Indian rape victim dies in hospital

SINGAPORE (AP) — A young Indian woman who was gang-raped and severely beaten on a bus died Saturday at a Singapore hospital, after her horrific ordeal galvanized Indians to demand greater protection for women from sexual violence that impacts thousands of them every day.

She "passed away peacefully" with her family and officials of the Indian embassy by her side," said Dr. Kevin Loh, the chief executive of Mount Elizabeth hospital where she had been treated since Thursday. "The Mount Elizabeth Hospital team of doctors, nurses and staff join her family in mourning her loss," he said in a statement.

National gun 'conversation' mostly a waste of time

Editor's note: Roland Martin is a syndicated columnist and author of "The First: President Barack Obama's Road to the White House." He is a commentator for the TV One cable network and host/managing editor of its Sunday morning news show, "Washington Watch with Roland Martin."

(CNN) -- At 9:40 a.m. on December 14, America's attention was turned to Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 children and six adults were gunned down in an elementary school. The nation was grief-stricken. President Barack Obama arrived two days later operating as consoler-in-chief, and the dialogue immediately commenced on what steps should be taken to prevent another Newtown.

Is Apple's iPad, MacBook Air Behind the Death of the Netbook?

Netbooks were supposed to be the future of portable computing. As smaller, thinner and lighter versions of traditional laptop computers, netbooks were designed to be an energy-friendly, cost-effective alternative to expensive PCs.

Consumers were receptive to the idea but apprehensive of the price. Netbooks initially retailed for upwards of $300. Many of them, including high-end models from Dell and Hewlett-Packard, retailed for more than $400. For an additional $100 to $300, consumers could buy a full-size laptop instead.

(Which Apple products are going to be built in America?)

Colleges help students scrub online footprints

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Samantha Grossman wasn't always thrilled with the impression that emerged when people Googled her name.

"It wasn't anything too horrible," she said. "I just have a common name. There would be pictures, college partying pictures, that weren't of me, things I wouldn't want associated with me."

So before she graduated from Syracuse University last spring, the school provided her with a tool that allowed her to put her best Web foot forward. Now when people Google her, they go straight to a positive image — professional photo, cum laude degree and credentials — that she credits with helping her land a digital advertising job in New York.

"I wanted to make sure people would find the actual me and not these other people," she said.

Man proposes to girlfriend using a fake iPad

Plenty of iPads were gifted this past week, but at least one young lady received something in an iPad box that she probably wasn't expecting. Reddit user rad_rob proposed to his girlfriend in an amazingly unique manner, swapping the Apple tablet out of a retail box with a wedding ring.

Spartacus: War of the Damned Official Trailer

Spartacus' rebellion numbers in the thousands. Marcus Crassus and a young Julius Caesar have come to Rome's aid. Outright war with Rome is inevitable.
Spartacus: War of the Damned Premieres January 25th, 2013.
www.starz.com/spartacus

China tightening controls on Internet

BEIJING (AP) — China's new communist leaders are increasing already tight controls on Internet use and electronic publishing following a spate of embarrassing online reports about official abuses.

The measures suggest China's new leader, Xi Jinping, and others who took power in November share their predecessors' anxiety about the Internet's potential to spread opposition to one-party rule and their insistence on controlling information despite promises of more economic reforms.

"They are still very paranoid about the potentially destabilizing effect of the Internet," said Willy Lam, a politics specialist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. "They are on the point of losing a monopoly on information, but they still are very eager to control the dissemination of views."

World's longest fast train line opens in China

BEIJING (AP) — China has opened the world's longest high-speed rail line, which more than halves the time required to travel from the country's capital in the north to Guangzhou, an economic hub insouthern China.

Wednesday's opening of the 2,298 kilometer (1,428 mile)-line was commemorated by the 9 a.m. departure of a train from Beijing for Guangzhou. Another train left Guangzhou for Beijing an hour later.

China has massive resources and considerable prestige invested in its showcase high-speed railways program.

But it has in recent months faced high-profile problems: part of a line collapsed in central China after heavy rains in March, while abullet train crash in the summer of 2011 killed 40 people. The former railway minister, who spearheaded the bullet train's construction, and the ministry's chief engineer, were detained in an unrelated corruption investigation months before the crash.

