The Stanford Education Experiment Could Change Higher Learning Forever

Wired correspondent Steven Leckart and 160,000 others around the globe sign on when two professors let the public take their AI course online for free.

Man Successfully Flies With Custom-Built Bird Wings

Using videogame controllers, an Android phone and custom-built wings, a Dutch engineer named Jarno Smeets has achieved birdlike flight.

Laser-Tuned Nuclear Clock Would Be Accurate for Billions of Years

Researchers have proposed building a nuclear clock that would only lose a tenth of a second over the entire age of the universe, 14 billion years. The design would be 100 times more accurate than current atomic clocks.

Copyright Treaty Requires Congressional Support, Senator Says

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) has proposed legislation requiring the Obama administration to secure congressional legislative approval for the United States to participate in an international anti-piracy treaty, a position at odds with the Obama administration.

Oracle Loses Speed as SaaS Rivals Ride Cloud Winds

It seems pretty obvious that there are going to be winner and losers in the race to the cloud. So it's no surprise that Oracle is said to be losing ground to cloud-centric Salesforce.com and Workday. But for how long?

Internet Explorer: The Browser You Love to Hate

Microsoft's latest promotional effort for Internet Explorer takes a humorous look at the nerd fury it's caused over the years.

Ain’t No ‘Imagine’ Muscle: Jonah Lehrer on Creativity

The disclosure first: Jonah Lehrer is not only a??colleague here at Wired Science Blogs??but a friend of some years. But I would not have you think that I consider his writing good because he’s a friend; rather, I befriended him several years ago because I admired his writing, his intelligence, his fine good nature, which [...]

We Need An E-Reader For Car Guys

By Jason Torchinsky, Jalopnik I love the idea of reducing the number of devices I own. The thing I carry in my pocket already takes pictures, plays games, gives me alarms and reminders, browses the web, and even makes phone calls, sometimes. But there’s just some things I do that need their own stuff. Working [...]

Can Genes Send You High or Low? The Orchid Hypothesis A-Bloom

Note: The piece below was first published a few weeks ago, in slightly ??different form, in New Scientist. The version below includes material that wouldn’t fit in the New Scientist space, most notably on caveats, complications, and other conundra, and I’ve moved a few things around to make room for those. This article draws from [...]

Locked-Room Mystery in San Francisco Pits Players Against Werewolf Incursion

Over the past few years, thousands of players in Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore have tested their mettle against Real Escape Game, a narrative puzzle adventure that puts its players in a race against the clock to identify and solve a series of increasingly challenging puzzles. Starting on March 23rd, players in San Francisco will have the chance to try their luck at the locked-room mystery.

Spiderman May Not Be a Tarantula After All

Do tarantulas owe their apparently gravity-defying climbing ability to silk shot from their feet? Some researchers say they do, but arachnid specialist Rainer Foelix doesn't think so.

For High Tech Companies, Going Public Sucks

Facebook will survive its IPO, but most companies aren't Facebook. Here's why Wall Street is the tech industry's worst enemy.

The Truths, Untruths, and Fuzzy Truths of Cloud Security

By educating ourselves on what cloud computing is, we gain a deeper understanding of its benefits and risks, empowering us to make wiser decisions and to develop a strategy that is right for our organizations, writes Todd Nielsen.

Colorful Map Details Volcano-Studded Surface of Io

After a six-year effort, researchers have released the first geologic map of the solar system's most volcanically active object, Jupiter's moon Io.

Should Science Pull the Trigger on Antiviral Drugs—That Can Blast the Common Cold?

If these teams of scientists succeed, future generations may struggle to imagine a time when we were at the mercy of viruses.

No, U.S. Mole-Men Are Not Causing Haiti’s Earthquakes

While I was in Haiti this past month, a 4.6-magnitude earthquake struck the country. There was no reported loss of life and no damage, thankfully. But there were an awful lot of odd theories about the origins of this quake -- and the massive, 7.0 one that hit the country in 2010. The oddest of them all: the one about the giant tunnel that the United States was drilling under the Caribbean. Yeah, it's Tinfoil Tuesday, our semi-regular look at the planet's most wack-a-delic conspiracy theories.

