Say whatever bad things you will about the PS3, but have you ever seen an alien bust out of an Xbox 360's torso? I didn't think so.

Just in time for cyborg surrealist Hans Rudi Giger's birthday (he's attributed with creating the trademark Alien look), a long-time Alien PS3 modder has completed his latest creation—this far from understated chestburster PS3.

Now if only Sony were ballsy enough to actually mass manufacture one of these mods, I just may be tacky enough to buy it. [Llamma's Forums via technabob]

Once upon a time, a President thought that taking humans "to the Moon and the planets beyond" was not only good for the economy of the country, but also would push US technology decades beyond everybody's else. He was right.

That President was John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Of course, he also wanted to go to the Moon to beat the Soviet Union and win a political war, but there were a thousand more reasons to make that trip. All of them were good. As a result of his political will, the Apollo program became the most complex, most advanced, most successful, most beneficial technology endeavor ever taken by the United States of America.

The economical benefits

It put the country decades ahead in every aspect of technology, and its effects, the technologies that came directly out of it, are now an indispensable part of our world: From the development of new metals and microprocessors, to clothing and medicine, the Apollo program touched every single aspect of our lives. Those developments are responsible for your smartphone, your desktop computer, your television set, and even your winter underpants.

But most importantly, the Apollo program inspired generations of kids to become scientists and engineers, indirectly pushing technology even further. Humans were going to the fucking Moon! How cool is that? I can't think of a more inspiring challenge than to conquer the stars, and those kids thought the same.

Like the program itself, that inspiration also brought long term benefits to the US economy. It made American universities thrive with new talent eager to push technology forward. We—not only America, but the entire world—are still enjoying the benefits that those students and the ones who followed brought to all of us decades after Apollo ended. Those kids went to work at IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Boeing, Lockheed, and the thousands of high tech companies that bring us the amazing technology that we use on a daily basis.

A big mistake

So while some people may want to convince you that President Obama's decision to fundamentally kill NASA's manned space program is a great move for the future of space, I'm here to tell you that all that is bullshit.

First, it's an excuse for a President who has failed to deliver on his promise of a better space program. His proposal is not better than what we had before. Actually, it's only good for the private space sector which, incidentally, for the most part is just reinventing the wheel that NASA and the Soviet Union space organization invented decades ago.

Even if you agree that the Constellation program wasn't going anywhere—many people disagree, like those who created the video above—you can't have the US manned spaceflight program disappear in favor of private space cabs to Earth's orbit. Even Burt Rutan—the poster child of private spaceflight, creator of Spaceshipone and Spaceshiptwo—agrees that this is an incredibly bad idea:

That is not a "NASA plan"; it is the proposed budget from the White House. It will likely be revised by the Congress. I am for NASA doing either true Research, or doing forefront Exploration, with taxpayer dollars.

Ares/Orion is more of a Development program than a Research program, so I am not depressed to see it disappear. I am concerned to see NASA manned spaceflight disappear, since they provided world leadership in the 60s and part of the 70s. The result was America's universities being the leader in cience/Engineering PhDs.

Many American kids will be depressed by the thought that our accomplishments will not be continued and thus America will fall deeper away from our previous leadership in Engineering/Science/Math. I believe our future success depends on our ability to motivate our youth.

I would support a restructuring of goals and funding so NASA can be allowed to perform like the 60s on space Research and on Exploration. There is not a shred of evidence that the President sees any value in those goals.

Rutan made those comments yesterday, and I can't agree more with him. It's good to see him—of all people—saying this out loud, especially while the rest of space private companies are gloating about how Obama's "think small" plan will increase their benefits in a big way.

Astronaut Tom Jones—who have been to space four times and has no interest in the private sector—has the same thoughts:

What student would pursue a career in space science or astronautics with the knowledge that the country is turning away from leadership in space?

