feeds/tech+feeds/techvideo

Battery tests show Apple's new MacBook Air beats competitors by a mile

Mark Spoonauer — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 15:42:46 GMT

If the new MacBook Air looks identical to its predecessor, then why is everyone making such a big deal about it? Because this ultraportable laptop beats the last Air and every Windows Ultrabook by a mile when it comes to endurance. Thanks to Intel’s new 4th generation Core (Haswell) processor and a beefier battery on the inside, the new Air doesn’t need an extended battery or slice to last all day...

How the PlayStation 4's hardware will bring a new realism to video games

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 15:31:42 GMT

House GOP: Don't grab an asteroid — let's put bases on moon and Mars

Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 14:46:14 GMT

House Republican leaders want to push for outposts on the moon and Mars — and they want to push NASA's plan to snare an asteroid into the dustbin, according to a discussion draft of their space spending plan."It is the policy of the United States that the development of capabilities and technologies necessary for human missions to lunar orbit, the surface of the moon, the surface of Mars, and beyo...

Pre-caffeine tech: Facebook's got ideas, Google's challenging things

Rosa Golijan — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 14:46:13 GMT

Our pre-caffeine roundup is a collection of the hottest, strangest, and most amusing stories of the morning.Facebook's throwing a press event to unveil some "big ideas" on Thursday. Rumor is that those ideas involve videos on Instagram.Speaking of Facebook ... the social network suffered some "internal issues" on Tuesday night.Google asked the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to allow ...

Groovy! Watch this robot dance ‘Gangnam Style’

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:01:32 GMT

Facebook back up after 'internal issue'

Suzanne Choney — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 04:20:25 GMT

Facebook was down Tuesday night for some users, with an outage that seemed to peak at about 9 p.m. ET.The problem, a spokesman for the social network said, should be fully resolved."Earlier today, an internal issue in our Web infrastructure caused the site to be slow or unavailable for a brief period of time," Facebook said in a statement. "We resolved the issue quickly, and should now be back to ...

Facebook was down for some users

Suzanne Choney — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 04:14:59 GMT

Facebook is down for some users

Suzanne Choney — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 02:58:15 GMT

Facebook appeared to be down Tuesday night for some users. Website service monitoring site DownRightNow noted that as of 9:10 p.m. ET, the social network was dealing with a disruption, although it wasn't known how widespread it was.Going to Facebook's website resulted not in the usual sign-in, but this message for some "Sorry, something went wrong. We're working on getting this fixed as soon as we...

NSA considers ending collection of data on Americans' phone calls

Michael Isikoff — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 01:52:26 GMT

The National Security Agency is reviewing whether to stop collecting a vast stockpile of records of Americans’ telephone calls — the most controversial component of its surveillance programs— by allowing telecommunications companies to retain the data until U.S. intelligence officials have a specific reason to review it for possible connections to terror plots, U.S. officials said TuesdayThe NSA’s...

30 years ago: Sally Ride’s journey into space

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:29:59 GMT

Tough love: Male spiders die for sex

Science — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:24:30 GMT

By Tanya Lewis, LiveScienceAn eight-legged love tragedy may go something like this: The male spider approaches the female, who is four times his size. She scuttles away, but he creeps closer and closer. Finally, he takes hold of her with his spindly legs, climbs aboard and inserts his "penis" into her genital opening and discharges a jet of sperm. Then — quite abruptly — his legs curl underne...

Sally Ride and Neil Armstrong: Space icons get new round of remembrance

Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:24:30 GMT

Hirsute 'Hoff' crabs grow food in their hair

Science — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:24:29 GMT

By Douglas Main, LiveScienceYeti crabs don't comb their hair to look good — they do it because they're hungry.These bizarre deep-sea animals grow their food in their own hair, trapping bacteria and letting it flourish there before "combing" it out and slurping it up. The crabs are found near cold seeps and hydrothermal vents, places where mineral-rich water spews out of the seafloor.Like many a...

