At least 4 jets strand Conn. passengers for hours

NEW YORK (AP) — It was a passengers' nightmare at Bradley International Airport near Hartford, Conn., this weekend.

Passengers on at least three JetBlue planes and one American Airline plane say they were stranded on the tarmac for seven hours or more after being diverted from New York-area airports on Saturday.

The ordeal continued after they were let off and had to spend the night on cots and chairs in terminals.

A passenger on one of the diverted JetBlue planes says the crew ran out of snacks and bottled water for the last few hours of the delay.

"The toilets were backed up. When you flushed, nothing would happen," said Andrew Carter, a reporter for the Sun Sentinel of Florida, who was traveling to cover the Miami Dolphins game against the New York Giants. His plane took off from Fort Lauderdale for Newark Liberty International Airport at around 9 a.m. After being diverted to Hartford, the plane sat on the tarmac between around 1:30 p.m. and 9 p.m., he said.

Crazy Texas game ends with 94-66 score

There were a few things that were strange about Garland (Texas) Christian School's victory against Lakehill (Texas) Prep on Friday night. It wasn't just that the final score was more customary for a basketball shootout, it was also how the teams got there.

Eventually, Garland Christian emerged as the 94-66 victor in a shootout for the ages. The teams combined for an astounding 19 rushing touchdowns in the game, with Garland Christian quarterback Hayden Burnett, pictured above, leading the way with 330 total yards and five total touchdowns.

Rags to Riches — and Back to Rags: Meet the ‘High-Beta Rich’

It's no secret that the middle class and the poor have been taking a financial beating since the 2008 meltdown, the deep recession of 2008-2009, and the less than satisfying recovery that began in mid-2009. But while plenty of rich folks on Wall Street were bailed out of poor decisions, a decent chunk of the one percent suffered a fall as well. Yes, plenty of the wealthy suffered the indignity of repossessed jets and yachts, laying off entire household staffs, and seven-figure declines in wealth.

Robert Frank, a reporter at the Wall Street Journal who covers the very wealthy, delves into these tales of woe in his new book, High-Beta Rich: How the Manic Wealthy Will Take us to the Next Boom, Bubble, and Bust. Frank interviewed more than 100 people whose net worth once topped $10 million, "to explore how someone can go from $1 billion to zero." But his goal isn't merely to provide a voyeuristic look into the lifestyles of the no-longer rich and famous. As he tells me in the accompanying video, "I wanted to see what we as consumers and investors can learn from them."

This eraser magically turns chalk dust into new chalk sticks

Chalk boards are useful in classrooms, but they do make one hell of a mess. All that chalk dust has to go somewhere, and most of the time it seems to be all over the clothes of the person erasing the board. The Chalkeeper aims to end the mess, by sucking up all of the dust, and turning it into new chalk sticks.

Image of the Day: Planet Earth, 7 billion strong

The United Nations picked today to be the day where the Earth officially holds seven billion human beings (give or take 56 million).
Why "give or take 56 million" people? From the BBC:

"The U.N. recognises that its own figures come with a 1 to 2 percent margin of error. Today's population could actually be 56 million higher or lower than 7 billion," according to U.N. population estimates expert Gerhard Heilig."There is a window of uncertainty of at least six months before and six months after the 31 October for the world population to reach 7 billion," he added.

Improve the sound of headphones & desktop speakers for $39

I wasn't expecting much from the Hifiman Express HM-101; it's just a $39 outboard USB digital-to-analog converter and headphone amplifier. Well, this tiny USB-powered (it doesn't need batteries or an AC power supply) device definitely pumped up the sound of my Audio Technica ATH-M50 headphones! They sounded significantly better with the Express than they did plugged directly into my MacMini's headphone jack. Sure, the Mac's sound is perfectly acceptable--until you compare it to something better.

The Express is a lot better.

China shuts 50 microblogs for porn, vulgarity

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has shut 50 microblogs for distributing pornography and carrying "vulgar content", state media said on Monday, as the government steps up monitoring of the internet.

