Geek Gestalt

YouTube returns to rock out in Coachella this weekend

Get ready to rock.

Starting this afternoon, YouTube will be live-streaming the huge Coachella music festival, and that means you can tune in to watch three days of some of the best names in the music world.

Like last year, YouTube is providing three channels, meaning that at any given time, you can choose from artists playing on three different stages. Altogether, that means you'll be able to see more than 60 acts do their thing, including The Black Keys, Mazzy Star, Madness, Jimmy Cliff, Squeeze, Gotye, and many others.

Last year, I wrote that YouTube's Coachella live … Read more

Stuxnet delivered to Iranian nuclear plant on thumb drive

An Iranian double agent working for Israel used a standard thumb drive carrying a deadly payload to infect Iran's Natanz nuclear facility with the highly destructive Stuxnet computer worm, according to a story by ISSSource.

Stuxnet quickly propagated throughout Natanz -- knocking that facility offline and at least temporarily crippling Iran's nuclear program -- once a user did nothing more than click on a Windows icon. The worm was discovered nearly two years ago.

ISSSource's report yesterday was based on sources inside the U.S. intelligence community.

These sources, who requested anonymity because of their close proximity … Read more

'Cool' gadgets shine at Stanford

STANFORD, Calif. -- One of the tricks of building a successful company is identifying new markets. So while you might never have known you wanted a digital scent delivery system, a startup called Scent Sciences thinks that's exactly what you desire.

Scent Sciences and dozens of other companies flocked to Stanford University yesterday for the annual Cool Product Expo, a showcase of some of the, well, coolest gadgets, toys, electric cars, and oddball beauty items around. Among the most interesting items on display were 3D Systems' Cube, a personal 3D printer that costs just $1,300 and is being … Read more

'Texts from Hillary' calls it quits

"Memes really do come true."

For Adam Smith and Stacy Lambe, it's been a week of seriously whirlwind proportions. But after seeing their mega-hit Tumblr blog, "Texts from Hillary", get international attention and even inspire a submission from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton herself, the two Washington, D.C., men are shutting it all down.

If you haven't followed this phenomenon, picture LOLCats crossed with pictures of Hillary Clinton texting. Add tens of thousands of viewers around the world, some hilarious captions, and a surprise invitation by Clinton to Smith and Lambe to meet … Read more

Titanic disaster unlikely to happen in this age, experts say

Given that the builder of the Titanic is said to have famously bragged that his amazing new ship could never be sunk, it's dangerous to argue that an accident like the one that sent the famous vessel to the bottom of the sea 100 years ago could never happen again.

But with the centennial of the April 15, 1912, disaster quickly approaching, there's every indication that modern science and technology in combination with a much greater awareness of seaborne hazards, make such a tragedy -- at least on the scale of Titanic--extremely unlikely today.

It's not, of … Read more

George Lucas loses NIMBY clash over giant digital arts complex

George Lucas lost a bruising battle with neighbors in a bucolic Northern California valley Tuesday over the "Star Wars" impresario's plans for a giant technology production complex.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Lucas failed to win approval for his new 263,701-square-foot project last week, and rather than wait for more studies, as neighbors in the Lucas Valley area of San Rafael--about 30 minutes north of San Francisco--had wanted, the filmmaker decided yesterday to scrap his plans altogether.

Lucas needs to open a new complex by next year, and grew tired of waiting for approvals to … Read more

3D printing pioneer 3D Systems buys My Robot Nation

3D Systems, the company that says it pioneered 3D printing 26 years ago, announced today that it has acquired My Robot Nation, a California startup that gives buyers a set of simple Web-based tools for designing their own small, collectible 3D-printed droid figures.

During the last couple of years, 3D Systems has been on a buying spree, snatching up 24 3D printing companies. And Cathy Lewis, the company's vice president of global marketing, explained that the idea has been to add many new technologies and applications to 3D Systems' portfolio with a special emphasis on the consumer marketplace.

That'… Read more

'Texts from Hillary:' When LOLCats met Hillary Clinton

How much fun can you have adding funny text to someone else's photograph? If you're the U.S. secretary of state, apparently quite a lot.

It's already been proven that if you let the general public add their own cute sayings to pictures of cats, you can build an entire empire on top of it. And now, thanks to the Tumblr blog Texts from Hillary, you too can create your own snarky narrative involving, yes, pictures of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton texting.

It started as a quirky site where random people can make submissions … Read more

Who says Silicon Valley forgets you if you're over 40?

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--It's nearly 10 a.m. in the City Council chambers here, and 43 people are waiting for their turn to speak.

These are not citizens with civic matters on their minds; divided into two lines that stretch out from either side of the podium in the center of the room, these veterans of Google, Cisco, NASA, Hewlett-Packard, Yahoo, Microsoft, Boeing, Sun, and others, are here looking for a new lease on their professional lives.

One by one, they lean into the microphone to introduce themselves. They mention where they've worked in the past, list their skills, … Read more