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For many of us, the video below of Matthew Gough falling 1,000 feet after his parachute malfunctioned during a BASE jump is like watching a common nightmare brought to life.

Remarkably, the video bears even more similarities to that horrible falling dream than first meets the eye, in that in the end, everything -- including 25-year-old Gough himself -- is just fine.

The entire thing was captured on film, including from the vantage point of Gough's own helmet cam, which looks to be a GoPro Hero3.… Read more

One of the best things about the App Store and the iOS devices it supports is that for nearly any issue you can imagine, there's an app designed to fix it. Simple Base Converter is such an app, a much-needed tool for programmers and engineers that is simple and straightforward to use.

Simple Base Converter uses the basic calculator interface on the iPhone but replaces the function buttons with base descriptions -- in this case, decimal, binary, base eight, and base six. To use the app, simply enter a string of numbers in any of the four sets and … Read more

In personal and business settings, tools such as databases, word processors, spreadsheets, and Web browsers have become an everyday necessity. 4LightData Base for Mac is designed to handle all your data efficiently, but unfortunately it might not be the solution for all of your document creation needs.

4LightData Base for Mac is a free multiple-component productivity suite. The interface of the program is very simple but doesn't follow any logical order. The program is a collection of pieces that contain basic versions of a database, a word processor, a Web browser, a drawing program, and a spreadsheet. Although it … Read more

Thanks to smartphones, tablets, and Windows 8, touching and swiping are commonplace ways to interact with TVs, computers, and mobile devices. But what if you want to do the same without touching the screen at all?

That's exactly the experience EyeSight Technologies, an Israel-based company that focuses on digital interaction, announced today that it's found a way to provide with its new fingertip tracking technology. The company calls this the "world's first commercial gesture technology to allow users to control digital devices with a fingertip" -- remotely, that is.… Read more

Apple has acquired 18 patents related to "axis-based user interface technology," the intellectual property's former owner Maya-Systems announced yesterday.

According to Maya-Systems, which developers content-management technologies, the companies signed the deal in the third quarter of 2012. Apple acquired only a portion of the company's axis-based user interface technology.

Maya-Systems' axis-based technologies allows developers to group files around a given axis. In some cases, that can mean timelines. The technology is available in the company's IAmOrganized program, which provides file management and cloud storage.

That cloud-storage element is making some folks across the Web speculate … Read more

Pedestal-style sound bars are the latest evolution in the simplification of home audio. Instead of placing a long sound bar in front of your TV, pedestal sound bars are designed to sit under your TV, for a cleaner look with considerably less clutter. It's by far the easiest way to improve on the sound of your TV with the least intrusion on your living room decor.

The trade-off is that these systems generally don't sound quite as good as traditional sound bars, largely because they lack a separate subwoofer to handle the low end. It's yet another … Read more

It's a common affliction: you're using your smartphone to navigate in a city with a bunch of big buildings and your phone misplaces your location.

Often the problem often is that the GPS location system just doesn't work well where the satellite radio signals can be blocked or reflected. A company called Locata says it's got an answer.

Locata does what the GPS system does, but it replaces satellites in orbit with radio transmitters on the ground. The result is location services with high precision, better reliability, and indoor coverage, said Paul Benshoof, global business development … Read more

Smartphone batteries may soon last twice as long -- if an MIT spinoff's power amplifier technology lives up to its promise.

The power amplifier is one of the most power-hungry pieces of hardware in a phone. It converts electricity into radio signals and consumes power in two basic modes: standby and output signal for sending out digital data. Such a chip wastes more than 65 percent of its energy, according to a report in the MIT Technology Review, and the only way to make it more efficient is by reducing the power used in standby. … Read more

Stickman, what makes you so reckless? Jumping off of perfectly safe buildings and bridges seems so ... dangerous. Lucky for you that you're an Android app and not a real Stickman! But you are real fun. Stickman Base Jumper Free is a freeware base jumping game from Djinnworks E.U. As you may know, base jumping is actually BASE jumping because it involves supposedly rational people jumping off of four types of structure: Buildings, Antennas, Spans (bridges), and Earth (cliffs and natural formations). Did we mention the parachute? You get to use a parachute. While that's not quite as … Read more