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The social media fast lane is heating up with real-time location updates. Apps now tap into your cell phone’s GPS to track where you and your friends are, and, more importantly, what’s happening nearby. Now that the world can finally say “tweet” with a straight face, there’s a new term to learn: MoSoSo, or mobile social software. Read on to find out what it is, how it works and how to setup your privacy settings.
Six Generation III+ reactors set for the U.S.
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The Big Picture: It’s nearly impossible to imagine making meaningful carbon dioxide reductions without designing safer, cleaner reactors and rolling them out immediately — because no one wants to build more of the reactors we have today.
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If its mission succeeds in 2012, NASA’s latest Mars rover, the newly christened Curiosity will join an elite group of robots that have managed to touch down safely on an alien world. Click through to see Curiosity’s five greatest forbearers.
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Burning question: Should I pay extra for an extended warranty?
The short answer: No.
The much-longer answer: Probably not, though it depends on what you buy, what the plan covers, and how techie you are.
We do recommend warranties for theft-and-loss-prone handheld devices like cell phones, but it’s likely that your laptop, TV or cell phone won’t bite the dust in that narrow span of time between the end of the manufacturer’s coverage and the end of the extended warranty. In fact, tech products don’t break as often as we fear they will. And when things fall apart, they do so promptly. “If you get a lemon, things tend to go wrong in the first year when the product’s under warranty,” says David Carnoy, the executive editor of c|net.
But service plans or other insurance policies might be worthwhile if they offer something beyond the standard warranty, such as better tech support or protection against theft and accidents.
Read on for our 10 tips on protecting both your gadgets and your bank account.
An artery-fixing tool does its job, then fades away
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Every year, 800,000 Americans elect to have a tiny metal-mesh tube inserted into their coronary artery to prop it open and improve blood flow to cardiac muscle tissue. It’s an easy choice — the alternative entails cracking open the chest and operating on a stopped heart. Continue reading
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In 1998, New York’s then mayor Rudy Giuliani created uproar when he proposed a zero-tolerance crime policy that included nabbing people for jaywalking. Anyone who’s strolled New York knows that jaywalking is as common as hot dog vendors and yellow taxis.
The online world is full of digital jaywalkers, crossing out of bounds on copyright, privacy protections or service agreements. Most of these trespasses are minor–no more likely to get you hauled downtown than ambling across the middle of the street. And you (as well as many advocacy groups) may genuinely believe that one or more of the laws you are violating are unfair, or unfairly applied.
Nevertheless, a zealous digital cop could nab you for these infractions (most of which have civil, not criminal, penalties). Here are the top transgressions that can set you on a virtual perp walk.
Denmark calls a global conference, and puts an American in charge
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Katherine Richardson is atypical. This American oceanographer is thriving at the University of Copenhagen, where she serves as Vice Dean of Science. In the genteel worlds of academia and northern Europe, she’s a straight-talker who doesn’t mince her words–uttered with a hearty Massachusetts accent.
Tech-savvy artist pushes for gadgets that everyone can use
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Twenty-two-time Grammy winner Stevie Wonder has created new sounds, even genres, by absorbing and reshaping every musical and audio technology he’s encountered.
A new competition aims to inspire the 100mpg personal plane
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Imagine a ’57 Chevy cruising through the air, and you get an idea of what single-engine, propeller-driven airplanes do to the environment. The average private plane, such as the popular two-seat Cessna 172, is 30 years old. It carries a four-cylinder piston engine designed in the 1940s that burns leaded gasoline, has no catalytic converter, and gets as little as 12 miles per gallon.
A radical new power plant aims to convert our dirtiest fossil fuel into clean-burning hydrogen
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Big lumps of sooty coal hardly seem like the future of energy, but that’s exactly what the U.S. Department of Energy predicts. Consumption of the fossil fuel-the main source of greenhouse gas and a major contributor to acid rain, smog and mercury poisoning-will hit 10.6 billion tons a year by 2030, a near doubling of the 5.4 billion tons burned in 2003, according to the agency.
