Adam Clark Estes

The Record Industry Is Suing Aurous, the Popcorn Time for Music 

Well that didn’t take long. Just a few days after Aurous launched its free, torrent-based music streaming service and hours after it won widespread media coverage, the RIAA announced an aggressive lawsuit to bring it down. So much for easy piracy. It’s no mystery that the approach Aurous is taking to streaming copyrighted content lives…

The US Issued Special Banknotes in Case Japan Invaded Hawaii

If you went to Hawaii during World War II, you probably noticed something a little funny about the money. Every greenback had a big bold “HAWAII” plastered across it. Why? In case of a Japanese invasion, of course. In the months after Pearl Harbor, the United States government issued a set of special Hawaii-specific banknotes.…

This Slick New App Is Like Popcorn Time for Music

Sick of paying for Spotify? Hate how hard it is to use Apple Music? Then you’re going to love what renegade developer and lover of beer Andrew Simpson has built. It’s called Aurous, and it’s basically Popcorn Time for music. The spartan desktop app operates on the BitTorrent network and ostensibly grants you free access…

Playboy Nixes Nudity Because the Internet Has Enough Porn

It’s the end of an era, folks. Playboy, the magazine famous for its nude photos, will stop publishing nude photos because there are already plenty of those on the internet. Playboy will still feature sexy “PG-13” content, but you can kiss the nipples goodbye. Funnily enough, Playboy.com has been nudie free for months. The company…

Savant Takes a Simple but Elegant Approach to Home Automation

Unless you’re super rich, you’ve probably never heard of Savant. The home automation company brags about catering to “the one percent of the one percent.” But now that the internet of things is all the rage, Savant is offering a slick smart home system for the everyman. Savant’s new home automation system is wonderfully simple.…

Unicode Proposes 29 New Emoji Just in Time for the Olympics

You know you’ve been worried about how you’re going to express yourself during fencing matches at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Worry not! The Unicode Consortium has you covered with 29 new emoji being considered for release in June 2016. The 29 new emojis revealed by the Unicode Technical Committee include everything from…

An update to the Spotify app now gives it Chromecast support. This is great for you goofballs who listen to music on your TV. However, it only works with the new Chromecast and Chromecast Audio. Download the latest Spotify app for iOS or Android here and here, respectively. Contact the author at [email protected]. Public PGP…

UK Bans Hoverboards But Seriously Stop Calling Them Hoverboards

British police reminded the public yesterday that it’s illegal to ride “one of these” in public. And by “one of these,” the fuzz means self-balancing scooters. That didn’t stop the press from calling the wheeled contraptions “hoverboards.” Ugh! Misnomer aside, the warning raises an interesting question about how this newly affordable and entirely futuristic form…

New Amazon Fire TV Review: Now With 4K But Still Not a Roku

Amazon’s Fire TV is the Amazon Fire of set top boxes. I’m not saying that to sound like an idiot. I’m trying to emphasize how Amazon’s affinity for highly proprietary and basically functional hardware spans categories. The fancy new Fire TV is no exception. What makes the new Fire TV fancy is simple: It supports…

Hackers Targeted Hillary Clinton’s Private Servers (Obviously)

We’ve known for months that Hillary Clinton’s use of private email for official businesswas a security nightmare. Now we’re starting to learn a little bit about how that nightmare unfolded. Hackers from at least three countries targeted her serversafter she left office in 2013. This shouldn’t be a surprise, although it is pretty disconcerting. A…

Facebook Is Testing Six New Reaction Emoji Instead of a Single “Dislike” Button

It was exciting when Mark Zuckerbergsuggested that Facebook was building a “Dislike” button. So many things not to like! However, the social network just started testing a new emoji reactions feature that is probably the real future of disliking stuff on Facebook. Facebook recently offered TechCrunch a previewof the new “Reactions” button. (Zuck later confirmed…

Learn About Coding with These Ultra Nerdy Playing Cards

Everybody loves playing cards because they’re fun. But as the geeky designers behind code:deck prove, playing cards can be educational, too! Each of the numbers in a code:deck shows an example of a programming language. The Jack, for instance, is JavaScript and features a snippet of code that defines the cards. Here’s a breakdown of…

Adidas Wants to 3D-Print Running Shoes That Perfectly Fit Your Feet

What if you could walk in a store, jog on a treadmill, and walk out with a pair of shoes that are custom manufactured for your feet and gait? That’s exactly what Adidas wants to do with its Futurecraft 3D project. And unlike most of the trash produced by 3D printing, the shoes look pretty…

We Cannot Allow This Design for Acrobatic Airplane Seating to Become Real

It already feels like we’re sitting on top of each other in airplanes. But what if we actually were sitting on top of each other? That’s exactly what a newly awarded Airbus patent suggests. The ludicrous design sounds like a joke, but it’s not. Airbus actually proposed stacking a second layer of seats above the…

Google Swears Android Auto Isn’t Spying On You (That Much)

The era of car computers is upon us, and it’s a little scary from a privacy perspective. Look no further than the recent controversy of how much data Google is collectingabout drivers using Android Auto. We know this much: Google is probably collecting more data than you realize. The Android Auto strife started witha Motor…

How 80s Computers Create 8-Bit Music

You’ve got to love that 8-bit sound. Blips and bloops and beeps magically merge together to create choppy, nostalgic melodies that remind us how far we’ve come since the first personal computers. But how did those big beige boxes actually make music? True to his nickname, the 8-Bit Guy and his guest, the Obsolete Guy,…

The New Beats Pill+ Looks Like a Rip-Off

Beats products are a trick. The combination of slick marketing and deceptive design is effective! But it’s still a trick. The latest addition to the Beats lineup, the Pill+ Bluetooth speaker looks no different. As tech blogs breathlessly reporton the brand’s first speaker since it was acquired by Apple, it seems immediately apparent that Beats…

Pandora Just Bought Ticketfly For Nearly Half a Billion Dollars

Your favorite internet radio service will soon make it easier to buy concert tickets. Pandorajust bought Ticketfly, a Ticketmaster competitor, for $450 million. Why? Because it’s a great idea. Pandora’s been scrambling to grow and diversify its offerings to music lovers for a while now. In the past year, the company’s bought created a data…

The Beefy New Roku 4 Makes It Easy to Find 4K Content

We called the Roku 3 the best new streaming box a while back. Now, the next generation is finally here, and it looks even better. Meet the Roku 4. The Roku 4 is different. The powerful set top box features a larger footprint than its predecessors, and that extra large case sports an extra powerful…

My New Favorite Instagram Is Full of the Saddest Places on Earth

Nothing soothes an aching soul like a little ennui with a dash of dark humor. That’s exactly what @sadtopographies, my new favorite Instagram account, does best. It’s literally just screenshots of the saddest places on Earth. While that’s a funny concept, what makes @sadtopographies especially hilarious is the fact that it’s screenshots of Google Maps,…