7 things that will be cheaper in 2012

While it's true that prices usually go up, not down, 2012 does have quite a few deals in store for you.

Thanks to a slow economy, a surplus of inventory and plenty of competition between brands, everything from used cars to eReaders will be cheaper than they were in years past. Read on to find out how to save on seven big-ticket items.

Comparing Today's Computers To 1995's

Solid advice for buying a computer back in 1995? Spend the extra $100 for that 28.8 modem.  Thanks to Edward C. for the image.

Gabe Newell Talks About Lack of HL Updates

t's funny that this article is about Gabe Newell addressing the lack of Half Life updates but he ends up giving us the quote of the day instead. Thanks to zamardii for the heads up.

"We're acutely aware of how much we annoy our fans.

Part of the reason that we backed off talking so much about what was happening in the future is that when we've done that in the past, you know, with Half-Life 1 it was a year after we originally said it would be, Half-Life 2 basically if you go and read the forum posts apparently took us 50 or 60 years to get done, so we're trying to be careful not to get people too excited and then have to go and disappoint them."

HP shares fall on sharp profit decline

Shares of Hewlett-Packard Co were down 2 percent in premarket trading on Thursday after the world's No. 1 computer maker posted a sharp decline in quarterly earnings and warned it would take several years to turn around its sprawling businesses.

The storied Silicon Valley company, which has been trying to move past the internal upheaval that marked 2011, on Wednesday said earnings fell nearly 44 percent and forecast a second-quarter profit below Wall Street estimates as it battles with weak sales of PCs and printers.

The revenue shortfall in its personal computers unit and significant sequential margin deterioration in every business raise questions about the competitiveness, cost structure, and secular pressures in HP's business segments, analysts at Morgan Stanley wrote.

Apple Dumping 30-pin Connector? How About Dumping Cords Altogether?

Apple may be dumping the 30-pin dock connector in future iOS devices for a smaller component as the company looks to make more room inside iPhones, iPads, and iPods for larger batteries and other parts, according to online reports.

Real estate inside your iPhone or iPad has always been a precious commodity as Apple continually looks to pack smaller pieces inside its svelte gadgets. Space has traditionally been made to accommodate bigger batteries for power hungry features. This time around, Apple is reportedly looking to make room for a larger a 4G wireless radio. It's not clear when the supposed change would happen, but the most likely debut candidate for a smaller connector would be the iPhone 5, according to the Website iMore.

New York Man 'Grows' Six Inches Through Surgery

At five foot, six inches, Apotheosis was shorter than the average American male and very unhappy about it.

So he did something other men who feel short might consider unthinkable: he opted for costly, painful surgeries to make himself "grow" a total of six inches.

"I realized that the world looked at me a certain way that I didn't look at myself in that certain way," said the 37-year-old New Yorker, who goes by the pseudonym "Apotheosis" in online forums and asked that "20/20" not use his real name. "I wanted the way I felt about myself and the way the world felt about me to be similar."

Danica Patrick found her street car isn’t so practical

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – As she approaches age 30, Danica Patrick is going conservative.

She’s still attempting a bold career move by trying to win Sunday’s Daytona 500. In her personal life though, she barely ever whips around anymore in her silver Lamborghini Gallardo. (Retail price: about $202,000. Horsepower: about a million.)Well, sort of.

“I don’t drive it much at all really,” Patrick said.

The problems are myriad: potholes, parking and nowhere to put her black coffee when she’s running errands in Scottsdale, Ariz., where she lives with her husband.

Mom builds 4-year-old spot-on replica of Red Bull’s 2012 Formula 1 car

It's only mid-February, and already the world's best parent contest for 2012 appears all sewn up by a Japanese woman who spent a month building her 4-year-old son the ultimate video game station -- a cardboard replica of the 2012 Red Bull Formula 1 race car, accurate from the tail wings to the logos on the step nose.

The Pentagon Has 6 Bomb-Zapping Ray Guns (Which May Be 6 Too Many)

Since January 2006, the Pentagon has spent more than $18 billion trying to stop insurgent bombs — funding everything from radio frequency jammers to electronic dragnets that hunt bombmakers’ phone calls. But while the military is good at shelling out cash for futuristic bomb stoppers, it’s not as adept at tracking where its money goes. That’s how it ends up spending over $100 million on no fewer than six different kinds of directed-energy weapons designed to fry the bombs from a safe distance. And that’s just the tally of the laser, microwave or radio-frequency blasters that are currently in development.

Calm Down. Iran’s Missiles Can’t (and Won’t) Hit the East Coast.

