We All Need to Help NASA Find Killer Asteroids

AP

Welcome to the NASA Grand Challenge, where everyone from government agencies to citizen scientists will compete to figure out the best way to detect and study earth-threatening asteroids.

By Rebecca Greenfield

Mar 6, 2013

Marissa Mayer's Work-from-Home Ban Is Working for Yahoo, and That's That

Amid all the theoretical talk about how Marissa Mayer's work-from-home ban is a terrible policy for America, those actually affected don't sound too upset about anything, really. In fact, it's working rather well as part of a broader cultural shift.

Comments | 6,645 Views

By Rebecca Greenfield

Mar 6, 2013

Microsoft Fined $731 Million by the European Union, but Google May Be the Target

The European Commission has fined Microsoft $731 million for breaking an anti-trust promise, setting a strong precedent for how things can go for Google in its European anti-trust investigation.

Comments | 172 Views

By Rebecca Greenfield

Mar 5, 2013

How to Responsibly, Totally Freak Out Over Winter Storm Saturn

If the problem with winter storm names wasn't obvious when Nemo blanketed the East Coast last month, the latest storm with a name, this week's storm, which has earned the name Saturn, drives the point home.

Comments | 5,227 Views

By Rebecca Greenfield

Mar 5, 2013

New York Times Designs 'Snow Fall' 2.0 (Almost)

After the success of its multi-chapter, multimedia avalanche story, the Times today has given the online splash-page treatment to another graphics- and info-driven story, Dennis Overbye's "Chasing the Higgs Boson."

Comments | 1,552 Views

By Rebecca Greenfield

Mar 5, 2013

The iPhone 5S Arrives This Summer, Maybe

Devoid of any exciting rumored features to gossip about, the rumor-bloggers have latched onto some possible, but totally unsubstantiated release dates for the next iteration of the iPhone.

Comments | 2,998 Views

By Adam Clark Estes

Mar 4, 2013

The TweetDeck App: 2008 - 2013

The family of TweetDeck apps that made it easier to read and compose microblog posts passed away on Monday evening. It was just four years old.

Comments | 2,586 Views

By Rebecca Greenfield

Mar 4, 2013

Samsung's New Phone Will Turn Pages with Your Eyes

A couple of weeks before the release of Samsung's Galaxy S IV, an anonymous employee who has played with the phone divulged to The New York Times that the phone will track your eyes as you read, scrolling through along with your pace, a feature that sounds a little bit nauseating.

Comments | 2,500 Views

By Rebecca Greenfield

Mar 4, 2013

Obama Offers Path to Legalization for Locked Cellphones

In response to the 114,000 signature petition speaking out against the brand new law against unlocking cell phones, the White House said it thinks the law against using a phone on a different carrier is stupid, too, but where do we go from here?

Comments | 2,242 Views

By Rebecca Greenfield

Mar 4, 2013

The Unknowable Truth of Aaron Swartz

In an attempt to explain the inexplicable death of Internet activist Aaron Swartz, some of the country's best journalists, most outspoken activists, and his closest friends have devoted thousands upon thousands of emotional words with few answers to why a young man took his own life nearly two months ago.

Comments | 1,990 Views

By Rebecca Greenfield

Mar 4, 2013

Samsung Takes the Secret-Gadget-Announcement Schtick Too Far

Just when Samsung had earned some respect for its advertising campaigns, the latest Galaxy S IV teaser disappoints by emphasizing secrets over product.

Comments | 1,035 Views

By Adam Clark Estes

Mar 3, 2013

Newborn Baby Cured of HIV, No One's Really Sure How

Medical researchers dropped their microscopes on Sunday when a team of doctors from Mississippi revealed that an infant in their care was born with HIV and cured two years later. Dr. Hannah Gay, who treated the baby, dropped the mic.

Comments | 4,204 Views

By David Wagner

Mar 1, 2013

Today in Research

Video Games Can Help Dyslexic Kids Read Better

Discovered: Video games can help dyslexic kids read; pregnancy increases foot size; around 100 million sharks are killed annually; mammalian sperm swims upstream. 

