Sleeping pod makes it okay to take naps at work

Office furniture is pretty standard: you've got a desk, a chair — what's missing? A place to sleep, obviously! That's right, some scientists say that taking naps throughout the work day increases productivity. Should bosses really get so upset when they catch us nodding off in meetings, then? Heck, no. We've got science on our side, people.

Hit the slopes like Batman on a Snolo Stealth-X carbon fiber sled

Sledding can be tons of fun, but sled technology hasn't changed much in the last 50 years. The Snolo Stealth-X from New Zealand aims to change all that, with high-tech carbon fiber construction that might even tempt Batman into taking a few runs down the local sledding hill.

The Survivor Truck, built to drive through the end of the world

"Sometimes," author William S. Burroughs once said, "paranoia is just having all the facts." Given the facts gathered from the past few natural and man-made disasters, it's not a surprise that many people have begun to think of what they'd need to survive the next calamity. One California man has taken a kitchen-sink approach and created the Survivor Truck -- a machine that could keep rolling through any given Armageddon.

Hurricane Sandy, New Mazda RX-7, Mercedes A45 AMG, 2014 Nissan

Apple Said to Be Exploring Switch From Intel Chips for the Mac

Apple Inc. (AAPL) is exploring ways to replace Intel Corp. (INTC) processors in its Mac personal computers with a version of the chip technology it uses in the iPhone and iPad, according to people familiar with the company’s research.

Apple engineers have grown confident that the chip designs used for its mobile devices will one day be powerful enough to run its desktops and laptops, said three people with knowledge of the work, who asked to remain anonymous because the plans are confidential. Apple began using Intel chips for Macs in 2005.

Luis Walker, Air Force Staff Sgt., Sentenced To 20 Years For Rape, Assault

SAN ANTONIO — The women assaulted by their Air Force training instructor don't sleep much these days and when they do, he sometimes haunts their dreams.

They testified Saturday about being suddenly unable to relate to husbands, boyfriends and even fathers and brothers after they were sexually assaulted. One said her fear during a tour of duty in Afghanistan was heightened by soldiers who reminded her of her instructor, and she warned her younger sister not to enlist in the Air Force. Another said she's now afraid to be behind closed doors with any man.

Staff Sgt. Luis Walker was sentenced to 20 years in prison Saturday for crimes that included rape and sexual assault. He is among 12 instructors investigated for sexual misconduct toward at least 31 female trainees at one of the nation's busiest military training centers. Six have been charged with crimes, and the counts against Walker were the most severe. He could have faced life in prison.

Secrecy Lifts on General Charged With Sex Abuse

Here’s what the deputy commander of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division allegedly said when subordinates objected to his crass attitude toward women: “I’m a general, I’ll do whatever the [expletive] I want.”

That and other details emerged from the beginning of Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair’s court-martial, which kicked off Monday morning at Fort Bragg, for offenses including “forcible sodomy.” The hearing represented a first glimpse into a case that the Pentagon and the Army have gone to surprising lengths to keep quiet — lengths they haven’t gone to in other high-profile cases, including the one against a sergeant charged with much more serious crimes who also begins his court-martial on Monday.

Tale of two New Jersey towns now linked by Sandy

ASBURY PARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - Asbury Park and Bay Head are two towns on opposite ends of the Jersey Shore's socio-economic spectrum - one with many poor people, the other with professionals in lucrative Wall Street careers. Superstorm Sandy has swept away many of the differences between the two.

Asbury Park is a faded dowager seaside resort, still struggling to recover from the race riots in the summer of 1970, white flight, a weakened tax base and, more recently, the great recession. Some storefronts facing the ocean were boarded up as Sandy closed in on the town. Other buildings were boarded up long ago.

Ten miles away, Bay Head is a much smaller community where financiers and hedge fund managers own multimillion-dollar vacation homes and make a 70-mile commute to Wall Street. A Hollywood studio chief with a Bay Head home captivated his neighbors for many summers with a party attended by celebrities such as Meryl Streep, Oprah Winfrey and Alex Trebek.

