MSNBC: Tech & science

Our pre-caffeine roundup is a collection of the hottest, strangest, and most amusing stories of the morning.Good news everybody! Facebook added hashtags, just like Twitter!According to the NSA director: "Dozens" of terrorist plots have been foiled by surveillance programs. But according to this Guardian poll, two-thirds of Americans want the NSA's role in surveillance programs reviewed, and 56 per...    

    

Apple is exploring launching iPhones with bigger screens, as well as cheaper models in a range of colors, over the next year, said four people with knowledge of the matter, as it takes a cue from rival Samsung.The moves, which are still under discussion, underscore how the California-based firm that once ruled the smartphone market is increasingly under threat from its aggressive South Korean comp...    

    

The new generation of gaming seems to be largely composed of open-world zombie adventures, but "Dead Rising 3" — the latest installment in the weird, darkly humorous zombie-smashing hit — arrested our attention because of its eye-popping graphics and gamer pedigree.Apparently grim tone, at odds with the silliness for which the franchise is known, is just a "veneer of seriousness," say its develop...    

Long before he became known worldwide as the NSA contractor who exposed top-secret U.S. government surveillance programs, Edward Snowden worked for a Japanese anime company run by friends and went by the nicknames "The True HOOHA" and "Phish." In 2002, he was 18 years old, a high-school dropout and his parents had just divorced. On the tiny anime company's website, he wrote of his skills with vid...    

    

    

By Ben Neary, APCHEYENNE, Wyo. -- A Delaware aircraft preservation group denies a Wyoming man's claim that it found pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart's missing plane in 2010 but sat on the news so it could solicit him to pay for a later search.Mystery has surrounded Earhart's fate since her plane disappeared in 1937 in the South Pacific. Earhart was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean...    

They're definitely not tornadoes, but the straight-line windstorms known as derechos can be just as damaging, due to gusts that can reach hurricane force. And they could make their appearance during the bout of severe weather sweeping over the Midwest on Wednesday.It's been almost a year since a derecho (pronounced "deh-RAY-cho") was last in the headlines: That's when a powerful storm system blast...    

By Jennifer ViegasDiscovery NewsIt goes a little something like this: A young male zebra finch, whose father taught him a song, shared that song with a brother, with the two youngsters then creating new tunes based on dad’s signature sound.The musical bird family, described in the latest Biology Letters, strengthens evidence that imitation between siblings and similar-aged youngsters facilitates v...    

Denise ChowLiveScience Cheetahs may hold the distinction of being the fastest animals on land, but these elegant felines actually owe their hunting prowess to their ability to rapidly accelerate and maneuver around tight turns, a new study finds. A team of researchers monitored five wild cheetahs in northern Botswana and found that despite clocking top speeds of nearly 60 mph (97 km/h), cheetahs u...    

Federal prosecutors in New Jersey on Wednesday unveiled criminal charges against eight people accused of trying to steal at least $15 million from U.S. customers in an international cybercrime scheme targeting accounts at 15 financial institutions and government agencies. U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said the conspiring hackers gained unauthorized access to computer networks, diverted customer funds...    

By Douglas MainLiveScienceBeneath the seafloor lives a vast and diverse array of microbes, chomping on carbon that constantly rains down from above and is continually buried by a never-ending downpour of debris — some whale dung here, some dead plankton there. For the first time, a study has shown that these microbes are actively multiplying and likely even moving around in the compressed, oxygen-...    

They're definitely not tornadoes, but the straight-line windstorms known as derechos can be just as damaging, due to gusts that can reach hurricane force. And they could make their appearance during the bout of severe weather sweeping over the Midwest on Wednesday.It's been almost a year since a derecho (pronounced "deh-RAY-cho") was last in the headlines: That's when a powerful storm system blast...    

By Geoff GahertySpace.comSaturn and the bright star Spica have been making a pretty pair in our evening skies recently. This week they will be joined by the waxing gibbous moon, making a perfect threesome.Next Monday evening, June 17, the moon will be nine days old and just to the right of Spica. On Tuesday evening, it will have moved to a position between the two, as shown in the graphic above. B...    

By Miriam KramerSpace.comNEW YORK — A group of scientists, businessmen and entrepreneurs are tired of waiting around for E.T. to get in touch.Instead of passively listening for signs of intelligent life in the universe, the Lone Signal project is asking everyone with an Internet connection to help beam messages into outer space in an attempt to make our presence in the universe known.When Lone Sig...    

A photo of a man who was allegedly overheard bragging about cheating on his wife went viral on Facebook earlier this week. The Internet said, “Awesome!” A woman sick of receiving unsolicited photos of genitals from online suitors forwarded a “junk shot” to the mother of the man who sent it. The Internet said, “Super awesome!” A Dunkin Donuts customer, dissatisfied that she didn’t receive a recei...    

By Denise ChowLiveScience The fossilized teeth of ancient marsupials that roamed through northeastern Australia roughly 2.5 million years ago suggest these animals fed on leafy plants in a much more lush and tropical environment than was previously thought, according to a new study.A chemical analysis of tooth enamel from extinct marsupialsin Queensland, the second-largest state in Australia, reve...    

By Miriam KramerSpace.comTang — the orange drink in powdered form made famous by thirsty astronauts — just got slammed by the second man to walk on the moon. Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin doesn't like Tang and admitted it during the taping of Spike TV's "Guys Choice Awards" last weekend, according to the celebrity gossip website TMZ. Aldrin made his confession while he presented an award to sou...