baby, it's kinda cool outside
Hoodie or T-Shirt? App Provides Fashion Advice Based on the Weather
17 hours ago
fisa amendments act
House Committee Approves Sweeping, Warrantless Electronic Spy Powers
21 hours ago
Watch Out, Apple?
Microsoft Dives Head-First Into Mobile Hardware With Two 10.6-Inch Tablets
06.18.12
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Automatic for the Cloud: ITPA Delivers Continuity
The cloud has rapidly moved into center stage as the answer to many business prayers, but what is the real value of the cloud? The real value of cloud is speed and ease of service. IT can???t keep up with technology, so IT is moving to BT (business technology). That’s why we bring our own [...]
06.20.12 -
White House Sends ‘Gun-Walking’ Docs Down the Memory Hole
Thousands of documents sought by congressional investigators about a disastrous plan by federal agents to allow guns to "walk" into the hands of Mexico's drug cartels will now be out of reach. The Obama administration has asserted its executive privilege to withhold the documents -- just as lawmakers prepare to vote to hold the nation's top lawman in contempt on Congress.
06.20.12 -
Windows Phones to Get New Start Screen, But Not the Full Apollo OS Update
Microsoft has finally clarified the question of whether current Windows Phone devices will be able to upgrade to Windows Phone 8 Apollo. The short answer: No. But that doesn't mean Windows Phones like the Nokia Lumia 900 won't see the light of a different -- but still new -- OS.
06.20.12 -
Top General Accused of Blocking Corruption Probe to Help Obama
One of the US Army's rising stars stands accused of obstructing an inquiry into widespread corruption and mismanagement of the Afghan forces he mentored. And if the charges are accurate, they could end the career of one of the military's top officers.
06.20.12 -
Game|Life Video: We Find Your Lack of 3DS Games Disturbing
This week's Game|Life Video rates Nintendo's first-party offerings at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in order of how hard they were to find and play at the show, from "hard" to "impossible."
06.20.12 -
Live Stream: Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 Unveiling
Today Wired is attending Microsoft’s Windows Phone Summit to learn what’s next for the company’s mobile operating system. We’re expecting Microsoft to announce a number of upgrades to its Windows Phone OS, including potentially unveiling its next major iteration, Windows Phone 8 Apollo. Upgrade incompatibilities for older Windows Phone devices is one question that’s arisen, [...]
06.20.12 -
Assange Breached Bail in Seeking Asylum, British Police Say
British police say that Assange reneged on his bail by fleeing to the Ecuadoran embassy and that he's arrestable if he steps foot outside.
06.20.12 -
Brace for the Apocalypse! Surviving the Worst in an Inland Lifeboat
First things first. Before worrying about food storage or access to clean water during a major disaster, you need to make sure you get through the first wave safely. But never fear: When the next big tsunami hits, a water-ready modular bunker called the STATIM pod aims to float you above the flooding.
06.20.12 -
It’s Official, CSS Media Queries Are a Web Standard
The W3C, the group that helps create web standards, has finished work on CSS Media Queries, turning the cornerstone of responsive web design into an official standard.
06.20.12 -
Big Tech: If Surface Tablets Fail to Post Monster Sales, MSFT May Not Care
Microsoft's core business remains licensing software to partners who make the machines that run it. Which raises the question: Does Microsoft even care if the Surface sells? Some analysts don't think so.
06.20.12
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Why Exploration Isn’t Telegenic (and that’s a good thing)
In October of 2004, Natalie Harrison and legendary explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes were crossing a glacier, high in the Ecuadorian Andes.?? It was a minefield of crevasses, treacherous terrain that was a constant threat to the two climbers and their guides.?? As Harrison approached a particular crevasse, she sized up the distance and leapt forward.?? [...]
06.20.12 -
Pixar Week: Monsters University – a.k.a Monsters Inc. 2
Disney/Pixar releases the trailer to Monsters University, a prequel to Monsters, Inc.