Marines Look for New Ways to Spot Wood and Fertilizer Bombs

Finding a roadside bomb was never easy, even back when insurgents made their improvised explosive devices (IEDs) from old artillery shells and other metal parts. But now that militant bomb-makers favor wood and fertilizer as the main components for their IEDs, detection has become a complete nightmare.

That’s why the U.S. Marine Corps wants to build an entirely new kind of bomb detector, one that doesn’t rely on spotting the metal in the IED.

Netflix preps poison pill to fend off Icahn

The video rental bigwig adopts what appears to be poison pill in hopes of holding off a takeover attempt by investor Carl Icahn.

Netflix said last week it could work with Carl Icahn, but now its managers are girding for battle.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings

(Credit: CBS 60 Minutes)

The Web video-rental service said today that it is preparing what is commonly referred to as a poison pill, in an effort to fend off attempts from outside companies from making a hostile bid to takeover Netflix. The statement below does not name investor Carl Icahn, but after the billionaire and former corporate raider acquired just under 10 percent of Netflix's shares last week, it's obvious he is the motivation for this action.

The Netflix board of directors approved the plan on November 2, the company said in a statement. Netflix shares were flat in early morning trading.

A shareholder rights plan, also known as a poison pill, is a type of defensive tactic used by a corporation's board of directors against a takeover. It was widely used during the 1980s when guys like Icahn made fortunes from hostile takeovers. The plan is designed to make it prohibitively expensive to acquire a significant amount of shares and to discourage those seeking a takeover from buying shares on the open market.

Acer To Microsoft: Hardware Is Like 'Hard Rice'

The day isn't over just yet but I am pretty confident this will be "quote of the day." 

According to a rough translation from Google, Linxian Lang, Acer's manager of Greater China operations, compared making hardware to food. He described the process to "hard rice" that's "not so easy to eat."

Mobile kiosk brings 3D printing to your doorstep

Imagine if buying a custom made 3D-printed object were as easy as buying a hotdog on a city street. Although it sounds a set-up to a sci-fi scene, one Belgium-based company has actually launched a device that does exactly that.

Kim Dotcom's crazy plot for free broadband across New Zealand

Kim Dotcom is an attention-grabbing machine. His new ploy is to fund free broadband Internet access for his native New Zealand. He aims to win the money in a suit against the U.S. government for the takedown of his site, Megaupload, and then use it for the common good like a digital-age Robin Hood.

2015 Acura NSX

PHOTOS

2012 Nissan Juke SV AWD vs. 2011 Mini Cooper S Countryman ALL4, 2012 Jeep Compass Latitude 4x4

In June 1968, Richard Robison, his wife, and their four children were gathered around the living-room table, playing cards in their summer cottage, two miles north of Good Hart, Michigan. That’s when a killer wielding a rifle opened fire through a window. He then entered the cabin and, brandishing a handgun, concluded his grisly business, shooting all six family members and bludgeoning the daughter with a claw hammer.

Twenty-seven days passed before police discovered the bodies, along with bloody footprints, shell casings, and the hammer. But to this day—more than 43 years later—the crime remains unsolved.

2014 Chevrolet Corvette C7

PHOTOS

2013 SRT Viper Rendered

PHOTOS

2013 Ford Escape SEL 4WD vs. 2012 Honda CR-V EX-L AWD, 2012 Hyundai Tucson Limited AWD, 2012 Kia Sportage EX AWD, 2013 Mazda CX-5 Grand Touring AWD, 2012 Toyota RAV4 Limited 4x4

Nearly one out of every three vehicles sold from January through May 2012 was some sort of  SUV.  Just look at any parking lot—the one in this photo, for instance. The damn things are everywhere.

