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Media Platforms Design TeamThey All Do ThatMy pickup often makes a loud clanging noise when I’m starting up from a traffic light or a stop sign. Sometimes it’s really loud. Last year I took the vehicle to the dealership and they did something under warranty that made the noise go away–for a while. Now that the warranty is up, the service manager tells me the noise is normal and there isn’t anything he can do about it....

Media Platforms Design TeamChinese automakers are finally making their move on the U.S. auto scene. Geely Automotive in March finalized a deal to buy Swedish automaker Volvo from Ford. And BYD, the fastest growing Chinese automaker, has opened an office in Los Angeles and hopes to deliver its first vehicles to California consumers by the end of 2010.China is often held up as a kind of economic boogeyman to Americans. The country’s cheap labor has decimated the U....

UPDATE, June 25: It’s unanimous. In a 9-0 decision that came down this morning, the Supreme Court ruled that police need a warrant to search your cellphone. Here, the background on the case.Media Platforms Design TeamOriginally published on April 29, 2014.The police don’t need a warrant to look through your wallet for identification when they arrest you, and whatever they find in there—say, addresses of friends—is fair game. They would need a warrant, though, to go through your home computer, which is clearly something different, a place where you probably keep private and personal files....

Media Platforms Design TeamLAS VEGAS—The cameras inside smartphones nowadays are so well-made that it’s hard to justify carrying a separate shooter in your pocket. (You’re essentially lugging around a point-and-shoot anyway, which can satisfy at least your low-end photography whims.) But you probably won’t want to whip out your smartphone or camcorder in extreme weather conditions, or while you’re roughing it in the great outdoors. This is where JVC’s new line of weather-proof Everio camcorders enter the picture....

The Curiosity rover is like a rolling science lab, using its suite of onboard instruments to analyze the samples of martian soil and rock it scoops. But as much as scientists learn from robotic explorers, they could learn much more if they could get their hands on extraterrestrial material.Robert Winglee, the chair of the department of earth and space sciences at the University of Washington, says that sample retrieval missions—those that bring materials from other astronomical bodies back to Earth—have been few and far between, typically because of the enormous cost....

The firestorm* of controversy following two high-profile immolations of Tesla Model Ss has subsided, just in time for the Palo Alto-based electric car manufacturer to announce a preventative cure for the types of battery intrusion events that caused the Tesla sedans to go up in smoke last year.In a post published on Medium.com, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that any Model S manufactured as of March 6 will be clad with a triple underbody shield which includes a hollow aluminum deflector bar, a titanium plate for the front underbody, and a shallow angle, solid aluminum extrusion that allows the vehicle to “ramp up and over the object if it is essentially incompressible and immovable....

Media Platforms Design TeamAs a high-tech hotbed and home to some of California’s gnarliest surf, the Bay Area offers a climate conducive for a camera-maker aimed at adrenaline heads. So , a native of the region and CEO of GoPro, chose San Francisco as the backdrop for unveiling his company’s newest product, the Hero 3, the most recent entry to a growing market where self-filming meets thrill-seeking sports.Nick WoodmanLike its predecessor, the Hero 2, which GoPro released in 2011, the Hero 3 stakes its claim as a “proactive” camera, to borrow Woodman’s phrasing....

Boeing announced today that its Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL)–a C-130 cargo plane fitted with a chemical laser turret–has successfully fired at a ground target. In a test conducted last Thursday at Kirkland Air Force Base in New Mexico, the ATL fired three times at a stationary target board, hitting its mark each time. It was far from a final demonstration. The plane wasn’t airborne at the time, and the target board that it hit–a 3-ft....

Media Platforms Design TeamIn the hours following the reported chemical weapons attack in the suburbs of Damascus last Wednesday, ailing men, women, and children flocked to the city’s hospitals. Doctors in the Syrian capital treated thousands of patients who were experiencing neurotoxic symptoms, including pinpoint pupils, foaming mouths, convulsions, blurry vision, and difficulty breathing. The symptoms point to exposure to sarin gas or another drug agent, . To combat the effects of what might be the world’s worst chemical weapons attack in 25 years, the hospital staff turned to atropine—at least until they ran out of the drug....

Media Platforms Design TeamQ: I’m fixing up my garage. While I’m at it, I’m going to improve my tool storage because I’m tired of tools falling down every time I lift one off the pegboard wall rack. Should I just tear down the old pegboard? I like the way it looks–I just wish it worked better.A: We love pegboard, so we’d never recommend tearing it down if it can be saved....

