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Media Platforms Design TeamA South Korean nuclear plant. Credit: Getty ImagesA recent security breach led a South Korean nuclear power plant to discover that a computer worm had been inside its control systems.The Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. Ltd. said it is now beefing up security precautions after the find, discovered during a security audit after a recent attack that saw the theft of personnel records and design schemes. One hacker reportedly threatened on Twitter to shut down three of the plant’s control towers....

LOS ANGELES — Once you go karaoke, it’s hard to go back. Then again, it’s pretty easy to never try karaoke at all. So whether you care or not, Singstar for the PS3, which rates your ability sing along with downloaded songs, is something of a breakthrough in home karaoke. It plays a music video for each single, and displays how on- or off-key you are through every note. You can sing solo, or duke it out with a partner in “duet” mode, with a final bar graph summary of who sang closest to the song in general, as well as who hit the tougher notes....

Editor’s note, March 22, 2022: Children may have more time to play outdoors in the sunshine starting next year. The U.S. Senate approved legislation on March 15 to make Daylight Saving Time (DST) permanent in 2023. The Senate approved the measure, called the Sunshine Protection Act, unanimously. If the House of Representatives passes the bill, and President Joe Biden signs it, then Americans will no longer have to spring their clocks forward in March and fall back in November....

LAS VEGAS — This flying insect from WowWee may look like a robot — like the company’s huge hits Roboreptile and Robosapien — but it’s not. The FlyTech Dragonfly is the world’s first commercial, radio-controlled ornithopter; that’s kind of a mouthful, but basically it flies by flapping instead of using propellers as a main thrust (see video, above). The Dragonfly, winner of a Popular Mechanics Editor’s Choice Award here at CES — though it’s on display at the smaller, more innovative Sands expo — features four wings and a tail rudder, which help it fly at up to 18 mph just by flapping....

Termites Stay for DinnerQ: My house is built on a concrete slab, and I thought this made it impervious to termite damage. Now I’ve found pinholes in the drywall surfaces of the dining room. I suspect that termites are inside the house. What do I do?A: You need to have a pest control contractor conduct a thorough inspection inside and outside the house and determine what should be done. As you have learned, termites can find their way through almost any kind of construction–concrete slabs included....

The center of our galaxy is a harsh, unforgiving place. A supermassive black hole cannibalizes entire stars, ejecting material millions of miles into space. The remaining gas is a thick soup of hydrogen and other elements so opaque that we can hardly see through it. And somewhere in that cloud of hydrogen and cosmic destruction, the supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A, batters around stars to incredible speeds. It’s been hard to measure all of what goes on inside the center, but radio astronomers think they have a solution to peering inside the cosmic maelstrom: they want to listen for something not unlike a stellar sonic boom....

Though it’s a landscaping idea borrowed from aristocratic European landowners centuries ago, the lawn has become as American as fireworks on the Fourth of July. Even in an era of making peace with the environment, this energy- and resource-demanding feature continues to thrive—so much so, that it’s hard to imagine a home without a lawn. Keeping a lawn looking respectable is a challenge. Hostile climates, years of backyard soccer matches, irregular rainfall, invasions of lawn pests—or simply benign neglect—have left many looking ragged....

Media Platforms Design TeamAny ship can be a minesweeper—once. So goes the gallows humor referring to the threat that naval mines pose to ships.But that sardonic phrase underlies a more pressing reality: In recent months, the United States and other countries have grown increasingly concerned about Iran’s ability to mine the Strait of Hormuz, essentially cutting off a critical international waterway. Iran’s leadership has already threatened to shut down the international shipping route, while also crowing about its growing fleet of mini submarines that are difficult to detect and can be used to lay mines....

Media Platforms Design TeamThough at first glance it looks a lot like the Air Force’s high-flying spy drone, the Navy’s new surveillance aircraft doesn’t want to be confused with the Global Hawk.Northrop Grumman today unveiled its MQ-4C Triton, an unmanned aircraft the company has built for the Navy’s Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) program. The new unmanned aircraft, based on Northrop’s Global Hawk, will soon help patrol the oceans along with Navy aircraft such as the P-3 by providing overhead surveillance....

Don’t let the size of micro air vehicles, or MAVs, fool you. Although some measure less than a foot across, these remote-control reconnaissance planes have proven to be deft, powerful tools for soldiers and police operating in the narrow airspace of cities and towns. But diminutive aircraft can’t carry much fuel or many batteries, and their use is often limited by short flight times. With civilian and military officials clamoring for more advanced urban MAVs, defense firms are developing models that can undertake longer surveillance missions....

