News.com Extra

How fast is your flash?

Lori Grunin — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 18:55:00 GMT

It's languished for a while, but Rob Galbraith's extremely useful and detailed database of performance tests on CompactFlash and SD media has just been updated. If you've got burning questions about whether it's worth the extra bucks for a flashier flash card, this is the place ...

Baseball 2008: Parsing prof's pennant picks

Tito Estrada — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:20:00 GMT

So how do you think your favorite baseball team will fare in 2008? New Jersey Institute of Technology's Bruce Bukiet has some fodder for the baseball buffs among us.

For the past seven seasons, Bukiet has been using a mathematical model to predict how many games each Major League ...

High hopes for China's 'eco-city'

Tito Estrada — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:07:00 GMT

Shanghai developers plan to begin construction next year on what they say will be the world's first sustainable "eco-city" on a plot almost the size of Manhattan. The Dongtan, or East Beach, project is to be built on Chongming Island and is slated to eventually support half a million ...

The $350,000 big-screen, 3D 'VisWall'

Jonathan Skillings — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:20:00 GMT

(Credit: VisBox)

It used to be that if you wanted to get a good look at microscopic bits of matter, you had to have to use, well, a microscope. You'd smoosh a drop of liquid between two small glass plates, slip them under the lens, and then fiddle with ...

How we hear one voice amid many

Tito Estrada — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Scientists in Germany believe they have discovered how humans are able to filter out unimportant noise in order to zoom in on that single voice they want to hear.

Neuroscientist Holger Schulze and his colleagues think the brain's auditory system probably sorts different sources of sound based on their ...

The most prescient sci-fi movies ever

Tito Estrada — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:47:00 GMT

In the wake of science fiction great Arthur C. Clarke's passing last week at the age of 90, Popular Mechanics' Erik Sofge examines 10 futuristic movies that "got the science right, or will sometime soon."

Read more at Popular Mechanics: "The 10 most prophetic sci-fi movies ever"

Sound recording predates Edison's phonograph

Jonathan Skillings — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:01:00 GMT

It's not exactly Gershwin's "An American in Paris," but there is one thing very significant about an archaic 10-second recording discovered earlier this month in the City of Lights by a group of American audio historians: it is the earliest known sound recording. The phonoautograph of the folk ...

A low-tech 2010 census?

Michelle Meyers — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 06:33:00 GMT

The 2010 census was supposed to be the first truly high-tech headcount, with workers going door-to-door with handheld computers to collect and transmit data and to verify every address.

Now, despite billions of dollars earmarked for what would also be the most expensive census to date, technology problems have officials ...

School fundraisers a la eBay

Jonathan Skillings — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:28:00 GMT

It's as much a part of the school experience as homework, cliques, and senioritis: the fund-raiser. In the Internet era, however, things aren't what they used to be: the quest for funds to supplement the never-quite-enough out of state and city coffers is no longer limited to car ...

'Star Wars' merchandise flops

Tito Estrada — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:30:00 GMT

What do Princess Leia headphones, a Darth Vader gumball machine, and a Jabba the Hutt beanbag chair have in common? They're all Star Wars promotional merchandise rejects you won't be finding on eBay anytime soon.

NPR's The Bryant Park Project caught up with Jason Geyer and Steve ...