NY firemen's killer mapped out plan for slayings

WEBSTER, N.Y. (AP) — The ex-con turned sniper who killed twofirefighters wanted to make sure his goodbye note was legible, typing out his desire to "do what I like doing best, killing people" before setting the house where he lived with his sister ablaze, police said.

Police Chief Gerald Pickering said Tuesday that the 62-year-old loner, William Spengler, brought plenty of ammunition with him for three weapons including a military-style assault rifle as he set out on a quest to burn down his neighborhood just before sunrise on Christmas Eve.

And when firefighters arrived to stop him, he unleashed a torrent of bullets, shattering the windshield of the fire truck that volunteer firefighter and police Lt. Michael Chiapperini, 43, drove to the scene. Fellow firefighter Tomasz Kaczowka, 19, who worked as a 911 dispatcher, was killed as well.

Large, powerful storm heads east; at least 6 dead

A powerful winter storm system pounded the nation's midsection Wednesday and headed toward the Northeast, where people braced for the high winds and heavy snow that disrupted holiday travel, knocked out power to thousands of homes and were blamed in at least six deaths.

Hundreds of flights were canceled or delayed, scores of motorists got stuck on icy roads or slid into drifts, and blizzard warnings were issued amid snowy gusts of 30 mph that blanketed roads and windshields, at times causing whiteout conditions.

"The way I've been describing it is as a low-end blizzard, but that's sort of like saying a small Tyrannosaurus rex," said John Kwiatkowski, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Indianapolis.

Mover Busted by Feds After Customers Help in Sting

Nearly 45 million Americans move every year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That's 14 percent of the population on the go - and in danger of being taken advantage of by movers.

One consumer got revenge by videotaping movers behaving badly and taking the evidence to court.

Caught on tape were movers delivering broken belongings. The items were delivered late and left outside.

The original estimate for the job was $7,000, but the moving company, Golden Hand of Colorado, later demanded $25,000.

This is not the only case.

Cameron Almond and Vanessa Stockmar hired the same moving company. They had a similar experience: a lowball estimate of about $3,000, followed by a demand for nearly $10,000.

Natalie Portman, Kristen Stewart Named Forbes' Most Bankable Actors

Add another achievement to Natalie Portman's ever-growing list: Most Bankable Star.

The Oscar-winning actress tops Forbes' list of Hollywood’s Best Actors For The Buck, returning $42.70 for every dollar a studio spends on her.

While more than half of the list is comprised of actors coming off incredibly profitable tent-pole franchises, Portman's topping of the list is notable due to the fact that it was an indie film (Black Swan) that pushed her ahead of everyone else. Swan's worldwide gross of $329 million (on a $13 million budget) made it one of Hollywood's most profitable films. When her other major studio releases were added to the mix -- No Strings Attached, which grossed $150 million worldwide, and Your Highness, which flopped -- Portman came out on top.

Good Samaritan Finds Man's Lost Wedding Ring

Douglas Benedetti was a man on a mission when he returned to a snowy California highway to find what seemed like a needle in a haystack: a wedding ring lost in the piles of snow.

The ring was not even his own but that of a complete stranger, a man Benedetti, a snow chain installer by trade, had stopped to help one Friday night along Interstate 80 near Kingvale, Calif.

"He was installing his chains without gloves on, his hands got cold [and] he didn't realize his ring had slipped off," Benedetti said.

That is what the driver, whose name Benedetti still does not know, told Benedetti when he pulled over to help the man. Instead of helping with his car, Benedetti watched the driver frantically sifting through the snow.

Police union seeks more help for Newtown officers

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Some of the police officers who responded to the school shooting in Newtown are so traumatized they haven't been working, but they have to use sick time and could soon be at risk of going without a paycheck, a union official said Wednesday.

The union, Council 15 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, is seeking more generous assistance in talks with the town's insurer. It is also reaching out to lawmakers and the governor's office with proposals to modify state law and expand workers' compensation benefits for officers who witness horrific crime scenes.

