san francisco

The Golden Gate Bridge turned 75 this past weekend, with a spectacular fireworks show to celebrate.

Unfortunately, some of us were home with spring colds and could only listen mournfully to the endless booming while imagining the historic show that was passing us by. Luckily, though, there's another bridge birthday happening in the Bay Area, with a related light-based extravaganza which, if all goes according to plan, should be pretty amazing -- and pretty hard to miss.

As our friends at Wired noted recently, artist Leo Villareal and his supporters want to honor the neighboring Bay Bridge on its 75th birthday by festooning it with 25,000 individually programmable white LED lights. "The Bay Lights" project will create a gigantic, shimmering "light sculpture" that responds to environmental stimuli such as the underlying water, the overriding traffic, and the surrounding weather, and will remain in place for two years.… Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--It's one of the wonders of the world, and one of the most photographed things on the planet. And this Sunday, the Golden Gate Bridge turns 75.

While New York may have dozens of world-famous landmarks, and Paris is, well, Paris, San Francisco -- a great city in its own right -- may be best known for its outstanding red bridge, a masterpiece of workmanship that connects the city to its northern neighbor, Marin County.

In the late 1800s, the only way to cross the Golden Gate was by ferry, and those who ran the local vessels were … Read more

OAKLAND -- Last week marked the 75th anniversary of the Hindenburg disaster, and the end of the golden era of zeppelin passenger travel.

But anyone who lives in or around the San Francisco Bay Area is no doubt aware that these days, zeppelin travel is alive and well. That's thanks to Airship Ventures, a company run out of the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., which operates one of the world's three airships, all of which were build by Zeppelin NT, a company located in Friedrichshafen, Germany.

Today, during an event hosted by the cloud storage … Read more

Robotspeak does not sell actual robots -- though I never tired of getting that question from people who wandered through the door. There are many delightful things you buy on San Francisco's historic Haight Street, but to the best of my knowledge, robots are not one of them.

In spite of the occasional befuddlement of robot shoppers, Robotspeak is a fitting name for a shop that specializes in the type of unique audio gear and music recording software perfect for composing symphonies of synthetic bleeps and squelches.

Robotspeak's walls are lined with synthesizers, drum machines, mixers, effect pedals, and MIDI controllers. But more importantly, the shop is filled with the kind of geektastic sound toys that bigger stores wouldn't risk carrying.

So why am I writing about Robotspeak here on Crave? Well, I might be biased, but I think a shop like this is even more precious and worthy of geek attention than the sum of the gear contained inside it. Like Crave itself, Robotspeak is a place for a curious cross section of obsessives and coveters of technology. … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Apple today began adorning the outside of San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts ahead of its media event next week.

That event, which is widely expected to bring the next version of its iPad, is once again taking place here. Apple has used it as its venue of choice for the iPad, as well as for its music-themed events that have brought new versions of the iPod.

In typical fashion, Apple has covered up the front of the building with its logo, once again choosing a multicolored paint splatter design similar to the one it used … Read more

Peter Ha takes a cab straight to our studio from the airport, so we'll forgive him if he drops a few expletives during today's recording. He also received an invite to an Apple event in San Francisco next week, so it looks like the West Coast can't wait to welcome him back!

Peter deals in tech news everyday at The Daily so we'll start things off with an offbeat chat about the 2011 Razzie nominations, an awards tribute to the year's worst movies.

No surprise here, but Adam Sandler broke the record with 11 nominations for his "performance" in "Jack and Jill."… Read more

There are many reasons that Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election, and one is because he was seen as being a trend-setter in finding ways to incorporate new technologies in his campaign.

Now, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, Obama is turning to technology's epicenter in a bid to ensure he stays on the cutting edge. The Chronicle reported today that the president's re-election campaign has opened a technology field office in San Francisco, a move that may be unprecedented in politics.

"We learned from 2008 that using the talents and skills of our supporters was … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--The Super Bowl takes place in just over 72 hours, and Brian Grey and his lieutenants are trying to plan what is by far their most important day of the year.

Grey is the CEO of Bleacher Report, one of the largest sports Web sites in the U.S., and a place nearly 26 million people visited in January for the latest insights into their favorite teams.

Unlike many sports publications, Bleacher Report doesn't concentrate on breaking news with a team of paid writers. Instead, it relies on sports enthusiasts around the country and the world who are … Read more

Beat the Traffic will unveil Beat The Traffic 2.0 app for the iPhone at the Macworld iWorld 2012 event being held January 26-28 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

A team of 100 beta-testers will begin using the new Beat the Traffic app, which lets travelers view real-time traffic conditions--such as accidents, traffic congestion, and roadwork delays--and adjust their travel plans.

The new Beat the Traffic app offers interactive maps and additional surface street details; it also lets motorists retrieve travel times and live camera views.

The app will be available for free for the iPhone and iPad … Read more