This holiday season, it seems high-brow concepts are better off making their commercial debut in low-tech gadgets.
Online retailers are ramping up heavy-duty deals to turn skittish shoppers into buyers during the crucial Thanksgiving weekend and "Cyber Monday" -- but even so, online sales are expected to be fairly flat after years of strong growth.
Pedalers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.
You've heard of give-and-take. How about give-and-show?
The number of people worldwide without access to a toilet -- no public restroom, no outhouse, no latrine, no smallest room -- is a whopping 2.6 billion. That's four out of ten people.
With its glassy touch screen, powerful graphics, crisp sound and tilt feature, the iPhone is more than a smart phone for some users -- it's a portable entertainment system.
Before he ran for president Barack Obama quit smoking. Now that he's won the job, he may have to break another addiction: Checking his BlackBerry for e-mail.
Gadget makers love to sell us on all the things their devices can do, whether it's letting us chat with distant friends at any time or watch movies on our commute. But can anyone fix this stuff when it breaks?
For many of us, our mobile phone is already a smart prosthesis. Not only does it connect us vocally to others, link us to networks of information and entertain us during downtime, it captures what we see and hear.
"Planet in Peril: Battle Lines" returns this December on CNN International, hosted by Anderson Cooper, chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta and "The Oprah Winfrey Show" correspondent and National Geographic host Lisa Ling.
This holiday season, it seems high-brow concepts are better off making their commercial debut in low-tech gadgets.
Online retailers are ramping up heavy-duty deals to turn skittish shoppers into buyers during the crucial Thanksgiving weekend and "Cyber Monday" -- but even so, online sales are expected to be fairly flat after years of strong growth.
Pedalers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.
You've heard of give-and-take. How about give-and-show?
The number of people worldwide without access to a toilet -- no public restroom, no outhouse, no latrine, no smallest room -- is a whopping 2.6 billion. That's four out of ten people.
With its glassy touch screen, powerful graphics, crisp sound and tilt feature, the iPhone is more than a smart phone for some users -- it's a portable entertainment system.
Before he ran for president Barack Obama quit smoking. Now that he's won the job, he may have to break another addiction: Checking his BlackBerry for e-mail.
Gadget makers love to sell us on all the things their devices can do, whether it's letting us chat with distant friends at any time or watch movies on our commute. But can anyone fix this stuff when it breaks?
For many of us, our mobile phone is already a smart prosthesis. Not only does it connect us vocally to others, link us to networks of information and entertain us during downtime, it captures what we see and hear.
"Planet in Peril: Battle Lines" returns this December on CNN International, hosted by Anderson Cooper, chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta and "The Oprah Winfrey Show" correspondent and National Geographic host Lisa Ling.
Bullets were pinging off our armor, all over our vehicle, and you could hear multiple RPGs being fired, soaring through the air every which way and impacting all around us. All sorts of crazy insane Hollywood explosions were going off. I've never felt fear like this. I was like, this is it, I'm going to die.
Veterans of past wars have long found companionship over beer and conversation at their local veterans hall. But many of those who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan seek that companionship elsewhere -- online.
Barack Obama had a formidable online presence during his quest for the White House, and he is once again turning to the Internet to communicate with the American public as president-elect.
Here's a sneak peek at some fascinating concepts and groundbreaking work being developed by 21st-century visionaries.
On the 16th floor of a nondescript building in lower Manhattan, a group of tech-savvy staffers clad mostly in jeans and T-shirts is changing the way Americans watch TV election coverage.
Imagine a bicycle seat connected by mechanical frames to a pair of shoes for an idea of how the new wearable assisted-walking gadget from Honda works.
It was an election night like none other, in every sense of the phrase. In addition to the obvious -- the selection of the nation's first black president -- Tuesday night's coverage on CNN showcased groundbreaking technology.
In the world of music-making, quirky new instruments tend to come and go. But one description-defying gadget from Yamaha, the Tenori-on, might prove to be more than a fad.
Computers at the headquarters of the Barack Obama and John McCain campaigns were hacked during the campaign by a foreign entity looking for future policy information, a source with knowledge of the incidents confirms to CNN.
It was an election night like none other, in every sense of the phrase. In addition to the obvious -- the selection of the nation's first black president -- Tuesday night's coverage on CNN showcased groundbreaking technology.
That feared voting problem meltdown that could put a presidential election in doubt again? Never mind.
Perhaps the biggest threat to Google Inc.'s increasing dominance of Internet search and advertising is the rising fear, justified or not, that Google's broadening reach is giving it unchecked power.
A group of people have gathered beside a gazebo in an outdoor park to discuss the presidential election. But the park isn't real, it's in the online virtual world of Second Life, where pixelated avatars fly around and interact with each other.
