NASA planet-hunter is injured and resting

Lisa Grossman, physical sciences reporter(Image: NASA/Kepler mission/Wendy Stenzel)NASA's planet-hunting Kepler telescope has put its search for alien Earths on hold while it rests a stressed reaction wheel.The injured wheel normally helps to control the telescope's orientation, keeping it pointed continuously at the same patch of sky. Kepler stares at the thousands of stars in its field of view...

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Getting the law to work for you

SINGAPORE: The National Trades Union Congress and the Law Society of Singapore have launched a new initiative to educate working people on their legal rights.The initiative called 'Law Works' will include a series of programmes that will be implemented to reach out to PMEs, working women and freelance professionals. The year-long campaign will see the publication of a 10-part quick guide...

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Crave Ep. 105: How to clip your nails in space

How to clip your nails in space, Ep. 105Subscribe to Crave:iTunes (HD) | iTunes (SD) | iTunes (HQ)RSS (HD) | RSS (SD) | RSS (HQ) This week on Crave, we're back from CES with a look at some of the wackier stuff we spotted at the show. Then, Canadian astronaut Christopher Hadfield gives us a highly important grooming lesson on the safest way to clip our nails in outer space, and...

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Attack at Algeria Gas Plant Heralds New Risks for Energy Development

The siege by Islamic militants at a remote Sahara desert natural gas plant in Algeria this week signaled heightened dangers in the region for international oil companies, at a time when they have been expanding operations in Africa as one of the world's last energy frontiers. (See related story: "Pictures: Four New Offshore Drilling Frontiers.")As BP, Norway's Statoil, Italy's Eni, and...

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Armstrong Tearful Over Telling Kids Truth

Lance Armstrong, 41, began to cry today as he described finding out his son Luke, 13, was publicly defending him from accusations that he doped during his cycling career.Armstrong said that he knew, at that moment, that he would have to publicly admit to taking performance-enhancing drugs and having oxygen-boosting blood transfusions when competing in the Tour de France. He...

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Wild weather: Extreme is the new normal

The wild weather that greeted the new year is a taste of things to come ALL eyes have been on Australia in recent weeks as a blistering heatwave triggered huge wildfires. The result has been a slew of amazing stories, including a family escaping by jumping into the sea and meteorologists adding new colours to heat maps. ...

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Palestinians brace for new rightwing Israeli govt

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: The Palestinians are bracing for a new right-wing government that Israel's election is expected to produce, hoping that international and domestic moves will strengthen their position."There is complete ignorance and denial of the peace process and the two-state solution," warned Palestinian analyst Mahdi Abdul Hadi, director of the Passia think tank."Nobody...

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Crave giveaway: Laptop bag packed with CES 2013 swag

Gear, glorious gear. (Click to enlarge.)(Credit:James Martin/CNET)Last year, readers liked our CES swag giveaway so much that we're doing one again this year -- in a big way. CNET staffers collected so many great goodies at CES 2013 that we have enough freebies for two separate giveaways. This week's winner will score, among other prizes, an itty-bitty 1GB NewKube Kube MP3 player; a Moshi VersaCover...

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Opinion: Lance One of Many Tour de France Cheaters

Editor's note: England-based writer and photographer Roff Smith rides around 10,000 miles a year through the lanes of Sussex and Kent and writes a cycling blog at: www.my-bicycle-and-I.co.ukAnd so, the television correspondent said to the former Tour de France champion, a man who had been lionised for years, feted as the greatest cyclist of his day, did you ever use drugs in the course...

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Armstrong Admits to Doping, 'One Big Lie'

Lance Armstrong, formerly cycling's most decorated champion and considered one of America's greatest athletes, confessed to cheating for at least a decade, admitting on Thursday that he owed all seven of his Tour de France titles and the millions of dollars in endorsements that followed to his use of illicit performance-enhancing drugs.After years of denying that he had taken...

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Kinect sensor poised to leap into everyday life

WHEN Microsoft's Kinect gaming sensor first exploded onto the gaming scene in 2010, it wasn't long before people started getting excited about what it might make possible. But despite some imaginative hacks, and even a stint in the operating...

