News From Yellow Business Pages » Wired: Top Stories

House Shoots Down Wall Street Bailout Plan

Posted: September 29th, 2008, 3:30pm EDT by Associated Press

Tags: [edit]

Democrats and Republicans alike shun the $700 billion bailout plan for Wall Street, ignoring President Bush's warning that without help the economy could nosedive.

Wired.com

Hubble Failure May Delay NASA Repair Mission

Posted: September 29th, 2008, 1:35pm EDT by Associated Press

Tags: [edit]

Hubble stops sending back data, forcing NASA to rethink its planned shuttle mission to upgrade the space telescope.

Wired.com

Apple Rots; Shares Hit New 52-Week Low

Posted: September 29th, 2008, 1:20pm EDT by Betsy Schiffman

Tags: [edit]

Apple's vaunted stock takes a sharp dive Monday amid general market turmoil and the fear that PC sales are drying up.

Wired.com

Space Visionaries Prove Naysayers Wrong -- Again

Posted: September 29th, 2008, 11:10am EDT by Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides

Tags: [edit]

SpaceX's Falcon 1 joins SpaceShipOne as proof that the conquest of space is open to all, not just big national agencies.

Wired.com

Private Rockets Could Boost Military, Too

Posted: September 29th, 2008, 12:53am EDT by Noah Shachtman

Tags: [edit]

Elon Musk puts the first privately developed rocket in orbit. And that could have huge military consequences if the company can turn the one-time launch into a regular event.

Wired.com

Sept. 29, 1920: Radio Goes Commercial

Posted: September 29th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Randy Alfred

1920: The Joseph Horne department store in Pittsburgh advertises ready-made radio receivers that can pick up a local broadcast station. Commercial radio is just weeks away. Frank Conrad was assistant chief engineer of the Westinghouse Electric Company in Pittsburgh. He'd been interested in radio since 1912. To settle a $5 bet (about $110 in today's money) about the accuracy of his $12 watch, Conrad built a radio receiver to hear the time signals transmitted by the U.S. Naval Observatory. Conrad won the bet, but that's not the point. Notice that he had to build his own receiver. Just like the days of home-brew computers later in the 20th century, that's what aficionados of the emerging technology had to do in those days. If you didn't want to start from scratch, you could -- and this, too, should sound familiar -- buy a kit with all the parts and all the instructions. They were advertised in magazines that appealed primarily to ... guys. Science magazines, the Boy Scout Handbook, cheap fiction, detective rags, and the kind of stuff you'd find in the barber shop. In any case, Conrad was on to bigger things than building a receiver. Like building a transmitter. Under license 8XK, he started broadcasting from the second floor of his garage in nearby Wilkinsburg in 1916. In fact, Conrad was a pioneering in using the word broadcasting. It was borrowed from agriculture, where it means spreading seeds far and wide. Radio in those days was conceived of mainly as a two-way point-to-point medium. The idea of using one radio transmitter to reach a broad audience equipped only with receivers was something new. Conrad tested and tweaked his equipment for hours on end in his spare time. But his voice got tired making constant announcements of his call letters and location, so he started playing gramophone records to give it a rest. Sure enough, those with their own transmitters started radioing requests for specific music. Those who had only their own scratchy receivers phoned or wrote in. Conrad was radio's first DJ, and he was building an audience. Horne's department store had something new in 1920: the first shipment of ready-to-use radio receivers. Nothing to build, just plug-and-play. The store placed an advertisement in the Pittsburgh Sun heralding the miracle that you could listen to music over the air: Air concert picked up by radio here. The music was from a Victrola in the home of Frank Conrad. Mr. Conrad is a wireless...

Wired.com

Playlist: Bounty Hunter's Hikaru Iwanaga, Walken A to Z, Google Transit

Posted: September 29th, 2008, 12:00am EDT

Tags: [edit]

: What do the Sex Pistols and Cap'n Crunch have in common? Both were inspirations for Hikaru Iwanaga, the mastermind behind seminal Japanese fashion and toy juggernaut Bounty Hunter. This low-budget documentary, recently re-released on DVD (the first run sold out quickly), highlights Iwanaga and Frank Kozik — the droog who created Ludwig Van (left) — to explore the interplay of American pop culture, punk rock, and Japanese designer toys.: The human body is an organic machine, and there's no one better to explain how it works than David Macaulay, the author and artist behind the best-selling book The Way Things Work. Now Macaulay illustrates our insides down to the cellular level — the heart as power plant, the liver as manufacturing facility. His clear, amusing depictions are aimed at kids, which makes even this most complex system easy for anyone to understand at a gut level. (David, particle physics next, please.): If you already have the More Cowbell iPhone app, you'll love this encyclopedia. If you don't know what "more cowbell" refers to, you need it. Inside is everything we ever wanted to know about the actor whose accidental second life as a twisted YouTube hero (search "walken impersonations" ) has turned him into a high-haired cultural meme — the new Lebowski.: Keep your wallet fat and yourself thin by walking and taking public transit. Thanks to Google engineers who used their "20 percent time" to pore over bus, subway, and train schedules from 70 metro areas, Google Maps now offers step-by-step instructions for not driving from point A to point B.: The battle of the fake bands erupts with the dueling releases of Guitar Hero World Tour and Rock Band 2. Both let four players drum, strum, and sing to more than 85 tracks. Want to scream the new track from GN'R? Buy Rock Band 2. Rather perform "Purple Haze"? Guitar Hero. Each game has nifty new functions: World Tour lets you create your own instrumentals; Rock Band 2 has a drum training mode (and an optional $300 controller from Ion that converts into a real kit). Bonus: The instruments from the original Rock Band work with both titles.: This 1/9-scale model of Ferrari's iconic Formula One racer is made out of everyone's favorite building blocks — nearly 1,000 of them. The 20-inch-long stallion is not the fastest build, but from the functional steering and removable front spoiler to the authentic branding, it's the perfect nexus of gearhead obsession and toy nerddom.:...

Wired.com

Parag Khanna: Embrace the Post-American Age

Posted: September 29th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Daniel H. Pink

Tags: [edit]

Here's one view of America circa 2008: The US is a modern-day Roman Empire — overstretched, underperforming, slowly crumbling into history's dustbin. Here's Parag Khanna's view: Nonsense. The geopolitical wooziness Americans are feeling isn't decline. It's realignment. In his book The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order, Khanna, 31, describes a planet dominated by a trio of superpowers: the US, China, and Europe. In this tripolar era, America's fate depends on tough national choices, not lame historical analogies. If the US wises up — by tightening trade and energy ties to the rest of the hemisphere, pursuing economic innovation at home, and establishing a "diplomatic-industrial complex" — it can grow stronger even as the globe becomes less red, white, and blue. Khanna himself is a peripatetic emblem of this post-American world. Born in India, he lived as a child in the United Arab Emirates, and attended high school in the US and Germany. He earned two degrees from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. Then he punched his ticket at places that might earn him early admission at the Trilateral Commission: the Council on Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institution, and the World Economic Forum. "I think I'm the only person who went to Davos seven times by the age of 30," the smooth-talking wunderwonk says. "I'm not sure that's a good thing." From Canada to Uzbekistan, Khanna identifies the unexpected flash points, overstated threats, and hidden opportunities the next US president might confront. 8 Regions to Watch Mexico and Canada Integrate, don't isolate America's oil comes from a volatile region half a world away. That's lunacy, Khanna says. "An energy partnership with Mexico, Canada, Venezuela, and Brazil could make the US much less dependent on oil from the Middle East." That's also why building a wall along our southern border is foolish. "We should treat Mexico like Europe treats Turkey — integrating, elevating, and partnering with it." Colombia Partner up Bogotá is as close to Miami as Phoenix is to San Francisco. "We should invest here," Khanna says. "Colombia now exports mostly flowers and drugs. We can do better than that." Egypt Make friends fast Egypt is smoldering. The people are restless after 27 years of the Mubarak dynasty, and the country is ripe for revolt. We should "make friends, quickly, with other power centers...

Wired.com

Mark Smolinski: Detect Epidemics Before They Start

Posted: September 29th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Evan Ratliff

Tags: [edit]

Back in May 1993, as a medical resident at the University of Arizona, Mark Smolinski volunteered for a shift with the state's Department of Health. Right after he started, Arizona and neighboring states were struck by a deadly outbreak of an unidentified respiratory illness. The young doctor found himself face-to-face with an emerging epidemic, part of a team that spent sleepless months struggling to contain the outbreak. "I was going from hospital to hospital trying to determine the patients' exposures," he recalls of his harrowing first assignment. "Almost all the cases were under the age of 30, and it had a very high mortality rate." The researchers finally identified the culprit — which eventually infected 53 people, 60 percent of whom died — as a new strain of hantavirus. They pinned the outbreak on a confluence of ecological and social factors: Wet weather during an El Niño year spawned heavier-than-normal vegetation. That in turn fueled an unusually large population of deer mice, which harbor the virus. The victims were exposed when they rummaged through closets or gardened, inhaling dust laced with mouse droppings, urine, or saliva. The disease soon receded, but Smolinski was hooked on the rush he got from investigating outbreaks. "It seemed like a career that would never be dull," he says. "That has certainly proven true." These days, Smolinski's business card at Google.org, the philanthropic arm of the Mountain View behemoth, identifies him simply as "threat detective." He's director of the organization's Predict and Prevent Initiative, a global health program. The 46-year-old's job is to channel money — one insider estimates up to $150 million — into projects and technologies that will help catch outbreaks like hantavirus wherever they crop up. What's even more ambitious is Smolinski's desire to push disease surveillance "two steps to the left of the epidemic curve." The strategy: Draw on Google's search acumen to predict hot spots before the first case of some imminent calamity hits the hospital. Smolinski faces a daunting landscape. More than 300 new diseases have emerged since 1940, many the result of jumps from wild animal to human. Outbreaks are expected to increase as environmental degradation thrusts humans into ever-closer contact with wildlife and as climate change alters the life cycles of disease vectors — like El Niño did to the deer mouse. Meanwhile, older diseases are rapidly...

Wired.com

SpaceX Does It -- Falcon 1 Reaches Space

Posted: September 28th, 2008, 6:26pm EDT by Aaron Rowe

Tags: [edit]

SpaceX has made history: The first privately developed rocket has made it into space.

Wired.com

A Temple For the Worship of Science

Posted: September 28th, 2008, 5:00pm EDT by Brandon Keim

Tags: [edit]

An artist built a temple for the worship of science in Berkeley, California hoping to evoke discussion of the question, "Can science replace religion?"

Wired.com

'Eagle Eye' Tops Box Office as Movie Goers Weigh In

Posted: September 28th, 2008, 4:00pm EDT by Hugh Hart

Tags: [edit]

Eagle Eye topped the box office this weekend with an estimated $29 million, playing on a whopping 4,800 screens and beating second place Nights in Rodanthe ($14 million).

Wired.com

Carbon Trading Won't Save Aviation and Shipping

Posted: September 28th, 2008, 3:00pm EDT by Dave Demerjian

Tags: [edit]

A British scientist says there aren't enough carbon credits to save the airline and shipping industries, and their only hope for cutting emissions is limiting growth.

Wired.com

China's First Spacewalk Team Returns Triumphant to Earth

Posted: September 28th, 2008, 1:00pm EDT by Associated Press

Tags: [edit]

The successful completion of China's first spacewalk cements its status as a space power and future competitor to the United States.

Wired.com

UCLA Group Discovers Humongous Prime Number

Posted: September 28th, 2008, 11:00am EDT by Associated Press

Tags: [edit]

Mathematicians at UCLA have discovered a 13 million-digit prime number, a long-sought milestone that makes them eligible for a $100,000 prize.

Wired.com

Steve Rayner: Take Climate Change Seriously

Posted: September 28th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Steve Rayner

Tags: [edit]

Mr. President: The outgoing administration failed to come to grips with climate change out of fear that reducing greenhouse gas emissions would damage the economy. But the decision to deal with climate change doesn't lend itself to cost-benefit analysis. It is a strategic choice, like the decision to get married. You have an opportunity to define the nation's character and upgrade its infrastructure — and bold action would be consistent with America's historical role as a leader in innovation. It would also encourage India and China to participate in the effort. Here are a few points to keep in mind. Cap and trade won't work. The market for carbon offsets is widely touted as the best way to curb greenhouse gases. This would be fine if time were unlimited. However, the best available science suggests that we need to stabilize emissions by mid-century. That's too soon for carbon prices to rise enough to drive the R&D necessary to enable cleaner alternatives to compete with fossil fuels. It doesn't help that the cap-and-trade approach relies on underdeveloped monitoring and accounting systems that inevitably leave plenty of wiggle room for unscrupulous speculators to work the system, amassing fortunes while achieving nothing for the atmosphere. New technology is critical.The only plausible way to curb emissions in the next few decades is to accelerate the development and adoption of low-carbon energy sources. Rather than setting targets for greenhouse gases, we should establish goals for installed technology, beginning with the most energy-intensive sectors, like electricity generation, ground transportation, and cement manufacturing. Similarly, international cooperation on emissions reduction should focus on the handful of countries responsible for the lion's share of the problem. In the US and elsewhere, R&D funding should be directed toward technologies that otherwise might not come online for up to 20 years. This would fill the gap between the turnaround timeline for venture capital (three to five years) and for basic research (beyond 20 years). Let the market decide. No amount of public investment will succeed if politicians are allowed to pick the winners. The program must be designed to widen the choices available to the market, not to preempt them. There is no silver bullet, but we can develop silver buckshot. The point is to ensure that money flows to a variety of options from which the market can select, not just the one...

Wired.com

15th Anniversary: The Rantiest Reader Rants Ever

Posted: September 28th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Erik Malinowski

Tags: [edit]

A decade and a half of provocative content has inspired plenty of letters to the editor. Some of them have been thoughtful and constructive, others just plain rude. Sticks and stones, kids... I have to pass on my disappointment with the first issue of your magazine. In fact, it has made me angry ... It's yuppie bullshit. Gary Chapman May/June 1993 I hated the cover on my new Wired magazine so much I tore it off and threw it in the trash. dteeter@aol.com August 1994 I don't know whether to congratulate you for your courage or cancel my subscription for presenting such one-sided drivel. Charles Lewis November 1995 As fiction goes, Ed Regis' article on anti-environmental crusader Julian L. Simon was a work of art. Tim Andrews May 1997 "101 Ways to Save the Internet" had a few good ones and a whole lot of crap. Andy Harrison March 2004 Prince is geekier than William Gibson? The unhackable computer in Hackers was named after Gibson, for Pete's sake! Ever seen an unhackable computer named after Prince? Peter Aaron October 2004

Wired.com

Sweet Digital Mockups of Fantasy Ferrari Motorcycle

Posted: September 28th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Chuck Squatriglia

Tags: [edit]

Many have envisioned a motorcycle bearing the Cavallino Rampante, but perhaps none so thoroughly as Israeli designer Amir Glinik.

