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Google wants you to take Internet security seriously – so much so that they’ll give you 2 gigabytes of cloud storage to tweak your security settings. The promotion runs through February 17.By clicking here, you can review your Google account’s security settings. This includes your phone number, your back-up email, your security question, places you’ve signed in from (crucial to know in case someone is snooping on your account), your account permissions, and relevant info on two-step verification, where Google texts a special passcode to your phone after you’ve put in your password to confirm that it’s really you signing in....

If you don’t think your message came through the first time, then resend, resend, resend.In Halt and Catch Fire’s fourth episode, Cardiff Electric’s engineers are making steady progress on their new system—to build a truly portable PC weighing less than 15 lbs. They’re doing so well that they break the Doherty threshold by 4 milliseconds. What is the Doherty threshold, you ask? Let project manager Joe explain it to you in the show’s typically pedestrian way:“When engineers measure the speed of a PC, they talk about something called the Doherty threshold of system response time,” he says....

Media Platforms Design TeamLearning Progression1 Land Lesson"Ninety percent of kiteboarding is kite control," Markus Schale, owner of Kiteboarding School of Maui, says. Beach-based lessons allow beginners to practice with special training kites that have short, easy-to-control lines. The key is to keep an eye on the 180-degree arc in the sky that the kite flies in, called the “wind window.“2 Body DraggingBefore strapping on a board, you’ll practice controlling the kite as it drags your body—face-first—through the water....

James Erwin was browsing Reddit on his lunch break when a thread piqued his interest. A user called The_Quiet_Earth had posed the question: “Could I destroy the entire Roman Empire during the reign of Augustus if I traveled back in time with a modern U.S. Marine infantry battalion or MEU?“The question struck a chord with the 37-year-old Erwin, a technical writer from Des Moines, Iowa, who happened to be finishing a book called The Encyclopedia of U....

Media Platforms Design TeamRight jab, left hook, right jab, and then … bam! Knockout.There is nothing more exhilarating for a boxing audience than to see a fighter hit the mat in a knockout. But being on the losing end of a KO punch can damage a lot more than a pugilist’s pride—research suggests that the blows that cause knockouts can be debilitating to a boxer’s short and long-term health. Repeated blows to the brain can cause chronic damage such as personality changes and dementia....

Media Platforms Design TeamAny filmmaker tasked with creating realistic marine predators has to measure up to a larger-than-life specter lurking just beneath the waves: Steven Spielberg’s iconic animatronic shark, Jaws. Walt Conti—whose company Edge Innovations has created robot creatures for Free Willy, Deep Blue Sea and now Shark Night 3D, out Sept. 2—is used to hearing the comparisons. But Spielberg’s 1970s icon can’t compare to the technology behind today’s Hollywood predators....

Media Platforms Design TeamSmart is no stranger to battery-driven transpo– remember their ForTwo Electric Drive?– and their latest stab at electron-driven locomotion helps human-powered two-wheelers live better through electricity while saving muscle effort along the way.The Smart eBike isn’t completely electrically-powered (they call it a “pedelec,” short for pedal electric cycle), but its 423 Wh lithium-ion battery acts like a turbocharger for your legs, making it disarmingly easy to accelerate up hills and across level ground....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe moon disappeared from NASA’s radar screen in January 2010, when the Obama White House canceled the Bush-era Constellation program and its plan to return to the lunar surface by 2020. The space agency today is focused on privatizing cargo and astronaut transport to the International Space Station, then sending explorers to nearby asteroids in the late 2020s. But the moon just won’t go away. Our nearest cosmic companion keeps popping up in discussions of where robots—and humans—should head next in space....

Media Platforms Design TeamEver wonder what it would be like to capture some of the sea’s most mysterious denizens with only three minutes of film and a 1300-pound camera? Find out in this exclusive video from the producers of , the latest movie from IMAX and Warner Bros., due out February 2009. Under the Sea 3D According to the Census of Marine Life, there are an estimated 230,000 known marine species in the world’s oceans—and scientists believe there may be three times as many unknown marine species....

Media Platforms Design TeamSEOUL, South Korea–Here in the U.S., ultrafast “4G” WiMAX mobile networks and their promise of rip-roaring speeds and anywhere accessibility are still the stuff of legend–distant dreams for consumers saddled by the subpar service of most 3G networks. Sure, Clearwire has installed the technology, which combines the speed of Wi-Fi with the accessibility of mobile networks, in test cities such as Baltimore and Atlanta, but few customers have bothered to check out the next-gen networks, and even fewer devices actually support them....