He also argued in that no private company has launched any astronaut into space and won't be doing that for a very long time—a time in which we will depend on Russia. SpaceX, the only company launching something into orbit has a dismaying 40% success rate. How many years until the private sector reaches the same success rate as NASA? How many years until they put people in orbit? How many decades until a private company gets us to Mars? It just makes no sense except for those hoping to benefit from the move in the short term. A while all this happens, NASA's science programs are only getting a couple extra crumbles, not the core of the money.

Inspiring a new generation

In a world of fast forward, short attention spans, and materialism above all things, we need humans in space. Not just tweeting from orbit. But out there, on the Moon and Mars. And if the United States can't do this on its own, that's OK. In fact, that would be perfect: NASA should work together with the European Space Agency, the Russian Federal Space Agency, JAXA, and anyone who wants to achieve the greater good and really push humanity forward.

And yes, we need the satellites and the probes and the telescopes, absolutely, but you can't replace humans with probes. Not because humans would do a better job, but because robots photographing things is not the same as being there. Being there like everyone on Earth arrived to the Moon when Neil Armstrong put his foot on it.

From a bean counter point of view, if you do it right, the economical and technological benefits will be as great as those brought by Apollo, now and in the future. From the point of view of anyone who thinks that the world is about more than counting beans, the benefits are even more obvious than that. The fact is that photographs taken by robots neither push technology forward nor inspire entire generations or bring economical and technological benefits that reverberate through decades to come. That's what the humans in Apollo did.

Maybe Obama needs to watch the entire JFK's We Need to Go to the Moon speech, at the Rice Stadium in Houston, TX in the fall of 1962, and remember that the reason the United States chose to go to the moon:

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

Kennedy ended that speech with this:

Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, "Because it is there."

Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.

I can't possibly add anything else to his words.

You don't need to be a big shot licensee to develop an HDMI 1.4 compatible 3D product anymore. The powers that be have released the spec for public download, which I assume means that Chinese OEMs everywhere are going nuts at the moment. [HDMI via Engadget]

Darpa, the Pentagon's crazypants research arm, is taking shit to a whole new level: they're pumping money into developing synthetic organisms immune to death. Oh, except for the built-in genetic kill switch. Yikes.

Danger Room reports that Darpa is investing $6 million into the project, called "BioDesign."

As part of its budget for the next year, Darpa is investing $6 million into a project called BioDesign, with the goal of eliminating "the randomness of natural evolutionary advancement." The plan would assemble the latest bio-tech knowledge to come up with living, breathing creatures that are genetically engineered to "produce the intended biological effect." Darpa wants the organisms to be fortified with molecules that bolster cell resistance to death, so that the lab-monsters can "ultimately be programmed to live indefinitely."

Of course, Darpa's got to prevent the super-species from being swayed to do enemy work - so they'll encode loyalty right into DNA, by developing genetically programmed locks to create "tamper proof" cells. Plus, the synthetic organism will be traceable, using some kind of DNA manipulation, "similar to a serial number on a handgun." And if that doesn't work, don't worry. In case Darpa's plan somehow goes horribly awry, they're also tossing in a last-resort, genetically-coded kill switch.

Of course, this is no small task. Not only do you have the laws of nature to contend with, but you'll have an angry God tossing lightning bolts down upon you for trying to do his job for him. But really, this is some crazy ambitious science we're talking here. Be sure to read the full piece at Danger Room for the entire story. [Danger Room]

Amazon's ebook pricing structure has crumbled. Hachette's the third major publisher to push for the agency model, following MacMillan and HarperCollins: They'll set the ebook prices (higher, natch) and the bookseller takes a cut. The $9.99 ebook? Poof.

It looks the pricing model reportedly first proposed by Apple to publishers—from $12.99 to $14.99 as a suggested price for harcover bestsellers, though the publisher will set whatever price they want—is the way things are indeed going to shape up, so Steve Jobs wasn't idly riffing when he said the price difference between Kindle and iBooks would go away. MacMillan CEO John Sargent has specifically mentioned those same pricepoints as their baseline, so you can expect every other publisher will hew to that.

