crashes

It apparently took eight Ferraris, a Lamborghini, and two Mercedes-Benzes to bring down one Prius on a Japanese freeway.

Supercar crashes always fascinate us due to the forced disassembling of a very expensive piece of engineering, and some secret glee at observing the poor driving skills of the very wealthy. But this crash in Japan takes the cake, as it involved not one, but eight Ferraris, a Lamborghini, and two Mercedes-Benzes. Oh, and one poor Prius seems to have gotten caught up in the crash.

According to reports, the drivers were convoying to a supercar meet-up, when the driver of … Read more

Despite the overwhelming success of Apple's "walled garden" approach to the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, many users still wish to part ways with the benefits of control in favor of the unbridled technology (good and bad) available when jailbreaking iOS. If you are one of those users, you can actually become an integral part of the jailbreaking community.

Jailbreaking your iOS device largely depends on finding exploits in the iOS code that hackers can use to take control of the operating system and install applications and functions not approved by Apple. Those exploits can be found … Read more

Yesterday Apple released a software update to address problems where some of the MacBook Pro systems from mid 2010 were displaying black screens when waking from sleep or performing some graphics manipulation tasks. While this update has appeared to fix the problem for some users, for others the issue is still occurring.

Intial reports on the issue and observation of the problem happening under multiple operating systems pointed in the direction of a hardware problem being the root cause, but Apple's update was a software approach that updated the graphics drivers and aspects of the OpenCL framework.

Overall the … Read more

Many times problems arise in our systems that, though similar to those others are experiencing, are unique to our setups.

For example, some users may find that when using their systems the computer suddenly shows a blue screen. In some instances this may require restarting the computer and in others it may result in an automatic restart or a forced log-out, losing the system's data. Unfortunately blue-screen issues are rather general symptoms that can include numerous possible causes.

This type of problem is likely rooted in the handling of graphics or in critical processes that handle the log-in session, … Read more

An issue that has been plaguing some owners of MacBook Pro systems is a black-screen bug where systems will suddenly show a black and unresponsive display after performing specific tasks that may be as simple as moving a window, resizing screen elements, or when waking the system from sleep. The problem may show a kernel panic, but generally just displays the black screen and requires users to press the power button to restart the systems.

This issue was first widely noted when OS X 10.7 was released, but it soon became clear that the problem was present (albeit less … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed in by our readers. This week readers had questions on security software recommendations for Macs, systems pausing while showing green pixels, garbled boot images when booting from the OS X DVD, and Office 2011's Solver utility crashing when launched. We continually answer e-mail questions, and though we present a few answers here, we welcome alternative approaches and views from readers and encourage you to post your suggestions in the comments.

Question: Security software for a new Mac MacFixIt reader "scfox" asks:

The satellite that once confirmed the existence of a hole in the ozone layer is now tearing a new path across the sky in a final fiery descent back to Earth, and there's a chance it could hit you upside the head.

OK, so the chance that you'll get smacked with space junk this week is only about 1 in 20 trillion, but why risk it? You can track the Thelma and Louise-style ending of the Upper Atmospheric Research Satellite--or UARS for short--on your Android phone or tablet with an app called Satellite AR.

AGI--makers of the augmented reality app that also has the nifty ability to tell you what satellites are currently passing overhead by simply pointing your phone's camera at the sky--have added a temporary button to the app's menu to easily keep track of UARS' demise.

While the odds that you, specifically, will wind up in an involuntary boxing match with UARS are in the trillions, the chance that someone on Earth will be hit by a piece of the satellite is about 1 in 3,200--that's lower than the acceptable threshold of 1 in 10,000 that NASA adopted after UARS was launched.

This week on preGame, we're sitting down with one of the year's most anticipated games, Gears of War 3. Tune in for a chunk of live gameplay from early on in the game. Then, we'll put the pedal to the metal in Burnout CRASH!, the latest downloadable title from EA's Criterion Games.

But before we hit the demos, we'll run through this week's news including new details on the Battlefield 3 beta, the PS Vita's battery life, and hands-on impressions with Batman: Arkham City.

Finally, make sure to listen carefully this week as we're giving away free digital copies of one of Mark and Jeff's favorite games of all time, Resident Evil 4, for Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network!… Read more

When a program unexpectedly quits in OS X, the system will activate the crash reporter that will generate a report that includes the memory backtrace for each thread and other information about the crashed process. This can be used to help troubleshoot the situations or be submitted to developers so erroneous code can be tested and corrected. The crash reporter will by default show the full crash log on screen, but this can be changed to either show just a warning, or never show the crash reporter.

The setting to do this is hidden in the system, but it can … Read more