 with a Playstation Move controller, Eye camera and Sports Champions game will cost $400; a standalone unit with a 160 GB hard drive costs $300. The extra hard drive space is purportedly for games, video [...]
10.28.10 -
Munchkin Zombies Zombie-A-Day Exclusive Preview: Curse! Bass Ackwards
Munchkin Zombies, scheduled for release in April 2011, will be the first full Munchkin game in almost three years. GeekDad contributing cartoonist John Kovalic is the man behind the Munchkin art yet again, so Steve Jackson Games has very graciously agreed to give GeekDad’s readers an exclusive sneak first peek at some of [...]
10.28.10 -
GeekDad Helps To Build The World’s Largest Lego Mosiac
When my fellow GeekDad Tony Sims posted about Dorling Kindersley’s attempt to break the world record for the largest Lego Mosaic in London, I knew I had to go along. It was half term week after all so we needed something to do to fill up those school free days, and it’s not everyday you [...]
10.28.10 -
Smartpen App Makes Paper As Mighty as the Mouse
You can now draw virtual lines on your computer screen at the same time as you scribble them on paper. A new smartpen app called Paper Tablet gives the new Livescribe Echo smartpen some of the functionality of a dedicated graphics tablet, letting you write on the computer screen in real-time and add manuscript text to [...]
10.28.10 -
This Could Be Your Last Night on Earth
Overview: The small town of Woodinvale has a bit of a problem: the shambling undead. Last Night on Earth pits zombies versus four heroes in a number of different scenarios in a board game that plays out like a horror movie. (There’s even a soundtrack included to help you set the mood.) With a number [...]
10.28.10 -
Electric Airplanes, Coming to a Flight School Near You
Range. It seems to be the word that is in the middle of any debate about electric vehicles. As we discovered in our short flight in the E-Spyder, electric airplanes won’t be crossing the country any time soon on battery power. But there is already plenty of interest from pilots who look forward to the [...]
10.28.10 -
This Week in The Clone Wars: James Arnold Taylor Talks about Season 2
There’s no episode of season 3 of The Clone Wars this week, probably because of Halloween, but there is news from LucasFilm: The DVD & Blu-ray of Season 2 came out on Tuesday. If you like The Clone Wars, you’ll want to get Season 2. There are featurettes on “The Magic of the Holocron,” “Return [...]
10.28.10 -
Great Geek Debate? ??? Zombies vs. Unicorns
Ah, the age-old question: which is better, the zombie or the unicorn? Wait, age-old? Until I ran across this poster at Comic-Con this summer I confess I hadn’t ever given it a thought???but I immediately knew I needed this book. Holly Black, author of the Spiderwick Chronicles, and Justine Larbalestier, author of How to Ditch Your Fairy, [...]
10.28.10 -
Just in Time For Halloween: Q & A With Scary Godmother Creator Jill Thompson
I have to admit: for all that I’m a comic geek, I was completely late to the party of Scary Godmother, even though creator Jill Thompson has won numerous awards for the series. My first experience was the televised Scary Godmother Holiday Spooktacular Special in 2003, even though Thompson had been creating and receiving acclaim for [...]
10.28.10 -
Paul Jessup Talks Werewolves and the Inspiration of a Geeky Dad
My friend Paul Jessup is a speculative fiction author who also happens to be quite the geek. Aside from pondering tales about talking swords and sentient space-ships, he loves tabletop RPGs, adores Supernatural, and draws inspiration from his own kids… even in some unlikely situations. Just in time for Halloween, his newest book, Werewolves, tells the [...]
10.28.10
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KERS Comes to Cars as Jaguar Tests Flywheel Hybrid
Kinetic-energy recovery systems didn’t fare well in Formula 1, but a bunch of British automotive companies bet the technology will catch on with road cars. A consortium led by a Jaguar Land Rover is developing a flywheel-hybrid system that it says boosts performance by 60 kilowatts (about 80 horsepower) while improving fuel efficiency 20 percent. The [...]
10.28.10 -
Exploring the Vast Lego Universe
I’ve gotten to play through some of Lego Universe over the past few weeks. Here are some screenshots of the game, showing some of the gameplay and settings. Want to read more? Check out these posts: Lego Universe Hits Shelves Today! Lego Universe: A Closer Look Touring NetDevil Studios
10.28.10 -
As Sales Collapse, Music Games Gamble on Real Instruments
Rock Band 3 and Power Gig both try to crank up the volume on the fading genre by utilizing actual guitars as controllers. One's a success, but the other's an unmitigated flop.