And if you find yourself in the market for a compact SUV, good luck picking out one. As the most affordable form of the species—generally starting below $20,000—these small two-boxers are by far the most popular and numerous. Lucky for us, two earlier comparos helped pare down a list of contenders. In those tests, we had eight and nine examples to sort through; both times a V-6–powered Toyota RAV4 emerged victorious.

Hurricane Sandy Destroys Bay Head, NJ (VIDEO)

Entire houses were lost! I paddled on a surfboard for blocks through debris, fallen trees, downed powerlines, and held my breath to avoid being poisoned by gas fumes bellowing out of the ground to bring this video to you. Again Please Share This Album on your page to show support for Bay Head. It is going to take years to rebuild.

Apple Paid Less Than 2% Tax On Overseas Earnings

Not to defend Apple or anything, but I'm pretty sure a lot of large companies get away with this crap.

Apple Inc. paid an income tax rate of only 1.9 percent on its earnings outside the U.S. in its latest fiscal year, a regulatory filing by the company shows. The world's most valuable company paid $713 million in tax on foreign earnings of $36.8 billion in the fiscal year ended Sept. 29, according to the financial statement filed on Oct. 31. The foreign earnings were up 53 percent from fiscal 2011, when Apple earned $24 billion outside the U.S. and paid income tax of 2.5 percent on it.

Anonymous Claims It Hacked PayPal

Anonymous claims to have hacked PayPal and, to teach the company a lesson, they publicly posted theprivate information of 28,000 users . PayPal has responded saying there is no evidence of a hack.

Hacking collective Anonymous claims it's stolen around 28,000 user details from a server used by PayPal, with what appears to be email addresses, names and associated passwords appearing on a selection of online sharing services. However, as with some other recent Anonymous claims, the hack is being disputed by the attacked party.

Single Mom, Sorry: Is it Ever OK to Leave an Excuse Instead of a Tip?

 Waiters and waitresses are up in arms over a restaurant receipt posted on Reddit, for which a customer used her status as a single parent to avoid leaving a tip.

Hyundai, Kia to pay 900,000 owners for overstating mileage on window stickers

 

For the past few years, Hyundai has touted itself as selling more vehicles that achieve 40 mpg on the highway than any other automaker. Today, U.S. federal regulators announced that Hyundai and Kia Motors had inflated the fuel economy ratings on 900,000 vehicles sold since 2010. The automakers will compensate owners for their extra burned fuel — and kill their incorrect ads as well.

The errors — covering 39% of the vehicles sold by the two companies since 2010 — are the largest ever uncovered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency since the federal government first set fuel economy standards in 1975. The agency says the errors were unearthed after EPA officials couldn't replicate the mileages Hyundai and Kia had claimed on window stickers, which the companies will have to replace on new models sitting on dealers' lots.

'The Hunger Games’ finale ‘Mockingjay’ will be split into two films

 
What started as a trend now seems to be standard operating procedure. Today, Lionsgate officially announced that "Mockingjay," the third and final book in "The Hunger Games" series by Suzanne Collins, will be split up into two films.

Walking Dead's Governor explains his terrifying man-cave

 

After the build-up of seeing The Governor as a vicious, evil character in The Walking Dead comics—the seemingly nice-but-shady man we met last week on the hit AMC series didn't seem too familiar. At least, not until that shocking final scene. So what did it all mean? Spoilers ahead!

1st look at Arrow's revenge-seeking Huntress in costume

The CW's Arrow is about to meet his match. Jessica De Gouw's heading to Starling City, and she's bringing the Huntress with her. But don't expect her debut to include a bright purple bikini. We've got the first look at her revamped costume.

iPad 4 Hard To Fix And Wastes Space

iFixit says that, even though the iPad 4 is hard to fix, wastes space and is full of glue, Apple will still sell millions of them.

Anyone attempting to repair Apple's 4th-gen iPad will face a rough job, according to the folks at iFixit. Examining the innards of the iPad 4, the fixit site found that the unit is glued shut through adhesive. Taking apart the tablet required iFixit to apply heat to soften the adhesive and then pry it open with guitar picks, which fortunately didn't damage the device.

