globe

Indulge me here for a minute while my mind boggles.

I spend a lot of time looking at the latest technology, so I live in a perpetual state of low-grade future shock. Yesterday, though, was one of those days when I was floored by how far things have progressed.

First, I asked for and received satellite photos taken that morning of Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Then, in about 10 seconds, I got directions on how to drive there from my house in Old Windsor, England, in 4 days and 16 hours.

These moments created a vivid, … Read more

Ricky Gervais got in a record number of jabs at celebrities at this year's Golden Globe Awards (and I, for one, loved every minute of it). But that wasn't the only record set.

A couple of days before Sunday's ceremony, two dashingly dressed gentlemen unveiled the new Guinness World Record holder for "World's Largest Magnetic Structure" in the shape of a Golden Globe statue.

The behemoth is made out of 550,000 tiny golden magnets called Nanodots. It weighs a staggering 600 pounds, and completely shatters the previous record-holding sculpture, which consisted of a … Read more

I confess to having a soft spot for much of Microsoft's recent advertising. Mainly because it bothers to appeal to my soft spot.

The company decided to use the glamour of the Golden Globes ceremony to remind people of their innate love for the underdog. In this case, the struggling, table-waiting, eating-out-of-a-tin actor.

In new ads, we see what appears to be an audition. Actors express their love of their craft, their commitment to it. They end with a different Microsoft brand "precongratulating" the Golden Globes stars of tomorrow and offering the tagline "Be What's … Read more

The Golden Globe nominations were released this morning, and though "The King's Speech" received the most nominations, "The Social Network" was also honored for Best Picture--Drama, Best Actor (Jesse Eisenberg), Best Supporting Actor (Andrew Garfield), Best Director (David Fincher), Best Screenplay (Aaron Sorkin), and Best Original Score (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross). We saw the movie when it first came out, but CNET's social-media reporter Caroline McCarthy knows much more about the film, so we're psyched to have her on the show today!

Caroline and Jeff are both addicted to TV shows like "Boardwalk Empire," "30 Rock," and "Mad Men," which share Best TV nominations for a drama, musical, or comedy, but the three of us are confused about the appearance of "The Walking Dead," a show that the Internet seems to collectively hate for its departure from the original graphic-novel storyline.

Along with the rest of the discoveries in Zeitgeist 2010, Google has also shared the "fastest-falling" list of searches in 2010. In other words, these are the search terms that enjoyed popularity in 2009 but failed to keep up the momentum this year.

The list includes swine flu, Circuit City, Myspace Layouts, and Michael Jackson, despite the release of a new album in December.

Check out this graphic of the world according to Facebook. Facebook intern Paul Butler wondered how to show an accurate representation of Facebook's popularity across the globe, and his idea to visualize Facebook "Internet" friendships on a map actually shows the extent of real human relationships.

Interestingly enough, the picture reveals that even Argentina, Southeast Asia, and South Africa have a strong Facebook presence, while a significant portion of China and Russia are missing due to Web censorship.

Girls geeks are uniting in support of a young Star Wars fan who was bullied by classmates after choosing a Star Wars water bottle and matching backpack for school. Her mom wrote a heartfelt blog asking female Star Wars fans to send messages and comments to show Katie that plenty of women appreciate Star Wars, and within days the post received more than 1,000 messages of support.

With all the attention on bullying these days, both online and in person, it's important to remind young people that it's great to be different...and that nerds make more money.

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, an arm of the U.S. government that oversees satellite imagery collection for military and intelligence work, has awarded two satellite imagery companies contracts worth more than $3 billion each.

The two 10-year contracts are part of a program called EnhancedView to produce a new generation of satellite imagery. GeoEye, based in Dulles, Va., was awarded $3.8 billion, and DigitalGlobe, based in Longmont, Colo., was awarded $3.55 billion.

Each contract is paid annually, subject to congressional approval, and can be canceled annually. The long-term funding paves the way for development of next-generation satellites with … Read more

We're surprised that Wilson is still standing after going under the knife yesterday to get his wisdom teeth pulled. Luckily, Wilson explains that his disturbingly small mouth, combined with the supreme skills of his dentist, led to a speedy recovery--less than 24 hours after the surgery, we've got our Wilson back! And besides, all of his wisdom is localized to his hair.

Speaking of folks left half-standing from the three-day weekend, my sincerest apologies for my raspy voice on today's episode; we celebrated my birthday on Sunday by laying waste to the hits of Madonna, Weezer, Third Eye Blind, Four Non Blondes, and many more songs (sans Lady Gaga - BOO) at Maru Karaoke Bar in NYC. After a weekend of partying it up for 26 years ill-spent, it sounds like I'm in worse condition than my post-op co-host.

Wilson's happy pills come in handy when he tells Jeff and I about how the U.S. stacks up against the rest of the world in average broadband speed trends over the past few years. We're down in 18th place compared with the rest of the world; we're behind Japan, Hong Kong, Romania, and Sweden, with many countries reporting 50Mbps! What's our excuse? Listen in for the full story.

We also have news on ATM skimmers, like the one in "Terminator 2," making a serious comeback in the new millennium and an absurd story from CNN about folks reporting "Avatar" withdrawal. It sounds like a story you'd find on the Onion News Network, but the phenomenon is very real, and very pathetic. We can make a convincing argument that these individuals reporting depression after seeing "Avatar" were actually disturbed prior to watching the film, but we'll withhold our clinical diagnoses and just say that these people are straight up crazy.

While today's Golden Globe announcements were a bit underwhelming, we were thrilled to see "The Hangover" get a nomination in the Best Picture: Comedy or Musical category. To coincide with the film's release on Blu-ray and DVD today we're giving away copies of the movie! Just send us an e-mail at the404 [at] cnet [dot] com telling us your best (or worst) hangover story. Everyone's got at least one, so send us yours for a chance to win!

In Justin and Wilson's absence, Natali Del Conte and Mark "MTI" Licea rush to fill their spots and discuss all the day's news. Should your company be able to check text messages you send out on work cell phones? Actually, don't answer that question--we debate the pros and cons and decide.

Most guys can't remember what shirt they wore yesterday, but apparently most women can recall the first pair of shoes they ever bought--more so than the first boy they ever kissed! What is it about the female obsession with shoes? We ask Natali to clear the air--because, well, she's the only woman who'll talk to us.

All this plus the location of 22 million missing e-mails from the Bush Administration on today's episode!

Twelve days after it launched WorldView-2 into orbit, DigitalGlobe has released its first images from the satellite, which will supply high-resolution photography for Google's and Microsoft's online mapping services.

The first images are of two locations in San Antonio, Texas, where the company is showing off its work at the GeoInt 2009 Symposium this week, and of Dallas Love Airport.

The quality of the images should improve over these first shots, taken Monday. "More refinements to early-stage images can be expected as the ongoing check-out and calibration continues," DigitaGlobe said.

Microsoft and Nokia sponsored the WorldView-2 launch, … Read more

Earthquake 3D provides a fascinating look at recent seismic activity around the globe. While the program provides a great deal of information and options, it suffers from its complete lack of direction.

We were initially impressed with the interface. The controls all looked basic, but soon we discovered that the Help file didn't do more than give a description of the product, and some actions we wanted to perform were not intuitive enough. The program itself was a spinning globe with magnitudes and the traditional multiring circles indicating earthquakes. We appreciated how the control panel let us filter quakes … Read more