With a majority of the major publishers now going to the agency model, it's logical that the final two, Penguin and Simon & Schuster, won't be far behind, especially since they're a part of Steve's team. (HarperCollins hasn't officially switched, but Rupert Murdoch said on their earnings call they're renegotiating to that, so I'm counting it.) Three out of five, we're calling it: Amazon's dream of a flat $9.99 for ebooks has flatlined.

Amazon's price advantage over iBooks, also evaporated. Even though Amazon won't take losses on ebooks anymore to sell them cheaply, it's a bad situation for them, because they lose that marketshare-building advantage. (That is, Amazon's happy to spend $50 subsidizing cheap books to hook you into Kindle for life. If, eventually, they're the only game in town, like iTunes was for music, then they'd have the power to push back against publishers anyway.)

Amazon has two months before the iPad launches. They better move fast. [Media Bistro via MediaMemo]

Do you know what type of organization that would deny you a fax—by sending you back another fax—to tell you the first fax you sent was upside down?

If you guessed the US Patent & Trademark Office, you probably work at the US Patent & Trade Office, or deal with them regularly. The relevant text is:

The faxed submission was received upside down. We are unable to continue processing these images.

So we have a few assumptions we can make about the setup over at the USPTO. They either still take manual faxes, as in stuff prints out in reams of paper over in the bowels of some bleak office structure, or they take faxes digitally and don't have the expertise to use an image rotation program to rotate the damn image so it's right-side-up. Either way, it's hard to think of a situation that reflects worse on the people who are supposed to be judging our society's technological advancements based on merit. [BNET]

You've made a PS3 controller out of a Nokia N900, but all you really want is to use a Sixaxis controller to play emulated games on the device. Thanks to these instructions, now you finally can. [Aberration]

Apparently Google is posting videos to showcase the story of its Nexus One smartphone. This first one discusses the concept and design of the device. [Thanks, Erick Tseng!]

Google Earth's historical imagery feature has a new batch of pictures. You can now witness how some cities looked in the middle of World War II and compare them to the places you may live in today.

The Google LatLong Blog explains the reason for the addition of this feature:

The historical imagery feature gives people a unique perspective on the events of the past using today's latest mapping technology. We hope that this World War II imagery will enable all of us to understand our shared history in a new way and to learn more about the impact of the war on the development of our cities.

Looking at the images, it's tough to imagine that those hopes won't come true:

Awe inspiring, isn't it? [Google LatLong Blog via Wired]

In response to complaints regarding black level performance in its plasma TVs, Panasonic has issued a statement admitting that "background brightness will increase," but described the change as "automatic" over the TVs' lifespan and being intended to mainta optimal performance.

It also said that newer plasma TVs will include a "more gradual change in Black Level over time," but made no mention of a fix for existing plasma TVs, whose owners first noted the issue at enthusiast Web site AVS forum.

Here's the entire statement as e-mailed to CNET, entitled "Automatic Control of Contrast over Operational Lifetime."

Panasonic Viera plasma HDTVs deliver exceptional picture performance throughout the lifetime of these products. Various elements and material characteristics of all electronic displays change with use over time. In order to achieve the optimal picture performance throughout the life of the set, Panasonic Viera plasma HDTVs incorporate an automatic control which adjusts an internal driving voltage at predetermined intervals of operational hours.

As a result of this automatic voltage adjustment, background brightness will increase from its initial value. After several years of typical use, the internal material characteristics will stabilize and no additional automatic voltage adjustments are required. The Black Level at this stabilized point will yield excellent picture performance.

The newest Viera plasma HDTVs incorporate an improved automatic control which applies the voltage adjustments in smaller increments. This results in a more gradual change in the Black Level over time.

