Road Trip at Home

Road Trip Pic of the Day, 6/7:What is it?

Update (Tuesday, 9:07 a.m.): The answer is Google's giant server facility, known as Project02, in The Dalles, Oregon.

Do you know what's in the above picture, and where it was taken? If so, you could win a prize.

On June 24, I'll be starting my fifth-annual CNET Road Trip project. As during the four previous years, I'll be traveling through a region of the United States and producing a wide variety of feature story and photo packages about some of the best destinations the region has to offer.

Last year, on Road Trip 2009, … Read more

Harnessing a star's power for clean energy

LIVERMORE, Calif.--Think clean energy is a fantasy? What if the power of a star was applied to the problem?

That's the approach being explored at the National Ignition Facility, a huge-scale experiment in laser fusion based at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory here. Scientists are looking at NIF as a potential key to producing large amounts of carbon-free power.

It's not known if the system will ever bear the kind of fruit the scientists and administrators who run NIF would like. Still, the facility is a scientific wonder that can transform a single laser beam no wider … Read more

Road Trip kickoff: The garage where the HP legend began

(Editor's note: This post serves as a starting point for Daniel Terdiman's Road Trip 2009, which kicks off Sunday. See below for more details on his trip.)

PALO ALTO, Calif.--Sometimes, when things are huge, it's easy to forget that they come from the most humble of backgrounds.

Such is the case with Hewlett-Packard, one of the biggest technology companies in the world. It has a massive headquarters in this central Silicon Valley town, but like the stuff of legends, it got its start 71 years ago in a tiny garage in the middle of an otherwise … Read more

A travel guide for geeks

"The Geek Atlas: 128 Places Where Science and Technology Come Alive" by John Graham-Cumming could be the answer to the yearly Father's Day gift dilemma.(Although I know a lot of women who would love this book, too.)

Graham-Cumming's book is not of the tacky so-and-so-slept-here variety, but a compendium of locations of true worth in the history of science and tech breakthroughs.

The book, which is organized by country, includes latitudes and longitudes for GPS devices, and info like whether a historical site is free or available for a price. It's heavy on U.… Read more

Road Trip 2008: 5,000 miles through the Deep South

SAN FRANCISCO--Over the 8,260 miles I've driven on Road Trip 2006 and Road Trip 2007, I've visited, written about, and photographed some of the most interesting destinations in California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah.

I've also gotten to road-test some really cool gadgets and drive the spiffy and comfortable Infiniti QX56 over some long and very hot distances.

Now I'm getting ready to depart on Road Trip 2008. This year, rather than leaving from my home base in San Francisco, I'll be flying east and starting a grand tour of the … Read more

Motion capturing for 'NHL 2K9'

NOVATO, Calif.--I'm sitting outside a nondescript warehouse space in this Marin County town, and sitting right behind me is Rick Nash, an NHL all-star with the Columbus Blue Jackets.

All of us are chowing down on barbecue, and every single one of us is wearing comfortable clothes: jeans, T-shirts, and the like.

But not Nash. He's in a full-body motion-capture suit. That's because he's here to for a mo-cap filming session for 2K Sports' forthcoming hockey video game, NHL 2K9.

I'll run a full story on this later today, and a full gallery, most … Read more

Nike missiles, Golden Gate Bridge accidents, and Road Trip gadgets

MARIN HEADLANDS, Calif.--This is very surreal.

I'm sitting on a bench on top of a cliff here, overlooking the Pacific Ocean and looking straight at the Golden Gate Bridge.

For the last 15 minutes, there has been a steady stream of sirens from emergency vehicles, and I can see that all traffic on the bridge is completely stopped. I Twittered what I was seeing, and almost immediately, one of my followers replied with details of what seems to be a multiple-vehicle accident blocking most of the lanes on the bridge.

Before this happened, I was planning on starting … Read more

MacBook Air connected via EVDO: 1; need for CD: 0

SAN FRANCISCO--One of the cool things about going on road trips for CNET News.com, as I've done in both 2006 and 2007, is that I get to test out a bunch of cool tech.

For the trip I'll be embarking on next month, that is very much the case, and one of the gadgets I've been looking to get going is the USB727 EVDO modem Verizon lent me for the trip.

The only problem has been that until today, I had been unable to get the modem to work properly. I had been told it was … Read more

Woz and I agree: 'Tetris' for the Gameboy is the best game ever

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--I was waiting to talk to Steve Wozniak last night at the 25th anniversary celebration for the Commodore 64 when I overheard him say his favorite video game of all time was Tetris for the Gameboy.

My eyes practically lit up when I heard that because, in a lot of ways, I have to agree.

In fact, as I told him a couple minutes later when I went up to talk to him, one of the things I made sure to do before I left for my Road Trip around the American Southwest this summer was go … Read more