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During Blizzcon Wired chats with with J. Allen Brack, Wow's lead producer, to discuss the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion, where the game goes from here, and the title's Deathknight class, an addition many fans see as the latest example in Blizzard's new-found desire to homogenize their once unimpeachable games. Wired.com 

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An American computer game designer -- along with two crewmates and the digitized DNA sequences of some of the world's most famous minds -- reached space Sunday. Wired.com 

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In effort to get a handle on wannabe spies' cyber behaviors, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence hands out $800,000 to researchers to figure out whether hopping on World of Warcraft or Facebook "suggests an unwillingness to abide by rules." Wired.com 

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Four decades after its short run concluded in controversy, Patrick McGoohan's brilliant sci-fi miniseries The Prisoner remains one of television's most influential shows. But its speculative tentacles reach deeper, inspiring user-generated music videos as well as songs from artists as varied as The Rolling Stones and Wagon Christ. Wired.com 

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What it is: Atlas Power Ascender What it's used for: Rapidly pulling people and their gear up the side of a building or canyon The prototype of the Power Ascender was not easy to use. The battery-powered, waist-mounted climbing assistant yanked people up a dangling rope at a blistering 10 feet per second — almost 7 mph — fast enough to snap their limbs back. So Atlas, a company run by four mechanical engineers outside Boston, set the maximum speed to a more reasonable 5 feet per second and added a variable- speed trigger like on a power drill. Now customers — such as US military personnel — simply clip the 25-pound device onto a...
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Birth By Sleep, the upcoming PSP entry in the Kingdom Hearts series, reminded me of why I like this Square Enix/Disney crossover in the first place. Beating things up with a giant key is fun. Wired.com 

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At the Tokyo Game Show, it's the year of the Nintendo DS. With more than 23 million units sold in Japan alone, and an updated version of the hardware called the DSi on the way next month, there isn't a gamemaker at the show that isn't preparing one or more big-budget games for DS. Wired.com 

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Wired Science visits the high-security National Ignition Facility, which Department of Energy scientists hope will help manage the American nuclear weapons stockpile and provide the key to harnessing fusion power. Wired.com 

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A top secret NSA wiretapping facility accused of wiretapping innocent Americans abroad was hastily staffed with inexperienced reservists in the months following September 11, where they worked under conflicting orders and with little supervision, according to three former workers at spy complex. Wired.com 

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As the U.S. government starts the process of closing a major net vulnerability, two longtime net infrastructure rivals -- the non-profit ICANN and for-profit VeriSign -- are battling over who will compile and verify the net's most important document. Internet experts give the nod to ICANN and bring up VeriSign's greedy past. Wired.com 

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Cascading Style Sheets are a key component to presenting content on web pages. But the standard, now more than ten years old, has its limits. If you had your say in the discussion to improve CSS, what would you ask for? Wired.com 

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An e-mail circulating online that looks like a revealing personal account of a vacation taken with John McCain could undermine his image of an upright character since a lot of people appear to believe unverified information forwarded to them by their friends. Wired.com 

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While earth scientists and investment bankers both employ data-heavy computer models, climate models are on much firmer ground than their shaky financial counterparts. Wired.com 

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With all the gear you pack up for your camping trip, sometimes you forget what camping is all about. These hardcore tips from Les Stroud of TV's Survivorman should strip us back down to just the essentials and get us back to nature. Wired.com 

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On the 15th anniversary of Nelson Mandela receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, South Africa is gaining attention for another world-friendly achievement: This time, it's an electric car from Cape Town-based Optimal Energy. Wired.com 

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Every week on AMC TV's Mad Men, the men and women at Sterling Cooper create and design retro 1960s ad campaigns, all while obsessively chain-smoking, drinking and womanizing. Wired.com asks a real-world ad man about the showâs realism and relevance to the advertising industry today. Wired.com 

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Actress Elisabeth Sladen has played The Doctor's companion at various times since the '70s, becoming the lovable British equivalent of sci-fi legends like William Shatner or Leonard Nimoy. The star of hit Who spinoff The Sarah Jane Adventures talks with Wired.com about developing the character over the years. Wired.com 