06.20.12 -
New Eruption at Alaska’s Cleveland
Last night, I noted on Twitter that the Alaska Volcano Observatory had increased the alert status at Cleveland to Orange (from Yellow) – this came after a report that an explosive eruption had taken place. Thanks to Cleveland’s remote location, confirmation of the eruption is difficult, but pilot observation, shots from the Cleveland webcam and [...]
06.20.12 -
Pixar Week: GeekMomPoll: Our Favorite Pixar Movie is…
Seventeen GeekMoms rate Twelve Pixar movies on a one through twelve scale, the results are in!
06.20.12 -
Microscopic Snowflakes Fall on Mars
Researchers have calculated the size of the snowflakes that fall onto the polar regions of Mars in its winter, and it turns out that they're pretty tiny.
06.20.12 -
Commenting Issues
If you haven’t noticed already, DISQUS has updated their commenting system and that update has been implemented on Wired Science Blogs. As with any update, there are going to be problems (and hopefully benefits). If you’re finding bugs/problems with the new version of DISQUS, please let me know so I can forward it to the [...]
06.20.12 -
Synthetic Sociology and the Human Computer
The rapidly growing field of synthetic biology is founded on the premise that, if enough of the genetic machinery of cells is understood, then scientists and engineers may begin constructing biological machines and computers for our own purposes. From a toggle switch constructed in genes in E. coli, which represented a primitive form of memory, [...]
06.20.12 -
First Look at Monsters University Trailer
With Brave releasing this week, it's easy to forget that Pixar has another big movie on the horizon. Monsters University, tells the story of how Mike and Sully met at the University of Fear, before 2001's Monsters, Inc. The movie is Pixar's first prequel and features Billy Crystal and John Goodman, returning as the voices of these lovable monsters. The cast will also include some new voices, including Dave Foley, Julia Sweeney, and Rob Riggle, when the film releases on June 21, 2013. Watch the trailer, then check out the other variants on the film's Facebook page.
06.20.12 -
Dork Tower Wednesday
Dork Tower is an online comic created, written and drawn by John Kovalic. It chronicles the lives of a group of geeks living in the fictional town of Mud Bay, Wisconsin.
06.20.12 -
The Science of Bonding: Badinter vs. Bialik
After my nurse-midwife left, I sat in my hospital bed stunned. I'd been a mother for less than four hours and already I was failure.
06.20.12
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GeekMom: Comic Book Corner — June 20th, 2012
Happy Comic Release Day! Welcome to another installment of GeekMom Comic Book Corner, where we recap our adventures in comics for the week. Included are the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Smallville and the Legends of Zita The Spacegirl.
06.20.12 -
Analysis of a Fake Water Trick
My niece asked me to write about this popular (and fake) trick with a glass of water. In case you don’t want to watch the video, it basically shows a glass of water. The glass full of water is placed upside down on a counter top (ok, this part is actually kind of cool – [...]
06.20.12 -
How To Build Reading and Writing Skills in Young Children
We've all heard the admonition to read to them, read to them, read to them, but there's so much more to consider! The GeekMoms tossed some of our favorite ideas around. Here are a baker's dozen.
06.20.12 -
Pixar Week: The Pixar Story
The Pixar Story is a 2008 documentary written and directed by Leslie Iwerks, and it captured my interest quickly as it delved into the riveting journey of Pixar Animation Studios as they chased their dream to create the first full-length computer animated film.
06.20.12 -
A Plea To Freddie Wong
As a concept, Video Game High School web series is brilliant: create a high school tv show, but make the school revolve around video games rather than History or Science, put that show on the internet only, and have Freddy Wong-style fun. Although VDGH is treading new ground with internet entertainment by offering high quality camera and effects, there is so much potential being wasted.
06.20.12 -
Physics Community Afire With Rumors of Higgs Boson Discovery
The latest rumors circulating around the physics blogosphere suggest that scientists with the Large Hadron Collider will announce the discovery of the Higgs boson within weeks.
