• Entertainment & Gaming

    Ask.com Gives Up Pursuit of Google

    By Abby Seiff Posted on 3.5.2008 3 Comments

    For years, Ask.com has been trying to supplant Google as the Internets search leader, but this week the company has announced that it is headed in another direction. In truth, Ask never really got all that close.

  • The Environment

    The Living Museum

    By Abby Seiff Posted on 3.6.2008 9 Comments

    From a birds-eye view, the domes of the California Academy of Sciences, set to open in the fall, bulge out of the ground like giant scoops of green ice cream. These undulating hills built into the museums 2.5-acre, flora-covered roof integrate the building into the green space of surrounding Golden Gate Park. They also conserve energy, since the roof insulates and ventilates the 400,000-square-foot museum below.

  • Technology

    Darpa's New Goal: A Plane That Flies for Five Years

    By Seth Fletcher Posted on 3.6.2008 11 Comments

    The highest-endurance aircraft currently flying is Northrop Grummans Global Hawk UAV, which can stay aloft for up to 40 hours. Now Darpa—which, to its credit, is never short on outlandish ideas—wants to beat that endurance record more than 1,000 times. The goal of Darpa's recently launched Vulture Program is to build a kind of atmospheric satellite that can stay aloft for five years at a time with little or no maintenance.

  • Technology

    The Key to Better Boarding

    By Matt Ransford Posted on 3.5.2008 2 Comments

    Everyone can guess the worst way to load passengers on to a plane is to do it front to back. People would have to wait at every row or squeeze awkwardly past. It would stand to reason, then, that the way airlines usually do it—back to front—would be the best way. But according to Fermilab physicist Jason Steffen, that's not the case. As it turns out, it's far from the best: it's the second worst.

  • Entertainment & Gaming

    Introducing the World Wide Telescope

    By Abby Seiff Posted on 2.28.2008 4 Comments

    Playing with Google Earth is an immensely gratifying experience. You swoop in like a superhero and pan around as though you're hovering over your own house. Imagine if you were able to do all that in the other direction, out into space. This spring, Microsoft is poised to release the World Wide Telescope, which promises to do just that and more, on a scale of galactic proportions. Microsoft has assembled an application of tremendous depth and breadth using data from the Hubble and land-based telescopes around the world.

  • Technology

    Earth as You've Never Seen it

    By Abby Seiff Posted on 2.29.2008 1 Comments

    For centuries, explorers have risked their lives to reach far-flung corners of the planet. Today, satellites provide incredibly sharp images of nearly every spot on Earth, so anyone can sit back and view hard-to-reach places from the comfort of their own home.

  • Science

    Cosmic Explosions

    By Abby Seiff Posted on 2.26.2008 2 Comments

  • The Environment

    An Eye for the Anti-Reflective

    By Abby Seiff Posted on 2.27.2008 0 Comments

    One of the problems plaguing solar cells is their inability to absorb all of the light they receive. Currently, the bluish anti-reflective coating you see on most cells is 60 or 65 percent efficient, meaning nearly a third of the light is bounced back into the sky. That's because the coating is only able to absorb a narrow range of wavelengths from the sun's rays. Now, however, researchers at the University of Florida and Portland State University think they may have found a better way and their inspiration comes from an unlikely source: moth eyes.

  • The Environment

    A Dusty Few Centuries

    By Abby Seiff Posted on 2.26.2008 0 Comments

    Geologists at the University of Colorado at Boulder have found that the West has become 500 percent dustier over the past two centuries. The cause? Us.

  • Gadgets

    E.U. Hits Microsoft With Record Punishment

    By Abby Seiff Posted on 2.28.2008 2 Comments

    The European Union slapped Microsoft with a $1.3 billion punishment yesterday for what it says amounted to unfair practices. Regulators contended that Microsoft charged developers who were hoping to make Windows-compatible products unreasonable fees for information about its software.

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