Wired.com

Leroy Hood: Look to the Genome to Rebuild Health Care

Posted: September 27th, 2008, 12:00pm EDT by katharine gammon

Tags: [edit]

Leroy Hood thinks the $2.3 trillion US health care system is headed for life support, but he has a plan for curing its inefficiency, and ineffectiveness. The 69-year-old biotechnologist bases his plan on the four Ps—medicine that is predictive, preventive, personalized, and participatory. The goal is to shift medicine from treating illness to managing health, saving money and lives along the way. Hood's Institute for Systems Biology is developing the diagnostics and technology to make it happen. Here's the doctor's Rx. The US medical system should be ... Predictive The vision Using genome sequencing and blood tests, a doctor will be able to determine a patient's probability of developing certain diseases. The price of these tests is dropping and will soon be less than $1,000 — the same as a CT scan today. The challenge Physicians will have to be trained to use the technology ethically. Patients will have to make sense of new kinds of choices. Preventive The vision Based on an individualized risk profile, you could start therapies in advance to cut the likelihood of illness. Drugs could be designed to blunt the desire to overeat, drink, or smoke. Average lifespan could be extended by 10 to 30 years. The challenge What qualifies as a disease? Will we have fewer football players if we quiet the genes that drive aggression? Personalized The vision With billions of data points for every patient, drug therapies can be created to suit each genome. This would eliminate the trial-and-error approach doctors use today. The challenge Having your genome on Google could be a huge privacy risk. With so much information around, data security will become an important field in the health care industry. Participatory The vision People will maintain their own health, not just by treating existing illnesses but by learning about their own predispositions. The challenge How to explain biomarkers to someone with little grasp of science? Hood proposes games that teach health concepts, and his Institute for Systems Biology is working with school districts to develop top-notch science curricula. Leroy Hood is President of the Institute for Systems Biology.

Wired.com

CERN Rivals Say Melting Magnets Are Par For Course

Posted: September 27th, 2008, 11:39am EDT by Associated Press

Tags: [edit]

Rival operations say glitches like the LCH's magnet connection problem are not uncommon.

Wired.com

Paul Newman Dies at 83

Posted: September 27th, 2008, 10:00am EDT by Lewis Wallace

Tags: [edit]

Paul Newman, the legendary actor who also became a race car driver and a charitable organic foods seller, died Friday after a long battle with cancer.

Wired.com

Current TV Hacks The Debate

Posted: September 27th, 2008, 4:21am EDT by Sarah Lai Stirland

Tags: [edit]

Current TV melds a traditional televised presidential debate format with next-generation web technology that incorporated viewers' spontaneous reactions into the broadcast.

Wired.com

Artifacts from the Future: Bumper Stickers of 2018

Posted: September 27th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Aaron Rowe

Tags: [edit]

: We imagine the bumper stickers you might see 10 years from now. Wired staffers created many of the stickers on a truck bumper and "weathered" them. They put the stickers on a rented Chevy truck, smeared dirt on and added more wear and tear in image post-production. We'll continue to create a new Artifact from the Future in upcoming issues of Wired magazine. But we'd like to see your prognostications too. What do you think our world will look like in 10, 20 or 100 years? Each month, we'll propose a scenario. Then it's up you: Sketch out your vision, then return here to upload your ideas, see other submissions and vote for your favorites. Check out this month's Happy Meal challenge. - - - The concept and many of the stickers came from Aaron Rowe, a contributor to the Wired Science Blog. Contributing Wired magazine designer Walter Baumann, photo assistants Sarah Filippi and Daniel Salo, deputy photo editor Anna Goldman Alexander, production director Jeff Lysgaard helped create the future stickers on the truck. : Calvin clones: We need another border fence.: Costco retirement village reserved parking: Climate change is a hoax: Sea levels are rising because Jesus is crying.: Only hippies eat vat-grown meat.: They'll get my gun when they disable my AI sentrybot!: Stop outsourcing jobs to Moonbase Alpha.: Local 225: International Brotherhood of Microfluidics Reconfigurers, Nanotechnicians, & Cybernetics Engineers : WWRPD: What would Ron Paul do? More Artifacts From the Future Wine Spectrometer Dawn of the Networked Era RISK CNN World News Edition

Wired.com

As America Implodes, the Bike Industry Booms

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 7:31pm EDT by Leander Kahney

Tags: [edit]

Global warming, rising fuel prices, rampant obesity -- it's all good news for the bike biz, which fills Las Vegas for the biggest Interbike trade show in recent memory.

Wired.com

Wired's Geek Guide to the Prez Debates

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 5:28pm EDT by Sarah Lai Stirland

Tags: [edit]

Want to rate the candidates? Blow off steam online? See what everyone's saying about how the debate went? Here's a few places online where you can check out the action.

Wired.com

Webmonkey Maps iPhone App Developer's Frustration

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 4:45pm EDT by Scott Loganbill

Tags: [edit]

Apple hasn't been at the top of its game lately in developer relations. There's a lot to complain about: the expensive developer fee, the nondisclosure agreements, the arbitrary iPhone app process, iPhone apps dropped inexplicably from the App Store, the secrecy. Long story short, developers are mad but fear retribution based on very temperamental Apple policies. Webmonkey maps out the story and the ongoing developments and invites your contributions.

Wired.com

Senate Passes Bill Creating 'Copyright Czar'

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 4:36pm EDT by David Kravets

Tags: [edit]

The senate on Friday passed legislation creating a so-called copyright czar. The cabinet-level position, like the nation's drug czar, requires senate confirmation. The newest czar will oversee beefed up efforts by the United States to battle piracy.

Wired.com

Moore's 'Slacker Uprising' Makes a Splash Online

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 3:20pm EDT by Scott Thill

Tags: [edit]

Earlier this week, the politically minded director became the first major cinematic player to release a feature-length film for free online. Now that film, Slacker Uprising, is killing at the virtual box office.

Wired.com

Chinese iPhone Knockoffs Described With Hilarious English

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 2:10pm EDT by Brian X. Chen

Tags: [edit]

They look like iPhones, but these gee-whiz gadgets are really just clones. The crazy listings and bargain-basement prices should clue you.

Wired.com

See the Future at Wired NextFest

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 2:00pm EDT by Ryan Singel

Tags: [edit]

Millennium Park -- Chicago's $475 million ode to its future -- is constantly watched over by rangers on Segways who glide around the park's public art and plazas like hallway monitors from the future. And for the next two weeks, the guards will keep an eye on the WiredNextFest 2008 pavilion, which will be showing off bits of the future -- ranging from self-healing robots to a human-powered car -- to thousands of park visitors. On its fifth anniversary, the free festival of the future returns to the Windy City, showcasing the latest in green technology, videogames, interactive art, prosthetics and robots. The setting couldn't be more appropriate. Millennium Park draws hipsters, office workers and tourists to its modern idyll between Lake Michigan and the city's fabled skyscrapers. Built atop a 2,000-vehicle-capacity parking garage that sits on top of a working railroad yard, the park itself is a technological marvel. Wired NextFest's outdoor tent is nestled between the park's popular interactive public art pieces and the Frank Gehry-designed swoop of an amphitheater. Inside the NextFest pavilion, visitors will have a chance to get hands-on and play with the cellphone disco exhibit -- an LED grid that responds to cellphone signals. Visitors can also take a turn with ImmersaDome -- a virtual reality machine that one pulls down over your head. With a vibrating seat, sprays of scents, surround sound and high-def images on all sides, it may be the future of both first-person shooters and meditation. Those who prefer social responsibility to future entertainment technology can try out the green measurement tool created by UCLA's Center for Embedded Network Sensing. The Personal Environmental Impact Report is a carbon footprint calculator tied to a GPS-enabled phone that can give you a real-time online look at how heavily or lightly you tread on the Earth. Plus, PEIR comes with a Facebook app so you can share your green cred with your friends. Given the price of oil, it's not surprising that NextFest has green on its mind. There's biofuel made from algae whose cells double every hour. And ultra-efficient solar cells that may soon be more cost efficient than coal? That's here too. French designer Tomas Erel will be showing off his Planilum lights -- softly glowing, low-heat light panels that use phosphorescent chemicals, rare gasses and glass pockets to create lamps that resemble life forms more than light bulbs. And Erel's panels...

Wired.com

Web Developer Roundup: Fixes for Our Biggest IE6 Pet Peeves

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 1:15pm EDT by Adam DuVander

Tags: [edit]

For those of you still supporting the antiquated, famously broken Internet Explorer 6 web browser, tell us about your biggest bug headaches -- plus how you've been dealing with them. We're rounding up your fixes in an attempt to create a definitive list.

Wired.com

Greatest Spacewalks of All Time

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 11:13am EDT by Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides

Tags: [edit]

Wired Science chooses the five greatest spacewalks of all time.

Wired.com

The Return of Led Zeppelin

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 9:57am EDT by Scott Thill

Tags: [edit]

Dancing days are here again, especially if it has been a long time since you rocked and rolled. OK, enough bad Zeppelin lyric lifts, let's get to the reunion tour, which reportedly lands at an arena near you in 2009.

Wired.com

Swiss Man flies over English Channel on Jet Wing

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 9:25am EDT by Associated Press

Tags: [edit]

A Swiss daredevil crossed the English Channel strapped to a homemade jet-propelled wing Friday, parachuting into a field near the white cliffs of Dover after a 10-minute solo flight. The trip across the Channel is meant to trace the route of French aviator Louis Bleriot, the first person to cross in an airplane 99 years ago.

Wired.com

Pirate Bay Co-Founder Plotting E-Book Plunder?

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 9:05am EDT by Chris Snyder

Tags: [edit]

Peter Sunde, one of the founders of Pirate Bay, writes a mysterious blog post asking for someone in the United States to send him an Amazon Kindle, and hinted that he might be working on a new project involving e-books.

Wired.com

IPhone 2.2: Safari Redesign, Possible Cut and Paste

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 7:26am EDT by Charlie Sorrel

Tags: [edit]

With the iPhone v2.1 software out of the door, Apple is hard at work on v2.2. From this first glimpse it looks like Apple, now the major bugs have been squashed, is adding some new features.

Wired.com

Stock Indicated Sharply Lower at Open on Bailout Clash, Bank Failure

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 6:55am EDT by Associated Press

Tags: [edit]

Wall Street heads for a sharply lower open as efforts to approve a $700 billion financial bailout unraveled and Washington Mutual, one of the nation's largest banks, was seized by federal regulators in the largest failure ever of a U.S. bank.

Wired.com

Big Honkin' EV Hauls 345 Tons

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 6:03am EDT by Keith Barry

Tags: [edit]

Caterpillar builds a ginormous electric-drive dump truck so excavating vast swaths of land can be just a bit more environmentally friendly.

Wired.com

'No Heroics' Plays Superheroes for Laughs

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 4:32am EDT by John Scott Lewinski

Tags: [edit]

A self-described "comics nerd" whips up a Brit sitcom about neurotic caped crusaders mired in mundane real life, just as superhero mania grips Hollywood.

Wired.com

10 Highways That Should Be Razed Now

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 4:00am EDT by Dave Demerjian

Tags: [edit]

Knocking down these obsolete slabs of concrete and replacing them with boulevards would go a long way toward revitalizing the cities they bisect.

Wired.com

Permalink for 'Wired__Top_Stories/2008/09/26/Long_Awaited_Mac_Version_of___181_Torrent_Leaked'

Long-Awaited Mac Version of µTorrent Leaked

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 12:51am EDT by Scott Gilbertson

Tags: [edit]

A version of the popular µTorrent P2P client for Mac OS X has snuck its way out into the wild a little early. The software, still only officially available for Windows users, is an alpha build and not that stable, but Mac fans are excited nonetheless.

Wired.com

Review: 'Eagle Eye' Spies Thrills in Surveillance Hell

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 12:30am EDT by Hugh Hart

Tags: [edit]

Fast-paced and steeped in Big Brother-style paranoia, this Shia LaBeouf techno-thriller weaves surveillance-state realities into a believable and entertaining diversion.

Wired.com

Sept. 26, 1960: JFK, Nixon Open the Era of TV Debates

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Tony Long

Tags: [edit]

1960: In the first televised U.S. presidential debate in history, John F. Kennedy comes off well. His opponent, Richard Nixon, does not. Television instantly emerges as the decisive medium in presidential politics. It was Kennedy who proposed a series of four nationally televised debates, and Nixon -- supremely confident that he could spank the young upstart from Massachusetts -- eagerly accepted. It proved to be one of the biggest miscalculations of Tricky Dick's career. While Nixon could play the experience card, he was no match for Kennedy's charisma. And as many a politician has since discovered, with TV, it's all about style over substance. The first debate focused on domestic issues, and the two candidates battled on more or less equal terms. In fact, to the radio audience that couldn't see him, Nixon appeared to have won. But the much-larger television audience -- 70 million, then the biggest in history -- saw it very differently. Nixon looked haggard, at least partly because he brushed aside advice and appeared before the cameras wearing no makeup. His TV adviser, Ted Rogers, said later that Nixon's pasty skin tone -- the result of a two-week hospital stay following a serious knee injury -- and his perpetual 5 o'clock shadow would have benefited from a little makeup, especially when he was pictured alongside a tanned, fit-looking JFK. Nixon also fidgeted a lot, he was sweating, and his beady eyes darted around nervously. On top of that he wore a gray suit, which blended into the background. Although some of these problems were fixed for the subsequent debates (there wasn't much that could be done with those beady eyes), the damage had been done. In one of the closest presidential elections in history, Kennedy won by a little more than 100,000 votes. Many historians believe that without the so-called Great Debates, Nixon would have moved into the White House eight years earlier than he eventually did. Kennedy-Nixon was the last televised presidential debate until 1976, when Democrat Jimmy Carter took on GOP incumbent Gerald Ford. Ford did well in the first debate, which focused on domestic issues. But he may have lost the election during the foreign policy debate that followed, declaring that "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration." Given the chance to retract the statement, Ford stuck to his guns. A couple of months later, the American people (even those not of...

Wired.com

How to Bluff a Music Geek

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by How-to Wiki

Tags: [edit]

Got an annoying friend who can't stop showing off his vast knowledge of unsigned, obscure bands? Here's how to shut him up by stumping him -- no geek cred required.

Wired.com

Gallery: Next-Gen Camera Gear Debuts at Photokina 2008

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Jock Fistick

Tags: [edit]

: Photo: Jock Fistick/Wired.com COLOGNE, Germany -- The product unveilings came fast and furious this week at Photokina, the biggest photo-gear expo in world. A 3-D point-and-shoot, Pentax's new entry level DSLR, Olympus's Micro Four-Thirds camera made their debuts. Wired.com takes a look at these and other gems. Left: Impressive product announcements aren't the only way to grab attention at Photokina. Brenner Foto Versand, a German photo reseller, is holding a number of workshops and demonstrations including this one on body painting. : Photo: Jock Fistick/Wired.com Fuji is showing off a functioning prototype of its new FinePix Real 3D System which debuted at Photokina. The camera incorporates dual-imaging sensors that can simultaneously capture two images and then instantaneously process them into a single image file via the newly developed RP (Real Photo) Processor 3D. The camera has a 2.8-inch LCD that is capable of resolving 3-D images as well as conventional 2-D picture files. Looking at the camera's LCD display and seeing a 3-D image jumping out at you will take a bit of getting used to, but it is cool nonetheless. The two separate sensors opens up a whole world of possibilities, and not just for 3-D: Multiple zooms: Set the two lenses independently of each other to capture a wide angle and telephoto view of the same scene simultaneously. Ultrawide panoramic shooting: Images taken by shooting the left and right side of a wide landscape can be automatically stitched together in the camera to make a superwide panoramic image. Record video and still images simultaneously: The camera employs two lenses and two sensors: (one lens/sensor can be recording video and the second lens/sensor can be used to snap a high-resolution still image at any time without interrupting the video recording. Look for the consumer version in 2009. : Photo: Jock Fistick/Wired.com Pentax introduces its new entry-level DSLR: the Pentax K-M DSLR (dubbed the K-2000 in the United States). In Europe, the camera will be sold with an 18mm-to-55mm zoom for 499 euros, and for 599 euros you get both the 18mm-to-55mm and a 50mm-to-200mm zoom. Check out the specs: 10.2-megapixel APS-C sized self-cleaning sensor 2.7-inch LCD display image stabilizer built into the camera powered by four-AA batteries The camera supports auto ISO. The K-M (K-2000) features a slew of programmed settings for a variety of shooting situations (allowing the beginner...

