• Gadgets

    How The Apple Tablet Could Ruin Computing

    By Tom Conlon Posted on 8.6.2009 92 Comments

    Though whispers of an Apple tablet device practically predate Australopithecus, this week they’ve reached a fever pitch. It’s been reported by several news outlets that the supposed iTablet will feature a 10-inch touchscreen, both Wi-Fi and 3G data, and a custom ARM processor. It’s already been priced at $800 and even greenlit by none other than His Majesty Steve Jobs for a September release. Not one iota of this has been officially confirmed, but the prospect of a Mac Tablet seems more within reach than ever before. This is not a good thing. If an Apple tablet is ever actually released, we should all be very concerned for the future of what most of us take for granted today: our digital freedom.

    8.7.2009 at 10:51pm - Comment by doughboyky6

    Macs have lots of innovations that set it aside from a PC, but for me nothing says freedom more than open source. Take android for example, I have never actually used it, but it is the kind of concept that encourages innovation from everyone, not just a group of hotshots sitting at a conference table.

  • DIY

    Beef Up a Little PC

    By Posted on 5.8.2008 8 Comments

    If you want a super-light laptop, you have to pay for it, and you have to use Windows. Thats been the (frustrating) conventional wisdom—at least until late last year, when the Taiwanese company Asus rolled out the Eee PC (pronounced as though it were a single long e), a two-pound, seven-inch laptop starting at a mere $300. The tradeoff: It comes with just two to eight gigabytes of flash memory instead of a conventional, larger hard drive, and a simplified Linux operating system that essentially is usable only for e-mail, Web browsing and typing.

    8.4.2009 at 07:34am - Comment by doughboyky6

    jmk12394 It doesn't have a conventional hard drive (The one with platters and such), it uses internal flash memory. Its the equivalent of sticking a 2-8 GB flash/thumb drive in your computer and using it as your hard drive. To me this is pointless because of the 500 GB hard drive I use in my computer is filling up very quickly...

  • The Environment

    Swiss Boat Aims to Be First to Circumnavigate the Globe Under Solar Power

    By Posted on 7.31.2009 11 Comments

    In 2007, the first solar electric boat crossed the Atlantic Ocean. Now a Swiss group wants to cover that distance and keep going, circling the globe on nothing but the sun's power for the first time.

    7.31.2009 at 02:24pm - Comment by doughboyky6

    I really like the idea of solar energy, and this experiment will hopefully widespread the potential of solar energy to the public. Although... I would like to see some newer concepts put forth in this experiment. It mentions using batteries to store the excess energy... I have a fuel cell/hydrogen powered car that can use a solar panel to turn distilled water in to hydrogen and oxygen, then it can convert it back when the sun is not shining. While it may not be efficient as these batteries (what kind they are are not mentioned) I personally think that even just including this in the boat would help its hype and hopefully will allow more people to realize the potential of renewable energy sources.

  • Cars

    Kinetic Energy for Formula One

    By Posted on 7.3.2008 5 Comments

    Is Formula One racing out of step with an auto industry whose greatest innovations have been in the area of fuel economy?

    8.8.2008 at 09:44pm - Comment by doughboyky6

    I wish we could see some diagrams, for those of us who wish to do something similar to our own transportation systems(Im thinking about a tricked out racing go-kart that gets awesome gas milage!!!)

  • Technology

    Taking Out the Space Trash

    By Posted on 6.30.2008 9 Comments

    Along with satellites and space stations, Earth is surrounded by tens of millions of pieces of floating space debris. Like any landfill, the trash is diverse, ranging from dead satellites to castaway rocket parts to flecks of paint. On average, over the past 40 years, one piece of space junk has fallen to Earth every day.

    7.21.2008 at 06:53pm - Comment by doughboyky6

    I think this technology is great but Im still amazed why this wasn't addressed earlier, if NASA wanted to continue to grow they should have made this a priority. They cant continually send up large satellites, space stations, etc. without cleaning this up!!!



Download Our iPhone App

Stay up to date on the latest news of the future of science and technology from your iPhone with full articles, images and offline viewing



Follow Us On Twitter

Featuring every article from the magazine and website, plus links from around the Web. Also see our PopSci DIY feed



Become a Fan On Facebook

Share links with friends, comment on stories and more


December 2009: Best of What's New

In our December issue, Popular Science names the 100 best innovations of the year: bombproof wallpaper, self-parking cars, the fastest helicopter, and 97 more. Plus inventor profiles and videos.

Check out the best of what's new here.

Popular Science Photo Pool


Share your photos in the Pop Sci pool at www.flickr.com!
tags_sprite.png
POP_embeddedForm_cover_May09.jpg