trick

2011 Audi A8 to star in Super Bowl commercial

Each winter the Super Bowl attracts more viewers. Super Bowl XLIV, last year, between the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts, attracted an audience of 106.5 million viewers.

This year during Super Bowl XLV, Audi will debut a commercial inspired by "Goodnight Moon," the 1947 children's book by Margaret Wise Brown, one of the best-selling children's books of all time.

The commercial, which begins airing this week on select networks, features the all-new 2011 Audi A8 flagship sedan, the most technologically advanced vehicle the company has ever produced--and a favorite among CNET editors.

Last … Read more

Install Win 7 on MacBook Air from a USB drive

So you've gotten yourself the sleek new MacBook Air and your first thought is to install Windows 7 on it. OK, that's my first thought. The problem is the laptop has no optical drive, meaning you'll probably have to buy an accessory that costs around $80 to do the job.

Well, unless you're reading this. Yes, it's totally possible to install Windows 7 (or Vista) on the MacBook Air without a DVD drive. All you'll need is a computer running Windows 7 (that has a DVD drive), a 4GB or larger USB thumbdrive, a Windows 7 installation DVD, and about an hour of free time.

Note: make sure you back up the contents of the thumbdrive as they will be completely erased during this process. Also, the actual work is a lot shorter and less intimidating than the look of this article.

Here are the detailed steps.… Read more

Side-scrolling skiier

Solipskier is an innovative 2D arcade skiing game with ingenious controls, stylish sound and visuals, and gameplay that's surprisingly rich given its simplicity.

Solipskier's side-scrolling interface is as streamlined as its premise: you drag your finger to draw a ski slope, and a speedy skier--moving from left to right--skis over every incline, straightaway, and jump that you create. The challenge comes in maintaining your daredevil skier's speed, building up your score (and score multiplier), and keeping your skier alive. Call-outs on the right side of the screen warn you of upcoming gates, tunnels, and hazards (all with … Read more

Jedi Mind changes its name amid Lucas pressure

Not even the Jedi Mind trick could get LucasFilm to change its opinion on Jedi Mind's name.

The small software developer announced on Tuesday that it has changed its name to Mind Technologies. In a statement, the company said it decided to change its name "to avoid potential infringement of trademarks owned by LucasFilm."

Mind Technologies has also redirected its former Web site, JediMindinc.com, to its new MindTechnologies.com.

Mind Technologies' name was just one part of the issue LucasFilm had with the company. It also didn't like that it used "Jedi" in … Read more

iPhone quick trick: Tag your group texts

If you are texting groups of people often and have a difficult time finding the conversations, use this trick to tag your texts, making them easy to access later.

If your texting habits are anything like those of some of the people I know (my own aren't too crazy), you undoubtedly find yourself needing to text specific groups of people quite a bit. It may be co-workers who meet up on Monday nights for Bingo, your brothers and sisters (but not your parents, because they just don't need to know), or your closest pals. In any case, it … Read more

Skateboarding on the iPhone

Skate It is the handheld version of the popular EA game Skate that most will recognize from console versions. On the iPhone, your control system includes using the accelerometer to turn your skater, a couple of buttons for kicking and grabs, and various swipes of your finger to pull off tricks. Having played the console games quite a bit on the Xbox 360, we were amazed at how many of the original locations are available on the iPhone version. The graphics are predictably not as good as on console versions of Skate, and older 3G iPhones may struggle to keep … Read more

Become a snowboarding master

iStunt Reloaded is an improved and expanded version of iStunt, a physics-based, 2D arcade snowboarding game.

iStunt Reloaded's graphics have gotten slightly more sophisticated, but its gameplay remains the same: you tilt your device left and right to rotate the angle of your snowboard (when you're in midair, this is how you perform flips), you jump with a quick swipe up, and you crouch (to pick up speed) by swiping down. Each of the game's 30 levels challenges you with a stunt-filled course (with checkpoints to save progress), from straightforward jumps and flips to much more convoluted … Read more

Five hot Google search tricks

Google is always adding nifty ways to get information faster, like typing define before a word to bring up a dictionary definition or doing multiplication for you.

To help you stay a search master, here are five of the hottest search tricks to bust out of the Google labs.

Need to know the hours of the museum you want to visit? Type the word "hours" as part of your search, like "San Francisco museum of modern art hours," and you get the hours it's open right there in the results, without having to click through … Read more

Winter driving tips, tricks from 'The Early Show'

I was on the phone with my parents who live in Ohio earlier today and they commented on how they've accumulated roughly two feet of snowfall in February alone--and the month isn't even over yet! Based on what I've heard, the snow is just going keep on coming, and all of my east coast buddies are ready for a break already. With the snow being a fact of life in the immediate future for many Americans, I thought it timely to present some video about how to deal with driving your car in snowy and icy conditions. … Read more