Wired.com

Carbon Road Rockets, Latticework Frames and Batman's Bike: Baddest Bikes at Interbike

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Leander Kahney

Tags: [edit]

: Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- Bike nerds and Sin City make strange bedfellows at this year's Interbike conference. Perhaps for the first time in the city's history, the bodies being caressed and ogled this week were not made of flesh -- though they were still expensive. Instead, spandex-clad gear heads went carnal for carbon composites and supped-up suspensions. Check out the baddest bike's on display in what we like to think of as the swimsuit issue for the two-wheel crowd -- including wicker-basket frames, cherry wood finishes and bikes fit for Batman himself. Left: French bike giant Time's brand-new carbon road rocket, the RXR UL Team, will likely cost Yung upwards of $15,000, but what do you expect for a bike handmade in France? This state-of-the-art, top-of-the-line RXR UL is equipped with Campagnolo's Super Record 11 groupset. Read more about Time's RXR UL on Gadget Lab. : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com Delta 7 Sports' Ascend road bike draws a crowd thanks to its distinctive wicker-basket carbon frame. The Ascend's frame is a lattice of carbon fiber that Delta claims is ten times stronger than steel (by weight). Incredibly, the bike's frame weighs just 1.8 pounds and costs about $12,000. Read more about Delta 7 Sports' Ascend on Gadget Lab. : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com Frame builder Jeff Jones of Medford, Oregon, shuns conventional wisdom when it comes to building mountain bikes. There's no suspension or super trick gadgets, just strikingly original design and gigantic tires -- 26x3.7 to be exact. "It's fun," said Jones. "It's like driving a monster truck." The huge tires do the work of the missing suspension, and there's no unnerving forward lurch when the rider hits the brakes. The frame and fork of this ride, which Jones calls "Space," cost about $5,500. A complete bike reaches up and past $10,000. Read more about Jeff Jones's Space bike on Gadget Lab. : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com "The Mob" is a 26-inch wheel badass bike from Black Market Bikes. The Mob is finding favor among the aging BMXer crowd, according to Black Market. The Mob is sold only as a frame and fork for about $600, but a trick rig like the one pictured runs for about $2,500. Read more about Black Market Bikes' Mob on Gadget Lab. : Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com Independent Fabrication's high-end XS road bike is a wonder of titanium, carbon fiber and of all things -- cherry wood. The XS features titanium lugs, carbon...

Wired.com

Jagdish Bhagwati: Keep Free Trade Free

Posted: September 25th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Mark Horowitz

Tags: [edit]

As the world's preeminent globalization buff, Jagdish Bhagwati doesn't toe standard party lines. The Columbia University economist, 74, who has advised everyone from the Indian government to the World Trade Organization, is a rare nonpartisan in a field dominated by ideologues. A registered Democrat who is willing to face down the anti-free-trade wing of his own party, Bhagwati is also comfortable arguing against what he sees as the compassion-free laissez-faire attitude exhibited by many of his fellow globalization advocates. Below, Bhagwati explains why everything you thought you knew about free trade is wrong. The Truth About Globalization 1. The world isn't flat. Thomas Friedman's metaphor aside, we don't live in a 2-D world in which all countries compete for the same jobs. For instance, China may never be as innovative as the US, which has a stable venture-capital model and an entrepreneurial culture that promotes creativity. Globalization helps nations discover their unique strengths. 2. Free trade is green. Trade foes argue that it spurs the creation of cheap goods at the planet's expense. Bhagwati points out that undemocratic countries are often the worst environmental offenders. Since globalization promotes democracy, it should make the world more green, not less. 3. Nafta ain't free. Agreements like Nafta are for free trade among members but increased protection against nonmembers, Bhagwati says. Ultimately, such protectionism divides the world into exclusive trading zones, a return to the tit-for-tat alliances of the 1930s. 4. But intellectual property should be. Many globalization fans freak out when they see Indian patients buying generic drugs. But draconian copyright laws are protectionism in another form. The creation of knowledge often requires using previous knowledge, he says. Globalization isn't just about the free flow of labor and capital, but of ideas, too. Jagdish Bhagwati is a Professor of Economics at Columbia University.

Wired.com

Ellen Miller: Make Washington More Like the Web

Posted: September 25th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Kristina Shevory

Tags: [edit]

The Web is a haven of messy democracy. (Want to see voter engagement and healthy debate? Read any Digg comment thread.) But the ideal of transparency and participation hasn't yet infiltrated another messy democracy — the US government. That insight led Ellen Miller to cofound the Sunlight Foundation in 2006. The goal was to tap some of the Net's best-known thinkers in order to make Washington as user-friendly as a Google API. Miller, who previously headed the Center for Responsive Politics, has enlisted the likes of Esther Dyson, Lawrence Lessig, and Craig Newmark to serve as advisers. "Washington politicians like the firewall they have erected," Miller says. "They will have to be dragged into the 21st century." The next president could do the pulling — if he adopts the Internet's values of openness. Miller shares some of her current projects along with grander ideas she hopes the next president will support. Miller's Political To-Do List Ongoing · Earmarkwatch.org - When politicians makes sausage, they don't skimp on pork. More than 500 volunteers have pored through federal spending bills to create this database of kickbacks and boondoggles. · OpenCongress.org - This site summarizes bills in everyday language and monitors related news and blog coverage. Users can also follow a legislator's voting record and submit comments on proposed laws. ·Punch Clock Map - The next best thing to putting a bell on your senator, this Google map tracks the schedules of participating members of Congress (only nine so far). Future · Crowdsourced Legislation - Why should elected officials be the only ones who get to haggle over legislation? Drafts of bills should be uploaded to wikis, where anyone could edit them before they get debated by the House or Senate. · One-Click Government - Sure, you can find federal documents online, but good luck making sense of them. Build mashups that seamlessly link politicians, donors, and legislation to give a complete picture of how government works. Constant Real-Time Video - Encourage phonecam-wielding citizens to attend government meetings and post the proceedings on YouTube. Ellen Miller is Executive director of Sunlight Foundation.

Wired.com

Sept. 25, 1878: Yes, Smoking Is a Health Hazard

Posted: September 24th, 2008, 9:00pm EDT by Tony Long

Tags: [edit]

1878: Eighty-six years before the U.S. surgeon general issues a report confirming the dangers of smoking tobacco, a letter from English physician Charles R. Drysdale condemning its use appears in The Times of London. Drysdale, the senior physician to the Metropolitan Free Hospital in London, had already published a book on the subject, Tobacco and the Diseases It Produces, when he wrote the letter that described smoking as "the most evident of all the retrograde influences of our time." Drysdale had been on an anti-smoking crusade since at least 1864, the year he published a study documenting the effects on young men of consuming ¾ ounce of tobacco daily. That study reported cases of jaundice, and at least one subject having "most distressing palpitations of the heart." Drysdale's book pinpointed nicotine as the dangerous agent and reported its ill effects on the lungs, circulation system, even the skin. Havana-cut tobacco contained roughly 2 percent nicotine, while Virginia tobacco was a more toxic 7 percent, Drysdale pointed out. (Tobacco was a product of the New World and had to be imported to Europe.) He also warned against exposure to second-hand smoke: "Women who wait in public bar-rooms and smoking-saloons, though not themselves smoking, cannot avoid the poisoning caused by inhaling smoke continually. Surely gallantry, if not common honesty, should suggest the practical inference from this fact." The prolific Drysdale wrote on a variety of other related subjects as well, including medicine as a profession for women and issues related to population control. Despite Drysdale's warnings, and despite the establishment of numerous anti-smoking movements, little was done to curb smoking anywhere in the world. Though physicians and scientists understood there were numerous health hazards associated with the practice, the number of smokers increased dramatically in the first half of the 20th century. Thank you, Madison Avenue. Thank you, Hollywood. The turning point probably came in 1957, when then-Surgeon General Leroy Burney reported a causal link between smoking and lung cancer. It was left to Burney's successor, Luther Terry, to lower the boom. Under Terry's direction, a special committee produced Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General. This 1964 bombshell -- so volatile that it was released on a Saturday to minimize the effect on the stock market -- began a massive change in people's attitudes...

Wired.com

Google Founder Lobbies FCC to Free Spectrum

Posted: September 24th, 2008, 8:38pm EDT by Priya Ganapati

Tags: [edit]

Google co-founder Larry Page appeared at a hearing on Capitol Hill and called for the Federal Communications Commission to open up the unused portions of the television spectrum.

Wired.com

Gear Gallery: Giant New ThinkPad, Top DSLRs and More

Posted: September 24th, 2008, 7:30pm EDT by Gadget Lab

Tags: [edit]

: The Lenovo ThinkPad W700 is the most massive laptop Lenovo's ever made. This over-nine-pound monster is loaded in every way you can imagine and a few you probably can't. Two laptop "firsts" are already making waves. For starters you'll find a stylus secreted in the base of the W700 for a pint-sized Wacom digitizer that has been added next to the mouse pad. The second feature is built-in color calibration. Settings are tweaked automatically, and the before versus after images are striking in the effect the calibration has. Though groundbreaking, these two features actually add just $150 to a laptop that costs — wait for it — $4,473. It's all those other specs that add to the price tag: A gorgeous LCD, by far the brightest 17-inch model we've ever tested. Core 2 Duo CPU running at a blistering 2.8 GHz. 4 GB of RAM (and 64-bit Vista installed, so you can actually access it all). Dual hard drives. And finally, an Nvidia Quatro FX 3700M graphics card with 1 GB of video RAM. All this goodness powers the W700 to record-setting benchmarks, though not quite offering the highest gaming scores we've seen. The stratospheric price tag ensures the W700 will likely only find a home in the high-test worlds of CAD, 3-D imaging and professional photo editing. The rest of us will simply have to appreciate the thing from afar … and wait for its features to trickle down to cheaper, smaller machines. WIRED: Digitizer and color calibrator set a new bar for features in a notebook. Top-notch performance all around. Unbeatable screen brightness at this size. TIRED: Seems bigger than it needs to be: Lid is 20 inches diagonally to fit a 17-inch screen. 87 minutes of battery life is 84 more than the W700 will ever spend on. DVD playback stuttered and ultimately crashed the system during our tests. Keyboard not up to usual ThinkPad standards. Blaringly loud fan. $4,470 (as tested), Lenovo Read our full Lenovo ThinkPad W700 review. Check Wired.com's latest Gadget Lab reviews, updated daily. : Nikon's latest offering, the 12-megapixel D90 is a feature-packed fistful of photo fury that’s sure to help pave your way to full-fledged Flickrati status. Straight from the box and out on the street, the D90 shows off its picture-making prowess. Our testing unit came bundled with a (bordering on) superwide 18-105mm f3.5-5.6 lens that we used for all of our evaluations. The 11-point focusing system speedily locks onto subjects, and the flash images show off a pleasing balance...

Wired.com

Judge Declares Mistrial in Jammie Thomas Trial

Posted: September 24th, 2008, 7:18pm EDT by David Kravets

Tags: [edit]

A federal judge presiding over the nation's only music file-sharing civil trial to reach a jury verdict declared a mistrial. U.S. District Judge Michael Davis ruled that he erred when instructing jurors that merely making sound tracks available on a peer-to-peer network amounted to copyright infringement. The decision nullifies a $222,000 verdict against Jammie Thomas.

Wired.com

Wannabe Space Tourist Wants $21 Million Back Over Scuttled Mission

Posted: September 24th, 2008, 7:00pm EDT by David Kravets

Tags: [edit]

The Japanese internet tycoon who paid $21 million to become the first space tourist to walk outside the International Space Station wants his money back. In a lawsuit, Daisuke Enomoto, 37, claims that Space Adventures, the private firm with connections to the Russian Federal Space Agency, "deceptively and fraudulently" induced him to pay $21 million for a 10-day orbital sojourn that never materialized. The Virginia company scuttled Enomoto's space journey to the Russian section of the station after he refused to cough up more money, according to the suit, which says Space Adventures cited his health as a "pretense" to deny him of his childhood dream of space travel. The complaint (.pdf), filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, tells a tale seeped in eye-popping sums of money, and allegations of the rich eating the rich in a bid to reach space, the final frontier. Enomoto claims that Space Adventures repeatedly pestered the former Livedoor executive to invest, and that the company took his money without ever having permission by the Russians or the 15 other members of the International Space Station to participate in a space walk -- what the lawsuit calls "extra-vehicular activities" or EVA. The lawsuit charges that Space Adventures informed him that the Russian Federal Space Agency "approved Mr. Enomoto's EVA participation." But the space walk will cost an "extra" $10 million. In response to the complaint, Space Adventures said in a court filing Wednesday that, "Even if Enomoto could prove his unlikely claim that he was somehow misled, he suffered absolutely no damage from any misstatement because, as the complaint admits, the cause of his failure to fly was medical disqualification, not lack of authority." Enomoto, of Tokyo, grew up coding his own computer games and dreaming of space. "I just wanted to go up there and chill," he said in a recent interview with Wired magazine. As part of his space flight, he planned on dressing like one of his favorite anime characters: Char Aznable from Gundam. His planned space experiment was to put together Gundam toys under weightlessness. Enomoto finished months of intense training at Star City, Moscow, and was ready for his September 2006 launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Maikonur, Kasakhstan, home to the world's oldest spaceport. He was to fly in a Soyuz-FG rocket and Soyus-TMA spacecraft. But a month before the Sept. 18, 2006, flight, according to the lawsuit, he...

Wired.com

Prosthetic Fetishes and Fan Erotica: Sci-Fi Predicts Future of Sex

Posted: September 24th, 2008, 6:47pm EDT by Jenna Wortham

Tags: [edit]

The annual Arse Elektronika sex-tech event brings its blue-sky visions (and its altogether concrete sex toys) to that bastion of prudery, San Francisco.

Wired.com

Opposition to Financial Bailout Jumps from Online to Streets

Posted: September 24th, 2008, 6:30pm EDT by Sarah Lai Stirland

Tags: [edit]

An e-mail railing against the proposed U.S. government bailout of Wall Street has ignited a national day of street protests. Some people are planning to dump their rubbish in front of the bronze bull sculpture near Wall Street Thursday.

Wired.com

Geeks Who Dress Like Dorks on Screen, but Still Look Cool

Posted: September 24th, 2008, 6:17pm EDT by Hugh Hart

Tags: [edit]

A steady stream of fashion-challenged characters churn through the Hollywood hit-making machine. Which nerdy style mavens are your faves?

Wired.com

Milk More Out of JavaScript With MooTools

Posted: September 24th, 2008, 5:30pm EDT by Adam Duvander

Tags: [edit]

MooTools is the web framework that lets you write JavaScript your way, but organizes it and makes it more extensible so you can write it once and use it again and again. Start with learning how to target objects on the page with part one of Adam Duvander's MooTools tutorials.

Wired.com

How to Swap a SIM Card in a GSM Phone

Posted: September 24th, 2008, 5:30pm EDT by How-to wiki

Tags: [edit]

If you've ever taken your phone apart, you probably spotted the SIM card tucked neatly underneath the battery. But prying it out can be a total chore. Here's a simple trick you can use to pop and swap a SIM card with ease. Got extra advice or an alternate method that works just as well? Log in and share the wealth.