10.28.10 -
25 Best Horror Films of All Time
From acknowledged classics to outlandish cult favorites, four gore connoisseurs from Fangoria magazine unearth the finest scary cinema of all time.
10.28.10 -
Despite Scare Talk, Attacks on Pentagon Networks Drop
Listen to the generals speak, and you’d think the Pentagon’s networks were about to be overrun with worms and Trojans. But a draft federal report indicates that the number of “incidents of malicious cyber activity” in the Defense Department has actually decreased in 2010. It’s the first such decline since the turn of the millennium. In [...]
10.28.10 -
Oct. 28, 1955: Gates Open for Tech Titan
1955: Microsoft co-founder and longtime CEO Bill Gates is born. Happy 55th Birthday, Bill! Gates is no stranger to these pages, so we honor his birthday with a summary of our more-or-less recent coverage. In the Beginning April 4, 1975: Bill Gates, Paul Allen Form a Little Partnership Bill Gates and Paul Allen create a partnership called Micro-soft. It [...]
10.28.10 -
Review: AmpliTube 2 For The iPhone Turns It Up To Eleven
Back in June I had the opportunity to review the iRig and companion AmpliTube software for the iPhone and iPad. Together, this hardware and software brought studio-quality effects to your iOS device allowing you to play guitar and bass wherever you happened to be and without cranking up loud amplifiers at all hours. Not to [...]
10.28.10 -
Wired Explains: Wireless Tech to Connect Your TV and PC
Netflix and Hulu make great alternatives to cable TV. The downside: You’ve got to tether a computer to your TV with some kind of cable. Fortunately, if you’re getting tired of the cord snaking from your laptop to your entertainment center, there’s an alphabet soup of technologies angling to help you out. Not so fortunately, these technologies [...]
10.28.10 -
So Long, Cylon: Syfy Cancels Caprica
Caprica, the religion-steeped Battlestar Galactica prequel that showed promise but failed to find an audience, has been canceled by Syfy. “We appreciate all the support that fans have shown for Caprica and are very proud of the producers, cast, writers and the rest of the amazing team that has been committed to this fine series,” Mark [...]
10.28.10 -
SCVNGR Unleashes Zombie Horde Through Social Check-In Feature
Geo-locative troublemakers at SCVNGR have unleashed a zombie apocalypse on poor, unsuspecting smartphone users. What will you do to guard yourself from infection this Halloween season? By Michael Andersen, originally posted at ARGNet Geo-locative check-in app SCVNGR has pulled off some crazy stunts in the past few months. Modernista used the app to lead Dexter fans to [...]
10.27.10
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Hellboy Goes to the Dogs in Beasts of Burden
Earth’s most hilarious hellspawn deals with a clueless Nosferatu and a pack of weird but wise dogs in Beasts of Burden/Hellboy, out Wednesday from Dark Horse Comics. The darkly comedic one-shot merges Mike Mignola’s paranormal hero Hellboy with the supernatural cats and canines of Jill Thompson and Evan Dorkin’s occult graphic hardcover Beasts of Burden: Animal [...]
10.27.10 -
Physicists Vote to Run Tevatron for 3 More Years
A group of high-energy particle physicists decided this week to recommend extending the life of the Tevatron, the second-most-powerful particle collider in the world, for 3 years. The panel’s recommendation goes to the Department of Energy, then Congress and ultimately to the White House. The funding decision could determine whether the United States or Europe wins [...]
10.27.10 -
Feds Let Google Off With Warning for Wi-Fi–Sniffing Cars
Federal regulators on Wednesday closed their investigation into Google’s collection of Wi-Fi traffic, without imposing any sanctions on the company. Google discovered earlier this year, after inquiries from German data authorities, that it had been eavesdropping on open Wi-Fi networks from its Street View mapping cars, which had been equipped with Wi-Fi–sniffing hardware to record the [...]
10.27.10 -
Northrop Arms Its Robot Pack Mule With Big Gun
Jon Anderson has seen a lot of gawkers pause at his Northrop Grumman booth in the Association of the U.S. Army’s Washington conference. Not that he’s odd-looking or off-putting: He’s a gregarious guy. The stares he’s getting are about the .50-caliber M2 machine gun he’s got mounted on a treaded robot — something Northrop isn’t [...]
