manning

LAS VEGAS--When you come to CES here, you expect to see computers and TVs galore. Mobile phones, sure. Printer and speakers? Check. But a 50-foot-long mechanical snake?

Though we're in an arid, desert-like Nevada environment (never mind all the cement and golf courses), this isn't Burning Man. But sure enough, just behind the CNET trailer here, Titanoboa is strutting its stuff. And indeed, Titanoboa is a 50-foot mechanical snake.

Created by EatArt, the Vancouver arts collective, Titanoboa seeks to invoke the promise -- or the threat -- of global climate change, and the kinds of things we might start to see happen on this wonderful planet of ours. According to the Titanoboa project page: … Read more

The words "geeky" and "sexy" haven't always seemed like they should go together, but a line of geek pasties from Etsy is looking to change that perception.

Pasties, for those unfamiliar with the term, are patches that cover part of the bosom for modesty or decorative purposes. In my mind, the highlight of MontabahnPasties' offerings is the "Star Trek" pasties. The famous logo/uniform insignia is available in either silver or pink versions with coordinating tassels. Though these look like the insignia from "Star Trek: The Next Generation," they're not likely to trigger your communicator when tapped. … Read more

Spider-Man: Total Mayhem is a graphic action game for the iPhone. Available from iTunes, the app installs easily.

The concept behind Spider-Man: Total Mayhem is that you're the webbed superhero fighting villains who inhabit your streets. The graphics in Spider-Man: Total Mayhem are bold and colorful. The controls are simple to master and consist of moving the iPhone and tapping some buttons to activate specific actions. The learning process takes just a few seconds. There are special combination attacks you can launch, too. The game is easy to get into, although we did find the action a little jerky … Read more

The Smithsonian's "Art of Video Games" exhibit has now closed, but games will be on display at another high-profile art museum beginning early next year.

New York's Museum of Modern Art has announced that it's chosen 40 games to display at a new game-specific gallery.

Games selected for display at MoMA go back decades and include the likes of Pac-Man and Spacewar, but also contemporary releases such as Portal and Minecraft.

The games will be on display as part of the museum's Architecture and Design collection at the establishment's Johnson Galleries beginning in … Read more

Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army private accused of sharing documents with WikiLeaks that were eventually released on the Internet, is now one step closer to handling some of the claims brought against him.

Military judge Col. Denise Lind today accepted the language used to describe seven charges to which Manning could plead guilty. The charges include Manning willfully sending videos, war logs, and other classified materials to WikiLeaks.

The Associated Press was first to report on the ruling.

To be clear, Col. Lind's ruling does not imply that Manning willl offer a guilty plea. Instead, the ruling approves … Read more

Forget Mars! NASA has discovered signs of video gaming on a moon of Saturn. Recently released images from the Cassini mission show features on the icy moon of Thethys that look suspiciously like a famous '80s arcade creation.

The Pac-Man image was discovered in thermal data provided by Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer. You can read up on the nifty high-energy electrons bombardment theory for the shape over at NASA. The findings were published in the journal Icarus.… Read more

Inspired by the famous Internet urban legend the SlenderMan, this app provides adequate amounts of thrills and scares to simulate the real experience of being chased by this creepy figure while running around in dark looking for clues. The SlenderMan app will keep your focus, but there are some things that could be improved.

The interface of the game is rather simple. Instead of giving you full multidirectional access to the environment, you're simply given forward, backward, and turn and run buttons. The X button is supposed to be the exit button, but it somehow did not work on … Read more

Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army soldier accused of providing WikiLeaks with hundreds of thousands of classified documents, has offered to plead guilty. Sort of.

During a pre-trial hearing in military court today, Manning's attorney, David Coombs, proposed a partial guilty plea covering a subset of the slew of criminal charges that the U.S. Army has lodged against him.

"Manning is attempting to accept responsibility for offenses that are encapsulated within, or are a subset of, the charged offenses," Coombs wrote on his blog this evening. "The court will consider whether this is a permissible … Read more

Technology topics can mark a rare bipartisan area of political agreement: Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama say they would make cybersecurity a priority, and both like to talk up government funding of basic research.

If you look a bit more closely, however, differences emerge. They're perhaps most marked over federal regulation, where the two major parties have long-standing disagreements, but also exist on topics like WikiLeaks, copyright legislation, and whether to levy a new tax on broadband providers.

Keep reading for CNET's 2012 Tech Voters' Guide, in which we highlight where the four candidates -- we've … Read more