Wired.com

BioWillie Boys Make It Cross-Country in 38 Hours

Posted: September 24th, 2008, 4:43pm EDT by Chuck Squatriglia

Tags: [edit]

They don't set any records, but biodiesel evangelists Nik Bristow and Brian Pierce did spread the gospel from coast to coast.

Wired.com

Android Welcomes App Store Rejects With Arms Wide Open

Posted: September 24th, 2008, 3:14pm EDT by Brian X. Chen

Tags: [edit]

After being disappointed by Apple's restrictive and seemingly arbitrary policies regarding its iPhone App Store, some mobile software developers are considering jumping to Google's Android operating system.

Wired.com

Obama Urges Support for NASA

Posted: September 24th, 2008, 1:28pm EDT by Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides

Tags: [edit]

Sen. Barack Obama sent a letter to Congress urging them to take action to protect the United States' access to the International Space Station and keep the door open on the Space Shuttle program.

Wired.com

Porsche Gets Nostalgic for the 914 and Four-Bangers

Posted: September 24th, 2008, 1:15pm EDT by Stuart Schwartzapfel

Tags: [edit]

VW's mid-engined two-seater concept and the threat of tighter environmental regulations have Porsche contemplating two things it hasn't built in decades.

Wired.com

Firefox Update Patches Critical Security Flaws

Posted: September 24th, 2008, 1:15pm EDT by Scott Gilbertson

Tags: [edit]

Mozilla has fixed two critical bugs in Firefox which, left unpatched, would render your browser vulnerable to attack by scripts on malicious web pages. Users running Firefox 3 and Firefox 2 (the security flaw was found in both versions) should grab the update now.

Wired.com

Riding the Rails at 217 Mph on a Kawasaki

Posted: September 24th, 2008, 1:03pm EDT by Dave Demerjian

Tags: [edit]

Japan gives us another reason to be jealous of its national rail system.

Wired.com

Yahoo Announces New Digital Ad Platform

Posted: September 24th, 2008, 1:00pm EDT by Meghan Keane

Tags: [edit]

Yahoo announces a new digital ad platform which enables selling of inventory across Yahoo's network of publishers, advertisers, ad networks, and agencies in a single interface.

Wired.com

The Next Dodge Viper Will Be Electric

Posted: September 24th, 2008, 11:31am EDT by Chuck Squatriglia

Tags: [edit]

The Dodge Viper is as anachronistic as it is fast, and Chrysler says it's time to move on.

Wired.com

Songwriters Submit Royalty Agreement to Copyright Royalty Board

Posted: September 24th, 2008, 11:16am EDT by Eliot van Buskirk

Tags: [edit]

Songwriters, record labels, and webcasters have reached an agreement on mechanical royalties for songs played on web radio services. Webcasters will pay 10.5 percent of their revenue to songwriters and publishers minus any performance royalties already being paid to labels. The move comes as part of music publishers' drive to start collecting mechanical royalties for compositions played online after giving online radio a free pass while business models developed.

Wired.com

Chinese Say They're Building 'Impossible' Space Drive

Posted: September 24th, 2008, 10:29am EDT by David Hambling

Tags: [edit]

Chinese researchers claim they've confirmed the theory behind an "impossible" space drive, and are proceeding to build a demonstration version. If they're right, it could open up new possibilities for space exploration – and give the Chinese a decisive military advantage in space.

Wired.com

White House Opposes Expanded DOJ Copyright Enforcement

Posted: September 24th, 2008, 12:55am EDT by David Kravets

Tags: [edit]

The Bush administration is opposing proposed legislation that would grant the Justice Department the power to sue copyright infringers. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the bill two weeks ago, and its fate is now uncertain.

Wired.com

Sept. 24, 1993: Beautiful 'Myst' Ushers In Era of CD-ROM Gaming

Posted: September 24th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Chris Kohler

Tags: [edit]

1993: Broderbund Software releases Myst, a game for the Macintosh computer that becomes a record-setting best-seller and the killer app that sparks sales of CD-ROM drives. Brothers Rand and Robyn Miller founded a software-development business called Cyan Worlds in 1987, and they started making history. The pair partnered in 1989 with game-publisher Activision to create a CD-ROM version of Cyan's first game, The Manhole, which was the first entertainment product released in the fledgling format. More CD-ROM games followed, including follow-ups from Cyan, but few consumers bought expensive CD drives for their home computers, because there were no truly compelling applications -- that is, until Broderbund published Cyan's Myst in 1993. Myst's dreamlike world and simple gameplay appealed to what we would now call "casual gamers." Its graphics were so polished and its world so entrancingly designed that it hooked a wide audience. Copies flew off the shelves. But perhaps more important, CD-ROM drives flew off shelves. To play Myst, you needed the hardware. The underlying technology of the new game wasn't that different from Manhole's -- both were programmed using HyperCard, a free Mac application that gave amateur programmers a user-friendly, visually oriented creation tool. What separated Myst from the pack was the game's beautiful, "pre-rendered" 3-D world. The mid-'90s were videogames' puberty, a strange and awkward time spent trapped between child and adult. Computers were able to render 3-D worlds, but the videogame consoles in people's homes couldn't come close. As a result, game designers often created 3-D worlds on their workstations, then took 2-D bitmap snapshots of the worlds and dropped them into their games as pre-rendered graphics. Nintendo would later use this technique to great effect in Donkey Kong Country for the Super Nintendo. As its box art signified, Myst dropped the player into a remote, deserted island with little in the way of prelude. The player's goal: Explore the island, find the fragments of story that explain the situation, and solve puzzles. Writing about the game in the early days of Wired magazine, Jon Carroll described the appeal of Myst's atmosphere: "The game is remarkable for its sense of control and mood; it is internally consistent in a subtle and layered way. There are interlocking themes: sound, water, gears, energy. The interface is transparent and minimal; it works like a glove....

Wired.com

In Search of the Long Tail: Crowdsourcing the Book Review Process

Posted: September 24th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Jeff Howe

Tags: [edit]

"Crowdsourcing," author Jeff Howe got an amusing email from an unemployed guy who asked for a free copy of his book. First instincts were overcome and then he got to thinking: isn't that what crowdsourcing is all about? So, while his supplies last, Howe is giving away a book (dead tree or audio) to anyone who agrees to write an online review.

Wired.com

Alt Text: Silliest Cruises for Seafaring Geeks

Posted: September 24th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Lore Sjöberg

Tags: [edit]

I have never been on a cruise ship, but I'm intrigued by the concept. I enjoy travel, but I'm not so sure I enjoy traveling. My favorite travel generally involves sitting around somewhere new and reading, and generally there's an awful lot of fuss and bother required just to be able to sit and read among majestic glaciers or ancient Mayan ruins. So you can see why the cruise ship model compels. It's not so much going places as going to a single place, and then that place goes places. It is travel without movement, a Zen koan with a seafood buffet. Alt Text Podcast Download audio files and subscribe to the Alt Text podcast. However, the activities promoted on cruise line ads -- sunbathing, dancing, paying ridiculous prices for Central American tchotchkes -- belong to the sort of tanned newlyweds I am not. Rather than paying $1,500 to sit in my room reading, I've started to look into more geek-themed cruise packages. I'd be happy to share my data. Chess Cruise I kind of feel bad for not enjoying the chess. I feel like a biker who doesn't like knife fights. (I don't actually like knife fights, either.) However, if you enjoy the chess, and want to be trapped on a moving vessel with dozens of other people who enjoy the chess, and have a bunch of cash to blow on playing a game that's normally free, then the Caribbean Gambit Chess Cruise is for you. The site says that people who are new to chess are welcome as well, but I'm not sure I buy it. I suspect that the first time you refer to the knight as a "horsie," you're going to find yourself on a lifeboat with no flare gun. Videogame Cruise If I were into cruises, but not videogames, I might go on the cruise put together by The National Academy of Video Game Testers and Reviewers. You'd basically get the upper deck to yourself: You could swim and sun yourself all weekend while everyone else was below decks pwning noobs, or possibly noobing pwns. If you are into videogames, however, you might possibly be enticed by this year's inaugural NAViGaTR Cruise, which offers such entertainment sweetmeats as a Video Games Live concert and an appearance by Cloris Leachman. I can't count the times I've been on Xbox Live and heard someone say, "Man, I love this game but ... I just wish Cloris Leachman were here." We all sigh and agree. Also scheduled: an appearance by YouTube's Hardcore Granny, voted 2006's "Internet Celebrity You Least Want to Look for on a Google Image Search." Pirate...

Wired.com

Large Hadron Collider Down Until Spring 2009

Posted: September 23rd, 2008, 9:45pm EDT by Betsy Mason

Tags: [edit]

The Large Hadron Collider will be out of commission until spring due to an electrical problem, ensuing investigations and regular mandatory winter maintenance.

Wired.com

T-Mobile's G1 Android Phone: Neither Open nor Exciting

Posted: September 23rd, 2008, 9:00pm EDT by Priya Ganapati

Tags: [edit]

The widely-anticipated T-Mobile G1, which sports Google's long-awaited Android operating system, made a decidedly disappointing debut Tuesday. The smartphone doesn't have the design sizzle of Apple's iPhone, lacks key features, and isn't as open as expected.

Wired.com

Brits: U.S. Passed a New Law Just to Nail Gary McKinnon

Posted: September 23rd, 2008, 9:00pm EDT by Kevin Poulsen

Tags: [edit]

The mother of the 42-year-old Pentagon hacker claims Congress passed legislation this month to make it easier to convict McKinnon. We can't find that law anywhere. Maybe it's in a secret Army computer with the UFO blueprints.

Wired.com

Photo-Gear Nuts, Start Your Drooling: Germany's Photokina Revs Up

Posted: September 23rd, 2008, 6:00pm EDT by Jock Fistick

Tags: [edit]

: Photo: Jock Fistick/Wired.com COLOGNE, Germany -- Just 18 hours before this year's Photokina opens its doors, the biannual camera extravaganza was looking like a bit of a wreck. But just like photography, behind the scenes at giant expos is rarely pretty. To keep spirits high, new gear announcements and demos are already coming through, including a hands-on with what might be the most revolutionary camera to date, the Canon 5D Mark II. Click through the gallery to see the most promising products as a few brave reps shout over banging hammers and clanging ladders, kicking off the five-day photo geekfest. Left: A carpenter works in the Samsung display area hours before the opening of the Photokina exhibition. : Photo: Jock Fistick/Wired.com Richard Shepherd, of Canon Europe, presents the Canon EOS 5D Mark II to foreign journalists. Its announcement last week set the photo world abuzz due to its extreme low-light sensitivity and ability to output full-HD video at 30 fps. Many photographers are itching to get their hands on it. It will sell for $2,700. : Photo: Jock Fistick/Wired.com The full-frame, 21.1-megapixel EOS 5D Mark II is the first EOS with full high-def video capability. The camera can snap 3.9 frames per second and can capture still images while video is being recorded -- the video recording will be paused when a still image capture is activated and will resume. : Photo: Jock Fistick/Wired.com Panasonic has their new Lumix G1 on hand -- the first implementation of the Micro Four-Thirds system which does away with the mirror and prism of DSLRs in order to achieve a smaller body. This means you can't see directly through the lens and have to depend on the live view on the LCD screen. On the plus side, you get a far more portable body with interchangeable lenses. The Lumix G1 sports a 12-megapixel MOS sensor and is available in blue and red as well as the standard black, and is priced around 900 euro.: Tamron announced a tiny 18mm to 270mm F 3.5 - 6.3 variable aperture zoom lens aimed at the amateur travel photographer who likes to pack light. Tamron claims this lens has the largest focal-length range of any zoom currently in production and that their "Vibration Compensation" technology (aka image stabilization) adds four stops of hand hold-able usability. 18mm to 270mm is certainly an impressive range for a single lens of this size, but we're wary of the sharpness of images one can expect. This could certainly be a boon for...

Wired.com

No Indictment Against Palin Hacker

Posted: September 23rd, 2008, 2:30pm EDT by Kim Zetter

Tags: [edit]

A Grand Jury in Chattanooga, Tennessee, hears testimony from roommates of suspected Sarah Palin hacker David Kernell, but fails to return an indictment on Tuesday.

Wired.com

Video: Solar Sunrise, the Best FBI-Produced Hacker Flick Ever

Posted: September 23rd, 2008, 2:20pm EDT by Kevin Poulsen

Tags: [edit]

With Ehud "The Analyzer" Tenenbaum back in legal hot water, we've dug up the old FBI training video Solar Sunrise: Dawn of a New Threat dramatizing his 1998 hack attacks against the Pentagon. It's not the most exciting movie in history, but it still beats Die Hard 4.

Wired.com

How Google Can Save Android From Certain Failure

Posted: September 23rd, 2008, 2:15pm EDT by Dylan Tweney

Tags: [edit]

T-Mobile's new G1 is the first phone to be based on Google's Android operating system -- but it's not a "Googlephone." If Google really wants to compete with Apple's iPhone, it needs to fix that, and fast.

Wired.com

Chrysler's Shocking Promise: An EV by 2010

Posted: September 23rd, 2008, 1:21pm EDT by Chuck Squatriglia

Tags: [edit]

The company everyone's left for dead rolls out three running prototypes and springs to the front of the pack racing to bring an electric vehicle to market.

Wired.com

Windows 7 to Dump E-Mail, Photo Editing Software

Posted: September 23rd, 2008, 11:10am EDT by Scott Gilbertson

Tags: [edit]

Microsoft is planning to remove e-mail, photo editing, movie making and other secondary software offerings from the upcoming Windows 7. Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Mail, and Windows Movie Maker were all part of Vista, but, in an effort to cut down on development time of future OS updates, Microsoft plans to give them the heave-ho.

Wired.com

Amazon, Google Partner for Mobile Music Store

Posted: September 23rd, 2008, 9:31am EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk

Tags: [edit]

Apple's mobile iTunes store will soon face competition from Amazon's MP3 store on Google's upcoming T-Mobile G1 device. Owners of the device will be able to browse, search, preview and purchase music on the Amazon MP3 store using the phone's cellular connection.

Wired.com

Army Anthropologist's Controversial Culture Clash

Posted: September 23rd, 2008, 8:00am EDT by Noah Shachtman

Tags: [edit]

Seven years ago, Montgomery McFate was an unemployed, directionless academic. Today, she helps lead the Army's controversial program to embed social scientists into combat units. And the guilt is killing her.

Wired.com

Google Dream Phone Makes Its Debut

Posted: September 23rd, 2008, 12:25am EDT by Chris Snyder

Tags: [edit]

The T-Mobile G1 with Google powered by Android was unveiled this morning in New York with a list price of $179 -- undercutting Apple's iPhone -- and confirming many of the rumors that had been floating around about the device over the past few weeks.

