Researchers spotted a number of malicious applications on the Android Market. (Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com)

Google recently removed at least 10 applications from the Android Market, all of which contained malicious code disguised as add-ons to one of the most popular apps of all time.

Each of the removed apps posed as a cheat or an add-on to Angry Birds, the much-lauded mobile application created by Finnish game development studio Rovio.

A number of the apps in question contained a spyware program called Plankton, which connects to a remote server and uploads phone information like the IMEI...

Back in the early 80s, Soviet engineers began outfitting an Ilyushin-76 jet with a laser cannon. Two models of the “Falcon-Echelon” planes were flown — presumably as counterweights to U.S. efforts to construct a fleet of missile-zapping jets. But when the Soviet Union collapsed, the Falcon-Echelon program perished, as well.

Or so it seemed at the time. Now, there’s mounting evidence that the Russian military has revived the Soviet-era laser project. And in this new incarnation, according to The Space Review, the ray gun is aimed up — toward American satellites.

In many ways, the Beriev A-60 is...