When it came to resurrecting the MIA videogame, Randy Pitchford faced a task that was part suicide run, part debt of honor. The Gearbox Software CEO serves up the inside story on the improbable rescue of one of gaming's most beloved (and most obnoxious) franchises.

: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 20:52:00 GMT

The federal agency in charge of protecting other agencies from computer intruders was found riddled with hundreds of high-risk security holes on its own systems, according to the results of an audit released Wednesday.

: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 20:45:00 GMT

Our maiden voyage in Hyundai's 17-foot long luxe sedan is impressive if not a tad banal.

: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 20:30:00 GMT

Citing the Obama administration's evocation of the state secrets privilege, a divided federal appeals court is dismissing a lawsuit against a Boeing subsidiary accused of helping the CIA transport detainees to secret foreign prisons where they allegedly were tortured.

: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 20:03:00 GMT

After several months, the grassroots campaign at Ole Miss to install Return of the Jedi's Admiral Ackbar, that esteemed squid-like war hero who led the Rebel Alliance to victory at the Battle of Endor, as the university's official sports mascot has fizzled.

: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 20:00:00 GMT

When Felix Baumgartner steps into the void, 18 cameras will take us along for the ride with him.

: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 19:09:00 GMT

Maybe you always remember where you parked. Maybe you never get parking tickets either. For the rest of us, some tools to alert us when our parking meter is about to expire or give us directions back to our car would be mighty handy.

: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 19:00:00 GMT

When asteroid 2010 RX30 zipped past Earth early Wednesday, observers at the Remanzacco Observatory in Italy were ready. At 12:45 am local Italian time, amateur astronomers Ernesto Guido and Giovanni Sostero remotely controlled a 0.25-meter telescope in Mayhill, New Mexico through the Global Remote Astronomy Telescope Network. They got four separate exposures of 30 seconds each and stitched them together to make this animation.

: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 18:50:00 GMT

After a set of sexy X-rays hit the web earlier this year, viewers were left to wonder if they were real. Now we have the answer.

: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 18:39:00 GMT

After so many sad tales of invasive species overwhelming hapless natives, scientists have found a native toad in Indonesia that's fighting back.

: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 18:30:00 GMT

Esther Vergeer is the best tennis player you've never heard of. Vergeer, who hails from Holland, hasn't lost a wheelchair tennis match since 2003 — that's nearly 400 victories in a row.

: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 18:22:00 GMT

Microsoft's upgrade/redo, the Xbox 360 S, is packed with a lot of the extras that used to be sold separately, but the most dramatic change takes place under the hood.

: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 18:00:00 GMT

A late entry into the pocket-camcorder field, Sony's Bloggie is overdesigned and underfunctional. The swiveling lens offers flexibility, but the slow and unintuitive controls make it a tough sell.

: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:45:00 GMT

A lot of people seem to think the iTunes 10 icon is hideous, so why not design your own? Wired.com invites readers to make a better iTunes icon than Apple's and submit it for a chance to win an iPod Shuffle.

: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:00:00 GMT

The U.S. military's efforts to assist the 17 million victims of the Pakistan flood are still pretty tech-lite. So a group of civilian aid workers, Pakistani and international, have home-brewed a series of social media apps to help coordinate relief work — everything from crisis Wikis to crowd-sourced maps to SMS calls for help.

: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 15:13:00 GMT

Daimler uses social media and smartphones to help people find carpool buddies who don't suck.

: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 14:00:00 GMT

Genuinely ingenious new book The Sounds of Star Wars amplifies the concept of interactive show and tell to ear-blasting new heights. In this exclusive video about the making of the book, legendary sound designer Ben Burtt and others involved in the sci-fi saga tell how they came up with such memorable noises.

: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 11:15:00 GMT

Sony's upcoming motion controller is more than just a Wiimote clone. Thanks to its player-facing camera and its powerfully precise targeting, it offers a peek at what full-fledged augmented reality will look like.

: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 11:00:00 GMT

Nikon's Small World microscope photography winners are revealed today. This gallery features some of the most interesting winning images of ordinary stuff like snowflakes and banana leaves. Vote for your favorites and help choose the popular-vote winner.

: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 11:00:00 GMT

3M begins marketing the first waterproof, transparent, pressure-sensitive tape after employee Richard Drew figures out how to coat strips of cellophane with adhesive.

: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 11:00:00 GMT

Computer lab manager Don Hodges knows why Pac-Man, at level 256, suddenly turns into a hideous mess of ASCII letters and graphics.

: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 11:00:00 GMT

The Gravity Balans from Variér Furniture is far less nefarious and cranium-cracking than it looks. We'd heard a great deal about its ergonomic benefits and decided to give it a spin in our quest to find the perfect marathon gaming/lounging chair.

: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 11:00:00 GMT

Porsche panache comes to the carpool lane, and Mercedes Benz makes burning rubber with kids in the back seat comfy for everyone!

: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 11:00:00 GMT

None of your fantasies about multi-touchscreen smartphones can be realized until someone makes a dual-core chip that would know what to do with multiple screens. But Samsung's new Orion 1-GHz dual-core ARM microprocessor could make those kinky dreams come true.

: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 10:46:00 GMT

Google revamped its iconic search site Wednesday, unveiling what it calls Instant Search, which loads search results as soon as you finish typing a word, packing your screen quickly with results as soon as you start with the 'd' in dog.

: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 04:43:00 GMT

There's an easier way to test laser pointers for leaking harmful infrared light: Use an infrared thermometer.

: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 04:30:00 GMT

Mozilla has released a fifth beta for its Firefox 4 browser, adding hardware acceleration in Windows, a new audio API and support for a new security protocol.

: Wed, 08 Sep 2010 04:07:00 GMT

New research confirms that alcohol can be beneficial to your health. In fact, abstaining from alcohol increases your risk of dying.

: Tue, 07 Sep 2010 23:30:00 GMT

A journalist captured in Afghanistan told the world he was still alive over the weekend by tweeting with a prison guard's cellphone. This remarkable tale about a tweet kicks off a new meme here at Gadget Lab that we're calling Tweet of the Day.

: Tue, 07 Sep 2010 23:00:00 GMT

A federal appeals court is ruling the government may obtain cell-site information mobile phone carriers retain on their customers without a probable-cause warrant under the Fourth Amendment. Cell-site location information, which carriers usually retain for about 18 months, identifies the cell tower to which the customer was connected at the beginning of a call and at the end of the call.

: Tue, 07 Sep 2010 22:33:00 GMT