Facebook Home is a whole lot more than that it seems. Think of it as an "apperating system," a software platform that sits between the operating system and the apps, capturing an enormous share of the user's attention. And, Facebook hopes, an enormous chunk of advertising revenue.    
Read More...

At least 'nobody is listening to our telephone calls'; many people breathed a sigh of relief since first learning of the surveillance because it's just metadata, after all. Phew! Wrong. Metadata still leaves a lot to be concerned about. There's more to privacy than just the sounds of our voices: Content may be what we say, but metadata is about what we actually do. And unlike our words, metadata doesn't lie.    
Read More...

Valentin Heun's projects include a door lock, desk lamps, and a small radio that bring the benefits of computation to objects without sacrificing their intrinsic, tactile pleasures.    
Read More...

Two university art professors are determined to bring a classic 19th-century device back into use.    
Read More...

Living the Wired Life is a series of profiles looking at people whose passion for their hobbies borders on obsession.    
Read More...

To sit back, cross one's arms, and declare the console war over would be ludicrous at this point.    
Read More...

It's a unusually cruel fate even in the twisted world of spider sex: When male dark fishing spiders copulate, they die -- death is the?unavoidable consequence of the mechanism by which males transfer sperm to females.    
Read More...

Companies are pulling more and more content off of outside social streams like Twitter and Facebook and onto websites they own and control.    
Read More...

Our warm-weather adventures continue as we saddle up on mountain bikes to go test some of the latest off-road cycling gear, including bikes, helmets, shoes and outerwear.    
Read More...

I hope you've always wanted a smartphone-controlled door lock because the tech world is here to shove them in your face. Or hand, rather.    
Read More...

Ram Sriharsha works in the engine room powering one of Silicon Valley's most influential companies. He's an engineer at Yahoo. Even after appointing ex-Google star Marissa Mayer as its chief exec, Yahoo is often derided as a thing of the past, a fallen web giant struggling to keep pace with the likes of Google, Facebook, and Twitter. But behind the scenes, thanks to people like Sriharsha, Yahoo is in many respects a step ahead of its much flashier competition -- and that's been the case for years.    
Read More...

Quantum computers are real, but they can't yet do anything you couldn't do faster on a normal computer. That's mostly due to the fragility of quantum information. But now a team of researchers at the University of Sydney and Dartmouth College have found a way to make quantum information more reliable.    
Read More...

Life's getting faster, and so are movie trailers. Just look at how the number of cuts has increased over time. Yeah, we actually counted. That wild outlier in 1964? Dr. Strangelove -- with an epileptic 136 cuts per minute.    
Read More...

When a senior FBI official told Congress the role the NSA's secret surveillance apparatus played in a San Diego terror financing case today, nobody was more surprised to hear it than the defense attorney who fought a long and futile court battle to get exactly the same information while defending the case in court.    
Read More...

The Airbus A380 is among the biggest stars of the Paris Air Show, but no less impressive is the sleek electric aerobatic trainer that is it distant cousin.    
Read More...

Google filed a legal challenge today against gag orders that come with the FISA court orders it receives from the FBI and NSA, on grounds that the silence orders impinge on the company's First Amendment rights to speak freely about the data requests it receives for user data.    
Read More...

A federal hearing today on NSA surveillance programs leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden produced some interesting numbers about the scope of the data collections and other issues. We've produced a roundup below of some of the interesting stats and intelligence gleaned from the discussion.    
Read More...

Did the government really disrupt a bomb plot targeting the New York Stock Exchange? The FBI deputy director said that today in a Spygate hearing where the government for the first time said the secret spy techniques publicly disclosed two weeks ago had halted some 50 terror attacks in 20 countries.    
Read More...

Posting a Facebook birthday greeting is the lowest level of well wishing. Now you can take the laziest birthday greeting and add something tangible, an Amazon gift card.    
Read More...

Hackers are starting to build new companies "by developers, for developers." But while this generation of entrepreneurs may know how to build products, they don't always know how to build businesses. That's why one startup veteran has started Heavybit Industries, a training ground for developers turned entrepreneurs.    
Read More...

New York City is getting 25 solar-powered smartphone charging stations across the city.    
Read More...

Reminders of one's homeland can hinder the ability to speak a new language. The findings could help explain why cultural immersion is the most effective way to learn a foreign tongue, and why immigrants who settle within an ethnic enclave acculturate more slowly than those who surround themselves with friends from their new country.    
Read More...

What good is human spaceflight? This is the question being posed by the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board (ASEB) on behalf of The National Academies, and they want your answers.    
Read More...

Georg Petschnigg, FiftyThree's co-founder, is tight-lipped about what exactly his team has in the works. The company remains focused on building a new generation of creativity tools.    
Read More...

Like most other "all points" signs in the world, this one will lead you in the right direction towards your destination. But that's pretty much where the similarities end.    
Read More...