Windows 8: Hate It Already? Waiting Won’t Help

If you are with the school of thought that waiting for the next version of Windows will improve your chances of going back to ‘normal’ Windows functionality, you had better rethink your strategy. The signs point to a strategic shift in priorities at Microsoft looking toward the future, which in this case, looks like it favors hand held devices over work stations.

Either way, it's highly unlikely that Microsoft will abandon its current vision and let this new wave of computing pass the company by. Desktop purists may not like the new look of Windows, but it’s here to stay.

Unusual earthquake swarm shakes Southern California

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - An unusual swarm of hundreds of mostly small earthquakes has struckSouthern California over the last three days and shaken the nerves of quake-hardy residents, but scientists say the cluster is not a sign a larger temblor is imminent.

The earthquakes, the largest of which measured magnitude 5.5, began on Saturday evening and have been centered near the town of Brawley close to the state's inland Salton Sea, said Jeanne Hardebeck, research seismologist for the U.S. Geological Survey.

Scientists were monitoring the earthquake cluster, which continued on Tuesday, to see if it approaches the Imperial Fault, about three miles away. A destructive and deadly earthquake of magnitude 7.0 struck on that fault in 1940, she said.

The 10 U.S. cities with the worst drivers tilt towards the coasts

Across the nation, the typical American driver should expect to suffer some kind of car accident once every 10 years, according to the insurance companies which have to cut checks for those crashes. Yet that figure varies widely based on where you live, and by Allstate Insurance's tally, the city with America's worst drivers get into accidents twice as often as the national average -- and in the worst 10 U.S. cities, geography plays a big role in making driving more dangerous.

The 10 U.S. cities with the worst drivers tilt towards the coasts

Across the nation, the typical American driver should expect to suffer some kind of car accident once every 10 years, according to the insurance companies which have to cut checks for those crashes. Yet that figure varies widely based on where you live, and by Allstate Insurance's tally, the city with America's worst drivers get into accidents twice as often as the national average -- and in the worst 10 U.S. cities, geography plays a big role in making driving more dangerous.

The 10 most beautiful cars of all time

In celebration of the classic and exotic car events Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and the Woodward Dream Cruise in Detroit, Total Car Score has weighed in on the car world’s all-time best looking rides. 

Normally, Total Car Score creates its top 10 lists by crunching the numbers on specifications like horsepower, top speed, zero-to-60 acceleration, MSRP and fuel efficiency. 

Beauty, of course, is ephemeral and subjective. However, while acknowledging individual tastes, certain model names tend to come up again and again in terms of their slick and iconic looks. 

Neil Armstrong, 1st man on the moon, dies at 82

CINCINNATI (AP) — Neil Armstrong was a soft-spoken engineer who became a global hero when as a steely-nerved pilot he made "one giant leap for mankind" with a small step onto the moon. The modest man, who had people on Earth entranced and awed from almost a quarter-million miles away, but credited others for the feat, died Saturday. He was 82.

Apple's Samsung Win Slams Asian Phone Makers

Samsung wasn’t the only Asian smartphone maker to suffer through a Black Monday. The Suwon (South Korea)-based company’s shares plunged 7.5 percent on the first day of trading after a jury in California ruled on Friday that Samsung must pay more than $1 billion to Apple (AAPL) for violating six of its patents. With the defeat calling into question the ability of other Android players to fend off the lawyers from Cupertino, the pain spread to other parts of the Asian smartphone world: In Hong Kong, for instance, the share price of ZTE, the largest publicly traded maker of smartphones in China, fell 7.1 percent. In Taiwan, the shares of Samsung rival HTC (HTCKF), already beaten down 47 percent this year after enduring patent battles of its own against Apple, fell another 2 percent. “In general, it seems the Android camp is losing the patent wars,” says Dennis Chan, an analyst in Taipei with Yuanta Securities.

But for some Chinese phone makers, there may be short-term opportunity in the ruling, as well.

