HP’s new business notebooks sport up to 32 hours battery life – “HP has introduced a bonanza of new notebooks aimed at business users, including the EliteBook 8460p with up to 32 hours of battery life….”

Motorola Xoom review – “As we put rubber to road on our Motorola Xoom review, it’s important to note that it was only a matter of time before the Android army delivered a proper iPad competitor….”

2012 McLaren MP4-12C First Drive – “Before today, debates on the performance of rear- and midengine cars generally boiled down to Ferrari vs. Porsche. But now, the 2012 McLaren MP4-12C threatens to stand alone beyond either…”

Buying a Tablet? Here’s the Ultimate Tablet Review Comparison Guide – “Now being that I’ve been waiting for this very moment before I pickup a Tablet, I’ve been working on a Matrix to help me decide which I should buy (or wait for). The above screenshot is the fruits of my labors and I hope it might help a few of you groovyReaders out there…”

World’s Teeniest, Tiniest Computer Fits on the ‘N’ of a Penny – “The University of Michigan researchers say it’s officially the world’s smallest computer. Measuring less than 0.04 inches long (or a little over one cubic millimeter), the entire computer packs a lot into a little space: It has a pressure sensor, a low-power microprocessor, a wireless radio and antenna that sends information to an external device, a battery, and a solar cell to charge the battery. It can store information for up to a week, and the system can link with other devices to form networks of wireless sensors….”

The First Full-Color Display with Quantum Dots – “Samsung’s new four-inch display could eventually lead to flexible screens….”

The 3,000 Mile Oil Change Myth – “According to a recent study by the California Integrated Waste Management Board, 73 percent of California drivers change their oil more frequently than required. This same scenario no doubt repeats itself across the country. Besides wasting money, this translates into unnecessary consumption of $100-a-barrel oil, much of it imported….”

Cosmic Katrinas — a solar super-storm could cost $2 trillion – “The sun will inevitably erupt again. Next time around, it will affect a globe of more than 6 billion people bound together by an elaborate infrastructure of oil pipelines, electric grids, satellites and GPS-dependent devices (including standard cell phones), all of which will be at risk. “The impact of the 1859 storm was muted only by the infancy of our technological civilization at that time,” wrote Sten F. Odenwald and James L. Green in the Scientific American article….”

Researchers convince people they have three arms–then threaten one with a knife [Video] – “A knife-wielding researcher is bearing down on your right hand—or is it your hand? You see three arms in front of you, and you can feel your palms dampen with fear-induced perspiration. But is it your right hand the kitchen knife is plunging toward, or a false, rubber right hand? “

3 Great Ways to Watch the Last Space Shuttle Missions – “NASA’s space shuttle Discovery is queued up for its final mission Thursday at 4:50 p.m. Eastern time, but you don’t need to race to the Space Coast to catch the action….”

Microsoft welcomes Xbox Kinect ‘hackers’ – “Microsoft is to open up its Xbox Kinect technology to allow amateur software developers to experiment with it. The company is to release a software development kit in the spring, which will give developers access to the secrets behind the technology….”

Smart Parking Systems Steer Drivers to Open Spaces – “The days of driving in endless loops, desperately seeking parking, may soon be over. New systems can sense which parking spaces are available, and send the information right to your smartphone….”

New Hacking Tools Pose Bigger Threats to Wi-Fi Users – “You may think the only people capable of snooping on your Internet activity are government intelligence agents or possibly a talented teenage hacker holed up in his parents’ basement. But some simple software lets just about anyone sitting next to you at your local coffee shop watch you browse the Web and even assume your identity online….”

Super-thin Superconducting Cables – “Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have found a way to make high-temperature superconducting power cables that can carry as much current as existing superconducting cables while being a tenth of the diameter. The thin, flexible cables could open up new applications in electrical power transmission and could lead to powerful new magnets….”

Tracking Trash

How to root a Nook Color to transform it into an Android tablet – “The Nook Color is an intriguing product, but its most compelling feature isn’t listed on the box. Beneath the e-book reader facade, the Nook Color runs Google’s powerful Android mobile operating system. Barnes and Noble intends to eventually expose more of the Nook’s Android functionality to end users in future updates, but Android enthusiasts have already gotten a head start….”

