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A few days ago the Department of the Navy solicited procurement for Lego Mindstorm NXT Robotics Kits, for use at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis. These programmable kits allow users to not only build robots, but also provide software to test and modify real-life robotic behaviors. Hello Skynet! Lego Mindstorms features an advanced…
The Obama administration’s big push for improved cyber security just hit a roadblock after the organizers for the hacker conference DEF CON banned feds from attending. Maybe next year? In a letter posted on the event’s website late Wednesday night, DEF CON founder Jeff Moss said very plainly that “it would be best for everyone…
How often do you really use that dining table in your apartment? Most meals are probably consumed in front of the TV, or at a restaurant. And sure, it’s handy for the occasional dinner party or tax audit, but the rest of the time it’s just wasting space. So reclaim a good 40 square of…
Hackers aren’t going anywhere any time soon, so Russian spies are wising up and taking their most sensitive intelligence offline. Not offline like off the internet. Offline like off computers altogether. The Russian state procurement agency FSO recently announced that it was interested in spending up to 486,000 rubles (about $14,800) on at least 20…
We all know how a bowl of rice can save your phone after an unexpected swim, but that’s not all it can do. Before you know it, rice could be a very important ingredient inside all your devices’ batteries. A very important part of any gadget’s lithium-ion battery is a graphite anode. But with all…
The first question you’ll have about Nokia’s new Lumia 1020 is how the photos look. And yes, they’re so very sharp. But what may have been overlooked is that the rest of the phone, which is still, you know, a phone, is (almost surprisingly) on point too. Before you even get to the camera, you…
Nokia came forth today with its new Lumia 1020 phone. As anticipated, it’s all about the camera. 41 megapixels, woweeee! Xenon flash, egads! But along with those readily recognizable specs is a more subtle camera feature that will certainly warm the hearts of phone photographers everywhere: manual focus. Every photo enthusiast wants more control. With…
Calories are pretty nebulous. We’ve taken a couple of looks of what 200 of ’em actually look like in terms of real food, but there’s a more important question: what do you have to do to get rid of them? You know all the classic answers, but ASAP Science has a couple of stranger alternatives…
Every sofa doubles as a black hole that sucks and traps the pocket contents of all who dare sit on it. But when the TV remote goes missing in a room accented with this lovely Tri-Folds sofa by Camille Paillard, the odds are pretty good that it’s just hiding inside one of its folded pockets.…
Nokia’s new Lumia 1020 comes with a host of features you might not be used to on a humble smartphone. And one of the most intriguing is the Lumia’s radical new approach to zoom. Here’s how it works. Because the Lumia 1020 shoots so many pixels on the 41MP sensor, it doesn’t have to lose…
You’ve undoubtedly been warned about how easy it is to have your identity stolen online over. And over. And over again. But we just never learn. Clearly, it’s going to take a little something more to hit the message home. Something like, oh, stealing an actual person’s identity, terrifying him, and creating what might be…
So hidden in Nokia’s announcement of some new apps for its Lumia line was a little announcement about Hipstamatic. It’s making a lens app for Nokia, and it can share your photos to other social networks. Including Instagram. So, essentially, Windows Phone just got its first real Instagram app. The bad news is that the…
Phones in cameras are so good now. Sort of. They’re good when you compare their output to the smudgy, iffy images we put up with so many years, but an S95 can still blow them out of the skies. Maybe that changes with the Nokia Lumia 1020, which we’ll meet today. The camera is 41…
Besides being waterboarded and kept awake for 180 hours, there’s not an awful lot to do when you’re in the custody of the CIA for orchestrating the biggest terrorist attack in American history. So after he spilled all the secrets he could spill, 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed did what anyone in his position would…
No doubt: the following spacewalk photos are the best I have seen in a very long time. I just cannot stop staring at the stunning photos captured during the spacewalk of ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano and NASA’s Chris Cassidy, on the 9th of July, released by the European Space Agency today on its webpage and…
It’s hard to imagine that the vast skylines of our major cities were once empty space and unused tracts of land. But the rapid urban growth over the last century is nothing short of astounding, especially when condensed down to simple two minute animations. The 3D flyover renderings were created by a real-estate company called…
It’s usually pretty easy to spot an electric bike coming down the road. Besides the lack of pedaling, they also feature over-sized frames packed with batteries, or bulbous hubs on the side of the wheels for the electric motor. But not Electrolyte’s e-bikes. All of the required components—including the battery, electronics, and electric motor—are hidden…
In a move that only further closes the gap between the quickly merging Windows worlds, Microsoft has shuffled itself around in what Steve Ballmer terms “a far-reaching realignment of the company.” More specifically, Terry Myerson—formerly of Windows phone fame specifically—will be heading up the entire OS department, including Windows and Xbox software and systems. Additionally,…
Vending machines didn’t always just sling soda and smokes. Did you know the automated peddlers have been around for about two thousand years? In fact, the very first vending machine was invented by first-century mathematician Hero of Alexandria to dispense holy water using a series of valves, pulleys, and weights. And they’ve been stuffed with…
We’ve already seen a leaked set of specs ahead of today’s expected launch of Nokia’s new Lumia 1020. But now the Verge has come across press shots and final specs for the new phone. According to the Verge, the 1020 will pack a 41-megapixel camera with PureView branding, a 4.5-inch AMOLED display, 2GB of RAM,…
