Browser vendors are constantly on the lookout for things to brag about. While just about any type of bragging rights are welcome, vendors are mostly found crowing about either speed, security or HTML5 compliance. This time it’s Google’s turn to break into a victory lap, for Chrome has just been crowned the most secure browser in a study conducted by Accuvant Labs.
Remember that nifty little “Skinput” interface that researchers at Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University were working on about a year and a half ago? It registered touches made to your skin, allowing you to use your body as an input device – hence its name. Well, it turns out that’s not all CMU and Microsoft were working on. They’re working on a device called “OmniTouch” that projects interfaces onto any surface – and includes multitouch touchscreen capabilities. That’s right, you can dial home on a loaf of bread.
Think the 4TB hard drives hitting the market now are impressive? You’re right. But one group of researchers say that’s nothing compared to the storage capacities that could be unlocked using a new technique they’ve discovered. Dr Joel Yang and his team from the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering in Singapore claim that simply by adding table salt to an existing lithographic process, they have come up with a way of increasing the information density of HDDs six-fold. Basically, 6TB of info could fit onto today's 1TB platters.
Gamers routinely save the world, though the goal isn't always as ambitious. Quests can be as simple as running errands, escorting a high profile figure from point A to point B, or hunting for specific ingredients. No matter how big or little the tasks, gamers get it done, and not just in the virtual world either. To wit, it took a group of gamers a mere three weeks to solve a puzzle in AIDS research that scientists have been working on for years.
Fibre Optic cables have revolutionized the way we move data, spewing bits at the speed of light across the globe in a matter of milliseconds. The technology behind the cables is pretty impressive, but amazingly, scientists from the City University of New York believe they have found a way to further increase the bandwidth on existing cables by 
Ah, the bathroom. Those little bursts of personal time are some of the best moments of the day, an all-too-brief period when screaming kids and jerk coworkers leave you alone and the worries of real life fade away, letting you game on your smartphone in peace. Well, at least until you plunk that smartphone into the toilet, that is. The New York Times R&D Lab’s hard at work to make sure that your Android keeps dry; it's whipped up a “Magic Mirror” designed to help you get a hands-free Interwebs fix in the john.
Hey, Tremors fans; we still don't know if you're actually only six connections away from having a BBQ with Kevin Bacon in your backyard. If you're looking to advance the technology that could one day put that question to rest, though, you should check out the Small World Experiment. No, it doesn't have anything to do with Disney rides; it's a joint venture between Yahoo! and Facebook to put the whole "six degrees of separation" thing to the test by tapping into the social network's 750 million member-strong user base.
For the Knights of the Round Table, the holy grail is, well, the holy grail. The holy grail for computer geeks is a little different, but perhaps just as legendary – quantum computing. While super performing PCs powered by quantum bits sound good in theory, achieving results in the real world is a lot harder than just talking about it. Fortunately, that doesn't stop scientists. A team of researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have managed to entangle two ions using a small microwave device, which could be a key step in the quest for quantum computing.
Whether you're chatting it up with a far-away friend or, um, hanging out in a Google+ Hangout, we all know that webcams can supply tons of digital video fun. But did you know webcams can improve your health, too? Neither did we, at least not until we heard of a nifty project involving webcams, 60 office workers, and a research team from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. Sit up and pay attention!
We've already covered a new ThinkGeek gadget today, so let's keep the "Think Geek" ball rolling and talk about a concept that keeps real-life geeks awake at night, jittering at the thought of its awesomeness: quantum computing. Even though Lockheed Martin signed up to buy an underperforming "Maybe it's a quantum computer" from D-Wave One a few months back, the face-melting power we think of when uttering the words "Quantum computer" is still a long ways off. A pair of researchers at Purdue University just inched it a little bit closer to reality, however.
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