Dr. Sudoku Prescribes: A Shot of Shikaku

This week’s prescription deals with Shikaku, a region division puzzle that Doctor Sudoku takes a fresh look at.

Then and Now: Repeat Photography Captures Changing Landscapes

For 50 years, the U.S. Geological Survey has been building an archive of old photos of desert landscapes and revisiting the sites to take new photos. The result is the largest collection of repeat photography in the world.

Uncharted 3 Will Wander Through Desert in 2011

Nathan Drake will continue his adventures in Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception late next year, Entertainment Weekly’s PopWatch reported Thursday. Drake’s newest game will take place in the desert, drawing heavy inspiration from T.E. Lawrence, who’s best known as the man portrayed in Lawrence of Arabia. The game won’t take much from the 1962 film — rather, [...]

Military Bans Disks, Threatens Courts-Martial to Stop New Leaks

It’s too late to stop WikiLeaks from publishing thousands more classified documents, nabbed from the Pentagon’s secret network. But the U.S. military is telling its troops to stop using CDs, DVDs, thumb drives and every other form of removable media — or risk a court martial. Maj. Gen. Richard Webber, commander of Air Force Network Operations, [...]

Security Flaws Force Firefox, Opera to Turn Off WebSockets

Firefox and Opera have both disabled support for HTML5 WebSockets in the latest builds of their respective browsers. The move comes on the heels of a protocol vulnerability that could leave thousands of sites harboring malicious code. New in HTML5, the WebSocket protocol enables a key mechanism found in modern web apps, allowing servers to independently [...]

Copyright Troll Demands Drudge Report Domain Name

One of the litigation scare tactics employed by copyright troll Righthaven is it routinely demands allegedly infringing sites to forfeit their domain names. But in private, civil copyright litigation, there is no legal basis for such a demand, even if an allegedly infringing website is ultimately found liable for breaching copyright law. The Electronic Frontier Foundation [...]

First Look: Google’s Netbook Has Its Head in the Cloud

Google's Cr-48 netbook is a promising but incomplete step towards a life lived fully on the internet.

Trailer: Roboboxers Bring It in Real Steel

Part Twilight Zone, part Transformers and part CGI Rock'em Sock'em Robots, Real Steel punches up the sport of boxing by adding giant robots.

Wired Beer Tournament Set For Grand Finale

And here we are. Where there once was 32, there now stands only two, and an all-star gathering of the country’s finest brews will finally culminate tonight with the October Madness championship and the crowning, once and for all, of the Most Wired Beer. It’s been a strange trip, filled with animatronic sharks and mounted deer [...]

Wake Up!: Break Out of the Dream With Our Inception Crossword

Now that you’ve solved our Inception-themed Penrose staircase to get deep into the dream world, solve Cory Calhoun’s multilevel crossword to get out. Start in the deepest level, hop to the next when you’re done, and expect all sorts of insanity along the way. A Way Home, by Cory Calhoun A Way Home, Level 1 A Way Home, [...]

Gadget Lab Podcast: Google Chrome OS, Nexus S, Android Gingerbread

Google dominates this week's Gadget Lab podcast with a new computer operating system, a smartphone, an Android upgrade and big sales number for the Android-powered Galaxy Tab.

Dark Horse Comics’ Digital Initiative Promises Innovative Ideas, Lower Prices

Dark Horse Comics is going digital with a slick e-comics reader that will work on any smartphone or computer. An added bonus: By handling sales through Dark Horse’s web store rather than Apple’s payment channel, the Hellboy publisher will gain increased flexibility while keeping prices at $1.50 per issue. Launching in January, Dark Horse’s digital comics [...]

DNS Provider Mistakenly Caught in WikiLeaks Saga Now Supports the Group

A DNS provider that suffered backlash last week after it was wrongly identified as supplying and then dropping DNS service to WikiLeaks has decided to support the secret-spilling site, offering DNS service to two domains distributing WikiLeaks content. EasyDNS, a Canadian firm, was attacked last Friday after media outlets mistakenly reported it had terminated its service [...]