Media Platforms Design TeamNow that Congress has finally gotten its act together, , and temporarily averted economic disaster, the lasting effects of the 16-day federal shutdown are starting to emerge. For many scientific experiments, the damage has already been done.reopened the governmentWhile thousands of furloughed scientists are returning to work today, many will face gaps in their data that will reverberate through research communities for a while. The picture is still emerging, but here’s what we know now about the shutdown’s long-term effects on science....

Transterrestrial.com’s Rand Simberg, a self-confessed recovering aerospace engineer, recently joined The Popular Mechanics Show to analyze Lockheed Martin’s contract for NASA’s new ride to the Moon – and to answer the controversial questions not many are asking: Will it fly? Could it be better? Listen up, then subscribe to PM’s bi-weekly podcast here: Subscribe: Media Platforms Design Team Media Platforms Design TeamRight click and click “Save Link As” to save this podcast to your hard drive....

Media Platforms Design TeamA a large dipole magnet is lowered into the tunnel to complete the basic installation of the more than 1700 magnets that make up the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which measures 27 km in circumference. (Photograph by CERN/AFP/Getty Images)The largest particle accelerator in history will take another step on Wednesday toward living up to its own celebrity. In the ongoing autopsy of the subatomic functions of the universe, the Large Hadron Collider could be the best hope yet to transform theoretical reality, such as dark matter and extra dimensions, into observable fact....

Maybe it’s not such a good idea to make everything in our houses connected—at least if this funny ad is right.Dutch insurance company Centraal Beheer produced this commercial about the “house of the future,” in which the internet of things is actually a boon to plain ol’ larceny. Two bumbling robbers find a home of the future ripe for the picking, with the new connected objects to pilfer appearing right before their eyes....

Media Platforms Design TeamThere isn’t a more basic power tool than the grinder. Take a barrel handle, a spinning arbor, wrap it in a wheel guard, add a removable side handle, and the tool is complete. Yet for all of its simplicity, it’s very versatile. Grinders are best known for metalworking, but material-specific grinding wheels work on both wood and stone, making the machine an all-purpose abrasive platform. A few 4-1/2-inch models have recently appeared on the market with a fresh take on the traditional body design....

Media Platforms Design TeamTidal marshes in Louisiana are some of the most delicate ecosystems in the Gulf of Mexico, where offshore oil continues to wash ashore. To protect cord grasses, shrimp larvae and terrapin turtles, local government officials are promoting a number of short-term infrastructure projects, including a $360 million proposal to build sand berms along 125 feet of barrier islands surrounding the Mississippi Delta, a controversial engineering feat.Louisiana received approval to build multiple 6-foot-high, 300-foot-wide berms along 45 miles of the coastline, but when contractors began dredging for sand, federal officials stopped the project, saying that they were getting the material from sensitive areas....

The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) just offered its annual outlook for the future of nuclear power, and it’s optimistic–partly of necessity. Today’s 104 nuclear power plants generate about 20 percent of electricity in the United States. Due to rising energy demand and aging infrastructure, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission predicts that industry will need to build 50 new reactors to continue producing the same proportion of the country’s power over the next 30 years....

Media Platforms Design TeamHarley-Davidson won’t quite be the same after today’s announcement: Willie G. Davidson, the grandson of H-D founder William A. Davidson, is set to retire after a 49-year tenure which most recently titled him as “Styling Chief.“Davidson was responsible for the look of all Harley-Davidson motorcycles, including watermarks like the Low Rider, Heritage Softail Classic, Fat Boy, V-Rod and Street Glide. He’s been around during both flush and tough times, and was one of 13 executives who bought back the company from AMF in 1981....

Elevated cable car transit—something that’s more common to mountain towns than big cities—could be coming to California. A new plan for sky cars was revealed in San Diego last week, and it could radically change the way citizens and tourists view the city. The plan involves a two-mile stretch of cars starting at San Diego Bay and stretching to Balboa Park, an outdoor hub for the city. Announced at a meeting of the San Diego Association of Governments, the Skyway will eventually be able to haul up to 5,000 passengers per hour along the four stops on the way....

Media Platforms Design TeamHumans possess a degree of infrared vision, scientists say, and may be able to perceive infrared rays as visible light. That’s according to a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Prior research had hinted that human vision might not be completely limited to the “visible” portion of the infrared spectrum, but these limited studies did not explain how infrared vision might work.Scientists led by Krzysztof Palczewski at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland had noticed during other experiments that they themselves could perceive infrared laser beams as a pale greenish light, prompting them to learn more about human infrared vision....