10.27.10 -
Cover Your Walls in Mega Man Blik Graphics
Blik’s latest set of 8-bit decals to decorate your bare nerd apartment walls is Mega Man. The blue bomber, six robot masters and Dr. Wily from the original NES game come in this $50 set of removable, reusable decals that won’t damage your paint job. Mega Man joins designs from Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, Asteroids and [...]
10.27.10 -
Sarah Palin E-Mail Hacker Seeks Probation, Feds Want 18 Months
David Kernell, the Tennessee student convicted of hacking into Sarah Palin’s personal e-mail account, has asked the court to forgo a prison sentence and give him probation for his crimes. Kernell, 22, was convicted earlier this year of misdemeanor computer intrusion and a felony count of obstruction of justice. The jury found him not guilty of [...]
10.27.10 -
Mark Millar’s Kick-Ass 2 Sells Out, Gets Variants
Although it just debuted Oct. 20, the first issue of Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.’s highly anticipated sequel comic Kick-Ass 2 has already sold out. Issue No. 1 of Kick-Ass 2, which follows wannabe crime-fighter Dave Lizewski as he gets schooled in superheroics by tiny dynamo Hit-Girl, will be reissued with two variant covers (shown [...]
10.27.10 -
Navy Debuts First Eco-Friendly Ship: A ‘Mean, Green Riverine Machine’
It can carry 24 troops and can outrace a fleet of destroyers or the cutting-edge vessel nicknamed “the Navy’s corvette.” And it’s powered, in part, by algae. The U.S. Navy has rolled out the first military vessel designed to run on eco-friendly fuel. And this “mean, green riverine machine” is only the start: Within five years, [...]
10.27.10 -
Firefox 4 Pushed Back to Early 2011
Mozilla’s next big browser update is running a bit behind schedule. Firefox 4’s estimated release date has officially been pushed back to early 2011. The browser’s release schedule, which is posted on a public wiki, has been updated to show some new dates: beta 7 in early November, then three more betas before the end of [...]
10.27.10 -
Electric Taxis Comin’ to California
Better Place will roll out a small fleet of electric taxis in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the cabs will use swappable batteries that can be replaced in about the time it takes to fill a gas tank. The Silicon Valley startup says it will build four battery-swap stations between San Francisco and San Jose [...]
10.27.10
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Monkey Fossils Suggest Primates Came Out of Asia, Not Africa
The discovery of four ancient, palm-sized primates in what is now Libya suggests the human family tree’s taproot is in the Middle East, not Africa. The conventional narrative of primate development places the origins of anthropoids — monkeys and apes, including humans — in Africa. Some paleontologists, however, think Asia is the more likely cradle for [...]
10.27.10 -
Acer Plans to Launch Tablets In November
It’s the year of the tablets as electronics makers rush to get one of the hottest gadgets of the year into the hands of users. Acer is the latest to announce it will launch a new line of tablets. The devices will be introduced in New York on November 23 and will be priced ranging from [...]
10.27.10 -
From Bikes to Blades, the Craziest Parkour Tricks
Follow us on Twitter at @erikmal and @wiredplaybook, and on Facebook. [...]
10.27.10 -
Record-Breaking Neutron Star Is Clue to Exotic Physics
A quick-spinning stellar corpse is the most massive of its kind ever seen. The dead star’s extra bulk could rule out several theories about what these dense stellar objects are made of — and provide a celestial lab to explore exotic matter. “For people who work in this field, it’s huge,” said neutron-star astronomer M. Coleman [...]
10.27.10 -
Google Launches Smart Search for Places
Google now knows things. Specifically, Google knows 50 million places, and when you search for say “museums new york,” it now shows you a new kind of search result that replaces a list of links with a list of mini-pages for museums in the Big Apple with a map on the right. Each mini-page has links [...]
10.27.10 -
Top U.S. Officer: Army Hasn’t Seen End of Wars’ ‘Undetermined Toll’
The annual Association of the U.S. Army conference in Washington D.C. is usually a pretty happy affair for the country’s ground forces. But in his address to the confab, Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned of continued stress on the Army. A second decade of “persistent conflict” that the [...]
10.27.10 -
The $105 Fix That Could Protect You From Copyright-Troll Lawsuits
Call it ingenious, call it evil or call it a little of both: Copyright troll Righthaven is exploiting a loophole in intellectual property law, suing websites that might have avoided any trace of civil liability had they spent a mere $105. That’s the fee for a blog or other website to register a DMCA takedown agent [...]