Unearthing Buried Treasure at a Highway Rest Stop with Clock Without a Face

The authors of the children’s book Clock Without a Face buried twelve jewel-studded numbers at highway rest areas across the country, and then hid clues to the locations inside the pages of their book. ARGNet staff writer Michelle Senderhauf recounts her experience decoding one of the locations. Interested treasure seekers can still join the hunt [...]

North Korea’s Newest Weapon: Nuke Torpedo?

Just when you thought it was safe to take a dip in the West Sea, a report from North Korean dissidents claims that Pyongyang has already developed sea-borne nuclear weapons. If you read Korean, you can find their report here, but if not, Bill Gertz at the Washington Times has the gist. Citing a Pyongyang government [...]

Key Lawmakers Up Pressure on WikiLeaks and Defend Visa and Mastercard

Senator Joe Lieberman, who was instrumental in persuading Amazon.com to kick WikiLeaks off its webhosting service, came to the defense Thursday of companies denying services to the secret-spilling site, saying they are “doing the right thing as good corporate citizens.” The list of companies that have suspended services to WikiLeaks in the wake of its publication [...]

Vaporware 2010: A Call for Submissions

It’s time again to inhale the fail. Voting is now open for Wired’s 13th annual Vaporware Awards, our yearly showcase of the tech products pitched, promised and hyped, but never delivered. Just like in years past, we’re relying on you to nominate your picks for the most notorious no-shows in the worlds of software, hardware, games and [...]

Dutch Arrest Teen for Pro-WikiLeaks Attack on Visa and MasterCard Websites

Dutch police announced Thursday they have arrested a 16-year-old boy for allegedly participating in the online attacks against Visa and MasterCard as part of a vigilante campaign to support WikiLeaks. The secret-spilling site has raised the ire of the U.S. government and others around the world for its ongoing release of secret diplomatic cables allegedly provided [...]

Rumor: Yahoo Cofounder May Purchase NBA’s New Orleans Hornets

The NBA, having just purchased the financially troubled New Orleans Hornets from former owner George Shinn, wants to find a new owner for the team, someone with gobs of discretionary income and a love of the Crescent City that transcends basketball. That person could be Yahoo cofounder David Filo. Rumors are circulating that the 44-year-old Filo, a [...]

Photos: Are These iPad 2 Cases?

With the next-generation iPad rumored for a spring 2011 release, Asian websites are posting images of purported third-party cases for the device.

Suspicion Lifts Over Olympic Champion’s Use of Asthma Inhaler

At the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing — after adding three more medals to her ever-growing collection — many openly wondered how swimmer Dara Torres, then 41 years old, could still dominate the sport at such an age. Torres was more than a decade older than some of her closest competitors, and skeptics questioned which [...]

Reproduction Hack Makes Mice From Two Dads

In a weird feat of biotechnological virtuosity, scientists have engineered mice with genes from two dads, and none from a mom. This was done by engineering females with eggs containing only chromosomes from a father. Mating added genes from a second father. “These findings have novel implications for mammalian reproduction and assisted-reproductive technology,” wrote researchers led by [...]

Snipers Will Soon Shoot Taliban Three Quarters of a Mile Away

The terrain in Afghanistan isn’t very friendly for U.S. troops. In the mountainous east near the Pakistan border, insurgents positioned at the peaks open fire on soldiers’ outposts in the valleys, with gravity adding to the distance Taliban bullets travel. So now Army snipers are getting new weapons to help even the odds. Starting next year, [...]

Video: Blackberry Playbook Hands-On Demo

The folks at Boy Genius Report got to spend ten minutes with RIM’s Julian Dolce, who gave them a thorough demo of the new BlackBerry PlayBook in action. It’s pretty damn sweet. Take a look: The tablet looks very responsive, just like the iPad. The first really neat, I-love-it feature is the “docking” mode, which lets [...]

MIT’s Wallets Swell, Buzz and Clamp Down on Digital Spending

I have a friend (let’s call him Dave) who used to joke that his wallet was so fat that it gave him spine trouble from sitting with it, swollen, in his back pocket. But what of those bill-packed status symbols in the age of electronic money? It’s not like your debit-card gets fatter the higher [...]

Nintendo Products to Consider for the Holidays

Around this time of year, I look around my house and try to decide exactly what tech needs updating and what will last another year. That includes consoles that might be obsolete e as well as games that my kids have outgrown. When Nintendo offered a package of the new Nintendo DSi XL and several new games [...]

