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Commissioning the newest Coast Guard flagship

ALAMEDA, Calif--The U.S. Coast Guard entered one of its newest and most technologically advanced vessels into action during a ceremony here Friday, with the commissioning of the 418-foot National Security Cutter Waesche, a Legend-class vessel replacing antiquated ships from the 1960s.

Equipped with the state-of-the-art command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaisance (C4ISR) equipment, the abilities of the Waesche are part of an interoperability objective that will give the Coast Guard better collaborative interagency capabilities, improving operational readiness and enabling better fulfillment of new multimission roles more effectively.

See the full gallery of images from inside the Waesche here. … Read more

Metallic warriors wield mass destruction at RoboGames (audio slideshow)

Team of builders and engineers are repairing wounds, testing hydraulics, charging batteries, and sharpening weapons in preparation for the next round of matches following Friday's fierce battles during the opening day of RoboGames, the world's largest open robot competition.

The three-day competition, which opened Friday at the San Mateo Fairgrounds, features more than 50 robot games and challenges, sporting events, and contests, from sports like soccer and sumo wrestling to climbing, shooting galleries, and weightlifting, but the big draw is the awesome power of the combat robots.

In weight classes up to 340 lbs., these monstrous machines are … Read more

Yuri's Night at NASA celebrates the spirit of exploration

Hundreds of people at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., joined revelers around the world Saturday night for Yuri's Night, an annual worldwide party to celebrate Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's first flight into space on April 12, 1961, and honor the spirit of exploration and innovation in art and culture. The two-day celebration at NASA Ames featured an all-day Friday educational event with speakers and seminars, followed by the all-day Saturday festival put on by Symbiosis with art installations and music on the NASA tarmac. Take a look at the panorama to get a feel for … Read more

Building with Legos at Bricks by the Bay (audio slideshow)

From serious builders to the casually creative, Lego enthusiasts are getting together for Bricks by the Bay, the inaugural Northern California Lego convention where thousand of tiny bricks are being sorted into piles for a three-day convention on all things Lego.

I visited the convention in Fremont, Calif., on Friday, just in time to catch some of the set-up and preparation happening. Friday and Saturday were for the pros only--a time to build, exchange ideas, and trade designs before opening the floor up to the public on Sunday, April 11. From Star Wars to Obama, and towering skyscrapers to robotics, … Read more

Jobs details iPhone OS 4 (photos)

Giving guests and the media a preview of the iPhone OS 4 software set to be released this summer, Steve Jobs, Phil Schiller, and Scott Forstall took the stage Thursday at Apple headquarters to show off a few of the 100 new features.

The updated software will most notably allow apps to run in the background, without any slowing of performance, Apple said. Multitasking will not be available on the iPhone 3G because of hardware constraints, and Jobs conceded, "We weren't the first to this party, but we're going to be the best." At the end … Read more

Apple's iPad hits the street in San Francisco

It was an early Saturday morning in San Francisco for the few hundred who lined up outside the Apple Store on Stockton Street to be some of the first to get their hands on Apple's new tablet, the iPad.

Some had been there all night, other had arrived early that morning. And as as we waited for the doors to open at 9 a.m., still more people showed up. Eventually, the lined curled to the end of the block and around the corner. As always, the press was there to cover the event, and advertisers were taking advantage … Read more

San Francisco's taxis go green

A fleet of fuel-efficient taxis on the streets of San Francisco have reduced gas consumption in the city by 2.9 million gallons per year and lowered greenhouse gas emissions by 35,000 tons annually, the equivalent of taking 4,700 passenger cars off the road.

When Mayor Gavin Newsom sponsored a green taxi law in 2008 requiring San Francisco cab companies to lower their greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2012, many said the goal was impossible to achieve. But flanked by a collection of green cabs in front of City Hall on Monday, Newsom announced … Read more

Barge-scale cleanup in California waterways (photos)

A large-scale, collaborative effort to clear polluting boats, barges, and buildings out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is under way. But hauling these sometimes decades-old structures out of the rivers isn't easy. This week, CNET went along on one outing to see how it's done.

We've posted a handful of oversize photos from the tour in this blog. For more, see our photo gallery here.

Nano GigaPan offers panoramic views of microscopic worlds

GigaPan panoramas are known for the dynamic images they produce, which can provide a unique and detailed view of an environment, with the ability to pan and zoom across a wide field of view. Traditionally, the technology has been used to capture panoramic images of wide open spaces. But now it's being used on a much smaller scale. The original GigaPan camera technology was developed as part of the Global Connection Project, a joint endeavor of Carnegie Mellon University, NASA, Google, and National Geographic, as a novel way for people to view the world. In recent years, Jay Longson, … Read more