Apple launches third-party charger trade-in program

The power adapter swap comes on the heels of a death in China believed to have been linked to a counterfeit Apple USB power charger.

Redbox Instant comes to Roku

The fledging joint venture from Redbox, the DVD-rental kiosk company, and Verizon adds another device to push its catalog of streaming movies straight to TVs.

iPhone's camera is awful, says new Nokia ad

Nokia decides to mock the iPhone 5 ad in which Apple claims more people take pictures with iPhone than any other camera. Nokia is about quality, it says.

New Nexus 7 vs. iPad Mini

It's a throwdown showdown between the cream of the crop for 7-inch tablets. Google keeps pushing the envelope with the New Nexus 7, so how does it stack up to the iPad Mini this time around? Let's get it on!

Cooking up the world's first in-vitro beef burger

Start with pinch of stem cells from a cow. Let rise in the lab, add some breadcrumbs and red beet juice. Cook over medium heat, and presto, you've made history.

Mars Curiosity rover sings 'Happy Birthday' to itself

Anyone listening on Mars would have heard the Curiosity rover singing to celebrate its one-year anniversary since touching down.

One Earth year ago, the Curiosity rover completed a dramatic descent and landed safely on the surface of Mars. Cheers went up from space watchers around the world. On the back of a successful year of scientific exploration, it's time to celebrate once again.
NASA thinks of August 5, touch-down day, as the rover's birthday. Since nobody is willing to deliver a cake to Mars, the rover team had to settle for the traditional singing of "Happy Birthday." This was accomplished using Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument. It "sang" the song by vibrating at different frequencies.
The song was tested in an identical SAM unit here on Earth before the instructions were sent to Curiosity. Since the song was played on Mars, it should be challenging for licensing agency ASCAP to shake down the rover for royalties.
"This is a first for NASA and for the world and music brings us all together, so this is fun," said Florence Tan, the SAM electrical lead engineer. Since one Mars year takes about 687 Earth days, perhaps Curiosity can look forward to another birthday party before its next Earth-years anniversary comes around.

Facebook fans crowd-source the design of a Porsche

The high-end car manufacturer looks to its 5 million Facebook fans to help customize a one-off 911 Carrera 4S sports car.

Porsche recently tried an experiment: what would happen if it asked its more than 5 million Facebook fans to give input on the design of a one-of-a-kind luxury vehicle?
The result was an Aqua Blue metallic Porsche 911 Carrera 4S with white and black racing strips, illuminated door sills, a fixed rear wing, and 20-inch white painted wheels. The sports car is also emblazoned with the words "5M Porsche Fans" and "personally built by 5 million Porsche fans."
"You have determined the configuration, and we've built the car," Porsche wrote on its Facebook page. "This is our unique 911 Carrera 4S, which has been spiced up by our experts from Porsche Exclusive." According to Auto Express, 54,000 people participated in the crowd-sourcing of this one-off car. Porsche gave its Facebook fans a host of options to choose from to customize the vehicle and those options that got the highest votes were added to the car.
Now that the 911 Carrera 4S Facebook car is done, the carmaker is hosting another event on the social networking site. It's a competition in which the person with the highest number of Porsche Facebook fans in their friend list will get to drive the crowd-sourced sports car at the Porsche Experience Center in Silverstone, U.K.