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Netflix is getting another price hike. The most popular plan, which includes HD streaming on two devices at once, will go up from $11 per month to $13 per month, effective immediately. Its cheapest $8-per-month plan will be sneaking up to $9, and its premium ultra-high-def $14-per-month plan is now $16, reaching just every-so-slightly above competitor HBO Go’s $15-per-month fee. The new prices take effect immediately, unlike some of Netflix’s previous rate raises, which have come with a grace period....

Hard drives have traditionally been pretty dumb devices—for the most part, they neither know nor care about the machine they are attached to. For both internal and external drives, the setup is generally plain and simple: Plug your drive in, wait for the driver to install and—voilà!—more capacity.A dumb drive is actually great if all you want is extra storage or a place to back up data from a single PC....

Nobody thought terraforming Mars was going to be easy. But now, a new study in Nature Astronomy suggests that with current technology, transforming the Red Planet into a verdant oasis would actually be impossible.It has been suggested that if you were able to release enough carbon dioxide into the air on Mars, the planet could form an Earth-like atmosphere. Producing abundant oxygen, warm weather, and arable land on the Red Planet has been the stuff of science fiction going back to Edgar Rice Burroughs—and it seems the idea is destined to stay fiction for now....

I love my pickup truck, but it’s a bit weird that one of the most popular body styles on the road today is a tiny cab with a big empty box stuck on the back. The reality is, not everything you want to haul is going to sit nicely in the bed as you do 70 down the interstate, and that’s if it fits at all. I knew my truck was capable of more, and sometimes that box in the back just needs some help to realize its full potentialThats when I found the Thule XSporter Pro 500, which makes any truck bed much more useful....

It appears that Voyager 2 will be following its sibling through one of the ultimate barriers in spaceflight: the border of interstellar space. NASA is reporting that the Voyager 2 probe, launched on August 20, 1977, has detected “an increase in cosmic rays that originate outside our solar system.” With that data and the fact that Voyager 2 is almost 11 billion miles away from home, scientists assume that it close to leaving the confines of the solar system....

BEIJING – Just days after David Wang produced a mock newscast criticizing Taiwanese officials and uploaded the clip to Tudou, a popular video sharing site in China, it disappeared. What’s surprising is not that it was censored–but that it remained online as long as it did.His experience illustrates how the Internet is challenging China’s status quo.Blogs, forums, social networking, video sharing and other community-oriented sites–known as Web 2.0–depend on users expressing their opinions....

The U.S. Navy, anticipating a future when a high-tech enemy could read its electronic communications, is going back to a hack-proof means of sending messages between ships: bean bags. Weighted bags with messages inside are passed among ships at sea by helicopters. In a future conflict with a tech-savvy opponent, the U.S. military could discover even its most advanced, secure communications penetrated by the enemy. Secure digital messaging, voice communications, video conferencing, and even chats could be intercepted and decrypted for its intelligence value....

An 11-year old in Eastern Tennessee just offered the perfect reason to get outside this summer—you might discover a 475-million-year-old fossil. Ryleigh Taylor was walking along the shore of Douglas Lake, near the Great Smoky Mountains, when she discovered something that didn’t quite look like a rock. Rather, the deep imprint looked like something embedded within a rock. Showing it to her family, she was fairly certain that it was a fossil....

2012—2022 · People will be fluent in every language. With DARPA and Google racing to perfect instant translation, it won’t be long until your cellphone speaks Swahili on your behalf.· Software will predict traffic jams before they occur. Using archived data, roadside sensors, and GPS, IBM has come up with a modeling program that anticipates bumper-to-bumper congestion a full hour before it begins. Better yet, the idea proved successful in early tests—even on the Jersey Turnpike....

Media Platforms Design TeamThe conspiracist mythology of 9/11, which recasts the terrorist operation as a government-coordinated assault followed by the most complex coverup in history, is lurching towards a mainstream audience. The newest straight-to-video film in this burgeoning canon,Loose Change, was produced not by hardened, professional conspiracy theorists with established distribution networks, but by unknown 20-something filmmakers. Essentially a repackaging of theories and pseudo-evidence presented in previous books, DVDs and online screeds, Loose Change is available on DVD at www....

