u2

AUSTIN, Texas--If there's one man in the world who can convince thousands of people to take off their pants in the subway, to follow the disembodied instructions of a downloaded MP3, or to high-five a stranger on an escalator, it's Charlie Todd.

The brainchild behind Improv Everywhere, a New York-based "prank collective" that has been culture jamming society since 2001, Todd knows a thing or two about how to get a group of perfect strangers involved in something very unexpected and very funny.

Over the years, Improv Everywhere has grown from Todd and a couple of … Read more

Most of the headphones I've tested over the years weren't designed to have a neutral balance of bass, midrange, and treble frequencies. Manufacturers are well aware that most people like bass, and that buyers tend to favor one headphone over another based on how much bass it produces. I think that's obvious, but a recent study cited in Brent Butterworth's blog countered that assumption. "The Relationship between Perception and Measurement of Headphone Sound Quality," a paper by Sean Olive and Todd Welti presented at last October's Audio Engineering Society convention found that a … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Pitchfork's People's List polls readers for the best albums of the last 15 years.

- The new rise of a summer hit: Tweet It Maybe.

- How Murder by Death became the No. 3 most successful Kickstarter music campaign ever.

- The Internet has finally met its match: Avril Lavigne engaged to Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger.

- Lights turning off at Nintendo Power?

- Custom BioShock pinball machine is Rapturous.… Read more

Capt. Francis Gary Powers, the Air Force pilot whose U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960, was posthumously honored Friday in a medal ceremony at the Pentagon.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton A. Schwartz presented the Silver Star Medal to Capt. Powers' children, Gary Powers Jr. and Dee Powers, in the Hall of Heroes, in tribute to Powers' "heroic action and his loyalty to the United States of America during a pivotal time in our nation's history."

"My sister, myself, my wife, my son, aunts and uncles, cousins, the … Read more

U2 frontman Bono is embarking on a solo tour but it doesn't involve music. A private equity firm co-founded by the musician is hitting the road to search for more money, according to Reuters.

Elevation Partners, which has invested heavily in social networking, is now looking to dig up $1 billion for a second fund, reports Reuters. The company's largest investment to date has been in Facebook, to the tune of $270 million, which came in three installments and valued the social networking site at $16 billion at the time. (The company is now estimated to be worth $… Read more

Aunt Jill won't be here for our 1000th episode this Friday because she only works out of the CNET office on Wednesdays, so we're popping bottles prematurely because hey, it's the 90s.

Along with a light wine tasting, Jill also gives a quick duster on the state of the Greek debt crisis and the Dow cracking 13000 after almost four years. In return, we'll tell Jill about the wonders of Instagram and Kim Dotcom's release from the New Zealand prison system.… Read more

Score one for old-school aircraft against the upstart drones.

Perhaps it's just a brief respite from the seemingly inevitable winds of change propelling unmanned aircraft ever higher in the Pentagon's airpower depth charts, but the venerable U-2 spy plane has won a key vote of confidence over the unmanned RQ-4 Global Hawk. That victory came not in a head-to-head aerial dogfight, but in a more bureaucratic conveyance: the draft of the federal budget for the U.S. government's fiscal 2013.

"The Administration proposes to end production of the Global Hawk unmanned aerial reconnaissance vehicle," says … Read more

More than a month after we got our first surprise peek at the Samsung Series 3, a new mainstream line of Samsung laptops that included some very attractive and affordable 12- and 11-inch ultraportables, the 12.5-inch version of the Series 3 has arrived at CNET's offices. We've taken it out of its box and will be running it through benchmarks and testing it, but for now here are our initial impressions.

Ultrabook, schmultrabook: why pay a lot of money for a thin laptop if you can get one for cheaper? While the Series 3 isn't technically an "Ultrabook" by Intel's definitions--it's thicker and uses a regular non-solid-state hard drive--this little laptop reminds us a lot of the Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E220s. It's nearly the same size and weight and has the same-size screen and keyboard, but features an even faster processor. … Read more

Area 51 is one of the most enduring mysteries and sources of speculation in American history.

Located inside the Nevada Test and Training Range, the flat, dry lake bed known as Groom Lake has been the home to some of the nation's most advanced espionage and weapons technology, hair-raising tales of Cold War brinksmanship, and possibly much worse, according to a new book about the top-secret military base.

In writing "Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base," Annie Jacobsen combed through thousands of pages of declassified material on American spy plane development, nuclear testing at Area 51, and the history of the CIA and Air Force's control of the base.

In the course of her research, she interviewed dozens of men who worked or lived at Area 51 and are only now talking to one another and the public about their time there. She also interviewed one anonymous source who suggested a deeply dark side of the research conducted at Area 51: human experimentation and psychological warfare (and, of course, a high-level cover-up).

I interviewed Jacobsen, along with Jim Friedman, who was a senior field administrator at Area 51 for 13 years, and TD Barnes, a radar specialist who lived and worked at Area 51, in Nevada near the edge of the enormous testing range and base. We drove up to the gate at Area 51, talked at length about the planes and other technologies developed there and dug into the controversy surrounding the most shocking parts of Jacobsen's book.

The interviews and footage originally aired on CBS' "The Early Show," and these three videos are extra footage and longer interviews about the topics covered in the book. First, a journey down the long Nevada highway and desolate dirt road that leads to the back gate at Area 51: the most intimidating gate you've ever seen. When we got there, there was broken glass on the ground, an ominous camera gazing down at us, and absolutely no one in sight. But I could feel the weight of eyes on me with every moment we were there (and I expected a blow-dart in the back at any second!). … Read more