For the past three years, there’s been only one NASA-owned device in hunting for Earth-like planets. The Kepler mission has allowed scientists to look at 170,000 stars. It has been responsible for changing our outlook about planets and planetary systems throughout the galaxy. At SETIcon II last month, a science and sci-fi gathering in Santa Clara, Calif., Kepler scientists and SETI astronomers said that the search for alien life relies on Kepler’s discoveries, and that citizen science can help keep the increasingly rare industry of planet hunting alive....

Media Platforms Design Team There’s a reason that tractors in the 15- to 17-hp range account for the vast majority of tractor sales. These machines are essentially oversize riding lawnmowers. For homeowners who want a tractor to cut lots of grass, but not necessarily plow snow and till soil, these machines are the way to go. That was the idea behind our recent test in which we put nine tractors through their paces....

Media Platforms Design TeamMeet Long Ma. It’s a fire-breathing dragon-horse that weighs 46 tons and battles with massive spiders, yet somehow is a symbol of peace.A French production company named La Machine brought Long Ma to Beijing’s National Stadium to celebrate 50 years of diplomatic relations between France and China. It was inspired by a Chinese phrase, which translates to “Spirit of the Dragon Horse” and symbolizes vitality.Long Ma did battle with a 50-foot-long spider named La Princesse in front of the stadium, while top French and Chinese officials looked on....

Media Platforms Design TeamIt’s the ultimate national-security nightmare scenario: Enemy intelligence agents get a detailed, behind-the-curtain view of the interceptors meant to stop a ballistic missile attack on the United States. That’s the specter raised by the hush-hush raid Monday morning on the home of while employed by defense contractor Raytheon.a scientist who worked on marquee missile defense programsFBI and Department of Homeland Security agents seized boxes from the Boston-area home of Richard Lloyd, whose title was “manager of the Warhead Lethality Group of the Raytheon Company Electronic Systems Division,” according to an online bio for his 1998 book Conventional Warhead Systems Physics and Engineering Design....

Media Platforms Design TeamAn ordinary Air India 787. Credit: Wikimedia CommonsThe path to redemption isn’t getting any easier for the Boeing 787. First came the Dreamliner’s highly publicized fires and battery woes that grounded the fleet this spring until Boeing came up with a design fix. Earlier this month, Japan Airlines—previous a stalwart Boeing buyer—announced a major order for Airbus A350s, not Boeing 787s. And this weekend, as if to give a physical manifestation to Boeing’s troubles, a piece of a Dreamliner fell from the sky....

There’s something attractive, maybe even reassuring, about sprinklers. They go quietly about their business, watering the lawn and attracting children to run and splash in the spray. Sprinklers are part of the summer landscape. They are also a simple means of keeping your lawn and plants watered. Sprinklers are easily adaptable to changing weather and landscape conditions brought about by wind, changing daylight throughout the watering season and even unexpected things such as the increased sunlight that comes when a tree is removed or pruned....

Reddit has fallen on some hard times lately. The behemoth site has been trying to clean up its act by banning disgusting subreddits devoted to hate and racism, but it only made more bubble up. In just the past few weeks, dozens of subreddits blacked out in a joint protest, a CEO has been harassed out of her job, and thousands of the site’s faithful are looking for somewhere to flee....

Media Platforms Design TeamOn Sale: NowBase Price: $5900The Specs: Forget about the nerdy (and we don’t mean in a cool way) reputation of electric bikes. The new Specialized Turbo is like the Tesla of e-bikes—it sets a new standard for design and performance for an electric two-wheeler. “We looked around at these (electric) bikes with the battery bolted on the back,” says engineer Amber Lucas, “and we said no, that’s not Specialized....

With nearly 3 ft. of exposed chain ripping along at thousands of feet per minute, even a midsize, 16-in. chain saw demands your complete attention. Chain-brake systems that stop the chain in response to blade kickback are now standard on nearly every saw, but Stihl’s MS 280 C-BQ ($470 with chain and 16-in. bar) doesn’t stop there. When you release the rear handle, the chain brakes in less than a second....

On Aug. 6, London-based oilfield operator BP Amoco PLC made history, announcing the partial shutdown of the largest oilfield in North America, due to severe corrosion in a pipeline. It wasn’t the first sign of trouble in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay–another transit line had been taken offline in March, also due to corrosion in the pipeline walls. With gas averaging $3 per gallon, BP was now losing 200,000 barrels a day, or 4 percent of domestic oil production....