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With vintage gaming in full force, even lesser-known systems are getting their days in the sun. The Commodore 64 is being rebooted as the C64 Mini, ready to be plugged into your TV’s HDMI port in early 2018.While it doesn’t hold the cultural cache of say, the Super Nintendo, the Commodore 64 remains the highest-selling personal computer of all time. Launched in 1982 by a semi-conductor company that had designed what it deemed “the world’s greatest video game chips,” for a brief period in time the 8-bit computer was the dominant gaming machine on the market....

The Palm Pre–Palm’s all-or-nothing attempt at redemption–reminds me of a classic episode of The Simpsons. In it, Homer is charged by his long-lost auto-tycoon half-brother to make the ultimate dream car. His creation: An extravagant bubble-domed car featuring fins and multiple horns that play La Cucaracha. It had everything in it but the proverbial kitchen sink.Far from a monster of excess, the Pre looks and operates like a model of minimalism–when closed, it resembles a tumbled stone, and it is quite simply more comfortable to hold than any other phone out there....

Even a half-century years later, it’s hard to get your mind around the sheer size and scope of the effort required by NASA to get men on the moon. A small peek comes from the latest episode of PBS’ “Antiques Roadshow”, of all places. The show stops in Palm Springs, Calif., and finds some forgotten parts of the Columbia space module, which brought Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins back to Earth....

A number cars offer some kind of self-parking feature these days, but that tech as it currently stands amounts to little more than a parlor trick. A French startup called Stanley Robotics, however, has a new take on the idea: a little robot tug that tows your car around a lot and decides where to park it. The autonomous electric-powered bot is named Stan. The company says that in a standard parking lot, a Stan could create 50 percent more parking spaces by placing cars more efficiently....

Engine: 875-cc, DOHC twin-cylinder with electronic fuel injection, 78 hp / Transmission: CVT with low and high range and selectable 2WD or AWD / Ground Clearance: 13 inches / Suspension: dual A-arm with stabilizer bars and Walker Evans Clicker Needle shocks, 12.3 inches of travel (front) and 12.6 inches of travel (rear) / Dry weight: 1,050 poundsYou ever watch rock bouncers on YouTube? They’re single-seat tube-frame 4x4 buggies that are designed to claw their way up impossible-looking slopes....

View full post on YoutubeDisassembly Report Model: BioLite CampStove 2Time to disassemble: 1 hour, 51 minutes, 17 secondsNumber of parts: 79Produced: ChinaNotes: The idea behind BioLite’s CampStove is simple: Build a fire, use the fire to generate electricity, then use a portion of the electricity to power a fan that helps the fire burn cleaner and hotter for longer, so it can keep making power. The guys who built the first prototype were mostly interested in using it for camping, so it’s about the size of a large can of pork and beans and weighs just a couple of pounds....

The X-37B space plane has set a new record for its class, spending 716 continuous days in orbit.Nobody outside the Pentagon knows all the things the X-37B does.The X-37B is an unmanned spacecraft designed to take payloads into space and return them…up to two years later.The U.S. Air Force’s secretive space plane has once again broken its own record, spending a 716 days in orbit and counting. The fifth mission of the X-37B space plane is the longest yet, overtaking the previous mission’s number of days in orbit....

Media Platforms Design TeamU.S. paratroopers secure the heavily damaged presidential palace in Port-au-Prince on January 19, 2010. The troops descended by helicopter to take control of Haiti’s ruined palace as the military earthquake relief operation gathered pace. (Photograph by Juan Barreto/AFP/Getty Images)Media Platforms Design TeamRigid-hull inflatable boats from the amphibious dock landing ships USS Fort McHenry and USS Carter Hall arrive on shore at Bonel, Haiti on January 19, 2010. The amphibious assault ship USS Bataan is also in Haiti with the amphibious dock landing ships USS Fort McHenry, USS Gunston Hall and USS Carter Hall supporting Operation Unified Response, a joint humanitarian assistance mission to Haiti....

U.S. NavyThree U.S. Navy nuclear-powered aircraft carriers are operating off the coast of North Korea, the largest concentration of naval firepower in a decade. The carriers are conducting four days of drills in the Sea of Japan with their Japanese and South Korean counterparts, with at least one guest appearance by B-1 heavy bombers.View full post on YoutubeLate last month, Popular Mechanics reported that three aircraft carriers: USS Nimitz, USS Ronald Reagan, and USS Theodore Roosevelt were in the U....

