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Media Platforms Design TeamPhoto by Jim Wilson/New York Times Co./Getty ImagesChicago will become the home of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, a $700 million museum showcasing the movie collection and memorabilia of George Lucas. San Francisco and Los Angeles put up an epic bidding war for the museum, but Chicago ultimately won out after San Francisco would not make the site Lucas wanted available.After Lucas received over $4 billion from Disney after selling his company, he promised that $700 million would go towards building this museum....

Media Platforms Design TeamOn a recent family summer road trip we found ourselves driving through the mountain town of Cherokee, N.C., which lies just outside the southern main entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (a must-see, if you’ve never been). While driving, I had to make a sharp turn and sudden stop to photograph a tree the likes of which I had never seen—but one I think we’ll be seeing more of in years to come....

January has always been the most important time of the year for digital tech—both the Consumer Electronics Show and MacWorld traditionally happen this month—but some major tides are shifting this year that will affect both shows and may change many established high-tech truths. MacWorld kicks off first today. This show has a long tradition of big splashy product launches (most famously, the iPhone was launched here in 2007), and there is an expected launch tomorrow of an update to the oft-ignored Mac Mini....

THE RADIO-COMMUNICATIONS loudspeaker crackles across the Baja California desert. The caller’s voice–a scratchy, West Texas twang – is laden with a you-will-not-believe-this quality. “BFG 1, this is vehicle three-four-niiine. We’re a couple miles out, and we will be making a pitstop. We’re going to need a welder. Repeat: a welder. BFG 1, do you copy?“Oh yes, 349, BFG 1 copies. And a welder is standing by, as unlikely as that may seem out here in the middle of nowhere, on the wide dirt shoulder of Mexico Federal Highway 3....

You’ve disassembled and reassembled retractable pens dozens of times. Who hasn’t? But do you actually, really know how they work? Yes there’s a spring and then the button also a weird tube thing and another spring sometimes then yes the clicky part or something. It seems dead simple until you actually try to think through it. Engineer Guy Bill Hammack can help you out. In his latest video, he walks through the mechanism of the very first mechanical pen in great detail, and you’ll see how while it’s simple, it’s also clever and complicated....

It’s easy to forget that our hands can do more than just swipe or tap our touchscreens. To remind you that you’re fully capable of handwriting, Google released a new keyboard for Android phones and tablets that converts your scrawl into digital text.The new feature, called Google Handwriting Input, provides a big box in which you can write to your heart’s content. It works with a stylus or your fingers and understands 82 languages, including English, Chinese, and Hindi....

Media Platforms Design Team"You are equipped with a medical kit, a few grenades, a gun, a knife, your fists, and a computer to analyze your surroundings, and you must make your way through the many levels of the top secret military research base, and shut down the ill-fated experiment." This is how the describes the gamer’s task. Oh, and there’s one more thing: You are blind.Shades of Doom websiteShades of Doom is one of many computer games for the blind and visually impaired....

DETROIT — Jaguar plans to make a major change in the design of its future models, starting with the introduction of the 2009 S-Type replacement a little more than a year from now. The evidence of this shift is seen in the styling of the C-XF concept (pictured at right), a four-door, four-seat sedan that leaps two generations forward in its exterior appearance, but still manages to carry hints of the designs of classic Jaguar sedans of the past....

Media Platforms Design Team NEW YORK — That’s right, today Mercedes-Benz is unveiling a redesigned M-Class and three fuel-efficient diesel sport utes to meet the world’s most stringent emissions standards. It’s been nearly four years since the German automaker refreshed the M-Class. Improvements for 2009 include updated front and rear ends, slick interior appointments and a state-of-the-art electronics package. Up front, reshaped headlamps help define the new front lines, while the rear gets integrated reflector strips, as well as taillights with a smoked-glass look....

Crossing OverDodge has gone to the dark side. The company’s bright little Neon is gone, replaced by the serious Caliber, a small, inexpensive crossover with brand-new engines and available awd.It looks nothing like the Neon it replaces. The Caliber is recognizable as a Dodge, thanks to its familiar grille. After that, however, it’s all new, including the four-cylinder drivetrains. The choices include a 148-hp 1.8-liter, 158-hp 2.0-liter or 172-hp 2.4-liter, a manual gearbox or CVT, and front- or all-wheel drive....