Delays litter long road to vehicle rearview rules

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — In the private hell of a mother's grief, the sounds come back to Judy Neiman. The SUV door slamming. The slight bump as she backed up in the bank parking lot. The emergency room doctor's sobs as he said her 9-year-old daughter Sydnee, who previously had survived four open heart surgeries, would not make it this time.

Her own cries of: How could I have missed seeing her?

The 53-year-old woman has sentenced herself to go on living in the awful stillness of her West Richland, Wash., home, where she makes a plea for what she wants since she can't have Sydnee back: More steps taken by the government and automakers to help prevent parents from accidentally killing their children, as she did a year ago this month.

"They have to do something, because I've read about it happening to other people. I read about it and I said, 'I would die if it happens to me,'" Neiman says. "Then it did happen to me."

This Scientist Wants Tomorrow’s Troops to Be Mutant-Powered

Greater strength and endurance. Enhanced thinking. Better teamwork. New classes of genetic weaponry, able to subvert DNA. Not long from now, the technology could exist to routinely enhance — and undermine — people’s minds and bodies using a wide range of chemical, neurological, genetic and behavioral techniques.

It’s warfare waged at the evolutionary level. And it’s coming sooner than many people think. According to the futurists at the U.S. National Intelligence Council, by 2030, “neuro-enhancements could provide superior memory recall or speed of thought. Brain-machine interfaces could provide ‘superhuman‘ abilities, enhancing strength and speed, as well as providing functions not previously available.”

Pentagon Preps Stealth Strike Force to Counter China

The U.S. military has begun a staged, five-year process that will see each of its three main stealth warplane types deployed to bases near China. When the deployments are complete in 2017, Air Force F-22s and B-2s and Marine Corps F-35s could all be within striking range of America’s biggest economic rival at the same time. With Beijing now testing its own radar-evading jet fighters — two different models, to be exact — the clock is counting down to a stealth warplane showdown over the Western Pacific.

New Dead Space 3 Trailer

EA and Visceral Games released a new Dead Space 3 trailer yesterday that explains "the story so far." I can't wait for February to get here. 

Marvell Loses Patent Case, Damages Top $1B

It looks as though a jury has awarded Carnegie Mellon University $1.17B in damages for patent infringement from Marvell.

Marvell was accused of infringing two patents for technology to increase the accuracy with which hard disk drive circuits read data from high-speed magnetic disks, according to K&L Gates, a law firm representing Pittsburgh-based Carnegie Mellon. Through its verdict, the jury found that Marvell had sold billions of chips incorporating the technology without being licensed to do so, the law firm said in a statement.

The Queen Beat Everyone to the Internet

The Queen of England was on the internet before most of you were even born. 

The date was March 26, 1976, and the ARPANET — the computer network that eventually morphed into the internet — had just come to the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment, a telecommunications research center in Malvern, England. The Queen was on hand to christen the connection, and in the process, she became one of the first heads of state to send an e-mail.

Mr. Sollecito's Ultimate School of Rock

Mr. Sollecito is the much loved music teacher at Howard Wood Elementary School in Torrance, CA. He inspires his students and makes music fun, despite the fact that he doesn't have his own classroom and that most of his students can't afford instruments. Watch as the Ultimate Surprises team transforms an empty space into a dream music room that will have Mr. Sollecito and the kids singing a happy tune. They'll also get a surprise visit from a celebrity musician that's going to rock their world! VIDEO

Group offers weapons training for Utah teachers

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — More than 200 Utah teachers are expected to pack a convention hall on Thursday for six hours of concealed-weapons training as organizers seek to arm more educators in the aftermath of the Connecticut school shooting.

The Utah Shooting Sports Council said it normally gathers a dozen teachers every year for instruction that's required to legally carry a concealed weapon in public places. The state's leading gun lobby decided to offer teachers the training at no charge to encourage turnout, and it worked.

Organizers who initially capped attendance at 200 were exceeding that number by Wednesday and scrambling to accommodate an overflow crowd.

"Schools are some of the safest places in the world, but I think teachers understand that something has changed — the sanctity of schools has changed," Clark Aposhian, one of Utah's leading gun instructors, said Wednesday. "Mass shootings may still be rare, but that doesn't help you when the monster comes in."

