"PC Mag has put together a list of 10 movie inspired gadgets that may or may not have been the inspiration for some modern day devices. While some of the associations may be thin at best, there are definitely some plausible connections there. Still, a flashlight ain't no lightsaber and an all-terrain skateboard ain't no Back to the Future hoverboard."
" When you're playing Samurai Shodown on your virtual Neo Geo, you need more than that rinky-dink controller to immerse you in a world of arcade magic. When you need to reach for a controller than can match up to your memories, you need the Neo Geo Stick 2."
" It's safe to assume that if you're using one of OLPC's XO laptops, you're not exactly a speed demon. Still, you probably wouldn't mind squeezing a little more power out of that innocuous Geode CPU -- and now there's a way to do it. The cats and kittens over at OLPC News have discovered a way to (relatively) safely overclock your system using a shortcut at the open firmware prompt."
"One of these is a photograph taken by the Hubble space telescope on December 17, 2002, featuring the variable star V838 Monocerotis. The other is the same photograph overlaid with a familiar logo."
"As the Second Coming of the JesusPhone looms over the horizon, the rumor pace starts to accelerate, with people digging in the dirt to try to get any clues about what's awaiting in this incarnation of Apple's cellphone. StuffTV is now reporting that—just like Jason wanted—Nike+ will definitely come to the iPhone in a big way, while code detectives have found strings that hint at support of Bluetooth stereo headphones, GPS support, and other iPhone seeeeeecrets:"
"Gartner analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald told a conference audience yesterday that Microsoft’s Windows product is collapsing and must make radical changes to its operating system or risk becoming a has-been. They specifically pointed out the slow adoption rate by businesses - just 6% to date - and the fact that the Vista code base is so large. That means changes take years, and only high end computers can really take advantage of it anyway."
"Calling the situation "untenable" and describing Windows as "collapsing," a pair of Gartner analysts have claimed that Microsoft must make radical changes to the operating system or risk becoming a has-been. In a presentation at a Gartner-sponsored conference in Las Vegas, analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald said Microsoft has not responded to the market, is overburdened by nearly two decades of legacy code and decisions and faces serious competition on a whole host of fronts that will make Windows moot unless the Redmond company acts."
"Rewind back to late 2006. The PS3 was launching alongside the Wii and geeky editors like ourselves were having a field day. We'd already managed to convince our good pal Ben Heck to build another Xbox 360 laptop and the Wii Laptop, so it was only a matter of time before we started brainstorming on how the hell we could possibly fit a PS3 into a "portable" enclosure. That's the part where Ben stepped up his game and worked his magic -- on and off for almost a year and a half -- to build... the PS3 Laptop!"
"It might look like the Death Star, but rebel forces would have nothing to fear from Phobos, the Martian moon named for the Greek god of horror. The moon was recently imaged in high resolution by the Mars-orbiting HiRISE camera. 
"Imagine a network that lets you watch Michael Bluth torch his family's banana shack, Malcolm Reynolds outsmart the Alliance, Peter Petrelli and Hiro Nakamura save the cheerleader and the world and Ted Baxter's bumbling infuriate Mary Richards on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."Now envision picking and choosing which episode you want of each show and when you want to watch it. Add features such as being able to start and stop, fast-forward and rewind at will. And a network where commercial breaks eat up no more than 30 seconds instead of 5 minutes.And best of all, it's free."
"The first time I tried this project was 1981. It involved a lot of cardboard, masking tape and several precariously wired 60 watt light bulbs. Probably a good thing it didn't make it too far.
"A rare meteorite impact crater in remote Western Australia has been discovered by an Australian geologist using Google Earth. The Hickman Crater, located in the Pilbara region around 1000 km northeast of Perth, was named for its discoverer, Arthur Hickman, who was using Google Earth to conduct research on channel ore deposits."
"TypingWeb is an online typing test & typing tutor and the only software you'll ever need to learn to type fast and accurately. All skill levels will benefit from TypingWeb's free typing lessons. Engaging content keeps things interested, including daily News Headline lessons. Best of all, TypingWeb's typing lessons are completely free for individuals!"
"The father of a theoretical subatomic particle dubbed "the God particle" says he's almost sure it will be confirmed in the next year in a race between powerful research equipment in the United States and Europe. British physicist Peter Higgs, who more than 40 years ago postulated the existence of the particle in the makeup of the atom, said his visit to a new accelerator in Geneva last weekend encouraged him that the Higgs boson will soon be seen."
"Telltale Games has revealed that the "new WiiWare episode series" hinted at during GDC08 will be Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive people, based on the character from Homestar Runner. The series will be a five-episode season with installments promised monthly on Nintendo's download service as well as the PC. The first episode is due out in June."
"The Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull soundtrack is now up for preorder on Amazon.com. The soundtrack featuring music composed and conducted by John Williams, gives us a peak at the story for the upcoming film. You can check out the semi-spoiler laced track listing."
