On July 17, 1996, TWA Flight 800 crashed just south of Long Island, claiming all 230 lives aboard the Boeing 747. A four-year National Transportation Safety Board investigation determined a fuel tank explosion was to blame for the incident

Even before NTSB investigators arrived at the scene, however, conspiracy theories began to float: Was it a terrorist armed with a shoulder-fired missile? Did somebody have a bomb on board? Or did the military accidentally shoot down the airplane?

The NTSB's final explanation satisfied few of those who had already made up their mind. Indeed, filmmakers behind a new documentary say they have new evidence from NTSB insiders and others of a cover-up. As that film is set to open next month, it's important to remember those with "alternative" theories about Flight 800 long ago found a place where they could swap ideas and share their aviation expertise or first-hand accounts: the Internet Read more...

Actor James Gandolfini, best known for his portrayl of mob boss Tony Soprano in The Sopranos has died. He was 51.

HBO confirmed to Mashable on Wednesday that Gandolfini died while vacationing in Rome, Italy. Reports suggest the cause was a possible heart attack

"We're all in shock and feeling immeasurable sadness at the loss of a beloved member of our family. He was [a] special man, a great talent, but more importantly a gentle and loving person who treated everyone no matter their title or position with equal respect," the network wrote in an emailed statement

"He touched so many of us over the years with his humor, his warmth and his humility. Our hearts go out to his wife and children during this terrible time. He will be deeply missed by all of us." Read more...

Say you're a successful NBA player. Your massive Twitter following comes with many advantages: increased marketing appeal, the ability to interact with fans and a platform to break your own news on your own terms, just to name a few

Kendrick Perkins, however, just found a new and innovative way to leverage Twitter: as a secondary marketplace to shed some unwanted canine cargo. That's right — Perkins just sold his English bulldog on the microblogging network after posting a series of ads and photos for his 55,000 followers

But no slimy sales pitches here, folks. Perkins opened up the action with a tweet that digitally looked you in the eye, and shook your hand firmly: Read more...

Apple announced Wednesday that it has landed a major deal to sell iPad tablets to the second-largest public school district in the United States.

The Los Angeles School Board of Education has approved a $30 million deal to roll out iPads to students in its district beginning this fall. Each iPad tablet will include the "Pearson Common Core System of Courses delivered via a new app," Apple said in a statement. The iPads will also be equipped with iWork, iLife, iTunes and some educational third-party apps.

The school district is paying $678 for each iPad, since it includes the pre-loaded educational software, the Los Angeles Times reported. Read more...

It’s a rainy day; you’re busy power loading Dr. Who on Netflix when it happensNetflix lapses into endlessly “Loading” your next episode, without actually ever playing it. This is not a new problem, and even as broadband speeds improve, the issue persists.

Now a recent report in Gigaom suggests that the cause of your troubles, at least on one major broadband provider, is the result of an ongoing spat between Netflix and Verizon, and the story puts most of the blame on the FiOS Fiber provider.

As the story tells it, Verizon and a major internet traffic transit provider, Cogent, can’t come to terms over who should shoulder the burden for all the Netflix traffic. It’s a lot of traffic. By one estimate, Netflix streaming accounts for over 30% of all broadband Internet traffic. Read more...

Love can make you do crazy things, like hoisting a boombox over your head to serenade your dream girl, sprinting to the love of your life while staring into her eyes on FaceTime, and maybe even purchasing a $4.9 million home to be closer to your boyfriend's family.

When a Reddit user posted the question, "What is the dumbest thing you've done for love?" the forum exploded with answers. Close to 5000 commenters chimed in with stories of grand romantic gestures gone wrong. Here are a few of the most cringe-worthy responses:

• "Took my own braces off with nail clippers. I was head over heels in love with this chick, but found out through a friend she didn't find me attractive." - scrotum_nachos Read more...