How Pacific Island Missile Tests Helped Launch the Internet

There are a thousand stories about the origin of the internet, each with their own starting point and their own heroes. Charles Herzfeld’s tale began in 1961 on a series of tiny islands in the South Pacific. The U.S. military was test-firing a series of ballistic missiles at the island chain, known as the Kwajalein Atoll, with an array of radars and optical infrared sensors recording every re-entry. Herzfeld, the Vienna-born physicist and newly installed chief of the Advanced Research Projects Agency’s missile defense program, was trying to figure out how to make sense of the vast amount of data generated by all of those incoming missiles. The computers he had at the time weren’t up to the task.

U.S. Spies Summon Star Wars for 3D Hologram Displays

It’s one of the most memorable scenes in science fiction: a 3D, holographic Princess Leia, begging for Obi-Wan’s help. America’s spy services have just plunked down $58 million to make it real. And if you think the gadget-makers behind this “Synthetic Holographic Observation” effort weren’t inspired by Star Wars, well, take a look at this presentation (.pdf) from one of the companies that bid for the 3-D holographic displays. On page four, there’s Leia, telling Kenobi that he’s her only hope.
The military and intelligence communities have been working with holographic and 3D displays for years. Air Force analysts, for instance, use stereoscopic glasses to pick out which targets to bomb. But the tools have been of limited utility. Some required specialty eyewear; others only displayed a few colors, or could only been seen from a few angles.

Spec Op Chief Says Blabbermouths Face ‘Criminal Prosecution’

The leader of the U.S. Special Operations Command and architect of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden is seriously unhappy about a forthcoming book by a member of the SEAL raiding team. And he wants other elite U.S. commandos to know they could be in for a world of legal trouble if they write their own tell-alls.
No Easy Day is the first first-person description of the Osama bin Laden raid, penned by a former SEAL Team Six member named Matt Bissonnette. It’s set for publication, naturally, on Sept. 11. And it took the Pentagon and the White House by surprise. Admiral William McRaven, the leader of the U.S. Special Operations Command, wants to make sure it doesn’t lead to a pattern of similar memoirs.

Dresden unveils a 90-foot long bus

In the totally heated race for the longest bus in the world, China has fallen behind. China recently unveiled an 82-foot long bus (which is insane), and Dresden decided to go ahead and top it. The city just test drove the Autotram Extra Grand, a 30 meter long bus. That's about 90 feet.

NASA powers a satellite with a smartphone because it can

NASA has a thing for shooting things into space. Comes with the territory of being NASA. And the latest thing they're shooting into the great beyond is a satellite the size of a coffee mug. A satellite like that probably has an extremely high-tech power source, right? Wrong. It's powered by a smartphone.

If this robot can recognize its own reflection, is it self-aware?

Up until now the most important test for robot sentience has been the Turing Test. But now a roboticist at Yale hopes change the metric for robot consciousness by introducing a testing tool normally used on animals: a mirror.

Awesome couple gets married on beach, rides off on water jetpacks

Sorry Gears of War couple, but the coolest wedding of the week belongs to newlyweds Amanda Volf and Grant Engler. After exchanging vows n Newport Beach, California, the just married pair proceeded to ride $90,000 water jetpacks. How badass!

Watch 2,500-degree lava bubble over ice

Sculptor Bob Wysocki and geologist Jeff Karson joined forces to experiment with man-made lava, and filmed some great videos that chronicle their collaboration.
The video below shows lava being poured over six feet of ice at a starting temperature of 1371°C (or 2499.8°F). Just a typical day at the office for the Syracuse University Department of Earth Science Lava Project.

Back in the stone age, Fred Flintstone would drive his car along using his feet, so why not get rid of a bike's pedals and gears and drive it along in the same way? The Fliz Bike concept from Germany does just that, and even has you hang your body from the frame in a harness.
Some inventions are so well realized that they have hardly changed in over 100 years. The bicycle is a great example. While improvements in technology and materials have resulted in steady advancements, the basic layout of an upright rider turning pedals connected by a chain to the rear wheel hasn't changed since the Safety Bicycle from the 1890s.

