Natural gas fracking can make local well water explosive

Most of the concerns about fracking have focused on the fluids involved in the process, which tend to exit the wells heavily contaminated with dissolved metals and radioactive material. But those may not be the only worries. A study, released yesterday by PNAS, now shows that fracking may be contaminating local groundwater with methane to pose a risk of explosion.As most forms of energy in the US have been going up in cost, natural gas has gone in the opposite direction. This is largely the result of a used extraction process called "fracking," in which fluids under high pressure are used to fracture rock formations deep underground, releasing...

Read more »

Researchers use the OwlCam to learn what owls see

Primates use "orientation saliency" to quickly select items in our surroundings that are new, risky, or don't belong. Basically put, if several objects in your visual field are oriented in direction, your eye will be drawn to the object that goes the opposite way. Because this method might be useful for predatory owls, researchers wondered if barn owls would exhibit orientation saliency as well.Barn owls have a hard job: in near-darkness, they require to catch at least little critters a day to feed themselves, and about twenty a day in the event that they have offspring. Since the stakes are so high, the selective pressure acting on these birds'...

Read more »

GarageBand for iPad: a killer app for budding songwriters

GarageBand for iPad is an 8-track recorder, virtual synth, drum machine, virtual guitar, complete virtual amp modeler, competent virtual sampler, and a fun, loop-based song-making app all in. At $4.99, GarageBand could potentially replace at least a half dozen or more music apps, all the while integrating with its 8-track recording ability for songwriting on-the-go. When Apple announced the new iPad three, it also announced major new content creation apps for the platform: iMovie and GarageBand. iMovie is an extension of the iPhone app that Apple introduced with the iPhone five in 2010, adapted to the iPad's larger touchscreen. But GarageBand...

Read more »

Osama Bin Laden Fragged2: Grassroots Efforts And The Poorly Distributed

War on Americas is a small downloadable PC game that bills itself as "designed for Children to Fight the U.S. Army." A brief segment of gameplay footage can be found on YouTube, and GamePolitics recently ran a narrative on the title. Sadly, Quest For Bush was the standout among the games I tested. The giant majority of the other propaganda-driven games that I found were detestable. Most were buggy, broken, and usually unplayable. Few were worth the time, hard work, and bandwidth it took to procure them, and most were simple rush job mods that did small to differentiate themselves in an already crowded gambling market. such example was War on...

Read more »

Osama Bin Laden Fragged: A Terrorist Propaganda In Games

For the remainder of the night, the crowd outside of the White House resembled a Jimmy Buffet concert. It's rare that the president addresses the country without giving any details about what will be discussed, but the topic of last night's address became known well before President Obama spoke. The military forces of the United States had finally found Osama Bin Loaded, they could put boots on the ground, and in a firefight that lasted 40 minutes, the world's most wanted terrorist was killed. In an often ill-defined war on terror, this was a dramatic win. What follows is the original text from 2008?  The quest for wholeness:They have...

Read more »

Tricks For How To Replace Your MacBook Air SSD with OWC's Aura Pro Express.

The OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express SSD module is designed specifically for Apple's late-2010 MacBook Air models. The US revealed its "International Strategy for Cyberspace" (PDF) yesterday. It is mostly blather about how terrific "cyberspace" is, but it gets more specific on a few key issues like national defense. Could our next war start because of a hack? The government says it is feasible."States have an inherent right to self-defense that may be triggered by sure aggressive acts in cyberspace, says the owner. Indeed, such aggressive acts might compel a country like the US to act even when the hacking is targeted at an allied country.Military...

Read more »

US SAYS: "If You Hack Us, We Might Destroy You"

The US revealed its "International Strategy for Cyberspace" (PDF) yesterday. It is mostly blather about how terrific "cyberspace" is, but it gets more specific on a few key issues like national defense. Could our next war start because of a hack? The government says it is feasible. "States have an inherent right to self-defense that may be triggered by sure aggressive acts in cyberspace, says the owner. Indeed, such aggressive acts might compel a country like the US to act even when the hacking is targeted at an allied country. Military force will only be used as a last resort after other diplomatic and economic cures are tried, but the US...