NASA released a 360-degree interactive panorama of Mars from Curiosity rover's point of view

The image is actually a compilation of 900 photos — all of which Curiosity took while she was parked in an area called Rocknest in October and November of last year. Stitched together, the mosaic makes you feel like you're standing on the Red Planet with the rover. The full-resolution version is 1.3 billion pixels. To put that in perspective, a standard 5" x 7" photo is about 1,500 pixels wide and 2,100 pixels high

There are two versions of Curiosity's panorama. The first, embedded below, has been white-balanced to show how the scene would look under Earth's lighting conditions. In other words, this is how the human eye would translate the terrain in what we perceive as a "normal" environment. Read more...

Twitter has acquired Spindle, a location-based social discovery engine, the two companies announced Wednesday. The terms of the deal were not immediately disclosed.

Spindle was founded two and a half years ago by former Microsoft engineers with the goal of helping users discover relevant content on social networks based on time and place. The startup raised $2.3 million in funding in late 2012.

"Every time we’ve experimented and looked beyond local discovery, we’ve been amazed by the breadth and quality of content shared on Twitter," Spindle said in a blog post. "By joining forces with Twitter, we can do so much more to help you find interesting, timely, and useful information about what’s happening around you." Read more...

Microsoft is dropping the restrictions on Xbox One games that keep players from sharing game discs across multiple consoles, backtracking on the position it held earlier on DRM.

"As a result of feedback from the Xbox community, we have changed certain policies for Xbox One," Don Mattrick, President of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft wrote on wrote on its blog:

So, today I am announcing the following changes to Xbox One and how you can play, share, lend, and resell your games exactly as you do today on Xbox 360. Here is what that means:

An internet connection will not be required to play offline Xbox One games – After a one-time system set-up with a new Xbox One, you can play any disc based game without ever connecting online again. There is no 24 hour connection requirement and you can take your Xbox One anywhere you want and play your games, just like on Xbox 360.

Trade-in, lend, resell, gift, and rent disc based games just like you do today – There will be no limitations to using and sharing games, it will work just as it does today on Xbox 360. Read more...

Makerbot has been acquired by Stratasys, a 3D printing business, and will merge with a subsidiary of the company, the two companies announced Wednesday afternoon

“The last couple of years have been incredibly inspiring and exciting for us,” said Bre Pettis, CEO of Makerbot, in a statement. “We have an aggressive model for growth, and partnering with Stratasys will allow us to supercharge our mission to empower individuals to make things using a MakerBot, and allow us to bring 3D technology to more people."

SEE ALSO: Makerbot Opens Large New Factory in Brooklyn

Makerbot, a Brooklyn-based company, was founded four years ago and has sold more than 22,000 3D printers to date. Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Makerbot was in acquisition talks after it looked to raise a $300 million round of funding. Read more...

Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are reportedly still deciding on their little one's name, following the baby's arrival on Saturday.

We do have a few clues about the baby's name, though — it might start with a 'K.'

"I think it would be really cute cause Kanye and I are both K’s … but half the names on our list aren't K's," Kardashian told Extra

Donda is likely one of the options on their list, after West's late mother. Various sources claim the baby has been named Kaidence Donda West, Kai Georgia Donda West and Kamo North West.

Hollywood practically requires celebrity parents to choose outlandish monikers for their offspring — just look at Apple, Blue Ivy and Pilot Inspektor. So we can't help but wonder what the baby's name would be if the Kardashian and West left it up to other famous couples, like Beyoncé and Jay-Z or Nicole Richie and Joel Madden? Check out the potential results: Read more...

Superheroes spend all of their time saving the world, which leaves them with little to address their own issues — even when they seriously need to

But entertainment website The Credits is helping out superheroes suffering from serious personal problems.

The site enlisted a clinical psychologist, Dr. Natalie Petyke, to blindly analyze a few superheroes based on the recent films in which they appeared, and to suggest treatments.

She was only given summaries of the characters' backgrounds and traumas — she had no clue their stories were pulled straight from fiction. Still, it's a pretty spot-on take Read more...

