I’ve noticed a new search feature on Facebook. How is it different from Google? And since it’s Facebook, are my searches being recorded?In the end, the difference is best explained by where you end up. With Google, you end up on a non-Google website, but with Facebook Graph search, you stay within the social network. That’s because Google steers you to links, whereas Facebook steers you toward digital friends’ interests and posts....
MORE NEW MILITARY TECH* FIRST LOOK: 5 Reasons the Navy’s Scared (and What They’re Doing)The U.S. ballistic missile defense shield has been up and running since 2004, and it’s growing. If an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) were fired at the United States, there would be as many as 24 ground-based interceptors (GBIs) ready to fire at it from Fort Greely in Alaska and Vandenburg Air Force Base in California. One or more of these 60-ft....
Media Platforms Design TeamAn Iranian Safir rocket sits on a launch pad. Iran’s news agencies reported that the country has placed its first home-built satellite Omid in orbit in a move that is set to raise new concerns in the international community. (Photograph by Vahidreza Alai/AFP/Getty Images) When Iran announced a successful launch of a satellite today, leaders in Tehran must have known the furor it would create. The regime announced that on Monday it had used a domestically made Safir-2 rocket to reach orbit....
Every year at Thanksgiving, my family treks to a Christmas tree farm in the North Carolina mountains. We choose a Fraser fir, call in the chainsaw man, and then watch nervously as some hired muscle hoists the tree onto the truck. Depending on the muscle—weathered old mountain man or college kid making a few winter-break bucks—the tree is tied down with either a true trucker’s hitch or a combination of granny and overhand knots I can only describe as a wad....
It’s January, which means time has come for the electronics industry to release all its secrets for the year ahead. That means plenty of announcements at the Consumer Electronics Show beginning Saturday in Las Vegas, and then at Apple’s Macworld the week after that. (We’ll be live at both with video and analysis, so bookmark here and here now.) Last year, Apple upstaged pretty much every other company in the gadget world with the unveiling of the iPhone, and this year, the rumor mill is hot and heavy with speculation about a tablet for the Mac line....
If we ever send humans for an extended stay on Mars, we’re going to need to bring a lot of supplies along. So NASA wants to cut weight any way it can. One of the ways to do that is to use materials that are already on Mars, and a decidedly modern approach to mining materials on Mars would be to 3D-print Mars habitations. Then all the astronauts have to take with them is the 3D printer and the blueprints....
Media Platforms Design TeamView full post on YoutubeBright flashes of light and trails of smoke thought to be meteor fragments slashed through Russian skies early Friday morning. The event, which occured around 9:20 a.m. local time in the Ural mountain city of Chelyabinsk, resulted in a explosion damaging property and injuring hundreds.According to the New York Times emergency officials report no fatalities, but city officials say more than 750 people sought medical care at local hospitals and 31 required hospitilization....
Memorize this: a5d1tmI#9DWSFX/ksbo"RZ"lSNito%b)Bel*B_EiCZ)q-h/ VF"3Gb_CM#TT.Got it? You might want to try because that’s the kind of password you’ll need if you really want your wireless network to be secure.That’s the word from Keith Maynard–who goes by the name Seric–and he should know. Not only is he a longtime computer security guru–when he isn’t riding with the Vampire motorcycle club in Santa Cruz–Seric is one of the original wardrivers, hobbyists who deck out their cars with computers and sensitive antennas and go cruising the streets looking for wireless networks....
The Smithsonian Institute’s first ever Kickstarter was a rousing success, exceeding its goal of $500,000. The money will go to restore Neil Armstrong’s Apollo 11 space suit so the fragile artifact can be displayed at the National Air and Space Museum. Just 10 days after it went online, the Reboot the Suit campaign is already at more than $561,000. The campaign still has 20 days to go, though, and the museum isn’t going to squander the momentum....
Media Platforms Design TeamNow retired from a career engineering, Duc Thang Nguyen has taken on a new hobby: modeling how gears work. Thanks to Autodesk Inventor, he’s been able to “prototype” a staggering number of contraptions on his YouTube page, showing how they move. He’s made a lot of these videos—1,700 of them. There are so many mechanisms that Nguyen has also put together a handy guide to all of his animations....