What Do You Call a Mathematical Snake? An Adder.

Ok, so there aren’t any adders in the video below, but I wanted to prime you for the other math- and snake-based puns that you’ll find. A friend of mine sent me a link to this video about mathematical doodles (and doodles done during math classes) which is filled with all sorts of geeky references [...]

New Sesame Street Games Chase Some Clouds Away

When I first began hearing about Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment’s Sesame Street titles for the Wii and Nintendo DS I was ecstatic. I’ve long lamented the lack of both substance and proper presentation in the kinds of shoddily produced systems and games currently on the market for pre-schooler-friendly play, but as a gamer parent it’s [...]

12 Days of Awesomely Geeky Gifts: Battle Ops Bumblebee Transformer

In my day, Transformers were these little itty bitty things. And they weren’t just plastic, they were metal. They were awesome, of course, and were one of the toys that definitely defined my childhood. But times change. Bumblebee is no longer a Beetle, he’s a gorgeous Camaro concept car (this GeekMom has checked out the new [...]

IFan Case Charges iPhone with Wind Power

The iPhone uses a lot of power. Whether the battery is too small or we just feel compelled to play with it more than with other devices doesn’t matter. What matters is that half way through the day, you can find yourself with a dead phone. Tjeerd Veenhoven decided to do something about it, and [...]

1st Day of Geekmas

It’s the 1st Day of Geekmas, and we voted – unanimously, I might add – to kick off this year’s giveaway with a bang! Up for grabs is a PSP Limited Edition Invizimals Entertainment Pack that includes a UMD copy of the game itself, the PSP camera peripheral, a 1GB Memory Stick PRO Duo, a download [...]

GM Motorama Concept Car Returns as an EV

A concept car once displayed at one of General Motors’ legendary Motorama shows — and long thought to have been destroyed — is being brought back to life as an electric vehicle. With a curvaceous exterior and an advanced drivetrain, the LaSalle II roadster and sedan were the highlights of the 1955 Motorama show, one of [...]

Wizard 101 Creators: Family Friendly Doesn’t Equate to Lesser Quality

I first became aware of Wizard 101 when my twins (age eleven) pleaded with me to download the free edition. I checked out the game and eventually caved. After a false start because Vista kept crashing–the fault of the operating system, not the game–we tried again after upgrading to Windows 7. They’ve been playing Wizard 101 happily [...]

Tentacle-Like Prosthetic Arm Will Haunt Your Dreams

Kaylene Kau’s prosthetic arm is either a sweet modern update of the old-fashioned pirate’s hook, or a terrifying device that will turn its wearer into a Cthuloid-human mongrel. I favor the former, if only because I want to sleep at night. The prosthesis is not designed to be a prehensile limb, but instead it’s an assistive [...]

Lionel Train Stores Pop Up For The Holidays

Lionel Trains are the iconic electric train set. One of the first electric toys to be inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame they have been a popular part of American culture for over 100 years. The original company has changed hands over the years but their dedication to detail and good [...]

Dark Matter Rush: Physics Gives Gold Mine New Life

The gold rush glow has long faded from South Dakota, but a different kind of precious material is drawing crowds to the Black Hills. An old mine that produced billions of dollars in gold may be North America's best shot at finding dark matter.

Dec. 9, 1968: The Mother of All Demos

1968: Computer scientist Douglas Engelbart kicks off the personal computer revolution with a product demonstration that is so amazing it inspires a generation of technologists. It will become known as “the mother of all demos.” The presentation included the debut of the computer mouse, which Engelbart used to control an onscreen pointer in exactly the same [...]

Pennsylvania Wine Vending Machine Has Kafka-esque Security Measures

Can you believe that, in the 21st century, a place filled with household lasers, instant worldwide communication and Daft Punk’s amazing new Tron album, you cannot buy wine in a grocery store in Pennsylvania? Liquor can only be bought from state-owned and controlled stores. But there’s a technological workaround – although it seems as much in [...]

