Meet Obama's Defense Secretary Nominee

President Obama nominated former Senator Chuck Hagel as the next U.S. secretary of defense. To those who haven't followed the Senate closely in the past decade, he's probably not a household name.Hagel is a former GOP senator from Nebraska and Purple-Heart-decorated Vietnam veteran, but he wouldn't necessarily be a popular pick with Republicans in Congress.At age 21, Hagel and...

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West vs Asia education rankings are misleading

Western schoolchildren are routinely outperformed by their Asian peers, but worrying about it is pointless MATHEMATICS and science are as essential to modern economies as coal was to the industrial revolution. So when the results of international tests show Western schoolchildren lagging behind their peers...

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TP students present innovations at exhibition

SINGAPORE: More than 60 nifty inventions were presented at this year's Engineering Project Show at Temasek Polytechnic on Monday.Some ideas included a baby pram that can function as a high chair and a tray return system. The ideas are the final-year projects of the polytechnic's engineering students.Five students created an "Ah Long" detector, which could be attached to front doors to...

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HTC Q4 profit, sales plunge amid holiday crush

The Droid DNA didn't help HTC's results in the fourth quarter.(Credit:Sarah Tew/CNET)LAS VEGAS--Apparently, the worst isn't over for HTC.The Taiwanese company reported that its fourth-quarter profit fell more than 90 percent to 1 billion Taiwanese dollars ($34 million) from more than 10 billion Taiwanese dollars a year ago. Sales fell roughly 40 percent to 60 billion Taiwanese dollars.The poor results...

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Best Pictures: 2012 Nat Geo Photo Contest Winners

Winner: PlacesPhotograph by Nenad SaljicA full moon illuminates the Matterhorn peak near Zermatt, Switzerland, in the winning image...

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Silent Skype calls can hide secret messages

Got a secret message to send? Say it with silence. A new technique can embed secret data during a phone call on Skype. "There are concerns that Skype calls can be intercepted and analysed," says Wojciech Mazurczyk at the Institute of Telecommunications in Warsaw, Poland. So his team's SkypeHide system lets users...

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WP hopes to raise S$1.5m to purchase headquarters

SINGAPORE: The opposition Workers' Party (WP) is hoping to raise S$1.5 million for the purchase of its own headquarters.The party's secretary-general Low Thia Khiang and chairman Sylvia Lim said this at the party's first musical concert, titled "Brick in Blue".Ms Lim said since the 2011 general election, the party has raised some S$500,000.The money came from monthly contributions from...

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Nvidia at 2013 CES: Join us Sunday, 8 p.m. PT (live blog)

Nvidia starts the 2013 International CES early with a press conference at 8 p.m. PT (11 p.m. ET) on Sunday, Jan. 6, and CNET will be there to cover it live. We'll have a live video stream, along with a blog full of news and analysis, as it happens. You can tune into the blog and video stream here:CNET's live coverage of Nvidia's 2013 CES press conference Nvidia has been pretty quiet about any possible...

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Best Pictures: 2012 Nat Geo Photo Contest Winners

Winner: PlacesPhotograph by Nenad SaljicA full moon illuminates the Matterhorn peak near Zermatt, Switzerland, in the winning image...

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Gun Show Near Newtown Goes on Despite Anger

A little more than 40 miles from Sandy Hook Elementary School, where last month 20 first graders and six staff members were massacred, gun dealers and collectors alike ignored calls to cancel a gun show, and gathered for business in Stamford, Conn.Four other gun shows with an hour of Newtown, Conn., recently cancelled their events in the wake of the shootings, when 20-year-old...

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