mass

Anyone who thinks the end is nigh with a giant asteroid colliding into Earth may have a new apocalypse scenario to worry about.

It all boils down to the Higgs Boson particle, aka the "God particle."

Calculations that came with the likely discovery of the Higgs Boson last July also show that the particle's mass qualities could spell out the end of the universe said Fermilab theoretical physicist Joseph Lykken yesterday, according to NBC's Cosmic Log.

However, doomsdayers don't need to fret too much, the scientist also said that the likelihood of such a demise … Read more

Connecting to a wireless scale through your computer is so first-quarter 2012. Now, if you're willing to drop $150 on the new Withings Wireless Scale WS-30, all you need is a Bluetooth-enabled smartphone or tablet to do the trick.

Withings, the French technology company best known for its sleek wireless scales for adults and babies alike, just announced its latest offering at IFA 2012 in Berlin and says the WS-30 will be available in Europe in late September (PDF). Its new (and free) Health Companion app, which helps users track not just weight and BMI (body mass index) but … Read more

Today's headline roundup will have you worried about Terminator cats targeting rich Mac users via their Facebook email addresses:

The engineers at the super secret Google X lab have created the self-driving car and the augmented reality Google glasses. This time, while trying to push the limits of technology, they may have started to create Skynet. Google engineers strung 16,000 computer processors together, and then set the network free on the Internet. The New York Times explains that the system began to learn... about cats. Google engineers never told the computer what a cat was, it just picked … Read more

The Xbox 360 scored its 15th month in a row as the top-selling gaming console, NPD reported yesterday.

With a 42 percent chunk of all console sales, Microsoft sold 371,000 Xbox 360 units last month. Total spending on Xbox hardware, software, and accessories hit $430 million, more than was spent on Sony's PS3 and Nintendo's Wii combined.

Among the top 10 games last month, five of them were Xbox titles: Mass Effect 3, Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, NBA 2K12, SSX, and Major League Baseball 2K12.

As usual, the rest of the video game industry was down … Read more

Game maker Electronic Arts is adding more diversity to its new multiplayer online role-playing game Star Wars: The Old Republic -- characters in same-sex relationships and plot lines.

Because of this, the company is coming under fire from some unlikely contingents for the gaming world -- anti-gay conservative groups such as the Florida Family Association and the Family Research Council.

"There were no LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender] characters in any of the Star Wars movies," the Florida Family Association declared on its Web site. "So if BioWare, the maker of Star Wars video games, adds LGBT … Read more

Can Electronic Arts possibly be a worst company than, say, Bank Of America? Can it possibly offer more troubling customer service than even Facebook?

It seems that, in more than a few eyes, it can. For it has just been voted by readers of Consumerist as America's worst company. Yes, the worst. The very worst. The most irredeemably awful company of all.

The Hollywood Reporter tells me that some people were rather upset that Mass Effect 3 had a rather less satisfying ending than "The Sopranos." In conclusion, the customers stopped believing.

Gamers, just like any other … Read more

BioWare announced today Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut, a downloadable content pack due this summer that adds cinematic sequences and epilogue to the arguably lackluster ending of the popular space-bound role-playing game.

To further sweeten the deal, BioWare will give away the enhanced Mass Effect 3 ending free to gamers on PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 consoles until April 2014.

"The goal of the DLC is not to provide a new ending to the game, rather to offer fans additional context and answers to the end of Commander Shepard's story," a BioWare representative said in a blog post. … Read more

Out of all the silly headlines that squirmed into my Google Reader feed yesterday, "Ashton Kutcher signed on to play Steve Jobs in upcoming biopic" stood out as the most obvious April Fools' prank, but the joke's on us when we find out today that it's true -- the star of such films as "The Butterfly Effect" and "What Happens in Vegas" will portray the Apple luminary in an indie film simply called "Jobs."… Read more

At a time of increasing solar storms, researchers have released images of how these solar outbursts affect the protective magnetic shield around the Earth.

The Southwest Research Institute yesterday published visualizations that show how powerful solar storms temporarily compress the magnetic field that surrounds the Earth.

Studying the impact of solar storms on the magnetosphere provides insight into how satellites could be affected. The sun is entering a period of peak activity where more coronal mass ejections of high-energy particles from the sun are expected in the year ahead.

Southwest Research Institute researchers collected data from two NASA spacecraft -- … Read more