Media Platforms Design TeamThe images are all too familiar: overtopped levees, homes submerged in floodwaters, rescuers motoring down city streets in fishing boats. This summer, before the muck had even been cleared from neighborhoods in the heart of the Midwest, the question resurfaced: What happened? Three years after Hurricane Katrina, and 15 years after disastrous flooding throughout the Midwest, how could the country allow rising waters to kill at least 24 people and cause billions in damage to structures and crops?...
Media Platforms Design TeamBuying new tires ranks pretty far down on the list of things most people want to do with their time and money, right next to replacing a failed water heater. While you might overspend on your next water heater, at least there will be a flow of warm water to wash the pain away.Not so with tires. A poor choice of replacement rubber will haunt you every driving day for the next three to six years....
LAS VEGAS — We’ve spotted Elvis! His head and shoulders, that is, singing his resurrected heart out at a CES preview event here in Vegas. To follow up their wildly successful Robosapien and Roboraptor, Hong-Kong-based WowWee Ltd. is releasing an animatronic Elvis bust. And in the his likeness and movements, including the trademark pompadour, facial tics and comeback tour-era leather duds, are licensed by Elvis Presley Enterprises. The WowWee Alive Elvis costs $349, belts out 8 actual Elvis songs, tells stories about Elvis’s life, and generally looks and acts like a dislocated chunk of the long-lost King....
At first Amy Prieto didn’t know what she was looking at. The video on the laptop screen showed a pair of hands attaching a battery to an LED, which immediately lit up. This was in March of this year, and Prieto, a chemistry professor at Colorado State University and CEO and cofounder of Prieto Battery, was sitting in an Italian restaurant in northern Colorado. Derek Johnson, the company’s other cofounder, sat beside her....
Media Platforms Design Team401(K) 2013/FlickrAnybody looking for the lowest possible interest rate on a new mortgage might want to look into the hot new product in the mortgage world: The 10-year loan.A recent article at the Miami Herald explains the trend: More banks are leaning toward shorter mortgage terms, which could help homebuyers who can pay off their homes more quickly save beaucoup bucks in interest. All but unheard of a few years ago, 10-year mortgage loans are becoming increasingly popular....
LOS ANGELES — Don’t let the silly name fool you: Piaggio’s MP3 may inspire iPod jokes, but this odd-looking three-wheeler is rapidly building a cult following on American roads. The MP3 is essentially a scooter with two wheels up front for more stability. We were skeptical, but the suspension engineering really works well—and the scooter’s a blast to ride.While testing the $8899 500-cc model on the roads here, we got plenty of head-twisting attention in trendy neighborhoods already overrun with exotics....
Media Platforms Design TeamThanks to a few significant breaches in the embargo dam, Nissan’s highly anticipated supercar, the GTR has been making a splash on the web today. The previous generation Skyline GTRs have been street and track stars around the world. But here, the car’s status was due almost entirely to it’s appearance in video games like Gran Turismo. In either case, the GTR’s performance is legendary. Well, soon we’ll be able to drive a real GTR on real American roads....
Media Platforms Design Team1) Plausible DeniabilityRussia could move troops around in a show of force that reminds Ukraine that they are players in the region. Moving helicopters to the airport in Sevastapol, in Russian-supporting region of the Crimea, is a low-risk but high-profile move. (Ukraine only allowed three Russian helos into its airspace, and 10 have been spotted on camera.) The appearance of well-armed and coordinated “self-defense squads” in the Crimean capital can exert pressure without an overt Russian takeover....
Media Platforms Design TeamNothing could be more appropriate in the motor city: Take a defunct 264-acre municipal airport and turn it into a motorsports mecca. That was the brainstorm that Larry Webster—editor-in-chief of a brother publication of —had in 2012. Road & Track,Popular MechanicsIt was natural for Webster, a race car driver long before he was a magazine editor, to see the opportunity presented by the Coleman A. Young International Airport, which had its last commercial flight in 2000....
A brand new tiltrotor aircraft turned on its engines and twirled its oversized rotors this week. The Bell V-280 Valor is the first new American tiltrotor since the MV-22 Osprey and a candidate to replace the UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter. First flight is scheduled for later this year.The U.S. Military’s Future Vertical Lift (FVL) program seeks to replace the current crop of military helicopters with new designs. Helicopters such as the AH-64 Apache and UH-60 Blackhawk were introduced in the early 1980s, and in the case of the CH-47 Chinook, the1960s....