Does Facebook Privacy Confuse Zuckerberg's Sister?

Facebook's privacy settings can be confusing - just ask Mark Zuckerberg's sister, Randi Zuckberberg.

Randi Zuckerberg's tweet.Randi, who is the former marketing director of Facebook (FB), posted a feisty tweet Tuesday night scolding a Twitter follower for reposting a picture that Randi had originally published on Facebook.

"@cschweitz not sure where you got this photo. I posted it on FB. You reposting it to Twitter is way uncool," Randi said in her tweet.

The Twitter follower, Callie Schweitzer, quickly responded.

"@randizuckerberg I'm just your subscriber and this was top of my newsfeed. Genuinely sorry but it came up in my feed and seemed public," Schweitzer said in a tweet.

Randi then replied via Twitter that the reason Schweitzer could view the picture was probably because she was also friends with Randi's other sister, so the follower could see tagged images of her.

From a Manila slum emerges an unlikely ballerina

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The ghetto called Aroma reeks of putrefying trash collected by its residents for recycling. Half-naked children with grimy faces play on muddy dirt roads lined by crumbling shanties of tarpaulin walls, cracked tin roofs and communal toilets. 

From this Manila slum of garbage collectors emerged an unlikely Cinderella: ballerina Jessa Balote who at the age of 10 was plucked out of her grubby life by a ballet school to prepare her for a life on stage. 

In four years since her audition in 2008, Jessa has performed in various productions, including Swan Lake, Pinocchio, Don Quixote and a local version of Cinderella. She rode a plane for the first time in August to compete in the 2012 Asian Grand Prix ballet competition for students and young dancers in Hong Kong, where she was a finalist. 

Stolen Dog Returned to Heartbroken Girl

A heartbroken 7-year-old girl's Christmas wish came true when New York City cops nabbed the Grinch that stole her dog and a good Samaritan helped reunite her with the missing pooch.

On Christmas Day, a beaming Mia Bendray, 7, wrapped her arms around Marley, the Cavalier King Charles spaniel, who had been brazenly unleashed and taken from outside a shop in Manhattan's Washington Heights neighborhood on Christmas Eve. The theft was caught on tape and police provided the video to news outlets.

This Is 14

Starring Preston Bailey, Daniela Leon, Tucker Albrizzi, Katherine McNamara, Shanna Strong. Director/editor: Joe Burke. Writer: Jordan Morris. Producers: Corey Moss, Tiffany Moore. DP: Topher Osborn. VIDEO

Did TV Anchor Violate Gun Law?

Washington police are investigating whether NBC's David Gregory broke the law by holding up what appeared to be a 30-round gun magazine on Sunday's Meet the Press after the network apparently got conflicting opinions about whether it would be legal for him to do so.

It is illegal in the district to possess a "large capacity ammunition feeding device."

Gwendolyn Crump, director of the Office of Communications for the Washington Metropolitan Police Department, told ABC News, "NBC contacted MPD inquiring if they could utilize a high capacity magazine for their segment. NBC was informed that possession of a high capacity magazine is not permissible and their request was denied. This matter is currently being investigated."

Oklahoma City house fire kills mother, 4 children

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A fire that ripped through a home in Oklahoma City before dawn Wednesday killed a woman and her four children and left one man in critical condition with serious burns, authorities said.

Firefighters who arrived about 6:30 a.m. found the bodies of Jeanine Bonnet, 28, and her children inside the two-story, wood-frame home, Fire Department Maj. Tammy McKinney said. They foundBrian Poletto, 39, outside the burning house while a man who rented a room at the home, David Ruppert, managed to escape the flames.

Polletto was in critical condition at a local hospital later Wednesday with second- and third-degree burns to his back and arms, McKinney said.