Crushed silicon more than triples battery capacity in tests

 

It's been like 30 seconds since we posted about some new trick that'll make batteries less terrible, so it's high time for some updates: researchers at Rice University have found that stuffing piles of crushed silicon into lithium-ion batteries can increase their capacity by a factor of three, but the real news here is that it's both easy to do, and cheap.

First all-carbon solar cell made from nanotubes and buckyballs

Part of the reason that solar cells aren't on top of every roof everywhere harvesting energy is that they're expensive, and part of the reason that solar cells are expensive is because they're made with exotic elements like indium. How about, let's instead make them with one of the top five most common elements in the entire Universe: say hello to the all-carbon solar cell.

Living concrete fixes its own cracks with built-in bacteria

 

Concrete is the most popular building material on the planet, probably because it's very strong, easy to work with and cheap, being made mostly of rocks. There are some durability issues with concrete, though, and to make it stronger, Dutch scientists have added self-healing capsules to help buildings heal cracks on their own.

Bad Karma: 16 Fisker luxury hybrids explode when flooded by Sandy

 

The Finnish-built Fisker Karma plug-in hybrid has quickly become the luxury ride of choice for rich folks who want to project a green-friendly image. A few of them will have to wait, however, after 16 of the cars caught fire and exploded after being flooded by the storm surge from Hurricane Sandy.

On Monday night, Hurricane Sandy hit the armory of the New York Army National Guard’s 69th Infantry Regiment, leaving the soldiers without power, hot water, or anything but the most rudimentary means of communicating with the outside world. So the next morning, the Regiment’s officers made an emergency plea — to the producers of the Victoria’s Secret fashion show.
As they had done for the last three years running, the lingerie company was holding its annual television event at the Regiment’s historic armory, located at 25th street and Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. For the show, the producers had hauled in eight massive 500 kilowatt generators. Of course, the producers said, we’d be happy to help. Hours later, the lights flashed back on.
VIDEO

Newest Benghazi Scapegoat: CIA’s David Petraeus

There’s an unexpected casualty of the September assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya: the reputation of David Petraeus, the celebrated Army general turned CIA director. For among the first times in his career, a bureaucratic effort to throw Petraeus under the bus is showing through in the press.

iPad Mini Line Standers Should Be Punched In The Throat

The quote of the day is brought to you by Jimmy Kimmel: "Anyone standing in line for an iPad mini in New York or New Jersey should be punched in the throat." Obviously people can do what they want to with their time and money in a situation like this but he does have a point when he said "volunteer for something."

Raven Software Is Hiring

Our friends at Raven Software are hiring. If you live in the area and have what it takes, hit the link and submit your resume.

Sony Runs "Four Breasts" Ad In France

Hah! How come we never see ads like this in the U.S.? The tag line says "Touch both sides, twice the sensations."

Apple Loses iPhone Case in Mexico

It looks like Apple has once again lost the trademark case it brought against a company in Mexico called iFone. No word on whether the company has plans to appeal to a higher court.

Battlestar's Helfer and Sackhoff team up for sexy charity calendar

I know we all miss the awesome sci-fi action and intrigue from Ron Moore's critically acclaimed reboot of Battlestar Galactica. But some viewers are also surely missing a few of the lovely actresses who called the series home. Not to worry, Battlestar junkies—Tricia Helfer and Katee Sackhoff are here to help, thanks to a sexy new charity calendar.

Why Can’t We Stop a Hurricane Before It Hits Us?

Hurricane Sandy has caused untold billions of dollars in damage and insane casualties. And we saw the “Frankenstorm” coming, for days in advance. We can send people into space and put vehicles on Mars — why can’t we stop a hurricane in its tracks, before it comes to our major population centers and starts rolling for damage?

2015 Ford Mustang Spy Photos

What It Is: A hacked-together 2015 Ford Mustang prototype based on the current car. The next-gen Mustang is set to debut sometime in 2014 with the current model’s six- and eight-cylinder engines. An EcoBoost four-cylinder engine will be added to the lineup, as well.