Hackers Dump Millions of Records of Banks and Politicians

A group affiliated with the hacker group Anonymous has claimed to have hacked into major US concerns, comprised of literally millions of accounts. The files of those accounts have now been dumped on the Internet by the group TeamGhostShell under the name ProjectHellFire.

The motivation behind the hack, the group claims, is to protest against banks, politicians and the hackers who have been captured by law enforcement agencies

Sony to Shut Down Optical Drive Business

Sony announced it will be shutting down Optiarc, its optical drive division, as part of the company’s restructuring plan. Sony plans to eliminate over 10k jobs worldwide to cut costs and stabilize the company’s financial resources.

Sony Optiarc was founded in 2006 as a joint venture between Sony and NEC, with Sony buying NEC’s 45% share in 2008.

iPad Mini could be Apple's 'thermonuclear device' that destroys Android

Summary: While billion dollar courtroom wins are great, the best way for Apple to "go thermonuclear" on Google's mobile platform is to obliterate its sales, and the iPad Mini could allow it to do just that.

Steve Jobs never hid his hatred for Google's Android platform. Shortly before his death, Jobs told his biographer Walter Isaacson of his wish to see the mobile platform annihilated.

"I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank [at the time, this bank balance has swelled massively since Jobs uttered these words], to right this wrong. I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."

Man Made $28k a Month Writing Fake Reviews Online (Amazon Books Reviews FAKE!)

Something we have all suspected at some point or other about those online customer reviews and feedback: some of them aren’t real. It seems some articles for sale have a little extra help to make them more attractive to buyers, like professional review writers.

The business worked because it worked for Rutherford's clients. Authors who get a bunch of reviews on Amazon tend to sell more books than those who don't.

Google URL Takedown Requests Up 1137% In 2011

Somehow the news that takedown requests are up 100% in a month doesn't seem like a big deal after seeing a headline like this. 

The massive wave of DMCA takedowns sent by rightsholders to Google in recent months is growing at an astonishing rate. During the past month the number of takedown requests received by the search giant doubled to almost 1.5 million URLs per week. To put that into perspective, exactly one year ago weekly URL takedowns numbered just 131,577 per week, an increase of 1,137%.

Windows 8 Reports Everything You Install To Microsoft

Oh c'mon, something like this would be a great feature for people that often forget what they've installed on their PC. Now you can just call Microsoft and ask them. 

There are a few serious problems here. The big problem is that Windows 8 is configured to immediately tell Microsoft about every app you download and install. This is a very serious privacy problem, specifically because Microsoft is the central point of authority and data collection/retention here and therefore becomes vulnerable to being served judicial subpoenas or National Security Letters intended to monitor targeted users.

Sony to launch 80-inch 4K TV by the end of the year

If your 1080p TV is starting to feel kind of old, then Sony feels your pain. A confidential source talking to Boy Genius Report has revealed that the venerable TV manufacturer has plans to introduce a huge sexy 80-inch LED TV with 4K resolution, just in time for the holidays.

The end of an era: Kodak is selling its film business

Earlier this year, Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, announced its plans to exit the camera business and focus on printing, ink and film. Buried under debt, Kodak's now announced its future will no longer include film, the very item that made it a household name.

Darpa Has Seen the Future of Computing … And It’s Analog

By definition, a computer is a machine that processes and stores data as ones and zeroes. But the U.S. Department of Defense wants to tear up that definition and start from scratch.

Through its Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), the DoD is funding a new program called UPSIDE, short for Unconventional Processing of Signals for Intelligent Data Exploitation. Basically, the program will investigate a brand-new way of doing computing without the digital processors that have come to define computing as we know it.

Battle-tested, female war vets run for Congress

WASHINGTON (AP) — One flew an A-10 Warthog over Iraq and Afghanistan. Another was part of the 29th Infantry Brigade's medical operations near Baghdad. A third lost both legs and partial use of an arm in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in Iraq.

All are war veterans aiming to serve in Congress. All reflect an evolving U.S. military. All are female.

