Nov
25

M.I.T. Lab Hatches Ideas, and Companies, by the Dozens

HOW do you take particles in a test tube, or components in a tiny chip, and turn them into a $100 million company? Dr. Robert Langer, 64, knows how. Since the 1980s, his Langer Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has spun out companies whose products treat cancer, diabetes, heart disease and schizophrenia, among other diseases, and even thicken hair. The Langer Lab is...
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Legal Consensus of Warrantless Cellphone Searches Is Elusive

Judges and lawmakers across the country are wrangling over whether and when law enforcement authorities can peer into suspects’ cellphones, and the cornucopia of evidence they provide. Peter DaSilva for The New York TimesOrganizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, where Hanni Fakhoury is a lawyer, have lobbied for legislation that would require authorities to obtain a warrant...
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Nov
24

Black Friday online sales up nearly 21%

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How One <em>Myst</em> Fan Made Himself a Real-Life Linking Book

The classic PC game Myst was known for drawing people in to its massive, surreal world. But maker Mike Ando took a little piece of that world and drew it into ours. He made a lovingly authentic replica of the Linking Book that helps the main character — you — navigate the world.Myst was a ground-breaking point-and-click adventure game created by Cyan Worlds, made of...
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Pop art “godfather” Blake still the outsider at 80

LONDON (Reuters) – Pop music loves him. The art establishment shuns him. At the age of 80, British artist Peter Blake is revered for his celebrated “Sgt. Pepper” Beatles album cover yet at the same time dismissed as too “cheerful” to be one of the greats.Regularly stroking his wispy silver beard, and supported around a central London gallery by a walking cane, the man dubbed the “godfather of Pop...
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Indian Prostitutes’ New Autonomy Imperils AIDS Fight

MUMBAI, India — Millions once bought sex in the narrow alleys of Kamathipura, a vast red-light district here. But prostitutes with inexpensive mobile phones are luring customers elsewhere, and that is endangering the astonishing progress India has made against AIDS. Indeed, the recent closings of hundreds of ancient brothels, while something of an economic victory for prostitutes, may one...
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Nintendo’s Wii U Takes Aim at a Changed Video Game World

REDMOND, Wash. TUCKED in the woods here, west of State Route 520, is a little piece of the Mario Kingdom. Behind the unassuming doors is the business built by Mario, the pudgy plumber, and Luigi, his lanky brother, as well as characters like Link, wielder of the mystical Master Sword, and Princess Zelda, of the royal family of Hyrule. All of them, and more, are the pixelated children...
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Nov
23

Lining up even earlier for Black Friday becomes a shop priority

In a tradition that seems to take a bigger slice of Thanksgiving every year, hordes of deal-sniffing shoppers descended on Southland...
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Wired Science Space Photo of the Day: Celestial Finger Painting

This colour-composite image was obtained by FORS1 on ANTU. It displays a sky area near the Chamaeleon I complex of bright nebulae and hot stars in the constellation of the same name, close to the southern celestial pole.This picture was taken a few days before the Paranal Inauguration and the "hand-over" to the astronomers on April 1, 1999.This colour composite photo...
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Rejected Beatles audition tape appears at auction

LONDON (Reuters) – The Beatles audition tape rejected by a record label executive in arguably the biggest blunder in pop history has resurfaced and will go on sale at a London auction next week.Ted Owen of The Fame Bureau, an auction house specializing in pop memorabilia, said the 10-song tape was recorded on New Year’s Day, 1962, at label Decca‘s studios in north London.Paul McCartney, John Lennon,...
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