NY National Guard Suddenly Decides Hurricane Relief Trumps Mock Disaster Drill

Updated 8:42 a.m. Hours after being contacted by Danger Room, the New York Army National Guard on Tuesday night abruptly reversed a decision to send hundreds of soldiers out-of-state in the midst of the Hurricane Sandy relief effort.

The troops were previously declared unavailable to help New York recover from the state’s biggest hurricane in centuries. Instead, they were assigned to fight a fake disaster.

New Texas Chainsaw Massacre motion poster is the creepiest yet

Forget the reboot—a true sequel to the original 1974 Texas Chainsaw Massacre is on the way, and a freaky new motion poster hints at just how scary Leatherface will be in 3D.

The upcoming Texas Chainsaw 3D motion poster is all about Leatherface's trusty weapon of choice, which jumps right off the page in dirty, slice-y glory. If nothing else, it definitely looks like it could be as creepy as the original. Plus, this franchise was made for 3D technology.

Women’s Perfect Day: Can You Schedule Your Way to Happiness?

Planning the perfect day? Spend more time with your honey and less time with your boss, according to a new study, "Just a Perfect Day: Developing a Happiness Optimized Day Schedule," published in the most recent issue of the Journal of Economic Psychology.

Inspired in part by musician Lou Reed's song "Perfect Day," researchers crunched data collected from over 900 employed women. Their goal: to find out what combination of activities engaged in for how long each day would produce the greatest well being. They found thatwomen reported being happiest when they spent the least amount of time commuting and working and the most amount of time being close to their romantic partner or hanging out with friends.

Iran has drone pictures of Israeli bases

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran has images of sensitive Israeli military bases taken by a drone that was launched by Lebanon's Hezbollah movement and downed by Israel earlier this month, a senior Iranian lawmaker claimed Monday in the latest boast from Tehran about purported advances in the capabilities of its unmanned aircraft.

Top Five Cities for Gen Y Workers

Gen Y, Millennials, the Internet generation -- where are these young workers, known for their love of gadgets and dislike of 8 a.m. meetings, most likely to find the best job opportunities and salaries?

Online salary databasePayScale.com’s recent “Gen Y on the Job” report ranks the top 20 cities for Gen Y workers. To determine the rankings, PayScale looked at private-sector wage growth in that metro, as well as Gen Y-specific factors, including median earnings, commute time and percent of Gen Y employees in that town. What do the winning locations have in common?

“The top cities for Gen Y workers offer relatively high pay, numerous job opportunities and good wage growth since the end of the recession,” says Katie Bardaro, lead analyst at PayScale. “Wage growth is a signal for labor demand. In today's economy, any city that is actively hiring is attractive to Gen Y.”

Sandy curtails nuclear plants, oldest under alert

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hurricane Sandy slowed or shut a half-dozen U.S. nuclear power plants, while the nation's oldest facility declared a rare "alert" after the record storm surge pushed flood waters high enough to endanger a key cooling system.

Angler's first-ever marlin nets whopping sum of $2.4 million

Kansas City angler Dave Sanchez caught his first marlin last Thursday off Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and it's reasonable to assume that it will remain his favorite catch for as long as he lives. That's because the 465-pound blue marlin, reeled in on the second day of the Bisbee's Black & Blue Marlin Jackpot Tournament, was worth $2,396,800 for Sanchez and his team aboard the yacht Frantic Pace.

Team Frantic Pace celebrates alongside a 465-pound blue marlin that ended up being worth nearly $2.4 million in the Bisbee's Black & Blue Marlin Jackpot Tournament off Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

Consumer Reports Auto Reliability Survey: Ford falls while seven Japanese brands top list

A perfect storm of reliability problems has dropped Ford to next to last among the 28 car brands ranked in Consumer Reports 2012 Annual Auto Reliability Survey, while its luxury brand, Lincoln, placed just a notch higher. 

