london

It's like Google Maps, but for finding cats: Cat Map, a Web site set up by the London Zoo.

Have you ever wanted to stare at a global map of cats? Just hang out on a world map, seeing where all the cats are? Well, now you can.

The Zoological Society of London set up the Web site to promote tiger conservation and its tiger sanctuary, opening March 22, but the map lets you see beloved felines, not just from London, but everywhere. … Read more

How well do you know the landmarks of London? Get up close and personal with a stunning 320-gigapixel image of the city captured atop the BT Tower.

Snapped by panorama experts 360Cities, the epic photography endeavor required the use of four Canon 7D dSLR cameras outfitted with some heavy-duty equipment.

Each camera used an EF 400mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens, Extender EF 2x III teleconverter, and a Rodeon VR Head ST robotic panorama head. After shooting 48,640 individual pictures over the course of three days (shortly after the 2012 Olympics), 360Cities spent the next several months assembling and stitching together the final gargantuan image.… Read more

RIM's rumored BlackBerry 10 L series device, code-named London, has just come into sharper focus thanks to new images posted by Vietnamese site Tinh Te and reported by CIO.com. … Read more

A new initiative in London will give passengers free Internet minutes in exchange for watching adverts en route to their destination.

Startup Eyetease has gotten approval from the Transport for London to roll out a new scheme for the city's iconic black cabs that will allow drivers and passengers to connect to the Internet for free in exchange for viewing ads.

Dubbed CabWiFi, the "ads for access" model makes passengers watch a 15-second advert in exchange for 15 minutes of Wi-Fi time. Drivers are given a separate login for the service, which the company touts as a way for cabbies to offset some of the roaming charges that are inflating drivers' monthly phone bills. … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- What happened when NYU students discovered they could e-mail 40,000 people at once.

- Trotify kit puts Monty Python horse coconuts on your bike.

- Why is Slate defending your right to name your kid Hashtag?

- Why people spend so many hours stitching footage into YouTube collages.

- Access Main Computer File: Exploring graphical user interfaces in movies.

- Brave Robotics offers 3D-printed 1/12 scale mecha transformer at Maker Faire.… Read more

Every time I watch "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," I insult along with the French knight, sing Sir Robin's praises, and fervently wish I had a coconut to add horse-trotting sound effects to my life.

Design studio Original Content London has figured out how to bring the sounds of Monty Python-style equine movement to bicycles. Trotify is a wood kit that mounts on the front of a bike. As you pedal, the tire triggers Trotify to clomp a coconut up and down. You'll have to provide your own minstrel and squire. … Read more

When heading to a city like London on a budget, a service like Airbnb can be a godsend: with dozens and dozens of available apartments to choose from, a traveler can easily find a place to stay that's much less expensive than a hotel, and which offers privacy, a sense of home, and maybe most important of all, a kitchen.

Last year, I went to London on business and decided the visit was long enough to merit getting a place through Airbnb. But I hadn't been to the English capital since I was a teenager and had no … Read more

British scientists have come up with a super-sensitive prototype sensor that lets doctors detect early stage diseases with the naked eye, an innovation that could prove valuable in countries that lack the resources for expensive diagnostic equipment.

The sensor, created at Imperial College London, relies on nanotechnology to analyze serum derived from blood samples.

A positive reaction to p24, a protein that indicates early HIV infection, or PSA, a protein that at certain levels can indicate prostate cancer, generates irregular clumps of nanoparticles that emit a blue color in a solution kept in a disposable container.

A negative reaction, however, … Read more

LONDON -- The title of the next James Bond movie might lead you to think otherwise, but 007 didn't just fall out of the sky. Ian Fleming's iconic espionage character -- and the entire genre of British espionage fiction Bond influenced -- grew out of a world populated by very real spies on the very real streets of London's spy trails.

As the Bond film series celebrates its 50th anniversary and his fans eagerly await the arrival of "Skyfall" (the 23rd 007 film), I found my boots on the ground in London exploring the haunts of the U.K. spy world as they hide in plain sight. … Read more