10.27.10 -
Leaked Pics Purportedly Show PlayStation Phone
The PlayStation Phone, rumored so much that it is almost a dead certainty, might look just like this. Tech blog Engadget published leaked pictures of what it says is a prototype PlayStation phone on Tuesday evening. It is said to feature Sony’s classic button scheme as well as a multi-touch sensor and shoulder buttons. It will [...]
10.27.10 -
Batman Won’t Face Riddler in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Rises
Christopher Nolan has divulged the name of his next Batman movie: The Dark Knight Rises. The famously cagey director also revealed to the Hero Complex blog that The Riddler would not be the villain in his sequel to The Dark Knight and Batman Begins. “We’ll use many of the same characters as we have all along, [...]
10.27.10 -
First Chevy Volt Ad Plays Up ‘Range Anxiety’
General Motors starts the advertising blitz for the Chevrolet Volt tonight, and the first ad plays to consumers’ range anxiety by calling the Volt “an electric car that goes far. Really far.” The ad, called “Anthem,” debuts during the World Series. It is one of two featuring the tagline, “It’s more car than electric.” General Motors [...]
10.27.10
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Design for Serendipity (And Drinking Monkeys)
Part of the beauty of the internet and HTML is its inherent serendipity — links lead you somewhere, and other links lead you somewhere else, beyond, anywhere. Yet, serendipitous as the web may be, few sites encourage this sort of haphazard exploration. As developer Derek Powazek writes, “Serendipity powers the social web. It’s why every [...]
10.27.10 -
Hidden Bases, Secret Raids: WikiLeaks Reveals CIA’s Iraq Ops
From the start, we all knew that Afghanistan was the CIA’s war. The spy agency spearheaded the initial push into the country after 9/11, and to this day it runs bases (and pays off strongmen) that keep the war effort running. But in Iraq, the CIA’s role has never quite been that clear. Thanks to WikiLeaks’ [...]
10.27.10 -
Target the Future With CSS 3’s :target Rule
Opera’s Dev Center has plunged head first into the complexities of the CSS3 :target selector with a tutorial that shows an example of how :target can be used to trigger animations and fades. The result is a series of sliding, animated transitions that move and fade in and out as your click the menu links — [...]
10.27.10 -
James Cameron’s Next Movies: Avatar 2 and 3
James Cameron will take moviegoers back to Pandora in a pair of Avatar sequels that he promises will deliver the same visual and emotional impact of the original sci-fi smash.
10.27.10 -
Assassin Bug Eats Spiders After Feigning Capture
By Duncan Geere, Wired UK A species of assassin bug has been found which creeps onto spiders’ webs and pretends to be prey, then devours the spider when it comes to investigate. The creature, known to entomologists as Stenolemus bituberus, is the subject of a paper just published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B by [...]
10.27.10 -
Mercedes Dreams of Rickshaws and Cars Knit by Robots
This year’s Los Angeles Auto Show Design Challenge tackles a heavy question: How do you build a lightweight car that doesn’t compromise safety, styling or performance? Mercedes-Benz’s answer to that question involves a high-end rickshaw, a Smart knit by lovable robot grandmothers??and a sedan grown from seeds. We swear these are concepts from Mercedes, not Citro??n. For [...]
10.27.10 -
Army’s New Combat Vehicle Contract Is ‘Imminent’
For the better part of a decade, the Army has tried to come up with a new infantry vehicle. They’re going to have to wait just a bit longer. A new request for proposals for the Ground Combat Vehicle is “imminent,” says program spokesman Paul Mehney. Ask him about it any which way; try to [...]
10.27.10 -
Hybrids and EVs Will Remain Small Potatoes
The first cars with cords roll silently over the horizon in December when the Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf go on sale. But for all the buzz they’re generating, electrics — and hybrids, for that matter — will remain a small portion of all vehicles sold for at least a decade. So say the prognosticators at [...]
10.27.10 -
Darpa: Fuse Nerves With Robot Limbs, Make Prosthetics Feel Real
Controlling robotic limbs with your brain is just step one. The Pentagon eventually wants artificial arms and legs to feel and perform just the same as naturally grown ones. Which means step two is hooking up those prosthetics directly into severed nerves. That’ll allow the wearer to detect subtle sensations, respond to the brain’s neural [...]
10.27.10 -
Exclusive: We Fly An Electric Airplane
I’m about 600 feet above the Connecticut countryside, looking out over the fall colors of the valley below. I’m in the small, open cockpit of an ultralight with a stick in my right hand, rudder pedals at my feet and what feels like a throttle lever in my left hand. But as much as the E-Spyder [...]