For LinkedIn Founder Reid Hoffman, Relationships Rule the World

Software entrepreneur Reid Hoffman talks about his plan at 12 to change the world, The Start-Up of You, and "the most expensive decision" of his life.

How One Response to a Reddit Query Became a Big Budget Flick

With a just handful of posts about a hypothetical time travel scenario, James Erwin went from web commenter to screenwriter.

TuCloud CEO Dares Microsoft to Sue Over Virtual Desktops

One chief executive is so mad over a Microsoft licensing deal in the works with OnLive that he says he is forming an entirely new company called DesktopsOnDemand to provide an identical service -- complete with licensing violations -- and dare Microsoft to take him to court.

March Madness For Airplane Geeks

It’s not too late to jump into a bracket for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association’s own version of March madness. The aviation group decided to set up an alternative to the NCAA tournament tradition by choosing a group of 64 different airplanes and giving aviation geeks a chance to choose their favorite from several [...]

GeekDad Puzzle of the Week Answer: Concordia Conundrum

Kimberly Johnson said, “Never ruin an apology with an excuse.” I’m not quite sure who Kimberly Johnson is or was, but she’s included at QuoteGarden, so she must be wise beyond reckoning and I’ll take her advice: I’m sorry I’m late on the answer to this week’s puzzle. For those of you who missed it, [...]

Linus Torvalds: The King of Geeks (And Dad of 3)

The license plate on Linus Torvalds' Mercedes SLK convertible says it all. The frame running around the outside of the plate says "Mr. Linux. King of All Geeks," but the plate itself reads "Dad of 3." Linus Torvalds has reached middle age, and so has Linux. Nowadays, it's easy to take both of them for granted. But both are still going strong -- very strong.

Repost: Synophalos Formed Cambrian Conga Lines

[This essay was originally posted on February 24, 2011.] Compared to other creatures of the Cambrian seas, Synophalos xynos seems rather plain. It was not a living pincushion like Wiwaxia, its body did not resemble a walking cactus like Diania, and it wasn???t a five-eyed, schnozzle-faced enigma like Opabinia. Next to these fantastic forms, Synophalos [...]

Groupon Scheduler Gets Wide Release for Both Sides of the Counter

The scarcest resource for every business is time. "Like any technology company, we look for ways to automate those processes and remove that friction," Groupon's David Katz told Wired.

Ask the Pixar Animators!

After my article about the archery in Brave ran here, I got a call from a publicist at Disney. He wanted to know if my interest in Brave was solely due to the archery. I explained that I’m a life-long cartoon and animation nut, love Pixar and Disney, and have actually studied traditional and computer [...]

What James Cameron Can Expect at the Bottom of the Ocean

Filmmaker James Cameron is well on his way in the race to the bottom of the ocean -- Challenger Deep in the Marianas trench. Aside from glory, astrobiologist and Extremo Files blogger Jeffrey Marlow shares what strange lifeforms Cameron may encounter during his journey.

Climate Change Acceptance Sinks During Economic Slumps

Although weather and political leaders can drive public acceptance of climate change, a new study suggests some of that is misplaced. Instead, a sinking economy might play a much larger role than anyone thought.

Aurora Preview Brings Faster ‘SPDY’ Protocol to Firefox

Mozilla has updated the Beta and Aurora Firefox channels for early adopters. Among the improvements are better tools for web developers and support for Google's new, faster HTTP alternative, SPDY.

Afghanistan Commander: War Is Actually Going Fine

Never mind the riots, the fratricides, the burned holy books and the bloody slaughter of civilians. The commander of the Afghanistan war believes the decade-long conflict is "on track."

Enter GeekMom’s Video Challenge!

Monster???s Lullaby, composed and performed by our own GeekMom Rebecca Angel, begs to be immortalized in video. Rebecca???s sweet voice provides a perfect contrast to the hysterically vivid lyrics. We gleefully note they include being boiled in soup and dragged by a disembodied arm. This contest is open to all sorts of video treatment, from [...]