GPS Bluetooth Dongle Controls SLRs with iPhone

At first look, $150 seems a ridiculous price for a Bluetooth dongle that lets you control your SLR from your cellphone, but digging into the specs shows that it ends up as quite a bargain. But first, what does it do? Named the BlueSLR, the little box plugs into your Nikon SLR via one of its [...]

SpaceX Dragon Flight Earns Praise, Opens Doors

The successful test flight of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft marks the dawn of a new era in orbital space flight and a significant milestone for a Southern California startup that admits it is “standing on the shoulders of giants.” “Mind-blowingly awesome” is how SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk described the day’s events shortly after the company’s [...]

Tron: Legacy Inspires Sci-Fi Suite in Swedish Ice Hotel

An eye-popping nightclub depicted in Tron: Legacy inspired two British sci-fi fans to build a Tron-themed hotel suite entirely from ice and snow.

Berkeley Considers Declaring Bradley Manning a Hero

The city of Berkeley, also known as “Berzerkeley,” is considering a resolution to declare alleged WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning a hero. Or, as a FoxNews site puts it, “Berkeley Gives America the Middle Finger.” According to a resolution being considered for vote, the imprisoned Army private suspected of providing WikiLeaks with its most significant U.S. releases should [...]

Taliban Bombs Hit New High — 1,500 in November Alone

The bad news first: Insurgents in Afghanistan have constructed more homemade bombs in the past six months than at any time during the nine-year war. But those bombs are killing and injuring fewer U.S. and allied forces. Most attempts at blowing up U.S. troops just fail. According to new figures provided to Danger Room by the [...]

Russia Crashes U.S. Drill With Sub-Hunting Planes

The United States and Japan were all set for a day of joint naval practice yesterday when two very uninvited and disruptive guests showed up: Russian sub-hunting planes. The U.S. and Japanese navies were in the Sea of Japan for their biennial Keen Sword exercises in the largest U.S.-Japan defense drill to date when two Il-38 Anti-Submarine Warfare planes  [...]

Evolution Survives Assault on Louisiana Textbooks

Louisiana’s high school biology textbooks have survived the latest creationist-flavored attempt at distorting education about evolution. A subcommittee of the state’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted 6-to-1 Tuesday to approve an industry-standard biology text, which conservative critics had attacked for failing to teach the “controversy” about evolution. The final decision on whether to include disclaimers [...]

Retro Posters Show Off Superheroes’ Home Cities

As if the fictional worlds from comic books and sci-fi flicks weren’t already on most geek’s destination wish lists, Justin Van Genderen’s new travel posters show off pulp cities like Gotham and Metropolis. “If superheroes really existed in this world we might see a poster like these in some old travel agency, all tattered hanging on [...]

Vigilantes Take Offensive in WikiLeaks Censorship Battle

Internet vigilantes stepped up attacks in support of WikiLeaks on Wednesday, downing Visa’s web site in a widening protest against a handful of companies that banned the secret-spilling site after it began publishing hundreds of secret U.S. diplomatic cables. The outages, organized by the group Anonymous under the banner “Operation Payback,” have taken the battle between [...]

Inception App Augments Your Reality, Acoustically

By Mark Brown, Wired UK The official tie-in iPhone app for this year’s mind-melting Christopher Nolan flick Inception is every bit as surprising and nontraditional as the movie. Where other apps provide listless minigames, boring photo galleries and jargon-filled text, this one provides something of an experience. The app uses just about every sensor and gizmo inside [...]

WikiLeaks’ Cash Pledge Hasn’t Reached Bradley Manning’s Support Fund

WikiLeaks has failed to deliver on a months-old pledge to contribute financially to the defense of Bradley Manning, according to a group raising money for the imprisoned Army private suspected of providing WikiLeaks its most important U.S. releases. A spokesman for the Bradley Manning Support Network said Wednesday that the group had still not received money [...]

First Look: Total Bloodbath Ensues in Wolverine: The Best There Is No. 3

Brace yourself for a total bloodbath in Issue 3 of Wolverine: The Best There Is, as shown in the preview panels above. Logan squares off against the Unkillables in the crimson-splattered issue by writer Charlie Huston, penciller Juan Jose Ryp and cover artist Bryan Hitch. Marvel Comics calls it “the bloodiest battle of Wolverine’s life.” More on [...]