Wired.com

Sept. 23, 1846: Neptune Right Where They Said It Would Be

Posted: September 23rd, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Tony Long

Tags: [edit]

1846: German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle, knowing exactly where to look, confirms the existence of an eighth planet in the solar system, Neptune. Galle was not the first astronomer to see Neptune -- Galileo, puzzled by the changing position of what he thought was a fixed star, had sketched the movement in 1613 but never published his findings. Others had seen it, too, but Galle, working at the Berlin Observatory, was the first to observe Neptune while understanding exactly what he was looking at. By the time Galle fixed his gaze upon Neptune, the existence of a planet beyond Uranus was widely predicted and its position had been intensely calculated. In fact, other astronomers were quarreling over who owned the priority of discovery. A Frenchman, Urbain Le Verrier, had worked out a complicated set of mathematical predictions based on anomalies in Uranus' orbit, and those, in fact, were what Galle was using when he spotted Neptune. Le Verrier had also taken care to make his predictions public. Meanwhile, the young British mathematician John Couch Adams, working independently, had reached similar conclusions, but confined himself to sharing the data with colleagues at Cambridge University. The key to their calculations was Uranus. Irregularities had been observed in the planet's orbit, irregularities that suggested possible gravitational interference by another heavenly body. French astronomer Alexis Bouvard first noted this in 1821, when he published observations of Uranus' orbit. By 1846, Le Verrier had not only completed his calculations for an eighth planet, but had determined its mass and orbital path. When his work was met with indifference by the French astronomical fraternity, Verrier sent his data to Galle in Berlin, who -- assisted by his student Heinrich Louis d'Arrest -- discovered Neptune that same night. Galle found Neptune less than 1 degree from the position Le Verrier predicted it would be. Adams was a gracious loser, giving full credit to Le Verrier for the information leading to Galle's discovery. Others in England, however, were less diplomatic, and in addition to some cross-Channel rancor, there was also criticism of those who could have been expected to act as Adams' mentors. A proposal by the suddenly interested Paris Observatory to call the new planet Le Verrier went nowhere, and the name Neptune was eventually selected. Source: Various

Wired.com

Economic Meltdown or Not, Online Video Will Grow

Posted: September 23rd, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Betsy Schiffman

Tags: [edit]

The financial markets are on the verge of implosion and the economy looks like it's going to hell, but online video is still growing at a ridiculous rate. At Streaming Media West, an online video conference that officially kicks off in San Jose, Calif. today, old-media execs, tech geeks, video gurus and advertising honchos from a range of companies will meet up, talk through and work out some of the issues in the space.

Wired.com

First Look: Photoshop Creative Suite 4 Is Faster, More Refined

Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 9:00pm EDT by Scott Gilbertson

Tags: [edit]

Adobe debuted its latest Creative Suite software package Tuesday, complete with an overhauled and updated version of Photoshop, its flagship photo editing application. The new Photoshop Creative Suite 4 gets a substantial performance boost and cutting-edge new image-manipulation features. Also, the interface has been entirely redesigned, making it easier to use.

Wired.com

Review: 'Heroes' Girds for Grim Third Season

Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 7:17pm EDT by Hugh Hart

Tags: [edit]

The sci-fi superheroes are back, and they're still struggling to save the world.

Wired.com

Nikon D90 Takes World Champion DSLR Title Belt

Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 7:11pm EDT by Jackson Lynch

Tags: [edit]

Well, well, well, looks like we have a new contender for "Best DSLR in the History of the Universe For Under 3 Grand." Welcome, Nikon D90: You and your enormous image sensor, video-capture ability and prime-time facial recognition system will find a lovely home atop a pile of lesser DSLRs in the G-Lab.

Wired.com

Hi-Ho Honda! Musical Road Plays Lone Ranger Theme

Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 7:08pm EDT by Keith Barry

Tags: [edit]

America's only melody road is paved over after people complain its version of the William Tell Overture sounds more like a cacophony than a symphony. Maybe "Drive My Car" would have been a better choice.

Wired.com

How to Play Bike Polo

Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 6:45pm EDT by How-To Wiki

Tags: [edit]

That's right, bike polo. Maybe you've seen it in the park. Maybe you've never heard of it before. It's just like the polo played on horses, but on a bike. All you need is a working bicycle, a make-it-yourself mallet, and a plastic ball.

Wired.com

Pininfarina Charging Ahead With Its Electric Car

Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 6:24pm EDT by Chuck Squatriglia

Tags: [edit]

The famed Italian coach builder and its French battery-building partner say we'll see the car next month at the Paris Motor Show.

Wired.com

Gene Therapy Restores Sight

Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 6:06pm EDT by Brandon Keim

Tags: [edit]

Gene therapy restores some sensitivity to light in patients with a rare form of genetic blindness. Scientists hope the approach will work on other forms of blindness.

Wired.com

'True Blood' Reveals Rules of Its Vampire Universe

Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 4:13pm EDT by Jenna Wortham

Tags: [edit]

The new HBO series digs deeper into the cultural and medical mythology of its no-longer-in-hiding bloodsuckers.

Wired.com

Free Game Lets You Run Your Own Obama, McCain Campaigns

Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 3:30pm EDT by Nate Ralph

Tags: [edit]

Political Machine Express puts you in the political pit bull's seat as you manage your chosen candidate's bid for the White House.

Wired.com

SpaceX Tries, Tries Again

Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 2:40pm EDT by Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides

Tags: [edit]

SpaceX could make its fourth attempt to launch a rocket into orbit, just seven months after the third attempt failed when the first stage bumped into the second stage after separation.

Wired.com

JavaScript Events Cheat Sheet

Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 2:20pm EDT by Webmonkey

Tags: [edit]

Your browser knows when the page loads, scrolls, is clicked on, all thanks to JavaScript events. JavaScript events is the magic that makes the web interactive. If you're interested in adding some events to your website, refer to our cheat sheet for a list of some of the most common JavaScript events.

Wired.com

T-Mobile G1, aka First 'Googlephone,' Carries High Expectations

Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 2:16pm EDT by Priya Ganapati

Tags: [edit]

T-Mobile is set to announce the first phone based on Google's Android operating system. The T-Mobile G1, also known as the HTC Dream, may be the first credible challenger to the iPhone's dominance of the smartphone market.

Wired.com

Apple Zaps Another Competing iPhone App

Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 1:00pm EDT by Adam DuVander

Tags: [edit]

Apple has rejected the iPhone application MailWrangler, banning it from the App Store for "duplicating functionality" already in the iPhone's native e-mail client. The developer argues otherwise, stating that his app goes above and beyond Apple's offering. This is the second app this week to be banned for the same half-baked reason.

Wired.com

Searching for Value in Facebook's 'Internet Lite'

Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 11:41am EDT by Scott Loganbill

Tags: [edit]

Facebook is the belle at the social network ball right now, but we're scratching our heads searching for meaning. Why are people flocking to Facebook? Is it a another fad or another example of how social networking sites carries the pulse of internet culture? We look into what Facebook has that the open web doesn't.

Wired.com

SanDisk's New SlotMusic: But Why?

Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 11:30am EDT by Kevin Maney, Portfolio.com

Tags: [edit]

News from Portfolio.com Also on Portfolio Judge: School Can Suspend Over Fake MySpace Profile Reality TV School Getting Reality TV Deal Spotlight on Media's Health Care Coverage Subscribe to Portfolio magazine As the world seems to march toward downloaded or streamed digital music, SanDisk today is unveiling a new physical medium for music. It's called slotMusic, and it's basically an album on a thumbnail-size microSD card. Four of the major music labels -- Warner, Universal, Sony, EMI -- are supporting it with MP3, unprotected music. So you'd go into a Wal-Mart, pay about $10 for the card, and slip it into your cell phone or any other gadget with a card slot. SanDisk says it will be almost as simple to use as putting a CD in a player. The MP3 songs can be moved around or copied anywhere. And you can write to the card, adding more of your own music into whatever storage space is left. I talked to SanDisk executive Dan Schreiber about slotMusic. Unable to imagine the iPod generation wanting anything to do with going to a store to buy music on anything made of atoms, I asked if this is aimed at, like, old people. "Some of it is an age thing," he said. "But it's about instant entertainment. Downloads continue to thrive, but not everybody wants to spend half their day curating playlists." He added that slotMusic "tested well with young guys who liked the gee-whiz factor." Although, I always take those kinds of results with a grain of salt. Young guys can think a lot of things are gee-whiz ... for about five minutes. Whether they'll actually buy it or not is a whole different question. There doesn't seem to be much question about whether SanDisk did this product well. It seems to be inexpensive and easy to use, and the deals with the record labels mean slotMusic will have plenty of content in a DRM-free format, which is what consumers want these days. The slotMusic cards are so small, retailers could carry a solid selection in a small space. If nothing else, it could be a perfect product for a booth in an airport -- where travelers might want new music for a flight but have limited ways to get it onto a device. Even then, we're talking about selling to generations that are less tech savvy -- and, generally speaking, not the biggest music buyers. But maybe slotMusic will find a niche there. "SanDisk is in the business of displacing legacy media with silicon," Schreiber told me, explaining the company's rationale for the product. "We...

Wired.com

To Smell, Perchance to Dream

Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 11:13am EDT by Brandon Keim

Tags: [edit]

Pleasant scents give rise to pleasant dreams, and foul smells turn fantasy to phantasmagoria: so concludes a small, unreplicated and wholly plausible study on odor and dreaming.

Wired.com

Video: Next-Gen Planetarium Tech

Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 10:28am EDT by Betsy Mason

Tags: [edit]

Wired Science goes inside the brand-new Morrison planetarium at the California Academy of Sciences. Digital technology takes the new facility beyond the night sky to the surfaces of other planets and inside the structure of DNA molecules.

Wired.com

Microsoft Does Another $40 Billion Buyback, Raises Dividend

Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 9:08am EDT by Associated Press

Tags: [edit]

Microsoft says it is buying back up to another $40 billion of its shares and announces that it is raising its quarterly dividend to 13 cents from 11 cents.

Wired.com

Islamabad Bomb's Secret Ingredient

Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 9:06am EDT by David Hambling

Tags: [edit]

The terrorist attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan caused massive destruction and loss of life. One of the reasons why: The bomb contained a lethal accelerant, found in some of the world's most powerful munitions.

Wired.com

Coast-to-Coast in 36 Hours Burning BioWillie

Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 7:56am EDT by Keith Barry

Tags: [edit]

Willie Run '08 hits the road with one diesel Volkswagen, two condom catheters and 15 cans of biodiesel.

Wired.com

Robot Hands Get a Grip on the Future

Posted: September 19th, 2008, 9:00pm EDT by Jose Fermoso

Tags: [edit]

: Image courtesy Vintagecomputer

Considered to be the first working robot hand, the Handyman, developed in 1960 by General Electric's Ralph Mosher, was a two-fingered, heavily jointed claw that set up the foundation for later hands.

The design looks rudimentary now, but the five-pivot segment design in each finger was innovative in its attempt to replicate the human hand's flexible joint structure. A human hand is made up of a set of rigid links (bones and muscles) connected at joints. Each joint can have one degree of freedom (hinging or sliding) or two (rotating or cylindrical). We have four degrees of freedom in each finger, giving us enormous flexibility and the ability to make complex motions.

The Handyman's fingers had three degrees of freedom. But it was the attached mechanical forearm that provided most of the wrist action, as mechanical "tendons" pushed and pulled on the fingers. A technician had to manipulate the hand by placing his arm inside the apparatus like a puppet.

The Handyman's capabilities were limited: It could pinch and hold, but had no sensitivity to what it was holding, limiting it to clawing indiscriminately at things.

: Image courtesy University of Rochester

Built to study the reaction times of robot muscles, the Utah/MIT hand, built in the early 1980s, is a tendon-based (forearm) system. Electric signals are sent to the knuckles through a complicated cable setup, where one tendon moves each joint, as opposed to the dueling and matching motors of earlier models.

The tendon system was precise because air cylinders allowed knuckle sensors to monitor the angle of the fingers, as well as the tension in the wrists. In addition, the tendons were strong and made the fingers move much faster than previous versions -- the seven pounds of force exerted at the fingertip was the strongest at the time.

But that power sacrificed control and range of the whole hand. If you wanted to move it with any regularity, you had to set up a complicated plan to move the 288 pulleys.

:

Designed in the early 1990s by Mark Rosheim, the Omni-Hand is dexterous, rugged and hand-powered by an electric gearbox in the palm. It also was the most life-like and reliable hand that NASA made in the '90s. The space agency's researchers even put a glove on it.

Like the human hand, closing and opening the fingers together laterally (as if you're making Spock's 'V' sign, also known as adduction and abduction) was made possible by a ball-and-socket joint design. This design was also used in the wrist, which enabled pitch (at 110 degrees) and yaw motions (at 70 degrees). Also, each knuckle had built-in stops that limited backwards movements, or hyperextension, just like human fingers.

By using the palm's gear box for sensor placement, tendons became unnecessary and led Rosheim to use stronger hinge materials, like double bearings supporting stronger motor shafts, and he placed flexible sensor wires near the fingers. Finally, every finger was the same as any other, so they could be easily replaced one at a time.

: Photo: Courtesy Gabriel Gomez

By 2007, scientists had developed the technology of robot hands to such a degree that they could attach a robot hand to a human forearm. Much of recent research has been split between developing hand dexterity and bridging the connection between flesh and machine.

The robotic hand created by the University of Tokyo's Hiroshi Yokoi is such an arm, and it is tendon-based, similar to the Utah arm. But this time, the tendons don't drive the movements. Instead, the wire currents inside the tendons do the job.

The Zurich/Tokyo hand has 13 degrees of freedom, and each finger is laced with powerful sensors that give it specific joint commands, enabling it, for instance, to simultaneously set a 75-degree angle for one finger and set a specific pressure for another. When the hand was finally attached as a prosthetic device, electromyography signals were used to "interface the robot hand non-invasively" to a male patient. To mimic the tactile feedback of a real hand, scientists sent electrical stimulation through the wires to the test subject's own (organic) sensor and motor system.

: Photo: Glenn Matsumura

The BH8 BarretHand, built in 2007, is a three-fingered programmable "grasper" known for its great flexibility. Two of the multijointed fingers rotate around the palm (at 180 degrees), and switch positions easily, giving the hand two opposable thumbs.

The hand has its own processor and is controlled by a PC through a serial port. It's also completely self-contained and quite durable, which means scientists no longer have to worry about the force of the tendons or the grippiness of the fingers. It also comes with a clutch mechanism that determines the strength of the grasp.

Robotics experts at Stanford are currently using the BH8 for their Stair 2.0 autonomous robot project, fetching everything from wine glasses to toothbrushes through speech-recognition techniques.

: Image courtesy Touchbionics

This $65,000 prosthetic robot hand has supersmall motors and five fully articulated digits powered by a two-input myoelectric signal. Doctors place electrodes on the surface of the hand's "skin," which connects to the electrical signal generated by muscles in the remaining portion of a patient's limb.

The i-Limb enables different grips that had not been available to amputees before, such as the key grip (thumb to index finger), and power, precision and index grips (the "we're #1' grip.")

But its realistic dexterity isn't the only good thing about it. Fingers can be easily swapped out with one another, which makes servicing a little bit easier and less expensive.

: Image courtesy Sensopac

Created by the EU-funded SENSOPAC group in 2005, the "Robo Habilis" is managed by a software program modeled on the human cerebellum. Now we're really getting somewhere.

An advanced software program coordinates sensations and movements picked up by the hand, getting us a bit closer to intelligent, self-aware robot arms. The SENSOPAC is also covered by sensitive skin made out of a thin, flexible carbon-based material whose resistance changes with pressure. This allows hundreds of tiny sensors to be used as the hand's main information conduits, providing more detailed information on a touch or grip than ever before.

In addition, the attached arm has 58 motors (in opposing pairs) that it uses to create a large range of force. The fingers have 38 opposing motors, allowing it to snap its fingers and even pick up an egg without breaking it.

:

Kamen created the Segway, an invention so far ahead of the game that it makes its users look, well, rather dorky. Not so with his robot arm.

Kamen's arm is light-years ahead of the clamping "claws" amputees are used to. It's a fully articulated appendage, with flexible joints and detailed user manipulation called "Gen X - Separate Exo Control." It gives the user the same range of motion (14 degrees of freedom) as a natural arm, and is sensitive enough to pick up a piece of paper, a wineglass or even an olive in a martini.