06.20.12 -
June 20, 1963: Cuban Missile Crisis Spurs Moscow-D.C. ‘Hot Line’
Cognizant that misunderstandings between JFK and Khrushchev helped fuel the showdown, the two sides agree to establish better communications.
06.20.12 -
Photo Book Paints Cosmetic Surgery Offices as Beauty Factories
In the new book, Singular Beauty, photographer Cara Phillips takes viewers into the heart of what she calls the ???industrial beauty complex.??? ???Cosmetic surgery is really kind of the ultimate expression of beauty and I wanted to go into the belly of the beast,??? she says. For the project, Phillips scoured the pages of fashion [...]
06.20.12 -
Infographics: Pandora’s Size Issues
Graphic: Ryan Tate. Data: Companies. The online jukebox Spotify announced Tuesday it will offer customized internet radio stations, putting the upstart into competition with longtime netcaster Pandora. Spotify might lack Pandora’s deep experience in online radio, but it offers listeners fully 16 times more songs to choose from. That’s a discrepency of 15 million songs, [...]
06.20.12 -
How Cyberpunk Saved Sci-Fi
The Windup Girl author Paolo Bacigalupi analyzes the cyberpunk breakthrough &mash; and wonders what the newest breed of writers might say to leave us gasping with surprise.
06.20.12
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Georgetown Cupcake Opens In Boston!
The business quickly outgrew that first shop and the sisters expanded to a larger store nearby, but now they're expanding outside the DC area and opening shops across the US. In addition to Bethesda, Maryland and New York City, the most recent shop on Newbury Street in Boston, Massachusetts opened last weekend. The grand opening was celebrated with a preview night with mini cupcakes galore and champagne.
06.20.12 -
Xbox Controller Gaming Has Developers Psyched About Surface
Microsoft Surface packs a staggering payload of cool tricks, but there's one unassuming feature that's likely to attract game developers: the USB port.
06.20.12 -
Washington’s 5 Worst Arguments for Keeping Secrets From You
The government's vast secrecy bureaucracy does two things with great frequency. The first, of course, is keeping secrets. The second is devising elaborate reasons why you can't know what those secrets are.
06.20.12 -
Can a Garage Be Sexy? Yes, and Here’s Proof
Garages, by their very nature, aren't the sexiest of structures. Talk to any architect and they'll tell you that attempting to craft a space for a few cars into their designs is the bane of their existence. This five-car, cubist garage stands as the artful exception to the rule.
06.20.12 -
Pok??mon Conquest Takes No Prisoners
Nobunaga's Ambition stands out in my mind as a true anomaly; it was the video game I didn't like. Sure, I'd played bad games before, flawed and un-enjoyable affairs ??? E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial on the 2600, for example ??? but it was the first title I'd encountered since Nintendo's resurrection of the home console market that I simply didn't get. I remember grainy textures and mountains of blocky, on-screen text. I remember arduous resource management in tinny, repetitive music. Moreover, I remember being utterly perplexed at finding absolutely no joy in it. Not having fun with a video game seemed, to my younger self, to be a deeply perplexing experience.
06.20.12 -
MoonBots Competition Now Open for Registration
Are your kids interested in robotics, science, or space exploration? Or maybe they'd just like the chance to win a free trip to Hawaii? All are on the table in this year's version of the incredibly popular (and fun) MoonBots Challenge. The contest, now in its third year, pits teams of kids against each other as they learn about space and develop solutions to problems that actual space explorers face.
06.20.12 -
Space Opera Without Explosions: Nathan Lowell’s Solar Clipper Series
Lowell is a master of getting us to care about his characters without having to resort to melodrama, and in science fiction that is a rare feat indeed.
06.20.12 -
Win Pearl Hex Skylander With FGTV
I decided that rather than hogging all the special Skylanders for ourselves we should give them away. After all it feels like we already have an unnatural number of figures in the house. This month we are giving away our Pearl Hex.