Mark Cuban: Nokia Lumia 920 ‘crushes’ the iPhone 5

In the eyes of outspoken entrepreneur Mark Cuban, the battle for smartphone supremacy has been fought and won… by Nokia (NOK). While hosting an AMA session on Reddit — a series of posts where the original poster instructs Reddit users to “Ask Me Anything” — Cuban, who famously sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo (YHOO) for around $5 billion at the height of the dot-com boom, was asked what kind of laptop he uses. “I have a MacBook Air, but am trying the new Acer with Windows 8 [laptop],” wrote Cuban. “I really, really like Windows 8 on my phone. I have [two] phones. First isSamsung (005930) the [second] was an iPhone 5. The new Nokia with windows replaced my iPhone 5.” When asked to elaborate, Cuban said that the Lumia 920 “crushes the iPhone 5. Not even close.”

Settlement reached in Toyota acceleration cases

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Toyota Motor Corp. said Wednesday it has reached a settlement worth more than $1 billion in a case involving unintended acceleration problems in its vehicles.

The company said the deal will resolve hundreds of lawsuits from Toyota owners who said the value of their cars and trucks plummeted after a series of recalls stemming from claims that Toyota vehicles accelerated unintentionally.

Steve Berman, a lawyer representing Toyota owners, said the settlement is the largest in U.S. history involving automobile defects.

This 3D-printed record works with ordinary record players

 

Amanda Ghassaei has created a 3D printed record that, according to her, plays on "regular turntables, with regular needles, at regular speeds, just like any vinyl record." It doesn't sound the best, but for what it is, it plays phenomenally.

Little-known sci-fi fact: Lucas originally wanted FOUR trilogies

 

Until now, it seemed as though we'd never see the third of George Lucas' original concept of three Star Wars trilogies. But now that we are, it's interesting to note that there were once supposed to be four.
In a new history of the Star Wars saga in the latest issue of Empire magazine, it's noted that Lucas talked for a while about doing four trilogies, a total of 12 episodes, before dropping one sometime between doing A New Hope (1977) and The Empire Strikes Back (1980).

Apple tweaks Lightning spec following Kickstarter project gone awry

Apple is changing its Lightning specification license to allow both the aged 30-pin adapter and the Lightning connector in a single accessory.
 
Apple has changed course on a technical specification that recently put a third-party charging accessory out of luck.
The company today said it's now allowing its newer Lightning adapter specification to coexist with the older (yet still quite popular) 30-pin adapter in the same accessory.

iPad is left behind as rival tablets get multiuser support

Want to loan your tablet to a child or friend but don't want to provide access to all your data? Windows, Android, and even Amazon tablets make it easy. Apple's iPad has some catching up to do.

When I got my Microsoft Surface two months ago, my 11-year-old asked if he could try it. "Sure," I said, and I was able to hand it over without worry that he'd be getting into my work e-mail or accidentally tweeting on my behalf. The Surface has what the iPad lacks: multiuser support.
It's not just the Surface, either. Any Windows tablet allows different users to have their own accounts. The latest version of Android, such as on the Nexus 7 and Nexus 10, also offers this. Even Amazon's Kindle Fire HD has a form of multiuser support.
It was already long overdue for the iPad to have multiuser support, and now it's feeling even worse. Apple has some serious catching up to do. Here's a look at how it works with other platforms.

Ubisoft To Buy THQ Assets?

According to anonymous sources cited in this article, Ubisoft has plans to buy up THQ's assets. Good news? Bad news?

Ubisoft is one of the front-runners in the bid to buy THQ's assets, MCV understands. We have been told that the French firm is keen to take over the publisher's brands and studios once THQ works through its current financial problems.

Rockstar Games Offers Printable GTA Maps

It must be the Christmas season if the game companies begin to give away presents. Rockstar is offering the original trilogy maps from Grand Theft Auto 3, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for download and it’s free. LINK

Microsoft Re-Issues Botched Black Tuesday Patch

Late this week Microsoft re-released a patch originally issued as an automatic update on December 11th. The original patch caused certain OpenType fonts to disappear and reinstalling KB 2753842 will correct the problem.

Although the KB article doesn't mention it, you need to install this new version of KB 2753842 whether or not you installed the old, buggy version. LINK

Scientists Develop World's First Peel-Off Solar Cells

Researchers at Stanford University have taken another step forward in portable power for any anything that requires a low voltage power source. The ‘peel-and-stick’ solar panel technology is reusable and can attach to almost any surface or shape.

