If Microsoft paid them, wouldn't other major software brands want funding to port to Windows 8 too? And after that, what if other OSes wanted popular software ported to their platform? Sets a terrible precedent IMO.

However, they could either A) make a substantial anonymous donation to the Kickstarter fund or B) outright buy VLC and internalize the development team.

a prelude to the first war in space?

Unidirectional microwave-only cloak -> omnidirectional visible light cloak?

It's gonna take a little more than "a few years".

I believe a planet with 7.1 times the mass of Earth, assuming the same density, would only have 1.1923 times the radius of Earth. Check your math.

It's amazing how hard scientists work to recreate apocalypse scenarios from fiction. In this case, Metal Gear Solid 4.

If you have a Mac Mini or other living room media center setup, use this Logitech app or a similar app to control it.

Those with further interest in the article may find this informative:

http://www.geant2.net/upload/pdf/LHC_networking_v1-9_NC.pdf

Apparently, CERN uses BGP between T0 and T1, and uses only ACLs, no firewalls, for security.

I recommend Asus too. Their computers are the best looking next to Apple's design, durable, and have an extremely good price-to-performance ratio. Don't get Asus and Acer confused, Asus is a much superior brand.

The new design strongly highlights the current tab, but subdues the other tabs into an ambiguous text and icon soup; they do not have shape. I'm having a hard enough time getting my parents to grasp the concept of tabbed browsing, must Mozilla and Google make it so much harder with this and the obfuscation of the new tab button?

I was convinced when they took off the back cover of the HTC Thunderbolt and resubmerged it. It would be nice if phones started being shipped with this preapplied. Didn't DuPont already make hydrophobic coating for pants?

I'm able to get to it through this link though:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/30/technology/hacker-attacks-like-stratfors-require-fast-response.html

don't require bulky air compressors and have been around for decades, and far surpass this in strength and precision.

Electroactive polymers

Move along people, nothing to see here but balloon animals.

Wow, I never knew that. It's amazing what Wikipedia gets wrong all the time. Dang that unarbitrated hogwash.

The purified water doesn't taste very good, but when it's the difference between hydrating and not hydrating, aka life and death, it's worth it.