06.20.12 -
FireFly Controller Board Simplifies Rocket Science
Recently, my friend Mike Doornbos from Evadot got together with the small-satellite crew down at the non-profit Kentucky Space to try to fix an annoying problem. They wanted a standard "mission command" board that could serve as the basis for the brains, power and voice for different space applications without having to make it from scratch every time. They liked their solution so much, they decided to share!
06.20.12 -
GeekDad Puzzle of the Week: Potato Hamster at Large
Potato Hamster is at large. On Sunday morning, GeekDad Day, we found the top exercise wheel portion of her cage on the floor, leaving a hole, and the hamster was nowhere to be found. The folks at the pet store recommend placing cookie sheets with a light coating of flour and a peanut-buttered apple in each room to discover her general whereabouts and then a small trashcan with another peanut-buttered apple in the bottom, stairs of books leading to its lip to catch Potato. My Facebook friends recommend getting a cat.
06.20.12
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The FPS Is Dead: The Unfinished Swan Is a First Person Painter
There's an intriguing story lurking behind one game I saw at E3 this year, The Unfinished Swan. Beyond the emotive tale of the game itself, that of an orphaned boy losing an unfinished painting his mother left him, is the story of how Sony is looking to repeat their success with thatgamecompany.
06.20.12 -
The GeekDads Episode #116: Tom Lehrer Karaoke
Ken, Matt, and Jonathan look back at GeekDad Day, the WWDC announcements, and upcoming geeky summer movies. Enjoy!
06.20.12 -
Abort from Mars & Venus Missions (1970)
In the middle of the Apollo 13 crisis of April 1970, a mathematician at Bellcomm, NASA's planning contractor, calculated the length of time astronauts would need to abort to Earth following a malfunction during the outbound phase of a Mars or Venus orbiter mission. What he found was in no way reassuring.
06.20.12 -
A Google-a-Day Puzzle for June 20
Google's daily brainteaser helps hone your search skills.
06.20.12 -
Nvidia Responds to F-Bomb From Linus Torvalds
Linux creator Linus Torvalds may call Nvidia ???the single worst company??? the Linux community has ever dealt with. But the chipmaker makes no apologies for its approach to the open source operating system.
06.19.12 -
Hoodie or T-Shirt? App Provides Fashion Advice Based on the Weather
The only weather app I've ever wanted is one that tells me what I should wear each day based on the conditions outside. That app is finally here -- and it didn't start out as a weather app at all. Starting Wednesday, the Cloth app will include integration with Wunderground for real-time, location-based weather stats, so you can easily dress for the weather outside.
06.19.12 -
Imagine: Lego and Portal 2 Together
Imagine bringing two geeky obsessions together as one. That's just what a group of four TFOLs (Teen Fan of Lego) recently did. My 16 year old son's MOCathlon team enjoyed working together so much that they decided to work on a bigger project: a Lego Cuusoo submission that would bring the popular Portal 2 game to the Lego world.
06.19.12 -
Stunning Blade Runner Animation, Made With 3,000 Watercolors
See Swedish artist Anders Ramsell's exacting, frame-by-frame re-creation of a beginning sequence from Ridley Scott's neo-noir sci-fi film.
06.19.12 -
Eucalyptus Chooses GitHub for Stairway to Amazon
Eucalyptus is just one of many efforts to create an open source software platform that mimics Amazon’s massively popular Elastic Compute Cloud, a web service that offers instant access to virtual servers. But the southern California company believes it’s in a unique position. For one, it has a partnership with Amazon. And two, it just [...]
06.19.12 -
Haute Health Care: Seven Products to Help You Live Longer and Look Better
Americans spend a fortune on health care, about $2.5 trillion each year. This covers everything from surgical tools to weight loss plans, But despite all the money spent, the aesthetics of these products are on life support.