Lugging around wires and batteries is a hassle for everyone, but accessories manufacturer Moshi plans to make it much easier for iPhone 5 users with the help of its new external battery. Unlike other portable chargers, this one comes with a built-in Lightning cable.

The IonBank ($89.99, 5,000 milliamp-hours) supports Apple's Lightning connector, so there's no need to bring along an iPhone cable for a quick charge. The Lightning connector is tucked into the battery and pops out when you slide the top of the battery case to the side. The device also works for other models of the iPhone and iPad, but you'll need to bring a cable and connect it via the USB slot. Read more...

Can six seconds' worth of video and audio convey the story of a massive protest in Brazil? Yes it can, per this Vine video recorded earlier this week.

Posted by Lucio Amorim, the Vine shows thousands of protesters in the streets of Rio de Janeiro protesting poor public services and corruption in the halls of government. Per its official tally, it has been tweeted more than 10,500 times and "liked" 400 times, but its off-platform reach is likely much higher.

Protests in Brazil started earlier this month in Sao Paulo as a relatively small demonstration against the government's planned rise in public transit fares. After police engaged in a brutal crackdown against the demonstrators, the movement grew into a multi-city protest against government corruption at large — mirroring similar but unrelated developments around the world in Turkey. Read more...

At Mashable, we follow leaders and innovators in the digital space. As technology is dramatically reshaping the practice and profession of communications, we are looking to identify and recognize the women pushing the barriers and reshaping communications for the digital era.

These are women on the rise: Women who have accomplished a great deal, but whose work is far from finished.

We've teamed up with New York Women in Communications to bring you the first
annual WiCi Awards, created to recognize rising stars in communications and their career achievements.

The WiCi Awards will honor women to watch — ambitious women who have made an impact through their careers and commanded the respect and admiration of their peers. Who would you nominate? Read more...

Tuesday night's epic NBA Finals slugfest featured gripping back-and-forth lead changes, stellar performances from the game's best players and set up what promises to be an appointment-viewing Game 7 on Thursday evening

It also included a remedial seminar in how to fail as a sports fan, courtesy of the Miami Heat's home crowd.

Here's the backstory: The Heat and visiting San Antonio Spurs battled fiercely down the stretch, with Miami taking a two-point lead with just two minutes remaining. They then squandered that advantage, going down five points with just about 30 seconds to go. At this point many Heat fans — estimated to be about 2,000 of them — streamed to the exits, apparently looking to beat the traffic and get a primo seat at the bar Read more...

No matter how much thought you put into your social media strategy, the real world can always interfere.

Robert Reimann spent more than a week hashing out a plan to boost sales and engagement on the Facebook page for his bike tour business, after being matched with Shane Johnston, a social media marketing consultant from Mashable's Small Business Panel. With Johnston's help, Reimann would launch a contest — along with Facebook ads to promote it — in order to attract more fans and build up an email list of customers, which he would then work to convert into sales.

Then the flood started

Germany, where Reimann and his business BikeSherpa are based, was hit with severe flooding earlier this month that forced tens of thousands of residents to evacuate. While Reimann's home in Dresden wasn't damaged, he had to help his sister move all her furniture and evacuate from her house along the Elbe river. Reimann also had to scramble to come up with new bike routes and re-book hotels for customers who had booked bike trips around the city. Read more...

Thanks to its refocusing ability, the Lytro camera does things no other camera can do, but it also lacks a way to quickly share its "living" photos. That is, until today. With a free firmware upgrade, Lytro owners can activate the Wi-Fi chip that's been dormant in their cameras, which works with a new app arriving Wednesday in the iOS App Store.

Now that the Lytro's wireless is fully armed and operational, users will be able to immediately share their light-field photos — which until now were only accessible once the user connected the camera to a PC or Mac. With the app, users can transfer photos to Lytro.com immediately, and sharing is a couple of taps away. Read more...