Israel is claiming that Iran is this close to developing a missile that can hit American soil. But missile and intelligence experts say Tehran has a long, technically complex road to travel before it can threaten Manhattan.

From getting all the rocket thrusters to work properly to developing heat shields that can withstand the stresses of rapid atmospheric reentry, Iran is probably many years away from getting an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). The American spy apparatus, which once hyped the Iranian missile threat, has quietly stopping saying when Iran can hit the east coast. And the irony is that it’s taking Iran so long precisely because its missile efforts really are sophisticated.

Intel's Craig Barrett an Engineering Hero

Former Intel Chairman and CEO, Craig Barrett, was recognized today as one of eight Stanford Engineering Heroes, an honor bestowed upon Stanford University faculty and alumni engineers who have advanced the course of human, social, and economic progress through engineering. Now in its second year, the primary objective of this honor is to herald the profession and the profound effect engineering has on our everyday lives.

Air Force's U-2 aircraft get new lease on life

The draft of the federal budget for 2013 takes an ax to the rival Global Hawk program. An Air Force general says the U-2, a design that dates to the 1950s, is "the stronger system."

A U-2 pilot at an airfield in Southwest Asia gives the thumbs-up, signaling that all systems are go for a mission in October 2009.

(Credit: U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. J.G. Buzanowski)

Score one for old-school aircraft against the upstart drones.

Terminator reboot moving ahead whether lawyers want it to or not

Though the rights to the Terminator franchise may have been tied up in legal limbo until they were snatched up last year, the turmoil never stopped one small development studio from trucking along with a proposed CGI-animated, 3-D take on John Connor & Co.

Graphite foam could help suck terawatts of power from seawater

The only eco-friendly source of "base power," that is, power that (unlike solar or wind) is available at a constant rate whenever you need it, is geothermal. This lack of reliability makes green power a hard sell, and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory might have an answer: seawater.

iBattle: Apple May Finally Storm the Pentagon

The Pentagon is, for all intents and purposes, an Apple-free zone. Its desktop computers have long run on Windows, and now its tablets and smartphones are all Android. But there’s a chance that might be about to change. The Air Force’s Air Mobility Command is considering a monster purchase of iPads — one that might give Apple inroads into a military market that’s eluded it so far.

Volunteers needed: food tasters for hypothetical Mars mission

For every wannabe astronaut foodie, this is the opportunity for you. Scientists are looking to plan the menu and culinary routine of astronauts on a hypothetical Mars mission.

NASA is seeking volunteers to participate in a 120-day study run by Cornell/University of Hawaii that will simulate living and working conditions on a long voyage or prolonged stay in space. The study will focus on a vital part of everyday living - the process of preparing and eating food — but under the extraordinary conditions of space travel.

Digging into Apple's U.S. job creation engine

A funny thing happened at Toy Fair this week. Not funny as in funny toys or funny games, but funny as in a sudden but fundamental shift in how we will play from now on.

Toy giants such as Hasbro and Mattel, middling companies trying to find profitable new niches and new companies all are creating a new type of product — apps (some Android, most Apple iOS) combined to interact with some sort of physical real-life objects to create a new virtual play experience.

For instance, Hasbro has its Lazer Tag blaster, into which you clip an iPhone or iPod to create a heads-up display. Mattel has Hot Wheels designed to roll over a course right on top of an iPad screen. WowWee's AppGear games include ZombieBurbz, little collectable figurines that are set on a table and "seen" in the virtual iPad game.

These new app-based toys relates to the on-going controversy about conditions in Apple's Chinese factories, including the pending iPad 3. As part of the conversation, many critics are asking why, with Apple's enormous profits, isn't the company bringing these manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.

Defense department scraps its 747-mounted battle laser

After 16 years of development and an investment of somewhere around five billion dollars, the Air Force has decided to retire their Airborne Laser test bed, a 747 fitted with a rotating turret in the nose that could shoot down ballistic missiles from long range with a giant chemical laser.

Japanese company says they'll have a space elevator by 2050

Last time we checked in with space elevators, NASA had given out a $900,000 prize to a tiny laser-powered carriage that managed to climb a kilometer-long cable. Japan's Obayashi Corporation doesn't think that NASA is moving quite fast enough, so the company has decided to build a space elevator for itself by 2050.

Phone booth hack turns public spaces into mini-libraries

The modern phone booth as we know it may be an endangered species, but one clever designer has repurposed them in way that may actually lead to a evolution in urban public spaces.

Man arrested after alleged 'fight' in front of Disney ride

A man was arrested over the weekend after allegedly attacking workers in front of the Tower of Terror ride at Disney's California Adventure Park in Anaheim.

