Video games take off as a spectator sport

Editorial: "Give video games a sporting chance" EVERY sport has its idols and superstars. Now video gaming is getting them too. Professional gaming, or e-sports, exploded in popularity in the US and Europe last year. ...

Read More..

Several killed in failed French raid to free Somalia hostage

MOGADISHU: A French soldier and 17 Islamists were killed in a failed bid to free an intelligence officer captured in Somalia in 2009 and whose fate remained unclear, the defence minister said Saturday.The overnight operation involving some 50 troops and at least five helicopters to free the intelligence agent, with the alias of Denis Allex, was launched by elite forces from the DGSE secret...

Read More..

A headphone amp and USB digital-to-analog converter for just $99 each

The Schiit Magni and Modi (left) and Schiit Asgard (right).(Credit:Steve Guttenberg/CNET)Schiit Audio's very first product, the Asgard headphone amplifier, left me shaken and stirred back in 2010. It sold for $249, looked and sounded amazing, and to top things off, it was made in the U.S. -- not just assembled here. Most of the Asgard's parts are sourced from U.S. companies. The Asgard is still in...

Read More..

Pictures: Civil War Shipwreck Revealed by Sonar

Photograph by Jesse CancelmoA fishing net, likely only decades old, drapes over machinery that once connected the Hatteras' pistons to its paddle wheels, said Delgado.From archived documents, the NOAA archaeologist learned that Blake, the ship's commander, surrendered as his ship was sinking. "It was listing to port, [or the left]," Delgado said. The Alabama took the wounded and the rest of the crew...

Read More..

Poisoned Lottery Winner's Kin Were Suspicious

Urooj Khan had just brought home his $425,000 lottery check when he unexpectedly died the following day. Now, certain members of Khan's family are speaking publicly about the mystery -- and his nephew told ABC News they knew something was not right."He was a healthy guy, you know?" said the nephew, Minhaj Khan said. "He worked so hard. He was always going about his business...

Read More..

Largest structure challenges Einstein's smooth cosmos

A collection of galaxies that is a whopping four billion light years long is the biggest cosmic structure ever seen. The group is roughly one-twentieth the diameter of the observable universe – big enough to challenge a principle dating back to Einstein, that, on large scales, the universe looks the same in every...

Read More..

Turkey blames internal feud as France hunts Kurd killers

PARIS: Police on Friday hunted the assassins of three Kurdish activists shot dead in Paris as Turkey said an internal feud in the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) was most likely behind the slayings.The PKK meanwhile warned that it would hold France responsible if the killers are not quickly found, as Ankara asked for increased security to safeguard its missions in France.French...

Read More..

4K TV, tablets, and timepieces at CES 2013 (week in review)

The Razer Edge gaming tabletForget about 3D TV -- this year's Consumer Electronics Show was all about 4K.Sony got the ball rolling with the unveiling of new 55-inch and 65-inch 4K TVs, as well as the world's first 4K video distribution service, which offers native 4K movies from Sony Pictures and other 4K content creators. Additionally, the company also said it would be selling "4K mastered" Blu-ray...

Read More..

Space Pictures This Week: Australia Burns, Pulsars Wobble

Image courtesy P. Kalas, U. California, and ESA/NASAThis new Hubble Space Telescope image of a nearby star, Fomalhaut, and its surrounding disc of debris have made astronomers sit up and take notice. That's because the picture, released January 8, reveals that the debris field—made of ice, dust, and rocks—is wider than previously thought, spanning an area 14 to 20 billion miles from the star.Scientists...

Read More..

Teen to Hero Teacher: 'I Don't Want to Shoot You'

A California teacher'sbrave conversation with a 16-year-old gunman who had opened fire on his classroom bullies allowed 28 other students to quickly escape what could have been a massacre.Science teacher Ryan Heber calmly confronted the teenager after he shot and critically wounded a classmate, whom authorities say had bullied the boy for more than year at Taft Union High School."I...

Read More..

Flesh-eating beetles turn dead parrot into skeleton

Sandrine Ceurstemont, editor, New Scientist TV!--By use of this code snippet, I agree to the Brightcove Publisher T and Cfound at https://accounts.brightcove.com/en/terms-and-conditions/. -->Even after death, this parrot retains its striking plumage. But its feathers and tissue disappear when subjected to flesh-eating beetles for about three weeks, leaving behind a grisly skeleton.The video, captured...

Read More..

Football: Adebayor included as Africa Cup squads named

JOHANNESBURG: Emmanuel Adebayor will play at the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations after he was included in Togo's squad as the 16 sides finalised their 23-man squads.Mahamadou Diarra will meanwhile miss the tournament, and a late-minute change left Brown Ideye thrilled and Nigeria team-mate Raheem Lawal devastated.It was all part of the drama ahead of the January 19-February 10 tournament that...

Read More..

Cheap iPhone could reach half a billion potential customers, says analyst

How many customers would a cheap iPhone grab?(Credit:CNET)A cheaper iPhone could tap into a world of potential sales of 580 million units, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster.Rumors have been flying lately that Apple will introduce a low-cost iPhone to reach out to developing markets and offer more competition to Android. Assuming the rumors even prove true, Munster feels such a phone...

Read More..

Embryonic Sharks Freeze to Avoid Detection

Jane J. Lee Although shark pups are born with all the equipment they'll ever need to defend themselves and hunt down food, developing embryos still stuck in their egg cases are vulnerable to predators. But a new study finds that even these baby sharks can detect a potential predator, and play possum to avoid being eaten.Every living thing gives off a weak electrical field. Sharks can sense...

Read More..