By fabricating "peel-and-stick" solar cells, the Stanford scientists have broadened the thin-film photovoltaic cells' uses. The study's authors suggest using the solar cells with portable power supplies, electronic smart clothing and aerospace systems. LINK

Pirate Bay Censorship Backfires as New Proxies Bloom

Shutting down the Pirate Bay is proving to be a more difficult task that previously thought. Each time a proxy service is shut down, two more pop up half a world away ready to serve. Pirate Bay seems to be holding all of the cards in this game.

"We wish the UK Pirate Party best of luck in their continued fight for free access to culture and knowledge. We have put up our own Pirate Bay proxy which is accessible from anywhere in the world, including the UK and other places where it has been censored." LINK

NSA Targeting Domestic Computer Systems

It’s time to break out the tin foil hats again in response to newly released files from the National Security Agency under the Freedom of Information Act. It seems like the long held policy of not spying on the American public is no longer being observed. The NSA claims that the intrusions are vulnerability assessments only and do not monitor private networks. The 190 pages of the NSA's Perfect Citizen files, which EPIC obtained through the Freedom of Information Act last week, are heavily redacted. LINK

UPS Employee Caught Stealing iPad Delivery

Al and Sandra Alverson was expecting two gifts they had bought online to get delivered this past Wednesday, but only one made it safely to their house in Houston. Wonder what happened to the other one?
The mystery began after FedEx sent the Alversons a confirmation notice that a package had been delivered that morning. According to FedEx’s records, the Apple iPad Mini, which was supposed to be a gift for their daughter, had come at 9:29 am. But guess what? No package.

Walking Dead gains a 4th season—but loses its showrunner!

 

We've got huge news about AMC's The Walking Dead. The zombie juggernaut will live to see another season—but that's not all. Once again, there's a behind-the-scenes shakeup.
On the heels of the show's renewal, AMC dropped a bomb—executive producer Glen Mazzara is leaving. He's the second showrunner to step down, following Frank Darabont.

Michael Caine reveals the secret history of Batman's Alfred

 

Christopher Nolan accomplished many things between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises, but one thing that was never fully realized was the backstory of Bruce Wayne's butler, Alfred Pennyworth. Good thing actor Michael Caine came up with one himself.

In the future, emergency medical teams will fly around in VTOL jets

 

Designer Daniel Dobrogorsky envisions a future where no matter where you are or the scale of the emergency, medical teams will be able to get to your location in 60 seconds. How? By flying around in a single-seater VTOL jet, the nose of which opens up to serve as a stretcher. He calls this life-saving vehicle the Skyway.

7 Codes You’ll Never Ever Break

The history of encryption is a tale of broken secrets. But some mysteries remain unraveled. Among the thousands of broken codes and ciphers solved by cryptologists from the NSA and the KGB to amateurs at home, there are the few elusive codes that no one has ever managed to crack.
What makes these ciphers even more intriguing are the people who supposedly wrote them: an estranged lover; a serial killer who sent encrypted letters in a kind of twisted mind game; an esoteric 15th century alchemist for reasons still unknown today. Some of the codes turned up in the pockets of dead men: some unidentified to this day, others who were murdered by strangers for no discernible reason why.
Some may even be hoaxes. But even figuring out which ciphers are real and which are not can be nearly insurmountable. And even if we can spot the authentic codes amidst the hoaxes, some of these rare and challenging codes may still be impossible to solve, in our lifetimes at least. We've asked Kevin Knight – the University of Southern California computer scientist who recently helped crack the 250-year-old Copiale cipher – to walk us through seven of the most confounding codes and give us an idea of what makes these things so tough to break.

Study: we should all be eating insects, not animals

 

I am not a fan of bugs. I am also not a fan of global warming. The day may be approaching where I have to choose between the lesser of two weevils, thanks to the results of a recently published study, which "clearly shows that mealworm should be considered as a more sustainable alternative to milk, chicken, pork and beef." Um, ew?

Topless Women at Game Developer's Holiday Party?

