nature

AT&T adds wireless emergency alerts update to iPhones

AT&T announced that it is rolling out wireless emergency alerts to all of its U.S. customers that have an iPhone 5 or 4S.

This means that anytime there is a government-issued safety announcement, like when there's natural or man-made disaster, a presidential alert, or an Amber alert for a missing child, a message will pop up on users iPhones explaining what's happening.

Such alerts are critical for getting information out to people who aren't immediately tuned into a television or radio, and would have been helpful during disasters such as the floods from Hurricane … Read more

Supermoon will be big, bright, and full on June 23

Supermoons can tend to get doomsdayers revved up.

Besides being a remarkable sight to behold, the massive moon also comes with the mythical stigma of causing a handful of natural disasters, including earthquakes and tsunamis, floods, typhoons, and cyclones.

And, this year's supermoon is quickly upon us. It will be shining its light next weekend on June 23. On that day, the moon will appear bigger and brighter, and be closer to Earth than it's been all year -- a total of 221,824 miles away, which is roughly 30,000 miles closer than when it's at … Read more

Nanotech 'sober pill' could one day de-drunk you

Hair of the dog? Lots of water? Cup of coffee? The quest for an effective hangover cure has never really led to a Holy Grail fix-it-all solution. What if you could counteract the impact of alcohol in your system before you ever even got to the hangover stage? Newly published research shows one potential path to the creation of a "sober pill."

We're a long way off from popping down to the local drug store and grabbing a bottle of B-Sober-Now pills, but the use of nanocapsules to reduce the blood alcohol content in mice might be the first step in that direction.… Read more

Magic-forest LED walls calm kids on way to surgery

Anyone who's had surgery would probably agree that being wheeled into the operating room can prove quite the anxiety-producing ride.

A London design studio has come up with a wonderfully creative way to calm young patients en route to surgery -- interactive wallpaper that turns clinical corridor walls into a magical forest to engage and distract the kids as they journey toward their procedure.

The installation, called Nature Trail, fills about 165 feet of corridor walls in part of the Mittal Children's Medical Centre at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital. … Read more

Bring a dreamy look to your desktop with Dream Wallpaper's high-resolution backgrounds

Dream Wallpaper is a free screensaver that rotates a series of stunning high-resolution desktop background images. You can choose from regular and widescreen images in a range of categories, and download more wallpaper images online, too.

Dream Wallpaper set its first image as our desktop background as soon as we installed the program. Unlike many single screensavers, Dream Wallpaper has a user interface you can open from a system tray icon that also accesses the previous and next wallpapers. Dream Wallpaper's main view displays six or more wallpaper images in each of its Local Wallpaper and Network Wallpaper categories, … Read more

See Hurricane Sandy's impact on the Internet

When Superstorm Sandy struck the northeastern U.S. coast earlier this week, it brought a swath of destruction that harmed people, places, and even Internet connectivity.

Check out a fascinating video by research firm Renesys that shows Sandy's impact on New England Internet routing networks during the hurricane's landfall on October 29. The clip reveals the tremendous damage inflicted upon servers that direct Internet traffic in the area, with the greatest losses seen along the heavily flooded New York and New Jersey coastlines.… Read more

The 404 1,147: Where life won't find a way (podcast)

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Watching "Looper" in a theater? Bring headphones.

- Science just killed any hope you ever had of "Jurassic Park" being real.

- Cameras in phones are now better than compact cameras from five years ago.

- OKCupid starts matching roommates.… Read more

Crave giveaway: Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12

Congrats to Jonathan H. of Flushing, N.Y., for winning two canvas-mounted Instagram prints from CanvasPop in last week's giveaway. This week's freebie is really something to talk about. We're offering up a copy of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12, Nuance's new voice recognition software for PCs.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12 promises 20 percent more accuracy than its predecessor, Dragon 11, as well as faster speeds and new technology that learns your preferences as you use it.

The product plays better than ever with Gmail and Hotmail, according to Nuance, and also extends the free Dragon Remote Microphone App experience to Android, turning compatible phones into a wireless microphone for Dragon for PC. … Read more

Samsung: Galaxy S3 inspired by 'sparkling' pebbles, forest stroll

Samsung's Galaxy S3 is a high-tech product, but its design was meant to reflect the simplicity of nature, at least according to the company.

"We wanted a more emotional, and stronger connection with our customers," Jacob Lee, Samsung VP for mobile design, said in a company video highlighting the phone (English translation).

As such, the various designers behind the phone claim they were inspired by different forces found in nature.

"I happened to witness the pebbles in a stream sparkling under the sunlight," product designer Hangil Song revealed. "And I tried to capture those … Read more

Create custom soundscapes with Atmosphere Lite

Soundscapes can be used for a wide variety of purposes: to relax, to block out annoying noises, to set the mood at parties, and much more. Atmosphere Lite is an easy-to-use program that lets you create custom soundscapes or simply choose from a wide variety of presets. We think this program is a great choice for anyone who enjoys nature sounds but often ends up stuck in front of a computer instead of outside.

Atmosphere Lite has a simple, intuitive interface. The preset soundscapes include deep forest, rainy day, ocean night, thunderstorm, night stream, forest stream, dawn chorus, rainforest, ocean'… Read more