Tech Culture

Air traffic control systems in the US rely on aging tech, $8 billion needed for upgrades

Why it matters: It is scary to contemplate that all that keeps a plane from crashing can come down to an air traffic controller's sharp-eyed vigilance. It is even scarier to think that this person does not have the necessary tech to do their job properly. But that is the current state of affairs in the US, according to a GAO report. The Federal Aviation Administration is aware of the problem and says it needs $8 billion to fix it.

PC gaming fan Steven Spielberg says he "can't do controllers," prefers keyboard and mouse

Winamp source code released, but with significant restrictions

MSI Project Zero motherboards will offer rear cable routing for a clutter-free PC build aesthetic

The first ever webcam was used at Cambridge University, but what was it designed to do?

Telegram will provide authorities with IP addresses, phone numbers of suspects

New "fair source" movement aims to bridge the gap between open source and proprietary licensing

Panasonic's Silky Fine Mist creates walk-through holograms for real-world displays

In brief: Those Princess Leia holograms seen in Star Wars still require some ingenious scientific breakthrough we haven't quite cracked yet. But tech companies are becoming smarter, using existing technologies to create holographic effects. Panasonic is one of them, and has cleverly repurposed part of its outdoor cooling lineup to create a wild new visual display system that you can walk through.

Dramatic drone footage captures failed Chinese rocket landing

Steam keeps breaking concurrent-user records as new games arrive

What just happened? There's been a slew of great new titles landing on Steam recently, and that's good news not only for gamers, but also for Valve. The platform has broken its concurrent user record four times over the last month, peaking yesterday when 38,367,277 people were logged into Steam simultaneously.

Half-Life beta build from 1998 is uncovered in dusty storage unit

Forget the games: Halo raked in a whopping $1.8 billion from merchandise alone

Calling a restaurant? You might be speaking with an AI host

Tech job seekers face hard times as industry resets

Indestructible quartz crystal can store 360TB of data for billions of years

All new cars should be required to have AM radio, says U.S. House

Drones set to expedite blood sample delivery between London hospitals

Communities is a Discord-like space for YouTube creators

Novel phishing attack uses "no-escape" kiosk mode in Chrome to extract passwords

EA is not developing The Sims 5 but has confirmed a Sims movie

AMD's Epyc server CPU gets shoehorned into consumer motherboard, overclocked to 6.6GHz

Electric cars outnumber petrol vehicles in Norway, a global first

High-end cameras make epic comeback despite smartphone ubiquity

Which company invented the hard disk drive?

Watch Dogs movie finally wraps production more than a decade after initial announcement