Video games take off as a spectator sport

Editorial: "Give video games a sporting chance" EVERY sport has its idols and superstars. Now video gaming is getting them too. Professional gaming, or e-sports, exploded in popularity in the US and Europe last year. ...

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Shaken survivors remember Italy cruise disaster

GIGLIO ISLAND, Italy: Shaken survivors and grieving relatives of the 32 victims of the Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster began arriving on the island of Giglio for a first anniversary commemoration of the tragedy on Sunday."It's terrible coming back here," one survivor, Clara Stara, said in the tiny Italian port where the giant hulk of a ship twice as big as the Titanic still lies keeled...

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A headphone amp and USB digital-to-analog converter for just $99 each

The Schiit Magni and Modi (left) and Schiit Asgard (right).(Credit:Steve Guttenberg/CNET)Schiit Audio's very first product, the Asgard headphone amplifier, left me shaken and stirred back in 2010. It sold for $249, looked and sounded amazing, and to top things off, it was made in the U.S. -- not just assembled here. Most of the Asgard's parts are sourced from U.S. companies. The Asgard is still in...

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Pictures: Civil War Shipwreck Revealed by Sonar

Photograph by Jesse CancelmoA fishing net, likely only decades old, drapes over machinery that once connected the Hatteras' pistons to its paddle wheels, said Delgado.From archived documents, the NOAA archaeologist learned that Blake, the ship's commander, surrendered as his ship was sinking. "It was listing to port, [or the left]," Delgado said. The Alabama took the wounded and the rest of the crew...

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Poisoned Lottery Winner's Kin Were Suspicious

Urooj Khan had just brought home his $425,000 lottery check when he unexpectedly died the following day. Now, certain members of Khan's family are speaking publicly about the mystery -- and his nephew told ABC News they knew something was not right."He was a healthy guy, you know?" said the nephew, Minhaj Khan said. "He worked so hard. He was always going about his business...

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Astrophile: Zombie stars feed on Earth-like exoplanets

Astrophile is our weekly column on curious cosmic objects, from the solar system to the far reaches of the multiverse Objects: Polluted white dwarfsDiet: Small rocky planets ...

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PSA International sees 5.2% increase in container throughput in 2012

SINGAPORE : PSA International has reported an increase in container throughput at its ports worldwide, despite the slowdown in global trade.PSA handled 60.06 million Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) of containers last year, a rise of 5.2 per cent from 2011.Throughput at PSA's flagship Singapore terminals rose 6.4 per cent to 31.26 million TEUs.Activity at its terminals elsewhere rose...

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New intrigue on trail of cheaper iPhone

The mystery of whether Apple will come out with a lower-priced iPhone has taken a new twist.The Reuters news agency this morning cryptically withdrew a story it had written yesterday pegged to remarks purportedly made by Apple's Phil Schiller in China. That story had been based on a report in the Shanghai Evening News, which Reuters now says, ever so tersely, "was subsequently updated with substantial...

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Google and Twitter Help Track Influenza Outbreaks

This flu season could be the longest and worst in years. So far 18 children have died from flu-related symptoms, and 2,257 people have been hospitalized. Yesterday Boston Mayor Thomas Menino declared a citywide public health emergency, with roughly 700 confirmed flu cases—ten times the number the city saw last year."It arrived five weeks early, and it's shaping up to be a pretty bad...

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Teen to Hero Teacher: 'I Don't Want to Shoot You'

A California teacher'sbrave conversation with a 16-year-old gunman who had opened fire on his classroom bullies allowed 28 other students to quickly escape what could have been a massacre.Science teacher Ryan Heber calmly confronted the teenager after he shot and critically wounded a classmate, whom authorities say had bullied the boy for more than year at Taft Union High School."I...