"This at the same time that Yahoo is doing a limited test to place Google ads in its search results. Meanwhile, News Corp, which Yahoo once hoped would be its white knight, is said to be turning on Yahoo and talking to Microsoft about joining its bid. Obviously a lot of balls are up in the air right now, and anything is possible."
"For something that you look at every day of your working life, your computer desktop doesn't get as much attention as it deserves. That's too bad, considering that the desktop can do a lot more than display wallpaper and hold shortcut icons. From widgets to workflows, from calendars to computer stats and beyond, you can do a whole lot on your desktop without manually starting up a single program."
"Great news, world! I’m very pleased to announce that Veronica Belmont has joined the Revision3 family as Patrick Norton’s co-host on our tech-centric show Tekzilla, and we couldn’t be happier to have her on board. Not only does Veronica fit in well here because she’s got the brains (oh, the brains!), but she’s just an all-around cool person, too. We’re honored to have her with us, and I hope you’ll join me in welcoming her to the Revision3 team."
"The Olympic torch has been getting a hostile reception in London, Paris and San Francisco. But that fact doesn't seem to bother Lenovo, the PC manufacturer from China that designed the much-maligned torch, now making its way through 19 countries. Lenovo's design team shared this gallery of drawings and renderings with Wired.com to show how the torch went from inspiration to reality."
"It features a clam shell design with a 1.5 inch display hidden inside, and uses a RAZR style keypad in a circular layout. The screen can display 256k colours at a resolution of 128 x 60, it also features Bluetooth and a 1.3 megapixel camera."
"Using science as an excuse to get tanked on booze has always been a dream of ours at the JAGT HQ, which is why writing this article was all the more satisfying. The thesis is simple; get drunk seven times and for each hangover, try a different ‘cure’ and report back on its effectiveness."
"Internet search giant Google Inc. unveiled a new feature Tuesday for its popular mapping programs that shines a spotlight on the movement of refugees around the world. The maps will aid humanitarian operations as well as help inform the public about the millions who have fled their homes because of violence or hardship, according to the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which is working with Google on the project. "
"A self-replicating 3D printer that spawns new, improved versions of itself is in development at the University of Bath in the UK. The "self replicating rapid prototyper" or RepRap could vastly reduce the cost of 3D printers, paving the way for a future where broken objects and spare parts are simply "re-printed" at home. New and unique objects could also be created."
"There’s little speculation as to why students, professionals, writers, designers, tradespeople (and anyone else) are clambering to get into these private sites. Hey, we all know books aren’t cheap - especially medical/ science journals, University textbooks and trades/ technical/ law literature. Courtesy of textbooktorrents, here’s an example of what one can expect to find on the inside of a specialized e-Learning tracker."
"Researchers at Damballa Inc have uncovered evidence of a powerful new botnet they've nicknamed Kraken. The company estimates that Kraken has infected 400,000 systems, which would make it twice the size of Storm during that botnet's hayday. (The final size of Storm's botnet is disputed; Damballa estimates Storm infected up to 200,000 machines)."
"At this point, any news of Jericho's demise should be considered exaggerated. Once a show proves that it can rise from the ashes based on fan support – it becomes a unique commodity in television. While Jericho's audience might not be CSI-sized – they are far from the regular casual viewers. They are dedicated, and they'll follow the series wherever it goes. Exploiting the value of such an audience is just good business – and it looks like others are starting to figure that out."
"Rocketplane has suffered largely from the scope of its ambition: It tackled both the suborbital tourist market and the NASA-servicing orbital market at the same time, and tried to do it all without the benefit of a billionaire backer, like Virgin Galactic's Richard Branson. While all of the companies in the young commercial space industry have experienced delays and setbacks, Rocketplane's current position seems shakier than most."
"Have you ever visited a store for the first time and had it feel eerily familiar? Or maybe you're deep in conversation with a friend and you suddenly get the feeling that you've had the exact conversation before, even though you know that you haven't. If you've ever found yourself in either of these situations, you've experienced déjà vu. Sixty to 70 percent of us admit to getting this feeling at least once in our lives."
"The product is not a YouTube clone by any means. The Flickr team, led by Director of Product Management Kakul Srivastava, spent considerable time debating the feature set and user experience internally before launch. The goal is not to have people upload long videos or clips of copyrighted material. To reinforce that, videos can be only 90 seconds in length and 150MB in size ."
"These applications range from moderately popular to downright obscure, but all of them are open-source and FREE. All of them are worth the install time if you have never tried them. As a side bonus, many of them are cross-platform as well."
"So not many of you will know who is, but all of you have probably seen her at some point. Well she is the creepy little girl that scared the heck out of all of us in the US version of The Ring. Well, she is all grown up now!"
