bulls

Pucker up! Kissing machine rates your smooches

On a scale of 1 to 8, how are your kisses? You could check in with whomever you're smooching these days -- or you could consult the Kissing Evaluator.

The electronic contraption, built by a team of San Francisco makers, reacts to a couple's canoodles with LED lights and woob woob and bleb bleb noises (a method that's been officially certified by the International Association of Kissing Metrics).

The team built the whimsical device for Red Bull Creation, a national competition that challenges contestants to invent something creative around a piece of hardware -- and then display it in public. Red Bull sent this year's participants a "Turbull Encabulator" circuit board that it designed as a tool for making LED light art, along with RGB LED lights and instructions to "make something awesome." … Read more

Phil Jackson's strange first tweet is an AOL ad

Sleep has possibly eluded you since you saw Phil Jackson's first tweet.

You wondered whether the former Lakers and Bulls coach was having severe trouble typing or whether he'd perhaps lost his senses.

You must now decide which of these is fact. For the tweet that read: "11 champ;ipnsikp[ ringhs" is actually, intake of breath, an ad for AOL.

Indeed, that very same AOL that you have always loved and respected, never more than now.

I am grateful to Deadspin for bringing me this painful information and making me believe that all humans have aspects … Read more

Phil Jackson's first tweet is a work of art

When you join Twitter, the elation of suddenly experiencing free access to self-expression can be Zen-like.

You become at one with it. It becomes at one with you. Until the point where you're not sure which is you and which is it.

I feel sure that such feelings overcame Phil Jackson -- the NBA coaching great -- when he joined Twitter and 55,000 people immediately genuflected in the face of his Zen.

His account, @PhilJackson11, has been verified. It describes him as "coach and author." I have not read one of his books, but I suspect they don't necessarily include the character sequences that appear in his first tweet.

For it reads: "11 champ;ipnsikp[ ringhs."… Read more

The 404 1,206: Where we pick our own product placement (podcast)

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Bridget checks out the tech side of Toy Fair NY.

- "Disney Infinity" receives new "Monsters University" images.

- Ubooly is soft, squishy and smart thanks to the iPhone.

- Barbie gets a digital makeover at Toy Fair.

- Buy Griff's "Back to the Future II" hoverboard for $13,000.

- Microsoft's Xbox Entertainment Studio working on interactive TV.… Read more

Watch the 24-mile skydive from Felix's point of view

Millions of people around the world observed an unbelievable feat yesterday as Felix Baumgartner jumped out of a balloon-slung capsule floating at the astonishing altitude of 128,097 feet and then safely landed in the record books.

Curiously, the best angle from the whole free fall jump so far -- Baumgartner's chest camera -- didn't make it to the general live-stream footage. The video from this perspective reveals just how terrifying and awe-inspiring our world looks at such extreme altitudes and the speeds (well upward of 700 mph -- or was that, um, downward?) at which he was traveling. … Read more

Relive the Stratos jump in breathtaking Lego form

I huddled around my iPad connected to the City of Albuquerque's public Wi-Fi, waiting as Felix Baumgartner started his pre-jump checklist from 24 miles above the earth. The video stuttered, then stopped.

I missed most of the record-setting jump, but I don't feel so bad about it since I found the Lego reenactment. All of the excitement is pretty accurately captured in little plastic detail.… Read more

Baumgartner makes record-setting skydive

Latest update: October 15 at 5:38 a.m. PT

One false start was enough for Felix Baumgartner.

On Sunday, the 43-year-old extreme skydiver ascended to the upper reaches of the atmosphere above Roswell, N.M., in a bid to come racing back down in a supersonic freefall.

At first, Baumgartner's Red Bull Stratos team said that the unofficial top speed of the freefall was 1,137 kilometers per hour, or 706 miles per hour. Later, they raised that to 1,342.8 km/h, or 834.4 mph.

The team's expectation was that 690 mph would be … Read more

No supersonic skydive for Baumgartner tomorrow

Felix Baumgartner will not attempt his stratospheric skydive tomorrow.

Weather conditions continue to be less than ideal for the mission, in which Baumgartner plans to set several records -- most dramatically, becoming the first person ever to fly, or in this case freefall, at supersonic speed without the protection of an aircraft fuselage around him. In making the attempt, if all were to go according to plan, he also would make the highest manned ascent with a balloon (120,000 feet, or just under 23 miles) to get to his jumping-off point, and the longest sustained freefall (an estimated 5 … Read more

Baumgartner's supersonic skydive scrapped for today

Last update: 10:55 a.m. PT.

Felix Baumgartner wants to make history as the first person to achieve supersonic speed in freefall, but that won't happen today.

At about 10:45 a.m. PT, with Baumgartner in his capsule and his balloon just beginning to be inflated, the decision came to abort the mission because of gusting winds.

The liftoff had been scheduled to begin at about 5:30 a.m. PT, but was delayed as the weather conditions at the launch site in Roswell, N.M., failed to cooperate. Tomorrow's weather is apparently not looking favorable, … Read more

WikiLeaks files expose surveillance-industrial complex

President Eisenhower, in his 1961 farewell address, warned that the military-industrial complex could "endanger our liberties or democratic processes." Today WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange is warning that the surveillance-industrial complex is even more dangerous.

A set of nearly 300 documents that the document-leaking Web site published today reveals how extensive and privacy-invasive the secretive multi-billion dollar industry devoted to surveillance technology has become.

"We are in a world now where not only is it theoretically possible to record nearly all telecommunications traffic out of a country, all telephone calls, but where there is an international industry selling … Read more