Quick update on NASA's amazing plan to lasso an asteroid: they're making progress on the ion propulsion engine they'll need for the mission.
The Valley's biggest companies — and its biggest executives — used to handle their poaching problems with patent lawsuit threats, according to these juicy emails made public by a recent court filing.
Jill and Scott Kelley on privacy and Petraeus, Mark Bittman on Coke's obesity awareness ads, Simon Jenkins on Prince Harry's Afghanistan story, Sarah Chayes on Benghazi and bureaucrats, and Aaron David Miller on Israel's election results.
Discovered: It's not quite an invisibility cloak, but it's a start; men are more likely to commit scientific fraud; multitasking causes more mistakes; Davos looks for "X factors" of the future.
In an attempt to explain the popularity Android phones over Apple's "superior" iPhone, Gizmodo's Sam Biddle comes to the not-so-nuanced conclusion that "Android Is Popular Because It’s Cheap, Not Because It’s Good," an explanation that only explains part of the phenomenon.
Google beat Wall Street expectations with its fourth-quarter revenues of $14.42 billion, but the value of its ads continue to decline, an especially tricky problem with the company's new search competition from Facebook.
Apple will deliver its quarterly earnings report for the end of 2012 on Wednesday, and with it should come the end of all that talk about the iPhone's fade — or so say some analysts who continue to believe in Apple's reigning mobile domination.
When Harvard geneticist George Church sat down for a casual interview with a German magazine, he wasn't trying to send out the message, "Mad Scientist Seeks Lady To Give Birth To Neanderthal Monster."
So a guy spotted Google's founder wearing Google's Project Glass glasses, and the photo went viral. But the not-so-incognito ride still begs the question: What was he doing underground in robot glasses that only work with Internet? Here are some conspiracy theories, and answers.
The movement to kill the password is already underway, with the brains at Google experimenting with new authentication technologies for email, reports Wired's Robert McMillian. But what about beyond our Google lives?
Verizon reported a quarterly loss of $4.23 billion, or $1.48 per share, up from losses of $2.02 billion, or 71 cents per share a year earlier, in part because of losses and damages related to Hurricane Sandy.
Discovered: Some of our DNA is four-stranded, and that's not a good thing; the brain's selfishness center; men who can't smell don't have much sex; hearing loss foreshadows mental decline.
Last we checked in with Kim Dotcom, he was sounding a lot like a Bond villain and promising to "change the world" with his MegaUpload sequel. Take a look around you. Does anything feel different? Is your world changed? Because his new service Mega launched today.
Discovered: Those crustaceans you're eating probably do feel pain after all; sleeping sickness carried by animals; let's look for aliens on moons instead of planets; new tick-transmitted disease.
District cab drivers will be forced to start accepting credit cards soon, according to a new decree from the D.C. Taxicab Commission. But the change won't come in time for Obama's second inauguration.
In his essay all about the evils of Google, Internet curmudgeon and Harper's publisher John R. MacArthur reveals that his googling skills need some improvement.
Samsung will soon release a new phone for its popular Galaxy line-up, and the rumor-mongers can't stop talking about the specs and designs of their dreams — actually, they're starting to sound a lot like the Apple crowd.
Discovered: Even your DNA won't be private anymore; a rock harder than diamonds; the depression gene remains elusive; ancient sea creatures straight out of Dr. Seuss.
Instagram released new numbers Thursday that show there's still devotion, but is there real growth to track since Facebook's $1 billion acquisition last year? Or a real drop-off since Instagram's sell-out move last month?
Facebook may have just released a major search product that many are saying "declares war" on Google, but Google CEO Larry Page doesn't sound all that worried about the new competition. Because who said Facebook and Google couldn't get along?
The Nobel-winning physicist brought an empirical focus to the Department of Energy. But after struggling to solve the formulas behind Beltway politics, the star scientist will reportedly step down.
Yes, there's a tumblr and a hashtag for the invisible-girlfriend photo, and, yes, it's an early candidate for meme of the year. But just because it sounds like "Tebowing" doesn't mean it is.
Responding to criticism that U.S. Attorney of Massachusetts Carmen Ortiz was too harsh in her prosecution of Aaron Swartz, late on Wednesday night, Ortiz issued a statement in which she defended her office's decisions as "appropriate" to the case and the belief his alleged actions merited jail time.
Truth and the Internet are strange bedfellows these days, and it's much easier to lie to a large audience online than in person. Has social media made us more gullible? Or was it always this hard to tell distanced falsehood from human reality?
Medicine is a mysterious thing sometimes. The unmistakeable efficacy of using fecal transplants to cure tough bacterial infections counts as one of those times.