"Every company is a tech company these days. From software startups to hedge funds to pharmaceutical giants to big media, they're all increasingly in the business of software. Quality code has become not only a necessity, but a competitive differentiator. And as companies compete around software, the people who can make it happen - software engineers - are becoming increasingly important. But how do you spot the 'cream of the crop' programmers? In this post we outline the top ten traits of a rockstar developer."
"We’ll show some simple about:config modifications below. Even if the word “Boolean” means nothing to you, we’ll try to make it easy to understand about:config settings. For power users, Mozillazine.org has a comprehensive list of about:config settings, their meanings, and how to modify them. Btw, although the screenshots below were made on a Mac, all of these hacks work for Windows users too. "
"From classics and sci-fi to poetry, biographies and books that changed the world… we present the ultimate reading list. Illustrations by David Juniper"
"If a verified message from aliens is ever received, would the public be told about it? SETI – the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence - does have an international protocol that if an alien signal is ever received, it would be disseminated among the astronomical community and made public."
"Previous benchmark tests that I’d carried out on my Mac mini had shown that Safari 3.1 was the fastest browser for the Mac OS X. Firefox 3.0 Beta 5 changes that. Using the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark test my testing shows that Firefox 3.0 Beta 5 holds a 7% lead over Safari 3.1. "
"Google isn’t just talking about hosting applications in the cloud any more. Tonight at 9pm PT they’re launching Google App Engine (Update: The site is live), an ambitious new project that offers a full-stack, hosted, automatically scalable web application platform. It consists of Python application servers, BigTable database access and GFS data store services."
"Politics, sex and religion are the three things you're not supposed to discuss in mixed company. Fortunately, if you're in a cult, odds are you get to discuss those topics as much as you want. In the right cults you probably get to discuss them while having group sex. If you're allowed to speak, that is."
"Blizzard Entertainment, the envy of the computer game industry, has learned 11 lessons on innBlogger: Geek Picks - Create Postovation that can help almost any business. Irvine-based Blizzard used these innovation methods not only to create the world’s most popular massively multi-player online game, World of Warcraft, but also to keep the game fresh and challenging for more than 10 million players."
"Have a complaint with cable company Comcast? Don’t bother calling their helpline: Instead write a blog entry or, better still, send a ‘tweet’ or two via Twitter threatening to “expend significant energy over the next three weeks trashing Comcast.” That’s the lesson taught by TechCrunch founder and co-editor Mike Arrington, after his Comcast broadband connection went down for 36 hours."
"A high-definition TV you can carry in your pocket. A remote you talk to. A dongle for bringing HDTV broadcasts to your laptop while you're on the go. Sound great? Too bad, because you'll have to cross an ocean to get them. The coolest gadgets often debut overseas--usually in Asia. Some are cell phones that double as music players or TVs. Others are supersmall yet powerful notebooks or handheld PCs. And some are just weird, like the world's most disturbing piggy bank."
"Tiny screens have been a big hindrance to the wider use of mobile phone handsets to read email, surf the internet or watch movies. This is set to change by next year when people will be able to use their handsets to project large, vivid colour images onto any flat surface."
"Apparently micro-blogging is getting more and more popular by the day and consequently its biggest platform on the web, Twitter, is rapidly growing as well. This means there’s a whole new emerging market of tech savvy, blogging experienced users that’s just waiting to be grasped. A great opportunity indeed!"
"In response to an open letter from Steve Ballmer, Yahoo! posted a press release claiming that Microsoft's offer 'substantially undervalues Yahoo!' and is therefore not in the best interest of the company. They also bemoan that the letter 'mischaracterizes the nature of our discussions' and that the threat to make an offer directly to the shareholders is 'counterproductive and inconsistent with the stated objective of a friendly transaction'. Nevertheless, they explicitly point out that a transaction with Microsoft is still an option, but only if they are willing to pay 'a price that fully recognizes the value of Yahoo!'"
"Identity theft is one of those topics that rarely leaves the headlines. Two prominent U.S. government data breaches in recent years -- a laptop stolen from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and a breach at the Energy Department -- resulted in the theft of the personal data of millions of government employees. The thefts also rejuvenated efforts in Congress to enact federal rules regarding notification, information-security and consumer-protection mechanisms."
"Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal claimed that the 3G iPhone will be released in 60 days. It is unknown how Mossberg knows this little tidbit of tech info, but the rumor has been circulating for a while. In addition, AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega commented that in the coming months all of their smart integrated devices will be 3G, including the iPhone."
"Global warming has plunged the planet into a crisis and the fossil fuel industries are trying to hide the extent of the problem from the public, James Hansen, seen here, NASA's top climate scientist says"
"The new version of our favorite browser has seen its fifth and final beta release, and Mozilla says its for testing purposes only. However, the Firefox 3 beta is leaner, meaner, faster, and just plain better than Firefox 2—and don't tell Daddy Mozilla, but even at this early stage, we've found it to be stable enough for full-time use."