IBM's Watson: Now for 'Top Chef'?

Watson in his "Jeopardy" days.(Credit:IBM/YouTube; screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)Great chefs are crazy.There are many kinds of crazy. Some of these culinarians rant, rave, and spit fire and brimstone. Some pore over their ingredients like scientists: quiet, brooding, and deeply serious.All believe they can create their own particular gastronomic dreams, ones nobody else can copy. Especially...

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Yahoo axes more products to 'sharpen focus'

Yahoo Avatars didn't make the cut and will be shut down on April 1. (Credit: Yahoo)Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is honing the product focus of the company she has been running for seven months, eliminating several products that were deemed insufficiently popular with the company's 700 million users. Yahoo is discontinuing development and support of its mobile app for Blackberry and Yahoo Clue, a tool introduced...

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Pope's tweets dissolved

The Catholic Church is one of the few remaining organizations that believes in absolutes.Sometimes, though, this gives an impression of harshness.No sooner had the pope bid farewell to his flock than his tweets were summarily removed from Twitter. Pope Benedict XVI officially left office today. It's true that last week the Vatican announced that Pope Benedict XVI's last tweet would be on February...

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Physics and Oreos go together like cookies and cream

The video below describes separating an Oreo cookie as a "basic human desire." While it may not be quite as fundamental as all that, separating cookie from cream has become a ritual for Oreo lovers around the world. But why must we use our soft, weak human hands to pry these cookies apart? Why can't someone invent a hilariously overcomplicated machine to do this painstaking work for us? Luckily, someone...

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Day 2 at MWC: What you may have missed

Yes, Fujitsu really made a cane with integrated GPS.(Credit:Sarah Tew/CNET)Though most of the big players chose Sunday or Monday to make news and drop their newest devices, Day 2 of Mobile World Congress didn't slow down in the least.Mobile operating systems have long been a popular theme at the word's biggest wireless trade show and the 2013 confab is no exception. Sunday brought us the announcement...

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Myo gesture-control armband uses muscle power

The Myo armband uses your muscles for gesture control.(Credit:Thalmic Labs)From "Minority Report" to the Kinect, we've been on a tech quest for touchless gesture control that frees us from the shackles of mice and old-style controllers. We want to get in on the action and use movement to command our digital devices. Myo from Thalmic Labs takes that gesture-control desire and builds it into an armband...

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YouTube code refers to paid channel subscriptions

Paid channel subscriptions on YouTube may be closer than previously thought.After reports last month that YouTube was considering offering channels that would require a fee to access, code has now appeared that suggests Google is already laying the software foundation for subscription channels.According to Android Police, the latest version of YouTube for Android includes two lines of code that refer...

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Google laptop shows Apple a thing or two

The 3.3-pound Google Chromebook Pixel sports a 12.85-inch, 2,560x1,700-pixel display and an Intel Core i5 processor. (Credit:Stephen Shankland/CNET)Thank you, Google. For obsoleting my MacBook. Question: What two killer hardware features are missing on MacBooks? My answer: a touch screen and 4G. What a coincidence. Just what Google is offering on the Chromebook Pixel. And in a package that comes close...

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Google talking with labels about streaming music service -- report

When your market cap is north of $263 billion and the company's stock price is hovering around the $800 level, the prevailing question du jour becomes "well, why not?" So it is that we learn, courtesy of the Financial Times, that Google has been talking with the major music labels about a possible streaming music service. The Times report said that "it is expected that the streaming service will...

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PS4 and the Vita: the multi-screen dream...again

Can the Vita be revitalized by the PS4? Sony hopes so.(Credit:Photo by Sarah Tew/CNET)The PlayStation 4 is Sony's last great hope in keeping control of the gaming industry. It's also the best chance at turning the PlayStation Vita into a more relevant piece of gaming hardware. At last night's PlayStation 4 event in New York, many hew tidbits of hardware magic were discussed, and a good handful of...

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FCC takes first step toward allocating more Wi-Fi spectrum

FCC Commissioners L to R: Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, Commissioner Robert M. McDowell, Chairman Julius Genachowski, Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and Commissioner Ajit Pai.(Credit:FCC)The Federal Communications Commission took the first steps today toward freeing up more wireless spectrum to boost Wi-Fi data speeds and ease congestion on Wi-Fi networks in hotels, airports, and homes.During its...

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Apple issues Java update after security breach

Following recent security breaches that led to computers at Apple and other companies being compromised, Apple has issued an update for Java on OS X to close the hole.The update went live this afternoon through Apple's Software Update service, which can be accessed from the Apple menu, and also available as a standalone update for OS X Snow Leopard or later from the following locations:According to...

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EU regulators threaten privacy crackdown against Google

Google may face a coordinated crackdown by privacy regulators in Europe before this summer unless the Web giant makes dramatic changes to how it manages user data.France's privacy watchdog said today that Google had yet to respond with "precise and effective" answers to a dozen recommendations unanimously adopted by 27 national regulators last October and as a result could face a coordinated "repressive...

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Why Google's stores shouldn't look so much like Apple stores

Is this really different enough?(Credit:Crave CNET UK)Some engineers have never dated a real person.They've tried to, but it's hard for them to appreciate that real people don't necessarily use data to make decisions -- especially when it comes to love.Perhaps their most embarrassing moments come when they try to mimic what non-engineers do in order to make themselves more attractive.This mirrors...

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PlayStation 4 to stream games in real time over Net, says report

At the end of January, Sony announced a PlayStation event but gave few details. We'll get the 411 this coming Wednesday in New York.Sony's acquisition last year of cloud-gaming company Gaikai may be reflected in a big way in the upcoming PlayStation 4.The Wall Street Journal is citing inside sources in reporting that Sony's new gaming console, expected to debut Wednesday at an event in Manhattan,...

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Report: Google to open U.S. retail stores later this year

Google Chrome Zone section of PC World on London's Tottenham Court Road.(Credit:CNET Crave U.K.)Google plans to open its own retail stores across the United States, according to a new report, giving the increasingly hardware-focused company a place to show off its growing number of physical products.Citing "an extremely reliable source," 9to5Google says the company "hopes to have the first flagship...

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Obama: We're only halfway there on patent reform

President Obama answers questions today during a Google+ Hangout.(Credit:Screenshot by Casey Newton/CNET)Patent reforms passed last year don't go far enough to fully protect entrepreneurs from software patent holders who try to exploit them, President Barack Obama said today in his fourth annual appearance on YouTube following the State of the Union address."We passed some legislation last year, but...

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A startup takes on publishing, with help of Atari's founder

Atari's Nolan Bushnell.(Credit:Courtesy of Nolan Bushnell)If there's an industry more stuck in the past than the music industry, it has to be book publishing.It's with that in mind that a Pasadena, Calif. startup is trying to upend the traditional, often unpleasant publishing model that's more like a gauntlet than a process.An author typically has to beg an agent for representation, then has to beg...

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Mayer: Yahoo's future is personalization for content, ads

SAN FRANCISCO --The future of Yahoo will be providing personalized user experiences both on mobile and the desktop, according to the company's chief executive officer, Marissa Mayer.Speaking at the 2013 Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference this morning, Mayer offered another glimpse into the search company's evolving mobile strategy, which will include some consolidation for the existing...

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Charge your smartphone, become a cyberspy

Don't charge it where you keep your secrets, OK?(Credit:U.S. Army)There's just never enough battery life on your smartphone, is there?You need it for so many things, like informing yourself, informing others and informing some mythical creature that you're about to kill it.This might be especially true if, say, you happen to be in a U.S. Army garrison in South Korea.Everyone in South Korea is on smartphones...

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