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The Mother of All Demos, one of the crucial moments in computer history, is becoming an avant garde opera.The demo took place in 1968, when Doug Engelbart presented the culimination of his team’s research at the Augmentation Research Center before an audience at the Brooks Hall in San Francisco. Over the course of 90 minutes, he presented ideas that would become icons of the computer revolution, including computer mice, word processing, bitmap files, hypertext links, and much more....

Media Platforms Design TeamAccording to a major report just published in the Wall Street Journal, a secret U.S. government program has been spying on Americans’ phones and collecting their data by using fake cell towers—flying fake cell towers, actually.The audacious scheme involves officials from the U.S. Marshals Service flying over America in small Cessa aircraft that carry so-called “dirtboxes” built by Boeing. The devices mimic cell towers and trick a person’s phone into reporting its registration data....

(Published in the July 2002 issue)Check out the most rugged cell phone technologies. Heard on the street, Anywhere, USA, sometime in late 2002:“I need to send an e-mail.““Here, use my phone.““Have you heard the new U2 song?““Yeah, I have it here on my phone.““So who’s this new girl you’ve been seeing?““Check out her picture on my phone.“The next generation of wireless communication networks is rolling out across the United States. What is special about these networks is that their higher bandwidths will allow more data to travel faster over the airwaves....

We’ve had a pretty good idea of how Lexus’ hoverboard works from day one. Now Lexus has dropped a video that explains the science behind their recent hoverboard stunt, and it’s exactly what we expected. But it’s also still really, really rad.The Lexus hoverboard uses a superconductor suspended in a magnetic field to stay afloat. That mist coming out of the side is in fact due to liquid nitrogen having been pumped into the thing to make all of this possible....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe Brooklyn home where Truman Capote wrote recently sold for $12.5 million, making it the most expensive single-family home in the area. The new owner: Dan Houser, co-founder of video-game developer and publisher Rockstar Games. Breakfast at Tiffany’sRockstar is the gaming house behind games such as Red Dead Redemption, a lauded open-world ode to spaghetti westerns, and L.A. Noire, which won a Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award in 2011....

Media Platforms Design Team Although the Amundsen Sea region is only a fraction of the whole West Antarctic Ice Sheet, the region contains enough ice to raise global sea levels by 4 feet. Credit: NASA/GSFC/SVSThe West Antarctic ice sheet is rapidly melting, and researchers say that total collapse may be inevitable. At a press conference earlier today, NASA confirmed that the Thwaites Glacier—a receding hunk of ice that supports the much larger West Antarctic ice sheet—could disappear within the next couple of hundred years....

Plumbing pro Art Slegers creates an indoor dust storm as he cuts through old tile in a client’s Parsippany, N.J., shower. He’s wearing goggles, coveralls, gloves, a dust mask and—no joke—a shower cap. His 4-inch angle grinder reveals the guts of the shower supply, a system that remains a mystery to most homeowners despite daily use. ­Understanding what goes on back there can help a handy DIYer diagnose a leak, dispatch a vexing clog or—as Slegers is doing—upgrade from an old three-handle system to a modern single-handle valve, which can precisely control temperature without sudden drops in pressure....

Media Platforms Design TeamFRANKFURT — Ferrari has finally launched the highly sought-after third model in its F430 V8 sports car family, the F430 Scuderia. The name is Italian for “racing team,” and it’s a fitting one, given that the car was developed and introduced here by seven-time Formula One world champ Michael Schumacher.The Scuderia model is a no-frills, lightweight version of the F430—street legal, of course, but equipped with the minimum of creature comforts and the maximum of go-fast equipment....

Media Platforms Design Team LOS ANGELES — Ninety-five percent of Mini buyers dig the Cooper just the way it is. And why not? Spec out a Cooper S model, and you’ll have plenty of scoot under your right foot, a robust and sporty chassis, and a rather economical car to drive to work everyday. But then, 95 percent isn’t the full monty is it? So what does that last 5 percent want?...

Media Platforms Design Team ASHEVILLE, N.C.—Not long ago, the Ford Taurus was the best-selling car in the U.S. In the early 1990s, the Taurus was sharp-looking, available in a performance SHO (super-high output) model and stood above the other front-drive domestic offerings as one of the best large sedans in the U.S. In the early part of this decade, however, the nameplate began to slide in popularity. And Ford seemed content to produce a simply mediocre Taurus....

