Wired Top Stories

Murdoch Reporters' Phone Hacking Was Endemic, Victimized Hundreds

Kim Zetter — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 22:30:00 GMT

A phone-hacking scheme involving British royals and reporters working for one of Rupert Murdoch's tabloid newspapers went far beyond what was previously disclosed and prosecuted. The British Prime Minister's current media adviser is accused of having encouraged the hacking.

Win Your Fantasy Football League

How-To Wiki — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 22:00:00 GMT

If it's September, it's football season — which also means it's time for millions of fantasy football drafts around the world to commence. Maximize your in-season points while dealing with the setbacks that are bound to occur by following our guide.

Video Artist Transforms YouTube's TOS Into a Paranoid Nightmare

Michael Calore — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 21:59:00 GMT

The video site's ever-evolving terms of service drive an observer mad in this arty clip by Carlo Zanni. No charge for the 1984 references.

Apple TV's Meager Offerings Are Due to Business, Not Tech

Eliot Van Buskirk — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 21:00:00 GMT

This week’s big Apple announcement featured one big disappointment: Apple TV’s relative lack of, well, TV. Out of all of the hundreds of channels available on cable and satellite, only ABC and Fox agreed to offer their programs for rent on Apple TV. The fact that Steve Jobs is the largest single shareholder in, and on the board of, Disney — owner of ABC — perfectly illustrates this digital divide.

Clustered Networks Spread Behavior Change Faster

Jess McNally — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:45:00 GMT

Unlike infectious disease and information, behavior change spreads faster through online networks that have many close connections instead of many distant ties. Redundancy is key, as people are more likely to engage in a behavior if they see many others doing it. "There has been a lot of theory about the difference between information and behavior spreading," said economic sociologist Damon Centola of MIT and author of the study published Sept. 3 in Science. "We've assumed that they are the same, but you can imagine that behavior is not really like that, that you need to be convinced."

Exotic New Mars Images From Orbiting Telephoto Studio

Lisa Grossman — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:13:00 GMT

A new batch of sharp Martian close-ups from NASA's HiRISE camera were released, and we've gathered some of the best in the gallery.

Exoplanet Shows Gas Giants Start as Dusty Behemoths

Alisdair Wilkins — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:00:00 GMT

The atmosphere of a young exoplanet didn't fit any of our existing models for what gas giants should look like. But when astronomers added huge dust clouds, it was a perfect fit, perhaps revealing a larger truth about gas giants.

Earth's Magnetic Field Flipped Superfast

Alexandra Witze — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:30:00 GMT

Magnetic minerals in 15-million-year-old rocks appear to preserve a moment when the magnetic north pole was rapidly on its way to becoming the south pole, and vice versa.

Mobile Devices Need Custom Maps

Tim Carmody — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:29:00 GMT

Development Seed is engineering tools to create custom maps that work in a wider variety of situations such as natural disasters and in the developing world.

Mass Extinctions Change the Rules of Evolution

Brandon Keim — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:00:00 GMT

A reinterpretation of the fossil record suggests a new answer to one of evolution's existential questions: whether global mass extinctions are just short-term diversions in life's preordained course, or send life careening down wholly new paths.

First Look: Official Twitter App for iPad Feels Smooth as Butter

Brian X. Chen — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:00:00 GMT

The official Twitter app for iPad is finally here, and star developer Loren Brichter has polished yet another gem. Twitter for iPad sports a really elegant interface that's significantly faster and more intuitive than competing Twitter clients we've tested (such as Twitterific and Tweetdeck).

Fujitsu ScanSnap Counts Quality Over Quantity

Dylan Tweney — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:33:00 GMT

Fujitsu's scanner is your new (albeit bulky) buddy if you want high-quality images. The sturdy document feeder gets pages in straight, so you get them out right.

Chrome 6 Arrives, Just in Time for Cake

Scott Gilbertson — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:31:00 GMT

Google is celebrating the second birthday of its Chrome web browser with the release of Chrome 6. Among the new features are an updated user interface, auto-fill for web forms, extension syncing, increased speed and numerous bug fixes.

How Apple Just Disrupted the Cable Guys

Evan Hansen — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:11:00 GMT

People in Silicon Valley have focused on the set-top box as the lever to attack the cable industry. Cable boxes blow, but that's a losing battle. So why is Apple TV different? Because Steve Jobs has not just created a new set top box. He's actually created a whole new media ecosystem built around the mobile phone.

