challenger

Big rockets like the SpaceX Grasshopper and the Orbital Antares have been in the news lately, but those are a little out of reach for the average student. That's why the Aerospace Industries Association's Team America Rocketry Challenge exists. It fans the maker flames by challenging kids to design, build, and launch model rockets.

The rocket challenge finals took place over the weekend. It was a record year for the competition's turnout, with 725 teams battling through the initial rounds. The top 100 teams participated in the final fly-off in Virginia, representing 29 states with teams from schools, 4-H clubs, and even a team made up of Civil Air Patrol volunteers.

The competition was open to students in grades 7 through 12. All the teams had one goal: build the best model rocket. The challenge was to fly an egg to 750 feet up in the air, and then parachute it back to the ground with no damage. That's even harder than it sounds.… Read more

Apple is challenging a verdict from a Texas court last November that left it on the hook to pay security software company VirnetX $368.2 million in damages.

The news came tucked inside Apple's quarterly report, which was filed earlier this week, Computerworld notes.

"The Company is challenging the verdict, believes it has valid defenses and has not recorded a loss accrual at this time," Apple said in its filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The original complaint, which was filed in August 2010, accused Apple of infringing on four of VirnetX's patents … Read more

Piloting the 2013 Dodge Challenger SRT8 392 Special Edition in heavy traffic on a damp road, I began to list all the other cars I would rather be driving at that moment. The Challenger looks good and justifies its retro-muscle-car status with a massive engine, but wouldn't be my first choice for making a quick trip out to the grocery store.

The 392 badges on the fenders make a historical reference to an earlier version of Dodge's Hemi engine and recall a time when we used cubic inches instead of metric liters to measure engine displacement. However, those … Read more

Some games are challenging. Others are grueling. Other still are a special blend of the two, pitting you against your own physical limitations but offering a clear reward when you successfully complete the puzzle. Such is the case with Challenge Your Eyes Free, a simple-to-play but tough-to-defeat game that forces you to find pinpoint differences between Chinese characters on 140 tiles.

The game is very simple in its layout. You start with access to only one puzzle. Every time you complete one, another unlocks. During each puzzle, you are shown a Chinese character. This character is hidden somewhere among 139 … Read more

The Room is an intensely challenging puzzle game with beautiful 3D graphics where the object is to unravel a mystery by opening steampunk-style boxes.

Though "opening boxes" may sound boring, with The Room, each box has several hidden secrets and clues that keep you engrossed, trying to find the right sequence of actions to open the box. There are dials to turn, complex safe combinations to figure out, hidden compartments that contain keys, and much more. You also have an inventory on the left where you store the various keys and other items you find as you search … Read more

We're not quite sure what a next-generation condom would look like (gesture control? a tiny touch screen?), but we may find out sooner rather than later if the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation succeeds in its new quest.

The foundation is seeking new ideas that improve on condom design, which it describes as having seen "very little technological improvement in the last 50 years." The winning proposal gets a cool $100,000, and could potentially earn more in additional funding.

The foundation suggests that if a redesigned condom could enhance a sexual experience and not detract from it, more men would use one, therefore reducing disease transmission, unwanted pregnancies, and so on. The request also seeks ideas "that increase ease-of-use for male and female condoms, for example better packaging or designs that are easier to properly apply. In addition, attributes that address and overcome cultural barriers are also desired." … Read more

Would your average Galaxy S3 owner trade in their phone for a Nokia Lumia 920? That's Microsoft's angle for its latest promotional spot.

The new Windows Phone Challenge ad finds Ben Rudolph, Microsoft's director for Windows Phone Experiential Marketing, aka Ben the PC Guy, trying to convince "Brittany" that the Lumia 920 can take a better photo than can her Galaxy S3. If she prefers her phone, she gets $100.

Naturally, the photo snapped by the Lumia shows a bright, clear, crisp image, while the one taken by the S3 is dark and blurry. And … Read more

The State Department today unveiled three winners in its inaugural Innovation in Arms Control Challenge, a contest that tasked the public with coming up with new ideas for how to tackle arms control issues around the world.

During a Google Hangout moderated by CNET's Daniel Terdiman, Acting Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller introduced the winners and unveiled their three projects (see video below).

In August, the State Department launched the challenge, asking the public to answer the question, "How Can the Crowd Support Arms Control Transparency Efforts?" The competition was the … Read more

Many people remember the bowling game, popular on the old bar-style Nokia devices, as the first game they played on a cellular telephone. Today the graphics are significantly better and the gameplay is incredibly realistic, but bowling games are still available. PBA Bowling Challenge is fun, easy to play, and perhaps kind of nostalgic.

The download time for this app seems quite long, but the reason is apparent once you begin to play the game. The graphics for PBA Bowling Challenge are not cheap. They are sharp, detailed, and realistic. The animation flows smoothly and the game itself is perfectly … Read more