Game developers throwing holiday parties featuring topless women? Where the hell were our invitations?

It seems that there were at least a couple of eyebrow-raising Christmas parties in the Montreal scene. While we haven't heard much more about the Warner Brothers one, I've gotten in touch with one attendee at the Gameloft party, who spoke to me under condition of anonymity. According to that attendee, there were several women wearing nothing but g-strings and body paint that "looked like armor with [their] boobs showing."

China corruption exposed online

A sex tape led to the downfall of a Chinese official, thanks to a citizen journalist. CNN's Anna Coren reports. Check out more videos from CNN at http://www.youtube.com/cnn. Or visit our site at http://www.cnn.com/video/

Gun sales spike: Virginia, Colorado record highest background check volume in years

 

The talk of new gun control measures that has followed Friday's mass shooting in a Newtown, Conn., elementary school has gun buyers rushing to the nearest store and picking up new weapons, according to gun store owners and state police background check information.

Liquid metal guts make wires and cables stretchable

There is some sort of fundamental physical law that prevents cables from ever being just exactly the length you need them to be. Cables are always, always, just barely too short, or much much too long. Obviously, this annoys scientists just as much as it does the rest of us, so they've come up with a solution: stretchable cables full of liquid metal.

Making electronics that stretch is totally different (and much harder) than makingelectronics that bend and flex. With bending and flexing, the dimensions of the electronic components (like wires) don't change that much, but stretching is all about finding materials that can drastically change length or width without ruining the properties that make electronics functional in the first place.

Midwest hit by its first major snowstorm of season

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The first major snowstorm of the season began its slow eastward march across the Midwest Thursday, creating treacherous, sometimes deadly driving conditions and threatening to disrupt some of the nation's busiest airports ahead of the holiday weekend.

Heavy snow and strong winds combined for blizzard conditions in some areas from Kansas to Wisconsin — and guaranteed a white Christmas in some places — after the storm blanketed the Rocky Mountains earlier in the week.

Watch Darpa’s Headless Robotic Mule Respond to Voice Commands

If robots are ever really going to carry the bags of U.S. soldiers and Marines, the Pentagon’s futurists think, they’re going to have to act more like pack animals. That means responding to voice commands, figuring out when it makes sense to follow a human being and when it doesn’t, and getting around uneven terrain and other obstacles. Darpa thinks it’s off to a good start.

Google Selling Motorola Set-Top Box Unit For $2.35B

Google will be getting a big fat chunk o' change (technical term for $2.35B) from the sale of its Motorola set-top box business.

The Arris Group said it agreed to acquire Google’s Motorola Home business – which consists mostly of the set-top box line – for $2.35 billion in cash and stock. Google had acquired the business as part of its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility in May 2012. Under terms of the deal, Google will get $2.05 billion in cash and about $300 million of newly issued Arris shares, giving Google about a 15.7% stake in the company.

Corrupt Apple Store Employees Come Forward

I don't know about you but I expect better from Apple. 

Computers were traded for plastic surgery, iPhones were smashed like party favors, and employees outright stole from the back room for their own pleasure. It was a den of misuse and abuse, all under the gleaming white aegis of Apple Retail. The perfection is a myth. And now we know the store-gone-crazy is systemic, reaching from Tennessee to Vancouver, and across oceans.

Just kidding, this sounds like every retail chain on the planet. We just point and laugh because it is Apple this time. 

NASA spacesuit prototype is designed for infinity and beyond

A few months ago we showed you the next generation spacesuit NASA has been working on called the Z-1. Back then, we only had a peek at the prototype suit, but new photos have now emerged that make it clear that someone at NASA has a sense of humor, because this suit is definitely inspired by Toy Story.

Pyongyang Racer: North Korea's first online video game

This is a video game from North Korea. Like the regime itself, it's a bizarre mix of bad graphics, soulless emptiness, and thinly veiled self-absorbed terror. Yes, you should absolutely go play it right now.

Survivalist bunker opens just in time for Mayan apocalypse

With just three days to go until the Mayan Apocalypse, where the heck are you going to go to ride this one out? With other bunker options already sold out, your best bet is a newly opened facility in Indiana that's just perfect for surviving the end of the world.