Comments | 339 Views

By Rebecca Greenfield

Mar 1, 2013

Get Ready for Facebook's Phone-First New News Feed (Now with More Ads!)

Facebook is holding a mysterious event next week to introduce "a new look" for its tired News Feed, and, yes, the speculation has begun. Here's what a revamp might look like.

Comments | 2,414 Views

By Richard Lawson

Mar 1, 2013

You Really Should Be Watching 'Enlightened'

HBO's Enlightened, a metaphysical, half-hour tragicomedy that is in danger of disappearing once its second season, concludes on Sunday night and is, in many ways, the finest and loveliest thing to appear on television in many years. Yes, it's that good.

Comments | 11,185 Views

By Rebecca Greenfield

Mar 1, 2013

What Your Reaction to Female Executives Says About You

With Marissa Mayer's new decree on telecommuting and Sheryl Sandberg's "feminist manifesto," everyone has an opinion about the feminine boss, but on what they're actually doing. Here's how we talk about women in power now.

Comments | 6,759 Views

By Rebecca Greenfield

Mar 1, 2013

Instagram Reveals the Great Goldman Party of 2013

For the first time since 2006, Goldman Sachs hosted one of its famous partners galas, and we know all about the lavish affair thanks to... Instagram, meaning the recession has officially ended and photo sharing apps are legitimate reporting tools.

Comments | 1,462 Views

By Rebecca Greenfield

Mar 1, 2013

Is This the Next CEO of Groupon?

Now that Groupon's "quirky" co-founder and former CEO Andrew Mason has finally left, it sounds like the daily deals company will take the opportunity to appoint someone a little less childish and a little more concerned with the bottom line.

Comments | 690 Views

By Adam Clark Estes

Feb 28, 2013

Google Sent Cash in the FTC's Direction During Its Antitrust Investigation

Nobody's calling it a bribe, but Google donated $25,000 to honor the Federal Trade Commission chairman while the agency was embroiled in an investigation into the company's alleged anti-competitive practices. 

Comments | 1,207 Views

By Rebecca Greenfield

Feb 28, 2013

Groupon Fired Its Self-Destructing CEO, Finally

It looks like those very bad earnings were the final straw for Groupon CEO and co-founder Andrew Mason, who said late Thursday that he had been fired by the tumbling deal site he saw rise, fall, and fall even harder.

Comments | 2,776 Views

By Dashiell Bennett

Feb 28, 2013

The Vatican Just Deleted All of Pope Benedict's Tweets

By now, we're all familiar with the rituals associated with the papacy changing hands — white smoke, the red shoes, free helicopter rides — but the Vatican has discovered a new one for the 21st century.

Comments | 1,678 Views

By Rebecca Greenfield

Feb 28, 2013

Marissa Mayer Doesn't Want to Be Queen of the Feminists

Despite inheriting the title of Woman Who Has It All in Chief, the Yahoo CEO doesn't want to lead the feminist tribe, according to comments she said over a year ago that have resurfaced in light of her recent scandalous order to end work-at-home setups.

Comments | 3,276 Views

By Rebecca Greenfield

Feb 28, 2013

Samsung Hired Judge Who Made Apple Apologize to Samsung, and That's OK

Remember that judge who made Apple rewrite its too-sassy public apology to Samsung? Well, Samsung has turned around and hired him as an expert in its patent battle with Ericsson, which seems totally unethical, but is actually quite legal.

Comments | 345 Views

By Rebecca Greenfield

Feb 28, 2013

This Is Where the Twitter Vortex of 'Wow' Ends

There's a new little Twitter game happening that we will call the Vortex of Wow in which someone tweets "Wow." and then a link to another person tweeting "Wow." with a link to another person tweeting "Wow." and then, well, you get the picture.

Comments | 3,104 Views

By David Wagner

Feb 27, 2013

Today in Research

Doing Less Housework Makes You Put on Weight

Discovered: Doing less chores has increased women's waistlines; watch how these capuchin monkeys crack nuts; using genetics to pinpoint the date of The Iliad; first images of a black hole's spin.

