26-Foot-Tall Rubik's Cube Is Even Harder to Solve

26 feet tall and still just as hard to figure out. [Photo: Groovik]It first appeared at Burning Man, providing a guiding light in the wastes, and now it's coming to Seattle's Pacific Science Center. What is it? Why, it's a huge 26-foot Rubik’s cube that can actually be solved. It takes 3 people, however, and they stand apart from each other (60ft-Burning Man, 30ft-PacSci) and each participant only...

Apps Created for Android, iPhone May Top One Million

A milestone was hit today in the market for smartphone apps. There may be a million of them out there.If all the mobile applications ever created for the Android and iOS operating systems are tallied, they exceed that magical number, according to the app counters at Appsfire.Unsurprisingly, only about 800,000, or 80 percent, of those apps are still active, Appsfire estimated. However, predicted that...

Archos Bargain-Priced G9 Tablets to Arrive Sept. 20

Archos 80 G9 tabletAre you longing to get your hands on a tablet, but can't stomach the $500 pricing for devices such as the iPad, Motorola Xoom, BlackBerry PlayBook, or Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1? Then you might be interested in Archos' 80 G9 Android Honeycomb tablet for $300.It comes with a dual-core processor and 8-inch display and will be available on September 20. Archos' tablet doesn't reach the...

Are Mobile-Style Interfaces Leaving Desktop Power Users Behind?

Microsoft certainly made a big splash with the early preview of Windows 8 it offered this week, and it's easy to see why: the new platform looks to be a surprisingly radical departure from the traditional Windows paradigm.There are clearly going to be lots of improvements in Windows 8, but the change I find most interesting is the operating system's touch-enabled, mobile-style Metro interface, which...

Are Your Eyes Ready for Dual LCD Monitor Glasses?

Do you love the promise of 3D gaming but hate the headaches? Well, then, maybe Vuzix's approach to 3D gaming might appeal to you. Vuzix's series of Wrap glasses feature a 16:9 widescreen display offering "a 75-inch virtual display as seen from 10 feet." So instead of the headache-inducing shutter glasses used by companies like Nvidia, Vuzix utilizes dual LCD monitors with resolutions of up to 1280...

Developers Get Access to First Google+ APIs

Google has released the first public APIs for Google+ so that external developers can start working with the social networking site and planning applications for it.This first batch of APIs lets developers fetch only public data from user profiles in a read-only manner, and application calls are limited to what Google calls a "courtesy usage quota" for now.Google sees this initial API release as...

Cinemas Will Die Out and Museums Will Have to Evolve

When it comes to things like movies and museums, it's all about the experience. But that experience is going to change because it's no longer necessary or even as pleasurable to be at those venues as it once was and you know what will take their place? No? Read on. What got me thinking about this was going to the movies to see "Our Idiot Brother," which I can recommend. It's entertaining, surprisingly...

First Look: Apple Thunderbolt Display

The Apple Thunderbolt Display may just be the most clever display ever. Macworld Lab received our new display Friday morning, and we immediately set out to test the new features.The Apple Thunderbolt Display connected to a MacBook Air. A Thunderbolt RAID array (the Promise Pegasus R6, right), and a FireWire 800 RAID array (the Promise SmartStor DS4600, left), are connected to the display.The $999...

Get Street Fighter II And Final Fight On Your iPhone

Are you an App Store aficionado with a penchant for old-school pugilism? Then today may be your lucky day. Hot on the heels of the hefty update that hit Street Fighter IV: Volt earlier today, Capcom Mobile has released Final Fight and the Street Fighter II Collection for iDevices everywhere.Final Fight looks to be a pretty faithful port of the SNES original, where the SFII collection packs in Street...

Great Deals Give Laptop Sales a Boost

It’s a critical time for laptops and the PC in general, with mounting signs that tablets (specifically, the iPad) are cannibalizing laptop sales, and the fact that HP--one of the largest PC makers--may give up on the consumer PC business altogether. But the laptop isn’t down and out, thanks to a late-summer surge in sales. According to market research company NPD Group, although laptop sales were...

Google Patches 32 Chrome Bugs in Browser Update

Google last week patched 32 vulnerabilities in Chrome, paying more than $14,000 in bug bounties as it also upgraded the stable edition of the browser to version 14. The company called out a pair of developer-oriented additions to Chrome 14 and noted new support for Mac OS X 10.7, aka Lion, including full-screen mode and vanishing scrollbars. Google last upgraded Chrome's stable build in early August....

Google+ Releases Initial Developer API; FarmVille Awaits You

Last month, Google finally got round to releasing games for its new Google+ social network. At the time of this writing, there are currently only 16 games available to play, including Angry Birds (of course). While this may seem like a very small amount in comparison to sites such as Facebook, and not enough to impress reviewers, Google has now announced it will be steadily releasing a developer...

iPhone 5 Production Delays Reported

iPhone 5 production could be behind schedule, it has been reported, with the tear-shaped design seemingly causing manufacturing issues. 9to5Mac said that it had heard that there were problems on at least one assembly line with the production of the iPhone 5. Unnamed sources confirmed to the website that there would be two new iPhone models -- an iPhone 4-alike and an iPhone 5 -- and Apple expects...

