Shocking Video of Smoking Toddler Shows a Disturbing Trend in Indonesia

The smoking toddler video is sparking outrage on the web. When the clip of 2-year-old Sumatran Ardi Rizal puffing away surfaced on YouTube Wednesday, it spread to online social media like, well, fire.

15 Laptop Concepts of the Future

In five years, what will laptops look like? Ten? Predicting future tech trends is always tricky, but these notebook concepts from both PC makers and straight-up tech fans provide a few clues as to what could lie ahead.

From fascinating to far-fetched, some may never be real.

300,000 iPads Sold on Opening Day

Apple today said it sold more iPads on Saturday than it sold first-generation iPhones in 2007 over a two-day period, including one to the deranged idiot in this video.
The 300,000 number that Apple touted included deliveries of pre-ordered iPads, sales at Apple’s retail stores and shipments to its partners, the company said. The only other retail outlet selling iPads on Saturday was Best Buy.

New Human Species Discovered

An international team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig has sequenced ancient mitochondrial DNA from a finger bone of a female found in southern Siberia. She comes from a previously unknown human species, which lived about 48,000 to 30,000 years ago in the Altai Mountains in Central Asia.

Pulling Power Points the Way to World’s Strongest Insect — A Dung Beetle

Following months of gruelling tests and trials, scientists now reveal the World’s strongest insect to be a species of dung beetle called Onthophagus taurus.

World’s Hottest Chili Will Be Used By India’s Military To Make Weapons

The world’s hottest chili – the thumb-sized bhut jolokia, or ghost chili – will be used by the Indian military to make hand grenades to immobilise terrorist suspects, defence officials said on Tuesday.

Facebook Edges Past Google to Become No. 1

Facebook replaced Google as the most visited Web site in the U.S. for a full week  for the first time.  Facebook was the most-visited Web site in the country for the week ending March 13, said Hitwise, an online traffic monitor, in a report today. While Google has returned to the top spot, Matt Tatham, a Hitwise spokesman, said grabbing that position for a whole week was a major milestone for Facebook.

Top 20 Mistakes in Technology

We often get asked to encapsulate our experience into a top 10 list for CTOs and CEOs. As is the case in golf, in technology it is as much about ensuring that your bad hits (aka blunders, mistakes, and failures) are recoverable as it is ensuring that you nail your great hits or successes. We are all going to have failures in our careers but avoiding the really big pitfalls will help ensure that we keep our companies and our products on the right growth path.

The Future of Mobile Phone Apps

Mobile apps, currently in their infancy, are already following trends seen in digital music: a few hits, a ton of filler and lots of potential. The current and future states of apps will be the focus of the “App Observations: A Mobile Drilldown” panel at the Billboard Music & Money Symposium in New York on Thursday.

Chilean Quake May Have Shortened Earth Days

The Feb. 27 magnitude 8.8 earthquake in Chile may have shortened the length of each Earth day.

Top 7 Most Hacked Softwares in 2009

What software are tops on a hackers’ hitlist? Applications and software that are most vulnerable and are the potential targets of scammers and hackers to install malicious codes into your PC?
Forbes recently released 2009’s `Most-Hacked Software’ list. The list names the software and applications that were biggest targets of hacker attacks in 2009. The software used most by hackers and other cyber criminals to sneak into your system and cause havoc.
Here’s the 7 Most Hacked Software.

Mouse With Human Liver

How do you study-and try to cure in the laboratory-an infection that only humans can get? A team led by Salk Institute researchers does it by generating a mouse with an almost completely human liver. This “humanized” mouse is susceptible to human liver infections and responds to human drug treatments, providing a new way to test novel therapies for debilitating human liver diseases and other diseases with liver involvement such as malaria.

NASA Reveals Origin of Key Cosmic Explosions

New findings from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have provided a major advance in understanding a type of supernova critical for studying the dark energy that astronomers think pervades the universe. The results show mergers of two dense stellar remnants are the likely cause of many of the supernovae that have been used to measure the accelerated expansion of the universe.

Are High Speed Elephants Running or Walking?

Most animals don’t think anything of breaking into a run: they switch effortlessly from walking to a high-speed bouncing run. But what about elephants? Their sheer size makes it impossible for them to bounce up in the air at high speeds. So how are high-speed elephants moving: are they running or walking?

Teens Text an Average of 10 Times per Hour

American teenagers send an average of 10 text messages per hour they are not in school or sleeping, according to research by The Nielsen Company.

Migrating Insects Fly in the Fast Lane

A study published in Science, by researchers at Rothamsted Research (an institute of the BBSRC), the Met Office, the Natural Resources Institute, and the Universities of Exeter, Greenwich and York, sheds new light on the flight behaviours that enable insects to undertake long-distance migrations, and highlights the remarkable abilities of these insect migrants.

Barefoot Running: How Humans Ran Comfortably and Safely Before the Invention of Shoes

New research is casting doubt on the old adage, “All you need to run is a pair of shoes.”

Scientists have found that those who run barefoot, or in minimal footwear, tend to avoid “heel-striking,” and instead land on the ball of the foot or the middle of the foot. In so doing, these runners use the architecture of the foot and leg and some clever Newtonian physics to avoid hurtful and potentially damaging impacts, equivalent to two to three times body weight, that shod heel-strikers repeatedly experience.

Top Tech Trends For 2010

Mobile technology driven by the consumerisation of technology and self-service IT will explode in 2010 as will the demand for more flexible workplaces, according to the Citrix Top Technology Trends for 2010 forecast. 
With the month drawing to an end, the estimated cost of January’s fierce weather conditions is expected to run into millions of euros due to lost work hours alone.

Why Brain Power Is Suddenly The New Status Symbol

On an arctic Sunday morning in central London, an unlikely crowd has gathered in a draughty Victorian meeting hall to hear a sermon. They don’t look like your average God botherers. The “urban trendy” quota is set to maximum, and the majority of the chatty, well-heeled crowd are wearing those chunky-knit beanies that are, like, so in right now. Standing among them, I overhear conversations laced with “Kierkegaard this…” and “phenomenology that…”

Diamonds Become Stronger When Squeezed Rapidly Under Extreme Conditions

Most people know that diamond is one of the hardest solids on Earth, so strong that it can easily cut through glass and steel.

Surprisingly, very little is known about the strength of diamond at extreme conditions. But new research by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists shows that diamond becomes even stronger during rapid compression.