world

Here's something to make early video game enthusiasts feel old -- Atari's Pong is celebrating its 40th birthday today.

It was 1972 that Atari's first consumer product was created sending people into a playing frenzy. Rumor has it that lines of gamers vying to try out Pong at the arcade sometimes went at least 60 people deep. It wasn't until 1975 that the home version of the game was released.

Now, to honor the trend-setting game, Atari has launched a free iOS Pong app today called Pong World, which is available for iPhones and iPads.

"… Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Ben Savage, Danielle Fishel join "Girl Meets World" pilot.

- Wii Mini confirmed, brings cut-price gaming to Canada only.

- HoboJacket.tk lets you donate your RIVAL college's jackets and shirts to the homeless.

- This lamp tells you the weather by recreating it inside your house.

- Why liveblogs outperform other online news formats by up to 300%.

- Follow Sharon Vaknin on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.… Read more

FIFA 11 is another installment in the ever-popular FIFA simulation. The app is available from several locations, including iTunes, and installs easily. FIFA 11 has high resolution graphics, which means there's a large file to download, but that's the only drawback.

FIFA 11 lets you control the action with movements of your iPhone or iPad. Tilting the device controls the direction of the players, which works well on these small devices with no keyboard or mouse. You can set up games with ease, choosing from over 500 teams in 35 reproduction stadiums. The graphics are amazing, and just … Read more

A 220-story Sky City tower in the Chinese city of Changsha could take the crown as the world's tallest skyscraper next March with an astounding height of 2,749 feet, edging out the mega Burj Khalifa that currently stands 2,722 feet over Dubai.

What makes the 11-million-square-foot Sky City so astonishing isn't its height or its appearance but rather the three-month construction plan to create the building that kicks off at the end of the year. Broad Group -- the company responsible for assembling the skyscraper -- plans to achieve these insane building speeds by using 95 percent prefabricated modular pieces that are sort of similar to a giant Lego set to construct the building. … Read more

ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 is the official game for this event. It allows you to choose one of the 14 teams competing for the World Cup, and play through the tournament. ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 costs $1.99 from the App Store.

ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 has solid graphics as well as several modes of play. The Quick Game mode launches you into a game without extensive setup or worrying about the tournament. The World Cup mode lets you play through the entire Cup. Play is straightforward, and there's both auto and manual modes for control (… Read more

It's a small world, unless you're the one who sets the clocks. Years ago, keeping track of the time around the world meant a row of wall clocks with labels like "Leningrad" and "Peking." Things are easier in this century, and it's easy to keep track of the time in Beijing or Kalamazoo, Mich. But those who need to track multiple time zones simultaneously still face more of a challenge. That's where tools like Sharp World Clock step in.

Unlike many desktop clocks, it's shareware, though it's free to try … Read more

Moms can dominate their sons sometimes.

They see in their little boys something they possibly didn't see in their own husbands -- obedience, perhaps.

I foray into psychological waters only because of a fascinating legal case involving a heist at the PC World store in Kingston, U.K.

It seems that gunmen allegedly marauded in, pointed fake Uzis at the staff, and stole 38,000 British pounds (around $61,000). However, in the midst of their bravado, they started arguing about whether to steal some laptops, too, and ran away separately.

Police managed to track down one of the … Read more

Spoiler alert: The Cuban Missile Crisis ended without the United States and the Soviet Union launching even a single nuclear weapon, and the Allies won World War II.

You're no doubt well aware of those ultimate outcomes, but what if you don't remember, or never knew, the myriad individual moments, big and small, that led to those famous conclusions? There are plenty of thick history books you could pick up, but maybe you're someone who wants a more dramatic sense of what happened -- even, perhaps, to feel like you're right in the thick of the drama.

To be sure, there's no time machine that can take you back to London during The Blitz, or to the White House Situation Room as JFK stood firm against belligerent military leaders wanting to engage the Soviets over surreptitiously putting nukes in Cuba. But these days, in little 140-character snippets, many of those moments are being played out for the whole world to see. And if you close your eyes, you can almost imagine you're there. … Read more