Technology

One of the first jobs I ever held was as an auto mechanic and have had a passion for cars that predates my passion for technology. Watching the U.S. auto industry make mistake after mistake until it was nearly out of business has been particularly painful for any of us who love both cars and our cou...

The National Institute on Media and the Family released its 13th annual video game report card Tuesday. The report's findings this year are relatively upbeat, with improved grades for retailers and the ESRB for making changes that the institute thinks will decreased the chances that inappropriate g...

You might not think you have robots in your house, but think again. There's your dishwasher, for instance; you put dishes in it, walk away, and a half hour later they're clean. Same thing with your washing machine. Or your programmable coffeemaker. Though these everyday mechanical devices aren't hum...

Bethesda Softworks announced Tuesday that it will software tools to allow gamers and developers to tinker with the publisher's recent PC and console release, "Fallout 3." Dubbed the "Garden of Eden Creation Kit," or G.E.C.K., the editor will enable gamers to create mods, or personal modifications of...

As many industries focus on green technologies like hardware and devices that use less energy, a new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council suggests that makers of video game consoles could do more to cut their hardware's hunger for electricity. In the U.S., video game consoles consume ro...

President-Elect Barack Obama didn't show, but Obama Girl was there. So was Obama's unofficial Web troubadour, will.i.am. A real politician, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, presented an award to a real member of royalty, Queen Raina of Jordan, while Chad Vader, the unambitious, not-so-real brother ...

Sony Pictures Entertainment's online video network, Crackle.com, has announced its upcoming season of online programming, which will start airing next month. Unlike much of the pro content accessible on the Internet, Crackle's shows are primarily made for distribution exclusively over the Web, not r...

Google has released a new search editing tool that gives users more control over their results. SearchWiki enables users to customize their searches by re-ranking, deleting, adding and even commenting on their search results. Users will also be able to see how others have edited their searches; howe...

OPINION

EMC in Sync With Move to the Cloud

It was an interesting week last week, made even more interesting by a bunch of news services calling our U.S. president-elect either the new Hitler or a Marxist, suggesting these folks got some really bad eggnog. This should be filed under NOT HELPING. While tempted, I'll avoid further mentioning th...

In four years, driving a car in the San Francisco Bay area may involve a variation of the "plug and play" concept. Think "plug and drive," if the mayors of San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose and start-up Better Place have their way. The company, founded by former SAP executive and Wired magazine co...

The history of James Bond films is the history of our fascination with technology: booby-trapped briefcases, jetpacks, cars with machine guns and ejector seats, super-magnet watches, cars driven by remote control, acid-filled fountain pens, cars that become invisible, sharks with frickin' lasers...

IBM and five universities are receiving funding from a government agency to build a supercomputer -- but not just any supercomputer. They've been tasked with building hardware and software that mimics the human brain. "There are no computers today that can even remotely approach the robust and versa...

So far, the testimony in the Lori Drew cyber-bullying trial, which began Wednesday in Los Angeles, has generated headlines for its inherent drama and tragedy: the mother of a teenage daughter, accused of using the MySpace social network to stage an elaborate hoax that ends with the suicide of a trou...

SPACE

NASA Tests New Deep Space Cyber-Net

NASA has announced it has successfully tested the first deep-space communications network. The new network, modeled on the Internet, was able to transmit scores of space images between Earth and a NASA science spacecraft located more than 20 million miles away. Dubbed the "Interplanetary Internet," ...

Among the titles Nintendo highlighted during E3 this year, "Animal Crossing: City Folks" stood out. Previously a bestselling franchise on the Nintendo GameCube, the updated Wii version, Nintendo said, would take advantage of the console's Internet connection and new Wii Speak microphone accessory to...

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