planes

MiniSquadron Special Edition is the free sequel to the hit game Minisquadron, a 2D cartoony airplane dog-fighting game with excellent gameplay and a ton of new content. Just like the original, the control system consists of an onscreen joystick on the left and a fire button on the right. In the game, you'll need to battle through 12 waves of different types of airplanes to complete a round. Completing rounds unlocks new airplanes (there are 50 new planes to unlock), each of which will have unique weapons, varying flying speeds, and other perks that will help you in the … Read more

The crash of a small plane in East Palo Alto, Calif., brought down lines that supply power to much of Palo Alto, which is home to Facebook, Hewlett-Packard, and this reporter.

Knowing that Google provides free Wi-Fi to most of nearby Mountain View, I grabbed my laptop and headed for the Mountain View Starbucks nearest to Palo Alto, but it was standing room only thanks to other Palo Alto refugees in search of Wi-Fi and coffee. My next stop was LeBloulanger, a cafe and bakery near the center of town. The Google signal is weak, but the cafe offers its … Read more

MiniSquadron is a 2D aerial-dogfighting game with a cute, cartoony vibe and lots of frenetic arcade action. The game uses a simple two-sided interface: you shoot with a touch-screen button on your right, and you steer with a virtual joystick on your left. You can bounce off either side of each scrolling level (performing a convenient Immelman turn), and if you fly up too high, your plane stalls--forcing you to turn back into the stall to keep from crashing. Play progresses through eight levels (which you unlock as contiguous "countries" on a map), with multiple, increasingly difficult waves … Read more

In addition to letting loose a string of expletives, those who have lost a phone or been a victim of phone thievery have probably reacted with the following: "Nooooo! My contacts!"

Mobile innovator Tenbu Technologies has come up with Nio, a Bluetooth security tag that links to any of your belongings. If your laptop, phone, keys, or even child move out of range, an alarm sounds.

The gadget has the potential to save your items and the valuable information they carry, like contacts.

How exactly does it work? Attach Nio to your keys, laptop bag, or other belonging … Read more

An NBC News video with footage of most of the midair collision between a plane and helicopter over the Hudson River last Saturday is available on YouTube.

An Italian tourist was trying to get accustomed to a new video camera during a tour boat cruise and focused his lens on the helicopter. The plane comes into view from behind the helicopter and then appears to clip the helicopter with its right wing.

Before the videographer stops shooting, the plane is recorded flipping over and apparently breaking up in a cloud of debris while both aircraft plunge toward the water. Be … Read more

An unmanned aerial vehicle that's intended to use a combination of solar power and stored electricity is being developed by Ascent Solar Technologies and Bye Aerospace, both companies announced Tuesday.

Ascent Solar will be supplying flexible thin-film photovoltaic modules designed for Bye's drone, the Silent Sentinel.

Bye will be using a Williams International FJ33 turbofan engine that will draw power from stored electrical power in a lithium-ion battery and the photovoltaic panels on the plane.

The result will be a quiet, low-emission hybrid UAV with added endurance, according to Bye.

The Silent Sentinel is intended for military surveillance … Read more

iFighter Lite is a fun, free, one-level preview of the upcoming game iFighter, a vertical-scrolling arcade shooter in which you pilot a WWII fighter plane against wave after wave of Nazi tanks, planes, bosses, and other ground and air targets. iFighter's interface lets you control your plane in one of three ways: with a touch directional pad, swiping touch controls, or simply by tilting your iPhone or iPod Touch.

The accelerometer-based controls are by far the best--and they're arguably an improvement over even the controls of iFighter's stand-up arcade predecessors, allowing for quick and precise movements as … Read more

Web usage spiked on Thursday as people looked for news of the U.S. Airways jet that went down in New York's Hudson River.

Shortly before 5 p.m. EST, Akamai, which has assembled a content delivery network used by many global news organizations such as CNN, CBS, NBC, Reuters, and the BBC, reported a huge spike in Internet usage as people looked for news and video of the event.

The crash now ranks as the seventh biggest Internet news event since Akamai started tracking spikes in traffic in 2005. The plane crash, which miraculously resulted in no fatalities … Read more

Authorities may have found the wreckage of the plane that adventurer Steve Fossett was flying when he went missing last year.

"The National Transportation Safety Board has dispatched investigators to California to investigate the crash of a small plane that was found (Wednesday)," the NTSB said Thursday in a statement.

Fossett, who was flying a Bellanca 8KCAB, has been missing since September 3, 2007. He took off from Yerington, Nev., for a local flight. Investigators say they found wreckage at about a 10,000-foot elevation in the Sierra Nevada in the vicinity of Mammoth Lakes, Calif.

There has … Read more