Comments | 995 Views

By Rebecca Greenfield

Feb 27, 2013

Sergey Brin's Masculinity Is Threatened by Smartphones

The Google founder Sergey Brin's remarks about how his smartphone makes him feel emasculated was either an alienating off-color remark or a suggestion that he is turning into a robot.

Comments | 1,170 Views

By Rebecca Greenfield

Feb 27, 2013

The Outlook Is Grim for Groupon as Its Stock Sinks After an Earnings Miss

Groupon's stock is down over 20 percent in after-hours trading after an earnings report that not only missed analyst expectations, reporting $683 million in revenue compared to an expected $640 million, but also posted a dismal forecast for next quarter.

Comments | 492 Views

By Rebecca Greenfield

Feb 27, 2013

Tinder: A Hook-Up App Women Actually Use

Up until now dating apps, not to be confused with online dating websites, have had a male heavy demographic—that is, until Tinder came along.

Comments | 37,859 Views

By J.K. Trotter

Feb 27, 2013

Stat of the Day

A Round Trip to Mars Takes 501 Days, Says Guy Who Wants to Send You There

That's according to the eccentric millionaire and space tourist Dennis Tito, who wants to send a man and a woman to travel around Mars and return to the Earth on a mission announced today that's aiming to take off by 2018.

Comments | 862 Views

By Rebecca Greenfield

Feb 27, 2013

The Known, Unknown, and Unknowable of Twitter's $10 Billion Valuation

In all this Twitter $10 billion valuation talk a lot of theoretical numbers and estimates get thrown out there as fact.

Comments | 489 Views

By J.K. Trotter

Feb 27, 2013

Fake Google Glass eBay Auction Pulled After Bids Soar Past $15,000

On Wednesday morning an eBay auction immediately began raising eyebrows for how much bidders were driving up its price — more than ten times the price tag Google sources confirmed last week — before it vanished from the site a few hours later.

Comments | 11,956 Views

By Rebecca Greenfield

Feb 26, 2013

Chill Out, Marissa Mayer's Work-at-Home Memo Is Not About You

Least compelling of all the arguments against Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's new tyrannical order — outlawing permanent work-from-home arrangements for her employees — come from people who feel like their particular work-life patters are about to be upset . 

Comments | 1,551 Views

By Rebecca Greenfield

Feb 26, 2013

Cablevision's Anti-Bundling Lawsuit Won't Break the Cable Bundle

Don't be confused: Cablevision's anti-trust suit decrying the evils of "anti-consumer" bundling by Viacom, which have pushed cable-bills up oh-so-high, has nothing to do with the frustrations consumers have with cable bundling.

Comments | 862 Views

By Dashiell Bennett

Feb 26, 2013

Pro-Assad Hackers Take Over AFP's Twitter with Syrian Propaganda Photos

After a couple of high-profile corporate hacks last week, a much nastier Twitter sabotage took place today on behalf of supporters of Bashar Al-Assad.

Comments | 2,586 Views

By Rebecca Greenfield

Feb 26, 2013

Coolest Thing About Learning to Code Is Getting a Job

In an attempt to get more schools to offer programming classes, Code.org has released a promotional video filled with celebrities and "celebrities" that basically says: learn code and you too can work in a hip Silicon Valley office.

Comments | 2,586 Views

By Rebecca Greenfield

Feb 26, 2013

You Will Be Warned: ISPs Roll Out Their Anti-Piracy Alert Systems

After some delays, the movie industry's home-brewed system to fight Internet pirates has finally arrived, and depending on their internet service provider, pirates may not have all that much to fear. 

Comments | 2,414 Views

By Adam Clark Estes

Feb 25, 2013

William Shatner Is Naming Celestial Bodies Now

William Shatner's had quite the colorful post-Star Trek career, a career that now includes not only being a spoken word poet but also naming one of Pluto's moons after Spock's home planet, Vulcan.

