Gadgetory

it's Tuesday February 7 2012 I'm Bridget Carey on cnet com and it's time to get loaded it's a huge news day for redbox the DVD rental vending machines stationed at grocery and drugstores for starters redbox will soon be going head-to-head with netflix with its own video streaming service verizon has partnered with red boxes parent company coinstar and will release an on-demand video streaming service in the second half of this year verizon own sixty-five percent of the venture redbox owns the rest few details were released but it's expected that this would be a national service so it's not just for verizon fios television customers this would also be available on a variety of devices and if that's not enough redbox also announced it acquired its biggest competitor the blockbuster expressed DVD rental kiosks for 100 million dollars the blockbuster rental machines are owned by a company called NCR which specializes in ATM and self-serve ticket machines and NCR bought the rights to use the blockbuster brand name there are about 10,000 blockbuster express DVD kiosks redbox owns more than 35,000 DVD kiosks the transaction is expected to be finalized in the third quarter of this year Google is in development of a pair of glasses that can integrate text and other information in the line of sight of the viewer you know all those sci-fi movies like Terminator when the computer screen data is overlaid on the actual view yeah kinda like that they're calling it google goggles and it could connect to the internet and gps and ideally be used for augmented reality that would tie with google maps so you'll be walking around town and seen info on the stores you're facing or see directions on where to turn sources told the website 925 Google that it looks like a pair of oakley thumped sunglasses and would have a front facing camera you would tilt your head to scroll and select google is also making news in Kansas City Missouri and Kansas City in Kansas where it's starting to lay fiber optic lines in its high speed one gigabit per second internet access project the project was first announced two years ago but it's been a long process just a survey and measure in the land now Google is beginning to lay fiber for the backbone of the network that requires thousands of miles of cable speeds would be a hundred times faster than what most Americans have today research at Johns Hopkins University may help engineers build insect size drones for spying on enemies an undergraduate student has set up high speed high resolution cameras to document exactly how butterfly's wings flutter something that's too hard to study with the naked eye the cameras saw butterflies twist and turn their wings similar to how an ice skater uses arms to control how fast they spin those are your headlines for today I'm Bridget Carey for cnet.com and you've just been loaded