From Google Glass to car dashboards to shopping, Augmented Reality (AR) is one of the most talked-about trends in technology

At its core, the idea behind AR is to bring additional context to the "real" world. With the advent of smartphones and tablets, the potential for AR to add context in real-life tasks including finding your way around or fixing a car becomes an actual possibility.

Although AR gained more mainstream recognition over the last few years, most AR projects are confined to designated proof-of-concepts or specific experiences wrapped around a specific app. German company Metaio wants to change that, and its goal is to bring augmented reality everywhere Read more...

Facebook has started to roll out photo comments, a new feature that allows you to comment on posts with images rather than words.

Originally built during a Facebook employee hackathon, photo comments are starting to roll out globally on the web as well as the Facebook mobile site. Users can't yet leave photo comments within Facebook's mobile apps, but they are viewable. The feature is expected to come to those apps in a future update.

Adding a photo comment involves clicking a camera icon beside the text box where you would typically write a message and then uploading an image from your computer. Read more...

Ladies and gentlemen, if we could please have your attention, Cher has something important she'd like to share:

She's still got it.

HMMMM…. Seems There’s MORE BUZZ,about the way I Looked,Than the way I Performed !!
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSIVE STILL GOT IT !!!!!!

— Cher (@cher) June 19, 2013

The 67-year-old pop icon last night showed viewers and attendees of The Voice that age is but a number, flaunting her first appearance on the live stage in a decade. For the NBC show's season four finale, Cher and an ensemble of back-up dancers performed "Woman's World," the first single from the star's upcoming studio album, Closer to the Truth Read more...

When I set out to find the most profound things Sally Ride said throughout her career, I realized we missed a huge opportunity as journalists. Mush together the thousands of words and hours of video footage, and you'll get one really long, repetitive interview. That's because we often asked her the same questions: What's it like to be the only woman in a boys club? What advice can you give women? How can we get more girls to love science?

Perhaps that's because we couldn't move past Sally the icon and get to know Sally the person. We fixated on the fact that a woman was going to space — a first for America, but old news to the Soviets. However, we couldn't see past our own noses and treated her as the first woman in space — period Read more...

When Firaxis Games announced in March that turn-based strategy giant XCOM: Enemy Unknown was coming to iPad, it was unclear how it would pack a huge, immersive console and PC title into an app

Thankfully, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, which launches at midnight Thursday, doesn't skimp on what's necessary: great gameplay. (We rated it one of the best games of 2012.) While there might have been some visual compromises to scale the game down to just 3.2 gigs, which is still a lot on a tablet, the functionality hasn't been touched.

For the uninitiated, XCOM: Enemy Unknown was a reboot of the the popular X-COM strategy franchise from the 1990s. It was a risky gamble by 2K Games, Firaxis and Creative Director Jake Solomon, who said it was his dream since joining Firaxis to reboot the franchiseEnemy Unknown challenges players to lead a team of elite operatives to wipe out aliens invading Earth, while balancing resources and keeping individual countries, which are funding missions, from leaving the alliance. Read more...

Facebook Page owners, rejoice: Facebook Insights, the social network's analytics dashboard for public Pages, is getting a makeover. A small, random group of beta testers will get access to the new desktop design on Wednesday, with a broader rollout to follow at an unspecified date.

The new design is simpler, cleaner and more intelligible. Stats that were previously rolled in together (i.e., "People Talking About This") have been broken down into separate charts that allow Page owners to individually measure the reach and engagement (likes, comments, clicks and shares) of individual posts. Additional charts make it easier for users to see what kinds of posts — say, those with videos, or ones targeted to certain groups — have better reach or more positive engagement than others. Owners can also now break down demographic behavior on individual posts to see, for example, if Read more...

As a recent college graduate, I speak for 90% of teens and young adults when I say, "Thank goodness, it's summertime!"

The summer should be a time of celebration. Adults, you've survived the snowstorms, blizzards and treacherous commutes to work. College students and high schoolers, your final exams have ended and now you can enjoy the 80-degree-plus weather as the beach is calling your name.