After more than a decade of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, dozens of military veterans — Republicans and Democrats — are running for Congress this election year as voters have shown a fresh enthusiasm for candidates with no elected experience. This year, as the military has opened more jobs to women closer to the front lines, several of those veterans are females with battlefield scars and pioneering accomplishments.

Dear Ubisoft, please stop releasing PC games

I know all you darn kids today are getting your gaming fix on consoles, smartphones and Facebook, but for those of us who prefer to play with a mouse and keyboard, usually on ahand-built rig, the PC will always be where we go to game. If you do play on the PC, there's one publisher name that is universally reviled: Ubisoft.

Kirkman reveals how he loves 'screwing' with us on Walking Dead

Robert Kirkman has been living with the world and characters of The Walking Dead in comic book form for nearly a decade now. By comparison, the TV series based on his acclaimed comic is just a baby, and it's got lots of opportunities for Kirkman to have new fun with old characters. So, as he freely admits in a new special feature for the show's second-season Blu-ray, he loves "screwing" with his TV fans.

Diesel-powered British supercar Trident Iceni promises 200 mph and 69 mpg

For the past few decades, various British engineers and businessmen have attempted to build sports cars under the Trident name with as much luck as a broken umbrella in London. Today, Trident announced it would finally show its production-ready car in public next month -- the Trident Iceni Grand Tourer, a diesel-powered machine that should hit 200 mph while returning 69 mpg on a variety of fuels. It could be fantastic -- if it's for real.

Lance Armstrong stripped of his medals, banned for life, career vacated

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency erased 14 years of Lance Armstrong's career Friday — including his record seven Tour de France titles — and banned him for life from the sport that made him a hero to millions of cancer survivors after concluding he used banned substances.

USADA said it expected cycling's governing body to take similar action, but the International Cycling Union was measured in its response, saying it first wanted a full explanation on why Armstrong should relinquish Tour titles he won from 1999 through 2005.

U.S. Funds Israel’s ‘Iron Dome,’ But Doesn’t (Quite) Know How It Works

The top U.S. military officer’s plane got damaged in Afghanistan by insurgent rockets on Tuesday morning. It’s a reminder that the U.S. military’s defense against short-range rockets remains a work in progress. But it has helped its ally Israel buy its own system for defending against exactly those kinds of rockets, and it might be useful for the U.S. to ask Israel to share. Only one problem: The U.S. doesn’t quite know how the Iron Dome system works.

Darpa Looks to Make Cyberwar Routine With Secret ‘Plan X’

The Pentagon’s top research arm is unveiling a new, classified cyberwarfare project. But it’s not about building the next Stuxnet, Darpa swears. Instead, the just-introduced “Plan X” is designed to make online strikes a more routine part of U.S. military operations. That will make the son of Stuxnet easier to pull off — to, as Darpa puts it, “dominate the cyber battlespace.”

HP Reports $9 Billion Loss

Yikes! A nine billion dollar loss? Where is that Mark Hurd guy when you need him? 

"HP is still in the early stages of a multi-year turnaround, and we're making decent progress despite the headwinds," Meg Whitman, HP president and CEO, said in an earnings release. "During the quarter we took important steps to focus on strategic priorities, manage costs, drive needed organizational change, and improve the balance sheet. We continue to deliver on what we say we will do."

DIY dad monitors his baby's breathing with Wiimote and lasers

With the Wii U around the corner, we didn't think anyone was still modding Wii Remotes. New dad Gjoci keeps that Wii Remote hacking dream alive with a mod that incorporates the controller's infrared camera, a microcontroller and three lasers to triangulate his newborn's movements. Talk about being over protective!

Child Porn, Coke Smuggling: Hundreds of DHS Employees Arrested Last Year

Border Patrol agents smuggling weed and coke. Immigration agents forging documents and robbing drug dealers. TSA employees caught with child porn. Those are just a few of the crimes perpetrated by Department of Homeland Security employees in just the past year.

Since the creation of the Department of Homeland Security nearly a decade ago, the agency’s inspector general has been tasked with uncovering corruption, waste and criminality within its own ranks. The IG has had his hands full.