Only two years ago, Ford was Detroit’s poster child for reliability. It cracked the top 10 among brands in Consumer Reports predicted-reliability scores, with more than 90 percent of its models being average or better. This year the top seven spots are all held by Japanese brands.

States with the Highest (and Lowest) Taxes

During the 2010 tax season, Americans paid 9.9% of their income on state and local taxes. This number, according to a report released today by The Tax Foundation, is up from 9.3% in 2000, but is basically unchanged from 2009. Per capita income in the U.S. fell from $42,539 in 2009 to $41,146 in 2010, while taxes fell slightly, from $4,160 in 2009 to $4,112 in 2010.

In some U.S. states, the burden on residents relative to their income rose substantially. In New York state, taxes paid per capita rose by more than $200, while income per capita fell by more than $1,100. According to the report, residents in New York paid 12.8% of their income on state and local taxes last year. In Alaska, residents paid just 7% of their income on non-federal taxes. Based on the Tax Foundation’s State and Local Tax Burden Rankings for 2010, 24/7 Wall St. identified the states with the largest and smallest tax burden on their residents.

Experimental plasma jet thrusters could make space travel cheaper

 

An effect of the commercial space revolution has been a resurgence of independent space-oriented projects. One of the latest efforts hopes to lower the costs of space travel using pulsed plasma jet thrusters.
A group of veteran scientists devoted to plasma physics research have banded together under the name HyperV with the intention of creating and launching an electric pulsed plasma jet thruster, eventually allowing for low cost interplanetary space transportation. Using this kind of electric propulsion would significantly reduce the mass and weight of spacecrafts, thus reducing fuel costs, resulting in more affordable missions. Although there are other types of electric propulsion systems that have been used for space travel, HyperV believes its solution will ultimately be cheaper and more robust.

Jamie Foxx could be in Amazing Spider-Man 2! (but as who?)

 

In the final, post-credit scene of The Amazing Spider-Man, Doctor Curt Connors comes face to face with a shadowy figure who may become the sequel's villain. But who could that villain be, and is Jamie Foxx the man to play him? Casting spoilers ahead!
According to Variety, Jamie Foxx is deep in negotiations to play a super-villain in the next Spider flick, due out in May of 2014. Which villain will he be playing? All signs seem to point towards the super-charged Electro. Electro, as his name suggests, has the power to control electricity, a gift he obtained by being struck by lightning.

See 1st intriguing pics from BBC's ambitious new zombie series

 

Yep. Zombies are definitely the new vamps and the BBC is trying to cash in on The Walking Dead craze by developing its very own zombie series called In The Flesh; and we finally have the very first intriguing pics here.
If some of you will recall, we first told you about the new series back in May. Back then, the series sounded to us like the perfect mash up of that horror-comedy film Shaun of the Dead and AMC's The Walking Dead.

Forget Justice League—Del Toro making his own DC super-team

 

Will Guillermo del Toro give The Avengers and Justice League a run for their money? The director's no stranger to comic books, and has his sights set on a new breed of superhero movie.

Del Toro's Pacific Rim isn't due out till next summer, but rumor has it Warner Bros. is pleased with the early product. Apparently, the robot epic is testing very well. As a reward, the studio's offering Del Toro whatever he wants as his next project.

New Captain America baddie also in Avengers 2

 

You just can't keep a good Marvel villain in one movie. In a badass crossover of gun-blazing implications, Crossbones may fight on far beyond The Winter Soldier. Here's how...
During an interview with radio host Matthew Aaron, End of Watch actor Frank Grillo was grilled on his involvement in the upcoming Captain America sequel and whether his Crossbones character would kick more superhero ass in another sequel, to which Grillo responded, "Yeah,It's a good run." Hmm. Sounds like a continuing gig to us.

