voyager

Voyager 1 truly has gone where no man (or spacecraft) has gone before. Huge changes in the environment around the space probe indicate that it has gone beyond the heliosphere, our little corner of space that's dominated by the influence of the sun.

It only took 35 years for the craft to travel more than 11 billion miles from the sun and possibly exit the solar system. What scientists are seeing is a huge spike in galactic cosmic rays.

"Within just a few days, the heliospheric intensity of trapped radiation decreased, and the cosmic ray intensity went up as you would expect if it exited the heliosphere," said Bill Webber, professor emeritus of astronomy at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.… Read more

It's really a shame that the iPad, or any tablet or smartphone for that matter, comes with such a limited amount of internal storage -- usually around 64GB (OK, there's a 128GB iPad, but it's just too expensive). And after the operating system and apps, the remaining space for digital content is much less than that. This is the reason a wireless storage expander is a must for savvy users who want to carry their entire digital library around with them.

The good news is there is now a relatively big selection of these type of devices. … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Plantronics has long had Bluetooth-compatible headsets and speakers, but people with PCs have largely been left out of the party.

Until now. At CES this week, Plantronics is showing a wide array of its headphones and speakers, many of which focus exclusively on Bluetooth compatibility. But with the Voyager Legend UC and the Calisto 620, PC users wanting to listen to their favorite music on their mobile devices or wanting to make VoIP calls from their PCs can play along.

With its Voyager Legend UC headphones, Plantronics is now offering the ability to listen in on audio from mobile … Read more

NASA's aging Voyager 1 probe, 35 years and 11 billion miles outbound from Earth, has crossed into an unexpected, exceedingly remote region of the solar system that may represent the spacecraft's final step before leaving the sun's influence and moving into the vast realm of interstellar space.

The region is believed to be a sort of "magnetic highway" allowing high-energy charged particles from ancient supernova explosions to move into the sun's sphere of influence and for lower-energy particles to move out into deep space.

"This is really another exciting step in the Voyager … Read more

For a mobile music player that's 100,000 times less powerful than a crummy 8GB iPod Nano, Voyager 1 is mighty awesome.

The NASA space probe was launched 35 years ago today, on September 5, 1977, three months after a new space opera called "Star Wars" hit theaters. Programmed to explore the outer planets, it has traveled farther than any man-made object since then, and is leaving our solar system for interstellar space.

With its 68-kilobyte computer memory and 8-track tape recorder, Voyager is bringing old-timey tech to the stars. It's currently some 11.3 billion miles from the sun in the heliosheath, the region where the solar wind slows down as it hits gas and dust outside our solar system. … Read more

When reviewing a gadget as big and tactile as the Voyage-Air folding guitar, there's always a danger the testing process could break or somewhere ruin what is otherwise a beautiful piece of kit. Playing with it is so cool, breaking it becomes a genuine, though juvenile, temptation.

The Voyage-Air Guitar has nothing whatsoever to do with waving your hands like a spaz in tune with Lynyrd Skynyrd, however. It's an actual musical instrument -- the kind it takes years of daily practice to master. In other words, this isn't a toy or a gimmick.

The California-based company specializes in guitars for the troubadour on the go. If you look at an acoustic Voyage-Air from the front while fully assembled, it looks no different than any other well-made guitar. But turning it over reveals two specially designed differences. … Read more

It seems like everyone is getting in on the budget wireless network business. Joining Virgin Mobile, Boost, Metro PCS, and Cricket, newcomer Voyager Mobile also has high hopes in the prepaid mobile phone market. On May 15, the company plans to provide frugal handset users access to extremely affordable service especially considering they don't have to sign onerous contracts to receive service. … Read more

Do you like wires? Neither do we. And thankfully, you don't really need them anymore when you're using a smartphone.

No matter your preference -- iPhone, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry -- any decent modern smartphone is equipped with wireless Bluetooth capability. In addition to hands-free calling with headsets and stereo headphones, phones can also be used as wireless music sources for an increasingly large array of Bluetooth speakers -- perfect for listening to MP3s on the phone, or Web-based audio services like Spotify, Pandora, Amazon Cloud Player, iTunes Match, or anything else.

As someone who uses Bluetooth gadgets daily, I'd frankly feel lost without my handy assortment of hands-free mobile toys. And I've collected a list of some of CNET's favorites. … Read more

Dashboard cameras and black-box technology are great ways to cover your tush in the event of a fender bender. Whether an honest mistake or an intentional insurance scam, video evidence that an accident wasn't your fault can save you big bucks.

While the technology is fairly cheap, odds are that you've already got a GPS-enabled camera suction cupped to your windshield or dashboard on the back of your smartphone. Why not work with what you've got and take advantage of this hardware with a dashboard-DVR app like DailyRoads Voyager for Android?

Essentially, what this free Android app does is continuously record video of the road ahead using your phone's camera while also tracking vehicle speed, location, and G-forces using the onboard GPS receiver and accelerometer.… Read more