DoJ Seizes Domains Over Pirated Apps

The Department of Justice isn't messing around when it comes to protecting "an essential part of our nation’s economy and creative culture"....Android apps. 

"Cracking down on piracy of copyrighted works – including popular apps – is a top priority of the Criminal Division," said Assistant Attorney General Breuer. "Software apps have become an increasingly essential part of our nation’s economy and creative culture, and the Criminal Division is committed to working with our law enforcement partners to protect the creators of these apps and other forms of intellectual property from those who seek to steal it."

Ubisoft CEO: 95% Of Our Customers Are Pirates

Do you play Ubisoft games? There's a 95% chance you are a pirate...and we're not talking the Johnny Depp kind either. Walk the plank you copyright kleptomaniacs.

The CEO of games giant Ubisoft has revealed an interesting parallel in the company’s business models. Speaking at Gamescom this week, Yves Guillemot said that around 95% of players of the company’s boxed PC games are pirates. Equally, of all players of the company’s free-to-play games who can voluntarily part with cash to obtain a better experience, 95% choose not to pay a dime. Nevertheless, the latter model can be a great opportunity to beat piracy.

Confessions from the Most Corrupt Apple Store in America

Confessions from the most corrupt Apple store in America? It's not as bad as you think. It's worse. 

"The saying goes: Don't f*ck with the person that serves your food," a former Apple Genius tells me over IM. "Don't f*ck with the person who repairs your computer." He—we'll call him Ronald—spent six years as a member of Apple's Genius squad in a busy Southwestern store. It was a model store: shiny as the best of them, teeming, making money. But in back rooms and in plain sight, the employees ran wild: giving away computers, stealing phones, drunkenly destroying customer property. Ronald saw (and did) it all.

Best Buy's New Mascot? The "Y U NO" Guy

This sign at Best Buy, even if it is totally unintentional, is funny on multiple levels:

New generation of flexible aerogel will insulate everything

Back when I was a young whippersnapper, aerogel was a new and exciting wondermaterial. Since then, the aerated silica gel has been surpassed in some ways by other materials with even lower densities, but a new flexible incarnation of aerogel is destined to make the jump from labs at NASA to the socks on our feet.

Scientists figure how to store 700TB of data in one gram of DNA

Traditional platter-based hard drives and solid state flash drives might dominate the storage landscape today, but in the future, you'll be storing more data than you could possibly sift through within your very own DNA.

George Church and Sri Kosuri, two Harvard Wyss Institute scientists, have successfully demonstrated a process by which it's possible to store 700TB of data in one gram of DNA.

IBM Breaks Efficiency Mark with Novel Solar Material

According to MIT, researchers at IBM worked with a thin-film solar company in Japan to attain higher solar efficiencies for solar cells using materials that are more abundant than current thin-film cells.

IBM photovoltaic scientists Teodor Todorov and David Mitzi on Friday detailed the findings of a paper that showed the highest efficiency to date for solar cells made from a combination of copper, zinc, tin, and selenium (CZTS). Published in Advanced Energy Materials, the technical paper described a CZTS solar cell able to convert 11.1 percent of solar energy to electricity.

The 12 robots you can vote into the Robot Hall of Fame

Started in 2003 by Carnegie Mellon University (an institution that's no slouch in the world of robotics), the Robot Hall of Fame considers robots from fiction and reality, and includes names such as Honda's seminal ASIMO, Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation, C-3PO and R2-D2, HAL 9000, Unimate (considered to be the first industrial robot) and more. 18 robots are currently honored by RHoF, and now CMU wants to add four more, pulling from a group of a dozen 'bots sorted into four categories.

In our gallery below, we've collected all the nominees up for the honor. Want to vote? Find all the pertinent data right here, meatform. PHOTOS

RHoF, via IEEE 

Exclusive Video: Darpa’s Inflatable Robot Arm Pulls 4 Times Its Weight

Sure, the military’s headless robotic pack mules and walking robo-zombies look scary, but those bots’ metal limbs are nowhere near as maneuverable as your human arms and legs. Those metal robots can also be really friggin’ heavy. That’s why the military is working on ways to make robots and their limbs lighter and more maneuverable with inflatable arms and squishy surfaces.