Two-Wheeled Zerotracer EV Is a Wild Ride

Keith Barry — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:07:00 GMT

It looks like a motorcycle, it performs like a Lotus and it's racing around the world.

String Theory Finally Does Something Useful

Lisa Grossman — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:00:00 GMT

String theory has finally made a prediction that can be tested with experiments — but in a completely unexpected realm of physics: quantum entanglement.

Ancient Nubians Made Antibiotic Beer

Jess McNally — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:30:00 GMT

Chemical analysis of the bones of an ancient Sudanese Nubians who lived nearly 2,000 years ago shows they were ingesting the antibiotic tetracycline on a regular basis — likely from a special brew of beer. The find is the strongest yet to support that antibiotics were previously discovered by humans before Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928.

Samsung Introduces Its 7-Inch Tablet to Rival iPad

Priya Ganapati — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:06:00 GMT

Samsung has announced the launch of a tablet that could become the first major Android-powered challenger to the Apple iPad.

Heavy European Snowfall Caused by 'Weather Collision'

Duncan Geere — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:00:00 GMT

The uncharacteristically snowy weather that hit Northern Europe and North America in the winter of 2009 to 2010 was caused by a rare combination of two separate weather oscillations in the Atlantic and Pacific, claim meteorologists.

'Earth One' Reboots Superman's Roots for the iGeneration

Scott Thill — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:00:00 GMT

Superman is a surly noob searching for reality in the digital age in J. Michael Straczynski and Shane Davis' update of the superhero's origin story. Who knew the Man of Steel would miss the musty Daily Planet more than the rest of us?

Vets Get Ecstasy to Treat Post-Traumatic Stress

Katie Drummond — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:00:00 GMT

Two psychiatric experts think the way to treat troops returning home with PTSD: Have them undergo intensive psychotherapy while they're rolling on ecstasy.

Sept. 2, 1969: First U.S. ATM Starts Doling Out Dollars

Kim Zetter — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:00:00 GMT

Six weeks after landing men on the moon, Americans take another giant leap for mankind with the nation’s first cash-spewing, automated teller machine.

FaceTime Lets You Share Your Point of View

Steven Levy — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:00:00 GMT

Video calls aren't for people to see you — they're for people to see what you see.

Electric Kettles Are Steeped in the Future

Joe Brown — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:00:00 GMT

Blazing fast (four minutes and nine seconds!), streamlined and full of highlights, Cuisinart's PerfecTemp puts its kettle competition to shame.

Blackjack Whiz Riffs on Fantasy Sports, Statgeeks and Yahoo

Erik Malinowski — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:00:00 GMT

A Q&A with Jeff Ma, the former leader of the infamous MIT Blackjack Team that took Vegas for millions in the mid-'90s. Now a successful entrepreneur and author, Ma talks about his love of fantasy sports, selling his company Citizen Sports to Yahoo (and why he didn't join them), and how young statgeeks can make their way in a sports industry dominated by traditionalists.

Exclusive Gallery: 1983 Nintendo Family Computer Teardown

Sorrel — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 04:00:00 GMT

In 1983 Nintendo released the Famicon console. Now 26 years later we tear it apart to see what makes it tick.

Google Testing Out Full-Featured Google Apps

Ryan Singel — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 03:00:00 GMT

There's a sign of hope for frustrated Google Apps users who feel left out of getting all the cool toys regular Google users get: Google is inviting select users this week to test out Apps with all the bells and whistles.

Best Sci-Fi Books for Kick-Starting Your Brain Fry

io9 — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 22:52:00 GMT

Want to start reading some science fiction, but aren't sure where to begin? This introductory sci-fi literature syllabus is just for you.

Furor Erupts Over the Role of Self-Sacrifice in Evolution

Susan Milius — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 22:00:00 GMT

A furor has broken out among biologists over ant specialist E.O. Wilson's latest attack on a concept used to explain the origins of self-sacrifice in the dog-eat-dog world of evolution.

5 Reasons Why Apple TV Is (Still) Boring

Eliot Van Buskirk — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:32:00 GMT

We know — the new Apple TV is really small, and cheap and easy-to-use. That's all good, but still not knocking our socks off despite being the ripest area for expansion by a company that has already firmly established itself on the computer, phone, portable media player and tablet. Here are five reasons Apple TV is still boring.