It’s just like the newspaper ad said: one owner, low mileage, good rubber, with all the paperwork from proper dealership maintenance since it was new. There’s only one problem–the bumper stickers, all 12 of them, the Day-Glo orange pinstriping, and the peeling, amateurishly applied purple window tinting. (Okay, three problems.) You really don’t want the neighbors thinking that you Question Authority or Brake for Hallucinations. But the price is right–if only you weren’t ashamed to drive it home....

This past Tuesday, in the middle of the equatorial Pacific Ocean, a 209-foot Zenit-3SL unmanned rocket sat on a floating platform awaiting launch. On board that rocket was an NSS 8, a 96-transponder satellite that was to be the sixth in satellite operator SES New Skies’ constellation. Sea Launch, the company that owned the platform and was managing the liftoff, was streaming the event as a live Webcast from its mission-control perch several miles away, so that anyone from the general public to interested investors—Boeing included—could watch the proceedings....

Media Platforms Design TeamKensington ShareCentral 5 /// $80 The Promise: This five-port USB lets you share USB devices between two computers without plugging and unplugging each peripheral. “Simply push a button,” says Kensington, “and the ShareCentral automatically makes the swap.” In Practice: The ShareCentral is true to its word: It makes sharing peripherals between two computers virtually seamless. First, connect two machines to the ShareCentral (in our case, a PC desktop and Mac laptop), then plug your peripherals into the dock....

America’s newest, nuclear-tipped cruise missiles will be carried by an airplane already more than 50 years old, if the Air Force’s strategy proceeds as planned. The Air Force has been eager to build a long-range bomber to carry nukes, preferably one that can evade radar while closing in on targets. But that program is languishing—officials have not even decided if the new planes will be piloted, robotic, or optionally manned—and, in the meantime, the B-52 Stratofortress will fill the gap....

Media Platforms Design TeamApple CEO Tim Cook holds the new iPad Air 2 during a special event on October 16, 2014 in Cupertino, California. (Photo Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)The biggest news from Apple’s iPad event today might be something the company barely even mentioned: LTE. Instead of using standard SIM cards in its new iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3, Apple has equipped both with a new “Apple SIM.” Rumored for some time, the new SIM card will allow you to change carriers as often as you like without swapping cards—and without contracts....

As lines in the sand go, this steel structure is designed to be the toughest on earth to cross. The 15-foot-high fence extends west of Nogales into the Arizona desert, undulating and curving as it follows the border with Mexico. South of the fence, hillside houses rise beyond a hundred-yard-wide no man’s land. Some houses contain migrant laborers who will try—perhaps even tonight—to cross this line. A pickup truck makes its way up a gravel cut that zigzags across a hillside on the Mexican side....

The best way to show off your new precision drone positioning software is, of course, an acrobatic time-lapse light show.PRENAV is the company behind the impressive drone light show. The display is impressive, but it’s really just a demo for the company’s system that creates high-resolution 3D models of structures using drones. The basic premise is that PRENAV’s system uses drones, custom software, and a robot on the ground equipped with both a camera and laser rangefinder to help the drone navigate along a predefined path....

Soccer players are known for their speed and agility. That is, until you throw some virtual reality into the mix, making them all kinds of confused.A Norwegian comedy show convinced a group of professional soccer players to strap on VR headsets and play a game while being able to see only the live feed from overhead. It doesn’t matter that the video, which was first posted to Reddit, isn’t in English....

Media Platforms Design TeamInternet service on Amtrak sucks. Amtrak knows this—it even limits streaming and download size. But earlier this month, in a more useful self-aware nod to its sluggish and sometimes nonexistent Wi-Fi, Amtrak announced it would bring, “a true broadband experience” to Northeast Corridor trains—those that run the heavily traveled route between Washington D.C. and Boston. To do that, the company is taking proposals from third parties until the end of July....

To expand upon the many outlets for tornado awareness that began more than 80 years ago when the first mega twister hit, IMAX cinematographer Sean Casey and his team collect vital data from tornadoes for an upcoming film. He takes us behind the tech of his heavily armored storm chaser car – the tornado intercept vehicle (TIV) – that can drive directly into the eye of a storm. Were you working from any plans when you built the TIV?...