rock

Walks by the river can clear your head, open your eyes, and soothe your inner flow.

It's possible that you even espy unusual things along the banks -- peculiar voles, moles, or holes that conjure stories in your head.

Phil Green was wandering along the Merrimack River in Massachusetts when he discovered a piece of rock that didn't seem like it was from around his parts.

He told CBS Boston: "There she was just sitting there, sticking up like that, and I said heck what is this. It just didn't belong."

Yes, greenish rocks tend … Read more

San Francisco bike workshop Rock the Bike had a bike stolen a few weeks ago. It wasn't just any bike; it was a serious electric cargo bike called the Mundo 500. That means the heavy bike, locked to itself, posed quite a challenge for the determined thieves, who couldn't have just pedaled off with it. Nonetheless, they managed to take it.

So began a search aimed at recovering the valuable bike. Paul Freedman, Rock the Bike's founder, started asking around under freeway overpasses and spread the word through friends and on Facebook. Three weeks later, it was sighted, locked to a signpost. The blue bike's custom modifications led to a confirmed match, and a unique recovery operation was under way.… Read more

Apparently the bright object that people reported seeing shooting over the East Coast of the United States last night -- and that left a glittery trail across Twitter -- may well have been a meteor.

Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environmental Office told the Associated Press that, "going on visual reports," the flash was "a single meteor event."

"The thing is probably a yard across. We basically have (had) a boulder enter the atmosphere over the northeast," he added.

The object lit up Twitter last night at about 8 p.m. East Coast … Read more

Integrating Facebook into other applications has been the focus of developers in recent years. RockMelt for Mac attempts to combine a Web browser with Facebook, but privacy concerns and poor functionality make this a problematic application.

Available as freeware, the program downloads quickly. Installation is another story, however. Initially, you are prompted to enter Facebook log-in information before the program begins. Once it's entered, the next setup dialog box presents troublesome privacy concerns. Essentially, RockMelt for Mac seeks authorization to control almost all of the user's Facebook features and permissions. This lack of user control is concerning for … Read more

In a recent video clip posted on NBC's Web site, epic funny woman Tina Fey ranted against the banality of Twitter, declaring that users should be required to apply to her for a license to tweet (scroll down to watch the whole video).

I'm a fan of literally everything Tina Fey has ever done, and the fact that she is apparently so completely wrong about Twitter is threatening the very fabric of my universe. So I drafted this open letter to Ms. Fey in an attempt to reestablish an essential balance in the world. … Read more

When you think of social media these days, you probably think primarily of Facebook and Twitter, and perhaps Instagram. But while those services have massive -- and growing -- user bases, they're of course not the only games in town.

The world of social media is filled with other services, and millions of people get a daily fix without ever going near Facebook or Twitter. There are big general networks like Tagged, and plenty of smaller, purpose-built ones like Path or celebrity-focused ones like Lady Gaga's Little Monsters. There's even a revamped MySpace.

So what does 2013 … Read more

The alternative Web browser RockMelt continues its march on mobile devices by releasing a new iPhone-specific app. RockMelt for the iPhone (download) is not the same version as the iPad app, though. It's been redesigned so that it can be controlled almost entirely with your thumb, an intentional move to emphasize how people use the socially focused browser.

"People aren't reading the New York Times on RockMelt," said CEO and co-founder Eric Vishria in an interview at CNET's office in San Francisco earlier this week. "They're reading these long-tail stories, and that's … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Why can't America deal with Kanye West's leather skirt?

- Missing from the concert: Women and Jay-Z.

- The six most disappointing games and trends of 2012.

- Check out Jeff on CNET's Ask the Editors for gaming and entertainment.

- Snapchat (aka the "teen sexting app") just raised $10 million from one of Instagram's backers.

- "Back to the Future" writer hates the Mattel hoverboard toy.… Read more

Google is trying an experiment: it's letting armchair musicians shred virtual guitars and bang animated keyboards with a new interactive Web app called JAM, which is on its Chrome browser.

"If you ever dreamed of playing in a band, now's your chance to be a rock star," Google Creative Lab's marketing manager Emma Turpin wrote in a blog post today. "No matter what your level of talent -- from daydreaming air guitarist to music pro -- you can JAM together in real time over the web."