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Burning Man organizers are scrambling to quiet a loud and angry response to its recent ticket lottery, a drawing that resulted in less than a quarter of its most ardent community members getting selected.

And while the organization behind the countercultural arts festival that's held annually in Nevada's Black Rock Desert didn't offer any specific solutions to upset members of the Burning Man community, they did say they are looking for ways to ensure that most artists and others involved in "key" projects will be ensured of being able to attend.

The problem arose after … Read more

Google is ready to start laying fiber-optic lines in Kansas City, Mo., and Kansas City, Kan., for its Google Fiber project to catalyze the shift toward higher-speed Internet access.

Google announced the project two years ago and announced Kansas City as the lucky recipient of the 1-gigabit-per-second Internet access. It turns out it's not easy to deploy that fast a network for hundreds of thousands of people, though, and as Google works its way through the challenge, faster broadband is gradually arriving elsewhere, too.

Kevin Lo, general manager of Google Access, announced today that Google is done surveying and … Read more

Ever suspect your apartment building's heating was poorly managed because you needed to open the windows in winter? Now New York City residents can prove it with data.

Columbia University yesterday released results from a mapping project that shows, block by block, how much energy buildings consume. Providing the data in a visual format makes it easier to locate buildings that are good candidates for efficiency improvements or potentially on-site energy production.

Buildings represent about two thirds of the energy used in New York City, which is a much higher percentage than other parts of the country where transportation … Read more

Move over, Superman. Humans are flying over the skies of New York City, thanks to marketing agency Thinkmodo.

The viral ad company is flying human-shaped remote-controlled planes around the New York and New Jersey areas to promote the new Fox movie "Chronicle."

In the movie, three teenagers gain a host of superpowers and the ability to fly. The YouTube video showing this controlled phenomenon already has 650,000-plus views, and it's possible more people will see the viral ad than the actual movie. … Read more

While the general state of the American labor market these days is dismal, talented software engineers can easily find themselves fielding multiple lucrative job offers.

In part, it's because technology companies are sprouting up everywhere and hiring like crazy. And it's also because there's a dearth of people skilled enough to build the software that's powering all these new outfits.

That shortage is one of the main reasons a group of influential New Yorkers--led by, among others, Union Square Ventures' top-tier VC Fred Wilson and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's education team--will be opening … Read more

LAS VEGAS--"Electric City" is the latest Tom Hanks animated adventure, but it leaves behind the madcap buddy antics of Toy Story's Woody and Buzz Lightyear for a futuristic utopia with dark underpinnings. Instead of coming to a theater near you, though, the 90-minute-long series will be streamed episodically on Yahoo.

Revealed at the Consumer Electronics Show 2012 here, with a more in-depth formal announcement coming tomorrow, "Electric City" was created by Hanks and will star him, while production is being handled by Playtone and Reliance Entertainment. "It was always our intent to have this project live and breathe online and we felt Yahoo would be the perfect home," Gary Goetzman, co-founder with Hanks of the production company Playtone, said in a prepared statement.

For its part, Yahoo has been exploring original online entertainment for a few years, with reality and news roundup shows like "omg! NOW," "Primetime in No Time," and "Daily Ticker" helping to drive around 26 million people per month. Thanks to Hank's involvement in "Electric City," though, Yahoo thinks the series has the potential to significantly expand the scope of digital-first series. … Read more

If Ford engineers had their way, Santa Claus would be delivering packages to all the good girls and boys on Christmas Eve in a Ford sleigh concept.

The muscle car-inspired, bright-red, concept sleigh is powered by a 1.0-liter EcoBoost engine and boasts 125 horsepower, with 170Nm peak torque (with 200Nm overboost)--giving it the highest power density of any Ford production engine to date.

Ford engineers apparently presented the concept sleigh design to Santa and Mrs. Claus, along with its environmental and cost-saving advantages.

Each Christmas Eve, Jolly Old St. Nick reportedly circumnavigates the globe--124,421,727 miles--in a … Read more

I've been going to Burning Man for many years, and each time I've struggled to figure out a good way to make a home in the desert that's shaded, ventilated, stylish, and comfortable.

Over the years, I've tried nearly everything: tent, carport, dome, truck, RV, van, and combinations of all of the above. And I've even finally gotten to the point of making a space that I feel proud calling my living room. People come to visit, there's room for plenty of seating, and if someone wants to make dinner, they can do it. … Read more

The next iteration of the Apple iPad will debut in February, according to a Citi analyst.

You have to admire the gumption of anyone still willing to make an Apple product prediction after nearly a full year of iPhone 5 predictions from across the globe proved to be mostly off the mark.

Still, certain sources of Cupertino conjecture make my ears perk up, including the analysts from the big investment houses that actually get copious amounts of sit-down time with Apple execs--there's a whole other conversation to be had about the motivations of those analysts and execs to say one thing or another, but I'll leave that to other outlets.… Read more