The Raven Graduates From Sci-Fi Short to Hollywood Feature

When robot fascists rule a futuristic Los Angeles with help from a surveillance eye in the sky, one superpowered rebel — the Raven — resists. This premise worked as a catchy six-minute short when Peruvian filmmaker Ricardo De Montreuil launched his YouTube hit eight months ago. Now Mark Wahlberg plans to stretch the scenario into [...]

Supreme Court Asked to Review State Secrets, Torture Case

The Supreme Court is being asked to review a lawsuit a lower court had dismissed against a Boeing subsidiary accused of helping the CIA transport detainees to secret foreign prisons where they were allegedly tortured. The appeal to the high court concerns a September decision by the San Francisco–based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which [...]

Boom! Samsung Sells 1 Million Galaxy Tabs

Samsung’s 7-inch tablet isn’t “dead on arrival” after all. In fact, Samsung has sold more than a million of them in less than two months. Released in mid-October, the Galaxy Tab is the first serious contender to Apple’s iPad. It sports a 7-inch touchscreen and runs a modified version of Google’s Android operating system. “I can confirm [...]

EFF Demands Copyright Troll Pay for Suing Democratic Underground

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is demanding that the newspaper lawsuit factory Righthaven pay the EFF’s costs for its successful defense of the website Democratic Underground from one of Righthaven’s many copyright lawsuits. “Attorneys’ fees would be appropriately awarded, even apart from a statutory authorization, where dismissed claims were frivolous or pursued in bad faith,” (.pdf) the group told [...]

The Reboot’s the Thing: 10 Genre-Busting Shakespeare Remixes

Director Julie Taymor's CGI-fueled version of Shakespeare's supernatural epic The Tempest arrives Friday, the latest in a long line of strange, surreal and sometimes scandalous Bard reboots.

College Football Star Sports Next-Gen Shoe Tech

If Auburn quarterback Cam Newton wins the Heisman Trophy this weekend, he might have his feet to thank for the award as much as his arm. The 6-foot-6, 250-pound junior has spent his past five games with his ankles secured by a new shoe technology. Under Armour, the athletic shoe and apparel company which outfits Auburn, [...]

Frog Bladders Hunt and Remove Foreign Objects

A bizarre discovery shows some frogs and toads can grow their bladders around objects lodged deep within their bodies, ultimately peeing them out. Zoologists from Australia’s Charles Darwin University discovered the oddity after implanting frogs with tiny radio transmitters, which inexplicably migrated to the bladder. They describe their findings in an upcoming issue of Biology Letters. “This [...]

SF Bay: Come to Ümloud!, Win Prizes for Child’s Play

Photos: Ümloud!

EA: Single-Player Games Are ‘Finished’

Still holding out on that Xbox Live subscription? Haven’t set up a PlayStation Network account? If you’re a fan of Electronic Arts games, it might be time to get online. Speaking to Develop, EA Games label president Frank Gibeau discussed the company’s new business model, which includes shying away from offline, single-player games. “[We're] very comfortable moving [...]

Does Somalia’s New Pirate-Fighting Militia Stand a Chance?

Multi-billion-dollar warships, Navy SEAL snipers, Marine assault teams, mercenaries, Reaper drones, sonic beam guns and even improvised firebombs hurled by desperate fishermen: the world has tried everything short of a full-scale invasion to beat Somali pirates. The newest idea is a local pirate-fighting militia. But it’s doubtful that this tactic will be much more successful [...]

Twitter Adds More Media-Sharing Services to Inline Previews

Twitter has expanded the integration of third-party services on its website, adding five new photo and video sharing services to the growing list of what shows up as an inline preview. Among the new services to secure a spot in the ever-expanding Twitterverse is Instagram, the current darling of the Twitter hipsters. The photo-sharing service has [...]

Pentagon’s Purchasers Get Their Own Video Games

The cartoon rat submerged in a fishtank? He’s here to up your game at buying stuff for the military. Just have him hook-shot his hunk of cheese into the right treasure chest to make sure his supervisors and colleagues are adequately briefed on the costs and timeframe for his project. “Treasure Cheese” is one of 13 [...]

