|GadgetsDreams|

What happens when you're 220 miles above Earth on the International Space Station and you need a tool you don't have? You can print one yourself. In 2014, American astronauts for the first time printed a tool -- a ratchet wrench -- using a design file sent from NASA on the ground to the 3D printer spinning about in space. The feat was straight of visions of Star Trek's replicator -- and it was only the first step to much larger miracles in space. Here's what's happening now and how 3D printing is changing everything about the future of space travel. 3D Printing Overcomes Zero Gravity You may have heard that 3D printers can print food, but did you know that printing food in space overcomes a plating and serving problem too? "Unlike packaged food that floats in zero-gravity conditions, 3D printed food can be neatly formed and ordered," said Anjan Contractor, CEO of BeeHex , who won a NASA grant for 3D printing pizza ...

A new study shows that knowledge of government surveillance causes people to self-censor their dissenting opinions online. The research offers a sobering look at the  oft-touted "democratizing" effect of social media and Internet access that bolsters minority opinion. The study , published in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, studied the effects of subtle reminders of mass surveillance on its subjects. The majority of participants reacted by suppressing opinions that they perceived to be in the minority. This research illustrates the silencing effect of participants’ dissenting opinions in the wake of widespread knowledge of government surveillance, as revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013. The “ spiral of silence ” is a well-researched phenomenon in which people suppress unpopular opinions to fit in and avoid social isolation. It has been looked at in the context of social media and the echo-chamber effect, in whi...

The District of Columbia is infamous for some of the political issues that make it distinct from other areas of the country. Its residents only have a non-voting delegate in Congress, for example. And its crippled subway system is uniquely hobbled by the fact that it relies on money from Maryland and Virginia , not just funding from riders and D.C.'s government. So it's no surprise to learn that not long from now, D.C. residents may be able to add   drone delivery to their "left out on" list. Many online shoppers are waiting eagerly for the day that they'll be able to order something on Amazon.com and have it dropped off, via drone, on their front stoop. But because of a set of no-fly zones protecting the nation's capital from terrorist attacks, D.C. residents — and some in neighboring suburbs, too — could easily find themselves among the last to get drone delivery service. (Amazon chief executive...

Google-owned Boston Dynamics on Tuesday gave the world a look at the latest version of Atlas, a bipedal robot that someday could threaten manual laborers' livelihoods. Boston Dynamics certainly didn't say or imply that the fast-progressing Atlas robot would force humans out of their jobs. The clandestine group merely demonstrated the latest build of the bot, and gave it a cringeworthy battering to show how it responded to abuse. Giant Holding the World The latest generation of Atlas is more compact than its predecessor even though it also is unleashed from the power tether that pumped life into its grandfather's hydraulic limbs. This current version is 5 foot 9 inches tall and weighs in at 180 pounds, compared to the previous Atlas' 6 foot 330-pound build. Atlas is featured in a demo video walking away from his stable mates and heading outside to showcase its ability to trek across uneven, snowy terrain. Later, the bot shows off its industrious side, and...

Apple last week filed a motion to vacate a federal order requiring the company to create a tool or code to unlock the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino, California, shooters. The order would set a dangerous precedent and release a powerful means to breach security on potentially millions of phones around the world, Apple argued. It transcends one phone and would empower government to make private companies compromise the security of all their users whenever it sees fit, the company said. "This is not a case about one isolated iPhone. Rather, this case is about the Department of Justice and the FBI seeking through the courts a dangerous power that Congress and the American people have withheld: the ability to force companies like Apple to undermine the basic security and privacy interests of hundreds of millions of individuals around the globe," the motion says. Signature Required Apple already has tools that could compromise the security of millions of people...

Neverware on Thursday announced the addition of dual-boot support, allowing its CloudReady operating system and Microsoft Windows to run on the same computer. The dual-boot feature preserves existing data on computers. Adding it to CloudReady -- which lets PCs and Apple computers function like Google Chromebooks -- will let users keep their existing computer configuration or boot into Neverware's cloud-based OS to access Google's Web app environment. The company has gained traction in the last 18 months among schools and some larger organizations strapped with aging computers and lagging budgets. In some school and business settings, Chromebook adoption has stalled because of reliance on legacy Windows applications, Neverware said. It hopes the dual-boot feature will ease the transition to Google's ecosystem. CloudReady began as a product specifically for schools already adopting Google Apps and Chromebooks. Some of those customers wanted to con...

  Apple on Monday called for the creation of a government panel to help resolve a standoff between the company and the Federal Bureau of Investigation over the issue of national security vs. data privacy. The proposal for a commission followed FBI Director James Comey's Sunday post on Lawfare -- an apparent effort to quell the controversy. Comey emphasized that the bureau was not seeking a master key that would allow it to snoop into American citizens' devices at will. The American public expects the bureau to do its utmost to investigate the killings carried out in last year's terrorist attack in San Bernardino, and that includes examining the data contained in a locked iPhone 5c used by shooter Syed Rizwan Farook, he argued. The FBI's goal is to obtain any information that will aid its investigation within the limits of the law, and it would seek search warrants when appropriate, Comey reaffirmed. The bureau wants Apple to disable some o...