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Cyberspying: Turning a Weapon Into a Benefit

I'm into fixing problems -- in fact, for much of my life I've been employed as someone who is brought in to fix a difficult problem. I don't see much point in just complaining -- either try to fix it, ignore it, or move someplace where it doesn't affect you. The current problem is that the U.S. appe...

As I write this, the U.S. has deployed a battle group to Syria in preparation for a missile strike against the government there, and Russia has deployed what appears to be a counter force. What most seem not to be factoring in is that Syria has already fired its warning shot with attacks on Twitter ...

A three-judge panel from the Superior Court of New Jersey's appellate division has pushed the envelope a little further in defining who is liable for accidents caused by texting. Namely, the panel has established a new standard of responsibility and ruled that texters whose communications distract a...

NASA is poised to launch a mission that will use lasers in a test of two-way communications between the Earth and the moon. The Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration will herald a new area of space communications. The LLCD equipment will be on board the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explor...

From programmable robots to robotic family pets, toy robots are pushing the limits of interactive technologies. "Robotics is definitely influencing toys, and there are plenty of robots to talk about," said The Toy Insider's Laurie Schacht. With its Mindstorms robot sets, LEGO is one of the leaders ...

TECH TREK

Apple's Got Algorithm

Apple has acquired AlgoTrim, a Swedish software developer that specializes in compression algorithms for mobile phones. AlgoTrim developed algorithms for "lossless" compression, whereby processing instructions in operating systems and applications are not only sped up but require less flash memory. ...

With an eye toward the upcoming holiday season, Nintendo on Wednesday announced a $50 price cut on its Wii U gaming platform and rolled out a brand-new portable gaming system priced at just $129.99. Slated for release on Oct. 12 in red or blue, the new Nintendo 2DS is an entry-level gaming system th...

Mixamo on Wednesday launched Face Plus, a new tool that lets developers and filmmakers convert human facial expressions recorded by a webcam into high-fidelity 3D animation to enliven their digital characters. Face Plus works with any ordinary webcam, making it possible to produce short scenes, comm...

Foursquare has released a new Windows 8 app in the Windows store that promises dividends for both Microsoft and the social network itself. The benefit for Microsoft is the extra traffic and exposure a new app for a still-popular social network like Foursquare can deliver -- especially an app that ha...

The WiFi network you have in your home distributes Internet bandwidth using radio signals. It's the same technology that FM radio, smartphones and television rabbit-ears use -- and it's susceptible to the same kind of problems, like interference, penetration and range. If you're having Internet band...

It sounds like something out of science fiction: One person thinks about pressing the spacebar on a keyboard to fire a cannon in a video game, and another person across campus is compelled to press the spacebar for real, even though he doesn't see the game on-screen. It's essentially that very scena...

The Syrian Electronic Army -- widely suspected of being comprised of pro-Syrian government hacktivists -- on Tuesday hijacked The New York Times' website and briefly took over Twitter's domain name system servers. The SEA's main motive is to gain visibility for its cause, said Jaeson Schultz, a Cisc...

Nissan will be ready to begin selling multiple models of driverless cars by 2020, it announced on Tuesday. The company has been researching the technology for years in partnership with teams from universities including MIT, Stanford, Oxford, Carnegie Mellon and the University of Tokyo. Work has alre...

Facebook on Monday released transparency reports of government requests for its users' data. Privacy groups hailed the move as a positive step forward -- rare praise for the company, which has had a checkered relationship with those groups over the years. Facebook's Global Government Requests Report...

TECH TREK

BBM May Leave the Nest

BlackBerry is looking to spin off its BlackBerry Messenger service into a separate business so as to compete with other instant messaging apps. The company announced back in May that it would make BBM, once available only on BlackBerry devices, available to devices running on iOS and Android as well...


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