Kinect Rush Is a Game for the Whole Family

The measure of a Kinect game is not how good it is at detecting your movements, or even how many times you have to recalibrate the controller. The real test is whether it creates enough living-room-theater so that these issues no longer matter. This kind of ambition sets the tone for Kinect Rush, the latest [...]

Volcanoes and Hurricanes: Mortal Enemies, Best Friends?

Major volcanic eruptions in the tropics might subdue Atlantic hurricane activity for years after the eruption, according to a new study. Volcanologist and Eruptions blogger Erik Klemetti reports.

Physics in a UPS Basketball Commercial

A new UPS commercial attempts to label the physics of a legendary basketball pass, but it misses the mark. Dot Physics blogger Rhett Allain finds the actual physics at play in the video clip.

Black Mask Studios’ ‘Old Punks’ Occupy Comics, Creators Rights

The mainstream comics industry has spawned another alternative supergroup. 30 Days of Night creator Steve Niles and Epitaph Records owner and Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz have banded together with Halo-8's Matt Pizzolo to form Black Mask Studios with the stated aim of disrupting the comics market.

Data Mining and Kids Part 1: Thank Goodness She Didn’t Pay Cash!

Remember the movie The Minority Report? It is based upon a Philip K. Dick novel of the same name. Well, the movie is supposed to portray an implausible dystopian??society of the future in which people’s consumer information is used to track their every move, and in which three precog individuals predict crime. Arrests are made [...]

Skylanders Costumes, Cases and Styluses Create New Play Possibilities

The trickle down effect of Skylanders success seems to be unstoppable at the moment. The recent announcement of Skylanders books has been followed by other spin-off merchandise. As intriguing as it is to hear about even loosely connected Skylanders products selling out, how my kids use them in their Skylanders games is the real appeal [...]

GeekDad Interview: Kermit and Walter From The Muppets

I recently had the extraordinary good fortune to interview Kermit and Walter in honor of Disney’s release of The Muppets on DVD and Blu-ray. GeekDad: Any plans for a sequel? If so, any plans on what its focus may be? Kermit: A sequel? To The Muppets? That’s a great idea. Walter: Yeah??? and it could [...]

Gamers Mourn “Lost Tolkien” M.A.R. Barker

First, E. Gary Gygax died in 2008. Then, a year later, in 2009, the passing of Dave Arneson. Now, we mourn the death of author, game designer and world-builder Professor M. A. R. Barker. Barker, who passed away a few days ago on March 16, was a Fulbright Scholar, linguist, and accomplished academic and science [...]

3M’s Mobile Projector for iOS Devices Is Amazing

Earlier this week, Brad Moon wrote an excellent piece justifying iPads for kids, full of reasons why iPads are great for kids. There were lots of good reasons, but what about when there are a bunch of kids and only one iPad? Well, 3M has a simple solution in the MP225a mobile projector, a powerful [...]

LED Lenser X21: A Whole Bunch of Badass In Brilliant, Blinding Light

The LED Lenser X21 flashlight is Gadget Lab's badass gadget of the day. Stunning brightness and gold-plated circuits light up the night with more than 1,000 lumens.

March 20, 1800: Volta’s Battery Shows Potential

At the close of the 18th century, an Italian physicist creates an invention that will drive innovation in the 19th century and define technology in the 20th.

Secret Bases, ATVs, Awesome Beards: Inside a Special Forces Team in Afghanistan

Embedding with U.S. special forces is not like embedding with regular troops. David Axe found that out the moment he stepped into the secret base-within-the-base in eastern Afghanistan.

The Avengers: The Hulk – Biggest, Greenest, Meanest Hero Ever?

You may have read a recent piece on this blog about Hawkeye. Jim MacQuarrie’s brilliant (if we do say so ourselves) article from last Thursday has been reprinted and quoted all over the internet, it seems — agree or disagree with it, people are talking about it. And, in at least one case that we [...]

