clones

Scientists uncover frozen mammoth, blood flows out

When it comes to cloning extinct critters, it seems most people are holding out more hope for re-creating woolly mammoths than building "Jurassic Park." The researchers involved in a mammoth-rebuilding project are probably pretty excited about a recent find by Russian scientists who uncovered a fairly fresh new mammoth.

A paleontological expedition from the Research Institute of Applied Ecology of the North, North-Eastern Federal University, and the Russian Geographical Society discovered a female mammoth in a remarkably good state of preservation in the Novosibirsk archipelago in Siberia. North-Eastern Federal University has partnered with controversial South Korean cloning scientist Hwang Woo-Suk (who was found to have faked data involving a procedure to clone human embryonic stem cells) for a mammoth-cloning effort.… Read more

Disney making 'Star Wars Rebels,' a new animated show

Disney said today that it has begun production on "Star Wars Rebels," a new animated television series. It will air in 2014, first as a one-hour special, and then will continue as a regular series.

The special will be shown on the Disney Channel, while the series will air first on Disney XD channels globally, Disney said. It will be produced by LucasFilm Animation.

The announcement that production has commenced on "Star Wars Rebels" comes just two months after Disney shut down "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," a popular and long-running cartoon series. What's unclear is whether the announcement of "Star Wars Rebels" will do anything to ease the enmity toward Disney that has sprung up in the wake of the "Clone Wars" shutdown, as well as the closure of LucasArts, the video game arm of LucasFilm. … Read more

Split Pic 2.0 Review

Split Pic 2.0 - Clone Yourself, Better is a neat little app that lets you snap three different pictures to create a fun effect. The problem, however, is that the app is so full of ads that it ruins the user experience.

As soon as you run Split Pic 2.0, you're bombarded with ad after ad, and we very nearly tapped each one by accident. Once you can bypass them, you're greeted with the main menu, which has yet another banner ad slapped on the lower half of the screen. From there, you can select between … Read more

Split up an image with artistic results

Split Pic Pro is a fun photo-editing app that lets you clone yourself (in a manner of speaking), create collage-like projects, add effects, then share your work with your friends.

To get started, you need to select one of the 12 different layouts. You have the option to move each of the bars that separates your layout for a little customization, but it really seems like it needs more default layouts. Fortunately, even with the small assortment, you'll be able to make some really cool projects.

The next step is to fill each of the panes with an image … Read more

Disney shuttering LucasArts, moving to licensed games model

Disney has shut down LucasArts, the video game arm of the Lucas entertainment empire, laying off its staff and ceasing its development of two forthcoming "Star Wars" games.

"After evaluating our position in the games market, we've decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company's risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games," LucasFilm said in a statement. "As a result of this change, we've had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have … Read more

New HTC One hasn't debuted yet and already has a clone

HTC's anticipated flagship phone, reportedly dubbed the HTC One, won't be officially revealed until tomorrow, but it's already been cloned.

GizChina reports that the GooPhone One is based on the HTC One (also known by the code name M7) and was being shown off in renderings a few days before the HTC media event.

GooPhone is well known in China for producing remarkably similar knock-offs of popular smartphones and made headlines last year when it threatened to sue Apple over the iPhone 5 design patents in China.

The speed with which GooPhone manages to clone hardware seems … Read more

Copy your DVDs with 123 DVD Clone

Have you ever played a favorite DVD so many times that it started to skip, even with careful handling? DVDs are notoriously prone to skipping when scratched or marred. With today's high-capacity hard drives, why not store copies of your favorite movies and other important DVDs on your PC? It's easy with DVDVideoTool's 123 DVD Clone. With it, you can copy and back up your DVDs to your hard drive with a single click, and burn copies of them, too. It can copy entire discs or just save the main feature, and even split programs. While 123 … Read more

Create virtual optical discs with Virtual CloneDrive

Once upon a time, CD-ROMs and other optical discs provided the much-needed storage space that hard drives lacked, but with terabyte drives, shuffling disks in and out of your tray is just a nuisance. SlySoft's Virtual CloneDrive is a free tool that creates up to 15 virtual CD and DVD drives in Windows. You can copy your CDs and DVDs to your hard drive as ISO disc images and run them normally with Virtual CloneDrive. Instead of swapping disks in and out, you can simply mount and unmount disk images with a few clicks. Virtual CloneDrive works with any … Read more

Expect double the 'Star Wars' 3D in late 2013

Lucasfilm and Twentieth Century Fox announced today an epic sci-fi 3D doubleheader for fall 2013: "Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones" and "Episode III Revenge of the Sith" arrive in theaters during consecutive months next year.

Officially, the 3D version of "Episode II" hits the big screen on September 20, 2013, while the 3D "Episode III" debuts on October 11, 2013. … Read more

Apple licensed its designs to Microsoft, but barred 'cloning'

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Apple's patent licensing chief said here today that an earlier cross-licensing deal allowed Microsoft access to a host of its design and feature patents, but prohibited the copying of Apple's own products.

Apple patent licensing director Boris Teksler made the disclosure during testimony in the company's trial against Samsung, which could wrap up as soon as next week. It's not clear how long the cross-licensing deal he mentioned has been in place, or how long it will last.

"All these patents are in Apple's unique user experience, and not ones … Read more