Whales Trapped Under Sea Ice Free Themselves

The killer whales trapped under ice in a remote Quebec village reached safety after the floes shifted on Hudson Bay, according to the mayor's office in Inukjuak.Water opened up around the area where the orcas had been coming up for air and the winds seemed to have shifted overnight, creating a passageway to the open water six miles away."This is great news," Johnny Williams,...

Read More..

Bubbles of fat hint at origin of reproduction

* Required fields * First name * Last name * Country * Email address * Password Password must contain only letters and numbers, and be at least 8 characters * Confirm password...

Read More..

Hong Kong leader survives impeachment bid

HONG KONG: Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmakers failed in an unprecedented bid on Wednesday to impeach the city's embattled Beijing-backed leader, after they accused him of breaking housing laws and urged him to quit.The city's first impeachment motion, which accused Leung Chun-ying of lying, dereliction of duty and serious breaches of the law in a row stemming from illegal structures at...

Read More..

Intel responds to cooked power efficiency claims

Intel announced its new low-power Ivy Bridge chips on Monday at CES.(Credit:CNET)LAS VEGAS--Intel came clean today about the power efficiency for the new Ivy Bridge chips announced at CES on Monday. At its CES event, Intel claimed that new power-frugal Y series Ivy Bridge processors were rated at 7 watts -- a remarkable feat on its face, as that's 10 watts less than standard low-power Ivy Bridge chips...

Read More..

2012: Hottest Year on Record for Continental U.S.

Temperatures across the continental United States soared in 2012 to an all-time high, making last year the warmest year on record for the country by a wide margin, scientists say. (Related: "July Hottest Month on Record in U.S.—Warming and Drought to Blame?")"2012 marks the warmest year on record for the contiguous U.S., with the year consisting of a record warm spring, the second warmest...

Read More..

Hospitals Flooded With Flu Patients

U.S. emergency rooms have been overwhelmed with flu patients, turning away some of them and others with non-life-threatening conditions for lack of space.Forty-one states are battling widespread influenza outbreaks, including Illinois, where six people -- all older than 50 -- have died, according to the state's Department of Public Health.At least 18 children in the country...

Read More..

Today on New Scientist: 8 January 2013

Mock Mars mission reveals salty surprise Unexpected findings from the "crew members" of the Mars 500 experiment may overturn a common assumption about how our body stores and excretes dietary salt 'Exocomets' abound in alien solar systems Planets around billions of stars may be getting pummelled by the icy dirt-balls in the same way that the young Earth once wasAustralia faces another week...

Read More..

India says two soldiers killed in clash with Pakistan troops

SRINAGAR, India: Pakistani troops killed two Indian soldiers on Tuesday near the tense disputed border between the nuclear-armed neighbours in Kashmir and one of the bodies was badly mutilated, the Indian army said.The firefight broke out at about noon on Tuesday (0630 GMT) after an Indian patrol discovered Pakistani troops about half a kilometre (1,600 feet) inside Indian territory, an...

Read More..

G-Tech soups up external storage with 7,200rpm hard drives

The G-Tech G-RAID Mini external hard drive.(Credit:G-Tech)LAS VEGAS--Call it a minor upgrade, but that's what G-Technology has to offer this year at CES.The storage vendor, which is now part of Western Digital, announced at CES 2013 that it now ships all of its popular G-Technology G-Drive Mini and G-RAID Mini external storage products with high-speed 1TB, 2.5-inch 7,200rpm hard drives. Thanks to...

Read More..

Primitive and Peculiar Mammal May Be Hiding Out in Australia

It’d be hard to think of a mammal that’s weirder than the long-beaked, egg-laying echidna. Or harder to find.Scientists long thought the animal, which has a spine-covered body, a four-headed penis, and a single hole for reproducing, laying eggs, and excreting waste, lived only in New Guinea. The population of about 10,000 is critically endangered. Now there is tantalizing evidence that...

Read More..

Jodi Arias: Who Is the Admitted Killer?

Jodi Arias is a woman that many can't keep their eyes off of--a soft-spoken, small-framed 32-year-old who last year won a jailhouse Christmas caroling contest. But she is also an admitted killer who is now on trial in Arizona for the 2008 murder of her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander.Sitting in a Maricopa County court, Arias, whose trial resumes today, cries every time prosecutors...

Read More..

Today on New Scientist: 7 January 2013

Light hits near infinite speed in silver-coated glass A new metamaterial is the first with a refractive index near zero, allowing light waves to propagate ultrafast over nano-distancesFact and fiction blur as Captain Kirk tweets astronaut Truth got stranger than fiction in low Earth orbit when the crew of the starship Enterprise exchanged messages with the crew of the International Space StationSea...

Read More..

Airbus unveils deal for Indian air refuelling tankers

PARIS: European aircraft manufacturer Airbus said Monday that it has won a tender to supply India with six A330 air refuelling tankers, a deal potentially worth more than US$1.0 billion."Airbus Military is pleased to confirm that it has been selected by the Government of India as the preferred bidder to supply its A330 MRTT Multi Role Tanker Transport to the Indian Air Force," an Airbus...

Read More..

Lexar announces its first XQD memory cards

Lexar's Professional XQD USB 3.0 Reader for reading XQD flash memory cards(Credit:Lexar)Nikon photography pros will be happy to know there's a major new supplier of XQD flash-memory cards: Lexar.Lexar's 64GB XQD flash memory card(Credit:Lexar)They might not be so happy about the price for the new high-end format: a 1100X 64GB model costs $580, and a 32GB costs $300. At the CES show today, the Micron...

Read More..