Video: Fuzzy Puzzles, Four-Assed Frogs Fuel Crazy Xbox Downloads

Some of the biggest Xbox games of the year won't come on discs. In this Game|Life video preview, we get the rundown straight from the developers about four major new downloadable Xbox Live Arcade games coming to your console in 2012.

Pixels, Music and Projections: When Art and Technology Collide

Forget paint brushes and molding clay. Today's avant garde uses technology -- computers, software code and wireless signals -- for all modes of artistic expression.

A True Bionic Limb Remains Far Out of Reach

War, illness, and accidents lead to thousands of amputations each year. But the struggle to build a better prosthetic limb is more than an engineering problem.

Android and Linux Reunite After Two-Year Separation

As it stands, Linux and Google's Android OS are still separate operating systems. But that may change now that Android code has been readmitted to a staging area for inclusion the Linux kernel, the core Linux code maintained by project founder Linus Torvalds.

GeekDad Puzzle of the Week: Transcendental Mediation

When discussing the Fibonacci-based puzzle two weeks ago (found here) one of my geeky dad friends and I were on opposite sides of an argument: I thought that more consecutive digits of pi would appear in one of the first 1,000 Fibonacci numbers, where they thought that more consecutive digits of e would appear in [...]

Terminator, Indiana Jones, Ghostbusters Collide in Animated Short Film

Picture Randal from Kevin Smith's Clerks dropping acid and you'll get the gist of Synchronize. The short film trips out on hallucinogenic versions of Indiana Jones, the Terminator and other classic movie characters as dreamed up by a video store clerk who dozes off on the job.

5 Things You Can Do for Your Geeky, Expectant Wife

Yes, I’m pregnant. And it’s been that way for approximately the last 34 weeks. If you’re following me on Twitter, you’re probably as sick as I am of my pregnancy-related tweets, marvels upon the process, and general observations about how damned freaky this all is and how is it that I don’t remember all this [...]

A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Mar. 20

Google's daily brainteaser helps hone your search skills.

Jolicloud Me Delivers Personal Cloud Search, More

Cloud computer: check. Cloud OS: check. Cloud desktop: Check again. What's next for a French startup to check off its list? Personal cloud search for one.

Google Parts Ways With First Business Apps Czar

Google's first enterprise boss is leaving the company. On Friday, Google vice president David Girouard -- who was hired in 2004 to run the company's still gestating enterprise business -- said that he's parting ways with the tech giant to help run a startup called Upstart.com.

Seagate Stuffs 1 Trillion Bits Into Square-Inch Hard Disk

Seagate has demonstrated hard drive technology that squeezes a trillion bits into a single square inch, claiming it's the first hard drive manufacturer to do so. Over the next 10 years, the company says, this will lead to standard 3.5-inch drives that can store 60 terabytes of information. Today's 3.5-inch drives give you three terabytes of storage, stuffing about 620 gigabits into each square inch.

Microsoft Could Be Working on Gaming Helmet, Eyewear

According to a recently surfaced Microsoft patent, the company could be looking into reinvigorating the gaming space with 3D displays built into eyewear and helmets.

Smith & Wesson Proves the Pen is Mightier Than the Pen

When searching for the world's most badass pen to help celebrate Gadget Lab's Month of Badass Gadgets, we checked out a few models but eventually landed on the pen you see here made by Smith & Wesson.

Meet CERN’s New Artist in Residence, Julius von Bismarck

Julius von Bismarck is only 28 years old, but his artistic resume is already several pages long. He's currently taking time off from school to be the new artist in residence at CERN ??? the world's biggest particle physics research facility, home of the Large Hadron Collider. On Wednesday, von Bismarck will deliver a major public address at CERN???s Globe for Science and Innovation.

An Exclusive Ride in the World’s First Plug-In Hybrid Supercar

We travel to the maximum-security test track in Nardo, Italy to go for a ride in an early prototype of Porsche's latest supercar, the 918 Spyder.

Neurocritic Asks: Does the Human Dorsal Stream Really Process Elongated Vegetables?