Crab Nebula’s Violent Outbursts Shock Astronomers

HEIDELBERG, Germany — Astronomers consider the Crab Nebula one of the steadiest sources of high-energy radiation in the universe. Radiation from the supernova remnant is believed to be so constant that astronomers use it as a standard candle with which to measure the energetic radiation of other astronomical sources. That’s why researchers [...]

And the Most Popular Road-Trip Song Is …

We really shouldn’t be surprised by this: The most popular road-trip song in the country is “On the Road Again,” by Willie Nelson. Some 52.6 million Americans will hit the road this holiday season, and Pioneer Electronics USA surveyed almost 3,000 people to find the No. 1 road-trip song. We’re kinda wondering about the average age [...]

Serpentine Swedish Setup Turns Freeways Into Power Plants

In the eyes of Swedish architect and urban strategist Mans Tham, the stretch of I-10 known as the Santa Monica Freeway is an achievement to be celebrated, revered and covered in so many solar panels that it looks like a massive snake. “The freeways themselves are majestic structures, their size is both inspiring and intimidating,” Tham [...]

SpaceX Launches Cargo Spacecraft Into Orbit

Space Exploration Systems successfully launched its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft at 10:43 a.m. EST this morning from Cape Canaveral in Florida into low earth orbit. The launch marks the second flight for a Falcon 9 and the first for the spacecraft. The first attempt for the demo flight was aborted two minutes and [...]

Mastercard.com Taken Down by Pro-WikiLeaks Forces

Mastercard’s website became the latest casualty in the showdown between WikiLeaks and the U.S. government, as supporters of WikiLeaks’ release of secret U.S. diplomatic cables flooded the credit card company’s website Wednesday morning with a deluge of traffic. The attack is revenge for the company’s decision to cut off cardholders’ ability to donate to the [...]

U.S. Should Go Commando in Afghanistan After 2014, Think Tank Urges

Tens of thousands of U.S. Special Operations and conventional forces, drone strikes and intelligence operatives. At least $25 billion per year, spent indefinitely. That’s what the Obama Pentagon’s favorite think tank considers necessary for a violent Afghanistan after most NATO troops depart. In a bleak report released yesterday, retired Lieutenant General David Barno and Andrew Exum [...]

An iPhone Stylus to Save Your Fingers From the Cold

I think it’s safe to say that winter is upon us once again, and for us geeks that can make using some of our favorite gadgets a bit tricky. I’m talking of course about trying to operate the touchscreen of your iPhone/iPad/Android etc. outside in the cold. At the beginning of the touchscreen revolution you [...]

The 12 Days of Geekmas Giveaway Begins Tomorrow!

This Thursday marks the final night of Hanukkah, but it also kicks off the third annual celebration that is the 12 Days of Geekmas! What makes 12DoG – as we call it around the old water cooler – so special, you ask? Well, theoretical-person-who-didn’t-actually-ask-anything, let me tell you. We GeekDads typically spend the bulk of our [...]

Geeky Dummy Text for Designers

If you’ve done any graphic or web design (or hired someone to do design for you) you’re probably familiar with the Latin dummy text that is used as a place holder during the planning stage. According to lipsum.com, “Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown [...]

Gowalla Set to Check In at Sundance Film Festival

Fresh off the release of the latest version of its software, Gowalla, the fast-growing location-based social networking service, is taking it to the slopes. The slopes of Park City, Utah, that is. Gowalla is teaming up with the Sundance Film Festival, the annual January retreat of Hollywood stars and movie buffs from around the world. The tie-up [...]

Dec. 8, 1993: Location, Location, Location

1993: The U.S. secretary of defense opens the global positioning system to civilian use. It’s about to change how people see where they are. The GPS story starts with Sputnik, the first artificial satellite. The night after it was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957, researchers at MIT were able to track Sputnik’s orbit [...]

Win Custom-Crafted Lightsaber Courtesy of Jedi Junkies

runMobileCompatibilityScript('myExperience702208957001', 'anId'); brightcove.createExperiences(); Star Wars documentary Jedi Junkies features plenty nerd sci-fi swordplay. Now the filmmakers will cut a lucky Wired.com reader in on the action by building them a custom-made lightsaber. The prize will be crafted from high-density aluminum and steel by Advanced Light Weaponry artisan Bob Iannaccone, who can be seen in the Jedi [...]