Today, Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Fold (again) after major issues with the screen earlier this year.It looks like the South Korean tech company has reengineered its hinge and made the top layer of the screen harder to accidentally peel off. Researchers at ETH Zurich in Switzerland have designed a foldable lithium ion battery that they believe is the future to achieving a functional foldable device.Today, Samsung re-released the Galaxy Fold re-release, a “foldable” smartphone that failed to launch this past spring due to a variety of issues that basically killed the phone....

Joe Pappalardo visited Lackland for a story about the new ways the U.S. Air Force trains special-ops fighters. Check out the feature here. LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, TX—I knew that I was in trouble when I saw the mannequin. It’s ripped with the abs of Brad Pitt in Fight Club, and despite the lack of legs it’s the most intimidatingly conditioned dummy I’ve ever seen. The musclebound torso before me wears nothing but a wristband and a chest strap supporting a sensor the size and shape of a hotel bar of soap....

I have never been convinced that “morning people” exist, much less imagined that I could be one myself, and I know I’m not alone. Waking up is hard! If it weren’t, why would there be so many expensive and whimsical gadgets designed to get you over the hump? There’s the clock on wheels that runs away when you snooze it, the gentle light clock, the gentle smell clock, the flying clock, a clock you have to stand on....

Popular Mechanics gaming correspondent Brittany Vincent is on the scene this week at the 2019 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles. Starting today, check back to see her dispatches from the trade show, including the coolest upcoming games and big announcements from major developers. To kick off our coverage, here are eight of Brittany’s most anticipated games at E3.E3 is finally upon us—the event gamers of all stripes look forward to each year....

The sport of ice climbing, in its truest expression, traverses the frozen waterfalls of Hyalite Canyon outside Bozeman, Montana, or the face of Mt. Pisgah overlooking LakeWilloughby in Vermont: Climbers use crampons and ice axes to ascend forms sculpted by precipitation, wind, gravity, and other natural phenomena. But for competition, nature is far too un­pre­dictable. So for this month’s world champion­ships in Denver, the American Alpine Club is building the largest ice-climbing structure ever made in the U....

Yesterday Blue Origin released a video giving some hint at what customers will be able to expect from the space tourism company once it gets off the ground. The video shows a dummy taking a ride into space that Blue Origin wants to replicate with humans.View full post on YoutubeIn a tweet, Bezos says to “ignore the pinging sound–it’s just from one of the experiments on this flight.” But it’s hard ignore, creating an atmospheric soundscape accompanying the mannequin’s journey....

The first, and most obvious problem for this administration is answering the question, “What is a space weapon?” Currently, weapon systems aimed at space–like the antisatellite capability of U.S. Aegis cruisers, demonstrated in last year’s shootdown of a dead spy satellite, or the Chinese antisatellite weapon demonstrated in 2007–aren’t “space weapons” at all, and wouldn’t be covered by a ban on weapons in space. At the moment, no country has much of a dedicated space-weapon presence....

According to a report in Japan’s Nikkei Asian Review, Apple’s planned hike in iPhone and AirPods production is facing “massive uncertainties” due to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak in Wuhan, China.Production of a new, cheap iPhone, rumored to be called the iPhone SE2, was supposed to take place during the third week of February. An Apple exec said that this schedule is now unclear due to the outbreak. Foxconn, which produces the iPhone in China, said it would not be closing any factories in the country and that it was “closely monitoring” the spread of COVID-19....

Dell unveiled a 49-inch UltraSharp U4919DW monitor on Monday, entering the world of massive screens forged by Samsung’s CHG90 and others. It’s a behemoth, and those 49 inches will drown you in whatever you use it for. Unlike its predecessors, the Dell has QHD resolution to make it easier on the eyes.The monitor promises a 32:9 aspect ratio, which isn’t a new development, but the UltraSharp is the first of its kind to boast 5120 x 1440 resolution....

This Drone Dome video, posted to YouTube, is an excellent example of how laser defense systems take down hostile drones.Drone Dome is a portable laser system designed to shoot down unmanned aerial systems, including swarms of drones.The entire system fits on the back of a Land Rover and is controlled by a single operator. At first glance, this video is just a simple promotional video for Rafael’s Drone Dome, an anti-drone laser weapon....