Few astronauts have captured our national imagination more than Buzz Lightyear, the delightful spaceman superhero character in the classic animated film Toy Story. It appears that NASA’s designers are also big fans of the Pixar flick, as it recently released photos of its newest spacesuit, and it looks suspiciously similar to the one worn by Buzz. Read More
JPMorgan Chase agreed to acquire the online coupon site Bloomspot for $35 million. Good to seek synergies in case the world doesn’t end. [Bloomberg]
Another precautionary measure: Seven months after raising $6.5 million in a funding round led by Union Square Ventures, Behance has been acquired by Adobe Systems. Behance said that it would remain in New York in a blog post discussing the deal. [Behance]
Zynga confirmed that it’s shutting down its Japanese operation at the end of next month. If we get there. [TechCrunch]
Three Google executives were cleared by an Italian appeals court, which reversed a lower court’s findings that the execs violated a child’s privacy by failing to remove a bullying video. [Reuters]
NASA is going to keep blogging that the world isn’t really ending until the sidewalk opens up and swallows its communication team whole. [NASA]
The Gmail app for iPad and iPhone got an upgrade. [Gmail Blog]
Despite the cluttered app market, half of all revenue from the app store goes to just 25 developers. [The Register]
Techstars company Karma has launched its $79 4G mobile hotspot that rewards users for sharing their connection. [TechCrunch]
If the Curiosity Rover can last eight more years, it will get a friend. NASA plans to send another rover to Mars in 2020. [BBC]
Why walk or drive to work when you could trampoline? [The Guardian]
Though NASA has already gone to great lengths to assure adults everywhere that rumors of the world’s supposed impending demise are in fact false, the government has now turned its focus to precocious teens who have traded in anxiety about what to wear for class picture day for soul-crushing fear of the apocalypse. Read More
We’re less than a month away from December 21, which some people genuinely still seem to believe will be the end of the world, as predicted by the Mayans. And so, NASA is spending the holiday season–a time when everyone ought to be sneaking nips of eggnog and picking out their ugliest season sweaters–making one Read More
Maybe Mat Honan is right–for all the importance we place on them, passwords don’t really work worth a damn. Many privacy breaches skip straight to the goodies, like social security and credit card numbers. The latest illustration: Reuters reports that NASA is telling employees that a laptop packed with personal information was lifted from a (locked) car.
Apparently there’s so much information “that must be reviewed and validated,” it could take as long as 60 days to notify everyone involved.
Free credit monitoring for everyone! Read More
As much as we love the notion of 3D printing ourselves a pizza and sitting down to a 3D printed game of canasta at a 3D printed dinner table, it sometimes seems this snazzy technology is often used to produce little more than tchotchkes.
And then NASA goes and 3D prints some rocket parts. Read More
A NASA scientist would like to legitimize that highdea you had one time in college: What if we all live inside a computer, man? How fucking trippy would that be?
Vice found the one NASA scientist who isn’t afraid to sound like a stoned kook, and we kind of want to be his best friend. Rich Terrile, director at the Center for Evolutionary Computation and Automated Design at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, argues that there’s a distinct possibility that our world could actually be a computer game generated by a programmer from the future, Matrix-style. Read More
It’s been a few weeks since we last checked in with super-studly NASA scientist Bobak Ferdowsi, who became an Internet sensation overnight for helping land the Mars Curiosity rover while lookin’ fly in a specially-styled mohawk. The Internet was agog when they discovered that genius young flight directors could also be attractive.
Now Mr. Ferdowsi is parlaying his devastating breed of smart and charming into a radio show he’s hosting today, entitled “Getting Curious With the Mohawk Guy,” natch. Read More
When one considers the ultimate symbol of American progress and invention, there is really only one person who comes to mind: Black Eyed Peas singer Will.i.am. His sartorial savvy? Swoon-worthy. His talented vocal breadth? Impeccable. Will.i.am. is not the hero America needs, but he is the one we deserve.
We can only imagine that this is why, during an educational initiative spearheaded by NASA that launches today at 4 p.m., the Curiosity Rover will broadcast a new single by Will.i.am. called “Reach for the Stars,” natch. (Did we mention what a brilliant lyricist Mr. Am is?) Read More