06.19.12
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iPhone App Scans Your Music Collection, Identifies All the Samples
WhoSampled.com's vast database has long been a source for music geeks to identify where their favorite samples came from, but now it's coming to your smartphone too.
06.19.12 -
Bane Makes Batman Very Angry in New Dark Knight Rises Trailer
Trailers for The Dark Knight Rises have heretofore been -- how to put this? -- kinda moody. Populated by slow, sweeping shots, doom-and-gloom dialog and plinking piano notes, they looked awesome, focused more on the drama and less on the butt-kicking. But the latest trailer for the final installment of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy (above) is much different.
06.19.12 -
Face.com App Allowed Facebook, Twitter Account Hijacking
Israel-based facial recognition maker Face.com was the internet???s flavor for a day Monday when it announced it was acquired by Facebook. But what was not widely known was that Face.com???s mobile app, KLIK, which allows real-time face-tagging of Facebook pictures, recently suffered a giant vulnerability.
06.19.12 -
Report: US and Israel Behind Flame Espionage Tool
The United States and Israel are responsible for developing the sophisticated espionage rootkit known as Flame, according to a news report, which says it was part of the same 'Olympic Games' project that produced Stuxnet.
06.19.12 -
HP Hitches Ride With Intel on Server ‘Moonshot’
In the ongoing crusade to build servers from low-power chips originally designed for smartphones, HP is putting its weight behind a new incarnation of Intel's Atom processor, saying it will start selling a server based on the chip by the end of the year.
06.19.12 -
Proposed Japanese Law Could Throw Downloaders in Jail
Unauthorized downloads of copyrighted material and creating backup copies of a DVD or Blu-ray disc could soon carry criminal penalties in Japan if proposed amendments to the nation's copyright code become law.
06.19.12 -
A is for Arsenic (pesticides, if you please)
In the early 20th century – enthusiastically supported by the U.S. government – the most popular pesticides were arsenic compounds. How popular? In the year 1929, almost 30 million pounds of lead arsenate and calcium arsenate were spread across this country’s fields and orchards. And how enthusiastic was the government? Well, in 1935, on [...]
06.19.12 -
WikiLeaks’ Assange Flees to Ecuadorian Embassy
With just a week to go before he may be extradited to Sweden, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has applied for political asylum with Ecuador, according to a news report.
06.19.12 -
House Committee Approves Sweeping, Warrantless Electronic Spy Powers
A House committee on Tuesday approved broad electronic eavesdropping powers that largely legalized the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program.
06.19.12 -
Video: Sci-Fi Rockers Sing the Praises of Neil deGrasse Tyson
Astrophysicists rarely (if ever) get new-wave punk songs dedicated to them. But then again, very few astrophysicists are as cool as Neil deGrasse Tyson. Which is why "I'm With Neil" is such a treat. Chock full of the scientist's best media appearances, the video for the track, by California band the Phenomenauts, is meant to be as much of an homage to Tyson ??? the Frederick P. Rose Director of Hayden Planetarium ??? as the track itself.
06.19.12
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Open Letter to Internet Companies: Tell Us How Much We Are Being Surveilled
Google just unveiled numbers showing an alarming jump in the number of government demands for private user data. We took the technology giant to task for its report's shortcomings. But at least Google is moving toward transparency. Too many companies, like Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, and the carriers decline to divulge the number of times the government seeks private data on its users, and now is the time they do.
06.19.12 -
Cloud Downtime’s Cost: $70M Since 2007, Give or Take…
The International Working Group on Cloud Computing Resiliency found and reported on Monday that a total of 568 hours of downtime at 13 cloud service biggies had since 2007 caused an economic impact of more than $71.7 million, reports said today. The big takeaway from the report: With the cloud’s average cloud outages of 7.5 [...]
06.19.12 -
Retina Display Teardown Reveals Ingenuity and Surprises
Last week, iFixit tore apart the MacBook Pro with Retina Display and found it was virtually impossible to repair or upgrade after the time of purchase. But the Retina display itself was left un-dissected -- until now.
