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Media Platforms Design TeamIt’s now less than two months until the Mars Science Lab, better known as MSL or Curiosity, is due to touch down on the Red Planet. At a teleconference yesterday, NASA researchers and engineers reported that Curiosity’s journey toward the Red Planet was going smoothly and revealed more details about what Curiosity will do once it touches down.MSL’s predecessors, the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, were intended for missions of just a few months, though they kept roving for years....

Facebook just rolled out 360-degree videos for your newsfeed, and the first poster child is a stunner. The Facebook page for Star Wars just posted righteous, exclusive 360 clip of a speeder cruising across the desert, right by that downed Star Destroyer and it is dope. View full post on FacebookYou can watch this Star Wars vid, and other videos like it, in a couple of ways. At a desktop, you can just drag around with a mouse....

Media Platforms Design Team CHICAGO — Ford trucks are about to get a whole lot more useful, thanks to a suite of four co-branded technologies that put new gear in motion for the DIYer and computer geek alike. Dubbed Ford Work Solutions (FWS), the package to be unveiled here today includes an in-dash computer, an RFID-enabled tool tracker, Web-ready small business management and a hardcore locking system—all set for integration in the new F-Series trucks or E-Series vans....

ConceptThe idea of converting bolt-action rifles into semiautomatic or fully automatic designs is not a unique one. It used to come up fairly regularly–most national armies investigated the concept at one time or another in the past 100 or 150 years. Most of them were experimental (like the Huot conversion of the Ross rifle), and the only one to really achieve significant production was the Pedersen Device, which was a blowback pistol caliber conversion rather than a true rifle caliber conversion....

Last May a report by the Associated Pressrevealed that Google’s self-driving cars had been in four accidents, which spurred the technology giant to come clean and talk about the real grand total of 11 incidents its prototype cars had seen. Now Google’s making a move to stay transparent about accidents going forward, with monthly reports on any new crashes, and a website where you can find them. Since talking about those initial 11 crashes—none of which were the fault of a driverless car—there have been two more....

“Most dryers built in the last 10 to 15 years have a thermostat like thermal fuse,” according to Chris Zeisler, a former appliance technician and senior member of the Repair Guru staff at RepairClinic.com. “The heat-activated fuse prevents a fire in the event that the dryer severely overheats. Opening the dryer door in mid-cycle can trigger a heat spike that blows the fuse interrupting power to the dryer’s motor circuit. Located on the heating element or gas burner housing or the blower housing, the fuse has a one-time lifespan–you’ll need to replace it when it blows....

Screwless covers should work with a standard duplex receptacle or a rocker light switch that has a rectangular face. These plates will not work with duplex outlets that have a round face or with a toggle light switch. I was interested enough in your question to take it for a test run, so I went to a home center, bought several different types of screwless covers and tested them on various outlet receptacles....

When a car-full of dead college students–their bodies mangled by an animal “not indigenous to the area,” according to the local coroner–it’s not long before Walter pinpoints a transgenic animal as the culprit. “It’s an animal creation, an organism made up of the genes of many species,” he explains. “It’s accelerated Darwinism!” Bishop, of course, had worked on such animals during his heyday, but none of his creations had survived. “It’s possible, in theory,” he says....

Media Platforms Design TeamTossing its stodgy traditional design aside, Land Rover gave us a glimpse of what future styling may look like as it prepares for the North American International Auto Show next month. The LRX demonstrates advanced, sharply imaged future looks. The three-door “cross-coupe” LRX incorporates a “floating” 3D-graphic instrument panel that can be personalized by the driver; background lighting to match the selected drive mode; and iPhone and iPod docking....

Media Platforms Design TeamThese indoor farms would reduce the need for costly resupply missions while removing carbon dioxide from the air, thus replenishing the astronauts’ breathing supply, and could produce about 500 pounds of oxygen a year. Gene Giacomelli, a University of Arizona agricultural researcher and the lead investigator of a NASA-funded growth chamber for the moon, envisions a multiarmed, inflatable greenhouse building staffed with robots that do the bulk of the work....

