Remember how the Ansari X-Prize resulted in the nascent commercial space trip business, with Virgin Galactic in the lead? Now there's a similar push to innovate space technology, but of a different sort: Space elevators, making the ...READ»
George Soros is going to put a billion dollars of his business fortune into clean energy. But will the cash go to change the political attitude toward global warming or is it offset by recent figures that seem to suggest evidence of ...READ»
This morning the World had a bit of a surprise: The Nobel Prize Committee announced its choice for the Peace Prize as President Barack Obama (the subject of Fast Company's April 2008 cover story, "The Brand Called Obama"). Few people ...READ»
Update: NASA's 'Moon Bombing' A Smashing Success
NASA's always trying to push the envelope, and tomorrow the space agency's got a really big push: It's going to bomb the Moon. Seriously, and it's all in the name of science, the ...READ»
The 2009 Nobel Prize for Physics has just been announced, and instead of rewarding some esoteric, hard-to-fathom theoretical physics work, it's gone to pioneers in two fields close to tech-lovers hearts: Fibre-optics and digital ...READ»
Layar is going into the third dimension, using clever positional and graphical coding to create three-dimensional metatags that appear to be embedded in the real three-dimensional physical world imaged by a smartphone.READ»
President Obama's just canceled a Bush-backed missile defense shield destined to protect Europe from Iranian ICBMs. It's a whole new ball game compared to the original "Star Wars" SDI program. Remember that? Let us remind you.READ»
Nokia just revealed it won't let phone networks apply any proprietary customization to its hot little MID/smartphone the N900. It's another sign that in the future your cell-phone network will be way less important than it thinks it ...READ»
The Hubble Space Telescope has always been an amazing machine, but it was recently made even more amazing with some repairs and optical upgrades in daring spacewalks. The first pics are out now, and they're stunning.
The HST was ...READ»
Microsoft's Bing just keeps getting more interesting: The latest news is that Microsoft recently closed a deal with WolframAlpha's management to get some of Wolfram's impressive sciencey "fact calculation" goodness showing in Bing's ...READ»
When Piers Bizony was 10, his father asked him to keep a scrapbook of space travel. Four decades later, the science writer, still hooked, created this DIY manual for rocket jockeys. Though the book's structure is a weak conceit, it ...READ»
Just when you thought you'd learned about all the things your iPhone can do for you, along comes a new one: It can help you track your happiness. Taking part also helps someone write a PhD, so it's a double plus.
The new app is ...READ»
Three years have passed since the opening of Microsoft's School of the Future in Philadelphia, a high-profile pilot project designed to kick urban education up a few notches with learning strategies from the corporate world. Two years ...READ»
A new study has found that the pursuit of knowledge is as rewarding as eating or drinking--they're all actions that light up the same happy parts of the brain. READ»
Verizon's just added something to FiOS that's either a blessing or a curse for Twitter addicts--a live feed of your Twitter account that'll appear on your TV over the show you're watching, part of a new Widget Bazaar that also ...READ»
The Apple Tablet--long hoped-for magic unicorn of the high-tech gadget world--is back in the news. But this time instead of merely speculating, people are saying they have hard numbers to back up their rumors. So--is it real?
The ...READ»
Best Buy's a big name and, you know, it's pretty successful. But that doesn't mean it's closed-minded, and won't listen to good ideas from the public. To that end, it's just launched an online Suggestions Box.It's called the Best Buy ...READ»
It may shock you how little my students study. Last Spring, out of 90 students, not one admitted to spending more than 10 hours a week on school work -- and, a sizable chunk worked less than 5. In any given week, less than 2% did ...READ»
NASA's ambitious design to return humans to the lunar surface has been controversial right from the get-go. It calls for ditching the Space Shuttle entirely and abandoning nearly all of its technology except for the solid rocket ...READ»
We've written about Intralytix,
NovaBay, and Polymedix—companies developing drugs designed to
circumvent the growing problem of antibiotic resistance. Now a
hot-off-the-presses study from Nature suggests that ...READ»
Yes, the King of Pop has gone to meet the Emperor of Pop, and taken much of his patented weirdness with him. Lest you forget that Earth is strange enough even without the scion of Neverland Ranch, here are a few of this week's viral ...READ»
Seems like travel functionality is a trending topic in search engine design: Google's testing intelligently-created City Tours. Meanwhile Bing Travel, which we wrote about recently, is in trouble over an alleged plagiaristic ...READ»
Korean and Spanish scientists have pulled off a neat trick--they've discovered a new molecule that will make white LEDs pretty much a certainty for replacing compact fluorescent bulbs. The invention replaces two previous molecules ...READ»