"The microblogs were shut down for violations that include carrying pornographic images and videos, information for prostitution, as well as illegal advertising for sex-related drugs and productions," Xinhua news agency said.

"Members of the public reported the microblogs, which were then investigated and closed by authorities," it added, citing an unidentified official at one of the country's internet regulators, theState Internet Information Office.

10-year-old girl abducted in Carrollton was stabbed to death

Authorities say a 10-year-old Oklahoma City girl who was abducted in Carrollton over the weekend was stabbed to death.

Jasmen Gonzalez suffered a stab wound in the chest, according to the Dallas County medical examiner's office.

Police are investigating whether the girl was sexually assaulted before her death, and they have questioned and searched the apartment and vehicle of a friend of her family.

No arrests had been made in the slaying, but the family friend was being held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. He was described as a "person of interest."

Couple jailed, lose custody of daughter, over stolen sandwiches

HONOLULU (Reuters) - A pregnant woman and her husband were arrested for allegedly stealing two sandwiches at a supermarket inHonolulu, resulting in their 3-year-old daughter being put into state care for 18 hours, officials said on Saturday.

The supermarket that called the police was a Safeway in Makiki, a neighborhood in Honolulu. A statement from a company spokesman said Safeway was checking on the incident.

"From our preliminary investigation, it appears we may not have handled this matter in the best possible way. We are taking this situation seriously, and giving it our full attention," Safeway said in a statement on Saturday.

Soldier admits taking war trophies, denies murder

JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. (AP) — An attorney for anArmy staff sergeant charged in the thrill killings of three Afghan civilians says his client did take fingers off bodies as war trophies, but he wasn't involved in any killings.

The court martial for Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, of Billings, Mont., began Monday at Joint Base Lewis-McChord south of Seattle. He pleaded not guilty to 16 criminal charges.

Raids dismantle $2 billion Arizona drug network: officials

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Law enforcement authorities have arrested over 70 people in raids that dismantled a narcotics trafficking network suspected of smuggling nearly $2 billion worth of drugs through Arizona's western desert, officials said on Monday.

The announcement in Phoenix caps a 17-month investigation culminating in a series of three "large-scale enforcement actions" tied to the probe, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Arizona Attorney General's Office and the Pinal County Sheriff's Department.

AT&T announces first phones for new LTE network

NEW YORK (AP) — The first two phones to run on AT&T's new high-speed data network will go on sale Sunday.

The phones are the HTC Vivid and the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket. Both are big touchscreen smartphones that run Google Inc.'s Android software. They'll cost $200 and $250 respectively, with a two-year service contract requirement.

Taliban Kill 13 Americans in Armored Bus Attack

At least five U.S. troops and eight U.S. civilians in Kabul are dead on Saturday after a Taliban bomber targeted the lightly-armored bus transporting them through the Afghan capitol.

While details are still sketchy, the Taliban attack shows sophistication. The bus, known colloquially as a “Rhino,” is a slow transport vehicle built to withstand small arms fire. Its hull is V-shaped, like a Mine Resistant Ambushed Protected (MRAP) vehicle, so it can survive driving over a homemade bomb.

Army Stryker Brigade Won’t Take Strykers to Afghanistan

Based out of Washington state, the Army’s the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division is built around its intimidating Stryker armored vehicles. Weighing 19 tons and carrying troops on eight wheels, the Stryker is supposed to represent the Army’s best balance between armor protection and speedy transport. However, that balance is only struck when the vehicle goes to war. And while the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry division will head to Afghanistan in December, its Strykers aren’t invited.

Defense Whiz to Pentagon: Your Predictions Are Destined to Fail

The Arab Spring. The Fall of the Soviet Union. India’s nukes. The U.S. government has a perfectly awful track record of predicting future events. And there’s a good reason why, says the chairman of an influential think tank: it’s friggin’ impossible.

Dr. Richard Danzig, the former Navy Secretary and current chair of the Center For a New American Security (CNAS), has published a comprehensive report on what he convincingly argues is a pretty huge problem for the Pentagon. After all, basing billion-dollar, life-or-death decisions on forecasts practicallyguaranteed to be wrong isn’t exactly an ideal management strategy.