More Questions Than Answers

I first contacted Panasonic seeking comment on January 11 , and the company has not responded until this statement, which was e-mailed to me Wednesday, February 3. Though arguably better than silence, the statement leaves too many major questions unanswered.

I have followed up with Panasonic seeking those answers, asking, among other questions, if/when a fix is planned for current TVs to address owner complaints; at what "predetermined intervals" do the the voltages increase; when do the materials stabilize; what the quantitative difference is between the initial black level and the "stabilized point"; which are the "newest Viera plasma HDTVs" referred to in the statement; and what should owners do who are unsatisfied with the picture quality of their TVs. I'll update this story when I receive a reply.

The Big Picture for Plasma

As I mentioned in the original report, I haven't seen a Panasonic plasma affected by the lighter black levels yet, so it's impossible for me to reply to the big question of whether the loss of black level performance is significant enough to make the TV pale in comparison to its competitors. Many eyewitnesses believe it is, judging from the original thread at AVS forum and from a few of the comments on the report, but other owners are less definitive or report no change.

I began a long-term test using two 2009 Panasonic plasmas in my lab, but it will be at least a month before I can expect to notice any change in black level. Of course, I'll report back when that happens.

I'll also report that since 2005, my main TV at home has been a Panasonic TH-50PHD8UK plasma, and I've never noticed a change in its black level performance. At CNET, we didn't hear of this issue until we read the reports on AVS forum, and to our knowledge, past Panasonic plasmas, as well as models by LG, Pioneer and Samsung, have delivered basically consistent black levels over time.

That's why, despite Panasonic's statement that "all electronic displays change with use over time" and that after said change its sets still have "excellent picture performance," I tend to believe owners who describe the black level increase in the company's latest plasmas as unusual and ultimately detrimental to picture quality.

A quote included in my original report accords perfectly with much of Panasonic's eventual statement, enforcing that belief. In it a respected calibrator who goes by the screen name D-Nice, citing sources within the company, called the too-aggressive voltage increase a "goof" on the part of Panasonic engineering. The closest Panasonic has come to admitting as much is contained in its reference to an improved, more gradual change in new models.

Now What?

My main job at CNET is to provide buying advice regarding TVs, and Panasonic plasmas were one of my go-to recommendations. The 50-inch G10 was the most popular TV on CNET during 2009, and the V10 series earned the only Editors' Choice award I handed out to any flat-panel TV last year. In fact, after I reviewed the 2009 models, my dad bought a TC-P42X1, two of my colleagues at CNET, Matthew Moskovciak and John Falcone, bought TC-P50G10s and another, David Carnoy, bought a TC-P65S1 (we're keeping tabs on the black levels of those sets, too). It's safe to say that many readers of this Web site did the same thing dad, John, Matt and David did: buy a solid-to-excellent HDTV for a good price, and be perfectly happy with the picture quality. Judging from reader reaction, that happiness may be in jeopardy.

Nothing halts a shopper's reach for his wallet better than doubt, so I believe it's in Panasonic's best interest to answer those lingering questions. Until that happens, it's going to be hard for me to recommend the company's TVs without a degree of uncertainty.

This story originally appeared on CNET

Frustrated after seeing his father try to make a replacement car key without the ID code, Steve Randall and Ted Schwarzkopf created the Electronic Key Impressioner. If it works, it could be great news for locksmiths. And maybe thieves too.

The Electronic Key Impressioner plugs into the car keyhole and, after aligning it properly, it connects with a computer via USB, sucking up the code after you select the car type you are trying to crack. For now, it only work for Fords.

The key cloner will only be sold to authorized locksmiths. Randall says that their device will have to connect to the Internet to work, so if it falls into the wrong hands, it could be deactivated remotely. Sadly, if history has told us anything, is that no matter how secure you think your system is, there will always be people capable of cracking it. [Popular Mechanics]

If you go out to party with your friends and leave your significant other at home, chances are that he or she wouldn't be very happy. Fortunately, here's the perfect solution.