Three years after the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia forced NASA to cancel repairs to its most famous astronomical tool, NASA pumped new life into the Hubble Space Telescope today, announcing one last shuttle maintenance visit tentatively scheduled for May 2008.Many scientists feared that the Hubble, which has had its share of difficulties and malfunctions to go along with myriad discoveries, images and details of the universe’s origin throughout its 16 years in orbit, had just a couple more years of functionality left....

Media Platforms Design Team ARLINGTON, Va. — The St. Anthony Falls Bridge is already under the microscope as construction continues at breakneck speed to replace the collapsed I-35W bridge—and it’s already pushing new boundaries in intelligent design. But by turning the lens on itself, America’s smartest bridge could have an even bigger impact. A new high-tech structural health monitoring system equipped with 240 sensors should inform how we monitor other bridges and, eventually, determine how we build them....

Media Platforms Design TeamBetween the butt-numbing transatlantic flights and the extended seat time in test vehicles, international press drives demand Olympic levels of inactivity. So imagine a certain journalist’s delight when he stumbles upon an AMG-branded mountain bike at Mercedes-Benz’s GLA-Class launch in southern Spain, ready to be sampled on nearby dirt trails.Turns out the handmade Rotwild R.X45 AMG Edition1 isn’t quite as grunty as the 355 hp GLA45 AMG crossover, though perhaps my spindly legs were partially to blame for the lack of accelerative oomph– especially since the whole bike weighs a wispy 25 lbs, without pedals....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe world’s largest plane is going to be carrying some different cargo. Stratolaunch, the colossal launch system envisioned by Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen and legendary engineer Burt Rutan, announced that it would no longer parter on the project with Elon Musk and SpaceX.A quick refresher: Stratolaunch is a giant aircraft built from the pieces of two 747s. It would fly into the atmosphere and drop a rocket, which would then ignite in air and zoom off into space....

When last we heard about Red Dragon, SpaceX’s plan to land the Dragon capsule on Mars, the company was saying it wanted to land not one but two spacecraft on our neighboring planet in 2020 or so. Well, a lot can change in two months. SpaceX chief Elon Musk confirmed today that the company is putting the Red Dragon plan on hold. View full post on YoutubeThe project would have involved putting thrusters in the bottom of the Dragon so the capsule could fire them during descent on Mars and touch down gently....

Rewatch the full successful SpaceX Falcon 9 and DSCOVR launch here:View full post on YoutubeThursday, 9 AM ET: Elon Musk late last night tweeted this capture of the Falcon’s water landing:View full post on Twitter9:49PM ET: @Alexdrewchin captured this incredible image:View full post on Twitter7:09PM ET: DSCOVR is successfully deployed and communicating with the ground.View full post on Twitter6:52PM ET: Elon Musk tweeted that the Falcon 9 rocket landed in the ocean within 10 meters of its target....

Fetch and Freight may become the two biggest names in the shipping industry. A California-based engineering company unveiled the robotic duo yesterday in effort to make the packing and shipping in big warehouses more efficient.First there’s Fetch, the smart and tall one. The humanoid bot navigates itself around a warehouse and identifies what package is being ordered. Using its robotic arm, it drops the goods onto Freight, a bin-carrying short robot that glides its way to the shipping department....

We’re not sure whether it’s feasible to print a whole fighter jet at home quite yet, but some Australian researchers have done the next best thing. They 3D printed an entire jet engine. For now, it’s an awesome project. In the future, bringing 3D printing to constructing jet engines could leaves to light, easier-to-craft parts and less waste in the building process. In this proof-of-concept by Monash University, Deakin University, and Amaero Engineering, the team took an older engine like that in the Falcon 20 by Safran and recreated it with a 3D printer, partly with the help of lasers that helped melt and mold the metals in the new engine....

Brain scans of people under the influence of psilocybin, the hallucinogenic ingredient in magic mushrooms, may help to show us how their strange effects work. The new research reveals that the drug causes parts of the brain that are not normally connected to become strongly linked, potentially explaining why psychedelic compounds can help fight depression and cause synaesthesia.Psychedelic drugs have been used for centuries in healing ceremonies and as recently as the 1950s in psychotherapy....

This past summer, the war over hydrogen escalated. After secretary of energy and Nobel laureate Steven Chu publicly railed against the near-term potential of hydrogen energy research—Chu claimed, among other things, that it would take “four miracles” for hydrogen to work—the Department of Energy presented Congress with a 2010 budget excised of transportation-related hydrogen funding. And lo, like a great hand on an even greater keyboard, Congress tapped out a grand “undo,” restoring more than $200 million in slashed funds to some 190 projects around the country....