da

Crave Ep. 109: The greatest drinking game ever

Subscribe to Crave:

iTunes (HD) | iTunes (SD) | iTunes (HQ)

RSS (HD) | RSS (SD) | RSS (HQ)

This week on Crave, William Shatner has some choice words for J.J. Abrams, and we toss one back in the greatest drinking game ever invented. Cheers! Plus, we dodge a bullet the size of a football field as an asteroid nearly collides with Earth. Phew. … Read more

Odds of dying from an asteroid strike: 1 in 74,817,414

It was a busy day for planet Earth. Asteroid 2012 DA14, a 45-meter wide space rock, sped past the Earth a mere 17,100 miles overhead. In the Ural mountains of Russia, a 15-meter wide, 7,000 metric ton asteroid hit the Earth's atmosphere, creating a 300-kiloton shock wave that injured more than 1,000 people and shattered 1 million square feet of glass.

What are the odds that an asteroid impact will destroy your being in a given year? Slim -- 1 in 74,817,414, according to data compiled by The Economist. For comparison, the odds of … Read more

The 404 1,209: Where we chalk it up to cosmic coincidence (podcast)

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Fiery meteor explodes over Russia's Ural Mountains; 1,100 injured as shock wave breaks windows.

- Watch asteroid 2012 DA14 fade out via streaming video.

- Iceland wants to ban Internet porn.

- Chubby Checker in a twist over an old app.

- One Direction's new toothbrush streams sound vibrations through your teeth.… Read more

Just in time: Scientists propose vaporizing asteroids

The sky is totally falling.

As if it weren't enough that a meteor boomed across the Russian sky today, shattering windows and injuring about 1,000 people, an asteroid 150 feet across is about to sideswipe our planet.

Asteroid 2012 DA14, while unrelated to the meteor, is just as scary. It will graze us at just 17,200 miles from the surface, passing between Earth and our geosynchronous weather and communications satellites.

Possible asteroid strikes are no joke, and if you ask me (or the dinosaurs), they represent the biggest threat to our planet aside from human stupidity.

Fortunately, some non-stupid humans are finally getting serious about countering this threat. … Read more

Everything you need to know for Friday's big asteroid flyby

In less than 24 hours, a 150 foot-wide asteroid will complete a remarkably close, but safe, flyby. For weeks, scientists have been tracking the path of the small near-Earth asteroid known as 2012 DA14, which is on course to swing by the Earth tomorrow at 11:24 a.m. PT.

Again, no need to panic about a collision with Earth, which would be, in a word, catastrophic. If a space rock of this magnitude crashed into us, scientists say, it would release about 2.5 megatons of energy into the atmosphere. The last time an asteroid this size smacked into … Read more

Another close asteroid encounter for Earth coming Friday

In a few days, sky watchers in Eastern Europe, Asia, and Australia will get a chance to see one big rock hurtling through the heavens. One very big rock. Compared with other asteroids traveling through space, this one may seem a relative pebble -- at half the size of a football field -- but for Earth, it will make for a relatively close call.

"This is a record-setting close approach," says Don Yeomans of NASA's Near Earth Object Program at JPL. "Since regular sky surveys began in the 1990s, we've never seen an object this big get so close to Earth." … Read more

Short on Valentine's Day ideas? Here are 10 apps to help

Valentine's Day can be stressful. It's one of those holidays that people want to be perfect and therefore is sometimes a let down.

Despite living in a tech era, romantic traditions still seem to adhere. There are flowers to buy, dinner reservations to make, and gifts and cards to exchange. And then, there's the daunting task of coming up with original ideas of what to do on February 14.

None of this is really going change, but technology can help make some of it easier.

Here's CNET's resource guide for 10 helpful Valentine's Day … Read more

NASA deems Earth safe from massive asteroid strike in 2036

Earthlings can breathe a sigh of relief; NASA scientists have officially ruled out the possibility of the 22 million ton asteroid Apophis smashing into the planet in 2036.

"The impact odds as they stand now are less than one in a million, which makes us comfortable saying we can effectively rule out an Earth impact in 2036," manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office Don Yeomans said in a statement. "Our interest in asteroid Apophis will essentially be for its scientific interest for the foreseeable future."

Apophis is still en route to come exceedingly close … Read more

Samsung's first portable Bluetooth speaker does NFC

Samsung embraced Bluetooth and AirPlay speakers in a big way last year with the gorgeous DA-E750 and its sister products, but surprisingly the company hasn't rolled out a portable Bluetooth speaker -- until today.

The Samsung DA-F60 is the company's first entrant to the booming portable Bluetooth speaker market. It features the apt-X codec, which offers better sound quality if your tablet or smartphone supports it. It also supports NFC (near-field communication), which makes it slightly easier to pair with compatible phones.

The DA-F60 is compatible with Samsung's SoundShare platform, which means it can be used as … Read more