You can’t make this stuff up. Neurocritic on a roll here. But there was part of me that wanted nothing beyond the title and the opening graphic and caption: Does the Human Dorsal Stream Really Process Elongated Vegetables?   What do zucchini and hammers have in common? Both might be processed by the dorsal stream. [...]

Rapping Jihadi Now Fears Terrorist Pals Will Kill Him

A Somali terrorist group’s most famous American recruit suddenly wants out. There goes Omar Hammami, al-Shabab’s rapping propagandist, who in one brief YouTube video might have undermined years of Shabab efforts to radicalize U.S. Muslims. Hammami fears his erstwhile terrorist allies will kill him for it. “I record this message today because I feel my [...]

Nokia Files Patent for Haptic Feedback Tattoo

Not content with just having a device in your pocket that vibrates, Nokia is looking at tattoos with magnetic ink to alert you of an incoming phone call.

Apple Sells 3 Million New iPads Over Opening Weekend

Apple has sold 3 million new iPads since the device's Friday release, the company said in a statement on Monday. This makes the debut Apple's "strongest iPad launch yet," according to Apple VP of Marketing Phil Schiller.

Beautiful Time-Lapse Video Shows Stars and Earth From Space Station

A stunning new time-lapse video shows off the movements of both the stars and our home planet as seen from the International Space Station.

Rare Bengal Tiger Mom and Cubs Caught in Camera-Trap Photos

A female tiger and her cubs have been photographed roaming a north-Indian river valley by hidden camera traps.

Documentary Bad Brains: A Band in D.C. Sheds Light on Punk Group’s Legacy

There are few bands in the world of punk rock more influential than Bad Brains -- few enough at least that you can count them on one hand. So it's high time somebody made a movie about them. Bad Brains: A Band in D.C., the first feature-length documentary about the seminal four-piece group from the nation's capital, chronicles the punk group's influence using interviews, archival footage and even animated sequences.

BioWare: ‘We Have Not Made a Decision’ About Changing Mass Effect Ending

BioWare isn’t entirely opposed to the idea of rewriting Mass Effect 3‘s ending, as demanded by a group of fans calling itsel “Retake Mass Effect”. In a post on Mass Effect‘s official Facebook page Sunday, it waffled on the subject. “[W]e are actively and seriously taking all player feedback into consideration and have ruled nothing [...]

Cloud Jobs Look Skyward, But Skills Gap Is Growing

While the nation's employment picture has been looking up in recent months, jobs in the cloud are looking positively skyward, the talent intelligence firm Wanted Analytics says. However, a skills gap is also on the rise.

Navy Chief: Robotic Subs Might Span Oceans. (Someday.)

The Navy isn't giving up on its pipe dream of building robotic submarines that can span oceans. The technology isn't there yet: propulsion, navigation and fuel systems haven't yet been designed for cross-ocean undersea drone travel. But Adm. Jonathan Greenert, the Navy's top officer, sees some promising drone-sub developments around the corner.

After EMPIRE: Using Apollo Hardware to Explore Venus and Mars (1965)

Though the manned Mars and Venus flyby concept is now mostly forgotten, in the 1960s it was central to NASA planning. In the first of a series of articles on manned flybys, space historian and Beyond Apollo blogger David S. F. Portree explains why Apollo-era engineers saw manned flybys in the 1970s as important steps toward a manned Mars landing in the 1980s.

VMware’s WSX Does Virtual Desktops With HTML5

VMware is developing an impressive new feature called WSX that will allow users to access virtualized desktops remotely through any modern Web browser. VMware developer Christian Hammond, who worked on the implementation, demonstrated a prototype this week in a blog post.

Pentagon Plan: Watch a Satellite’s Every Move — From 22,000 Miles Away

The Pentagon's mad-science division recently launched a mind-bending plan to harvest dead satellites for useful parts. But the orbital recycling mission won't work, unless the military can see which satellites it's cannibalizing.

Do Not Be Afraid of the DIY Space Parachute ??? It Might Just Work

Saturday March 17 2012, Copenhagen Suborbitals had a great day at Space Test Center Lindoe (STCL) where we performed the first drop tests of the main parachutes for space capsule Tycho Deep Space. It was a beautiful and sunny day with only mild winds so we couldn???t have asked for more. At STCL we had [...]