Open This Time Capsule of Classic Cars

The Desperate Battle Against Killer Bat Plague

It’s a postcard October morning at Kentucky’s Carter Caves state park. Sycamore and hickory have already turned orange, and the sun crests ancient Appalachian slopes against a cloudless sky. With Halloween a few days away, a life-sized Elvis dummy peeks out a visitor center window. Middle schoolers on a field trip are coming down one [...]

U.S. Satellites, Ammo Aided Saudis in Border War

Even after expressing alarm about civilians being killed in Yemen and Saudi Arabia’s war last year against Shiite separatists in Yemen, the U.S. provided the Saudis with crucial military aid, including ammunition and satellite imagery, the WikiLeaks document trove shows. While earlier cables indicated that the Yemenis had diverted U.S. counterterrorism assistance to fight the Houthis, [...]

Google Shows Off Chrome OS, Along With a Store to Fill it Up

SAN FRANCISCO, California — Google unveiled a beta version of its Chrome OS Tuesday morning. The company showed off the operating system, which has been in development for over a year, during a press event here. Also making an appearance at Tuesday’s event was the Chrome Web Store, which we expected to see launch today. If [...]

Doubts Brew About NASA’s New Arsenic Life

An arsenic-loving microbe found in a salty lake, which was touted last week as a potentially new form of life, is under heavy fire from the scientific community. The microbe, a bacteria called GFAJ-1, can apparently use arsenic instead of phosphorous to build its DNA, a trick no other life form has ever managed. A team of [...]

First Screens, Video of Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime

The Ghostbusters are loading up their proton packs for their next videogame adventure. Atari will release Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime for Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and PC in the spring of 2011, it said today. From the first screens and trailer that Atari released today, Sanctum looks like a decidedly more accessible design than the [...]

Tubeify Turns YouTube Into Slick Video Jukebox

A new streaming music service called Tubeify turns YouTube into an easy-to-use video jukebox. “I tried to make it feel more like a traditional desktop music player, think iTunes or Spotify, but still web-based so you can use it anywhere,” said Tubeify creator Tomas Isdal in an interview with TorrentFreak. “Then I fixed the annoying parts [...]

Devil’s Canyon Secures Final Spot in Wired Beer Championship

Who knew when the initial October Madness bracket was constructed so many months ago that we would have two regional craft brew powerhouses going head-to-head with a spot in the championship on the line? And yet, that’s exactly where we found ourselves Monday night at Wired HQ, a Battle of Highway 101 before our very [...]

Wanna Buy a World-Controlling Investment Firm?

To the conspiracy-minded: if you’ve got a mind for finance, get ready to be happy. The Carlyle Group, which may or may not control the world, is thinking about going public. Buy enough shares and you’ll discover the hidden funding that determines the contours of geopolitics. Or at least you can tell the internet you [...]

Local Government Forecast: Cloudy with a Chance of Innovation

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Chrome Gets New ‘Crankshaft’ Engine, Syncing, WebGL Support

SAN FRANCISCO, California — Google has rolled out some enhancements to its Chrome web browser, adding a new JavaScript engine, more hardware acceleration, and finalizing its system that keeps all of your copies of Chrome in sync. The enhancements were debuted as part of a press event for Chrome OS and the Chrome Web Store here [...]

Republican Congressmen Crowdsource Attack on Science

runMobileCompatibilityScript('myExperience702002116001', 'anId');brightcove.createExperiences(); Under the guise of keeping federal spending under control, Republican congressmen have launched yet another attack on the basic scientific research that could lead to useful, potentially job-creating discoveries. House majority leader Eric [...]

NFL Prepares for Committee Meetings on Player Safety

The NFL’s Brain, Head and Neck Medical Committee will convene this Wednesday and Thursday in New York City. Co-chair Hunt Batjer of Northwestern University gave Wired.com an exclusive preview of what we can expect from the league group looking into the issue of player safety and how on-field concussions and traumatic brain injuries can be [...]