The Pentagon’s far-out research arm Darpa is preparing to award a $625,000 contract to iRobot — famous for its vacuum robot “Roomba” —  for an inflatable robotic arm. Called the Advanced Inflatable Robot, or AIR, the arm can lift four times its own weight and operates on principles less similar to a balloon than a car tire. It’s more than a glorified car tire, though, but a machine that can grab and clamp onto unsuspecting Gatorade bottles, seen in the video above. It’s still a very early prototype, but the plan is to eventually develop more inflatable robots that cost less while being light and safe enough for soldiers to carry.

Now available: invisible bike helmets

See this bike helmet? No? That's because it's invisible. No, really, it is: that hefty collar that the bicyclist (or whatever) in the above pic is wearing contains a helmet-shaped airbag that deploys on demand to save your skull, and spends the rest of its time out of the way and looking fashionable.

Here's $100M, Now Catch Those Drug Smuggling Ultralights

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol is spending big - just under $100 million - to combat drug smugglers who use small aircraft worth only a few thousand dollars each to ferry narcotics into the U.S.

Last week the CBP awarded SRCTec, a New York-based research and development company, a $99,955,087.00 contract for a real-time detection system that is specifically designed to pick out ultralight aircrafts, slow-speed rudimentary manned planes that have a very small radar signature, on America's southern border.

The contract award ended a year-long search for a way to spot ultralights loaded with narcotics - a tactic lawmakers said is being employed more and more in recent years by drug smugglers hoping to buzz back and forth over border fences undetected. Ultralights are easy-to-use aircraft - often little more than an airframe and engine - that can be bought online or constructed at home from kits for a few thousand dollars. Ultralights do not require a pilot's license.

Scientists aim to predict the future with $1 billion Earth simulator

Imagine what would happen if you had a computer program that could take in data from sensors everywhere on Earth and then plug that data into a detailed simulation for the entire Earth all at once. If you're imagining being able to predict the future, you're imagining correctly, and E.U. researchers want to make it real.

Carbon networks make batteries charge 120x faster

Ah yes, another amazing battery technology guaranteed to make everything from electric cars to cell phones charge instantly. This one comes from boffins in South Korea, who have added carbon networks to lithium-ion batteries to make them charge anywhere from 30x to 120x faster.

In China's Scandal of the Century Gu Kailai Receives Suspended Death Sentence

Precisely on time and as expected, on Monday the Intermediate People's Court in Hefei announced that Gu Kailai, the wife of ousted party chief Bo Xilai, received a suspended death sentence for the alleged murder of British businessman Neil Heywood.

Once called the "Jackie Kennedy" of China, in six short months Gu has gone from being one half of one of China's most powerful couples to a convicted murderer with a "history" of mental problems.

After the verdict was read, Gu had this short statement for the court, "I feel that the verdict is fair. It fully embodies that our court showed a special respect to the law, to reality and especially to life."

Officially, she was sentenced to death with a two year reprieve. In China, after two years the vast majority of these sentences are commuted to life in prison. Gu could then be eligible for medical parole in seven years, or 2019.

The Tonight Show cuts staff; Leno trims pay

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — "The Tonight Show" has laid off about two dozen workers, prompting host Jay Leno to accept a pay cut to spare other staffers as NBC clamps down on expenses.

NBC Universal imposed the cutbacks Friday, according to a person familiar with the moves. The person asked not to be identified because NBC Universal hadn't officially disclosed the cost cutting.

The payroll purge affected about 10 percent of the roughly 200 people who work on "The Tonight Show," still the top-rated late-night program. Viewers shouldn't notice any changes in programming at "The Tonight Show," the person said.

NBC Universal is trying to improve its financial performance under the ownership of Comcast Corp., which bought the entertainment company last year.

OLED: What we know

Rumors are still flying about the next great TV technology: Organic Light Emitting Diode.

It's difficult to pry info out of the companies involved, but I figured it was worth putting down what we know, what we think we know, and what we know we don't know, ya know?