Storm invigorates proponents of NYC sea barrier

 

NEW YORK (AP) — The vast destruction wreaked by the storm surge in New York could have been prevented with a sea barrier of the type that protects major cities in Europe, some scientists and engineers say. The multibillion-dollar price tag of such a project has been a hindrance, but may appear more palatable after the damage from Superstorm Sandy has been tallied.

Pentagon airlifts power teams, trucks to New York

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon is airlifting power restoration experts and trucks cross-country, from California to New York, to bolster efforts to assist the millions of people still living in darkness days after superstorm Sandy hit the U.S. Northeast.

Russian communications minister Nikolai Nikiforov meets with president Vladimir Putin. Photo: Kremlin.ru

On the surface, it’s all about protecting Russian kids from internet pedophiles. In reality, the Kremlin’s new “Single Register” of banned websites, which goes into effect today, will wind up blocking all kinds of online political speech. And, thanks to the spread of new internet-monitoring technologies, the Register could well become a tool for spying on millions of Russians.
Signed into law by Vladimir Putin on July 28, the internet-filtering measure contains a single, innocuous-sounding paragraph that allows those compiling the Register to draw on court decisions relating to the banning of websites. The problem is, the courts have ruled to block more than child pornographers’ sites. The judges have also agreed to online bans on political extremists and opponents of the Putin regime.

The new system allows ISPs not only to filter traffic, but to monitor it on a nationwide scale.

The principle of internet censorship is not a new one to the Russian authorities. For five years, regional prosecutors have been busy implementing regional court decisions requiring providers to block access to banned sites. To date this has not been done systematically: Sites blocked in one region remained accessible in others. The Register removes this problem.

Mexican Cartels Enslave Engineers to Build Radio Network

The Mexican military is trying to dismantle an extensive network of radio antennas built and operated by the notorious Zeta drug cartel. But the authorities haven’t had much luck shutting Radio Zeta down. Not only is much of the equipment super-easy to replace. But the cartel has also apparently found some unwilling — and alarming — assistance by kidnapping and enslaving technicians to help build it.

At least 36 engineers and technicians have been kidnapped in the past four years, according to a report from Mexican news site Animal Politico, with an English translation published by organized-crime monitoring group InSight. Worse, none of the engineers have been held for ransom — they’ve just disappeared. Among them include at least one IBM employee and several communications technicians from a firm owned by Mexico’s largest construction company. “The fact that skilled workers have been disappearing in these areas is no accident,” Felipe Gonzalez, head of Mexico’s Senate Security Committee, told the website.

Chinese think tank urges end to one-child policy

BEIJING (AP) — A Chinese government think tank is urging the country's leaders to start phasing out its one-child policy immediately and allow two children for every family by 2015, a daring proposal to do away with the unpopular policy.

Some demographers see the timeline put forward by the China Development Research Foundation as a bold move by the body close to the central leadership. Others warn that the gradual approach, if implemented, would still be insufficient to help correct the problems that China's strict birth limits have created.

Xie Meng, a press affairs official with the foundation, said the final version of the report wil be released "in a week or two." But Chinese state media have been given advance copies. The official Xinhua News Agency said the foundation recommends a two-child policy in some provinces from this year and a nationwide two-child policy by 2015. It proposes all birth limits be dropped by 2020, Xinhua reported.

"China has paid a huge political and social cost for the policy, as it has resulted in social conflict, high administrative costs and led indirectly to a long-term gender imbalance at birth," Xinhua said, citing the report.

Over-the-top home features of the 1%

 
If your garage has a hydraulic car elevator, you might be part of the group of high earners who make more than 99 percent of Americans: the One Percent.  There is a good chance you might also be a One Percenter if a waterslide connects your master bedroom to your swimming pool.

You get the picture. For the One Percent, amenities like a home theater or a wine cellar hardly make your house stand out. The exceptional features that follow won’t be seen in just any mansion. These special features can only be afforded by famous athletes, hip hop artists and other mega-wealthy owners.

Pinch - wireless device interface connectivity

I'm not sure what this would be useful for but the tech is pretty damn neat.