There's a whole world of people out there, and boy, are they pissed off.
Residents of Second Life, the online virtual environment, can do all kinds of things they can't in real life: fly, mute other voices, even transport themselves from one location (or "sim") to another.
It's called "The Internet of Things" -- at least for now. It refers to an imminent world where physical objects and beings, as well as virtual data and environments, all live and interact with each other in the same space and time. In short, everything is interconnected.
Eight years after Florida's hanging chads exasperated voters and helped usher in sweeping changes in voting technology, many election observers remain concerned about the accuracy of the electronic voting systems most Americans will use November 4.
Eight years after Florida's hanging chads exasperated voters and helped usher in sweeping changes in voting technology, many election observers remain concerned about the accuracy of the electronic voting systems most Americans will use November 4.
Leading Internet companies, long criticized by human rights groups for their business dealings in China, are agreeing to new guidelines that seek to limit what data they should share with authorities worldwide and when they should do so.
South Carolina might already have started jamming cell phone signals in prisons to prevent convicts from committing further crimes, if it weren't for one significant problem with the plan: It's against the law.
Owning an electric vehicle requires more than global-cooling ambitions. It takes guile, planning, sharp vision, a silver tongue -- and a 50-foot extension cord.
It's called "buckypaper" and looks a lot like ordinary carbon paper, but don't be fooled by the cute name or flimsy appearance. It could revolutionize the way everything from airplanes to TVs are made.
As bioengineers continue to build things with the stuff of life itself, the rest of the world is slowly waking up to the power of synthetic biology.
Move your hands atop the worn table in the darkened room and it responds with jumbled sounds: a man and woman talking, knives being sharpened, tires screeching, breathing, music.
A controversial technology is being adapted to help ferret out people and drugs crossing the U.S. border illegally.
Ross Lovegrove is a world-famous industrial designer renowned for combining cutting edge, organic and sustainable designs with the newest manufacturing technologies.
Mathematicians at UCLA have discovered a 13 million-digit prime number, a long-sought milestone that makes them eligible for a $100,000 prize.
On a bank of the Mohawk River, a windowless industrial building of corrugated steel hides something that could make floor lamps, bedside lamps, wall sconces and nearly every other household lamp obsolete.
There is to be a revolution in Paris -- plans for a 50-storey building have been given the green light, which will make it the first skyscraper to be built in the city for 30 years.
Hoping to combat the "snitch" label that often leads to silent suffering, six Utah schools have introduced a Web site that allows students to anonymously report bullies.
The thought of a driverless, computer-guided car transporting people where they want to go on demand is a futuristic notion to some.
Saudi Prince and billionaire Al-Waleed bin Talal says he will build the world's tallest building, planned to be over a kilometer (3,281 feet) high. The tower will be built in the Saudi town of Jeddah and will be part of a larger project that will cost $26.7 billion, (100 billion Saudi riyals) said the Prince's firm, Kingdom Holding Company.
The European Union told music lovers Monday to turn down the volume of MP3 players, saying they risk permanent hearing loss from listening too long at maximum levels.
There is to be a revolution in Paris -- plans for a 50-story building have been given the green light, which will make it the first skyscraper to be built in the city for 30 years.
The text message from the elephant flashed across Richard Lesowapir's screen: Kimani was heading for neighboring farms.
Ross Lovegrove is widely regarded as one of the most important and innovative contemporary industrial designers.
A World War II-era air traffic network that often forces planes to take longer, zigzagging routes is costing U.S. airlines billions of dollars in wasted fuel while an upgrade to a satellite-based system has languished in the planning stages for more than a decade.
In a new video game for cell phones set to launch in Japan, the point is simple: Roaming players must point their handsets in the right direction to score.
Most people by now will be familiar with the term 'carbon footprint' and may even have calculated it themselves, but how many are familiar with their 'water footprint'?
Set amid cornfields and cow pastures in eastern Holland is a shallow pool that is rapidly turning green with algae, harvested for animal feed, skin treatments, biodegradable plastics -- and with increasing interest, biofuel. In a warehouse 200 kilometers (120 miles) southwest, a bioreactor of clear plastic tubes is producing algae in pressure-cooker fashion that its manufacturer hopes will one day power jet aircraft.
First, there was "Einstein," the federal government's effort to protect itself from cyber attacks by limiting the number of portals to government computer systems and searching for signs of cyber tampering.
A Canadian researcher has discovered that a Chinese version of eBay Inc.'s Skype communications software snoops on text chats that contain certain keywords, including "democracy."
Just as consumers are becoming increasingly tech-savvy, so are the brands that target them.