With colder weather on the way, make sure that your blinds and curtains are in place. Unfortunately, window treatments are not always easy to hang – especially if you want to attach hardware to the wall rather than the window trim. Regardless of method, mount to a smooth, flat surface. Here are four options.1. Glue A Wood BlockMedia Platforms Design TeamOne trick is to attach a thin pine block to the wall using construction adhesive, and mount the window treatment on top....

Q: My next-door neighbor tells me I should add a quart of automatic transmission fluid to my 2002 Corvette’s gas tank before I put it away for the winter. He says this will keep the gas from gelling. Is this another old wives’ tale?A: I think he’s confusing a couple of good ideas from older times. It used to be common to add a small amount of oil, often marketed as “top oil,” to fuel tanks to provide extra lubrication for the valvetrain....

You don’t have to be on the same track as your opponent in order to race against him. At least not anymore. In on weird and surreal stunt, the folks at Castrol have shown that you can race real-life cars on a track that’s in cyberspace. Why would you do it? There’s no good reason quite yet, but there’s got to be something here, right? The premise is simple. Racers Matt Powers and Ben Collins were put in two real cars on two real “tracks”—basically just some open pavement with a view barriers lined up to form borders....

In the popular imagination, in-flight turbulence is like a scene out of Airplane!, with oxygen masks dangling and mystery meals splattering on the ceiling. But those who have experienced severe turbulence know the reality in the sky is no joke: It can cause serious injuries and even, in rare cases, fatalities. While the plane itself rarely suffers damage, the people aboard aren’t always so fortunate. In just the past month, three incidents sent passengers and crew members to emergency rooms, most recently when a Cathay Pacific Airways jumbo jet hit an air pocket on a flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong, injuring at least nine of the 342 passengers and crew aboard....

Lenovo, the world’s largest PC manufacturer, has been installing a dangerous piece of adware on its consumer laptops. The software, called Superfish, leaves computers vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks in which hackers steal data as its sent from a user’s computer to a supposedly secure server.What is Superfish?Superfish is supposedly meant to give users “better” ads. (Better for advertisers, that is, and more insidious for consumers). It does this is by tracking all web browsing on computers where Superfish is installed and using that data to insert ads on sites you visit....

Few things are as stressful in life than properly coiling up an extension cord. It’s so long! And aggravating! Then again, few things are as aggravating as untangling a badly tangled cord the next time you need to use it.Take a lesson from someone who does it for a living: a roadie who has rolled “thousands of feet of cable every night.” In this video, he explains the “over-under technique,” which you might have heard of but which is hard to master....

I bought my dad a new toolbox for his birthday and swapped him for the metal one that he’s had since I was a kid. I want to restore the old box to its former glory. Any advice? The process is actually pretty simple. Paint won’t stick to a dirty surface, so wipe the box with a clean cloth and mineral spirits, or, if it’s really nasty, something powerful like Castrol Super Clean....

Media Platforms Design TeamStunt pilot Jeff Boerboon barreled across the skies over Bethpage, New York, this past weekend inside the Jack Link’s Beef Jerky Screamin’ Sasquatch, a 1929 biplane outfitted with a Lear Jet engine. But before he did, I joined him in the cockpit of an Extra 300L for a warm-up flight, which absolutely scared the hell out of me. Meet the Screamin’ SasquatchI took off from Farmingdale, New York, a short hop on the Long Island Railroad from our Manhattan office....

Media Platforms Design TeamTo introduce the all-new Jeep Cherokee, which replaces the lackluster Liberty model that was put out to pasture in 2012, Jeep made a statement. After a brief teaser video, a silver Cherokee rolled onto the platform from stage right and began rock crawling across an uneven field of two- and three-foot blocks. The intended message was clear: the Cherokee might have dropped boxy styling and a body-on-frame construction for sleek sheetmetal and a unibody design, but it still holds tight to its roots....

Welcome to PM/AM, Popular Mechanics’ morning briefing on the top science and tech stories for today. Media Platforms Design TeamCan’t keep up with your Facebook feed? There’s happy news for you: Over the next few days, Facebook will be launching a feature called Save that will allow you to save links, places, movies, music, and TV for later. Now users will be able to quickly browse their news feeds and mark items to keep....