Anonymous Threatens Mexico’s Murderous Drug Lords

A ruthless campaign of killing, extortion and kidnapping by Mexico’s powerful Zetas drug cartel has created plenty of enemies, from the Mexican government to paramilitary vigilantes to rival cartels. But now the Zetas have a new adversary: the hacker collective Anonymous.

In a video uploaded Oct. 6, an Anonymous spokesperson said that unless the Zetas release one of the group’s members, the group will reveal the photos, names and addresses of Zetas-affiliated cops and taxi drivers. (The member was allegedly kidnapped in the western coastal city of Veracruz during an “Operation Paperstorm” demonstration.) Anonymous also threatened to out journalists accused of “crapping on honest authorities like the army and the navy,” the spokesperson said.

Army’s Vision of the Future: Mostly Doom, Some Idiocy

These are some of the geopolitical scenarios the U.S. Army thinks are more likely than not in the coming two decades. Urban combat that makes Sadr City and Fallujah look like cakewalks. Increased terrorist acts after the Iraq and Afghanistan wars end. Economic disaster and massive struggles for natural resources that compel historic enemies to side with one another, against the United States.

And, by pure coincidence, all these scenarios just happen to suggest that America needs a well-funded Army to protect it against chaos.

One ton gold coin won't fit in any slot machines

If you're a big spender who likes to pay with cash, you know that carrying around all of those suitcases stuffed with bills can be a pain. Now the Australian government has made it easy, by creating a single gold coin worth a cool $57.34 million.

Now Apple Is Testing That Rumored 15-Inch MacBook Air

Apple is now testing a 15-inch version of the MacBook Air, according to the Japanese blog Macotakara.

YouTube launches broad entertainment venture

NEW YORK (AP) — YouTube is making a bold step into original programming in an entertainment venture with some 100 content creators, from Madonna to The Wall Street Journal.

The Google Inc.-owned video site said Friday that it's launching more than 100 new video channels. The partners include an array of Hollywood production companies, celebrities and new media groups that will produce mainly niche-oriented videos.

YouTube is shelling out $100 million to producers, according to people familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The money is an advance on advertising money the videos will bring in, and Google will recoup its portion first before splitting the proceeds. Advances are as high as $5 million per channel, said another person familiar with the arrangement, also speaking on condition of anonymity.

Made in China: Country's new supercomputer uses homegrown chips

China is stepping up its semiconductor manufacturing efforts and using domestic chips for its latest supercomputer. It's going to be interesting to see how fast China can close in on U.S. supercomputer processor makers Intel, AMD, and Nvidia.

The New York Times reported that a supercomputer called Sunway BlueLight MPP, was installed in September at the National Supercomputer Center in Jinan, China. The details emerged at a technical meeting. The real catch is that China used 8,700 ShenWei SW1600 chips.

High-tech 'fertility chip' measures sperm count, motility

If you'd like a better understanding of what it takes for sperm to be considered fertile, go grab your measuring spoons and look at the quarter teaspoon. Roughly that amount of ejaculate should boast anywhere between 20 million and 150 million sperm. Anything less than 20 million and fertility just might be an issue.

Student Takes on Facebook Over Privacy

What exactly did this guy expect when he requested three years worth of his usage data from Facebook?

Max Schrems wasn't sure what he would get when he asked Facebook to send him a record of his personal data from three years of using the site. What the 24-year-old Austrian law student didn't expect, though, was 1,222 pages of data on a CD. It included chats he had deleted more than a year ago, "pokes" dating back to 2008, invitations to which he had never responded, let alone attended, and hundreds of other details.

New Nokia Phone Name Means "Prostitute"

When these phones come out, I dare you to go tell your girlfriend/wife that you are heading out to pick up a prostitute. I double dare you. 

