cooperative

Martin Cooper changed the world when he made the first cell phone call 40 years ago.

The former Motorola vice president and division manager made the call on the company's DynaTAC phone while standing in front of the New York Hilton on Sixth Avenue. His first call: to the head of research at Bell Labs, a company that also was attempting to build the first cell phone.

Cooper's call did more than untether people from their fixed phone lines; it opened the door to true mobility and continues to affect virtually every aspect of our lives. … Read more

Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee, is taking issue with a description of how a discussion with one of his aides led the late Aaron Swartz to campaign against Hollywood-backed copyright bills.

At an event in San Francisco last weekend, Peter Eckersley, Swartz's former roommate and the Electronic Frontier Foundation's technology projects director, told an audience that the late activist created the advocacy group Demand Progress after a fruitless meeting with one of Leahy's aides.

Aaron Cooper, who works for Leahy -- the author of the Protect IP Act -- as the chief intellectual property … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO -- A fruitless Capitol Hill meeting to discuss digital copyright legislation prompted the late activist Aaron Swartz to launch the Demand Progress advocacy group, his former roommate said at a gathering here last weekend.

Swartz was so frustrated with congressional willingness to break the Internet on Hollywood's behalf that he created a group to channel online outrage into political activism, said Peter Eckersley, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's technology projects director.

Eckersley said Swartz had met with Aaron Cooper, who works for Protect IP author Patrick Leahy as the chief intellectual property counsel for the Senate Judiciary … Read more

Bazinga! Scientist Sheldon Cooper, a character on the TV show "The Big Bang Theory," already has two Ph.Ds and an IQ of 187. But now he also has a bee dedicated to him.

A new species of the Brazilian orchid bee -- dubbed Euglossa bazinga -- has been named after Dr. Cooper's catchphrase "Bazinga."

On CBS' TV series (disclosure: CBS is CNET's parent company), Cooper, played by actor Jim Parsons, uses the word after he pulls a trick on someone. Brazilian biologist Andre Nemesio from the Universidade Federal de Uberlandia recently discovered a new bee species that he thinks fits the "bazinga" bill. Because the new species so closely resembles the Euglossa ignita, a more common Western Brazilian orchid bee, it wasn't recognized as a separate species -- therefore it "tricked" scientists for years. … Read more

commentary At Motorola's "On Display" press event in New York City last week, most eyes centered on the company's new Razr phones. Yet, there were also a couple of tech celebrities in the audience, both of whom drew their own share of attention.

A man One of those luminaries was a person, a former Motorola vice president and division manager named Martin Cooper. Seated in the front row, but not banging away on a laptop, you knew he wasn't part of the journalist and blogger throng. Instead, with his dark suit, conservative red tie, and … Read more

If you clicked over to CNET on Thursday, you might not have noticed any of our full reviews, because we were too busy nerding out over (and previewing in-depth) Samsung's announcement of the Samsung Galaxy S3. Samsung's followup to the hugely popular S2 and flagship Android phone dominated the conversation this week with its Siri-like voice commands and ability to sense your eye movement.

The Galaxy S3 won't come out until this summer, though, and we don't expect everyone (or anyone) to sit around and wait for it, especially since no one is sure yet how … Read more

A fair number of consumers in the United States are relying on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to help them with medical and health care issues.

Polling 1,060 U.S. adults in February, PricewaterhouseCoopers found that a third use social media to find medical information, research and share symptoms, and offer their opinions about doctors, drugs, treatments, and heath plans.

One in four of those surveyed said they've used social-media services to track down reviews from other consumers about treatments and doctors, while one in three have searched for information about medical ailments related by other … Read more

Every week at CNET, we test dozens of gadgets. Not every device stands out as amazing or wonderful, and we've seen our share of failing storage drives or -- shudder -- candy bar "feature phones." (That's what the industry calls a cell phone that's not quite a smart phone.)

But not a week goes by without at least a few standout gadgets. Sometimes, these gems shine in a crowded field. Sometimes, they break the mold. Occasionally, we review a high-quality device from an older category that does its job so well, we fall in love … Read more

Ferarri won't be the only automaker unveiling a "most powerful model ever" this week. Mini's getting in on the horsepower race too--only on a much smaller scale. There's already a higher-performance John Cooper Works (JCW) version of every other vehicle configuration in Mini's lineup, so it's no surprise that we'll be seeing a hi-po version of the Mini Countryman next week at the 2012 Geneva auto show.

The JCW Countryman will also carry the distinction of being the most powerful model in Mini's lineup thanks to its 211-horsepower, four-cylinder, twin-scroll turbocharged … Read more