In a YouTube video of the encounter, the man is seen flailing at a security employee and struggling to keep his balance outside the ride. Another employee, dressed in the Tower of Terror bellhop uniform, can be seen asking the crowd to "back up."

A woman is heard in the video shouting, "You're in Disneyland ...  there are kids here." It was posted on the video sharing site with a caption that reads, "We had a weird day at Disneyland...Fiiiiight!!!"

How Mazda Must Save Itself - Autoline Daily 830

Chinese automakers are invading Europe from Bulgaria to Britain to Sicily. Despite an overall trend downward, teen traffic deaths jump by several percentage points. Peugeot unveils two B-segment concepts ahead of Geneva. All that and more, plus John McElroy explains what Mazda must do to turn itself around.

Autoblog's The List #0024: Race in the 24 Hours of LeMons

Jessi and Patrick compete in the world's craziest endurance race.

RIP, Raygun: Pentagon’s Laser Plane Laid to Rest

Yes, it sounds completely crazy: A 747 jumbo-jet, embedded with a powerful laser, that can shoot missiles right out of the sky. But for sixteen long years, the U.S. military tried to turn that idea — called the Airborne Laser Test Bed — into a reality.

Now, after myriad ups and downs, the Airborne Laser (ABL) has finally been put out of its misery. Last week, the Missile Defense Agency announced that the ABL completed its final test flight.

The jet will now be dispatched to a locale from which planes don’t typically return: The Air Force’s Maintenance and Regeneration Group, also known as “The Boneyard.”

Special Ops Forces Killed in African Spy Plane Crash

Four Air Force Special Operators on a spy mission over east Africa died when their U-28 plane crashed as it was returning to Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti. It’s another reminder of the hidden costs of the U.S.’ expanding shadow wars in Africa.

U.S. Super-Sizing Afghan Jail It Promised to Abandon

There once was a plan to turn over the main U.S. detention center in Afghanistan to control of the Afghans in 2011. That’s out the window. Instead, the military is offering millions to vastly expand the center’s inmate intake.

How to excavate a basement with RC toys trucks

This is the story of a patient and passionate man. Known only as "Joe from Saskatchewan, Canada," he wasn't just content to collect and play with remote control vehicles, he's put them to work excavating his basement for the last seven years.

Clearly Joe takes his hobby to a new level by collecting all manner of pint sized remote control excavation equipment and deploying them all with the precision of a general on his basement.

From geeks, for geeks: website to plan your nerd adventures

Sometimes it's just not enough to see the major landmarks when you travel. In the back of your mind you know there is more out there — stuff that might be more interesting to you than your average bus tour. You want to see the gravesites of scientists, abandoned missile silos, museums of the macabre, observatories and much more.

Military Burned Korans At Giant Afghanistan Jail

It’s bad enough that the U.S. military burned — it says accidentally — Korans in Afghanistan. But if that symbolism wasn’t already a setback to the war effort, the NATO command in Afghanistan confirms that the destruction of an unknown number of holy Islamic books occurred at the military’s massive wartime prison.

The Detention Facility at Parwan, the prison on the outskirts of Bagram Air Field was the locale for the recent Koran destructions, according to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Afghans and human rights workers already accuse the U.S. of hosting a secret torture chamber at the Parwan jail, a charge the U.S. denies.

iPhone pepper spray case is the ultimate in geek protection

So let's say it's Black Friday and you're calling up a friend to join you at the store for some awesome savings, when all of a sudden you see a stampede of rabid shoppers headed your way. Well have we got an iPhone case for you.

It would cost $852 quadrillion dollars to build a real Death Star

That's 852 with 15 zeros following it. I know, that figure is insane. You know what that means. It means Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader were rolling in the money like filthy rich rappers. I guess ruling the Galactic Empire isn't so terrible when you're ballin'.

Finally putting some questions to rest, the smart folk over at Centives calculated how much iron it would take to build the planet-destroying space station and even figured out how long it would take to build.

The single atom transistor: how they did it

Physicists have just created a working transistor out of a tiny phosphorous atom placed within atomic scale electrodes all within a silicon crystal. It's the precision with which the atom and the other constructs are placed that is key to this breakthrough. Previously single atom transistors only been achieved by chance or fine tuning multi-atom devices — and when the positioning is off even by ten nanometers it is enough to create operational slow down.

ABC Previews 'Nightline' Visit to Foxconn's Chinese Factories

Over the weekend, ABC announced that it had been granted exclusive access to Foxconn's factories in China where the company assembled products for Apple, with the segment scheduled to air on a special edition of Nightline on Tuesday night. 


ABC has now posted a preview of the segment, along with a teaser video from Nightlineco-anchor Bill Weir.