The video is in Spanish, so read below to understand what's happening before playing it

The promotional team of Andes—a very popular beer in Argentina—came up with it. They noticed that, once guys get a girlfriend, they don't go out with their friends as much as before. The girlfriends just don't like their men going out with their brute friends to get drunk. As a result, beer consumption drops.

To solve this, they created the Teletransporter. Granted, it's not a real teletransporter, but it's good enough: A soundproof booth with an integrated sound system controlled by a touchscreen. The sound system offers different ambient sounds, which get played at the touch of a button. The beer company installed several of these in bars and clubs all over the Argentinian city of Mendoza.

Now imagine that you—girl or boy—are in the bar and get a call from your wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend. You can a) answer the call and get crucified later, b) don't answer the call and get crucified later, or c) go into the Teletransporter booth, choose a lie, press the option, and then pick up the phone as the ambient sound changes. Something like this:

I wouldn't be surprised if these Transporters get installed in bars all over the world, in the style of old phone booths. [Pagina2 - Thank you, Rubén]

In former VP Dick Brass's stabbing assault on Microsoft, he pointed to how his tablet projects were strangled to death by competing groups inside the company. So it's interesting to see the record of infighting go back further.

First, Microsoft didn't give Brass as many engineers as he wanted—just six, instead of the 20 he wanted. (He did manage to snag two guys worked at Xerox's nigh-mythical PARC, the birthplace of the GUI that inspired the Macintosh.) Consequently, the team ran into issues like handwriting recognition that only worked half the time, and a confusing interface, according to user tests.

BusinessWeek also reported back then that Office group wanted to focus on their own applications, even though the tablet group knew having software ready to go was key. Bill Gates went for the weak compromise, an add-on pack with tablet-specific features. This seems to support Brass's allegations in the NYT op/ed that the VP of Office at the time "refused to modify the popular Office applications to work properly with the tablet." Ironically, the person who shut down Brass appears to be Steven Sinofsky, current president of Windows—the guy who turned the division around and gave us Windows 7.

But the problem now isn't that Microsoft doomed their tablet PCs to failure 7 years ago, it's that they still haven't solved their tablet problems today. [BusinessWeek]

The math itself doesn't make much sense, but I like the concept of this formula to calculate the real size of your gadget. One thing is clear: the Apple fanboy constant automatically sets the weigh to near-zero. [Not Quite Wrong]

According to a leak spotted by Ars, if you buy Microsoft Office 2007 anytime between March 5 and September 30 of this year, and you activate the product and save your dated receipt, you can get Office 2010 for free. Ars has more details, but slow down, there's a catch: The info was yanked after it was published, and Microsoft now won't say whether it's legit or not. I'm guessing it is. Whether you believe it or not, play it safe and don't buy any version of Office until March 5. [Ars Technica via TechFlash]

I'd buy an iPad just to read comic books. Think I'm nuts? I probably am, but see how you feel after this first look at what Panelfly, maker of a popular comic book iPhone app, is building for the iPad.

Instead of simply scaling up the existing iPhone app, the folks from Panelfly put their heads together with the Sugarcube dev team and brainstormed. With all the talk of the iPad and how it could restore comic books to their former glory, they realized that they needed to revamp the app and make a version specifically for the iPad. This way they could take full advantage of the device's screen size and provide a new way of purchasing and interacting with the content.

The way the Panelfly iPhone app works is that you download the app for free from the app store and then add comics to your library through in-app purchases. Stephen Lynch, CTO and designer at Panelfly, hinted that the company is currently exploring several different purchase models for the iPad version, but was unfortunately unable to elaborate even when I tried to coax out whether there'd be a subscription option.