Apple Goes Blue Chip With New Quarterly Shareholder Dividend

With a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share, buying Apple stock now offers more rewards for long-term, buy-and-hold investment.

From The Intel Science Talent Search: Meet Rachel Davis

I’ve never talked to anyone who has talked with the president before, much less directly after they’ve talked with the president. But all that changed on Tuesday when I had the chance to chat with Intel Science Talent Search finalist Rachel Davis. The Intel Science Talent Search is a prestigious national science competition for high [...]

DuQu Mystery Language Solved With the Help of Crowdsourcing

A group of researchers who recently asked the public for help in figuring out a mysterious language used in the DuQu virus have solved the puzzle, thanks to crowdsourcing help from programmers who wrote in to offer suggestions and clues.

Dork Tower Monday

Read all the Dork Towers that have run on GeekDad. Find the Dork Tower webcomic archives, DT printed collections, more cool comics, awesome games and a whole lot more at the Dork Tower Website.

Mitsubishi Turns Their EVs Into Portable Power Supplies

Mitsubishi i-MiEV owners in Japan will soon be able to use the family car as an emergency generator,??using their EV’s batteries to power a home. The MiEV Power Box is an adapter that plugs into the i-MiEV’s quick charging port. Instead of recharging the car’s drive battery, it does the exact opposite, pulling 1500 watts [...]

New iPad Confuses Daughter With “Silly” Name

My daughter (9) came running into our bedroom this morning very excited. She held in her hand my iPad 2 and was waving it around exuberantly. “It’s so much better dad, I love it. When did you get it?” Having been reading over my shoulder on the weekend (on the iPad as it happens) she [...]

5 in 5: 5 Rockets to Launch From Virginia Coast

NASA is attempting to launch five rockets in five minutes from the Wallops Flight Facility this month. So far, conditions have not been favorable but the window of opportunity is open until April 3rd. The five rockets will launch into the far reaches of the atmosphere and release tracers that will form white clouds at [...]

Volcanic Highlights of my Field Trip to California

Pogo Volume 1: Through the Wild Blue Yonder

When I was a kid the only part of the newspaper (kids, ask your parents) I read regularly was the comics. Actually, that persisted even long after I was a kid, but that’s another story. At the time, I didn’t know how syndication worked, I didn’t know how far in advance cartoonists had to write [...]

Make: Magazine Wants You for Their Beta Team

I have been a subscriber to Make Magazine since its inception. Every three months they bring me hours of reading enjoyment, inspiration and cool projects. Make has been committed to growing the community of makers through their magazine, blogs and of course the Maker Faire. Make is now expanding that commitment with the formation of [...]

Win Marvel Headphones from Coloud

If I know the GeekDad audience, and I think I do, you guys love two things: music and free stuff. Okay, you actually dig way more than that, but those two are particularly pertinent at this juncture. The crew from Sweden’s Coloud has offered to provide two lucky readers with a set of their C22 [...]

Meet Saba, the Social Network That Rates Your Job Skills

Saba, a human resources software company, will release a corporate social network with a "People Quotient." The idea behind the metric is to assign a hard value to an employee's performance. Such Big Brother numbers are sure to cause both competition and consternation in the workplace.

March 19, 1474: Venice Enacts a Patently Original Idea

The earliest known administrative procedure for obtaining a patent has many similarities to the process today.

Alt Text: Apple App Apparently Apocalyptic

By now we all know that Apple is coming out with a new hotly anticipated iPad and a new tepidly expected Apple TV. But Apple also recently released a new service that went largely without fanfare, in spite of the fact that it will probably result in the flaming, screaming end of Western civilization.

Exclusive: Mobile Payments Heat Up with Intuit’s Donation App Updates

Not to be outdone by mobile payments competitors Square and PayPal, financial services software company Intuit will release enhancements to its GoPayment mobile application on Monday, allowing U.S.-based fundraisers to accept credit card donations directly from smartphones or tablets. The announcement comes on the heels of a similar offering from Square, Twitter co-creator Jack Dorsey’s [...]