Could playing computer games enhance mental agility enough to turn people over 50 into better drivers? Allstate Corp. wants to find out, and if the answer is yes, it might offer insurance discounts to people who play the games.
A laptop thief got caught -- after the computer owner tracked him remotely.
It's no secret that the music industry has not made an ideal transition into the digital era.
Forgive your tech support staffers if they sometimes take a snarky tone. You should see the unending stream of oddball requests they field.
Tino Schaedler is an architect-turned-digital design artist whose groundbreaking work has been seen in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix."
Summer is over in the northern hemisphere, but it's been another chilling season for researchers who study Arctic sea ice.
China this week launches its most ambitious space mission yet, a sign of rising confidence as Beijing cements its status as a space power and potential future competitor to the United States.
"I'm having a vision of the near future.
When the name of the game is escape, one gamer's boredom is another gamer's boon.
The power blackouts that followed Hurricane Ike have caused the widest outage for U.S. Internet service since 2003, according to a firm that tracks Internet connectivity.
Yellowstone National Park officials, attempting to balance competing demands for cell phone service and preserving the park's tranquility, have released a draft plan to guide the development of wireless services within the park.
In the future, viewing the world through rose-tinted glasses may not just be the prerogative of the naive.
Some of the biggest players in the technology industry complain that the U.S. patent system is broken -- putting too many patents of dubious merit in the hands of people who can use them to drag companies and other inventors to court.
The Online News Association, an organization committed to inspiring innovation and excellence among journalists to best serve the public, recognized CNN.com for general excellence at its annual conference on Saturday evening.
You're walking along a street in Roman Pompeii at the start of the first millennium when you notice a spectacular stone building. You reach out towards it and your guide informs you it's a temple to the god Jupiter, built in 200 BC. With a flick of your wrist you save the data and, school assignment complete, you step out of your Cocoon and back into your living room.
Scientists Wednesday applauded as one of the most ambitious experiments ever conceived got successfully underway, with protons being fired around a 27-kilometer (17-mile) tunnel deep beneath the border of France and Switzerland in an attempt to unlock the secrets of the universe.
The screen of Apple's iPhone has focused much attention on touch as a user interface. iPhone users can rotate and resize images with finger gestures for instance.
Scientists hope to fire the first beam of protons around a 27-kilometer (17-mile) tunnel on Wednesday in science's next great step to understand the makeup of the universe.
Deep underground on the border between France and Switzerland, the world's largest particle accelerator complex will explore the world on smaller scales than any human invention has explored before.
With the flick of an eight-foot switch at midday Monday, Wilmington, North Carolina, became the first television market in the United States to switch to digital-only broadcasting.
Seventeen-year-old Alexis Corocan spends about $5 a month on clothes, accessories and eyes of various shapes and shades for her online persona on IMVU, a popular Internet hangout.
Tino Schaedler's impact as a virtual set designer is the result of years of experience in architecture and visual effects.
In 1840, a young Whig organizer named Abraham Lincoln wrote the guidebook on political field work. His "confidential" circular advised Whig campaign operatives to "make a perfect list of all the voters and ascertain with certainty for whom they will vote."
Google Inc. is releasing its own Web browser in a long-anticipated move aimed at countering the dominance of Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer and ensuring easy access to its market-leading search engine.
Who says science doesn't turn people on? Kate McAlpine is a rising star on YouTube for her rap performance -- about high-energy particle physics.
India's capital has a lot of garbage and far too little power.
The next version of Microsoft Corp.'s Web browser makes it easier for people to surf the Internet without leaving a trace.
More than 2,000 years after they were written, the Dead Sea Scrolls are going digital as part of an effort to better preserve the ancient texts and let more people see them than ever before.
As a software developer who worked with NASA, Timothy Childs built vision-tracking systems for the space shuttle. Now the former techie has a new venture that he says is out of this world: chocolate.
The age of mom-and-pop pundit shops has arrived at the Democratic convention.
As the U.S. presidential elections draw closer, voting activists are bracing themselves for an onslaught of online dirty tricks and misinformation campaigns designed to deceive and disenfranchise voters.
Like most people, I really don't want to be bothered with politics. On a gut level, it seems to be the province of the popular kids, and I'm a nerd. (Plastic pocket protector, thick black glasses taped together, that was me in school.)
Crammed on middle linebacker Derek Walker's plate are beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, spinach and a roll.
An Italian priest and theologian said Sunday he is organizing an online beauty pageant for nuns to give them more visibility within the Catholic Church and to fight the stereotype that they are all old and dour.
Imagine juicing up your laptop computer or cell phone without plugging it into an electrical socket.
The road to advanced video, Internet and phone services is bumpy -- and the bumps can be almost as big as refrigerators.
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