Microsoft Builds Online Tracking Blocking Feature Into IE9

Microsoft is building an anti-tracking function into its upcoming version of Internet Explorer. The new feature will let users easily keep lists of websites that track what they do online, and block any site from logging their web activity, the company announced Tuesday. The new feature, called “Tracking Protection,” will be bundled into IE9’s next beta [...]

With Chrome OS, Google Doubles Down on the Cloud

SAN FRANCISCO — Google unveiled a beta version of its Chrome OS and an early test version of its branded netbook Tuesday morning, a big bet by the search giant to help drive computing to the cloud — and to the popular web-based services that are its bread and butter. Google’s release of the new OS, [...]

Blizzard ‘Super Excited’ Over Next World of Warcraft Expansion

When you’ve just released the third expansion to your massively successful online game, what should you do? Take a vacation? Write a screenplay? Dive into a pool full of cash? If you’re Blizzard, you start thinking about expansion number four. “I think in an ideal world… We’ve talked before about what it would take to have an [...]

X Particle Explains Dark Matter and Antimatter at the Same Time

A new hypothetical particle could solve two cosmic mysteries at once: what dark matter is made of, and why there’s enough matter for us to exist at all. “We know you have to have these two ingredients to the universe, both atoms and dark matter,” said physicist Kris Sigurdson of the University of British Columbia, coauthor of [...]

We’re Going to Hell For Laughing At This…

We know it’s wrong, but we can’t stop laughing at this picture. A family of four was riding around an undisclosed city in South Africa when they got into an accident. Everyone was fine. The same could not be said for the seven gallons of white paint they were carrying with them. That’s according to the [...]

Volt, Leaf Named Among 10 Best Drivetrains

The awards keep rolling in for the Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf, both of which Ward’s AutoWorld magazine has named among the 10 Best Engines for 2011. Never mind that the Leaf has a motor, not an engine. We’ll say this right up front: These awards are well-deserved, and Ward’s is spot-on. The two vehicles were among [...]

New DIY Electric Airplane Takes Flight

The number of flying electric airplanes (and pilots) increased by one with the first flight of John Monnett’s Waiex in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The Waiex is one of several models of kit-built aircraft designed and produced by Monnett’s company, Sonex, and the electric version has been in development for several years. “Every first flight of a new [...]

7 Most Catastrophic World of Warcraft Moments

World of Warcraft is about to be shaken to its core. The release of the Cataclysm expansion pack triggers a brutal trip down memory lane as we revisit the worst disasters ever to plague the fantasy world.

Dec. 7, 1963: Video Instant Replay Comes to TV

1963: The college football game between Army and Navy marks the first use of video instant replay during a sports telecast. Many fans find it confusing. The annual matchup between these two military service academies always garners plenty of national attention, but the ‘63 game carried added significance after the Nov. 22 assassination of President John [...]

Contest: Win an Adorable Scribblenauts Vinyl Doll (Extended)

Update: Some readers experienced problems while trying to post comments to enter this Scribblenauts contest, so we’re extending the deadline. You’ll now be able to submit entries until 12:01 a.m. Pacific on Dec. 13, 2010. See that adorable little vinyl doll? It’s a minuscule version of Maxwell, protagonist of the charming Scribblenauts puzzle-action videogame series, and [...]

Hertz Is Betting Big on Cars With Cords

NEW YORK — If you’re among the tens of thousands of people waiting for a Chevrolet Volt or Nissan Leaf, Hertz might be able to get you some seat time in one before the dealers can. The world’s largest auto-rental outfit said New York will be the first market in its global initiative to bring [...]

Planet of the Apes Fan Chronicles Simian Universe in Lexicon

It required a massive amount of homework, but sci-fi fan Rich Handley tackled the entire Planet of the Apes empire in order to create a definitive inventory of each element featured in the 42-years-and-counting saga. The end result: From Aldo to Zira: Lexicon of the Planet of the Apes — The Comprehensive Unauthorized Encyclopedia, released this [...]

Square Enix Reboots Tomb Raider Once Again

Lara Croft is getting yet another face lift. The next game in the multimedia Tomb Raider franchise will be a new origins story, developer Crystal Dynamics said Monday. Aptly titled Tomb Raider, the game will feature “a young and inexperienced Lara Croft in a story which charts the journey of an ordinary woman who finds out just [...]