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Unborn sharks freeze to avoid predators

Michael Marshall, environment reporter(Image: Ryan Kempster/PLoS One)Faced with a dangerous predator, baby sharks hold their breath and stay still - even before they've been born.Bamboo sharks (Chiloscyllium punctatum) lay eggs, unlike many sharks that give birth to live young. As a result, the developing sharklings are more vulnerable to being eaten.New research shows that the shark embryos can...

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Football: Adebayor included as Africa Cup squads named

JOHANNESBURG: Emmanuel Adebayor will play at the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations after he was included in Togo's squad as the 16 sides finalised their 23-man squads.Mahamadou Diarra will meanwhile miss the tournament, and a late-minute change left Brown Ideye thrilled and Nigeria team-mate Raheem Lawal devastated.It was all part of the drama ahead of the January 19-February 10 tournament that...

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Microsoft: Yep, we bought R2 Studios

It's official. Microsoft has purchased ID8 Group R2 Studios, the home automation startup, for an undisclosed amount.The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Microsoft had beat Google and Apple to the punch in the quest to buy R2 Studios. But it wasn't until Microsoft issued the confirmation today that the 'Softies confirmed the deal was done.R2 Studios founder Blake Krikorian will be corporate...

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Embryonic Sharks Freeze to Avoid Detection

Jane J. Lee Although shark pups are born with all the equipment they'll ever need to defend themselves and hunt down food, developing embryos still stuck in their egg cases are vulnerable to predators. But a new study finds that even these baby sharks can detect a potential predator, and play possum to avoid being eaten.Every living thing gives off a weak electrical field. Sharks can sense...

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Whales Trapped Under Sea Ice Free Themselves

The killer whales trapped under ice in a remote Quebec village reached safety after the floes shifted on Hudson Bay, according to the mayor's office in Inukjuak.Water opened up around the area where the orcas had been coming up for air and the winds seemed to have shifted overnight, creating a passageway to the open water six miles away."This is great news," Johnny Williams,...

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Ghostly galaxies burned off mysterious cosmic fog

Ghostly galaxies in the distant universe are almost certainly the culprits behind a mysterious change in intergalactic gas that allows us to see across the cosmos. Although these galaxies are too faint to be spotted by current telescopes, future instruments could soon reveal their presence. ...

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Hong Kong leader survives impeachment bid

HONG KONG: Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmakers failed in an unprecedented bid on Wednesday to impeach the city's embattled Beijing-backed leader, after they accused him of breaking housing laws and urged him to quit.The city's first impeachment motion, which accused Leung Chun-ying of lying, dereliction of duty and serious breaches of the law in a row stemming from illegal structures at...

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Off-the-beaten-track at CES 2013

Samsung. Panasonic. Sony. Intel. Qualcomm. All have big booths pitching smartphones, smart TVs, smart tablets, smart cameras -- you name it. But my first day at CES 2013 was spent wandering around exploring things from companies you've likely never heard of. And there's some interesting stuff out there!Most of my time on Tuesday at CES was spent wandering the South Hall. What I'll cover below are...

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2012: Hottest Year on Record for Continental U.S.

Temperatures across the continental United States soared in 2012 to an all-time high, making last year the warmest year on record for the country by a wide margin, scientists say. (Related: "July Hottest Month on Record in U.S.—Warming and Drought to Blame?")"2012 marks the warmest year on record for the contiguous U.S., with the year consisting of a record warm spring, the second warmest...

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Hospitals Flooded With Flu Patients

U.S. emergency rooms have been overwhelmed with flu patients, turning away some of them and others with non-life-threatening conditions for lack of space.Forty-one states are battling widespread influenza outbreaks, including Illinois, where six people -- all older than 50 -- have died, according to the state's Department of Public Health.At least 18 children in the country...

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Mock Mars mission reveals salty surprise

They survived a "mission to Mars" that helped us understand the challenges of long-term isolation. Now the crew who participated in a mock trip to the Red Planet may have helped overturn a long-standing assumption of how our body deals with dietary salt. ...

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