Comments | 1,379 Views

By David Wagner

Feb 25, 2013

Today in Research

The Mediterranean Diet Is Officially This Good for Your Heart

Discovered: A famous diet can improve heart health by as much as 30 percent; maybe organic tomatoes are better for you after all; signs of an ancient underwater continent; Spider-Man's hypothetical web could stop a hypothetical train, according to physics.

Comments | 2,069 Views

By Connor Simpson

Feb 25, 2013

Facebook's War on Cellphone Bills Takes One Giant Leap for Cheap Calls

If you live in one of the lucky 14 countries selected for a new test, it's now cheaper to use the social network's Messenger app to make a phone call — and it might be spreading.

Comments | 1,207 Views

By Dashiell Bennett

Feb 25, 2013

Is a Bad New York Times Review Worth $100 Million?

So just how bad was that bad was that New York Times review of the Tesla S Sedan? Well, according the company's CEO, about $100 million bad.

Comments | 3,104 Views

By Esther Zuckerman

Feb 25, 2013

Oscar Party Photos of Very Exhausted Celebrities

If you think you're tired after staying up late to watch the endless Academy Awards, just imagine how these people are feeling.

Comments | 9,311 Views

By Connor Simpson

Feb 24, 2013

The Great NASCAR Video Debate

During the aftermath of yesterday's scary NASCAR crash, a video emerged on Youtube taken mere feet away from where one of the car's tires landed in the grandstand. It was an amazing, fan shot video of what happened. And then Youtube and NASCAR pulled it on copyright grounds. 

Comments | 6,651 Views

By David Wagner

Feb 22, 2013

Today in Research

Reading Fiction Can Make You More Empathetic

Discovered: Emotional engagement with fiction boosts real-world empathy; a new MRI video of a fetal brain; Siberia's permafrost is thawing too quickly; a microchip that restores vision.

Comments | 9,121 Views

By Richard Lawson

Feb 22, 2013

'It Was So Insane It Had to Feel Real': The Other Man Behind 'Argo' Speaks

What began as a simple magazine pitch has now taken writer Joshuah Bearman all the way to the Oscars. (Well, he's working on getting a ticket.) Here's the story of the article that inspired Argo.

Comments | 1,941 Views

By Alexander Abad-Santos

Feb 22, 2013

Google Glass Will Be Out Just in Time for a Very Expensive Christmas Present

Christmas has come early for early adopters today. Google has finally given us a release date and price point for their nerdy (and potentially sort of stylish) augmented reality glasses.

Comments | 17,812 Views

By David Wagner

Feb 22, 2013

Michael Arrington Humblebrags About the Government Taking His Boat

Don't you just hate it when the Department of Homeland Security seizes your boat? TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington sure does, blogging about the incident as if it were a totally relatable, normal problem that regular people go through.

Comments | 517 Views

By David Wagner

Feb 21, 2013

Today in Research

American Kids Are Officially Pigging Out a Lot Less

Discovered: A new reason for declining childhood obesity rates; this massive goldfish shouldn't have been swimming in Lake Tahoe; flies give alcohol to their babies; bees sense electric flowers.

Comments | 1,379 Views

By David Wagner

Feb 21, 2013

This Millionaire Space Tourist Is Trying to Beat NASA to Mars

The space races of yesteryear pitted international superpowers against each other. But these days, NASA's main competition in sending a man to Mars comes from a 72-year-old millionaire with a space travel hobby. 

Comments | 1,179 Views

By Rebecca Greenfield

Feb 21, 2013

Consensus: The Google Chromebook Pixel Costs Too Much

The main appeal of the Chrome-powered notebooks to this point has been their super low price, but  Google's brand new touchscreen Chromebook Pixel laptop starts at $1,299, a full $100 more than a 13-inch MacBook Air.

Comments | 345 Views

By Rebecca Greenfield

Feb 21, 2013

Silicon Valley's 'Culture' Is a Cover-up

Despite emotional arguments that the tech world's meritocracy obsession comes with the best intentions, there are increasing calls from actual female and minority start-up employees who suggest very much the opposite. In Silicon Valley, it appears, start-up culture has actually reinforced its own glass ceiling.

Comments | 1,379 Views

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