10.27.10
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Video Gallery: 25 Years of Super Mario Madness
Nintendo's classic videogame Super Mario Bros. turned 25 this year. In honor of this landmark, Wired.com put together a video trip through the highlights of Mario's history, from his early days jumping on turtles all the way up to his current adventures jumping on turtles in space. Here are the highlights.
10.27.10 -
Oct. 27, 1994: Web Gives Birth to Banner Ads
1994: Wired.com, then known as HotWired, invents the web banner ad. Go ahead, blame us. The Mosaic browser was just morphing into Netscape in 1994. And if you think ads slow down page loads now, readers had to download the first banner ads over thin dial-up connections. Despite those handicaps, the gaudy banner ad took over the [...]
10.27.10 -
Trailer: Megamind Keeps the Wisecracks Coming
There's funny stuff in the offing from Will Ferrell and company, judging from the new Megamind trailer. A fresh clips recaps a tale of two alien superheroes, one raised in prison, the other in a loving home.
10.26.10 -
LimeWire Shutters File Sharing Services After RIAA Win
LimeWire on Tuesday finally shuttered its file sharing services, months after a federal judge sided with the Recording Industry Association of America and found the New York company liable for a “substantial amount of copyright infringement” that the music industry claims amounts to $1 billion. The 4-year-old case, brought by the RIAA, alleged that as much [...]
10.26.10 -
Report: Darren Aronofsky to Helm Cyborg Thriller Machine Man
Hot-shot director Darren Aronofsky has signed on to direct a sci-fi thriller called Machine Man, according to Heat Vision. Here’s the blog’s description of the movie: “Described by Mandalay as an ‘amped up pop-thriller,’ the story centers on a gadget geek and engineer at a forward-thinking tech firm who is tired of going through life average and [...]
10.26.10 -
Monsters Giveaway: Win Adobe Creative Suite 5
See alien concept art created by director Gareth Edwards for his creepy sci-fi film. Plus, enter to win a copy of the software package he used for his creative visual-effects grunt work.
10.26.10 -
Space Telescope Listens In on Stellar Symphony
The Kepler Space Telescope doesn’t just look for planets. By listening to subtle vibrations of the stars in its field of view, the telescope is recording a stellar symphony that gives an unprecedentedly accurate view of the inner lives of stars. “We can say Kepler is listening to thousands of musicians in the sky,” said Daniel [...]
10.26.10 -
Amazon Now Embraces Nookish ‘Sophie’s Choice’ Lending Features
When Jeff Bezos belittled the Nook’s lending feature in a New York Times interview, he probably didn’t anticipate that Amazon would embrace the exact same limitations less than a year later. Otherwise maybe the Amazon CEO might not have bought into an unfortunate Holocaust reference. But here we are a scant 10 months later, and Amazon is [...]
10.26.10 -
Comedy RPG DeathSpank Dispenses Justice to PC
If you want to save the downtrodden but don’t have a gaming console, you’re in luck. Hothead Games’ DeathSpank is now available for PC via Steam. Ron Gilbert’s return to gaming is a goofy action role-playing game that’s often described as Diablo meets Monkey Island. Playing as the eponymous hero, you’ll get to stomp around a [...]
10.26.10 -
Video: Robo-Talking Superhero Ad Uses Text-to-Voice Trick
It has pretty much nothing to do with car insurance, but a new TV commercial has everything to do with super-low-budget filmmaking, and it’s pretty funny to boot. Auto insurer Geico, of talking lizard fame, launched one of the least-expensive television spots in history last week by making use of Xtranormal’s popular text-to-voice animation tool. [...]
10.26.10
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Marathons, Without Proper Training, Can Be Silently Heart-Hazardous
Finishing that first marathon that you’ve trained so hard for can bring on elation and euphoria, but hopefully it doesn’t also bring on temporary heart damage. Canadian researchers have found, using MRI, that some marathoners can damage parts of their left ventricle for up to three months following a strenuous marathon. Using VO2 max to measure the [...]
10.26.10 -
Report: ‘Spear-Phishing’ Attacks Keep on Giving
The number of targeted phishing attacks against individuals has risen dramatically in the last five years from one or two a week in 2005 to more than 70 a day this month, according to a new report from computer security firm Symantec. The industry most recently hardest hit by so-called spear-phishing attacks is the retail industry, [...]