American Airlines Flight 1897 met a storm from hell on Sunday. Strong updrafts tossed the aircraft and thick hail battered its body.The incredible pictures of the plane’s destroyed nose captured the world’s attention. Meanwhile, though, observers on the ground captured another wild visual: the flight’s meandering real-time path as pilots tried to navigate around the worst of the monster storm. View full post on TwitterRick Kohrs, a graphic artist at NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, created this image of the plane’s “terrifying track....

This week, meteorologists are predicting that a nor’easter will hit the East Coast. If you’re keeping track, that makes the fourth this month alone, an inconvenient anomoly that will have you working out all your snow-shoveling muscles.It also raises the question “What the heck is going on?” Four nor’easters in a row don’t just happen every year, so is there an underlying cause? Perhaps most importantly, how long is this going to keep up?...

Q: What was the longest operation ever?A: Actually, the longest surgery on record occurred in 2001 and lasted more than four straight days—103 hours to be exact. A team of 20 doctors at Singapore General Hospital worked in shifts to separate Ganga and Jamuna Shrestha, 11-month-old twins conjoined at the head. Not only did the girls share a cranial cavity, their brains were partially fused. Typically such separation procedures might take 30 hours—still an eternity in surgical terms—but once underway, doctors discovered that the girls’ brains were even more tightly enmeshed than expected....

A new study released this morning featured tantalizing indicators that liquid water exists under the surface of Mars. That leads to the next questions: Could that environment harbor life, and what would it be like?This question has absorbed more than just science fiction writers. Scientists have been plucking away at the question for years, using direct and indirect measurements the conditions on Mars to figure out what life there would be life—if it exists, or every did....

Alex Garland is one of a new generation of filmmakers steadily changing the face of science fiction. His brother-in-arms Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival and Blade Runner 2049 were some of the best sci-fi in the past decade, and Garland’s premiere film, Ex Machina, is among the best ever made. [Warning: Spoilers ahead]His newest film Annihilation, adapted from Jeff VanderMeer’s wonderful Southern Reach trilogy, continues that tradition of sci-fi excellence. But unfortunately, it’s not a flawless victory....

View full post on YoutubeAlways wanted to live your own Truman Show? There’s now a drone that will follow you around and record you.The Airdog zips along at 45 miles per hour and can stay aloft and follow its master for up to 20 minutes at a time. It’s collapsible, so it can fit inside a backpack, and connects to your smartphone. Airdog was built with extreme sports enthusiasts in mind....

Opportunity and Curiosity are both going strong, roving on the surface. MAVEN, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey, and more probes are still in orbit. With so many successful missions to Mars, it’s easy to forget that getting there has never been easy. In fact, more missions have failed than not: 28 flops compared to 19 successes.NASA has had its share of Mars messes, particularly in 1990s when four out of six missions failed....

One of Google’s pet projects is the dream of gathering wind energy from high altitudes, where the breeze blows stronger and more reliably. The tech giant has tested prototypes of a flying wind turbine meant to do just that. Now it’s about to get serious, as Google said at SXSW it will launch an 84-foot version of the futuristic energy-gathering flier.The turbines fly to nearly 1,500 feet up. At that altitude, the eight propellers become turbines that can send 600 kw of power back to the surface....

Even if you’re not visiting an icy moon this winter, you can still stay toasty in Star Wars style. The sportswear company Columbia bought the rights to sell parkas just like those that Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and Princess Leia wear during their time on Hoth at the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back.View full post on YoutubeThe winter wear goes on sale tomorrow. They cost $400 apiece—if you can grab one....

Media Platforms Design TeamWhat was special about the shuttle?Because it was a reusable vehicle, we were able to study what happened to it and got some familiarity with it. We could take up equipment and put things into orbit that couldn’t travel on a larger, non-human-rated vehicle because of all the G-forces. We couldn’t have launched the Hubble Space Telescope on anything else. And having the capacity to repair things in orbit, such as the Hubble and Space Station, was also important about the shuttle....

At least eight tourists were killed and more than 20 were injured on December 9, when White Island, a small volcanic island off the coast of New Zealand, erupted.The type of eruption, referred to as a wet eruption, is notoriously difficult to predict and prepare for. The eruption raises concerns about the safety and feasibility of visiting active volcanoes.On Monday, December 9, New Zealand’s White Island volcano erupted seemingly without warning....