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Microsoft says it is scaling back the frequency of User Account Control, or UAC, prompts in the next version of Windows. The prompt system, which continually asks users to allow or deny certain actions, is widely seen as an annoyance and is regarded as one of Vista's worst features. Wired.com 

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Wal-mart has pledged to continue supporting all the digital rights management-infected music it sold to unwitting consumers over the past five years. Unfortunately for the retail giant, it could be haunted by Microsoft's failed DRM system for years to come. Wired.com 

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After years of testing, the Active Denial System -- the pain ray which drives off rioters with a microwave-like beam -- could finally have its day. The Army is buying five of the truck-mounted systems for $25 million. But the energy weapon may face new hurdles, before it's shipped off to the battlefield; a new report details how the supposedly non-lethal blaster could be turned into a flesh-frying killer. Wired.com 

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The devastating selling continues on Wall Street, with investors again dumping stocks in early trading. The Dow Jones industrials, already down 2,271 points in seven sessions, are down more than 300 after dropping nearly 700. Wired.com 

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Scientists have confirmed the second case of a "virgin birth" in a shark. In a study reported Friday in the Journal of Fish Biology, scientists said DNA testing proved that a pup carried by a female Atlantic blacktip shark in the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center contained no genetic material from a male. Wired.com 

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Join Webmonkey as we offer a comprehensive introduction to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, the powerful photo editing application for professionals and serious amateurs. Lightroom helps you make the most of your DSLR camera, giving you a "digital darkroom" for organizing, tweaking and exporting your RAW image files, producing stunning results along the way. Wired.com 

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Click once in the wrong site and hackers will be able to both see and hear you through your own webcam and mic. The vulnerability is caused by clickjacking, a method of highjacking your mouse clicks. Creepy? We'll show you how to avoid it. Wired.com 

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The CG-animated flick doesn't bring anything special to the popular horror videogame franchise. If anything, the latest game trailer looks better than this boring puppet show. Wired.com 

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The entire tech industry is preparing for tough times, but what does the current economic downturn mean for innovation on the web? Will the momentum that drove the defining advancements of the Web 2.0 era fizzle out? We say it ain't so -- the web has never stopped evolving, and a dearth of cash won't lead to a drought of creativity. Wired.com 

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1861: Fridtjof Nansen is born. He will become a towering figure in Arctic exploration, the natural sciences and international diplomacy. Nansen, born outside of Oslo, Norway, grew up hard and fit ⦠and intellectually curious. He developed an early interest in science and studied zoology at the university before shipping aboard the Norwegian sealer Viking in 1882. He made extensive observations of the Greenland fauna, especially bears and seals, and returned to serve for six years as zoological curator at the Bergen Museum meanwhile earning his doctorate by defending the neuron theory as it pertains to the central nervous system. But Fridtjof Nansen also returned with a passion for the Far North and an...
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: Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com Cyclists are often overlooked in the gadget-lust category because their gear usually doesn't involve a screen, but no one craves the newest gizmo more than a biker with money to burn. The litany of bike models, the sophisticated engineering and the personal stat analysis also attract avid data addicts who appreciate product legacy and innovation. Here at Wired.com, we have more than a few resident pedal pundits who love to accessorize. Click through the gallery to see the latest bike gadgets and apparel that got even our empty wallets salivating. Left: Quarq Bicycle's new Power Meters allow you to measure pretty much any stat imaginable from your bike rides. The Quarq CinQo...
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Say goodbye to the gore goodness of the good ol' days -- the upcoming iteration of the classic fighting game will be toned down considerably. Sure, the potential audience will be wider, but is nothing sacred? Wired.com 

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Got stacks of Stax soul? A trove of treasures from Treasure Isle? It's remarkably easy to convert those old vinyl sides to play on your iPod. All you need is a turntable, a good audio cable and some free software and you'll be reliving vinyl's glory days in crystal-clear (and wear-free) digital sound. Got extra tips? Log in and contribute. Wired.com 

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