Nokia customers, on the other hand, may have more of a problem with their new Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 phones, especially if they're up on their Spanish, a language in which the word lumia apparently means prostitute. LINK

Occupy protesters rally around wounded veteran

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Veering around police barricades, anti-Wall Street protesters held a late-night march through Oakland streets, a day after one of their number — an Iraq War veteran — was left in critical condition with a fractured skull following a clash with police.

The show of force in Oakland along with SWAT arrests in Atlantahave sent chills among some anti-Wall Street demonstrators.

Man reports date as burglar when girlfriend shows

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (AP) — Police say a man's girlfriend unexpectedly came home just before another woman was due to visit, so he called police to report his new acquaintance as a burglar.

The Gazette reports (http://bit.ly/vfcH8c ) that 24-year-old Kevin Gaylor was cited with a misdemeanor of false reporting to authorities.

Police say Gaylor had invited a woman he met online to come to his home after 3 a.m. Wednesday so they could get better acquainted, but his girlfriend came home first.

Police say that when the other woman arrived, Gaylor called police and falsely reported an intrusion.

Gaylor has an unlisted phone number and couldn't be reached for comment.

Avon under fire from Feds and Wall Street

U.S. regulators are formally investigating whether Avonbroke bribery laws overseas, and the cosmetics company said it was again reassessing its strategy after quarterly profit fell far short of expectations.

Shares of Avon fell as much as 19.6 percent on Thursday, as analysts blasted Chairman and CEO Andrea Jung and questioned whether she and her team can come up with a turnaround plan as quickly as they hope to.

Analysts took longtime leader Jung to task during Avon's quarterly conference call, as they have in prior quarters.

"Why should investors believe management and the board have any control over the business at this point?" asked Stifel Nicolaus' Mark Astrachan, who downgraded Avon to "hold."

Archaeologists discover rare statues at Angkor Wat

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Archaeologists at Cambodia's famous Angkor Wat temple complex say they have unearthed the largest Buddhist statues there in eight decades.

Ly Vanna, an artifacts expert for the government's Apsara Authority that oversees the site, said Thursday the two stone statues found at Ta Prohm temple were headless but the larger one if complete would stand about 10 feet (3 meters) tall. He says the statues are believed to date from the 12th century and are the biggest discovered since the 1930s.

Saurav Ray of the Indian embassy says the statues were found by workers carrying out the Archaeological Survey of India's 10-year, $4 million restoration project. Angkor's rehabilitation follows decades of neglect due to civil war.

Unlike Apple's iOS, Android phones not getting updates

While Apple rolls out iOS updates rapidly to its iOS devices three years after their release, Android phones often ship with outdated software that is rarely updated, even during the device's original contract term.

A report by blogger Michael Degusta of the the Understatement graphically recounts how it is that 45 percent of Google's installed base of active Android users is still stuck using software released in the middle of last year: vendors are simply refusing to make updates available for their phones.

Degusta contrasted iPhones introduced by Apple and the last three years of US Android phones. While all iPhone models have received the latest iOS updates for at least three years following their introduction, only three Android models have been kept relatively up to date for more than a year, and none of them appear eligible to receive the latest Android 4.0 Google just announced.

Budget and the Beast: BF3 Edition

Budget and the Beast is our monthly column that shows you the bits and pieces to build two different types of gaming PCs; an affordable budget box that will still run today's games well, and a high end beast designed to slaughter any polygon that dares cross its path. Today we're bringing you a special version of this guide, showing you two PC builds that are designed to run Battlefield 3. The budget box will run with most settings at high, with a resolution of 1920 x 1080, while the Beast can handle Ultra, with high levels of anti-aliasing. If you're looking to build a new gaming PC just for BF3, then walk this way.



Graphics like this don't come for free.

Windows XP Support Will End in 2014

If you're a fan of Windows Updates don't expect them to last too much longer for Windows XP. Speaking to Information Week, Rich Reynolds, general manager for Windows Commercial marketing, said "There's absolutely no chance" that Windows XP's support will be extended beyond April 2014. So if you've been holding out on upgrading to Windows 7 (or are waiting patiently for next years' Windows 8), it's time to consider upgrading in the next couple of years.