Discovered: Racial separation corresponds with more lung cancer; barnacles have gross sex; social interaction is genetic in ants; Facebook is more memorable than books for many people.
If it looked like the White House was taking a (fancy multimedia) page out of the New York Times's digital playbook with its interactive, "Snow Fall"-style new page on gun violence, well, get used to it — the web is proliferating with smooth, graphic-fueled pages, from long-form journalism and beyond.
If you were disappointed by Graph Search, take heart: Facebook just added a free phone-call option to its Messenger mobile app for U.S. users, a feature that seemed trapped in Canadian testing grounds ... but might just become Skype for the masses.
After complaints from users and consumer advocacy groups, AT&T has announced that anyone with any kind of data plan can use Apple's FaceTime feature over data services with a compatible iPhone.
New numbers indicate that 1.5 million have now downloaded Pokki, just one of the many Start Menu replacements out there. And that may be a lot bigger chunk than Microsoft will let on.
Despite all the laudatory praise for the idea of Facebook's new "third pillar," and despite nine years' worth of user data, early reviews indicate that Graph Search doesn't actually give great answers, and that the social network may have a data problem.
The editor in chief and publisher of MIT Technology Review turns to his iPad after saying good morning to his wife, but the last thing he looks at before going to sleep is a hardcover book.
Discovered: Lighting up might not lead to dumbing down; playing music can put you on a natural high; black carbon is twice as bad as we thought; evidence that obesity is inherited.
From a new set of opt-out options to just how much of your preferences are now searchable — and sellable — here's everything you need to know about protecting yourself from the many advances of the new product Mark Zuckerberg claims is "privacy aware."
Giving proof to the caution of experts who say that no suicide has a simple explanation or single cause, as more details have emerged, the roles of the players in the federal prosecution of Aaron Swartz, and their alleged contributions to his suicide, has become much more complex.
Over on the official Star Wars blog, the Galactic Empire Public Relations team reports members of the Empire are laughing at the "obvious cowardice" the White House displayed by not agreeing to start construction on a Death Star by 2016.
Google Maps has encountered a full-on roadkill scandal, and they're not taking this one, uh, lying down.
Expanding the Facebook experience to what he called its "third pillar," CEO Mark Zuckerberg today announced that the social network was banking big on a friend-optimized new product it calls Graph Search.
Expectations are both extremely low and impossibly high under the "masterful" shroud of secrecy leading up to this afternoon's event, but everyone seems to have a relatively educated guess. Here's a reality check on the three big rumors.
Few people close to him doubt that an overzealous federal prosecution team contributed to Aaron Swartz's suicide last Saturday. And quite tragically, he wasn't the first to find himself in that position.
Discovered: the most depressing day of the year; the problem with dieting after age 75; the truth about chimps; the dingo might not even be Australian.
Well you had to see this coming, sadly: HP has decided to do a little housecleaning at Autonomy, the company it acquired that it claims led to that huge $8.8 billion loss still shaking the tech giant.
The influential tech site watched its editorial integrity spiral out of control Monday, with staffers quitting and editors were left to explain themselves in the wake of explosive new charges over its annual CES awards — a scanda that goes to the top of its corporate umbrella, and could shake the entire ecosystem of online tech journalism.
Apple used to use its secrets to its advantage, letting the rumormongers do all the hyping, but now that the whispers have less gushing things to say, rumors no longer help the company's stock price.
Though mental health experts caution that there is rarely ever one lone reason for suicide, information is emerging about how legal troubles were mounting for Internet activist Aaron Swartz in the weeks before his suicide on Friday.
After the initial emotional outpouring over Aaron Swartz's death, those close to Swartz are heaping the blame on MIT and the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney's office. One of those two will look at what role they may have played in Swartz's death.
Aaron Swartz was one of the earliest members of the Reddit team, helped build the first RSS program, and was by all accounts a genius at a very young age. Swartz committed suicide on January 11. He was 26 years old.
Discovered: Scientists dig up Frodo fossils; autistic people hear music better; babies' brains foretell adult diseases; Deepwater Horizon cleanup could hurt coral all over again.
We have reached Peak "Phablet": This week the term for the popular (and quite awkward) devices was called "horrible," "stupid," and "worst word of the year" (to which we're about two weeks in). Even linguists agree.
For cord-cutters, the television makers at the Consumer Electronics Show gave us a lot of complex sorta-solutions to what is (on paper) and easy-to-solve problem.
At CES there's a fantasy that the makers of the 4K TVs, waterproof camcorders, or even just phone cases glittering on display are going to give it away for free. You can see it in the eyes of the conference-goers as they linger in front of displays, wait to touch something wonderful and new.
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