Read more »

US Government Now Funds Video Games. If They Are "ART"

"We'll continue to support tv and radio," explains Alice Myatt, Director of Media Arts at the NEA, "but they are also going to support content developed for the world wide web, for theatrical release, for mobile rings, content to be distributed by satellite, and even content for game platforms." Attention online developers: the National Endowment for the Arts has released new guidelines for funding, and grants are now available for interactive digital games. The NEA's Arts in Media rules replace the agency's older Arts in Radio and Tv rules, and the new ones are far more expansive when it comes to categories for funding.  How much government...

Read more »

Google Talk Enables Video Chat On Android Smartphones

Google recently launched Google Talk with video and voice chat for Android rings. With the service, users will be able to video or voice chat with their relatives and friends directly from an Android phone. Calls can be placed over 3G, 4G and Wi-Fi connections. According to Google, the new features will first roll out to the Nexus S rings over the next few weeks as part of the Android four.3.4 over-the-air update. Google Talk with video and voice chat will launch on other Android four.3 and higher devices in the future. You can now video or voice chat together with your friends, relatives and colleagues right from your Android phone, whether...

Read more »

Plextor's 12x PX-LB950UE External Blu-ray Burner Handles USB 3.0 And eSATA

Blu-ray burners aren't nearly as uncommon as they once were, but that doesn't make Plextor's new PX-LB950UE 12X external Blu-ray writer any less attractive. It's tough to find legitimate 12x BD burning options, and this one is bolstered by the addition of eSATA and USB 3.0. It won't handle BDXL, but discs having a capacity of 25GB or 50GB should be fine. This one also features PlexUTILITIES and Lightscribe direct disc labeling, and if you've been looking for new accessories to best take advantage of those new ports on your new machine...well, look no further. For the movie buffs, you'll be happy to know that 3D movie playback is also...

Read more »

IOGEAR's Universal Wi-Fi Adapter Works With Any Ethernet-Enabled Product

Does the world have machines that are still actively being used...without Wi-Fi? It may appear hard to think if you are living in a society that is eternally connected, but the niche still exists in some places. To solve that issue, and provide connectivity to machines that were born without, IOGEAR has unveiled their universal Wi-Fi N Adapter. That new tool connects A/V devices to a home network by a wireless router -- things like game consoles, Blu-ray players, etc. You take a tool with an Ethernet port, plug it up to this dongle, and enjoy the spoils of Wi-Fi. Think of it as a wireless addition to any tool that only supports wired Ethernet...

Read more »

Trojans use Bin Laden's Death, Royal Wedding To Dupe The Unsuspecting

                          Google image search. The lower-left hand result isn't just Photoshopped--it's infected.According to Fabio Assolini, a lab professional with Kaspersky, poisoned search results purporting to show bin Laden's corpse began appearing within Google Picture results within hours of the formal announcement. Clicking on such images transfers the user to a hostile domain where the much-loved "Antivirus XP" (currently billing itself as Best Antivirus 2011) pops up and attempts to persuade users that they have contracted a virus. The other major vector is flash-based...

Read more »

Logitech's 720p TV Cam For Skype Lets You Videocall On Your HDTV

External webcams are not  the anger they was. Perhaps that is because every laptop that ships today includes on, & a slew of new LCDs do as well. But if you are still stuck with an older monitor, or you need something a bit more detailed than the one.3MP embedded webcam, Logitech has a brand new option for you to think about. The TV Cam for Skype is a plug-and-play TV camera that'll let you make & receive high-definition video calls directly from select 2011 Panasonic VIERA Connect-enabled VIERA HDTVs that feature Skype. It is exactly what you think: a webcam for your television. Forget chatting over the PC; that is 2010. With this,...

Read more »