10.26.10 -
Comcast Gives ‘TV Anywhere’ Another Nudge in Right Direction
Cable operator Comcast has opened up its web-based portal for TV shows to everyone — another small crack in the wall between television delivered over the air and TV by internet. Fancast.com has programs from about 90 content partners, and Comcast customers also get access to the premium digital channels they pay. The array of [...]
10.26.10 -
Cinematic Superman: Earth One Reboots Man of Steel
J. Michael Straczynski's cinematic comic reads like a blockbuster film while updating the Man of Steel's origin story for a 21st century desensitized to supertropes.
10.26.10 -
The Battle for Choice on the Web Isn’t Over
A thoughtful essay by Stuart Turton at PC Pro argues that Mozilla, having already completed the shake-up in the browser world it set out to achieve, needs a new direction: Like the catalyst in a science experiment, I???m beginning to wonder if Firefox???s greatest contribution to browsers is not its continued existence, but that it existed [...]
10.26.10 -
Proving the Merits of Green Racing
When you think about combining automotive racing with environmentalism, it presents a potential battle royal of stereotypes. On the green side, picture a stereotypical environmentalist: a Birkenstock-wearing hippy armed with a polished rant about polar bears and melting ice caps. On the racing side, picture the clich??d race fan: a blue-collar gearhead who wrenches on [...]
10.26.10 -
Volvo Promises to ‘Set the Standard’ for EVs
The first electric cars from Volvo hit the road any day now and dozens more will follow in the months to come as Volvo dips its toe into EV waters. The Swedish automaker has been relatively quiet among those developing cars with cords. Its first effort is an electric version of the handsome C30 hatchback that [...]
10.26.10 -
Oct. 26, 1948: Death Cloud Envelops Pennsylvania Mill Town
1948: An inversion layer settles over the rust belt town of Donora, Pennsylvania, trapping industrial pollution in the atmosphere. When it clears six days later, 20 people are dead, another 50 are dying and hundreds will live out their days with permanently damaged lungs. Inversion occurs when the air near the ground is cooler than the [...]
10.26.10 -
Follow the Money: Pork-Powered Pig Preps for Flight
Whenever Marine One lifts off from the south lawn of the White House, identical decoy helicopters go with it, quickly trading places in a complex, evasive maneuver known as the presidential shell game. The shifting formation is aimed at confusing potential attackers, a concern that reached a fever pitch after 9/11. It could just as easily [...]
10.26.10 -
Wired.com, MAPLight.org Launch Political-Influence Tracker
#sliding_panel {display:block !important; } Build your own Influence Tracker by selecting a senator or representative. Then copy and paste the embed code into your own site. Your browser does not support iframes. At Wired.com, we love data and the possibilities that arise when big public datasets are combined in creative ways. Now we’re jumping in with our own modest [...]
10.26.10
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25 Best Horror Films of All Time
10.28.10 -
Northrop Arms Its Robot Pack Mule With Big Gun
10.27.10 -
The $105 Fix That Could Protect You From Copyright-Troll Lawsuits
10.27.10 -
As Sales Collapse, Music Games Gamble on Real Instruments
10.28.10 -
From Bikes to Blades, the Craziest Parkour Tricks
10.27.10 -
Hidden Bases, Secret Raids: WikiLeaks Reveals CIA’s Iraq Ops
10.27.10 -
Feds Let Google Off With Warning for Wi-Fi–Sniffing Cars
10.27.10 -
White iPhone 4 Delayed Again … or Forever?
10.27.10 -
Oct. 27, 1994: Web Gives Birth to Banner Ads
10.27.10 -
Monkey Fossils Suggest Primates Came Out of Asia, Not Africa
10.27.10 -
Wired Explains: Wireless Tech to Connect Your TV and PC
10.28.10 -
Physicists Vote to Run Tevatron for 3 More Years
10.27.10 -
Exclusive: We Fly An Electric Airplane
10.27.10 -
New PS3 Model Has Bigger Hard Drive, Still Awfully Expensive
10.28.10 -
Oct. 28, 1955: Gates Open for Tech Titan
10.28.10 -
Electric Airplanes, Coming to a Flight School Near You
10.28.10 -
James Cameron’s Next Movies: Avatar 2 and 3
10.27.10 -
Leaked Photo: Is This the Sony Ericsson PlayStation Phone?
10.27.10 -
Army Copters to Start ‘Flying Over Your Neighborhood’
10.26.10 -
Secret Button Sequence Bypasses iPhone Security
10.25.10
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