:

The Anatomically Correct Testbed (ACT) hand is all about the accuracy of the human hand's bone/muscle/nerve structure. Yoky Matsuoka, director of the Neurobotics Lab at the University of Washington, designed the autonomous ACT hand to respond to sensors that mirror the brain's neural commands. To do so, she created neuromusculoskeletal copies of the arm's anatomy, including tendon insertion points, specific bone shapes and weight, and supersmall motors that duplicate muscle contraction behaviors. As a result, it is the most human-looking and -moving arm out there.

Like the Handyman and the Utah/MIT hand, the ACT is based on cable "tendons," but those tendons are arranged and attached in a much more human-like manner, giving it a full range of motion.

There's also an uncommon focus on the palm, which is about as important to the human hand's multifaceted nature as its fingers.

: Image courtesy Elumotion

The Sheffield Hand, built in 2002, focuses on the development of "artificial muscle" and sophisticated joints. Powered by telescopic rods throughout the palm of the hand, fingers are pulled and bent in a rotating motion. But it's the detailed phalanges that make it one the most flexible hands and arms, through simple cylindrical disks that produce realistic abduction and adduction.

The hand includes haptic sensors and its hard plastic muscles mimic the flexibility of real human arms. In the process of testing, the scientists conducted arm-wrestling contests between a human and three different versions of the arm.

The Sheffield was also used by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratories as a early prototype for the Discovery space mission's 50-foot arm.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Yes, this hand looks like it's about ready to start sewing up your undies. But it's actually a very sophisticated Intel project that smartly senses the shape of objects through the magic of electrolocation, used by sharks and other marine animals to detect objects and prey via faint electric fields.

Called the "Shark Hand" or "The Sixth Sense" because of these sonar-like powers of perception, the tips of its fingers emit an "electrical impulse" that detects objects and gives the hand an sense of the shape of objects it is about to grasp.

The hand is part of a larger Intel project on "Pre Touch" technologies, where robots are being laced with internal sensors that are more long-range than the sense of touch, but more short-range than vision.

Check out the video of Wired Science's Alexis Madrigal and Intel researchers playing with the Intel shark hand.

: Image courtesy Shadow Robot

The Shadow Hand has integrated sensors all over its palm and fingers, and can be controlled by different computer systems, which is why several university robotics programs and private contractors are using it. It even has a network option, which means you can torture your coworkers with crazy hand gestures even when you're taking a sick day.

But it is special because it's got more moves than a Moonwalker-era Michael Jackson. Its integrated bank of 40 "Air Muscles" allow it to perform 24 different, large-angle moves, and the fingertips are so sensitive that they can even detect a quarter on the floor. Not only that, but the muscles are soft and acquiescent, which allows it to play with soft and fragile objects.

:

Despite almost 50 years of development, these hands are only the beginning. Like notebook computers and MP3 players before them, robot hands will get tinier and ever more complex.

Intuitive Surgical's EndoWrist Instruments are small surgical tools, with 5 mm- and 8 mm-diameter options. With seven degrees of freedom and 90 degrees of articulation, they are the most precise robotic appendages in the medical world. They are widely used by surgeons because they improve the surgeons' own world-renowned dexterity and allows them to perform minimally invasive surgery through teeny incisions.

A doctor manipulates the hand through fingertip controls from a few feet away from the patient, looking into a micro lens. It's hard to believe, but the Endowrist is also strong, and it can handle a variety of forceps, needle drivers, scalpels and any other things needed to cut up a person carefully and safely.

Comcast Discloses Throttling Practices -- BitTorrent Targeted

Posted: September 19th, 2008, 7:34pm EDT by David Kravets

Tags: [edit]

Comcast finally admits that it targeted peer-to-peer sharing services starting in 2007 to clamp down on bandwidth usage. The company is complying with the Federal Communication Commission's August order to stop the throttling of particular internet programs, but is still challenging its legitimacy in court.

Safari Browser Leads Pack in JavaScript Performance

Posted: September 19th, 2008, 5:45pm EDT by Scott Gilbertson

Tags: [edit]

The new JavaScript engine that will show up in the next version of Apple's Safari browser is screaming fast -- faster than Chrome and Firefox, even -- and bloggers have the stats to prove it. It isn't ready for your desktop yet, but when it is, your Ajax web apps are going to be faster than ever.

Little or No Jail Time Likely for Palin Hacker

Posted: September 19th, 2008, 5:29pm EDT by Kim Zetter

Tags: [edit]

Legal experts say the hacker who breached Sarah Palin's Yahoo e-mail most likely faces a misdemeanor charge and probation.

McCain's Stem Cell Position Contains Scientific Error

Posted: September 19th, 2008, 4:10pm EDT by Brandon Keim

Tags: [edit]

McCain's stated position on federal funding for stem cell research equates an embryo with a fetus, a scientifically incorrect statement. Bioethicists say his reference to "fetal farming" is misleading.

Palin Hacker Group's All-Time Greatest Hits

Posted: September 19th, 2008, 3:00pm EDT by Ryan Singel

Tags: [edit]

The group of online troublemakers that busted into and shared private emails from Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin calls itself Anonymous, but its work in attacking Scientology and causing seizures in epileptics is earning it a name online.

iPhone Developers Go From Rags to Riches

Posted: September 19th, 2008, 2:54pm EDT by Brian X. Chen

Tags: [edit]

Independent software coders are on the road to becoming self-made millionaires through the iPhone App Store, where popular applications are raking in thousands of dollars a day.

Fed Blotter: Citibank Worker Allegedly Plunders Customer Accounts

Posted: September 19th, 2008, 2:48pm EDT by Kevin Poulsen

Tags: [edit]

A spate of federal indictments suggests bank and investment insiders are finding their own solutions to the U.S. financial crisis.

Lamborghini's 'New World' Has Four Seats

Posted: September 19th, 2008, 2:33pm EDT by Chuck Squatriglia

Tags: [edit]

Another day, another teaser photo of the forthcoming car from Sant'Agata. This one reveals more than meets the eye.

How to Pirate Like a Pirate

Posted: September 19th, 2008, 11:40am EDT by How-to Wiki

Tags: [edit]

It's officially Talk Like a Pirate Day, and everyone knows the best way to learn a new language is to totally immerse ones self in the culture. So here's our starter's guide to plundering the internet's high seas for music, movies and games. Got tips for budding pirates? Log in and contribute, matey.

How Companies Pay Artists to Include Brands in Lyrics

Posted: September 19th, 2008, 10:09am EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk

Tags: [edit]

Songs that refer to products and brands have been with us for years. Conscious of the branding value such mentions can bring, some artists have gone so far as to approach companies with offers to include brand and product names in their song lyrics. But a wayward email from Paul Kluger of the Kluger Agency, which performs such product placements, provides a rare glimpse into this secretive market.

Dropping Oil Prices Are Hurting Airlines. Huh?

Posted: September 19th, 2008, 10:00am EDT by Dave Demerjian

Tags: [edit]

Everyone thought oil prices would keep rising, and the airlines bet accordingly. Now they're losing big.

Five Things That Netbooks Need Now

Posted: September 19th, 2008, 9:52am EDT by Charlie Sorrel

Tags: [edit]

The pint-sized mini-notebooks known as "netbooks" have taken the tech world by storm -- but to really hit the big-time, manufacturers need to fix a few things. Here's what netbooks need to really succeed.

Sergey Brin Reveals Risk of Parkinson's on New Personal Blog

Posted: September 19th, 2008, 9:32am EDT by Meghan Keane

Tags: [edit]

Google cofounder Sergey Brin has finally started a personal blog, and he went from describing his title choice to revealing some significant health news: he is at potentially high risk for contracting Parkinson's disease.

Bugatti Building a 264-MPH Super Veyron. Maybe

Posted: September 19th, 2008, 8:52am EDT by Stuart Schwartzapfel

Tags: [edit]

It seems Bugatti wants the title "world's fastest car" back from Shelby Supercars and is building the car to do it. SSC isn't worried.

Stocks Headed for Rally on Word of Rescue Plan

Posted: September 19th, 2008, 8:03am EDT by Associated Press

Tags: [edit]

Wall Street headed for a huge rally Friday after the U.S. government said it is creating a plan to rescue the nation's troubled banks. The plan hasn't been unveiled but two other moves sent futures soaring: a temporary ban on short selling, and the of a Depression-era fund to provide guarantees for U.S. money market mutual funds.

'Bejeweled,' 'World of Warcraft' Combine to Form World's Most Addictive Game

Posted: September 19th, 2008, 12:48am EDT by Earnest Cavalli

Tags: [edit]

A lone modder clones PopCap's famous puzzle game to kill time while hanging out in the MMO. When Bejeweled's maker steps in, the outcome is shockingly pleasant.

iPhone App Shifts Hypermiling Up to iPermiling

Posted: September 19th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Keith Barry

Tags: [edit]

A new iPhone app tells you, in real time, just how inefficient a driver you are and how much gas you're wasting.

Sept. 19, 1982: Can't You Take a Joke? :-)

Posted: September 19th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Tony Long

Tags: [edit]

1982: At precisely 11:44 a.m., Scott Fahlman posts the following electronic message to a computer-science department bulletin board at Carnegie Mellon University:

19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman :-)
From: Scott E Fahlman

I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:

:-)

Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use:

:-(

With that post, Fahlman became the acknowledged originator of the ASCII-based emoticon. From those two simple emoticons (a portmanteau combining the words emotion and icon) have sprung dozens of others that are the joy, or bane, of e-mail, text-message and instant-message correspondence the world over.

Fahlman was not, however, the first person to use typographical symbols to convey emotions. The practice goes back at least to the mid-19th century, when Morse code symbols were occasionally used for the same purpose. Other examples exist as well.

In 1881, the American satirical magazine Puck published what we would now call emoticons, using hand-set type. No less a wordsmith than Ambrose Bierce suggested using what he called a "snigger point" -- __/ -- to convey jocularity or irony.

But the modern emoticon does trace its lineage directly to Fahlman, who says he came up with the idea after reading "lengthy diatribes" from people on the message board who failed to get the joke or the sarcasm in a particular post -- which is probably what "given current trends" refers to in his own, now-famous missive.

To remedy this, Fahlman suggested using :-) and :-( to distinguish between posts that should be taken humorously and those of a more serious nature.

Fahlman's original post was lost for a couple of decades and believed gone for good, until it was retrieved from an old backup tape, thus cementing his claim of priority.

Source: Various

Rugged Hard Drive Serves to Protect Your Digital Booty

Posted: September 19th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Terrence Russell

Tags: [edit]

The sentry safe is a digital treasure chest fit for a modern day pirate. We'd like to see a single scurvy dog harm its precious content with fire, smoke or a trip to Davey Jones's locker. It's not canon-proof, but neither are we. Bring me my grog!

How to Make a Pirate Treasure Map

Posted: September 19th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by How-To Wiki

Tags: [edit]

Celebrate "Talk Like a Pirate Day" by taking the kids on a quest for lost treasure. Here's how to create a truthy pirate's map using paper bags, markers and a few other cheap materials. Building the ship may take a little more work.

Gallery: Emoticons Jump From Web to Real World :-)

Posted: September 19th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Lewis Wallace

Tags: [edit]

: Photo: Gene J. Puskar/AP

With three simple keystrokes, Scott Fahlman brought a smile to the internet.

In a 1982 message board post, Fahlman, a computer scientist at Carnegie-Mellon University, proposed using typographical smiley faces to mark jokes and clear up confusion about writers' intentions. With his simple proposal, the emoticon was born.

Fahlman's smiling shorthand (and its frown-face equivalent) started a wave of internet expression that's spilled over into the real world. The emoticon has been upgraded and animated, loved and hated. Emoticons have graced gadgets, T-shirts and more.

Witness the emoticon's lasting impact, and smile if you can.

Left:

Father of the emoticon Scott Fahlman shows off his happy handiwork. His proposal to use smiley and frowney faces is credited with launching the emoticon in the internet age. Now, Carnegie-Mellon hands out an annual Smiley Award for "innovation in technology assisted person-to-person communication."

:

Emotibles' Emotibuds slip onto classic iPod earbuds, giving Apple's bland white gear a colorful geek upgrade. The company also makes "strangely expressive" emoticon stickers, pins and more. :

Wear a freaky-looking Mask of Emotion and you'll really light up a room. The bubble-shape mask, developed by designers at Hongik University in Korea, uses LEDs to put emoticon expressions on its wearer's "face."

:

An unknown visionary (or maybe a time traveler) used typographical symbols to mimic human expressions in an 1881 edition of Puck magazine. :

Did the person or persons who installed the locks and handle on this door realize the statement they were making? London graphic designer Peter Gibbons spotted the happy hardware on a door in Copenhagen.

:

Old-school methods for inter-vehicular communication -- flipping the bird at the tailgating bastard behind you or mumbling "sorry" to yourself after cutting somebody off -- aren't exactly effective.

Cruise into the 21st century with the Driving LED Emoticon, which lets you express your true feelings in a straightforward fashion. Just mount the LED message sign in your rear window, then use the remote control to transmit one of five messages (smiling face, winking face, "Thanks," "Back Off" and "Sorry") to the driver on your bumper.

:

Feeling a little remote from your loved one? Drop a clue about your current mood with the Web Are You? networked emoticon device from Mauricio Melo Design. Connect the thing to the internet, then ping it via a web page or cellphone. One of the four emoticons will light up to give your significant other a visual representation of your state of mind.

:

Wear your emotion on your lapel (or anywhere else) with one of these colorful emoticon pins. The set includes "Roll Eyes (Sarcastic)," "Mad," "Smilie," "Cool," "Frown," "Wink," "Big Grin" and "Eek."

:

Emoticons aren't just for the internet. With the Emoticon Transforming Stamp, you can ink a piece of paper with a standard smiley in nothing flat. The $6 silicone stamp is flexible -- squish it for variations on the theme.

:

Screw e-mail -- use an actual mailbox to send a message with these emoticon letterpress cards from Lizard Press.

:

Endless mutations on the smiley face, as popularized by AOL Instant Messenger and other services that use animated emoticons, show up all over the place. Smiley World, which registered the '60s-era smiley face as a trademark in 1971, sells customizable T-shirts that will look familiar to anybody who's ever used AIM.

:

One beautiful thing about emoticons: The keystroke expressions can be put to virtually limitless creative uses. These boobtastic potholders by CrochetandCrafts owe a clear debt of gratitude to Fahlman's very first smiley.

From 'Batman' to 'Incognito,' Ed Brubaker Loves the Ultraviolence

Posted: September 18th, 2008, 11:26pm EDT by Scott Thill

Tags: [edit]

The veteran comics writer brings a history with classic superheroes and a passion for vintage noir to his upcoming Marvel series, which tracks a supervillain in the Witness Protection Program.

Campaigns Blow Off Voters During Final Stretch Of Debates

Posted: September 18th, 2008, 9:00pm EDT by Sarah Lai Stirland

Tags: [edit]

The highly anticipated general election debates that kick off between the two presidential candidates next Friday will feature none of the voter-centric innovations pioneered during the primaries. Not one YouTube video, not one instant message.

The Heat Is On for Details of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement

Posted: September 18th, 2008, 8:16pm EDT by David Kravets

Tags: [edit]

Two rights groups sue the United States Trade Representative, in a lawsuit seeking information about the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. The agreement, being hashed out with several nations, is said to bolster intellectual property powers and possibly even allow internet companies to monitor web traffic. But details are shaky, and that's why the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge are seeking them.

Internet Memes Time Line Goes Viral

Posted: September 18th, 2008, 5:24pm EDT by Jenna Wortham

Tags: [edit]

Hundreds of web-culture phenomena populate a Dipity chart that's becoming pretty popular in its own right.