Joseph Gordon-Levitt Channels Bruce Willis in Time-Travel Thriller Looper

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a younger version of Bruce Willis' hitman character in futuristic time-travel thriller Looper . Fresh footage unveiled at WonderCon 2012 hint at bloody mind games hatched by writer-director Rian Johnson, who wanted to explore the wormhole-enabled confrontation between two embodiments of the same person.

Ridley Scott Spills Sensational Prometheus Trailer, Teases Sequel

Director Ridley Scott unveils stunning new Prometheus footage for WonderCon 2012 crowds and promises: "I'm going to make another science fiction film as soon as possible."

Largely Unaltered Show Goes On for Fact-Challenged Apple Monologist

NEW YORK -- The show must go on, and so it did Saturday For Michael Daisey in a live performance with few changes of his widely-known monologue critical of Apple's overseas manufacturing operations despite allegations that it contains significant fabrications.

20 Ways to ‘Recycle’ Your Obsolete iPad 2

We've got a few iPad 2's lying around the office and quickly realized it's just far too embarrassing to be seen using them now that other staff members have the new iPad. So the Wired team decided to put our heads together and come up with a few ways you could repurpose your old, outdated tablet if you haven't already sold it off for parts.

Saturday Morning Cartoons Get Screwy in Gag Me With a Toon’s Art Mutations

Last century's cartoons submit to this century's snarky art remixes when the recurring group exhibition Gag Me With a Toon unveils its fourth iteration in Los Angeles. Opening Saturday at the WWA Gallery, curators Steven Daily and Tomi Monstre's nostalgic weirding mashes fan favorites like Peanuts, Looney Tunes, Super Friends and many more through strange and sometimes estranged filters.

Network Hardware Giant Cisco Eyes Software Network Revolution

Cisco is in negotiations to create a new type of network switch that would tap into the movement towards "software-defined networking," according to a report citing people with knowledge of the talks. On Friday, the New York Times reported that three of Cisco's top engineers are exploring a switch designed specifically for data centers that use software-defined networking, which involves moving many traditional networking tasks off of expensive hardware and into software.

SpaceX Prepares For April 30 Launch To Space Station

SpaceX and NASA announced a new schedule for the private company’s planned rendezvous with the International Space Station. The launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket was expected to take place earlier in the year, but as is often the case with space flights, it was postponed for more testing. Now the company is aiming for [...]

Introducing Every Music App From the SXSW Trade Show

A variety of new and up-and-coming music apps attempt to win over users at the South by Southwest festival each year in Austin, Texas. Here are the offerings from 2012.

How to Kill China’s ‘Carrier-Killer’ Missile: Jam, Spoof and Shoot

China has developed a missile that would turn an aircraft carrier into a two-billion-dollar hulk of twisted metal, flame, and dead sailors. Publicly, the U.S. Navy downplays its importance. Privately, the sailors are working out several different options to kill it before it kills them.

Fun Beats Fugly: Why Square Is Still Better Than PayPal

PayPal is basically just porting its utilitarian model for online payments into meatspace. With Register and Card Case, Square strikes me as having rethought shopping for both customer and merchant in a much more fundamental way.

Fisker Calls Foul On Claim Karma Was “Rushed”

Fisker Automotive is vehemently denying allegations that its??$100,000 plug-in hybrid sedan was rushed to market to meet milestones set by the Department of Energy. The accusations come from a former employee of a Fisker retailer ??? not a member of the Fisker Automotive staff ??? who??told the San Francisco Chronicle that the Karma, “is a [...]

Darpa: Use NASCAR Parts to Rev Up Satellites

The Pentagon's looking to send way more satellites beyond the skies. To do it, though, it's starting on the highway -- by using race car parts to make spacecraft-construction quicker and cheaper than it is today.

Skaters Brave Breakneck Speeds on Icy Downhill

Downhill ice skating is just as dangerous, and weird, as it sounds, so of course Canada loves it.