Facebook Profiles Accurately Predict Job Performance

A new study says that your Facebook profile lets employers know what kind of employee you will be. Quick, remove all those embarrassing posts and pics from your FB page! 

That’s the advice of a new study from the Northern Illinois University, the University of Evansville and Auburn University. The researchers recruited a group of four Facebook-savvy human resources professionals and students to evaluate the Facebook profiles of 56 users. The four perused each of the profiles for about 10 minutes each before grading them according to the so-called Big Five personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism).

Court Orders ISP To Block Grooveshark

Anyone else see a trend here lately with all these court orders instructing ISPs to block copyright infringing sites? TPB, Megaupload, Grooveshark all blocked or taken down in the last month. So...why did they needed SOPA, PIPA and ACTA again? 

A group of more than 30 rightsholders have won their case targeted against Grooveshark in Denmark. A court agreed that both the streaming music service and its users infringe recording label copyrights and granted an injunction forcing an ISP to initiate a block of the service. The anti-piracy group behind the action hopes that other ISPs will now follow suit.

Porsche stuck in wet cement: Proof karma exists?

On Thursday, the driver of a Porsche 911 decided he'd take a shortcut around some construction cones and drove straight into wet concrete near Marina Green on Marina Blvd. in San Francisco.

Spin-resistant airplane makes it easier to not die while flying

I've spent a lot of time in small aircraft, and nothing (short of a wing falling off) scares me more than getting into a spin. Good pilots can recover from most stalls and spins given enough altitude, but it's still a very dangerous situation to be in, which is why it's a great idea to design an airplane that sucks at getting into spins in the first place.

Tiny strip of gecko foot tape can stick 700 pounds to glass

If you've ever seen a gecko, you've probably noticed how excellent they are at not falling off of things. Researchers at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst have managed to create an adhesive based on gecko toes that works nearly as well as the real thing, and an index card of this stuff is powerful enough to stick you and six* of your most daring friends directly to a sheet of glass.

Hottest & Best: Body-painted Fett, Trek/Who Crossover and more!

This week's edition of Hottest Stories (as calculated by your very own clickies) and Best Comments (whatever moved the conversation along, made us laugh, or just seemed "best" at the time) is filled with love, toys, bears with fish, Trek/Who, John Carter, scantily clad bounty hunters, zombies, Spock tattoos ... and a farewell to a friend. LINK

U.S. Megauploading More Charges On Dotcom

The way the government is stacking charges on these guys, you know they are in for a world of hurt. Anyone else notice the 66.6 registered members thing? 

While Megaupload claimed more than 180 million registered users, the site actually only had 66.6 million registered users, it said. And of the total users, only 5.86 million had ever uploaded a single file to either Megaupload.com or Megavideo.com, the department said, demonstrating that more than 90 percent of Megaupload's users only used the site to download.

See how freaky amusement park rides look without any tracks

"Inception Park" by Black Sheep Films editor Fernando Livschitz shares the same objective as the movie it's named for: messing with minds. Remember how in Inception, Ellen Page was able to wrap Paris up like a Fruit Roll-Up? This video is just as unreal, with soaring roller coaster cars snaking throughout Buenos Aires.

Why 'big data' is a magnet for startups

So-called "big data" opens up new ways to mine the Web and social media for consumers and business. Data gurus say these apps require a rethink in how computing systems are built.

(Credit: Facebook)

Half of Fortune 500s, US Govt. Still Infected with Trojan

What exactly is taking these guys so long to fix their systems? It's not like they don't have the time, money and/or resources. 

More than two months after authorities shut down a massive Internet traffic hijacking scheme, the malicious software that powered the criminal network is still running on computers at half of the Fortune 500 companies, and on PCs at nearly 50 percent of all federal government agencies, new research shows.

Iran's female ninjas

A Ninjutsu practitioner participates in a sword drill as members of various Ninjutsu schools showcase their skills to the media at a park in Karaj, 45 km (28 miles) northwest of Tehran February 13, 2012. Currently about 3000 to 3500 women train in Ninjutsu in independently run clubs throughout Iran working under the supervision of the Ministry of Sports' Martial Arts Federation.  PHOTOS

Redesigning the Windows Logo

I don't even want to know what Microsoft paid this design agency for this. Unless the fee was lunch at Burger King, they got ripped off. That couldn't have taken more than five minutes to make with MS Paint. 

British spies stumped by Charlie Chaplin mystery

LONDON (AP) — They foiled plots and cracked Nazi codes, but Britain's spies were unable to solve the mystery of Charlie Chaplin's birth.

