Cutting Edge

In recent times, Google's Sergey Brin has become an ambulating, flying billboard for his company's next great invention, Google Glasses.

These things will project all the information you need to know (Mariah Carey just kissed someone!) straight into your eyes, as you bump into another fellow human, who is trying to take in the winner of the 3:30 race at Belmont Park.

Yesterday, though, Brin took his glasses for a very curious roam into the depths of New York's subway.

In this place where drunks commune with priests, strippers, Wall Street fiends and administrative associates, Brin … Read more

What are you going to do to mark the upcoming release of "Iron Man 3"? If you're superfan Patrick Priebe, you build your own Iron Man laser gauntlet.

As a 6-foot-tall, Mohawk-sporting hockey player, Priebe can come across as intimidating. His penchant for making laser weapons doesn't help much either.

His Web site laser-gadgets.com showcases his passion for the science fiction and video games, a passion reflected in his jaw-dropping creations -- guns that fire laser beams as well as laser-guided crossbows.

His latest creation is the Iron Man Laser Gauntlet, which fits over Priebe's forearm. It fires lasers, not anti-tank missiles. … Read more

When a patient asked Laura Ferris, an assistant professor of dermatology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, her opinion on smartphone apps that purport to distinguish between benign and malignant skin lesions, Ferris realized she'd never used one and decided to run images of melanomas through a few of the apps herself.

"When I saw the first few results come back of them being missed, I really started to get concerned," Ferris says in a school video. So she decided to investigate further, and reports this week in JAMA Dermatology that three out of four … Read more

I love it when engineers show off.

NASA scientists, having apparently nothing better to do, have shot an image of the Mona Lisa to the moon by piggybacking it on laser pulses. Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece was successfully received by an instrument aboard the agency's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) some 240,000 miles away.

"This is the first time anyone has achieved one-way laser communication at planetary distances," MIT's David Smith, head of the spacecraft's Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA), said in a release.

"In the near future, this type of simple laser communication might serve as a backup for the radio communication that satellites use. In the more distant future, it may allow communication at higher data rates than present radio links can provide." … Read more

Doomsday isn't far from many people's imaginations, whether it's the end of the Mayan calendar, the rapture, or a massive asteroid smashing into the Earth. Now, one of these far-flung scenarios may become even less likely.

The European Space Agency announced this week that it's in the beginning phases of an "Asteroid Impact and Deflection Mission" with its U.S. partner Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. The eventual goal of the mission is to verify whether scientists can collide with an asteroid that's hurtling through space -- so as to avoid any possible … Read more

We've seen fitness trackers before, but here's one with impressive smarts. The Amiigo can automatically identify more than 100 activities with custom algorithms.

Amiigo is a waterproof bracelet and shoe clip that not only counts how many bicep curls or golf swings you do, but monitors your heart rate, blood oxygen levels, skin temperature, activity level, and the number of calories burned, according to the gadget's crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo.

Sensors and machine-learning algorithms identify the exercise you're performing, and store the data in the device before uploading it to your mobile device. The tech can discriminate between running on the treadmill, for instance, and exercising on an elliptical machine. … Read more

The Federal Aviation Administration has ordered airlines to ground their fleets of Boeing 787 Dreamliners until the plane's onboard batteries are proven safe to operate.

Today's action comes on the heels of Japanese carriers All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines grounding their 787s after a battery fire forced the evacuation of an ANA flight earlier today.

"As a result of an in-flight, Boeing 787 battery incident earlier today in Japan, the FAA will issue an emergency airworthiness directive (AD) to address a potential battery fire risk in the 787 and require operators to temporarily cease operations," … Read more

At CES in Las Vegas last week, everyone was talking about how dry it was and how much moisturizer they needed. The Consumer Electronics Association should consider issuing each attendee a pair of Wrangler's new Denim Spa jeans for next year's show.

The jeans come with the tagline, "The soothing touch of nature, now available in jeans." Three different models will be available. One is infused with aloe vera and another with olive extract. The third, called "Smooth Legs," contains caffeine, retinol, and algae extract. These ingredients are enclosed in micro-capsules and embedded in the fiber of the jeans. When you squeeze into them, the capsules burst and rub their precious cargo into your skin.

While the aloe vera and olive jeans are designed to just moisturize, Wrangler claims the "Smooth Legs" jeans will help fight cellulite. These should go great with one of Pepsi's fat-blocking sodas.… Read more

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield is known for playing his guitar in zero gravity on the International Space Station. To keep his fingers in playing shape, he has to keep his nails clipped. Down here on Earth, that's no problem -- you just grab some clippers and go at it. In space, it's a little more complicated.

Hadfield demonstrates his trimming method in a video released by the Canadian Space Agency. The first step is to procure a nail clipper. This is just like our Earth nail clippers, except it has Velcro on it to keep it from floating around and bumping into astronauts or machinery.… Read more