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"My cousin and I tried to build a rocket out of an aluminum armchair leg," he said. At just 12 years old, the future billionaire raided his chemistry set for zinc and sulfur, and packed the fuel mixture into the tube. He got the formula right, but had not looked up the melting point of aluminum...

Embarrassing moments live forever online. But learn to work with the Web, not against it, and you could reshape your cyberhistory. IN the winter of 1996, back when I was a brunette who wore sensible shoes, a photographer snapped my picture during a rehearsal for a college musical. The...

The FBI is investigating the theft of a laptop computer containing travel account information for as many as 80,000 Justice Department employees, but it is unclear how much personal data are at risk of falling into the wrong hands. Authorities think the computer was stolen between May 7 and May...

Two people in an office here were having a tête-à-tête, but it was impossible for a listener standing nearby to understand what they were saying. The conversation sounded like a waterfall of voices, both tantalizingly familiar and yet incomprehensible. The cone of silence, called...

Two thousand years ago, Oxyrhynchus, "city of the sharp-nosed fish," was a provincial capital in central Egypt populated by the well-educated descendants of Greek settlers. It had an 11,000-seat theater, a religious cult dedicated to the city's namesake -- and a municipal dump on the outskirts...

Jason Ainsworth plays the online game Second Life at least four hours a day. In the game, he runs a virtual real estate development business. But his after-tax profit - about $1,800 a month - is real, and it's enough to pay the mortgage on his home in Las Vegas. For many people, what are known...

With Popcorn, DVD's and TiVo, Moviegoers Are Staying Home Matthew Khalil goes to the movies about once a month, down from five or six times just a few years ago. Mr. Khalil, a senior at the University of California, Los Angeles, prefers instead to watch old movies and canceled television shows...

Once they were coveted technological marvels. But now so many outdated computers, television sets and other pieces of electronic equipment just get thrown into the trash in New York that the City Council is considering what would be one of the toughest laws in the nation to force manufacturers...

Bill Gates used his appearance at an industry conference here Monday to offer Microsoft's response to Google's latest online offerings, incorporating satellite imagery into location-based search results and introducing a new customizable MSN "start" page. Mr. Gates, Microsoft's co-founder and...

One of Google Inc.'s top executives is leaving the company, joining a handful of other high-profile departures following the firm's initial public offering and the sharp rise in its stock price that has made hundreds of employees millionaires. Wayne Rosing, a Silicon Valley veteran who served...

The pirate statue had 14 days to leave Massapequa, N.Y. And leave it did. The owner of the six-foot-tall resin figure recently took it to the QuikDrop store on Long Island to have it photographed and put up for auction on eBay for 14 days. An online bidder from Utah paid $750 and the store's...

The company began testing a service last week that lets users build a customized Google home page filled with news, stock quotes and other features that crowd similar pages on popular portals like Yahoo and MSN. As part of this effort, Google is offering headline feeds from a narrow selection...

How residents of the neighborhood that houses the Uptown Theater adapted to "Star Wars" fever in 1977. By Karen De Witt Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, June 23, 1977; Page B01 Scene 1, Take 1: A quiet, residential street in Cleveland Park around the corner from the Uptown Theater where...

Not long ago, I went to Washington for a dinner given by a friend. She wanted to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the end of the Microsoft antitrust trial, which she had covered for a news agency and I had covered for Fortune magazine. In all, about 10 of us made it to the dinner, and it...

For some in the tech industry, the chance to see Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith in its opening couple of days is just not something they're willing to pass up—at any cost. And while that early viewing may be a badge of honor for geeks around the world, the "Star Wars flu" may...

The hackers who acquired nude photos of Paris Hilton from her cell phone used "social engineering" instead of technical wizardry Citing sources in the hacking world, the newspaper says that the 16-year-old got access to celebrity accounts by convincing a T-Mobile employee to give him...

On May 18th, 2005 eBay announced support for FireFox for its eBay Picture Manager. eBay users and sellers (like myself) hope they continue doing this for all of eBay. eBay was a big fan of ActiveX for many seller functions. eBay discussion boards were filled with threads from many sellers...

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'Star Wars' fans have launched their own attack on the web, boosting traffic an average of 168 percent at three major Web sites focused on the soon-to-be released sixth movie in the popular sci-fi movie saga, a research firm said Wednesday. "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith" is...