There’s a load of great tech news happening out there every day, and, unfortunately, we just can’t cover it all. Here are a few of the other noteworthy things we saw today on our never-ending journey through the wild, wild Web. David Fincher’s ‘The Social Network’ gets a full moody, 60-second TV spot, complete with a Kanye West score, champagne spraying and laptops a-smashing. [From: YouTube ] Two Brooklynites recently announced their…

For quite some time, rumor had it that RIM has been wanting to get into the tablet game, and who can blame it? Microsoft has had a long history in the market, Apple’s iPad has proven popular, and it seems that just about every other manufacturer is trying to cram Android into the form-factor. A couple of days ago, we heard that RIM had acquired Blackpad.com , and the world collectively cringed at what we hoped was a purely defensive move to keep domain squatters at bay. Now, according to Bloomberg, there is confirmation that RIM plans to call its 9.7-inch tablet the Blackpad . According to “people familiar with” the situation, the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth-capable device will be unveiled in November with front- and back-facing cameras. While there is…

It’s a well known fact that President Obama has a bit of a BlackBerry addiction — so much so, the man fought long and hard to keep his beloved device once he entered the White House, making him the first sitting president to use one of the e-mail centric smartphones. But Obama revealed on ‘The View’ Thursday that, perhaps, it wasn’t worth all the trouble. Though White House security and IT personnel eventually succumbed to the president’s desires , only a select few are authorized to contact him on the device. A grand total of ten individuals know the President’s BlackBerry info. As he told the coven round table on ‘The…

There’s a load of great tech news happening out there every day, and, unfortunately, we just can’t cover it all. Here are a few of the other noteworthy things we saw today on our never-ending journey through the wild, wild Web. Give your computer (Macs only) that Kubrick touch with the HAL 9000 screensaver, though we don’t know why you would. [From: HAL 9000 Screensaver ] BoingBoing highlights Lenpolygrafmash, a Russian company that creates fascinatingly rugged printers, scanners and USB gadgets. [From: BoingBoing ] Neatorama links to one of photography’s longest exposures (34 months). Taken by Michael Wesely, it captures the renovation of the Museum of Modern Art. [From: Neatorama ] Sound editor Richard King breaks down the sound design of several scenes from Christopher Nolan’s ‘Inception.’ [From: Vimeo ] Got a tip? Want to…

The ubiquitous ATM has quickly become a favorite, and often easy, target for hackers looking to make a quick buck. At the Black Hat Conference in Las Vegas, security researcher Barnaby Jack recently demonstrated a pair of hacks that allowed him to force an ATM to literally spit cash at him like he’d hit the jackpot on a slot machine. In the demonstration, Jack attacked ATMs from Triton and Tranax, but he said that he had successfully tried the methods on two other brands of machines, as well. The first attack involved accessing a Tranax model over a network (although it could also theoretically be done on the Internet via dial-up) and bypassing the ATM’s authentication systems. Once inside, Jack installed malware that…

This evening, Amazon unveiled an updated Kindle, the newest member of company’s Kindle family of e-readers . The device, simply titled Kindle, lands on August 27th for $139 (Wi-Fi only) and $189 (AT&T 3G). The new Kindle is 21-percent smaller than its predecessor, and is available in graphite and the traditional Amazon white. Although 15-percent lighter, the screen size is still the same 6-inch size as earlier models, and the storage has been bumped up to 4GB. Engadget remarks the build quality on the Kindle is improved over previous versions, with the experience…

A boat constructed from thousands of plastic bottles has completed its journey across the Pacific Ocean, from San Francisco to Sydney Harbor. According to Popular Science, the Plastiki, which is a catamaran made from about 12,500 plastic bottles, sailed more than 9,000 miles in four months to raise awareness of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — a pile of waste the size of Texas that’s floating just under the ocean’s surface between California and Hawaii. The Plastiki team sailed right through it with hopes …