Large Hadron Collider's heir likely destined for Japan

It feels like the Large Hadron Collider has just barely started doing science (and it's not even at full strength yet), but already plans are underway for its successor: the International Linear Collider, or ILC. The ILC will likely cost between $10 and $20 billion, and it's now looking like the host country will probably be Japan.

The LHC has done a stupendous job of colliding hadrons with each other. Hadrons, of course, are particles made up of other particles: a proton, for example, is made of three quarks (two up quarks and a down quark) held together with gluons. The LHC's circular design makes it possible to accelerate hadrons up to enormous energies and collide them efficiently.

Microsoft's Windows 8 problem(s)

Over these last few gift-consideration weeks, I've gotten numerous queries about and given multiple demonstrations of Apple's iPad mini, both from people interested in giving one and from those interested in getting one. Nearly universally, the response from women I spoke with to the iPad mini is a variation of my wife's "it's so cu-u-u-u-te!"

Over the same period of gift-consideration weeks, I've gotten absolutely zero queries about anything related to Windows 8: not about Windows 8 desktop PCs, not about Windows 8 laptops, not about Windows 8 tablets, not about Windows Phone 8 smartphones.

Astronomers discover another planet that just might support life

So far, our search for Martians and other extraterrestrial forms of life hasn't quite panned out, but that doesn't stop us from continuing to look. Now astronomers at the University of Hertfordshire in England have discovered a new system of planets, which in many ways are remarkably similar to our own neighborhood and may even support life.

The six planets orbit a star called Tau Ceti, and I guess the naming committee must have been on strike when they found them because they gave them the catchy names Tau Ceti b, c, d, e and f. Before you ask, I have no clue what happened to Tau Ceti a.

Scientists develop potential anti-aging formula (for mice)

Whether we call it the fountain of youth, or just a beauty potion, humanity has long been on the hunt for a magic elixir to ward off the effects of aging. Now a research team in China has reportedly come up with what they believe could in fact be a real anti-aging formula.

Presented by scientists at the University of Hong Kong, this new formula was developed during research designed to explore the effects of progeria, a genetic disease that gives infants an aged appearance due to stunted growth, hair loss, a reduction in body fat, and other complications. The researchers identified a mutation in the Lamin A protein as the primary culprit in the body's process of repairing cells in a normal fashion, leading to rapid aging. In experiments on mice with progeria, the researchers found that binding 

Batman and Superman spar over Man of Steel trailer in hilarious vid

It wasn't so long ago that the fine folks at How it Should Have Ended brought us five alternate endings for Dark Knight Rises. Now that the first full Man of Steel trailer is outand Christopher Nolan's name is attached, HISHE's hilarious versions of Batman and Superman have something to say about it.

So Ben Affleck might be up for directing Justice League after all?

When word broke that a Justice League movie was in the works, the big rumor was that Ben Affleck (Argo) was on the short-list to direct and possibly star as one of the iconic heroes. Now, he sets the record straight: He was never actually offered the film, so he didn't technically pass on it. But that doesn't mean he's not interested in doing it.

At the time a few months ago, Affleck's camp was quick to shoot down reports linking him to the project because he was never actually offered the job beyond a preliminary meeting. The actor-turned-director reiterated that point in a recent interview with HitFix—but went on to add he wouldn't be opposed to taking the meeting.

Magic-forest LED walls calm kids on way to surgery

Thanks to a U.K. design studio, the walls leading into the surgical center of a London children's medical center now leap with interactive animated animals.

Anyone who's had surgery would probably agree that being wheeled into the operating room can prove quite the anxiety-producing ride.

Swiss aim to birth advanced humanoid in 9 months

Roboy is a tendon-driven robot designed to emulate humans, right down to the gestation period.

Here's a robotics challenge for you: create an advanced humanoid robot in only nine months.

That's what engineers at the University of Zurich's Artificial Intelligence Lab are trying to do withRoboy, a kid-style bot that's designed to help people in everyday environments.

Researchers around the world are trying to create useful humanoids. One interesting aspect of Roboy is its tendon-driven locomotion system.