Postmates Builds Minion-Esque Delivery Bot That Maybe You Won’t Try to Kill on Sight
Robotic couriers that look a whole lot like Minions could be coming to your city next year.
Make an Epic NERF Battle a Holiday Tradition With This Amazon Sale
One of the most fun memories my family has made in recent years was a giant NERF battle on the lawn. I’m talking children, my adult siblings and their spouses, my parents — all of us pummeling each other with foam darts and then pausing to collect them so we could go again.
Was Thanos' Doomed Home World From Avengers Ever Really Habitable? Earther Investigates
The first teaser trailer for Avengers: Endgame dropped last week, featuring a universe devoid of 50 percent of all living things thanks to Thanos’ extremely poorly thought-through ecological genocide. The Big Bad was inspired to wipe out half of all life after watching his home world of Titan descend into chaos when…
Two Stalagmites Found in Chinese Cave Are a 'Holy Grail' for Accurate Radiocarbon Dating
Since its inception in the 1950s, radiocarbon dating has proven indispensable to archaeologists and climate scientists, who rely on the technique to accurately date organic compounds. But a good thing just got better, owing to the discovery of two stalagmites in a Chinese cave containing a seamless chronological…
Windows 10 Collects Activity Data Even When Tracking Is Disabled, But You Can Block It
Another day, another tech company being disingenuous about its privacy practices. This time it’s Microsoft, after it was discovered that Windows 10 continues to track users’ activity even after they’ve disabled the activity-tracking option in their Windows 10 settings.
What's the Vector, Victor? It's a Cool $175 Robot That Listens and Learns.
Alexa can be fun to talk to when you’re lonely or bored, but she’s not exactly animated. The Anki Vector Home Robot solves that problem by behaving almost like a pet. He can answer questions, sure, but he also reacts to sight, sound, and touch and is excited to see you when you come home. And better than any other…
Kids in 1904 Had Wild Predictions About the Future of 2019
What did kids from the year 1904 think would happen by the year 1919 or even the year 2019? They imagined fancy airships in the sky, “automobiles for everything,” and wondrous house-cleaning robots. They even imagined trips to Mars by the year 1919. Seriously.
The American Oil and Gas Industry Is as Cynical as You Think
Remember when the Trump administration proposed rolling back Obama-era fuel economy standards and the auto industry’s response was basically, “Whoa, we didn’t actually want all that”? That was weird, if also revealing. Behind the scenes, Big Oil never wavered though, according to a new New York Times report, which…
The Deadly Recklessness of the Self-Driving Car Industry
Autonomous vehicles were supposed to make driving safer, and they may yet—some of the more optimistic research indicates self-driving cars could save tens of thousands of lives a year in the U.S. alone. But so far, a recklessness has defined the culture of the largest companies pursuing the technology—Uber, Google,…
See Hayao Miyazaki Meet His First CG Creation in This Exclusive Clip From Never-Ending Man
The story behind animation legend Hayao Miyazaki’s retirement from Studio Ghibli—and nascent return to work on new animation mediums and deliver one last film—is well known at this point. But a new documentary wants to show the world the personal struggle behind Miyazaki’s latest quest, and we’ve got a brief look.
Thursday's Best Deals: Outdoor Gear, Weighted Blankets, Giant Snickers, Headphones, and More
Sous-Vide circulators, weighted blankets, a Kamado grill, outdoorsy gear, and discounted Anker headphones lead off Thursday’s best deals.
Working at Tesla Means Being in an 'Abusive Relationship' With Elon Musk: Report
What separates Tesla, at least according to the marketing copy, from every other car company is this: It’s not driven by a desire for profit, but by a mission to save the planet from climate change by electrifying our cars. But what’s it like to live that mission every day if you’re a rank-and-file Tesla worker, or…
DC's Stargirl Show Has Found Its Starman
Mark Hamill talks Star Wars: Episode IX secrecy. Birds of Prey casts an intriguing ally for Renee Montoya. Black Mirror adds a surprising guest star. Supernatural celebrates three hundred episodes with the return of a familiar face. Plus, what’s to come on the DC/CW shows, and new clips from Into the Spider-Verse and …
1,000 Organizations Have Pulled Their Money Out of Fossil Fuels in Major Milestone
There are a few levers of power that can shut down fossil fuel companies, one of which is to cut off their supply of money. And investors are starting to do just that in increasingly greater numbers.
Give the Gift Of an Anxiety-Crushing, 22 Pound Blanket For $34 Off
A weighted blanket would be an amazing gift for your stressed out friends and family members (and really, are there any other types?). Just think about how nice the lead vest feels when they lay it on you at the dentist, and then imagine feeling that way at home, under a soft blanket, without someone scraping at your…
Internal Google Docs Warn Not to Gift Contractors Shirts in Case They Start Thinking They're Employees: Report
Internal Google documents obtained by the Guardian warn full-time Google staff to treat temps, vendors, and contractors (TVCs)—which comprise just short of half of the company’s 170,000 workers around the globe—much differently than they treat fellow full-timers.
5 More Ways Your Location Can Be TrackedÂ
Courtesy of the New York Times, we just got another reminder of how invasive location tracking through apps can be—which might have caused you to turn off this particular permission for a bunch of apps on your smartphone. But location tracking goes a lot deeper than that.
The 25 Most Popular Passwords of 2018 Will Make You Feel Like a Security Genius
For the last seven years, SplashData has revealed its annual list of the most commonly used passwords of the year. This time around, the results reveal that, uh, we still have work to do.
There's a Gift For Every Adventurer In Amazon's One-Day Outdoors Sale
If you still haven’t bought a gift for your favorite outdoorsperson, this one-day Amazon sale is full of great ideas, and great deals, that could turn anyone into an aspiring Bear Grylls.
Apple to Build New $1 Billion Campus in Austin and Expand in Culver City, San Diego, and Seattle
Apple announced overnight that the tech giant will open a new $1 billion campus in Austin, Texas, just a mile away from their existing presence in the city. The 133-acre campus will house 5,000 employees, with an eventual capacity for as many as 15,000 workers.
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