What Kids Search For When They Search the Web

Symantec, the Internet security giant, sells a service called OnlineFamily.Norton, which allows parents to monitor and control their children's online activity. It also allows Symantec to compile statistics -- such as what it is that those children search for when...

Continue reading "What Kids Search For When They Search the Web"

August 13, 2009 | Permalink | User Comments (23)

Conficker Strikes…Or Does it?

You remember the Conficker worm, don't you? Well? If you don't, or if you're going, "Oh, yeah, that thing," maybe that's good. The Conficker botnet, a devilishly well-written piece of rogue computer code that threatened ominously to do something undefined...

Continue reading " Conficker Strikes…Or Does it?"

August 4, 2009 in Web/Tech | Permalink | User Comments (9)

How to Spoil Your Vacation

A clever American writer once noted that in the days before Global Positioning System locators were widely available, you might know exactly where you were, but have no idea where you were going. In the brave new world of GPS,...

Continue reading "How to Spoil Your Vacation"

July 28, 2009 | Permalink | User Comments (10)

'Subject: For sale one lunar rover'

The Scientist, an often-provocative life-sciences magazine, says the following classified ad was really posted on its site: "For sale one Lunar Rover $500,000.00 no offers. One careful owner low mileage buyer collects. Cash offer and I will throw in a...

Continue reading "'Subject: For sale one lunar rover'"

July 24, 2009 in Space | Permalink | User Comments (13)

Jupiter Dusts Self Off, Gets Back to Work

Whatever hit Jupiter last weekend, it has a lot of Jovians hopping mad, and a lot of astronomers on Earth trying to figure out what happened. There are new images of the Earth-size scar where something -- perhaps a small...

Continue reading "Jupiter Dusts Self Off, Gets Back to Work"

July 23, 2009 in Science, Space | Permalink | User Comments (12)

National Historic Site

40 years after Apollo 11 went to the moon, NASA is back with a ship called Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO -- and one of its first assignments was to look for what Apollo left behind. Each of the Apollo...

Continue reading "National Historic Site"

July 17, 2009 in History, Space | Permalink | User Comments (55)

Last Word on Steve Fossett

Nearly two years after he died, the National Transportation Safety Board is out with its final report on what happened to Steve Fossett's plane in the California mountains. Fossett, you'll recall, was the famed round-the-world adventurer who circled the globe...

Continue reading "Last Word on Steve Fossett"

July 9, 2009 in Adventure, Current Affairs | Permalink | User Comments (6)

The Mystery of the Soay Sheep

The island of Hirta, in the St. Kilda archipelago off the northwest coast of Scotland, is an uninhabited, windswept place, perfect for studying the wild sheep who live there. British researchers have been watching them for 25 years, and report...

Continue reading "The Mystery of the Soay Sheep"

July 2, 2009 | Permalink | User Comments (17)

Blowin' in the Wind

Every time someone talks about the world's need to move on from coal and oil as its main energy sources, the next sentence seems to be that "there is no magic bullet." No one source, they say, can take the...

Continue reading "Blowin' in the Wind"

June 23, 2009 | Permalink | User Comments (34)

'Seize All Opportunities'

This release today from the National Academy of Sciences: "In a joint statement today, the science academies of the G8 countries, plus Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa, called on their leaders to 'seize all opportunities' to address global...

Continue reading "'Seize All Opportunities'"

June 11, 2009 | Permalink | User Comments (4)