Geek Gestalt

There's a lot of ways to visualize your Twitter and Facebook feeds, but no one's ever gone down to the cellular level to do so.

Until now, that is. This morning, San Francisco startup Bloom released its latest iPad app, Biologic, which aims to bring an all-new metaphor to looking at the flow of information coming in from leading social networks.

Last year, Bloom--which was funded by Betaworks, SV Angel, and Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield, and which was founded by veterans of Stamen Design and frogdesign--released its first app, Planetary. That app brought a galactic approach to users' … Read more

IBM said this evening that its scientists have developed a computer chip that can move a trillion bits of information a second.

Known as the "Holey Optochip," the prototype optical chipset can transfer the equivalent of 500 high-definition movies a second, or the entire U.S. Library of Congress Web archive in an hour, Big Blue said. The innovation is possible because IBM's scientists figured out that, by drilling 48 minuscule holes in a standard quarter-inch silicon CMOS chip, they were able to ramp up data transfer rates from what was possible.

And by breaking through the … Read more

More than 20,000 people will roll into Austin, Texas, this week for the annual South by Southwest Interactive festival. The question is, besides copious amounts of free beer and barbecue, why are all those people--a broad mix of marketers, entrepreneurs, journalists, and social media junkies--showing up?

Over the years, SXSW has gotten bigger and has morphed from being an insular technology conference with a tight community of regular attendees to a mainstream event that appeals to everyone from those SXSW veterans to thousands of first-timers who want to get in on the action.

With that many people on hand … Read more

When your products cost tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, you probably want to give your customers the best possible buying experience.

Since the 1960s, airlines and others buying a brand-new Boeing airplane have picked up the 747, 757, 787 Dreamliner, and other models from the aviation giant's 60,000-square-foot Everett Delivery Center. But now, Boeing is building an all-new version of the facility (see video above), an 180,000-square-foot cathedral for picking up new airplanes that is expected to open some time next year.

When Boeing finishes building one of its well-known planes, it is towed to … Read more

If you want to know how the U.S. Navy's futuristic electromagnetic railgun works, you could hop on over to the information page on the Office of Naval Research's Web site. Or you could watch a monotone Taiwanese animation.

If you're not familiar with the railgun, it's a favorite Navy project that is intended to be able to launch a 5-inch projectile more than 100 miles without the use of traditional explosives. Using a complex system that forces the projectile out of a ship-bound gun at more than 4,500 miles, the Navy hopes to be … Read more

For millions of video game fans, the name Master Chief is all they need to hear to know they're in for hours of intense game play. And for years, through iteration after iteration, the Halo franchise has kept those fans glued to their Xboxes.

This holiday season, fans will get yet another crack at the world of Spartans, the Covenant, and John-117: Halo 4.

At its annual Spring Xbox Showcase last week, Microsoft gave the video game press their first look at game play from the next version of one of the industry's all-time best-selling games. And this … Read more

Every year at the South by Southwest Interactive conference, hundreds of apps vie to do what Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla, Beluga, and Group.me have done over the years: Dominate the conversation and springboard to huge success.

Each of those apps became the talk of Austin, Texas, during SXSW because they were total game-changers when it came to how people communicated with each other. And because SXSW is the confluence of all the movers and shakers in the interactive community, there's no better place to have an app blow up. Succeed there, and the community will yell out your app'… Read more

If you were ever a Boy Scout, you may recall earning an archery or camping badge. Girl Scouts offer athlete, naturalist, and many others. But what if you're a kid with serious 3D printing or laser cutting chops? Is there a badge for you?

There is now, thanks to the folks at Adafruit Industries, a New York-based open source hardware and maker products emporium. Starting in the next few days--timed to the 100th anniversary of the Girl Scouts on March 12--Adafruit will begin offering a broad set of skill badges that reward kids--and presumably others--for completing any of a … Read more

Flipboard tonight unveiled a new version of its popular iPad app, an update led by the inclusion of Cover Stories, a feature that gives users a one-stop feed for the articles the service considers most relevant based on their social connections and what they've already read.

The new feature was introduced originally with Flipboard's iPhone app, and until now it hasn't been available for the iPad. But this new release makes Cover Stories a key component of the company's plan to make its app the best place for users to go to catch up on the … Read more