Future tech

STANFORD, Calif. -- Self-driving cars are expected to save lives: a vehicle driven by a human will experience, on average, a crash every 160,000 miles or so. It's only a matter of time, advocates say, before robots become better drivers than us.

That is, if the lawyers let them. Industry insiders are already fretting about a host of legal problems that could bedevil robot car makers once a sufficient number of their creations take to the roads. Product liability, tort law, negligence, foreseeable harm, patent encumbrance, and design defects are only some of the concerns.

"The longer … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Microsoft may announce the next generation of Xbox on May 21.

- Chinese people burn Apple products to pay respect to the dead; Americans do it just because.

- Here's a list of porn currently being watched in the Vatican.

- The season finale of "Alf": could it have been done differently?… Read more

Golf can be frustrating on the best of days. What better way to calm your nerves than to sail around the links on this hovercraft golf cart?

Bubba Watson, 2012 Masters champion, and his sponsor, Oakley, recently teamed up with Neoteric Hovercraft to launch this super sophisticated way of getting from hole to hole.

The hovercraft maker released a video of Watson riding on a 9-foot air cushion at Arizona's Raven Golf Club.

The BW1 has a "footprint pressure" of 33 times less than a human footprint, leaving relatively little impact on the course itself. … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- A headphone "club" meeting in Babylon on April 20.

- Amazon extends AutoRip to vinyl records.

- Happy Audiophiliac April! To celebrate, here's what the Head-fi crew did to Steve.

- Follow Steve Guttenberg on Twitter.… Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- This is your one chance to play Pong on the side of a Philadelphia skyscraper.

- Arrested Development returns May 26 with all 15 new episodes on Netflix at once.

- Netflix also gets old cartoon shows from Adult Swim; still no Batman: The Animated Series though.… Read more

The wireless charging stations of today are either small, flat surfaces upon which you position your phone, or laptop-size spaces that can fit more than one device.

You must lay your smartphone or tablet just so to see the full effects of the charge. A bump or slip makes charging less efficient, which means it will take longer to charge your phone cable-free.

The Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP) is working on a next-generation wireless charging technology that can not only power smartphones and tablets laying directly on a charging pad, but can also throw its magnetic charging beam upward.… Read more

Get ready to see more smartphones sporting a spectacular OLED screen.

Japan Display -- a joint venture consisting of Sony, Toshiba, and Hitachi's manufacturing muscle -- revealed the development of a 5.2-inch OLED smartphone screen featuring 1,080p resolution and an ultra-sharp 423 pixels per inch (ppi). … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- The first call from a cell phone was made 40 years ago today.

- The Verge interviews Marty Cooper, father of the cell phone.

- Recalling 1993: Step back 20 years in NYC's past.

- Catching up with the TV show release group responsible for recording, distributing torrents.… Read more

It's nice to think each of us is entirely unique, a one-of-a-kind aggregate of life experiences colliding with genes that set us apart from everyone else. And while this is true to an extent, it's also true that certain telltale blueprints exist for us, all the way down to the way we move our faces if we are, say, depressed.

So researchers at the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies are developing a Kinect-driven avatar they call SimSensei to track and analyze in real time a person's facial movements, body posture, linguistic patterns, acoustics, and behaviors such as fidgeting which, taken together, signal psychological distress.… Read more