Geek culture

Friday Poll: Are you sticking with Instagram?

Instagram and its owner Facebook really stepped into it this week. A new terms of service update set to go into effect on January 16 would have given Instagram the right to sell users' photos or use them in ads.

As you might expect, the prospect of Instagram running rampant with photos didn't sit well with its 100 million users. The interest in escaping Instagram grew, with nearly 6,000 readers sharing over Facebook CNET's instructions for backing up and deleting their Instagram accounts.

It took a little while, but Instagram finally coughed out an apology and backtracked … Read more

Star Trek: The Video Game due April 23

Spock and Captain Kirk will team up again on April 23, 2013, when Star Trek: The Video Game comes to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. Publisher Namco Bandai and Paramount Pictures announced the game's release date today.

The game originally was targeted for a 2012 launch, but in February got delayed to 2013.

Star Trek: The Video Game will be available for Xbox 360 and PS3 at traditional retail outlets, while the PC version will only be sold through digital channels. What's more, gamers won't not need to trek to a brick-and-mortar store to buy the … Read more

Real-life Fruit Ninja slices and dices flying comestibles

What, you're not sick of slicing fruit apart with a swipe of your finger? Apparently not. Fruit Ninja made it onto Apple's list of top-downloaded paid iPhone apps for 2012. It has even earned itself the real-life video treatment.

Uploaded by YouTube user scottdw, the real-life Fruit Ninja video casts the game as a much more epic adventure than it ever was as a time-killing app. The characters Sensei and Gutsu are the stars. There's horse-riding, a training montage, and endless slow-motion shots of fruit splitting apart. … Read more

Life-size hobbit Bag End made of 2 million Legos

I've tried what I thought were some ambitious Lego builds in my childhood, but I never got close to making anything that could be considered life-size. That's why I'm tipping my hat to the insane quest of the Lego builders who made a life-size Bag End in honor of "The Hobbit" movie.

The Bag End creation is impressively detailed. There's a big round door and life-size characters running around, including Bilbo and Gandalf. If you look closely in one of the photos, you can even see smoke coming out of the chimney. I don't think that part is made out of little plastic bricks. … Read more

Mayan apocalypse fails, according to Australia

The reports are rolling in on Reddit. Australia and New Zealand have successfully crossed over into December 21 without the world ending. This news should make NASA happy.

Redditor sasquatch92 posted an image of a clock hitting 12:00 while flames licked around the casing. This is especially strange since we all know that Sasquatches are afraid of fire. Still, it does offer some slight bit of photographic evidence that the world hasn't abruptly ended as so many Mayan calendar fans have predicted.… Read more

Gather 'round Cyrcle for real-world social-media alerts

Cyrcle is a bit hard to define. It's a Kickstarter project. It's an augmented-reality device. It's a creature of social media. Its maker Symplio calls it an "intelligent decorative object."

We met Cyrcle's prototype predecessor Rymble last year. The new incarnation is pretty different, though they both share a circular shape and a similar desire to bring social-media notifications into the real world. … Read more

Boeing tests Wi-Fi with 20,000 pounds of potatoes

People don't like to be disconnected from the Internet, even when they're cruising along at 30,000 feet in the air. Boeing knows this, so the airplane manufacturer ended up knee-deep in spuds to test its new developments in providing Wi-Fi access to flyers.

Tech developed in a Boeing lab looked like it could bolster Wi-Fi signals in the cabin of a plane. To test it out, Boeing engineers took over a decommissioned airplane and, naturally, filled the seats up with sacks of potatoes. Wait, what? Turns out there was a good reason for the grocery shopping spree.… Read more

'Lord of the Rings' dwarven beard, helm forged from yarn

With "The Hobbit" going nuts at the box office, it's time to turn our eyes toward "Lord of the Rings" cosplay. The dwarf costumes are perhaps some of the most challenging. Not only are there a ton of dwarves to choose from, but you have both armor and excessive facial hair to deal with.

One clever crafter figured out how to handle the dwarf dilemma by harnessing the ancient and terrible power of crochet. Deviantartist SadDaysCrochet fashioned a dwarven helm and beard out of yarn.… Read more

End Times as fun times: The best apocalypse gear around

NASA might not agree, but plenty of folks seems to think the apocalypse is imminent. Whether it happens this Friday or decades from now, it's never too early to start preparing.

With that in mind, I scoured the CNET archives and watched hours of "The Walking Dead," "Falling Skies," "Revolution," "Wolf's Rain," "Red Dwarf," and dozens of other series to come up with this gallery of essential pieces of gear to start investing in now, while you still can.… Read more