06.19.12 -
The Bat Character That Just Won’t Die (It’s Not Who You Think It Is)
Stephanie Brown is the ultimate unsinkable Bat-character. That's the only conclusion I can draw after it was announced by Smallville Season 11 writer Bryan Q. Miller in a TV Guide interview that Batman will finally be making his first appearance in the Smallville universe, in issue #5, accompanied by a female sidekick revealed to be none other than Stephanie Brown as Nightwing.
06.19.12 -
Hands-On With Microsoft Surface Tablet for Windows RT
Microsoft Surface for Windows RT is a well-built, bright, and impressive tablet. We go hands-on, and explain its surprising, tactile user experience.
06.19.12 -
Q&A;: For Papo & Yo Creator, Game Business Is Personal
LOS ANGELES -- Tucked into an out-of-the-way corner in Sony's E3 booth was one of the best game demos I played at the show: Papo & Yo ("Dad and Me").
06.19.12 -
Why the Turing Test Is a Flawed Benchmark
Some of today's computer systems are displaying intelligence far beyond the capability of a human, so it's time to ask: Should a machine demonstrate intelligence by emulating a human?
06.19.12 -
How to Pass the Turing Artificial Intelligence Test
Are you human or a machine? Prove it, by passing the Turing Test -- a test of the ability of a machine to exhibit intelligent behavior.
06.19.12 -
JavaScript Decoder Brings High-Quality Audio to the Web
HTML5 offers web developers some, but not all, of the tools they need to build awesome online audio apps to rival GarageBand. The new FLAC.js from Official.fm Labs picks up some of the slack, providing a way to decode lossless FLAC audio in the browser.
06.19.12 -
CloudStack vs. OpenStack: Smackdown On, Who Wins?
Get your ringside seats, says Jonathan Feldman, a contributing editor at InformationWeek and director of IT services in a North Carolina city. “OpenStack versus CloudStack is a battle akin to the one around Linux distros,” he writes. In one corner: CloudStack, “an open source project that was acquired by Citrix (with the Apache license and [...]
06.19.12
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Russian Ship, Loaded With Attack Helos, Turns Away From Syria
A transport ship the U.S. believes is carrying attack helicopters to Syria is now heading back to Russia, ostensibly after its insurance was pulled. But the ship's return coincides with a meeting between Obama and Vladimir Putin -- a sign the two leaders may be starting to cooperate on what to do about Syria's deadly war.
06.19.12 -
Your #GeekDadDay Instagram Photos
Sunday, June 17 was our first ever National GeekDad Day. Over 180,000 people in 50 states and 22 countries took our challenge to turn Father's Day into a GeekDad Day extravaganza. And, boy, did you and your families rise to the challenge! Judging by the tweets, images and general activity we saw fly by on the web, a fun day was had for many.
06.19.12 -
Tim Kring and AT&T; Bring the Truth to Light in Daybreak 2012
Fans of Fox's television series Touch won't have to wait until next year to learn more about the power of numbers featured in the drama. Showrunner Tim Kring has paired up with AT&T to produce Daybreak 2012, a transmedia webseries designed to delve deeper into the show's mythos.
06.19.12 -
Female Passenger Groped by TSA Gropes Back, Charged with Battery
An airline passenger alleges she was inappropriately groped by a TSA worker doing a security patdown, and after groping a TSA supervisor to demonstrate how she was treated, she was arrested and charged with misdemeanor battery.
06.19.12 -
Interior-Decorating Androids, Coming to a Living Room Near You
Science fiction robots tend to come from one of two production lines: helpful protocol droids like C-3PO or cyborg Terminators hell-bent on destroying humanity. Few sci-fi storytellers imagined a future where robots would be programmed to master the art of interior decorating. Fortunately for the design-challenged, present-day roboticists have.
06.19.12 -
DarwinTunes ‘Evolves’ Music From Noise
A new computer program called DarwinTunes is showing how music listeners drive music to evolve in a certain way out of noise.
