interactive

The Interactive Periodic Table of Swearing speaks both to the giggling inner 12-year-old and stressed-out adult in all of us. It's a big, electronic table with push buttons that prompt a rainbow of cuss words and phrases.

The table is rife with variations on F-bomb expletives. You can guess what phrase pushing the "Mf" button triggers. There are also some milder insults like "silly bastard" and "stinks like piss." The table is a British creation, so some of the curse words feature charming Briticisms like "arsehole" and "bollocks."

Heavier swears are to the left while lighter and more infantile interjections are to the right. This would certainly spice up your next chemistry lab.… Read more

In an Apple event this morning in New York, Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, took the stage to introduce iBooks 2, an update to the popular e-reader for iOS devices that adds textbooks.

As Apple's flagship e-reader, iBooks is already a crisp-looking app and storefront that runs on iOS devices. But today, iBooks 2 moves into the world of education by adding interactive textbooks with the aim of keeping students' attention (and certainly adding yet another revenue stream for Apple). … Read more

Eptsoft offers Electrical, Mechanics, and Maths as educational freeware. It includes a wide range of scientific and engineering formulas, calculators, and other tools in a series of clearly illustrated pop-up windows. It also has the most annoying and frustrating nag screen we've ever encountered in so-called freeware. It pops up every 20 seconds or so, obscures the entire screen, and must be closed manually to continue our "evaluation." You have to pay ("donate") to remove the ads and actually use the program. It's cheap, but it ain't free. Did we mention it's … Read more

LAS VEGAS--If Samsung and LG have their way, CES 2012 will be forever known as the show of the dueling 55-inch OLED TVs.

Just like cross-peninsula rival LG, Samsung says it, too, will ship a 55-inch OLED TV to the U.S. market this year. Samsung confirmed it would aim for sometime in the second half of 2012, while LG narrowed its release date down to the third quarter.

Neither company divulged pricing, but I expect both 55-inch OLED TVs to retail for at least $7,999.

Even basic details on Samsung's TV, such as a model number, are … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Although Samsung continues to focus most of its marketing efforts on LED TVs, we think its plasmas offer better picture quality and much better value.

The PNE8000, the company's highest-end plasma series for 2012, could be another big winner for the company. We really liked the picture quality of its predecessor, the PND8000, and now Samsung says it has improved black-level performance--a key ingredient to a good picture--by another 10 percent for 2012. The PNE8000 will share this better black level with the step-down PNE7000- and PNE6500-series 2012 plasmas. Considering that the 2011 models also had the best color accuracy I'd tested on any TV, the PNE8000 is already a strong contender for best picture quality of 2012.… Read more

LAS VEGAS--Samsung's Smart Interaction allows control of certain TV functions by talking or gesturing to the TV, where a built-in microphone and camera captures your voice and movements.

The UNES7500 series of LED TVs is the company's least-expensive with the feature, which also makes cameos on the step-up UNES8000 LED and the PNE8000 plasma. If you'd like to read more about Smart Interaction, here's what we know so far.

Aside from that little extra, the UNES7500 has similar features to the UNES7100, highlighted by a 0.2-inch-thin bezel (admittedly it bulges a bit around the camera/… Read more

LAS VEGAS--On high-end LED-based TVs, our favorite picture quality extra is a full-array backlight with local dimming, which allows different areas of the screen to dim independently of one another.

Unlike the flagship LED TVs of LG, Sony, and Sharp Elite, Samsung's best LED, the UNES8000 still lacks the full-array part, but the company says its local dimming, despite relying on LEDs around the edge of the screen, has been improved over last year's version. Check out our breakdown of LED backlight schemes here for some background.

Dubbed "micro-dimming ultimate," the new feature divides the screen … Read more

The recurring rumors about Apple entering the TV set business are at fever pitch, with no less than former Apple President Jean-Louis Gassée recently jumping into the fray and joining the it-will-likely-happen bandwagon.

Gassée and I have been arguing about the idea of an Apple TV since 2008, when I was among the first to blog about the idea. Gassée had taken the position that since TVs are upgraded every five years on average, and computers every two years on average, melding the two would not make sense. The computer would make the TV … Read more

It's a busy job being president of CBS Interactive, but Jim Lanzone takes an hour to sit down with CNET's The 404 Podcast to talk shop, so we're minding our Ps and Qs, our Fs....Ss....Bs....and Ds.

Jim kicks off the conversation and tells us about his experience in the start-up world with eTour, Clicker, and Ask.com, then we explore his ideas about the future of television and how Web programming will compete with DVRs.

We'll also chat about GameSpot and EA teaming up for The Controller, a competition reality show where the best pro-gamers from around the country battle in a high-stakes competition without ever touching the controller.

Finally, we're taking questions from the live chat room and talking with Jim about today's tech news headlines, like the new Lytro camera that captures light in every direction in every point in space (whoa), the most annoying tech words in Web 2.0, and a reminder to turn off Siri access in your iPhone 4S's lock screen!… Read more