It's a Car. It's a Plane. It's a Hybrid

Posted: September 18th, 2008, 5:15pm EDT by Dave Demerjian

Tags: [edit]

The guy who brought us the SkyCar is back with a gas-electric flying Ferrari.

Volvo Thinks Locusts Can Make Us Safer Drivers

Posted: September 18th, 2008, 5:00pm EDT by Chuck Squatriglia

Tags: [edit]

African locusts never hit each other, even in swarms millions strong. Volvo wants cars to do the same thing.

Rights Group Sues NSA and Cheney for Spying

Posted: September 18th, 2008, 4:50pm EDT by Ryan Singel

Tags: [edit]

The Electronic Frontier Foundation sued the government and top Bush officials over its warrantless wiretapping program Thursday. The suit comes just a day before the government tries using a new and powerful tool to dismiss the group's surprisingly resilient suit against AT&T for helping with the program.

Oracle 1Q Profit Rises 28%, beats Street

Posted: September 18th, 2008, 4:26pm EDT by Associated Press

Tags: [edit]

Oracle says its first-quarter profit improved 28 percent, beating Wall Street's expectations. The business software maker's net income for the quarter ended Aug. 31 rose to $1.08 billion, or 21 cents per share, from $840 million, or 16 cents per share, a year ago.

Video: Little Dragon Runner 'Bot Gets a Grip

Posted: September 13th, 2008, 4:46pm EDT by Noah Shachtman

Tags: [edit]

The Dragon Runner robot was originally developed for the Marines, to be a tiny little spy. Now, the machine has been given an upgrade. And its ready for a bunch of new missions -- including handling roadside bombs.

Video: Chris Barber's 'Petite Fleur' Panopticon

Posted: September 13th, 2008, 12:19pm EDT by Scott Thill

Tags: [edit]

Here's a creepy, fun pre-MTV video full of drunk jazz ants stuck in a farm televised by faceless humans.

NIN Dazzles With Lasers, LEDs and Stealth Screens

Posted: September 13th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Bryan Gardiner

Tags: [edit]

A vast wall of swirling static dances on a giant screen as Trent Reznor and his band launch into their song, "Only." Initially obscured by this sea of visual white noise, the Nine Inch Nails front man intermittently appears to push through the particles of snow with his hands and body, popping in and out of view and opening up random tunnels in the chaos.

"Sometimes, I think I can see right through myself," he sings.

Nine Inch Nails fans are accustomed to such sonic and visual feasts whenever Reznor and company go out on tour. But this time around, NIN has pulled out all the stops, creating a groundbreaking, fully interactive visual display that is as much a part of the show as the band's instruments.

"I'm not really a purist," admits Reznor. "If I'm in the studio working on an album, I try to only please myself. But when it's a tour, it feels a bit more like I have a responsibility to some degree to entertain people."

Reznor and other band members use Lemurs during the "electronic set." The touchscreen devices can be used to control a range of audio and visual aspects of the show on the fly.
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

For the band's current Lights in the Sky tour, Reznor has not only raised the bar for what's possible in an arena tour, but has also produced what could arguably be one of the most technologically ambitious rock productions ever conceived. Unlike most rock shows, the visuals for about 40 percent of the show (including "Only") aren't pre-rendered. There's no staging, no pantomiming by band members: It's all interactive, live and rendered on the fly.

With more than 40 tons of lighting and stage rigging, hundreds of LED lights, a daunting array of professional and custom-built machinery running both archaic and standard commercial VJ software, three different video systems and an array of sensors and cameras, the tour is nothing if not a lavish display of techno wizardry.

According to Reznor, it all started with a relatively simple idea.

"I wanted to see how I could use video as an instrument," he says, "and try to really make the stage feel like it's organic -- like it's part of the overall set."

Judging from initial reactions to the show, the band has done just that.

Reviews have called LiTS everything from a "vision of splendor" to "the pinnacle of video art," and nowhere is Reznor's showmanship and willingness to tinker with new technologies more apparent than in the band's current tour.

NIN programmer and keyboardist Alessandro Cortini stands in back of the giant stealth screen during sound check.
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Transparent Screens

The core of the show is a sophisticated trio of transparent "stealth" screens, which are raised and lowered during the performance.

Using one high-resolution (1024 x 288) Barco D7 screen -- basically, an opaque, computer-controlled screen comprised of a tiny LED system on modular panels -- and two lower-resolution semitransparent screens up front, Reznor and other band members are able to trigger and control various video loops and effects directly from the stage. The musicians can also interact directly with those visuals onscreen during the show, thanks to a sophisticated array of sensors and cameras.

For the most part, those visuals come from Reznor and Rob Sheridan, Reznor's creative partner and the art director for NIN. But the two had considerable help from a few outside parties in putting together the production.

Roy Bennet, a veteran lighting designer who worked with Reznor on the Downward Spiral and Fragile tours, designed and put together the LiTS set according to Trent's initial specs.

It was also Bennet who suggested bringing in the other key part to the show, a company called Moment Factory.

Responsible for the technology driving most of the interactive tech elements, Moment Factory is a boutique Canadian outfit that's worked on a number of Cirque du Soleil shows and has produced other industrial visual installations.

For the interactive portions of the show, all the onscreen video is rendered by Moment Factory's custom rig, a trio of Linux-based devices collectively known as "the brain."

"They build what they call games," Reznor explains. "Each [interactive] song might have two or three settings ... or games. It's basically particle-based animation."

Those particles can interact with any of the various inputs Reznor and the band have selected.

Known simply as "the brain," this rig is Moment Factory's custom-built Linux machine that runs all of the interactive visuals audience members see during the show.
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Interactive Lasers

With the song "Only," for instance, the front, convex screen starts out as solid static. On Reznor's side of the display, a laser above him detects whenever he crosses a vertical plane paralleling the screen. On the floor, a piece of tape and two tiny LED lights let him know exactly where that plane is.

As Reznor intersects that plane with his hand or body, the laser tracks his X and Y coordinates. The "brain" box then tells the particles to spread out to a predetermined dispersal pattern. Reznor says: "Then it follows me around. If I leave the plane, it fills back in. If I push through, it comes back out."

The band uses the same tech for another song later in the show called "Echoplex," from The Slip album.

Like many other NIN songs, it's based around a drum machine beat. After rehearsing live a few times with real drums, Reznor realized it sounded better sounded with a machine.

"We recreated a grid drum sequencer," he says. "[Drummer Josh Freese] is actually touching and turning them on and off. But he's not really touching the screen. He's crossing the same laser on the back screen, which gets calibrated at sound check."

The end effect is so seamless, most people assume the band is simply pantomiming to a pre-rendered video, or has actually somehow installed a gigantic touchscreen sequencer on a backstage wall.

"We went through so much effort to make this stuff interactive and people still think it's all staged," jokes Sheridan.

Reznor pushes through a cloud of static onscreen during the band's performance of "Only."
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Problems With the Hippotizer

As with any production of this magnitude, there are also the inevitable glitches and hiccups. According to Reznor and Sheridan, many of those can be traced back to an archaic Windows machine known as the Hippotizer, as well as an antiquated lightning console that it interacts with called the Grand Ma.

At one point, during the band's recent Red Rocks, Colorado, performance the Hippotizer choked and spit out some text from the machine's video-labeling system. NIN fans immediately began dissecting still shots from a video someone had taken, and a three-page discussion ensued on NIN forums trying to decipher what the secret text meant.

"It was all just that stupid fucking Hippotizer getting the wrong trigger ... something from the lighting desk just misfired," Sheridan says.

But Reznor, who is an unabashed Mac fan, is also playful about having to partially rely on Windows boxes for some of the show's visuals.

"We purposefully put one frame of the Blue Screen of Death in this collage of static that comes up at the end of 'Great Destroyer,' and right away people caught it," he says.

For the next leg of the tour, Sheridan is working to permanently move the entire lighting and visual system over to a Mac rig running ArKaos VJ software.

Moment Factory's world of cameras. During a performance of "Terrible Lie," one camera directly records the stage and then runs that video through a special effect. That video is then re-projected back onto one of the screens, producing a cool real-time ghosting effect of the band members.
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Tying Everything Together

While work on the arena show didn't officially begin until last fall, Reznor says the bones of the tour date back to his 2005 With Teeth tour.

"A trap I realized with NIN was that I could go out and play aggressive music where everyone jumps up and down. But if I wanted to try to bring in some of the other stuff I've been doing -- whether it be electronic or something ambient sounding -- it's tough to take an audience that's been trained to bang their heads to then sit back and think for a minute," he says.

So with the help of Sheridan, Reznor stumbled on the idea of using transparent screens. That system allowed him to augment his wide-ranging portfolio of music with visuals he and Sheridan created. In turn, those visuals helped tie everything together -- or at least kept people from whipping out their cellphones or walking off to grab a beer during the "slow songs."

Reznor appears backstage before the Oakland show.
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Currently, Reznor and the band are on a brief two-week hiatus, before taking the Lights in the Sky tour down to South America and then weaving back up through the States, where they'll finish up the American portion in mid-December.

There are also talks between NIN and director James Cameron to film the show in 3-D ("to at least have proof when U2 rips us off next year that we did it first," Reznor says), and the band also has been in ongoing discussions with HBO for a Year Zero miniseries which would launch in conjunction with a second album and an alternate-reality game.

When asked about his future plans for touring, after the Lights in the Sky wraps up, Reznor says the next series of shows may be a different beast altogether.

"Next time might just be white lights in a club and it's about the music," he says. "Because I'll be broke and that's all I'll have."

Gallery: 10 YouTube Videos Destined for the Big Screen

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 9:00pm EDT by Jenna Wortham

Tags: [edit]

:

YouTube's biggest tear-jerker may soon be wrenching sobs from big-screen viewers.

Sony Pictures has its claws in Christian the Lion, a clip of grainy footage showing a pair of animal lovers reuniting with their adopted cub in Africa. John Rendall and Anthony Bourke, the duo who adopted the cat from a high-end London department store in the late '60s, are currently in negotiations with the studio to option their book detailing the experience.

From the lightsaber role-playing of the Star Wars Kid to the brawl on the savannah in Battle at Krueger, here are some of the viral video hits ripe for release in theaters.

Which short destined-for-the-silver screen did we skip over? Submit your picks in the comments below.

Left: Miss South Carolina 2007

Beauty queen Lauren Upton's bungled response to a question about education during 2007's Miss Teen USA competition drew gasps from the audience -- and more than 30 million views on YouTube. Upton's on-camera gaffe won her instant internet fame and notoriety, but she still managed to nab third runner-up in the contest (and high-profile gigs like a cameo in Weezer's "Pork and Beans" music video and the 2007 MTV's Video Music Awards). Her public embarrassment and rebound are prime for a Hollywood makeover a la Legally Blonde.

DVD Bonus Features: Behind-the-scenes featurette with contest host Mario Lopez on his point-of-view; mumble-along music video of the mangled speech.

:

Charlie Bit My Finger

Chubby-cheeked baby Charlie's penchant for nibbling big brother Harry's finger has captured the hearts -- and eyes -- of more than 50 million YouTubers. It's also led us to wonder if the internet clip could serve as inspiration for a good, old-fashioned horror flick about a baby gone bad -- like Pet Cemetery, Children of the Corn or The Omen.

DVD Bonus Features: Sequel to Charlie Bit My Finger -- Charlie Bit My Finger ... Off.

:

Star Wars Kid

The trials and tribulations of an awkward teenager sound like something out of a Judd Apatow feature, so why not give it the full treatment -- starring the likes of Michael Cera (who already spoofed the video on Arrested Development), Jonah Hill and Seth Rogen?

DVD Bonus Features: Ghyslain speaks.

:

Charlie the Unicorn

Who knew unicorns could be surly? Charlie's psychedelic voyage to Candy Mountain feels all too short at four minutes. Hollywood could turn his subterranean battle with kidney snatchers into a horror flick -- kind of The Descent meets Turistas.

DVD Bonus Features: What really happened in Candy Mountain featurette.

:

Shoes

Foul-mouthed valley girl Kelly and her curmudgeonly family would make a great feature-length film a la Welcome to the Dollhouse. We’d cast funnyfolk Amy Sedaris and Will Ferrell to play the twins.

DVD Bonus Features: Liam Sullivan performs live as Kelly.

:

Brokeback to the Future

Of the slew of parodies and mashups inspired by Ang Lee's 2005 Oscar-winning drama Brokeback Mountain, Brokeback to the Future is the most entertaining. Which is exactly why we propose a feature-length fourth installment of the Back to the Future franchise -- just add a couple scenes featuring Hoverboards, Crispin Glover and a souped-up DeLorean sporting a flux capacitor, and Brokeback to the Future might just give Dark Knight a run for its money.

DVD Bonus Features: Deleted scenes -- including steamy DeLorean make-out sesh where overzealous groping accidentally depresses the gas pedal, sending Marty and Doc into the future to confront the tree of life a la The Fountain.

:

Chocolate Rain

YouTube keyboardist Tay Zonday, nee Adam Nyerere Bahner, wowed audiences in 2007 with a keyboard-fueled baritone rendition of his original song, Chocolate Rain. His dorm room-to-Dr. Pepper endorsement deal is a success story that would make for a compelling tale for the after-school set.

DVD Bonus Features: All the Chocolate Rain covers that have surfaced on the net --- from Chad Vader to Green Day drummer Tre Cool.

:

Battle at Kruger

The nearly nine-minute home video of nature gone wild would be even better in Imax. Think March of the Penguins meets Planet Earth, but with more action and narrated by excitable tourists seeing animals for the first time.

DVD Bonus Features: Whatever Happened to Baby Buffalo? follow-up finds him crashing with friends in Park Slope auditioning for Hepatitis PSAs and lampooning the entertainment business as "so phony."

:

Potter Puppet Pals

No Harry Potter until 2009? No problem. Potterphiles could get their Hogwarts fix with these twisted marionette substitutes tackling a host of subjects, from sensuous potions lectures to wizardy angst. That is, until puberty makes the finger that plays Harry Potter too big to be believable and a success-induced identity crisis leads to some risqué hand modeling.

DVD Bonus Features: Behind the Couch featurette.

:

Evolution of Dance

A bleak look into dancer Judson Laipply's fictionalized early life, called Dancer in the Dark, reveals loss, drug abuse and an early adulthood spent in a desolate Russian work camp, wrongfully accused. As the film's narrative finds Laipply rebuilding his life through his love of dance, leading towards the cathartic performance that would bring joy to almost a billion viewers across the world, the film suddenly cuts to the video for Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up." The first feature length Rick Roll is born and audiences delight in encouraging friends to see it by saying it's "Oscar-worthy."

DVD Bonus Features: Clips of audience reactions in theaters as they are rolled.

Turkish Police Arrest Alleged ATM Hacker-Kidnapper

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 7:46pm EDT by Ryan Singel

Tags: [edit]

Turkish officials nabbed an alleged ATM-hacking kingpin, according to news reports. The hacker, named Cha0, allegedly tortured an informer and said not even the FBI could catch him.

Justice Department Moving to Immunize Snooping Telcos

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 7:00pm EDT by David Kravets

Tags: [edit]

The Justice Department said Friday that by September 19 it would ask a court to immunize the nation's telecommunications companies for their assistance is helping the Bush administration secretly spy on Americans. President Bush signed the immunity legislation July 10 after Congress passed the measure the day before. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is trying to overturn the immunity legislation, saying it is unconstitutional.

Permalink for 'Wired__Top_Stories/2008/09/12/Fourth_Gen_iPod_Nano___8212__We_Want_Our_Square_Form_Factor_Back_'

Fourth-Gen iPod Nano — We Want Our Square Form Factor Back!

