Geek culture

The 2014 Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid goes on sale for $99,000 later this year. Or you could save $98,100 and go even greener with a human-powered Porsche Go-Kart. Not satisfied with just tackling the adult sports car market, the automaker is trying to corner the kids' market too.

The go-kart comes in a spiffy combination of black and orange. It's missing some of the luxuries normally associated with Porsche vehicles, like a windshield, headlights, and an engine. It can only hold up to 110 pounds, meaning you need to be a very small adult or one of the kids the kart is actually aimed at to take it for a spin.… Read more

Watchmaker Vianney Halter has produced some pretty stylish timepieces, but his latest is a bit of a departure, both in style and concept. The sci-fi fan has built a domed tourbillon watch called Deep Space, modeled after the "Star Trek" space station Deep Space 9.

The tourbillon -- a watchmaking component designed to counter the effect of gravity on a watch's movement to keep more accurate time -- sits bang in the center of the dial, proudly on display, while the blue hour and minute hands (the shorter hand is for hours) curve around it like the spires of Deep Space 9. … Read more

The CNET test cats don't lead very secret lives, mostly because they are indoors and easily located at any time (usually snoozing on a lap near the computer).

Other felines, however, are footloose and fancy-free. They step outside in the morning and don't show up again until supper time. Where do they go? What do they do? Researchers in England set about trying to answer those questions.

BBC Two's Horizon program and the Royal Veterinary College followed 50 cats in a Surrey village with GPS and micro-cameras. Cats were tracked over six different 24-hour periods to see where they went. A selection of 10 of the furry subjects can be viewed online, along with video clips of their activities.… Read more

The gaming world is all aflutter with the impending debut of the latest and greatest gaming consoles from Microsoft and Sony. It's been fun debating their strengths and weaknesses and design aesthetics, but this could potentially be the last go-round for the dedicated living room gaming console.

CNET Senior Editor Dan Ackerman talks about why he thinks the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 may be the last of their kind. One major factor is the move away from gaming on discs and the shift of entertainment consumption over to streaming services like Netflix.… Read more

For airplane enthusiasts, there's nothing quite like a first flight.

And for fans of Airbus' A350 XWB, this meant that Friday morning provided one of the best treats of all.

With thousands on hand near the Airbus headquarters in Blagnac, France (just outside Toulouse), its next-generation A350 XWB took off on its first flight this morning.

The A350 XWB is Airbus' response to three planes from archrival Boeing: the troubled but still popular 787 Dreamliner, as well as the 777 and 777-X. The new Airbus was designed to be one of the most fuel-efficient planes ever, thanks largely to … Read more

The classic Lego person is a happy creature, sporting a smile on its barrel-shaped yellow face. These are the Lego people I grew up with. They all looked pretty thrilled to be little Lego beings. But times have changed. There are Lego battles to be fought and Lego foes to struggle against. It's starting to look more like "Game of Thrones" than "My Little Pony" in the Lego world these days.

Researchers from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and the Industrial Research Institute for Automation and Measurements in Poland investigated the faces of Lego minifigs made between 1975 and 2010. First, the study notes a dramatic increase in the variety of facial expressions starting in 1989. "The two most frequent expressions are happiness and anger and the proportion of happy faces is decreasing over time," the study's abstract reads.… Read more

What's in a look? For some, design can mean the difference between embracing or rejecting a product. Earlier this week Apple unveiled iOS 7, prompting plenty of opinions about the dramatically refreshed look of one of the most-used mobile operating systems in the world.

One of the loudest -- well, visually loudest -- opinions can be found at Jony Ive Redesigns Things, a Tumblr run by designer Sasha Agapov. The visual blog hosts submissions of funny Ive-inspired products and logos from wisecrackers around the world, ranging from a seriously simplified dollar bill to a new look for the Apple logo. Browse through our brief gallery to see more.… Read more

When it comes to gold-slathered Apple products, there are plenty of options. Most people who buy them sneeze money and think nothing of tossing cash at a gaudy, high-priced accessory like an iPad with diamonds and T. rex bones. Ted Chapanian, however, came by his gold iPod watch through a whole lot of personal hard work.

The AuPod is made from a 6th generation iPod Nano and 18-karat gold. It took over 500 hours to build and cost $2,500 in materials. Considering that a gold iPhone 4S had a price tag of $9.4 million, that's not bad.… Read more

The world tends not to reward initiative as often as it should. Somehow, creating something new or presenting something different rouses many into fear mode, causing them to suppress with jerking knees.

This phenomenon might well have befallen a Chinese man called Mr. Li, who has been tossed into the clink for creating a stink.

Mister Li presented a mystery. He claimed to have caught an an alien in a rabbit trap and slipped it into his large freezer. He explained that there had been five aliens that descended upon his land. They allegedly came from a UFO.

The Shangdong farmer insisted that this alien -- which, for all the world looked like it was made of rubber -- was the real thing.… Read more