From the Archives: Sally Ride becomes first American woman in space

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 23:09:26 GMT

Surveillance prevented at least 10 U.S. terror attacks, NSA says

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 23:09:26 GMT

Microsoft says it freed millions of PCs from criminal botnet

Jim Finkle — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:47:35 GMT

BOSTON — Microsoft said that an assault it led earlier this month on one of the world's biggest cybercrime rings has freed at least 2 million PCs infected with a virus believed to have been used to steal more than $500 million from bank accounts worldwide. "We definitely have liberated at least 2 million PCs globally. That is a conservative estimate," Richard Domingues Boscovich, assistant general...

Manning trial focuses on whether tweets meet evidence standards

Medina Roshan, Reuters — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:31:18 GMT

FORT MEADE, Md. - The court-martial of the U.S. soldier accused of providing reams of classified documents to WikiLeaks in a case illustrating the challenge of keeping secrets in the digital age must decide whether tweets and Web pages can be admitted as evidence.Lawyers for Private First Class Bradley Manning, 25, who is accused of providing more than 700,000 files to the anti-secrecy websit...

Space station crew opens Europe's Einstein cargo ship after fungus flap

Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:31:17 GMT

It doesn't take an Einstein to see that international differences can still crop up on the final frontier: Take the case of the European Space Agency's Einstein cargo craft, for example. Russian concerns about some potentially moldy cargo bags caused a holdup in the schedule for unloading seven tons of supplies.The Albert Einstein Automated Transfer Vehicle linked up with the International Space S...

Hopes raised that 17th-century shipwreck found

Science — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:31:15 GMT

By John Flesher, APFAIRPORT, Mich. -- A wooden beam embedded at the bottom of northern Lake Michigan appears to have been there for centuries, underwater archaeologists announced Tuesday, a crucial finding as crews dig toward what they hope is the carcass of a French ship that disappeared while exploring the Great Lakes in the 17th century.Expedition leaders still weren't ready to declare they had...

Google challenges surveillance court on First Amendment grounds

Bill Rigby — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:14:54 GMT

Google asked the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to allow it to publish aggregate numbers of national security requests it receives separately from criminal requests, on First Amendment grounds. In its filing, Google requested the court to allow it to publish the aggregate number of national security requests it receives, including disclosures under the Foreign Intelligence...

Don't mess with Texas email: State law ends some warrantless email searches

Bob Sullivan, Columnist, NBC News — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:09:20 GMT

Texas residents will have a little more protection from the prying eyes of local law enforcement than the rest of America starting in September. A law that takes effect in the fall ends warrantless email searches by state law enforcement officials, in a step that might have implications for email snooping laws around the country.The new law cancels out a Texas provision that had allowed state, cou...

Lost letters by Catherine the Great, Tchaikovsky returned

Science — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:09:19 GMT

By Megan GannonLiveScienceU.S. investigators have recovered and returned historical documents that were stolen two decades ago from Russia's archives, including letters by Catherine the Great and composer Pyotr Ilyich TchaikovskyThe eight documents, which had been missing since the early 1990s, are among dozens of historical papers suspected to have been smuggled out of the country after the chaot...

New NASA astronaut candidates elated to be chosen

Science — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 21:47:20 GMT

By Robert Z. PearlmanSpace.comAnn McClain's mother was in her front yard rose garden when her daughter called with the news."You'll never forget this moment," McClain, a 34-year-old Army major, told her mom. "I've been selected as an astronaut candidate."Her mother's response, to scream so loud that McClain's stepfather ran out of the house thinking his wife had just injured herself, was rivaled o...

6 tips for protecting your reputation online

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 21:14:20 GMT

Toddler babble may substitute for real grammar

Science — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 21:14:20 GMT

By: Megan GannonLiveScienceThe little sounds and puffs of air that toddlers often inject into their baby babble may actually be subtle stand-ins for grammatical words, new research suggests.For their study, Cristina Dye, a Newcastle University researcher in child language development, made recordings of tens of thousands of utterances of French-speaking children between 23 months and 37 months old...