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Nokia to cut up to 300 jobs in IT unit

HELSINKI: Nokia said on Thursday it will cut up to 300 jobs in a restructuring of its global IT organisation."As part of the planned changes, Nokia plans to transfer certain activities and up to 820 employees to HCL Technologies and TATA Consultancy Services," the company said in a statement.The Espoo-based company said the majority of those affected by the changes were based in Finland.The...

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CNET Member Giveaway: Fitbit Flex

Fitbit Flex(Credit:Fitbit)After a great CES full of exciting tech and new ideas, we are back and hard at work. A little tired, but also thrilled to bring an exciting opportunity to the CNET audience. We'd like our users to be able to experience a little CES, so we are giving five lucky CNET members the chance to win the Best of CES award-winning Fitbit Flex. Coming out this spring, the Fitbit Flex...

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6 Ways Climate Change Will Affect You

Photograph by AP Photo/Marcio Jose SanchezThe planet keeps getting hotter, new data showed this week. Especially in America, where 2012 was the warmest year ever recorded, by far. Every few years, the U.S. federal government engages hundreds of experts to assess the impacts of climate change, now and in the future. From agriculture (pictured) to infrastructure to how humans consume energy, the National...

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Why musical genius comes easier to early starters

Good news for pushy parents. If you want your child to excel musically, you now have better justification for starting their lessons early. New evidence comes from brain scans of 36 highly skilled musicians, split equally between those who started lessons before and after the age of 7, but who had done a similar amount of...

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Man charged over Changi Village murder

SINGAPORE : A man has been charged with murder, following a fight at Changi Village that left a man dead.44-year-old Low Chuan Woo is alleged to have caused the death of 45-year-old Mohd Iskander Ishak on Monday night at a pub at Changi Village.Media reports quoted eyewitnesses who said Mr Mohd Iskander was stabbed repeatedly.He was taken to Changi General Hospital, but died from his injuries.In...

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Prosecutor in Aaron Swartz 'hacking' case comes under fire

Carmen Ortiz, U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts(Credit:U.S. Department of Justice)A politically ambitious Justice Department official who oversaw the criminal case against Aaron Swartz has come under fire for alleged prosecutorial abuses that led the 26-year-old online activist to take his own life.Carmen Ortiz, 57, the U.S. attorney for Massachusetts who was selected by President Obama, compared the...

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Mars Rover Finds Intriguing New Evidence of Water

The first drill sample ever collected on Mars will come from a rockbed shot through with unexpected veins of what appears to be the mineral gypsum.Delighted members of the Curiosity science team announced Tuesday that the rover was now in a virtual "candy store" of scientific targets—the lowest point of Gale crater, called Yellowknife Bay, is filled with many different materials that could...

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NRA Ad Calls Obama 'Elitist Hypocrite'

Jan 16, 2013 12:04am Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP PhotoAs the White House prepares to unveil a sweeping plan aimed at curbing gun violence, the National Rifle Association has launched a preemptive, personal attack on President Obama, calling him an “elitist hypocrite” who, the group claims, is putting American children at risk.In 35-second video posted online Tuesday...

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Poison pill: Not all mercury is toxic

A global treaty on mercury pollution will do more harm than good if it bans the vaccine preservative thiomersal NEXT week, governments from around the world will gather in Geneva to finalise a long-overdue treaty on mercury. The aim of the negotiations is laudable: to ban those mercury-laden products and pollutants...

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Japan, US fighter planes in joint drill

TOKYO: US and Japanese fighter jets on Tuesday carried out joint air exercises, an official said, days after Chinese and Japanese military planes shadowed each other near disputed islands in the East China Sea.The five-day exercise involves six US FA-18 fighters and around 90 American personnel, along with four Japanese F-4 jets and an unspecified number of people, the official said.The...

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Why a smartphone may not be the best choice for everyone

Smartphones are hitting the mainstream market. And that means old and young want a piece of the action. But at more than $1,000 per year for service, a smartphone may not be the best choice for every consumer.In this edition of Ask Maggie, I help a reader decide if he should get his parents smartphones or if he should spare them the hefty monthly service fees and get them new basic feature phones....

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