There’s a load of great tech news happening out there every day, and, unfortunately, we just can’t cover it all. Here are a few of the other noteworthy things we saw today on our never-ending journey through the wild, wild Web. ‘Ask Steve’ reimagines everyone’s favorite turtlenecked CEO as a Dear Abby daily newspaper columnist. [From: Me & Her ] HTML5 experiments that pushthe limits of the new Web language are a hot design trend du jour , and today’s example is a fully playable, Flash-free remake of Namco’s classic ‘ Pac-Man .’ [From: arandomurl ] With unread feeds, e-mails, tweets and texts piling up faster than ever, Lifehacker lists ways to…

In the 1960s, Vint Cerf and other researchers at DARPA created ARPANET, the precursor to the modern Internet (and the precursor to their insane penchant for acronyms). In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee gave birth to the World Wide Web. In 1998, ICANN was formed to govern and protect the Web. So in 2010, ICANN, realizing that the Internet was under constant threat from hackers, malware and rogue governments, entrusted a group of seven with the key to saving the Web in the event of a cyber-crisis. It may read like the plot of a Super Nintendo RPG, but it’s true. ICANN has entrusted seven people with portions of the root key needed to access the heart of the Internet. In the event of an emergency, such as a cyber-terrorist attack, the holders of the keys (which are sealed…

We’re still waiting for flying cars, laser guns and teleportation devices, but it looks like we can scratch one childhood dream off the list: touchable holograms . According to the NTDTV report posted after the jump, researchers at Japan’s Tokyo University have managed to concoct holograms that not only react to touch, but that also create the sensation of touch, itself. Apparently, and not surprisingly, an integral part of the system is Nintendo’s Wiimote technology, which senses user input. That’s right nerdlings, with this contraption, you could not only talk to that Princess Leia hologram, but you could actually lovingly caress her cinnamon bun-like tresses. If that ain’t progress, we don’t know what is. [From: LiveLeak , via: Billionaire Boys Club ] Continue reading Japanese Researchers Invent …

There’s a load of great tech news happening out there every day, and, unfortunately, we just can’t cover it all. Here are a few of the other noteworthy things we saw today on our never-ending journey through the wild, wild Web. Though the Flowlab skateboard’s arced, 14-wheel design makes us think of broken ankles and nasty road rash, the novel board will give you concrete-carving skills far superior to those boring four-wheeled ones. [From: Mike & Maaike ] Mozilla recently unveiled the new Firefox feature ‘Tab Candy,’ an Expos

Walmart , America’s largest retailer and the world’s largest corporation , will be placing radio-frequency identification ( RFID ) tags on the jeans and underwear sold in its 3,750-plus U.S. stores beginning next month. The removable tags will be used to monitor inventory losses and shelf stock , but some people are less than happy about the prospect of carrying around a tracking device in their skivvies. Walmart, like many other retailers, has been using RFID tags to track pallets of inventory as they come into each store. The company hopes that, by applying the tags to individual items, it will more tightly control its stock in stores. But customers will take the…

Facing rising crime rates, the Memphis Police Department turned to a predictive crime analytics program developed by IBM back in 2006, thus making the threat of ‘Minority Report’ one step closer to reality. According to GovTech, the CRUSH ( Criminal Reduction Utilizing Statistical History ) software, which puts crime data on a digital map of the city, has helped the MPD reduce crime by 31-percent in the past four years . Police officers know the precise time and place crime is most likely to occur. “We could see the base, the time of day, day of the week and the types of crimes, and we were able to deploy…

The violent conflict between governmental and rebel forces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo may not make the front pages of many Western news outlets, but it has definitely caught the attention of U.S. lawmakers. As the AP reports, a newly passed American law, which was signed into effect in conjunction with Obama’s economic overhaul, will now require all gadget manufacturers to disclose whether or not their products contain minerals from mines in the Congo or surrounding countries. The Congolese economy may not be a juggernaut, but the central African country is home to deposits of industrial metals like tin, tantalum and tungsten, which can all be used to produce …

As mobile technology grows, it seems, so do the dangers of driving. First, we got talking while driving, which, though irritating, rarely results in more than an exceptionally slow driver. Then, we started seeing the evidence of texting while driving — the swerving, the stoplight-running, etc. Well, now, with the smartphone, we have to deal with those bewildering types who have the gall to read and write e-mails while behind the wheel. Thankfully, one iPhone app has come to…