OK, go.

Afghan Policeman Kills U.S. Service Member on Joint Patrol

A U.S. service member was killed in southern Afghanistan today on a patrol with Afghan security forces when one of the Afghans turned his weapon on the Americans, the latest in a rash of what the ISAF is now calling "insider" attacks on American troops.

In the market for a nuke-proof bunker? Try eBay

A certain segment of the population likes to be prepared for the worst, and for many doomsday scenarios, decommissioned underground nuclear missile silos are the ultimate hideout.

Despite this, there are government-constructed nuke-proof bunkers, some of the strongest structures made by man, that have lingered on the market without selling, and their prices have been slashed.

One bunker that CNBC has written about has had its price slashed from $4.6 million to $750,000.

A penny-sized rocket thruster invented at MIT

Satellites, like the people who make them, come in all shapes and sizes. Their parts do as well. And while some thrusters are large and impressive, some satellites need smaller ones. So Paulo Lozano at MIT decided to build a rocket thruster the size of a penny.

Army pledges $3 million to create nasal spray to stop suicides

The Army is fighting a war within its own ranks as suicide rates have reached the highest in Army history. The Pentagon reports suicide within Army ranks averages one per day this year, which surpasses combat fatalities. A nasal spray (similar but more medicinal than this one) could change this.

Crawling bot glows, camouflages itself with dye

In addition to slithering, crawling, and flying just about anywhere, what if robots could camouflage themselves? This tentacled prototype can be made to look like -- or stand out from -- its background with a simple injection of dyes.

Razer crams touchscreen and adaptive keys in new gaming keyboard

Mad Catz isn't the only one with a sick new gaming keyboard. Hardcore PC peripheral maker Razer announced at Gamescom its new DeathStalker Ultimate gaming keyboard that boasts the Switchblade's adaptive keypad buttons and 4.05-inch touchscreen trackpad.

Perfectly pickled prehistoric brain found in a bog

These days, you can pickle just about anything. We even have yodeling pickles (though it should be noted these are not real pickles). And now we've got pickled human brains from 2,684 years ago! Well, we have one, at least.

A 2,684-year-old human skull was recently found in Yorkshire. It contained an "exceptionally preserved" human brain, which is pictured above for all your pickled-brain pleasures.

Top General Undone by Spa Treatments, Snickers, Broadway Show

Last year, the four-star Army general once in charge of all U.S. military operations in Africa was quietly reduced in rank for unexplained reasons. Now we know why William “Kip” Ward’s career ended in disgrace.

Watch and hold on as F-1 driver speeds through tunnel at 190 mph

If you've ever wondered what it feels like to drive a Formula One car 190 mph through a deserted tunnel, take a deep breath and watch the accompanying video. That's David Coulthard behind the wheel of Red Bull's F-1 show car, enjoying a nighttime dash through the Lincoln Tunnel, which spans 1.5 miles beneath the Hudson River, connecting Weehawken, New Jersey, to Manhattan in New York City. Thanks to carefully-placed cameras, viewers can achieve at least some sense of what it felt like to be in the driver's seat.



The stunt was planned to promote the Grand Prix of America F-1 race scheduled for next year in New Jersey, although there's concern among race officials that the track won't be ready in time.

As far as anyone knows, Coulthard's top speed of 190 mph is a Lincoln Tunnel record.

10 new crossovers worth waiting for

Crossovers are proliferating like mosquitoes on a Louisiana marsh, with a multitude due or due for a refresh. Note: This list is not all-inclusive. We had to pick the ones that we think are cool or will be important in a ballooning market that's also grown more sensitive to both price and fuel economy. And we tossed in a few that may or may not be sold here but show where crossovers may be headed.

2013 BMW X1

When: late 2012 

McLaren X-1 custom supercar makes its first, and only, public appearance

The car you see above is the McLaren X-1, a surprise revealed at The Quail classic car show in California today. It's the first time the X-1, a vehicle custom-built by McLaren over two and a half years for a wealthy customer's specifications, has ever been seen in public -- and could be the last time this multimillion-dollar, 230-mph vehicle will be seen for some time.