As far as reading and navigating content on the new iPad app goes, let's just say it'll blow us all away. From what Stephen was able to share with me, Panelfly "didn't want to stray too far from the native Apple UI elements, [they] wanted to create something that was [theirs] as well as a platform that gave the content the respect it deserves." And from the looks and sound of it? They've succeeded.

Be sure to click on the images in the gallery for the full-sized view. It's worth it.

Call me a geeky comic book lover, but apps like this one are what I'm looking forward to when it comes to the iPad. The gadget won't replace my computer, it won't replace my TV, and it won't replace any other device I've got around the house. But it will be what I sit down with when I want to catch up on some comics, magazines, journal articles, and what will be formerly known as "print" media.

A tiny but significant factoid in Sony's earnings report from the WSJ: "Sony loses about six cents for every dollar of PS3 hardware sales."

Educated guesser of component prices iSuppli had deduced that Sony was finally eking out a little bit of profit on every PS3 Slim they sold, thanks to lower costs, but apparently, not the case! They're hoping to cut production costs by 15 percent by March 2011. Hey, at least PS3 sales were up 44 percent. On the other hand, no one's buying the PSP Go. Sony cut their sales estimates by third for the year.

Sony did actually make money this quarter—the first time in a year—but it was by essentially ravaging the company to cut over $3 billion in costs: A fifth of its plants are gone, along with 20,000 jobs. [WSJ]

Oh Pluto, Pluto... You may not be a planet anymore, but that doesn't mean we don't love you. Even while you look like a big moldy ball of mud in this image capture by Hubble, the most detailed to date.

And here I was, thinking Pluto was this big blue ice sphere only good to make Caipirinhas and Mojitos. According to NASA, however, its color has changed. The hue shift happens over a two year period, in which the the ice of one pole get sun light, melts, and then refreezes on the other pole. Quite the manic depressive non-planet, this Pluto. According to NASA," the overall color is believed to be a result of ultraviolet radiation from the distant sun breaking up methane that is present on Pluto's surface, leaving behind a dark and red carbon-rich residue."

NASA's images of the faraway ex-planet will help to calibrate the New Horizons spacecraft, which will pass Pluto in 2015. They will use Hubble's images to set the exposure on board New Horizons, as it races past it. So fast, in fact, that it will only be able to photograph one of the hemispheres up close. [NASA]

How did one of the world's largest search engine companies wind up deciding to collaborate with the one federal agency most renowned for spooky spying?

Let's review. Someone hacked Google. Google hacked right back. Then Google decided to piss some people off by refusing to continue censoring search results in China—the country of origin for the original cyberattacks.

Now the big G is working with some G-men in hopes of gaining "more certainty about the identity of the attackers." According to the NYT, there's also a rather good reason that Google choose the NSA out of all the government agencies around:

By turning to the N.S.A., which has no formal legal authority to investigate domestic criminal acts, instead of the Department of Homeland Security, which does have such authority, Google is clearly seeking to avoid having its search engine, e-mail and other Web services regulated as part of the nation's "critical infrastructure."

That along with remarks that the agreement between Google and the NSA "will not permit the agency to have access to information belonging to Google users" is hardly enough to comfort any paranoid minds, but what are we supposed to do? The deal's made. [NY Times]

Raising questions about the definition of a vegetative state as well as what to do with people in them, a new study observed the brain of an unconscious patient responding to yes and no questions just like normal.

Of the 54 test subjects in the New England Journal of Medicine study, one man who had been diagnosed as being in a vegetative state some five years earlier accurately answered yes or no questions. The answers came by way of a brain scan conducted by an MRI machine.

As shown in the image above, answering "yes" and "no" registers activity in different parts of the brain. When the patient was asked if his father's name was Thomas, the scan showed his brain indicating "no." When asked if his father's name was Alexander, the scan showed the correct answer of "yes."

The study brings up some sticky issues involving the ethics of treating vegetative and seemingly vegetative patients. But it also provides scientists with rare insight into the elusive nature of human consciousness itself. [Pop Sci]