Monthly Archives: January 2009

With its $99 (direct) 2Wire MediaPoint digital media player, a set-top box that delivers movies to the home via Internet, Blockbuster once again shows us that anything Netflix can do, Blockbuster can do, too—if not better, then well enough. But … Continue reading →

Watch an advertisement on a video screen in a mall, health club or grocery store and there’s a slim – but growing – chance the ad is watching you too. Small cameras can now be embedded in the screen or … Continue reading →

Stanford researchers have reclaimed bragging rights for creating the world’s smallest writing, a distinction the university first gained in 1985 and lost in 1990. How small is the writing? The letters in the words are assembled from subatomic sized bits … Continue reading →

This is true art, friend. The amazing “brotato” (rhymes with potato, in a perfect world) has hacked together netbook components, an ancient keyboard and a 14.2-inch LCD into this classy case, dubbing the project “The Poor Man’s Netbook.” More

A giant flower beetle with implanted electrodes and a radio receiver on its back can be wirelessly controlled, according to research presented this week. Scientists at the University of California developed a tiny rig that receives control signals from a … Continue reading →

Google’s main search engine is currently identifying every site on the web as malware, according to reports in both the US and the UK. Following a query, the world’s largest search engine tags each result with the words: “This site … Continue reading →

Physics and magic aren’t often mistaken, but increasingly, physicists themselves seem to be trying to change that. Last year, a team at the University of California, Berkeley, announced that it had developed materials that could lead to an invisibility cloak. … Continue reading →

Environmentalists are encouraged by President Barack Obama’s focus this week on renewable energy and stricter emissions standards, although some economists are skeptical he can pull the country out of the recession while cleaning up the planet. Obama must strike a … Continue reading →

Microsoft’s public beta of Windows 7 is similar enough to Vista that it is fairly easy to install on a Mac, either using BootCamp to install it natively, or within a virtual environment. Here’s what’s involved with obtaining the beta … Continue reading →

Microsoft’s efforts to make Windows 7 less annoying than Vista may also be making it less secure than its predecessor. With Windows Vista, the operating system popped up a warning any time a major change was being made to the … Continue reading →

Microsoft officials on January 30 reiterated that there will be no public Beta 2 of Windows 7 and the next milestone will be the Release Candidate (RC) test build of the operating system. On the “Engineering Windows 7″ blog, Windows … Continue reading →

Chip maker Microsemi has decided to keep its CEO and president James Peterson after a board investigation concluded he lied about receiving degrees from Brigham Young University. The California-based firm specializes in high-reliability parts the US government uses in military … Continue reading →

Microsoft Corp. is warning customers that tools for blocking automatic upgrades to the newest service packs of Windows Vista and Windows XP will expire in the coming months. In a note on a company blog aimed at enterprise IT professionals, … Continue reading →

Late next month Earth will receive a new celestial visitor named Lulin – or Comet C/2007 N3 – which astronomers say may have never visited this corner of the solar system before and should be visible to the naked eye. … Continue reading →