Pets with Snuggle Buddies

Caroline F. from Oxford, Ohio sent in this photo of her rescue kitty, Anders. Anders has made friends with this sleepy stuffed animal. It makes the perfect naptime companion, and we see Anders agrees. PHOTOS

New records set at Pikes Peak climb amid heart-stopping crashes

This year's Pikes Peak International Hill Climb was bound to be the fastest ever in its 90-year history as environmental concerns had led to the paving of the road up to the 14,110-foot summit for the first time. Sure enough, records fell throughout the day, with champion Rhys Millen besting last year's fastest time with a 9 minute, 46.164 second run, a victory of two-hundredths of a second over the next runner. But the day was punctuated by two serious crashes that show just how dangerous the new Pikes Peak can be.

Ukrainian Dog Has Amazing Parkour Skills - Super Dog

For those who aren't familiar, parkour is a sport which involves athletes getting creative to avoid obstacles in an urban environment. This could mean leaping between buildings, climbing walls, jumping over fences or a number of other stunts.

While the activity is difficult to describe, one thing is clear: It is normally practiced by humans. And when you take that into account, you'll be much more impressed with what one dog is doing in Ukraine.

TreT, an American Staffordshire Terrier living in western Ukraine, was trained in the art of parkour by his owner, Evgeny Elchaninov. One day when TreT was 6 months old, he jumped onto a chair in the kitchen and then onto the refrigerator. A former parkour athlete himself, Elchaninov saw potential in the puppy. Elchaninov taught TreT the basics of parkour, and the dog took off. Literally.

As Mac Pro stagnates, PC workstations muscle ahead

Like many Mac-based creative professionals, I followed this year's WWDC keynote anxiously, awaiting the "one more thing" that never came: an E5 Xeon refresh of the Mac Pro line. Its absence was brutally disappointing; thankfully, Tim Cook broke his vow of secrecy to reassure us that a new Mac Pro will arrive in 2013. But for filmmakers compressing hours of 4K footage or school labs in need of new Maya machines, that’s a long time to wait—perhaps too long. Since I was also in the market for a machine to help out with my V-Ray renders, I decided that the time had come to evaluate my alternatives. The current Westmere-based Mac Pro line is definitely out of sync with what’s available elsewhere, and it is no longer competitive from a price-to-power standpoint.

11 concept cars that should have made it

Concept cars are staples at major auto shows, but the cars typically look much different if and when they make it to production. In many cases, that's a mistake. Here are 11 times when changing a concept car, or failing to put it into production at all, was a big mistake.

Don't Buy: These 7 Cities Are Renters' Markets

Despite record low mortgage rates and an apparent bottoming in home prices, Americans have increasingly opted to rent than buy their homes as the economic recovery remains anemic and uncertain.

We drew on Zillow's newest metric – the breakeven horizon – to identify 7 housing markets where it's better to rent a home than buy one.

The breakeven horizon refers to the number of years after which buying a home is more "financially advantageous" than renting one. So, with a longer breakeven horizon it makes more sense to rent.

Unlike the price-to-rent ratio this metric includes a whole range of possible costs including mortgage payments, property taxes, utilities costs etc.

Forget Apple, Forget Facebook: Here's The One Company That Actually Terrifies Google Execs

It's very easy to get caught up in the Android versus iPhone duel and Google's recruiting battles with its newly-public Silicon Valley neighbor, Facebook.

But neither one of those companies worry Google executives as much as another that is actively taking money out of their pockets.

This company is from Washington, but no, it's not Microsoft.

Google's real rival, and real competition to watch over the next few years is Amazon.

Hook-legged spider found in Oregon cave

A group of cave explorers and scientists have made a rare discovery:  an entirely new taxonomic family of spider in the caves of southern Oregon.

Only two other spider families (the taxonomic group above both genus and species) have been found since 1990, and this is the first newly discovered, native one uncovered in North America since 1890, said California Academy of Sciences researcher Charles Griswold, lead author of the study that described the species.