Crave

Tour the Milky Way in 20 billion pixels

Most of us will never leave the Earth -- but that doesn't stop us dreaming of the stars. There are a few tools that let you explore, though -- and NASA has just launched a killer.

Created from the Galactic Legacy Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire (Glimpse) project, it's the most comprehensive visual map of the Milky Way Galaxy released to date -- and yet it only shows just over half of the galaxy's stars. Stitched together from more than 2 million images taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope over the course of a decade, the zoomable, 360-degree image comes in at 20 gigapixels.… Read more

Flame-breathing RC dragon flies for only $60,000

Lately, with the number of us who are obsessed with "Game of Thrones" and Dragon Age: Inquisition, I can comfortably say that dragons are once again "on fire" without having to worry that I'll be fired for making such a geektastic pun. I think it's safe to say that even Madonna would approve.

So it makes sense, then, that this would a good moment in history for Hammacher Schlemmer to begin a selling an actual flying, propane-flame-breathing, remote-controlled dragon for a mere $60,000 per beast.… Read more

Low Latency No. 91: Hurricane Morpheus heads to your living room

Low Latency is a weekly comic on CNET's Crave blog written by CNET editor and podcast host Jeff Bakalar and illustrated by Blake Stevenson. Be sure to check Crave every Friday at 8 a.m. PT for new panels! Want more? Here's every Low Latency comic so far.

Food-gnashing compost container tops Grommet awards

The Ecotonix Green Cycler is a compost container for a new age. It doesn't just sit around in your kitchen, silently holding your vegetable scraps. It takes those scraps and eats them up, grinding them into little bits for faster, more convenient composting in your compost bin. The Green Cycler was just honored as a winner of product-launch platform The Grommet's product-pitch showdown, taking top honors in the ready-for-market category.

The $99 Green Cycler first launched in 2012 and has gone through some updates since then. It features a crank-powered set of shredder blades that grind food waste down into a size that composts much more quickly than big chunks.… Read more

The Web out-Picassos itself: Welcome, sticky tape selfies

Your 3-year-old nephew loves to pull faces, doesn't he?

And he loves it when you pull faces too? In fact, you can spend whole hours just pulling faces at each other and laughing.

You're familiar, by now, with the fact that the Web is largely populated by 3-year-olds. It was only a matter of time and brain-sparking, therefore, before pulling faces captured the virtual world.

New, bright, spark-filled hashtags such as #sellotapeselfie or simply #sellotape don't merely contain faces pulled by natural means. No, they involve wrapping sticky tape around your head and seeing just how close to a Picasso you look.… Read more

Not so fast: Environmental concerns halt Atari 'E.T.' cartridge dig

New Mexico environmental regulators have put the kibosh on the excavation of millions of Atari "E.T." game cartridges from a garbage dump there.

According to The Guardian, the New Mexico Environment Department has said that filmmakers planning a documentary about the burial of the cartridges in 1983 owing to catastrophic sales must first acquire a waste excavation plan.

At South by Southwest earlier this month, filmmakers from Lightbox and Fuel Entertainment said they were almost ready to start digging into the garbage dump in Alamogordo, N.M., to look for the cartridges. Their research had led them … Read more

Mapping the human face in 900 megapixels

Daniel Boschung is a cartographer, but not as you know it.

He creates intricate photographs captured by his robotic camera that provide incredibly high-resolution overviews of paintings and insects.

For his latest project, Boschung set his camera on faces. He asked his subjects to remain perfectly still for 30 minutes as the robot took their portrait.

Each of the finished photos consists of 600 individual shots all stitched together. The level of detail captured is amazing, turning a regular portrait into a map of the human face. Eyelashes, stray hairs, and pores get captured in all their macro glory with incredible depth-of-field. Just like a gigapixel image, you can zoom in and out to explore every facet of the photo. … Read more

The 404 1,450: Where we play by ear (podcast)

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- That story of the marooned woman on a Hawaiian island getting saved thanks to Google Earth is totally fake.

- Chordify makes it easy to cover any song by transcribing sheet music from YouTube and Soundcloud links.

- Funk band games the Spotify system to fund upcoming nationwide tour.

- Virtual screaming babies squirm their way into teenage cellphones in new pregnancy campaign.… Read more

Salvador Dali's elephants get the steampunk Lego treatment

Korean Lego artist Jin Kei looked at Salvador Dali's surrealist masterpiece "The Elephants" and imagined it in plastic brick form. Then, he went even further, and translated it through the lens of steampunk. The result is an embodiment of the toothpick-legged elephant from the painting, except it is full of complex gears and mechanical joints that capture both aesthetics perfectly.

The most prominent feature of Dali's work is the elephants' impossibly tiny legs that look more like an insect's than a pachyderm's. The Lego version re-creates these, but with what look like hydraulic joints. The fun really starts when you dive into the details of the build, from the hatch wheel on the elephant's side to the oil-derrick-like top piece.… Read more