Harvard Study Calls for New Education Priorities – “A new Harvard School of Education study, “Pathways to Prosperity,” recommends that educators place a stronger focus on vocational education and apprenticeships, rather than aim to send every high school student to college….”

Microsoft Research demo

Sports fans could soon tune in to YouTube – “YouTube may be a hot bed for lip dub videos and life-casting teens, but soon sports fans could find a good reason to flock to the site: YouTube is reportedly in talks with the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League to broadcast games live….”

Home Internet May Get Even Faster in South Korea – “By the end of 2012, South Korea intends to connect every home in the country to the Internet at one gigabit per second. That would be a tenfold increase from the already blazing national standard and more than 200 times as fast as the average household setup in the United States….”

Video: Secrets of Swimming in Sand Revealed – “Physicists filmed the movements of sandfish lizards and snake-like robots as they burrowed through sand, then boiled their motion down into a numerical theory. The theory ultimately led to a computer model, described in a Feb. 23 study in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, that can emulate the fluid-like physics of sand and objects that can swim through it….”

Exclusive: Garry Kasparov on IBM’s Watson – “Unless IBM’s Watson can do more than play Jeopardy!, Garry Kasparov sees it as little more than a complicated toy. That’s what the Russian world chess champion said when asked for his thoughts on last week’s Jeopardy! contest between two champions, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, and IBM’s new Jeopardy!-playing supercomputer. Kasparov reviewed the three-day contest and offered his initial thoughts exclusively to The Atlantic….”

What happens when you stick your head in a particle accelerator – “Here’s the fascinating story of Anatoli Petrovich Bugorski, the only person to have stuck his head into a particle accelerator. His head accidentally strayed into the path of the proton beam at the Institute for High Energy Physics in Protvino in 1978, and the beam bored a hole through his brain and out his nose. The radiation absorbed by his head was in the region of 1000 gray. 5 gray worth of X-rays is generally considered fatal, but Bugorski survived and went on to complete his PhD (a proton beam moving near the speed of light has different characteristics from an X-ray!). The side of his face that was burned by the beam’s exit has not visibly aged in the years since the accident….”

Battlefield 3 – Gameplay Debut Trailer – “”Battlefield 3″ pulls us back into the fray with the release of the first ever gameplay video, showcasing the game’s state of the art visuals….”

iPad 2 Review – Hands On [HD] 17th of February 2011

Fans launch ‘Help Nathan Fillion Buy Firefly’ movement – “Firefly fans have launched a Web site and Facebook page trying to rally support to help Nathan Fillion buy the rights to the canceled Fox series….”

Walking cactus gives arthropod evolution a leg-up – “An international team of paleontologists may have found the evolutionary key to the most diverse species on earth – in the form of a walking, sea-dwelling, armoured ‘cactus’….”

Foreign Mercenaries in the Middle East: A Brief History – “While the protests convulsing Bahrain and Libya this past week occurred in vastly different contexts – and will likely produce very different results – both were met with conspicuously swift crackdowns. And in both cases, reports suggest the Libyan and Bahraini regimes deployed foreign fighters and mercenaries against their own citizens, lethal clashes that left scores wounded and many dead….”

Obama Won’t Go to Court Over Defense of Marriage Act – “President Obama now believes that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and will no longer defend the 15-year-old law in federal court, the Justice Department announced today. Symbolically and substantively, his decision represents a major advance for gay rights and presages a significant shift in how the government will handle questions about equality for gays. It could also reignite a largely burnt-over debate in the culture wars, distracting both political parties….”

Wisconsin gov. caught in prank by caller posing as donor – “A prank caller pretending to be billionaire conservative businessman David Koch was able to have a lengthy conversation with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker about his strategy to cripple public employee unions, the governor’s office confirmed Wednesday….”

Google Penalizes Overstock for Search Tactics – “Google Inc. is penalizing Overstock.com Inc. in its search results after the retailer ran afoul of Google policies that prohibit companies from artificially boosting their ranking in the Internet giant’s search engine….”

[[[Interesting Reading #691 – Competition for Netflix, Synchronized Goldfish, Shuttle evolution, ice cream headaches and much more!]]]