Amazon has just unveiled a new incentive to sign up for their $80-per-year Prime service: a lending library for the Kindle, allowing you to “borrow” books for free.

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Amazon offering a Kindle lending library to Prime subscribers

We write about a lot of technologies around here that are little more than a glimmer in some mad scientist’s eye, and it’s usually going to be a while before you can go out and buy them. In between those two points, though, everything new has to undergo a “hype cycle,” which ranges from wild excitement, to disillusionment, to (finally) productivity.

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The Hype Cycle: how technology goes from inception to mainstream

If you’re a raving Harry Potter fan and haven’t snatched up the DVDs or Blu-rays yet, you’d better hurry, because Warner Brothers is planning to use its strongest Avada Kedavra curse on the entire movie series by the end of this year.

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Warner Bros. will purge retail of Harry Potter movies by December

How much bubble wrap does it take to survive a jump from that high? One Reddit user posed the question , so Wired decided to find an answer. The answer, and funny image that comes to mind, probably won’t surprise you too much. It is a crazy hypothetical idea, after all.

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Jumping out of six-story building requires a LOT of bubble wrap

Word on the street is that Amazon is testing out something new in Seattle. No, we’re not talking about the Kindle tablet . We’re talking about lockers at 7-Eleven mini marts that’ll let online shoppers pick up their packages while they grab a hot dog instead of waiting for the UPS man at home.

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You’ll soon be able to pick up your Amazon packages at 7-Eleven

Next month, the entire Star Wars series is headed to Blu-ray. And wouldn’t you know it, George Lucas has gone in and futzed around with them again for the release.

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George Lucas tinkers with the Star Wars movies yet again

Next month, the entire Star Wars series is headed to Blu-ray. And wouldn’t you know it, George Lucas has gone in and futzed around with them again for the release.

Go here to see the original:
George Lucas tinkers with the Star Wars movies yet again

Sick of searching for quarters when you need to feed a parking meter? NYC is set to test out a new system that would allow you to pay for street parking using a smartphone app.

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NYC to test out parking meters you can fill from your phone

Deep breaths, Trekkies: a Star Trek theme park is in the works . A $1.5 billion Star Trek theme park, to be precise. And it just got its funding nailed down.

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The real-deal Star Trek theme park is a go

Worried that some terrorist might have smuggled anthrax onto your flight? Well, a new gizmo developed by researchers at the University of Albany and Cornell University will be able to identify if that suspicious white powder is anthrax or just baby powder — in under an hour.

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Researchers create a suitcase-sized one-hour anthrax detector