Wired

Jonathan Abrams’ last startup, Friendster, was one of the first social-networking companies to attract an audience of users numbering in the millions. Launched in 2003, the site grew quickly through word of mouth, as people rushed to connect with their friends online. Abrams became one of the most v

At Microsoft’s Silicon Valley headquarters Monday evening, a couple hundred entrepreneurs and investors gathered to schmooze, eat mashed-potato-and-roast-beef hors-d’oeuvres from martini glasses, and spend a few desultory moments looking over the eight companies on display in the middle of the meeti

Summer is all about the right mix of sun and surf. It’s the perfect time – and light – for fun pics but can be brutal on a typical camera’s innards. That’s why you need a waterproof shooter. Unlike standard models that are often accessorized with a cumbersome dive case, these cams come ready to […]

A new generation of backcountry gear offers the perfect balance of high performance and low, low weight. Your back will be ecstatic. Big Agnes Seedhouse Superlight 2It might not be blizzard-worthy, but this sub-3.5-pound, two-person tent is as easy to pitch as it is to haul. And for three-season cam

To decode da Vinci, you need a firm grasp of art. To learn from Archimedes, you need to get your hands on something a bit more sophisticated. Like a synchrotron that accelerates electrons to nearly the speed of light to produce x-rays. At least, that’s what scientists at the Stanford Linear Accelera

Kings of All Media Adding a computer to your home theater no longer means crossing your fingers and hoping for the best. All of the rigs here handle video and audio with aplomb, and even play saved movies while burning DVDs. For the Windows PCs, Intel’s Viiv (rhymes with five) standard promises plug

Most digital cameras, regardless of resolution, have puny image sensors. Who cares? You should. Bigger sensors, like the DSC-R1’s, take clearer pictures, because there’s less interference between pixels. This cam takes 10.3-megapixel images that are remarkably rich and free of noise. It also has a t

If you wanted to catch a few particles of comet dust speeding through the vacuum of space at 6 kilometers per second — without damaging or destroying those particles — how would you do it? Faced with exactly this problem, scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory focused on aerogel — an extremely

For most people, open source is a synonym for free software. But for programmers, open source is about sharing code, building on the work of others and not having to reinvent the wheel — at least, that’s the ideal. In practice, code reuse remains very low, because it’s often too hard for programmers

Electronic books have traditionally gone straight from the manufacturer to the remainders bin — but the market has never gone away entirely, despite years of tepid sales and failed predictions. Now a new device from Sony is generating buzz worthy of a Stephen King novel. Some people are even wonderi