Although the entertainer is celebrated as one of London's most famous sons, newly declassified files reveal that Britain's MI5domestic intelligence service found no records to back up Chaplin's claim that he was born in the city on April 16, 1889.

Uncertainty about Chaplin's origins linger to this day — a mystery Chaplin himself may have helped to nurture.

The previously secret file, released Friday by Britain's National Archives, shows that MI5 investigated the silent film star in the 1950s at the request of U.S. authorities, who had long suspected him of communist sympathies. MI5 historian Christopher Andrew said the FBI's red-hating chief, J. Edgar Hoover, privately denounced Chaplin as "one of Hollywood's parlor Bolsheviks."

Ancient meteorite standing between one Iowa town and its water supply

The remains of a 1.5 mile-wide, 10 billion-ton meteorite are causing problems for a small Iowa town, 74 million years after it crashed onto the Earth's surface at 45,000 miles per hour.

The Des Moines Register reports that the 1,600 residents of Manson, Iowa are struggling to locate a site for the town's well due to the geological impact of the meteorite. The crash created the underground Manson Crater—which has a diameter of 24 miles and reaches into four neighboring counties.

The 5 Grossest Things You're Eating - Scary Foods

There are two types of reality food shows on TV. The first features mouthwatering meals we wish we could eat right off our flat-screens. The second subjects us to gag-inducing footage of people wolfing down bull testicles, duck embryos, and puréed insects.

Is your kitchen more a) MasterChef or b) Fear Factor?

I'm sorry to say, the correct answer is probably B. Thanks to modern food processing techniques, manufacturers are allowing toxic and disease-promoting ingredients to find their way into our food, and in many cases, they've invented clever ways to keep them off the ingredient statement.

So with help from Rodale.com writer Leah Zerbe, I’ve narrowed down the most sordid supermarket selections for you. Read on for five of the grossest foods your grocer has to offer. And for more simple secrets that will keep you looking and feeling your best all year long, follow me here on Twitter or sign up for our FREE Eat This, Not That! daily newsletter. You'll learn how to lose weight without ever dieting again.

12 Scary Debt Facts for 2012

As President Obama unveiled the 2013 fiscal year budget, the nation's financial situation came back into sharp focus. Experts say partisan gridlock in Washington means the budget will probably go nowhere.

Considering this is an election year, however, expect politicians to harp on facts, figures and terms that most Americans weren't taught in high school. To help out, it's time to dredge up lots of scary facts to make you pay attention.

YouTube Gets 3-Year-Old A Baseball Movie Role

A 3-year-old boy's love affair with America's pastime has gotten Hollywood's attention.

Christian Haupt is addicted to baseball -- so much so that he's playing the sport at a skill level beyond his age. That's not so rare. Nor is it strange that Christian's mom and dad recorded video of their hardball prodigy last summer at age 2, then posted it on YouTube.

But listen to what happened next.

Less than a week later, a Hollywood casting director from an Adam Sandler film spotted it. They were looking for a young ballplayer to appear in Sandler's film "That's My Boy," according to the Thousand Oaks Acorn. The movie is about a father who moves in with his son right before his wedding and soon begins sparring with his daughter-in-law.

Haupt's favorite team is the Dodgers and he goes to sleep with bedtime stories about Babe Ruth and other heroes from bygone times. Cartoons aren't his thing; if Christian is going to watch TV, it's baseball. On car rides to practice, he'll sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," with his 6-year-old sister, Charlotte.

New American Dream Is Renting to Get Rich

Rich Arzaga owns a luxury home in San Ramon, California, but he's not betting on it as an investment.

The founder and CEO of Cornerstone Wealth Management, who bought the 5,000 sq. ft. property in 2005 for $1.8 million and has spent $500,000 improving it, considers the abode a wonderful place for his family. But ask him to rate his home -- or any home, for that matter -- as a financial investment, and Arzaga balks.

"It's the American Dream to own a home, but whoever said that didn't do the analysis on it," says Arzaga, knowing he's taking a contrarian stance to conventional wisdom.

Bus Driver Who Deliberately Hit Cyclist Sent to Prison

The bus driver who, in a moment of road rage, swerved his bus to knock a cyclist off the road will spend the next 17 months in prison for his actions, a court in England has ruled.

Gavin Hill, 29, of Frome in Somerset, England, described his actions as a “moment of madness” while pleading guilty to dangerous driving and causing grievous bodily harm in court on Thursday.

A bus driver for 10 years, Hill was driving a Bugler Coaches bus the morning of April 5, 2011, when he drove too close to cyclist Phillip Mead as the two approached the St. James Barton roundabout in Bristol.