Ah, memories.

That may sound like a long time for most of us, but for businesses and schools whose entire infrastructure may have been built in and around Windows XP, that date is just around the corner. Speaking of dates, today is Windows XP's birthday -- it turns 10 years old today. What better way to celebrate a birthday than to announce when it's going to die, eh?  LINK

Puppy rescued from top of train gets new home

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Four firefighters in a South Carolina town plucked a frightened black lab puppy from the top of a double-decker freight train car and delivered her to a new, loving home.

"We don't know how long she was up there," Liberty assistant fire chief Chris Rowland said Tuesday. "She was scared. She was ready to come down."

Rowland's team of four firefighters was called Sunday evening after Tina Parker of nearby Pickens spotted the pup while she and her family were stopped at a red light and saw the train pass by.

Parker said she saw what she thought was trash on the top of the train, but then it started moving and she realized it was a small dog.

Spielberg says "Crystal Skull" was Lucas' idea

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Did Steven Spielberg just pull aShia LaBeouf?

The legendary director has a message for Indiana Jones fans: Don't blame "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" on me.

Spielberg told Empire magazine the film's big reveal, or in Alfred Hitchcock parlance "the MacGuffin," that the skulls belonged to aliens was executive producer George Lucas's idea.

"I sympathize with people who didn't like the MacGuffin because I never liked the MacGuffin," Spielberg said. "George and I had big arguments about the MacGuffin. I didn't want these things to be either aliens or inter-dimensional beings. But I am loyal to my best friend. When he writes a story he believes in -- even if I don't believe in it -- I'm going to shoot the movie the way George envisaged it."

Great Castles You Can Sleep In

Storming the gates, crossing the drawbridge, surveying your estate from a grand tower. No, we're not talking about visiting a period movie set or theme park. We're talking about the bona fide real deal: Spending your vacation like royalty at a castle hotel.

From classic medieval towers in Germany to a French-inspired chateau in Argentina, castles offer unique and unforgettable alternatives to standard accommodations. While many are a splurge (some royal reputations last for centuries, after all), others are surprisingly affordable, starting at $100 or less per night. We've rounded up castles you can sleep in from countries both near and far.

How Netflix Lost 800,000 Members, and Good Will

Reed Hastings was soaking in a hot tub with a friend last month when he shared a secret: his company, Netflix, was about to announce a plan to divide its movie rental service into two — one offering streaming movies over the Internet, the other offering old-fashioned DVDs in the mail.

“That is awful,” the friend, who was also a Netflix subscriber, told him under a starry sky in the Bay Area, according to Mr. Hastings. “I don’t want to deal with two accounts.”

Mr. Hastings ignored the warning, believing that chief executives should generally discount what their friends say.

He has since regretted it. Subscribers revolted and many dropped the service. The plan further tarnished a once widely respected Internet service that had already been wounded by an unpopular price increase in the summer. Mr. Hastings was forced to reverse the planned split — but not the price increase — three weeks later and apologized.

Consumer Reports Names Most Reliable Cars of 2011

In recent years, Ford has been a model of American reliability. The brand ranked 10th in our predicted-reliability ranking last year and competed well with Japanese makes. This year, however, the Ford brand has slipped 10 spots, to 20th out of 28 makes. That was the biggest drop for any major nameplate, according to Consumer Reports' 2011 Annual Auto Survey, which is based on subscribers' experiences with 1.3 million vehicles.

Sony buys Ericsson out of mobile phone venture

(Reuters) - Sony Corp is to take over its mobile phone joint venture with Ericsson for 1.05 billion euros ($1.5 billion), as it seeks to exploit its music and video to help it catch smartphone leaders such as Apple Inc.

The deal to buy out its Swedish partner will enable Sony to better integrate smartphones and other devices with its array of content, from its music label whose stars include Beyonce and Britney Spears, its movie studio whose current hits include Spider Man and Anonymous and its Playstation video games such as Legends of Norrah.