06.19.12 -
Adam Savage Talks About Being a GeekDad
Adam Savage is working on an as-yet untitled video podcast project, and this new episode hits right at the heart of what he calls the “GeekDad Movement.” His attitude towards encouraging his kids’ interests is wonderful, and hopefully infectious for anyone who watches this.
06.19.12 -
Flash Update Causing Problems for Firefox Fans
If you've been having problems with the latest version of Flash for Firefox, you're not alone. Mozilla says its working with Adobe to solve the problem, but in the mean time suggests you downgrade to the previous version of Flash.
06.19.12 -
Werewolf at Summer Camp: Jacob and Me
Buying a Jacob Black life size cardboard cut-out became much more than educational for my summer camp.
06.19.12 -
Eruption Update for June 19, 2012: Nevado del Ruiz and Popocat??petl
I thought I’d post a brief update on the action at two Latin American volcanoes as a break from working on this lovely NSF proposal. Nevado del Ruiz, Colombia Quite a few reports have come out of Colombia talking of the continued ash emissions from Ruiz. However, the activity is mostly on the same level [...]
06.19.12
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Pixar Week: Finding Nemo: The Musical is a Hidden Gem
Finding Nemo: The Musical is a forty minute show that is currently only performed in Disney???s Animal Kingdom Theme Park in Orlando, Florida. It is a permanent attraction that replaced Tarzan Rocks! at the Theatre in The Wild and uses puppets to tell the story which is, naturally, heavily condensed from the original feature film.
06.19.12 -
Is the Best Android Tablet Available Made for Kids?
If you've been considering investing in a tablet for your child, you've got lots of options these days. Just do a Google search on tablets for kids and you'll find plenty of comparisons and reviews of the various brands that are currently available.
06.19.12 -
Kids’ Custom Cupcakes for Class
I saw a terrific rainbow doodle cake idea on Pinterest that I kept coming back to. It wasn't so much the layers of different colored cakes, though that was cool, it was the blank canvas surface of fondant colored on by kids with food coloring markers. As it happened, we had a ton of fondant left over from our Skylanders birthday cake, so I decided to adapt the idea for cupcakes and let the birthday girl do all of the work.
06.19.12 -
Dragons Love Tacos – A New Children’s Book
In literature, dragons are fierce beasts that don't seem to be very picky about what or who they eat. But in the new book, Dragons Love Tacos, written by Adam Rubin, we find that dragons actually have some specific tastes when it comes to food.
06.19.12 -
‘Kony 2012′ Threatens Lawsuit Against Online Parody
The activists behind the Kony 2012 viral campaign for justice in Uganda is plainly sick of all the online mockery it's received. That's what a group of NYU grad students found out after designing a fake Kickstarter site aping the Kony 2012 campaign as a parody. It was all fun and games -- until Kony 2012 sent them a cease and desist order.
06.19.12 -
AbyssBox Displays Deep-Sea Animals Under Pressure
Unless you're James Cameron, you've probably never seen the animals that live in the hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean. That's because these deep-sea species can't survive in a standard aquarium. Normal atmospheric pressure will kill them. Luckily, one of Europe's largest aquariums has developed a solution: a unique high-pressure viewing cabinet called the AbyssBox
06.19.12 -
This Giant CNC Mill Will Build Your House
Meet HSM-Modal. This modular and customizable milling machine can expand into a 41-foot-wide, 14-foot-tall, and 495-foot-long giant. In other words, it???s not a tool you put in your garage; it???s a tool that will build it.
06.19.12 -
Recommendation Engine: The Rubik’s Cube and Its Many Offspring
The Rubik's Cube was one of the best-selling toys ever. Revisit the classic, then see if you can conquer some of its offspring.
06.19.12 -
Pixar Week: Toy Story And Joss Whedon
When you think about Joss Whedon, your mind might think of Firefly, The Avengers or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But did you know that he was one of the writers on the Disney / Pixar classic, Toy Story?
