I’ll be on today’s episode of NPR’s Science Friday! Ira Flatow hosted a round-table panel discussion with Paul Raeburn, Mariette DiChristina (the new editor-in-chief of Scientific American magazine), Wired senior editor Nick Thompson, and me. We chatted about the year in science news including social networking (like Twitter), privacy, Hubble, the Moon, and lots of other things, too. I had a fun time recording it, and I expect it’ll be fun to listen to as well.
It airs on NPR from 2:00 – 4:00 Eastern time, and should be available online too.
Asus's subsidiary is coming out with this colorful robot vacuum called the E-Clean. It includes a bacterial killing UV light, a fragrance sprayer and remote control. It's set for China and Taiwan only for a mere $150.
The moment you unpackage a new smartphone is a magical one. Don't let the moment right after that, when you realize that it's practically useless out of the box, cancel that out. Here's everything you need to know:
A Case: They look goofy, Jason hates them, and they screw with your device's carefully designed curves. But here's the thing: smartphones are fragile. They aren't like dumbphones, and a single fall—especially with devices with a glass screen—can poop all over your new smartphone party. Until you're trained, play it safe. Wrap your unit. Case brand isn't important, so just take your pick from your local Best Buy or wherever. Just make sure your device's corners are covered, because it's edge impacts that break the most glass. Just remember, you're stuck in a multi-thousand dollar contract with this device, which itself would costs hundreds of dollars to replace. It's actually kind of terrifying! Pretend it's a baby, if that helps.
Headphones: Your smartphone is now your primary media player, too, so you're going to need to ditch the headphones or headset it came with. Yes, they all suck; no, your phone's aren't the one exception. If you don't care about a microphone, treat yourself to a decent pair of 
Storage: Phones either come with internal storage, like the Pre or the iPhone, or taunt you with "expandable" storage, which pretty much means they've got an empty microSD slot. If your phone comes with less than 2GB of space and has said slot, you need to fill it. Buying a microSD card is a little different than buying a regular SD card, because speed doesn't really matter, and nothing you're using your phone demands particularly high transfer speeds. This is a place to store your music, photos and videos—that's it. Buy these 
Cables: Pick up a spare charging cable for your phone. For most smartphones this is a simple mini/microUSB cable, while for iPhones it's an iPod dock connector. Why worry about the spare? Think of it this way: if you lose your only iPod cable, you can't listen to music until you buy another one. If you lose your only iPhone cable, you're out of touch with the rest of the world in a matter of hours.
A dock: Again, people have a tendency to confuse their PMPs with their phones, which may look and act similar, but are used in a completely different way. Unless you want to dock your smartphone near your bed to use as an alarm, it's going to be charging—and syncing—with your computer whenever it's not in your pocket. An impulse-purchased dock will, in all likelihood, live a lonely life. Don't let this sad thing happen!
A branded navigation mount: These are almost always overpriced, and all they really do is hold your phone in your line of sight. Just buy a 
Bluetooth anything: Bluetooth headsets can make anyone look like a dweebish soccer dad, and while they might make chatting on the phone while driving more legal, they don't really make it much safer. Just hold your phone like a normal human, put it on speakerphone, or take the call later. You should avoid 
Contacts: Somehow, in over two decades of cellphone development, we haven't settled on a simple way to transfer contacts from one phone to another. Here's how you should proceed through this somehow-still-painful process:
Email: Email, you'll find, is one of the best things about owning a smartphone. Setting up your email varies from smartphone to smartphone (
Calendars: If you keep a Google Calendar, having it sync with your smartphone is a revelation. Android phones will automatically sync with your default Google account's calendars, as will the Pre, while the iPhone will need to be configured with 
Media and Syncing: Most smartphones rely on some kind of desktop software to transfer personal info, music, video and photos to and from the handset. For the iPhone, this basically means downloading iTunes—which you have to do anyway. For BlackBerry, this means downloading 
Converting Video: You can't just copy your torrented videos or home movies over to your smartphone; you need to downsample those videos, stat. Just download 
iPhone: First stop, Gizmodo's 
Android: It's got the second best app selection, which is to say there's some really great stuff out there. Our 
BlackBerry: We cover the 
Palm: We've just pulled one of our patented "Essential" roundups fresh out of the oven, so 
Windows Mobile: App development for WinMo isn't exactly picking up nowadays but there's a tremendous backlog of useful reviews and materials at 
How to keep you smartphone clean: These little machines are fantastic at collecting fingerprints, dust and grime. 
Screen refreshes faster than e-ink readers
It's cheap (relatively)
Slow
You got a new Mac for Christmas? Awesome. But don't let Justin Long's smarmy face fool you, it doesn't just give you a warm hug and set itself up. Here are 10 things you need to do pronto:
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