This is what Blade Runner set in Paris would have looked like

You just haven't lived until you've seen Paris at night. The molten, orange lights. The glowing billboards. Flying police cars in the rain. The wind turbines over the River Seine.
What? That doesn't sound like the Paris you've heard about? Oh, sorry — I must be thinking of crazy cyberpunk Paris.
For better or worse, this stunning work isn't for a Blade Runner sequel. No, it's actually the concept art for Adrift, a newly announced game by French developer Dontnod.

Webcam hacker uses "hot steam" ploy to get nude pics

This Apple repair tech wanted a little more than just the ability to remotely tap into women's webcams.

He wanted to increase his chance of seeing them naked. 20-year-old Trevor Harwell allegedly installed malware on the computers he was supposed to be fixing, which would cause them to randomly display the following bogus error message:

"You should fix your internal sensor soon. If unsure what to do, try putting your laptop near hot steam for several minutes to clean the sensor."

Harwell is reported to have been arrested, but only after his scheme actually worked, according to the local authorities.

While even the least tech-savvy person would probably be able to realize the error was bogus, all of the victims were clueless.

It took one of Harwell's customers' mother to realize how unusual the message was, as she's the one who kicked off the investigation.

According to a report in the LA Times, hundreds of thousands of pictures were taken from Harwell's PC as part of the criminal case against him.

World's Best Ruins

Ruins reach across centuries to fire the imagination and fuel travel plans. The very best make you feel young, small, and utterly amazed by the architectural chops of the ancients. Among the many amazing ruins that still exist today, a few stand out as the trip of a lifetime.

No matter which ruins you visit, a few rules hold true: Time your trip for the less crowded times of day, often early or late. Give yourself plenty of time, as some ruins require days of exploration. Hire a knowledgeable guide, since the history is rich but the signage is often cursory. And get beyond the most popular parts of the ruin; you'll need a bit of quiet space to appreciate this kind of ancient majesty.

Machu Picchu, Peru

STREET KING (Part 1) w/ 50 Cent, Mike Tyson, & Floyd Mayweather

Mike Tyson appears with 50 Cent and Floyd Mayweather in this Hangover inspired spot that's among our Most Shared videos.

Occupy Oakland OPD Flash Bang Tear Gas on peacefull protesters

Tear gas, fireworks let off during Occupy Oakland raid

Cops make mass arrests at occupy Oakland

Steve Jobs: HP Implosion was an iTragedy

Hewlett Packard always held a special place in Steve Jobs’ heart. And while the two companies were sometimes competitors, Jobs took no comfort in HP’s corporate meltdown this summer.

In fact, he thought it was a tragedy.

“Hewlett and Packard built a great company, and they thought they left it in good hands,” Jobs told Apple staffers on his final visit to the company. “But now it’s being dismembered and destroyed. It’s tragic. I hope I’ve left a stronger legacy so that will never happen at Apple.”

Ex-Apple Leaders Push the Humble Thermostat Into the Digital Age

Tony Fadell, a former Apple executive who led iPod and iPhonedevelopment from 2001 to 2009, helped transform consumer products used by millions of people. Next up: the humble household thermostat.

Enlarge This Image

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

The device’s temperature  is set by moving its outer ring.

¶A boring wall fixture and an unlikely target for innovation? Not to Mr. Fadell, his team of 100 computer hardware and software experts and the venture capitalists backing his Silicon Valley start-up, Nest Labs.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Live-Action Trailer

We've seen plenty of digital videogame characters transformed into real-life heroes with live action trailers, but Bethesda may have just topped them all with its live action take on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. See the Dovahkiin step forward to face his scaled nemesis below:



The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is set for launch on November 11, 2011

The salty secret to bigger hard drives

Every time it seems like we're starting to run out of hard drive space, some genius comes along and invents a way to cram more data onto those spinning magnetic platters. But as far as we know, this is the first time that it's also involved making said platters even tastier than they already are.
The key to making bigger hard drives is stuffing more little magnetic bits onto a given area of disk. The way it works right now is that there are a bunch of randomly scattered nanoscopic magnetic grains, and a pile of ten or twenty of these grains are used to form one bit of data. These piles can get together to hold 0.5 terabit per square inch of info, but they're kinda random, and not patterned efficiently onto the disk.