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 6:41pm EDT by Joe Brown

Tags: [edit]

Another year, another refresh of the iPod Nano line. Rather than wasting your time with a bunch of re-hash about what's the same about the new nano, we dive right in and just tell you what's new, what's improved and what sucks.

Video Podcast: Happy Penguin Tech

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 6:11pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

Tags: [edit]

In this Wired Science video podcast, we delve into the technology necessary to keep penguins happy at the California Academy of Sciences' new African penguin display.

Virginia Court Strikes Down Anti-Spam Law

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 5:45pm EDT by Associated Press

Tags: [edit]

The Virginia Supreme Court declares the state's anti-spam law unconstitutional Friday and reverses the conviction of a man once considered one of the world's most prolific spammers.

Hurricane Ike Storm Surge Risk Maps

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 5:09pm EDT by Alexis Madrigal

Tags: [edit]

Hurricane Ike is set to hit Galveston, Texas late Friday night. Forecasters fear the flooding from the surge could be devastating. Here, we present worst-case scenario storm surge maps provided to Wired Science by a risk management firm.

Pirate Bay Boycotts Press After Television Ambush

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 3:45pm EDT by Sarah Lai Stirland

Tags: [edit]

The Pirate Bay, the controversial Swedish search engine for file sharing, has stopped talking to the press following a scandal involving autopsy photos of two murdered children that a user legally uploaded to the site.

Bike Accidents Fall as Ridership Rises

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 1:57pm EDT by Dave Demerjian

Tags: [edit]

It sounds paradoxical, but the frequency of crashes between bikes and cars decreases as the number of bikes on the road rises.

Review: Novint Falcon Gaming Controller Takes Aim On Your Mouse

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 1:41pm EDT by Nate Ralph

Tags: [edit]

The Novint Falcon is the biggest jump in gaming interaction since, well, the mouse. This rounded device lets touch, feel and experience 3-D environments within a 2-D videogame. Now with the addition of the pistol-grip attachment, the way we play FPS titles is about to change again.

Zap Those Ugly Tourists From Your Vacation Photos

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 1:40pm EDT by How-To Wiki

Tags: [edit]

Crowds of poorly-dressed, gawking tourists can ruin the ambiance of any exotic locale, but they don't have to ruin that perfect snapshot. Prove you were there and make believe you had the whole place to yourself with our guide. We'll show you how to remove the huddled masses from your vacation snaps using common software tools.

Amazon Nabs Top Ad Exec From Microsoft

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 1:20pm EDT by Meghan Keane

Tags: [edit]

Retail giant Amazon.com hasn’t focused much attention on the online advertising business, but it looks like that may be changing soon. Lisa Utzschneider, who spent the last decade as General Manager of sales for Microsoft’s Digital Advertising Solutions group, is leaving Microsoft Monday to become senior vice president of national ad sales for Amazon.

Delta's Bogus Fees Wiping Out Surfers

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 1:14pm EDT by Dave Demerjian

Tags: [edit]

Surfers, hacked that the airline charges as much as $300 to carry a board, launch an online petition calling on the industry to lay off.

iTunes 8 KOs Vista With 'Blue Screen of Death' Bug

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 11:51am EDT by Scott Gilbertson

Tags: [edit]

Windows Vista users are reporting that Apple's latest iTunes upgrade -- full of essential enhancements for the latest iPods and iPhones -- is causing system crashes and the dreaded BSOD. Apple says it's working on a fix. Vista users, please wait patiently.

A Synthetic Tree Grows at Cornell

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 11:16am EDT by Brandon Keim

Tags: [edit]

Scientists have made the world's first synthetic tree: a palm-sized duplication of the elegant process by which trees drink. Known as transpiration, the mechanism appears to require no biological energy. Scientists theorize that as evaporation occurs on the surface of a tree's leaves, the resulting drop in water pressure propels water from the earth and through their bodies.

MySpace Music Adds User Playlists, Amazon Links

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 10:52am EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk

Tags: [edit]

The first aspects of MySpace Music, a major partnership between News Corp. and the three largest record labels in the world, have been revealed to be a playlist creation tool and 'buy' links to Amazon's MP3 store. Both sound more than a little familiar.

Firefox to Embrace Porn With New 'Private Browsing' Mode

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 10:20am EDT by Scott Gilbertson

Tags: [edit]

Mozilla is jumping on the "private browsing" bandwagon, with developers already working hard to ensure the new feature ships in Firefox 3.1, due to arrive at the end of 2008.

Yahoo Music Hub Aims to Leverage User Prefs Across Services

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 9:29am EDT by Eliot Van Buskirk

Tags: [edit]

Rather than cloister users into its own services, Yahoo Music plans to give them what they want -- even if that means easy access to sites Yahoo once viewed as the competition. Yahoo's motivation isn't entirely altruistic: it plans to track user preferences across these services to create what it hopes will become a calling card music lovers can use to identify their tastes and desires wherever they may roam.

Darpa Wants Clean, Cheap Jet Fuel... From Coal

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 8:36am EDT by Noah Shachtman

Tags: [edit]

The Air Force is flying everything from supersonic fighter jets to hulking cargo planes on a synthetic fuel blend, derived largely from coal. The problem is, that stuff is worse for the environment as the old-school fuel. And it's expensive Enter Darpa,which is kick-staring a new, $4.5 million research effort to figure out how to turn coal into liquid fuel cheaply.

Panasonic Launches First 'Micro Four Thirds' Camera

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 8:24am EDT by Charlie Sorrel

Tags: [edit]

Back in August, Olympus and Panasonic announced a new camera standard called Micro Four Thirds. Today Panasonic has launched the first camera using this standard, and it looks very interesting, if flawed. Micro Four Thirds does away with the SLR mirror, making the camera much smaller. But you can still change lenses, just like an SLR.

Network Location Turns Your Mac into a GPS Box

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 6:21am EDT by Charlie Sorrel

Tags: [edit]

Network Location is a Mac application that has been around for some time. It's main purpose is to change your Mac's settings when you move around: Connect to the server automatically when you get to the office, switch off your email when you get home, lock the keychain at the coffee shop and so on. New in v.3, though, is support for Skyhook, the Wi-Fi triangulation service used by the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Sept. 12, 1958: Kilby Chips In, Integrates Circuit

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Randy Alfred

Tags: [edit]

1958: New hire Jack Kilby shows his Texas Instruments colleagues a little something he's built. A very little something: a working integrated circuit on a piece of semiconductor material. The world will soon change.

Electronics had relied on vacuum tubes for half a century before Bell Labs invented the transistor in 1947. Transistors were tinier, more reliable, longer-lasting, cooler and more energy-efficient. But connecting hundreds or thousands of them in a complex circuit required wire and solder. That cost money, took time and created thousands of ways for the circuit to fail.

Texas Instruments, or TI to insiders, was working on the U.S. Army Signal Corps' Micro-Module program when Kilby joined the firm in 1958. Micro-Modules proposed to make all components the same size, so they could be snapped together to create circuits without wire or solder. Most of the company's employees went on a two-week vacation in July, but Kilby hadn't earned any vacation time yet.

He used his solitude to good effect.

"Further thought led me to the conclusion that semiconductors were all that were really required," Kilby later wrote. "[R]esistors and capacitors [passive devices], in particular, could be made from the same material as the active devices [transistors]. I also realized that, since all of the components could be made of a single material, they could also be made in situ interconnected to form a complete circuit."

Kilby constructed a prototype of the integrated circuit by September. It was a sliver (a chip, you might say) of germanium with wires sticking out, glued to a glass slide about the size of a thumbnail.

The stakes were high for the new guy. Among those assembled for the Sept. 12 demonstration were then-chairman Mark Shepherd and other execs.

Kilby connected his device to an oscilloscope and threw the switch. There on the screen, a continuous sine curve pulsed, and a new era began.

As recounted many times in This Day in Tech and elsewhere, there's often an unheralded precursor or prior claim. In Kilby's case, that would be British radar scientist Geoffrey W.A. Dummer, who presented the concept of a miniaturized, integrated circuit at a 1952 electronics symposium in Washington, D.C. He wanted to put an entire circuit on a piece of silicon just half-an-inch square. But his prototype failed, the Ministry of Defense was unimpressed, and the idea died on the organizational vine.

And as is often the case -- again, oft recounted here -- scientific and technological advances frequently occur with nearly simultaneous independent discovery or invention. In this case that would be Fairchild Semiconductor engineer Robert Noyce, who was working on an integrated circuit using silicon instead of germanium.

Kilby and TI were first to file for a patent for "miniaturized electronic circuits" in February of 1959. Noyce and Fairchild filed their application for a silicon-based integrated circuit six weeks later in April. It was granted in 1961, and TI didn't get its patent until 1964.

Fairchild and TI engaged in a lengthy legal battle before agreeing to cross-license their technologies. Noyce's silicon chip eventually triumphed over Kilby's germanium. Noyce went on to co-found Intel with Gordon Moore.

Kilby went on to share the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics. The Nobel website acknowledges that "Kilby and Noyce are considered to be co-inventors of the integrated circuit." However, Noyce died in 1990, and Nobel rules prohibit granting the prize posthumously. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, germanium to silicon.

Kilby died in 2005 in a world where microchips permeate every aspect of our daily life, from the inner space of our bodies to the outer space of the cosmos, at home, at play and on the job, in our cars, in our ears ... indispensable.

Source: Texas Instruments, Today in Science

Put a Cork in Online Wine

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Liz Gunnison, Portfolio.com

Tags: [edit]

News from Portfolio.com

Also on Portfolio

New iTunes Genius Not So Smart Some of the Time

McCain: Mac? PC? Can't Use Either!

Yahoo Explains Tie-up With Google

Subscribe to Portfolio magazine

Jeff Bezos seems to be running out of retail categories to move Amazon.com into. (What's next? Puppies? Frozen steaks? Escort services?), In its latest expansion, the web's largest retailer will become another place for you to not buy wine from online.

The story of the online wine business and the arcane interstate commerce laws that continue to thwart it is a long and boring one, so we'll try our best to summarize. Eric Asimov of the New York Times offers a more detailed examination here.

About half the states in the country allow interstate wine shipments. A 2005 Supreme Court ruling struck down bans preventing shipments from out-of-state wineries, but wine retailers didn't benefit from the ruling.

Online wine merchants face many hurdles. It's still not possible to ship legally to many states, and for others, it requires investment, such as having a brick-and-mortar etail outlet in that state.

Naturally, Bezos is unfazed. Amazon.com is reportedly working with a non-profit group called Napa Valley Vintners that is helping the 315 wineries it represents learn how to sell wine through Amazon.

Given that Amazon will be doing business directly with vintners, perhaps the online retailer could argue that the sales constitute transactions between customers and wineries (rather than a retailer); that would get them around the state shipping bans.

But reports indicate that Amazon.com plans to ship from only 26 states, so it appears that for now at least Amazon is playing it safe.

But all legal issues aside, even if online wine sellers were able to ship to all 50 states unimpeded, Amazon would still have to face the fact that people just do not seem to want to buy wine online.

Reuters reports that e-commerce accounts for only 7 percent of the $2.8 billion of wine is sold through retail formats in the U.S. -- that amounts to a $196 million opportunity right now, split between a number of players.

And it's not for reasons Amazon.com is well-positioned to fix, like pricing, or selection, or shipping speed. Dedicated online wine sellers like Wine.com and Vinfolio.com are sophisticated operations with good execution, and yet they continue to face the problem of courting customers.

Wine buying isn't like book buying, where you're likely to have a specific product in mind from the start. How often, when you buy wine, do you go in looking for a specific bottle? Can you even name three specific vineyards and vintages that you like?

Most of us have little enough wine literacy that the limited selection and personalized service of a neighborhood wine store is an ideal buying environment. We are not sophisticated enough judges of pricing to turn to a Web retailer for better value, and we're more likely to need a bottle of wine an hour from now than to plan the purchase in advance.

Of course, all of this goes out the window in the case of an experienced wine buyer, who may very well be looking for a specific bottle and will be thrilled to let his or her fingers do the walking to find it -- no carrying heavy cases of wine, no calling around to wine stores, easy price comparisons across sites.

But unfortunately for Amazon.com, and fortunately for the rest of us, wine snobs come in limited quantities.

Peterbilt Fuel Cell Means No Idling When Idle

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Keith Barry

Tags: [edit]

Fuel cells let truckers run the air conditioning, watch TV and keep the lights on in the truck stop without spewing exhaust throughout the night.

How HTML 5 Is Already Changing the Web

Posted: September 12th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Scott Loganbill

Tags: [edit]

It's experimental, full of left-field ideas and it still has a long way to go before it's complete. But the fruits of HTML 5 are starting to show up in the latest browsers, and the emerging standard is already altering the way we interact with the web.

YouTube Bans Videos 'Intended to Incite Violence' or Illegal Activity

Posted: September 11th, 2008, 9:41pm EDT by David Kravets

Tags: [edit]

Google's video sharing site YouTube is drawing the line on videos "'intended to incite violence or encourage dangerous, illegal activities." The changeover came after pressure from Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Independent from Connecticut who complained the site was being used by terrorists to incite terror attacks.

Taking Nature's Pulse With Microphones

Posted: September 11th, 2008, 9:00pm EDT by Brandon Keim

Tags: [edit]

Scientists are using the sounds of nature to help check the health of ecosystems. By analyzing the sounds emanating from natural habitats, they can monitor biodiversity, animal behavior, human environmental impacts and the effects of climate change on nature.

News From Yellow Business Pages » Wired: Top Stories » September 2008

Feeds

Wired: Top Stories (166 unread)

Posted: September 29th, 2008, 3:30pm EDT by Associated Press

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 29th, 2008, 1:35pm EDT by Associated Press

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 29th, 2008, 1:20pm EDT by Betsy Schiffman

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 29th, 2008, 11:10am EDT by Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 29th, 2008, 12:53am EDT by Noah Shachtman

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 29th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Randy Alfred

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 29th, 2008, 12:00am EDT

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 29th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Daniel H. Pink

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 29th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Evan Ratliff

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 28th, 2008, 6:26pm EDT by Aaron Rowe

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 28th, 2008, 5:00pm EDT by Brandon Keim

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 28th, 2008, 4:00pm EDT by Hugh Hart

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 28th, 2008, 3:00pm EDT by Dave Demerjian

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 28th, 2008, 1:00pm EDT by Associated Press

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 28th, 2008, 11:00am EDT by Associated Press

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 28th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Steve Rayner

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 28th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Erik Malinowski

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 28th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Chuck Squatriglia

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 27th, 2008, 12:00pm EDT by katharine gammon

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 27th, 2008, 11:39am EDT by Associated Press

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 27th, 2008, 10:00am EDT by Lewis Wallace

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 27th, 2008, 4:21am EDT by Sarah Lai Stirland

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 27th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Aaron Rowe

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 7:31pm EDT by Leander Kahney

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 5:28pm EDT by Sarah Lai Stirland

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 4:45pm EDT by Scott Loganbill

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 4:36pm EDT by David Kravets

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 3:20pm EDT by Scott Thill

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 2:10pm EDT by Brian X. Chen

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 2:00pm EDT by Ryan Singel

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 1:15pm EDT by Adam DuVander

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 11:13am EDT by Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 9:57am EDT by Scott Thill

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 9:25am EDT by Associated Press

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 9:05am EDT by Chris Snyder

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 7:26am EDT by Charlie Sorrel

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 6:55am EDT by Associated Press

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 6:03am EDT by Keith Barry

Tags: [edit]

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 4:32am EDT by John Scott Lewinski