Media Platforms Design TeamTo the tech-obsessed or the well-informed DIYer, MakerBot is a name synonymous with additive manufacturing. Despite the rapid growth of 3D printing, however, it can still seem like a far-out future technology to plenty of Americans. Now, the company hopes to go mainstream with the help of Home Depot, announcing a partnership to sell and demonstrate MakerBot Replicators in 12 select stores in the U.S. This pilot program will be based primarily in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York....

Media Platforms Design TeamCivil space policy has been roiled with uncertainty ever since the 2008 election. When the Obama administration asked for, and received, Bush-administration NASA head Mike Griffin’s resignation in January of 2009, it was clear that there were major changes coming to NASA.The Augustine commission, which met last summer to evaluate the program and provide options for the White House going forward, did nothing to calm the fears of those invested, either emotionally or financially, in Constellation—Griffin’s proposed means of carrying out the Bush Vision for Space Exploration (VSE)....

Media Platforms Design TeamSlickrock isn’t slick. Cranking up an impossibly steep stone rise on our mountain bikes is like riding on 80-Grit sandpaper. But to the early Mormon traders who first came to Moab, Utah, some 150 years ago, riding not knobby-tired bikes but iron-shod horses, the exposed sandstone was like ice. Someone called the surface slickrock, and the name stuck.Who could have guessed that Moab’s signature feature would be the town’s salvation?...

Media Platforms Design TeamAnother year, another dueling release from the Rock Band and Guitar Hero franchises. It has become an annual affair for these two rivaling rhythm games to flood store shelves over the holidays with their plastic-instrument-driven rock simulators. And since Guitar Hero officially jumped onto the full-band bandwagon last year with Guitar Hero: World Tour, the games have been basically indistinguishable, save for the song choices.That all changes now....

The headline from The Onion read: “World’s Supercomputers Release Study Confirming They Are Not Powerful Enough.” The mock article went on to describe how the Earth’s most advanced computers, acting in perfect unison, had concluded that people must provide them with more data storage and processing power—immediately.We expect transparently self-serving arguments from industry lobbyists in Washington, DC. But could a machine really convince us to make it our master?Reporter Bots and RhetoricToday’s computers are not self-aware, so they cannot hold opinions....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe hand-tool market is so competitive that any good idea is bound to breed copycats. Take the new Craftsman Dog Bone ($20) and Black & Decker ReadyWrench ($30) socket wrenches. Both tools feature essentially the same design–a steel shaft topped at both ends by a rotating quiver of eight different sockets. The differences between the two tools are minute: The B&D has cushioned grips and clearer markings, while the Craftsman has a magnet to hold loose nuts....

Media Platforms Design Team(Photo Credit: NASA/SDO)Some binary star systems may be hiding something. Much like the Death Star was no moon, one of the two stars in a semi-detached binary system may be no star at all. Instead, it may be a giant power plant for a highly advanced civilization, syphoning energy off its stellar “companion” to meet the needs of an energy-hungry alien population. This radical concept, envisioned by Free University of Brussels postdoc Clement Vidal, is called a Starivore....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe BMW 1M Coupe is a unicorn among German muscle cars: only 740 of these swollen-fendered beasts were imported to the U.S., which made the diminutive two-door an instant cult favorite with brand loyalists.BMW tuning veteran Steve Dinan knows a thing or two about building desirable Bavarian sleds, which explains why he christened a 1M Coupe as a halo vehicle to show off his hardware and software tweaks....

Media Platforms Design TeamTerrafugia, the Massachusetts-based flying car company, has proved yet again that it’s a master of navigating the complex requirements for selling a street-legal aircraft. The question now is when its creation, the Transition, will actually make it to market.This month, the company was granted four exemptions by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for the Transition, a two-seater aircraft that’s also a four-wheel car. Terrafugia will be allowed to use plastic rather than glass in its windows, for example, and motorcycle tires rather than specialized versions of car tires....

Media Platforms Design TeamWith two diminutive legs locked into a leap-ready position, the tiny jumper bends its body taut like an archer drawing a bow. At the top of its legs, a minuscule pair of gears engage—their strange, shark-fin teeth interlocking cleanly like a zipper. And then, faster than you can blink, think, or see with the naked eye, the entire thing is gone. In 2 milliseconds it has bulleted skyward, accelerating at nearly 400 g’s—a rate more than 20 times what a human body can withstand....