Up to 20 million tons of debris from Japan’s tsunami moving toward Hawaii

Some 5 to 20 million tons of debris--furniture, fishing boats, refrigerators--sucked into the Pacific Ocean in the ake of Japan's March 11 earthquake and tsunami are moving rapidly across the Pacific. Researchers from the University of Hawaii tracking the wreckage estimate it could approach the U.S. West Coast in the next three years, the UK Daily Mail reports.

"We have a rough estimate of 5 to 20 million tons of debris coming from Japan," University of Hawaii researcher Jan Hafner told Hawaii's ABC affiliate KITV.

America's Best and Worst Housing Markets, 2011

Want to know how bad the real estate market is? Just drive down almost any street in the U.S. and you’re likely to see “for sale” signs lining the road. Come back a month later, it’s a good bet the same signs are still there—and quite possibly a few new ones, too. But while there’s a lot of housing pain, there’s also some good news. That’s because in some markets across the country not only have home values improved, a few have even seen double-digit growth.

So where is this miracle occurring? Believe it or not, the city that has seen the biggest increase in home value is in Florida. That’s right—the state that has seen home values plummet 52.3 percent from 2006 peak levels. Nearly 96,000 loans were modified in Florida through August 2011 under President Obama’s Making Home Affordable program. Joblessness, foreclosures, and high inventory hamper recovery in nearly every corner of the state, with rare exceptions. In this case, the rare exception is Weston, a high-income city of more than 65,000 people near Fort Lauderdale where the median home value has risen 15.1 percent to $280,000 from February 2009 to August 2011.

A survey of the 1,000 largest cities nationwide by online real estate marketplace Zillow for Businessweek.com identified the markets with the biggest gains and losses in home value, ranking Weston the best-performing city since Obama took office. In contrast, the U.S. median home value fell by 9.9 percent over the same period.

Oxygen Losses Ground Stealth Fighters, Again

F-22 Raptor stealth fighters at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia have been grounded after a pilot experienced oxygen loss mid-flight. It’s the second stand-down this year for the U.S. military’s most sophisticated dogfighter, and a foreboding sign for the Pentagon as it struggles to modernize its aerial armada.

Gallery of the Day: aircraft graveyard

Not far from Victorville, California is the former George Air Force Base — now a resting place for over 200 planes. Check out the gallery below for some images of this airplane boneyard in the desert.
Every day, DVICE selects fresh images, videos and more from the wonderful world of technology. See them all by clicking this link.
Via SilentUK

Off-road spybot orb is the Sony Rolly's spiritual successor

The words "cute" and "spybot" are not synonymous, but if you're talking about Rotundus' GroundBot, a mud, sand, snow and water treading, R/C-controlled, 3D-photo-shooting machine, then you're using the the right textual units.

Solar Ship intros the era of super cheap intercontinental travel

The vision of future Earth as depicted in films, whether utopian or dystopian, almost always includes a solar air ship of some sort. Now one group of aerodynamics engineers have created what looks like a very real solution to make such a vehicle a reality.

Monoprice 8247 review: $84 for a 'good enough' 5.1 speaker system

Monoprice is an Internet retailer that made a name for itself providing tech accessories at insanely low prices. (It is, in our opinion, the best place to buy "good enough" HDMI cables at prices far lower than you'd ever find at Best Buy.)

Not content with accessories, Monoprice is now branching out into its own branded line of tech products. Even with Monoprice's reputation for bargains, we were shocked to see the Monoprice 8247: it's a 5.1 surround-sound speaker package you can buy for the seemingly impossible price of $84.10. That's less than $15 per speaker (including the subwoofer) and Monoprice doesn't chintz out with the accessories, including four swivel wall-mounts for each of the satellite speakers. The most impressive feat of all is that these ultrabudget speakers actually sound pretty good.