Technology News

Astronomers have made the first reliable measurement of a supermassive black hole's spin, showcasing a technique that could help unravel the mysteries of these monsters' growth and evolution.

Nut-cracking monkeys don't just use tools, they use tools with skill, according to a new study that finds similar tool-use strategies between humans and Brazil's bearded capuchin monkeys.

On the eve of another Strata week, EMC Greenplum announced Pivotal HD, a Hadoop distribution that is tightly integrated with an MPP database engine called HAWQ. What all this alphabet soup means is the following:

Photographer Ed Pingol was sick of battling carpal tunnel every time he needed to cull or edit photos in Lightroom. So instead, he developed the Cullinator, a software app for Mac that pairs perfectly with an attachable ...

Use cases at the Strata conference show that information gleaned from Hadoop and other big data technologies can bring companies new revenue streams and cut expenditures.

Scientists who decode the genetic history of humans by tracking how genes mutate have applied the same technique to one of the Western world's most ancient and celebrated texts to uncover the date it was first written.

Baidu, the search behemoth often referred to as "China's Google," launched its new English-language Web site for developers today. While the site is still in its infancy--right now there just a few intros up and no docum...

For all the crap that chicken nuggets get, they're the delicious golden stars of McDonald's. The chewy meat is a perfect conduit for sauce and the crunchy exterior will almost always make you smile. And though you probab...

Astro Gaming's A40 headset and Mixamp Pro have generally gotten yearly revisions, but the portability-inclined A30 hasn't received the same love since its inception. That's officially changed this week, as the company's ...

There's crazy things you can do like racing jet skis. There's extreme stunts you can pull like sky diving. There's insanity like base jumping. And then there's this: jumping off a canyon and swinging yourself on a 300 fo...

If the nearly $900 million budget hit of sequestration is allowed, NASA will slow work on commercial astronaut taxis, delay or cancel space technology programs and postpone some small science missions.

The mission to land a Pluto-bound planetary probe on a postage stamp has caught the attention of postal authorities, organizers of the campaign announced Monday.

A bug in the newest version of Amazon's Kindle app for iOS caused users' books and media to be deleted from their devices Wednesday morning, but the issue was quickly addressed with an update, and it appears nothing was ...

It seems inevitable that if a product specifically advises against certain activities that some people are going to push the limit. That's exactly the case with home soda machines like the SodaStream, called carbonators,...

America's esteemed lawmakers want heavy penalties for those who abuse the patent system. A bipartisan bill has been proposed to force so-called patent trolls, those who hoard patents for the sole purpose of suing innovat...

Microtransactions have become an increasingly important part of the gaming landscape, and it looks like EA is embracing the concept with open arms. EuroGamer reports that Blake Jorgensen, the company's CFO and executive ...

Spyware installed on computers leased from furniture renter Aaron's Inc. secretly sent 185,000 emails containing sensitive information -- including pictures of nude children and people having sex -- back to the company's...

Bad implementation of disk space limits A slip-up in the implementation of HTML5 on Chrome, Opera and Internet Explorer can be exploited to fill users' hard drives, according to a 22-year-old Web developer from Stanford....

A patent application shows Apple's vision for an easy way to mount and remove an iPad for cars, tripods, treadmills and more.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's stance on telecommuting has proved an irresistible marketing opportunity for Blue Jeans Network, an upstart firm that provides videoconferencing. Blue Jeans finished painting the billboard above...

Motherhood has shown me how tremendously competent children can be. Yet, the vast majority of programs that adults have designed for kids grossly underestimate what they are capable of.

One of the driest spots on Earth -- the Sahara desert -- is increasingly responsible for snow and rain half a world away in the western U.S., a new study reported Thursday.