Microsoft Cracks Live Migration Problem

With the next release of Windows Server operating system, Microsoft has conquered one of the thorniest problems in virtualization: moving an operational virtual machine (VM) across a wide area network (WAN).Microsoft unveiled this new feature at the Microsoft BUILD conference, being held this week in Anaheim, California. It will be available in Microsoft's Hyper-V version 3 hypervisor, included in...

Obama Signs Patent Overhaul Legislation

U.S. President Barack Obama has signed the America Invents Act, the first major overhaul of the U.S. patent system in about 50 years.The America Invents Act, passed 89-9 by the U.S. Senate last week, would allow new challenges to patents granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). It allows third parties to file a challenge to a patent within nine months of it being awarded.The new law...

Oracle Further Commercializes MySQL Database

Oracle has added additional commercial extensions to the enterprise edition of its open-source MySQL database, further differentiating it from the community version available to anyone at no charge.A new thread pooling capability can provide a "significant" performance and scalability boost for "applications that service a high number of concurrent connections, specifically on 16-core and higher...

Online Communities Carry Risks

Online community groups are enticing because the members share common interests. But they also can cause people to make risky financial decisions. www.netbanker.comThe reason: active community members believe if their risky behavior backfires, the community will come to their rescue -- which, in reality, isn't likely. That’s according to a recent study authored by a quartet of professors from three...

Researcher Uncovers More SCADA Zero-Day Flaws

An Italian researcher has published details of a new batch of unpatched vulnerabilities found in the SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) products from seven different vendors. Assessing the significance of the 14 zero-day vulnerabilities explained by Luigi Auriemma in proof-of-concept detail with exploit code is incredibly difficult to do, but they offer an unsettling picture of the...

Seven States Join DOJ in Opposing AT&T Deal

Seven state attorneys general have joined a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit attempting to block AT&T's US$39 billion acquisition of rival mobile carrier T-Mobile USA.The states of New York, California, Washington, Illinois, Massachusetts, Ohio and Pennsylvania have joined the DOJ's antitrust lawsuit against AT&T, T-Mobile USA and T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom, the DOJ said Friday. The...

Seven Ways to Celebrate Software Freedom Day

Today is Software Freedom Day, and that means fans of free and open source software around the globe are celebrating all the ways it improves our lives.If you've ever used a piece of free and open source software--Firefox, Linux or LibreOffice, for example--you're already familiar with at least some of those advantages. You also know that “freedom” figures prominently among them, not just because...

Research: Study the Player, Not the Game

We've heard it all before, usually from Fox News: games are murder simulators, games will corrupt your children, games cause youngsters to become murderous fanatics. But new research presented to the American Psychological Association (via USA Today) suggests that it's not the games that are solely to blame for some individuals suffering negative effects from prolonged exposure -- individual personalities...

Smartphone Battery Life Could Be Dramatically Improved in "Subconscious Mode"

If your smartphone was allowed to be just barely awake, it could extend battery life by as much as 54 percent. That's the claim of a research team at the University of Michigan that has invented a new "subconscious mode" for smartphones and other WiFi enabled mobile devices.Computer science and engineering professor Kang Shin and doctoral student Xinyu Zhang found that, even when devices are in a...

Sharp Axes Two of Three Galapagos Tablets

Sharp is discontinuing the production of two of its three Galapagos tablets less then a year after launching them.The 5.5-inch and 10.8-inch Galapagos tablet computers will be discontinued as of Sept. 30, Sharp announced in a press release. The devices were on sale in Japan.When the companyintroduced the tablets in December 2010, it said it hoped to sell a million of the devices and in doing so take...

Wall Street Beat: Market Rally, Tablet Excitement Lifts IT

Tech stocks rose along with major indexes this week as central banks came up with a plan to ease market fears about European sovereign debt, and as key IT players including Microsoft, Intel, and Cisco held conferences for developers, users and analysts.Tech stocks have been depressed through most of the third quarter, weighed down by fear that a sputtering recovery would short-circuit IT spending....

Windows 8, iOS, and the Future

On Tuesday, Microsoft offered many more details about its next-generation operating system, Windows 8, to an audience of developers and invited media at its Build conference in Anaheim, California. I was present at the initial Windows 8 unveiling a few months ago, and came away impressed but disappointed. The root of my disappointment is this: I think Microsoft has, for the first time in a long time,...

Windows Phone 7, Day 15: Xbox Live Gaming on WP7

All of the smartphone platforms have games of some sort, but only Windows Phone has Xbox Live. For today's 30 Days With Windows Phone 7, I'm going to play around--literally--with the games hub and Xbox Live capabilities.I have a number of games on my iPhone--two whole folders. I have Tetris, three different flavors of Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, the Atari Greatest Hits collection, Madden NFL, Tiger...

YouTube Video that Captured Senior Moments Goes Viral

Webcams are not only hip for young people, but they also can be good for seniors even if they don’t know how to use them. YouTubeThat was certainly true for Bruce and Esther Huffman. The elderly couple, who live at a retirement community in McMinnville, Oregon, unknowingly recorded a video of themselves trying to figure out how to use their new laptop’s webcam. The video captured some off-color senior...

Why Windows 8 on ARM Matters

If Windows 8 works successfully on ARM-processor-equipped systems, expect to see thin, light, and innovative devices coming our way. Such devices would include ultrathin laptops with impressive battery life, and superlight, large-screen tablets.ARM-based 32-bit processors are relatively simple in design compared with Intel's chips. This simplicity means that they consume less power, which makes them...