November 2008

Tune into a Colorado Rockies game, and you're bound to hear one of the announcers mention the team's most famous piece of lore: They keep their baseballs in a humidor. Cigar aficionados keep their cigars in a humidity-controlled environment to prevent the tobacco leaves from drying out, but the Rockies are more concerned about dried-out balls carrying farther and driving up scores. So far, it's worked, having quelled the offensive binges the park was known for when it first opened. But scientists still can't say exactly why it's so effective.

When the Apollo astronauts drove around on the moon, they had to settle for a little buggy. But if you want to tour the Sea of Tranquility in the family SUV or a Ferrari, well, you're looking at more than a few weekends under the hood.

You might guess that magma or tumbling rocks fill the void, but the truth is much more prosaic: water. Petroleum deposits, which are naturally mixed with water and gas, lie thousands of feet below the earth’s surface in layers of porous rock, typically sandstone or limestone. (Contrary to what you might imagine, drilling for oil is more like sucking oil from a sponge with a straw than from a giant pool of liquid.)

Energy is the blood that runs through our economy: the highway miles paved with crude, the kilowatts of coal, those tentative first heartbeats of large-scale wind and solar. America famously uses more energy than any other country—measured either per capita or in total—and conservation measures aside, our rising standard of living will mean that we will consume even more in the future.

Energy is the blood that runs through our economy: the highway miles paved with crude, the kilowatts of coal, those tentative first heartbeats of large-scale wind and solar. America famously uses more energy than any other country—measured either per capita or in total—and conservation measures aside, our rising standard of living will mean that we will consume even more in the future.

Like its more popular cousin the iPhone, the AppleTV is a beacon of simplicity in a category—set-top boxes that download and stream video from a computer or other device to your TV—crowded with wonky and complex options. Also like the iPhone, the AppleTV has its needless limitations: It plays video only in iTunes formats or from YouTube. No home movies or video (legally) downloaded from other sites are playable unless they’ve been specially converted.

The technological dominance of the United States may soon go the way of the dollar. Our statistical snapshot shows that government spending on pure research—the kind of investment that pays off big, but only after decades—is in decline. Our schools educate the world, but students increasingly return home with their advanced degrees. Most discouraging, the U.S. now imports more high-tech goods than it exports.

See the stats!

Fifty years ago last month, NASA opened its doors. The launch of Sputnik the year before had rattled the United States’ faith in its technological superiority and pushed it to assert itself as the leader in space. In the decades since, that dominance has scarcely been challenged.

Ten years of toil for a ride lasting less than two minutes -- that's the trade a team of Britain's finest engineers, mechanics and speed junkies have made for a chance to break the century-old speed record for a steam-powered vehicle. Using propane to turn 10 gallons of water a minute into superheated steam, they expect their 25-foot-long Steam Car to top out at 170, shattering the record by more than 40 mph.

Games are beginning to exploit the computational muscle of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 to generate characters and environments that follow the rules of reality, not just preset sequences.

In place of glass lenses that move in order to focus, liquid optics uses a drop of water that changes shape when an electric charge is applied. The system is smaller and cheaper than glass and can supposedly focus faster. The tech recently appeared in the Akkord SnakeCam, a webcam sold in China. We brought one stateside and pitted it against two versions with glass lenses.

On the eve of Election Day, Americans are busy debating the issues, everything from health care and the economy to the war in Iraq and global warming. But there's a vital issue few citizens or politicians seem to be talking much about, though they should be: cyber-security.

Good morning, Senator (or should I say "President-elect"?), and congratulations. You talked during your campaign about using the Internet to engage with regular folks, and surely you did. So did your opponent. The last time I checked, the two of you had amassed about two million friends between you on Facebook and MySpace, and another few hundred thousand followers on Twitter and YouTube.

Using motion sensors, brain signals and a heap of creativity, several new technologies promise to do away with cramped typing fingers, videogame-fried eyes and hoarse phone voices. This past summer in Tokyo, for instance, a paralyzed man with electrodes attached to his head took his Second Life avatar on a virtual walk just by envisioning his character strolling.

New point-and-shoot cameras capture video in the 720p high-def format you’ve seen on TV networks such as ESPN. But all HD is not equal. The algorithm, or codec, that compresses the video onto a memory card affects the quality of the footage and your ability to edit it. We tried out three cameras, each sporting a different codec, to find the best mobile movie rig.