06.19.12 -
8 Awesome Gadgets — For When You’re Living in a Van, Down by the River
Have you looked at what can be plugged into your car???s cigarette lighter lately? The options are amazing -- you can now take a full inventory of lifestyle accessories on a camping trip. Or, in a pinch, you could use your vehicle???s cigarette lighter to power the amenities of a happy, mobile home.
06.19.12
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June 19, 240 B.C.: The Earth Is Round, and It’s This Big
Greek astronomer, geographer, mathematician and librarian Eratosthenes calculates the Earth's circumference. His data was rough, but he wasn't far off.
06.19.12 -
Hands-On With the Latest Siri Competitor For Android
We've seen a spate of Android apps that aim to compete with Siri, and like their Apple counterpart, they often fail to deliver on the promise of being an always-connected virtual assistant. The latest entrant into the Android market is Robin, which takes a similar tact to Siri, but puts the focus on searching points of interest while you're behind the wheel.
06.19.12 -
Peterbilt Crowdsourcing Future Big-Rig Designs
Big rigs may move the bulk of freight and rule the roads of the US, but their blocky designs aren't exactly aerodynamic, sucking up lots of fuel as they shuttle cross-country. Plus, they're just plain boring. So semi manufacturer Peterbilt is looking for more fuel-efficient tractor-trailers by holding a competition in conjunction with open source car company Local Motors to develop innovative aerodynamic designs.
06.19.12 -
Reimagining the Marvel Universe
When I was a kid the only thing I loved more than comics were comic book resources, and in the absence of Wikipedia ??? not to mention, if you can believe it, the commercial internet ??? I was largely limited to encyclopedic collections like the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. These massive volumes featured information on characters' powers, origins and often lengthy missives regarding their elaborate histories alongside detailed illustrations.
06.19.12 -
SpyParty Is a Shooting Game to Share With Your Kids
I've been fascinated by SpyParty since I first stumbled upon it at the GameCity festival. I wrote recently that SpyParty is the only shooting game I'm 100% happy for my kids to play.
06.19.12 -
Hip-Hop 101 With MC Edgar Allan Poe
MC Lars has been espousing his love of classic literature in hip-hop verse for practically his entire career. With ample nods to Melville and Shakespeare already under his belt, his newest video single again centers on one of his favorite wordsmiths, Poe.
06.19.12 -
The Sparkfun Proto-Snap Minibot Kit
Robots are cool. I know that's a given but I just had to say it. There are plenty of easy kits out there that can get you started in robotics. The problem with many beginner robot kits is that they are limited in the amount of space you have to experiment and expand on the basic kit. The team over at SparkFun Electronics has put together a kit that overcomes the limitations of some beginner robotics systems.
06.19.12 -
Star Wars Comes to Scalextric This Fall
Scalextric is one of the oldest, best-known slot car makers out there. Their tracks and cars have supplied hobbyists with fodder for decades and their devotion to detail has made even the most meticulous modelmaker mirthful.
06.19.12 -
Walt Disney World Wins at Making Magic for One Young Man
The setup is this: the "Snow White's Scary Adventure" (aka SWSA) is shutting down after 40-odd years at Walt Disney World (WDW), to make way for new stuff. Ron's son Ben, who is Autistic, found an incredible joy on the ride, to the point that he rode it, quite literally, thousands of times. With the closure of the ride pending, his family decided to help him try and reach a milestone number of rides. And when the staff at WDW got involved on the ride's last day, Ben's life became a little bit magical.
06.19.12 -
Microsoft Dives Head-First Into Mobile Hardware With Two 10.6-Inch Tablets
Microsoft is now a full-fledged, no-excuses mobile computing manufacturer. On Monday a team of excited executives showed off Microsoft Surface -- a pair of Windows tablets accompanied by clever keyboard covers that aspire to true innovation in the mobile space.
06.18.12
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