However, according to dietitian Tessa Prior-Pullins, the summer is "a time where your immune system can be most vulnerable, if you aren't careful." To combat this, we recommend staying hydrated with plenty of fluids and avoiding the hottest times of the day. Because no one wants to be held hostage inside by the bug while the skies are blue! (Trust me, I know.) Read more...

A touching, never-before-seen video of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs has revealed his inner thoughts about what his legacy might be one day.

The video is a part of a 60-minute documentary called Steve Jobs: Visionary Entrepreneur, which is based around a 20-minute interview he conducted with the Silicon Valley Historical Association in 1994. In the clip posted to YouTube and first spotted by The Loop, Jobs seems to be answering a question based on whether he believes the tech industry is similar to the Renaissance period and if it will be admired for years to come.

I recently had a chance to play around with Google Glass while I wasn't wearing my contact lenses. I squinted and tried my best to see the holographic screen that appears to float in front of the high-tech eyewear, but because of my nearsightedness, it was hard to make out what I was doing

I had used Google Glass a few times before, so I just left them on and went to the office kitchen, found some snacks, stopped by a co-worker's desk to discuss site coverage and finally sat back at my desk to check emails, browse Twitter and get to work.

It wasn't until later that I realized Google Glass was recording the whole thing. I must have activated the recording function by touching the camera button a little too long, and I didn't notice the timer pop up on the screen. (Note: If you're nearsighted, never wear Glass without contact lenses.) I handed it over to another colleague with better vision to see if this was the case. He hit the playback button and the last few minutes which were seen through my eyes now unfolded before his Read more...

After years away from music, Miley Cyrus has emerged from a creative cocoon of sorts to release an outlandish comeback music video for "We Can't Stop" — complete with enormous teddy bears, twerking and a general "I don't give a f-, y'all" attitude

The song itself was quick to stir up controversy with a reference to cocaine ("Trynna get a line in the bathroom") and an easily misheard non-reference to the drug Molly ("Dancing with Miley" versus "Dancing with Molly")

Now that the music video is here, we're pretty sure that "the haters" will have plenty of material to pick apart (good thing Miley don't care 'bout the haters). The video is kind of an extreme mashup between a Sky Ferreira video and Lady Gaga's "Just Dance" video infused with Miley's new image (twerking including) Read more...

Apple showed off lots of new goodies at WWDC 2013, including an update to the company's best-selling MacBook Air line

The 2013 MacBook Air — available in 11-inch or 13-inch sizes — now comes equipped with Intel's newest Haswell chipset and promises better battery life with improved graphics performance.

We tested the base model mid-2013 13-inch MacBook Air. It comes equipped with a 1.3GHz Intel i5 processor (2.6GHz turbo), 4GB of RAM and a 128GB solid-state drive. This model retails for $1,099, down $100 from the base 2012 13-inch MacBook Air

Customers can further customize the machine to include up to 8GB of RAM, a 256GB or 512GB SSD and bump of the processor from Core i5 to Core i7. As with previous generations, the MacBook Air is not upgradeable after purchase, so if you want to have more RAM or a bigger SSD, you need to make that decision when you buy. Read more...

Demonstrators have been protesting Turkey's government for weeks in cities across the country, sparked by police brutality against citizens angry over plans to destroy an Istanbul park. Hundreds of thousands of protestors took to the streets in cities across Turkey as the demonstrations evolved into a larger anti-government movement.

The protests have been well-documented by photojournalists and videojournalists from the ground — but now we've got an amazing bird's eye view of the demonstrations.

Vimeo user Jenk K, who identifies himself on Twitter as a "Sky Pilot," has been posting some truly incredible aerial footage of Turkey's protests from a radio-controlled, camera-equipped aircraft. Jenk said one of his aircrafts was shot down by rubber bullets from police almost a week ago, but he's still uploading new footage Read more...