Adam Clark Estes

First Satellite Built by High School Kids Is Heading to Space Tonight

Your coolest high school science project probably involved some baking soda and a paper mâché volcano, right? A little chemical reaction and a big mess? Well, kids these days are smarter than you. They’re building satellites and sending them to space. Students from the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia,…

Phone Carriers Reject Anti-Theft Plan So They Can Sell More Insurance

Remember the idea to prevent cell phone theft with a so-called kill switch that would disable the device remotely after it had been stolen? Well, lawmakers are having the darnedest time getting a policy in place, in part due to carriers. Let me rephrase that: due to greedy carriers. George Gascón, San Francisco’s District Attorney,…

Hundreds of Firms Are Selling NSA-Level Spy Tech and That’s Not Okay

While Americans shuddered over revelations about NSA surveillance earlier this year, hundreds of private companies have been marketing technology that lets anybody be a spy. We’re not talking about a few nanny cams here and there, either. We’re talking about military-grade tools for whomever has the cash. The anti-surveillance group Privacy International just published a…

Iran Unveils New Drone Amazingly Not Held Together by Tape

Iran welcomed a new addition to its drone fleet on Monday with the unveiling of the Fotros. Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan says this familiar-looking can do anything from taking pictures of Israel to protecting Iran’s borders. So he says. Dehqan told the crowd at the unveiling ceremony in Tehran that the Fotros…

Google only has to pay $17 million for tracking people without their knowledge. The search giant just agreed to the sum to settle allegations from 37 states (and DC) that it added cookies to users’ computers without consent. Google stopped short of admitting to wrong-doing, though.

Tepco Removes First Fukushima Fuel Rods, Finally Gets Something Right

TEPCO workers successfully removed the first fuel rods from the damaged reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant and transferred them into portable casks on Monday. Those who have been following the follies of the power company should be pleased that a meltdown did not occur. These are just the first of many fuel rods that…

This Futuristic Car Has No Engine and No Transmission

A team of engineers at Ohio State University want to change the way cars work. Not only do they want to build a more efficient, environmentally-friendly vehicle, but they also want to build a car with better parts—in fact, so much better that you can do away with major components… like the engine. The prototype…

Pentagon Super-Hoarders Waste Billions Buying Stuff They Already Have

If you thought your great aunt Edna was bad, you should meet the super-hoarders at the Pentagon. A new Reuters investigation reveals that various defense agencies can’t stop buying stuff they already have. Like, many, many billions of dollars’ worth of stuff. The Defense Logistics Agency is a primary culprit, and they know it. “We…

The Supreme Court Won’t End NSA Phone Spying Quite Yet

The Supreme Court just rejected a case brought by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) to put a stop to the NSA’s telephone metadata spying program. The justices didn’t offer an explanation. In fact, they didn’t even offer comment on why they declined to hear the case. It was a long shot all along, though.…

Laser Holograms as Thin as a Hair Could Be the Future of High-Res

Holograms are cool enough on their own, but amazing things happen when you make them incredibly small. A team of Army-funded scientists from Purdue did just that with the development of tiny holograms—smaller than the width of a human hair!—made by shining lasers through a metasurface. This could change display technology forever. https://gizmodo.com/the-art-of-the-hologram-is-alive-in-this-underground-la-1277409734 The new…

You Just Missed a Massive, Destructive (Fake) Cyberattack

What would happen if an army of hackers put America’s power grid in its sights and pulled the trigger? How fast would the country descend into darkness? Would there be anarchy in the streets? Would people die? According to a war game carried out across the country this week, the answer is not necessarily good…

Anonymous Hacker Gets 10 Years in Jail, Blames Informant Sabu

Anonymous hacker Jeremy Hammond knew that he was going to serve serious time for his role in the 2011 hack of Stratfor Global Intelligence. But holy crap, the judge threw the book at the guy! The 28-year-old Chicago native was just sentenced to 10 years in federal prison. For hacking. Let’s put that into perspective.…

This Floating Hotel Room Comes with an Underwater Fish-Peeping Deck

You probably want to visit the Manta Resort, a new getaway in Zanzibar—because, at the Manta Resort, you can actually get away from the getaway and stay a few hundred feet offshore in a floating hotel room. And then you can getaway again in the underwater bedroom built for watching fish. The Underwater Room is…

What Finally Makes Train Travel Bearable Might Be… Starbucks?

Trains are awesome. Their serpentine strings of steel cars travel hundreds of miles an hour, yet give passengers enough stability to sip a tasty beverage. On the other hand, trains are awful. Have you ever seen the sickly cafe cars that serve those drinks? That’s all about to change, however, at least for anyone riding…

NSA Admits That Edward Snowden Stole Up to 200,000 Documents

It’s been nearly half a year since the first revelations from Edward Snowden’s leak made it into the press, but until now, we’ve been in the dark about exactly how big that leak was. Well, ladies and gentlemen, NSA Director General Keith Alexander is finally shining a light in that direction. On Halloween of all…

Google Wins the Right to Keep Scanning Millions of Books for Free

Nearly a decade after it started, the lawsuit between the Authors’ Guild and Google over its book-scanning program has been thrown out. This means that Google can keep digitizing millions of books for free distribution, and more importantly, that fair use is in the public’s best interest. On Thursday, U.S. Circuit Judge Denny Chin in…

Get Out of Work Early With This Handy Happy Hour Virus

Everybody hates malware. It’s scary—all your personal information could be exposed! It’s annoying—all your data could disappear! It’s confusing—none of your friends really know how it works! This is why fake malware is the best new way to play hooky. Introducing the Happy Hour Virus. This two-click solution to a shitty afternoon at work appears…

Tour the Canals of Venice with Google Street View

Taking a vacation to Venice can be a real pain in the ass. Tourists flock to the watery city like like fire ants on a fallen sandwich. Every restaurant is overpriced. The place floods all the time. But you can now avoid all those annoyances thanks to Google Street View. Everybody’s favorite (sometimes creepy) world-mapping…

6 Chemical Reaction GIFs That Will Make You a Smarter Person

Remember how much fun your high school chemistry class was? Neither do we. But that may be because there weren’t enough explosions. Well, nowadays, the internet can fix that problem in a jiffy—or rather, a gif. Capturing extreme chemical reactions in animated gifs is the best way to experience the magic of chemistry outside of…

Veuve Clicquot’s New Packaging Transforms Into Its Own Bottle Chiller

Champagne is for celebrating. But what sort of shoddy celebration would it be if it were warm? Veuve’s thinking ahead this holiday season with a new “Fashionably Clicquot” package that quickly transforms into a handy—and handsome!—ice bucket. The top half of the signature black and yellow box just slides off to give the origami-like bottom…